Tag: children

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

Those little mysteries that surround children

Can someone tell me how this happens?

IMG_2627 I mean, when you remove a full diaper thing, you have to pull the plastic down and tie off another.

When I, after taking a shower and getting all nice and clean, discovered this and then had to remove all the impacted poopy diapers by hand, I found that there wasn’t even a shred of a plastic bag at the bottom. So, someone (I’m not naming names, but it wasn’t me) had to have removed the last one and then just completely spazzed on pulling another one through.

And aren’t I the lucky one for finding it?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Marriage

Playdate Follow Up

pit children Since so many people have asked (like 3!), I thought I’d offer a follow up post to my “family affair” playdate this past Sunday.

Let me start with a free form word/thought association as the 2 hour playdate carried out:

  • Man, steep hill. Hope I can get the car back down
  • Whoa, flat backyard. Nice
  • Hi, good to see you. Thanks for the invite
  • Hmm, house layout is similar to ours
  • Man, a Sunroom?
  • Man, two fireplaces?
  • Man, a finished basement?
  • Damn, nice bar!
  • Dude, that’s gotta be at least $3,000 in top shelf liquor!
  • Man, this is a really nice place. Makes ours feel kinds smallish
  • (lightbulb coming on in head) You sold your house in Vinings for $700K? No wonder you can afford all the work you’ve done on this place!
  • Where are the kids?
  • Sure, I’ll take a Corona!
  • No really, we can’t stay too long.
  • Of course you have a Wii already? Doesn’t everyone EXCEPT my kids?
  • Um, spoiled much?
  • You’re fifty? Dang!
  • I smell poopy diapers.
  • Best get going.
  • Thanks again.
  • I can’t see a damn thing backing down this hill. I hope I don’t hit her green designer Target lawn bags!

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. We had a good time, and cut the playdate at about 2 hours right when the dad was talking about lighting up the firepit outside. I’m not sure how they saw the evening playing out, but we left at 5 p.m. Any longer and we’d have been cutting into dinner and baths and such and to my knowledge, there was no invitation to dinner.

Maybe it’s just me, but do you ever get the feeling when you meet new people that you’re being sized up as a couple for a potential “swingers party” invitation? While I’m not interested (much), I would like to think that CareerMom and I would be at the top of any swinger’s party list because we’re just THAT good looking. Much like, I’m not gay, but I would probably get all offended if gay men didn’t think I was boyfriend material (does that make me gay?).

People are funny though. CareerMom and I were both taken aback by their house, and their stories of yearly “Adult Only” trips, because one of the first times we met the mom, she was complaining about her daughter wanting a jumpy thing at her birthday party and the mom was saying how she wasn’t going to spend $50 on it.

I guess it just comes down to priorities. If it made my kid happy, I’d forgo the vacation to Aruba so I could splurge on his birthday party.

Anyway, it was good to meet new folks and their son is definitely good friend material, so time well spent.

Hey, in case I don’t talk to any of you before Thursday, have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

You’re just bringin’ me down dad!

Slow Children When we bought this house two years ago, it was after careful screening of potential neighborhoods. One of CareerMom’s criteria was that it have sidewalks, which this one does. When it gets cooler, one of my favorite things to do in the evening is to take one (or both) of the boys on a walk with me after dinner. It’s usually a 20-25 minute affair, but it settles my meal and gets everyone away from whiney MLE for a bit.

Last night both boys wanted to go and since CareerMom needed to pack for her weeklong extravaganza (read: sucky business trip in Phoenix), MLI donned his Spider man PJ’s and crocks while I put MLE in the stroller so I could push him. Despite having shown severe signs of tiredness previously, MLI revived himself and proved time and time again that, “I’m faster than you daddy” by running pell-mell up the street, only stopping to do a victory dance at the next street corner.

I wasn’t quite ready to head home at the usual turn-around spot, so I suggested we stroll along the busy road just outside our  neighborhood. Normally, MLI would balk at doing something with so much noise going on, but after suggesting it, he surprised me again with, “But, I like loud noises!” News to me…

We turned the corner on the street and as the oncoming cars raced towards us, MLI took off running down the sidewalk. In my head, I envisioned him tripping on his crocks and tumbling head over heels into oncoming traffic, so I yelled my warning, which he either didn’t hear or ignored. But I caught up with him at the next stop sign and warned him about getting too far ahead. We turned around and started heading home and he took off running again.

I let him get about 60 yards ahead of me and then I started jogging with MLE and the stroller. This stroller isn’t one of those big wheeled affairs that rolls easily, so I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted, but I nearly caught up with MLI as he rounded the corner into the neighborhood. Though part of me was laughing hysterically at the site of this four year old running like a madman in his SpiderMan PJ’s, the parental part of me was hollering at him NOT to get too far ahead.

