Tidy Husband

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

  1. Hang On. Let Me Get My Book

    The bedtime habit that I am happy to encourage.

    One day I will not write about getting the child to bed.

    Photo by srinivas bandari on Unsplash

    This is not that day.

    This was the end of the first five day week at camp. That extra day is a doozy too. In addition to the usual fun they get to have like field trips and swimming and fishing and games today they added running to the mix.

    Every Friday is Fun Friday where they race a full mile at a chance to win goodie box full of treats and treasure 1 It was 85 degress today. Not exceedingly hot but not my idea of a good time.

    “That’s okay because sometimes we just walked”, she told me.

    Oh, good.

    A math question: what do you get when you add swimming and beaches and fun and multiply by five?

    Cue, the screaming. She was so tired she didn’t know what day it was and what does one do when they get tired? They start to cry. I missed it, but poor BW she got an earful of how everything is wrong in the life of a little girl that really just needed to go to bed.

    So ya. Friday might be fun during the day but not when she comes home at night

    It was not fun for BW earlier this evening.

    What was fun though is later when I was trying to get her to go to bed after she caught a second wind. I let her do her thing for a bit and color or whatever. Later I poked my head into her room to steer her to bed. I went to turn out the light and she protested about wanting it left on.

    “I need my book” she told me.

    There’s some days when you second guess yourself about all that you’re doing for your child and then every once in a while the universe throws you a bone and gives you a child that wants to read before bed.

    I’d like to think it was Fox in Socks we read ad nauseum, but whatever it is - we’re fully engaged with the reading, and that’s worth staying up late for.

    Until next time,

    TH and Co.

    1. read: crap from china. ↩

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  2. On Sleeping In

    Some mornings everybody thinks they’re a winner.

    Photo by Mpho Mojapelo on Unsplash

    We’re lucky that for the most part setting an alarm clock is an option for us most days because we have a custom one of kind alarm clock: she’s six-years-old

    ~~Our~~ My day ~~s~~ start when hers start.

    “Dad, Get Up” is how I wake up.

    Dad does not want to get up. Considering the early hour and the fact that if she’s old enough to take a bath by herself now you would think that she can pour some cereal and milk into a bowl by herself and let her old man sleep in a bit.

    But, nope. “Okay, Okay, I’m up.”

    But it’s not that she can’t get her own breakfast - it’s that she would prefer to have me do it for her. And hey, I get that - when it doubt: delegate. But I have years of experience pouring cereal into bowls. She just doesn’t want to do it because it’s easier for her to claim it’s too hard and have me do it.

    It’s ~~better~~ easier for the both of us

    This morning was an example: I poured the cereal today. We were running late and we didn’t have much time for breakfast to happen today so I got her the breakfast so we could get to camp on time. Another reason she wants me to come downstairs with her is because she likes my company: her first words to me were “Daddy, sit down” and we’ve been sharing breakfast together since almost every morning.

    Sometimes BW joins us but sometimes the siren song of the bed is too hard to resist so she feigns sleep and lets me do the morning shift.

    This morning was a close call though as she was exceptionally all over the place in her brain and not focusing on the task at hand. She was super-distracted.

    “Let’s go. We’re going to be late”, I tell her.

    She can’t find her shoes. Then she finds them and wants me to put them on. I tell her no, she can do it herself. There’s a bit of protest so I make it a game: who can put on our shoes on first?

    She won the shoe game - but I won the morning. We made it to camp just on time.

    We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.

    Until next time,

    TH and co.

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  3. Celebrating the Small Wins

    Not every day can be a story. Sometimes it’s just a Wednesday

    Small Win Number 1

    Photo by Aleks M on Unsplash

    Tonight after dinner I was cleaning up and i heard the bath water running upstairs. I didn’t tell her to go have a bath but tonight she hopped in all by herself and turned the water on and plunked herself in the tub!

    BW had to go in and encourage her to use some soap because after another day of camp she came home filthy and exhausted 1

    Small Win Number 2

    BW went to the grocery store this afternoon and after I picked her up and brought her inside, she realized that mommy went grocery shopping so she ran to both the pantry and opened the fridge to see what goodies had been bought. She was thrilled because there were lots of snacks to send with her to camp. She had a Jello for dessert. BW tells me I am to stay away from all the snacks - I’m not sure this part is a win in my books.

