Category: Parenting

  • Sick from School

    I got a phone call from the kid’s school today. It was the school nurse, telling me that my daughter had just thrown up. She wasn’t running a fever, but thought it best that I come and get her. I agreed, and headed over to the school. Yet another advantage of living two blocks from the school; I could get there pretty quickly. When I arrived at the school, the kid looked a little pale, and she was behaving a little meekly. I thanked the nurse for taking care of her, and we walked home holding hands. I told her she’d need to get into bed when we got home, and take it easy. She asked me if she could watch the iPad in bed, which I agreed to.

    This is yet another thing that was normal just a few years ago, and now feels very foreign. Back in 2019, the wife and I would get a call from the kid’s day school that she was running a fever, or not feeling well, and we’d go get her, and sit on the couch at home with her. It has been over two years since we had to go get our kid from school when she’s sick. Just a funny bit of life that is normal, but doesn’t exactly feel normal now.

    This all made me think about being sick when I was in school. The elementary I went to had a really scary nurses office. I was a windowless room in the back of the main office. I remember that it had a green vinyl chaise couch in it, that I can only imagine saw millions of sick kids lay down on it over the decades. It was the type of nurses office that made you feel worse if you got sent to it. I say that because on the occasions that I had to go to that office, and my parents were called to pick me up, I would have to lay there for close to a half hour before my parents were able to get me, due to the distances they had to travel from their work. I also remember feeling a little guilty when they came on got me, like I had better be really sick.

    Now I am the caregiver. Getting crackers and Gatorade, and letting her watch whatever she wants to watch. And I also have to remind myself, she might be contagious.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Summer, Dragon Warrior, and Louie Gohmert is a Coward

    (Get in loser…)

    The kid still has about a month left to school, but Summer is here. I have broken out the air conditioners due to a couple of eighty-degree days, and one awful ninety-degree day. The shorts are out as well, and so is the talk of going swimming. Nothing says Summer more than a kid wanting to get in the water and swim. For me, I’m not a huge fan of Summer heat – I did grow up in Texas so I have suffered under enough hot weather to last three or four lifetimes – but I like the feeling of freedom that summer creates in one’s mind. Summer means plans, and vacations, and projects, and also being a little lazy and watching tv all day. Also, Summer means that I will get to spend a great amount of time with the kid. I would like to take her to museums, and maybe a road trip out to the Pollock/Krasner house in Springs, Long Island. There are only eleven weeks to cram a lot of fun in.

    I have got it in my head that I want to play Dragon Warrior. If you don’t know, it was one of the first RPG for the NES back in 1986. (Yes, I am aware that the original name was Dragon Quest but was changed for the North American market, but we’re talking about a 45-year old’s nostalgia here, so I would like to keep calling it Dragon Warrior.) I have looked up the game, and I can buy a version to play on my iPad or iPhone, but both versions look updated, and clean. What I am looking for is the 8-bit original to play. It would be great if I could get that on my devices, but I feel what I’d have to do to make this happen is buy an old NES and blow on the cartridge hoping that it will load, and then hope beyond hope that it still can save my game. (Hey other 40-year-old! You know what I’m talking about.)

    And let’s not forget that @LouieGohmertTX1 is a coward that wants to make it easier for mass murders to get their hands-on semiautomatic guns as fast as possible. Thanks @LouieGohmertTX1 maybe you can club some puppies and baby seals before you walk out the door?

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • What Solves All the Problems?

    The kid was mad as hell at me yesterday. The reason for her anger was that I wouldn’t allow her to take a toy to school. She had been told over the weekend that she couldn’t do it, but when Monday morning rolled around, she tried again, only to get the same result from her parents; no.

    And she was so angry. She wouldn’t hold my hand crossing the street and she wouldn’t talk to me as we walked to school. I know she wanted to say something to me, to make me feel bad, but I want to say that she knew if she said something mean, it would only make the situation worse.

    I could be wrong.

