Aaron Sharp's Blog

The Owl Eyes in World War Two

Aaron Sharp | October 27, 2021

This column originally appeared in the Odessa American newspaper October 22, 2017. It appears here by permission of the newspaper. The text of this column appears as it originally did 4 years ago, but I have taken the liberty of adding some clarifications, and adjusting numbers as necessary.

I feel like questions kids ask could be a regular column topic for me, like maybe even a monthly feature where I talk about the questions my kids ask and how pathetically bad I am at answering them most of the time. Over the course of the average day, numerous questions are directed my way, which I answer with varying degrees of success.

Sometimes the questions are easy, or you think they are until you try to answer them. For instance, I love history, and especially World War Two, so I took the six-year-old Zoologist and the four-year-old Cowgirl to a World War II air show. It was great. I loved it, they loved it, we all had a good time, and it gave me a chance to talk to them a little bit about what the world used to be like for their great-grandparents. We had a wide-ranging conversation about good and evil, race and racism, inventions, and a host of other topics. A few days later the Zoologist wanted to clarify a few things with me. First, he asked some questions about the Owl Eyes (how he says Allies). Second, he asked me a few questions about the Axis powers who fought the Owl Eyes. He then asked me, “What is an axis, dad? And why did they call those countries that?” I thought I knew the answer until I tried to explain it to him. By the time I was through stammering and stuttering I wasn’t sure that I knew what it meant anymore. I literally had to Google it on my phone to make sure I was in the right neighborhood of the definition. Even then I was thinking to myself, “There is no way a first-grader is understanding my explanation.”

 

A few days after the Axis and Owl Eyes incident I was dropping the girls off at preschool and the Cowgirl decided it was question speed round time as we were about to pull into the parking lot.

 

The following exchange took place in about 15 seconds.

 

Cowgirl: What are those girls in that car eating?

Me: I don’t know.

Cowgirl: Why was that truck going so fast?

Me: I don’t know.

Cowgirl: What do you know?

Me: Not much, apparently.

Cowgirl: Why aren’t we turning?

Me: Because there is oncoming traffic, and I do not want to die.

 

At this point I think she actually asked a couple more questions, but I started twitching as I pulled into a parking spot.

 

Now I’ve got to go read up on the Owl Eyes strategy on D-Day. I’ll probably get asked about it by the end of the day.

I Wanna Talk to the Manager

I’ve written before that raising a toddler can make a dad feel a lot like a car salesman, particularly at mealtime. These standoffs frequently end with some tense negotiations, and a father telling a child that he will take their offer back to the manager to see if they can work something out.

Most of the time this back and forth is subtle, then there are times like the other night when our three-year-old Slugger became unhappy with me. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I’m gonna tell Mom-Mom.” Apparently he didn’t like how I was handling this particular situation so he asked to speak to the manager. I told him to go ahead and talk to Mom-Mom because best case scenario for me these days is going into time out.

Aaron's Focus on the Family Appearance Recap

Aaron Sharp | March 23, 2021

In case you missed it yesterday I was a guest on the Focus on the Family broadcast. If you did miss it shame on you, and you can catch it right here.

Along with the main broadcast there was also a smaller segment where I discussed baby names with the hosts, Jim Daly & John Fuller.

Elaina and my visit to the Focus on the Family campus was a lot of fun, and not just because we left the kids with the grandparents and got to be adults for a few days. The entire staff was a delight, and it was fun getting to talk about parenting in general, and You Got This, Dad in particular. We enjoyed our time in Colorado Springs, and we’d love to be able to do this again sometime.

Part of the reason that being a guest on the broadcast was fun for me was because my earliest memories of Focus on the Family are of our church watching films produced by Focus. And when I say films, I mean literal films, my dad was always the one in charge of changing the reel when it was finished, and so our family always sat right by the projector. Imagine telling little Aaron Sharp about this!

Later on in the week we will be sending out an email to our subscribers with some more detail on our experience, so if you aren’t one of our subscribers make sure to click “Get Sharpology” on the top, right-hand corner of the page to sign up before you leave oursharpology.com.

Where to Listen and Watch Aaron on the Focus on the Family Broadcast

There are a number of different ways to take in the Focus on the Family broadcast today. But before we get to all those ways you have an important decision to make, do you want to watch the episode, or just listen?

Video

If you want to watch the video of the broadcast, and since Aaron is ruggedly handsome why wouldn’t you, you can do so by checking out Focus on the Family’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/FocusOnTheFamilyUSA/videos

You can view Aaron’s episode here - https://youtu.be/Yd7LRwVrNYY

Audio

If you don’t want to see Aaron’s smiling mug, or you just feel like his soothing voice will help prevent road rage on your commute this morning, there are several different ways to consume the audio version of the broadcast.

