7 of the Million Things I Have Learned Being a Stay-At-Home Dad: Part 2

Now, if you have already read one of my previous posts entitled, 7 of the Million Things I Have Learned Being a Stay-At-Home Dad: Part 1, then you had to see this one coming. I mean, it was Part 1, so just like at the end of The Dark Knight, when Batman takes the blame so Harvey Dent can die Gotham's hero. Then Batman goes on the run, decides to be the hero that Gotham deserves and truly becomes the Dark Knight, you knew there had to be a sequel...(gasp for nerd breath)...there just had to be a sequel here. (Raspy Batman voice) Because I need to become the hero that stay at home dads deserve.

My 5 y.o.'s version of me as Batman.

My 9 y.o's version of me as Batman

My version of me as Batman.

My 6 y.o.'s version of me as Batman.
Can you tell he's our only boy &
a middle child?

Now, as for the things I have learned being a stay at home dad, we are skipping on #1 hits. No, I Will Always Love You here. That is to say, there are obvious, big, important things I have learned; I love my kids greatly, I want to see them succeed, there are not enough hours in the day, Doc McStuffins friends are Lambie, Stuffy, Chilly, Hallie & Squeakers. You know, the BIG things.

This is a collection of the parenting B-sides that I have collected over the years. Sidenote: You know I would flip a single over to the instrumental side and kill it every time. Madonna's Vogue...Don't just stand there, let's get to it. Strike a pose there's nothing to it.

Picture this Casanova
karaoking solo to Madonna.
Now, slow down ladies. I'm married.

But I digress.  So, without further...oh screw it.

Beauty's where you find it,
Not just where you bump and grind it.
Soul is in the music,
That's where I feel so beautiful,
Magical,
Life's a ball.
So get up on the dance floor!

C'mon vogue....


Now to the real-B sides that I have learned...

1) Kids will like what ever silly song you sing.

I am a child of the early 90's. Love that era's hip-hop and rap. Thus, I refer to my kids as Regulators and when it's time to leave Target, I exclaim, "REGULATORSSSSSSS!" And my kids reply with, "Mount up!"

Working on addition with my Preschooler. 

At the zoo, it works with lots of animals. But I like big bass
and I cannot lie, when fishing is one of my faves.

This hangs at my local grocery store. No lie.
(OK, possibly a lie)

2 ) Kids can learn more from a trip to a grocery store than to a museum. 

At a young age, at least until age 10, this is especially true. There are so many practical and everyday things to point out and discuss at the grocery store. You can teach about: healthy foods vs. non healthy foods, how we get our milk, estimating prices, budgeting, comparing price per ounce, coupons, organization, how everyday products are made and where they come from.

Now, I'm not saying don't take your kids to museums. I'm just saying that there is a lot of value in talking with your kids as you grocery shop. Plus, there is a very slim chance of getting attacked by a velociraptor, I've seen Jurassic Park. Or an Egyptian pharaoh trying to kill you, I have also seen Night at the Museum. No, thank you.

3) There is bad parenting everywhere. (Including in my house.)

Now there are the parents who yell, lose their temper, get drunk and hit their kids (Louis C.K. has a great, funny & short bit on hitting kids. Warning: explicit language) but that's not what I'm talking about. That's a given.

One for instance that gets to me is...if you know your child is prone to be sneaky or mischievous or a liar or disrespectful or rude or mean or physical or a bully around other children. You have 3 options:

1) Teach them better.
2) Watch them carefully to make sure they are not doing any of those things to other children. Hold them accountable.
3) Or both.

Fact is, if you display bad parenting traits you probably don't realize it.

I am very aware when it comes to parenting. I watch parents to pick up on verbiage, posture, tone, presence and involvement. I've learned everything I want to be from other parents and everything I don't want to be from other parents. And I still get it wrong between 25-75% of the time.

I will say this about bad parents(I include myself in this group on occasion) you make me appreciate great parenting all the more. Thank you GREAT parents out there!

4) Kids are unabashed in many ways. Most of them wonderful.

They say what is on their mind. And they don't worry about how it sounds.

Mmmmmmm, smells like foot.

Here is an example from when our oldest daughter was 5:

It was a cool summer afternoon. The constellation Orion had just peeked, the geraniums were in bloom...fastforwarding...

