I'm 46 years old today and not even I care

Well, I mean I care. Forty-six is an age signifying the undeniable fact that you're beginning the second half of your fifth decade of life. Another year or two and you will no longer be a mid-forties person. You'll be a late-forties person.

That's all significant.

But you reach a point in life when your birthday is mostly just an interesting time for reflection and taking stock and all of that. You're not looking for any presents, unless someone wants to give you three hours of uninterrupted time in which you're free to do anything you want, including watching a football or hockey game without having to worry about a sink full of dishes, a bathroom shower that needs cleaning, or any of the thousand other things that occupy your mind at most hours of the day.

Or at least that's what I want.

But really, other than maybe a few homemade cards from the kids and a Starbucks coffee that someone is nice enough to pick up for me, I'm good. Save the presents for Christmas, which in my case is always 53 days after my birthday.

I honestly don't mind getting older. I really don't. It's going to get more and more difficult as time goes on, I realize, but for now there's little difference for me being 46 from what it was like being 45 or 44 or any other year in my 40s.

I'm not the only one, right? It's not a "Bah! Humbug!" attitude toward birthdays as much as wondering why we, in American culture, put such an emphasis on them. Other than the aforementioned caffienated beverage and a slew of very nice well-wishes on my Facebook wall, I'm not seeing the need to celebrate here.

I continue my inevitable march toward Cranky Old Manhood regardless of what the calendar says.

The best thing you can do for me is to get out of my way. (AND GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU PUNK KIDS!)

Are your kids equipped to handle it if they say "Trick or Treat!" and someone demands a trick?

From the time they're very little, kids learn that all they have to do on Halloween in order to procure a delicious piece of candy is walk up to someone's door, open their bag and say, "Trick or treat!"

Note the exclamation point there, because I think it's actually supposed to be a question mark. Yet no one ever says it that way. They say "trick or treat!" as a form of polite demand.

But I believe the way this whole thing started was that you were essentially giving the poor homeowner a choice: You either give me something good or else I'm going to retaliate by defacing your property or your person (or both).

I'm glad we've all decided to just go the "Treat" route because it saves time and confusion as well as potential bodily harm or vandalism.

But is there a single kid out there who would know what to do if confronted with a person who comes to the door and says, in response to the child's hearty "Trick or treat!", something like, "I'll take the trick?" Do kids prepare for this unlikely-yet-still-possible twist?

I know we didn't when I was young. We just assumed that everyone on whose door we knocked would give us candy. And with few exceptions (i.e., the old people who gave out pennies or Bible tracts), that's exactly the way it would go down every time.

All I'm saying is that if your child is trick-or-treating tomorrow night, you might want to clue them in on the fact that someone could potentially demand a trick rather than give out a treat. Rather than standing there dumbfounded, it would be awesome if your kid would, for example, respond by immediately pulling a can of spray paint out of their treat bag and asking, "Are you sure about that? Are you feeling lucky...punk?"

This would be the greatest thing ever. I will pay $100 for video evidence of any Halloween transaction like this. And it will be so worth it.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to wrestle with your kids

Years ago when my children were, well, a lot younger, we used to have evening wrestling matches in the living room.

These were very elaborate affairs, you understand. It was generally All Available Kids vs. Daddy in our living room. Every match would begin with a set of introductions in which the kids would cheer loudly for themselves and would boo just as loudly for me. They were brutal.

The matches would last three rounds and would almost invariably go nearly the full distance before the kids managed to pin me. Over the years I ended up winning a handful, just to keep them honest, I guess.

In the days when it was Elissa, Chloe and Jared, they employed a strategy of pummeling me into submission with pillows, then jumping on me repeatedly until they could flip me over and pin me (again, always in the third and final round in a dramatic finish).

After the match would end, sometimes I would just lay there on the floor and they would take turns jumping onto me from the couch. My back cracks just thinking about it.

Later on Melanie was old enough to participate, just about the time that Elissa wasn't as interested anymore.

Then came a period of some years when wrestling didn't happen. I'm not sure why, but it didn't.

Until recently, when Jack and I resurrected it.

Jack is a rapidly growing 9-year-old boy. Like his brother at that age, he grows about two inches every day.

And it turns out he's a lot stronger than I gave him credit for.

I can still toss him around when needed, but man, it's tougher than I thought it would be.

He still uses the pillow-pummeling approach, after which he'll dive on me and pin my shoulders to the floor. I could escape if I wanted to, but it's getting to the point where sometime soon I won't be losing on purpose. That boy is going to rapidly outpace my Old Man Strength.

