Blowing the Dust Off

It has been quite some time since we have blessed the blogosphere with some of our original, grammatically incorrect musings. We know. You've missed us.

So why are we writing this? Its easy. We want to get to 10,000 clicks on this little blog of ours by the end of 2012. We are pretty close but need some help for you. However, we won't just post an article saying we need help, we'll put some thought behind it and some substance. Here goes.

The Suburban Father Alliance was started 2 years ago by my partner in crime and me to share some fatherly musings with friends and family. We have pumped out about 145 articles over that span which is more than 1 a week. It was fun. We got free beef jerky. Life was good.

Then I think life kind of hit us. Between the two of us we have 2 wives &7 kids. I also started up a home business selling Running Shoes and Apparel and Jamie was busy coaching, travelling for work, and other life stuff. It became less of a priority (for me at least, I won't speak for Jamie). Either way I don't think either one of us was getting the satisfaction out of it that we once got. In other words, the beef jerky had dried up.

Here's where we need your help. READ. THE. BLOG. We have made a concerted effort between the two of us to pump some good stuff out before the end of the year. Around the New Year we'll re-evaluate and go from there.

So, in the meantime: Read early. Share Often. And get ready for the best blog about fathering you've ever seen.

Giving Back

Been a pretty charitable couple of weeks here at HQ.

First, I was tagged in a work-related blog series that required I discuss what sort of charitable activities I typically support. My answer?

I'll support pretty much anything that means something to me and mine (and for charity, I typically cast my net pretty large for who counts as "mine"). My two big pushes this month (from people in our larger community) are the charity which gave their data to Developer Wars at SBOUC and SBOUC organizer Nicole's Diabetes Ride. Never to early to save money on your taxes by making a donation.

As an extension of that, I got pulled into a couple of different charity events this last weekend.

On Saturday morning I dragged the family out of bed to participate in a walk to support a friend of the family who is diabetic.Due to some procrastination on our part we only started gathering donations about a week before but were still able to help raise some money for the JDRF (some from as far away as England). In fact the larger team we were part of ended up raising over $2,500. Best part, aside, obviously, from the altruism? The event was collocated with an Oktoberfest so after the event we got to take in a parade and a couple of beers with some of our teammates.

You can't see it in the picture, but we're standing on a mountain of candy.
Leftover from the parade.
From right after the Diabetes Walk.

That evening the wife and I went to a Trivia Party to support some Micro-financing work going on in Africa. We didn't win the Trivia Contest, but I won the raffle for a tailgating kit which is probably better because I'd have no doubt gotten jobbed out of my fair share of any cash winnings from the team.

For those of you unfamiliar with a Trivia Party fundraiser, they are really common in St. Louis and typically involve buying a table for 8-10 people (usually around $200/table) and competing with other tables to get the best score out of 100 trivia questions. The beer is usually free because they have other cash-gobbling opportunities throughout the night for 50/50 drawings, raffles, heads-or-tails or dead-or-alive type games, and "just throw whatever money you've got left into a bucket at the end of the night" contests. Always a good time, especially when someone who has provided stupid answer after stupid answer all night get painfully upset that you didn't trust them the one time they knew the answer (didn't happen this night, but it isn't uncommon).

In the end it was a fun (albeit exhausting) day and one that really will help to make a difference in some people's lives. Even if that's because we don't have any money left to feed our kids.

Morbid Post

Well, not really that morbid but I am going to skate really close to the issue of "what if one of your kids were to die before you?"

I know its not a fun topic. It ranks up there with making out your Will and having the discussion with your wife on if you should pull the plug should you wind up in a vegetative state. This topic is probably worse though. Both my parents and my wife's have had the unfortunate circumstance of living beyond one of their children. My wife's brother passed away many years ago due to a bicycle accident and my sister collapsed out of the blue playing recreational volleyball.

Now I'm not here to have a pity party on behalf of my wife and I's losses. We have coped with them and have moved passed. What I want to talk about today is what happens if one of your kids passes. Are you going to be prepared? Mentally, I don't think anyone could be prepared, but what I am talking about is Life Insurance. Trust me I'm not starting an insurance agency or anything and will totally delete anyone's comments on this post that try to sell it.

Why I am bringing this up today is that something recently happened with my middle daughter's policy and after talking to my wife, we were really glad we signed her up for Life Insurance when she was about a month old. As I have mentioned on her before, my middle daughter has recently been diagnosed with McCune-Albright Syndrome. Hardly a life threatening disease but something we will need to monitor throughout her life.

About the same time we were going through all the diagnosis stuff and other fun, we met with our Financial Adviser (same person who gets us our life insurance) to get our youngest set up for a Savings account he can't touch and life insurance. We've done this exercise with our other kids shortly after their births. When we sat down with our Adviser she thought that it might be a good idea to bump up our girls policies also. We agreed and filed the paperwork.

Our Life Insurance provider sent us a letter back stating that Lucy (our middle) was denied any more coverage due to her diagnosis of McCune-Albright. Of course my wife and I were kind of taken back with this news, but also looking at the big picture, we thought, if we wouldn't have signed her up right after she was born, she wouldn't be able to get any life insurance. I do want to make a small disclaimer that we aren't talking about a large sum of money, just enough to cover some funeral costs.

