According to the dictionary, the word, ANNOYING is a verb. It means to disturb or irritate. You want to know what my definition of annoying is? It’s trying to watch the ball game when your three year old daughter stands up on the couch, grabs onto the fleshy part of your earlobe and peers into the dark recesses of your skull. Then in a loud, John Madden like voice, she screams at the top of her lungs. “Daddy, you have fuzzies coming out of your ears. It looks like grass. It’s kind of gross!”
Now that’s Annoying!
GOD BLESS ZANDER
At the dinner table the other night, we were saying the blessing. It wentsomething like this: “God bless mommy and daddy and Kenzie and Zander,Amen!” As I picked up my fork, and began to enjoy the evening’s meal, I looked at Zander whose face was scrunched like a paper sack that’s been run over by a car. He was pouting, blowing air noisily in and out of his lips like a wheezing marathon runner. His arms were folded tightly across his chest. Each of his hands was secured snuggly in the opposite arm pit. He looked like he was wearing a straight jacket endorsed by Polo.
“What!,” I said. I was annoyed. I felt my eyebrows rise higher than Mr. Spock with a bad case of stellar constipation.
In a perturbed voice, that jumbled in his mouth like a blender grinding gravel, Zander sputtered forth this sentence.
“Why am I always the last one to get blessed?”
I looked at Dana who burst out laughing. Seeing her mommy’s hearty laugh, Kenzie started chuckling so hard, milk began running down the sides of her face.
I tried to keep a straight face, but felt a ray of sunshine beaming into a smile under my skin.
“Son, God doesn’t care what order your name comes in the blessing. It’s not like being last in line at the driver’s license bureau and they close the counter at quitting time no matter how long you’ve been waiting.”
“I just don’t want to be last in the blessing,” he said pushing his food around his plate with his spoon.
“Think of it this way,” I countered. “If your name is last, then your name is the last name God hears, so maybe he’ll remember it better.”
Zander cheered up immediately.
For a moment, the dinner table demons had been placated. I felt a surge of satisfaction as I picked up my fork and began to eat.
Suddenly from my right, I heard an angry “hmmmmpffff”
I turned my head. Kenzie’s lips were puckered like she had just rinsed with lemon juice. Her arms were folded across her bib, and she was breathing stridently.
“What!,” I said slamming my fork onto the plate with a sudden clink.
“Now God won’t know my name,” she angrily shouted.
I looked at the ceiling for divine guidance that never came. Such is the life of a dad who tries to say the blessing.
BATTLING JESUS
Kenzie’s dyspeptic moods are infamous at St. George’s preschool. After one of her particularly trying tirades, the director exclaimed; “Kenzie, you’d even argue with Jesus in heaven, wouldn’t you?”
Kenzie shook her head adamantly, “Yes, I would!”
When I heard about this one, I laughed, imagining Kenzie kicking Jesus in his shin, and telling the Almighty that she was a big girl!
Jesus may have battled evil and saved the world, but he had never dealt with a three year old keg of recalcitrant dynamite like Kenzie Shae Cordan.
I giggled as I imagined Jesus after a couple of hours with Kenzie. Like the tide eating away at a sand castle, Jesus’ infinite patience would begin to crumble, disappearing more quickly than a cupcake at a weight watchers convention.
Like a weary housewife, I envisioned Jesus running in every direction, trying to deal with Kenzie while accomplishing his daily errands.
“Jesus, tie my shoe! Jesus get me a cup of orange juice! Jesus, I gotta go potty” It’s enough to make even the son of God reach for an aspirin. Just because you’re the Supreme Being of time and space, doesn’t mean that Kenzie can’t wear you down like the knees in an old pair of jeans.
Poor Jesus, I thought to myself as I watched him trudge through the imaginary kitchen of my mind. He was wearing a bright pink house coat and yellow rubber gloves, wiping sweat off his halo, as food on the stove boiled over. Kenzie was screaming, phones were ringing, the dog scratching at the back door, and the TV blaring.
I imagined a worn out Jesus getting on the phone and dialing up the other two thirds of the Holy Trinity. While listening to the heavenly chimes of the phone, he would pensively puff on an unfiltered Camel cigarette, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist.
“What is it my son?,” a deep, sagacious voice would suddenly ask on the other end of the line.
Jesus would look nervously around the house, then in a staccato voice say; “God, this kid’s a handful!, are you still testing my loyalty, because this is pushing it.”
From somewhere above the horizon a deep laugh burst through a thunder clap, then the line went dead.”
“I should have used AT&T,” Jesus mumbled to himself, knowing he was in trouble. The Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and Kenzie. The immaculate Quartet!
Poor Jesus! Hands raw from detergents, ears blistered from chronic tantrums, and nerves frazzled from Tele-marketers. If I was him, I’d throw Kenzie over my knee and make her say a couple of Hail Mary’s.
