Dad Speaks

I want to do a post!

Well, do a post then…

Fine!

Don’t yell at me.

I will yell at whomever I wish!

Take your “whomever” and stick it.

Listen; stop distracting me from my post. This is important!

We’ll see…

There you go again, undermining my posting ability!

You are still yelling.

YOU are yelling!

Nuh-uh.

Are TOO!

Wow, I’m sorry you had to read through all of that. The “terrible twos”, as they are commonly called, are rapidly approaching and I feel like I’m in the middle of an argument at all hours, even with myself. Mind you, our kids are not two, so if this isn’t the terrible twos yet, (the “Nightmarish Nineteen Months—es’s’seses?), then we are probably going to have to build an underground bunker and just ride out the entire year of 2009. Steel-enforced bunker. Radiation proof. Anyway, here are some examples of “(Pre) Terrible Twos (Coming this spring to Fox!)”

• The Moop couldn’t stack three little Santa Claus figures on top of each other (which weren’t meant to be stacked anyway), so he threw himself face first on the ground and kicked his legs very hard. He also cried until he choked.
• Boots tried to open the gate we have at the foot of our stairs which was locked on purpose so that she shouldn’t be able to open it. After 10 seconds of attempting to open the locked gate, she yelled very loudly and then grabbed Moop in a bear hug, head butting him repeatedly until he cried.
• Both Boots and the Moop scream “MINE!” reflexively, even if they aren’t pointing at anything specifically, and even if they are alone.
• Boots very often points at Mommy and shouts “MINE!” when the Moop is sitting in her lap reading a book. Meaning, of course, that her voice has been modeled after a landMINE exploding in your brain cavity.
• On random nights, Boots requires that she take her dinner while sitting in my lap facing me. She refuses to sit in a common high chair like the peasant children do. She will then accept bites of food of her choosing, which she then will chew slowly while resting her head on my shoulder. While this happens, the Moop eats a few bites of something, and then takes his hand and sweeps all other bites of food onto the floor while farting and laughing. Come to think of it, he probably got that from me. I’ll let that slide.
• The Moop will seek out any button that runs any type of electrical equipment and then proceed to turn it on and off 368 times until the button offers its letter of resignation moves on to greener pastures.
• The Boots will wake up at 5:00 am on some mornings and begin to serenade the house with a song she wrote that contains the names of every object she has ever seen, or any person she has ever met. “Mommy, Daddy, Apple, Puppy…” and so on until my fingers are pressed so far into my ears the tips touch each other somewhere near the part of my brain responsible for finding my car keys.
• When it is time to leave for daycare in the morning, Boots will streak through the house looking for a hiding place rather than getting her shoes for me. That leaves me stalking through the house carrying two tiny pink sneakers looking for a pair of midget eyes and a tuft of hair.
• We have approximately 9,321 children’s books in our living room. When Boots decides it is book reading time, she points at the massive book pile and says “Mine?” That leaves me to take a book, hold it up to her and ask “This one?” She will then most likely say “No?” This series of escalating questions usually ends with me holding up all 9,321 books in turn leading me back to the first book, which is the one she wanted all along. By this time, however, I have arthritis and the Moop has already applied for college.

I love being a Dad; I really do. More often than not, I find myself LOL-ing and ROFLMAO-ing and other internet idiocies. (And really, if people LOL-ed as often in real life as they do on the internet, there would be about 10,000,000,000 people being evaluated for psychological problems. “How was work today? LOL!!!” “It was OK… ROFLMAO!!!1!11!” “I drank coffee! *choking from laughing so hard*” Seriously, take it down a notch, internet chatters. You aren’t that happy. You just aren’t.) As a parent, I feel like I’m allowed to be annoyed sometimes. My sleep patterns are constantly messed with, and I am constantly told how much I am loved by a giant purple dinosaur, which is exactly as disconcerting as it sounds.

I do know that my kids are growing up entirely too fast. The other day, Moop helped me figure out the new tax laws, and I was all like “Wha?!?!?” and he was all like “PUPPY!” and then I was all “Dude!” Strangely enough, I followed everything he said, and I guess in the end that’s what being a parent is: Understanding your kids even if they are speaking gibberish. If I get annoyed, I’ll blame it on a lack of sleep. If I get a bigger tax refund, I’ll thank the Moop, because he is a tax genius. If I stumble upon Middle Earth one day, I’ll thank Boots because she is a mischievous hobbit. If I survive the teenage years, I’ll thank myself with a hearty handshake and a “Well done, sir!” which will probably put me in line with the other 10,000,000,000 people being mentally evaluated, and that suits me just fine.