Mo Pho

(That’s ‘more pho’, naturally.)

So yes, last week I’d purchased pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup for the uninitiated) three times. And, because I wasn’t quite sick of all that fish sauce yet, I decided to make my own.

I found a recipe, I wrote a list of ingredients, and I went shopping.

First, to the farmer’s market. Where I stood at the Silver Sage Beef stall and asked stupid questions about bones. One of the guys, possibly the owner, pointed me to a bag of frozen bones and shrugged as I asked about marrow content (because the recipe had specified using only 20% marrow bones otherwise the broth would be too greasy).

I felt like I was buying dog food, to be honest. Even if it was organic dog food.

After procuring the bones, I had a host of other things to find: vermicelli rice noodles, thai basil, and star anise. Could I have gotten these things at the Superstore? Most likely, yes. Did I, instead, drive clear across town to patronize the T & T [Asian] Supermarket?

Most definitely, and with the two oldest wonder boys in tow.

We pulled into the ‘Pacific Plaza’, clearly a designated landing spot for all manner of Asian businesses, judging from the preponderance of foreign-symbol-signs.

The first clue that I’d perhaps gotten more than I’d bargained for? No parking. I ended up squeezing the beastly car-van into a spot designed for a Honda Civic.

We entered the shopping center and found we’d entered another world. Asian liquor store. Asian dentist. Asian restaurants. Bubble Tea. Red everywhere. Large displays of the kinds of items only children find fascinating, like the monster head with the waving arms. Under which an eloquent sign reposed: U Break U Buy.

‘Don’t TOUCH!’ I threatened through clenched teeth because I was not about to drop $20 or $30 on a monster with a waving arm.

We found the entrance to the T&T and I have to say a feeling of adventure descended upon me. ‘Isn’t this exciting?! I sighed wide-eyed.

We stopped at the Tea and Ginseng Stall for some bubble tea. Mango and Coconut for the Gort. Mango and Lychee for the Hen. ‘Large or small’ the kid manning the stand, asked, pointing to the tubs of black pearls. ‘Large?’ I guessed, unsure if one was better than another.

It was all going swimmingly until the boys ingested their first tapioca ball. Their initial enthusiasm died. Immediately.

But, as children who’ve gotten expensive treats for centuries have done, they didn’t come right out and say: ‘blech, gross, I don’t like this bubble tea.’ No, theirs was a much more subtle disengagement. They began holding their cups by their sides, far away from their mouths. After a while the cups were placed in the shopping cart. ‘Could you carry this for a while,’ one of them asked politely. And after that they said things like ‘when I get home, I’m going to share this with Percy.’

The kiss of death, the final farewell: voluntarily sharing something with one’s baby brother.

If I had to list my three biggest fears, I might say: (1) being involved in a car crash, (2) something happening to any of the Johnson boy-men and (3) China.

Yes, I have a deep-seated fear of China. Strange, but true. When I think of China, I think of (no offense to my vast Chinese readership) too many people, pollution and scary food. I also think of poop, and for this I mostly blame David Sedaris. I’d been aware of the Chinese habit of defecating in public, but then I paid money and listened to David Sedaris talk about it at length. Though I laughed, I also twisted my insides from physically cringing at least a thousand times in fifteen minutes, and could barely ingest my sweet potato fries afterwards. (Do click on the link if you enjoy Sedaris’ stories!)

So there, at the T & T Supermarket, I was sort of facing one of my biggest fears – China. I was navigating a very crowded store, surrounded by scary food (and scary smells) and a surprising number of store displays of Almond Roca.

Is Almond Roca very popular in China?

But, I have to say, navigating a little bit of China is much less scarier than tackling the real deal. I found the star anise. Found the rice noodles (or the entire aisle devoted to them, I should say) and I even walked away with a package of kaffir lime leaves which I’ve never seen anywhere else.

And then I walked back to my hulking minivan (whilst carrying two rather full cups of bubble tea) and drove off into the [Western] sunset, delighting in my ability to read the road signs.

At home, I parboiled the meat bones. I boiled the meat bones. I skimmed the fat. I skimmed more fat. I made a ‘spice bag’ to hold the star anise, cinnamon stick, coriander seeds, etc. For three hours I tended that broth, all while the Gort darted in and out of the kitchen: ‘is it ready yet? Is it ready now? Can I have some?’

