Tag Archives: fatherhood

Everybody’s talkin’ at me

Sunday was Big Man’s 4th birthday. That meant a Saturday trip to the store in preparation for the big event. This, in theory, would give me a chance to use the new coupon binder my wife had made for us. We are not extreme couponers by any means, but if stores mail you little pieces of paper that are worth money, you might as well use them.

In my head, I had planned out everything I needed to do in order to run a successful errand. The first step was to grab the coupon book on the way out. On my way to do that, I was interrupted. “You wanna drop this extra pizza off at Fran’s house on your way?” my wife asked. Why does my wife have an extra pizza? It’s a long story, but let’s just say she’s a natural redistributor of goods from areas of surplus to areas of demand.

I took the pizza. I left the coupon book. This happens to me often on my way out the door. As a man, I can think of only one thing at a time. That thing used to be sex, mostly, but as I’ve gotten old and domesticated, it has changed into things like coupons books. Family members see me going out as the time to make requests of me, new thoughts which drive the old thought, about why I was going, completely out of my mind.

I did make it to the store, but I paid full price.

coupon organizer

Our new coupon binder: handsome and useful – especially when you remember to take it to the store.

On Sunday morning, I went to pick up the birthday cake. I fled the house before anyone could make me lose my focus on cake.  At the store, I ran into a friend who’d bought Big Man an ice cream maker for his birthday. I volunteered to pick up the half & half and ice to make the ice cream. The ice was by the door, so I’d grab it on the way out.

I got the half & half, and a few other things my wife texted me to get, and headed for the checkout.  If I hadn’t passed the cake mix aisle I would have left without our cake. Good save, Duncan Hines! I got our cake and went through the checkout, only needing to pay for the bag of ice.

Apparently I had left my Don’t-Talk-To-Me face at home, which is odd because my wife says I wear it whenever I go out. I’ve been trying it on at home lately, but nobody respects it there. The young lady bagging the groceries saw our Paw Patrol cake and went off about her little nephew. Of course, when your Don’t-Talk-To-Me face fails, you have to be polite, even when it makes you forget to present your coupons, the ones you brought all the way to the store this time, to the cashier.

“My nephew this; my nephew that.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh, that’s nice.”

Needless to say, I had to go back to into the store for ice.

Big Man had a happy birthday, but I’m the one who aged.

The perfect birthday gift for a boy who loves tools and belts.

Kindergarten spring exhibit

It’s that season again. Spring parent-teacher conferences mean it’s time to get the official assessment of your Kindergartner’s progress since November, and more importantly, admire his artwork.

Kindergarten artwork is always instructive for gaining insight into the minds of five-year-olds. This piece tells of Buster’s limitless imagination, and rudimentary spelling.

rich man

Get ready to sell all your stuff. He’s in the market for everything.

It’s the Kindergarten equivalent of “If I won the lottery,” and just like everyone who’s ever won the lottery, our kindergartner would attempt to buy everything.  Lottery winnings have never succeeded in buying everything, and I doubt a pot of gold would either, but then I don’t have any better idea of the price of everything than he does, so maybe a pot of gold would just do it. I guess it would depend upon the size of the pot.

On the other hand, I’m glad he’s got an open-ended shopping list, because I’ve got lots of stuff lying around the house I’d like to sell him, starting with a playroom full of broken toys.

a sweet penalty

Two minutes in the penalty box never looked so sweet.

This holdover from Valentine’s Day seemed odd at first. It’s the only image of a hooking penalty I’ve ever seen captured in a heart cutout. Art critics could spend weeks speculating on the deeper meaning of this piece. The kid has never played hockey or even paid attention to a hockey game on TV. He doesn’t skate and he’s never touched a hockey stick that was taller than him and not made of plastic.

Looking at it from a hockey perspective is probably the incorrect view. At a basic level this is an image of one guy jabbing another guy with a stick. That’s something every five-year-old boy can relate to. I wouldn’t be surprised if the artist imagined the jabbee to be the jabber’s older brother. Therefore, he had it coming. What kindergartner wouldn’t admire a photo snapped at that moment of triumph when he whacked his brother with a stick? The only shame is that he couldn’t find a photo of a good, solid slashing penalty.

Oh well. There’s another whole year, and half of 1st grade, to find a more romantic, major penalty picture to put inside the next heart.

One man’s coffee . . .

The other night, Big Man saw me pouring hot water into a mug. “Are you making coffee?” He asked.

“No. I’m making tea.”

“Oh,” he said. “I want some coffee with strawberries in it.”

I made a face. “Strawberry coffee? That sounds horrible.”

“It sounds good,” he insisted.

“How do you know? You don’t even know what coffee tastes like.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How? You’ve never had coffee.”

“Yes I have.”

“When?”

“At Andrew’s house. His mom gave it to me.”

“No. She didn’t give you coffee.”

“Yes she did. We went out to play in the snow and then we came back in the house and she gave us coffee because we were cold.”

“She wouldn’t give little kids coffee.”

“She did. She gave all the kids coffee. She put it in cup just like that.” He pointed at my mug. “And we all drank coffee.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. With marshmallows on top.”

Swiss miss coffee

We don’t have any, but some of the fancy preschoolers have coffee that comes with the marshmallows already in it.

The sledding hills have changed but the cold feet are the same

When I was a kid, we used to sled down the big hill behind the barn. There were two runs, neither of them safe by today’s standards. The front run was straight and long. A barbed wire fence ran across the bottom of it. The side run was shorter, but steeper than the front run. At its bottom was a six-foot drop into a creek bed. Along the edges of both runs were thorny bushes and, here and there, a small tree. It was great.

Nobody got killed, although there was at least one snow suit torn by barbed wire. The worst injury I remember was when I ran my sled into the prickers and scratched my cornea. I had to wear a patch over my eye for three days. It wasn’t even a cool pirate patch – just some cotton taped over my eye.

If it sounds like I’m just blowing hard about how tough a kid I was, I’m not. I was so shaken by the idea of wearing cotton taped over my eye for three days, I fainted right there in the doctor’s office. This was the first time a doctor made me swoon. It wouldn’t be the last.

My children don’t sled as much as I did. We don’t have cow pastures with big hills in them. We have to drive to a hill. Mommy is not on good terms with winter and I don’t enjoy being cold nearly as much as I used to, so sledding isn’t common.

I feel guilty about this, so sometimes I put on my thermal skivvies and take the boys out. We go to a park with a big hill. Devoid of barbed wire, tree stumps, and watercourse embankments, the hill is safe by 21st century standards. This is a good thing; emergency room waits are much longer than the wait for our old family doctor used to be.

The most dangerous part of our modern, suburban sledding is getting up the hill with all the other park-going kids chomping at the bit to slide down. It’s kind of like outdoor bowling.

Big Brother headed for the steepest part of the hill, but the little boys wanted to take the path less traveled. This was gentle slope with deeper snow, where sometimes gravity alone was not enough to get them down the hill. My job became to push them down the hill and then pull them back up.

the power behind the sled

This fancy sled comes with a 1-Kidpower outboard motor.

Eventually they got brave enough to try a spot where I only had to pull them back up. This was major breakthrough for my sledding longevity. I even got to ride the sled down with them once.

One thing that hasn’t changed is feet still get cold in the snow. When Buster’s feet got cold, it began the 20-minute process of collecting all our people and sleds at the bottom of the hill. It’s hard when your feet hurt but you still want to play in the snow. I remember that every bit as well as the eye patch.