Bonzo for Bedtime

Ten years into this parenting gig, you’d think we’d be good at the one thing we have to do every darn evening. You’d think. Yet, without a doubt, bedtime at our house sucks.

The younger ones are supposed to go to bed at 7:30. The older one at 9:00.  “Supposed to” being the operative phrase. We usually send the kids to bed as close to the designated time as possible. If they are all asleep by 10 p.m., it’s been a raging success.

Between helping them wash up, reading to them and one of us lying down with the younger ones to help them settle down, it’s always at least a two hour process. More often than not, the one of us who lies down, falls asleep.

It’s a rare evening that we both make it through bedtime awake, with the kids actually asleep. Even when that happens, we almost certainly get a post-bedtime visitor, wandering back down the stairs claiming “I can’t sleep,” or “I had a bad dream,” or, my favorite, “I’m hungry.”

Sometimes they don’t even come down. We just hear giggling, or screaming, or the unmistakable sound of furniture moving across their bedroom floor as midnight encroaches.

Candid scene captured in my children's dollhouse, proving
frustration with bedtime is universal. At least in our house. 

“What the hell are they doing up there tonight?” I’ll ask from my prone position on the couch, as my wife puts her face in her hands and starts to weep. Personally, I don’t care where they put the furniture, as long as they don’t come down the steps.

We’ve thought about it for a while, and we were finally able to pinpoint exactly when the difficult bedtimes began.  Shocker, It was when our first child was born. To be more precise, it was on our second night as new parents.

Ironically, on our very first night as new parents, as we slept in a tiny room in the maternity ward at Georgetown Hospital – my wife in the hospital bed, me on a bizarre fold-out chair that kick-started a decade’s worth of back problems -- the nursing staff wheeled our new baby girl out of the room to the nursery, so we could get some needed sleep. As the sun rose the next morning, an older nurse who’d cared for thousands of newborns on their first night, wheeled our new daughter back in and told us she slept like an angel. We felt blessed. 

After the second night, the same nurse wheeled our child back in again and, this time, gruffly told us that our baby was up all night and was “inconsolable.” They sent us home from the hospital that day, and bedtimes have gone downhill ever since.

We struggled mightily with bedtimes as our child grew and became adept at the bedtime-avoidance arts. We asked more experienced parents, read how-to books, watched Supper Nanny – nothing worked. 

My wife read this one book, in particular, called the “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” The authors had not only figured out how to get difficult bedtimers to sleep, but they posited that failing to do so would result in unhappy children. Yikes.

These experts suggested setting up a routine. Like a bath. So we did it. They suggested reading to them, to help them wind down. We read. They suggested being firm. We were firm. Nothing worked -- at least, not for long.

As a last resort, the book suggested letting our young child cry it out. (We have since learned that "CIO" is a major dividing line in parenting philosophies). They said, most kids will only cry for about 40 minutes. And after a few nights, they'll never cry again.

The first night of “crying it out,” our daughter screamed for three hours before we relented. The second night, it was closer to four hours. Clearly our kid was more stubborn than the test children the authors experimented on. We just didn't have the hearts of the will power to do it. Maybe it's because we had hearts.   

We’ve added three kids to the mix in the decade since. And we’ve tried lots of “strategies” to get them to sleep.  We've sung songs. We used positive-reinforcement, like “Good-Bedtime Charts.” We’ve tried bribery. And, we experimented with yelling at them – at least, I did. Nothing worked with regularity.

Nowadays, we still use routines as the bedtime foundation; one routine being that we always read stories to them. (Though our oldest now reads to herself). Sometimes we lie down with a kid to help them settle. And sometimes we fall asleep.

 

We're still perfecting our methods.

But ten years in, there’s only one thing we know for certain: bedtime sucks.

Blogger Confidential

I’ve often wondered why the “F” I write this blog. Like, what the hell is wrong with me?  

 

Why expose my family -- my wife and kids in particular -- to the world for its viewing judgment, and for potential public ridicule. (It’s not that public, no post of mine has ever gotten more than a few hundred thousand hits). But seriously, why would anyone blog?Why put yourself out there, like an open book, to be judged, or liked, or defriended. Are bloggers just masochists (not that kinds of masochist), or a narcissists, or some other “ist” I’m not even aware of yet?  

