Dad's House » parenting

Sorry My Son Kicked Your Son’s Ass

dadshouse — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:30:09 +0000

It’s wrestling season in the middle school, and I watched a meet last night. My teen son quickly pinned his opponent. So fast, in fact, he looked up at the ref, wondering when the call would come. That one moment of lost focus was all it took for his opponent to waggle free – for a second. My son pinned him again, and this time the ref called it. I think the entire match took less than a minute.

A little while later, I was chatting with a mom who had a boy on the team. She had only been to one other match – one last year where a boy broke his arm in the first few minutes of the wrestling meet. I was there too – it was excruciating for us parents to watch. I can’t imagine the pain that boy was in.

Anyway, the match last night is the first one the mom had attended since that broken arm. Finally it was her son’s turn to wrestle.

Her boy is big and strong, and a woman near us gasped.

“Is that your son?” the gasping woman from the other team asked.
“Yes,” the mom on my team said. “Is that your son going up against him?”

The other woman nodded, and put a hand to her mouth. Clearly, she didn’t like her son’s odds.

Keep in mind, these boys wrestle in a weight class, so they weighed pretty much the same. But the boy from my son’s team was all muscle, lean, strong, ripped abs, broad shoulders. The other boy was out of shape.

To keep things clear, let’s call the strong boy from my son’s team Hulk, and the other boy Wimpy.

The ref started the match. Hulk picked Wimpy up and threw him to the mat. (No, this isn’t WWF. It was a legal throw.) Wimpy’s mom gasped loudly.

Hulk’s mom turned and said “Oh, I’m sorry. I hope my son didn’t hurt your boy.”

If there’s a more polite way to say, “sorry my son just kicked your son’s ass,” I don’t know it.

Photo by emdot, some rights reserved.

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Halloween is Great for Adults!

dadshouse — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:54 +0000

Halloween is great for adults!

Anyone can see that from this pic. I mean, how often do you actually want police presence at a party?

Only when it’s a sexy cop!

Today, Dad’s House rides a witches broom over to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog with a fun post about adults and Halloween.

Halloween is Great for Adults

Then come on back and I’ll cuff you.

Or if you’re dress liked this sexy cop, you can cuff me.

Photo by pena2, some rights reserved.

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How to Cheat at the Kissie Game

dadshouse — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:03:05 +0000

Some nights my kids and I play a kissie game when they go to bed. They crawl into bed. I’m supposed to kiss them on each cheek. (Yes, they’re both teens. You’d think they would have tired of this game a decade ago. But no, they still love it.)

They squirrel their bodies like crazy, cover their cheeks with a pillow or their hands, burrow down under the covers, whatever! But somehow, I always manage to kiss both cheeks.

How do I do it? I cheat.

I either use my nearly 200 pounds of manly strength to pin them down. Or I pretend my glasses got knocked off my face. Or I fake injury. Or I tickle them. Whatever it takes.

Hey, it’s not like there are rules about how I’m supposed to kiss them or not. The only rule is that I kiss both cheeks. I do that every time we play.

I guess you could say if there aren’t written rules, I’m not really cheating. But the point is I do whatever it takes to accomplish my goal. I’m thinking there’s a decent life lesson in there to teach them.

Of course, I’m too busy gloating as the victor to remember to bring it up.

To paraphrase Julius Caesar: Vini. Baci. Vici.

Or in my case, Baci. Vici. Arrivaderci.

I kiss. I win. Goodnight.

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Teen Daughter – Curfew, Shmurfew

dadshouse — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:07:22 +0000

My teenage daughter has her driver’s license, her own (used) truck, her own cell phone, and her own set of friends. In other words, I’m starting to not see her much lately. She’ll take off on a weekend afternoon to hang out, or engage in Nerf-gun wars. She’ll take off on a weeknight to study with friends.

I’m suddenly having to set and enforce curfews.

She’s nearly an adult, and she’ll be heading to college in a year, so I’m trying to give her as much curfew freedom as possible. With freedom comes responsibility, right? And what better time to learn responsibility than when you’re living at home with a parent to guide you.

On a recent Saturday night when my daughter was out with friends, she texted me an hour before her midnight curfew: can I stay till 1?

I texted back: where r u?

She texted that they were at a friend’s house, watching the Sound of Music on DVD.

A one hour extension seemed perfectly reasonable to me, especially since she’d given me decent warning. I asked who else was there. She told me – a mix of boys and girls, and the girl’s parents were home. I said fine, be home by 1am.

