Three Ways to Tell Who Really Likes You

Tags

do your friends actually like you?, humor, new york times, observations, parenthood, trump

Lost among this week’s media coverage of the latest asinine comments from Donald Trump was an intriguing New York Times article titled, “Do Your Friends Actually Like You?”

The thrust of the story is that not as many people truly like us as we imagine. Most “friends” are really just casual acquaintances. Others are friendly to us for their own selfish, manipulative reasons. The article quotes various academic experts who seem to agree that most of us each have, at best, four to five true friends who carry no agenda. These friends simply love us for who we are, and they genuinely enjoy our company.

I had hoped that the Times would provide some constructive ways to weed out your phony friends and identify the ones who really care about you. The Times is usually more than willing to tell people what to do with their lives, but this time it fell short. There were no tangible “next steps” for categorizing and managing one’s friends.

So I came up with some exercises that might help. Here are three simple scenarios you can create that will help you identify your real friends:

1. Have a Child

This exercise is particularly effective if you are among the first in your social circle to try it. Just get married, have a kid, and watch in amazement as interactions with some of your closest pals trickle down to an exchange of text messages every two or three months.

At your child’s first birthday, make a point of counting the number of non-relatives who call regularly, occasionally stop by to help with the baby, remember the baby’s name, and listen patiently as you ramble on about the baby. If you need more than one hand to list those friends, you’re doing better than most new parents.

2. Move Out

Plan to move to a new home or apartment. DO NOT hire professional movers. Instead, ask your friends if they would mind helping you out. Make a point of not packing any boxes before they arrive at your place at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Also, make it clear early on that you are running low on cash, and you won’t be able to provide free pizza or beer after the move is complete.

Those two or three people who are still around four hours later to help unpack your grandmother’s china? Those are your real friends.

3. Do Something Crazy

Invite all your friends to meet up for drinks after work. Excitedly explain to them how you are going to quit your job, sell your possessions, and dedicate the next three years of your life to traveling the country in search of The Perfect Cheeseburger. Sure, you only have $530 in the bank, along with a mountain of debt. But you’ve got a pup tent, your trusty 1989 Honda Civic, and a list of the best burger joints along the East Coast. Anyway, life is short. It’s time to follow your dreams.

Those people smiling and nodding as they try to wave down the waiter for their checks? They aren’t your friends.

The handful of people who are with you four drinks later, calmly asking if you’ve really thought this all the way through? The ones who remind you about your spouse and kids, and ask what happens to them during your quest for The Perfect Cheeseburger?

Those people are your real friends. They always will be.

Spiders! In the bathtub!

Tags

children, fears, kindergarteners, parenthood, parenting, spiders, tarantulas

According to several articles I’ve read on the Internet, it is fairly common for Kindergarten-aged children to develop intense fears that have no basis in reality. Our six-year-old son has a couple of these.

One fear is being left alone in a room in our house, particularly the basement. Our son loves playing in the basement, where we keep most of his toys, but is deathly afraid of being abandoned down there by himself. Sometimes we will be able to talk him into taking the dog downstairs with him, but he usually insists on human companionship. A typical after-dinner conversation goes like this:

“Daddy, can you go downstairs with me?”

“Not right now. I’m doing the dishes.”

“Can we go after you finish doing the dishes?”

“We can,” I say. “Or, you can go downstairs now and I can join you in a little while.”

My son nods as if giving this some thought. “That’s okay,” he decides, heading to the living room couch. “I’ll wait for you.”

Our son’s fear of the basement is nothing new. He has never felt comfortable being alone in most rooms, even when surrounded by stuffed animals and other toys. I am told he will gradually grow out of this. My wife and I pray this to be true.

A newer development is our son’s fear of spiders—specially, spiders in the bathtub. This started a few weeks ago, when our normally mild-mannered son broke into a screaming fit and emphatically refused to take a bath in the tub he has been using since he was one week old. When pressed on the issue, he explained that he was afraid of spiders in the tub, even though he admitted to never having seen a spider anywhere inside our house. He had, however, seen a picture book about tarantulas at school. What could be more terrifying, really, than to be relaxing in your tub and to open your eyes to find a palm-sized, hairy spider swimming toward you? Do spiders even swim? Well, it doesn’t matter. The image alone is just horrible.

