Tag: Atlanta

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Dad Blogs Family Marriage

Wouldn’t you like to get away…just for a day…

Ritz-Carlton Lodge CareerMom’s company gives out Pavlonian-style rewards for good work behavior. One can redeem these rewards (with a substantial markup) for all manner of things. Normally, we use them to replace whatever electronic necessity the boys have dropped in the toilet most recently, but this time, we used them to book a night at the Ritz-Carlton Resort in beautiful Greensboro, GA. Yes, folks, a Ritz-Carlton in the middle-of-nowhere Georgia.

It’s about a two-hour drive from Roswell, and so CareerMom’s folks came over to stay at our house to watch the boys. Mind you, they live about five miles away, but they find it easier to just stay at our house rather than put up with my youngest not sleeping because he hates the pack-n-play at their house.

Anyway, I didn’t realize the significance of this Ritz-Carlton’s location until we drove past nearly a mile of golf courses and were greeted by a cadre of knicker-clad bellmen. That’s when it hit me, “Oh yeah, this is where they played the 2007 PGA Cup and will host a future PGA Pro National Championship (will that be the FEDEX Cup now?).

With all this great golf nearby, do you think I got to play? Nossir—and here’s why. CareerMom likes her some spa treatments…yessir, that she does. And when you book a package deal, they won’t let one of you play golf while one of you gets a treatment. You both have to do the same thing. And since CareerMom doesn’t play, it means that for three mini-getaways now, I’ve gotten up-close and personal with massage therapists, while the closest I got to the golf course was tearfully viewing it from my room balcony.

Now I know…boo hoo me right? I HAD to go to the Ritz-Carlton, and I HAD to get a spa treatment. I know, it’s a bit petty but one of the few things I REALLY enjoy doing in my life, and I have the opportunity to do it in a place that most people only get to watch on TV…and I don’t get to do it. It IS frustrating.

Among the other notable things that happened while we were there, was getting the chance to watch two young, fairly attractive women at the pool. Let me set the stage; CareerMom and I meandered down to the pool, which overlooks the lake. We stayed there talking for a few and both turned around towards the pool so we could lean up against the fence. We both had our sunglasses on and CareerMom says, “Is that girl lying on top of another girl?” Being a man, I quickly glanced over and from what I could tell, there was one girl in a bathing suit lying facedown on a chaise lounger, with another bathing suit-clad young woman lying on top of her…also face down. Though I wanted to stare (and fantasize just a tiny bit), I tried not to look. CareerMom though, had no such qualms. “I can’t look away” she said, “It’s fascinating.” This from a woman who later that evening, as I paused to watch a “girls gone wild” commercial remarked, “Two women together, I just don’t get it.”

Really?

Anyway, we also made nuisances of ourselves later that evening at the off-site restaurant, where CareerMom ordered a filet, cooked medium, and it came back very rare. I ordered the Cajun pasta and halfway through, came across something that looked very much like a grub worm that I might pull out of my compost pile, but that the chef insisted was a crawfish tail. Either way, it ruined my appetite.

But the time flew by and we soon were back on the road. It’s amazing how much stuff you can cram into 24 hours. We left at 1 p.m. on Saturday and arrived home by 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. It was fun, but if I’m gonna drive two hours to stay at a Ritz-Carlton, I want to STAY at a Ritz-Carlton. This was just a mad-dash. For that, I could have stayed home and chased after the kids.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

My son’s middle name is “danger”

Danger!

Sometime around the 11th grade, I reached the tallest point in my life that I would ever reach—somewhere around 5’ 8”. CareerMom tops out at roughly 5’ 4”. My side of the family comes from short stock, but CareerMom’s side of the family is a mixed bag.

So, there was about an 80% chance that our kids would be on the smallish side. And it appears that will be the case.

My youngest son, of 11 months, is quite the walker. He toddles all over the house and when he gets near something he knows he shouldn’t—like the stairs or the fireplace—he’ll stop, look over his shoulder and if he thinks no one is looking, he’ll hit it full tilt. One of his favorite pastimes is wrestling with his older brother, and if I’m on the floor, he runs over to me and lays across me while I roll him front his feet to his head.

He likes the rough and tumble.

So why then, am I surprised when the daycare ladies asked CareerMom, “Has Aiden been more aggressive with Ethan lately? Because he’s become the class bully.”

And just to prove it, when CareerMom dropped him off this morning, he walked over to one little girl who was innocently playing by herself, and just smacked her on top of the head.

Part of me isn’t surprised. Quite the opposite of his older brother, Aiden is outgoing and loves to be the center of attention. It’s clear he has a dominant personality; but to see that little boy taking on kids older and bigger than him (well, some are younger and smaller, but most aren’t) both warms my heart and scares the crap outta me at the same time.