Thinking about it makes me wonder why any of us do the things we do, especially the public things. Why do we sing, or act, or take pictures that we share, or aspire to cook for large groups of people? Are all these, in some ways, just self-aggrandizing endeavors?  

Then, the other day, I was watching one of my favorite writers, a self-described “essayists,” who was talking about his own version of this affliction. The essayist was Anthony Bourdain. He doesn’t know me, but I consider him a personal friend. And, yes, I know how stupid that sounds.

To give an understanding of my level fondness for Bourdain -- one I’m sure I share with many friends of equally good taste in writing, food and drink -- he makes my short list of the people from all of history I’d have dinner with, given the chance. The list: Mark Twain, Cal Ripken and Anthony Bourdain. If nothing else, we’d tie on a good buzz -- after Cal went to bed, of course.  

Tony, as those of us who know him well call him, said the following describing what exactly he does for a living:

“I’m certainly not a journalist. I’m not a chef anymore. I like to flatter myself by saying I’m an essayist. But, I’m a storyteller. I see stuff. I talk about that. I talk about how it made me feel at the time. If you can do that honestly, that’s about the best you can hope for ... I think.”

Hearing that, something clicked. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with this dumb blog. And to say I wanted to isn’t even accurate. I can’t help it. It just comes out of me, like it really needs to get out and into the open air. It's cathartic.

It’s like my brother who has to bring his guitar to every campfire he attends. Or my photographer friends who can't walk away from a gathering without a memory card full of pictures. Writing about my life, about what I think, what I see, and what I feel, is all I know to do. When I don’t do it, I feel less whole.

It may annoy some people when I put up the umpteenth story about my too-cute-for-words kids. (I know, that alone is barf-worthy). And I may have caused some friends to block the incessant self-promotion of these so-called “bits.” But writing is part of who I am.  

I see stuff. I write about that. I write about how it made me feel at the time. If I can do it honestly, that’s about all I can hope for ... I think.

The Revenge of the Red Bowl

I’ve already begun plotting my revenge. But it’s going to take at least a decade to pull off.   
 
The plan is simple. When my kids are all teenagers, I am going to take them to a restaurant that serves its meals on plates and bowls of all different colors – so it’ll likely have to be a Tex-Mex joint or maybe a Café.   

I’m going to order the soup. When the wait staff brings it, I’m going to act completely shocked. Then I’m going to stand and scream at the top of my lungs:

“What! No! Not the green bowl! I wanted the red bowl!”  

Then I am going to cry uncontrollably until someone brings me my soup in a red bowl. It’s fool proof.  

If my kids have learned anything from me, it’s that you appease the screaming person who wants their cereal in a specific bowl, or their apple juice in the Nemo cup not the Princess one. Because each one of our kids has done this to us, and each one has eventually gotten their way.

Clearly, some one has tried to
serve his food in the wrong bowl.

This childhood obsession with specific tableware usually starts around 2 years old and last well past 5. It’s a stage of development, I assume. I gave up trying to convince a screaming kid that Rice Krispies tastes the exact same out of any colored bowl. (It’s also true of the generic Wegmans-brand alternative Crispy Rice, which is 2 bucks cheaper).

Toddlers, preschoolers and, apparently, kindergarteners are simply not old enough to understand that the molecular structure of apple juice is in no way altered by the kid cup in which it is served. I stopped engaging in that argument a few kids ago.

Maybe by appeasing them, I’ve trained them to act so rashly. But with the first one, we really did try. 

We were determined never to negotiate with our first toddler. We were going to teach her to eat out of whatever vessel her breakfast was served in, and to be grateful for the pleasure. 

Of course, that led to long standoffs, where the cereal would sit there, between us, getting mushy in the wrong bowl. The screaming and crying would continue well after the cereal was ruined and dumped in a pile in the sink.
 

She could go hours without eating just to get her favored bowl. Apparently, there’s a strain of stubbornness that runs in either my family, or my wife’s. I’m not certain which.

We had similar stand-offs with kids two and three -- though, with each my breaking point became easier for the child to reach.

By the time our fourth kid entered the phase where he cared passionately about the color of bowl, type of spoon or brand of cup, I just said, "Fine, which bowl do you want?"

Even if I have to dig it out of the dishwasher and give it a quick hand wash, it's less trouble than listening to a kid scream through breakfast.

Over the years, our policy of tableware appeasement has saved time and cereal, and it also bought silence – at least occasional silence.

