Viola solo Christmas 2018

Dancing with a two-year-old Princess

One evening a couple weeks ago, my nine-year-old daughter put a "dress-up" fairy princess dress on her younger sister, A. Princess A. announced, "I pretty!" Then, as I swept the dining room floor, she ran up to me and said, "Dance [with] me, daddy. Dance me."

So I traded the broom for a pint-sized, pacifier-wearing princess. And we danced.

Several days later, A. and I danced again. As we did, A. kept repeating, "My name is [A]. I dancing with my daddy. I dancing like a princess." as we sailed back and forth across the living room floor.

While I took rest breaks -- yes, I *am* in peak physical condition, thank you for asking -- A. danced on her own, flailing and twirling about as she chanted, "Shake your booty! Shake your booty!"

A. grew increasingly impatient with my rest breaks. She kept demanding, "Get up dad! Dance me more!" I complied with those demands. Each time I did, the booty shaking stopped and A. danced like a princess once again.

My daughter thinks John Cena is better suited to save her from domestic violence than I am

My two oldest daughters, ages 9 and 10. were discussing domestic violence today. The nine-year-old wondered aloud what they'd do if their boyfriends ever hit them. I said, "Call your dad. I'll resolve the problem."

Ignoring me, the nine-year-old answered her own question: "I'd call John Cena."

Ten-year-old: "You don't have his phone number."

Me: "That doesn't matter. Call *me* if he hurts you and I'll come beat the crap out of your boyfriend."

Nine-year-old: "But he would think you're puny. You're a small man." (I'm 5' 6")

That, my dear, is why God invented baseball bats.

*Note: I recently lost an old acquaintance -- an amazing mother of three small children -- to domestic violence, so it's an especially sensitive topic at the moment. This blog post is not intended to make light of domestic violence, those who carry it out, or its victims.

Two little girls wade into the Oxford comma debate

In which two of my daughters debate the Oxford comma, sort of:

C. (age 7): "Dad, what's 'Sarah, Plain and Tall' about?"

Me: "It's about a girl named Sarah, who is apparently plain and tall."

C.: "How do you know that?"

Me: "From the title of the book."

C.: "What if it was about three people -- one named Sarah, one named Plain, and one named Tall?"

L. (age 9): "It's not. The title would have to have commas."

C.: "It does have a comma."

L.: "But it would need more for there to be three people."

C.: "No it wouldn't."

L.: "Yes. It would need a comma after 'Sarah,' and another after 'plain.'"

C.: "No it wouldn't. It just needs one comma to make three people."

L.: "[C.]! I'VE BEEN TO SCHOOL! I KNOW WHERE COMMAS GO!"

C.: "No, it--"

L.: "DAD, WILL YOU PLEASE TELL [C.] THAT I KNOW ALL ABOUT COMMAS? SHE THINKS I'M STUPID!"

In which my eight-year-old daughter discovers she's special -- just like all of her sisters

A couple nights ago I was putting my 21-month-old daughter to bed in her crib. I gave her a hug and a kiss. Then, as I laid her down, I said, "Goodnight, A. Remember daddy loves you!"

Then, from behind me, I heard my eight-year-old daughter ask, "You say that to HER too?!!"

This surprises you, dear daughter? Of course I tell her that. I tell ALL my girls that when I tuck them in bed, not just you. Silly goose! I'm an equal opportunity dispenser of love for my children.

An evening spent with my seven-year-old daughter -- and getting critiqued

Scene: C is sitting on my lap, head nestled against my chest.

C: "Daddy, why are your whiskers white?"

Me: "I don't know. Stress?"

C (running her hand over my cheek): "You have such beautiful little white whiskers." A pause. Then, "Keep them that way. Don't grow them out or shave them."

Okay, you like the Don Johnson look. Got it.

C: "What are all those little dots?"

Me: "I don't know. Are you talking about the whiskers that are still dark brown?"

C: "No, the pink dots."

Me: "Oh. I don't know. Zits, maybe?"

C: "Ugh. They're ugly. I hope I never get zits on my face."

Good luck with that, kid! And thanks for the compliment.

C (running her fingers through my hair): "Dad, your hair feels greasy. It always feels greasy. Even right after you wash it, your hair still feels greasy."

Note to self: Purchase degreaser and use it in place of my regular shampoo.

C: "Dad, you look like you could play football."

Me: "What makes you think that?"

C (inspecting my arm closely): "Because you've got big muscles. Your muscles look huge. And you're really good at catching things." A pause. Then, "But you'd probably have a hard time with the running part."

Nothing makes a man feel like a side of beef being looked over by a USDA inspector more than an evening spent with his seven-year-old daughter.

