A Happy Meal... Every Time

McDonalds made Ray Kroc a billionaire.

It also made Morgan Spurlock fat.

It also makes my six-year old daughter VERY happy.

And isn’t that all that matters.

Pick a day, pick a time -- ask my daughter where she wants to go eat and the answer is always McDonalds.

(P.S.  I’m not applying for a commercial here, really I’m not, but if you like the concept, contact her agent.)

A couple of days ago my six-year old had some visitors over for a play date.

Her three-year old cousin from my wife’s brother’s family.

And her three-year old cousin from my wife’s sister’s family.

We decided to have a girls day out (+1) at the mall with my wife, the three girls and me.

On our way there, we were getting a little hungry, so we stopped at... well, you know where we stopped.

And when we got there, the order was as predictable as a Hugh Grant movie.

“I’ll have the Happy Meal.  Me too.  Me too.”

Wow, I didn’t see that coming.

The truth is they all ordered the little plastic toy with whatever food it came with.

Meanwhile, my wife got the Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich with no Ranch.

And since we had a 2-for-1 coupon, I too had the Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich with no Ranch.

Of course, no meal at Mickey D’s is complete without a large order of fries, so we got one of those too.

On the back of the paper that our food came on was a complete listing of the nutrition facts for all of the foods at McDonalds.

I know, we should’ve covered it in ketchup before we could look.

But like a five-car pileup on the freeway, we HAD to look.

So after each girl took one big bite of their Happy Meal and became instantly stuffed, we sent them off to that cesspool of disgust known as PlayLand.

That’s where little kids from around the neighborhood cough and sneeze their way through a series of plastic tubes and sealed in walkways.

But of course, “Please make sure you take off your shoes little Johnny, Ronald would hate for you to get PlayLand dirty.”

I couldn’t find a suggestion box, but if I did....

I would suggest you put a water hose at the bottom of one of those slides, so you can spray the scum off the kids when they are done playing.

Just a thought.

Well, while the girls were sliding around in some other kids’ runny nose (and LOVING it), that gave my wife and I time to check out the nutritional facts for the foods we were trying to digest.

Believe it or not, not everything was totally bad for you.

For example, the brand new “Real Fruit" Smoothies.

I got a couple of coupons in the Sunday paper for a free one, so I got one for the girls and one for me.

They actually made them in a real blender.  I heard it.

I just hope they used real bananas and real strawberries in the real blender for my "Real Strawberry Banana Smoothie". 

The good news is each smoothie had only 210 calories.

The bad news is pretty much everything else on the menu was a diet crusher.

The Angus Deluxe Burger, 750 calories.

The Big Mac, 29 grams of fat.

The Breakfast Burrito with Sausage, 1390 mg of sodium.

The Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken had TEN TIMES more salt than an entire breast of Chicken Saltimbocca at Maggiano’s.

And that dish has “salt” in its name.

As for those fries, we just HAD to have.

Well those fries have more calories (500) than a 6-inch Roast Beef Sub at Subway (460), with DOUBLE MEAT AND DOUBLE CHEESE.

But unlike Mark Antony (or Jennifer Lopez), I’m not here to bury McDonalds, I come to praise them.

Have you tried the Sausage McMuffin with Egg?

Is there any better way to start the day?

Who cares that there are 450 calories and 285 mg of cholesterol and 920 mg of sodium and 27 grams of fat.

Obviously I don’t.

And neither does my daughter.

As long as she gets that pink plastic horse.

Cell Hell

Today was a very sad day for me.

My little girl is no longer little.

She now has her first cell phone.

Ok, she is 13.  And she is taller than her mom.

But her own personal cell phone?

WHY?

What did I do to deserve this!

Do you know how much texting she is going to do?

Do you know how many friends she is going to talk to?

What's next, Boys?

You can tell by the grays on my head that I am no longer young, but now...

I am officially old!

My daughter has her own phone number.

Just because EVERY other child, ten and over, has their cell phone doesn't mean we have to do it.

Right?

If every other child were to jump off the high dive, would you?

