a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. you're welcome

marty walked into my office and handed me this. she then watched me as i read it. when complete i looked up at her and we just looked at each other for a few moments, both speechless. then after a few moments she said, "there's a lot packed into that young man". i could do little more than nod my head in agreement.

at a holiday gathering someone asked me how the kids were doing. the following stories spilled out and i thought i'd share them with those of you i might not bump into at a holiday event.

ANTHONY
i was approached by a parent at anthony's elementary. she introduced herself and explained someone told her that anthony might be a good fit for an equations team her husband runs. i told her that anthony did seem to like math so, yes, he may be interested. she said that the program was for older kids and that they had already started the training but it might not be a bad idea to get him in this year so he could familiarize himself with the process. i took anthony to their next meeting. the "coach" got the other kids working and said he was going to be over here getting anthony setup. the man proceeded to unpack a game. while doing so he started asking a third grade anthony questions like:

• do you know what the square root of 9 is? he did.
• how about the square root of 81. he did.

then he asked if anthony knew what powers were. he did not. the man explained and then ran anthony through some problems which anthony answered without fail. he then taught anthony how to play the game. after the session i thanked the man for teaching anthony and letting him sit in this year. to this the man said, "sit in? i'm going to have anthony compete this year! he's great!". if great means that in third grade he already knows more about math than i ever have, yes he is great.

ALEX
alex is in a robotics club. in this club the team gets a challenges to solve and then works as a team to solve the challenge. this year the team assigned nicknames to all the members. alex's nickname was "the guy who can fix anything". not too bad a designation on a team that exists to solve problems.

BELLA
bella is at a new school district. we were a little curious how she would fare entering an entirely new population of people without a history or reputation. two months after her arrival she was chosen as one of five female school ambassadors. these ambassadors are existing students who show prospective students around to interest them in the school. this is obviously a role the school's administration does not take lightly and for bella to get tapped this soon after her arrival gives marty and i the sense that our baby girl will perhaps be ok out there in the bigger world.

while walking to school with anthony he asked, after a natural pause in our conversation, "so dad. what is something you really want, that cost less than 20 dollars?".

while i was reflecting on things i talked about how the best present for someone was something they really wanted but for whatever reason wouldn't buy themselves. after a few minutes i told anthony that something i've been intrigued by for a number of years were mounted insects. after explaining what they were he asked why i would want that. i told him that from my photography contest i've come to be amazed at some of the insect-photography, especially the up-close macro images that people have sent in of bugs and stuff and that they are really very extraordinary and if they could be enlarged to, say, the size of one of these houses we were walking by they would be the most extraordinary things we've ever seen, both in their beauty and detail.

a few days later i mentioned anthony's question to marty. she told me she was well aware of the conversation because anthony then went to her and said he needed her to help him buy me a mounted insect for my birthday. after looking a bit, anthony found one that was $30. when marty asked him if he had $30 he said sure, walked to and opened one of his bedroom windows, pulled a velcro wallet from the outer jamb and produced the requested $30.

yeah, what, like you don't keep your money hidden in a window jamb?

and for reasons i can't explain (in that marty has confessed ignorance) both of my boys have taken a great interest in getting me a birthday gift this year. i'm admittedly a little easier to shop for since i went on my spending fast (ref). also, i'm a little more eager for the goodies given i'm no longer buying myself each and every bauble that catches my eye. i have the sense it's all going to taste a bit sweeter this year.

marty, bella and i were walking home. as we were crossing a street bella yelled "SLUG BUG!" and gave me a hard shot in the arm. that side of my body sagged from the unexpected blow (she is not the small and defenseless girl she once was). as i began my whiny "what didya do that for?" the guy inside the vw beetle guffawed and yelled out his passenger window, "Man! I love that shit!". his comment got bella and marty laughing. the humor missed its mark on me and my sagging arm.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. worm-age

a few kidisms i've recently enjoyed:

we have some new neighbors. they are very much like marty and i were when we first moved into the community. early thirties. just starting their family. the guy is very young at heart and it is not at all uncommon to find him doing flips on the tramp with the kids or crouched behind a bush set to nerf-ambush someone. the other day he was out watering plants when alex walked by. he snapped the hose in alex's direction sending a quick spray of water over alex. to this alex said, "jeff, you can't spray me. these things i have are highly flammable." the men chuckled at this defense. but the moms took the time to explain the hole in the logic.

then a few days later anthony showed his own verbal creativity when he excitedly described a book he was making at school. he stepped through all the real-book parts it was going to have. a cover. a binding. pictures. and, even, a Table of Contests.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. too sharp

as bella worked her way towards her teens, numerous people warned us of our pending doom, advising us to enjoy our little girl while it lasted. not having navigated the waters yet, marty and i found it hard to make a qualified defense to the assertions. so instead we kept saying and believing that it didn't have to go that way. the other night after reading to the boys for bed, i sat down at my computer to tend to the day's email. filling the screen was an open word document. it read:


regarding these "inevitable" fights, i believe i have come upon a secret weapon which can mitigate both the frequency and volatility of these altercations. i call it, blandly, the twenty minute rule. the twenty minute rule states that if you ever see a family member, especially a child, coming off the rails you need to evacuate the area, isolating the failing human as quickly as possible for approximately twenty minutes. most typically, once a reaction begins, there's no preventing it. thinking you can steer around it would be like thinking you can stop yourself from projectile vomiting by holding your hand over your mouth. so evacuate the building. don't look the infected human in the eyes. move everyone out of the blast radius and quarantine the affected human so that when they do blow there are no innocents within shrapnel range as this can lead to chain reactions, sometimes bringing a whole home into emotional ruin.

