Sunday, December 28, 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Dissonant Dad Don't Domir

I find my current problem is sleep, and lack there of, I seem to be able to come up with infinite reasons not to sleep, I'm angry, I'm happy, I'm bored and I need something to do, I'm having too much fun to go to sleep, I'm horny, I just had sex and didn't do the stuff I normally do at night so I have to go do them now even though it's 11:36pm, there's a bunch of good shit on TV, I keep turning through the 5 million channels and can't find a damn thing if I keep going I'm bound to find something ...

I go into this kind of haze from about 10pm to around 12:30am where reason and consequence are lost on me, what I need to do the next morning, hell what I need to do before I go to bed, bills, chores, check the doors, turn off the lights, get the recycling out, I watch more TV during this two to three hour time period than I do all day, then around 1am I snap out of it and have to figure out if I am better served by getting a semi-decent amount of sleep or by doing an hours worth of chores and crashing into bed with crusty contacts and unbrushed teeth.
It does not help that my oral hygiene routine takes about a half an hour if done properly. I often dread having to do more "work" at night after running around behind my kids all day so I brilliantly do nothing and wind up having to make up for it at 1am or have double the amount of work the next day, genius I know.

... it's like I'm addicted to staying awake, I know it comes from the way I learned to over come depression by taking one day at a time and making sure I squeeze some drops of happiness out of each day. The thing is, wishing you had more free time is not depression, but as we often do I'm using a coping mechanism that works in one arena but is inappropriate for another.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Door Decorations

On a lighter note, yesterday in our office my three year-old comes up to me while I am on the computer and says, "Daddy look I decorated the door!" (insert thought bubble above my head: this can not be good, exactly how did he decorate the door). Me, "Show me what you did," and he proceeds to take me by the hand, opens up the office closet door and proudly shows me a pencil doodle drawn on the inside of the door of what looks like a stick figure ice skating on a lake or something like that.
"Buddy I know you didn't know that you weren't suppose to do that, but you're not allowed to draw on the walls or doors in the house. Don't cry you're not in trouble just don't do it again."

He Tried To Tell Us

My preschooler mentioned something about going to school on the weekend to me this weekend, and I was like, there's no school on the weekend. Unbeknownst to me he apparently told my wife that his teachers said there was a party at school this weekend, to which she answered there's no party at school on the weekend ... well as I took him to school this morning I got a notice that must have been from last Friday stating that they were having a Memorial Service for his friend who died this past Sunday. Man, I wish I had known about this, my wife is bumming that she did not look into what he was talking about because he told her about this "party" a number of times.
Yesterday my little guy was the most upset about his friend since I first told him, he initiated a talk about who he feels about loosing his friend with his mom last night, I understand now why, I just wish he had said it's a party for "Mike" so that it might have made my wife look in to it.
I know this topic does not make for an entertaining read but I kind of just have to get this stuff off my chest so I do not go around all day feeling like shit.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

I Know What Boys Like

On Wednesday morning this past week after we dropped my 1st grader off at school and were driving back home my pre-schooler said:

3: Boys like Led Zeppelin
39: Yeah they do, but they use to be very popular, I don't know about now-a-days but girls use to really like them too
3: When I'm 28 I'm going to be a rock star
39: Is your brother going to be in the band?
3: Yeah, him and ah ... "Mike" can't be in the band because he's dead, maybe "Alan" can be in the band.
39: Yeah that would be cool ...
3: Boys like Sonic the Hedgehog
39: Yes they do son, yes they do

Immediate Aftermath

So Monday night I had a long serious talk with my son's about my younger son's best friend's death, it went really well, my little guy was upset but has a pretty good grasp of what's happened, actually his older brother seemed more freaked out than he was. The 3 year-old seems upset that he can't play with his friend or even see him anymore, disapprove if you will be I went with the standard when you die you go to heaven angle, I do not know how else one would explain the death of a child to another child and what happens after that death. My son had a bit of a time grasping that he can not give things to his friend anymore, so I just started rolling with it and saying he could ask God to make a copy of the thing in heaven for his friend to play with or look at depending on what it was.
We prayed that our dead cats would find "Mike" so they could play with him and keep him company.
My little guy does not comprehend that dying often is accompanied by pain and fear, that a child's death is by far the worse thing a parent can endure so his friend's parents are surely in quite a state, or that heaven may be a fantasy, so again he is just dealing with the fact that he can not see his friend anymore, so I believe that he should get through this without too much psychological damage.

He made a Spider-Man paper doll for "Mike's" parents.

Monday, December 08, 2008

It's Too Late ...

My son's pre-school just called me and gave me the bad news.

