Parenting

You’re welcome, parents.

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For my birthday I wanna maim and destroy, mom. Okay baby.
For my birthday, mom, I wanna maim and destroy. Okay, how about some cake too?

A message to my fellow bumbling parents: you are totally welcome.

I know. You were prepared to hate my guts when your kid brought home a brightly colored, hand-written thank you note from my kid. How dare she browbeat her child into saying thank you in writing, you thought. And top it all off with an adorable photo of all the boys at the party? The nerve.

Hold your scorn, people, as well as any unnecessary urge you might have to reciprocate the next time your kid receives a birthday gift from my kid. I am hereby releasing you from doing so, unless you would have done so anyway. My actions were not an effort to show you up in any way.

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Parenting

Stuff you should know

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pancakesYesterday, Mike showed me an article on “54 Things Everyone Should Know.”  On first glance I saw: you should know how to build a fire without matches, and you should know basic first aid. I was immediately stressed because my first aid card is out of date. And I’m not very good at building a fire with matches. Not even with those lighter-fluid soaked briquettes. Maybe if I wrap a stick of dynamite with kerosene-soaked tissue paper and take a blow-torch to it. Maybe.

I also worry because printing out articles like this could mean Mike is either on the brink of a mid-life crisis or worrying about whether we’re teaching the boys anything worthwhile – either one could mean a busy winter coming up.

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Parenting

Reason #7 Bajillion

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xboxJack preordered a game for his Xbox some time ago and has been ticking off the days until its arrival.

Our Amazon account is actually set up to deliver to Mike’s office, which ensures someone’s always available to sign for a delivery. Depending upon your perspective, this arrangement has additional upsides.

I do love the man for many reasons. He knows my coffee drink from Starbucks, he does laundry, and he’s always willing to more pressing matters aside in order to punk our children. Following is his latest work for your happy Tuesday:

teletubby

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Parenting

What will YOU be wearing for the Apocalypse?

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camp_combined
First day of camp…last day of camp. Five days. One shirt.

I just had to tell my child to change his clothes. He’s not wearing anything inappropriate for a Saturday afternoon of football-watching and Minecraft-playing, but I’m pretty sure he’s had on the same long-sleeved camouflage shirt and cargo pants since I yelled at him to put on something warmer or I wouldn’t let him go trick-or-treating.

Halloween was day before yesterday.

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Parenting

Seriously, there was never a ‘Timmy’…

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And I did not write this note
… and I did not write this note

A few years ago, I wrote an article about the merits of the Love and Logic™ parenting model. It seemed like such a tidy method: give kids a few rules to live by, be consistent in upholding those rules, and then be empathetic without saving their bacon when they  suffer the consequences of not following the rules.

For instance, instead of screeching for your eleven year-old to wear a coat to school, let him know it’s currently only five degrees warmer than the temperature at which he was crying like a baby on the ski slope just last winter. Tell him where the coat can be found, what time you’re leaving, and let him make his own choices. Then shove him in the car when it’s time for school even though he’s still in pajamas.

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Parenting

I didn’t realize that’s what Mark Twain meant

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twainLast weekend I spent a whole Saturday with a bunch of people who wanted to learn more about blogging. It was fun and inspiring if not ground-breakingly informative. Basically it reinforced what I already know but lack the discipline to do: publish shorter stuff.

I can do this one of two ways: I can edit the bejeebers out of something after the fact, or I can just write less in the first place. I prefer the editing option because I think I get better material to work with if I just open up the floodgates of my right brain and let it dump all its contents out and then go back and organize the mess.  Editing while engaged in the act of writing is like trying to pee just a little bit when you really have to go. Neither is particularly satisfying, nor very productive.

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Parenting

Jedi economics

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jediThis summer Jack started mowing lawns. Ours was his training ground for exactly forty minutes. He left a big swatch uncut down the middle of the grass and complained that our lawnmower was too heavy. I fired him.

He went over to my mom’s house and mowed her lawn. She overpaid him and gave him a snack afterward. I figured I’d keep mowing our lawn myself. I could keep my fifteen bucks and get a workout every week.

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Parenting

All this place probably needs is a Stick Up

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Doomed
Doomed

Once, early on in our marriage, I came home for lunch and there was a dirty glass on the counter with a note next to it:

“Dearest Wife,

“Might I gently suggest that your habit of drinking V-8 without rinsing out the vessel afterward might have a lot to do why so many of our glasses have taken on a permanent cloudy hue? If you could take care of this, it would be as good for the glass as it would be for our relationship.”

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Parenting

Another baby? No thanks. How about a koala?

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Not a real koala.
Not a real koala.

I was at a picnic last week holding a friend’s adorable one year-old grandbaby when someone said the thing someone always says when a woman of a certain age is caught holding someone else’s baby: “whoa oh, look out, she’s going want another one.”

Really? Can I just say on behalf of all women out there, just because someone has a (presumably) functioning uterus, and is somewhere between too tragically young and embarrassingly old to procreate does not mean she’s somehow spontaneously going to decide she needs to add the complication of a(nother) wiggly, smelly bundle of anxiety to her life.

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Parenting

Babs and the laundry

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laundry_blogJack asked yesterday if his friend could come over. Mike looked at me to see if we had plans that would conflict with such a visit and I shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “Nick can come by for a couple of hours.”

Jack hesitated.

“Okay, um, could you put on some pants?”

“Wait, what? These aren’t okay?”

I hadn’t even realized Mike wasn’t wearing pants. It wasn’t like he was running around in tightie-whities. He had on some nondescript black, athletic undershorts that could have been bike pants or running shorts. But Jack, sensitive to the fact he was having company, had honed in on his dad wandering around the house in his underwear.

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