Nicholas does the funniest things....Blue Man Group

Nicholas can sometimes be, by far, the most entertaining of our three children. Don't get me wrong, Noah has said some pretty funny things and sometimes Savannah's one-liners can make you laugh out loud. But Nicholas is such a character that his mother has started calling him Dennis the Menace.

The kid loves bugs and worms and just about any other tiny little creature you can imagine. There's a section in Chapter 4 of Well Water (coming soon) that describes a typical summer day at the Davisson household and it involves Nicholas and a couple of worms that he named “Noah” and “Picnic”. Classic Nicholas stuff right there.

I've also seen him catch frogs and various other creepy crawlers as well as have an intense staring contest with a little blue and black lizard from a very close distance. That lizard, in fact, is so used to Bit by now that it literally comes out and sits right next to him. Luckily, while Nicholas loves these little creatures, he is still wary about touching them so he tends to just look. However, I have seen him launch a frog about twenty feet in the air because it peed on his hand.

He also does just about every other “little boy” thing you can imagine while he’s outside playing. Which is something that we’ve recently let him do on his own. (There’s also an upcoming chapter in Well Water that describes Nicholas’ very first adventure outside by himself). Now that he’s four years old and knows where his boundaries are, we let him go outside and play. And playing outside is his absolute favorite thing to do. There is a drawback, however. A little boy as mischievous as Bit, left alone to his own devices, usually equals disaster.

Every rock in our little front yard rock garden has made its way either to the yard, the street or on the roof. One day, I even came home to see one of the flatter, more brittle of the larger rocks shattered in pieces all over the side walk. I have also come home to see him standing with the garden hose, drenched from head to toe, with the biggest smile on his face. And then there was the time that he decided to “wash Daddy’s car”. Which would have been a sweet gesture except for the fact that he used my grill brush. There are still swirl-shaped scratches down the side of our van that I haven’t been able to buff out.

On top of all these other things, Nicholas is also fond of getting more dirt on him than you would think humanly possible. Rain or shine, you can find him at any given moment playing in the dirt. And not only does he play in it and with it, he rubs it on himself. One day, Shonda even caught the little rascal simply dumping handfuls of dirt down the front of his pants for no reason what-so-ever. Like I said, he’s quite the little character.

Which brings me to the point of my post today. Last week, Nicholas turned four years old. His birthday party is this weekend at our community pool and he’s very excited about that. But last week he was just as excited to receive his first big boy bike as well as a very nice gift from a great friend of ours in New York. The bike was given to him when I got home from work and he rode that thing right up until he had to come in for the night. The other gift, however, came via UPS earlier that afternoon and Shonda let him open and play with it.

The gift, was a set of 3D Crayola Sidewalk Chalk, complete with 3D glasses. It was a very thoughtful gift and Nicholas immediately took it outside after Shonda briefly told him what it was and how it worked. Out he went to begin creating his 3D visions of neon colored works of art. He’d used sidewalk chalk before so Shonda was getting ready for our entire driveway to be covered with brightly colored scribbling. However, she did not find much in the way of four year old art work. She did however find this:

No, he was not auditioning for Blue Man Group. This is just what happens when you leave him alone for even a brief period of time.

Flex Pay Rocks!

I swear my lovely bride has a sixth sense when it comes to HSN and QVC. We've gotten quit a few great items over the years; pillows, full linen sets with 1000 thread count, plants, digital cameras, etc. Heck, I even got an early Father's Day gift of an electric smoker! The great part about all of these items is that she ALWAYS gets a great deal. Always. And, on top of the drastically reduced prices, nine times out of ten, she doesn't even pay for shipping. And she gets to make two or three interest free payments. Her latest find is something we've always wanted but could never justify the cost...until now. I give you...Margaritaville!

Battle Scars

Poor little man...right before he received this little gift from Bit,
I told them both to stop being so rough. Tough lessons learned.

Nicholas says the funniest things…

Our son, Nicholas, just turned four on May 19th. I never forget his birthday, because he was born on the sixth anniversary of the premier of Star Wars One: The Phantom Menace. I know it’s sad, but please don’t hold it against me. It’s just one of those random things I’ve never forgotten, but I digress…

Bit (short for Little Bit, as I like to call him) has been talking for quite a while now. Be he’s just recently begun to speak very clearly and in complete sentences. However, that just means that we can now clearly hear all of the funny remarks that he makes on a daily basis. This is the inaugural post in a series of the random things that Shonda hears from him (and his brother and sister) on a daily basis.

