Easter Bunnies: The Real March Madness

I love Santa Claus. I'm all about the Tooth Fairy. I wish I lived on Sesame Street and vacationed in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. I think Walt Disney is a genius who based most of his movies on true stories, and I've always thought of Pee-Wee's Playhouse as the perfect place to spend my golden years.

The quintessential man-rabbit

But I hate the Easter Bunny.

Admittedly its an awful thing for me to say, especially with five young kids at home - but its true, nonetheless.

No - I'm not a curmudgeon or an atheist, and I don't even see myself as a grumpy old man (yet). I honor Easter and all of its traditions (and all of its kielbasa), I just have a very strong, very rational distaste for what has become the modern symbol of the Easter holiday.

Let's start with the obvious: he's a rabbit. A large, over-sized, over-fed rabbit with the same physiological properties of a man. A "man-rabbit", if you will. He either exists through some freak genetic mutation or - the more likely scenario - some government-sponsored radioactivity experiment gone awry. But instead of turning into a green monster and smashing cars and buildings (see: Hulk, The Incredible), he hops from house to house hiding eggs full of jellybeans for little boys and girls to enjoy.

Seriously? How can we even say that with a straight face? We all know Santa Claus is real because we see fat white guys with beards walking around every day; but even the youngest of the young don't take long to figure out that giant walking man-rabbits simply don't exist.

How is this fun?

Which bring me to my second point: rabbits. Rabbits are animals... and animals can be scary, especially to little kids. They don't communicate like us, they make sudden movements and, according to pretty much every fairy tale ever told, they eat small children. A few of my kids are scared of the little tiny bunny in the little tiny cage at our local orchard... so one could only imagine what happens when we threw throw them on the lap of a 200-pound bunny with a big grinning mouth. Then to make matters worse you have to picture that very same man-rabbit hopping through your house - opening drawers, messing-up the couch cushions, hiding stuff. Hell, its enough to creep me out, let alone my kids. Yes, Santa creepy-crawls around the house too, but at least Santa is nice. And jolly. He slides down the chimney and eats cookies and leaves presents. Sure your house smells like stale pipe tobacco when he leaves, but at least he's not pawing his way through your silverware drawer.

You can't tell me there's not
something wrong with this guy.

And speaking of Santa: you can talk to him. You can reason with him and tell him what you want. You can explain to him why even though you cut your sister's pigtails off you still deserve presents  But no such luck with the Easter Bunny, because as everyone knows bunnies don't talk... or read... or do much of anything for that matter. They're just bunnies.

I think I was six or seven when I found out there was no such thing as an Easter Bunny; and while that discovery was in an of itself a relief, it did lead to a far more sobering line of logical reasoning. My parents said there's an Easter Bunny... but I know there's no Easter Bunny... but they said there was one... so they're not telling the truth... and if they're not telling the truth about the Easter Bunny, what else aren't they telling the truth about? At some point all kids will discover their parents are not perfect... but I can't think of a dumber thing to waste away their innocence on than a goddamn six-foot bunny.

We absolutely need man-rabbits to trick Elmer Fudd and to steal Trix cereal, but we don't need them to enjoy a holiday. Let's work together, people... let's stop the madness. Let's stop the Easter Bunny!

Top 40 Songs of 2012 (if you have kids)

It's New Year's Eve and once again iTunes has helped me compile my family's forty most played songs of the year. (Um... can you tell we have five kids under the age of ten?)

1. Locked Out of Heaven (Bruno Mars)

2. It Will Rain (Bruno Mars)

3. We Are Young (Fun feat. Janelle Monáe)           

4. Eyes Open (Taylor Swift)

5. Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen)

6. Ours (Taylor Swift)

7. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor Swift)

8. Payphone (Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa)

9. Boyfriend (Justin Bieber)

10. Rumour Has It (Adele)

11. Moves Like Jagger (Maroon 5)

12. Harder to Breathe (Maroon 5)

13. Shake It Up (Selena Gomez)

14. Baby (Justin Bieber & Ludacris)

15. Mean (Taylor Swift)

16. Sparks Fly (Taylor Swift)

17. Billionaire (Travie McCoy feat. Bruno Mars)

18. California Gurls (Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg)

19. Back To December (Taylor Swift)

20. On the Floor (Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull)

21. Kissin U (Miranda Cosgrove)

22. Some Nights (Fun)

23. Makes Me Wonder (Maroon 5)

24. Good Time (Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen)

25. You Belong With Me (Taylor Swift)

26. Who Says (Selena Gomez & The Scene)

27. Firework (Katy Perry)

28. Fearless (Taylor Swift)

29. One More Night (Maroon 5)

30. Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)

