Portrait of a Stay-At-Home Mom's Uniform

Disclaimer: I have the highest respect for stay-at-home moms or SAHMs (as I will refer to them now.) Besides 'Deadliest Catch' crab fisherman and Bachelor contestant screener, they have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Their job is 24/7 except for the occasional 'girls night out' and even then, they get 4-5 calls from their inept husbands asking where to find the diapers or the third child. So if you are a SAHM please don't take offense to this blog but know that I understand the high demands of this job keep you from the luxuries of life like showering and brushing your teeth everyday. And I also want to give a shout out to my wife who is able to put herself out there. She is an amazing wife and mother and I love her dearly especially for allowing this picture and blog.



1. Disheveled Hair - The standard hair style of the stay-at-home mom is the loose, greasy pony tail with wispies in the front and half of it falling out. The loose ponytail is the best hair style to put up quick because one kid is punching the other while the third is walking around with the toilet plunger. Its also the best style used to hide the roots, split-ends and inevitable grey hair that you know is coming too soon.

2. Glasses - Because you ain't got no time for contacts. What is easier: moving your glasses from the top of your head to your eyes or searching for an hour through a laundry basket of random toys for a contact because your 3 year old hit you in the face with a pillow knocking it out.

3. The Obligatory Thumbs Up - Because when all is going wrong, and it will go wrong, you must still put on the happy face and thumbs up to show that all is still OK. Because if you lose it, the children will lose it more. And you must not show weakness. They can smell weakness and devour it.

4. The Baggy, Black Sweatshirt - One of the 3 standards of every SAHM's uniform. It must be baggy because no mom wants to wear something tight or uncomfortable. When the child grabs onto the baggy sweatshirt, you need the ability to slip it off and run away before they even know you are gone. And it must be black to hide all the stains you will acquire during the day. (not 'might' acquire but 'will' acquire.) If you wore a white sweatshirt you would look like a messy painter or bad chef, more than a mom. (if you look close enough at the picture, you will see the stains.)




5. The Baggy, Black Stretch Pants - The 2nd standard of the SAHM uniform. Baggy and black for all of the same reasons for the sweatshirt. Another reason is that you can wear them for multiple days in a row before smell or guilt causes you to wash them. They are the most versatile item in a SAHM's wardrobe because you can sleep in them, wake up, keep them on through church, wear them to the gym, take a shower and put them back on to lounge in them at home, go out with the girls at night and then go back to bed with them on, ready to go for the next day. My wife informed me that she has officially lost count of when these were last washed.

6. Socks - unknown of when last changed but surprisingly matching. The typical sock pair of the SAHM needs to be one long, white tube sock and one yellow anklet with holes in the toes.

7. Dog at the feet - If it is not a child, there is always a dog at your feet. They especially like to be around your feet in the kitchen when you are carrying a heavy pot of boiling water or a giant serving platter full of 'time-consuming' appetizers for that dinner party your husband signed you up for bringing appetizers but forgot to mention until that day. And yet the dog is never around when you are 15 minutes late to said dinner party and you need to let them out before you go.

8. Attached child at the hip (not shown) - The 3rd standard of every SAHM's uniform. Every mom has at least one child touching them at all times. Either carrying the baby around cause its easier to carry than to repeatedly pull them off the kitchen table or the toddlers who want something to eat for breakfast, who could easily get cereal for themselves but once they start looking, they grab hot dogs or chips and you think, "Well, hot dogs are protein and from a pig just like bacon and chips were once potatoes and they make hash browns out of potatoes so hot dogs and chips sounds like a great breakfast and I want to avoid the fight and whining that would ensue once I take it away and its only 8:00 and I have been up for 3 hours already because the 3 year old needed help in the bathroom at 5 in the morning and refused to go back to sleep and was too loud so he woke up the other 2 kids, so now my day begins at 5:00 a.m. and my husband isn't even awake yet who starts work at 9:00 so now I will be pulling a double shift today when he gets home from work at 6 and yet I will still have to do the bedtime routine because 'He will be tired from a long day at work' and then after all the kids are down and it is finally 'my time'..... he wants sex. So hot dogs and chips for breakfast are just fine by me."

