Russell

“It was an accident” – When to ignore your children and when to call 911

Becoming a step-dad with no previous parental training was not the easiest of tasks, something made harder by the fact that nobody seemed to want to help me out.. Being a nicer person with a greater sense of empathy than you, I have decided to share some of my hard earned wisdom.

Being in charge of small children is stressful business. If you don’t know better, every little sound can be alarming and seem like the end of the world. To help you out I have created the below list of sounds children can make and assigned a threat level to each.

Feel free to print out and hang it on your fridge. This will help you to differentiate the problems requiring immediate attention from the ones you can ignore.

Good luck.

Threat level green – Overhearing one child say to another, “I’m going to tell.” No investigation required. Pretend you didn’t hear it. Hope they get distracted by a bug or something and forget to tell you what happened. Possibly go outside and hide. I promise you, it is something as simple as a child using all the purple Playdoh or throwing a Shopkin under the bed. Seriously, just put on some head phones and turn up the music.

Threat level blue – Crying. You need to investigate the situation but can probably check the football score, throw something in frustration and curse under your breath as you slowly walk upstairs to see who won’t share a toy. Tears can be bad and you should immediately investigate “real” crying (easily distinguishable from fake) but most of the time it is some nonsense that nobody at the scene can properly explain anyway.

Threat level yellow – Silence. So much worse than crying, silence is often an indication that that expensive creams and lotions are being turned into a “potion” in the middle of your recently cleaned bathroom. While you may get lucky and the kids simply decided they needed a nap, this is unlikely. You probably have time to stir your gumbo before going to investigate but the longer the silence, the bigger the problem and the higher potential financial disaster.

Threat level orange – Uncontrollable laughing. It’s possible the kids just did something amusing with their stuffed animals. More likely they are finding it hilarious to stuff the contents of your left-open safe into the toilet. You have time to utter a quick prayer but don’t linger. Uncontrollable laughing is serious and should be investigated as soon as possible.

Threat level red – Large object crashing or shattering. There is a one percent chance that they dropped a full sippy cup and it just sounded really loud when it hit the floor. There is a 99% percent chance that they crawled up on top of the dresser causing it to fall over, pulled a shelf full of irreplaceable collectibles off the wall or threw their sister down the stairs. There is a high possibility of injury. You most likely have an hour of chores ahead of you and may need power tools to fix the situation. This requires immediate investigation.

Threat level midnight – One of your children comes to you with big wide eyes and says, “It was an accident.” Run. You have not a moment to waste. Something terrible has happened. You may need to go to the emergency room. You may need to replace one of the pets. Something may have just happened that will cause irreparable harm to your marriage through no fault of your own. Be prepared to call 911. Or your lawyer. Or your mother. Or all three. There is no telling what happened but you can count on two things: whatever happened is really bad and it was certainly no accident.

I spent $200 on video games and my girls won a tootsie roll

My heart sank – a not unfamiliar feeling for a step-dad – as I watched my girls running off, excited that I had just put $20 each on their cards which should, in theory, provide an hour of fun playing video games. Myah, of course, didn’t care about playing the games as much as she was obsessed with winning as many tickets as possible. This led her to a game where you swipe your card (spending $1 in the process), pull a lever and win some ridiculously low number of tickets. The entire game takes about 12 seconds which, if my math is correct, averages out to about $914 per hour.

Sonya, on the other hand, seemed enthralled with the simple process of swiping her card. She would run up to one machine, swipe her card and jump up and down in excitement as the lights would begin to flash and fun noises began to emanate from the machine. Instead of actually playing the game she would rush to the next machine and swipe again. And again. And again. As impossible as it seemed, Sonya was managing to spend money at a faster clip than her older sister.

Being a generous spirit, I had included my niece, Izzy, in video game fun-day and she was also blowing through money at a pace that would embarrass a drunken sailor. With three wild children running amok in different directions, I had no idea how to contain the situation. Feeling like Sonya was the most out of control, I ran after her in hopes of slowing down the drain on my bank account.

I encouraged my little one to get on a bouncy train ride which looked like it should eat up 5 minutes or so and quickly discovered the first thing I hate about modern day arcades. After putting Sonya up on the train, I swiped the card – saying goodbye to another dollar – and watched as a few lights blinked on the train, it bobbed back and forth six times and then stopped. The ride wasn’t even 60 seconds long and Sonya earned exactly ZERO bad word tickets for her efforts.

One of the many lessons learned that day was that the little “rides” don’t award any tickets. They last for a few seconds, aren’t any fun at all, give you no tickets and charge you a fortune. What kind of bad word scam on hard working American middle-class families is that? Can somebody please tell me why there is no congressional sub-committee investigating this buffoonery? It’s easily more dishonest than the worst pyramid scheme to come out of Wall Street.

But it gets worse. Myah and Izzy were hooked on a game where you scan your card – adios to another bad word dollar – press a button and win some random number of tickets. While the game promises the possibility of winning thousands of tickets, the usual prize was five or ten. I did my best to urge them to play an actual game, one that would take at least a minute, but all they cared about was the lure of massive amounts of tickets.

I hate bad word tickets.