31. Start Again (Counting Crows)

32. Love Story (Taylor Swift)

33. Kookie Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb (Edd Byrnes)

34. As Long As You Love Me (Justin Bieber feat. Big Sean)

35. One Less Lonely Girl (Justin Bieber)

36. Make It Shine (Victorious Cast)

37. Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne)

38. Leave It All to Me (Miranda Cosgrove)           

39. Safe & Sound (Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars

40. Nothin' On You (B.o.B feat. Bruno Mars)

And as a way to save face, here are my most-listened to songs of 2012. (This is the part where my wife will call me an old man.)

1. We Can Work It Out (The Beatles)

2. Emotion In Motion (Ric Ocasek)

3. My Back Pages (Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, et al.)

4. Please Please Me (The Beatles)

5. I'll Follow the Sun (The Beatles)

6. Let My Love Open The Door (Pete Townshend)

7. Electric Blue (Icehouse)

8. Take It On The Run (REO Speedwagon)

9. New York, New York (Frank Sinatra)

10. Don't Stop Believin' (Journey)

11. Denise (Randy & Rainbows)

12. God Only Knows (The Beach Boys)

13. When I Grow Up To Be a Man (The Beach Boys)

14. All My Loving (The Beatles)

15. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (The Beatles)

16. Paperback Writer (The Beatles)

17. The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan)

18. Norwegian Wood (The Beatles)

19. Blowin' In the Wind (Bob Dylan)

20. Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)

21. Real World (Matchbox Twenty)

22. Expressway To Your Heart (Soul Survivors)

23. Born In The U.S.A. (Bruce Springstein)

24. All I Really Want To Do (The Byrds)

25. I Wonder Why (Dion & The Belmonts)

26. Got to Get You Into My Life (The Beatles)

27. Cool (Gwen Stefani)

28. Boston (Augustana)

29. I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John)

30. Rag Doll (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons)

31. Basket Case (Green Day)

32. Laid (James)

33. Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)

34. Penny Lane (The Beatles)

35. Take Me Home Tonight (Eddie Money)

36. Next Year (Foo Fighters)

37. Runaround Sue (Dion)

38. Lonely Teenager (Dion)

39. Walk of Life (Dire Straits)

40. Remember Then (The Earls)

Happy New Year, everyone!

35 Minutes From Newtown

It's a cold, grey afternoon here in Central Connecticut; but I'm inside. Our fireplace is lit, our Christmas tree twinkles in the corner - and as if by some obsessive-compulsive urge I keep counting the stockings that hang on the mantle.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. All present and accounted for.

From my perch in the living room, I can hear my five children giggling in the kitchen. They're decorating gingerbread houses, though I'm sure more candy has landed in their stomachs than on the frosted roofs. In a few minutes they'll go watch "Frosty the Snowman" or "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" for the umpteenth time; but for now their focus - their only care in the world - revolves around candy canes and gumdrops.

It dawns on me, as it has often over the past three days, that I could get in my car right now and drive to Sandy Hook Elementary School in about 35 minutes. Thirty-five minutes. That's all that separates my kids' little gingerbread houses from what many have deemed the epicenter of evil in this cruel, inexplicable world.

The questions won't stop pouring through my mind:

What has society come to?

Where is our collective conscience?

How does a loving, compassionate God allow something like this to happen?

Over the next several weeks, reflection will be aplenty. Analyses both forensic and philosophical will inundate - if not consume - us. Our tiny state of Connecticut will undoubtedly lead every news outlet from Dateline NBC to People magazine, while (hopefully) a national public policy debate on semi-automatic weapons will ensue.

And in nine days we'll celebrate Christmas.

I look up again at our stockings. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. All present and accounted for.

May God bless those who aren't as lucky.

