Ladies and gentlemen, this week’s blog comes to you from a tired, unshaven, physically exhausted, and drowsy Marty O’Connor. Exactly like every Monday after a weekend in my 20’s. Except instead of partying and carrying on, I had my three year old son Jack, aka “The Jackal”, all weekend by myself as Cailin was up in Vermont participating in a race. I had a weekend full of running after Jack, entertaining Jack, not getting much sleep because of Jack, and trying to clean a house that is home to a three year old blond tornado named Jack.

 This weekend, Cailin ran in the Tough Mudder, which is hailed as “Probably the toughest event on the planet”. Certainly, the folks who organized this have not spent a day with my son. Being Jack’s mother, the Tough Mudder was probably a breeze for Cailin. In this race, you run through fire, climb dangerous obstacles, and crawl through mud (or do something with mud apparently, as they have so cleverly replaced Mother with Mudder). You also have to be tough I guess, but could these folks withstand a weekend of averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, catching Jack from falling in the swan pond at the Philadelphia Zoo, sitting through Thomas The Train DVD’s, and having to eat Chuck E Cheese Pizza? I’m a Tough Fadda.

Joking aside, I love taking Jack out – I would much rather be out and about than stuck in the house. And Jack loves being outside, he told Cailin a very simple and honest statement the other day – “I love outside”. He is wild, defiant, unruly, and cranky at home. He is like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, frequently and relentlessly trying to get the front door open. But when I take him out, he is so well behaved, agreeable, and friendly at the playground. I imagine this is one of life’s ironies – he always wants to be outside, and sometimes we wish he would just stay in and play with his ever-growing Thomas the Train collection. But then you see how kids are today- chained to their computers, Xbox’s and PlayStation’s. So I am encouraging and supporting his love of the outdoors, so we don’t raise a kid who spends sunny days inside munching cheese curls, gulping Mountain Dews, and killing aliens and other digitally created awful creatures.  

I am also trying to nurture Jack with the same love of the bizarre and interesting that I have. So, as I have blogged about before, I’ve been known to take him to places like the Cowtown Rodeo, the Berlin Mart, the deserted town of Sea Breeze, and the WalMart in Audubon, New Jersey. But I love taking him to playgrounds all over South Jersey and even south eastern Pennsylvania. There is actually a playground directly across the street from me, but I don’t like taking him there because it seems like a breeding ground for adolescents who will surely represent the future drug dealers, teen moms, and undesirables of my town in the next few years.

So Jack and I are an almost daily traveling road show, visiting the many playgrounds that I have extensively researched. I am always on the lookout for a cool or new undiscovered playground that I can take him to. He is a total riot all the time, but at playgrounds, he always gives me his best material. On the swings, he insists “I need to go higher!” but then when he is getting out of control high he proclaims “I no like this!”. Friday night, he was waiting to go down the slide while a kid who was playing tag was in front of him at the top of the slide. All the kids playing tag were yelling “just do it John!” and Jack, says to the kid (who was clearly NOT John) “do it John” so the kid would go down the slide. Jack is also a very friendly and playful kid when he gets to the playground. I was getting nervous that he doesn’t get enough interaction with kids because he is the only child our babysitter watches. But he is outgoing, quick to make a friend, and seems to radiate a charisma – kids seem drawn to him and seem to like him right away. At McDonald’s Playland the other day, a boy he was playing with offered him a fry. It was a scene straight out of a McDonald’s commercial, except Ronald McDonald didn’t show up and inappropriately rub a kid’s shoulders.

While Jack is having many excellent adventures on our playground trips, sometimes I get twice the entertainment. I feel like every trip I make, I meet, see, or talk to some kind of character. A few months back, I got talking to a guy who seemed like such a genuine nice guy. As we left, he asked for my business card – thinking he wanted to get together with the kids again, I gave it to him. The next thing I know, he was calling me almost non-stop pressuring me into joining some wacky pyramid scheme. I felt so violated, and mad at myself because I initiated the conversation with him at the park to begin with. Another night, it was getting dark and some guy shows up with a dog. Jack starts playing with the dog, and I start talking to the guy who I quickly realized was wasted beyond belief. (It was 7pm on a Tuesday) As I am talking, I had to chase Jack for a second and wacked my head on a monkey bar and knocked myself clean out. I saw stars, hit the ground, then I jumped up all confused and disoriented. The guy either didn’t see it happen and didn’t care. A panic attack soon came over me, because I came to the realization that if I passed out or hemmorraghed, I was screwed because the guy was too wasted to operate his dog let alone a phone call to 911. Either Jack or the dog would have to revive me, and the dog wasn’t a collie or St. Bernard, and Jack was too preoccupied with throwing the dog its ball. That would have made for a strange obituary.               

