Every day he asks me if he can drive the car. When I decline his generous offer my 8-year-old son asks if he can at least start the car. And maybe release the e-break. And then shift it into reverse for me so we can pull out of the parking spot. And I often say […]
Category Archives: Parenting
Enjoy Your Bag of Meat
At what point do you just give up? As a parent you fight the important battles, and then you fight them again, and then you check your hit points and realize that you either have to retreat or die. And sometimes you stand on that hill and you die on it. And sometimes you hand […]
An Overabundance of Childhood
My kids don’t care when we get pizza. And why should they? We get pizza all the time. Pizza and movie Friday nights are a well-established tradition at our house. There are very few weeks that go by when we don’t order a pizza, and so it is not a treat. Now when I was a […]
We Don’t Like What’s Good; We Like What We’re Used To
I was out shopping other day, and I needed some frozen peas for a beef stew recipe I was planning. As I walked past the canned goods aisle and towards the freezers at the back of the store, I remembered how as a kid I would never eat frozen peas. I hated them. But the […]
42 Things That Taste Better Than Skinny Feels
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, right? Wrong! I am on a quest to lose weight, thanks to some frightening urging by my doctor, some unintentional insulting by my children, and some good-natured competition with my friends. Since I was told I needed to lose some major poundage about a year and a half […]
The Difference Between Innocent and Naive
Innocent and naive mean almost the same thing, don’t they? They both mean you have limited exposure to something, but they have vastly different social connotations. Innocence is valued. It is something to be preserved. When you are innocent, it signifies that you are not supposed to know about the things you don’t know about. It […]
My Son Is Wonder Woman
I wasn’t sure about taking my son to see Wonder Woman. He’s only seven, and it seemed like it might be a little intense for him. He didn’t even want to go! Both he and my daughter had to be dragged to the movies, which seems ridiculous to me as a movie lover, but there […]
Unselfishly, I Don’t Want to Die
The average life expectancy for an American male is 76. That means 38 is the halfway point, statistically speaking. I am 39. Is this the first year of the rest of my life? Maybe. My family tends to live longer, so hopefully I get a bit more, but you never know. I could go tomorrow. […]
Things That Are Morally Wrong (Unless It’s To Your Children)
This is something I’ve written about before, sort of, in smaller ways, but after reading a post about bribing your kids from my friend over at All Good in the Fatherhood, I started to paint myself a bigger picture. Why are there so many things that people will do to children that they would never do […]
To Edward on His Seventh Birthday
Dear Edward, What’s up Buddy?! You are seven! I know that you know this because you have been walking around with a crinkly tube shaped into a number seven for pretty much the past 24 hours. So it is exciting. I wish that seven were not only your age, but also the time that you […]