Are your kids equipped to handle it if they say "Trick or Treat!" and someone demands a trick?

From the time they're very little, kids learn that all they have to do on Halloween in order to procure a delicious piece of candy is walk up to someone's door, open their bag and say, "Trick or treat!"

Note the exclamation point there, because I think it's actually supposed to be a question mark. Yet no one ever says it that way. They say "trick or treat!" as a form of polite demand.

But I believe the way this whole thing started was that you were essentially giving the poor homeowner a choice: You either give me something good or else I'm going to retaliate by defacing your property or your person (or both).

I'm glad we've all decided to just go the "Treat" route because it saves time and confusion as well as potential bodily harm or vandalism.

But is there a single kid out there who would know what to do if confronted with a person who comes to the door and says, in response to the child's hearty "Trick or treat!", something like, "I'll take the trick?" Do kids prepare for this unlikely-yet-still-possible twist?

I know we didn't when I was young. We just assumed that everyone on whose door we knocked would give us candy. And with few exceptions (i.e., the old people who gave out pennies or Bible tracts), that's exactly the way it would go down every time.

All I'm saying is that if your child is trick-or-treating tomorrow night, you might want to clue them in on the fact that someone could potentially demand a trick rather than give out a treat. Rather than standing there dumbfounded, it would be awesome if your kid would, for example, respond by immediately pulling a can of spray paint out of their treat bag and asking, "Are you sure about that? Are you feeling lucky...punk?"

This would be the greatest thing ever. I will pay $100 for video evidence of any Halloween transaction like this. And it will be so worth it.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to wrestle with your kids

Years ago when my children were, well, a lot younger, we used to have evening wrestling matches in the living room.

These were very elaborate affairs, you understand. It was generally All Available Kids vs. Daddy in our living room. Every match would begin with a set of introductions in which the kids would cheer loudly for themselves and would boo just as loudly for me. They were brutal.

The matches would last three rounds and would almost invariably go nearly the full distance before the kids managed to pin me. Over the years I ended up winning a handful, just to keep them honest, I guess.

In the days when it was Elissa, Chloe and Jared, they employed a strategy of pummeling me into submission with pillows, then jumping on me repeatedly until they could flip me over and pin me (again, always in the third and final round in a dramatic finish).

After the match would end, sometimes I would just lay there on the floor and they would take turns jumping onto me from the couch. My back cracks just thinking about it.

Later on Melanie was old enough to participate, just about the time that Elissa wasn't as interested anymore.

Then came a period of some years when wrestling didn't happen. I'm not sure why, but it didn't.

Until recently, when Jack and I resurrected it.

Jack is a rapidly growing 9-year-old boy. Like his brother at that age, he grows about two inches every day.

And it turns out he's a lot stronger than I gave him credit for.

I can still toss him around when needed, but man, it's tougher than I thought it would be.

He still uses the pillow-pummeling approach, after which he'll dive on me and pin my shoulders to the floor. I could escape if I wanted to, but it's getting to the point where sometime soon I won't be losing on purpose. That boy is going to rapidly outpace my Old Man Strength.

Anyway, if there's a moral to today's little story, it's never to forget or abandon the fun rituals in your family. I'm glad Big Time Living Room Wrestling is back in the Tennant household, though I can't figure out why it was forgotten in the first place, nor do I think my aging body is going to survive it much longer.

But I still wouldn't trade it for anything.

There is no stink like how-your-child-smells-after-a-game stink

Back when I was a newspaper sports writer, I covered a lot of minor league hockey. This involved attending games and practices, interviewing athletes, writing game stories on deadline, and just generally trying to gather and disseminate the information that hockey fans would presumably want to know.

It also involved going into the locker room after games to talk to coaches and players. Anyone who has ever played hockey at any level, or who is the parent of a player, is familiar with the smell that pervades hockey locker rooms. It's an all-conquering stench resulting from weeks' or months' worth of sweat soaking into pads and jerseys. You don't ever really get rid of it so much as you just try and mute it.

