DON aka “DAD”, “DADDY”, “THE KINGPIN” (Age 50)

As far as the Don is concerned, nothing new to report. Don still works at SAS and occasionally teaches statistics classes. Hopefully he can get back into playing tennis this year. He’s been on a hiatus the past few years because his new hobby (driving the kids all over town) has been eating into his time. But now that Donald is learning to drive, Don hopes for a bit more free time!

The big news for Don is that he turned 50 years old this year. Yup, the big Hawaii-Five-Oh!!! Don didn’t expect any fanfare for this milestone, but Kathryn decided to do it anyways. Her plan was to rent a sky box at a Lake County Captains Baseball Game (Single-A baseball is the best!). So Kathryn surprised Don by having family and friends show up and surprise him. Kathryn laughed that she planned the whole thing while he was sitting 10 feet away working and he was totally oblivious.

DON’T WORRY … THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING

Look at the title. You will get worried as you read this, but don’t be … this story has a happy ending. So anyways, on the big day of Don’s 50th birthday, the family showed up at the baseball stadium and Don was surprised to see family and friends. To make things even better, Don was slated to throw out the FIRST PITCH. This was a lifelong dream of Don’s. A friend of Don’s even offered to make a video of the event. 

So the stadium manager came to the skybox to get Don and he had this little girl next to him. The little girl’s “Make-A-Wish” was to sing the National Anthem at a baseball game. So Don was going to toss out the first pitch and then this little girl was going to sing. OK, Don played little league and even though he isn’t much of an athlete, he can toss a ball from the mound to home plate. However, all the way down to the baseball field, the stadium manager kept saying to Don … “whatever you do, don’t throw the ball into the dirt. You’ll look like an idiot”. It wasn’t so bad at first. But by the 30th time the guy had said it, he was starting to get into Don’s head. So by the time Don got to the pitcher’s mound, he was a basket case. Think Steve Sax of the Dodgers back in the 1980’s (google it!). So Don decides to NOT throw the ball into the dirt by over compensating. Don deliberately throws the ball really high. In fact it was so high that the catcher had to jump to catch it. But he couldn’t get the ball and it flew over his head. Standing behind the catcher was the umpire. He was looking at the lineup card and had his back turned. He made an inviting target for Don’s dreaded “bean ball”. But don’t worry, the ball cleared the unsuspecting umpire’s head by a good three feet. Yup. It was *THAT* high. So where did the ball land? OK, remember that little girl who was going to sing the National Anthem? Well, she was getting ready to sing, and while she was warming up, Don’s throw hit her right in the neck! Ouch! That might not sound like it was painful. And maybe it wasn’t. Who knows? But from the way that little girl was crying, you would think that she was seriously injured. So her Dad had to come out on the field and calm her down. I’m pretty sure he succeeded, and she probably got to sing. It’s hard to say, because everything happened so fast. The part you won’t believe is this. Guess who they blamed? DON! They acted like it was his fault that the stadium manager psyched him out. So they handed Don his first pitch baseball and told him to get the hell off the field. The good news is that Don’s friend, Marcos, videotaped the first pitch and then kept the camera on Don. So after the catcher returned the ball to Don, there is the illusion that it was a perfect pitch. See? The story ended happy!

If this “fairy tale” story isn’t wonderful enough, Don even caught his first foul ball. The story goes like this. In the 9th inning, everybody was pretty bored with the game. So Don sits down next to his niece, Brooke. Brooke had a super sized chocolate milkshake. Definitely too large for any one person to drink by themselves. So Don starts trying to mooch some of Brooke’s chocolate milk shake. Unfortunately, she was not big into sharing. I mean, it wasn’t like it was Don’s 50th birthday or something. Why share? So while Don was trying to coerce her into giving him a taste, we hear “CRACK!” and Kathryn screamed “Watch out Donnie!”. A line drive foul ball was headed directly towards us! In his little league days, Don would have caught the foul ball with his left hand without even looking. But that was 40 years ago and many days have passed since little league. Instead, Don relied on his cat like reflexes and dove for the ground. He was just in time and the foul ball to miss hitting him in the back. Instead, it hit Brooke in the hand and she spilled her milk shake all over her lap. It was a mess! She was really unhappy about that. But don’t worry, not a single drop of Brooke’s milk shake got on Don. However, here’s the part that you won’t believe, the ball rolls off of Brooke and lands right into Don’s hand! What are the odds??? So after 50 years, Don left a ball park with his first two trophies: A first pitch baseball and his first foul ball. A story book ending to a perfect day!

