Category: Parenting

  • The Kid has Learned Well

    Last week, I mentioned that the kid was off from school for her “Mid-Winter Break.” I do not know of a single parent in the City that finds this “break” enjoyable. It is a week of scrambling to find things for the kid to do, so she doesn’t sit in front of a screen the whole time. I think I did an okay job last week. She surely didn’t have less screen time, but she didn’t have more.

    I mean, I’m not an idiot here. I do understand that I am receiving a wonderful gift, which is getting to spend time with my kid, at an age where she still likes and respects me. (The clock is ticking until that goes away…) She is forming her own opinions on music, and movies, and books she wants to read. She is just now taking the first steps in trying to figure out the world around her, and where she fits in. Being a witness to that is a great fringe benefit of being a parent.

    The kid did pepper me with lots of questions last week about growing up in Texas during the 90’s, in the suburbs, where it was warm or hot all the time. Describing growing up outside of Dallas is a fascinating and odd tale that my daughter, with her urban New York City upbringing, has a hard time wrapping her head around. Of all the things I have told her, she finds it amazing that the D/FW area will totally shut down at the first sight of snow; Not a blizzard, or sub-freezing temperatures, but just the tiniest of snowflakes falling would wreck North Texas.

    I think my story telling had an effect on her, as this morning, when getting ready for school, she told me she wanted to dress like a “90’s kid.” I was puzzled, so I asked her what a “90’s kid” looks like? I was told “90’s kids” wear; light blue jeans, All-Star shoes, baggy long sleeve tee-shirts, and listen to cd’s.

    She wasn’t wrong.

    And I also find it rather amazing that my daughter so succinctly summed up a very formative decade of my life. The only way she could have been more on the money is if she wanted a pack of clove cigarettes and a beat-up paperback copy of Naked Lunch to read.

  • I’m Not Getting Anything Done (Unedited, because I don’t have time…)

    This week, it’s the Mid-Winter Break up here in NYC. All the kid’s are off from school in what is like a preview of what Spring Break will be like. I say all of that because it doesn’t feel like winter up here. More like the start of Spring, which is just completely wrong, as this should be close to the coldest week of the year. Ah… Climate Change…

    So, the kid is at home, which is a challenging situation for us all. Very challenging for my wife, as she is working from home, and me and the kid are the worst co-workers to have. We play our music too loud and we’d microwave fish for lunch, if we had a microwave. It’s also not that great for the kid, as she’s away from her friends, as most of them have gone someplace; either to visit family, or just be away from the City. That leaves me as the kid’s partner in crime for having fun. We’ve read books, and done Lego, drawn pictures, run errands, and gone down to The Strand for book shopping. But at the end of the day, no matter how cool dad is, he’s not another kid.

    For me… I see how fleeting life is, and I value these moments that I have with my daughter, knowing that one day she will be off on her own, and I am glad, even comforted that I will have these memories of the time we spent together.

    And the other side of me is that there is a bunch of work that I want to do. Not only write a blog or two, but I have three story ideas I want to work on, as well as just catch up on my reading. (I didn’t help my cause by going book shopping, and adding more to my reading list.) Finally, about twenty minutes ago, I told the kid she HAD to play on the iPad so dad could get some work done, and that request to my daughter what the official sign thatI won’t be getting anything done this week.

    Nope, it’s just not happening.

    I am now going to make brownies with my daughter, and talk about the new accessories that she’s like her favorite doll to have.

  • Thoughts on Time and Settling (Unedited)

    The wife and I made a promise to each other for 2023. I don’t want to call it a resolution, because those are stupid, and doomed to fail. The promise we made was twofold:

    “No more wasting time, and no more settling.”

    This isn’t self-help garbage, like the “Hang in There” kitten poster. This is a pragmatic reminder.

    We do waste an enormous amount of time each day. Looking at our phones is the biggest culprit. But also, mindless eating while looking at the tv. Staying up late to stay up late (that one’s all me) and I have to go back and mention the phones again, because, you know, phones will eat up hours of your day. See, and this time wasting leads to us having to settle on things, because we haven’t given ourselves enough time to accomplish the things we want to do. It can be a vicious cycle, and we’d like to bust out of unhealthy cycles.

    And like all changes in life, no one really likes it, and it’s hard to follow though on.

    The wife is doing better than I. She is making it to yoga on the scheduled days, and going to bed on time. I can’t seem to get to the gym more than twice a week, and that should increase to at least three to four days a week. Like I said above, I’m still not making it to bed on time, which means I’m only getting like six hours of sleep.

    And as we start the game of setting goals and trying to achieve them as a family, I can’t shake the feeling that there is a clock, and I am running out of time. Maybe it has to do with being in my mid-forties, which I have been thinking about a lot of late, and that I might need to have to make some tough choices; I can’t do it all – something will have to fall to the wayside and be left behind.

    I have been with my wife for seventeen years, married for twelve, and they have been good years. We have a kid we love, and want to provide for, which is the real motivation for this. We will only have so much time with her, and then she will be out there in the world. We need to be parents that she can count on, and follow through when we say we are going to do something.

  • Watching the Grammys with My Kid

    It was a changing of the guard last night. The old was replaced with the new, officially. Yes, while watching the Grammys last night with my eight-year-old daughter, she took the time to explain to me who these artist are, and what songs they were playing. I didn’t let her know that I knew who the artists were, and I had most of their songs on several of my playlists, but that didn’t matter. In our house, the kid became the ambassador of what is cool and hip in music, while the wife and I were relegated to the back bench of the current culture.

