Tommy's Ute

Most normal kids cling to stuffed animals and make possessive claims like 'My cheetah!' or 'My gorilla!'. As a Johnson, Tommy had no choice but to distance himself from the normal pack with corrective shouts of 'My Ute!' every time someone mentions Ute.

Aside from being one of Tommy's possessions, Ute is a good friend of ours who helps out occasionally with watching the animals while Mama and Papa play work. It was also her birthday today and, despite fully knowing the consequences, she still invited us over to celebrate. It's okay; we got you earplugs this year.

In keeping with the Johnson tradition, we showed up an hour late. I made a beeline to the keeper of the beer, also known as Alex. No shit, it took less than two minutes for Tommy to full-on body-crash into the corner of their coffee table. What, parties are supposed to be loud, right?

Ute immediately scooped up Tommy and started spastically blowing on his forehead. After two minutes, Tommy finally stopped wailing and explained in broken sobs to HIS Ute that actually, he had hurt his elbow.

After some mild elbow blowing and heavy cuddling by HIS Ute, Tommy was released back into the wild. The wild was actually Peter and David, who had already been kicked out to the hallway to play with their Beyblades. They are basically New Age spinning tops for those of you who have yet to experience the joys of procreation.

Within seconds, Tommy had managed to spin his top under HIS Ute's cabinet. At first, this seemed liked a disaster, but it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In addition to being tougher than a honey badger, my brain puts dolphins to shame. My huge cranium whipped out a flashlight and *POOF*, sulky kid was gone for almost an hour looking for HIS toy.

The silent hour was well appreciated, but it went by too quickly. By the time Tommy realized that there was no way in hell he was getting his toy back, it was time to kiss HIS birthday girl goodnight.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOMMY'S UTE!

Scratch and Fix

Our cat either really likes the guy that came to fix our radiator or he hates repair folk with a passion.

We haven't had Luke long, but he normally just hides under the stove whenever someone new comes over. For whatever reason, he chose today to break out of his reclusive shell.

Angie had run into the kitchen to get the repair guy something to drink. When she came back into the living room, Luke had clawed his way up to the guy's shirt and was just clinging out. If the guy hadn't been screaming his head off, I bet we would have heard purring.

Toe-jam Tommy

Today was the 10th anniversary of Anno 1589, Judy's gallery that's full of valuable paintings and things that are made of glass. It's a great shop for anyone in their double-digits, which leaves another seven years and two months before I consider letting the collective Zoo crew inside.

After a brief trip to breakable city to say hi, I chaperoned the kids to parts of the city that they could break.

It only took an hour of trying to kill themselves and others at the playground before the boys asked if we could go buy new 'Wheelies' because, according to David, 'I are so good being'.

'But what is a Wheelie?', the kidless readers ask.

Well, like the name implies, it's a wheel. That's pretty much it. You can roll them. And you can...uh,...um,....did I mention that you can roll them?

Okay, Wheelies are dumber than My Pet Rock, but at least they are cheap and they keep the yappity ones quiet. Hmm, maybe I should pick up one for Angie?

We picked up Barb along the way and headed off to the store that sold bags of broken car parts to morons with cash. The boys thought it was cool that the store had a revolving door. Of course, they also thought it was cool that we were buying a wheel.

On the way in, I carried Tommy. On the way out, I did not. Mea culpa.

What happened was Peter went first and like a normal human, he continued to walk outside when it was time to 'get off'. David went through next and like a normal David, he did not get off and instead kept going around in circles laughing.

I was holding Tommy's hand when it was our turn to 'get on'. At that point he saw David jackassing his way back into the store and decided to run in the opposite direction of the revolving door. If you ever wondered what it sounds like when someone's foot jams a revolving door to a grinding halt, it goes something like this:

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!'

So, just to recap - I'm stuck inside with Toe-jam Tommy trying to unwedge his foot. David has proudly made his way back into the store and is gleefully announcing to the forming crowd 'That is my BROTHER!'. Peter is stuck outside bawling his eyes out and screaming 'I'm sorry!' and will most likely be traumatized for life.

In the end, Barb was the one that came crashing to the rescue with a full-on shoulder attack against the glass wall that was pinning my third-born down. As Superchick pried back the wall of pain, I snatched up flat-foot and raced outside. Tommy and Peter were still screaming their heads off, but at least David had the sense to rejoin us on the sunny side of the death machine.

In America, I would have sued the shit out of the store for not hanging up a sign that clearly warned stupid dads against wedging their kid's foot under a revolving door. I'd be ree-yatch.

