Category Archives: It’s a Guy Thing

Going commando is what you make of it

Several weeks ago, my son took a bath. Yes, he has taken one or two baths since then, but the several weeks ago bath is the seed of the story I’m about to tell. After this particular bath, he went into this room to get dressed only to discover that all of his underwear were in the laundry.

“Uh-oh, looks like somebody’s going commando today,” I told him.

“What’s commando?” he asked.

“That’s when you put on your clothes, but you don’t wear any underwear.”

This idea did not appeal to him, so we waited to go about our daily business until some of his underwear could be washed.

Buzz Lightyear's worst nightmare

Buzz Lightyear begs you to go commando, today and every day.

About a week later, I came out of the shower to get dressed for work. My son was watching TV in my room. When he saw me pull out the drawer, he said, “Daddy, I don’t think you need underwear. You should go commando today.”

I’d like to assure any of my co-workers who may be tuning in that I did not take his advice. I’m prim and proper now, not like the old days.

Over the weeks, the boy has fallen in love with the phrase going commando. He has tried to adapt it so that it fits his own wild side. He would much rather wear underwear and no clothes than wear clothes and no underwear. In fact, I believe he would rather live completely naked than go about wearing clothes with no underwear.

At any rate, he rather enjoys running around the house and making a lot of noise, drawing attention to the fact that he is wearing only underwear. This is the action he has fitted to his new favorite phrase, going commando.

wild man vs. commando

The outfit on the right, without the outfit on the left, constitutes going commando. The outfit on the left, without the outfit on the right, is formal wear for a four-year-old wild man.

Boys his age go through their wild man stages. I don’t mind it, but I am a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to language, even slang. I wish he wouldn’t insist on corrupting the meaning of going commando. I also wish he wouldn’t be so bi-polar in fluctuating between wild man and prude.

My carefree little commando can turn prissy on a dime. Last week, we walked to the playground. In spite having assured us before leaving home that he did not have to go to the bathroom, his first words upon reaching the playground were, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

There were no facilities within range. “Take him behind a tree,” my wife advised.

I led him behind a suitable pine and showed him the appropriate place. And do you know what that wild man, commando, tough guy asked me? He asked me this: “Why are you making me pee like an animal?”

He needs to work on his aim and generally improve his urination deportment a little bit before he can claim to be peeing like an animal, but I didn’t bother to tell him that.

Will work for toys

What would a four-year-old most like to do for fun on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? You guessed it: wash windows.

My wife and the baby were out when the boy came to me and asked, “Can we do some housework? Let’s wash some windows.” He then went on to tell me, “We’ll need a bucket and some soap and water.”

No, the boy is not the reincarnation of my grandmother. He really couldn’t care less if our windows were coated with gook. This sudden desire to clean up is not about windows or good housekeeping at all. It’s about toys.

The boy has noticed that there are lots of shiny new toys in that wonderland warehouse known as TOYS R US. Except for some of the toys in the aisles that virtually glow with pinkness, he wants them all. At the rate his parents buy him toys, he has calculated that it will take him months, or even years, to collect them all. This is unacceptable.

It has been explained to him that the lack of all the money in the world is the principle reason why he cannot have every toy. To combat this problem, he is determined to collect all the money in the world himself. Mommy and Daddy have proven willing to give him some money for doing extra chores, but there may be some flaw in his imagining that all the money in the world can flow to him through Mommy and Daddy.

boy with windex and rags

If you hire a four-year-old to clean your windows, make sure you have plenty of Windex, because the spraying is a lot more interesting than the wiping.

Our three-seasons room has lots of windows, and though I was in no hurry to clean them, it seemed a good opportunity to reinforce his work ethic. This could be done just as well with a bottle of Windex and some rags as by schlepping around a bucket of dirty water. We went to work at once.

He was able to reach only the lower part of the windows, leaving me responsible for the rest, for which my only reward would be cleaner windows. The boy kept himself motivated for a while, but his interest waned by the time we got to the outside. “You’ve got to finish the job if you want to get any money,” I warned him.

