Hey ma-by-law...

Dear Lil' Mama,

From Mom to Damn-ma, thanks for being all that you can be... and then some.  I'm sorry that you had to wait to get a son-in-law to finally feel like you have a decent child.  I'm also sorry that your second son-in-law is such a disappointment.  I tried my best to show strong objection, but I fear it only reinforced negative behavior.  When it gets tough, try doing what I do when someone asks me if I have a brother-in-law on my wife's side, and say NO.

Thanks for all your help around our house, watching the kids, and noticing the little things that I do to try to get under your skin.  When you specifically go out of your way to mess with someone and they don't even notice, it can be very frustrating.  Sometimes I come home tired and grumpy, but then Nikole will tell me how you were over and something I did around the house provoked an anti-male rant, and it turns that frown right upside down.

Thanks for being an awesome Mom.  I could only imagine the difficulty of mothering 3 girls along side a man who clearly displays at least 16 mental disorders, that I'm aware of.  I hope you have a great day.

Love,
Your humble, full of grace son-in-law--Lee

BTW--I heard you finally got an iPhone.  Talk about irony, once I decided to order you an iPhone for mother's day through your Verizon account, you go and get your own.  Oh well I'll just have them attach it to my number.  Happy Mother's Day!

oh for sure...

I didn't get my usual Sunday dinner material last night, because I didn't go over to the crackheads' house.  "Crackheads" is the nickname I give to in-law's residence.  It sounds harsh, but it's actually sugar coated quite heavily.  On any given Sunday evening, there's enough mental disorders in that home to keep a dozen psycho-therapists busy for a year (that doesn't including sleeping, bathroom breaks, and mealtime).  Surely any therapist would appreciate the value, but would inevitably leave the place dizzy and disoriented.  Unfortunately, the English language does not provide a means whereby I could properly describe the fray.  I would need a stage (at least 600 sqft), a microphone (with about 20 different distortion modes), 200mg of adderall and 10 interpreters to give it mediocre small town type of justice.  Don't harp on me, this isn't me on a soap box pointing a finger.  I have contemplated the possibility that I may be a contributor to the brain stew, but I prefer to think of myself as a mediator.  I try to maintain order and encourage bad behavior, in order to help the wandering sheep see their mistakes before they make them.  It almost always results in encouragement to actually live the mistake.  Either way it serves as priceless entertainment and valuable conversational points when my wife and I argue why our children act the way they do.  Let me some it up- if they do something awesome, it's because of me; if they do something that makes you cringe, pick a crackhead (any crackhead).

Instead, this week, we went to my family's house for din din.  This not only gave me little to no material, but it led to talks of censorship.  This is opportunity time for wifey, sure is.  I'm out searching for material and I'm sitting on one side of the table with my eyeballs rolling in a steady constant circle.  You can't censor this.  All I can do is try hard to convince my Mom that she somehow blew it with me, and that's why I'm so messed up.  Even then, she doesn't get defensive, she just turns her brain to auto-pilot and starts repeating- "sure Lee, we messed you up".  That women is certainly vulnerable to guilt, but she's too smart to take credit for any of my lack of accomplishments.  She also stands a little taller, with wifey by her side, egging her on.

So here you have it, not much new material.

Out of control...

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeIf history has anything to teach us, and I'm still very skeptical that we can learn from the past, it is that all children should be raised on farms.  There's just too much nothing for them to do all day long, when they live in the burbs.  Take my kids for example.  They get up at some ungodly hour, then they proceed to torture each other for the next 2-3 hours.  This is all just wonderful, until I get pulled from my dreams to play mediator in a conflict that I have not witnessed.  Then, I have to shout out a bunch of empty threats and flip a coin to see which kid is in the wrong, cuz we all know there's not a chance that I'm getting out of bed.  So eventually the none sense moves to my room and I catch an elbow in the face or a foot to the jewels.

