Mary and I were commiserating the other night and found ourselves daydreaming about our Christmas lists. Here’s what we came up with. 1. Alcohol 2. To spend an entire 24-hour period without having to wipe or in any way lay eyes on someone else’s b-hole. 3. A time machine. In theory, this would be used…
“You know what we should do? We should ride a ride!” Mary and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Tulsa State Fair this past Sunday night. Although just a few miles away, it is worthy of the name “pilgrimage” due to the absolute surreal nature of its inhabitants and the moral distance we travel…
There it was on the screen. The heading read, New Study Shows Parents of Young Children Are Unhappy or some such nonsense. Now, I like to consider myself a temperate fellow. I have, after all, maintained the bulk of my sanity (I think) through the domestic gauntlet of the past several years. I’ll admit, though,…
Time has a way of teaching you lessons whenever you start to hurry its flow along- like the college junior who can’t wait for school to be over and “real life” to begin. We don’t always know what we actually want. It seems sometimes like we’re the last to know. Parenting is no exception. I…
Winning a smile from a child is like unlocking a new level on your favorite video game. We coax and cajole with great fervor, just for a shot at glimpsing that toothy cavalcade hiding joy in the mouth of babes. And children, for the most part, don’t need much instigating to show off their snaggles….
Earlier today I let one of my kids get hurt. Not negligently–I was sitting right next to Boston on the couch when the big kids came up to offer the “amazing breakfast” of wooden bread and felted vegetables they had prepared for me. As I turned my attention to celebrate this culinary coup de gras,…