Elsa had a paper cut from a few days previous and she just got to slowly taking off the 2 day old band-aide that was wrapped around her index finger. She looked inquisitively at the wrinkled, whitened finger tip. My lip was curled in slight disgust, like someone had just broke wind. Elsa then slowly and closely examines the unwrapped mummified finger for about 20 seconds. Then she takes a whiff of it, gets the same 'broke wind' face I have and casually says, "Ewww. Smells like a foot. Wanna smell?" "Um, good sell job, but...no." I reply. And then she went back to smelling it.

Weird. Just wonderfully weird and unabashed.

5) I will always be Dad.

Seems obvious, but what I mean is, that title never gets taken way. Once you have children, the title of "Dad" or "Mom" never leaves you.

But what I realized is, I need to decide what adjectives will lead up to the word Dad.

Is it going to be:
cool, fun, loving, protective, demanding, fair, trusting, selfless, playful, thoughtful, helpful, patient, responsible, organized, creative, interesting, challenging Dad.

Or is it going to be:
distant, non-engaged, uncaring, rude, crude, disrespectful, selfish, berating, always drunk, mentally abusive, overbearing, divisive, asshole Dad.

Or somewhere in between. But Dad will always be there. I just need to decide what words I want leading up to "Dad".

So to review:

You don't want to be this dad.

You want to be more like this dad.

But realistically, the dad sweet spot is somewhere between...

and







6) You have to stop, take a breath and reflect regularly.

I think my generations greatest artist said it best:

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

Parenting gets crazy sometimes. Crazy busy and crazy fast. Everyday I try to stop, breath and look at the big picture of my family. It puts life in perspective. Then I go boggart lunch reservations under the name of Abe Froman, The Sausage King of Chicago.

7) I realized I will never, ever stop worrying.

Now let me clarify, I do NOT worry every moment of every day. For it was another one of our generation's other great artists who said:

"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere." -Van Wilder

What I do mean is, at every age, there are new things to worry about. Whether it's the birth, SIDs, walking, talking, choking, strangers, falling off their bike, doing well on a math test, circle of friends, driving, college, job interviews, traveling, marriage, their own kids.

And those are just the surface things. I want to always be there for my kids. I want to be the one they always look up to. I worry that one day I might not be their world, I know it's inevitable. But I worry, that one day my kids might not want me in their world. You never know what tomorrow brings.

I don't lose sleep over my worries, but whether its at the forefront of my thoughts or backburnered. It's always there.


Well, we did it! Hi five everyone! Great hustle from everybody, except for one person. I think you know who you are. You better read this one again and take some laps. And don't let us down again.

To be continued...we'll see. If it makes $1 billion dollars like The Dark Knight, then I suppose there will be a Part 3.

jj

Thanks for Acting Like a Jerk...No, Seriously. Thank You.

'I wish that mean lady would just move to Alaska!", I barely heard my 9 year old daughter say as her tear streaked face ran across the street and into our house.

I was completely caught off guard, so I did what any good parent does in that situation, I laughed. It wasn't right, but I was so utterly blind sided by this comment that I couldn't help but laugh.

I thought, "Did our daughter really just say that?" My 9 year old who loves all living things. Who befriends lonely kids on the playground just so they aren't lonely anymore. Who has captured a gecko in our backyard and read books to it for 90 minutes. That kindhearted little lady just mustered up the meanest thing she could think of..."I wish that mean lady would just move to Alaska."

I haven't the heart to tell her that in Alaska you get an annual $1000 profit check from oil investments. Or that it has 70 potentially active volcanoes. Or that caribou outnumber humans. Or even that Alaska looks like this on any given day:

My daughter would LOVE to move to Alaska, but that is neither here nor there.

What brought on this reaction was a terse conversation I had just engaged in with a neighbor. Now for a little background, I am a pretty laid back, easy-going person. I am not a confrontational guy. I once didn't tell my dentist that he had forgotten to give me Novocain because I didn't want him to feel bad for forgetting.  However, above all that I am an advocate for my family and my children.

The long and short of this slightly luke warm exchange was that our neighbor did not care for our Nerf ball going into her yard. It had rolled into her front yard 3 times in an hour and that evidently was too much. And just so we are clear, it slowly rolled into her yard. It never hit anything but pavement and grass. The whole neighborhood knows about this neighbor and avoids her yard like the Outbreak monkey.

OK. This is NOT the Outbreak monkey. I got distracted
Googling monkeys and this is what you get.

