Tag: parenting

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Watch Your Kids for Goodness’ Sake

There’s a time-proven method of getting over writer’s block, and that is to just start typing and see what goes from there. I’m doing that today because nothing of note happened since Mother’s day. I suppose I could go on about Mother’s day and all, but it too was fairly uneventful. I suppose I’ve always wondered about people who blog on a daily basis. How do they come up with that much material? OK, here’s my last couple of days in a nutshell for those that are interested:

  • Mother’s day came and went with no special events. We had my wife’s mom and dad over and I grilled sausage and chicken. There was cake, we shared wine and hugs. It was all good.
  • Our neighborhood pool opened this weekened. Oh, see it worked! Now I have something to complain about šŸ™‚

Moms…when you’re at the pool with your children, especially those of you with young children, other parents who are also there with their children and who are actually IN THE WATER playing with their own children, don’t want your children hanging all over them.

Our son met some kids at the neighborhood park over the summer. Two little girls and a boy. They were at the pool both times we were over the weekend. I, loving the pool, and wanting to get our 3-yr old used to the pool fairly quickly this summer, was in the water with him. This family’s oldest daughter (of 5 years) would not stop crowding us and trying to get into what we were doing. She’s a really cute little girl and I like her, but ENOUGH! And where’s your mommy little girl? Oh, there she is, sitting up beside the pool, fully dressed, yapping away with her friend, not in the least bit interested in what her kids are doing.

Yes, I get it that we have a lifeguard, but if you aren’t interested in watching your kids for safety’s sake, at least keep them out of other people’s hair.

It’s really funny watching kids around the ages of 3-6, and I don’t know if it’s always been this way or just our society has forced little girls to become extroverts, but the boys appear to be the well-behaved ones and the little girls are these noisy, bossy little things that want all the attention. Truthfully, I always wanted a boy and a girl, but I have two boys and quite frankly, I think it’ll be an easier road. We’ll see.

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Dad Blogs DIY Family

Digging Up Other People’s Memories

We have two rather large dogs, and like all dogs, they LOVE to chase critters, of which we have a-plenty. This means that when any sort of critter is spied and takes to ground, digging ensues. However, sometimes digging ensues even without an obvious critter hole. Such was the case when I peered over my balcony and spotted a fresh hole near one of my sprinkler heads.

Also flapping around in the breeze were two old polaroid pictures and what appeared to be the corner of some kind of box jutting out of the freshly-pawed earth. My curiosity piqued, I walked down the steps and crouched over the pictures. The were of a middle-aged woman, lovingly hugging her Golden Retriever…

Uh huh, now you know what the box contained right? Yep, the apparently cremated remains of one much-loved Golden, contained within a hard plastic box wrapped up in a plastic bag with matching Polaroids.

Part of me wanted to say, “Ick!” and throw it away. After all, the thing was only buried like two inches underground, and very close, I might add, to my sprinkler pipe. The other part of me that likes dogs and understands the owner’s intent, figures I should go bury the thing again.

For now, the box remains where I pulled it out of the ground. It seems pointless to bury it. After all, the previous owners will never know. But what if I don’t, and my basement becomes haunted by the ghost of a Golden Retriever? That would be too weird.

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Dad Blogs Life in these United States

Those oh-so generic Toyota Camrys

The Toyota Camry. You see them every day. They’ve been around for years, changing little more than the hood on the front and the trunk and taillights on the back. But despite their never-changing look, people continue to buy them. These people are all alike. They drive the same. They are the bane of my morning commute. Here’s what we know about the Toyota Camry:

  • Camrys continue to make the Top 10 Most Stolen Vehicle List
  • The Camry was the first non-domestic car to compete in NASCAR in recent years
  • It is THE most popular car in America

Now, here’s what I suspect about the Toyota Camry based on my own informal research study:

  • The most popular color is Gold
  • Drivers of Camrys really like their bumper stickers, vanity plates, and license plate frames
  • They all drive a two-lane stretch of road near me between the minutes of 6:48-6:54 a.m.
  • They all drive at least 5 mph less than the speed limit

There is a 4 mile stretch of 2-lane road that I travel on each morning going to work. The speed limit is 35MPH the entire way, and the middle of it includes a very steep valley, which, if you don’t build up enough speed, requires you to hit your passing gear to climb out of if you’re not going fast enough already. Each morning, despite varying my departure time by a few minutes in either direction, I inevitably get behind a Gold Toyota Camry. I have identified at least three different ones. My method of differentiation determination is as follows:

  • They appear at various stretches of the road. Two at the very beginning, on about 1/3 of the way through
  • They all have a different tag number (satisified?)

