Category: Fatherhood

Being a father and dad in America.

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Dad Blogs Fatherhood Life in these United States

Staying Fit As You Age

Ever since I hit the big “p” (as in puberty), and all the way through high school, I was a tad on the chubby side. Even after I joined the Air Force, I was heavier until one day I’d just had enough of it. I don’t remember the epiphenous (is that a word?) moment, but I’d bet the bag of Keebler Soft Batch I was eating at the time that it had something to do with self-loathing. The next day I walked the 75 yards over to the Army health club on the base I had to live on and made friends with the civilian guy who worked there. Over the next year and a half, I went from 170 lbs of mostly water, bone and fat, to 155 lbs of water, bone and lean muscle mass.

I would like to take moment here and personally thank Cindy Crawford for putting out “Shape Your Body,” without which, my winter workouts (and my fantasies) would have suffered.

Over time though, my overexuberant quest for physical perfection left me with multiple ruptured discs in my back, leading to two back surgeries after I’d left the military (you never let military surgeons open you up unless you have a bullet lodged in you and you’re bleeding out on the table).

It’s been twelve years since I got out of the military and since then I’ve gotten married and now have two kids, which, if you’re married, then you know…if there’s one thing that will derail your health regiment, it’s marriage and kids. I also unfortunately have a metabolism that quickly adjusts to any attempt to kick-start it by going into “starvation mode” and storing everything I eat on the off chance I’ll fall off a boat in the Adriatic Sea and need the added warmth that only a spare tire will afford.

But even with all these excuses, I’ve been pretty consistent, only missing the gym due to surgeries, sinus infections and vacation. But lately, the toll is starting to get to me. There’s not much that doesn’t hurt, my back most of all. Sitting is especially joyful, and working in a cubicle farm is a particular kind of hell from which there is little reprieve.

So my question is, when is enough…enough? At only 34, there’s no way I can give up working out, but at the same time—in my mind—why bother working out at all if you’re not trying to make gains? Sure, I could go in there day after day and go through the motions like all the other zombies, but my heart wouldn’t be in it, and would I really be doing any good anyway?

If my wife knew how much pain I was in, she would berate me to no end with something to effect of, “I don’t want to be married to a 45 year old man who can hardly walk! You need to stop.” At the same time, she also knows I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I had to stop.

So what do you do? I guess it comes down to what’s most important to me. Do I live life with a zealous “carpe diem” attitude and all the pain it entails, or do I listen to my body and take up namaste yoga and accept the inevitable weight gain and mirror avoidance that’s sure to follow?

Is there a happy medium? If so, it’s going to require more than just a change of exercise routine; it’s going to require a mindset change and that’s perhaps the hardest exercise of all.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Meanwhile…back at the Hall of Justice…

Just as surely as every mom lets her kids do things that daddy would never approve of (like giving them ice cream even after daddy told them “no peas, no desert!”), fathers similarly do things for their kids that mom probably wouldn’t like. I suspect fathers are even worse offenders, no doubt in part because kids are so enamored of mom that we fathers will do whatever we need to do to reclaim “most favored parental unit” status, if even for a moment.

I’m generally not a fan of forcing/allowing kids to grow up too fast, but that was (silly me!) before I had my own kids and had my life hijacked by Play Dough® and Thomas the Tank Engine®. Now, I can’t wait for my boys to get old enough to go and do things daddy enjoys, such as watch action flicks, play golf and buy a bass boat and go fishing.

As such, this past weekend I was basking in a free moment watching Spider Man— part one I think—when my oldest son (of 3 years) waltzed in and sat down on the couch. Now, I had three choices here:

  • Turn the TV off and offer to go do something else, something more age-appropriate, with my son
  • Turn the TV to something he would enjoy, but which would drive me elsewhere in the house, or
  • Leave the TV there and let him watch it with me

The fact that I’m even blogging about this is sufficient to tell you of my decision. Yes, we watched Spider-Man and yes it was great. My son actually seemed to enjoy it and I did my best to play off the Green Goblin as some mean guy whom “Spiderman is going to make go away forever.”

It was a great time had by all…no harm no foul.

