Category: Parenting

  • ODDS and ENDS: Museum of Natural History, Alice Walker’s Journals, Dallas Mavericks, and Jazz Samba

    (Stay Fresh, Cheese Bags!)

    It’s Earth Day! AND the kid is on Spring Break! So, we’re going to the Museum of Natural History today! This is low hanging fruit when it comes to doing something with the kid that she will enjoy for several hours. For most of my friends with kids, the zoo is their “go-to” place to occupy some time, but my kid never has really enjoyed going to a zoo. Now, a petting zoo, or looking at baby animals, she will go crazy over that. But your normal, run of the mill zoo; nope, my daughter ain’t having it. What she wants is a display case with rocks in it. Maybe a diorama from the 1920’s. Give us a squid and a whale!

    Yesterday, I read a piece in The New Yorker about a book of Alice Walker’s journals. I was interested because I think Walker is a great writer who I look up to, and being that I journal, I am curious what her journals are like. Two things I took away from the article are that Walker at one point thought she should smoke “less weed,” and her preoccupation with money. I admit that I haven’t read this book and am only going off what was in the article, but these two points, weed and money, humanized Alice Walker for me, and made me respect her more. The weed statement means that she feels like she should be getting high less, and doing other things, and I infer that means writing. Even someone like Alice Walker thinks she should be working harder. And there is money. It’s not surprising that Walker was thinking about money issues before she was “ALICE WALKER” and was just another writer trying to make it. Yet, to see it in her journals just proves that finances were taking up a large part of her thought process, and needed to be expressed. Yes, she was trying out new ideas that would become great stories, but she was also trying to figure out how to pay rent and eat.

    I have been enjoying watching the Dallas Mavericks vs the Utah Jazz in the NBA Playoffs. Especially, I have enjoyed the Dallas bench playing some clutch basketball.

    Today’s album that I am listening to is “Jazz Samba” by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.

  • 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.