1.     The audio is available on the episode page at: https://www.focusonthefamily.com/episodes/broadcast/survival-tips-for-new-dads/

2.     If you want to listen on the radio you can find out when the Focus on the Family broadcast airs on your location radio station here -

3.     You can tune in on your smart phone through the Focus on the Family iOS app or Android app.

4.     If podcasts are more your thing you can subscribe to the Focus on the Family Broadcast podcast on Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.

5.     Tune in to channel 131 on SiriusXM. at 8:00am Central time.

6.     Just ask Alexa or Google Home to "Play the Focus on the Family Broadcast."

We will be a sending out a special email to our email subscribers later in this week answering questions about our experience with Focus on the Family. If you want to send in a question just send it to us through our website’s contact form. If you aren’t an email subscriber just click Get Sharpology at the top of this web page to sign up.

Thanks and happy listening/watching!

Expectant Fathers and the Secret Service with Focus on the Family

Aaron Sharp | March 17, 2021

Last month Elaina and I got the opportunity to travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado to record an episode of the Focus on the Family broadcast about You Got This, Dad. Along with recording the main broadcast we spent a little bit of time with their parenting team talking pregnancy and all things parenting.

Here is the video we shot with the parenting team. Enjoy!

The Pandemic Parenting Degree of Difficulty Scale

Aaron Sharp | February 16, 2021

A while back I had a small post about the different kind of difficulties we’ve encountered parenting in a pandemic. The last few days we’ve added a new item to the list so here is an updated Pandemic Parenting Degree of Difficulty Chart.

Some words of Explanation:

Parenting is the baseline. Pre-pandemic we had 4 kids, 3 of which homeschooled, 2 full-time jobs. We also write on the side (latest book release You Got This, Dad), the Wonder Woman also tutors a class for our Classical Conversations campus, and we also have a few other things going on. In short, things were a little crazy before this.

That was before…

Parenting in a pandemic. We’ve been fortunate. We’ve had to make all the pandemic life changes. We haven’t been to a zoo in a year, we rarely go out in public, and we’ve cancelled most of our external family activities. But we’ve had our health, we’ve gotten to keep our jobs, and we’ve gotten to be together as a family.

Then we decided to…

Parenting in a pandemic while doing home renovations. Yes, we did this, and we may need our heads examined. A home refinance plus stimulus checks meant that something we had been talking about doing at some point was possible. We replaced floors, repainted, moved an island, and a bunch of other things. At one point all six of us were basically living in our master bedroom while renovations went on around us. Six people working, going to school, and doing most of their lives in one room seemed like the hardest thing we would do in this pandemic period.

But our perspective changed when…

Parenting in a pandemic while mom and dad have Covid so they have to quarantine with the kids AND from the kids. This made everything that came before seem like a walk in the park. We were fortunate in that neither of us was seriously ill. We didn’t feel good, but we were operational for the most part. We stayed in the bedroom, the kids had the rest of the house and we masked up whenever we needed to fix a meal for them, change a diaper, or kiss a boo-boo. This quarantine was the longest 10 days of my life.

Now we’ve added…

Parenting in a pandemic during a freak winter storm with rolling blackouts. Given everything that has happened over the last 12 months this might seem strange to say, but having the power go on and off may be the most surreal thing to happen. I’ve just taken for granted things like heat, lights, internet access, streaming media, and being able to get in the car and drive somewhere when I needed to. Now we are on day two of power outages that may continue for a few more days. We sit here without power doing homework, and entertaining ourselves, then the power comes on and people rush to make coffee, microwave a snack, get some work done, check the news and weather, go to the bathroom with the lights on, and charge their devices. Even more than the pandemic this feels like an alternate universe because once the power goes back out we know nothing of the outside world. The roads are icy so we aren’t going anywhere, and for all I know there is a zombie apocalypse in Nebraska right now. Murder hornets could have rebranded as homicide bugs and attacked Idaho, and I would be none the wiser.

Wingfeather Saga Book 2 - Dad & Zoologist Review

Aaron Sharp | February 1, 2021

Aaron and the nine-year-old Zoologist are back to talk more about the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson, this time it’s book 2, North! Or Be Eaten.

You can find the conversation about book 1 here.

SPOILER WARNING: Unlike our video about book 1, this video is full of spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

Donuts with Dad: 3yo Slugger Edition

Aaron Sharp | January 29, 2021

This week I got to participate in our preschool’s Donuts with Dad breakfast with the three-year-old Slugger. I’ve been going to these things for a few years now, and they are always a lot of fun. The Slugger was excited, I was excited, and there were donuts. Really, what wasn’t to like.

Several times that I have been to one of these events you find out that your kid’s preschool teacher has asked them questions about you, and made you a little sheet to keep showing their answers. This is fun, and a little nervewracking too. I had a heads up that they were doing that this year when the Slugger told me one day, “I told Miss Callie your job was doing dishes.” It took a few minutes for me to figure out what was the probably context of that statment, but once I did I expected that answer.

Here are his answers with a little bit of commentary from me along the way.

