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.

Car trips with my wife are fun but often involve stopping at places like the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet

Last month, Terry and I drove up to Detroit to spend a little time with our son Jared. He was on an extended road trip with the Tampa Bay Rays (his employer) that included some games in the Motor City. Since we're only 3 hours from Detroit, we thought it would be fun to hop in the car one morning, meet Jared for brunch, and attend a Rays-Tigers game.

And it was fun, no doubt. Jared lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and while Terry travels down there quite frequently, we still don't get to see Jared and his fiancée Lyndsey nearly as often as we would like.

The morning after the game, we again met Jared for some brunch (actually for pastries at a bakery in the tony suburb of Birmingham, Michigan, not far from the Rays' hotel). Then Terry and I hit the road again to return home.

We made the usual lunch/bathroom stop, but before that we took a detour into Toledo, Ohio, to visit the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet. This store is situated maybe 1,000 feet from the banks of the Maumee River in what I assume is the heart of Toledo, and as you might imagine, it features a lot of glass products.

Like, a lot of glass products. Several thousand square feet of glass products and related merchandise, much of which is priced ridiculously low.

This store is – again, as you might imagine – much more Terry's jam than mine. My interest in glassware was limited to seeing if I could find a coffee mug to add to my collection (I did not) and discovering if I could successfully navigate the store with a shopping cart without breaking anything (I managed it).

Terry, on the other hand, happily walked around the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet for 45 minutes, leaving with an array of items, not all of which were made of glass.

I followed her around patiently and was actually way more engaged than I thought I would be. There was some pretty cool stuff in there, though that may simply reflect the fact that I'm entering old manhood. Thirty-year-old Scott never would have been as interested as I was.

My favorite part of the experience was being there with my wife and watching her enjoy herself. Because that's what you do when you're married: You take pleasure in your spouse's pleasure. Even if it's not your favorite activity in the world, you do it because he/she wants to do it.

And honestly, it wasn't any sort of big sacrifice. We walked around laughing and talking as we do, then we paid for the stuff Terry had picked out, carried it to our car, and took off east toward Cleveland to finish the drive home.

Do I look forward to returning to the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet any time soon? I do not.

Do I want to make my wife happy and preserve my marriage? I do.

I have to admit, though...it was fascinating to see just how wide a selection there is for anyone interested in discount glass stemware.

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.

If you have a basement gym, you might as well use it

Over the last year, I've gotten a lot of mileage here on the blog posting about my adventures at the gym.

I was never a weight lifter until May 2024, when Elissa and Mark bought me four sessions with a trainer named Kirk at Ohio Sports & Fitness (OSF) in Willoughby, Ohio. My knowledge and enjoyment of strength training really blossomed under Kirk's guidance, and I enjoyed working out with him twice a week almost without fail for 13 full months.

As of a month ago, however, I no longer go to OSF, nor is Kirk serving as my trainer. This has nothing to do with the gym or with Kirk. The facility is great with a lot of friendly and very helpful people. As for Kirk, what can I say? He's an amazing personal trainer whose extensive knowledge blends well with his positive personality.

He's a good egg, that Kirk.

No, my disengagement from the gym has nothing to do with them. It was simply a decision I made several weeks ago when I decided I needed to free up some time in my otherwise hectic life (something I mentioned this past Monday in an egregiously gratuitous game show-related post).

One of the changes I made in my routine was to shift the site of my twice-a-week strength training to our house rather than an outside gym.

It turns out we have a pretty nicely equipped gym in the back room of our basement, thanks to the efforts of my son Jared. When we still lived with us and was really into lifting, he stocked that room with everything you really need to build muscle.

That includes two adjustable weight benches, a rack for bench pressing, a barbell and various weight plates, a full assortment of dumbbells, a machine for hamstring curls and quad extensions, and a bunch of other stuff I won't even list here, all placed on a series of heavy-duty rubber horse mats.

For the longest time I felt guilty I wasn't taking advantage of this nice exercise setup located right in my own home. Now I do.

I admittedly miss Kirk, and I miss the atmosphere at OSF, but so far this change has been for the better. It cuts significant time off my morning routine, and it doesn't involve any sort of membership or personal training fees.

It also helps that my strength training goals are relatively modest. I'm not looking to bulk up or anything. Really, all I want is to maintain what I have in an attempt to stave off age-related muscle loss.

The Tennant Gym is more than equipped to help me do that.

Now if only I could get a machine for the basement that makes me not want to eat cake all the time...

