Month: November 2007

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Marriage

To Grandmother’s House We Go…

For the first time in about 8 years, my mom’s side of the family (well, one of my mom’s) decided to all get together this year. And they are doing it in a four-bedroom cabin in Tennessee. This cabin is just over the river and literally through the woods from my mom’s house in Walland, TN and the cabin is located just this side of Gatlinburg, TN. So, from my mom’s house to the cabin, it’s about a 40-minute drive.

Originally, CareerMom and I decided we’d go up there, stay at my mom’s house at night to give the boys better sleeping arrangements, and then drive over to the cabin each day and spend time with family. However, as the time has drawn nearer, this has seemed less and less like a great idea.  For one, my youngest slept almost straight through the night for four nights in a row. This is unprecedented thus far and it is believed by many that dragging him up to Tennessee, where he’d have to sleep in a hard pack-n-play, would ruin whatever miracle schedule we’ve stumbled on. (Author’s Note: Since that four-night sleeping stretch, he’s had two nights of waking up twice, and then four times another night). Also, the car trip. If you’ll harken back with me to the Beach Trip of 2007, none of us were looking forward to spending 4 ½ hours up and down in the car, plus 45 minutes of gut-twisting back and forth turns through the woods to get to the cabin.

So as CareerMom and I lay by the fire the other night, we both confessed how little we were actually looking forward to this trip. Out of that came a plan: I would take our oldest son and go, while CareerMom stayed behind with the baby. There was really no way I could get out of going altogether given that the family made an effort to gather, but we both felt that taking the baby would only be a burden on everyone’s efforts at having fun considering the problems we have getting him to sleep in strange places. (Author’s Note: We took our oldest son down to the beach when he was four months old and despite constant admonishing while he was napping, people continued to yell and bang around and so he did not sleep and was miserable. Same bunch of people, same situation here).

I called my mom to break the bad news and she was, as expected, disappointed. But as I dug deeper into her disappointment, it became clear to me that really all she wanted to do was show off the baby. It was pretty clear that the rest of us coming was secondary. See, she has this little competition with her youngest sister whose daughter has two children. It’s all about whose kid is the cutest see and she’s built up my youngest son to epic proportions of cuteness and now, she’ll have no proof.  She also didn’t seem to buy my excuses, which are very valid and since she’s never raised a child, not something she can relate to.

At one point, she compared my youngest’s traveling issues with her sister’s daughter’s children and pointed out that since they are “in church all the time” (pointing out that we aren’t) her children are used to it. I pointed out, quite annoyed at this point, that having a child around other people in no way compares to traveling with children. Our kids are in daycare all day. They get along with people fine; they just HATE car seats, and they don’t sleep well in strange places.

If you’re in your fifties, and you raised children, you did so in the era of vans, during a time of built-in beds and tables and no car seats. Traveling then was a breeze compared to now. Now, the poor kid has to remain tightly strapped into a nonmovable, hard plastic car seat, with sides that come around like blinders giving the child little to look at for hours on end. It was a different time and traveling today is just so vastly different from thirty years ago.

Suffice it to say that I hung up the phone with absolutely no desire to go up there whatsoever. And what really steams me is that this will be the third time I/we’ve gone up there since spring and they haven’t come here once. But they have the nerve to question my complaints about travel.

It’s the holidays folks. How about we just be happy to get to see each other huh?

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Some Good Time Away with Just the Adults

CareerMom and I recently celebrated our 8th anniversary. No big milestone, but these days…8 years…kinda deserves something right? So, I booked us a night away from the house and the kids. We went to nearby Stone Mountain. They have a pretty nice Marriott and I got us a nice room for an evening and a massage treatment the next morning.

Since CareerMom is always fearful of asking her parents to watch the boys for us, I did it instead and it worked out beautifully. They came over and we gave them all the instructions for feeding and putting the boys to sleep and what to do when our youngest wakes up his usual two times. There were no tears (from either us or the boys), there was no sniffling…we just left.

One of the first things you notice about not having kids with you in the car is that both adults get to ride in the front of the car rather than the way it is usually; me driving and her sitting in the back keeping the baby from screaming. And we actually got to have adult-like conversation. It was really nice.

I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the entire weekend, but I will tell you that it was nice to re-discover my wife. As parents, we get into this “parent mode” mentality that, while fun for the kids, is very much geared for the kids. And even once the kids have gone to bed, that mentality sticks because being a parent is a 24×7 job and you can’t just turn it on and off. I suspect this is why many marriages struggle once children are in the mix. There’s just nothing sexy about bathing children or changing poopy diapers and you’re usually just so “done” by the time they’re in bed, that you’re lucky if you have time for a shower before you feel like crawling under the covers and calling it quits for the day. So, forget relationship building on most days.

But when you’re away, I mean really away and not just “at the grocery store” away, you find that you can actually let it all go and be yourself again. On more than one occasion, I found myself looking at my wife while she was talking and thinking, “Ah, there you are. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed that playful side of you that I was attracted to in the beginning.”