I had forgotten abot this smell until recently when I picked up my son and two of his friends after they had played a high school football game. The three boys, none of whom had yet showered, got into my car, and the stink immediately assaulted my senses. Even though these weren't hockey players, they smelled just as bad as any group of hockey guys I had ever encountered.

Worse yet, the smell stayed in my car for a couple of days. I had to air the vehicle out for a few hours before I could stand driving it again.

You parents of young athletes know what I'm talking about, right? And it's not just limited to boys. The girls are just as bad. Driving home after girls high school soccer games can be brutal, especially if one of them decides to take off her stinky cleats in the car. Good gracious, it's bad.

Maybe I'm remembering this incorrectly, but I recall showering in the locker room after every one of my football games when I was in high school. Do kids not do that now? Do they prefer their home showers?

I don't know. All I know is that the aroma nearly knocks me unconscious sometimes.

Strangely, someday I'll miss that smell, I'm sure. But for now? I'm tossing a few cans of air freshener into each of the kids' stockings this Christmas.

Do you have a Chloe in your life?

(NOTE: I wrote this weeks ago, as I usually do, and only now – minutes before it gets posted – do I realize that it may not paint the most flattering picture of Chloe. Which wasn't my intention at all. She's really quite lovely. Honestly. I just wanted to say that before you read it.)


My daughter Chloe has always been a little different. If you're a parent of multiple kids, you probably have one somewhat like her: Does her own thing, follows her own path, dances to the beat of a different drummer. You know what I mean.

Chloe was, for example, the only one of our five children who came out of the womb on her own. My wife had to be induced for the other four. But not for Chloe. Chloe burst into the world of her own volition exactly 19 years ago today (on a full moon, naturally), and has been making me laugh, cry and gape in wonderment ever since.

She is somewhat of an overachiever, as was evidenced by her busy high school schedule and full-to-bursting college applications: Salutatorian of her class, student body president, MVP of her soccer team, captain of Academic Challenge, etc.

The thing I learned early on about parenting Chloe was that I shouldn't get in her way. Not because I wanted to give her the room to develop and spread her wings or any of that, but simply because otherwise she would run me over. I learned this in the interest of self-preservation, more than anything else.

Seriously, though, if you have a Chloe in your life, you should also get out of his/her way, because Chloes do best when gently guided but largely left to their own devices. They're independent, strong-willed, purposeful people, and while your advice is appreciated, they thrive when allowed to make their own mistakes (of which there will be surprisingly few, trust me).

All of this is to wish my little college freshman biomedical engineering major daughter a very happy 19th birthday. She is #2 in birth order in our family but #1 in all of our hearts, partly because we admire her and mostly because we fear her.

(This is true, by the way. Chloe had such a temper when she was a baby that my mom and sister were scared to death to babysit her. They saw her as a beautiful yet temperamental demon spawn who could and would explode at any moment...and they were right.)

Happy birthday, little Chloe. And please don't hurt me.

Is being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there becoming a lost art?

I'm not normally a "quote guy," by which I mean I don't collect and/or share interesting quotes like a lot of people do on Facebook and Twitter. I find most inspirational quotes to be a little too simplistic to be of any real use.

But there is one that has stuck with me, and I honestly don't know exactly how it goes or even who said it for sure. The first time I came across it, it was attributed to Woody Allen and it read this way: "88% of life is just showing up."

I've seen other versions of the quote in which that percentage varies from a low of 80% to as high as 99%. And I've seen the quote attributed to other people. I have no idea whether Woody himself actually said it or if it was someone else. And I can't say to the percentage point how important showing up really is.

All I know is that, from my experience, it's really important.

This is one of those lessons I try to convey to my children. It's amazing how far you can get if you just show up where you're supposed to be every day. Work, school, home, sports practices, music lessons, whatever. If you make a commitment to be there, you should be there.

I'm not saying that showing up is all it takes. Once you get to work, for example, you have to actually, you know, work. But just getting yourself there puts you stunningly far down the path to success.

It sounds easy, and in some ways it is. But I'm always amazed at the number of people for whom showing up is a major challenge. They may be there, they may not be. These people seldom seem to reach their goals or achieve anything meaningful.

