MyThreeDaughters

See that snowman? He may look impressive, but he’s a Virginia snowman. Which means, he’s like six inches tall.
I came across him while walking into the Sentence Factory yesterday. Someone made him (I say “him,” but I don’t know. I didn’t check) and put him on top of the garbage can on the way in.
I took this pic with my cell phone. You can see there, one of his eyes fell off and rolled down in front.
Little mini-Frosty there is a symbol of winters in coastal Virginia. Minimalist.
The poor girls have no idea, having lived here all their lives. They see snow covering the trunk of a car, it’s the Blizzard of ’09.
They went out in the front yard yesterday morning and caught a few snowflakes on their tongues. Made a couple of snowballs and we threw them at each other.
Then Elizabeth proclaimed: “It’s freezing cold out here, I’m going inside.”
We followed.
With that, I’m willing to bet, winter here is just about over. Mini-Frosty there, he’ll be done by tomorrow.

I forgot about how useful this word was: Infinity.
It was big when I was in, I think, middle school, but kids grow up so much more quickly these days and next thing you know, they’re sounding like Carl Sagan.
Fontaine just brought infinity home from school and taught it to Elizabeth. And as many times as we’ve told Fontaine not to pass along annoying stuff, because it’ll only come back to annoy her, you can’t really convey the true wisdom of such advice to a six-year-old.
So tonight at dinner, it was monsters (Fontaine) against princesses (Elizabeth).
Fontaine: I’m a monster and I eat princesses for dinner, especially tender ones like you, I eat them up.
Elizabeth: Well, I’m infinity princesses and we can eat you up.
Fontaine: Well, I’m just one monster, but I can eat infinity princesses.
Elizabeth: No, you can’t.
With that, I learned that “No, you can’t” trumps “infinity,” because that three-word response provided a finite conclusion to the whole thing.

I’m not at my best in the morning. Wife might say that’s a generous understatement. But that’s the backdrop.
This morning: I deposited Fontaine at school, came back home and wife got ready to go running.
“Go ahead and get in the shower, they’ll be OK,” she said of Elizabeth and Rose.
Often, she’s been right, but news stories and blog entries are not written about when things go right.
Wife goes running.
I get in the downstairs shower, get out, put on boxers, lather my face with shaving cream. (This is a really exciting blog isn’t it? Stay tuned, next week: Tooth brushing.)
Elizabeth yells down, sufficiently loud for me to hear her from upstairs, as well as blow out the windows of several nearby commercial buildings.
“DADDY! CAN YOU COME UPSTAIRS?!”
I walk to the edge of the steps: Elizabeth, what do you need?
“DADDY…I need you to come upstairs.”
What do you need me to do, once I get there?
“DADDY…I need you to do something, UPSTAIRS.”
I trudge upstairs. Again, I am in my boxers. Shaving cream covers my face. It is cold in the house in boxers. When I enter her bedroom, I am not happy.
Me: What…Do…You…Need…Elizabeth?
“Daddy…”
Yes, Elizabeth.
“Daddy…”
If she says “Daddy” and pauses one more time, I think, a piece of my brain is going to die.
“…Can you get that pink princess dress off the hook?”
You mean no one is injured? I came upstairs and Rosebud isn’t hurt or bleeding?
Nothing?
That’s what I was thinking. What I said was: Sure Elizabeth, this one?
“That one, yes.”
Here you go.
“Daddy…”
Oh my gosh.
Yes?
“Thanks, Daddy.”

Fontaine said it in all sincerity, so I feel a little bad about taking off on it.
But…(insert witch-like laugh here).
The other day the girls drew a picture together and they were showing us, when Fontaine says, “And I’d like to give a shout out to Elizabeth for…”
Wife and I looked at each other.
Give a shout out?
What’s up with first-graders giving out shout outs?
To four-year-olds.
And let me tell you, our girls generally don’t look too “street,” unless the street has shops like Boden and Garnet Hill.
I know, we all know, where she got the phrase: Either hiphop has overtaken America, or vise versa.
Because I, a 45-year old boring white guy, can quote a rap song and say:
Peace, and have a pleasant day.

When in the past parents have told me that they spent all weekend working on a kid’s school project, I thought several things:
a) Shouldn’t do your kid’s work for her (we use she pronouns here at MTD.com, because we only have she’s).
b) That stinks for you.
c) Really? And you only got a B minus? Bummer.
But now, after a three-day weekend of researching, finding materials, building and decorating a miniature giraffe ecosystem, I get it.
It’s not so much that the parents do the project, it’s that they…harumph, oh man, I got something corporate caught in my throat, they facilitate it.
We facilitated a trip to the Supercenter to get clay, to build our, I mean “her”, giraffe. We facilitated a car ride to the library to check out giraffe books. We facilitated by saying, C’mon, you’re almost there…the next part is the fun part…OK, now all you have to do is…Now, just one more thing.
By my mixing colors together to get the perfect shade of giraffe hair.
And by, Dad-like, and now that I write it I can’t believe I did this, cutting out a piece of dry wall as a platform for the whole African savanna.
But Fontaine wrote the report herself, built the giraffe herself and painted its color scheme on herself. And named it, for it’s big ears, “Eary.”
The three-day weekend ended with my wife and I, hovering over Eary, paint brushes in hands.
Just touching up a few things.
I hope w…Fontaine gets an A.

