This blog is going on hiatus until Spring 2018 (though we'll occasionally post between now and then)

NOTE: I wrote the following post in early February 2016. And now, sitting in a hotel lobby in Southern California on March 13, 2016, it seems a bit...I don't know, abrupt? This particular blog has been in existence less than a year and a half, so it's not like I'm bringing some long-running institution to an end. I'm not bringing anything to an end, actually. This is just an extended break, and it's absolutely the right decision.

But I've been blogging on and off for more than five years, and I feel like I should say something that expresses some degree of the appreciation I feel for everyone who regularly reads these little missives. Many readers have come and gone, especially back in the days when the blog was titled "They Still Call Me Daddy" and drew a wider audience thanks to The News-Herald's now-defunct Community Media Lab. But there's a core of you who regularly read and react to my posts, and I'm so happy you've always taken the time to do both. Thank you for your efforts, because you make the whole thing worth it. You know who you are.

Anyway, here's the original post, which as you might have guessed by now (and certainly from the headline) is announcing the suspension of the blog, for the most part, for a couple of years. I just wanted to make sure you knew how much I appreciate the fact that you ever visited this little site in the first place...
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Every couple of years, I start up a blog that ends 12-18 months later because I don't have time to maintain it.

Guess what I'm going to say next, kids!

Actually, this isn't an "end" so much as an extended pause. I told you a couple of weeks ago that I'm now going to grad school online, and that's unavoidably time-consuming. So I'm not even going to try and fight that fight.

Instead, I'm going to take a planned break of about 24 months. That's when I should be graduating with my master's degree, at which point I'll presumably be able to come back and do the blogging thing again. And presumably I'll have something to say that you want to read.

In the interim, I'll very occasionally throw up a post if I feel the itch, which I'm sure I will. I'll post links to those pieces on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or you can just visit www.5kids1wife.com directly and take a peek every once in awhile to see if I've put something up.

I'll maintain this domain name in the meantime, which is something I didn't do last time I gave up www.theystillcallmedaddy.com and some Japanese person snatched it up. Really, that happened. I don't know why.

This particular blogging stint has been going regularly since December 2014, which is pretty good for me. I appreciate the fact that you take time to read this stuff. I honestly do. And I hope you'll come back once I do.

So for now, it's so long and thanks for all the fish. Please keep in touch via the social media platform of your choice. Take care, stay healthy, and tell people you love them. That's all I've got for you.

We'll talk again.

At what point do your birthdays suddenly become a lot less exciting?

I think it's when you turn 23. And I'll tell you why:

Every birthday you have from 1 to 20 is exciting because you're a kid, and kids get excited about their birthdays for various reasons (even 20-year-old kids). That's a given.

Then you turn 21 and that's cool because ADULTHOOD. Self-explanatory.

Twenty-two is also pretty good, especially for college kids, because it's generally the age when you graduate with your bachelor's degree. Life is about to begin in earnest and you can feel it.

And then you turn 23 and...well, nothing. You're either in grad school or out working. And 23 is just a really, really nondescript age. There's nothing vaguely interesting or special about it. It's even a prime number, for gosh sakes.

Twenty-three just kind of sits there. And I think for many people, it's the first nearly meaningless birthday they experience.

All of which is to mention that my daughter Elissa turns 22 tomorrow, and she's on track to graduate from college sometime this year, so there's that. It is perhaps her last exciting birthday, and I don't even know if she's excited about it because I don't see her very much. I'll have to ask her.

Every Elissa birthday makes me reflect on the passage of time because she's our oldest and therefore is always the first among our kids to turn a given age. I suppose the next time her birthday will really, really affect me will be when she turns 30 because...well, by then, there will be no denying the fact that we her parents are old. You can't have a 30-year-old and be a true young'un.

So until then, I'm going to hold on for dear life to her 20-something birthdays. Even the boring ones.

BLOG RERUN: To my children - Just pick up the blanket

(NOTE: Hey, it's Blog Rerun time again! Let's go back into the musty blog archives and resurrect a post from the past that I happen to have liked, for whatever reason. This particular one first ran on July 31, 2013. And for the record, in the three years since this was posted, not a single person in my house apart from Terry has yet picked up the #@%^! blanket...)


I was down in the basement a few minutes ago, and I was disheartened to find that one of you has, yet again, left a blanket on the floor.

You know the blanket I'm talking about. It's the one that has a green and blue plaid design on one side and white fleece on the other. I won it in a work raffle, I think, 15 or 20 years ago.

At least three times a week, I will come downstairs and find this blanket in a heap on the floor. And I know how it happens: One of you wraps it around yourself as you sit on the couch and watch TV (which I totally understand, given that it's a perpetual 27 degrees down there).

