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...

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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.

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I welcomed Obama's Father's Day speech chastising the legions of black  absentee fathers, a number, he points out, that has doubled in a generation. 

He's hardly alone in his criticism.  Besides Bill Cosby's now famous crusade Chris   Rock, back in 1996, and the late great comedian Robin Harris even earlier  were busy upbraiding the cowardly black men who don't do the right thing and help raise their children.   Citing the miserably low expectations we have for black men, Obama even mentioned Rock's rant in his speech (albeit cleaned up a lot).  Here's what Rock said back then (courtesy of the Mother Jones blog)

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So I'm in the supermarket after taking the kids to school as I am most every morning since the grocery store is right in front of the subway.  Maybe it's just that I'm older now but the Westside Market on 110th Street here in Manhattan plays awsome music considering the venue.  I rarely listen to Seventies  hits at home but there while I'm debating my cereal choices I'm often humming to Steely Dan or James Taylor.  Today it was Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle," and I nearly fell to my knees and wept.  Chet's pretty melodramatic but this morning he was in rare form telling me that I loved A and her daughter M and Ava thiiiis much (holding out his arms wide) but him only this much (pinching his little fingers together).  I'm afraid he's becoming the forgotten middle child.  

He is a magnificent movie star of a boy, and the only boy in our house and perhaps the most dominant personality.   I do feel sorry for him sometmes that he doesn't have his mom around as much as he deserves so I think I try to be an extra attentive dad but I know that sometimes our situation is hard for him.   

He's been sucking his thumb since he was an infant. His mom breastfed him for about the first four months and then she moved out at eight months.  I've always seen his thumbsucking as compensating for that.  Still, now that he's knocking on seven my patience is worn out and sometimes I'm terrible about riding him about it.   He did a program of rewards and marking a calendar for every night he didn't suck his thumb back then when he was four with our dental hygenist.  It seemed to work for a while but now, lately, he's sucking his thumb more than ever.  I've tried a special shirt that has mittens attached to the long sleeves and every night I put one of my tube socks on his hand but now, during the day, he's sucking it more than ever.   

Today was his publishing party in his class and he showed me his very thick book of all that he'd written this year.  I was so proud of him.  He's come so far this year.  The very first story was a drawing of the two of us with the words, "My dad is the bast dad in the hol wrld."   When I pointed it out to him he said, "I meant 'worst'."  I just laughed and had him sit on my lap.  

With  Father's Day just behind us I've been thinking about my own dad a lot. The New York Times ran an excerpt from Bedtime Stories talking about my dad last Sunday that I'm very proud of.  I'd love to hear what you think about it.  When Chet saw the picture he said that he thought that it was me dressed up as a mad scientist.  Funny, it's my favorite picture of my dad, it sits on this very desk, but I always thought of him as so much older than me.  It's only now that I realize that the picture was taken three years before he died so he was 47.  I'm 45.

It really seems to be happening.  My little family of three seems to be shape-shifting into one of five.  As I write this A is at her place working on her dissertation while my kids and I watch her amazing litle daughter M.  It all feels very natural, oddly comfortable.  I had a long radio interview today that I didn't want to cut short but thought I'd have to to pick my kids up from school. But wonderful A volunteered to pick up my kids. Wow.  When my ex and I were married everything was a horse trade. We split the parenting duties right down the middle as if we were already divorced.  There's a New York Times  article  this week about exactly that kind of arrangement.

Now with A it feels so much more giving than contractual.  We had friends over for our first dinner party last night and she did all the shopping.   I cooked the salmon and the garlic bread, she made the salad.  Today, as I said, she picked my kids up from school but then when I got back from my interview she went home to work for a few hours while I watched her little M.  I was actually hoping the Ava would do most of the watching however weekends I allow her to watch TV so Ava immediately became hypnotized by the Disney Channel.  M is a Dora addict so I put it on my old lap top in the kitchen.  Chet was on the kids' computer playing Sonic.  I snuck off to my office to  answer emails and write this blog.  

