Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

The funniest part is that I got annoyed by this and decided to hash it out with Lynette, and the conversation got heated. Was the first pig the same as the third pig? We couldn’t agree if the first pig went to market and got the roast beef. Are there only two piggies? The fifth one went all the way home, is that a different home? Is he coming home to the piggy that stayed home or to another house? Eventually, it got to the point where Lynette was shouting, “He doesn’t go back to the other house. He has his own home, you idiot.”

I’ve made it a point to interact with my kids physically. This was something I never got from my parents. When they were just one year old, I was launching them like horseshoes onto a pyramid of pillows on my bed. I knew boys like to wrestle around and roughhouse, but I had figured out by that point that Natalia had the daredevil gene, too. It was in their blood. All my nephews had the gene, too. They had broken arms every other week. All my stupid roof jumping and reckless driving escapades have been detailed in my previous books. So it was inevitable that my kids would have that thrill seeker thing in them, too.

I’ve already told you about the abuse I take from Natalia during our wrestling matches. Here’s the thing — as much as I try to enjoy these moments of physicality with my kids, I always come up short. No matter who wins the match, I’m always the loser.

One night, when they were about four and a half, Olga was in Guatemala taking care of her sick mother. And heaven forbid the wife and I raise the kids by ourselves. So the maid who usually only comes in on Friday had been asked to come in a little extra to help us out. She has a son herself, so she asked if she could bring him. The little boy’s name is Nathan. He was six years old.

Well, Nathan had heard about our wrestling time and wanted in. There are three things you should know about this situation before I tell you the story. First, the maid and her man had gotten divorced. I don’t know why, I don’t speak Spanish and I didn’t want to get involved with that telenovela. But I know as a product of divorce how much little boys want to be roughhoused by their old man. So I decided to let Nathan in on the fun.

The second fact is that not only was Nathan older than the twins, he was big for his age. Way bigger than the twins. He had a bucket head and a barrel chest. He was built like a pony keg.

The third thing is that at the time I had a fucked-up knee. I’m a guy who doesn’t complain about injuries. Everything else, yes. But when I’m in pain, you won’t know it unless it’s bad. This was bad. I ended up needing surgery.

Natalia’s favorite move at this time was to hop on the bed, take a running start and launch herself at me headfirst. I’d catch her and swing around 360 to throw her back on the bed. Nathan saw this and wanted to try it, too. Again, feeling bad for this kid and his absentee dad, I couldn’t tell him to hold back while I wrestled with my privileged white kids. I told him to go for it. It was like getting hit by a train. And since I managed not to get knocked over and toss him back on the bed, he wanted to do it again. I probably wrestled with this king-sized kid for an hour and jacked up my knee even worse than it already was.

Frankly, I’m surprised Lynette even lets me do this. My rough-and-tumble time with the kids has led to a couple of injuries. In fact I started unintentionally injuring them early and often. Over the holidays in 2007, when the kids were about eighteen months old, I was working out with a trainer. We had one of those big yoga balls. He knew I had a great sense of balance and wanted to see if I could kneel on the thing and not keel over. I did it, no problem. Then he wanted to see if I could stand on it. I could. Then he stepped it up and started tossing me a medicine ball to see if I could catch it and still maintain my balance. I could. I was pretty impressed with myself. So the next night, I decided to try and impress Lynette. I was kneeling on the yoga ball maintaining balance when Natalia walked up and quietly said, “Up.” I figured if I could catch a medicine ball hurled by a personal trainer and not fall, I could pick her up. I leaned down and was able to scoop her up and still stay on my knees on the ball. Then Sonny came waddling in after her. At the time, he was built like a butt plug. He didn’t have “up” in his vocabulary yet, so he just stood there staring with an “up” look. So I picked him up, too. Again, no part of me was touching terra firma. I just leaned over and grabbed him and then hoisted him with my other arm. I balanced for a good while with one in each arm while Lynette watched, impressed and getting hot for me. That is, until the phone rang and I unconsciously turned and my knees went out from under me and we all went ass over teakettle. Of course, my instincts kicked in at that time and I protected my greatest treasure… my face. That’s my money maker. I dropped the kids like two sacks of flour. They both hit the floor with a thud, landing on their backs and heads. Meanwhile, I landed on my chest and looked up from the carpet to see a look on Lynette’s face like I had just broken into the house and was wielding a rusty machete. A three-count later, both kids exploded in tears and Lynette scooped them up. They were okay. But then again, it’s hard to tell when a kid might be concussed. It’s not like they have big presentations to make the following morning. Their next day was crapping themselves and being fed oatmeal, which is what usually happens when you have a traumatic brain injury, anyway.

We had recurring dance parties, too. Every now and again, I’ll fire up iTunes or Pandora and just dance with the kids. (As my long-time fans know, the only time I feel alive is when I dance.) We’ll just crank up the Pretenders and rock out. One night, I had my iTunes going and Sonny and I were jamming to John Hiatt’s “Pirate Radio.” But the next song in the cue was “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. Now, I’m not going to apologize for that. There’s room for Swedish pop in the Ace Man’s playlist. It was just one of those moments that would have been awkward if someone walked in to see me and my seven-year-old son dancing and singing along like a couple of drunken bridesmaids. It’s like the time I was at the kids’ school to build a haunted house with the other dads. I was kind of the foreman since I had the most experience. I wasn’t a dick about it, but I did lob in a few condescending comments towards the other Hollywood dads with their fourteen-volt cordless Black & Decker drills. (If you’re asking yourself now why they deserve to get made fun of for that, please lump yourself in with that pussy lot.)

I figured we should have some music going while we worked, so I pulled my car around, and turned up the ’70s channel on the satellite radio. The first tune to come up was one of the few Eagles songs I like, “New Kid in Town.” But I still felt the need to announce that I put it on the ’70s channel and that this wasn’t my iPod. Thank God I did, because as I was giving the speech Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” started. Like ABBA, I have a place for this song in my repertoire, too, but it’s not exactly construction site music. You couldn’t hit me with a little Foghat? How about some Edgar Winter, seventies station? We’re building a haunted house; would it kill you to pump a little “Frankenstein”?

When it comes to music mixes like Songza and Pandora, we’ve got to get our playlists straightened out. The whole Songza theme playlist for waking up with energy on a Sunday morning, throwing a summer barbecue and so on, has one fatal flaw. Shortly after I moved to my current home, I was out playing ball with the kids in the backyard and enjoying myself for a few moments. I went back into the kitchen where Lynette was listening to “Penny Lane” by the Beatles. I said to her, “I love this song. Do that thing where you get it out on the speakers in the backyard.” So as I walked down the hall toward the backyard, she hit a couple of buttons to pump it out of the speakers out there. And as I stepped out, I heard the last seven seconds of “Penny Lane,” and it went right into John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good.” Without breaking stride I turned around, marched back in and told Lynette to change that piece of crap.