Dad The Monster Killer
If you have little ones, you will most likely have the opportunity to defend them from the great beasts of the imagination.
Its a personal challenge I live for.
Simon is one of the most creative 3 years olds I have ever met. His 10 siblings would agree. He also has an imagination second to none. I’m just waiting to convince Kathi to let me do a string of YouTube videos on the kid, just for laughs.
His biggest challenge: monsters.
Here’s some tips that has proven to be the best solution for my son and his sisters when they feel afraid of the big bad beasts.
- Smile as you talk to them. Kids react to the degree you do. Smile so they know this is fun and they should not worry.
- Tell them they are in charge and they need to warn the creatures that dad now knows they are in the house.
- Tell them monsters are afraid of you, because you hunt them, catch them…and eat them. This is key.
- Have a BBQ and let the kids eat some monster. Chicken works well as the cheek and hindquarters, seasoned steak is great for the arms and legs. Make a big deal about eating the meat with the kids and smile big when you tell them THIS is why monsters fear you.
Trust me on this. We don’t have monster problems at my house anymore. We do, however, have some great BBQ’s.
Read MoreSmart-Mouth.
Ah, youth.
I was young once. Not that I’m crippled and decaying, but I certainly move slower than I did a decade ago. I say that because as fast as my mind still races, my body tells it to get stuffed. Which it does, apparently.
Getting ready for an activity, my daughters and I labored intensely to create the comic book decorations for a dance at our church. I teach a young boys class and one of the little tikes came strutting up as I was cutting out one of my detailed onomatopoeia works of art.
“Brother Jaime, are you going to the dance?” he asked.
“Yes,” I responded, “I’ll be there.”
“You gonna come in a costume?”
“Sure am.” I smirked.
“What will you be?”
I winked at him and smiled, “It’s a surprise.”
“Oh,” he said with a straight face, “Probably a hungry-hungry-hippo, huh.”
Ah, youth.
You take them everywhere…but they always find their way home.
Read MoreGames Children Play
Our kids are spoiled. Look at all the toys, games, electronic devices and media saturated environments they are involved in? Most youth nowadays could probably break down a computer and design software if they were motivated, but can’t figure out how to have a verbal conversation with their own parents in a social setting that doesn’t allow texting.
Do you remember our lives as youth?
Hell, if I was lucky, I got to spend 20 minutes trying the cutting edge game called PONG!
I had tinker toys, leg-gos and ever-cool lincoln logs. It’s when the best football games were the ones you played live, with friends, and come home with the trophy scars of war. You remember those days, don’t you? The adults wanted you to play touch football or flag football, but as soon as the adults turned their heads long enough or left the field, the rules went out the window! Yeeeeeaaah baby!! Knees, elbows and bloody lips were the call of the day as the pig skin rolled across the ground and you dove at it to save the day.
Now the only bloody lips are from the fights of who gets the playstation controller.
What happened to creative games? Creative game play?? Using your brain to come of of new, fun ways to spend time!?
So many of us are wasting our time on things of no consequence. Crap, even business men play games of doing business, thinking it’s some kind of achievement to create a business in the realm of ‘moneyville’ while their work suffers in real life [or they could become ever more productive].
I have a lot of find memories from when I was a child and the games I played.
…ok, they were actually games other kids played on me.
…ok, they aren’t really fond memories.
…ok, they sucked actually, but I survived.
Bugger this. I’m gonna go play Mafia Wars.
Read MoreDon’t Squirt Your Local Police.
I made sure mom and dad would never notice what I took from the garage. After all, it would take all the fun out of your success in deploying your diabolical plan, only to come home to a belt strap on your butt, right?
I took a little gasoline from the lawnmower, some paint thinner, an egg I had been baking in the ground out back for a month or so and some of moms wood stain. Mixed it up in a soup can. I told Christian what I planned to do with my ‘melt-in-a-bottle’ creation and being the sweet little demon he was, he eagerly joined right in.
Placing the finished concoction into the water bottle of my cool, plastic covered motorcycle bike, we road away to see if cop cars were indeed invulnerable to creative nine year olds.
We found a good corner in our neighborhood, but far enough away so mom and dad wouldn’t stumble upon us if they drove their regular route. The location had enough trees and bushed for me to hide behind and move about without being easily detected. I stashed my bike around the corner within the trees and made sure it was completely invisible. I planted the demon I called my brother on his skateboard just to the right of the corner street sign, which forced any passerby to pull over against the bushes, where I would be hiding. If it went as planned, I could cover the side of a car and get away without notice.
We were in place, armed, and ready for action.
It was a little wait, but as soon as we saw a patrolman, Christian did his thing. What a master of BS emotions he was, tears flowed like rivers down the small cheeks that looked so sweet you got cavities just looking at the little crapper. The cop noticed him as he sank his face into his hands and sobbed, his little frame delicately centered on his massive skateboard, shuddering in despair.
The cop pulled into place, perfectly in front of the bushes where I was hiding and rolled down his window.
“What’s the matter fella?” the cop said.
“I just moved here and I’m lost,” cried Christian, fussing loudly. “Do you know where I live?”