SUMMER RE-RUN: Twins Again!

If network television can fill its summer/creative void with re-runs of things it has already broadcast, then so can I. This essay of mine appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of TWINS Magazine. (I think I'm supposed to put "used with permission" or something like that; but since its my own work that I'm using, granting myself permission to use it seems somewhat redundant.)


Father of Five: Twins Again?

By J.J. Treat

TWINS Magazine, Summer 2009

The grainy black-and-white ultrasound couldn’t have been any clearer. Two small circles, two dark spots, two little flutters.

We were having twins. Again.

Alex and Madeline were four and a half, Katherine was not quite 18 months and there we were, back in the same exam room where it all started, finding out we were having two more.

For a good, solid minute we sat in silence, taking deep breaths and staring at the monitor as if we were in a trance. Finally my wife blurted out: “Oh my God - what kind of a car is going to fit five kids?”

Without cracking a smile our doctor shrugged and deadpanned: “A Suburban.”

Two set of twins... and Katie in between.

Most statistics put the average American family at somewhere between 2.06 and 2.10 children – a fact which has come to explain the novelty of having five kids in today’s Western culture. From the minute we saw those two little flutters we knew we’d be branded a social anomaly.

My mother-in-law, for example, burst into hysterical laughter when we told her we were pregnant with Nos. 4 & 5. So did my mother. My father literally took an hour to absorb the news, while my father-in-law simply told us to get a bigger house… and soon.

When word got out to the rest of the world, most people gasped and told us how lucky we were (a legitimate reaction given our doctor’s claim that the odds of naturally conceiving twins twice is about the same as getting struck by lightning). Others suggested we get our own reality show on TLC.

And of course all of the people who thought we were crazy to have three children had plenty to say about our fourth and fifth. From the generic “How will you afford it?” to the more caustic “better you than me,” people didn’t mince their words.

Buried within the novelty, though, was the very real feeling that our life was changing – and for real, this time. The jump from zero children to two was big but expected; and the jump from two to three was nothing. But making the leap up to five was an unequivocal game-changer.

For starters, my father-in-law was right: we needed to move. Our three tiny bedrooms just weren’t practical anymore; plus, we wanted a town that offered a myriad of sports and activities so our five kids, who all already have different interests, would have plenty to choose from.

Mostly, though, we just needed to adapt to the everyday nuances that exist outside the American “norm”. Most strollers are built for one or two children; we needed one that could hold three. Most restaurants have booths to fit five; we’d always need one for seven. And most deals, specials, coupons and prizes are for a “Family 4-Pack.” With us that would barely cover half.

Kevin and Elizabeth were born full-term on a rainy September morning only a minute apart and weighing-in at a combined 14 pounds, 15 ounces (which I’m fairly certain qualifies my wife for sainthood). Coming from a comparatively small family, I was in awe – amazed, even – the first time I saw all five of my children together.

As early as our hospital stay, though, random strangers felt the need to weigh-in on the size of our brood. One woman chastised us for having so many children, citing the world population and the growing need to adopt. Another said we should have just stopped after the first set of twins. And plenty of uninhibited types had the nerve to ask “natural or in-vitro” with the same ease a waitress would ask “regular or decaf.”

Lucky for us, peppered within all the cynicism and commentary was genuine excitement - mostly from people who either came from or had big families like ours. They assured us that what most saw as a novelty was simply just our life.

That got me thinking. With five kids in public school, I will never again complain about paying my property taxes. And with five kids living under my roof, I should be able to stop shoveling snow by the time I’m 40.

With five kids, they will have to learn patience, independence and responsibility (since my wife and I can’t do everything for everybody). They will have to learn how to share, how to fight and how to resolve conflicts; and they will wave to learn how to tolerate other opinions and adapt to other interests.  

And with five children there will be plenty of people to take care of my wife and me when we’re old. More importantly, though, there will be plenty of them to take care of each other.

Life with a big family won’t always be easy. We’ve already had (and will surely continue to have) our ups and downs. But at the end of the day my wife and I rest well knowing we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Of all the questions we are asked, the most common is always: “How do you handle all those kids?” I wish we had some snazzy, magical answer; but when people ask how we do it the simple truth is: we just do.

