MyThreeDaughters

We were driving down the street last evening, reveling in the usual melodic sounds of a Van Load of Kids (Hey, she poked me with her marker; Mommeeeeeee, she’s in my personal space; Tell her to stop kicking the back of my seat, etc), when we passed the neighbor’s house and saw the neighbor guy in his side yard.
He had a fresh Yeungling in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other.
His wife has recently told us she is expecting their first child, in December.
I asked Wife: “What’s that guy’s name again?”
Mike.
And then the fun began. Wife knew where I was going, before I even set out (as she usually does).
“Mike’s DONE. He just doesn’t know it yet,” she said.
Oh yeah, I said, enjoy that beer, Mike. Smoke ‘em while you got ‘em. Smoke three at a time.
The girls sat bickering in the back seat, as wife and I each climbed up the corner ropes, so as to better come down on Mike’s head with the flying suplex.
Every night, when Mike comes home from work, he grabs a beer and heads to his tiny detached garage and enjoys a smoke.
Done, done and done, Mikey ol’ boy.
Though, start fixing up that garage now, Mike, ’cause it’s going to be the only place “in the house” you can get any peace. While you’re at it, might want to install a lock ON THE INSIDE.
“Yeah,” Wife says, “that could be the BEST Father’s Day, right? When you know you are going to have a kid, but don’t yet.”
Typical disclaimer: No, neither one of us would trade this for anything. It’s just a big change. A completely different, wrenching, cold lead slug to the brain change.
Down the whole 12-pack, Mike. Shotgun a fifth of bourbon. Set the carton of Camels on fire.
Happy Father’s Day.
You are SO toast.
(Fade to sound of evil, knowing laughter.)

“The Bigs,” as Wife and I sometimes call the two older daughters, have a saying: “Flashback.”
(I think that’s the word, something like that.) It means, “Back at you.” It’s a short version of the ultra-childish, old-school “I am rubber and you are glue/whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”
Gosh, I’m old.
So, this morning, at breakfast, Fontaine hit me with a “Flashback!” without even having to use the word. Maybe it wasn’t so much a “Flashback!” as it was a “BUUURN,” a la Kelso on “That ’70s Show.”
(See, even my references are old. Is that show still on? What next, a M*A*S*H reference?)
I was lamenting to Wife that the new college-student renters had woken me up at 3:(freaking)15 a.m. with their excessively loud conversation out on the sidewalk. I was not happy.
“I’m going to be a BIG problem for those people,” I said.
Wife, who is so much nicer and more strategic than I, suggested:
“Well, I hear you, but at least the first time we need to approach them reasonably, explain to them that a lot of people have kids and are sleeping at that time.”
Fontaine: “Dad, I don’t think you can do that, can you? I think you better wake up Mom and have her do it.”
Me, ignoring both of them, and even as I type this, I am starting to realize I might be coming across as a grump: “There’s just SOMETHING about a Southern woman’s voice — they can penetrate lead. And why does someone need a car alarm — BEEP BEEP BEEP — to get into his own car? Isn’t that for when someone else tries to get into your car?”
Fontaine looks over.
“See Dad, I really don’t think you can do this. Really. You’d better wake up Mom.”
Rubber….Glue.
BUUUURN.
“Flashback!”

Disney almost always gets it right.
No detail is too small. No flaw is overlooked.
So a few months ago, when Wife sent me a picture of a new Disney Princess cup that Rosebud had picked out at Target, and when Wife questioned the placement of the straw in this cup, I gave the Disney Empire the benefit of the doubt (and wrote Wife off as a perv).
American marketing has a long history of slipping a little cheap sex into packaging, like the lovely maiden on the “Land O Lakes” butter package that can be folded into a Triple D suitable for one of Hugh Heffner’s girlfriends. And Joe Camel’s penis nose. These were obviously done for 13-year-old boys decades before the simpler times of today’s Internet porn (no hyperlink provided; find it yourself).
Anyway, I’ve now come to Wife’s side of thinking on Belle’s completely perverse drinking straw placement, and can’t believe it took me so long to write about it.
Look at her. You want your three-year-old daughter sucking liquid out of that? I love the way she’s got her arms folded across her chest, so prim, so proper, so demure — yet a ginormous Dirk Diggler poking out of her midsection and proclaiming its happiness to the world.
And it’s not just us. We just so happened to have left the Belle penis cup on a coffee table last month, while visiting Wife’s brother during Spring Break. First, Brother-in-Law comes downstairs, looks, and says, “Oh my god.”
Five minutes later, Sister-in-Law comes down, looks, and says, “What’s up with Belle?”
Well, do you mean WHAT is up with Belle, because that is pretty obvious, or do you mean, “Why did Disney put a straw where Belle’s thang would be?”
The Beauty sure doesn’t need The Beast when she’s dragging this thing around. Headline: Princess Arrested for Indecent Exposure.
Belle, please contact your doctor immediately, as this, this, this event has clearly exceeded four hours.
Couldn’t they have put the straw, well, just about anywhere else?

