My Aiken back

It’s not a good sign when, two minutes into a two-hour nature hike, you are wondering if you will, in fact, be able to walk another step.
I was taking my daughter’s Brownie troop on a walk in the woods. The girls were heading down a steep path, and I decided to get ahead of them so I could help them down toward the bottom. I darted between a few trees and jumped the last five feet or so. The moment I landed, two things went through my mind:
1. Ouch.
2. You are with a Brownie troop. Just stick with saying “Ouch.”
A wretched pain shot up through my back and neck. Had I been at home, I would have probably just dropped down right then and called for my wife, who would have found me hours later in the backyard. But I was not about to be the first one to drop on a Brownie hike.
Straightening up as best I could, I got to the bottom of the hill and helped them down the hill. I was hoping that the back pain was a temporary thing and it would work itself out over the walk. I should have also wished for the ability to fly because that wish would have had the same success.
As we walked, it got worse. The pain was more and more, and it was starting to restrict my movement. Someone would call for me to look at something, and rather than being able to turn my head, I would have to swivel like Robocop to face someone. It was also a joy when I was turning over logs to look for critters or trying to look up to show the girls birds or trees.
After about a half hour, I just decided that I was going to block out the pain and soldier on. I was going to refuse to acknowledge the discomfort and have the best nature walk ever. The pain disagreed and told me I would, in fact, acknowledge it, and it was going to enjoy the nature walk, feasting on my delicious discomfort.
We eventually made it through the walk, and I think I was able to do it without complaining. When we started home, I called my wife and told her what had happened. “Oh, no...” she said.
I would like to think that it was an “Oh, no, my poor husband is hurting.” I think the more realistic one was “Oh, no, I have a giant baby coming home who will let me know that this is the single worst pain any human has ever endured.”
When I got home, I went straight upstairs to lie down. This did not make my back feel better, so I tried complaining to see if that would help. Also not helpful.
I made it through the day without much relief on the back. When I went to bed that night, I figured a nice night’s sleep would be all I needed to take care of it. Turns out, when your back is making you contort like Quasimodo, it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep. I woke up the next morning and guess I forgot about the pain because I made the unforgivable mistake of trying to step out of bed. My wife has assured me that there are better ways to wake her up than with a shriek of pain.
My wife told me that I needed to take some medicine and get back in bed. I told her I wasn’t sleepy. She told me the medicine would take care of that.
Prior to doing that, I told her I wanted some time to see if it would work itself out. Plus, Allie was singing in church that morning, so I felt I needed to be there. Fast forward to halfway through the service. The pain had gotten to the point where I could hardly stand up, and my wife was having to help me up. When I was sitting, I was leaned over, angling my head the only way I could to keep the pain level somewhere between sheer and excruciating.
Eventually, I made it home, trying my best to appear as normal as possible. My wife got me set up with some medicine and a heating pad. Truth be told, I was in so much discomfort, I hardly remember climbing into bed. All I know is I turned on the television and saw that an Indiana Jones marathon was about to start. I remember the start of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” When I woke up, it was the end of “Temple of Doom.”
When I awoke, I sat there for a minute doing a pain inventory. Didn’t really hurt. I started to sit up. No girlish shrieks coming from my mouth. Looked left. My head moved. Looked right. Moved that way, too. Wow, this was heading back into almost-human area.
While I still had a little stiffness and discomfort, it was miles away from what it was. After a couple of days, I was pretty much completely healed. It was far from fun, but at least I know that I am at least as tough as a Brownie.

Agree to disagree

It was time for another talk. My kids and I have these talks a lot. They’re both very good kids, but being the wise, sage dad I am, I feel it necessary to impart my wisdom. My wife, being the wise, sage mom she is, rolls her eyes and sends the very clear message, “Kids, let him go. It makes him feel important.”
We’ve had a lot of talks. Some are about how to treat other people. (“It doesn’t matter if it’s funny, some people DON’T like wet willies. Especially that police officer.”)
Sometimes it’s about how we act in public. (“Pants. On. Now.”)
Sometimes it’s just about the little philosophical things in life. (“Oh, because unmade beds make all of your teeth fall out.”)
This talk was more about sibling relationships. In a tender and gentle voice, I said, “CAN YOU TWO PLEASE AGREE ABOUT SOMETHING!?!?!?”
Allie said yes. Parker? Nope.
They are at the stage where disagreement is a sort of sport. Among some of the disagreements of late:
– I decided to treat them to lunch out last Saturday. I asked where they wanted to go. “McDonald’s!!!” Parker said. “Chick-fil-A!!!!” Allie countered.
– We were making breakfast the other morning. Allie: Waffles! Parker: Pancakes!
– I told them they could go play outside for a little bit before bedtime but had to pick the front or back yard. Allie said front. So Parker picked back.
I was not going to be able to convince the sides to come together, so I simply made a neutral ruling, in the above instances: Burger King; cereal; on the roof.
I know siblings are going to disagree on occasion. It happens. I have three older sisters. We certainly didn’t agree on... well, anything. I shifted my life lesson to thoughts on compromise. And here’s where Allie had the big issue.
ALLIE: Why do I always have to do what HE wants?
ME: You don’t.
ALLIE: Yes, I do.
ME: No, you don’t. But you’re the big sister, and sometimes you let your little brother have his way.
ALLIE: But he always gets his way.
ME: No, he doesn’t.
PARKER: Yes, I do.
ME: You’re not helping.
I see Allie’s point, and we work hard to make sure she’s not always conceding to the whims of Parker. There are plenty of times when we endure some hemming and hawing from Parker because of the catastrophic event of letting Allie pick out grape popsicles. Reasoning with him on that is always fun, too.
PARKER: I don’t WANT grape!
ME: Well, Allie gets to pick this time.
PARKER: It’s not FAIR!!!
ME: You’re right. You pick out a flav...
MY WIFE: HEY!
ME: My bad. Allie picks.
ALLIE: HA!
ME: You’re not helping.
There are other ways I am working to avoid disagreements. For example, if you offer only one decent alternative, they have no choice but to agree. For example, for dinner: “You can have hot dogs, a pile of dirt, or the insole of my tennis shoe.” Of course, Parker is a 5-year-old boy, so you have to be careful on daring him to a gross-off.
We tried for a little while to work on letting the kids compromise, but we quickly learned they had teamed up their disagreements to get more loot.
This became clear when we were debating on where to go dinner one night. Allie said O’Charley’s. Parker said Red Lobster. Allie then said, “OK, we can go to Red Lobster tonight, and just do O’Charley’s, say, tomorrow night.”
It didn’t take long to realize this was a devious little plot they had conjured up, so my wife and I are migrating to a more sensible approach: Don’t let a 5- and 7-year-old be involved in decisions:
– “You can play out front if you want to, but if you even look at the backyard, I give away your toys.
– “We’re going out to eat. You will know where when we get there. And if you complain, you go to time-out in the kitchen while we eat in peace.”
– “There is actually no difference in any popsicle, as it’s just sugary, gooey frozen yech, so just take whatever gross flavor it is and move on to something important, such as whether Spider-Man could beat up Strawberry Shortcake.”
Don’t get me wrong. My kids aren’t always at each other’s throats. They do get along most of the time. It’s just that sometimes siblings have differences of opinion. It’s the nature of being siblings. Granted, my sisters don’t agree with that, but what do they know?

Feeling squirrely

I call it the Murphy Effect — it’s when my wife initially turns her nose to an idea, but then slowly — often secretively — starts to warm to it.
It’s named after our dog Murphy, a dog we took care of after his owner passed away. “We are NOT getting another dog,” she told me, knowing what I was thinking. Later that evening, when she floated out a possible name that would suit him, as well as some Dachshund facts she had learned — just because she was curious — I knew Murphy had found a home.
The latest Murphy Effect is Skip, a baby flying squirrel found in a fallen tree. Skip was brought to us for Parker to see, you know, just to let him see what a flying squirrel is like. “We are NOT getting a flying squirrel,” my wife said. The kids were thoroughly in love with Skip, a name bestowed upon him that day by Parker. (His original choice, Squirrel, was vetoed by me.) The kids wanted to keep him. I wanted to keep him. My wife? Not so much.
But I knew it was a done deal when I getting ready to go bed. My wife was at the computer and casually mentioned, “You know, flying squirrels are really good pets...” Sold.
So we ended up keeping Skip, who we later found out was a girl, leading the kids to modify her name to Skipsina, which I guess is feminine enough so as not to give her a squirrel complex.
I know a lot of you are thinking that it’s weird to have a pet squirrel. But the truth of the matter is, squirrels are a lot like hamsters and guinea pigs and the like. In fact, they’re better, because when is the last time you put a hamster on your son’s shoulder and had it fly to you?
All of the research we did said that you really needed to bond with the squirrel. One way was to keep them in your shirt pocket when they are babies. Among the candidates for bonding:
Parker — the problem here was that Parker does not like the idea of the squirrel sitting in his pocket. He wants to pet her. And talk to her. And kind of help with whole flying thing.
Allie — the problem here was that she was OK with touching the squirrel or admiring it from afar, but she would rather have a pocketful of raw oysters than a wiggling squirrel.
My wife — the problem here is that while she was keen on the idea of a pet squirrel, toting it around for hours in your pocket? Not so much.
So I became Mama Squirrel. And Skip and I bonded quickly. She would jump to me and scurry about, usually making a beeline for my pocket. If I came downstairs with her near the dogs, she would leave my pocket and head to the top of my head. Apparently getting as far away from dogs is hard-wired.
We’ve now had her for a couple of weeks, and she is definitely developing a cool personality. She takes to me still, which is good, because it’s always fun to say to someone on the phone, “Hang on a sec — I gotta get my squirrel off my head.”
I have also started a nightly ritual of Flight School. I know she’s a flying squirrel and just kind of knows how to do it, but I want to be a good Mama and teach her right. (For what it’s worth, they don’t actually fly. They jump and then spread out flaps of skin on their sides, gliding to the target. I would like to craft her a tiny helicopter, too, just so she can show up the flying squirrels outside.)
Flight School consists of me taking Skip to various places and having her jump to me. We started Flight School with Parker’s shoulder. This worked on occasion, when we could get Parker to stand still. But telling a 5-year-old to stand still while an incredibly pettable squirrel is perched on his shoulder is comparable to putting a pork chop in a dog’s mouth and telling him to chill for a bit. I have moved Flight School to various places around the house, such as on the mantel. I will put Skip there, stand a few feet away, make a clicking noise, and wait for her to jump. And wait. And wait. And then realize she is far more interested in eating the candle that is there. So I try a different spot. Eventually, I get her undivided attention, and she crouches down, pumps a couple of times and launches. (Important lesson when conducting Flight School: Do not crouch to eye level. They will jump to your face. Had I had my mouth open one time, I would have possibly eaten Skip.)
Skip has also progressed beyond the pocket and loves to take laps around my shirt, often climbing inside of it. I have taken to wearing two shirts, as while she is a great little pet, even I would rather not have a squirrel climbing up my stomach and chest. The rest of the family is enjoying her, too, as she continues to progress with her flying. I am hoping that I can replicate what I have read on some websites, with people saying they can train their squirrels to fly across the room. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it would be only the most awesome thing ever to be, say, signing for a UPS package, make a few clicking noises, and have a squirrel come zipping to your shoulder.
So I guess Skip is a full-fledged member of the Gibbons household. She may not be the most conventional pet. But, hey, nobody ever said we were the most conventional family.

