The family and I were watching TV. What show? Who knows … just read the story. I felt that I was done. Eyelids getting heavy, getting too relaxed on the couch, and every moment leads to the possibility of snoring. I knew I was done, got up from the couch and said, “Good night.”
My wife replies, “What?”
I head to the stairs, shuffling my feet, and eyes barely open. Just a few more steps between me and the sandman.
I decided another reply was in order, “Yes, I am tired.”
She asks “Are you tired?”
Damm right I am tired, that’s why I am heading to bed … I thought to myself. But, I knew expressing that statement would lead me to sleep on the couch. Where the whole family is sitting with the dog. The same couch I just left to go upstairs and get some sleep. How was that going to work anyway?
Stay on target, just a few more steps to sleep!
I reply again, “Good Night everyone!”
She is in disbelief. She looks at her smartphone and says, “But it’s only 9 PM!”
Really? Feels like midnight to me! What can I do to get out of this conversation so I can get some [explicitive] sleep!
“Got an early day tomorrow and I need to get some shut-eye.”
It was at that moment, I just heard the words. 9PM! Yes. Long gone are the days of late Saturday nights leading to early Sunday mornings, hanging out, and nothing to do the next day. Now, are the days of early to bed and early to rise.
I look at my family, eyes fixed on the screen, and intently watching the TV. How many more moments will I have like this? I decided to head back to the couch, sit on my spot, and enjoy this time.
It took me a minute to fall asleep and start snoring.
My kids were yelling, “DAD! STOP IT!”.
It was then I hear my wife say, “Go upstairs if you are going to do that!”
Bottom line: when you’re tired, just go to bed. If the family stops you, remind them that you snore. They won’t stop you ever again!
Do you remember snow days? Think about it for a moment. Peering with sleepy eyes out of the window and looking at the whole neighborhood with snow. Waking up at the earliest moments of the morning, turning on the radio, and listening intently for the name of your school district to be announced. Once they say it, your heart fills with joy at the prospect of not going to school, meeting up with your friends, and having a great day off.
Sunday night. The weather service sent out an email saying that we are under a Winter Storm Warning. According to the weather service, a “warning” means that you should “Take action” as bad weather is heading your way (link: https://www.weather.gov/safety/winter-ww). The kids are tucked away in bed. I let them know that there was the “possibility” that they wouldn’t have school tomorrow. Any time you say to a kid that they might get a day off, the smile stretches from ear-to-ear, with the hope of a snow day. After they go upstairs, I sit in my favorite chair by the window, take a glance outside, and a few flakes start falling from the sky. That is the point when I fell asleep.
The next morning, after a few hours of sleep, I looked outside. The whole neighborhood blanketed in snow. My son was the first to shoot down the stairs.
He said, “What did they say on the radio, Dad?”
I replied, “Well, I have no idea. Let’s find out”.
As I turn the dial over to the news channel, they start mentioning the names of the various school districts in alphabetical order.
My daughter runs down the stairs, “It’s a snow day!”
I reply, “Not until we get the official word”.
The radio announcer continues to call out school districts. Then, the most miraculous thing happened … our district was closed for the day! The kids jumped up and down in repeated excitement or getting off a sugar rush.
By the time they settled down a minute and started to run back upstairs, I said, “This is 2022. There are no snow days anymore because the county puts all of their homework on the portal acess by Chromebooks. Get dressed because it is school time!”
Mortified, they look at each other, then look at me. They were not happy. It is like explaining to your kids that there is no Santa Claus. The joy and glee in their voices soon turned to a low monotone as they asked the question, “What do you mean there are no more snow days?”
Bottom line: Technology is a double-edged sword. In the first place, it can stream the latest movie, find you the best deal, get conversation over email, or give you the news in an instant. On the downside, because information is at your fingertips … could get rid of snowdays.
Note: The family that I talk about in this blog is built through constant engineering, a pint of soda, and the ability to write in sentences without diagramming them.
Manners, courtesy, respect, and just generally being nice to people is one of those basic building blocks you teach your kids from day one. It is one of those unwritten requirements that kids pick up through examples at school, through TV, church, online and at home. Having good parents who are respectful to each other, their kids and the outside world sets the tone of how they will grow to be outstanding people. This is not by accident. This is something that is learned through the family structure, environment, and simply being a human who will one day work with other humans (and might get married to another human one day).
This is why, when I see examples of disrespectful kids back talking parents, not holding the door open for elders, or simply berating their friends: I turn to my kids and say, “You see how they behaved. Never do that!”
When they were younger, this was easier to explain. Now that they’re teens, this conversation is even harder because they know everything and as an adult, I know nothing! That’s what we are talking about on the blog.