Real Life and Hopefully Not Death

My wife left for a four day business trip today, so my boys are pretty bumming. She wanted to spend some extra time with our pre-schooler so we wound up being later than usual. (My older son is so use to being late that when we showed up to taekwon-do early last week he almost had an anxiety attack because he did not know what he was suppose to do until class started.)

So I am unpacking my little guy's back pack and getting his gloves and hat into his coat sleeve as I read a few notices that were in his cubby. I notice one has a picture of his best friend, who I vaguely remember had been out of school for a while because every time I ask my son if he played with his best friend he says he was not there today or he was sick.

Anyway, any photocopied form of communication with a picture of a child on it raises my antenna as being BAD FUCKING NEWS, I skim the flyer and it states that his best friend has been out for quite a while and is currently in a hospital four states away, and living in an area with a lot of hospitals with two huge cities in adjoining states, this is really NOT good.


My son says hey that's "Mike," and I look up and say something like, it says he's in a hospital in another city, or he's with a doctor far away that can help him get better, I hope I actually choose my words better than that. He freezes and unfortunately looks as if he completely understands the ramifications of what is going on. One of his teachers walks in the cubby room and asks how he's doing, the usually out going and friendly kid does not respond at all, now I have a pit in my stomach, did I tell him too much.

In a daze I get him to class and drop off his nap time sheet (yeah I actually remembered to bring it this time) in the room where he naps. I pass a number of mom's talking, I do not know if I am projecting or over analysing but they all seem to be in less of a hurry, less gossipy, more quiet and still. I pass a couple of the teachers and the "school mom," their oldest teacher is crying saying, "I didn't know it was that bad."


I see one of my boy's teachers in the hall tell her that my guy's upset about his mom's business trip and the news about his friend and then hightail it out of their before I start full-on snot nose weeping. I make it to the car and then full-on snot nose weeping, what the fuck, every Monday something comes up, and the come up's seem to be increasing in severity. What if this boy dies, what is the school going to tell the children, it's pre-school they range from 2 1/2 to 5, how are they going to process that information.


How would I explain this to my three year old, that the boy he's been asking to have a playdate with everyday for two months that I did not set up because I thought his mom should set it up because she's had a few conversations with the boy's mom and I got a slightly weird vibe from her, like she's not use to interacting with pierced, artsy wannabe, mulatto, stay @ home dad's, even though it's my job to set up the playdates, a perceived "very slightly weird vibe" kept me from acting on my son's wishes, even when I know the likelihood of my wife actually setting up the playdate was slim because she's busy enough and has a hard time fitting in anything that's not in her normal sphere, while I'm at it I should explain why I yelled at him to give me a break from asking about the playdate with "Mike" because he's driving me crazy and if his mom doesn't do it soon I'll set it up for the week after Christmas.


I do not know that I could tell him that his best friend is dead, bad parenting or not right now if feel like lying to him and saying "Mike" moved to be closer to the good doctor might be the best thing. My son is so positive and seeming well balanced, I do not want anything devastating his world at such a young age, the rest of his immediate family is twisted enough as it is, including his six year-old brother whose outlook could out gloom the most tragic of sixteen year-olds.


So I spend the five minute ride home crying and moaning and as I get home notice my wife pulling out our driveway, I can not tell her this right now, she is afraid to fly (and just called me from the airport) and way more prone to burst into tears and obsess over something than I am, she's flying cross country with a VP I can't have here trippin' out over this, she jumps out of her car to say good-bye and jokes are you crying because you are going to miss me? I say yeah, they she asks what's up and I make up something about being congested, I will tell her about "Mike" tonight.


It worked for my wife's best friend who was giving a couple of weeks to live with brain cancer so it can work again, Agnostic prayer in action, take two.

Do Laundry Outside of the House? And Thanks

Poor petite bourgeoisie me, yesterday I had to go to a public Laundromat to wash my laundry,
so inconvenient, I've dreaded doing it all week, I mean god I haven't do laundry out side of my
house in like 6 years!

What a little bitch I can be, this reminds me to take a post from my other blog about what I'm thankful for:

Happy Thanksgiving,
I'm giving thanks for my friends who blog with me
Not having to have a corporate job
Being a part of the petite bourgeoisie while holding social-anarchistic world views
Never having gone to jail
Not living somewhere where I have to worry about my kids getting shot in the crossfire of a drive-by
still having my real teeth
NO MORE BUSH
my chiropractor and massage therapist
Brett Favre
Dungen and other Music I've been into this past year
love, cute furry animals,
and my family

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Unsolicited Advice for a Brand New Mom

The text from an email I recently sent to a friend that just had her first child:

"Quick advice, - start vetting and training some baby sitters sooner than later, be it grand parents or professionals, the sooner you can go out to a show or dinner with (your husband) the quicker normalcy will return.
- at some point when the baby is sleeping you will totally think it looks dead and feel the need to double check if it's breathing, that's normal they sleep very deeply, but still double check anyway.
- if the grand parents (or anyone, me included) give you crazy child rearing advice, don't bother debating with them just be like, "Okay I'll keep that in mind" and do what you think is best, they're just trying to help however misguided or annoying they may be.
- lastly don't be surprised if some people now treat you like the gatekeeper to the baby and not a person, often family is so excited about the baby that they forget to give the mother their props."

