There's still a kid living upstairs, and I'm in no hurry for him to leave home

You don't have to watch any of this video, let alone all 4 minutes of it. I'm not even sure why I include it here, since it's only tangentially related to the subject of today's post. These are scenes from our house on Christmas Eve 2006, Jack's first Christmas. It makes me feel nostalgic.

Terry and I find ourselves in this interesting period of life in which four of our kids have moved out and we have a grandson, yet we also have a child of our own still living with us.

This isn't a case of, say, your 35-year-old son moving back in with you, either. Our youngest, Jack, is only 20 and a sophomore in college. He lives in the big bedroom on the top floor of our house.

For as much attention as we give grandson Cal, we still haven't finished the job of raising our own children (not that you ever really do finish). While Jack lives a largely independent life – as college students do and should – he still needs us for a lot of things.

We see him every day because he's a commuter student at Cleveland State University, so it's not like he lives on campus and is gone for weeks at a time. The way his class and work schedules are structured, he's at home a lot more than he's away.

The happy result is that we get to talk with him, eat dinner with him (sometimes), and play a role in his search for a career and a direction in life. Years after having done all of that with Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie, I'm glad we still get to do it with Jack.

A lot of parents are excited to enter the empty-nest phase of their lives, and I'm sure we will be too when the time comes.

I'm just not ready for the time to come quite yet.

For one thing, Jack is fun. And funny. He probably plays the same role my siblings say I did for our parents, which was living at home throughout their 50s and early 60s and "keeping them young."

I love going to hockey games with Jack, talking about his plans for school and a career, trading funny YouTube reels with him, and generally having him around.

I can't imagine not hearing his footsteps upstairs when gets out of bed in the morning and heads to his bathroom.

I don't know what it will be like not having him around to gather the upstairs trash when it's time to take out the garbage on Sunday afternoons.

I simply can't fathom the idea of Jack and his cat Cheddar living anywhere but with us.

But it's going to happen, and probably sooner than I think. Like his brother and sisters before him, Jack will reach a point when the need to be on his own outweighs the financial and practical benefits of living with Mom and Dad.

I get that. Terry and I bought our first house when I was just 22 years old. The second we got the keys, I was anxious to move in and live by myself for a few months. That very weekend I moved out of Mom and Dad's place, the only home I had known to that point in my life. 

We're all programmed to seek independence in young adulthood. Whenever Jack is ready for that, we'll be there to support him.

But it's OK if it takes at least a few more years for it to happen. I really love having him around.

Nothing beats the hotel pool when you're traveling with kids

 

A video clip of us in a hotel pool, somewhere outside of Philadelphia, 2006.

We used to take a couple of road trips every year when the kids were growing up. One was always to our church's annual Bible school, while the other was often to one or more cities in Pennsylvania.

I don't know how or why Pennsylvania became our destination of choice, though I suspect it was because it was close, it was relatively inexpensive, and it had a lot of places to choose from.

I know we went to Hershey multiple times, but over the years we ended up covering other parts of the state as well. Wherever we went, we looked for two things in a hotel:

1. A sufficient number of beds to accommodate the seven of us
2. A pool

And that was about all we needed.

The pool, in particular, was a big attraction. No matter what we had spent our day doing, the kids were often more excited to jump into the pool that evening when we got back to the hotel.

Which was fine. It gave Terry and me time to rest, and it allowed them to work out whatever energy they had left before it was time for bed.

Actually, Terry and I didn't always get to rest, as evidenced in the video above.

This was shot 20 years ago during a family trip to Philadelphia. As you'll see, I'm in the pool with the kids holding little Jack, who I don't believe was even 5 months old yet. My job was to carry him around so he could watch his siblings play while not getting splashed in the face.

I miss those days, but I don't miss the level of tired I know Terry and I were feeling at that moment. Family vacations were equal parts fun and fatigue for us.

Which again was fine. We were making memories, and we had enough sense to realize it.

You know, I can't remember the last time I was in a pool with all of my kids, but I do know one thing...The next time it happens, I probably won't be carrying Jack, who is now 20 years old and half a foot taller then me.

I think he can handle getting splashed in the face now.

No more teenagers in the family

For the past 6,883 days, we have had at least one teenager in our family. Tomorrow that streak comes to an end when our youngest, Jack, turns 20.

I say "at least one" because for most of that time, there have been multiple teens among our children. There was one stretch from September 2013 to March 2014 when four of them were teenagers.

Come tonight at midnight, the counter resets permanently to zero.

It's another one of those little life milestones you don't think too much about until they actually happen. As I told someone recently, the combination of having our first grandchild and seeing the family teen years come to an end really brings home how quickly time passes.

Other than a string of car accidents and some other relatively minor crises, I've enjoyed having teenagers. I really have.

I got to see them all graduate high school and go off to college. Four have degrees, with Jack currently working his way through the second semester of his freshman year at Cleveland State University.

I've seen one get married and have a baby, one get engaged, and one build an incredible life with a longtime partner we absolutely love (that last one is Elissa, whose boyfriend Mark has long been a full-fledged member of the family and is one of the best bakers I've ever met).

