The How-Not-To Guide to Parenting and Marriage (15 page)

68. THE DINNER MENU

Whenever I am in charge of making up the weekly dinner menu, it always ends up looking like this:

Sun...... Tacos

Mon...... Nachos

Tues.....Tacos

Wed.......Tacos

Thurs.... Tacos and nachos

Fri..........Fish tacos (we're not catholic, but you can't be too careful)

Sat.........Nachos

69. WHAT HAPPENED?

My youngest daughter turned fifteen today. My older daughter is seventeen......what happened? How did it happen so fast?

When did they stop needing me to kiss their boo-boo's and help build block castles? ....... Although they still seem to need my money.........lots of my money.

They don't seem to draw me pictures as much as they used too. They never want to do my hair any more....... Well, I guess there isn't as much hair left to do.

When did they go from asking, "How do you do this, daddy?" And "what is that, daddy?" to saying, "never mind dad, you just wouldn't get it."

How can it be that I used to help them learn how to spell, and count numbers, and now when I look at their school work, I haven't the slightest idea how to do math that looks like that........it's like looking at something written in an alien language.

I used to think I couldn't wait until they got older, so that I wouldn't have to watch them constantly. I just wanted to be able to take a nap without them beating me on the head with a doll. Now, when they give me an eye roll as they walk out the door to go hang out with friends, it doesn't seem like it was all that bad to get beat in the head.

I guess I knew it was coming. I still get hugs, and they still sometimes sit next to me on the couch and lean on me while we watch a movie. For teenagers, I guess that's doing pretty good.

70. THE UNSAID LANGUAGE OF LOVE (after marriage)

Learning to interpret the unsaid communication in a marriage, is one of the most valuable tools a husband can have in the pursuit of harmony. While all wives have their own versions of this language, here are some examples of my wife's wordless vocabulary.

"Huff" . . . . . You are an idiot.

"Sigh" . . . . . I disagree, but it’s not worth the time to argue about it.

"Huff, sigh" . . . . You are an idiot, but you already know that, so it is not worth my time to say it again.

"Chuckle" . . . . . I told you that you were an idiot, but you wouldn't listen.

"Groan" . . . . . Please don't try to fix the washing machine with spare car parts for the fourth time this week, let's just buy a new one.

"Groan, sigh" . . . . . I wish you wouldn't try to fix the washing machine with spare car parts, but I know you are going to no matter what I say.

"Huff, groan, sigh, smile" . . . . . . You are an idiot for trying to fix things that are beyond your capabilities, and I can do nothing to stop you when you are on a do-it-yourself mission, but that is partly why I love you.

71. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.

I told my daughter that she must always treat other people with kindness and respect. She answered, "But you yelled at, and threatened the cable guy, and made him cry the last three times he was at our house!"

I told my daughter's they must never lie. They both answered, "But you told us when we were younger, that kissing boys causes cancer".

I told my daughter that she needs to take care of her toys, because I wasn't going to buy her any more if they got ruined. She said, "Then how come whenever your weed whacker won't start, you can smash it into a million pieces with a hammer, and go buy a new one?"

I told my daughter's to be wise and save their money, and not waste it on silly things. They asked me, "Then why did you spend a hundred dollars on an a Darth Vader helmet lamp, and fifty on a bass that hangs on the wall and sings 'Don't worry, be happy' ?"

I told my daughter she must never disrespect, or talk back to her mother. She wanted to know, “So how come whenever you and mom argue, you go out to your shed where you think no one can here you, and mumble about where she can go if she wants to be like that, and where she can stick her honey-do list?"

I'm starting to get gun shy. Whenever I feel the need to lecture one of my daughters, I must first make sure there is nothing I've done that they can throw back in my face. Sometimes
it’s just easier to tell my wife what I want to yell at them about, and have her give them my lecture.......she seems to have less skeletons in her closet.

72. THAT'S NOT FUNNY

It seems to me, that when entering the world of having children, we are expected to leave our sense of humor by the door. Joking is permitted in nearly all aspects of our lives, with the exception of infants and children.

Shortly after the birth of my first daughter
, Hannah, my mother-in-law arrived at our house and asked were the new baby was. I simply answered, "I put her in the dryer because she was making too much noise".

She did not find it to be the least bit funny, in fact, you would have thought that I had just committed a murder right in front of her. I started to explain that I was just only joking, but then my razor sharp wit took over and I
added, "The dryer only amplifies sound. If I was going to stick her in an appliance, it would have been the dish washer."

This sent her into a rage, "YOU DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS!"

It would seem to me, that when it comes to joking about sticking infants into appliances, the general consensus is that if I joke about it, then I have to actually do it.

A few years later, I was left alone with my two daughters and four of their cousins while all the mothers went shopping. One young niece started
singing, “the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round".

Before long, all of the other kids had joined in, and after ten minutes of the same phrase being repeatedly sung by six loud children, my sanity began to wear thin. To make the concert more bearable, I decided compose a second verse to the song
, and have them perform it when the mothers arrived home from shopping.

The second verse went like this, "The cheeks on my butt make lots of sound, lots of sound"

The six of them performing this new verse in front of their mothers, did not go over any better than the daughter in the dryer joke. You would have thought I had taught them all to swear like sailors. In fact, one of my sister-in-laws still won't let me watch her children alone any more.