Monday, December 01, 2008

Semi-Sick / Fully Whining

So 45 minutes ago as I was in my basement curled up in the fetal position remembering that when I woke up this morning feeling like crap my first thought was after I get the kids off to school I'm getting right back in bed. Well the whole family has been fighting off illness exacerbated by spending the Thanksgiving holiday on the road in homes that have pets, so we all have that semi-sick, allergy-sinus congestion, post-nasal-drip don't feel like going back to work / school thing going on, on top of the usual cases of the Mondays.

My 1st grader, the complain-i-est of the family, is no surprise complaining about feeling sick and the fact that he should have the whole month of December off because it's Christmas time. I check and he does not have a temperature but his nose is very runny, so I'm inclined to send him to school. My wife thinks we should send him to school but tell his teacher to keep an eye on him and send him to the nurse if he's sick, but I view that as semi-lame kind of abdicating our parental responsibility, plus I would then have to go back and make another trip to pick him up from school. The tipping point is when I can not find any singles or enough quarters to send in with him to buy lunch at school, that and the litany of maladies he has been persistently professing to me as I rush around trying to get things to together so we can improve on our 65% tardy average.

Fine no school today for you, but you have to spend the whole day in bed, not on the couch watching TV.

A few minutes later he's on the couch singing so his misery index has drastically dropped, though his nose is running pretty badly so I think I made the proper decision.

We take the pre-schooler to pre-school and I realize as I do every Monday that I forgot his nap sheet, so we have to go home to pick one up and come back. My 1st grader is complaining about having to go back and forth and the fact that I won't let him wait for me in the car as I look for this bed sheet. I search around not able to find a clean sheet (which are toddler bed size, so I can not just use one of ours) so I think I have enough time to wash one before his nap time at 1PM. I can not track down the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tote that we transport his sheet back and forth from school in, but I do find another sheet in the to be bleached pile on the floor of the laundry room. I open the washer and it's full of soapy water and wet clothes.

Shit

The washer has been breaking down bit by bit but I thought I had helped my wife get it running again last night, but apparently not and apparently she forgot to check on the clothes before she went to bed. So now what, I fire up the washer again to monitor what's going on deduce that it is not draining the water out during the spin cycle. It also periodically leaks, which it did yesterday so the three piles of sorted clothes that are waiting to be washed today are all damp, so now I have to figure out what to do with four loads of clothes in varying states of wetness, how to get a new washer in here pronto, and where to track down a clean sheet for my son on top of the 15 things on my to do list for Mondays.

I eventually track down a clean sheet for my son, but by this point I am wondering if I ever brought back his sheet from school last week before Thanksgiving, maybe it's still there, I would still be clean, he did not use it for a full week, I am running with that idea however faulty the logic.

As I sit on the commode mumbling the utterances of pissed-off sailor with tourette's my 1st grader walks in with a picture of a smiley face with the caption "bont feL bad" (which of course translates to "don't feel bad"). He says I heard you saying bad stuff and I wanted you to feel better and then gives me a hug. That does make me feel better, unfortunately it is momentary because as I write this I am taking a break from purchasing a new washer online because the store with the best price which I have spent the last 20 minutes reading all of their fine print, the one who lists itself as having "free shipping" will actually cost us $140 to have them bring the over 200 pound washer into our laundry room and that will be ten days from now, the free shipping is curbside.

Man I just wanted to get to bed straight away from dropping off the boys. I guess my state of semi-sickness will continue, especially if I am dumb-ass enough to stay up until 2AM doing whatever non-productive mind numbing b.s. I do after everyone else goes to bed and get four and half hours of sleep tonight.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Gender Bendin' hits from the Palm

This is an old anecdote from the spring:

When my three year-old and I went to pick up my 6 year-old we ran into my six year-old's best friend's mother and a friend of hers who was visiting from out of town. Nothing that notable right, well my little guy asked who was that women with "Jack's" mommy,
Me: "Oh that's her friend from out of town"
Him: "Does Jack have two mommy's"
Me: "No, he has a daddy and a mommy, that's just her friend"
Him: "Jack has two mommies, Jack has two mommies!"

And for a couple of weeks, in and out of the house, "Jack's got two mommy's!"