Then, when you're finished watching TV, you simply fling the blanket onto the floor, get off the couch, and go upstairs to attend to other things.

And there sits the blanket, which you got out of the storage cabinet in the entertainment center.

My plea to you is simple: Pick up the blanket.

It's not hard. When you're finished using the blanket, just fold it up and put it back where it belongs in the cabinet.

Heck, you don't even have to fold it if you don't want to. You can just crumple it into a big ball and throw it in there. But the important thing is that you pick it up and put it away.

Got that? Just pick it up and put it away. I've asked you to do this before and you have repeatedly failed to comply. All you have to do is pick it up and put it away. That's it. That's all I ask.

If I go around and ask who left the blanket out on the floor, chances are that all five of you will say it wasn't you. And since I know it wasn't me, and I'm 99.9% sure it wasn't your mother, then one of you either has a very bad memory or is outright lying.

Speaking of your mother, you need to think about her when you leave the blanket on the basement floor. She spends her days cleaning up messes you created, and she is now at her absolute limit. If you leave the blanket on the basement floor again and fail to pick it up and put it away (which, you'll recall, are the simple instructions I gave you earlier), she may snap.

I'm not kidding. She may lose it. And by "lose it," I don't mean that she might yell at you or anything. I mean she may literally murder one of you.

Again, you think I'm joking. I'm not. If she walks down into that basement and finds the blanket on the floor one more time, just one more time, I think it will be enough to push her over the edge. It won't surprise me in the least if she grabs a screwdriver and plunges it into one of your skulls.

I'm not condoning this behavior, mind you, but I'm also extremely sympathetic to her frustration. And when she goes on trial for this crime, I promise I'll be testifying on her behalf.

Because there's not much you're required to do here. This is maybe a 12-second job. When you're finished using the blanket, you just need to put it back into the cabinet. Don't leave it on the floor. Pick it up, then put it away. The folding part, as I mentioned before, is completely optional. Just put the blanket away.

I'm not home as often as your mother, seeing as I spend my days working so as to earn enough money to buy products for you to leave on the floor. You don't only do this with the blanket. You leave everything from cups and plates to toys and chip bags on the floor. Where did we go wrong with you?

Seriously, at what point did we convey the idea that using something then leaving it on the floor and walking away is OK? When was that even implied? Because it's not acceptable. Not in the least. Pick up the blanket. After you use it, pick it up and put it away. OK?

The temptation, of course, is to just put the blanket away myself when I see it. But all this does is perpetuate the problem. You'll just keep doing it unless we point it out to you and make you go back downstairs to put it away. Experience suggests you'll keep on doing it even then.

Which I don't understand, because I fail to see any complicating factors here that would prevent you from performing this small task for us. I will break it down into three steps, in case that helps:

Step 1: Pick the blanket up off the floor
Step 2: Fold the blanket (AGAIN, OPTIONAL)
Step 3: Put the blanket into the cabinet in the lower left corner of the entertainment center

Aaaaaaand, you're done. Finished. Nothing more to see or do here. Just put away the blanket. Please, when you're finished with it, just put away the blanket.

Put away the blanket.

My wife turns...a new age today

We don't need to get into the specific number, do we? Of course not.

Actually, Terry is pretty chill about the whole age thing and probably wouldn't mind if I told you that she turns XX years old today. But I'm not going to take even the small chance of getting into trouble by filling in those X's with an actual age.

Although it should be said, she looks awesome for that age. She has always looked awesome. This, you see, is what attracted me to her when I was 16. It's not like I was looking at her back in high school and thinking, "I'll bet that girl will be an excellent mother to my children."

No, I was thinking, "She's hot. I'm going after that." For that is the full extent of the 16-year-old male's thought process.

Now of course I've come to appreciate the full range of her attributes, not just her beauty. But I ain't gonna lie: It's not a bad thing that she never lost the hotness.

And so another year passes by and we have entered Birthday Season in my family. It starts with my mother-in-law a couple of weeks ago and stretches through April. For whatever reason, we have a lot of late-winter/early-spring birthdays among the Tennants and associated clans. (Insert your joke here that there's something about the summer that just put our parents and grandparents into a certain mood...)

Anyway, happy birthday to my wonderful wife, though no amount of attention and presents can account for everything she does for me and the kids. She is selfless, strong, honest and resourceful. She is the most admirable person I know. And somehow I hit the Pick 6 in the Life Lottery and ended up married to her. Talk about dumb luck.

Oh, and she's hot, too. Did I mention that?

