When I began dating Trina, we were sophomores in high school. From the very first moment I dated her I knew there was something extremely special about this girl; something I wanted to spend an eternity to learn about. Ok, I should probably comment right here that marrying Trina was not the drug induced decision I was referring to above. To this day I still believe that was the best decision I have ever made; a fact that Trina constantly reminds me of every day.

Our first Christmas after we began dating I had this brilliant idea that I would get this giant stocking and fill it with all the things that I thought she would love. On the surface that seemed like a great idea. Of course filling a four foot stocking is harder than I had first imagined.

I had big stuff like a quilt that I made her (don’t laugh; I can wield a pretty mean needle and thread. Ok, that’s not necessarily true but I have a mother who is a sewing genius and I have an ability to sweet talk people into helping me with weird and unusual plans). I also included a camera, some music cassettes, a cool baseball hat, and other assorted items. I needed just one more thing to make this stocking complete.

On my way to see Trina, I stopped by the local Hallmark store. They had a display of Christmas ornaments and I decided that would be perfect in the stocking. Trina was a big fan of the Peanuts so I bought an ornament with Snoopy.

The giant stocking was a big hit and Trina and I continued to date throughout high school. Each Christmas I would buy her another Hallmark ornament to add to her collection. After college we were married. Trina thought it would be a good idea to begin a Hallmark ornament collection for me too doubling my Hallmark purchases.

When each of our children was born we added an ornament series for them. Obviously we were not alone in this tradition as the number of available Hallmark ornaments proliferated. With five children I suddenly found myself buying seven ornaments every year.

Soon Trina’s parents wanted ornaments each year so we added two more to our total. When our oldest daughter Ashley was married we thought we would stop her series letting her continue the tradition herself if she wanted. Instead she talked us into buying an ornament not only for her but for her husband Eli. I was now up to ten ornaments each year.

Before long there were other series that just seemed natural like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, cars, or baseball figures. Hallmark didn’t help either. They began to have Ornament Premiere events each July to have us start to buy ornaments earlier and earlier each year.

Then there would be the fall ornament open house in October where they would introduce even more ornaments. Now they have a Holiday Open House the first weekend in November with yet another set of special ornaments.

I now find that I have boxes and boxes of ornaments that each signify an event or date in our lives. I have a 9 ½ foot Christmas tree that is filled with Hallmark ornaments each year. It literally takes us days to put the ornaments on the tree.

What started out as a simple idea with one Snoopy diorama Christmas ball has morphed into an explosion of ornaments. There are days that I think maybe Trina is right; maybe I do need my head examined.

Trina and I decided early in our son Dakota’s life that we needed to get him involved in some sort of sporting event if we were going to survive. While we successfully dealt with four daughters, raising a boy was a lot different.

For one, boys seem to have a lot more energy than the girls had. It’s not normal energy either; it is a lot more destructive. Not in a malicious way but just in general it is a lot rougher. Add to the fact that dad is a kit a heart and Trina suddenly found herself surrounded by carnage and damage around the house.

While everyone first assumes that the sport we would have selected would be baseball given my history and past experience; it was soccer which we chose to become involved with. I played soccer when I was younger and thoroughly enjoyed the game. Soccer was also more of a year around sport here while baseball was more seasonal.

At an early age we signed Dakota up for soccer. The first year I volunteered to coach, something that would age me by decades. I had forgotten what it was like to try and corral 10 small boys onto a soccer field. There weren’t positions like I played. Instead there were two positions, have ball and don’t have ball.

After that first season I decided that I would focus on other aspects of the game to volunteer my time and leave the coaching to those with more patience than I had. Dakota developed an appreciation for the game and loved playing.

As long as he was having fun, Trina and I continued to encourage him to play. He has now been playing soccer for half of his life and has become a very good player. As he has progressed so has our involvement with the team and the league.

Trina or I have volunteered in different capacities and continue to support Dakota and the team. He is now playing on a select team which is the equivalent to an all-star team. As his team has gotten better I have developed a new appreciation for the role of soccer parent.

These young boys have practices on Tuesday each week for two hours. They are given drills to do at home between practices. On Thursday evenings he has games throughout the valley. This usually requires us to pack up the car and leave shortly after work being gone sometimes until late in the evening.

The team also has games on Saturdays all across the valley. Some of these games require us to be at the field by six or seven o’clock in the morning making week-end sleeping in a physical impossibility.