My lovely bride is the sole proprietor of an in-home daycare for infants and toddlers. She has a pretty nice set-up due to our finished walk-out basement and our fairly large, fenced in back yard. The basement, which has been converted into a giant playing area, has all of the necessities a daycare needs: tons of toys, books, tiny people furniture, play sets, a television, etc. It’s great for keeping them occupied during the harsh Missouri winter. The playroom opens up into our yard that is also full of toys as well as giant swing set/climbing wall/slide/tire swing/rope course contraption. So the very moment that the weather gets nice, Shonda usually takes the children outside for the better part of the day.

The only draw back of the back yard, is the fact the for some reason when the spring comes, there are always gigantic bees buzzing around. And always being mindful of the children and not wanting them to get stung, Shonda tries to get rid of them the moment they get too close. Usually, when a bee shows up, she tries to swat it with whatever is handy or zap it with the hose. Lately the bees have been getting away because they are very large and you have to really hit them to kill them. This causes Shonda to try and get the little suckers over and over again. Trying various combinations of beat down sticks and dowsing devices. All the while the children are screaming and shouting words of encouragement.

Just the other day, during a particularly lengthy bee battle, Shonda finally achieved victory with an incredibly good shot with the garden hose spray nozzle. The entire group of children was intently watching this contest and squealed with delight as Shonda sprayed that little sucker just right and he began his slow, spiraling descent to the ground. Once Nicholas saw the bee going down, he looked at his mother with a completely serious and straight face and said, “Mom, he’s saying “May day, May day, May day!”. Then he ran back off to go play in the dirt.

Shonda could do nothing but laugh as she walked over to the bee to put it out of its misery.

Where do kids come up with this stuff?

Well Water...Part Two

When he was finished and suitably clothed, he walked around to Shonda’s side of the bed and turned off the radio, which was still softly mumbling from when the alarm had gone off. He walked towards the bedroom door and towards the downstairs portion of the morning ritual. Chris headed downstairs and As he walked down the carpeted hallway of the second floor of the house, he peeked into the first door on the right. Savannah, as usual, was still sound asleep. Chris could hardly make out that anyone was in the bed at all because she had piled up a couple of comforters and assorted pillows and stuffed animals, so that all he could see was a small tuft of very blond hair. He blew her a kiss and started for the stairs.

As he approached the stairs he looked passed the half open door into his oldest son Noah’s bedroom. The boy, too, was still asleep. Unlike his older sister, Noah had thrown all of his covers off during the night and was now sleeping sideways on his bed in the fetal position. Both of his hands were clasped tightly between his legs and his head was hanging off the edge of the bed. Chris shut the door completely and decided to be preemptive and get their youngest child, Nicholas, out of bed before he started his own version of the morning ritual.

They had never discovered the exact time when Nicholas usually began his day. They weren’t sure if he worked his way up to the “grand finale” of his ritual or if he popped straight out of bed with guns blazing. All they knew was that what their youngest child did on a daily basis was quite possibly the most annoying thing that any living person on the entire planet could ever do while others were trying to sleep.

Nicholas, or “Bit” as his father called him (“Bit” being short for “little bit”), was 3 years old. He was a firecracker of a little boy with pale blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He had a very intense attitude towards life, as most three year olds do, and was just beginning to speak in full sentences. About a year earlier, Bit had started to wake up well before the rest of the household by about half an hour or so. Chris surmised that in those early days he simply woke up and then sat in his bed until someone came into to get him. Once Nicholas got tired of waiting in his bed, he began to get out of bed and wait by his door. When the sheer boredom began to get the better of him, he eventually switched to crying until his door opened. The problem with this was that no one could hear him crying while they were sound asleep. Noah and Savannah could tune out an artillery barrage while sleeping, and mommy and daddy’s room was just too far away for them to hear him. He would continue to cry until someone, anyone, noticed him and released him from his morning prison. Usually, it was when Chris or Shonda were on their way downstairs that they would hear the crying and see a tiny little arm sticking all the way out from underneath the bedroom door.

So when all of these actions did not produce the desired effect that Bit was looking for, he finally stumbled upon one that did. Once Bit realized that crying was an effort in futility, he switched to a more direct approach. When he woke up, he would get out of bed and lay on the floor directly by his door. While on this back he would lift his feet up and place them on the door. Then he would begin to kick.

It would be very slow at first. A rhythmic “thump…thump…thump” that you could even consider hypnotic under different circumstances. That hypnotic thump would then turn into a soft drumming sound that you couldn’t quite make out, especially if you were sound asleep. As he sped his feet up, you couldn’t quite make out what the sound was, you just know that something wasn’t quite right with the morning time serenity.

Then, as if he was the entire timpani section of the St. Louis Symphony being lead by a world class director, there would come a crescendo of sound…accompanied by a powerful, escalating vibration that you could feel throughout the house. Bit could pound his feet on his door so quickly that the resulting tremor literally shook the entire second floor of their two-story home. And then to accentuate this musical interlude of domestic percussion, he would highlight his performance with a two-footed door pound that could actually hurt your ears if you were too close. A few times, when Chris and Shonda had been downstairs while Bit was waking up from a nap, they could actually see the water in their drinking glass vibrate and picture frames shift on their nails.

