Tidy Husband

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

  1. F is for Fork

    Finger foods are the favorite here.

    We have a problem.

    Photo by an_vision on Unsplash

    The child does not like to use a fork. I dunno if it’s hard to handle the food with a fork, or it’s just muscle memory from time gone by, but boy oh boy does this get under BW’s skin 1

    It’s not like this is a recent thing too. We’ve been yelling FORK! at our little charge for what seems like forever.

    Every. Night.

    At 2-years-old, you can see that using a fork would be hard to manage. And even at 3-years-old most days one might not expect fork usage, but at four and five it would should be an improvement over time and one would expect that by the time she’s school age that she would be fully trained in fork usage.

    Yeah…… NO. Not here.

    It’s not like we haven’t tried, but her impulse is to use her hands to eat and she’s getting much too old for that. I told her if you’re going to be a Taylor Swift fan, you have to eat with a fork - it’s right there in the swiftie manual. Page 42.

    It’s the left hand that seems to be the problem. She can be holding her fork in her right hand and yet use her left hand to bring the food to her mouth.

    She CAN do this, but she forgets or just takes the easy way out and says F*** IT, I’M using my hands to eat. Whatever it is, we’re working on it. She will correct herself if she is reminded but it’s not a habit yet and I’m not sure where we’ve failed as parents.

    We’ve tried sitting beside her and holding her left hand while she eats, We’ve had her sit on her left hand, we’ve had her put her left hand on her head and nothing really works.

    All is not lost and some improvement has been seen lately so the dinnertime chorus of “fork fork fork!” 2 has been getting less and less but just in case you have to sit with us at dinner anytime soon, you have been warned.

    If we go out for dinner you’ll want to seat us in the back by the kitchen until this for thing gets sorted out.

    I’m sure this will all work out over time and if it doesn’t I don’t want to be at the wedding table 3 when BW gets up and yells FORK! one last time at the bride.

    And if not - we’ll just serve finger foods.

    Use your fork.

    TH and Co.

    1. mine too. good table manners are essential. ↩

    2. this would be a great name for a Swedish punk band. ↩

    3. By the time this happens it will probably be myself that’s having trouble with fork usage. ↩

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  2. Anti Social

    Friends are Overrated.

    Today was what could be the last nice day of the summer/fall with a high temperature of pushing 80 degrees.

    Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

    After getting her off theb School Bus and snacked up, I told her she needed to go outside and play and she asked me if I wanted to take her to the park.

    “Sure, we can do that”, I replied.

    As we got to the end of the driveway, I saw that all the other kids in the neighborhood were riding bikes and scooters. I asked her if she wanted to go play with her friends.

    “Nyeah”, was her reply.

    Okay then. Off we went to the park.

    As we were walking to the park, her friends shouted out her name and asked her if she wanted to join them riding bikes and scooters.

    She stopped and looked up at the hill, and then at her friends and then at me.

    She paused and you could see the wheels turning thinking about the choice in front of her.

    Then she replied “Nyeah”.

    I thought to myself: That’s my girl! She had her mind set on what she wanted to do and even though she was offered other choices she stuck to the plan. This is just who she is I think. She prefers slow over fast most times and is happiest in her own head. As I write this she’s up in bed reading - another activity you can do alone.

    I wonder if it was due to ability. She would be the slowest of the group out of all them because that’s how she is athletically. Some kids were older and even the others the same age were more advanced athletically than my little nerdy friend so maybe she quickly weighed the odds and decided she didn’t want to be the caboose.

    Or..

    I’m overthinking this completely and she just wanted to go to the park with her Dad.

    Yeah, that’s probably it.

    You can find us on the swings.

    Keep Scooting,

    TH and Co.

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  3. The Creek

    A story about getting your feet wet.

    Photo by Anthony McKissic on Unsplash

    I wish I could tell you she was the best behaved today, but that would be a lie.

    It seems we’ve got some issues where she would prefer that you do it for her. She’s torn: She wants to be big, but also wants Dad to do it all.

    Dad does not want to do it all. Dad wants a nap.

    She refused to put her socks and shoes on so we could go to swimming lessons and then after the swimming lessons she would not go into the change room. She wanted me to take her. As much as I love her, she needs to spread her wings more and learn to fly on her own. In time. I hope.

    Anyway…

    The Creek!

    This I can get behind. She was upstairs in her room when both Carson and Ethel showed up. If I had to guess - their parents tossed them outside and told them to go find a friend because it was a great day outside. The child was found and of course they wanted to come inside and I told them no and to go play.

    She came back full of fresh air and smelling like mud and grass.

