Where have I been? I've been busy not helping with nighttime feedings, continuing to sow the story of Santa into Simon's head (true story, kids, winkwink, parents), and watching Cecily reach the age where she can do more pushups than I can.
It's been a while. I was going to write an entry about how my affection for our cats waned immensely once we had kids. Then one of our cats ran away around Thanksgiving, as if she knew what was in my heart. She was gone for a week, and then my wife found her on some kind of miracle walkabout. The feline was completely unscathed and came back in the house as if nothing had changed.
I thought about writing something about school shootings and guns and what it could possibly feel like to have your child murdered and what we can do to stop this from happening and what I would do if it happened to me and where we go from here and maybe I'll never let my children go anywhere without me ever again. Instead, I sat at our kitchen table with a bowl of mini wheats and read Twitter and felt a deep and hollow sadness inside me.
I considered writing a light-hearted bit on drool because that's all that Cecily does now. I guess it's a precursor to teeth or something, because both kids (with Cecily being right in the middle of it currently) have gone through phases where all they do is drool. Literally, that is the only activity that they are doing 100% of the time. I'll pick Cecily up and she'll immediately grab the nearest body part of mine that she can reach and stick it in her mouth, which is akin to having that portion of me being thrust underneath a waterfall. If she's in an upright position, her onesie will be soaked (with her own saliva, mind you) within a matter of minutes. If I go in to kiss her anywhere near her mouth, I'm pretty sure she's thinking: OK, this time, I'm going to eat that man's head. It's going to happen.
Our holidays this year were fairly low-key (qualified, of course, by: as low-key as can be with a toddler and an infant). Simon's coming around on Christmas. A year ago, he was scared when we visited Santa at the tree farm where we got our Christmas tree and only really appreciated the big man when he arrived with a tractor for him. This year, Simon was still a bit shy at the tree farm, but ended up telling Santa he wanted a monster truck (you know, like the one he got "as a prize for pooping!").
Oh, sidebar, Simon now poops in the toilet so, BIG UPS. Seriously, that may be one of the best things to ever happen to me/him/us/the world.
OK, anyway, Simon's starting to understand concepts like Christmas and Santa and presents now (though he's still a little hazy on Jesus), and he got excited for Christmas which was delightful to see. He's still not quite old enough to understand delayed gratification, so he spent much of the week leading up to Christmas grabbing presents we had put under the tree and either giving them to us or pushing them together to build a castle. Cecily, of course, is oblivious to all of this, though she does like ripping wrapping paper and then eating it. Don't worry, we didn't let her eat more than the daily recommended value (which, for most parents, is none...until you're too tired to care. Then, it's infinite).
But we didn't have houseguests, we didn't travel, and we didn't have a big Christmas party. It was a welcome relief from the usual hectic stress of the holidays to have, instead, the new normal: constant chaos from children.
Here's a new year's dadsolution for you: I'll write in this thing! I'll update my six readers on the ongoing joys and woes of being a dad. And - if you're very good - maybe I'll post some more Goofus and Gallant images for you to enjoy.
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