September 26th, 2012
Man, I feel like I'm in a deeper hole than I have ever been in before. Things can't be good when the ground is at eye level and you are standing upright. It gets worse when you think you've hit rock bottom, only to discover that you have yet to make it there. It just kills your morale, ya know? You've only dug yourself further down beneath the rocks and gravel when you finally figured out that "maybe you haven't gotten anywhere," well, that reality really sucks.
Mentally, it kills you. It makes all the strides you've been making seem like a fallacy because you've been digging deeper down in that same hole the entire time.
When you reach this level of lowness. You look for the lightheartedness of life that will lift up your spirits. But it can be difficult when the soil falls from the ground level and blinds you from the natural sunlight or any light that would provide some comfort to your plight.
Just the other day, my youngest son was in the bathroom. This is a big no-no in this house because the boys seem to flush whatever they can find down the toilet, like loose change (no problem), toothbrushes (we got three in there once), car keys (well, that one was my fault, shame on me).
So the moment I hear one of them rascals in the bathroom, I know it can't be good.
"Christopher! Are you in the bathroom," I shout.
I hear the toilet seat slam against the porcelain base. I immediately run to the bathroom, hoping to catch anything that might be ready to travel down the bottom of the toilet, but that is different from the tidy bowl, man. As I rounded the corner, Christopher headed out of the bathroom because he heard me calling his name, scratching that, and yelling his name. That boy was headed out of dodge.
He either wanted to avoid my lecture or ran from the crime scene.
"What the," I say, flabbergasted, "Why is your head wet? Christopher, why is your hair wet," I had to ask twice because I couldn't believe what I saw.
I walk into the bathroom and notice the water scattered about the floor like dirty laundry. Yes, without being bullied, Christopher filled a cup with the bathroom supplies used to rinse the soap off their heads and bodies, dunking it in the toilet water and pouring it on him.
I move up a notch from this dark hole where I am stranded; the smiling is helping. The thought of the innocence of a child wanting to go for a swim, albeit a toilet bowl, is heartwarming. It makes me chuckle. I wish I had caught him before he did the dastardly deed.
My thoughts venture on to more mischief the boys have been getting into. On the first day of our new boat, Nico removed the key from the ignition, and Christopher threw it into the water. To add insult to injury, I never attached the key floatie to the ring so the keys wouldn't sink to the bottom. The keys were gone forever. What a night that was.
"Hello? It's hard to hear Mimie. I'm on the gun range," I shout into my cellular phone to Mimie, who is on the other side of the call. I could hear Mimie frantically yelling from her end, but it was all muffled!
I was out training with the police department far from home; we conducted our yearly all-day and night shooting qualifier. Mimie had just stepped outside to go to the car and get some groceries from the back of her minivan. In that brief moment, Nico, our four-year-old son, seized the moment and locked her out of the house with a simple twist of the rotating lock. He wasn't being mean or anything; he just knew how to lock the door. He had no clue how to unlock the door.
"Mimie," I say, trying to calm her, "I think I understand what you're saying. Let me call the police department and have an officer stop over and try and help you."
At this time, I'm on one knee just behind the firing line under a pavilion, trying to shield my head with my arm in an attempt to muffle the sound of gunshots in the background.
"I'll call you back in a minute." I immediately call the police department. Luckily for us, it is the same department I work for.
"Hey Tiffany, it's Fusaro. Yes, Fusaro," she asks again because it's hard to hear me. I rise to my feet and yell into the phone.
[Author Note]
In any military organization run on the chain of command system, we usually call everyone by their last name. I say generally because some days you can just be called "shithead." Depending on how bad you screwed up.
[Back to your regularly scheduled blog]
"Tiffany, can you send a cop to my house and assist with getting my wife in. My son locked my wife out!" I shout. "MY son locked my wife out," I shout again.
I pause momentarily when I realize the entirety around me. I turned my body around and noticed that the guys were done shooting. They all stopped to turn and stare at me, and man, were they enjoying the moment they were witnessing.
"My son," I announce as I begin to hold the phone away from my ear, "locked my wife out of the house." I remove my finger from my ear, and my voice trails off.
Long pause.
I move a notch above the soil, piling alongside my hole because my laughter lifts me. That hole is defining who I am lately.
I let my boys loose on a recent trip to Disney World in Orlando. Trying to break them in, they ran around the park in celebration of Mickey Mouse or in the jubilee of their father, allowing them to do something so insane.
"Boys," I announce in a Magic Kingdoms Future World restaurant. "Stay close. Stay close," I say like a broken record.
As long as I can see them, I'll be fine. I just say something to appease all the people around me who are judging me as my boys figure out what life is like beyond their stroller.
On our walk down to the seating area, a stage is set up in the center of the eating establishment. Sonny, the creepy-looking alien, is playing music and singing to the hordes of people who ignore the blare from his position on stage.
"Leave Sonny the alien alone, guys," I say to my boys as I set up our table for our expensive feast.
The boys are enthralled by the singing alien as they crowd the barrier and move close to the singing automation.
"Guys," I chuckle, "I'm so serious. Leave him alone."
The restaurant is jam-packed. People are everywhere, enjoying the Disney magic. I even found myself tapping my toe to the music that Sonny the Alien was playing until...
The music stopped, and Sonny the Alien was officially dead. I didn't have to look up to know what I already knew. My boys got on stage and turned Sonny off in the middle of his set. The crowd of over 500 people or more had gone silent.
"Excuse me. Pardon me, excuse me," I said as I walked through the crowd.
I climb on stage to retrieve my boys from their perch, looking at the audience. I turn and look at the crowd, both boys in my arms.
"Sorry folks," I announce, "Sonny owed money to the space mob. He had to be taken out, but don't miss the Bear Jamboree just down in Frontier Land."
I laugh hard because I know my laughter is the best medicine. I'll use the laughter to lift me to where we all want to be and out of this hole. So I can be happy and high enough to see the sun's light shine through.
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