But as annoying as this single act was, Chris had always had to give props to his baby boy because he always got the desired result from this action. He had tried to ignore it the first few times thinking that Bit would get tired of that too. But eventually Chris realized he just needed to suck it up and go get the kid, otherwise the entire house would be awake and then he’d be the bad guy for letting it happen.

So Chris, hoping to avoid an encore performance of bedroom door percussion, opened up Bit’s door and stepped inside. His room was still dark with only a thin beam of sunlight coming through a crack in his very dark and heavy curtains. Chris walked over and gently whispered “Good morning little man”. Bit immediately woke up and then jumped into his daddy’s arms. Chris scooped him up and they both went downstairs together. As they passed the other kids’ rooms, Nicholas raised one finger to his lips and said “shhh” with a very serious look on his face. His father laughed and they both went down the steps.

Party at the Moontower…Part 4: The Next Day

That next morning, we had all made plans to meet at the local Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Eating at a public place for us is no small chore. The reason is because with three small children, two of them rambunctious boys, you never know just how your eating experience is going to turn out. And on top of that, the Cracker Barrel just has too many things to get in trouble with. The little triangle shaped peg game didn’t last but five seconds as it was intended to be used. The golf tees quickly turned into flying objects as did the wooden triangles, and I had to remove all traces of them from our table.

Everyone had ordered and we were patiently waiting for our food. This period is the part about eating out that Shonda and I absolutely hate. With three kids, the domino effect takes place. One of them starts to get hyper and act out and by the time they’ve been calmed down and reprimanded, another one starts right in. Luckily, we hadn’t had to correct any of them yet. However, it was during our wait for food that both boys had to use the rest room at the same time (of course).

I begrudgingly followed them to the bathroom, hoping that there wouldn’t be anyone else in there. Unfortunately, there was and there were none of the lowered children’s urinals at all. So the boys and I entered into the only open stall and they prepared to go potty. This is no small task to oversee. I have to make sure that they don’t touch anything with their hands or any other exposed part. I also have to make sure that Nicholas doesn’t have erratic aim as he has only been house-broken for a few months. Things started off just fine, but Nicholas leaned a little too far back and his “stream” left the bowl. To my horror, it began splashing all over the side of the stall and eventually began to trickle down to the floor. Noah was staring at me with a very concerned look on his face. I quickly picked Nicholas up, hoping to manually aim him in the right direction. Unfortunately, I aimed too low and he peed directly onto the left shoe of the person sitting in the next stall over. As I gasped at this new development I quickly re-aimed him again. Only this time he squirmed and I almost lost my grip. This caused be to aim him directly at Noah. The poor little man could do nothing but stare in horror at his little brother as Nicholas peed all over his shirt. Noah began to cry and I quickly grabbed both of them and bolted out of the restroom, hoping the person who was minding his business in the next stall was not finishing up as well.

The rest of the day was uneventul after that.

Party at the Moontower…Part 3: The Ceremony

At about an hour before sunset, the ceremony began. The grooms were waiting on the front porch of the bait shop with the preacher. There was a wrought iron arch adorned with tiny flowers in the middle and the all three were waiting patiently for the brides to come down. All of those in attendance had pulled their lawn chairs over to the front yard of the bait shop. Everyone sat gawking at the grooms, which was making them visibly nervous. They were also shouting words of encouragement like “Take your hats off!” and “don’t run!” The general mood was light and relaxed and the sky had even grown lighter as the storm clouds were clearing the area.

The moment finally arrived and the bridal party emerged from the upstairs of the bait shop and began to descend the steps. At the bottom, the brides’ father took one arm in each of his and they walked up to the make-shift alter on the front porch. They all took their places on either side of the grooms and preacher. It was quite a large group of ladies with, curiously, no men. On the brides’ side, there was my wife and Chrishell as well as a few other family friends. I noticed that my daughter Savannah was acting as the ring bearer. I privately mused if she was asked to do this task or went out of her way to offer her services.

On the grooms’ side (again, the only men were the grooms and the preacher) there were a few people I’d never seen before in my life. But one lady really caught my attention. I’m not trying to be mean, but she was very heavy and was wearing a strapless purple dress. I had flashes of a popular children’s show about an imaginary purple dinosaur whose name starts with a “B”. Oddly enough, another guest made the comment that he could not get “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” out of his head and found himself humming the tune all evening. Apparently he had images of the California Raisins.

