The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 60: Dad Jokes & Free Time

The Dads podcast had an unscheduled one week break, because...well...parenting. Life sometimes gets in the way of our fun. But when we have time, what do we do? Lots of jokes which make the kids cringe. Reading. Karate. And Craig has a huge upcoming project.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 54: The Hopes & Dreams of Children

In this week's podcast, we talk about some of the goals and dreams we had when we were kids, and then tried to figure out the hopes and goals of our kids. Craig still has aspirations to replace a certain NBC hockey analyst. Howie is working towards new goals, and Bobby is working diligently towards his dream.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 53: Setting Priorities

With Bobby and Howie back in school for the fall, at least virtually,and all our kids going back in September, priorities need to be set. How do we, as parents, figure out priorities between what the kids need and what we need to progress towards our own goals? There's a lot of college talk this episode. 

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 52: Reimagining Schools Reopening

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast is back to an in-person trio this week for the first time since March 15th. This week, we continue with a little about the issues facing the sporting world, especially the NCAA. We also talk about the plans being made for the return of students to school in the fall. Contingency plans will not only have to be made for the schools, but for the home, also.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 50: The Line Between Funny & Not

We made it to episode 50 on the podcast, not even realizing it until it was time to post it. This week, we are back to a more serious topic. When does a joke cross the line from being funny to being malicious and out of line? How do we teach our children to recognize when they're going too far? This is a tough call, as evidenced by the troubles we had discussing it.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 49: All About Budgeting

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast is down to a duo as Howie was off for a family function. In his absence, Craig and Bobby talk about budgeting -- both time and money. We try to explain to our kids about spending and saving, and how much money actually is. Craig's twins are learning about the costs to care and upkeep a car, including insurance.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep 48: Unsolicited Parental Tips

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast is still remotely recording due to the pandemic. This week's episode is a bit more serious than some of our previous episodes. Craig broaches the subject of people interfering with your parenting style or offering advice that runs counter to your ideals. There is definitely a difference between asking for advice and getting an earful from people who think they know better. While they may have best interests at heart, too often they make matters worse.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 47: Kids Say the Darndest Things

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast is full of parenting today and one of the kids makes an appearance three times to voice her displeasure. They are hilarious dad moments, and they really make the show this week. We also talk a bit about our Father's Day celebrations, kids learning to drive and what happens when our wives are not able to do their normal superhero efforts. Will the dads survive taking the bucking reigns of parenthood all by themselves? It could be mayhem without the calming influence of mom.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 45: Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues

The Dads Must Be Crazy are crazy from the heat. It's the end of the school year which means the kids will be at home all the time. What a strange feeling that will be. What are we going to do about summer time activities with everything already cancelled for the year? It will an interesting balace of hanging at home with more family time and getting away where and when we can. Who's up for some sports? Will we get sports?

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 44: Haircuts and Summertime

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast continues to remotely put the shows together, but it's getting harder as the great weather has arrived. We all want to get out and stretch our legs. Thankfully haircuts are forthcoming. In the meantime, Howie and Bobby have been working the home gyms. Craig is definitely lagging. Now that summer is here, there are more chores around the house that have to be done. Do the kids have chores they need to do?

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 43: Planning for the Future

The Dads are down to a duo as Bobby is off with the family for the holiday weekend. Howie and Craig talk about gardening -- Craig about vegetable gardening, and Howie about flower gardening. We talk about hand me downs and the pure overflow of clothes that we're going through right now as we move into the summer months. Howie has been working out to feel better, and Craig needs to get on that bandwagon. We both have new plans for the new month. Stay tuned.

