Parenthood and Children – Page 4

2020 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children, Travel

Planning for the empty-nest middle school trip

January 8, 2020 No Comments

So, let’s see. She has: Gloves. Scarf. Raincoat. Snacks. Toothbrush. Spare toothbrush, for when the first one falls in the toilet. More snacks. Compass. Notecard reminders to floss. Notecard reminders to set alarm clock. Notecard reminders to wake up for alarm clock. Notecard reminders to get on the bus. More snacks.

There’s a lot that goes into prepping for a week-long middle school trip to Washington D.C. That’s what my house has been undertaking for the past week or so: Setting up my 14-year-old daughter for a big bus trip to the nation’s capital.

There she will journey to some of our country’s most historic sites and museums: the White House, Mt. Vernon, the National Archives for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a side trip to Philadelphia for Independence Hall and, of course, the Medieval Times restaurant and jousting show.

If that doesn’t scream, “America!” I don’t know what does.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Health, Holidays, Parenthood and Children

Little Christmas traditions, even through BLANGITY sickness

December 18, 2019 No Comments

She really should have been in bed. After spending the day throwing up in dramatic fashion – you know, like all over the car after getting picked up early from school – she should have been tucked under the covers. Resting. Trying to sleep.

“I threw up nine times today, dad,” she told me at one point. Whether it was a cry for sympathy or a badge of honor, I wasn’t quite sure.

But I did know she needed to be in bed, and I had told her this about 94 times that evening. In about 94 different ways, all escalating in seriousness and frustration and meanness. “GO … TO … BED, BLINGITY-BLANGIN’-BLANGIT!”

And on the 94th try, I thought I had done it. She trudged off to her room.

2019 Nutshells, Childhood, Family, Holidays, Parenthood and Children

Christmas gifting meets the teen years

December 4, 2019 No Comments

What do you buy a nearly 14-year-old daughter for Christmas? Does anyone know the answer to this question? That is the dilemma my wife and I are facing this December. Because it doesn’t appear there’s an easy answer.

The landscape has changed dramatically in just a year or two, and it seems all of the old standbys and easy go-tos have withered away. I’m not sure what they’ve been replaced by.

“What do you think we should get her?” my wife asked at lunch the other day.

“Get her?!?” I replied. “Shoot, I’m not even sure who ‘her’ is anymore!”

Any ideas?!? I don’t have any. Zero! I asked a colleague with older daughters what he does and he told me, “gift cards and cash, dude. Just go with gift cards and cash. Anything else and you’re ASKING for trouble.”

2019 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Scary movies just don’t scare like they used to

October 16, 2019 No Comments

Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I remember thinking this as we sat down on the sofa and flipped on the TV.

And when I recall thinking this in the past, it DEFINITELY was NOT good.

There was the time when my daughter was just a wee-little snap and I showed her a scene from the movie, “Beetlejuice.” She was 4 years old and I played the part where two ghosts are trying to run new owners out of their house by making them dance around the dinner table to Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O.”

It’s a really funny scene and super-catchy for kids … right up until the moment that the dinner party collapses into their seats while the shrimp cocktails jump up like hands and grab their faces.

SHRIMP … GRAB … THEIR … FACES!!!

My daughter quietly turned away from the screen muttering, “Why did hands come out of the table?” … along with something about the phone number for Child Services.

2019 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Lessons from lugging boxes at college move-in day

August 29, 2019 No Comments

Just like all across the country, this past weekend was move-in day at Flagler College. It’s where I work, and also where I graduated oh-so many moons ago. So with a little bit of nostalgia, and a whole lot of masochism, I like to go back each move-in to help new college freshmen carry all their possessions – which must include numerous granite boulders – up to their dorm rooms. You learn quite a few things about the world, and yourself, when you undertake such physical exertion under the blazing August Florida heat. Important things, such as:

• You’re not as strong as you look. Actually, I don’t even look strong. Pretty scrawny, actually. So I don’t know why I try to be a hero and carry all the big boxes. I should stick to comforters, or boxes of tissues. But not me! I had to act super-strong and say things like, “Shoot, that shoe bin weighs more than twice my weight? Pshaw! No problem. Just strap it to my back with these ratchet tie-downs and don’t worry when you hear a snapping sound. That’s just my spinal cord rupturing.”

