When it comes to my car, I used to be a real neat freak. I used to wash and wax, vacuum and Armor-all, and even clean the engine.

But now I’m a parent, with two little girls, and I seem to have flat-out given up where my car is concerned…

It’s not that I’ve become lazy or that I’ve stopped caring. It really bothers me every single time I hop in my ride. In fact, I recently had a chance to make a change and get back on the right track. I traded in my BMW for a new car two months ago. This forced me to clean out the entire thing before I handed over the keys on the trade-in. I even refused to put any of the old stuff back in the new car – until such time as I would able to sort out what was really needed (um, yeah, that bag of stuff is still in my garage, waiting for me to go through it).

So, I was given an opportunity to start fresh.

And I blew it. It’s been two months since my purchase and the interior of my car looks like a war zone…

I can’t blame it only on my kids… Wait, yes, I can. It’s their fault. 100%. I’m just along for the ride.

You see, my girls simply cannot leave the house without taking something with them. Even though the don’t need it, I’ve seen them grabbing a nearby item as they go out the door. Just to have something in their hand, I think. No rhyme or reason. And all of this crap gets dumped into my car.

The car has some storage space and I’ve got every nook and cranny filled to the brim – ice scrapers, CDs, an umbrella, sunglasses, all the typical car stuff you sorta need. So, there’s not much room for anything else. Which means that every surface in the car – except for my seat – has something on it. And I mean every surface. For some reason, there are enough cup holders for 20 people and it only seats 7. Naturally, each cup holder is full of something that actually prevents me from putting any actual cups in them. There are toys, pieces of toys, candy, food bits, or trash in all of ‘em. Even the backseat armrest that folds down has 2 cup holders full of junk.

Right now, in my SUV, there are books, games, toys, toy boxes, candy wrappers, school papers, coloring books, crayons, blankets, empty juice boxes, shattered Pop-tarts in Ziploc baggies, folding chairs, necklaces, princess shoes, at least 4 tiaras, Halloween candy, a backpack, receipts, lollipop sticks, and enough leaves that have been tracked in by tiny feet to fill a Hefty bag. There are muddy feet prints on the backs of both the front seats. There are smudgy finger prints on every glass surface, both inside and out. There are marks on the interior windows and the sides of the car where the seat belt has been flung off and and the buckle has gone flying. There is a layer of dust on every inch of my dashboard.

And it’s driving. Me. Crazy.

But, this is the sacrifice I have to make for having kids I suppose. You give up your life for their soccer practice, guitar lessons, trips to the library, and birthday parties.

There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Okay, back to watching my TV shows I’ve got queued up in the DVR. The Walking Dead is rockin’ it and I’m really liking Hell on Wheels…

For the first time ever, as a father, the end of DST has made my life easier!  And how often does that happen?

Um… never.

As I recently wrote in We are Not Morning People, it’s a battle of stubbornness to get my little ankle-biters out of bed. Nearly every morning, there’s weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s never, ever pretty.

But with the end of daylight savings time, we pushed things back by an hour. A magical hour of awesome happiness, it seems!

My girls were in a groove and were used to being forced from their warm beds every morning… at 7am. When it hits 7am now? It’s really 8am to them. And they are actually waking up on their own! Can you freakin’ believe it?

Oh, hells yeah.

I’m doing that happy dance like the father in the commercial for kids back-to-school supplies that gleefully tosses pencils into the cart while the soundtrack announces it’s the “most wonderful time of the year!”

Nearly every morning this week, our youngest has gotten up and crawled into bed with us. We usually have to turn on her light as we’re getting up to start the wakeup process. As soon as that light would shine in her eyes, she’d roll over and bury herself in her blankets. This week? Not even once.

My oldest actually woke up, went downstairs, and started watching television the other morning. She’s the hardest of the two to wake up and the only time she gets herself up to watch TV is on the weekends — and that’s only because we’ve all slept in.
This has never happened in the history of time changes with both of my girls. Or even one of them.

Now, I know this glorious transformation will be short-lived. But I’m going to enjoy it, as long as it lasts. Dammit.

After another week or so, I’m sure they’ll get back into a new groove and when 7am rolls around, they’ll cling to their bed posts and flowered bedsheets as I drag them from their comfy slumber as alarm clocks bleat out a dreadful clarion call.

But let me have my own little personal triumphs. They’re so rare.

Ya know?

And you were only 7 months old when we moved from L.A. to Ohio and, at the time, your sister had just turned four.

It’s been so great watching you grow, seeing your personality develop, hearing that perfect laugh of yours, and falling deep into those gorgeous baby-blue eyes every time I look at you.

I wanted to write to you to remind you about one of our special traditions that we have. In case, you know, you’re actually interested in reading this stuff when you’re older. ‘Cuz… that happens, right? Kids love reading the mindless ramblings of their parents… Right?
Well, here it goes.

