Colors That End in "Urple"

There are times I’ve wondered if I’m a good father or not. When the 10 year old in the back seat does her impression of Darryl Hammond doing HIS impression of Sean Connery on SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy would be one of those times.
“You’re not a fan of the ladiesh, are you, Trebeck?” Leni smiled a half-smile, the implication being “Nice Job.” And it’s not like I could even defend that one. I told her about them, and even put the audio versions on her Ipod. Ipod led to YouTube, and now I’m inundated with questions about which ones are my favorite. And for the most part, they’re pretty benign. But every once in a while they’ll say something a little bit more off color than is appropriate. Which, obviously, are the perils of trying to introduce your daughter to things you enjoyed when you were younger.
Take “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Funny, yes. PG, yes. When Ferris dances on the float: Delightful. Explaining what Jennifer Grey meant by a “scorching case of Herpes”: Uncomfortable. That would be a Win-Lose. “Goonies,” again, a Win-Lose. I might as well have been making her go to the dentist…She didn’t care how much I loved it, she wasn’t having it. I had to force her, practically tie her to a chair and put SlimJim’s (her favorite snack) on top of the television to keep her attention. And she loved it. As soon as she started repeating the jokes that made her laugh I knew I had her. But Chunk. My God. How many times does that kid say “Shit”? Win-lose. “Addams Family Values”: Win-win. “Pleasantville”: Win-win, but there were some anxious moments when I was like “don’t get naked Joan Allen, don’t get naked Joan Allen.”
The point of all of this, is that I’ve been trying to get her to read “Watership Down.” And it’s not even something that I read as a child. I read it a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it. I’d be at work, and if I had a few free seconds I’d read a paragraph, a sentence, another word. I was utterly captivated. But she could care less. Not interested. So tonight at dinner (it was just the 2 of us), Max got angry because she thought I was forcing her to read it. I told her I wasn’t forcing her to read it, and that she should lower her tone. She continued to mope and whine about the fact that it wasn’t fair to keep talking about it and that I can’t “make” her read anything. I told her not to worry about it, that she didn’t have to read it, and I’d never bring it up again. And then she started in on the fact that she wanted me to talk about it, she wasn’t telling me not to talk about it, and that she was upset about the fact that I was forcing her to read something she wasn’t interested in.
It didn’t matter what I said, she just kept reiterating why she was upset and what her problem was. There are times where I forget how young Max is. She may be 10 years old, but as a precocious little girl, and an only child (for now), she is used to socializing with adults. And that can be deceiving at times, like when you suddenly find yourself faced with a pouty little girl who is now sitting in the seat your previous joyful dinner companion was sitting. Desperate to break her out of this brooding repetitive loop, I asked her which Jonas Brother she would marry if given the opportunity.
None, apparently. That was so last summer.
So for now, I’ll drop the “Watership Down” thing. Perhaps until I at least read it again. Don’t one of the rabbits get eaten by a dog or something? I can’t remember. Shit.

Fire in the Hole

So, to answer last nights Ethical Question, I did stop Max from filling up our landlord’s mail slot with worms. Although, I must say, I’m slightly regretful about it. As our relationship is already untenable, I’m really not looking to incite more unrest between us.
I mean, if I ever wanted to, I could do it myself one day and blame it on Max…I’ll have to put that in my “Future Projects” box, like that piece of sculpture I was going to make with those old washing machine knobs I pulled out of a dumpster. They looked cool, but what the hell are you going to make other than something that looks like a twig-man wrestling a Jabberwocky made out of knobs and hot glue? But then I guess I could blame that on Max as well, unless someone was giving it a compliment.
I have to admit, I’m getting impatient for this baby to arrive. It’s like my wife is walking around with a Christmas present I really, really wanted only I can’t open it until June. But maybe the brief wait is a good thing.
Right now, Leni is reading a book about potty training an infant. Not a toddler. A newborn. The theory is based on impoverished/3rd world countries who don’t have Huggies and Diaper Genies. That, basically, mothers walk around and have a sense of when their babies have to use the bathroom. When that time comes, they hold their kids out (I guess at arm’s length, out of the blast range) and let them go. Obviously, we would have to amend that to some degree. I can’t have my daughter just spraying the house any time she has to go. I have a hard enough time cleaning up after the other three (Leni, Max, and Ali, the nanny).
When I was 12 I convinced my father to buy us a duck as a pet. The guy at the farm looked at us like we were crazy, but we did it. We bought a little duckling and brought it home. My 8 year old sister was given the responsibility of naming it: Cream Cheese. Cream Cheese was cute and fuzzy and yellow. She would follow us around chirping as if we were her parents. We never made any mirrors really available to her, so, she probably thought she looked like us only much shorter. Regardless, the point is that ducks, I believe as a species, give NO indication when they are about to relieve themselves. This jet of white, plastery goo just blasts out from behind them, and off they go. Cream Cheese did more than mark her territory; she respackled the house. And it wasn’t easy keeping after the mess. Well, it wasn’t easy for only a short while because she was eventually eaten by a raccoon.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m a little dubious about the success of a diaper free newborn. Cleaning up after a little duck is relatively mild compared to playing Russian roulette with firehose. Well, a baby firehose. And one that sprays poop.
I don’t know. If she can learn that maybe she can learn how to lower my taxes.