Another similar public comment from last spring made by my three year-old as we were strolling along in the supermarket:
"Daddy, mommy's got a penis!"
Me: "No she doesn't honey, please keep it down"
"Daddy ... mommy's got a penis!"
Oh great ... now cereal aisle at A&P Fresh thinks I'm married to a tranny or a hermaphrodite.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Strawberry Quick Methamphetamine Warning

I got an email about this Strawberry Quick drug being "handed out to kids in schoolyards," check the above link, it states that there are different colored Meths, but they are no cases of flavored Meth being giving to little kids or any children showing up in the emergency room because of it.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Just a little funny

I can't remember what we were talking about, but my 3 yr-old said something and I gave him some stupid reply using a silly voice, and he said something to the effect of why are you talking like that, and I said, "Oh ,I'm just being weird," to which he answered,
"No not weird, funny, but just a little funny."

Wow everyone's a critic, now my childish banter is being rated, I wonder if his assessment of my poop jokes set will be a little kinder.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Irony

A cousin of mine who is in her late 50's is getting her leg amputated at 3PM ET today, it got shut in a door when she was like five years-old and has given her serious problems ever since, in a strange way it will make her life easier. The irony is not only that her (and my) Grandmother also had a leg, and eventually both legs amputated, but that her mother after successfully recovering from heart surgery died two years ago on this day in same hospital while in a subsequent surgery for a staff infection which she caught during her recovery time via bed sores.

I personally would not if at all possible go back to that same hospital to have a procedure done on myself, but it's suppose to be a good hospital, North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, so may be I'm being dramatic, but fuck that if some one I care about went into a hospital for one thing and dies from some totally different thing that was not preexisting when they went in, sorry not for me ...
Best Places to Raise Kids 2009 per BusinessWeek
Edison came in first for NJ, with Clifton and Union as the runners up, WHAT? I guess suburban sprawl and landscapes marred by strip malls is considered desirable by BusinessWeek.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

My Boys Favorite Things, 2008

Music:
bands
6yr-old
Arctic Monkeys
Adam and the Ants
Mooney Suzuki
Monster Magnet
White Stripes
3yr-old
Arctic Monkeys
Led Zeppelin
"Iron Man" (Black Sabbath, he only knows this one song)
Mooney Suzuki
Adam and the Ants

Foods:
6yr-old
Mac and Cheese
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Crabby Patty (Bocca Veggie Burger with Jelly and Mayo)
Sweets:
Ice Cream Cake
Cookies
Doughnuts

3yr-old
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Mac and Cheese
Ham
Sweets:
M&M's
Sweet Tarts
Cup Cakes

Sports:
6yr-old
football
soccer
basketball
3yr-old
football
soccer
hockey
basketball

TV Shows:
6yr-old
Spectacular Spider-man
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Spider-Man Unlimited
Smurfs
3yr-old
Spectacular Spider-Man
Save 'Ums
Curious George
Power Rangers

Superheroes / Villains:
6yr-old
Black Spider-man / Spider-man
Iron Man
Mysterio
Venom
3yr-old
Spider-man
Batman
Superman
Captain Underpants
Jungle Fury Power Ranger

Colors:
6yr-old
blue
green
red
3yr-old
Red
Blue
Green
Purple
Yellow

Toys:
6yr-old
Sega Genesis video games
Spider-Man
Iron Man
3yr-old
Power Rangers
Spider-Man
Sonic the Hedgehog and Frogger video games for Sega Genesis

Movies:
6yr-old
Spider-Man 3
Kung-Fu Panda
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
3yr-old
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Spider-Man (1)
Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Books:
6yr-old
Captain Underpants
3yr-old
Thomas the Tank Engine
Captain Underpants

Sports Teams:
6yr-old
Indianapolis Colts
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NY Jets
Rutgers University Scarlet Knights - all sports
NJ Devils
3yr-old
NY Jets
Rutgers University Scarlet Knights - all sports
St. Louis Rams
Dallas Cowboys
Indianapolis Colts

2007

Monday, October 06, 2008

Keep Your Home Healthy
Relative Humidity in the Home, what are the effects and the optimum percentage rates?
Scientists: 1 in 4 mammals faces extinction
Doctors: No hamsters or exotic pets for young kids

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Getting old is one thing, lame blog entries are another

I don't mind getting older, not being able to do somethings you use to do, this whole getting fatter and uglier is a whole fucking other thing though, I'm so not cool with that.

We just had most of our main floor painted, had our rugs cleaned, I finally got a new laptop, iMac, and we just had three "Big Boxes" delivered today full of furniture and lots of papers and items that we have gotten along just fine with out the past five months, I'm not sure how we are going to integrate all of that crap back into our lives even though our new house is much bigger than our old one I so don't want this new place to be dominated by clutter like our old townhouse.