On the other hand, as the kids have gotten older, I've come to realize that much of my fondness for their teen years stems from how much I didn't know. As they get into their 20s and 30s, they're very free about confessing stuff they did as teenagers that, in retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't aware of.

Ignorance is truly bliss, in this case.

Still, Terry and I can't deny that we've been blessed with five great kids who are turning out to be some pretty great adults. We experienced our share of homecomings, proms, high school sporting events and all the other stuff that comes with having children in the 13-19 age range.

And now we're past it all. Time to move on.

Which is just fine.

(Happy early birthday to the one and only Mr. Jack Tennant!)

For a brief time before COVID hit, my family and I were Cleveland hockey celebrities...sort of

"Celebrities" is way too strong a word, but we did appear on the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse (now Rocket Arena) video board many times throughout the abbreviated 2019-20 and 2020-21 Cleveland Monsters hockey seasons.

We have been season ticket holders for the American Hockey League Monsters since the franchise was born in 2007. Which means we have seen lots and lots of hockey games together. In nearly 19 years as Monsters Hockey Club members, we have watched the team win one Calder Cup championship and several playoff games, and we've also seen them lose a heck of lot.

Through it all, as we point out in the video above, the real key for us has simply been the chance to be together. More specifically, the chance to be together two at a time, as we have just two seats in our account (club level, second row on the aisle, right at the red line...the absolute best seats in the house).

In the team's early years, I remember Jared and I attending postgame season ticket holder skating sessions in which the only people on the ice were team mascots Sully and the Mullet Brothers, in-game host Olivier Sedra, a few other fans, and us. And that was it.

Nowadays, the Monsters lead the AHL in attendance every year, drawing north of 10,000 fans for most games. They're a hot ticket here in Cleveland, largely because they're so affordable compared with the major league sports in town.

We were selected to make this promotional video because we were one of the "founding families" among season ticket holders, I guess. Whatever the reason, we had a blast doing it.

Chloe and Melanie weren't available for the video shoot in our living room. And as you can clearly see, poor Jack didn't much want to be part of it.

Every time it would appear on the arena "Humungotron," we would receive a stream of texts from friends and acquaintances at the games. "We just saw you on the video screen!!" "That was so cool!" "It was so much fun seeing you guys up there!"

The video was shot and edited in January/February 2020. Once March rolled around, of course, the pandemic changed everything. The 2019-20 season was cancelled, and the number of games the followed year was greatly limited as in-person events slowly returned.

Things got back to normal in 2021-22, and our video was played several more times, but by then the always creatively marketed Monsters had new content to show their fans, both in the arena and online.

Our video eventually ended up in their virtual scrap bin, which is fine. It had served its purpose.

Our relatively short stint as stars on the big screen was over. We have maintained our season tickets and our memories since then.

Now the one thing we would like is another Calder Cup championship, if it's not too much to ask.

We're enjoying having a college kid in the family again

Jack on his first day of college

The recent birth of our grandson has somewhat overshadowed another significant family milestone, which is the fact that our youngest son, Jack, started college a couple of weeks ago.

Jack is a freshman data science major at Cleveland State University. He's a little older than the typical freshman at 19 1/2, the result of a two-year process of trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to do in life.

Lots of young people go through the same extended period of self-reflection that Jack did, and I'm surprised it's not even more common. Asking 17- and 18-year-olds to pinpoint exactly what career path they're going to follow is a tall order, especially in a world that changes as rapidly as ours.

Since graduating high school in 2023, Jack has had a brief fling with community college, considered a career in the trades, and worked full time for nearly a year cleaning cages in an animal research laboratory.

Eventually he came to Terry and me and said he thought it would be best to go to college and earn a bachelor's degree of some sort. He is interested in statistics and data analysis – a field that will surely be reshaped by the emergence of artificial intelligence – so data science it is.

Starting in 2012 when Elissa began her own four-year journey at Cleveland State, we had a kid or kids in college continuously for 11 years. For me as Dad, it was a blur of FAFSA forms, dorm move-ins, and essays to edit.

Now, after a two-year break, I'm excited to get back into that world.

Like me so many years ago, Jack is a college commuter. He lives at home and drives downtown five days a week to attend class. There are advantages to doing that (particularly financial ones), but it can also mean being somewhat disengaged from school activities outside of the classroom.

I made an effort to be involved in the band and the school newspaper when I was at John Carroll University, at least until the demands of a nearly full-time work schedule at The News-Herald made those extracurriculars impossible. Jack has talked about joining the CSU pep band, and I hope he does. It would be good for him.

You know, becoming a grandparent can make you feel old. But I'm finding that once again having a college kid in the family balances that out. It makes Terry and I realize we're still very much in our primes.

Good luck to Jack, and go Vikings!

The only time I become an automotive expert is when my daughter has car trouble

I am not a car guy. Nor am I a fix-it guy.

I'm a guy who drives a car. When it breaks, I call a car guy.

I do, however, stay on top of car maintenance. Which is to say that every few weeks, I check Terry's car, Jack's car and my car to ensure tires are properly inflated, fluids are topped off, no one is due for an oil change, etc.

Beyond that, I'm not the first person you call when your car is making a funny noise.

