Get ready to Wiggle

As I walked toward the busy street, my wife called for me to be careful, as traffic was whirring by.
Unfazed, I continued at my pace, stepping off the curb and moving across the street.
“Honey,” I said, “I just survived 70 minutes of The Wiggles. Clearly, I am invincible.”
For those of you without small children, you have no idea what I am talking about. For those of you with young children, you are now saying over and over, “Do the monkey!!!!”
The Wiggles, for the uninitiated, is a musical group that is required cult-like viewing for any child 5 and under. They are four Australian men who sing such songs as “Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy” “Toot, toot, chugga chugga, big red car” and “Mommy’s wallet is in her purse.” (Not completely sure about that last one. They all run together.)
The Wiggles’ North American tour visited Columbia recently, and my wife somehow caught wind of this, despite my efforts to limit any and all forms of Wiggles-related communication to enter our home.
This was not the first Wiggles concert for my children. They went to one a while back in Atlanta. I tricked my father-in-law into going by hyping them up, telling him what a special time it would be to spend with his grandchildren. He is still considering whether he wants to speak to me ever again.
This concert was to begin at 3 p.m., so we left with what we thought was ample time to get in our seats. This was before we found out that, in Columbia, there are approximately four parking spaces available for concert-goers. We sat in traffic for what I believe was 11 days. (Time tends to crawl when you have “Are we at The Wiggles yet? Are we at The Wiggles yet?” coming at you in stereo from the back seat.
Eventually, my wife and I decided to split up. (No, not that kind of split up. Trust me, if there is ever a time when a husband and wife need to be there for each other, it’s going to see The Wiggles.) My wife decided to take our daughter, Allie, to the ticket booth, while I would sit in traffic. Parker would assist me by screaming, “ME GO WITH MOMMMMMMMYYYYY!!!!’
When we finally got near what I thought may have been a parking lot, a man in a very official vest said, “Sorry, all lots are full.” I asked him where we could park. He helpfully said, “Nowhere. Lots are full.”
Well, turns out that a restaurant about eight blocks away was not full, and I was soon on my hike to the arena, really hoping that the “Customer Parking Only” was not a strictly enforced rule.
Eventually, we made it into the arena. Allie was bounding ahead, ready to dance and sing and do all of the stuff you are supposed to do at a Wiggles concert. Parker, meanwhile, was awestruck. When we walked down the tunnel to our seats, he saw The Wiggles’ set. He beamed wild-eyed, turned to me and screamed, “WIGGLES!!!!” OK, so even a cynical crab like me can admit that the excitement he was experiencing would make it worth it.
When The Wiggles came out, we were first informed that Greg, the leader of the Wiggles, was not on tour, as he was in Australia having hernia surgery. I don’t know about you, but I think a crowd full of kids would have been fine with being told Greg had a “tummyache.” Granted, my wife, being the kind of person who has no problem discussing clinical things over the dinner table, told Allie, “Remember when Parker had hernia surgeries? That’s what Greg’s having.” Tummyache, dear. Tummyache is fine.
I will have to give The Wiggles credit on one thing: They definitely become one with the crowd. All of the Wiggles run through the arena, stopping and chatting up kids and such. I guess when the worst thing an obsessed fan will do is spit up on you, you’re pretty safe heading into the masses.
At one point during the show, the four Gibbonses were going through the motions, doing the monkey, one of the Wiggles more popular dances. I looked around and saw thousands of other parents doing the same thing. I am sure there were scads of people who once considered themselves cool or hip or at least slightly with it. At that moment, there was not a cool one in the bunch, but rather a bunch of us waving our arms up and down hollering, “Ooooh-ooooh, eeeh-eeeh, ooooh-ooooh, eeeh-eeeh.”
Truth be told, it was actually a fairly tolerable event. The kids had a great time, which is the most important thing. And I have discovered I am, in fact, invincible.

Bring in The Funk

We try to be a sharing family. I now see this is a mistake.

I came to this conclusion around 10 p.m. Saturday night, curled up my bathroom floor, shivering and sweating at the same time, whimpering to my wife, "make...it...go...away..."

Yes, we have been passing around The Funk in my house, and I think the best way to stop the spread is to demolish the house and rebuild, possibly out of wood that has been soaked in Purel.

It started last week. My wife told me she wasn't feeling so great. I offered up this sage medical advice: Something must be going around. She countered that she works in a school, which is essentially the genesis of every funk on the planet, so something is always going around. For someone who works around kids to get sick, something extra special has to take hold.

I assured her she would be on the mend in no time. A short while later, I was being pushed aside, Heisman-like, as she sprinted to her new best friend, the bathroom, where she would spend the next few days.

Trying to keep the rest of the house blech-free, I did my level best to tend to kids without my wife having to leave the comfort of the bathroom mat. That evening, however, I found my daughter had contracted The Funk.

She came to me about 3 in the morning and said, "Daddy, by tummy hurts. And it's moving up to my chest..."

