“Can I get you something to eat?” I asked her.
“Shells and cheese,” she said.
At last, a sincere answer. That was all I ever wanted. Plain, mature sincerity. I hugged her and told her I loved her and she pushed me away with a laugh. A nice laugh.
“Dad, ew.”
She went to go draw a picture and I began climbing the mountain all over again, hoping to string together enough good days of parenting until I got to the point where there were no more bad days, until the day when I could stand proud in front of stern newscasters and judgmental foreigners and overbearing grandparents and anyone else who thought I sucked at this and tell them that I was a good father and have them believe it.
HODDUB
My parents had come down to visit us and were staying in a nearby hotel. The kids went absolutely batshit insane when my folks were in town because they got to visit the hotel, ride in the glass elevator, order room service (thirty dollars for a burger), and play in the indoor pool. My son, now three years old, thought my parents lived in this hotel, and every time we drove by it he demanded to see them.
“Dat Gammy and Papa’s hodel.”
“Actually, they live in Connecticut,” I said. “They only stay at that hotel when they visit us. Otherwise another person stays in their room.”
That pissed him off. “DAT GAMMY AND PAPA’S WOMB!”
“It’s not their room.”
“It ID they womb!”
Now my parents were finally in town and staying at the precious hotel, and I brought the two kids by because, as always, we needed something to do. I brought everything they needed for the indoor pool: suits, goggles, floaty vests, après-swim sarongs, the whole deal.
It was nine in the morning and the pool had just opened. There was a lifeguard there who couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old. The pool had a hot tub attached to it, with a tile partition separating the hot tub from the main pool. You could leap over the partition into the big pool with relative ease.
My kids both wanted to start off in the hot tub, but there was a sign on the wall that said children under five weren’t permitted in the hot tub. I assume the thinking was that if a very small child got into the hot tub, a witch would burst through the door, add chopped carrots and onions to the water, and attempt to make a stew out of your little one. So my son wasn’t supposed to go in. But we had been to this pool before and the lifeguard the last time didn’t seem to give a shit. Some teenage lifeguards let you flagrantly disobey pool policy because they’re teenage lifeguards and they have more important things to do, like stare at their own abs. But others can be shockingly aggressive in enforcing every rule on the list, and the lifeguard on duty this day fell into this category. My son took one step down into the hot tub and he blew his whistle, which hardly seemed necessary because we were two feet away from him.
“He can’t go in there,” he said.
“Really?” I asked. That was the best counterargument I could muster.
“Yeah, no, he’s not allowed in there.”
So I had to calmly explain to my son that he wasn’t allowed in the hot tub. But you can’t just say NO to a kid. That pisses them off. You have to spin it. You have to make it sound like the fact that they’ve been barred from the hot tub is some kind of awesome development.
“Hey, you know what?” I said to him. “The lifeguard said you can go in the big kid pool!”
My son didn’t take the bait. He knew I was bullshitting him. “I WAND TO BO IN DA HODDUB.”
Meanwhile, my daughter wasn’t helping things because she was frolicking in the tub and rubbing his face in it. “I can go in the hot tub!” she yelled. “See? It’s easy! You just jump right in! Come on, jump!”
“He can’t do that,” I said. “Why don’t you help me out and go in the big kid pool?”
“That pool is cold.”
Another family came into the pool area while my son was crying, which was embarrassing because you want to keep the moments when your kids lose their shit private and not have everyone around come check it out. There was a girl who was roughly my daughter’s age, and when she jumped into the big pool, my daughter nearly broke her ankles following suit. Now she was in the big pool, swimming around with her head just above the water, like a Labrador in the ocean, and I thought I had it made. I could have kissed that other little girl, if kissing a little girl that is not your own didn’t result in a jail sentence.
I turned to my son and pointed at his sister. “See? She’s in the big pool now. Let’s go!”
He stood his ground. When my son says no, it’s like he’s winding up to throw a baseball at your head. “NnnnnnnnnnnnnO!”