All the child-help literature instructs us to sympathize with—not belittle—our child’s fear, no matter how insanely irrational it might seem. We tried a few different tactics to get our six-year-old to wash himself. We let him use our shower. We let him use the “big” tub in our master bathroom. One of us took a bath with him to ease him into using his own tub again. We made a big deal about how cool his bath toys were, and now much they seemed to miss him.

After a few nights, our child seemed to conquer his fear of spiders in the bathtub. A washcloth under his rump seemed to help, for some reason. Bath nights were, if not exactly fun, at least tolerable again.

Then, a few nights ago, it started all over again. Our son, who used to love splashing around in the warm water of his tub, again refused to set foot inside its fiberglass shell. “I’m scared of the spiders!” he sobbed.

We know enough other parents who have kids our son’s age to understand that every child has his or her own quirks. This fear of spiders, and other bugs, confounds me, though. Like any other overprotective parent versed in the trendy psycho-babble of the day, I wonder what our son’s unprovoked fear of arachnids really means?

Conversations in the Car

Tags

boys, children, dinosaurs, fathers, kindergarten, parenthood, parenting, sons, stegosaurus, Stephen Roth, summer, winter

“Daddy, do you wish that dinosaurs were still around today?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

“But if you thought about it, would you want them to still be around?”

“I don’t think so,” said the middle-aged man. “It would be kind of scary, having those big dinosaurs stomping all over the place.”

The little boy sighed, as if frustrated by always having to explain everything to his imagination-starved father. “But it would only be herbivores stomping around. No meat-eaters allowed.”

“Okay. Well, that makes me feel a little bit better.”

“What’s your favorite dinosaur?”

“Hmmm,” the man said, looking both ways before pulling onto the main road. It was a question he’d gotten a lot recently, so he should have been ready with an answer, but he wanted to come up with something flashier this time. “I’d have to say my favorite dinosaur is…the Stegosaurus.”

The boy giggled. “That can’t be your favorite dinosaur. That’s mine!”

“Why can’t we have the same favorite?”

“Because it was my favorite first,” he said. “I like how Stegosaurus has spikes on his tail, so he can use it against his predators.”

The father nodded, having seen his son demonstrate a Stegosaurus “tail sweep” more than a few times in the downstairs TV room.

The child looked out the window at the beige winter landscape. “Daddy, do I have to go to school today?”

“Yes, you do.”

“I wish it were summer already.”

The dad chuckled, thinking how the swimming pool would open in just three short months, which would have seemed like an eternity back when he was in Kindergarten.

“It’ll be here before you know it,” he said, trying to sound hopeful.

Happy Birthday To You

Tags

birthday, boys, disney world, family, fatherhood, fourth, kansas city, kansas city royals, parenthood, parenting, playgrounds, summer, toddlers

Dear Son,

Saturday is your fourth birthday. I hope you will enjoy it. Nothing could top your third birthday, which we celebrated by spending a week at Disney World. You may remember your birthday dinner at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort, the procession of Disney characters who stopped by our table, working you into a sugar-fueled, nap-deprived frenzy. You became so uncontrollable – rolling around the floor, hooting and screaming, doing somersaults out of our booth – that we had no choice but to put you in time-out right next to the gift shop and below the monorail station. Your mama and I felt awful about it, but that was the only way we could calm you down. It was really the one black mark on a trip that involved four Disney parks, countless character encounters and, amazingly, us training you how to go potty on your own.

