Championable | Love, parenting, politics.

I came home last night with the idea that I’d be breaking down about 3 dozen cardboard boxes, taking out an unearthly amount of trash, and then getting to the main task:  cutting Flor carpet tiles and laying them down in the basement.

Instead, I came home to find that Maggie had done the garbage duties, and I took my 11-year-old to see Iron Man.

Rock ON.

This movie had a tremendously talented cast.  I was SO psyched to see Robert Downey, Jr. on screen in a such big, big way. He was the perfect actor for this role, and he did a fantastic job.  And, holy shit… Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges backing up Robert Downey?  That ROCKS.

It was a really good movie, probably the best “superhero” film I’ve seen.

I’ll start the carpet tonight.

Love to all.  Even you, the woman in the full-body doily.

Curving through a 12-foot bowl.

Real skaters know how to fall.

Love to all. Even you, the early morning golfer who nearly hit our window.

Maggie and my oldest have been in Vermont since Friday, and are coming back tomorrow. I’m home with my two youngest. I haven’t had any time to post, and barely any time to read my fave blogs.

Single parents, how the hell you do it day after day after day? You’re AMAZING.

Love to all. Even you, the Mom in the pew who wouldn’t let her kid talk before Mass.

I found this picture last week. Haven’t seen it for a while. It was her first soccer game. And my first as head coach. She was in kindergarten. Her birthday, and my 1st sober anniversary two days later, were both about a week away.

Thank you, God.

Love to all. Even you, the woman who doesn’t want to be here.

I filter my oldest son’s internet access. I  have a whitelist-only  instant messaging system. He’s not allowed to IM with anyone I haven’t explicitly granted permission. The web content filtering is more granular, but it seems to be doing the trick.

A while back, we had a little issue with my son trying to go to websites that weren’t, shall we say, age-appropriate. Since then, I have made it absolutely clear that I am logging everything that happens on his machine. I told him that I had no plans to regularly check the logs, but that he should know that they existed.

I wasn’t lying. His machine logs all IM converations, blocked websites, accessed websites… but I really didn’t check the logs. Until Sunday.

I had actually gone to his machine to run a bunch of updates and add my work IM to his whitelist. And, curious dad that I am, I flipped through, quickly, the last couple of IM conversations he had with a girl.

The first sentence I saw was this: “My fucking cat has been stuck in a tree for the last hour.”

This kind of shocked me, because I had NEVER heard him use language before. Then again, when I was his age, I used different language with my friends than I did with my family. The fact that it was on an IM, with a young lady… this bothered me a bit. Enough that I flipped to the next IM.

This one freaked me out. He asked the same girl if “she had frenched [some guy] yet.”

Now, the minor reason this bugged me is because, two weeks ago, we had a conversation about what that really meant. So it was strange to suddenly see him talking about it like some expert.

The MAJOR reason this bugged me was because he was asking questions of a sexual nature to a girl, online.  This was an absolute no-no.
Putting aside the fact that if I saw someone IM that crap to my daughter, I’d ban that kid for life (and consider firebombing his house)…  my son needs to learn fast and early that things are NOT equal, and a young woman may not feel comfortable with that kind of talk and MORE importantly, she may not have the confidence to SAY she isn’t comfortable.  So you can’t do it.  Ever.

Maggie wound up having the conversation with him last night, because I was working late and she decided to roll it in with the fact that he got sent to the principal for throwing snowballs. We had planned to have it as a team. I’m going to follow up with him, though, because he needs to hear it, gently, from a guy’s persepective.

FYI, my son was absolutely mortified by the whole thing. He’s a good kid, and is clearly finding his way as a young man.

Parenting is crazy, man. Crazy.

Love to all. Even you, ticket salesman.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who should have had airbags installed on her shopping cart.

I’m writing this from the Drop-in Skate Park in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.  I just got my oldest and two of his friends all booked in and now they’re off doing their thing.  We’re going to be here for between 1.5 an 3 hours, until the “session” ends.  They allow groups of people in for 3 hour shifts.

I’m so far out of my element right now.  It’s not my world at all.

In writing that, I realize that I’m actually 100% wrong.  I’m TOTALLY in my element, I just dont’ always remember my PLACE.  Right now, I’m the old guy, the Dad, sitting in cold, incredibly loud industrial building, utterly useless except for being the Method of Transportation and the Provider of Currency.

Which is exactly how it should be.

I am the father of an 11-year old boy (among others), which means that my job, sometimes,  is to fade into the background.  I’m not very good at it, but I’m getting better.

Love to all.  Even you, the clueless Mom who was rude, too.

Maggie was working the 5:30am - 10am shift today, so it was just me and the three microunits, about to head out to my daughter’s 9am soccer practice.  Just before we were to leave, my oldest came running into the house, crying.  He’d been stung by 3 or 4 bees, including one in the face.

Ah, swelling.

After finding that we were out of Benadryl, I made some icepacks, snuck out to the car to move it away from the nest, came back to the house, got the kids, and took them all to Rite-Aid to get some Benadryl.  While I was there, I also bought two bee-killing death sprays.

Normally, I’m all about peace ‘n shit… but hurt my kids, and I become a Bee Killing Machine.  I’m sorry.  Especially when he didn’t step on the nest.  He was merely within 10 feet.  Those fuckers get no quarter from me.

Love to all.  Even you, the parking lot drag racer.

I spent over two hours working on my U10 girls’ practice. Last week we focused on “finishing.” Tomorrow we were going to focus on “spacing.” Today, I just found out that my girls have professional trainers. This means that I get to half-watch, half-participate, and my girls’ get a decent-at-best, generic soccer practice.

Bleah.

I really enjoy the challenge of planning a practice that’s fun, challenging, and can keep the attention of 12 8-year-old girls. This year, I’ve only gotten to run ONE practice out of five. Twice practice was canceled because of field availability, once we had trainers, and once I got to run practice.

Ah, well.

Anyway: my oldest wants to show me the backyard skate park he wants me to get him (um… um…), so I have to run.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who hit my car and wasn’t going to say anything until she realized I was standing right next to her.

Saturday, I practiced “finishing” drills with my Under-10 girls’ soccer team. “Finishing” is taking a shot on goal when you have one. Instead of pausing, hesitating, backing up, etc., you just shoot. on. goal.

My girls have had some problems with this.

So. For 90 minutes on Saturday, we played several different games with one thing in common. Shoot when you can, and when you do, follow it up.

On Sunday, we played against a pretty solid team, coached in part by my old assistant coach. Last year, my team was fully defeated: we lost every game. The division coordinator promised me a more balanced team this year, since my team last year ranked, on paper, dead last (before the season started, that is). In AYSO, teams are supposed to be balanced. Not mine, though.

Normally, I don’t coach to win. And even in this game, I didn’t put my best line on the front when things got tight in the end… but I have to admit: I wanted to win really, really badly. My old assistant coach, a nice guy outside of soccer, spent the entire game yelling at HIS daughter and HIS daughter only. He didn’t coach anyone else on the team. Very, very frustrating.

My girls? They FINISHED. They followed up their shots, they ran after their kicks. My daughter, the best thinker on the team (but not the best athlete), put herself in position to score, and nearly did.

Sure, there were many moments of “lost in space” and “everybody run to the same side of the field,” but DAMN if there wasn’t SO much improvement that parents actually came up to me afterwards and said “Wow! I guess practice works!”

We won 4-3. Rock it.

Up next: clearing.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who just stopped by my office, making little-to-no sense at all.