I don’t know that I’ve changed like that, but I suppose I have too. Certainly, I’m much more stressed now that we have kids and I’m equally sure that it’s reflected in my behavior. And while I mentally made a note to be more mindful of my behavior at home when the kids aren’t around, I know that within a couple of weeks, after getting up multiple times in the middle of the night (and eventually staying up after the 4:30 feeding as I did this morning) and after the constant entertainment that is required to keep everyone from crying, I’ll fall back into my old habits. I’ll try not to, but I know I will. It’s just too hard not too.

It’s a shame though that one has to spend $400 on a night away just to remember who he is.

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Through the eyes of a child

Rose Colored Glasses

In addition to all the physical changes that happen to us as we get older, our outlook about things changes too. We hear about older people who claim that the secret to longevity is keeping that childlike innocence, that joy of life. We’ve all heard that and I’m sure that like myself, most people nod along with it and make a promise to themselves that they’ll try a little harder next time.

But I wonder how many of us ever really reach that innocence. How many, I wonder, stop in the middle of doing something during the day and remember how doing that same thing as a child felt.

Though I give them kudos, I’ve never understood how people can take jobs working with children. The crying and the whining just seems too much for me. And while my outlook, now that I have children, hasn’t really changed (I STILL don’t see how people can work with children all day), I have gotten a glimpse or two into the thinking behind the idea that surrounding yourself with children can help keep one young.

Halloween was one such event. As my oldest son came home from Trick-or-Treating; his face shining with excitement over the candy he had. As an adult, who can go out and buy as much candy as I want at any time, it’s easy for me to gloss over his excitement. But instead, what I did was sit down with him and tried to put myself in his place. And the funny thing is that for just a moment, I felt what my son felt. I remembered how exciting it was to come home with a pumpkin full of candy and spread it out on the floor and figure out what I wanted to eat first. For just a moment there, I was a child again with eyes full of shiny wrappers and the taste of sugary goodness in my mouth. Wonderful!

The second time this happened was one morning recently. My oldest (again) wakes up at about 5:45 every morning. By the time I get up and get a cup of coffee, he’s standing in our room holding his blanket asking to watch cartoons. As someone who’s traditionally been a morning guy, albeit one that likes to get up, drink coffee and watch the morning news, I’ve tried not to get annoyed at having a 5 a.m. shadow. But the other morning as he was standing there looking at me with those big hazel eyes, I remembered what it was like to be standing there. I remembered getting up early before anyone else in the house was awake, and getting my blanket and pillow and plopping down in front of the TV and watching early morning cartoons. Being up alone watching TV, doing whatever I wanted while the rest of the house was asleep was liberating, and enjoyable. As my childhood memories inevitably fade, memories of this time in my childhood remain crystallized.

A lot of things are different between then and now, but I suspect that children haven’t changed all that much. Watching cartoons is ten times more complicated now than it used to be thanks to a number of in-line electronic devices, but despite this, my son appears to enjoy his morning ritual every bit as much as I used to enjoy mine.

But the interesting thing is that for two brief moments in the last month, I’ve felt what it’s like to be a kid again. And you know what? It’s nice. It’s nice to shed the day to day craziness and cynicism and see the world through the eyes of someone who’s never been dumped, never lost a job, never bounced a check, or any of the other dozen things that make us adults.

Being an adult has its perks, but every now and then, it’s nice to be a kid again.

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Marriage

A momentary, “Oh Crap!”

 Which day is my anniversary on?

This morning as I sat at my desk, I momentarily panicked because I couldn’t remember today’s date and I knew that my anniversary was either today or tomorrow. I quickly double-clicked on my desktop’s calendar icon and thankfully, it’s tomorrow and luckily I still have time to get a card this afternoon and perhaps a bottle of bubbly and still look like a hero tomorrow. Before you ladies crucify me though, I had already booked a night away next weekend, which includes in-room champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, breakfast and a 50-minute massage. So, it’s not like I totally forgot about our anniversary. I guess in my mind I’d already “taken care of it” so I had just let it fall to the back on my “most important things to focus on this week” list.

But then my mind played a trick on me and I wondered if my anniversary was really tomorrow (the 6th) or today (the 5th) and perhaps I was remembering the date wrong. And what if  CareerMom, rather than telling me “Happy Anniversary” this morning, was waiting it out to see how long I’d go before remembering it. Kinda like giving me enough rope to hang myself with. Even as I type this, I’m 99% sure we got married on the 6th, but I’m still in 1% panic mode that maybe I’m wrong! This is why men should always get their wedding date engraved on the inside of their wedding band. I didn’t.

But man, I never thought I’d be “that guy.” I remember being single and thinking, “Wow! How could a guy ever forget his anniversary? What a stooge!” And now here I am, airing out my armpits after a ten second, sweaty panic attack over having done just that.

At least I did plan something though, so I’m not coming down too hard on myself. But even still, with all the planning and reminder tools I have at my disposal, why haven’t I set myself a reminder? Before my wife’s birthday I should have a reminder pop up a week prior that says, “Yo dawg! Don’t forget that CareerMom’s birthday is three days before yours.” That works—cuz, you know I’m not going to forget my birthday. Same thing for our anniversary.

But I’ll tell you, before I go judging other men on their forgetfulness, I’ll first stop and remind myself that life is stressful and demanding. Sometimes it’s easy to forget things, but even if/when you do, it doesn’t mean you don’t care.