Your fourth birthday, which will be spent with your friends at an indoor inflatable playground, won’t hold a candle to Disney World. But it will be the celebration of a year in which you continued to grow and thrive and learn so many things. As already mentioned, you graduated from diapers (at least during the day). You spent almost the entire summer at the swimming pool, finding the nerve to hold your head underwater, paddle around the shallow end, and even jump in all by yourself. You rode a big-boy bike with training wheels, learned the basics of football, soccer and basketball, and saw your first movie in a theater (Turbo: the animated tale of a snail who has the need for speed). You sat still and paid attention in your pre-K class, earning innumerable smiley faces on your performance chart. You learned that a pepperoni and sausage pizza from Casey’s General Store was the best food in all the world, except for your mama’s own spaghetti and meatballs.

The year 2013 was a challenging one for our family. You were a joy and inspiration through it all, however, even after you stopped taking naps on the weekends. When the weather was nice out, we toured the area playgrounds, including your beloved Penguin Park. When it was lousy outside, we did puzzles, played “catch” in the basement, and watch the same episodes of My Little Pony over and over again. We took you to your first Kansas City Royals baseball game, where you sat through two innings, devouring a hot dog and Cracker Jacks, before moving on to the outfield playground. You began a fascination with dinosaurs, and the T-Rex Café became your favorite dining spot.

Through all of this, you talked, sang and laughed constantly. Not a day passed when you didn’t say or do something that cracked your mama and me up. You showed a knack for one-liners, as I sometimes documented on my Facebook page (Me: We don’t ever whine in this house, now do we? You: Yes, but we can pretend to whine). You were smart-alecky, sassy and spoiled, but a blast to be around most of the time. When you got out of hand, you would reluctantly accept time-out, serve your punishment, then greet us with a grin and a hug. You were happy most of the time, and you never held anything against us for very long. Every single day, you said “I love you” to us, and that more than made up for all the unfinished meals, spilled bath water, and arguments over TV time.

These are just a few of the observations I can conjure up from what was another memorable, discovery-filled year with you, son. I know your fifth year is going to hold even more adventures, shenanigans and hilarious quips (“We ran out of batteries!” you said when the house lost power last summer). I can hardly wait for it to begin.

Love,

Daddy

The Drone on the Shelf

Tags

children, christmas, north korea, nsa, orwell, parenthood, spying, television, the elf on the shelf

The Elf on the Shelf has been around for a few years now, I know. It’s new to our household this Christmas, however, because our son has reached the age when we felt that hiring a member of Santa’s secret police would be most effective in curbing his holiday behavior. Last year, he was just getting used to the idea of this fat guy in a red suit flying around in a sleigh and spreading good cheer all over the world. This year, he really gets it. Our son is almost four years old and he completely buys into the Santa Claus concept.

“It’s almost Halloween,” I told him one warm October afternoon when we were sitting on the front stoop, eating popsicles.

“That’s nice,” my son said. “But it’s not Christmas.”

On Friday night, we unveiled the Elf on the Shelf package ($30 for a cheaply made elf doll and a hardcover storybook. Can you imagine the profit margin on this product?). We introduced our son to the elf, I read the storybook, then we sat down to watch the Elf on the Shelf Christmas Special on TV. Then, it was time to “name” our elf and file the necessary paperwork, which included registering online for an official adoption certificate. After some thought, our son decided on the name “Nick.” My wife promptly placed Nick on top of the upright piano, and explained that we cannot under any circumstances touch the elf, because then he will lose his magic.

Our son likes the idea of having Nick around the house, and so far he delights in getting up each morning to find where Nick has landed (he flies back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa on how our child is behaving). I can’t say that Nick’s presence has improved our three-year-old’s behavior, but he does understand that the elf is there to do a job.

“He talks to Santa,” he said solemnly when I reminded him that Nick wouldn’t be very pleased to see how much leftover turkey our son had left on his plate during Sunday dinner.

As a parent, I have mixed feelings about The Elf on the Shelf. On the surface, it seems like a fun Christmas tradition (one that could easily be staged without paying $30 for the boxed set). But in reading the storybook, which lays out the elf’s duties in somewhat clumsy rhyme and meter, I grew a little concerned. Take this passage, for instance:

I tell him if you have been good or been bad.
The news of the day makes him happy or sad.
A push or a shove I’ll report to “the Boss,”
but small acts of kindness will not be a loss.
In the car, in the park, or even at school,
the word will get out if you broke a rule.

