Tidy Husband

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

  1. I Was Told It Gets Easier as They Get Older

    I want a refund.

    A few years ago when she was five, my mother-in-law gave me some parenting advice.

    “It will get easier”, she told me. I hoped and waited and struggled with many a bedtime waiting for the day that it would get easier.

    Spoiler: Being a parent doesn’t get easier - It just becomes different.

    My biggest complaint is that the child now has a personality and mind of her own and I’m still getting used to living with BW and has a very big mind and is very smart and so I always listen to what she tells me to do.

    The dog still chases it’s tail so I know it doesn’t get better with age. This is the best it gets with the dog.

    But the child? Yes, she’s been easier in some ways. As I write this she’s upstairs brushing her teeth and putting herself to bed for the most part - at least that’s what I am imagining - I haven’t gone up to check.

    But I want to share a new word that has come out of the child a few times today:

    “NOPE”

    Wait, what do you mean, “nope”? What is this word you speak? I asked her after she spouted this at me when I asked her to get to bed. It’s friday night on a week without school so bedtimes have been a suggestion all week anyway but I sure was not expecting “nope” out of her.

    I reminded her that “nope” is a word I can use when she wants to play her video games or watch her videos so she better get those PJ’s on - like NOW.

    1….2…..3…and up she ran to I hope put PJ’s on, but we shall see.

    This wasn’t the first time today we heard the word “nope” come out of her head today either.

    Earlier it was decided that the child and I go on a very small Grocery run to pick up a few things and she wanted to make a shopping list and grabbed her notebook.

    The 2 ladies made a list, and when BW mentioned she wanted a bottle of wine, there was that word again: “nope”, spewed the child. She told BW she doesn’t need wine and that we were not going to get her wine.

    Spoiler Alert: We bought BW the wine.

    The shopping trip was uneventful save for one rule:

    WE MUST OBEY THE LIST

    WE MUST NOT DEVIATE FROM THE LIST

    An example: I saw something at the store that I thought we needed - I forgot what it was exactly, but that’s not important because my little helper who was in charge of the list was absolutely positively sticking to the list. No exceptions.

    “Nope”, she told me. It’s not on the list. “Sorry”.

    There’s that “nope” again. So to those that tell me that it gets easier when they get older I have one thing to say to them: “NOPE. It just gets different”.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

    PS> Even though it was not on the list she got a pack of gummies out of her old man. Am I am the world’s biggest sucker for her?

    “Yup”

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  2. Starting is the Easy Part

    I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while and today is the day - I started yet another newsletter.

    black and red round digital device

    Photo by Ashutosh Dave on Unsplash

    This time it’s a travel newsletter and it’s all about Niagara Falls. From somebody that rarely leaves the house this is the ultimate irony that I start a newsletter about travel - but here we are.

    For a while now, while driving back and forth to the falls from the airport and around Niagara Falls in general - I get asked a lot of questions about where to eat and where to go and where the bathrooms are and where the best wings are, etc.

    USA on the left, Canada on the Right. Taken when both countries were better friends

    Up until now, I really didn’t know the answer but over the past few years of Uber Driving in Niagara Falls I’ve come to know the good spots and the bad. There’s more to do in the falls than see them and then go home with a t-shirt from the hard rock cafe

    I mean, there’s a Wegmans in the falls for crying out loud. This is important news.

    AI generated logo, of course.

    So, with a little help from AI, I’ve started to write it all down. These are early days and I’m still getting my mojo on how this will all shake out but I think I have a schedule of sorts that will allow me to post a daily newsletter. This should take like 20 minutes tops.

    I want to say a daily newsletter - but I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. Mind you, I’ve written here daily for a year plus, so you never know.

    Here’s today’s sample:)the falls

    [

    🌊 The Falls…

    ](https://thefalls.substack.com/p/valentine-flower-thefts-a-good-samaritan?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web)

    I’ve also compiled a few lists of cool stuff around the falls.: top ten restaurants, how to take the trolley and why the heck did they name an island after a goat? These don’t have their own newsletter and you’ll have to read them on the site itself for the time being.

    I’m doing this to see if I can’t find a wider audience than what I currently have with Tidy Husband - I love you all, but I could also send you all Christmas cards as I know where you live.:) We’re a tight knit group here.