In Which An Elementary School Daddy-Daughter "Masquerade Ball" Gets Hijacked by Glitter and a Glum Girl

For weeks, my daughters and I have been looking forward to attending the annual daddy-daughter dance at my eight-year-old daughter's school. The long-awaited day finally arrived, so this evening the three school-aged girls and I attended the event, which was themed "Masquerade Ball."

At the entrance, the girls each got colorful masks covered in sequins. (The ten-year-old flatly refused to wear hers.)

The fathers were not so lucky. Each of us was given a black mask covered in glitter. Glitter! As every right-thinking individual knows, glitter was spawned in the infernal realms. Glitter is pure evil. It is the bane of my existence. And yet . . .

I suffered the indignity of wearing the be-glittered mask. Long after I took the mask off, my face was still covered in black sparkles. GRRRR!!!!!!

My daughters can no longer complain that I never do anything for them.

The disc jockeys at this event, as is their custom, played the "music" at an eardrum-shattering level. Even my daughters complained about the noise. While the ten-year-old stood around with her fingers jammed in her ears, the seven-year-old begged me to take her home in order to escape the deafening roar.

I told her no. We needed to wait until the dance was over, I said, because the last song they played, always appropriately daddy-daughter-themed, would be the only one actually worth dancing to. Sure enough, the final song was Tim McGraw's "My Little Girl."

As I heard the first few notes, I hurriedly looked around for my daughters. The eight-year-old was at the far end of the school gym and completely engrossed in her friends' activities. So I grabbed the ten- and seven-year-olds, lifting one in each arm. And we danced.

Tim McGraw began singing, "Gotta hold on easy as I let you go/ Going to tell you how much I love you/ Though you think you already know . . ."

My heart soared. At last, the moment I had been waiting for! I joined in, singing at the top of my lungs as I swung my daughters around: "You've had me wrapped around your finger/ Since the day you were born."

Then my ten-year-old daughter shattered my reverie. "Dad, why do we always go to [L's] school activities but never to mine?"

I said, "We *do* go to your--"

S: "No we don't! We didn't go to the school carnival!"

Me: "That's because it cost money. This was fr--" I realized that the dance had cost money, too, so I stopped mid-sentence. I did not think my oldest daughter would understand that I would've sold one of my kidneys -- or any other internal organ -- if that's what it took to afford going to the daddy-daughter dance. But a for a school carnival? Pffffft. No way. I'd keep my organs, thanks.

I tried to get back to Tim, belting out, "Sometimes when you're asleep/ I whisper 'I love you' in the moonlight at your door--"

S: "How much did this cost? Huh? How much?"

Me: "Fifteen dollars."

S: "That would've bought sixty carnival tickets!"

Me (singing again): "Go on, take on this whole world but to me/ You know you'll always be my little girl."

S (shouting): "It's not fair dad! It's not fair! We never ever go to this kind of stuff at my school."

Me: "That's because your school never ever does this kind of stuff."

I rejoined Tim, "He has a poet's soul and the heart of a man's man/ I know he'll say that he's in love/ But between you and me, he won't be good enough!"

S: "Dad! Dad! I'll pay for my school activity! If it costs fifteen dollars, I'll pay for it. Whatever it is, I'll pay the cost. I've got the money."

Me (singing): "Beautiful baby from the outside in/ Chase your dreams but always know/ The road that will lead you home again--"

S: (Keeps shouting to be heard over the music.)

Me: "Go on, take on this whole world but to me/ You know you'll always be my little girl."

As the last notes of the song played and I gently set both girls back down on the ground, S. continued her diatribe unabated. The eight-year-old, preoccupied with a loose tooth, rejoined us and we headed for the exit.

On the way home, I drove in silence as the youngest kid complained about how bad her feet and ears hurt from the dancing and "music." The next oldest concentrated on wiggling her loose tooth until it finally fell out into her hand. And the oldest? She complained unceasingly about how unfairly her parents treat her.

Perhaps next year I'll save my money, my organs, and my hearing.

Cocoa Puffs versus Trix: a Toddler Weighs in on the Debate

This afternoon, there were two boxes of General Mills cereal sitting on the table: Cocoa Puffs and Trix. 

My 19-month-old daughter spotted the cereal boxes. 

She climbed up onto the table, pulled the bag out of the Cocoa Puffs box, and poured the contents onto the dining room floor. While I stared at the spreading sea of Cocoa Puffs, she picked up the box of Trix, pulled out the bag, climbed down off the table with it grasped in her fist, and ran down the hall. 