Like any job, there are ups and downs to working in the sports industry

Terry and me with our son Jared at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida...before the place was torn up by a hurricane.

My son Jared, who works for Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays, put it better than I could have when he said, "Everybody wants to work in baseball until they actually work in baseball."

What he meant was that lots of people are anxious to work for a professional baseball team, but when faced with the reality of what that means day to day, it's a career choice some quickly regret.

Jared's words resonated with me because I started my career in sports media as a newspaper journalist here in Northeast Ohio. I was a sports agate clerk/staff writer for The News-Herald, a large suburban daily paper, from 1988 to 1990 while in college, spent nearly a year as a sports writer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Lake-Geauga Bureau in 1991 while still in college, then returned to The News-Herald in late '91 as a full-time sports writer.

I worked for the paper until the fall of 1996, when I switched gears and began writing plan documents for a health insurance firm.

That's a big change, but it was necessitated by two key factors that still loom large for local sports journalists:

(1) Terry and I were starting to have kids, and I needed a larger salary than The News-Herald could provide. Very, very few people in sports media are anywhere near what you might call "rich."

(2) Along those same lines, I worked nights, usually until 1 or 2 in the morning. That is not conducive to a growing family, especially when the kids start playing sports or have evening school events.

The work itself was fun, but it could be tiring. There were many nights when I would cover a game, come back to the office and write my story, then start editing articles and laying out pages for the next day's paper. THEN we had to stick around until the first papers came off the presses to check that no glaring errors had made it through the editing process.

Similarly, during the baseball season, Jared's days are long no matter whether the Rays are home or away. As Senior Coordinator, Baseball Information & Communications, he researches and writes pages and pages of media notes (starting in the morning on game days). After games he's doing more writing, researching and generally helping media do their jobs well.

If you're a sports fan, you might know the Rays are playing this season at George Steinbrenner Field, a minor league baseball facility, since their home park at Tropicana Field is unplayable after being damaged last year by Hurricane Milton.

I texted Jared on the day of the Rays' home opener this season and asked him how it went.

He reported that the bullpen cameras at Steinbrenner Field had been installed incorrectly so that they couldn't tell which relief pitchers were warming up. That's information usually announced right away in the press box.

And speaking of announcing information, I don't think the press box microphones were working, either, so Jared or someone else on the Rays' staff had to yell out relevant information to the assembled media as it became available.

All of this was happening while Jared was trying to do his regular job and also training two new Rays communications staffers. It was a long, exhausting day, I'm sure, but certainly nothing out of the ordinary for people who work in professional sports.

That's just the way the job goes, and if you don't want to do it, they can always find someone who does.

I'm a big fan of the current sports staff at The News-Herald. Among those writers is a guy named Chris Lillstrung, who covers many of the "niche" sports I like to follow closely like soccer, hockey, and track and field.

I'm also Facebook friends with Chris. He often posts about the sacrifices people like him have to make in order to survive in newspaper journalism these days. It's still relatively low paying, and it still involves long evening hours that make it difficult for him to spend time with his daughter.

None of what Chris posts is whining, though. It's just fact.

I pay for a subscription to The News-Herald to read what Chris, John Kampf, Ben Hercik, Jay Kron and other N-H sports scribes write, but my few bucks aren't enough to give these professionals the type of compensation they really deserve.

The economics of the industry are such that they're simply not going to be paid large salaries, and instead they must take some solace in the fact that what they're doing is also providing a valuable community service.

That's heartening to think about, but it doesn't pay the bills.

The point is, any time you think "how cool!" when you hear about a friend's kid working in professional sports, or if you yourself are considering a career in that field, make sure you go into it with your eyes wide open.

It IS cool and personally rewarding, and it can be done, but understand what you're giving up in return.

When it comes to the sports industry, there never has been any such thing as a free lunch.

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.

We're going to have a wedding in the family

 

Recently my son Jared proposed to his longtime girlfriend Lyndsey, and she said yes.

None of this was a surprise to us. It was eventually going to happen and was just a matter of when.

Lyndsey and Jared have been together for nearly eight years. They went to the same high school but didn't become a couple until the summer after graduation. As I often say, she is as much a member of our family as any of our kids, as Elissa's boyfriend Mark, or as Chloe's husband Michael.

Now it becomes legal.

Whenever this wedding occurs, it will be the first involving one of our kids. Chloe and Michael have been hitched for 5 1/2 years, but they never had an actual wedding (though not for lack of trying).

