Standing Up

It was late afternoon and we had been on the road for about eight hours with another two hours to go. The drive had been surprisingly smooth on a Thanksgiving weekend but the family was beginning to feel weary. I pulled into a McDonald’s near the highway to use the restroom and buy a cup [...]

Preparing to go to battle

This evening, two older-than-they-used-to-be men talk about their soccer match that night. Guy #1: Can you play goalie tonight? My shoulder is still killing me. I think I might have torn my rotator cuff. Guy#2: I think I can. My wrist is still pretty sore from last week. Guy#1: If you can’t, I can try it. [...]

California Dreamin’

We don’t get much snow down here in paradise. In the dead of winter it sometimes drops into the fifties and I have to go find one of those jacket-things in the closet. Up until the past couple of weeks, Swee’Pea was wearing dresses every day and TheMonk was wearing shorts and sandals. [...]

This Day in History

1789 North Carolina becomes the 12th state. (One week later the states founders died of lung cancer.) 1877 Thomas Edison unveils his latest invention, the phonograph. (Shortly thereafter he was busted by the FCC for pirating church hymns) 1944 Ghostbuster Harold Ramis was born. (He came out slimy.) 1945 GM workers go on strike. (At least they had [...]

Extreme Makeover: Princess Edition

Last week we went to visit the wife’s family who we don’t see nearly enough. The best part of the visit was watching Swee’Pea and TheMonk play with all of their cousins. Swee’Pea and TheMonk have cousins of all ages (9 months to 15 years old) and they enjoyed playing with all of [...]

Hell hath no fury like a mommy blogger scorned

After almost five years of blogging, I have lots of mommy blogging friends. In fact, I think I might even be an honorary mommy blogger based on all of the emails I get from marketers that begin by saying, “Hi, Mommy!” At any rate, I have a lot of love for the mommy blogging community. [...]

Reason #2302 parenting gives you gray hair: Traveling with children

Pre-Flight TheMonk, seeing an obese woman in the airport, shouts in awe, “Look Daddy, that woman is big! TheMonk, seeing an elderly gentleman getting wheeled down the airport hallway in a wheelchair, announces, “Look Daddy, that man can’t walk!” After getting on the airplane… “Are we flying yet?… Daddy, are we flying yet?… Are we flying yet?… Are we [...]

Beauty Marks the Spot

As a kid, whenever I’d point out a dark spot on my skin, my mother would refer to them as “beauty marks.” (It turns out, this is really what they’re called. My mother just wasn’t making stuff up… for once.) Over time, I’ve developed quite a few of these spots. So many [...]

So maybe I’m a sloppy kisser

Over the past several months, as I have written about before, TheMonk has been making it harder and harder for me to kiss him on his cheek. This has caused great emotional distress to this here father as I have been kissing those cheeks on a daily basis for the last 3 years and [...]

Yes we can.

To my little ones, Tonight we elected a new President. Tonight I witnessed Barack Obama become the first African American to hold the highest office in our land. It was a historic evening and as I watched the returns I couldn’t help but feel… hopeful. And that was what this election was - to not [...]