Category: Parenting

  • Summer is Almost Over

    We have eighteen days until the kid starts school, which means that we have eighteen days left of Summer. It was a busy summer with day camps, visiting friends, and a vacation to boot. This made those first nine weeks fly by. Looking at the final two weeks, I have this feeling that we don’t have enough time to get ready for school, and the new routine that will follow.

    We’ll have to do some school shopping. We were able to get a rain coat for the kid while up in Maine, but she needs a new winter coat and winter shoes. Let’s not forget that out kid shot up a whole inch this Summer, so we need to do another round of clothes shopping. And school supplies. Always needing school supplies.

    Then there is the anxiety of the Fall. We were told, and our planning, on having the kid attend in person class, but with everything going on, I don’t feel like that is a guarantee. I have this nagging thought in the back of my head that if things get worse with Delta, then we might have to do remote school again. This is one of the reasons why I haven’t taken the kids “school corner” down in the living room. The other is that I am lazy.

    I fear if we do remote school again, that it will just crush all of us. The kid has told me that she wants to be back at school to see her friends, learn, and have fun. She’s excited about being there, and I want her to have that. For the wife and I, school means a return to normal. It means the chance for me to go get a part time job, and help us dig out of the financial hole we are in. And also, school means that I get a little time to write as well.

    So much still feels up in the air, but everything has been up in the air for like two years now. I wouldn’t say we are getting used to it, but we would like a break from this ride. Just eighteen days till the next chapter.

  • Ode to the Tooth Fairy

    When the wife and I decided that we wanted to start a family, and then when she found out she was pregnant, I started thinking of all the events and roles I would be taking on; How I would be killing spiders, and cleaning up spills, and doing laundry, and rocking the kid to sleep, wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve, and reading stories at bedtime. All the fun, and endearing tasks that I would have to do seemed exciting, and I couldn’t wait to get started.

    But as I thought of all of these cute fun fatherly roles I would take on; one never crossed my mind – Tooth Fairy. It’s a little funny that it never dawned on me, even when the kid was first cutting her teeth. But Tooth Fairy has become one of my favorite roles.

    I think what I like most about it is that it requires many different fatherly skills. First is the cheerleader role when the kid loses a tooth. Sometimes she needs a little encouragement to pull the tooth, but on the whole, it’s just matching her excitement of losing the it. Then comes the night and the tooth placed under the pillow. For that, I need my ninja skills of entering the room undetected, the calm hand of getting the tooth from under the pillow, and replacing it with a dollar. And on one occasion, I had to employ my acting skills, as the kid woke up, wondering why I was in her room. I played it off, saying that I thought I heard the Tooth Fairy, which did the trick. And then there is just that silly sweetness of the morning when the kid wakes up, excited that another moment of childhood magic has occurred.

    As in all things, even the Tooth Fairy has a limited life span, and I will enjoy the time I have.

  • Halfway Through Summer

    I know for some of you out there, you are in the final stretch of Summer, and I have even seen some of my friends back in Texas talk about their kids starting school in a week or two. But for us up here, we are at the half way point; only five weeks and a handful of days left before school starts up again.

    I’m not going to get into all the craziness of schools opening up, as I feel I will be writing about that the closer we get to that date.

    What I was struck by was how fast it is going, which is good, and that I need to start thinking about the planning that comes with school on the horizon. School supplies and clothes shopping, and I think we need to get a winter coat for the kid this year.

    Today, the kid and I are going to do what my mother did for me when I was little and on summer vacation, which is go to the library and check out books. This will be the kid’s first visit to our local library, and I hope there is a way for her to get her own library card. Going to the library was always something fun I remember doing with my parents, and I hope I can pass that love of being around books to the kid.

    Five weeks to go, and lets’ see what fun we can have.

  • The Kid’s First Time Being Homesick

    Our daughter has been visiting friends for the past few days. She has been looking forward to this trip for months! She was getting to travel, be in a house that had a pool, hang out with other kids all day, and have a summer adventure.

    When we dropped off the kid, she couldn’t have given two craps that we were leaving. She was excited and laughing, and wanted to be away from us. There was a little sting with her being so blasé with our exit, but on a more important level, I was happy that she wasn’t having any separation issues. We FaceTimed each night, and she was bubbling over telling us all about the fun she was having, but the call always ended with her telling us that she loved us and missed us.

    Last night on our call, the kid was talking all about the fun they had, and then she got quite, and started to silently sob little tears. Oh, our hearts just broke. “I want to see you, here,” she cried, “I miss you.” We tried to console her, letting her know that we would all be together soon, and how much we loved her.

    This is also normal. This is the longest we have all been apart, and it’s especially hard on her. I also feel very helpless as all can do is try and comfort her through a computer screen. When what we all want is a big long silly hug.

    I remember that feeling of being away from your parents and never really knowing when you will see them again. When I was her age, I remember being upset, and my aunt called my mother so I could talk to her on the phone. My Ma would calm me down and tell me that she loved me and that we would all be together again, very soon. And it would help. But that lonely missing feeling never really went away in me; it was in the back of my head making butterflies in my stomach.

    I do hope my little girl is having fun today, and not missing us too bad. Though I expect that the next hug I get from her will be pretty tight and a little long.

  • Managing Expectations

    I sure have heard this phrase a lot over the past several years. In the arts and business world, and normally, when it is brought up, it is because two parties believe in different outcomes to specific actions. I will go a step further and say that it also is a sign that one party is not sharing their expectations with the other party, so they can be “outraged” at the other party when the results are not satisfactory, and thus stop working with that other party. (Can you tell I have been burned by this situation more than once…)

    It’s a loaded phrase, like “We need to talk.”

    Nothing good follows. Normally.

    And I used the “managing expectations” phrase last night when I was out to dinner with my wife. Now that we have a tiny, smidge of stability on the horizon, what do when envision?

    The answer was two different ideas.

    Now, we were out to dinner, which we haven’t done in over a year, and we had several drinks in us, so we both know each other well enough to not hold the other one to anything that was said.

    It was about the timeline of me returning to work; when, doing what, and how much should I bring in? We aren’t too far off, but it was different. And that’s okay. I think being able to talk about it really is the most important part, and listening to what the other person is saying.

    What we both heard was that we need to make sure the kid is okay. Whatever the details are, it all leads to the same destination; how do we build a home and family, that meets our physical and mental needs, as well as our daughter’s.