Teaching My Teens How to Cycle

I recently taught my teens how to ride bikes. No, it wasn’t their first time on two wheels. What I meant to say was that I taught them how to cycle on road bikes like Tour de France cyclists use. We climbed some hills. We screamed down a mountain. My kids’ reaction?

They loved it.

We rented high-end road bikes from the Stanford bike shop. I showed my daughter how much my credit card would be charged if, for some reason, her bike didn’t make it back to the shop: $2,200. Yeah, it was a nice bike. Ultra-light titanium frame, racing wheels, Shimano gears. My son’s bike was nearly as nice, and just as fast.

We piled the rental bikes along with my Bianchi into the back of my daughter’s truck, then drove to the town of Woodside. We did a few mile warm-up on our way to the Santa Cruz mountains, then climbed Old La Honda road up to Alice’s restaurant.

The Old La Honda climb is tough. It gets very steep in some places. I can do the climb in around 30 minutes. I’ve seen amateur racers do it in 19. I figure Lance Armstrong and crew can shoot up it in 15. My kids and I did it in 45 - it was tough! (Hats off to my children for making it. Can we get one of the Tour podium girls to award a jersey, or something?)

Partway up, both of my kids were complaining about the difficulty of the climb. My reaction? I laughed my ass off. (They’ve given me so much grief over the years for not having perfectly flat abs, this was my payback.)

I also gave them climbing tips: sit back on the seat, lift with the knees (they had pedal clips), pull back on the handlebars to provide tension, keep the gear low and the cadence high.

Lunch at Alice’s was great – 1/3 pound burgers and chili fries, all around. (And no embarrassing hottie cyclist pickup attempt.)

We continued our ride to Kings Mountain Road. The climb from Alice's wasn’t as steep as Old La Honda, but it went on forever. All three of us were tired, especially with lunch in our bellies. But once we got there, we were in heaven – we descended for probably 15 minutes, passing through a canopy of Redwoods and Pines all the way down into Woodside.

Of course, I schooled my kids on the safe way to descend: weight on your pedals, not your seat or arms. If your turning left, put the right pedal down, and lean into the turn. Hold your hands in the horns of the handlebars so they can’t slip off.

After ice cream bars at Roberts Market, we pedaled a final quarter mile back to the truck. All in all, it was a twenty mile loop.

And already my kids are asking – when can we do it again?

How to Host a World Cup Party for Teens

My kids and I have been recording World Cup Soccer matches on our DVR, and watching them at our leisure. It’s just not part of our constitution to get up at 4am for the first game of the day. And when there are three soccer games, one right after another, we want to name the time our butts sit down on that couch.

But this week, teams have one last chance to fight their way out of the group stage. It’s advance, or go home! So when the USA played Algeria at 7am California time, we figured we’d get up and watch it live.

More than that – my daughter decided to turn it into an event by inviting her friends. No worries, at all. We have a great dad daughter relationship. And as a Hot Soccer Dad, I feel duty bound to tell you all I learned from the experience. And so I bring you: How to host a world cup party for teens.

1) No need to send eVites or fancy invitations. Just have your teen start texting friends. She’ll talk soccer, create momentum and build a quorum in no time flat. And if any of her friends don’t like soccer, and say they’d rather sleep in than join the fun, you simply tell them: “This is a world-wide spectacle. Are you going to let life pass you by, or embrace it?” Sometimes peer pressure is a wonderful thing.

2) No need to cook Quaker oatmeal or put out bran muffins. Teens will want waffles – with whipped cream and berries and syrup. Even teens with ripped abs will want the fattening stuff. And they will want LOTS of waffles HOT waffles. None of those toaster things. Time to bust out the waffle iron. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to set it up on a card table in the TV room. Want a waffle? Cook it yourself! (A tequila sunrise for you isn't a bad plan.)

3) You can certainly watch the games with the teens, but don’t try telling any jokes – the teens won’t laugh. They’ll just wonder what planet you came from. (You'd think I would have learned this lesson before, when I told a joke to teens that I thought was funny as hell.)