So if you are out in public and you see a SAHM, please do not judge.  You now know the reason for the black sweat suit combo, frizzy hair, and screaming child.  Tell her "thank you for all you do."  They are the most under-appreciated employee out there.  And she probably wouldn't mind the adult interaction either.  A conversation not about Dora, poop, hunger pains, sybling unfairness, or general whining would be a welcome treat to any SAHM.

Thank you stay-at-home moms. Wear what ever you want,
The Joyful and Tired Dad.

Allen Family Quiz: Wedding Edition

Please respond to the questions who you think performed the actions at Saturday's wedding using the following answer key:
A: Zachary
B: Drew
C: Nate
D: All of the above
E: None of the above

1): Didn't realize it was a wedding until 15 minutes into the ceremony because he was to busy trying to sit by his cousins to look up

2): During the wedding, asked, "How old is Jesus?" And when he received the answer of "around 2000 years old", then responded, "That's a lot of Christmases!"

3): During the quiet wedding processional, when finally completing the children's maze on the bulletin shouted, "Booyah!"

4): Did not last 5 minutes into the ceremony until had to be taken into the parlor.

5): Lasted the whole ceremony until the last 10 minutes when the bride and groom were releasing rows, saw his grandpa 2 rows up and decided to crawl under the pews but was restrained, hanging by his one arm by his embarrassed father causing him to scream in frustration.

6): Fell asleep on the way to the reception.

7): Walked around during cocktail hour stealing meatballs off other people's plates and drinking other people's coke when they weren't looking.

8): Sat quietly at the table waiting patiently as the wedding party came in, had an engaging conversation with the other people at our table, impressing them with their manners and good behavior, and making their parents so proud of their little angels.

9): Climbed a chair to climb onto a table to stand on said table to grab a handful of mints and shove them in their mouth before mom could reach him.

10): Repeatedly refilled their own glass with self-serve Sprite equaling around 5 glasses before stopped by his all-too trusting father with a self serve Sprite station.

11): Screamed in his highchair so all in a 1000 foot radius could hear until let down to then run around screaming for all to see and hear in a 1000 foot radius.

12): When dinner came, decided to forgo the silverware and use both hands to shovel in the buttered noodles, again impressing the fellow table guests.

13): At dinner, realized that slapping your brothers is funny.

14): When dancing began, never left the dance floor.

15:) Favorite dance move was sliding across the dance floor like sliding into home plate.

16:) Favorite dance move was the crotch punch and the butt hole poke.

17): When dancing began, used the distraction to get into tree lights, DJ's disco lights, climb under tables, steal candy off other people's tables, punch his Uncle in the butt, and sometimes dance.

18): Climbed under a table with his cousin almost knocking over an entire tray full of plates, missing it by 2 inches, but still giving his dad a heart attack.

19): When the candy table was revealed, did not touch a single piece of candy because candy is bad for you and only chose to eat healthy food like okra and bran.

20): As the night continued on into the night and the kids started getting tired, their fatigue showed in each boy by:
1): revving up and becoming more hyper
2): started screaming more
3): becoming more romantic

21): Taken to the ladies room and when told not to touch the feminine hygiene trash can with his hands, rubbed his head on it.

22): Stayed up 4 hours past their bed time and still woke up at 7 in the morning.







Answer key:
1 - A
2 - A
3 - B
4 - C
5 - B
6 - C
7 - B
8 - E
9 - B
10 - B
11 - C
12 - B
13 - C
14 - D
15 - A
16 - B or C
17 - B
18 - B
19 - E
20 - 1: B 2: C 3: A (he kept hugging and laying on his cousin)
21 - B
22 - D

Thank you for taking the Allen Family Quiz: Wedding Edition. If you scored above 90%, you get an A and you get to take them to the next wedding. Congratulations!

