My Kids Are Weird

Yeah, I know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and all but seriously, sometimes they are weird even by my standards.

Take for example my oldest, I recently discovered that when he goes poo he takes off all his clothes. Now I'm totally can see how one wouldn't want to shit in a public place like school but when I had to get some more toilet paper for him the other day I came into the bathroom to find him naked on the shitter.

"What are you doing? I said.

"Going poo... what does it look like?" he said.

"Well why are you naked?" I asked.

"I always take my clothes off when I poo," he explained.

"That's why I can't do it at school."

"But why do you take all of your clothes off?" I asked.

And, like a typical 7-year-old he replied, "I don't knooooooooow."

Whatever works for you cowboy.

Not to be undone, is my 4-year-old who likes to sleep on the floor of his room. He spent the better part of his early years sleeping with me and mom (thank god for king size mattresses!) so when it came time to finally upgrade him from the crib (which he almost never slept it) to a bed we just gave him our own futon that we had used up until we happened upon the previously mentioned (and greatly discounted) king size mattress.

The futon sits about 8 inches or so off the ground, high enough to stuff crap under but low enough that a roll out of bed for a toddler would be harmless. I guess somewhere along the way he figured he just skip the whole futon nonsense and just sleep on the floor where he eventually ends up.

While he does like to be tucked in, generally by the time you've made it halfway down the hallway you'll hear the thunk of him rolling onto the floor. I don't know how long he was been doing this but a few months back he confessed that he liked sleeping on the floor better then his bed.

And usually on the pile of pajamas - which he feels the need to take every last one out before he can pick which to wear, then leaves them discarded on the floor only to snuggle up on top of them after he's wrapped himself in his blanket and rolled off the bed.

Now I sorta know where this comes from because my last two semesters in college I had taken to the idea that it was pointless to fold my laundry and put my clean clothes back into drawers after washing them. Rather I would just dumped my freshly-laundered clothes in the corner of my bed that butted up against the wall. This way I could just reach over and pick out my clothes and essentially be dressed as I rolled out of bed.

As for naked pooing? Well I did play rugby and have been known to get naked at a party or two but I confess I've never pooed naked (unless it was before a shower or during some bout with the flu where bodily fluids were being released from both ends simultaneously).

A Good Ol' Fashion Grub Kick

So I've caught a few games of the rugby World Cup in the past week and I've got to say that rugby is - by far - the best sport I ever played.

Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Redskins football in a family that had - and still has - season tickets. When I was a little kid, the youngest of four, my father helped start the Olney Boys Club with some other men he knew at the time and went on to become a high school football referee.

So I like to watch me some football.

Growing up it was football, basketball and track (my dad coached me in track in 8th grade). I stuck to that formula for a long time. Then bmx entered into my world. I rode my bike everywhere and anywhere. I raced a few times but found it too boring in its quickness. And as much as I love to ride my bike over jumps, bmx racing just didn't interest me to watch unlike football, basketball and track.

Bmx led me to skateboarding and the concept of sport as an individual. I have to say that I still enjoy watching a good skateboard competition but after a few rounds I'm done.

By the time I got to high school, I opted out of my traditional spring sport for lacrosse. I loved lacrosse. It was like a combination of basketball, soccer and hockey. But it was also a sport of privilege much like polo and that turned me off of it. Plus I got kicked off the team my senior year.

College introduced me to rugby.

And to this day i still have a fondness for it. I played my freshman year for a university on the Eastern Shore and it was like that movie Dogtown- all a bunch of characters. Naked beer slides were involved but that's a whole 'nother story.

I went on to transfer to a college north of Baltimore and played fall and spring seasons for the next three and a half years and when I graduated and moved to Los Angeles I ended up playing for the Pasadena/Crown City Rugby Football Club for a handful of seasons.

So when I found myself with the rare opportunity to watch top-notch rugby during this year's World Cup, I gladly welcomed it: it's like my Olympics, my Tour De France, my Winston Cup.

While watching a game the other day with my boys, I said, "Ah man, nothing like a good ol' fashion grub kick" after a play by the New Zealand All Blacks, who are like the Yankees, Bulls or Patriots of the rugby world, and smiled.

A couple of days later we caught another game and my 7-year-old randomly belted out, "nothing like a good old fashioned grub kick," after a guy kicked the ball.