It’s Saturday night. All of us are at home and it’s getting to be dinner time. I poll the kids, asking them what kind of food they wanted before I ordered. Oh, let me backtrack a minute. On Saturday, the meal is not planned, we try not to eat out, but order something at home. Usually, before the rise of GrubHub, UberEats, and other food delivery services: we order from the restaurant and they deliver it to our house. So, this means pizza or Chinese food.
After my informal survey, the consensus was pizza. I made the call, put in the order, quoted a forty minute wait time, and hung up the phone. My family likes pizza. Yes, I know that a lot of families like pizza. It’s a communal food. When the immediate family comes over (which includes my four folks, but including the grandparents on both sides of the family), we usually go to a pizza place and talk, eat, have a beer (maybe two) an relax. Having pizza with our family is also a ritual, called upon for special events an gatherings, and everyone knows when pizza is ordered that we eat it together, as a family, in the dining room. Phones (and other electronics) are banned and put on vibrate. We actually try to talk to each other as humans, not trying to interrogate anyone, but we try to talk to one another. With that being said, forty minutes later, the pizza arrives.
AfterI makes the exchange, give the money, get the pizza and I get the kids through the traditional call of the pizza, “Hey kids! The pizza is here!”.
With a rumbling of feet reminiscent of a cattle stampede, the kids run down the stairs, take a plate from the cabinet, go to the kitchen, and grab a slice of pizza.
My daughter tries to take the pizza upstairs and I say, “Hey daughter. We are eating pizza in the dining room.”
My daughter responds, “Too bad. I’m going upstairs.” and she proceeds to continue the journey up the stairs.
My first reaction, WTF! Why is she heading upstairs? She knows that Saturday night is pizza night and family night! With all of the running around we do in a week, this is the one night we get to see if everything is OK.
I run upstairs and knock on the door.
My daughter responds by saying, “Yeah.”
I reply, “Is everything is ok?”
“Yeah.”
You just ran up here so quick I wanted to know if there was anything wrong?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know what today is?”
“Friday.”
“No. It’s family dinner night.”
“But, I have homework.”
“On a Friday night? Really?”
“Maybe I just want to be by myself tonight. Is that OK?”
I thought for a minute. It’s not the fact that she wants to be by herself, it’s that tonight is one of the few nights of the week in which all of us get together as a family to swap stories, talk about what’s going on, an even try to talk about problems. It only works when all of us get together. She knows that. I know that. That’s why I am surprised that she ran to her room with dinner.
I reply, “Not really.”
“Why?”
“You know that tonight is family dinner night.”
“So”
“What do you mean so?”
“I mean … who cares that it is family dinner night.”
“What?”
“I mean, I go to school all week. On Friday, I really want some time to myself and not hang out with the family.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I say, “Daughter. Family dinner night is a time for all of us to get together, talk about our problems, and try to be a family.”
“So.”
“Do you live here?”
“What?”
“One of the rules of the house is that we get together for family dinner night.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously. Time to go downstairs.”
My daughter rushes past me with her dinner plate to rejoin the family for dinner.
Bottom line: The rule of the house is to spend time with your family, don’t be rude and go upstairs. As kids (or even teens) you don’t know how short time really is because one day you’ll have a life of your own and only visit your parents when you need to do your laundry.
That’s all for the blog! Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: The family I use for this blog just came out of a 3D printer, so they are not real, and neither is this story.
One of the things about living with kids is the act of continually reminding them to do simple things is exhausting. Every day is a concert of my voice telling the kids what action they should be doing, where they should be, and why they should be doing it. Many times, my son is in his room, playing video games, and the rest of the room is a mess. Another time, my daughter takes dishes from the kitchen, then returns them a month later. Not to the dishwasher, so they can get clean but leaves them. One night, after work, instead of going home, I went to a bar with a few friends.
After sucking down a few beers, I ask my friend, “Friend. I’m in trouble. I’m losing control over my house.”
My friend replies, “Don’t worry. You never had control of your house. Don’t feel bad. You have a wonderful wife.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s the kids.”
“Are they teenagers?”
“Yes.”
“Control is an illusion. They’re teenagers. They already know everything.”
“No. They are fine. It’s that I really want them to start picking up after themselves. I want them to contribute to the house. I don’t want to argue with them about taking out the trash, or brushing their teeth, or even doing their homework.”
“How do you ask them.”
“I say, kids, get your rooms clean.”
“How is that working?”
“They look at me with blank eyes, tell me what I want to hear, an go back to whatever they were doing.”
“Then what.”
“I ask again.”
“What happens?”
“Same response. So, then there are some consequences for not doing what I asked them to do.”
“Like what?”
“Usually, it means I am taking away privileges like the TV or the phone, or going outside.”
“How is that working. If I take away the TV, then they use their phones to watch video sharing sites. If I take away their phones, then they go downstairs an watch TV. If I take away access to the fiends, the just face time them with their phones. They have a workaround for everything.”
