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What Happens in the Bathroom Stays in the Bathroom

Have you ever tried to give three babies a bath at the same time? And if so, have you ever pulled it off successfully? (he asked with hope) Because if you have, Caroline and I would like some pointers. All we seem to be getting are floaters. And as far as we can remember, there is no nursery rhyme that reads “Rub-a-dub-dub,a turd in the tub.” The first time the aqua deuce reared its ugly head, my neat-freak wife nearly fainted before finally pulling it together and embarking on a thorough, house-wide search, but alas, not one single biohazard suit could be found.

“Who did it?” I asked, as I corralled the kids while Caroline drained the tub.

“How in the world should I know? There’s three of them.” She had a point. Figuring out which of our triplets was the defecating daredevil was, at best, a crap shoot. (sorry)

The next night, it happened on my watch. Though I didn’t see anything that would incriminate any of the three, I immediately ruled out Kirby, possibly because just the thought of my sweet baby girl taking a shit in the bath tub was enough to make me move in with my therapist for the rest of my life. So I focused on my boys. I had a feeling it was Sam. After all, his body of work was clearly that of a little joker. I tried to stare the truth out of him, but he just stared right back with a wise-guy grin that said Prove it, big boy. So I set my sights on Jack. And he… splashed me in the face. I had to come to grips with one simple fact—I had no leverage. And without it, I’d get no scoop on who dropped the poop.

Luckily for us, Sam, Jack, and Kirby love baths, and the abrupt conclusions of said baths due these unidentified efforts soon rendered such efforts obsolete. Relieved, I thought that our scatological nightmares were behind us. That is until the boys made a little discovery.

Ah, the penis. Fascinating extensions of both man and mankind, no? Without them, it’d be impossible to create any more of these intoxicating flaps of skin. But, perhaps even more importantly, without them, Sam and Jack would have nothing to relentlessly yank on during bath time. Kirby? She plays with plastic a rubber Dora toy. Sam and Jack? They play with their ding dongs. Delightful.

One night, much to my chagrin, one of our boys—child privacy laws prohibit me from naming which one—reached down and pulled the other’s crank with the force of an Olympian anchoring a tug-o-war team. (And I thought the image of Kirby pooping in the tub would require lots of therapy…) After the aggressor finally relented, the two seemingly made peace and spent a few more minutes in the tub playing (with toys) before we finally got them out. I dried off Jack as Caroline went to pull Sam out of his porcelain playground.

“Look at him,” I said of our firstborn, his lips a never-before-seen shade of purple.

“He’s just cold,” said Caroline.

“I don’t know, babe,” I protested. “If my weenie was turned into Stretch Armstrong for thirty minutes? I’m pretty sure my lips would turn purple, too.”

Eventually, even the tugging of wankers ran its course, and, wouldn’t you know it? The baths became easier to negotiate, so much so that one night Caroline felt it safe to leave me in charge of manning the tub solo. Things were going smoothly until I realized that I had forgotten the diaper rash cream. It was in the kitchen. Fearful to leave Sam, Jack, and Kirby in the tub alone, I decided to get them out and dry them before dashing to the kitchen and back to retrieve the ointment. Ten seconds. What could possibly happen?

I rushed back in the bathroom to find Jack letting loose a relatively impressive stream of urine. On his sister's left foot. So I did what any dad would do. I picked up my little girl and dunked her left leg in the toilet up to her knee. Don’t worry, all you germ freaks out there. I chased it with a wipe.

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that my harrowing bath-time experiences have not jaded my emerging and ongoing fatherhood career. But they have got me thinking long and hard about showers. I'm mean seriously, comparatively speaking, don't they sound like a lay-up?

Tales from the Trips Slideshow

Check out this slideshow of pictures that will be in my new book!

Spend it Wisely

There are a lot of dads out there who think that bonding with their children involves non-stop, action-packed extravaganzas, or at least an endless string of acquiesces pertaining to the television or worthless junkets prominently displayed on waist-high, convenient store shelves. You’re the guys who aren’t afraid to say yes as evidenced by the countless three-hour Chuck E. Cheese benders you regularly subject yourselves to. But your parenting philosophy works, right? I mean, after all, you see the smiles and hear the laughter firsthand, correct?

Well guess what? You’re right. Fun-filled environments and spontaneous gifts go a long way in meeting children’s acute needs—those that are brief but intense and pop into their heads (and then out of their mouths) without warning—like their need for attention, for instant gratification, and for a sense of empowerment. But what about your child’s chronic needs? You know, the ones that lie beneath the acute ones? These are needs that remain constant and continue over a long period of time—like the need to feel loved, safe, secure, confident, and able.