Unless you're my daughter Melanie, in which case I am absolutely the first person you call when your car is making a funny noise.

In the past few months Mel has called me when her battery died (remedied by an easy jump start that even I could manage) and when her brakes started grinding (I know the sound of worn brake pads when I hear it...we took the car immediately to our mechanic Randy, a true car guy).

This makes me feel good because I'm able to help Mel and because it's very much a dad thing to come to the rescue when your child needs help.

I can, by the way, also replace engine and cabin air filters, and I know how to change a tire. But that's about the extent of my skills.

I could probably change my own oil if someone showed me how, but instead I pay someone to do it for me.

Where I DO excel is in maintaining a file on our computer with maintenance/repair records for each of our cars. It shows the dates and mileage for oil changes, new tire installation, and major procedures like brakes, belts and transmission flushes.

That way I can figure out when a car is really due for periodic maintenance and when the mechanic is just trying to upsell me.

One way or another, my nerdy organizational and computer skills always make up for what I lack in other departments.

My wife and I brought back date nights. It was a good call.

A few months ago, I decided Terry and I should have once-a-week date nights.

This is in no way an original concept. Lots and lots of couples have intentional/scheduled date nights, to the point that we're probably a little late to the party.

It just wasn't something we had done before, or at least not something we had done in many years.

When you've been together for any length of time, it's easy to stop thinking of yourselves as a couple. If you have kids, you are instead co-workers in an ongoing enterprise, the goal of which is to keep your offspring fed, clothed and educated.

You get so caught up in it that sometimes you forget that, at one point, the two of you had a romantic relationship (which is of course what led to you having a family in the first place).

So you have to make sure you carve out little chunks of time dedicated to being together, preferably away from the children if they still live at home.

It doesn't have to be expensive, though a couple of our date nights have centered on dinner at a restaurant. Nor does it need to be elaborate.

It just needs to be the two of you together, as free of distractions as possible. We've gone to movies, taken walks, watched Jack and his friends play volleyball...whatever.

So far I think it has been good for us. I like to believe I've always appreciated my wife, but talking to her one on one always reminds me again how smart, funny and full of life she is.

It also affords us some time to talk about short- and long-term plans. What's next for our house? What vacation will we take this fall? What does she have coming up that she's excited about?

In short, date nights have been nothing but good for our relationship. I just hope we can continue coming up with stuff to do each week.

It's the activity brainstorming that's the real trick.

Introducing Calvin: The Official Grandchild™ of "5 Kids, 1 Wife"

 

The handsome young gentleman pictured above is Calvin, my grandson. He is two days old and the first grandchild with which Terry and I have been blessed.

We are, naturally, smitten.

Little Cal made his mother Chloe (our daughter) work hard through her first labor and delivery. She went into the hospital at 8am Sunday to be induced, the result of high blood pressure readings that prompted her care team to take Calvin from the relative warmth and comfort of the womb three weeks before his official due date.

It took nearly 23 hours for Cal to make his entrance, ultimately via an unplanned C-section. Despite the best contraction-inducing drugs and techniques modern medicine could offer – along with 3 1/2 hours of exhausting, heroic, middle-of-the-night pushing on Chloe's part – the little guy simply wouldn't come out.

This was largely because of his big head, an anatomical feature I will freely admit he inherited from his maternal grandfather.

So C-section it was. He came into the world at 6:43am on Monday, measuring 21 inches in length and weighing 8 pounds, 7 ounces.

Let me say two things about his weight:

• Terry, Melanie, Jack and I were sitting around the fire pit in our backyard Sunday night taking guesses as to what Cal's birth weight would be. One person was spot on with his guess. I will not tell you who that was, except to say it was me.
  
  
• If Chloe's pregnancy had gone the full 40 weeks, using the very general rule of thumb that babies gain a half pound a week in the final days of pregnancy, he would have been pushing 10 pounds just like his uncles Jared (9 pounds, 15 ounces) and Jack (9 pounds, 13 ounces) did.

Calvin has needed a little help breathing, which is why he has spent the first few days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This is common in babies born even as late as 37 weeks – especially boys, for whatever reason – so there was no cause for alarm.

As for Chloe, in addition to the normal fatigue of labor, she also developed an infection that resulted in a fever, AND she hemorrhaged a bit after the C-section.

Give that woman a medal. Give every women who has a baby a medal, as far as I'm concerned.

And give her husband Michael a medal for keeping her going and supporting her through the whole ordeal.

When Terry and I got to the hospital about eight hours after Cal was born, I saw this wooden disc resting on Chloe's bedside tray:

Until that moment, while we knew Chloe was having a boy, we didn't know his name. That was the one thing Chloe and Michael had kept secret from the rest of the world, which I thought was perfectly fine. It was only fitting that Mom and Dad had at least one surprise to reveal.

It took me a minute to register exactly what the information on the little wooden circle meant. Then I realized not only that our first grandchild's name would be Calvin, but also that his middle name would be Scott.

It made for an emotional moment. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down and crying right then and there. What an honor it is for your grandbaby to share your name. It's something for which I'll always be grateful to Chloe and Michael.

I have a feeling I'll be grateful for a whole lot of things as Baby Calvin grows up.

