“What I wonder,” I say watching my kids make Valentines cards on the kitchen table, “is what kind of genius schedules a celebration of love in the dead of winter?” 

“That genius was a priest, Dad!” my older son informs me as he opens a bag of Sweethearts—those little heart-shaped candy precursors to text messaging stamped with suggestive phrases like UR HOT, B MINE, and LETS DO LUNCH.  “Saint Valentine died on February 14th.”   

Then, after a reflective pause, he reaches for a glue stick and asks, “Dad, did you ever give someone a Valentines card when you were my age?” 

He is in middle school and I am not prepared for his question.    “Of course not,” I shoot back without thinking, “when I was your age girls had cooties.” 

My daughter looks up, startled.  “I have cooties?” she stammers. 

“No sweetie,” I reassure her. “When a boy likes a girl he says she has cooties so that he can pretend he really doesn’t like her.   Then he gets a cootie shot so he can catch the cooties he says he doesn’t want.”

“But Daddy, that’s silly.  Why would boys do that?”

“Because boys really do have cooties.” I explain. “They burrow into our heads and short circuit our brains and make us act all goofy.  Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to find a girl who doesn’t mind the fact that we have cooties and act really goofy.”

My older son scoffs: “Dad, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

I am too late.  Cooties are busy rewiring his brain and he understands that Valentines Day has more to do with birds and bees than it does with martyred saints.  “Nice card,” I say, straining to see what he has written.  “Who is it for?”

He looks surprised, like I am the kind of genius who wonders why romance is celebrated in the middle of February.  “It’s for Mom.” he says. “Who do you think it’s for?”

I smile and flip a candy heart in my mouth.  B TRUE it says.  We still have some time before the Love Birds sing.

The post The Birds and the Bugs appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.

My son has discovered girls.  I know this because I just received a bill for $150 in text messaging charges. 

I thought I had an unlimited plan, but it turns out I had a limited unlimited plan for a limited time only such that if I exceeded my unlimited plan limit I would be charged a limited message fee.  So theoretically my bill could be, well, unlimited. 

At least this is how it was explained to me by the nice service representative at Verizon.  Thank goodness she didn’t text me this explanation.

Based on my limited understanding of my unlimited plan, I did some quick message calculations.  I was astounded.  Don’t you ever sleep?  I am surprised your thumbs aren’t tied in knots!  Who all are you texting? And what are you texting about?

I didn’t expect him to answer—he is fourteen.  But I did want him to squirm before I asked my real question:   What’s her name?  

My son thinks I was born yesterday.  Sadly, he is right.  When I was his age there were no cell phones and there was no Internet.  If I wanted to communicate with girls outside of school I had to use something called a telephone; which is pretty much why I avoided talking to girls outside of school.  

I would have given anything to send abbreviated acronyms with my thumbs because at fourteen, that was pretty much all I could handle.  My evolving social vocabulary was strewn about my head in fragments and didn’t really have a neural pathway out my mouth.   My wife says not much has changed.

But I understand that communicating something as simple as “Hi” appears a lot cooler across a cell phone screen than over a squeaky set of vocal chords.  So I changed my limited unlimited plan to accommodate his unlimited limited social vocabulary.  And the other day he actually called me. 

“Dad,” he said informatively, “I just sent you a text.”

Then he hung up. 

Oh, btw, her name is Jessica.

The post Limited Vocabularies appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.

www.dadinthebox.com

This is the time of year when we start burning logs in the fireplace.  There is something warm and cozy about controlled conflagrations indoors.  In our house we will soon tempt flames further with wool fire hazards hanging from the mantle and a dying tree in our living room.

Let’s face it.  Fire is dangerous, and it is important to teach fire safety to our loved ones. 

For example, at this time of year I take the time to teach my kids how to responsibly start a fire in the fireplace, so that one day they will be able to safely threaten their own homes over the holidays.  I demonstrate how to use paper and kindling twigs to initiate a small, sustained flame under a loose stack of aged oak.  

Soon soft amber flames are licking up the logs behind the safety of a fire screen as substantial wisps of smoke seek their way up the chimney.

Then, when the living room becomes foggy and the coughing begins, I show the kids how to carefully reach up into the chimney mouth to open the flu which has been closed all summer.  I loudly inform them of the heat conductivity of metal handles and the proper way to administer Solarcaine.   

I am also sharply reminded why we maintain working smoke detectors throughout the house.  I tell the kids that really effective alarms automatically call the fire department. 

About this time we hear the muffled sound of sirens emanating from massive trucks rumbling up the street.  My kids peer with wonder and excitement out the frosty windows.  Blinding red lights flash rhythmically in front of our house with holiday spirit.  

Soon the doorbell rings and several large men dressed as Santa Claus politely ask if everything is OK.  They are wearing helmets and carrying axes.   My son wants to know if we should drop to the floor beneath the light remains of smoke, crawl to the exits, and meet up at the neighbor’s as we have trained.

It’s not a bad idea, I think to myself.  Maybe we should bring them eggnog too.  After all, it is the season to be safe and warm together.

The post Happy Holiday Hazards appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.

By John Christmann

www.dadinthebox.com

It is a cold Sunday afternoon in December.  I am high on a ladder wrestling with a tangled mesh of long wire cords laced with thousands of tiny Christmas lights that probably won’t work.  The light strings are draped in long chains around my neck like a yoke. My fingers are numb.

My wife and kids look up at me expectantly from the ground. They look like ants. This is not fun, and I let my grumpy sentiments be known. My wife cups her hands around her mouth and yells up to me. “Bah Humbug,” she says.

I must confess, these are words I hear frequently as I prepare our house for the holidays.  In fact, I have already been compared to Scrooge so often that I am starting to imagine Jacob Marley in my doorknocker every time I enter the house.

Oh, I am not a miser like Scrooge, although I do buy all of our intermittent lights at the Dollar Store. But I often articulate a high degree of cynicism over the sprawling Christmas industrial complex which generates high voltage frenzy each year and then abruptly shuts down leaving me with a stack of bills, a dead tree in my living room, and the empty pit of January in my stomach.

The fact is, it’s a lot of work to maintain a festive atmosphere of joy, and the holidays are a time of stress for a lot of people.  Especially me, Ebenezer Scrooge. Bah Humbug.

I shout down from the ladder, “OK plug it in.” My son ceremoniously forces the cords together and I hunch forward atop my perch waiting for the explosion. It doesn’t come. 

I open one eye and look at the long expanse of crystal lights piercing the dusk. Below my family is huddled happily together in the cold, staring in wonderment at the simple beauty of neatly arrayed Christmas lights. In the faint glow, they look like ghosts. 

I feel like a new man, and I smile with a new found spirit of holiday optimism.  All of the tiny bulbs shine. God bless them . . . everyone.

The post Illuminating Spirits appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.