Tag: parenting

Frozen lima beans: The gift that keeps on gagging

eating,_chewing,_nut,_teeth,_mouth copy It will have been more than 80 years ago next month since Clarence Birdseye, inspired by ancient food preservation methods used by Arctic Eskimos, made history by introducing the very first frozen food option: “Savory Caribou on a Stick.”

Though his first selection was met with little enthusiasm, Birdseye persisted, and eventually created a line of frozen vegetables that many of us are still gagging on today.

I, for one, am still unable to walk past lima beans in the frozen food section without getting the dry heaves. This reaction stems from my childhood, and a spoonful of lima beans I’ve been trying to swallow since 1973.

Unless you’ve been hermetically sealed and stuck in a freezer, you already know March is “National Frozen Food Month.” Coincidentally, I should mention this happens to fall in the same month as “National Ear Muff Day,” “Extraterrestrial Abduction Day” and “National Pig Day,” meaning that, for anyone whose pig happened to be wearing ear muffs at the time it was flash frozen by alien abductors, this is a big month for you. Continue reading Frozen lima beans: The gift that keeps on gagging

The bigger your lips, the sexier you’ll be when dating a sucker fish

fishlippies copy Nothing says “sexy” faster than someone with a pair of giant lips, even if that person’s collagen injections have made their lips so enormously seductive that they can’t actually pronounce the word “sexy,” and must instead settle for calling themselves “shek-shee.”

The point is, big lips are no longer just a cosmetic enhancement for people less fortunate than Mick Jagger and Angelina Jolie, whose lips are so large and incredibly sexy that they are prohibited by international law from bearing children together because, quote: “Said children could potentially upset the delicate balance between populations of humans and sucker fish.”

Though we all know that true beauty stems from inside, as any cosmetics surgeon will tell you, no one will notice unless your lips are the size of tractor tires. Which is why a new product called City Lips is being heralded as the newest, easiest and safest way to give you the lips you always wanted, but never dreamed you could have. At least not without surgically implanting tire stems in them and inflating your lips to 350 psi. Until now, those of us unable to afford expensive collagen injections were forced to live with the embarrassment of having normal, everyday lips. But thanks to City Lips, you can avoid the hassle and expense of collagen injections by using their patented do-it-yourself lip enlargement process! Continue reading The bigger your lips, the sexier you’ll be when dating a sucker fish

Contemplating life without training wheels

My daughter, age 7, surveying the parking lot across from our home, moments before we removed the training wheels from her bike.
My daughter on Aug. 11, 2002, surveying the parking lot across from our home, moments before I removed the training wheels from her bike.
As a parent, you never think it will happen to you even though, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know the possibility exists. When it does happen, you realize that no amount of preparation can prepare you for something like this.

On Jan. 13, it will happen to me.

Suddenly, and without warning, my oldest daughter will turn 19.

This morning, I came into work early and sat with my cup of coffee. It was my first opportunity to really contemplate this event without interruption or distraction. As I scrolled through old columns I’d written about being a dad, and specifically those about my oldest daughter, I was drawn to this piece I wrote when she was seven. She had just learned to ride her bike without training wheels. As I read it, it struck me how more than a decade later the experience, as well as the advice I had given her, still applies. Continue reading Contemplating life without training wheels

Self-aware leftovers: The forgotten victims of divorce

[A quick note about this post: Over the years, my wife has mentioned that this column — which I wrote after my divorce 10 years ago — is one of her favorites. It’s also the first column of mine that she read. And yet, she still went out with me…]

_DSC0009 copy There’s nothing funny about divorce. At least, not until you have time to gain some perspective and accept the fact that staying up until 2 a.m. reconfiguring the salt and pepper shakers on your dining room table is just part of the healing process.

Like vacuuming the kitchen tile and mopping the living room carpet.

Or getting excited over having extra closet space while at the same time avoiding that space as much as possible.

After a few months, I suddenly turned around and realized I had moved forward. As strange as it sounds, I think it started the day I threw away the last of the leftovers from when my ex-wife and I were still together.

