Yesterday my son and I were settling into our Friday evening routine, consisting of a daddy on the floor doing his best impression of a jungle gym. I was lying on the floor, when Adam decided to go old-school WWF on me. I didn’t know he could jump, let alone jump backwards, but facing the opposite direction he jumped backwards from a standing position, pulled his knees up and drove his but…
The raison d’etre for childhood is learning. Much of that learning is done by trial and error. Sometimes it feels like the raison d’etre for parents is to point out the error in childhood trials. Take yesterday evening (please?). Twenty minutes before bedtime our kids voiced unanimous desire for an apple. They spent the better part of that twenty minutes sitting in the hallway with…
“… and the heavens opened and water poured forth like a reading from the Old Testament.”
– Excerpt from Tuesday afternoon.
It was one of those Florida afternoons where you could see the rain coming like an omnivorous grey beast. I was on my way to pick up Beth from Tae Kwon Do, with Adam in tow, when I realized there was no way I was going to herd two hyper kids into the…
The morning started off swell… I didn’t get up until 9:30. What else could you ask for? Perhaps 10:30? I digress. Since I woke I’ve been chasing down my son trying to discourage his most recent habit, cat burglary. He has taken to sneaking around the house with one of his miniature fold-up chairs, unfolding it in strategic positions to gain access to various forbidden zones…
It wasn’t a sure thing though, after yesterday. The butcher’s bill for the Kauffman Family Household (v.2.2.1) on Tuesday, September 12 is as follows:
Two doctor’s appointments
Nine allergy shots
Two long telephone calls, of the banking kind
A haircut
All of this occurred on a weekday, which is just plain crazy… everyone knows you get a haircut on the weekend. We would…
Four and a half hours ago I was putting my son to bed. It is only with the spit polished lenses of hindsight that I now know it was for the rest of the night – both hours that were left of it. About five minutes before I put him to bed, as he calmed down with his head on my shoulder, his grip slowly loosening on his blanket and his breathing becoming relaxed – I strangely felt like I…
Adam was finishing up his dinner and rediscovered a cup of Pringles he had on the side. (It was one of those form fitting cups with a single serving of chips.) He went for a spoonful of chips when I helpfully suggested, “Adam, you can’t eat chips with a spoon.”
Adam took one look at me, grabbed hold of the business end of the spoon, ground up some chip dust, and took a spoonful…
This morning Cheryl admonished me for not pulling Adam’s pants up in front. She thought it was inappropriate for Adam to show diaper above the waistline. Part of our problem lies in diaper design. Our diaper brand of choice has many desirable characteristics, save one: a freakish amount of material above the fastening point. However, it goes beyond that… it involves something much more…
I have a well deserved reputation of forgetfulness. I walk around the office (at work) with a PDA close enough to be a Siamese Twin (and a better looking one at that). This sets the stage for a conversation I had with my wife this morning. As I was getting out of my car for the Monday Morning Death March to work, my cell phone rang. It was Cheryl calling to tell me that I had forgotten the check…
I am stuck in that moment between getting home late and the time when you feel like going to bed.
We decided to go to a Devil Rays away game this evening, and we’re just getting back. They were at Tropicana Field, where they occasionally play home games, so we didn’t have to travel too far. Tonight’s benefactor of the ice cold Rays’ bats were the Indians from Cleveland; and…