    Maybe this Niagara Falls newsletter will reach a wider audience than what I have now or..maybe this will introduce folks to a Niagara Falls that’s a bit bigger than what the brochures show.

    This isn’t to say I won’t stop writing here and this will be my first and foremost but the falls project is a hobby site. I set most of this up on my laptop while I had the child at the Ninja School today where she ran around for 2 hours and I propped a stool up as a desk while she bounced around tumbling.

    She goes back to school Monday. Thank God.

    It really is nice out here. The Queenston-Lewiston bridge is in the background.

    There you have it. Niagara Falls News from your favorite Uber Driver

    Don’t forget to tip.

    TH and Co.

    PS. Normal news about bedtimes and the like return tomorrow here on Tidy Husband.

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  3. A Trip to the Dollar Store

    Today’s very uninteresting story 1 is about a trip to the Dollar Store. I know, I’ve written about this in the past - but I have news - kind of.

    a store front at night with the lights on

    Photo by Shane Ross on Unsplash

    You see, I went to pick her up at lunch time after her last day at her craft morning at our local craft place because she’s on February break and we had to do something with her - there’s only so much gaming one can do.

    While she was crafting and making ice cream with chocolate and sprinkles, I was at home in my man cave on my computer realizing that boy, my monitor shakes when I type and my cheap standing desk is living up to it’s reputation.

    So I asked google? How to make a monitor not wobble. It came back with a lot of answers that required wall mounting or wires or welding and all those options were not really worth it.

    One thing I saw was to try and jam a door jamb inbetween the back of the desk and the wall. I went downstairs and rummaged around and found a door jamb and what do you know? It works! Less wobble.

    For no wobble, I would need another door jamb. No problem, we can swing by on the way home. This should take seconds - Buy what I want, and leave.

    I forgot that the child was with me and this was going to take much longer because she had to “look at all the things”. The front door display was half-priced Valentine’s day offers and of course, the next holiday: Easter.

    “Ooooooo”, she exclaimed as she went to grab an over sized plastic egg from the display. I reminder her we look with our eyes and not our hands and she was okay with that. She doesn’t really want to get the stuff, but boy does she love to browse.

    We managed to get to the stationary section with all the crayons and pencils and markers and the like.

    She’s bigger now, so I had no qualms leaving her in the crayon aisle for a minute while I went one aisle over and picked up the thing I actually needed. (I actually ended up with two things, so this problem is probably genetic)

    But you guys, I left her alone in the aisle to browse. This is kind of a big deal. 2

    I know times have changed but we used to get pretty much left for dead in the toy aisle when I was a kid back in the day, so I didn’t feel to bad about having her out of my eyesight for a few minutes.

    This doesn’t mean she was out of earshot. I had exactly zero seconds before I was back in the crayon aisle answering to “Hey Dad, look at this!” and back I went to look at all the interesting things in the crayon aisle.

    We left the crayon aisle without crayons. I offered, and she replied: Nyeah, I have enough crayons”. She did toss a very glittery pencil case in the basket as well as a crayon sharpener and a crayon storage box and she was very excited with these organizational items - so whatever.

    We almost, almost made it to the checkout but she eyed the K-Pop Demon Hunter posters so we had to look and comment on each one. Again, we didn’t need to buy them but we needed to know they were there.

    It’s fun for her to browse and sure there’s lots of crap at the dollar store but it killed a good 45 minutes on a rainy day in February and that’s worth the price of a very glittery pencil case with matching sharpener.

    Now she had very sharp and organized crayons and I have a monitor that doesn’t wobble.

    We both came out of the dollar store with a win today. And only about nine dollars over budget.

    Doing our best to stimulate the economy,

    TH and Co.

    1. It’s a Wednesday. Nothing much happens here mid-week it seems ↩

    2. It’s also a dollar store in a sleepy town on a rainy Wednesday. It’s not like I left her alone at JFK or something. ↩

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  4. The Interior Decorator

    We have a tape addiction here.

    A couple of rolls of tape sitting next to each other

    Photo by Madeline Liu on Unsplash

    I waked into her room and she had four glue sticks taped to the wall.

    When I asked her why she told me “So I could find them”, she says in an tone that’s obvious I have no idea about anything. Duh.

