My Maternity

For the past five years during the first two weeks of April I have had the same dream. It has changed slightly over the years but it is fairly the same.
In my dream I spend the entire day with my boys at Disneyland, the zoo or some other place where children are often overly stimulated by an inundation of sights, sounds and grown-ups wandering about dressed as a variety of enormous woodland creatures. We are all exhausted and a little bit terrified by the day's proceedings and are loading up in the car. I'm careful to pack the stroller and setup the DVD player so the kids are sufficiently entertained (I say setup because we don't have a mounted system like those people who put on videos even though they're just driving to the store for milk. I feel this is poor parenting. Try engaging your kids, not ignoring them). Anyway, I start the movie and head home. The boys are quiet and well behaved and I decide to stop and get them a soft serve cone from McDonalds. When I pull in to the drive-thru and turn to tell them that Daddy, because he's such an awesome daddy, is getting them ice cream, I realize to my utter horror that the video is playing to a couple of empty car seats. I can only imagine the two little boys standing all alone in the Disneyland parking lot being comforted by Geppeto. It's at this point that I wake up in a cold sweat, breathe a sigh of relief and realize that it must be time for Nicole to go to the ladies retreat again.

Please don't get me wrong, I am capable of watching my boys by myself. It's just that in every parenting relationship, there are usually two kinds of people: the stalwart who is fazed by nothing and the worrier who manages to see the potential danger in every situation. I am the latter. When the boys are wrestling, I don't see two little guys horsing around and having fun. I see the much bigger one accidentally crushing the smaller one or Bryce hurling Henry into the corner of the piano bench, hitting his head and rendering him unconscious. So whenever Nicole leaves for a couple of days or even if she just goes to the store, I have to resist the urge to strap them to the couch with bubble wrap.

Well, after dropping Nicole off at the church I returned home (with both boys, whew!). I walked into the house, kicked off my flip-flops and promptly stepped into a gift that my dog left for me in the living room. Why is it that the dog never poops on the tile that is easy to clean? I immediately cordoned off a 10 foot area to try and keep Henry from playing in the offending substance. I then threw up, showered, soaked my feet in Purell, threw up again, showered again, and threw up again for good measure. You may think that I am acting like a wimp or a little girl even, but I don't care- you have your dog's diarrhetic poop squish between your toes and then we'll talk. (See! How many of you want to vomit now?) Speaking of diarrhea, Henry isn't feeling well. So that's good, yeah for me! Now, I didn't intend for this to be filled with potty humor so I will change the topic.

One of my favorite times of the day is "almost bedtime". About the last half hour or so before bedtime (hence the name "almost bedtime") is when we begin to wind down for the day. Usually this entails cleaning up a little (something we won't do until "almost pick up mommy time"), sitting down and turning on either Spongebob or the Upside Down show (I love having little boys that give me a great excuse to watch the shows I want to watch. Although I would watch them either way, having little kids makes it socially acceptable). This is my favorite time because Bryce is calm and happy and Henry, once I put Bryce to bed, eventually crawls up into my lap lays on my chest and rubs his hand on my stubbly chin. Once both boys are down for the night, I begin my solitude. As you could have probably guessed, I thrive on an audience. This usually means my wife bears the brunt of my feeble attempts at entertainment (no doubt boring her to death). But since I am alone, I am forced to try out my witty commentary on the cat (I would normally say the dog, but she and I are not on speaking terms until she learns to say "I am sorry" in perfect english). My cat is, as one might expect, unresponsive. I feel this is more a commentary on cats than the material I feed her, or at least I hope this is the case. Such great comedy fodder wasted on a stupid cat.

Bed time went well Thursday, for the boys anyway. I can never seem to sleep well when my better half is off somewhere else. It's kinda of bittersweet. On one hand I look forward to being able to sprawl all over the bed without a thought of infringing on someone's personal space. But on the other hand I have gotten so used to sleeping on the very edge of the bed while my lovely takes as much as she "needs". That and I can never seem to get to sleep without her there. Staying asleep isn't a problem. I just can't fall asleep. It may be that I have grown accustomed to our day-ending conversations and I need her to tell me about her day in order to fall asleep. Not that her day bores me to sleep or that her voice puts me out...I believe I'll stop there before I get into trouble.