Does this mean she doesn't have to eat her vegetables any more, "because we said so"?

Or put away that pile of dirty clothes in her room...

Or pickup the dog poop...

This decision was a long time in coming, but somehow we held her off.

Until today.

Today we went to get my daughter her first phone AND trade in my wife’s dinosaur of a flip phone.

By the time we got there, my daughter had already done the research and reached her decision.

In fact, it took her about 3.6 seconds from the moment we arrived to find the one she wanted.

The phone was listed at $79.99, but if you sign up for a two-year contract, the price dropped to $29.99, with a mail-in rebate.

Or that’s what they wanted you think.

While doing more research than I did for any of my research papers, my crafty 13-year old found that if we ordered the phone through the service provider’s website, the phones were free.

The salesperson balked at first, but when she saw the puppy dog eyes, I think she caved.

Not my daughter’s puppy dog eyes, but my wife’s.

Considering she’s had the same phone since Bush was President, the first Bush, there was no way she was going to spend $29.99 on a new one.

Kinda like the other day when my friend’s 80+ year old dad nearly passed out when his son paid $2.05 for a large cup of coffee.

Imagine if he would’ve bought the $4 latte.

Within seconds the cell phone salesperson spoke to her manager and yada yada yada...

Free phones for everyone!

My wife, my daughter AND my 11-year old son.

Yep, we melted like butter.

How could we not.  It was free.

Well, free for now.

We added the kids (and their phones) to the family plan with combined minutes and UNLIMITED TEXTING.

Good move on the unlimited texting.

And the extra line for my son is only $9.99 a month.

You can barely get three Macchiatos for that.

When my son found out that he was getting a phone, too, you would’ve thought it was Christmas.

In fact, the kids were so excited that my wife told me she was glad that Santa didn’t get the kids the phone because she wanted us to get full credit.

We went out to eat after the phone store to set some serious guidelines.

IF you don’t keep your room clean...

and IF you don’t put your dishes away...

and IF you don’t, I don’t remember the third one....

...something bad is going to happen to your phone.

Yeah, something bad. 

But at that point, we could’ve asked the kids to snake the toilets and they would’ve said yes.

This was clearly one of the greatest days of their life.

I could tell by the “dad, I got a phone” big hug.

Even the six-year old was happy.

She got my wife’s old flip phone.

(Shhh... Don’t tell her the line has been disconnected.)

If you enjoyed this story about my daughter’s cell phone, you will love the prequel from February:

Daddy’s Little Texter

All You Need Is Love

The jukebox in my head has this amazing shuffle feature.

Pick a day, any day, and I've got some random song buzzing through my skull.  

And usually it ends up with a full audio track for anyone within an ear-shot.

Yesterday, "The Way" by Fastball was center stage.

This morning, "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" by Elvis Costello was the choice du jour.

A couple of days ago I started singing "I Swear", the 90's classic by the group All-4-One.

Now when you are at home singing in the shower or kitchen or wherever and nobody is around it's really not an issue.  We all do it.

But now that I am back in the working world, I probably need to be a little more aware of when to hit that play switch.

A few days ago I was typing along on my computer at work and all of a sudden I just belted out the words "And I Swear".

Immediately, like it was on cue, my co-worker, easily 15 years my junior, added from across the room "by the moon and the stars in the sky."

And with that, All-4-Two was born.

It kind of reminded me of that Saturday Night Live skit where one guy in a bathroom stall starts humming Under the Boardwalk* and the next thing you know the guys in the other three or four stalls are tapping their feet and singing backup.

Unlike most of the songs that pop into my head, there actually was a good reason why "I Swear" made it onto my playlist.

You see, a few weeks ago, my daughter and I attended the wedding of one of my closest friends and the sister of his wife-to-be is married to one of the four singers from All-4-One.

At the wedding he treated us to a live solo version of the big hit as well as another love song that was perfect for the occasion.

After his performance (and I had a couple of drinks), I offered to sing backup on one of my favorite songs from that album, a great cover of the Motown classic "So Much In Love".

He politely turned me down saying that we needed four people for that song.

