Tidy Husband

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

  1. 99.9 Percent

    Every once in a while the universe throws you a bone when it comes to child care.

    Photo by Patrick Robert Doyle on Unsplash. Not 100 percent, but close.

    She was good as gold all day today. If every day was like this I might even recommend to others that they have children too.

    This morning she got up by herself and after a few minutes on the couch to figure out what day it was she was as good as gold all day long.

    She dressed herself with just a few reminders that the clock is ticking for the bus and then we played soccer in the driveway until she happily hopped do the bus.

    She was happy when she hopped off the bus too. She had a haircut appointment she knew about and we went without protest.

    She’s allowed to bring a lollypop to distract her while she’s getting her haircut and then she was reading the label and asked me what “artificial” means - because the label read “artificial flavoring”.

    I explained that it’s man-made flavor and even though it might taste like a strawberry, that lollypop is not made out of strawberries or has even been near one.

    “Oh, like artifical intelligence”, she pipes up from the back seat.

    Exactly.

    The the conversation went on to how long it would be until she gets her hair cut by robots and not a person and I would not be surprised if she would see it while she’s here on this blue marble.

    The haircut was uneventful, you guys. UNEVENTFUL. No squirming or complaining or whining, just happily sucking on her artificially flavored sucker and talking to her stylist about school and her new pink sneakers that light up.

    We went home, and I made dinner and she happily played with ponies and her imaginiation and then at dinnertime she just ate what was put in front of her.

    No fussing - just eating.

    Earlier today BW got sick at work, so I just went and brought her home and we would deal with her car later, so after dinner BW went back to bed and the child and I took an Uber to her work to collect the car and bring it back home.

    Again, no issues. Quiet as a church mouse the entire trip there and then on the way back home she sang to herself.

    It was still a bit early for bedtime so she played happily with the one jar of play-doh we actually have that’s not rock hard and then when it was time it was PJ’s, Teeth and Bed.

    Boom, Done.

    Thank you, Universe.

    Keep Behaving,

    TH and Co.

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  2. They Grow Up So Fast

    And go to bed so late

    This is what first grade looks like:

    My first thought was how grown up she looked. It seemed not too long ago that she came home to us and now she’s got a big goofy grin captured for all time in her first grade photo

    My second thought was: I’m going to put this photo on the internet. I might as well start embarrassing her now before the tween years. I mean, why wait?

    I guess that’s why I do this writing thing - not for the fame and fortune but to go back and read what seemed like just another day but then you remember it was a pretty good day for some random Monday.

    Today, she decided that after dinner we needed to have a Halloween Party. Considering Halloween is a week or so away I am not sure why tonight, but hey - we went with it.

    First the invites: It reads:

    YOUR INVITID
    HALLAWEEN PARTY
    8:31

    We did have to change the time from 8:31 (she has trouble with 3’s and always get them backwards) to an earlier time because Mom and Dad had dreams of an early night but of course this didn’t happen.

    We set and alarm for 7pm and then we partied:

    We just followed the signs.

    First, there was dancing. She found a little projector that projects pumpkins and witches on the ceiling when you turn out the lights, so just like the Bruce Springsteen Song we were Dancing in the Dark.

    When the dancing was over we had to go to dressup station and put the following on:

    1. A purse
    2. Sunglasses
    3. Something else — I forget.

    Done, right? OH NO.

    Our party continued with story time where we were read to and then for the finale of the party she took the signs she made and passed them around so we could all look at them closely and talk about them - just like they do in first grade!

    Here’s to first grade and all the learning of all the things that need to be learned.

    Keep Partying,

    TH and Co.

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  3. Things Are Not Going Well Here

    It’s 9:30pm and she’s still awake. Also, I’m Famous.

    I should be done with this bedtime stuff. Bedtime was at 8pm and I thought we were there.

    We were not there. She came down the stairs with stickers on her face:

    Honey, we made a cartoon characte.

    Was this funny? Yes,

    Was it a stall tactic? You Bet.

    Would it have been better presented when it was not past the bed time by an hour?

    You Bet.

    Meanwhile, BW comes home from her business trip fueled by bad coffee and metallica at full blast and is just in time for dinner, so that’s good. She helped the child with the homeork and then showered and went to bed!

    Meanwhile, with one on either side of me - one won’t go to bed and is peeling a grape that needs to be perfectly peeled before bedtime can happen and on the other side the dog is all like: “Oh, Hi. Did you want to pet me?”

    The anwser is no at this point. A hard NO.

    No more petting, grape peeling and any other excuse to stay up or get attention from dear old Dad.

    Sorry, Dad is closed. Press 2 for Mommy.

    Please pay attention because our options have changed:

    GO TO BED! All buttons pressed are mine and lead to you going to bed.

    To all you empty nesters and single folks chuckling at my misfortune: You can laugh, but I’m the number 87 on the rising newsletter list in the parenting section here on Substack

    All because I write about bedtimes not going well. Who knew there was a market for such stuff?

    Press 3 for Subscribe. Operators are standing by. 1

    TH and Co.

