mydarlingdevils

We don’t know what the future will bring, so I’m taking a trip back in time…

This was written about 4 months after the boys were born:

So…it’s been over week since we moved into our new home. The boys are getting acclimated. It’s nice here and I think they both like the apartment and all the sunlight it receives. They like their nanny, so that’s good too. They are both getting bigger daily and learning new things. Baby clothes are like Condoms…you never get to wear them twice. It’s really amazing.

Sometimes when they are both smiling at the same time it’s like they are entering some sort of pageant. It’s rare, but very rewarding.

I usually get home from work around 5:30 or 5:45. That’s not because that’s when I am done with work, but it’s because our nanny works till 6. Usually I walk in the door and someone, either my wife or our Nanny hand me either J or K. Actually I am allowed to take off my shoes and jacket and quickly throw some almonds or peanuts into my mouth (honey roasted of course). Sustenance…it’s very important!!

It so happens that lucky me, 6pm is right around when their witching hour starts. What is the witching hour you ask? Well, the witching hour is the time of day where for no reason the babies are fussy and cry and it’s really hard to get them to calm down. We have our techniques to combat the dreaded witching hour, and sometimes they work but most times they don’t.

Two things:
1. The witching HOUR is by no means limited to only an hour.
2. The good thing is that J and K have the same witching hour. The bad thing is that J and K have the same witching hour.

So…last Tuesday I get home and the nanny exits. My wife has a doctor follow up appointment, so she exits. It’s like watching Aslan leave Narnia…the protection is gone. Now the fun begins for J and K. Door closes, and I sit down with J. K starts to cry. Whimpering would be ok…but he just goes straight into full blown crying. Taking his lungs for a road test I suppose. I put J down, and he seems fine, so I grab K, hum in his ear and rock him into calmness. He is calm and then J must think to himself: ‘what K is getting looks like fun’. He jumps into a full force, hand clenched, tears rolling cry. I put K down on the pillow, grab the Baby Bjorn, clamp it on, and pop J into it. He’s strapped in, and finally his wails turn into whimpers. It’s quiet, but not for more than 45 seconds. K goes off. He just poohed. I clean K up. They say it’s a smell only a mother could love…that’s definitely true, because this father thinks it’s where foul stench goes to die.

Ok, it’s all good. They are both calm now and sleeping.

I grab my computer, turn it on, and pop open a Blue Moon. Take a sip…it’s good. A few more of these and I’ll be calm too (or maybe like a twelve pack). I sit down, and I’ve barely hit the sofa when J starts at the top of his lungs, and then right behind him goes K. It’s too loud for me to ignore…I grab J in one arm, go to K grab him in the other – it takes practice, but you can actually learn how to pick up a baby with only one arm.

I walk with them, sit down on the rocking chair and rock with them. At this point, all three of us are crying!! They cry for five minutes, I guess that means I need to make their milk. Just then my wife enters, she comes to the room. I don’t even say hi, I just say “MILK”. We take one each, feed them, change them, put them to bed. It takes about an hour and finally they are down for the night. I go to our room, change my clothes. My wife comes in and asks “what do you want to do for dinner”. Too late, I am already fast asleep.

I guess I’ll finish my beer tomorrow!

When things are clear except when they aren’t…

9 discussions I never thought I’d have with our boys, but here we are – life in the time of Covid19:

1.
School is cancelled. Probably for the rest of the year but not yet.
Right now it’s cancelled for another 2 weeks – they are cancelling school in 15 day increments so that each time it feels like a brand new cut each time.
Death by a thousand cancellations. Google it – it’s a thing.
You have to make sure you still keep up with your learning.
I’m not going to teach you or help you with your school work, but I will ask you 4 times a day if you did all your online classes for the day. I’ll ask you 3 times a day if you have any homework you need to work on. That’s code for – please leave me the fuck alone.

2.
We must Stay home!!
By staying home we are heroes. That’s what everyone is saying, so let’s just believe them. We are gosh darn heroes (heroes that stay in their pajamas all day).
But in order to make staying at home work, you must go outside so I don’t go crazy.
So, the rule is stay home, but go outside as much as you can.

3.
Mommy and daddy want you to know that you need to be very careful about getting Covid19.
But don’t worry it can’t hurt you. It targets the elderly and people with preexisting conditions. Except when it doesn’t. Then you need to worry. So, don’t worry – but worry a little.