As I crested the top of the hill, I spied him–still running–and I lost him in the bend of the road where the trees obscured my vision. Knowing that he would be nearing the street crossing again–the one where the teenage girls come flying through yapping on their cell phones with their little friends, paying no mind to what else is going on out in the world–I yelled at the top of my lungs, “ETHAN! DO NOT CROSS THE STREET!”

Not hearing anything in response, I picked up the pace and when I was finally able to see around the bend, there was nothing there to see. Which presented a problem because he could have gone either A) across the street and back home or B) on down the hill towards the park. In either case, he was in trouble, but the “amount” of trouble was yet to be seen depending on his direction.

Luckily, another walker came towards me and said, “You do realize your son just ran right past me back towards your house?” Biting back a  snotty retort, I simply responded with a “Thank you” and headed on home.

Five minutes later I walked into the house, already formulating how much anger to inject into my voice and what kind of punishment to give him. I went upstairs and found him lying in our bed watching cartoons in preparation for bedtime. I shut off the TV and told him to go to his room, as CareerMom asked, “I take it you didn’t tell him he could run ahead of you?”

Oh, the understatement of the year. I explained to her what happened and even as I explained it, I felt bad about the pending punishment because I know he was just having a grand old time. I can envision me as a kid doing the same thing. The freedom of running away from your parents like that…seeing how fast you can run until your legs, or lungs, give out. I felt him, I really did; but, some things–like crossing the street without me–simply can’t go unpunished. For safety’s sake and all…you know.

In the end, he got away with just having to go to bed early, which wasn’t much of a punishment since we’d planned on putting him to bed early anyway (faking him out using the early darkness as a trick), but at least I kept my calm and didn’t yell. Yeah, a big WIN for me.

But it’s tough balancing letting kids have fun, and disciplining them. Though I’m good with “when” to draw the line, the “how” of it, still eludes me.

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Dad Blogs Family

Paging Mr. Monk…Paging Mr. Adrian Monk…

We’ve all seen kids do it…the rapid eye blinking, the mouth stretching, the seeming inability to stop themselves from reaching out and smacking their sibling for no apparent reason. I bet in about 90% of the situations, these are simply nothing more than little ticks and habits that a child picks up and then mysteriously drops after a few days or weeks.

But what if it’s more?

When I was little, I had a number of these little quirks. I did the eye blinking thing on and off for years. I bit my nails terribly (still do, though to a lesser degree). I rocked and banged my head against a wall as an infant, not unlike some children suffering from autism. I worried about things, which then I thought it was normal, but as an adult, I’ve discovered that it’s not so common for seven year olds to internalize their parent’s financial situation.

Even today, I count letters and syllables of words and sentences in my head. I count them in a pattern like this: numbers

Kinda weird huh?

I’ve stopped doing a lot of these things, but there are still some things that I do that just aren’t normal. I have a burning need to do things equally, so much so that if I try NOT to do it, I dwell on it until I can’t stand it anymore and then I succumb. Luckily for me, most people would never know it and in fact, I’m not sure CareerMom does.

But recently, MLI has started the eye blinking thing. I knew it immediately for what it was, and knew that he needed rest and he needed to know he was doing it, without being reprimanded for it. CareerMom thought he could control it and she scolded him a couple of times before I explained to her that it was completely outside of his control in the long term and that we would just have to let it run its course.

But still, this being the information age and all, I did what everyone does when they need help–I got on the Internet and did a search on eye blinking. I found pretty much what I already knew, but I also found several references to this being just one symptom of Tourette’s.

Now I’m not one to find a illness/syndrome/disease online and apply it to my own situation, but the more I read about it, the more similar some of my “quirks” fit the “mild form of Tourette’s” bill. Many of them are classic Tourette’s, and apparently it’s genetic and far more commonly passed onto boys than girls. Apparently girls more often get OCD and boys get Tourette’s. Since I’m adopted, I don’t know anything about my father’s health, so I can’t do a regressive investigation. But so far, it’s fascinating.

In most cases, and certainly in mine, the child will outgrow the symptoms in the majority of the cases, but I must say that putting a name to my own oddities (even if it’s not the correct diagnosis) sort of puts me at ease and will at least alert me to what I should look out for with my own kids.

But don’t worry, if ever you come to Roswell, GA and we get together for wings or whatever, I won’t go all “What About Bob” on you and start screaming obscenities! Copralia is a very rare symptom…

Course…if I happen to be watching my College Football team when we’re together…(ROLL TIDE!)