Twice a month the team has tournaments which include two or three games in a single day. This will go on for two or three days straight. There are uniforms to wash, water bottles to fill, snacks to pack, and of course transportation.

The funny thing is there are 18 families on this team doing the same thing week in and week out from August through May every year. Even during the months when the boys are not involved with the team there are soccer camps they attend.

I used to laugh at the term soccer parent thinking it was a silly term but I have learned that it is a badge of honor that these parents gladly wear. They stand on the sidelines and cheer these young boys whether they are winning or losing.

They are sacrificing their time and money so that they sons and daughters can experience the thrill of being involved in a team sport. So each year when the season ends and we attend the end-of-year party to celebrate the conclusion of the matches; it is the parents who deserve to get the trophies for all they do to make it possible for soccer leagues all over the country to be successful.

There were tales of people finding rattle snakes in their backyards, killer bees attacking people unprovoked, and scorpions whose stings were so painful that people pleaded for relief. For the first few months there was a nightly ritual where we had to check under each bed for unwanted creatures that were lurking to attack in the middle of the night.

When we built our house, the land had previously been a cotton field. As such we were told that most of the desert creatures were not indigenous to the area. We would instead have to worry about small flies and other bugs that would eat our plants. Still, if we didn’t have to worry about snakes, killer bees, and scorpions it was a good trade off.

We have now lived in Arizona for over 15 years and in that time we have never seen a snake, rattle or otherwise, near our house. We did have episode with killer bees but other than that it has been fairly quiet around the house when it comes to scary creatures.

Over the past two months something has seriously changed. It started one night when my daughter was taking a shower. She just started the water when all of a sudden we heard a blood curdling scream. We ran up the stairs as she ran out of the bathroom proclaiming there was a scorpion in the bathtub.

Just a couple of weeks later was a second episode. I was brushing my teeth before bed. I leaned over to spit out toothpaste and just inches from my face was a small scorpion scurrying around the sink. Rather than screaming like a banshee, I spit toothpaste on it then killed it with my shoe I had just taken off.

The third scorpion sighting occurred when we were packing a cooler for a family trip. I reached for the cooler lid and just before I noticed a small scorpion sitting where my hand was going to rest.

These three scorpions brought back all the fears and terror that Trina and the kids had when we first moved in. We decided that it would be a good idea to take a more aggressive stance and have a scorpion hunt.

Scorpion hunts are fairly common in Arizona. Manned with a black light we went to the background to try and find out where these creatures were coming from. For those who have never been around scorpions a black light might seem like a strange light source to pick.

Scorpions glow a bluish green when hit with a black light making them extremely easy to spot. The first night we went out we found six scorpions in the backyard along the fence. We notified the neighbors who also began hunting.

Over the next two weeks our next door neighbor found 35 scorpions in his yard. For the last week or so no one has found any until last night. As Trina and I went out for our nightly walk I noticed something on the side of our house near the front door. As I investigated I found it was a full grown scorpion.

I smashed it against the wall but for the rest of the night I had to go to each child’s bedroom and look under the bed with a black light to make sure it was safe for them to go to sleep.

Since Trina and my two oldest daughters are all in the education system in some form of teaching capacity they tend to take these kinds of emails very seriously. Usually when I get one of these types of emails I am then subjected to countless horror stories of problem children and how we should all be fearful for the future of society if today’s children are our best hope of survival.

I will usually listen to the first couple of minutes of these stories before I completely zone out. It is not that I don’t care; ok it is that I don’t care. After being married for over a quarter of a century (that always sounds so ancient), she has learned the exact moment when I begin to tune her out.

This usually results in a fairly long lecture where I am chastised for not taking a more active role in the kids’ education or being a better example so that “my son” would not be acting this way. It’s weird, he is always my son when something is broken or there is trouble.

I happened to be talking to my mother over the weekend and telling her about the email from Dakota’s teacher and how I needed to somehow deal with it. I guess I was kind of expecting some motherly advice of how I should handle this so that I didn’t end up getting in as much trouble as Dakota.

Instead I received yet another lengthy lecture about what a horrible child I was. I was reminded of exactly how many times my mother was contacted by the school or a teacher lamenting about what a horrible time they were having with me in class.

It’s funny, I don’t remember any of these stories that she is telling. I began to wonder if perhaps my mom was making this stuff up. After all, she is pretty old (a fact that I have learned never to bring up if I know what is good for me).

Mom began reminding me of each episode of my childhood. I was reminded that in fifth grade I had a desk with an engraved permanent name plate in the principal’s office due to me being a disruptive force in class. Or the time in the seventh grade when my report card had all “A”s but my citizenship grades were “5” on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being failing.

