A Fine Farewell

It's been 179 days, or apparently 257,760 minutes since my last post. Since then a lot has changed and a lot is still the same. Some of it good and some bad and some of it neither here nor there. If that's not colloquial enough for you then I don't know what is. Why has it been so long since I last posted? Mostly laziness, since lack of subject matter would be an impossibility. I just lost interest. I needed this blog to be therapeutic, but it was never enough to simply get my thoughts onto the screen. So this is my final post and I plan to make it an open one and a good one.

Parenting has gotten tough, really tough.

A mash-up of the boys being in stages that drive me up a wall, one constantly pushing established boundaries while attempting to manipulate the Mrs and I and the other constantly testing boundaries yet to be set while rocking the terrible twos tantrum train like a champ. Combine that with me questioning if this stay at home parenting gig is still for me and you have yourself some really awesome FML soup.

The Mrs and I decided four years ago that me staying at home was the best decision for our family. I was already having to call out of work or to leave work early regularly to pick up the Little Man from day care and that was causing a riff between my boss and I, so I started working from home as a contractor. A year later, I had had enough of being tied to a work phone that seemed to ring only when I needed to be paying attention to my son, so I dropped traditional work altogether for full time stay-at-home dad-dom.

Like anything, I have had some ups and downs in this role. And like a typical man, I tend to internalize all of the struggles. Even when with other dads, I often blow off how hard something is for me and joke about it as if my laughing it off would make it all better and I was over it. But I never do just get over it. It's just building stress. That coupled with the fact that it is often just the boys and I from breakfast to bed time, as the Mrs can be working 80-100 hour work weeks with many of those hours falling over the weekends (Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be lawyers…I think that's how that old Willie Nelson song goes), was making things even more difficult. It stopped feeling like I was a stay-at-home parent and I had now become a single parent. I have to play the role of the fun dad as well as the judge, jury and discipliner when it's needed, which seems to be the vast majority the time. Then when I share my parenting frustrations with the Mrs, she often sees some sort of triviality in whatever event it is I am upset over. And that's no fault of hers. Hearing that the boys were trashing their room instead of napping, or that our two year old has been nothing but disagreeable or that our four year old has been complaining about being bored all day as I cleaned the house; none of this comes off as crimes punishable by infinite timeouts. Unless, of course, you are dealing with it all of the time.

So like anyone unhappy with where they have found themselves lately, I've fallen into a self-pitying funk. Yup, the best kind. Oh, and because I know you are probably saying "well the other option is to buck up and get over it, that's an option too, ya'know", you're right, but that's not what I did. Sometimes you don the rally cap and will your team to turn it around and sometimes your team is so far behind that you just get drunk up in the stands and say 'fuck it.'

But before you get on my case here or stop reading. There is light at the end of the tunnel, or at least I think there is.

I just read this eye-opening article in The Atlantic, The Overprotected Kid by Hanna Rosin. The basis of the piece is centered around this new type of playground (though not in the sense you are thinking) in Wrexham, Wales (that's the UK for some of you geographically challenged). It's called The Land and it apparently looks more like a junk yard than a place I would take my kids for a fun morning or afternoon. It is filled with discarded or donated…well…crap. Pallets, mattresses, couches, shopping carts, tires, shipping containers, an open fire pit (yes…I said fire) and a myriad of other things you would not typically find at a place you would label a "playground." But at it's heart the article is about how parenting has changed since, you guessed it, we were kids.

As the article's title implies, children are overprotected by their parents today. Parents constantly trying to ensure their child's safety at every turn and through all of life's obstacles. Furthermore, Hanna Rosin, goes on to suggest that we as parents have also tried to fill our kids lives with not just safety but with constant entertainment from extra curricular activities, endless supervised play dates and of course TV time. She also makes correlations, through research, that all of this 'overprotection' is adversely affecting our kids. They are becoming less creative, less independent and less confident than we were when we were their age.

