Which is why it’s so darn frustrating that we find ourselves in the scheduling remake of When Worlds Collide: the collision of the last basketball game and the evening performance of my son’s school play.

The game is the last one of their season and was scheduled to be 5-6pm, with the play starting at 7pm at school, about a 20 minute drive from the gym. The coach recognized the problem — as every single boy in my son’s class is also on the basketball team — so he managed to have the game switch to start at 4pm, meaning that they’re done at 5pm and don’t have to step into the play until 7pm.

For her part, the class teacher has no sympathy and no interest in the game and made it very clear to us parents that the play will be at its standard time, no later starts, no reschedule. The boy should all skip the game so that they’re not too tired for the play, whether it starts at 5pm or 4pm. The play is more important.

On the surface, the solution is obvious: skip the game, send the clear message that school is always more important than sports. Except then there’s that commitment thing. By joining a basketball league I believe my son made a commitment to both his teammates and the league that he’d do his very best to attend every practice and play every game with enthusiasm.

So what’s a Dad to do? My druthers is to have him play in the game from 4-5pm on the day of the tournament, then take him to get the best, healthiest dinner possible, followed by taking him to school where he preps and performs in the play. I think he’ll rise to the occasion and do fine. And if not, well, then I’ll perhaps find myself in the position of explaining why commitment to a team is also important as a lesson to model.

What would you do, fellow parent and reader?

A few months ago I spoke at Blogworld Expo in Los Angeles and, like many others, stayed at the Sheraton Los Angeles. As is typical for a conference, evenings would find a group of us hanging out in the lobby bar, sharing a drink and talking about what we learned, what we’re doing and generally socializing. You know, the real value of a conference!

While sitting at the lobby bar, I couldn’t help but notice the great 70′s retro cinematic paintings on the wall, and was particularly taken with this one:

I was so struck by it that I asked the hotel concierge about the painting and artist. He asked me to email the manager, so I did, attaching the above photo I’d taken with my iPhone:

Hello Ian. I was just staying at the Sheraton for the last few days as part of a conference and was very interested in one of the paintings in your lobby bar. My question: can you please either put me in touch with the artist or tell me their name / where you purchased it?  Thanks!

His response:

Thanks for the interest, Dave. I am copying your message to the owner of the gallery that provides us with this artwork, and I am sure he will be pleased to contact you directly and answer your questions.

The gallery owner then contacted me with more information on the art piece:

Thank you for your interest in the artwork we provided for the Sheraton Downtown LA. The artist you saw at the Bar of The Sheraton is Sean D’Anconia. You can view more of his art here [[ link ]]. If you are interested in any of the works please contact me and I can help ensure you get the piece you are looking for. These pieces are hand painted Giclee prints on Canvas, and are one of a kind. If you have any more questions about his style or the art please do not hesitate to ask.

We went back and forth talking about sizes, prices, etc, and I also connected with the artist, Sean D’Anconia directly, through his Danconia Creative Web site. Sean responded asking for more information about whether I was looking for an original print or a giclee print. My answer:

A Giclee print would be fine (I don’t have a ton of $$ for investing in art) and I didn’t see any information at all about pricing, artist, gallery, etc at the Sheraton.

His response was a good dose of reality about the price of a unique piece like this one, which I learned is called “Majestyscope”:

The actual piece at the Sheraton ranges in price quite a bit, depending on if you seek an original painting or a print, framed or otherwise. Let me know your budget and I can get you some quotes on other options (paper print, etc.) as needed.

To cut a long story stort, we came to an agreement on a giclee print, signed and numbered, and I even joined Sean’s fan club on Facebook (which you can find here: Sean d’Anconia on Facebook). The print arrived in a stiff tube and, of course, I used social media to identify a good framing shop here in town — Silverleaf Framing — thanks to a recommendation from my artist friend Steve Lowtwait.

Finally, after spending almost as much on the frame as the print (frames are expensive if you want to do something cool! In fact, my first choice for frames, a really cool retro acrylic custom frame, priced out at over $950. I picked something else), it’s on the wall in my house:

So not only do I have a cool new piece of art in my house — thanks, Sean! — but I have quite a story behind the piece too. Oh, and Sean does too, on his blog: Shoot it in Majestyscope!

So we’re done. I can get rid of these car seats (which turns out to be a surprisingly tricky thing because technically it’s illegal to resell them, as detailed in a much earlier blog post I wrote here about why you can’t buy or sell used carseats).

Eight is old for requiring carseats, actually: a lot of states have six as the cutoff age and some also add a weight requirement so that those increasingly rare underweight children, the little waifs, might have to be in a carseat even longer.

But no, according to Colorado law, the cutoff age for car seat use changed from six to eight on 1 August, 2011.