All in all, the wedding party looked great and the ceremony was lovely, however short and sweet. I was asked by Shonda to take pictures of the event and I had a blast doing so. However, I quickly learned that it’s difficult to take good pictures with one hand while the other holds a bottle, so I stuck my appetizer in my back pocket. Again, I was oblivious to the fact that I was at a small town, Southern Baptist wedding and therefore did not notice the whispers going on behind my back. I also did not realize that I was greatly offending many of the older folks, including the preacher, by drinking a beer. I’ve been to dozens of Catholic weddings and the minute the reception begins, the drinks get poured. Hell, I’ve even seen a priest or two have a cocktail during my lifetime.

When I finally realized what was going on, I found that I wasn’t the only one who was the source of tension. Graham, too, was drinking a beer and even Tabatha had popped a top when the ceremony was over. Ranae, the girls' mother, was apparently in the middle of a heated argument with RJ (one of her newest sons-in-law, mind you) about how the keg of beer she had purchased was for the reception and not for Tabatha and RJ’s trailer afterwards. This little tiff had set off a chain of events and the name calling started shortly after that. In the span of about an hour, we had two groups of people: those who wanted to start the party and those who did not drink at all or who wanted to wait for the preacher to leave. Or to further explain: our side of the family verses RJ’s side of the family.

“Trash” was a word that was thrown around by both sides. The large purple woman was by far the biggest antagonist of the whole group and even recruited a plump old man in her catcalls and insults of various women in our group. At one point, someone said something regarding Chrishell that was not nice at all. I’m going to chalk it up to complete jealousy and rudeness, and that’s putting it mildly. Chrishell endured it all though, and never lost her cool one time. Graham, however, being the southern gentleman that he is, did confront the old man who had joined in the name calling with the big purple woman. Ironically, things calmed down directly after that and everyone eventually started to have a good time. The keg was tapped and the girls were enjoying their favorite drink: a new sensation called a “Fuzetini” made from the fitness drink Fuze and Vodka. It’s all the rage in the New York clubs. I was acting as bartender and making them very well. I even got the girls’ grandmother to try one, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Eventually the sun went down and the DJ began playing his mix. Unfortunately for him, the only logical place for him to set up all of his equipment was directly next to the portable toilet. He had to endure that scent all night on top of all the other aromas. The poor bastard.

So there you have it. We drank. We ate. We endured the stench of rotten shrimp bits and cow patties. We danced. We played. And all in all, the evening turned out just fine.

Party at the Moontower…Part 2: Getting Ready

When we were first told of the plans for this wedding/reception, there was mention that the ceremony would be outside, and that the reception would be in a barn. The image that I had in my head was probably the same one that you have right now. However, when I arrived at the “barn”, what I had imagined was not even remotely close. Not by a long shot.

I pulled into a driveway on a piece of land that had two buildings. One was a little house that had a wooden deck practically all the way around it. The other, was a two story building (previously a residence) that served as a bait shop. There was a porch on the front and a wooden staircase that went up the side of the building to the second story. On the back of this building was also a small addition, making it a fairly good sized structure. I pulled into a small paved parking lot and walked the rest of the way up the drive. There were already a half dozen cars there, and I could see that Graham was not alone. I spotted him in the small crowd and asked for an update. He just shook his head and smiled. The wind had picked up, causing me to look up into the sky. The clouds were beginning to churn and it started to spit a little rain. It looked like things could start to unravel on our little soirée at any time.

“Where’s the barn?” I asked. He pointed to the small room at the back of the second building. “Right there,” he said. I was confused because I was expecting a barn barn and not a building that folks were calling a barn, which wasn’t really a barn at all. The whole setup was basically this building and a paved driveway that wrapped around it. As we walked behind the building I noticed that there was a grill going already, but the smells of barbeque were being edged out by the fragrances of nature. All around the property were fenced in pastures and about a dozen cows. The fences butted up right next to the pavement of the driveway and the sources of the “fragrance of nature” were abundant and very close to the “barn”. There was also another smell that I could not quite make out, but was definitely overpowering both the grill and the contents of the pasture.

Graham had gone over what he’d done and seen since he’d been there. They had set up one table at the back of the building and had put a plastic table cloth on it. A few folks had brought various covered dishes and these were helping to hold the tablecloth down from the wind. He’d also brought up a port-a-potty from several dozen yards away and placed it in what he felt was a strategic location, which was right next to a concrete pad, off to the side of the main area, that was about twenty feet by twenty feet.

“That smell,” Graham continued in a quiet voice “is from a big bucket of shrimp that had been sitting there for a VERY long time. They were using it to feed fish in their pond.” Apparently, that morning, the owner of the property had decided to pour out that bucket of shrimp right on the grass next to our little reception area/driveway. Directly next to what we had figured would be the dance floor and DJ area. Now it all made sense. The smell that was overpowering not only smoke from a grill and fresh cow patties, was the acrid odor of shrimp bits that had been sitting out for who knows how long, festering in the mild heat of a May day. For Christ’ sake, the portable toilet smelled like a flower compared to the stench of rotten shrimp bits. Also that morning, the grooms-to-be had tried to use some chemicals to get rid of the smell and this angered the owner of the bait shop. He had retaliated by locking the doors to the “barn”. Not a big deal, except that all of the tables and chairs that were supposed to be used that evening were in there.