I'm just smart enough to know how dumb I am

That, I think, is the crowning achievement of my 46-plus years on earth: I have finally figured out how much I don't know, and it's a lot. And more importantly, I'm OK with it.

There was a time when I guess I just assumed I would eventually learn most of what there is to know. Which I realize is incredibly naive, but I learned so much early on in life that I figured I would continue to learn at the same pace.

But that's not the way it works, is it? You get out of college and your attention turns away from knowledge gathering – which is where it has been since you were in kindergarten – to simple survival. You have bills to pay and things to do, and if you're like me, you have only so much mental capacity to handle it all. Learning new stuff quickly takes a back seat.

Or at least that's how I think it is for most people. Only the most dedicated among us are true "lifelong learners," and I envy them. They are far smarter and more insightful than I'll ever be.

Which is another thing I've come to realize: MOST people are smarter and more insightful than me. And I don't say that out of false modesty or anything. It just appears to be true, based on my experience to date.

I used to think of myself as a smart person because I got good grades. And I somehow got voted Most Likely to Succeed when I was a senior in high school, though I personally voted for Brian Fabo (he was our very deserving class valedictorian and, true to form, has turned out to be very successful).

But none of that really means anything. As I've often said, knowing facts and spouting them back on command is not intelligence. It's a bar trick. And I'm pretty good at it.

But taking information, processing it, and coming back with a workable solution to a problem or having a truly original insight? I'm not so good at that. Or at least not nearly as good as I thought I would be.

Because again, I figured I would keep getting smarter and smarter as I got older, and it didn't happen. I'm lucky to get myself dressed and out the door every morning, if I'm being honest with you.

And that's OK. It really is. I live an enjoyable, highly fulfilling life. I don't know that anyone could ask for anything more than that. The truth is that I'm blessed beyond words, and even if there WERE words to express it, I would probably forget them anyway.

So there you go. The best thing about me? I've accepted my limitations. I think that's a pretty cool thing to come to terms with.

I'm comin' home...

The title of this post? It's the name of a song by Skylar Grey that my daughter Melanie always, always sings when someone takes her to Wendy's (her favorite fast food restaurant). In fact, she records herself singing it each time she pulls into a Wendy's and then sends the recording to everyone in her family via Snapchat. True story. Terry's kids are so weird.

Anyway, I didn't mean to make reference to the song. I really am literally comin' home today after nine days on the road for business travel. I started off in Chicago two Saturdays ago and then flew out to Anaheim, California, the middle of last week. Both trips were for trade shows. Terry and our daughter Elissa joined me in Anaheim, and now we're all flying back to Cleveland today.

I used to semi-like business travel. And when I say "semi-like," I mean just that. I've never loved it. In fact, I've written before about the hassles that are involved in seemingly each and every business trip I've ever taken.

So I try my best to avoid it. I've been to most of the U.S. and several countries, and now I'm really only attracted to travel opportunities that are 100% fun and 0% business. As those are few and far between for me these days, I tend to stay away from airports and airplanes to the greatest degree possible.

I was trying to think what I dislike most about business travel and I had trouble settling on just one thing. It always feels good coming back to your own bed, of course, but most hotels I visit have nice, comfortable beds, so it's not that.

Some people don't like the food choices when they travel, but I'm essentially a goat and will eat anything, so it's not that, either.

I think it's just the disruption of my routine. Yes, I have five children and thus am subject to varying levels of chaos each and every day, so you would think I don't even have a routine. But roughly speaking, I do. And the older I get, the more I like to just stick to that routine: Getting up at roughly the same time in the same place, doing the same things, enjoying the company of the same small group of people.

That may sound boring to you, but it's heaven to me. What an old guy I am.

Anyway, nine days is more than long enough to be away, so I'm anxious to get back to the sunny(?) North Coast of America. I like Chicago and I like California, but I love Wickliffe. Always have, always will.

Comin' home, comin' home. Tell the world I'm comin' home...

Six things I don't get the popularity of

(1) Professional wrestling: Look, I know this is probably just me because a lot of smart people love wrestling and have fond memories of watching it when they were kids. I just...I don't get it. I try and try to find some entertainment value in it and I come up blank. But then again, there are a lot of things I personally like that others don't get, either, so I guess it's all good.

(2) KISS: The band, not the physical act (I like that). Again, I know they're talented. I know people just love their music. I'm pretty sure there's something I'm just not understanding about their appeal that, if it would just click for me, I would become a fan.

(3) Gardening: Lots of people love gardening. They love growing food and flowers. They love being outside on their hands and knees and digging into the soil. Good for them. I in no way share their passion, though maybe I will in a few years when I become an official Old Person. After all, I never thought I would like coffee and wine, and I love both now. We'll see.