Elizabeth has been a little bummed out of late.
Comes home from school, you know, just not having had a good day.
Somewhere along the way, Wife got good advice from another mom about what to ask your kid about the day: Who did you sit with at lunch? Who did you play with on the playground?
So an answer to the latter question yields this (changing the names, of course): I played with Emma, and she’s too bossy.
The next morning before school, I hear Wife telling Elizabeth, “why don’t you make it a goal to find new friends and play with someone different on the playground today?”
We were so delighted at the end of the day when we asked Elizabeth how things had gone.
“I made a new friend!” she said proudly. “And we played on the playground.”
Oh, how did that happen?
“Sarah and I played together, because Sarah usually plays with Taylor and she’s sick of Taylor. And Emma and I are sick of each other. So we switched friends. Taylor and Emma played together, and Sarah and I played together.”
Well, great, I mean, OK, that’s not exactly like….it’s sort of like when…right, well, good Elizabeth, at least you are happier.
So, like, you and Sarah didn’t launch surface-to-air missiles at Emma and Taylor?
Right? You didn’t do that, did you?

We’ve always tried to instill in the girls that they can do anything they want when they grow up.
No restrictions.
No glass ceilings.
They don’t have to do chick jobs; they can do dude jobs, too.
Fontaine wanted to play baseball this year, not softball, so she is playing baseball on an otherwise all-boy Little League team.
And so it was, last night, when I was reading an “Olivia” book to Rosebud, and at the end of the book, Olivia pictured herself in the middle of a group shot of the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is that? Rosebud asked.
Oh, that’s the Supreme Court; they are all very skilled attorneys who decide the most important legal issues in the country.
Can anyone be on the Supreme Court? she asked.
Sure! This is AMERICA.
No burkas here.
The Supreme Court is open to any race, any ethnicity, any political belief.
We live in a meritocracy, where achievement rather than connections (hahaha, OK, so I was spinning it a little too much, but…) is what matters.
You could be the first female, curly-haired, fiery redhead on the Supreme Court. And look at those robes! You could hide a week’s worth of Trader Joe’s cereal bars in there and no one would know.
How do you get on the Supreme Court.
Well, the President has to choose you, but he can choose ANYone.
She looks.
“But I’m just a kid.”
OK, OK, so you may have to wait a while, but…but, but, but, well look, Olivia’s a pig.

My mom was always fascinated with “birth order,” and being a kid, her kid, of course I blew it off.
But now that I have three of my own (and let’s just state here: kids are like cats; you don’t “own” them, they own you), I see the fascination.
So, let’s say you are Rosebud, the third of three girls. You can’t get attention by being a boy. You can’t get attention by being the only redhead (because your mom and oldest sister are). You can’t get attention by being sweet and quietly clever (Elizabeth snagged that role).
What, oh what, is a girl to do?
Demand it. Shout it from the rooftops. Work it, (Oh, Lord, so sorry about this, but…) gurl.
So, like, if you are three and at Disney World and it’s the Electric Parade and you are a Princess afficionado and the Cinderella float is going by, from atop Daddy’s shoulders, you cup your hand around your mouth and shout: “CINDERELLA! HEY, CINDERELLA!”
If you are at home, watching TV with your sisters, and the show is over and the theme song begins playing, you don’t tap your feet or quietly mouth the words. No way, you get off the couch and dance.
If you’re lucky to get to go to the older sisters’ school to pick them up, and you happen to get to go into the school and, well, it turns out every freaking student, teacher and Mom in the school already knows you, you come up with something.
Like when you are walking by the school office, and you see School Nurse Annie sitting way at the back, you kind of drag Daddy in there by waving to Nurse Annie and getting her to call you in.
And when you get in there, and you really have no excuse or much to talk to Nurse Annie about, but then you remember that little head lice outbreak from last fall? Well, you ponder: What would be worse, being thought a public scourge and having everyone avoid you because they think you have scabies? Yeah, that wouldn’t be good, but what if they thought nothing of you at all? That would be worse.
So, what do you do?
You catch Nurse Annie’s attention and you holler out: “I think I have lice!”
Yup, that does it. Next thing you know, the headmaster’s assistant is laughing, Nurse Annie is laughing, and you’re in Nurse Annie’s chair playing with her Super Duper Head Lice Examiner Flashlight.
And Nurse Annie is telling Daddy, “Several of us want to take this one home.”
Oh, yeah, the old “I have lice” schtick…works like a charm.

About a week ago, late afternoon on a Sunday, around about 5 o’clock, with dinner on the stove and only minutes from being ready, a former neighbor and a friend stopped by.
It had been a while, and she just wanted to see how much the girls had grown and see the addition we put on the house.
Then the doorbell rang. Some other people stopped by: a mom and her twin daughters.
Dinner finished cooking.
Elizabeth gave the twins a tour of the upstairs of the house (yikes), and three-year-old Rosebud offered the former neighbor and friend a tour of the house.
Dinner continued to cook, or whatever dinner does after it has cooked enough.
Mom and twins left, eventually.
(I’m going to keep telling this story, mostly because I don’t think any of these people read the blog).
I’ll just speak for myself: I was ready to move things along.
I’ve done some reading on this, and a party host can achieve this by saying things like:
(Walking toward the door while talking), “Thanks for coming.”
Or, “Let’s not wait so long to get together again.”
Or, “Can’t wait until we see you again,” while simultaneously handing them their coats.
But the great thing about kids, they don’t need to fool with such obvious pleasantries.
The conversation went on, until Rosebud came into the kitchen and achieved the equivalent of blasting them out the front door with a fire hose.
“We’re having dinner now,” she said, loudly, directly, looking up at them, “AND YOU’RE NOT STAYING.”
Everyone laughed. Oh, those crazy kids.
Then, our visitors left.
Quickly.