Four days without air conditioning revealed just how soft we've become

Like much of the U.S., Northeast Ohio has experienced extended periods of heat and humidity this summer.

At first we barely noticed, as we spent much of the time cooped up in the house with our central air conditioning working 24/7 to maintain a comfortable temperature.

That is, until our AC gave up the ghost.

Thankfully, it happened after the worst of the first heat wave had passed, but it was still plenty warm and humid outside.

Soon, it became warm and humid inside, as well. And the three of us (Terry, Jack and me) were miserable.

It turned out our entire AC system needed replacing at a cost that was not unexpected but still painful.

In the four days between the start of the problem and the installation of the new system, we lived much like I remember living in the 1970s and 80s. We sat around under ceiling fans, sweating and generally longing for winter.

We also complained. A lot. That's not something we did much when I was growing up on Harding Drive. Back then, having a hot house in the summer was just a fact of life. I knew very few people with central air.

My parents did have a powerful window AC unit in their bedroom, and on the hottest nights they would set up blankets on the floor so I could sleep in comfort with them.

But most of the time you just kind of gutted it out.

The whole thing made me realize just how dependent we've become on central air, and how we simply don't need to be as tough as we used to be in order to live day to day.

I love technology, but perhaps predictably, for many of us it has stripped away our ability to deal with any sort of adversity, no matter how minor.

The only thing I can think to do is purposely shut off the air several times a summer and force my family to endure heat the old-fashioned way.

I would probably only get to do that once, though, because Terry and Jack would rip me apart once the indoor temperature hit 80 degrees.

Instead, to ensure my own safety, I'm just going to pray the AC never gives out again.

Sometimes it feels like your kids match their chronological age and sometimes it doesn't

Tomorrow our son Jared turns 27, which feels about right.

What I mean is that, yes, instinctively I think of Jared as someone in his later mid-20s. Or early late 20s. However you want to say it.

He's well established in his career, he has a wonderful fiancée we all love, and he's a responsible adult of the sort you expect your kid to be at this age.

Our other kids are also doing well for themselves, but with Elissa, for instance, I still can't believe she's 31. I can't believe she's 30-anything.

Maybe it's because she's the only one of our kids who has crossed that three-decade age barrier, but man, I have a hard time equating 4-year-old Elissa (who by my reckoning was part of our lives as recently as last year) with successful, mature 31-year-old Elissa.

It just doesn't seem possible.

And Chloe? Same thing. She's 28, married, and on the verge of becoming a mother. But to me she's "Little Chloe," which is how she would refer to herself when she was of preschool age. "Little Chloe, coming through!" is something she used to say that Terry and I reminisce about often.

Don't even get me started on Melanie and Jack. They're doing adult things now but simply shouldn't be. Maybe I've tried to hold onto their youth too long simply because they're our two youngest children, I don't know.

But yeah, Jared turning 27 feels about right. I've often called him "the hardest working man in sports communications" and I still think that's true. He puts in a lot of time and effort on behalf of his employer, the Tampa Bay Rays, a sure sign he has made significant progress since he was a hard-working but somewhat disorganized high school student 10 short years ago.

It's baseball season, so Jared is of course hard at work. He can't be in Ohio celebrating with us, but we'll at least grab him for a quick phone conversation tomorrow, I'm sure.

Happy 27th birthday to our oldest son and a man who fits his age.

This old house: Where we sleep, eat, and pile up memories

Later this month, we will celebrate having lived in our house for 22 years.

We moved in on July 19, 2003. I remember the exact date because...well, because I remember dates like that. There are vast expanses of my brain crammed with dates and details I really don't need taking up space perhaps better filled by more practical information.

I also remember that day because it was my friend Kevin's birthday, and while he has nothing to do with this story, I still equate move-in day with Kev's birthday.

Anyway, 22 years is in some ways a long time and in others not so long at all. My mom lived in her house on Harding Drive for 56 years. And I know lots and lots of people who have been in their homes nearly that long.

Still, it feels like Terry, the kids, and I have always been here at 30025 Miller Avenue. When we took occupancy of the house, Elissa was 9, Chloe was 6, Jared was a few weeks away from turning 5, and little Melanie was still two months from turning 3.

Jack wasn't even a thought yet.

The house has hosted graduation parties, countless birthday celebrations, our 25th anniversary shindig back in 2017, and a whole lot of visits and sleepovers involving family and friends.

I've cut the grass 8 million times (or so it feels). And I think Terry has pulled an even higher number of weeds from the flower beds.

It's the house to which we brought Jack when he was born in 2006. It's the place where we watched all of the kids grow up.

And for now, it's the place where Terry and I intend to spend at least a few more years, if not several.

When you're in your mid-50s and still able to get around well, you don't often think about stairs, for example, being much of an issue. But in 20 or 30 years, if we're still in the house, they very well could be. We have both an upstairs and a basement, and we travel between them regularly.

Interestingly, by the end of this year, our current house will be the place where I've lived the longest in my life. I spent the first 22 years and 4 months of my existence living on Harding Drive before Terry and I bought our first house in 1992.

