At the Zoo and a Bag for Poo

A quick recap of Dad Week, Day Three: NL and I trekked deep into the heart of the animal kingdom. Not the Animal Kingdom, but its humbler edition, the Central Florida Zoo. The kids, not bratty enough to wish I’d just drop them off and leave, welcomed my chaperoning presence: I pushed the stroller, gave out juice, identified the sexes of the kangaroos (not by hand, mind you), and washed four hands after NL’s intimate encounter with the slimy blue tongue of a zebu (aka brahmin cattle). The youths met two lifetimes’ share of snakes, a sunning alligator who might have been dead, and a pigeon-sized green parrot with a piercing shriek that instantly ruined their good mood.

Day Four and Five saw NL back in their backpacks as they returned to school. I imagined NL recounting tales of their exploits to a circle of their awed classmates, Lucas mimicking the grunt of an emu and Noelle arranging her playdough into a picnic blanket.

I’ve since returned to our standard work-week routine. One highlight of my evenings with the kids is our Tour of Oviedo bike-trailer ride, with leashed Hana trotting on my left. Just as Hana finishes responding to nature’s call, Noelle reaches behind her into the trailer’s trunk and says “bag!” as she hands me the desired article. If only Hana would eat less fiber.

A few quick-hitters I’ve been slacking on:

• Lucas’s pacifiers seem to be laden with tobacco. The boy is addicted. He chain-sucks for three-quarters of his waking hours and presumably twelve-twelfths of sleepy-time. With “binks” in mouth, the boy adores life: blocks stack straighter, the ball bounces higher, and his toy zebra, cleanly swiped off the coffee table, skips with precision across the livingroom rug. But dare you remove sucker from pucker, and the boy shakes, stomps, jerks tears and curses as best he can the day his dad’s parents met. Editor’s Note: since writing the above, I gladly report that Lucas has been showing progress in kicking the habit. If you ask him sweetly, and use “please”, he hands over the binks for temporary sake-keeping in your pocket.
• I spotted NL playing catch with a mini basketball. I referreed from a good enough distance to avoid distracting them but close enough to dive in and call a foul on any cheap hits below the diaper strap. Noelle bounced the ball in the general direction of Lucas. He ran after it, turned around, and bounced it back, though more in the direction of his former position than Noelle’s current. She repeated, but one-hopped the ball into L’s shoulder. He responded with a gleeful volley at her feet. It was truly a precious moment, both in its innocent playfulness and in its resemblance to the basketball pick-up game in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
• Deserving eternal licks from the hottest flames of Hades, I taught the kids Pacino’s “Hoo-ah!” from Scent of a Woman. And I keep saying it. And they keep saying it.
• I also introduced them to the SlimJim guy’s shout “Oh yeah!” For that, I’ll accept purgatory at worst.

Getting to Know Each Other Better

None Other Than Stay At-home Dad (NOTSAD) finally has a moment to recline and relate his high-octane adventures. Kel reluctantly dived back into the labor pool, ignoring the sign cautioning “No Diving.” MarMa went on holiday. Third-best choice of babysitters was me. So, here I am, at home, communicating with two-year-old children instead of co-workers, and finding satisfaction just the same.

On Day 1, KNL sent up a gaseous trail of carbons along a 38-mile route to Cape Canaveral’s Playalinda Beach. Admission $3;  the ticket booth was the last opportunity to spend money. This place is WILD. As in, nature from the left corner of your left eye to the far right end. No flip-flop shops, no hotels, no neon lights. Heck, no lights at all, and barely a road. Between the end of the bridge over the intracoastal stretch two paved lanes for a good 10 miles, forced through palm brush, lagoons, and short scorched trees from which an occasional egret takes flight. I turned off the Thomas the Train DVD so the kids could peer out the windows and take note of the world around them. I kept promising that we’re almost there, even though they weren’t directly asking the question.

