What a weekend.

Friday I came home early, having contracted whatever plague Michael had brought home. The disease we’d shared was characterized by an unrelentingly stuffy nose. He suffered through his bout by continual, vigorous sniffing. This of course served no useful purpose other than to annoy his older sister; it did not provide any relief for his symptoms. Since Oregon doesn’t allow the OTC sale of Psuedoephederine HCL, there was little to do but just ride it out.

And there wasn’t much rest to be had on Friday anyway as there were many errands to be accomplished, for which I volunteered to be chauffeur. Fortunately I got something akin to rest for the half hour that sister S had her physical therapy appointment. Michael and I sat in the car in the parking lot. I attempted to allow myself to dip down into a lower state of consciousness briefly while Michael peppered me with questions from the back seat regarding the movie he was watching (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs).

The real fun began at midnight.

Michael woke up because he heard the downstairs phone loudly declare its rapidly declining battery life. His manner of dealing with this crisis is to report it to his parents immediately. And that meant crawling into bed with us. I tried my best to remain inert, but my alleged snoring was found to be disturbing to Michael’s mommy, and amusing to Michael. I was asked to roll over. Instead I got up and went downstairs, first and foremost to grind that annoying phone into a fine powder put the phone back on the charger, and then to curl up on the couch where I wouldn’t disturb anyone. My absence proved more disturbing than my snoring, so I was soon joined by my wife and son. We watched “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” yet again.

At 2:30 I put Michael back to bed, and his mom and I tried to recapture our sleep.

At 7:30, Michael comes bombing into our room, chipper and fresh as a daisy, ready to greet the day.

I opted against decaf coffee that morning.

We got a few clean-up and preparation projects accomplished, and took Michael to “The Chicken Nugget Store” (aka McDonald’s) as per our standing agreement: if he has a good week at school, he gets a treat on the weekend. This week he picked a trip to McDonald’s for chicken nuggets and playtime on the indoor play structure.

Naturally he spent his hour playing on the videogames there instead of crawling, sliding and climbing on the play structure.

Fortunately he did nap. It was a requirement that he do so, or his mom and I would shoo the Easter Bunny off the next morning. My wife and I attempted to catch naps ourselves, though that was difficult with one absent teenager choosing that time to provide sketchy text information regarding when her impromptu visit with her friend would be over, and when and where she’d need to be picked up.

Sunday started rainy again. I had vowed that after Church, I’d finish working on the hot tub. The week before I’d refilled it and started it up, only to find that rather than starting up and running, it would merely emit an ominous buzzing sound. After shutting off the power, I pulled open the spa’s electrical control box to discover that the GFCI was not wired properly. I’d need to repair that. To compound this repair job, I thought it would be smart to disassemble the jet diverter unit as well, since over the years the jet control knob had been getting increasingly difficult to turn.

I learned a valuable lesson right then: do not attempt to undo plumbing in a system that is currently under a great deal of water pressure.

So this weekend, since the hot tub had completely drained itself, I would fix the diverter and the faulty GFCI. Fortunately the diverter was easy to fix: a little smear of vaseline on the o-ring and it was perfectly happy. The GFCI was a different matter. The one in the hot tub was not wired right, meaning our beloved hot tub had been a potential death trap for as long as we’ve had our house. Code states that the GFCI be in the breaker at the main box, so I bought one online for what I knew to be a great price.

Sunday afternoon I shut down the power, and attempted to remove the electrical panel. It was then that I discovered that the shelves I’d put up in the garage included a brace that was covering three of the screws securing the panel.

Brilliant.

I had to cut holes in the brace to get the screws undone.

With that complete, I peeled back the panel cover (which had been left open). I was greeted with a black spider the size of Rhode Island, a critter that had been happily living under the electrical panel cover, and who was only millimeters from my fingertips at one point.

I am not a lover of spiders. I must have given out an involuntary scream (yes, I confess – they really bother me that badly) because my wife called out “Tom! Are you okay? What happened?”

I met her at the garage door, still shuddering.

“S- s- sp- spiiiiiider!”

Michael of course had to see, so I led him outside to view. Once he got within eight feet he ran inside and cowered under a blanket on the couch. I dragged out my favorite spider-slaying device, the trusty Miele vacuum.

Once the spider was devoured, I was able to move on to replacing the hot tub circuit breaker.

After pulling out the old one, I discovered that my low-cost, sight-unseen internet purchase was the wrong type.

So here I learned another lesson: be sure you know the manufacturer of your electrical panel before buying circuit breakers.

After all that, I could not finish my project. This weekend warrior had been defeated.

I hate when that happens. Makes me glad for Monday.

Upon picking up Michael from Ms S’s yesterday, I was for the third time this month presented with The Book.

I do not like being presented with The Book.

It is unpleasant. It is distasteful. It is wearying.

I lightly skimmed the words in the book, wincing at reading the narration of Michael’s unprovoked aggression toward his classmates. It was more than I could bear to read just then.

According to the book, and Ms S who was standing right in front of me relaying a more thorough account of the day’s meanness, Michael had found a piece of sharp plastic and brandished it against several classmates, scratching a few of them maliciously. When asked why, he gave no reason nor did he express remorse.

Later he was witnessed throwing a toy at another boy, claiming that the boy was “the new kid,” implying that he was establishing his dominance as an upper classman.