We were in Germany, though, Land of Customer Friendliness. Needless to say, we fled the scene before one of the helpful store workers could present us with a bill for a broken door. Dankeschön.

As we made it back to the shop, Barb asked if we wanted to come in to say goodbye. My response was a mix between an answer, a curse and a laugh. Barb gave me an understanding nod and went inside to tell Grams and Opa that they would have to come outside to say goodbye to Toe-jam Tommy and the Wheelie boys.

Smackouch!

As early as seven years old, I always knew that my brain was special. I discovered this one day while riding my bike. The sun was warm and soothing and I had just eaten lunch.

My gifted brain convinced me that, because I had done such an awesome job of driving my bike in a straight line with my eyes open, it made perfect sense to try it with my eyes closed. Brains are overrated.

It actually worked for about ten seconds; when I opened my eyes, I was still cruising a straight line down the middle of my block. Great! Lovely! I bet I can do a full minute!

It's a damn good thing that brains have no spending cash for betting; after approximately thirty-four seconds my head smacked into our mail box in a not-so-subtle gambling lesson to 'keep your eyes open, moron'.

Tommy is apparently a competition freak - he pretty much has to be with two older brothers and a father that rivals Evil Knievel. His challenge began in the kitchen as Mama was telling me about her day. Who the hell let Angie into the kitchy?

'Blah-blah, the kids had a ball at the blah-blah playing with the blah-blah-freakity-blah. Have I told you today how hot you are?'

'Yes, several times. Umm, why is Tommy wrapping a towel around his head?'

Before either of us could scratch our heads, Tommy took off running, full speed, towards a corner coming soon to his face.

'Smackouch' does not begin to describe it. As the scream levels rose, my inconsiderate brain chose to taunt me with thought-snippets like 'you waited until you were seven? That kid's got you beat by FIVE years. Wuss.'

Brain Dead

There is no way to jump start this one without knowing that I will end up on the sofa, so I'll just come out and say it - Angie was a moron. Twice.

It all started on a Wednesday afternoon, when Moron-lady drove her Smart car back home from work. Because those things are micro-tiny, her humongoid school bag does not exactly fit in the trunk. Clever Angie used the passenger seat to store her bags of squishy balls and other torture toys that she beams at kids when they misbehave.

Not-so-clever Angie proceeded to drag her bag from the passenger seat and over a button that switches on a light when she got out of the car. The same light, that when left on overnight, will drain the battery dead. Smart car, my ass.

This in itself was stupid, but innocent stupid. Kinda like when you stick a fork in the toaster, like my sister Christine did last year. Not overly smart, but you would hope that these thought-challenged people learn from their cerebral lapses. Hope is overrated.

Angie has demonstrated long ago that she is not like other people, so I wasn't surprised when she repeated exactly the same steps, not even two days later. I'm sorry, let me rephrase that - NOT EVEN TWO DAYS LATER!!!

The cool thing is, Angie now has the number for ADAC (AAA for you American types) memorized. Not so cool, ADAC now has our street address flagged in their system as belonging to 'that hot woman with the Smart car that isn't so...' well, I'll just let you finish that sentence; I'm already lounging on the sofa side of trouble.

Yes, ADAC-guy chuckled. He also laughed, mocked and pointed fingers, which won my respect and admiration. I can only hope that Angie learned her lesson, but a car is only as smart as it's driver. I'll just leave it there.

Eco-panic

I normally put the boys to bed. It's a simple routine, actually. Pajamas, brush teeth, Ladder Talk, and a tickle attack, followed by a story. Ten minutes later, I leave the room and celebrate their snoring with a beer. Sometimes two.

Angie decided tonight that she needed more mommy time and announced that she would be tucking the animals into bed. I reluctantly agreed and explained the rules. Turn off the bright light, don't give them anything wet and never feed them. Yeah, they're a lot like Gremlins.

Confident that Angie was adequately armed, I went to the fridge to celebrate in advance. About ten minutes later, the melancholy sounds of spastic blubbering filled the apartment.

Apparently, the cute, furry Mogwais had chosen a book on the tropical rain forest. Everything was fine and dandy until the third page, which depicted a tapir. An innocent little tapir, just lounging around, munching on some leaves. Behind the tapir was a flap, that when lifted revealed a leaping jaguar about to devour the poor thing. It was at this point that the flood gates of Peter's conscience opened.

'Mama, there are so many problems I have to solve. Tapirs are being eaten by jaguars. Rain forests are being cut down. Even the whales are getting extincted!'

At this point, Mama tried to help.

'Actually, the rain forests are being cut down, so the Jaguars have no place to live either.'

Here's where David joined the rainbow ranch of animal lovers.

