Happy Father's Day

Sugar! Glorious SUGAR!

The kids and I had a great day on Saturday. While wife was at work, the kids and I played at the pool for an hour and a half. Sadie splashed around happily and Soen dunked me over and over. In the afternoon, Soen and I went to see Shrek the Third, ate some sushi, and ran around at the park. During the movie he told me he loved me and leaned his head on my shoulder. Then came Sunday.

All was going well until Mommy went to the gym, at which point both kids decided to start screaming. It had nothing to do with Mommy leaving, but everything to do with Soen not napping and Sadie being in her "I have no way to communicate my complex feelings other than to scream" stage. I'd play with her, she'd scream. I'd put her in her neglect-a-saucer, she'd scream. I'd take her out, she'd scream. Not angry screams, just screams for screams sake. And all the while I was under the delusion that I could keep them from screaming long enough to watch the US Open. At one point I had her in her jumper and was feeding her some peas (which she loves). She'd take a bite. Scream. Take another bite. Scream. I couldn't tell if she wanted more, wanted me to stop, or wanted me to stab myself in the eye with her pea covered baby spoon. I chose the fourth option: Let's go swimming!

So, I ran around getting everything together (towels, food, juice boxes, toys, sunscreen, cyanide tablet(s), etc.) and all the while Sadie screamed her head off while Soen was bouncing her up and down in spite of my saying, "Stop that. Stop that. Stop that! Stop that! Hey I can actually slam my head all the way through the wall. Howbout that." I couldn't punish him by telling him he couldn't go to the pool, because that would have just been punishing me.

Meanwhile, wife has been out of the house for all of 15 minutes.

So... off to the pool we go. Everything was going fine until I brought Sadie into the water. At which point she screamed. I held her close... scream. I put her in her floaty crabby thingy... scream. I'd bounce her up and down.. scream. So, I took her out of the water and buckled her into the stroller, getting ready to leave before we ruined Father's Day for all the happy families all around us, when... she stopped screaming! In fact, she was actually smiling! And that's when Soen, who all this while had been floating around in the water in his boat coat and calling to me to help with with whatever the hell he wanted help with and would have to wait... had his boogie board taken away from him and started to cry. Since Sadie wasn't crying, I ran over to him, picked him up out of the water (with one hand!), kicked the kid with his boogie board in the throat (if only) and got Soen calmed down. Amazing! Sadie was now totally immersed in chewing on the baby spoon and was paying no attention to me, so I jumped into the water to cool down and play with the boy. Still no screams! In fact, everything was perfect for three glorious minutes until Mommy showed up. And Sadie started to scream.

But, wife made a delicious dinner, Soen and she made me some incredible cupcakes, I did get to watch rest of the Open, and all in all had a great Fathers' Day. Thank God it's Monday.