He was also overheard telling a little girl that she’s a loser, making her cry.

Reading that just made my heart sink.

If there’s anything I cannot stand, it’s a bully. And evidently that’s what I have here. Michael is exhibiting the behavior of bully and coward.

It scares me to think how this could progress, if it were to continue into his teen years. It scares me to think what sort of adult he could turn in to.

At home last evening, instead of getting choice time or after-dinner treats, he and I had a discussion.

I explained to him that what he’s doing is not only wrong, it’s hurtful and mean, and I won’t tolerate it. I told him I would not let him veer off course. He said he wants his friends to like him, and I told him that the best way to make that happen is to be a good friend to them. Being kind, giving, loving, generous, compassionate and sympathetic are the keys to winning friends.

Honestly, I’m at a loss to explain his behavior: where he learned it, what provokes it, why he continues it.

And I’m at an utter loss as to how to address it.

I just hope and pray that God gives me some insight, and that we can get him back on the right track.

I really need to buy myself a sense of humor.

The fact that my wife laughed at my irritation this morning is a clue upon which I ought to ruminate at length.

You see, I was in a rush to get out the door. This is my normal operating mode on any given weekday.

I knew Michael was up, as I practically tripped over him as he lay there on the stairs, enrobed in every blanket he owns, like a giant, pulsating parasite drawing nutrients out of the carpeting.

“Not a good place to be, sport,” I said, stepping over the multi-hued mass and continuing on my way. I heard him bump down each tread on his way to the landing. He crawled over to the chair in front of the computer to watch the screensaver as I prepared a simple breakfast for his mom and myself. She was on her way out as well, having an early doctor’s appointment.

“I’m going back upstairs, Michael,” I said, but he remained at the computer.

My wife and I dined in our room while watching the news.

“Is Michael up?” she asked me.

“Yes. He wanted to hang around downstairs and look at the computer. He’s probably shutting it down or something,” I said.

We finished our breakfast and I took the breakfast tray downstairs, passing Michael as he came up.

“I need to get you dressed, little man. Then you can have breakfast so we can get you to school,” I told him. He did not say a word.

In the kitchen, as I took the dishes off the tray, I heard the bedroom door shut.

This is not a good sign. When Michael gets into our bedroom, he thinks he can set himself up to watch his favorite channel, Sprout, without restriction of any kind. He knows the rule on weekdays is that he has to be dressed and fed and completely ready to go to school before he can even look at the TV.

I went upstairs to investigate, and our bedroom door was locked. I heard Michael moving just on the other side of the door, followed by his quick retreating footsteps.

“Michael! You unlock this door!” I tried the knob a few times for emphasis.

“I’m watching Sprout, daddy!” he said, gleefully. He needed only add “neener, neener, neener” to complete his taunt.

Seething, I went to fetch the door lock pin from its secret hiding place (in Michael’s room – shhh, don’t tell him), and after trying it, remembered that the door lock to mommy & daddy’s bedroom doesn’t use that kind of lock. I’d need to go all the way to the garage to get the jeweler’s screwdrivers to open it.

I shouted again through the door: “Michael! Open this door!”

This time he answered, and unlocked it. I think he knew he wouldn’t ultimately win this battle.

I immediately turned off the TV.

“Get downstairs now, mister. No TV for you at all this morning,” I said.

From the bathroom I heard my wife say “I told you you’d get in trouble, Michael.”

She’d been in there the whole time.

It was only later when I explained that Michael had locked the door that she laughed.

I’m glad she found it humorous.

I’d hate to think my irritation was for no good purpose.

Sunday. 1:30 PM. I’m rushing to the grocery store for the second time in two hours.

Rushing. Hurrying. Again.

As I’m driving, I begin to ponder upon my nearly constant need to hurry.

So many people have said, for so many years, that we as a people need to slow down; that our pace is killing us. I believe that to be true. I’ve long lamented the fact that in this age of amazing technological advances, we have less leisure time than ever. The 1950’s lied to us, claiming that science and industry would give us more time to enjoy ourselves and live richer lives.

But still, I’m rushing. I’m well aware of the fact that my driving like a maniac and passing cars (in a relatively safe manner, of course) will probably net me 45 seconds to one minute of reclaimed daylight.

And in my measured opinion, I do in fact need those 45 seconds.

For in my mind I have resolved my need to rush just now, and can extrapolate this situational need to nearly every other rushing situation I’ve experienced as a dad.

Let’s back up a bit to the start of the day.

Things really began just before church. My wife was at work for the day, meaning I was solely in charge of three teenagers and a five-year-old. I’d already taken one teenager to the zoo, where she’s a volunteer. She’d be staying there most of the day.

When I got back, I got Michael and myself ready for church. Michael’s remaining sisters were not up to going to church, and I was not up to fighting with them about it. Instead, I left them a list of chores. This is our standard practice: go to church, or do good works.

On the way back from church, I stopped at the store to get a few things. One daughter had volunteered to make sandwiches for dinner, which sounded fine to me. But while at the store I realized that my wife would have had a sandwich for lunch, and I can’t abide meal repeats. So I decided to make pizza instead. Michael asked for a kid-style TV dinner (one that has chicken nuggets and pudding with sprinkles) for his lunch, and I obliged.