'THE JAGUARS ARE BEING KILLED, TOO??!!! BUT, THEY'RE MEAT EATERS - I THOUGHT ONLY THE PLANT EATERS GET EXTINCTED?!! WHAT DID THEY EVER DO?!! AAAAGGGHHHH!!!'

It was interesting that David didn't give two shits about the rain forest, the tapirs, or the whales. I don't even think he cared about the jaguars, but he felt compelled to take a position and, well - Peter had already chosen his corner.

Two hours later, Angie emerged and headed straight for the fridge. Something about the look she gave me when I asked her how it went told me that I'll be doing the bedtime stories for the next decade.

Merry Christmas!

Table Grating for Brainiacs

Einstein's brain was 15% wider than average.

David has quite a big head.

Einstein never wore socks because they would get holes in them.

David loves to run around barefoot.

Einstein is believed to have suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by a reluctance to listen, social skill deficits, and demonstrating odd behaviors.

David still refuses to grasp the concept of 'no', he continues to ask all of our heavy-set friends if they are pregnant, and today I caught him cheese-grating our table.

'Holy shit, Angie - Davey's a freakin' genius!'

Free Fallin'

Normal humans walk down steps. Angie apparently found this too boring for cool and risked life and limb to spice things up.

As she tumbled down the stairway to pain, headfirst and carrying Tom, I'm sure one thought occurred to her: 'Hey, cool! Shoes on sale on isle 5'.

Somehow, Angelina the step ballerina managed to topple down the entire flight of stairs without dropping Tom on his head. Move over Heisman.

Did anyone help her as she lay crumpled on the ground at the bottom of the steps? Maybe the long-haired guy who was walking directly behind her before her tragic fall? No, Fabio just stood there, rolling his eyes at the newly formed obstacle in his urgent rush to get home to his oversized mirror.

Angie groaned and caught a glimpse of her mom, who was busy helping the boys refill their drinks at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Mmmm...dinner and a show.

'Mom? .... Mom? Uh, hello? ...Hey Mom! Over here! Could use a little help here, Mom!'

Judy was oblivious to her first born's pleas for help as she explained to David for the 5th time that 'No, you cannot have Coke.'

Eventually the Indian manager came over and helped Angie up.

'I don't speak German - do you speak English?'

'You do realize we're in Germany?'

'Are you okay?'

'Yes.'

With that one word answer, Angie blew a perfect opportunity to have a little fun with the non-German speaking manager.

'I don't think I should answer that without my lawyer present' or 'a new pair of shoes would sure help make my swollen foot feel a lot better' or 'I see dead people'. Anything but 'yes'.

It's too bad I'm not a clumsy klutz; I could have really had some fun.

Look Ma, no hands!

Angie went to pick up David from Gym class and got to talking with the teacher.

'Ah, so you're David's mother? Well, he certainly is, uh...energetic.'

Before Angie could ask for a further explanation, David came running up naked and started hopping on one foot.

I get the hopping on one leg bit - he learned this amazing trick only yesterday and he can be quite the show off.

I didn't fully understand the whole 'running around naked' part, but I have long ago accepted that there are many, many things about David that I will never understand.

Angie is apparently unaccepting or just overly curious - possibly both. She started chasing the giggling streaker throughout the gym, tackling him by the benches.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?! Why did you take your clothes off?'

'Chiara did it.'

Oh, of course. That explains it. I completely forgot about Chiara's bizarre tendency to run around and strip our children down in the middle of gym class. Sarah - we need to talk.

Under pressure

Yes, today was Angie's birthday.

No, I did not forget.

Yes, I have a birthday present; I just need to find twenty minutes to actually pick it up.

No, I did not give her a card, flowers, candy or whatever other lovey-dovey shit that husbands are apparently supposed to dish out when they are unable to deliver on time.

Yes, Angie was completely understanding and did not put any pressure on me whatsoever.

'It's just, you know... I thought since it was my birthday and all, you might have brought me flowers or something. You didn't even give me a card! You draw all these mean cartoons where I'm bald and you can't even ...'

'You weren't bald - I gave you four strands and ...'

'That's not the point, Steve!'

She continued explaining for another hour or two, but in the end I think I finally got the point.

It's all in your head

There are some things that, according to Angie, I just shouldn't blog about. I'm surprised that she hasn't figured it out yet, but I don't listen very well. My mom can certainly testify to that.

Peter had lice last week. Disgusting? Yes. Gross? More than slightly. A royal pain in the ass? Absolutely, but the important thing here is that his school learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully.

