The Daughter's Solution To Death

It’s been a few months since my daughter’s had to deal with death.

A few months ago my son’s hamster “Teddy” took a dirty-nap a mere two months after this ordeal. We honestly didn’t think he’d live two days after that.

But then, this past Monday, she found a tiny little caterpillar. She immediately sprung into action and located a small cup to put it in. She then frantically searched for the perfect leaf for it to munch on.

Next, a toy! It needed a toy. Carefully placing an oversized piece of mulch into the cup she was satisfied until she realized she had nothing to call it!

“Ted! I’m gonna name him Ted,” she declared suddenly.

And “Ted” he became.

For the next 90 minutes Ted and my dear sweet innocent daughter were inseparable. She sat with Ted. She talked to Ted.

She gleefully encouraged Ted to make his first heroic climb up the Mt. Everest of bark mulch.

She even laughed hysterically when she finally found Ted hiding under a leaf, camouflaged and clearly playing a trick on her.

Then, it came time for school and she had to leave Ted behind. After kissing his habitat goodbye she skipped off to get her learnin’ on.

I went about my regular working from home day.

Three hours later, the kids burst into the door with the daughter leading the pack eager to show off her new friend.

And that’s when it happened.

Upon throwing open the back sliding door she screamed, “TED!!!!”

The cup had been blown over and rolled off the deck into the grass. The leaf and mulch piece were there.

Ted……was not.

She was absolutely crushed. After the entire family searched for what seemed like hours we declared Ted alive and well but back with nature again.

Secretly we knew damn well when he landed in the grass, he bumped his chest two times to the lord above and crawled his ass far far away from here.

“Ted always knew how to make me laugh mommy,” the daughter recalled shortly after through her steady flow of tears.

Three days later (yesterday) the neighborhood was alive with the sounds of joyful children when all of a sudden one yells, “a dead bird!”

My daughter’s ears perk-up and she immediately hauls-ass to the spot where a tiny, baby bird had fallen from his perch and landed head-first onto the sidewalk.

Only, it wasn’t dead. It was barely breathing as it laid there slowly dying.

The daughter immediately starts searching for a box to place it in. Crying hysterically asking for help because “I want to save it!!”

If only life were simple enough to where a box, small sample of nourishment and oversized play thing would make everything spring back to a joyous life filled with double rainbows all the way!

The wife stepped-up, hugged the little darling tightly and helped her unwillingly understand the bird was doomed.

The bird would die.

Seeing my innocent little angel learn one of life’s hardest lessons yet again was painfully difficult.

I was humbled at the way the wife made the parenting side of it look so damn easy. I was a complete waste of space during the entire thing just watching as if I were a moth on a wall.

Forty-five minutes later she was eating pizza and riding her bike up and down the block.

Ted nor the dying hairless baby bird that never had a chance were even a blip on her radar anymore.

I long for the days where the only things that concerned me could fit inside a small little container. And, once they fell out of that container, they just weren’t important anymore.

When did life get so complicated?



Chilean Hamster Ductwork Rescue 2011

Yesterday morning I went down to the wife’s at-home office in the basement to throw some “we should totally hook-up when both kids are at school today” vibes around. That’s when I heard it.

THUMP!

Me: “What the hell was that?”

Wife: “I don’t know. The furnace has been doing that all morning.”

Me: “Ummm…you know that’s not normal right.”

Wife: “Maybe an animal’s stuck in there, I don’t know.”

I went back up to my at-home office, put the headphones on and kept cranking on work. The thought did cross my mind that maybe the hamster go out….again.

For those who don’t know, the wife has managed to bring into the house a hamster, a fish, a cat, and a dog. Although I blame her publicly, I know deep down that the zoo environment I live in is a direct result of me not being man-enough to just say “no!!!!”

An hour after hitting on the wife I take my headphones off for a call. The call ends and that’s when I hear it.

THUMP! SCRATCH…..SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH

I stand, grab my cell phone, make the slow walk up to the boy’s room and find this:

Immediately I pic text this picture to the wife in the basement. A minute later we’re holding flash lights and listening to our damn ductwork trying to figure out exactly where the little furry bastard is.

That’s when we found him…in the basement, at the rock-bottom part of the ductwork right next to the filter where it connects to the furnace that has been running all day cause it was -5 outside.

And the wanna-be-rat-bastard was alive!! I mean…here’s the trip this furry guy made from the second story of our house.

He was up on a shelf, fell to a dresser, then to the floor.

Then he crawled his ass into this vent on the second floor of our house.

And fell his way through multiple ductwork chambers to the first floor, then to the basement here.

And there…he was stuck, surrounded by metal, receiving the blunt of air from the furnace, trying like hell to find freedom.

So…the wife and I embarked on an epic journey to save the little bastard despite the fact we’d both be “happier” with one less animal.

PLAN A

I thought I’d get all MacGyver on his ass and use the kids’ DS charger cord wrapped around a measuring cup to scoop his ass up.

FAIL: The measuring cup was too large to fit in the hole. (That’s what she said.)

PLAN B

Drop a large rope into the hole in the hopes the furry bastard would climb to his freedom.

FAIL: He just chewed on the end of it like a douche to try and find materials to make a nest for his new Chilean Hamster Deathtrap Home.

Right about here is where I was being all supportive and stuff to the wifey’s effort and got… “The Look.” Ok…I got half, “The Look”…but it still hurt.

