I stand facing the bowl. Feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart. Knees slightly bent. Head down.

This is something I have done for approximately the past 34 years of my life. I am so good that I could probably go pro. I can do it (and have done so, I suppose) with my eyes closed. But in all my years, most of the time doing this has been in solitude.

Not today.

In an effort to encourage the potty training, the books recommend that you allow your kids to see you use the facilities. This, along with cartoon patterned underwear, stickers, m&ms, and a crisp $20, is supposed to entice the little one to forgo diapers and switch to the porcelain goddess.

So there I stand. In the aforementioned “stance” with four little eyes staring intently at the intended target, waiting for some action. I am momentarily frozen with stage fright as I feel the urge to go start to wane. I refocus, however, and release the stream.

Immediately Swee’Pea and TheMonk squeal with excitement at the event that is unfolding. It has been a while since I have drank any fluids and what I am producing isn’t exactly clear. In fact, the exact color becomes a source of debate. At first, they seem to agree on the color. “LOOK, IT’S YELLOW!!!” they scream. But then, TheMonk has second thoughts.

“No, it’s not yellow. It’s orange.” He says matter-of-factly.

“No, Monk.” responds Swee’Pea, “It’s yellow. It’s YELLOW!”

No, Swee’Pea.” TheMonk retorts. “IT. IS. ORANGE!!!”

This goes back and forth as I quickly finish up. I wash my hands and walk out the door. As I walk down the hall towards their bedroom I can hear them in the bathroom, continuing the debate.

“Orange!”

“Yellow!”

*Sigh* Can’t we just leave them in diapers until they go to college?

I don’t mean literally fall off the treadmill. It’s just that I took sort of a… hiatus… from all things called exercise. (Although at least 3 or 4 times a year someone falls off the treadmill at my Y. No one uses the emergency stops either. It’s not pretty seeing someone who thought they’d pick up their iPod that fell while running, do a face plant on a treadmill going 8 mph and get flung back to their childhood.)

But I digress. Anyway, since my wife forced me to get active this past weekend, I decided to jump back on the treadmill. And one other thing has got me motivated as well. It seems, that mommies check out “hot dads” when dropping off and picking up kids from school. I did not know this. I hadn’t thought, when contemplating fatherhood, that my pecs, biceps, abs and quads would be scrutinized like I was some subjective piece of meat. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s just that a guy likes to be prepared.)

So, seeing as how I have 2 more years before I’m dropping my kids off, before being ogled by all the Mommies, then I have some serious exercising to do.

Crunches, anyone?

“Watch me, Daddy. Watch me.” you say.

I turn to watch and immediately you make a silly face with your eyes and mouth. You are being funny and we both laugh at your silliness. After our laugh, I look away to tend to something else but soon enough I hear it again. “Watch me, Daddy. Watch me.”

But what you don’t realize, my son, is that I’m always watching you. And though I watch you every day, I can hardly believe how much you’ve grown up. Too soon, my son. Too, too soon. Yet, over the past few months, I’ve watched the little baby boy that I used to hold so closely to my chest on cold winter mornings leave me with nothing but gentle memories that tickle my consciousness like a warm breeze. Instead of that baby face, so soft and warm, I’ve watched a sweet little boy emerge. A little boy that loves to laugh. A little boy that loves to sing. A little boy that will dance to any music any time. A little boy that wants to be watched by his Daddy.

Yes, I’m watching you, my son. I’m watching you grow up right before my eyes and while part of me wants to desperately cling to the last few grains of sand in the hourglass of your infancy, I can no longer deny that you have become a little boy. A little boy who loves cars. A little boy who loves action heroes. A little boy who loves his Daddy.

Almost as much as his Daddy loves him.

Oh yes, I am watching you, my little boy. And someday, when I least expect it, I’ll look over and you’ll be all grown up. A young man who doesn’t want kisses on the cheek or rides on his Daddy’s back but will be more interested in non-Daddy things.

And that’s the bottom line of this parenting thing, isn’t it? As much as I love this phase of my life, my job is not to raise a child at all. Rather it is to raise a man. One who will be confident and kind and loving. And someday - someday too soon for my taste - I’ll look away for a moment and the little boy who snuggles next to me on the couch watching Curious George won’t be there anymore. He’ll be replaced by a man who has his own children and I’ll have to make due with “remember whens.”

So, yes my son. I’m watching you. I wouldn’t want to miss a thing.