“So I can get a paycheck?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“Well, I don’t want to be in a mentoring program.”

This was an out-of-the-blue head-spinner. Then I realized that the reference was from one of the inappropriate cartoons we like to watch together. As I recall from the cartoon, a mentoring program entails a slacker employee carrying his mentor, in a harness resembling a Baby Bjorn, while the mentor barks commands at him. I don’t want to be in a mentoring program either.

The boy stuck with it until the job was done, perhaps motivated by the image of a nagging father strapped to him. I gave him two dollars to put into his wallet and two quarters for his piggy bank.

“Can I have two of the dollars with Mr. Lincoln’s picture on them?” he asked.

“These have Mr. Washington’s picture. He was a very good man too,” I explained.

“Yeah, but Mr. Lincoln’s dollars have fives on them. These only have ones.”

Next time he wants to earn some money, I’ll have him do my taxes.

view of back yard through windows

Thanks to a boy with an ambition, we have learned that there is a back yard beyond our windows. Who would have guessed there was anything so useful beyond all the dirt and grime?

Football, putting the kids to bed, and other rough sports

My boys are too young to know much about sports, but they do have an eerie sense for knowing when my interest in what’s on TV has intensified. Something in their childhood instincts alerts them that Daddy wants to watch the game, and they know it’s time to go feral.

My sports season runs from fall to spring, headlined by football and basketball and seasoned with a sprinkling of hockey. Summer has its baseball, and occasionally the Olympics, but those don’t get me psyched up to watch them on TV, which is why my kids are relatively quiet during this period. Daddy can watch all the reruns and reality shows he wants in peace. As it turns out, he doesn’t really want to watch any.

The baby was born in spring, at the end of the sports season. Until recently, he has been a remarkably quiet, contented infant. Through the whole summer, he has been all smiles and giggles. His deep thoughts have been interrupted by tears only for the most sensible reasons. That was the off-season baby.

Scene at football game in early 1900s

With these new wide-screen TVs it’s almost like you’re right there at the game.

When I sat down to watch the first big football game of the year, the baby’s long-dormant sensors fired. Suddenly, I had a loud and proud infant, in mid-season form. He began to whoop and holler, cry and whine, like the most notorious of his breed. Then came the four-alarm diaper blowout.

His big brother joined him in his antics, putting on a show of his most distracting and annoying behavior. The normal consequence of this display would have been for him to go to bed early. On this evening, early would be in the middle of the second quarter. I’d have to endure him until halftime.

Halftimes are too short for parents battling the delaying tactics of preschoolers at bedtime. From having to pee, but not until after several minutes of standing at the potty, to trouble with the tooth brush, everything took longer than the eons it takes at normal bedtimes. Of course, the book he selected for his bedtime story was a nice thick one, with paragraphs and everything.

Third quarters are overrated anyway.

At least I didn’t have to put the baby to bed. Mommy would see to that, when he was good and ready to settle down and be put to bed. For the time being, he was really into this football game. His passion was so intense that his deafening crying could hardly be eased by either parent.

Eventually, the baby wore himself out  and accepted the call of slumber. I think the game was over by then, but I find it difficult to remember. I don’t remember much about the game at all.

I hope my boys grow up to be ardent sports fans. Enjoying sports may eventually grow to become an experience that we can share. More importantly, when I am old and senile, and no longer know or care who’s playing, I plan to cling to just enough reality to go to their houses during Super Bowls and Final Fours and blow up my Depends undergarments like Armageddon.

Buxom woman holding football

My problem may be that I am not enough of an imposing figure. Nobody gives Big Bertha any guff when she tells the fellas to simmer down so she can watch the ballgame in peace.

Faulty nipples, puke, and war paint (just another day at home)

Recently, we boys in the family got one of our periodic chances to spend some quality time together without any womenfolk around. Mommy was out for the evening, so we got to play in an estrogen-free zone for several hours.