    “I got my feet wet in the creek”, she exclaimed

    That’s okay I told her. Shoes are washable. I told her on the way to her room to rinse off her feet and lo and behold: she did! Just when I was about to give up, she gives me a little sliver of hope

    There’s a little creek at the edge of our neighborhood park so it’s almost impossible to keep them out of it - even if I wanted to. The over-cautious ~~helicopter~~ Dad in me wants her to be careful and stay out of the creek, but the Dad that grew up with his own creek (by his playground too, coincidentally) wants her to play and get wet and explore frogs and random creek bacteria.

    Of course, there’s water safety to consider and all that, but the park is less than 50 feet from Ethel’s back door and it hasn’t rained in forever here so it’s not like there’s a beach hazard.

    That’s the ultimate challenge: You want them to put shoes on by themselves, but you also don’t want them to stray too far from the safety of your watch.

    This parenting thing is a struggle I did not win today.

    Tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow.

    Keeping it together,

    TH and Co.

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  4. This is All I Know About Taylor Swift

    This won’t take long.

    Photo by Rosa Rafael on Unsplash

    The last time I paid much attention to who is on the top of the pop charts dates back at least 20 years, if not longer so it should come as no surprise to anyone that when the child announced the other day that she’s a Taylor Swift fan I was surprised, as I didn’t think we were there yet.

    I wonder where or when would she hear about Taylor Swift? I’ve got her tablet locked down to age appropriate content so I doubt it was there, but then it dawned on me:

    She learned about her on the school bus.

    That has to be it, because where else? I don’t think she could recognize a Taylor
    Swift song. I know I couldn’t.

    So this got me to thinking? How much time have I got before it’s full on Tayor here? A year? Six months? Oh God….less?

    I’m not ready to have the child be a human database of every Taylor Swift song, album cover and small data point that every “Swiftie” knows and sings along to.

    I was buying balloons for BW’s Birthday Party, and I overheard the woman at the register in front of me she was buying supplies for a Taylor Swift party where they rented a house and gathered a gaggle of tween girls and parents to celebrate the release of Taylor’s new album which I think is in a couple of weeks, but I don’t know for sure.

    My first thought was really? That’s the excuse?.

    Then I thought: She must be a pretty big deal.

    I read the newspaper, and I know she’s now engaged to that football player and that she’s about mid-thirties in age, but that’s all I’ve got.

    I think the universe is telling me something: First the child professing her love for Taylor, and then the dollar store lady - all in the same week. I follow pop music as much as I follow NASCAR racing or Golf. I could not sing you a Taylor song if I had to.

    I guess that needs to change soon and I need to get ready for Taylor Swift and her new album. I will need to know all the words and facts and trivia and worst of all:

    I will be expected to sing along.

    I am not ready. The household is not ready. The neighbors are not ready.

    But they better get used to the idea because she’s coming and there’s no stopping it.

    And when it happens: IT WILL GO TO ELEVEN.

    Keeping it in tune,

    TH and Co.

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  5. Keeping it Afloat

    It’s harder than you would think.

    She came home from school today wanting to play in shaving cream because she got sent home with some homework that involves finger painting and spelling and shaving cream.

    I’m not sure how this comes all together with higher education but then I’m not an educator - but I do know that I can delegate this task and this definitely feels like a mommy type project to me.

    While I did manage to avoid the shaving cream, I did get stuck with making a boat:

    It started by me asking her if she wanted to have a snack and then the next thing I know I’m getting directed to cut an apple and find a skewer. What I want to know is how the heck she knows about skewers?

    But she does, and then she was off into the junk drawer where she found some tape and paper and then she made the sail.

    Hmm..something’s missing….

    • Bath Toys! Now it’s a party!
    • A little Pony

    No, scratch that- a drowning little pony! That’s what’s needed!!

    And she was off into the drawer again and came back with some string and a straw that was made into a life preserver for the poor little pony

    Hang in there little fella! I’ve got you!

    And then the novelty wore off and the siren call of YouTube Kids was too much to resist and I was left with holding half an apple and some bath toys while the child learned some questionable life skills from Mr. Beast.

    OH. I almost forgot: Today is BW’s Birthday! I was going to buy her a balloon for each year but then I thought again and stopped at six.

    The child wants nothing more than to play with the balloons but today they’re mommy’s and tied to her birthday chair, but tomorrow morning she can have at them and she cannot wait.

    All in all it was pretty good today. Unless you’re a pony - then you better hope you can swim (or can call 911)

    Happy Birthday BW!

    TH and Co.

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