The Joyful and Tired Dad

Like Hansel and Gretel without the Cannibalism

Do you have a relative, most likely a grandma, whose house you love to go visit because there are tons and tons of food and candy and sweets readily available to gorge yourself on? Well that is my parent's house. If you were to look into my mom's pantry at any given moment you would find at least: 8 boxes of different cereal, 5 types of chocolate candy bars, 7 bags of chips, and 3-4 store bought cookie packages. And in the freezer/fridge: 10 varieties of pop, refridgerated candy bars, frozen pizza, 5 bags of frozen homemade cookies, ice cream, chocolate and caramel fudge sauce, and some kind of homemade cake or pie. But these are not generic food products like Yammy Cola or Bob's funtime cookies. We are talking Doritos, Oreos, Mountain Dew, Fritos, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Heath bars, M&Ms, etc. My mom is very brand loyal. Except when it comes to ice cream. You would think she would have Ben and Jerrys or Homemade or even Breyers. But its always Kroger Brand 'Private Selection' ice cream. My mom is the true modern day Old Woman from the Hansel and Gretel story without the need to eat children and there were too many code violations when using gingerbread rather than drywall. But I digress.

You know this if you have a mom or grandma with this kind of spread in their house, but everytime we go over there, after saying hello, everyone goes into the kitchen and opens the pantry or fridge. And no one is immune to it. I have seen everyone of my syblings and their spouses and their children do it when coming to my parent's house. But the thing is, you go even if you are not hungry. We went over there today and as soon as we walked in the house, my wife and I both unaware went to the pantry and started pulling stuff out to eat. It was 10:30 and I ate breakfast at 9:30. I wasn't hungry but it doesn't matter. Its the "Pull of the Pantry." Like some kind of unnatural tractor beam that sucks you in and makes you gorge yourself on food you dont even want but you eat because its there. I walked in today (remember 1 hour after breakfast) and I was eating Doritos, chocolate wafer cookies, Mountain Dew, and homemade Rolo cookies. I stopped and asked myself 'why am I eating when I am not hungry?' to which my stomach replied, "well you just had a dorito chip so lets finish with something sweet and we will be finished." So I ate a cookie. But the Dortio bag was still out so I had another chip. Then again my stomach reminded me I needed to finish with something sweet, so another cookie later I was looking for more doritos to keep up this pattern. You would think my mind would be screaming at me to stop or suffer the repercussions but while my mouth was busy chewing and my stomach was busying growing, my mind was thinking, "so lunch is in an hour, what are we going to have for desert?" Its a sickness. And after the binge-fest, while talking with my wife I come to a stunning realization: I grew up in this house, why am I not 500 pounds? Its not like we didnt have all this food growing up. I guess when its always around you can pace yourself but when you come to visit and its not what you are used to at your own house, it turns into an 'all you can eat' contest with yourself. And let me tell you, you always win...or lose, depending what the scale says after a visit.

But you can always justify indulging in the guilt-inducing smorgasborg of crap by one statement that has been used to justify binge eating by cruise goers for years: "Hey, its vacation!"

The Joyful and Tired Dad

The Trip that Never Was

We planned to go on a trip to Cincinnati to visit my brother's family and attend my nephew's birthday party. But something I have learned as a parent is that "we planned" and "we did" are two totally different statements and too many things can happen to prevent the "we planned" from becoming a "we did." Needless to say, I am now writing this blog and not enjoying birthday cake at this moment. So let me tell you how "the trip that never was" happened.

I guess it all started with an apple.

I thankfully went to work this Saturday morning. A lot of you may be saying, "why were you thankful to work, its a Saturday?" But then there are the parents out there saying, "you lucky dog, you got away from the children. How can I work on Saturday? Is McDonalds looking for weekend shifts?" While at work, I get the dreaded '3 calls in a row.' The '3 calls in a row' means 1 of 3 things: blood, puke, or nervous breakdown ('maternal' nervous breakdown.) I get a chance to return the calls and my wife tells me a story that Nate, the 22 month old, was walking around eating an apple. Now we have a hole in our upstairs wall in the shape of my wife's size 6 shoe which is a result from a previous '3 calls in a row' moment. But it was not for the reason of blood or puke. Draw your own conclusions; it was just one of those days. Anyway, the hole has been there for 2 years and it is out of the way so I have not gotten around to fixing it because its going to take more than a little putty on the wall. So Lindsey was upstairs and hears Nate saying "Apple? Apple?" She turns around and Nate is standing with his arm down the hole asking for her to get his apple he has now dropped down the hole and could have probably fallen 1 whole story to within our staircase in the wall. Needless to say, our house will soon have the rich aroma of fresh apples like an aromatic Glade Plug-in which will eventually then turn into the putrid smell of rotting apple and mold exuding from behind our walls.

