Therein lies the difference

by Patti

My “lady parts” doctor’s office is located in an outdoor mall. That sounds wrong, doesn’t it? It sounds like I’m getting my pap smears done at a kiosk. But no – fortunately for all the shoppers, the office is actually in a building, neatly and discreetly tucked away in the corner of the third floor. But I digress. The cool thing about having an appointment is I get to hit the Starbucks right across the way, or go to TCBY and eat a $9 yogurt, or window shop at Macy’s. Look – when you’ve had a stranger’s hand up your hoo-ha, a little retail therapy is in order, don’t you think? Yes, I think.

The other day, I had a little extra time before a scheduled appointment, and decided to stroll around the breezeways a bit. There was Table de la Sur, with its Martha Stewart-esque kitchen gadgets to make one feel like a complete domestic failure; there was Forever 21, teeming with middle-aged mothers and their gum-smacking, eye-rolling teen-aged daughters, both feeling horrified for entirely separate reasons; there was Vera Bradley, with its North Shore paisley prints splashed on Every! Single! Item! Even! Their! $20! Pens!

I realized the time, and decided to start heading to the kiosk doctor’s office for my appointment. As I walked, I noticed a man walking with his little boy. The boy was around two years old, and he did his best to keep up with this rushed dad.  As the boy hurried to catch up, he started to hobble. And that’s when I realized that the kid’s pants were sliding right off of him. Down over his diapered butt they went until they were circling his ankles and catching his every step. But the little dude muscled up and still tried to keep up. The dad? Totally oblivious. At that very moment, another lady who had been walking near me and I both piped up at the same time, pointing to the boy. “Uh, sir? His pants fell down.”

That’s when the man finally turned around, and when he saw the predicament his poor son was in, he swiftly hitched the pants right back up. “Buddy! You’re supposed to tell me when your pants fall down!”

After the man hurried away with his now clothed son, the other lady and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. We both knew that had the boy been with his mother, her motherly spidey-senses would have sensed the pants’ plan to fall long before they even fell, and the kid would have been spared diaper-flashing the shoppers.

This reminded me of when my friend, mother to three young girls at the time, left for her first vacation ever sans her children and husband. She reported to me that when she got back, her husband lovingly shared with her photos of some of the things he had done with the girls in her absence. My friend nearly fainted when she realized that most of the pictures included an outing to the top of a mountain, where he posed the girls by themselves in front of THE EDGE OF A CLIFF so he could snap a souvenir photo. Later, her older daughter told my friend that “Daddy dressed Rachel in shorts and Rachel couldn’t walk!” When my friend questioned her husband, he had no choice but to admit that he had dressed their youngest daughter for the day in shorts, and noticed throughout the day that she was walking “funny”.  It wasn’t until the end of the day that he realized he had forced both of her legs into ONE opening.  Of course, once the horror of thinking her children could have fallen to their deaths had passed, we both laughed and laughed and laughed, because, really?

Let’s face it: Fathers love their children just as much as mothers do. They love them fiercely, wholly, protectively. They love them to the moon and back and around the world three times. But that doesn’t mean they won’t shove two legs into one pant leg and not notice, or allow a child to streak naked through a mall, or forget to feed them breakfast because what’s wrong with marshmallows? Why? Because they’re not mothers. It’s as simple as that.

Little Lolita

by Patti

Those who know me know I am a little on the liberal side. I tend to be free with expression and thought and am pretty accepting of other people's choices. I'm also a little...opinionated. I will argue with a rude cab driver, tell somebody to bleep off, and stand up for the underdog over and over. Mostly? I just want to be free to be me. After all - this is the girl who wore black garbage bags to school with a studded belt around my waist, and even now, any perception that I am being held back from wearing a black garbage bag to school if I wanna does not sit well with me.

I want my daughter to grow up with the same sense of independent thought and freedom of choice. I want her to be able to fend for herself, fight for what's right, and not be afraid to stand out. And, if she happens to fall in love with someone like her papi - a strong, also opinionated, somewhat conservative ball of fire, I want her to be able to able to love him back while still holding her own and staying true to who she is.