Upon arriving home, I see that the girls have done their chores, but only to about a C+ level. I give them a quick review of proper vacuuming and dish-washing procedure, and begin unloading the groceries.

At this point, the race began.

I realize that I have a short amount of time to make pizza dough, because it takes half an hour to get going, and four hours to rise properly. Timing is everything. But first I have to make Michael’s lunch.

The phone rings, it’s my wife, asking me how things are going. Michael wanders over to one of his sisters and picks a fight. My wife doesn’t need a direct answer to her question, as she can hear the rather thunderous admonishments I have to deliver.

I turn over Michael’s lunch prep to other sister while I get things ready for pizza dough making. Have to clean the stove top. Have to clean a few more dishes. Daughter and I are trying to avoid each other in the kitchen.

I get the yeast started, and then discover I’m out of flour.

Not good.

I have to get flour, NOW. There is no alternative.

I’m left with a big quandary: leave Michael here and be more efficient at the store, or take him with me and risk the possibility of being so distracted by his continual stream of questions that I come out of the store with frozen peas and wart remover instead of flour.

To further complicate things, I have to go to the store that’s farther away because I also need to pick up a prescription that cannot wait until tomorrow.

Time is of the essence. I decide to leave him home. I can be back in fifteen minutes if I don’t have any hindrances. And I’m going to need every blessed second of that time in order to get the dough finished on time so that I can put Michael down for a nap at the right time and get to the other projects I have to work on, then pick up my other daughter, fire up the oven, prepare the ingredients, make the pies and serve them up on time.

The day is essentially schedule-driven. Miss a step, and chaos reigns.

“I’m going to the store,” I tell my daughter L. You two keep an eye on Michael, please.”

Her eyes get wide as saucers. I understand her fear. When he finishes his lunch, he’ll be a free radical, flitting through the house causing untold mayhem until I get back. There’s no telling what he might do to them, the house or himself while I’m gone. When he’s tired and bored, Michael is a juggernaut.

Which is why I need to hurry.

NEED to hurry.

And as I do, I naturally get behind every slow driver in Portland. It’s as if they have some sort of cosmic twitter feed that alerts them to a man in a rush, and guiding them all to congregate in front of me on the street that I need to traverse.

Get to store. Get flour. Get prescription. Hurry. The checker at the store noticed that I didn’t have Michael with me.

“Left him at home this time?”

“Yes, with his sisters. Which is to say I don’t have much time.”

“He sure is a ball of energy,” she says. My son can officially claim infamy.

I made it home after seventeen minutes, with flour and prescription, and fortunately Michael had been good for his sisters.

And while I was able to pick my schedule back up and forge ahead, the rest of the day went similarly, most notably when I was in the midst of actually baking pizzas and had to keep checking in my zoo volunteer daughter as her pick-up time moved from 4:30 to 5:30 to 6:00 to 6:20, keeping in mind that we all had to be finished with dinner by 7:30 so two of my daughters would be ready to head back to their mom’s by 8:00.

Such is life, and why throttling back is not an option.

And even though many may opine about its pointlessness, or perhaps even wag at you the finger of reproof, every mom and dad out there understands exactly what I mean: hurrying is an inescapable aspect of parenting.

A few random, short things worth mentioning, since other topics I have in the works are not ready for prime time:

Medication
Michael’s getting weaned off of his anti-seizure medication. Just recently I posted that his EEG came back normal and that the doctor would be letting us know whether or not we could start easing back on his daily medication. A few days ago Michael’s Mommy met with the doctor and came back with a weaning plan.

He has been taking Depakote in the form of “sprinkles,” which basically means you take apart a capsule of the medication and dump the contents on something he can eat in a spoon, like yogurt or ice cream. The plan we have now calls for 1/2 doses. Meaning, we take apart a capsule and then halve the contents. Over other, more unscrupulous methods, I’ve chosen to do this on paper using a paring knife, and dump half the contents on the spoon and the other half back in the capsule. No rolled-up $100 bills needed, not that we have any.

The other really fun part of this weaning process is coping with the possibility of Michael having a Grand Mal seizure, which is French for “Really Bad Seizure”. While remote, it may occur at any time during and for some time after weaning. And if this does in fact happen, we have some additional anti-seizure medication. It’s a suppository. I think the drug companies do this to us just to test our level of dedication to our children. Or maybe they just need a laugh. Every time I picture cramming a waxy wad up my child’s butt while he’s in the midst of flopping around maniacally and potentially swallowing his tongue, I get a little anxious.

I’m really not too worried about it though.

Storm
During the last few minutes of my work day yesterday, one of my co-workers started loudly announcing over the cubicle walls that they’re predicting penny-sized hail. I popped up like a prairie dog, as did so many others, and listened more closely. A big storm was headed our way, 60 mile-per-hour winds, lightning, hail. I looked out the window at an ominous dark cloud moving slowly toward us from the southeast. I shut my system down and headed out immediately.

As I quickly walked into the stair well, I looked out the side windows at the scene toward the north. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but the horizon was a greyish-brown haze. In the ten years I’ve lived here, it’s never looked like that.

Coming out the front of the building I was greeted with a hot wind and a cloud of dust. The trees in the parking lot were bent over at various angles, and various sorts of litter were being blown high into the air. My eyes watered over instantly as the dust blew in at high speed.