Those are the ones I prefer to focus on, and a Hannah Montana key chain won’t do the trick when it comes to meeting them. So instead of pulling out my wallet and spending my hard-earned money every time my eight-year-old stepdaughter announces that she wants something, I simply tell her no, before explaining exactly what it is that I am willing to spend on her.

“John,” Alli will say as I’m waiting in line at Weigel's to buy my coffee.

“Yes, honey.”

“Can I have this?”

[without looking] “No, babe.”

“Why do you always say no?”

“Because no is the new I love you.”

“You never buy me anything,” she'll complain.

“Honey, I don’t spend money to show how much I love you. I spend time.”

Believe me, Alli would much rather I buy her a trinket than practice soccer with her for an hour. But what she doesn’t realize is that by spending that hour, I’m trying to meet her chronic needs, and ultimately, they are far more important than her need for a smoothie. I’m trying to make her feel safe and loved while instilling in her the belief that’s she’s able, thereby boosting her confidence. Simply hanging out with her may be mundane and unspectacular, but it requires much more effort, creativity, and imagination than plunking down the few bucks needed to procure the latest object of her desire. Since Alli doesn’t fully appreciate that fact yet, there’s very little payoff to my parenting approach. Yet I stick with it anyway, because not only do I have faith that one day she’ll be thankful for my efforts, but I also think she’ll be better off for them.

However, until then, I’ll take a backseat to those who insist on buying her splashy gifts, and treating her to raucous outings while I quietly continue to build a long string of memories that will hopefully last forever. Like the time I taught her how to ride a bike, or the time I showed her how to catch a wave on her boogie board. One day she’ll figure out that instead of taking her to the mall for a couple of hours of shopping, I chose to take her to the woods for a couple of days of camping. Eventually she’ll realize that I never went to the beach to catch up on my reading. I went to teach her how to skimboard. (Check her out) One day, she’ll be thankful that I know every single one of her friends. At some point, she’s bound to appreciate the fact that I know all of her favorite songs, though, I will readily admit that she’ll never appreciate it when I belt them out during a Saturday morning drive (via, quite frankly, a surprisingly impressive falsetto).

I take great satisfaction in being so plugged in to her world, but the truth is that other than wowing her with my Moseby impersonation (it’s a Zach and Cody thing), there aren’t many immediate benefits to all of the time I invest. That’s why it was so rewarding when I unexpectedly stumbled across one the other day.

“Fuck it,” I heard Alli say to her mom while I was manning the grill.

“What did you say?" asked my wife.

“Fuck it,” she repeated, that time with more volume and better diction. I could tell by her tone that she didn’t understand what she was saying and certainly wasn’t knowingly saying anything profane. But since I hadn’t heard what she and Caroline had been discussing, I desperately needed some context.

“Alli, what is it that you’re trying to say?” I asked.

“Fuck it. I’m almost positive it’s fuck it,” she answered defensively. I looked at her in utter confusion. “Carly’s friend,” she continued. “You know, the one who hates Freddie.”

It was all clicking. She was trying to think of a character on “iCarly,” one of her favorite TV shows that I watch all the time with her. I still didn’t understand the “fuck it” part, but at least something was beginning to make sense. “You mean Sam,” I said.

“Right. Sam. Sam, fuck it.” That time it clicked for good. She was struggling with Sam’s last name.

“I think it’s Puckett, Alli. Sam Puckett.”

“No. It’s fuck it. Fuck it with an F.”

(For what it's worth, fuck it with an F could be the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.)

“Alli, Sam on 'iCarly?' Her last name is Puckett. Puckett with a P. I promise.”

And thus the confusing fuck-it episode was put to rest. See? There’s no way I could have negotiated that innocently profane maze without in-depth knowledge that only time well spent can provide. Some of you dads out there still won’t buy my approach. You’ll still opt for the layup that is donuts. You’ll still prefer the cheers you get in your car by pulling over for ice cream as opposed to the kink you get in your back by sitting in some absurd fort constructed from blankets and sofa cushions. And that’s fine. I get it. I have my style and you have yours. But if you insist that focusing solely on the acute needs, and never giving thought to the chronic ones is a good approach?

Well, Puckett. I can't help you.

If You See Caroline

please tell her that whenever she leaves, there's simply nothing to worry about, okay? I got it all under control. If you don't believe me, just see for yourself.

Rash Talkin'

Cold and flu season is right around the corner, and once it’s upon us, you’re more than welcome to come over to our house—but remember—you’re doing so at your own risk. Because we live with an eight-year-old and three twenty-three-month old toddlers, which means that breaking our threshold is pretty much the viral equivalent of Russian roulette.