Before the cop responded I went to work, uncapping my water bottle and squirting my eye watering liquid/gel all along the side of his car, completely covering the police insignia’s.
The two talked for a couple minutes, Christian staying on his board, darting an occasional glance my way from time to time. I emptied the full contents of my bottle and watched the paint melt down the side of the vehicle before my actions were even complete. Once done, I quickly gave a thumbs up and backed into the bushes. Christian instantly perked up with a smile:
“Oh! I remember where I live! Thank you so much for the help!!” and he dashed off in the opposite direction from where we lived.
We never got caught for damaging the image of a fellow citizen. It was wrong to take advantage of someone, especially unaware. It was back handed, sneaky, destructive, irresponsible and not very nice.
I did, however, feel I had a great future in chemistry.
Well, that…or politics.
Read MoreEven Brothers Have a Use
My brother Christian always had this annoying skill. He could cry at the drop of a hat. Pissed me off. Not that the skill was bad. Pretty cool actually…he just had this huge success rate of getting me blamed for all sorts of crap when we were young. I didn’t have to be in the room, but I’d get a swat later on.
I did however, find a great use for this twisted skill he had. We were young (I believe we were 9 and 7, but not positive) and had moved to a new home. In the garage, dad had all sorts of cleaning liquids. They were flammable. I know, I lit most of them on fire over the years, melting toy cars, plastic army men and making the every popular barbarian torch out of my sisters doll head, stuck on the end of a stick. Christian and I had new bikes which included water bottle attachments. Now I never knew of any friend that actually used their water bottle. At least not for water anyway. You’d be a sissy. It was used to carry contraband, like lighter fluid or gas to start a fire, rotten eggs to squirt on Sissy Hamleton as you raced by at top speed, or any other liquid you wanted to transport without the interference of a parent.
Now, in the city of Diablo, California, the houses were posh. Even by todays standards, this would be a beautiful area and the residents had their own police force patrolling the neighborhoods. Trees were many, lush and perfect for hiding in when a kid didn’t want to be seen. The combination of these facts hit me one afternoon and gave me a brilliant idea.
What would happen if I created the greatest concoction of all time, put it in my water bottle of destruction and then found a way to introduce it to the local police? They were always yelling at the kids to stay off the grass, chasing up from the golf course and bringing us home in the middle of the night because toilet papering a house just wasn’t proper. It was time for some payback. I could take my annoyingly cute and volatile little brother, plant him on the side of the road as a distraction and then introduce my mad scientist concoction to the first cop car willing to stop for the fake tear kid.
I was always quite creative as a child.
So I made a plan…
Read MoreDaughters…God’s Gift to Fathers.
The bets have been going on for ages. All the kids have been praying for the results, and guess what?!?
It’s not a monkey! WOHOOO!!!
Can’t tell you how relieved I was to put that fear to rest. I now know for sure that we ARE having a 100% perfectly human female child! Got the call a few hours ago and though I don’t think I reacted at the moment of impact like Kathi was hoping I would…he excitement has been sinking into 
my mind minute by minute. There’s never been a gender preference in my mind. Ever. Oh, the exception this time was we had been praying for twins for nearly 19 years and that didn’t come to pass yet again….but past that, I just wanted to know all was good: that both Kathi and the baby were healthy.
Yes, the boys are feeling just a tad out numbered now, being only three boys to seven girls, but if you could watch them behind the scenes, all this whining is for the public drama. besides, the three of them have enough testosterone to compensate for a dozen sons (heaven help 
me). What they don’t say out loud is that they idolize their sisters,…and those girls have no greater pride than in their brothers. Besides, most of these girls can hold their own and clobber their brothers faster and harder than most young adult men could (they pick up martial arts rather quickly). The boys just want to have the tables leveled out.
What is it about girls that makes life so wonderful in my mind? Well, I know they don’t swear and break things in a devious manner or huck loogies. I also know they can’t bench press a Buick or pee standing up like the boys, but they do fill my home with song, give their father hugs and kisses as I come and go to work. They notice the things of the heart and when they smile, life is just…better. Yeah, I’m smitten by my daughters, but they give me a stronger desire to change the world. I know, I know, it probably sounds corney, but I’m serious here. They make me want to roll up my sleeves and bend this world into a better shape than i
t is…or burn my life out trying.
Why? For them.
You see, my view of men and women has always been the same: The females are just as noble, strong (in their own unique ways), intelligent and filled with talent and passion as men. But to me, they bring a special light, a refinement and a joy to the soul that another male just can’t create. Not in my mind, anyway. Oh, I’m not so foolish to know there aren’t exceptions, but my daughters have been raised to be something I feel is lacking more and more in this wide world: good, virtuous, noble, pure women. We are the ones who should be beating the snakes and smoothing the road so that they can walk, unmolested in this world.
Maybe that’s why I’m so blessed: because I’d skin any male who tries to tarnish that purity. Who knows. I dearly love my girls and they are the pride of their father’s heart.
Just my opinion, but then again, they’re are my daughters.
Read MoreMy Latest Book
