Wednesday, July 13, 2005

The Most Frustrating Thing About Parenting Is ...

The most frustrating thing about parenting is when your child is loosing it because you are not immediately taking care of what ever is bothering them, and you are like watching your favorite soap opera, and Tobias finally admits that he slept with Lexus when they were young and he is Storm’s real father, and your kid won’t shut their trap … ONLY KIDDING!

The most frustrating thing IS when your child is loosing it because they do not have the ability to comprehend that what you are currently doing IS an early step in the process of taking care of their needs, like, defrosting the breast milk, or sterilizing the bottles, before they get to eat. (When my toddler has juice I call it drinking, but when my baby has milk I call it eating. Does everyone call babies having a bottle of milk / formula eating, or is it just me?) Another one is having to change a poopy diaper before letting them go play with whatever toy it is that they are currently interested in.

A variation of this is the “two kids crying - on the fly prioritize.” First ascertain the level of trauma, then ponder which situation will take longer to fix, and at this particular time and place which child will be content entertaining themselves while I attend to the other’s problem? If I’m listening to the radio or online and they start to yell because I didn’t attend to them in a timely manner that’s my bad, but getting yelled at while you ARE in the process of taking care of a problem gets frustrating. I understand it’s not like they can help themselves for the most part so I try not to trip, though my toddler has taken to yelling when my little one cries, and not because he needs anything, just because he likes to yell*, which I can not stand for, so I’m like, ”Dude, NO!” 9 times out of 10 he stops the sympathy yelling.
*He loves when I vacuum and sees it as an invitation to yell at the top of his lungs and play chicken with the vacuum cleaner.
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It is interesting when your child uses a word that you have no idea where they learned it from. As I was writing the above passage my toddler was at the desk next to me drawing, and we started talking “businessman speak” for some reason I can’t remember, I said, “You need to fill out that last report before we can send it off,” and he responded, “I’ve got some more contracts to work on before I’m finished.” Which surprised me because it was an appropriate answer within the structure of the “businessman speak” role-playing game, and because I have no idea where he would learn what a contract was?
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This began about seven months ago, but I never got around to blogging it. My toddler has already started up with penis jokes. When he was 2 ½, one day while getting changed he says, “My penis looks like a banana,” and bursts out laughing. This joke is periodically revisited every couple of weeks.

Monday, July 04, 2005

kids vs. dying alone

i'm deliriously tired, but since i never have time to blog lately here goes:

My wife's Maternal Grandmother is in the hospital and things don't look that good right now. She could have anything from a few days to a few months left. She is 88, so she has had a long life, not that it makes it any easier on her family.
The way that this relates to this site is that visiting her at the hospital made me realize that if you do not have children, who is going to keep you company when you are dying? She was married for like 60 years but her husband passed away a few years ago. She was very close with her sister, they lived in the same town for most of their lives, and even lived next store to each other when they retired, but she died a few years ago as well.
So one could have a happy marriage and close family relationships and still wind up unaccompanied in the end.
Obviously we ultimately die alone, but unless you are really at peace with yourself and the world and the fact that your death is eminent, I imagine that having no one to come to your bed side to let you know that you matter to them must be difficult.
You may be thinking what about friends? If you die young and unexpectedly friends will probably show up, but my guess for most who die of old age is that unless you are Socrates, your shuffleboard pals won't be flocking to your death bed. Many friends will already be dead, or to frail to travel to be with you, even if they wanted to deal with you being a reminder of their own mortality.
So quick go make babies bitches!!! I know that is what this passage is sounding like, that's not my intent, I've just realized another possible plus to having kids, and that's only if I do a good job raising them and they want to be around me when I'm "just outside the door" of my demise.
We were down the Shore this weekend, on the way to the boardwalk and we asked Giancarlo if he was excited about going there, he said, "No I want to go the hospital to see how Nana is feeling." So far, so good with raising kids who care about more than themselves ...


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I found out that PBS is only partially saved, congress didn’t cut all of their funding, but they have not slated any funds for education programming, which is like their raison d’ĂȘtre, so please still write you congress members about this if you haven’t already.

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Wow, I just noticed this on my site tracker:
1. 23 June 09:05 United States House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., United States
I wonder if some one from the House was checking this site out becuase of my link to write them about the PBS funding issue, or if they were checking out sites about Stay at Home Dads, or if the man is just after my ass?