    Small Win Number 3

    Another food related one: We were all ready in the bed when we realized we were down a stuffed animal. We were no longer in the bed and now we’re all searching for the missing stuffed animal. The animal was found but now she wanted to help make the lunch for tommorrow because she had all the goodies to choose from.

    When she was done, she wanted me to go and tuck her in but I was busy so I told her she was on her own as I already had said goodnight and was done with her until the stuffed animal emergency. I was bracing for the protests, but she just went to the bedroom and closed the door and put herself to bed.

    I haven’t heard a peep since.

    I don’t know about you guys, but any day that includes a self-bathing and self-bedding six-year-old is a good day in my books.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

    1. Have I mentioned how great this camp is? ↩

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  4. Breaking All The Rules with Dad Again

    If mommy is away the two of us will play.

    I just finished reading Kim’s post about the struggle with your kids and device use and so what do I do?

    Photo by Miguel Tomás on Unsplash

    Break all the rules and let the child watch her tablet on a no tablet day. Because, we have somehow created a tradition that if it’s just the two of us we break all the rules.

    This isn’t the first time we have broken all the rules:Tidy Husband

    [

    Mommy is away for the weekend. This is all we did the first day that she was away…

    ](/journal/breaking-all-the-rules-with-dad/?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web)

    But tonight was kind of mild in the rule-breaking department. We only have about 2ish hours from summer camp pickup so it’s not like there’s a lot of time for us to get in too much trouble.

    Sometimes we go to McDonald’s on a rule-breaking day but we were there recently and I never know what I am going to get at camp pickup so I decided we just come home and get her fed and to bed as soon or easy as possible.

    I let her fire up youtube kids and I can hear what she’s watching and it’s all pretty educational stuff: how your insides work or a video about skulls and how they work.

    I call this educational rule breaking.

    I throw some cucumber at her to snack on while I make dinner that could not be any easier if I tried: I fed her pasta elbows with some cheese grated on top. She loved it and even expressed so. This is part of my plan to get her carb-loaded and sleepy so she’ll go to bed and it worked!

    Dessert was yet another ice cream sandwich and thankfully this is the last of them because we’ve been in ice cream sandwich overload lately so this is the last box and the last we will see of them for a while - maybe even next year.

    She had a bath without protest and then as part of the negotiations here we made a deal that if she bathed/brushed/PJ’s then she could watch a bit more for a bit until bedtime.

    When the time came for bed it was easy-peasy and we went upstairs and we talked for a minute and I left and closed the door and haven’t heard a peep since.

    This summer camp is magical. Today she won a stuffed animal playing bingo and of course it’s the toy du jour which isn’t a bad thing because she took it to bed with her and was cuddling and talking to it as I left.

    Today was pretty light in the rule breaking department.

    I like to think we just bent them a bit.

    Also: don’t tell mommy.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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  5. Turning the Corner

    If only she could stay awake until we get home.

    This summer camp the child goes to is exhausting. For her. I picked her up tonight and she looked like summer camp ate her up and spit her out she was so dirty and sandy, and sun kissed.

    For US it’s fantastic.

    Photo by Lumi W on Unsplash

    She comes home so tired. Can’t stay awake in the back of the car tired.

    Which is awesome, but not.

    One minute she’s chatting away and as soon as we turn the corner onto our street she falls asleep. This isn’t the first time this has happened so I was aware that this was about to happen so I kept a good eye on her and sure enough once we get to the corner she starts to get awful blinky.

    I start talking to her as we turn the corner

    “Tell me about camp”, I ask. Anything to get her to not fall asleep.

    I manage to pull into the driveway and she’s almost asleep again. I get her out of the car and stand her up. She does not want to move and starts to cry. We manage to get her inside and BW grabs some leftovers from the fridge and puts it in front of our little overtired charge.

    She eats and then a quick change into PJ’s and she’s out cold before 6pm. She did wake up about an hour or so later looking for dessert but she went right back to bed and we haven’t heard a peep since.

    We had a busy weekend with fireworks and homemade pie and swimming and the weekend mixed with camp sucked out every bit of energy she had.

    Under usual circumstances I would have to beg and plead and get her to go to bed but tonight the bedtime was so easy.

    The downside to this is she might be awake and wanting the same of me earlier than I would like or both need to be.

    Here’s hoping for a sleep in.

    Until Next Time,

    TH and Co.

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