Dad's House » family

How to Get Your Teens to the Dinner Table

dadshouse — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:12:30 +0000

How do you get teenagers to the dinner table?

Sure, they’re hungry all the time. But that doesn’t mean they want to eat with dad or mom or siblings. After all, they have distractions – sports, friends, Facebook, iPod, video games, etc.

Some food gurus will have you believe the way to get teens to the dinner table is to cook gourment meals.

To which I say hogwash. Today at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, I cook up an answer to the question:

Food or Conversation – What Do Kids Want For Dinner?

(If that pre-programmed link doesn’t work, you can head straight to SV Moms.)

Then come on back and tell me what you want for dinner.

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Cell Phone in the Dryer

dadshouse — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:14:13 +0000

My son’s cell phone went through the laundry.

There, I said it. And no, it’s not easier to say simply because it happened at his mom’s house. What happened could have happened at my place or anywhere.

You see, his sister did the laundry, and she doesn’t normally do that chore. She dumped things in the washer one pile at a time. So she didn’t exactly check every pocket for rocks or gum or money.

Or cell phones.

At least I know he won’t be sending any dirty text messages. (Haha. Get it?)

Lesson learned, by both kids.

My son should have emptied his cell phone out of his pocket before he chucked his jeans in the dirty clothes basket.

You’d think he would have noticed when his phone wasn’t near him! He’s a texting maven. His phone chimes, rings, and buzzes off the hook, even when it’s not exactly on the hook.

To help him learn a lesson, we waited a month (!!!) before replacing the dang thing. And we charged him a pretty penny for his share of it. But replace it we did. He’s back texting again.

“Hey Dad,” he said this morning. “I’m popular!”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“I’ve gotten 200 texts in the last 2 days!”

I don’t equate popularity with number of texts, or self esteem with texting. But he’s only thirteen. Let him have his fun, eh?

“Do you have unlimited texting?” I asked.
“Yes!” he said.
“Are you sure? Because if you don’t, you’re paying the over-run charges.”

He went silent. After paying his share of the replacement phone, I can’t blame him.

“Mom says it’s unlimited,” he said.
Huh? “Are you positive?” I asked.
“I just texted her!”

That’s my boy!

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Crashing a Parents Party on Halloween

dadshouse — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:13:01 +0000

My teen son decided to trick-or-treat this Halloween with a new group of friends. He’s in eighth grade and they’re in seventh, and I didn’t know any of these kids. When I dropped my son off, I made sure to go up to the house and meet the parents.

What do you know, there was a Halloween party going on.

I know it’s a fairly common tradition for families to get together on Halloween, the parents socializing and downing drinks while the kids run around the neighborhood getting candy. While I’ve been to some adults-only Halloween parties since my divorce, I’d never been invited to a family-friendly one by parents of my kids’ friends. I’d grown used to married couples partying without me, the single dad.

So when the mom hosting this party invited me in for some “witches’ brew”, I was hesitant. After all, I was supposed to head back home and hand out candy. More than that, I didn’t know a soul at the party. Our kids had attended different elementary schools. It was middle school this year that brought us all together.

I’d be crashing their party.

But the mom insisted I come in, and one vodka-laced drink later I didn’t want to leave. There were people chatting in the dining room, kitchen, family room, and out on the backyard patio. There was USC/Oregon football and Yankees/Phillies baseball on a couple of TVs. There was food, beer and soda along with the witches’ cocktail.

Fun times! Everyone was super nice.

At one point I was hanging out with just the moms while the dads took the kids out trick-or-treating. (I was in flip-flops and a T-shirt, not prepared for the cold.) The moms started quizzing me about being a single dad, since they had some friends going through divorces. We slowly learned we were connected through mutual friends. Plus, one of the moms realized she’d read my blog before. Small world!

Who would have guessed in ten years of divorce my first family Halloween party invitation would be extended by strangers?

Either they are nice, quality people. Or they drank a hell of a lot of witches brew before I got there!

(Haha. I’ll stick with the former.)

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My Dad Invented Google

dadshouse — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:09:36 +0000

I showed up at a local Laser Tag place to pick up my son from a youth group outing. He was paling around with some boys a year younger than him. No one I knew. But they were excited to see me.

They came over to me, bowing, proclaiming: We’re not worthy!

“Did you invent Google?” one of them asked.
“No,” I said. I looked at my son. What sort of bull had he been feeding them?

My son took it completely in stride. “No, not Google,” he said. “Some other computer thing on the internet. What was it again?” He looked to me for details.

I had no idea what he wanted me to say. I’d worked for a handful of Silicon Valley companies. I tossed out the name of one.

“What about those plaques in the hallway?” he asked.
“My patents?” I said.
“Yeah!” He turned to the boys. “My dad has patents.”

We’re not worthy! they bowed.

True enough, I earned six patents during my day as an engineer. I proudly display them at home in hopes of inspiring my kids. They should know that even a nit-wit like their dad can do something of note. (And they have my genes, so I’m guessing they’ll be able to nit with the wittiest.)

I never figured those plaques would lead to bragging rights in the Laser Tag parking lot.