• You will feel such excruciating pain in the muscles on the insides of your elbows for days afterward. It will make you wonder if little aliens are about to pop out. I don’t know what those muscles are, or why after carrying boxes they hurt so much. But I would surmise by the awful pain that they have never been used before in my life.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

The back-to-school and back-to-fall checklist

August 21, 2019 No Comments

Wave farewell to summer, everyone. It will be in the rearview mirror before you know it. And that means school is back, and fall is on its way. So I’m here to remind some of you procrastinators about important back-to-school and fall checklist items that you may have forgotten, and surely need to look into:
• Get your middle school daughter a scientific calculator – What’s a scientific calculator? I have no earthly idea. It is both futuristic and old timey, like a Buck Rogers toy, or an abacus. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, but instead buttons. This will mean you have to explain it to your child, as she will try to “swipe” to make it work and then complain it’s broken. When she asks about some of the symbols on it (for instance the “cosine” symbol) you will have to pretend you are smart and say that her young ears aren’t ready for the truth (and horror) about that. (She should ask her teacher!)

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

As the school year starts, signs your parenting skills aren’t up to snuff

August 14, 2019 No Comments

All across America kids are returning to school. Meanwhile, parents everywhere can be heard collectively screaming, “You’re only NOW telling me none of your underwear fit?!?” It’s the age-old truth: The more experience we have, the worse we actually get at it.

That’s parenting, huh? In our house, my daughter just started 8th grade. But the more I think I have this all figured out, the more I realize I’m one step away from the child suing me for parental mismanagement and crippling oaf-ishness.

You feeling it, too? You recognize any of the signs of the great back-to-school parent-fail? Here are just a few first week of school missteps I’m guilty of:

• You think any clothes that were outgrown in the summer – now violating school dress codes for showing too much skin – can be fixed with duct tape and some extra pieces of fabric. This goes over especially well with your daughter, who threatens to give all of your Internet passwords to Russian hackers.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Integers, eighth graders and scary new realms in young adulthood

July 31, 2019 No Comments

August. It means a lot of things. The end of summer. The kind of Florida heat that makes lava look like Laffy Taffy. When the tropics fire up and start shooting storms at us like a baseball pitching machine.

Most of all, August means it’s time to start thinking about kids going back to school.

As a parent, I’ve found that some years the return to the academic realm feels routine and unremarkable. I just have to remember where my daughter’s school is (I don’t), that I need to start waking up earlier again (I can’t) and that I need to resurrect that wonderful routine of screaming like a drill sergeant, “GET OUT OF BED NOW, CHILD!!! YOU ONLY HAVE THREE MINUTES UNTIL FIRST BELL!!!”

No problem.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

The father-daughter epic superhero bonding experience

July 10, 2019 No Comments

The rest of the audience in the crowded theater had already moved on. “Spiderman: Far From Home” was over. The credits started rolling. A mid-credits scene came and went. Ooh-ahh. And then they headed for the exits as more credits streamed by.

“Hold on,” I told my 13-year-old daughter who started getting up. I used my “super spy” voice, which actually sounds kind of creepy. “There’s another post-credits scene at the very end. After ALL the credits. Like 30 minutes of credits. And I already know what it is. It’s probably not even worth it. You want to stay to see it?”

“Sure,” was her answer.

SCORE!!!

2019 Nutshells, Parenthood and Children

A young lady goes shopping

May 28, 2019 No Comments

Shopping for clothes with my daughter used to be easy. When she was young.

There was nothing to it. We would walk into a store, I would grab the first shirt that had a bear or a giraffe on it, she would coo and shout, “I LOVE it!!!” and before you could say, “lickety split,” we were on the way to the cash register.

How things change when you hit the teenage years. When your daughter turns 13 and fashions herself a fashionista. Someone who can strut about a store, trying on everything, saying things like, “Darling, I think that looks di-VINE on you,” and thinking her father is not only made of money, but doesn’t mind plunking it down over this or that.

An $84 crop top with a manufactured hole to look like a rat ate it? Yes, please!

She’s no longer young.