Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

"For it's hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind, if you're young at heart."-Frank Sinatra

To call this post my triumphant return to blogging would be assuming two things: 1) That I will once again write and post here consistently. 2) That this post is good enough to qualify as triumphant. I can't make any promises regarding #1. The mood just struck me, so I wrote this. As for #2, you dear reader will be the judge of that. So without further ado...

It's the end of an era. The turning of a page. A rite of passage. And whatever other cliche you wish to ascribe to what happened last week. We loaded Peanut's play kitchen into the swagger wagon and drove it to my brother-in-law's house in Vermont. What once stood at the center of Peanut's make-believe universe and a key part of our home for nearly a decade will now provide years of joy, laughter, and memories to our nephew and niece in a far-away place, only to be seen by us once or twice a year.

While I am all for de-cluttering and organizing - a place for everything and everything in its place, I like to say. (Actually, I never say that. That's a Ben Franklin quote if I'm not mistaken. And despite my above-average intelligence and moderate professional success, I am no Ben Franklin.) But I digress...

Christmas morning 2008: Peanut discovers Santa's surprise

Despite the utmost desire for order and harmony in our home, this was a melancholy moment for both me and My Director. We stood there in the driveway, staring longingly at the kitchen unceremoniously lying on its back after we placed it in the swagger wagon...in repose, if you will. We looked at each other and simultaneously gave the pouty face...lower lip outstretched...eyes wrinkled...a faux frown that wasn't so faux. This was the kitchen's final resting place in its original home. But our period of mourning didn't last too long. We held firm and stood strong. For our sake, and for the good of the empire. And to show Peanut we mean business.

You see, purging relics from the past does not come easy for her. In fact, she resists at every turn. It's always a fight. Let's face it: she's a hoarder. To describe her room as a disgrace would be an insult to actual disgraces like our country's current political climate, the final episode of The Sopranos, and the New York Jets. This child's bedroom is a monument to chaos. It needs an exorcism. Her room is so dysfunctional that I now require her to meet me in the hallway to kiss me goodnight, for entering puts me at risk of an immediate case of agita. And so help me if I step on another piece of Calico critter furniture, the entire God-forsaken neighborhood is going to end up on the curb.

A small glimpse of the agita-inducing chaos
from an otherwise lovely sunny morning 

I know what you're probably thinking: I am the parent, she is the child. It's my house and she's living in it. (I actually say these very things to Peanut all of the time.) Therefore, she should clean her room. Right? But you need to understand something: the force is strong in this one. And My Director, just as organized and OCD as I am if not more, is a willing enabler. She, the stronger one of the two of us, has succumbed to the madness. So I am outnumbered. I choose my battles, and I have opted out of this one. I avoid the madness.

Relinquishing her kitchen did not come easy. We planted the seed at least a year ago. We were planning a home renovation that would turn what was Peanut's playroom - the longtime home of her play kitchen - into a seating area just off of what is now our new actual kitchen. Before this process, we moved Peanut's toys to the basement and set her up down there. And she embraced this change. She's 10 now. And while she is still clinging to remnants of her childhood innocence like a real-life Andy from Toy Story, she had definitely long outgrown the kitchen.

We will wage the bedroom battle one day in the near future, the three of us converging in an inevitable war to decide who sits upon our proverbial Iron Throne. (I think I'm gonna win that one. Does that make me Khaleesi? Or Jon Snow? Does is make Peanut Cersei? Perish the thought.) For now, while we rummage through what remains of Peanut's playful preschool past, and decide what stays and what goes, sentimentality overtakes my need for household efficiency. That's because Peanut herself, in a moment of honesty bereft of any toy-hoarding, purge-preventing agenda, said something that caused me to tap the brakes on the de-cluttering.

She was talking to My Director about one of her good friends. This particular friend is, according to Peanut, "in a hurry to grow up." An astute observation from a 10-year old, if I do say so myself. I think at this age you get a lot of that: the fine line between kids who want to be preteens and those who want to cling to childhood for as long as they can.

