The Modernish Father

So, you’d like to know a little about the folks you’re reading about? Here’s the basics. If you need more information than this, I’d suggest you wait for the made-for-television movie to come out.

The Modernish Father

Amazingly ordinary. However, this is my site so I get my own page.

The Wife

A thirty-something working mother who runs her own blog and somehow manages to put up with my incessant nonsense. She definitely could have done better than me, but fortunately doesn’t seem to have realized it yet. The Wife and I actually knew each for a number of years before dating, since we grew up in the same town and worked at the same place during school, but it took us both going off to college to find one another.

The Wife vehemently denies that she is becoming a soccer mom, despite the fact that she drives an SUV (the 21st Century mini-van), eats Lean Cuisine frozen meals for lunch, walks in the evenings, scrapbooks and does, in fact, have a child that has played soccer. The Wife has a completely useless degree in sociology and is enjoying a very successful career in an unrelated field. Unlike me, she has no use for politics, sports, films with coherent plots or news from sources other than E! or People magazine.

The Boy

He’s six and no doubt already smarter than both of his parents. He’s a whiz at addition, subtraction, reading, geography, crossword puzzles and just about anything else he puts his mind to. The Boy has a nasty habit of getting out of bed multiple times every night for no discernible reason, but he’s pretty a much a complete joy otherwise.

The Boy seems to be cursed with the same lack of physical prowess displayed by his parents, but he has taken up soccer, baseball and gymnastics. He has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and is a all-around good kid. He tries very hard, pays attention for the most part and makes us very proud.

When not adding and subtracting, The Boy enjoys playing “intendo”, watching the early-morning Disney Channel lineup, playing golf and listening to Michael Jackson songs. Seriously, I wish that last part wasn’t true but it is. The Boy seems to be slowly recovering from a serious addiction to ketchup, although I fear Pop Tarts and Lunchables may have taken its place.

The Girl

The most recent addition to our family is The Girl. After just a couple of months on the outside, she’s established herself as quite possibly the happiest child ever to have been born. She loves being the center of attention and will gladly bust open a big toothy grin for whoever or whatever might be pointed in her direction.

The Girl was a Texas-sized baby, weighing nearly ten pounds at birth. She’s kind of slowed down in terms of growth since then and it appears that she might not end up being as tall as her mother and brother. She’s still a squat tower of power though.

Right now her interests seem to be walking around, chewing on everything in sight, mooching grown-up food at dinner time and generally just getting into mischief whenever possible. After just a few months, it’s become quite clear that she’s very different in temperament and personality from The Boy.

The Cat

Quite possibly the neediest and loudest mammal in existence, The Cat began life as a quiet little homeless runt. When The Wife and I returned from our honeymoon, The Cat and her two siblings had taken up residence outside our first apartment. We couldn’t take in all three and the other two seemed to ignore the little one, so we took her polydactyl brother and sister to the local SPCA and kept The Cat for ourselves. How has she rewarded us for this act of kindness and compassion? By annoying the hell out of us ever since. The Cat apparently thinks she needs continuous attention and isn’t quiet about it unless she’s sitting in one of our laps or sleeping on top of one of us.

On the plus side though, she:

1. is the most passive cat in existence and therefore great with kids
2. does honestly love us and has become a member of the family
3. doesn’t claw or bite
4. exhales carbon dioxide, which plants need to live

Ever the weirdo, The Cat turns her nose up at traditional feline delicacies and instead prefers apples, olives and french fries.

The Dog

The Dog is a “retired” greyhound that we adopted from a greyhound rescue society in San Antonio (full story here). I put the word “retired” in quotation marks because The Dog did not actually ever race in actual competition and it’s hard to label someone as retired when they never did any work in the first place.

The Dog continues to do no work, unless you consider sleeping on the couch on your back with all four limbs stretched to the sky for 16-18 hours a day work. In fact, other than some excited jumping when we get home, a leisurely walk in the evening and a brief five minutes of running in the morning, The Dog just pretty much sleeps all the time. She does, however, love us all and appears to have developed a fondness for me in particular. She ignores The Cat for the most part, which may explain why we get along so well.

The Dearly Departed

For those of you keeping score at home, The Fish, The Fish II and The Fish III have all kicked the bucket. We also used have The Rabbit, but we gave him away to a caring owner before our most recent move.