My [disastrous] Saturday Morning with the Kids

On a beautiful Saturday morning a few months ago, my wife was out for a run and I was left at home with our three kids.  My son was the first out of bed and I got him dressed.  I left him in his room to read some books while I started making breakfast.  It wasn’t long before the Saturday morning smell of pancakes on the griddle filled our home.  With breakfast almost ready, one kid dressed for the day, and the other two peacefully sleeping, I humbly patted myself on the back for handling a morning without my wife so well.

And from there, it all went to hell in a hand basket…

            I’d finished my first batch of pancakes, and had just poured the batter onto the sizzling griddle for the second batch when I heard some soft splashing of water coming from the bathroom in the master bedroom.

            That’s weird, I thought, wondering who was in bathroom, and why there was splashing.  I glanced at the pancakes and saw that they still had a minute or two before needing to be flipped.  I hurried into the bathroom, and there was my son, sitting serenely in the bathtub that my wife had apparently forgotten to drain.  (It could have been me, too, but I plead the fifth.)  He was fully clothed, thanks to my ambitious parenting that morning, was sitting in water up to his chest, and playing with a plastic killer whale.  He seemed to be having the time of his life.

            “Liam!” I said, exasperated.  I reached into the water to unplug the tub, realizing that in my panic, I had forgotten to roll up my shirt sleeve.  I paused, elbow deep in the water, and rolled my eyes.  I unplugged the tub, got a towel and lifted my son out of the tub.  

“You need to take your clothes off when you take a bath.” I said as I wrapped him in the towel and carried him to the room.  I passed the other bathroom—the kid’s bathroom—and noticed that my daughter had attempted to use the potty.  All would have gone well, but she had failed to pull her pants down far enough, and the urine went right into the seat of her pants and drained onto the floor.  She obviously felt bad about the mess and had tried to clean it up, gathering an armful of toilet paper and setting it in the puddle of yellow liquid on the floor. 

"Ah!" I screamed and set my son on the floor.  I rushed into the bathroom to clean up the mess, right about the same time that I smelled smoke coming from the kitchen, only a few seconds before the fire alarm started blaring.

The screech of the alarm woke the baby, who started to cry.

In less than two minutes, I’d gone from admiring my amazing parenting skills to wishing I’d never woken up.  It was a humbling experience.  And when my wife got back from her run, the kids were polishing off the first batch of pancakes beneath a cloud of blue smoke, my son still wet, and my daughter strapped into a diaper two sizes too small.  I handed off the baby and told her that my boss needed me in the office.  She was startled by the mess, but she took the baby and immediately started getting things in order.

When I came back a few hours later to apologize for taking off like that, the house was clean and tidy, and the kids were taking a nap.  My wife was sitting on the couch and reading, as if everything was just hunky-dory.

But that’s just how she is, taking care of the stuff at home like its nothing at all, while I would be going bonkers.  She faces each day with an insane amount of optimism and shrewd skill, excelling at pretty much everything she does.  I swear that she has super powers—and is probably a maniacal genius in her off hours, developing a plan to take over the world.  I think a lot of moms are like my wife (and I’m sure that some dads are like that too, but there is something special about moms), having the innate ability to deal with kids and the complexities of life in a way that most cannot.  It’s certainly something that I admire about my wife.

This experience, mixed with a bit of my wife’s general awesomeness, led to the ideas that formed the basis of my book, The Double Stroller Hand Grenade.  It’s a fun, escapism-style book about a stay-at-home dad who simply does not have it together.  Oh yeah, and his wife is not only a great mom, but is a super-cool-femme-fatale of an assassin for the mafia.  The book is packed with action, thrills, and plenty of laughs—perfect for a short escape from the daily routine of life.

Which brings me to why I’m telling you all this: I want you to download The Double Stroller Hand Grenade for only $2.99.  I promise that you’ll like this book.  Check it out before life’s distractions come along and make you forget, and then let me know what you think.  Here’s the link: The Double Stroller Hand Grenade.  (And if you don't want to read it on your ereader device, you can get it in paperback for $14.99)