Tag: children

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Dad Blogs Family Marriage

Crap…it’s almost the weekend

payday Start rationing bread! Wait, only one glass of milk! Save money…CONSERVE, CONSERVE, CONSERVE!

What? No, I don’t live in Texas and I’m not hoarding supplies for the pending hurricane! Nope, I’m conserving because we have THREE WEEKENDS IN THIS PAYDAY!

(insert Sam Kennison-like scream here!)

If you’re like me, you’ve already spent the bulk of your paycheck by 8 p.m. of the day you get it and each weekend, when you have kids, is like opening the drain in the bathtub and waving your money goodbye as it leaks away, mostly by dragging the kids around trying to keep them happy.

So when there are three weekends in a pay period, I start getting worried. Worried because, as the temperatures continue to soar, along with the humidity, there’s only so much sitting in the house, or walking around the mall (without actually buying anything) that I can take.

There should be a law against three-weekend pay periods, or at least a moratorium on gas prices on the weekend so that those with kids can drive outside their usual sphere of influence in search of activity diversity.

Oh, but there IS college football and that should be good a few hours at least!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States

The truth about parenting

fall pumpkinsThere are axioms to parenting and raising children, no doubt more than I will ever remember. I’m reminded of them from time to time while raising my own kids, and while watching others.

Some of the truisms I’ve found include:

  • Snotty noses will run when gramma comes, driving her crazy until she has to reach out and wipe…and make a comment about it
  • Expensive toys are no match for cardboard boxes and plastic lids
  • A baby will have an “accident” at the least opportune time; usually coinciding with your having recently run out of diapers and/or wipes in your vehicle
  • Whatever food they LOVED last week, they will turn their nose up at this week
  • Whatever you have planned for the day–fuhgettaboutit! (ain’t that right Mike?)
  • If one child has a toy, the other wants it…at least until the other loses interest in it

There are more I’m sure.

Anyway, this weekend, despite the 90 degree temps, CareerMom and I got into a “fall” kinda mood. She broke out the bins of decorations, and I watched while switching off and on between playing with the boys, and rolling around on the carpet trying to stretch out my back.

My neighbor up the street always puts out a big yard display for fall and this year, I wanted to join in (read: compete for neighborly affections). I’ve been looking online for some outdoor pumpkins that light up and had been unsuccessful in the “sub-$50” range. But we have a store here called “Old Time Pottery.” It’s kinda like the Wal-Mart of crafty stores. So I scooped up MLI and we headed out for a shopping spree.

When you first walk in this store, you are assaulted with dozens of those recently popular blow up yard-art things (which I secretly crave, but know that CareerMom would cringe over) and MLI LOVED IT! He ran from one to another, his face all lit up with the possibilities! I hated to break the news to him that I’m not man enough to put one up in our yard and face CareerMom over it, so I just nodded my head and suggested that perhaps we “move along.”

They also have a huge selection of candles and such and one of mine and MLI’s favorite things to do is smell the candles.

And here is where I was reminded of yet another parenting truism:

  • If you put a kid around glass objects, something will get broken

As we popped the tops off of one candle after another, I heard a “smash!” and looked over at MLI holding the top of a candle while the rest of it lay in pieces at his feet on the concrete floor. The poor kid looked horrified and I was immediately reminded of how my first adopted mom would get incensed if I went outside and got dirty, usually resulting in, at best, a stern scolding.

I quickly went to him, grabbed the glass candle top from his hands and, while looking around, carefully used my shoe to scooch the broken glass under the display (hey, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt you know!). I told him it was OK, but that we had to be very careful.

What really got to me though was the look on his face…as if he thought I was going to immediately grab him and starting wailing on his bare bottom. I know exactly what he was feeling; I felt it many times (and experienced it in many forms) when I was his age.

Right then I vowed to never react that way to him. It’ll be tough the older he gets. Such as the first time he wrecks the car–when he starts disobeying and disrespecting my authority–when he gets his girlfriend…nevermind, you get the point.

Which reminded me of a parenting truism that I would do well to never forget:

  • Our children pattern themselves after us

I’m not perfect, but I’m doing my best.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Craftiness is not one of my strengths

Before CareerMom left for the week, she did everything she could to make things easier for me in her absence. She told me I could go do whatever I wanted while she watched the boys this past weekend–an offer I only temporarily took advantage of. She made sure the boys had plenty of diapers and wipes and clean clothes stocked at daycare so I wasn’t trying to schlepp all that junk around in my truck (or forgetting it and having to drive the 9 miles back home for it). She even had me go ahead and print up pictures of the family for both the boys because they are each in a new class at daycare (MLI is in pre-k now) and their teachers wanted a picture from each child.