Left to her own devices, Sonya had blown $2 shooting up a bunch of zombies with a crossbow. This seemed inappropriate for a little girl so I scooped her out of the machine. Not before, however, I discovered you get exactly ZERO bad word tickets for shooting Zombies, something my sweet little princess performed with an alarming aptitude. As a matter of fact, actual “video games” don’t give tickets. There are games that are designed to give tickets and then there are actual video games, something you can play for a while if you are any good, but they don’t give you tickets.

The scam just gets bigger.

Eight and a half minutes after first handing the cards to the three hooligans they were yanking on my shorts, pulling on my arms and demanding more games. Less than 10 minutes and they had collectively blown SIXTY DOLLARS! How does that even happen? How did a fun trip to the arcade turn out to be more expensive than a cocaine habit? Were the drug cartels now in the video game business?

It sure felt like it.

I was already over my entertainment budget for the week and was loath to spend one more dollar on these idiotic rip-off machines. Still, I didn’t have a clue what else to do with the girls as I thought we would be here for at least an hour. I hated to give in to their tears but, what the bad word, it’s only money and surely I could teach them to make the second $20 last a little longer.

I did.

Sixteen minutes. That’s how long it took them to spend the next $60. I wanted to throw up.

Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.

I resisted the next set of tears and insisted we move on to spending our tickets – a level of hell more horrible than anything even Dante could have dreamed up. Myah led the way with 512 tickets which could have purchased her a plastic ball with a smiley face on it, allowing me to move on to the next child.

But Myah had other ideas.

She started with one tootsie roll, a bargain at 5 tickets. Myah was stumped over her next purchase, unsure if she wanted to spend another 5 tickets on a tootsie pop or move on from the tootsie family and get a piece of bubble gum for 5 tickets. I don’t know why I was worried about what I would do with the girls for the rest of the day because it was apparent that Myah would be here till closing time trying to maximize her ticket purchasing power.

I pushed and prodded, begged and pleaded and finally lost my temper. It worked, though, because only 36 minutes later Myah spent her last 25 tickets on a small plastic alien with a parachute on its back. That little piece of Chinese made crap was the most expensive thing she had purchased. Why she wanted 100 crappy pieces of crappy crap rather than one semi-crappy item she might actually play with was beyond me and unfortunately, she proved to be the trendsetter because the other two girls nickel and dimed their way through their tickets as well.

I have become intimately familiar with all of the various video game establishments in my time as a step-dad and each one has their pluses and minuses. Chuck-E-Cheese has it right in that they allow you to purchase and unlimited card when you have a birthday party there. I like that. Charge me whatever, I don’t care, but give me two hours without a kid coming up to me crying because they ran out of money. In spite of the unlimited card, Chuck-E-Cheese comes in at the bottom of my list because of the dreaded ticket muncher. Have you ever encountered this insanity? They don’t put the tickets electronically on your card like other places. You still get actual tickets. To cash them in you are forced to feed your tickets into the ticket muncher which counts your tickets and gives you a receipt.

I’m not sure I have the vocabulary or adequate writing skills to express how absolutely terrifyingly horrible this process is. Kids can win a lot of tickets in two hours of unlimited playing. I challenge you to munch 2,000 tickets while the machine keeps jamming, kids are running around like wild animals and other stressed parents are waiting for the machine. If you leave without having a nervous breakdown, developing an alcohol addiction or needing to seek professional therapy then you are a better parent than am I.

We now give our video game money to Game Time where, for FIFTY DOLLARS!!!, our children can have about 30 – 40 minutes of fun. I don’t even let them spend the tickets anymore which Game Time, thank God, loads electronically onto the cards. We bought lanyards for the swipe cards and make them save their tickets so that one day, after we have spent about $6,000, they will be able to win a stuffed animal.

When I was a kid my momma would give me $5 and I would ride my bike to the mall and play video games ALL BAD WORD DAY. It is absolutely insane how much these games cost and how awful the prizes are.

So why do we spend what amounts to the cost of tuition at a quality four-year university on video games? I really don’t know, to be honest. I guess we just want our kids to be happy. We like to spoil them but are displeased when they act spoiled. We enjoy being Americans with discretionary income and want our kids to have it better than we did, even though we had it pretty good.

My advice to you? Buy your kids a Frisbee and send them outside. Don’t worry about the arcades. They’ll be fine. I’m spending enough for both of us.

I broke the baby on our first date! And Kaley didn’t even care…

Admittedly, my courtship of Kaley moved at a rapid pace, certainly faster than any of the relationship books would say is prudent. Consequently, a quick three weeks after we met found us spending our first family weekend at the beach. No matter how fast one falls in love, however, it still takes time to truly learn about another person. Quite sure that forced to choose, Kaley would pick the girls over me, I was anxious to use the weekend as an opportunity to show what a great father figure I could be in the girl’s lives.

The Shores Resort and Spa in Daytona Beach Shores has become our home away from home and preferred destination for a quick staycation in no small part because of the great memories from that first get away with my soon-to-be step-daughters. We had a fantastic room with an extra-large terrace used for dance parties, the kids enjoyed room service, the pool and beach provided non-stop fun and roasting smores over the fire pits put the cherry on the top of a successful family trip.

One area in which my beautiful bride and I have proved to be woefully inadequate is making it home after having a fun time. It once took us 19 hours and 7 tiki bar stops to make it home from Key West. We simply don’t want the good times to end and it all started that first vacation. As we packed the Jeep to go home Kaley mentioned that a friend was a guest at a beach house just down the road and we were invited to go hang out at the pool for a bit. Already missing the pool at The Shores, I quickly agreed to another day of beachside pool lounging.

