Archive for November, 2011

Daddy on “Messing up the Kitchen″

Posted: November 8, 2011 in Comedy, Family, Fatherhood, Food, Nariah
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Its dinner time and spaghetti is the decided dish on the menu.
“Daddy, since mommy’s not here yet, I can be your helper in the kitchen!”
“Awesome! I’ll go ahead and brown the beef, you start up the salads, you can do whatever you want with them, you’re in charge!”
I get out one of those English cukes so show Nariah how to cut them up in fairly small slices (the first 3-4 were on point… but the last 7-8 were huge meatball sized chunks looking like deformed parallelograms, which of course I told her were just “perfect”, hilarious). I finish browning, seasoning, and draining the meat and proceed to add the sauce to the pot. I check on Nariah and she has cheese all over the floor and her clothes, bacon bits all over the counter, and is about to crumble up some crackers for homemade croutons. She is just smiling as a happy little camper can be. Of course the first thought that pops in my head is “what in the world?!?!? what is she doing?!?!??”. But that thought is quickly taken away by how much joy she is showing in helping out.
“Daddy, I think we need some garlic bread too!”
“Ooh, you’re right, I forgot about that, let me get it now!”

Nariah turns back around to finish her salad and I head to the stove behind her, turn on the oven and then look in the freezer for some Texas Toast.
“Ow!!!! Ow!!!! Daddy stop! you’re burning me!!!”
I jump away from the freezer, “What’s wrong boo? What are you talking about? I’m not touching you.”
“Daddy, yes you did, you burned me on my back!”
As I look on her back, she has a big blotch of spaghetti sauce. Now she is a good 5 feet from the stove, so I’m looking around confused. I look to the floor, spaghetti sauce… I look at my pants and socks, spaghetti sauce…. I look to the stove, and its like a scene from a movie. The pot is alive and angry; its spitting out sauce everywhere! I never turned down the burner to low from when I browned the beef (oops). Now its boiling in a mad rage so much that I can’t even reach over the top to turn it down. There is sauce all over the side counters, on top of the spices, inside the sugar canister that I had just opened, and even under the microwave vent.
“Ow… Ow…. Ooooh….. Ow!! Man… This sauce is hot! I’m so sorry Nariah, I see what you mean!”

As I’m dancing around the stove dodging the flying sauce, Nariah is just beside herself trying not to fall out the chair laughing at me. “Get it daddy! Hee hee. Watch out!!!  Oooooh, that’s a big splash!  Hahaha. Whew boy… you’re gonna get it when mommy gets home, this is a mess!”

Finally, lid on the pot and removed from burner to cool down. I step back and look at the mess. Then all of a sudden I hear : “Oooooooooooooooooooooooh, you got it on the ceiling too!”
I look up and sure enough, there is spaghetti all over the ceiling! And I mean all over the ceiling. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture to share as I was indeed trying to clean that up before Toya got home. All the while I’m cleaning up, Nariah is shaking her head and muttering, “I can’t believe you got it on the ceiling…. that’s crazy daddy!”

But alas, we’re not done yet. I have the water boiling for the noodles and I pick up this jumbo sized bottle of olive oil to add to the water before putting in the noodles. Why does the top decide to break off. Luckily it was a plastic bottle which saved it from breaking, however… the unlucky part was that because it was a plastic bottle, the landing caused the oil to erupt like a volcano. And yes… again… we have a mess on the ceiling! And this time, the cabinet doors and the side of the fridge were victims too. Rivers of olive oil are now dripping from the ceiling and cabinets.
“Snicker snicker…. hahahahahahahah…. I’ll help you daddy! I’ll get the towels!”

The most awesome part about all of this, was the ability to not get mad at everything going haywire and to just enjoy the mess with my little helper as she thought everything was just hilarious! Which indeed it was. Seeing Nariah’s face as she told Toya about our ordeal over dinner made it all worthwhile.

 

Daddy on “Unexpected Emotional Moments”

Posted: November 4, 2011 in Family, Fatherhood, Love, Nariah
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Another short and sweet Nariah moment.

On a day like any other, I’m off to pick up Nariah from daycare. She’s sitting at the table when I arrive and doesn’t do the usual “Dadddddddddy!” while running into your body part where a 4 year old head would hit if she were to run into you full speed. Instead, she calmly walks over with this picture in hand and hands it to me.

“Here Daddy! I made this for you!”
“Thanks baby! Its beautiful! What did you make this time?”
“Its a heart daddy! When you stayed overnight at the hospital with mommy when Toryn was born, you both looked like you needed a present. So I made this for you. I made one for mommy too!“

And she just stands there looking at me, not smiling, but with that look of “I love you daddy” look. I can’t really describe the feeling that overcame me when I gave her a hug and told her thank you. The feeling in that hug she gave me back was definitely something else. People always ask me, when kids are running around screaming, the prices of daycare inflates, the attitudes, the talkbacks, the long nights of zero sleep, and the lack of parental privacy if having kids worth the trouble. Little moments like this more than make it all worthwhile.

Other people’s kids say… #21

Posted: November 3, 2011 in Comedy, Other people's kids
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A friend of mine took their family down to Hampton’s homecoming. This would be both kid’s (boy 5, and girl 2) first football game. All the excitement of the band, cheerleaders, and overtime victory made for an excellent first time experience.  Well a few days later at home, the daughter is walking around the house kicking her legs out and stretching her arms all around.

Mom : “What are you doing?”
Daughter : “I’m stretching…”
Mom : “Stretching? Who stretches like that?”
Daughter : “I’m stretching like the cheerleaders from the football game. This is what they do!”

Big brother seeing all of this chimes in his thoughts : “Nuh uhhhh, this is what those cheerleaders were doing!”

Now granted this is a blog… but nothing I can type can convey the imagery I was given. I want you to use your mind, and imagine a 5 year old boy with his face scrunched up, and doing exactly what is being done in this clip below. And when I say doing it, he was getting low!

Nariah says… #56

Posted: November 2, 2011 in Comedy, Nariah
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Always in search of a new adventure in the kitchen, I decided to bake some salmon that had been soaking in some orange juice and Malibu rum. I have this hope that Nariah will eat it, but I know better, she’s not as gung ho with the new dishes all the time. So I prepare a backup meal for her just in case. While we’re eating dinner, (she with her fish sticks, we with our salmon) she looks at me and says : “Daddy, is that Xray fish?”
“Is this a what fish?”
“Is that Xray fish?”

I look at Toya because I’m thinking I have definitely heard her wrong and try to get clarification.

“Did you say Xray? Like how you see bones at the doctors?”
And then it hits me… I look at my place and bust out laughing. “Hahahah, yes baby, this is indeed an Xray fish, all fish that we eat have bones in them. However, they took all of the bones out at the store in this salmon, so we don’t have to worry about them.“

“Ok daddy, if you say so….“