Granted, they had been in there for quite a while already. Possibly even as far back as Cinco de Mayo, though I couldn’t be sure since the contents appeared to be a member of an unidentified fifth food group. Continue reading Self-aware leftovers: The forgotten victims of divorce

Statistics don’t lie

Teen preg For those of you who made fun of me for over-reacting to a nightmare I had about my daughter’s first date (Click here), I offer this headline in support of my decision to not allow either of my daughters to date until they are 30…

It takes more than G.I. Joe to break the power of Barbie’s mojo

Apparently, G.I. Joe and Steve Austin use their acute eyesight for more than just scoping out the bad guys.
The act of “playing” is a crucial part of how a child establishes self image and a basic understanding of the world. I know this because, as a progressive father of today, I have read extensively about this very topic — which is why I progressively freaked out when I found my son playing in the shower with a Barbie doll.

It wasn’t the fact that he was playing with a doll that bothered me, it was the fact that it was still completely intact — something I don’t expect from a child who routinely disassembles my office chair and a good portion of my desk in less than four minutes using nothing but a three-piece “Bob the Builder” tool kit.

I decided something needed to be done. It was time to enlist the help of an old friend; it was time for G.I. Joe to break Barbie’s mojo. Continue reading It takes more than G.I. Joe to break the power of Barbie’s mojo

It’s never too early for a father to begin sabotaging his daughter’s dating prospects

This is the only prom knight I will give my consent to when it comes to my daughter and dating. I am forging a cod piece as we speak. No cod piece, no date.
I had a frightening dream last night. In it, I was wearing an alpine yodeler outfit. The kind with the brown shorts, the white knee-high socks, and the little cap with the feather in it.

Wait, it gets scarier.

I was on vacation with my family. Our kids were older, and my daughter had a boyfriend with her. A space ship landed, and an alien came out yodeling the theme from “Close Encounters.” My wife was calling to me, trying to be heard over the yodeling alien, when I finally heard her cry out in utter desperation:

The cat likes to play checkers.

As you might expect, I woke up in a cold sweat, unable to shake that vivid, terrifying image of—that’s right:

My daughter with a boyfriend.

True, she’s only 11 years old right now. But time passes quickly, and in another 15 years she’ll begin dating. To me, this dream was a clear indication that I should begin preparing myself for the inevitable. When I explained this to my wife, she laughed.

Hard.

I’ve seen drunken pirates with more emotional restraint. Continue reading It’s never too early for a father to begin sabotaging his daughter’s dating prospects

Nowadays, the womb is no place for slackers

Unless your baby looks like this, he or she could be a slacker.
Parents used to be satisfied with sonogram images of their child developing in the womb, even though, for all we knew, we were actually watching video footage of a school of mackerel on a depth finder.

“And if you look closely, you can see your baby … right … about … whoops! It’s gone. Something must’ve scared it.”

The doctor would then print copies of these images, which we carried in our wallets to share with family, friends, and anyone unfortunate enough to make brief eye contact. At the end of nine months, the only real expectation any of us had for our child was that they come out headfirst. Laughably, we actually felt it was enough for them to grow from a microscopic egg into a full-fledged human child within nine months.

Those babies, of course, were total slackers. Continue reading Nowadays, the womb is no place for slackers

Today’s Halloween costume is tomorrow’s therapy session

They may not look traumatized now, but I’m saving up for my children’s therapy sessions anyway — just in case.
It was a conversation that I had been putting off for as long as possible, even though I knew it was my responsibility as a parent to sit down and have “The Talk” with my daughter.

It’s better that it come from me rather than her getting crazy ideas from someone at school, I told myself.

So I sat my daughter down, held my breath for a moment, then and asked:

“What do you want to be for Halloween?”

For some of you, this is an exciting time that allows you to bond with your child by making their Halloween-costume dream come true.

For the rest of us, it’s a time when we cross our fingers and pray that our child’s “Halloween costume dream” is hanging on a rack somewhere at Wal-Mart. Because if it isn’t, we’ll have to make something, and therefore put our child’s emotional health at risk by creating a costume that could potentially scar them for life. Continue reading Today’s Halloween costume is tomorrow’s therapy session