On the way home from work, I stop and pick up my car from the repair shop. It had a rattling sound in the engine which turned out to be a loose alternator bolt which was fixed (important for later.) The plan was to leave for Cincinnati as soon as I got home so the 2 younger boys could take their naps in the car. And since my car was fixed, we thought we would save some money on gas and load the 3 car seats into my Honda Civic instead of the minivan to take the 2 hour car trip. I barely fit the seats all into the backseat, but I did it. We are looking to save money anywhere we can including on food. So for lunch, Lindsey had made perogies for me and the kids but forgot I was picking up my car. An hour later when I got home, the perogies had turned into a rubber-coated pasta filled with a cold gelatinous mass that used to be spinach and feta cheese. I literally had to use a steak knife to cut into them cause a fork couldn't do it. Of course the kids hated them so they had tortilla wraps with turkey and Drew had a peanut butter tortilla roll-up. I ask for some tortillas to make a quesadilla but she used the last one on the kids. Well they didn't finish their roll-ups, and because there was no other food in the house, I took their half-eaten roll-ups, ate the half-eaten slices of turkey, and put cheese on the half-eaten tortilla shells. And as I am scraping the peanut butter off of Drew's, I think to myself, "We are by no means poor. Why am I recycling tortilla shells?" So my lunch is made up of rubber perogies and half-eaten, recycled, peanut butter tasting quesadillas. On the island in our kitchen is the last slice of turkey I am thinking for one of our kids since they were still hungry. But while I am thinking this, Lindsey comes over, picks it up and feeds it to the dog! While choking down perogies I yell, "Why is the dog eating better than I am?" To which my wife stands there and pees herself laughing at me. And at the same time, Drew comes up to inform me Joey, our puppy, just pooped behind the couch. Then Zachary tells us he is hungry, so Lindsey decides it would be a good idea to get McDonalds for the kids on the way out of town, to which I dump the remaining rubber lunch in the garbage.

So we all load up the civic, 3 kids in the back and luggage in the trunk, and leave for Cincinnati. We stop at McDonalds and my wife gets out to retrieve her purse from the trunk. I know the trunk latch tends to not always connect so it takes some slamming of the trunk to close, which she tries but it doesn't close. I give the kids the 20 piece mcnugget bag and I go out to close the trunk. But it wont close. I started slamming and slamming and slamming. But it will not latch. So I try more slamming, while Drew and Nate start banging on the windows to imitate the slamming trunk. Now I am just slamming it in anger when a random stranger comes over to try his luck. But it still wont close. So we drive to a nearby fire station to get duct tape to build up the latch to try to get it to connect. But no luck there, so the fireman graciously duct tapes my trunk closed. And while this is happening, the 6 and 3 year old have an embarrassing screaming match with one another in front of the fireman because the boys are literally 6 inches apart from one another. I get back in the car frustrated at the whole situation and ready for my chicken mcnuggets to find out that my 3 wonderful children left me 3 nuggests out of the 20 piece. I am surprised though that my wife didn't save some, not for me but for the dog. So we begin to drive home to figure out this trunk thing when after some debate, we decide the duct tape will hold so lets just keep going. Well we make it another 5 miles down the road and guess what...the rattling that was fixed this morning is back again! And it is worse than before. When I call the auto repair shop, they state that they are closing in the next 10 minutes and tell me to bring it in on Monday. Knowing we wont make it down to Cincinnati safely, we turn around again and head home for the last time. At this point, we are 10 minutes from home and look in the backseat to see all 3 children asleep. I don't know about you but our children do not transition well from the car to their beds. A 15-20 minute car nap typically replaces the usual 2 hour bed nap leaving the children exhausted, frustrated and in bad moods for the rest of the day which causes the parents to be exhausted, frustrated and in worse moods. So at seeing our 3 little sleeping angels knowing that in 10 minutes when we get home they will be 3 screaming devils, I look to my wife and say, "I hate this day. I really do." We get home and carry the 2 younger ones up to their beds to which they immediately wake up and both start crying. Lindsey grabs Zachary to take to a friends house, but we all know she is escaping, and I am left with the 2 remaining screaming banshees. But by God's grace they both fall asleep again in 5 minutes with little parental interaction. Because if not, I might have still made the trip, alone.