When you read about these laws, though, it’s hard to understand why even eight year olds should be considered safe without car seats: younger children who use booster seats are apparently 45% less likely to be injured in a crash than those using adult seat belts.

Ah, as I read more I can see that the safety experts actually recommend booster seats based on height, not weight, and that the boosters are recommended until the little folk are 4’9″ or taller.

Which makes me want to measure K- and see how tall she is. Then again, she’s very excited that she can just sit on the regular car seat like her bigger siblings so if I said that there was a height requirement for her being done, I suspect there’d be rebellion in the ranks.

And the whole thing about this being yet another milestone and my littlest one moving along in age? Yeah, I’m going to avoid thinking about that one. Time is a beautiful thing, even when it inexorably pulls them away from being those cute-as-a-button little ones.

Now if I can only figure out what to do with these extra car seats…

Hi Dave. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving me your thoughts on men staring and making other women feel special by asking them questions, complimenting them, and giving them lots of attention when they are married. My husband does this and it has been an ongoing struggle and source of deep pain for me that is ultimately eroding our marriage. He seems to justify it by saying he is not touching or doing anything wrong and that he is just enjoying the beauty around him and that he is being a typical man. Can you give me your thoughts on this and any words of advice on how to handle this to save our marriage. It would be soooooooo appreciated! Thanks for any words of wisdom you may have!

I think the answer to this is quite simple: if you tell your husband that it upsets you and he still does it, you’ve got a problem. He’s got a problem too, but it doesn’t bode well for your marriage, as you suggest.

Having said that, I think some people are naturally more extroverted than others and if you are a social person, you’ll naturally chat up other people and be friendly, whether they’re male, female, attractive, unattractive, whatever. If you narrow that down and are only interested in talking with “potentials”, people who you would want to ask out on a date if you weren’t in a relationship, well, it’s pretty self-evident that it’s a problematic behavior, I think!

The thing of it is, though, is that I believe that if you’re married, there’s no relationship that should be more important than the one between you and your spouse, so if they ask you to do or not do something and it’s not unreasonable or manipulative, then your desire to make your partner happy should trump any other motivation you may have. If it’s your job — like a cocktail waitress who has to flirt to maximize her tips — then it’s not quite the same, but that’s not what you’re describing in this situation either.

Your husband talking to other women is no big deal. Complimenting them and giving them lots of attention sounds like something between flirting and courting them, and it’s clearly inappropriate if your relationship is monogamous. When you ask him why he does this, what’s his explanation? Need for attention? Desire to feel attractive / desirable / sexy / eligible by other women?  The answer “what’s the big deal?” doesn’t cut it, and if he doesn’t know why he’s doing it, well, maybe that’s something a marriage counselor could help you two with?

With all that in mind, I will admit that I feel like men are hardwired to keep an eye out for eligible women and I certainly am aware of attractive women who are in my field of view, even as I’m in a long-term relationship of my own. What I do once I see them, well, that’s something I can consciously decide and clearly it’s going to be a problem if I choose to chat them up or flirt with them. So to me the potential problem here is not that your husband notices attractive women — heck, you are probably quite aware when a handsome man walks into a room, aren’t you? — but that he then acts upon his base impulse to flirt with her and, more seriously, that he continues this behavior even after you’ve clearly told him you are upset when he does this and that you feel it’s hurtful to your relationship.

Respect.

Good luck with this, I think it’s going to be a tricky situation to resolve.

Is 4 years old too young to use oil free acne stress control night cleansing pads made by neutrogena? As the mother I use them every night. Some nights my 4 year old son will come in and want to clean his face as well.

I didn’t think it would harm him till a friend of mine said it would mess up his skin. Should he not be cleaning his face with this yet, am I harming his face by letting him use the cleansing pads?

Here’s how I responded to her, after thinking about it for a while:

Personally, I wouldn’t allow my 4yo to use this sort of thing if I was in your situation.

But here’s what you can do instead: save a half-dozen of the pads after you use them, along with their can/container. Rinse them in a bowl of water until they’re completely free of the Neutrogena chemicals and paint or otherwise decorate the container to make it something special.

Now fill up the container 1/2-way with water. Put a few drops of lavender and it’ll even smell nice, then add the clean pads in the specially labeled container.

Problem solved and now your 4yo has a special face cleaner all their own, just like mommy!

What do you think, dear reader? Good solution? What would you do in this situation or if sent this particular question?

No worries, her Mom can bring her over and she can pick up the bag, right?

On the phone, she assured me that wasn’t a possibility because both Mom and her fiancee were busy. Could I drive into town and drop it off instead? Plleeeaasssee?

