Scott Nagele's Blog, page 29

Forget about the gold, we’re going for the purple

We may have experienced a minor breakthrough. Being a five-year-old boy, our son likes to play when he should be doing work in school. Throughout autumn, he got better at focusing on his work, mostly through the skilled guidance of his teacher, but also with our encouragement. Then Christmas break hit, followed by a parade […]

You can compete for a gold medal as soon as family time is over

I made some predictions in a recent post. Prediction #1: My son and I would attempt to catch some Olympic cross-country skiing on TV. Prediction #2: Those races might inspire us to hit the trails together. Prediction #3: This would cause me to transfer the burden of my unfulfilled dreams of Olympic glory onto his […]

Truth is stranger than fiction, and has better acting

For reasons unassociated with my personal viewing preferences, we have been watching movies on the Syfy channel of late. This is the outlet where up-and-coming actors and screen writers practice as they wait for a big break that will earn them recurring roles on Lifetime, thus winning them fame and respect for their craft. The […]

Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a bear attack

Valentine’s Day isn’t my favorite holiday. It’s like a yearly final exam of love, and I never liked being tested. If you don’t have someone special in your life, you fail. And if you’re lucky enough to have a special someone, you probably fail anyway, because you used up your reserve of romance during those […]

Winter dreams

These are the first winter Olympics that my eldest son will be old enough to understand. I hope we can have some fun watching them together. I predict that his favorite sport will be bobsled because the Germans traditionally succeed in it. He’s a big fan of Germany right now. Having owned a pair of […]

It’s party time! Again.

After my First Communion, my family went out to celebrate. At McDonald’s. McDonald’s! How awesome was that? It had to be a pretty special occasion to celebrate at McDonald’s. Not only was McDonald’s the only fast food restaurant in the area, it was the only restaurant where I can remember eating until my teen years. […]

You want to name him what?

In a couple of months, we will be welcoming our third boy child into the world. The thought of this glorious event is sometimes enough to make me want to run screaming into the night. Don’t get me wrong; I love the idea of having a third son to share all the love and lumps […]

Whose turn is it to run away?

“I’m running away from home. I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t stay here and let everybody be mean to me, so I’m running away.” Did you ever feel like saying that to your kids? I felt like that over the Martin Luther King Day long weekend. The five-year-old had been home from […]

Puking with a quiet dignity

“Daddy, I had to puke in the night,” he told me. Of course, my first feeling was one of concern; Mommy gets a tad bit grouchy when she has to add an extra sheet-washing to the schedule, and I have to live with her. The boy was lying on the couch, watching cartoons instead of […]

Desensitized to parenthood

We’re waiting for our third child to arrive. We’re waiting passively. It will be a great day when he comes, but we aren’t counting down the weeks. We did that once, and it was fun, but by the third kid, the waiting becomes routine. It doesn’t mean we’ll love him less; it means we know […]