4.
As far getting food, we aren’t going to the grocery stores except when we are. We want to make sure we keep the delivery slots open for the people who really can’t go to the store like the elderly and the people with preexisting conditions we just discussed. It’s true that the store is usually full of mostly elderly people who are not wearing masks. In those cases we will order and not go to the grocery store. But we need to go to the grocery store first to see if going to the grocery store is a good idea.

5.
Another thing about going shopping. We will try not leave the house to go shopping. But if we do leave then we have to wear a mask. But we can’t wear masks all the time because the front line health workers need them and there is a major shortage. So, when there is a shortage, we will wear cloth.
The weaving in cloth are like giant massive holes when compared to the size of the virus, but by wearing cloth, it will make people think you care as opposed to making people think you don’t care. And we do care – which is why we aren’t wearing masks.

6.
Make sure you guys eat so that mommy and daddy don’t need to worry about your breakfast and lunch. We will worry about your dinner, but you will need to worry about your own breakfast and lunch. But, don’t eat too much, because if food starts becoming scarce then we will want to make sure we have enough food. So, eat, but only eat till you aren’t hungry – don’t eat till you are full.

7.
We will all need to clean. You need to do extra chores and really work hard at picking up after yourselves. The housekeeper will not be coming anymore.
Yes we are still paying her and no, I don’t know when she’ll be coming back.
How long will we keep paying her?
I guess we will keep paying her until she quits the job for which she’s getting paid to do nothing.

8.
We DO NOT want you to be on the phone all day. Got it?
Oh, btw – we have a Video Chat with your grandparents today and we also have another one with your aunts, uncles, and cousins, and also with the neighbor’s dog. They all really miss you – and make sure you look happy.

9.
Do I think we have Covid19 or might have already had it?
Ummm…maybe, but really it’s hard to tell. I mean, there is a good chance that we did already have it at some point.
No, we cannot get tested because we don’t think for sure we have it. You can only get tested when you know for sure you have it so that they don’t waste any tests on people that don’t have it.

Is it 5:01 yet? (The 12 year old version)

So, we are into week 4 of Staying at Home:

I hear many parents complaining about home schooling, but for us it’s been pretty smooth. We’ve had a lot of success using a combination of the responsibility chart and a pretty solid schedule. The boys did it themselves. The schedule, not the responsibility chart. If I left the responsibility chart up to them – it would probably just have one line on it – Watch Youtube. I’m actually not even kidding.

They are 12 so pretty self-sufficient. In fact, I would be kidding myself if I didn’t admit that they are pretty much smarter than me now. So, even if they did ask for help on their homework, I’d probably say something like “how the fuck would I know?” and then tell them to leave me alone. Wait. Come to think of it, that did happen. J asked me for help on some pre-calculus concept and I told him to leave me alone and reminded him that that’s what google was for. I did it without swearing. Yey to me.

The mornings these days are usually pretty standard. I’m usually up at least 2-3 hours before anyone else.
My wife usually wakes up next. Comes down to the basement and says good morning. Makes a comment on my drinking. I tell her not to worry about it. She grumbles something and walks away.
Then J wakes up. Comes to basement to say goodmorning. J tries to convince me that they should be allowed electronics before 5pm. I say No. He grumbles something and walks away.
Then K wakes up. Comes to basement to say goodmorning. He asks me if he can ask me a question. I tell him sure as long as it’s not about electronics. He grumbles something and walks away.

They usually eat breakfast on their own, which is nice. Then after breakfast they alternate between Homework/Online school and ping pong till 1:30. They usually eat lunch on their own, which is also nice.
Sometimes we’ll make something for them. They are smart, but not really. For instance – every single time I am making them their favorite type of eggs, one of them will come up and ask if I’m making it for them. I’ll say that it’s just for me and they should find something else to eat. It’s like that scene in Friday where the mother makes a giant breakfast for herself and she tells Ice Cube to have cereal. Remember that? Well, I do that just to watch their faces drop. It’s really so so much fun. It works every single time. So, that’s why they are smart, but not really.

Anyway, at 2:30 they go for a bike ride. After the bike ride, they have a snack. It’s usually goldfish and fruit snacks. They would subsist on goldfish and fruit snacks if they were allowed. Actually, I can’t blame them, so would I.