I should be back to deeper and more thoughtful blogging once I take care of the aforementioned situations and get familiar with my new laptop which I've had for a week and haven't even opened the the box.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Home is not like home

I had a prep / pep talk with my three year-old about his first day of full-time pre-school tomorrow, it went pretty well, I got him psyched about his lunch box, juice boxes, and the weekly "pizza party" on Wednesdays.

My first grader kept saying home isn't like home any more, and that we never stay home any more. I thought he was talking about the fact that we have a new house, or perhaps complaining about how busy we are with fixing up the new house and running errands to home depot, bed bath and beyond, and the like on the weekends, so I pointed out to him that we spent all of today home and he spent most of the day complaining about not being able to watch TV or play video games. (We let him watch an ungodly amount of Saturday morning cartoons yesterday, so he only got to watch a half an hour of educational TV today at one point when his mother and I were too busy to entertain him, or more exactly be a captive audience for him to entertain.)
So I said yesterday you complained about not being at home because we were shopping for four hours at "boring stores*," and today we're home all day and you're still complaining.

He said, "No Daddy can I explain what I mean, (and kind of rolled his eyes), I'm not talking about that, I mean we're only home for two days together then I go to school for five days, I spend more time at school than at home, it's like school is home and home is vacation for two days."
To which I answered, "You are right, but it's like that for everyone even when you are done with school and then have to go to work it's the same thing." Then I tried to explain about how it takes a really long time to learn all the things you need to know to make an informed decision about which career you want to choose, and some other crap about how important it is to do well in school so you can pick a career that you'll enjoy, but I was really thinking about how our economic system really doesn't have any family values, and how people leave their families and the areas where they were born for jobs that pay five or ten thousand dollars more a year, as if an extra big screen TV and two dens are more important than familial bonds and having roots in geographical place.
But with the way that most towns in America have become Anytown, USA many don't even pay the differences any mind, maybe one's near the mountains, one you need snow tires, and the other is by the water, but there seems to be the same stores every where and people seem to find that comforting rather than frightening.
My three year-old is surprised ever time he sees a McDonald's, I think our town is the only town in the world without one, but he can't comprehend how ever time we drive to a different town there is a McDonald's there. What this has to do with what I'm writing about I'm not sure, I guess spending most of your life bound by school and work, living in an Anytown, USA and driving past the McDonald's to get to the Home Depot are things that aren't questioned by many people, and I'm both proud and saddened by the fact that my six year-old is already clued into such things, things that feel wrong but are so accepted that there is little you can do to change them, except be an artist, numb yourself with drugs, or withhold your labor from the marketplace, marry someone willing to deal with it and become a stay-at-home parent.


* There's nothing worse than being really bored in a boring store and having your kids complaining about how bored they are, because they don't have the capacity to deal with being bored, so telling them, "I know I am bored out of my fucking mind and putzing around looking for shower curtain rods is as painful for you as it is for me," doesn't give them any increased capacity to deal with the situation so basically nothing calms them down because they can't yet commiserate, so they just get more and more antsy and I get more and more agita.

Party for you right to do nothing but PARTY!

"I don't want to do anything until I'm an old grammpy, I just want to party," so said my 6 year-old first grader son over his granola this morning.
I've got no idea where he got those sentiments from ...


--------------------------------


Off they go to School

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Oh Yeah We Finally Moved

We didn't have Internet for a month, went on two week long vacations, one down the shore and one in California, still have many things in boxes and tons of items in storage, weren't able to get some renovations done to the house while we were away on vacation so life still feels in a state of disarray.

Driest Hands in the World : More Hits from the Palm

Dipping into postings that I wrote in my Palm Pilot but never got around to posting on the blog. This one is from this past winter:


Every time someone goes to the bathroom in my house i have to wash my hands, the toddler with his diapers and cleaning him up after using the potty seat, checking the kindergartner to make sure he actually wiped after pooping, and of course myself, add to this that we are all on the same cycle so this all happens within 20 to 30 minutes of each other, that I'm semi-recovered from having a hand washing OCD problem, and that I pretty much hate the feel of lotion on my hands all equal me having the driest hands in the world.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I WON THE MEGA MILLIONS LOTTERY!!! or so i thought for 3 minutes

I went to the dry cleaner with my two boys to pick up my wife's clothes, as we left I saw that the multi-state lotto was up to 105 mil, so I thought it would be fun to have the kids pick three numbers each.
On the rare occasions that I buy lotto tickets I usually loose them, or forget that I even bought one, which was the case with this time until I heard some guy down to the A&P Fresh (daddy why is it called 'fresh' everything in there isn't fresh?) say, hey did you sell the winning ticket, it's from Jersey and no one claimed it yet.
So then I'm like hey, I bought a ticket in Jersey and didn't claim it, that's got to narrow down the odds right, so I rush home pondering grad school vs. starting a record company, nannies vs. me continuing to take care of the kids, how much would I donate to Obama, being able to pay for movers to pack up my whole house for our impending move and all kinds of other more extreme and ridiculous scenarios, so I get home unload the groceries, check online and of course I didn't win.

