Parent Abuse

Parent Abuse

I’m a Red Sox fan. I watched Game 6 and I endured as much of the pre-aughts misery as any other fan born in the 70s. I’m also a Dolphins fan, and while I got to watch Marino, there hasn’t been a lot to cheer about since. But I stick around; I continue to root for my teams.

I stuck with “Lost” all the way, gritting my teeth through the meandering Seasons 2 and 3 and surviving until the end and I still have fond memories of the show, even after the terrible final episode. And I continue to hope the people in charge of Superman will someday recapture the magic of the first two Christopher Reeve flicks. Despite little evidence that they will.

I take all the crap my favorite teams and TV shows and movies have to give and I keep coming back for more. As a fan, you have to take a lot of abuse.

But it’s nothing compared to what you endure as a parent.

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Five Ways Having Kids Ruins Memorial Day

Five Ways Having Kids Ruins Memorial Day

This holiday weekend marks the beginning of the summer season. Everyone agrees that summer is fun, right?

Of course, when you have a toddler, summer isn’t quite the same as it used to be.

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The Decipherists: Mamoo

The Decipherists: Mamoo

A babbling toddler speaks in a language only those closest to him can understand, and often even they are giving it their best guess.

The third entry in the Decipherists series tackles that very situation, in which our son uses one almost-a-word type sound to mean multiple things. Or maybe just one meaning. We really have no idea. It seems like it’s a pretty all-purpose word for the kid, seeing as he uses it for a variety of items.

It took some time, and the process of elimination, but we think we’ve been able to suss it out.

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You Hate Me at Hello

You Hate Me at Hello

Kids are bastards.

If the recent uproar over the age-old issue of bullying is any indication, it’s that children are not getting any less horrible than they were when we we kids, or when our parents were kids, or when the first parents ever were kids.

Kids are mean. We’ve always known this and it will never change. But I thought most of that started in high school, or at least junior high. My son’s not in any school yet, and though the group of friends he hangs out with are all nice little guys, the ones he doesn’t know, especially the slightly older kids, are already real jerks.

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The Decipherists: Top eee!

The Decipherists: Top eee!

When I was a kid, I used to read the funny papers every morning. I loved “Garfield” (for some reason), as well as “The Far Side” and a few others. There was a brief period when I followed “Rose is Rose,” which was a light-hearted strip about a couple and their new baby.

Here’s why, from Wikipedia: From the comic’s debut in 1984 until the strip published on 9 August 1991, the character of Pasquale spoke only in a ‘phonetic baby talk.’

It was fun to try and decipher what the kid in the strip was saying, kind of like when I was in high school and helped my friend decipher Rush lyrics. It was a game. Now, suddenly, my life is like that comic strip, except it’s a little less fun.

And hopefully my son’s baby talk phase won’t last seven years.

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