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Posts Tagged ‘ri-ri’
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East Bound and Down: The Nutcracker Run
By Daddy Clay Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
What could possible induce me to leave my son’s state finals soccer game early, jump in a car and dodge speed traps across half the state of Texas? The ballet, that’s what.
It’s true. With seven or so minutes left to play (will someone please explain to me how they keep time in soccer?), I packed up my camera bag and folding chair and attempted to back slowly away from the game without attracting the attention of the “good parents.”
No luck. As I was literally slinking away, the coach tore his attention away from the game to shout at me, asking if my son had a ride home. Oh, the shame. (Bubba’s grandparents made the road trip to Beaumont and gave him a lift home.)
I had consulted the Garmin, Google maps, and every parent at breakfast before setting my departure time at exactly 9am. By my calculations that would have me screaming into the driveway in time to scoop up my daughter, and head to the Long Center for the annual Father Daughter Trip to See the Austin Ballet Production of the Nutcracker.
I stopped only once during the 250 mile stretch between Beaumont and Austin. If Nascar Pit Crews were required to pump regular, pee and get a bag of pretzels, that was how they would pump regular, pee and get a bag of pretzels.
I arrived in Austin with twenty minutes to spare. Which immediately made me regret leaving the game early. This was not helped when my son texted my that he “really, really, really, really” wished that I had been there for the awards ceremony (his team finished 4th in the State).
This guilt was assuaged when I saw my girl in her pretty dress, so excited and ready to ride in my muddy sled to the Nutcracker.
I could give a damn about the performance, for the most part. And, as I’ve confessed before, I have some worries that our tradition is a bit too gender stereotyped. But there is no resisting the pure fun we have together; finding our secret balcony for a pre-show snack, ringing up the souvenir nutcracker (the Rat King this year), and peeking at the orchestra before settling into our seats.
Well worth the speeding ticket risks and compromised spectating. It’s just what we do, right dads?
Uniform Pain: The Only Jerseys I Like Are Cows
By Daddy Clay Monday, September 28th, 2009
The calculus of a household crisis: 3 soccer players X 2 current game jerseys + practice jerseys + past game jerseys. We are locked in one of those exponential sequences that results in some invading species wiping out all the native toads. And we’re the native toads.
Does the management of soccer uniforms drive other families to the edge of insanity?
After all, this is just six shirts that we’re talking about. How hard can it be?
Suffice it to say, if I has uttered the above phrase to my wife at about 10am this past Saturday, a knife would have appeared in her hand. My daughter was to have the her second real game with her new “academy” (read: more expensive) team, and the black “home” #12 jersey was nowhere to be found. Ri-ri’s anxiety alone probably would have sparked us to unload every drawer in the house, but it was worse than that. The coach had lectured the parents, on a day my wife had done the soccer pickup, on the importance of wearing the correct uniform.
It upsets my wife to be in violation of directives. Upsets her enough that I was ripping out drywall in pursuit of this stupid shirt. I dug through the lost and found bucket at the community pool, even though it was brimming with fragrant old shoes and week old rainwater. I called all the neighbors. I called all the relatives. I started with the phone book.
Madness.
Eventually a neighbor with soccer kids took pity and offered a older jersey of more or less the right size. The make and model were close, but not *the* jersey. The possibility that Ri-ri might not be allowed to play had me leaving to take Bubba to his game about three hours early. (Where I had to pay another parent $100 to *split* the cost of a new uniform so Bubba could keep his number on his new club team — uniform grief of another stripe.)
Do these rags cause heartache in your household? Please reassure me that we are not alone in our pain.
iTunes 9 for Families, Decoupage, and other Live Dad Notes
By Daddy Clay Friday, September 11th, 2009
Every Thursday at 1pm Central time, the folks around DadLabs World HQ drop what they are doing and head into the studio for our weekly live show. The show runs between 30 minutes and an hour and covers a variety of topics. We’ve been working out the last technical bugs, and now we think we’re ready for you to check it out and let us know what you think. Here’s an expanded look at a couple of the topics we covered in this week’s show. Join us next Thursday at 1CT, text and harass Daddy Brad via Livestream.
Thanks to everybody that watched, congrats to the folks that won free stuff, and Woot! to our sponsors at BabyBjorn.
