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It’s important to provide a mellow bedtime routine to help kids transition to sleep. The books tell you that.

But it’s equally important to boogie to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while getting jammies on - creating laughter and memories. My heart tells me that.

It’s important to provide nutritious, balanced meals and limit unhealthy snacks. The experts tell you that.

But sometimes it’s okay to have cake for dinner or ice cream for lunch. The smiles tell me that.

It’s important to teach proper table manners when kids are young. It will prepare them for when they live in an adult world.

But it’s also okay to giggle and make up silly words at the dinner table from time to time. It reminds us that being a kid is such a short window of time.

You’re supposed to let your children grow and mature, right before your eyes. Everyone knows that.

But when your babies are about to turn five, all you want to do is hold them, and kiss them and snuggle all day with them. I could tell you that.

I never claimed to be perfect, ok so that is a lie. When I was younger I was perfect. There is a magical sense of being when you are never wrong and you can reason your way out of anything. While being great for dating, it didn't work so well for my brother.

Beyond the steam there are trees and through them hills and over them lakes and across them mountains and then the vast stretches of forever are all we have left. Behind me are children laughing loudly. They are the passengers of this train and our ride is full of obstacles and metaphors. Tracks are long, lost and out. The view from the window is full of things that float like stars and for every breath taken a new turn awaits to take it away.

There is light at this end of this tunnel and it trips fantastic.

I try to maintain a pretty constant flow of quality posts here at Honea Express. Constant being relative and quality being stuff my mom marks as liked on Facebook. This post isn't either of those things.

It may appear to the naked eye that I've been MIA, but that is not the case. I've been wandering the internets and dropping knowledge into whatever web will catch it. Also, non-knowledge.

If you have the time I'd love to share some of it with you. Seriously, it's either humor me or go back to work, and we all know how that will end.

At DadCentric I've been waxing poetic about stuff that is centric to dads, namely this dad and the raising of two boys. A Tale of Two Mornings is a little slice of life piece where one day sort of represents the whole pie - à la mode .

Also at DadCentric I pay my respects to J.D. Salinger in The Day was Mixed with Foul and Rye. It's funny, I always knew that Catcher in the Rye played a big part in helping me find my voice as a writer, but it wasn't until yesterday - nearly 20 years after I read the book that I realized just how much it had influenced me. Holden Caulfield is a classic unreliable narrator, something I later embraced with open arms in the Pushcart-nominated Madness and Bubblegum. I just tooted my own horn, excuse me.

Over at UpTake I've been talking about how I came to be in this country illegally and a little place down the street that may very well be the BEST. DOG. PARK. EVER.

It pays the bills passes the time.

I've also been using my children as guinea pigs by having them consume their body weight in Pom and Funky Monkey snacks. They also went to a very cool warehouse event for bloggers that changed their life forever, give or take an hour.

Pom sent me some of their wonderful 100% pomegranate juice and it was delicious. It was a bit tart for the kids so I took the liberty of making them some pomegranate lemonade - which was also pretty tart, but they loved it.

Here's why I agreed to try Pom: A) It's healthy. It was right before New Years and I thought some healthy stuff in the fridge would be a great way to get on track in 2010. B) When I was a kid my neighbor had a pomegranate tree (bush?) in her backyard and we used to pick the fruit and throw them as hard as we could against the back of her garage. They smashed against that white brick like Jackson Pollock's lunch. Or possibly his head. Yes, we were hooligans but we made up for it by staying off drugs. Occasionally. My point is that pomegranates and I have a history.

I used most of the Pom making pomegranate martinis. They were fantastic.

The Funky Monkey treats were hit and miss. I liked all of the flavors but the kids didn't care for them - not until I opened the MANGOJ (see what they did there?), which went over pretty well with the oldest. He loves him some mango.

For the record, the cat also liked them, which is kind of weird, but so are cats.

What is a Funky Monkey? It's dried fruit THAT CRUNCHES! Basically it a freeze-dried snack that manages to maintain nearly all of the flavor and nutrients found in the fresh fruit version. Again, I was going with the healthy angle. Funky Monkey is gluten free, which is cool (my neighbor has a gluten allergy and it appears to suck).

Speaking of neighbors, did I tell you that we had a huge bonfire last weekend and burned 6 Christmas trees and drank too much? Well, we did. See:


While we were standing around the fire my gluten-less neighbor, a carpenter by trade (the profession not the musical group), turned to me and said, "this should be easy to write about," to which I replied, "you know what else is easy? remodeling a fucking kitchen," which is not something I know for a fact, but it can't be any harder than writing this damn post.

Where was I?

Oh right, the warehouse event. Stacey from Because I Must Blog was kind enough to set up an event with Lance, the owner of Clowns Unlimited and Games2U. Lance invited a group of us to his warehouse outside of Seattle where he and his staff had set up a handful of inflatable slides and mazes, some cool games, an assortment of cotton candy and THE TRAILER.