I got in my car and hurried home as quickly as I could, dodging flying tree limbs and debris. I called my wife to let her know that she should stay put. She reported that the rain just started. Then suddenly a tree fell over onto the road about two cars ahead of me, and we all jammed on our brakes. Almost instantaneously, fifteen people piled out of their cars and ran to the tree and heaved it off to the side.

By the time I got home, the rain was coming down in earnest. I pulled my car into the garage, then hurriedly brought my wife’s car in as well. It was parked right next to a birch tree that is famous for tossing large branches even in the slightest breeze. I figured in this gale it would detonate like a bomb.

Then the lightning and thunder came, over and over. We hunkered in our little home watching the news intently. Reports from all over showed downed trees and power outages, floods and injuries from lightning strikes.

Then, as quickly as it came, it was over. The power of God’s creation in a very small way displayed, as a reminder of who is sovereign.

Owies and Bedtime
The other day Michael tore up the bottom of his foot. Not even sure how, but he got some good scrapes. Required band-aids, of course.

But for some reason, Michael is heartbroken that these wounds are healing. A few nights ago he could be heard up in his room bawling over the fact that his owies were going away.

“Make new ones, daddy!”

As tempting as that sounded, I had to refuse. “Michael, owies are bad. We want them to go away. God made us to heal to keep us healthy and safe.”

“No! I want my owies! I don’t want to be healthy!”

So for nearly a week now, we’ve been going round and round about his owies. And we’ve been fighting the bedtime routine as though it were a new thing.

Thursday one of my daughters informed me that she had a choir concert that night, which completely rebooted my plans for the evening. On my way home I had to scramble to come up with a new game plan, since my wife was working until midnight and I had to take care of three teenagers and a preschooler by myself. One of them would be going off to her daily tutoring session, one I had to take to her concert, which left one teenager available to be babysitter to Michael. She agreed readily, and Michael was just as excited.

As the concert was nearing its conclusion, my eldest daughter called me to plead with me to hurry home because Michael wouldn’t stay in bed.

Sigh.

So once the concert let out, we beat feet home. By that time, daughter number 2 had come home from tutoring, which meant she could stay with Michael while I ran her sisters across town to their mom’s house.

Michael was in bed and quiet by this point, but I knew it wouldn’t last.

“If Michael gives you any trouble, just let him get up. Don’t fight with him,” I advised.

“Okay,” she said.

Sure enough, when I had finished my taxi errand and returned for the night, I found Michael sitting squarely in front of the television.

“Off to bed,” I said. He quickly obeyed and ran upstairs. I put him to bed and admonished him to go to sleep.

After a few bouts of crying and giving random reasons for it (including his sorrow over his healing injuries), at around 10:30 he finally stayed quiet and went to sleep for the night.

So far, five is proving to be a very interesting age. Not that he has been dull up to now… but it’s a different sort of interesting.

Michael shnookered his mom into letting him stay home with her yesterday. This almost always happens when I have to go into work early and leave her in his clutches. He’ll work up a sniffle or a cough and whine to a degree sufficient to tug at her hearstrings and bend her to his will. Fortunately he was a good boy yesterday and I did not come home to a beaten-down wife. I came home instead to a peaceful house and barbecue chicken and ribs already on the grill. So I can’t complain, can I? Quite the contrary.

One other note about yesterday is that Michael was ravenous all day. My wife said he spent the day grazing, and probably ate his weight in various items: blueberries, strawberries, ice cream, chicken soup, carrots, chocolate milk, and pretty much anything and everything in the kitchen. He was giving his sisters a good run for their money in the locust department. We figure he’s heading for a growth spurt. Given the amount he ate yesterday and this morning, he should grow another fourteen inches in the next week.

I had a restless night, spending most of my dreams chasing Michael around. I devote quite a bit of dream time to this sport. It’s like I don’t get enough time during the day extracting him from danger and bad behavior, I have to get a few more hours in while I’m snoozing. In last night’s dream theater, he somehow took our car for a joyride and managed to get pulled over by the police seven times before crashing into a lamp post and wandering off. While I was explaining this to his mom, he took my keys again and tried to park the car in a handicapped spot, scraping the side of another car in the process. I think I woke up at that point.

This morning, on the way to Ms K’s, I happened to fall in line behind a sheriff’s car. Ho, boy. I made sure I kept my speed at 30 miles per hour and drove with exceeding care. The cop rounded the corner ahead of me and disappeared. I maintained my speed until I rounded the same corner, and came upon him stopped in the middle of the road, his yellow lights flashing. I slowed down, and then he turned off his lights and continued on. Was he just baiting me? I would not have been surprised. I, however, was not going to get on that hook. We continued on for another quarter mile, and then he stopped again and turned on his yellow flashers. I stopped behind him, and waited. And waited. And waited. What exactly am I supposed to do now, officer? The signal is unclear. Do I go around you? Are we waiting for something? Finally a line of cars piles up behind me, and some guy in a big truck whose scant underwear were obviously in a bunch decided he’d had enough and started to pull around the both of us. Then the cop waved me around, finally. But I couldn’t pull out because Mr. Shortcomings had me boxed in. He pulled back a bit and I was able to get around. Thanks again for the memorable morning, officer. My driving time would be so boring were it not for Washington County’s finest.