4) Teens will undoubtedly stick around for a second soccer game, even if there’s a multi-hour delay between matches. In our case, they wanted to see Germany play. And that meant I needed to provide them lunch. Which brings me to my next point…

5) Buy twice as much pizza as you think you need. Doesn't matter how many waffles they ate. These are hungry teens!

6) Finally, if there happens to be a world record long tennis match being played at Wimbledon at the same time, expect those teens to watch every serve and volley. Thankfully, this does NOT mean the teens will stick around for dinner. England is eight hours ahead of California, and when the tennis match is called for darkness, you can send those teens packing for home

Until the next morning, when the next set of World Cup soccer matches starts up….

Cooking With Kids – Who’s Schooling Whom?

I convinced my teen son to help me cook dinner the other night. (A little TV bribery was all it took.) Aside from the time they kabitzed on our worlds best hamburger recipe, cooking with kids in my house usually means me telling them what to do. I don't mind. There's a reason why I cook.

But this time I wanted to raise the stakes, and not only tell my son what to do, but why. I wanted my son to start thinking like a chef, to be comfortable altering recipes, to see what it’s like to put a meal together from scratch.

Little did I know, he and his sister would be schooling me.

“What can I do?” he asked.
We were making asparagus pasta, risotto style.
“Chop an onion,” I said.
“Onions make me cry,” he said. “You do that. What’s the next step?”

Okay then.

I figured he’s chopped plenty of onions in his day. He’s doesn't quite have the onion chopping prowess of Julia Child in Julie and Julia, but he’s certainly capable. I didn’t mind him passing on the onion task.

“Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in the frying pan,” I said.

He cut off a chunk from a stick of butter and dropped it in the pan. I finished chopping the onion, then brought the chopped onion over to dump in the pan. The butter had barely started melting.

“Can you break up that big chunk of butter so it will melt faster?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m watching it dance around the pan.”

Anyone who remembers the movie American Beauty, and the video of the plastic bag blowing around, can certainly appreciate that my son was finding beauty and life in an inanimate object. But I had onions to sautee.

I dumped the onions in, even though his butter wasn’t melted. You can imagine how that went over.

I instructed my son on cooking the pasta, mixing in warm chicken broth, adding the asparagus, doing things at five minute intervals. He waved me off and took over. Fine. I went about making bruschetta: fresh tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, basil.

My daughter floated into the kitchen. “Don’t put in too much garlic,” she said.
“I won’t,” I said.
“But you always do.”
“I’m making this late. The flavors won’t have time to meld. It will be fine.”
She shook her head. “One clove, no more. And be sure to use fresh basil.” She’s half Italian, so she gets the real deal from her mom’s house.

“I don’t have fresh basil,” I said.
She heaved a sigh and shook her head. “Here, I’ll make it.”

Some cooking lesson I was giving.

With both of my kids preparing dishes, I figured I might as well shake myself a cocktail. My margarita recipe is to die for.

“Can I make your margarita?” my son asked.
“No, you’re too young,” I said.
“I already know how.”

Great. But I wouldn’t be swayed.

I started by rinsing the rim of the glass under running water, so I could dunk the rim in a container of margarita salt, and the salt would stick.

“That’s not how you do it,” my son said. “You’ll end up with salt inside the glass. You need to run a wet towel around the rim, instead.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I watched them make margaritas at the Mexican restauarant.”

We’d sat at the bar of the Mexican restaurant plenty of times, eating while watching soccer on TV, usually when the restaurant was fairly empty. (I once hit on a woman in front of my son at that Mexican restaurant bar. It wasn't easy.)

I followed my son’s instruction, and wouldn’t you know, the rim salted perfectly.

Okay, so maybe I had nothing to teach my kids in the kitchen this particular night. Next time I’ll make something more complicated, like chicken and dumplings, and really show them the ropes.

Then again, the asparagus pasta and bruschetta came out pretty good. Maybe I should let my kids cook every night. We might start eating better.

Student Aid Headache for a Two-Home Family

My teen daughter heads to college this fall, and we are busily dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on necessary enrollment forms. (My funny college application essay must have gotten lost in the shuffle, because she actually got into a good school!)

