Ten Days with Dad: Part II

I am a creature of habit, and rely on routine and strict schedules in order to remain sane.  But this need did not develop by way of nature. By nature, I’m the most disorganized, scatter-brained fool on the planet.  Flat out, I can’t keep track of my own stuff.  Never have been able to.  I’m what they call a “big picture” kind of person, and the details of just about everything slip through my fingers.  And when I went off to the Air Force Academy, I realized that this little quirk of mine was going to get me thrown out of school if I didn’t do something about it.  I remember in basic training I kept leaving my cover (hat) under my chair at meal times (which we ate sitting on the front 2/3 of our chair, bolt upright, staring at the little eagle at the top of our plate, chewing no more than seven times, and a lot of other ridiculous bullshit) and was constantly having to go back to the table to retrieve it.  The first time one of our cadre (trainers) told me that if I did it again, he was going to make sure I did physical training until I puked.

That should have been enough to not do it again, right?

At the end of the very next meal, halfway out of the chow hall, all us basics cadets lined up like stinking, terrified ducks readying ourselves for the post-meal “training” session, I realized the very empty feeling in my hand. 

No cover. 

I did a quick about-face and half ran back to the table, to which I arrived just as the cadre was pulling my hat out from under the chair where I had been seated.  He had to read it twice, just to make sure he was reading the little name tag correctly.  Because there was absolutely no way, no WAY, anyone would be that stupid. 

I heard him mutter, “Oh, dude, are you freaking kidding me?” 

It was at that point he looked up and saw me standing there, petrified.  He scoffed, grinned, and said, “Welch, you’re dead.  I mean…dead.”

Seriously.  What the hell?  The guy thought I was TRYING to piss him off.  So, I spent some time in what they called the “gig pit,” where they just yell at you a lot and make you do a bunch of pushups and what not.  Looking back on it, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  But at the time, it was the biggest deal in the world.  So, I forced myself into this insane need for routine.  Because if I do everything the same way, every day, I won’t miss anything.  I’ve been at it for so long that I’ve come to depend on it and get all weird if my routine is disrupted.  I start losing things and getting angrier and angrier at myself.  I even get kind of depressed and anxious.  I guess I got institutionalized, like that old dude in the Shawshank Redemption.  One of these days I’ll forget to put the pudding cup in the sack lunch I pack every day (the contents of which have been the same for at least five years, the same sandwich made exactly the same way with all the other accompanying contents packed in exactly the same manner) and someone will have to cut me down from the rafters.

“Welch was here.”

As one might imagine, last week my usual routine was seriously disrupted.  So the first thing I did, I mean, the VERY FIRST THING I did with the girls after we got home from IHOP that first morning, was sit down and write out what our routine was going to be.

“Why are we doing this?” asked Shay.

“Because if we don’t, I’ll freak out.  I promise.  Trust me.  You want Dad on a schedule.”

“Uuuh…okay.”

Last time I mentioned the point system.  Well three of the five points earned each day were basically just points for adhering to the schedule, the other two were points for chores.  And really, they did pretty well.  There was very little begging to do something that went outside the routine, because they knew the response would be a disproportionately strong “no.”  Their chores for the final two days were both the easiest and hardest points they have ever earned:

Don’t make a mess.

They sort of managed that one.

So the rest of the ten days went off basically without a hitch.  There was one night, however, that didn’t fit into my sanity routine, and I nearly lost it.  Their school had their annual “carnival.”  Mo had been reminding us of this for months.  Even quizzing us periodically.

“Do you guys remember what’s happening on the 16^th?”

“Yes, Mo.  The carnival.”

The reason for her excitement wasn’t the DJ playing epically terrible pre-teen pop to bouncing, sweating kids, or the five dollar face painting, or even the ten dollar hotdog-soda-cotton candy meal (which I burped up for the next two days).  It was because there was to be a music program, and each class was going to be performing. 

The girls’ priorities are much different than mine were at that age.

So in that time leading up to the carnival, Amy and I both just absent-mindedly said that yes, we realized the date, and yes, we’d be there.

It was Mo who first put two and two together and realized that Amy was going to be out of town for it.

“So Dad, can we go?”

“Yes.”

“Even though Mom can’t go?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to miss my class music recital!”

“Ooooh, no!  Not for the world!”

Dammit.  There went the routine.

“Yaaay!  Can Aunt Jodie and Uncle Larry (our neighbors) come?”

“I don’t know, we can ask.”

“Yaaay!”

 So Jodie, I think out of pity for me, agreed to meet us there so she could see Mo’s music recital.

The carnival was insane.  I mean, packed with all kinds of people, none of which I knew.  So I sat at a lunchroom table, by myself, watching the kids dance as I quietly ate cotton candy.

After reading that last sentence, I realize how creepy that sounds.  Or sad.  A tubby dude eating cotton candy by himself at a lunchroom table.  Man.  I guess not much has changed since grade school after all.

Around seven o’clock, the DJ took a break between Justin Beiber and Taylor Swift (are ALL of that woman’s songs about breaking up with dudes?  Wasn’t she a country singer or something? Dating her must be like holding a burlap sack full of feral cats.  I momentarily considered banging my head as hard as I could against the table just to end the misery of “never ever ever getting back together,” the words of which every little girl seemed to know) to announce the music recital was beginning shortly in the gym.  So groaning parents pried themselves up and out from between the stubby lunchroom tables and low attached benches and made their way, sweating, grumpy, and full of indigestible hot dogs, toward the gym. 

