Category: Parenting

  • SLEEP! In Heavenly Peace!

    I watched a disc golf tournament last night on YouTube. I found it fascinating that there are people out there that can throw a disc 300 yards, and sometimes in a straight line. It was pretty cool, as I don’t think I would have watched a disc golf tournament if it hadn’t been the fifth night in a row when I couldn’t sleep.

    I know you are not supposed to say this, but it’s my kid’s fault. This week is her Spring Break, and she is refusing to go to bed. Even when she does go to sleep, she finds a way to wake up, and then proceeds to wake me up as well, to inform me that she cannot sleep. I’m trying to be cool about it, and level headed, but it is really beginning to get under my skin.

    I normally am not a person who sleeps. I stay up too late, and get up early. I do try to take short naps, and I think that’s how I have been able to keep my sanity. Yet, the situation I find myself in has not only robbed me of my naps, and also of my normal five to six hours of nightly sleep.

    I need the kid to go back to school.

    This lack of sleep, and child watching, has also robbed me of my ability to do anything creative. To steal these few minutes, I gave her the iPad, and told her just to go watch something – anything – just give me fifteen minutes alone so I can get something done.

    Remember, kids won’t make you a happier person. That only happens if you were happy to begin with. After this week, I don’t think I was ever a happy person.

  • Summer Vacation

    I have started planning for Summer. Vacations, and interactions, and all that other stuff.

    When I was a kid, Summer just meant sleeping in and watching tv all day. I grew up in Texas, and the Summers last from May to October. I’m not kidding when I say that. It can be very normal for the average high in October to be in the 80’s. My memory is that when Halloween rolled around, that was about the point when it started to feel Fall-like, which means that it got up to the 70’s in the day.

    With it being so hot, we stayed inside often, but that’s not to say that we didn’t go outside and sweat our asses off. The kid who had the pool in the neighborhood became everyone’s best friend June through August. But, being inside, I remember hearing the hum of the central air clicking on, and that low rumbling sound, like white noise, creating an audio-scape that would lull me off into a nap, as there was nothing better to do.

    The other thing I remember about Summers growing up, was that the season created odd friendships in the neighborhood. My close friends always had some place to be; a vacation, or visiting family out of state, or for the kids of divorce, spending the whole summer with their other parent. Those of us left in the subdivision became friends out of necessity. I remember hanging out the jock kids, or bullies, or even girls, the people who I would normally not mix with became rapt conspirators in Summer. But inevitably, when the school year started up again, we’d all go back to our groups, and resume the cliques we existed in.

    With my kid, and planning trips and whatnot, I wonder how she will come to view the Summer of her youth? Here in NYC, it is rather short, of only two months, making a total of ten weeks. If what I have planned happens, we will be out of the City for four weeks, leaving six weeks, which I feel the need to fill with some sort of activity. It’s like, I cannot let the kid be bored. Though when I think back on it, boredom was what Summer vacation from school was.

  • The Fear of Missing Out Monster

    The kid this morning told me that she wants out of the after-school program that she is in. I asked why, and she told me she doesn’t have any friends. Then she told me to not get a job so we could spend more time together, and that she play with her friends in the park. I think I know what the issue is, which comes down to that there are two classes in after-school program, and her friends from school are in the other class, and she feels like she is missing out.

    Parent me listened to her, and didn’t pass any judgement. I did remind her that she just needed to get through this week, and then she would be on Spring Break. After that, she only had eight weeks left, and then it was Summer vacation. After that, we could talk about what to do next.

    Regular me knows just what she is going through, as I can remember what it was like to be seven years old, and just wanting to be with your friends. The total and all-consuming angst of not being around them, and assuming that they have forgotten about you, and are no longer having fun. For a split second I almost told her it’s not that big of a deal, but I stopped that. It is a big deal to her. This is the first time she is experiencing something like this, and I don’t want to make her feel ashamed for feeling this way.

    I do know that my job is to help her cope and overcome these feelings, in a healthy and constructive way.

    Sadly, I don’t know if I ever learned that skill set myself. I still feel like I am missing out. That all my friends are having fun without me.

    So, I have work to do for the both of us.

  • ODDS and ENDS: FIFA Men’s World Cup, Easter, and Soup

    (Things I think…)

    The Men’s World Cup teams are pretty much locked in now. I know there are three play-off matches left to go, but, on the whole, the World Cup is set. I am glad that Team USA was able to make it in this time around. All they had to do was not lose to Costa Rica by more than six goals, so Team USA lost by two goals. It would have been nice to qualify with a win, but I’ll take what I can get. Also, it’s kind’a cool that all of North America will be represented; Canada, USA and Mexico will all be there. Which is a little bit funny as that Continental Trifecta will be hosting the 2026 Cup, and means they all get automatic bids as the host nations. I will be rooting for Team USA, but will also follow England. And I will keep my eye on Senegal; I got a good feeling about them. The only downside to all of this is that the tournament doesn’t kick off until November. I got eight months to sit on this, and do a grand amount of speculating.

    When my daughter got up this morning, she asked me, how soon till Easter? It’s almost here, and we, the wife and I that is, haven’t hand a single thought about it. We did talk, at the start of the year of getting out of town for that weekend, but I don’t think that’s likely. The kid, on the other hand, is ready for bunnies, and eggs, and going to see farm animals, and flowers, and candy. Lots and lots of candy. In my kid’s mind, I think she believes the year is divided up into periods where she receives candy.

    I like soup now.

  • Gumming Up the Works

    You know what happens in our home when it’s twenty degrees outside? No one wants to get up, myself included. Even the dog didn’t want to get out of my bed. The poor kid-o refused to get out from under her covers, so I had to pick her up outta bed and take her to the couch. Long story short, the kid was late to school. I’m talking maybe ten minutes late. Instead of going in the side door with her class and teacher, we had to go through the main front door, and by the school security guard. I watched the kid hang her head low as she slow walked down to her classroom, and had to open the door, in effect announcing her lateness to the class.

    In the realm of the Universe we live in, this was not a big deal, but to her, I could just feel the defeat and how this twenty-four-hour period will be described as the worst day ever. I might even hear it multiple times today.

    And still, I felt my little heart break for her. Such an innocent state of grace that she lives in where just being late is all the cause one would need for the day to be the worst. This caused me to remember the large and small tragedies that would befall me in elementary school. Missing the bus, or forgetting my lunch, or getting a stain on my shirt when it was picture day. Getting the question wrong, or being accused of liking a girl, when I did actually really like that girl.

    Watching my kid go through these things, does not make me feel good, but somehow confirms that life is really just on repeat. When it comes to how we deal with things, nothing changes from one generation to the next. I try to nurture a different result, but nature keeps gumming up the works.