And it all begins with shoes.

I bought S a pair of wedge booties for the fall.  In my eyes, they were totally adorable, totally harmless, totally fashionable. See?

But in M's eyes? They looked like this:

And because he felt he was sending his daughter off to work the streets instead of into the halls of middle school, he refused to let her wear them. We actually had an argument about ANKLE BOOTS.
"She is too young to wear high heels!"
"They are NOT high heels - they are wedges. They look like HIKING boots, for crying out loud; how is that high heels?"
"She wore them with these pink pants that looked like stripper pants!"
"Stripper pants? My daughter does NOT own stripper pants - what are you talking about?"

(Apparently, Children's Place is now in the business of selling hooker wear? Did you know this? I did not know this.)

We discussed her gray ankle boots for nearly an hour. I tried to pinpoint what was causing my anxiety over his disdain for the harmless shoes, and I realized that I was kind of projecting my own fear of being stifled into the matter - and he was projecting his own fear of his daughter growing up. We were both projecting our neuroses onto S, and all the poor kid wanted to do was wear her I STILL SAY TOTALLY HARMLESS boots in peace.

A couple of days after our conversation, I spotted the boots on the shoe rack by our door and picked them up, marveling at how even MORE conservative they appeared to me under the shadow of "slut wear!" that had so unfairly been cast upon them. M was watching TV and I held one of the shoes up to his face. "Really? REALLY? THIS is what you were freaking out about?"

In the end, she will wear her boots, but she will wear them with non-stripper pants to appease her father. And to satisfy me, she will wear them with a confident smile on her face that says, "I won this battle; I will one day win the war."

Papi Pooper

by Cathy

"Hmm..." wondered Ari aloud as she tapped her index finger to her pursed lips. It was bedtime and she had some hard decisions to make.  As she mulled over which book to choose for her bedtime story, she asked me, "Who should I ask to read me a book today, you or Papi?"

I offered my suggestion, knowing full well that she will do the opposite. "Why don't I read it tonight and papi will do it tomorrow night?"

"I'll ask Papi," she said definitively. "Then you can do it tomorrow night."

Surprise!

Bella, overhearing our conversation, piped in. "Well, then mommy can read me a story tonight then. Can you mommy?" Since I secretly love that my 11-year old still wants me to read her a bedtime story, I quickly agreed. I'll take this as long as I can get it.

I settled into Bella's bed with her and the book she chose, while Joe limped into the room half asleep.

"Here, papi!" said Ari, way more energetic than she should be at this hour. "Here's the book I want."
She pointed to a fancy, two-inch thick hardcover with gold gilded paging entitled Treasury of Bedtime Stories.

"That whole thing?!" said Joe, alarmed.
"No!!" said Ari laughing. Even she knew better than that. "Just one story, papi."
"How about half a story. It's late and I'm tired and you guys need to go to bed."

Bella burst into incredulous laughter, since she and I were privy to that whole conversation while sitting on her bed. "HALF a story?! Who reads half a story??"

"Ha ha ha!" I chimed in. "Papi is such a party pooper!" [Pause for laughter that was quickly building up in my lungs as a result of the new nickname that ingeniously and rapidly formed in my head.] "A papi pooper!!!" I barely screamed out with dissipating breath. [More hysterical laughing here by both of us.] "Remember that party pooper song from Father of the Bride?!" I elbowed a doubled-over Bella.

Taking a deep breath, she shrieked "Yessssssss!" and began singing the following from the movie:

 

By now Bella and I were chanting this repeatedly in the crazy Franc accent while tappin' our toes and flicking our wrists. Ari, who wasn't familiar with the movie, was giggling hysterically. Joe was hiding behind Treasury of Bedtime Stories, no doubt rolling his eyes and keeping his cheeks from exploding with laughter. Why? Because he knows it's true.