(4) Almost any given binge-watched TV series: You know the ones I'm talking about – Breaking Bad, The Wire, Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire, Sons of Anarchy, etc. The only one I've ever gotten into (and I'm not quite sure how it happened) was House of Cards. I like House of Cards. Then again, I would probably like those other shows, too, if I had the time to watch any of them. But I don't.

(5) Tattoos: Understand something, militant tattoo people: I don't care if you have a tattoo. I don't judge you because you have a tattoo. If you're a good person, you're a good person whether or not you choose to get some ink. I don't have any problem at all with tattoos or the people who have them. It's just that I personally don't want one, and I can't identify with the desire to have one. That's all. Nothing more than that. You people get really sensitive when you think others are criticizing you.

(6) Camping: I really, really WANT to like camping. And I hate to say it, but I think I would like camping if I were doing it myself. This isn't anything against my family or anyone else with whom I'm likely to find myself sleeping in a tent. It's just that I think I would enjoy the experience much more if there was no one else, you know, there with me. Which is why the idea of a multi-person two-week camping trip to Yellowstone does nothing for me, but the idea of walking the entire Appalachian Trail and sleeping outside every night seems awesome. But as always, that's just me.

I don't get the man flu because no one would take care of me

And I don't say that as a knock on Terry. She simply has too much going on in her life to nurse me back to health when I have a cold or something.

So I either choose not to acknowledge when I'm sick, or else I just take care of myself without much help from anyone else. And it's fine. Seriously, I've very rarely in my life been so sick that I couldn't get up and get myself a glass of water or some food or whatever.

If I happen to miss a day or two of work, I inevitably go back too early and delay my recovery.

Why? For one simple reason: I cannot stand being sick. Not from an oh-it-makes-me-feel-so-bad perspective but from an it-makes-me-extremely-angry perspective. I hate, hate, hate being sick. And I'm so anxious to get back to my routine that it probably keeps me from getting better.

Just as Terry doesn't have time to take care of me, I don't have time to be sick. I have stuff to do. Getting the flu is not part of the plan. Therefore, when it does come, it makes me mad because it disrupts my carefully crafted daily schedule.

I simply cannot tolerate being sick, and honestly, I don't like the idea of someone else having to take time out of their day to take care of me. So I avoid sickness – or at least I avoid admitting I'm sick – at all costs.

I realize this doesn't play into stereotypes about men, and that giving others the chance to serve you is actually a good thing to do, especially if they really, really WANT to serve you.

Too bad. Scotty ain't got time for that. That tickle in my throat? It's nothing. Those stomach pains? Just gas. The blood pouring out of my nose? Only a flesh wound.

I AM NOT SICK, DO YOU HEAR ME? I AM NOT SICK!

When you're 46 years old and going back to school

I think I've mentioned here the fact that I always wanted a graduate degree but never got around to earning one. Against the advice of my dad, after I earned my B.A. from John Carroll University in May 1992, I got as far away from classrooms as I could. After nearly a year as a full-time sports journalist and a full-time student, I was burned out both mentally and physically.

I figured, "Why bother? I'm going to be a sports writer for the rest of my life."

Which of course did not happen, because long-term plans rarely work out the way you assume they will.

Over the course of time I came to the conclusion that I needed a "real" 9-to-5 job, and eventually I got into PR and marketing. It's a very rewarding career and one that has paid the bills for my family for several years now.

In the back of my mind, though, I feel I should have gotten that master's degree. I've come close to starting a few times, but the whole not-enough-hours-in-the-day syndrome has gotten in the way every time and I shut it down.

But not anymore. Beginning next week, I will officially return to the ranks of the matriculated as I begin online coursework toward that elusive advanced diploma. It's a mouthful to say, but I'll be pursuing a Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication with a concentration in Public Relations from Kent State University.

If people ask, I just say I'm going for "a master's in PR from Kent State."

As I said, it's an online program. The whole thing. Welcome to the 21st century.

As I understand it, each week the professor teaching whatever class I'm taking (I only have room in my schedule to take one class at a time) will post the material for that week and required reading online. Then, by Thursday I'll be expected to engage in some sort of virtual class discussion. Each week ends with a paper or other assignment due on Sunday.

Then the whole thing starts again on Monday.

Each course is seven weeks long, and I have to take 12 of them to earn the degree. With breaks and everything, that means I should get the master's in the spring of 2018.

IF everything goes as planned, of course, which as we've seen above very often doesn't happen.

But that's the idea.