It gets to a point that even if you decide you want to sell your home, you can't imagine anyone else living there after you. I still feel that way about the place on East 300th Street where Terry and I spent the first 11 years of our marriage. Three different families have lived there in the two decades since we moved out, but part of me still thinks of that house as ours and the others as just renters.

In the end, there's an obvious difference between a house (essentially a container for your stuff) and a home (a place where you always feel warm, welcome, and safe).

I would like to think we've created a nice little home on the southern edge of Wickliffe over 22 years filled with love, light and fond memories.

In the mood for some joyous chaos? Try a Brazilian soccer match

My daughter Elissa, my wife Terry, and me before the match enjoying some Brahma Chopp beers, which I would describe as Brazilian Bud Lite.

Last month, four of us (my wife, our kids Elissa and Jack, and me) took a one-week vacation to Rio de Janiero, Brazil. It was the first time any of us had been to South America, and the trip lived up to our every expectation.

Rio is a wonderful place with a rhythm and vibe all its own. I highly recommend it to anyone anxious to experience Brazilian culture and the friendly Brazilian people, though it does present some minor obstacles for the American traveler.

For one thing, while there are English words on signs all over the city, relatively few people there speak our language well. I wouldn't expect them to (it's THEIR country, after all), but we tend to get spoiled traveling to many popular destinations in Europe and Asia where you can find English speakers on almost every corner.

We learned the words you need to be polite in Brazilian Portuguese, including "hello," "goodbye," "please," "thank you," and "I request that you not steal my iPhone." Beyond that, we relied on hand gestures and the godsend of an app known as Google Translate.

Fluminense supporters waving flags
and screaming at the top of their lungs.

There's also quite a bit of traffic in Rio, so don't expect to get anywhere quickly. The locals accept this as a fact of life and make up for it by driving like suicidal maniacs.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but not by much. We got around via Uber, and we found the Uber drivers to be somewhat aggressive in their driving. By "somewhat aggressive" I mean changing lanes on a whim without really looking, not bothering to even tap the brakes at stop signs, and seemingly targeting pedestrians for no other reason than the sheer sport of it.

While the Uber rides provided enough thrills to last us a long while, so did my favorite part of the trip, which was the chance to attend a soccer match between Rio-based teams Fluminense and Vasco de Gama.

We did this through a tour company that specializes in bringing foreigners to Brazilian soccer games. Buying tickets directly as a non-Brazilian is a difficult experience – perhaps intentionally so – so you have to do it through an accredited agent.

Our tour guide Leo was outstanding. He was effortlessly trilingual (Portuguese, Spanish and English) and did a good job preparing us all for the experience.

Because Brazilian soccer is an experience. From the pregame festivities outside historic Maracanã Stadium to the match itself, rare is the time you can even hear yourself think. Everything about it is loud. All the time.

A small portion of the pregame crowd near Maracanã Stadium.

The streets around Maracanã were filled with people sporting Fluminense and Vasco de Gama colors. While it was technically a home match for Fluminense, the Vasco supporters seemed to be out in greater numbers.

We were told that Vasco fans generally draw from the region's working classes, while Fluminense fans are somewhat more affluent.

Regardless, we didn't overtly root for either team. We just tried to soak in the atmosphere. Outside the stadium there were fireworks aplenty (M-80s and bottle rockets mostly) and people yelling specific chants/cheers for their team. Europeans and North Americans mingled freely and happily with Brazilians and other South Americans, giving the whole thing an air of intense but friendly rivalry more than dark menace.

Once inside, we were struck by a few things that differed greatly from American sporting events:

• The only reason we knew the Brazilian national anthem was playing was because the players stood at attention and the words appeared on the video boards. The fans continued cheering loudly as if nothing important was going on. We couldn't hear the song at all.
  
  
• Once the match began, everybody stood. Everybody. The whole time. There was virtually no sitting.
  
  
• On a related note, people clogged the aisles of our section rather than just staying close to their seats. If you wanted to go get a beer or visit the restroom during the match, you had to wade through a dense sea of screaming fans standing in your way.
  
  
• I say "their seats," but there is no assigned seating in Maracanã Stadium. You just claim a seat and sit in it. If you leave, the seat is fair game for anyone else.
  
  

That's me and my son Jack before the start of the match.

Each side's supporters seemed to have an arsenal of chants and songs they would shout together in large groups. These were obviously in Portuguese (as were all game announcements and video board messages), and Leo tried to teach me one for Fluminense.

When the Fluminense fans launched into this particular chant, Leo turned around and looked at me like a teacher quizzing a pupil, but I immediately forgot almost everything I had learned. Instead I just sort of yelled along using nonsense words that somewhat approximated what I heard from the fans around me.

No matter, though. It was still a lot of fun.

In fact, the whole thing was a lot of fun...loud, crazy, and carried out in a beautiful language I will never be able to learn no matter how hard I try. But in the end, Fluminense's 2-1 victory (even including the shower of beer that hit us when Vasco scored the first goal of the match) was undeniably enjoyable.

I will not, however, be trying out anything I learned in Brazil at, say, the next Cleveland Guardians game. Between standing in someone's line of sight the whole game and claiming seats for which I don't own a ticket, something tells me I would be in a lot more danger at Progressive Field than I ever was at Maracanã.