Whatever.

Well as great as it was to have our own private concert, that was only one of the highlights of the four-day affair.

Wedding, affair.  Bad choice of words.

But it was an amazing four-day show for two wonderful and genuine people who are truly, so much in love.

It was not a wedding for just the bride and groom, but it was a celebration for all of us lucky folk who were smart enough to attend.

I guess I can add this to the list of things I would not have been able to do if I was still a full-time employee.

Glass half full, right?

It was an honor to be asked to give the toast at their wedding and I made sure I had prepared a speech.

I spoke about my friend, who I view as a brother, an older brother, by 355 days.  

We went to college together, we lived together, we both went into the TV business, we both are sports fanatics...

My kids call him Uncle, even when he is not twisting their arm.

My only sibling is 14 years older than me, so I always dreamed of having a brother closer to my age.   I just had to wait until my teenage years to get one.

Actually, I got a bunch of them.

I am so very fortunate to have a core group of friends that I would do anything for and they would do anything for me.

You really get to appreciate your true friends when your life goes a little sour.

They are the ones who tell you to quit your whining when you bring up unemployment for the 40th time.

Back to the wedding.

Since we met at freshman orientation in 1984, my friend and I have shared it all.

We were sitting next to each other at Dodger Stadium in 1985 when Jack Clark crushed our World Series dreams.

We have spent several long and amazing nights seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert.

And he was one my first calls, in the middle of the night, when my father suddenly passed away in 2002.

During the speech, I spoke about how he has seen every side of me and I have seen every side of him, but I had never seen the side like the first time he described his new bride to me.

Or the second time. 

Or the tenth.

To see him, them, so much in love and so happy is so fantastic.

And to see the families of the bride and groom, who come from opposite sides of the world, come together as one was really incredible.

Despite what you are reading, I'm really not the emotional sapp that I sound like.

I have always found the cynical side or bad tasting joke in everything, but the way my life has changed in the last 18 months, everything now looks a little different.

Since becoming a stay-at-home dad, I have worked very hard to become a more patient person, especially with the kids.  

When I was working 60+ hours a week, my family was always on my priority list, but not nearly as high as they should've been.

I was always able to justify that in my head by saying... "I was doing my part for the family, providing them (material things) by working all those hours."

In reality, they were getting cheated.

The four days I spent with my 13-year old daughter at the wedding may very well be one of the last times that she and I get that quantity and quality of one-to-one time.

And it was one of the highlights of my life.

At NO point did I raise my voice. 

At NO point did we argue. 

At NO point was either of us unhappy.  

At NO point did anything else in the world matter.

To see my friend the happiest I have ever seen him was a real treat.

But I'm the one who got the gift.

I swear.

*-P.S.  I originally wrote the SNL skit featured the song My Girl, but I was corrected by a loyal reader of the blog.   The correct song was Under the Boardwalk.   The reader who corrected me was my friend, who is featured in this entry.    I smell a full circle.

A Day In The Life

Disclaimer:

If you are a parent, you will probably do a lot of nodding during this blog.  

If you don’t have any kids, you will probably do a lot of nodding off.

Either way, I hope you enjoy it. 

It is Sunday night and we just completed a marathon.

Not a real marathon, that’s too much work, but...

It all began Friday night with game one of my son’s weekend baseball tournament.

Following a satisfying win and an even more satisfying meal with the family, we got back home at around 9:30.

It was a quick lights out as the alarm clock was scheduled to go off at 5:50am to get us ready for game two.

A quick lights out for everybody but me.

I’ve always been a night owl and no matter what is scheduled for the next day, I always have a hard time getting to bed early.

I have this little unwritten rule in my head though, as long as I sleep five hours or more, I am fine.  

Four hours and 59 minutes or less and it is guaranteed to be a two coffee day.

For this night, my goal was Midnight 50.

This time I made it, but barely.

For the last five plus months, the highlight of my day is getting everybody to sleep so I can sit down at the computer and put together a new blog.

Hey whatever keeps you happy, right?

