IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

On Easter Sunday, we took our children to an Easter egg hunt at the carousel in Hull. We were joined by another couple and their young children and it was a fun morning; especially since the weather cooperated. When the egg hunt started, the children ran around the lawn surrounding the carousel and filled their baskets with colored plastic eggs filled with sugary treats. Josh and Chloe found a secluded spot that had not been overrun by kids searching for goodies and filled their baskets with a lot of eggs. When the hunt was over and they found out that their two friends didn’t find as many eggs as they had, they both shared their treasures with the other kids.

We stood outside with our friends talking while the children played on the grass and while we were engaged in conversation, I noticed that a little boy came over and started playing with Chloe. Everyone saw that I was paying close attention to the interaction between Chloe and this little boy and the jokes soon began. They know I can be pretty conservative when it comes to family values and I have admitted in the past that raising a daughter is completely different than raising a son and for that admission; I have been constantly teased by friends and family members alike.

I have to admit that the innate sense of urgency to protect and defend my children from the outside world started almost immediately after they were born. As soon as I brought Josh and Chloe home from the hospital, I knew I was in for eighty years of craziness and high blood pressure; most of which would be suffered during their first eighteen to twenty years of their lives. But for Chloe, it has been a little different because boys seem to gravitate to her. Last week at a birthday party for one of Josh’s friends, one of his classmates came up and told me that he had a crush on my daughter.

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If you are like me, you are the recipient of a slew of emailed chain letters, jokes, true and untrue stories and just about every other piece of junk mail imaginable. From time to time, I have been known to forward a good story onto my friends, especially around the holidays. I have also been known to forward a few interesting items that I have come across in my inbox.

A while ago, I was sent an email entitled “One Word.” I was intrigued by the concept of the correspondence and I followed the directions of the chain letter exactly as they were written. I replied to the sender with my one word about them; then I cut and pasted the email into a new transmission and I sent the following letter to all of my friends and family members.

One Word
Here’s what I want you to do. Describe me in ONE WORD…just one word! Send it to me only….

Then, cut and paste this message into another email and send it to your friends and see how many strange things people say about you!

This is really fun! Just hit reply and send me my one word back. Then forward this message on to your friends (including me) and see what they say about you!

What intrigued me about this particular email was the fact that we have all been asked to answer this very same question about ourselves on many different occasions in our lives; both personally and professionally. How many times have we all been in an interview and we have been asked, “Describe yourself in three words?” or “Tell me three words that your friends would use to describe you?” or my all time favorite “What are your three strongest characteristics or strengths?”

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Parenting a child is not an easy job. I can still remember all of the times when I was a child and I said under my breath, “When I am a parent, I am going to let my child do whatever they want. I am going to let them have fun. I am going to be a cool parent!”

I was mad at my parents for saying “no” to me and I am sure my children will be mad at Stephanie and me for all of the times we are going to say “no” to them in the course of their lives. I have learned a lot about myself and about raising children over the past few years. I have learned that more often than not, my parents were right. I learned that “having fun” or letting my children “do whatever they want” will usually end up in an argument, a fight, an injury, or a child being grounded. I have learned that being a parent is about knowing right from wrong and being able to convey that message onto your children.

Josh is about to turn seven years old this summer and Chloe is about to turn three in a couple of weeks and to be honest, I don’t know how many of those lessons have been conveyed to both of them yet. Don’t get me wrong, they are both great kids. They are funny, smart, whimsical, loving and understanding but when it comes to challenging Stephanie and I over everything, Josh and Chloe are cornering the market on giving us a run for our money.

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“KNR 2682; the Flying Dutchman!”

That was my father’s CB Handle when we were growing up. I remember the call letters being hung in the back window of the gray 1978 Jeep Cherokee whenever we went on a trip. He learned the lingo and spoke often about “Smokey’s”, “1040s”, and “Convoys” as he broke into conversation with a simple “Breaker 19.”

My parents were divorced when I was very young. My father and mother lived about ninety minutes away from each other, so the CB radio was always in use when we traveled between the two houses. And it was on these very early trips that I saw glimpses into the outlandish side of my father’s personality.

One rainy afternoon, we made a trip to a local store. My step-mother, Hadley, and my brother went into the shop to look for something they had to buy while my father and I waited in the car. The song “We Are Family” came on the radio and without warning, my father turned up the volume and started moving his body wildly in the front seat; this was my initial indoctrination into the art of seat dancing. I was laughing hysterically at my dad’s antics when I noticed we had attracted a crowd in the parking lot. They probably thought we were deranged but at that moment, I joined in the fun and started my own version of seat dancing in the back seat.

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