Anyway, that's my story and while we don't really give much solid advice on this site, I really think you should sit down with your significant other and consider life insurance for your kid if they don't already have some.

**I will say this again, if anyone leaves a comment on here trying to sell Life Insurance, it will get deleted. This is meant to be an informative post for parents, not a free for all for Insurance agents.

This is what we are reduced to?

The wife and I have been busy lately. You know, with kid stuff, putting our house on the market, working, etc. It happens. Life gets to be so full of urine and stuffed animals that you almost forget that the chick you sleep with every night isn't just a roommate, but someone who at some point you actually could talk to and bounce ideas off of.

Its not always this easy.

We get so caught up in our kids lives that we don't really take the time necessary to hang out with the person that you actually made babies with. It sucks and if you don't do anything about it, its a slippery slope to having a sucky go at things.

So as the wife and I saw that we were potentially headed down the tunnel of suckiness, we decided to have a date night. In most parts of the world date nights are usually held on Friday or Saturday nights. This way you can stay out later, hang out longer, and pay your babysitter more. Well we decided to buck that trend and head out on a Monday. We pretty much had the pick of the litter when it comes to restaurants since Mondays aren't known for their going-out-ability. We hit up a nice local Italian place and had a nice dinner.

At one point during the meal, I looked my bride and said, "Is this what we have been reduced to in order to just hang out? A Monday date night..." She smiled ever so lovingly and said, "Yes, and if we have time, we are going to stop by Target to get some Easter clothes for the kids." Well, thankfully we had a lot of stuff to talk about and we didn't get to swing by Target. Damn. We then went home, washed our children, and were passed out by 9:30pm. Don't hate the player.

The Diagnosis

Well I am writing this to kind of clear my head of a bunch of crap that has been swimming around. Life as an internet blogger is not all Keg Parties and free beef jerky. No, there are times when we must put down life's proverbial bong and actually take a hit of reality (that last sentence needs to be on a t-shirt somewhere). My reality has been slowing hitting for the last 2 weeks. I haven't been much in the blogging mood, and until this post comes out, my partner (in blogging ONLY) on this site doesn't even know whats up.

My attempt here is to not go on a diatribe about how you should feel sorry for us or whatever. It's not going to be a scientific masterpiece in which doctors will study my writings for years to come. No this is going to be pretty much a brain dump of thoughts and questions I have about what's going on.

So you have some reference, here's a brief background. My middle daughter Lucy (almost 4 yo) is hell on wheels. She pretty much has the energy of a small locomotive and it takes her about 45 minutes to fall asleep in bed every night. However, she's also the sweetest thing on Earth. Back when she was 3 weeks old she developed a large birthmark that spanned from her belly all the way around her side and ended up stopping in the middle of her back. We were kind of taken back by it, but my wife and I both have large, oddly placed birthmarks (my wife's leg, my face). So we didn't worry too much. We visited our doctor for a check up and it raised a small red flag with him and sent us off to get some tests run with her. The wife and I were a bit confused but whatever. First we had to get a skin graft of it to see what kind of birthmark it was. It is what is called a Cafe Ole Macule. Essentially, a pretty standard birthmark. However the location of it was a bit worrisome to the doctor. We then were lined up for some testing around her 6 month birthday at a local childrens hospital to test for 2 things in particular: Neurofibromatosis & McCune-Albright Syndrome. She came back with a clean bill of health but it was something that we have been getting tested for on a yearly basis ever since. Much like my PSA tests, I have to get them since my Prostate scare, but its just something that needs to be monitored.

Fast forward to November 2011 and our suspicions started to grow.... Things were occurring that shouldn't be in a 3yo. We noticed that my daughter was changing a bit and when compared to my 5 year old's they just didn't look the same. Since the 2 of them are so different we just didn't think too much of it. After the New Year, we knew we should see a doctor about it because it was obvious the changes weren't due to her just being different than the 5yo. We made an appointment with the Children's Hospital we've been going to since she was 3 weeks old. They glad were able to fit us in the March 2012 time frame. Two days after we made the appointment, however, other symptoms started showing that needed to be addressed more immediately. We were bumped up to see the Doctor the next day (on her day off) to goo over some things.

We went to the hospital the next day and went through some tests, x-rays, MRI's, etc. Kind of a hectic day to see your kid getting poked and prodded for so long. Well within a few days after our visit, our suspicions were confirmed that our daughter has McCune Albright Syndrome and some cysts on her ovaries. She's 3. Anyway, I am not going to go through the symptoms or complications of it here because you can do that yourself and I don't want to think about it more than possible.

What I am looking for in this post is if any of the 10 readers out there have any experience with this diagnosis and honestly I am looking for some sanity. Thanks for reading.

Y can't everyone get customer service right?

After a relatively frustrating experience signing my two younger boys for basketball at the local YMCA, I was forced to send in the following email.