As I swept up the Cocoa Puffs, she wandered around the house eating fistfuls of fruit-flavored goodness, thus proving that one out of one kids prefers Trix over Cocoa Puffs.

In Which My Daughters Educate Me about Maturation and being a Preteen

Scene: I am in the minivan driving the girls home from school.

L. (Eight y/o daughter): "Dad, did you know that girls can hit puberty and start their periods when they are eight years old?"

Me: "No."

L: "[Redacted] told us so. Girls can start their periods that early! So [S., her ten-year-old sister] and I could start our periods any time now."

Me <thinking>: Ohhhh boy!

L: <voice rising into a panicked shout>: "So we are both really worried about periods!"

S. (Ten y/o daughter): "No we're not!"

L: <still panicked>: "Periods, periods, periods! I don't want mine to start now! I don't want that! And [S.] is older than me. She could start any time! What if she starts next week?"

Me <thinking>: Kill me now!

C. (Seven year-old daughter): "What's a period?"

Me: "It's a punctuation mark."

If anyone needs me, I'll be out buying a dog.

My Daughter Enriches Her Vocabulary

How vocabulary expansion lessons go at our house:

Eight-year-old: "Dad, what's a 'hunch'?"

Me: "A feeling or a guess about something."

Eight-year-old: "I have a hunch that you are going to lose all your hair. You are going to be bald by the time you turn fifty."

Sigh

Using Duct Tape, I Become a Highly Skilled Auto Body Mechanic

My birthday began in an unusual manner when I went grocery shopping early yesterday morning. After loading the groceries into the car, I pushed the cart (aka 'shopping trolley') to the cart return. On the way, I accidentally tapped the cart against the car's rear bumper. And the bumper fell off! Picking it off the ground, I shoved the bumper back in place, hoping it would make the three-mile trek home okay. When I arrived home, I checked on the bumper. It had fallen off again, with the driver's-side end hanging by a fiberglass thread.

Luckily for me I am a highly skilled auto body mechanic and was able to repair the car entirely to my satisfaction. :)

A Star Wars Themed Birthday Cake

This is the birthday cake my wife Katie made for me. She asked the girls what kind of cake they thought she should decorate. My eight-year-old suggested a Star Wars-themed cake. And, after a brief discussion, the Committee of Three Daughters told Katie that she should create R2D2.

The eight-year-old later said this was the best cake her mother has ever made, which is a pretty bold statement from her considering the chessboard cake that Katie made for L's last birthday. I, of course, absolutely love it. It totally fits my personality, and is truly a work of art.

Three Daughters Freak Out In The Wake of My New Haircut

Over the period of a week, my daughters fixated upon my hair, or lack of same. It all started when I got a badly needed haircut.

September 26:

I got my hair cut. When I walked in the house that evening . . . 

Six y/o: "Did you get your hair cut?! You don't look like yourself. I wanted you to look the same! You look so different now. I don't like it." Later, to a sister: "I really like his other hairdo."

Nine y/o: "Daddy, you don't look like my daddy anymore. Your new haircut looks dumb. It looks really bad. I wanted you to keep your hair!"

Me: "Okay, I'll try to grow it back."

Nine y/o: "Oh good! And your beard, too?"

Nope. Not growing that out. Sorry kid.

September 29:

Scene: I am sitting on the couch. L., age 8, and S., age 9, are in the room with me.

L. <running her fingers through my hair>: "Dad, why does your hair feel stiff and crunchy?"

Me: "Because it has gel in it."

L.: "You should always wear gel in your hair, dad. You look so much better that way."

S.: "No he doesn't. He looks terrible that way!"

You don't have to sugarcoat it, S.

September 30:

Eight y/o: "Dad, you just have a big bald head, don't you?"

Uh, can I plead the Fifth Amendment?

October 2:

Eight y/o: "Dad, you look so manly with gel in your hair. You just really look manly."

Wow, I didn't even have to lose weight or lift weights to look "manly." A little gel goes a long way, apparently.

My Daughters Are Becoming Territorial

My six-year-old daughter wrote this sign for her bedroom door, since her big sisters put a "please knock" sign on theirs. C's sign says, "Please knock if you are my sisters."

The instructions on this sign leave me completely bewildered. I am C's father. What am I supposed to do? Kick the door? Head-butt the door? Why can't I simply knock as well?

When the Boys Come Courting My Daughters

Eight y/o: "Dad, when boys come over to see us, you are going to ask them if they use correct grammar."

Nine y/o: "Yeah, you're going to put grammar questions on their tests."

Wait, what? I will be using written examinations to screen my daughters' potential suitors? I thought I was just going to be conducting oral interviews with them while ever so casually swinging a very large baseball bat back and forth. Boy, this is going to be more complicated than I imagined.