It was 9pm when we Johnsons finally sat down to eat the homemade pho. The homemade pho that was glistening with many, enormous pools of grease – because there’d been too much marrow in the bones.

The verdict: my pho was rather tasty (once I left the broth overnight in the refrigerator and chiselled off three inches of grease.)

But as I sat there eating my tasty soup, I did some math: five to six hours of my time (if you include the shopping trips) and money spent on ingredients and gas for the car…..yep, I spent more than what I would have if I’d driven to Lemongrass and ordered 5 bowls of #38, not too spicy.

Serious Construction

It was Thursday night, 6.30pm, and the car-van was west-bound for the Signal Hill Library. Because I’m (deranged?) enough to agree when my four year old asks: ‘can we go to the library?’ At a time when other people eat dinner…..or put their kids to bed.

‘How many more days until Daddy comes home,’ the Gort suddenly asks. Seemingly out of the blue. A question I’d answered several hours earlier. [The answer was Sunday.] ‘Well, what day is it tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘Friday,’ my oldest replied. ‘And the day after that?’ ‘Saturday.’ ‘And the day after that?’ ‘Sunday.’ ‘Okay, so how many days is that?’ I replied-asked. There was silence as my math whiz tried to add up the days. A ridiculously long silence.

‘Seriously?!’ I wondered aloud.

‘What?’ the Gort panicked, ‘is there road construction?’

I started laughing. Because, thanks to our morning school drives, the kid apparently equates the utterance of the word ‘seriously‘ with the presence of road construction…not motherly frustration with his lazy math skills. (I mean, the Hen – who is four – actually figured out the answer, yelling ‘three days’ while the backseat fell silent.)

It reminded me of a conversation I’d had a couple of hours earlier, with a fellow school-mom. “The other day, my seven year old asked: ‘what does sh*t mean?’ And my nine year old answered, “oh, that means ‘we’re late‘.”"

Mallarhya

It was a rather long day, and yes I put the boys to bed much earlier than normal because I’d plum run out of patience to deal with them.

‘Mom, what’s malla-rhye-a?’ the Gort suddenly asks. ‘You mean malaria?’ I asked-guessed. ‘Yeah, malla-rhye-a…malaria…whatever.’ Surprisingly, I stand a proverbial ‘snowball’s chance in hell’ of answering this one. Having swallowed bitter quinine a few times in my youth. ‘In some places, like Africa,’ I begin, before realizing I don’t have a clue what malaria actually is, ‘if a mosquito bites you…..then you might get malaria.’

Ta-da – Malaria: in one easy step.

‘Do people die,’ my alarmist-in-training asks. And now I feel cornered because I can see him freaking out next time he gets a mosquito bite; that death is imminent. ‘Yes, some people die,’ I feel compelled to honesty. ‘Little people?’ he asks. ‘Yes,’ I reply because doesn’t the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation do something with malaria or mosquito nets or something?Isn’t it, like, a problem?

‘I’m not little,’ the Hen suddenly announces from his bed. Because people who are four are practically adults, I guess.

‘I’m going to need to check on the computer what malaria really is,’ I finally confess, fearful of misleading the blond boy wonder(s).

‘Can you do it right now?’ he asks with a surprising sense of urgency. Especially since it is Fall. And we live in….Canada.

I head downstairs to my office and consult wikipedia. I’m lost after ‘eukaryotic protists’. So I consult the World Health Organization.

I return to the boys’ bedroom to convey what I’ve learned, as much as my science-averse brain will allow. [My only memories from Honors Biology are that of Mrs. Lightfoot (?) spinning around on the floor, like a bug, and a boy named Charley telling me I have really big feet.]

‘Malaria is caused by mosquitoes that are infected with parasites,’ I try, again.

‘What’s a parasite?’

This might be why people have ipads or iphones.

‘It’s like a bug.’ I guesstimate. ‘Okay, let’s say I’m a mosquito. And I get a parasite [insert hand motion to convey 'infested with parasite']. And then I bite you – I suck up your blood and now I’ve given you the parasite. Then you might get malaria.’

‘How will I know?’

Headache and vomiting 10-15 days after the mosquito bite?

‘Will I need to call the hospital?’

‘Yes, if you think you have malaria, you should probably call the hospital. Why are you thinking about malaria, anyway?’

Blank stare.

