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There was a time in my 30s when I felt like a confirmed bachelor.
But in the fullness of time, I became a husband and then a father, which was a good and wonderful thing. Now, 15 years later, I am fully immersed in fatherhood and cannot imagine any other life.
Still, it occurs to me that fatherhood has its own knowledge set. There are things I know simply because I'm a dad.
Here, I made a list of some of them:
- Never read Dr. Seuss while eating crushed ice. It paralyzes your tongue and makes it impossible to read "Fox in Socks," which includes such tongue twisters as:
Clocks on fox tick.
Clocks on Knox tock.
Six sick bricks tick.
Six sick chicks tock.
Also, do not try reading this after more than two beers.
- Soccer is more fun to watch than football. In soccer, the whistle blows and then there's nonstop action until someone fakes an injury.
Football, with all its stops and starts and commercial breaks, is like watching a claymation video being shot in real time.
- Boys can wear women's shoes. I'm not saying boys should wear pumps to school, but a shoe clerk once pointed out that the sneakers my 10-year-old wanted to buy (but they were out of his size) were available in the women's section.
Hey, you improvise.
- School backpacks can weigh more than car batteries. Also, kids can carry up to a third of their body weight without tipping over backwards.
- Never let your kids sign up for a trial subscription of anything on the internet. You will discover that it's easy to join and nearly impossible to quit. You will end up paying $10 a month forever for some math game your kids have forgotten.
- Temple thermometers are the best invention of the last generation. Waiting three minutes to read the results of an under-the-tongue thermometer was like waiting for water to boil. And rectal thermometers are literally a pain in the patootie.
- Steak 'n' Shake is 100 percent better than you think. I am confident that had we never had children I would never have eaten at Steak 'n' Shake. Now, it's one of my go-to restaurants. The crunchy edges of those steakburgers make them as addictive at Krystals.
- Scotchgard doesn't work on Skittles. For most adult spills - latte, Dr Pepper, etc. - it works just fine. But once the sun bakes a Skittle into your car's upholstery, the stain bonds at a molecular level.
- College debt is becoming ridiculous. It used to be like paying off a used car. Now it's like paying off a Gulf Coast condo.
- Toothpaste is important. For an adult, starting the morning with the wrong toothpaste is an annoyance. For kids, it's a deal-breaker that can ruin their whole day.
- You fight fever with the old one-two. Rotating Tylenol and ibuprofen is the way to keep a fever in check without spikes in between doses.
- Wristwatches are the best diversion to calm a wiggly child at church - from birth to college. It's good for teething, fidgeting and, ultimately, counting down the seconds until lunch.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.