You love it when I read to you. You don’t have favorite books that you want to hear over and over again so we make regular treks to the library. We went last night, as a matter of fact, and got 5 new children’s books. At least twice a week, we make the journey. You play hide-and-seek with me, against my wishes, while I try to pick out a few CDs and some books. When that doesn’t get me to stop looking for something for me, you tell me you need to go potty.

And that’s the fiendishness of your library excursions. You know I have to stop searching for what I want and take you to the restroom. 9 times out of 10, you don’t actually have to go. But you always get your way, and because the bathroom is close to the kid’s books, you sprint from the bathroom right into your section. You pick a book rack at random and we sit on the floor.

I love it when you pull out a book and pretend to read it – you’re checking to see if it looks interesting, I think – and then you either put it back or add it to the pile.

When we get back from the library, you usually want me to read one to you right away. But I usually make you wait until bedtime. And when I put you to bed, you beg me to read every single book to you but you usually only make it through two of them before you start sucking your thumb and get a little glassy-eyed.

I’m really loving our little tradition – we’ve been doing this regularly for over a year now. And, sadly, I’m sure the good times will come to an end and trips to the library with “dear old dad” will be a thing of the past, barely remembered.

But hopefully not. I still remember my weekly Tuesday trips to the library with my mom when I was growing up.

Anyway, happy birthday to you! I love you with all my heart. It’s been a wonderful four years!

Now, if I can just remember to pick up the cake on the way home…

We went to a little festival at a local nursery last week. They usually have one every year and this year was no exception.
Mostly we go because my brother’s band plays there. But they make it fun for the kids – there’s a tractor ride, pig races, pumpkin painting contests, and a bunch of other carnival games (and really good food.)

Not much to report, really, but I wanted to share some of the pics of the day. Enjoy…

How is the Fall treating you?

“Rain, rain, don’t go away…

Come again another way…”

Naturally, being good parents, we stopped her to correct her lyrics. She help up her hand and gave us the “stern” look. She sighed and started over:

“Rain, rain, don’t go away…

Come again another way:

Snow!”

You just want to pick her up and squeeze her.

That’s my only excuse for not posting something on L.A. Daddy in a while. Of course, I could probably also use lazy, lazy, lazy and it would still apply.

It’s been a quick, fun summer and we’ve gotten a lot done. And I’ve been playing a lot of golf. I’m obsessed by it, really. I don’t know what it is but this is what I’ve spent nearly every weekend doing for the past month and a half. It’s fun, maddening, and a challenge.

Another great part of this summer has been watching L.A. Toddler hit her stride.  L.A. Girl, who has started 1st grade this year, went through this phase and I just love it. It’s that span between two and a half years old and three and a half when they just “light up” and are so damn cute.

I had a post about L.A. Girl when she was this age, too. I talked about how I don’t know why they call it the Terrible Twos because they are so amazing at this age. L.A. Toddler is talking in big, long run-on sentences and she’s developing a sense of humor and she’s putting on little shows and singing songs. This is the time when you just wish you could capture it all in a bottle and save it forever.

Our almost three year old is now, decidedly, a fashionista. Unlike L.A. Girl, who is somewhat of a tomboy, her younger sister loves to wear dresses, do up her hair, use Chap-stick like it’s lipstick, and have mommy paint her toenails.

Every morning when I get her dressed, she makes the demands on what she’s going to wear. If I pull out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, she holds her hand out in protest, “No! No, I wear a boo-tiful dress!” She even did it to me this morning. And she went so far as to turn down the first orange dress I picked out for her and wanted to wear the other orange dress hanging in her closet.

When we went downstairs for breakfast, her sister grabbed a cereal box and planted herself at the table. But L.A. Toddler didn’t have food on her mind. She turned a chair around and commanded me to sit. Then she proceeded to make me watch her twirl around and around, so that her boo-tiful orange dress could twirl out with her.

It was her own little fashion show.

I can see where she is going to be spending large amounts of my money on clothing. And I’m afraid I won’t be waiting for the teen years or even the ‘tween years before this happens. I think I’ll need to get a second job to keep up.

To top it off, she has a new trick up her sleeve. Her hair is much longer than her older sisters. It’s only ever been trimmed and hasn’t been cut back at all in her few short years.

This morning, she held up a finger to tell me to wait after her twirling session. She says, “Watch, daddy!” And she bends all the way forward and uses her tiny little fingers to brush all her hair forward. Then, with the dramatic flair of a fashion model, she flings her head back and lets her long flowing hair fly up through the air and backward. She ends with a quick shake of her head to make sure all loose hair strands are where they should be. She turns to me and flashes a proud smile.

It seems like it might be her world and we’re just living in it.

I wish I could freeze her in time and keep her like this forever.

I smiled.

Apparently, my youngest had decided that she didn’t want to eat her corn. She wanted to… snort it.