Girlie Birthday
If you want data of our efforts to avoid being Princess Parents, you need look no further than the birthday celebrations we had for Ri-ri over the past week. On the girly side, we have the present her mother gave her, and the craft project I came up with to kick off her birthday party — decorating jewelry boxes with decoupage.
For the project I went to the craft store and bought tiny brown cardboard boxes in a variety of shapes, thin craft paper in a variety of colors and patterns, decoupage glue (it’s specialized goo that dries into a clear glaze), and a bunch of glittery stickers. You tear or cut the paper into quarter size or smaller bits, glue them to the box, then paint over the paper with another layer of glue. When the glue has dried, you can add stickers for more personalization. (In the future I would drop this last part — it was the most expensive “ingredient” and you have to wait before you can use them.) The materials cost about $5 per kid.
Okay, this project may have you asking some pointed questions about me. So to clear things up, I had never in my f*cking life heard of decoupage before I hit the door of the craft store. A helpful clerk dude with a really long ponytail saw me wandering the aisles like a zombie and took pity on me. Thanks to him, Ri-ri’s party got off to a great start. They loved doing the project and the boxes came out great and were perfect party favors.
Pretty princess-y so far, right? The rest of the party was strictly in accordance with Ri-ri’s wishes. All she asked for was to have five friends over to the community pool, and to eat a bunch of barbecue. Done deal. The barbecue was from Rudy’s, not only because they have solid ‘cue, but also because their group meals are so thoughtfully and completely catered. Tablecloths and serving utensils? A bag of ice? Unmatched.
The high school football game that was on the agenda was a washout (ironic given the drought), but everyone seemed to have a great time. Speaking of football, the non-girly celebration continued the next day as Ri-ri continued our tradition of making the home opener for the University of Texas Longhorns Football team a father-daughter event. Nothing could be better.
Overall, not such a girly birthday after all.
iTunes 9 for Families (From our weekly Tech Dad segment)
One of my biggest technical headaches to date has been managing the multiple family iPods. Both of my older kids have their own Nano and their own profiles/iTunes applications — all linked to my iTunes account for purchasing. This creates lots of time consuming headaches when making sure that I have the media they want on their players, and also archived in a central place.
The latest update of iTunes just made that a ton easier. With the new Home Share feature on iTunes 9, I can link all the libraries and move media without having to connect, synch and re-synch iPods on multiple machines. The kids can now also drag and drop songs from my collection into theirs (like they’ll want my music).
The potential downside is that I have material in my library that is not appropriate for them (thanks Ben Folds and Hellboy). As usual, Apple has included easy to use parental controls. You can restrict access to content via Home Share via the Preferences Menu in iTunes (as opposed to the Parental Controls panel in System Preferences). Set the ratings you want your kid to have access to, then set a password and you’re done. This is a feature I’ve been waiting for and it’s been a huge help to me already.
On the show we also shared our thoughts on Bobcat Goldthwait’s “World’s Greatest Dad,” talked about the dangers of kids and “Reply All,” the Sigg Bottle controversy, a breast pumping Swedish Dad and much more. Hope we’ll see you next week.
Of Piercings and Parenting: Dads and Daughters
By Daddy Clay Monday, August 31st, 2009
My wife and I have been together for nearly two decades, so it’s fairly rare for her to do something that takes me completely by surprise. Her announcement that for our daughter’s eighth birthday she was taking Ri-ri to get her ears pierced floored me. You could have knocked me over with a pair of those purple feather earrings from the 80s.
To me it seemed kind of sudden, and a big step toward being a big girl. I was unsure if Ri-ri was really ready. Wasn’t this a kind of coming-of-age thing? Maybe freshmen year in college would be more appropriate. I needed some time to do some research, find out what best practices are, poll Twitter, check the AAP recommendations.
My twenty years of experience in a relationship helped me to quickly arrive at a strategy for communicating my concerns: I kept my damn mouth shut.
After all, this is a girl thing (though there has been a lot of talk in the house about the earring I wore until my oldest repeatedly pulled it out as an infant). As I was given deference on the matter of circumcision, so I deferred on the matter of ear piercing. Maybe that’s a bad parallel. Anyway, I decided to follow my wife’s lead.
These things are done at the mall now (piercings not circumcisions) in a chair that backs up to the glass front wall of the store. It seemed much less antiseptic, and much more public than such rituals might ought to be, but again I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to attend. Wasn’t this a female thing? Plus. I might pass out.
So I grabbed the boys and went to the Apple store.
