Frenzied Daddy

Miss K is working hard at getting potty trained. Yeah, it’s a lot later than Miss B did, but she’s been in disposables, so I expect her to be training late. That and I’m a slacker. So right now, she’s in a pullup overnight and she’s in regular big girl panties during the day.

Thursday, I was getting her ready to take to the sitter’s to play while I worked and I had to change her panties. I wrestled her out of the pullup and tossed her the big girl panties to put on while I walked the pullup to the garbage. ( Dogs. Don’t ask. ) I came back and, while she’s had lots of practice putting on her panties, she had both legs in one leg hole and they were stuck coming up her knees. I helped her out of them and explained them to her, and put them on and pulled them up to her knees ( so she had experience pulling them to her knees and past her knees, sort of an overall whole-experience thing ). I turned around to get her pants, and she started hollering at me —

“Daddy ! My bottom’s up here!”

Uh, ok, honey.

I was reading about Ian McKellen playing King Lear (one of my favorites of Shakespeare’s plays), and found myself flabbergasted. No, it wasn’t about him ( Sir McKellen ) dropping his trousers during the storm in Act 4. No, it wasn’t about the fan letter he got from the seven year old. No, it wasn’t reading that he only was offered Gandalf after Sean Connery, Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins turned it down. No, it wasn’t that he “enjoys being a star” because he’s very shy and hates going into rooms with a bunch of strangers, so his stardom is a blessing because everyone knows who he is ( thus there are no more rooms with many strangers ).

What surprised me was that he’s gay. It’s funny; my moms are gay, I’ve got gay friends, I’ve been around gays and lesbians for as long as I remember — they’re part of my landscape like rivers, plants and republicans. So it’s kind of surprising to me to be … so surprised … about Sir Ian.

Not only is he gay, but he also was one of the founding members of Stonewall, named after the Stonewall Riots. And he regrets the years he spent lying to his parents and friends about himself. Reading some of the other interviews with him, he said that staying in the closet is itself a homophobic act and demonstrates self-hatred (I’m paraphrasing). But he likes himself, and so he’s out.

Generally, spiders don’t bug me. Sure, black, bulbous bodies with spindly legs that have sharply bent joints … they get squished. I don’t mind the little brown garden spiders though. Yeah, I practice racial profiling and prejudice against spiders. Sue me.

I’m not going out like this poor guy: German Man. Note to Chris: do not click. Note to others: the story is not believable for many reasons.

When I was younger, even when Ms B and I first got married (well, ok, up until about six years ago) I had a terrible phobia about flying bugs… I would run and jump around like a monkey if I thought a bee was in my hair. I was more in danger of scaring the poor thing than anything else. Miss B has been following in my footsteps, which has caused me to consciously “worry less” when there’s flying insects nearby. She claims she likes some common bugs but other ones disturb her. And flying ones, well, just give up.

I’m on call this week which means I go to bed early and I’m up early. This morning I came down to find a note on the basement door that read “there is a moth inside. please remove.” in Miss B’s best handwriting.

Last year Miss B’s writing really started getting better. Her teacher told us that, like all of her art, Miss B was a great writer. She couldn’t wait to see what Miss B got up to as she developed. Her reading really sparked up last year too, and over the summer I’ve been astounded at how voraciously she’s been reading. Now I’ve been subjected to her writing too; and I must say that I’m at least as proud as her mother is.

You can read some of what she’s written over at her blog. Please leave encouraging comments, or email me if you have discouraging comments. She doesn’t have an email address yet.

Or a myspace [shudder]!

Miss B, aka Zoo Angel, headed off to camp today. She’ll be gone a week. Now that she’s ten, she’ll be allowed to ride the horses, but I think she’s most excited about playing capture the flag again.

It gives me some special time with Miss K, whose birthday is coming up fast (July 19). She’s having fun, dancing around the house with Miss K’s karaoke microphones singing and shouting “ta daaa!” Very sweet.

She’s been expecially kind to me this weekend; I started getting a cold yesterday. I thought it was just an allergy fit because of all the sneezing, but then my throat started hurting and this morning I woke up with a low grade fever and my whole body ached. And I have one of those headaches where when I move, my heartbeats in my head get painful. It’s a real pita. Well, pith. Miss K has been ( when she’s not climbing over me and pinching my face trying to get me to laugh ) very solicitous of my well-being, and offering me blankets and water. Kind of unusual in a (not quite) three year old, I believe…

Which reminds me- she painted this amazing picture of me that I’ve got to scan for you.

Oh, well I guess that’s enough rambling.

Just when I think my daddyhood couldn’t get any worse, Miss K decides to show me how very wrong I am.

Miss B, Ms B and I were laying in the big bedroom (Ms B’s and Mine), in front of the fan, reading and working. I see Miss K with the gentle leader, she takes it over to Perrin and hooks him up. He’s not choking or anything, so she must have done it right. I go back to my work, and Miss K and Perrin leave the room. I’m listening to the sounds; I’m expecting to hear her crying or him barking or some sort of disaster but I don’t hear anything. I’m also expecting Miss B and Ms B to have noticed that Miss K was up to something.

I’m working on a piece of code and need to get it out of my head before I forget about it. A lot of my work is like that; my breaks come between pieces of code. It’s very creative-process-y.

I involve myself in the code, not hearing any noise ( but I can hear the fan and the radio, I’m not totally zoned ), and tell myself that I’ll find Miss K after this function block. Before I finish, however, I hear a voice. I look up from the computer and listen more closely; I can’t decide if it’s the radio or not, and I’m about to ask the Bs if they hear it too, when SS, our neighbor, comes into the room. She had let herself in, through the open front door.

Apparently Miss K had walked Perrin out of the house and down the street (away from the busy street, deeper into the neighborhood ) and had gotten about 4 or so houses down before someone noticed her. They asked SS if she (Miss K) was hers, but it wasn’t until SS actually saw her that she realized that it was Miss K. I was astounded that Perrin hadn’t pulled her over or anything, that he was politely walking along with her. And when SS picked her up to bring her home, Miss K threw an unholy temper tantrum– as if Miss K believed that she was doing the right thing; it was like the two of them had teamed up and were going for a walk come Heck or High Water.

Sigh.

I guess I have to put locks on our gates too