Ten spot

Ten years ago this Friday, I got yelled at for not being in the church on time. I blame the folks who allowed my groomsmen and me to have access to a ping-pong table.
Yes, my wife and I are celebrating our 10-year anniversary. Much has changed in 10 years. A decade ago, I didn’t know how to change a diaper. I didn’t know that minivans were the greatest cars in the world. I didn’t know that it was a better idea NOT to stay out until 4 a.m.
Like anyone who celebrates their 10-year anniversary, we have changed over the years, hopefully for the better. Today, I figured I would share a few things about my wife and me that helped us reach 10 years.
1. First off, we have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s 10 years, because we actually dated for five years before we got married. My wife did the sensible thing and had me pass through a few phases of idiocy before we got married. She dated Fraternity Mike. She dated Fresh-Out-of-College Mike. She dated What Does He Want to Be When He Grows Up Mike. (For what it’s worth — a professional baseball player.) But five years of growth certainly did not hurt our chances at reaching the 10-year mark.
2. My wife does have a name. Someone pointed out a while back that I have never mentioned it in a column, but only referred to her as “my wife.” Her name is Jennifer, but I call her Jenn, as does her mother. Everyone else calls her Jen, which is clearly wrong, yet she will not even admit that. Her mother and I just sigh and shake our heads. She only calls me Michael. Well, that’s not ALL she calls me, but that’s the only actual, proper name she calls me.
3. I am very pleased with the progress my wife has made with animals. When we first met, she liked the following animals: newborn puppies. That is all. Since then, she has warmed up to big dogs and evil cats and snakes and turtles and flying squirrels and such. I think she finally came to the realization that the animals were going to keep on coming, and she might as well learn to, at the very least, not cringe when she sees them. (She’ll still take a pass on birds, however.)
4. She really means it when she says don’t get her anything for Valentine’s. Early on, we learned the key to a successful marriage: Don’t assume I can read minds. If you say, “Don’t get me a card” guess what — I’m not getting you a card. And for everyone who is fighting back the urge to say. “Oh, she SAYS that...” I assure you — she means that.
5. But, you’re saying, not wanting to leave No. 4, what about a 10-year anniversary gift? Well, first off, the traditional gift is tin or aluminum. Nothing says “I love you” like Reynolds Wrap. Second, I have a little confession — she handles all of the finances in the house. I used to, but apparently companies want you to send them checks EVERY month. I found it a hassle. My wife took over the finances, and in about 10 minutes had the vast majority of our bills online and automated. Granted, it’s not like I don’t have a checkbook, but it’s not really romantic or surprising to say, “Honey, I’d like buy you something extra special — which account should I write it out of?”
6. It’s nice to be at a stage when you can be honest with each other. If she asks me to pick between two shirts, I feel comfortable saying, “I really don’t care.” Rather than be offended, she will appreciate my candidness and say, “Seriously — pick one.” I will then offer my honest opinion (“The...blue one?”) and we move on. Similarly, she will offer suggestions to me, usually about how it was neat of me to spin around 1,000 times to the point of blind dizziness before picking out a shirt and tie, but how about I go with a different — and matching — combination.
With 10 years behind us, the natural thing for us to do is to look forward to the next 10 years and wonder what that will hold. On our 20th anniversary, our kids will be 17 and 15, so that is only slightly terrifying. Hopefully, the next 10 years will be rewarding, though, with more laughter than tears, more good times than bad. When we reach that milestone, I look forward to looking into my wife’s eyes and saying, “Can I have the checkbook? I want to buy you something special.”

What a chore

So it was Saturday morning, around 10. “Sit. Both of you,” I said to my kids. At that point, I proceeded to give a stirring lecture on teamwork, the need for all parts of a machine to function together, the integrated workings of a fine-tuned family unit. Blank stares.
Somewhat frustrated that they did not get my brilliant — and might I add inspiring — words, I summed up, “I’m making a chore list. You both get chores.”
Allie raised her hand. “But I don’t want to clean up any of Parker’s messes.” I explained that we all worked together, and sometimes we cleaned up messes we made. I reminded her that I clean her clothes, yet don’t recall wearing any of her dresses. “They wouldn’t fit you,” she replied, somehow thinking she justified not having to clean up Star Wars figures.
So I went to the computer and made up two lists — one had everyday chores, such as putting dishes in the sink or making beds or figuring out what magic force field had covered the clothes hamper, keeping dirty clothes at least six feet away from it. Then there was the one-time chore list — put bikes back in garage, remove all small, plastic animals from underneath couch, undress dog, etc. I would assign them some chores from each list, set them free, and then have them wake me in my hammock when they were done.
In short order, I was told this was an idea only slightly better than a mesh boat. My wife informed me of its key flaws: (1) it was not color-coded and (2) there was no exciting game that went with assigning chores. Apparently, the only way for a chore list to be effective is to mate “Let’s Make a Deal” with the terror threat level.
In no time, my wife had bunches of slips of papers — some had blue writing (daily chore), some had green (one-time chore), some had red (combat terrorism chore). Color fun!
And there were hats to draw them out of — a Santa hat for Allie and a Spiderman one for Parker. Exciting game! We decided to let the kids take turns choosing chores. Figuring I could rig this like a third-world election, I gently guided Parker’s hand into the hat, fully expecting him to draw out what was supposed to be something appropriate for a 5-year-old, such as gather newspapers or put toys in toy boxes or dive from the back of the couch into the laundry pile. Allie, meanwhile, would get — in my crooked election — things geared for a 7-year-old, such as folding towels or gathering up dishes or staring hypnotized at “Hannah Montana” despite the fact that I am four inches from her saying, “Allie. Allie. Allie. Allie. Allie.”
Well, let’s just say that if any of the presidential candidates are looking for me to “tweak” this year’s election, look elsewhere.
Parker’s first three picks: Help make lunches; dust; vacuum upstairs.
Translation: Be covered in peanut butter; climb the bookshelves; lose a toe.
Allie’s first three choices: Trash bags upstairs; books on shelf in Parker’s room; sweep
Translation: Pass; pass; sweep
Eventually, my wife and I managed to switch some chores around to more appropriate places (which, for the record, would have been easily accomplished by my admittedly plain but astoundingly effective original list). Surprisingly, the kids embraced their chores. They would grab a slip of paper and run off and do their chore, and then come back when they were done. They kinda turned it into a game, seeing who could finish things faster. (And if there is one thing that is certain, the faster a 5- and 7-year-old cleans, the more clean it will be.)
After only a short while, the lists were pretty much done, and the kids were amazed at how much they had accomplished in a short period of time. I began my speech on WHY they were so effective and ways that we would be able to reduce our chore load in the future by a constant and continual diligence — hey, where are you going! Hey, come back! Man, my kids did the same thing. Fine. I’ll stop lecturing on the finer points of cleaning.
Anyway, I’m glad to see they have embraced the team concept. They are old enough to be integral members of Team Clean. Plus, it’s color-coded and therefore fun!

Tent city

We may be a ways off from actual camping. But we’re getting closer.
My wife got me a nice, big dome tent for Christmas, which at first I thought was a not-so-subtle way of kicking me out, as my wife is quite fond of the outdoors, so long as she can view it from, at the very least, a screened-in patio.
Turns out she truly was thinking a camping adventure would be a good family outing. I told my wife that we should find a place in the North Georgia mountains...no, wait, Smokies, up in North Carolina...no, better — to the beach!!!
She gave me a condescending “Easy there, Sparky” look. “How about we take it for a test drive in the back yard first?”
Fine, whatever.
A couple weeks ago, the weather was warm enough to go ahead and get the tent out. I asked a friend of mine — an accomplished camper — how long it would take to set up the tent. “Probably 10 minutes,” he said. “For you? An hour, maybe.” Ringing endorsement.
I unpacked the tent and decided to enlist the help of my kids, which is kinda like asking squirrels to help. Actually, it would be like asking squirrels to help if the squirrels kept running off with critical pieces of the tent. I finally convinced them that (a) they could not take any parts away and (b) they needed to hold onto a corner and not move, or the tent would blow away and would eventually land on and crush a puppy or a pony or perhaps a litter of adorable kittens.
Turns out, the tent was a snap to set up, and only took about 10 minutes. (Take THAT, doubters!!!) It has a divider in the middle so that it can be broken into two rooms. Allie immediately claimed one room, leading Parker to immediately claim the same room. When Allie conceded that room to him and went to the other room, Parker immediately claimed the other room, too. Being the Solomon – like father I am, I gathered them both together and said, “Pick a room or I sell all of your toys.”
They ended up playing in the tent for hours. They had lunch out there. Allie brought some books out to read. Parker brought out a box of toy animals and set up a little zoo. Even when some rains came, I was pleased that it stayed dry inside, at least on the parts where the flaps were zipped. Where they weren’t zipped? Not so much. But easily cleaned up.
I left the tent up overnight and even offered the kids the chance to sleep in it. You would think I offered them a chance to sleep in a haunted house. The next morning, they were thrilled to see the tent was still up, as if tent bandits were going to creep into our back yard or something. They asked if they could have their breakfast out there, which was fine. Sprinting with their wholesome, well-balanced, Dad-approved breakfast of chocolate chip cookie dough Pop-Tarts, they sprinted through the drizzle to the tent. I sat and watched at the sheer joy and carefree happiness my kids had. I think some soft piano music played in the background.
They unzipped the flap and both turned on a dime. The sheer joy was now the look of sheer terror, and they sprinted back at double-time to the porch. I could only assume there was a crocodile or a homeless person or something. I flung open the door. “What’s wrong!?!?!?!”
“There’s....a....” Allie was trying to catch her breath.
“A what?”
“A....a....” she had to stop for a bite of Pop-Tart. Parker filled in. “A cat!”
Seriously? A cat? A cat? A regular cat? Not a tiger or a puma or Cat Stevens? A house cat? I went out to the tent and looked inside. Sure enough, a terrifying house cat that looked me right in the eye and said, “Meow.” It then walked over and rubbed against my leg while purring. The horror.
Eventually, I convinced them to head back to the tent (I think my words were, “It’s a cat, for crying out loud!”). When they were done, we packed it back up, which was pretty much as easy as putting it up. I have put the tent out one other time, again with relative ease. That time, there was no rain, but we found out that it could endure pretty substantial winds. That is, after you stake it down. Prior to that? Kind of a big, warped beach ball.
I am sure that we will need a few more test drives before we dive into the wild with the tent. Probably our first night will, in fact, be in the back yard. I would love to head out into the mountains and rough it for a few days, but let’s be honest — the woods aren’t always safe. Think of how many cats could be there.