The house was only 5 minutes away from the hotel so in no time at all I was back in the water, pretending to be a shark and chasing Myah and Sonya all over the pool. Sonya had already mastered bossing me around and ordered the “shark” to swim to one side of the pool or the other, to swim to the bottom and hold his breath (much harder for a Russy shark than for a real shark ) or sometimes to get out of the water and run around the pool. I didn’t much understand the last part and it was quite tiring but I was sure to earn mad points with Kaley by being such an entertaining pool buddy for the girls.

Kaley had been a gone for a bit making lunch in the house, leaving the girls and I alone to play shark in the pool. I was gasping for breath while chasing the girls who had discovered it was much more fun to split up and force me to swim back and forth to go after one at a time. The pool was long and rectangular with the side nearest the ocean being a tile wall. The lot was sloped as the house was up against sand dunes so there was quite a good drop from the tile wall down to the dunes which were covered with brambles and other sorts of thorny plants.

I was swimming to one end of the pool to get Myah and glanced over my shoulder to check on Sonya only to see that she had climbed up on the tile wall and was walking it like a balance beam, her floaty covered arms stuck out to her sides for balance. “You shouldn’t walk up there,” I told Sonya, turning back to Myah. I thought I would jump out of the pool and walk around to grab Sonya as she finished walking across the wall. After tossing her back in the pool I would explain that walking along the top of the wall was a no-no. She would listen to my sage advice and that would be that.

I swear, I looked at Sonya, swam the last 5 feet to Myah, turned back to Sonya less than 5 seconds later and…..

SHE WAS GONE!!!

I mean, gone. What the bad word???

Frantically, I began to swim to that side of the pool, checking to make sure she hadn’t fallen in and sank to the bottom but she was nowhere in sight. I had just made it to the tile wall when I heard a faint, “mommy….”

Holy mother bad word bad word! She fell over the side!

The second cry of “help…….” was so soft and pitiful it filled me dread. Shouldn’t she be screaming? Is it worse when they don’t scream? Was it so horrible she could hardly talk? I didn’t know! I simply had no idea what a pitiful whimper signified.

I pushed myself up on the wall and looked over the side. There she was, a good 6 feet below me, on her knees in the sand right between two really prickly bushes, looking lost and pitiful. I can’t believe I broke the baby, I thought. Not even 3 years old and permanently traumatized. Probably never get in a pool or go to the beach again and it’s all my fault.

I hopped all the way out of the pool, glad that Kaley wasn’t there to see her new love interest allow her baby to be catapulted into a forest of sea cactuses when I heard, “What happened?!?!”

Of course, my brand-new girlfriend had walked out on the balcony overlooking the pool at the exact moment I let her youngest daughter jump off the bad word sea wall. My mind raced trying to come up with a reasonable sounding explanation. Coming up with nothing and not trusting myself to speak, I ignored Kaley and jumped off the wall, almost crushing Sonya when I landed.

I snatched her up, checking everywhere for puncture wounds, broken bones or lacerations requiring stitches. I was only mildly relieved when I realized we wouldn’t have to call 911 as I was sure there was emotional damage that wouldn’t be discovered for years to come. Oh well, I wouldn’t be around to see it because in about 2 minutes the love of my life was going to show me the door. No way would she let a man with such poor parenting skills into her life.

I lifted Sonya up on the sea wall, climbing up after her and sat on the edge with my feet in the pool, head hung low, waiting for the justified chastisement that was soon to come my way. I wouldn’t even put up a fight, I decided. I would take responsibility like a man and go home, back to my lonely existence.

Sonya was already back in the pool swimming around by the time Kaley made it over to me. “What happened?” she asked.

I looked up with tears in my eyes. “She was walking on the sea wall, I looked away for 2 seconds and she was gone! I let her fall! I’m sorry. I’m a horrible failure of a man.”

Kaley looked over the side and said, “I’m glad she didn’t land in one of those bushes,” and then went off to tell her friend the story. In a few minutes they were laughing about it like it was the funniest thing that ever happened. Her baby girl had plummeted to her near-death and my love and her sick friend were laughing their butts off! What kind of monster had I fallen for?

Two weeks later, after watching Sonya catch her hair on fire when blowing out a candle, taking a head dive off a stool while I was serving her dinner, somehow toppling an elliptical machine over on top of herself and most alarmingly grabbing a full beer out of a cooler and shotgunning the frosty beverage before anybody could get it out of her hands, I realized that base jumping without a parachute off the sea wall wasn’t even in the top 10 of insane things this crazy little girl got herself into. Kaley wasn’t a monster – she was just numb to it all.

I learned a few things from my experience. First and foremost, women clearly handle these situations better than men. I attribute that to the fact that they aren’t as emotional and nurturing as is the male half of the population. Second, you have to keep all these accidents in perspective. If the police aren’t called, you don’t have to go to the hospital or the Department of Children and Family Services doesn’t get involved, it’s probably going to be ok. Third, you can’t take your eyes of your children for more than 2 seconds unless you are prepared to deal with catastrophic consequences.

I still don’t know what’s worse, screaming or whimpering, but I do know that either one probably means I’ve failed as a step-dad and broken my child. Again.