Anyway, if there's a moral to today's little story, it's never to forget or abandon the fun rituals in your family. I'm glad Big Time Living Room Wrestling is back in the Tennant household, though I can't figure out why it was forgotten in the first place, nor do I think my aging body is going to survive it much longer.

But I still wouldn't trade it for anything.

There is no stink like how-your-child-smells-after-a-game stink

Back when I was a newspaper sports writer, I covered a lot of minor league hockey. This involved attending games and practices, interviewing athletes, writing game stories on deadline, and just generally trying to gather and disseminate the information that hockey fans would presumably want to know.

It also involved going into the locker room after games to talk to coaches and players. Anyone who has ever played hockey at any level, or who is the parent of a player, is familiar with the smell that pervades hockey locker rooms. It's an all-conquering stench resulting from weeks' or months' worth of sweat soaking into pads and jerseys. You don't ever really get rid of it so much as you just try and mute it.

I had forgotten abot this smell until recently when I picked up my son and two of his friends after they had played a high school football game. The three boys, none of whom had yet showered, got into my car, and the stink immediately assaulted my senses. Even though these weren't hockey players, they smelled just as bad as any group of hockey guys I had ever encountered.

Worse yet, the smell stayed in my car for a couple of days. I had to air the vehicle out for a few hours before I could stand driving it again.

You parents of young athletes know what I'm talking about, right? And it's not just limited to boys. The girls are just as bad. Driving home after girls high school soccer games can be brutal, especially if one of them decides to take off her stinky cleats in the car. Good gracious, it's bad.

Maybe I'm remembering this incorrectly, but I recall showering in the locker room after every one of my football games when I was in high school. Do kids not do that now? Do they prefer their home showers?

I don't know. All I know is that the aroma nearly knocks me unconscious sometimes.

Strangely, someday I'll miss that smell, I'm sure. But for now? I'm tossing a few cans of air freshener into each of the kids' stockings this Christmas.

Do you have a Chloe in your life?

(NOTE: I wrote this weeks ago, as I usually do, and only now – minutes before it gets posted – do I realize that it may not paint the most flattering picture of Chloe. Which wasn't my intention at all. She's really quite lovely. Honestly. I just wanted to say that before you read it.)


My daughter Chloe has always been a little different. If you're a parent of multiple kids, you probably have one somewhat like her: Does her own thing, follows her own path, dances to the beat of a different drummer. You know what I mean.

Chloe was, for example, the only one of our five children who came out of the womb on her own. My wife had to be induced for the other four. But not for Chloe. Chloe burst into the world of her own volition exactly 19 years ago today (on a full moon, naturally), and has been making me laugh, cry and gape in wonderment ever since.

She is somewhat of an overachiever, as was evidenced by her busy high school schedule and full-to-bursting college applications: Salutatorian of her class, student body president, MVP of her soccer team, captain of Academic Challenge, etc.

The thing I learned early on about parenting Chloe was that I shouldn't get in her way. Not because I wanted to give her the room to develop and spread her wings or any of that, but simply because otherwise she would run me over. I learned this in the interest of self-preservation, more than anything else.

Seriously, though, if you have a Chloe in your life, you should also get out of his/her way, because Chloes do best when gently guided but largely left to their own devices. They're independent, strong-willed, purposeful people, and while your advice is appreciated, they thrive when allowed to make their own mistakes (of which there will be surprisingly few, trust me).

All of this is to wish my little college freshman biomedical engineering major daughter a very happy 19th birthday. She is #2 in birth order in our family but #1 in all of our hearts, partly because we admire her and mostly because we fear her.

(This is true, by the way. Chloe had such a temper when she was a baby that my mom and sister were scared to death to babysit her. They saw her as a beautiful yet temperamental demon spawn who could and would explode at any moment...and they were right.)

Happy birthday, little Chloe. And please don't hurt me.

Is being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there becoming a lost art?

I'm not normally a "quote guy," by which I mean I don't collect and/or share interesting quotes like a lot of people do on Facebook and Twitter. I find most inspirational quotes to be a little too simplistic to be of any real use.

But there is one that has stuck with me, and I honestly don't know exactly how it goes or even who said it for sure. The first time I came across it, it was attributed to Woody Allen and it read this way: "88% of life is just showing up."

I've seen other versions of the quote in which that percentage varies from a low of 80% to as high as 99%. And I've seen the quote attributed to other people. I have no idea whether Woody himself actually said it or if it was someone else. And I can't say to the percentage point how important showing up really is.

