I love my kids, I just hate parenting
My name is Dad and Buried, and I’m a No-aholic.
I tell Detective Munch “no” too much, I say “stop” too much, and I scold him too much, and I bark at him too much. Basically, I’m one big buzzkill for a normal five-year-old kid with energy to burn and a small space in which to burn it.
It’s no wonder he prefers Mom and Buried.
As you may know, my son has a bad tree nut allergy. This means we need an epipen, and epipens recently increased in price by something like 400 percent. Even that scumbag Martin Shkreli is appalled. (That’s not even a joke; he really is.) The one time my son required the use of his epipen, we hesitated, unsure if it was necessary, and didn’t use it. He’s okay, but it was scary. (Turns out we should have used it, and we’d dodged a bullet.)
His allergy is scary. Needing an epipen is scary. The fact that we’ll probably be faced with that exact scenario again some day is scary. But what else is new? Everything about parenting is scary.
I’m always scared, and I bet you are too.
The other day, I was left home alone with my two kids. For a few hours I tasted the life of a single parent.
It didn’t work out.
As soon as my wife walked in the door, I put down the baby and picked up the bourbon. I won’t lie: I was drinking to forget — to forget the stress, the scrambling, and the screaming. I had spent a few measly hours managing my kids all by myself, and it was enough to rededicate me to my marriage for another 10 years.
At least.
The other day, I was whining to my son (turnabout is fair play!) about having to watch the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” again. It’s become his entertainment of choice, and I hate it. I HATE IT. So I told him that if he keeps liking it, we can’t be friends.
And then he schooled me: “Dad, we can still be friends even if we don’t like the same things.”
Stupid kids and their innocent wisdom making me feel dumb. Too bad he’s wrong.
I’ve been to Southern California three times.
The first time, I was in third grade on a family vacation. The second time was for a wedding around 2005, during which I drove a rented PT Cruiser convertible. The third time was two weeks ago, when I visited Irvine, CA as a guest of Kelley Blue Book. Not only was this my first official “dad blogger” trip, it was my first opportunity to have In-n-Out in about a decade. I couldn’t NOT go.
Thankfully, this trip did not involve a PT Cruiser. Because Kelley Blue Book has standards.