I'm not so big on the whole dollar and a dream thing, now I really don't feel like packing for the next five days straight, I think I operate better sans hope.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

a great moment

I had a great moment with my oldest son the other day. My six year-old and my three year-old were jockeying for position on my lap, the little guy was able to displace his older brother and said, “You’re too big to sit on Daddy’s lap!”
I said, “No, he’s not too big to sit on Daddy’s lap,” and my big guy said, “Yeah, not until I’m ten.”
Then I told him, “Even when you are ten, I don’t care how old you are or how big you are you can sit on my lap, I don’t care if you’re 50 and I’m all old and frail, so long as I have a lap you can sit on it.” Now I really doubt there will be any lap sitting when I’m an octogenarian, but I was trying to make my point strong and clear.
My six year-old was apparently really touched by this he gave a big eyed look, held my face and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
The reason this was so rewarding is that as a loving and communicative parent one is always trying to let their children know how much they truly love them, and nine times out of ten they don’t get it, I mean they do know you love them but deepness of it doesn’t usually dawn on them. So for this silly little incident and unpremeditated comment on my part to actually get through to my son how much I love him was an unexpected joy.

My six year-old is cooler than your kid

He is in art day camp; he takes six classes a day one of which is jazz tap. My wife told me that when you are a kid taking dance, the tap shoes or ballet points or whatever seem magical to you and make you feel like you have an enhanced ability to dance. Armed with this information I drove a half an hour north to the Capizio outlet to get kids tap shoes, and they still were not that cheap, anyway my son took to them right away.
When his mother got home from work I told him to show her what he had learned, plus some of the moves that he had already made up himself, he shyly when through a few steps, when he finished I asked if he wanted to show mommy some of the moves he came up with and he kind of lamely tapped out few steps, which surprised me because he had been stoked about tapping all day.
I was like okay thanks, that was good, do you want to show us anything else and he says yeah check this out and starts tapping out an Arctic Monkeys song, and after the intro he starts full on tapping and singing the song at the same time, it was fucking awesome.

And another thing, I’m a huge Clash fan, some my kids are familiar with them and know a number of their songs. So the other day I picked out a new album by their guitar player’s new band Carbon/Silicon and I’m playing it and my six year-old asks, “Is this the Clash?” and I answer no but really close and explain who the band is and who is in the group, and I think how awesome is that, that he could unprompted recognize the song writing as similar to the Clash’s. The only bad thing is that two of Carbon/Silicon’s best songs have “Fuck” in the chorus …

What, It's Not Me?

I’ve changed/slowly evolved into a somewhat friendly person over the years as compared to the person I was before that rarely hid his disgust for the world and little time for chit chat with strangers and shop keeps, I think living in San Francisco had a large part to do with my change from a very East Coast I don’t give a fuck about you come introverted and somewhat depressed demeanor.
Having moved back to the East Coast after seven years I’ve found people friendlier than in years past, some have attributed the change to 9/11. Now I often say hi to unknown passersby while on walks and most everyone at my boys schools are friendly particularly the teachers, camp councilors etc.
I say all of that to say this, this past week for the first time my two boys were out of the house at the same time for their separate summer camps, last school year one was on an early schedule the other on later one which we set up that way so they each could get some solo daddy time on a regular basis. So again this past week I was alone for a good four hours a day and I tried to take advantage of that by getting some exercise and walking places instead of driving. In the course of these walks I have discovered that the denizens of my region have not suddenly become more friendly, nor has my recently adopted practice of acknowledging most of the people I come into contact with hello or a nod been reciprocated with any regularity when I am traveling sans my really cute kids, it was them all along, I’m still that guy that people don’t sit next on the train, it’s interesting how people having a positive reaction when they come in contact with you on a regular basis uplifts your general mood.
My chiropractor, who is normally a warm and friendly guy was all business at my last visit sans kids, no hand shake, no chit chat, no big smile, I thought my new found openness and efforts at friendliness was really spreading a positive vibe to those around me that was being mirrored back to me, but apparently I was wrong.
Now when my kids reach that awkward not so cute anymore age I guess I’ll have to get a puppy to keep the friendly vibes coming my way.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

PARENTS CUT CORNERS, BUT NOT KIDS' SPORTS
In lean times, families still spend in hopes of giving them a leg up in college

BY LISA KENNELLY Star-Ledger Staff

Preschoolers now tackle assignments, and some wonder at what cost

An early start on homework
Preschoolers now tackle assignments, and some wonder at what cost

BY CARRIE STETLER Star-Ledger Staff

Remember That Dream House We Over Bid On

So that "dream house" that we over bid for, (see May 20th posting), honestly it is really like dream house #4 in our house search, anyway a few weeks ago one of my son's classmate's mothers who live on the block that the house is on told me that she heard that the winning bid was falling through, we were already full steam ahead on another house but the next time I talked to our real estate agent I told him what I heard, he looked into it and said that the dream house #4 deal was going through fine.
So we forgot about it.