"She hardly ever wants to play with toys," Peanut lamented.

My little girl is growing up. But she doesn't want to grow up so fast. Her kitchen is gone, but her childhood is still here. There's plenty of time for social media, makeup, and God knows whatever else lies ahead. For now, she's going to be the little girl she wants to be, until she's ready to move on.

And I'm fine with that.

She still has to clean her room.

One day.

Stay tuned...

Back in the day, my first post to go viral - as the kids say - was about holding onto Peanut's innocence for as long as possible. The trolls of the internet let me have it, if I remember correctly. You can read it HERE if you're so inclined. And judge for yourself.

Read more ...

Making Sweet Music

"How sweet it is to be loved by you." -James Taylor

One night this summer, My Director and I went to a James Taylor concert. I had bought her the tickets for Valentine's Day. Attached to the tickets, I wrote a note with the lyric I quoted above. Aren't I just a peach? Ah, but that love does indeed need to be sweet, in so many ways... and especially in times of stress.

As we drove to the concert and exited into the venue, the gas light dinged on the dashboard. Unlike My Director, I am never concerned when this happens. However, unless you arrive super early, the traffic getting into the parking lots at these events is always maddening. We inched along for twenty minutes, burning fuel like it was nothing. I opened the windows and turned off the air to save gas.

"It's rare that neither of us looked at the gas gauge all day," I offered. I knew that one would come back to haunt me eventually. After all, My Director had not driven at all that day. (For the record, after reading up to this point My Director stopped and insisted she DID suggest we pull off for gas before the light went on. We agreed to disagree. You can believe whom you choose.)

NOW I'm worried

The needle crept dangerously close to the last line before E. Now I'm worried.

So I devised a plan. An exit strategy. We would leave the show early. An hour and a half after he starts playing. That way we won't sit in traffic on the way out and run out of gas.

We sat on our beach chairs on the lawn and enjoyed James Taylor like we always do. During the intermission we used an app to find the nearest gas station. It was three miles away, off the first possible exit. We bolted three songs into the second set. We jumped into the car, which was smartly parked right by the exit, and with the air conditioning still turned off I made sure not to gun it. Even on the Garden State Parkway, I didn't go above 40 mph. I was a turtle-paced menace hugging the right lane with my hazards flashing.

As soon as I coasted off the exit, My Director stumbled with the directions that she was reading off her iPhone. (She disputes this too.) As a result, I missed the first turn. Now I'm mad. And totally spaztastic. And the best she could offer was a panicked, "Now we're driving aimlessly on this random road." I knew it wasn't a random road. It was a somewhat major highway in New Jersey, the state in which I've lived my entire life except for my four years in college. A gas station was inevitable. (Turns out, there was one on every corner.)

"Don't tell me anything anymore," I barked. "I'm taking over." Then I actually used a work/blog analogy to bolster my new-found position of authority. "Sometimes the producer needs to just produce and the director just has to follow along, trust him, and keep up." As a point of reference, My Director doesn't take any lip from anybody, especially me.

Now here's where my comment from four hours earlier finally comes back to haunt me:

"YOU started it when you said neither of us checked to see if we were running low." And there it is. I KNEW she would bring it up. It was just a matter of when.

I had little defense. So I offered, "You're always checking the gas gauge from the passenger seat."

"I can't even see it from over here."

"You lean over constantly to check the gas." (And see how fast I'm going.) "That's your job as My Director." (Now I'm back to letting her direct.)

We eventually found a station, filled up, laughed at our lunacy and fell in love all over again by listening to some classic James Taylor on our way home. No matter what life throws our way, especially minor spats over running out of gas, the one constant is always us. How sweet it is to be loved by you:

I needed the shelter of someone's arms.  

There you were. 

I needed someone to understand my ups and downs. 

There you were.

