3:47 PM

If there’s an upside to this whole day, it’s that, on the ride to the park, we all sing along to Katy Perry. The great part is I can rock out in the car too – I have kids. It’s completely natural. It’s a great way to bond with your children. Try it some time. If you and the kids are having a rough time, hop in the car, put on some Katy Perry and have a good old fashion sing along.

It’s another one of the great benefits of being a parent. We have an excuse to listen to crappy teen music. That and Katy Perry has some catchy jingles. You can’t help but sing along. Curse you Katy Perry.

“BABY, YOU’RE A FIREWORK. COME ON LET YOUR COLORS BURST!”

“Daddy, you’re a bad singer.”

“Well, lucky for you we’re here. Why don’t you get out and head to the park.”

I release the kids into their natural habitat and saunter on over to the bench. I’m going to sit down and watch the homeless guy next to me. I think he’s asleep, but I can’t be sure. I want to poke him, but if he is asleep then that’s just rude. But if he’s dead … I might have some sort of legal responsibility. You know what, I’ll just use the Penn State University emergency plan and report it to my immediate supervisor – my wife.

“Can you play with me?”

Crap, all I wanted to do was sit. Alone. For five minutes.

“CHASE ME! CHASE ME!”

So of course, I do. The things I do for love

Before I know it the entire park has joined in.

Then every time I get close to one of them they call timeout. I don’t remember reading that in the rule book. Then, before I know it, they’re chasing me.

I can't stop looking at my giant giraffe legs.

I can actually read the minds of the other parents. Each time I go with the family to the park I feel like they look at my wife and think, “Isn’t she a great woman, raising two little ones and a giant special needs child.”

This whole experience looks like a scene out of a NatGeo special. A giant deer running in the open as 15 woodland creatures run behind. Not that I run like a deer. It looks more like a circus has come to town. My long arms and legs just flailing as I lug along my size 14 feet. Suddenly I realize. This isn’t how you play tag. I’m suppose to be chasing them.

Now I’m sprinting away from four to eight year olds, making cuts and ninja jumping off the top of the jungle gym. It gets pretty intense. It’s the only thing I have to do all day besides make patterns in the carpet with the vacuum – like the outfield in baseball. I turn it into a game, and see if I can better my previous pattern. Last week I made the Last Supper in the master bedroom.

Of course the kids think this is all great. That’s because I’m using the jungle gym in ways it isn’t suppose to be, which will have an interesting side effect when they go back home, and little Jimmy jumps from the top of mom and dad’s banister.

So, really, who has special needs now?

3:43PM

With the kid’s homework finally done, it’s time for their required 60 minutes of physical activity. Because the boy told me it was time. This happens every time there is some event at school. Last year I had to check the smoke detector batteries twice a day because Fire Marshall Bill paid his school a little visit.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Have you checked the batteries in the smoke detector?”

Every year parents are asked over 4 million times if they've checked the batteries because some guy in a Smokey the Bear costume visited their school.

“Yes, sweetie. I checked them last week on Daylight Savings.”

“Did they work? You know, every year over 2,000 children are killed in house fires. Do you want me to die? You should make sure.”

“Is that in the U.S. or Canada? Because they have different standards up there. Then there’s the metric system, so I’m sure they can’t just go out and buy your standard nine volt.”

“What?”

“Never mind. But yes, I do check them.”

“Are you sure you checked them? I don’t want to die because you were lazy.”

“You know, those things are hardwired.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, I’ll test it right now for you.”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Then, from the other end of the house, comes the wife, “WHAT WAS THAT?”

“I’M TESTING THE SMOKE DETECTERS!”

“WHAT?”

“I’M TESTING THE SMOKE… FORGET IT.”

Cracking open the bathroom door allows for better acoustics while maintaining privacy. Yes, this is what you missed out on ladies.

By the way, that’s how most marriages communicate. It’s not love unless we’re having complete conversations yelling at each other through the bathroom door.

Every time there is some school assembly I have to live it in the house. This time it was from the minor league hockey team mascot. Not the team. The mascot. Some giant foam head told him all about the importance of exercise. So now he reminds me that they need sixty minutes of physical activity every day. I just hope that school doesn’t celebrate prostate awareness month.

3:33 PM

With that important math lesson done  we can move on to spelling – the most useless skill ever. I always look at those National Spelling Bee kids and think what a wasted talent they have. Is there any job anywhere that requires that you know how to spell ‘tatterdemalion’? No. You know why? Because no one cares. That’s what Google is for.

Google is such a good spell checker, spelling is pointless. It’s like it can read my mind. I’m a horrible speller. I don’t even come close to getting it right, and, yet, it always knows what I’m trying to spell.

Search: ahryuooou

Did you mean: obfuscate? 

Yes, yes I did. That’s EXACTLY what I was trying to spell. Those people are a genius. I feel kind of bad that I have to sit here and quiz the boy on spelling. What they really need to be teaching these kids is how to Google. There’s almost nothing you can’t solve with it. In the meantime, I’ll just make sure he knows these words.

“Available”

“A-v-a-i-l-a-b-l-e”

“Awesome. Let’s see … analyze”

“A-n-a-l-y-z-e”

“You got it.”

Now, I’m not entirely sure the girl understands the exercise.

“Spell, spell Thursday.”

“No, sweetie, I’m asking him his spelling…”

“T-h-u-r-s-d-a-y”

“Spell acorn.”

“A-c-o-r-n”

“Is that right, Daddy?”

“Yes, but we need to work on his spelling words. He has a test on Friday.”

“Spell Friday.”

“No, let’s get back to…”

“F-r-i…”

“Ok, that’s enough.”

“d-a-y”

“Is that right, Daddy?”

“Yes, now I need to ask him…”

“Moon”

“M-o-o-n”

You know, he’s not half bad at this. She’s thrown like 15 words at him and he’s spelled them all correctly. I wonder what other unfounded talents he has. I really hope one of them is sock recognition. Because I could really use a hand locating and matching socks in a load of laundry. Searching for the matching sock just holds everything up. After about 15 minutes you finally realize, six of them must have lost their soul mates to the dryer. It has to be the driers fault. They were in the washing machine when you unloaded it. That dryer is like a sock Thunderdome – two socks enter, one sock leaves.