The biggest hurdle for us as parents is funding her education. As such, we’re filling out the FAFSA – Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Whether she gets Federal aid or not isn’t the issue; pretty much every university financial aid office expects the form to be filled out before you can even apply for a student loan.

Only problem – the online FAFSA hasn’t been playing nice, especially with our daughter’s two-home living situation.

It started earlier this year when I filled out the FAFSA4caster – an online form that helps you predict how much aid you might qualify for. When the real FAFSA goes live, you can transfer all your data from the FAFSA4caster. Pretty cool, right?

Um, not exactly.

As a divorced single dad with majority (by one day) custody of my daughter, it was my responsibility to deal with the forms. I spent hours filling out the FAFSA4caster, only to discover it could only transfer data to last year’s FAFSA form. I asked FAFSA online chat help operators to assist me, and they told me it should work fine. It didn’t. When I finally reached someone on the phone, that FAFSA person said it didn’t work, after all, and I’d have to input all the data again.

Oy.

When I filled out the actual FAFSA, it went a little quicker. Only problem, both the parent and student have to “sign” it with an electronic pin ID – which you apply for separately. I had mine, but my daughter didn’t have hers yet, and she was at her mom’s house when I filled all this out. When she finally applied for and received her pin, we went online to submit the form –

And all my financial data was missing. WTF? Hours of my time went wasted again.

Meanwhile, my ex-wife was looking into her part of the financial aid equation. Many universities want financial data from both divorced parents, no matter which claims the child on tax returns. It wasn’t clear to my ex that you only fill out the FAFSA once, for the student, and not twice (once for each parent). Who can blame her - is anything in a government process clear?

My ex-wife logged into the FAFSA system, reset her password – and all my financial data showed up in her FAFSA account.

W-T-F ?????!!!!!!!

Thankfully, she didn’t delete all that information, and I hadn’t yet input it a third time. She and I spoke on the phone and sorted it out. She tried changing the password back, but that made the data disappear again. We found by keeping her password, my data was there just fine.

So now we’re now using an online FAFSA form with my financial data and my ex-wife’s password for my daughter’s application.

The lesson: only fill out ONE FAFSA for your student. Period. Don't pass Go. Don't collect $200. And be sure to use your Get Out of Jail Free card whenever you like.

Before I fill out another government form online, I’d like to have a cocktail in hand. Can someone shake up my best margarita recipe? It’s nearly cinco de mayo, after all. Tequila should help those government forms go down, real good. Don’t you think?

And just in case, why don’t you shake up that margarita recipe for my ex-wife, too.

Follow Dad's House on Facebook. Or just go straight to his single parent blog. Or not. Hell, just have a margarita, and call it day!

Who's the Most Compassionate?

As part of my teen son’s church confirmation celebration, there was a potluck dinner for all the families involved. At the dinner, one parent from each family told the group what made their child so special. My ex-wife / co-parent spoke about our son, and I was struck by one thing she said:

"Our son is the most compassionate member of the family."

That made me chuckle. My son is a good kid, and where children and divorce are concerned, he's especially doing well. But compassionate? Compassion means you genuinely don’t want others to suffer. The Dalai Lama is compassionate. Mother Teresa was compassionate. My first girlfriend post-divorce was compassionate.

But my son? He’s the kid who will eat a King-Sized Hershey bar in front of his sister and me, and not give us a single bite, even if we’re begging for a nibble. He’s the one who will loudly blow his conch shell over and over again while his sister is studying for a final exam. He’s the one who will borrow my tools to build some cool project in the backyard, then leave those tools outside in the rain for a week before I notice they’re missing.

I reminded him of all that, and told him he wasn’t even close to being most compassionate in our family.

“Fine, then who is?” he asked.

“Me,” I said. “I cook for you guys (and not just homemade hamburgers), pay the mortgage, shop for whatever you need.”

“You’re the parent, you’re supposed to do that. So none of that counts.”

“Well, I’m still pretty nice.”

“You tell me to get off the computer when I’m doing homework so you can do a blog post,” he said. “What’s more important – my education or your blog? And you also tell me to stop enjoying my TV show and make me take out the trash, or clean the bathroom. All those things make me suffer. You’re the opposite of compassionate.”

Interesting arguments, I’ll give him that.

