#manvschild

Yesterday, my wife and I snuck off to Ikea for a few hours.  No, we were not picking up another Telly Savalas Baby Picture Frame - we were getting a bookshelf.  We did this without our daughter who just STAYED HOME.  

When our daughter was little, we could drop her off at Smaland - the Ikea babysitting area.  She loved the little play area, although one time we dropped her off and then watched her immediately plop down to watch whatever junky Spongebob movie they had on.  Whatever, we were free (for 30-45 minutes)!  We'd race around trying to tackle all the worst Ikea tasks before picking her up again and proceeding to the self-service area only to find they were out of everything.  Ikea is always an ordeal.

And then came the sad day when our daughter was too tall for the Smaland.  That meant dragging our crabby daughter through a million faux-apartments.  We saw a ton of these sad parents when we went yesterday - parents desperately trying to envision their new, improved bedrooms despite their kid sulking or spinning on some stool or chasing their brothers.  Won’t it be great to curl up with a book in our little reading nook, honey...?  TAMMY GET OFF THAT SOFA!  Madness.

Best Humor Books of 2017

One of the funnest parts of putting Man Vs Child: One Dad’s Guide to the Weirdness of Parenting together was getting to see my terrible sketches turned into wonderful illustrations by my incredible illustrator @jordan-awan.  Many of the best illustrations were ideas he drew on his own, but then he magically transformed some of my half-assed ideas into great stuff.  These illustrations bring so much charm to the book.

DEAR STUDENTS:

Enjoy your vacation!  It's a great time to reflect on the year and spend time with family and friends.  Happy holidays.

Due on Tuesday, January 2nd:

20 page math packet in preparation for quiz

Social Studies presentation on the ancient Mayan culture.  Don't forget the six page findings summary and to include your bibliography.  Visual aids (figures, posters, displays) will be presented on Monday.

45 Reading Diary Entries

67 “Fun facts about History”

400 Sentence-structure planning conclusions and introductions with supporting arguments and compound sentence analysis

Vacation Homework is 40% of your final grade.

Some parents are upset that there is any homework over vacation.  Some argue that a vacation should be a “vacation.”

It is my view that homework over a holiday teaches a valuable lesson:  nothing is easy, all is lost, people will make demands of you that are unfair and arbitrary.

Life is a grind. Joy is fleeting. Disappointment is rampant. All is darkness.

EXTRA CREDIT:  Write a 500 word essay on “futility” or “struggle.”

My dad was just visiting - it's hard to picture yourself as a grandpa visiting your grownup kid in the future.  

What will she be like as an adult?  Will I be a cool, fun grandpa?  Or a drag?  Will she have kids that you'll be the grandpa to?  

Yesterday was parent-teacher conferences at my daughter's new school.  I've been happily surprised that her middle-school transition has seemed to be low-drama, and her school has a fancy-schmancy online system that I can look at her grades on.  So I knew that things were going well - no real dread going into the meetings.

In the first meeting, one of her teachers was like:  "She's very shy and quiet."  I immediately felt my face flush at this mildest of criticisms - and one that I actually mostly agree with!  "Uh-huh," I said with a little bit of a tone.  I really didn't mean to; it was just "Papa Bear" instincts rearing up.  I took a deep breathe and got my shit together.  The rest of the meeting went fine.  She is shy and quiet!  Calm down, Doug!

I really don't think of myself as unrealistic about my kid.  I'm not one of these parents that says their kid is "creative" while the kid is scratching "Fart" into a table with a pocket knife.  I think I'm eyes-wide-open.

But the Papa Bear instinct is fierce sometimes.  I remember years ago when we forced her to play soccer for a hot minute, I was in peak Papa Bear mode.  She didn't know what the hell she was doing, was lost among a bunch of mini-Pelès, the ball whizzing past her.  I wasn't worrying about her scoring; I was worried about her feeling humiliated.  It was awful to watch her out there so out of her depth.  We had thought it would be a good experience, a good lesson in teamwork and listening to a coach and, ya know, exercise.  But instead it was a lesson in "sign your kid up for soccer earlier in life."  

Other Papa Bears at the game were ready to beat the ref up for a bad call or because their kid got tripped, even though he was totally fine.  I was pretty uncomfortable around these Rage Bears, glad that I hadn't previously lost my way so much that I thought yelling at a ref in front of a bunch of kids was a good idea.

Anyway, kids are almost always fine without our raging - our Bear instincts mostly just get in the way.  I'm glad I didn't freak out on this teacher when my kid is actually getting good grades and everything is fine.  But it was weirdly close!  It's the animal instinct, like trying to protect your cubs.  

Be careful!  We all have that inside us, but we have to be wise about when to bring our natural instincts to, um, bear.  (Sorry)