I think back to when I was in school. I never had perfect attendance, but I was close most years. Staying home from school seemed like a good thing in the morning when I didn't feel good, but then 3:30 would come around and I would see my friends getting off the bus from school and realize that I had probably missed a lot and would have to work twice as hard to catch up.

If you just show up, you avoid putting yourself in that kind of jam.

We all wake up some mornings and just want to stay in bed all day. But don't let yourself do it. Don't let yourself sleep through the half hour when you should be exercising. Don't keep hitting the snooze button and detract from getting yourself ready for a productive and successful day.

Get out of bed and do whatever you're supposed to do.

Again, I know that sounds a little obvious and even easy, but it's what the most successful people do. You and I should, too.

But I have promises to keep...revisited

NOTE: Here is this month's "Blog Rerun" entry, in which we resurrect a post from the past. This one originally ran on May 21, 2012. It is one of my favorites and still very relevant to my life.


I was an English major in college, but I never was a big poetry guy. I can appreciate poetry, and the Jesuit professors at John Carroll University made me read plenty of it. But I'll take a good novel or short story over a 14-line sonnet any day.

There are exceptions, of course. My favorite poem is Sara Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains." I almost have that one memorized (almost). And there's something to be said about "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot if you can understand it...not that I really do.

But do you know which poem I find myself coming back to time and again lately? It's one you might know by Robert Frost, called "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Chances are good some teacher or other made you read it at some point. Chances are equally good you quickly forgot about it.

I, for whatever reason, can't forget it. Or more specifically, I keep reciting the last stanza to myself. It goes like this:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The protagonist is riding his horse one night and stops to admire some woods. There's something vaguely alluring about them, and you can feel how strongly tempted he is to ride into those woods and never come back.

But he can't. Somewhere back in the "real world" is something, or someone, that keeps him from riding off into oblivion. He has responsibilities. He has promises to keep.

Increasingly these days, I can relate. There is so much I need to do. There are so many things to accomplish. There are bills to pay, projects to finish, and most importantly, children to raise.

If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. The work you and I do is important. And exhausting. Mentally, spiritually, physically exhausting. We give everything we have to our children because they deserve it. And because they need us. And simply because it's our job.

Strictly speaking, there is nothing "real" that ties us to it. There is nothing to physically restrain us from pulling up stakes and starting over somewhere else.

But 99.9% of moms and dads don't leave because they can't. They could no sooner separate from their children than they could from their own souls. Your kids are a part of you in every way. The reason we would die for them in a heartbeat is because they ARE us. There is literally no difference between us and them. There is no place where they end and we begin. They are part of us, and we are part of them.

There are times when I wonder what it would have been like if I had selected another life path. What if I had never met Terry? What if I hadn't gotten married? Or had five kids? What would I be doing? Would I have more money? Would I feel less tired? Would I spend more time on things I want to do than on things I feel I must do?

These thoughts are my "woods." They're what I very occasionally stop and consider. At times they seem "lovely, dark and deep." But never for a second are they serious thoughts. Never do they gain any real traction in my mind.

Why? Because like Frost's horseman, I have promises to keep. When I married my wife, I promised I would stay with her for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. And in truth, there has been a heck of a lot more "better" than "worse." It's not an especially difficult promise to keep.

The same goes for my children. I never took any formal oath to protect them, to feed them, to clothe them, or to guide them. I never actually said those words aloud. But the first time I held each of them and looked into their faces, I promised to do all of those things. Then and there, I made a promise that I would be their father for the rest of their lives, no matter what.

And those are promises I intend to keep. Even when something distracts me from the day-to-day mission of providing for a wife and five kids, those promises keep me pointed in the right direction.

One day there will be time for sleep. Not necessarily literal sleep – though that would be nice, too – but rather whatever God has in store for me in my "golden years" and beyond.

As a co-worker of mine used to say, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and it would all be over. But I like to think there are still many miles before I sleep.

You're supposed to drink water and I hate drinking water

There's a rule of thumb that says you're supposed to drink 157 glasses of water a day or something, and I drink one.