And side note, tonight Joey, our puppy, decided to leave a giant pee spot at the top of our stairs literally 5 minutes after spending 30 minutes outside, which I walked through twice.

So that was our trip that never was. We spent 2 hours in the car, drove 15 miles and ended where we began...without cake.

So next time you "plan" a trip, think to yourself, "Can't they just come here?"

The Joyful and Tired Dad

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Part 2 - a pictorial

"We need a new puppy. It would be the best thing for this family right now." "Our current dog needs a companion, someone to play with to keep her company." "There is no greater gift you can give a child than a puppy to grow up with." All of these statements were said to talk Daddy into 10-12 year commitment of chewed up clothes, furniture, and fingers, brown and yellow stained carpet, late night/early morning barking sessions, 3 in the morning potty breaks, $300 vet bills, and a fortune spent on Resolve carpet cleaner; otherwise known as ... a puppy. His name is Joey, a Shipoo but who I have lovingly nicknamed "Suck Puppy." Because he may be half shitzhu and half poodle but he is all 'Suck.' But instead of me describing it to you I thought I would present a pictorial for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!



Don't let the looks fool you (like it did us), this is what he is capable of:























I am just glad he's cute,
The Joyful and Tired Dad


And coming soon: It seemed like a good idea at the time: Part 3 - The Children

So There is a Downside to 6 Pounds of Candy?

So as you know from my last post, our nephews have been staying with us ages 7 and 9. We have been doing many fun things with them they normally don’t get to do and actually our kids don’t get to do either. Like tent camping in our backyard, vacation bible school in the mornings, watching Netflix movies, and having ice cream for dinner. That was a fun night. Side story: We went to Menchies, which is a self-serve soft serve ice cream joint where you can pick from 12 different flavors then choose from 50 different toppings to add. So my oldest nephew, Ben went ballistic in there. For one, it was ice cream for dinner so that is all we had. No protein, no veggies, no bread, only candy, ice cream and hot fudge sauce. So anyway, Ben loaded his bowl with about 20 ounces of ice cream and then topped it with Butterfinger, snickers, white chocolate chips, Oreos, and then my favorites, gummy worms and sour patch kids. So he covered the 4 basic food groups: ice cream, chocolate, cookies, and sour fruit flavored gummies. It was a balanced dinner. Lindsey tried a bite and almost threw up. But he loved it and ate the whole thing. So needless to say it was a week of sugar-filled outings. Which brings me to the final story of the week.

We decided to take them to see the new Smurfs movie at the theater. Since we all wanted to watch the movie instead of chasing around a 20 month old, we got a babysitter for Nate. So we took the 4 oldest boys, Ben (9), Will (7), Zachary (6) and Drew (3). Rather than taking out a second mortgage on our house to pay for movie theater candy we decided to take them to Giant Eagle to pick up some store bought candy. But not just any store bought candy….bulk candy. We had passed the bulk candy aisle earlier in the week and you must have thought we walked past an aisle containing the Ten Commandments, the Holy Grail, and Jesus himself stocking the aisles, the way my nephews looked at the bulk candy. They asked “Is that all candy? Are you serious?” So on movie day, we take them to this bulk candy aisle from heaven, give them each a bag and tell them they have 5 minutes to fill it up and then we are leaving. It was like a scene from Supermarket Sweep. They were grabbing handfuls of this and handfuls of that. Whatever they could grab and move on to the next thing. Everyone was grabbing whatever they could except for Zachary who would take 2 pieces here and 2 pieces there, not wanting to overdo it. As a parent I want to take pride in his humbleness and restraint, but as an American I want to say “Are you crazy? Grab as much as you can. Overindulge. It’s our way. It’s the American way.” We eventually have to tell him to put a little more in his bag because he literally had 4 pieces of candy. Because once that was gone then I would be buying movie theater candy and the Senate would need to vote to raise my debt limit too. So at the end of the shopping spree, we had 6 bags of candy and funny thing was Drew the smallest of them all, had the biggest bag. So I take the candy to be weighed and check out and grand total was 6 pounds of candy for 6 people, 4 of them under 10 years old. What could go wrong?

