BY CHRIS MONTGOMERY
Upon learning that my wife
and I couldn't have children in the "normal" way (and, in case your
definition of "normal" has something to do with a wild animal or
alien abduction, I'm simply talking about sex between two human beings), a
great black curtain of moodiness and tragedy threatened to close on the act of
our happy lives. As it turned out, our infertility was a combination of my
wife's blocked tubes and my sluggish swimmers. But my wife would not be stopped
by this news, and she soon became an expert in the war on infertility. Basal
thermometers told us when it was time to rally the troops and launch my
invading army, and we were shortly in the possession of drugs, with suspicious
names like Clomid, that were designed to increase our chances of being
fertilized.
Of course I, the male, was
overjoyed at the news -- the news, that is, that my wife was determined to have
children at any cost. Granted, I did like the idea of a little Johnny or Janey
running around burbling and giggling all over the house, but I was especially
eager when making the little poop machine involved lots of spontaneous demands
of sex. What man doesn't want to hear -- "We have to do it now!" --
while his wife is stumbling out of her clothes and ripping off his, the whole
time yelling: "Come on! Just stick it in!"
Besides, it was great fun
watching my wife enact pregnancy myths afterwards. Several people (uh, women)
told her about the great magic trick of propping both legs in the air after we
had finished, in an effort to encourage my little buggers to make it all the
way to the temple of the sacred ovary. There were actually specific
instructions for this, such as making sure the legs were raised to a sufficient
degree, and keeping them suspended in that position for 10 minutes, minimum. At
the time, it didn't occur to me to help her out by holding her legs up, but now
that I think about it, I did check on her every couple of minutes to make sure
she hadn't passed out.
After months of trying to
force the sperm to migrate to the proper destination, we (she) decided that
more serious measures were required to produce our offspring. We called in the
help of a "specialist." My wife found the rock star of fertility
doctors, the man with the greatest success rate in Southern California. Only
divine intervention could have been more effective.
He put me on some
antibiotics to make me more potent and suggested that drinking might not be a
good idea for a while. My wife got more drugs. If all went well, the first
procedure we would try was artificial insemination. My sperm, which, by then,
should be fit to participate in a triathlon, would be injected straight to the
hot zone. Why drive when you can fly?
When it came time to do
just that, I was offered a room with inspirational viewing material to do my
business. Ah, the allure of hot porn in a sterile white room with people
waiting outside the door. Tempting, but I opted to elicit additional favors
from my wife instead. Tee hee. Despite my pumped up sperm, however, the attempt
failed.
Dr. Babymaker consulted
with us on our options, which were narrowed down to two: Adoption or in-vitro
fertilization (short for: "put sperm and egg together in petri
dish"). He assured us that my wife was a healthy specimen, and that the
procedure had a very high probability of success. For those of you that don't
know, this procedure involves shots (a lot of shots) best delivered by someone
else's hand (mine). I became proficient at poking my wife's butt with a needle
by practicing on an orange, which was, quite frankly, a poor substitute. She
has nowhere near that much cellulite.
Knowing that kids were
going to be an expensive hobby, we decided we should buy the best. We
refinanced the condo and pulled out the 25K we needed.
I'd like to take this
opportunity to thank my wife for what she went through to become pregnant. If
only it could have been I who endured the endless shots of oil-based
intramuscular injections to my already sore posterior. I would have also gladly
absorbed the discomfort she felt from the endless probing of cold, roaming
metal objects inside her. And, if there is justice in this world, she would not
have had to suffer the horror of being sliced open so close to her chamber of
life.
HA! Like hell! Can you say
adopt? Sigh. No, no...it was all you babe. Maybe me in another life. Maybe, but
hopefully not.
After all that, the
procedure worked. But how well? For some reason, I keep picturing the old woman
who lived in a shoe, except I was the old woman. But I'm a man...in the
picture, that is. I mean, I am a man, and I was also the one living in the
shoe. Anyway, we walked into the doctor's office that day, and as we opened the
door, a bright golden light blazed from outside of his office window. His
receding hairline grew forward and he rose effortlessly into the air on great,
white, silk-feathered wings.
Actually, the sun was bright,
but his hair was still receding as he reached over and turned the blinds down,
at which point his wings disappeared. He motioned us to the chairs in front of
his desk while he finished a phone call. Finally, he reached for a manila
envelope and pulled out some black-and-white photos which looked a lot like
pictures of a moon crater. They were my wife's insides, and the white things
were eggs -- all 22 of them.
“Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-two,” he replied.