Did I suggest that my son should commute to college because I thought it would be best for him, or because I don't want to move yet another futon into another dorm room?

Recently Terry accompanied our youngest child, Jack, to his orientation session at Cleveland State University. I've been to a couple of these orientations, and I've always found them to be at least somewhat fun and exciting for both parents and the freshmen-to-be.

As Jack gets ready to go back to the classroom after a two-year absence, he texted us a few weeks ago asking whether he should consider living on CSU's campus in Downtown Cleveland, rather than commute five days a week.

We've had three other kids live in dorms and/or off-campus housing near Cleveland State, so it certainly wasn't an unreasonable request.

Terry and I both, however, counseled Jack that, for him, it's probably best to commute for at least a year and get used to being in college before diving into the on-campus experience.

There's also the matter of student loan debt, which would rise considerably for him if he chose to live in a dorm (what with the cost of housing, food, etc.)

Jack wisely agreed with us, but then I reflected on the true motivation for the advice I had given.

On one hand, yes, I do think this is the best approach for Jack. I really do.

On the other hand, I have helped four of our children move into dorm rooms and apartments, none of which ever seemed to be on the ground floor but involved endlessly waiting for a single elevator that five dozen other students and their parents were trying to use.

It's a tiring process that involves lugging heavy bins and boxes of clothes, bedding and other dorm room accoutrements.

And I'll admit: While I strength train every week, it was one thing doing all of that in my 30s and even 40s. It's a somewhat different thing to do it in my mid-50s.

Oh, I can do it. I'll manage. It's not so much the actual moving as it is the prolonged recovery from moving that will inevitably follow.

Because, you see, that's what I notice about being this particular age: I can still do almost everything I've ever done, but if it's at all strenuous, my body (which used to bounce back in hours) will let me know about it for a solid day or two afterward.

I'll move your couch up the stairs, sure. I'm just desperately hoping you won't ask me to move the love seat, too.

In the end, I'm confident that what I told Jack came from the right place.

But if he decides to stay on-campus in future years, I'm requesting that a case of ibuprofen be kept close by at all times.

I am now vaccinated against yellow fever and never thought I would have to say that

Very soon, I'll be headed to Brazil with my wife, my oldest daughter, and my youngest son. We're looking forward to nearly a week in sunny Rio de Janeiro, home of the world-famous Christ the Redeemer statue as well as, apparently, various exotic tropical diseases.

Well, to be fair, there's really only one main disease they warn you about, and that's yellow fever. And even that is more of a thing if you venture into rural areas, rather than Rio itself.

Still, if you're going to Brazil, the U.S. Department of State and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) make it pretty clear that you should consider being vaccinated against yellow fever.

Both entities take a decidedly passive-aggressive approach to this warning. Read what each has to say about traveling to Brazil and you walk away with a message along the lines of, "Look, you don't have to get the yellow fever vaccination, but if it were me..."

So we got it. All four of us.

Let me say two things about that:

• We had the vaccine administered at a place in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, very near our home. I found it on a list of approved yellow fever vaccination sites, but it was only after Elissa went that we learned it's less of a medical clinic and more of a beauty/wellness center that also happens to stock some vaccines. This was somewhat disconcerting.
  
  
• Guess how much the yellow fever vaccine costs. Go ahead, just take a guess...If you said $400, you were correct. Now guess whether anyone's insurance actually covers this cost. I will give you only one hint, which is that the answer is not, as I had hoped, "yes."
  

To that second point, the vaccination was just one of many unexpected costs and hassles we incurred getting ready for this trip.

Another was the Brazilian tourist visa, something that only just became a thing last month. If we had taken this trip in say, January, we would not have had to worry about it. But now travelers to Brazil have to apply for a visa.

The visa itself is $80 per person which, eh, isn't so bad, I guess. But the Brazilian government's frustratingly exacting standards when it comes to uploading your passport bio page, submitting a precisely edited and cropped head shot, and answering questions written by someone who likely did well in English classes at school but still lacks that real-world touch when it comes to getting across their true meaning, made the whole process more difficult than it should have been.

One good thing in all of this is that our travel itinerary and reservations were completed early on by Elissa, our oldest child and top-notch travel planner. At least that part of it hasn't been difficult.

What could be difficult, though, is getting back from this trip in one piece, given the list of other diseases besides yellow fever the State Department says can sometimes be found in Brazil. Those include chagas, chikungunya, dengue, zika, leishmaniasis, rabies, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, and the always-festive traveler's diarrhea.

Why didn't they just throw cholera. diphtheria, beriberi, rickets and the vapors in there to complete the cavalcade of 19th-century maladies we could theoretically contract?

Despite all of that, though, I'm very excited to go. It's going to be like the Oregon Trail of international vacations.

Q&A with the Kids - Part V - Jack

NOTE: You always hear from me, so I thought it might be fun to hear from the kids for a change. Here's our latest Q&A With the Kids interview, this one with my 19-year-old son Jack. He's the last one still living at home with us, and I love the chance to talk with him every day. He continues to impress me and make me laugh.

What was the best thing about growing up in a big family?

