Tag: Parenting

  • The Ol’ Sick Kid Bit

    I had plans today, but the kid got sick. Well, she got sick at school and I had to go and pick her up. I mean, she woke up early and wasn’t feeling the best, but she said it was only a headache and she could deal with it. Then, when she got to school, she started feeling worse, and her teacher called me to say that I should come and pick her up.

    Which I did. And she didn’t look good when I got her. Real pale, and whimpering a little, too. Just a sad sack. When we got home, she took a nap right away. She never takes naps, so the fact that she took one leads me to believe that she actually wasn’t feeling good.

    As for my plans… they’re shot to hell. I got the laundry done, and I will get a blog out today. Yet, I doubt I will make it to my journal, and there was this rewrite of a flash piece that I wanted to complete.

    But… We just watched an old David Tennant Doctor Who episode. That was kind’a cool.

    But… I’m still not getting my work done.

    At some point I have to start asking myself if I’m being a good dad, or am I rationalizing my procrastination? You know, using the kid as an excuse.

    I feel like I should be doing more, creating more, and then I also have this feeling come over me that none of this really matters. It is a fool’s errand that I am on; somehow thinking that any of this amounts to something.

    If it gives me purpose? If it means something to me? Does that have value?

    You know, following my bliss only seems to lead me introspective questions.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Crypto Scam, Sick Kid, Reject Me Already, and Thanksgiving

    (Don’t flood it…)

    So, Sam Bankman-Fried is going to jail for a very long time. I’m sure you know this, but crypto is a scam. Or, if I’m being polite, it’s just a new form of gambling. And SBF gambled and got caught. From everything that I read about this guy, he was too smart for his own good. He struck me as the type of person who was, and knew he was, smarter than everyone else, and somehow thought he could use his intelligence to get himself out of this situation. In the end, he was a con-artist, and he coned a lot of people. Including some other very smart people. Also, I am aware that as soon as I post this, I will get inundated with a bunch of crypto bots trying to get me to buy crypto.

    And the kid is sick. We watched “Let’s Make a Deal” this morning together. That was sweet. She’s running a fever, and feels awful, but she gets the iPad all day, so it’s not all bad.

    And as of this minute, I have yet to be rejected by Taco Bell Quarterly. They are one of my favorite online lit journals, and I’m not saying that because I submitted a story to them. TBQ has an attitude not unlike a favorite underground punk band that is parts hilarious, offensive, and friendly all at the same time. Anyway, the other day TBQ announced that they were sending out rejection letters and… I’m waiting for my rejection letter. They did say it would take some time, as they have to send out 2,800+ rejections. Over on TBQ’s X/Twitter feed, writers who have received their rejections are editing and marking out their letters to create new messages of varying degrees of positive/negative statements. It’s been fun to watch. But still… Where’s my rejection letter?

    Now that Halloween is over, time to start prepping for Thanksgiving. For me, that means making chicken, turkey and mushroom stock ahead of time. As well as stock piling non-perishable food. I’m getting ahead this year, and watch how this will play out. I’m sure I’ll be writing about it often.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Blame the Mother, Khaki Pants, and Things I was Wrong About

    (Sugar Ray say…)

    Last night I was having drinks with a friend, and old friend from high school, so we have known each other forever. We got on the topic of parental roles, as she feels that as a mother, she inevitably always gets blamed by her kid for everything. (Our kids are pretty close in age.) I don’t think she’s wrong, mom’s do take the brunt of blame, at least that’s what my mom claimed all the time. But, I wondered if one’s parental role plays a factor? My friend and her husband both work, and split equally parenting their kid; both cook, clean, do laundry, do homework, go to playdates, and dance classes…etc. While in our household, my wife works, and I take care of the kid and home. So, I feel like I take the brunt of blame from the kid, which I attribute to spending the most time being with the kid on a given day. As such, our discussion fell along those lines; is parental blame due to gender roles, or quantity of time spent with the kid? I don’t think there is a clear answer to this other than when our kids do something right, the first person they thank is always mom.