Slugger: My Dad is 30 years old.
Me: Bless you son. It’s been a while since I was 30, but I guess my boyish good looks are still there. I’ll slip you an extra dessert tonight.

Slugger: He has brown eyes and brown hair.
Me: Looks like we’ve got another kid getting glasses. I could understand if he didn’t now blonde so he went with brown on the hair, but the ENTIRE family has blue eyes. After going to these for a while I can say that if you are going to commit a major crime having my kids as witnesses is a good deal for you. By the time they were through describing you there is simply no way law enforcement would have any idea what you looked like.

Slugger: His job is washing dishes.
Me: Yes, I do most of the dishes at our house, but I’ve been in IT for his entire life, the last ten months of which has been working from home. Five days a week I’ve sat at the dining room table working in front of a computer. He knows this. He loves to interrupt Teams calls with my boss, and is constantly told that I’ll do something after I get through working. I don’t know how he decided that my job was to do dishes. Unless he’s noticed that I haven’t been doing so good and keeping them done and this is some sort of signal to me that he knows Mom is frustrated. Now I’m worried that he is infinitely smarter than me and this is all some sort of advanced game theory. Actually, nevermind, I just remembered his teacher had to tell him to stop talking about poop this week. I think the odds of us raising an evil genius are slim.

Slugger: He loves to eat eggs.
Me: True story.

Slugger: HIs favorite drink is apple juice.
Me: This might be the Slugger’s favorite drink, but I can’t remember the last time I drank apple juice. I don’t like it one bit. If he’s gaming me with these answers he just lost me.

Slugger: He is really good at reading stories.
Me: This makes my author/reader self feel good. I absolutely am proud to wear this as a badge of honor. If they put this on my gravestone it would be okay with me.

Slugger: He always says “Time for bed.”
Me: A totally accurate statement, and he isn’t the first Sharpnado to make this comment about me at Donuts with Dad. If he would actually, you know, stay in bed I wouldn’t say this all the time.

Slugger: He is happy when “he makes silly faces.”
Me: This isn’t what I’d expect, but after the dishes and apple juice I’ll allow it. Now i’m wondering when he thinks I’m making silly faces. Am I doing something I don’t realize.

Slugger: He is SUPER because he’s my dad.
Me: I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Happy Birthday Lego, Thanks for All the Pain.

Aaron Sharp | January 28, 2021

This column originally appeared in the Odessa American newspaper January 28, 2018. It appears here by permission of the newspaper. The text of this column appears as it originally did 3 years ago, but I have taken the liberty of adding some clarifications, and adjusting numbers as necessary.

Today, is the sixty-third anniversary of the patents of one of the greatest toys in history. Coincidentally, it is also one of the most profanity-inducing toys ever to hit the market.

I am speaking, of course, of Lego bricks. Legos are made up of an ABS plastic polymer that gives every Lego piece strength, durability, and a nice shiny finish. This means that as toys go they are all but indestructible. In the month since Christmas the average child has already broken approximately four toys, but Legos are probably not one of them. Our own two-year-old Fashionista has never even broken a Lego. They could become her nemesis.

In addition to the bang for your buck that Legos provide they are also well-known for building creativity and problem-solving skills. If you don’t believe me, pick up the February 2016 edition of The Journal of Marketing Research and read the article The Downstream Consequences of Problem-Solving Mindsets: How Playing with LEGO Influences Creativity. Or you could just take my word for it.

Legos are indestructible and encourage creativity. Yet, parents typically speak of them in hushed tones as if they are the villain in a new Harry Potter book.

Parent 1: My kid got a box of The-Toy-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named for Christmas.

Parent 2: One year when I was a kid I got some Le…

Parent 3 (interrupting): DON’T SPEAK THE NAME!

Okay, parents don’t really give Legos the Lord Voldemort treatment, but we probably would if we weren’t so tired.

No one who has been a parent for any amount of time can see, hear about, or touch a Lego without thinking of one thing - pain. Which probably isn’t what the company is going for. Every parent has experienced the excruciating feeling of slowly sneaking down a hallway to check on their snoozing little angels only to step on a Lego. The ensuing pain is what Indiana Jones would have felt if he had been caught by one of those booby traps in The Temple of Doom. Scientists tell us that there are around 200,000 sensory receptors in your foot. Step on one Lego and all 200,000 tell your brain, “Death is imminent, we should’ve had dessert today.”

I have a friend who swears that our strategy for the next war we fight should just be to carpet bomb the other guys with Legos. Of course, when the enemy from the pain of stepping on the Legos they could just use them to build an indestructible fortress, so maybe this isn’t the best idea.

Wingfeather Saga Book 1 - Dad & ZooLogist Review

Today we’ve got a different kind of book review with a special guest here to discuss this particular book.

Join Aaron and the oldest Sharpnado, the nine-year-old Zoologist as they discuss On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, the first book in the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson.