Contrary to what Julie says, I am not a morning person. However, I am still traumatized by the summer I spent at Camp USAFA (United States Air Force Academy) when I was eighteen. Every morning, I lay in bed terrified of what would happen next and wishing I could sleep until it happened. It would start with AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” being blasted in the hallway followed by an upperclassmen hitting the door so hard it would almost fly off its hinges. “Hurry up! You are late! If you are still in bed, you are wrong!”
With that, my roommate and I would fly out of bed doing a million different tasks under a crazy deadline. In the present day, the alarm goes off at 6AM every weekday morning and there are a million things I need to get done.
I head downstairs and make breakfast for the kids and coffee for Julie and I. While the kids’ breakfast cools down, I turn on the TV and stream music off of my iPhone. It’s always the same playlist and it starts with Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite”. I am not a huge fan of pop music, but Carson loves the song. The first day I tried to get him out of bed at 6:30AM, he struggled mightily. I went to wake up Zoe and came back to Carson’s room to find him hunched over his bed with his head pressed against his arm. Without a hint of malice or bad manners he said to me, “Just (pause)... Just give me a minute.” He sounded like a freshman in college who had gone out partying the night before. He knew he needed to get to class, but my poor little man couldn’t find the strength.
Anyway, since I started playing “Dynamite”, Carson now dances out of bed. Zoe and Julie will never be morning people, so I solved that problem as well. While Carson starts his morning dance, I grab Zoe and put her in our room. Zoe and Julie grump at each other and eventually annoy each other awake. Meanwhile, Carson and I embrace the morning and enjoy the music.
The music continues to play during breakfast and I have christened the morning meal “Rock and roll brekky”. The timer is set so the kids don’t dawdle too long and it’s time to get the kids and myself dressed. If I am heading to the office, I have the privilege of dropping the kids off at daycare. The bus stop is only a few hundred meters away, but walking with Carson and Zoe it feels like a few miles... The streets are fairly busy, so I hold their hands. At first, I used to call them my ducklings because ducklings always follow their momma duck, or in this case, father duck. However, that all changed when Julie bought us some coffee mugs.
Since all of our material possessions are on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we have tried to avoid buying anything nice. We have nice things, they’re just in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So Julie bought two coffee mugs from Coles, the local supermarket. Her mug has Marvin the Martian and mine has Taz. The kids were naturally curious about the cartoon characters adorning our mugs.
Non-sequitor. In American football, towards the end of the game, if the offensive team has the lead and the defensive team is out of time outs, the offense will “run the clock out”. The offense forms, snaps the ball, and the quarterback quickly takes a knee. The game clock continues to run and there is no risk. The defense knows they have lost and there is nothing that can be done about it. Both sides move with no energy and the fans start leaving in droves. Well, the same thing happens in our house from time to time. The kids are tired and know they are going to bed and the parents are out of energy. Both sides know how this is going to end and the kids barely go through the motions of protesting bedtime. I have several “run the clock out” activities to kill a few minutes before bedtime.
I had some pretty fond memories of the Looney Tunes characters from my childhood and while looking for a way to run the clock out one evening, I put on some Youtube clips of Marvin and Taz. The kids loved them and soon started repeating their catch phrases. That was all it took and during my walks to the bus stop, the kids are no longer ducklings, they are “earthlings”. Sure, people stair at the guy in the suit dragging two pre-schoolers wearing back packs bigger than they are down the street and on the bus while gently prodding them with the occasional, “Hurry up, earthlings!” but I think it’s funny.
I drop the kids off at daycare, sign them in, and give them a kiss goodbye. I head for the tram and go to the office. My two mile commute takes me just about an hour with the “earthlings” in tow. The days in the office go by fast. There is a lot to do and very little time. The camaraderie is nice even if I bust my co-workers balls once in a while.
On days I’m on the client site, my commute starts even earlier. There are magical converging, sophisticated routes combining trams, trains, and buses that take me the nine miles to Chadstone. At first, it took me almost an hour and a half. Through sheer force of will and dogged determination, I have chopped half an hour off the commute each way.
Non-sequitor. In the late 70s my dad made a colossal stink about the stupidity of ESPN. “Imagine,” he said, “a whole channel dedicated to sports! Who’s going to watch this!” Apparently, my dad didn’t know any other men over the age of twelve. I don’t think he has ever been more wrong about anything as he was about the prospects of ESPN. Just about any male my age I know socially could happily sit in front of the TV and watch Sportscenter on any given night.
In the present day, my dad has steadfastly refused to get an iPhone or an Android phone. “Who wants to pay $30 a month for a data plan!” Well, dad, I would be dead in the water without my beloved iPhone. The Metlink app helps plot my course. I get on the tram at Beacon Cove and head towards the city. I get off in front of the Southern Cross Train Station. I look longingly at the Krispe Kreme across the street and hall ass to catch my train. It’s always a game time decision between the train to Glen Waverly or Pakenham. The Metlink app is location aware and I keep hitting update as I approach Southern Cross to find the optimal route.