Immediately, I knew where the next move was, and I escorted her to the bathroom ("Step over your mother, sweetie...") and spent the rest of the evening holding her hair as she tried to turn herself inside out.

The next day was a hole-up-in-bed day for those two, while Parker and I continued our quest for continued health. We also shopped for bubbles.

By Saturday, my wife and Allie were both on the mend. That evening, however, I had the sneaking suspicion that The Funk had taken up residence in me. I base this on the fact that, every few minutes, my stomach would make a gurgling noise. It sounded as though I had a coffee pot inside of me brewing. And, in some ways, it felt like I had a coffee pot inside of me. A very pointy coffee pot.

By about 10 that evening, I had assumed my wife's well-worn spot on the bathroom floor. Oftentimes, my wife and I have epic struggles of competitive sicknesses. I will have, say, a backache, and will tell her it is more extreme than any pain she will ever know. She will point to our two children. I tell her that she gave birth with the benefit of epidurals, doctors, etc. I, meanwhile, have to endure on sheer toughness alone.

But this time was different. My wife, having gone through the same thing just days before, had gobs of sympathy for me. I think we can agree that true love is patting someone gently on the back as they uncontrollably heave and then whispering softly to them, "Hang on...there's some in your hair."

I spent the next 13 or so hours in a quasi-coherent stage. I would nibble on a cracker, sip some ginger ale, sleep a little and, I am told, babble quite a bit. At one point, my wife said I stood up in the middle of the bedroom and had this conversation:

ME: HURRY! HURRY!

HER: What!?!?!?

ME: Skribble rabble garble. Zzzzzzzzz.

By the next evening, I was able to eat something, and was pretty much feeling better. I had the day-after blahs, which are never fun. My wife is an unfortunate carrier of the migraine gene, and coming in a close-second in discomfort to migraines is the day after, which she calls the migraine hangover. Having never experienced a migraine, I am glad I don't know what that day after feels like. But I did have what can be described as The Funk hangover. I felt as though I had entered a sit-up contest, and later served as a pi & ntilde;ata at Albert Pujols' birthday party.

Hopefully, The Funk has made its rounds and has moved on. While I don't wish it on others, I do wish it out of my house. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work. The wood is done soaking.

Ice to see you

It has taken me five long years, but I have finally bested my foe.
For half a decade, we have waged an epic battle of wits, a struggle pitting cunning and wile.
As I celebrated my victory, performing a ceremonial victory dance that has been years in the making, my wife, sensing this great moment, said, “You outsmarted a 5-year-old. I don’t think taunting is in order.”
Yes, so I finally chalked up a win against Allie, who since birth has figured out ways to dupe me. She has always been the Queen of Technicalities, and has always figured out a way to get her way without me knowing. I’ll throw down the “Because I’m your father!” gauntlet, and before I know it, she has criss-crossed the board and nailed me with a checkmate.
I am not sure how she does it. I think it is something along the lines of the old “duck season, rabbit season” bit. Or perhaps chemicals. But whatever it is, the end result often tends to be my concession that she can, in fact, stay up and watch Shrek while having licorice and a milkshake for dinner.
And the beauty of her game is that she somehow makes me feel as though I have scored a major victory.
Now, I know that a lot of you are saying, “Why, I wouldn’t let some kid dictate how I run my household! I’m the parent, bygum, and what I say goes!” And I agree 100 percent, which makes it all the more frustrating to be having to admit defeat. For example, a while back I shared in a column an event in which Allie was helping me finish off my lunch, also known as stealing my potato chips. When she began chewing with her mouth wide open, I told her not to open her mouth when she chewed her food. She turned her Bambi eyes on and said, “But it’s not MY food. It’s YOUR food.”
Let me add the disclaimer that Allie is a great kid. It’s just that she’s 5, and that age tends to see the world differently. Our most serious squabbles are over insignificant things, and are usually wrapped up in a matter of moments. (Skittles having an amazing way of bringing opposing parties together.)
So our latest tussle occured a few mornings ago when we were getting the kids ready for school. Allie had a snappy little number set out, which was picked out by her mother, who guarantees snappiness with every number. Allie came into our room and began a Nancy Kerrigan-like sobfest. “I....want...to...wear...a....skirt....”
Apparently, the snappy number involved pants, and foregoing a skirt would possibly collapse the earth into the sun.
At first, I tried reasoning. “Allie, pants will not crash us into the sun.”
Cue blank stare.
She continued to plead for a skirt, which was obviously the difference in a happy childhood and a future in crime.
After several minters of back and forth, I decided to up the stakes. After a quick trip downstairs, I returned to the room.
“Allie, if you were to wear a skirt, how far down your leg would the skirt go?”
Another blank stare.
I pointed at her knee. “How far down would your skirt go?” I asked. She hitched up her pants leg to around her knee. At that point, I placed the freshly retrieved ice cube on her leg. She gave me a look that conveyed I was no longer operating on the same plane.
“Wh...what are you doing?”
“It’s cold outside. I just want to make sure you can handle the cold.”
She stared down for a brief moment, and then said, “Uh, pants are fine.”
Now, you may think that I am being mean by putting ice on her leg. But you would be wrong. Allie and I have a long tradition of unconventional father-daughter roughhousing that lends well to our relationship. She appreciates a goofy production. She expects it. Some of you may remember my telling of the game bumrush, in which I sprint into a room and go airborne, tackling her while screaming “BUMRUSH!!!!” Some may find this disturbing. Allie finds it hilarious. (Note to doctors, social workers, grandparents, etc.: I don’t go Ray Lewis on her. Give me some credit.)
So to make sure she knew that the ice-capade was just me being me, I concluded the lesson by taking the ice, and putting it down the back of my wife’s shirt when she entered the room. I think that illustrates quite well what my wife means when she refers to her three children.
So in the end, everything worked out. Allie got dressed with the pants. I won an epic struggle. And my wife got to experience life married to a third grader. I’d call that a win all around.

