DADWAGON

Look, I understand. The life of a suburban parent can be pretty boring. Weekend soccer games, brushing uncooperative teeth, PTA meetings—all add up to temptation. As the Times puts it:

Kindergarten play dates versus the tap-tap-tap of coded radio transmissions. Housework versus the “brush pass” exchange of parcels. They were described as having concealed their missions from even their closest observers.

“They,” in this case, are the alleged Russian not-so-super-spies, who were arraigned in federal court yesterday on charges of … something or other. And whatever—and whoever—they really are, they also happen to be parents.

But bad parents? It’s hard to say. Certainly, Juan José Lázaro Sr., the former Baruch College professor who supposedly said “he would not violate his loyalty to the ‘Service’ even for his son,” may not be earning marks in the loving-parent department. But it’s also possible he’s simply trying to set a good example for the boy—love by way of Omertà.

Honestly, though, it’s got to be hard to juggle dual lives as parents and secret agents. I mean, we all know how hard it is just to do the former—but imagine if your sleep was not only interrupted by an infant’s cries or toddler’s nightmares but by the need to visit a dead drop after midnight? Keeping your porn collection a secret from the kids is impossible enough, but hiding coded messages in the jpegs themselves? Good luck.

Stopped at a bakery for a quick breakfast on the way to work this morning, and two women soon took the café table next to mine. One of them was exceedingly petite, in fashionably snug white jeans and stylish top, and the other expressed astonishment—because her pal was four months pregnant. And, as the pregnant one explained, she is constantly sucking in her stomach. ALL THE TIME. Her friend continued to marvel, and warned her that she’d probably start to pop out, big time, by the six-month mark. I didn’t stick around to see her order a nonfat skinny what-have-you with Splenda.

All I can say is, I hope it’s a boy. Because if she has a girl, that kid is at punishingly high risk for an eating disorder, right from the get-go. Come to think of it, the boy probably will be, too.

Not long ago I asked whether Tae Kwon Do would be right for my 4-year-old. I got a few different responses, and my wife and I had our own thoughts. But seeing as we have absolutely no idea what motivates and drives our children, it was probably best to just let Dalia try it and see what happened.

She loved it.

I wasn’t there, but my wife’s report from inside the Tae Kwon Do class was that Dalia could hardly believe the awesomeness that was the punching bag—finally, something she was not just allowed to hit but supposed to hit. They literally had to pull her off the thing so other kids could get time on it.

Even with all the emphasis on performing and showing off, she rarely brought ballet home with her after class. Very little “I learned that” or “watch this!” But after her first class of Tae Kwon Do, she was all kicks and punches—wild arm and leg swinging—the whole evening. And the next day. And on the weekend, playing in the fountains at Central Park, she spent the whole time trying to beat the crap out of the streams of water.

There is, perhaps, truth to what Theodore said in his account of JP’s John Ford moment on the playground: that there’s a “total embargo on male aggression” in a lot of families. But female aggression needs its space, too, and the zeal with which Dalia took to fight-sport makes me think we haven’t been letting her get her shots in.

It also makes we wonder if we shouldn’t plan a full East L.A. renovation on our little concrete patio. One of the things that first fascinated me when I started dating my wife was the makeshift gym on the concrete driveway at one of her relative’s house in East L.A. There was a heavy hitting bag hanging from a tree and an old bench press with 10-, 20- and 50-lb. weights on it, next to an oversized and expired container of protein powder. It was just like a Manhattan Equinox gym, except without the Teeth Whitening and Glamicure services, and the only users were the grown boys of the family, who would juice up on testosterone when they got out of prison or rehab.

Maybe that setup would seem a little incongruent in our Upper Breast Side patio, but the yard is made of cracked concrete and bare cinderblock. It’s just aching for prison-grade workout equipment. And now it’s official: Dalia has retired the tutu. It’s time to fight.

Actually, it may well be good to be Theodore all year ’round: for reasons of experiential subjectivity, I just don’t know. But this has been a good week for him in particular. We were all amused to see the New York Times’s City Room blog pick up his DadWagon post about JP water-fightin’ at the playground. They even got his name and title right.

But far cooler to my mind is the publication of this piece, which I saw just came out in the July issue of Guernica Magazine, looking underneath the hood of his ex-wife’s cousin decision to come to the States illegally from Vietnam. I cover immigration in my own way for TIME, and I’m telling you now: read Theodore’s article. It’s excellent. But more to the point: when exactly did he find time to write it? I know he’s over here blogging quite a bit. And then there’s his actual day job. Also, navigating multiple birthday parties for JP. And hanging out in divorce court.

Someone told me recently that there’s no such thing as multitasking: that it’s just an excuse for being distracted. I’m calling bullshit on that. Theodore is multitasking, and doing it well.

P.S. Next week, I promise I’ll get back to talking about what an asshole he is.