That process usually takes about an hour, but Friday night I was writing blog #100, so I wanted it to be extra special.

For this one I set aside 75 minutes.

Bottom line, I made it to bed just in time to satisfy the five-hour rule.

My son’s tournament was about 40 minutes from our house, so when you factor in a coffee stop and getting lost, we were up with the roosters.

Usually our coach wants the kids there an hour before each game, but with a quick turnaround, he said we could get to the 8:00am game by 7:30.

How does 7:42 sound?   Damn directions.

That was just the beginning of a Saturday to remember:

 5:50am -- Alarm clock goes off

 6:30am -- Try to leave for my son’s game

 6:55am -- Actual departure time

 8:00am -- Weekend baseball game #2

10:00am -- My wife leaves the baseball game to get my oldest daughter to her dance practice and my youngest daughter to her tee ball game

11:15am -- Dance Practice

12:00pm -- My son’s second baseball game of the day, third baseball game in 19 hours

1:00pm  -- My youngest daughter’s first tee ball game of the year

By 2:00pm I was ready for a nap, but there’s no time for that.

On the way home, my son and I stopped at my mom’s assisted living facility for a quick visit and to get her to take care of some monthly paperwork.

With my weekdays now being gobbled up by work -- what an inconvenience that is -- I needed to carve out some time this weekend for mom.

So my son and I stopped there, which was fortunately on the way home.  We spent about 20 minutes saying hello, how are you, sign here and be well.

From there, we made a quick pit stop at the gas station, followed by the grocery store to pick up some food to throw on the barbie.

Those errands got us home by 4:30ish, just in time to flip on the grill, make dinner for the family and inhale a meal.

But wait there’s more.

While cooking, the email came in from the other members of my new band, The Clearance Rack, that tonight was the night they wanted to practice.

Really?   Cool.

It would be pretty diva of me to say I was too tired for band practice, right?   Even though I am the lead singer and all that.

So after I got the kids to bed, I made a quick late night stop at Starbucks for a half-caf something or other and I headed to the studio.

(Well its actually a garage, but studio sounds more official.)

Two hours and three new songs later, practice was over.

By this point, the clock had struck, Sunday.

As in Sunday -- day three of my son’s baseball tournament, which brought another 5:50am wake up call.

If I left band practice immediately, I might’ve, just might've made it home just in time to get my five hours of sleep.

But nooooooooooooo.   We had to have a philosophical conversation in the parking lot about music.

That’s so Axl!

I love being in a band.

Thanks to the iPhone and youtube, we were able to watch and listen to both Nick Lowe’s Cruel to be Kind and Marshall Crenshaw’s Someday Someway without any interruption.

Of course by this point, the clock was ticking.

I got back in my car my Midnight 45ish, well aware that I would be lucky to get even four hours of sleep.

What an exhausting day!

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Dancing With The Scars

HELLO SABERS!!!

With those two little words, my daughter’s life changed forever.

Of course, when you are 13 years old, your life changes forever every 7.4 minutes.

But when my daughter got the news that she had been promoted to a new dance team this year, it left quite a mark.

I have never seen her so happy.

Or perhaps even more important, I have never seen her so proud.

To understand the present, we must first understand the past.

Since we moved to this area about five years ago, my daughter has been dancing in the same studio.

For the first three years, she was pretty much with the same troop of a dozen dancers.

But there were a pair of girls that joined my daughter to make an inseparable trio.

They danced together.  They hung out together.  They carpooled together.

They danced together -- to the tune of about 12 hours per week.

School, who needs school?

Well during those first three years, there was a bond that nothing could break.

Until year four.

That was the year that my daughter had a growth spurt, while her two friends did not.

As a result of her new height and hard work - not necessarily in that order - my daughter was bumped up to the Senior Hip-Hop dance team.

Her two friends were not.

It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my daughter’s young life.

She wanted to celebrate her accomplishment, but it felt very empty.

And the reaction of her two closest colleagues made it even worse.

Whether intentional or not, her friends became foes.

They turned a cold shoulder like it was part of the dance routine.