Come on in. The water's fine

My daughter decided that pool season has begun. I have decided she’s nuts.
It happened last weekend, when I was working in the backyard. Allie and Parker asked if they could come into the pool area with me and help. By “help,” they mean, “Constantly have Daddy say, ‘I am serious – do NOT do that or I will back a dump truck up and fill the pool in.’” Normally, the offenses at the pool are:
1. Running. I am still waiting to find out what age children develop a speed other than “sprint” and “asleep.”
2. Playing with the cleaning supplies. A 10-foot net in the hands of someone 4 feet tall is begging for someone to get smacked in the head.
3. Digging things out of the pool filter and throwing them at your sibling. Not surprisingly, these usually are thrown by a brother at a sister.
So they were “helping” when Allie asked if they could get in. I told them they could stand on the steps. The pool water was 62 degrees, so I figured this would not last long. Allie stepped on the first step, and then the second step. “Feels good!” she remarked. Her brother then followed her to the second step. I probably should have suggested he pull up his blue jeans. He didn’t seem to care.
I told them it was time to get out, and they both protested the point, saying the water felt just perfect. Bluff calling time – “OK,” I said. “If it feels so good, go get your swimsuits on.”
I figured that would nip it in the bud. I now figure I am a dolt for figuring that.
With shrieks of excitement, they began sprinting to the house, ready to go. “NO RUNNING!!!” I said to no one in particular, since they were already well inside.
(Oh, quick answer to your probable question -- of course my wife was not home. Do you think we’d have even made it to the steps if the voice of reason were there?)
In a few minutes, Allie came downstairs wearing her swimsuit. Parker came down wearing his birthday suit, since he could not find his swimsuit. Probably not the best choice. After a few minutes, I found a swimsuit for him, a hand-me-down from a friend that should fit him perfectly when he’s about 22.
We got out to the pool, and I bet the kids they wouldn’t stay in for more than 30 seconds. Allie said 30 seconds would be no problem. Parker said, “No! Forty hundred seconds!!!” Time isn’t his strong suit.
I told them I would count to three, and they both would jump in. When I got to three, Allie sprung off the side. Parker started to go, and then hesitated. “I don’t wanna go.” Forty hundred seconds, my eye.
Allie surfaced, and told me that the water felt GREATTTT! “Come on in!!!!” Yeah, right. She turned to Parker and told him that it was the best water EVER. For some reason, he believed her. He jumped in, went under water, and immediately broke the surface and began hurriedly swimming to the side. “IT’SCOLDIT’SCOLDIT’SCOLDIT’SCOLD.”
When he got out, his teeth were already chattering and he was shivering like crazy. I wrapped him in a towel and told him to head inside. “Allie, the water’s too cold. Come on out.”
She didn’t hear me, because she was busy doing somersaults and diving to the bottom and swimming around. I am fairly certain that she is part halibut.
I eventually got her attention, and we had this conversation:
ME: Allie, time to get out.
HER: Why?
ME: Because the water is freezing.
HER: It’s not 32. I checked the thermometer.
ME: Stupid science class.
Eventually, I convinced her that it was time to get out. She asked me for two more minutes, and I conceded, figuring surely the cold would catch up to her any second now. When two minutes were up, she reluctantly swam to the side and climbed out, throwing a towel on as if she had just climbed out of a hot tub.
Since that day, she has wanted to go swimming most every day. We have not yet been back in, mainly because the times when it would have been good for swimming have either been rainy or filled with roughly 5,000 events we were going to.
It’s good to know that her immunity to cold water will lengthen the season for the pool. I mean, most people are still a month or so away from swimming regularly. And that’s like, forty hundred days away.

It's Girl Scout cookie time

So, do I get a merit badge? It can be shaped like a cookie, since I successfully completed my stint as a Girl Scout cookie seller.
OK, before you get the image of me as a giant creepy Girl Scout, let me explain. My daughter, Allie, is in Brownies, and this was her first year selling Girl Scout cookies. And part of the way they make sure every citizen has at least 35 Girl Scout cookie-related encounters each day is to set up cookie selling tables around town. Strategic footholds in the war on sweet-deprivation, if you will.
I became involved because (a) I am a concerned and caring dad and (b) I accidentally volunteered for something before I knew the details. My wife and I had this conversation:
HER: Allie’s got cookie sales tomorrow, but I can’t do it.
ME: I can do it.
HER: You’ll sit with her for two hours at Wal-Mart while she sells Girl Scout cookies?
ME: It’s too late to turn this around, isn’t it?
HER: Yes.
She further solidified my tour of duty by screaming down the hall, “ALLIE — DADDY’S SELLING COOKIES WITH YOU TOMORROW!!!”
When it came time to go, my wife debriefed me on a few things:
1. Allie REALLY liked doing the money box. However, the other girl may also want a turn, so gently remind Allie that equal time is part of the deal.
2. This is an unpaid gig. Want a cookie? Buy a cookie.
3. It would not be necessary to loudly announce that I was here with my daughter. Safe bet that people could figure that out, much like when they see men holding a purse or buying feminine hygiene products at the store. Rarely is someone going to say, “Gee, Bill, who knew?” And if they do, Bill should consider different, more intelligent friends.
When we got to the store, Allie decided that she would spend an hour working the cash box, while the other girl stood out front and steered potential customers our way. After an hour, they would switch. My job, clearly, was to stay out of the way.
So I opted for people watching. I quickly began to separate the people coming and going into demographics. Some of the more noticeable:
— Those who have already bought Girl Scout cookies, and understandably explain, “I am sorry, but there are roughly 400 Girl Scouts in my neighborhood, and I am fairly sure I have about two acres of Samoas at home right now.”
— Those who are health conscious. Often, they will make derogatory comments about their own weight. At one point, I chimed in that the chocolate chip cookies were sugar free. The look I received told me that my comment was not needed.
— Those who were sent by central casting after asking for someone to play the role of “scary biker dude.” By far, these were the most likely to buy cookies. The bigger and burlier, the more likely they were to melt when a 7-year-old served up the sales pitch.
— Those who pretend that they have no peripheral vision and no hearing and must sprint past the ruthless gauntlet of terrifying Brownies, because goodness knows a polite “No, thank you” would really kill you. On the upside, should the Girl Scouts ever come out with a “Recognizing Social Misfits with no Sense of Common Courtesy” Merit Badge, they will qualify immediately. Fortunately, this was a very small demographic.
But the most common overriding theme was folks enjoying the nostalgia of Girl Scout cookies. They are delicious, and there is something about Girl Scout cookie time. When I was a kid, I knew it was time to see just how well my dad thought he could hide the Thin Mints in the freezer. (As if hiding them INSIDE a roadkill raccoon would stop us. Puh-leeze.)
For what it’s worth, my personal favorite are the Tagalongs, which made my tableside purchase of the chocolate chip cookies even more difficult. I only had enough cash in my pocket for one box, and I was all set to wolf down a row of Tagalongs myself. Allie then told me she wanted the chocolate chip cookies, and batted those big doe eyes at me. It was like kryptonite. I am glad she did not ask for a pony at that point.
In all, it was a fairly painless exhibit. I enjoyed getting to spend time with my daughter, watching her really become her own person. She’ll always be my little girl, but even at 7 I can see her growing up, right before my eyes. It just make me so... so... that does it – I’m getting her a pony right now.

Five-o

If you are trying to wake up your little one for school, and he's having a bit of a rough time getting up, there is one can't-miss thing you can say to get him up and going: "Dude - you're 5 today!"
And with that, Parker came to life. "I'm FIIIIIIIIVE!!!!" Great way to start the day.
Parker turned 5 on Monday, or St. Parker's Day, as it is known in my house. Parker was originally going to be named Patrick. Then, around 4:30 p.m. on March 17, 2003, as he took his first breath of air, my wife made an executive decision. "HIS ... NAME ... IS ... PARKER ..."
The doctor told her that we didn't have to name him right then. "PARKER. PARKER." Even though she was strapped to an operating table, we were not about to argue with her.
Parker is a happy kid, mainly because he finds joy in the little things in life.
Pile of laundry? Oh, that's good for diving in.
Banana? Also a sword.
Need to get somewhere in a hurry? Just yell "SUPER SPEED" and you will certainly run faster.
Although I am not always successful, I do try and keep my perspective by watching my kids and remembering what keeps them happy.
I wrote in a column a few years ago that the happiest I've ever seen Parker was when I walked into the kitchen and saw him sitting there, a bottle of pancake syrup turned up. "Drink syrup" has become the new "Lighten up - it's only life" in our household. Some other things I have learned from Parker:
- Some people miss the forest for the trees. Parker would argue you're missing the smaller things ON the trees. Go anywhere near a tree with Parker. He will stop and say, "Look - lichens." He loves finding lichens. Most of us never notice lichens. But start looking at trees you walk pass. Lichens are everywhere. And while you may not particularly care as much about lichens as Parker, keep in mind to look at the little things. And then look a little closer. You may find what you didn't even know you're looking for.
- When you're tired, go to sleep. Don't fight it. Just go get some rest. Granted, I don't suggest crawling under the table at Chili's and catching some shuteye if you are an adult, but you get the gist. Don't push yourself.
- Try every food you can. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it again. But you never know when you'll hit a homerun. Parker's favorite food in the world: Pickled herring. Seriously.
He and his Grandpa sit down and eat jars of it (with bagel chips, of course). When he was about 2, we asked the pediatrician if it was OK for him to eat pickled herring and onions. He stared back at us for a moment and then said, "I can honestly say no parent has ever asked me that before."
- When you find a friend, accept that he changes. For Parker's case, that would be Jonathan, a friend who we have never seen, as he is invisible to everyone but Parker.
But in his time, Jonathan has been a giant moth, a tiny little boy and a giant boy. Jonathan seems to be the reason for many of Parker's missteps. Parker normally takes care of this by assuring us that he has put Jonathan in time-out.
- Find simple solutions in life. We were having breakfast at Waffle House the other morning, and he noticed the basket full of eggs in their fridge.
Parker suggested that, rather than keep the eggs there, they should simply get a chicken to keep out back. I told him this would be a problem, as they were close to a busy road. Parker quickly said, "Daddy, they'd have to put a gate up." Duh.
- The best medicine is some ice and a Band-Aid. Parker has had his share of spills, tumbles, bumps and knocks. And when he does, we (a) get a bag of ice that he holds on the spot for roughly a half a second and (b) put a Band-Aid on it, even if it's a bruise. Ready for action.
- Circle the wagons and protect your own. Parker and his sister both subscribe to the tenet of "You can't do that to my family. Only I can do that to my family." Parker and Allie may scrap once in a while. But that's family business. They've got each other's back.
- You'll have plenty of time to wear shoes when you're an adult. Try as I might to keep shoes on him, he just needs the liberty of bare feet.
Even if I put the shoes on him, chances are I will find them in the yard later on. Just go with it, and accept that his nasty little feet will look like mud for most of his childhood.
- Find a puddle. Stomp in it. It is clearly good for the soul.
So as we embark on the next year, barreling toward kindergarten, I will try and keep my Parker perspective, and learn from the little guy about how to stay happy and hope you will do the same thing.
In short, drink syrup.