Kathryn: I could invade a small country and you wouldn’t know.

Don: Sure…a SMALL country.

 

KATHRYN aka “MOM”, “SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED” (age: forever 39)

Not even one funny story about Kathryn this year. But that doesn’t matter. Everybody loves Kathryn’s quotes. That usually describes her personality and it’s also the funniest part of the story. She still goes to Church, keeps the house happy, goes to Yoga and Jazzercise. And of course, her favorite past times are drinking wine with Don while binge watching television series on Netflix. We are into “House of Cards”, “Black List”, and “The Green Arrow” right now. For fun, Kathryn has taken her tired old “plastic tarantula” joke to the next level. Her masterpiece was when she hid it in the pull down door of the attic. So when Don opened the attic door, this big, black, giant, venomous, scary, predatory, creepy, dangerous, plastic tarantula fell on Don. If we ever get divorced, it will be because of that damn plastic spider. OK, without further ado, here are Kathryn’s quotes: 

Don: Can I have some of your chocolate

Kathryn: I’m glad you understand that it belongs to me.

 

You kids better stop running around. I’m reading a book where children were horribly abused by their parents. And THOSE children turned out just fine.

 

Don: I love you … you make me laugh. Do I make you laugh?

Kathryn: No. You make me drink.

 

Kathryn: Donnie, I made you some bacon. I’m saving these two bacon strips for Donald because he doesn’t like to eat burned bacon (like Dad does?)

 

Kathryn: Don’t eat those chips, you already ate a ton of popcorn

Donnie: Hey, how did you know?

Kathryn: You were here. Popcorn was here. Nuff said.

 

Don: Hey Honey … give me a little sugar (leans in to kiss Kathryn)

Donald: Dad, I thought you were on a low sugar diet

Kathryn: It’s OK, I’m artificially sweet

 

Kathryn: I have to finish eating all this Valentine candy today. I’m cramming for “Fat Tuesday”.

 

Don: I love you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.

Kathryn: I know. And I’m reasonably happy I married you.

 

Don: Do you still love me?

Kathryn: In theory.

Don: What does that mean?

Kathryn: I’m in love with the IDEA of Don Wedding

 

“I’m married to my own personal Geek Squad”

 

David: How come the tooth fairy left me a note saying that she owed me a dollar?

Mom: Because all she had was a $20 bill … and you weren’t getting that.

 

Kathryn: It’s “Father’s Day” so I don’t want Daddy to do any housework the whole day. I’m going to pause a moment and let you kids think up your own jokes about the irony of that comment.

 

Don: After 18 years, can I still surprise you?

Kathryn: If by “surprise” you mean “disappoint” … then yes.

 

… and the best for last:

 

Kathryn: You were right, Donnie. Don’t put that in the Christmas card!!!

(Said on December 19, 2015 … soon to be a national holiday).

 

 

DONALD (Age 15)

 

