Youth Soccer Slaves

I saw this last documentary last week, didn't really raise my view of humanity.

Agents are getting Sub Saharan African families to pay them to take their teenaged boys to Europe to be seen by pro soccer scouts and either dumping them in Morocco and just keeping the money, or getting them to Europe and abandoning them if they do not get signed. To the point where whole youth teams have been abandoned after playing in tournaments in Europe. There are approx 20,000 young African footballers that are stranded, most from families without the means to get them home.

Preggers vs Boozers

Whilst reading the first few chapters of my Social Work text book I am surprisingly learning all kinds of things about pregnancy, like fetal alcohol syndrome is the number one cause worldwide for mental retardation. Also alcohol is tied with heroin for the most negative fetal effects caused by commonly used recreational drugs. So don't listen to the old lady who tells you oh in my day we all had a few drinks and are babies were no worse off for it.

Starting over kind of sucks

I am trying to get my reading completed for my first week of school, and I am just so damn slow, it's really frustrating! I am barely finished with my first chapter and I have another one and like five articles to read that I have to download off of the University website, but I have to get a NetID account which I have not done yet. My wife was like, that sounds better than having to buy an old Kinko's packet of copied text, and responded no way, I'd rather have everything in front of me so I can highlight it and read it anywhere rather than being tied to the computer.

Anyway I am afraid to blow through the reading like I would a novel of fiction because I really want to retain everything, but at this rate I will be weeks behind if I don't pick up the pace.

I just stepped outside and smoked a cigarillo while shooting some baskets on my kids mini hoop, which actually worked to chill me out, but not sure if that will help my reading tempo and comprehension.

Kids Have Trouble Paying Attention? Video Games May Be to Blame

My friend's band for kids "StarFish" gets props from AOL:

Best New Family Road Trip Music

You can tell me it's okay

A conversation my eight year-old just had with his mom, in light of us having lots of "grown up" conversations lately where we need the kids to leave the room and us being stressed out by the deterioration of our relationship with my mother:

SON mom is there something bad going on in your life?
MOM no
S you can tell me it's okay
M well there is but I am not going to tell you what it is
S is it bills, is it money, is someone dying
M no
S I can give you some money if that will help
M it's nothing that money can help
S if it gets worse will you tell me
M probably not
S dad said you'd tell me if it gets worse

The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it click link for full article

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Give me my time back

I have been having dealing with some serious issues dealing with my mother, her interaction with my in-laws, her thinking that she can say and do whatever she wants once she becomes upset on top of a life time of other mommy issues which I will not digress into in this forum. The point being that I have been composing a letter to my Pop (step-father) about the issues that I am upset about, since the issues my mother are focusing on are pretty far off the point.

He wrote me a letter about what's going on so I wanted to get a few thoughts down in to the letter I was already composing. So rather than packing for my family's imminent vacation, or doing the dishes, or watching that netflix movie that my wife wanted to see that she will never make time for, so I need to watch it soon and mail it back or it becomes a waste of money, or giving the kids a shower like I am suppose to on Wednesdays, I am cranking out my random thoughts on current family events and 41 years of family dysfunction while temporarily verbally ushering out the kids from the office so I can concentrate, and keeping my eight year old at a distance since he is prone to over the shoulder reading.

Then my wife calls me into the bathroom because my 8 year-old is crying because of problems he is having in creative writing at art camp. They are working on a news paper and the class is for 8 to 12 year-olds, he doesn't understand what he is suppose to do and is basically afraid to ask questions. So her goes another hour of asking 5o questions to fully understand what is going on, partially reassuring him, partially kicking his ass about not coping out, telling him it is a teachers job to explain things to you, if you knew how to do everything you would not have to go to school, the teacher knows you are eight and do not know everything, everyone gets confused, everyone makes mistakes, if you spell a word wrong Google will usually come up with the correct spelling and ask you if this is what you meant to write, etc.

I really should learn to not procrastinate, because at the later moments of preparation for doing something I am damn near guaranteed that someone member of my family will do something unfathomable, become dramatically ill or die, really piss me off, one of my kids will hurt himself, have an accident not making it to the toilet or wet the bed, or a spider will be hanging over my wife as she falls asleep and she will scream for me to run to her rescue ...

MEMORY TRICKS FOR BUSY OLD BRAINS

Is that why you yelled $#(%!!!

A few weeks ago my 8 year-old son forgot a book at school he needed to study for a test. He was getting very upset. That same night I misplaced something and was yelling at myself about it.

I went over to him and said, "See there is no reason to get mad at yourself, everyone looses things even daddy, I just lost something too."

"Oh, is that why you just yelled 'shit'?"

"Uhm, yeah it is. You are not in trouble, but you are not allowed to say that word okay, I am sorry that you heard me say it."

Hold On To This ...

My wife brought my youngest son into bed with me this morning before she went to work. It is the first day that both of my boys have off for summer vacation, so I do not have to get up as early as I have been. So I hug my son but then he realizes that his mother is leaving and he fully wakes up and starts to go after her. I let out a little grumbly moan of disappointment, and he turns back and says, "Hold on to this," and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then proceeds downstairs after his mother. A few minutes later he asked, "Are you still holding on to it?"

