Tidy Husband

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

  1. Carson's Birthday Party

    Everybody Behaved.

    Every once in a while you mix up a bunch of kids at a birthday party and there are no fights and everybody gets along.

    After the episode a few weeks back we were all apprehensive how this would all pan out but it turned out great!

    It was a Halloween themed party too so she dressed up as a unicorn. I tried to get a photo of her matching tail but this is the best it gets.

    I did get a fashion show though, so that was nice.

    Here’s what we learned: I didn’t go but BW did.

    They had a craft table set up and the first thing the kids did was to visit the craft table. Forget the cake and gifts, the crafts were were a big hit. She came home with a little jar with little LED lights in it to use as a night light. It’s cute.

    Also she came home with a bubble gum lollipop and some nerds. I never knew about nerds (well, I am one) but they’re big with this generation and as soon as she came home she asked if she could have one and I said, sure - it’s Saturday after a birthday party - why not?

    Other things we learned:

    1. The neighbors are getting a new dog.
    2. All Moms have same rule: It’s nice out so you are not coming inside

    She filled up on burgers and dogs and cake so dinner didn’t really happen for her and she made no fuss when it was time to go home and she was so tired.

    The tired comes from the school moreso than the party I think. All that learning takes a lot out of a little girl. As she told me last week:

    “Grade 1 is hard”

    Indeed, but on the weekends you get to dress like a unicorn and part and eat nerds because your Dad said it was OK.

    What more could a six-year-old girl want?

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  2. Math is Hard

    So is keeping it together after a long week

    Tonight’s post is brought to you by emotions®️. Now with instant changes fromhappy to sad in seconds and used by six-year-old girls everywhere.

    Boy, the emotions lately. I’m hoping this is a phase and it doesn’t last from ages right now to Eighteen but I don’t have much hope.

    She can be fine one minute and then a full on snotty and teary mess the next.

    Tonight I came home from driving around strangers and as soon as I got out of the car I could hear her. It made me stop and think about going inside and helping BW with whatever the disaster was that was happening on the other side of the door.

    But on the other side of the door was pizza. So priorities and all that

    It took me a while to figure out what was going on but apparently she asked mommy to play school with her so BW made her some “homework” to do and whatever mommy was doing it was all wrong. All of it. We still don’t know what the “it” was exactly but eventually she got over it.

    There was a good 12 questions on there with both addition and subtraction and BW likes a challenge (she married me afterall) and wanted to challenge the child a bit too.

    When the child sees something that looks hard, she puts up a fuss and usually dear old Dad would cave and do it for her. I know. I never said I was parent of the year.

    Tonight I looked at all her questions placed in front of her and realized she could use her fingers to could. I tried to tell her this but she would have none of that and was at one point telling me that she doesn’t have enough fingers. I told her she does have 10 fingers because that’s the first thing I did when I met her was to count them.

    This didn’t help anyway and eventually BW and I just ignored her and let her get her emotions in check and then it was dinnertime so whatever, right.

    Well, it turns out she can count and has the right number of fingers.

    Except. Except!

    Later we found the “homework” on the kitchen counter. After all the tears and protests she did the homework when we weren’t looking.

    Perfect Score!

    Tonight’s Grading: A for Math but C for emotions.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  3. You Can't Put the Genie Back in the Bottle

    Or....sometimes you can.

    3 kids playing together almost always ends up in tears and this time it was my child doing the crying.

    Photo by Katerina Niuman on Unsplash

    This story starts with green slime. Personally I don’t think it’s a good story unless there’s green slime in the story.

    So. Slime.

    Yesterday the child and BW went to the craft store to get some craft supplies and I guess on the way out the green slime was found and it came home with them. The child loved the slime and played with it before dinner and then somehow did manage to get it back in the bottle so there goes that theory.

    Fast forward to today. She runs off the bus, ditches her bag and then asks to go to Carson’s house. She comes home minutes later and comes inside and plays with the toy of the hour: which is this jar of green slime.

    Ten minutes later, Carson is here. Perfect - a playmate. I tell them they cannot be inside on a beautiful day like today and so I toss them back outside. They come back in and she wants to slow Carson her slime.

    Minutes later: my child is in tears. It seems Carson put a dead fly or something in the jar of slime and the child did not like that. I told them that they better work it out or Carson is going home and the slime is going away.