‘Why did you ask me what malaria is,’ I translate.

‘I don’t know. Did I ask you what malaria is?’

‘Yes.’

Playground Dilemmas

When I picked up the Gort from school yesterday, we headed for the playground. The weather was unbelievably beautiful and I had nowhere else to be. Except at home, dealing with the laundry and the chaos. It was a no-brainer, really. I was standing under a tree, talking to a couple of other moms, when the Hen ran towards me.

‘I need to go pee.’

It was an urgent matter, I could tell. After all, the kid had recently downed an entire bottle of water. But we were at a playground. With no restroom facilities. I suppose I could have tried running to the school, even though the school day was over. Or I could have loaded my posse into the car-van and hightailed it home. Even though the Hen didn’t look like he’d make it.

There was, of course, the option of having him pee in the expansive field beside the playground. But there were no hiding spots – it’s a school field, after all – and I’m the type of person who prefers not to have the school community look on as her three year old pees in the grass.

So I led him back to the car-van, with the hope that I’d figure out a solution to my dilemma by the time we got there. Maybe there was a big bowl in the car. Or maybe the potty-chair had magically been left in the car and I’d just ‘forgotten’ about it.

Or maybe I’d cleaned out the car recently and there were no receptacles of any kind. Except an empty wipes container. Of the flat, travel-sized, variety.

After our make-shift pit stop, we headed back to the playground where I rejoined the mom-versation. One of the moms’ chocolate Lab had apparently grown tired of waiting in the car while everyone else played. She’d jumped through the [open] window and hightailed it to the playground. Which is not exactly a ‘dogs-allowed’ kind of environment.

But, seeing as it was a benign chocolate Lab, the mom decided to finish her conversation before herding the dog back to the car. Except the lovely beast squatted beside a tree……

‘Oh no, oh noooo,’ the mom yelled, clearly in a pickle. Dog poop at a playground is the ultimate faux pas. She frantically scanned her girls’ pile of belongings for anything she could use to retrieve the social disaster waiting for her by the tree. Her eyes landed on the plastic ziploc bag holding her first grader’s home reading assignment. With the home reading dumped summarily on the ground, she ran to the tree to remove her dog’s ‘thanks for letting me stay in the car’ gift.

‘It’s supposed to snow this weekend,’ the other mom informed me after we’d raved about the perfect nearly eighty degree weather.

‘Noooooooo,’ I nearly cried at the news that summer was officially over. I retrieved my boys and we headed to the car. The last day of summer called for gelato. And a quick snack of salami sandwiches. And playing outside until 6.

Earthly Treasures

Friday was a very long day at the Johnson home. For whatever reason (Thursday’s hot dogs, lack of sleep, bubblegum ice cream or twenty million mosquito bites) the boys were exceedingly cranky and nothing transpired without the accompaniment of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When I arrived in the kitchen in the morning, I found the Gort crying. About a pen. A pen that had been stepped upon and subsequently broken. By the professor. Our oldest wailed about this (cheap, blue, plastic) pen and demanded that we buy him a new pen. Despite the fact that we have something like four hundred and twenty pens lying around our house.

You want a pen? How about ten!

The boy was not soothed by my attempts at placating him which means, short of hopping in the car-van and driving to Michaels to get a replica of the deceased pen, his crying would not cease. And I had not yet had any coffee.

‘You realize there are children in this world who don’t have any pens,’ I tried the only remaining parental weapon in my arsenal. Which, admittedly, was a somewhat pathetic weapon. I really didn’t think I would be the kind of parent who stooped to cliches.

But I also didn’t think I’d go three years without sleeping for more than five consecutive hours.

And now that I think of it, maybe I overstated. Maybe every child in this world does have a pen. Or at least some sort of writing utensil. I’m pretty sure those little kids in Africa are running around with old Bic pens. But I couldn’t very well say that to my oldest: ‘On second thought, every child does have a pen, so you should continue crying while holding up your defunct writing instrument.’

A few hours later, the Gort and I were in my room. Where I was trying to find my way through the piles of folded laundry. And the collection of dustbunnies. And the jewelry that had been taken from my dresser drawers and dumped onto the dresser and my nightstand. By my second oldest spawn.