So there we were, Graham and I, amongst people we had never met, considering what to do next. I surveyed the situation and made a decision. The grill was going. The lone table was set up. The dance floor was cleared of debris. The latrine was ready to go. The stench of rotten shrimp bits was in the air. People were showing up. The grooms-to-be, who were there for a brief period, had left to get ready. And since the girls’ mother, who was in charge of this entire shin-dig, was no where to be found, there was nothing left for us to do.

“Our work here is done,” I said. And Graham and I went back to Tabatha’s house.

A few minutes later we were back at Tabatha’s to give our report. The girls were in last minute mode and we couldn’t really bother them with all of the details. Tabatha was on her way to the “barn” and RJ and Jeremy were getting dressed. Ranae, the girls mom, was still no where to be found. “We need to get down there,” Shonda said. Graham went back to change and I started to round up the kids.

A short while later we were back at the bait shop. The number of cars and people had tripled since Graham and I had left and it looked like folks were taking it upon themselves to finish setting things up. There were more tables set up by the first one and the buffet of food was growing larger. People were also bringing their own chairs and other items on which to sit. We all started up the long paved driveway and the girls went up to the little room above the shop, to make last minute adjustments and wait for Charissa, who was on her way. The DJ had shown up and was getting ready to set up his equipment. The preacher was there, going over the last minute details of his service. Our children had spotted group of other kids playing in a nearby field, and went over to join them. The ladies were heading to the outdoor staircase and up into the second story of the bait shop to finish getting ready. Graham and I had suddenly found ourselves with nothing to do.

We spent the next hour or so watching over the kids and I made a few trips to my car to grab Graham and I a few “appetizers”. I saw a few others were already enjoying some Anheuser-Busch products so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I mean, after all, we were at a wedding. Unfortunately, this Catholic boy had forgotten that he was right in the middle of Southern Baptist country. In retrospect, we probably should have waited.

Party at the Moontower…Part 1: The Arrival

A few days ago, our family celebrated the marriage vows of two of my sisters-in-law; Tabatha and Charissa. They were marrying their long time boyfriends RJ and Jeremy, respectively. What follows is the tale of down home, honest to goodness, Kentucky nuptials. It’s always interesting when two families join via the bonds of holy matrimony. I don’t know if we should classify this as the beginnings of a beautiful relationship between our three groups. Or if it’s the beginning of a “Hatfield’s vs. McCoy’s” or “The House of Montague vs. The House of Capulet” type of situation. I’ll let you be the judge.

We set out early that Saturday morning so that we could get there with enough time to get ready. This is usually no easy task as we have an eight year old daughter, Savannah, and two boys, Nicholas and Noah, aged four and six respectively. And the drive from St. Louis to Benton, KY is four hours at least, but we made it with about two hours until show time. The weather forecast was not looking good and the entire day had been overcast and bleak. And although the rains hadn’t come yet, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, the clouds started looking a little bit darker.

As we were getting out of our car, we saw Graham (Shonda’s sister’s boyfriend) in the parking lot on his phone. We all walked inside together and went to our room. Chrishell (Shonda’s sister) showed up very quickly and we all exchanged hugs and kisses. The ladies left and went down to their grandmother’s room and tried on a few of the dresses they had brought for the ceremony. Graham and I stayed in our room doing a little catching up as it had been almost a year since we’d seen each other (we don’t get to talk on the phone too much). Just as I announced I had brought an “appetizer” of our favorite beer (Corona, of course) the girls showed back up and it was time for us to really start getting ready. Graham and Chrishell left for Tabatha’s house and Shonda started with her own hair and makeup.

I was given three very specific tasks; go and find greeting cards for the brides and grooms, get safety pins (we’d forgotten the boys’ belts) and grab something to eat. I was also instructed to take on of the boys with me, and it didn’t matter to Shonda which one. These may sound like relatively simple tasks. But one thing about rural Kentucky, especially when you’re at a hotel right off the main highway and not actually in a town, is that you’re options for places that may have these things are severely limited. Also, I had chosen to take Noah (simply because he already had shoes on) and with him, you never know which “Noah” you’re going to get.