Fall into the Gap

My children learned one of the most important lessons a child will ever learn this weekend: Lob one snowball high in the air, and while the person follows the arch, peg ‘em with the second one.
My family was in the mountains for the weekend, and we were fortunate enough to have a snow that allowed for the family bonding experience of pelting one another with snowballs. We went to Windy Gap, a Young Life camp just north of Asheville. My wife went there often when she was in high school, and I was excited to get to experience it for myself.
Windy Gap is by far one of the most beautiful places I have seen, surrounded by mountains, its rolling green hills the perfect place to pick up your son and say, “Hey, Parker, ROLL!” and send him to the bottom in a Princess Bride-style tumble. (He liked it. His mother? Not as much.)
It started snowing around breakfast on Saturday morning. While there was not a big accumulation, it snowed most of the day and snowed enough for the requisite snow games. Among the weekend highlights:
– I sled down a hill much faster than Parker. We were both using Frisbees to slide down a big hill when I sent him on his way. I followed after him and found myself picking up speed and gaining on him. Quickly. As the gap got closer, I realized that sitting on a Frisbee, legs in the air, sliding sideways was not the best for steering. Parker saw me coming and fortunately bailed out in time not to become a bowling pin.
– Despite her protests, my wife has fun sledding down a hill on a Frisbee. With the racket she was making when she was being gently encouraged, you would have never thought it would be fun.
– My daughter is getting to the point where we embarrass her in public. She told my wife to stop dancing. I am fairly sure that some just-for-fun dancing pales in comparison to things I can do to embarrass her. Just so we are clear, I would never do something simply to embarrass my daughter. However, I will do something that embarrasses my daughter AND makes boys go away.
– Speaking of embarrassing, she seems to have NO problem getting on a stage with me as I – and four other dads – try to put a carrot in a milk jug. Did I mention that the carrot was dangling behind me, tied around my waist? Yes, the image in your head is as lovely as it sounds.
– I fear no ropes course. The Windy Gap ropes course is a series of wires about 30 feet in the air. You navigate each section while holding onto the cable above you. Toward the end of the course, I was perched on a tiny platform, looking down at the snow-covered rocks and the chilly creek below me. The ropes guide perched along with me told me that I needed to grab the zip line and just step off the platform. I had been fairly solid on the ropes course so far, but I had been in control of every step I took. There was no leap of faith. “Just step off?” “Just step off.” And so I stepped off. And, sure enough, I breezed through the trees into the awaiting cargo net. The ropes course concluded with a second leap of faith, where you have to jump to a trapeze bar that is stationed, by my estimate, 400 feet away. After successfully making the leap, I looked down at the tiny girl holding the other end of the rope. “So I just let go?” “Just let go.” Despite my concerns that someone not much bigger than my 7-year-old was in charge of me not plummeting to the ground, I let go, and she set me down with ease.
– Before you agree to letting your 4-year-old sleep on a top bunk, ask yourself, “Does my 4-year-old flip and spin and writhe in his sleep as if he were in a commercial clothes dryer? Does he often get up and walk around in the middle of the night?” If you answered yes to either of these, ask yourself a third question: “Why would I even CONSIDER offering him the top bunk?” This was one of those cases where I had to ask myself what I was thinking well before my wife could. Eventually, I convinced him to sleep on the bottom bunk, which was a good idea, considering his 3 a.m. quest to find me.
– I did not get to see the talent show on Saturday night (Parker crashed out at dinner, and it’s generally considered bad form to leave your sleeping kid in a mountain cabin and head on out). But the reviews are in, and word is “The Wild Girls” are the next big thing. Records execs, go ahead and cut me a check.
– My wife is constantly getting on to me about not paying attention when I am driving, which makes it all the more curious that, on a two-lane mountain road, she would shout, “LOOK AT THAT!! WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS!?!?!” The one time when I can’t look, and she’s encouraging it. On the ride back, we determined they were possibly alpacas.
All in all, it was a great family weekend, one that I hope we get to do again soon. I’ve got some killer dance moves to try out in front of my daughter.

The magic house

My house is possessed. Inanimate objects are coming to life.
That is the only possible explanation for why the dog's leash was not in the basket on the shelf.
That is the only possible explanation for why my daughter's bike helmet and scooter were not RIGHT where she left it.
That is the only possible explanation for why my son's shoes were not RIGHT where he left them.
Clearly, these things are coming to life and walking off to new and exciting places.
Let's start with the leash. Murphy the Excitable Dachshund is quite the adventurous dog. He is so adventurous that, should two children playing in the backyard manage to dislodge a fence slat, he will squeeze through and go exploring on the polo field behind our house. He usually doesn't travel far, and often seeks people who will either scratch or feed him. (I can't say I blame him. Good gig if you can get it.)
So when Murphy got out on the field, I headed out there and told the kids to grab his leash. When he gets in the open field and the kids start sprinting toward him, he sees this as a fantastically fun game and will embrace his chance to play chase. A leash is somewhat needed unless I want to carry him back.
I had him under my arm and was heading back as Parker came sprinting toward me carrying a thin black leash. We don't own a thin black leash.
As he got closer, I saw that what Parker was carrying was a luggage strap, which my wife had sent out after channeling her inner-MacGyver.
I got back inside, gave a "well-played" nod to my wife, and asked what happened to Murphy's leash. Silent shrugs from the kids.
ME: "I put it up in the basket."
THEM:
ME: "Did you get it out?"
THEM: "Uhhhh."
ME: "Where did you put it?"
THEM: "We didn't do anything with it."
ME: "So it just climbed out and left?"
THEM: "Yes."
So about five minutes later, I took the kids out front to ride their scooters. Allie could not find her helmet. "I left it RIGHT HERE!!!" she said, emphatically pointing toward a spot in the garage. Her scooter had apparently fled, too. Perhaps the helmet rode off on the scooter. A few minutes later, a neighbor called to Allie. Apparently, the scooter and helmet had made it all the way to the neighbor's yard where, surprise, Allie had been just a few hours prior. I guess it was visiting for old time's sake.
I asked Allie how the scooter got over there. Shrug.
ME: "Allie, do you think you maybe left it over there?"
ALLIE: "No, I don't think so."
ME: "Well, do you think it rolled over there?"
ALLIE: "Maybe. Or maybe Parker did it."
Lastly, the shoes. Parker's shoes often come to life and walk around the house. Odd that they never seem to do it after he's asleep. And the weirdest thing is how they will not stay together as a pair. I will find one shoe on the stairs and the other in the azalea bed.
Parker and I will often have this conversation:
ME: "Where are your shoes?"
PARKER:
ME: "Did they walk off?"
PARKER: "I think so."
ME: "Do you know WHERE they walked off to?"
PARKER: "My closet?"
ME: "No, that's where they SHOULD be."
PARKER: "I think Allie took them."
ME: "Lemme check the azaleas."
Now, Occam's razor tells us that a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old failed to put items back in their place or removed items to fashion them into something to be played with. However, maybe simple isn't the only thing to consider. Hey, anyone who has seen a "Toy Story" or "Child's Play" movie has at least had that one, fleeting moment where you are pretty sure that a doll just moved its head, and the thought, however ridiculous and brief, crept into your craw that maybe the doll had been playing with other toys when you were not looking. Or was about to go on a murderous rampage.
So I will work with my kids to get them in the habit of putting things back in their places, and keeping them there once they are home. In the meantime, if you see Murphy, just hang on to him for a jiffy. I have to find the leash.