    They bugger off to Carson’s house and she’s there about 20 minutes or so and I assume everything is okay and then just as I go to get her she comes around the corner in complete meltdown and tears and carrying this sad half-filled jar of what was the slime, but now is concoction that looks like slime with a lot of dirt mixed in.

    “They wrecked my slime”, she told me.

    I still don’t understand what happened completely but I have a few thoughts:

    1. The dynamic between 3 kids is always ends up with one getting teased or picked on. This time it was my child’s turn.
    2. It took me some time to figure it out, but the story is that she, Ethel and Carson were playing with the slime and the other two either got carried away and put it into dirt or dropped it - I don’t fully understand - either way we now have dirty slime and my child is upset.
    3. It’s Thursday. As the week goes on, the well rested child becomes less rested and she’s more apt to break down near week’s end. Grade 1 is a long day.

    Or…it’s just kids being six-years-old and I have it all wrong. I dunno.

    Anyway, slime happens. It was all forgotten about by dinnertime anyway.

    But…

    The child thought the best fix to the problem would be to buy 3 more bottles of slime and then everybody would have their own slime and so the others would leave her slime alone.
    I can understand her thinking.

    I also told her that NO, we’re not buying MORE SLIME and especially not in a party pack for the neighborhood kids. I also told her that if it was an accident than that’s okay and accidents happen - which I think all this was.

    Welcome to the playground drama folks. Our upcoming season this fall is going to be a blockbuster. This is the time to cancel your Netflix account and subscribe here instead.

    This child raising thing is going to get more and more interesting and this is just a taste of what’s to come.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  4. Picture Day

    A story about attempting to look presentable one day of the year.

    Picture Day 2020

    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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  5. Imaginaryland

    It’s a great place to be, and cheaper than Disney

    We were holding hands walking to the park when she told me:

    “I have a friend you don’t know about”.

    Oh? Tell me about them.

    “I can’t!!

    I told her that it’s great to make new friends but Dad would like to know who you’re making friends with so that you’re safe.

    “DAD! My friend is IMAGINARY!!!!

    Oh. Well then. Why didn’t you say so?

    Two words that I really don’t like to hear as a parent is “let’s pretend” when it comes from her.

    I don’t want to pretend to be a baby, or bear or stuffed animal. I will go on walks or ride bikes or play soccer but not try to play a game that is only in her head and she’s not sharing the plotline.

    But then I think that she’s getting big so fast and so I pretend to be in a soccer challenge in the middle of the front yard:

    Then there’s the oranges:

    We’re back at the snack before bed thing that BW hates so much because it’s late and justgotobed! But, she says she wants a snack so the last few nights we’ve made a game about eating oranges.

    First the orange gets peeled and placed in a row on the table.

    Then we find two other objects - they could be the salt and pepper shaker -whatever, it doesn’t matter. Tonight it was 2 pieces of orange peel.

    One of these items is the police chief and one is the officer.

    The chief tells the officer to go and patrol the orange slices and count them and report back.

    While the officer is reporting back, the child eats an orange slice. Then the officer re-counts and has to tell the chief that there’s another missing piece.

    Do this about 9 times and each time the child eats a slice. Usually while the chief is waiting for the report of the missing orange slices he goes and has a donut and a nap 1

    This is a somewhat elaborate of the “whatever you do…don’t eat that” reverse psychology that kids fall for except now I’ve added a plot line and characters and a healthy snack.

    She gets so caught up in the chief/officer characters so much that I have to remind her that she has to eat a slice so we can do the count again and the night can end and she can go to bed.

    I can’t help myself. I’m the fun Dad and this stuff just sort of happens and the last few nights we’ve been doing this orange slice murder mystery thing and she loves it so much that she asks for it nightly now.

    Before you think that I might be parent of the year, be warned that I have turned a ten minute orange snack to a good half an hour of entertaining a six-year-old when we should be going to bed. You have been warned.

    This is where I realize that I won’t have much more time with Imaginaryland. I won’t be pretending to be a chef/tiger/soccer player or whatever else she wants me to be. Instead I’ll be hearing about Mr. Beast or ninja demon hunters or whatever the latest video game high score is.

    When that time comes I’ll miss the orange slice murder mysteries and the soccer games and scooters click, click, click as the wheels race across the sidewalk powered by oranges and thoughts of unicorns and imaginary friends and whatever else goes on in that pretty little head of hers.

    So ya. If you need me, I’ll be in the produce aisle buying more oranges.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

    1. because: stereotypes ↩

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