Wednesday was going to be a big day for me: firing on all cylinders at work to prepare for an early morning presentation the next day, a quick trip home in the afternoon for a dentist appointment and then to start on pizza dough for the evening’s dinner, finishing up at work, racing home to pick up the girls and a visiting Japanese student who was really eager to try pizza, and then a trip to the mall after dinner so said Japanese student could get a good taste of American shopping.

Now, let it be known clearly that I don’t like pain. This dentist appointment I had was a simple semi-annual checkup and cleaning. No big deal. I’ve been going to this particular dentist for a number of years now, and his crew is always really good. Not much pain to be had there, and that’s how I like it.

So when I arrived and was directed into the exam room, I saw that they had a new dental hygienist. ‘Ruh-roh,’ I thought. ‘Hope she’s gentle.’

Not two minutes after getting settled in the chair, I realized that she must be fresh out of dentistry school. For one thing, she didn’t know how to run the suction hose. She handled it like an imposter. She bent it into a “J” and tried to hang it on my cheek; first on one side, then on the other, then back to the first. It sucked itself on to my tongue and stayed there. I tried to help by biting down on it and pressing my tongue against my palate to pry it off the end of the tube. Meanwhile, I started to detect a critical buildup of spit in the back of my throat. Mr. Slurpy was not doing his job there, and I was not heartened by the hygienist’s inability to notice this fact.

She began her tour of my mouth by employing the sharp pokey prod of doom. She said this was to check my gums for gaps and bone loss, but I’m convinced she was looking for treasure. She used this spear to dig clean through the base of my skull. And while poking and jabbing, she continually called out numbers to her assistant: “2, 3, 3, 2, 4…” Evidently these have to do with the severity of gum recession. In one place she found a really good opening (a “7” she said), and she started trying to pry it wide; apparently enough to plunge her entire head through to get a better look. I wonder if she realizes that I’m capable of feeling pain.

She calls out to the assistant: “There’s some bleeding on 12.” Imagine that! Say, you don’t suppose that jagged pike you’re clawing around with has anything to do with it, do you? Because I wasn’t bleeding before I sat down.

The phone rang, and her assistant said she had to answer it. The hygienist tells me I can relax for a minute. As if I could. I am suddenly aware that my body is as rigid as a board laid across the chair. Relax? I won’t even come close to relaxed for at least five more hours.

The assistant returns, and the prodding continues. I still won’t talk. Can’t – I’m busy choking on my own saliva. Mr Slurpy is still not positioned correctly.

“How are you doing?” The hygienist asks.

“I could use a couple of shots of Jack Daniels, since you ask,” I tell her. She is not amused. I wonder if she might have a bullet I can bite down on.

She asked me to close my mouth a little. I wasn’t given time to explain that it was only open to let out a silent scream.

Eventually, she concludes her excavations. My gums feel like I’ve just swallowed a grenade.

I’m glad that the worst is over; the only things left after this are the scraping, polishing and flossing.

But I was wrong.

Because at this point, she deployed a dental tool the likes of which I’d not yet encountered.

“Okay, I need to get under your gums a little bit,” she says.

What was it she was doing before? Lightly massaging the outsides?

“This has water and vibration. You might feel a little irritation, so let me know if you can’t handle it.”

This can’t be good. She didn’t warn me about the scythe she carved my gums out with, but she’s warning me about this?

“Okay…” I said, hesitantly.

Then she introduced me to a whole new world of discomfort.

This sinister new device could only have come from the workshop of Vlad the Impaler. Imagine a large, needle-ended probe that fires an aquatic laser beam out the tip, while it simultaneously emits ultrasonic skull-piercing auditory shrapnel. It is Satan’s very own WaterPik.

She was true to her word: she got under my gums. For the next twelve hours ten minutes she brandished that thing in and around my teeth with what I believe to be fiendish glee, stopping occasionally so I could use my tongue to maneuver the watery gore in my mouth toward Mr. Slurpy and avoid drowning.

I would have gladly gone with another round of the prodding instead. I made every effort to go to my happy place.

Eventually, round two was over. Next came the scraping. For this, she has a miniature mattock that she dragged along my teeth, raking tartar off here and there. It is always essential to scrape off a few square inches of living tissue while doing this, so that fresh gumflesh is exposed, and to generate the proper amount of blood loss.

Round four: the polishing. She was merciful here, doing a quick slap-dash of the minty #50 grit, only polishing my tongue twice.

Round five: the diamond-carbide dental floss. I got a lecture on how to floss properly while having this razor wire drawn several inches deep into my still-bleeding gums. Being polite, I refrained from screaming “MOMMY!” during her dissertation.

And with that, she’s done. I’m left broken and bloodied, properly beaten down in preparation for the dentist’s exam. He spends exactly nineteen seconds looking inside my mouth and touching each tooth lightly with a little prod. “Okay, looks good!” he says.

I felt like my chops had gone five rounds with Evander Holyfield. I dragged my wounded self home to work on pizza dough. My wife was there, cleaning the kitchen.

“How was the checkup?” she asked. I didn’t say a word, but just opened my mouth. “You’re bleeding! What did they do?” she asked, incredulous.

“More than I was prepared for,” I said.

Can’t wait for September!

Yes, folks, I got me another dose of edumacation in Oregon traffic law this morning!

See, as I might have mentioned yesterday, I’m in a bit of a stress mode lately with this project at work. Last night I had hoped to work from home, but magically the mysterious internet connection juju did not function, so I opted for coming into work especially early today.