They were married by a judge back in October 2019, in part because Chloe was beginning her academic research career and wanted to change her name before she began publishing. This was to maintain consistency and avoid any confusion further down the line.

Their plan was to have a formal wedding in June 2020, but you might remember a little pandemic that popped up a few months prior to that, causing them to push the wedding to October 2020.

That little pandemic refused to cooperate, though, and eventually their wedding was cancelled altogether.

So Jared and Lyndsey's big day will be Terry's and my first time as parents of the groom/bride.

As I write this, we don't yet have a date or a location for that wedding. But whenever it is, it's going to be quite the shindig, I'm sure. These kids have a large army of family and friends who love them and want to be there when they tie the knot.

I can't wait. It's not often I get to show off my Hokey Pokey AND Chicken Dance skills in the same night.

Q&A with the Kids - Part III - Jared

(NOTE: You always hear from me, so I thought it might be fun to hear from the kids for a change. In the spotlight today is our 26-year-old son Jared. He has a very cool job – if often stressful with long hours – as Senior Coordinator, Baseball Information & Communications, for Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays. Thus, he's the only one of our kids who doesn't live close to home. We go visit him when we can, though, and we're very excited for the bright future he and his fiancée Lyndsey have ahead of them.)

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

I'll always be grateful for the chaos of growing up in a house with seven people and a bunch of pets. There was always something to do and someone to hang out with. I also think I had the best of both worlds being the middle child. I had less responsibility than Elissa and Chloe and still got to pretend I was in charge of Melanie and Jack.

What things didn't you like about it?

I got sick of the lack of privacy pretty often. I've always been introverted and enjoy having time to myself. That was a lot harder growing up than it is now. 

Jared & me at an outdoor hockey game in Rochester, NY, December 2013

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

I loved all the traditions we had and still have. Things like Friday night pizza, Pennsylvania theme park vacations, backyard fires, British soccer camps and Harry Potter movie marathons come to mind. I was also a big fan of family kickball games, mostly because I took them more seriously than anybody else. 

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

Outside of a couple Florida vacations, we didn't do much traveling beyond a state or two over. I don't think I went on my first flight until I was 12 or 13.

Awww, Baby Jared

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

Yes, but not any time soon. I think 1-2 kids is probably where I'll end up. You guys are insane for having five.

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

It has to be her pizza. Honorable mentions go to beef stroganoff, meatloaf, taco soup and lasagna. I don't do much cooking during baseball season, but I used Mom's cinnamon roll recipe this year for Christmas.

The shock of nice weather in the middle of a Great Lakes winter

Terry and I have made a habit of traveling to Florida in February and March to visit our son Jared and his girlfriend Lyndsey. We just did it last week (Terry is still down there, as a matter of fact).

This is usually a pretty good time to get out of Northeast Ohio with its wind, snow and ice and spend some time in St. Petersburg with its sunshine, blue skies and...more sunshine. And this trip was no different, as temperatures reached about 80 degrees every day I was there.

When we arrived at the Tampa/St. Pete airport on Thursday and went outside to wait for Jared to pick us up, I immediately felt like I always feel when I fly to a warm place in the middle of winter: Pale, haggard, bloated, and more than a little disconcerted.

It always takes me a day or so to adjust to wearing shorts and a t-shirt outdoors.

On Saturday, Terry and I took a short morning walk with Jared around a nearby lake. (Also on the walk was Jared and Lyndsey's cat Salem, whom Jared carried in a little kitty container hung around his neck.) The conditions were perfect, with low humidity and temperatures right around 70 degrees.

It was so nice that I started wondering – as I have before – what it would be like to live in a place like Florida. A place where it rarely snows. A place where the sun doesn't disappear for weeks at a time. A place where outdoor activities are in play year-round.

From time to time, Terry and I have mused over the idea of someday moving south, or at least spending significant time there. It wouldn't happen for another decade, if at all, but the thought never quite leaves our minds.

Then I begin to consider the drawbacks. And there are several.

For one thing, it may hardly ever snow down there, but hurricanes and tropical storms are a thing. While Tampa/St. Pete doesn't get hit as often as other areas of Florida do, Hurricane Milton did force Jared and Lyndsey to evacuate south to Miami last fall.

Then there's the day-to-day weather. Not the winter weather, the summer weather. It gets hot in June, July, August and September. Really hot. Hot and humid. To the point that you don't really want to be outside.

