The worst thing you can do to your children is appear on HGTV. Yelling? Hitting? Molesting? They’ll get over that. Watching you on that channel? That will fuck them up for life. Stay away.  If you can design on a dime, good for you. Have at it. Off camera. If you’re buying your first place, find a realtor without a soul patch, and do it quietly. Off camera. Need the Antonio treatment? I’ll contact an escort buddy of mine, and you two can get a room. Off camera. And if your curb needs appeal, buy some fucking flag stone and do it yourself. Off camera. The last thing your kids need is to see the utter douchebaggery of mom and dad play out on television.

For the record, I like HGTV. I find it informative and educational. I love how stealthily Canadian it is. As a homeowner and someone who knows handyman basics, I learn from the shows. They teach me about foundations, landscaping, appliances, tools and the housing market (If we uprooted to Kentucky, we could live in a mansion for $200,000. I’d rather have AIDS). I appreciate the talent of cream of the crop designers, architects, contractors, property inspectors and sellers. I want Verne Yip’s skin, Mike Holmes’ eyebrows and Scott McGillivray’s hair.

But I would never ever be on a show. I don’t care how enticing the offer. My answer would be no. Even if the HGTV house-warming gift following a renovation were a bidet with tongues, I’d still say no.

My bond is strengthening with my son. Lately he needs me. He now cries for me if he stirs in the middle of the night and when he wakes up in the morning. He even said, “Daddy cool,” the other day. I’m loving it, and I’m not about to fuck it up.

HGTV rolls the cameras, and the worst stereotypes of marriage are realized. It’s like a spell. No matter how great a guy or gal you are, you will come off as an asshole on that channel. Though you may wince while watching yourselves when it airs, you can brush it off. Eventually your friends will stop dogging you. But what about the kids? They have to live with that embarrassment. Think back to when you were in school. It hurt worse when kids made fun of your parents rather than teasing just you. But Jake is only two, you might say. He and his peers are too young to care. Maybe now. But once something is recorded today, it sticks around. That shit becomes viral. Then nuclear. By the time your kid’s in high school, they’ll drop a bucket of cow blood on her at prom, then she’ll go all Carrie on them and unleash a shitstorm.

It sure is tempting though. I would like for Genevieve Gorder (Goiter?) to remodel our master bathroom. Jacuzzi Kohler tub with a rain shower-head. Heated marble floor. Two sinks. That would be sharp. Then I recall some of the recent shows and how I wanted to muzzle the wives and punch the husbands in the throat.

On Renovation Realities, a husband and his pregnant wife renovated their kitchen for $6,000, and they did an incredible job. The problem is that he was a meek ah shucks poodle and she, a succubus. She gave the orders, and he pussily obliged. At the end of the first full grueling day of do-it-yourself work, that harpy whined that the fan was off-centered by two inches and demanded he fix it. That required cutting a hole in the ceiling, rerouting the electrical and installing the fan. And while this castrated shithead crawled through the cobwebs and fiberglass insulation of the basement, he repeated, “I love my queen. I love my queen,” over and over. I love my queen. Really? You watch these shows, and the divorce rate is no longer a mystery. And that poor boy they’re expecting? It’s  still in the womb, and his life is already ruined.

Income Property is a great show. With the help of genius and handsome Scott McGillivray, architect extraordinaire, homeowners convert their piece-of-shit basements into high-end rentable spaces. What’s not great is when Tai, a wary cockroach, questions Scott McGillivray on all of his decisions. The wife in this instance gets a free pass. Though she was annoying, her husband was intolerable. He said more than once that he likes doing his own research, and they’d show cutaways of him doing searches online. Here’s a tip, fucko: when you’ve got someone who’s the best in the business, has his own T.V. show, and is not charging you for labor, don’t ask questions. Close your little laptop and disappear. Let the men do their work. And they do incredible work. The spaces in which they work typically don’t have supporting structural, electrical or plumbing integrity. What does Scott McGillivray do? He creates it. He installs everything and makes masterpieces. In this instance, the basement had nothing. It was dirt and dust. But this Tai still slithered down there with a smirk and badgered Scott McGillivray about other choices for spray foam, steel beams and water heaters he found on the Internet. But Scottie simply told him he’d need to shell out thousands more for those brands. Tai nodded suspiciously. What a dick. Your kids will endure beatings throughout their schooling for this.

There’s a lot that ain’t right about me, but I know better than to go on HGTV. Okay, I’m just bitter that I didn’t win the HGTV Dream House Giveaway.