M ran into my office smiling and town criering about the poop in her diaper so I laid her on the kitchen floor and started to change her.  What a powerful emotional memory hoisting her two little legs in the air like a turkey while I reached for the Costco wipes.  I was reminded of Al Pacino in The Godfather III:  "Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in again!"   Unlike Pacino, however, I am delighted to be pulled back in.  As my two are getting more and more dependent I've been missing having a really little one around.  

Just as I was starting to get misty about how lucky I was to have another great little baby in my house, M started howling for her mommy.  I'd forgotten how mercurial little ones can be.  I held her and tried to explain that we'd be seeing her soon for bbq but she was having none of it.  Then I brought her over to Ava.  She's Ava's biggest fan and Ava peek-a-booed with her until she started smiling a bit. Then M noticed that Dora was still playing on the computer and she crawled back up into her chair to watch.   

Even self-proclaimed cool dads have their limits.  I'd heard Soulja Boy's megahit and dance craze "Crank That" months ago and didn't pay much attention to the signification of the lyrics.  I just laughed at the hundreds of YouTube performance videos of the catchy dance.  I guess I just didn't want to believe that this 18-year-old had really written a huge hit song about ejaculating all over his woman.  

My kids are addicted to Radio Disney, listen to it obsessively on the computer so I figured they were immune to contamination but of course last week my nine-year-old daughter and one of her best friends came home singing the song and doing the dance.  It's hit their public elementary school and is all the rage with the girls.  They obsess over dance moves anyway and the Soulja Boy dance is ridiculously infectious.  

When she's not practicing the Soulja Boy  dance she's practicing her ballroom dancing steps.  Every New York City fourth grader in the school took eight weeks of ballroom dancing and last week she had her big, all-school recital. The hundred of them paraded on stage in various stages of dress-up and counted their way through the foxtrot, the Lindy hop, the merengue and the tango.  They looked so almost grown up there that every parent's heart was wide open.  

Ava and her friend were just as open and happy running through the Souja Boy, of course have no idea what they lyrics are talking about, and I wasn't about to correct them.  

These age-inappropriate events were so much cuter when she was very, very young.  Now they give me the creeps. Back when she was three her mom and I were playing Rick James on the car stereo and when he crooned, "GIve it to me baby," she piped in from her car seat, "Give it to the baby."    I'll remember that forever.  And even just two years ago when Ava was 8 and Chet 5 they'd heard 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" on the radio and for weeks were singing, "Take me the candy shop, I'll let you lick my lollipop."  I didn't encourage them but of course I never disabused them of their reading of the lyrics.

I love sex and know that zealously hiding all traces of it has produced a neurotic and repressed culture.  But its omnipresence now is making it hard for a kid to be a kid.  

Here in the near triple-digit heat A and I took the kids to the Botanical Garden to see the Henry Moore statues.  I love this photo of them. It looks like an album cover. Maybe they could be the Carpenters of the new millennium?  Good, clean music (minus the eating disorders).

Do you censor what your kids hear? 

Blogging warps your reality. I'm convinced of it.  I'm often looking for material to write about, cute pictures to take.  This Sunday was a classic. Their school had their big Spring Fair where they bring in inflatable rides and every class in the huge New York public school sponsors a booth.  Chet remembered the epic squirt gun fight  from last year.  He'd won a tiny little squirt gun shooting hoops but he was no match for the kids armed with supersoakers.  So this year he pestered me into buying him this monstrous, pump-action supersoaker and he wore his matching Lycra swimming body suit under his clothes.  

When we got there the squirt gun war hadn't started yet so we ambled through the fair.  The biggest hit was the dunking booth but since it was about 80 that day the line to get dunked was twice as long as the line to dunk.  It was when Chet got in the dunking line that I remembered that I'd forgotten my spiffy digital camera (again!).  Ava was lined up to hurl the baseball to dunk him. Chet jiggled with uncontrollable excitement.  He lept and capered like a leprechaun.   What could be cuter!   I tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I'd screwed up big time and just enjoy the moment. Everyone was squealing with delight every time the ball hit the bull's eye and another kid dropped into the tank.  Finally it was Chet's turn and Ava got ready to throw.  Baseball isn't her best sport but she gave it a good shot and actually hit the target but not hard enough to trigger the fall.  I protested and asked if she could just hit it with her hand and the nice volunteering moms said yes.  