It’s either Platform 10 or 12, but once on the train, I have some time to relax a little. I listen to Adam Carolla complain even more than I do, read tech blogs, catch up on Facebook, and occasionally stair out the window. At the journey’s start, I see the best of Melbourne. The Yarra River is on my right. I pass the Crown Casino. The Flinder’s Street Train Station. The Eureka Tower. The MCG, home of the AFL’s Grand Finale (equivalent to our Super Bowl). The AIMEE Stadium. The high rises and stadiums fade away and I go deep into the lower middle class suburbs. The fences have graffiti tags and the architectural highlights are the occasional Target.
Depending on the time and the train I get off at exotic and strange sounding stops that are, in reality, kind of depressing. Caulfield. Hughesdale. Oakleigh. I take a myriad of bus routes from the train to the last leg of my destination, the Chadstone Shopping Center (they spell it Centre, but I’m going to spell it correctly).
I hardly have time to make myself a cup of barely drinkable instant coffee while inwardly pining for the magical Starbucks iCups that adorn the kitchens at Microsoft. Thinking of the refrigerators fully stocked with glorious Diet Mountain Dew would be too painful to even think of. The users swarm me right away with urgent production issues while I try to work on a project with a looming deadline. The days go by quickly, but every other week or so, I take care of an urgent personal matter. I go during lunch to Jasper’s “the caffeine dealers”. Even though there is a lot of work left to be done, I force myself to take my time. I painstakingly pick up the scoops in each of the displays and take several deep breaths through my nose and relish the smell of the espresso beans. With each selection, I am sure I am going to find my new favorite. Each time I go back, I make a different choice. Just a few weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to go to the few Starbucks scattered throughout Melbourne. Now (no offense to those of you who work there), the thought of drinking Starbucks coffee sickens me. Yes, I am officially a coffee douche. I am just as bad as those wine snobs who think they can smell nuts and raspberries in their Pinot Noir. There is no food I miss from the States yet, but if I were to go back tomorrow, I would miss the coffee something terrible.
The day breezes by as issues pile up and are resolved and I make my commute home. I pass the time through the dreary suburbs with my iPhone. More tech blogs. More Facebook. I wish I could text my friends back in the States, but it is already after midnight Pacific Standard Time. I think of texting Julie, but she is in all likelihood getting yelled at by our children and struggling to get their exhausted little bodies on a bus back to our home.
The suburbs transition back to the city bathed in calming blue neon light. I get off at Flinder’s or Southern Cross and keep thinking that Carson would get a kick out of these mammoth train stations, but still haven’t found a reason to take him on a proper train ride. I go home and the kids call me “Mr. Daddy”. I play with them until bedtime and help clean up. I occasionally go for a run or Julie and I relax and watch TV together.
Our apartment is tiny compared to our house back in Redmond. The kitchen is small. The refrigerator is small. All our furniture is from Ikea and I am looking forward to selling it or even giving it away. When our ship - literally - comes in, it’s going to be like Christmas, our birthday, and anniversary all rolled into one. Yet even though we are sleeping on mattresses without box springs on the floor, I am content. Our lives are full. We are focused less on buying things for the house or shopping in general. Weekends are amazing...
On Friday nights, we tell the kids that tomorrow is “Mommy and Daddy day”. We tell them on Mommy and Daddy days, it’s the kids jobs to wake up the parents. We are always awake before they are, but we stay in bed until one of them comes bumbling into our room. Sometimes it’s Carson first. Sometimes it’s Zoe. Either way, they fling open the door and jump into the mattress. There is a lot of giggling and squealing. The noise and commotion wakes up the other one and soon it’s two kids jumping up on our beds and laughing. Julie tells them to stop jumping on the bed and they stop. I tell them to stop jumping on the bed and they jump higher and laugh harder.
We go to the zoo. We go to the aquarium. We go to the beach. We take public transportation with them. We point out the sites and talk. They are no longer in the backseat watching cartoons. Whatever we decide to do with them, they are exhausted by 7. They watch almost no TV anymore during the week, so I don’t mind watching a movie with them.
I used to have a dedicated laundry day on Sunday, but now it seems like there is always a load of laundry in the washer. The stack of laundry that needs to be folded is never ending, but I never let the dirty clothes pile up too high.
Everything is new to us. Everything is exciting. There are challenges. Surprisingly, there is a language barrier. The kids are developing accents. Zoe, age three and a half announces that, “Shawks live in the dawk.” She then screams that she doesn’t want to speak in Australian and that she’s an American. We tell her she doesn’t have to speak Australian, but she’s already talking about the shawks again.
