Alone Again, Unnaturally

Do you ever bask in the adorableness of your children and thank your lucky stars that our world is so ethically shallow as to actually cater to good-looking people – because it means your children have a bright future? Me too.

Katie and the kiddos left earlier this week to visit some of our lovely extended family members, who are both lovely and extended. And I will be joining them at a later date. It has left me alone for a few days. I miss them. And with all that silence, I have felt reflective. Well, that’s not what I felt first, obviously. No, first I felt the freedom of treating my house like it was the studio for a Men’s Underwear photo shoot, featuring me (and only me). Then I felt the freedom of eating an unjustifiable amount of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Then I felt the freedom of watching far too many reruns of Seinfeld (I hadn’t before realized there was such a thing.) And then I felt the freedom of a house so eerily quiet, I could hear the fruit ripening on our pear tree. Outside.

And then I realized how seldom in my life I have been home alone, and how lonely an empty house is. And I felt reflective….

I was lounging in the bathroom the moment I found out I was going to be a dad for the first time. We were at my parents’ house, and it was Thanksgiving. Everybody had finished dinner, and we excused ourselves as we snuck off to the bathroom so Katie could pee on a stick. Also so she could take a home pregnancy test. (Boing! Thank you, I’ll be here all week! Don’t forget to tip your waitress!)

I will forever remember Katie’s face when she held up that little stick with the two lines. We stared at each other in complete silence, but the moment was emotionally deafening. I was thrilled and overwhelmed. Confident and vulnerable. In love and uncertain. I cried. Katie cried. There was fluid from every orifice. Me, my wife, and a baby – feeling our lives change while hanging out in a bathroom. (I had no idea in that instant how prevalent the bathroom and babies would be in our future.)

Each time one of my six children have been born, I have felt this inherent tug inside me to say something so profound – so thought provoking and weighty – that every communication medium in the world would shove a microphone in my face and ask me to repeat my brilliant insight so it could serve as the perfect sound byte for what joy feels like. But the words have never come. And they never do, not even in the small non-life-altering moments.

Like that first time you come home from work and your baby recognizes that it’s YOU and that you are somehow very important to them and you have been gone, and they squeal and their little body shakes until you hold them. I love that. Like when you watch your child timidly attempt something far removed from their comfort zone, but they exercise the hope and trust, even faith, that they will succeed and it will be fun or rewarding or wonderful. And then it is. Like when your young, inhibited son, who hesitates to ever openly demonstrate confidence completely destroys the competition in a half-mile race. Or when your 11-year old writes a poem for you for Fathers’ Day that is so personal and sweet and loving that publishing it publicly would belittle it. Or when your daughter tells you that she wants to marry somebody just like you. Or when you leave the house for two minutes to get the mail and when you come back in the house your three year old cocks his head to the side, as if he’s just read a chapter out of How to Look so Adorable Your Parents Will Give you Anything, and says, “Dad. When you were gone. I missed you.” Or when your daughter refuses to ever let you leave the house without giving you a hug and a kiss. Or when your children don’t know you are watching them, and they are just being their unguarded selves, and it is like watching lyrics being written.

My hope – and I have to believe this is true – is that in the Next Life, at our leisure, we are able to instantaneously recall each mortal moment, and almost relive it. That we will be able to readily bring to memory all of these moments. Moments that affected you in a way that you just couldn’t attach words to.

I also have to believe that in the Next Life, Haagen-Dazs is served upon your arrival. That’s just good hospitality.

The Inside Scoop

So I was recently checking my email In Box, as I am wont to do from time to time, and was surprised to find a deliciously salacious email from a certain editor at a certain gossip rag. There were also certain legal terms at the bottom of the email, indicating that if I were ever to forward, copy, Etch-a-Sketch, or skywrite the contents of this email for others to read, I would be publicly flogged with a wet noodle, forced to go on Maury and discuss my odd fascination with cryptozoology, and court ordered to spend up to 18 months in jail with nothing to read but Nicholas Sparks’ books. So as you can imagine, I’m treading lightly here. I’m going to speak in code.

The email was from Shmali Shmpuliti, and the magazine was Shmus Shmweekly.

Turns out, Shmali had tracked down my very own Katie, who went to school with (are you sitting down?) JON GOSSELIN! I know!! They went to the same high school! Could you just DIE?! And since I can’t give you the direct quote, I’ll just tell you that Shmali was doggedly earning her paycheck by hunting down any sordid, juicy tidbits about our Jon, the main character of TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8. She boldly came right out and said she was looking for details about “everyone’s favorite reality father.”

Now, you should know that even though I have never watched a single episode of this show, I am as equally offended as you are. What kind of integrity do you have to have to come right out and assume that Jon is everyone’s favorite reality father?! Sincerely! Everyone’s favorite?! What about Ozzy Osbourne? Hm? What about Project Runway’s Tim Gunn (the Father of Fashion – I just made that up)? Or even what about Stanley, from the reality TV show, The Office? “Everyone’s favorite,” indeed. I mock your favoritenessocity, Shmali!

I immediately sat Katie down and demanded to know why she had never shared this information with me before. We’ve been married almost 14 years and she has never once – not once! – brought up the fact that she went to the same high school as Mr. Jon & Katie Plus 8. She claimed she didn’t know who he was then and barely knows who he is now. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to believe her, since she failed to ever bring it up prior to Shmali’s email! I’m no fool!

“Think, Katie!” I said. “It doesn’t matter if you knew him or not – what does Shmus Shmweekly want to know! Here is our chance to get OUR story out there! We should tell Shmali, ‘You know, I do remember Jon. Why, I remember even back then he used to love old episodes of The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. Also the A-Team. I know there were no large families on that show, but I bring it up as an interesting detail. I don’t know how I didn’t see it then – the man wanted a big family! Scandalamity! Sometimes he also kicked small animals, said the word “crap” a lot, and on more than one occasion I caught him picking his nose in the school parking lot. I’m surprised the TV cameras haven’t picked up more of that stuff on film.’”

Once the word is out on what a reliable and cooperative source of information we are, it will only be a matter of time before we’re approached by the remaining class of sophisticated and refined publications such as Shmpeople,  Shmenquireror, or even  ShmGQ. But don’t look for us in Shmplayboy. That’s not the direction we’re heading. (Even if you just read it for the shmarticles.)