Since I was a kid, I loved Halloween. Whenever it came around, I would decide Halloween was my favorite holiday...that is until December when I realized I really did like Christmas just a bit better.

For me, though, Halloween wasn't just a day to dress up. It was an opportunity to become someone else. In sixth grade I came to school dressed as Mae West...yes, that Mae West: a twelve-year old boy dressed like a sex symbol from the early days of the talkies.

A few years later, I was Charlie Chaplin...studied his movements, watched his films; I became the Little Tramp.

When my wife, Mary, and I started dating, we would have themed costumes. In college I dressed as Dave Letterman, and she was Paul Shaffer. In 1992, I rented the full-on gnarly Batman costume from a costume shop, and Mary made the best-ever Cat Woman outfit.

And, in those days, we had places to go in our costumes. We'd go to friends' parties or out on the town. That Batman year, we ran into a Penguin, and it was a blast playing our roles out and about.

Then, when we became parents, we involved our little one in our tradition: The Flintstones, with Pebbles; Popeye, Olive Oyl and Swee' Pea. Then we had our second daughter: Little Orphan Annie, Lilo and Stitch, Peter Pan.

Every year, we'd go to the downtown mall and walk about Trick-or-Treating with the kids, and people started to look forward to our annual arrival to see what we were going to pull off that year. Then, we'd head off to Sears for our yearly Halloween photos. One of my favorite memories was when we were dressed as The Incredibles and we were running late for our Sears' appointment. 

It was just like the scene in the movie with the super-family in the van. My wife was telling me what exit to get off at and where to turn. Then, we plowed out of the van, running through the parking lot and then through the store like a family of superheroes. The looks we got were priceless.

I know the holiday is really supposed to be about the kids, but deep inside I knew it was really about me. I mean, one year I dressed as Howie Mandel and my wife and daughters wore matching dresses and carried silver cases. We were the cast of Deal or No Deal. Guess I love the attention.

Then, it happened. Our oldest daughter was done doing the family costumes. It came out of left field. I wasn't prepared. I wish she could have just warned us (me), but it was time: "I think I'm not going to do the whole Sears thing this year," she said matter-of-factly. And that was that. It was over.

No! Just one more year. It would be a beautiful send off. We'd go as The Hunger Games. My oldest would be Katniss, her sister, Prim, my wife as Effie Trinket, and me as Caesar Flickerman. But, it was not meant to be.

We tried another costume with just the three of us that year, but things had changed too much too quickly, and our youngest decided she was ready to go solo as well, leaving just me and my wife. So, last year we started where we left off and went as a twosome: The Queen of Hearts and The Mad Hatter.

It'll take some getting used to, but we'll make the "new-old" Halloween work for us.

I can't believe it's come to this. This is now my reality....my kids don't know how to use a phone. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a smidge. My daughters can actually use a phone, but they just don't know how.

Am I the only father that feels this way? It's those cursed smart phones that have ruined my girls' ability to answer a house phone that is ringing and have a normal conversation with the person on the other end. And, God forbid, if they have to take a message!

My daughters won't answer the house phone...period. The phone rings, and to them that is the sound that only old people respond to. In this world of smart phones, and texts and Instagram and Twitter and SnapChat (I'm told that it's now just called "Snap"), there's really no reason to actually talk to someone on a phone. If for some reason you feel the need, then you just FaceTime them like Future-Marty McFly does in Back to the Future II.

I am so nervous to take a shower in my house when my wife is not home. I announce to my twelve and seventeen year old angels that I will be in the shower if I am needed. As soon as I turn on the water, I hear the ringing of the phone. So, what do I do? I yell over the din of the shower, "Get the phone! I'm in the shower!"

Ring.

"SOMEONE ANSWER THE PHONE! I'M SHOWERING!"

Ring.

Of course, like an idiot, I turn off the shower, try to towel off, and in doing so I hear the answering machine pick up. So, why am I rushing? Because, I am afraid that the person who is calling also lacks phone skills, and will not leave a message, although I paid good money for that machine. 

