Cry me a river

This was T-minus 5 minutes as the boys waited for Barbara and Armin to pick them up. They were supposed to be going to an amusement park, but in the end, Barbara and Armin apparently thought it would be more amusing to scare the crap out of someone today. They chose Peter. Yes, it was amusing.

Not so amusing was T-plus 30 seconds, when it finally dawned on Tom that he wasn't going to the big super-duper FUN place that Peter and David had been raving about all morning.

It all started with a little road trip. Barbara and Armin were the adult chaperones who had no idea what they had just signed up for. Peter and David were the wild creatures who had an idea of what an amusement park was but were just too wired to think.

Peter's excitement got the better of him and he busted out a rather interesting variant of the chicken dance. My curiosity almost paused, but Angie and I were too busy waving ba-bye to crazy people.

Angie flashed them a cryptic gang symbol from her days in the hood and I whipped out the international sign for 'glad it's not me'. After watching the car turn the corner, we giggled like school girls and left them to it.

This was the first of what would turn out to be a lot of free marketing for Holiday Park. I should really be charging these places for such blatant ad placement.

Armin had no sense of how to slowly build up Peter's courage. He jumped over three levels of anxiety management and immediately suggested Devil's Barrels. David shouted 'YEAH, WA-HOO!', but Peter took one look at the 20 meter watery death chute and laughed. Nice try, Armin.

Surprisingly, Barbara took a more sensible approach. See, you can't lead a mule to water if it's afraid of getting wet. If the stubborn beast also has a fear of free-falling down a waterfall in a wine barrel, it will die of thirst before it thinks of doing anything that you claim to be fun. The solution was to break down the fear factors and tackle them one at a time. First on the list - water phobia.


Peter could not believe that he was allowed on a boat by himself without a water vest. Had he been a bit older, I'm pretty sure he would have demanded to see someone's supervisor. After finally jumping onboard, Captain Pete held a vigilant watch over the rough seas.

David didn't care - he was already trying to ram other boats by the time Peter had finally mustered up enough bravery to jump in. David eventually spotted Peter's boat and well, it was a bit like a red flag being waved in front of a bull.

David charged, but luckily Pedro the matador escaped safely. He even managed to laugh and by the end of the first ride he was past the first level. Water's not so scary.

Next, Barb worked on his fear of rides on water. You might think this is the same as a fear of water, unless you ask Peter. Please don't.


David was bored senseless, but he doesn't have a whole lot of sense, so at least it was a short ride. It also showed Peter that not all water rides are life-threatening. Next on Barb's shopping list was a gallon of 'free fall'.


Even Armin expressed his thoughts on Barbara's plan.


What Armin didn't know is that Peter is very susceptible to bribery. Barb simply promised an ice-cream to any victorious sliders and Peter's belly stepped up to bat.


Watching the boys eat anything is always fascinating. Peter and David both got identical ice-cream sandwiches. David's was gone in less than a minute, leaving behind a sticky mess that splattered his shirt, mouth, and hair. Peter spent almost an hour; he actually peeled his sandwich apart and began licking away the different flavors so as not to mix them up. I personally think he was just stalling the inevitable. He had overcome his fears of water, rides and elevation - it was time. Right, Peter?

Peter is a freak when it comes to analyzing warning signs. When they got to the front of the line, there was a big sign full of stick children falling on their heads, getting dunked underwater, flying out of the barrel...I think the skulls were what finally caused Peter's knees to buckle.

Barb was quick to pick up on Peter's anxiety attack and assured him that the red lines going through the gory depictions meant that those are things that people are not allowed to do. Aaahh, okay.

Peter didn't question why they would need a sign to tell people not to fling themselves upside down out of a flying barrel into perilous rapids, but that was probably because the people behind them were prodding them that it was their turn. It was time.

Peter hates being rude and almost always follows the rules if he understands them. The line-waiting rule book clearly states that when it is your turn, you do not keep the people behind you waiting for your panic attack to pass; you just death-grip the handles and whimper like a man.


As Peter was kissing the ground and swearing to never trust Barbara again, I was busy congratulating the birthday boy.

Mark is not normally a double-fisted drinker; he was just trying to hide the fact that it was a non-alcoholic beer. Nice try, buddy - I can smell those things a mile away.

I play darts with Mark and can certainly vouch that he is more than a pinky away from being a teetotaler. He babbled out some excuse about needing to party all night and not getting hammered at 2:00 in the afternoon. Whatever.

