Tidy Husband

Eligible for the seniors discount and the Happy Meal deal at the same time.

  1. Why Naps are the New Black

    Take a Nap. The rest can wait.

    The child never naps.

    This is a brown dolphin swimming in the sea. This painting has nothing to do with today’s topic. Prints are available upon request.

    And it’s so annoying.

    She did when she was little of course, but that is in now in the far distant past. I can’t think of any one time she has napped recently. When and if a nap does happen, it’s usually a prelude to a fever and in this case a napping kid is not good.

    Me, on the other hand. I love Naps.

    I’m not fully retired but I do try to act like it and one of the positives of being your friendly Uber driver is that I can come home for lunch and squeak in a nap. Sometimes they are longer than they should be, but some of these naps are called “Just resting my eyes”.

    BW of course, says that there’s no such thing as just resting my eyes and it’s just a fancy term for being lazy in the middle of the day.

    I cannot lie. There’s a lot of truth in this.

    But naps are good for me. Naps are refreshing. Some say they can’t nap because then they don’t sleep, but I don’t have that problem. I tend to go to bed a lot later than BW and the child most nights - it’s when I write - and when the child decides that she can’t wait to be woken up and fed, I’m good with getting up and being the morning parent.

    Why? Because later in the day I get a nap.

    Naps should be mandatory. In some places they are - it’s too hot to work so life is divided by a mid day nap. I really need to move to somewhere where this is standard. This go-go-go hustle economy in this country is tiring. And for what? Money?

    Lord knows I’m not making a lot of money writing here and even my Uber fares are questionable so I figure I might as well nap.

    The rest can wait until tomorrow.

    Naps: Not profitable, but priceless.

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH is actually pretty neat. It’s a tempera paint stick kit

    I didn’t know these existed and they’re not the cheapest (the one above costs about $25.00) check price, but OMG are they a lot less messy than painting. I would much rather put 30 little markers in their container and slide the entire organized set than have to deal with the mess that is kid’s paint.

    Sure, kids paint is washable but it’s still a mess and I clean up enough after the child, so I am happy happy to clean these up. And there’s a lot less waste with this vs paint because my child can go through container after container of paint in no time so once you get past the initial purchase these are actually cheaper in the long run.

    And who doesn’t like keeping their kid entertained away from the screen with less mess and less cost?

    I know I do. Buy these before the tariffs kick in.

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  2. 3 Things Your Child Can Do Without

    “No” is another definition of “We have that at home”

    We have a lot of stuff for her. Not as much stuff as some of the other kids in the neighborhood but that’s to be expected as my annual income from this is about $70 so there’s that.

    It should come as no surprise then that despite the want to fill every one of her little desires, it’s just not possible. Soon it will be 145 percent more expensive (or whatever the tariff of the day is) so the chances are even less that she will get all the things.

    Photo by Emil Kalibradov on Unsplash. This can’t be my wallet. I don’t have any cash in mine. BW won’t let me.

    To quote Mick and Co.: You can’t always get what you want.

    And that’s okay. I think it’s good that we all can’t get what we want. It forces us to make do with what we have and - all jokes aside: we’ve got it pretty good here.

    Tonight we had fun with a cork board. A cork board folks - from the dollar store! I bought four of them so we would have place to pin or stick the school calendars and other stuff that needs to be handy but doesn’t need to clogging up the kitchen table.. She thought this cork board was the best thing ever and was running to her room frantically looking for something - anything - to stick up on this most awesome thing in the world!

    She came bouncing down the stairs with a page ripped out of a My Little Pony coloring book and was thrilled. At the end of the fun, I think this poor little pony had a good sixteen or so pins on it, including one in the eyeball (that sounds familiar)

    This was our entertainment for the evening after dinner: 4 bucks worth of cork from the dollar store and another dollar for enough pins to crucify every little my little pony page she has.

    As I put her to bed, I got to thinking: We know what we want to give her - fun, learning all the stuff that the top parenting Substack newsletters tell you have to do. But I will never get up to make a bento box at 4am when it’s more fun and educational to pack the cheese sandwich in the morning with her.

    Bento Boxes are out. Cheese Sandwiches are in.

    These are the things that I do not recommend for your child.1

    Trampolines

    These things are the devil. They look like a lot of fun, and they are. I have a mini one in the basement that she’s pretty much outgrown and there’s no way she’s getting a big one of her own.

    These things are dangerous. Despite the nets and safety features, once you get two kids bouncing uncontrollably 5 feet in the air, bad things will happen and you’ll end up in the ER.

    She can learn to swim. She can live without learning to jump in the air.

    This is just my advice.

    You can buy one, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    Battery Operated Ride On Cars

    These things are not that dangerous, but I find that the cost/value ratio on these is somewhat high on the cost side of the ledger. There’s the maintenance - you have to keep the thing charged and then you have to listen to the “ reeeeeeeeeeeeeee ” sound all day as your little charge drives into your real Mercedes instead because who decided it would be a good idea to put a 3 year old behind a steering wheel?

