Father's Day Reflections Grab-Bag

(This post is dedicated to long-time friend and P.L. reader Michelle McClure who last weekly gently protested that my posts had been a little too theological and not enough cute kid stories. -Ed.)

*We were in Charlotte last weekend with my familiy and we mistakenly forgot to pack diaper cream. Given our current torturously slow rate of potty-training we figured we better pick some up while we were out doing errands. I ran into the drug store and I stood stock-still in sticker shock: $7 for a tube of diaper cream! What an outrage! I've bought the stuff before, but never as a solo item. So I began to do some mental math: $7/tube, we go through about a tube a month, Davis is 3 years old and 7 months...that's $301 in zinc oxide cream that's been absorbed into his little bottom since he's been born. That's definitely going on his tab...

*With baby #3 due September 6th, we've decided to go ahead and move Davis into Zoe's larger room in order to work through any kinks that may arise (the new baby girl will sleep in Davis' smaller bedroom for a while and then eventually the two girls will share a room). The results have been nothing short of catastrophic. They've been waking up in the middle of the night screaming for no apparent reason. And they've been waking each other up at ungodly hours of the morning. One day last week they were up at 4:30 a.m. for the day. My children are not gifted sleepers, which is a tragedy because both of their parents are. So it was quite appropriate that my Father's Day present today would be a travel mug for coffee; my kids are driving me to drinkin'...

*In order to celebrate Father's Day in an appropriately modern-day fashion, I downloaded my favorite Father-ish song to my Ipod last week: "Just the Two of Us" by Will Smith. I pretty much like anything Will Smith has ever done, with the notable exception of the movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance" which should have done us all a favor by going straight to video with a warning across the front that said "Do not waste two hours of your life on this film."

*Finally, some difficult news for the Kirk home last week. There was a massive recall on millions of Thomas the Tank Engine parts that were made in China and painted with lead paint. One of the recalled items: James, the red engine. Davis' entire life pretty much revolves around Thomas and his friends and James is one of his favorites, someone he waited on for six months until his three-year-old birthday. We've broached the conversation about James needing to go "to the sheds" to get repairs, but six to eight weeks (the approximate promised turn-around time from the company's web site) is like half my little guy's life. We're hoping to get James and a couple of other more minor trains involved in the recall mailed off tomorrow. But if Davis wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and is cranky all day I might decide that I need to hand-deliver James to the factory in Dyersville, Iowa--both for the peace and quiet of a couple days in the car and to save my wife and I the pain of eight weeks of trying to keep Davis consoled while James and friends get disposed of properly and replaced by a version that is slightly less toxic.