Of course, if a kid wants a specific bowl that another kid is already eating out of, well, that’s another story. They have to wait ... or they could just eat out of another bowl because it really is the same.

WAHHHHH! Fine, just wait.

I’m sure there are loads of people better than me at parenting that have an answer to this dilemma, who could solve my children’s propensity to scream when given an inferior vessel or an unwanted spoon. These so-called “toddler whisperers,” I imagine, could cure my cranky kids after just a few meals. But four kids into this parenting thing, I’ve got more pressing battles to win.

Instead, I plot.
 
My revenge is going to be awesome, and, I anticipate, a bit unexpected. Because, I’m hoping all my kids will be out of this stage by then; And, it really makes no logical sense to complain about the color of your plate or bowl so loudly that the establishment refuses to serve you a meal. Especially if it’s a really good Tex-Mex joint. I do love me some enchiladas.

On second thought, I’ll definitely have to find a Café to exact my revenge.



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Childhood Moments Through A Viewfinder

This week, my third daughter got on the bus for kindergarten for the first time, and I missed it.  I was standing right there.  So, it’s not like so many dads and moms who have to miss milestone like this because of work or other duties. 

I missed it because I was more worried about getting the shot than living the moment.   

We were ready, waiting in the front yard: my wife, our daughter, our neighbor, and me.  When the bus rumbled up the block, I assumed the perfect photographer's angle and position, crossing the street in front of my daughter to line up my lens so I could see right up the steps of the bus.  I’d be ready when she turned around and waved.

I stood with the camera to my eye (a digital Rebel SLR – I know, old school).   And through the tiny view finder I watched a tiny version of my little girl cross the street, then round the front of the bus.  She hesitated for a moment as the district-assigned school bus assistant gave her basic bus loading instructions, then she climbed up the steps, turned and disappeared down the aisle.   

I got a few photos, but I missed the shot.  She never turned around on the steps -- the pose so many other parents posted this week on the internet -- and she never gave us a wave.  

Immediately, I was bummed that the shot hadn’t happened.   Dang.  

Then I looked over and saw our neighbor, who has helped babysit our baby girl since she was born, crying.

 

In this old New Yorker cover, parents are all checking
their email during trick or treating.  In today's version, we'd
all be recording and posting. Which is far better. Right?    

Our neighbor said what made her cry was when our daughter paused, stepped back and looked up with her big, uncertain eyes at that open bus door – the one that, for us parents, represents our vulnerable babies going out into the world (even if it’s just kindergarten).

I didn’t see that happen at all.  I couldn’t see it looking through the back end of a camera, standing where I had to be in order to get the perfect angle for the wave-from-the-steps shot.   The perfect angle?

 

I realized then I hadn’t just missed the shot.  I’d missed the moment.

And I'd missed the emotion.  I didn’t get that familiar lump in my throat when those growing-up milestones occur before our eyes.  My eyes were blocked by a Canon and my emotion stifled by the frustration I felt that the bus driver or the assistant hadn’t told her to turn around and wave at the family photographer. 

It made me think of all the time I’ve spent filming and photographing their lives, looking through a viewfinder or staring at the back of an Iphone: birthdays, school plays, graduation ceremonies. 

 

If I didn't have a camera to my eye, I'd feel naked.

When you get the shot and capture that moment, it can be perfect.  Years later, when everyone gathers on the couch to look at old photos, or to watch an old video, it's certainly worth it. 

 

But how many times have we watched those birthday song videos, which I have dutifully recorded every time at the expense of just soaking it in.

Are all of us so obsessed with recording life that we are missing it?

 

Because, I can tell you, when you miss the shot and the moment, it kind of sucks.  

This time, for sure, I wish I had a second chance just to live the moment.

When Did Back To School Become Its Own Season?

I knew it was going to happen eventually, starting a post with the phrase, “Back when I was young.”  So, here goes:

Back when I was young, we didn’t set aside the final three weeks of summer to focus solely on going back to school.  We just didn’t. 

 

Sure I remember buying some #2 pencils, and digging through my older brother’s dresser drawer to see if his school shirt from last year fit me.  We had to make sure it didn’t have too many stains, or that yellow tinge from the rusty water in our well.  But we’d usually do that the day before school started. 

 

What was so important she couldn't make it three feet
from the mailbox before opening?  Teacher Letters.