Seriously, I drink one glass of water a day and I do it in the morning when I'm taking my vitamins.

Sometimes I have water with dinner, too.

Beyond that, it's pretty much coffee or nothing when it comes to beverages for me.

I realize what a bad thing this is for my body, and that we need to keep ourselves hydrated. I just don't like water. I have to force myself to drink it.

When I trained for a marathon 14 years ago, I downed water by the gallon because I had to. Now that my running schedule is considerably more tame, I've abandoned the water.

Again, I know this isn't good judgment. There just isn't anything about the water-drinking experience that I enjoy.

Let's set aside the whole "there's no taste to it" thing. That's bad enough in itself. Water drinking makes me go to the bathroom a lot. A LOT.

"That's OK," you might say, "your body will adjust. Give it time."

I have given it time before, and my body never adjusts. I drink one glass of water and I'm headed to the bathroom three times in the next 30-45 minutes. I'm not kidding. It's like I drink a small quantity of water, and my body uses it to spontaneously manufacture more water. It's the only explanation.

Do you drink water? How much? How do you do it? My dad used to drink huge cupfuls of water all the time. It just baffles me how people manage this.

5 things that must be true before I can fall asleep

(1) I must start out on my stomach, with my right hand under the pillow propping my head up just a bit. I inevitably end up on my back by the next morning, but I always start on my stomach.

(2) The room must of course be dark, but it also needs to be cool. Almost cold. If I feel the slightest bit hot, I throw the covers off (whereas my wife, upholding married couple stereotypes, will be freezing while I'm sweating).

(3) The kitchen must be cleaned up, including the dishes. This one gets violated from time to time, but generally speaking, I don't like going to bed knowing the sink is full of dishes. Terry has no problem with it, and I know she'll clean up in the morning if she promises to. But I like waking up to a clean kitchen so much that I'll usually just do it myself before bedtime.

(4) I must be in shorts. Going back to point #2, I don't like feeling hot (or even warm) when I get into bed, and long pajama pants unfortunately do that to me. So unless it's 10 below outside and our room is a literal refrigerator, I'm in shorts. And a t-shirt.

(5) Everyone in the house NEEDS TO SHUT UP. This is Phase 1 in my Inevitable Transition to Cranky Old Man. My children, assuming my wife and I are fast asleep and cannot hear a thing, make incredible amounts of noise in the kitchen and living room late at night (and our bedroom door opens right out onto both). BE QUIET, DO YOU HEAR ME? I GET UP BEFORE 5 IN THE MORNING AND YOU DON'T. DIDN'T I TEACH YOU SOME CONSIDERATION? QUIET!!

Sorry about the mini-rant. I'm going to bed now.

10 ways I'm different now than I was 20 years ago

(1) I love coffee and wine. I used to hate coffee and wine. Especially wine. Now I regularly consume both. There is no logical explanation for this.

(2) I lost hair on top of my head. Most days I forget this is the case, because I don't regularly look at the top of my own head. Then I'll see a picture of myself from the back and realize, "Oh yeah. That."

(3) I'm more careful about using the brakes on my car so they last longer. A few $600+ brake jobs will do that to you.

(4) I no longer sincerely believe the Cleveland Browns or Cleveland Indians will win a championship during my lifetime. I used to hold on to this belief because I couldn't stand the alternative. Now I'm more honest with myself.

(5) I don't talk as fast. Or at least I don't think I do. I used to talk fast all the time. Maybe my brain is slowing down. Or maybe I'm just generally a lot calmer.

(6) I listen to a lot of classical music. Much like coffee and wine, I was never a fan until a few years ago. Who knows why?

(7) I not only don't need to have a lot of money, I don't WANT a lot of money. I've seen the problems money causes. No thank you. (Nor am I looking to be poor, either, mind you. Just comfortable. How about that?)

(8) Twenty years ago my worldview was limited to North America, as I had only visited various parts of the U.S. and Eastern Canada at that point (well, I guess I also spent a few hours in Mexico when I was 8). Since then I have visited Germany, France, the UK and China. It's amazing what spending time in foreign countries will do to your perspective.