I just signed two of my boys up for basketball at your Shady Springs, St. Peters Y. The staff was extremely helpful, but I was really caught off guard when they told me how much it would be. 

 I am not a member of your Y (the RecPlex is literally at the end of my street), but I love your basketball programs. I was going to sign my 5 year old, but on your website (http://www.ymcastlouis.org/st-charles-county-family-ymca/sports) it said, in effect, that the Rookies program, that my 4 year old could do, would basically be an extra $25. I asked him if he wanted to play, he said yes, so I told him I would. 

When I called in to register, I was told that I would be charged the full $99 for my second child. for 6 hours of basketball clinics which I wouldn't have paid for except I already told him that it I would because your website told me it would only be $25. 

I'm very displeased.

Honestly, I didn't expect much of a response. And if got one at all I wouldn't expect that I'd be very satisfied by it. This is, after all, an enormous non-profit organization, which means it will be pretty bureaucratic, which usually means no one is really enabled to help. Also, I didn't have a problem with their pricing (hey, it's their business) but the website was completely unclear. 

I am very pleased to report that I was wrong.

Less than 24 hours after sending in that email, I received a call from someone that sounded genuinely sorry about the mix-up. He said that the website had already been updated to be far more clear about this policy (and I checked the site while on the phone with him -- it was definitely now clear that the $25 second kid was only for members) and he went ahead and changed my total payment to be $124, which is what the website had previously led me to believe (this was, in my opinion, really above and beyond). 

In the end, the YMCA was really able to turn this situation around for me, and I wanted to make sure to broadcast that as message as far as I could. Don't forget that your local YMCA is a great place to get started on belated resolutions and to help make your community a stronger place. 

The Half-Marathon of Parenting

I did it! I did it with no tears, very minor amounts of bribery, and I accomplished it before my wife did. I successfully put all 3 children down for bed with no assistance while my wife was celebrating not being pregnant anymore. I really don't know what else to compare this accomplishment to. I mean its not like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, but then again its also no easy task. So given the time of the event to occur (roughly 2 hours of alone time) I will go ahead and compare it to my recent half marathon finish. While this may seem like a novice task for you seasoned veterans out there. Let me at least try to build the credibility of this up before you don't acknowledge it as a huge win.

This is how it feels.

I love my 3 kids all dearly, but to sum them up quickly my  kids are as follows: Emotional 5 year old Girl, Volatile 3 year Girl, and Hungry 1 month old Boy.  The dynamic kind of works like this. The 3 year old almost runs the show in the house. She is the wild card. A large girl that weighs about 3 lbs less than the 5 year old and a propensity to pull hair and hit the 5 year old when the parents are out of the room. The problem is the 5 year old just sits there, takes it, and cries. Meanwhile the 1 month old is one of 3 things (along with the percentages of time throughout the day): 1) Awake and calm 10%, 2) Awake, Crying, Hungry 45% 3) Unconscious 45%.

As you can see there's essentially a 50% chance my little dude was going to be awake, hungry & crying for the 2 girls' departure to dreamland. the planning involved to accomplish such a task is tough. Not only do you have to focus on the little guy but you need to make sure the older ones are worn out enough to sleep, but have calmed down enough to be ready for bed. It was about 2 hours or playing, bouncing, shooshing, & correcting, but it happened. The 2 girls faded off to sleep with little intervention from me. Well, the 3 year old has the equivalent of restless leg syndrome in her entire body and it takes her about 30 minutes of flopping around in bed and asking for candy before she dozed off. Regardless, they didn't cry and it was magical.

I think I even surprised my wife when she came home and stuff was cleaned up. I rule.

Anyone have any amazing single fathering stories they'd like to share? Leave them in the comments or contact us and we'll let you blog about how awesome you are.

Name Challenged

Back in March. My wife and I officially announced that we were pregnant with our 3rd kid. Well as the October 4th due date has drawn closer, we have figured out a bunch of stuff. The most important is that the baby won't be born on October 4th. In fact the baby will be coming no later than September 29th as we are scheduled for an induction.

With pending babies and multiple SAP conferences we have been a little slammed and our writing & your reading enjoyment has suffered. With that consider this our first dream sequence post where we shamelessly recycle come old post and make it new again.

This one is pretty fitting since we are about ready to name our new kid. So here are the 8 rules in naming your child (from a Suburban Father Perspective). Funny how some of these sounded like a good idea 6 months ago.

http://suburbanfatheralliance.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-in-name.html.

The Red-Shirt year

A few weeks back we wrote about the right of passage into Kindergarten. Its a huge step for your kid, but what if your little angel is right on the cusp of heading into kindergarten or being held back a year? Well, we were forced with a decision this year that possibly could make or break our oldest daughter's future in school. As you can see by the witty title of this post, we are deciding on holding our kid back a year, but want to get some perspective from other parents on what they've done.