I won't tell you that I bought into this article hook, line and sinker. For at least half of the article I thought that Ms Rosin was off her rocker, one of those parents that lets their kids do whatever, whererever and whenever. The type of parent I can't stand. But as my background thoughts began to churn and I read on (it's a long article and I'm a slow reader), I started seeing more to this than just what a 'Return to Thunderdome'-esque park would mean for our kids. I was able to boil down my current state of parental dismay to two primary problems, an over controlling personality and my assumption that the best parent is the parent who does the most with their kids and is physically involved in every little activity from the time the kids eyes open just enough to crack the sandman's nightly delivery until the time their little heads hit the pillow for bedtime.

Then I started thinking back to my own childhood.

Since my parents divorced when I was three, my mom has raised me as a single parent. Going back to kindergarten, I have always had a lot of freedom. I remember when we lived in Massachusetts, I would just disappear with other neighborhood kids into the woods behind the house to set up kingdoms and fight dragons in places I know my mom never saw. When we moved to Arizona, I remember riding my bike to school with a friend in 1st grade (it was maybe a mile or two away from the house). And not just school, we rode everywhere, in and out of our neighborhood. We used to go over into these small tree groves on these farms and set up forts with whatever junk we could find (I think we may have messed up some homeless peoples 'tents' on an occasion or two, thinking that this stuff was just there by chance). We played stick ball with real sticks and if you wanted a shorter bat, then you broke the stick (which I did once only to launch the half I wanted straight into my thigh and then used my tube sock…it was the 80s...as a tourniquet). We were wild, but so was every other kid in the neighborhood.

But the point of all of this is not the shenanigans I got into or that I knew it was time to come home when it was dark; but the fact that I had the freedom to do any of this at all. I don't recall my mom ever being stressed about the little things and maybe she just hid it well, but I don't think so. She worried about money and how we could afford things, but not about what I was doing, how I was doing it or when I would be done (unless of course it was schoolwork, but that's a whole other topic), she just let me be me.

When I thought about it, I realized that a lot of my frustrations with my own boys has been that I'm not only always overseeing their playtime, but I am often directing it and figuring out what we'll do next or signing the Little Man up for sports, lessons of some sort or camp. All of the moving parts and the fact that the outcome, often one of the boys being bored or getting hurt or simply fussing about not liking what I have set up, only infuriates me and leaves me with little patience for additional activities. Then I feel like a shitty dad and try to get through it only to be hit with another age appropriate tantrum and it all falls apart. I am not just overprotecting, but I am also over controlling, over assisting and over entertaining my boys. The kids are unhappy and unengaged while I am also unhappy and feeling ill-equipped to be a stay at home parent and sometimes a parent at all.

So in the interest of the scientific method, I am going to test this theory. I am going to work on letting go of my over controlling nature, letting my kids experience reasonable risk and their own self created play. I want to be less careful and more carefree. I want to be less involved but more immersed. And I want to be happy, and not just during that brief period of time in the morning before anything has happened.

I'm not sure what's going to happen. I've been this way for a long time, so change won't come easily. I've been working so hard on making my kids be who I think they should be or working on things I think they should know, and maybe I've lost us all in that asinine desire to have the best kids (whatever that is) instead of just having my kids who are already the best as they are. It's trite, I know, but it's true. I've gotten so wrapped up in the bullshit of my own mind that I have forgotten to appreciate my kids for the often tender, sometimes beastly, always curious, currently contrary and cool kids that they are. And while two days ago, if you had asked me if I would allow my kids in a place like Hanna Rosin describes of The Land I'd have told you 'no way in hell', but now…who knows? And while the title of my blog, To Live And Diaper, was meant as a joke, maybe that's just what I should be doing.

The Slow & Inevitable Death of Cool

I recently posted a picture to Facebook of my car with my newly purchased Yakima Skybox on the roof. A friend from college, who had just had his first child, commented that this was the slow and inevitable death of cool (thanks for an entry title, Brendan). It wasn't a remark on what others think of you, but more what your younger self might think of you or at least that's how I took it. He was right, in that once you have kids there is a certain youth and freedom that is lost, there is simply no escaping it. It got me thinking back to what my life was like before the Mrs and I had kids. Not just the usual stuff, such as never having to diaper anyone, the ins and outs of creating schedules you can live with and your child(ren) can sleep during or finding the right time and place to get frisky with your spouse that can last more than three minutes and without fear for being walked in on. No, I was thinking about some of the other specifics and some of the intangibles.

