Tag Archives: parenting

There are presents inside this blog post

Since Christmas is right around the corner, regular readers may be tuning in expecting to find pictures of the boys putting up the tree and otherwise preparing themselves for an onslaught of joy.

Well, no.

Don’t get me wrong; we put up the tree and we are girding our loins for the wave of unbridled glee, and the boys will be getting their fair share of presents on the 25th. But, I’ve decided to make this post include a present for you (well, two of you, anyway.)

Through December 27, I’m running an Amazon Giveaway of my latest book. It’s the first time I’ve ever done an Amazon Giveaway, so bear with me as I learn the process. The bottom line is this: two winners will get a copy of this book shipped to them from Amazon.com absolutely free.

That’s right: FREE! I’ve already paid for the books and shipping from Amazon.

For a chance to win a book, just follow these easy steps:*

  1. Click the book cover or link below to go to the Giveaway.
  2. Sign into your Amazon.com account (if not already signed in).
  3. Click the button that says “Enter.”

That’s it! You’re entered.

Housefly

Blurb:

Anders sacrificed his own promising future to save the life of child. Now he must decide whether to cling to the unlikely hope of regaining his old status, or spend his time making the most of the life fate dealt him. Though difficult to let go of rewards once promised, perhaps the greatest rewards are those earned by building new hope from the bits and pieces of wrecked dreams. A Housefly in Autumn is a historical novel intended for Young Adults and up.

Giveaway link: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/a357b4fdf7d1b012

After December 27, Amazon will draw two random winners from the pool of entrants and ship the books directly to them.

Here’s the really cool part. I’ve made the Giveaway private, so only people who follow the link can enter. Since I’d like visitors to my blog to have a good chance to win, this is the only place I’m posting the link. You can share the link, or this entire post, or keep it to yourself. That’s up to you.

*The not so really cool part is that according Amazon’s rules, this Giveaway is limited to U.S. entrants. I apologize to my international friends. I would love to be able to include everyone, but apparently Amazon.com doesn’t cover the globe quite like Santa does.

Merry Christmas and good luck.

Now, if you really just wanted to see a picture of us putting up the tree, I’ve got you covered too.

Happy Holidays!

We let Daddy live in our house

When Daddy is not sleeping in the bed, Mommy sometimes lets the little people sneak in and cuddle up with her. Going back as far as Bambi, mommies seem to like to cuddle their babies. Daddies have a different take on it, since daddies are usually the ones who end up tumbling to the floor when the bed gets overcrowded. Also, daddies have targets painted over their kidneys, so little feet know exactly which spot to kick.

Due to Mommy’s generosity in these matters, and Daddy’s downright stinginess, childish minds color the parents’ room in a certain way. Daddy has a pillow; Mommy has a bed. Daddy has a little area of closet space; Mommy has a bedroom.

This domain belongs to Mommy. It’s her realm. Daddy would be nothing more than a sleepy vagabond if Mommy didn’t let him stay in her room until he finds his own keep. And it sure is taking him a long time to stand on his own two feet when it comes to lying down.

Daddy is just more competition for the warmest, softest, safest sleeping spot in the house.

One fell out and bumped his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said:
“No more daddies sleeping in the bed.”

And then you get a three-year-old who thinks he’s a comedian making a shtick of the issue:

Yesterday, Big Man had a long nap, so he was not ready to go to bed at the same time as his older brothers. When Daddy’s bed time came, Mommy was asleep on the couch, but Big Man was still awake. I prefer for him to sleep in his own bed, but since he seemed too wired for that I gave him a choice. “You can go to your bed or you can sleep on the sofa in my room.”

“You don’t even have a room,” he replied, the huge grin on his face betraying how funny he thought he was.

“You can sleep in your own bed then.”

Out of necessity, he conceded I had some kind of mysterious special right to Mommy’s room, having been the priority squatter there. He came upstairs to the sofa.

As I was putting a blanket on him, he pointed to the bed. “I wanna sleep in the bed,” he said.

“No, not in my bed.”

“No. In Mommy’s bed,” he giggled.

I shook a finger at him. “Okay, Smartypants, you stay put and go to sleep. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to brush my teeth.”

The mirth in his voice followed me as he asked, “In Mommy’s bathroom?”

That time we ate Big Bird’s cousin

When we eat restaurant food, we usually end up with pizza, burgers, or chicken strips. My wife and I don’t prefer these choices, but we don’t whine about having to eat pizza, burgers, or chicken strips as much as the boys whine about having to eat something that’s not pizza, burgers, or chicken strips. It’s easier to just choke down another burger in peace.