    I have to buy khaki pants soon. The pants have seen better days, as I purchased them right before Covid. (Because Covid is a designation of time, and not just an event.) I used to never own khaki pants. Like, went out of my way not to own any. I think it was due to those stupid GAP swing dancing commercials in the 90’s. (I wonder how many of those people in that commercial are now teaching dance classes?) Then I job a job, and I started wearing a tie, and a sports coat, and I got khaki pants to go along with the whole thing. Now, I have the same number of khaki pants as I do jeans. Funny how life changes you.

    Speaking of which…

    I can admit now that I was wrong about a couple of things:

    1. Sugar Ray
    2. The Texas Rangers this Season
    3. Jasper Johns

  • Lack of Sleep

    Oh, lord in heaven… we did not sleep last night in our home.

    The kid had sleeping issues, and it was difficult for her to fall asleep. Every half hour she was up, and it went on until 1am. This doesn’t happen very often, as the kid is a great sleeper. She always has been. Even as a baby, once you put her down, she was out. In fact, we stopped telling other parents about how well our daughter slept because we could just feel the red-hot hatred and contempt that would get shot at us from our sleep deprived friends.

    But this was hard. I think a little of it had to do with the Sunday Night Blues, and not wanting to go to school after a fun weekend. Also, I think she got a little too wound up after dinner with TV, and video games. Normally we turn screens off a half hour before bed, but we slipped up as parents. And once the kid starts having difficulty sleeping, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. She gets so worked up that she’s not falling asleep right away that she starts worrying that she’ll never fall asleep.

    What we were left with was a family all worn out in the morning, but we powered through it.

    For me and the wife, who seemed to have lived most of our life without enough sleep, it just felt par for the course.

    But, oh, the kid… poor kid. This was a special kind of awful that she wasn’t sure how to deal with. She was quiet, this morning, but she got up, ate breakfast, and got ready. We left on time, and made it to school early, in fact. But, it was her being quiet the whole time which was the tell that she was not having any of this.

    I wish I could tell her that life as a grown up isn’t normally like this, but this is what life as a grown up is like. You never get enough sleep.

    And when you do sleep, you wake up early for no reason at all.

  • The Scourge of Dads Who Rap

    This morning as I was walking my daughter to school, she started talking to me about what she considers her “look.” You know, the fashion and style the uniquely defines who she is. Right now, that would be carpenter pants, tee-shirts, and over-sized cardigan sweaters. (Let’s go 90’s!) Then I told her that I used to dress sort of the same way back in high school. And to a degree, my go to look is still jeans, tee-shirts and a sweater.

    I became curious, so I asked if I had a “look” that was apparent?

    I was told that I dress like a dad.

    Is that cool? I followed.

    No.

    Is it embarrassing?

    Not really.

    Is it as embarrassing as a dad rap?

    She grew puzzled. What’s a dad rap?

    You don’t know what a dad rap is?!?!? I was honestly shocked that this had not entered on the radar of my kids life.

    For those of you who don’t know, this is the best example of “Dad Rap” I know of:

    Yes, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, us kids were subjected to the scourge of dads trying to rap. Just as in the clip, dads would turn the baseball caps around, do weird things with their hands, and always, and I mean ALWAYS, use the “I’m (dad’s name) and I’m here to say…” line.

    I guess it was always meant as a joke by dads. The cringe factor, and trying to embarrass your kids. But it happened so often. Like, at school, PTA meetings, at church, at friend’s houses, little league games; anywhere there was a dad and a group of kids, a dad rap was bound to show up.

    And the other thing that The Simpsons gets 100% Right, are the kids begging for Homer to stop and promise never to do that again. I think the only thing missing would have been a kid angrily reminding their dad that they’re not cool.

    I was lucky enough that my dad never did anything like this. (No, his song that he’d sing to embarrass us was “Doo Wah Diddy.”) But even though he didn’t rap, I do remember thinking as I watched Kevin’s dad rap about putting hotdogs on the grill, that I would never dad rap in front of my kid, let alone their friends.

    So, as we walked to school, I tried to explain to my kid what dads rapping was, why kids hated it, and how it was so awful and embarrassing. I wasn’t doing that great of a job, because, devilishly, she asked me to do a dad rap, so she could know for sure what it was like.

    So I did it. I did the “I’m Matt Groff, and I’m here to say…” line. Followed with, “I love my daughter in a major way.” I turned my ballcap around. I did weird had gestures.

    It did make the kid laugh.

    But she made me promise never to do that again.