God it was hot in there.  Which brought about a lovely aromatic mixture of a decade’s worth of grimy kids playing scooter tag with what was probably hot dog farts that hung right at adult nose level.

Yum.

About that time Jodie showed up and we stood in the corner to watch the kids sing their songs.

Each class sung three short little tunes.  The music teacher was extremely jolly and enthusiastic.  This was very different from my grade school music teacher, who was a grumpy old lady that had been wearing the same wig for thirty years.  She was especially famous for stopping music programs in mid song, turning to the parents and scolding them in that I’m-about-to-cry-so-my-voice-is-warbling-like-a-sheep tone for talking while the kids were singing.  “Please be quiet!  These children have worked very hard on these songs!  If you must talk, GO OUTSIDE!”  I vividly remember the shocked and disbelieving looks on the parents’ faces in the audience after receiving this tongue lashing from Mrs. Fankhouser.

Well, this music teacher apparently didn’t have any problem with people talking, which they did, a lot, throughout the performance. I kind of wish Mrs. Fankhouser had been there to get them all in line.

As always, the Kindergartener’s squeaked out the obligatory “wheels on the bus” and what not.  Everyone clapped.  The first graders did pretty much the same thing, but with the token ADD kid just looking around the whole time and picking his nose in the back row, stopping his nasal foraging every so often to sing a line then eat whatever was on the end of his finger. 

The second graders, Mo’s class, sang songs that were all “in a different language!”  Everyone “oooh”ed and “aaaah”ed at this announcement.  I quickly realized it was bullshit, because the first song, some border-line racist Japanese song about rain, was mostly in English.  And apparently second grade is when little choreographed hand motions and squat down stand up moves were introduced to the program.  So that was special.  The second song was “Frere Jacques,” and at the “din dan don” part, the kids rocked back and forth like bells. 

All I could think was that the French even screw up “ding ding dong.”

I don’t really remember the third song, mostly because I was getting so hot I thought I’d pass out.  So after the fourth graders played honking songs on their recorders (with the musically challenged kids banging away on xylophones) Jodie, the girls, and I made our exit from the gym.

We stayed for a little bit longer in the cafeteria so the girls could dance some more to asinine songs.  Jodie and I people watched for a while.  There’re some interesting folks at a school carnival. 

When we got to the house, I found Jodie there waiting in the driveway.  I opened the door, began to thank Jodie for coming to the carnival and helping me out, but instead of making a quick get-away she marched the girls inside and started to draw their bath.  I told her that I could do it, but she just shook her head at me, told me that she had it, and that I should call Larry, who was back at the house (smart enough to avoid the carnival altogether) and have a beer. 

So I did. 

And Jodie did me a huge solid by getting the girls bathed, putting them into pajamas, brushing their hair, and reading to them while they went to sleep. 

As I sat on a chair in the garage with Larry, drinking a homebrew and looking up at the lighted window of the girls’ room while Jodie read to them, I realized how tired I was and how much I appreciated good neighbors.  I nearly fell asleep on that chair, watching the cool evening sky soften and enjoying my few moments of sanity.  Routine be damned, that was a good night. 

The next day my parents arrived from Kansas City to spend the weekend with us.  They wanted to get to know the girls a little better, which was great for all of us.  I think my mom was a little worried about me down here in Texas all alone with two little girls, but after a while I think she realized I had it, for the most part, under control.  We spent the weekend not doing much, just eating a lot and hanging out around.  The girls spent most of the weekend in and out of the house, playing with the neighbor kids.  We have a great neighborhood for that, full of similarly-aged kids who seem to really like the girls.  One of the neighbors is a boy roughly Mo’s age, and she’s “totally in love” with him. 

Gross.

I guess it’s natural and all, but I still glance sideways at the eight year old towhead when he comes to the door and asks if Mo’s home.  But she sprints past me and they disappear into the front yard with the other kids in all innocence.  Now what’s REALLY funny is how drama-filled their little romance is.  Every so often Mo will come in from playing with this kid and his siblings sniffling and pouting.  When I ask her what’s wrong, invariably it has something to do with the boy, whether it be that he isn’t paying attention to her or that he said something she construed as mean to her.  So I gave the usual speech about how little boys are too stupid to be nice to the girls they have crushes on, and usually when they tease or are flat out mean, it’s because they have a crush too.  Well, one day, that’s all she needed to hear, because she marched back outside and told him that “if you like me, then act like it!  Don’t be stupid and mean, or I won’t like you anymore!”  

YES!!!

I told her to stow that notion away in her little satchel of knowledge for when she’s older.  She looked at me with her usual look of bemusement, shook her head at me, and walked back outside to play.       

My parents left Monday, May 20^th.  They drove through Oklahoma City that morning.  That should ring a bell, because that’s the day that bad EF-5 tornado ripped the place up.  They were ahead of the weather so they didn’t see anything, but man, the girls and I were worried about them and we didn’t stop until they were back in Kansas City.

Amy came home that Wednesday, marking the end of Ten Days with Dad.  We were all extremely happy to have her home, but I must say, with the help of good neighbors, good parents and extremely good kids, that I did a pretty good job overall.

 That night I told Amy to dig out her roller-coaster suit and get ready to go to Wonderland, Amarillo’s own amusement park, because the girls had definitely earned their fifty points.