Tally: 100 cool points.

Before kids, I drove a manual Nissan Xterra. I loved that car. I remember when I was deciding whether to buy that car or to buy a Subaru Outback, a not so sage friend offered me some advice. He said that you're only going to be young once, so why get the glorified mom mobile? We scratched out crotches, chest bumped, grunted and then spit into a spittoon. Not really, but maybe we should have. The Xterra took us on some great adventures. It was even the car we drove our first son, the Little Man, home in. 

It was then that my thoughts on cars started shifting. I started to think that maybe an SUV wasn't the safest vehicle for kids. Then we got into an accident (with the Little Man in the car) and totaled the Xterra. We were all fine. She held up well in the accident and kept us safe. Suddenly, I needed a new car. Ironically (or maybe not so much), I bought a Subaru Outback...the glorified mom mobile...automatic...with two car seats...and the above mentioned Skybox. It's like I never even saw it coming. 

- 5 points for the car, - 4 points for the Skybox and - 1 point for the kids toys and books mess that is my backseat. 

Current tally: 90 cool points. 

In my BC life (before children), I used to go out, and not just on the weekends. Wednesday was just as good as Friday. Weekends were almost entirely spent at my friend's house on the boardwalk of South Mission Beach, San Diego: people watching, enjoying cheap beer, partaking in the ganja (marijuana, to you non-initiated), throwing horseshoes and jumping into the ocean just to bring my core temperature back down to comfortable. I rode my bike most of the time and carried some cash and my ID, that's it. Fundays weren't just for Sundays back then and they started at 10/11 AM and ended around 2/3 AM the next day, but not before a breakfast burrito was gobbled up before passing out falling asleep. If it was a weekday and you showed up to work with a little hangover, chances were that you weren't the only one, and if you were, you could just close your door. 

Now I get out for runs by 6:30/7 AM most mornings and I'm in bed by 10 PM. I stopped going to the beach, just too many issues: parking, drunks, nap times and now we live hours from any beach at all. If I was to smoke pot today, I'd probably just fall asleep, eat all the kid's Fig Newtons or have an anxiety attack...and perhaps all three. I haven't been to a party without kids, or not for kids, in almost three years (the Mrs and I went to one wedding and good times were had by all, but we paid for it dearly the next day). And my wallet is chock full of crap like kids shoes store/haircutters/frozen yogurt frequent buyer cards, all of our insurance cards and kids museum memberships. I look like I am carrying a brick in my front pocket. 

- 10 points for early mornings, + 5 points for healthier living, - 5 points for an overstuffed wallet.        

Current tally: 75 cool points.

I used to watch a lot of sports and the usual mix of major network sitcoms and dramas. I didn't watch a ton of TV though, mainly because I was usually out of the house. Now I am just as happy to watch House Hunters, Property Brothers, Ellen, This Old House or Chopped as I am to watch The Daily Show, Modern Family or Happy Endings all usually while folding laundry or cleaning up the living room. I might watch one game a week, but I usually have to DVR it, avoid Facebook for spoilers and watch it after the kids go to bed. Either that or I am reading a book, updating the blog or spending far too much time admiring friends on Facebook who are traveling abroad or just having a delicious meal in a not-so-kid-friendly establishment. I now find it weird not to see a crayon in pictures of dinner tables. Yep. I'm there.

TV is kind of a big thing these days. I know that TV is this big taboo in the parenting world. Some parents wear the merit badge of not owning a TV, some own TVs but don't allow their kids to watch any of it, some folks use the TV as a babysitter all the time and then there are those like me who let their kids watch some TV but not too much. I know every episode of Curious George, I know the secret words to open the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and I am starting to memorize lines from Wreck-It-Ralph. This past week at bed time, the Little Man exclaimed that he didn't like sleeping in his room anymore and that he didn't like his bed. So I stuck him in our guest room and shut the door. He wasn't happier with this situation either (the desired effect), and proceeded to try to sneak back to his room on several occasions. I warned him not to leave the room again, of course he did and so TV was banned for a week. It was awful for all of us. 

