MyThreeDaughters

Wife’s working tonight, which again puts me in charge of the ladies. Here’s the note I’m not going to leave her:

Tonight largely stunk. Fontaine ignored me, mocked me, added her own numbers when I counted her down and, finally, got sent/chased to her room by a shouting father.

Elizabeth did a bunch of stuff that indicated she had sent her brain to bed at 5:00.

Rosebud had to be wrestled, pried and wedged into her pajamas screaming, as usual, as you know; actually, pajamas is incorrect and you will notice that I gave up on the top so her top and bottoms don’t match. She’s wearing the same top she wore all day. Also, she refused to be tucked in, which she carried off by refusing to lie down in the crib, so last I knew she was sleeping sitting up like a homeless guy propped against the wall.

Also, there’s a monster in her room. She said you knew about this, and I am surprised you didn’t mention it — dang thing almost bit my head off when I walked in there to turn on the lamp. I told her that you had put the monster in a trash bag and put it out in the garbage bin and the city trash truck had come and picked it up and taken it to the landfill that would later be turned into a skateboard park and greenspace.

But she still wouldn’t let me tuck her in.

Finally, heads up. There’s a big birthday bash tomorrow for one of Fontaine’s dolls, named “Sarah Carl Rose.” I asked, and we are permitted to refer to her as “SCR.” Just so you know, S. Carl Rose (also permitted) likes sports and wants sports stuff for her birthday.

O.K., good night, I’m heading upstairs to sleep with the monsters.

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You all know, I don’t usually get serious on here. And I certainly don’t usually write about my wife (Not much point: I wrote a Mother’s Day tribute for her and it took her a month read it).

But, Wife’s out of town. Her mom, very very likely, is dying.

That leaves me “running” things. The girls have been nice, but signs are showing that someone else is the heart and soul of this shop:

Fontaine this morning: “Daddy, you know I love you, but when’s Mommy coming home? You’re doing a good job, but I think things go better when TWO adults are around.” (For instance, Mommy and someone else.)

Elizabeth, yesterday, upon being told she couldn’t have a second piece of candy…shouting: “YOU’RE NO FUN. I WISH MOMMY WOULD COME HOME!!!” (So one piece of candy isn’t fun anymore? Back when I was a kid a single piece of candy was SO much fun.)

Rosebud, last night, before bed, looking out her window as I held her: “Goodnight trees. Goodnight trains. Goodnight raccoons. Goo’night Mommy. She didn’t hear me. GOOOOOOO’NIGHT MOMMY!”

(I think she heard that one from 200 miles.)

Fontaine, tonight: “Is Mommy coming home tonight?”

No.

“How about tomorrow morning?”

I’m not sure.

“How about by lunchtime?”

I’m going to talk to her in the morning.

“How about after Rosebud’s nap?”

I hope so. The sooner the better.

I’m serious.

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Over the past seven years of kid-dom, the dinner-table issue of dessert has arisen often. Like, every night.

Is there dessert tonight? What’s for dessert tonight? Did I eat enough to get dessert? How many more bites do I have to take, to get dessert? Is this a big enough bite?

Which brings us to last night. Dinner. Rosebud is just two, but she seems to have taken note of what works and what doesn’t, and she took a tact neither of the other two had yet tried. All the sudden, Rosebud called out:

“RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU WANT DESSERT!”

Rosebud threw up her hand as she said it, demonstrating sound leadership. Elizabeth’s hand was up before the second syllable of “dessert.” Fontaine seemed caught off guard and just sat there, as did Wife and I.

This is where it reminded me of the great hand-raising scene in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” when Jack Nicholson’s character tried to round up enough votes to get to watch a baseball game on the communal TV. “Chief, put your hand up, we need ONE MORE.”

Lacking sufficient votes, Rosebud called out again:

“RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU WANT DESSERT!”

I wasn’t really sure if we even had dessert options, but I knew the ladies got me a cupcake earlier and I wanted to eat it, so I raised my hand. Fontaine and Wife threw their hands up too, making it a rare 5-0 landslide.

And a child shall lead them…

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Etiquette

Wife was at work. I had the three daughters for dinner. The old “Breakfast for Dinner.”

Waffles.

Here’s how it went:

Elizabeth: “Daddy, you forgot to put peanut butter on every piece.”

I think I put it on all of them.

“Then why don’t all of them have peanut butter? Look.”

It must’ve soaked in (I was fond of this one: I mean, peanut butter, soaking in?)

Rose: “Look, Look, Daddy! Look, look, look, Daddy. Look!”

I see.

Fontaine, leaning back in chair, then sitting chair down on foot: “OOOOH. MY TOE! MY TOE! MY TOE!”

Elizabeth: “I know, someone stepped on my toe too!”

Fontaine: “MY TOE! Oh man, some people could kill me.”

Elizabeth: “Like me.”

Fontaine: “YES, like you!”

Rosebud: Ramming, poking, beating Elizabeth with a plastic scoop from an EZ-Bake oven, saying, “Jab! Jab! Jab!”

Fontaine, hilariously injecting a flourish of etiquette, “Daddy? Can I be excused, please?”

Yes!

Elizabeth: “I got the pillow!”

Fontaine: “No, I called that. I said you couldn’t touch it or anything else.”

Elizabeth: “I called the pillow.”

Fontaine: “Push me over; you’ll never do it.”

Elizabeth: “Yes, I will.”

Then “dinner” ended.

Amen.

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So Fontaine, the wise-to-the-ways-of-the-world second-grader, decided that Elizabeth was not nearly enough prepped for the rigors of kindergarten that she would face next year. Naturally, Fontaine set up a simulated kindergarten curriculum, of which, naturally, she was the teacher in charge.