My kids, on the other hand, have been talking about back to school-related rituals and procedures since early August.   It began with the hype in advance of the so-called teacher letters – so-called because its from their new teachers, telling them which class they’d be in for the coming school year.  And, this year, two of our kids are moving up to new schools.  So it's a big deal, no doubt.  But, come on people. 

There were actually internet-based rumors in our town about when the local school would mail the teacher letters.  Vacations were scuttled so that families could wait by their mailboxes. 

Not us.  We happened to be out of town on the Saturday the letters finally arrived.  My wife and I got a text from a neighbor that the “letters have landed."  We decided it best not to tell the kids, to avoid them begging to go home early the rest of the weekend.  We told them on the drive home.  You’d swear we said Santa was waiting in our living room.

“Drive faster, dad!”

The letters are just the start.  Next, you have to read all that stuff.  Then comes the detective work determining which friends are in your class.  I almost needed another phone line to handle all the calls.

And the letters, of course, have within each a supply list.  That's when the real shopping starts.  Which is followed by the school meetings and tours.  Then more shopping.  There's more, but that's all I care to recall in my current back-to-school-season frazzled state.

Is there a Hallmark card for going back to school?  Maybe they’re behind this?

Or, maybe it’s a public school thing?
 
Growing up, we went to a small, private school – which was not nearly as fancy as that sentence implies.  It was very small, and not exclusive.  We went there because my dad’s family had a thing for Catholic school education.  And because the public schools near our suburban-D.C. home were too big and not known for being particularly good at educating children.

My parents may have been concerned about us falling in with the riffraff at the public school.  As it turned out, we were the riffraff at our private school. 

As school started, sure we’d do a bit of back to school shopping.  But we didn’t have some big, all-hands-on-deck, multi-store trip, where everyone got new clothes, sneakers, new book-bags and more erasers than even my kids could ever need. 

For one thing, we had uniforms.  We made, maybe, one trip to JC Penney’s to get a pair of khakis and gym shoes.   That was it for clothes.  And we’d be lucky if we got some new, lined loose-leaf paper, a few folders and a lunchbox that didn't smell from being closed all summer.

We also had small classes at our schools.  So we knew in advance who the teacher was going to be, usually the same teacher that had been teaching that class for decades -- Sister something-or-other.

The school year would start when we’d pull up to said school, get out of the car, and our parents would pull away.  There were no big, instruction-filled teacher letter packets that I recall.  No orientations.  No soft-grand-openings.  No two-page long lists of supplies.  Okay, maybe once I remember getting a Trapper-Keeper.  But only the once. 

Still, I'm pretty certain it wasn't quite like things are today.  My mom may remember it differently.

Am I wrong?  Or am I just getting old?

The Baggage That Comes With Being A Dad ...

In the mountainous regions of Eastern Nepal, high among the Himalayas, live a people called the Sherpa. They are known worldwide for, among other things, their ability to carry ridiculously large quantities of bags, as their Western traveling companions tag along on the trek unencumbered.     

I think of the Sherpas, and my connection to them, every time I go on a trip with my family.

This past weekend, my wife and I took our kids on an overnight trip to my family’s house on Lake Ontario. It was just one night. Did that stop us from stuffing the mini-van so tight that I couldn’t see out the back windows? No. It didn’t. 

"Honey, don't forget the beach toys." Grumble. Grumble.

We took more for this so-called night away than we packed for the full week we spent in South Carolina in early July. Heck, we packed more than I took with me when I moved away to college some two decades ago. In fact, if you added up all the stuff I had packed on various overnights and weekend trips during my pre-married, pre-child days, it would still be less than what we took for one evening at the old camp. 

Gone are the days when I could just grab a change of clothes and a towel (a nod to the Hitchhiker’s Guide) and spend a week on the road. Don’t worry, I’d usually buy a tooth brush once I got where I was going. Usually. That was then.

Fast forward to this past weekend and we packed enough clothes for each kid to change outfits more than Cher at a concert. Plus sweatshirts, jeans and pajamas. We packed not only bath towels for each family member, but we also brought beach towels for each. We packed sheets, blankets, and pillows. Pillows!? As I said, in an instructional tone the morning of our trip, “When I was young, we used to roll up our jeans and use that as a pillow! C’mon people!”