While the above paragraph is wonderfully written, its not enough for a full blog post so I'll go into our decision on holding our daughter back. My oldest has always been a girly girl since she decided to have a personality. Also like many first-born's (so I've heard) she has been very cautious, shy, and critical of situations before jumping in head first. We have never had to worry about her at a pool and just heading for the water. At times she can be kind of needy, but perhaps she is a bit more than most kids. She constantly seeks reassurance and needs a lot of pushing when it comes to trying new things. Its how she's wired. We love her personality and can think of 1000's of situations that would be way worse than our kid being a tad timid.

As this school year was coming up we knew we had a decision to make. We had already decided that our kids will go to the local private school* for grade school, but we just weren't sure that Hannah was fully ready for kindergarten. So the alternative would be sending her to the Public School for kindergarten for this year and then having her do a victory lap of kindergarten next year at the private school. After some thinking, debating, and just going back and forth on the subject, we decided on the "victory lap" theory and will send her to the private school to do kindergarten again next year. We have thought long and hard on this decision and after talking with a lot of parents we never once heard them say that they regretted holding their kid back. On the contrary we ran into a lot of situations where people wished they would have been held back.

So with that, we'd like to hear your opinion what you think or stories about the decisions you made as parents.

*Disclaimer: Before you pass judgement on the whole public/private decision, please know a few things. 1) St. Louis is weird and a ton of people go to private Catholic schools. 2) We live in an awesome school district that is rated very high and we are big fans of our Public School. My wife is actually an Occupational Therapist in our district. 3) I am not rich by any stretch of the word. Our Catholic school is about $2k LESS a year than day care.

America's Pastime

In St. Louis, MO there are few things we do well. However, this isn't a post about my city and the poverty, crime, or education. Nay, this is a post about stuff St. Louis does well. Well, 1 thing in particular. No, I'm not goint to talk about Toasted Ravioli, Washers, or Gooey Butter Cake. I am going to talk about Cardinals baseball.

As a kid growing up in the 80's & 90's I can remember as far back as my mind allows being a Cardinal fan. I had all their baseball cards, could mimic their batting stances, and pretty much ate, drank, slept baseball during the summer. After my formative years however, I moved away from the city and lost a bit of touch with the team. I could no longer recite stats of the 2nd string catcher or for that matter go to a game without it being a big ordeal. When I was in college however, I regained that passion for the game, thanks no other to the drug induced slug-fest that was the 1998 season and Mark McGwire ripped off 70 HRs. While he and others were essentially ruining the game, they were saving it at the same time (well at least for me they were saving it). From that season on, I had regained my love for Cardinal baseball and carried it out through my 20's. As of the last 4 or 5 years however having kids and all that goes along with that has taken precident over Cards baseball. I will gladly give up the TV now so my 3 year old can watch a show for the 30th time as long as it keeps her happy. With this, I am steadily missing more and more games per year. This is also the case with going to games. It was not unusual for me to go to 10 - 15 games a season when I was in my 20s. But as mentioned above my attendence is declining. So much this year that I didn't think I was going to make a single game. A Cardinal sin? (yes that was terrible)

Well, that all changed Sunday when my daughter got tickets through her school to go to the game. At first, I was a little weary of it since my wife wouldn't be going and I was dragging along my Sister-in-Law's boyfriend. He's a good dude but what 26 year old wants to go to a baseball game with a guy way past his prime and 2 kids that can scream bloody hell at a moment's notice? But excitement struck me when I loaded up the car with the girls on our way to the game. You see, this wasn't just an insignificant Sunday game in late August against the Pirates. No this was both of my kid's first baseball game. Ever. It is a historic day in their lives.

This is excitement

So with this sudden excitement on my part coupled with the fact that my kids think they are going to see actual Pirates, this made to be an amazing day for them (and me). The game was actually pretty sloppy in the first few innings but therere were a ton of runs and the girls were well on their way to a sugar induced coma. To my surprise they made it until the 7th inning stretch. However, the wheels were falling off pretty quickly. So we decicded to get while the gettin was good. A quick side note, the Cards ended up winning 7-4.

 

This is somewhere around mid-sugar high

Today was an awesome day at the ballpark with my kids (and sister-in-laws boyfriend). I remembered why I loved baseball when I was a kid and I can only hope my kids love it growing up and possibly marry a player so I am set for life.

Back to School & Getting Old

Last week I wrote about stressing out our kids and one of the issues that was on the stress radar here was my oldest going back to school. First off I know by relative terms I am young, but if you would like to have a kick in the junk and make yourself feel old, send your first kid off to Kindergarten and have someone kick you in the junk.

This summer has flown by this year, of course faster than every other year it seems, but it is bittersweet. The kids get to go back to their respective holding cells and someone else can watch them for a few hours instead of my pregnant wife. However, my pregnant wife also needs to return to her employer now that the summer is over until the baby is born. As we have been leading up to this monumental event for my 5 year old, there have been some of the typical events for the beginning of school. The most fascinating to me was the school supply list. It was weird. When I was in grade school I remember that I brought my own stuff and if I didn't have something, that was my own problem. So I would come packed up with the new markers, crayons, folders, etc. Not the same with my daughter's school. It seems to be a community pot luck dinner for all supplies. I guess that's a good thing, but its strange to me. Maybe its just the newness of it. I don't know.