Shonda was thinking Arby’s, so we headed that way first. I thought I was going to kill all of my birds with one stone when I realized that the Arby’s was actually inside of a truck stop. You know the kind that has a restaurant, convenience store, showers, etc. Usually these types of places have a little bit of everything, so I walked in with high hopes. However, after a lap through the place, I realized that they had none of the items I needed and Noah had worked himself into a spasm because I would not buy him a big giant lollipop. “I NEVER get big giant lollipops!” was literally his response as we left the truck stop. I looked up in the sky and noticed that the clouds were still darkening at a steady pace.

I had asked for directions to the nearest place that may have the cards and safety pins. I was directed to a tiny little town about three miles away because the truck stop cashier was “pretty sure they got that stuff there”. We pulled into the parking lot of the only center of commerce in the immediate area and I quickly noticed a Food Giant grocery store. Great, I thought. All grocery stores have the stuff I need. I walked in and began looking, with Noah still crying about big giant lollipops. Since I knew that I was running out of time, I found a clerk and asked about the cards and safety pins. To my dismay, they did not have anything like that. “But the Dollar General just down the way might,” said the clerk.

So I packed up still heart-broken and lollipop-less Noah and we headed even further down the road to the Dollar General. Luckily, they had everything I needed and the greeting cards were two for one dollar! We made our purchase and retraced our route back to the Arby’s. We got back to the room with little time to spare and barely had eaten our food before Shonda said it was time to go. Shonda looked stunning in her green strapless number and Savannah was as pretty as ever in a white dress with a flower print and a thin white sweater to wear over it. The boys had matching gray shorts and yellow and black sandals with Noah wearing a green polo and Nicholas wearing a red one. For myself, I wanted to blend into the crowd that was going to be there, so I had on jeans and a long sleeve button up shirt. It was definitely a casual dress code.

We piled back in the van and made our way through the tiny towns and back country roads to Tabatha’s house. They live on a nice sized piece of land in a quaint little trailer. Directly in front of the trailer was a shed/garage type of structure. As we pulled up, the entire driveway was full of vehicles and cars were spilling over into the yard, which is where we parked as well. Shonda and Savannah immediately went inside and I and the boys took a quick survey of the land because I knew the boys would want to play outside. I walked around to the back of the trailer only to discover yet another living structure (this one an RV) with a small fenced pasture for some sort of bovine. I also noticed various tractors, lawn mowers, a few jet skis, etc. and decided that the boys should probably stay inside.

As we came back around to the front we were greeted by a very large Doberman named Legend. Legend seemed like a good natured dog, but I was still wary of the children being around him. After a few moments, they all seemed to be getting along well so I left them on the porch and went inside. Tabatha was there as well as Shonda, Chrishell, Grandma Donna and other children and members of the bridal party. I immediately looked for Graham to see if we could have an appetizer before all of the festivities. Graham, unfortunately, was no where to be found. “Nobody has done anything,” Tabatha said when I asked where he was. I was quickly told by all there that things were beginning to unravel and that what they thought was taken care of was not. “There’s nothing set up so Graham went down there by himself to see what he could do,” said Chrishell. I quickly jumped in the car and drove to the reception place to what I could do to help as well.

Well Water...Part One

It was a Tuesday morning, just like any other Tuesday morning at the Davisson household. In the master bedroom, darkened only by the thick drawn drapes covering the windows, an alarm signaled the start of the day. The clock, which was set to go off at 6:20 am, turned on and a soft muffle of country music caused the occupants of the room to stir. Shonda, reached over and hit the snooze button, just like every other Tuesday morning. In reality, it was only 6:10 am. Shonda was one of those people who liked to set the bedroom clock ahead about ten minutes. Her husband, Chris, never really understood why but guessed it had to do with some sort of psychological effect.

They both lay snoozing for another half hour. Then Shonda, who was usually the first to rise, willed herself awake and got out of bed. Chris, who usually lay in bed for another 15 minutes while Shonda got ready, could hear the shuffle of her feet on the hardwood floor as she made her way across their bedroom and into the walk-in closet. After choosing her wardrobe for the day, a pair of khaki Capri pants and a light colored tee shirt and a pair of pink flip-flops, she quickly got dressed and went into the bathroom to finish getting ready.

From his cocoon of sheets, pillows and comforter, Chris could hear her in the bathroom. The sound of running water indicated that she was either brushing her teeth, or washing her face….typical morning ritual stuff. He continued to lay with his eyes closed, not really sleeping but not fully awake yet, desperately trying to catch those last few moments of peace and quiet before having to face the day. When he heard Shonda pull the bedroom door closed, he sighed and hopped out of bed to begin his own version of the morning ritual.

Chris, at the ripe old age of 36, was a man of a little less than medium height and a little bit more than average weight. His father was well over six feet, but his mother and her entire family only topped out at five feet. So he made himself feel better about his lack of stature by blaming it on them. The latter, his packing on of pounds over the years, stemmed from the fact that he imbibed his fair share of Budweiser product and didn’t really count calories on a daily basis the way he probably should and didn’t have the energy to exercise.

