Just Call Me Smee

Our youngest just turned 1 and I’m holding out hope that this one will stay enamored with me. At this point, she is the only one of the four who isn’t a professional feelings- hurter.

The other three, however, are lovers of the cold, hard truth. They don’t really have the ‘speaking the truth in love’ thing down. They aren’t malicious, they just like to say whatever is on their minds. I suppose I should be thankful for the truth-telling, but hopefully with time it will be tempered with a smidgeon of sensitivity.

From what I gather from my kids, I am fat and I am ugly. And I smell bad. I didn’t hear these kinds of things when I was a kid myself, the time of life when one expects to be ridiculed and beaten down. No, during my childhood I felt very well accepted by all. It is fatherhood that knocked me down a few notches. I brought these little sinners into the world and they thank me by making off-the-cuff derogatory remarks about my physique.

Wyatt is about to be four. His insults seem to be the most innocuous, mostly because they are simply an unpremeditated, stream-of-consciousness type of degradation. Recently, I went in to my bedroom to get ready for work. Wyatt walked in and inquired as to what I was doing. “I’m about to change clothes.” He responded, “Is it going to be scary?”

I understand I’m no Fabio, but I’d like to think that the prospect of my taking off my shirt doesn’t result in a general state of fear among my offspring. And yet, that seems to be the case. What kind of hellish nightmare must my wife have been enduring all these years?

Blake, our 6-year-old daughter, is the most troubled by my shirtlessness. When the baby was born, she and Blake were sharing a room. During those first few nights when the baby was up all hours, I would go in and get Blake to trade beds with me. She could sleep with her mom and I would sleep in her bed, so that they would be able to sleep well and I could take care of the baby. On the first of these nights, I went in shirtless and woke Blake up, telling her to go sleep in my bed.

Sleepily she asked, “Where are you going to sleep?”

“In your bed,” I replied.

Suddenly, she was wide awake, and the troubled look on her face turned to stark terror as she whimpered, “What are you going to wear?”

Is she afraid of the dark? Monsters in the closet? Chucky? Murderers? Corporal Punishment? No. The greatest fear in her young life is the idea of her half-naked father’s skin touching her Hello Kitty sheets.

Last summer we went to my wife’s family reunion. Her aunt and uncle have a pool so the kids were worked up for weeks ahead of time about going swimming for two whole days. I looked forward to it as well – I have fond memories of swimming with my dad. I had slow-motion daydreams about throwing my kids through the air and seeing their beautiful faces beaming as they squealed with delight, just like when my dad did it to me. Unfortunately, none of us foresaw my attire being an issue. When I got into the pool wearing nothing but swimming trunks, Blake reacted as if I were a 170-lbs. chunk of toilet food floating on the surface and coming to smother her. The boys were only slightly less disgusted and the only reason Wyatt let me touch him was because he can’t swim and he decided that I was a lesser evil than water-borne death. So as a general rule, my children are frightened of me with no shirt on.

They also think I could stand to shed a few pounds. One day, out of nowhere Blake referred to me as Mr. Smee. For those of you still boycotting Disney I’ve found a picture of him.

This is what my little girl thinks of when she hears the word “Daddy.”

Wyatt apparently feels the same way. While trying to get him to eat his vegetables, my wife asked him, “Do you know what’s going to happen to you if you eat nothing but junk food?” He said, “I’ll get fat like Daddy.”

I’ll get fat. Like Daddy. These things aren’t easy to hear.

It gets worse. My wife was on the internet reading the news when our dear little Wyatt pointed to a picture of Michael Moore on the computer and said, “Daddy.”

The only thing worse than agreeing with this man is looking like him.

A while back my wife was trying to get me to wear clothes that weren’t so baggy, so she bought me a long-sleeve tee that was a little more form fitting than I was used to.

And more form fitting than Blake was used to or could handle. She stared at me and said, “Is that mom’s shirt?”

On another occasion with similar attire, she commented, “That shirt looks weird. Why are you wearing that?”

So I’m fat and ugly. These in themselves are bad, but not crippling. Character is what matters, right? Well, Jackson, our oldest, dealt the heaviest blow by mixing the physical flaws and character flaws together. We went to the Columbus Zoo. We were having a good time.

Until we went to the gorilla exhibit. We were treated to the site of a huge silverback eating his own poop. In front of a large and diverse crowd, Jackson announced, “That lazy gorilla looks just like you, Dad.”

The large and diverse crowd howled.

I have to wonder if my first-born really thinks I eat my own poop. I mean, that’s the epitome of lazy, is it not? You don’t even get up to get new food, you just recycle what you had yesterday. You see, this particular insult, though devastating, has a beauty to it. It addresses so many issues. With one sentence, my son compared me to a lazy, hairy, smelly, poop-eating primate.

But the baby loves me. For now. How long will it last? 6-9 months based on previous experience.

Then it’ll be time to have another.

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