Well there was one item on the list that really took me by surprise. Well it was multiples of the same item. They asked that each student bring in 12 glue sticks PER KID. I have never used a glue stick so off the bat this struck me as odd, but the fact that they need a dozen of them seems silly. Twelve glue sticks. Per kid. It was nice that we were able to go in a few days earlier to drop all the stuff off but still. 12. glue sticks.

Ok, so we arrive on the first day of school and I work from home to witness this right of passage for my girl. Hannah (the oldest) had already picked out and practiced wearing her first-day-of-school dress and she is glowing with excitement. The excitement was so much that she decided to get up at 5am and start talking to my wife & I in our bed for 2 hours. We convince her to eat some breakfast and we get ready to hit the bus stop. It was at this time I realized that I was old and that Hannah was getting there too. It was a bit tough to swallow. Not like I was crying or anything, but it makes you think where the last 5 years have gone...

[caption id="attachment_820" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="She can fit in her backpack"][/caption]

"I want to go fishing."

It started innocently enough on the way to dropping off Lucas to his first (half) day of kindergarten.

"I want to go fishing."

Pause.

"Because I want to try raw fish."

Pause.

"It's called sushi."

I like to expose the kids to things outside of their ever-shrinking-as-they-age comfort zones, and sushi had been on my list. Probably wouldn't have started with Junior #2 on this one (#3 is actually the braver soul - you should see him tear up some Pad Thai swimming in Sriracha), but he brought it up and I decided to commit a crime of opportunity.

I picked him up from his half day, and we headed straight to Crazy Sushi and ordered, well, pretty much everything. I'm not that familiar with sushi (I started with it a few years ago but don't eat it very often), but I knew that we wanted some raw stuff AND some backups for when he wouldn't eat it. So I got a St. Louis roll (tuna, avocado, takuan, green onion), some mixed raw stuff (and some of the cold shrimps), and some tempura. Yes, I spent way too much money, but I wanted to make sure he left having eaten something that he really liked. And since I refuse to ever order anything that I won't eat, I knew nothing would go to waste.

To my boy's credit, he tried everything. His favorite things were the miso soup, the tempura shrimp, and the hamachi (yellow tail) and the only thing he didn't like was the roll and the ginger salad dressing. Everything else fell somewhere in between those categories. Which I'm actually pretty thrilled with.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The St. Louis roll did not go over well."][/caption]

 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="He actually asked if he could take the bowl home."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Because only barbarians eat the rice at the same time as the sushi."][/caption]

Are we stressing out our kids?

I am supposed to be writing a blog entry for the Monday release of the SFA. Its a good one. Its on my picks of the top 5 rappers of all time. However, I can't write it right now. My creative juices have been stymied by a 3 & 5 year old and their unwillingness to be unconscious. A while ago we reviewed the book "Go the F**k to Sleep." I wasn't terribly impressed with it. The first 2 pages or so are pretty funny the first time you read it and then well its a list of words that just rhyme with sleep and some cuss words thrown in between. Tonight, though I can't get the book's title out of my head.

We have a cornucopia of messed up stuff going on in our house right now. We have an unfinished kitchen, I sleep with a pregnant gal, my 3 year old has moved out of her own room & crib into a room with the 5 year old and big girl bed, and the 5 year old is started kindergarten on Tuesday. Crap, I guess I know why they can't sleep... But can kids really get as stressed as adults? Stress is something I am very aware of and feel that it is the cause to a multitude of health issues. Well there's also doctors and studies that say the same thing but I'd still like some part of that theory. Now taking a step back at our family life and how "unconvential" my kids have been acting as of late, I wonder if stress plays a major role in their life like it does in adults. Typically kids feel no pain. They can run forever and pretty much bounce back from a fall quicker than anyone. You distract them, they go about their merry way as if it never happened. Problem over right? Wrong. At least I think its a bad conclusion. Here's the funny thing, if you google Stress in Children you get all kinds of articles on the symptoms of stress in kids, but when it comes to treating it, there's not much out there.

I deal with some social anxiety issues but I am happily medicated and I think I am as under control as the next person, but my kids are too young to be medicated and I don't want to go down that road if I doon't have to. So, how does a parent get their kids to calm down without dipping the binky in whiskey? My answer right now, is that I have no idea. This is one of those things that I guess I'll learn about and take in stride but I feel bad for my kids. Change isn't always good in their structured lives.

So here's my plan of attack to help my kids and their stress.

• Use diversion more frequently and effectively - Like Cypress Hill said "When the $&!* goes down, you better be ready." Hopefully these diversions can take their minds off what's bothering them


• Try to think before I act/speak - No I don't hit my kids but physical reactions to situation can be as powerful as verbal reactions. so If I get all slouchy and huffy with them, they won't react well to that.


• Play with them more - If I can get down on their level and play a bit more I think it will help relax them and hopefully wear them out so they can sleep easier.

Sound like a good plan? Have any other suggestions? We'd like to hear them.