Of Toddlers and Toilets

On September 22nd, my wife wrote:

A. is quite the determined little climber and very very busy. Here she is playing in the toilet with her bath toys. This is how crazy my day has been all day long with no letup. How was yours?

September 27:

Scene: it's quiet at home -- too quiet.

Katie: "Where's Amelia? I hope the bathroom door is shut."

I checked. It wasn't.

Yesterday . . .

After I left for work this morning, Katie had a delightful start to her day. Amelia climbed into the toilet at 6:30 a.m.


 Today, I offered a different perspective on my 15-month-old daughter:

Usually you hear about A. the Difficult. Allow me to tell you about A. the Adorable.

This evening, I walked over to the front door, locked the deadbolt, then turned back into the living room. A. came running up to me with her arms raised. Either she was refereeing a football game and someone had just scored a touchdown, or she wanted me to pick her up. So I picked her up.

She immediately turned to her mother and blew her kiss after kiss after kiss. I realized then that A. thought she was going bye-bye with her daddy. My fiddling with the front door had misled her into thinking I was departing. I set her down and told her I hated to disappoint her, but that I wasn't going anywhere. Then, for the first time in her life, she ran over to the front door, plucked one of my shoes from the pile of family footwear, and brought it to me. I tossed it back. Then she ran back to the pile and picked out one of *her* shoes. She followed me around the house with it, trying to convince me to take her out for a night out on the town.

So far I'm resisting, but the child can be pretty persuasive -- especially when she's so darn cute!

Then, half-an-hour ago:

So you know how I just posted about A. the Adorable? Never mind. This just happened. Notice the bath toy. She pulled it out of the toilet bowl when I walked in. Give. Me. Strength.

Bringing Up Fathers Without Tearing Them Down

Over the last few days, my nine-year-old daughter, S, has gone into the master bedroom alone several times and stayed in there for quite a while. Finding this behavior unusual, I have checked in on her to see what she was up to. Each time, I have found her sitting calmly in the rocking chair. And each time I asked her what she was doing, she simply brushed off my question and casually strolled out of the bedroom -- a little *too* casually.

Clearly she was up to something.

Today when she left the room, I noticed that she had left a book open and face-down on the filing cabinet next to the rocking chair. So I investigated. And learned that my little fourth-grader has been reading Kevin Leman's Bringing Up Kids Without Tearing Them Down -- a freebie I picked up at work a few weeks ago on a whim. She is currently on page 33. The folded down corners of quite a few of the book's pages, S's preferred place-marking method, prove that the child has been reading the book in short installments for much longer than I would have guessed.

Knowing S., she'll have plenty of parenting advice for me when she finishes the book. I trust that when she offers it, she will do so in a way that brings up this parent without tearing him down.

My Daughter is 8 going on 13, and I'm Not Ready for This Yet

This morning I took the kids to school during a rainstorm. We were behind schedule, so we ran out of the house and raced for the van. L. carried a rolled-up poster presentation on cyber-bullying that she had spent hours meticulously laboring over. She stopped underneath the patio awning and refused to move, fearing that her poster would get wet once she was out in the rain. So I took the poster and carefully shoved it under my shirt. That shielded it sufficiently for the brief trip to the van.

As we drove, L. asked how she was going to get the poster inside her school without it getting wet. I glanced around the van and spotted two plastic Rowlett Public Library bags on the floor. At a stoplight, I grabbed them and threw them onto the back seat. "Use these," I said, pleased to have found a solution. And L. did so, sliding a bag over both ends of the rolled up poster.

When I pulled up at the end of the carpool line at L's school, she asked, "Dad, do I *have* to use these library bags?" Knowing how hard she had worked on the poster and how important it was to her, I told her yes, she did need to use the bags. And L. burst into tears. "But dad," she said. "I don't want to go to school with the library bags. Everyone will stare at me! They'll all think I'm stupid!"

I assured her that they wouldn't even notice. I said, "School starts in three minutes. Every kid is racing inside and heading to class. They're focused on not being late. They won't even see you, much less what you're carrying."

L. wailed, "Why do you want to embarrass me, dad? I don't want to go inside my school looking like a doofus!"

I explained that I had no desire to embarrass her and assured her that nobody would think she was stupid for covering her poster in plastic bags on a rainy day. L. disagreed. She especially objected to the use of "dumb" library bags, which she thought would bring her nothing but ridicule. I pointed out that I use Walmart bags to protect my papers and books every day on the way to and from work. And L. said, "Just because it wouldn't embarrass you doesn't mean it won't embarrass me!" Then the waterworks started again, and L. begged, "Please please please, daddy! Don't make me use these dumb library bags! It'll be so embarrassing! Everyone will think I'm stupid. I'll look like a doofus!"

