I've really tried to avoid this. Indeed I put it out of my mind a good four times but every time I toss it for good that devilish cherub named Wormwood pops up and flashes his pointee smile telling me that every thing's gonna work out perfect and I'm never gonna get in trouble for the mess I write here. "Nobody reads this blog Bradbury. And besides, 40 years down the road when Brigham is a massively successful carpet cleaning products salesmen, he's gonna want to know his heritage and how he came to be so interested in the trade. Trust me, it'll all work out and you'll get a good laugh in the mean time."
I'm so sorry son, the devil made me do it.
So there I was ... it was a Saturday. Michelle and Calvin were out of town at Summer and Javier's wedding, leaving just the Brigham and myself to fend. Since he's pretty much reliant on me for food, water, shelter and protection from himself and what ever he is trying to pull off the counter on top of himself--it wasn't such a good combination. I've been in this situation with stray dogs before and they always bail on me because they eat better digging through trash cans. Brig's diet consisted of three squares a day of mac-a-doggies and cheese, an occasional sip of ginger-ale pop, chips and salsa, a small case of leftover blueberries, ramen, and a bottle of milk at bed time. Coincidentally very similar to what I was eating without my wife around to help me actually 'prepare' food. Getting the bugger to eat anything is a challenge so unlike his mother who actually feeds him and then makes him eat the healthy stuff --I just ascribed to Adam Sandler's philosophy in the movie "Big Daddy" of he'll eat when he's hungry and he'll eat what he wants because that's where I can get the most calories in him with out expending all of mine in the process. And what he wanted to eat happened to be blueberries - lots of 'em. The kid's a freak for fresh fruit and those little poppers were just the right size for toddler fingers to smash in by the hand full. I first discovered this affinity on Friday night.
It's a simple equation really: Fruit that is healthy + he'll eat it by the bucket = I am the greatest dad ever.
It's a simple equation really: Fruit that is healthy + he'll eat it by the bucket = I am the greatest dad ever.
So back to Saturday. I have a check ride the following week and am reasonably concerned with my ability to perform on it so I scheduled with some friends to all meet at the office and study for a while. "Hey" I thought to myself, "I'll just bring my kid, I mean what harm could come of it?" So at the appointed time I take Brig and prepare him for the short excursion. I change his diaper, plug a bottle in and off we go in the car, right at 10 minutes to Two. About half way to the base I suddenly realize that I won't be allowed through the gate with this vehicle because of expired registration tags.
Frustrated I turn at the light and head to the closest shop to get the inspection done. The salesmen there was something else. I felt like my Grandpa B after he gave Aaron $5 and sent him to the counter to buy a candy bar for the movie. Aaron came back with a box of popcorn, 3 drinks, 5 candy bars, three packs of gummies and as many penny candies as were left over. Likewise I had an 32 point inspection, not one but 3 rock chipped windows fixed, a deluxe car wash/detail job and a big red lolly pop for the kid. An hour and something later and half a box of fresh blueberries (need I remind you what a health conscious dad I am?) Brig and I were on our way.
Following a short 20 minute drive to the office, 5 or 6 minutes to get him out of the car and in the building, 12 minutes to get the flight planning room "child proofed" and 13 more for explaining why I was so late to the study session and then man was I ready to get down to some serious studying. By now the expected two hours that we'd be away from the house had all but expired and I'll be danged if I wasn't going to get some studying done for all this effort.
It drifted in like a memory. At first you don't recognize it. You think it might be something nice, something colorful and pleasant, something you want to gather and keep. Then you breathe deeper; the pleasant fruity waft that some how deceptively opened your olfactory senses turns on your nose and hammers you to oblivion; you want tears but the fluids in your face are being rerouted to allow continued minimized brain function. The offense is near...and strong; indeed getting stronger. Your eyes and those of all in the room begin the desperate search to discover the villainous putridity. It's not on top of the numerous tables, behind the row of idle computers, The stoic copy machine has no vice so evil. Despair and disgust, wrinkled noses and accusing glances are shot from one face to the next.
Then almost as one we noticed it: a bounding mound of furiously blond hair toddled up and down the aisles of chairs and between our legs. "Kahndee?" He asked as he held his chubby little hand out for more blueberries, seemingly impervious to the wretched stench following him and his diaper where ever he went almost as if a green cloud drawn behind him in a cartoon or something.
Then it hit me and the excuses to my colleagues began to tumble from my mouth. " I am so sorry...I am a terrible father...please forgive me...it's his mother's fault for trusting me with him"
Yes I has committed the cardinal sin of parenting: I had left the house unprepared to deal with spills, playtime diversions, alimentation, and most heinous of all - dirty diapers. I had left the diaper bag at home. This was the same diaper bag that just the day before Brigham's mother had so conveniently left packed and propped next to the back door-should Brig and I chose to go out together.
Now please, consider with me my pickle. I have a child, my first responsibility in this world, who has a certain need for care and feeding. But also I had a requirement to fulfill in preparation for this check ride - the score of which would most certainly stick with me for the rest of my professional career. And on top of that my friends. They needed my assistance, or so I like to pompously think. How could I leave them in this hour of need? How can they continue to concentrate when they can hardly breathe? What am I to do and what is to be my resolution?