    These Things can cost upwards of $500!

    “Sorry”, they say while they jump out of the car and run to the park and touch grass while you’re debating your choices of buying them this in the first place. This car for kids goes 0-60 into your car in under six seconds.

    All because you thought it would be cute to cough up over $300 for a Mini Mercedes.

    The Happy Meal

    I know, I know. It’s cheap, easy and it even comes with a toy for crying out loud. I myself have succumbed to the siren’s call of the Golden Arches but if there’s one thing the kid doesn’t need is a Happy Meal.

    It’s horrible for them.

    If this thing was tobacco it would have been banned by now.

    But it’s disguised as fun and qausi-healthy because it comes with processed apple slices and some cheap toy that goes from the car to the garbage can every time.

    I took a mini cucumber and wrapped in a slice of cheese and held it all together with a toothpick. I called it a “cheese dog” and it was a hit. Especially the toothpick. Sure, there’s a danger of the toothpick but that’s what adult supervision is for.

    If you really need a toy to end a meal, you have bigger problems.

    Just say no to McD’s if you can.

    We Have That At Home

    Today’s WHTAH are glue sticks. Yes, glue sticks.

    Photo by Scott Sanker on Unsplash

    You know, the four for a dollar ones. I’m writing about these because when you give a glue stick to a six year old and leave them to their own devices you will find coloring book pages stuck to the bedroom floor.

    When asked why oh why would you do that!!?, she replied that she was holding them down the pages so she could color.

    Lastly, the blue ones are the preferred color as she can see where she’s gluing.

    “You’re gluing on the floor!” I replied.

    The clear ones are just fine too for the intended purposes because they just get all over the floor and then the caps never get left back on anyway so there’ no point in getting the good ones

    30 for under $10 is a pretty good price. Just watch out for sticky floors.

    1. Hey look! I am a parenting expert too! ↩

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  3. The Swimming Lessons

    It’s not the teacher - it’s the student that’s the problem

    Save for a year or so when COVID was in full swing - we have regularly taken the child for swimming lessons and the result so far is very similar to this:

    It’s a tossup to who would sink faster.

    Let’s just say she’s not a fish and she’s definitely related to both BW and myself with not an athletic bone in her body You see smaller children just splashing around without a care in the world and then there’s my child:

    See? Shes hanging on to that flutter board for dear life. I did witness her get pushed to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a fish at the bottom so it’s not like she’s not trying.

    She’s just a horrible swimmer.

    I just don’t get it. She likes swimming and she never fights to go and she has a good time. The big issue I have is she doesn’t pay attention.

    Hocus Pocus Focus!

    She’s off in la-la land for the half hour for the most part with small little windows of paying attention open for a split second before being slammed shut once again and the day dreaming continues.

    She gets these daydreamy swimming lessons from the woman that wehave named to be The Swim Lady.

    The Swim Lady does not answer her phone, but if you text her she’s on it and answers immediately. I then had to endure about 3 days of back and forth text messages about why I wanted to use her class to teach my daughter to swim instead of using the franchise one in the mall.

    Spoiler Alert: The franchise swim school sucks - that’s why.

    It took way to many text messages back and forth before I had her enrolled. I became a US citizen easier than it took my daughter to get registered for swim lessons with this woman.

    But the teachers are many and skilled. They also don’t offer any floating devices or crutches. (save for the flutter boards). From day one they just toss kid after kid in the pool and hope they come up for air.

    And, they do.

    The Swim Lady has lots of eyes and ears on all their charges so I have no fears of her being harmed in any way. It’s a strange little environment but she is learning how to swim, but holy she’s taking her sweet old time.

    Then there’s the venue: Take a swimming pool that’s been designed for probably 10 people and then add about 40 more kids to the soup. Double that number for the amount of parents milling around in various forms of shapes, sizes and dress. The pool deck is soaked with water and it’s way too hot in there so you either freeze going from the car to the pool or you wear a coat and then swelter to death for the half hour while you watch your kid get tossed into the pool over and over again.

    She’s trying and that’s all good and all but the sooner I don’t have to take her to swimming lessons the better.

    Trying to change a spaced-out, distracted and wet child out of her swimsuit and into her clothes while she doesn’t pay a lick of attention and just states over and over again: “I’m cold!”

    Yeah, I won’t miss swimming lessons one bit. As soon as she can swim from one end of the pool to the next, that’s going to be good enough.

    Or, she can turn 16 and driver herself. It’s a tossup what will happen first.

    We Have That at Home.

    Today’s WHTAH are the swimming googles she has on in the photo above.

    This might be the sixth pair we have gone through. I have no idea what happened to the other five. Of course, in the hustle and bustle of getting the child changed into warm clothes from the wet swimsuit there’s been more than one pair of pink diamond swimming googles lost or left behind.

    For a while I gave up on buying her any more as we were going through what seemed to be a pair every weekend. I’m pretty sure for about six months she was using borrowed pairs.

    The last time we thought we lost this pair, we chanced it and went and asked if the had them in the lost and found and lo and behold some kind soul returned them. So thank you fellow frustrated parent!

    These cost about $20 a pair so we’re hanging on to these as well as we can and when swimming is done they get placed right back into the pocket in her backpack so we know they are where they need to be.

    Hopefully this is the last pair I buy.

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  4. What is the Plan?

    The Plan is There is No Plan.

    Everybody wants a plan.

    In this day and age where every minute can be scheduled, tracked and monitored and there’s to-do list and “second brain” software 1 it’s nice sometimes to have no plan.

    No idea. Nothing planned.

    This weekend is the not much planned weekend. Notice I didn’t say NO plan because there was indeed a plan. But she was off for the last week and BW was sick and and and, Dad needs a nap. We’re winging it this weekend.

    The Child, on the other hand has some ideas on the activities that will happen this weekend.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: The Plan:

    I think this reads: Things I will do this weekend

    This is a struggle but I’m going with: Tomorrow go to (friends name) birthday at Play U - and I have actually no idea what this says after that - something about a show. I think.

    Sunday: Go Swim, Play with (friend) and watch shows (the tablet)

    I especially like how “watching shows” is considered an activity. We need the nicer weather to come back so we can have a new activity added to the list.

    I like to call it: Go outside and Play™

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH are stickers of animals. These cost about 5 bucks for more than you will ever need.

    At the time of writing I am wearing 3 stickers on my shirt placed by my beautiful daughter. She wanted to prank me so I pretended not to notice 2 and now I have forgotten that I have I have 3 animal stickers on my chest. It’s usually a pizza stain so this is normal to have some stain somewhere. I don’t go out a lot any more. I should change that.

    So, stickers. She found these in the basement and decided she wanted to stick all 100 or so on the floor. As the person whose responsibility is to peel the stickers off the floor I suggested she stick a few on me instead.

    It was either me or the dog so I took one for the team and became the sticker-ee for today. The dog can thank me later.

    See? This is the stuff that comes into the house and you’re trying to figure out how the heck this stuff gets here. It’s not like we went out looking for stickers to buy but they’re here and pasted all over my chest.

    1. I’m still having problems with my first brain ↩

    2. It’s hard to not notice when you’re getting sticker bombed. ↩

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  5. You Can Call Me AL

    Actually, no you can’t.

    I could not imagine calling my Dad anything other than…well, Dad.

    Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

    Tonight the child called me both DUDE and BRO in the timeline of about 5 minutes.

    The first time, I let it slide but then it happened again.

    OH. NO.

    To quote Meatloaf: STOP RIGHT THERE!!

    That is NOT how this works. I am your Dad. I was your Dad from the time your little finger wrapped around mine for the first time - I wasn’t your bro then and I’m not now.

    I am your father. Get used to it.

    Besides, you are six. I am sure I have at least a few years until I may be okay with a nickname of some kind. But not today. If you still need tucked in and huggies and sillies and all the the things that I do for you every day - then I’m your Dad.

    In fact, I will be your Dad when I walk you down the aisle 1 and even later if I get that far.

    Also, aren’t you a little young for the dude’s and bro’s? Am I that old 2 that six is when this starts? I am that out of the loop?I thought I was the cool Dad and I had a few more years before I started to ruin your life because I won’t get you a new iPhone 22 that costs $4000.00 3

    I thought I had more time. I thought…oh, never mind.

    I am your Dad.

    Get used to it.

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH is some silly little Paw Patrol watch that should have been donated to the goodwill but we still have it.

    Every now and then some random alarm will go off at some random time and we’re all like “what the hell is that?” only to realize it’s the stupid watch that is in the house somewhere and we have to find the stupid thing without waking the child trying to find the thing that is beeping and could wake the child.

    In short, it’s a paw patrol circle of hell.

    And if that hasn’t scared you away I will tell you that she loves it and has realized that on the days she is not allowed a tablet then there’s some simple games on this thing too so she’s found a workaround for the no screen time weekday rule we have here.

    She came to me wanting me to put a new battery into it as it’s been played with so much that she’s actually worn it out

    Here’s the mini review:

    Pros - it’s entertaining and even somewhat educational

    Cons - you will rip your hair out trying to find the thing in the house that is beeping at 3:00 am.

    It’s your call. At least it’s cheap at about ten bucks.

    1. or whatever the politically correct event is by then. Swings from trees perhaps? Roller Derby? ↩

    2. don’t answer that. ↩

    3. because: tariffs ↩

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