Good night, little house

It was the loneliest half hour I’d spent in years.

I’d dropped the guys at their grandmother’s so they wouldn’t be underfoot as the movers worked. So it was just me in the house we were about to leave after a decade, boxed in by a mountain of boxes and memories.

In the backyard I saw citrus trees that were only a foot tall when Dad and I planted them our first year in the house. They now topped the privacy fence.

In front of the fireplace I glimpsed ghosts of the colorful toy piano Big Guy loved when he was a babe. He could smash the keyboard with his fists and the footboard with his toes. The chair zoomed the length of it.

I saw shadows of Boots scooting across the...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: They never forget

By Debra Legg, debralegg.com

Back in the spring, Big Guy was upset that Dad’s birthday fell during basic training and all he got was extra push-ups from his drill sergeant. Forty-two — one for each year. Then he had to do it again as the sergeant had the entire company help “celebrate.”

“It’s not fair!” Big Guy said. “How can he have a birthday if he doesn’t get to eat his cake.”

I said we’d have a birthday party for Dad when he comes home. It mollified Big Guy, and I figured he’d forget about it by June.

He didn’t.

Which is why last week I put in a rush order for camouflage napkins and plates and spent an hour in Target in an intense philosophical debate about which...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: 4 is the magic number

He went to bed one night a callow youth of 3, excited about his birthday the next day but not quite understanding that if he’d just go to sleep it would be here before he knew it.

He awoke the following morning a mature lad of 4, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Or at least get to school under his own locomotion, something we’d been trying for a few weeks with varying degrees of success and myriad decibel levels of protest.

“I can do it, and I won’t get tired,” Boots said. “I’m 4 now!”

There must be something magical about being 4. It was about that age that it clicked with Big Guy, too, that he can control his own actions, that he’s not just a victim of what the...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: Breaking out on his own at age 5

I’m not supposed to be here.

I’m supposed to be at a museum 45 miles away, watching 80 kindergarteners ooh and aah over helicopters and fire trucks while they occasionally pay attention long enough to learn something.

I’m at home with Boots instead of on Big Guy’s final field trip of the year, though, after a giant baby-sitter fail. Siblings weren’t allowed on the field trip, and I had no one to watch Boots. Really, I don’t need a village but it would be nice to have a reliable helping hand once in a while.

I could see disaster coming yesterday evening, after I’d tried to call the alleged sitter repeatedly to confirm. No answer, and no returned calls. “I might not be able to go...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: It’s your birthday? Crud

Life would be so much easier if Boots had just stuck to the plan four years ago.

He wasn’t supposed to be born until early July. I dreamed of a little Yankee Doodle baby and smiled as I imagined how low-stress his birthday parties would be. Free fireworks, just add cake, ice cream and a few friends and you’re good to go.

Boots screwed that up, though, by showing up almost two weeks early. This year, his lack of foresight has created huge scheduling conflicts because his birthday lands smack in the middle of a week where the calendar’s so dotted with red I want to apply calamine lotion.

It’s also Big Guy’s last week of school, which means that instead of learning...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: A kid, a Camelbak, and carrying the weight of absent dad

Nothing says love like a slip of a 5-year-old toting an eight-pound Camelbak around for 45 minutes at a school open house — particularly when the same kid claims that carrying his own backpack is more than he can endure on a daily basis.

And nothing says lonely like that same kid suddenly balking at his tee ball team’s run-scoring ritual because it involved a salute. “No, salutes are for Daddy,” he said last Saturday to the coach, who up to that point hadn’t known that Daddy is away with the Army.

Saturday appears to be the when the most recent wave of missing Dad hit. It came, I think, because the opposing tee ball team included a number of kids Big Guy had played soccer with the past two years. The inimitable...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: Bargains in the bulk-candy bin

Somehow, probably because of food allergies, the guys had managed to make it to the ripe old ages of 5 and 3 without discovering the joys of the bulk-candy bin.

That changed Sunday, and they now have a whole new view of candy-onomics as a result.

We were headed for the grocery store when Boots grabbed a dollar from his dresser drawer. “Can I buy a treat?”

He can’t do much damage with that, I thought. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Big Guy, a more experienced treat-shopper who’s savvy to how much things cost, scoffed. “He’s not going to get much for that,” he said. That didn’t stop him from rushing to grab his own dollar, though.

9 to 5 to 9: Discovering life beyond Happy Meals

There was a brief window about five years ago when restaurants were safe.

Big Guy was starting to explore solid food, and the waitresses at our favorite Mexican place would coo as his chubby little fists dipped Ritz crackers into salsa.

Within months, though, the coos turned to eye rolls as Big Guy discovered gravity and its effect on rice falling from a fist. Then That Baby Who Ruined His Life showed up and Big Guy discovered acting out.

The average meal carried a 25 percent surcharge in the form of a “we’re sorry our kid’s a pig” over-tip. It was consumed in 3.6 minutes in hopes of finishing before storm clouds gathered. We wound up carrying hefty portions home in Styrofoam — bad for the...

Read more

9 to 5 to 9: Dad’s story — graduation

Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from making a tire-squealing U-turn and heading for the nearest store that stocks duct tape is knowing that the guys are more discombobulated than I am.

Such was the case the morning we headed on post for our first chance to see Dad in more than three months.

We’d spent the previous day crossing the time zones, but they were too “excitick” about the hotel and its pool to sleep at a sane hour. Which meant we overslept and I had to rush them through breakfast, out the door and into the rental car.

“Mommy, where are we? How long before we get there? How will we find Daddy?” Big Guy fired as we drove toward the base.

“I don’t...

Read more

Dad’s story: Training gets real

Your goal is to leave basic training without the drill sergeant knowing your name, a friend advised Dad around Christmas.

At graduation, you want the drill sergeant to look at you quizzically and ask, “Were you in my platoon?” the friend said.

When you’re 5-foot something and topping 200 pounds, though, there’s nowhere to hide, Dad quickly discovered.

“I see we have a pregnant one here,” the drill sergeant glowered. “Extra-large uniform for this guy.”

I added to Dad’s inability to keep a low profile by screwing up the platoon nickname on the back of envelopes for two weeks. Every time one arrived with the wrong words — and we wrote daily — it cost Dad push-ups or...

Read more