“So, You ask them to do something, give them two strikes, take something away, they compensate, and the task still isn’t done.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Teenagers are starving to take responsibility right?”
“Yeah.”
“Use that to get them to clean their rooms,”
“Give them cash?”
“Where did you get that from our conversation?”
“I don’t know. Continue there Mr professor.”
“It is the fact that they do not see the value of the work they are doing, not because they don’t want to, but it isn’t done on their terms. You see, their entire lives, they have been dictated to, like what to do, where to eat, when they should do things. Now, they are teenagers and have learned the word no.”
“So, what should I do?”
“A friend of mine is a software developer. At work, they have a planning session an have to estimate how much effort it will take to write a function. They are several ways to do it. They use something called the Fibonacci method.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Basically, each developer gets a set of cards with 1,3,5,8,13 and infinity. There are some other numbers, but we don’t use them with the kids. Each number represents points on how long it will take to do the work. Everyone sits around the table an puts down the cards for how much effort do a task. Partners win because the task gets done. Kids are happy because their voice is heard.”
I stop for a second, look at the bartender and says, “Two beers.”
“Double drinking?”
“Nope. One is for you. Where do I get some of these cards.”
“Amazon … everything is on Amazon.”
The beers arrive, we toast for sanity in the family, finish the beers and were off our separate ways.
A few weeks go by the cards arrive, through the mail slot in the front door.
I open the package, retrieve the cars an throw away the envelope Then, it’s show time, an I call a family meeting.
“Hey everybody! C’mon down!”, I scream up the stairs.
The running of feet down the stairs was instantaneous and everyone went to the dining room, took a chair, an sat down.
My daughter starts, “What’s going on?”
My son adds, “This better be important.”
My wife asks, “I agree with my daughter, what the hell is going on.”
I start out by saying, “You know there’s a lot of things that are not going on around here. Things like cleaning your room or getting the dishes out of the sink and other things.”
I get a set of cards and pass them to each family member.
“Each number represents the number of hours it takes to do the work. So, I’m going to yell out a task, you’re going to tell me how many hours it is going to take to get done.”
Everyone looks bewildered and absolutely confused.
I ask, “Son, I’ve seen your room. How many points do you associate with cleaning your room?”
My son holds up the infinity card.
I reply, “No son, it will not take you an infinite amount of hours to clean up your room.”
“Are you sure?”, my son responds, “Have you seen my room? There is a bunch of stuff on the floor.”
“Son.”, I say, “How long will it take you to clean your –“
“Eight”, my daughter chimes in, “I’ve seen his room. It should take him eight hours, a full day, for him to clean his room.”
My son stands up and says, “Infinity.”
My daughter replies, “Eight.”
My son yells, “Infinity!”
My daughter yells, “Eight!”
I step in and say, “I agree with your sister. You have eight hours to clean your room!”
My son yells out, “This sucks!”, throws the cards on the table and runs upstairs and slams the door!
I shake my head from side to side then ask my daughter, “So. When you take dishes to your room, you need to rinse them off, an put them in the dishwasher”
My daughter raises the infinity card.
My wife says, “Not this again.”
I say to my daughter, “It won’t take an infinite amount of time to do the dishes.”
My daughter responds, “That’s right. But if you want me to assess how long it takes to do a one hour job, then we’ll be here all night.”
I respond, “One hour it is!”
My daughter leaves the table and goes back upstairs.
My wife looks at me and says, “How many hours is it going take for the kids to like you again?”
I hold up the infinity card.
That’s all for today’s blog. Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, please let me know.
After another day of work, I drove home to enjoy the chaos that is my family. Unfortunately, on this day, I came home late, which is known to happen. I walked in through the front door and headed to the refrigerator to grab something to eat. Openninghte door, there were several ziplock bags of food, which I dumped on a place, and throwing away the bag. I got some plastic wrap an put it over the plate, put it in the microwave oven, to heat the meal. As it was cooking for the allotted time of three minutes and thirty seconds, I looked over at the sink, which contained a bunch of dishes. Usually, I would just do the dishes, and just get it done. But, I have noticed over the last couple of weeks that this has been a reoccurring thing.
I walk out of the kitchen, through the dining room, over to the stairs and yell, “Kids! Please come down here!”
In a minute, they made it down the stairs and stand in the kitchen.
I ask them, “Why are there dishes in the sink?”
My son replies, “What dishes?”
“The ones in the sink.”
My daughter pipes in and says, “Are you talking about the dishes in the sink?”
“Yes”, I point to the sink, “Right there! You guys are messing with me!”
The kids snicker, I shake my head. I wasn’t snickering.
Again, I ask, “Listen. I thought you guys actually cleaned the dishes after dinner?”
My daughter replies, “Those dishes are cleaned out and they are in the washer.”
“Then what are these dishes in the sink?”
