Step 1 - Admitting You Have a Problem.

A new addition has been added to our backyard. It is some climbing thingy from Little Tykes. It cost too much for a bunch of plastic, but the boys like it so that's all the matters. We went to four different stores, checked the phone book for alternative playground equipment and ended up driving across town to find this thing. We spent two hours during sporadic sprinkles putting this sucker together with the boys wanting to climb on every piece of it that was not assembled.

Now ask yourself why we would go to all this trouble for a lot of plastic. Well, I could say that it was because the mulch we ordered for the boys play area was being delivered in two days and we wanted to have everything set up so that it was just a matter of moving it into the play area. I could say that we were bored and like using gas up driving all over Milwaukee. I could say because it was our penance for murdering the guy at the drive through for screwing up our order. But alas, none of these would be true.

The truth is that we did all that just to see the smiles on their faces the first time they figured out how to climb to the top and slide down all by themselves.

I seriously think that there needs to be 12-step program established to help us overcome our addiction to their smiles. I mean the cravings are intense and the lengths we will go, to see a smirk, is embarrassing. I mean seriously, would you ever think that I would walk through a store making this strange noise (cross between a turkey and water boiling) while shaking my face violently back and forth in order to make my triple chin vibrate just so that Benjamin will laugh out loud. Of course you can't, because you knew me before I started jones-ing for giggles and grins... Now it is all I can do not to breakout into "I'm a Little Tea Pot" while out in public.

Where has all my dignity and pride gone? Why do I continue to chase after that fleeting high? Because there is nothing like it in the world and no limits to what I am willing to do to make it happen at least 10 times a day.

So if you see me at a restaurant some day and I am making the salt and pepper shakers perform a cha-cha, just know I have no control. It is part of the addiction.