Category: Dad Blogs

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

What child is this

rock city “Daddy, how much more minutes will it be until we get to grammy’s?”

“A long time honey.”

“But, how many minutes?”

“It’ll be about 124 minutes.”

“But that’s a really long time. I wished we lived right here.”

Here, being the middle of nowhere, somewhere between a little town in Georgia and another little town in Tennessee, up Hwy 411. If you’ve ever watched HGTV’s 100-Mile Yard sale show, then you can pretty much picture what this 2-hour stretch of lonely road is like. In fact, they have their own yard sale Web site, aptly named the “Hwy 411 Yard Sale.” Check out the link. (I find it interesting that all of the Points of Interest mentioned, have nothing to do with sales, or yards).

We did finally make it to grammy’s luckily, and after retrieving a bottle of clorox and a scrubby thingy and scouring her in-law suite downstairs until all of the spiders and various fungi had disappeared, we had a great weekend! Honestly, I can’t even begin to relax until my surroundings are clean!

We swam in the river and played with critters–catching four turtles and three crawdads (crayfish for your northerners).  We explored Tuckaleechee caverns (which I HIGHLY recommend!) and I only had to carry MLI for 1/2 a mile…500 feet underground (I think the closer you are to the center of the earth, the heavier you are because of gravity or something). We rode bikes and watched DVD’s. We ate junk food and took very unflattering pictures of daddy’s belly in his swimsuit. All in all it was a really good weekend.

As I drove back, I reflected on how different MLI is away from his brother. At home he’s constantly competing for attention; however, away from MLE, he’s actually a pretty calm, well-spoken, fun person to be around. It was good spending time away from home where I could actually see what his personality is becoming, rather than the hollering, near-incoherent whirling dirvish he is around his brother and his friends. It’s amazing really, the difference.

I’m going to have to make it a point, as the boys both grow, to spend time alone with each of them, in addition to all the things we’ll do together. Because I honestly enjoyed this weekend alone with him, which is more than I can say for any “Family” adventure we’ve all done together.

Of course though, all good things come to an end and it wasn’t 15 minutes after getting home on Sunday that I remembered WHY we went away in the first place.

Ah well, it was good while it lasted…yeah, it was REALLY good!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Over the river and through the woods…

ethan river 2 W ell, we’re off this afternoon. I’m taking my readers’ advice and snatching MLI outta daycare and hitting the road this afternoon. I’ve decided that I’m doing it, in part, to thumb my nose at the Saudi’s and the Democrats.

To the Saudi’s because, by golly, if they can put a daggum indoor ski resort in the middle of the friggin’ desert, then I can darn sure spend $50 going to see my mom (and play in the river!). This isn’t a joke. My old boss went there and brought back pictures.

And I thumb my nose at the Democrats because, despite their best efforts, I still drive a pickup truck that gets terrible gas mileage.  BUT, until they make a pickup truck with a full-size bed, that can pull a couple of jet skis outta the water (I don’t have one, but I’d like to), and gets more than 25 mpg, I’m keeping what I’ve got! It’s paid off and it runs great! Can’t beat that!

I’ve contemplated running my “ROLL TIDE” flags on the outside of my windows as I drive through T-town, but I figure that’s asking for trouble that I really just don’t need, so I’m going to sneak in quietly, running my radar detector the whole way.

For the unitiated, Tennessee is a HUGE Alabama football rivalry ever since their coach ratted out one of our players for allegedly taking bribes, which as it turns out, we didn’t even keep the player. For all of that, Alabama football got several years of academic scholarship penalties that killed our chances at winning any kind of championships for several years. So yeah, we pretty much hate Tennessee, and I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.

With luck, I’ll get some good pictures to share with you all next week. So until then, you all have a wonderful, safe weekend!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Oh, obviously! The moment I sat down I thought I was looking into a mirror.

two strikes I swanny; if my boys weren’t born three years apart, I’d swear they were twins. When one is happy, the other is happy; when one is sad the other is sad.

And when one is bad, well…let’s just say that MLE now has “Two Strikes” on the old biting policy chart.