Elizabeth was the kindergartener. I wasn’t paying much attention. I was cooking dinner. I was psyched they were entertaining each other, even though I figured poor Elizabeth was probably being emotionally abused again.

But eventually, I came over and saw Fontaine pointing at the white board, lecturer style. I read the list: It seemed to be, basically, a list of things that Elizabeth had probably done — turned into “rules” after the infraction had been committed.

I slowly read down the list, until my eyes rested on number seven: “No Tackling the Teacher.”

I looked at Fontaine. She looked at me, raised her eyebrows and said, “You wouldn’t think I’d have to make that rule, but…”

I noticed one more thing. The number eight was already written on the board, in anticipation of the next crazy infraction.

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See those wrappers?

Yeah.

All night long, as we walked around the neighborhood trick-or-treating, Fontaine (Pippy Longstocking) kept asking if she could eat another piece of candy.

How many have you had so far, I’d say.

“Two pieces,” she’d say.

(Cop: How many have you had sir? Just two, officer)

So we got home, and I dug into her Chinese-made plastic candy-holder pumpkin. Wrapper, another wrapper, wrapper, wrapper, wrapper…

I gathered them all and cupped them in both hands and looked at her.

“You just made the blog, pal.”

I’m sure, upstairs sleeping with sugar coursing through her veins, she’s not sweating the publicity.

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The Disney Co. has put us all in a check-mate situation by offering refunds for its Baby Einstein videos.

If only I had watched Baby Einstein videos

It’s typical Disney brilliance, to be honest. They’ll hardly shell out a penny. (I’ll explain shortly.)

See, the orginal inventor of these videos, came up with them because she was a classical music fan, and upon birthing a child, wanted to find a way to enjoy classical music with her offspring. Apparently lacking a CD player, boombox, record player or even a simple radio within reach of an NPR signal, Julie Clark came up with a video.

She eventually sold out to Disney for a figure too high for a writer who grew up without Baby Einstein videos to comprehend. She even, because she had to license the name, made the real Einstein — the dead one — rich. But the problem was that marketing materials sort of suggested that if your kid watched these videos, your kid would be a baby Einstein, or at least smarter than the average nuclear engineer.

So they’re offering refunds, but here’s why they won’t pay out much.

Let’s say you’re a really, really smart parent (say a pediatrician, even): You might’ve figured from the get-go that having your one-year-old staring at flashing images on a video screen isn’t going to make  him or her smarter. You didn’t buy any.

Let’s say you’re just average smart: You might’ve bought a few Baby Einsteins, looked at the tiny figures moving by, and figured it out. Next time a garage sale rolled around, they were gone.

Now, let’s say you’re a few bricks…let’s say your elevator doesn’t…let’s just say you blame the world because they didn’t have Baby Einstein videos when you were growing up and you had to get one of those Sally Struthers degrees?

You might think Baby Einstein videos were the greatest parenting invention since the truly brilliant Diaper Genie. And you ain’t sending those videos back to Disney — even if they do refund you whatever $15.99 times four is.

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A shot of "Inside the Black Piano"

A couple of months ago, some friends who were moving to Germany for a while offered to let us babysit their shiny, black, grand piano. I didn’t really care to have an extra piano, but Wife really wanted it, so after she asked the fourth time I figured it was my last chance to say “Yes” before I just came home one day and found it here.

“Yes.”

Well, it’s super nice, so Wife made some clear rules about — as the girls have come to call it — The Black Piano. No drinks, no crayons, no scooters, Frisbees, Hulu hoops, Nintendo Wii playing, no Twister, no dogs off leashes, no feeding the seagulls or skateboarding. There might’ve been two or three other restrictions.

So, The Black Piano has become somewhat of a metaphor for general uptightness.

We rented a really nicely restored beach house last month. We went in, and made sure to let the girls know that they had to treat the place with respect, don’t come inside and drag sand all over, no having sailboat races with seashells in the toilets, stuff like that.

Fontaine looks at Wife and says, “This is like we’re living in The Black Piano.”

(a literal view of “Inside the Black Piano” shown above.)

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See that picture? Feel bad about saying this since I just snagged it off Google Images, but a glass of milk dropped onto a hardwood floor doesn’t look the least bit like that. Trust me, I just saw such a thing an hour or so ago.

The scene: Wife’s working. I’ve managed to put together a scrumptious meal of homemade mac and cheese and edamame. Rosebud refuses such (so would have I at two), I give her some yogurt and she eats. Then she takes her spoon, flicks yogurt on the floor, tosses down the spoon and her bowl, sending yogurt everywhere. She then reaches over, grabs Elizabeth’s half full glass of milk and….? That’s right fans, holds it there for half a second, looks me dead in the eye, and SPIKES THAT SUCKER on the hardwood floor. Milk went everywhere, like the bad guy’s brains in a gangster movie.

Everywhere. The milk and glass fragments, I’d estimate, covered about a 14-foot swath.

O.K., so I suppose you are done with dinner, eh, sweetheart?, is something that I did not say.

I think I looked kind of whooped. I just moved everybody away from the debris field and went to get half a roll of paper towels and the dust pan, to start with. I must’ve looked beat, because Fontaine felt sorry for me and helped out.

This spillage, being the coup the grace of dining room spillages today, merely capped an earlier glass of ginger ale and ice that had landed in the same spot two hours previous.

Good news for Wife is: She’ll arrive home to a freshly mopped kitchen and dining room. Or as Fontaine wrote her in a note: …At dinner Rosebud threw everything on the floor and broke a glass. Anyway, sleep well.

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