The Story of the Happy Monster

As I was preparing to watch last night's Heat vs. Bulls Game 1 matchup on TNT, my daughter walked up beside me and surprised me with eight exciting words.

"Daddy, I want to tell you a story," she said.

Shocked, I unglued my eyes from the TV and focused 100% of my undivided attention towards my daughter.

Just days after I announced my release of short stories for FREE online (at a time to be chosen in the near future) it was fantastic to see that my daughter was following in her old man's footsteps and mixing up a batch of her own stories in her head.

Then, my mind zoomed quickly into the future.

We would be the literary family. My wife, my two kids and myself. Traveling together. Writing books together in our father/daughter office space, Eimer Co. Productions. Living off of our royalty checks. And seeing the world like a group of J.K. Rowlings' on an unending around the world book tour. We would be the first vagabond family in history to have best-selling books on the New York Times Best Seller List. It would be one of the greatest sensations in the world.

It was going to be amazing.

"Sweet," I told my daughter. "What's it about?"

"A monster," she said.

Oh my god! My daughter also picked up the horror genre as her canvas. Two Stephen Kings's or Dean Koontz's or Ray Bradbury's traveling the world together. Father and daughter. The horror family. Selling out auditoriums and arenas around the world. People clamoring to hear us talk about our writing process and why we're so great.

My heart started to beat a couple thumps faster.

"Wow, a story about a monster," I said with bated breath. "Let's hear it. I'm all ears."

"Once upon a time...," she started.

She started with those four key words that always begin a great story. The Three Little Pigs. Beauty & The Beast. Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs. I had a feeling that this one was going to be a keeper. Hell, I may even 'borrow' her idea and illustrate it as an Eimer duo production. My eyes widened. Hope and pride filled my heart. This story was going to further cement my daughter as one the greatest storytellers of her generation.

"Once upon a time there was a monster and he lived happily ever after, the end," she said.

She then turned 180-degrees and happily skipped into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Interesting stuff my kids draw - The Thing

I know. I know. Everyone loves their kids and thinks that everything they do is the cat's meow.

However, trutch be told, there are, in fact, a lot of things my kids do that downright pisses me off.

But, once in a while (okay more than once in a while), they say something or do something that puts a great big smile on my face and makes me proudly say, "Yep, them's my kids."

Case in point was something that happened a couple days ago. I showed both of my kids (my 3-old son and 4-old daughter) the 50 monsters cartoon, which I posted last week prior to Halloween.

They were mesmerized. My daughter more so than my son. She was particularly taken by this image:

"What's that?" she asked.

"Oh, that's from the movie The Thing," I said.

"What is it?"

"It's a creature that takes the form of other creatures and, sort of, morphs into them via some crazy biology."

I don't think she really understood my answer. However, that was about the extent of the conversation.

I looked at her face and she was still transfixed. I was proud that she liked my stuff.

Yesterday, when I picked my daughter from school, she approached me with a proud smile on her face and handed me the following picture:



"What's this," I asked already knowing the answer.

"The Thing," she said with a beeming beautiful smile.

Not sure about you, but it does look like the creature Kurt Rusell confronted in the final scene.

Hey! Parenting is getting easier.

For the past three years, I've glanced out the window at beautiful sunny days, pining to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors.

Then I begrudgingly would glance at my kids' closed doors, anxiously waiting for them to wake up from their naps so I could get outisde.

You know...people say that the first two years of your kid's life on this planet is pure bliss.

Let me tell you, most of them are lying.

As a matter of fact, the first two years of a child's life is a lot of:

- Buttwiping
- Sitting around
- Hanging inside the house
- Hovering
- Making sure they don't smack their head on sharp corners
- Feeding
- Getting woken up at night
- Missing out on life's events (which I wrote about previously)

Like I said, not for me.

However, with my daughter almost 4 and my son almost 3, I think I've hit a fatherhood turning point this spring.

Just yesterday, I was able to mow my entire 2.5 acre lawn with my kids hanging out in the backyard playing. Sure, I gave them each lawn-mower rides while mowing. But it was so great to see them walking around, picking up sticks, throwing rocks and being actual kids.

And it was liberating for me.