“Okay, then your sister is most compassionate,” I said.

“You mean when she puts me in a headlock and gives me a wedgie for no reason at all?”

That sounded pretty harsh, and not very compassionate. I've said before, I'm not raising a princess. But still.

“Are you sure it was for no reason?” I asked.

“Well, I did eat her Toblerone that she’d been saving since Christmas. But she wasn't eating it. And I was hungry, which means I was suffering. If she was compassionate, she would have been fine with me eating it. In fact, she would have given me another!”

All right, so maybe none of us rate as most compassionate. But with creative arguments like that, my son will make one hell of an attorney some day.

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Frazzled Single Dad

As a single parent blogger, I try my best to tell entertaining stories about my single dad dating life and also about raising teens. But lately I’ve been feeling like a frazzled single parent, and it's been a challenge to stay focused on positive blog posts (I don't like venting online. But I might vent a little right now. Doh!)

I’d like nothing more than to have a partner* pick up the slack for me right now. (* preferably a latina who enjoys spooning, but I wouldn’t say no to a hot French woman who likes a stiff mai tai. Doh!)

I actually thought I was staying on top of things. But when I drove my son to lacrosse practice, I realized I was losing a grip on my week.

My son played a lacrosse game this past Saturday, and his team only scored one goal.
“Are you guys working on drills where you cut into the crease to quick-stick some shots?” I asked. “Your team really needs to start scoring.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “We scored six goals in Sunday’s game.”

They had a game on Sunday? Doh! Frazzled single dad points scored!

“By the way, some lady called you for an interview,” my son said.
“She did?” I asked.
“Yeah. It was supposed to happen on Monday.”

Doh! Frazzled single dad points scored again.

After dropping him at lacrosse practice, I had an hour to fix dinner before I needed to pick him up again. But I came home to a house with both toilets backed up. Seriously backed up. Like, I needed to call a plumber to snake the line.

Frazzled single dad, redux!

But wait, there was a bigger problem. My daughter had a soccer playoff game after dinner that I wanted to see. I was supposed to pick my son up from lacrosse practice, get him home to eat, start him on his homework (he was skipping her game), go see my daughter’s game, and get back home before anyone’s bedtime.

Frazzled! Frazzled! Frazzled! Can’t someone else pick him up and take care of him?

At that point, I actually thought it was a sign from the universe. You see, I have a hard deadline Friday that I’m working overtime to meet. If I skipped my daughter’s playoff game, I could work toward the deadline while the plumber fixed the toilets, and my son got his homework done. My frazzled state would be pacified, in spades. (Of course there are more fun ways to get unfrazzled. Drinking and sex, anyone? Doh!)

But soccer playoff games like this come once in a high school lifetime. No way would I miss my daughter and her teammates in a match like that.

And so this single dad gave a middle finger to his frazzled life – I went to the game, I sent my kids to their mom’s house to sleep, and I told the plumber to come at 11pm.

I’m home alone now, shaking up my favorite margarita recipe, writing this post, feeling quite unfrazzled.

But man, I have to pee. Where’s that damn plumber, already?!

btw – my daughter's team lost late in the game when the ref called a dubious foul in the box. It looked like the girl took a dive, and it definitely wasn't in the box. The sideline ref said he didn't see a foul. But the center ref, who was 30 yards from the play, called it and awarded the other team a penalty kick - i.e. one on one vs. the goalie, and almost impossible to stop. In short, the center ref gifted the game to the other team. Season over. Frazzled times!

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Out of Shape Dad Watching His Teens

I used to be ripped. I rowed crew in my 20s, and had twelve-pack abs. I ran seven marathons in my 30s, and had six-pack abs. I cycled centuries in my 40s, and still had ripped abs.

But now that both of my kids are playing multiple sports? I'm fat from watching them.

What's a hot dad to do!?

To wit: my daughter players club soccer and varsity soccer, and runs cross country and track. For a dad to watch his daughter compete, he's got to get to the sporting field two or three days a week.

Of course, it's worth it. Girls who play sports while their dads watch tend to have higher self-esteem than other girls. (I swear I read that somewhere, and I'm too fat and lazy to google it now.)

