What I've Learned So Far as a Stay at Home Dad

1. I have spent entirely too much time on my computer researching homeschooling and home activities. My kids have been on their own, peacefully doing what I did at their age. No school? Play!

2. The kitchen is never clean.

3. Always take your shower before the kids wake up.

4. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Buy them. Use them.

5. The vacuum is NOT magic. It sucks. Not as much as you’d think.

6. The “To Do” list is like my Christmas Wish List.

7. The perfect cure for too much whine is… well… some wine.

8. When all else fails, the TV is the perfect baby sitter. Like when you have to go to the bathroom. Make lunch. Or even just breathe for a moment.

9. How is it that I feel so busy… but nothing gets done? Again, the wine helps.

10. The cartoons I watched as a kid were TERRIBLE. The cartoons my parents watched were AWESOME. The cartoons made for my kids to watch are NAUSEATING. (Disclaimer: there are, of course, exceptions the rule. But I think you know what I’m talking about)

11. I miss working a job like I miss a stomach virus. Or a kick in the crotch. Or broken bones. Or being set on fire.

OK. I’ve never had a broken bone nor have I been set on fire. Honestly, those were the only two things I could think of as being a worse affliction to the time my family jewels were damaged in a contest between somebody else’s foot and my testicles. That was a bad bad day.

Today In Whine

Today’s Day in Whine

Today I took the girls bike riding. Never mind the time it took to figure out how to attach the bike rack to the hatch of a minivan. Never mind getting the girls properly dressed for riding bikes. Skirts and blouses… normally ok, riding bikes, not so much. Never mind getting them to potty before leaving. “I don’t hafta go!”

I got them to the bike trails. George Bush Park. There’s a handy parking area right off Hwy 6. We had to walk the bikes up over the earth dam. This happens also to be the Barker Reservoir. So, we pushed the bikes up the hill, then let the bikes drag us down the hill. It was hilarious watching Zoey try to control her bike.

“It keeps trying to get away!”

So we get to the bottom. I get both girls up on their bikes. Their heads are enormous in those helmets.

Grunt.

Groan.

Hunnnh!

*puff* *puff* *puff*

*sigh*

Ten minutes later the paved portion of our ride ends. There is a gravel trail that picks up from there. I chose this path because it has tree cover.

“The rocks are in the way!”

“It’s too hard!”

Sheesh, when I was 7 years old I not only learned to ride on gravel, but you couldn’t find me because I was on my bike somewhere in Wessington, SD. Which if you’ve been there is paved nearly entirely in gravel.

And it’s not like this was a construction entrance, it was paving gravel.

*sigh*.

Here’s my favorite. “I’m scared!”

So we walked back to the hill. Walked back up the hill and down the hill. Mounted the bikes back to the van and drove home.

I have in mind taking them back tomorrow… although, maybe I’ll find some trails that are nice even blacktop.

Nice and even.

A Lesson in Patience

For any of you (parents or not) that think children have no patience, I believe it is a matter of perspective.

I think many of you have heard the story of Einstein’s explanation of his theory of relativity. He tries to explain how Time is relative to the observer. I’ll retell it, if in brief.

He compared it to a young man having dinner with a beautiful woman. An hour felt like a mere moment. This versus the same young man sitting on a hot stove, where a mere moment felt like an hour.

My story is more like Me versus Pillsbury Toaster Strudels. Actually, it is me versus Pillsbury Toaster Strudels.

We’re up early, as usual, getting ready for school. I make the breakfasts and lunches. Sara chooses toaster strudels. Easy enough. Two in the toaster and *poof* breakfast.

Then there’s the icing. Those tiny little packets of tooth decaying evil.

She slowly extrudes a little design onto the pastry. This of course turns into a puddle. She squeezes it some more. Like her mother and that last bit of toothpaste, she finds the strength to push one more drop out.

Oh, she’s not done yet. She then proceeds to suck on the packet. A look of pure ecstasy on her face complete with her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

“Ahhhh…”

This all takes about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, all around her are the noises of the family preparing to leave. This includes constant reminders to: “Hurry up, Sara!”

Not to be deterred, she looks me square in eye… and begins the ritual on the second pastry. That’s right. She eats two.

Then I find that this isn’t so much a lesson to discover the Tiny Terror has patience, but that there are times when I don’t.

Pussycats

There's a closed down resteraunt on Hwy 6. We pass it twice a day. It was a crappy Italian place, then abandoned for years before somebody renovated. They painted it blue and opened a Mexican seafood place. It was open for about six months before closing.

As the weeks passed after closing Zoey started lamenting how we had never gone. I think she felt bad for them because she mentioned more than once that maybe they wouldn't have had to close if we went there to eat.

Although she does get quite a kick when some local "urban artist" tags the place. She thought the bulbous letters looked like ghosts.

She asked me, "Why don't they open a new resteraunt and call it 'Pussycats'?"

Hmmm. Ok, I gotta know where this is going.

"And what kind of resteraunt would Pussycats be?" I asked. " Will they serve cats for dinner?"

"No Daddy. It would be a resteraunt people can bring their cats to. They'd have their own spot at the table with a plate and food. I think they should call it Pussycats."

Now there's a niche market for you.