We go to the theater and put all the candy in Lindsey’s purse, only realizing after the fact that we should have brought a small carry-on bag with roller wheels on it to hold all the candy. So with a strained back and a determined mind to save money, Lindsey hauls the duffel bag, I mean purse into the theater. We get our seats and begin watching the movie with no incident. Everyone has their bag and everyone is happy. Well Lindsey brought the sugary Kool Aid juice drinks to the theater for our drinks. Why not water? I was wondering the same thing too but what could go wrong with a little more sugar? You see where this is going? Yeah but which one? Well half way through the movie, Lindsey who is sitting by Drew cuts him off from his bag. He had been gorging himself on whatever he could find in his bag of treats. But this also made him thirsty. So I come to find out later that in the course of 1 hour she had given him 3 juice drinks, on top of the massive amounts of candy. Well he starts burping. And burping. So Lindsey tells him, “Stop burping or you are going to throw….” Splash!!! That’s all I hear at the other end of the row. I look down and she is doing what every great parent does in a crisis: send them to the other parent. So she is holding up his blanket to his mouth while he is continuing to throw up black, juicy chocolaty, gummy puke and Ben who was on the other side of him is high tailing it out of there toward me, looking back and saying “Drew, quit throwing up on me!” He gets to me crying and I grab the back of his shirt (the only part not covered in puke) and usher him out to the lobby. Now please note, this was during the climax of the movie, Gargamel was about to get his, and no one I repeat, NO ONE made a move when a 3 year old was puking his guts out behind and beside them. They all sat there and watched the movie! Even the family of three that Drew and I had to squeeze past at the end of our aisle even blinked an eye away from the screen to notice the boys with the projectile vomit! I am sorry, but I could be watching Harry battle Voldemort for the final time and I will flip backward over my seat if I see a puking child coming at me in real life. Anyway, I take Drew to the bathroom and clean him up. The shirt is a lost cause so I pitch it in the garbage and I second guess doing the same to the pants but like a good parent I don’t think I put him in underwear today so I can’t bring a naked child out of the bathroom to our car. But I can bring a shirtless one. While I am cleaning up, the other boys show up at the bathroom to shower off from the puke bath. Lindsey gets a large garbage bag from the manager and apologizes for our irresponsibility and puts his blanket in the bag. During this whole cleanup process, Will turns to Lindsey and asks, “So are we going back in the movie to watch the end?” To which she replies, “No buddy. I hope we never see those people in there again.” The humor was lost on him but the truth of it made me laugh. To which I replied, “That was Smurfin’ gross. So you’re telling me there is a downside to 6 pounds of candy.” And she says, “Fa la la la la la…blaaaaauuuuu (vomit noise).”
So it was too bad we missed the end of the movie but in retrospect, it was those around us that lost the most. The first half of the movie was spent having their chairs kicked by 4 super hyper sugar infused children and the second half smelling the stomach contents of a super hyper sugar infused child. So we all learned a valuable lesson. Lindsey learned the sugar limits of a 3 year old and that water is always better than juice. Drew learned that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Zachary and Will learned that picking your feet up avoids changing your shoes and socks later. Ben learned that he the best way to avoid projectile vomit is to not stand in front of it. And I learned the next time I want to save money; we will go to the dollar theater.

Hoping you know your limits because we now know Drew’s,
The Joyful and Tired Dad

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Have you ever had this great idea for an activity or outing with your kids that you think is the best idea and everyone would have so much fun, including you. But when the activity takes place, it turns out to be the most horrible idea, you immediately regret your decision, and you think to yourself, “what in the world was I thinking?!?” Well when this happens, ask yourself this: What was the situation when this seemingly wonderful idea came to me? I’ll give you a firsthand example of what I mean.

