Archive for category Fatherhood
The Christmas Tree Train
Dec 9
Fixing the wall
Aug 22
Almost 4 years after buying this house, I finally decided to patch that hole behind the front door the movers made.
I love having a little helper around!
It’s one of those clichés you hear often and it doesn’t register, but it happens more often than you think–your child wants to do everything you do. It’s great when it’s things like wiping his mouth during dinner, or saying thank you, but they pick up on the not-so-desirable things as well. You want your kid to grow up to be good person; you want them to be generous and caring–the kind of person you would admire. But if they emulate everything you do, then it is your responsibility to be that person. Teach by practicing.
I struggle with not judging people, especially when it comes to parenting. But every now and then I see something that just sticks with me. The following are a couple of stores that stick out the most.
The Dog Toy Thief
Max at the camp site, the day after we adopted him
I wanted to take him home but we lived in an apartment and already had two dogs and two cats. He looked bored so I picked up an air dog toy for him while I was in the store and played with him for a few minutes before headed out. A little girl who had come to the store with her mom was playing with him and I thought well, maybe they will take him home. About five minutes after leaving I changed my mind about adopting him and turned around. We started filling out the adoption paperwork when I noticed his toy was gone. I went inside the store and saw the little girl’s mom walking around with it. When I asked her about it, she said it was her daughter’s. The daughter turned around and said, no it’s not mine. The mom shushed her and said it was. Not only did she steal the toy from a homeless dog that had no other joy in his life, she was lying so she could keep it. What kind of example is that for her kid?
The Chicken Soup Lover
There is an all-you-can-eat soup and salad place by our house that we visit often. If you want to get a small cup of chicken for your salad, it’s an extra $0.75, but from time to time they have chicken soup. There was a family seated in the table next to us: mom, dad and three kids. The dad got up and brought back 16 bowls of chicken soup in a tray. It seemed odd but I figured maybe they had more people coming. A few minutes later I noticed he was pulling chicken out of each bowl, and leaving the rest there, and actually encouraging his kids to do the same.
There are lots of lessons that can be learned from situations like these, though most of them are not very nice. The lesson I try to learn out of it is to try to be (or at least act like) the person I’d want my child to be—in this case, it’s withholding judgment on other people.
Fail.
The Fruit Harvest
Jun 19
The first nectarine from the tree Jack and I planted together. It was delicious!
First Swim of the Season
Apr 28
It’s the two weeks a year in Houston the weather outside is perfect. Not a cloud in the sky. Cool enough to drive with your windows down, and you can mow the lawn at 2 in the afternoon without getting sticky. Not quite warm enough for swimming just yet, but we did it anyway. After the oh-shit-this-is-cold moment and before the oh-shit-I’m-really-cold moment, we had a splashing good time.
Bring on the summer!
Happiness is a Choice
Apr 27
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Sure, we all want to be happy, but do we really pursue happiness, or things we think will lead to happiness? The happiest people in the world are not necessarily the richest, or the healthiest. It’s not the ones with the nicest cars or the tightest abs. The happiest people are the ones who love what they have. The happiest people are the ones who choose to be that way.
There are tons of things to be happy about around you; you just have to make the choice to acknowledge them. You have to want to be happy.
“No shit,” you say. “Of course I want to be happy! But how can I be happy when my boss is a prick and I have no time to work out so I’m out of shape and my friends are jerks that blow me off and my wife doesn’t let me eat the stuff I like.”
Now I’m not the most positive person to be around–far from it. My self-deprecating humor and glass-is-half-empty view of the world is usually bums people out. I have enlightening moments from time to time when I realize that I have more stuff than I thought I’d ever have, more fun at my job than I thought I ever would, a better family than I thought I ever would–I should be a lot happier than I am right now. But the minute something insignificantly small doesn’t go my way, I’m back to saying everything sucks.
At home after a painful surgery and long recovery ahead, unable to walk, in a lot of pain--but the tail is still wagging
Happiness is a choice. You have to choose to be happy. Your kid gave you a hug this morning. The lady in the car at the stop sign said, “after you”. The guy in the elevator held the door open for you. There are plenty of reasons to smile and be happy. When you’re happy, you feel good. When you’re angry, you feel bad. Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But if it’s so obvious, why do you waste your time being angry?
I don’t usually talk like the magical character in a movie on the Oxygen network while inspirational music plays and the lead character vows to turn his life around–but in an effort to be more present during the couple of hours of time I get with my son every day, I decided things needed to change.