But hey, this is Silicon Valley. And if my son wants to brag about his old man, who am I to complain? Sort of like the old days when kids would say “I bet my dad can beat the crap out of your dad!”

I just hope my son never locks horns with some kid whose dad really did invent Google.

I’m not sure my patent plaques would hold up to an ass kicking like that.

Image from Wiki Commons, some rights reserved.

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The Police and My Teen Daughter

dadshouse — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:31:57 +0000

It’s the police!

That, a text message sent by my teen daughter, not twenty minutes after she left for astronomy class. WTF!?

Had she gotten into an accident? Was she pulled over for a driving offense? Did she get another parking ticket?

What’s going on? I texted back.

Silence.

I shifted into worried-dad overdrive. I figured I could drive to her class, and if she was there, I’d have nothing to worry about. But if that was the case and she was fine, she would have texted me back.

If she wasn’t in class, no telling where she might be. She had her own loopy ways of getting around. I wondered – was she experiencing her own Book ‘em, Danno moment?

I’ve been pulled over a few times in my life. Running a stop sign when I was sixteen (I contested it in court, and won!) Speeding in my twenties (traffic school for me.) Plus two sobriety checks as an adult (I was totally sober both times. Cops get bored around here.)

I figured if my daughter had the wherewithal to text me about the police, she couldn’t be that far gone.

Unless she was in custody, and that lone text was her one phone call.

Two hours later, my daughter came home from class.

“What happened with the police?” I asked.
“Our instructor was playing some song in class, and I was trying to guess who it was,” she said. “It sounded like Sting, but I couldn’t remember the band he was in. And then the instructor told us!”

The Police.

“Why did you text me that?” I asked.
“I thought you’d be excited,” she said. “I know you like them.”

Thoughtful of her, though I could have used a bit longer text message.

“Okay, what was the song,” I said.
“It’s astronomy class,” she said. Then she grinned. “Walking on the Moon!”

Giant steps are what you take…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Police, Walking on the Moon video, cheesy lip sync on a groovy moonscape

The Police Walking on the Moon Original Video

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Hotel Housekeeping – at 9am!

dadshouse — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:13:15 +0000

My kids and I were in Albuquerque this past weekend, attending the Balloon Festival. Yes, it was fun. (I’ll post pics and stories as soon as my daughter uploads photos from her camera.)

We were awake at 5am Saturday morning for the festival (which is 4am to our California bodies), and stayed up late Saturday night, playing on the water slide at our hotel pool.

We were totally looking forward to sleeping in Sunday morning.

Housekeeping had other ideas.

Pound pound pound on the door. “Housekeeping!”
I looked at the clock. It was 9am Sunday morning. WTF?

The door opened!
“Hey, we’re in here!” I said. “Go away! We check out at noon.”

Housekeeping shut the door and scurried off, without even an apology. Both my kids stirred in their beds. So much for getting some much needed rest.

My kids tried to keep sleeping, but once the wake up damage is done, it’s done. We got up at 9:30, showered, packed, and checked out by 10.

“How was your stay?” the front desk asked.
“Great,” I said. “Except for housekeeping waking us up this morning at 9. They even came in the room while we were sleeping.”
“I’m so sorry! They’re not supposed to knock on anyone’s door until after 11.”

Thanks for the sentiment, but we’re still tired.

And then the front desk clerk asked: “Can I give you and your kids a free breakfast to make up for this?”

Yes, you can!

My kids had waffles with whip cream, fresh fruit, juice, and hot cocoa. I had a tomato, onion, green pepper, and cheese omelet, bacon, potatoes, fresh fruit, and coffee.

As for lost sleep? We dozed off on the airplane ride home.

Thanks, housekeeping for turning our hotel stay into a bed and breakfast!

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Parking Ticket at Astronomy Class

dadshouse — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:13:52 +0000

Our local junior college has an astronomy class with a reputation for being very good. The school has a decent-sized telescope, and the instructor co-wrote the textbook they use. He’s not quite Carl Sagan (“billions and billions of stars in the universe…”), but might be close. People of all ages flock to his class.

With my daughter having pretty much run through the high school curriculum, she decided to take the class. I drove her to campus two weeks ago to buy the book (I’m a wallet!) and to figure out where she should park.

She insisted on Lot 5, and sure enough, it was right next to class. Only problem – it’s shared between students and professors.

“Make sure you don’t park in a space marked faculty,” I said.
“Okay,” she said.

Last week, she and a friend drove to the school for their first meeting of the class. They parked in Lot 5, making sure not to park in a space marked faculty.

After class, they went to her truck and found a ticket on the windshield. My daughter was bummed.

“Did you park in a space marked faculty?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Then contest it.”

She read instructions off the back of the ticket and learned how to fight the ticket and not pay.

“I better double check the space wasn’t faculty,” she said.
“Good idea,” I said.

Next class, she drove and checked the space out. She texted me:

not faculty, but it’s yellow.

Um… did she not learn in driver ed that yellow means loading zone?

Or maybe with all those billions and billions of stars in the universe, and her looking up in the sky, getting primed for class, she was too distracted by the wonders of the milky way to properly park.

Carl Sagan would have been proud.

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