One Dad's Life

10 Ways to Act Like a Child

I think that one of the reasons we, as parents, get so frustrated with our kids at times is because we can't act like them and get away with it.  I suggest that perhaps one weekend, you "trade" places with the kids.  I think Dianne and I should do this with ours, so I'm working on my plan on how to behave.  Here's what I've got so far! Let me know what you think.

1. Empty the contents of my drawers and closets and put all the stuff in the living room and dining room, then decide I don't want to use any of that stuff, and turn the TV on. Watch mindless show on The Disney Channel.
2. Fill the tub with water, take a two hour bath, call for the kids NON-STOP, then leave the water and all my clothes in the bathroom.
3. Complain about what's for dinner, shred my food into tiny little pieces, claim I ate a LOT and I'm stuffed and ask if I can be done.  Five minutes later ask for desert.
4. Tear an 11"x17" piece of paper into tiny little pieces.  Abandon project.
5. Throw a fit the first time I hear the words "can you help me?"
6. Talk really LOUD all of the time!
7. Set something on fire.
8. Look for the perfect shirt to wear. Throw all the rejects into the laundry basket even though they've never been worn for more than 10 seconds. The next day, demand to know why one of the shirts I just threw in the wash isn't "clean", yet.
9. Make a "shake" out of ice cream, cinnamon, sugar, salt, broccoli, milk and ketchup. Cry when the kids won't drink it.
10. At the end of the day, when the kids are exhausted from us behaving like them, don't let them go to bed until they "fix" all the messes we caused during the day.

Now, it's just a matter of finding a weekend that isn't so overly jam packed with things to do, that we can actually afford to swap with the kids!

First Impressions

Yesterday was a snow day for my daughters Rebecca and Rachel.  Fortunately, there was a good, deep snow to actually play in and amazingly - THEY DID!  My wife snapped this picture of them playing in the white stuff.  Here are my first impressions:

1. Look at all that snow!
2. Snow angels! I love doing snow angels!
3. I wonder where Rachel (on the ground) got that snow suit?
4. I bet it would be cold trying to swim right now.
5. I wonder if Rebecca is going to help Rachel up, or if she originally pushed her over?
6. I think Rebecca is wearing my hat, with a head band added to it.
7. Why is Rebecca wearing my wife Dianne's boots?
8. Are those pajama pants? What is with these kids?
9. I wonder where the dog is? Don't eat the yellow snow!
10. Why is Rebecca only wearing ONE GLOVE!!!??? Isn't it cold out there?

Wordless Wednesday - Winter

Grant Trail, in South St. Louis County (Missouri).  Waiting for spring! Click on the photo for a slightly larger version.

Trees in my yard. I'm obsessed with taking pictures of them. This one was taken at night at a very high ISO (3200, I think) and the small amount of actual picture information dug out of the noise, layered, blurred, and merged back with the original.  In other words, I processed the living daylights out of it!

Sweet Dreams - The Pillow Quest

I have the perfect pillow!  Well, I did, actually.  I am told it is far past time to REPLACE the perfect pillow, which upsets me.

Pillows are critical for a good night's sleep, and many years ago, I found a pillow that was basically a fake feather pillow.  You could ball it up, like a feather pillow, you could form it like a feather pillow, and it offered perfect support, without the ridiculous spring-action of foam.  I don't like pillows that have a coefficient of elasticity sufficient enough to propel a coin dropped on it all the way to your ceiling!

A couple of weeks ago, there was a massive sale at the J.C. Penney home store, and we looked for new pillows.  I could not find a replacement like the one I have.  "I'll just stick with what I have", I told my wife.

"You can't", she said, "after this many years, it's literally full of entire cities of microscopic creatures that will try to eat you at night."

Really?  Wow.

So, naturally, I looked for a pillow. 

I remember having the real feather pillows when I was a kid, and liked them except for the allergic reaction I had to them.  Also, occasionally a feather would poke through and that HURT.  Still, my allergy situation has changed a LOT since college, so I was tempted to just get a real feather pillow, again, and try it out.  They had them at the store, they were relatively inexpensive, and they felt exactly like my fake feather pillow!

I was excited!

My wife said, "The problem is, they eventually smash totally flat."

"Flat?" 

"Flat!" she affirmed.

Flat isn't good.  I reluctantly passed.  Then, my wife found some memory foam pillows that seemed sort-of OK.  I tried one out.  I was right. It was sort-of OK.  It was also something like $300.00!  Well, I exaggerate, but it WAS maybe $75.00.  For that much money it better produce some pretty good dreams, I'll tell you!

Then she found some other pillows that we a little bit like that, but not so much money.  She claimed they were similar to my current pillow.  She was wrong, of course, but they seemed OK.  I tried one out. It was too flat.  There was a firmer model, which seemed better.  We bought two.

It turns out, they aren't quite right.  In fact, they are weird.  Sometimes, it feels like l'm laying on a basketball, were it doesn't really feel right, and props up my head at a weird angle.  If my feet were rocket engines, I would be at an ideal angle for the perfect bottle-rocket trajectory.  Except, I would crash through a plaster wall and end up in my kitchen.  I hope my rocket feet never go off!

