Father of the Year : birthdays

Country Mouse/City Mouse

Trey — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:09:00 GMT

I flew down from Manhattan to celebrate Chet's actual 7th birthday with him down in Social Circle, GA, where he and Ava spend the month of August with their grandparents, my ex's mom and step dad and their cousins. My ex has also been living down there for the past two years, ever since I moved the kids to New York. I come for two days at Christmas and this year three days in the summer. These few days are the only time that the kids have their entire family all in one place. Two of the three cousins, pictured above, Athan and Jovan, are wonderful kids and probably Chet's best friends in the world. Chet, especially, adores it down there and said many times that his dream is for us all to move down there and live all together in this huge log cabin in the middle of the woods.

Though that is hardly my dream I have to say I love it down there too. It's so quiet, I routinely sleep ten hours a night. The lake is lovely. I saw a snowy egret patrolling the shore just the other day.

His birthday, Ava's and their grandma's all come in the summer so the grandma throws a huge summer celebration. Ava was her sous chef and made the caprese salad with cherry tomatoes fresh from the garden. There was also eggplant parmigiana with fresh garden eggplant, and melon right from the garden as well, plus hamburgers, chicken wings, rice, and for dessert an ice cream cake.

This is Chet's second birthday party. The first was at Dave & Buster's right after school let out with his school friends. Whenever the kids complain about how weird it is having a mom and dad in different states, I remind them that they are also lucky to have several birthday parties throughout the summer. Ava tried to complain about the celebration that it was too heavily weighted toward Chet until I reminded her that she already had two parties. The first one was a sleepover on Long Island, the second was in France.

For none of us is this the life we had expected, but it's usually pretty wonderful nonetheless.

Surviving Birthdays and Packing Again

Trey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:44:00 GMT

It feels like I haven't had a moment's rest since coming back from Ethiopia. Chet's party was the day after and then two days later I was driving Ava and three of her best friends to the Hamptons for a slumber party. Ava'd been planning this for at least ten months, ever since I'd told her that my Uncle Billy was kind enough to allow us to use his beach house whenever we wanted. I also hit him up to borrow his big Mercedes so the girls got chauffered out there in style. It was Radio Disney on the radio and Nanny McPhee on the portable DVD player in the back for three hours. A and her daughter M and Chet drove in A's car. I was still a bit off balance, remembering that just a few days before I was watching donkeys pass through a traffic jam in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. If it weren't for A's help and M being the cute mascot to all the little girls I'd never have made it. I was also still battling my GI tract. It felt like a rabid family of ferrets were wrestling inside my stomach. But Ava had a great time, the ice cream cake and the pizza and the beach were just perfect. I hope she remembers it for years to come.

Now back in the city for a few days we have to pack tomorrow for two weeks in France. I'm not thrilled with the idea of getting back on a plane but the kids have been looking forward to the trip for months.

With the dollar so low I was on the verge of cancelling the vacation and staying in the city but we're flying on miles and staying with friends in Paris and then in the same little village, Ramamtuelle, that I've been visiting for the last fifteen years. I love France but I have to say that here in New York it's magical as well. Tonight I took Ava and her two best friends, Chet, A and M to a little restaurant inside Riverside Park overlooking the Hudson. I treated myself to a margarita and black angus kebobs and corn and after dinner the kids played for hours on the gymnastic rings and by the time we were walking out of the park it was dusk and the fireflies were everywhere. The kids went nuts and capered after them, catching them in their hands, begging me to take them home. I'd heard that fireflies had returned to New York City but growing up here I'd never once seen one. When I was a kid the last place you wanted to be was inside a park after dark.

Back from Ethiopia

Trey — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:49:00 GMT

I've been silent for a week but not out of laziness. I've been in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, helping them start up a film industry. The kids' mom flew up from Atlanta to watch them.

Here is one of my favorite buildings in the bustling city of five million, a bar shaped like the space shutte.

Here is a typical street scene

Here's my favorite photo from the teff grain store of the "Former Women's Wood Carrying Collective."

And here's just outside:

Most of the rest of the city is more chaotic and urban. I was just there a week but am already looking forward to coming back.

What I wasn't so much looking forward to was what's happening right now. After flying for twenty-one hours yesterday with a medium case of diarrhea I had to prepare for the Birthday Marathon.

The kids' birthdays are later in the summer when their friends aren't around so today, my first day back, I'm taking five of Chet's friends to Dave & Busters (Chuck E. Cheese on steroids) in Times Square. And then tomorrow morning A and I are driving Ava, Chet and three of Ava's best friends out to Long Island for a weekend-long sleepover in my uncle's beach house. As you can imagine the kids are out of their minds with excitement. I'm loopy with tiredness and still uncertain about my digestive tract.

Wish me luck!

Karaoke

Trey — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:56:00 GMT

Sunday turned out to be a Japanese-themed day. First we were invited to the second-annual Japanese children's festival, Kodomo no hi.

It was originally just to celebrate boys but they've gotten with the program and now include girls as well. Chet's friend's mom put out the traditional carp kite and laid out a spread of traditional Japanese delicacies. Having lived in a small town in Japan for four months I knew that what looked like chocolate was really sweet red-bean paste but I didn't tell the kids that hoping to fool them into trying something new. Didn't work. Oh well.

Afterwards we rushed downtown to Koreatown where American friends had rented a karaoke room. I've been to big drunken karaoke bars and the whole public humiliation thing or the insufferable amateur showing off thing never grabbed me, however here we had our own little room with a futuristic wireless karaoke set up and disco lights. The kids weren't the only ones in heaven. We all shouted our heads off to Smashmouth's "Rockstar" and "Let's Get it Started in Here." For Chet and his young kindergarten friend Benny, reading so quickly was a challenge, especially the uptempo songs, but they did great. Some song choices were a little dicey. When my friend Steve punched in the numbers for Eminem Ava giggled her head off at the parade of bad words. Dominique, Steve's wife, sounded like a real rockstar.

If you've got a Korea or Japantown where you live try out a karaoke bar with the kids. It would make a great place for a birthday party too.