As he reached the bathroom, he flicked on the light and stood peering with one eye closed at his blurry reflection in the mirror. For reasons he never really understood, every morning his eyes were so heavy with the sleep from the night before, he could never fully open them until he had put in his contacts.

He turned around and relieved himself at the commode and flushed. Step one of the morning ritual was complete.

He turned back around, washed his hands and dried both of his middle fingers on a nearby towel. Being very careful not to touch his index fingers to the cloth and thereby contaminate his fingers with bits of dust and towel particles that would inevitably end up on his contacts. He opened his contact case, right side first, and plopped his finger into the reservoir. As he pulled his finger out, he placed it about two inches from his eyeball so that he could see if his fishing expedition was successful. It was, and he proceeded to insert his “catch” into his eye. The shock of the cold contact solution was rather refreshing and he was able to open his eye just a little bit more. He repeated the process for his left eye and stood peering at his much clearer reflection in the mirror. Step two of the morning ritual was complete.

He rubbed his hands quickly through his short cropped brown hair, which was only lightly spattered with gray at the temples. Years earlier, when the first few gray hairs had sprouted out of his head, Shonda used to amuse herself by plucking them out with tweezers. Only she wasn’t very good at it and usually ended up taking quite a few non-gray hairs as well. Chris was glad that she had discontinued this pastime. Satisfied with his hair, he started for the closet.

He sighed deeply and started steps three and four of his morning ritual. This involved brushing his teeth while at the same time putting on deodorant. It was a complicated procedure that involved a one armed application technique. Sometimes, although he would never admit it publicly, when step one involved “sitting down” he could combine steps 1, 3 and 4. And while that may sound gross, he was always extremely careful to avoid any chances for “cross contamination”. And, it was a time saver.

With steps 3 and 4 out of the way, it was time for a quick “head under the sink” maneuver that had a two-fold purpose: to shock his still groggy head with some cold water, therefore waking him up completely and allowing his hair to be styled for the day. For Chris, whose hair was only about half an inch long at the most, “styling” consisted mainly of a small amount of a hair product quickly run through his hair and then spiking his bangs. It wasn’t a salon quality styling, but it got the job done. With step five of the morning ritual completed, it was time for wardrobe.

Chris was almost ashamed to admit it, considering he was in his mid thirties, a husband and a father of three, but he still lived like he was in college with regards to the clothing he wore and how he treated it. If his work clothes weren’t visibly dirty and they passed a smell test, then he was going to wear them. Granted, Shonda, his beautiful bride of over eight years, did all of the family laundry on a weekly if not daily basis. But he felt as if he was lessening her load by doing this. He was sure that by recycling his clothing until the last possible day, that he was saving her huge amounts of time that was better spent on other issues. Plus, he had an off the wall theory that your clothes would last longer if you didn’t wash them all the time. And, since Chris hated shopping for clothes, this little quirk of his was a “win win” situation for everyone. However, before you judge him as some fat, dirty smelly guy; please know that he has never applied this theory to underwear, because that would just be gross. Even Chris realized that applying the smell test to one’s own drawers was probably not going to be a pleasant experience.

He made his way into the walk-in and surveyed his side of the closet. He wore his clothes on a rotational basis. That meant that he had about three pairs of dress pants and a finite number of dress shirts and ties. His pants were all colors that you could wear with either a blue or white dress shirt. And his ties were all colors that would match any of his shirt/pant combinations. For example, he could wear his dark green pants with his white shirt and maroon tie. And then turn around two days later and wear the same shirt and tie combo with his khaki or brown pants. By mixing and matching these various combinations, he could get the equivalent of five or six business days before he really needed the wife to do some of his laundry.

While Chris’ place of employment requires a business dress code (shirt and tie) on a Monday through Thursday basis, during the summer months it was business casual five days a week. What this meant for him, was that instead of having to wear a tie that started to choke the life out of him by 5 o’clock, he was free to wear any of the several colored polo type shirts he’d collected over the years. He loved business casual summertime, because that meant that his wardrobe choices increased exponentially and his rotation lasted for about ten business days before laundry was a necessity. He could literally mix and match and not have to wear the same thing twice within a five day period.

Today he decided on fresh clothing: khaki pants and a salmon colored shirt that he looked quite good in when he was tan, and he had the picture to prove it.

