Tidy Husband

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

  1. Picture Day

    Picture Day 2020

    The ladies are away for a bit, so while they’re off having adventures, I’m reaching into the archives. These are some of my favourite posts from the past few years. Enjoy.

    In the flurry of the hustle and bustle of starting first grade we made a note for the school picture day so we wouldn’t forget.

    Then we forgot.

    As I was tucking her in last night she casually mentions to me that it’s picture day tomorrow.

    “What?!!!” I ask.

    I go downstairs and check the calendar.

    Shit. She’s right.

    Then comes the list in my head:

    • When did she last have a bath? Yesterday - that will have to do
    • What will she wear?
    • Does she even know what a hairbrush looks like?

    I do a lot around here - but the clothing and food is mommy’s domain and she’s not here.

    OMGWHATDOIDO?

    Breathe. Just Breath. I can do this.

    I asked the child what she wanted to wear and thankfully she’s old enough and has a lot more fashion sense than her old man and she picked a pretty little number that’s a jumpsuit? I think. It’s a shirt and shorts all tied into one unit - where the hell is BW and why can’t she be here to solve this problem?!!

    Then there was the hairbrush:

    The last time the child brushed her hair was back in 2022 I think and of course today is the day that the child needs to brush her hair for the first time in forever so she will look great for picture day.

    Any hairbrush will do, right? OH NO. The child needs her hairbrush and no other brush will do because before she went to bed she had to practice. OMG, just make this day stop, please.

    After a relatively short search we found the magic pink hairbrush in mommy’s basket of hairbrushes and nail files and scrunchies and god knows what else is in that thing but worrying about the contents of that basket isn’t important

    We had to practice hair brushing.

    For those that are new: I have NO HAIR and hers is short so between the two of us we had to figure out how to even use the hairbrush, but after a while we got the hang of it and she was busy brusing away all was good - right?

    Well… almost.

    She’s right handed and so only the right side of her head got brushed leaving the left side of her head the usual frazzled mess that it is.

    We laid out the brush and outfit and knew what to do in the morning so she could tell mommy about our great plan.

    I was not there to witness this, but this morning went off without a hitch. The chosen outfit was still the chosen outfit she wanted to wear and she managed to get both sides of her head brushed before she got out the door and on the bus.

    If she’s on the bus looking relatively respectable to have her photo taken then I’m calling that a win for the day.

    As I write this all photos have been taken without issue apparently so time will tell what they look like.

    I know I can’t wait to see them.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  2. Child Free

    silhouette of people with free marquee letters

    Photo by William White on Unsplash

    The ladies are away for a bit, so while they’re off having adventures, I’m reaching into the archives. These are some of my favourite posts from the past few years. Enjoy.

    “Did you talk to the child?” I asked as I walked in the door.

    “I tried, but she did not want to talk to me”, BW tells me.

    That sounds about right.

    She’s having too much fun with Abuela going to birthday parties and expeditions where they check out covered bridges and bake carrot cake cookies. No wonder she could care less about the folks back home.

    This leaves BW and I with unfamiliar territory: time on our hands. Not much time ,because bedtime comes soon after I hit publish here - but more than we are used to.

    We talked to each other today about stuff to do around the house and the general planning of the week ahead. Uninterrupted.

    We had thought about going for a walk tonight but we decided against it because we can’t walk the dog because the dog never got trained to walk. It would be easier to walk a wild walrus, I think.

    There’s an entire story about trying to train the dog, but that will be saved for another time.

    It’s eerily quiet here. I have not told anybody to do anything in hours and now I have all this extra time in the evenings where I can read and start a project and not get interrupted a million times.

    We did not have to listen to a song, watch a show, clean up any mess we did not make - or tell somebody to go to bed for the 13th time. I didn’t have to hear how disgusting the adult toothpaste is because we told her she had to use it because she’s a big girl and we won’t be having any more kid toothpaste in the house.

    The silence is great, but boy is it quiet here. I forgot just how quiet.

    Maybe tomorrow she’ll want to talk to us - because right now the silence is deafening.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  3. On Sleeping In

    pink bell alarm clock showing 2:10

    Photo by Mpho Mojapelo on Unsplash

    The ladies are away for a bit, so while they’re off having adventures, I’m reaching into the archives. These are some of my favourite posts from the past few years. Enjoy.

    We’re lucky that for the most part setting an alarm clock is an option for us most days because we have a custom one of kind alarm clock: she’s six-years-old

    ~~Our~~ My day~~s~~ start when hers start.

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    “Dad, Get Up” is how I wake up.

    Dad does not want to get up. Considering the early hour and the fact that if she’s old enough to take a bath by herself now you would think that she can pour some cereal and milk into a bowl by herself and let her old man sleep in a bit.

    But, nope. “Okay, Okay, I’m up.”

    But it’s not that she can’t get her own breakfast - it’s that she would prefer to have me do it for her. And hey, I get that - when it doubt: delegate. But I have years of experience pouring cereal into bowls. She just doesn’t want to do it because it’s easier for her to claim it’s too hard and have me do it.