Other times, the pillow seems just right.  I can't decide whether I like it or hate it.  I'm giving it a chance, though.  My wife, of course, just loves hers.  She could probably sleep on a squirrel.

I wish I was one of those people that could just sleep on any old piece of foam covered in cotton, but I'm not.  I think my search is still on.  I need to look up my old pillow and see if they are available anywhere.

It was perfect.

Dad Wins!!! (In the getting out of bed game)

My youngest daughter, while reluctant to get dressed in the morning, usually is the first one out of bed in the morning.  We know this, because of the fact that she usually is banging on our bed asking where are particular craft supply might be.  However, if she was up just a little too late, she sleeps in, of course.

Last night, we got in a bit late, but the kid STILL got out of bed early...then went to sleep on the couch.  Getting her up on mornings like this is usually....challenging.

Today, however, things went better than normal.

I, brilliantly I might add, thought of a harmless, yet humorous threat that might just do the trick.

Dad (that's me!): Rachel, it's time to get up for school!

Rachel: (no response)

D: You need to get up and get going!

R: (no response)

D: OK, well just so you know, I have instructed the Maggie (our dog) to lick your face on the count of ten.

R: (an eye opens, appraises the situation, closes again)

Maggie (the dog in question): (Ears shoot straight up at the mention of her name...makes some kind of Scooby-Doo sound)

D: OK, Maggie, I shall begin counting!

R: (no response)

M: (excited at the SECOND mention of her name in a short span, leaps out of bed)

D: Ten!

R: (no response)

M: (knowing from the enthusiastic tone of my voice that something is up, starts whining excitedly)

D: Nine!

R: (starting to think I'm serious opens her eyes)

D: Eight!

R: (eyes now open fully...starts making moves to get up)

D: Seven!

M: (has no idea what is going on, but knows it will be GREAT whatever it is, starts prancing)

R: (convinced it is serious, starts trying to get up)

D: Six!

M: (playing right along with my plan, begins prancing in earnest)

R: (now sitting up)

D: FIVE!

M: (just about doing back flips now)

R:  LET ME GET UP! I'M GETTING UP, SERIOUSLY!  STOP COUNTING!

D: FOUR!

M: (completely beside herself with glee!)

R: (leaps off the couch)

D:  I WON! I DID IT!!!!

M:  Bark!

Life is good!

Friday Photo - "I See You"

My niece with the binoculars she scored at "Incredible Pizza" over Christmas break.

Ten Tips For Better Living

Here are a couple of random tips to help you out today:

1. If you are boiling corn-on-the-cob, don't add salt to the water. It makes the corn tougher.  Add sugar instead, bring the corn up to boiling from room-temp, let boil for 1 minute, then turn off. Let the corn sit for 10 minutes. It will be AWESOME.
2. Running with scissors is bad, of course, but it's also dangerous to run with any other pointy object.  In fact, if you are carrying anything that is NOT a ball, you shouldn't be running.
3. Mow your lawn as high as possible for your grass type. Keeps the weeds down and the lawn green.
4. Your kids don't always know what you really want them to do, which is why it is so fun to make them guess!
5. Music is better in the dark.
6. Parks, Zoos, Botanical Gardens, etc. are just as great in the winter...plus fewer crowds!
7. If you pass on this blog address to everyone you know, Bill Gates will send you $245 per referral.  That's right, I've hijacked his "forward this email" campaign!
8. Wine doesn't automatically get better with age after a certain (short) point.  Really great wine just lasts longer.  Champagne is best when at the point when it's sold. Twenty percent of the wine in the grocery store shouldn't be drunk by anyone, the rest is at it's peak RIGHT NOW.
9. Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9....oops. Beatles flashback. Go listen to the "White" album today. You'll be glad you did. Rocky Raccoon is waiting.
10. It's not really that the stars in the heaven are uncountable, it's just that it's so easy to lose your place! Practice by counting the blades of grass in your lawn. Once you master that, try counting the grains of sand on a single sand-finished wall in your home.  Only after successfully completing this task should you try the stars, again.  Don't count shooting stars, they aren't really stars at all, and they'll distract you...thus throwing your count off.

I Miss Summer

We've had a couple of pretty good cold periods here in St. Louis lately.  This causing me to want to stop seeing this:

...and start seeing more of this:

To make things worse, we don't actually even have a fireplace. I had to "borrow" a friend's for this picture (taken last Friday).  The Lilly is all ours, though, from last summer!

Rebecca's Blond Moment - Let's call it #1 (just a hunch)

This was originally going to be a reply to my friend Sarah's post yesterday, but then I remembered I needed a post for today, so I'm totally stealing her idea. Here it is!

My oldest daughter, Rebecca, definitely has some of those "Blond Moments."  She's aware of them, and everything, so it's not like I am talking behind her back. Plus, she reads the blog;  so in many ways, I'm talking in front of her back!

Up until about a year or so ago, Rebecca for the most part didn't have any interest in computers or technology of any kind.  This changed rapidly when she got her own cell phone, and even more a few months ago when she got unlimited texting.

