My wife rarely travels away from home without the children and now I understand why. She recently flew to California for a week to visit her sisters and here’s a transcript of the first 16 hours under my watch:
5:30 pm: I let Poppy and London decide where to pick up dinner and they choose a restaurant that Lala avoids like the Hantavirus. The kids go wild and choose heaping piles of food laden with sugary neon sauce and what my friend Tom would call “greaze.” As an afterthought, they add an appetizer that looks as if it came out of the tail end of a yak on its deathbed.
5:45 pm: I suggest that we eat in front of the television because we are, indeed, Americans. Poppy wants to watch young movie stars ladled into gold dresses on Entertainment Tonight. London wants to view a Pokemon episode that aired sometime around the time of Sonny Bono’s death. I choose Wheel of Fortune, telling Poppy (my conscience in tween form) that it will help London gain the ability to read. What we learn is that if it’s a prize puzzle, cash out early.
6 pm: Surprise! London’s belly aches.
2:30 am: London crawls into bed with me, missing his mom. Unlike Lala, I don’t find a 6-year-old boy kicking me in the ribs to be a sedative.
3:30 am: I’m still awake, wondering how Pat Sajak went from a gay-looking mannequin in the 1980s to the bored, bitter game show host we all know and tolerate today.
6 am: I rise to write my first of many college recommendations. London gets up too—an hour early—startled awake by not having anyone to kick. He asks me to put on the “Charlie Brown Easter show.” I tell him there’s no such thing. “Easter?” he asks, his lip quivering. “No,” I say, “Easter of the Charlie Brown variety.” Yawning and blinking repeatedly, we settle for that over-pimped squash, The Great Pumpkin.
7 am: I offer to make the kids scrambled eggs. They laugh hysterically.
7:20 am: I slip Poppy’s shoes onto London’s feet as I’m getting him dressed. He frowns at me almost paternally.
7:25 am: I try to insert London’s TMNT lunchbox into his backpack. “I don’t do that,” he says sternly, and waves me off as if I wanted to store a stolen lobster in his kosher fridge.
7:40 am: “Got your sweater on London? Great!” I exclaim, ready to go. “He needs a jacket too, Dad. Hello?” Poppy volleys into my court. Poppy 1, Dad 0.
7:41 am: I go the wrong way (read: not Mom’s way)!
7:42 am: Unlike Lala, who plays the radio quietly, I fumble with the CDs while driving, trying to find the right theme music. I choose “Love in the Harbor” by A Band of Bees and adore Poppy’s lyric, “Is there any love in the hearth rug?” instead of “…in the harbor.” I sing loudly and well beyond my sad and damaged vocal range.
7:45 am: I jot notes while I drive, reminding myself to go to the bank, write another recommendation and call a babysitter in anticipation of the tavern therapy I’ll sorely need later in the week. In the rearview mirror, I see the kids are silently reminding themselves to tell their mother about their dad’s unsafe driving habits.
7:50 am: The kids leap out of the minivan and kiss the pavement. I wave goodbye and take my place in the serpentine line of cars slowly moving from their school to mine. Only seven days to go.