Tidy Husband

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

  1. The Witchy Hour

    Just an hour where everybody loses it. nothing to see here.

    I don’t know what it is about 7pm, but it seems that is the time that all the dependents start to misbehave.

    Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

    The dog decides that after a day of sleeping for the most part - mixed with 100 times of going in and out the back door - decides that when you rest your weary body on the couch for the first time that this means you should pay attention to her. NOW

    And not just a little pet on the head and then you can get back to your book/paper/conversation. This dog doesn’t take no for an answer and will pace and pace around the living room until something happens that involves petting her non-stop. It’s like she knows that the day is almost done and she needs her last reassurance that every thing is okay.

    she was so cute. we had to have her, but this is one needy dog.

    Then there’s the child:

    I ~~hate~~ dislike this time of day because it’s not late enough to go to bed, but it’s late enough to start going to bed because it takes over an hour for her to get into the bed!

    We start by asking her to put her PJ’s on. She ignores us.

    We ask again. She plays cards with her imaginary friend “Annie”

    We ask the third time: She starts to head upstairs and then forgets why she’s there.

    We remind her: She starts to brush her teeth but protests the taste of the adult toothpaste because she’s too big for kid toothpaste and we’re a one tube of toothpaste family now.

    We look for her: She’s given up on the tooth brushing but somehow managed to get herself wet from head to toe and is running around in her birthday suit. PJ’s finally get put on finally.

    Now where is she? She’s in the middle of the living room sitting inside an empty laundry hamper that didn’t make it upstairs and is tossing playing cards out of it at random. “I’m playing my game”, she tells me.

    “Game Over” I tell her as I shut the door on her for the last time:

    “Goodnight!” I tell her.

    “But I need a huggie!”, she howls.

    I give her ONE half-hearted “huggie” and then we’re off to sleep, finally.

    I want my hour back.

    Good Night,

    TH and Co.

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  2. A Day at the Beach

    It was a great day to go to the beach.

    This was her idea. As all things, they start with “Hey Dad!”.

    “Let’s go to the beach”

    she sat like tihs for some time. just happy to sit there and be at the beach. That’s Canada in the distance.

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

    She was determined to get there by 10am because her new best friend Diamond told her she was going to to the beach too. Spoiler: Diamond was not at the beach.

    My days started wih her in my room at 6am.

    “I’m excited for the beach”, she told me.

    “Go downstairs and watch YouTube”, I replied.

    A few hours later when it was a much more reasonable hour to be awake we had breakfast and then somehow all three of us managed to remember the towels and chairs and umbrellas and snacks and off we went to the beach!

    We’re really lucky and we should take advantage of this more - the beach is a 15 minute drive which is great and heck, there’s even a view of the old country in the distance.

    We did all the things one does at the beach:

    • Fought with the umbrella.
    • Heard the phrase “watch me” about a million times
    • Said the phrase “be careful” about 2 millions times
    • Got sunburned
    • Had overpriced snacks from the “Sand Shack”.
    • Wondered if we would ever get her free of sand ever again.

    This summer camp has been really good for her this summer. It’s now her beach and she was happy to show me where the bathrooms were and we went to the blue playgound they have and she was right: they have a zipline. It looks like a lot of fun.

    They go to the blue playground during camp but they are not allowed on the zipline because of safety, she told me. I can see that- they only have so many staff members and they can have fun on the other things like slides and swings.

    She is getting less afraid of the water. Is she actually swimming yet? No.

    Is she afraid of getting her face wet and going under water? No, and that’s a good thing. She’ll never be an olympic swimmer I doubt but learning to swim is a life skill she should have.

    After the beach, her friend Ethel came over to play and they played outside for a bit and then wanted to come inside and watch the tablet (NO) and it was deciced they wanted to swim in our pool too.

    Of course it wasn’t a summer day in August without a treat so BW said they could have a popsicle. The kids come inside and tell me they can have ice cream - so I gave them ice cream.

    We show up with the ice cream and BW asks me why the ice cream? I told her because she said they could. I got bamboozled by these two and tricked into giving them ice cream instead.

    Those two are dangerous together.

    She somehow managed to hold it all together even though she had been up since 6am and we had a later dinner so it was 8 before she went to bed. We made it to the toothbrushing stage and she was so tired and cranky that the brushing was a half-hearted at best.

    I heard a few cries of being completely exhausted after a very long day and then she was out.

    As she was going to bed she asked: “Did you have fun at the beach Dad?”

    “Of course, I replied”

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  3. The Importance of Finding the Right Brand Name

    It’s harder than you think.

    She’s all about the brand names lately.

    Photo by Austin Kirk on Unsplash

    This started the other morning as she was getting a Cozy Shack rice pudding packed for her lunch she asked why it’s named “Cozy Shack”.

    It’s a very good question. Probably because “Swamp Shack” doesn’t have the same ring to it? I have no idea.