This is around the time everyone starts to feel the 5:01 itch.
What’s the 5:01 itch? Well, for adults, around now is when we all literally watch the clock waiting for 5:01 so we can pour ourselves a drink. It’s like the fucking clock moves in slow motion. Taunting us.
Sometimes I find myself cursing at my phone because the last time I checked the time it was 4:02 and now it’s only 4:03. I’ll say something like “one fucking minute, that’s all? – you stupid fucking phone”

Ok, well, anyway. So, for J and K the 5:01 itch is electronics.
For them, they are literally watching the clock for when they are allowed to get on their Ipad or Phone. You can see it happening too. They start getting all antsy and then by 4:40, they are literally ready to go into spasms. This is the time of day where nothing is allowed to go wrong. The slightest provocation to anyone will lead to a full on war. Like between J and K – I’m not talking about a spat. I’m talking about a full on fist on fist, blow on blow war. Everyone in the house is on edge. Everyone is waiting…willing for someone else to fuck up so that it’s not them.

When the clock hits 5:01 you see a giant flurry of motion. I’m running to the kitchen to fix drinks and they are running to the TV room to get onto Youtube. We all charge right past each other with a solid look of “get the fuck out of my way” plastered on all our faces.

Then all of a sudden – it’s 5:20 … we have our drink half finished and the boys are well into their electronics. Everyone smiles at each other. We’ve survived another day.

Killing two phrases with one bike…

With the entire world shutting down because of Covid19, neighborhoods all over the world are asking their kids to practice social distancing. One way to do this and still get out is to go on Bike rides.

So, J has been going on Bike rides daily and sometimes I join. K has not been joining us. He doesn’t have a bike.  He is the first kid in the history of kids to claim to have forgotten how to ride a bike. He learned when he was five and then forgot.  I tell him it’s impossible to forget how to ride a bike. I tell him there is literally a phrase about it.  He insists he has!!

Finally, I’ve had it. I tell him he is going to get on J’s bike and he’s not coming back into the house until he can ride that damn bike.  He gets on the bike and in shock, I realize I can no longer use ‘you never forget how to ride a bike’.

Happy ending though – he did relearn and the next day we got him a bike and now him and J ride their bikes for hours a day.

As I said – sometimes I join them.  Yesterday we were on a bike ride and J wants to ride his bike down a very steep set of stairs.  He asks – “Can I try it?”

“No J. You are going to break your arm and the last thing the hospitals need right now with everything going on – is to fix a broken arm of a kid trying out a dangerous bike stunt.”  He thinks a bit. Then he says “Ok. So when all of this is over and the hospitals aren’t so busy. Can I try it then?”

Now I can no longer use the phrase ‘there’s no such thing as a dumb question”

Major League Baseball – here we come!

The first day of pee wee baseball starts with a parade. They call it a parade but really it just a bunch of kids walking down the street in uniform with no direction or no idea why they are there. Oh wait, yeah I guess that’s a parade. Half way through the parade J sees an entrance for the F train and tells me that they are done with the parade and want to take the F train home. I ask them if they are ok with missing the grand finale at the end and they both shrug and look at me as if to say, yeah, this pretty much sucks balls. My favorite part of the parade was right before. We are standing on some corner between random and nowhere and K sees the Brooklyn cyclones mascot. The mascot is a guy in a bird costume – akin to a Chuck E. Cheese character – he walks around and hangs around and takes pictures with kids. Well K hates Chuck E. Cheese and all characters in general. I don’t mean that as a figure of speech – he really tells me “daddy I hate Chuck E. Cheese”. So anyway, K sees the mascot coming towards where our team is standing and high-tails it in the other direction. Pulling me with him and me pulling J with me. I don’t know how far is far enough but apparently we haven’t gotten there yet when K sees a dog coming from the other direction. Wait, Stop. Ok, need to tell you a little something about K and dogs. At any given time, if we are waking on the sidewalk and K sees a dog, given an option of staying on the sidewalk or running into the street – K would choose the melancholy of oncoming traffic. The first time he did that I called him a fucking little shit. What??? He scared me and I swear when I get scared. The second time he did it I explained how cars hitting people is not a good thing for health reasons. One time he did it in front of his mother and she freaked and called him a fucking little shit too. No, she didn’t – but I bet to hell that she wanted to. Ok so he sees this dog and at the same time the mascot is still coming towards us. So which way to go? Right. K starts climbing up me as if he were a squirrel and I were a tree, meanwhile screaming at me like I am the one who put the dog there. It’s always my fault. Always.

