we [the dad] :: team dad blog

Win Some Lose Some

"Just Win Baby." The Al Davis special.

"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing"--attributed to Vince Lombardi, though there are those who claim he never said it.

No matter; it's the spirit of those statements that has me conflicted. Let me just say it's funny how we change after we have kids. When I was younger (oh great, one of those "reminiscent moments")--and by younger I mean everything before right now--I live by those mantras. Winning was the only thing, and if rules needed to be bent to achieve that then so be it.

On the one hand I want my kids to be ethical, moral individuals, on the other hand I want them to be happy, and happy people are winning people. Competition can be a good thing. But it's hard to see in yourself, when you stop into "poor loser"-ville and get a room for a few nights. But then you see some fool playing poker across the table from you (yeah, you know who you are Fool), complaining ad nauseam that another player is making bad plays, in a way that is demeaning and just plain rude & belittling, and it becomes easy to see how "poor loser"-ville booms into a metropolis full of mock-turtleneck-wearing a-holes.

You notice when it's not you, it's easy, and you think how sad this little man is, and you think "I want my kids to be winners, but how to teach them grace at the same time?"

B/c the fact is, that "poor loser" is going to end up getting punched in the mouth by someone less adjusted than myself, and he won't ever "get it" but in some ways he'll deserve it.

You want them to be winners, you want your kids to have that killer instinct, but how to teach them not to be that guy, how to not be yourself that guy?

Calvin Grew Up???

I found this at Kottke.org--a site you should know about if you don't already--who found this at some other site. So, I guess this is third (or fourth) hand info, but it is suh-weet nonetheless.

Kottke found a bunch of grown up Calvin and Hobbses collected from around the web. Some of them are pretty cool so check out the full link here

Is there anybody out there?

(excellent Pink Floyd lyric, by the way)

Well if having long breaks for holidays and the summer are the greatest thing a college Prof. can claim about the job, then returning AFTER one of those breaks is a killer.

Drove back to Big Rapids yesterday (on my frickin' Birthday). Back to long commutes, a strange room, and away from my family for half-a-week And snow to boot.

I guess I'm complaining and I shouldn't be. Good news: one semester until graduation.

Here's a random Rorschach for you (Plate VII).

They say that the Schizophrenics see an oil lamp. What do you see?

Is it that time again?

Potty training time? Seriously? Such a labor-intensive endeavor. And yet diapers are such a gag-reflex-intensive endeavor.

When Stef got pregnant with Jude, Scarlett had been out of diapers for just under a year, and I remember how disturbing it was to think that we had just "made it," just gotten free of both the dreaded diapers and the fight to toilet train--we were out and they pulled us right back in.

Diapers are no fun--everyone who's changed one knows this. But potty training isn't fun either. Somedays with Scarlett, it felt like we were losing the battle and the war. Now it looks like it's Jude's turn, which I'm not sure we are ready for. He's not even 2--but he is obsessed with "the toilet." It's all he wants to do is to sit on that thing.

It's admittedly cute: he constantly asks to go to the toilet, he got a kid's-toilet-insert so his small butt fits our big toilet (a top three Xmas gift in his eyes for sure), and he keeps talking about "pee-pee towels" (toilet paper). But we're going through diapers like water--not the most cost-effective time in a toddler's life.

He's got the peeing down pretty good. However, though he constantly says he wants to "poop in the toilet," he gets stage fright. He gets to the bathroom door and then runs away. It's hilarious, it's confounding, it's baffling, it's just like I remember. Maybe I should show him this video clip:

Maybe not . . .

Don't Upset the Help

So I just finished my first semester in which I haven't been a semi-stay-at-home dad in quite a long time, and it has been weird to say the least. On the one hand making money is a good thing, especially in an economic climate where so many people aren't, but on the other hand it has been quite a change. I have to admit that I feel like supplemental-dad sometimes.

One thing I've noticed lately is the bad name dads tend to be getting in parenting magazines. Stef cut me out an article last week--the article was written by a single mom who was bashing all of her married friends who complain about the ineptitude of their husbands, basically saying that a present, if sometimes bumbling, male figure in the household is much better than being a single mom--that is, two heads, or even 1.5, are better than one.