The night got off to a good start when the baby decided he didn’t want anything to do with his bottle. I got it into his mouth a few times, but he got angry and spit it right out. As fast as I could try to bring the nipple to his mouth, he would slap it away with his little judo hands. He even made all kinds of martial arts grunts, groans, and other assorted utterances. Okay, I’m pretty sure that some of them where baby swear words, but they went well with his karate chops.

Since the baby wouldn’t eat, I thought I’d try to get some dinner into the big boy. While I was in the kitchen, making his meal, I heard him turn on the water in the downstairs bathroom. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m washing my hands,” came the reply from the bathroom.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know.”

This was suspicious, but I had other chickens to fry (literally). I heard him leave the bathroom, so I let it go until the noise of the water running repeated a minute later. “Come here,” I requested. He came into the kitchen looking like a wild island warrior, sporting black, magic marker stripes all over his face, arms, and legs. He even had a little extra for a mustache over his top lip. His hands were clean, though.

He wanted to know if Mommy would yell when she came home. I told him it was a distinct possibility. He wasn’t concerned that I might yell. I didn’t, so I guess he was right. I think he suspected that I might think it was kind of cool, which maybe I did, secretly. I gave him a wet rag and told him to get to work, unless he wanted to take his chances with Mommy.

It could always be worse: I don’t have the first clue as to how to deal with girls. Also, I’d be lost without a machine to toss the vomit-covered clothes into.

Meanwhile, I tried another bottle on the baby, with no better luck. Fortunately, my kids have a dad who figures it out once in a while. With the wailing baby in one arm, I rooted around the pantry with my free hand, looking for a faster nipple.  At last, I found one, but it came with a different bottle system, so I had to wash out the new bottle, one-handed, before I could try my theory.

The baby took the new bottle without even attempting to drop-kick it across the room, though he did shoot me a look and mumble something in baby words about me finally finding a nipple that had an actual hole in it. I let his sarcasm slide, because even in a house flowing with undiluted testosterone, somebody has to be the bigger man.

By now, the big boy had cleaned up all of his parts that he could easily see in the mirror. He was all set, as long as Mommy stayed in front of him. We worked on eating his belated dinner. He gave it the old preschool try, but wanted to give up with still too much left on his plate. I asked him to at least finish his biscuit. This was my mistake, as I had not been clear that he shouldn’t attempt it in one bite. He put about five times too much food into his mouth, which made him gag, followed closely by the puking.

We got him to the toilet mostly in time. There were just a few small spots to clean off the linoleum. His dinner was wasted, but there were no nasty vomit stains to clean up off the carpet. Overall, it would have to be classified as a success, as far as puking goes. He flushed the toilet and announced that he would like some gummy bears for dessert.

The baby took another little bottle. He didn’t seem very satisfied though. He was beginning to miss Mommy, or at least the part of her he knew best. Bottles were not at all the manner of taking nourishment to which he was accustomed, and he would not let the affront pass without complaining to the management.

And then, it looked like things were going to get worse. The big boy had picked up the hand bellows from the fireplace and was aiming it at the baby’s face. He was going to poke the baby in the eye before I could stop him. But he didn’t poke the baby. He held the bellows in front of the baby and squeezed, blowing a puff of air into the baby’s face.

The baby stopped his crying and laughed – not smiled, not gurgled, laughed. It was the best, heartiest, happiest laugh I have ever heard from this baby. The big boy squeezed out another puff of air. The baby practically convulsed with guffaws. The big boy laughed. I laughed.

They did this for several minutes – puff, laugh, puff, laugh. Sometimes, nobody can make a boy laugh like his brother can. Sometimes, a long, difficult night can turn itself around on the simple whim of a child. Sometimes, all the boys of the house just need to hang out and be boys together.

One in a while we just need our Man Time together, in spite of the consequences.