I started with the jewelry, doing my best to sort through the mess; to return the bracelets and necklaces to their original containers. It was a disaster and things appeared to be missing. (Like the pair of diamond earrings the Gort disposed of when he was around eighteen months old.) I can be relatively accepting of destruction wreaked by my boys….when it occurs in isolated incidences. But when one incidence follows another…and another in a very short span of time…..I feel a teensy bit resentful.

And, before I know it, teensy resentments multiply into a big pile of resentment and I explode. Friday was an explosion day as I muttered choice words about them touching my stuff and losing it and how they were never, ever allowed to go into my room ever again.

My oldest had put his head down on the bed, seemingly tired of listening to me rant. About something that wasn’t even his fault.

As I shoved bracelets and necklaces back into brightly colored jewelry bags, he looked up at me. ‘You know mom, there are moms in this world who don’t have any jewelry.’

Good intentions gone awry

I walked into the living room one night, several days ago, and found the professor watching a show on his laptop. I asked what he was watching. He told me. And I moved on to the next thing.

‘You should check it out,’ he teased me, ‘you’ll probably think the main guy is cute.’

I may have, over the years, mentioned (a few times) that I thought Jarod (The Pretender) and Clark (Smallville) were really cute while watching said shows….with the professor. Apparently he harbors a teensy bit of resentment over those comments. (Not that he hasn’t affirmed the visages of Juliette Binoche and Isabella Rosselini and, um, Anne Hathaway?! a time or two.)

So I dutifully walked over to the laptop, whilst rehearsing in my mind a perfectly disinterested response to this new (as yet unseen by me) guy’s looks. So as to convince the professor I’m above makeup, tooth veneers, $300 haircuts and personal trainer slash bizarro diet induced physiques. My strategy was to stare at the screen for exactly three seconds and then, rather vehemently, declare my displeasure with the supposedly cute guy’s looks.

Even if he made Tom Welling and Patrick Dempsey look like Smurfs.

I positioned myself in front of the laptop and glanced at the screen for a legitimate amount of time, trying to look like I was really checking out Mr. Actor. After about three seconds of staged staring, I shrugged my shoulders and wrinkled my nose: ‘he’s not really my type,’ I announced.

We kept chatting about the show’s premise, while I stared at the face on the screen. It seemed familiar, somehow.  ’You know,’ it dawned on me, ‘he kind of looks like….you!’

‘Yeah, I know,’ the professor agreed. ‘And you just said he’s not really your type.’

Things that are funny

I was at the Superstore on Monday. To take advantage of the (50% off) Easter candy. Because I hadn’t eaten quite enough during the week preceding Easter. Apparently. As I steered my cart away from the Cadbury Mini Eggs, I overheard a seventy-something lady commenting to the guy standing beside her.

‘You keep these in a cool place and they’ll last a year…at least,’ she advised him. ‘These’ being mini chocolate foil-wrapped eggs.

I’ll remember that next time an elderly person offers me candy.

The Gort’s Kindergarten teacher, who has been on leave for several months, stopped by the school earlier in the week to see her students. ‘Did you tell her that you’d missed her?’ I asked my oldest when he told me he’d seen her in the hallway. ‘No, because I didn’t.’

Oh, okay.

‘He took a diaper and threw it in his brother’s face,’ the professor reported after I’d inquired about this evening’s pre-bedtime weeping. ‘Point blank….just threw it in his face,’ he murmured; trying to come to terms with the ridiculousness of a six year old boy, while preparing simultaneously to say something along the lines of ‘I would have never done something like that.’

‘Didn’t you shoot your brother with a bb gun?’ I asked before he could set himself apart as a paragon of older brother-ness. ‘At point blank range? And weren’t you older than six?’

‘It was a pellet gun,’ he corrected me. ‘And we were like in high school.’

Ah, well never mind then. I guess I didn’t have a point.

Health and Wellness

They’ve been doing a segment on nutrition in Kindergarten. Actually segment doesn’t really describe it, ‘the year of wellness’ probably comes closer. There was a visit from a kids’ yoga instructor. And most recently a visit from a ‘lifestyle and fitness’ expert.

I don’t mind these little presentations at all. Aside from being fairly liberal with the cookies, I am somewhat strict about what my kids eat and drink.

The only thing I mind is that the Gort is at an age where he takes everything very seriously. I don’t know yet if this is just his personality, or a phase, but he tends to accept new information in a very literal fashion. Which can lead to great unhappiness on his part, or at the very least some twisted logic.