I'm intrigued by this concept of asynchronous online learning. I don't have to "attend" class at any set time; rather, I can adapt the reading and other coursework to my family and work schedules. I won't be getting much sleep either way, of course, but the flexibility of the whole thing appealed to me.

Now let's see whether I actually learn anything. This will be an interesting experiment in teaching that old dog those new tricks.

My loyalty will always lie with John Carroll, but for the next couple of years I guess I get to be a Kent State Golden Flash, too. Which my daughter Chloe, a University of Akron student, will not like. Akron and Kent are fierce rivals.

In the real world, that is. In the virtual world, everyone gets along and sings Kumbaya.

At least that's what I'll tell Chloe.

I don't want to harp on this losing weight thing, but if you're someone who needs to do it, here's one hugely important thing you should know

I feel like I've mined Weight Watchers, weight loss and general health topics for all they're worth when it comes to blog material over the last few years. And I honestly wasn't looking to write about it anymore, but something occurred to me that I think is important for people to know.

First off, please know the last thing I want to do is to discourage anyone. Weight loss and maintenance is NOT an impossible dream. You can absolutely do it, and I don't mean that in a fake inspirational way. You really can.

But there's a cold truth that has to be faced.

If you're going to put your body into pound-shedding mode, you of course have to eat less than you are now and likely move more than you do now.

You already knew that.

What you may not know, if you've never done the weight loss thing successfully, is what that means in practicality. It means you're going to want to eat something that you used to eat all the time, and you're going to have to say no.

Then you're going to have to do that again, probably an hour or two later.

Then you're going to have to do it again the next day. And the next. And the next.

For the rest of your life. Or until you give up and decide you didn't mind being overweight.

Because for most people, those are your only two choices.

Again, I'm not here to discourage you. You will be amazed at the capacity you have to make the correct food choices, and to do it again and again. I don't care who you are, you can do it.

But it takes a willingness to change your thinking, both about food and about yourself. And about the things that make you feel good and get you through the day.

It takes the ability to understand the worth of health, and of feeling and looking good, over the momentary pleasure of that chocolate cake. You can and should still have that cake on occasion, but in reasonable portions. And sometimes not eating the cake at all is easier than trying to confine yourself to a single small slice.

The point is, you will face a hard reality, and you will face it continuously. How you react to that reality and the choices you make in those moments will define whether or not your weight loss and weight maintenance will be successful.

If you acknowledge now the difficulty of doing the right thing, and you still make up your mind to say "It doesn't matter how tough it may seem, I'm going to lose the weight once and for all," you will be successful. I guarantee it.

It's a mental game, and one you can win.

So go do it. Seriously, go do it. I finally did, and it has changed the game for me in many ways. The same will happen to you, too.

I just thought you should know.

Let's do the iPod Shuffle again because it really is fun

My good buddy John Bryndal (who, as you can tell from his name, lives in Japan) suggested we resurrect the blog's periodic iPod Shuffle game because it's always interesting to see what people have in their music libraries.

The rules are simple: Just put your iPod or other music-playing device into its respective random/shuffle mode and report back on the first five songs that come up. You must be 100% honest as to the five songs that play, no matter what they are. In no way should you be ashamed of the fact that the first three tunes in your queue are by Wham!, Vanilla Ice and Spandau Ballet.

You are encouraged to respond either in the comments here on the blog itself or, if you access the blog this way, on Facebook. Either is fine.

I'll go first. Here's what randomly comes up on my iPhone:

(1) "All Will Be Well" - Gabe Dixon Band
One of the things I love about Spotify is the automatically generated "Discover Weekly" playlist, which every Monday presents you with a new list of songs you might like based on your previous listening. That's how I discovered this tune, which I can't stop listening to. I'm glad it came up first.

(2) "I Ran" - A Flock of Seagulls
Did you ever see that show that used to air on VH1 called "Bands Reunited?" They would run around trying to get old 80s bands back together to play a one-off concert after years of being apart. Some sounded better than others. The Flock sounded...OK in their reunion concert. They definitely didn't have the same hair. Anyway, this is such a great tune. My friend Mel loved, loved, loved A Flock of Seagulls.

(3) "New Mexico" - Billy Joel
I have always been a big Billy Joel fan. Back in the 70s and early 80s when he had hair, he looked strangely like a less muscular version of Sylvester Stallone. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but I always thought it was funny. Anyway, this is a never-released demo tune of his that I greatly enjoy.

(4) "Talkin'" - Najee
Very cool, early 90s funk/jazz. I wish I could play tenor saxophone like Najee does on this song.

(5) "Dear Prudence" - The Beatles
This song will forever make me think of my daughter Elissa. My little Prudence.