Pee Wee baseball is pretty much the best thing ever. It really is. It’s the most organized managed chaos you’ll ever see. Think of drunk little mice running around in a maze and that’s what fielding is like. Think of the worst piñata contest you’ve ever seen and that’ll give you everything you need to know about batting. Don’t ask me why, but parents of pee wee kids on the same team start out as best friends. By the time a game is done, your cheeks hurt from laughing so much and high fives are pretty much doled out like every single second. At any given point someone is giving some kid a high five. Doesn’t even need to be YOUR kid. I touched the ball. Hey, high five. I threw the ball. Hey, high five. I caught the ball. Hey, high five. My balls itch. Why the fuck not, high five for that too. So, anyway its game day and the boys are in their uniforms looking very cute and very awesome. I gotta say – they are cute little bastards. So first they go into the field. Everyone is going to the sidelines and telling their kids to do something. So I figure I should also – “ummmm, keep your eye on the batter and if they hit, get the ball if it comes to you”. I turn around and when I look again, yep there K is – picking his nose. Nice!!! To his credit, he is actually very impressive with getting the ball once it comes his way. Then he holds it for about 3 minutes trying to decide where to throw it – I like the fact that it doesn’t bother him that he has 10 kids and 14 adults screaming at him to throw the ball. Big decision, can’t rush it. Not that I can say that about J. The closest J got to fielding the ball was when some kid hit it and it rolled into his foot. I’m not saying that it rolled nearby; I’m saying that it literally hit his foot and stopped. J just looked at the ball and then looked at everyone else as if to say “well, is someone going to get this fucking ball or what?” Yes, that actually happened.

Batting is fun. They go up there as if they’ve never held a bat before in their lives – and at first they look at their mommy – which would be cute if they didn’t do it while the coach was throwing the ball – with this look like “mommy, aren’t you proud of me?” Proud of what? Hit the fucking ball. So we get past that – “don’t look at mommy, look at the ball”. Then when you finally get them to swing – it feels like it’s in slow motion. You think for a second, wow this must be so special that my mind is slowing down time to enjoy it. Then you realize that nothing else is in slow motion and the bat is actually moving that slow. When they finally do connect, the ball rolls all of 3 feet and everyone starts screaming for the kid to run. It’s like Forest Gump. Run Forest, run. The kid stands there, looking at everyone and then they finally start running. It’s a coin toss – half of them for first base and the other half run for third base. One scientist actually ran for second base – I couldn’t understand that at all, but when he got there he looked like he had cured cancer. So K goes up to bat, he swings 5 times and on the 6th swing he connects – it’s a good hit (you know, nine feet) and he makes for first base. They are supposed to run and make believe a lion is chasing them. As in, fast. K must like lions or something, because at one point I thought he was actually running backwards – maybe he wanted to pet the fucking lion or something. I should have told the coach to tell K to pretend a tiny little Chihuahua was chasing him. Then J goes up. For some reason people always think that twins need to go back to back. J swings 6 times and none of them even pretend to come close to hitting the ball. You get 7. His confidence had been building, but today he had been striking out the last few times at bat. I look at my wife. We are both holding our breathe. We are WILLING him to hit the ball. We want it so bad. Then the ball comes and he swings – bam! I want to say he hit the ball, but it was more like the ball hit the bat. We don’t care. It barely moves 2 feet. We don’t care. We tell him to run. We are cheering, we are screaming. You’d think the Yankees were about to win the world freakin’ series – which is funny because most games end in a tie.

Surgery that just keeps on giving

I took the boys to see The Lorax with my mom. My wife was away and often when that happens, I take the time to spend a little time with my parents – in other words I make my mom do all the work while I take two naps a day.

The minute we step in the theatre – K says, “daddy it’s too loud”. I shake off my wife’s voice in my head “don’t forget the earplugs” and come to a solution. “If you just sit down (and shut up) I’ll block your ears and you can have a twizzler”. That works pretty well, and we exchange between him blocking both his ears, him blocking one ear and me the other (him eating a twizzler with the other hand), and me blocking both his ears (him holding a cup of popcorn and eating it). K’s aversion to loud noise has been a recent development we’ve had to get used to. We cannot take him to kid concerts or any other loud events and forget about taking him to a wedding or reception – he freaks out and my wife and I spend the majority of the time slowly getting drunk as we take turns bringing each other drinks to the foyer area. You might think that this would annoy us – but then I remember that the poor little runt spent the first 3.5 years of his life 30 percent deaf.