I kicked the birthday girl out to the porch to share a box of juice with Tommy.


Then I disappeared to drink a real beer with Hatch and Hannes. It wasn't until I noticed what Mark was serving for dinner that I remembered 'Oh shit - he doesn't have kids'.


It didn't actually bother me that our one-year old was shoveling fist after fist of chewy sugar into his mouth. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that Angie was not there; she was stuck at home, waiting for the amused to return.

After his dinner of Champions, Tom's unusually high level of sucrose instructed his tiny brain to steal little toys from big dogs.


Luckily, Mark's dog is a lot like its owner - complete crap at darts, smells funny from time to time, and is great with kids. It also drinks non-alcoholic bubbly water.

I eventually had to leave; Angie had called to inform me that Peter had survived the Devil's wine barrel and that the boys were back home. Peter was still shaking when I returned, but I gave him my highschool calculator and for some very strange reason, this calmed him down. He spent the rest of the night running around demanding that people ask him complicated math problems. Then Houdini would disappear under the table and magically come up with the answer.

I finally put Rain Man and David to bed and handed hyper Tom over to Angie. She was completely baffled and couldn't understand why he wasn't tired at all. I almost explained my theory, but decided to go check on Barbara and Armin instead.


After the third drink, they were okay again. Not normal, just okay, which was fine; it could take several weeks of medicinal alcohol to help them get through today's events.

A few hours later, I thought of Angie and chuckled. It wasn't anything mean, like images of Tom still doing laps around the apartment, although that certainly would have cracked me up. It was actually Walid, a cucumber and a memory of days long gone.


Back in our B.C. (before children) years, Angie used to patiently wait until Walid shut the pub kitchen down. She would then 'sneak' into the kitchen and steal all of his pre-cut cucumbers. She always thought she was sneakier than Nike, but I realized when Walid came busting out of the kitchen and started handing out cucumbers that at some point over the years he had picked up on Angie's super-sly vegetable thievery.

'Hey who am I, everyone? Huh? Anyone?'
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we was by the Holiday Park and I got a new little computer - calculator.
David: The park - all of it.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: There wasn't - it was a perfect day.
David: That I don't can't play more in the park.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: I want to cheat.
David: Play with Barbara, okay?

Double bull, triple shots

In darts, a double bull is justification for a round of shots. For Peter and David, I would have done three rounds of shots if they could just hit the board. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't nail any stray cats or innocent children. Even without that excitement, it was still fun.

I know it was a holiday, but I really don't know what it was for. I don't pay attention to shit like that. I just know there was stand after stand full of beer, sausages and fake shark teeth.

Although most certainly a carnivore, Peter the meat eater skipped the sausage stands, waved to me as he walked past the beer stand and headed straight for the fake jewelry. We bought him a shark tooth necklace that was painted gray and he was completely in his element.

David didn't care much about what anyone else was doing. It was his first parade and he was loving the organized banging.

We watched until the drumming marchers were out of ear shot and I could swear I saw tears in the boy's eyes. Sorry, Davey - Santa has banned drums this year. It turns out, they are made from the skin of baby seals, so maybe you should just wish for a nice puzzle or a ball of yarn.

I really don't know why David is worried about Christmas, though. He should be more concerned about the resell value of coal. It's not enough that his misbehavior irritates the crap out of Angie and me twice daily. He has now moved to the next level, which brings the neighbors into our happy little circle of annoyance.

For a while, the neighbors wondered how their cherry tomato plants could be growing so well, yet yield nothing. I discovered David in the garden with a mouthful of guilt and felt like Scooby-Doo, just without the Mystery Machine. I didn't need it, though. The mystery was solved for me; of course I kept shrugging shoulders at our baffled neighbors.

When I confronted David with his thievery, he informed me that it was the 'weedman' who stole them. He then went on to explain that he was 'saving' the harvest by storing them in his belly so that the 'weedman' couldn't find them.

I thought the boy had completely lost his mind until I saw this dude on the street.

David threw a coin in his bucket and I screamed 'Stop eating our garden, weed-freak!'. People passing by just stared, but being a blog-celebrity, I am used to this.

When we got home, Tommy Corleone whispered something into David's ear.

'The tomatoes - I know it was you, David. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!'

I don't know where the Godfather was during all of this, but the Godmother was teaching Tommy how to read.

Okay, it was a picture book, so all-in-all...not that impressive. I mean, come on, Barb. I like the comic section, but every now and then, I read the front page.