I am not Edwin

Listen to me. And listen well. I. AM. NOT. EDWIN.
I keep telling them I’m not Edwin. But they keep calling. And calling. And calling. They call about the Acura. They call about an extended warranty. They call about Edwin’s inquiry into an online college. And they don’t believe me that I. AM. NOT. EDWIN.
The first few calls were simple inconveniences. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number,” I would say with Sunday school politeness.
Then it progressed to outright annoyance. “Seriously, this is not his number. Take it off your list.”
While the tendency to lash out grew, I tried to show restraint. The main reason is that I worked as a telemarketer for a brief time in college, and I assure you that the best way NOT to get off a telemarketer’s list is to curse, threaten, etc. Granted, this was before the Do Not Call List, so there was really nothing anyone could do. Dirty little secret: At the place I worked, the numbers of the nastiest callers were kept on a special list that was given to someone to call on his first day. It was an initiation of sorts. Not proud of it, folks. Just telling it like it is.
So I decided I would at least start having some fun with the calls. For example, I took one in the middle of the newsroom:
“Listen, I am not Edwin. I do not know Edwin. I do not have an Acura. I am not sure I have ever even BEEN in an Acura. I will be more than happy to put this call on speakerphone here in this newsroom and you can go around and ask every newspaper reporter sitting here if I am Edwin.” I took the “click” as a decline to be interviewed.
From this point forward, I am going to continue with the fun approach to the calls. I read a funny piece online (at woot.com) that suggested a way to deal with repeated errant calls is to suggest you meet up and show some picture IDs — driver’s license, concealed weapon permit, etc. However, that sounds a little more threatening in the real world, so maybe I could use one of the routes below:

CALLER: Is Edwin there?
ME: Yes, sort of. Listen, bro, I need your help. Do you know the best way to hide a body?
or
CALLER: Hello, Edwin?
ME: Will you marry me?
CALLER: Pardon?
ME: I, Edwin, am lonely. Be my wife. Even if you are a man. Doctors can change that. Let’s wed. Now.
or
CALLER: May I speak with Edwin?
ME: Is this some kind of joke?
CALLER: No, it’s not.
ME: YOU KNOW HE LOST HIS TONGUE IN THE MARGARITA BLENDER INCIDENT!!! EVERYONE KNOWS! IT WAS IN THE NEWS OF THE WEIRD!!!
or
CALLER: I’m calling for Edwin.
ME: No, I called you for Edwin.
or
CALLER: Edwin, please.
ME: In a minute. First, let’s figure out the difference between an emu and an ostrich. I have some guesses, but I want to hear your thoughts, particularly in terms of appropriate saddle size.
or
CALLER: Is Edwin there?
ME: Hard Target. Sudden Death. Bloodsport. Timecop — bear with me, I have a condition in which I have to name all Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicles before I can take any calls — Street Fighter. That “Friends” season finale...
or
CALLER: This call is for Edwin.
ME: Yeah, this is Edwin. I’ll take the extended warranty and, as for the Acura, I don’t think I plan on paying any more on it. You can try and come and take it. I dare ya’! Bring it on, sucker!

Hopefully, it won’t resort to this. Hopefully, the calls for Edwin will simply dry up as I slowly make my way off the various phone lists I have been glued to.
I have been fairly nice so far, so there is no reason to think vengeful telemarketers are out to get me. Perhaps there is a hint of honor among the horde. If not, at least I’ll have a nice emu-ostrich discussion.

Check yourself

As he strode up the driveway, I could tell that he was mad. My neighbor’s jaws were clenched tight. He had that slight twitch of a man who was clearly fighting to overcome the primal urge to bite someone. He pointed at me, shaking his finger and his head simultaneously. “You know what you need to write a column about?” he said through his gritting teeth.
I’ve heard that before. Oftentimes, the column topic is not exactly the type of thing I can write about (“Hey, guess who has a rare disease AND a mistress!!!”). But in this instance, he had a very good angle: “Shouldn’t you have to have a certain level IQ to use the self-checkout line at the grocery store?”
BRILLIANT!
I could not agree more. I love the self-checkout line. I am fairly certain that if we were to have an amateur grocery clerk competition, I would easily be a finalist. I am a flash at taking care of my grocery business. I have even — I kid you not — had the clerk standing watch remark at my amazing ability to get in and get out of the checkout line. (I think his exact line was “Wow, you must have somewhere to be, dude.” But I will chalk that up as admiration.)
So I clearly have proven my ability to make it through the checkout line. Whether that’s tied to IQ or some odd, fairly useless talent I have is for another discussion. But he had experienced the painful and frustrating delay of someone who clearly had not earned the right to check themselves out. There are several categories of these people:
1. People who don’t understand basic quantities. See, if it says you can only bring 15 items to the self-checkout line, and you have three carts loaded to capacity, you are not allowed there. Yes, even if you break them up into 600 piles of 15 items. You are not clever and beating the system. You are defeating the entire purpose, and all it takes is one teensy crack in the dike of civilization to send a flood of inefficiency down on humanity.
2. People who fight with the swipe machine. I will admit that on occasion I have swiped my card, only to realize I had it upside down, backward, was using my library card, etc. Things happen. But if you even consider uttering the phrase “stupid machine” or pause to consider punching the keypad, clearly you should go to a line less designed for speed and efficiency. (On a related note, you may not be aware, but new federal laws require you to be done at a drive-up ATM in less time than it takes to bake an apple pie. Failure to comply will result in your tax rebate being sent to Britney Spears. Also, conducting three separate transactions at one visit to the ATM will get you sent to Guantanamo. I wouldn’t joke about federal laws, so be careful out there.)
3. The produce-challenged. When you go through the checkout line, you have to enter the four-digit code that identifies your fruits or veggies. If there isn’t a sticker on it, you have to look it up on the guide above the scanner. If the preceding sentence was news to you, you probably shouldn’t be going through the self-checkout line. And you probably shouldn’t keep shouting “ASPARAGUS!!!” at the screen, as if it will recognize what you are talking about.
Look, I am not suggesting that folks shouldn’t be at the grocery store. I just think that the self-checkout line needs to be reserved for (a) the fleet (b) the agile and (c) the really-in-a-hurry, which in comparison to everyone will always be me.
While we are talking grocery stores, I need to address one issue that I have addressed in previous columns, columns which I am shocked to see have not been adopted as a guidebook for life by everyone in the community. Folks, those big lines out in the parking lot? You know what goes there? Cars go there. You know what doesn’t go there? Shopping carts.
A while back, I said that there is no justifiable reason to leave your shopping cart abandoned in a parking lot. I would like to alter that slightly. There is only one justifiable reason to leave your shopping cart abandoned in a parking lot, and that is a swift and immediate alien abduction (it must be alien; even a mildly conscientious kidnapper would allow you to put the cart up).
So the next time there is a cart loose in a parking lot, I can only assume that one of our fellow grocers has been whisked away to a spacecraft and will one day be returned to the planet with new and exciting knowledge to share. Such as how to ring up asparagus.

Kidding me

I’m wearing a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid. And I feel no need to explain it to anyone. Should anyone actually say anything about it, I would probably respond with, “Yeah, I cut my finger. Needed a Band-Aid.”
I do not need to justify why it is decorated with Dora. If Dora were not there, Diego would be, or perhaps Spider-Man or Barbie. I’ve been a parent for too long to care about getting my own kind of Band-Aids.
It’s just one of the many things that happens with parents over time. I am fairly certain that when I was in college, I would have been rather self-conscious about a Dora Band-Aid. In fact, I would have probably been self-conscious about a Band-Aid at all; as any early 20-something man-child will tell you, properly cared for wounds are for the weak/intelligent.
There are plenty of other events of parenting that prove you have moved into that phase of parental acceptance. If you are a parent, you can probably relate. If you are considering becoming a parent, I caution you not even to think, “My children will NEVER ...” And goodness knows, don’t utter it out loud, lest there be a tsunami created by the immediate wind surge created by every seasoned parent within a 5-mile radius guffawing at your proclamation that you will NEVER use spit as a facial cleanser.
Among the moments:
1. My response was simply, “Fine, whatever” when Parker asked if he could take his Cheetos to the bath with him. Hey, it had been a long weekend, and let’s be honest — a hot bath and some Cheetos might be relaxing.
2. We let Allie pick out her own clothes every morning. This began when she complained about my choice of outfits for her one morning. I told her there was a simple solution to this. Of course, it is a sad statement when a 7-year-old matches things WAY better than I do.
3. You cannot be too tired to play Monster. Even if it’s for a few minutes, letting your kids crawl on you and maul you as you pretend to be a monster is required unless you have a note from your doctor, in particular your back doctor who advised you against playing Monster.
4. I will now let my children help me around the house. Children are some of the least helpful creatures when it comes to home repair. Asking a 4-year-old to hold a screwdriver for you is the equivalent of saying, “Please hide this screwdriver out back.” But now, I let them help and have Parker distribute tools, parts, etc. around the house while Allie assists by singing, dancing and occasionally hovering right on top of me and asking what every component of the toilet we are working on is. I answer by making up part names. “That’s the Van Buren. That’s the Electrolux capacitor. That’s the Tom Selleck automator. That’s the chimpanzee depreciation nozzle.”
5. I know the laundry will never get done. Ever. Unless I duct-tape the children’s current outfits on them and make them wear them for a week. By my estimate, my children change clothes an average of 42 times a day. And based on a review of the dirty clothes, Parker eats about 14 pounds of oatmeal a day.
6. They’re not going to starve. I actually arrived at the conclusion early on when my daughter was born, but I still would get a little concerned when their eating habits turned finicky. I’ve pretty much gotten to the point where if it occurs to me, “Hey, the last meal they ate was three moon phases ago,” I get worried. They’ll eat.
7. They can drive. Well, not actually drive, but they can sit in my lap and “steer” when I back the car up so that I can blow the leaves off the driveway. And while I am sure there are people who would like to send me countless reasons why this is neither safe nor legal, I refer to the “Being a Normal Dad Manual,” Chapter 6, Section 2, which clearly states: “All normal dads shall let children sit on lap and pretend to drive car when backing it out of the driveway.” For what it’s worth, Section 3 states that doing this on interstates is a bad idea.
8. Fear is not always an option. There comes a point where you have to decide for your children that fear is, well, to be set aside. Our cat, Delilah, is evil. Well established. Yet refusing to enter a room she is in is rather pointless, as she is self-contained evil. Don’t bother her, she won’t bother you. So both my children have had the distinct pleasure of me bringing them into a room and then saying, “And waddya know — Delilah’s in here, and she didn’t bother you.” And before you ask why we keep an evil cat, it’s because she likes me. And because if anyone were to break into my house, I would throw Delilah at them, and they would quickly be sliced to ribbons.
9. We’ll change the toilet paper roll. Apparently, the ability to do that skips a generation. Rather than blow a gasket, I’ll just change it out, and just be glad that they are beyond the Grab It And Start Running phase.
10. The house will be clean one day. And it’s not today. Or tomorrow. Or the next. I’d figure out how many days it will be until Parker leaves for college, but I don’t have the time right now, as I’ve got to go get the Cheetos out of the tub.