    This opened up an entire conversation about brand names and how they were picked

    Some are easy to understand and are named after the creator: Heinz, Kellogs, Ford and so on.,

    Others are not as easy to decipher. Today we stopped at a 7-Eleven to get a OMG IT”S MID AUGUST ALREADY Slurpee after camp before the summer ends on us and she asked me again why this store would be called that.

    I have no idea and I’m too tired to look it up.

    But this brand name thing has stuck with her so for the last few days during the entire drive to camp we have to make up brand names for products.

    She’s had some good ones that I can’t remember and then the other day she was naming everything with a “super” in front

    Cat Food? “Super Cat”
    Dog Food? “Super Dog”
    Bike? “Super Bike”…you get the idea..

    The best one was when we were trying to dream up a name for dog food and she suggested “Tasty Dog”. I suggested that might be misunderstood as you are buying a dog to eat in a bag.

    She laughed and laughed so hard the rest of the way to camp. She could not catch her breath she was laughing so far. It was so much fun.

    And that’s why I love being Dad. I’m here for the laughing in back seat about bad brand names for dog food.

    The screaming is quickly forgotten but the laughter will be remembered.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  4. Going Bananas for Bananas

    A monkey would have been better behaved in the back of my car.

    Photo by Mike Dorner on Unsplash

    I don’t know where to start.

    She was fine all morning. Happy Happy Happy.

    When we got to camp we realized that she left her Crocs at home.

    “But the rocks at the beach will hurt my feet”

    Sigh.

    I went back home and then back to the camp and she was thrilled that I came back with her shoes. She was thrilled.

    I was prepared for an easy pickup and not prepared at all for the disaster that waited for me.

    As soon as we got to the car it all went sideways. She wanted to stop at the Supermarket to buy bananas for her Fun Friday at camp where everybody brings something to eat. A potluck for six-year-olds if you will. Last time we brought raspberries.

    I was unaware of the banana requirement so I wanted to check in the app that’s for parents to see if the director sent the weekly shopping list yet. No list.

    I told her we’re not going to the supermarket until I hear from the director. He usually sends it about dinnerime so if/when we need bananas I can go out later or we can stop by on the way to camp in the morning - this was not a big deal.

    OMG YOU GUYS

    She went bright red and was crying and pleading and threatening me and I swear it got worse and worse. We hadn’t even gotten started by the time we left the campground.

    She tried to negotiate, and plead and talk to herself about how she needs bananas and we need them now.

    DADDY GO TO THE SUPERMARKET RIGHT NOW!

    I’m sure in her pretty little head this all made sense but it sure didn’t to me and I was just trying to get her to breathe and settle down because she was fully off the rails.

    I told her we’re just going home because there’s no way I’m taking her into a supermarket in her condition.

    We get home and there’s more kicking and screaming so I carried her to her room and told her to stay there until she got her shit together.

    After a while, I heard a door slam and she had put herself in the tub to wash off the tears and anger and when she got out she was good as gold. She knew she had misbehaved and she was informed that dessert went away and there will be no playing after. Later we were at the kitchen table together and I read her the rules of engagement again and that’s not how to behave in this house.

    She’s had better nights. It’s hard to be six sometimes.

    Oh. The bananas we needed?

    We didn’t need to bring them. All that screaming for nothing.

    Not even a banana.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  5. The Name of the Game

    The House Always Wins.

    Parenting is really just a game.

    Photo by Javier Martínez on Unsplash

    The trick is to make them think that they have the controller. They may be holding it but only you know how the buttons work

    Take tonight for example: For whatever reason she decided she wanted to make a sensory bin about an hour before bedtime.

    Her thinking about this was:

    I like sensory bins! My small hands love digging in rice to feel things and identify them with my eyes closed.

    My thinking on this topic was:

    OMG the rice all over the floor, the small toys I have to pick up or rescue from the dog. NO. Not happening.

    Of course, this was not the answer she wanted to hear.

    What I wanted to do was to get the family room cleaned up of all the toys and crap that have been strewn about for at least a week. It was time to clean it up.

    So….I made it a game.

    “Let’s see who can pick up the most stickers”

    The stickers got picked up.

    “Let’s see how many stuffed animals we can put on the shelf”

    I tossed over the stuffed animals while she caught and put away each one.

    “Lets see who can sweep up the biggest pile of dog hair” 1

    She was real quick to get that broom and she finally figured out how the dustpan works too for a double win on my part. I didn’t have to sweep up.

    The positive results were many:

    • It was now time for bed.
    • We kept busy while mommy was on an important phone call
    • We killed the hour where it’s too early to go to bed but too late to start anything
    • We got a clean family room out of the deal.

    The Best Part? She thinks she won.

    And that’s how a tired Dad wins a random Wed night.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

    1. I’m keeping it real here. ↩

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