My seven-year-old daughter left her notepad on the coffee table. I was blown away by the things that were written on the first page.
Love is love. You can never break.
Friends are friends are friends.
A circle is round – it has no end.
Forever is forever. That’s why.
Next stop… open mic night.
Well, 2011 has just about seen its last day, and I must admit, I have enjoyed its company.
This year brought many positive changes: I got married,
changed careers and my wife found a great job at a great school. A family court related issue came to a positive conclusion. My new family welcomed the birth of a baby boy, thereby doubling my niece/nephew roster. And I have had many great PR ‘wins’ in my new career.
This year also brought a few bumps in the road: My mom and her husband moved to Arkansas, and I received word that my sister will be moving to Atlanta. The moves will lower my in-state immediate family count to point-five (my dad spends 50% of his time in Milwaukee and 50% in Miami). But the moves also give us two more excuses to travel.
Two thousand eleven was fantastic. My only worry is that 2012 won’t be able to compare. (I’ll do my best to make sure that it does.)
Thanks for visiting. Merry Christmas.
Until now, I have never stuck with growing a beard past the “scruffy + 2 days” stage. I’m not sure why – my nickname is Fuzz and I’m half Croatian – growing hair is seemingly what I do best. A large portion of the other half of me, however, is Irish, so even though I have blondish/brownish hair, my face turns red like a Leprechaun whenever my beard gets longer than about an 1/8 inch.
Recently, however, the beard-growing planets aligned. The air turned cooler and the Brewers made it to the playoffs. Fate brought my beard and me together.
My wife hates it.
The other
day, she asked, “When are you going to shave off your beard?” My answer was, naturally, “Don’t taunt the beard. The beard has no timeline.” Her response, “Well, are you going to at least shave it off before church?” to which I responded, “Jesus has a beard. When he shaves his, I’ll shave mine.”
Yesterday, she pondered, “I hope the Brewers lose. Maybe then you’ll shave off your beard.” Dems fightin’ words.
I have been telling her that if she really wants me to shave it off, I will, but I will shave it ALL off. (I usually have a goatee.) The response to that is usually a shudder.
So…for now…the beard stays. For how long, I don’t know, I just hope it doesn’t mysteriously get removed in my sleep.
Let this post mark a turning point in my life. The point where you can officially say, “yeah, Fuzz, you’re getting old.”
Recently, I’ve realized that no kids ever say, “Mr.” or “Mrs.” anymore. Kids simply refer to their elders by their first names. I think it’s lazy and disrespectful, but I am also guilty of furthering the problem.
My daughter calls her step grandparents by their first names. I think she should at least say “Grandpa (or) Grandpa _first_name_” for my step parents. And for my wife’s parents, I think she should call them “Mr. (or) Mrs. _last_name_.” However, I let it slide until now, so she’s had seven years to get used to saying it the wrong way.
What do you think?
Am I nuts? Is it alright to let kids refer to adults by their first names? If not, should I attempt to change the way my daughter refers to her elders?
The other day, while I was cursing at physics or some other phenomenon that I can’t change, my daughter looked at me and said, “it’s not the end of the world, Daddy.” I
furrowed my brow for a second, but I couldn’t help but laughing. She made my day.
Of course, when she says things like that to me at age 10, I’ll probably flip my lid.