It’s not just you – my kids hate me too! Here’s how I cope.

Ok…my kids don’t actually hate me and I imagine yours don’t hate you either. Well, maybe if you’re a Bama fan and even then, it’s most likely just resentment they feel because they think other teams should get to win every once in a while. They’re supposed to share!

Anyway, even though our kids probably don’t hate us, they can sure be mean at times. Mean for no reason. I actually do, in fact, hate a few people and I don’t treat them as mean as my kids can treat me on occasion.

What the heck????

Case in point: Just a few days a go our morning was proceeding along its normal routine. I woke up early and went downstairs to make the girls’ lunches. I enjoy making the lunches as it gives me a little time to listen to sports radio before the little-ones march down the stairs and Sponge Bob takes over as the morning entertainment.

So there I am, finishing up the lunches, when Myah comes down and requests some Fruity Pebbles. I fixed the cereal and began the arduous task of getting her to concentrate on putting her shoes on when Sonya comes down the stairs to join the party. I toss her some chocolate chip muffins and we all settle down to watch a few minutes of Square Pants before heading off to school. Everybody was happy and in a good mood. It seemed like a fairly easy morning, to be honest.

Myah had a school field trip and Kaley was tagging along as a chaperone which left me to take Sonya to VPK. This was certainly not the first time we had to split up to get the kids to school and I enjoyed the one-on-one time as sometimes the kids open up more when it’s just the two of us.

Time to go so we all said adios to Sponge Bob and Patrick, turned off the TV and started saying our goodbyes to each other. I carried Sonya out to the Jeep and stuck her in her car seat, climbed in the front and we were off to school. Turning around to check on her I asked, “What’s your letter this week?”

Each week they study a different letter at VPK and Sonya and I like to practice words that start with the weekly letter and decide what to bring for show-and-tell that week. This was our first alone time in the Jeep that week so I thought it was a good time to practice our words, something we always had fun with.

No matter what the weekly letter, poop always ended up being a featured word.

What is it with today’s kids and poop? I don’t remember being so obsessed with poop and farting when I was a kid.

Where was I? Oh yeah…I asked her what the letter was and instead of answering, she gave me a dirty look, slowly turned her head to look out the side window and let out a disgusted sigh. Like a real dismissive insulting sigh.

What did I miss?

“What’s wrong with you, Sonya boo?” I asked.

She didn’t reply. Just grinded her teeth and let out another of those sighs/snorts. Kind of like a “hrummphh.”

Ummmmmmmm……….

I wasn’t sure what to do. I was pretty sure I had done absolutely nothing wrong. I was also pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to treat me this way. She was making it clear that she was angry and was not speaking to me.

What would a great parent do?

I have no idea. I told her, “Well, I don’t want to talk to you either,” and turned up the radio. That’s how we went to school. She never stopped looking out the window and had that pouty snarl on her face the entire time. When we arrived at school, I got her out of the Jeep without a word. When I walked her into class, I kissed the top of her head and told her I loved her. She walked away without so much as a glance behind her.

I left to return home, equally hurt and confused. I wanted to be mad at her. Who does this 5 year old girl think she is to treat me this way? I’m the man of the bad word house! She should show some respect!
But the truth is, I wanted to cry. I’m a 46-year-old grown man who’s survived more than my fair share of dangerous situations without batting an eye and I wanted to pull my Jeep over and cry because a little tiny girl was mean to me.

I felt ridiculous. You can’t cry in your vehicle when you’re a man. Since I couldn’t cry, I did what men do.

I got mad.

I yelled at passing motorists for all number of sins. I was furious at my wife for not calling me out of the blue and telling me she loved me. I cursed millennials and liberal politicians for ruining the world. I even berated my hometown as I drove down the main street for having nothing but crappy restaurants.

I arrived home in a worse mood. Surprisingly, my nasty mood on the way home at simply fed my hurt feelings rather than helping me cope with them. I about lost my mind when I couldn’t get in my front door because there was a fattopottamus (one of our 2 300-pound cats) lounging on the welcome mat.

Falling over fattopottamus #1, I stumbled into the house and almost stepped in cat puke because fattopottamus #2 felt like it was perfectly appropriate to deposit its fourth breakfast right in the middle of the floor. “BAD WORD” I hollered. I was furious with the cats. Why should I have to clean up puke from the girls’ cats? Girls that aren’t even nice to me??

I stormed into the kitchen to get some cleaning supplies and the skinny cat was at the back door wanting out. “Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow,” it demanded of me without so much as a please or a thank you. I jerked the door open asking nobody in particular, “Who needs three bad word cats?!?!”

After cleaning the cat vomit, I noticed the recliner covered with stuffed animals. It’s not bad enough that I have to give up my seat on the couch to an 8-year-old and my seat at the dinner table to a 5-year-old, the stupid stuffed bears get an entire recliner all to themselves?

What kind of buffoonery is this????

I grabbed and armful and marched to the stairs, throwing them up to the top. Of course, they bounced off the wall and rolled back down the stairs towards me, mocking me as they landed at my feet. All I accomplished was to stir up the mountain of pet hair that for some reason is attracted to the stairs. It looked like a snow storm of pet hair and I felt the first break in my sanity as I thought of all the chores I had ahead of me.