All I know is that, from my experience, it's really important.

This is one of those lessons I try to convey to my children. It's amazing how far you can get if you just show up where you're supposed to be every day. Work, school, home, sports practices, music lessons, whatever. If you make a commitment to be there, you should be there.

I'm not saying that showing up is all it takes. Once you get to work, for example, you have to actually, you know, work. But just getting yourself there puts you stunningly far down the path to success.

It sounds easy, and in some ways it is. But I'm always amazed at the number of people for whom showing up is a major challenge. They may be there, they may not be. These people seldom seem to reach their goals or achieve anything meaningful.

I think back to when I was in school. I never had perfect attendance, but I was close most years. Staying home from school seemed like a good thing in the morning when I didn't feel good, but then 3:30 would come around and I would see my friends getting off the bus from school and realize that I had probably missed a lot and would have to work twice as hard to catch up.

If you just show up, you avoid putting yourself in that kind of jam.

We all wake up some mornings and just want to stay in bed all day. But don't let yourself do it. Don't let yourself sleep through the half hour when you should be exercising. Don't keep hitting the snooze button and detract from getting yourself ready for a productive and successful day.

Get out of bed and do whatever you're supposed to do.

Again, I know that sounds a little obvious and even easy, but it's what the most successful people do. You and I should, too.

But I have promises to keep...revisited

NOTE: Here is this month's "Blog Rerun" entry, in which we resurrect a post from the past. This one originally ran on May 21, 2012. It is one of my favorites and still very relevant to my life.


I was an English major in college, but I never was a big poetry guy. I can appreciate poetry, and the Jesuit professors at John Carroll University made me read plenty of it. But I'll take a good novel or short story over a 14-line sonnet any day.

There are exceptions, of course. My favorite poem is Sara Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains." I almost have that one memorized (almost). And there's something to be said about "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot if you can understand it...not that I really do.

But do you know which poem I find myself coming back to time and again lately? It's one you might know by Robert Frost, called "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Chances are good some teacher or other made you read it at some point. Chances are equally good you quickly forgot about it.

I, for whatever reason, can't forget it. Or more specifically, I keep reciting the last stanza to myself. It goes like this:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The protagonist is riding his horse one night and stops to admire some woods. There's something vaguely alluring about them, and you can feel how strongly tempted he is to ride into those woods and never come back.

But he can't. Somewhere back in the "real world" is something, or someone, that keeps him from riding off into oblivion. He has responsibilities. He has promises to keep.

Increasingly these days, I can relate. There is so much I need to do. There are so many things to accomplish. There are bills to pay, projects to finish, and most importantly, children to raise.

If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. The work you and I do is important. And exhausting. Mentally, spiritually, physically exhausting. We give everything we have to our children because they deserve it. And because they need us. And simply because it's our job.

Strictly speaking, there is nothing "real" that ties us to it. There is nothing to physically restrain us from pulling up stakes and starting over somewhere else.

But 99.9% of moms and dads don't leave because they can't. They could no sooner separate from their children than they could from their own souls. Your kids are a part of you in every way. The reason we would die for them in a heartbeat is because they ARE us. There is literally no difference between us and them. There is no place where they end and we begin. They are part of us, and we are part of them.

There are times when I wonder what it would have been like if I had selected another life path. What if I had never met Terry? What if I hadn't gotten married? Or had five kids? What would I be doing? Would I have more money? Would I feel less tired? Would I spend more time on things I want to do than on things I feel I must do?

These thoughts are my "woods." They're what I very occasionally stop and consider. At times they seem "lovely, dark and deep." But never for a second are they serious thoughts. Never do they gain any real traction in my mind.

Why? Because like Frost's horseman, I have promises to keep. When I married my wife, I promised I would stay with her for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. And in truth, there has been a heck of a lot more "better" than "worse." It's not an especially difficult promise to keep.

The same goes for my children. I never took any formal oath to protect them, to feed them, to clothe them, or to guide them. I never actually said those words aloud. But the first time I held each of them and looked into their faces, I promised to do all of those things. Then and there, I made a promise that I would be their father for the rest of their lives, no matter what.

And those are promises I intend to keep. Even when something distracts me from the day-to-day mission of providing for a wife and five kids, those promises keep me pointed in the right direction.

One day there will be time for sleep. Not necessarily literal sleep – though that would be nice, too – but rather whatever God has in store for me in my "golden years" and beyond.

As a co-worker of mine used to say, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and it would all be over. But I like to think there are still many miles before I sleep.