I couldn’t. I’m preparing for a trip next week and am trying to work ahead with some writing. Driving the gym bag to her Mom’s house then coming back to my place would take at least half an hour of my day. So no go.

A very disheartened daughter hung up the phone and, I presume, wasn’t able to go to the gym.

Which stinks.

But I feel like it’s just an inevitable consequence of the two houses that the children bounce between. Certainly I’m used to having to pop by Mom’s house every day or two for something that one or another of the children have forgotten, and it does seem to go both ways, though since her place is their childhood home and mine is the new place, it seems they have more stuff at her place than mine.

We’re getting better at it, but still, over four years after we moved from a single house to two houses, it’s a drag that the kids keep hitting the sharp edge of their new world.

For the first time in many years, I took my three kids to Los Angeles to celebrate Hanukkah with my Dad and have a bit of a collective holiday. We had a good time, though the last few days my son G- got sick, which was a drag. Still, visits to the beach, Dana Point and the always terrific San Diego Zoo were definite highlights.

My Kids Creating Hanukkah Cards

I admit, though, traveling for the holidays is tricky because gifts then require advance thought and planning, something that I’m good at, but that my kids are not. The result: when we got on the plane I had all their gifts purchased, wrapped and hidden in my suitcase. They had nothing. Nothing for me, nothing for each other, nothing for Papa.

While we were there, I reminded them again and again that Hanukkah was coming up in a few days and that they should start making cards and scheming about presents. I suggested that their #1 priority was Papa since we’d not celebrated Hanukkah with him for years (and since this was his first holiday season without my Mum in the picture), and some sort of presents for each other and something for me, ideally.

The day before Hanukkah we did get to the local Mall and G- and K- managed to find small presents for each other (purchased on the sly, of course). My teen, A-, stayed in the hotel reading rather than go to the Mall. She then came up with a great gift for her brother (an In-N-Out T-shirt) but that was the extent of gifts.

Then they finally started working on their holiday cards. And then spent hours and hours on them. So many hours that we were late for a big family get together and they still needed a few hours the following day too.

But none of them had any presents for Papa, none of them had presents for me, and it was, well, disappointing. I went out and rounded up some gift cards that they each gave Papa, but that was me filling in the hole, not them saying “where does Papa like to eat with his friends?”. I had a present from all of us too, a photo book from Shutterfly, but…

It was a disappointment. I was disappointed to get three nicely made cards plus a bit of a gag gift from my Dad and nothing else. And I was even more disappointed that my kids, even after weeks and weeks of encouragement and discussion, hadn’t pulled off anything for my Dad. My oldest did share with me that she had wanted to make a photo calendar for both me and my Dad (and, presumably, for her Mom too), but on Hanukkah morning she still hadn’t taken even the first step and would need my credit card to order the calendars anyway, so that’s all talk, no action, to be rather blunt.

I realize that they’re kids and that, frankly, kids are more focused on the receive than the give part of gift exchanges, but still, where do we go from here? I’m disappointed in my kids and disappointed in the whole holiday experience this year. They can do better. They can at least think of each other, but, darn it, they should be able to come up with something, anything, for the adults in their lives and not end up wasting half our vacation (or so it seemed) creating these elaborate — beautiful — cards that they could have far more easily drawn weeks earlier.

Thoughts? Advice?

But did anyone do any research on product names?

What do you think? Is this some “Millenial” thing and it’s a reference to getting drunk in college or something? (note: one of the urban dictionary definitions of “bullet” is “a small device used for conveniently snorting cocaine”)

The company says: “With The Original Baby Bullet™, parents can prepare, blend and store an entire week’s worth of nutrient-rich, preservative-free, organic baby food – in less than five minutes!” — mybabybullet.com

So I’ll give ‘em the link. It’s a slick idea. I just cringe at the name…

You already know about splitting up the checking account, figuring out what happens to the bank loans and your cars, and even have started to discuss who gets the family dog and that great bunk bed that your daughter’s loved forever but you want to keep, but in the 21st Century, a lot of us have an entire digital world that we need to figure out too.

Friends with your ex on Facebook? It’s complicated. For sure. Still connected via Foursquare or listed as referrals for each other on LinkedIn? It’s definitely complicated.

How you navigate these tricky new waters will definitely be different than how I did it when I got divorced, but I can share some basic ideas and hopefully it’ll spark a strategy of your own that will minimize the upset and let you start getting on with your life and healing.

1. It’s Okay Not To Be Friends

One of the very first things I did when my ex and I separated was parallel that separation in the online world. Most importantly, that meant “unfriending” her on Facebook. I didn’t change my status to “single” immediately, but since I see my online circle of friends as a support group for when things were tough, the last person I wanted to have see my updates was my ex, especially if it was something related to a meeting we’d had, an argument or a difficult situation.