That's when Chet started to freak. "The water's too cold!" he howled.  He desperately scrambled to get out of the tank, clinging to the side like a rat fallen into a pot.  The big kid working the dunker hauled him out.  Maybe it was just me but everybody seemed suddenly sad for the poor little kid stuck in the big plastic tube.  

Bad dad (again).  There I was trying to pre-program some supposedly priceless moment instead of just living in the moment.  Luckily, however, he soon was smiling again, the water war had begun and he had some of the heaviest firepower out there.

Have you ever tried to create a Kodak moment that blew up in your face? 

My sweet little Ava hardly ever gets in trouble.  I think I might have put her in perhaps three time outs in her nine and 11/12ths years.  It's not that she's an angel but she's the way I was, sneaky.  I must have modeled my behavior on Eddie Haskel on the Leave It to Beaver reruns I used to watch.  Maybe "sneaky" is too harsh, but certainly my daughter and I are clever enough to rarely get caught when we're bad.  Chet, on the other hand, strikes first and makes up excuses for why he did it  afterward.

I was in my office the other day and could hear the escalation of tension between my kids in the other room.  I was determined to ignore them and to let them sort it out.  Then I heard the inevitable crash and Ava hiss, "You stupid f-ing boy!"  I have no qualms about writing the word "fuck" but I didn't actually hear it and anyway could never believe that such a word could come out of the mouth of my little darling.

This all happened in the morning before school.  About ten minutes later when we were all eating Honey Bunches of Oats I casually asked  what the ruckus was about.  

"Oooh!  Ava said---!"

"Shut up!"

"Ava said--"

"I said shut up! I didn't say anything!  I --!"

She was already bawling and out of control and I hadn't even accused her yet.  She'd make a lousy spy.  You even look like you're going to start interrogating her and she falls to pieces. She swore that she didn't swear but her attitude gave her away instantly.  Still, something didn't make sense.  My kids' greatest pleasure in life is tattling on the other so why didn't Chet rush to me the moment she launched the F-bomb?

"I didn't want us to lose points, daddy," he explained.  See, I'd recently instituted a points system, ten points for giving the other the seat on the subway, minus-ten points for whacking the other with a Heely.  Once they reach 500 they earn a nice toy. They've been stuck in the mid-100s now for weeks.  I was impressed by Chet's logic.  Ava, all this while, was howling and hyperventilating.  I could tell that she was freaking out because she thought I'd seen the ugly truth to her, not the super-sweet fawning adoration she usually purrs my way.  I told her that nothing would make me stop loving her and that everyone is human.  I also told her that I was angrier that she'd called him "stupid" than the F-word.  The punishment I'd decided on was a week without computer games.  She howled some more, begged me to just make her make all our beds instead (she loves doing that, even puts chocolates on our beds like in a hotel.)  I didn't budge and let my ruling stand (until yesterday when I commuted her sentence to making the beds. She squealed with delight.)

What kinds of punishments do you mete out? 

As you might have gathered by now I can be insufferably smug about what a great job I think I'm doing raising my kids by myself.  Whenever I start to smell a whiff of pity coming from anyone about my little family of three my back gets up and I proudly say that we three are doing just fine, thank you.  I was a guest on the Dr. Drew show last month and I'm a big fan of his  but when he  told me, "Of course, your daughter will need a same-sex adult  to talk to as she goes through puberty," I wanted to punch him in the nose.

But raising a little girl baby, as I've done, was one thing, raising a gorgeous little tween on the fast track to being a teen is quite another.  Damn that Dr. Drew. He was right!  

Of course I'm doing my best, I've become a whiz at detangling and braiding her hair, but there are just some things that make me feel woefully inadequate.  When I'd first returned to New York from LA two years ago I'd found her an amazing, young pediatrician.  I picked her for both kids explicitly because of how great she'd be with Ava as she got older.  Then my insurance changed and forced me to switch doctors. 

