Month: January 2009

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Marriage

Picture Phone Phriday – I’ll cut you!

Kids all handle fear in different ways. When I was young, at night I would completely cover my body with my sheets for fear that whatever was not covered, would get chopped off by some axe-wielding monster. I have no idea where this fear came from, but it also prompted me to attempt world-record breaking sprinting attempts from my light switch to my bed.

I must have been fast since I still have all of my appendages.

My oldest son, whom I’ve affectionately, if perhaps prematurely, labeled “My little Introvert,” seems to have his own method of handling the night-time boogeyman. And while I’m a little fearful of what this might mean in the future, right now, I applaud his audacity:

(I’m adding blank space so you don’t see it before you read the intro)

01-09-09_0618

Defense: Ninja Turtle Style!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

Hooked on Phonics, Worked for me!

readingMLI is coming up on five years old and is therefore, in pre-K. In addition to the twice-weekly Spanish classes (Spanish at 5 years old?), they are also learning how to read. Each night he comes home with this little sheet of words that he is working on and last week, he even came home with a rhyme that he read–something to the effect of, “Nan pats the cat. The Cat can pat Nan.” etc. It didn’t get much more difficult.

Thing is, they are learning to read by learning the sight of words. So, they learn that “STOP” reads “Stop.” They are not learning to sound the word out, “Sssss…ta…ta…ah…pa…pa…SssTaPa…STOP!”

We had a small debate over at CareerMom’s parent’s house the other night as to the appropriateness of this method of teaching. CareerMom’s mother is a teacher, and sitting around the table were several highly educated people, who each thought he or she knew better than the other which way of teaching a child to read was better.

It was my MIL who postulated that the child isn’t really learning to read this way; while one of her daughters (who went to a very expensive private university, then transferred out west to get a Masters in Music and who is now doing a Jr. level job at a pharma company), claimed, “Well, once you’re older, aren’t you reading by recognizing the words anyway?”

A good point to be sure, but I’m of the opinion that a child should learn to add manually before using a calculator. However, being the “outlaw” at the table, and one who understands the value of a free, home-cooked meal, I kept my mouth shut.

Last night while trying to come up with a low-key way to kill the last 30 minutes before the kid’s bedtime, I sat down with MLI and asked him to read me “Go Dog Go.” Doesn’t everyone know this book?

Well, he knew the first couple of pages…by heart. Once we got past his “sight words” vocabulary, it was a frustrating thing for him to sound the words out. This cemented my belief that learning to read by sight words is a waste of time! I mean, if a kid has a photographic memory, then fine. Eventually, the kid can read Webster’s and be good to go, but for the rest of us, we really need to learn how to figure things out on our own.

Unfortunately, patience does not run on my side of the family (Bio-mom excluded), and MLI quickly became frustrated with my attempts at helping him. And to my credit, I think I was very patient! (Yaah me!).  All in all, I’m not too worried about him reading or not reading right now. In Kindergarten, I was in the “Remedial Reading Group” until I figured it out and then I was into it like gangbusters. I still spend a substantial amount of money each year on books and I have no doubt that my kids will follow suit.

But, for you parents out there with school-age kids; what did you/do you have to do to help your kids read? And how did they learn? Did the “sight word” method work for you?

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Dad Blogs Life in these United States

I’ll get right on that rose…

Ok, I’ll admit that my last couple of posts have been decidedly on the “bummer” side, and I promise, that I’m going to make every effort to do better.

After today’s post.

In the meantime, it’s the first official REAL day of work for most of the corporate world, and every white-collar worker affected knows this means only one thing…MEETINGS!

Now, for some people, meetings are a necessary fact of business. For instance, the group I work in is made up mostly of Product Managers, whose jobs consist almost entirely of working with other people to get their products rolled out and promoted on a global level. For these people, meetings are their lifeblood. And while most of them claim to hate meetings, it certainly doesn’t stop them from scheduling two-hour meetings each week to discuss minuscule changes in whatever they were doing from last week.