See, all of the kids are required to wear yellow baseball caps, which they throw into a box when they enter the classroom. That's right - a box. Not 'boxes', as in the plural form that might indicate that they actually do hygienically separate garments to avoid widespread outbreaks by human disease agents like, hmmm, I don't know - lice!

Needless to say, Angie freaked out and not in the gentle, loving kind of way. No, General Mama declared martial law and immediately went ballistic.

All breathing humans within a four-room radius were stripped naked and quarantined to the bathroom. The first phase of decontamination involved a special shampoo that I'm pretty sure was not tear-free. Then, crazy woman whipped out a comb made of pointy needles that might do it for Freddy Krueger but did less than little for the kids. At this point, it was clear to everyone that phase two would involve pain and torture. And more tears.

The General kicked off phase two of the decon party by scrapping off a few layers of skull from three kids, one adult female-type, and a hairy man-beast. During the interrogation, four out of five of us were told 'this is gonna hurt me more than it will you'. Yeah, complete bullshit.

The final phase was thankfully more passive. The recently dehumanized were allowed to cower in a corner while the General ransacked the apartment for any item that might have had any contact with Peter's head. Hats, coats, scarves, pillows, sheets, blankets, stuffed animals and the kitchen sink were tossed into trash bags and sealed shut. According to chapter five of the General's War Book, three days of lockdown should be sufficient to neutralize any head-buggies. With prejudice.

After three days, the General initiated 'the cleansing' phase. The cool thing is, I can't remember the last time I saw the bottom of the hamper. The not-so-cool thing will probably come when Angie reads this post, but after last week, I'm confident that I can survive just about anything.

I must admit, Angie didn't handle the post traumatic stress so well. In the past week, Angie has needed to cleanse her scalp and check for lice at least sixteen times daily. It became borderline certifiable and trust me, she doesn't need that big of a push. Yesterday, I caught Angie ripping out chunks of her hair and holding them up to the light for inspection.

'Do you see any little buggies? I feel them. My head is SO itchy. They're all over. I know they are. Get them out! Aaaarrrgghh!'

'Calm down, woman! You've checked your head now about eight bazillion times - you don't have them. Stop ripping your hair out - it's just psychological, okay? Relax! It's all in your head.'

'I knew it! Aaaaaggghh. They're in my head! Aaaaaaaghh!'

E you, too!

You may have gathered from Peter that he started school this week. Unless you are lucky enough to be me, what you didn't gather was that Peter also needed a new desk, a new chair, a new backpack, new notebooks, pens, rulers, et cete-f-ra. You might wonder what the 'f' is for, but you shouldn't. Just assume it has something to do with the Financial costs of schooling your first born. Acts II and III coming soon to a wallet near me.

Peter tends to take things too seriously sometimes. Angie does too, but I tend to file this under 'naggin'. I guess Peter can just be lucky he's not a chick.

Peter's first homework assignment was to cut out beginning word 'sounds' and match them to various pictures. Peter did an excellent job of cutting and matching until he got to this lovely gem.

'Eu' were the cut-out letters, but the picture clearly depicted money. At this point, Peter freaked out like an Egyptian.

'Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no....I have 'money' left, but the letters are 'EU' - that means everything else is WRONG! I didn't do anything right! Aaaaaagggghhh!!!!'

Whoa. Calm down, psycho. EU stands for Euro, which is money. Money begins with 'M'. You're fine - chill out!

Peter smiled and Mama mentioned something about me not calling our children psychos for showing an interest in their homework, but I didn't hear much beyond blah.

Time for a pick-me-upper

Don't get me wrong - I love Opa. He, along with Grams, has been super-mega helpful with watching all three boys while Angie and I play work. It's just, well... it was Peter's first full day of school and, well, you know... he was kinda nervous anyway, so I just thought that....well, HE WOULD BE PICKED UP FROM HIS FIRST FREAKING DAY OF SCHOOL! Hello.

At least Peter took abandonment in stride. Kinda. He waited around at the playground for a while, trying to play it cool for the 'bigguns' that were beginning to wonder why the new fish was still hangin' out.

After about an hour, he reluctantly started walking home. Along the way, he ran into Myriam, our neighbor from across the street.

'Hey, Peter - what are you doing all by yourself?'

'Have you seen my Opa?'

'Yeah, he's down at the playground trying to get Tom to go to sleep.'

'Is he mad ?'

'I don't think so, why would he be mad?'

There was no logical reason why Opa would be mad, but Peter is Angie's son and Angie is Opa's daughter, so we can't skip over the whole lack of logic thing too lightly. See, Peter was worried that HE had gotten things wrong and thought that maybe HE was supposed to walk home instead of being picked up.