A few years ago very good female friend suggested that I buy, "The Care and Feeding of You," by the American Girl folks.  Although I can't understand why those damn dolls cost so much, nor why my little girl is addicted to them, I do like the magazine for her and the  historical novels are smart.  If you have a little girl and you're visiting New York and want to see her eyeballs pop of her head then take her to the American Girl Place off of Fifth Avenue.  It's Graceland for girls who like dolls.

Anyway, as I describe in Bedtime Stories,  I ordered the book on Amazon two years ago when Ava was seven. I knew I was jumping the gun but I'm a recovering Boy Scout so wanted to be prepared.  As soon as the book arrived I opened it up randomly and found myself staring at a two-page spread of a cartoon vagina.  I closed up the book and haven't opened it since.  Now that she's knocking on ten, however, I think I have to crack it open again.  The only problem is that of course now that I need it I can't find it.

This is where A, my amazing girlfriend, is coming to the rescue.   She's amazing with my little angel.    Sure, I guess I could do it all if I were forced to, but I'm appreciating A more and more and more.

Atlantic City this weekend was our first roadtrip as a blended family and all in all it went fine.  A's two-year-old daughter M was in the middle of the back seat in her car seat which was good because it kept Ava and Chet separate so he coudn't pester his big sister.  I was going down there to see Chris Rock perform because we're talking about working together (sorry Tracey and the rest of you who give me grief over my name-dropping but I've known Chris for over twenty years).    I was excited about seeing in show and wanted to take A but who would watch the kids?  I owe her one, big time.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  We arrived in AC in the late afternoon and our hotel, the Quality Bayside Hotel should have been called the "Low-Quality Bayside Hotel."  If they ever do a remake of The Shining in Atlantic City they should film it there.  Our low-ceilinged room reaked of something foul that was so much worse than mere mildew.  It wasn't until we checked out the next day, however, that I put a finger on the notes of the bouquet under the damp smell:  dried urine.  If we weren't such a traveling circus we'd have asked for a different room but it was such an event just getting us there that A and I were too beat to fight.

Instead we all went right back out and drove to the boardwalk, parking at Trump's Taj Mahal and cutting through the casino to get to the boardwarlk and the steel pier amusement park.  The park was as shabby as our hotel but pier amusement park's are supposed to be shabby so it was fun.  Fun, that is, until my kids' envy and greed kicked in.  Whenever they're in the presence of lots of cheap toys my little angels turn into devils.  They become obsessed with acquiring everything they can, or at least to getting one more than their sibling.  They began doing the same rides but then Chet wanted to try the Magic Slide, one of my favorites as a kid.  After he slid down the rolling slide on an old piece of carpet Ava said she wanted to ride the bumper cars.  Chet freaked, he desperately wanted to ride the bumper cars too. I told him he could but Ava would then get an extra treat. He agreed and when it was their turn they raced onto the track which was probably as old as I was.  Chet's was one of the several cars that were broken so at the last minute he jumped into Ava's and had the gaul to insist on driving.  Chaos ensued:

I love these little critters more than anything in the world but their endless compettion drives me nuts.  This morning I put out two clementines for school snack.  Chet was convinced that Ava's was bigger and started to complain. I just snatched them both up and put them back in the fridge.  

To his credit, Chet then asked if it was ok, picked up two peaches and handed one to his big sister.

How do you all handle sibling rivalry? 

Chet, at least, is never one to beat around the bush. Ava can be more mysterious.  A is my first full-time girlfriend since the kids were very, very little and in general we all get along as if we'd all grown up together but of course there  have been some rough patches.  They were suspicious about my "friend" A for a month or so before I fessed up and since then it's Chet, much more than Ava, who has asked the hard questions.  You'd think it would be the opposite.  I'm her Elvis.  Whenever I'm in Ava's presence she can't go more than a few minutes without saying, "I love you, daddy" and throwing herself around my waist for a full-body hug.  My slightest display of displeasure with her brings her to the brink of tears.  And yet she genuinely seems to  enjoy A's presence and her amazing little daughter.  With A and her daughter around Ava is no longer the only girl in our boyish house.  A answers Ava's burning questions about makeup and boys.  Ava's never acted jealous of A even for a heartbeat.  And believe me, she had before. Back when she was five she would conveniently throw herself all over me the moment I sat down to flirt with any cute mom in the park.  It was hilarious how she'd pick that exact moment to play with my hair, lovingly strangle me and kiss me.