    Watching the Grammys is my wife’s thing. Always has been, always will be. She does have a better ear than I when it comes to new music. If it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t listen to anything that came out after 2006. But, I have her in my life, so I am made aware, often, of things I need to listen to. Maybe, with my preference for “older” music, that is the reason why my daughter took it upon herself to help inform me of what was happening last night on the telecast.

    The cycle is now complete. I went from the student, to the master, and now I am back to the student. My older brothers were the gatekeepers in our house of what was, and was not good music; My oldest brother with his hair metal, and my other brother, the middle child, defending new wave. From this, I became the defender of rock and grunge, explaining to my parents who these people were on the Grammys in the 90’s. Now, my child has taken the mantel from me. I have much to learn, according to her. The truth is that I value moments like the one that happened last night. My daughter is starting to assert herself, creating her own opinions, and defending her choices. Right now, this is a friendly, fun and learning exercise between us. There is always a chance that in her teenaged years, this could take on a more confrontational aspect, which is why I make a point of not making fun of the artist and songs she thinks are important. I want her to know that she can voice her opinions to me, and she will know that I might not agree with it, but I will respect it.

  • Personal Review: CRUNCH and CLASH by Kayla Miller

    (I will SPOIL these two books!!! You have been warned!!!)

    I’m trying to be a good parent to my daughter. Besides teaching her to love the Chicago Cubs, and to despise the Philadelphia Eagles, I also want to instill in her the love of books and reading. I at least know enough not to force her to read, which would make it feel like a chore. What I do is suggest we read together, or I take her to the library on rainy days, and I try to set the example of reading books around the home. About two months ago, thanks in large part to our local library’s librarians (Support your local libraries, folks!) the kid found a series of tween graphic novels by the author Kayla Miller, that she has become a huge fan of. So much so, that for the kid’s birthday, we got her to complete series of Miller’s books.

    Full disclosure; I am not a tween graphic novel aficionado, nor do I have a deep wealth of knowledge of this genre, as Kayla Miller’s books are the first tween graphic novels I have read. Well, my daughter read them to me, but I was present and active in the storytelling. I want to speak of two of the novels in particular; CRUNCH and CLASH. (I am aware that these were read out of order. That was not my decision, it was the kid’s, and hopefully, we will finish the other books in the series.) For a broad outline here, the books revolve around Olive, a sixth grader who lives in a suburb with her mom and younger brother. CRUNCH has to do with Olive wanting to try as many new things as possible, guitar lessons, joining a scouting group, student council, and wanting to make a movie. CLASH is about Olive trying to be friends with a new girl in school, and no matter how hard Olive tries, they don’t seem to get along, which is complicated by the fact that Olive and the new girl are friends with the same people.

    My daughter and I started reading CRUNCH, and it became very clear why my kid loved these books; it reinforces her world view. Olive goes to school in a place that is filled with a wide range of diversity, which is just like the school my daughter attends. Also, though a little Pollyanna, all the kids in CRUNCH get along, or if there is a conflict, after a period of introspection or discussion, the kids are able to talk it out and come and solve the problem. What I really liked about CRUNCH, which my kid completely got, was that the “bad guy” in the story was Olive, who over stretched herself with too many commitments. It wasn’t until Olive learned to say no, politely, to one friend, and ask for help from others, that her life returned to a sense of balance.

    When we read CLASH next, this was the book made me impressed with Kayla Miller’s talent. As I said before, this book is about Olive trying to be friends with someone, a girl named Nat, who doesn’t want to be friends with her. Olive tries several different ways to be friendly to Nat, which is rebuffed every time, and often met with passive-aggressive backhanded compliments. These interaction sap Olive’s confidence, and challenge her worldview which is that everyone can be friends. There is a wonderful bit of complication as Olive’s mother and aunt, two very strong role models for Olive, disagree on how to handle the situation. The book concludes with making two very important points; First, we learn that Nat’s home life is not been the easiest, which reminds us that sometimes we don’t know the pressure and stress others are under; Second, Nat and Olive don’t become best friends, as they come to an understanding to be respectful to each other. What I felt when we started reading this book was that the ending was going to be about hand holding, and how we worked out our problems, and we are bestfriends like Tango and Cash, or Falcon and the Winter Soldier. No, what Miller gave us fit completely, and is true and honest to this world that she created – Nat and Olive don’t like each other and they won’t be bestfriends, but since they move in the same friend circles they had to find a way to co-exist. (Now, that’s a lesson a whole bunch of people need to learn.) What made that even better, is that my daughter related to that, as we talked about the same situation in her school. We had a long conversation about how you might not be friends with someone, but you have to respect who they are.

    These books are great, and I love reading them with my kid. Miller does very unique job of creating a place for her stories where the outside world is present and on the edges of the story, but never gets bogged down by adult perspectives, keeping the focus on these six graders, and their problems. Sure, puberty, and the wonderful/awful life of teenagers is just around the corner for all of these characters, but that corner is still a little ways off. In this place, these tweens are thoughtful, honest, and doing their best to solve their own issues, but never out of the sight of a parent. These are delightful books, and Kayla Miller has a very deft hand at storytelling, which has made all of us look forward to her next graphic novel.