Now a few weeks and a large down payment on another house later our realtor tells my wife that the "dream house #4" deal fell through, I told my wife that it was too fucking late, the people we are buying our current house from are good people who already have a new house in mind and more importantly we've already signed the paperwork and given them a deposit, also and who ever our realtor spoke with two weeks ago did the sellers a major disservice by lying and saying that the deal was going fine because they are going to cost their client a whole bunch of money.

Real Estate is pretty fucked up. Actually I guess it is people with large sums of money on the line that are fucked up no matter the endeavor.

p.s.,
I just spoke with my realtor, he says that no one could have known about the buyer's problems until this morning, so the house I had heard there were problems with must have been another house on the block, I don't know if that's true, but it's still annoying either way.

No Gifts?

My 6 yr-old who just had a birthday was confused about the agreement he made. (See my May 22 entry) He knew people were going to make donations in his name to save baby seals and babies, but he did not realize that it meant he was not going to get any gifts from his classmates for his birthday. I reminded him that I had fully explained to him how we were asking for his classmates to donate to charity rather than giving him gifts, reminding him that they COULD bring gifts if they wanted to stop the tears that had began to flow.

Luckily his party went fine and he got gifts as well as donations for his charities so it all worked out.

I also learned that you can't let kids know that there is a surprise toy in their gift bags if you don't want them riffling through them before you are ready to give them out. Another thing I learned don't let a kid touch the pull string pinata before you are ready either because a windfall of candy being a few colorful string pulls away is way to much temptation for a six year-old to deal with.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

skin rash AGAIN!

Seems like every god damn week there is some new innocuous but in need of attention illness going on with my kids and it is becoming a huge fucking pain in the ass, my little guy has some rash on his face and body to a lesser extent, he doesn't have pre-school today, but he does have soccer with his brother, I'm sure the little guy is going to be fine, but I probably can have him participating in sports with other kids with a big assed rash, BUT, then his brother has to miss soccer too, ALSO we need to go to soccer to give one of their team mates an invitation to the big guys birthday party, ALSO AGAIN, the big guy's ankle has been bothering him, I think he just needs new sneakers, they did not have any in his size a few weeks ago when we went to the kid's shoe store, we don't have time to go to the shoe store between school and soccer, nor do I have time to take the toddler to the doctor for him to say what they say every time, "it's nothing," and waste some money and time ...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Donations please

I got my 5 year-old to agree to have the guests at his "kids" birthday party to donate to charity rather than buy him some more unneeded gifts.
In the note I put in the invitations I forgot to put that I wanted people to write out checks to the organizations so we could mail them in with a letter and a picture of my boy, so people may just donate online, which is cool for the charities, but may not give my son the satisfaction of collecting and sending the contributions.
So goes it when working on projects after midnight when you haven't gotten the minimum requirement of sleep in months.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Can you say bidding war / housing market still hot in my town

We just bid $38,500 over asking for a house in the nicer part of our town and were still out bid, we did come in second out of five offers, that's a nice consolation though, yeah right.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Not feeling too good

Hey ya'll, I've been packing up my house for sale, three weekends and 3 Big Boxes later, (big boxes are like PODS, I'm not sure if city dwellers will know what they are, basically a truck drops off a big assed storage box, about the size of a college town bedroom, you fill it up, then they take it away, and deliver it to where ever you wind up moving too), serious neck and shoulder problems, and some nausea yesterday to top it off, basically I'm physically falling apart, and we didn't get the house we bid on even though we bid 30Gs over asking because we had a contingency, which means that if we were unable to sell our house then the deal would fall through, so now we will hopefully sell our place before finding a new house that we like, but that will potentially put us in a position of having to settle for a not perfect new home, or renting for awhile while we look for a new place to buy. One shitty thing is that in my town, there are only year long rentals, no month to month opportunities, at least not any place to I'm willing to move my family into.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

cedar ball snacks

The other day my five year-old saw a cedar ball and asked my wife what it was and what does it do? She told him that bugs do not like cedar so people use it to keep them away from clothes.
The next day at snack time my son complained about a bug flying around in the kitchen, I told him with the weather getting warmer that the bugs are starting to come out. I looked at his snack bowl and there was some brown chocolate looking ball in it that I had not put there. At closer inspection it was of course a cedar ball, when I asked why the heck did you put that in your food he said, "To keep the bugs out."

