Dad Is Fat (11 page)

My children teaching me to read
.

This brings up another aspect of reading to your children. You are not just reading. You are performing, or at least you’re supposed to be. Jeannie has well-defined characters, each with a complex history. I suffer by comparison. I’ve had one of my kids tell me to read with “less boring.”

Every parent has his or her favorite children’s book. They often sound passionate about the book. “I just love
Babar
.” It’s not that
Babar
is so good, it’s just that most children’s books are so bad. Many children’s books don’t even feel like first drafts. They feel like someone has sent the text of most children’s books via Morse code. “Tom has a ball. Cindy has a doll. Tom and Cindy are friends. End of book. Stop.”

Don’t get me wrong, I have great memories of children’s books, and my reading level has not advanced far beyond them. It’s just when I pick up one of my old favorites, I’m sorry, but it never holds up. For example, my favorite book as a child was
Harry the Dirty Dog
. The story goes like this: Harry was a white dog with dark spots who didn’t like to take baths. He ran away and got very dirty, becoming a black dog with white spots. Eventually he gets hungry and tired and wants to go home. Upon his return, his family doesn’t recognize him because of the color change until he gets a bath and they realize it is Harry. Really? They don’t recognize a dog that outside of color looks identical to their dog, does the same tricks, and is obviously dirty? I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. How dumb do they think I am? And I’m pretty dumb.

To be fair, some of them hold up.
The Little Engine That Could
. I still never think he’s going to make it up the mountain, but I’m always pleasantly surprised when he does. It’s kind of the
Rocky
of children’s books. Still waiting for the sequel,
The Little Engine That Sought Revenge: Part Deux
.

I often wonder what my young children really think of me. I can be silly and playful, but at times I do have to be “a bad, mean daddy.” For example, I rarely give them one more chance. If they are not getting dessert, they are
not
getting dessert. I have actually turned the car around. I try not to be mean, just strict. And they let me know. From the moment my children learned to speak, I’ve heard many different versions of “You are a bad, mean daddy” in reaction to my strict style. Just when I start to worry about being remembered as a tyrannical figure, my children remind me in their unique style of communication that I am not, in their eyes, the dictator that I think I am.

Negotiation seems to be the predominant form of communication in my daily dealings with my children. “Dad, if I take a bath, can I watch a movie?” “What do I get if I clear the table?” I always seem to be on the losing end of arbitration. I constantly feel like I’m bartering with my children. I suppose
this is part of the parent-child dynamic. I’m sure that throughout the centuries, sons and daughters have bartered with their fathers and mothers. I wonder if Jesus negotiated with God about some of the stuff he had to go through.

“Jesus, you are dying on the cross for all Mankind.”

“Well, if I do that, can everyone have Sundays off?”

Notice the response is always a question. The question is the primary form of communication for little kids. They learn to speak, and the questions commence. Anyone with kids knows about the questions. “Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy, why are you doing that? Daddy, how long are you going to be doing that? Daddy, why are you putting on headphones and having a beer for breakfast?” I sometimes believe preschool was created by a parent who needed a reprieve from the incessant questions of a three-year-old.

Of course, these never-ending questions require answers you are not qualified to give. How do you answer, “Daddy, why are you a stand-up chameleon?” or “Why don’t dogs get the chicken pops?” When my son Jack was four, he pointed to a car antenna and said, “Look, Daddy, stick.” I clarified: “Actually, that is an antenna.” Jack then asked, “What’s an antenna?” After realizing I had no idea how an antenna worked, I explained, “It’s a … stick. A metal stick. You nailed it, buddy.”

Even all their so-called statements will contain a question in the subtext. “I’m hungry” is really “Why don’t you feed me?” “I have to go to the bathroom” is “Can you clean up this pee on the floor?”

Another endless form of questioning is under the “Are we there yet?” category. If you ever mention something fun that
you are going to do with your young children, and there is any time that will elapse between the
very moment
you bring it up and when you are actually doing the fun thing, you will be barraged with questions during that entire time period. If you tell them that you might go to Disney at some point in the coming year, you have opened a Pandora’s box.

“Are we going to Disney now?” “How long ’til we go to Disney?” “Is it time to go to Disney yet?” “How many more hours ’til we go to Disney?” “What does ‘three months’ mean?” “Is it three months yet?” It is crucial that you withhold as much information as you can about this fun future event until thirty seconds before you arrive. Or ten seconds, depending on your question tolerance.

Out of necessity, all parents of little kids actively attempt to curb the unnecessary questions by speaking in parental code to each other. Parents will write notes, whisper, or spell things in front of their children. Once Jeannie said, “Don’t tell anyone about the i-c-e c-r-e-a-m.” I remember thinking, “Who’s in the emergency room? And why do I want a Dilly Bar?”

Of course, there are many things you shouldn’t say or do in front of a three-year-old. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to argue or curse in front of young children. What you’ll learn is the only time a parent really needs to argue or curse is when they are with young children. If you don’t believe me, wait until your kid spills a drink on your computer. We tried a “cursing mug” where if Jeannie or I cursed, we’d have to put money in the mug. Two hours later, our son threw a ball and accidentally broke the mug. And, yes, I cursed when he broke it. Even more important than not arguing or cursing, a parent
should never say the words “ice cream” in front of young children. Little kids only hear a commitment. “Yeah, I’ll have ice cream.” You can’t explain to them, “Daddy was just saying the words ‘ice cream.’ It doesn’t mean we are having it right now. Do you understand?” They will, of course, nod and say, “I’ll have chocolate.” I’m not exaggerating about saying “ice cream” in front of a three-year-old. Test my theory at your own peril. You don’t believe me? Go on, try it. I dare you. Have you done it yet? See, I told you. Now don’t you wish you had followed my advice? Wait, you didn’t really do it, did you? I feel like I can’t trust you anymore.