I don’t think there’s a father out there who, internally, doesn’t swell with pride when his son stands up for himself. But there’s a fine line between standing up for oneself and being a bully. And it doesn’t help that the daycare workers are so enamored of him that they don’t like to fuss at him because they can’t stand to watch his little lip quiver in response to the scolding.

The little booger has them all fooled. He pulls that trick at home and I just laugh at him and tell him “No!” He gets over it and moves on. Daddy doesn’t fall for those tricks.

It seems we have some training to do…and not just with the kids.

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Marriage

Is Tithing Still Enforceable?

nontither.jpgFor various reasons, CareerMom and I don’t attend church as often as we’d like (or perhaps more truthfully, as often as we “should”). For one, most church services start around 10 a.m., which is also the time our youngest likes his first nap of the day. Another reason, and the one that is probably closer to the truth, is that we like to go to the gym in the morning and have the day to spend with the family, or to do whatever else we like. Although, on these days, we make sure and have Bible story time with the kids.

I was raised a Pentecostal and am therefore used to church services that last as long as two hours. CareerMom, having been brought up a Catholic, starts getting antsy at the 45-minute mark, a time when most Pentecostal pastors are just getting warmed up. What we’ve found though, is that by attending the early service at most churches, when the clock turns near “naptime,” the service is usually cut a bit shorter to accommodate the longer normal service that follows immediately after. All that being said, when we do go to church, we hope to get the most out of it.

This past Sunday, we got up, got the kids ready and off we went to church. After making it through the cry-fest that ensues upon dropping the boys off at their various rooms, we found our way towards the back of the sanctuary just in time to miss most of the music, which is probably our favorite part of whole shebang. C’est la vie!

As the special singers got up to sing and I prepared my “offering” envelope, CareerMom opened the church bulletin and pointed to the sermon title, “Whose Stuff is it Anyway.”

Now, if you’re not a church-goer, you won’t recognize that this title is actually code for, “Why you should give God 10%,” a title that strikes fear into non-regular church-goers everywhere. And it also prompted CareerMom to lean over and whispered, “I better not have to sit here and listen to a service on tithing.” Sure enough, when the pastor got up to preach, it became obvious that we would be treated to a guilt-fest of epic Biblical proportions Old Testament mandates on giving God his 10%.

Being a Pentecostal, I am naturally more forgiving of these little yearly requirement sermons; realizing that the Pastor probably hates giving them as much as we hate hearing them, and so when she said that, I just patted her hand and smiled. But interestingly, as the sermon went on, I found myself fascinated because though it was probably NOT the pastor’s intent, the sermon revealed to me that nowhere in the Bible, does Tithing appear as a commandment from God, or Jesus. It actually came out of law dating back to the days of the Israelites.

Now I understand that the church does many good things with tithes, but I also understand that tithes today differ greatly from tithes in the Biblical days:

  • Biblical Tithes included not only money, which is mostly what we ascribe tithes to, but also agriculture, land, whatever the person had to give (remember Cain?)
  • They weren’t supporting multi-million dollar church buildings, acres of land, HVAC costs in the tens of thousands and all the other overhead that goes into running a church corporation

So while Sunday’s service was NOT really what I had expected, or hoped for, it was also an eye opener. At this point in my life, after hearing literally thousands of sermons covering most every conceivable subject, I thought I’d heard it all—but I hadn’t. Like a lot of things I’d been taught growing up, I’m convinced that not giving Tithes will not see me burning in Hell for eternity.

So you know…I’ve got that going for me.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

The Baby Swing Dilemma

crossroad.jpgOnce again I find myself at a crossroads where my kids are concerned. On a side note, if you never saw the 80s movie “Crossroads” with Karate Kid’s Ralph Macchio, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, this crossroad decision involves whether or not to wean my oldest son away from the swing or not. With my first son, it was all about the swing. Swing at night, swing at naptime during the day, swing, swing, swing. With my youngest son, almost a year old now, he’s been actually very good about sleeping in his crib, only requiring the swing during the daytime and generally, any time we really just need him to calm down and rest.

This “calm down and rest” time also happens to occur every morning between 4:30 – 5:30 a.m. when we adults are still trying to squeeze a few extra minutes out of our slumber or trying to get ourselves ready for work unencumbered by a clamoring baby. However, I’m not immune to the fact that while this may work for now, sometime in the next additional pound or two, that puny Fisher-Price swing motor is going to go kaput like the two before it and we’ll be left hanging with a crying baby at 5:30 in the morning.

Personally, I’m a cold-turkey kind of person. When I set my mind to doing something, or stop doing something in this case, I just stop. I don’t dial it down gradually—nossir, I’m all about nipping it in the bud—and permanently!

CareerMom is not.

So unless I want to get into a mild argument with her over the swing, any attempts that I make to stop using it will be usurped by her at her earliest convenience. So I’m stuck over what to do. I guess like most things, you just cross that bridge when you get to it.

I also still have about 20 pairs of disposable earplugs if things get too bad.