And we haven’t even needed a Suburban… yet.

J.J. Treat lives in West Hartford, CT with his wife and five children.

My Dad

For more than 38 years my father has been an educator. He started as a teacher, spent the bulk of his career as an elementary school principal, was promoted to Assistant Superintendent and eventually became Superintendent of Schools in the city where he (and I) grew-up. On June 30th, my dad will retire - marking the end of an era in the New Britain school district.

My Dad after throwing out the first pitch at the NB Rock Cats.

This past Wednesday night, my dad was feted at what can only be described as one of the largest retirement dinners I have ever even heard of, let alone attended. More than a dozen speakers touted my father's accomplishments and presented him with tokens of appreciation before my brother and I finally had the honor of introducing him. Here in its entirety is what I had to say:


There are more than 500 people here in this room tonight – and that is, in and of itself, both a tribute to my father and a representation of the vast cross-section that is his life. Family and friends… students and administrators… colleagues and business leaders… coaches, players, politicians… and teachers.

My father was and is - first and foremost - a teacher… a time-honored profession that transcends the history of civilized society. The acquiring of knowledge and dissemination of that knowledge is a skill - a gift – that generation upon generation of human beings have venerated not for its wealth or prestige, but for the very simple fact that it sustains our future. Teachers ensure that society advances; that it continues to propagate and prosper… for centuries and centuries to come. 

My father is a great teacher… and for all of you who know him, you won’t be surprised to learn that in my 34 years of being his son, he’s taught me a lot.

And for all of you who know him, you also won’t be surprised to learn that in 34 years of being his son, there are also several skills I’ve acquired that he ostensibly did NOT teach me: like sheetrocking… and plumbing. Installing an electrical outlet… or tiling a kitchen floor. Pretty much anything involving a hammer, nails, a drill… in fact he doesn’t even own a drill.

Every year I hike through a tree farm with my wife and kids and chop down a Christmas tree with my own two hands… NOT a skill I learned from my father.

Driving a car? Lord knows he tried… but that too was NOT something I learned from my father. And negotiating the price of a car? Definitely not something I learned from my father.

Fishing, painting, singing, playing cards? I can do all of them… with absolutely zero thanks to my father.

But obviously when I started thinking about what to say here tonight, it did dawn on me just how many things – how many important things – in my everyday life that my father the teacher did in fact teach me.

He taught me how to shave; and how to tie a tie… two skills without which I’d undoubtedly be unemployed.

He taught me how to read… a skill I not only use every day in my job, but more importantly every night when I put my kids to bed.

He taught me about baseball… a game that’s rarely ever over; that’s always possible to win. A game designed to make you fail, bounce back, fail again… and emerge stronger, more focused and more resilient than ever.

He taught me how to keep score in baseball… a skill that earned me all-conference honors at New Britain High my senior year; and he taught me how to be a coach… something I get to do with my son and his friends a couple of nights a week.

And while Joe Dimaggio famously thanked the Good Lord for making him Yankee, I always thank my father for making me a Yankee fan.

My dad the teacher taught me how to teach… something I’ve been doing at Central and the community colleges for almost ten years now. He taught me how it’s about patience and understanding… and always remembering that the ultimate purpose is to get your students to think.

He taught me about politics… how it’s not about celebrity or even a person; but rather a process – a powerful mechanism – that we all can use to help make our community, our country and our world a better place.

I make my living through politics – and though I don’t often say it: it was my father who first got me involved. In 1984, I was 7 years old – and my dad took me down to Democratic headquarters to work for Walter Mondale and an incumbent Congressman named William Ratchford. We stamped postcards, passed out buttons, ran numbers on Election Day… and of course we got trounced. Being only seven, I was devastated, but my dad taught me how to hope for the future and manage defeat… a skill that came in quite handy four years later when he took me to see Michael Dukakis speak in Waterbury – and he too got trounced.

When I was 11, he took me to a local candidate forum sponsored by a group of New Britain school parents. He was supporting some guy named DeFronzo who had never held office before and had virtually no chance of knocking off the city’s longest serving mayor… that one, of course, we won (go figure). And we won a lot more than we lost over the years, but the message was always the same: be active. Challenge the system. Stand up for what you believe in. My father taught me that win or lose, we have an obligation to inspire, to be a part of the process - to bring people together and work for the type of society in which we all want to live.