Washed up

So I was taking the trash out the other night when I walked into my garage and said, “Hmm. Standing water. That’s weird.”
Most people would have immediately sought out the source of the problem. I am not most people. I backed my wife’s van out of the garage and used a shop broom to sweep the water out of the garage. This was a logical course of action, as I was taking the denial approach, banking on the belief that if I simply escorted the water out of the garage, whatever created it would magically disappear.
So the next day, I went into the garage and saw more water standing. Clearly, magic had not occurred. I walked over to a storage closet in the garage and saw another small pool. I looked up at the ceiling. The drop of water that smacked me in the forehead clued me in that maybe, just maybe, there was a problem.
The leak was coming from where our washing machine lives, which is upstairs in our bonus room. Over the years, several people have commented that having a washing machine upstairs would be a big problem if it ever leaked. Glad to know I would finally find out if they were right.
My first step was to go upstairs and poke around the back of the washing machine with a flashlight. And one thing became very clear in short order — behind a washing machine is the nastiest place in a home, easily trumping under the fridge or that little u-shaped bend under your kitchen sink that, should you accidentally hit it when putting up a pitcher, will spew gobs of nasty stuff onto the cabinet floor.
Once I got over the ick that was behind my washer, I continued to search for the source of the leak. I didn’t even bother to hope for some simple solution, because the last time I hoped for a simple plumbing solution, I ended up with my entire water line having to be rerouted to my house. So I opted to assume catastrophe and warn my family that it was a distinct possibility that the side of the house was going to fall off any minute now.
Eventually, I decided to call a plumber as it was clear that unless the beam of a flashlight fixed things, I was out of luck. The plumber came out and told me there were two options: Cut open the wall and look for a leak or cut open the ceiling and look for a leak. Not exactly the greatest options in the world.
I was pretty much resigned to having him cut the ceiling, since it was in a closet and would not really matter aesthetically. I went downstairs to take a last look at the ceiling to make sure this was the right decision. He was upstairs and filled up the washer just to poke around and see what was what. He came down a few minutes later. “Uh, it’s your washer, not the pipes.”
Sure enough, the machine was leaking and was filling the drain pan and then overflowing, leaking through the ceiling. Now you may wonder why I had not noticed this. And the answer is twofold: (1) By the time I had seen the leak, it was already on the garage floor and (2) I can diagnose home repair problems about as well as I can diagnose a parrot’s illness.
So the next step was to call someone out to repair the washing machine. (Yea! More service call fees!) I called the department store where I bought the washer 15 years ago. I was told someone could come out in two weeks. I told them I would probably want clean underwear before then and called a local company.
The local company was out there in about an hour. In about four seconds, he had the washer completely disassembled. It was like a Transformer unfolding. He turned on the water and we had this conversation:
ME: So what do you think?
HIM: I think you need a new washing machine.
ME: You can’t fix it?
HIM: Yeah, but it will cost more to fix than to buy a new one.
ME: Hey, how come water is spewing out of the sides of it?
Apparently, one basic function a washing machine is supposed to do is keep the water in the barrel, which mine no longer did. With the front cover off of the machine, it was pretty easy to see that my washer was failing Being a Washing Machine 101.
At that point, I rolled the dice and took the following gamble: I asked him how long it would take to get a new washer. He told me they could have it installed after lunch. “Let’s do it,” I said.
Now, the reason this was a gamble is because my wife loves her some research. She will check the web, read reviews, talk to friends. She knows every fact about every appliance that comes in our house. We were about to buy a TV one time when – I kid you not – she left the store to drive home and look up something on the Internet, because she had this nagging suspicion she had failed to check out one particular component of a TV. (She called me from home to tell me to buy a different one.)
When I told my wife that I had bought a new washer, she stared at me for a half-second, and maybe even had a minor facial twitch. Realizing this had been a rather stressful episode for me, she opted to allow my impulse buy to be my therapy, I guess.
The new washer seems to be working fine, and hopefully this one will last 15 years, too. I guess the upside is that I now know what happens when I get a leak upstairs. Oh, the price of knowledge.

Disney '08

Once again, we have proven to be the well-oiled Disney machine. Crowds schmowds. During our annual trek to Disney, we bobbed and weaved our way through four parks in three days, a finely tuned Disney experience on the roll. And, as usual, I brought back some new Disney knowledge to share with you:
– Parker is finally tall enough to ride some of the bigger rides. We went on the Test Track, which has you go through a car testing facility. At the end, you go on an outdoor track at about 65 mph in an open-air car. Allie loved the ride and even went back for seconds. Parker decided that being tall enough to ride certain things was not necessarily a good thing.
– Disney is very accommodating to those in wheelchairs and motorized scooters, which is admirable to say the least. For example, buses allow those riders to get on first, along with their party. That said, if you are with someone in a scooter and your party of 15 gets to go on ahead of all of the people waiting to get on, I would recommend you quietly board and stare forward. Doing a death-metal horn sign and saying, “YEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!” only makes the crowd angry. And you can imagine how this particular crowd member felt 12 hours after the initial incident, when we were leaving a park later in the day when the EXACT SAME FAMILY boarded our bus ahead of us. And out came the horns. Grrr.
– Even at Disney, the circle of life comes complete. We saw this when we were at Animal Kingdom, and we stopped at the meerkat exhibit. And it seemed the meerkat exhibit had also become the vulture exhibit. And the vultures were having a snack. Godspeed, little Timon.
– Speaking of natural interaction, I think it takes a brave bunny to sneak up and chomp on a sleeping gorilla’s lunch.
– I finally have let go one of my biggest issues: swinging the chains. In most every queue line you go in, there are chains separating the line. And children have an uncontrollable need to swing them. While in previous years I have considered duct taping my children’s arms to their sides, this year I opted for the “swing away” approach. Now you may be saying that children should stand there and behave and not touch things. And you clearly have not been in line for a flying Dumbo ride with 150 children. Let ‘em swing the chain.
– If and when you do go to Disney, please don’t be one of those people who walks around talking about how much Disney charges for this or for that. It’s no secret. Disney doesn’t hide the prices. Sure, the food is expensive. But they also don’t care if you bring in your own food and drinks. And if you choose to spend $25 on a giant Goofy hat that you will never wear again, that’s pretty much of your own doing.
– While watching the Country Bear Jamboree, I looked around the crowd and wondered, “What in the world must the 11-year-old from Brazil who speaks no English be thinking right now?” Probably that Americans are very strange.
– Speaking of Brazil, by my estimate, all of Brazil was at Disney during our visit. Yes, the entire country. And a large contingent wore bright yellow matching sweat suits.
– Nokia should change their slogan to “Nokia: Our cell phones can survive a three-story fall from the Primeval Whirl roller coaster.”
– I found the equivalent of the first time my daughter met Cinderella few years ago: When my 4-year-old son met Mr. Incredible. I think his jaw may still be open.
– The diners at the Rainforest Cafe confuse me. When we found out that it was a two hour wait, we opted not to dine there. We were then told there was immediate seating available on the covered back deck, overlooking a lake. Only about half of the deck was full. So the choice was to sit immediately on a 65-degree Florida evening overlooking a lake or wait two hours to eat at a cramped, loud, chaotic indoor table. Yeah, makes tremendous sense that the deck wasn’t full.
– The front of the monorail is the only way to travel. And apparently telling the kids not to lean on the turns or the monorail will fall is “mean.”
All in all, another great trip for our family, and we plan to make it back again next year. It’s our annual pilgrimage, one that we hope to keep taking as long as the kids still feel the magic. And want to swing the chains.

Crape murder

So there seem to be two schools of thought on crape myrtles:

1. Hack their limbs back each winter, letting them spring forth anew in the spring

2. Let them grow and be crape myrtles and avoid what has been dubbed "crape murder."

I opted for both schools with two crape myrtles in my yard. In the front yard, I had one that was a gnarled, mangled mess of an eyesore. A few years ago, I hacked it back to about 4 feet high. The tree came back the next spring, and it also did not complain once when I was cutting it, so I assume it was fine.

The tree in my backyard was given a license to grow on its own. And, this weekend, I revoked the license and went beyond crape murder and into systematic crape execution.

I really had no choice in the matter. There were two factors that led me to have to remove the tree: (1) It had grown so large that, when it rained, the limbs drooped down onto the house and in the pool and (2) I got a chain saw for Christmas.

The tree had gotten out of control, and even the possibility of trimming the branches wouldn't have mattered.

Apparently, it had been trimmed over the years so that the trunk was now about a foot thick, and the branching didn't start until about 8 feet in the air.

Had I trimmed down the offending branches, I would have had a big ugly stump the size of Yao Ming in the middle of my backyard. It was all or nothing, and nothing was no longer an option.

So I got the process in motion. Step 1: Wait until my wife would be gone for a couple of hours. She had expressed some concern over removing the tree. That said, she never came down solidly on the side of leaving it up, so it's not like she'd make me put the tree back up.

So Parker and I headed out and got to chopping. (What lumberjack DOESN'T utilize a 4-year-old sidekick?)

Parker had two main jobs: (1) help me haul the branches off after they were cut and (2) not get crushed. Parker picked a spot on the other side of the yard where he would sit and give me the thumbs up when it was time to trim.

The chain saw I have has an 8-foot extension pole, so I was able to lop off some of the tallest branches first. I would gauge which way the branches would fall, line up my angle and proceed to cut.

I can honestly say that I hit the mark 100 percent of the time, assuming the "mark" I was shooting for was completely guessing wrong on where the branches would fall.

Fortunately, they all fell in places that didn't cause damage. No broken windows, crushed fences or pinned dogs. (The dogs were inside, as I didn't want them anywhere near falling trees. When I was a kid, I saw our family beagle get crushed by a tree that was cut down. Great childhood memory there.)

After about an hour, I had removed a substantial amount of the limbs.

In fact, there was only one long, lone branch left. What had started the day as an out-of-control hydra of a tree had turned into the Charlie Brown Christmas crape myrtle.

While there was only one branch remaining, it was a rather large branch. And it was leaning toward the house, specifically in the direction of the big picture window in our kitchen. While I was not sure of what my wife's reaction would be on removing the tree, I can guarantee what the reaction would be if I sent a branch crashing through the window into the kitchen. Despite where I thought the branch might fall, reflecting on my previous guesses, I decided to enlist some help.

In no time, Parker was nestled in the crook of the tree, holding the branch tightly to guide it toward the ground when I cut it.

Now, I will await for your apology for thinking for one second that I would have done that. For shame.

No, I did not turn my son into a lumberjacking koala. I asked a neighbor for help. He came over with a rope and the kind of can-do attitude that makes America great: "I'll pull the rope while you cut. And even if it falls on me, it won't hurt that bad."

When the saw was almost through the branch, it started to crack, and my neighbor guided it harmlessly to the ground. Mission accomplished. Tree done.

I hated having to take down a tree, but the thing was just out of control.

I love a nice shady yard, but I don't like it at the expense of being able to walk outside my kitchen door because you get smacked with sagging branches.

Crape myrtles have this strange Phoenix-like quality of rebirth, so I am sure it will try and sprout up again this spring.

And if you're curious as to my wife's opinion on the removed tree, let's just put it this way. If and when the tree DOES come back, I'll probably let her weigh in on the decision first.