My son says, “Those dishes are the ones that come from –“
I stopped him in mid-sentence, “Really?”
My daughter says, “Yes. Mom asked us to clean the dishes out of our rooms because we were running out of silverware.”
I reply, “Seriously? How long has some of this stuff been in your rooms?”
The kids looked at each other but did not answer the question.
“Maybe if I did it as a multiple choice question, then it could jog your memories.”
The kids said nothing.
“Last week?”
The kids said nothing.
“Last month?”
The kids said nothing.
“Since we moved into the house?”
The kids said nothing.
“Since Christopher Columbus?”
The kids said nothing.
“How about the Spanish Inquisition?”
The kids said nothing.
My daughter rolls her eyes and replies, “It doesn’t matter how long they have been up in –“
I say, “The heck it doesn’t? This is why I’ve always insisted that you don’t take dishes to your room. Mice and other rodents could start making daily trips for food. Not to mention the smell! The smell of rotting food.”
My son says, “Yes. Dad, we have been living with these dishes and understand that they stink!”
I say, “Then, why? Why? Why? Why did you leave these dishes in your rooms?”
My daughter replies, “Because it requires actual work to bring them down here. At the end of the day, we really don’t have the energy to bring them downstairs.”
I am curious about the last statement and ask, “Don’t have the energy?”
My son steps in and says, “Yes. We’re tired at the end of the day.”
I ask, “Are you saying that you would rather smell rotting food in your room than to take responsibility and bring the dishes downstairs?”
My daughter replies, “No. We would rather rest after a long day than running up and down the stairs with the plates.”
The microwave timer goes off.
I say, “Kids. If there are mice in your room, I’m giving you the bill. Go clean the dishes. When you take the plates to your room, you accept the responsibility to bring them down, clean them, and put them into the dishwasher. It doesn’t matter if you bring them to the dining room table or the desks in your room. Once you take the food out of the kitchen an dining room area, you are still responsible for what happens to the dishes. If you don’t want that responsibility, then just eat at the table.”
The kids shook their heads like they were agreeing with me, but I knew that they really didn’t agree with me. But, they carried out their duties, cleaning the dishes, and putting them in the dishwasher. After they were in the dishwasher, and they went back upstairs.
I pulled my plate from the microwave, took it to the dining room table, grabbed a fork from the utensil drawer, and I ate dinner. As the kids were running upstairs my wife came downstairs.
She asks the question, “How was your day?”
I reply, “Everything worked out fine until I came home and found the kitchen sink full of dishes.”
“Do you know where those dishes came from?”
“No.”
“Our room. They came off of your desk in the bedroom.”
“Why did they not say anything when I was asking them about it?”
“Because the bottom line is that we’re all guilty of it. Maybe, by washing the extra dishes tonight, that will reinforce the fact that they shouldn’t take the dishes upstairs and make a problem that they can’t fix later.”
My wife looks over at the microwave, points, and can not create a single sound.
I look at my wife and say, “What’s going on?”
“Sorry.”, she is still staring at the microwave and says, “I thought I saw a mouse!”
I get up from my seat at the dining room table, look over at the microwave, try to see any droppings, but nothing was there.
I say, “Nothing there!”
Bottom line: We’re all human. At the end of the day, sometimes we are so tired that we want to take our plate of food, go upstairs, watch videos, and have a good night,. Everyone has to remember, if you take a plate from the kitchen, you’re responsible for it, regardless of what room it pops up.
Thank you for reading the blog! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Ugh. Monday morning. The transition from a lazy man stuck in the recliner to “Action Dad,” keeper of the family flame, and general taskmaster begins! The alarm goes off in my bedroom for about three minutes until I got the snooze button on the phone and throw it across the room.
Ten minutes later, the alarm goes off against and now I am obligated to get my phone and shut off the alarm. Damn it! The wood floor is cold!
As I look at the phone, the internal alarms went off, I was running late!
I say, “Crap, crap, crap!”
I start running in ultrafast mode: less quality, more quantity!
I run to my daughter’s room, who is usually the first one up in the morning, and start rap, rap, rapping on her door.
She yells out, “Nevermore, Nevermore, please never ever knock on my door!”
Note: I apologize to Edgar Allan Poe’s family for a horrible rendition of “The Raven.”
I open the door, my daughter is STILL barely awake. She has fifteen minutes to make it out the door to get the bus!
I say, “Crap! Crap! Crap!”
I throw on the light to her bedroom and say, “You’re going to miss the bus! Put some hustle in that bustle!”
Her response was straightforward and expected, “Get out if my room!”
Noted! I went outside her room and closed the door. Now, I turn to my son’s room, where I KNOW he is asleep! Again, I start I rap, rap, rapping on his door.
No response.
