The Man is away

...so now I can blog about him.

Do you ever wonder when it is that a man becomes “The Dad”? You know, the Dad with the big, booming exaggerated laugh that’s a cross between a “hardy-har-har” and Santa’s “ho-ho-ho”. The father that guffaws at his own jokes? The Dad that uses weird sayings from a much less politically correct time? And he’s not even a grandfather?

I’m trying to figure out that exact moment, because it sort of crept up on us. The other day after laughing together about an article in the paper, I asked Ian if he knew he had the *Dad laugh*. And he confirmed it. Yup. He noticed it himself a little while back during a meeting at work. The booming reverberated in his head.

I always suspected that it would come to this. Even before we had kids, Ian was the guy who would go up to the poor kid who was holding a tray of goodies for his mom conducting a demo at the department store. He would chat with the young man. He’d ask all sorts of dumb questions about the product while the teenager, who sooooo didn’t want to be there on a Saturday afternoon, subtly rolled his eyes.

So this shouldn’t have been unexpected. What I didn’t anticipate was how far it would go.

A couple of weeks ago, while getting the kids to bed, I heard Ian yell for the boy to get off the computer and get his pyjamas on.

Then little G piped up and said “Hurry up goh-goh (big brother); or Daddy’s gonna beat you like a red-headed stepchild!”

Whoa???!!!

Ian couldn’t help but laugh (BOOM-BOOM!!); and then I asked G what she had said.

She answered: “Goh-goh needs to get ready or Daddy will beat him like a circus monkey!” (Note how she changed her answer ?!)

I tried to explain to her that she shouldn’t be saying those things and that Daddy was just joking.

(Disclaimer: Ian has used these choice phrases with the boy from time to time; it’s part of the bedtime routine and they usually end up wrestling a bit. I don't even know where he got these sayings, or if he remembers where he heard them first. He in no way condones beating of any sort, of any child, redheaded or not. Perhaps it stemmed from all the beatings he got from his older redheaded brother? Nor would he beat a circus monkey, for that matter. But I digress.)

Then I further went on to describe how Daddy would never beat a circus monkey, or any type of monkey (he is after all, a proponent of equal opportunity… ) or animal or...



Ian just continued laughing quietly at my feeble attempts to prevent these statements from ever being uttered beyond the confines of this house. Especially by my 39 month old daughter. In any case, the *Dad* has not been using these brilliant words very much since.

I'd prefer that the girlie stick to emulating her mother. After all, it’s so ladylike for a preschooler to acknowledge every fart she hears with a “Lovely, Dad” dripping in sarcasm.

I can just imagine what she tells her preschool teachers.

PS: Whooooo-wheeeee!!!! I just realized that I surpassed my 300th post, without any pomp and circumstance!!! Well, at least I was writing about hip-hop aerobics, another passion along with blogging that I didn't discover until I reached my 40s. You're never too old to discover new loves, I suppose. And that's a very good thing.