    It’s ~~better~~ easier for the both of us

    This morning was an example: I poured the cereal today. We were running late and we didn’t have much time for breakfast to happen today so I got her the breakfast so we could get to camp on time. Another reason she wants me to come downstairs with her is because she likes my company: her first words to me were “Daddy, sit down” and we’ve been sharing breakfast together since almost every morning.

    Sometimes BW joins us but sometimes the siren song of the bed is too hard to resist so she feigns sleep and lets me do the morning shift.

    This morning was a close call though as she was exceptionally all over the place in her brain and not focusing on the task at hand. She was super-distracted.

    “Let’s go. We’re going to be late”, I tell her.

    She can’t find her shoes. Then she finds them and wants me to put them on. I tell her no, she can do it herself. There’s a bit of protest so I make it a game: who can put on our shoes on first?

    She won the shoe game - but I won the morning. We made it to camp just on time.

    We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.

    Until next time,

    TH and co.

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  4. Father's Day with a Shovel and a Dream

    The ladies are away for a bit, so while they’re off having adventures, I’m reaching into the archives. These are some of my favourite posts from the past few years. Enjoy.

    So. Here’s the scene:

    a pair of shovels laying on the ground

    Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash

    Wife and child are away for the weekend. We’ve already celebrated father’s day so the day is mine. What to do?

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    Brunch? Nope. It’s boring eating alone

    Golf? Too expensive and besides, it’s for wannabe rich guys.

    Nap? Not feeling it.

    Dig the backyard up in 80 degree heat at high noon?

    Hell. Ya!

    I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time. Over the years, there were some patio stones at the bottom of the stairs. I think. They were nowhere to be found. I knew they were in there - I just had to find them. It was like search for buried treasure without a map.

    So I got out my trusty lawn edger and dug around until I found them. Turns out there was 9 of them buried there.

    I also had about 8 extra flagstone pieces from somewhere. These were being leaned up against a fence to keep the dog in when she was a puppy. I figured I could put them to good use, and just start over feeding the dog so she doesn’t fit under the fence.

    Lastly, in the shed I had a bag of sandbox sand leftover from God knows what.

    And most importantly I had uninterrupted time. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

    This allowed me to do things my way, at my pace and it could take as long as I would like.

    There’s really not much more to this story other than I learned that I am not a professional landscaper and it shows - but, it’s better than having 9 buried patio stones in the lawn and now we have steps to the pool area which is something we didn’t have when I started this morning.

    Like all DIY, if you look too closely you will see mistakes but this cost no money other than some sweat and an afternoon. I did not leave the house to get supplies and spent no money on this job.

    It was either this or a nap.

    I have no idea what I am doing.

    By theory, this might work.

    eh. good enough.

    This job is far from perfect but when the sod I replaced grows back in it should look a bit better. It’s for little toes to bounce from the house to the pool and back for the remainder of the summer and hopefully, this will keep more dirt outside than in but there’s no guarantee with that.

    With that in mind, it’s good enough.

    Now, about that nap..

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  5. The Bedtime Routine

    The ladies are away for a bit, so while they’re off having adventures, I’m reaching into the archives. These are some of my favourite posts from the past few years. Enjoy.

    —-

    If you haven’t noticed, I write about bedtime a lot here.

    I am sure one day I will write about teenage angst- but for now - it’s bedtime.

    Getting a child to go to bed is hard. Subscribing is the easy part. Try it and see.

    In fact, my entire day evolves around bedtime.

    From the moment she wakes up, it’s all a goal to land at the end of the rainbow: bedtime at a reasonable time.

    I’m sure as she gets older this will be less of an issue but from about 5pm onwards until about 9pm, we have one task: get her fed and into bed. It’s a struggle.

    I have no idea why it takes so long as we run a pretty tight ship with timing and we shoot for 7:30pm bedtime, but the problem is that she doesn’t stay in bed. She’s a night owl and gets her most creative ideas at night - but instead of getting into bed and staying there she gets up, draws, and colors and sings.

    This assumes the getting to bed happens. We thought we had it easy tonight because she went to school in her PJ’s so we thought how easy could this be? Toss her in bed after dinner and done!

    Ha.

    It took us an hour of five more more minutes before we managed to get her upstairs in the general vicinity of her bedroom.

    I’m the problem. I am the fun parent at bedtime. And she’s good with BW if I’m not here - but if I am - I am the chosen one.

    I finally finished what I was doing on my computer and of course she’s hovering in the other room waiting to be put to bed properly. She will not go to bed no matter how much begging and pleading from BW.

    She just needs a few minutes of silliness and then she’ll go to bed. She does not respond to instructions. She responds to suggestions and questions and tricks Dad has up his sleeve. I am the bedtime master.

    Take tonight - she was five more minute-ing me to death and so I finally told her that I will just lay there with her and hold her and I’m not leaving until she is asleep.

    She’s fighting it. She’s had a bit of a second wind after dinner, but that offer is even expiring. Those eyelids are getting pretty heavy.

    She’s trying not to go to sleep. The blinking is getting faster and faster.

    And just as she was down with the last blink she opened her eyes one last time and told me:

    Go Away.

    Gladly. I’ve been waiting for this moment for hours now.

    Sleep Tight,

    TH and Co.

    It’s late when I write because of bedtime. Subscribe to see how late it gets.

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