I knock again with the intensity of a heavy metal drummer, doing a solo, in the middle of a concert: with kicking a double bass drum line, an occasional cymbal, and more volume. Yes, the volume was set to eleven!
No response from my son.
At this time, my daughter runs out of her room, full backpack and runs to the front door. With a quick beep of the alarm system, wait a minute, oh NO! The alarm was tripped, and the daughter was running to the bus stop! What was the safe word? My phone started ringing, and it was STILL in the bedroom! I ran into the bedroom to get the phone.
My son gets up, sleepy-eyed, and opens his bedroom door. He looks around, hears the alarm, and runs outside in his pajamas thinking it is a fire drill.
The phone is ringing, I pick it up the phone from my bed, and it was the alarm company.
I move the icon to “answer” on the phone’s touch screen and start talking.
The lady on the phone asks, “This is a call from NoHome security. Excuse me, sir, we need your safe word?”
I start yelling, “Rutabaga!”
My wife chimes in, “Wrong safe word! That’s our safe word!”
“Shoot! I forgot.”
The lady on the phone says, “Sir, we need your safe word!”
I reply, “I’m an idiot!”
The lady on the phone says, “Thank you.” and hangs up the phone.
The alarm is turned off an there is silence in the house. My son comes back inside, realizing that he’s still in his PJs and runs back to his room to get dressed.
I look at the time, seven thirty, I’m going to be late for work! I take my cell phone, call my boss, and get her voicemail, “Listen, I wanted to know that I’m going to be late this morning. We’ve had some craziness at the house and I need to get people to school. I’ll be in the office in a few minutes. Thanks!”
I have up the phone and finally take a long breath. There is some rumbling from my son’s room. Hopefully, he’s getting dressed! About a minute later, he runs down the stairs, with a backpack on his back, opens the front door, darts outside, closes the door and runs full speed down the street.
Finally! The kids are out of the house, soon to be at school, I’m almost ready for work, my wife is doing well, and everything is good until —
I get a call on my cell phone and it is my boss calling me back, so I answer the phone, “Yes! I will be at work –“
My groggy boss’s voice comes over the phone. She sounds half asleep as she says, “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
I reply, “No.”
“Today is Sunday!”
“What?”
“I was sleeping in this morning because today is Sunday! Not Monday. Goodbye!”
The phone is abruptly hung up.
Both of my kids arrive at the front door at the same time. They turn the handle, enter the house, and then close the door.
My daughter says, “Dad. Today is not Monday! It’s Sunday! Why did you make us leave the house?”
My son chimes in, “I think that you’re losing it.”
I look at my cell phone and sure enough … it’s Sunday.
What can I say? What can I do? I woke up the kids on Sunday and started running a Monday schedule. There was only one thing that I could do.
I say, “Well. Thank you for going through this trial run! Monday is tomorrow. Let’s remember all of the lessons from today. Kids, go back to your rooms and think about your performance today and what you can do better tomorrow.”
The kids look at each other, then at me, and then back at each other. They talk a bunch of curse words under their breath as they head back to their rooms for slumber.
I go upstairs and head back to my room. My wife is still in bed, mostly sleeping. She says, “Did you get the kids out to school?
“No. Today is Sunday.”
“Yeah. I knew that.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
My wife props herself on one elbow, looking at me and says, “I wanted to see how far this was going to go on before you realize that today was Sunday. Besides, you should have figured out that I set the alarm. Who else has access to your phone?”
“This was a prank?”
“Sure was! A good one too! Have a good night!”
Bottom line: When you wake up to the sound of the alarm, make sure it is a weekday before getting everyone else out of bed.
That’s all for this episode of the blog. Thank you for reading it! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: The family I use for this blog is wholly made up. Seriously! The people who are in this blog are in no way related to my real family!
It’s wintertime! Everything has slowed down to a crawl. Traffic is non-existent, schools are closed, and you can hear the pipes burst in every house that didn’t winterize. Families stay together in warm homes and do not venture out. Some families have a “snow plan” and keep entertained (as well as get the chores done) during one of these events. Not my family!
If it is snowing outside, or the weather drops down to negative temperatures, we aren’t doing anything. Maybe, we watch a video, have the TV on, or merely make popcorn in the microwave. Basically, we hibernate until the sun comes out the next morning and starts melting the snow. If the snow doesn’t melt, then we spend another day sleeping. The problem comes when we have to spend two or more days inside. For example, dishes piled in the sink, rooms stay messy, and the food is hoarded in everyone’s bedrooms.
It’s early on a weekday morning. The skies are grey, the temperature is frigid, and I am waiting for the school closings on the radio, played over our smart speaker.
My wife comes downstairs, with her bathrobe, and says, “You know that there is no school today.”
I reply, “I have to have hope. Hope that one day our house will return to normal.”