I mean, this is the kid who, when my mom told him his eyes would turn square from all the television he was watching at her house, nearly started crying because he worried his eyes wouldn’t be obals (ovals) anymore. It was six months ago, and he still checks in with me every few weeks for confirmation that his eyes have retained their oval shape.

So he takes this nutrition business seriously and, at least once a day, he’ll look at me and ask: ‘mom, is [blank] hell-fee?’

As in: ‘are (dried) cranberries hell-fee?’ ‘is juice hell-fee?’ ‘is milk hell-fee?’ ‘is pizza hell-fee?’

Questions peppered with occasional proclamations about food he ‘knows’ to be healthy. ‘Water is hell-fee, right mom?’ ‘Fish is hell-fee, right mom?’

So I picked him up from school on Friday, half-forgetting that the aforementioned ‘lifestyle and fitness’ expert had paid them a visit. He was primed and ready to inform me the minute he got in the van.

‘Mom, we are only supposed to eat candy once a month!’ he alerted me. I chuckled to myself wondering how this new information would mesh with his desire for food coloring and corn syrup whenever we’re at a grocery check-out.

He repeated the news several more times, and finally I had to ask: ‘did they say once a month or once in a while?’

Because I couldn’t imagine anyone showing up at a school telling kids they could only have candy every thirty days.

‘I think they said once in a while,’ he decided.

He was still talking about the presentation when we pulled up to our house. ‘They asked what everyone’s favorite food is, and I told them salmon. And they said that was very, very, very, very, very healthy.’

I chuckled to myself about this kid who’d announced to all the Kindergarteners that he preferred salmon above, say, macaroni and cheese.

‘But we never tried fish before,’ he mused aloud.

I tried the obvious ‘salmon is fish’ logic, but that didn’t really yield the desired results.

The next morning he was making a snack for himself in the kitchen, when he shared more snippets of information.

‘If you get fat they have to cut you open,’ he told me.

And I really didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t conceive what piece of information he’d received and altered to come up with such a strange, seemingly irrelevant conclusion.

‘Who told you this?’ Why do they have to cut you open?’

‘My teacher told me,’ he answered, ‘they have to cut you open to get out the food.’

And before I could even respond to that, he continued matter-of-factly, ‘Suzie is a little bit fat.’ As though he’d told me his little school friend (whose name I’ve altered) had blue eyes.

‘She is not at all fat,’ I reprimanded him. Because she really isn’t. ‘And we never, ever say that about anyone!’

I’m not sure my tone or approach had the desired effect, though, as he replied in an annoyed slash obvious tone:

‘I only said she was a little bit fat. Not a lot fat.’

Denturephobia

I hate going to the dentist.

Something about people digging in my mouth with metal instruments and the chalky, medicinal taste of latex gloves. And the way the office smells. It’s vile and I dread all of it.

But what I dread even more than going to the dentist’s office, is losing my teeth.

I have a very strange, abnormal fear of losing my teeth. And I’m not sure where it came from. Perhaps the ‘science fair’ at my junior high in Morgantown, West Virginia? Where they’d displayed posters of the teeth and gums of chewing tobacco users? (Or was it crystal meth?)

And no, I’ve never in my life used chewing tobacco or anything else. But for some reason, those pictures were permanently engraved upon my retinas and, ever since, when I go to the dentist I worry that I’m two weeks away from dentures and polident. Or that the dentist will bust out words like: ‘crowns’ and ‘root canals’ and ‘denture implants’.

I was at the dentist a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in eighteen months. Because we moved. And I had a baby. And I’ve things to do – like play a lot of Bejeweled Blitz and WordTwist on Facebook. And bake cookies four times a week.

First, the dental assistant insisted on taking x-ray after x-ray. And all I could think, when I wasn’t hyperventilating that they’d seen doom in my mouth, was ‘how much is this going to cost me?’

After the x-rays were taken, she loaded the images onto the flatscreen monitor twelve inches away from my face. So that I could SEE what they’d seen. I’m of the opinion that there’s nothing pretty about teeth and gums. Even in ‘flattering’ black and white.

My earnest dentist came in and introduced himself. Then he went through each set of images in painful detail. Clearly he did not see the look of panic on my face or the way I was clenching my hands while waiting to hear if he was going to deliver bad news. ‘These are really kind of gross,’ I finally managed to say. When it became clear that he wasn’t just going to say ‘well done’ and turn off the screen.