Yesterday, both of the boys had a little trouble at daycare. MLI’s class gives out stickers for being good, and one little incident can keep a child from getting a sticker. Depending on which story you listen to from MLI (the one he gave CareerMom, or the one he gave me), the infraction went something like this:

“We came in from playing outside and we were waiting in line for water, and I hit Carter and then I went and sat down.”

Now, if this doesn’t quite make sense, realize it’s coming from a four year old whose recollection leaves a lot to be desired, and who probably figures he’s about to get in trouble despite what daddy just told him about being honest. We had our own little “sticker contest” going at home where if he got five stickers, he could go see Wall-E with CareerMom. He had already gotten the requisite stickers, but knowing he fudged up yesterday, when CareerMom picked him up and found out he didn’t get a sticker, he psyched himself out of movie excitement with, “It was probably going to be boring anyway.”

Since he’d already gotten five stickers, I told CareerMom that he’d already earned it despite what he’d done that day, so he went to the movie with CareerMom last night anyway, and turns out he was right. They didn’t even finish the movie.

On to MLE! All’s I know is that he and another little boy were fighting over a push-toy, and recognizing that he might be about to lose the fight, MLE decided to fight dirty and reached over and bit the other boy. Which, as it turns out, worked…up until the point where the teachers came and put him in timeout with a “stern” admonishment.

Let me just point out here that a stern admonishment is about as effective with MLE as well, timeout. Which, shockingly, for a 16 month old, MLE is very good at. He’s apparently had lots of practice in timeout. We put him in timeout this weekend for something and he actually sat there until we told him to get up.

To say were were in “shock and awe” would be an understatement. And as CareerMom has said on many occasions, “It’s a good thing he’s so cute, because he’s going to be quite the troublemaker!”

Isn’t that way of it? How many hotties do you see going to jail? Male or female?

I’m just sayin’.

So anyway, we have one more strike before the mandatory parental meeting, and then if he continues to bite, it’s expulsion. CareerMom swears she’ll pull MLI AND MLE if it comes to that; although she’s not figured out what we’ll do with them then.

Hey, don’t look at me! I may work from home a lot, but that’s only because nobody else is there!

Any suggestions as to how we can curb this biting thing? Barring that…anyone know where we can find a really good (cheap) nanny?

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Dad Blogs Family

Well, there is the water, and caves and horses to ride…

Roadtrip I ‘m in a bit of a quandry. Help me out here.

My mom (one of them anyway) lives in Tennessee, in a tiny little town called Walland. It’s just on the other side of the mountains from Pigeon Forge and Dollywood and all of that tourist greatness.

She also lives right on Little River. In fact, I can wade right into the river from her back yard.

All of this adds up to a whole lotta reasons why I should go see her…more often. Except that it’s a 3.5 hour drive from Roswell and the drive isn’t especially kid-friendly. We’ve only been up there once this year, and that was in the spring, so we’re really due to go back up.

CareerMom is in New York this week on Thursday and coming back Friday afternoon and we’ve discussed my taking MLI and heading up to see my mom, leaving CareerMom and MLE at home. What really shouldn’t be that tough of a decision, is laden with choices:

Pros:

  • Getting a break from the constant attention needs of MLE (who is a HUGE daddy’s boy!)
  • Getting to spend some quality time with MLI playing in the river and drinking too much soda pop (what an “old” phrase) on the road trip
  • Seeing my mom
  • CareerMom suspects she left her glasses there last time and without them at night after she takes her contacts off, she can’t see much of anything. I could verify whether or not this is true and potentiall retrieve said glasses, thus potentially saving CareerMom loads on a new pair!

Cons:

  • The price of gas
  • The 7 hours of drive-time
  • My mom really wanting to see MLE since he’s “the baby” and arguably, quite the draw from a personality standpoint

Frankly, the price of gas isn’t THAT big a deal, but I felt I should throw it in regardless. And admittedly, a huge thing for me is that I feel guilty leaving CareerMom at home to deal with MLE by herself all weekend. At least when I’m home too, we can switch off for a few moments of sanity.

Whaddya think? Suck it up and take a road trip, or stay home and keep CareerMom sane?