Friday brought school and a speech therapy session for Bryce. Following the extremely short nap Henry took we went to the park and the Library (which has a very poor selection of kids videos). For the sake of brevity I'll just skip to the events that I really wish to discuss with you. Just before bedtime I asked Bryce to help me clean up the toys in the living room. He walked over to the couch, lied down and pulled the blanket up over himself. I asked him if he felt okay and all he said was, "Bryce is happy". I asked him if his stomach hurt and he said yes and, "need to spit". Which is "Bryce" for throw up. So I took him to the bathroom to give him a chance and all he did was actually spit. He turned around said, "go lay down" and went back into the living room and his perch on the couch. I kept an eye on him and cleaned up the living room. I am not sure if he was really sick, or just acting like daddy and trying to get out of cleaning up by feigning an illness of some kind. At any rate, he was fine by the time I put him to bed. Either way, I am just glad he didn't actually "spit". You see I am a sympathetic "spitter" and it wouldn't have been pretty.

Let's fast forward to 2:00 am. I had been asleep for two hours when I heard Henry fussing. My main objective was for both of us to return to sleep as quickly as possible. I brought him into the bed with me and after some tossing and turning and pushing me to the edge of the bed (not unlike mom), he finally settled down. Just as I was dozing myself, Henry began to cry. Now, when you become a parent, you are giving the ability to interpret your children's cries. You can rightly discern the difference between hurt and anger, hunger and a diaper change. There is no mistaking the cry of fear. I can't really describe it to you. Parents will already know exactly what I am referring to and those without kids, just be glad you haven't experienced it yet. Anyway, Henry's cry was one of sheer terror. This immediately sent my heart racing and adrenaline flooding through my body. I couldn't seem to wake him up as his cry got more and more terrified. He was having a bad dream and I drew him close to me to calm him down. It worked but not like I would have hoped or preferred. Note to self: wear a shirt to bed, especially if you are forced to comfort a freshly weaned baby after a bad dream. He will regress immediately. Awkward! Well, after calming him down, putting on a shirt and getting him back to sleep, I am stuck awake again. I tried to turn my brain off again (a task some of you would no doubt question its necessity, but I assure you I do use it occasionally) but it was difficult. Finally, I fell asleep at 5:00 am.

I now am getting ready to drive to Ironwood to get my wife who developed the stomach flu last night. I am sad because: a.) my baby is sick; and 2.) this means that even though she will be home, I will still be largely responsible for the children as she rests and recovers. Oh well, what's a couple of more hours as a single parent.......get well soon, baby! Please!...where's the bubble wrap?

