Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Dylan: Take them to homeless shelters to serve food, to animal shelters to walk dogs or pet cats or whatever’s needed, and visit your parents so they know where they come from.
Loudon: Keep up on any and all social media platforms they use. Educate yourself.
Chris: Teach them to throw a ball really hard. All of them, any of ’em, just do it.
Aubrey: Make sure you tell them something you love about them every day. Tell them you love their brain, their big kind heart, or their savage sense of humor. Love the whole kid unconditionally.
Evan: Instill in your children the desire to serve their community so they can be part of something bigger than their own family.
Rick: Explain the importance of putting half of any money they get into a savings account. They can use half for fun, but the rest goes into the bank. Make it a habit.
Dane: Get them a pet and have them care for that animal and be responsible for its well-being and happiness. Instilling stewardship over something weaker teaches life lessons about how to never be a bully, how to stand up for the rights of others and be a champion for those who have no voice.
Jory: First, be kind, always, and remember to take a nap if you possibly can. Sam?
Sam: What?
Jory: It’s your turn.
Sam: I did this already.
Jory: What?
Sam: You had a question a while back about sayings that you have in your home—I gave out parenting advice then.
Jory: Do it again, please.
Sam: Fine. Head on a swivel. Your kid walks outside, they should have their head up, looking around so they’re never caught unprepared.
Fallon: Oh, this is actual—
Sam: Trust, but verify.
Fallon: I don’t—
Sam: Meaning that it’s okay to go through your kids’ rooms to look for drugs or to be in their phone looking for anything strange, because yes, as a parent, you trust them, but that trust must also be verified. Inspect what you expect, as it were.
Fallon: Okay.
Sam: Remember, you’re a parent, not a friend. If you’re lucky, that’ll come later, but don’t rush it. Right now, you only have one job.
Jory: Okay. That’s a wrap on the questions, people. Who wants chili?
And for all my column readers, you have a wonderful rest of February and I’ll talk to you in March! Stay snuggly.
MARCH 2019
Hello, all, Jory Harcourt here, and welcome to He Said, he said for March 2019. I had recipes to give you, and a friend of mine just found this amazing new online bakery that ships right to your door, but sadly…all has been derailed because the lord of the manor has been sick.
I only call Sam Kage by that particular title when he comes down with some kind of bug, because it’s the only time he acts like it’s his world and the rest of us are just sucking up his oxygen. And he doesn’t mean to, it’s just—he shuts down, and this is when his normally sunny disposition flies out the window.
On day one he came home from work around seven, and as soon as he stepped into the kitchen, I wanted to disinfect him.
“You’re sick,” I pronounced.
His glare should have stopped my heart with how dark it was. “I am not sick,” he croaked out, coughing for good measure.
“You’re gray,” I told him.
“You’re gray,” was his brilliant comeback.
“You look flushed, too.”
“Which is it, flushed or gray? Can’t be both.”
He wanted to fight. He was just spoiling for it, because he hated, more than anything, to be sick. The only thing worse was being told he was sick.
“Maybe you should go upstairs, take a shower, and afterwards I’ll bring you up some dinner and meds.”
“I hate pills.”
“Yes, dear, I’m aware.”
The glare had been upgraded to an all-out scowl.
“Just go already.”
There were things mumbled then, about me, about me being bossy and mean-tempered, which were not kind. And they were lies. Everyone who knows me, knows I’m a frickin’ delight.
I sent my daughter up with chicken noodle soup—homemade, from her grandmother, the man in question’s mother—that I kept in the freezer for just such an occasion.
Hannah came back downstairs, looking as disgruntled as her father with the entire tray untouched, banging it down on the counter before she growled.
“Trouble?” I asked cheerfully.
“He’s a foul fiend from hell,” she apprised me. “He says he wants Chinese.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I think he’s ordering it now.”
I took the stairs in twos and was there, beside our bed, in moments.
“I can’t taste anything,” he said, sniffling, sounding even more nasally than he had when he came home. “If I get extra spicy doodles, I can actually taste it.”
“Doodles?” I teased him, because really, he was so cute.
“Don’t be funny, Jory,” he warned me, “I could die from this.”
It was a bit dramatic for a Tuesday.
Hot and sour soup and Mongolian beef ordered at explode-your-brain hot was a good compromise, and I gave him coconut water and regular water, some B12 and vitamin C and Nyquil, that, because he has such a virgin system—the only part of him that can be described that way—it zipped through him and knocked him out. When I woke up in the night and checked his head, he was burning up. I made him get up, get in the shower to cool down, and then gave him Tylenol and spent the next few hours covering him in cool compresses.