jr67

Omg 4 and 7! How can you stand the cuteness? Do you read to them? Great that they won't be getting used to Daddy's "funny" beer-breath when he tucks them in and kisses them good night. Great for them, and great for Daddy.

My Daddy never tucked us in at night, ttbomm.* More's the pity. He wasn't a drunk though. It's just that he, like so many of his generation, and like so many of a lot of generations, considered that to be, as he used to say sometimes, "your mother's department." You know, stuff like planning the menus on a tight budget, doing the grocery shopping, making the meals, doing the dishes, drying them and putting them away in the days before they could afford a dishwasher, doing the laundry for seven IRL (in real life) people, doing the ironing for seven IRL people before permanent press was even a thing, making sure the 5 kids were up, dressed in matching shoes (not all 5 kids in the same shoes, just making sure each one kid's two shoes matched each other), getting Dad to the train station every morning, 5/7, for the 7:25 a.m. to the city before the tracks were electrified, after that it was maybe the 7:45 or something so he still was in the office at his desk at 9 a.m., 5/7, picking him up at the station every evening 5/7 at 6:45 p.m. before the tracks were electrified, after that it was maybe the 6:10.

* Ttbomm = To the best of my memory.

"Your mother's department," cont'd: Having dinner on the table for the five kids at 6 p.m. sharp, 5/7; big sister in charge while Mommy went to pick Daddy up at the station. Mommy and Daddy's peas and carrots were simmering slowly on the stove. If the train was late the pan would dry out and the peas and carrots would burn and the 5 of us would be oblivious to clouds of smoke in the kitchen cuz we were good little boys and girls doing our homework or watching tv or bouncing off some wall or other (each of us is different). Nobody had smoke detectors back then.

No, there were no cell phones or anything back then, are you kidding?, so she couldn't call to make sure the big sisters turned off the vegetables. And only one tv, black and white, so the decision as to what station to watch would be the result of some chaotic bargaining process. It helped to be one of the older ones, more practiced in the cunning arts of self-dealing. There were only 3 stations to choose from, for the most part, anyway.

And if (when) we squabbled in jr's family's house it was "your mother's department" to resolve the petty disputes, Dad in his chair right there in the living room after they ate, the evening paper that he hadn't finished on the train unfolded in front of him, oblivious to one of us or another whining away while Mommy was still finishing up the dishes. But don't get me wrong I know this is SR but he wasn't a big drinker. He was oblivious but not because he had been drinking, just because the crossword puzzle or the comics were just so engrossing and after all, he had been hard at work all day.

He never read to us, at bedtime ttbomm either. That was her department, too, at least until we, the 5 of us, in turn got successively old enough to read to one or more of the younger ones. The youngest, I dunno, maybe he read to the kissy-fish and neon tetras in the aquarium maintained by (guess who?) Mommy.

Does your 7-year-old read to the 4-year-old, Vinny? Highly recommended.

Did I mention that Mommy worked?

(Q. Well whattaya call all of the above? A. I already told ya, "Your mother's department.")

But yeah, she did that stuff, but she worked too. She was a school teacher, so she did the above stuff in between handling her own job. And when one of the 5 of us got sick somehow there was a plan for that, Mommy took care of implementing the plan but never took a day off from work.

She wasn't a substance abuser either. In those days they never drank Monday to Friday. Saturday afternoon they might have a cocktail hour. A manhattan, carefully measured out and mixed using the cocktail set I still have to this day. Maybe they had 2 apiece once in a while, some cheese and crackers. Same on Sundays, or possibly over to an aunt's house or Grandma's for Sunday dinner and maybe then they had three, but not usually.

So where did jr's substance abusive tendencies find their root? Hard to say. And won't be said here, because: (a) I haven't gotten to that part yet; and (b) this is Vinny's thread, the last I checked.

So Vinny: With your new job, your new hours, your new sobriety:

What an excuse to watch Thomas the Tank Engine 7 times in a row, or read it, or whatever they are watching and reading now. That's a pretty good one though, imho. Highly recommended. Soon, if not already, for the 7-year-old it'll be High School Musical and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Man, Vinny, you are so lucky.

Savor each moment Vinny, now while it is the now, and later when it will be the memory.

How about bowling? Does anyone go bowling any more? That's something somebody could look forward to doing after work. When we were a little older my Dad was in a bowling league. Come to think of it my mother was in the teacher's league, but we were older then, so that's a different story.

Hey Vin, do you know what kind of job you'd like to transition to out of sales? Up to you whether to answer here, I was just curious but it's not like I hafta know or anything. I was just wondering whether you knew, that's all.

You don't hafta know right now.

There is time.

One day at a time, last I checked.