‘Really, you think so?’

Maybe when you spend all day looking at people’s teeth and pictures of their teeth, you don’t give a second thought to the shadowy skeletal images. But to me, it looks like my mouth is a ticking time bomb and I’ll be smacking my gums by Christmas time.

In the end, the news wasn’t so bad. He suggested I have two fillings replaced – of the old silver variety. And a few other little things. I aged five years during that sixty minute visit. They scheduled a cleaning appointment for me and I hightailed it out of there before they could summon me back for a full-set extraction.

Today was the scheduled cleaning. An appointment I wasn’t dreading too much, because, in my mind, the scary part – where I potentially lose my teeth – was over. I breezed in, expecting the usual spiel: ‘your teeth look great’. Or something like that.

Instead, the hygienist said: ‘when was the last time you had your teeth cleaned?’

A year and a half ago.

And she proceeded to ‘probe’ my teeth and gums, to assess their health. And she made copious, secretive notes on the little paper at her desk. She’d poke around in my mouth. Then roll away on the chair to her table. And write stuff down. Poke. Roll away. Write stuff. And I’ve no idea what she was writing down. Could she not see the fear on my face?

All I could think was: they missed something last time and she’s spotted it. Today is the day.

She tossed off various phrases like calculus and gingivitis and I don’t even know what else. And I was freaking out. And then she whipped out the camera and turned on the screen.

What’s grosser than looking at dental x-rays? Looking at footage from a ‘live’ camera inside your mouth. Dees-gus-ting.

I imagine those Skoal users of West Virginia would have seen the error of their ways if they’d been confronted with live images from the inside of their mouths. The jostling footage, the fleshy gums, the distorted looking teeth.

Make it stop! I wanted to shout. But I didn’t. I just kept clenching my poor little fingers, bracing myself for the news.

After the fluoride rinse, she handed me a warm towel. ‘Here’s a warm towel for you,’ she said as she placed it in my hands. I had no idea what I was supposed to DO with the towel. Was this related to H1N1? Another immigrant experience to suppress in my embarrassing moments file? So I wiped my hands and dabbed at my mouth. It seemed a reasonable thing to do with a warm towel. And I handed it back to her.

It reminded me of the professor’s recent experience at an undisclosed location. When a woman he didn’t know handed him a pack of gum. And he had no idea if she meant for him to TAKE a piece of gum. As in, ‘here, would you like some gum?’ Or if she thought it was his gum that he’d accidentally dropped on the floor. Which it wasn’t. So he took the pack of gum and stuck it in his pocket.

The hygienist sent me on my way with a ‘complimentary’ toothbrush, floss and toothpaste. And a ‘suggestion’ that I use a ‘rinse’. And an appointment for another cleaning in six months.

When I got home I was too scared to eat.

Interview with Coach J

In order to round off what can best be described as ‘birth week’ on this blog, I thought I’d include an interview with a real, live labor coach.  Seeing as I only really know one, my interviewee had to be the (slightly verbose) professor who kindly answered these questions.

‘Thank you for your interest in my labor coaching seminar.  I am happy to answer your questions and should your readers be interested, to provide them with my new video on the subject “A Father’s Guide to Labor” in which I cover the various do’s and don’ts of your participation in the wonderful world of childbirth. (Hint: DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING HER FOOD (even if she says she doesn’t want it).’

What has been indispensable in your role as labor coach?

I try and imagine passing a kidney stone, divide the pain by 2 and that gets me into the appropriate frame of mind for understanding what my lovely wife is feeling each time she squeezes the life out of my arm.

Our vast male readership (Shawn) would like an explanation from you about what shall be known as ‘the epidural incident of 2009′. Would you care to address the incident? Please note I will edit your response if needed.

Part of being a good coach is understanding your players and what they want now vs. what they will want tomorrow. Right now your team may just want the pain of man to man pressing defense to go away and just play zone.  But tomorrow as they lick their wounds from the inevitable beating they took, they will wish they had stuck it out.  (This isn’t a direct correlation of course but merely a metaphor for the vast male audience to get into the frame of mind for the real answer, just refer to the DVD chapter “Labor is NOT Like Sports (except when it is exactly like sports)” )

More to the point.