To all my best estimations changing his diaper was not a dire time critical requirement. Heaven knows I went days on end wearing the same dirty diaper and footie pajamas growing up. I usually had to grow out of those sorts of things before my mother got around to those 'details' of child rearing. True story - I once hit myself in the face with a baseball bat, called my mother and because she was at a tea party with the grown ups she delayed coming to give her most beautiful son medical care for five and one half hours. If you're going to grow up in this family by golly you'd better have a good red blood cell system.
So I let it slide. "We'll only be here 25 more minutes and please, everybody understands that kids make noise and poop their pants. Everything will be alright" I thought to myself. Back to chair-flying radio calls for SKE formation takeoffs to hostile DZ's in marginal weather.
My eye, and nose, never wandered far from the little guy. It should be noted that I am amazing. As I sat and watched him and counted the number of times he ran a lap around the room I did something that neither you nor I nor anyone else in the known world has ever done - I counted to infinity. Twice. He was nonstop motion. From his grubby little hands touching every keyboard and mouse, to his gibbering little mouth commenting on everything his flashing eyes saw to elbows dragging his little body up on roller chairs to spin around in and glide across the floor with. Yes even his cute little point five bum was in motion. In fact it seemed to be in greater motion than normal.
As I chased him around I accidentally stepped on a blueberry. They make awful messes on industrial tile floors in case you were wondering. In the last turn around the chart table I stepped on two more and counted five that I avoided. They seemed to be everywhere. He must have taken those blueberries and just run around the room with the box wide open. "Great" I thought, "just another mess to clean up."
Then kind of like Bambi's mother hearing the twig snap and the crack of the gun - I knew something was terribly wrong. Brig had finished off that box at least 20 minutes before, there were no blueberries left to make a mess with. Something was dumb, dangerous or different.
The motion in the point five. As Brig ran away in oblivious felicity to my great horror I looked at his bum and realized that it was every so discretely sneaking out of his pants. Not in the normal way like a plumber though, it was going down his pant leg. He was losing his diaper and pretty much everything in it. Those blueberries strewn so carelessly about had been spilt by Brigham, the box was wide open if you will. But the little man had eaten so many in the last two days that his body had given up digesting them and given a free ride to all coming through the gate - if you know what I mean.
The mess was so complete and the embarrassment so thorough that I didn't even have the guts to admit to my friends what I had just happened. "How on earth did little purple rocks get in here?" mused Susan.
"I think you're imagining things." I replied.
"These are kind of like the snotberries we had in my backyard when I was a kid."
"I'd put that down if I were you Susan; you never know where it might have been."
We wrapped up the study session very courteously and discretely gathered our things--including that dingle-dangle-danglin' in the wind, and headed home before anyone was the wiser. We hope.
The next morning Brigham and I returned when no one else was there. We were armed with a mop, two bottles of 409, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of spray bleach. It covered it up but man I'll never walk into that room without the scent of blueberry muffins and the sight of furious blond hair running through my mind.
I intentionally didn't put pictures in here for your benefit.
Like I said, I'm sorry son.
Love,
dAddie
Frustrated I turn at the light and head to the closest shop to get the inspection done. The salesmen there was something else. I felt like my Grandpa B after he gave Aaron $5 and sent him to the counter to buy a candy bar for the movie. Aaron came back with a box of popcorn, 3 drinks, 5 candy bars, three packs of gummies and as many penny candies as were left over. Likewise I had an 32 point inspection, not one but 3 rock chipped windows fixed, a deluxe car wash/detail job and a big red lolly pop for the kid. An hour and something later and half a box of fresh blueberries (need I remind you what a health conscious dad I am?) Brig and I were on our way.
Following a short 20 minute drive to the office, 5 or 6 minutes to get him out of the car and in the building, 12 minutes to get the flight planning room "child proofed" and 13 more for explaining why I was so late to the study session and then man was I ready to get down to some serious studying. By now the expected two hours that we'd be away from the house had all but expired and I'll be danged if I wasn't going to get some studying done for all this effort.
It drifted in like a memory. At first you don't recognize it. You think it might be something nice, something colorful and pleasant, something you want to gather and keep. Then you breathe deeper; the pleasant fruity waft that some how deceptively opened your olfactory senses turns on your nose and hammers you to oblivion; you want tears but the fluids in your face are being rerouted to allow continued minimized brain function. The offense is near...and strong; indeed getting stronger. Your eyes and those of all in the room begin the desperate search to discover the villainous putridity. It's not on top of the numerous tables, behind the row of idle computers, The stoic copy machine has no vice so evil. Despair and disgust, wrinkled noses and accusing glances are shot from one face to the next.
Then almost as one we noticed it: a bounding mound of furiously blond hair toddled up and down the aisles of chairs and between our legs. "Kahndee?" He asked as he held his chubby little hand out for more blueberries, seemingly impervious to the wretched stench following him and his diaper where ever he went almost as if a green cloud drawn behind him in a cartoon or something.