Jumping in a Lake: Family Vacation

I don't want to share with you the day-to-day, minute-by-minute, picture-by-picture account of our family vacation this year. That would be pretty boring for you the viewer/reader except for the part where we all agree that my kids are the coolest. No I won't do that to you. However being that this was my family's first real family vacation in 3 years, its worthy of writing a summary of the learning experience I've had over the past weekend. So here's my list of crap to think about next time you are planning a family vacation. I am going to base this assessment with the disclaimer that my kids are younger and have the attention span of most 3 & 5 year olds. In other words they get bored with stuff fast. Also I am assuming you don't have money you can burn on purpose.

1. Go somewhere you can drive - Flying is expensive and while it can open endless possibilities to where you can go, I really don't find the reward of any destination worth the cost and the stress of packing all the stuff in your house for a short period of time. Also in a car, its only you that have to deal with your kids. Its probably not worth angering strangers because your kid all of a sudden doesn't like her headband.


2. Go somewhere with water - A body of water to a kid is like a babysitter you don't have to pay (assuming your kids can swim or have a flotation device - Safety First). This vacation we went down to Southern Missouri around a national hub of washed up Country & Western stars, Branson, MO. Around Branson however, there are several large lakes perfect for all ages. We opted for what is arguably the nicest of them all, Table Rock Lake. By nice I mean a couple things: Clear Water & not a lot of boaters. Is perfect for families who don't want to be around a bunch hoosiers. We also visited White Water in Branson. This was probably the worst body(s) of water we visited. It was expensive and there were way to many people in bikini's that should have been wearing camping tarps instead. The rides were fun but my kids just weren't into them that much so we didn't go on too many of them. Finally, the hidden gem of the water this weekend was the community pool we had access to in our rental house. If we got bored we just packed up the kids and went swimming.
   
   [caption id="attachment_767" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="This is as good as it gets."][/caption]


3. Go with some other families in the same situation - Kids like to play with other kids and adults like to booze with other adults. As long as you can remotely stand the family and their kids, you are golden. The water will fill in the gaps. Luckily we went with 2 other families both with 2 children a piece. It worked out great. The adults we went with are normal people who don't let their kids go bat crap everywhere and the kids are kids that are as socially normal as our kids. It was great. (if you are one of said families reading this, this is how I compliment people. Not the most flattering way I know, but hey be happy you were even mentioned).


4. Stay in one house/condo/structure - This is mostly for the adults. With everyone under one roof, sure you have to live in everyone life, but the boozing when all the kids are asleep is worth it.
   
   [caption id="attachment_768" align="alignnone" width="195" caption="Adult beverages rule!"][/caption]

That's the down and dirty of how to have a fun family vacation. Now go get one in before Summer if over!!!! So like this weekend...

Restaurant Bans Kids. Good.

No doubt based on our rules of making my kids happy at restaurants, a Pittsburgh restaurant has decided to ban kids. We salute them. I'd actually prefer no kids be allowed in Pittsburgh so we'd only have to hear about Steeler's Nation until the current crop passes on.

Seriously, though, we here at the SFA have no problems with this, just like we approve of places that require shirts and shoes and ban smoking. It's your business, run it how you want to, don't expect a ton of money from me personally, but don't be surprised if I show up one night when I have a babysitter. Provided of course that you don't operate in Pittsburgh. Which sucks.

Thanks toSFA-fan  Dallas Marks for the hat tip.

A citywide backhanded compliment

St. Louis was recently named the 11th best place in America to raise a family. I actually found this a little offensive.

Being a transplant to this fair city -- I originally grew up in Northeast Ohio. Lebron wasn't the first person to get out while the getting was good -- I don't bring all of the home-town bias most metropolitan area residents bring with them to the city. I'll spare you all my detailed rant on why St. Louis isn't quite as great as everyone here seems to think it is, I'm just content that all of the World's Fair talk has died down now that it's been more than a century since it was here. Just because I don't think St. Louis is the end-all, be-all of towns doesn't mean, however,  that I like someone calling the place I raise my kids a great place to raise my kids.

To me, calling somewhere a nice place to raise kids is an outright insult. It's on par with saying someone is a nice guy or that a girl has a good personality. None of those things are bad. You'd hope that a guy  is a nice guy or that a girl has a good personality or that your city is a great place to raise kids. You just don't want that to be a defining characteristic. Because that means they are boring. If someone is awesome you don't call him or her nice, you call him or her awesome. If a city rocks, you don't say it's a nice place to raise kids. New York rocks. Boston rocks. San Diego rocks. No one has ever said those were great places to raise kids. They say awesome things about them.

I recognize this list was put together as a means to drive web traffic or sell magazines, but I seriously doubt its accuracy. State's Exhibit A - Washington, D.C. is the number one place to raise kids. I'm not sure if they are talking about the Washington that once had a crack-head mayor, the Washington full of powerful men who like to tweet their junk, or the Washington that used to always have the second highest murder rate (behind of course East St. Louis).  State's Exhibit B , we were number 2 on this list just last fall, which was really like being number 2 on the number 2 list. That must have been a quick turnaround. Nonetheless, it really rubs me the wrong way.