Before this procedure, the
possibility of "hyper-stimulation" -- say, suddenly having 22 eggs
floating around in my wife's uterus -- had been discussed and dismissed as
something that happens to "other" people. Octo Mom notwithstanding,
it's my sincere belief that most couples don't want to give birth to eight
babies at one time.
"But we're not
fertilizing all 22, right?" I asked.
My wife looked at me like
she was reconsidering our marriage. The doctor looked down and studied
something on his desk.
No, not 22; we opted to
implant three. The rest are still sitting in the freezer, probably right in
between the clinical staff's Lean Cuisine turkey cacciatore and last year's
leftover rainbow sherbet. Fortunately, the mental and physical anguish paid
off, and we were blessed with a prodigal son, who will hopefully have mastered
the piano by the time he's 7.
To this day, only one more
has made the journey from the petri dish to the womb, screeching something
about a sale at T.J. Maxx on her way out of it. She joins her brother, who may
well decide that one of them should go back into the freezer, and soon.
______________________________________________________
Discovering Each Other’s Private Parts
BY CHRIS MONTGOMERY
Not long ago, my children discovered that they
have a penis and a vagina. It's true. The boy has the penis, the girl the
vagina. On a recent homecoming from school (and I use the word
"homecoming" with all of the pomp and none of the circumstance), the
two blissfully oblivious children shot off into an alcove of the house to
engage in a one-act play that consisted of nothing but shrieking and growoaring
(that's growling and roaring combined, for how else can one truly express such
a sound?). Mind-boggling role-play to an adult.
After a while, yon thespians came prancing out of
their "castle," expressing a desire to continue their antics
outdoors. "Hell, yes!" I thought, and to the kids: "Just be sure
to put your shoes on. No flip-flops on the tree." Amid a burst of giggles,
they trotted around the house like happy hamsters trapped in a maze, apparently
seeking the exit to the backyard. It would seem the dark closet, where they
were kept for the first few years of their lives, may have affected their sense
of direction. In any case, it seems not to have affected their ability to find
their private parts.
Not long after the giggling thespian-hamsters left
the maze, I overheard my daughter serenading her brother. This is a special
time for all, during which the girl sings aimlessly and senselessly while her
brother, helpless to stop the onslaught, breaks down into heaving sobs.
With each incident, I am reminded of the musical
torture of A Clockwork Orange.
It doesn't take a build-up of several arguments
to reach the "hot" setting on my temper gauge, at least not when it
comes to arguing. There they were, a precious metaphor: two little birds
sitting in a tree, one was crying and the other was full of glee. I handled it
like you might -- like any parent who, unlike Supernanny, does not get to drive
off in a London Executive Sedan after a day of observing a family with sexually
active teens and WWE sanctioned toddler cage fights. But I digress.
With a calm, firm voice, I asked: "What.
Are. You. Doing?" Quickly, I chose the girl to speak to first. After all,
she was the one singing. The nerve! The spirit! I am man, me break you!
"Why are you making your big brother cry?" Without hesitation, she
replied: "He touched my private parts."
Pause.
At this point, my mind seems to have erased the
events that followed. It is clear that neither child was happy with the
outcome, except perhaps the girl, who commenced singing in her room while her
brother was lectured; this much I remember.
The connection between his misery and her
happiness perplexes me, but then, I am a man. It seems I am doomed to a
lifetime of confusion about women, and maybe this is as it should be. No matter.
The incident was never defined, I leave that to their mother -- an expert in
such situations, literally.
Now, before you worry, before you judge, stop!!
The situation is under control. There will be no pattern, no misconduct towards
other children, and after heavy sedation and the administering of sodium
pentothal it has been determined that private parts means "butt."
What?!
"He spanked my butt," she said, a
little unsure of my confusion. What now? Although they're all
"private," the penis and vagina cards trump a butt card any day. I
stood there too long. Really. I mean how much thought could solving the problem
really have taken?
I settled on a lame, "Well. You two do not
touch each other's private parts. Is that understood?"
"OK, Daddy," she replied. Then she was
gone as if nothing had happened. Ah, hamsters and their short-term memory.
Later, over dinner, my son wanted to know if he
was still in trouble with the police. It seems my memory may have been cloudy,
but these details do not go unnoticed by a 6-year-old. He was assured that this
time the police would not be necessary, but he may never be so lucky again.
Maybe it's time to put them both back in the closet, at least until they get
past puberty.
_____________________________________________________
Slipping Out
BY CHRIS MONTGOMERY
It's Saturday, 4:15 a.m. An inhuman hour for
some, yes? For others, though, and I am speaking to you Good Parent, this could
be the hour of freedom, the hour to rise from bed and sneak out to -- Walmart.