Bella further proved the point by recalling the times when he was supposed to be reading her a bedtime story, but instead, she read to him while he snored to high heaven. Or whenever the girls are running, laughing, fighting, roughhousing, playing at ANY time of day or night, he would yell out, "Go to bed!!"

No doubt getting pretty tired at this point of being labeled a Party Pooper, he bravely attempted to dispute the accusation by agreeing to a game of Twister with the girls the other night. I say bravely because he is barely off his crutches and his ankle is still rather swollen, which means he can't put undue pressure on it, still has to ice it and was scolded by his doctor because he should still be using at least one crutch. I think he lasted about four minutes being hunched over on the Twister mat and we decided to give him a pass. A party pooper papi pass.

Of Errands and Men

by Cathy

Moms tackle a lot and most of it via multitasking or at the very least, getting tasks done in rapid succession. We're juggling work, cleaning, cooking, laundry, school drop off/pick up, activities, playdates, doctor's appointments, homework, school projects just to name a few. Of course, I don't want to undervalue the role that some dads play in all of this - kudos to the ones that do and shame on the ones that don't - you are both in this together and your wife didn't have those kids by herself. (But that's a soapbox for which I will get on for another blog post.)

For the purposes of this post (and what I'm getting at here), is that sometimes these dads, whether they are actively pitching in or not, are forced to at some point, step into unknown territory when it comes to handling some of the tasks that moms usually handle. Such as? Birthday parties and the gift purchase that goes along with it.

Before I left to go on my Mexican work vacay, I reminded Joe that he had to take the kids to a birthday party for one of Ari's kindergarten friends on a Saturday night. Yes, you heard right...a kids party on a Saturday night.  (The family is Polish and they did this thing up Euro/Latin style, i.e. totally right up our alley. It was held at the Park Ridge community center swimming pool and the grandfather of the birthday girl, who owns a Polish restaurant, catered the event with enough delicious food and varieties thereof to feed the whole country of Poland. Bottom line, this was our type of party.)

My family and friends were more than willing to fill me in on the deets of preparing for the party when I got back from my trip. My husband, apparently with a plan in hand, decided to stop in at Target with Ari on the Saturday of the party while Bella was in her ballet class. His intention was purposeful and planned: pick up a gift card and head out the door. But the poor guy, not versed in Target visits with the girls, was taken on a joyride by Ari. She worked her way around the store to the toy aisle where she bombarded him with "OOOH how cute!" and "Can i get this?" Finally she found THE ONE toy she was sure her friend would love. After many unsuccessful, time consuming attempts on my husband's behalf to steer her towards the gift cards, he decided to go with it and subsequently, thought it would be a sweet gesture since the gift came from Ari herself.

So they bought it and left with just enough time to pick up Bella from her lesson. Car screeching to a halt outside the ballet studio, gift tumbling around the backseat, he picked up Bella on time and headed home to wrap the gift and prepare the swimming bag for the party.

After hauling up the Christmas wrapping paper bin from storage, they determined that they couldn't wrap the gift in a candy cane motif or reindeer games wrapping paper, so they dug around and found the only neutral paper that had accidentally made its way into that bin:

My 10-year old's idea of Granny Wrapping Paper

So Bella took charge of wrapping the gift (she prides herself on wrapping gifts and does a professional looking job, thanks to the technique I passed on to her from my many years in retail), but not before interrogating her father on the choice of gift.

"Papi, you do realize that this gift is for 3-36 month olds, right?!?"

"What?" exclaimed my husband, as he stared down the box containing the big clunky, plastic teapot and cups staring him in the face. "Really? I didn't even notice that!"

"Yeah, it says it right on here. See?" she pointed and tapped on the box.

"Oh well. That's what Ari wanted and she wouldn't leave without it. She was crying over getting it."
Bella gave her usual rolling of the eyes and started wrapping that gift in the paper above, which she ultimately summed up as follows:

"We were the only ones there that wrapped a gift meant for a three-month old in 80-year old wrapping paper for a six-year old."

