DADWAGON

Once again the weekend found us in Brooklyn, and I found myself asking the question that has no answer: why don’t we live there?

Actually there is an answer. My wife works in northern New Jersey, and only a masochist would commute through Manhattan.

But I won’t let that legitimate reason prevent me from grousing about not living in Brooklyn. Yes, I know Mo Willems defected from Brooklyn a little while ago, but Trilling and Podhoretz don’t live in the Upper West Side anymore either. Everyone has lost their laureates.

On Yelp at least, Brooklyn came up a clear winner. It’s cheaper (or, rather, it used to be), the sidewalks are wider, the brownstones are browner, and it has its own brew. We already live in the Park Slope of Manhattan, so why not just go live in the real Park Slope? Especially since then we’d be able to put DadWagon on this awesome and dubious (how could they know?) map of Brooklyn blogs, organized by subway stops.

DadWagon is a split family: Christopher and I live in Manhattan, Matt and Theodore in Brooklyn. Am I wrong to fantasize about throwing the balance over to Brooklyn? Anyone have a persuasive argument for staying in Manhattan? If somehow could just tell me how awful it is to raise children in Brooklyn, that might clear my thinking.

Something about the new year made DadWagon a little jumpy. We kicked it off by fretting about sidewalk electrocution, and moved quickly to worrying about the choices other parents make. We cursed, trainspotted and clusterfucked (strictly in the epidemiological sense), and we were only half-joking when we advocated beating children.

Theodore, who lost a cherished area rug, continued to perfect the use of snarky links to express his bubbling discontentment with his divorce and his fellow DadWagoners. Nathan deserved at least some of this ridicule, for defending Amtrak and for dabbling in weak metaphors: Dude, looking for a babysitter has nothing to do with strapping a kid to a sheep.

Matt confessed to having not one, but two sinotastic nannies, a fact which should free him up to see if Fox takes up his suggestion of purple nurples for underaged game show contestants.

Household order was once again on Christopher’s mind: this time around he advocated using his baby as a dust mop, and showed that he’ll bring the boeuf if only his child sleeps.

And, of course, we had our Tantrum, about whether or not you should rat your kid out like the crotchbomber’s dad did. Nathan, leery of the law, said no, while Matt and Christopher gave a yes and a hell yes, respectively. Theodore, God love him, called bullshit on the entire premise.

Have a great weekend, and see you on Monday.

(This is our second run of “The Tantrum,” in which each of our four regulars will address one subject over the course of a week. Previous Tantrum: TV or not TV?)

With all due respect to my learned colleagues Matt, Nathan, and Christopher, I have to say that this Tantrum (I’m holding my breath and stamping my foot as I write this) strikes me as a bit daft.

Unlike Chris, I simply can’t imagine a scenario in which I “ought” to call the Feds on young JP. Nor do I agree with Matt’s fallacy of comparison in which he associates joyriding in his parents fucking Tercel with a foiled international terrorist plot. As for Nathan’s take on this, well, I find his reference to Dan Savage admirably progressive, but ultimately unpersuasive (dildos, yes; santorum, most definitely; CIA policy, not so much).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this terrorist attack, if that was what it was (who knows what this guy was up to), doesn’t provoke thoughts about my son in the way that we are positing it. I am more of the, “gee I hope my kid doesn’t die in a terrorist attack” paranoid type, than the “gee, what do I do if lil’ Johnny up and joins the Intifadah” sort.

Know what I mean, Vern?

That said, he did whack the cat on the ass this morning, turn to me and smile devilishly, and then whisper, “I’m the BAD GUY.”

I got my eye on that kid.

I tell myself that our house is better-kept than most. Not better than everyone’s, certainly; there’s a level of everyday cleanliness that really cannot be achieved by a two-income family with no housekeeper. If we had one of those all-white minimalist interiors, it would be maximalist dingy before long. But I am enough of a neat freak to keep the house orderly, at least, and my wife and I both respond to true grubbiness with a mop and a bucket (as opposed to, say, a nap). Last weekend, I scrubbed down the tile backsplash in the kitchen, to remove that thin film of ick that collects after awhile, and felt extremely virtuous. I’d say we’re probably a little better on this front than Theodore is, at least by his reckoning.

So why is it that, as our little guy begins to crawl, he comes up from the floor looking like he’s been digging in someone’s garden?

I could understand it if he went off into some corner behind the sofa that’s rarely swept. But he crawls in the middle of a hardwood floor that, to my eye, looks shiny, and displays no visible dust. Then we pick him up a few minutes later, and he looks like he’s just been costumed as a street urchin for an amateur production of Oliver Twist.

I want to blame New York’s sooty air. Or the EPA. Or our poorly sealed air conditioners. Or anything except my own sloth. Somehow I don’t think it’s going to stick, though. So I’m going with the idea that he’s going to help us clean. “Can you crawl along the bookshelves today? And be sure to catch that little space outside the kitchen door–there’s a spiderweb down by the baseboards.”  Can we attach little dampened pads to his knees and forearms, and really get some scrubbing done? My Child, My Swiffer.