Tag: Parenting

  • Napping

    The kid hates naps. She hasn’t regularly taken one for over a year now. Oh sure, now and then she’ll take one, but it’s pretty rare. Now, if we suggest taking a nap, she treats it like a punishment.

    We all know that in about eight years or so, she’ll get back on board with napping. Then she’ll be like us, and want to take naps but can’t find the time.

    But you know who gets naps on their own terms? My 77 year old father. He naps when he feels like it and it’s glorious. I am jealous, that’s true. I would to be able to accomplish a task like he does, and then reward himself with a nap. Yet another thing to look forward to in retirement,

  • Talking to Friends

    I had a friend come in town the other day (We’re back to doing that again. Awesome!) and we planned on going out to get a drink and talk. “You’re going to sit and talk?” my kid asked. “Pretty much.” “Why?” “That’s what grownups do.” She shook her head at me, “That’s boring.”

    Now, my wife’s birthday is coming up, and you know what she wants more than anything? To go out with friends and talk. Minus a husband and a kid. Our daughter was again disappointed that this is what her mother wanted to do on a birthday. “All you do is talk,” the kid concluded.

    She’s not aware that she does talk a lot, as she talks to me and her mom all the time. Soon, my kid will start talking and communicating with her friends constantly. I’m trying to value the conversation time I have with her, because it’s a cycle; she’ll form those life long important bonds and enjoy just talking to friends.

  • 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.

  • Parenting Challenges

    Today, with the observance of Veteran’s Day, the kid’s school is closed. The wife, on the other hand, had to go to work. That leaves me with the kid.

    Back in New York, those were good days to spend together. Since it would be a “treat” that Dad would be home during the week, we’d watch a little extra TV, but then get ready and walk three blocks over to the park. We’d be there for an hour or more, and then head back for lunch. After eating, it would be nap time, and sometimes I would also take a nap on the couch watching Sports Center. When we got up, story and drawing time. Maybe one more TV show, and then news and getting ready for Mom to come home and dinner.

    Ah… but we are in California now. We need a car to go to the nearest park, but the wife has it today to go to work. There are wild fires that are blowing smoke in our direction, and the air quality is so bad that we can’t go outside to play. This past weekend, the last of our things arrived, so there are boxes all over the apartment. We will be making a game of putting things away and arranging the furniture. I set the kid’s easel up in the living room so we can all draw together.

    We are in transition, and this is a big change for all of us, sometimes to does feel overwhelming.  I had a colleague at the last job I had who shared an article with me when we were in the processes of moving offices. The article was about how people hate change/transition and will react negatively to things they normally would agree with. I lost the article, but I have thought about it often over this past month with everything that has happened to us. It might be awhile before we begin to feel normal again.

  • Thoughts All Over the Place

    There was a boy in my neighborhood that all the kids knew about because he played with dolls. We had to be about seven or eight years old at the time. It was seemed like such a sin, and such an egregious act for a boy to not want to play with boy things. I remember even being confused why someone would want to do that. Like, why would you choose to play with those things, when there are so many great boy toys out there. It never dawned on me that this is what he liked doing. That this boy had to be doing it as some sort of act. It couldn’t be who he really was. When that boy came around, no one said anything to him, or brought it up. It stayed a known secret. At least that’s what I remember.

    What I now find odd about this situation is that in kindergarten, I remember everyone wanted to play house and be near the kitchen play set. Well, just about everyone. There were some outlier boys and girls that wanted nothing to do with it. But the majority of us, we all wanted to play in that kitchen. I would have to say that in the early 80’s, boys playing at making dinner wasn’t the most masculine act, but somehow that was deemed acceptable. I am sure it has to do with both boys and girls playing together and acting out what it is like to be an adult.

    My daughter wanted a play kitchen very badly for Christmas. She was almost three when we go it for her, and she took to it immediately. There was some hesitation in me when it came to getting it for her, as I didn’t want to cast gender roles on her. Such as, girls don’t have to play in the kitchen. They can play with other things. Does she want a toy work bench? Not really. She wanted a kitchen.

    It was the same way with play costumes around the apartment. She wanted to have a Darth Vader costume, lightsaber included. (Nerd Dad Me was very excited by this development.) The next she asked for a Princess Leia costume, which I was also very cool with. Then she wanted a Cinderella dress so she could look pretty and dance with the Prince. So, from Darth Vader to Cinderella?

    These are the thoughts that go through my head, but I also know that as she is only three and a half, we are way too early to say that any of this play is determining anything about her personality or what direction she will go in life.

    But everything has to mean something, right?

    I think I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was 8, and then I think I wanted to be a writer. Then I wanted to be a performer, and then a musician, and then I think I just wanted to be left alone (That was high school), and then I think I still never really got it figured out that “THIS” is the thing that I want to do. I keep grasping at things, and trying things out. I hope my daughter doesn’t have this problem, but as she is my kid, she will go through the same thing. Just trying to put pieces together and see what is created.