Fathered Five

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Alternative title: Broccoli-infused Brownies Rock

You live with a person for 20 years and then you wake up one day, look at the woman in your bed, and realize she’s a complete stranger. A damn sexy stranger, but still.

She’ll look you right in the face and pretend everything’s normal. I mean, I never would have dreamed she was capable of lying so blatantly, day after day.

See, our kids are unbelievable picky eaters. Sit down at a table with five of them and you have five equally obnoxious lists of what they don’t like and won’t eat, not even if you douse it in chocolate sauce. For Girl 16, it’s anything green. Boy 8’s NO list includes everything except rice, mac and cheese, cheese pizza, yogurt, and hot dogs. Boy 4 likes cheerios.

So their nutrition consists of starch, various rendered meat products, starch, cheese powder, dairy, and starch. They’re on a fast road to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. I guess, given that list, nobody could blame Her Hotness for turning to deception. She’s started sneaking butternut squash (rich in beta carotene) into the boxed mac and cheese, protein powder into the yogurt, and—I’m not making this up—pureed broccoli into the chocolate brownies, which are awesome. They’re moist and you can’t taste the green.

It started with our frustration over the kids’ eating habits and then she remembered having heard about Jessica Seinfeld’s book (yes, that Seinfeld), Deceptively Delicious. The book teaches parents how to puree vegetables and mix the puree into common dishes that kids like. So simple, right? It’s kind of a head slapper.

So now when we have grilled cheese sandwiches, it’s toast with melted cheddar and a thick layer of butternut squash puree. (Even if your kids aren’t picky, that one is delicious! Try it.) Sloppy Joes with pureed carrots in the meat mix. A layer of sweet potato puree goes beneath the PB in a common PBJ and the kids are none the wiser.

True, it requires a little extra work, but there’s no other way we’d get Girl 16 to eat spinach, or Boy 8 to eat cauliflower. You can end the “eat your vegetables” battle. Pick up your copy today.

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Which would normally be an easy thing to deal with. Restrict movement, Ibuprofen.

Except “He” and “His” refer to different boys, and that makes it a much bigger problem.

Boy 13 broke the collarbone of his 6-year-old cousin. It might have been intentional.

I was with the extended in laws family about two months ago. We were at a sister-in-law’s house doing dinner and family gathering stuff. The group includes my five plus seven cousins, the twelve ranging in age from six months to 16 years. Including a rowdy passel of boys.

Said boys, 4, 6, 7, and two 13s, were playing in the back yard and decided to have a race from one end to the other. Boy 6 was in the lead when he suddenly face planted and slammed into an object with his shoulder.

He screamed bloody murder. Adults ran out and brought him in. The poor kid was obviously hurting. None of us saw it happen. He said he’d been tripped or pushed.

Her Hotness and I glanced at each other and asked our Boy 13 what happened. “I don’t know. He was running right in front of me and suddenly he fell.” We knew something wasn’t right. But what do you do, tell your son he’s a liar in front of the whole family? With no evidence? It was a stalemate and the matter dropped. (Except for the hurt boy and his parents.)

Yesterday Boy 8 told us that he’d seen Boy 13 push his cousin from behind.

What do I do with that? Two months ago. But intentional bodily harm? On a cousin half his age??

I don’t actually believe he meant to hurt him. I think the younger kid was winning the race and Boy 13 moved to salvage his pride. But is that any better? What if they’d been two steps closer to the object when he fell? Could have smashed his face or worse.

Flash back 26, 27 years. Her Hotness and I were walking home from school with two of my buddies. I was in ninth grade, she in eighth. We were in the home stretch before my house and we all decided to race down the side of the road. I thought I had it sewn up. I knew I was faster than my buddies, and she was just a girl! This could be a good opportunity to show off. We got under the streetlamp post in front of the Boykins’ house and I realized she was going to beat me! She was ahead by a step and I couldn’t catch her.

So I kicked her back-most foot. It caught behind her other leg as she brought it forward and she splayed hands and face first onto the asphalt. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just had to salvage my pride. I regretted it in the instant. I felt literally sick with the stupidity of what I’d done. I don’t think she knows to this day that it was me. I think she thought it was just her own clumsiness. She had gravel embedded in the palms of her beautiful hands for years.

Honey, I don’t think I’ve ever told you how sorry I am. It’s bothered me for a long time. I was a brainless moron and I’m deeply sorry still.

But I really don’t know what to do to about Boy 13. It’s an old offense. But it’s a serious one and he thinks he’s gotten away with it. Suggestions?

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I’ve been listening over and over (obsessively, some might say) to the Disney Tarzan soundtrack. The music is good, but the thing that keeps me listening is that I can feel some thoughts trying to break out and the songs seem to help, like an egg tooth.