The best thing about growing up in a big family (specifically being the youngest growing up in a big family) is that you get to see everything. Even if I don't remember it all that well, I've watched all of my siblings slowly but surely move out, dozens of parties being thrown (whether birthdays, anniversaries, or concerts), and different collections of my siblings' friends over the years. And though it IS sad to be the last one to do everything, with not as many people watching, I'm really, really appreciative to have had people to watch and learn from over the years.

What things didn't you like about it?

Splitting up all of the attention among five kids is hard, like REEEALLY hard. And it made it so that until around high school, I didn't really get as much time as I could have with Mom and Dad. Although I have been VERY spoiled at home ever since I became an "only child" around 2021. They say you spend 90% of your time with your parents before 18, so it's somewhat unfortunate. But one thing it did teach me is independence and being able to thrive on my own. And I'm grateful for that.

What are your favorite memories of things we did as a family?

To name a few, going to Red Robin for everyone's birthdays, getting our trees at Christmas (when we got real ones), hanging out around our firepit, and ALL of the family dinners.

What is something you wish you could have done or had growing up, but you couldn't because you had four siblings?

For me personally, there wasn't really anything wrong with growing up with four siblings. I truly believe I had a really great childhood and I can definitely attribute that to Mom and Dad. Anyways, a pool and a trampoline.

Do you want kids of your own? Why or why not?

Yes, definitely. Once again, it can probably be attributed to me being the youngest and not having to experience the terror of having five small kids in your home. But I can definitely say that being in a big family has made me want at the very least a medium-sized family. Up to the wife, though, to be fair.

What was your favorite thing Mom used to make for dinner? Do you ever make it for yourself?

Chicken marsala. I've never, ever had any chicken marsala like Mom's. I believe I've helped her make it once, haha. But you better believe I'm gonna be making that recipe WEEKLY when I'm moved out.

Having an adventurous daughter means you end up in some exotic places

 

One day several weeks ago, Elissa sent me the text above.

The minute I read it, I knew my fate was sealed. There was no way I was saying no to an invitation to visit Brazil.

Thus, next month, Elissa, Terry, Jack and I are hopping on a plane and heading south for five days in Rio de Janeiro.

It would never have occurred to me to travel to Brazil. I simply wouldn't have thought of it on my own.

But Elissa thought of it because she is a traveler (and travel planner) par excellence. One time she went to Sweden by herself and attended a Kendrick Lamar concert in Stockholm.

Again, by herself. Who does that?

Elissa and her boyfriend Mark will have just returned from Scotland by the time we take this Brazil trip, so Mark opted to sit this one out. I don't blame him. International travel, while always a thrill, is also exhausting.

You may recall that my last overseas trip was to Paris to attend the 2024 Olympics. I came home with a head full of memories and a body full of COVID.

You take the good with the bad, I guess.

One of the great things about Rio for American travelers is that the time difference is negligible. The city is just one hour ahead of Cleveland this time of year, which is great.

On the other hand, getting there is going to be a bit arduous. We take an afternoon flight down to Houston, stay there a few hours, then board another plane for an overnight flight to our destination.

I don't sleep particularly well on planes when I'm not in business class, so I'm expecting that first full day in Brazil to be a tiring one.

Still, it's Brazil, and who knows whether we'll ever have the chance to get back? So off we go.

We have somewhat of a personal connection to the country in that we hosted two Brazilian students in our home for a week back in 2012. Paula and Luiz were wonderful young people, and we still occasionally connect with them on Facebook.

(Click here to read a 13-year-old blog post about that experience.)

I'm looking forward to meeting new Brazilian people on this next adventure. They are, as a rule, outgoing, generous and very hug-oriented people.

I just wish we could get to them without the whole overnight flying thing.

My daughters beat me so badly in The Mini crossword puzzle that I have to believe I'm deteriorating mentally

A few months ago I wrote about the fact that I do four New York Times puzzles every morning (Wordle, Connections, Strands, and The Mini.)

My performance varies from day to day, but generally speaking, I'm OK at Wordle, pretty good with Connections, very good at Strands, and not so good with The Mini.

The Mini is a small crossword puzzle that can usually be completed in about a minute. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.

I thought I was pretty decent at The Mini until I accepted my daughter Chloe's invitation to create a leaderboard for the game whereby you can compare your performance with other people. We have since added Elissa and Jack to that daily leaderboard.

I quickly realized that either Chloe and Elissa are geniuses at this puzzle, or I'm slow to the point of potential brain dysfunction.

As an example, here was a typical five-day stretch in mid-February comparing how quickly Chloe and I completed The Mini each day:

February 11: Chloe 33 seconds, me 1:07

February 12: Chloe 27 seconds, me 54 seconds

February 13: Chloe 1:05, me 1:29

February 14: Chloe 59 seconds, me 2:29

February 15: Chloe 1:12, me 2:12

In the several weeks since we created our leaderboard, I think I have been faster than my daughters maybe twice each, and those involved lucky guesses on my part.

I know Chloe and Elissa, at 28 and 31, respectively, are in their mental prime, while I (at 55) clearly am not. But still...when you think of yourself as a "Word Guy" and your kids – along with probably nearly everyone else who regularly completes The Mini – leave you in the dust, it's time to question whether you're losing it for good this time.