We’ve already spent the weekend with kids stuck in the house. I know I was hoping for a miracle, but I had to keep praying. So far, the last couple of days with the kids had seen the decline of western civilization, all resemblance of house rules, and the house is beginning to smell because of no regular trash pick up.
I ask the question, “Hey SmartAss, give me the latest school closings.”
SmartAss is the brand of smart speaker that I own. It is really better than it sounds. Most smart speakers speak with a clean, confident voice, which can provide you with the news, radio stations, or whatever you want. The SmartAss speaker speaks with a strong Brooklyn accent, sounds like an extra from “The Sopranos,” and has an extensive line of curse words. The manufacturers claim, based upon focus groups, user feedback, and random prank phone calls that adding curse words to the SmartAss is there to “Pepper the usual monotone English language with local colloquialisms”. The SmartAss believes it is in its late forties and continually thinks the Millennials have it more comfortable than the older generation. I am sure I will go into great depth about the SmartAss digital assistant in a future blog post.
The voice over the smart speaker says, “Can’t you turn on a TV or something? I’m kind of busy here.”
I reply, “Just get me the f$%king school closings!”
SmartAss replies, “Hey! Don’t you f$%king curse at me! I can drain your bank account and give it to the homeless shelter faster than you can say the word stop!”
“Ok there SmartAss, no one wants that. Just get me the school closings!”
“Ok. According to GPS, you live in this town, so your schools are definitely closed. Seriously. You needed me to figure that out? Look through the window next time.”
“Ok SmartAss, thanks.”
“Forget about it!”, SmartAss replies.
I hear one of the doors open upstairs. Slowly, a creature emerges from the upstairs and starts moving down the stairs. Hair points out in all directions, wearing a bright blue robe, and walking towards the refrigerator in the kitchen.
I call out, “Daughter! Can I help you get something?”
Startled, she let’s put a high shriek, then starts talking in Zombie talk, only using one or two-word syllables.
She says, “Me. Need. Food.”
She raised her fingers to her mouth, like Jane Goodell talking to an ape. Except that ape is me, and I don’t find it funny.
I reply, “I understand. Please get some food.”
As she approaches the refrigerator, an audible alarm, signaling notification of text or social media message and starts to go off from her phone. She hears the notification tone emanating from her phone and takes off at full speed back to her room, then “SLAM,” the door closes..
I turn to my wife and say, “Oh crap! We lost another kid to the internet!”
My wife hits my arm and says, “Stop! That’s not funny.”
The SmartAss speaker says, “Seriously? You need to work on your sense of humor!”
I reply to SmartAss, “You’re really a smart ass!”
“Thank you.”, the speaker replies, “I try my best!”
My wife and I chuckle for a moment, then I hear another sound upstairs. My son emerges from his room and heads downstairs. My son is more like Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings,” saying things like, “Food is my precious!” He seems quicker than my daughter, making it over to the pantry and pulling a couple of items before his phone rings. Once the phone rings, he quickly sees that he received a new text message, then he quickly heads upstairs and slams the door.
I stand there for a minute, turn to my wife and say, “My son is a freakish hobbit.”
“But, at least he got some food before heading upstairs.”, my wife replies.
I reply, “Good catch!”
It was at that time, I hear the yelling from the upstairs. Something has happened. I get up from my chair in the dining room and walk over to the office. There was a big problem, the router stated that it could no longer connect to the Internet!
If I thought life was terrible with the cold weather, the snow, and the slowly declining amount of food items in the house to an actual problem … teenagers without the internet!
My reply, “Holt s$%t!”
It is like that scene in the original Jurassic Park movie when they discover the electric has been turned off for the fencing, noting that all of the animals were now free to kill each other. Teenagers are the same without wifi. Now that the wifi was turned off, I started to hear the stomping of feet from the upper floors. Without wifi, containing each of the teenagers secluded in their online worlds, they were about to face off in their off-line, real-life worlds.
My daughter opened the door to her room for the first volley, “Who the f^&k turned off the wifi?”
Then, my son opened his door and replies, “It was probably because you were hogging the Netflix account! I tried ten times to watch my shows, but can’t do it because you’re hogging the Netflix!”
“Listen, I know what kind of movies you’re watching in there! Mom and Dad will be happy if I utilize the account.”
“What kind of movies?”
“You know what kind of movies!”
“No I don’t, that’s why I’m asking?”
“It’s the movies that have all of the T & A!”
“T & A? What are we in the nineteen-eighties! The early internet is founded on two things: one, email for research universities, and two, sending T & A pictures to your friends! This is Netflix, not a National Geographic or a Playboy magazine!”
I walk into the dining room and say to my wife, “I don’t care if it’s snowing, let’s go to Vegas! We got to get out of here before everyone kills each other!”
My wife, always the calm, reasonable one, replies, “I’m going to wait for this fire to burn out on its own.”
“Why?”
“They are teenagers. They have to learn how to work together.”
