And another thing…

What’s with all the crying?!

Yes, it’s another thing no one told me about when I signed up for this gig. As I told you, I didn’t know to get the owners manual like everyone else did when we had our first daughter. And I was too tired to remember to ask for it when we had our second daughter…

So I need some help.

There is entirely too much tears in my house. Major meltdowns over the smallest things. Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth for nothing at all.

And this has got to be a girl thing. When I was growing up, I don’t remember weeping bouts every thirty seconds. And there’s not much I can do about it. The XX chromosomes out-number me three-to-one in my house. My sad Y chromosome and I must hang out in the garage pretending to rebuild a carburetor.

I can’t remember a dinner where we sat down and ate an entire meal without one of them bawling their eyes out. “She got more mac n’ cheese than me! Waaaaa!”, cries the youngest one. “I don’t like that, daddy! It’s yucky! Waaaaaa!!!”, cried my oldest one. “Why can’t we watch American Idol! Waaaaa!”, cried my wife…

I just can’t win.

And here’s the thing. I don’t know if you know this or not, but most men cannot - and I mean CANNOT - handle tears. They don’t know what do. And I’m one of those men. I’m completely lost. I just want to stand there and spin in circles until the crying stops.

You see, a man’s solution to tears is to try to get them to stop. As soon as possible. So the first thing that pops into my mind is to provide a way to fix the problem. And that’s where I get into trouble and it’s something I don’t understand. These girls don’t want me to fix the problem. They just want to cry even more. Because everytime I say, “Well, she’s bigger than you and can eat more and needs more energy!” I get another round of uncontrollable weeping! Or, “Well, American Idol is one of the dumbest shows on the planet, that’s why!” I get a deadbolt slammed shut on the nooky locker… and some crying.

Anyway, I don’t know what to do. But I think I know why so many men have hearing problems as they get older. It’s not really from too many Black Sabbath concerts when they were kids. And it’s not from all the screaming from their kids when they’re older. I think they have figured out the method to the madness.

I think they’ve figured out a way to tune it all out. A man can only handle the sound of girls crying for so long before he either goes mental or learns how to cope. And the answer is to block it all out. Sure the wife will make me go get a hearing aid, which I’ll fake on the hearing test, and I can forget to wear it often. And she can commiserate with our daughters over the latest tragic incident involving a few drops of spilled milk on the kitchen floor.

I’ll just sit in my rocking chair, in blissful silence, and pretend there’s no sound at all.

Now… can someone please scan me a copy of the damn owner’s manual for little girls and email it to me? I’ll pay ya. I promise.