'I'm the president's boss,' she sang

Last spring, Brielle came to me with sad news....

Brielle: I have sad news. Sidney is sick. And she is the one who always plans our games.

Me: I'm sorry she is sick. I guess you get to take a turn leading the games.

Brielle: Actually, Mia planned the games today.

Me: Brielle, you know what I like about you? You know how to lead AND follow. Like when you're with your sisters, you lead and plan the games. But when you're with your friends, you know how to follow and let them lead them. That is really good, because everyone has to lead sometimes and follow other times. At my work, I lead with my students, but I have to follow other people.

Brielle: Like the principal!

Me: Yep, and lots of other people too. (School counselors have LOTS of bosses.)

Brielle: Who does the principal follow? I know...God!

Me: Yeah, but she has to follow other people too. There is a man who is the boss of all the principals in the whole district. His name is Dr. Delgado.

Brielle: Oh, I thought you were going to say the president. Because he is the principal's boss too.

Me: Hey Brie, even the president has to follow sometimes.

Brielle and Ashlyn: Whoa!

Me: The president has other presidents and kings who are leaders in other countries, and he is not the boss of them. And actually, we are his boss, because we choose which president we want.

Brielle: (to the tune of the Nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya song used to flaunt one's invulnerability to another's threat of dominance) I'm the president's bo-oss! I'm the president's bo-oss!

Me: Verdad, niñita.

So here's to democracy, folks. Love our leaders or leave 'em, we are blessed to be bosses of presidents.

Happy Presidents Day!

Know what I did last summer?

I am on summer break--eight whopping weeks of unemployed freedom. I've been looking forward to it since Easter, planning my days. I would blog five times a week, revise last year's 3-day novel and outline this year's, accomplish a host of home projects and do all manner of cool daddy activities with the girls.

I do not know what I was thinking.

I should know from two years of experience what staying home with the kids for the summer means. It little resembles a writer's retreat or anything on the DIY channel.

Last summer, childless friends of mine were emailing from all around the globe--Paris, India, Thailand--sharing their romantic adventures. After a day that could only be called normal by a father of multiple preschoolers, I sat down and wrote about my own summer adventures. Here they are, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:

You may be a stay-home daddy of three toddlers if…

• Your diet today consisted of half-eaten food including nibbled toast, soggy Cheerios, half a smashed banana, cold mac 'n' cheese, the crusts of PBJ sandwiches soaked in milk, and whatever they didn't gnaw off the broccoli stem.
• You ate all of the above on plastic Dora the Explorer, Barbie Princess, or Care Bears plates.
• You can disassemble, wash, refill, heat and deliver a sippy cup to a screaming child with a screaming child on your shoulders.
• You hummed a kiddie song all morning, accented by curses.
• You actually prayed to God for a word that would replace or clean up the four-letter mantra that kept coming up when the kids were too near…and He gave you three in one ("Fuggetaboutit").
• You have ever reached down to pick up a crumb of stray trash and discovered it was a tiny sphere of excrement.
• You recently cleaned Cheerios from any of the following places: mattress, floor, foot bottom, BOTTOM bottom, carpet, carport, carseat, car engine, under bed, vacuum cleaner (it can only suck so many).
• Your IQ is inversely proportional to the number of offspring awake at the moment.
• You have ever fished reading material from the latrine. (Baptized book titles include Prayers for Peace, and Silent Flowers: A New Collection of Japanese Haiku Poems. And yes, they dried nicely and still grace our john. Haiku submissions inspired by that scene are welcome).
• You joined Netflix and instinctively put Elmo's Potty Time at the top of your queue.
• You watched it the day it arrived—over breakfast.
• You compulsively count to three when in public places.
• You used the word "poopoo" and "peepee" more than twelve times today.
• You cheer and dance when anyone in your home acts these words out.
• You successfully answered the question, "Why?" six times this morning before punting with, "Because God made it that way."
• Your working vocabulary consists 97% of "no, later, time out, be nice, please, eat, wait, I don't know, say you're sorry, time out, swat, not yet, get in the car, stop it, thank you" and "Daddy loves you A LOT."
  

So...where would I rather be? Nowhere. (Except it would be more fun with Mommy home from work.)

(August 8, 2007)

Father love, part 2: Care-freedom

Tuesday nights a few friends and I meet at this Filipina-owned coffee shop to talk, laugh, read, think, and pray for each other. (We also like to venture bizarre guesses on the mysterious ingredients of the day's Halo Halo, a Filipino dessert that I think represents the randomness of our group.)

Tonight I drove home from this time worrying, of all things, about worrying.

It's just that we were chewing on this story where Jesus was telling people to cut out all the worrying about food, clothes and stuff--you know, the things that give us our security. I can assure you, I am above all that. In fact, because I have all that stuff in excess, it leaves me plenty of time to worry about what really gives me security--like what people think of me. And realizing, despite all these years of trying to kick the habit, how much I worry about others' esteem--I don't know, I guess I got to worrying about it.

Which brings me to what else I love about my little girls. They don't worry.

Did I mention that these things I love about my children can also threaten my sanity? Brielle, for instance, does not worry that dragging her Cinderella castle with accessories into the hall may cause death or dismemberment to passers-by. Melía does not worry about how her postponing of bedtime decreases our sleep, impairing white blood cells' immune response. Ashlyn does not worry that Play-Doh seeds sown across the carpet dry and must be harvested, or that ceramic wise men do not bounce, or that string that goes in one end of the GI tract will--with some gentle tugging--come out the other.

They are free from caring about these things, liberated from the burden of tomorrow, the "what-if's" that rob mature adults of sleep, of peace, of life. This care-freedom opens up worlds of possibility for what they do care about at each moment.

Brielle, pure from concerns that our home will be mistaken for a landfill, brings out toy after toy to help her sisters stay busy and engaged.

Melía, free from care about our getting to work on time, stops us to ask, "Mommy, are lou ha-ee?" ("Yes, sweetie, I am happy," Mommy replies. "Why didn't I think to ask this?" thinks Daddy.)

Ashlyn, unspoiled by fears about her image (or the limits of the human eardrum), spins wildly around the living room to the music, alternately singing and giggling and hollering at maximum volume, just for the love of sound.

I know, this care-freedom will need to give way to a responsible concern for the impact of one's actions on others, lest these girls go on to threaten the sanity of future friends, teachers, husbands and the international community.

But just for now, let me covet this. Let me regress just enough to remember how it feels to be all about the moment. Pass me down the mixing spoon and let me lick off a dab of the sweet, raw cookie dough of my baby girls' care-freedom.

---

Questions I'm asking myself:

• If I admire this so much, how come I so often fight the spontaneity of my family, muttering, "What were you thinking?!?" What fears behind this complaint might be competing with the love?
  
  
• How do we strike a balance between careful planning and care-free, worry-free, in-the-moment living? Is the ideal somewhere in between, or a situation-based approach, with careful planning for some stuff and care-free passion for other stuff?