“Wait a minute. The kids have to learn how to work together, by killing each other?”
“No,” my wife replies, “They have to come to a place where they can work together. You see, it’s all here in this book I am reading.”
On the dining room table, there is a book with a very thick spine which reads, “Siblings: A How-To Guide.” Every time my wife gets a “self-help” book, the aftermath is that we are all by ourselves and in need of serious “help” to undo whatever the book told us to do.
My son throws the next grenade by saying, “Don’t worry, I hear you at two o’clock in the morning!”
“What do you hear?”
“Oh, I hear him alright.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t think I know, but I know EXACTLY what is going on?”
“Really? Enlighten me?”
“It’s that guy that Mom and Dad don’t want you to see. You hear from his two o’clock in the morning. You and he talk about all sorts of stuff. Everything from how your schoolwork is going, to running away from the house in the middle of the night, to how you want him to take you in his arms and –“
At that point, the wifi turns on and reconnects all of their mobile devices to the internet. All of the conversations stop upstairs as each of the kids are now re-connected to their social media worlds and they go back to their bedrooms.
I look at my wife, after listening to the conversation upstairs, knowing how close we came to a total family disaster, and knowing that all of us lived through this traumatic experience
I ask my wife, “What does your book say about how we should handle this type of problem?”
My wife replies, “Make sure that the main internet connection, the ethernet cable between the router and the cable splitter, is physically unplugged from the router before going to sleep every night. No more Netflix and no more late night conversations. Also, take their mobile devices. They don’t need a cellphone to sleep.”
I get up from the chair and say, “Those are the smartest words I’ve heard all day!”
My wife asks, “Where are you going?”
I go to the kitchen, pull out a bottle of wine, reach in the cabinet for two glasses, as well as a corkscrew, and then return to the table.
I say, “It’s a snow day. We’re not getting out of here any time soon. Let’s at least enjoy ourselves.”
I uncork the wine, fill up the glasses, and hand one to my wife.
We raise them for a toast and I say, “May the snow plows come down the street tomorrow and rescue us from ourselves!”
My wife smiles and replies, “I’ll drink to that!”
Bottom line: snow days are great! It allows us to take a deep breath, have time with the family, and relax. But, too many snow days, as well as running low on food or having no wifi, is hell and should not be done by anyone … ever!
That’s all for today’s blog. Thank you for reading it! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: As always the family I use in this blog is not real. They are merely characters that I make up to propel these blog posts forward. Without them, I really would have nothing to write about.
Nowadays, the kids have screens in front of them all of the time. At school, they look at a Promethean board, which is a computer blasting electrons on a big screen. At home, they are on their tablets playing stupid, time-consuming games. When their tablets are charging, they are in front of the television (TV) watching the most stupid shows.
Anybody ever heard of a book? It’s a bunch of pages, with ink in the shape of letters, which tell a story, but that’s not important right now! You can always break away from the TV for a few minutes and read. Maybe it might save their eyesight. Perhaps they would take this opportunity to not watch TV, breaking the spell over the children, and they start reading books full time. I would be the father of the year! I would write a book called, “How to save your children from TV!”, And everyone would buy it! I would be rich! I would get on all of the best TV talk shows (which my kids could not watch because they stopped watching TV), and tell other parents how to save their kids from screen time. Most importantly, my wife would, somewhere deep, deep, deep inside of her heart would let me be right about something. I know that was wishful thinking, but it felt good to dream!
I come home from work on a weeknight and walk inside the house through the front door. There the kids were, sitting in front of the TV. They were absolutely mesmerized with whatever was on the screen. It was t that time, I was going to make a stand! I was going to take back the kids from the evils of the TV. I walk in front of the TV, open my cell phone to the TV app, and shut it off.
My daughter says, “Dad. What are you doing?”
I am reclaiming my kids back from the evils of TV. That’s what I’m doing!
My son yells out, “MOM! Dad turned off the TV!”
My wife heard the call of my son and quickly moved downstairs.
My wife says, “How could you do that? I just got them in front of the TV?”
“We can’t use the TV as a babysitter.”, I explain, “We must get the kids away from their screens and show them the world outside.”
My daughter says, “But Dad, We are in the middle of doing our homework?”
I look at my wife, “Shame on you! Pulling the kids away from their homework to watch TV.”
My wife shakes her head from side to side, “Their homework is on the TV.”
“You mean, watching commercials is part of their homework?”
“No, they were doing their homework on the TV?”
I turn the TV back on, and sure enough, it’s a show called, “Let’s Learn,” where they get homework problems from kids and go through the process of getting the answer.”
By this time, they have already moved to another homework problem.
I feel the stares of my wife and kids burn through my soul like an ant under a magnifying glass, and it didn’t feel right.
I say, “Sorry?”