Cranky Day

It seems that an Agitated Uterus affects not just a woman’s reproductive system, but her ability to interact with everything. In the december, it was too cold. Now it’s warm, but there weren’t enough days in between to bridge the gap from Winter to (like there’s a Spring in NY anymore) Summer. So now she’s hot and uncomfortable. Short of having a Stilsuit from the planet Arrakis that is temperature controlled and built to rehydrate her, it would appear there is very little one can do to please a pregnant woman other than induce labor. Actually, I don’t think inducing her would help either. She’d still have to deliver the baby. If there was some painless way to just, say, take the baby out without any fuss, she’d be perfect. She wouldn’t be so irritable, and I wouldn’t have to wear this helmet anymore.
But it’s not just the weather. It’s the groceries, the mess in the car, her maternity pants, the thai food, our landlord, her website, the fat woman swimming slowly in front of her at the local pool. I’m running out tricks and energy working all day and trying to make her life more comfortable and the baby isn’t even here yet. Or maybe that’s just how I feel tonight now that Allergy Season has started.
Ethical Question: You hate your landlord, she’s a quixotic 75 year old Russian who pretends she doesn’t quite understand what you are saying until you invoke the question of who is paying for what where her mind suddenly clears and she speaks English perfectly. Anyway, imagine an old, wrinkly, scabby Grandmother who is Mrs. Fratelli’s meaner, older sister. Now, imagine you’ve had conversations in earshot of your 10 year old about how this is the worst person on the planet.
THEN imagine you catch your 10 year old and her friend about to scoop live worms into her mailslot downstairs. Do you stop her?
Anyway, Max and I play this game all the time. It’s “Would You Rather…” I figured every day or two I’d post one. We’ve had some real tough ones.
WOULD YOU RATHER…Have Pickles for fingers, which you could eat, only then they’d just be Pickle Nubs until the next day when they would grow back OR have a trumpet sticking out of your tush forever so that everytime you farted it would be a really loud trumpet blast?
I chose the pickle nubs.

About Me

I’m a 36 year old man living in Queens, NY. I met my wife June 5, 2007. I married my wife October 19, 2007. Those dates are correct. My wife had an 8 year-old daughter from another marriage, so, basically, I went from single bachelor to inept dad overnight.
I work in the film business and I’m really starting to hate it. In addition to my credits on IMDB.com, you can see my handsome mug on “The Devil Wears Prada” gag reel (on YouTube or the DVD). In the first shot, I’m wearing Meryl’s wig. Also, should you be strolling through my mother’s kitchen, you can see a few pictures of me as well. I’m on the fridge.
If I had a time machine, I would go back to my 7 year old self and make me take piano lessons. Not just a few, but stick with it. And learn how to fix cars. Not at 7, really, because that’s a little young. But tell him it will be a valuable skill when we get older. Like Spanish. I’d have us learn Spanish, too. That way, we’d be waaaayyyyy too busy to ever get in trouble for things like lighting fireworks off in the kitchen and giving the dog a Mohawk.
In 5 weeks, my wife will be giving birth to our daughter. I could set my sights low and hope for the usual 10 fingers, 10 toes…Or, plumbing the depths of my creativity, I could ask God for the one favor I’m entitled to (seeing as how the Giselle Bundchen thing didn’t work out – story for another time) and ask Him to bless me with the Ninja I’ve always wanted.

Rodney Sterbenz, April 26, 2009

Fear Has A Name:

My wife is pregnant: she’s due June 4^th, 2009. And while that’s not the 30-weeks-to-go hurdle we faced last October when Leni and her jeans became true adversaries, we’re still a few short weeks from our trip to the hospital. Or so I thought.

This past Wednesday, while at work, Leni called to say that she wasn’t feeling well. She had seemed more tired than usual, more annoyed at our landlord (who’s 75 and awful, but hadn’t done anything in particular that day to provoke further scorn), and, no surprise here, more miserable. I’ve heard of women who enjoy being pregnant. I’ve heard of women who revel in the experience; allow it to connect them to a higher state. Transform them. Elevate their spirit.

Those women are not my wife. Those women are myths. They are as likely a possibility as when I believed my childhood dog could speak. I’d sit on the floor, begging Maxine, “It’s fine. I won’t tell anyone. I promise. One word. Just say one word and it will be our little secret.” But all I would get is silence, and those deep black eyes betraying nothing. In the end, I imagine she conveyed pretty much what every dog is thinking in that situation: Just hand over the bacon already.

But back to Leni, she was really unhappy. And even worse, she was having cramps. She’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for several months already, so the fact that she was having more contractions didn’t seem that out of the ordinary. Until Thursday, when they became more acute, and much more painful.