Back to basics

So by my estimate, I spent less time in high school than I did shopping for a new cell phone.
And I had that new cell phone for a grand total of two months before I lost it. Good job, Mike.
It started a while back when my wife realized that we had had our cell phones for a couple of years. Apparently, if you keep the same phone for that long, the company will give you a new one, free of charge. There was nothing wrong with my phone, mind you. But they did offer gobs of free ones. And two years in technology terms is like... well, it’s two years. But a lot can happen.
My phone was a basic one. I made calls. I received calls. I felt very high-tech because I had learned to text message, although I am still having a hard time using text message shorthand, as I feel a little dirty typing “U up 4 lnch?” I try to opt for curt instead of improper, and simply go with “Lunch?”
But I decided I would go ahead and get a new phone, because the new ones had all kinds of features. I could e-mail. I could take pictures. I could surf the web. I could make cole slaw. I could levitate. I could paint a house in under four minutes. Oh, the places your cell phone will take you!
My wife and I spent far too much time looking at the different features, researching them on the Internet, asking people about their phones. At one point, someone at work remarked, “Why don’t you just get a phone already?” That is absurd. This is not something you just grab on a whim, such as a car or a house or a kidney. This is a cell phone, for crying out loud! I will be stuck with this thing for TWO years! (Yes, I COULD buy one before then, but why in the world would I do that?)
Eventually, we settled on one kind of phone for both of us. It was a snazzy, sleek little number that roughly 22 billion people on the planet have. And, no, this was not a sweet, romantic matching pair type deal. Rather, it was that both of us independently chose the same phone, and neither of us had plans to back down. A compromise of different colors was reached.
So once the phones arrived, I shelved my old phone and headed into the exciting world of my new phone. There were indeed bells. And whistles. And countless other things that I had no idea what they were for. And I couldn’t figure out how to use any of the features that it did have. I even decided to buy a ring tone — something 11-year-olds do a dozen times a day – and couldn’t figure out how to do it. I went to the store and had them walk me through it. I felt bad for them. It was like they had just thawed me from my glacier and were introducing me to this modern world.
After a while, I just resigned myself to using the basic phone parts, and occasionally fumbling around and trying to take a grainy picture, although more often than not I took a picture of my hand. Also, I somehow turned the ringer off on a regular basis, and I am not sure how I did that, but I think it involved one of the 40 buttons on the side of it.
I will admit there was a certain longing for my old phone. Sure, it was as low-tech as you get with cell phones, but it did everything I needed. I could operate it without looking at where the buttons or keys were. I was in tune with the ring tone. It was synergy.
But I tried to get used to my new phone, thinking eventually it would turn into my new cell companion. But it just wasn’t clicking. It didn’t feel right, like my old one. Then the other day, I was at the grocery store with my daughter. I called home. “How about quesadillas tonight?” I said. “Pardon?” said the woman next to me. “I’m on my phone. I thought that was evident, what with the hand held up to my ear,” I responded.
And that is the last call I made. I got home later that night and could not find my phone, which is odd, because I am rather consistent with placing keys, wallet, etc. in the same place. I checked the three most likely places that any right thinking person would:
1. My car
2. The couch where I woke my son up from a nap by starting a wrestling match
3. A pile of leaves out back (I even used a metal detector for that search)
Despite those routine searches, it never turned up. The next day, I took my old phone out of dry-dock and had them activate it at the store. The moment I used the phone, I felt a comfort that had been missing since I switched over. Simple was back, and simple was good.
I am sure that my new phone will turn up somewhere, either in a leaf pile or a couch cushion or in a pile of onions at the store. And when it does, I will have a big dilemma. Do I turn it back on? Or do I stick with my old phone? And most importantly, do I make the quesadillas?

Flour child

I knew when I heard the way my wife called his name – “PARKER WHITFIELD!!!!” – that we were at a crossroads.
And down one of those roads was a bad day – the potential start of one of those avalanche days of bad things, piling up and on, with stubbed toes and being cut off in traffic and losing your keys and all the other things that seem to follow when your day starts like that.
Fortunately, we did not go down that road. Instead, I looked at my wife. She looked at me. “He’s covered in flour,” I said. “And so is the kitchen.”
At that point, we headed down the better road, the one that didn’t end in a tequila bender in Mexico.
You see, my wife was making cookies and decided to have Parker help. There were three big flaws in her plan:
1. She was making cookies at eight in the morning. No one is ready to make cookies at 8 a.m. except professional bakers. All of us other non-baker humans should not even try baking cookies until well after a pot or seven of coffee. It’s just not wise.
2. She enlisted the help of a 4-year-old. She would have been better served to enlist the support of a seizuring macaw.
3. She lost the “Who Can Pretend to Be Asleep the Longest?” game, and therefore did have me to run interference for her. See, the kids are now old enough that they can somewhat fend for themselves in the morning, so we don’t have to spring out of bed the minute they are up. It’s nice to know you can lie in bed and know that, in the other room, your children are quietly painting each other and pulling all the stuffing out of a couch cushion. So my wife and I play this exciting game. First one to admit to being up loses. Winner gets to sleep in. My wife is normally very good at this game. She claims to be good because she is actually sleeping. I find that hard to believe.
So where was I? Right, Parker helping with cookies. So my wife had all of the ingredients out on the counter, and Parker was handing her things as she needed them. Apparently, he decided she needed the flour, and he went for the big plastic canister that holds roughly 65,000 cups of flour. I have no idea why we have that much flour. Apparently we are expecting the entire state of Kentucky to come over for made-from-scratch biscuits or something.
But anyway, Parker’s attempt, well, failed, and he ended up dumping the canister on his head, covering him in white powder, sending flour to all corners of the kitchen, and creating a nice little mushroom cloud of flour dust that I hope will settle in the next few weeks.
By the time I got to the kitchen (the “WHITFIELD” echo was just starting to fade), Parker was really not sure what to think. I am fairly certain that one thing that was prominent in his mind was, “This was probably not the wisest course of action.”
He looked at me and then his mother. And when he saw that we were, well, on the floor laughing, he too felt a little more at ease, although he was somewhat tempered in his celebration, as every time he would move a big puff of flour would cloud up in his face, so he would start spitting and sneezing and coughing.
Eventually, I got most of the flour off his body, mainly by taking off his pajamas, so he looked like a little naked kabuki actor halfway through makeup. Truth be told, I do not recall how I got the rest of the flour got off of his head. It probably involved the dog.
But the important point was that my wife and I could have let this be a very bad start to the day. And to both of our credit, we didn’t. We laughed at the funny things in life, and reserved the serious, stern side for important infractions, such as standing in front of the TV during a football game or eating the last peanut butter bar, which Daddy SPECIFICALLY got for his lunch and hid them on the top shelf INSIDE the crock pot, under a dish towel for the exact purpose of hiding them so that he could have them for himself. You know, meaningful stuff.
It’s not to say that we, like everyone on the planet, don’t sometimes have the wrong reaction now and again. But it’s good to have a successful flour-dumped-on-your-kid’s-head dry run to remind you to keep things in perspective. More often than not, it’s just not that big of a deal. That said, I sure hope Kentucky doesn’t show up.

Showing my resolve

So long, 2007. Let’s get it started, 2008. Much like my federally required Thanksgiving column, I offer up my heaping helping of New Year’s resolutions:
I resolve to get the most use out of my brand spanking new deep freezer. I have that sucker loaded with meat and pizzas and such, and I feel pretty confident that I could weather a nuclear winter with my food supply. The only catch: I have to actually remember to use it, rather than remembering about all of the meat in there in about two years after a prolonged power outage.
I resolve not to make my wife make that face. She makes that face often, and it usually comes after I have nitpicked about something, such as, say, the kids leaving a television on in a room they are no longer in. She often says, “It’s not that big of a deal.” I then reply with, “You’re right. It’s not that big of a deal to turn off the television.” That’s usually when the face occurs. I will suffer in silence this year, and just turn the TV off myself and get over it.
I resolve to be more patient with my kids. I sometimes expect too much of them, such as expecting them not to act as though they were raised by wolves. On occasion, their lupine-backgrounds will shine through. They’re only humanish.
I resolve to go through 2008 injury free. This is perhaps my biggest challenge, as I received a chain saw and an ax for Christmas.
I resolve to win at Cardboard Sword Fight, even though the last one was really not fair, since I had a cheap cardboard tube from a dollar roll of wrapping paper, and Parker had one of those super thick tubes from that fancy foil paper.
I resolve to no longer put Nicky, my daughter’s new American Doll, in perilous situations. Apparently, my daughter does not find it funny when I suggest Nicky would like to be an Arctic Explorer and go visit the freezer.
I resolve to figure out eBay. I know it’s not that hard, but I am going to sit down and open an account and finally unload stuff that has been taking up closet space for years. I think my chances of listening to a CD by Icelandic alternative rockers The Sugarcubes (Bjork, before the weird swan outfit!) are pretty slim by now.
I resolve to teach Murphy the Excitable Dachshund that Maggie the Attack Basset does not find him attractive, and he should probably chill out on the romantic gestures.
I resolve to not let my wife look inside my car after I clean out hers and make snide comments, as she often seems to note that I tend to leave large volumes of stuff in my car, and I don’t usually have the added distraction of trying to corral two children who are somersaulting out of the vehicle.
I resolve to figure out all of the cool stuff my TiVo can do. Currently, it can record “Boston Legal” and “Go Diego Go.” I am pretty sure it does more than that.
I resolve to not eat fast food for lunch a single time.
I resolve to not set goals I cannot possibly achieve, so I resolve to not eat fast food as much.
I resolve to keep things in perspective.
I resolve to remind my wife that my perspective is that football is the single most important issue facing our nation.
I resolve to shape my political opinions on the current field of presidential candidates based solely on the method of taping a picture of each candidate’s face on a squirrel and having the squirrels race. Winner gets my vote. Seems to make as much sense as the current method.
Happy New Year, everybody!