- 5 points for expansive knowledge of children's programming, -10 points for my love affair with HGTV/The Cooking Channel/The Food Network/Travel Channel, -3 points for watching DVR'd sports, -10 points for having to ban TV, + 10 points for limiting my kids TV time.

Current Tally: 62 points.

Travel used to be fun too. When we went to New Zealand in 2008, we took a sleeping pill and eight hours of the flight were gone *poof* just like that. A few cocktails, a light snack and the fourteen hour flight was over. When we planned travel it was where we really wanted to go. There was no thought of noise level, how large the rental car would be, was the furniture in the rental house white because we'll stain it, or had we checked out the list of "things to do with your kids in ______". You picked a place and you went. Voila! Even if you were a little under the weather, you took some cold meds, sucked it up, downed a drink and you had fun; rallying (i.e. if you're down, get your ass back up) was a term I took seriously and a skill I had honed over the years. You made a few playlists, read a book, did a crossword puzzle and maybe watched a movie on your computer to get through the flight. The things you didn't have were a lack of appreciation for the size of the bathroom on the plane (I never even noticed that there changing tables in the bathrooms, and now that I do, they are nearly useless as you can do the same thing on your lap) or a care for how clean or filthy the rest stop bathroom was just outside Anytown, USA on your way to Joeschmovington, USA.

Travel these days is a hassle. We have to schlep two car seats, up to four bags of luggage, a stroller, a  diaper bag, a pak'n'play, two blankies, a stuffed animal, snacks for the drive/flight, both iPads, a camera, bag of childrens medicines, Little Mans light up alarm clock and a random selection of small toys and books. Before we travel, the first thing I do is to load the iPad up with new content and usually a few full length films. If you haven't traveled with kids, the key is keeping them distracted. Obviously, the longer the better. And if something goes wrong with the iPad, then your iPhone better be the back up or some really great coloring books, toys, or snacks. Even then you are not guaranteed a peaceful adventure. 

When I flew back east in August with the boys by myself, the Little Man was taken care of as long as I could feed him and the iPad battery lasted on the flight. However, the Taz would not be so easily appeased. I was that guy on that flight. You know the one. I had the kid who would not stop screaming or crying except for occasional moments when he would take a bottle, eat a snack or if I let him crawl around on the floor (though having to be watchful as he kept trying to eat old food droppings). Otherwise it was pure hell. Of course it couldn't have been a nonstop flight, nope. We had to layover in Atlanta, thanks for nothing Delta, before getting on our final leg. Thankfully the people around me had a collective heart and literally gave me a round of applause when we reached the gate. And the kids aren't to blame. They're kids. I hate being confined to my seat, but at least I fully understand why and I can also order alcohol to get me through it. I dread travel these days. It's a love/hate relationship, but more to the latter than the prior, because even when you reach your destination, there is no sanctuary. Sure, the Mrs and I are planning a trip by ourselves, but that's for our 10 year wedding anniversary which is in three years. For now it's playgrounds, day trips, kids museums, high chairs and making sure we pencil in some nap time...that's how we travel these days.

- 15 points for the shear amount of luggage needed to travel, -10 points for our first sans kids adventure to be set almost six and a half year out from our last trip, +10 points for our tantrum diversionary pre planning, -5 points for getting applause for making it through a flight.

I'll be 35 this year. It's not old by any means, but it's old enough. I like to daydream sometimes that I would be out and about doing this and that if we didn't have kids, but the reality is that's just crazy talk. I'd be working full time, probably hating my job, saving for the day I would eventually have kids and probably getting caught up in the minutia. At this point in my life, I just wish that the bubble pod technology seen in the Jetsons was available today or that all cars came with an optional limo screen. I wouldn't use them that much. But alas, no technology or standard car option like that does exist. The slow and inevitable death of cool is upon me and so it goes. I listen to a lot of Paul Simon, particularly the older stuff. There is a great chorus in "That Was Your Mother" from the 1986 album, Graceland that sums it all up nicely:

"Well, that was your mother

And that was your father

Before you were born, dude,

When life was great.

You are the burden of my generation,

I sure do love you,

Let's get that straight"

Final Tally...who cares? I was never that cool anyways.

