Happy Birthday to Me, a day early

Erin came over this morning after dropping Toni off at school; the plan was for her and Char to get some last minute, pre-baby shopping done, and to stock up on groceries neither she nor Miko would feel like shopping for over the next few weeks. She was getting uncomfortable pregnant and didn't want to have to shop for more than essentials until after the baby was born, and with two weeks to go, it seemed reasonable to stock up on non-perishables. After all, she had grocery runners living a couple blocks away if she needed us and just couldn't bear to pull herself up and get the kids ready to go out.

That all sounded good, because I wasn't being forced to go and was going to get to spend the morning with Travis, until her water broke in the middle of our kitchen.

I was ready to pick her up and slam her into the car and race to the hospital; both she and Char were a little too calm, looking at watches and declaring there to be plenty of time. Erin called Miko and told him she'd be heading toward the hospital "in an hour or so" and Char called Brad to ask him to pick our kids up, and then to swing by Toni's school to get her. Erin called Miko's mother to come get Travis; she was content to babysit and wasn't going to spend all day sitting in a waiting room and preferred to watch her grandson. You couldn't have kept me away from the hospital, even if all I did was sit in the waiting room.

It took me an hour to get those women out the front door, and then another 20 minutes at Erin's because she "had" to have her laptop, Kindle, change of clothes, focus object, and probably a six pack of beer, judging by how big the damned bag was.

I was fully prepared to pull the car over and deliver that kid right there on the side of the road, she was moving so slowly. I did ask her to just cross her legs tightly and hold on for another 18 hours or so, just so that he would be born on my birthday, but holy shit, that girl has a mouth on her. I have no idea where she gets that from.

So instead of getting final baby things and stocking up on groceries, Erin and Char spent the day watching TV while Miko and I played cards and snoozed, until Erin stated matter-of-factly, Well, I think it's time.

Half an hour later, 9 lb 2 oz, 21" long Thaddeus Nicoli Kosta popped out into the world, and after getting their own very long look at him, his parents graciously allowed Char and I to count his fingers and toes and proclaim him one of the 6 most beautiful babies we've ever seen.

Baby Thad will get to go home tomorrow, but because it's my birthday, Erin promised to stop here first, so that I can properly welcome my newest grandson into my life.

Where everybody knows your name

Brad runs a bar; long ago it became the place we go when we want to shoot a game of pool, and it's got a small but decent area for half drunken dancing near the jukebox. We know the bartenders and the waitresses, and we know when the better nights for being there are; Saturday night is not the best night for a middle aged couple that long gave up drinking for the sake of getting shit faced and who don't grind on the dance floor. Still, it's where we went last night. Mostly out of habit.

The kids decided we needed a night out and chipped in to get us a gift certificate to Red Lobster, and then got Brad to pick them up and keep them for the night. It was a sweet, if not underfunded, gesture; we went out to dinner, then headed for the bar, not thinking that it was Saturday night and we would likely be the oldest non-employee people there.

Char wanted to shoot some pool; I don't mind losing (which is good because she always wins) so why the hell not? We had to wait an hour to get a table, just long enough for her to get a couple drinks in and just a little tipsy. It was also just long enough for the frat boys to notice her, tune me out, and develop a dozen kinky fantasies about the older woman who defines MILF.

They watched her move tentatively around the table at first, shooting less than spectacularly, and watched me win the first game of nine ball I think I've won in ten years. And then they started positioning to play against her. I backed off; I knew what they didn't, that she's been playing since she was three years old, long before she could even reach the top of the table without help.

She shot sloppily through the haze of a couple pf margaritas, but once the buzz wore off, she was on fire, and those boys decided to play her for money.

If my wife was less honorable, she could have drained them all, but she played for $2 a game, and no one lost more than $10 to her.

And somehow, I wound up paying for all their beer.

By the time I managed to get back at the table, she was on fire, and destroyed me in 3 straight games of nine ball. She offered to switch to eight ball, not that I do any better against her at that, but by then the sub-30-somethings were all drunk enough that they weren't grinding all over each other near the jukebox, and I took the chance to get a little closer to her.

Those kids? All they could do was watch, knowing that the hot MILF that had mercifully not emptied their wallets was obviously into the old guy who had just sat there and watched; I took some perverse pleasure in knowing they all understood that they'd been played with and set aside, and the old guy was the one she was going home with.

She can flirt with the frat boys all she wants; they wind up frustrated, and I get the girl.