Until about 1:30 in the morning two days later. I’m lying there in sleepy bliss because my wife got up with the baby the first time and my time had yet to come, when I feel a shifting of the force…or wait…maybe it’s the mattress. Even as I was opening my eyes and sitting up to find out what all the hub-bub (bub) was all about, I knew it my son coming to get in bed with us, something that’s not generally allowed.

I was just about to pick him up and take him back to bed when he says, “Daddy, the green man scares me.”

Crap! There’s not much I could say after that, knowing damn well that it was my fault in the first place. So, I regretfully picked him up and put him between my wife and I where he hovered on my side of the bed the rest of the night poking and prodding my kidneys and buttocks areas looking for fruit snacks and Lord knows what else!

There are people who say I should just relax and enjoy these times in my kids’ lives, but…honestly? I don’t mind being a human bean bag cum nanny most of the time, but sometimes a guy just needs to be a guy—with all the sports watching and throne sitting that entails—without the burden of young minds. Hope springs eternal…

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Marriage

Letter to the Medela breastpump manufacturer

Dear Medela,

I am writing to you to express my profound joy at never having to listen to the sound of your breast pumps again. After two children and nearly a year of my life watching my wife use your product, I am on my knees thanking the good Lord that we are done with your product and that I will never again be awakened to the sound of the in and out suction and whirring noise emanating from your pump that you have so cleverly disguised within a computer bag. In addition, here are a few other things I won’t miss about your pump:

  • Having to drag it EVERYWHERE we go; on vacation, to church, intermediate-length car rides, etc. You cannot imagine how awkward this annoying thing is…not to mention that in order to save time, my wife uses it whilst driving (to mine own horrid fascination). This is accomplished under the cover of a poncho-like drape that conceals what’s actually going on.
  • The inevitable delay of my wife coming to bed due to having to pump before doing so. This is especially troubling because of the timing involved. As my wife and I equally share responsibilities around the house, each of us ends up putting one of our children to bed, then one or both of us shower while the other putts around filling bottles with milk for daycare the next day, etc. However, when I’m ready to crawl into bed, my wife is not because she has to pump. Therefore, I turn on the TV and by the time she gets in bed, I’m into whatever it is I’m watching and “relations” subsequently suffer.
  • That additional cord in the car so that my wife can pump whilst traveling. Between my Sirius radio tuner, my radar detector, and the DVD player for the kids, the last thing I want is yet another darned cord plugged into the cigarette lighter socket powering the pump. Not only that, but you have apparently designed your car adapter to blow fuses every month and unless the wife tells the husband what’s going on, she assumes the entire apparatus is bad and spends another $14 on what is really a 25 cent fix. Shame on you!
  • Washing those darned tiny bottles. Nuff said!

In short Medela Inc., you have stolen enough of my joy for one lifetime–time that I will never be able to reclaim–and for this I bid you goodbye, farewall, arive derche and adios!

Sincerely,

A Happy Man

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Dad Blogs DIY Family Fatherhood

There’s Nothing More Manly than Splitting Wood

It’s probably going to reach somewhere near 90-92 degrees here in the Atlanta area today, and I’ve spent the last three weeks splitting firewood for our coming winter where we’ll be lucky to get more than 20 days of temps in the lower 30s or upper 20s.

But beyond just some need to get out and do something manly for a change (as opposed to watching the kids or sitting in a chair at work on the computer all day), there is something very cathartic about mindless physical exertion, and it is this which has drawn me time and again to one of the two stacks of wood in my backyard these past few weeks.

To be sure there is a satisfaction one can gain from parenting or from one’s chosen profession, but in my experience, few things are as satisfying as rounding a day off soaked in sweat (perspiration for my female audience) and having something as solid as a stack of split wood to show for your efforts; even if half of it will probably go to waste since it doesn’t get that cold here anyway.

Also, for me, I get some of my best contemplating in when I’m doing something singular like cutting firewood or mowing the lawn. It is during these times that I’m most introspective, because let’s face it, you don’t really need your brain when you’re working in the yard. I wonder if Einstein came up with some of his most pervasive postulates while working? Perhaps Da Vinci was planing off a new worktable when he came with the idea for the parachute. Who knows.

But, I finished one stack and based on how things are going at work, I luckily have a whole ‘nother stack to go. Skip the gym, cut some wood, keep my sanity. Not a bad deal all in all.