It's Been Real

I'm not a sappy guy.  In fact most people who know me might tell you I can be an asshole a little rough around the edges.  I'm no thug.  I just get queasy around emotional people.  I crack jokes and poke fun.  It's not meant to be mean, I just need to do something to break the discomfort (my own).  No, I am not one of those "guys don't cry" type of guys, I've cried while watching Extreme Home Makeover...so no "man" card here, to be fair I think they pump estrogen through the air waves.  But this move back to the east coast is not met with the same "get me the fuck out of here" mentality as when we left Virginia nine years ago (think Guillermo Diaz in Half Baked).

I'm getting all choked up here.

San Diego has been great to us.  We moved 3000 miles away from family and friends.  It was just me and the Mrs (back then she was just Ms.).  We found a dump of an apartment in Mission Beach, but it had a view of the ocean.  We were sold.

Nine months later we woke up to a skylight full of termites scratching to get out.  We left with them.  We found a better place in Pacific Beach.

What followed were drunken nights, bar crawls, the best pizza in all SoCal (Hoboken), late night destruction of breakfast burritos from the local establishment (Roberto's), adopting a bitchy kooky Australian Shepherd mutt, I took up playing golf again, the Ms' graduated from law school and eight years after our first date  I finally made the Ms a Mrs (apparently dating does not age like a fine wine, you have to buy the proverbial cow...and I am in no way calling my wife a cow - if I were to call her any animal it would be a baby sloth and we all know how cute they are...they make people cry).

Thank you.

Then we bought a house, with the help of the Mrs' folks.  We left the beach for a land known only as "east of the 5".  We (and by we, I mean I) became foodies and beer snobs.  We got a Golden Retriever.  We adopted two cats.  We had the Big Guy.  I got involved in triathlons and running half marathons (not competitively, have you seen my picture?).  We lost a beautiful person, friend, sister, daughter, wife, mother and aunt when the Mrs' mom passed away.  I became a stay at home Dad.  We had the Taz.  And I started my photography business.

Things.  Happened.  Here.

And this only covers the tip of the iceberg.  We made amazing friends.  We had an assortment of people making our life better from pet sitters to house cleaners, that we got to know all very well.  We took some great vacations.  We saw most of our friends get married.  We ate some fantastic food.  We drank a lot of beer...etc.

I know we'll have it better in North Carolina, but I know we've had it good, in fact, really good here.

It's a hundred degrees plus humidity back east today.  It's 75 here.  When the weather was frigid or insanely hot back east, I used to send obnoxious emails of overturned lawn chairs to friends on the east coast to show them that, as Californians, we were in the thick of it with them.

It's weird doing things here for the last time: taking the kids to the doctor, getting my haircut, playing Torrey Pines at local rates, hiring a babysitter, eating at various restaurants, visiting playgrounds, hanging out with the crew of Stay At Home Dads, going to the beach, watching the Padres suck again, etc...

Right now, the Big Guy has Vans (the shoes).  He looks like a little surfer in training.  The Taz, is well...the Taz - a loud, quick crawling tank of a boy.  I doubt we'll be back here in the next two or three  years.  But I wonder if when we do make it back, will the boys have slight southern accents?  Will the Big Guy remember all the places he fell down and scraped his knees as we drive by them, as he does now?  Will we have an insatiable hunger for a breakfast burrito as soon as we get off the plane?  Will we admire the postings of friends visiting In'N'Out?

In ten days from now, the boys and I will walk into the airport and get our one-way tickets to head home for the first time.  And as much as I will always consider Philadelphia home, San Diego has wormed it's way into that coveted call tag of places I call "home".  I am familiar with the nooks and crannies here.  I know the short cuts to just about everywhere.  If you come to San Diego, I can show you a great time and one that will make you want to move here.

I'm glad we have friends here to come back to and I look forward to bringing the boys back to show them the hospital they were born at, the home we lived in, the parks we played at, the restaurants we ate at, and the life we lived however many years ago.