Of course, when I emerge dripping draped in a towel. I hear the beep and no message is left. "Why didn't you answer the phone?" I ask my girls.

"We didn't know you were in the shower."

Yesterday, I was in our garage working out, and in runs my youngest, Grace, with a ringing phone in her hand, holding it out in front of her like it was a potato straight from the oven. 

"Here," she shoves it at me. I take it and press the "Talk" button, only to hear a dial tone.

"Why didn't you answer it?" I ask. 

"I didn't know who it was."

Of course she didn't. Answering it would have solved that problem. 

I just long for the days when kids could answer a phone and tell the person on the other end to hold on a second, or to take a message because Dear Old Dad was on the John. Ah, the good old days.


image courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/phone-eighties-old-green-keys-1662579/

It seems just like last week when my oldest, Riley, came home in eighth grade telling me and her mom that she had to come up with an original science experiment for the middle school science fair in January.

It was a lot of work, and it snuck up on her faster than she had expected, making her winter break more of a science symposium than a festive holiday break from school.

Well, here we are again. My youngest, Grace, is now where her sister was four years ago, coming up with a science project by tomorrow. It's Sunday afternoon as I write this and she's still not sure what she's going to turn in.

It sounds like Grace has been procrastinating, but in reality, she's done anything but procrastinate. She's been developing and researching ideas for a good part of the last two weeks. So, then, why all this last-minute scramble?

It's because her teacher seems a bit unreasonable. Mind you, the information I am getting is from Grace, so it may be exaggerated, but this isn't the first time that we've crossed paths with her; she was Riley's teacher in middle school as well.

Grace came up with an idea (I don't want to get into specifics, in case said teacher stumbles across this piece), but the teacher wasn't happen with it because she didn't feel that Grace was "passionate" about it. So, my daughter comes home and she, my wife and I brainstorms all sorts of interesting project ideas (side note: my wife and I both are public school educators as well).  The teacher shoots them down. Her reasoning: no one would ever do that in real life (of course not... that's what scientists do. They try things no one else would think of, duh!).

So, my daughter asks her for some ideas since the teacher has shot down all of hers. The teacher asks what she's interested in. Grace tells her, then she goes about giving her very vague ideas that the teacher can't fully conceptualize. So, Grace goes online and even asks a professional in the field who had won a couple of prestigious awards for ideas. No go!

The reason being: her teacher says: I don't like behavioral science projects and nothing with music, yet those fall right into the passion that the teacher said she should investigate. And, by the way, it says right there on the assignment sheet that one of the experiment choices could be behavioral science.

So, here we are, in the eleventh hour and Grace is unsure of what to do. You know what I want to do, right? I want to tell this woman that just because she doesn't like behavioral science or music doesn't mean that one of her students can't investigate it. It would be like me being a music teacher and offering a singing showcase, but not letting my students choose to sing opera because I can't connect to it!

But, instead, I step back (as hard as it was), and tell my daughter that there's no winning in this situation. If she chooses what she wants to do, the teacher will be angry because she's alraedy told her not to do them. If she does something else, it will just be jumping through hoops, because it's an assignment and it will have no meaning to her. I told her to accept that there's no winning this and that she'll have to accept what happens and move on.

You know what my kid did? Last night she did more research and found that what she really wants to investigate is something scientists are really studying and with trembling fingers she emails her teacher last night. She told her that she has been racking her brain, looking for a science project to make the teacher happy, but in reality, she's not excited by them. She attached links to the research, told her that it's legitimate science, and said she didn't want to have any regrets, so she's sending this email hoping her teacher will change her mind.

It's been fifteen hours, and no response yet. She has a back ip plan in case her teacher fails to respond and repeats her "no", but I was so proud of my girl for standing up for herself when Mom and Dad didn't step in. 

image courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/alternative-energy-biofuel-1042411/