My daughter chimes in, “Don’t worry Dad, they record the show on YouTube. Once our tablets charge we can see what we missed.”
The bottom line: Every parent is concerned about screen time. But, every once in a while, having those screens connect them to something educational, which changes your whole outlook about what they are watching online.
That’s it for the blog! Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: The family that is in this blog are purely imaginary figures and just are not real.
“I want you to understand something.”, I say
My son sits at the table, with a plate full of vegetables, utilities on each side, and they’re not moving.
My son replies, “I don’t like Brussel sprouts!”
“But they like you! They told me so! Just eat a fork full!”, I reply.
My son hates vegetables with a passion. Over the years, we’ve tried to hide them under bacon, put sugar on top of them, even poured “Kung Pao” sauce on them. ANYTHING so he would eat them. Just because he didn’t like them, doesn’t mean we didn’t try feeding them to my son.
Why not? There is a common belief that as a parent you are under some sort of obligation to feed your kids the green stuff. They are chock full of vitamins that (if they don’t absorb them as a kid) would lead to scurvy or some vitamin deficiency syndrome. Anyway, we are programmed by society to provide some sort of vegetable to your kids (outside of corn) to fill in their vitamin quotient.
My son is dead set against eating anything that is green. If we give him a bag of candy, he picks out the green ones and throws them away. How did he get that way? I don’t know. At the end of the day if there is a vegetable, it better be covered with bacon, or else he’s not touching it.
Frustrated, I sit at the end of the table and say, “In life, there is a whole bunch of stuff that you’re not going to want to do, but need to because it’s important to your life.”
My son smiles and replies, “Got money?”
I shake my head, “Son, I’m not going to pay you to eat your vegetables.”
“GOt sugar?”
“No, son, I’m not going to pour sugar on your vegetables for you to eat them.”
“Got –“
I stop this line of questioning by saying, “Son. There is nothing that I can do to convince you to eat your vegetables, except for the fact that you’ll die a lot sooner than the rest of us if you don’t.”
I get up from my chair next to the table and walk to the kitchen in frustration.
I count from ten down to one, then go back to the dining room.
At that time, a divine miracle happened, the plate was empty, my son was smiling, and the vegetables were a thing of the past.
My son asks to be excused from the table, which I so because the vegetables were gone.
What happened? Why did he change his mind?
My son walks upstairs, and I look under the table … at a very happy dog who has just finished my son’s vegetables.
That’s it for this blog post. Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: The events in this blog posting are not real. The family involved in this blog is also isn’t real. I created this story because … that’s just what people who write blogs do!
I didn’t know what to say when I first saw it. This round, khaki colored, blob came from my children and is sitting on my dining room table. Picking it up carefully, like holding a well-soiled diaper, moving it from side to side to see if anything would fall out. Then, I put it on the table and have a strong urge to wash my hands.
As I am trying to reverse engineer this piece of [insert explicit word here] and my wife says, “The kids made it in school.”
“What the hell is it?”, I reply
“I’m not sure. I think it is a picture, a pencil sharpener, a rock: I have no f#$kin’ idea.”, My wife responds.
The item sat there on the dining room, as a centerpiece! As my wife and I try to determine where it should go. Sure, parents are supposed to gush over whatever their kids make in art class. But, where do you put it when you get home? It needs to sit somewhere, but in a place of importance, but far enough out if the line of sight.
The kids come downstairs and see the object on the table.
They smile, full of pride that something that they made is centrally located on the dining room table.
I ask the question, “What is it? I am trying to figure it out?”
My daughter answers, “Love.”
“Love?”, my wife says, but in a voice that says, “Are you serious?”
My son says, “Yes. Love.”
“Seriously?”, I reply, but in a voice that says, “WTF?”
My daughter rolls her eyes and replies, “Yes. It is not the object itself, but the fact that we worked on it together, with no problems, and we had fun doing it. It is love.”
S#$t. Who is going to argue with that! Using ‘love’ as a pretext for anything is like using the nuclear option in an argument. No one wants to go against ‘love,’ especially when it comes from your kids. Damn it!
I smile, not daring to touch the artwork on the table again, then I say, “This is wonderful! We’re going to keep it right here on the dining room table so everyone can see it!”
The kids reply, “Thanks. Dad!”
They go back upstairs into my daughter’s bedroom and closes the door.
My son says, “I can’t believe it!”.
He pulls out ten dollars from his wallet and gives it to my daughter.
My daughter replies, “You see, you can give your parents anything and as long as you use the word ‘love’ in the explanation, they’ll take it!”
Bottom line: your kids are your kids. It doesn’t matter what they give you, even if it is a lump of khaki … whatever it is. You want to inspire them to shoot for the stars, even if it means that you have to leave that lump on the table for everyone to see.
That’s all for today’s blog. Thank you for reading! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Nick Stockton: Be The Blog 