There really is no story to go along with this picture. It’s one of the hundreds of pictures I took last week (while GWE was out of town) to prove that the kids were still alive.
I sat him on his changing table and told him to give me his best “Blue Steel.”
We are still waiting to hear back on his application to “The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too”.
On Monday, GWE left Los Angeles and went on a week long business trip to the East Coast. She had been talking about it for quite awhile and Justin was fully aware of what was going on. Besides GWE leaving at 5:00am, nothing was different that morning. We continued our normal routine of getting dressed, making breakfast, and heading off to daycare.
When we got to school, I asked Justin if he wanted to assist me in dropping Garrett off in the infant room. He politely declined and headed over to the main office to talk to a couple of his teachers. I quickly got Garrett situated and as I was coming out of the infant room I heard an eruption of laughter. It was coming from the main office. Knowing that Justin was last spotted there, I feared the worst.
When the laughter died down, one of the teachers told me what had happened:
Justin walked into the office and pretended to be sad. When asked what was wrong, he slowly replied, “Mommy went away on an airplane.” And then, like a man who had just come home to find an empty house and an envelope on the mantel, he pathetically whispered, “And all she left me…….was a note.” They all cracked up again in the re-telling of the story!
I assured them that mommy WAS coming home, but I could still hear laughter coming from the office as I proceeded to escort Justin to his classroom.
This is the stuff country songs are made of.
Those of you who’ve been following GenXDaddy know that Justin has cost me thousands of dollars in repairs to the sewage pipes under my house, including the pipes directly under my driveway (which had to be jack hammered and then repaved) and the pipes leading all the way back to the main sewer line at the street. Pipes that have stood the test of time for over 50 years have been pushed past their limits by the “imp” living in my house who thinks it’s funny to flush strange objects down the toilet. We have been incident free for several months and I assumed we had a few more years before Garrett’s potty training put our pipes to the test once again.
Even though Justin is fully potty trained, he refuses to wipe his own butt. To this day, he still calls for me to “take care of his business” and then requests that I use a Wet Wipe to make sure he is clean. (Yes, I take requests.) GWE and I have been encouraging him to wipe his own butt, but he has not yet taken the initiative.
On Saturday afternoon, while I was feeding Garrett, Justin announced that he needed his butt wiped….again. I thought it was a great opportunity for me to NOT be available. I told him that I was feeding the baby and he would have to do it himself. Then, there was silence.
All I heard was a flush and an “uh-oh.” Then, I saw Justin sheepishly walking down the hall. I stopped him and asked, “Why did you say ‘uh-oh’?” He replied that he thought he used too much toilet paper, but it was ok now because it all went down the potty. I went over to the toilet and looked into the bowl suspiciously. I saw nothing and slowly backed away. For the rest of the day, we were incident free.
At 1:00am, I turned off the television so I could go to bed. Bleary-eyed, I headed to the bathroom for one final chance to “put one through the hoop.” When I was done, I flushed and heard the toilet respond in a long and low“GUUUULLLLLP.” I opened one eye and looked into the bowl. What I saw was the potty equivalent of when prospectors strike oil. Brown water began to surge to the surface. In a moment of either brilliant ingenuity or complete stupidity, I grabbed a nearby vase and with both hands I plunged it deeply into the murky waters. I began pulling quart after quart of “turd juice” out of the toilet and disposed of it in the sink in the hopes of not having the toilet overflow onto the floor. After a few moments, the tidal wave passed and the toilet was calm once again.
Afterwards, I sprinted to the kitchen sink and began to scrub everything from the tips of my fingers to the ends of my elbows in scalding hot water and anti-bacterial soap. I must have been there for 10 minutes, but I could not get them clean enough. (“Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky.” – Macbeth)
The following day was Mother’s Day. When my wife awoke, I leaned over to her and romantically whispered into her ear, “Happy Mother’s Day. Whatever you do, don’t flush the toilet.” She stared at me for a moment and then rolled over to go back to sleep.