Kicking a stuffed animal out the way, stubbing my toe in the process, I went to find the only medicine that worked in these situations.

Food.

Bury all the pain deep inside and cover it with something oozing with melted cheese. I’m going for leftover spaghetti.

I yanked open the fridge and was overcome with a strange smell. What the bad word? I stuck my head in and discovered liquid all over the bottom of the fridge. As it turned out, a can of beer (an 18 ounce can of PBR) somehow got a pinhole leak in it and leaked all over the fridge.

My wife and I generally don’t drink when the kids are around and usually only buy beer for the house when the girls are off at their dad’s for the weekend. The PBR was on sale so we had purchased more than we needed, leaving some extra in the fridge. No big deal except now I was irrationally mad that we hadn’t drank all the beer. I was mad that it was on sale. I was mad that it was such a big can.

I was mad at beer!

I snatched the offending can out of the fridge, threw it towards the sink and began to clean up the mess. Have you ever spilled anything in your fridge? Well, you know it gets in the produce drawers and all under the drawers as well. I had to pull the drawers out, empty them and wash all the produce.

It was the onion that finally pushed me over the edge.

What had started as full bag of yellow onions now contained just two. As the bag was soaked in beer, I made the decision to toss the bag and rinse the onions. I pulled the first onion out of the bag and a chunk of the outer skin fell off.

I had bent down to grab the skin, gripping the onion in my other hand, when the craziest thing happened. The papery skin covering the onion simply burst apart. There were millions of feathery pieces of onion skin everywhere, slowly drifting down to land on my kitchen floor.

A floor I had just mopped the day before.

Staring at my floor in disbelief I began muttering to myself, “I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want that to happen.” I kept muttering until the anger returned worse than before and I looked up to the heavens, shouting at God, “I DIDN’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN!!!!”

I looked up, waiting for a response from my heavenly Father but He chose to stay mute on the subject and let me figure things out for myself.

The onion skin was everywhere. I went towards the broom and cracked my knee on the still-open fridge door. “AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!” I hollered. “ARRRRUURRRRRRUUUURRRRRR!!!!” I half grunted half screamed. I didn’t even recognize the sounds coming out of my mouth. I thought I must sound like a gorilla hit by a tranquilizer dart when the tranquilizer wasn’t strong enough. I was too upset to even make a coherent noise!

What is wrong with me? I stopped in the middle of the kitchen and took a deep breath. I cleaned up the mess and went and sat down with my head in my hands.

All I could think about was little Sonya staring out the window with that mean look on her face.

It was that moment when I realized that best little friend had broken my heart. My feelings were hurt.

I don’t know how to deal with that emotion as a step-dad. It’s my job to be the grown up. I’m supposed to love on her, sit down and talk to her and discover what’s going on inside her to make her act that way. She wasn’t mad at me – she was hurt by something in the world and was taking it out on me. I’m a man, by God, and I’m supposed to protect my family. She deserved to have me take the high road and help her process her feelings. My feelings weren’t important.

I called my wife. I called my momma. They didn’t help at all. Just griped about how their feelings get hurt too. I worked in the yard to get the aggression out and that helped a little. By the time I picked her up from school I was calm and determined to have a nice time on the way home.

Sonya always comes running to jump in my arms when I pick her up. It is one of the highlights of my life. That day when I walked in her class, she looked at me and said, “I wanted mommy to pick me up.”

I’d rather have mommy too, I thought.

I put her in the Jeep, climbed in and steeled myself for my silence when from the back I heard the demand of, “Gum!”

I keep sugar free gum in my Jeep and Sonya always wants a piece as soon as we get underway. However, there was something in the demanding tone of her voice today that I just couldn’t take. I looked back at her and in a quiet, calm voice said, “No.”

“Why?” she asked, clearly puzzled.

I thought of all the things I wanted to say. I thought about all the things I should say. I thought about my desire to be a great parent and to discover what was really hurting her and to comfort her.

Instead I was honest. “You hurt my feelings, Sonya. I didn’t do anything to you but be nice this morning and you didn’t speak to me the entire way to school. Then I picked you up and told me you wanted mom instead. I’m your friend and I am nice to you. You’re supposed to be nice to me too. It’s not nice to hurt my feelings on purpose for no reason. I love you and you are my best friend, but I don’t want to share my gum with you today.

I drove off and things were quiet for about 2 minutes and then Sonya began telling me stories about her day. When we got out of the Jeep she wouldn’t stop hugging on me and giving me kissies. That was clearly better than her not talking to me but I still didn’t understand what had happened that day.

The truth is, I’ll probably never understand. She was probably mad that Myah got to go on a field trip with mom and she didn’t. She might have been mad that I made Myah a field-trip lunch and decorated the lunch bag with Pooh stickers while she got her normal lunch box. She might have been mad that Squidward was mean to Sponge Bob. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, was it ok for her to take it out on me? Am I a bad step-dad for not trying to see things from her point of view? Should I not suppress my own hurt-feelings and figure out why her own little feelings were hurt?

Probably. I suppose I’m not enough of a grown-up to have done all that. I don’t know what all you expert parents would do. I’m just a guy who loves two little girls who have been thrust in his life and I don’t always know how to react to this stuff. I do know that there isn’t much in the world that feels better than a little girl who loves you and there isn’t much that feels worse than a little girl who’s mad at you.

