Ok, my son and I have been busy being guys with the wife and mom away for work. However, that has meant I’ve been busy as Dad putting in overtime as a temporary single parent. I hate to say this, but I may not be able to talk about our time together until the Mom returns. I gotta cook, clean, cut the lawn, watch children shows on TV, do the laundry, teach the boy to play ball, praise, discipline, etc.

I’m one tired Dad. I had not realized just how much a Mom and Dad in the same house play tag team…one spending time with the child and the other getting chores done. My hats off to those genuine single parents that can pull it off!

Karen, my wife, has left me and my two-and-a-half year old son. Are you surprised? Well, before the rumors start-up and Karen’s good reputation goes south…she’s coming back in two weeks. Karen had to do some traveling for work and didn’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Thanks to the cell phone world we live in she has been able to call us each day. All this is require of me is putting Logan on the speaker phone so he is able to brief is Momma on each day’s activities.

Logan and I are spending the time without a woman in the house to make it a man’s world. You can be assured this manly point of view we have adopted for our home will also be noticed here at Like that Idea. For the next two weeks you can expect to see the ideas that only a Dad and son can dream up to be presented here. For now, though Logan and I will have to go. You see, we have been busy doing yard work. We have had a gorgeous weekend here in Sioux Falls, SD and the days have been full of activity that it it finally time for us to rest. Logan is already out on the deck and ready for me to bring out the six pack of fruit juice I promised. By the time we’re done with our drinking, it should become one very wild Sunday evening here at our little bachelor pad.

Oh, and one last thing. Please make sure nobody mentions to Karen about the dirty dishes in the sink. We don’t consider it so much of a guy thing to leave dirty dishes in the sink. No, not at all. Instead, we equate the dirty dishes in the sink as our little science project! Ha, at least Logan and I find humor in that. Ok, everyone have a good work week!

We remember a time when bad children were just that, bad children. Here in the United States where we tend to take things to the extreme. Children are no longer considered misbehaving but considered guilty, by some school officials, of criminal behavior. Time is too short for us to truly comment about these “zero tolerance” policies except to say that they seem more like an excuse for those in charge to do “zero thinking”.

Regardless, we are glad to see there is some justice in the world. The following is an excerpt from an AP story posted at CBS News:

The family of a third-grader who was handcuffed and jailed after misbehaving at school will receive $221,000 from the city and its insurer to settle a lawsuit.

Jerry Trujillo, then 8, was sent the school counselor’s office after he hit another child with a basketball in August 2004, his mother said. The juvenile citation for disorderly conduct said Jerry then “got out of control and refused to go back to class.”

After police were summoned, Jerry was booked into the city jail, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and placed in a holding cell while adult inmates in a nearby cell taunted him, according to the lawsuit.