The definition of children should be “young humans constantly making noise.” Whoever first coined the phrase “the pitter-patter of tiny feet” to describe the noise that young children make was way off. That is like confusing a stick with a forest.

If children equal noise, then having five kids is like living on a construction site. Noise from our children is a constant in our house. Silence is startling to me at this point. Once, a moment of silence actually woke me up: “What’s that? Is a tsunami about to hit?”

Like an orchestra that is always rehearsing, my children provide a wide variety of sounds. There should be a children’s song “If you’re happy and you know it, keep it to yourself and let your dad watch the football game.” There’s crying, humming, tapping—and that’s just when they are asleep. My son Jack actually makes noises of video games in his sleep: “
Beep, peep. Ba too! Ba too!
” The scary thing is we don’t have a Play-Station,
an Xbox, or a Wii, although he asks for one daily. He is actually dreaming about playing video games. Well, we all can dream.

The good news is that the night noises are barely audible from another room. They just mix in with the other city sounds. The bad news is that the night is quickly over. The worse news is that children are at their loudest in the morning. Of course, it’s not just the mornings, it’s all the time. I’m pretty confident I’ll never have to tell my children to speak up. Our apartment may be small, but at least our children talk like they are on a helicopter. Maybe this is why grandparents eventually lose their hearing. It’s not age. It’s necessity. Why do you think grandparents love your children so much? It’s because they’re half deaf.

I don’t want to give the impression there is any consistency to the noise levels—we are talking about children, after all. There are different volumes of loud, and kids know their cues. If you get a phone call, children intuitively know to speak louder, based on the importance of the call. If you are removing a toddler from a wedding or a funeral, they will understand they are supposed to scream. This is why there’s virtually no difference between carrying a two-year-old and playing the bagpipes. You might as well be wearing a kilt.

Screaming. Did I mention the screaming? Screaming is usually associated with horror films and roller coasters. This is why I usually look like I’ve just watched a horror film on a rollercoaster. Kids love to scream. Frightened, happy, bored. They scream. I’ve actually learned to love the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It’s just so peaceful.

It’s amazing how you get numb to a certain amount of the screaming. I’ve learned to focus on work with screaming in the background, like a surgeon in a MASH unit while being shelled. Incoming!

You also learn to decipher the many types of screaming. I’ve had thoughts like “That’s the ‘I had too much sugar’ type of screaming.” “Oh, that’s an ‘I don’t want to take a bath’ type of screaming.” Then there’s the “Did someone just get their hand caught in the door … let me get out of bed and run and find out” type of screaming.

There is a tipping point with screaming where the screaming eventually becomes contagious. If one kid starts screaming, even the children that were docile or napping start screaming. I was never a screamer, but now I scream. Well, maybe I’m not screaming, but I raise my voice over really important things like washing hands. Initially, I was shocked. Wait, why am I raising my voice? Now I know. I yell because my kids don’t hear me otherwise. To them, my normal voice doesn’t register. They only hear, “Carry on. Don’t acknowledge I’m even talking to you. Carry on.” Unless, of course, I scream.

If you come to visit us at our apartment building, there is no need to ask what apartment we live in. Just follow the screaming.

An amazing source of income
.

Like many of us, I grew up in the type of neighborhood where you had to go outside and look in your neighbor’s driveway to see if anyone was home. In New York City, if you live in an apartment building, there are likely people living beside you, below you, and above you. You can hear your neighbors leave for work and come home at night. You know their traffic patterns and when they take a shower. Sometimes you can hear when they are arguing or even when they have a cough. The unspoken NYC apartment etiquette is that neighbors should make every effort not to deliberately disturb each other or look each other in the eye.

Many people in New York live above or next to a bar or a nightclub, and I am sure that is incredibly annoying. I am also sure that the nightclub scenario would become much more attractive if one were faced with a choice between that or living in the apartment under my family.

We have five small children climbing, jumping off furniture, throwing themselves on the floor in a fit, and for no reason at all just tapping. Not to music. Just tapping. No reason. Just tapping. Tap, tap, tapping. Annoying, right? We’ve lived in our apartment for six years, and we are on our third set of downstairs neighbors. Living there presently are two brothers from Italy who seem to be visiting the U.S. less and less since moving into the apartment. Hopefully we are not damaging our country’s relationship with Italy.

We make efforts to stop our children from making noise, but it’s like trying to stop the sun from coming up. We’ve explained to them that there are people living downstairs. We explained that our neighbors don’t like the knocking and the bouncing of a basketball at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning. We have explained and explained and explained, but alas the thumping continues. In the entire time we have lived in the apartment with our children, there was only one incident when I could even temporarily stop the incessant banging. I was telling my then four-year-old daughter Marre that she couldn’t jump up and down because she was disturbing the people living below us. Suddenly she stopped and looked at me very seriously and said, “Wait, there are people living
in
the floor?” Thinking fast, I replied, “Of course there are people living in the floor. They are called the Chud people, and they get angry when they hear noises. Please don’t wake them up or else they will climb up here and come after us!” Evil? Yes. But it freaked her out and stopped the noise for at least an hour, at which point she forgot about the Chuds and resumed jumping up and down. Progress, not perfection.