Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. O'Tean Family Fun (no sex, smoking, humor) by this guy (thisguy.1066@gmail.com) Summary: Tales taken from the personal diary of Nick O'Tean's: father of a smoking family. See "Cute Little Smoker, Interview with Nick O'Tean" for more about the O'Tean family. NOT EXHALING Nora, our youngest child, walked into the house through the back door. "Mommy, I don't feel so good," the six year old girl said. Hearing our daughter say that; my wife rushed in from the kitchen. "Don't feel so good, how?" Laura asked. "I feel all tight and full inside," Nora said as she moved her left hand side-to-side across the middle of her chest. Hearing what my young daughter was saying, I became concerned. Then Nora coughed: a bit of smoke coming from her mouth. Having noticed that she didn't have a cigarette in her hand, I asked, "Nora, when did you smoke your last cigarette?" "In the playhouse in the backyard, before I came inside," the six year old girl replied. "How many cigarettes did you have while you were in the playhouse?" Laura asked. Nora began counting on her fingers before saying, "I had four; one right after the other." Considering that that she frequently chained three or four cigarettes that wasn't particularly unusual... At that moment our other two children, Devon and Emily stepped into the house through the back door. "...four and no smoke came out..." Emily was saying to her older brother. "Wait, what?" I commented, turning toward my older two children. "Devon showed Nora how to take a puff from a cigarette and not exhale any smoke," Emily explained. Shocking as that might sound to most people; I'd seen my son do it a number of times, so I wasn't all that surprised to hear it. "And Nora smoked four whole cigarettes without blowing out any smoke! It was awesome!" Devon exclaimed. Upon hearing our son's comment, my wife and I looked at each other and instantly knew why Nora's chest felt tight and full. Turning to our youngest, my wife said, "Nora, not blowing out any smoke is a fun trick. But you can't hold that much smoke inside." "But I want to show my friends how I can smoke without blowing out any smoke..." Nora said with a pout. "When you're feeling better you can," I said, "But only one or two puffs..." MUSICAL SMOKING As a part of the school's fourth grade music class, all the kids learn to play the recorder. So, like the rest of the fourth grader Devon learned to play the recorder in school. Unlike most of his classmates he actually got pretty good at it, and actually enjoyed playing... Since it seemed like there was a very real possibility he'd become a musician Laura and I bought him his own recorder and some sheet music for his birthday. Unlike the majority of kids his age, he spent quite a bit of time playing his recorder. He continued getting better at it; the house was almost beginning to sound like a concert hall...while that may be a proud father's exaggeration, it certainly isn't an outright lie. Then one day I heard the recorder. But there was something very different about the way it sounded; it sounded bad...really bad. Concerned that there might be something wrong with my son, I quickly headed to his room. But he wasn't there. And, unexpectedly, the sound of the recorder was coming from down the hall. Following the sound of the recorder, I stepped into Emily's bedroom to see her and Nora sitting on the edge of Emily's bed. Emily had the recorder to her lips, but she wasn't trying to play it: she was using it as a cigarette holder. In each of the finger holes was a slim cigarette, and there was a regular width cigarette in the hole at the end. All of the cigarettes were lit. Emily breathed in through the recorder and all of the cigarettes; a strange, unpleasant sound coming from the recorder. She moved the mouthpiece away from her eight-year-old lips and passed it to her younger sister before exhaling the biggest could of smoke I've ever seen a person exhale. Nora brought the mouthpiece of the recorder to her lips. Before Nora began to take a puff off the recorder/multiple cigarette holder, Emily said, "See Daddy, we're sharing our cigarettes..." Nora took a deep breath through the recorder; eliciting a nearly identical unpleasant sound. The six year old moved the mouthpiece away from her lips and physically offered the recorder to me while saying, "Wanna try Daddy?:" exhaling even bigger and thicker cloud of smoke than her sister had while speaking. "Why not," I said taking the recorder from my youngest child. I put the mouthpiece to my lips and breathed in. MY GOD: it was like smoking an entire cigarette in one puff... PLAYING `MOMMY AND DADDY' My brother-in-law took his oldest two kids and Devon to the movies to see that new half action, half comedy `Police School'. My wife had taken Emily to the mall so she could get a new pair of shoes: her previous pair having been in a little accident involving a trash back that had `garbage water' in it. All meant it was just Nora and me at home. And where was my youngest daughter, Nora? She and Joey, my brother-in-law's youngest son, were playing in the backyard. Well, to be more precise, the two six year olds were playing in the playhouse in the backyard. For about an hour, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then, both kids came stomping in through the back door. "Uncle Nick," Joey began to say. Nora cut him off by asking, "Mommies smoke don't they?" "Well, both of your mommies smoke," I replied. "But not when they have a big belly..." Joey half stated, half asked. I was just slightly confused by my nephew's words `big belly' for a few seconds. Just as what he meant hit me, Nora definitively said, "Mommies can smoke when they're pregnant: aunt Paula did." "Why do you guys want to know this?" I asked. "We're playing `Mommy and Daddy'," Joey began to explain, "and Nora's the `Mommy' and she wants to smoke while she's got a big belly." "So?" I questioned. "Well..." Joey paused for a second before saying, "I heard it's bad for the baby if a mommy smokes when she's got a big belly..." "Both of your mommies smoked when they were pregnant; so did your aunts Paula, Kristy, Jenny, and Nicole," I explained. "And there's nothing wrong with any of us, right?" Nora asked. "Yeah, but..." Joey responded. "But nothing," Nora exclaimed, "It's a mommy's choice if she wants to smoke, right Daddy?" "Nora's right Joey: it's the girl's choice if she wants to smoke," I advised my nephew. Nora took a cigarette out of the pack sitting on the table next to the back door, put it between her lips, picked up the lighter, flicked it lit and brought he flame to the tip of the cigarette in her mouth. She took a big drag; then as she exhaled a cone of smoke said, "I'm a mommy who wants to smoke." Joey shrugged his shoulders and took a cigarette from the same pack. He put it to his lips and Nora surprised me by lighting it for him. "I guess that means the baby will smoke too," he commented as they stepped out the back door. Just before the door closed, I could hear Nora say, "All the BABIES will smoke..." Hearing my youngest daughter say that she wanted to have multiple children who smoke, at the tender age of six, was more than enough to bring a smile to my face... About twenty minutes after the two six year olds returned to the playhouse, I took a couple glasses of lemonade out to them. When I opened the door to the playhouse I was surprised to see that the air inside the playhouse was so thick with dense white smoke that I could hardly make out anything inside the playhouse, "There's a lot of smoke in here," I commented. "Yup, Mommy and Daddy like lots of smoke," Joey said. He stepped close enough to the door that I could fully see him. As expected, he had a lit cigarette between his lips; but, to my surprise he wasn't wearing a shirt. "Where's your shirt?" I asked as my nephew took a glass of lemonade from me. "I got it," Nora said as her cousin disappeared back into the cloud of smoke. She stepped close enough to the door that I could fully see her. I was surprised to see that my daughter had two lit cigarettes between her lips. Before I could even notice anything else, I was asking, "Why are you smoking two cigarettes at once?" "'Cause I'm smoking for two, Daddy: see?" Nora explained as she pointed at her belly. Glancing down I was surprised to see that the front of her shirt, which was tucked into the waistband of her skirt, was sticking out in the same shape and location as that of a woman who is about five or six months pregnant does. "How'd you get your belly to stick out like that?" I asked: a bit concerned by what I was seeing. "It's just Joey's shirt, rolled up inside mine," Nora replied as she took the other glass of lemonade from me. A fraction of a second later she was disappearing into the smoke. "Come in and see the family Uncle Nick," Joey's voice came out of the smoke. "Ah, okay," I responded as I squatted down and all but crawled into the playhouse through the small door. Once my head was about three feet inside the playhouse, I was finally able to see that there were three of my daughter's dolls sitting on the little sofa, each of them with a cigarette between their fake plastic lips. "The babies smoke, just like Mommy and Daddy," Nora said: her voice filled with pride.