SPRITE
Kenzie has developed a physical dependence on Sprite soda. She calls it “spirit soda”. I’d probably be able to refuse her entreaties to have it more often, if she wasn’t so damn cute calling it Spirit Soda.
“Daddy, can I have some Spirit,” she’ll say batting her eyes and laying her cheek on one of her shoulders. “I’ll be your best friend.”
It’s hard to resist.
MOSQUITOES
Zander came in the other night covered with mosquito bites. His little white arms were covered with more red blotches than a government UFO report obtained through the freedom of information act.
He was scratching more furiously than a sand flea burrowing through a piece of concrete.
“Mommy, I’m covered with “skeeto” bites,” he lamented.
Like a well trained dermatologist, Dana lathered his skin with an inch of frothy Calamine lotion. Zander’s arm looked like the hull of the Exxon Valdez, dripping with a gooey viscous soup.
“Thanks, mommy, he shouted as he scurried out the door into a new onslaught of flying blood suckers.
Kenzie watched, then asked, “Mommy why does them “keetos” keep eating Zanner?”
“I don’t know baby. Maybe cause he’s so sweet.”
Kenzie scratched her chin. “Well how come I don’t have any bites? Is it cause I’m so evil?”
Dana laughed, while Kenzie continued. “I know mom, sometimes I’m good butlots of times I’m bad, huh? “keetos” don’t like bad blood do they?”
THUNDER WILL HEAR US
During our latest outbreak of severe weather, Kenzie was peering through the blinds. Flashes of white brilliance lit up the sky, followed by sonic explosions that rocked the house.
Kenzie shivered, clutching her beanie baby.
“It’s ok,” Zander said in his best caring brother voice. “The storm won’t get us in here.”
“Shhhhh!” Kenzie put her fingers to her lips and stared at Zander with wide eyed nervousness.
“Don’t talk about thunderstorms. They’ll hear you, then they’ll come after us.”
PAST LIFE EXPERIENCE
Kenzie will blurt out almost anything that comes across her tiny mind. The other day, she hit me with this question.
“Daddy, remember when I was a boy. A tiny Halloween boy!”
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EAT
With Cheetos filling her face, I asked Kenzie this question. “Kenzie,how much junk food can you possibly eat?”
Her face was covered with a crumbly layer of orange fuzz. Her teeth were orange. Her lips were orange. Her fingers were orange. Her cheeks were orange.
She thought about my question for a moment, then said; “When it comes to Cheetos, daddy. I can eat a lot!”
NAKEDNESS IS OUR FRIEND
Father Rick is your typical Catholic Priest. Avuncular, and stoic. Well versed in the bible and warm of heart.
On the first day of summer camp at St. George’s Pre-school, Father Rick turned the corner and stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw dropped faster than a Hong Kong stock market during a shortage of Raman Noodles.
There before him is Kenzie Shae, completely naked dancing and prancing in the hallway.
Father Rick nervously looks around for order in this momentary aberration of chaos. He spots Dana, who is hurriedly rushing down the hallway with Kenzie’s dress.
“You know there aren’t suppose to be naked children in the hallway, ” the priest says clearing his throat.
Before Dana can respond, Kenzie picks up a bowl of water and pours it over her head.
“Come on in, Father Rick, the water will cool you off.”
Kenzie laughed demonically, while Dana, of course, was mortified.
WITCH ON THE STREET
I was leaving for work the other day. I was late, and hurrying to find my sports jacket and brief case. As I was hustling out the door, Kenzie shouts to me; “Have anice day dad, and remember. Look out for the evil witch on the street. She’snot nice.”
Words to live by, I thought to myself.
MY CITRUS FRIEND
Most children take a stuffed animal to bed, or a beanie baby or a favorite blanket. With Mackenzie you never know.
The other night I was tucking her in and she says, “daddy, do you want to meet my newest friend?”
“Sure,” I say.
She pulls an orange from beneath the covers.
I laughed. “Kenzie, why do you have an orange in bed with you?”
“He’s not an orange daddy. He’s my friend.”
“When did an orange become your friend?”
“When mommy was about to squeeze him into juice. I didn’t want him to get hurt, so now he’s my friend and he sleeps with me and keeps me warm.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Whatever baby. Whatever.”
Just before I turned out the light, I stole a last glance. Her eyes were all ready shut, her thumb in her mouth, and her other arm wrapped around her orange friend. I chuckled and turned out the light.
BAD HAIR DAY
Zander has magnificent hair. Thick, and sun bleached blonde. clients at the hair club for men would kill for such a hirsute mop upon their chrome domes.
I was in the bedroom the other night, and from behind the bathroom door, I hear snip, snip, snip!
“What’s that?,” I muttered.