Please take some time to catch up on some DKL you might have missed. I've been doing this on summer Mondays, telling a new story and then following it with links to a list of posts about that subject. Previous topics included My Director, Christmas, our Disney trip, and our swagger wagon. This week, I'm featuring songs, AKA "The Soundtrack of our Life." Enjoy:

Earlier this month I wrote how Thunder Road became Peanut's lullaby of choice.

There is a song from a movie that helped me through the toughest time in my professional career. It's called "Little Wonders."

A few months ago, Peanut and I were obsessed with a song by Rihanna of all people. It was perpetually The Song in My Head. (There's crazy Peanut-dancing video in this one.)

Whenever we're in the car, it seems a song by one particular band will always come on the classic rock station I listen to. It's important to me that Peanut Hears The Who.

Here's another Springsteen song that got me thinking about the role we play in the dreams of our children. He tells a story during a live performance that made me realize we are their Dream Keepers.

The story of how I came to call my wife "My Director" starts with our struggle to pick a wedding song. It's all in "Allow Me To Re-Introduce..."

Read more ...

The Junk in My Trunk

My phone rang on an otherwise routine Tuesday. As they once joked on Seinfeld, Tuesdays have no feeling. But that was all about to change drastically. On the other line, My Director hit me smack in the face with a pungent problem:

"The car smells really bad. Are you sure you cleaned all of the milk that spilled?"

When I came home from grocery shopping on Sunday, I opened the trunk only to find a grocery bag filled with milk. The plastic gallon jug had cracked open somehow. I performed what I thought was a thorough cleaning. Apparently not.

"I think I know what happened. I probably missed some of the milk that got into the crevices of the molding." 

"Can you COME HOME EARLY to clean it?" (Mind you, she's home.) 

"Are you serious?" (When did I become Mr. Belevdere?) 

"It smells really bad. Peanut says it smells like garbage. And it really does."

I was later informed that upon pickup from camp, the swagger wagon smelled so bad that Peanut actually cried when she got back into the car. Regardless, I arrived home at normal time. After getting dinner started (Reminder: I'm a catch, ladies), I checked out the car. This is what I found:

Quoting Shawshank:
"Smelling Foulness That I Can't Even Imagine."

This is why doctors don't like to make a diagnosis over the phone. Because once I saw it for myself, I could see and smell that my initial assessment was WAY off. The milk had seeped under all of the beach chairs and toys I had stored back there for summer. (You see, I always like to be prepared in case a spontaneous beach emergency pops up. Who needs to waste time carrying all of that stuff fifteen feet from the garage to the car?) But here, my readiness backfired because I had no idea of the real mess the milk had caused. On Sunday, I just  cleaned what I saw, ignoring the principal law of spilled-fluid dynamics stating that milk goes anywhere it damn well pleases, especially where you can't see or reach it.

My Director hosing off the emergency beach supplies.

Since I do not have the capital to install smell-o-vision technology for you here on the DKL site, let me describe it the best way I can. Disgusting, rotting, fermenting death. Or, as I stated on the DKL Facebook page at the time, I officially knew what Henry Hill felt like after moving the body of Billy Batts in Goodfellas:


Cue tons of Resolve, baking soda, hours of vacuuming, and then an overnight fabric softener mask:

Thanks to my my friend Dave at
Musings of Munch for the suggestion.

The next morning the swagger wagon smelled considerably better... until it got hot out. More baking soda, more vacuuming. There was still a smell, but it wasn't nearly as foul as the day before. And those dryer sheets did help big time.

As My Director and I drove to an appointment later that day, I said:

"I kind of feel like this is what it's like to drive in a dryer."

"Or a garbage truck." 

"Yeah. Or a garbage truck IN a dryer."

Every morning, My Director and I have a quick phone conversation as she's starting her day and I'm putting together my show. My first question is always some form of, "How's Peanut?" Now? My first question is, "How does the car smell?" Suffice it to say, as we approach its second birthday our beloved swagger wagon has forever lost its new car smell.