    When I picked her up from school, she was a little happy to see me. She smiled when she saw me walking up, and then, as if she reminded herself that she was mad at me, she dropped her smile and gave a very dramatic frown. I asked how her day was, and she said it was just okay, that nothing happened. I took her to the local playground so she could run around for a bit, and maybe being with her friends would put her in a better mood. Not so much.

    When we got home she disappeared in her room, and when she emerged for dinner, she seemed a still had the frown. She was clearly hungry as she cleaned her plate, and in our house, a clean plate means you get a little treat. We had bought ice cream over the weekend due to the heatwave, so it seem appropriate that she could have a little ice cream.

    And that was the magic that broke the spell. A little cookies and cream retuned our silly talkative kid to us. Yes, again, ice cream comes to the rescue and solves all the problems. It really does when it comes to kids. I am sure that there is something to be said that you shouldn’t teach kids to equate happiness with food, or something like that, but damn, ice cream always seems to work when you want to put someone in a better mood. I know it works for me. If life sucks, just eat some ice cream.

    There is no deep message here, or a revolutionary revelation. Just… eat more ice cream.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Museum of Natural History, Alice Walker’s Journals, Dallas Mavericks, and Jazz Samba

    (Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags!)

    It’s Earth Day! AND the kid is on Spring Break! So, we’re going to the Museum of Natural History today! This is low hanging fruit when it comes to doing something with the kid that she will enjoy for several hours. For most of my friends with kids, the zoo is their “go-to” place to occupy some time, but my kid never has really enjoyed going to a zoo. Now, a petting zoo, or looking at baby animals, she will go crazy over that. But your normal, run of the mill zoo; nope, my daughter ain’t having it. What she wants is a display case with rocks in it. Maybe a diorama from the 1920’s. Give us a squid and a whale!

    Yesterday, I read a piece in The New Yorker about a book of Alice Walker’s journals. I was interested because I think Walker is a great writer who I look up to, and being that I journal, I am curious what her journals are like. Two things I took away from the article are that Walker at one point thought she should smoke “less weed,” and her preoccupation with money. I admit that I haven’t read this book and am only going off what was in the article, but these two points, weed and money, humanized Alice Walker for me, and made me respect her more. The weed statement means that she feels like she should be getting high less, and doing other things, and I infer that means writing. Even someone like Alice Walker thinks she should be working harder. And there is money. It’s not surprising that Walker was thinking about money issues before she was “ALICE WALKER” and was just another writer trying to make it. Yet, to see it in her journals just proves that finances were taking up a large part of her thought process, and needed to be expressed. Yes, she was trying out new ideas that would become great stories, but she was also trying to figure out how to pay rent and eat.

    I have been enjoying watching the Dallas Mavericks vs the Utah Jazz in the NBA Playoffs. Especially, I have enjoyed the Dallas bench playing some clutch basketball.

    Today’s album that I am listening to is “Jazz Samba” by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.

  • SLEEP! In Heavenly Peace!

    I watched a disc golf tournament last night on YouTube. I found it fascinating that there are people out there that can throw a disc 300 yards, and sometimes in a straight line. It was pretty cool, as I don’t think I would have watched a disc golf tournament if it hadn’t been the fifth night in a row when I couldn’t sleep.

    I know you are not supposed to say this, but it’s my kid’s fault. This week is her Spring Break, and she is refusing to go to bed. Even when she does go to sleep, she finds a way to wake up, and then proceeds to wake me up as well, to inform me that she cannot sleep. I’m trying to be cool about it, and level headed, but it is really beginning to get under my skin.

    I normally am not a person who sleeps. I stay up too late, and get up early. I do try to take short naps, and I think that’s how I have been able to keep my sanity. Yet, the situation I find myself in has not only robbed me of my naps, and also of my normal five to six hours of nightly sleep.

    I need the kid to go back to school.

    This lack of sleep, and child watching, has also robbed me of my ability to do anything creative. To steal these few minutes, I gave her the iPad, and told her just to go watch something – anything – just give me fifteen minutes alone so I can get something done.

    Remember, kids won’t make you a happier person. That only happens if you were happy to begin with. After this week, I don’t think I was ever a happy person.