Chet has been asking more pointed questions about A from the beginning but yesterday he took it to a new level.  Chet, Ava and I were walking home from school yesterday when Chet said, "Who do you love more, A or us?"  I immediately answered, "you guys," instead of going into a discourse  on the difference between philia, agape and eros; that is, familial, spiritual and sexual love.  I knew he needed only the simple answer. This was no time for one of my many daily sermons.  Then he said this:

"If you had to kill one of us, who would you kill?"

"CHET!" howled Ava.  "Why are you so stupid!"

"Don't call your brother stupid, but Chet, I'm not killing anybody, what are you talking about?"

"Yeah, Chet.  What are you talking about?"

"Ava. I'll handle it."

I'm glad he felt secure enough in asking. I'm glad to know exactly what's on his mind and of course I realize that this blending of our two families will have to go slowly. He's great with A in person. He really is. She turned him on to her favorite film, "The Karate Kid," and now it's his favorite too.

We're all off to Atlantic City tomorrow to see Chris Rock and then Philadelphia where I'll be on a panel at the Philadelphia Book Fair.  This will be our first weekend adventure together.

Wish us luck. 

The good news, I guess, is that my last post got folks talking. The bad news was that I had no idea so many people out there think I'm a jerk.  Oh well.   But my biggest  critic of my Mother's Day lament was A, the hardest-working, most-wonderful single parent in the world.  When I asked her what she wanted to do for Mother's Day she said, "Ha!  I thought you didn't believe in it."  To get myself out of hot water and to show her how much I appreciate her, our blending tribe all drove out to the Bronx Zoo.  We weren't the only ones with that idea. It seemed as if the entire tri-state area had a sudden craving to watch animals. 

Although I'd grown up in the City I had never been to the zoo before last year.  It was very crowded that day too so when the kids had whined that they just had to ride the camels I looked at the endlessly snaking line and convinced them to forget about it.  Kids apparently have memories like elephants when it comes to riding camels and this time they insisted.  Just as they sat atop the charming, yet stinky beast I realized that I was about the only parent in the entire zoo who had forgotten to bring a camera.  To the zoo.  Again.  It was then that I distinctly remembered that I'd forgotten the last time too and vowed to remember the next time.  

Out of desperation I whipped out my cellphone and took a shot.

I didn't say it was my best shot.  It looks like they're riding a dumpster. But at least they're smiling.

I pride myself on my photographic prowess and I swear if I'd remembered my real camera I'd have taken a decent  picture.   I'm so embarrassed.  Undoubtedly the "Father of the Year" committee will  take off twenty points for this gaffe.

The rest of the afternoon was wonderful, all five of us laughing and gawking and laughing some more, until I noticed some Nikon-wielding dad taking a great shot of his kids feeding a llama or waving at a mountain gorilla.  I tried to be zen about it but it was hard not to complain.  Finally wise little Chet chimed in, "You're a writer daddy. Why don't you just remember it?"

Hearing this, my heart, like the Grinch's, suddenly expanded a few sizes. 

So although I might sometimes whine about being a single parent, doing twice the work on half the two-parent income,   most of the time, most all of the time, I remember that I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

I just found myself giving the finger to the TV set.  CNN was on with some story about how a great Mother's Day gift would be to give your mom a checkup at the doctor.  After all, they said, mothers do everything around the house so when they're sick the entire family falls apart.  

That's when I gave my flat screen the finger.  Look, I have nothing but respect for moms and of course I realize that in the majority of homes they still do most all the heavy lifting while the dad waltzes home from work, unloads the dishwasher six times a year and wants a medal for each time.  But in my house that stereotype hardly applies.    And this Sunday, after A and I made French toast and eggs and bagels for my two, her one and another one she was looking after, I rushed off to back-to-back playdates, not returning home till eight, their schoolday bedtime, hustling them into bed and then lugging a Santa Claus-sized laundry bag down to the building's basement to do two loads of laundry.  