(Please take some time to catch up some DKL you might have missed. I've been doing this on summer Mondays, telling a new story and following it with links to previous posts about that subject. Today's story allows me to reintroduce a topic I don't often bring up: our swagger wagon. Enjoy:) 

Inquiring minds wanted to know how we survive as two working parents with one car. So I answered with Dude, Where's My Car?. (This post is nostalgic now, since My Director took a new job in our town and now does pickup herself.)

I do have what some might describe as an unhealthy love for my swagger wagon. It's all because I sometimes wish the rest of life could be as easy as my minivan makes things, with The Push of a Button

We almost lost our beloved swagger wagon during a destructive autumn snow storm last year. See how close we came in The Joys of Homeownership: Jersey Chainsaw Miracle

Read more ...

The Pick-Up Artist

"Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you." ~Robert Fulghum

Since I became in charge of daycare pickup a couple of years ago one thing has become perfectly clear: I have no time for nonsense. I am the whirling-dervish dad at pick-up time. In and out in less than five minutes with very little if any eye contact, let alone social interaction. You'll be lucky if you get a hello from me.

This is not social hour. It's a business trip. And my business is to get my daughter, collect her things, strap her in her car seat, get home and start dinner. I am a running back, carrying the ball with a full head of steam, my eyes on the endzone. And it's third down and a long way to go.

How the hell do all of these social-butterfly parents have time to talk? And who's cooking dinner in their house if they have time to chit-chat about God knows what at the most crucial, time-crunched, pressure-packed, stressful time of my day? (Please keep in mind that I am television news producer who faces hard deadlines and time constraints every hour of every day.)

What are these people doing? Don't they have more productive things to do? Meals to prepare? Dogs to walk? Baths to administer? I am as befuddled as I am annoyed in these situations.

Get your Baby Huey out of my way

And get your kid out of my way. It's not cute that your newly-walking bundle of burps wants to open the door by himself. It's wasting my time. That door is heavy, I have a handful of artwork that I am balancing like a circus act, and I need to get the hell out of here and get on with my life. Your adorable little Baby Huey can learn to open doors at home. 

I dont even interact with the people I'm friends with when I see them. I am a man on a mission. And most times I will stop at nothing to carry out that mission. Parking, for instance. If I pick up Peanut later (around 5:45pm), the parking lot is often packed. Annoyed, I scan the front of the building where there is room for two cars to park illegally at curbside. No such luck. Two other parents have already beaten me to it. My last resort is the spot that clearly is not a spot because it is painted as such and is located under a tree. Or, in desperate times, the handicapped spot right next to it. (I am not the only one who does this. But I don't blame you for judging.)

The sign is clear. I don't care

One day last week, I pulled into that handicapped spot, slammed the swagger wagon into park, turned it off, and jumped out. I'm half sprinting as I hit the button to lock the car. As I'm ready to take the steps to the front door two at a time to illustrate just how rushed I am, I spot a friend and her two children, one of whom is in Peanut's class.

"Mommy, he's not allowed to park there," the younger child, a 4 year-old girl, said. 

The mom looked me in the eye, smirked as if to say, "Gotcha," and relayed the message to me in case I didn't hear. Since I was on my mission, I didn't.

Without blinking an eye, I snapped back, "Sometimes ya gotta break the rules kid."

Sometimes... like day care pickup. Stay out of my way. This is no time to lollygag.

Once we're home, my mission continues with the cooking of dinner. I'm also a whirling dervish in the kitchen, as I wrote here.

Read more ...

To Hell and Back

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." -The Eagles, Hotel California

Hell hath a Swedish name.

I know that because I've survived it. Stared the devil right in the face... twice in my life. Never again.

Is it hot in here?

I am talking about IKEA. Land of cheap chic furniture and certainly one of the nine circles of hell.

What's worse, I brought my daughter on my most recent - and final - trip. Exposed her to the evil. She very nearly became a victim. One of the damned.

After my first trip - when my wife and I first moved in together, way back when she was my girlfriend, we needed an entertainment center and some other stuff for our new roach motel of an apartment - I vowed  never to return again.

Until...

My sister asked me to do her a favor. She and my brother-in-law needed some tables for the business they're opening. I agreed purely out of love and loyalty.