He had purchased the shirt a year earlier in preparation for their first real vacation since their honeymoon. Chris and Shonda had booked a cruise on the Caribbean and he knew that he would need some decent summer threads to lounge around in. He had selected this shirt on the next to last day of their trip, which was also about the time that the initial third degree tropical sunburn he got from the first day had worn off. For some idiotic reason he felt the need for a good “base” coat before applying the SPF 50 and he paid for it for the next three days. However, after the redness (and the pain) had worn off, his skin was about as tan as it had ever been and it offset the pink color of the shirt quite nicely. During that leg of their trip they had just left a port of call and were sailing back to the starting point of their ocean voyage. They had just passed through a late afternoon/early evening thunderstorm which had left the sky smattered with various clouds of all shapes and sizes. They were still about an hour from their pre-determined dinner reservation and we were wasting time on the Promenade deck waiting for the sun to set. Chris wasn’t a very poetic individual, but even he had to admit that watching the sun set in the middle of the ocean in this particular setting was quite a spectacular sight to behold. He and Shonda stood staring out to sea, watching the sun’s last rays of the day poke through the assortment of clouds left behind by the storm. With great anticipation, they watched and waited as the blazing orange globe sunk further and further down into the waiting sea. Chris found himself watching so intently that he half expected to hear a loud “hiss” when it finally did touch the blue waters of the Caribbean.

They were so caught up in the moment of it all, that Shonda asked a fellow passenger to take their picture as the last few bits of the sun sank into its nightly resting place. The resulting photo was quite nice and both subjects looked extremely “vacationy” and happy. Shonda, who always took a great picture, was stunning in her blue satin dress. Of course, if you asked Chris, Shonda always looked stunning. That stemmed from the fact that she had a natural beauty and didn’t really require much of the maintenance that some women do.

Shonda had long auburn brown hair that fell passed her shoulders. She had beautiful brown doe-like eyes, was tall and slender and there was a “girl next door” quality to her that made more than a few members of the opposite sex turn their heads to look. On this day, she had her hair pulled back in a pony tail with a few locks falling about her face. She was also tanned and looked great, especially against the back drop of a blazing sunset.

Chris, on the other hand, rarely took a good photo. While he still considered himself to be a least somewhat handsome, in most of the photos he was in, he felt as if he looked like a fat pasty white boy. So because the setting and subjects were just right in this particular shot, it turned out to be a nice little vacation memory. So nice, in fact, that when they returned home from their trip Shonda had the print enlarged and framed. It was now hanging in their living room right next to their wedding day photo.

He reached up and grabbed hold of the shirt by one of the sleeves and gave it a pull. As it came free, the hanger which had held it popped up into the air and for a split second held an Olympic gymnast type of pose. Like that moment on the parallel bar right before the athlete goes from a hand stand into some acrobatic flipping, turning, dismount. To Chris’ dismay the hanger just fell back down and rocked back and forth a few times before finally stopping.

With shirt in hand, he grabbed his khaki Dockers from the hook on the back of the closet door, bent down to the shoe rack and picked up his brown shoes and snatched his belt off the shelf. With his arms full of clothing, he walked out and made his way back out into the bedroom, pausing just long enough to use his elbow to turn off the closet light. He shuffled back across the floor to the bed and flopped back in, clothes and all. For a split second, as he lay in bed and watching the blades of the overhead ceiling fan go round and round, he considered taking a vacation day. He peered out of the window which was directly behind where his head usually rested on his side of the bed. It appeared as if it was going to be a very nice day. He decided against calling in because he only had five vacation days left, and then slowly sat up and got dressed.

I’m My Own Grandpa...

"I'm My Own Grandpa" written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947 (made even more famous by Tom Arnold in The Stupids)
Hear it here: Download file

Shortly after my mother passed away, Shonda’s grandmother called one day to get my father’s phone number. She said that she just wanted to ask him how he was doing and see if he was okay. I thought that it was a very sweet gesture, because I could tell that she was genuinely concerned. However, if you know me, I was quick to start cracking the jokes.

I mused to Shonda about how she was probably going to test the waters and see if she could get him to ask her out on a date. She said, “Oh my…what if my grandma married your dad?!” That got us started on all of the mind boggling changes that would be felt down through our respective family trees.

Shonda’s grandmother would now be my step-mother. This means that my mother-in-law would now be my step-sister causing my wife to become my niece by marriage and have to call me “uncle”. Shonda would also have to call her father-in-law “grandpa”. As we continued to dig deeper into the issue, we also realized that Shonda’s mother would now become her aunt due to the fact that her mom was also my sister (even if only by marriage). It would also stand to reason that my own children would now become my great niece and nephews, because technically I would become their mother’s uncle. This would allow me to spoil them like only an uncle can and relieve me of all my fatherly obligations as far as their upbringing was concerned. And not only that, the more we thought about it, we realized that our children would also become their own cousins because they would be both my niece and nephews as well as my own children. Adding this type of duality to children so young could never be a good thing.

In the end, after carefully weighing all the pros and cons, we decided that it would be best if my father and Shonda’s grandmother stayed “just friends” and only saw each other during the holidays.