Everything is faster pace and slower pace at the same time. I feel challenged and humbled and happy. Somehow, I don’t think the novelty will ever where off and the coffee keeps tasting better and better.
With that, my roommate and I would fly out of bed doing a million different tasks under a crazy deadline. In the present day, the alarm goes off at 6AM every weekday morning and there are a million things I need to get done.
I head downstairs and make breakfast for the kids and coffee for Julie and I. While the kids’ breakfast cools down, I turn on the TV and stream music off of my iPhone. It’s always the same playlist and it starts with Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite”. I am not a huge fan of pop music, but Carson loves the song. The first day I tried to get him out of bed at 6:30AM, he struggled mightily. I went to wake up Zoe and came back to Carson’s room to find him hunched over his bed with his head pressed against his arm. Without a hint of malice or bad manners he said to me, “Just (pause)... Just give me a minute.” He sounded like a freshman in college who had gone out partying the night before. He knew he needed to get to class, but my poor little man couldn’t find the strength.
Anyway, since I started playing “Dynamite”, Carson now dances out of bed. Zoe and Julie will never be morning people, so I solved that problem as well. While Carson starts his morning dance, I grab Zoe and put her in our room. Zoe and Julie grump at each other and eventually annoy each other awake. Meanwhile, Carson and I embrace the morning and enjoy the music.
The music continues to play during breakfast and I have christened the morning meal “Rock and roll brekky”. The timer is set so the kids don’t dawdle too long and it’s time to get the kids and myself dressed. If I am heading to the office, I have the privilege of dropping the kids off at daycare. The bus stop is only a few hundred meters away, but walking with Carson and Zoe it feels like a few miles... The streets are fairly busy, so I hold their hands. At first, I used to call them my ducklings because ducklings always follow their momma duck, or in this case, father duck. However, that all changed when Julie bought us some coffee mugs.
Since all of our material possessions are on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we have tried to avoid buying anything nice. We have nice things, they’re just in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So Julie bought two coffee mugs from Coles, the local supermarket. Her mug has Marvin the Martian and mine has Taz. The kids were naturally curious about the cartoon characters adorning our mugs.
Non-sequitor. In American football, towards the end of the game, if the offensive team has the lead and the defensive team is out of time outs, the offense will “run the clock out”. The offense forms, snaps the ball, and the quarterback quickly takes a knee. The game clock continues to run and there is no risk. The defense knows they have lost and there is nothing that can be done about it. Both sides move with no energy and the fans start leaving in droves. Well, the same thing happens in our house from time to time. The kids are tired and know they are going to bed and the parents are out of energy. Both sides know how this is going to end and the kids barely go through the motions of protesting bedtime. I have several “run the clock out” activities to kill a few minutes before bedtime.
I had some pretty fond memories of the Looney Tunes characters from my childhood and while looking for a way to run the clock out one evening, I put on some Youtube clips of Marvin and Taz. The kids loved them and soon started repeating their catch phrases. That was all it took and during my walks to the bus stop, the kids are no longer ducklings, they are “earthlings”. Sure, people stair at the guy in the suit dragging two pre-schoolers wearing back packs bigger than they are down the street and on the bus while gently prodding them with the occasional, “Hurry up, earthlings!” but I think it’s funny.
I drop the kids off at daycare, sign them in, and give them a kiss goodbye. I head for the tram and go to the office. My two mile commute takes me just about an hour with the “earthlings” in tow. The days in the office go by fast. There is a lot to do and very little time. The camaraderie is nice even if I bust my co-workers balls once in a while.
On days I’m on the client site, my commute starts even earlier. There are magical converging, sophisticated routes combining trams, trains, and buses that take me the nine miles to Chadstone. At first, it took me almost an hour and a half. Through sheer force of will and dogged determination, I have chopped half an hour off the commute each way.
Non-sequitor. In the late 70s my dad made a colossal stink about the stupidity of ESPN. “Imagine,” he said, “a whole channel dedicated to sports! Who’s going to watch this!” Apparently, my dad didn’t know any other men over the age of twelve. I don’t think he has ever been more wrong about anything as he was about the prospects of ESPN. Just about any male my age I know socially could happily sit in front of the TV and watch Sportscenter on any given night.
In the present day, my dad has steadfastly refused to get an iPhone or an Android phone. “Who wants to pay $30 a month for a data plan!” Well, dad, I would be dead in the water without my beloved iPhone. The Metlink app helps plot my course. I get on the tram at Beacon Cove and head towards the city. I get off in front of the Southern Cross Train Station. I look longingly at the Krispe Kreme across the street and hall ass to catch my train. It’s always a game time decision between the train to Glen Waverly or Pakenham. The Metlink app is location aware and I keep hitting update as I approach Southern Cross to find the optimal route.