Michael’s Mommy graciously offered to get Michael up and ready and off to Ms K’s so I wouldn’t have to, and to make sure I was able to get out the door at the crack o’ dawn.

So around six o’clock this morning, I blasted out of the driveway and was on my way to work.

I was nearly there, when those old familiar sparkly blue and red lights stabbed my retinas.

“You gotta be kidding,” I said to no one.

I found a safe place to pull off, and did so.

I was moving a bit slower than usual so it took me a minute to get the interior lights on, get my window rolled down and fetch my insurance/registration/license. Deputy Dawg was at my window in no time.

“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”

“What, don’t you know?”

I didn’t really say that. But it sprung to mind just now. I could really be a smart-a** if I gave it just a little effort.

“No, I don’t.”

“You ran through a yellow light back there,” he said.

At that point I was pretty much done listening to him, opting instead to tune into my own internal dialog.

‘A yellow light? Did he just say I ran a yellow light? Since when is that a crime? I thought it was the red ones we were supposed to stop at. Is he desperate or something? Is this a quota thing? Is he going to cite me for failing to wash the bird poo off the back window too? Maybe write me up for not having a clever license plate? Tell me my registration stickers are on crooked?’

I dialed back into Sheriff Earnest’s speech about obeying traffic control devices (I fought the urge to tell him that around these parts, we call them “stop lights”) and about how I had several options, blah de blah blah blah.

Again, I was being handed a ticket for $242.00

They must really like that amount.

After being dismissed, I continued on to work in silence, deciding against turning on the soothing island music I’d been listening to before, which is now tainted with the memory of being nabbed by the coppers.

I mentally took stock of my driving history, applying sober judgment. I’m a good driver. I don’t run red lights, never have. Okay… well, there was that one time… but that was in southern California and nobody saw, and I was trying to keep my family safe from creeps… Anyway, I do my best to keep under the speed limit, I always use my blinkers, I let people in front of me when merging, and I brake for pedestrians.

It’s not like I’m tearing around town in a chopped ’74 Camaro with headers, a blower and a flame paint job, smoking crack and throwing my empty beer cans at old ladies or anything. I drive a freaking minivan, for crying out loud. Why single me out?

But the rain falls upon the righteous and the unrighteous, and when it comes down to it, I’m no better than anyone else. Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Turns out, in Oregon, it is a crime to run a yellow.

How about that?

Where I learned to drive, in crazy old California, it’s okay to go through a yellow. As long as you’re past the line and in the intersection when the light turns red, you’re good. In Washington, it’s the same way.

But not here. Here, I’ve been driving around like an drug-crazed lunatic for the last ten years, flagrantly running one yellow after another. Until today, when my reign of terror ended.

Good thing they finally nabbed me. Who knows what horrors I might have wrought upon the poor citizens of this fine state with my yellow-light-running mania. In my light blue minivan.

To get the most out of our three-day weekend, my wife and I took the kids to Joseph, Oregon to visit with my wife’s folks and play in the snow. That extra day made it the perfect opportunity to make the six and a half hour trek across the state.

The visit was good, the food was excellent, the sledding was fine, there were tree forts to be made, stars to be seen and various “Mr Fix-it” jobs to do, including assembly of a telescope and photographing of antiques to be put up on Ebay.

But it was the trip back that held a lesson I needed to learn (if you’re really a glutton for punishment, you can read about a similar trip we took last August).

Before I begin regaling you with the travelogue, I must describe one episode that occurred during our stay. On the second night, Michael insisted upon sleeping in the big room with his sisters. When I announced this fact to them, I was met with the expected heavy sighs and groans. I tried to be encouraging. “Come on, give him a chance. He knows that he has to stay still and not make a sound, or he’s out of there. Just do what you normally do, and if he misbehaves bring him to our room.” They relented, begrudgingly.

As I put him to bed, I reiterated the rules. He promised to be good.

After I heard Michael’s sisters go to bed, I laid awake for an hour, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door. It never came.

Michael was as good as his word, sleeping soundly all night and not disturbing them in the least.

I was surprised and delighted, pondering that maybe Michael is maturing enough to be better in control of himself.

The next day, after packing and hugs goodbye, we were on our way.

Mile 1: We’re just pulling out of sight of Grandma & Grandpa K’s house, fresh for our journey home. The kids are goofing around and having a good time.

Mile 39: Things are going smoothly. Looking forward to lunch in La Grande. Kids are entertained and enthralled with the scenery, pointing out cows and deer they see.

Mile 63: Before topping off the gas tank, we grab lunch, make an obligatory trip through Wall Mart and get a little coffee to make the trip home a smidge sweeter. The baristas of the Island City, Oregon Starbucks are awestruck by my ability to place an order, and they let me know it. Now, all I did was fire off a list of drinks for the five of us: a grande latte, decaf grande mocha, tall coffee frappuccino, tall mocha frappuccino and a kid’s hot chocolate. When I pulled around to the window, they stood applauding. “That was the most awesome job of ordering!” While I was rendered slightly embarrassed by their admiration, I thought to myself how much I appreciate the small-town attitude. They were friendly and welcoming, got my order right, were considerate enough to cut short the straw for Michael’s drink, and were grateful for our business. I can’t say the same thing for our hometown stores.