I'm Gross

I take the girls to school every morning. About once a week I find that I have been remiss in trimming my finger nails and take the opportunity afforded me at one of Houston’s infinite red lights to give myself a little trim.

One morning I’m tossing the clippings out the window and Zoey says:

“You’re littering.”

Now hold on a second….

I explain that finger nails are not litter. They turn to compost and eventually soil that is good for the environment. Unlike the soda bottles, red bull cans and various plastic bags we often see. I thought it was a nice save.

“Well. You shouldn’t do it anyway.” Indignant. Yeah, that’s what she was.

“Why?”

She proceeded to give a disjointed argument against the tossing of fingernails out the window for about 10 minutes. I really couldn’t make sense of it. Something about garbage and compost don’t belong on roads.

I responded with an intelligent and well thought out question.

“What?!”

“You shouldn’t do it.”

“Why, again?”

“It’s just gross.”

Ah. The point.

A Response to Charlie Sheen

I saw somewhere on the internet where Charlie Sheen said, “Shame on you,”.

And I thought, “Wha?”

I looked into it further (really, it took like 15 seconds; research using the internet is EASY) and here is what he actually is quoted as having said (see what I did there?):

“By the way, two wars are in an endless state of sorrow. Egypt's about burned to the ground. All you people care about is my bullshit... Pathetic. Shame, shame, shame.”

Wow.

First of all, he’s right. Shame on the press, the public, and us in general for paying his life any attention when weighed against the plight of those in need of freedom. Secondly, I’d like to say, it’s hard to ignore Charlie Sheen.

I grew up with movies about Vietnam. I grew up watching M*A*S*H. A-Team. Red Dawn. Chuck Norris! Van Dam. Us vs. Them. U.S.A. vs. Nazis, Commies, Drug Lords, and Evil Doers in every shape, size, sex, and breast size.

I daresay, we’ve been numbed by it all.

I was in high school for Gulf War 1. I was watching CNN when the second tower was hit. I participated in the evacuation of downtown Houston 30 minutes later.

I smiled and said hello at the National Guard soldier holding an empty M16 at the IAH airport. I muttered a thank you to the money changer in Sydney when he expressed his sincerities while I vacationed in Australia in 2001.

Left and right we all see on the news how life is hard around the world for freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy. It’s become and increasingly difficult problem to deal with as despots in those countries control how much I pay for gas at the pump. My balls are in there hands. So to speak.

Listen to the radio. Watch the news. Enjoy the fanatics on FOX or the cynics on CNN, you all see the same thing. Death. Mayhem. Oppression. Children dying.

Charlie, I’ve got news for you.

You’ve become a distraction. Many already know you’ve had your issues in the past. By now you’ve become a household name, you are more than just a TV show, you are a force. You might call it Tiger Blood or Adonis DNA; but I call it “Narcissism mixed with confidence.”

So, going forward, when I see your name immediately followed with “found with” or “arrested for” or especially “is looking for another goddess” I’ll probably stop and rubber neck for a few moments, shake my head, and move on.

Can't Wait for Summer

For nearly my entire life I have always loved winter. Even after we moved to Texas, where winter is terribly short, I loved winter. I loved the short days. Every day started early and ended early. Chilly nights, cold mornings, snug as a bug in a rug. Night time was good time. I loved the night sky and even memorized the winter constellations.

No pollen.

Then I started growing things. Grass. I have a yard. Two actually. A “front” yard and a “back” yard. Both have grass. The front yard pretty much goes ignored all year. It has plenty of sun. The neighbors water their yards so prodigiously it’s rare I’ve got to set out the water sprinkler.

The back yard, on the other hand, has become a bit of a project. I’m into my 4th year of gardening. I’ve managed to build 3 raised beds and a mound of odd compost. I’ve laid sod TWICE in as many years now and have only had moderate success. I’m already planning year 3 of sod… sodding.

Looks great until it rains for 10 days straight.

I realized, quite suddenly, just a few hours ago; not only do I have a tendency to use too many commas in a run-on sentence, but I was looking forward to Spring. I planted my garden. I spent hours weeding my lawn and cleaning the mulch beds. Which all, by the way, led to the mound of compost. And now I can’t wait for it all to GROW.

I checked my calendar and apparently I’m due for a midlife crisis. Average life span of an American male and all I’m right at MID. As in halfway there. As many years ahead as behind. Sports cars, booze, and all that “stuff”.

I have apparently bypassed that and have gone straight to “old fogey”. I want to see pretty flowers in my beds. I want to see tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and onions blooming.

I’m going to grow hops this year.

I’m impatient to see a green lawn and leaves on the trees. I actually hate that the medians on the roads have better looking yards than mine. Every day I come home my crepe myrtal looks accusingly at me, “what have you done to me!!?”

If my deed restrictions allowed it, I’d have chickens. In a coop. I do like eggs.

It’s only March 2, and I want things to grow.

And then there’s SUMMER!

All winter my girls have been pretending its summer. They dress-up in the bathing suits and pretend to swim.

They had even, at one point, turned the entire living room into a swimming pool. I had to walk around it. NO RUNNING!

So there it is. While there are plenty of things I hate about summer (110º for ten days straight, electric bills, sweat, sun burns… I could go on) I love happy children and growing things.