Then of course there was the time in high school where I was thrown out of Psychology when the teacher asked if retarded children should be mainstreamed in society and I replied, “Let my people go.” I was almost positive that my mother was exaggerating.

I told my mother that this was different, I was supposed to be the concerned parent here and I needed to initiate some sort of discipline. After several moments of uncontrolled laughter my mother asked what I proposed to do.

I explained that I thought it was important for Dakota to take responsibility for his behavior and that I felt it was important for him to apologize to the teacher. Ever helpful mom reminded me that I was given similar instructions when I was a kid.

I was sent to school to apologize to the teacher. Later that day my parents received a call from the school. I guess I must have misunderstood the instructions. It seems, “I’m sorry you chose the wrong profession” was not the apology they were expecting. I don’t see how that was my fault, I received incomplete instructions.

At this point I suddenly remembered the words of my mother as I came home from school, “One day you are going to have a son just like you!” Oh my gosh, it was so clear now, my mother cursed me!

How else can you explain it? For the past twelve years I have had to relive several episodes of my own childhood that I would just as soon forget about. I now find myself living in daily terror and I’m worried about Trina too.

I’m not sure she is strong enough to deal with experiments involving house flies in the microwave or cats in her dryer. I’m not sure how to reverse a mother’s curse but for the good of the planet I need to find an antidote.

When the kids began going to school they would come home and occasionally need help with their homework. I did not see this as anything that I needed to worry about or prepare myself for; after all I had already been through these grades and these subjects so how hard could it really be?

With the older kids I don’t remember there being any problems. I was not that far removed from being in college so the Elementary School homework packets seemed like a breeze. I mean I knew my alphabet and was confident not only could I correctly place numbers on the number line but I could also do two-digit addition problems in my head without ever needing to show my work.

Something strange began to happen as the kids got older. Once the children reached middle school age, I found that Trina and I were no longer a partnership when it came to homework duties. I didn’t realize this was some kind of relay race where the baton would be handed from one parent to the next.

Suddenly I was responsible for dealing with the kids’ homework while Trina focused on the elementary grades. It was kind of a subtle handoff, I don’t ever remember there being a discussion or a differentiation made. Just one day the kids stopped going to mom for help and instead made a beeline to my desk.

I probably should have stopped to question this but I somehow got caught up in the flattery the kids used. Thinking back I should have known that when the kids began complimenting my vast knowledge of all subjects that something was up. Never underestimate the persuasive powers of children, they’re sneaky.

I am not usually one who believes in conspiracy theories but I can’t help but think I may have been set up here and my loving wife seems to be a prime suspect in this crime. The woman who graduated with honors and carried a high grade point average throughout her education was suddenly proclaiming her ignorance in every subject above the fourth grade level.

What was even worse is that my kids seemed to pick subjects where I had the least recollection from my own education. I appreciate that their math teacher had indoctrinated them that mathematics is critical to their success in life but seriously when was the last time that you went to the store and someone asked you to prove Pythagorean’s Theory at the check stand? And no offense to the teachers but I have never been asked to diagram a sentence in my life outside of a classroom setting.

Overall I haven’t really minded helping the kids with their homework. After all it does give me an opportunity to work closely with each child and help mold them from an educational perspective. The kids also seem to enjoy it whether it is just to see dad squirm when presented with an obscure formula or because they have had some success in school.

Before you get the wrong idea, it has not been a complete success. The kids have at times had their share of problems with classes and dad’s help hasn’t always been the best idea. For example, I am banished for life from all middle school science fairs after helping one of the girls prove that the earth was flat using a quarter. I don’t really think it is fair or accurate to say that I set back middle school science by decades nor do I think I am really to blame for the whole class having to take remedial science to get them to understand the planet really is round.

When our son Dakota moved from elementary school to middle school I heard that there was a huge party at the elementary school where the elementary school teachers celebrated surviving our kids. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

While I may complain whenever the kids come walking into the living room carrying a stack of textbooks and a confused look; I would not trade it for the world. There is just something magical about a parent working with their child and seeing the light bulb suddenly illuminate in their mind. So regardless of how disruptive their questions may be I’ll always find the time to stop what I am doing and be a part of their education. I just wish I had paid more attention in school, some of these questions are hard!

It was not that I was trying to get rid of my wife. Ok maybe that was it but that was just a small part of it. I really felt like she should be there and besides, as hard as she has been working lately I thought she needed a short vacation.

