MyThreeDaughters

Recent “news” indicates that a kid needs a Dad as much as a fish needs a barbed hook stuck through its lip.
Witness the new book, “The End of Men,” or the very boring psychological paper positing that kids raised by two lesbians fare better than the tired, old, un-cool man-woman combo.
I can’t compete with psychology, but I believe the theory failed to consider a few crucial things. Ready? Let’s offend as many people as possible:
What will become of the mocking phrase, “Who’s Your Daddy?” (“Who’s Your Second Mommy?” lacks pithiness.)
The song in the car commercial, “He’s My Dad, He’s My Big Bad Dad,” would lack rhyme were it: “She’s my big bad other Mom.” (Though it may have a ring of truth to it.)
“Mom’s Night Out” events would be an exercise in child abandonment.
The Web hosting site GoDaddy.com would be longer: “GoMommyMommy.com.” (Snap that one up quickly, the address seems to be available.)
Who will run governments and major corporations into the ground and then get $40 million golden parachutes?
“Our Mothers, who art in heaven?”
“Father Knows Best” would be “One of my mothers knows better than the other one of my mothers,” which is a little lengthy for a sitcom name.
Who’s going to burp out loud? (Oh, really? They do. Yick.)
Finally, maybe I’m wrong, but where are the kids going to come from in the first place? Have they engineered a way around the need for sperm? Or are they just going to keep a few of us in stalls, like they did Secretariat?

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Remember that “Seinfeld” episode when Elaine befriended another group of guys, much like Jerry, George and Kramer, except they were nice to each other, not sarcastic, did enlightening things rather than spending all their time on mindless nonsense?
They referred to them as “the Bizarro Jerry” and so on.
The other night, I had the fortunate and unexpected opportunity to spend time with my Bizarro daughters: Bizarro Fontaine, Bizarro Elizabeth and Bizarro Rosebud.
Now, readers of these posts know that I love the little rascals all the time, and heaven knows, their non-Bizarro moments have provided fodder for more than 130 blog entries over the past couple of years.
But I wasn’t sure what to think or how to respond when, abracadabra, they turned into charming and helpful children Thursday night when Wife went to work.
First, Fontaine and Elizabeth informed me that their new household jobs had to be done: Elizabeth wipes off the dinner table, then Fontaine sweeps the floor.
Hey, fire up, I thought, I gotta see this.
Meanwhile, I took Rosebud up to put her to bed. Normally, Regular Rosebud refuses to choose a book and then rejects any books that I pick out. Sometimes, she says those books are “locked.” Regular Rosebud also now insists on a full-wattage lamp being left on at night, which obviously won’t work, and then tries to block me from turning it off (Sacrified her hand to a hot light bulb the other night just to stand her ground). When I put her in the crib, she yells at me for “another doll” to be put in with her, and then another, another, another. One night, she insisted that before going to bed her blanket should be washed.
Bizarro Rosebud turned the lamp off herself, crawled into her crib herself, listened as I sang three songs, then told me good night.
Not knowing what to do, I stood in the room for a moment as though I had been turned to a pillar of salt.
I came downstairs.
Not only had they wiped the table and swept the floor, but they had straightened the family room and neatly placed the remotes — which I normally have to dig out of a crevice of the couch before I search for the couch cushions that have been used to make a “fort” — on a table.
To quote the Talking Heads: And you may tell yourself, THIS is not my beautiful house.
I asked them to make an imprint on bitewings, so I could check their dental records after they went to bed, but they sure looked like our girls.
I am hoping these girls stick around, so if anyone kidnapped ours. Don’t try to bring them back. I’m keeping these three.

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So I’m sitting on the loveseat in Rosebud’s room last night, trying to read books to her before bed.

I can’t remember what I did that was so objectionable, other than asking her to sit down before I started reading. Instead, she scurried up onto the arm of the couch.

I reached for her. She had a small, pink kids’ pocketbook in her hand.

She suddenly swung it up in roundhouse, haymaker fashion — and slammed it down on top of my head.

It didn’t hurt, so much as surprise me.

But I wonder: How does a three-year-old girl learn to use a purse as a bludgeon? Has she been watching 1950s sitcoms? Is her heroine Granny Clampett?

Nature, or nurture?

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I love it on the HBO show “Flight of the Conchords” when band’s manager refers to the one fan on their mailing list as “The Fan Base.”

Now, anyone who wants to join the MyThreeDaughters.com “Fan Base” can do so. Scroll down the blog, and on the righthand side, click on the “Networked Blogs” button.

You will see that the site has THREE times as many fans as the Conchords. OK, so three fans. I think you have to be on Facebook to do this, but hey, you have to be on FB to breathe these days.

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We live on the wrong side of the tracks here, so fairly often we get hung up by 100-car long coal trains.

It happens going to work, taking the girls to school, to softball games, trying to get to the grocery store. I swear – yeah, sometimes literally swear – that the mega-corporation headquartered here sends a train through the city every day near 5 p.m. to choke traffic and let everyone know who owns what.

Within the family, the girls have different attitudes about getting hosed by the mega-corp’s trains.

Last year, when she was four, Elizabeth and I were on the way to pre-school, taking our chances by going down one of the streets that doesn’t have a tunnel underpass. As usual, we were playing brinksmanship with the school’s 9 a.m. start.

“I sure hope we don’t get caught by a train,” I told Elizabeth.

“If you don’t want there to be a train, you just have to believe that there won’t be a train,” said the go-with-the-flow girls’ girl.

On that day, we believed – and there was no train.

A week or so ago, Fontaine and I were heading back from one of her softball games.

“I sure hope we don’t get caught by a train,” I said. Just one fatalistic pessimist talking to another fatalistic pessimist.

I told Fontaine, “Well, you know what Elizabeth said about trains.”

She thought for a moment. Being the first-born, the second-born sure as heck wasn’t about to have a clever saying without her having one.

“You know what I say?” Fontaine said.

No, what?

“If there’s a train, there’s a train.”

Yup.

And if you are hosed, you are hosed.

Dylan anyone?

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