At 12:30am, she texted again: can I stay till 2?

WTF? When she texted the first time, she would have known what time the movie would end. I was guessing they were moving on to some other entertainment – Wii, or cards, or Craig Ferguson on TV.

I figured this was a teaching moment. Since she wasn’t giving me any compelling reason to push her curfew to 2am, I decided she could live with her first request.

I texted back: no.

Five minutes later my phone rang. (My daughter never calls me. She only texts)

“Hi, Mr. Mott,” a girls’ voice said. “This is your daughter’s friend Maxine.” (Name changed to protect the innocent.) “Can your daughter sleepover tonight?”

Huh? This was way beyond watching a DVD, or playing Wii. I mean, sleepovers are fun and all, and I’m fine with my daughter sleeping over at a girl’s house. But for me to be asked by my daughter’s friend? In the middle of the night? When I’d already been told there were boys?

“No,” I said. “Tell her to be home by one.”
“It’s just girls sleeping here,” the friend said.
“That’s great. One o’clock.”

Sometimes a dad has to be firm with his daughter.

Especially when he’s usually a pushover.

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Dog Days of Summer

dadshouse — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:48 +0000

It’s the dog days of summer, and plenty of kids are bored.

How’s a parent to cope?

Laze on over to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog today, and cool your heels reading about:

Dog Days of Summer – And We Don’t Have a Dog

A hair of the dog that bit me will do you some good.

Woof.

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Neosporin Moms at the Playground

dadshouse — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:10:39 +0000

If you’ve ever been to a playground, you’ve probably seen a kid fall down and “hurt” themselves. I say “hurt” in quotes because sometimes kids can act a little pansy-assed. If they cry, the’ll get attention from mommy.

Neosporin® seems to be playing off the Mama’s Boy stereotype with a new TV ad campaign. Do Hot Dads want their kids to grow up to be wusses?

Head on over to the Hot Dads blog today and read about

Neosporin® Moms at the Playground

Then come back and let daddy take care of your boo-boos.

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Birds, Bees, and Axe Body Spray – give a preteen boy some Axe body spray, and you just might smell him coming a mile away.
Um, Good Morning, America? – one crazy morning in an American household, complete with a teen daughter texting from the bathroom.
Grilling at the Graduation Picnic – what happens when two dads try cooking 200 hot dogs for a grade school picnic?
I Can’t BS My Kids Anymore – when kids get too smart, they might just stop laughing at Dad’s crappy jokes
Father Son Manfest – Peloton of Two – father and son enjoy a Spring Break manfest by cycling together.
Back to School Shopping in a New Age Pharmaceutical Church – why is Rite Aid playing church music?
Boys Soccer is a Contact Sport! – think soccer isn’t full contact? Think again

Father and Teenage Daughter Go For a Run

dadshouse — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:00:21 +0000

My teenage daughter and son and I were on vacation last week visiting family. For us that meant hanging out with cousins and grandparents, going for swims in the pool, hitting the beach for body surfing and boogie boarding.

And eating way too much food. Especially dessert.

Nothing like a father and his teens kicking off summer in new swimsuits at the beach with all that homemade cake, cookies, and ice cream in our bellies. I know, I know, when it comes to family visits, eating dessert goes with the territory. But for this father and teenage daughter who both love sports, we absolutely needed to workout.

A year ago, my daughter and I tried going for a run together. She plays soccer and runs sprints on the track, but my endurance was too much for her. Even when I slowed, she had trouble keeping up. I figure she was only sixteen, and I’ve run and cycled for years and have completed a good number of marathons and centuries. Still, it bothered her that I was in better shape. I’m a dad, after all, and she’s an athletic teen. She only ran with me once.

This time on vacation, she invited me to run hills with her. She had a great track season, and was now seventeen, but I still figured I’d be faster than her at distance.

I was wrong. She kicked my ass on a 4.5-mile run.

Now, before you all get in a hizzy about this (I can already hear the “you go, girl!” cries) – that was day one.

Turns out my old man body recovers more quickly from a long run than her teenage body. On day two, the tables were turned.

I kicked her ass running 5 miles.

Don’t worry, I didn’t gloat. And it didn’t hurt her self-esteem. By day three, we were running again, side by side, a father and his teenage daughter working out, finishing our run in tandem.

Later that afternoon, we hit the beach. While she and her brother body surfed, I took a much needed nap.

Okay, maybe my teen daughter kicked my ass after all…

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