Went to the Supercenter on Saturday. Because even us wannabe yuppies face tough times, not to mention Silk soy milk and Horizon organic un-soy milk are like a buck cheaper than at Teeter.
I heard that, and you know, I hope I’m not giving anyone up here, but I heard that the moms from a certain local private school hit the Supercenter one morning a week after kid drop-off.
But the Supercenter parking lot is never for sensitive ears. I always come home and tell Wife a snippet of dialogue.
Two weeks ago, it came from a Dad dragging his four-year-old or so daughter across the lot: WHY DID YOU BRING THAT DOLL ANYWAY? I TOLD YOU NOT TO BRING IT AND YOU BROUGHT IT ANYWAY, AND NOW LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!
(Uh, sorry Daddy, I’m four. I wanted to bring my doll while we went on your phenomenally boring errand.)
This Saturday, though, the self-esteem building scolding I overheard was this. I kind of favor this one, largely for pithiness. Mom, while loading groceries, to her child already in the car:
I told you get in the car. I didn’t tell you to turn on the freakin’ radio, you dork.
(Oh, I thought you said, “…and TURN the freakin’ radio on, you dork.” Sorry, my bad, Mom.)
That’s right, I’m not proud. I scurried in the Supercenter, got the organic milk and Huggies wipes, and scurried out to my car.
I did turn the freakin’ radio on, loudly, but I am not a d…

Fontaine told someone the day of my birthday, two days ago (yeah, thanks), that the girls made about a hundred drawings for Daddy.
And so, on my birthday night, after dinner I said, “Weren’t there some gifts?”
They came back, gleeful, with what can only be described as a wad. Like something you could slay someone with.
On the outside was an envelope. It’s retro stationary, and I’m not going to tell Dick Van Dyke what they did to his face.
We thought you wouldn’t like that scratchy faced guy, Daddy, Fontaine said.
That’s him up there. They snuffed him out. Soprano style. He is no more. I’m glad I’m me, and not someone they think I don’t like.
Inside the scratched-out formerly scratchy-faced guy envelope they had stuffed a couple of drawings.
I think they’re lovely. If that’s me in these pictures, I’m having a great time. I wonder what’s in those drinks? Are we on a tropical island? Ah…
Click on the drawings if you want to see them larger.

So, poop there it is, on the right. It’s really a pretty-dry diaper (sans poop), which my wife put on the upstairs floor the other night to prevent an immediate trip downstairs.
That’s really not a problem. But this might be: Fontaine immediately said, “Ooh, poopy diaper, I have to get a picture of that.”
She captured it with a Fuji 2 megapixel point-and-shoot, but I think you’ll agree that it has many artistic qualities.
So she got the shot, she and her sister then made up a song: Poopie Diaper in the middle of the floor…Poopie diaper in the middle of the floor…
Then they danced away, and left the poopie diaper in the middle of the floor.
Just like the media. Get the shot of the fire, but don’t help pull anyone out.
I’m worried she’s going to follow me into the information gathering business.
We gotta get her a science kit.
Then she could blow-up the poopie diaper in the middle of the floor. (Really, don’t worry, it’s been removed).

The other day, Fontaine asked me what would happen if a comet slammed into Earth. I guess it’s cool to ponder such things, or worry like heck about them, when you’re six.
(By the time you’re 44, you have a ready list of people you might wish a comet would land on).
“Depends on how big the comet was?” I said, trying to mask not knowing.
“A really big one,” she said.
Well, I began explaining, it has happened. A woman I work with once wrote a story about a meteor that crashed into the Eastern Shore. But that was millions and millions of years ago.
“Oh my gosh,” Fontaine said. “You used to live on the Eastern Shore. Were you hurt?”
No, I wasn’t hurt.
But I’m a little wounded now.

It started so innocently.
That’s what I thought.
On Saturday morning, Fontaine announced a birthday party for “Bow.” Bow Bunny, because the little stuffed rabbit sports a bow. (For a while, I thought it was “Beau” or even “Bo,” and I feared we had lived in Virginia too long.)
She drew a beautiful invitation and gave it to Elizabeth: “Please come to Bow’s birthday party. Wear pritty dresses.”
Aw, how sweet, I thought.
One step ahead.
They have a little tea party or something, which Rosebud, as Fontaine once put it, “destroyolates.”
Two steps.
Fontaine calls us all in to the living room, you know, to sing Happy Birthday to Bow. I kind of mouth it, it being 8:30 on a Saturday morning and not wanting my scratchy deep voice to ruin the innocense of the moment.
Three steps ahead. I still don’t see what’s going to go down.
Then there’s some sort of gift for the teddy bear. I can’t remember what it was. A tiny teddy human? Somehow, it gets opened.
Four ahead.
Then…”O.K.,” Fontaine calls out, “Thanks for coming everybody, but first, the gift bags!”
There are GIFT bags!? The modern-era thing where kids get gifts for going to someone else’s party. Fan-tastic.
Five steps.
She goes and finds some empty decorative plastic bags from Halloween, hops up onto the kitchen counter…
You see what’s happening here?
…and starts tossing stuff from our out-of-reach candy bowl into the bags.
Six steps.
Check.
She zips back into the living room, and it’s 8:45 in the morning, and hands thems out.
“I think I’ll start with this one,” she says, and starts throwing down the chocolate.
Chocolate, on a Saturday morning, a long day lay ahead.
But what were we supposed to do? It was Bow’s birthday.
Checkmate.