My own mother passed away when I was sixteen so for me it's mainly been a grandmother's day anyway.

The few actual Mother's Days I did celebrate back when we were still married were already weird for me. My ex had insisted that we split everything down the middle to the minute and Sundays were my day, Saturday's hers. When her third Mother's Day came I offered to switch days but she said she already had plans.  This was a year before I was actually a single-father but I remember the sad smiles I got from the intact family next to us at the restaurant.  It seemed clear to me that they thought I was a young widower.  I guess it was clear to me that's what they were thinking becuase that's how I felt.

By now, five years later, we're all so used to it.  I made the kids make cards for their mom and grandmom and mailed them down to the little town in Georgia where they live.  My friends are so used to it as well.  I'm sure this Sunday I'll get at least one call from a  wiseass wishing me well.

I like this one because I can pretend that the polar bear is a dude.

 
Happy Mother's Day to all you real mothers out there.  I learned so much about what I know about parenting from you. 

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. 

Being away from the kids for four days is just about the perfect amount of time.  It was short enough for me to thrill at my new-found freedom but with none of the guilt.  I was also so happy that they were getting quality time with their mom.  When I returned on the redeye Tuesday morning I was afraid that rush hour traffic would have made me miss them before they left for school so I told them that I wouldn't see them until after school when I picked them up, but I just caught them as they were leaving.  They shouted, "Daddy" and pounced on me.  I realize that that is normal for most dads with small kids when the dad comes home from work every day but since I'm their mommy/daddy my regular appearances aren't such a big deal.  Their mom cooked for them while I was gone, which I appreciated. I'm more of a semi-professional microwaver, but she left the kitchen, the whole apartment really, a bit of a mess.  After she left I called the kids to attention and had them unloading the dishwasher and sweeping the kitchen floor.  

Upon returning I was also greeted by a flood of emails.  MSN.com had rerun an article that I had written about dating after divorce.   The funniest part was the graphic they used for me. Not my best likeness:

 And a real step down from the way they had portrayed me the last time:

I showed the kids and Ava especially, laughed herself silly. 

Here in LA it's 90 degrees and my rental PT Cruiser with the top down is like a rolling microwave.  Still, I've missed the sun.  I'm also missing my kids like crazy (although A and I did get a one-day mini-vacation that I will never forget).  Meanwhile Chet has become a TV star.  One of my best friends is directing a NickJr. pilot and they were casting all these professional child actors and as a lark he asked if Ava and Chet wanted to try out.  Ava lit up. Although she's so shy at first, she would love to be a movie star.  Chet already acts like he is one and never fails to put on a show for every stranger we meet.  It turned out, however, that they were only looking for six-year-olds so she didn't get to audition.   It's a show for the Dora set and the "big kids" act out famous stories for them.  Chet tried out, was called back, got the part and last week he shot his little scene.  Of course I'm concerned about turning him into Danny Bonaduce but he did say he loved it. He played the farmer in Jack in the Beanstalk. 

Of course he wants to buy hundreds of dollars worth of Pokemon with his money but I'm making him save it.  

I'm leaving for LA for  meetings and a quick long weekend vacation so I flew the kids' mom up to watch them while I'm away.  We get along just fine but I try my best to work it so that we're not ever actually sleeping under the same roof.  She usually arrives the day that I leave and then she flies out the day that I return.   This time, however, since I'm going for just four days and the kids hadn't seen her in two months, they really wanted her to stay a little longer. She arrived yesterday and I leave tomorrow morning.  

She sleeps on the sofa bed in the living room, even when I'm out of town.  I'm not normally susperstitious however I just think it's already weird enough having her sleeping in the apartment.  Sleeping in my bed when I'm not there seems like it would be an invitation to cooties.  Too much sadness passed between us to impart that vibe into my Swedish memory foam mattress. 