Stef cut it out as a compliment, saying, "See, men CAN be appreciated and you (me) are one of those men, honey." So I read the article.

For the most part it was innocent in its defense of dads of the world, and it was chastising the women of the world who knee-jerkily put us down for our dadly short-comings: short comings that are, according to the article, often exaggerated by these perpetraters.

Problem is, the further into the article I got, the more I got the feeling like it was saying all of this out of one side of its mouth, while out of the other side it was perpetuating the same types of sexist thinking that it was actually railing against. The article cited all of the "good" things that men do: things like working long hours at the "office," changing lightbulbs, mowing the lawn, and other handiwork. While it stopped short of "grease-monkeying" it, the article felt like it dealt in caricature--moms are this, dads are this. The fact is that that is completely untrue. Men and women can't be reduced to 2-dimensional sketches, written by well-meaning journalists." Actually, they haven't found any life yet to speak of on the red planet, and I haven't fixed much around the house in quite sometime. Stef grills and I cook. She cleans the pool, sometimes busts out a hammer and nails. We both change diapers. She works. I work.

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, what planet are Parents from?

(The article, in its utter absurdity, actually reminded me of this atrocious 1950's Housekeeping Monthly article "The Good Wife's Guide," a laughable little piece of our gender-history--a history or misunderstanding that seems to be alive and well."

Will Wrap For Sex

This is one of those admissions that, when you write it, you’re hoping all along you’re not the only one. You also hope that people won’t mistake honesty for callousness. That said, I admit, when I’m helping with the Christmas gift wrapping, that the faster I do it and the better I wrap, the more likely I think it will be that my Wife will sexually assault me in a fit of passion. [Long pause.] Ok, you’re right. I’m a pig. A filthy, pig.

Seriously though. I help with the wrapping because it’s nostalgic, and it’s probably almost as exciting to play Santa than it was to be a kid on Christmas morning. Not to mention it’s a great time to catch up with your Wife after a weekend of dividing and conquering. Helping with the gift-wrapping is all of those things, and more. So am I snotty pond scum to believe that it also betters the chances of coitus?

Oink, oink.

Christmas Stocking = Damaged Psyche?

Against Stef's better judgment, I filled the kids' stockings yesterday. I wanted them to see that Christmas was just around the corner, and I must admit that the stockings looked bear and limp hanging off our mantel with nothing in them. Now it looks like Christmas: Lights draped across the fireplace, Christmas tree (fake, albeit a very very realistic fake) glittering in the corner, and stockings hung (and filled) from the chimney with care.

Of course Stef said, "don't do it, all they'll want to do is touch them! They'll fixate on them!"

And I said, "no they won't, they probably won't even notice they're filled."

It took all of five minutes, and all they want to do is touch them. Once again Stef was right, with her sound thinking and attention to their torture levels, and I was way off.

But am I damaging their psyche?

Is the fixation irrepairable? Will they be able to sleep? Develop an aversion to presents? Develop an aversion to Santa? Develop an aversion to parents? Will I find Scarlett in the family room at 4am with an empty stocking worn like a hat and candy and small gifts strewn across the carpet like flotsam?

It's not like I'm pulling the presents on them? Holding the football until the last second and then snatching it from their reach as they tumble and roll in a cloud of dusty disappointment.

I mean Christmas will come eventually, in five days to be exact (okay, maybe six). It's like an eternity I know; I'm a blockhead, what can I say?

Santa works for the NSA?

Scarlett still believes in the Jolly old dude, and I am glad; I want her to keep that idealistic belief in magic, and the powers that stem from that belief, for as long as possible. I mean, let's face it, once that childlike belief goes, the world becomes a pretty jaded place. And we perpetuate that belief--you know, leaving cookies by the fireplace, making sure the fireplace door is cracked open on Christmas Eve. She writes a letter each year, and we compose a return "letter" from the big guy--homemade and personalized. It all adds up to perpetuating the facade. And it's worked, to a point. But it's hard to combat the questioning mind.

 

Scarlett believes in Santa, but the "magic" of Santa?--not so much. You have to admit, it's hard to imagine such a portly fellow fitting down our chimney anyway. Case in point.

