Monday, August 30, 2010

A Great Day!

Every night, I tuck my son into bed. We review the events of the day, and discuss what's on the calendar for tomorrow. Tonight, after talking about our activities, he looks at me with the most sincere little face, and says "It was a great day!"






Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Snoring

I snore. Over the past few years, my attempts to combat this flaw included quitting smoking, quitting drinking, and losing 40 pounds. OK, so I didn’t do these things specifically to stop snoring, but I figure they should help. I feel for the many spouses, partners and sleeping buddies out there who must deal with this affliction on a nightly basis.

My wife has her own bedtime issues that annoy me to pieces. Specifically, she likes to fall asleep with the television on, and I am a silence person. In an effort for peace, I wear a night eye mask and earplugs, which usually does the trick. The earplugs hurt my ears after a while, and my son usually comes into my room in the morning and puts them in my water glass, but it is a compromise.

I am out of the house three to four nights a week, so I get to bed around 3am. On the other nights, I do my best to get to bed early to catch up on sleep. Two nights ago was one of these nights. I went to bed at 10pm. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep well. Every time I drifted off just a little bit, I was startled awake. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what was going on. I was exhausted, but without fail, I nodded off, and then popped back awake time and again.

I ripped off my eye mask and pulled out my earplugs. The clock read “Midnight.”

Tommy: “Can we please turn the TV off?!?”

Nicole: “No”

Tommy: “But I can’t sleep and it’s Midnight!”

Nicole: “I can’t sleep either”

Tommy: “Maybe it’s because the TV is on”

Nicole: “No, it is because you are snoring, and I have to kick you every ten minutes to shut you up”

This is the exact moment that Nicole almost got thrown out the window for the first time in her life.

Since I wake up with the baby 95% of the mornings, regardless of the day of the week, or work schedule, we have agreed that on nights when I snore, Nicole will wake me up only once, and I will sleep in the living room until Nicole falls asleep, and then I will return to bed. This way, I get to sleep a full night at least 3 nights a week, and Nicole never has to experience crashing through a glass window.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Potty Training, Part 2

Jackson has a rash. The “Kill Two Birds” solution decided by Nicole and reluctantly agreed to by yours truly is to keep him naked, all day. The potty is in the living room, and Mr. Bare-Ass is thrilled to be running around in the buff. I, on the other hand, am paranoid as hell that I am going to be cleaning up baby poo off the floor before the end of the morning.

I know that potty training is important, but for selfish reasons, I wish he would just stay in diapers. I don’t mind changing diapers. When we were in the birthing class, the instructor said “when you get home from the hospital, Dad should do all the diaper changing because over the long-term, Mom is going to be changing the most diapers.” Well, not in this family, and that’s fine. I really don’t mind it, and I think that any man (or woman) who makes a big deal out of this simple task is a whiner.

As I start this third paragraph, I have asked Jack if he needs to poop 17 times. His answer remains a definitive, “Nope!” I know he’s going to shit on the couch. I just know it. It’s like when the dog pisses on my bed instead of the easy-to-clean linoleum hall floor. At age two, he doesn’t know to defecate in the potty, but he knows spite. Maybe I’m imagining it, and maybe potty training makes parents a little more nuts than regular child rearing. We’ll see. This is certainly going to be a work in progress, and I will keep you posted on our success and failure.

(After being questioned 23 times, he still says “Nope!”)

Sunday, August 1, 2010

What May Fall (not a humor submission)

Last night, at 11:00pm, I received a message, that a good friend from law school, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years, had passed away on Thursday. She was diagnosed with cancer a few months back. She was pregnant. She passed only a short few weeks/months after the birth of her child. She was 34.

This morning, I sent the following response to the message:


I got your message last night, while at dinner.

Nicole and I had just experienced an amazing play called What May Fall, which is about the lives of a group of people and how they are affected after they witnessed the death of a man who fell from a building. The playwright went to school with my brother and wrote the play after he witnessed that exact situation. The characters were inspired by his own struggle to make sense of the tragedy.

Immediately prior to the play, we had left the movie Inception. I won't give anything away other than it is a thinking movie that makes you question and explore your own beliefs on reality.

After I got your message, Nicole and I walked from 74th Street to 26th Street where I was parked. This weekend was our date/stay-cation weekend; Jack is with the grandparents. We were parked on 26th because we have weekend passes to the Del Close Improv Marathon. I don't know if you know this, but I sold my law firm in April, and since then, I am completely focused on nothing except raising Jackson, and studying comedy.

I have never been happier, and if I spend the rest of my life struggling as an artist, I think I will be content doing what I love. Nicole has been writing more and more and just finished her first book, which will be published in January. She too is moving away from what she thought she wanted in life to what she wants right now. It is a process, but I guess all we have is the journey.

I don't fully understand why the universe unfold as it does, and at times it really seems unfair. However, as each day ticks on, all I know is that we only have this moment, so we better make the best of it.

I miss you, and love you, and would love for our kids to play together as soon as possible. What is your 9am-3pm schedule this week?

Tommy