I parked in the first available turn-off (out of the ten or so that you eventually pass once the road turns parallel to the shore). Between us and the waves crashing in the distance were 30-foot dunes covered with sharp grasses,  splotched here and there with yellow flowers. Before we maneuvered the steps and boardwalk over the dunes, I massaged 70 SPF sunscreen on all bodies. Though, I stopped short of asking NL to get that spot between my shoulder blades that our maker never intended us to reach.

NL’s first glimpse of the ocean on the horizon, as we came to the top of the stairs on the far side of the dunes, was one to have gotten on film. I kept telling them all the previous day and that morning that we’re going to the beach to see the ocean. “Ocean,” “ocean,” “ocean”. I must’ve said it forty-five times. They were probably starting to dismiss me as looney. Rightly so, possibly. But then they finally saw what I had been yammering about. They paused and stared for a few seconds, wider-eyed than normal. “I told you!” I thought. “Yeeehp, you sure did,” they probably thought.

So to arrive at a concluding paragraph…. The waves were rather rough, especially if you’re two feet tall. Lucas, though, ever the stuntman, rushed right in while Noelle clung to me like a barnacle. Mostly we just sat at the edge of the shore and let the dissipating waves cool us off and send sand right up our shorts. Noelle and her one-piece were spared. We saw no fish, no pelicans, no sailboats, and only one shell and two sandpipers. That’s not a necessarily a complaint, but it would’ve been nice to be able to point things out to NL other than “look, here’s a shell!” and five minutes later “here’s that shell again!”

Today was Day 2. In a nutshell (no, we didn’t go foraging for nuts; that might be tomorrow, if we can’t get into the zoo), we had a picnic on the grounds of the art museum near downtown Orlando. Along came the big blanket that may have still harbored a few grains of yesterday’s sand, and assorted snacks. We saw a snake this time, and you can bet NL got a zoology lesson.

And Away They Go…

Two days ago was NL’s coming-out party: their first time out from mother hen’s wings, away from grandma’s smile, and more than far enough away from any of a range of dad-hosted activities such as being swung heels-over-head, chased round the kitchen with a damp hand towel snapping a half-inch short of their behinds, or mischievously yet merrily shot out of a cannon (fine, that hasn’t happened, but will as soon as I find a cannon). To get to the point, Noelle and Lucas went to pre-school. Oh, how they’ve grown! One day they can’t grasp a two-ounce bottle of formula or tie their shoes, and the next day they’re off in the care of perfect strangers. (But still can’t tie their shoes).

We enrolled them in a “Twos” program at the nearby Baptist church. They report Thursdays and Fridays, 9AM to 1PM. School rules require each student to tote a tote with a change of clothes, lunch, and diapers. Including the Wielecki Twins, their class has six girls and two boys, and two teachers who appeared genuinely happy to be there, at least during Thursday’s orientation. At this warm-up, we met the six other moms (I was the only dad who, apparently, had accrued sufficient time off for a half-day). I am rather pleased and impressed with the facility and staff. My initial stress that NL would be locked in a dark closet with a mousetrap for a toy and be asked to change each other’s diapers were more than adequately allayed. (Or, at least, they hid the mousetraps for Orientation Day).

Back to the first day: I reported dutifully to work while Kel, Marma, and Uncle Jeff—who appeared in previous episodes of this blog—delivered the kids to their assigned quarters, room Parrot 5. Four hours later, they delightedly rescued both children, who themselves appeared equally delighted about their mini adventure and its conclusion. I remain convinced the teachers took them on a donkey ride, a tour of a string-cheese factory, and hot-air ballooning.

I’m punchy-pleased they made it through this trial without trauma. Kel went through a few layers of worry during those few hours Friday. I admit I too persistently thought about their activities and spirits, and whether Lucas got into any fist fights over his pacifier, or if Nolle was able to pull other girls’ hair harder than they pulled hers. We all were relieved Friday afternoon. No one suffered an eye poke, nary a hair was out of place. I checked as soon as I got home.

Balloon Animals

Lucas has discovered the world of zoology. Or, rather, I’ve discovered it for him, by steadily supplying him with an animal figure every few days. (That was last week; he’s since lost four of the seven beasts and so I’ve suspended my benevolence). These are hard rubbery toys, about three inches tall. His first pair was a zebra and panda, followed by a lion, leopard, wolf, kangaroo, and turtle. (It’s really a tortoise; I’ll let him uncover the mystery when he’s older.) We explained that Noelle is one hundred percent entitled to play with them yet his opinion slightly differs.