But things rarely go as one plans, and so it was as CareerMom dropped off MLE on Monday morning before she left that she found out the teacher had changed the “picture” request into a “poster” request.

A Poster huh?

That would mean like, crafty crap right? Yeah, um…I’m not really good at crafty crap.

Now, you could ping my mom, or any of my brothers or sisters and they would be able to help out with crafty crap, but not me. I have zero artistic ability, and even less creativity.

That said though, if you give me colors, I can match them. I’m even good at decorating, but don’t ask me to actually MAKE anything.

But, since it was up to me and the boys, I was determined to come up with something that wouldn’t make MLE look like he had the worst, uncaring parents in the world; so here’s what I came up with:

Craft Project 002

Now, as bad as it is, it’s not as crooked as it looks here. That’s just an illusion of the camera. You may be able to click on it and get a larger version.

I’m truly not fishing for compliments here, because though I know it’s not great, for me, it’s actually pretty good. So, I’m not half-disappointed in myself.

And the boys sure didn’t care. I let them both get in on the paint-handprint thing…and then MLE stepped in the green paint and before I could stop him, it was all over the kitchen floor.

CareerMom will undoubtedly want to redo the thing when she returns, but my lil work of art will at least get a few days of life in MLE’s class.

Does that count as 15 minutes of fame?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Kids. You can’t take ’em anywhere!

chef ramsay We generally try and eat out at least once a week, more just so we can get out of the house at night rather than because of any desire to eat someone else’s cooking. And thanks to a co-worker having left me a coupon for a BOGO meal at a local seafood and chicken grillery (Boneheads), I was all up for a night of dining out!

We got there around 6:30 and I was surprised to see that the restaurant was packed with mature Americans; you know…not as young as us, but not as old as say, my parents. There really weren’t any young couples and I think we were the only ones with kids. But the boys were being good thus far so I wasn’t too concerned.

As I ordered, CareerMom took the boys and found a booth near the back of the restaurant, which afforded a little bit of running room in case MLE got antsy and needed to get out of his highchair before the rest of us were done eating.

I looked around to see what we’d have to contend with should one of the boys start being annoying and just to our immediate left was a couple of male “partners”, and in the booth immediately behind us was an older bunch talking politics. As I’m pretty sure they were democrats, I wasn’t too concerned about MLI getting rowdy and interrupting them, but just in case they had found their good sense and come over to the Red state side, I was prepared for immediate admonishment.

The food arrived and we divvied up the kids’ meal between the two. It was popcorn fish bites, corn on the cob, a choco-chip cookie and a juice box. Everyone was happy.

About five minutes into our meal, MLE started waving for something to drink. CareerMom handed him the juice box and with a mouth full of popcorn fish, he started slurping away.

First came a little cough.

Then a bigger cough.

Then his face started turning red.

Then he made a little gagging noise.

Then he started coughing some more and making louder gagging noises.

By this time, every table within a 10-yard radius was staring at us!

Now, MLE has this habit of puking whenever he starts coughing really bad, so I had pre-emptorily grabbed his bib and was holding it up in front of his face.

But the gagging continued!

Finally, CareerMom grabbed him and took off muttering, “I’m going to take him to the bathroom,” which was a well-planned mere eight feet away.

Sitting there, I realized the restaurant had gone silent. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even look around. I knew they were all looking. So I again did what I did at the pool the other night; I blamed the kid!

Making it look like a teaching moment, I told MLI who was still sitting there (in a loudish voice), “That’s what happens when you try and drink with your mouth full.”

With my head lowered towards my plate, I raised my eyes and took a peek around. Most everyone had gone back to their eating, so we had not apparently ruined anyone’s dinner. A couple of minutes later, CareerMom came back with MLE who had miraculously gotten past the choking episode without puking and we quickly finished off our meals and hurried out the door.

It just goes to show you that you can never rest with kids. Even when you’ve planned everything out to the nth degree, something will always happen. But I’ve found that few things can’t be fixed with a few wet wipes.

Thanks Costco!