MeSoFun Blog

Megdoll, far left, and Dolleen, far right, were 2 years old and an infant when I helped take care of them. *Sigh* People occasionally ask me to write a blog about them. For a writer, this is similar to when people ask a funny person to say something funny. Just do it! Say something! Something. The Cousins are all taller but not much has changed. But when Dolleen, a child I practically delivered with my own two hands (sarcasm) asked me to write something about her, I took the bait. The cousins are always asking me to pick a favorite. There are five cousins on my mom's side and I love them all equally. But sometimes I like one more than another. The Five Cousins are (practically) age 16 to (practically) 21. Without exception, I have changed all of their diapers and fed all of them from a bottle. I love them all the same. But at some point, friends become more important than your family. That point is roughly age 14 and continues until roughly age 17. At some point, they stop sending ...

People still call newspapers with random questions. But in addition to killing classified advertising, the Internet has finished off many of those callers. The calls trickle in on a Saturday afternoon. "What channel is the BYU football game on?" callers would ask in Salt Lake City. It's unclear why someone would call a newspaper and not a television station with this question. The calls now are mostly for other departments. People call with complaints about their newspaper delivery or want to know how to place a classified ad. Sometimes, a reader has a complaint about a story. At least they're still reading. Thirteen years ago, The Valley News in Lebanon, New Hampshire, regularly got calls at all hours. People would call from bars with sports questions. "What was the Pittsburgh Pirates starting rotation the year they won the World Series in the 1970s?" Because people at newspapers know that kind of thing off the top of their heads. Then there were the regula...

The gingerbread house is made of styrafoam, for the record. I'm not that talented.  Forming a relationship with a kid is easy compared to an adult. Step 1: Be genuinely interested in the kid. Step 2: Do what the kid wants to do. Step 3: Besties for life! A handy guide for meeting adults: Step 1: Introduce yourself and immediately acknowledge you are terrible with names. Step 2: Ask superficial questions. Step 3: Search awkwardly for common ground. Step 4: Feign an excuse to leave the conversation. How to keep the kids entertained at lunch time: Selfies. When my aunts were popping out kids in the mid-1990s, I was worried about whether their kids were going to like me. They're in their late teens and early 20s now and they're still calling me. Those early bonding sessions/baby sitting sessions paid off with unusually tight relationships in adulthood. Still, I worried a little about being an uncle. The Wife's brothers and sisters-in-law began having kids a few years ago an...