The Dads Must Be Crazy: Ep. 42 - Still Apart But Always Together

The Dads Must Be Crazy Podcast makes its triumphant return after a 9-week absence because of the Covid-19 scare. We are all comfy in our own homes as we record, and technical difficulties abound. We talk about life in our respective homebound lockdowns and the dangers of it. And then Craig had his twins turn 16 recently. That means drivers. Or does it? Something good HAS come out of the virus scare.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Days 19-21

Day 19 (Friday)

Bobby: 

So here it is. 1542hrs on a Friday and I’m sipping a glass of Irish Whiskey. Top of the afternoon to y’all . Normally I would have this on my gazebo, but I feel the urge to write a bit. It has been a couple of days since my last entry and I feel like I have abandoned my fellow Dads who I call my friends and whom I miss greatly.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 15-18

Day 15 (Monday)

Howie: 

I feel I actually accomplished a goal that I set for myself today! Not only did I run a singular errand (tax related), but I also managed to completely clean - to the best of my ability for now - one of the bathrooms in my house. It’s the one used most, but it’s also the one that unfortunately gets the least amount of attention. To say it was long overdue for a complete cleaning would be correct. I cleaned everything - even the cover to the light that surrounds the vent. Go figure - the room is brighter now! Tomorrow I’ll “find a home” for some of the cleaning supplies that are still in that room, but for now, I’m just quite happy with the results.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 11 & 12

Day 11:

Craig: 

Thursday. I got my hopes up about going back to work soon, and sending the kids back to school. I was twisting my reality to make it look like how I wanted. Too many people are doing the same thing, and it’s a very dangerous practice. It’s almost as dangerous as the deniers. However, I cleared my head and saw reality for what it really was. And my hopes were dashed.

Honestly, I cannot wait to get back to work. And the kids really want to go back to school. Well, three of them do. I wanted to go to bed and Patience was still awake trying to get ahead for Friday with her school work. They all worked on school stuff, even Corliss, although her efforts were minimal. But she did accomplish something. Other than that, the day was relatively calm.

Day 12:

Howie:

Had I written anything about Thursday (Day 11) it likely would have been much briefer than what Craig wrote. Little happened. I watched the Picard season finale early in the day. I ended my night watching the season finale of A Million Little Things. I got my 8-bit Nintendo to work for a couple games of Castlevania. My girls did work on the computer. We’ve basically settled into the monotony.

Friday brought about a different set of feelings. One of them, anticipation, I’ll get to shortly. 

Among the bigger changes from the past week and a half was that my son was home for much of the middle part of the day today. I love all of my children. I do. However, I’m convinced that he’s the reason the hair on my head is turning white and slowly running away. With him being home, the dynamic in the household shifted, and the refereeing that any parent must do with more than two kids was necessary. If he wasn’t telling one of his sisters what to do, he was telling the other. And he felt he was in charge. I appreciate and am proud of everything he’s accomplished for himself to this point in his life. He simply needs to recognize the order of things and that what he says, in fact, is not law. Whatever.

Late this morning I got a text from my brother that changed much of my outlook for the day. As some of you may be aware, my brother is a member of the military, serving on active duty as an Air Force officer. Thus far in his career, he’s earned the rank of Major, and since he and I both worship at the altar of Mel Brooks, I have an affectionate name for him that is directly taken from Spaceballs. He doesn’t mind, so long as it’s used in the proper time and place. (Of course, proper time and place to call my brother by a great name are any time and any place. Almost.) Anyway, the text this morning was sent to me as part of a group text, and it let us all know that by the end of the day, there’d be another member of the family.

Then my phone died.

Apparently, the next group text came over an hour after the first one. I didn’t get it until I plugged my phone in (after my mom called in a puddle of mush) and proceeded to check all that I’d missed. 

In summation, I have a new nephew, he and his mom are doing great, and his name starts with an “H” because so does mine.

So, now you know why my mom was a puddle of mush. I was just stunned, and sat around smiling with a grin as big as the one on the face of the Cheshire Cat. The sense of pride I feel is indescribable, and I won’t try to use any extra words here. Simply put, it’s pride. An enormous sense of humbling pride, if that’s even a thing. A heartfelt thank you goes out to both my brother and sister-in-law. 

Moving on with the rest of the day, I continued researching the best way to go about getting certified to teach and/or pursuing a masters degree in education. In fact, I took a break from that to write this. I think I’ll return to that now. Til next time!