What was impressive is that Tom can now walk. He started a few days ago and went from zero to one in no time at all.

I will admit that he looks like a drunken pirate when he stumbles about. I will also admit that he looks like a tranquilized monkey seconds before it drops. I will also admit that I have to stop there for a lack of other fitting comparisons.

Our other two drunken pirate monkeys were far from tranquil.

They were high on a treasure-hunt adrenaline rush triggered by the Godfather himself. For some reason, Sami actually wanted our boys to come over to his house and destroy things while looking for his loot. Ask and you shall receive.

It started out with Sami and a simple map.

Sami is excellent with maps, especially after his recent road trip to Austria (inside joke), but driving maps are slightly different than treasure maps.

As Peter and David tried to decipher Sami's crayon scribbles, Tom was busy yanking Lauri around.

Lauri didn't like this one bit and he ordered me to put Tommy in the trash can. After years with Angie, I have given up on disobeying, no matter how silly the request is.

This was hilarious until I overlooked Newton's law of gravity and Tom toppled over. Tom screamed like a kid who had been thrown in a trash can that was then kicked over. Luckily, Tom gets his thick skull from Mama.

The boys eventually found the Finnish jackpot and celebrated by eating chocolate eggs and sugary loot. I was still feeling really bad about dropping Tommy on his head again, so I went to the pub and played darts.

I didn't get a double bull, but I at least hit the board. I also managed to miss all of the stray cats and innocent children hanging out in the pub, so I felt we deserved the triple shot.
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When I played with Sebastian and Chiara today.
David: When I played with Peter animals.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When David hit me on my hand on the side with his fists.
David: When I cried 'cause I wanted that red, but I cannot - really!

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go and get a dinosaur.
David: Play with my pirate ship there up on the blue box.

I are three, okay?

Davey can count to three. Isn't that great? When he turns eleven, I can only hope that he'll be wearing open toe sandals. Happy Birthday, by the way.

I only vaguely recollect my college years, but I do remember that it is not a party until someone streaks, you piss off the neighbors, or someone gets beheaded. Not one to disappoint when it comes to partying, I organized the package deal.

Today was only the party - David actually turned three on Tuesday. Since then, he has both pleased us with his newfound toilet capabilities and frustrated us with his insistent and rather annoying quirk to flush down a whole roll of toilet paper every time he has any nature-urge that might actually require toilet paper. I now live in constant fear that the kitchen sink will explode or the neighbors will find bits of Charmin floating in their next bath. This, of course, would surely make David laugh, kind of like how he laughs each time I scream 'DAMN IT, DAVID - STOP FLUSHING THE ENTIRE FREAKIN' ROLL OF TOILET PAPER DOWN THE TOILET!'

I tried to look on the bright side of pooping and laugh the whole thing off. It didn't work, but at least David got quite a chuckle out of the whole ordeal. Eventually, I chose the low road, also known as 'ignore the problem - it will go away on its own'.

Instead, I began filling water balloons for the BIG BIRTHDAY WATER BALLOON WAR! At one point, I mistakenly asked Angie for a tub for all of the filled water balloons. Davey often hears what he wants to and this time, his tiny little brain heard tub and water and immediately instructed him to get naked and run around the apartment like a madboy.

He finally understood that I said TUB and not BATHTUB, but this did little to get the three year old streaker clothed again. Whatever, it's his birthday - he might as well wear the suit.

Speaking of suits, did I ever tell you the hilarious story about how Clarice wanted to hold Tom? No? Well, there we were, sitting around a table witnessing kids lose their mind at a boggling rate. Tommy was the only sane and quiet one, if you can believe that. Even if you can't, shut up. It's my story.

So, Tommy was being all 'look at me, I'm cute, won't you please pick me up? I promise not to dump luke-warm coffee all over you.' Somehow, Clarice fell for the trap. At least her pants were white. Right on, Tommy!

Clarice was not the only one getting soaked. My brilliant idea of having water balloons was backfiring on me. Big time. At some point, Angie managed to convert my idea of the kids throwing balloons at each other in the garden into 'let's make Steve go down to the garden and we can try and peg his head from the balcony'. Oh, ok - thanks honey-thighs.

Missed me, missed me, know you have to...uh, why are the neighbors crying?

