C stands for Cheap Christmas!

A couple of months ago we were at the giant impersonal toy box and I was intrigued with an electronic “game.” It was “interactive,” not in the sense that it would fetch a stick (like our dogs do) or help dig for worms (like Trish does) or dress in hells for a tea party. But [...]

Good $#@!^%& grief

Jenny told me that A Charlie Brown Christmas was coming on TV.
Cool! I love the show. But we missed it. Twice. Somehow, Trish managed to tape it on the old-fashion VCR machine. So I watched it yesterday with Ella.
Ella loved, of course, Snoopy. She loved his dancing, his decorating, his spinning his food dish on [...]

Hello, Santa?

Last night Santa called just as Ella put my BlackBerry up to my ear.
“Hi, Santa! What’s that? Oh, we’re not supposed to open ANY packages that come to the house until Christmas? Oh. I see. Well, I’ll tell Ella, and we’ll make sure not to open ANY packages. In fact, if Trish hadn’t hidden them [...]

Daddy’s little girl?

A couple of years ago I was talking with someone I worked with about my relationship with Ella. She hadn’t yet adopted the idea that I was on equal footing as a parent with her mom. She hardly liked me, except when I poured her a big glass of milk.
“Just wait,” said the woman, [...]