Live and learn and make it your own, I say.

Once at the party, they swam, ate like kings and had a swimmingly good time. No one noticed the oddness of our gift - and if they did, they kept mum about it - just like the other school parents that were visibly horrified at how late this kids birthday party was and seemed at the ready to call the party police about it all. They dutifully left at a reasonable hour.

My husband on the other hand? He got home at 10:30pm with sufficiently satisfied. well-fed, tired kids in tow, and another parental task successfully behind him. Good job, babe.

Jesus to the Rescue

by Patti

S was four years old and had just finished her first year of preschool. She was attending a little Lutheran school in our neighborhood, and her favorite times during the school day were “Jesus Time”, during which they would sing fun songs about Jesus and recite sweet prayers.

Father’s Day was around the corner, and, because M had been particularly cranky of late, I thought it would cheer him up to receive a hand-picked card from S. I took her to Walgreen's, and she loved looking at all of options and taking her time to choose just the right one. She browsed for a bit, occasionally holding up one that caught her eye. Then she squealed in delight; apparently she’d found “the one”. I took it from her and saw that it was a glittery baptism card, covered with crosses and doves, and other religious symbols. “Oh honey, this is not for Father’s Day; this is for a baptism.”

“What is baptism?” she asked.

Struggling to find the answer she would understand, I told her, “Well, it’s when you go to church and get blessed by holy water so you can take Jesus into your heart.”

"Does it hurt?"

"Oh, no!" I reassured her, "It makes you happy!"

S looked at the card and then looked back up at me. "Let's get it. Papi's been really grouchy lately. He really needs some Jesus in his heart!"

Surprise Party

by Patti

When I first found out I was pregnant, I took 7 tests to make sure it was real. Because, you know, the missed period and boulder boobs were not enough proof. Once I was thoroughly convinced, I shared the news with M. And then M had a nervous breakdown. No, literally. As in, he got slurring-and-stumbling-drunk, leapt out of a moving car while we were driving in the middle-of-nowhere and ran/stumbled/ran/fell/ran/stumbled into the night, invaded a stranger’s yard and squatted in his garden, turned on said stranger’s garden hose, and dangled it over his head as he sobbed through the spraying water about how it was all moving too fast. 

This was not the way I had pictured it would be.

S was a total surprise party. I was not expecting the 2 red lines that screamed “PREGNANT! OMG YOU ARE SOOOO PREGNANT!” when I took the test. I mean, I wanted a baby, but that was supposed to be “someday”; not right now, not like this.  I’ll admit: My first reaction? Tears. Lots and lots of “What the hell am I going to do?” tears. Part of my reaction was my own fear and shock; the other was worry about how M would react. You see, M has never been good at handling stress. He is definitely not a curveball kind of guy. He likes things organized and planned and neatly lined up. I, on the other hand, am not only a curveball catcher, I am a curveball thrower. And this? Was most definitely a curveball.

And just as I suspected, he did not catch that curveball. Instead, it cracked him on the head and knocked him out cold.

At first, before the Big Breakdown, he was mad. And that made ME mad.  I mean, we had been together at this point for 11 years!  We were married! We loved each other! For crying out loud, grow up! But apparently he was not in the mood for me to be pregnant. This was, after all, in clear violation of The Plan.

Over the next few weeks, this new knowledge tucked deeply in our pockets, we lived our life, but we lived it on the outskirts. We were ever so careful not to make waves, not to get too heavy. I could see that M was trying to act all casual and normal; as if what was happening wasn’t really happening at all. As if we could just sit together in the living room and watch TV, or go out with friends, or eat dinner at our little dining room table, just as we always did, it would all just go away.