Last week, Jack was playing with a kid whose mother was clearly an exotic dancer because it looked like she was still in uniform. I thought about slipping her a twenty for a lap dance, but then thought while daddy would be having fun just like Jack was on the slides, an erotic dance on a park bench would be highly inappropriate. The next night, we came across a dad who was a total nerd and was quoting what I believe to be Dungeons and Dragons to his three nerdlings who were aged 4, 7, and 10 and were all wearing the same tinted prescription glasses as dad. The guy had all these technology items strapped to his belt loop, ear, and other appendages. He was like a nerdy Robocop or Batman.     

Then there are the moms in those tight black yoga pants that literally (and this is no exaggeration) every single college aged girl owns or wears. And I’m not going to lie, these women are many times in fantastic shape and have the bodies of a 19 year old girl. The problem is, they usually have the face of an 80 year old sailor, and all the Botox in the world can’t save their weathered mugs from all the abuse they took from frequenting tanning booths. These type of woman never talk to me at the park, maybe because I don’t look like I am some hot shot hedging a fund, cracking a big case,or using corporate buzz words. These desperate housewives are too busy clucking and crowing to each other about what prestigious preschool their kids are trying to get in or what Thai French Cuban fusion restaurant is hot this month.    

After the playground, we normally visit an ice cream parlor. Its becoming an almost daily ritual. I find comfort in certain things, like small town ice cream parlors, old mixtapes, my mom’s cooking, and the fact that three of my college friends (me included) still wear fleece vests. There’s a place in Westmont I love called Primo’s – the soft serve is perfect, and the clientele and workers are all so friendly. In my town, the line  for ice cream usually contains one loud angry women with 30 kids attached all over her body. My dad has warned me against getting Mr. Softee every time he does a drive-by in our neighborhood. But little does my dad know that I myself am still brainwashed and still heed to that sweet siren’s call. The only difference between now and 1984 is that now I have the financial means to purchase it on my own.

The night usually ends me with driving Jack around to get him to sleep. On these drives, Jack has been demanding to hear the Yo Gabba Gabba CD “Music Is Awesome” over and over. To the point where he knows the words. Last night, he confidently informed me “This is my favorite song” when “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Yo Dazzlers came on. Yo Gabba Gabba is a hotly contested topic amongst my friends who are also parents. I happen to think it’s the most creative, wonderfully unique, and just flat out cool kids show ever. Some people think it’s annoying and weird. But the guests are insane – how can you not love a show that has had quests like Tony Hawk, Mark Mothersbaugh (from Devo)  The Roots, The Shins, MGMT, and Band of Horses. To top it all off, Biz Markie has his own segment where he teaches kids how to beatbox!

This weekend was certainly action packed, and I got a bit upset with myself because my patience had been wearing thin due to lack of sleep and constant motion. Jack definitely keeps me and Cailin on our toes and makes life so rewarding and fun. He makes me feel so good about myself. I can’t believe I was partly responsible for such a vibrant, handsome, and fun little boy. It makes everything else seem so unimportant – so what if I live in a dumpy row home, so what if my car has two flats right now and I can’t really afford to fix it yet, and so what if I’m almost done my second Masters degree and make less than most everyone I know. I’m Jack’s daddy and regardless of what I ever do in life, that’s my greatest accomplishment.  As wild as this weekend with him was, this morning when I dropped him at his babysitters, I choked up a bit and almost started crying knowing that I was going to miss him the second I got in the car and he wasn’t in his car seat making faces at me through the rear view and demanding songs on my iPod, and begging to go to a playground.

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