My dad taught me how to be a leader… a professional… part of an organization. And he taught me how to be passionate about my job… how life is too short to waste by not doing something you absolutely love. How there are good days and bad days… but no matter what: at the end of the day, you’ve got to have feeling for what you’re doing.

My father taught me to remember where I came from… to take pride in the fact that I’m the grandson of a factory worker and the grandson of a carpenter… and that were it not for my grandparents and their insistence that their children be educated, neither he nor my mother nor my brother nor I would be standing before you today.

My father taught and continues to teach me every day how to be a son-in-law… and of course: a son.

He has taught and continues to teach me every day how to be a brother… and a brother-in-law… and a cousin… and an uncle.

I watch his relationship with my mom – the woman he has loved and adored since their days at New Britain High. His partner, his companion… his confidant, his best friend… And I know that he’s taught me how to be a husband.

But in the final analysis – and above all else – the single most important thing I’ve learned – and continue to learn – from my father… is how to be a father. It’s been almost ten years since I first looked at that white stick with the little blue plus sign and knew that my life had changed forever. First came Alex and Maddie… and then my little Katie… and then Kevin and Libby. Are they overwhelming at times? Sure… and it helped that my dad was always there for the big things: when they were born, when they were baptized… when they were in the Emergency Room (which by my count I believe at least four of the five have been at some point). But in a way he’s also there every minute of every day… as I navigate my own ups and downs of fatherhood with my own children. Whether it’s helping them with their homework, or taking them on vacation, or talking them through a bad day at school or a rough outing on the pitcher’s mound… or answering their millions of questions about everything ranging from: who built me?... to what’s it like up in Heaven?... to why haven’t the Houston Astros ever won the World Series?

At every turn, at every step of the way, my first point of reference is always to think back to me and Nick – two little kids growing up – and ask: what did Dad do? What would Dad do? And just like any good, free-thinking student: sometimes I follow my teacher’s lessons, and sometime I don’t. Sometimes I have to try and fail on my own before I can see that he’s right… and sometimes he’s even taught me so well that I can admit that he’s wrong.

That’s the beauty of fatherhood… and the beauty of teaching. And in the end, they’re both what he knows best.

It’s my pleasure, my privilege, my honor to introduce the guy my grandparents named Ron… the guy that people call Ronnie and Jake… Mr. J… Coach Ron, Uncle Ron… Grandpa…

And the guy I still just call Dad.    

My Anxious Little 8-Year-Old

Alex is the oldest of my five kids and an anxious little bugger.

He worries about things outside of his control, he obsesses over unfamiliar situations and he somehow extrapolates seemingly harmless events into natural disasters. He's also easily rattled by the things that annoy him or gross him out (i.e. his sisters' singing, his sisters' chewing with their mouths open... pretty much his sisters in general).

Some parents have a hard time relating to an anxious kid, but I'm not one of them. I get him. I get exactly what's rolling around in that over-worked little brain of his, even when I don't like it.Why? Because he's me.

Me, circa 1985

In elementary school, I went through a period when I physically couldn't eat in the school cafeteria with the other kids because the noises they made while chewing grossed me out. I also went through a phase where I had to pull back the shower curtain twice every time I entered the bathroom just to make sure some creepy killer guy with a hockey mask wasn't standing behind it waiting to slice my throat with a machete.

Making new friends was tough, since I never knew how to start a conversation... and recess? Torture. Pure torture. Something as simple as going up to a group of kids and asking them if they wanted to play was nearly impossible given the inner workings of my brain.

Such is the same for Alex... and it breaks my heart.

Alex loves baseball, and he's pretty good at it too. (Some have even suggested that's he's better now that I was in my prime - a fact I won't dispute.) By the end of last summer, though, you could see his anxiety start to take-over.

What if I can't turn the play?

What if I get hit with the ball?

What if someone on the other team slash-bunts and gets tossed out of the game? What will the umpire say? How will he toss him? Will the fans boo? Will the kid throw his helmet?