“Well, what do they feel like? Do you think you’re going into labor?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They feel like it. They feel like menstrual cramps and I’m nauseous…”

“Is this because I want to see “I Love You, Man?”

She reiterated the fact that she didn’t have anything against Paul Rudd, she just thought it looked like a stupid movie. Regardless, she decided to call her OB/GYN to see what he thought.

I waited impatiently for the call, each minute stretching into an hour. None of which was helped by the fact that I was doing monotonous work: tiling an enormous bathroom set for the movie “Sorceror’s Apprentice” starring Nicholas Cage. And because the tiles they chose didn’t have any spacers on them for grout lines, we placed penny nails in between each and every one. Times that by several thousand and you have the personification of hell, compliments of Walt Disney Pictures.

When my phone finally rang, I assumed that she would probably have to go into his office to see him.

“He wants me to come in…” she said. It sounded like she was in the car already, so I asked if she was headed to his downtown office.

“No, I’m going to the Prenatal emergency room at St. Luke’s.”

The Prenatal Emergency room? Before Leni, before the pregnancy and Max and the marriage and everything…if someone had told me that some of the scariest words I would ever hear in my life were “Pre-Natal Emergency Room” I would have laughed. “Starring Gary Busey”? Cold chills. “Ruptured Colon”? You’d have to think a bit, think about what kind of mess you’d have to be into to reach that sad conclusion and THEN start running for your life. Sure getting married added some new ones, phrases that took a while to seep in, like the thrills in some bad horror movie.

The beginning of the film when the protagonist books a room at a cheap hotel = Happy Feet

He notices some scratches in the wallpaper, like someone was clawing at it = Zoe 101

The power goes out = Bratz: The Movie

But still, once you get to the upper echelon of terrifying phrases, there isn’t much around to usurp the throne from “Severed Penis.” At least for me there isn’t. Especially if it accompanies another word, like, “Found.” But this week “Prenatal Emergency Room” took the crown, especially seeing as Leni was on her way to it!

I wasn’t sure what to do. “Do you want me to come with you?” I had been to most of her other doctor’s appointments. She had asked me to take an invested part in the pregnancy and I had met the task with an unknown reservoir of energy and diligence. It took me 3 weeks to caulk the tub in the bathroom but when it came down to Leni and the Baby, I was on top of it.

I know that some men aren’t interested in the pregnancy. Their contribution pretty much caps out at about what you can fit on a teaspoon. Others, people I’ve worked with, enjoyed a much more truncated experience, relegated to whatever information could be exchanged during the commercial breaks of a Jets Game. Me? I bought books. I read article after article on the internet. Found reason and cause to the things that caused me distress, and information to arm myself with when I came up empty. Her OB/GYN started to view me as a bit of a nervous father, when in reality, I just wasn’t satisfied with a recommendation not to worry about it. I needed to know why I shouldn’t worry about it. Yet after a while, I began to see that Luck was as big a factor in a pregnancy as what you eat or how much exercise you get. Some women have trouble, some women don’t. So I tried to follow Leni’s lead, as she had already been through this already.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’ll see what they say. I might even be done by the time you finish work anyway.”

And so the long wait began. Tiling the hours into uncertainty. She’d text me every now and then, but, nothing really soothed my conscience. “On monitor now,” she wrote. An hour later: “I’m fine, baby’s fine, don’t know what’s wrong.” And then finally, “vaginal ultrasound.” I knew how they did the normal ultrasound. I’d watched that one in person. They hold a microphone sized instrument and roll it over her belly. But for the life of me, I just couldn’t figure out the mechanics of this one.

So I decided to head in. I left Max at home with our nanny and took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan. Rushing my way towards the surface, I arrived on the street around 8:13, five hours after Leni had shown up. Once I had service, I called her right away. They had released her, and she had just gotten downstairs. We agreed to meet at the diner across from the hospital because she was starving. She was always starving. Being around a pregnant woman is a bit like having a polar bear for a pet. As long as you keep them fed you should be alright. Notice I said: Should.

So what was it?

Dehydration Well, that seemed easy enough. Drink more water. Cut out soda and juice. And pick up some Pedialyte on the way home. Excellent. What else?

Agitated Uterus I’m sorry, what? She repeated it, and even now, two days later, I have no real clue what that means. Was it anything like a Disconcerted Bladder? A Troubled Tibia? A Perturbed Anus? Actually, that sounds kind of gross. A Perturbed Anus. Who would you rather meet in a dark alley? An Agitated Uterus or a Perturbed Anus? I guess it would depend on if the Uterus is holding anything sharp, but, still, would you honestly be interested in meeting an Anus anywhere? Like, lets say the Anus worked at The Gap…Or Dunkin Donuts, because, there’s a Dunkin’ on Yellowstone Blvd. where, despite the nametag, I’m pretty sure Perturbed Anus serves me coffee every morning.

Yuck.