This week we have had our 2 nephews stay with us for a fun summer vacation for them and for our kids as well. They are 9 and 7 years old…boys. So in our house this week are 5 boys ages 9,7,6,3, and 1. Well there is one decision that might have seemed like a good idea at the time but I guarantee was made under controlled circumstances, by my wife. Another decision that was made this week was to set up our tent in the backward and have the older boys sleep outside for a night; also an idea from my wife. But this decision was also made in a controlled environment during a controlled time period. What I mean by this is that this decision was made after dinner, kids in bed, in the house while sitting on the couch in our living room. So in other words: our bellies were full, we were well rested, the kids were not annoying us or super hyper but asleep, and we were on comfortable furniture in the air conditioning. So pretty much the exact opposite of camping outside in a tent. Of course, tent camping with the children sounds like a great idea at the time. My suggestion is this: Before making a decision like tent camping, put yourself as close as you can in that situation and then consider if it is a good idea. Like for tent camping, lock yourself in a sauna, line the floor with rocks, wrap yourself in a sleeping bag, give 3 boys under ten 2 pounds of sugar each, put them on top of you and then turn out the lights. Now make the decision if tent camping is a good idea.

Here is the story:
We plan to set up the tent and camp outside on Wednesday night, so in the afternoon we all go outside to set up the tent.


The first inclination that this might not be the best idea is that while we set up the tent, the temperature reaches 95 degrees outside. And quick correction, I said we, I meant me. Because halfway through putting the poles into place, the boys thought it was too hot so they went inside.


Also, I haven’t mowed the grass in 2 weeks due to the heat of the day and the day before, the boys played outside in the water tearing up the grass with the slip and slide and soaking the grass making it un-mowable. After the tent is set up, our plan is to rent a movie and watch it in the tent. But because it was so hot outside, we decide to watch it inside in the air conditioning. So we watch Rango and the kids love it.


At this point it is 8:00 and time for bed for the 2 younger boys. It was at this point when my wife thinks, “Let’s keep this party going and have the older boys sleep outside tonight. And not only that, lets rent another movie for them to watch. And not only that, you get to watch the movie and sleep outside with them too since I have to stay in the house with the little kids.” So she goes out to rent movie #2 and I gather all the sleeping bags to take outside.


I take our computer outside to watch the movie in the tent. So the 3 boys and I load into the tent and turn the movie on. At this point it is 9:15. I am thinking “ok, I know it’s late but that means we could be asleep by the end of the movie at 11:15.” But at 9:45 I call Lindsey from the tent to inform her that we have been watching previews for the last half an hour! You may be asking, “Why didn’t you skip them?” Fact is I tried and the computer messed up and we had to start them over again, so therefore we had to watch them through, all 30 minutes of them. So now, it will be midnight when the movie is over and we can go to sleep. While the movie plays, I go inside to get drinks and stay hydrated because the tent is reaching 3 digit temperatures. And not only that but when it became too dark to see outside, our dog decided to poop in the yard somewhere, and it was now wafting into the tent and the poop stench began to mix with the sweaty boy smell. When inside, I inform my wife of the “fun” we are having to which she begins to laugh and pee her pants at my misery. So what drinks did I get? Why sugar-loaded juice drinks of course. Why not at 10:30 at night? I thought it would go well with the cookies and popcorn they had during their first movie.


The movie ended around 11:30 (thanks Yogi Bear for being short) and the boys were now to giddy and sugar high to sleep. So let the arm fart contest commence! I learned some valuable arm fart techniques from my 7 year old nephew Will, that it only works if your arm pit is real sweaty in which they all were, so it was quite a concert at 11:30 at night. So I make the declaration at 11:45: “if you are all still awake at midnight, we are going inside to sleep.” Within 5 minutes, they were all sleeping…except me. Because I didn’t mow the grass, my space in the tent had random grass clumps sporadically placed around my body so nowhere I moved was comfortable. Not to mention the fact, that I did not have a sleeping bag but a small comforter. I highly recommend using a comforter to wrap yourself in when it is 90+ degrees outside. I finally fell to sleep out of pure exhaustion at 12:45 no matter what I was sleeping on. And the next day, wouldn’t you know it everyone woke up at 6:15 in the morning with the morning light. Now I know they can all have careers as famers when they get older because they are on the same sleep schedule.

So next time you have some grandiose plan like tent camping with your children in the dead of summer “for the memories” try to make yourself as uncomfortable as possible like sleeping on a bed of nails in a giant oven, and then reconsider your “good idea.” Or afterward you might be saying “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Now I’m off to plan some “good ideas” for my wife,
The Joyful and Tired Dad