Alex, circa yesterday

By the time fall baseball came around, the anxiety became too much. Between the start of school, a new coach and older kids pitching, things got so bad that Alex - the team leader in batting during the summer - could not step inside the batters' box come fall. He was too nervous.

But there was and is a difference (thank God) between my run as an anxious 8-year-old and my son's: he had and will have infinitely more resources by which to deal with his anxiety than I ever did. The science of anxiety has ballooned over the last three decades to the point where society now knows more about and accepts more of the intricacies of our own human brains. What I once saw (and internalized) as my own inherent failure to be a care-free little boy is now understood to be a complex confluence of genetic traits that are able to be addressed environmentally. Hallelujah!

Over the last six months, we've helped Alex and we've gotten Alex help; and though he's still revolted by his sisters slurping cereal, he's been able to enjoy the thrills of being an 8-year-old much much more.

Last night we had our first game of the new baseball season. Alex was the starting pitcher and played the rest of the game at shortstop. He struck out, grounded out and - get this! - got hit by a pitch. Six months ago he would have been scared to ever face a pitcher again. But yesterday? He simply jogged down to first, stole second and was eventually driven home.

We won the opener 12-10, but I didn't really care. My anxious little 8-year-old was exuberant, ecstatic -  playing the game he loves.

And happy.

Stupid Sweethearts

My cherubic little Kindergartner Katie came home with her valentines this afternoon... plus an inordinate amount of candy. (Apparently Valentine's Day is the new Halloween.)

Kids undoubtedly love candy; yet among Katie's chocolates and lollipops and cherry red Starbursts lay a lone box of Sweethearts that I knew would go untouched. Katie hates Sweethearts. So do I. So does any other human being with legitimate taste buds. (And just to be clear: we're talking about Sweethearts not Sweet Tarts. I love Sweet Tarts and will duel anyone who thinks otherwise.)

I fully intended to throw Katie's Sweethearts away for her - but then curiosity got the best of me. I wondered:  Gee, just how stupid are those little sayings they have on them? Against my better judgement, I opened the box and looked. The results were scary... bordering on horrific. Here were some of the lowlights (and no - I'm not making any of them up):

• "Hug Me" - Innocuous; in fact they should all just say "Hug Me".

• "Pick Me" - As opposed to the millions of other cute little candy hearts out there?

• "Adore Me" - The thought of anyone adoring me skeeves me out.

• "Friend Me" - So Zuckerberg is into the whole candy scene now... nice!

• "Tweet Me" - Because we should all be able to express our love in 140 words or less.

• "Text Me" - As long as there are no pictures of Congressmen in their boxer shorts.

• "U Can Do It" - I can?

• "1 on 1" - I couldn't tell if this was a sex reference or simply homage Hall & Oates

• "Go Go Go" - Seems more suited for Viagra than Sweethearts.

• "Boogie" - As in Wonderland? Or Oogie Oogie Oogie?

• "Voila" - Non, merci'.

• "Time 2 Dance" - They're small, hard candies. Don't dance while eating them. You could choke.

And by far the weirdest one of them all:

• "Jump 4 Me" - On our first date? C'mon - what kind of a guy do you think I am?

What if...?

My wife and I took this picture of our five kids last weekend on a visit to the University of Connecticut:

Over the last twenty years, UConn has become one of the top public universities in the country, not to mention the "College Basketball Capitol of the World". I hold two degrees from this fine institution, I was the editor of the campus newspaper, and I was front-and-center that magical Monday night in 1999 when Coach Calhoun hoisted his/our first-ever NCAA Championship trophy in Tropicana Field... but more than anything else, UConn is where I met my wife.

We have known each other for 14 years, have been married for 11, and have five wonderful children - and when I look at this picture, I can't help think of the improbable things that had to have happened in order to bring us to this point in our lives. Yes, it sounds kinda Doc-Brown-Back-to-the-Future-ish, but think about it: at some point in October of 1997, I'm sure I stumbled drunk past this very statue, sorting through the dozens and dozens of girls' phone numbers that were voluntarily thrown at me at that night's array of parties... yet 14 years later there we were taking this picture. The time in between was and is filled with countless "what ifs".

What if she aced freshman chemistry and remained a nursing major instead of switching to journalism?

What if I didn't wander over to the campus newspaper looking for a job my freshman year?