Yes Walmart. It's open 24/7, and it's much more exciting than the Circle K.
While some may rise to do the morning run without a stroller, or study the
newspaper without being asked a "Daddy, can I..." every other
second, I choose to evaporate from the house as silently as steam from a
boiling pot of macaroni and cheese.
Leaving the house like a cat burglar is not as
simple as one might think. One must maintain both calmness of mind and
smoothness of motion (read: don't trip over things). Also, children's minds are
not as cluttered with the noise (read: chaos) of the adult world, and thus they
have the ability to sense when you're awake and planning to do something
exciting. Something "without them."
Take heed: It is this last part that can wake the
sleeping child quickly. Should your child sense that you are awake and going
about business as usual (which usually means they will reap the culinary
delights of pancakes or Honey Nut Cheerios), they may simply continue sleeping
as though all is right with the world.
However, Good Parent, should you become too
excited about your adventure, should you begin to anticipate wandering endless
aisles of holiday decorations, Tupperware, and sporting goods without the
sounds of "Ohhh! Can I have? Can we get? OHH! I want thaaat..." then
the child may suddenly realize what is about to happen and bolt awake. You'll
know it when it happens. Though it may only be 4:30 in the morning, you will
sense the sudden electricity in the air, the kind that comes just before
lightning strikes. Quick! No time to look good! No time for mouthwash! If you
can't find your shoes, wear your slippers! Get the keys and get out. Remember,
the OTHER parent is HOME, so it's OK to leave. For the love of caffeine though,
don't forget your wallet!
Note: You must clear the door before the child
has spotted you. This is a safety issue since the child could try to chase
after you and latch on. Once in the car, and safely two or three houses down
the street, you can take a deep breath and relax your mind. Feel the rush of
the open road! Let the silence of the morning, empty of bickering gnomes in the
back seat whining for their sippy cup, wash over you. Ahhhh! Breathe! Life is
quiet again.
I am not alone in my sneaking out of the house,
and I can tell you this with full confidence. I know this because I wander the
Walmart with other groggy-looking parents, power-walking retirees, and the
wayward meth-head lurking in the cold medicine aisle. Like members of some
secret guild, we share careful, knowing glances under lowered eyelids, not
daring to stop for idle small talk at the cost of losing a precious moment of
"me" time.
Somewhere in the annals of parenting books and
magazines it is said (or it should be) that regardless of what "me"
time you find for yourself, you will end up doing things for your kids, or, at
the very least, thinking about doing them. When you wander down the aisles
looking at new television sets, 10 different kinds of chocolate bars, or cheap graphic
design tees depicting cackling skulls with wings growing out of their ears, you
will begin to think of the kids. At first you may resist this feeling, but you
will be unsuccessful in your attempts. That flat screen HD television that
comes with a discounted Blu-ray player will lead to thoughts of how much fun
the kids will have playing the Wii Mario Kart. The chocolate? Forget about not
buying extra for the kids; what kind of a neglectful monster eats chocolate
without sharing it with the kids?
The kids do have clothes, though, so surely you
can peruse the high-fashion items of the big-box giant without feeling like a
selfish loser. Right? Hmmm. One look at those cute little mini-me tees with
gems screened onto their fronts (such as: "I perform all my own stunts"
and "I still live at home with my parents") and, without conscious
assessment of the situation, you will find yourself back in full-parent mode,
all thoughts of your "me" time gone. You will fold without even
realizing you've thrown your hand.
Now, go quickly! You will need to sneak back into
the house quietly so as not to wake the kids and ruin the surprises! Chocolate,
donuts, new shirts? Make some pancake batter! I don't care if you put it
together from scratch or pour it out of the Bisquick box, just don't forget the
syrup! Pop for the pure maple, please, not that corn syrup chemical potion.
Now, sit back and relax. The kids will be up soon (the smell of pancakes is a
great lure), and you need some "alone time" to plan your next escape.
_____________________________________________________
Flip the Pancake, Squat, Repeat
BY CHRIS MONTGOMERY
Every other weekend, I am a lone warrior parent.
My wife rakes in 99% of the funds in our household (98% when I'm having a good
month), and part of that commitment means working every other weekend. Taking
care of the kids is my job since I'm a Stay-At-Home Dad (or SAHD). However,
when the kids are in school part of the day during the week that precious
commodity called "alone time" is traded heavily and sanity is
restored -- if only until the Gremlins get picked up from school.
That's Gremlins. You know, feed them after
midnight, get them wet, and they turn into little chaos-wreaking monsters?
Contrast "alone time" with its opposite:
"not-a-second-alone-because-I-will-seek-you-out-with-my-child-radar-if-you-try-to-hide
time."