In Opa's defense, he quickly apologized and reassured Peter that it was his 'faux Opa' and not Peter's. He then unsuccessfully tried to convince Peter not to mention any of this to me out of some irrational fear that I might blog it.

Tub dumplings

Not much to say here. Tommy was getting a bath when David's brain commanded him to stop eating in mid-bite, walk to the bathroom and spit his half-eaten meatball across the room and into the tub. Tommy laughed, which made David giggle, which worried Mama, which made her come running to see the floating aftermath of David's tub dumpling, which made her scream, which made me come to see the fuss that soon after made me crack up, which made Mama whip out her 'evil stare' on me. What?! It was David!

Keyless

Lately, David has taken to hiding keys. I don't know why, but I am a realist and have learned not to question such things. I accept them and just hang my keys up higher. Angie is a pluralist, though, and refused to move her keys because David is not supposed to touch them. I was at work when reality laughed at Angie's world.

'Where are my keys?!'

'Uh, good morning to you, too.'

'WHERE ARE MY KEYS??!!'

'I have no idea - you didn't leave them on the desk again, did you?'

'Yes, they were there last night. I know they were there. What am I going to do?'

'Two options - take a taxi to work or go get David out of kindergarten and force him to find them.'

'That doesn't help me!'

'What would?'

Click....

I had a meeting to go to and I swear to you, I cracked up the entire hour thinking of how Angie was frantically panicking around the house. The image was funnier than watching Bush dodge a shoe. After the meeting, I called the keyless.

'Did you find them?'

'Yeah.'

The fact that she offered no explanation told me that she did not find them. I said nothing, though, and after a long pause, she reluctanly explained.

'Yeah, so - After tearing the place apart, I finally gave up. I dragged David out of kindergarten and asked him if he knew where my keys were. He ran into the bedroom, went under his bed, opened a box, pulled out a treasure bag and 'found' my keys. He then explained that Tommy probably put them there.'

'Damn it, when is Tommy going to learn?.'

Dude, where's my phone?

In case the name of the blog and the cartoon still leave you wondering, you're a moron. Luckily, I'm used to dealing with your kind, so I will try and explain using simple words.

Angie lost her cell phone. Again. She then used our home phone in an attempt to find it. This by itself was a rather intelligent approach to finding one's phone. Not so smart was running up to me after doing so.

'Steve, you're so hot. Have you seen my cell phone? I can hear it ringing but...'

Butt was right; I spinned valley girl around and fished out her missing phone from her back pocket. She turned beet red and mumbled something about not blogging something, but I didn't quite hear it over the ringing.

Laundry Pile Attacks Innocent Blogger

I remember the events of the tragic day unfolding something like this.

'Hey honey, if you decide to do laundry this year, I need socks, underwear, pants and shirts. Thanks, you're a gem.'

'You have everything clean.'

'Uh, that's not what my empty dresser says.'

'I haven't folded everything yet - they're in the baby room.'

When I opened the door, I felt something breathing on me and I could swear I heard grunting. I nervously flipped on the light switch and was suddenly attacked by the most vicious pile of clean laundry I have ever encountered.

'Clean', my ass! It was horrible! I can barely write about the whole ordeal. That heap of clothes pounced on me and did things to me that will haunt me forever.

My muffled screams went unanswered, as did the many questions running through my head. Why me? What did I do to provoke this attack? Why did this woman spend the entire winter break washing and not fold a single sock? Why couldn't she just fold the damn clothes like a normal human?

Has anyone seen my keys?

I have often wondered what mysteries are locked up in Angie's brain; I just never tried gouging my way through with a key.

When I came home from work today, Scarface explained to me how she had nearly lost an eye getting out of the car. I am sure her explanation made perfect sense to her, but I was cracking up too hard to really get all the details. It's called IQ, sweetie, not eye key.

The Destructo Dave Smackdown

It all started with a thump. Followed by some mild wailing.

'Honey, did you drop Davey on his head again?'

'Yes, but it was an accident.'

'Yeah, they always are. Should I call child services now or are you going to endulge me?'

Angie rarely makes sense, but I've lived with the woman long enough to not let this get in the way. I struggled, but finally I got her version of the truth.

Apparently, David had run up to his caring and loving mother, complaining that his foot hurt.

'Your foot hurts? Aaah, you poor thing. Let me just ignore gravity for a sec and yank your feet up here so I can inspect them.'

[Disclaimer: I was slaving away in the kitchen when Mama decided to pile-drive David into the floorboards, so I can only rely on her testimonial, which was not fabricated in any way, shape or form.]