To wit: my son plays club lacrosse and soccer, runs cross country and track, and wrestles. Plus, he plays the trumpet. Add it all up, and I'm spending another two or three days each week watching him.

Of course, it's worth it. (I can't quote a stat on this one, and I'm too damn fat and lazy to figure one out. Someone shake me my best margarita recipe!)

With all that time spent watching sports, I'm not doing my usual workouts. I'm standing on the sidelines, drinking coffee, chatting with other parents, cursing the ref under my breath.

I've been relegated to getting my workouts in after the sun goes down. You try cycling after dark! Or running when you can't see the street. And no, the men's playground (Maennerspielplatz) isn't going to cut it as a workout choice.

I checked the Hot Dads exercise manual, and section 6, item 9 suggested the following to remedy this situation:

• Car sex
  
• Couch sex
  
• Wild sex outdoors
  
• Spooning naked
  

If you see me running shirtless this spring, you'll know the Hot Dads program worked.

And if it works, maybe we should sell some pay-per-view workout tapes.

Grey's Anatomy – Okay for Teens?

My teen daughter’s favorite TV show is Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve never seen it, but I didn’t have a problem with that. After all, her mom watches the show. Her friends at school watch the show. Female friends of mine watch the show. It’s a show for women.

When my daughter asked if she could turn the Tivo from my Italian Serie A soccer to her Grey’s Anatomy show, I initially said no. As a single parent raising two kids, I don’t get to watch a ton of TV. But then I realized I could have some father daughter time by watching Grey’s Anatomy with my teen daughter.

I swear, before the opening credits even rolled, three couples had sex, including a one-night-stand hookup, and a couple who were only together for the sex. WTF?

Is this what teens are watching on TV? Don’t get me wrong, I realize TV shows push the envelope way more than when I was a kid. And from rebound sex coffee dates to sexy and funny wine country dates to seeking casual sex at a convention, I'm certainly no prude. But what happened to dramatizing meaningful relationships?

In Grey's Anatomy:

• There was one woman annoyed that the guy she picked up in a bar and slept with wanted to actually date.

• There was one woman annoyed that her boyfriend who she only wanted for sex gave her a key to his place.

• There was a couple who had unfulfilling sex, and wondered why they were still together. (Okay, that last one is like a real relationship)

• There was a doctor and nurse who started spooning right there in the hospital on an empty bed. (Actually, they were doing a little more than spooning...)
  

I know that some people these days avoid relationships, just like the doctors in this Grey’s Anatomy episode. They fear that being part of a partnership will screw up their future, or something like that. A great book that discusses this phenomenon is Unhooked, by Laura Sessions Stepp (discussed in this blog post about hooking up.)

Is it good for my daughter to be watching a show where casual sex is so... casual?

I just hope she realizes it’s okay to date and fall in love. You don’t have to sleep with strangers all your life. (And for anyone who thinks I’m setting a double standard – please know that I don’t blog about relationships while I’m in them. Perhaps I’m not presently in the long term relationship I’d like to be in, but my real life is healthier than my blogging hookups reveal.)

What is a Hot Dad to do????? Continued

In an effort to keep you all updated on posts of importance, I thought I would fill you in on the latest home visit from the girl who can’t keep her hands to herself.

On Wednesday as I was heading to the front door to greet our 13 year old as she came home from school, when I saw ‘her’ head coming in the front door. I don’t know what came over me but I did an instant 180 and bolted straight back to my desk. After settling my head a bit I walked out, gave a passing fist bump to our daughter and then to ‘the girl’. I immediately went up stairs and just sat on the edge of my bed.

A few minutes later, Mariah came up and asked me what my pained look was for. I explained that I was …chicken to go down stairs…as I did not want any possibility of this child’s inappropriate behavior to present itself. She chuckled and told me to man up.

After thinking about it for a few more minutes and realizing that she was right and I was acting like a big old pussy…I went back down stairs and returned to my desk and normal after school activities.

Surprisingly enough, the two teens stayed at the table doing their homework and chatting with one another. Two hours later, when the girl’s parents showed up to bring her home, I realized that either my ‘fist bump and walk away’ worked or she was not in a ‘friendly’ mood…either way, I am happy that there was no incident to report this time.