You see, K had the classic triple surgery. He had his tonsils and adenoids taken out and he had ear tubes put in. He needed to get it done – here is how we knew:
*He had major blockage in his ears and was partially deaf
*Everyone has seen how some people sleep on an airplane with their head back and their mouth gapping open – well, that’s how K slept ALL the time.
*If you looked at the back of his throat, it looked like he had two giant boobs – I swear, I didn’t know whether to be upset or think of Pamela Anderson.

The best part of surgery day was seeing K all hopped up on Valium. Ever seen a 3 year drunk? If you haven’t, you gotta try it. It’s hilarious. K was stammering and wobbling around talking nonsense and contemplating life. He tells my wife all slurred up “mommy, you are the best mommy I like”. He tells me “daddy, I like you but not as much as mommy”. I was like, yeah, what else is new?

The fun stopped just as quickly as it came – the doctor came in, grunted something and then slung K over the shoulder and said “ok, say bye to mommy and daddy” and walked off way too fast for it to register. The worst part of surgery day was everything that happened after. Kirin was so angry that we couldn’t contain him, I never realized how strong he was – the little hercules not only ripped off his IV from his arm (which we couldn’t get back in until about 60 minutes later when he passed out) but he was so angry that he kept wailing on anyone (except for my wife of course) who tried to touch him. He smacked the nurse a few times, and one of the doctors, but most of all, he just loved taking a beating on his dear old dad. His little fists of fury just pounded away as I held him, if there was a child services equivalent called “father services” I probably would have called them on him. My poor baby would calm down, plead with my wife to walk closer to me and start wailing on me as soon as I got within striking distance. He recovered fairly quickly but along with the surgery we also got a bonus – an uncommon but known (however undisclosed) side effect of anesthesia. For the next few months Kirin would wake up a random times during the night in vicious and very scary night terrors. He would curl up into a ball and scream for 15 – 40 minutes. He’d start his business and then J would get so freaked out that he’d also start screaming and crying at the top of his lungs “stop yelling K, why are you doing this K? I don’t like you K”. It was like we had two monkeys screaming and howling in their cages and we had a nightly showing. So, we moved K to our bed for a while. I didn’t want to, I figured if we put blankets under the door and put on some background noise we could just sleep right through the planet of the apes show our boys were putting on. I got overruled and 2 or 3 times a night we’d wake up to the sound of K screaming in a random direction but not allowing us to touch him or try to make him feel better. Gosh it was freaky but as with most things, it passed with time. One year later – the only thing K remembers about the surgery is that we let him start chewing gum – at the advise of a nurse to help with the healing.

Anyway back to the movie – so K tells me that it’s still too loud. I feel bad and hand him off to his Grandma and tell him I’ll be right back. I walk out of the theatre and spot a CVS way down the road, so I run to the CVS, run back and walk back to the theatre. I walk to our seats and tell Kirin “look, daddy got you some earplugs”. I’m expecting him to be happy, excited, grateful, or at least say thank you – but instead he doesn’t look away from the movie and says “daddy, you took long”. I start to tell him that the CVS was far and he cuts in and says “be quiet daddy, I can’t hear the movie”.

It ain’t Harvard, but…

Twin boys love to wrestle.  I mean they love it.  One of them is constantly on top of the other.  I mean normal boys like to wrestle most of the time, but when you have your other half at your disposal it becomes ALL of the time – basically from the minute they wake up to the moment they go to sleep, we are telling them to get off each other.  It’s nonstop – and I’m not talking like horsing around mind you, I am talking full on Greco-Roman or WWF smackdown.  They never just sit.  Whatever happened to just sitting.  Why don’t people just ever sit anymore?  Oh right, they are 4.  I might also have something to do with it.  I’ll come home from work and throw them both on the floor and roll around rolling them under, over and through me.  You’d think I’d have learned my lesson.  They had just eaten dinner and I’m holding K up in the air and my wife is screaming – “he just ate, he just ate”.  I’m in mid-sentence, “don’t be such a fuddy d…” – when K throws up all over my face.  But Nope, I keep doing it so I admit to some degree of fault here.

One thing about Brooklyn is that the Pre-K admission process is very competitive.  During “application season” it’s the talk of the town. 

“Do you know where you are sending them yet?” or “my (insert name here) has been accepted to this school and that school and we are having a hard time deciding” – I’m like, whoop-de-do, here’s your friggin’ medal.