Maybe I’ll do better next time.

As long as the cats stay out of my way.

The girls first 5k (mine too)

I’m more of a spectator than participant when it comes to any sport so being asked to walk/run in a 5k on a Saturday morning would normally be met with a less than enthusiastic response. Add to that the fact that my wife wanted our two little girls to participate and well, it seemed like 2 hours of shear misery, to be honest.

My youngest step-daughter – now 5 years old – still prefers to be carried whenever she is with me. Carrying her out to the truck is one thing and I actually enjoy being able to pick her up and snuggle her close. At the rate she is growing I won’t have too much longer to scoop her up sneak some kissies on her cheek. Still, a 5k is like 3 miles and I am not sure I could carry myself that far without medical assistance.

My oldest step-daughter – now 8 years of age – is somewhat prone to laziness. While she is quite athletic, she is apt to show quick but short bursts of energy before growing bored and tired. I couldn’t imagine that she would stay entertained for however long it took to complete the race.

My thought was that maybe it would be best for my wife to participate in the event while I stayed home, made French toast and watched Sponge Bob with the girls. I obviously had Kaley’s best interest at heart as I wanted her to enjoy the race stress-free. However, she was determined that the entire family would complete the arduous 3 mile-trek. When Kaley is determined, Russell has no choice but to give in.

Literally – no choice.

I picked up our registration kits on Friday and when my 3 ladies woke up Saturday morning, I had our t-shirts all laid out with our competition numbers attached. It seemed silly to be wearing a number which would track our time as we would clearly come in last place, but I suppose we should at least give the appearance of serious athletes.

My spirits lifted somewhat when my little girls got dressed in their tennis shoes, tights and junior-size Me Strong t-shirts. Between my super-model wife and my two adorable step-daughters, I would surely have the best-looking entourage at the race. I doubted they gave an award for that but having these three beautiful gals in my life was a reward in itself.

Something I would have to keep reminding myself of over the next 2 hours.

The annual Me Strong 5k has become a pretty big event in our small town of Deland, FL. We live downtown which put the starting line an easy 10-minute walk from our front door. I was amazed at the crowds of people already on the street and you could hardly squeeze through the crowd packed around the start line. The energy from the crowd was contagious and my little girls began to get excited. Everybody in the crowd was smiling, pumped up to get a little exercise while running through a picturesque town for a good cause. In spite of myself, I began to feel optimistic about the upcoming trek.

After a well performed National Anthem the race was underway!! We waited on the sidelines as the serious runners passed by and then filtered into the crown about two-thirds back in the pack. I had already decided that the family would stay together with a steady but brisk walk. There were plenty of people walking so there was no need to pretend we were a family of track stars rather than, well, a family of people not prone to run in non-emergency situations.

Unfortunately, nobody had filled the children in on my plans.

The girls were off! Myah, ever the competitive spirit, had clearly made up her mind to log the fastest time of the day. Her little sister, however, proved to be more the athlete and quickly took the lead. It felt like poor parenting to let my children go off alone in a crowd of thousands of strangers so I dug deep and somehow found the energy to run….errr…..trot after my girls.

My wife and sister-in-law, obviously not sharing my views on sound parenting, seemed content to lag behind, walking with my niece. Ummmm…… step-niece? Niece once removed?

One of the hardest things about being a step-dad is understanding the proper labels for all your new relatives.

Google says she is simply my niece.

Huh.

Anywho, I was running about as fast as I could, trying to keep up with my two step-daughters who possessed a fleetness of foot of which I was previously unaware. They had obviously been involved in some athletic training in preparation for the 5k and I was wondering how long I could keep up. The fact that we had traveled a mere 200 yards and I was already considering ducking into one of the neighborhood restaurants to fuel my body did not fill me with confidence that I could keep up for 3 miles. Luckily, just when I thought all was lost, they stopped to catch their breath.

I had just walked up beside them and said, “Let’s wait for mommy….” and they were off again, faster than before! I glanced over my shoulder, sure my wife was there ready to take her turn, but help was nowhere in sight. With a sigh and a quick check of my pulse I began to once again chase my laughing little girls.

I discovered they were sprinters and not really long-distance runners. They were content to sprint for about 200 yards and then take a few breaths and then sprint again. I wished they would take a little longer break between flights but at least we covering a lot of ground in a hurry. At this pace, I felt sure we would come in well under the 45 minutes Google claimed was the average time for a 5k.

We left downtown and entered scenic Stetson University. A quick trip around the Campus and we would be done. This wasn’t near as bad as I had feared. I was breathing hard and I could tell my girls were slowing down. It seemed like a good time for a quick break and then a burst to the finish line.

Myah and Sonya had other ideas as they dug deep for one more sprint. Somehow, I found the strength to follow. As we rounded a corner there was a digital clock displaying the elapsed time. 16 minutes! Not bad, I told myself.

“Look girls! We’re halfway!” I shouted at them.

About 200 people turned to me at once and said in unision, “That’s the 1 mile mark.”

Most of the 200 people were laughing at me.

Sonya asked, “What does 1 mile mean?”

“Well, honey,” I explained. “Basically, it means that we have to do what we just did two more times.”

“What?!?!” Myah screeched.

“I want to go home,” demanded Sonya.

“I’m tiiiiiiiired,” whined Myah.

“I wish we had never come,” Sonya informed me.