If they had only been able to move like that during the tryouts, maybe they would’ve made the senior team too.

For the first time in her life, my daughter got a taste of what it’s like to be the hunted.

And it wasn’t pretty.

The trio became a duet and one lonely girl.

As hard as we tried to remind my daughter that she had done everything right and nothing wrong, she was still reminded four nights a week that everything had changed.

Even the carpooling went away.

And to make it worse, the three girls were still on the same pom dance team.

At that age, the kids are taught to give a NICE, BIG, BRIGHT, fake smile to make it look you are always having fun.

My daughter had no problem pulling that one off.

I realize you can’t spell competitive dance without competition, but the fact that my daughter felt bad for doing something good really stunk.

Well here we are a year later and the tryouts for the new year are just complete.

Like last year, my daughter made the Senior Hip-Hop team again.

Unlike last year, she also made the Senior Pom team, the Sabers.

And so did one of her two former friends.

When the news broke, she got a call from her new old teammate to talk about the good news.

Immediately, my daughter congratulated her friend and welcomed her back with open arms.

Unfortunately the third member of the trio did neither.

In fact, her immediate reaction was to quit dancing all together.

The teenage years are hard enough, but throw in a little extra drama on the dance floor and it can be too much to handle.

My daughter suffered through it last year, but thankfully she made it through.

This time around, its her friend who is learning that being good can feel very bad.

My Animal Planet

Yesterday was a day for the animals.

It began early in the morning on a field trip to the zoo with my youngest daughter and her kindergarten class.

Since becoming a stay-at-home dad, I have tried to take advantage of EVERY opportunity I can to spend time with the kids.

Whether that means driving my oldest daughter to dance, helping coach my son’s baseball team or just bringing cupcakes to school and having lunch with the kids.

And that’s just this week.

And you definitely don’t have to ask me twice to go on a field trip to the zoo.

In fact, due to the one chaperone for every two students ratio, I would say this was a pretty popular assignment.

For nearly three hours, our trio visited nearly every animal in the park, from Anteaters to Zebras, Giraffes to Polar Bears.

Like many of us who have now reached the age of 43, I’ve been to a zoo about four million times.

And I can’t wait for four million and one.   It just doesn’t get old.

And to see the zoo through my daughter’s eyes was priceless.

She certainly didn’t have to thank me at the end of the day, but the fact that she did was great.

My parents taught me that please and thank you will get you anywhere in life.

I’m not so sure I believe that anymore, but I like the concept.

I also like the fact that I had to ask my daughter exactly zero times to not climb on the railing near the animals.

I’m guessing I said it 36 times to my daughter’s classmate, but who’s counting.

If I sound like the proud papa, its because I am.

I love my kids, I love my dog and I would love to have more of each.

So when my wife brought home a new family member from school yesterday, it really didn’t throw me off.

Too much.

Apparently my son won some type of contest at school yesterday earning the top prize.

His name is Hugo.

He’s a five-inch Northern Leopard Frog.

I must say, I don’t know much about the North, Leopards or Frogs and I know absolutely nothing about Northern Leopard Frogs.

And neither did my wife.

So on the way home she stopped at a pet store to see what kind of care Hugo would need.

I think I stopped listening about three sentences in, but she said something about a heated tank with live crickets and water something and ...  I don’t know the rest.

The bottom line is our home is not the right place for Hugo, but I kept my mouth shut.   

I told my son that if he wanted the tank and all the side dishes, we would do that for him.

But I’m not touching little Kermit.   And neither is your mom.

I think that freaked him out.

Winning a frog.   Cool!

Bringing home the frog.   Really Cool!!!

Taking care of the frog.   Not so much.

He decided pretty quickly, as in about three seconds, that this was not going to work out.

So I called around to a couple of local pet stores to see if they would take our little hopper and as luck would have it, the boyfriend of the cashier had a pond in his backyard and his bullfrog had just...

... well, you know.

So we dropped off Hugo with his new family and headed home.

My son certainly didn’t have to thank me for finding a new home for Hugo, but the fact that he did was great.