Now, all of a sudden, she is tech savvy. 

For her birthday this year, one of her gifts was a simple digital point and shoot camera.  Without any help from us at all, she managed to get the software installed on her computer and is downloading her pictures and posting them on all the various social networking sites she uses.  

I was so proud of her! Well, I was so proud of her until she encountered a little hurdle yesterday that left us BOTH perplexed...but for different reasons.

Two nights ago, she came running up to me in a near panic, with concern and grief practically OOZING out of her.

"Dad", she said, "Something is seriously wrong with my camera!"

A little concerned, since I selected the camera for her and would hate to have my selection proved to be BAD, I asked what the problem was.

"Well", she continued, "I was downloading my pictures and I ended up leaving the camera turned on and hooked up to the computer for a long time."

"So?" I asked.  I'm all about asking intelligent questions like this.

"The camera won't do anything now. IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!"

Relieved, I informed her that it just sounded like the batteries went dead.

"That's not it, Dad. Something else is wrong, too!"

She retrieved the camera from her computer, to illustrate the point.

"See!" she demanded, waving the camera around to emphasize its brokenness.

I looked at the camera and saw nothing out of the ordinary, other than clearly dead batteries.  I told her that it looked like any other camera with dead batteries.

"No!" she exclaimed, "look! The lens is still out, and hasn't closed up!"

"It's not going to retract the lens with dead batteries" I informed her.

She stared at me as if I was from Mars.

"The lens should just go in when it turns off, though!" She repeated.

"How can it do that if the batteries are dead?" I reasonably asked.  "It takes power to do that. No batteries means no power!"

She started at me a while longer, mouth agape, as if to determine what part of Mars I was from...or if what I was saying was some bad joke, then eventually left the room.  To be honest, I'm still not certain she believes me.

Just Get Dressed Already!

If there is a single phrase that is heard more than any other in our house, most mornings, it is "Get DRESSED!" My youngest, Rachel, has some secret complicated scheme that she uses for working out her priorities each morning.  I think there is a small flaw with her scheme, though.  I think she left out of her "system", accidentally I'm sure, the part where she actually gets her clothes on.

The "funniest" part of the whole routine is that somewhere along the line she has picked up the Stephen Covey mantra of "First things first!"

The problem is that she uses the phrase to back up HER plan of getting ready...the plan that doesn't involve getting dressed.  Example, we might find Rachel playing with paper dolls when she was supposed to be getting dressed. 

Dad: Rachel, you need to put the toys away, and get dressed! It's almost time to go to school!

Rachel: (said in a tone that indicates I should know better) Daaaaadddd, I need to eat before I get dressed!

Dad: (somewhat exasperated) But, you went to the attic, moved things out of your way, got out the paper dolls, and brought them downstairs! Now you are playing with them instead of eating.

Rachel: I'm setting up the dolls so they can eat breakfast!

Dad: Rachel, YOU should be eating breakfast...actually, you should be getting dressed (her distraction tactic almost worked!)...put the dolls down NOW, and do something!

I then leave the room, naively believing she may actually do what I want this time and return to find her STILL playing with the dolls!

Dad: (more exasperated) RACHEL!

Rachel: (jumps) What?!

Dad: Why are you still playing with the dolls?

Rachel: Daaaaadddd, They need to get dressed before they can eat! First things first!

Dad: Why don't you get dressed before you eat?

Rachel: (condescendingly) Dad, dolls are NOT real life!

Apparently the getting dressed thing is not for real life. Now I understand.  Notice her deftly including the "First things first" line.  Still don't know where she got the phrase, but I'm pretty sure she is TOTALLY misapplying it!

This exact scenario repeats itself perhaps two dozen times for any given morning.

Eventually, she'll change some article of clothing, which to her counts as dressing.

Mom: Rachel, get your shoes and socks on, we've GOT to go! The carpool will be waiting! YOU WILL BE LATE!

Rachel: (sitting at the previously clean table now buried shoulder high in craft supplies newly retrieved from their proper storage location) But Moooommmmm, I nead to finish making this pop-up story book, complete with elaborate machines made entirely of paper that wiz and whir and turn the pages for you!  I need to get it done NOW!  FIRST THINGS FIRST, MOM!

Mom: First, don't call me "but Mom", second, you certainly do NOT need to make this book!  We told you A MILLION TIMES THIS MORNING NOT TO GET ANYTHING OUT!  Put it away and GET DRESSED! THIS IS NOT A FIRST THING!

Rachel: (totally ignoring the previous plea) BUT MOM! I am making this for Grandma (or her teacher, or a friend, or other "important" person).

Mom: Just get dressed and out that door NOW!

Rachel:  WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

She's smart, this one. She is backing up her desire to construct a huge Rube Goldberg like craft invention before school with an altruistic purpose: giving it as a gift!

Eventually, after Dianne and I are both so frazzled that we each look like we just got up and stuck our tongues into electrical sockets, the kid is dressed and out the door to go for school.

If you are in the business of looking for miracles, look no further than this.