Fast forward to the after school hours.  More torture, more screaming, and I still don't want to play mediator.  These kids have nothing to do.  Sure I could sit them in front of the TV for hours, but then I have to deal with the guilt as I picture their brains slowly melting into a mushy soup.  You tell kids TV will melt their brains enough times, you even start to believe it.

If you happen to know someone who was raised on farm, they're generally calm and they know how to fix things.  You see a kid raised in front of the TV, then you have a whole new set of issues.  They walk around with their eyeballs popping out, always paranoid, always depressed, and they're so full of unused energy they start banging their heads against the wall or carving silhouettes of lovers never had in their arms.  Then they start wearing jeans so tight, they must be painted on.  Always with the tight jeans and the sad stories.  The only tragedy is that this kids' parents never pulled the car over miles from home, pretending to have car trouble, then tell the child it is up to him to run home and get help.  I thought of that scenario on my own, your welcome to use it anytime your child feels like a martyr and needs an act of bravery to change their outlook.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't raised on a farm.  I was however raised by a farmer's daughter, in a time that you didn't have to worry about pedophiles, because you were allowed to stereotype that one creepy dude all alone at the park.  Sick es oh bee, seriously you can't go creep on someone that is at least borderline legal?  Go hang out near a high school you sick freak, then maybe some punk kids will have the decency to throw water balloons at you as they celebrate the exodus bell.  With six kids at her disposal and only a four bedroom house,  Mom still came up with some pretty creative chores, that we all know were unnecessary.  One morning I had to get up at 4 am to milk my brother, or maybe I chose to do that in a form of sweet revenge, the details are fuzzy.  After chores, we got on our bikes and disappeared for the remainder of the day.

And that's how it should be in order to keep the balance of sanity between generations.  Kids be kids, adults be adults, I'll see you at dinner time, and you better have your homework done.

All I'm saying is these kids are driving me crazy...

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Parenting: getting beat at my own game...

I wonder if my kids would think twice if they knew they were copying antics, from the rule book on scamming parents, written by yours truly.  You would think that this would give me some kind of edge on parenting, having been a young deviant myself.  What I didn't learn til later in life is what would allow so many kids to rule the world.  Don't let your kids read this next part.

If only I knew while sitting on the floor in my room, as a young apprentice, with army action figures strategically placed, papers containing logs and graphs written in crayon, and of course a watchmen to inform me of adults that might be approaching.  I could have saved myself a lot of time by writing:  Parents are generally lazy and have less stamina then I do.  Booyah, rule book complete.  Kids think they're clever, but they're just repeating the same stuff I did.  Their real edge is the parental laziness factor.  Most parents don't have the time or are too tired to be concerned with little tantrums, therefore we pick our battles.  Two year olds on the other hand can go rounds all night, even as they're falling asleep.  Better not let the Army see this either or they'll lower the drafting age

So why don't I take charge knowing the antics that are coming my way?


1.  Because I am to lazy to deal with every little tantrum.
2.  Because there is a small part of me that just wells up inside, knowing that my kids are challenging the system at such a young age.  Even if the system is me.

This is dangerous, I suppose.  It is possible that kids get the wrong idea and think they run the house (current state of the union).  The worst problem is that when you do fly off the handle after putting up with a zillion tantrums, all bottled up, your kids will start wearing tight pants and crying all the time.  If they're boys they'll start wearing make-up and if they're girls they either stop wearing make-up or start wearing black make-up.  This is the uniform, if you will, for the modern day oppressed suburban children.

You see back in the day parents didn't have things like more than 1 TV or handheld gaming systems, to avoid every single battle.  So parents would have to deal with it.  It's hard to ignore a tantrum being thrown on gameday right in front of the TV, when it's your only TV.  Quick solution: Whoopin, they won't cry for too long.

And that is why I'm King.  I call it the care factor.  They care to win every little battle.  I win by not caring about each little battle.  No matter what the outcome is I'll always be sure to explain why I've won...