• The nurse for all her great qualities (pushiness, sweet accent, positive thinking, uhh shortness) wasn’t very good with the needles as the puncture wounds on your forearm will attest to.  In my one run in with the Canadian health care system (see the kidney stone incident of 2008) I also noted a lack of skill in inserting needles into my arm which was particularly vexing given my general fear of needles. Yada, Yada, Yada, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing someone line up and try to hit you in the spine with a thick needle, while you were having painful contractions, sure people do it all the time, but I was worried
• There is the matter of what happens next. Bedpans and an audience are not really your thing.
• I can’t even get you to take an aspirin on most days and these years of seeing you build up an ethos of non intervention, just led me to interpret that what you really were saying was “Jason I know you aren’t going to let me have one, so I feel it’s safe to ask, get me an epidural. Your refusal will give me a good subject heading for my blog and will also make me feel ok about ripping all the skin off of your arm.”

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst possible offense and 10 being the most egregious offense) how would you rate your most recent remark to me: ‘so, when are you going to start jogging again’,  six days after I bore you a third son?

In my defense I was unaware that in addition to our third child leaving your body, so had your ability to detect sarcasm, as in “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see you are up and walking, when are you going to really be all better and go for a jog (and maybe make some sort of awesome cake with frosting and caramel to congratulate my excellence in husbandry”…..)

Any tips for smooth and successful umbilical cord cutting? Do you do special exercises ahead of time, or do you just go in and wing it?

It always seems so cool in the movies, like it might be a moment where the room goes quiet and you become one with your wife and child.  In reality this of course makes no sense.  First of all the baby has just exited a nice warm hot tub where he is constantly supplied with food, and entered a world that is cold, with bright lights and a tiny Indian nurse, a lanky doctor and some weird unshaven guy all staring at him and you are about to cut him off completely…..  also it’s a bit like cutting through a bratwurst so these are my tips for properly observing the decorum and appropriate manliness/sensitivity of the moment.

• Do not refuse the request.  The doctor/midwife will ask if you want to cut the cord. You may at the time be standing in something of a mess, the baby is possibly not as cute as you had hoped, maybe he’s covered in white sticky stuff… but you must suck it up an proceed.
• Now is not the time for jokes.  You may be tempted to ask if you can use your lucky pocket knife, or maybe even chew the cord in two caveman style.  No one will laugh at these jokes, not even in retrospect, so save them for the pub night with the guys in a couple months when you can safely leave the house.
• Cut it to the outside of the potato chip clamp they have affixed.  Don’t worry the doctor will point to the exact spot multiple times like you are a moron or something.
• Hand the baby directly to the mother so they can both exhaustedly bask in one another’s glow.  This is the actual moment when the room seems to go quiet and the baby starts to look cute and the gentle sounds of violins can be heard in the background.

Would you like to comment on the anchovy incident of 2004?

Nope, that one was totally my bad.  I panicked.

One of the boys comes to you and says, ‘Dad I want to be an urban planner.’ Your response?

Four immediate retorts come to mind all of which are unprintable and involve references to the Banana Republic, figure skating and fascist dictators…But based on the piles of rocks, blocks and sticks I seem to trip over in every room and nook and cranny of the yard and the drawings of burning buildings, crooked streets and stacked housing with scribble surfaces they seem to favor at this point, they would make great urban planners… Certainly better than Corb anyway.

Another boy says he’s going to have a recurring role in ‘Days of our Lives’…your response?

“Can you buy me a Porsche?”

Would you rather have twin girls or send me to Canyon Ranch Spa for a long weekend by myself?

That one’s easy. A weekend of mancation mayhem, beats a lifetime of miniskirt/sweats with bizarre words like “ouchie” written on them, acne covered boyfriends with Camaros, shopping for dresses and movies about fairies and princesses any day. Are you asking this as a real question? If so then I may instead call your bluff….

Would you rather be married to Sarah Palin or Ann Coulter?

Is rupturing my ear drums and option?

What about Ann Coulter or Hilary Clinton?

What about gouging out my eyes?

What’s the best thing about being married to me?

That would be like choosing a favorite child.  It’s all so good I could never choose.

The worst? Oh, sorry it looks like we’re out of time…

Well thank you very much and don’t forget for only $19.99 all this wisdom and more can be yours…