Saving The Chilean Hamster & "The Look" from WhyIsDaddyCrying on Vimeo.

PLAN C

Holy shit…we still have fake Christmas garland sitting right here!! Let’s drop it in as a “Ladder of Hope” for the little bastard to climb!!!

FAIL: I have no idea what in the hell he was doing to it, but there was tons of noise and the garland may now be pregnant.

PLAN D

Drop a small cup filled with peanut butter and carrots into the Chilean Hamster Deathtrap until he climbs in then hoist him up.

SUCCESS!!!!

Here, take a look!

Chilean Hamster Rescue Mission 2011 from WhyIsDaddyCrying on Vimeo.

Teddy was saved. Although from the repeated falls that little dude made, I’m not quite sure how long he has to live in this world. We’ll be keeping an eye on him.

The wife? She was just glad the entire episode happened while the kids were at school.

Me? Well…how would you feel after spending a long-shot-possible-afternoon-sex-time fishing a damn hamster-out-of-ductwork day?

Yeah…We Got A Dog

The day started like any other day. We woke up late and a tad hung-over from the previous night’s party with friends.

We ate breakfast and broke-up 13.6 fights between the kids.

I wrote a love note to the wife.

Then we decided to go to my wife’s second home, Ikea, to look at lofts for the boy’s room since he needs desk space.

After a couple hours of crying and listening to the boy say, “Oh, I want that bed, and that desk, and can I get a chair that wheels around, and I could put my trophies on my desk and move them when it’s time to do homework, and please daddy, please mommy?!”

But unfortunately we left without the purchase.

Then I made the mistake of a lifetime. Feeling bad that we got the kid all hyped-up and let him down, I whipped into the pet store right next to Ikea so we could let him pet hamsters and look at fish.

Twenty minutes later I find myself in a small “petting room” waiting for a dude that works there to bring us a puppy to play with.

Twenty more minutes later my wife, son, and daughter are literally clasping their hands together as if in group prayer and begging me to let them take the doggie home forever.

I gave it a good fight, I really did. But I lost and I lost hard.

When we first moved to Chicago three years ago we got a damn cat. Jasper.

Almost two years ago we got each of the kids a fish. Then one died. So we got another.

Then a few months ago the boy “had to have” a hamster. When I wasn’t looking the wife bought the little bastard a hamster.

Now...a Cavalier King Charles dog named Marty.

But, I’m going to look at the positive side of this. I’m going to focus on the many things young Marty and I have in common.

• If he’s not bathed regularly he stinks and leaves his musky scent all over the furniture. I do too…
• Currently the cat’s scared out of his mind, so one could say he scares pussy away. I do too…
• He was bred and we have his thorough pedigree chart. I guess in a way I was too…
• This furry bastard loves to have his belly rubbed nonstop. The dog does too…
• I’m going out on a limb and saying I’m pretty sure the dog doesn’t like to wear pants. We all know my feelings on those devil leg covers.
• And, I’m not going to lie, if you throw a ball near me I’m definitely going to go for it and bring it right back to you.

Now, if only I could figure out how to make my ass wag like a dog’s tail and have my wife whistle at me and talk to me like I’m 8 months old.



Family Discussion: A Furry Little Shit

I came home yesterday to all hell breaking loose at the house.

Son: “But mommy I really really want one!”

Wife: “I know you do Grayson. We will probably get you one, so relax.”

Daughter: “Well if Grayson gets an animal I want a cat and I’ll keep it in my room and it’ll be all mine.”

Wife: “You can’t keep a cat in your little room all the time Macy.”

Daughter: “But MOOOMMMYYYY, Grayson gets to keep a hamster in his room, why can’t I keep a cat in mine?”

That’s when it all clicked in my head what was happening.

Me: “Whoa whoa whoa!! No one’s getting any animals. We have a cat and that’s plenty!!”

And then the water works started, followed by high pitched whining flavored with hardcore disappointment.

My son’s best buddy at school has a hamster. So naturally my son HAS to have one. And somehow, when I was away from the house for more than five minutes yesterday, my wife’s ability to slam any thoughts that another furry beast might enter this home permanently became weak. Our kids were breaking her quickly.

Me: “Grayson, what is it you want to get?”

Son: “Oh…daddy, it’s a teddy bear hamster. It’s really furry and really cute and it has long fuzzy hair all over it and I want it so badly daddy. I will take such good care of it and will name it Ted.”

Daughter: “And if Grayson gets a hamster mommy said I could buy two new Zhu Zhu pets!”

This is the point where I look at the wife with a “what in the holy hell are you thinking woman” look on my face.

Wife: “Don’t look at me like that. I pretty much promised Grayson he could have one.”

Me: “But we already have cat shit to clean up. We have a fish in the boy’s room that refuses to die. And now we’re gonna have a small animal that needs it’s wood shred thingies changed, food, water and the boy’s gonna let it get lose at least once and the cat will try to eat it and I’m already freakin’ exhausted….”

Wife: “Pipe-down childhood ruiner and quit over exaggerating. I had two as a kid and loved it. Let the boy have this.”

Me: “Whatever… I’m gonna need you to sign this document nullifying any and all involvement I might have in handling, touching, cleaning, observing, chasing, smelling, acknowledging, petting, and  any other word ending in “ing” that might involve Bob crossing paths with my daily life.”

Wife: “His name’s Ted idiot-boy. Get it right.”