Some Bloggers have a move where they sit one out and go to their bullpen to keep their site fresh. I took two weeks between blog entries, and the author below likened my newest post to the arrival of Chinese Democracy, the latest album from Guns and Roses that lingered in production for 17 years, carried huge expectations, and sucked. I agreed with him. Not about the quality but that I took too long to write it. I also challenged this critic to write one of his own. He did, and I like it.

Please welcome the first guest blogger to Chocolate Diapers, Jake’s Uncle.

Tony Dungy is a Super Bowl winning head coach, one of the most respected figures in football, and a good Christian.  In a profession of tyrants and alpha dogs, Dungy was renown for his calm.  His autobiography is called Quiet Strength.  In fact, Dungy never raised his voice – not as a football coach, not as a parent.

Fuck you, Tony Dungy.

 I often think of Tony Dungy as I scream at my kids.  I wonder why I yell and Tony doesn’t.  He raised kids.  Hell, he coached Warren Sapp.  I have two great kids who laugh and play and eat their vegetables.  When I yell at them, it’s not because they were arrested with an 8-ball of crack at a strip club.  I usually just yell at them for acting like kids.  And that sucks.  I think about a moment in the crappy movie Hook, where Robin Williams barks at his son, “Quit acting like such a child.”  The dumbfounded son replies, “I ama child.”  I’m not Tony Dungy.  I’m Robin Williams.  I’m a shitty actor in a shitty movie portraying a shitty parent.  Ugh.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why.  I get upset being around impulsive, whiny, undisciplined, selfish behavior.  Not my children’s behavior – mine.  And I realize why I act this way:  I expect more from them.  They are quite mature (for the most part).  They pick up after themselves.  They ask thoughtful questions.  They are genuinely concerned when someone is hurt or sad.  They are not easily frustrated because they can express themselves much better now than even a year ago.  Their development is nothing less than astounding.  Sometimes I marvel at my kids like I’m watching time lapse photography of a skyscraper being built or a flower blooming.  I stare in amazement, yet I want them to be fully blossomed now.  I am impatient.

And then it hits me:  I don’t want them to be mature like me; I want them to be better.  I want them to be more patient, more unselfish, less impulsive than I am.  I don’t want them to pick up my bad habits.  And the only way I know how to help them is by changing my own.

So when my brilliant son, who at age 4 was doing multiplication, but at 5½ can’t explain how streaks of his own feces ended up on the outside base of the toilet, stares at me blankly and shrugs while I’m left to clean it up (and, dear brother, if you think Jake’s poop smells bad now, wait until he’s 5 on taco night), I yell.  But I do it with guilt and a little shame.  Why?  Because I want to be a better example for my kids.  I want them to know that there are better ways to deal with frustration.  Those little bastards make me want to be a better dad, a better person.  And I guess that’s a great thing about being a parent.

I am almost fully recovered from my surgery, and I’m pretty close to being an involved dad again. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Jake is a giant pussy.

At some point in the last six weeks—between not holding him and barring him from my lap—Jake became a terminal mamma’s boy. Jake’s attachment to Amy is a common theme of this blog, but it’s different now. He seems past the point of no return. Gone. I’m back in the saddle after getting my balls worked over, yet I’ve lost him.

Here’s how I know:

He Hates Me

Most mornings Amy gets Jake ready because the timing just works out that way. When I come downstairs, they are usually sitting together on the couch watching Sesame Street, bonding and loving each other. For two weeks now, before I reach the bottom step, Jake turns to Amy and says, “No Daddy,” as in No Pets or No Peddlers.

“You can at least look at me when you say that,” I tell him. Instead he turns back to Amy and shakes his head.

Jake has no use for me at night either. On Sunday, before he went down, Amy was changing Jake. I came in to say good night.

“Go away, Daddy,” said my son.

I brushed it off and participated in his new bed-time ritual of covering him with ”two blankies” and ensuring he snuggles with his monkey and lamb dolls. We knelt down to talk to him through the crib bars.

“Night night, Mommy,” he said. “I wadyoo. Seeya.”

“I love you, ” I said.

“Get out.”

“What? F you.”

Enough With the Goddamn Kisses

Since I’ve become a parent, I’Ve realized that kids don’t actually get hurt. They get scared, and the only reason they cry is because they want you to kiss them. But there is no pain. I guess the exception is that English schoolboy, who gets hit by a train in that video without sound. He deserved a kiss; however, that would have been hard because he was in pieces.

When Jake gets “hurt”—and he gets “hurt” a lot—he needs kisses, but not from me of course. After work, Amy and I lied on the couch, creating a Target list, while Jake played. 

“How are we on cereal?” I asked.

“I think we’re okay.”

