“Good morning America how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your native son,
I’m the train they call The City of New Orleans
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.”

That is what is going through my head right now. Of course Arlo Guthrie is singing but it is the songwriters songwriter Steve Goodman I am sensing　as my fan is shorting out from the gross of pee and poo and “DADA”‘s (oh my). The last 72 hours have contributed to the soundtrack I am currently living.

Okay, so quickly let us catch up.

Since my last and only post I have been tending to a daughter (almost 3) and recently another daughter (7 months) but besides being a stay at home dad, I am bartending three nights a week. Fortunately because of my seniority I work those nights consecutively and the “bar” follows a restaurant schedule; meaning it closes nowhere near Virginia ABC last call. So generally, I work with travel (when taking a job in northern Virginia everyone should factor in traffic), 4pm to midnight and on the best of nights when the children are on my side I am in bed at 12:30 and asleep at 1, then the baby gets up at 7 and the toddler at 8, so 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a possibility though obscure.

Then when they are colluding against me, which recently seems to be the case, this is their arrangement for my unravel. One of them is waking up every 3 hours requiring me to either sleep on the floor or rock in a chair for a few hours only to wake up confused and aching in muscles I didn’t know I possessed. And during the day someone has to be either following me everywhere asking questions I forgot there were actually questions for or being carried around everywhere leaving my arm limp and possibly an inch longer than the other. Then there is the ‘no one is allowed to nap at the same time’ rule. Argggggggggg! But it’s the arbitrary moments of craziness that push me to the madness. Like, I finally get the baby to sleep and bribe the toddler with “Sophia the First” so I can take a shower ALONE for the first time in 3 days. Two minutes later, as I am applying shampoo, the toddler is ripping the curtain open and wielding a tube of Butt Paste like a lightsaber saying “dada it doesn’t work” only to find out (still soap in my hair) that she decided she wanted to go to the splash park so the baby needed “suntan lotion” applied. What?

Which brings us to the now and why I am finally writing again. After 3 nights of hindered sleep, followed by 3 days of being worked over by truly professional children, I began hearing “City of New Orleans” in my head. I have never been to New Orleans. I have only ridden on trains a hand full of times. I didn’t know who Steve Goodman was until 1989 (five years after his death) when I bought ‘The best of John Prine’ only because there is a snap shot of him on the cover taking a pull from a beer while holding a cigarette in the same hand. I know it sounds dumb, especially since Mr. Prine has battled neck and lung cancer recently, but I was 21 and yeah I was definitely 21. Anyway, then I realized being a stay at home dad often makes me feel like I’ve “gone five hundred miles when the day is done”. Fine. Step back. Take a breath. Okay. I know shortly I will have a life time of remember whens and random giggles at inappropriate moments from my family’s inside shenanigans. That is absolutely okay considering the only other Steve Goodman song I know is “Souvenirs” (coincidentally co-written by John Prine) and that deals with a concept I don’t want to ponder when it comes to my children.

If tomorrow is more of the same, bring it on, because I never thought I would ever be so blessed.

Enjoy the days between.

Hello world, it’s me and if you don’t remember (and I understand) I am going to borrow from Mick and Keith “please allow me to introduce myself”. Today is my first day of being “laid off”. I am old enough to not remember the first Woodstock and young enough to not count on Social Security. I have an incredibly beautiful, intelligent and loving wife and an equally beautiful, intelligent and loving 20 month old daughter. Did I mention I was laid off?

My grandfather worked in a glass factory for 43 years. My father worked 36 years in the school system. Both left on their own terms. I had 12 and half years of my 30 year spreadsheet complete and now I am making lemonade. I will be going back to school, staying home with a toddler and making life as easy as possible for wife while we get from here to there.

The Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil” has been going through my head for days now. I am not a huge fan but Exile on Main Street is one of my five island records. It may be that I understand why my boss did what he had to or that is the perfect line to start any new relationship. Either way “Sympathy for the Devil” is the song of the day, sing it, enjoy it, “Ooo, who, who, Oh, yeah”