There's also the simple fact that it isn't home. Having lived in one city and one city only, I have deep roots in my hometown. I know where things are located. I know lots of people. I understand how things work around here.

Would it be worth turning our whole world upside down in exchange for more pleasant winter and spring days? I don't know. I really don't.

Right now, it all depends on when you ask me. At the moment, having just spent time outside with Jack shoveling heavy, icy snow off our driveway, I'm feeling very pro-Florida. In a couple of months when it starts to warm up around here? Maybe not.

To be continued...

Stop yelling at sports officials (says the guy who used to yell at sports officials)

There is a story that comes up regularly in our family about the time my son Jared was playing high school soccer and got run over (like, literally run over) by a member of the opposing team.

Jared had fallen and was down on the field, and this kid – I want to say "this punk," but I'll restrain myself – just ran right up his back and stepped on his head as if Jared was part of the turf.

It was reckless, dangerous and blatantly unsportsmanlike, yet no foul was called on the play. The athletic trainer came out and tended to Jared, then escorted him off the field to rest and recover.

I was livid about the whole thing, especially about the fact that there would be no consequences for the kid's actions. So I started yelling some not-so-nice things at the officiating crew from my seat in the stands.

Just as I thought I had gotten it out of my system and started to sit back down, I quickly stood back up and aimed a very unkind remark at the center referee, who was somewhat heftier than soccer officials normally are.

(Because we're friends, I will tell you that my exact words to him were, "And lay off the donuts!" I will also tell you that I was immediately embarrassed and ashamed I said it, though it delighted our friends the Pugh family to no end. It still gets brought up whenever we see them.)

I mention that story to establish the fact that I am a hypocrite when I tell you we all need to stop yelling at officials, especially those working youth and high school games. I'm not in a position to make this demand of you.

Yet I'm doing it anyway because I hear people do it all the time when I'm working as a public address announcer at various local schools.

There was a game recently at my home school of Wickliffe involving an opponent whose fans are generally very nice and pleasant, but that always seems to have a contingent of screamers. That obnoxiously vocal minority was horrible to the three referees working our boys basketball game.

Just as I was embarrassed by my own comments years earlier, I was embarrassed for them. They set a bad example for the kids in the crowd, and they represented their school and community poorly.

They also cast themselves as a big part of the problem when it comes to why we have such a shortage of officials to work youth and scholastic sports in this country. Loudmouth parents/fans make it an entirely unappealing experience.

What people like me and like them fail to realize is that the job of a sports official is hard. It's insanely difficult to catch every infraction and to find the right balance between keeping athletes safe and making sure they as referees are not disrupting the flow of the game.

You wouldn't be good at it, no matter how highly you think of yourself.

So – and I say this as politely as possible and with no more conviction than when I said it to myself after the Jared soccer incident – you need to shut up. Seriously, don't make things worse. Just keep your mouth closed.

You won't change the call, but you almost certainly will be a shameful example for everyone around you. And you'll make it less likely that anyone with any common sense will ever want to become an official.

Thank you for understanding, and for restricting your comments only to those words that positively support your team.

And even if you're not a hefty soccer official, it's not a bad idea to lay off the donuts every once in a while, either.

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.

Those three months when the kids' ages are easy to remember

Me trying to compute the exact ages of my children

I call August through October "birthday season" in our family, as three of our kids were born in this time frame.

It starts with Jared on August 5th, continues with Melanie on September 21st, and culminates today with the anniversary of Chloe's birth.

In addition to Chloe being a person worth celebrating, I also like getting to October 23rd because it means that, from now until late January, all of the kids' ages are either even or odd and thus easy to remember.

Today, for example, Chloe turns 28. That matches nicely with Elissa (30), Jared (26), Melanie (24) and Jack (18).

Until Jack's birthday arrives on January 27th, I don't need to give much thought when someone asks me how old my children are. As long as I remember Elissa's age – and I always do – I can just step down in two-year increments through Melanie, then subtract another six years for our relatively late-in-life baby Jack.

Once Jack turns 19 in a few months, though, it all goes out the window. It will take me a few extra seconds to get all of the ages in order in my head, at least until we get back around to next year's birthday season.

Your kids reach their 20s and 30s and suddenly their exact ages are not only a little blurry, but in some sense a little less important, too. There's a lot more of a difference between, say a 10- and 12-year-old daughter than there is between a 26- and 28-year-old.

I think the same way about myself. I'll be 55 in 10 days. To me, 55 is pretty much as the same as 51, 52, 53 and 54 were, and probably essentially identical to 56, 57, 58 and 59.

