Tidy Husband

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

  1. Cookies and Soccer

    It’s Saturday, so that means soccer lessons. These start at 11am and everybody is awake by 8:00 am at the latest. And yet somehow every Saturday is an adventure trying to get her out the door on time. I never knew putting on socks and boots took so long until I had a child.

    the one moment she was in the game

    Somehow we make it on time and she’s off. Off in la-la land for most of the lesson unfortunately. She’s five so I guess she’s allowed but she’s off in the corner playing with the net and in her own head dreaming about my little ponies or whatever. Meanwhile, over there on the field are all her friends playing, oh, soccer.

    I do know what she’s not doing and that’s paying attention. She does the same at school and we’re working on it with the school too. She’s smart and interested and loves both soccer and school but she just can’t keep her eye on the task at hand.

    So, it was an hour of daydreaming. Maybe she takes after her father who always got stuck out in center field. I don’t remember much about the game but I do remember I sat down in the grass more than playing so maybe this is genetic and I’m to blame. I dunno.

    Then on the way home she asks the important questions:

    What’s Your Favorite Cookie?

    Any one, I answer. That was not a good enough answer so then we had an entire conversation on cookie ingredients. I told her I liked Chocolate Chip cookies and she wasn’t okay with the answer. The cookies she had in mind had frosting and she really wanted to know what frosting I liked.

    I will save you from the entire transcription of the rest of the conversation, Finally I answered “chocolate” and that seemed to be the answer that was right and the questioning stopped.

    Oh. Remember the 3 wise men that dropped by last week? Well, they left a gift and it was an art project.

    Apparently this is a two-part project and todays part was swirl a bunch of paint together and toss on all the glitter. No, really – all the glitter:

    Tomorrow, the ladies throw some resin over/on it to harden and then we have to figure out where to hang this. At the rate these two are producing artwork we’re going to need a bigger house to hang it all in.

    Lastly, bedtime was oddly very easy tonight. She wanted to go to bed at 5:40pm tonight and hey, who am I to argue? It was a busy day being active and creative all in the same day.

    Good Night. Sleep Tight

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  2. It’s Her Party and I will Cry if I Want To.

    The child turns six in 2 weeks.

    I forgot about this part: With the first year of school comes lots of friends.

    This poses a problem with whom to invite to your birthday party. BW tells me that if we hand out invitations in her class then the rule is you have to invite the entire class. This makes complete sense as it’s not fair for little Jimmy to be left behind.

    We’re in the age of “everybody gets a prize” so it should come as no surprise that we invited..well, the whole class. We follow the rules here.

    In fact, not only did we invite her entire class, I am pretty sure we invited about half of the other kindergarten class at the school because half of her friends are in that class too.

    I think we are up to 26 kids. TWENTY SIX.

    We’re definitely not hosting a birthday party at home with 26 six-year-olds in the house (could you imagine?). So that begs the question: where then?

    Why Niagara Fun Park of course.

    Are you ready to P-A-R-T-Y?

    Remember how the ball pit at IKEA was one of the coolest things you could do as a kid? Well, this is so much better. They have oh, a dozen or so indoor bouncy castles that are absolutely huge and the kids just run from room to room and castle to castle for two hours straight.

    They are going to have a blast. We’ve already had some RSVP’s come back to us and so that’s great and we’re all excited and looking forward to the big day.

    Wanna know what’s not great? The cost. BW is in charge of the finances for this but this birthday party is starting to creep too close to a thousand dollars. Yikes!

    Here’s an approximate breakdown of the costs

    • 25 kids x 20 each $500
    • Birthday Cake $100
    • Loot bags $100
    • snacks for the adults $50ish

    Yikes! That’s a lot of uber rides I have to do.

    We told her we can’t/will not be doing this every year where we invite all the friends and cough up all the money for 2 hours of fun. It’s only because this year is the first year at school and she has a lot of new friends.

    Next year we will be more selective with friends and have a few and not the entire class.

    Another reason for limiting the invite count is that now we’re about to receive 26 gifts! 26 my little pony sets or other pink plastic from Target/WalMart/China. We have no room in the house for 26 gifts! We don’t need or want 26 gifts.

    We really just wanted to have fun and blow out some candles on a cake with a few friends. I’m not sure how this turned into a birthday party the same size as woodstock, but it has.

    All this to say: Next time you’re in an Uber – tip your driver – they might have a birthday party to pay for.

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  3. Sick with Kids

    I have garnered enough energy to place my fingers on the keyboard tonight to inform you all I am sick. It’s just a common cold and nothing to worry about otherwise. Dayquil is helping.

    Why I am writing about my ailment is that kids don’t care if you’re sick. You could be on death’s door and you still have to care for them. Whomever developed this parenting thing should of thought about this and have a backup plan.

    I can push a button on my phone and get curtains delivered in less than 24 hours. But if I feel so crappy I just want to curl up in a ball because I am a parent I still have to um, parent.

    And being a parent while sick might just be the worst thing ever. This got me to doing some thinking..

    Folks, I present to you my new online internet idea:

    Grandmazon!

    Think about it. Push a button on an app and you get an insured and background checked grandparent to help out.