I put the trip to IKEA on my itinerary one day when I was at home alone with the Peanut. My stay-at-home friends tell me that planning errands is a good way to pass the time. It's also a good way to lose your mind.

(Courtesy http://americanapersona.wordpress.com)

IKEA, one of the nine circles of hell. With a four year-old. You know the trick to IKEA, right? The walking...  from the parking lot to the entrance... from the entrance to the section you're looking for... from there to the checkout.

In hell, they make you walk... a lot. Through the entire store, in fact.

On said walk, we made a pit stop in children's furniture so the Peanut could play. Apparently in hell, there is also a children's play area.

Then, more walking... through the warehouse... through the part of the store with all of the houseware tchotchkes (pronounced, "CHACH-keys")... please just let me check out.

Even after you do, you have to walk to the pick-up area and wait for them to get your order from the warehouse through which you just walked.

Are things this annoying in Sweden? Seems like such a nice place.

Our boxes finally came. I'm wheeling them out of the store on a big industrial-sized dolly. Wait a minute, though. Dude, where's my car? On the other side of the building, of course... near the entrance. In fact, it's on a whole other floor for crying out loud. Hell, I tell you.

In one of the nine circles of hell, you can't expect anything to be easy.

I make the decision to stash the boxes on the dolly in a corner of the parking garage and get the car.

Exhausted and exasperated, I carry the Peanut, who has been done with the walking and waiting for what seems like eons. In hell, times goes by very slowly.

I locate the car. I go to put her in her seat and realize... "Where's Lammie?" Oh my God are we going to be those people who lose their child's cherished play thing? (That's not a blog I ever want to write.)

I ask her again. In the second it takes her to answer I remember the Peanut putting Lammie in my pocket to carry as she played in the children's furniture section. Did she fall out of my pocket there? Or somewhere else? Her world - our world - was shattering around us.

I make a huge parenting mistake and shout, "What do you mean you don't know where Lammie is?! She's lost! We may never find her again!" Huge. Fail. I allowed hell to get the better of me.

Panic sets in. The Peanut is now crying frantically, mostly because of me. I am whipping the car in and out of parking garages like I'm a character in Grand Theft Auto. I open the back door to the minivan and throw in the boxes. I park, grab the Peanut, and we backtrack. (Remember, a lot of walking in one of the nine circles of hell.)

Peanut is now screaming. No Lammie in the parking lot. We enter the store near the checkout. No sign of her there either. I am running towards the pickup area while still carrying my hysterical Peanut.

And I spot Lammie. On the bench where we were sitting and waiting. 

Reunited. Inseparable. (Usually.)

I immediately calm down. I stop about fifty feet from the bench. I put the Peanut down and stand her on the floor. I point to the bench, squat down to look her in the eye, put my arm around her and say, "Lammie's right there where we were sitting. Go get her."

She smiles. She runs. Reunited and it feels so good. I dodged a big one. Big time.

After barely surviving another trip to hell, thou shall not return.

Suffice it to say, we're Crate& Barrel people now. Raymour and Flanagan maybe, if you twist my arm.

Read more ...

The Push of a Button

"Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy." ~Cynthia Nelms

I always seem to be getting the same message on my dashboard. A warning light. Yet, there really is no reason for me to worry. I'm talking about the "low washer fluid" light.

Why does it come on so much? I'm constantly pushing the button and washing my windshield. I find it therapeutic. It calms me. I also find it necessary because the pollen count was so ridculously high this spring and early summer.

But mostly, I like that I can press a button and something is immediately clean. With all of the meals I cook and pots I clean, with all of the clothes I wash and butts I wipe, with all of the chaos and mess a family with two working parents endures... it's reassuring to know that this one thing can be taken care of with a simple flick of my index finger.

Like picking your nose. Quick, effective, sometimes messier than anticipated, but mostly painless.