Of course, by the time I get to 60, I'll probably start forgetting the kids' ages entirely, no matter what time of year it is. At that point, family birthday season won't mean much.

But for now? It's a life saver.

(And happy birthday to Dr. Chloe Edmonds!)

Your kids really are listening...even to the music you play for them

 

Recently, my son Jared texted with this request:

"Can you make a playlist of the songs you played in the van circa 2002? Trying to recall but can't remember some."

When I used to drive the kids around in our Dodge Grand Caravan, I would play for them a range of older music, some of which they would sing along to. At the time I didn't give it much thought, but now I realize those minivan singalongs are probably the stuff of fun childhood memories for them.

Fortunately I didn't have to do too much work because I remembered my daughter Chloe had already made such a playlist, which she dubbed "scott's minivan." I asked her to send it to me (see the screenshot above), and I in turn forwarded it to Jared.

He and I agreed that with only one or two exceptions, Chloe had pretty much nailed the songs in heaviest rotation on family road trips back in those days.

In alphabetical order, these were the tunes on the playlist:

• Brown-Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
• Copacabana - Barry Manilow (OK, OK...a guilty pleasure)
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
• Jackie Wilson Said - Van Morrison
• Jump - Van Halen
• Love Shack - The B-52s
• Low Rider - War
• Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - The Beatles
• Mack the Knife - as covered by Sting (an odd pick, but so catchy)
• Maneater - Hall & Oates
• Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Beatles
• The Reflex - Duran Duran
• Road Man - Smash Mouth
• Roxanne - The Police
• When Doves Cry - Prince
• Ya (Rest in Peace) - Colin Hay
• You Make My Dreams Come True - Hall & Oates

The list largely reflects my penchant for the music of the 60s, 70s and 80s, but more importantly, these are songs with strong melodies and, in many cases, fun choruses with which even little kids could sing along.

Sometimes we wonder whether the things we tell our kids really stick with them. My answer is that, heck, if Barry Manilow stays in their heads, your important bits of parental advice have to have gained a foothold in their little brains somewhere.

BLOG RERUN: There are times I really wish I had the wisdom of Solomon

NOTE: This post originally ran here on the blog on September 18, 2013. I bring it back 11 years later, noting that while I still don't have the wisdom of Solomon, I am thankfully no longer called upon to settle these sorts of kerfuffles among my kids.

When you have multiple children, one of your chief roles as a parent is to serve as mediator for arguments, disputes and disagreements of all kinds.

Most of the time this is a fairly easy job. One child hits another? Punishment is duly meted out to the hitter. Two little ones want the same toy at the same time? You immediately devise a system of sharing while extolling the virtues of compromise. Someone uses someone else's hair straightener without asking? It only takes a few seconds to figure out who's in the wrong.

But then there are times when my children come to me with a problem I simply can't solve.

Case in point: Child A and Child B approach me to resolve the question of who should have control of the living room TV for the next two hours. Child A will argue that she wants to watch a movie and Child B has been playing Xbox on the TV for the past hour.

Which seems pretty clear cut. You take the TV, Child A, because it's rightly your turn. Enjoy your movie.

But not so fast. Child B will counter that his sibling had the TV for two whole hours yesterday, so he still has at least one hour of television control coming to him. Which also seems fair.

And suddenly the jury is deadlocked. Both parties make convincing cases and I have no idea how to rule. It's at this point that I have three options:

(A) Make a judgment call and recognize that one child is going to feel slighted (and perhaps rightly so)

(B) Sit with the two combatants and negotiate a deal

(C) Slowly sneak away and hope that my wife will step in and solve this riddle

More often than not, I choose "C." Which I realize is unfair to my overtaxed wife, but "A" and "B" both involve a level of effort to which I'm not necessarily willing to commit.

I also enjoy it when one of the kids blatantly does something wrong to his/her sibling, then argues that the sibling did the same thing to them yesterday or last week or whenever.

While this may be true, I point out that just because he/she did it to you, it in no way allows you to do it back to them. This is not how our justice system works, yet this concept repeatedly baffles them. My children are the ultimate purveyors of "an eye for an eye."

Then there are the habitual offenders in our house. And here I'm thinking specifically of my 15-year-old son Jared. He constantly teases and torments his little brother Jack. I tell him not to do this, and he stops. But he does it again the next day. I administer some form of discipline, so he stops. Then he does it again soon after.