We actually weathered last season pretty well, though. Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t like we didn’t get sick—we did. But the illnesses that made their way through our household merely hopped from one person to the next until they had infected everyone, at which point they would either fizzle out or start all over again. And if they started all over again, by the second or third time around, they ended up losing most of their punch—much like “the wave” at a football stadium finally wearing out its welcome and trickling down to an annoying conclusion. Still, minor ailments are a constant at our house from the onset of autumn through mid-May.

It wasn’t until halfway through the summer when it finally dawned on me one day while changing a diaper—Hey, it’s been quite a while since anyone’s had a stuffy nose around here. Glad I don’t have to worry about catching anything for a while. My epiphany was short lived, however, taking an immediate backseat to my concern at the rash I saw on Jack’s bottom. Holy Cow… that’s pretty gnarly. Thank goodness that thing’s not contagious, I thought as I applied a generous amount of Cortizone to the affected area.

Two days later, I noticed a series of small red bumps near my right armpit but thought little of it. Within a week, it had spread to both sides of my body, covering a significant area of my torso. It had also started to itch. Badly. My wife begged me to see a dermatologist, but I was so slammed at work, I refused to take the time, instead choosing to throw every type of over-the-counter ointment imaginable at my red enemy. But all that my various OTC solutions seemed to do was make the damn thing spread like kudzu.

Finally, the itching got so bad that I could no longer stand the sensation of anything touching any portion of the sensitive areas, which by that point was pretty much everywhere—the tops of my feet, my ankles, my calves, behind my knees, the inside of my thighs, my waistband, up and down the left sides of my torso, under each of my arms, on the backs of my arms, in the folds of my elbows, and on the tops of my fingers.

So at night I resorted to sleeping completely nude and on top of the covers. During the day I turned to baggy clothes, like loose-fitting shorts and knit shirts that were a size too big. But such garb still brushed against my rash causing uncontrollable itching. So I turned up the legs of my shorts to minimize the contact, exposing most of my thighs and giving me the appearance of a grape smuggler in the process. I also rolled up the sleeves of my shirt, ala Schneider from “One Day at a Time,” only it wasn’t because I needed a place to park my smokes. It was because if I didn’t, I’d scratch my arms until they bled.

Once discomfort (and humiliating fashion statements) became my twenty-four-hour-a-day companion, there was no sense in denying it any longer—I was a man with full body rash who was in desperate need of medical attention. Though I tried to blame it on Jack and his rash—could it have been contagious?—I had no one to blame but myself. If I had just gone to the dermatologist when the rash first appeared, it wouldn’t have turned into such a big deal. But it had turned into a big deal, and in so doing, it had also turned me into a walking raspberry.

“I’m embarrassed,” I admitted to my wife on the morning of the dermatologist appointment I had finally broken down and made.

“Of what?” she asked.

“Showing the doctor my rash,” I replied. “You yourself said you’ve never seen anything so gross.”

“I know I did,” she admitted while trying to swallow a smile that turned into a chuckle. “I don’t mean to laugh, but you gotta admit—it is pretty gross.”

A quick glance in a mirror that reflected the image of colossal red bumps covering over an eighth of a man’s upper body provided confirmation. Mackenzie Phillips thought that thing was gross. (Multiple "One Day" reference in same blog. Unprecedented!) “And you ask me what I’m embarrassed of,” I lamented.

“Honey, relax,” reassured Caroline. “I guarantee that this guy has seen it all.”

That may have been true, but later that day I still fidgeted nervously as I described the situation to the dermatologist. “It’s pretty disgusting,” I warned after he asked me to remove my shirt.

“You don’t have anything to worry about. Trust me—I’ve seen it all.”

“Okay,” I said as I began to pull my shirt off, “I just wanted to give you a heads up because…”

“Good God, that’s horrible,” he interrupted, recoiling in shock once I was completely shirtless.

Tried to tell ya’…

“I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving the room abruptly. I sat in silence wondering if he’d return with a photographer to conduct an impromptu, rash-inspired photo shoot that would forever immortalize me as the subject of one of those disturbing, skin-condition brochures that were shamelessly displayed on the counter to my left. Instead he returned with only a two-inch needle which he used to inject me with a double dose of steroids before handing me a prescription for some ointment they had originally tried on the Elephant Man.

“By the way, John, that shot has been known to cause some minor side effects, though they are very unlikely.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Acne, but again, it hardly ever happens. Just something to be aware of.”

Guess who went on to get back acne, or “bacne” as my wife liked to call it? It turned out that my rash was an extreme case of eczema, which, coincidentally, is exactly what Jack’s rash was. Medical experts will tell you that eczema cannot be spread from one person to another, and while I’m in no position to dispute such assessments, my harrowing rash experience has left me with but one thing to say.

Bring on cold and flu season.