Wow. So Nick is part of a vast network of elf spies who report to Santa each night leading up to Christmas on everything your child has been doing, good or bad. Then Santa alone will pass judgment on whether or not the child should be rewarded or punished in the form of giving/withholding Christmas presents. Correct me if this doesn’t sound a little bit like North Korea?

On the other hand, maybe The Elf on the Shelf is distinctly American? After all, our children are going to grow up in a world where anything they do in public or on their digital devices can be filmed, monitored and analyzed, where GPS in their phones will track everywhere they go. Maybe the elf is just a primer for the big, Orwellian world to come?

Perhaps it is good that our children become acquainted at an early age with the reality that somebody out there is watching them and taking notes. At least Nick the Elf is up-front and friendly about it:

The gleam in my eye and my bright little smile
shows you I’m listening and noting your file.

Merry Christmas, everyone. And be good!

My Little Brony

Tags

boys, bronies, build-a-bear, kids, my little pony, parenthood, shows, super hero squad, television

As is the case with a lot of things, I was the last person in my office of young, hip professionals to learn about the Bronies trend. Bronies, I am told, are a growing demographic of young men ages 18 to 35 who are fans of My Little Pony, a cartoon TV show created in the 1980s and originally aimed at little girls. Hasbro decided to revitalize the franchise with the release of the 2010 movie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and found an unintended audience of young men who liked the upbeat storyline, the anime-style animation and, well, ponies, I guess. The Bronies trend is now officially a thing, so much so that there is an acclaimed documentary about this community of men who celebrate, and sometimes dress up like, little ponies.

Upon learning about this from my hipster co-workers, then doing a quick Google search, my reaction was disbelief. Why on earth would adult men, some of them middle-aged adult men, obsess about a cartoon for little girls? I even thought about writing a smug, what-is-the-world-coming-to blog post about a fanboy trend run amok. Then, something curious happened. My three-year-old son started watching My Little Pony. It soon became his favorite show.

And you know what? It’s not too bad. It’s well-written, the animation is sharp and inventive, and there are many pop culture references (scenes lifted straight from movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example) that adults can appreciate. Unlike some kid shows, the overarching theme is positive and socially progressive – it’s the story of how six very different ponies join forces and learn that they can accomplish almost anything if they work together. I like it better than one of my son’s other favorite shows, Super Hero Squad, which is about the Marvel superheroes working together, mostly to blow stuff up.

A few weeks ago, we went to the mall with our son and stopped by a Build-A-Bear Workshop. He had no interest in building and naming a Teddy Bear. From the time we walked into the store, all he wanted was the baby blue Pony, Rainbow Dash, which also came with her own set of roller skates.

We got him the stuffed animal, which he immediately wanted to take outside. My wife, seeing an opportunity, strapped the pony to the back of his mostly neglected John Deere bicycle, and suggested he take his new friend for a ride. Our son got on the bike, started peddling, and has been crazy about it ever since. He doesn’t even need Rainbow Dash to accompany him anymore on bike rides to the playground. Still, she was the catalyst. I guess that friendship really is, as they say, magic.

Watching over the Butterflies

Tags

grief, loss, Maxwell, parenthood, SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Today marks the seventh anniversary of my son Maxwell’s death. He died in his sleep at a church day care around lunchtime on Monday, Aug. 14, 2006. He was two and a half months old.

The days after Max’s death were a blur of funeral arrangements, visits from friends and family, and lots of food. By Sunday, the last guests had departed, and my wife and I drove to Powell Gardens, a sprawling nature sanctuary about 45 minutes south of Kansas City. We sat on a bench overlooking the gardens and wrote down in a journal everything we adored about our son: how he looked, how he felt, his growing array of baby expressions and baby sounds. Then we walked a meandering path through the beautifully manicured trees and bushes, which were tended by scores of little yellow butterflies. We’d noticed those butterflies on previous walks over the week, as we tried to make sense of what had happened and contemplated what we would do with the rest of our lives. My wife saw them as a sign – God had put Maxwell in charge of the smallest butterflies, and Max was sending them down to us as a way of saying that he was okay and in Heaven now.

