On the Town

I had a “date night” with my youngest daughter last night. I’m trying to do at least one night out with each of them, exclusively, over the summer. Only problem is that money is so tight it’s hard to do much. I’d like to have done something a little more elaborate, but we’re saving for our vacation, so there ya go.

We went to the dollar show.

The good thing about my youngest is that she doesn’t care about any of that. She just likes hanging out with dad. We watched Kung Fu Panda 2 with her cuddled up on my arm. What could be better than that, right? I got her a popcorn and pop and we had a good time.

We talked about stuff on the way there and the way home. She’s a pretty good conversationalist. She doesn’t just ask a lot of questions, like a lot of kids do. She has ideas and things she likes to talk about. Things she likes. Things she’s done or wants to do.

She thinks she might like to be a singer some day.

In case you don’t know, I have three daughters and no sons. Which is an interesting place to find yourself in life. It is very challenging sometimes. But there is this He Man thing some guys attach to having sons, which I find to be stupid. And not just because I don’t have sons. I’ve always felt that much of what passes for “masculine” in our culture is pretty stupid. What if the truth is that a “real” man knows how to raise daughters? What if the truth is that a “real” man knows how to humble himself and serve? I have daughters and I LOVE having daughters. If I had boys I’d love that too. But, as it stands, I wouldn’t change anything. My daughters are great.

My youngest is one of the most kind, fun loving, enjoyable people you could ever meet. She is a very straightforward person. She makes me proud. Like all my kids do. And if you want to know what kind of humor she has, just look at the picture on the top of the Blog. That’s her.


Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

In Common

I’ve actually found some music that both I and my 12 year old like.

Owl City.

The new CD just came out, and we’re going to see the concert together this coming Wednesday, just us, as we’re the only real fans in the house. And the tickets cost too much for the whole clan to go anyway.

Thing is, we’re going to share something we both enjoy and we’re both looking forward to it.

I’m just trying to enjoy this while it lasts.

And the new CD, All Things Bright and Beautiful, is great.

So...

I’ll tell you about the show next Thursday.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

What To Do?

I wanted to take the kids to the movies the other day to see Kung Fu Panda 2. But the timing didn’t work out to go to the early show, which is the only one I’m willing to pay for, and I'm only willing to pay that price because it’s 3D. So we skipped that and I thought we’d go to the dollar show, which costs more than a dollar now. It’s a dollar fifty or two dollars, I’m not sure. But the only movie showing that was kid friendly was one my oldest daughter had already seen with a friend, so that was a no.

As for me, I have been entrenched in deep study. I’m preparing some stuff for church that is labor intensive and it’s eating my days alive, so I just wanted to get out and breathe a little. But it was soooo hot outside, in the high nineties, which meant we had to go somewhere indoors. I was getting tired of trying to figure out what to do. It was too late for the zoo and that kind of thing.

Spur of the moment adventures are hard to muster up with a big family.

So this is where I made my mistake. I said, “How about we go walk around the mall, not to buy stuff, but just to look around. Maybe we can get an ice cream or something!” Which sounds great on paper, but in real life it’s a fantasy. My four fems don’t do the “look but not buy.” At least not very well. And they always have a good reason to buy whatever they want to buy. Clothes for summer. Things they really need. And they probably do. Money is tight around here and we’ve been cutting back a lot.

But, see, if I hadn’t taken us to the mall in the first place, there wouldn’t have been this urgent need to get that stuff. The option wouldn’t have been on the table. They would have been blissfully unaware of how unhappy they would be without buying that stuff.

This conundrum is lost on them like water through a screen door.

Right now they’re in their room with their mom organizing and putting away their new summer clothes and putting away the winter stuff. They’re all chatty and girly and at one with the universe.

I don’t know. Maybe it was worth it.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck

I have been doing an “All Night Sleepover Party” with my kids every Friday night (with a few rare exceptions here and there) for 10 years straight now. I started this with my oldest when she was 2 years old and we have continued through the addition of the other two kids. We get carryout dinner and snacks and set up the basement with sleeping bags and all that. Sometimes we play some games. Currently we are playing Blokus a lot. Sometimes we play the wii. I’m not much good at that, but who cares. And then we watch movies until everyone passes out.

This is an important ritual for us. The kids look forward to it. And we try to keep this night a family night, so having friends over and all that kind of thing usually happens on Saturday night. I have to sleep on the couch, which is a little hard on the back, and it aggravates the carpal tunnel, but it’s worth it.

Last night I decided to do the old school movie routine of showing some short films first and then going with the movie, like they did in theaters years ago. So we made our popcorn and we watched a Disney short called “Pluto’s Christmas Tree.” It was excellent. And our main attraction was a Patrick Swayze Christmas movie called “Christmas In Wonderland,” maybe one of the last things he did before his death. It was a Canadian film, good for the family, funny in parts, but not exactly what you would call a great movie. Weak editing, slow pace, all that. But the kids liked it a lot and it goes into our collection of Christmas movies.

In between these two exciting film experiences, I inserted a classic Three Stooges short called “Men In Black.” Why it’s called “Men In Black” I have no idea. They play three freshly graduated doctors working at a hospital, wearing white smocks, running around with twice the energy and half the jokes of a Marx Brothers movie. And it works. At least, for me it works. As we’re watching the Stooges, here’s what I get....

6 year old: “Why are they doing that!”

9 year old: “Why is it all so random!”

12 year old: “Is this supposed to be funny?”

Sometimes it’s a lonely thing being the only man in the house.


Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Masculinectomy

You need to understand: I was not overly blessed with manliness to begin with.

I have never been good at or much interested in team sports. And don’t get me started on the game of golf. What is it with watching golf on TV? How do people do this? I’m sorry, but I will never understand it. And I have a hard time relating to guys who can’t look you in the eye while they talk about how everything is “okay” all the time. I’m not big on hunting, though I do like to go fishing on occasion. But I’m not good at it. And I don’t like pickup trucks. I actually, honestly, really do like my mini van...

I think you get my point. If you don’t get my point by now, I’m sorry, but I can’t keep going with that. Suffice it to say, I’m troubled by the fact that I’m just not in a very good position to turn my lack of manliness around because I have been blessed.

With three daughters. Three. T-h-r-e-e. And no sons. I’m all alone here, people.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my daughters like crazy. I wouldn’t trade them for anything or anyone. They are light in my life. They are beautiful and amazing. But these three daughters are growing up into three teenage girls who will, God willing, become three grown women. And if you add their growing estrogen factories to my wife’s fully developed and highly functional estrogen output, what you have is a prescription for my ending up with a complete masculinectomy.

Example: I get in the shower. Can I find a bar of soap? Not a chance. Do they even make bars of soap anymore? I haven’t seen one in years. So what do I have to choose from? Cucumber melon sparkle something or other body wash with Jojoba and rice juice extract? Something nutty like that. And shampoo? Watermelon lime whatsit whatever with maximizer this and volumizer that.

You say, “Okay, grown man, go to the store and get your own bar of soap.” I say, “Oh yeah! And where would I put it? Every nook and cranny is filled with odd concoctions, scented in every conceivable way.

I get out of the shower smelling like the fruit drawer in our refrigerator.

I sense that my testosterone levels are progressively decreasing, day by day, due to environmental influences, and I may be reaching a crisis point where all that’s left is a shell of a man who should have prepared himself by playing a little sports now and then and maybe chewing some tobacco or learning how to grunt out expletives while fixing my car. That is, I mean, my truck. Pickup truck. With a gun rack on it, right? Something. Anything. I don’t know.

What I do know: I don’t stand a chance.



Philippians 4:13
Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010