So my oldest boy, Fletch, is almost three years old.  My youngest, Riley is six months. Currently, my fantastic wife is out of town for a week. So this week I am Mr. Mommin it up.  You don’t realize how much effort kids really are until you lose half your team! 

You see - the problem is now I am outnumbered.  It’s two on one right now– its coming full speed, and the two little Holder runts are plotting a takeover of the family estate.

The night my wife left, I thought “I got this, no prob.” That night, after 452 episodes of Sesame Street, I finally got Fletch to bed at 10pm.  The baby woke up at midnight screaming bloody hell as he wanted that bottle he loves so much. I hooked him up with his babba, swaddled him up in my straight-jacket style wrap and then bounced him on the overgrown yoga ball til he nodded out.  At three am, he was hungry again.  Ok, now I have figured out how to prop his babba up on a pillow and lay him sideways in his cribby so he can eat and pass out simultaneously.  All good.

At five am, Fletch is up in my grill whispering “dada, lets go out back and hit baseballs.” It’s five am.  It’s dark outside. He says it again. I get up, hit the coffee button and head out back and turn the pool lights on so we can see, and we hit baseballs.

While we are doing this, the baby wakes up and wants the hell out of his cribby. As I go to take him out, I step on something that sticks to my foot. For the umteenth time, I have hit the one spot that one of our eight hundred dogs likes to poop on.

Baby in one hand, Kleenex scraping the poo off my foot in the other, wondering where on God’s green Earth my fricking coffee is, Fletch starts screaming outside.  We run out to find that he has thrown his bat up in the lemon tree a good eight feet up and is beyond distraught at this event (which he self inflicted).

I put the baby in his little jumpy thing outside and proceed to get the bat.  Riley starts yelling and I look over and see that our dog Chaplin is peeing on his jumpy and our other dog Gummy is licking the baby’s face like the owl in the old school Tootsie Pop commercials.

OMG, it isn’t even seven in the morning.

I say to both my boys and my posse of mutts “That’s it, dada is going to enjoy his coffee and watch Sports Center.  You are all welcome to join me.”

It is at that point that Fletch looked at me serious as an uninsured motorist and said “Dada, I don’t like your attitude.”

I have not laughed that hard in a long time.  Kids are awesome.  It’s hard work, selfless efforts, sleepless nights, long days, but so worth it – I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. 

I just need my wife to come home…….:)

Who was the moron who said one plus one equals two? Old Man Addition was incorrect. One plus one actually equals INSANITY.

All of my friends that have two children told me the same thing – when you have the second child, things will not be twice as hard.  They will be exponentially more difficult.  I, in my usual Mark Holder fashion, said “maybe for you pal, but I’ll be alright.” Well, it’s absolutely, positively, out of this world, pee pee in the bushes mind bogglingly crazy!

I thought that the wife and I would just double the efforts and have at it.  Have at it, we have; but we have easily upped our efforts tenfold, if not more. 

Our morning, if you can call it a morning (as opposed to the more accurate ungodly time frame somewhere between the witching hour and the dawn – a time frame, by the way, that should not have humans awake in it) consists of a lot of crying, wailing, peeing, pooping, eating, eating, eating, eating, changing deepees, washing babies, cleaning doggies (from all of the above activities), changing outfits (all of us), smiling, laughing, showering (sometimes more than once), and all sorts of other wonderful activities that all brave parents go through – and this is BEFORE we get in the car.

It’s not that it’s hard – I mean it is of course – it’s that everything goes nuts at the same time. Sanity goes out the child locked window when you have two kids under three years old screaming in unison like a couple dudes trying to harmonize a bad Bee Gees song (that’s short for Brothers Gibb people). 

The only two things my two little spin-offs do at the same time at this point in their early careers are cry and stay awake.  They don’t eat at the same time, go to daycare at the same time or go spaceship potty at the same time.  That would be way too easy.

Sometimes I feel like it is very likely that I will put my face through a Volvo, but the reality is that for some unknown reason, I am given the tools to cruise right through the chaos and into the sea of serenity.  After all, isn’t the whole idea of having children so we can take care of them and show them the way to a better world than we had? My main goal as a dad is to be a better dad than mine (Roy Holder, who is as awesome a guy as you will ever meet by the way).  My dad was better than his. I pray my children will be better than me.  But here’s the deal, all I have to do is show up and be loving and remember that taking care of them ISN’T ABOUT ME.  It’s about them.  If I keep that in mind, I will get all I need as a result – my priority in this life is to provide shelter, love and direction for these two little maniac dudes.  I can do that. We all can if we just do it.

