Tidy Husband

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

  1. Turkey Mode: Engaged

    As a Canadian I have a tough time with this holiday. It’s on a Thursday. Not a Friday or a Monday where you can squeeze a long weekend out of it but you have one day off then that’s it! Back to work. I don’t get it. That’s not a holiday. That’s a meal and a nap if you’re lucky.

    It’s one of the busiest travel days of the year and I can’t really understand why. You get just one day off! One. Day. Not two or three. One.

    Friday comes and back to work for you. You must work for the monies here in the USA so that you can buy all the things on sale. Maybe that’s the reason.

    She, on the other hand has drawn or come home with a new turkey every day.

    We are in full on Turkey Mode.

    And here’s the kicker: Even though the actual holiday is just one day, she is out of school for 4 this week and 5 the next week.

    She’s been home 3.5 days by the end of the weekend and then she goes to school for 2 days and then is off for five days in a row.

    That’s a lot of days of “Hey, Dad” on repeat.

    I know what I will be thankful for: A full week of school again.

    Permalink

  2. Pizza Night

    As I am sure it is at a lot of homes, at our house it’s pizza night on Friday.

    Not the frozen kind. Never the frozen kind.

    In fact, BW makes it from scratch – dough and all every Friday with few exceptions.

    There’s been the odd occasion where in the past she had to go away and I would either:

    1. Follow her instructions and hope, there’s a Pizza at the end.
    2. Buy a premade pizza and toss in the oven for 20 minutes.

    This should come as no surprise that I usually pick choice number 2.

    Never this.

    We’ve become a bit of connoisseurs regarding pizza, the child and I. We don’t just eat the cheapo five-dollar frozen wonder. We have found a great fresh premade pizza at Aldi of all places.

    It has to be a loss leader, because this pizza is seven bucks for an extra-large. The dough alone is close to that in cost. We only discovered Aldi and their pizzas about a year ago and it’s great.

    this is much better.

    Aldi is kind of hard to explain. It’s a grocery store sure, but the stock changes regularly and then in the middle of it is some random hardware and stuff that changes all the time. I have bought a bicycle repair stand here for instance. This is usually something I would not think of – to buy bike parts at a grocery store.

    Back to the pizza: It wouldn’t be a complete Friday night if we didn’t critique the pizza afterwards. It’s homemade so no pizza’s are the same whether it’s toppings, crust thickness or quantity of cheese. And of course, no olives. That is understood, especially on the child’s portion.

    The best part is that there’s leftovers so lunch on at least one of the weekend days is pizza once again and I am okay with that.

    The child asks me what my favorite food is and my answer is always pizza.

    Especially if it’s homemade.

    Permalink

  3. Half Day

    I came home from a morning of driving strangers around and at the window staring back at me was my child. This is not the norm.

    Oh, right. It’s a half day at school day today for her.

    Of course, the first thing she went for when she got home was the tablet because she’s not allowed to use it on school days.

    As of 12:00pm today it was officially the weekend as far as she was concerned so she glued herself to the tablet for the rest of the afternoon. I know, the parenting guidelines say that you should limit screen time to an hour or so but they don’t have to deal with the child, so I take the suggestions with a grain of salt.

    Who the hell thought it was a good idea to have a half day of school for kids?

    First, what’s the point of sending a kid to to school for 2.25 hours? She spent 1.5 hours on the bus getting to and fro. If you’re going to cancel, cancel the entire day.

    Second. Don’t they realize that people have lives? How do you arrange care for your offspring for a Thursday afternoon? We’ve got it easy with flexible schedules and as it happens BW’s Mom is here so we’ve got an extra hand which is nice.

    And then tomorrow she has the day off as well so that BW and I can go to the parent/teacher meeting to learn what we already know because, oh…I don’t know… we live with her?

    Actually, the school does a great job and they’ve been great getting her the OT and PT help she needs so we really don’t have any complaints other than the part where I am at the school tomorrow morning and my child is not.