This goes on and on. Whatever I do to him, whatever I take away from him, it seems to have no long-term effect. Jared is evil, and his evil nature forces its way to the surface whenever he's in the presence of his younger brother.  (2024 UPDATE: Jared has grown into an outstanding young man, it should be noted.)

Which is a shame, really, because in those times when Jared gets along with Jack and does things with him, Jack loves it. Little boys desperately want and need the approval of their older brothers, and I see that in Jack, yet Jared continues his evil ways.

Short of having him thrown into prison – which I HAVE considered – I'm not sure how to get Jared to stop acting this way. I'm hoping he grows out of it soon. And by "soon" I mean "by the time he's 30." But I'm not holding my breath.

Happy birthday, Dad

My dad and me, circa 1980. Nice bowtie, Scott.

Next month my dad will have been gone for 25 years, which is strange to me.

On one hand, it feels like 25 years since he passed away. So much has happened since that terrible night in October 1999, not the least of which were the births of his last two grandchildren (my daughter Melanie and son Jack). So many milestones missed, so many sporting events I would have loved to watch with him.

At the same time, it doesn't feel like 25 years ago at all. I can still picture him. I can still hear his voice clearly. Heck, I can still smell his post-shower Aqua Velva aftershave! (I am a frequent shower-taker just like he was.)

I think he would be pretty proud to see how his family is doing now. My mom, his wife of 48 years, is gone now, as is my sister and his oldest daughter Judi. But the rest of us are doing OK.

My sister Debbie and brother Mark are the most youthful 69- and 67-year-olds (respectively) you will ever meet. You would have no clue of their chronological ages just by looking at and talking with them. I love them a whole bunch.

Dad's oldest grandkids, Mark Jr. and Jessica, have children of their own and are among the best people I know. They've both lost their moms but soldier on with their wonderful families.

And Terry and I can certainly count ourselves blessed not only by all of our kids but also by the lives we get to lead. Speaking for myself, at least, I don't feel I especially deserve any of it, but I know our situation would have made Dad very happy.

In fact, if he had somehow made it to 95 (the age he would have turned today), I'm sure his life would still revolve around his kids and grandkids, as it did up until the day he died.

This is the point where I'm supposed to tell you to hug the people around you and tell them you love them, but you know that already.

You also know to count your many blessings, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded.

As if we needed more proof that evil exists in this world, along come Bulgarian split squats

(NOTE: I'm in France right now, but I'm not chronicling that trip here. Terry is mostly doing that for us on Facebook, if for whatever reason you want to look her up and see some vacation photos. I think they're viewable by anyone. I will say this, though: Whenever I get to speak French to a French person, I inevitably sounds like Pepe Le Pew because I'm trying so hard to sound French. I need to back off a little...)

Let me say two quick things about my newly formed strength training habit:

1. I have given much of the credit for me taking up the gym life to my daughter Elissa, and rightly so, but my son Jared also had a hand in this. He has been lifting for years, which not only provided inspiration but also led him to piece together a pretty formidable home gym in the back room of our basement (on his own time and using his own money). I now benefit from having that gym. Also, today is Jared's 26th birthday, and he's a good guy, so please wish him a happy happy.
   
   
2. This is the third or fourth time I've written about lifting in the past month, but please rest assured that this is not going to turn into a gym bro blog or anything. It's just that I write 150 or so new posts a year, and they're generally based on what's new in my life as a husband, a dad, and a middle-aged guy. Lifting is still new to me, so it's probably not surprising that I've been writing about it. I'll dial it back, I promise.

I'm writing this post the morning of July 4th. Yesterday I was at the gym with my trainer Kirk for leg day. I've already learned that leg days always lead to soreness 24 hours later, and that is certainly the case now. My quadriceps are killing me.

The primary reason for that is the exercise demonstrated in the video above: the Bulgarian split squat. I hadn't done this exercise before, and I wasn't particularly thrilled to do it when Kirk's explanation of it began with, "This is pretty much everyone's least favorite exercise."

Great!

In the video it appears to be innocuous enough, but man, it's a killer. Kirk had me do two sets on each leg. Each set consisted of 10 repetitions holding a dumbbell, then 10 additional reps with just body weight.

You would think the body weight reps are a welcome reprieve after getting rid of the dumbbell, but no. They are somehow even worse, probably because your legs are already awash in burning lactic acid after the dumbbell reps.

You know what was even worse? Kirk – a seemingly nice guy who has a hidden masochistic streak a mile wide – gave me a heavier dumbbell to use for the second set.