What if her dumbass high school sweetheart hadn't broken up with her over the summer?

What if Billy had in fact beeped the horn of his car, demanding we leave that silly party before I had a chance to talk to her?

What if she said no?

What if she got sick of me?

What if she didn't have a genetic predisposition to release more than one egg per month?

What if we decided to stop after two?

What if we decided to stop after three?

The picture of my kids reminds me of that picture of Marty McFly and his siblings - the one that starts to fade bit by bit as he changes history, as he alters the "what ifs". But since I don't have a time-traveling DeLorean, the only conclusion I can draw is that life is some ironic mixture of free-will, divine intervention, and good old-fashioned luck.

I could drive myself crazy thinking about all the things that could have gone differently, that could have gone wrong... but in the end, I am where I am.

And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

September 11, 2001

It may sound corny, cliché and wholly unoriginal, but September 11, 2001 started out just like any other day.

I rolled out of bed. I took a shower. I got dressed for work.

My wife and I were still technically newlyweds; no morning chaos, no children screaming for pancakes or Pop Tarts. She left for work before I did, which was typical given that she was financially supporting us (a truth I forget all too often these days). I had just finished grad school and was working as a lowly intern for the next town over. Though the pay wasn’t great, my commute was minuscule, thus giving me plenty of time to eat my cereal and read my morning paper.

The Yanks had just swept a three-game series from the Red Sox.

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s approval rating had hit a new low.

The Musketeers (a movie I can’t recall for the life of me) won the weekend box office.

It was my best friend’s birthday.

Driving to work, there was some news about a plane hitting the World Trade Center, but it was more of a curiosity than a matter of national security; something briefly mentioned between the local traffic and the previous night’s sports scores. So I parked my car in the Town Hall lot, I grabbed my leather man-purse-thing and I shut my car door… and as if triggered by some divine intervention, I looked up.

The sky over tiny little Plainville, Connecticut was beautiful.

A beautiful, clear blue. Not a single cloud; not even the faintest hint of lifted fog or stale airplane exhaust. It was like an animated cartoon, or one of those drawings my kids did in Kindergarten: just a light blue mass and a perfect yellow sun.

Admittedly, I’m not one to notice things like that. I’m too concrete. I have a hard time seeing the natural beauty in the things I take for granted like the sun and the stars and the trees and the birds chirping. But in that moment, as I stood there in the parking lot, holding my leather work bag, ready for another day on the job, I actually said to myself: wow – what a beautiful day.

Minutes later I was upstairs in our conference room watching smoke bellow from one of the two World Trade Center towers. Anchors and experts were speculating on the air about what had happened: maybe the pilot fell asleep, or there was a tragic mechanical malfunction or something wrong with the air traffic controller.

Then, on live TV, we watched as a second plane emerged from the right side of the screen and hit the second tower.

In an instant, it didn’t matter how many games the Yanks had won or how many millions of dollars some silly movie took in on Saturday night. In an instant, I forgot that it was my best friend’s birthday or that The West Wing was supposed to sweep the upcoming Emmy’s. In an instant, I didn’t care that I had to cut the lawn or pay the electric bill or buy more peanut M&M’s for the office.

In an instant, my perfect blue sky was tarnished forever.

Someday one of my kids is going to ask me about 9/11 - about what happened and where I was and who I was with and what I saw. They’ll ask the same way I asked my parents about the Kennedy Assassination, the same way they asked their parents about Pearl Harbor.

And when they do I’ll tell them: “it started out just like any other day.”

Of Cribs and Men

I took down the babies’ cribs last night… a sullen reminder that, in fact, they’re not babies anymore.

My son pretended to kiss his crib goodbye, while his twin sister nearly broke her foot on the scattered remains. The three older kids – all past inhabitants of said cribs themselves – were completely oblivious; and my dear wife, of course, tried her best to fight back tears.

As for me (i.e. the guy actually doing all the work), I just kept rolling the same thing over and over and over again in my mind: Damn - these things are a helluva lot easier to take down than put up!