You are probably wondering why I would leave then, right?  I guess I am getting old.  It's no longer about what's fun or exciting for me anymore.  Now I think of where my kids will go to school and what the quality of education will be there.  I think of how close can I be to my family who can help with the kids as well as watch them grow up.  And I think of how much the Mrs is working and how that translates to less time that we spend together as a family.  Add it all up and San Diego, as nice as it is, just isn't for us anymore.  The square peg, round hole issue.

So yes, it's kind of sad, or as people keep saying - bitter sweet.

San Diego, we bid you farewell.  We leave the "Hola, dudes"  for the "Hey ya'lls."  We leave the fish tacos for shrimp and grits.  And we leave the sunshine tax for potential heat stroke.  But we leave it all knowing we can come back.  Stay good San Diego, it's been real.

 

Do You See What I See?

Fortunately or unfortunately for my kids, I'm with them all day everyday and the camera is often with me. So the other day I decided to record the day.  For my kids sake, I left the lighting equipment at home (yup, I often use that on them when we're at home, they are not exactly the best models...but they are free).  I also wanted to make a time-lapse movie of something completely ordinary, so the Big Guy and I weeded the pool area (I've been a little neglectful of some of my duties lately...to be covered in my next post) and got this.

For whatever reason, this file is a lot jumpier and shorter than the original..ehhh, my first foray into time-lapse.

We hung out in the backyard while the Little Man napped.  We even watered the garden I can never grow (bit of a black thumb), and cleaned up the dog poop that I hadn't picked up in a week.  From there it was off to lunch with Papa who was in town.  Then some good ol'fashioned play time, bath time and then bed.  Here's what it all looked like, enjoy the story.

I know, I know...I have it rough.

We Are Still Our Father's Sons

Before I get started, I want to be clear that there was nothing scientific (not even a little shred) about this post.  I didn't confer with any of my fellow SAHDs.  I didn't do any internet research.  I didn't check out books on the topic either (does anyone use the library anymore?  My local post office closed but yet the library is open and there is always a line out there at 8 AM on Saturdays).  This is simply my view of things, no more and no less (okay...maybe a little less).  Now that I have finished my little disclaimer I feel that I can hear you eagerly chattering "what's this all about?  Tell us!  Tell us!  Tell us!"  Since you asked so nicely, I will oblige you.  Today's topic is...drumroll please...seriously, drumroll...thank you...SAHD Groups and more specifically why they are the red headed step child to their counterpart, SAHM Groups (I think you're smart enough to figure that acronym out).

Two years ago, when the Mrs and I decided that having me stay at home with the Big Guy was the way to go, I knew that I had to find some sort of group.  Some fellow parents to share stories, tips and simply some adult time.  I began my internet search and not surprisingly I found tons of SAHM groups.  They were meeting for lunch, meeting for play groups, meeting for movie night and of course the juggernaut of them all, they were meeting for exercise (the infamous Stroller Striders, like the Navy Seals of the SAHM hierarchy).  However, I didn't want to join a SAHM group.  In case you haven't read my quick bio, I'm a guy and I like guy stuff.  I realize that SAHM groups are not all frilly lace and tea parties, so keep the sexist card in your pocket.

I wanted to hang out with other dads.  I wanted to feel the camaraderie that only men can offer: the kick in your pants honesty when you're whining too much, the below the belt jokes that roll off the tongue just as easily as they roll off your back, the sports chatter and of course the banter about what a pain in the ass our wives and kids can be.  However, the wonderful inter web left little to be desired.  I found a couple of groups, sent in emails and heard nothing back.  I assumed that I must have come off as a miscreant and was not to be allowed into the SAHD pride (as in herd, not the gay variety - though I'm cool with the gay pride too, just don't approach me about it when I am leaving Target with a full cart and my two kids).  So I sort of gave up.  A year later, I would become part of a SAHD group by way of a random chat I had with another SAHD at a local eatery.