And then came that night. We had gone to a party and traded places: He drank, I didn’t. And he drank. And drank. And drank. So much so, that by the time we left, he zigzagged his way to the car. I took the keys from him, jammed his jacked-up self into the car, and started the long drive home. The party had been at somebody’s farm; we were literally driving in the pitch-black of nothingness. He was incoherently yammering on about a kid he had seen at the party – a little boy dressed up like a traditional Argentine gaucho - and how it had reminded him of himself when he was a boy, when suddenly, he started laughing. It was the crazy, shake-your-shoulders silent kind of laugh, and I was happy to see him laughing again, so I laughed, too. Maybe everything would be alright, after all! But then I realized: he wasn’t laughing; he was crying. That’s when he demanded that I pull over, and before I could even navigate to the side of the road, he was opening the door and jumping out and running into the darkness.

Mid-breakdown, as M sat there swaying from side to side in a squatting position with some stranger’s hose spraying water over his head, the porch light of the hose’s owner flicked on. I heard the door creak open, and I braced myself for shotguns in the air and a menacing “Get off my property!” Instead, a man appeared, the porch light framing him like a glowing ring. He came softly toward us; M just sat there, choking on the water that sprayed down his face. “Hey buddy, are you alright?”

M looked up at him, ashamed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he sputtered out into the water.

The man leaned gently into M and put his hand on M’s soaking wet head; a balm. “You take all the time you need, okay?”
 
After that night, we didn’t really talk about what had happened; we didn’t need to. I knew him well enough to know that something inside of him had shifted. It was as if that water had washed away the awful beginning, and we were starting clean.  A few weeks later, he came home from work with a little bag in his hands. He handed it to me, and inside was a tiny onesie with a cheerful yellow duck on the front. I held it out in front of me, imagining it filled up. I was smiling so big it hurt.

Boys vs. Girls

Point Guard.
Defense strategies.
Offensive plays.
Pressing.
In other words, gibberish. I'm GREEK and these terms are Greek to me.

But to my husband, they are words in the lexicon of his passion: basketball.

He always tells me that he could have been a pro basketball player but other things got in the way. So he put his hopes in his kids. That was also thwarted when we ended up with two GIRLS.

For the past couple of years now, my husband has been hinting for a third child. I think he really thinks the third time will be the (boy) charm. Quasi-statistically speaking, the odds are stacked against him. For the most part, two girls in a row, means yet a third girl. We've known many families where this is true, and they had to get to numbers four and five to get the boy. Okaaaay??

All of his close friends have boys except him. (Cry me a river.) He wants another little man around the house. To play sports with. To watch sports with. Baseball. Basketball. Football. Even soccer. Who will do all of these things with him?? Who can HE bond with?

So Joe urged Isabella to try out for sports in school, all the while crossing his fingers and toes that she would LIKE sports and be interested in something besides...ballet. And wouldn't you know it. Isabella made point guard (I NOW know what that is) on her school team! Joe was a very loud presence at every game - you know, the sidelines coach, much like a backseat driver. He was thrilled to be on this ride...even gently coaxing Isabella into going to 'shoot some hoops' and 'get some pointers.' Isabella at times seemed disinterested, and other times she went begrudgingly. She got annoyed when Joe tried to point out a play or a slick maneuver while watching games on television. Then the season was over. And that was the end of that.

Here I sit, three months later, writing this as I listen to Isabella shouting at the TV. Bulls are in the NBA playoffs and Joe is still at work. She RACED to finish her homework so she can watch this critical game - if the Bulls lose tonight, 'it's over mommy!"

Whaaaat?

"Where's papi?" she chirped. "Doesn't he know the game starts at 7:30??" So I texted Joe and told him that he needs to come home to see this: Isabella has taken his place on the couch, relaying his comments, mimicking his body language and really, truly interested in basketball. Every commercial break she is running into the kitchen to grab a snack and alerting me of the latest score.

I've never seen Joe get home as fast as he did tonight. And although he hasn't said anything, I know, deep down, he is as content as any father with a son. And he would have been even if our girls showed no interest in sports - it's just that this makes it all the more sweeter for him.

-Cathy