I have decided…and have told all of the kids…I am now the fist bump dad. All of the kid’s friends get a fist bump every time they come over…nothing less, nothing more.

Where Are My Teen Kids?

As a single parent with half-time custody, I’m supposed to see my kids half of the time. My ex's and my custody schedule works great. The kids are with me Monday and Tuesday nights, with their mom Wednesday and Thursday, and they alternate weekends between mom’s house and dad’s house. I love seeing my kids. Parenting rocks.

So how come this past weekend when they were supposed to be with me, they weren’t with me?

Because they're teens.

To wit: Friday night, my daughter’s friend from Sweden was enjoying her last night visiting the states. My daughter and all her friends were out till the wee hours giving waffle daagen a new name. As for my son? He was at a middle school dance, getting his freak on to Keisha (Tik Tok). With both kids gone, you think I could have persuaded a girlfriend to come over for couch sex or a movie. But, alas, I watched a DVD alone.

Saturday during the day, my son had some lacrosse activities, then hung out skateboarding with friends. My daughter slept in. I mean, she really slept in – till early afternoon. What’s a single dad to do when his kids are sort of around, but not really? I did yard work, pruning, taking down xmas lights. Gotta love quality family time, eh?

But not to worry – I insisted my daughter stay home and eat dinner with us Saturday night. And she gladly agreed, except that right after dinner she was heading off to the movies to see It’s Complicated with a child-of-divorce girlfriend. (They’re both 17, and can get themselves into R-rated movies.) As for my son? I forgot to command him to stay home for dinner, and he had a sleepover with those skateboarding friends.

Sunday is fun day, right? Er… for the kids. My daughter didn’t sleep too late, but once up her friends came by and whisked her off to the mall to shop for Winter Ball dresses. As for my son? He got invited to a Chowder Fest. Forty gallons of homemade clam chowder for forty guests. He ate five bowls, and loved it!

By Sunday night, my kids were exhausted. And here I’d spent the weekend holding down the fort in hopes we’d do something as a family. I'm a firm believer that parents should be present to their kids lives. Of course, that only works if the kids are present, too. Sigh. At least by my being around and giving them a long leash, they got to spend quality time with friends. That's important, too. Cool parent points scored.

The Winter Ball dress? My daughter didn’t find one. And the Chowder Fest? My son got a stomach ache from eating way too much. (Haha.)

As for this hot dad who wondered where his kids went - I had an awesome nap!

Next custody weekend, I won’t be sitting around solo. I’ll simply make plans of my own.

I Have Loved, I Have Lived - College Application Essay

My teen daughter is currently going through the college application process. This, of course, involves writing college application essays (multiple!) I feel for her. College application essays count for a lot in the admissions process, and they’re no fun to write.

And so, I figured I’d write my own college application essay, as if I was applying to the university of my choice this year.

I freely admit to plagiarizing the opening line of my essay from something that was apparently written by a student applying to UCLA back in the 80s. I believe the entire essay was reprinted in the LA Times, but I couldn’t find it through search. Apologies to the author. After the first sentence, the rest is mine…

College Application Essay – All About Me

I have loved, I have lived. I have traveled to Europe four times, and South America once. I can fix a flat tire on my bicycle. I speak seventeen languages, and worked the reception desk at the United Nations two summers ago. I know how to grill salmon perfectly with just salt and pepper. Bono is a personal friend of mine. A simple margarita recipe I jotted down on a cocktail napkin inspired a Jimmy Buffett song. I'm the bastard child of an older man younger woman relationship. I can bunt a fastball down the third base line. I once received a drunk texting marriage proposal and politely declined. I can fix a Mai Tai without any juice. Grey’s Anatomy is based on an experience I once had. I can drain the venom from a cobra. I'm an expert at programming the Prius navigation system. Kim Kardashian once asked me for personal training advice. I know where Waldo is. I built a Humvee military vehicle from scratch in my basement. My chicken and dumplings recipe was freeze-dried for a Space Shuttle mission. I have a picture of your university mascot tattooed on my ass.

Go State!

David Mott
Future Alumnus, Class of 2014