As you can imagine the women in my life have never been too thrilled by this arrangement.  The kids of course love it.  Tonight the four of us had dinner together for perhaps the fifth time in the five years that we've been separated (not including Christmas dinner that I still spend with her folks).  It's hard to explain to outsiders how completely de-sexualized it all is. It's just a very rare treat for the kids to feel like they're like most of their two-parented  friends.  I'm proud of the civility we show each other.  I think it is the main reason that our kids seem to be flowering so nicely.  

But what do I know.  Anybody out there do it differently?  I'd love to hear your two cents. 

I swear I try my best to be a good parent and shield my kids from the non-age-appropriate, but for some reason sex seems to find me.  My six-year-old is Pokemon obsessed (and Bakugon and Ben 10) so when the Takashi Murakami exhibit came to the Brooklyn Museum I knew I had to take him.  

Chet was in Heaven. Ava wasn't complaining too much.  A and I bribed her with the promise of pizza and ice cream later at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.  

I often drag them to museums and they often caterwaul about it but this time Chet, as he wheedled his way onto the crowded floor of a video screening room full of twenty-something hipsters all  transfixed by a Murakami cartoon he  whispered, "I love it, daddy."  I swelled with pride.  I was ready for my medal from the Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of New York. 

Unlike the brilliant Kara Walker  retrospective at the Whitney where friends had warned me not to take the kids unless I wanted some tricky and lengthy explaining to do, my friends who'd seen Murakami hadn't given me a parental heads up.  So we just wandered into a room with several cartoonishly buxom  topless blondes/motorcycles chasis (?) spears (?).  Chet ran to them giggling.  Then we entered a room and saw her:

bigger than lifesize on a pedestal.  The kids were, understandably, fascinated.  And across from her was her boyfriend?, lover? a blonde guy, also a bit larger than life with that same white stuff coming out of his erect, shaved penis.  It's all so cartoonish and bright and plastic that the effect of the room is unsettling and funny at the same time.  Chet and Ava were doubled over giggling.  The older museum ladies in the room with us had eyes as wide as saucers. Everyone in the room, it seemed, wanted to hear what my kids thought of this art.

"What's that coming out of the boy's penis, daddy?" asked Chet.  Ava too busy giggling to talk. 

"What do you think it is?" his cowardly dad asked him.

"I think it's sperm," said my young genius.

"I think you're right."

The rest of the exhibit was mainly happy and light like this:

 and the pizza at Grimaldi's was some of the best I've ever had.

As Chet and Ava get older I'm delighting in forcing them to earn their keep. At six and nine they've been putting their cereal bowls in the sink for a while now but I've moved on to having them actually rinse them and put them in the dishwasher.  My friend Quincy tells a story about how his dad put him to work as a kid that I love.  It was back in the 70s and TV remote controls were just coming out but they were ugly beige boxes that actually made the TV's dial chunk-chunk-chunk around.  Quincy begged his dad to get one. 

"Why do I need a remote control," barked his dad. "When I got you?"

I've been waiting on these little things like some sitcom butler and now it's payback.  I was cooking omelettes this weekend when I asked Ava to crack the eggs (something she usually likes). When I called her back in from the TV room to set the table she protested, "But I've been slaving away for you all morning!"  (referring to cracking five eggs).  I just gave her my best non-pleased daddy stare and she shrugged and pulled out the plates.  

Now that we live in a New York  apartment after their lifetimes in California what I miss most is having a washer and dryer at my fingertips.  Now it's a trek to the basement and paying for each load with a special debit card.  I do it as infrequently as possible so it looks like I'm lugging a couple of bodies down to the building's basement when I finally get around to it.  Actually, however, the washing and drying doesn't bug me, but the folding all that stuff drives me nuts.  I've taken to turning on Hannah Montana or iCarly and enlisting the kids but this week I  desperately wanted to run out and catch a movie with friends.  Bad dad that I am I dumped the mountain of clean clothes in front of the TV and commanded the kids to go to it.  Bernard, my ex-wife's friend and sometime babysitter who moved out here when we did, was babysitting and of course I told him I didn't expect him to help them.   Miraculously, the kids only complained a little.