The Slippery Slope

March 13, 2010 was my first official day as a stay at home dad.  It was an exciting as well as a frightening change in my life.  I was used to going to an office everyday, talking with and sometimes getting chewed out by clients, chatting with co-workers and sitting in rush hour traffic to and from my workplace.  Suddenly, I was just getting up to feed the Big Guy (back then he was more of a little guy), hitting up the zoo, going to our Gymboree classes, trying out sign language for infants classes and going on hikes.  It was pretty great.  Sure I had some bad days, and the learning curve of taking care of the Big Guy full time and balancing responsibilities at home was steep for me, but overall I was having a great time.  After a few months I had a system.  Mondays we went to the grocery store.  Tuesdays I did laundry.  Wednesdays we had Gymboree.  Thursdays I cleaned the pool.  Fridays...well, those were mine, lunch at Station Tavern with a few beers while the Big Guy played in the tavern's playground.  I had it down.  I was the master of my domain.

Then came the Little Man.  Perhaps it was having the Mrs home for four months, maybe it was having two kids to look after thus doubling my parenting duties, maybe it was I was getting a touch of senioritis (a debilitating disease to high school and college seniors about 1-2 months prior to graduation which causes the infected to play video games, hang out with friends and avoid school work at all costs) and maybe it was a combination of all three.  Whatever it is, I haven't really gotten on a schedule.  My days are somewhat a bit of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants variety.  The Big Guy wants to go to the park, sure.  Some fellow SAHDs want to get together, I'm in.  There's a premiership soccer match on, let's watch that.  

There are some other factors too:  I am taking some photography classes and trying to start a family/couples photography business (you've seen my pictures here, if you like them then HIRE ME!), writing a blog and the Mrs has been working 12-18 hour days seven days a week for the past 2 1/2 months.  In addition to a few other factors which have come up recently, though I can't go into them just yet (I'll share those details in a few months - but no, it's not another kid.  Let me rephrase that, hell no, it's not another kid), I have been slacking in my duties at home.  

To give you a picture of my now:  I have a basket of laundry that hasn't been folded in five days,  I have a load of clothes in the dryer that has been done for 24 hours and hasn't been touched, I haven't picked up the dog poop in the backyard for four days, I haven't changed the bed sheets on our bed in three weeks, for three months our dining room has been filled with bags and boxes bound for Goodwill and I haven't showered in two days.  Luckily, we have a house cleaner who comes every other week - so we don't live in complete filth.  If you aren't slack jawed yet, then we should be hanging out.

The amazing part is that I don't actually feel like I am slacking, I feel that most days are fairly busy.  "Busy" is a term I use loosely, by the way.  I don't want to give the impression that I am crunching numbers, scanning documents and facilitating multi-billion dollar company mergers, I did mention I was a stay at home dad, right?  But I am changing diapers, giving baths, feeding two boys, getting in a workout, heading out on playdates, working on potty training (not me, the Big Guy...though some people may argue that I could use a refresher) and acting as a jungle gym/doctor's patient/horse/block builder for my boys.  It may not sound like a lot, but wrap all of that up in 12 hours and it's a full, full day.

I was at a friend's daughters first birthday a couple weekends ago.  While the Big Guy slowly warmed up to the crowd (these days he hides behind me and tucks his chin into his chest/turns his head away whenever anyone he is not entirely familiar with looks at him, however, this does not include strangers at the store, who he happily waves to and says "hello"...if you figure that out, let me know), I sat down outside and starting chatting with some guy who I never figured out the relation to the hosts as well as another SAHD.  The other SAHD was right in my shoes.  Grass on his lawn was looking more like a wavy field of golden wheat, laundry was backing up, dishes were done less frequently, and the house was a bit of a mess.  He had also just become a father x 2 in the past 3 months.  I felt relieved to know I wasn't alone.  We reminisced about our beautiful schedules from a year ago, we laughed about how easy just one child was and that we never quite appreciated it, and we agreed that two was enough.    