Donald is now in his second year of high school at Walsh Jesuit. And if you are from Toledo, Ohio then you know this to be the “Southmore” year. Scary that their votes count the same as everybody else’s. Anyways, Donald is still in the marching band and has graduated from cymbal monkey to playing the xylophone. He’s also taking after his Dad and is in the Walsh Jesuit Chess club. Donald also likes to watch “Green Arrow” and “Flash” on NETFLIX with me and Kathryn. I used to consider myself somewhat of a comic book aficionado (God, I love “spell check” … you wouldn’t believe how wrong I got the spelling of “aficionado” and it auto corrected … and it did it again!). So anyways, I used to consider myself the family’s last word on all things comic book related. But now we need Donald to watch Arrow and Flash with us because he is able to give us the back story on all the super heroes and villains on the show. For now, I’m still able to hold off my son on “Iron Man”, “Thor”, and the “Fantastic Four”. But I believe that those days are numbered. I fear that my status as the family’s Geek Alpha Male is waning. Our other big event was going to COMIC-CON this year. We got to meet William Shatner (Captain Kirk), the guy who played “TOMMY OLIVER” on the Power Rangers, Lou Ferrigno (Hulk from the 1970’s) and a slew of other cultural icons. We were in hog heaven. And if that wasn’t enough … we got to touch the OFFICIAL BATMOBILE from the 1960’s TV show. It’s great when a father can pass along the finer things in life to his oldest son. 

We also started taking Donald on college visits. His first official visit was to The University of Akron earlier this month. He seemed ambivalent at first, until we looked at the engineering school. The tour guide walked us around and eventually took us into the engineering lab where the Akron Race Car Team builds race cars to compete against other engineering schools. Akron is one of the best in the world. The students design, build, and drive their own race cars! I asked Donald his opinion and he said “They had me at DRIVING A RACE CAR”. In an unrelated note, I plan to go back and take some refresher classes … at The University of Akron. Speaking of driving, guess who has his temporary license? Yes, Kathryn and I have the pleasure of teaching our son how to drive. Fortunately for us, when Donald turned 15, he suddenly gained about 200 IQ points and now he knows everything. It’s good when teens know more than their parents, but it makes things difficult when you try to teach them to drive. For example, here’s some sample dialogue that occurs in a typical driving lesson (notice how much he “knows”):

Dad: I think you are driving too close to the curb.

Donald: I *KNOW* Dad, this road is too narrow!

 

Dad: I think you should avoid driving on other people’s grass.

Donald: I *KNOW* Dad, but it’s their fault for planting grass too close to the road!

 

Dad: I think you ran over a mailbox.

Donald: I *KNOW* Dad, but I had the right of way!

 

Dad: I think this is a one way street.

Donald: I *KNOW* Dad, but I’m only going ONE WAY!

 

This passage to adulthood is usually pretty stressful for most parents. Fortunately, Kathryn and I have a way to steady our nerves. When we go out on the road with Donald, we always remember to take our “DRIVING WHISKEY” with us. After a few shots of 150 proof bourbon, absolutely nothing gets to you. For example, last week Donald ran over a cow. Normally I would have been upset by this but with two thirds of a fifth inside of me, I was OK with it! Heck, the cow probably had it coming!

Donald: “Is your French Toast any good?”

Waitress: “It’s the FRENCHIEST French Toast in town!”

Donald: “I guess that means it will surrender as soon as you bring it out.”

 

EMILY (age 12)

 

Emily is doing great at in her 8th grade year. Moving her over to CVCA for junior high was the best decision we have ever made. For the first time, Emily actually cares about completing homework and doing her best in school. Also, she is organized and doesn’t lose every single homework assignment. Now she just loses most of them. We marvel at her transition from total “space cadet” to partial “space cadet”. We are delighted that Emily is also heavily involved at school. She was in the school play the Pied Piper. Emily played a rat. I’ll pause a moment and you can fill in your own joke. OK, we’re back. Emily also plays the flute in the school orchestra and she is on the Academic Challenge team. We had a wonderful adventure last spring. Her school competed in a tournament in Chicago. So Kathryn and I dropped David and Katelyn off in Toledo with Aunt Vicki. Then we took Donald and Emily on a road trip to Chicago. Emily got to compete against schools from all over the country. It was a great deal of fun for Emily. Plus the family broke the team curfew and snuck out and saw the Second City Comedy troupe. It was hysterically funny, but probably not child appropriate material. Hard to imagine that the comedy team that spawned the likes of John Belushi would not be kid friendly. Go figure. 