I tried my best to explain it but this rugby site does it better:

"a grub kick is using your feet to get the ball rolling forward. Important in the grub is that it actually touches the ground. It should not be a low drop kick. A grub kick should be done on the run with either foot. The classic grub will bounce twice close to the ground and bounce to waist level on the third. I have seen it, but very rarely. Like a drop kick, timing is very important, as you want to contact the ball just as the point of the ball hits the ground. You want your foot to make contact with upper third of the ball, essentially kicking it into the ground. A grub kick should be used when an opposing player is committed to making contact with you and is no closer than five meters. Do not kick to him, but off to his side (that ability to kick with both feet is very important). Grubs are useful because the opposing player has forward momentum towards you, is unlikely to react quickly enough to a kick, and cannot hit you if you do not have the ball. You should be able to cover your own kick."

Another site compared it to a grounder past the short stop.

Damn.

I could have summed that up quicker.

When The Shit Hits The Fan... Er, Floor

So the shit storm came with a vengeance.

As I said in the previous post, my wife began to feel ill on Monday, calling off work because she felt "off" and nauseous. I wasn't feeling too bad myself and quite frankly was looking to tap into the uber gene most parents possess (usually moms) where I would be able to weather the storm and take care of everybody. I mean after almost seven years of daily exposure to the petri dish that is preschool/toddlers/kindergarten, surely I'd built up a tolerance to such nastiness.

I always marveled how my mother could manage to handle our sick family while being sick herself but then again my mother's motto always was that "she was too busy to be sick."

Anyway, so my wife came to me in the evening and said "that's twice," meaning that she had thrown up twice today. I left to pick up my oldest from elementary school. He got home and ate a Nutrigrain snack bar (which is par for the course). I still had the Hershey squirts and I didn't feel the slightest bit nauseous. But my tummy was rumbling. I hadn't had much of an appetite since the day before and barely touched any of the food we had made for the Super Bowl.

I dug through the cupboards and found a can of chicken noodle soup and ate that with liberal amounts of Ritz Crackers sprinkled on top. When I finished, my 6-year-old came up to me and said that his stomach hurt and I quizzed him on the status of his tummy ache.

Shortly thereafter the fun began.

My belly had been percolating vigorously since the soup. I began to feel flush and walked back to my bathroom where - with little warning - the contents of my stomach erupted into the toilet. I'm talking power vomiting with all the velocity of a fire hose. The kind of puke session where you are lucky to catch your breath between upchucks.

Before I could leave the bathroom, I could hear my oldest throwing up in the kids' bathroom.

The rest of the night was spent with buckets and towels by beds and keeping your fingers crossed that the bathroom wouldn't be occupied when you needed it. And even if it wasn't occupied, there was always the chance that the water hadn't refilled in time for flushing - which is always a pleasant thing to be greeted with in this frame of mind.

At one point during the night, there was a juggling of sleeping arrangements which found both boys in bed with my wife and me in my youngest son's bed.

I felt the rumble and sat up, grabbed the bucket, wretched into it and began my way to my bathroom. The second heave unleashed a torrent of shit down my leg and I made a mental note to put on socks as a buffer after this round.

When I got to the bathroom I found my oldest asleep on the floor, wrapped in towels with his head next to the toilet. I stepped over him, sat, shat and puked. At some point I had to pull my pants off and clean my legs yet still managed to hover my ass above the toilet when my stomach erupted.

I can honestly say it was one of the most heinous smells.

I cracked the window but a record cold spell was in effect and 8 degree wind blew across my clammy body. I closed the window.

Then my son woke and threw up on the floor in front of himself, waking my wife who walked in, squeezed her nose and said, "did you shit yourself?"

My house was beginning to look like the aftermath of one of my rugby parties in college, with bodies strewn about the bathroom and vomit in the air.

I took a hot shower and tried to conjure up some yogi mojo; some sort of mind-over-matter mantra to get me through the night.

And that's pretty much how the next several hours went: my son puking, my wife puking, and me shitting and puking myself.

So much for the uber parenting gene.

At least for me.

I've since concluded it may be the sole possession of the female species as my wife managed to tend to me and our son while still dealing with it all herself.

After we all were tapped out, my son passed out but my wife and I were overcome with muscle cramps and joint pain. I laid as still as possible in bed doing my best birth-breathing impressions, still searching for a mantra.

We couldn't sleep.

This actually proved beneficial as we took this sleepless time to tackle a few loads of laundry and some general disinfecting.

Then we tried to sleep again.

But I just couldn't. TiVo sure would have come in handy and I was forced to prop myself up in a chair with pillows and a blanket (and yes, a bucket) and stave off the urge to puke and shit.

Sunrise came and my wife called in sick for her and our son and the family spent the better part of the next day nodding off like junkies.

Today is Wednesday.

My wife has returned to work but the boys are both home with me.

I still don't feel too good.

I would like to find the cold side of a pillow, a dark room, and several hours of sleep...