“My legs hurt,” cried Myah, the tears forming in her eyes.

Then came the inevitable, “Pick me up!” from Sonya.

I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. How could things have gone from “time of our lives” to “I wish I had never been born” in the blink of an eye? My little wilted flowers were starting to hold up the runners so I scooted them out of the road and took a second to regroup.

What to do? The easiest choice was to scoop up Sonya and just walk her and Myah back to my house. I had already donated money to the fine organization sponsoring the race and that was the important part. I could plop my two whiners down in front of the TV and have all my Saturday morning chores done before my wife got home. Sounded like a good plan to me.

Still, looking at the two pouting children in front of me, it seemed that teaching them it was ok to quit less than 1/3 of the way through what should be a pretty easy walk was not the right life lesson for the day. Especially when we were walking in support of those who battle cancer, something infinitely harder and more courageous than walking a few miles.

Well, sometimes parenting isn’t about being the nice guy.

“Let’s go, girls! Two miles to go!” I said in my peppiest voice.

“Pick me up,” Sonya pleaded in her saddest little girl voice.

I steeled myself against her powers and told her, “No. We came to walk this entire race and that’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s go!” and I started walking away at a rapid pace.

They didn’t fall in a ditch and die. They started walking after me. They whined. They cried. They complained. It was the worst day of their entire lives and somehow, I was totally to blame for it.

During the second mile Kaley caught up with us and thankfully the girls directed their complaints at her for a while. By the beginning of the third mile they actually started having fun again thanks to all the people lining the streets cheering us on. Their enthusiasm made it impossible to be in a bad mood.

And a big shout-out to Chick-fil-A who sent their cow to give out free prizes. Kids love them some chicken nuggets and taking a 5 minute break to play with the cow totally re-energized the girls for the home stretch.

We finished in just over an hour a long way from first place, but we weren’t last either. We gave a little money to a great cause and got a smidgeon of exercise in the process. Most importantly, the girls had a great time. We overcame their whining and desire to quit by pushing through and finishing, actually having fun in the process.

I would like to say it was a major breakthrough in their lives. It wasn’t. They still get bored easily. They still whine when something doesn’t go their way or isn’t the most fun thing ever in the history of the world. However, I suppose that is what they are supposed to do at 5 and 8 years old. What I am supposed to do as a step-dad is teach them to push through, to always finish and to try their very best.

Except I really want to whine, throw in the towel and veg out on the couch, too.

Nobody said it was easy.

Spa Day With the Girls

Monday, already a challenging day on an average week, began as an even more hectic day for me. Kaley and I had thrown a large tailgate party the day before at the Buccaneers game and the mountain of pots, pans, utensils and such that I had to clean was overwhelming. Add to that a trailer full of coolers, cooking equipment, tables and chairs that had to be cleaned and put away and I had a full day of chores on my hands.

Not a big deal except that there was no school due to a teacher duty day which meant my two precious little girls needed some adult supervision. Not one to give up quality time with my girls, I boldly accepted the task of completing my chores while at the same time providing quality childcare to my minor children.

Easy squeezy.

Yeah.

While I wanted to play with the girls, I did need some time to myself as it is harder to scrub pots and pointy knifes when little females are crawling up your legs. Luckily, my oldest decided that she deserved a spa day so out came the Orbeez foot massager that Santa had brought her for Christmas. If you are not familiar with this device, it is a water bath for your feet that has little jelly like balls in it that presumably feel good against your skin.

Anyway, it sounded like a great way for the girls to kill a few hours. I could do my chores while they pampered themselves with a relaxing foot massage. My wife would come home to discover the tailgate mess a distant memory and my girls bragging about their pedicure party. Sounded like a win-win so I covered the floor with towels and set up a foot spa in their bedroom.

With the girls as happy as….. well, as happy as any woman getting a foot massage, I went downstairs to scrub my Cajun food covered dishes.

Can you say Super Step-Dad???

I was busily scrubbing my large cast iron gumbo pot about 20 minutes later, happy with myself for having mastered this parenting thing in only a year, when my 4 year-old strolled into the kitchen, looked around and informed me that she needed the large stainless steel bowl that was drying in the dish rack.

“Why?” I inquired.

“For the spa,” she replied, giving me the large innocent eyes she inherited from her mother. I had just cleaned the bowl and was loath to let it get dirty again but just like when her mother gives me the eyes, I had no choice but to acquiesce in-spite of the voice in my head telling me adding the large bowl to the foot spa was probably a bad idea. Still, all seemed quiet and happy upstairs and it’s just a bowl, right?

Take then bowl. Have fun!

Wouldn’t be my last bad decision of the day.

On a side note, the only way to resist the eyes is to not look in them in the first place. My only chance of winning any argument with my wife or kids is to quickly make my point with my eyes closed and hope the girls aren’t in the mood for an argument.

Back to my cleaning for another 20 minutes and I had all but forgotten about the bowl when my little one again came into the kitchen, looked around and stated that she needed a large plastic storage tub that I had just cleaned.

“Why?” I asked.

“For the spa,” she replied, eyes bigger than ever and if possible, even more innocent looking.

Quite certain that disaster was looming in my future I made what I was sure was a horrible decision and let little Sonya walk away dragging the plastic tub which was as big as she was. I was suspicious that I hadn’t seen or heard her older sister but convinced myself that Myah was probably half asleep, her feet soaking in soothing Orbeez.