Occasionally, the parents set their hearts on Chinese food. This is a problem on two fronts. First, we don’t know how to get good Chinese in our town. Every place we once liked has gone downhill. My wife’s standing explanation for this is that the owners retired and their children took over, and, as we all know, children have a knack for ruining things.

The second front is our own children. Big Brother will tell us he doesn’t want Chinese food at least 14 times, though he ends up eating the part that looks most like a chicken strip. Buster will eat rice, if he cannot detect anything resembling a bean sprout, bit of egg, crispy noodle, meat or vegetable touching it. It’s quite a chore removing the shrimp and the fried from shrimp fried rice.

Big Man might eat all the dishes or none of them. Unless there’s crab rangoon. He likes crab rangoon.

The last time we got Chinese food, I ordered sesame chicken. Buster helped me eat the rice. Somehow I slipped a little sauce past his inspection and he decided he liked that too. But chicken, in that same sauce, was out of the question.

At last, I got him to taste one cubic millimeter of chicken. He made a face and spit it into the garbage. This was for show, to save face. A minute later, he asked for another bite of chicken. Soon, he and Big Brother were eating all my food.

When they were done, I explained to Buster: “Next time we’re ordering food, and you tell me you want that one kind of chicken, you know, that kind we had one time, the one you like, and I don’t know which kind of chicken you mean because there are lots of kinds of chicken, and you keep saying ‘That one kind, the kind I like,’ and get angry at me because I’m supposed to know what that means, remember, this is called sesame chicken.”

Big bird is a very popular and special character. His cousin is a very popular chef’s special.

“What chicken?”

“Sesame. Like Sesame Street, only it’s chicken.”

“Big Bird is a Sesame Street chicken. Did we just eat him?”

“It was a different sesame chicken. Probably just a cousin.”

I didn’t know if my advice would take; Buster has an artistic heart and he likes to keep his requests vague.

The next time we were deciding what to eat, he chimed in, “Chicken!”

Preparing to return to the status quo, I asked. “Nuggets or strips?”

“Sesame chicken!” loud and clear.

That’s progress. Now all he has to do is find a restaurant that hasn’t been ruined by the children.

 

Kindergarten artwork – middle child edition

By the initial Fourth Grade teacher conference you mostly know what you’ve got. In our case, it’s a good student who could be a very good student if he developed discipline or a work ethic. But we who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and since I don’t want to break my own windows or menace our good student with rocks, I’ll let Big Brother skate until I can show him a better example, or learn to revel in my own hypocrisy. Either way would work.

Kindergarten teacher conferences are harder to predict. The little diamonds are still in the rough. It’s too early to know what type of diamond/quartz/shiny shard of glass Buster will turn out to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to critique his Kindergarten artwork.

Let’s not name names.

This piece took my breath away. The sentiment was so sweet. The tear I was about to shed was choked by a revelation. He doesn’t know what “thankful for” means. He thinks it’s an alternate way to say “mad at.” I shook off this terrible notion. Of course he knows what it means. They would have talked about it in class. All the other kids are thankful for appropriate things; so is he. He’s truly thankful for his brother. What a charming boy!

Now there’s only one minor difficulty.

He has two brothers.

Did he mean to make it plural? Probably not. It’s strain enough being thankful for one brother. Being thankful for both is a bridge too far. No child should be held to that standard.

So which one?

We could show it to his brothers separately, like we do when we privately tell each of them, “You’re our favorite. Don’t tell your brothers.”

No. These kids are the worst at keeping secrets when you’re trying to divide and conquer them.

We’ll just pencil in an s at the end of brother before anybody sees it. That way, the only people who will have to wonder are his parents. We won’t puzzle over the mystery of the exalted brother too long. If we had a dog, neither sibling would have made the cut. I’m not sure how they’d fare against a hamster.

Portrait of the artist as a trick-or-treater.

Self-portraits always give good insight into the Kindergartener’s mind. I know this is a self-portrait because the subject is carrying Buster’s Halloween bag. The scabs on the knees offer secondary evidence. The letters may indicate he is covering his knee wounds with International Olympic Committee Toilet Paper and he plans to shav[e] his legs. More likely he is following in the footsteps of Michelangelo, who, as every schoolboy knows, liked to practice making his letters on the peripheries of his paintings.

I wish the top weren’t stuck behind the wall bracket. I like to see how kids depict their own hair. That’s disappointing, but it doesn’t detract from the significance of this masterpiece: whatever this kid’s strengths and weaknesses may turn out to be, he draws a killer jack-o-lantern.

We’ll always have that.

Click here for a flashback to the critique of Big Brother’s Kindergarten artwork.