I can absolutely confirm that they were not tears of happiness. I guess our water bombs did not catapult as far as I had previously estimated. In short, the water bombs landed in gravel, which kicked up stones, mud, and emotions all over the nicely laid out blanket that was awaiting the visitors of the family below us. At one point, their little girl came running out shouting 'you're getting everything wet'. My sole, yet witty, response was 'yeah, they're WATER balloons'.

After mending a few broken fences and some MAJOR apologizing, we were ready to continue birthday-partying! Angie stayed behind to clean-up, but I saw this as already part of our 'arrangement'. I cook, she cleans. I destroy the neighbor's family picnic, she cleans. Thanks, sugar-lips.

I wasn't the only one pissing off others. We moved to the playground, where Elmo must have seriously angered Peter. In response, Peter did everything BUT tickle Elmo.

I am just damn lucky that our neighbors didn't have a pinata stick handy after the water balloon incident. As it was, I am sure they wanted to rip my head off. Hey, join the club.

Mark and I let the tiny ones fight over the loot as we did victory laps around the playground chanting 'ding-dong, the Muppet's dead' until some of the kids started crying. Pinatas are so freakin' awesome, man!

We decided to take the kids upstairs to cool off a bit. The birthday boy must have thought Chiara was cool enough to share his primo spot in the cooler.

I'm not upset that David did not invite me. Not at all. I am secure enough in my super-mega-coolness to overlook this social face-slap. I didn't care, not even a little. Whatever. Jerk. Bedtime!

David firmly stated that 'I are three, okay' and assumed that this weak argument would somehow convince me to let him stay up later. His statement was not grammatically incorrect, by the way. I am pretty sure that he was referring to his multiple personalities and trust me - there are more than three and none of them stayed up past bedtime. Hmm...maybe you should've been cooler to me? Happy Birthday, by the way.

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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When we did pinata.
David: When Dalia come here to my birthday.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When Chiara shoot at me with a water pistol, but there was very, very, very, very hot water.
David: When Chiara and Alessio not stay here.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To play with Mommy hide-n-seek and you and Davey.
David: When Peter play with me pirates.

The Motherload

Angie should get the 'Mother of the Year' award. She figured out how to do laundry, clean Tom and entertain Papa all at once. What else could you ask for? Before I answer that and get myself into mother trouble, let's move on.

Mother's day started out nice. Peter came in and announced that he loved Mama 'to the volcanoes and back'. I don't know about you, but I freakin' love being compared to places that burn in flames. Judging by Angie's smile, she was also loving the hell out of the compliments.

We went to Grams and Opa's for lunch. Silly Grams and Opa forgot that we are the Johnson's, though, and actually prepared lunch. Had they considered for one minute our track record on making it anywhere on time, they would have certainly prepared dinner and invited us for breakfast. Yes, we were late. Just a tad. We blame Tom now, but mainly because Peter and David are old enough to say things like 'Mama was in the shower for, like...two days!!'. Trust me, she needed it.

After lunch, Grams tried to teach David how to cheat at a game of fish puzzle-building.

I think in the end, David taught Grams more tricks than either one of us wanted to know that he knew. Puzzling.

After the bonding fish-building exercise, I could tell the minnows needed a little exercise themselves. I took Peter and David to the playground, where they actually managed to play quite nicely with one another.

Ok, seconds after this cute photo op, David threw dirt in Peter's eyes, prompting a retaliatory groin kick before Papa could break them up. Still....cute photo, huh?

After breaking up Cain and Able, we went to Sandy and Mark's, where we reverted back to the theme of things that catch on fire.

If you look closely, you will see that Chef Mark has burnt the ever-loving shit out of the poor hamburger box because he had it sitting directly against the grill for a few hours. At least his grilling faux pas was a quick and easy way for him to bond with Angie. Whatever burns your boat, I guess.

Sandy was also easy to bond with.

I have three boys. She has three boys, if you include Mark and ignore the one that is off camera breaking things. I like beer. She had beer. We both are married to spouses that burn shit.

Where Sandy and I hopefully differ is that our son has obviously chosen a future in the garbage disposal business.

I shook my head and hoped that Destructo Dave would not end up picking up other people's trash. Mama mumbled something about being proud of whatever he does. 'Whatever' was the only thing I could take away from her babbling that made any sense, though. Rather than ask for clarification of these motherly ramblings, I wisely chose to avoid the mother trouble and move on.
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When David bonked himself on the body.
David: When we go to Grams and Opa and then to the Hatch.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When we couldn't do the skateboards.
David: When Peter's not come here.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: When we go to the wedding from Handan.
David: When I catch a dinosaur.