Everything had to be fine. Nobody was crying. How much trouble can you get in with a bowl and plastic tub?

Back to my dishes I went, pleasantly surprised at the sweet silence coming from upstairs.

And then she was back.

This time wearing a bathing suit.

Asking for yet another large bowl.

“Why?” I asked.

“For the spa,” she replied with giant, innocent eyes and a sweet little voice that could only mean that some unbelievable tragedy was about to happen.

Bad word it. It’s not like they’re gonna burn down the house. I let her have the bowl.

It was the constant sounds coming from upstairs of on again off again running water that made me think I should probably check things out. You might have checked things out 45 minutes ago after the first bowl was brought upstairs but I’m still learning. I walked slowly up the stairs, more scared than curious, somewhat alarmed by the sound of splashing water and the patter of little feet running across the hard wood floors. As I reached the landing at the top of the stairs, I spotted Myah exiting the bathroom with the large stainless bowl in her hands, overflowing with water.

“What, exactly, are you doing?” I asked in a surprisingly calm tone.

“Filling the hot tub,” she told me in a matter of fact voice, sloshing some water out of the bowl onto the floor.

“The hot tub?” I asked.

Saying a quick prayer, I turned to look in their room. Not satisfied with a mere foot massage, they had filled the plastic tub with Orbeez beads and hot water. Sonya was already in the tub, a look of relaxation on her little face as Myah topped off the tub with another bowl of steamy water.

I looked in dismay at the floors which were covered in tiny wet footprints. In my ignorance I felt like this was the most serious consequence of having a hot tub in the girl’s bedroom. I put more towels on the floor and insisted that they dry themselves off before walking around the house. Giving them my sternest look to let them know how serious I was, I left them alone and went back to my chores, confident that they would no longer track water across my floors.

Twenty minutes later Sonya returned to the kitchen. She pointed at another tub and said she needed it.

“Why?” I asked.

“For the spa,” she said, this time with a guilty look on her face.

“I thought you had a hot tub already?” I asked.

“Myah won’t get in that one,” she explained to me. In response to my questioning look she continued, “because I peed in it.”

“You peed in it?”

“Yes, so we need another tub.”

Maybe I should have put a stop to things then. Probably my momma would have known better. Hindsight is 20/20. The fact is I really wanted to finish the trailer full of pots and pans from the tailgate party. I took the easier path. I gave her the tub.

The tears came about 5 minutes later.

The first thing I noticed when running up the stairs to investigate the crying was the water pouring out of the girls’ room. Then I turned the corner and saw Sonya on her side, still stuck in her flopped over tub, the room covered in what I was sure was pee water.

Where was Myah? Relaxed as can be in her new hot tub.

Those of you with more parenting experience probably knew that the hot tub was going to get dumped over. The wiser of you probably wouldn’t have allowed hot tubs in the room in the first place. Your expert parenting most likely would have prevented urine filled water from coating every surface of the top floor of your home.

Me? I’m still learning. I thought wet footprints were the worst-case scenario. Well, there were no footprints now. Just a solid coating of water and urine over the entire floor.

What do you do when one child is stuck in a plastic tub, the other is relaxed in a second tub and water that is at least 10% urine is flowing over the floors and under the furniture? I don’t know what you do. Nobody ever told me what to do in situations like this.

I did what seemed natural. I panicked.

I took a brief second to look Sonya over, making sure that I was dealing with fake “I don’t want to get in trouble” tears. Satisfied that I didn’t need to call 911 I began shouting, “Get some towels! Get some towels!!”

Myah did the exact opposite of jumping out of the tub to help. She just sat back in her tub and stared at me.

“Get some towels, Myah!” I shouted.

“It wasn’t my tub that tipped over,” she explained.

What do you even say to that? She clearly didn’t think it was fair that her spa day be interrupted when everything was obviously Sonya’s fault. Sonya was still pretending to be stuck in the tub and possibly suffering from a near fatal injury in hopes of avoiding punishment. All the while water was spreading to all corners of the house.

I picked Myah up out of the tub and set her on a towel, throwing her a second towel so she could start mopping up the water. I then picked up Sonya, putting her on another towel while also handing her one she could use to mop up water. I then emptied the linen closet and began frantically wiping up the water as fast as I could.

It’s not easy. Go dump 50 gallons of water in the middle of your bedroom and tell me how easy it is to clean up.

I had to move some furniture and soil every towel in my house but I eventually mopped it up. Meanwhile, the girls were still standing on their towels while holding their mop-up towels and not having cleaned up one ounce of water.

Just standing there looking at me like I’m some crazed idiot.

Which I suppose is true.

I cleaned the girls up and tossed them in front of the TV. I was left to sanitize the floors and then do 3 loads of unexpected laundry.

And I still had to finish my tailgate dishes.

As it turns out, allowing your children to play with 50 gallons of water in their bedroom is not the best of ideas. In fact, spa days for little girls are probably best held outside.

If your 4 year old daughter shows up in a bathing suit and you are not going to the pool or the beach you should probably ask a question or two.

I also learned that silence is not always a good thing. In fact, it is most often the opposite of a good thing.

I eventually got all the chores done and my wife came home to a clean house and happy children. I suppose it was a successful day after all.