Dark Side of the Moon...

There are days with your family that just flow on endlessly like a high you can't beat and a bar that is set so high you feel like you'll spend the rest of your life chasing it. There are days you are the greatest dad in the world and your wife is the best mom and there's nothing you can do to screw up the feeling. Minutes stretch to hours and the high just keeps getting higher until you finally have to let it end when you put them to bed.....you touch their fingers, kiss their cheek...you linger at their crib or bedside because you really don't want the day -- or that high -- to end...

And then there are days like today......today was the dark side of the moon.

Maybe you weren't feeling so great this morning because you were up late last night working and not sleeping because you were worrying about money. Maybe that didn't help but in the afternoon when the wife was out running errands, it all fell apart. Daughter #1 was needy all day. Stuck to the two of you like a barnacle...and whiny. God we hate whiny. Meanwhile daughter #2 woke up from her nap miserable. Crying -- no not crying, screaming. That wail that pierces your skull and tells you somethings wrong. But hell, you didn't know what it was and so you felt all the more helpless. Like a punching bag that was destined to take it for as long as daughter #2 dished it out...

Hunger? No, she spit out the bottle. And when you're a dad if it isn't hunger you're really just guessing. 40 minutes of waling and there was jack you could do about it. You picked her up, put her down, bounced her, kissed her...what you really wanted to do was throw her.

You thought to yourself thoughts you've had before. That you understood how someone could lose it and mash their child against the wall in a fit of rage. You really did. You worried for a second that might be you on this day...but just for a second. You always knew if you got to that point you would just put her in her crib and walk away. But god it was hard. You felt pissed and numb and sick of it all in different doses in different moments. And daughter #1 was calling out from her room because she needed attention and you wondered what the hell, was she listening to the same shrieking you were? I mean you were a little busy and screw her, now was not the time to be needy...

You called your wife and told her you'd like her to speed up her return if possible. This helped you feel like an idiot because you always wanted to be able to handle ANYthing and not need mom to play fixer...You found yourself pushing daughter #1 over your shoulder and craning your head to the back of her neck so when she screamed it wouldn't be directly in your ear and so it wouldn't be all that bad.

You felt like a crappy dad and a miserable human being because you were screwing up two kids and dying for the wife to relieve you and by the way 6pm couldn't come fast enough for that first glass of wine....you thought about being 14 years old and curling up in your bed watching "Odd Couple" reruns at night because you had nothing else to do and it made you very happy...and you knew that time in your life was long, long gone......

In the end it seemed she was hungry...the wife burst through the door, slammed the "tap" into the daughter's mouth and two minutes later she'd calmed down enough to eat. Why wouldn't she take the bottle from me? Who knows. Maybe she just got to a point where she was too pissed to eat if it wasn't mom's boob. What I do know is today was that place you never want to go as a dad. The intersection of reality and insanity. You're at the end of your rope and about to lose it on your two young kids. You feel no love, no happiness, nothing. Only anger and a desire to escape -- or go cry -- or go anywhere or to any situation but the one you're in.

So the wife fed your little girl and she was happy and she has your ears and she laughed and knew nothing about how you nearly broke down or broke HER into pieces only 30 minutes ago. But she bounced up and down on her mother's lap and beamed that radiant smile your way and in that instant you felt nothing but powerless and completely and utterly ashamed of yourself...