We had applied to a few schools but had 2 top choices.  One that was partially subsidized by the city and one that was completely private.  Well listen, I’m all for private school, but if it can be helped I draw the line at paying $25,000 per kid for them to play with blocks and draw with crayons – let’s be real, they aren’t learning Newtonian physics or how to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle.  Anyway, back to wrestling – it almost cost us $50,000.  The boys had to give an “interview” with our cheaper (I mean first) choice.  Interview my ass – they say they want to have a chance to interact with potential students, but really it’s a chance to size them up and make sure they won’t drive the teachers insane.  So, a week or two before their scheduled date, we were going through dialogue with the boys.  Things like “don’t forget to say hello” and concepts like when the Principal asks you your name, answer, don’t stick your face into mommy’s butt. 

The big day arrived and they make it through the tour and the meeting with the teachers and all goes well.  Then they meet with the Principal and it looks like my wife is going to make it through unscathed.  What do they do? – K decides he’s bored and gets out of his chair and grabs J by the back of his shirt, throws him to the floor and jumps on top of him.  So, there it is, my poor wife, sitting there with the principal pretending to carry on a conversation about how the boys are ready to start going to school and meanwhile the Principal is looking at her like she’s raising two little chimpanzees.  By some miracle the boys started school in the fall, so it’s probable the school needed money – hooray to government cut-backs.

Life is just one big bumpy road

So – it’s true…you have to watch everything you say around them.

At a point, every time J got mad, he would tell K to Shut out. “Shut out k” or he’d say “geeziz cries” when he was exasperated – his version of Jesus Christ. It was really hard for us not to crack up…but then he would do it even more, so we’d hold it in and tell him sternly that he shouldn’t say that. It was just about the cutest thing you ever heard though, it really was.

“J and K pick up your fucking toys now”.

That’s all it took – once it was out, there was no putting it back in. I looked at them, incensed and tired – I wanted to rewind about 12 seconds. They looked at me, hesitated. My wife was traveling and I had been with the boys alone for 3 days. I said “just pick up your toys right now or you get time out”. To their credit, they did.

I knew I shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have yelled, shouldn’t have sworn and they are so amazing, but they can both be such – well, not amazing. I was worried because kids are like little parrots – they repeat everything. The beauty is that they never repeat anything you want them to – I think it’s hardcoded into human DNA until we have kids of our own. To my relief – that was the end of it. J did not say the f word and I didn’t have to worry about my wife finding out. They cleaned, I gave them a bath and then I put them to bed.

A week later, we were in our car – we were taking a very usual trip over the freeway. The bumps in the road were bothering J, so he said: “excuse me daddy, you are ridiculous”
I smirked and asked “why baby?”

“Daddy, you are ridiculous, there are so many bumps”. For a toddler falling asleep in the back seat, being woken up by bumps is absolutely the worst thing that could ever happen. I mean, really.

“Ok baby, I will be more careful – now take a nap ok?”

After a few minutes – with no ability to control it, we drove over another small bump and again J goes: “Daddy, be careful, you are ridiculous”

“Sorry, I am trying but the road sometimes has bumps” – that seemed to be a good enough reason and he looked out the window and went back to minding his own business.

Inevitably we went over another large bump

“Daddy, you are ridiculous, fucking daddy”
“Fucking daddy, be careful”. It wasn’t so much just what he said, but how he said it. With all the right inflections – he sounded like he had spontaneously combusted into a truck driver.

My first reaction was to turn my face away – there was an uncontrollable laughter that was welling up inside me and letting him see that would surely invite more cursing. My wife WAS in shock and didn’t have the same need to push back laughter. J kept going.

“Fucking daddy – be careful ok?”
Then “fucking mommy, fucking mommy” and then he turned his sights on poor K who had been minding his own business.

“Fucking K” – “K, don’t look at me, fucking K”

I did what any sane man would do in my position – I told my wife he must have picked it up in Daycare or something, that unfortunately didn’t work.

That was how it went for the next few weeks – we had to warn guests and family that the f-bomb could be dropped at any minute and they were under no circumstance allowed to react in any way – put on a poker face we would tell them. You can caution people, but sometimes no amount of preparation is enough for the sound of a 3-year-old swearing – oh and no experience is sweeter than sitting in a restaurant, having your son drop a four letter cuss and having everyone stare at you like you are unfit parents. I guess that’s why they invented delivery.