Christmas cheer

A few weeks ago, I told you I would have my Christmas decorations up early. So, any guesses on how I did?
Wow, thanks for your vote of confidence. I will have you know that even before Thanksgiving, I had most of my lights up, and the day after I flipped the switch. I added a few items the following weekend and essentially completed my holiday decorating, as promised. So, how did I do it? A few simple tricks:
1. Organization — A few years ago, my wife bought a bunch of plastic storage crates for all of our holiday decorations.
She bought green and red ones for Christmas and orange and black ones for Halloween. I told her that festively color coding our attic was a little much even for her. “But you know what holiday each box belongs to, don’t you?”
Point taken. Plus it also keeps everything neatly stored together and allows me to avoid what had become my annual ritual of coming down the attic staircase only to have the bottom of a Wild Turkey box fly open, spilling ornaments and Nativity pieces everywhere.
2. Planning — Most years, I grab a strand of lights and hang them up. And then I grab another strand and hang them up.
Repeat until there are no more lights to hang. I then go to the street and look at my house, only to realize I have covered one tree, two azaleas, and a third of my garage.
This year, I spread out all of the lights and took an inventory of what we had and where it should go. My wife also got involved, since I did not opt to do it as I had in years past, at 11:30 at night when I couldn’t sleep.
At one point, she actually had a tape measure out and was figuring out if certain light strands would fill up certain parts of the house.
I told her that was an amazing idea. She looked at me with equal parts disdain and sadness.
3. Involving the children — I would prefer that my kids have pleasant Christmas memories, not one of their father being red faced and screaming, “UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO CANCEL CHRISTMAS DON’T TOUCH THE LIGHTS AGAIN!!!”
So I took a deep breath and pulled out the decorations knowing that my helpers would have (a) the gentle touch of a blender and (b) the attention span of a spastic cat.
Yes, we had a few tangles and a bulb or two got broken, but the kids had a good time, in particular when, without them realizing, I strung lights on them. (For what it’s worth, that may or may not have been a reason for the tangles/breakage.)
4. Patience on the tree hunt — We still get a real tree, and we will continue to do so, as that is one of the basic things I have to have in my house.
I know most people have gone to artificial — I think I’m the last one in my family who still goes real — and that’s fine.
But there is something about a real tree that I absolutely can’t go without. My guess is it dates back to 2001, when my cat tried to climb our real tree and it went crashing down on top of her. Relax, she was fine.
But once the shock of the destroyed ornaments, the ripped couch, and the water everywhere subsided, I had to concede that it was one of the funniest thing ever to occur. (You would be amazed at the sound a cat can produce.)
Of course, it’s not easy to find the right tree. We went to five different places. Around stop #3, I was pretty much good to go with whatever tree was there.
ME: (grabbing a tree) Come on — let’s get it and go.
MY WIFE: Uh, that’s a magnolia tree. And it’s planted.
However, I suppressed that urge, and continued to investigate every tree we saw, and even actually paid attention when my wife asked me questions about fullness and gaps and the like. When we got home, she said, “Thanks for not being you today.” I will just assume that was a compliment.
5. Enjoying the experience — Because of the previous items, I was able to focus on this one, which is really critical. Now, you may say, “Mike, you should always enjoy this, because it’s Christmas and it’s a special time.”
And then you may drone on and on and on about the little things and keeping perspective and blah blah blah.
And THAT will make me not enjoy it. Rather, let me have my quirks, and work incredibly hard to make sure that Christmas is merry and the season is bright.
Except for where the bulbs are broken.
So my decorations are up and I am fully in the holiday season, well before the last-minute rush I am accustomed to.
If you are a chronically late Christmas decorator, I encourage you to get it in gear and make things simple for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in the same boat again — struggling to untangle the lights and get the ornaments on the magnolia tree.

She shoots, she scores

I love sports. Anyone who knows me knows that. And as I am sure my wife will tell you, I sometimes get carried away. I invest a tremendous — if not occasionally ridiculous — amount of emotional capital into sports. For example:
1. I threw my back out in 1995 celebrating the Braves winning the World Series. (I was at Game 6, so I was doubly pumped.)
2. Two of my friends were watching a Bama game with me recently when they made a wager on whether I would accidentally put my hand into the ceiling fan above me if we scored.
3. I see nothing wrong with being lifted in the air by another man, assuming your cornerback just picked off a critical interception.
4. A friend and I once had a very serious conversation on how many years off our life we would forego if the Minnesota Vikings’ Gary Anderson would miss a field goal in 1999. (It will cost us both four years.)
That said, all of my excitement and zeal for sports was totally trumped last weekend when I experienced the single greatest moment in my sports fan career: watching my 7-year-old make a basket.
Allie is playing on a basketball team for the first time, and the first time she touched the ball, she dribbled a few times, stopped, popped and dropped. (That’s sports fan talk for made a basket. Aren’t I hip?)
She has loved basketball for a while. We go out in the driveway and shoot hoops all the time, and she has gotten pretty good at making baskets, even on a regulation 10-foot goal. (Per edict from the commissioner, I am no longer allowed to swat her shot out of the air and scream, “YOU GOTTA BRING MORE THAN THAT IN HERE!!!”) Our usual game is HORSE, although she will often try and amend the game to HORSES mid-play, the little weasel.
When she decided she wanted to play on a team, I was excited, as she is at the age where she can really enjoy getting into team sports. She played soccer when she was 5, but her main strengths were cartwheels and hugging people she knew on the other team. I was pretty sure she was ready to advance to the next level.
At the game, I try not to be THAT dad. You know, the one whose mood for the next week will depend on whether or not his kid’s team wins. I am just excited to see Allie playing and having a good time. I did tell her that winning = dinner, but that’s just a little incentive. Ha! Little sports dad humor. They don’t even keep score, so how would she know if she won or not? (She’ll know based on whether she gets dinner.) Ha! Little more sports-dad craziness there.
At the game, I try to cheer and encourage but not to coach her too much from the bleachers. After all, that’s why she has a coach, and he does a great job of teaching the kids about the game and teamwork. Granted, at her first scrimmage, I did slide over to the bench and remind her that just because she was not on the court, it did not mean that she should hold animated meetings about Hannah Montana or Chick-fil-A or whatever it was with her teammates. Watch the game, for crying out loud.
She eventually got her head in the game during the scrimmage (only one cartwheel on the court), so I was excited about the first real game. The coach has numbers assigned to each player and calls out the play to the players each time down court. When I heard “1-4,” I was excited, because we originally were going to name Allie “4.” No, wait, it was because Allie was playing the 4-position, so that meant that she would get the ball, dribble a couple of times and throw one up. When the ball hit her hands, I was just happy to see that it didn’t go through her hands and smack her in the nose, because I know quite well that tends to put a damper on a basketball game with her.
One of the more humorous times in the game was when she was on defense. Allie is one of the smaller kids in the league, as the age range starts at 7 and goes to, from what I can tell, 32.
At one point, Allie was guarding a player on the other team who is slightly larger than I am. All you could see behind him were two little hands poking out from behind his shoulders. Fortunately, they did not throw him the ball when she was guarding him.
Oh, and a tip of the cap to the referees in the game, who understood that the kids are all learning the game and did things such as reminding them to dribble the ball. No fouls were called in our game. Word is that a foul was called earlier in the morning, and it made a little girl cry, so they stopped calling fouls. Based on the speed of the game, I think that was probably the right call.
She had fun the rest of the game, and even grabbed a rebound. But the most important thing is that she is learning to be part of a team. And isn’t that the most important thing? I mean, after you know you’ll get dinner.

Forming memories

When I was little, we used to go to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to visit my family. I have a picture of me, probably about 2 years old, holding my great-grandfather’s hand, walking in the backyard picking pecans.
When I was in college, I was talking with my grandmother about the picture. She stared at me for a second. “Michael,” she said, “you do remember when you used to come here to visit, right?”
I thought about it for a second. “Christmas.”
“And you know pecans are not on the ground at Christmas, right?”
I had never done the math. Turns out, my great-grandfather would collect the pecans and put them in a freezer, and then spread them out just before we got there so that we could go and pick them up.
Yes, you can cue the “awwwws.” A sweet and kind Christmas memory indeed.
Reflecting on this, I realized that we all twist and tweak the truth in order to better serve kids. My parents did it. As a parent, I do it. Some of them – like the pecan story – are done to generate fond childhood memories. Others are done for parental convenience.
For example, when I was little, there were three shows that no child should ever, ever, ever watch: “Barney Miller,” “Hill Street Blues” and “Dallas.” When those shows came on, my parents forbade us from being anywhere near. “You will NOT watch this show, mister!”
I always assumed they were really looking out for mine and my sisters’ delicate moral shapings, and that these shows were REALLY hard core. And while some of the content may have pushed the age-appropriate boundaries on occasion, it’s pretty tame compared to today’s standards.
As my parents confessed to me recently, that was not the driving force behind our banishment. They wanted an hour to themselves, without four kids swarming about screaming, “SHE BROKE MY RUBIK’S CUBE!!!”
I find myself doing similar things, and there are certain shows where my children are simply not allowed in the room.
I tell them they need to scoot on to their own rooms, as it is an adult show. Truth of the matter, it’s not that they’re bawdy or anything. I just want an hour on the couch to watch “Chuck.” Hey, I don’t pretend to be a complex guy.
Of course, I also try and do the fond memory side, too. For example, I have a routine I do every night with my daughter for bedtime. We have a back-and-forth exchange:
HER: Light on?
ME: Check.
HER: Door shut?
ME: Check.
HER: See you when I wake up.
ME: Check.
Yes, she leaves the light on. But it’s her routine. But every morning, when she wakes up, the light is off. “Guess you turned it off, hon” is my reply. She shrugs this off, accepting that she must have done that. Not only does she not realize we turned her light off, she doesn’t realize that leaving it on actually makes our life easier.
Why? Because she sleeps like a load of concrete and we can come in her room and put up laundry, clean out closets, practice trumpets, etc. Nothing wakes her. But she will have the memory (I hope) of a peaceful bedtime routine.
I imagine my children will have a host of memories of these things, things they will realize as adults that I had set up, staged or otherwise packaged in a deceptive manner. Of course, this time of year is one of the ultimate examples of that, and I will keep it in vague, general terms, since a certain 7-year-old has been known to read Daddy’s column.
This will most likely be the last year of that phase. In fact, some in her school have already been planting seeds of doubt. (I hope those little Johnny Buzzkillseeds get coal in their stockings.)
When the seeds sprout, I will explain to her that belief in the spirit of things is what is important. And tell her that her mother and I still believe. And we also believe that ruining it for her little brother will amount to television restriction.
When you think about it, it’s all in the perspective. It doesn’t matter what the reality is. When I see the picture of me holding my great-grandfather’s hand, it doesn’t matter that the pecans didn’t fall out of the tree the day before.
In some ways, it’s kinda cool to learn that. Similarly, it was nice to see that when I was kid, my parents were ACTUAL married people who occasionally wanted a few minutes without the kids around.
Of course, my kids are more than welcome to take their time learning the realities of things. Especially this time of year. Take your time.