The interesting thing is, that despite their differences, they share some staggering driving similarities, mainly that of driving VERY slowly, and completely ignoring the rather large-grilled pickup truck on their tail urging them onward. And it’s not like they see me there and I upset them to the point that they obstinately refuse to speed up…they just don’t care. When I do inevitably pass them at the traffic light, they are middle-aged working women staring blankly off into space pondering Lord-knows-what–that hair appt. they need to make; what to put in the Crock-Pot tomorrow before leaving for work–I don’t know!

I’ve tried to avoid them, but I think they have hacked into the Sirius satellite orbiting the planet and have triangulated my location through my sattelite radio receiver and act accordingly in order to foil my attempts at a frustration-free drive in the morning.

Or…I could be just completely unlucky (and paranoid). YOU make the call!

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Dad Blogs

Emoticons – Is that What You Really Mean?

In the age of the computer, no college ā€œCommunicationsā€ class would be complete without a lesson in e-mail etiquette. Here, youngsters learn things like:

  • Donā€™t type IN ALL CAPS unless you want the reader to think you are yelling
  • Be concise, because nobody wants to read your rambling comments
  • Donā€™t over-use the high-priority flag
  • Only Reply-to-all when itā€™s really relevant
  • Tone can easily be misunderstood in e-mail, so be sure and make your intentions known

The list goes on. For the most part, etiquette is followed by those that live and die by the Inbox, but thereā€™s one area of e-mail etiquette that is less covered, despite being possibly the most pernicious.

Emoticons ā€“ Those seemingly innocent little text-to-character symbols that one can use to display a variety of emotions. Emoticons are strings of characters, usually from 2 to 5, one can use to create pictures. In fact, one popular e-mail client can interpret several emoticon characters and display an actual picture.

Some popular emoticons include:

  • the wink: šŸ˜‰
  • brite-eyes *Āæ*
  • very sad :<
  • kissing :-*

You get the picture (pun intended). The use of 99% of emoticons is relatively innocuous; you get the actual intent of the writer. However, arguably the most popular emoticon–the smiley face–is being used more and more as a way of ā€œsofteningā€ the blow of something someone said.

Recently, in a perfectly innocent e-mail to a counterpart in a certain frozen pseudo-United States country to the north, I made reference to another personā€™s job. In her reply, my original recipient rambled on and in her last sentence, left the following barb:

ā€œOh and by the way, itā€™s MY job to castrate new employees. :)”

OK, thatā€™s not really what she said, but itā€™s very close and she followed with a little happy face. If I were one to jump to conclusions (and I am), I would read that to say,

“Look a**hole, donā€™t say thatā€™s her job when itā€™s really mine! Just because we
acquired your little company doesnā€™t mean you get to continue running your
little show down there.ā€

ā€¦which of course pissed me off! Granted, there are situations where the usage of the smiley is obvious, as in:

  • that mini you have on today really makes your ankles look nice šŸ™‚
    and
  • I got a raise šŸ™‚

Thereā€™s no mistaking the intent here.

So I got to thinking about the inclusion of the happy face and how she used it as a way to ā€œmake niceā€ without really changing the underlying vitriol in her message, and I wondered what it would be like in real-life, face-to-face situations to be able to use a smiley. Upon reflection, I realized that it already happens!

  • “No sir Mr. Smith, vasectomies donā€™t hurt at all. In a day or two, youā€™ll be riding your motorcycle through the countryside” (BIG SMILE)
  • “Donā€™t look at this as a demotion. Weā€™ve really just changed the focus of your responsibilities to more closely align with our business goals.” (BIG GRIN)

In summation, e-mail is just following real-life. But that doesnā€™t mean you donā€™t still want to just reach out and smack that stupid grin off their faceā€¦