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.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
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."
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.
* 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.
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.
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.
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.
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