    I figure why not? They say that the worst thing you can do when you retire is just stop and watch FOX news all day so this would keep our aging population relevant

    We’ve had the neighbor across thew street come over when I had to take BW to the hospital once and because she IS a grandma she didn’t need instructions or emergency phone numbers.

    She looked me straight in the eye and said to me “Don’t worry, I’ve got this”. And she did.

    Because she’s seen all the things with her own children and her own grandchildren too she has the experience. We have an entire generation of aging boomers that need to turn off the TV and and into our homes to read an emergency session of Fox in Socks instead of watching Fox TV.

    This is what the world needs more of: real leaders that can help.

    And of course, bring you a little soup if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother.

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  4. Seating Arrangements

    I’m not sure when it happened but we went from having a lot of room in the house to not being able to fit one more thing.

    Today’s story is about a dog bed.

    Way back in time – like 3 months ago – we replaced the carpet in the living room with a new carpet, which the dog promptly ate. We were not going to replace the carpet again but we figured the dog should have some place to sleep that’s comfortable so we got her a nice comfy dog bed and placed it right at the front window in the living room next to heat register. Doggie heaven, yes?

    Well…it was until the dog decided that the front window’s curtains were delicious and ate them too.

    Okay then. No carpet and we can’t put the dog bed by window again because we just hung the new curtains last night and don’t want those to get eaten too. The question then begs: where to put the dog bed?

    Behind the couch? No, she will just eat the couch

    By the front door? No, we will trip over her and the bed.

    How about in her crate? She has to love that because it’s safe in her crate and now it’s padded! Doggie heaven, yes? Nope. The dog is afraid of the bed in the crate because: change! She won’t go near it. The fear is real.

    Okay then! I am out of ideas and done/frustrated. I am sick of playing Martha Stewart trying to find a place that suits the dog and us. For the time being, the dog can lay on the carpet in the hallway. I tried to make the dog comfortable and the dog won’t go along with the ride – so to heck with it. I take the dog bed to the basement and maybe I will regroup and rethink this problem another day.

    But, we toss the same bed into the crate she has in our bedroom and the dog is absolutely fine with it. I’m talking exactly the same. We have 2 crates and 2 beds – same make, model, Amazon SKU – everything is identical. The dog has more places to sleep than I do.

    The dog is fine with the bed/crate situation upstairs and hops right in.

    Today’s Lesson: Dog bed placement is just like real estate: location is all that matters.

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  5. I A Door You

    Somehow we’ve managed to see another milestone together. This one is giving these guys all our money so BW can get new windows and a front door for the house

    Like, all our money.

    I would love to take credit for this new chapter, but I cannot. Like all things that happens here – it works like this: BW has an idea, and somehow I always get involved in it despite my best attempt at exercising my lazy tendencies and avoiding anything to do with the idea.

    It started innocently enough. Some kid knocked on the door selling windows and the next thing you know we’ve got an appointment for the sales guy to come.

    The sales guy shows up. The sales guy makes the sale. Your new windows will be ready in 3 months or so.

    Oh, OK. I have time, I think.

    Times up! The phone rings and it’s the window guys. They can come today.

    Oh. Hang on, let me move the dog bed and the couch and sweep up all the cheerios and cookies that are under the couch. Oh? Curtains have to come down? Okay.

    We need new curtains now? Oh, OK. Hang on – let me get the old ones down before we shop for curtains

    New curtains are found. Amazon has them here in 12 hours.

    How about orange? It works for me!

    The door guys show up and take out old windows and install new ones. Easy-peasy The new windows look great.

    What’s that? BW doesn’t like living in a house without curtains? “Let’s pretend we’re students and we can’t afford curtains”, I say in an effort to avoid work.

    No luck.

    I get busy once again and try to remember what curtain rod goes in what room and then curse the person whomever hung the curtain rod last time (probably me). Also, where did that little doohickey go that I had right here a minute ago?

    While I am on ladder trying not to drop the screw I have already dropped 3 times, the five-year-old decides this would be a good time for “opposite time”. This is the time where she does exactly the opposite of what you don’t want her to do. If you tell her to leave the drill alone, she touches it. “No, don’t play with that” I say to the air – and nobody with ears apparently.

    Dad loses it and tells five-year-old to go to bed because she’s not listening. Five-year-old ignores dad and starts screaming wanting a “huggie” at the top of her lungs.

    Dad ignores child more and tries to finish curtain hanging. Apparently there’s a way to hang curtains that I did not know, but BW set me straight.

    Child is still screaming. Dad caves and goes and gives the much needed “huggie”. Dad tells child he will be back in a minute. He lied.

    Dad showers. Child is asleep when dad is showered. Thank God.

    And that’s the story about how we got new windows and doors today.

    It’s now air-tight in here with our fancy new front door and windows all around. We learned the reason why the child’s bedroom was always so cold in the winter: Apparently insulation was optional back in the 70’s

    I’m not out of the woods yet, as now the window solution has created a problem with blinds as the sizes or shape or layout or something are all wrong for the new windows. Now I have to find out what fits for our new windows.

    It also feels kind of air tight in here now. I miss the breeze across the floor and watching the tumbleweeds of dog hair roll across the living room floor at night.

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