What is THE TRAILER? Well, as the name implies it is a trailer, and it is filled with pure awesome - the name may not have implied that part, hence my mentioning it. The trailer is all tricked out with cool lighting, comfortable seating for 12 adults (16-18 kids), and six 52" HD flat screen televisions (4 inside, 2 on the outside). Everyone can play the same game- if the game can handle it, or each TV can have its own game from over 51 choices on the latest XBOX, Wii and PlayStation systems. They can also play actual television if that's your thing.

It's as cool as you hope it is.


The trailer will come to you. Yes, you. A very knowledgeable game coach is included. I'm thinking about getting the neighbors to chip in so we can rent it one of these weekends- after we run out of Christmas trees.

In closing, I've been doing stuff. And now it is the weekend. I hope you have a good one.


Behind the curtain:
Compensation: No
Products Received: 3 small bottles of Pom juice, 3 small bags of Funky Monkey

Everybody falls from grace sometime. Athletes, politicians and actors tend to fall the farthest due to their pedestals being placed so high. And yet, fame bounces. The minute they hit bottom they start clawing their way back up.

Grace rains all around us. We know nothing but the space between dreams and the trampoline and the slight change of view that each direction brings.

Some find solace in having the grace to fall from. Some find hope in the promise of a net.

Some climb steps just to jump from the highest one. They dive deeper than where they started. We score them on their splash.

Some trip and slide over misplaced trust and misguided confidence. They are pulled down by others and some grasp for the ankles above them.

Most of us take two steps forward for every step back. More or less. We face each day and await our spin, not seeing the chutes for the ladders.

It isn't the fall from grace that need define you but how you stick the landing. Remember to bend your knees.

Christmas snuck up on me this year. It often does, and I know I’m not alone. The older I get, the faster time accelerates. I fully expect to wake up any day and find out it’s 2025. Which will be cool, because surely by then we’ll be able to teleport.

But Christmas snuck up on me in a new way this year. It snuck up on me in the form of Owen, almost four and 1/2, asking questions about God. Pesky Christmas carols.

Lisa and I are both singers, so when the holiday season rolls around, you’ll find us humming, whistling, and often belting out one Christmas carol or another. We even sing the occasional Hanukkah song, and I’m told I do a pretty decent Grinch. So there we were, innocently trading verses of Joy To The World, and I get to the part about “He rules the world, with truth and grace.”

Owen: “Who?”

Me: “Who what?”

Owen: “Who rules the world?”

Me: “He does.”

Owen: “He who?”

Me: “He God.”

Owen: “Hegod?”

Me: “No, God. Just God.”

Owen: “Who’s God?”

Me (inside my head): “Fuck. Really? Have we actually not covered this? Shit, I guess we haven’t. Crap, crap, crap. What do I say? I totally should have rehearsed this.”

Me (out loud, nodding head and looking thoughtful): ” … ”

Owen: “Who’s God?”

Me (still looking thoughtful): “Uh.”

Owen: “Can I watch TV?”

Me: “Totally! What do you want to watch?”

Ha! Dodged that bullet. Barely. And clearly we can’t leave this question unanswered. The kid needs to know who/what God is, but here’s the rub: I’m not sure I know who/what God is. More to the point, I don’t believe there is a God. At least, not in the Judeo-Christian, monotheistic, omnipotent, personified sense of the word.

I suppose this makes me an atheist. I have a hard time calling myself an atheist, because in modern American culture, calling yourself an atheist is a like proclaiming yourself as some kind of activist. It implies advocacy. Membership in a club. Part of the reason I’m an atheist is because I don’t really want to be in any of the clubs. I just don’t believe there’s a God. Which, by definition, means I’m an atheist. So there you are.

My wife and I are in different places about this. As I mentioned in my anniversary post, I basically excised Jesus from our wedding. Lisa didn’t fight me on this, but if it were left to her she wouldn’t have done it. We don’t go to church or actively practice religion, but if you ask her, she’ll tell you she believes in God. She was raised Christian. She went to Sunday school and attended church with her parents. I wasn’t, and didn’t. My family celebrated Christmas and Easter in our secular-humanist/consumerist way, but God didn’t much factor in.

So we come from different angles, but we’re not THAT far apart. My moral and ethical sense is basically in line with Christianity. Love thy neighbor, do unto others, have a few hundred wives, and live to be 350. All this stuff sounds OK to me. And as I said, I’m not an activist atheist. If you believe in God, that’s cool. I’m not going to try and talk you out of that belief. Unless you try and talk me in to something, in which case we may have a problem. A friend of mine who actually is Christian has a great bumper sticker on his refrigerator door (because there’s no way he’s sticking it on his Audi). It’s attributed to Gandhi and says “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” This isn’t why I don’t believe in God, but it goes a long way toward why I don’t spend much time in church. That, and the whole don’t-believe-in-God thing. That tends to get in the way for the Christians. Apparently it’s not a requirement for the Jews, though, so there’s always that route. But I’m getting off track.