My Cruising Musing: Day Seven

We spent the last morning of our cruise enjoying breakfast in bed and watching G.I. Joe. The Breakfast was delicious. I had a Spanish omelet and my lovely had French toast. I washed it down with some Columbian coffee and Nicole had a glass of freshly squeezed Florida orange juice. There was also a plate of Hawaiian pineapple and various Mexican fruits. It was as internationally diverse as the staff of the cruise ship. Although my omelet tried to conquer and enslave the fruit but was held off by a joint task force of the coffee and American fruits and as usual, the toast surrendered at the first sign of trouble.
The movie was hilarious but not for the reasons that the film makers intended. First of all, there were so many inaccuracies that it was ridiculous. Duke was played by Channing Tatum of Step It Up Fame. A colossal fail when you think that Duke should never have been played by someone who might, at any moment, break into a dance routine. Dennis Quaid as Admiral Hawk was good casting but Sienna Miller as the Baroness and Joseph Gordon Levitt as Cobra Commander were laughable. Secondly, the plot was acceptable but poorly executed and there were so many continuity errors that it must have gone straight from the camera to the theater without ever darkening the door of an editing booth.
After breakfast and the debacle known as GI Joe, we went to the sports deck to enter a miniature golf double tournament. There were only nine holes so the idea was for you and your partner to both play and then combine your scores. Nicole and I finished dead last! As a matter of fact we were six shots worse than the next closest team. In our defense it was so incredibly windy that on one hole I putted the ball from the same spot four times. I would putt it and it would travel right up to the lip of the hole before the wind would catch it and blow it back to the wall where I was standing. Several times this happened to both of us on several holes. It was frustrating and funny at the same time.
We then continued our ping pong rivalry. Nicole won. Whatever.
We went back to the screening room and watched Land of the Lost. The movie was cleaned up to be suitable for all audiences and Nicole and I laughed heartily (not so much with the movie as laughing at the sheer stupidity). There was one small issue and this compels me to leave all of the tweens aboard the ship off of my muster list. Towards the end of the movie a balloon animal activity let out and all of the stupid tweens came pouring into the room with their latex menagerie in tow. It wouldn’t have been so bad except they kept talking, whacking each other with their balloons and getting up and down. There were two girls who were especially annoying as they went out into the hallway just outside the entrance to the room and began talking with the Jonas brothers wannabes who had been watching the movie from there. I was a torrent of emotions as I was gleefully laughing at the comical and not so witty banter of Will Ferrell and Danny McBride one moment and seething with anger at the pre-pubescent riffraff that cluttered our room the next.
I blame the parents. Look, I understand the desire to be free of the responsibilities of parenthood occasionally. But if you want to do that then leave the kids with grandparents or neighbors, or at the very least, find some homeless person who needs a place to stay for a week. But whatever you decide to do-DON’T RUIN MY VACATION BY BRINGING YOUR STUPID KIDS AND LETTING THEM RUN ROUGHSHOD ALL OVER THE SHIP. I hope you paid attention when you were car-pooling your kids to swim practice because your entire family is going to have to tread water where you’ll be forced to keep an eye on them.
The last activity of the wonderful week of cruising was a variety show. It started off with the cruise director performing a rousing rendition of Mustang Sally and was immediately followed by Jimmy the Aerialist who hung from a hoop often by one hand and swung over the audience. He was good but hard for me to watch because I kept envisioning him slipping and landing on me-since I decided to sit in the very front row for this show. After Jimmy finished we were treated to the comedy of A.J. Jamal who apparently had a stint on In Living Color although I don’t remember him from the show. He was funny and told some funny jokes. Then came the finale when the ship’s crew gave themselves a pat on the back and forced us to give them a huge round of applause. They made several references to all of the staff members who work for tips and encouraged us to be generous with our gratuities. It was entirely self serving and sealed the fate of the entire crew.
After dinner we walked the length of the ship one last time and retired to our cabin to pack up. I haven’t gone back over my notes to count how many people actually made it on to my life boat and I probably won’t. I do know that there is plenty of room in my life boat as there are very few people who are worthy enough to share this space. There is room for the standby spring breakers but they won’t be getting on my boat since they ditched us for some of their friends. I hope you enjoyed dining with them and I hope you are good swimmers.
All in all it was a great week spent with a great woman and I wouldn’t have done anything different. There would have been a few less people on board, but it would have been very similar. To all of those people who annoyed, bothered or inconvenienced me I want you to know I don’t really hate you and I don’t wish any of you to drown- I wouldn’t shed a tear, but I don’t really want you to die. Please let this be a learning experience for you. Grow from this-learn to be less annoying, learn to be a better person. And if you do, and you appreciate what I’ve done for you, please know that I accept tips.

