Single Parent Travel

Well, I may be a bit jaded and cynical myself, but when it hits my kids, I feel awful.
My son has his first “real” girlfriend and things are going well (apparently) and then out of the blue, two days after their second prom–the dreaded text message (yes, you read that right) “I think we should see other people.”
I felt horrible for him. She was a great girl and they were good together. As a parent, I thought he hit the jackpot–she was attractive, polite, not into drinking or…

…OK, I own my own tuxedo and the last time I rented one was in 1990 when I got married. Boy what a difference 20 years makes!
I told my son that I would cover the cost of renting his tux for the two (yes, count em two) proms he was attending with his girlfriend.  I seem to recall a price about $49 in my mind, but figured that inflation had brought it up to about $79.  Well, $200 dollars later…
Granted, it is for two events, but the basic

…Being male, for all of my life I never really “got” the whole maternal instinct thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids and would go to the ends of the earth to protect them and to give them any opportunity I could. But I have always heard that a “mother’s love” was so different–and I never got it. Till now.
I consider myself fortunate in that my kids have all been relatively healthy all their lives. There have been no major traumas. But that changed on Super Bowl

…
Not as bad as it might seem.We were out and I was being a real pain in the neck trying to video her. And if that’s the worse thing a 16 yr old throws my way, I am ahead of the game!

Dateline: February 6, 2010, Annapolis, MD
Youngest daughter:  Daddy, I’m bored, can you take me to my friend’s house today?
Dad: Uhm, no!
Youngest daughter: Why?
Dad: WTF?
…

Image via Wikipedia…

Are Kids Really All That Dumb?
Sometimes I wonder. My daughter is brilliant. She never studies and never falls off the honor roll. She has a great group of friends. She does not do drugs or drink. She is witty, funny and generally fun to be around.
But sometimes I just have to wonder where her brain goes. Take last night. She asked me to drive her to a friend’s house so they could work on a “lab” for Applied Nutrition. Applied Nutrition is somewhat like the

…I can remember like it was yesterday. My ex wife was in labor, and I was holding her hand encouraging her as I crouched on the floor. The doctors and nurses asked why I was down on the floor and I merely explained that there was a high probability of me passing out at some point and the closer to the floor I could get, the better off we all would be.
Well, I maintained my consciousness and soon enough,we had a baby boy.  That was 18 years ago today

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC…
This is a Public Service Announcement produced in the UK. It is a bit long and very graphic. But if you have teens and they may be driving soon, every one of them needs to see this! And adults are just as guilty!

…A friend of my youngest daughter just got her belly button pierced. To make it worse, she did it herself! Now my kids are not into piercing anything, including ears so there is no interest.
I understand the allure of teenagers and young adults but this girl is just 12. Now I have always said that if the worst thing my kids do is color their hair, get a tattoo and pierce themselves, I am probably ahead of the game.  But at 12, I am thinking way too young.
What

Major Crisis At Home…
I wanted to open up to this blog and let you know that my family’s world came crashing down very unexpectedly yesterday afternoon around 4:00pm.
It was a weekend when I had my children and it was hot and oppressively muggy out so we were pretty much indoors for most of the day. We had made plans for the upcoming week–a visit to a friends house to go tubing behind their boat, a trip to the library for some fresh reading materials, a discussion about my