 

Oh ya, this year Emily is preparing for her Confirmation (it’s a Catholic thing). One of the interesting things about Confirmation is that you need to choose a Confirmation Name that has meaning to you from a religious perspective. Our son, Donald, for example chose the name “Cosmas-Damian” because they were the patron saints of his first school where he first was taught about Jesus Christ. Emily, on the other hand, has chosen the Confirmation name of Magdalena. We asked her why (expecting some reason rooted in a deep religious epiphany). However, Emily said that she chose the name of Magdalena because “it sounds pretty and it’s also the Spanish word for cupcake”. I’m glad to see that the Holy Spirit has obviously touched her little soul.

 

THE SAGA OF BENNIE THE EGG BABY

 

Here’s a funny story about Emily. Her 8th grade health class has the girls do the “Egg Baby” project. Basically the teacher gives each of the students a hardboiled egg and they have to take care of it for a few weeks. You need to take it with you everywhere or else you need to get a “baby sitter” for your Egg Baby. If your Egg Baby survives, you get 100 extra credit points. If your Egg Baby dies (breaks!) then you fail the project and you get zero points. The teacher signs each of the Egg Babies just to make certain that nobody pulls a King Solomon and substitute a fresh Egg Baby in case theirs breaks (read the Bible, you’ll get the joke). Every girl in Emily’s class thought the project was pretty stupid except for Emily. In typical Emily fashion, she threw herself into the project. First she named her Egg Baby. His name was “Bennie” which was short for “Benedict” (I’m guessing it was named after the former Pope). Then Emily built a nursery for Bennie and even a cute little cradle. I tried to explain to Emily that the strategy to employ here was to shove Bennie into the refrigerator and forget about him for two weeks. Pull him out of the fridge on the day it was due and collect a quick 100 points. But Emily has a screwed up sense of priorities and would have none of it. She wanted to care for Bennie and love on him. 

 

Some of you might think that giving an Egg Baby to Emily would be a *LITTLE* like giving a pet hamster to a five year old. But you would be wrong. It was *EXACTLY* like giving a hamster to a five year old. (Note that I avoided the urge to spell EXACTLY as EGGACTLY so give me some credit here). Anyways, when you give a hamster to a five year old, they will love the hamster so much that it dies. OK, we have now set the stage and developed our comedy premise. Now all we need to complete the story is Emily going over the deep end. Recall that none of the other girls in the class wanted any part of this stupid project, but they wanted their free 100 extra credit points. So Emily decided to open an Egg Baby day care so that Bennie can have “play dates” with the other Egg Babies. If you don’t know Emily … then this will sound insane. If you know Emily … you’ll understand. So anyways, this idea sounded great to the other girls in the class who didn’t want to care for their egg babies. So Emily collects the Egg Babies from a bunch of the girls in the class and lovingly brings them home from school … in a shoe box (because putting an Egg Baby in an egg carton would be cruel). I’ll cut to the chase. A 12 year old girl puts 10 hard boiled eggs into a shoe box with no padding or cushioning. Now put the 12 year old into the back seat of a minivan with her three siblings. Drive 30 minutes on a bumpy road. Add copious amounts of yelling, screaming, fighting, and pushing. And voila! There you have it. A recipe for disaster … and scrambled eggs! The teacher said this was a new school record for the most eggs broken in a single day. I think they are going to put Emily’s name on a plaque or something. 

 

The other girls were really furious at Emily, but the teacher said that they all had learned a valuable lesson about pawning off their responsibilities on other people. Ironically, Bennie survived the journey and the entire two weeks!!! If you saw Emily love on little Bennie the Egg, you would wonder “How was that possible”? So even though Emily did not employ the correct game theory, she still earned her bonus points. I still think she should have shoved Bennie in the refrigerator instead of cynically following the rules both in letter and in spirit. Too bad. This could have been a great learning experience.

 

Dad: In England, “cookies” are called “biscuits”.

Emily: So did they call that race horse movie “Sea Cookie”?

 

Emily: Maybe I should choose an Arch Angel for my confirmation name. Which Arch Angel am I most like?

Dad: Lucifer

 

David: What’s an “Arch Angel”

Emily: An Angel that was on Noah’s Ark

Katelyn: Like “Joan of Arc”?

Our Catholic school tuition money was well spent.