I opened the door and caught Zander trimming his own hair with a scissors. Beautiful locks were everywhere. In the sink, in the toilet, on the floor. His bangs were more crooked than the zig zag on Charlie Brown’s sweater. He looked like Moe of the Three Stooges, after a knife fight with a crazed squirrel.
“what the hell do you think you’re doing?,” I hollered.
He looked at the floor, rubbing his big toe in the hairy evidence all around him.
“well,” he sputtered. “I don’t like my hair, so I was fixing it.”
“You fix it with a hair brush,” I lamented. “Not a scissor.”
Talk about your bad hair days!
TORNADO BOY
Upon seeing baby Cordan’s ultra sound photo, Kenzie shouted; “Why is mybaby brother a tornado?”
“He’s not a tornado baby,” Dana laughed. “That’s just the way the photograph looks.”
“Well it looks like there’s a tornado in mommy’s tummy.”
YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY MACKENZIES
Kenzie still emphatically maintains that we name her baby brother Mackenzie. When reminded that her name is Kenzie, and that two children named Kenzie might beconfusing, she says,
“That’s all right daddy, I like confusing.”
UMBILICAL RELIEF
After staring at his mom’s pregnant stomach for a while, Zander asked this question.
“Mommy, how does the baby go to the bathroom in there?”
Dana looked around nervously, wondering herself for a moment.
“Well, he doesn’t use a toilet like you do.”
“So where does all that poop go?”
Dana started getting a little uncomfortable with the question. “Well I don’t really think he poops, but his “stuff” goes into this thing called the umbilical cord.”
“And where does that go?”, he continued.
“Well it goes into me I guess, and I get rid of it for him.”
Zander wasn’t phased. “Oh mom that can’t be very attractive.”
“No baby, I’m sure that it is not.”
FATHER’S DAY
It was dubbed the Father’s Day Project. A scheme of such avarice and pure bathetic brilliance that to this day the original schematics of the plan are kept in a bunker deep below the deserts of Nevada.
Its inception dates back to the Cold War, when Americans needed another reason to believe we were the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. What better rallying cry than “dear old dad”!
Its inception was agreed upon in the darkness of an empty missile silo. That’s where Engineers at AT&T, and copy writers for the Hallmark Greeting Card Company toasted one another with cheap champagne.
Father’s Day was born. In theory, it was an idea more simplistic than an Idaho potato. A way to tug at the heart strings of America during a time of the calendar year, when not much was causing the public to reach into their pocketbooks. Like a devious Jack the Ripper, monolithic corporate America knew it had the proverbial golden goose when it invented the concept of Father’s Day and sold it to the public as one of those Can’t Miss
hHHHH Holidays.
“It’s ingenious!,” Horatio T. Spittlebug, President of Hallmark was quoted as saying. “It’s like asking every American citizen to put a twenty dollar bill in an envelope and mail it to us. When we got them to accept Mother’s Day, I thought we’d reached our apex. I was wrong. And the financial commitment Americans make every Valentine’s Day, still makes me shudder. And now, Father’s Day!, another superfluous event to rally their hearts, and empty their wallets. Ain’t America grand.”
That was decades ago, but Father’s Day still exists, very much as the founding fathers in that dingy missile silo predicted it would.
In my estimation it has lost some of its luster as a revered holiday of significance.
To me, Father’s Day is like the backwash from a fruit flavored wine consumed from a bottle with a screw on top. Compared to Mother’s Day, it’s a step child at the family reunion of special occasions. No one makes reservations for Sunday Brunch on Father’s day. No one unpacks their finest bonnet on Father’s Day. No one dons their prettiest party dress for Father’s Day. No one sends a box of candy or bouquet of roses on Father’s Day.
But since it’s the day we father’s get, it’s the day we must make the most of, which is what I did this last Father’s Day.
It was one of those usual Sunday morning scenes. Bright and early, the sun barely creeping over the foliage that surrounds our house. I was staring at the morning world as if looking through greasy Saran Wrap. I was groggy and wiping particles of sleep from my eyes. The kids were excited, bouncing off the furniture as if they had spent the night cooking methamphetamines in some bucolic drug lab
It was like Christmas morning, where I was suppose to come vaulting down the stairs, looking for presents.
The kids gathered around me hiding gifts behind their backs. Each of them had a huge smile of pure joy. They were excited to give their daddy a special token of their affection on his special day.
Kenzie gave me a pair of Fruit of the Loom underpants; size thirty four waist. Since Father’s Day is a made of economic event, there really isn’t any theme wrapping paper available, so Kenzie used some old crinkled Christmas paper. Dana gave me a Cat in the Hat tie, because Kenzie told her that she likes kitty cats.