To diet for

I’m on a diet.
I’ve never been on a diet before, because for the past decade, I have maintained my strapping weight of around 165.
So the diet is not a weight issue, but rather a sleepy issue. You see, for the last few weeks, every day after eating lunch I would get incredibly sleepy. Rip Van Winkle sleepy. Want to curl up under my desk like George Costanza sleepy.
Normally, to counter this, I would take a brisk walk around the office and tell everyone how tired I was. Perhaps my subconscious was driving that bus, and it was thinking that if I got hit in the head with a stapler from an annoyed co-worker, it would wake me up.
So one day at home, I was telling my wife how sleepy I kept getting after lunch each day. Her first suggestion was not so much a suggestion, but a lengthy discussion of how she operates on a mere 10-15 minutes of sleep each night, and still works and volunteers and takes care of the kids and if I would stop for two seconds and realize that sometimes – SOMETIMES – making the bed is the LAST thing on her mind and quite frankly, I could make it myself that morning.
About half-way through, she stopped and realized I was just talking about how it set in just after lunch, and was not waging a “Who’s More Tired?” contest.
She asked me what I was eating for lunch. I told her a handful of Ambien and a bottle of gin. She did not find that funny.
Most days, my lunch is something pretty standard, usually, a couple of sandwiches, some chips, a dessert and a milk. Same basic lunch I have been having since I first cut teeth.
“Well there’s your problem,” she said. Apparently, for three decades sandwiches and chips and Little Debbie peanut butter bars had been my friend, but had suddenly turned on me.
She began to lecture me on carbs and blood sugar and such, and made a less-than-kind face when I said, “So busy, yet you still had time to go get a medical degree?”
At that point, she conducted a doctoresque reflex test which showed I am still quick.
My wife, or Dr. Wife, as I guess I should call her henceforth, suggested I stop eating a couple of sandwiches and the dessert each day, and opt for more protein. The blank stare I gave her led her to say, “Just meat. No bread.”
Immediately, I saw what she was doing. “You’re trying to put me on the Atkins Diet!”
Although I have never been on a diet, I can certainly tell you that I am not a big fan of diet crazes. I am sure some have their merits and such, but the big problem I have – in particular with the Atkins – is the major side effect is creates, which is an inability to go four seconds without telling someone you’re on the Atkins Diet. While some of you out there may have quite fine upstanding low-carb dieting folks, several of your fellow dieters ruined it for you by constantly making bullhorn proclamations, especially in restaurants: “Yeah, I’ll have the bacon burger with extra bacon, BUT HOLD THE BUN – ATKINS! Oh, and throw a pork chop and a wheel of cheddar on top.”
Sensing I was getting a little testy on the subject, my wife informed me that (a) the Atkins Diet was about as much of a craze these days as a Rubik’s Cube and (b) I should just give her suggestion a try. Take some meat, maybe some fruit, some cheeses, and see how I feel.
So the next day, I did as she advised. I had some steak left over from the night before, some onions I had cooked, a side of green beans, and a chunk of cheddar, which, quite frankly, should be served with every meal.
After lunch, I waited for my near-narcolepsy to kick in. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And sure enough, I stayed quite alert.
I called my wife and told her that I felt great, and that I would try it again the next day. She said, “Try some peanuts and an orange juice for a snack later.” I think she may just be messing with me, slowly building up how much she gets me today. After a couple of days, she’s going to say, “OK, around 11ish, you need to drink the blood from a baby sparrow, and eat your left thumb. Do it. Now.”
So the results seem to be working. I have actually enjoyed my lunches of late, particularly because I don’t have a desire to put my head down and nap in the cantaloupe halfway through. I guess as I get older, my metabolism is changing. To counter that, I suppose I will need to alter some of my dining habits. I hope I can still type without my thumb.