My Cruising Musing: Day Six

Day 6
This is our second day at sea. I am fairly uncomfortable with my sunburn but capable of enjoying the day in spite of this. My wife and I entered a Ping-Pong tournament. We both easily won our first round games but we lost our second round games because the activities director doesn’t know the rules to ping pong (and since we just hosted a ping-pong tournament we are very well aware of them). He was allowing illegal serves which we normally just let go but were required to play in this tournament. It was hard to adjust to this sloppy kind of play and by the time I managed, it was too late. I was also at a great disadvantage as the table I played my second game on was out in the open and subject to the elements. I ended up playing into a 39 mph wind. Several times I tossed the ball up to serve and when I brought my paddle through to hit the ball, it had moved several feet to the side. I’ll concede defeat to Fabiano (my opponent) but not a spot in my life boat.
Today was a mostly relaxing kind of day. We took in a trivia contest at 2; Nicole Scrapbooked at 3; Name that tune TV show at 5; we also watched UP (well the first 45 minutes of it) in the screening room. It was a nice day. We stayed inside mostly because of the wind and our sun burns. There are quite a few people who walk around in a constant state of drunkenness. I am not sure if Alcohol helps you float, but for their sake I hope so.
This was also the day the teenagers became restless as a countless number of half eaten ice cream cones rained down on the glass tops of the elevators with a splat and slid down the sides. This upset all the old women who threatened to put on even more perfume and beat the kids with their canes. I am not sure that I will ever take kids (be they 6 or sixteen) on a cruise. I figure their parents spent roughly $600 dollars to take these ungrateful urchins on a beautiful ship to the picturesque landscape of the Mexican Riviera-what do these morons do? Spend all day in the stupid elevators. These kids should be locked in their cabins and their parents should be beaten about the face and neck.
This was also our second formal evening and we received the pre-meal appetizers we were supposed to receive as part of our special package. They delivered them to our room for us to enjoy while we dressed to go to dinner. What they gave to us was a plate of tiny Canapes. Which I assume is French for crap on a crappy cracker. They were nasty and by far the worst food I had tasted of the entire cruise (and I had Escargot). However, they did redeem themselves that night with the Lobster. This was easily the best lobster I have had in my life. It was so good in fact that everyone at our table had seconds.
After dinner we returned to our room and watched the rest of UP. We enjoyed the after dinner sweets that were also a part of the package that we were supposed to receive earlier in the week. It was an assortment of chocolate covered treats and they were delicious. We were both still a little too burned to spend too much time out with the general population so we decided to call it a night.

My Cruising Musing: Day Five

Day Five:
We were up early and out on the dock of Puerto Vallarta by 8:30 am. We walked over to a waiting area where we awaited our sail boat to come and sweep us away to our Banderas Bay excursion. We motored out of the port and to the open water. On our way to our destination, we spotted a mother and a baby whale that proceeded to put on a show for us. They surfaced several times and even did the whole jump out of the water and land making a big splash which I soon learned was called Breaching. It was easily the highlight of our excursions. Once we arrived to our spot we set anchor and jumped into the water. It was awesome!
There were a couple of problems on this excursion. First, we both got cooked. We put sunscreen on and everything, but we look like a couple of freshly boiled lobsters. The second problem was that due to the nature of the smallish sailing vessel, we were forced to interact with the other people on the trip (something we had largely managed to avoid on our other excursions). There were a couple of gay guys who were flaming! They didn’t want to steer the boat, swim or anything else. They only wanted to sit in the sun and drink their frou-frou drinks. There were a couple of ladies from Minnesota. They were nice enough but one of them just wouldn’t shut up. She didn’t have anything interesting to say and would often say the same thing over and over again. There was another couple on the boat with us and I have decided to reserve them a spot in my life boat. Not necessarily for anything they did or didn’t do, but based solely on the fact that she reminds me of my secretary. You see my secretary is very sweet and she has a really cool license plate. It reads, “T BLAAV”, which is an obvious reference to The Princess Bride. So I will rescue this couple in honor of her. As for everyone else on the sail boat, you might want to keep those fancy life jackets.
About a couple of weeks ago I ordered a special package for our stateroom that was supposed to provide a few different amenities including a silver picture frame and one 8X10 portrait, some chocolate covered strawberries and breakfast in bed, among other things. The problem is that I didn’t receive the entire package like it was intended. I will spare you the finer details and just say that after three trips to guest relations and several phone calls with various heads of departments, I finally got all of my vouchers. But as a result the entire guest relations team and housekeeping team are all booking a one way trip to the bottom of the ocean.
There was a pre-dinner show. It was called Pure Energy and was a rousing romp through the music of the 80’s. It featured songs by Cyndi Lauper, George Michaels and various other artists who are known by the current generation as pathetic, reality TV stars but at least at one point in their careers were known as musicians. There was also music from Culture Club, Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, as well as music from 80's movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Top Gun, Risky Business and The Breakfast Club. The dancers and singers were decked out in every neon colored article of clothing imaginable. It was a veritable blast from the past. It made me long for my jean jacket, pegged pants and high-top British Knights.
After dinner I was way too baked (and not the hippie kind of baked, but more like the potato kind of baked) to want to endure anything else so we went back to our room to watch a movie or read, but I ended up falling asleep in like 10 minutes and I don’t regret it a bit.