May 2003 - I was in our old house sitting on the floor of what soon would be the babies’ room, surrounded by countless rails, spokes, screws, safety latches, bolts, Allen wrenches, et cetera. The room was a mess. I was a mess. A 25-year-old guy who had never even held a baby, and there I was building not one but TWO cribs for our forthcoming twins.

I don’t remember every exact detail of that particular day; but knowing me, I’m sure I whined to my wife about how hard I worked putting the cribs together… and then I’m sure she suggested we go out to dinner… and I’m sure once we were out we decided to go catch a movie… and once the movie was over we probably scooted over to Barnes & Noble to browse through the zillions of “how to be a parent” books that we most likely didn’t even buy… and then we probably headed home and actually watched SNL live so as to conserve future recording space on our standard VHS cassette.

Boy, have things changed.

In the eight years since I first built the cribs, we’ve moved, I’ve changed jobs and we’ve welcomed a grand total of five wonderful children into our lives. We can’t go to the movies or out to dinner on the spur of the moment anymore – hell, we technically can’t even put our children in a confined space to sleep anymore – but that’s just as much a part of parenthood as lying on the floor covered with seemingly endless pages of incomprehensible “EZ-build” assembly instructions.

According to my math, I have assembled, adjusted and disassembled the cribs eighteen different times – and that’s it. The crib phase is officially over; the bunk-bed phase has begun… and I only hope I can enjoy those last few remnants of innocence before that evil leap to puberty swoops in and changes everything.

Struggling With The "Why"

My wife went to a wake for a 10-year-old boy last night; and though it wasn’t as bad as she expected, it was still the single worst experience of her life.

I am ashamed to admit (yet I admit nonetheless) that I was somewhat relieved I didn’t attend due to a confluence of a) not really knowing the family and b) not really having anyone else available to watch our kids. Death, in and of itself, has never really been an easy thing for me to grasp… but the sudden, accidental death of a 10-year-old boy is utterly inexplicable.

Maybe it’s because I’m a father.

Maybe it’s because I used to be a 10-year-old boy.

Or maybe it’s just because I’m human.

(insert depressingly audible SIGH here)

At any rate, the one thing that popped into my head every time I thought about this horrific tragedy was a paragraph from Stephen King’s “The Body” - a novella far better known by its theatrical moniker: Stand By Me.

There is a scene at the end of the movie when the four friends finally discover the body of Ray Brower, a boy about their age. The image on the screen shows the boy’s sneakers dangling in a bush while The Narrator explains: “The train had knocked him out of his Keds just as it had knocked the life out of his body.” But then they move on, depriving the audience (as movies-based-on-books so often do) of the seminal passage in the entire book:

That finally rammed it all the way home for me. The kid was dead. The kid wasn’t sick, the kid wasn’t sleeping. The kid wasn’t going to get up in the morning anymore or get the runs from eating too many apples or catch poison ivy or wear out the eraser on the end of his Ticonderoga No. 2 during a hard math test. The kid was dead; stone dead. The kid was never going to go out bottling with his friend sin the spring, gunnysack over his shoulder to pick up the returnables the retreating snow uncovered. The kid wasn’t going to wake up at two o’clock a.m. on the morning of November 1^st this year, run to the bathroom, and vomit up a big glurt of cheap Halloween candy. The kid wasn’t going to pull a single girl’s braid in home room. The kid wasn’t going to give a bloody nose, or get one. The kid was can’t, don’t, won’t, never, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. He was the side of the battery where the terminal says NEG. The fuse you have to put a penny in. The wastebasket by the teacher’s desk, which always smells of wood-shavings from the sharpener and dead orange peels from lunch. The haunted house outside town where the windows are crashed out, the NO TRESPASSING signs whipped away across the fields, the attic full of bats, the cellar full of rats. The kid was dead, mister, ma’am, young sir, little miss. I could go on all day and never get it right about the distance between his bare feet on the ground and his dirty Keds hanging in the bushes. It was thirty-plus inches, it was a googol of light-years. The kid was disconnected from his Keds beyond all hope of reconciliation. He was dead.

In a single paragraph, King impeccably captures the fundamental reality of an untimely death; but more impressively, he does so through the innocent thoughts of a 12-year-old boy who - as if by magic - suddenly understands what death actually is.

Of course understanding the "what" has always been the easy part... its the "why" that I still don't get.