The other guy sitting there remarked how we would get the hang of it again soon.  He sounded so certain of it, it was not like he was trying to make small talk.  This guy was an Iowan dairy farmer, I don't think they do small talk there.  This guy works hours I don't ever want to be familiar with, is responsible for the livelihood of more living beings than I have friends on Facebook and yet he wishes he had more kids.  He told us we would regret not having more kids.  Are you nuts?!  Did I mention I was 180 minutes late, also known as three hours, to the birthday party?  I can't get to anything on time these days.  If I am 15 minutes late, that's early for me.  If we had another kid, I would never see anyone.  I would end up speaking like Curious George.  I would invest in stretchy pants and a matching Snuggie.  Babysitters would put us on the too many to sit list.  Things would not be good.  

I'm sure the dairy farmer is right.  I'm sure I will get the hang of this two kids things soon.  I may even show up (dare I say) on time to a few get togethers.  The laundry will get folded.  The dishes will get cleaned.  The bed sheets will get changed.  All will be right with the world again.  But I may just go another day without a shower.

       

Miss me? No, But I'm Happy To See You.

Scene:  Morning, at home in the kitchen.

The Mrs:  (walking over and kissing the boys and then me) Okay guys, I gotta go to work.  I love you.
The Big Guy:  Bye-bye Mama.  See you later.
The Little Man: ....
Me:  Adios.
The Mrs.:  It'd be nice if you just said: "I love you too."  It's like you don't miss me.
Me:  (smirking) Adios.

And...cue the hating.

I am well aware of how bad this sounds, I really am.  While I am not quite Kony, I am no where near Jesus either.  Some women, upon hearing these stories, have even remarked about how they could never be married to me; clearly their loss.  So am I in the middle?  Maybe.  I'd honestly like to think that I am a pretty good guy, a decent husband and a great dad.  But much like what the weather man says, you should probably take that with a grain of salt.

See, I grew up as a flight attendant's son (my mom, not my dad), my parents were divorced when I was 3 and I lived most of the year with my mom.  I'm not entirely sure how things worked early on, but I know when we left Connecticut after the divorce and moved to Massachusetts that I usually stayed with local neighborhood friends when my mom was away.  This was back in the day when being a flight attendant was still a pretty cool way to make a living.  When if you had seniority you got the interesting international flights while the more junior folks were stuck working the domestic routes.  So my mom would be away for several days at a time a few times a month.  This was before the days of iPhones,  FaceTime and Skype so when she was away, she was really away.

No matter where we moved to this was always the way it was.  I got used to my mom being away a lot.  It was no big deal, I'd see her in a few days and usually she'd bring me back a cool t-shirt from Turkey, Greece, Israel or sometimes even an autographed picture from a celebrity who had been on her flight that week (the two that stand out to me are Speech from Arrested Development and Mr. T...I think one of the guys from C+C Music Factory was one too, but I can't remember his name or even what songs they did). So hanging out with friends or after school sports was what I did, I really didn't have time to think about her being gone.  It was no big deal.

Which brings me to my point.  I don't miss my wife when she is at work.  I love it when she is around and I sometimes think it would be nice to have some help with the boys, but I don't miss her when she goes to work.  Much like my childhood, I am too busy with my day-to-day adventures with the boys to think about what she's up to or when she'll be home.  I know that to most of you that sounds like a terrible to thing to say, and when I told my mom about my idea for writing this post, she thought the same thing.  I told her that over the years I just got used to the person I lived with not being there all of the time, so missing people that I know will be home that afternoon or even in a few days seems unnatural to me.  Her words verbatim were "well, that's sad."  I don't think so though.  It's not like I had some pathetic childhood or anything.  Actually, my childhood was great.  It was just different from most people I know.  

Most people I know grew up in a two parent home where one or the other was always home for the them.  I know that was certainly the situation for the Mrs.  So I get it when she thinks I'm being rude or without emotion.  But it's like growing up eating a food that not a ton of people eat and when you try to share it with them they look at you like you're crazy or in some cases as if your face is covered in vomit.  At the end of the day, I don't expect the Mrs to understand where I am coming from.  I don't think she can, and similarly I don't understand why people miss each other when they're separated for a few hours of the day.  But to maintain my "decent" husband status I do send her flowers at the office occasionally with little notes from the boys and I.  See, I'm not all piss and vinegar.

So do you still hate me?

Don't answer that.