The wife and I made a conscious decision to have more than one child. We wanted our little buddy to have a little buddy. It was the hardest decision for us as we were starting to feel like The Three Amigos (four w Goppa.) Everything was cruising at a nice little rhythm in our lives. Sleep had returned. Routine was happening. How could it be possible to love another human being as much as we loved our little Reagan? Would it take away from the love we had for him? No.

Someone once said to me that when you have a second child, God (The Universe, Buddah, a door knob, Vitamin Water, whatever is good for you) seems to double the love in your heart. How true it is. You see, just like twice isn’t twice in the chaos arena, twice isn’t twice in the love arena either. In having a second child, my heart has blown through my chest with a capacity I never dreamed of. Now our buddy has a buddy – and we have two.

Between two beautiful boys, four smelly dogs, an unbelievably awesome wife and a best friend named Goppa, I’m sure to have a good day today full of rewards. I’m sure that there will be exponentially more love in my home; and I’m pretty convinced that there will also be a ridiculous amount of noise and poopie as well.


hard  [hahrd]  Show IPA adjective, -er, -est, adverb, -er, -est, noun
–adjective
1.    not soft; solid and firm to the touch; unyielding to pressure and impenetrable or almost impenetrable.
2.    firmly formed; tight: a hard knot.
3.    difficult to do or accomplish; fatiguing; troublesome: a hard task.
4.    difficult or troublesome with respect to an action, situation, person, etc.: hard to please; a hard time.
5.    difficult to deal with, manage, control, overcome, or understand: a hard problem.
6.    involving a great deal of effort, energy, or persistence: hard labor; hard study.
7.    performing or carrying on work with great effort, energy, or persistence: a hard worker.


grate⋅ful  [greyt-fuhl]  Show IPA
–adjective
1.    warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful: I am grateful to you for your help.
2.    expressing or actuated by gratitude: a grateful letter.
3.    pleasing to the mind or senses; agreeable or welcome; refreshing: a grateful breeze.

Ah the ole’ Pacifier.  I capitalize it like one would when typing the name of a God or Supreme Being – and that’s exactly what these things can become.

My son, Fletchface McGillicutty, loves his Paci (pronounced “passy”).  We have tapered him down from the all day abuse to “nite nite and car ride.” The Wife (notice the capitalization) and I were able to convince him that the Easter Bunny wanted him to stop using Paci all together, but we would allow him a couple of concessions.

When you really break it down, Paci is more for mom and dad than it is for baby-boy. It is the ultimate hush machine; the King of all quiets; a worker among workers and most of all  - the Peacemaker.  It provides a quiet time for mom and dad to think, sleep, focus, or do nothing at all for ten seconds.

There is also a piece of the parent that can’t deal with the fact that the child is crying or upset. What is it that shakes us to the core when that cry hits our eardrums? Genetics? Fear? Insecurity? Selfishness?

In reality, aren’t we as parents trying to do whatever we can to make our child happy? I know my wife and I are, but that might not mean shoving Paci in their mouths when they are upset and/or ask for the ever so alluring Pacitini.

Effective? You bet. A drug of sorts? You bet.

You want to see a two year old lose his sweet little mind – take away his Paci for a day and watch the madness unravel.  It is quite a sight.  It was this sight that made me decide to do something about the paci-problem and take another step towards a paci-less life, and dampen the power of that little sucker.

At two years and and eight months of age, I feel like it is time for my boy to abandon all paci usage, save for nite nite time. I want my son to start to experience his feelings, even the tough ones.  Maybe it’s too early to have to deal, or is it? The world isn’t waiting for my son to acclimate; and I don’t want him getting hurt out there because I’m too afraid to let him be uncomfortable here at home.

Here’s the problem, his younger brother is four months old and is gearing up for a couple years of his own “on the paci.” How do you tell one child he can have it and one that he cannot? I guess you just do what every responsible, honest, loving parent would do, tell him the truth: that the baby needs Paci to grow and be big and strong like his brother…..lol.

After this wildly mind-blowing session, I got the nod to go in and see my wife and participate in the moment our entire lives had lead up to and everything became  s  l  o  w    m  o  t  i  o  n. Colors were vibrant, sounds (Sinatra piping through the speakers) were sharp and clear, my thought life was placed on an elevated plane, and my heart was pounding hard enough to push the baby out for my wife all on its own.

There was my wonderful wife, lying on the table for the second time in 2 years, God bless her. Christine Holder has earned a lifetime of support, and Coffee Bean lattes from me, and it is well deserved. At this moment, the whole world stopped for one second while I thought I must have been the luckiest dude on the planet, and I soaked in a spirit that was beyond me. I’m not religious, but I am spiritual, and this was as spiritual as it gets. If you have been present for a birth, you know what I mean.