Stream of Constant-ness / Pictures of You Two

Today, well, Monday, was the first day home on Summer vacation for my 5 year-old.
The last two months he has been asking when will school be over and talking about how he is ready for school to be over.
And now that it is over, he spent the whole day talking about his friends, asking me to call his friends' parents to set up playdates.
I had forgotten that he constantly talks, non-stop, continuously, really, on and on ... I was checking emails and told him I needed to concentrate so I could finish more quickly so we could hang out, but being five he did not understand that what I said meant that he should stop talking.
So I had to ask him to stop talking for a few minutes, I did not blow up at him about it, though I know I have been short with him on this subject in the past, however I can remember how it stung being a child and my mother asking me to stop talking so she could finish paying some bills. I have never been an extremely talkative person, so she did not have to shut me up very often, but I can tell that the lack of rarity, or familiarity with being asked to "Just please stop talking for a minute," has not made it a more comfortable situation for my recent pre-school graduate.
This situation is some what of a trade off for not constantly having the TV on to distract him. I do not plan on the TV being his summer long companion so I just have to remember to be sensitive to his feeling and needs while he is not mature enough to be in tune with or situationally infer my feelings and needs.
At one point he said, "I just want to do anything with you." So I integrated him into my chores, unloading the dishwasher, sorting and putting away laundry, sorting change into piggy banks, etc. and he was into it, though not as much as being into playing of course, he did like the idea that he was earning "points" towards getting his allowance by helping me out around the house.

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

For some reason on Sunday on the ride home after seeing Toy Story 3 my kids were talking about my wife and I being dead. It may have had to do with us not getting them any candy from the concessions stand, or it may have had to do with the Andy character growing up, toys being thrown away, etc. As my 8 yr-old was talking about something with us being old or dead and the Toy Story plot, my 5 yr-old said, "When you guys are gone I'm just going to look at pictures of you two all the time."
I had a hard time not crying after hearing that.

I really wish my kids did not have a rather full understanding of death at such an early age. Although it may help them to deal with the issue better through out their lives.

Waitlist 2010 / Accepted 2011

Oh yeah, I got wait listed for 2010 for the MSW program I applied to, and accepted if I choose to go in 2011, which is what I choose, I do not deal well with major life situations being up in the air, so I would rather know when I am starting rather than wait around for things to shake out.

Night and Day / Fear of a Wood Floored Planet

I have been trying to get more sleep to enable me to be more productive during the day when my boys are at school.

Yesterday my pre-schooler said he stepped on a staple when he was at school and it went into his foot. He said they were had to take off their shoes and just wear their socks when they were practicing their dance routine for graduation.

He did not seem hurt, and his teachers are really good at informing us when the students get hurt, and I figured that he would be in huge amount of pain if he had a staple in his foot so I basically did not believe him, and made him continue jogging his laps around the house.
Twice a week I have he and his brother jog around our house for exercise.

At first he seemed in pain, but very quickly was back to normal so I thought he was trying to get out of doing laps.

Fast forward four hours and we are getting ready for the boys to shower and he complains about his foot and when we look he has a centimeter long dark wood splinter buried in his foot. I asked him if the teachers helped him and he said they did not. I asked if he told them and said he did not, "They would not help or do anything about it." I explained to him that he was totally wrong that they would help him, which they would.

FUCK I was so wrong in my assessment, I really should have looked at his foot straight away, which I normally would have done, being a bit of a worrier when it comes to their health, but we were outside and my gut was feeding me bad information.

It took us at least 30 minutes to get it out because my son operates on a dramatic level that is usually only seen in operas or from the mouths of young broken hearted teenage girls, he was wailing the whole time, often when we were not even touching his foot. He got himself so worked up that he was pouring sweat and shaking and screaming at the top of his strong little lungs.
And when I say we got it out, I mean most of it, the hole looks dark, so their may be another thinner sliver of wood in his foot or their is just dirty wood residue in the wound.

After all of this I still had to give them showers and shower myself, so being worked up from the situation I did not get to bed any earlier than normal.

Then this morning my wife wakes me up at 5:15 and says, "Our 2nd grader wet the bed and I am going to workout at bootcamp, so you have to get up and help him."
Great, my sleep was encroached upon at both ends.

My pre-schooler is now afraid of wood floors, which we have a lot of in our house. I spoke with the teachers at his school and they said that they will not make the kids take off their shoes anymore, and that they wish he had told them because one of them is an EMT and would have had no problem cutting out the splinter seeing how she has performed emergency surgery in the past.

So the morals to this story are when it comes to health issues always believe your kids, they may not communicate exactly what happened to them, but if they are bringing up an issue there is a very good chance that something is going on, and regularly remind your children to tell their teachers, baby sitters, basically what ever grown up is responsible for them at that time, when something bad happens, be it bullies, boo-boos or uncomfortable interactions with weirdos and to tell them right away.

Really, you are going to wear that?

It has been hot and humid as all balls lately, and yes a world completely made up of testicles would be disgustingly clammy and uncomfortable, why did I leave the moderate and foggy shores of San Francisco?

My house is disaster post my preschooler picking up lice from his school, a situation like many that is so traumatic that even though there are tons of interesting and even funny stories generated from it, I just don't bother blogging about it in detail because living through it once was enough.

So my laundry in garbage bags in various places in the house and it is super humid so I am not phased by my only available shirt being a sleeveless Adidas t-shirt. It is not a tank top, I will not be exposing my hairy Neapolitan descended shoulders, it is just a t-shirt with no sleeves.

My five year old sees me after putting on the shirt and says:
Dad are you really going to wear that to my school?
Me: Yes I was planning to
Him: laughing, Into the school?
Me: thought bubble, "great I need to hit the weights more or maybe get my shoulder and arms waxed, or both."

Monday D-Day or G-Day

I called the admissions department for the MSW program I applied to and they said they will start completing their review of the applications this coming monday.