The Normal Button

And that's not the only button in my wonderful, fully-loaded swagger wagon that I find amusing and cathartic at the same time. In the way back... in the trunk... there are a series of buttons for the positioning of the third-row seats. Press the second button, and they stow away for extra cargo. Press the third, they flip and face the rear for tailgating. But my favorite is that first button. The one that says "normal."

That's right. I can push a button, and things will be normal. At least, the things in the back of my car will be. That is, if I remember to take the stroller out before I push the button. What an awesome power to hold. And it's hidden right there in the back of my car. Normalcy, with the push of a button. How wonderful.

I never thought I'd be a minivan guy. Yet here I am. Not only driving one, but loving it.

So if you see me driving around town, washer fluid flowing, with a smile on my face... just know I'm fine. Everything is normal.

If only it were  that easy.

We manage to be a one-car family with two working parents. Click here to find out how we do it. 

Read more ...

Dude, Where's My Car?

"You ever travel by bus before? No? Your mood's probably not going to improve much." - John Candy, Planes, Trains and Automobiles

How do we do it? It's apparently been a topic of conversation in at least three newsrooms in New York recently. Must be a slow news cycle for some of my colleagues.

Always asking the hard-hitting questions, they want to know: How do my wife and I manage to function with only one car?

Let me tell you: it's a lot easier than you think.

The swagger wagon

Still, while not impossible, surviving suburbia with a child and only one vehicle involves a very delicate dance. It also requires impeccable timing and reliance on public transportation... two things you have absolutely no control over. So there are days where it gets very interesting. And there are days when things go very wrong.

It has Fahrvergnugen

Daily, we perform quite an impressive tango:

I take the first bus into the city. It picks me up right outside our front door a little before 6am. My wife wakes up Peanut, gets her ready for school, and drops her off as soon as daycare opens at 730am. She then catches the 8:01am train into the city, parking the swagger wagon at the station lot. I take the 4:52pm train home, get the car, pick up the Peanut, take her home and start dinner. My wife hops on the 5:35 (or later) bus, which drops her off, conveniently, outside of our front door no later than 6:45pm. We eat dinner at 7pm.

Then, playtime, bedtime... repeat until the weekend... which is a whole other dance. A slow one, if you will.

You get all that? It's a simple rule: whoever has Peanut has the swagger wagon.

Potential hazards along the way: traffic - that's a big one. How many text messages have I received from my wife saying she's in traffic? And, of course: weather. The snow got its own post recently. It sucks (the snow, not the post). And rain isn't much better. Buses never seem to be prepared for rain. At least you don't have to shovel it.

But the biggest potential hazard, hands down: the cranky daughter. This is a hazard that I thankfully manage to avoid since I leave the house when everyone is still asleep.

Grumpy... but strapped in

If the Peanut is not cooperating in the morning, my wife finds herself squarely in the stress zone. She has 20 - count 'em 20 -minutes to get her up and out of the house. If she is even the slightest bit unruly it throws off the timing of the entire operation. Oh, the stories I've heard. She wouldn't wake up. She wouldn't get dressed. She wouldn't listen. She cried. She fought me on everything.

Depending on the level of non-cooperation, I may have to get the car at one of two alternate train stations. Or take the bus from one of two alternate gates. We have a contingency plan for everything.

That's how powerful my daughter is. Great power... yet no responsibility.

Still, I wouldn't waste the money on a second car until I absolutely have to. We make this work with relative ease.

I must admit, there are times when it would be incredibly convenient if we had a second car. For instance, we've had to skip church the past couple of weeks because I've been driving to meet my half-marathon training group on Sunday mornings. Sundays are long run days. We're up to 11 miles now... which takes me about an hour and a half (ok... a little longer than that). That means I get home right when service starts. If we had a second car, I could meet the family at church and just miss the announcements.

Thankfully, being Episcopalian means not feeling guilty about missing church (sorry, mom). It's Catholic Light (sorry again, mom).

Also, if you had a vote, which would you have us get: a second car, or a second child? We can only afford one.

Case closed.... but neither is happening anytime soon.

Read more ...