Dad Life…

Saw this on facebook and just had to share it.  So true in so many ways…

Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

seems to be a theme these days: Hard Core Gansta’ Parenting.

The Sneak Attack

I was defeated.

I thought I could get through the six months of deployment unscathed. Who was I kidding?  I mean I know it’s happened before.  I guess I let myself get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking “this could never happen to me.”  Especially after 5 1/2 months without incident. Well it happened and I was betrayed by one of my closest allies in the process.

It all started like any other evening.  Supper was done. It was getting late into evening so it was time for “The Bath.”  As you may recall from a previous post that my daughter was once traumatized by the bathtub.  It was all my fault too.  It had taken me no small amount of effort to coax her back into the tub and convince her that bath time was “fun” again.  In the process tears and wails of despair were shed. My daughter voiced her own displeasure as well.  Eventually though, it worked.  Bath time was fun again! A rollicking, splish, splashing good time with the help of one of my more effective brainstorms: the bubble bath.

My daughter loves bubbles.  Sometimes we’ll play outside and I’ll blow these big bubbles for her and she’ll just chase them around for hours.  When Yo Gabba Gabba! comes one with their “Bubbles” song she gets real excited and squeals and dances with delight.  Her belly laugh when bubbles pop is one of the most addictive sounds in the planet. So the bubble bath really helped in getting her in the tub again.  It was my greatest ally in this bath time battle.  Little did I know that  it would also turn out to be my greatest betrayer.

So back to this evening.  Here is my daughter enjoying her bath, splashing around and generally getting water everywhere.  After washing her hair and giving her an all around scrub down it was time to come out.  So I pull the drain  to let the water out.  I remarked at how resilient the bubbles in this bubble bath were as, despite my daughters splashing around, there was still a good coating of bubbles over everything.  It was as the water drained that I finally noticed “it".  No warning. No outward sign from my daughter that anything was awry. No, it was a complete sneak attack. I had no idea until it was too late.  Like everything else that had been covered by a layer of bubbles “it” was also covered in bubbles and I didn’t notice “it” until all the water had drained out.

Yup. There was a bubble covered turd in the tub.

Sigh. Et tu bubbles?

Tick Tock

10 days.

As I write this there are just 10 days left in the month of June.  10 days until my wife’s time in Iraq is up.  Barring in unforeseen circumstances and accounting for transit time she should be back in the good ol’ U.S. of A within 15-20 days, God willing!

15-20 days! Woohoo!

…

15 TO 20 DAYS!!!! Crap! I’ve got a lot of stuff I need to do!!  The Piles! The dusting! The floors!  I’ve got get those piles contained… err… rid of! Piles of laundry. Piles of dishes.  Piles of papers.  Oh man. So much to do.  I’ve got to get this house in tip top shape before she gets here.  I’m sure she would not like to be reminded of the dust of Iraq here at home.  Right now though it might be close. Maybe I can convince her it’s part of a acclimatization program that I read somewhere.  To kind of “gradually” re-introduce deployed airmen back into civilization.

Yeah. I don’t think she’ll buy that either.

It’s the Final Countdown!!!

1 month left until she’s home!

Then it’s party time!

Know When to Fold’em…

Laundry.

It’s the bane of any bachelor’s existence.  It’s one of those things where he would rather do so many other things but laundry. Like playing video games. Or eating. Or sleeping. Working on the hotrod in the garage.  Getting a vasec…  Ok. Maybe not that extreme. 

However, my distaste for laundry is one of the carry-over’s of my bachelorhood that refuses to let itself be “fixed” by my wif….er, married life.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate clean, fresh smelling clothes and good hygiene, but it’s just so tedious and there always seems to be so much of it.  And…well…I kinda suck at it.

Let me clarify, the washing and drying part is easy enough.  Technology has wonderfully made that part easy.  Throw the clothes in, select the right setting, measure the detergent, and “presto!” clean clothes!  It’s what comes after that’s such a pain.  What was once a pile of dirty clothes has now magically, wonderfully turned into a pile of clean clothes.  But that’s the problem.  It’s a pile and we’ve already talked about how much bachelor’s love their piles.  It’s just so easy.  Why fold?  I mean it’s clean isn’t it?  And sitting there in a pile, it’s easy access too.  It’s ALL IN ONE PLACE! I can find whatever I want there. 

That being said, I suppose I should come completely clean.  I can see you neat freaks scratching your eyes out and screaming at the screen “The wrinkles! You need to fold and put away your clothes to prevent wrinkles!”  Remember what I said about me sucking at laundry?  Well, this is the part where I suck. 

I can’t fold clothes.

Well, I can but it ain’t pretty.  Often times the clothes that I fold will end up having more wrinkles than if I had just left it laying out in a pile.  So bachelor logic in me is reasoning that there’s no point if folding them if they end up looking worse than if I had just left them there in the first place.  Also, if I really need a clean, pressed shirt I’d still be ironing it folded or not so what’s the point.  The old bachelor is usually very convincing in his argument and coupled with my natural talent at procrastinating doing things that I’m not good at, he usually wins the argument.

Speaking of things I’m not good at, it’s bad enough if I were really just by myself.  Now couple this with a wife that’s deployed (so no help there) and the fact that we have a now 22 month old daughter.

Who has a lot of “cute” clothes.

It’s one thing to find the time to fold laundry between work, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of a rambunctious little toddler.  It’s a whole other thing when you’re already bad at folding your own clothes but must also fold the clothes of a baby girl.  First of all her clothes are small.  My hands are not. If I can’t even fold my own clothes without wrinkling them, what makes me think that I could successfully fold miniature clothing?  And then there’s the gender issue.  I’m a guy and I grew up with brothers.  Clothes for guys are simple, easy (probably in recognition of the fact that we suck a laundry).  Shirts, shorts, pants, and socks.  That covers about 99.9% of all male clothing. Scots need not comment please.  Girls, on the other hand, have much more variety in clothing and must be kept and stored in mystifying ways.  In addition to the shorts, pants, and shirts they have dresses, skirts, skorts, mumu’s, jumpers, leaotards, etc.  The list goes on and on.  And what the heck are bloomers!?

So the point of this post? Well you know how the military wives prepare “honey do” lists while their husband is away?  Usually it’s things like fix the car, fix the roof, move some furniture?  Well, let’s just say that I might have a “honey do” list too but it’ll be more like “Here are some bloomers and I have no idea what to do with them.”

Yay Piles!