After a few hours (and some cautious use of potty #2), the plumber arrived and was greeted by GWE. He went to the back of the house to snake the drain closest to the bathroom. After a few moments of assessing the problem, he decided that the best plan of attack was to snake the toilet itself. GWE guided him to the bathroom. As he passed by, I hung my head in shame knowing the horror he was about to witness.
Justin was excited to have the workman in the house. It meant that he had someone to supervise. Once the plumber observed the scene, he did the only decent thing he could do in that situation – he closed the door to prevent Justin from seeing the mess he was about to clear out. Not to be deterred, Justin laid on the ground and tried to get a glimpse of the action from the crack between the door and the floor. Hopefully, he saw nothing.
After twenty minutes, the plumber announced he was done and he quickly left. (I can only assume he raced to the closest de-contamination center to cleanse himself.) The toilet was fixed, Justin was excited to re-christen the working bowl, and GWE’s Mother’s Day present this year became the gift of a swift flush.
As you can see, Garrett is a natural born leader. Here he is at daycare, ruling over his minions. He has a commanding presence no one can ignore. Garrett is an infant among infants!
Little girls want to be near him and little boys want to be him! He is a fair and compassionate leader, yet firm (under all the “pudgy” baby fat) when it comes to demanding attention. Those of us who have studied Garrett’s leadership techniques still marvel at how effective the art of slamming our feet down repeatedly will motivate others to do our bidding.
His best selling book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People…into Changing Your Diaper” has outsold the Bible. Whether it’s drool from his mouth or poop from his butt, Garrett is always producing.
All hail Garrett!
(In a deep, Barry White voice.) Helloooooooo Ladiessssssssss!
I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all of you smart, sexy, passionate, romantic, caring, nurturing, patient, flirtatious, and reproductive (and formerly reproductive) mommies out there! Without you, we would not exist. As a species, we LITERALLY would not exist!
I wanted you to know that I recognize how much each and every one of you mothers out there make sacrifices for your sons and daughters. It does not go unnoticed. You are all goddesses and deserve to be treated like every day is Mother’s Day. (Oh, yeah….this posting will definitely get me some action tonight!)
So, once again, thank you for makin’ me your daddy……blog of choice.
-GenXDaddy
While cleaning up Justin’s toys for the 1000th time, Greatest Wife Ever made an interesting observation – the toys Justin loves the most have stupid, nonsensical names. When I was a kid in the 80’s, our toys were named after 1) the physical description of the toy, or 2) the function of the toy. Silly putty was actually putty; Transformers transformed; He-Man toys were really manly-men action figures with bulging muscles (yet, some questionable hairstyles); and Speak & Spell both spoke and spelled! Even our board games were named after their obvious function – you “operated” in Operation, you sunk Battleships in Battleship, and my Hungry Hungry Hippos were actually HUNGRY!
Today, Justin’s favorite toys are “Squinkies,” “Zoobles,” “Lalaloopsy,” and “Bakugan.” This is a completely new language to any parent. The only reason I know what any of these toys are is because I watch television with Justin. I see the commercials he sees! Otherwise, I would have no idea what he’s talking about. If I had no frame of reference and Justin asked me for a “Zooble,” my first thought would be to take him back to speech class.
I’m going to perform a service for all of you parents who (like me) find themselves standing in the toy aisle at Target without a clue as to what your kid is screaming about. I will translate the toy names for you:
“Squinkies” actually mean “Choking Hazards”
“Zoobles” actually mean “Gay Gremlins”
“Lalaloopsy” actually means “Dead-Eyed Voodoo Dolls”
“Bakugan” actually means “Will Break by End of Day”
I love buying toys for Justin, but I find that I am more likely to buy him a toy that is named after something in reality. You want a football? You got it! You want Hot Wheels? Sure thing. You want a Kaflashbitz? What the hell is that???