Trying to be fair

We've reached a parental impasse. Kevin made a request; Char said there was no way in hell and I said, Sure, why not? She doesn't want him doing something he'll be picked on at school for, I don't see the harm.

He wants a mohawk. And an earring.

The kid is smart; he's not whining or begging. He just asked and is waiting for us to come to an agreement. I checked the school's dress code and there's nothing in there prohibiting either; he might run into problems with an earring, but I've seen other boys on campus with them.

Char's logic is He's eleven!

I think we'll have other battles to dig our heels in on; save it for those.

He's eleven! Plus, I'm his mother, dammit!

I can't argue with her playing the mother card, but come on. It's hair. It's not permanent.

(No, I won't go behind her back and take him to get his hair cut, and this isn't an actual argument, but one of us has to give sooner or later, and I'm a stubborn son of a bitch sometimes.)

We don't have to be fair, we're the parents

Ian got home late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning and was exhausted, so I let him sleep while I took the kids to school I don't think he stirred until almost noon, and he spent the rest of the day stubbornly refusing to get dressed; if he put clothes on, he might have to do something productive, and productivity was not on his schedule.

Fine; I didn't mind and didn't have anything for him to do, though I did ask him to wear a shirt to the dinner table, but it was off fifteen minutes later.

At eight o'clock he was standing in the kitchen, reaching into a high cabinet for Rachel, when Alex wandered in wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

We've never really had a rule about being fully clothed outside of bedrooms; as long as the goods are covered, we've never said anything and it's never bothered any of the kids until now; Rachel sighed hard and asked dramatically, "Can't any of you guys put pants on? Do you have to walk around in your underwear?"

Ian annoyed her even further when he looked down at his baggy shorts and grumbled, "I'm not wearing any underwear."

In the middle of her over-acted sigh of despair Kevin headed into the kitchen, just in time to hear her say, "If I see one more boy in his underwear, I think I'll scream."

She turned around, and Kevin dropped his pants. She didn't scream, but instead stomped off, leaving a trail of complaints about the male gender behind her.

I have to be honest, I had to work very hard at not laughing at Kevin's quick thinking, but there's a new rule now: no one walks around the house pantless anymore.

The boys didn't mind, but I'm willing to bet Rachel has a few choice words the next time she walks from the bathroom to her bedroom wrapped in a towel and Ian or I tell her start dressing in the bathroom.

That will just be unfair.

His first step will be the hardest

My ex-wife's death was Craig's tipping point; within an hour of being told of her death he was at his favorite bar (with our sister no less) drowning every might-have-been he felt. Usually a functional addict, this time he couldn't hold it together and wound up calling in sick, then taking vacation days, before realizing that he really would die if he didn't stop.

He doesn't know what made the light bulb go off, but says he had one clear moment of hearing his own voice in his head, telling him he didn't want to die.

So he tried to go it alone, and thought he had quit enough times that he could do it again and make it stick, and went nearly two weeks without drugs and without taking a drink. He doesn't even really remember buying the bottle of bourbon, he just knew when he was sitting there staring at it that he had to call someone who would care enough to talk him out of opening it.

He didn't think I'd get on the first plane I could, but I had told him a long time ago that when he was serious about it I would be there.

I'm not sure rehab will work, not even as badly as he wants it. There is so little of himself left in him that I don't know what he has left to fight with. I don't know if he's physically strong enough, and I don't know if the damage he's done to his body is something he can overcome. He can't eat without nausea, and his liver has to be shot by now. But, this time I'll be in his corner, because this time I know he means it.

Over two days time I spent more time talking to him that I have in the last ten years, I think. I have a better idea of when and where he derailed and how powerless he was to stop it. I also feel somewhat badly for him; he was a royal douche about it, but he loved Kathy more than I realized, but he had no idea how to approach her maturely, and the guilt he felt over having feelings for her at all pushed him into doing so many stupid things that I pushed him out of my life.

He is responsible for all those stupid things, but at least I better understand it.

I don't know if our relationship is reparable, and all I could tell him was basically, we'll see. He's not going anywhere for a long time, and I will go visit him a few times while he's in rehab, but I can't promise him what he wants, not yet.

I was able to honestly tell him something he wanted to hear. He's a fucking idiot, but I love him anyway, and I won't abandon him.

