Silence is Golden Trouble. Watching a movie and watching kids are two totally different beasts. Silence really is desirable in a movie theater. I don’t want my house to be a screaming chaotic train wreck for 18 hours a day but when the whole house is pin-drop quiet I get uneasy. Allow me to back track just a moment…that 2 to 3 hours of quiet that I get during nap time is like a mini luxury vacation. However, if I know the kids are awake and the house has gone into stealth mode it usually means bad things.
Tag Archives: general life
Kid Speak: Junk Food
My second born, the three-year old, is a walking soundbite. Sometimes I have a difficult time remembering all the crazy things he’s said throughout the day to repeat them later. He’s also so animated and has such great delivery that sometimes simply repeating his word doesn’t do the situation justice. Last night at dinner he provided two particularly memorable moments. Continue reading Kid Speak: Junk Food
Coffee Addict?
I was late to the coffee party. My dad drank one cup of instant black coffee every morning and my mom never touched the stuff. A few sips of my dad’s coffee as a child effectively turned me off to the stuff. But then in my late 20s something happened. I had a job where there was always a fresh pot of coffee right in front of me. Continue reading Coffee Addict?
One on One Time
When our first child was born all he knew was one on one time with mom or dad. When our second child was born we could still rather easily find the time to split the kids up and get some quality one on one time with each of them. When our daughter was born it started to become more difficult to carve out any great one on one time with her. By the time our 4th kid came along the idea of one on one time was becoming a distant memory.
Day at the Doctor
Trips to the doctor’s office are always unpredictable. Thankfully today was one of those days where my wife had off and I didn’t have to take all the kids in with me. The two youngest had well-checks so I tossed some extra snacks into my bag and off we went. Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way…that’s going to mess up nap times later. After checking in and clearing up an issue where they got one of my other kids mixed up with another child on a previous visit I head to the waiting room. The waiting room is always a special adventure. I sit there like a fly on the wall while the moms carry on with their motherhood conversations. Today’s topic of conversation was public breastfeeding.
A day of golf
It’s not often I get to have a day without any kids. But a little while ago I was able to do just that and got to take advantage of the time to play some golf with an old friend. It was a beautiful day and my buddy had 2 of his friends come and join us. The four of us were having a great time on the golf course. Somewhere around the 6th hole one of my buddy’s friends hurried up to the tee box and got ready to hit his first shot while the rest of us were getting our drivers out of our golf bags and heading toward him.
As we are walking toward him he let rip with his tee shot. It was a beautifully struck shoot. The golf ball started out low and you could instantly tell it was going to continue to rise. It was the type of shot I love to hit. Since it starts low and gradually rises it loses little to no distance doing a high arcing loop and when it hits the ground it gets a great roll. It should have been a shot anyone would have been proud to hit. There was just one problem…
He hit the ball about 15 degrees to the left. Now that doesn’t seem like a lot and maybe on another hole it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but on this particular hole, about 20 yards away, there just so happened to be a dead palm tree 15 degrees to the left. His screaming line drive shot hit the tree and made the exact “thud” you would expect to hear from a golf ball hitting a dead, slightly rotten palm tree. What happened next is what made this particular shot one I’ll never forget.
Because the tree was rotten, the golf ball didn’t bounce off very fast. The ball just sort of slowly lobbed itself off the tree right back toward the guy who hit the shot. It was such a slow motion bounce-back that the guy could have easily just stepped to the right, stepped to the left or he could have even just caught it. He chose option 4. He turned around and tried to outrun it by running directly at the 3 of us walking up toward him.
His eyes were wide with terror, he had thrown his arms up into the air and had commenced screaming like a 6 year old girl. Approximately 3 steps into his poor decision, the ball plopped him in the middle of his back. He let out another scream and hit the ground like he had just been assassinated. Now understand, I’m not one of those guys who finds great humor in others’ injuries. But in this instance I had to take a knee and it was at least a minute before I could regain my breath. Even now I can’t think about that shot without smiling at least a little.