I walked away from Bulgarian split squats with a decidedly wobbly gait. My legs were the kind of rubbery I had only seen before when Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to win the heavyweight title in 1986.

I will admit, though, that Bulgarian split squats taught me something important. Going to the gym five times a week and activating muscles I haven't used in years has obvious physical benefits when it comes to strength, flexibility, mobility, etc.

But just as important, I've found, is the way in which weight lifting is making me mentally stronger. As Kirk says, it's all about your willingness to approach and break through the threshold.

That threshold is one of physical discomfort, sure, but it plays out just as much in your head as it does in your biceps or your hamstrings.

When we get to the final set of an exercise and Kirk tells me the goal is "8 to 10 reps," I naturally want to hit 10. When it starts getting tough only 5 reps in, though, it becomes a mental game. Do I struggle my way to the minimum of 8 and stop there? Or do I willingly embrace the pain (and potential failure) of those 9th and 10th reps?

So far it has gone both ways for me. Sometimes I'll get to that minimum and simply say, "That's it, I'm done." Other times I've sucked it up and gutted out those 9th and 10th reps.

I feel much more satisfied when I take the tougher road, and I'm working on the best mental approach to ensuring that happens consistently.

In the meantime, the key lesson to take away here is perhaps obvious: Bulgarian split squats are, at their core, the work of demons.

The family text chat group: Misplaced mail, memories of years past, and endless cat photos

We have a family text group that includes all seven of us plus two significant others (Mark and Lyndsey). It is active almost every day and is used for a variety of purposes.

One recent conversation, for example, centered on Chloe's ongoing attempts to convince the post office that a former resident of her house is, in fact, a former resident and no longer lives there. Several times she has taken items intended for this person and written "Return to Sender" and "Not at This Address" on them, but mail for the previous occupant keeps on coming.

This was followed up by texts from other family members with suggestions on how to handle the situation, and one threat from Jared to alert the authorities that Chloe is committing mail fraud if she starts simply throwing these misaddressed cards and letters away.

He was kidding (I think).

Almost every day it's something different in the chat group, but there are at least three common types of activity you'll find there:

(1) Cat content: We are a cat family and my kids like to share photos of their current cats as well as the cats with which they grew up. I enjoy all of this because it's sometimes the only way I can keep tabs on my grand-kitties. (As you can see above, the official photo of the text group is an old image of Fred, George and Charlie, three of our former cats who have each moved on to their greater good, as my friend Kate Tonti would say.)

(2) Random memories: These conversations will often begin with one kid texting something like, "Thinking about the times Lissy and I used to sit at the computer at the old house and play Harry Potter." Then they will all go back and forth about the details of the game that have stuck with them. We also sometimes get memories of stuff we wouldn't let them do when they were little that their friends were allowed to do. There's always some bitterness there.

(3) Big announcements: Suddenly one child or another will text, "Attention everyone, I have a new job," or some such off-the-cuff piece of important news. Everyone then celebrates through congratulatory messages, "heart" and "exclamation point" reactions, and the occasional funny GIF. Twenty years ago, conveying this news would have involved separate phone calls to parents and siblings. Now it's just a single 7-second text. I'm not sure which is better.

Gotta go, Melanie just sent a great picture of two of her cats standing on their hind legs looking out the front door. <heart emoji>

I am still the family copy editor

I want to ask the AI Blog Post Image Generator why it thinks the woman (it's presumably a woman) holding the red pen in this image only painted half her thumbnail. Still, as you'll see if you scroll to the bottom of this post, it could have been a lot worse.

Every family has at least one person to whom everyone else goes when they have written something they want proofread.

"It's a 200-word statement for a scholarship. Can you look it over and fix the mistakes, and maybe jazz it up a little?"

I used to regularly receive requests of this sort from my kids when they were in school. Now these assignments are less frequent, but they still occur. Recently, for example, Chloe asked me to spruce up a few paragraphs she wrote as part of an application for an academic prize related to her PhD program.

Actually she asked both me and her older sister Elissa. Elissa is a professional marketer and has always been a great writer and editor. Jared also makes his living with words and can be counted on to clean up your copy in a pinch.

We don't have any bad writers in the family, but there's a tendency, when one of your siblings is in the trade, to doubt your own ability and ask a professional to help.

I will admit I may have rewritten a couple of the kids' scholarship essays over the years in an attempt to take them from "good" to "very good." Or even "money-worthy."

