Category: Parenting

  • Day Trip Out of New York

    I decided that I was going to take the weekend off from writing anything, with the exception of journaling. That lead to an exceptionally lazy Saturday, where none of us did anything. As for Sunday, we planned a hike outside of New York City, at the Great Hollow Nature Preserve in Connecticut. We went looking for a place that had an “easy skill level” that was kid friendly, but still had enough of a hike to make us feel like we had accomplished something. Great Hollow checked all the boxes, and we had a wonderful afternoon of hiking, which ended with a picnic on the lawn.

    As we are now in the middle of August, the last month of Summer before school starts, the idea that we will be able to get away for a vacation is no longer even remotely a possibility. To make the best out of this situation, we are planning more day trips upstate, and seeing if we can find a few more easy trails to tackle. This has been the third time this Summer that we took a short excursion to get out to a park or preserve to do some very easy hiking, and it has been a welcome relaxation for us. 2020 has thrown us so many curveballs, car trips to break up to monotony of being stuck at home have helped.

  • Parenting: Going to the Doctor

    As we are trying to get ready for the school year, whatever it might be, we are attempting to behave as normal as possible, and that would be the annual pediatrician checkup before the Fall. Normally, this has never been an issue for the kid. To a degree, she sort of liked going to see the doctor. Both of the kid’s grandmas were nurses, and on my wife’s side of the family, there is a long history of working in the medical field. For that reason, the kid has grown up around lots of nurses and doctors.

    I made the appointment to the pediatrician, and let the kid know that it was something we would be doing, but she got very concerned.

    “Will I get a shot?” she asked me.

    I told her it was possible, and did the routine of “It will only hurt of a second,” and “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

    That didn’t work.

    For over a week I fielded questions about shots, medicine, and sharpe instruments that the doctor might use.

    I could feel the kid’s anxiety growing, and no matter how hard I tried, there didn’t seem to be anything I could say or do to make her feel better. It made me feel powerless, and insufficient as her father.

    All I can do is be with her, and encourage her to be strong.

  • Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Playgrounds and The Kid’s Mental Health

    Yesterday, I talked about how the virus may affect us and our kids in the future. I think about this often, especially when me and the kid head to the playground.

    When the playgrounds were closed in the City, it was awful for all of us. We tried to stay active by going for walks twice a day. The one nice benefit of this was that we got to explore all the streets in our neighborhood, but nonetheless it was not a substitute for a playground. Every time we walked through a park, and the kid laid eyes on the playground, I would get the question of, “When can we go back in there?” There was never an acceptable answer.

    With the lack of physically activity, and having no social contact with other kids, my daughter was starting to act out, and undertake behaviors she had never demonstrated before. She was more prone to scream, argue, throw things, and have temper tantrums, the likes she hadn’t done at least since she was three. We had been lucky in having a child that loved to sleep, and went to bed with no issues, but since April, she has been fighting going to bed, and getting up several times a night.

    Now that playgrounds have been open for almost a month now, it has made this situation more tolerable for the kid. Her behavior has gotten better, and she is generally sleeping solidly again. There are still flair ups, from time to time. I am sure that with the kid having a chance to be around other kids, and act out her frustrations and fears, that she is finding ways to cope with all of this stuff. It has been our one glimmer of hope in this season of unpredictability.

  • What Will We Remember from This?

    I had a video chat with a good friend the other day, who lives in Kansas City. He has a three-year-old son, and any day now, will have a newborn on his hands. Besides talking about the general insanity of the world, we started comparing notes of how we have been surviving with cuts to our income. I being laid off, and he having his salary cut. We both have been finding ways to make food last as long as possible, and we throw nothing out. We both joked to each other that we sounded like our grandparents talking about living through The Great Depression.

    When I was little and did ask my grandparents about the Depression, and mind you all of them were in their early 20’s when it happened, they all sort of laughed it off, but also, they did talk about not having a whole lot of money, and making every dime last. I especially remember all of them telling me that thy learned how to fix everything if it broke.

    I might have grandkids one day, and they might ask me about this, but what I really wonder about, and so did my good friend, was what will our little kids take away from this? My five-year-old knows that there was a lifestyle before Covid, and she is already telling me she can’t wait to return to normal when Covid is over. But is she going to remember the anxiety, the uncertainty and the feeling of discord from around the country? How much of this daily, just dumb fuckery will stick in her mind? How will this influence her for the rest of her life? For my grandparents, the Depression made them thrifty, inventive, and they had a sense of common purpose with all Americans to solve big problems.

    I hope we can do the same.

  • Coronavirus: Day 11 At Home

    It has been so much harder getting a routine started at home with all of us on top of each other. My wife has been doing the heavy lifting with the kid; making sure our daughter gets her online school lessons in, and has creative time, and as well as baking projects. I have still been trying to find my balance with the new job; when I can work, and when I need to help out at home. Half of my day is spent on a video conference call, so making sure I am not in the way, and vice versa, has been challenging. But, we are making it work, and having a little fun as well.

    For us the adults in this house, we are both battling fears and anxieties of the outside world. What if we get sick? What if we have to go to the hospital? What if they lock down the City? What if we have to leave the City? Where would we go?

    I know this is clearly coming from our experience with the California wildfires, and that feeling of being totally underprepared for what happened to us. It’s like we want to get ahead of the virus, but being at home makes us feel helpless.

    We have to take turns boosting the other. Monday, I had a really bad day. Yesterday, my wife was having a bad one. We are trying to find ways to support each other through this, while also, not trying to freak the kid out.

    I guess this is our new normal.