SuburbanDaddy

I am regularly abused by Thing 3. He likes to randomly jump on me, bop me on the head, and generally use me as his personal jungle gym. Lately, he has become very bossy with his newly emerging ability to talk.

“Daddy, sit”, “Daddy read book”, and my personal favorite “On Daddy head” which means put this on your head.

I suppose I bring this on myself because I put things on my head to entertain him.

This hard to see, grainy image is not a captured terrorist. It is me being held captive by a 2 year old so he can jump on, climb on, and torture me by hitting my head with books, toys, and various stuffed animals. And I love every minute of it.

The California Raisin Marketing Board promotes the increased use of raisins grown in California. Raisins are very popular in the SuburbanDaddy household. You may remember how Thing 3 loves to eat raisins and occasionally does some other things with them.

We tried the Five Spice Snack Mix recipe.  [Read more →]

Two year olds can get into a lot of trouble. Thing 3 certainly gets into his share. Breaking, climbing, running off, throwing, hitting, screaming are all part of the daily program. But now I’ve seen how this trouble can cross over into a parent’s work life.

This week Thing 3 found my work Blackberry. Normally, it password locks the screen after a few minutes of inactivity, but he got it too fast. Still, I didn’t think there was too much trouble he could cause.
[Read more →]

This sort of thing happens so often I hardly even notice it anymore. But, taken out of context, I have to think it looks different.

Thing 1: Daddy, Thing 2 peed on the floor

Me: How do you know?

Thing 1: He told me

Me: [to Thing 2] Did you pee on the floor?

Thing 2: No

Me: Did you pee on the floor?

Thing 2: Yes

Clearly he has no future as a spy and would never hold up under questioning.

Me: Where was it so we can clean it up?

Thing 2: I don’t remember

There are dozens of conversations like this every day. To me, this is completely normal.

We are in the middle of probably the biggest snowstorm I’ve ever seen. Snow was coming down last night at a rate of 3-4 inches per hour. We let the kids stay up late last night because we aren’t going anywhere for a long time, and hoped maybe they would sleep late.

Shortly after 6am this morning, Thing 1 woke up and ventured downstairs. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem because he is 6 and knows how to turn the TV on and usually waits for everyone else to wake up.

Except this morning he was excited about the snow and wanted to see how it looked outside.

So he opened the front door to look out the glass storm door. Which set off the alarm and abruptly woke everyone up. If you think waking to an alarm clock is unpleasant, imagine a high decibel, high pitched noise designed to scare burglars away.

I just sent Thing 1 and Thing 2 to play in the basement so I can eat my breakfast. We are finally at the point where they can play down there together for extended periods without causing too much trouble.

I also sent Thing 3 with them. He is not quite at the point where he can be alone with his brothers and not cause trouble.

I know exactly how this situation will end up. Either Thing 3 will hit someone, mess up whatever game they are playing, or press all the buttons on the TV so the Wii doesn’t work.

I suppose, then, I am an accomplice to whatever he does. That’s something I’m willing to take because I really just need 5 minutes to eat breakfast.

Thing 2 buries Thing 1 in the snow

In the movie A League Of Their Own, Tom Hanks memorably exclaims “There’s no crying in baseball”.

Well, in the world of parenting, unfortunately, there are no sick days.

I’m entering day 3 of the worst cough, sore throat, headache, congestion you can imagine. Yesterday I was able to take a sick day at work.

But there was no sick day from parenting. I still had to get the Things dressed, fed, and take them to school. In the afternoon, I still had to do 3 separate art projects in 3 different classrooms as part of Parents Appreciation Week because I committed to it before I got sick. I still had to do a triple bath night, and a Lego project with Thing 3 I had promised him for Friday night because I wasn’t able to be at his Parents Appreciation event because the school scheduled all three at the same time.

Parents Appreciation Week? That’s when the preschool schedules a week’s worth of activities for you with your kids when they’d otherwise be far away at school.

Now today is Saturday and it’s more of the same. But it’s the weekend, you say? Time to get some rest?

In my world, there is another reality which is, There Is No Resting On Weekends.