no one in my house knows about it.

• On Wednesday, my wife snuck in the house with a bag filled with shoes, saying "I got them at a sample sale." Essentially stating that because they were on sale they deserved to be bought.
• My son ran up my cell phone bill downloading ringtones off the Internet from his phone. I've told him at least 23 times that if he does it from the computer, it is free. I'm debating splitting that portion of the bill with him, strangling him or tossing his Wii down a flight of stairs. I'm not sure which will make me happiest.
  
• My son and his evil twin cousin from down south bought an entire season of the Boondocks (a show neither of them should be watching in the first place) in order to watch it on the computer during the Thanksgiving holiday. I only found this out today when I went to pay my credit card bill.
• Over the past two weekends my wife has insisted on eating out with the family at bland, casual dining establishments where we've gotten zero service and awful food. We've spent embarrassing amounts of money on crap that gave me gas. Crap in crap out.
  
• Everyday my little princess asks me for a "Dora Toy." Yesterday I came home late and she asked me, "Daddy, what did you bring me?"
• The second I mention any belt tightening, they all give me blank stares, except for my baby who tells me, "Stop it, Daddy!"
  

Not too long ago my wife and I we were warring over where I went to sleep each night. Most nights I'd be slumped across one of our couches looking like someone shot me in my sleep or even better, I'd be completely knocked out, sprawled out across our living room floor only barely aware that my daughter was doing gymnastics on my chest and stomach.

Usually, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and stumble to bed to my supposedly sleeping wife. And without fail each morning she'd tell me with much attitude exactly what time I came to bed and how ridiculous that it is that as a married, grown man, I can't just bring myself (she used a different set of words) to bed.

Pointlessly, I've argued why this has occurred until I've been blue in the face. Not that I haven't understood her point, but the man in me insists that all my actions be understood. Even when, as my wife points out, some of my actions don't even make sense.

I've since rectified all this and we've moved on. Nowadays the only nighttime discussion we have is that our crappy apartment gets cold in the middle of the night, even now when the weather is 60 degrees one day and 30 the next. I must point out, however that my wife is perpetually cold. She is the type of woman who'll turn on the a/c in the summer and then sleep under a down comforter.

What I find amazing about all this is that my wife is hot to the touch, no matter how warm or cold she believes she is. So from the days (two weeks ago) when I used to stumble around in the dark trying to find our bedroom to now when I beat her there, it's nice to know that even when a slight chill comes over me in the middle of the night all I have to do is roll over and siphon off as much heat as I need to from my five-foot, eight-inch personal heater. Even if it means waking up with my back killing me because she somehow unconsciously manages to wrap her legs around me in a psuedo scissor-lock.

I hate cats. Even though this is a Daddy/Husband blog, one of my most popular posts (something I like to refer to as the post that won't die) was a little rant I wrote about my profound hatred for my wife's cat entitled, I Hate Cats.

But I do love dogs. They're obedient (most times), they can be trained, they'll go running with you, they can be put to work and actually enjoy it and most importantly, they know their place. If their designated area is their bed at the foot of your bed, that is where they go --- day in, day out, forever.

But...

I have a long haired dachshund who is currently residing with my mother-in-law due to the fact that our apartment (an attic apartment) is too tiny for his energy level and he'd probably break his back the first time he ventured down the steep staircase entrance to the place. At my mother- in-law's he has a buddy in her Shitzu. The two of them have day-long mini-dog wars that keep them from otherwise tearing her apartment to shreds.

Yesterday after working late, I picked up my daughter from her grandmother's to find her being changed. Going to the potty for her has been a very hit or miss exercise in patience and torture (for me anyway). I looked down at the floor to see my dog with his snout pressed deep into a pile of cloths. And he's just licking away to his heart's content. I look closer and see beneath the cloths, my daughter's very poopy Pull-Up is sitting partial open. Horrified, I watch for a second longer just to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

My eyes rolled backward in my head. I yelled, then flicked him on the top of his head.

My beautiful little, brown dappled dog looks up at me with his hazel eyes as if to say, "What happened?" All while licking his jowls.

Yeah...I love dogs.

Now that I'm back a bit from my break from blogging, I'm doing a little housekeeping today to keep things fresh and sharp. I would like to hear from those of you frequent the blog to find out:

• Why you visit the site?
• Are you a man or a woman?
• Are you a parent?
• Are you married?

This past October, while visiting from Chicago, my father snapped this pic of me at Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights, a.k.a. "Hudson Heights" for anyone trying to sell real estate up there. In any event, he told me to look "over there" which was in the direction of the Hudson River and this picture to the right is what resulted. I wasn't trying to look fly. I wasn't posing. In fact I was annoyed because some jackass walking his dog with one of those retractable leashes let him (the dog) practically run up on the stroller with my giant, sleeping two year old inside before I came out from behind it. He kept it moving without even acknowledging me. The election was only a few days away and I made myself feel better about the near-confrontation by speculating that he was a McCain supporter. Not that supporting McCain made anyone inherently bad. You are who you are. Your political party doesn't really matter these days as proven by yet another one of my home state's governors.

Back to the picture: my wife actually laughed and rolled her eyes when she saw it and gave me one of those "Are you serious?" looks.

A day or two ago, I was chatting with a friend who asked me if I thought I was a Metrosexual. I busted out laughing.

"Nah," I said quickly. "That would require me to have a regimen and products and I don't have either anymore."

If I had astringents, toners, moisturizers and masks and a morning regimen and an evening regimen, then surely, I'd be one. And although thanks in part to the latest 007 movie, I have been dressing like I fell out of a magazine (it keeps up my morale at work) behind all of that I literally pick whatever falls out of my closet each day that doesn't need ironing. This is what I have devolved into as a married man at a job that burns up nearly 14 hours of my day between commuting and working.

My friend and I had a good laugh over the fact that I was quick to claim I wasn't a metrosexual, but I seemed to have an awful strong sense of what one is. Maybe I'm in hibernation from the days when it took me longer to get out of the house than any woman I've ever dated. Maybe with these kids and this wife and our impending departure from New York looming overhead, I don't have time to make sure all my pores are open. Besides, being oily keeps your face from drying out in the wintertime.

Did I say that?

Yesterday, I went to this gas station that I know is almost 10 cents lower than the lowest gas in my neighborhood. Of course I'm referring to 'hood gas. My baby was with me and I explained where we were going and why we were going there.

"To gas up the car?" she asked.

I told her yes.

"The gas is the car's food?" she asked.

I told her yes and also discussed where the nozzle goes and every other detail associated with pumping gas. She is a sponge right now, and at almost 3 she is really making sense of everything my wife and I tell her.

So I get to the gas station and there's no place to put my credit card. I walk into the store, making sure my baby can see me (which I thought she could) and tried to pay there.

"We don't take caahrds." said the African man behind the counter. This was seconded by the Latina woman beside him. I can't say that I blame them in 2008, with credit card fraud being what it is. I pulled out all the cash I had on me, a whopping eight bucks and passed it across the counter.

"We're changing the till right now, you'll have to wait," the woman told me, flatly.

I hate when people I'm giving my money to act like they're doing me a favor versus the other way around. But I was there, so I waited.

And waited.

And waited, until finally I said, "Look I got a baby in the car, are you done, because if not I'll just go somewhere else?"

Suddenly they were ready to take my money once I was ready to take it and leave. I walked quickly back to my car and ripped open the back door where I saw my baby girl in tears with her bottom lip poked out as far as it can go. This wasn't her usual crying that's associated with her not getting her way. Abandonment and the helpless despair that comes with it was on her face.

"Daddy's back," I said, smiling. "Are you okay?"

She nodded.

"You don't have to be scared. I didn't leave you. I'll never leave you, okay?"

She nodded again. Completely riddled with guilt I bought her a toy at the local CVS drugstore and by the time we got home it was business as usual. But that look she had on her face stuck with me until I fell asleep last night. All I did was leave my baby in the car for five minutes with a clear view of me. How anyone, how any man, can abandon that which he made for life, boggles my mind. By design we aren't lions, tigers or bears so we can't thrust our young out there and expect them to be okay. We can't not worry about it because we didn't plan it or we're not ready. As a man, no matter what the circumstance, life stops being about only you the second you bring a new life into this world. There's no way around this. Period.

And I won't be going back to that gas station.

Despite my best intentions. My best plans. Writing out a to-do list. Setting aside time. I just can't get anything done in my home.

While working on his Ph.D., a frat brother of mine used to leave to go to either Starbucks or my place to work. I figured he should be able to have at least one room where he could be in peace (he has a nice, modest sized home in Long Island). Oh, how wrong was I.

I'm here to acknowledge at 12:45am (when I'd rather be in bed and had every intention of being in bed) that my kids are running this asylum. Best laid plans are shot to hell by a teenager who pitifully does his best to stay up past his bedtime and practically falls asleep wisecracking me and a toddler Tasmanian Devil who needs to be "put down" with everything short of a tranquilizer dart. And to top it off, my loving wife isn't the most embracing of solitude person either as a sibling and a family oriented person who thrives off of swarming conversation. I do too from time to time, but I'm a introvert at heart.

So here I am...the house is quiet, I have all the solitude I want to work on resumes and my writing. And guess what? I'm dead tired, dreading the idea of waking in a few hours to start a new day of foolish pursuits at work.

C'est la vie. It is what it is until I figure out a way to make it better --- or at least different.