So, back to the issue at hand. What to tell my son about God? God is an important concept to understand, regardless what you believe. You can’t live in the world and not know what God is. So, like saying please and thank you, crossing the street, and the Beatles, I need to teach my son about God. And at some point he’ll need to make up his own mind about whether he thinks there is such a thing. But that’s for later. For starters, he needs to know what it means.

As you might expect, my escape from this discussion was short-lived. It wasn’t long before Owen brought it up again, likely in response to some other Christmas carol–related incident. But this time, I was slightly more prepared.

Owen: “Who is God?”

Me: “OK. You know that episode of The Backyardigans where Pablo and Tyrone go up above the clouds to see the goddess of weather to ask her to make it stop raining so they can play basketball?

Owen: “Yeah.”

Me: “And while they’re there they meet the goddess of naps and the god of laughter?”

Owen: “Yeah.”

Me: “Well, some people believe there’s just one God in charge of everything.”

Owen: “Oh. OK. Is there?”

Me (inside my head): “Fuck.”

Me (out loud): “Some people think so. Some people believe … different things.”

Owen: “Do you think so, or do you believe … different things?”

Me: “Well, I guess I believe … different things.”

And he basically let it go at that. For now. I’m sure this won’t be the last conversation we have about it, so I’m sorting out how to help him understand, so when it does come up again, I’m more prepared. I can’t fake this. I need an honest, true answer for my son about God. I think I’ll tell him I don’t believe there is such a being, but a lot of people do, and the truth is, I don’t really know.

I mentioned this to my friend Becky, who has three girls and has been my friend since junior high.

Becky: “Hm. That’s a tough one. Wait till he asks where you go when you die. I like, ‘When you die, you go back to where you were before you were born.’”

Me (channeling Owen): “In mommy’s tummy?”

Becky: “Before that.”

Me (still channeling Owen): “In daddy’s penis?”

She’s gonna need to flesh out this line of reasoning, I think. For my part, I’m open to any and all suggestions or advice.

The Christmas lights weren't going to hang themselves. The box of lights, staples and some plastic clips designed to adhere electrical wires to the overflowing gutters had been working as a doorstop for days. It was time they earned their keep. Besides, it wasn't getting any warmer.

The overnight low had been in the single digits. The high wasn't even old enough to drink. I finished my second pot of coffee and like Griswald before me I plugged into the season.

I stood on a ladder made of ice. Visions of sugarplums breaking their necks danced in my head. I was, for a moment, glad that my children were not there to see it. But I lived and I am lit and I never even touch the stuff.

Today I woke to another sunny, frozen morning. Yellow-breasted robins appeared outside my window. A number of blue jays bounced from branch to branch and perched upon the rail in front of me - their colors vibrant and brisk.

They put the lights to shame.


If I stand on my rooftop I can see a lake and hills and then another lake and hills again. Beyond that, blocked from view, is a skyline that falls into the sea and a coast that leads south to a place where my family can't see the ocean but for the mountains between them.

It's mostly side streets from there.

The boys play loudly on a floor with the toys that they packed themselves. There are no holiday lights or signs of the season. There are no stockings or carols or television specials, just the gift that they don't know they are giving.

In the corner of the room there is a bed with their grandfather in it, watching them play and whispering their names and every new goodnight is their last goodbye.

My grandma would yell “Don’t run!” whenever she spotted me moving at any pace faster than a stroll. I swear she said it every time I saw her. I thought she was being ridiculous. Clearly she didn’t want me to have any fun. Maybe I should blame her for my sedentary tendencies? But that’s another post.

When I watch my children playing — running, climbing, jumping, hurling heavy objects at each other — I can understand where she was coming from. It’s scary watching people you love do things that could harm them. But I try to remember the kid I was as I watch my own. Running is fun (which it’s taken me close to 30 years to rediscover). Risks are a part of learning about the world. So the question I keep coming back to is, when to intervene?

I suppose this is one of the essential questions of parenthood. It’s easy enough in the beginning, knowing when to get hands-on. With newborns, the answer to when to intervene is, pretty much always. They’re helpless. It’s all on you. One of the first tests of parenting is getting a baby to sleep. I’m watching good friends go through this again with their 4-month old. How long do you let her cry before you go in and do something? Every instinct says, “Go to the baby, pick up the baby, soothe the baby.” But at some point, the baby has to go to sleep on her own. This cycle plays out over and over for the rest of our children’s lives, with constantly evolving challenges, and steadily increasing consequences for failure.