Then it hit me and the excuses to my colleagues began to tumble from my mouth. " I am so sorry...I am a terrible father...please forgive me...it's his mother's fault for trusting me with him"
Yes I has committed the cardinal sin of parenting: I had left the house unprepared to deal with spills, playtime diversions, alimentation, and most heinous of all - dirty diapers. I had left the diaper bag at home. This was the same diaper bag that just the day before Brigham's mother had so conveniently left packed and propped next to the back door-should Brig and I chose to go out together.
Now please, consider with me my pickle. I have a child, my first responsibility in this world, who has a certain need for care and feeding. But also I had a requirement to fulfill in preparation for this check ride - the score of which would most certainly stick with me for the rest of my professional career. And on top of that my friends. They needed my assistance, or so I like to pompously think. How could I leave them in this hour of need? How can they continue to concentrate when they can hardly breathe? What am I to do and what is to be my resolution?
To all my best estimations changing his diaper was not a dire time critical requirement. Heaven knows I went days on end wearing the same dirty diaper and footie pajamas growing up. I usually had to grow out of those sorts of things before my mother got around to those 'details' of child rearing. True story - I once hit myself in the face with a baseball bat, called my mother and because she was at a tea party with the grown ups she delayed coming to give her most beautiful son medical care for five and one half hours. If you're going to grow up in this family by golly you'd better have a good red blood cell system.
So I let it slide. "We'll only be here 25 more minutes and please, everybody understands that kids make noise and poop their pants. Everything will be alright" I thought to myself. Back to chair-flying radio calls for SKE formation takeoffs to hostile DZ's in marginal weather.
My eye, and nose, never wandered far from the little guy. It should be noted that I am amazing. As I sat and watched him and counted the number of times he ran a lap around the room I did something that neither you nor I nor anyone else in the known world has ever done - I counted to infinity. Twice. He was nonstop motion. From his grubby little hands touching every keyboard and mouse, to his gibbering little mouth commenting on everything his flashing eyes saw to elbows dragging his little body up on roller chairs to spin around in and glide across the floor with. Yes even his cute little point five bum was in motion. In fact it seemed to be in greater motion than normal.
As I chased him around I accidentally stepped on a blueberry. They make awful messes on industrial tile floors in case you were wondering. In the last turn around the chart table I stepped on two more and counted five that I avoided. They seemed to be everywhere. He must have taken those blueberries and just run around the room with the box wide open. "Great" I thought, "just another mess to clean up."
Then kind of like Bambi's mother hearing the twig snap and the crack of the gun - I knew something was terribly wrong. Brig had finished off that box at least 20 minutes before, there were no blueberries left to make a mess with. Something was dumb, dangerous or different.
The motion in the point five. As Brig ran away in oblivious felicity to my great horror I looked at his bum and realized that it was every so discretely sneaking out of his pants. Not in the normal way like a plumber though, it was going down his pant leg. He was losing his diaper and pretty much everything in it. Those blueberries strewn so carelessly about had been spilt by Brigham, the box was wide open if you will. But the little man had eaten so many in the last two days that his body had given up digesting them and given a free ride to all coming through the gate - if you know what I mean.
The mess was so complete and the embarrassment so thorough that I didn't even have the guts to admit to my friends what I had just happened. "How on earth did little purple rocks get in here?" mused Susan.
"I think you're imagining things." I replied.
"These are kind of like the snotberries we had in my backyard when I was a kid."
"I'd put that down if I were you Susan; you never know where it might have been."
We wrapped up the study session very courteously and discretely gathered our things--including that dingle-dangle-danglin' in the wind, and headed home before anyone was the wiser. We hope.
The next morning Brigham and I returned when no one else was there. We were armed with a mop, two bottles of 409, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of spray bleach. It covered it up but man I'll never walk into that room without the scent of blueberry muffins and the sight of furious blond hair running through my mind.
I intentionally didn't put pictures in here for your benefit.
Like I said, I'm sorry son.
Love,
dAddie
5 comments:
It's so gross, but all kids get poop stories told about them. I think Brig will get a little embarassed, but he'll just have to understand and then he'll do it to his own kids someday! ;) We're in a hotel room on day 3 of our 4-day trek to Dover and I'm about to wake up my kids this story had me laughing so hard. I guess they CAN sleep through most anything!! Take care, and just don't ever tell anyone what those berries were from or that girl Susan will die if she picked it up.
That story is great, especially in the first person! When we were told, it was great, but not quite as eloquent. The imagery is delightful. And this is a great story to tell at Brig's wedding! I think it is our job to not only love and care for our kiddos, but as great fathers we must occasionally embarrass them as well!
Have a great day, and thanks!
Awesome! Too funny not to share. And not horrifying, because anyone who knows you & Michelle knows what awesome parents you Both are. And I echo Brad, never to early to start collecting the embarrassing stories that can be shared at the rehearsal dinner when little Brig ties the knot!
Such a funny story. Michelle should put an emergency bag in the car for you too. I always have one in there. I even use it for other peoples' kids sometimes. We missed you guys at the reunion. I hope you're having fun at Island Park.
Classic and very funny. Ian and I both got a good laugh at your (and Brigs) expense. We love reading your stories.
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