NOTE: As I recall, both of the essays I rewrote resulted in the child receiving a scholarship. I should have asked for a cut.

If you aren't the person who handles proofreading chores in your household, you should write a thank-you note to whomever fills that role.

Make sure you read it over very closely before you give it to them, though.

EXTRA NOTE: Every time I ask the AI Blog Post Image Generator to come up with an illustration for one of my posts, I have it create a few possibilities from which I can choose. Following is the second image it spit out in response to the one-word prompt "Proofreader." I...I don't know what to say. The tiny red pen is somewhat amusing, but the outsized thumb is borderline terrifying. This is what I get for using a free and unproven AI image tool.

These bobbleheads tell a story

As sports memorabilia collections go, the 24 bobbleheads (and one champagne bottle) that sit atop the cabinets in my office are exceedingly modest.

In 2015, a Canadian named Phillip Darling was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as being the owner of nearly 2,400 bobbleheads. And the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee is said to have a collection in excess of 10,000.

So the ones I've managed to accumulate aren't all that special.

Yet they are special to me, because each one has a little memory or story attached to it.

In most cases, I acquired these bobbleheads by attending a special promotional night conducted by one of our Cleveland professional sports teams.

Nearly half were given out by the Cleveland Indians/Guardians, for example. My wife Terry isn't the biggest fan of baseball, but she was there for a few of those games.

I think my son Jared probably accompanied me on most of the rest.

An additional eight have been picked up over the years at Lake Erie/Cleveland Monsters hockey games. My favorite of those is the one depicting basketball star Shaquille O'Neal in hockey gear (if you look closely at the photo, it's the third one to the left of the champagne bottle).

There were more than 18,000 people in attendance that evening, most of whom just wanted to grab one of the 10,000 Shaq bobbleheads being given out. We were admitted early as season ticket holders, so we were assured of getting our hands on one.

The Cleveland Cavaliers account for the rest of the bobbles, including the two on the far left that honor the late (and legendary) Cavs broadcaster Joe Tait. The golden microphone there is one of two pieces in the collection with no actual "bobble" component to them, but I love it just the same.

Oh, and the champagne bottle? Jared gave me that when he was working with the Cleveland Guardians. It came from the team's clubhouse celebration after they beat the Tampa Bay Rays (his future employer, as it turned out) in a 2022 playoff series. I even have the cork.

Most days when I come into the office I don't even notice the bobbleheads, as they have followed me from job to job for many years and are just part of the scenery. But when I do look to my left and see them, I always smile a little.

That's a pretty good return on the investment of time and effort I made to get each one.

Hockey, Jared and me: Bonding over sports with your kid

That's my son Jared at his office in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's an awfully big office.

All of my children have been involved in athletics of one kind or another, but only one is what you might call a "sports fan" like me.

That would be my son Jared. Since he was very young, our main connection has been sports. I coached him in t-ball and youth soccer, and over the years we have attended baseball, basketball, hockey and football games, and have made visits together to three professional sports halls of fame.

I assume this had at least some influence on Jared's choice of profession. He works for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team as Coordinator, Baseball Information & Communications, which means he spends a lot of time researching, writing and disseminating stats and information about the Rays to media and other stakeholders.

A lot of fathers and sons (and mothers and sons, and mothers and daughters, and fathers and daughters) connect through sports, whether it's competing or spectating or both. For us, most of the memories revolve around hockey.

For example, we're in our 17th year as season ticket holders for the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League. Jared and I have probably attended more Monsters games over that time than anyone else in the family.

We have also travelled to Columbus, Pittsburgh and Buffalo to watch National Hockey League games, and we even co-own a fantasy hockey team together.

There was also a stretch during the winter of 2010 when I would take Jared to a nearby ice rink every Sunday afternoon so he could learn to skate and play hockey from a coach. While he didn't take up the sport competitively after that, I do believe it deepened his appreciation of and love for the game.

All of this is to say that, while he and I talk about a lot more than just hockey and sports in general, that's where our strongest ties have been formed. We have cheered together for various hapless Cleveland teams, mourned playoff losses, and celebrated the Cavaliers' glorious NBA title in 2016.

Next month – one month from today, as a matter of fact – I will join him in Florida as we attend an NHL game in Tampa between the host Lightning and my beloved Ottawa Senators. It was a Christmas gift from Jared and his girlfriend Lyndsey, and I think it was a perfect one.

He's a good guy, that Jared. And an excellent fantasy hockey co-owner.

Most of all, he's my best sports friend.