We’re going through a pretty stressful transition at my work right now–the kind of stuff you lay in bed thinking about in the middle of the night. On my way to work this morning, I decided every time I started to get stressed out, I was going to take a deep breath, smile, and think of my son. Every time I started getting angry about something someone did, I was going to think to myself, “man, he’s probably really stressed out–that sucks for him.” That’s all. Two very simple things. I tried it for one day, and the results were amazing. This was likely the most stressful day I’ve had at work in months, but this is also the least stressed I’ve been about work in months.
So I say again, happiness is a choice.
That jerk that cut you off probably just has to pee really bad. Your coworker is being a douche because he was up all night comforting his sick child.
Choose to be happy. Try it.
He doesn’t care how long you’ve been planning this trip, or how much money you’ve spent on it, or how much you’ve been looking forward to it–or even how much fun it can be if he gave it a chance. He doesn’t feel good and he wants you to know it.
He was too excited to go to sleep on time. It wasn’t quiet enough for him to sleep as long. And he woke up when he heard you getting up. He’s overtired and he wants you to know it.
Kicking, screaming, rolling on the ground.
> Jack, do you want to go see some dolphins?
>> AHHHH!!!!!
> How about whales?
>> AHHHHHHH!!!!
> You want a cookie?
>> …yeah
A moment later he’s holding a cookie way too large for him to carry. Another moment later, the cookie is broken into three pieces on the cobblestone, and he’s rolling on the ground next to it
> It’s okay! Daddy will get you another one! Lets go pick another one out from the bakery!
Repeat.
Been at the park an hour now, and you’ve made it about 200 yards. Three trips to the bakery. You finally make it to the dolphin feeding area. Does he want to feed them? Nah. Does he even want to see them? Nah. He’s thirsty and he doesn’t want any of the drinks you have with you. None of the food you have with you either. The only place that’s open nearby is the bakery. So your wife walks him around while you make yet another trip to the bakery. 15 minutes and $11 later, you’re back with frozen lemonade in a souvenir cup. You wouldn’t dream of giving him anything this sugary in real life, but hey, it’s vacation!
Screaming continues, in between gulps.
> Do you want to walk?
>> WAH!!
> Do you want daddy to carry you?
>> WAH!!
> Do you want mommy to carry you?
>> WAH!!
> Do you want to sit in the stroller?
>> WAH!!
Starting to get frustrated
> Do you want to go back to the hotel?
>> WAH!!
> Do you want to go back home?
>> WAH!!
> Another cookie?
>> WAH!!
> Something else to eat?
>> WAH!!
Getting desperate
> Play with daddy’s wallet?
>> WAH!!
> Daddy’s phone?
>> WAH!!
> Daddy’s camera?
>> WAH!!
> Anything, anything at all to make you feel better, buddy!
He’s turning red. His face is covered in tears, snot and cookie crumbs.
Oh man, you’re that family in the park now! You know, the one you’ve walked by shaking your head, thinking, “that’s just bad parenting.” Other families walking by glare at you as they judge you. Some share a sympathetic “been there before” look, but the rest just shake their head.
“Oh man, I’m so glad you’re not acting like that!” you hear one mom tell her kid, “that kid is not a happy camper!”
Mowing the overgrown backyard is sounding good right about how. Heck, you’d rather be sitting at the sticker shop waiting for them to do that overdue inspection on your wife’s car that you’ve been putting off, right about now. Or finishing that wiring job in the study. Or even cleaning the garage. *shudder*
Finally, your wife steps in and offers the kid nursies. He agrees, and for the first time in over an hour, the kid is finally quiet. He’s calming down. You can feel his heart rate slowing down.
Breasts. To think you liked those things before you had a baby–you had no idea how often they’d save your butt. Your relief soon turns to horror when you think about what you’ll do when he’s too old to breastfeed. The glass is always half empty for you, isn’t it? Live in the now, dumb ass!
Anyway, twenty minutes go by and your little tyke is feeling a lot better now. Not his usual playful self by any means, but a whole lot better.
So you go play in the tubes, and you go play in the water, and you go watch a show with whales and dolphins. It’s only a fraction of what you hoped to do, but you have a damn good time doing it. You drive back to your hotel and he takes a nap with mama, while you head to the bar, having learned some very valuable lessons:
- you haven’t seen it all
- you were too hasty to label people as “bad parents” before
- breasts are awesome
Good times.