As I took her to the airport I could tell she was nervous. Since I myself am afraid of flying I thought I understood what she was feeling. I tried to minimize her fears being very empathetic to her concerns. “I’m not afraid of flying,” she said. I was confused, why then was she reluctant to go? “I’m afraid the kids might not be alive when I get home.”

What was that? She was worried that I could not care for the children? Where did that come from I asked. For the remainder of the trip to the airport she went through example after example of times when I was unable to care for myself let along any of the kids. Granted, she did have a lot of good points but I really felt like I was capable of taking care of the kids especially since the youngest one is 12.

Despite her objections I dropped her off at the airport. On the way home I recounted all of her arguments and tried to figure out how I could prevent that from happening this time. A lot of her arguments were around food and making sure the kids ate properly. This was completely unfounded. After all, I really only needed to feed them until Friday at which point the Diamondbacks would be in town and the concessionaires at Chase Field would feed them properly.

I figure all I need to do is come up with a meal plan for two days. On the way home I bought enough boxes of cereal to last until Trina got home. As I was checking out my wife’s voice kept ringing in my head, “make sure the kids eat healthy meals” While I think that Cocoa Puffs are completely healthy, I knew one of the kids would rat me out if that is all I fed them.

I decided to not take any chances and pick up food from each of the major food groups. I bought goldfish crackers since fish is a protein. I bought corn nuts, which are made from corn so technically that is a vegetable. I bought a large bag of skittles which I’m pretty sure is a fruit. All I needed was something from the dairy group, which I took care of with a large box of Milk Duds.

I can’t believe she questioned my parenting skills.

When they were all young, the house was chaotic. No matter how hard we tried to instill order it never seemed to work. After our third child was born I realized that it was hopeless to even try since the children now outnumbered the parents. Oh sure the kids will at times try to make us feel like we are in control but deep down we all know that really isn’t the case.

Now that our youngest is reaching the teenage years I seriously thought it would get easier. Again I was completely erroneous in my assumption. If anything raising teenagers is substantially more difficult than raising small children. Not only are teenagers higher maintenance but they are also way more expensive.

When they were young we could get by on birthdays and Christmas with small gifts. As they grew older the holiday gift giving has gotten substantially more expensive. There are probably several reasons for this and I am sure most of it is my fault (at least that is what my wife continues to tell me).

She is probably right; I really didn’t set us up for success when it came to the kids. I have always been someone fascinated with new technology and wanting to tinker with the latest and greatest device as soon as it came out.

Couple that with the fact that I live and breath computers and the Internet and you can soon see that I have created an environment where the children are fascinated by technology and just assume that every family is engulfed in evaluating new hardware and software.

Each of the children has had their own computer since the time they were old enough to walk. When we moved to Arizona and built our house I wired it for networking (then unheard of). The kids have been exposed to the Internet even before it was known as the Internet.

With such an experimental environment they have adapted to change differently than what I would have anticipated. Rather than worry as operating systems or technologies come and go, they tend to shrug this off as a natural phenomenon. They don’t cling to technology or have any preconceived notion of backward compatibility.

Instead they look at technology as an enabler that will allow them to expand their knowledge. When it ceases to provide that function it is recycled and replaced with something new. This was never anything that we taught them but rather something they learned through trial and error based on their environment.

It has had a fascinating effect as the kids have grown. They seem less worried about uncertainty than many of their peers. They tend to embrace the unknown and view it as an adventure rather than something to fear.

I would love to take credit for developing some sort of secret to parenting but instead I’m left standing here scratching my head wondering how exactly this happened. Despite my failures as a human being and as a father my kids seem to be turning out ok. Now just because I said that they will all come home completely whacked out of their heads tomorrow sporting some odd colored hair and piercing their bodies with who knows what.

But like every other change we’ll learn to adapt and embrace the unknown and try to figure out how it can be used to make our lives more interesting. I only wish I would have taught them the value of a good back-up. There have been more than a few times I would like to rewind and fix an error I have introduced into the system.