    1. Instead of going to bed. ↩

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  4. A Day with Dad

    OMG so tired.

    I’m not tired. It’s more I am worn out by watching and counting and playing and holding hands because we’re in a parking lot. Not to mention all the feeding and entertainment that she needs.

    It’s a lot. But that’s okay because after our trip to McD’s we came home with an action figure that looks an awful lot like mommy:

    it’s super mommy!

    We really did have a great time today and despite all the silliness and hype about our big trip to McDonald’s she only ate a few chicken nuggets but drank most of her milk and took her Apple slices to go. See BW? There was a healthy portion.

    And then, the jumping. And the running. And the jumping. And more jumping

    This place is insane with kids and I heard that they had six birthday parties going on at the same time so there was no lack of running and jumping. It doesn’t matter what age they are they only run at full speed. It’s amazing they don’t crash into each other.

    I spent the next two hours doing the following:

    1. Surfing eBay on my phone
    2. Looking for child due to number 1 above.
    3. Finding child and then looking every time I hear “Dad, watch this!”. There was a lot of “Dad watch this”.

    and this:

    and this

    I got exhausted just watching all “this. It was a hit though because she’s braver this time around - she never would have jumped into the foam pit before. The trip made an impression on her because when we got home she made this:

    get air: my dream is to go there every day.

    They have a new rule at the trampoline place: you have to buy their socks to enter. I will say they have more rubber grippy nubs on them than any socks we ever had so they weren’t all that bad for four bucks.

    Surprisingly, the 2 hours wasn’t that long - but just long enough to get her worn out a bit. She was hot and hungry after all that jumping and running, so we stopped at the dollar store for a nutritious snack.

    We had one more stop:

    To get the dog a bone. I know, I know I ranted and raved how I was not going to buy the dog a bone, but she has been so bored and annoying and now that she has a bone: no more annoying dog, so I owe BW an apology. She was right on this one.

    Of course, a trip to the pet store is not just to get dog bones - it is an experience that one must slowly appreciate. We looked at fish, birds, cats and I am sure every stuffed toy or trinket that you can put on or play with.

    She wanted to bring home a birthday hat for the dog but I told her it’s not the dog’s birthday and the hat stays at the store.

    I finally dragged her out of the pet store and lo and behold there was a goodwill next door, so we walked in and looked around for a bit. She had her eye on some plastic thing that would be back there next week had we bought it, so we just saved a trip and left it there in the first place.

    Day is done, yes? She must be tired.

    Nope. Now we go to the park for more running and swinging and jumping. I’m at the exhausted level by this point. I didn’t get my afternoon nap.

    Hey dad, Let’s RACE!

    We finally call the activities quits by dinnertime and then afterwards she had a bath and maybe, maybe, maybe she might got to bed before I finish this post but it’s doubtful because there’s a whole lot of singing and crafting going on up there.

    Doubtful, but one can dream.

    Oh, speaking of crafting: She comes down this morning wanting to do a craft she saw on YouTube. You take a sponge, dip it in water that’s been colored by food coloring and then take your fist and pound the sponge and voila!

    Instant MESS!

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some cleaning to do.

    Keeping it in the Air,

    TH and Co.

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  5. A Whooper of a Good Time

    No Tricks, Just Treats This Year.

    MMMMmmmmmmmm..yum, yum yum……

    That was the sound from the back seat of the car after I told her she could have a treat once we got into the car.

    “Hey Dad! I’ve never had a “ Whoooper ” before. Did you know they are balls of chocolate?

    We had a great time at trunk or treat

    She was greeted by all her friends and some of the costumes were really good. This was the year of kpop demon hunters as it seem they were very popular with the first grade crowd.

    One of the cars was tricked up like a pirate ship and the kids had to walk the plank to get to the ship full of candy to pick one out. Another car was sesame street themed and then of course your pumpkins and spiders were there of course.

    After we ran the course of all the trunks and filled our bags she wanted to go play in the playground with all the other 100 or so kids already there so that’s what we did.

    She’s getting a bit braver:

    that’s a loooong way up.

    When we left for the event there was a bit of pushback on bringing a sweater and she just wanted to wear her short sleeved Encanto costume so I just brought it anyway and of course when she got there she complained of the cold. Don’t worry, Dad’s got you - and she put on the sweater happily.

    When we got home it was time to see what she got and she chose the skittles gummies, but she couldn’t get through them all because she was so full thanks in part to the fact that I loaded her with carbs before we left.:)

    While sorting them out she told me she liked skittles the best:

    “I could live in a world made of Skittles”, she told me.

    And because we might be related to each other she had to sort her candy into 3 groups:

    1. Candy she loved
    2. Candy she liked
    3. Candy for Dad

    from left to right: loved, liked, and for Dad.

    Then it was off to bed so she put some PJ’s on and we had a very thorough tooth brushing tonight and then off to bed.

    It took her a while to get to the land of sleep because she was full of sugar and we have more fun planned for tomorrow:

    Tomorrow she goes trampolining!

    Keeping the sugar high going,

    TH and Co.

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