I suppose you could feel guilty about severing this digital tie, but to me it’s actually quite healthy because at this point in your life, you and your partner are separated and on the probable path to divorce, so why would you want to stay together online?

There’s also an emotional part to this too. Imagine how you’d feel if you were sitting at home, sad and depressed one evening a month or two into your divorce and your ex posts a status update like:

Met the most AMAZING guy tonight. So happy. Flying to Vail with them on Wednesday!

It’s okay to accept that things are going to hurt, it’s going to be a bumpy journey, this divorce thing. But just as you really don’t want to be spying on your ex from behind the foliage, you don’t want to be reading their updates — or having them read yours — in the online world.

So unfriend. It’s not hard.

2. Don’t Play Check-In Games Together

My ex isn’t much into technology — a lot of it just baffles her — but I love all the accouterments of our modern electronic age and so does my entire social circle. One of these digital toys is a mobile game called Foursquare (see www.foursquare.com) where as I travel through my day, I “check in” on my smartphone and it then broadcasts that to my friends. Their check-ins similarly are shared with me, so we all know where each other is at any given time of the day.

It turns out to be really fun because then you can drop in on friends and they can change their plans to intercept you after seeing you check in to a popular restaurant or café. As an example, a few months ago I was working at a Starbucks in downtown Denver and checked in, by habit. Turns out a good friend was two doors away and when she saw my checkin on her screen, she walked over and we spent 30 minutes catching up. Digitally assisted serendipity, what’s not to like?

Unless one of the people in your Foursquare circle is your ex. Then you can look forward to seeing him check in at a popular hotspot with nine others, or her checking in to a local bar at 1am. Do you want to know that sort of thing? No, you don’t. Trust me on this.

So just as I suggested you unfriend your ex on Facebook, I’ll also recommend you disconnect from them in Foursquare and any other similar geolocation check-in game. Unless you’re the one in a thousand who hasn’t a jealous, envious, sad, upset bone in your body, it’s eventually going to be upsetting when they’re checking in somewhere cool and you’re, well, not.

3. Filter Them Out of Your Email Inbox

Unfortunately, my ex has remained consistently hostile and rude in the many years since we’ve divorced. She’s an outlier and most divorces settle down after a year or two, but when everything was fresh, every email interchange was another chance to read something that upset me and lose my concentration at work, newfound happiness at home or even to interrupt my social activities thanks to omnipresent smartphone email services.

To solve the problem, I early on created a folder called “Family” (I didn’t even want her name on the folder list) and set up what’s called an email filtering rule so that any email from her automatically moved into the aforementioned folder rather than sitting in my inbox.

Simple, straightforward, and I continue to have it working today. It lets me look at the folder and see what’s going on when I’m ready to do so, not whenever the messages appear in my mailbox and distract me.

Very useful and something you can set up with just about any email system available. Just look in the help system for “filters” or “filtering”.

In Conclusion

It’s a brave new world, this online thing, and while it’s easy to see how it can help you stay in touch with friends and family, it’s a bit trickier to understand how to manage things when you go through something as painful and difficult as a divorce. Are they going to get upset if you unfriend them? Are your friends going to make comments? Are you trying to keep the entire divorce thing a secret and are afraid someone will notice?

Spend some time thinking about what’s best for you in this situation. One of the lessons of a divorce for many people is that it’s not about someone else, it’s not about your family, it’s not about your parents, your children, or your old college chums. It’s about you.

So think about what’s best for your heart, for your journey towards being healed. And do it.

Good luck.

Then on the way to school we saw a boy walking along the side of the road wearing shorts and with wet hair. And looking absolutely freezing, with a red nose and red cheeks. “Sheesh, that’s a boy whose parents don’t help him get dressed in the morning!” I say, and my son grunts.

We needed to grab some fruit to add to his lunch, so we popped into the local market and what did we see in front of us in the checkout line but another boy also dressed in shorts. And his Mom standing next to him, chatting away.

Yup. So it’s not that the boy needed a parent to help him dress appropriately for the weather – pneumonia is not fun! — but that his Mom needed to be more aware of his outfit and its health-threatening inappropriateness for the weather.

I didn’t say anything, however, because, well, because it’s not my son and I don’t like to stick my nose in other people’s business. Perhaps their deal is that he can wear whatever he wants, but he then has to suffer through the natural consequences of dressing inappropriately?

In any case, it did make me realize just how lucky my children are to have a Dad who is so connected that he’s willing to get into a small argument to ensure that they are warmly dressed on a cold morning. To me, it seems like parenting 101, but apparently not…