For me…I write. Writing takes a bit of coordination upfront and on the backend; but generally, I need to be left alone. Unfortunately, many of my group’s meetings include time to talk about what I’m writing. So, despite their all-knowing where their project’s status’ lies with me, I still have to be there to answer the occasional question.

I need another meeting like Dennis Rodman needs another tattoo!

Already this week, before everyone gets in and starts panicking, I have 9 hours of meetings scheduled. I could write nearly 1/3 of a white paper with 9 hours of uninterrupted work. Instead, I’ll be yawning through 9 hours of meetings that will bear almost no influence on my day-to-day.

I tell ya, it’s enough to make you want to call in sick!

Speaking of sick, that Alabama vs. Utah Sugar bowl was pretty awful too!

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Dad Blogs DIY Family Life in these United States

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…no, it’s a…friggin hole in my house!

(Note to Feed users: This post contains visual elements you might want to see)

Home ownership is not without its rewards. For one, there’s a nice tax advantage to writing off the interest. And of course there’s the whole, “It’s something of my very own that they can never take away from me” fallacy that anyone with a mortgage will tell you is utter crap.

I’m convinced that if mortgage brokers and banks told the truth about owning your own home, that at least a third of the people who now own one, never would. For instance:

  • The tax write off doesn’t equal what you pay
  • On top of your mortgage, tack on an average 15% each month on upkeep
  • If you want to make minor improvements on your home, tack on another 20% each month
  • If you want to upgrade anything on your home, add another 30% each month

…and the list goes on.

I think the most bothersome thing about home ownership though, are the surprises. The little things you never thought about.

Like squirrels.

In the two years that we’ve been in this house, I have trapped and released elsewhere, two squirrels who have taken up residence in my attic above my master bedroom–above my very bed in fact. Their scratching and merriment throughout the night have led to many a clenched sheet and frustrating loss of sleep.

Each time, I’ve tried to find their entry and have failed.

Until yesterday.

Due to some architectural elements in our house, getting around in our attic is a challenge. Getting over to the eaves in the attic is a near impossibility unless you’re Plastic-Man, able to bend yourself around corners and whatnot. (Actually, I hear The Redneck Mommy is “bendy”…).

Anyway, I had a general idea where the little critters were living once they got into the attic, so I put a piece of 2ft by 3ft plywood on the rafters and scooched over towards the eaves. Using a combination of hop and pull maneuvers, while also sliding under ducting and around wiring (in your head, imagine me doing my best Catherine Zeta-Jones “Entrapment” impression), zeta jonesI finally got over to the eaves where I thought the squirrels were living and sure enough, nest-ola! And just beyond the nesting area and, wouldn’t you know it, out of my reach, I found the entryway.

Apparently, someone goofed when they built my house; I can find no other reason for this:home in roofThe back of my house is pretty much a straight line. In fact, as you can see from the air, my house is basically a big rectangle. However, about a third of the way over from the right, it suddenly cuts in about four inches and then runs straight the rest of the way. My only guess is that some construction goober goofed on one side of the house and they had to just fix it and this was the solution.

Anyway, where the two sections meet, there is no gutter and so the rain has slowly deteriorated this part of the roof over the years. I can see where it appears the previous homeowner “patched” it, but the patch was poorly done, leaving a hole the size of a pack of computer paper that the squirrels were using to make themselves at home.

So for nearly two hours yesterday, I removed leaves, twigs, pine tree seedlings, squirrel poop and desecrated insulation, and then after a trip to the local hardware store, patched up the hole as best I could with one arm and zero room to maneuver. It’s not pretty, but there’s not a hole yet that Great Stuff foam insulation couldn’t fill.

Also, I breathed in more than my share of animal poop dust, which my late-night education on the Discovery Channel tells me can be harmful.

I can concur. My sinuses have been killing me ever since. So anyway, if I suddenly start raving and foaming at the mouth, you’ll at least know that it probably has something to do with squirrel crap.

Well, that or kids. Take your pick.