We have a hole in the ceiling in our family room (once upon a time a hook hung there. The hook came out, the hole remained). Scarlett has become convinced that Santa watches her through that hole, using a series of high-powered surveillance equipment. She looks for his "cameras" wherever we go. There's one in the foyer at my folks' house. My inlaws have "Santa-cams" planted at the top of the stairs.

There's no other possible way. She refuses to believe the "magical" sees-you-when-you're-sleeping-and-anywhere-you-go ability of Santa. Santa's magic is the magic of satellites, futuristic bugging eqipment, and hideouts dug out of the bowels of mountains. It is a strange duality. She is very smart, therefore she questions what's possible--and yet she wants to believe, so she creates the scenarios of what's possible. The mind is truly an amazing and powerful machine.

Santa subleases a control room at NORAD, his sleigh is nuke-powered, his goggles are night-vision equipped, Rudolph's laser nose . . .

Winter Wonderland - why are you so cold . . . and wet . . . and cold?

Hear that sound? That is the sound of a tumbleweed, tumbleweeding its way across a winter snowscape--between my ears.

Last night I left Detroit for Big Rapids--my weekly commute I've been making all semester. It was snowing on the east side when I left at 6pm and by the time I got to the west side I had Interstate 131 nearly to myself--there were no tracks on the road and I was driving down the middle in 100-yard visibility. Big Rapids is expecting another half-a-foot today and tonight, and here I am sitting at my destination without my gloves, boots, or my winter hat, all of which are sitting home ready to go with me--found out this morning that there is no ice scraper to speak of in my car either. Good times.

This is my brain.

This is my brain, except my brain doesn't have a warm hat (that's "toque" to all you Canucks out there) or a nice set of ear muffs covering it.

I am forgetful. Very forgetful, if you ask Stef. I know this. I have come to accept this.What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the forgetfulness. The point is that I feel bad for my kids. i have good qualities, many of which they have been handed down--for instance, my loudness; I'm loud and so are they; they will never have trouble being heard (over a jackhammer possibly). But i hope that they get Stef's sense of leaving the house ONCE with everything they need.

For the record, in the interest of full disclosure, b/c it is only through our understanding our flaws fully that we are able to bitch properly about them, I left my faculty parking pass (a hang-tag) back home as well (I am a double hoser).

Chasing the Chicken

No that's not a euphemism for . . . well, let's just say it's not a euphemism. If you are mired in the post-holiday tryptophan-overdosed malaise and pound-grab, if you stretched Thanksgiving over multiple days, ate turkey, stuffing and/or dressing, corn pudding, roast beast, smoked salmon, rolls rolls rolls, pumpkin apple choc.-cream lemon-marangue pie, cheesecake, brussels sprouts gratin, mashed potatoes, gravy gravy gravy, crab dip--and then did it all again--if you find yourself introducing your pants to a bigger belt, then you're probably looking for a regimen to get the ballooning under control before Holiday II: Christmas, This Time It's Personal, and you eat yourself into oblivion once more.

There are many things you could do.

You could try any number of the fad diets, including Atkins, South Beach, Low Lower Lowest-carb, the Cabbage Fast, Colon Blow (okay SNL made that one up), Egg Whites-only (okay I made that one up).

You could try my patented Stop Eating So Much You Pig (or SESMYP).

You could join a gym, if you have the time and money, and fashion sense.

You could buy a treadmill, there's a cost, yes, both monetary and it will test your metal capacity--the capacity to withsrand torture as you attempt to move it down into your basement and then there's the assembly (Why do they call it some assembly required, shouldn't it be all assembly required?--though you don't actually have to mill anything).

You could do road work. (Think 5am, raw eggs in a pint-glass)

You could do the boxer's weigh-in (though I'm not sure if that can be sustained for the long haul).

You could buy a Bowflex (again there's the cost, and the fact that those Bowflex models did NOT get their bods from an actual Bowflex)

You could go into denial.

Or, you could chase a chicken. First you need a chicken. And some enclosure you can chase it in. And someone to yell at you while you do it. This is cheap, easy, chickens are plentiful, they are fast.

It certainly worked for Rocky. He ate lightning and crapped thunder.

I think I'll go with the treadmill.