guided meditations often point out that just like with weather, there are always blue skies overhead. it's just that sometimes we can't see them because a cloud front has moved in, blocking the view. the thing that makes the twenty minute rule work is that the systems are always in motion and if unprodded will typically move past just as swiftly as they rolled in. but if they are provoked they will grow in size and temper. give them space, they will move on and before you know it, you'll be looking at blue skies again. this is one of the advantages of an ever-changing universe and understanding that in the time it took you to read this sentence the world about you is forever changed and never to again look the way it did when you read the first word of this sentence. so let it change. embrace the change. and when you see dark skies, seek cover because oftentimes the storm clouds will move out as swiftly as they moved in.

also, i've learned this technique also applies with adult, professional relationships but for reasons both obvious and nuanced, the window is more like 24 hours instead of twenty minutes. the classic example here is not sending that angry email at the peak of your angst, but waiting until the next day, re-reading it, and seeing if you think it would be sensible to send it on. rarely have i looked at that email after a night's sleep and thought, yes, this is the push in the shoulder that's going to make this human act more civily towards me.

here you can see the twenty minute rule taking form several years back.

alex started middle school this year. for what it's worth, bella started high school, which means we have reached that unenviable milestone where we have three kids at three different schools. we were more than a little nervous towards the end of summer as the days left grew fewer with each sunrise. i don't think it would be a secret to say most of our nervousness was reserved for aleo. there are ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. perspective

when bella was still in pre-school i began a ritual called dad days. dad days happen once a year, and are not to be confused with dad hours which happen five times a week. dad days began as a way to celebrate a child's achievements in school. in the beginning i would pick them up from their last day, which was usually a half-day, and take them out on some adventure catered just to them. further, t...

i was making some new benches for our front porch (in part due to a new, totally sweet, dowling jig i recently bought). i was modeling them after a bench i made several years ago. between my superior skills (compared to several years back) and improved tools (uhhh, dowling jig), i considered upgrading to a higher grade of of wood. the problem point here is that it would add a fair bit of cost to the project so i wanted to make sure i could pull the benches off without any issues.

while getting things organized, i stepped out to the porch to take measurements on my existing bench. while crouched down and measuring the various parts and pieces, i noticed how the top slabs of wood, where you sit, had deep divots and mars in them from the kids various projects. the most damning of the marks came from our meat tenderizer hammer where, i recalled this day specifically, the kids went through a multi-day period of busting open acorns for sport using the medieval looking meat hammer as the pounder and my hand-made bench as the worktop. i imagined my reaction to them doing this, or any other number of their child-divined games, on high-dollar pieces of lumber versus the simple treated wood i've historically used.

then, from my crouched position, i recalled one of the first and most meaningful parental lessons i ever learned: you can love your things or you can love your children, but you can't love both.

after completing my notes, i, with nary a reservation, went and bought my low-grade planks of wood.

i recently bought amazon's most recent technology offering--echo. it is very similar to iPhone's siri but instead of being carried around in your pocket, it sits somewhere in your home. i situated ours on a window shelf in the kitchen. it's a fun sort of toy that can play 80's music (my preference) while you cook, make note of things you need from the store, tell you jokes (anthony's favorite) or ...

we were gifted a trampoline a year ago. for the record, most cool things our kids have can be connected to the generosity of someone who is not their parents. the tramp is a modern-day issue with the high netting all around. for reasons i'll explain in a moment, we recently removed the saftey netting. seeing a tramp without this encasement these days is kinda like spotting a black bear in yellowst...

in trying to convey at point at the dinner table to anthony, i said:

TROY
haven't you ever heard the saying "as a man thinketh, so he is"?

ANTHONY (8)
uhh. no. and i know i've never heard that saying because i've never heard the word 'thinketh' before.

although after that exchange anthony will never again be able to make that claim because 'thinketh' saw tons of play after that as in "do you thinketh you could bring in the ice cream" or "i thinketh it is time for dad hours" or "i thinketh i must use the restroom."

when we pulled into the lot for the walter family easter event, before i killed the engine, anthony (8) announced that he wouldn't be hunting easter eggs. later, when an uncle pressed him on the matter he said, "what's the point. all you do is run around finding eggs. you eat the candy in them. you get fat. and then you spend the next year trying to get de-fat. just so you can do it all over again ...