Just need to keep him sober for 16 more hours

This has been one of the longest days I've had in a while; the only day recently that felt longer was probably the day my wife broke my favorite toy and sent me to the ER. I got to Craig's just before midnight last night, and he was still winning the staring contest with the bottle of bourbon. I don't know why his son didn't pour it out; he says it didn't occur to him, but my gut tells me he wanted to torture Craig just a little bit.

Payback, I guess. I poured it out and chucked the bottle into the trash hard enough to break it (thinking, realistically or not, that he might try to get it and suck up the last few drops) while his son said his goodbyes for the night. I had momentary worry about falling asleep and leaving a very craving-laden Craig awake with car keys and cash, but his middle son showed up a bit later to sit up and make sure that I had a chance to sleep without worrying about my brother wandering off.

In June Craig turns 50; he now looks like he's in his 60s, and he looks every bit as tired as he sounds. Hell, my first thought was that he looks like shit. When he said he was afraid taking one more drink would kill him, he wasn't kidding. I don't think he has another bender in him.

But, he was in a good mood today, and if not for the reason I was there it could have been just a routine visit. I spent the morning on the phone looking for a rehab center that could get him in within the a couple of days, we had lunch with our sister (who, fuck her, was surprised she has more than one grandkid from her daughter, and wasn't all that impressed that she's about to have another) and I got to see my nephews.

The only place I could find that will take him now is out of state, so we're leaving late tonight and checking him in tomorrow. He's more than a little bit afraid of what this will be like; he was hoping to stay somewhat local so that his kids would have a chance to visit, if they would, but he'll be flying solo this time. That might be a good thing for him, if he can remain solely focused on his own recovery and not distracted by hoping for reconciliations with his kids.

He wants to know what this means for us, for our relationship as brothers, if he holds it together and cleans his act up, but I don't know. I'll do what I can for him as long as he's serious about it, but I don't know how far into my life I can let him. We'll see.

I guess that's the best we can hope for at all right now, to wait and see.

He Ain't Heavy (well, yeah, he is)...

It's rarely good news when the phone rings in the middle of the night, but with Erin pregnant and looking like that baby wants to pop out through her navel, we didn't presume that when the phone rang at 3 this morning that it was anything other than Miko calling to tell us she was in labor. He's under orders; call no matter when, because with this being their third baby, her labor is possibly going to be short, and we want to be in the waiting room when he's born.

But, it wasn't Miko calling, it was my brother. He sounded miserable, in agony, and terrified; the first thing that shot through my head was that something had happened to one of his kids, or his grandkids, or our sister. But before I could ask, he made it clear that the only thing wrong was him; he'd been sitting there staring at a bottle of bourbon for several hours and was losing the battle. He was past wanting to open it and at the cusp of needing to, and just wanted someone to give him a reason not to.

He says he's been sober for all of two weeks; he doesn't “do” AA and has no sponsor to turn to, his kids don't answer the phone, our sister would prefer he drinks so she has someone to drink with, and he didn't know who else to call.

Months ago I was mad as hell because TK gave Craig our phone number; Char told me to get over it, because “everything happens for a reason, and sooner or later you'll know why.”

This call may have been why. Who knows.

Craig's given first name is Conor, after our father. He's never gone by it; I don't think even as an infant our parents called him Conor. At three this morning, he was agonizing over never having lived up to the name, wondering if they had seen even when he was a baby that giving him that name was a mistake, that they should have reserved it for the son who wouldn't disappoint them over and over.

He's tired. He doesn't know how to fight anymore. He doesn't want to fight anymore. He wants one last chance; he's been trying to stay sober on his own and knows it's a battle he's losing. He's managed to stay off of everything except alcohol, and it's kicking his ass.

Craig has angered me as deeply as possible before; he's annoyed me and frustrated me, and made me wonder where that fine line between love and hate lies, but this is the first time he's damn near broken my heart.

I don't want to die, but if I open that bottle I think I might.

He knows that if he takes the next drink, it will lead to the next thousand, and he doesn't think he can come back from that.

I have slapped his sorry ass into rehab more times than I can count, but it's always been my idea, my will, and my force that's gotten him there. This is the first time he's asked for my help.

While I had him on the phone, Char managed to get in touch with Craig's oldest son; he agreed to go over and babysit his father, keep him from drinking, until I can get there.

So in a few hours I'm heading for the airport and getting him back into rehab, and praying that this time it works; he's hit rock bottom, I think, and he wants it.

Erin better not have that baby while I'm gone.