Tag: Fatherhood

  • Fatherhood: Baby Teeth Edition

    The kid needs to lose one more tooth and then she can get braces. At least that was what I was told by the orthodontist. As such, we have been going to town trying all the tricks to get that last baby tooth out. Within reason, that is. She’s been eating crunchy vegetables and wiggling the tooth with her tongue. My father suggested the old tie a string around the door handle and the tooth trick, but that one seemed to scare the kid a little. Odds are that the tooth will come out in the next couple of days. I feel the act/desire to have to the tooth out is what is causing the tooth to stay in – as that is how the Universe works for most things.

    In a larger sense, I never imagined how much time I would spend in my fatherhood worrying, dealing with, and caring for the loss of baby teeth. I imagined quite a few scenarios of being a father, but grappling with baby teeth wasn’t one of them.

    I feel like there is a book there, waiting to be written, “Everything I Had No Idea About When It Came to Being a Dad.” I think I have written several blogs about this, though right now, I can’t think of any of those issues.

    That’s the other thing about fatherhood; what was odd and new today, is normal and old by tomorrow.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Stressful, Blue to White, and I Gotta Run

    ODDS and ENDS: Stressful, Blue to White, and I Gotta Run

    (I will sing, sing my song…)

    Man in blue tracksuit frantically running out of the Sakura Heights apartment building door.
    Word Press’ AI creates some awful images, huh?

    You know the one thing in my life that I had no idea would be stressful; Planning a kid’s birthday party. I thought planning our wedding was bad. I had no idea that birthday parties for 10 ten year old girls causes me to lose sleep at night. I wake up in a cold sweat scared that I have forgotten some detail. My stomach churns at the idea a kid will come to the party and not have a good time, or will be excluded for whatever stupid reason, and then it is my responsibility to make sure EVERYONE HAS A GOOD TIME! Seriously, there should be a list for new parents of all the shit that will stress you out that you have no idea on God-s Green Earth are stressful. Making memories here…

    So, it seems my default colors right now is white and blue. I say all of this because as I start to “Spring Clean” and de-clutter my closet, I’m tossing shirts which are old, and have holes in them. What I am left with is an amazing spectrum of blue to white, all in an Oxford style. I have written a couple of times, how in my middle age period, I have taken on a Classic American/Oxford/New England/Ivy League look. It feels comfortable, defined, and at the same time casual on me. The draw back here is that I seem to have boxed myself in color wise. I do have some Nantucket Red pants, but really, I seem to have dropped the ball on having a splash of color in my life.

    Ah… It’s almost 11am, and I need to run to the grocery store. It’s a busy day and I have a lot to do.

  • ODDS and ENDS: I Hate Fractions, Breakfast Memories, and I Have a Problem…

    ODDS and ENDS: I Hate Fractions, Breakfast Memories, and I Have a Problem…

    (Three is a magic number…)

    Fractions suck. They have sucked since I was first introduced to them back in 5th grade, and to this day, they are still sucking away. I know that their suckage has continued because my daughter came home with math homework that was nothing but stupid word problem fraction questions. “It takes 1 3/4 cups of flour to make a batch of cookies. Dave wants to make 4 1/8 batches of cookies. If Dave has 8 2/3 cups of flour, how much flour will he have left over after he bakes his cookies?” Honestly, who gives a shit. Why aren’t they teaching kids to convert the fractions to decimals, because the world runs on decimals. Lucky for the kid, she didn’t inherit her father’s useless mathematical mind, and at least can handle it better that I did.

    This morning, as I was waking up the kid, and getting breakfast started, a memory shock-shot into my head. I returned to being four or five years old, sitting at the kitchen table eating Franken Berry cereal, watching my mother in her old yellow robe whisk and glide around the kitchen make school lunches for my brothers. There was a radio on top of the refrigerator that was playing “Fun, Fun, Fun.” I was trying to follow the lyric, but was confused. “What’s a T-bird?” I asked my mom. “It’s a car,” she said. “Why does the dad take it away?” “She got in trouble.” This was all confusing to me.

    I’m addicted to my phone, and it’s becoming a problem. Sure, a little of it has to do with doom scrolling because of all the news of late. Yet, I know that I am spending too much time on my phone. I lost a half hour just now, looking a videos of people signing about how awful musical theatre is. Like, I need to wrap up my writing this morning, and get to my chores… but I had to see if there were any new ICE videos. Now I feel like I am behind, and the day is slipping away. I have to put it down. I have to stop. I have to do better and more constructive things with my time. Like come up with a good button to end this piece…

  • Earworm Wednesday: Bowie

    It’s Mary Hopkin’s singing those “Doo Doo Doo’s” that locks it into my head.

    The song also reminds me of the time when I was driving around Northern California with my then five-year-old daughter, and she thought this was the coolest song, and made me play it over and over in the car.

  • The Bored Days of Summer (Unedited)

    We got three days into Summer Vacation, and the kid announced that she was bored.

    “There’s nothing to do”

    “No one to talk to”

    “Nothing to watch”

    “Nothing to read”

    “Nothing to listen to”

    I think you get the idea.

    Not surprised to hear her say this. All kids get bored when they have too much time on their hands. When the get too much freedom, it becomes repressive. As I am the stay at home dad, I get the brunt of the kid’s complaints, and she looks to me to solve this problem of hers.

    My first reaction was to tell her that it’s not my job to eliminate her boredom.

    But as soon as I said that, it dawned on me that it really is my job to end her boredom. Look, if I don’t get involved then she will want to zombie out on the iPad, and that is the worst thing that could happen.

    I’m not saying that she won’t get on the iPad this Summer, but I want to limit that as much as possible.

    Now, I don’t want to create mindless things for her to do, such as dumping a bunch of chores on her. There is no joy or magical memories that come from that. No, what I want to do is encourage healthy habits while also spending time together. (She will help me paint the livingroom this Summer, so she does have one huge chore, but we’ve been talking about that for months now.) I want her to stay active, so we are going to go running, and work on her soccer skills. I also want to keep her reading up, so we need to set time aside for that. She’s brought up that she wants to go to a museum, so that will take care of the art side of things. And I want to encourage her to think about the food she wants to learn how to make, and then we can work on recipe testing.

    IN the end, what I know to be true is that you only get to have so many Summers as a kid. When the days are hot but not too hot, and the Summer feels like it stretches on forever. In two or three years, I really won’t see her over the Summer, as she’ll be involved in something, or will be hanging out with her friends. Until then, I want to make sure she has some memories of enjoying time with her dad. Doing stupid stuff while trying to avoid being bored.