It’s either Platform 10 or 12, but once on the train, I have some time to relax a little. I listen to Adam Carolla complain even more than I do, read tech blogs, catch up on Facebook, and occasionally stair out the window. At the journey’s start, I see the best of Melbourne. The Yarra River is on my right. I pass the Crown Casino. The Flinder’s Street Train Station. The Eureka Tower. The MCG, home of the AFL’s Grand Finale (equivalent to our Super Bowl). The AIMEE Stadium. The high rises and stadiums fade away and I go deep into the lower middle class suburbs. The fences have graffiti tags and the architectural highlights are the occasional Target.
Depending on the time and the train I get off at exotic and strange sounding stops that are, in reality, kind of depressing. Caulfield. Hughesdale. Oakleigh. I take a myriad of bus routes from the train to the last leg of my destination, the Chadstone Shopping Center (they spell it Centre, but I’m going to spell it correctly).
I hardly have time to make myself a cup of barely drinkable instant coffee while inwardly pining for the magical Starbucks iCups that adorn the kitchens at Microsoft. Thinking of the refrigerators fully stocked with glorious Diet Mountain Dew would be too painful to even think of. The users swarm me right away with urgent production issues while I try to work on a project with a looming deadline. The days go by quickly, but every other week or so, I take care of an urgent personal matter. I go during lunch to Jasper’s “the caffeine dealers”. Even though there is a lot of work left to be done, I force myself to take my time. I painstakingly pick up the scoops in each of the displays and take several deep breaths through my nose and relish the smell of the espresso beans. With each selection, I am sure I am going to find my new favorite. Each time I go back, I make a different choice. Just a few weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to go to the few Starbucks scattered throughout Melbourne. Now (no offense to those of you who work there), the thought of drinking Starbucks coffee sickens me. Yes, I am officially a coffee douche. I am just as bad as those wine snobs who think they can smell nuts and raspberries in their Pinot Noir. There is no food I miss from the States yet, but if I were to go back tomorrow, I would miss the coffee something terrible.
The day breezes by as issues pile up and are resolved and I make my commute home. I pass the time through the dreary suburbs with my iPhone. More tech blogs. More Facebook. I wish I could text my friends back in the States, but it is already after midnight Pacific Standard Time. I think of texting Julie, but she is in all likelihood getting yelled at by our children and struggling to get their exhausted little bodies on a bus back to our home.
The suburbs transition back to the city bathed in calming blue neon light. I get off at Flinder’s or Southern Cross and keep thinking that Carson would get a kick out of these mammoth train stations, but still haven’t found a reason to take him on a proper train ride. I go home and the kids call me “Mr. Daddy”. I play with them until bedtime and help clean up. I occasionally go for a run or Julie and I relax and watch TV together.
Our apartment is tiny compared to our house back in Redmond. The kitchen is small. The refrigerator is small. All our furniture is from Ikea and I am looking forward to selling it or even giving it away. When our ship - literally - comes in, it’s going to be like Christmas, our birthday, and anniversary all rolled into one. Yet even though we are sleeping on mattresses without box springs on the floor, I am content. Our lives are full. We are focused less on buying things for the house or shopping in general. Weekends are amazing...
On Friday nights, we tell the kids that tomorrow is “Mommy and Daddy day”. We tell them on Mommy and Daddy days, it’s the kids jobs to wake up the parents. We are always awake before they are, but we stay in bed until one of them comes bumbling into our room. Sometimes it’s Carson first. Sometimes it’s Zoe. Either way, they fling open the door and jump into the mattress. There is a lot of giggling and squealing. The noise and commotion wakes up the other one and soon it’s two kids jumping up on our beds and laughing. Julie tells them to stop jumping on the bed and they stop. I tell them to stop jumping on the bed and they jump higher and laugh harder.
We go to the zoo. We go to the aquarium. We go to the beach. We take public transportation with them. We point out the sites and talk. They are no longer in the backseat watching cartoons. Whatever we decide to do with them, they are exhausted by 7. They watch almost no TV anymore during the week, so I don’t mind watching a movie with them.
I used to have a dedicated laundry day on Sunday, but now it seems like there is always a load of laundry in the washer. The stack of laundry that needs to be folded is never ending, but I never let the dirty clothes pile up too high.
Everything is new to us. Everything is exciting. There are challenges. Surprisingly, there is a language barrier. The kids are developing accents. Zoe, age three and a half announces that, “Shawks live in the dawk.” She then screams that she doesn’t want to speak in Australian and that she’s an American. We tell her she doesn’t have to speak Australian, but she’s already talking about the shawks again.
Everything is faster pace and slower pace at the same time. I feel challenged and humbled and happy. Somehow, I don’t think the novelty will ever where off and the coffee keeps tasting better and better.
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