With our two boys, three years apart, we get to navigate two different sets of overlapping issues as we work out how to parent them. With the 18-month old, right now it’s mostly about keeping him from falling to his death, electrocuting or drowning himself, or destroying our house. Most recently he’s taken to whacking his brother in the head with anything he can get his hands on (see: bam bam). At his age, it’s still mostly black and white. You step in to prevent the kid doing harm to himself or others. There’s a little grey area around how high to let him climb or how quickly to jump to the bigger boy’s rescue, but not much.

With the 4-year old, it’s already getting more complicated. He’s clearly much more self-sufficient, and, in our case, a much more cautious child than his little brother. He rarely does things that are truly dangerous, and usually operates pretty well within his capabilities. Sometimes he actually needs to be pushed a little outside his comfort zone. (I mean, really, how hard should it be to get a kid to try PIZZA?). Lately, with him, the question of when to intervene comes up more in social situations. Owen has lots of friends his age. With a few of his best friends, particularly the boys, everything is suddenly a competition. Who gets to be first? Whose is better? Who’s smarter? Faster? Stronger? You name it, they’ll turn it into a contest. Sometimes it’s all fun and games, but sometimes it turns into real conflict, complete with tears and even hitting. So, again the question — when do we get involved?

Sometimes they make it clear they WANT you involved, by coming and “telling on” the other for something he did or said. But even this isn’t a clear indication that stepping in is the right move. Sometimes they just need to work it out. I find myself saying, “Why are you telling ME? Why don’t you tell HIM to stop hitting/teasing/rubbing-his-string-cheese-on you?”

It’s part of our job description as parents to protect our children from real danger as much as we can. But that’s not the same as making sure they never have a bad experience. “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” (Bonus points to the first one to name that movie in the comments WITHOUT resorting to Google). Wise words, those, and something to remember as we decide how quickly to get involved in our children’s conflicts.

Now, I’ve seen parents who take the hands-off approach too far, in my opinion. I know it’s easy to judge how others parent their kids. It’s hard, and everybody’s got to make their choices. But, standing 10 feet away, completely oblivious as your child steals toys from other kids and proceeds to whale on them with said swiped toy? That, to me, is abdicating one’s parental responsibilities.

So I let my kids run, climb, and sometimes even reach out and touch the hot barbecue after I’ve told them 17 times it’s hot because nothing short of a little pain on the fingers is going to convince them it’s not a good idea to touch it. But I try not to allow them to do serious harm to themselves, or to those around them. This doesn’t always work. Sometimes they fall, sometimes they cry, and every day there’s a new challenge. A new question. I guess this is how it goes with parenting. Goodie for us.

A lack of sleep and a bottle of something teamed up to make my morning a series of echoes and drumbeats. The drummers stood bedside and they beat their drums slowly.

"Can we play the Wii?" they asked.

"Will you make breakfast?" they hounded.

"I have to go potty," they threatened.

They were up too early, because it was Saturday. If it were a school day I would be the one standing over them as they lay warm and oblivious. But it wasn't a school day. It was the weekend and they were up early and I had been up late.

I got up. I wiped a butt. I made some breakfast. I drank some coffee. I took some aspirin.

The boys traded drumsticks for forks and beats for bites. I stood in the open doorway and felt the cold air on my face. The fog rolled off the hills and the rain splashed against my bare feet.

Behind me teams were being picked, the two of them dividing and competing and planning ways to best their opponent.

"I'm on your team," one brother said to the other.

I stood at the door as they charged the day and I pitied any foe that made its way past me.

And he found them not where they were supposed to be and doing the things they shouldn't. He had left them alone among the molehills and found them perched upon the mountains.

They were laughing and full of fun and getting away with being young. They were silent and drained of joy and by all means busted.

He was tired. There were long days behind him and long nights ahead. His back, it burned with exhausted muscle and it erupted with spasms of stress and it resorted to a door frame to keep it remotely upward.

Ropes wind and they twirl and they roll nicely off the spool and one minute you're tying knots and making swings from trees and old tires and the next your hands are empty and your metaphor is at its end.

Then they are sorry and they cry and they've said it all before, for instance, last night when he stood propped against the same tired door frame grown weak and weary beneath the burden of his weight. And the waiting still grows heavy.

Words were said louder than they needed to be. Threats were made that were never meant. Little feet scurried to where they should have been and behind them they left a trail of guilt like so many bread crumbs. Sweet, innocent, beautiful guilt, and they cried loudly as he closed the door in hopes that doing so will save them all.

The hallway is long and lonely and it only need be examined a dozen or so times before it is ingrained firmly upon his brain. Every footstep has purpose. Every crack is considered. Life is bends that do not break and behind the door there is only the sound of their heavy slumber.

Their bread crumbs are soft and smooth and shaped like plush piles of imagination. He picks them up one by one, carefully, quietly, and he carries them into the room and places them where they are supposed to be, in the arms of his affections. And his whispers are for forgiveness