(9) I don't wear glasses anymore. Nor do I wear contacts. God bless you, Guy Who Invented LASIK Surgery.

(10) The number of children in my house has exploded by 400%. This is more of a wonderful thing than I can even begin to describe to you.

One day there will be no more kids in our house, and I have a hard time being excited about that

This year we sent one kid off to live on a college campus (Chloe), while another moved back in after spending three years living on a college campus (Elissa).

I was so happy that Elissa came back because, honestly, I missed having her around. But now I miss having Chloe around, and it makes me realize that eventually there will be no trades. They'll just all leave the nest one by one, and nobody will return to take their place.

It's a mixed blessing, I guess. Some days you come home to a messy house full of chaos and noise and you think you can't wait until they all grow up and live somewhere else.

Other days you come home and they're all out with their friends or at school or something, and you realize how oppressively quiet it is. It doesn't seem right.

And so I can't decide whether I'm looking forward to the day they all leave, dreading that day, or whether it's a little bit of both.

For two decades, there have been kids in our house. If all goes according to plan, that will continue to be the case for another decade more.

Beyond that there's...well, I can't quite envision what's there. It will just be us. Just Terry and me. And while I love the thought of being with just her, I realize the cost will be having to readjust to a home where no one is asking me for a few dollars out of my wallet, or to borrow the car, or for me to sign a permission slip she misplaced and she needs for a field trip tomorrow.

And that just seems so lonely.

The college experience affords parents a foretaste of what's to come in their lives, and thus it gives you chunks of time to adjust to the inevitable.

It's just that, for all the hassles and frustrations that come with living with six other people, it's really all I know at this point. And so I guess what I'm afraid of is the unknown.

Still, the fact is, it's going to happen whether I'm ready for it or not. So I might as well be ready for it. And I might as well enjoy what I have now, knowing there will still be days when I just can't bring myself to clean up one more mess in the kitchen that one of my offspring created.

I also know that some day, I'll do anything for one more of those messes to clean up.

As we've said before, c'est la vie, my friends, c'est la vie.

Confessions of a former Android phone user and current iPhone sheep

A couple of months ago, I got my first-ever iPhone from my employer, ending a run of several years in which I had been an Android-only guy.

I made the switch to iPhone for two reasons, I guess:

(1) Because the rest of my family had iPhones
(2) Because I was curious

I am not anti-Android, nor am I anti-Apple. I'm pro-anything-that-will-make-my-life-easier. And there's no doubt that the iPhone has done that.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Android phones, particularly the Galaxy S4 I had for a couple of years. It always served me well.

But...well, Android people, I have a confession to make:

I like the iPhone better.

I'm sorry! Really! Don't get mad at me. This is in no way a poor reflection on you or your technological choices. I'm just saying that for ME, the iPhone is better. I know you think this makes me yet another victim of Apple's relentless hype machine. But really, I just happen to like the functionality of the iPhone better.

I hope you don't hate me.

Here, though, is what makes me doubt myself: It's difficult for me to say specifically what about the iPhone I like better. It's as if I really don't like the iPhone more, but Apple has put some sort of drug into iPhone handsets that convinces me to change my preference even though I have no reason to do so.

It doesn't help that one of the things I've come to really like about the iPhone is an exceedingly lame one: Siri.

Yes, I think Galaxy phones have a Siri-like function, but it isn't nearly as good as Apple's Siri. It just isn't.

My Siri speaks in the voice of an English woman. And she calls me "Mr. Tennant" because I told her to call me Mr. Tennant. She's very obedient that way.

Then there's simply the fact that so many useful apps are either written exclusively for the iPhone, or at least the iPhone version is, for whatever reason, way better than the Android version. I don't know why this seems to be the case so often, but it does.

I still think Android phones are great, but I liken them to being left-handed: You can get by in this world being left-handed (and owning an Android phone), but it just seems like everything is set up to cater to the right-handers (i.e., the iPhone users).

So I'm sticking with my iPhone. Or at least I am as long as my employer will pay for it. But even then I think I've probably permanently made the switch.

