Garzilla's Garage

It is amazing to me how my oldest son acts so much like me.  Even my family talks about how much he is like me.  “He is just a little bit calmer then you.”  My dad says that when Jr. is in hyper drive.

Thinking back to when I was a kid, I just don’t remember being that hyperactive.  My mom and dad assure me that I was worse then little Robert.  I can not even imagine that.

I use to do some crazy stuff.  My sister and I had a nanny.  She was a much older woman, and when she would vacuum I got off on pulling the chord out and making her wonder what the hell is going on with the vacuum.  I was also a pyromaniac.  I almost set the house on fire by setting a piece of paper on fire on the stove, then looking at it like what the hell do I with it now, and threw it into the trash.  I gave nanny #2 a heart attack.  No, I did not run off the first nanny, I believe she retired or got ill.  I can not remember.  My sister took it hard.  My dad tells stories about how she did not talk for weeks, because she missed her so much.  Then there is embarrassing mom and dad in public.  My dad was cool about that kind of stuff.  He would just give a look and then later make the comment, “we can’t take you anywhere.”  One Sunday at Mass I decided to pass gas.  Ripped it pretty good, resonated all they way through the pew.  My mom was not cool about those kinds of situations.  She gave me a nice pinch on the side of my arm and gave it a good twist.  The only thing missing was the slap at the end.  I guess since we were at Mass, she would skip on that part.

Little Robert is what I like to say “high on life.”  He is actually scared of the vacuum.  He will retreat to his room and ask me to shut the door.  Robert is a people watcher when we go out and about.  He gets his giggle going, ants in his pants, and annoys the crap out of his brother.  He can do all of this without one gram of sugar.  Adriana and I probably tell him twenty times to sit down and be quiet when at a restaurant.  “If you don’t stop that we’re going to leave,” that empty threat gets applied a few times.  Empty because mom and dad don’t want to leave.  I love when we tell him to do something and it does not register, just like me.  “Robert go do this…did you do it…no…why not…I don’t know.”  Bill Cosby would call him brain damaged.  This trait is so identical to me, just ask Adriana.

Robert makes me laugh, as he should.  Free spirited children are God’s way of telling us to just chill out and enjoy the ride.  Our lives here are so short, and the day to day lives we get to experience with our kids is so much shorter.  One day we will turn around and off to college they go.  So laugh it up!  Live it up!  We only have one shot at this.  Make it count.