In what seemed to be three more seconds, my second son was brought into a new world, crying for the air he so badly wanted to fill his messy little, blue, beautiful body. It was the most peaceful, tender moment I can ever imagine – a new life. Are you kidding me? I’m just a funny kid from Jersey! Where in the scheme of all of this did I pick the coolest deck of cards offered by the Universe?

My best friend, who is also my sons’ Godfather (Goppa), picked up Reagan from school and brought him to meet his new baby brother, his new buddy for life. When they entered our room at Cedars, Reagan very calmly walked in and asked if he could hold and kiss his new brother. I have never seen such sweetness and care from a human being in my life. My mom, my dad, my wife, my best friend and my two sons – my whole entire world was comfortably cramped into one room. Heaven on Earth, that’s what it was like for me.

I cannot for the life of me, imagine missing these events. I feel for those who do, as it has changed me forever. My heart is bursting with intense amounts of love every minute. My soul is connected to something that I cannot express, I can just absolutely, positively, one hundred percent tell you that it is.

I have gained a new respect for mothers. I have gained a new respect for life. I now understand without fail, having seen two human beings draw their very first breath, that I have an obligation to those two to love them no matter what: bad day, work troubles, fighting with the wife, money issues, tired, sore, dog bit my face while retrieving my phone from the potty, whatever the excuse.

I am proud to be a father and an equal parent. It gives me great purpose. It brings me immense joy. I am a part of the world, and I am loving it. Reagan Fletcher Holder and Riley Wilson Holder are my angels. Christine Elizabeth Holder is my hero.

I have been present, in the operating room for the births of both my beautiful sons. They were experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Watching a baby take it’s very first breath is a truly awesome thing. It is even cooler that, as a man, I am allowed to witness it – that was not always the case. In 1965, approximately 5% of fathers attended the birth of their child compared to 95% today. Men, like myself, are begging to be more involved because we now see how monstrous the rewards can be.

March 2, 2009. That is the day my second son, Riley, was born, and it is still fresh in my mind:

My wife had an emergency c-section with our first little buddy so after some prodding from the doctor, she elected to repeat. Having a scheduled day for delivery was so weird. “On March 2, your little boy will be here!” It’s like we ordered something (the cutest, softest, sweetest, most loving, vanilla cookie smelling little something) online and were waiting for the UPS dude to bang on the door in his funny little brown shorts.

We packed our bags the night before, knowing this time what we really needed (comfy pillows and comfy pj’s) and what we didn’t need (wind up toys, baby overalls, baby 3 piece suits, a partridge in a pear tree and all the other stuff a 2 minute old doesn’t care about).

The morning of the delivery we dropped our older son off at preschool at 9am, then nervously made our way to the hospital. Upon arriving at Cedars here in Los Angeles, I started to get butterflies much like when I was a kid about to pitch the all important final game of the Mayors Cup baseball series (which we won by the way and yes, I still have the ball).

Was it possible to feel all this love and gratitude as I had with my first son again? How could I possibly have the capacity to love this much? How big is my heart? It already feels like it’s bursting through my out of shape chest with the amount of adoration I have for my existing family. Seriously, I have more?

When we got into our first room there, I was instructed to put on my blue scrubbies, boots, and mask. What a fantastic fashion statement these things make. I wore them like a proud smurf heading off into battle. I remember starting to cry right through that awful paperish fabric those crappy things are made of. In fact, I am crying now writing this – I just cannot understand nor comprehend the vast amount of love that has been bestowed upon me as the result of fatherhood.

I grab some self portraits of me in the silly smocks (a word I haven’t used since third grade art class), make some probably inappropriate jokes with the docs, take more self portraits with me and the nurses, anesthesiologist, RN, RA, PA, NWA, mom, dad, wife, janitor, and whoever the hell else happened to enter my life in those glorious pre-birth minutes - memories that will last forever, or until one of my kids throws my laptop in the potty.

Off to the O.R. for some light prep (are you digging my lingo skills?), I started to drop so many tears that I needed to ask for a new mask as I had turned mine into a soggy, gross, dark blue clump of gnarly napkin. I’m hoping I’m not the first “two masker” of the day.

It was at this point that I was asked to sit outside the operating room whilst they prepared my wife. As our first son was an emergency surgery, I didn’t experience this wait that time. We fired from our room to the O.R. in a hurry, and I was right by my terrified wife’s side the whole time. This time around, I was asked to sit in this hallway right outside the door to the delivery room. What seemed like 4 weeks (was actually 20 minutes) went by during which I literally lost my mind. I laughed, cried, got very scared, highly nervous, steely calm, and completely serene and then all of it backwards again. I have never been through anything like that in my goofy ass life. The possibilities, both positive and negative, were endless – and I thought of all of them. This was major soul searching - for real.

...TO BE CONTINUED