bella and i had just finished biking our second and final lap at the park. just as we turned to head home a guy i met a week earlier passed by. our faces lit up at recognizing each other and he applied the brakes coming to a stop. we stepped off the path and greeted each other. he introduced himself to bella and in short order we got talking about bike routes and group rides. i turned to bella a couple of times and could see the talks were not of interest to her given her unengaged observance. i tried to slow the conversation a few times but it kept re-gaining steam (this is a very interesting and knowledgeable man to me). after what was probably twenty minutes, we finally broke off and headed our original ways. once we were back on the bikes and out of earshot, i thanked bella for her patience and said i knew she wanted to go and that i appreciated her not getting huffy or embarrassing in front of my new friend. she replied: sometimes i wonder how my life would be different today if i possessed my daughter's maturity and empathy levels when i was fourteen (instead of getting them when i was 34).

for the last few years marty has organized a large regional girl scout retreat. she first took it on during bella's short-lived stint in a troop. but even after bella stopped going, marty had formed a fondness for the mission so stayed involved. if i'm remembering correctly, alex attended more of these weekend adventures than bella has—it surely never hurt that all the girls found him wildly...

i try to make my children think creatively or logically as much as possible. one of my tactics for this was to answer their questions with illogical responses. for example, whenever they asked me a yes/no question, i'd answer "sure". i liked watching their faces process the response before saying, "no dad. that's not right." to which i'd say "oh. no thank you." i know, i know, i'm a real party. or at least it's a party until your eight year old takes to responding to all questions directed to them with nonsensical answers, and even to people outside of the family, and even when responding to our host and hostess, and even when this host and hostess are the people kind enough to let our family of five descend upon their home for an entire week—for a third year in a row—wildly disrupting their home's routines and sleeping situations for several straight days. even then, whenever one of these kind people would ask anthony something, he would respond with gibberish. if you're wondering what that looks like, it looks something like this:

how was skiing today anthony?
uhh, oatmeal.

anthony would you like another piece of bread?
pink giraffe (with a nod of his head)

anthony, did you like the show?
doorknob. no, i mean, uhhh, blond hair.

if you're wondering how long this is cute for, it is, as you probably guessed, it is cute about zero times which means that thirty seven times in it is bordering on obnoxious. on the good side, he's having to think a little more than he would by answering 'epic' to everything.

yesterday we returned from our spring break holiday—a week in utah rife with friends and skiing. this is the third year we have made this pilgrimage which gives it some tradition-caliber stock. in perusing the rich week of leisure, laughter and recreation, the moment that most jumps out at me happened on the drive home somewhere in wyoming when alex yelled from the third row seat of our speeding minivan, "i have to go pee and REFUSE to go in a bottle!"

sadly, in my telling of this i am unable to convey the gallons of vinegar and vitriol his words included as they were hurled the full length of our honda odyssey. good to his word, alex held fast on his pee-boycott until we delivered him to a proper urinal. anthony on the other hand gladly peed in his bottle although he did confess it was hard to perform without any privacy (as the whole family was drawn to watching him see to this need). anthony also offered his neighboring passengers a taste of his lemonade at least half a dozen times. he seemed fully undaunted that no one ever took part in his generosity.

anthony is a rabid monopoly player. how much does anthony like monopoly you ask? well, every day my kids get a dad hour with me (technically, it's more like 45 minutes on the weekdays because there just isn't enough hours in the evening given the number of family members i have). in your dad hour you get to say what you and your dad (me) will do to spend the time.

here are what people us...

after my mom died i took a little, green swiss army knife from her house. it belonged to her father when he lived with her before he died. it was surely something my mom bought for him to help with his crafts. i was never one to routinely carry a pocket knife but took it because it reminded me of both of them.

alex quickly noticed my new accoutrement and commented on it. i explained to him where and why i got it. he shrugged his shoulders and said a casual 'cool'. after this discovery alex would routinely approach me and ask to borrow the small knife to clean out some dirt from under his nails, cut a string or trim something up.

a few years back as marty and i were plotting out christmas i suggested getting alex his own pocket knife. marty first balked saying he was too young. i confessed he was young in years but in many ways was more responsible and conscientious than either of his parents. she said that he'd probably loose it straight away. i didn't have a solid retort for this as alex is not super-great of keeping track of things but suggested it might be different with this because he would love it enough to keep track of it. marty gave a consenting shrug of her shoulders and alex got his knife. and now, better than two years later, alex still has his knife and has always kept a solid line on it.

over the next two years my knife took several rides through the washing machine because i kept forgetting to take it out of the little pocket on my right front where i kept it. after one such journey it started falling apart, the glue holding the plastic sides in place having finally giving way from repeated trips through the water. so this last christmas i replaced it, with a shiny new one, one modeled after alex's newer model.

three weeks after getting my new knife someone asked to borrow it. i said i didn't have it. they asked where it was. i said i didn't know and confessed to mis-placing it. alex's one-word response, "already?", stung then and now as i think back on it. maybe i'm the one who shouldn't have gotten a knife for christmas.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. awesome II

i feel like marty and i missed a ripe business opportunity when we failed to hire our kids out to test parks and homes for safety. because when you combine marty's free-range parenting style and the natural athletic abilities of most children, boundaries will be tested. there were many a time i look at one of my children atop or inside something and wonder at length how they ever managed the man ...