This spring and summer we've got a number of funcentric kid things on the docket...more trips to the swimming pool, amusement parks (Kennywood and Cedar Point), zoos (Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron and Columbus), road trips, cookouts, soccer, hiking on trails, vacation to the Jersey Shore, and let's not forget their first film at a bonafide movie theater (Toy Story 3).

Maybe, even possibly, a camping trip. (probably not).

And you know what? I'm looking forward to every single one of them. To add to that, I don't even feel like I'm 37. I feel like I did when I just graduated college. But a little smarter with a little more money in my bank account.

But I digress...

Yep, I put in my solid three years of baby rearing. Now it's time to get outside, rub the eye boogers out of my eyes and take a deep breath of the nice, warm outside air.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm finally back. With no more babies in tow.

Only pre-schoolers

Beer, cigarettes, my kids and demolition derbies.

So there I was. Sunday night. Sitting there staring at Elmo's World with my two kids.

For some reason, my mind reverted back to grade school. It was summer or, to be even more descriptive, possibly Indian Summer. Late September. Early October.

Almost every year in my early childhood, my mom and dad would toss us into the car and drive out to St. Clairsville, Ohio, for the Belmont Country Fair where we would stuff our faces on elephant ears, funnel cakes, corn dogs and freshly squeezed lemonade.

Then, we would go see other fantastic attractions like crappy birdhouses at the 4-H tent, bulls eating hay at the farm tent and older kids busting balloons with darts for Van Halen mirrors on the midway.

On this particular day, however, we didn't come for the funnel cakes or the cows eating hay.

We came for the mother-fuckin' demolition derby!!!!

Now, I'm not sure of the chemical make-up of boys. Or why my brother and I enjoyed destruction as much as we did (or do). But, when we found out we were going to see the demolition derby the night before, we couldn't sleep. It was like Christmas in late August. To top it off, the fact that both our birthdays were in July, we had three Christmases (Christmasi?) every year.

And yes, the demolition derby was awesome. If you're a guy, you totally understand why. There's just something about 20 cars crunching, banging and slamming together that gets a guy really excited. It feels like you're in a fistfight against 50-some guys in a scunched up hallway.

And let's not even talk about the busted windows and exploding radiators.

It's almost as exciting as seeing a lady naked. Butt nekkid.

I said almost.

So there I was watching Elmo's World, staring at my son and daughter running around, doing a jig to the Elmo's World theme song and, in general, just having a good ol' time with life.

Then, for a couple minutes, I found an evil Grinch smile form across my face.

I have a son, and perhaps a daughter, who will wholeheartedly go see a demolition derby with me. And by wholeheartedly, I mean without question. And by without question, I mean forced.

Because, you see, my wife might not be interested in seeing a demolition derby, but goddamn it if my kid's aren't going to go with me.

We'll see. I just may get my youth back yet.

My Daughter Is Not Bruce Willis. (sigh)

David Dunn: [talking to Elijah on phone] I've never been sick, I've never been injured... what do I do now?
Elijah Price: Go to a place where people are... you won't have to wait very long.
- from the movie Unbreakable (2000) directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Well, it finally happened. My daughter got sick. A slight cold. It was her very first cold since being born 17 months ago (not counting nine months in the womb).

Sigh.

I guess I should be happy that she's pretty healthy. But, it's just that after watching the months roll by without even witnessing a sniffle or a slight cough - I really, truly, honestly thought she was the female version of Bruce Willis in the movie UNBREAKABLE.

In the movie, a security guard played by Willis is coming home from work on a train, when it suddenly derails. As it turns out, he is the sole survivor of a crash that killed 132 people. Soon, Willis is contacted by comic-book store owner (played by Samuel Jackson) who claims that he is a bonafide superhero.

It just sucks because my daughter's runny nose and fever sort of knocked my theory out of the park.

As it turns out, she's only human.

Or is she?

Last weekend, we went on this hayride through a pumpkin patch near Bath, Ohio. During the ride, I noticed this little black girl with a cast on her arm. She was staring very intently at my daughter.

It's funny, because right before the wheel fell off the tractor and 40 screaming kids were thrown to their peril, I could've sworn the little black girl's mom called the little girl Ms. Glass.

Hmmmmm? Stay tuned.