Living in houses with central heating and cooling, sleeping on beds with adjustable firmness, driving cars with sixteen cup holders on roads paved to perfection, it is so easy for us to forget that the standard of living we consider so normal is above and beyond what people in many other parts of the world can even imagine. We are bombarded with news of things that are going wrong around the world so much that it’s difficult to fully comprehend what it is we’re hearing. Everybody does it and I’m no different.
Every now and then, though, I hear or read something that gets me right in the gut. One such story was what I heard on the radio this morning. A Yemeni man who was arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay in 2004. Okay, he was probably a bad man and I don’t really have a lot of sympathy for him. While he was gone, his father, mother, two sons and an uncle died. Okay, feeling a little bit bad for him now, but eh, he’s a bad man. But then they said something that has been haunting me all day:
Hila’s two young sons died when a grenade they were playing with exploded.
Wow. Here I am, thinking maybe I’m failing as a father because my 26-month old son has a hard time recognizing the letter “R”, and these boys were playing with a grenade. And died. Can you imagine the grief he must have felt when he found out? Or his wife’s grief, or the grief of the rest of the family.
It wasn’t till I became a father that I fully realized that whatever our differences, we all love our children.
My Boys Can Swim
Jan 18
When my son was around four months old, we went to the Right Start in Rice Village to buy a new car seat. Parking’s usually hard to find there on weekends so we had to park a couple of blocks away from the baby store. I strapped Jack in his stroller and we walked over to the store. The sales lady at the store was doing her schpeel about safety, features, etc, when Jack started getting a little antsy, so I absentmindedly took him out of the stroller, picked him up, and continued listening to her. We picked the one we wanted, and continued looking around the store. After what seemed like a pretty long time, I felt some wetness on my arm. It was then that I realized that the reason Jack was being antsy was because he had a diaper blowout, and his poop had leaked out. all. over. the. place. In his stroller, and on my shirt.
Okay, pretty gross, but need to focus on the task at hand and clean him up. Oh crap, his diaper bag is in the car. 2 blocks away. Damnit. So I hand the baby to my wife so she can go clean him up in the bathroom while I walk to the car. Covered in poo. And it starts raining. Perfect.
Ten minutes later, I’m back at the store covered in poo and drenched from the rain, with the diaper bag. So I put on a new onesie on the baby, that’s been chilling in nothing but a diaper while I was out (because apparently this baby store didn’t sell baby clothes–it’s out of business now, go figure) while my wife goes over to the store next door to get me a new shirt.
She went to three different stores and the only men’s shirt she could find was an XXL blue t-shirt with a picture of a sperm cell on it, with the words “My Boys Can Swim”. Perfect.
Lessons learned:
- If you’re at Right Start and your kid has a diaper blowout and poop is dripping out of it and on to you and one of the employees there sees this happening and knows that you don’t know this, they won’t tell you
- There are people who will make a product even if the only way someone would buy it is if they were covered in poop and there were no other shirts
- When you put a diaper on your kid, make sure the velcro is on the fuzzy part
Don’t Tattoo Your Kids
Jan 16
also, it's bright when the sun is out
Every now and then I hear something and go, seriously? Someone needed to be told that? But then I read a headline like “Georgia parents defend giving kids tattoos“, and it makes those stupid “Slippery When Wet” traffic signs don’t seem like such a bad idea.
The short version of the story is, a man and his wife both have tattoos, and apparently their kids (ages 10-17) liked them, so they got them tattoos too. It’s kinda like when your kid keeps wanting to eat out of your bowl so you get him a bowl of his own. Same logic, only with something that will stay with the kid for the rest of his life.
Now I’m not one of those nuts that think tattoos are evil, or that getting one guarantees a one way ticket to hell, or anything moronic of that sort. I’ve got a tattoo of my wife’s name and see myself getting another one in the near future. But seriously, getting a 10-year old a tattoo? That’s a little extreme. It’s illegal for a minor to get a tattoo because they are most likely not capable of understanding the repercussions of a decision that will affect the rest of their lives. Hell, most adults aren’t even capable of that!
A few years ago I worked at a cosmetic surgeon’s office while covering for a coworker, and I saw more dysfunctional people in two days than I normally do in two years. Again, not saying cosmetic surgery is wrong, but many of the people who get it could use a good head examination. My favorite was the lady with the unnaturally tight face who brought her 13 year old daughter in for collagen injections. Seriously, good job ensuring your kid will need therapy for the rest of her life.
This is what happens when you don’t pay teachers well–you get a population riddled with morons.