On the one-year anniversary of Max’s death, my wife prepared a large care basket for the workers at the day care, who had grieved with us and had done some nice things to honor Max, including building a small memory garden outside his classroom. My wife’s basket was filled with flowers and food and other goodies, and its centerpiece was a large, ceramic sculpture of a baby angel. We brought the basket to the day care on Aug. 14, and had a tearful reunion with Max’s teachers. They told us they wanted to put the angel sculpture near the garden arbor they had built in our son’s memory.

The next day, we got a phone call from the manager of the day care. As she walked into work that morning, she glanced toward Max’s garden and saw that the angel was covered with dozens of little, yellow butterflies.

The Story Behind the Photo… Maybe (Version 5.0)

Tags

betting, family, football, humor, NFL, parenthood, photo fiction, tosh.o

Jeff felt his left eye twitch rhythmically, as it always did when he’d had more than three cups of coffee or was under intense, pounding pressure. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why Kathy had scheduled a family photo shoot at 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.

Right now, posing with his wife and six-month-old daughter for an 8 x 11 glossy that would sit on their mantle for the rest of their lives was the last thing on Jeff’s mind. What was on his mind was football, specifically the fourth quarter of the Dallas-Cleveland game. As they parked their car at Portrait Expressions, Tony Romo and the Cowboys were on the Browns’ 24 yard line, threatening to score again.

“Get him! Get him!” Jeff screamed at his iPhone as the screen showed Romo scrambling out of the pocket with two Browns in pursuit.

“Jeff, you’re gonna scare Madison,” Kathy scolded. “Put the phone away.”

He did for the moment. But he tuned in again as they waited in the lobby for the photographer. The Cowboys had settled for a field goal and now the Browns had possession.

“Hold on to the damn ball,” he implored.

“Jeff, stop it!” his wife whispered.

Jeff had never been much of a betting man, but Madison’s arrival and his modest salary as an apprentice landscaper for The Grass Hut encouraged him to a little coin down on some NFL games. When he picked up the Plain Dealer on Monday and saw that the Cowboys were favored to beat Cleveland by 14 points – a betting line of absurd proportions for a professional football game – he couldn’t help but put $500 on the Browns to beat the spread. After all, the game was in Cleveland and it was late November. Anything could happen in those conditions, he thought.

The game was back-and-forth for three quarters, then Dallas pulled away. The field goal had put the Cowboys up 31-21. Now, Jeff pulled the phone from his pants pocket and saw Dallas had the ball again, and was driving. There were four minutes to go.

“Bring him down!” he growled.

“Okay, honey.” With Madison perched on her hip, Kathy grabbed the phone from Jeff’s hand and dumped it into her oversized purse. “No more Fantasy Football today.”

Jeff winced. Kathy had no idea about the bet, of course. She couldn’t imagine how much he had put on the line for his wife and daughter. But he knew he had to do it. Two years ago, as a high school senior, he played Billy Bigelow in the school production of Carousel. At the time, taking a role in the play was just another way to meet girls. But now those words from Billy’s “Soliloquy” seared him with meaning: I’ll go out and make it or steal it or taaaaake it… or die!

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, the photographer appeared and ushered them to a stool in front of a brownish backdrop. Kathy sat on the stool with Madison in her lap, and Jeff kind of crouched up against them, knees bent, like he had just taken a shot to the gut.

“Get in a little closer,” the photographer told Jeff. “Pretend you like ’em.”

Jeff complied. He noticed the guy was wearing a Browns ball cap. That gave him an idea.

“Hey, man,” he said. “You catch the final score of the game? Last I saw, they were down by ten.”

The photographer looked into his lens and chuckled. “Oh, it got worse. Dallas scored two more touchdowns. What are you gonna do? Maybe we’ll get a good draft pick.”

Jeff felt the sensation of what seemed like three golf balls working their way slowly down his throat.

“Smiles, everyone!” the photographer said.

