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On Parenting

"You could have handled that better," my inner voice remarked snidely. I already knew that. Before the voice got close to berating me, I’d already given myself a mental beat down, replayed the interaction with the child in my head and imagined three better ways to handle the situation without resulting in years of therapy in the child’s adult years.

I will not make excuses. I am by no means the television dad that holiday portrays in the 30 minute sitcoms. Always wise. Always sensitive. Always knowing the best way to fix a problem. I also don’t have a room for of writer’s and editors.

I will not make excuses. Life is hard. Full of stress. I set high expectations for myself and the child. We are both learning as we go. By the time the child reaches adulthood, hopefully we will have both figured this out.

I want better for my children. They deserve better than me.

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Seeking advice on using US phones in Europe

To my European friends and my more traveled friends, my son heads off to London (7 days) and Paris (2 days) this weekend. My next quandary is cell phone. My plan currently allows my son unlimited texting and sending of pictures over SMS internationally. However, it does not include data or voice. What I learned today was that if he received a phone call (and doesn’t even answer it), he incurs international roaming charges.

So, do I:

  1. make him leave his phone at home?
  2. let him take his phone but remove the sim card so he is forced to use wifi?
  3. Have him jump into an EE store and buy a 30 day prepaid phone? I presume the tour group isn’t going to stop to waste an hour in an EE store letting everyone buy prepaid phones. — does the airport have these in vending machines?
  4. Beg a friend or relative to drop a prepaid phone by his hotel?

Are there other options?

1st person to post a Liam Neeson meme gets 10 points.

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No monsters in the shower

Dear Family,
I am aware that some of you are afraid there are monsters hiding in the shower so you leave the shower curtain open. I would prefer it closed. The benefits of closing the shower curtain after your bath or shower are that the curtain is less likely to mildew plus you can read that cool periodic table of elements. I believe I have a solution! I have mounted a video camera in the shower. Simply point your browser to 192.267.0.389:null and you can see that there are no monsters in the shower.
That is all. And thank you for your cooperation!
Love, Dad