But perhaps the most intriguing Father’s Day present of all, came from Alexander. He made it at school, with love and Elmer’s glue. It was an ash tray shaped like a purple whale. Even though smoking is the most execrable habit known to man, and I haven’t enjoyed good whale blubber since I was a boy, I kissed his forehead and thanked him profusely. As if a purple whale ash tray made in pre-school isn’t enough, Alexander choice to wrap my gift in a coffee filter that was painted red and yellow and blue.
After unwrapping this very unusual gift, he said with a beaming smile, “and you can even make coffee with the filter, dad. Nothing’s wasted.”
Father’s Day. What it lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in cherished moments of family togetherness and high octane java.
READING IS FUNDAMENTAL
The other day Zander was quizzing Kenzie with flash cards. Zander would hold up a card with the word J E T, then he’d begin sounding out the letters.
Kenzie was sitting across from him and guessing the word before Zander could even finish saying the word.
One card after another: B U G. H A M. B U S. Each timeZander started to sound out the word, Kenzie would beat him to the phonicspunch. Finally Zander couldn’t take it any longer.
“Mommy, come here, you’ll never guess what Kenzie can do.”
Dana came over and started laughing. It turns out, Zander forgot the flash cards were double sided. While he was staring at the words, Kenzie was looking at the picture representing the word on the other side of the card. Zander laughed.
“Oh mommy, I thought Kenzie was a genius.”
FAT DAD
Zander looked at my bare torso the other day and said, “hey dad, you really need to start exercising.”
Life doesn’t get any easier when your kid calls you a fatso and you start using that belt notch closer to the buckle!
AUNTS
Kenzie said to another little girl at the pool: “Hi I’m Kenzie. I have a mommy and a daddy and aunts. lots and lots of aunts. do you have aunts?”
PIMPLES
This next one is kind of gross, but kids are kids. Kenzie was looking at
a pimple that I had under my arm. She was studying it, like there was going to be a quiz at the end of the day.
After much ruminating, she blurted out; “daddy, that’s gross. It looks like Zander’s private area.”
TOILET TAIL
Zander often gets up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. Usually, he’s half asleep, calling for me to help him.
It’s an unpleasant task, but usually he wants help wiping himself. If he weren’t my son, I’d doubt I’d get up and do it, but since he is, and it’s written in some dad handbook somewhere, I usually try and accommodate his bathroom needs.
Often though, when I try and help him, he becomes embarrassed and runs away with a soiled rear end and toilet paper hanging out of his rump like a kite’s tail.
You want to know what real parenting is? It’s chasing your naked kid through the dark with a long stream of white toilet paper attached to his ass!
TUNA MY FRIEND
Weird but true. Dana found a can of tuna fish in Kenzie’s bed the othernight. Thankfully it was sealed.
We don’t know why she decided to take a can of tuna to bed, but at least it doesn’t get mushy, like her other night time friend, Mr. Orange.
Good friends are hard to keep fresh.
HOUSE SHOPPING
We were living the American dream the other day shopping for a new home.It’s an expensive home in a pristine community. I was talking with the realtor when Zander runs in and screams in his loudest voice, “Daddy, this house is perfect.”
“Why is that Zander?,” I ask.
“Because it has a hose. we’ve got to get this house dad.”
I turned to the realtor and said, “Bet you didn’t list the hose that high up on the features this house has to offer did you?”
She laughed, exclaiming that maybe she should next time.
FLYING POOP
From the excrement can be fun file: Kenzie looked in the toilet theother day and said, “Hey dad, my poop looks like a rocket ship. flush it.”So I did. Kenzie thought that was the greatest.
“Weeeeee, cool. look at my poo poo rocket ship fly.”
WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM
The inevitable question now-a-days is; “Where do baby’s come from?”
Our stock answer is, “God sends them to earth from heaven.”
The other day Zander says, “Do the babies need a heat shield to protect them when they’re reentering the atmosphere?” My kid has obviously watched Apollo 13 one too many times.
YOUR BUTT IS A PRIVATE PLACE:
As Zander was getting out of the tub, Kenzie kept yelling at him: “Zanner,Zanner, I see your butt.” For the first time, Zander showed a littleembarrassment and tried to keep covered up.
Holding his towel strategically, he hollered back. “Kenzie, yourbutt is a private place. you shouldn’t be looking at other people’s butts.”
LUMP OF COAL:
Since Zander is 3 years older than his sister, he thinks he can tell herwhat to do. Lately, he scolds Kenzie telling her that if she’s bad, Santawon’t bring her any toys.
Well like anything else, Kenzie became desensitized to this strategy. So Zander shifted gears and tried a more direct approach. He began telling Kenzie Santa would bring her nothing but a sack of coal if shemisbehaves.
Now Kenzie runs around saying, “I don’t want a lump of coal. I’ll be a good girl!”