Big Daddy Paul

I have always enjoyed watching the superbowl. Check that, I have always enjoyed superbowl sunday. Despite the great games in the past few years, the games are mostly lame. I do, however, enjoy hanging out with my best friends, eating super awesome food and, while I hate to admit it, I like to watch the superbowl ads. Don’t tell anyone, because the stay at home parent just watching the Superbowl for the commercials is so cliche. This year was no exception, although the game has certainly changed.

This year, the kids were there. We had about ten adults and six kids over, meaning you couldn’t swing a dead chicken wing without knocking over a child (and then wiping off the wing sauce.) Instead of getting drunk, betting on every play, yelling at the screen and eating myself into a partial coma, this year I got drunk, broke up fights, stopped one-year-olds from eating chalk and falling off the couch, and ate myself into a partial coma. Having kids at any event changes the essential nature of the event, but it doesn’t mean that the event is no longer any fun.

Sure, the days of wet tee shirt contests and jello shots at our house are gone, but in its place something oddly alluring has sprouted: parenting. During the game I got to teach Malcolm. I taught him how to check raise before the flop during the annual pre-superbowl poker game. I taught him how to read the score off the TV screen. I told him sad the people of New Orleans have been and how happy this football game was going to make them. I taught him what “squares” were and how if the Colts didn’t throw that last interception he was going to win $40. Then, I had to tell him that when you gamble you lose money most of the time. I taught him that you get to eat whatever you want on Superbowl sunday, even if that means your dinner consists entirely of chocolate chip cookies. (Thanks for the awesome batch Diedre!)

If you offered me the chance to, for one day, be childless again, I am not sure what my answer would be. Of course, I like jello shots and wet tee shirt contests. I like to watch football games without any distractions and swearing loudly whenever anything truly exciting happens. I like talking to my friends about things other than new teeth, first steps and who’s kid hit who. Seeing Malcolm actually watching the game, though, was pretty cool. Answering his questions about what was going on made the game fun in a brand new way.  I guess I’m actually glad we had kids there and I was able to share some experiences with Malcolm.

Oh wait, I’m not that guy. Give me a shot, a chair at the judging table and some chicken wings. Let someone else have fun with the kids.

Amy has her annual “Oracle Shuts Down San Francisco Conference” this week.  We dropped her off at BART this morning,and we will not be seeing her til thursday.  She will be hanging with the movers and shakers, dining at fantastic events, and otherwise being very grownup (until she has a third cocktail.)

Malcolm and I will be having quite a different experience.  We’ll start it off tonight by watching the football game.  If Amy were around, they would talk to each other in an enriching way and play some games which develop his ever expanding intellect.  Malcolm and I, on the other hand, will stare at grown men bludgeoning the snot out of each other, and do it in virtual silence.  I could tell him that the game is a battle of good versus evil, but with the Jets playing the Dolphins, what story could I possibly tell?

We will be eating a steady diet of crap while Amy is gone.  I have a hard time cooking anything too exciting when Amy is gone, so Malcolm and I will make do on mounds of macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, and dessert from bakesale betty’s.  I have tried to make gourmet healthy food for just the two of us, but every time I have, the meal has ended in tears (from both of us! I get really upset when people don’t like my cooking.) I am not sure who is going to get more out of the week, as I don’t often get to treat myself to kids’ food regularly.

Malcolm will also look a lot more disheveled at school this week.  I am kind of a slob myself, and dress like it is my duty to protect the world against my devilish good looks.  Amy dresses Malcolm a lot and usually cares that Malcolm’s clothes, A) are clean and B) match, while I generally let Malcolm dress himself and pat myself on the back every time I get him out of the house with A) pants on and B) a shirt on.  Malcolm’s teachers will definitely be able to realize that I have sole Malcolm duty this week.

With Amy gone, my wine consumption will plummet, too.  We consider wine to be a contributing member of our marriage, and without her there, drinking wine feels like cheating. I know that she will be cheating, as her evenings will be spent drinking fabulous wines at expensive restaurants.  I like to think that I am a better man than that, so I will not be cheating on her.  I will drink beer.  Wait a minute, beer and macaroni and cheese with a football game on?  I hope she goes out of town for a month!