My only recourse is to assume my kids are somehow cheating. They're highly intelligent, sure, but I can't accept this level of defeat at face value.

Our youngest is n-n-n-n-n-nineteen today

If you recognized the reference to Paul Hardcastle's song "19" in the headline, you're either hardcore Gen X or a big fan of mid-80s electro pop. Or both. Nice job.

Why are we talking about the number 19? Because our youngest, "little" Jack, turns that age today. That photo of us above was taken last summer when we visited Toronto.

Jack is still at a point in life where every birthday is a milestone, regardless of whether it brings new legal privileges. Most kids when they hit 19 come to the startling realization that they've entered the home stretch of their teen years, and it can be jarring.

What they don't realize, of course, is that it sometimes affects their parents even more. Terry and I have had a nonstop string of teenagers in our family since 2007. This time next year, they will all be in their 20s and 30s.

Time, in addition to being undefeated, is also unstoppable.

I love having Jack living at home with us. He's funny, extremely smart, persevering, and one of the most likeable people you'll ever meet. He makes me laugh at least twice a day, and I enjoy watching him navigate the process of becoming an adult. He's doing great (with a little help from Mom and Dad from time to time).

Happy birthday, Jackie T. I hope you have the best time being n-n-n-n-n-nineteen.

It's already to the point that I can't clearly remember when the kids all lived at home

I used to live with all of these people. Just don't ask me about the details.

It's not like Terry and I are 80 years old or anything. We're not even officially empty nesters yet.

But to my surprise, I have trouble remembering the days when all seven members of our family lived together at 30025 Miller Avenue. The last time it happened, I think, was 2015. Maybe 2016.

Which for the math-impaired isn't even a decade ago.

Yet things get blurry when I try to recall what the mornings were like, or how we all squeezed in around the kitchen table for dinner. I was at work quite a bit of the time, of course, but I was there enough that I should be clearer on the details.

What I do remember is general chaos most of the time. Sports, band, church activities, movie nights, sleepovers, vacations. It was great, but it has all run together in my increasingly addled mind.

It's the small-but-important details that have escaped my brain. Who slept in which room? Who left the house first in the morning? At what age did they start spending more time with their friends than with us? Were Terry and I the only ones who woke up for late-night infant feedings, or did the newborns also awaken their siblings?

It's all a jumbled mass that has separated itself into two broad periods of time: the years when Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie lived with us (1994 to 2022) and the years when it has just been Terry, Jack and me in the house (2022 to the present).

The particulars are increasingly fuzzy.

Naturally, this effect is most pronounced with my 30-year-old daughter Elissa. I know she lived with us for the first 20 or so years of her life, and I remember many individual moments and milestones, but the day to day is indistinct.

What did she eat for breakfast? How often did she hang out in the living room and talk with us? Where did she do her homework?

You got me. I was there, but I just can't recall much of it.

I would feel much better if other middle-aged parents consoled me with tales of their own kid-related amnesia. Otherwise, I can only conclude that my cognitive decline is accelerating and I am that much closer to being a drooling mess who can't even remember yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.

I'm very proud to welcome my son Jack as the only other member of The 5:30am Club in our house

I've mentioned here more than once that I'm an early riser. Not as early as some people I know, but most days (even weekends) I'm out of bed somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30 in the morning.

This has been especially true since I started going to the gym five days a week. Getting out the door well before the sun rises means having your pick of weight machines, dumbbells and workout spaces.

I have been the first one awake in our house almost every day for the last 25+ years. Even when all five kids lived with us, my feet were consistently first to hit the floor every morning.

Now, however, I have a buddy who joins me in this ritual of early rising. It's my 18-year-old son Jack, who I can count on seeing Monday through Friday right around 5:30am.

The reason is that Jack is working his first full-time job. He is an Animal Husbandry Technician at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, and his hours are weekdays 6:30am to 2:30pm.

The semi-fancy title simply means that Jack cleans out cages and does related chores within the university's animal research lab. My brother Mark worked many years at Case as an IT guy, but he also pitched in and did Jack's current job a few times himself when Covid hit in 2020 and the lab folks were scrambling to cover certain roles.

As in any job with an early start time, the advantage is that Jack is home mid-afternoon and has the rest of the day to himself. Another perk (besides making more money than he ever has) is that, if he chooses, he can take classes at Case for free.

This is no small benefit. Case Western Reserve is a very prestigious – and very expensive – university. I was offered a job there in 2013 and came this close to accepting it despite a significant salary cut, simply because it could have meant free college for my kids.

I'm very proud of the way Jack has adjusted his life and his routine to accommodate this new job. He works hard at it, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every day I receive a notification on my Apple Watch that Jack has already closed his movement, exercise and standing "rings."

It's a pretty physically demanding gig.

So, whereas I used to be alone for the first 1-2 hours of each day, now Jack and I meet up early while Terry is (smartly) still sleeping. We talk a bit when he comes downstairs to make his coffee and get his stuff together.

I facilitate the coffee-making by turning on the electric kettle so the water will be boiling by the time Jack comes down. It's the least I can do for my fellow 5:30am Club member.

After all, we're a very exclusive group.