In then end, I relented. I told her it was her homework project, so it was her choice whether or not to let it get rained on. She tore off the bags, leaped out of the van and, poster under one arm, raced through the rain and into the school.

My eight-year-old daughter is too embarrassed to use plastic bags to protect her homework from rain. What's next? L. ducking down as I pull up in front of her school because she's too embarrassed to be seen in our minivan? Or worse, too embarrassed to be seen with her father?

The kid's only in third grade and she's already this worried about what her peers will think of her?! Isn't this sort of thing supposed to start in junior high? She won't be a teenager for another five years! I'm so not ready for this!

A Daughter's Secret Food Storage Program? Or Kitchen Midden?

Two days ago, my eight-year-old daughter pulled a slice of bacon out from under the kitchen table, showed it to my wife, Katie, and then put it back. Not a piece or a small fragment of bacon, mind you, but an entire slice. Puzzled, Katie investigated. And discovered a wide assortment of food resting on a wooden support underneath the tabletop.  Sound unlikely? Well, check out the way our table was engineered. Here it is, all innocent-looking.

But underneath, there are two "secret" compartments -- one above each table support:

Upon the above platform, Katie found far more than just bacon. Also present were large pieces of dinner rolls, taquitos, chimichangas, quesadillas, and fish sticks, among other things.

Thoroughly grossed out, Katie left the stash untouched and awaited my return home from work. The moment I walked through the front doorway, she told me what my first project would be that evening.

First, I scooped all the food out from its secret hiding place:

Then I swept it up.

Two mysteries surround this secret cache of cast-off food: first, the identity of the guilty party; and second, why she ditched yummy food. Bacon? Seriously?! You're getting rid of bacon? Why not vegetables?

If my parents had had such a table when I was a young child, and I found so perfect a hiding place, I would have filled it with peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and all manner of vegetables. But mostly, I would have filled it with bread crusts. I hated bread crusts more than just about anything. Why? Well, because they were so, uh, crusty. I used to discard them by simply dropping them on the kitchen floor underneath my chair. This meant that they were discovered quickly, and made it very easy for my mother to ID the guilty party. As I grew older, and therefore more sophisticated, I discovered the adhesive properties of peanut butter. This meant that crusts from my peanut butter and jam sandwiches ended up glued to the underside of the table. It took my mom longer to find those, but find them she did.

Given the extreme degree of desiccation, it is likely that the food has been squirreled away under our tabletop for a very long time. My guess is, most of the items date back to the Cretaceous Period.

Congratulations dear daughter or daughters! You have been far more successful than I ever was at hiding unwanted food! May you always find such success in every endeavor you pursue!

Leasing a Fireplace in the Texas Heat

This sign recently went up in our neighborhood:

 I just about died when I first saw it. I couldn't believe my eyes. The absurdity! It's early September! In Texas! And the rocket scientist who put this sign up thinks advertising a fireplace will attract renters to their home?! It's a thousand degrees outside! And I ought to know -- I just finished mowing the lawn. What's more, in Texas it is too hot to use a fireplace for 11.875 months out of the year.

We have a fireplace in our living room, but in the more than three years we've lived here, have never used it. It has zero value. If anything, it should lower the value of the home. We put the couch in front of it. It is an inconvenience, a very poor use of perfectly good wall space.

But back to the sign . . .

It says "HOT" on the bottom. I'm confused. Is that a reference to the fireplace? Because everyone knows that, when in use, fireplaces are hot. Or is it a reference to the current temperature? Because everyone knows it's hot the second they waltz out their front door. At best, this portion of the sign is an insult to people's intelligence. At worst, it is a terrible marketing ploy -- "Hi, we know it's hotter than the surface of the sun all year long in Texas, but by golly, we've got a fireplace in our rental unit! When it's 90 degrees outside, you can come curl up in front of a nice hot fire!"

Three days later . . . 

Apparently the owners are unable to generate any interest in their property and are getting desperate. The sign changed yesterday. Check out the new top line:

When we drove past it today in a car that lacks air conditioning, my sweat-soaked eight-year-old daughter noticed it. She said, "Dad, why are they advertising a fireplace? It's way too hot for that. Ugh!"

Me: "Yeah. I think they'd have better luck renting their home if they advertised a walk-in freezer rather than a fireplace."

I wish the owners the best of luck in their futile endeavor. Perhaps people will be more interested come January when the heat of the Texas summer finally fades.