We also packed sleeping bags, a tent, and the blow-up mattress, in case we decided to spend the night under the stars. Then we packed enough food to feed our entire family for the foreseeable future, including drink boxes in four varieties, snacks galore, water bottles and bottles of water (go figure), paper plates, paper towels, toilet paper, and dog food. As my wife said, you never know what the camp is going to need.

Let’s not forget the beach junk. We didn’t. Boogie board, umbrella, two beach blankets, three beach chairs, and 4 life jackets – in case we ended up on a boat, or a kayak, or a canoe. You never know. Sunscreen, bug spray, the camera, the phone chargers. You get the idea.

Once the van was completely packed – and I mean completely -- with enough provisions and gear to get us through fall, 5-year-old Sadie asked, in her concerned voice, “Are we moving?”

Luckily, we did have a van to actually transport the provisions and gear the 50 miles north to the lake house. Real Sherpas would have carried it the whole way. But I do feel bad for the poor soul who had to take all that stuff to and from the van, and then repeat the task the next day with 95 percent of the stuff. The kids drank the juice boxes, accounting for the missing 5 percent of cargo.

In our defense, we are packing for six people, nowadays. I must have heard that defense a hundred times, as I grumbled under the pile of blankets, or beach chairs, or whatever I was carrying.

I guess that’s one way I’m not like a Sherpa. They don’t complain. 

Oh, and they climb mountains.

I Really Hate a Good Read … Except This One

When it comes to other people's writing, there’s a scene from Woody Allen’s film Midnight In Paris, where Owen Wilson’s character asks Ernest Hemingway to read his unpublished novel, that says it all:
 

Owen Wilson's Character: “I would like you to read my novel and get your opinion.”

Hemingway:  “I hate it.”

Wilson’s Character:  “You haven't even read it yet.”

Hemingway:  “If it's bad, I'll hate it. If it's good, then I'll be envious and hate it even more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.”

I imagine the fake Hemingway speaks for most writers out there.  He even speaks for those of us who just fancy ourselves as writers.  When I read published work that’s just okay, or even bad, I think, damn, I could’ve written that.  Why didn’t I write that? And, why can’t I get the stuff I’ve written published?  Not just blog published, but really published.  I mean, this jackass got their stuff published.

When I read something that strikes me as pretty darn good, I am consumed with envy and self-doubt.  It’s disheartening, even debilitating.  I remember once when I was stuck while writing one of my currently-unpublished books, and I decided to turn to Angela’s Ashes for inspiration – a work I’d read and admired years before.  This time, I read a single page, then I curled up in a ball and didn’t write another word for a solid month.  It was that good.  

"You don't want the opinion of another writer."

But, every once in a while, I stumble on something that is immune to my writer’s envy.  Not that it’s necessarily better than Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela’s Ashes.  More that’s it’s so creative, and so personal, and so rich in voice that I feel there's no way I would ever write that way, because it's that writer's voice, not mine.  When that happens, I feel like I’m reading a writer's mind, not their words.  That’s a kind of writing out of reach of even my envy.

I read something like that recently.  It was a blog post by another daddy blogger.  That’s right, I’ve decided I’m a daddy blogger, and now I read other dad blogs. Yikes.  In a few hundred words, this writer, who goes by the name Black Hockey Jesus (and I've since read eschews the title daddy blogger), captured all the emotion I’ve tried to write about, the bittersweet stuff that every parent knows watching their kids grow up.  And he did it in a way that I never would have thought to imitate, accidently or otherwise, even with a hundred typewriters, a hundred monkeys and a hundred years.   I’m probably overstating it at this point.

For me, it worked.  This blog post made me think about all the times in recent years that I’ve held my kids tight, on a down day, and just been thankful that I had them, and could hold them.  Living reminders of how lucky I really am, even when I don’t feel all that lucky.  This blog post made me think, that someday, I won’t be able to just grab them, and pick them up, and squeeze them tight.  It’s already started.  My 10 year old is getting too big to carry in from the car after she falls asleep on late-night trips home.  She stills fakes asleep.  But soon, even that won’t work.  I won’t be able to carry her.  Nor will she want me to.  

It made me think about the misspent times the past few years that I way too fondly reminisced about the freedom of my younger days, or even looked forward to the empty nest that’s a decade and a half away.   Recently, my brother,  who also has a few kids, began a sentence, "When we get our lives back ..."  I laughed and agreed, and our wives frowned.  What the hell were we talking about?  This full nest of ours is our lives, and it's what makes life worth living.  At least my life.  At least now.