To shift the boy’s focus from the animals (or, as he calls them, “animals!”), and to bring Noelle into the action, the three of us went through a pack of mini balloons one afternoon. By “went through” I don’t mean we inflated and popped each in turn, transferring the limp remains into the trash. I mean we—I—strenuously inflated each in turn; during each puff my eyeballs protruded slightly and my face gained a degree of color. I pinched the nozzly part (of the balloon) and handed it to an eager child, allowing them to pinch between one tiny thumb and tinier index finger. They then waved their arm and let the balloon fly. All faces were full of glee as the balloon farted and squiggled through the room in a hundred random directions. I highly value this kind of cheap fun: it blows away boredom, no batteries were required, and no one left with a black eye (the dogs just left the room early in the first quarter).

* * *

A year ago I had endeavored to expand my twins scribblings into a book. I ardently shoved all ten typing fingers deep into this enterprise, which I tentatively titled “A Tale of Twin Kiddies” (get it?). I had amassed sixteen thousands words, a third of my target. Alas, I’ve exhausted all the coal for that furnace and will instead engage those fingers into this blog and dogchewedopals.wordpress.com, my other word adventure. Perhaps one day distant the book train will again depart the station. For now, it reposes.

And Then They Were Two

Second Birthday

Ten days after the last entry, NL earned a second candle on their birthday cupcake. We honored the occasion with a small indoor gathering, forgoing the back patio steam bath which marked their first birthday. In attendance were the uncle-aunt combo of Jeff and Liz, plus Denise P. and son Rohit P. (I’ll save their last name for Spelling Bee finalists). The guests delighted the toddlers with wondrous gifts. One was a classic red-yellow plastic scoot-scoot car for toddlers to climb inside and scoot-scoot around the kitchen, over dogs’ tails, and past another child bawling from being deprived of their own opportunity to scoot-scoot. The other toy was a white-yellow plastic (yellow plastic is the thing these days) chest-high portable basketball hoop and ball set. The object of the game, I’ve come to understand, is to maneuver the ball through the hoop. Points are only allotted if the ball travels into the hoop from the top. NL’s preferred move to the basket is raising the ball high over their heads as they walks towards the hoop, perching the ball on the rim and slowly coaxing it over and down, if lucky, or out and down if not.

Visit to the Doctor

NL followed their birthday celebration with a continuation of the series of painful shots which have characterized just about every doctor visit. I did not attend, as my boss suggested I avoid seeing my kids in discomfort and instead revel in and experience my own discomfort at the office.

Their latest specs: Noelle exerted 30 pounds of force on the scale, while Lucas held off slightly and registered 28lbs, 12oz. They’re free of any and all pesky viruses, skin lesions, and all four ear canals are still clear, clean, and covered by insurance.

Trials of Toothbrushing

In between doctor visits, NL undergo anguish and distress during Toothbrush Time, sponsored by Dad. (We try hard to avoid long uninterrupted strings of unblemished joy as it softens the character). This horror story plays nearly each night just after bath time. As each child exits the tub, is dried off, and tossed into the air for no particularly sound reason, they catch a glimpse of their toothbrush holder. Immediately they demand their “bhash”, due either to poor short-term memory from the previous day’s experience, or an untempered craving for the taste of the paste. I oblige and hand one child a yellow and the other a blue brush decorated with Snoopy. The kids jam the brushes into their puckers and suck off the paste as if this was Dessert, The Sequel. And off they go…. A few minutes later I separately snatch each pajama-wearing child, cradle the head in my armpit and, deflecting kicks and punches, screams and tears, deftly polish as many teeth as I can get to until I give up 20 seconds later with an “all done!” The dark clouds then dissipate: screams become giggles, tears disappear, and kicks and punches go from hateful to playful. We are best friends again, up through tomorrow’s call for “bhash!”