Craig:

Friday. It was Corliss’ fourteenth birthday. What a way to celebrate your birthday. She couldn’t have a party. She couldn’t even have Grammie come over to have dinner and cake with us. We did did several phone calls and did at least one video chat with friends. We had homemade pizza for dinner with an ice cream cake from Lake Effect Ice Cream for dessert. Then we played a game together as a family. There were a lot of laughs.

It was a beautiful day. The girls spent most of the day outside playing in the backyard. It gave them a little break from the monotony of just hanging out in the house working on school work. They were literally outside all day. I can’t blame them. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was relatively warm. In Florida, they would have been huddled in parkas and touks. In Western New York, we weren’t even wearing jackets or hoodies. 

I’ve spent far too long sitting on my computer for the past week and a half. I need to change that. I’m not getting enough exercise. At the same time, I’m not hungry, either. So, I’m not putting on my COVID weight like some others have complained. I am drinking too much Dr Pepper, but it’s kind of a comfort thing at this point. Starting Sunday, that is going to change. I need to be more active. It will help me sleep.

Sleep has been very broken and insomnia has struck several evenings. I know I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. The girls seem to be entering that mode, too. They are staying up later and later each day and are crankier every morning. It’s definitely getting harder to get them to focus. Hopefully a day outside will help them concentrate again. It looks like the rest of the weekend looks to be rainy, so it was a great day to be outside. 

After twelve days of this, I need to make some changes before I get into a routine that is detrimental. And I need to get onto a regular sleep schedule. Part of that means making sure the girls are on a schedule. I tend not to go to bed before the girls do. However, with teenagers, that is not always so easy, especially when they think they need to talk to friends beyond midnight. Since they are not allowed to take their phones up to their rooms, they stay downstairs far longer than I want to remain awake. They need their social interactions, but there needs to be a time limit. That’s what we will work on for the upcoming weekend.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 10

Day 10: 

Howie:

When I sat down to write this entry, it was Thursday morning. A brief discussion with Craig had me thinking I’d somehow missed an entire day and that I should have been writing about Day 11, but we got our days figured out. When this goes up, the day is Day 11, but what follows is about Day 10, which was indeed Wednesday. As you can imagine, our days are all blurring together.

The Dads Must Be Crazy Ep. 41: The Time Travel Edition

The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast is on temporary hiatus, but we did record some extra content when it appeared we may be off for a bit. This one, recorded on March 15th, is actually before we went into our sequester. Most of the episode tries to predict what we will do over what was then considered to be a 2 week "staycation" for the kids. Then our jobs got shut down, too. So what did we expect to be doing? And how close are we to our prediction? You might have to check our daily (mostly) CoronaBlog on niagaraswatercooler.com to see.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 8 & 9

Day 8:

Howie:
The days are all blurring together at this point, but at least there is something productive happening here at my house. For instance, I managed to clean off the clothes rack in the master bedroom, and in the process I found a perfectly functional recumbent exercise bike. The weather hasn’t really been conducive to my 5th-grade daughter running around outside - apparently, she melts in the rain - so she was happy to use it today. She rode on it for about half an hour. Combine that with the distance learning she did on the computer, and I suppose you could say she had a good day.

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 7

DAY 7:

Howie

It happened. I had my first major oops moment of staying home. I washed a load of laundry and upon removing it from the machine, I found my wallet in my pants pocket. Turns out, I had actual cash in it, too. So I’ll call this a break-even moment. Can we agree on that?

The Dads Must Be Crazy CoronaBlog Day 5 & 6

With The Dads Must Be Crazy podcast going on temporary hiatus, we decided to keep a blog of how our days are going under this new, relative isolation from the rest of the world. This will not be posted every day, but often enough that our home-bound stories about parenting in this "new normal." We will probably post it 3 or 4 days a week. Stay tuned for updates on the podcast. In the meantime, you can check out old episodes at https://niagaraswatercooler.podbean.com/