When I came home the pile of clothes was gone.  Then I went into my room and was delighted to find this sight:

Not much to the untrained eye for sure but I whooped for joy.   Mabe they're not the neatest clothes-folders yet but I feel that we are on our way to (at least my) domestic bliss.

Anybody have any good tips on tricking kids into working around the house (without kvetching?) 

Here is what I wrote about him in Bedtime Stories: 

"Chet is  our opposite  in almost all things.  He’s a  chubby  love ball quick-crawling  to every single friend or stranger in his path.  His charm is so genuine and infectious.  I may be a little biased but to me he’s a genetically engineered hybrid of  Bobby Kennedy, Muhammad Ali and Elvis.  

The Caetano song is the perfect portrait of my son.  I  memorized it when I was teaching in Brazil, so far from him and his sister.  After the fourth day away I was beginning to re-member, albeit dimly,   the timbre of my life  before marriage, kids and divorce.  I’d heard  the song for years and knew that it was one of  Caetano’s  most popular but it was only on this trip, after I had taught myself  Portuguese, that I understood what he was saying:
 

I love watching you little lion,
Walking under the sun.
I like you so much little lion.
You take the  sadness out of my heart, little lion,
Just by meeting you on the path.

A lion cub is not only cute, any baby ani-mal is cute, but a lion cub is also  goofy  and yet at the same time full of the promise of nobility and magnificence. That’s all that I see in my son.   

I forced the unfortunate Brazilians at the screenwriting workshop with me  to patiently teach me  all the words and that very first night back home it was my new lullaby for the kids.  Ava, as usual, laid motionless in her tod-dler sleigh bed until I finished the song and leaned over her . That’s when her arms rose and captured my neck.  I kissed her twice and she turned into her pillow with a smile.

Chet, on the other hand, had kicked off the blanket I had just tucked around him in his crib and was sitting up and smiling at me.

Go to bed, now.

I wrestled him into my arms and held him against his squirming  as I sang him the song again.  By the time I delivered him back to his crib he’d been tranquilized, and nuzzled his tiny nose against my bicep.  Not this night, but often, he would mistake it for a breast and tickle me by trying  to take a sip."

In Bedtime Stories I write about my kids, now 6 and 9, when they were much younger. My then wife moved out when Ava was three and Chet eight-months old.  For those of you who haven't read it yet I wanted to catch you up a bit on what they're like.  I'll begin here with Ava.  Here's some of what I wrote about her in the book: 

"My kids are magnificent.  Everybody says so.  In general they seem to intuit that I could easily be overwhelmed by the task at hand so usually cut me some slack and get along.  I had heard that having a girl first makes everything easier and that has certainly been true in my case.  From the day Chet was born Ava has been the poor kid’s bossy, tween-aged mini-mom.  Anna and I had read all the books on sibling rivalry and followed everyone’s advice simultaneously.  We read to her, I’m a Big Sister Now and picked up the trick of conning her into believing that Chet had brought a little present from the beforeworld just for her.  She was barely three when he was born and it wasn’t until a year later that she cornered me and said, Chet didn’t get me that jean jacket from the Gap, did he, daddy?

Like me she is sensitive and quiet.  She taught herself to read before kindergarten and quickly loses herself inside the pages of  any book. 

My mom was a feminist squared, so growing up in the Seventies, I didn’t have a choice but to believe that a woman’s place was in the House and the Senate, and in my mom’s case, Yale Law School.  She graduated magna cum laude from Howard, was all but her dissertation for her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan where she also taught, then when my sister and I were teenagers and she was thirty-three years old, she  enrolled in the best and hardest law school in the country. 

Three-year-old Ava, on the other hand, was passionate about cooking, baking, her nails, edible makeup and anything having to do with princesses. 

I am terrified that she is going to grow up and become a Republican." 

Six years later she's still a girly-girl, now Hannah Montana and iCarly and webkinz-obsessed.  She's still addicted to reading, however, Nancy Drew is her drug of choice.  Her teacher and I are trying our best to coax her into more challenging reading.   She's stil giggly and silly around me, flings herself on me and sighs several times a day.  

She makes me feel like Elvis.