Photo pulled from tosh.comedycentral.com.

Christmas in August

Tags

children, christmas, drugs, form letters, holidays, law, parenthood, politics, suburbia

If you’re like me, you have probably already started penning the form letter you plan to send to friends and family over the holiday season. Though it’s only August, a lot has already happened, and I don’t want to forget any salient details when sharing my family’s story with people I don’t care enough about to call on the phone or message on Facebook.

The Roth family form letter is a holiday tradition, one that I know dozens of people look forward to receiving each year. It’s important that I get it right.

Below is an early draft of the 2013 edition. Let me know what you think!

Dearest Friends,
As the chestnuts warm upon our happy hearth and the snowflakes gently gather on our three-car-garage home at Whitehaven Hills, we reflect on people like you who have meant so much to us over the years. We pause with regret that we haven’t kept in closer touch in 2013, but we hope this little missive will catch you up on all the Roth family’s activities!

First of all, Madison and the twins are doing just great in school. Maddie celebrated her “Sweet 16” by making the National Honor Society again and earning a letter as the star “mounter” for the Pembroke Day School equestrian team. The twins, Reagan and Nixon, continue to excel in arithmetic and science (History is another matter!) and our five-year-old, Rand, remains the light of our lives. In addition to soccer, gymnastics, fencing and photography, Rand enjoys spending time with his friends. After a four-hour play date and 30 minutes of quiet time at home, it is not unusual for him to ask, “So, who can we call to play now?” Precious!

Jessica continues to enjoy her job as a top researcher for Blecht Pharmaceuticals, Inc. This year, she helped develop a serotonin inhibitor that will allow patients to live without ever experiencing physical or emotional pain. Clinical trials have been very promising, and we expect FDA approval sometime in 2016. Outside of family, professional life and weekend marathons, Jessica can usually be found working with one of the six charities she currently chairs. Childhood obesity is still her main passion. This year, she was asked to pilot the Governor’s Task Force on Chubby Middle School Boys.

Stephen, of course, is a rising star in the tobacco defense practice at Rubenstein, Brown, Moody, Eckersly, Murphy & Rubenstein LLP. He’s up for partner in March, so keep your fingers crossed! Stephen has also recently gotten into politics — he’s treasurer this year for a new PAC called Hedge Fund Managers for a Stronger America.

On a sad note, our houseboy, Edgar, was deported in September. He practically became part of the family during his brief time living with us, and the sight of immigration agents swarming our front lawn is one we won’t soon forget. We are currently in the market for a new houseboy, preferably one who is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Finally, our precious Pomeranian, Corky, is expecting puppies sometime this winter. Wish her luck!

Friends, we pray the holiday season finds you and your loved ones healthy and well. We hope that the weather is pleasant where you live, and that your local sports team is having a successful season. And let’s keep in touch!

Wishing you the Best,

The Roths

Let’s Go to the Movies!

Tags

bambi, disney, dreamworks, escape to witch mountain, movies, parenthood, turbo

Last night, our three-year-old son went to the movie theater for the first time. He saw Turbo, the new DreamWorks picture about a snail who has an insatiable need for speed. I’m proud to report that our son sat through the entire two-hour movie, and was so inspired by Turbo’s story that he raced his cousin to the bathroom right after the closing credits.

I am trying to remember the first movie I ever saw in a theater (which would have been my first movie anywhere, those being the days before home video). I think it was either Bambi, which I watched with my parents at a theater in Columbus, Ga., or Escape From Witch Mountain, which my mom took me to see in our hometown of LaGrange. I remember leaving Witch Mountain a little early, just as a helicopter with the bad guys landed upside down on the mountain. Maybe it was more than I could handle. Regardless of which movie was the first, I achieved this milestone in 1975, when I was four years old. It was the beginning of regular trips to the theater to watch a whole slew of Disney movies, from Pinocchio to Snow White to the less-memorable Shaggy D.A. and The Cat From Outer Space.

Do you remember your first trip to the movies as a kid? What movie was it? What year was it?

Image courtesy of DreamWorks.