She had placed a kernel up each nostril and they were stuck. Really stuck. The teacher said that I had to either come get her or try to remove the misplaced corn…

Off the phone, I thought about my choices. Normally, at this point, I would have called my wife. She usually handles this sort of emergency. She would have given me great advice and I would have smacked my forehead in shame for not thinking of it myself.

So, I thought on it myself. And I came up with a solution.

I grabbed this little turkey-baster contraption that we have. It’s designed to suck the snot out of your wee ones, when they’re sick, to clear up their airways. At least I hope we were using it the correct way… If not, I don’t want to know.

I drove over to the daycare. All the teachers and administrators were there and they must have been talking about it because they laughed at me as soon as I arrived. Then they apologized. A few decided I needed help because I arrived and apparently don’t look like I’m capable of eating corn much less removing it from odd places.

But I informed them that “I got this.” And I whipped out my little turkey-baster thing. They eww’d and ahhh’d at my ingeniousness. I retrieved my sweet baby from her classroom and took her to a quiet place in the daycare center.

And I stuck the thing up one nostril. She squirmed, writhed, and whined. I let that baster pull at the first kernel for a few minutes and nothing happened. My genius plan was foiled. But I was determined… I kept at it. And finally…

The corn kernel appeared at the entrance of her nostril. I reached for it and L.A. Toddler accidentally (I think) snorted it back in. Pop! It was gone. So I tried again and again. I did manage to eventually get it out but my daughter was now giving me the evil glare. The you’re-going-to-buy-me-a-real-nice-car-when-I’m-sixteen-for-this glare.
I hate the evil glare.

I tried to get the second one out and it just wasn’t coming. And, by now, she had completely given up on the torture I was inflicting on her and decided to wail at the top of her lungs. And the corn kernel shot so far up her nose, I couldn’t see it anymore. It was gone. Being the man I am, I gave up. I figured I’d get it later that night. One was out and she wasn’t complaining about it anymore.

So… I returned her to her classroom. And as I was opening the door to her room, I dragged the heavy metal door across the top of her toes causing serious pain. She cried bloody murder! Daggers were firing out of her eyes! The teacher had to rescue her from her EVIL dad and… my work was done.

Later that night, L.A. Mommy was giving her a bath. And she discovered a corn kernel floating in the bath water. It had worked itself out and had dropped out of her nose. At least, that’s what we’re telling ourselves. If it dropped out of somewhere else–

We don’t want to know about it.

What’s with all the crying?!

Yes, it’s another thing no one told me about when I signed up for this gig. As I told you, I didn’t know to get the owners manual like everyone else did when we had our first daughter. And I was too tired to remember to ask for it when we had our second daughter…

So I need some help.

There is entirely too much tears in my house. Major meltdowns over the smallest things. Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth for nothing at all.

And this has got to be a girl thing. When I was growing up, I don’t remember weeping bouts every thirty seconds. And there’s not much I can do about it. The XX chromosomes out-number me three-to-one in my house. My sad Y chromosome and I must hang out in the garage pretending to rebuild a carburetor.

I can’t remember a dinner where we sat down and ate an entire meal without one of them bawling their eyes out. “She got more mac n’ cheese than me! Waaaaa!”, cries the youngest one. “I don’t like that, daddy! It’s yucky! Waaaaaa!!!”, cried my oldest one. “Why can’t we watch American Idol! Waaaaa!”, cried my wife…

I just can’t win.

And here’s the thing. I don’t know if you know this or not, but most men cannot – and I mean CANNOT – handle tears. They don’t know what do. And I’m one of those men. I’m completely lost. I just want to stand there and spin in circles until the crying stops.

You see, a man’s solution to tears is to try to get them to stop. As soon as possible. So the first thing that pops into my mind is to provide a way to fix the problem. And that’s where I get into trouble and it’s something I don’t understand. These girls don’t want me to fix the problem. They just want to cry even more. Because everytime I say, “Well, she’s bigger than you and can eat more and needs more energy!” I get another round of uncontrollable weeping! Or, “Well, American Idol is one of the dumbest shows on the planet, that’s why!” I get a deadbolt slammed shut on the nooky locker… and some crying.

Anyway, I don’t know what to do. But I think I know why so many men have hearing problems as they get older. It’s not really from too many Black Sabbath concerts when they were kids. And it’s not from all the screaming from their kids when they’re older. I think they have figured out the method to the madness.

I think they’ve figured out a way to tune it all out. A man can only handle the sound of girls crying for so long before he either goes mental or learns how to cope. And the answer is to block it all out. Sure the wife will make me go get a hearing aid, which I’ll fake on the hearing test, and I can forget to wear it often. And she can commiserate with our daughters over the latest tragic incident involving a few drops of spilled milk on the kitchen floor.

I’ll just sit in my rocking chair, in blissful silence, and pretend there’s no sound at all.

Now… can someone please scan me a copy of the damn owner’s manual for little girls and email it to me? I’ll pay ya. I promise.