I have avoided the topic of death when interacting with Swee’Pea and TheMonk as much as possible.  I’m trying to decide if that’s called smart parenting or me being a wuss.

Anyway, any time we see something that used to be alive (a dead bug, a dried up worm, Lindsay Lohan’s career) Swee’Pea and TheMonk are quick to point it out.  “What’s that, Daddy?” they’ll ask.

“Uh… Um… Hey, was that Dora over there?” Is usually my reply.

I guess I’m just not ready to challenge the innocence of childhood quite yet.

But somehow, somewhere, my kids have been introduced to the concept of death. (My money’s on those little hooligans at daycare.)  This became evident this week when we backed out of our driveway and the kids turned their attention to the snail that has been sitting on the wall of our neighbor’s garage ever since it hit mid-90s last week.  “There’s the snail, Daddy!” announced TheMonk as we passed the dried out remnants of the Gastropod.

“Yep.  There it is, Buddy.  Say bye-bye to the snail.” I reply as I continue to back out our very long driveway.

Then, out of the blue, Swee’Pea adds, “I think the snail dieded.”

“Yeah.” says TheMonk somberly. “The snail dieded.”

My mind races… How do I respond to this?  What do I say?  How can I torture the little punks at daycare who are polluting my children’s innocence with their talk of dead things?

Time stands still.  I have to say something, though, as the silence is deafening.  They are waiting for my words of wisdom.  They need reassurance from a strong parental figure that while death happens all around us, they will be safe and shouldn’t fear what we can’t control.  I need to wrap them in my parental cloak of love and tell them that everything will be okay.

So, I clear my throat, wet my lips, and say…

“HEY! ISN’T THAT DORA?!”

For the past few months, we here at the Childsplayx2 household have been battling (and often losing, I might add) germs and viruses that will not… go… away.

But during that time, I have actually managed to avoid the worst parts of the colds.  With the exception of one very heavy cold, I’ve only had a little congestion here and a little phlegm there.  Overall? Good.

And while the white blood cells inside me were busy fighting off toddler germs (which are, scientifically speaking, the most virulent germs known to mankind) I could tell I was fighting them off because the glands in my neck would become a little swollen from time to time.  Since I went to school with some very fine doctors, I knew that the swollen glands weren’t much to worry about and I just went along my merry way - talking trash to the germs that my swollen glands were pushing aside.

But then… One day, last week, the gland on the left side of my neck swelled up to the size of a golf ball.  Even my pea-sized brain knew that this could not be good.  But it quickly went away and I forgot about it.  And then it happened again.  And again.  After a number of days of this, it started to freak me out.  I started thinking I had lymphoma or some other awful disease that would require major surgery - like removal of my neck - which I knew that I would probably miss.  Finally, yesterday after eating lunch, my neck immediately swelled up again.  I looked like I had swallowed a small rodent and it was hiding in my neck.  It was then that I realized that the common denominator with my swollen neck was eating.  Whenever I ate something spicy or salty or sour, my neck would become swollen.

So last night I got home, explained to Beautiful Wife my predicament (which I had only casually mentioned a month or two ago because I don’t want anyone to worry about me or my swollen neck) and she immediately told me to call the advice nurse through our insurance company.  Which I did.  (Because my wife’s brain, unlike my own, actually has the ability to use reason.) After speaking with the nurse, she basically told me to get my swollen neck to the Urgent Care because, really, if your neck is swollen to the size of a golf ball, isn’t it kinda urgent?

So I go.  And all the way to the urgent care, I’m convinced it’s cancer.  I’m going to die and my little ones won’t know their father.  I’ll need to stop off at Best Buy on the way home and buy a digital video recorder so I can start a video log for my kids in my final months to live.  I wish I was joking.

The place isn’t crowded and I am shown an exam room pretty quickly.  After my vitals are taken I await the doctor.  She shows up soon enough and after I explain my symptoms, she sticks her fingers into my mouth and fishes around.  She finally announces with a fair air of certainty what she thinks is my affliction…

Apparently, I have a clogged salivary gland.

And that is it.  My mouth cannot salivate properly, so the saliva is backing up into my neck.  I already have an appointment with my regular physician for next week so she says he will refer me to a Ear, Nose and Throat doctor.  She prescribes some antibiotics for me to take since ENT’s want to make sure I don’t have an infection before working on me.  And then she prescribes something I never thought I’d hear a doctor prescribe.

“Do you like sour candy?” she asks.