    You Are Here

    When it’s not tape that is getting strewn about, it’s little notes with directions or directories. If our house was a shopping mall you would know where you are at all times. Without trying to look, I know that there’s a note above my side of the bed that reads “Dad” and of course BW has her own and even the dog rates and has her name in letters above her bed.

    In case you were wondering about where you were, just walk around and you will find directions to every room in the house.

    The Dresser, Continued

    Remember the new bedroom dresser we got for her a few weeks ago?

    When we got it, it looked pretty good:

    before.

    I wonder if her little unicorn-filled brain looks at the dresser and goes “hmmmm…it’s missing a little something” and so she makes a few improvements:

    There. That’s better. 1

    She actually told me tonight proudly that she arranged things since yesterday because it “looks better”. Yeah okay - if you say so. Nowgotobed.

    The Look of Love

    We also have an abundance of love here 2 not only will you not get lost in our home now, you will also get a lot of love. It doesn’t take one long to find a hastily drawn heart. I’m beginning to think that’s all she does at school is to draw little red (or blue, or green or whatever color is at hand) hearts everywhere.

    At dinnertime we talk about the future and we ask her where she will go to college and what she’ll study. The idea is too complex for her so she changes her answer everyday but she’s decided on being either an astronaut, a writer or a food reviewer.

    I know I’m the Dad, but I’m thinking a backup plan might be working for an adhesive manufacturer, or maybe Hallmark Cards writing hearts on all the valentine’s cards.

    As all the woo-woo wellness coaches tell you to do:

    Follow your heart. 3

    Always.

    If anybody has any tips on adhesive removal - I’m all ears.

    Sticking to it,

    TH and Co.

    1. This stickered version is more how we roll here. I’m always envious of the mommy bloggers with (what looks to be) perfect little homes and builder grade doors with not a lamp cord in sight and I wonder how they do it. They probably send their children off to school with combed hair and a custom bento box for lunch too. ↩

    2. no, really. we do. ↩

    3. or in our case: hearts. plural. ↩

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  5. Dinner, Then Dancing

    We have a new routine here after the dinner is done and the dishes are cleaned up.

    a man with a red ball in his hand

    Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

    We Dance.

    “Dad, let’s dance”, she pleads..

    I’ve never been a good dancer. I can’t moonwalk or waltz or dance in any shape or form that doesn’t look like I’m a dancing fool that I am

    The best part is that nobody cares.

    BW sits on the couch and watches and claps at the appropriate times and the child and I dance around the living room like the big fools we are. We dance to that Golden song by K-Pop demon hunters or course, but I’ve also introduced a few oldies like “ Sugar Sugar ” by the Archies and today we added a new song to our repertoire: Johnny Cash’s “ One Piece at a Time ” which isn’t the best song to dance to, but it’s a fun song and that’s all that matters.

    After about 3 songs, old Dad is done and BW has lost interest. Also, isn’t it time for bed?

    Tonight the child wanted me to lift her up in the air by her hips like they do in figure skating and I had to refuse because I would probably break a hip and we try to limit the hospital visits to a minimum.

    The plan is we dance, and then she has to start thinking about bedtime and get her PJ’s on.

    Tonight we told her that she could draw and play upstairs and she did, and then after a while she came looking to get tucked in. I just get her tucked in and she tells me she forgot to brush her teeth.

    Sigh. Okay, out you come…

    “I’m hungry too”, she says “I want a snack”.

    You guys, I was this close to bedtime and then it all went sideways. We went downstairs and I peeled her an orange and then she got distracted by all her goodies on the kitchen table from Valentine’s day and of course even though these things have been sitting here for three days pretty much ignored - at 8:21pm they are the most interesting things ever.

    I pull her away from the pile of pink plastic and introduce her to her toothbrush and get her tucked in and to my amazement she’s still in bed and might even be out cold as I write this.

    It’s funny how these little routines start. It’s not like we planned this but over the last few days we play the GOLDEN SONG ONE MORE TIME and we dance like nobody is watching because before you know it she won’t have anything to do with me so I might as well dance while I can.

    Besides, I don’t know how much longer this dancing routine will go on..

    One of two things will happen:

    1. she gets older and wants nothing to do with me
    2. My back gives out.

    My money is on number 2.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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