This song, in particular. Click the Play button below to listen. Just do it! I know you know the song, but knowing it doesn’t stir you like hearing it does. Just let it loop while you read. And then buy a copyfor yourself. (Lyrics)

Son of Man Oh, the power to be strong And the wisdom to be wise All these things will Come to you in time On this journey that you’re making There’ll be answers that you’ll seek And its you who’ll climb the mountain Its you who’ll reach the peak

So every time I listen I get a little closer to whatever idea is trying to emerge. Something about becoming a man. Something about what should be the joyous raucousness of the journey.

Boy 13 and I went to Montana this last week. Just the two of us. We talked about what it is that makes a boy a man. We agreed on responsibility and self sacrifice: sometimes people count on you. Because people are counting on him, a man steps up even when he doesn’t want to. Even when he’d rather be skateboarding, say, or sleeping. Cooking raw fish over an open fire didn’t enter into it, though that still ranks high on the list of skills you should have if you ever get lost in the wilderness near a well stocked body of water with fishing gear at the ready. (It could happen!)

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This note from Girl 16 will sustain me for a long time. Shared with her permission. What a great kid.

Daddy,
I want to tell you thanks for reading all my text messages. You saw what was coming, and warned me before I even thought I was in trouble. You told me to be more careful, and because I listened to you, I didn’t get hurt in any way. I know that you see things from a different position than I do, and you’ve taught me to take myself out of the middle and see things from the place you’re in. A lot has changed since you opened the door, and I want you to know that I did listen to you. I don’t know everything, but I am smart, and I’m grounded. I’ll be careful, and I know I’ll be fine with you watching out for me. You’ve done a good job of knowing what I need to hear and what I already know/what’s unnecessary.

I have no desire to separate myself from you, even though I’m growing up. In fact, I’m realizing how important you are to me right now, and how much you can help and protect me while I’m dating. You’re doing a great job. I’m so thankful to have you in my life.
I love you, Dad.

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Boy 13 caught and killed it, but if we were relying on it to keep us alive, we’d have died. You know that scene in the movies where somebody catches a fish and then the camera cuts to the perfectly browned fish rotating on a spit over the fire? Yeah, it doesn’t quite work that way.

First, it’s hard to skewer fish unless they’re really big, even when your skewer is not a sharpened stick but a hot dog roaster. The flesh is soft and tears easily. Second, if you do manage to get the thing onto a spit, it’s hard to cook it. The fire is too hot or not hot enough and the fish wobbles and turns on the spit in a very uncooperative way. You can’t simply rotate it evenly and slowly like they do on screen. You have to be careful with the angles and compensate for the fish spinning as you turn the spit, or else the same side will always be facing the fire.

As a result, boy 13 blackened one side of each fish while the other sides were raw before they finally tore off completely and fell into the fire. We gave up and went back to the hot dogs, which are much more forgiving. I survived the weekend in the wilderness relatively unscathed.

We learned something about Girl 2, who at home has a tendency to go out the front door and walk wherever it suits her: she has no separation anxiety. Which means she will simply up and walk away without so much as a “so long,” much less permission. She was 100 yards away before we spotted her pink and purple-striped backside nearly topping the hill where we would have lost her from view completely.

Later that day, her 2-year old cousin came to Her Hotness, breathless: “She’s in the water!” Wife went with the fraught toddler to the edge of the stream, but no Girl 2. Her Hotness panicked and bolted down to the next camp which was just beyond the river bend, hoping, I guess, to catch Girl 2 as she floated by. En route, she met Jamie carrying Girl 2 after having pulled her out of the water. (She was only in ankle deep, but still.)

Yeah, it’s scary. Welcome to my world. I’m trying to nurture Boy 13 in something as abstract as becoming a man while Girl 2 is in mortal danger. What are Girl 16, Boy 4, and Boy 8 up to?? I can’t know because I can only attend to one of them at a time! Her Hotness can do three at once, but watching five stretches even her ability.

You’ll say that Girl 16 and Boy 13 need less watching, but you’re only partially right. Boy 13 still tests the flammability of alcohol and hairspray in his room despite our threats and warnings and confiscation of matches. Who knows what he’d do with a wide open space, sharp objects, and an open flame?? Girl 16 doesn’t require a lot of watching, it’s true, but a percentage of my limited brain is still wired to vigilance over her whether she needs it or not. That’s true of all of them with the result that each kid gets 20% or less of my attention when everything I read leads me to believe that each kid needs and deserves 100% of my fathering attention.

It’s enough to make a guy feel inadequate to the task.

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