Mile 112: Michael won’t go to sleep. He keeps fighting it tooth and nail. He’s tired and should be napping, but is refusing to allow himself to drop off. He insists upon moaning and complaining about it instead. At the last rest stop his mom put a pull-up on him just in case. Did they put caffeine in his hot chocolate?

Mile 146: Have driven for twenty miles with Michael throwing a blood-curdling scream fest. Why? Because I failed to let him throw away his own paper towel after washing his hands in the restroom at the truck stop we just left. Didn’t want him touching anything there; it was gross. Wife stuffs an Oreo into my mouth, knowing it will soothe my nerves from the audible onslaught.

Mile 150: Finally pull over to calm him down. Promise that I would buy him his own roll of paper towels and five wastebaskets to throw them in to, if he’ll just stop screaming. I wonder to myself whether if I’d just let him throw his own paper away, would he have been satisfied? Would he have been calm enough to drift off into a nap? Next time, I’ll keep this in mind.

Mile 202: Michael found a new reason to throw a tantrum, and does so con brio. I don’t even recall why, other than the fact that he was tired.

Mile 250: Wife notices my knuckles turning white, hears the crunch of the steering wheel under my grip, begins feverishly unwrapping and shoving Andes mints into my mouth, hoping to allay my rising stress level at the sound of Michael’s continual complaint. My wife is the best.

Mile 255: Strongly wishing it was legal and safe to drink while driving, because the cookies and chocolate are no longer providing the medicinal value they were before.

Mile 271: Hurricane Michael has ebbed.

Mile 282: Traffic jam. Lane to right is moving quickly, lane to left is moving quickly. My lane is stalled. Wife suggests I change lanes. In true stubborn fashion, I make excuses as to why I cannot.

Mile 285: Finally decide to change to right lane. Breeze past jam, realize then that the jam was in the lane headed toward Seattle; I could have bypassed it half an hour ago.

Mile 322: “Momma!” Michael cries. “I can’t see!” “What’s the matter, sweetie?” his mom asks. “My eyes keep closing!” He’s so tired he doesn’t even know what’s going on. Frustrated and feeling betrayed by his body for failing to remain awake, he threw another tantrum with as much energy as he had left in his body. I think at this point he was running on pure gall.

Finally home: To settle in, and while Daddy unloaded the car of every last bag, boot, sled, crushed water bottle, wrapper, sack and toy, Michael sits with his mom and watches “The Last Mimzy” once more. This was fine – as long as he was good, out of the way and quiet, I was okay with it. It ended just at 8:00, his bedtime. He wanted to watch Wall*E next. “No, Michael. Mommy and Daddy are tired and we want to go to bed too,” his mom said.

As should be expected by this point, Michael took this news by throwing a fit. He wailed loudly throughout tooth-brushing time, which was actually okay with me; it kept his mouth wide open and made my job much easier. Couldn’t hear after that, though.

All done, he sobbed about how he wanted mom to sleep with him. “No,” I said. “You never let her go without having a meltdown.” “I’ll be good!” he said.

Then I remembered what I’d learned earlier: He demonstrated that he is capable of delivering on his end of the bargain. I’d missed an opportunity for him to be successful on the trip, maybe I can give him one now.

“Okay, Michael. Your mom can come up and be with you for ten minutes, then it’s story time and a kiss night-night, and mommy has to go. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

And once again, he was as good as his word, and he didn’t throw a fit when it was time for mommy to go.

So because he was good Monday night, he earned upstairs time with mommy on Tuesday night, and behaved himself then as well.

I’m taking this as a good sign. He’s maturing, and learning how to control his own behavior. The clouds are parting.

Maybe by next year he’ll sit still and eat his dinner. With a fork. I can dream.

It was a typical Tuesday morning. I kissed my wife as she went off to her job, then herded Michael into the van to head off to Ms K’s. I was going to be on time to work today; I might even redeem myself somewhat for the previous day’s slip-up.

We were only a few blocks from Ms K’s when my cell phone rang. It’s Michael’s Mommy.

“Hi!” she says, and not in a happy, breezy sort of way. It was in a much more anxious tone.

“Hi sweetie,” I said, cautiously. “What’s up?”

“<unintelligible shrieking and wailing>”

“Okay, honey, it’s okay. Where are you?”

“<higher pitched unintelligible shrieking and wailing>”

“It’s okay sweetheart. Calm down. Please, just take a few deep breaths.”

“okay…” she said, still anxious but slightly calmer.

“Okay. Now, calmly, please tell me, where are you?”

“<unintelligible shrieking and wailing>”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t get a word of that.”

“<very loud, emphatic unintelligible shrieking and wailing>”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

I pulled hard to starboard and diverted course toward the freeway. On the way I finally got out of her that she was on Interstate 5, just outside of Portland and heading north to Vancouver. She’d gotten a flat tire.

This wouldn’t have been such a huge problem, except that she didn’t have a spare. The car was already riding on the spare. Months ago, her left front tire had been punctured by a rogue screw that was on the garage floor, placed there by our dear and delightfully curious little red-headed child. Getting around to fixing the tire was just not in the cards for us. So that tire went on the back, occupying the spot where the spare usually goes. And it stayed there, until now.