Bear on a Leash

My oldest son is terrified of bears ever since he learned that they are one of the few animals that eat humans and that there are some in the northern part of our state. Recently we were in a town square and he started freaking out saying, "Daddy is that a bear?" I assured him there were no bears around and then saw this huge fucking brown bear devouring some toddler's entrails ... well not really, I saw some one walking this huge assed dog that was devouring the dismembered leg of an elderly gentleman ... okay it was just a huge black dog* that looked like a cross between Cujo, the shaggy D.A., and an Afghan, but it had to be close to 175 - 200 hundred pounds. So I then told him that bears usually are not walked on leashes and he had nothing to worry about.

* I just read something about pounds being full of big black dogs because they scare people, they said some crap about people not being able to read their facial expressions because they are so dark, man racism even extends to people's views on dogs.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Savoir-Faire Update

http://stayathomedadbdc.blogspot.com/2007/09/savoir-faire.html
In an older posting (link above) I mentioned my son trying to communicate with what he thought was a french girl in his class who did not speak English very well. I told him some french phrases to say to her, he said he tried but she would just stare at him weirdly when he tried to use the phrases I taught him.

It turns out he later learned the girl is Chinese and not French.



I've got to start taping this show ...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Urination Regression / Protecting Mine

I've been jotting down blog ideas in my pda rather than online lately, I'll be posting them on the next few weeks.
2/27/08
My kindergartner has wet the bed with semi-regularity, like once every week for about a month now and there was one episode where I had to take him home early from school because he did not make it to the bathroom in time, we must be doing something wrong, with us being really busy, there has been more TV, more yelling, more timeouts, less mommy time and more pee problems.

update 3/27/08
Still really busy trying to get the house ready for sale, but I've cut out the before bed beverages, made sure that he's gone the bathroom right before going to bed, and my wife hasn't had many late nights at work lately, not sure if it is a coincidence or not but he has not wet the bed lately, I think only once in the last month, which is better than the one to two times a week it was happening in February.
I hope I haven't jinxed myself, he and his brother are asleep in my bed right now with my wife and I have to move them to their own bed, not in the mood for changing my sheets and waking him up to give him a quick midnight bath.
The problem at school surprised me, I was told that all of the Kindergartner class rooms had bathrooms in the class, but my son's class does not. Apparently they send the kids to the bathroom in pairs, one kid is like a look out I guess, anyway a couple of weeks ago two boys in my son's class were harassed by a pair of fourth graders in the bathroom.
I've got no problem with beating the living shit out of a fourth grader if the fuck with my son, be on notice fourth graders of America, be on notice.

My three year old is now taking soccer with his older brother, probably the only time they will be involved in organized sports together, unless the little guy is super kick ass at some sport when he's a freshman in high school and gets to play with his brother while he is a senior.
Anyway, he's the youngest kid in the class and some bigger kid took the ball from him, which wasn't a big deal but then he realized it was easy to take the ball from him and kept doing it, then pulled the ball from underneath him as he was sitting on it, which made me jump up as if I was going to do something about it. I then proceeded to stare the kid down, which he did not seem to understand.
My kindergartner was completely oblivious to this, and therefore was negligent in performing his god given duty of protecting his little brother. I called over and told him to protect his baby brother, to tell that kid to stay away from him. My big guy ran straight over to the bad kid and wrestled his soccer ball away from him and kicked it away, and continued to do so through out the session. My little guy thought this was some kind of game and then began to interact more with the "bad" kid.
After class it dawned on me that my older son may not have verbally communicated our family message to this kid, so I asked him and he said, "No I didn't tell him anything, I just kept trying to take his ball."
That night I contemplated teaching the preschooler about how there are no fair fights, and the "You fight one of us, you fight all of us" family credo, but decided he is probably too young for that information at this time.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Kaboom!


Caillou is for "reals"

For parents of newborns or people thinking about having kids, the most accurate depiction of children in the toddler / preschool age range that I have encountered is the cartoon Caillou.

Besides being educational for children, the parents serve as a positive example of calm, though not permissive, parenting.
As parents we may expect our children, particularly our firstborns, to understand more than they actually do, and Caillou does a good job of showing how the world and it's workings are really still new and mysterious to young children, even if they seem like little teenagers when compared to their young siblings still in diapers.

Materialistic society is 'damaging' children: poll

Commenting on the results of the poll, chief executive of the Childrens Society Bob Reitemeier said: "As adults we have to take responsibility for the current level of marketing to children. To accuse children of being materialistic in such a culture is a cop out. Unless we question our own behaviour as a society we risk creating a generation who are left unfulfilled through chasing unattainable lifestyles." click here for the whole article