Jake dropped his light garbage truck on his foot. 

“Toe,” he said, his face solemn. “Mommy kiss.”  And Amy kissed his foot. He was fine. 

I continued. “Can you get Grape Nuts anyway?”

“I don’t think we have any room in the cupboard.”

Jake then tripped and landed softly on the carpet.

“Knee. Mommy kiss.” And Amy kissed his knee.

We never resolved the cereal issue. 

I was proud of Amy for not kissing Jake a  few days later when he had diaper rash.

He grabbed himself “Penis huut. Mommy kiss it.” 

Amy applied cream instead.  

Separation Panic  

I’ve lamented Jake’s attachment to Amy before, and I will do it again. Eat shit if you think I’m being dramatic.

Any progress I’ve made in this area vaporized while I nursed my balls. He is now afraid to be left alone with me. I don’t think he’s scared of me; he just can’t handle Amy leaving his  sight.

It’s impossible for Amy to get ready to go out unless I watch Jake. If I don’t, he spills Q-tips, plays in the toilet and humps her leg. And when Amy’s done with her makeup, she looks like a drunk clown.  At the same time,  Jake melts down when I take him away.  And there’s the rub. It’s hard to be patient and nurturing when Jake can’t be separated from his mother by a mere door in his house. It’s a real hoot when it happens at Dominick’s. We were actually having a nice conversation in the produce section when, all of a sudden, we noticed Amy had left. 

“Oh no,” I said because I knew what was next. “Where did she  go? Aim!”

Jake spun around in the cart, searching desperately for his mother. His face turned red and the tears happened—the silence before the scream. He found his voice and shrilled so that everyone looked at us, two babies needing the woman in their lives.  Amy returned from the next aisle with frozen spinach. 

“Never leave us again!” I said.  

He Leads Me On

To get me through my day for the first month after surgery, I needed a handler—someone to lift things for me, reach for stuff and help me sit and stand. Amy was my handler, and handlers can’t leave the people they work for. When the fourth week elapsed and I was ready to be more self-sufficient, Amy asked,

“Can I leave on Saturday?”

Sure I said, and if not for Jake, she probably wouldn’t have returned. My only concern was how Jake would react to spending the day with me, the bogeyman. Well, we had a lovely time together. It was sunny and warm, and we took a long walk outside, watched Elmo’s World four times, and played in the basement. Sure, he disassociated from me the minute Amy walked in, but still, I felt like I was back in his eyes.

Last Saturday Amy had to run around the corner to the grocery store for croutons. I was reading Things That Go to Jake on the couch when she left, and nothing happened! He feels safe with me, I thought. We finished the book, and I began preparing the salad. Then he reinforced where I stood with him. Jake walked to the door leading to the garage.

“Mamma?” He whimpered.

Don’t do it.

“Mommy?”

Please God, no.

“Mamma!”

I put my arm around him.

“Mommy’s coming right back. Remember, she always comes back?”

“No! Oooh! Oooh!”

He’d crossed the threshold, possessed by redness, tears and screams. It was incessant and only intensified until Amy got home. She walked in with her croutons, and Jake stopped instantly and smiled.

“Hi Mamma.”

 He was okay, but I wasn’t.

“I can’t comfort him,” I told Amy. “That’s awful.”

We talked and shared ideas:

• We need to do more rituals as a family first: dress Jake in the morning together, bathe him together, and put him to bed together. He’ll see me incorporated more into his routine, and then hopefully he’ll be comfortable enough to do them with me alone. 
• I need to accept what our cute kippah-wearing pediatrician said: all little boys are attached to their mothers. Separation anxiety comes with the territory.
• At the same time, Amy can’t always be the one consoling Jake. I have to get involved, too, or he’ll never feel safe around me.
• And we must be consistent and vigilant, or it will never work

Amy walked out on us again a few nights later, meeting friends for dinner. She left, and I waited for it, but it never came. He just stayed in my lap. I prepared him for bed, covering him and his dolls with his blankets. He curled up and put his head down away from me. I turned to leave, and Jake said,

“Night night, Daddy. I wadyoo. Seeya.”

 

My son begs for food, and it’s fucking irritating. Obviously we feed him, but even after he eats, and one of us wants a snack, Jake whines for a bite. He’s a dog and a sea lion.

Dog: We will be in separate rooms, but when Jake hears a wrapper crinkling, he comes panting.

Sea Lion: Jake knows several words like conservation, decapitate and mecos (semen in Mexican Spanish). He can easily tell me he wants to try what I’m eating. Instead, he points and grunts. Uhh, uhh, uhh. I feel like I’m at Fisherman’s Wharf. Uhh, uhh, uhh. Except the sea lions don’t want my food.