After driving for what seemed like an eternity, I spotted her car on the side of the interstate, hazard lights flashing. Still talking with her on the phone, I told her that I’m pulling off just past her. I parked and turned on my emergency flashers.

“Where we going?” Michael asked from the back seat.

“I’ll be right back. I have to help your mommy,” I told him. “Her car is stuck.”

Since it’s 8:45 in the morning and traffic is in full force and at full speeds, stepping out of the van is going to be dicey.

An opening appears, and I dashed out of the car.

Cars, trucks, vans and eighteen-wheelers rush by, mere millimeters away from my side of the car. The roar of traffic is nearly deafening. My mind plays an endless loop of the roadside disasters clips shown on “Worlds Wildest Police Videos”. I’m sure that at any moment I’m going to be sideswiped and ground into a bloody pulp.

I finally got over to the passenger side of my wife’s SUV and explained my plan, then asked her to carefully get out and go sit with Michael in the van so he won’t be scared.

Time for big strong husband-man to get to work.

Plan A: Use “fix-a-flat”. I retrieved a can of the tire sealant from the back of the van, shook it and hooked it up to the valve stem of the very flat tire. I pressed the button to start the flow of sealant. Unfortunately, on the other side of the tire, I could see the white goo splatter ineffectually all over the tarmac. I reached my hand around and felt the hole in the tire. The crater I found in the rubber was large enough to pass a Chihuahua through. This tire was toast.

Plan B: Use the Van’s Spare. My reasoning was sound: they’re both Hondas. They both have five lugs. Simple. Since the jack in the SUV was buried under a metric ton of medical supplies, I retrieved the jack out of the van. Michael’s mommy questioned this move. “It’ll be fine. They’re the same make!” I explained. She’s suspicious, and rightly so.

I jacked up the SUV as far as the van jack would go. It’s just high enough to remove the bad tire. I applied the tire iron to remove the lug nuts, but am shocked to find that the van’s tire iron doesn’t fit the lug nuts on the SUV. So I had to dig out the SUV’s tire iron, which meant I’d have to redistribute my wife’s medical supplies from the cargo area of the SUV to the back seat. Gently but haphazardly, I hefted the supplies over the back seat and away from the cargo area. The interior of the SUV looked like an ambulance that was involved in a roll-over.

With the right tire iron, the tire came off easily. I set it aside.

Then I hoisted the spare up to the hub, and saw that the hub wasn’t high enough to attach the spare. The van’s jack, extended as far as it will go, didn’t raise the SUV up high enough. Ho, boy.

I’ll need to get the SUV’s jack after all. Well, at least it’s accessible now, since I had to uncover the tire iron.

I tried to apply the SUV jack, but it was obvious that I was going to have to remove the van jack in order to get the SUV jack into a stable position. Which meant jacking the car back down, with the old tire on the hub.

Back on goes the old tire. Secure it down. Jack down the SUV. Remove the van jack. Put the SUV jack on, jack up the SUV. Remove tire, grab van spare.

I hoisted the van spare up to the hub, and found to my complete dismay that the lug bolt hole arrangement is not quite in line with the SUV lug bolts. The van spare wouldn’t fit at all.

Ho, boy.

Plan C: Use the Screw-Damaged Tire. By this point I was getting pretty tired. I’d raised and lowered the SUV several times, moved tires several times, crawled around on bits of broken glass, asphalt, rubber and other miscellaneous detritus, in the rain, while seventeen million tons of rolling steel sped by only a few feet away. Not only is it hard to work physically, it’s difficult to think clearly under those conditions. I prayed to God: “Lord, I’m about ready to cave here. If you want to send me a miracle, I’ll take it.”

I removed the damaged tire that’s been stowed on the back of the SUV and hefted it over to the empty wheel hub. The gleaming screw is still embedded in the rubber, taunting me. I secured the wheel onto the hub and jacked the car down.

I went back to the van, grabbed another can of fix-a-flat (I keep two in the van – never can be too prepared) and started filling the tire. Nothing comes shooting out this time. So far, so good.

As I’m about halfway through the can of fix-a-flat, an ODOT Incident Vehicle pulls up behind me, yellow lights flashing. The driver got out and came over to talk to me. Thank you, God!

“Can I help?”

“Yes!”

I explained what my current plan was. He brought over a compressor hose and pumped up the tire with more air, and it held just fine. I asked him where the nearest tire store was, and he said there was one just a couple of exits up. I went back to tell my wife we were going to try for that, and asked her how Michael was doing, and whether he was scared.

“No, he says he’s bored. He wanted to get out and help and see the flashing lights, but I told him he couldn’t. So to appease him we dug through his lunch box. I’ve fed him all the chocolate I could find, including the two pieces you had up in front.”

So much for my secret stash.

The ODOT driver finished filling up the tire, and I thanked him and secured the damaged tire, spare and the equipment. I gave my wife the signal that we were heading out, and got in the SUV. We carefully pulled out into traffic and zipped along at a whopping 40 miles per hour, keeping flashers going all the way.

We were able to make it to the tire store without any problem. Michael even got two bags of popcorn out of the deal. And a Hershey bar. And a couple of cups of water. And a chance to run around a tire store and pester customers. A mere 30 minutes later we were on our way home.

After dropping Michael off at Ms K’s, I finally pulled in to work at 10:45. Well, maybe I wasn’t on time, but I made it in. I’m giving myself points for that.