The Walking Dead: Season One, Episode One - With the Kids

Renaya (11), Laura (10), and Frederic (8) curled up on the couch beside me, and we began.

It didn't take long for Frederic to be watching, peeking out between his fingers, Renaya to be begging for spoilers so she could feel better about the current scenes, and Laura, weeping into her lap, curled into the fetal position at the end of the couch.

Then came the scene where Rick himself curled up in the fetal position in his empty house and wept over the assumed loss of his wife and son. I looked over at Frederic and his face was falling. He began to cry. Tears flowed down his face as he gurgled out a request to crawl up onto Mommy's lap. 

Fred has one hell of a heart.

When Rick finally made it into the tank and the kids heard Glen's voice come over the radio, they all gave each other relieved looks and started to giggle. Renaya then wailed at the television, seeing the horse mutilated on the street.

If I ever come upon a group of zombies eating a horse, I'm shooting them all dead! They're mean!

Smugly, I retorted:

They's already dead. 

Yep. She loves horses. But she wouldn't buy the argument that it was the horse or Rick. I mean, this isn't Horse Land, 'Naya.

They are now all three curled up in Renaya's bed, having mutual nightmares together. I gave them a dull axe for safety. 

Read about Episode Two and Three...

Frederic is Getting an Excellent Science Education

I heard whimpering and footsteps coming down the grand staircase.  Frederic (8) bounded through the living room doorway, looked around, and saw me laying on my stomach on the carpet, up on my elbows, typing away on my laptop.  He was carrying a cup of ice that he had been munching on.

"Daddy!" [whimpers] "I shrunk my tongue, eating this ice."

I tried valiantly not to giggle, covering my face with the inside of my elbow.

"Pray tell, Juaca Baby (that's Fred's nickname), how do you know you shrunk your tongue?!"

I buried my face further into my arm, trying desperately to hide my mirth.

"I used to be able to touch almost to my nose with my tongue and now I can only touch to here," Fred said, as he pointed to about halfway between his lips and nose.

"Show me, buddy."

He wound up his face muscles and tentatively stuck his tongue out - touching just beneath his nose.

"Oh.  I guess I didn't shrink it!"

Then Fred flashed one of his beautiful smiles, giggled, and bounded back up the stairs.

Felicity (6) walked over and saw me burying my face into my arm, pointed to me and laughed.

"Daddy is having sympathy pains.  He can't handle Freddie telling him about his tongue!"

I couldn't hold it in anymore, ripped my arm away, and laughed with her.

Always an Obstructionist

I had to go into work today to complete an emergency project. Kristine was working, as well, so I drew the short straw to get all the kids.  As we were driving to the office, the kids begged for tunes.  I knew they wanted me to turn on a hit music station, but I didn't feel like it.  I elected for Classical Minnesota Public Radio, 99.5 FM.  As a score played, the following conversation ensued:

Felicity (6): "Hey guys!  This song is real."

Frederic (8), without skipping a beat: "No it's not!!!!"

Me (33): "Um...what does "this song is real" mean and why would you say "no it's not"?

I pestered the two with this question in several different ways because it seemed to confuse them quite thoroughly that they were being asked to explain themselves.

Felicity: "Um...I don't know.  I actually forgot."

Me: "Fred.  What does "real" mean and why did you disagree?  Felicity doesn't even know what it means."

Fred: "I don't know."

Just as I thought.  It didn't matter what Felicity said.  All that mattered, to Fred, was that there had to be a clear opposing position to any statement that she made.  He was ready, at a moment's notice, to disagree.

The boy has a job in politics.  I should start grooming him now.  

I Am Not the World's Greatest Dad

I arrived home to the smell of steamy poop.  The dining room smelled like it.  The living reeked.  Kristine had just left for work and I needed to make supper.  I decided to breathe through my mouth and close my nose with my epiglottis.  You become a master at that exercise as a dad of six kids.  I'm as good at that as a woman doing kegels (in preparation for childbirth, of course).

We began training Analisse (2) to go to the bathroom on the potty a week or so ago.  She forced our hand by ripping off her diaper and marching to the toilet, opening it, peeing, wiping herself, and then notified us of her victory by slamming the cover down so hard, it shook the house.  I heard the noise and rushed into the bathroom, only to be greeted by a giggly little girl, so proud of her accomplishment, she was spewing out the words in perfect sentences:

"I went peeeee!!!!"

She got candy.

But that was pee.  She loved doing it.  She hated diapers - unless she had to poop.  Kristine sat with her a few days ago for a few hours, finally coaxing her to go one little turd.  She kept hopping off and coming back, hopping off, and coming back.  Finally, she succumbed and let out a little sheep ball of blackness.  That was the last time.

I found the pork chops in the freezer and walked up the basement stairs.  I could smell the fecal matter as I neared the top stair and went into denial mode, covering my nose again from the inside.  I defrosted the meat and sliced potatoes, hoping beyond hope, grasping at the elusive possibility that Kristine had left a diaper on her from nap time.  I convinced myself of this, even though Kristine had informed me on the second day of Analisse's potty training that she slept through nap time with underwear on.

I finished defrosting the chops, poured olive oil into the bottom of two glassware cake pans, covered them with salt and freshly ground pepper, shoved the pans in the oven at 350 degrees, and began to fry the potatoes.

Analisse ran past me giggling.

I laughed as she ran past me, momentarily forgetting that I was purposefully plugging my nose.  I breathed in deeply - and choked on the rancid air.  This was most definitely not a diaper issue.  She had gone in her underwear.  I knew it.  But, I had one last glimmer of hope and, grasping at it, I yelled out to the living room:

"Renaya!  Laura!  Frederic!  Change The Freak's diaper....NOW!!!"

Every good parent knows that you yell the names of all capable hands.  Only one will really end up doing the task, but she'll pummel the other two and force them to help her.  This way, if things go bad, they might, together, be able to get something done successfully, decreasing the chances that you'll need to pitch in and help where you would rather not.

I just wanted to cook supper!

The kids sprang to action, sitting up slightly in their resting positions in the living room.

"Now!! Dammit!!!" 

Now they knew I meant business and slowly dragged themselves out to the kitchen, chased The Freak down and I listened carefully as they laid her down in the living room, preparing to change the diaper.

I busied myself with the frying, counting down the six seconds that it would take to discover underwear vs. a diaper.  Sure enough:

"Ewww, Daddy!  YUCK!  Gross, Daddy!  This is disgusting.  Blecht!  Oh, nasty!!!!!"

My heart hit the floor.  

I rushed into the living room, scooped Ani up in my arms, walked quickly to the bathroom with a bucket of wipes and laid her down on the bathroom rug.  Her shirt and pants were fine as I peeled them off but I could see her underwear was a thick and slimy mass of soft squishy wonder.  I took them off slowly, yelled for a garbage bag (threatening no supper if I didn't get it in seconds), got it delivered to me in record time, cleaned up her butt, kicked her out of the bathroom, happy and giggling, and then focused my attention on the underwear.

The poop was halfway between a hard ball and diarrhea.  It covered the entire area of the back of her underwear.  I rolled up a wad of toilet paper and tried valiantly to scrape the contents into the toilet.

The poop wouldn't budge.

I began to turn on the hot sink water, thinking I would wash it off, hoping the majority would melt away or evaporate into hot steam, hoping I wouldn't plug up the p-trap.  The p-trap!  

Turning around, I tossed the underwear in the garbage bag, tied it closed, washed my hands, and texted Kristine that we needed to buy more underwear.  I returned to the kitchen and finished supper - arguably more flavorable at this point.