Anyways, words were exchanged.

Get your ball out of my yard.
Sorry, we aren't trying.
Well, it hit my husband's expensive truck. (that's a lie)
No, it most certainly did not.
Just stay away from our yard.
We've never been introduced, nice to meet you by the way.
I don't want to know you or your family. I don't care about you.
Well, we will be more careful, if you promise to slow down when you drive down the street.
I always stop! (that's another lie)
The speed limit is 22.
No it's 30. (that's another lie)
The posted limit says 22.

In her defense, maybe she thought children playing
need to keep in under 22 mph.

And...so it goes on for 5 minutes.

It ends and I turn to my daughter who was standing 2 feet away. She bursts out crying immediately.  I knelt down and hugged her.  At first, I thought it was something I did. I thought my little girl might have been scared of me.  Or scared for me, that seems to be her modus operandi. But in-between the sobs she says something I wasn't expecting.

"She said doesn't (sob) want to know us (sob) and she doesn't care (sob) about us."

Then she banishes our neighbor from the continental U.S. and runs home for mommy and her blankie.

That's when I understood. That's when I got it. She has never had to deal with this. She has never had an adult be verbally uncaring toward her.  She has never heard an adult say, "I don't care about you." She has never had an adult act like a jerk toward her. It was out of the blue and it stung.

Our children are no doubt sheltered from this negativity. We try our best to surround our kids with love and family and caring people. In other words, we have put a "No Jerks Allowed" bubble around our kids.

I think we all try to protect our children from bad things. And this is just one more bad thing we try to protect our kids from.

Of course we explained to her that there are just people like that in the world.

Why?
There just are.
Why would God put someone like that in the world?
Why do you think?
I don't know. I want her to move to Alaska. (crosses her arms in a huff)

We all took a moment to breathe and eat dinner.

Now, we are not a perfect family by any means but we do try to spin things positively as much as possible. We try to focus on our choices and what we can control. And that's when all of these great things started happening.

Our neighbor acting like a jerk did SO many great and positive things for our family.

1. We grew closer.  The extra time talking, sharing and problem solving brought us together as a family. We understood each other better. Through adversity, we grew stronger as a family.

2. Appreciating who we have in our life.  Our kids have now seen an indifferent and uncaring person. Their whole life they have been showered with love. Finally seeing the other side of this coin has made them appreciate our family, friends, teachers & neighbors who matter the most.

3. Learning about people like this in a controlled environment.  I am SO glad this happened when I was around and when our family could discuss.  This was the perfect situation for this to happen. I was there. I could help deal with the adult. Our family could talk about the situation in a positive way. Our daughter was uncomfortable and hurt, but I was right there for her.

4. Opening our kids eyes to the real world. If only a brief glimpse. I'm glad our kids got to see what the real world can be like. Hopefully, it won't be a shock when it happens again because it most certainly will happen again.  And hopefully, they will know how to deal with it better.

5. Sometimes, people show us who we don't want to be.  There are plenty of examples of people who show us who we want to be. But truth be told, there are also those individuals who show us who we don't want to be. We have all met them and now our kids have met them.

6. Our kids saw me disagree with another person, BUT it didn't end in a war.  Too many times disagreements between adults escalate into shouting, name calling and sometimes physical altercations. We were both heated but we never lost control.

7. Our kids saw that I am an advocate for them.  I do it everyday. I am one of their biggest supporters and protectors but our kids don't always see it.  They most definitely saw that I am there to protect them. Papa Bear and such.

8. Empathy. We don't know what is going on with our neighbor. She may just be like that. Or she may not be happy. She may have bigger issues. She may have family issues. She may have had a bad day at work. She may have lived a tough life. We don't know. She shouldn't say the things she said, but there may be more to the story.

9. We all worked on creative problem solving.  The easy solution is to stay away people who act like jerks. In this situation, we thought a different approach might be better. We brainstormed other ideas to ensure the safety of our kids, physically and emotionally.

10. Kill 'em with kindness. We discussed lots of solutions. Ultimately, we decided to kill 'em with kindness. We don't talk bad about our neighbor. We say prayers for her. If she was ever in trouble, we most definitely would help her. No doubt about that.

11. Lastly, our daughter decided to write our neighbor a letter.

Our daughter never ceases to amaze me.

So a sincere thank you to our neighbor for acting like a jerk. Our family is better because of it.

jj