“It’s not my favorite but I can manage.” I reply.

“Good.” she says.  “Pick up some sour candy at the pharmacy.  It will help stimulate the salivary glands and might dislodge whatever is clogging it up.”

So, I sit here tonight knowing that I won’t die from cancer anytime soon.  I am a little sick of lemon drops and sour patch kids but it’s a small price to pay.  I just cannot believe that things like this happen to me.

Lemon drop, anyone?

As a person who holds two degrees in psychology, I have watched with interest how the twins develop over time. It amazes me that they have gone from a virtual Tabula Rasa to full-fledged toddlerhood. In fact, if we were to believe Erick Erickson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial development, they are right now developing their concept of Free Will and it’s been fun watching it bloom.

Of course, when I say “fun” I mean HEAD SPLITTING, CHEST TIGHTENING, HELL.

Instantly, it seems, my well-behaved, adorable little twins who would listen to just about anything I said, have suddenly realized they have… choices.

And I’ll be damned if those choices seem to always be something other than what I would have chose.

In a one hour time-frame from when I got home tonight until I finally wrestled them into bed, I had to put up with the following:

Swee’Pea:
-Threw her whole plate of food on the floor because she didn’t want it.
-After putting food back on plate and putting it in front of her, she ate it. But only with ketchup.
-Refused to open her mouth while attempting to brush her teeth.
-Closed bathroom door and tried to keep me from coming in. Luckily I outweigh her by about 150 pounds.
-Decided she didn’t want to stand on her pink stool to brush her teeth and picked it up and threw it into the hall.

TheMonk:
-Refused to say “thank you” to his sister when she shared her french fries with him. Had fries taken away until he reluctantly said “tanku” as fast as humanly possible.
-Pushed Swee’Pea and refused to say he was sorry. I had to use the “I’ll count to three…” tool.
-Kept turning light in bathroom off and on while I was attempting to shove a tooth brush in his sister’s closed mouth.
-Ventured into the “off limits” laundry room and closed the door while I was distracted by his sister.
-Refused to stand on his own bathroom stool. Pissed off Swee’Pea by standing on hers.
-Started to cry when I told him he couldn’t wear his Lightning McQueen pajama top to daycare tomorrow for the second time in two days.

And I’m sure there’s more that I have subconsciously blocked from my memory. It’s days like these that I want to call up the OBGYN that delivered the twins and ask him what his return policy is. I’m pretty sure my insurance covers the extended warranty.

*My Beautiful Wife normally tag teams with me and we tackle them one-on-one but tonight she was suffering from the same cold the twins passed onto us this past weekend. Since I have many night time functions now with my new job, I definitely owed her one (and probably many more).

At the Y that I most recently left I was the Associate Executive Director - a fancy title that means I was in charge of operations. This included maintaining a 50 year old building.

To keep the plumbing unclogged and the electricity flowing, I worked closely with our maintenance man - who had been there over 20 years and was easily in his 70’s.

He and I are very different people - he rode Harleys in his younger days (I drove a Chevy Cavalier - with dual airbags). He has a few not-so-PC ideas that he’s not afraid to share (I attended Columbia University - the bastion of Political Correctedness). And he has a love for guns - which he painstakingly engraves by hand with beautiful designs (I last handled a gun when I was seven years old - and it was a Daisy BB gun.).

Needless to say, he didn’t warm up to me at first but by the end we built a relationship of mutual respect that was hard earned on my part.

So a couple of weeks ago, he called me at my new Y. I was surprised to hear from him but eventually, after some light-hearted small talk, he told me the reason for his call. He wanted me to apply for a gun permit. After a long pause, as I thought this request over, I asked why. “Well,” he said, “I’m not getting any younger and I have this gun at my house that I’ve engraved and… every time I think about who I want to give it to, you keep coming to mind.”

This is the ultimate compliment from this man. I felt so touched that he would think of me this way and I knew, even though I am not a big fan of guns, that I would get that permit. After all, I could store the gun safely and not buy any ammunition and it would be fine. But I’ve put off getting the permit - being a little busy but also still being a little skittish on potential gun ownership.

And then, something else happened. Swee’pea has a friend at daycare whose name is Brandon. Both TheMonk and Swee’Pea talk about him all the time and it is clear they have a very close relationship with this little boy. Until today, however, I didn’t realize just how close a relationship they had.

