Parenting isn’t for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the faint of stomach. My father can surely attest to this. After all, he’s had to deal with some seriously sickening stuff while raising my brother and me—everything from our various injuries and ailments to my ill-fated forays into cooking. And for the most…
Tag: raising kids
Just another “typical” day
What is a typical day? Not only do I not know, I’m not even sure I would know it if I saw it. Such is the life around our house. I don’t think typical days at our house would pass for anything close to normal in most houses. Here’s an example from just the other…
The latest sign of the Apocalypse: My son eats a baked potato
We reached a BIG milestone at my house this weekend: my son ate a baked potato. Why is that so big? Well, for starters, my son is a VERY picky eater. Actually, the term “picky eater” might not be degrading to people who actually are picky eaters. My son won’t eat. Anything that doesn’t start…
Roughin’ It
I’m not much into camping or living off the land. In fact, I probably wouldn’t know there was an outdoors if I didn’t encounter it every day . . . as I walk from my office to my car. But my son . . . well, he’s different. He loves to camp – in my…
Surviving the storm with my son
In the distance, the thunder rumbles, rolling toward us on the waves of the gathering dark clouds. A bolt of lightning slices through the sky, helping to open the sky, which pours down rain and wind. For most, this is a typical spring storm in Arkansas. But for my son, it represents the end of…
What kind of second-rate planet IS this, anyway?
Just when I think my life can’t get any more weirder . . . I go home. Seriously. It’s not that something weird hasn’t happened, it’s that something weird hasn’t happened YET. So here we were today, getting home a little late after I finished up an interview for a student’s podcast. Before I go…
Going back in time
My son hasn’t quite perfected that time machine that I’ve written about in the past, but the other day he did send me back in time. It seems that since he’s moved up to fourth grade and a new school, that Four Square is all the rage. He’s been talking about it for weeks, and in…
My son makes a BOLD announcement
I knew something big was coming. It was an ordinary day at home, when my son came up to me and said, “Guess what?” The announcement didn’t come with a lot of fanfare or the trumpets and pageantry of say the anointing of a new king. Or, even more rare, a win by the Arkansas…
We should get married in a Subaru?
When you live at my house, you come to expect strange comments. Not that my kids intentionally say odd, off-the-wall stuff. So I’m usually not surprised at any eccentric remark that might escape the lips of my son. There is almost nothing he can say anymore that can surprise me. Almost nothing. But the other…
It would be a shame for my son to eat a doughnut alone (or Everything I know I learned from Karate Kid)
I think it would be accurate for me to say that 73 percent of everything I know I learned from the movie Karate Kid. Not that new, fake Karate. But from the REAL thing, from the down-and-dirty Karate Kid movie of the 80s. The rest of what I know I’ve learned through commercials (“Don’t squeeze…
Holding together the jello 