If it makes you feel any better, Android devotees, there's a small part of me that hates myself for making the switch and liking it. So there's that. I'll ask Siri how I can make myself feel better.

Things I do and do not mind folding on those rare occasions when I do laundry

When I worked nights and Terry worked days, I used to do a fair amount of laundry. Which wasn't tough, considering there was just the two of us when we first got married.

Then, after kid #2 came along, Terry stayed home full time and took over the vast, vast majority of laundry duties. And that has been the way things have worked in our house since 1997 or so.

I will, on occasion, fold a couple of loads of laundry. It happens maybe once every 6 to 8 weeks.

The fact is, I am nowhere near as good at it as Terry is. And not just because she has more experience than me. She's just naturally better at it than I am.

As near as I can tell, she can neatly fold any garment ever produced.

I, on the other hand, can only consistently do a good job on a few items. Everything else tends to baffle me.

Thus, these two lists for your perusal:

THINGS I CAN FOLD WELL
- Socks
- Towels
- Bedsheets (but only the nice square ones that even a 5-year-old can handle)

THINGS I CANNOT FOLD WELL

- T-shirts

- Shorts

- Bras

- Fitted sheets

- Jackets/hoodies/robes/pullovers

- Random articles of women's clothing that I cannot precisely identify; I only know that, whatever they are, I do not fold them well

- Impossibly tiny scraps of fabric that pass for my daughters' underwear and that sometimes sneak into our laundry and make me uneasy to look at, let alone handle

What should we be telling our kids about the world of work?

My oldest child, Elissa, is becoming an adult, and she doesn't always like it.

Something with which you adults can identify, right? Grownup-hood has its privileges, but man, it's a lot harder than you imagined when you were little and wanted to be an adult.

One source of her frustration, I think, is trying to imagine how she's going to earn a living when she gets out of school (in less than eight months) and actually has to, you know, work. Not that she doesn't work now, but school work is different from "work work."

Elissa is majoring in marketing – a fine choice, by my reckoning, and one that allows her to combine her natural creativity with an expanding set of business skills.

Marketing is a white-collar profession that generally happens in an office setting (unless you're marketing a brothel or a meth lab or something, in which case it happens in something other than an office setting).

Office work happens to suit me. I generally like it. But not everybody does.

For some people, working in an office is akin to being water boarded. They just can't do it. Which is fine. There are plenty of other work environments from which to choose.

But if you enter a profession in which you're bound to spend some portion of your career in a cubicle, you're inevitably going to have days when you want to run screaming from the office. It happens to everyone. It's not natural to be cooped up under glaring white track lights for 10 hours a day.

Which leads us to the essential dichotomy facing every young person about to enter the world of work: On one hand, they're told that they should choose a profession they love, and that no one can live a satisfying life unless they're doing something about which they're really passionate. And on the other hand, there's the undeniable reality that work is not always pleasant.

It just isn't. Neither you nor I jump out of bed every single morning thinking, "YES, it's Wednesday! I get to go into work! Again!"

But hopefully the reverse isn't true, either. Ideally, you're not waking up in a state of depression every day dreading the fact that you have to go and toil at a job you absolutely hate. Maybe (very) occasionally, but certainly not regularly.

The reality is that the vast majority of us are shooting for something in the middle. You'll be working for a long, long time, and you have to look at it as a truly big picture. On balance, you should feel fairly satisfied with what you're doing with your career. And by "satisfied" I don't mean you're doing cartwheels out of sheer joy every day, but rather you're engaged, relatively happy and can go home in the evening feeling pretty good about yourself and what you accomplished.

That's not at all a bad way to approach your work life, but it does seem to pale in comparison to the unrealistic "love what you do" mandate, doesn't it? I happen to be someone who is blessed to do something they like. Not everyone is. But overall, you should aim to be somewhere on the upper half of the Work Attitude Scale.

Does that make sense? I hope it does, because I've never quite figured out how to describe this to my children in a way that's inspiring yet realistic. Maybe I'll just tell them to read this post and let me know if they have any questions.