Tidy Husband

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

  1. How to Create a Time Machine

    You can’t get there from here.

    I put her to bed an ~~hour~~ 2 hours ago. Admittedly it is a bit early compared to her peers, but here we eat/shower/bed with no 1 fooling around.

    I call it: Fed and Bed™

    At least that’s the plan. The weather here in Buffalo was unseasonably warm at almost 80 degrees today so as soon as she got off the bus she was on the run outside with her friends until about 5:00pm when all the kids got called in to dinner.

    It was suggested that she have a quick rinse in the shower to wash off the sweat and dirt before dinner. I didn’t even suggest a bath - just a shower. Heck you don’t even need soap, I told her.

    No Soap. It would be like it didn’t happen.

    My Wish for a Time Machine

    And there it was: The meltdown. We’ve been blessed with good behaviour and I would guess that we haven’t seen the meltdown in over a month and I have no idea where this came from. Maybe it was because she had a bath the night before, so she didn’t need a full wash.

    I just wanted her to wash the stinky parts. If only I could go back in time and un-suggest the bath, but the genie was out of the bottle. Besides, she was stinky

    Those feet were in shoes with plastic braces on all day. They smell, there’s no two ways about it.

    When she gets like this I have learned to do one thing: Ignore her.

    Let her scream it out and when she’s done offer hugs: 2 shoulders, no waiting.

    We cuddled on the couch to get the last of the tears out and then continued with dinner and the rest of the evening. It’s like the screaming didn’t happen!

    Her Wish for a Time Machine

    She had dinner/dessert, brushed teeth, kissed mom and then we went upstairs to do “sillies” as they are called here. This is where we tickle a bit, maybe toss a squishmallow in the air and then settle down for the night.

    For the settling down we fire up Google Photos and look at the memories the app curates. This is the perfect thing to do as it’s quiet and gets her distracted and settled down.

    Then, we screw around with AI and make silly pictures:

    It doesn’t get any sillier than this.

    Then a backrub for a bit and on a good night, she’s out.

    The problem tonight was it’s still daylight out. I had her in bed at 6:30 pm and the windows are open and the streets are filled with people out and about with kids on bikes and barking dogs and motorcycles and the birds singing her goodnight

    I knew she would not go right to bed, but I put my ear up to her door and heard her fussing around in there. As long as she does not come out of bed, we are good so I let her be. I thought I had the rest of the night to myself.

    Then she opened the door and said I’m kind of jealous of the people outside. I wish I had a time machine.

    Then she wanted an orange.

    She had an orange.

    Then she wanted to sleep on the floor

    She isn’t sleeping on the floor 2

    And that’s what bedtime is like in the summer when you’re six and you want to stay up late and have a time machine so you don’t miss a thing.

    Because, as we all know: The summers go by so fast.

    I don’t blame her. I want a time machine too.

    We Have That at Home

    Tonight’s WHTAH is a set of summer pajamas. They cost about 10 bucks a pair.

    You think you have a problem with socks that don’t match? Wait until you get to the matching PJ’s. By theory this should never, ever be a problem because how the hell can you lose a top or shorts? They are BIG.

    Socks, I get. The washer has lots of unknown places and tubes where socks could disappear into a void. That makes sense, but PJ’s?

    Tonight she went to bed in a brand new pair of summertime PJ’s because tonight is much warmer than than it should be and long PJ’s would have been too warm. This is the child that needs and ice pack to sleep with.

    These are cute

    She seemed to settle down from the time machine meltdown after realizing that there were new PJ’s to slip in to tonight. Because who doesn’t like new PJ day?

    1. well, a little ↩

    2. the last time I checked. ↩

    Permalink

  2. Back in the Day: Remembering the Cellular Phone

    When getting a new phone meant great leaps in technology and more room in your pockets.

    I had the wee one in the car with me and we had to go pick it up. After pickup, I told my phone “Hey Google - Text Mommy that I’m on the way home” and then pressed send.

    The child asked “ how the heck does that even work?:

    She’s right to ask. I was just communicating as we have become used to by talking to my phone and have it send a message and she’s like: Bro, what the heck just happened?

    So, I tried to explain how cellular networks work. Basically, very basically and on the way home I pointed to a big cell tower on the side of the road and explained that my message got sent to that tower that would send it to another tower and then to the tower down the street from the house and eventually mommy’s phone would go “bing”.

    This explains cellular networks much better than I can.

    Then we got talking about back in the day when there were no cell phones and how if you wanted to make or take a call you had to be at home or work. Or maybe a phone booth.

    You guys, I learned that it’s really hard to describe a phone booth to this current generation. You try to explain how you go into a booth and close a door and then toss a quarter into a phone and dial an number and wait for the other person to answer.

    Once the phone booths got sorted (I think) we moved on to the actual hardware of back in the day:

    My first cell phone looked something like this:

    then I graduated to this:

    and I had a phone that fit in my pocket! *thank goodness for relaxed jeans in the 90’s and then when I got the Motorola Startac I thought I was living in my future as this thing could fit in the palm of my hand:

    This phone was the future.

    And more and more phones passed through my hands as the years flew by. I dabbled with the blackberry for a bit and had more than one of the more modern Nokia’s that were shaped like a snickers

    Then came the iPhone and now the one in my pocket looks exactly like the one in yours - It’s a piece of glass with a computer and battery tacked to the back.

    Now we don’t even pick up our phones and can communicate with them entirely hands-free and have them make calls and send text messages and even create images with AI - all hands free. Amazing.

    The future is here again - just like I thought it was when I had that super-cool Motorola StarTac.

    We Have That at Home

    Tonight’s WHTAH is children sized toothbrushes. Prices are about 8 bucks for 8.

    One would think that having eight toothbrushes would be more than enough for years, yes? Not in this house. I swear we just bought 8 of them and they are all missing.

    At first, if we lost one it wasn’t that big of a deal because we have 7 more of them but now we are down to toothbrush zero for her. This means that she has lost 8 toothbrushes in a matter of months.

    She’s been away with mom a few weeks back so let’s assume one got left behind. Then assume one is inside/went through the dog. That still leaves us with six unaccounted for toothbrushes.

    Even if one more got thrown out because I picked it up off the floor and it was mixed with crusty old toothpaste chunks and dog slobber and it was too gross to repair or clean - that still leaves us with five.

    Wanted: Five missing toothbrushes. I’m open to suggestions if you have any ideas on where they might have gone.

    Permalink

  3. Picking Up Where We Left Off

    It’s nice to see green grass again, but the dandelions could go.

    Photo by Ochir-Erdene Oyunmedeg on Unsplash. This is not a photo of our lawn: There’s not enough dandelions

    I have a rule. I refuse to mow the lawn in April.

    “It’s for the bees”, I say. But the real reason is I’m just lazy.

    Also, conflicted. I will not shovel snow and mow the lawn in the same month. Something’s gotta give and it’s the lawn care in April.

    Come May, I will put away the snow shovel and all the wintery things and bring out all the summery things, but at this point I don’t mow when there’s a chance of snow in Buffalo (hey! that rhymes!)

    Needless to say the current state of our lawns - front and back - are in need of some TLC. There has been zero work or effort made to improve this situation because of this no mow rule of mine.

    So imagine my surprise and glee when the child came home from school and happily declared: “It’s earth day!”

    the AI artwork the child made today.

    “I want a garbage bag so I can pick up garbage”, she told me. She didn’t want to come in from school and have a snack or anything of the sort. I needed 2 bags too because in seconds her little friend from across the street wanted to pick up garbage too.

    Because I am an observant parent: I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess she learned about earth day at school, because I hate to say this, but we’re not the granola crunchy parents we should probably be and she did not learn this here.

    She and her little friend were out there for as long as one can expect: about 10 minutes and they came in with their haul. It was cool and windy so I’m surprised they stayed out that lawn.

    The child picked up all the stuff and the friend watched her do all the work, so when she was done she “shared” her garbage with her friend.

    Sharing is caring after all.

    Happy Erf Day to you and yours!

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH is Colorful Modeling Clay

    “Dad, can we play with this?”, she asked after they were done with the Earth Day celebrations. I took my one good eye and glanced at it and even though I was uncertain what it was exactly I said “sure”.

    Because I’m the cool parent.

    Of course, because there was both brown and yellow colors the two of them decided it would be hilarious if they made bowls of poop 1 and pee 2 and tried to serve it to me.

    Being the cool Dad I am, I pretended to eat the clay and the squeals of delight from the two of them was worth the cleanup of the clay after the jokes been had and the interest waned.

    Get your own little clumps of fun. This stuff is priced at about ten bucks.

    1. brown clay ↩

    2. you got it - yellow clay ↩

    Permalink

  4. I Don't Like or Use Emojis

    A guide to writing with words instead.

    Photo by Denis Cherkashin on Unsplash | Go ahead, pick a winner.

    Right now, somebody else (probably much much younger) is using more emojis in the text message to their friend about some mundane thing than I have ever used in my life.

    Simply put, I’m not cool on the internet.

    My 6-year-old thinks I am cool but she doesn’t know any better and thinks socks and sandals are a thing. My subscriber count also can confirm my lack of cool-ness and after this post might reinforce it even more.

    All this lack of cool comes from my laziness. Also I like to communicate with words, not tiny little images my old eyes can’t see. Is that a rocketship or.. oh, nevermind. I will just write the words: rocket ship.

    There. done. No rocket ship emoji needed. I didn’t need to look up the right one or choose from a million different smiley faces or remember some keyboard shortcut to represent the exact emotion I need to convey in a text message about what we are having for dinner. “Hot Dogs” are just six letters - you can do this.

    And don’t get me started on the poo-moji. Once again, if it’s shit (like this post is) then just say so. It’s shit. poo. doo-doo. whatever. Go ahead - say it. It’s okay.

    (Just don’t say poo at the kitchen table because we do have some decorum here.)

    It’s like the saying “If you don’t have something nice to say….”. My version would be that if you can’t express it with words then don’t bother.

    Heck, I had needle in my eye today and here I am filled with Tylenol and hopes that this is the post that makes me internet famous by writing with words.

    That right, words: not emojis.

    I want to become the no emoji guy. I want to be the Bernie Sanders of emojis: It’s a good idea but it will never take because we’ve all been fed the emoji kool-aid and it’s too late to stop.

    Despite all my protests I am afraid emoji’s are here to stay. But less emojis and more great writing is what I need in this world.

    This post was inspired by part of this note by Kevin Joyce where he writes about what works when writing on substack.

    Emojis work. I hate it. But here we are. 😒👏🦖🚀☄️🤹

    I hate it too. But I’m rebelling against the gurus and the emojis here on substack. If I wanted to read cartoons I would subscribe to Mad Magazine. (which is awesome BTW) and not hang around here where all the cool writers live.

    Tell me stories. I don’t need to see another poomoji thanks. I’m good.

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH is a pink plastic hair brush

    This might be the least used item in our home. The child hates, hates and hates having her hair combed. So much so that the solution is: short hair.

    There. Problem solved.

    She wants to have long hair like her friends so badly but she will not let us near her with this hairbrush.

    I noticed that the hairbrush was out today and she told me she brushed her hair so maybe, maybe there’s hope that whatever hang up she has about hair brushing will end soon.

    Permalink

  5. Thank God Easter Happens Only Once a Year

    We have way way way too much chocolate in the house right now.

    Easter 2025

    6:00 am: “Dad, wake up! It’s easter!”

    Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

    6:05 am “This is perfect”

    6:10 am: “ I am bored”

    Of course, as soon as “I’m bored” came out of her mouth all the adults in the room asked “What do you mean you’re bored”?

    I actually think we have an overstimulation problem. She went from OMG to ZERO in under 3 minutes, and then after the candies have been tested and the gifts opened she didn’t know what to do with herself.

    I have already written about how I hate hearing “I’m bored”. She has a portable computer at her fingertips and toys and an imagination. Oh, and crayons. There’s no need to be bored. There’s lots of stuff to do.

    Maybe because for the most part, we use Easter for the practical stuff. Yes, there was chocolates and the easter bunny but most was clothes save for a few bubble wands and today was too cool to be blowing bubbles outside.

    I’m no doctor but I think it was the anxiety crash. She was so upset that there was no easter basket and eggs that she couldn’t get to sleep. I was up 3 times with her over the night last night when she couldn’t sleep.

    In the morning, she got candy and excitement. I got a sleepless night.

    I hope next easter starts a little later and lasts a little longer than this one did.

    We Have That at Home

    Today’s WHTAH is a Floating Blue Turtle

    This toy arrived today as part of the easter extravaganza and this might be either the best thing or the worst thing we have depending on how th summer goes. You see, we bought an outdoor pool. Nothing fancy, but bigger than the 5 dollar pools at the dollar store but far from a full-sized pool.

    So. Pool is incoming and the easter bunny thought it would be a good idea for her to have this summer to learn how to swim better. I guess we will see how it goes, but at the time of writing this, I have a giant blue turtle in the living room.

    Summer’s on the way. Let’s see how this float works!

    Permalink

Every post → · RSS feed