This one blog post made me think about all this.  And it got me choked up.  I don’t like to admit it, but it did.  

Good writing can do powerful things. And this did.  Here’s a link.

Thank you, Black Hockey Jesus, for writing this.  I didn't hate it.  

The Year of the Turtle

Back in the mid 80s, when we used to take the extra fabric around the ankles of our jeans, then fold, wrap and roll it as tight as possible to our ankles -- in a fashion practice known as pegging -- I asked my mom how anyone could ever have thought bell bottoms were cool. She said, all things come and go. She even went so far as to predict that one day pegging would be seen as odd and bell bottoms would be back in style. I thought she was nuts. 

A decade later, she was right. It was the first time I remember seeing the pendulum swing so clearly, and it proved a powerful lesson. All things do come and go: even things as odd as excessively loose, or ridiculously tight pant ankles.

But even in her wisdom, I do not think my mother could have predicted a blast from the past that has come back recently to overtake our household. It’s a trend for sure, though not of the fashion variety, and it has become the singular obsession of my four children. Anyone who has interacted with my kids in recent months knows the scourge of which I speak: Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to be precise. Though, by my estimation, they are middle-aged mutants at best, by this point.

I remember the first time the series made waves in the late eighties. After that, I don’t think I heard a thing about them for a decade or two. Though I'm kind of out of it when it comes to trends.  Now they are back, stronger than ever, as a newly animated series has suddenly taken over Nickelodeon’s summer programing. 

How these four mutant martial artists made it back from obscurity, I haven’t a clue. Heck, I don’t know how the trend caught on in the first place. This was a television series that jumped the shark in the concept room.   

They're mutants. They're reptiles.
They're ninjas. And they're everywhere.

Still, my kids love it. They've gone so far as to each adopt the name of a favorite turtle, along with a preference for the color of their chosen turtle's headband and constant repetition of key quotes from that character.

There's Leonardo, the leader (blue); Donatello, the smart one (purple); Raphael, the tough guy (red); and Michelangelo, the dumb, but funny one who likes to surf and party a lot (orange). I never quite understood why the so-called “heroes on the half shell” were named after four great Italian artists. They just were. Again, the idea for this animated foursome passed the exit for absurd long before the names were chosen.

And, of course, each turtle also has its own specific martial arts skill and a ninja weapon or two. Which makes for hours of family fun, as the kids pretend to fight evil and I scream at them to stop hitting each other with fake ninja moves.  

 

I’m half expecting this year’s Christmas wish lists to include nunchucks and throwing stars, as well as all the TMNT crap our local, neighborhood Target can cram into the aisle that all the retail giants will most certainly devote to the mutants this shopping season. That is, if this trend last until Christmas.  

 

As the old saying goes, the flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. That's right: I just quoted ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu. Circa 550 B.C. That's because the kids have decided that I am Splinter, the giant mutant rat that is their sensei. I take my pretend dojo lessons vey seriously.   

We’ll have to wait and see just how long this turtle obsession lasts. But it certainly proves again that all things come and go. No matter how absurd -- like bell bottoms.  

Though, I’m still waiting for pegged pants to come back. Or, did that happen already?

Welcome to the Lazy Lawn-Mowers Club

Any homeowner from Upstate New York knows the four seasons: Shoveling, Spreading Mulch, Mowing, and Raking. 

Right now, we are deep into mowing season.  So deep, in fact, that we’re in the rare time when the heat stunts the growth of the lawn, and it only needs to be mowed once a week.  This is far more manageable than the twice-a-week mows, which are needed from early Spring through mid-July, and again from late- August until the leaves fall or the snow flies, whichever comes first.

Like most, I take a certain amount of pride in my lawn.  Just, not that much. 

I rarely have time to mow on the exact day my wife thinks it needs to be done.  And, let’s just be honest, mowing twice a week is nearly impossible.  That said, I certainly don’t want to be that guy on the block known for the long lawn.  

As wet as it was this year, I fear I may have become that guy.

Friendly Neighbor Hand-me-down Toys ...
Or Best Lawn-based Insult Ever?

In my defense, it was a very wet spring.  If you failed to mow on the only day of the week it didn’t rain, you’d have a jungle out there by the time the rain stopped long enough to mow again.   