​

KATELYN (age 9) … This year, these are funny!

 

First, the generic news. Katelyn is still her sweet little self. She loves horses and drawing. She also played CYO soccer for the first time. I can’t tell you how adorable it is see Katelyn in her little soccer uniform running around with a bunch of other little girls chasing a soccer ball. It’s basically organized chaos devoid of any semblance of strategy and planning. Think of a bunch of ants attacking a sugar cube and you’ll get the idea. It’s still fun to watch. 

 

Our big family secret this year is that we have decided to pull Katelyn out of Seton Catholic School for her sixth grade year. We know that in her 7th and 8th grade year, we are sending her to Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy. It’s been great for Emily and we want that for Katelyn. But Katelyn is the youngest person in her grade, so we don’t want to risk trying to skip her from 5th to 7th. So here’s the big secret. For Katelyn’s 6th grade year, we are going to HOME SCHOOL. Kathryn and I have no idea what we are doing since we have never done this before. We have big plans, but it’s likely that Katelyn’s curriculum will fast deteriorate into watching Sesame Street every day for six hours. This is probably a good time to ask everybody to pray for us.

 

KATELYN’S CANARY

 

First, the “back story”. You need to know that both Emily and Katelyn have severe allergies to peanuts and tree nuts. Emily’s allergies are far more severe than Katelyn’s. With food allergies, you must read labels before eating a food. But sometimes, not all the information is available and you need to make a judgment call. The next piece of information you need to know is that Katelyn has an overly developed sense of self interest (probably this was inherited from Kathryn). Also, Katelyn isn’t big on sharing (food, toys, computer, anything else, etc.). However, we noticed one glimmer of hope. There was exactly ONE thing that Katelyn would share: sweets! Interestingly enough, it was ONLY with her older sister, Emily. 

 

For the past few years, we just assumed it was the sororal bond of love that nature infuses into sisters. But the curious thing was that Katelyn didn’t share ALL OF THE TIME … only SOME OF THE TIME. It was hard to understand when Katelyn would share and when she wouldn’t. It seemed so random. One moment Katelyn would be wolfing down an ice cream sandwich and then next moment she would graciously give a cupcake to Emily and say “Here, try this. I bet it will taste delicious”. We could not understand what was going on, but we were just grateful that Katelyn was holding out the promise of being altruistic. We didn’t want to look the proverbial “gift horse” in the mouth. 

 

Then it all became crystal clear. We noticed a pattern: WHENEVER THE ORIGIN OF THE FOOD WAS UNKNOWN AND HAD A SLIM CHANCE OF CONTAINING PEANUTS … THEN KATELYN WOULD SHARE IT. BUT ONLY WITH EMILY! In other words, Katelyn would give Emily the first bite of the cupcake and then observe the effects. If Emily didn’t go into anaphylactic shock and drop over dead … then it was safe for Katelyn to eat. We were horrified. So it seems that for this sharing mystery, we were on the right track. We just had the wrong animal. It wasn’t a “gift horse”. It was “canary in the coal mine”. We were amazed and horrified at the same time! 

 

ATTACK OF DER FLEDDERMOUSE

 

Here’s another story about Katelyn. If you DON’T have children, you won’t believe the beginning of this story. If you DO have children, then you won’t believe the end of this story. Again, here’s the back story. A few months Katelyn was studying BATS in her science class. OK, that’s all of the back story you get. 

 

So a few months ago at three in the morning, Kathryn and I awoke to the sound of terrifying shrieks emanating from Katelyn’s room. It sounded like “YEEEEP!!! YEEEEP!!! YEEEEP!!!” These noises were high pitched whales of terror. Ear splitting. Violent. Predatory in nature. This was something unholy and definitely not of an earthly origin. The sound came from Katelyn’s room. If forced to speculate, it was most likely a giant reptilian Pterosaur that had broken down a wall of our house and was preparing to devour our sweet little girl. As parents, you are hard wired to protect to your children. Kathryn and I both sprang from our bed and ran down the hallway to Katelyn’s bedroom. We went from sound asleep to wide awake and ready to do battle within two seconds. Our hearts pounding and adrenaline on full throttle, we busted into Katelyn’s bedroom. Authors Note: If you don’t have children, you won’t believe this next part. 