St. Louis, I think it is time for us to stand up and be something more than "a great place to raise kids (because nothing good or bad ever happens here)" or "a great baseball town (because there isn't anything else to do)" and give ourselves SOME sort of identity. Everyone hear thinks we've given Toasted Ravioli and thin-crust pizza to the world, but no one outside of the bi-state area has ever heard of them (or would eat them if they had). People have heard of the Arch. That's it.

I don't have all of the solutions right now. Maybe we try to get The Hangover 3 be filmed here and actually have it be funny. Maybe nobody wears pants to work next Tuesday (unless you are a "nice" or have a "good personality" -- then you should probably keep your pants on). Maybe we divert the commercial traffic from the Mississippi and make it one big "Fifth Coast" beach party. Whatever we do, we'd better do something fast, or all of our kids are gonna move away once they grow up and no one will be left to hear us talk about how awesome it was when Poison and Motley Crue used to come to town every summer.

Being Decent Finally Pays Off

As you may recall, a few weeks ago I lost the use of a dear friend in a fit of compassion (What's that you say? You don't recall? Well look right here.). At the time I was disappointed that after a few thousand years of being removed from the meat production process I no longer had the necessary chops to provide for my brood, but was really mostly depressed because it meant I was going to have to go a summer without grilling or at least grilling easily.

 As part of my conceding some adorable baby birds deserved a shot at growing up to poop on things, my wife assured me a new grill would be in my future. With that, I started fantasy shopping about several new models, and I had some very basic criteria.

1. I wanted it to look pretty. I'm trying to get my patio together, and while my old grill was functional, it wasn't very attractive to anything but a family of birds.


2. I had to have a solution that would heat up quickly so I could grill during the weak with our schedule, I've only got about an hour and 15 minutes to cook, feed, and clean the kids before bedtime. This pretty much ruled out a charcoal grill.


3. I needed something bigger. On my current grill, I just didn't have enough room to cook enough food to feed my whole family at once.


4. It needed to be movable. I want to store it next to the house, but I need to be able to pull it away before lighting it. The new patch of siding on the back of the house gives testament to the lesson I learned last Father's Day.

This weekend, the piper finally got paid and I got a shiny new grill for Father's Day.


We like the shiny. We'd also like our patio to look like this (it does not currently).

I looked into some gas/charcoal combos but couldn't find any that were reviewed very well and ultimately decided that if I needed to do charcoal I could use my firepit but that this bad boy (with nearly twice the grilling surface of my old one) would work out fantastically. I also liked that this one included a vegetable steamer you could put in or take out (I recognize it's a gimmick, but if I recognize that I don't have to feel like a rube) and as we all know I like to get my health on (or at least like to feel I have the option to get my health on, knowing full-well that before too long I'll be trying to steam bacon in there).

This grill did admittedly have mixed reviews (which would normally put me off) but most of the reviews were about how hard it was to put together. Since I was going to buy it already assembled, I didn't care, and I felt OK with the rest of the write-ups I saw.

After having cooked one meal on it (which included fresh veggies, hot dogs, brats, and a couple of Daddy Day porterhouses) I'm pretty stinking happy so far. It got up to temperature in no time, it responded to my temperature changes, it had all sorts of room for me to use, and the food turned out great, which is no small feat for me. Also, since it was hugely discounted, I got to get an insanely expensive grill for a moderately ridiculous price, which is always nice (I like to know how rich people feel sometimes. Sue me. That'll just give me something else to check off of my faux-rich guy bucket list).

Final grades: The grill gets a Cuban with Smoked Provolone, those birds get a Cuban with Swiss, and the store experience gets a Reuben (the guy was a little weird, and they didn't have the cover I wanted).

Apples and Oranges

While we all know that all kids are different, some are even more different than others.

Here is how my 3 year old has recently taken to eating oranges (he is the only one of my children who likes any that aren't canned in heavy syrup).

Pay no attention to the Easter baskets that still haven't been put away.

 He asks me to peel them, and then he just eats them like an apple.

Pretty soon I'm gonna have to just teach him to eat over the sink like a grown man.

The whole thing reminds me of K-Pax. Whatever makes them eat their fruits and veggies, I guess.

Kids in public

Took my kids out to dinner the other night at Red Robin, which we usually like because they have both acceptable grown up food and kid food, they are reasonably priced, they have a little game room at the front to distract the kids, and they sell beer which on occasion is a requirement. It's one of our top default out-to-dinner-with-the-whole-tribe destinations.

Normally they do a really good job there. Last night, not so much. Rather than rehash what went wrong here (don't worry -- I'll passively/aggressively rehash it in a second) I'll just list out some ideas that may help servers and restaurants better meet the needs of their customers, enable said customers to spend money, and encourage the same customers to leave more tips.

If someone walks into your restaurant with a child or children under 10, please always do the following things.

1. Always remember the golden rule parents have when taking their children out in public: Get your children out of public as fast as is humanly possible. This not happening has never once been good for anyone.