I was ecstatic, to say the least, to be a part of a group now...my own wolf pack if you will.  And while we met up a few times and the guys I met up with were good guys, I noticed that the email list was about 30 names long and only about five or so of the same guys ever showed up.  At my first meet up, I was told that these guys were the "core", but I just assumed that they had started the group or something to that affect.  Nope, "core" meant the only guys who ever show up or ever respond.  And since then, emails for meet ups have been sparse and the number of core members has been cut in half.  I think the main reason is that a couple of the guys had side jobs which have since graduated into near full time gigs, but they're gone nonetheless.

One of the common issues for the lack of communication was that invites were sent out and there were either no responses or all of the responses were saying they had other things going on.  So the emails stopped, yet I would run into some of these guys while I was out and about with the boys.  Some of the guys were out by themselves and some were actually out with moms.  What was everyone up to?  And I don't dismiss myself from the problem.  There were certainly plenty of times that the meet ups just didn't work with my schedule, I simply didn't want to take the boys to that place or maybe I had been there the day before.  But it was clear to me that there were really only one or two people tossing in meet up suggestions and even if you got a response that people were coming, the chance that they actually showed were slim to none.  And believe me, I get that kids can eff up your day and cause things to not happen or cause things to change.  What I didn't get was why did I never hear about this with the mom groups?  Maybe it was just numbers.  You have a hundred moms on the email list and about ten show up every time.  Or maybe there was some sort of sense of community in the moms groups and the need for that interaction that kept the women religiously coming back.  I'm betting on the latter.  As for the dads, maybe we are too "tough" or dismissive to bond like that.  If we meet up, we meet up.  If we don't, we don't.

The SAHD group is something that is wrapped in bacon (everything is better wrapped in bacon...problems, prawns, bourbon...you get the idea) and a bit shrouded in mystery.  Anytime I tell people that I am a SAHD and am part of a SAHD group, people look amazed.  They ask me "Is there really such a thing as a stay-at-home dad group?"  To which I obviously say "Yes.  Yes there is".  But there still remains that look of disbelief on their faces and always the question; "So what? do you guys just sit around and drink beer and talk about your kids?"  To which I say again "Yes.  Yes, we do.  Well except for the one guy who doesn't like beer so he drinks booze or wine."  People just don't know about us.  We aren't out in packs.  We don't take over Groupon deals at Gymboree.  And we don't careen down paths at the park in large groups screaming "ON YOUR LEFT!" shooting by with our B.O.B strollers.  We are a little more civilized and a lot less social.

We are men.  We are supposed to be rugged and tough and built to withstand shitstorms.  We grow beards.  We drink beer (or wine).  We have customary terms like "breaking balls" and "busting chops".  When other dads don't have time, like the Honey Badger, we don't give a fuck!  Why?  Because we are men and we can hold our own.  We are, alas, a bit primitive.  There I said it.

I won't lie.  I like the SAHD group time.  It is therapeutic for me when I meet up with these guys.  I wish we did it more.  We have taken on what, until very recently, has been seen as solely the woman's role:  to cook dinner, do the laundry, buy the groceries, clean the house, research the school systems, go to the doctors, pay the bills, raise the kids etc.  So I think we are still defining what and who we are.  A lot of us find solace on the internet by reading each others blogs and finding community there, and I love that aspect and that instant realization that you are not alone in your quest to not be the worst parent ever.  Go ahead and call me old fashioned, but I also like that personal interaction (no matter how much I sweat at that first meeting).  I welcome and relish the opportunity to not talk about playgrounds, Elmo or try to answer the question "why" for the 100th time that day.

Mom's have had this stuff figured out for a long time now, but they've been doing it longer than we have.  They had their mothers to talk to about these things first, and then they got their groups.  My father could sell a pacemaker to an olympic athlete, but he wouldn't understand the first thing about diaper rash cures, tantrum diversion tactics or age appropriate activities (I grew up watching baseball or open heart surgery and I couldn't tell you how many bars I fell asleep under as a kid - I just know that if you curl up just right, that foot bar is mighty cozy).  And I guess, in a nutshell, that's still the issue: we are our father's sons.  We are capable imbeciles.  I look forward to seeing what role my boys take on when they are old enough to have kids (with any luck, that'll be at least 25 years from now), but they'll probably have an app for that by then.