I missed the optimum mowing window more than once this mowing season.  I’d stare through the rain-spattered windows at my long, wet lawn, as my wife reminded me its "needs-to-be-mowed" status and as the neighbors would drive by real slow just shaking their heads.   

The worst of it occurred during our vacation week.  I’d planned to mow it the day before we were leaving, thinking it would grow just a little too long the week we were gone, but not too much to get attention.   Of course, it rained for a solid three days before we left, and I didn't get a chance to give it the pre-vacation cut.  By the time we got back from our annual excursion, the lawn had gone more than two whole, wet weeks without so much as a trim.

I practically needed a machete just to get the lawnmower out of the shed.  And it took me two mows over the next three days just to get caught up.

In the midst of the catch-up mows, I went out onto the lawn one morning to find a little gift:  Someone had deposited two plastic kid lawnmowers right in the middle of our yard.  These were toddler toys that looked like they’d been enjoyed for quite a few years.  

Maybe it was just a friendly neighbor whose kids had outgrown these toys, and thought my young brood would play with them. 

Or maybe it was the most clever lawn critique ever.  Maybe all the neighbors had talked, and come up with a plan to get these crappy toys from some yard sale and stick them in my yard, in a subtle tribute to my lawn-care lameness.

I still don’t know.   

Now that we’re in the summer doldrums, I’m staying on top of it without any problems – except for the darn crabgrass.

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to publically apologize to my neighbors and the rest of the lawn-mowing world, and ask if I can be let back into the well-kept-lawn club.  Besides, did you see the lawn of that guy on the corner?  It’s a total mess.

Missing When Summer Break Was an Actual Break

Few things can change your opinion about something as efficiently as a change in perspective. 

Take summer break, for example.  When I was a kid, I loved summer break, or summer vacation, or whatever you want to call it.  More than two whole months off from school?  What’s not to like? 

Then I became a parent of school-aged children.  And oh, how my perspective has changed.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love summer.   But from the day school gets out until they go back after Labor Day, my wife and I spend almost every second that we are not working or sleeping, coordinating the full-time entertainment and transportation of our four children.

I know, I know. That’s what parents do (when teachers aren’t available).   But it seems things have gotten worse with the recent generation. 



Where I'll be spending most of my
summer.  In our minivan, on the road.
(This is stock image. Our van is much
older, and less sleek looking)

When I was a kid, we’d spend half our summer days in the woods behind our house, and the other half at my grandmother’s house on Lake Ontario.  We were very lucky, I know.  

But the days were ours, free from schedules, camps and swim class.  Sure, I remember going to one summer camp for one summer – a day camp at a local community college.   Other than that, we entertained ourselves.  Okay, maybe an exaggeration.  My parents always did their share to keep us busy with activities.  But still, it was different.

Now, I’m on the road a few hours each day picking up, dropping off, and delivering one or more of our children to the various camps they attend, so that their parents – my wife and I – can continue to earn a living. 

Take just our oldest as an example:  the summer began with a two week theatre camp, full day.  Now she’s in a one week soccer camp, which is only half day.  Next week she goes to a two week session at a real camp, meaning a camp in the woods with a lake.   Her two sisters have their own camps, as well.  

These are all just day camps, not spend-the-nights like in the movies.  That means we are carting their little butts all over town -- twice a day, every day.  And that’s not even counting the swim classes they all take at different times throughout the week.

It beats the alternative, which is them watching television all day long as we work, with them saying how board they are fifty-thousand times before the sun sets.  (For those who don’t know, my wife and I both work full-time jobs from home.  We’re very lucky, I know -- Sort of.  But that’s a whole other blog.)  

I wish we had enough funds to have one of us take the summer off, just to hang with them.  It’d be nice to play in the yard all day, or do outings to the library, and the park, and the zoo. But we have four kids, so money remains tight.

Back when we started this brood, we swore we wouldn’t be the type of parents that over-schedule their kids to the point where we’d end up just a taxi service for familiar little strangers who’d rather be at some random activity with their friends than spending time with their family.  Swim.  Soccer.  Dance … every minute scheduled.  We were against the whole notion.  We weren’t going to be those parents.

It seems to have happened anyway.

So tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that, my wife or I can be found most mornings, at lunch and in the evening, cruising the local roads in the minivan, trucking our kids all over creation.

It gives me two thoughts. 

First, I have new-found respect for teachers, and bus drivers.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Democrat.  

And second, I miss when summer break was actually a break.