2. Constantly look over to me, wherever you are in the room. If you are not in the room, constantly get in the room and look at me. Look down just long enough to jot down orders in your little book for your other tables and to avoid running into a busser and hilariously destroying a bunch of dishes. I am not necessarily going to need very much from you, but when I do, I need it NOW! Don't make me bust out an "Excuse me" from across the restaurant.


3. Be ready to take my order the second I sit down. Your kids menu has the exact same food as every other kids menu. My kids already know what they want (or, quite possibly never will, but I'll already know what I want to order for them). I'll know what I want. If I'm waiting on someone, assume that I know what they want and can order for them. If, heaven forbid, I'm not ready to order, see rule #2 above.


4. Under no circumstances should you go on break while I am there. Ever. If you do, turn the ticket over to someone else and make them aware of rule #1. Do not deliver our food, check on us, then be gone for a half an hour, because I'll be ready to leave 5 minutes after our food arrives.


5. No matter what happens, be gracious. I'm not any happier about my kids being here than you are, but at some point they need sunlight or they'll get a Vitamin-D deficiency, and sometimes I don't want to dip from the unending pot of mac-and-cheese with hot dogs cut up in it. We are here, deal with it. Acting perturbed isn't going to do anything but help me break rule #1, which isn't good for anybody. I know we are messy. I have plenty of disposable income to make it up to you. Don't make me feel like an a-hole.


6. Bring my children's food as soon as it is ready. Make mine soon afterwards. Push my food to the front of the line. Trust me, people will understand.


7. Do not serve my children food that is 3 billion degrees. I understand they only eat fried things and those things are fried in very hot oil, but delivering food that my children can't eat for 20 minutes and will burn themselves on isn't any better than bringing it 20 minutes later at an appropriate temperature.


8. For the love of God do not say the word "dessert" or any examples of it in front of my kids. I'm well aware that your restaurant serves it, and if I want some I'll ask you. In fact, if I want some, I will have almost certainly already ordered it at the same time as my meal.


9. Little known fact to non-parents: kids never actually eat food at restaurants. I can't take this food with me for future use as a car air freshener or home penicillin kit if I don't have boxes. I won't want to wait on those boxes. Give me some boxes when you give us our food.


10. Offer me my check within 2 minutes of my food hitting the table. You can always go add more stuff to it if you need to, but I need to be ready to pay now. Be fully prepared for me to hand you my credit card at any point. Always be ready to take my money and take it quickly. Nothing will lose you a tip faster than a long wait to actually complete the transaction (note: that is also true when I'm out without kids).

So that's pretty much it. Hitting on all of that stuff will assure you a 25+%  tip every time. Anything less and I'll blog your butt and send the link into corporate.

Finally, in honor of my son's fifth birthday, here's a bonus tip.

• If I ask you about a damned birthday cake and singing as I'm ordering, assume I'm not interested in waiting for 10 minutes after all of us are done eating in order to go and track down the hostess to hurry you up because you've already broken rule #2. This will result in a pre-tax tip of 15%, which, quite frankly, you were lucky to get.

To the good people at Red Robin corporate who may be reading this, please don't fire this guy. He was really nice and didn't come anywhere near breaking all of these rules (he was polite and professional, but really, really hard to track down and everything took FOREVER even though we beat the rush), but as a family-friendly restaurant I would encourage you to make sure your people know that families dining with you have special needs, and doing a better job meeting them will help you (and your staff) make a lot more money.

Please note that some of our follow up experiences at Red Robin have been much, much better.

Not entirely sure how I feel about this article...

Stumbled across this post on the Freakonomics blog today, and I heartily recommend reading it (it was good enough that I, cheapskate that I am, went ahead and pre-ordered the author's book).

However, I feel pretty conflicted about the whole thing. Here is the main crux.

Health, intelligence, happiness, success, character, values, appreciation – they all run in families.  But with a few exceptions, adoption and twin researchers find that nature overpowers nurture, especially in the long-run.  Kids aren’t like clay that parents mold for life; they’re more like flexible plastic that responds to pressure, but returns to its original shape when the pressure is released.

This is great news, right? It means that by and large I should be able to raise my kids to be happy and not have to make them miserable doing it. The downside? All the work and money and effort I've already put into doing just that (and will no doubt continue to do) are basically a waste because they are all basically going to end up how they are going to end up regardless of what I do. As an added bonus, my genetic attributes (I'm overweight, asthmatic, have started growing back hair, and I'm allergic to everything) will be sure to stick with them.

So what do I do? If there's anything I've learned from AA (or at least from the pop culture refereces I rely on for this sort of information since I don't belong to AA) it's that I should hope for "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." In these terms, and in the context of that blog (and hopefully the forthcoming book) what I really need to do is try to relax a little bit (which is not easy for me), spend more time enjoying my kids, and less time trying to turn them into responsible adults.

All of this will also be a mixed bag for my wife. She will be glad that this author may have gotten through to me and made me more relaxed and able to enjoy my children, but she'll also most likely be frustrated that I listened to him in a blog and not her when she's been telling me the same thing for months.