Around our house we have an interesting series of events that occur around this time of year. We have kids spread through several levels of the education system. We now have two daughters and our life savings that is attending college majoring in boys and “finding ourselves”. We have one child starting high school this year meaning the drama in her life is just about to begin. Our son will start middle school this year meaning he will be terrorizing not just a single teacher but an entire pack of teachers which means I have 6 times the number of flowers and apology phone calls to make than I did last school year. And finally there is Trina. She is not a student but rather is on the other end of the spectrum and works in the school system as a tutor at an elementary school. While the kids start school a week from today, Trina actually goes back to work tomorrow. For the next four days she will be preparing her room and getting ready for the students to arrive. There is training to do and lesson plans to create. It will be a hectic week for her. That means that effective tonight summer vacation has officially ended and it is time to reload for the fall schedule and school. As I left for work today Trina and the kids were already up and moving. It’s the last day of summer and they want to make the best of each and every moment. It’s funny, when school starts you can barely drag them out of bed and out the door but the day when they could sleep in they are all up and busy. It will be interesting to get a report of how they spent their final day of summer vacation. Maybe I should make them give me a 500 word report on it just so they get in the practice. Nah, they would make me grade it.

Thursday came and went and Trina got busy. I completely understood but still thought I would maybe give her a little grief because that’s what husbands do. When Friday came I subtly asked her what day it was. Without even thinking she said “Friday”. Well that didn’t really work like I thought it would. Still, I was kind of at her mercy so I let it go.
On Saturday I decided I would take a little more direct approach. I asked her if it was Thursday yet. Trina looked very confused as did the kids. I went on to say I was just asking because she said she would have some time to do something for me on Thursday. She had obviously completely forgotten and it just so happened that I picked a time when she was at her busiest on Saturday. It’s ok, I understand how things go.
Today is Sunday and after church we were sitting around the house. I was working on the computer and Trina was checking email. Without looking up and without saying a word I reached over and slid the InvisibleSHIED box towards her slowly. I could tell she was just a little frustrated but she was holding it together pretty well. I just kept sliding the box closer and closer ever so slowly. The kids of course were getting quite a kick out of this and were quietly giggling so that Trina would not notice.
Finally she got the hint and took the box and began reading through the instructions. Before long she was beginning the installation process. As I expected, it was a little more painstaking than what the videos showed. She installed the shield and re-installed it getting slightly frustrated that it was not going on straight. While she was in the midst of this Dakota wandered into the living room. He had been downstairs watching television through this whole thing and had no idea what was going on. As he came around the corner and saw Trina working on the installation he nonchalantly stated, “oh, is today Thursday?” Everyone immediately burst out laughing. Everyone that is except Trina; she just reached over and threw a box at me. How exactly was this my fault? Things are definitely messed up in this house.

Today Dakota came running through the door carrying his rip stick and the contents of the mailbox. Well most of the contents of the mailbox. From the looks of the pathway of destruction behind him he had been dropping mail all the way from the street. Maybe he was just leaving a trail so that he could find his way back outside after dropping off the mail. I wondered if this was a normal occurrence as that would completely explain why the number of bills we have been receiving had dramatically dropped off. I thought maybe we were just being given a summer reprieve but now I’m thinking they just might not have reached their final destination of the kitchen table.
Today was definitely different though. Usually Dakota just opens the front door and throws the mail inside like some sort of postal smart bomb. This time he actually came into the house before launching the mail; all the mail except the one large brown envelope that he held in his hand. Before I could even enquire as to who the large envelope was addressed to he proclaimed, “It’s here! It’s finally here!” Was this my Arizona Diamondbacks contract where they finally had saw the error of their ways and were going to offer me a job as a left-handed reliever? My excitement level was rising to equal that of my son. He flashed the envelope in front of my face as we danced around the living room. The return address said Kyrene School District. I stopped dead in my tracks. Hey this wasn’t from the Diamondbacks; what the heck am I dancing for? I stood there in silence utterly confused. Trina must have sensed my bewilderment as she offered, “it’s his school schedule; now he gets to know what classes and what teachers he has.” Ok that didn’t help my confusion at all. This is the boy who we have to literally beg to do his homework. This is the boy that we have to take flowers to meet the teacher night as a pre-emptive “we’re sorry” for what the teacher is about to endure. This is the boy who has been told over and over that he is just like his dad. Hey wait a minute; I just realized that they didn’t mean that in a positive way! Any way you look at it, this is a boy that until this moment could have cared less about school. Why then all the excitement and dancing? I was told that he was a changed kid. Now that he was out of elementary school things were going to be different. Yeah where have I heard that before? No matter, Dakota was extremely excited and I had to admit it was funny to watch as he devoured the list of classes and the teachers assessing which he would have problems with and which he would enjoy. I know better than to expect this level of excitement once school starts. For now I just better enjoy the moment. I’m still not happy that the Diamondbacks have not offered me a contract though.