So what am I missing out on? Why don't I cherish
every second with my little ones, knowing that one day the mention of my name
will make them shudder in frustration?
A short list of some of my activities when the
kids are at school:
· Clean
house, pick up, yadayadayada. I try not to think about it.
· Figure
out what's for dinner that night. (How can I get the kids to eat
broccoli?)
Screw it. Where's that pizza coupon?
·
Catch
up on studies, or reading, or So You Think You Can Dance. (I can't help it, I
yearn for the glory days.)
· Exercise,
workout, break a sweat!
Exercise! Of all the important daily tasks that I
have to accomplish, exercise is my favorite. As a stress reliever it can be
even more effective than beer, Jack Daniels, and Vicodin!
(Warning: The author does not advocate or endorse
the use of alcoholic beverages or prescription medication for relaxation.
Unless prescribed by your doctor. Or your shrink. Come to think of it, go hire
a nanny and go back to work; you probably shouldn't be raising children.)
Working out is proven to increase endorphins!
Better known as endogenous opioid polypeptide. If it sounds like a drug, that's
because this increase in endorphins during exercise gets you hiiiggh. As in
"runner's high," but who cares? All the buzz and no hangover in the
middle of dinner!
Now this article isn't about doing drugs and
getting high, except in an indirect manner. It's about how to workout when the
little monkeys are on your back all day long! Since it's in the title, I'd like
to share with you a recent epiphany I had while cooking pancakes in a cast iron
skillet.
In need of both alone time and exercise I began
making pancakes. Incidentally, I was also going to feed the children. My
children. Not Africa's children, there's an 800 number for that.
No matter, as long as your actions are directed
at their benefit, the Gremlins know to leave you alone, try it.
Let's break it down!
Bodyweight squats: Do
these for as long as it takes to cook one side of the pancake. In case you
don't know, a bodyweight squat is bending at the knees until your thighs are
parallel with the ground, either with your arms stretched out over your head,
or your fingers interlaced behind your neck. Move steady, don't drop into it,
as you come up look up and arch your back. There! Now flip that pancake before
it burns and you have to eat it. After the flip, do another set of squats. Do
this three or four times.
Holy Mama! Doing these in proper form, you might
actually be feeling it by now. Don't think that you can turn up the heat and
rush the flip either. The pancakes will be ruined and you'll be mocked by your
inner child.
Hack Squats/Hindu Squats: Now
nobody makes just three or four pancakes when they have kids running around,
and that means you've still got work to do. Stretch those quads, stretch those
hamstrings, and let the batter hit the pan.
Now go!
These hack squats you will do entirely on the
balls of your feet, allowing your body to lean back slightly as you go down to
parallel or beyond (unless you have knee problems, then you might not come back
up).
As you come up, you are still on the balls of
your feet, and using the strength of your quads and your tightened buttocks to
propel you upward.
Should it be too difficult to stay on the balls
of your feet, lightly hold onto a counter, or do Hindu squats. With Hindu
squats you'll be going down on the balls and coming up on the full foot. Swing
your arms, it helps to keep your balance, just don't hold onto the pan.
OOOOOhhhh Yeaahhhh! If these exercises are done
correctly, you should be feeling it, even if you're a powerlifter, which you're
not, because you barely have enough time to cook pancakes in peace, and if you
are, shame on you. Taking time for your own activities. Bad parent!
There are numerous ways to add weight to these
two exercises if you need it:
Keep a couple of dumbbells handy on the floor, or
kettlebells if you own them. Or, don't mind the kids being there while you cook
and exercise? Hold onto one of them with your arms in front of you and raise
them up as you squat down, just don't drop them on the stove, or in the pan.
Again, that would ruin the pancakes.
You can always put them on your back or shoulders
for additional weight also, previous warning duly noted. As they get older, the
resistance increases!
This same technique can be applied to any
activity. Watching the latest episode of Star Wars the Clone Wars or Dora
the Explorer? Share that quality time with your kids. Start doing pushups
and have one of them sit on your back, they can stay there while you hold a
plank with your elbows in front of you.
Need to practice for an upcoming MMA match or
judo tournament? Kids love to wrestle! "Now remember kids, if you feel
your arm bending backwards, tap out!"
On a more serious note, there's never a reason to
skip a workout. It's the fountain of youth, you'll be setting a positive
example for you're kids, and, let's face it, pills and booze can get expensive!
$20 for one pill? Really? Come on. I mean, not that I know, must've read it in
an article somewhere.
Just remember, keep the pan hot and your cakes
flippin'! Soon you too can have glutes of steel and quads like iron!
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