 

Anyways, we turned on the lights and saw only Katelyn sans any sign of a giant predatory pterodactyl. Katelyn was just standing in the middle of her bedroom floor SHRIEKING in the darkness. Don screamed “Katelyn, what are you doing?” Well, to be honest, it was closer to “What the HELL are you doing???” And to be really honest, it was closer to “What the FUDGE are you doing???” And Don didn’t say FUDGE! (Rent “A Christmas Story” and you’ll get the joke). Katelyn just looked at us and smiled her sweet little smile and her eyes lit up with joy. She explained that she had woken up in the middle of the night and her room was totally dark and she wanted to turn on the lights. But she couldn’t see in the dark so she couldn’t find the light switch. So she decided to do what she had learned about BATS and was using “echolocation”. She was making high pitched sounds and trying to figure out where the light switch was based on where the sounds were bouncing off the wall. There are times that Kathryn and I think we are living in a real life version of Calvin and Hobbs (google it). 

 

See? If you don’t have kids, you won’t believe this story. But trust me, you can’t make this stuff up. If you DO have kids, you have no trouble believing this story. However, if you do have kids then you won’t believe the ending of this story. OK, here’s the part you won’t believe: After Katelyn told us what she was doing, Kathryn and I were able to exercise enough parental restraint and we did not beat her into a state of unconsciousness. 

 

Katelyn: Hey Dad, look at this picture. It’s an “Obstacle Illusion”.

 

Pediatrician: Until your fever breaks, you will need to avoid dehydration. You will need 8 glasses of water every day.

Katelyn: Orally?

 

 

 

DAVID (Age 6)

 

Last year we had a lot of funny David stories, but not so many this year. Instead of one single incident, it’s more of a constant barrage of little episodes. But these little episodes all boil down to one common theme: HAVING A SIX YEAR OLD LITTLE BOY IS THE CLOSEST THING YOU CAN GET TO OWNING A PET MONKEY. All we do every day is run around trying to keep David from causing serious injury (to himself or others) and not catching the house on fire. Every day we succeed is considered a moral victory. 

 

Here’s a good example. David has come to the age where he is old enough to realize that when Mom and Dad confiscate a toy or some other form of contraband, it ends up on the top of the refrigerator. David has figured out that standing on a chair won’t get him high enough to reach his stuff. So he now pulls out the cabinet drawers and uses them as “stairs”. He reaches the counter top and then opens the cabinets and uses the shelves as a ladder. It’s dangerous of course. The engineer in me marvels at his problem solving ability. The parent in me worries about the inevitable trip to the Emergency Room for stitches. And finally the home owner in me is furious that I need to pay for new cabinet drawers and shelves because the ones we had weren’t designed to withstand the weight of a six year old!

 

This year David tried out for Flag Football. I always wondered why I never played flag football or signed Donald up for it. Then I went to a few practices and games and I found out. This is not the type of game favored by Star Trek fans and couch potatoes. Flag football is a grimy game played in the harsh elements. They play in the rain. They play in the sleet. They play in the cold. They play in the mud. They had David at “mud”. He’s a dirty little boy and he loves playing in mud. Contrary to every expectation we had, David was actually really good at it. He seems to be a natural athlete (does anybody know where I can get a paternity test?). When he is given the ball, he runs and dodges and weaves like Red Grange (google it). He even scored a touchdown this year! Amazing.

 

 

“Whenever I get hungry, I get flatulent”

 

“Mom, the next time you wash my mouth out with soap, you should use mouth wash instead of soap because it tastes better” (David has learned some colorful language … probably because Kathryn likes to swear)

 

“Is Lizzie Borden’s last name ‘Took an Axe’?” (David’s question to the tour guide when we toured the Lizzie Borden house)

 

“Our church is OUR LADY OF PROFESSIONAL HELP”

 

“It’s not an ‘abominable snowman’ … it’s a big white monkey”