    This is backwards.

    I wonder that if I can convince BW that I don’t have to work tomorrow because it’s a PT Day and seeing how I went to school in the morning for the P/T meeting, I should get the rest of the day off. Right?

    Right?

    BW? Did you hear me?

    Hello? BW?

    Permalink

  4. The Tent

    We’ve been tripping over this thing for almost 4 years now.

    See how there’s no kid in here? There’s a reason for that.

    About four years ago the new parents (and grandparents) thought that this little tike reading tent would be so perfect and she would love it, and she would be in it all the time.

    I mean look at it. It’s sooooo cute. She will love it.

    She does not love it.

    I can count on my fingers how many times she’s been in it.

    This has been the biggest piece of crap we have ever bought for her, and it has been the worst experience ever when it comes to assembly. Of course, we found out about the assembly part on Christmas eve at 10pm that the little screw that was supposed to go into the little hole never did go in the little hole and they should fire the idiots that designed this thing.

    This thing was defiant. It’s like it wanted to stay in the box and never come out. But we forced it out of the box and managed to wrangle it into the living room by the tree for the big day. Come hell or high water we were going to have a Christmas with a tent in our living room. We. were. determined.

    In hindsight, she was too young. We were new at this and didn’t know better. We were still at OMGSHEWILLLOVETHIS stage. She didn’t love it.

    Want to know who loved it? The dog. I can’t really blame her. There’s usually a blanket on the floor and it’s covered so she feels safe. But we didn’t buy it for the dog. We bought it for the child.

    Maybe it needs a blanket, we thought. Abuela made her a special blanket just for the tent. The blanket gets used for her teddy bears more than her. Also, the dog loves the blanket. The dog thanks us daily for that blanket.

    For the longest time, this thing just sat in the living room taking up room where normal people might have furniture. But nope, we have a tent.

    The best part? Once this thing is together, it’s together. It’s not moving.

    Want to move it to another room? You must take it apart. There’s no hinge or folding mechanism that would help with storage or movement. The only way to move it is to take it apart. It won’t fit through doors without disassembly.

    So, I took it apart so it could be moved to the family room and out of the living room where it has sat so long there’s a clean spot in the carpet where the tent sat.

    And in the family room it has sat. and sat. and sat.

    It rarely gets used or played in. The neighborhood kids love it because they have smart parents that did not buy them one so of course, they think the tent is the coolest thing ever.

    At one point BW and I decided that it was time for the tent to go and then it could be somebody else’s problem but alas, our little charge caught us trying to remove the tent from the family room and give it away to some other sucker. But of course, there were tears and broken promises of more usage that never materialized.

    Why tell this story? I dunno. As a cautionary tale.

    It’s the holiday season and it’s easy to get caught up in buying gifts for the child that are really for the parent and the child will care less. Think of me when you have that 1000 piece lego kit in your Amazon shopping cart. You will pay for it.

    Also, save the box.

    That they will play in. I guarantee it.

    Permalink

  5. On Growth

    there’s no way.

    We were fooling around in the front hall waiting for the bus when I snapped this photo and later when I had time to review – I could not recognize her. She has grown so much.

    That’s a girl in that photo. Not daddy’s little girl and definitely not a baby any more. In fact, my baby didn’t even want a kiss or hug on the way out the door and God forbid I wait with her for the bus. Like OMG DAD, so embarrassing.

    I was told in so many words that the furthest I am allowed to go is the threshold of the front door and that’s it. I can wave from the front door because Dad – I don’t need to be babied any more. I’ve got this.

    I thought I had more time before I went from fun Dad to embarrassing Dad, but apparently not. I thought I had until the tweens. I feel ripped off. Five years is all I get?

    I guess that’s why I am writing here – to document the growth. It’s not for the audience or the clicks or the chance of going viral.

    It’s because I don’t want to miss a minute of it.

    Permalink

Every post → · RSS feed