My Cruising Musing: Day Four

Day Four:
We are now sitting at the dock in Mazatlan. It is far more like the Mexico that you think about when you think of Mexico. It isn’t a resort destination as much as it’s an industrial type city. The people here live much closer to the poverty level than their Cabo counterparts.
Our shore excursion for the day was a Mexican show/sightseeing and shopping adventure. We loaded on to a double decker bus with a guide who spoke marginal English (he was constantly asking the bus driver for the correct word to say, while the bus driver would give him the “can’t you see I am a bus driver and therefore I don’t need to know English” look). We watched some cliff divers do their thing and I watched as Nicole talked some vendor into giving us both a pair of sunglasses for less than half of what he originally asked. I am now the proud owner of some almost-ray bans.
After that we went to a little theater called El Spectaculare. It means “The Spectaculare”. Here we were treated to some chips and bean dip and a live Mexican dancing show. The show was a historical record of the different cultures of the Mexican Indians supposedly before the Europeans came in and ruined everything. It was entertaining, but not really my sort of thing. I think Nicole enjoyed it but it’s not like any of these people are getting on my life boat.
After the show we went to The Golden Zone. This is the place that supposedly will satisfy all of your shopping needs. I did find a ring that I liked. It resembled the one I purchased in Ensenada on my last cruise but which has recently broken. The guy told me that it cost $42 but that for me he would sell it for $35. I told him no and he wanted to know what I was willing to pay. I explained that I didn’t want to insult him because I wasn’t willing to pay more than $10. After dropping the price to 22, I told him no thanks and walked away. After walking along for 4-5 more minutes, he sent his kid to offer me the ring for $15. I told him $10 and he said $15 was reasonable. I told him $8 and was willing to walk away ring-less. He finally conceded $10 and I paid the boy and got my ring. I am sure I still paid more than I should have but I am happy.
Once our shopping trip was over, we returned to the ship. We had some lunch at the Johnny Rockets on board and went to play some ping pong on the sports deck. My wife beat me the first game 21-16 and insisted she was back and more than capable of dominating me at the sport that she had taught me how to play when we were in college. In a move that I can only assume was a desperate attempt at hold that win over my head for as long as possible, she tried to walk away after just one game. I insisted that we switch sides of the table and continue. I eventually won out but she jumped out to an early 15-6 lead before I stormed back and won 21-18. I have righted the ping pong universe.
Following dinner, we went to a Love and Marriage game show, which was basically a newly-wed game featuring a honeymooning couple, a couple who had been married for forty-seven years and a couple who had been married for 30 years. This was a hilarious game show as you may expect. At one point the contestants had to fill in the blank: “You haven’t seen ugly until you’ve seen my wife’s________.” The older gentleman showed that with age comes wisdom when he answered, “You haven’t seen ugly until you’ve seen my wife’s date book.” His reason for this answer was that it was a “safe” answer. When the cruise director read the honeymooners answer he read, “You haven’t seen ugly until you’ve seen my wife’s family. The entire crowd roared and the wife feigned ire. As it turns out, the cruise director made that answer up-the man had actually answered “feet”. The best answer was by the 30 year couple on the last question. The question was: If you’re husband was stranded on a desert island with one other person who would you want it to be, a nun or a stripper and why? The wife answered a nun and her explanation was simply “why do you think?” The Husband’s answer was stripper, but not for the obvious reason. He said and I quote, “Who’s going to try to rescue a nun?”
Right before the show started there were some obnoxious people who were trying to get on the show so they just walked themselves up on stage and sat in the chairs. When the stage hand came out to tell them to leave, they gave him a hard time. When it came time to pick the contestants, they claimed they were honeymooners than they claimed they had been married for 26 years. At one point, the cruise director was calling them out. You have to be pretty obnoxious if the cruise director is against you. Somehow these two morons and their friends managed to unite an entire ship of 3,500 people from different countries and cultures in hatred. They are definitely not on my life boat and I will see to it that they don’t get on anyone else’s as well.
The final event of the night was the Midnight Buffet. Traditionally a culinary parade of food and ice sculptures, this looked more like a Hometown Buffet. I was very disappointed. There were a couple of ice sculptures but it was anybody’s guess as to what they were. So despite an otherwise wonderful dining experience this week, I will be forcing the kitchen staff (except our personal wait staff: Komang from Indonesia and Soccoro from India) to remain with the ship. At least the entire ship of fools remaining will have a lovely last meal.