Perhaps my brand of humor is a bit much when talking about something as precious as our little children. But I think everybody could lighten up a little bit too..... because if you don't, I will come to your house, and glue your children's feet to the ceiling and wrap them in Christmas tree lights........ That is a joke, I would never glue their feet to the ceiling because the blood rushing to their heads would make them pass out. I would only glue children's feet to the floor.

73. WHY OLD PEOPLE SMELL FUNNY

When I was younger, I always wondered why old people had that "old people smell". I thought that maybe as people got older, they began to spoil, like a piece of fruit.

But as I begin to get older myself, I've realized that "old people smell" has nothing to do with a
person’s body being overly ripe from age. My keen powers of observation have figured out that ‘old people smell’ happens for two reasons.

The first reason I've noticed happening as my body began to be affected
, more and more, by the effects of working for a living.......and cleaning the house........and mowing the lawn. The sheer exhaustion from these activities began to have me debating whether or not my efforts had caused sufficient enough reason to warrant a shower.

I often determined by performing a thorough sniff test, that a shower was not immediately necessary, and would opt for showering tomorrow....... Or the day after tomorrow.

And then as my body became even more susceptible to fatigue, there would come days where I actually failed the sniff test, but still couldn't muster the energy to shower. These are days that I get home from work, sit down on the couch with a plate of dinner, and that will be the last thing I remember until morning, when I awake still sitting on couch with my dinner plate sitting on my lap, and a half chewed bite of food still in my mouth. Such days are not conducive to showering.

But I must give some credit to my wife for helping me realize how bad my selective showering had become. She reached a point where her frustration led her to start marking on the calendar the days that I showered. Upon looking back on a month or two, I was alarmed to find out that I was showering on an average of seven times per month.

The second reason causing old people to smell funny, is an inaccurate result, when performing the sniff test that determines whether a shower is needed.

I would often come to the conclusion that a shower was not immediately needed, by administering a sniff test, only to have my wife challenge the test results.

"Aren't you going to shower?"

"I sniffed, and I don't need one"

"Ooohhh yes. Yes you do"

At first I thought she was just saying it to annoy me....... That is
, until it was confirmed by several members of our church.

So the next time you younger folks get a whiff of "old people smell", don't just complain about a little age associated odor bothering your sensitive nose. Instead, smile and make the acknowledgment that this particular person smells like they were a very hard worker throughout their life.

74. CLUTTER

Our house is cluttered. I've come to the conclusion that clutter is much like a fungus, or a cancer. It doesn't accumulate like you would think..... It grows.

I personally believe this "dark matter" that was recent
theorized to exist in the universe, is actually future clutter floating around waiting to appear in a house.

If I am cleaning the living room, I can finish decluttering one corner, start on another area, and when turn back around, the area I just finished is already completely cluttered again.

Children are like motor boats that leave a wake of clutter. It radiates from them like ripples on the water. If you have two children, you would think that going from two residents in a house to four, would then double the amount of clutter. But actually, going from two adults to two adults and two children will increase clutter by seven hundred percent.

Periodically, my wife and I reach our clutter limit, so we rent a dumpster and fill it to the top with unwanted items in the house. But this seems to have an effect much like cutting and fertilizing a lawn. The clutter comes back stronger and in greater volume than before the dumpster filling.

Someone needs to invent a ray gun that can vaporize clutter, and turn it back into dark matter. Or I just need to get rich enough to afford two houses, one for clutter, and one to live in.

ONE FINAL STORY ON, A SERIOUS NOTE

As my six year old daughter walked from the doors of her school towards the car, I could tell something was not quite right. Her normal carefree walk-skip, was replaced with a quicker, more serious pace, and the look on her face suggested that she was about to cry.

After reaching the car and taking her seat in the back without the usual “Hi Dad”, she burst into huge tears and sobbed uncontrollably. The sound of her heartbreak was unbearable.

It took a few minutes before she was able to tell me what had happened. One of the girls in her kindergarten class was having a birthday party, and not only was my daughter not invited, but the girl had handed out invitations to the other classmates in front of her.

I pictured my normally happy baby girl waiting silently as the invitations were given to the other students standing around her. I could feel her excitement over the prospect of going to a party, slowly turning to wonder as the pile of invitations got smaller, and then finally the awkward realization that she would not be going. She was not invited.

It’s hard to put into words, the agony of watching your daughter’s feelings be so callously trampled on. It tore at my insides, and I knew that all the comforting in the world would not take away the sting.

But as I drove the few miles home with my daughter still trying hard to end her sobbing, my mind began to stray from my own pain and anger over the situation. I began to think about the heartbreak of other children around the world

I thought about a young girl sitting silently on her bedroom floor, wondering if the footsteps in the hallway meant that she was about to suffer more unimaginable abuse from the very people who were supposed to love and protect her.

I envisioned a small boy wandering aimlessly amongst the rubble that was once his home, the bodies of his family lying near. I tried to imagine how his young mind would comprehend a war that had taken from him everything and everyone that he had known in his short life. Where would he go? Who would take care of him?

I thought about other children who were enduring the agony of slowly starving to death, and the mothers and fathers that must watch helplessly. I imagined a mother being willing to give up her own life if it would somehow end her child’s pain.

And that is when I felt joy over my own daughter’s heartbreak. I felt joy that her not receiving an invitation, was the most painful thing in her life at the moment. I realized how fortunate I was.

I’m quite sure that I will always feel sorrow when my children are heartbroken or in pain. But when I compare it to all the unspeakable horrors that are inflicted upon so many children in the world, I will also feel fortunate and grateful as well.