As I changed Swee’Pea’s diaper today she began noting that she was girl (and Mommy is a girl and Grandmother is a girl and Nutmeg the cat is a girl…) and that I was a boy. When I asked her who else was a boy she began naming off those closest to her. “TheMonk is a boy. And Brandon is a boy too.” Then she said the three words that I was not prepared to hear so early in her young life…

“I love Brandon.”

I’m getting my gun permit next week.

(And no promises about passing on the ammo.)

I was tagged on a meme by A Very Open Book. The meme is simple in concept. Five thing you want your kids to know. Simple right?

Well, it turns out, choosing just five things you want your kids to know is not as easy as it seems. If I only have five things they should know, should it be something that will keep them from being beat up, like, “Don’t wear plaid with stripes” or should it be more useful over the long haul, like “always check your eggs before buying them”? Perhaps it should be something that could save them embarrassment, like, “Never turn down a mint if offered.” Or maybe they should know the pythagorean theorem - that thing has gotta be useful for someone, right? You see? The possibilities are endless.

Nevertheless, I had to narrow them down. And if you ask me this question a week from now, I’d probably give five different answers but these are my answers today.

1) I want them to know that they can do anything they put their mind to. I want them to know, in their heart, that they can make their greatest desires come true if they are willing to go after it with all of their heart.

2) I want them to know the feeling of giving joy to those less fortunate. Knowing the look of appreciation and relief in someone’s eyes when you make their life just a little bit easier.

3) I want them to know love. I want them to know what kind of love they deserve and settle for nothing else. I want them to find someone that they know, in their hearts, will love them unconditionally forever.

4) I want them to know that they will always have each other. I envy the bond that they have already because they’ve known each other their entire lives. I want them to absolutely know that they will always be there to support each other and love each other.

5) Finally, I want them to know how much their father loves them. I cannot put into a few words how much I love them and my greatest desire is that when my children are older that they will know, without a doubt, that their father loves them with every fiber of his being.

A while back I wrote about my battle of the bulge. It’s not a huge bulge but I feel it and, frankly, I’m getting tired of feeling it. Back in November, when I first announced I was going to battle this bulge, I began working out at the Y two to three times a week and I was on my way. I was feeling good and beginning to look good (if I do say so myself). Then, my new job hit and, at first, I had no time to exercise. I was working 10-12 hour days and I was exhausted. But recently, the pace has slowed enough that I have been feeling like I need to work out again. I just needed a push.

That’s when I saw Darren write about his desire to get fit - codenamed Project X (X is for eXercise) and he invited others to join him. He even decided to start a blog to chronicle Project X. So, I impulsively said, “SIGN ME UP!”

So, I’m going to try this again. Darren’s already starting to work out. Me? I had to polish off the last sleeve of Thin Mints so I won’t get tempted when I start Project X. You know, a guys gotta be prepared.

Wish me luck!

I would consider myself pretty laid back. I’d be the first to tell you that it takes a lot to get me really riled up. I’ve handled awful jobs, four years of Ivy League pressure and rush hour on New York City subways. I’ve done it all and lived to talk about it.

But nothing, and I mean nothing has prepared me for the absolute head splitting, chest tightening, jaw clenching, toe curling, hair raising, eye twitching phenomena of every toddler’s arsenal.

Yes, I’m talking about WHINING. And now, due to my beautiful wife’s amazing ability to spit two eggs out at once during ovulation, we get to listen to whining… in stereo.

“But Daaaaaddddddyyyyyy, I don’t waaaaaaaaaant tooooooooooo.”
“But Daaaaaadddddddyyyyyyy, I hungryyyyyyyyyy. I waaaaaaaaaannnnnaaaaa cooooookieeeee.”
“But Daaaaadddddyyyyyyy, I don’t waaaaaaaaant miiiiiiilllllkkkk. I waaaaaaaant jooooooooce.”
“But Daaaadddddyyyyyy, I don’t waaaaaaaannnnnaaaa wear the muuuuuuzle.”

You get the idea. It’s all I hear now. It’s all day, every day. If I had hair left on the top of my head, I’d be pulling it out right about now. If the CIA can’t use waterboarding as a way of interrogating prisoners, I will gladly offer them Swee’Pea and TheMonk for a nice long weekend - minimum of three days. I mean, the kids will get the prisoners to talk long before the three days are up but I need that time to allow the scars to heal.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired and I have to go to bed. I don’t waaaaaaaaaaaant toooooo but I have toooooooooooo. Otherwise I just end up whining like the kids.