He’s presumptuous. I mean, he expects that I’ll just hand over my string cheese. Most times I do.

“Take it,” I’ll say. “Just have all of it!” And I’ll throw a handful of cheese strands at him.

Lately I’ve been snacking where he can’t see me: in the bathroom. The other day, I sat on the toilet eating handfuls of Apple Jacks.

I took a stand last week. I was eating an ice cream sandwich in the living room! He grunted over to me.

“No,” I said.

“Uhh, uhh, uhh.”

“Jake, you already had your dinner and dessert. This is for Daddy.”

“UHH, UHH, UHH.”

“Just give him a bite,” Amy said.

“No!” And I stuffed the entire ice cream sandwich in my mouth. “Shee wut yoo made me djoo?”

The problem is that Jake isn’t much of an eater. He wants all food in his possession simply because he’s curious, but he has no interest in actually eating it. He prefers to watch it sit and spoil. The exceptions are blueberries, strawberries and ketchup. It is not rare that he puts all three in his mouth at the same time. Nor is it rare for him to shit it right out.

So I was very surprised that he began eating more food last week. I was shocked that his coming out party was during the Passover Seders.

I love Passover. I don’t remember what it’s about anymore, but I know it’s a devine gastronomic event: brisket, turkey, matzoh ball soup, chocolate dipped macaroons. Kish mir tuchas, that is good stuff!  I have the Jewier foods, too, like gefilte fish, matzoh, harosets and kishke, but they are acquired tastes. It took some palette development before taking those on, especially gefilte fish.    Yet at 23 months, Jake can’t get enough.

I thought Amy was insane, setting Jake up at the table for the reading of the Haggadah during the first Seder.

“He won’t sit still,” I said, really hoping to chase him around the house—missing the four questions and wine finger dipping— until he tired and it was time to eat.

But he was good. He sat through the entire reading. That’s not to say he was perfect. He snatched my Haggadah,  using the spine as a gavel periodically throughout the service.  He also threw a Seder plate and clubbed Amy on the head with his sippy cup. But don’t worry because I locked eyes with him and laughed hard.

“He’s a little you,” Amy said.

That’s partially true. A little me would have been scared of the Jewish mystery food. Not Jake. To him, matzohs were M&M’s.

“Mmm!” He screeched and glowed while eating it.

I react differently. When I bite into matzoh, the first thought I have is, Fuck you Moses. You can turn sticks into snakes, but you had no time to bake bread because you were running from scary Egyptian, dickhead drag queens with Williams sisters beaded hair? Really?  Thank you. Thank you for destroying peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. For making pizza suck.   And matzoh lasagna? When a friend invites you over for matzoh lasagna, the phone call should go like this:

Friend: Hey, I’m having some people over for matzoh lasagna. Wanna come?

You: I hate you (and hang up)

Jake also enjoyed parsley.  He munched on the leaves, like a rabbit, taking pleasure in what is essentially a garnish.

“Can I offer you a lemon wedge next?” I asked him. “What about a hibiscus petal?”

There were parsnips in place of the bitter herbs, but Jake didn’t give a shit. He ate them, too.

I was certain he’d come to his toddler senses when Amy offered him some gefilte fish. Surely, he’d wince and push it away. Without hesitation, he stuffed a half-piece in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

“Mo,” he said.

I don’t like gefilte fish that much. I eat it on the Jewish holidays only because that’s my compromise with God for being just a High Holiday Jew and telling Holocaust jokes. I eat it because I have to, unlike Jake, who sees it as comfort food and eats it with his hands.        

Gefilte fish.

It even sounds nasty. Gefilte fish. Blech. It sits in that jar, bobbing in gefilte water. Puke. Sometimes, all I see and smell is an old turd. You know, the surprise kind, where you lift up the toilet seat to discover that someone in your house forgot to flush, and staring you in the face is a soggy, manatee floater? But with horseradish, it’s not so bad.

The second Seder was at my in-laws’, where the reading of Haggadah lasts seven minutes. (I could’ve sworn there were more plagues, but who cares?) We buckled Jake in his high chair and ate the first courses of chopped eggs, matzoh and harosets. Though we were eating the same things, Jake still begged for my food.

“Uhh, uhh, uhh.”

“You’ve got matzoh right there,” I said.

Then the gefilte fish came, and I tried to block the bad images, but all I saw was a wet steamer on my plate. I remembered my deal with God and cut a chunk with my fork.  I brought it to my mouth, but I was interrupted by,

“Uhh, uhh, uhh.” 

I happily handed it all over.