Tag: kids

Judge Not, Lest… Okay, Ye Judge Me

I judge parents based on the behavior of their child/ren THERE I SAID IT.  Feels good to finally log that one in a place nobody ever sees… 

Oh… 400 readers last week… Okay…

Judging other parents based on their child’s behavior, I am sorry I even invented it.  I feel like such a cornlog for bringing it up.  I do, I judge parents.  I judge them rarely on what their kid is wearing unless the kid’s naked in the mall or it’s a girl dressed like a girl dressed like a 21 year-old pageant contestant.  Behavior says a lot about the kid’s environment.  Heck, my youngest son isn’t walking yet at 1 year-plus-2-days, and I feel like a failure as a sprint coach.  I judge myself most harshly.

I’m sure nobody has judged me, however.  Other parents usually are so very focused on their kid(s) to ever stop and discuss why my son yells “YOU ARE NOT NICE” to kids who take things he was playing with.  It’s taken forever to get him to tone it down to that, once we stopped the eye-gouging and F-bombs.  And to think that if somebody were to take something of yours in adult life you are moderately within your rights to push them to the ground and reclaim your Nook, pushing your glasses up on your nose with a “GOOD DAY, MADAM.”  So knowing I am not being judged makes this even harder to admit to you 5 (over the course of a month) readers.

It’s hard enough raising one kid.  Two adults here, and we were finally into a rhythm after 2 years with ONE.  Then the little guy came along and holy crap, life is 1.6-times more involved.  Not twice as hard, because sniffles and diarrhea aren’t as panic-inducing as with kiddo #1.  But when I see parents with one kid who have decided “Yeah, that’s enough,” I’m somewhat envious of the ease of schedule.  While things are 1.67-times more complex with 2 kids, it’s also upwards of 50 times more awesome to see little kid-brothers play together and laugh together.  It makes my wife’s 49 consolidated hours of labor and extra monthly medical premiums entirely worth it.  So when other people say we have good kids or happy boys, I take that with pride, but also wondering HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN JUDGING MY CHILDREN, you horrific monster?

Parenting brings out the Real You.  It demands something of you that LIFE may have tried to extract, and now that LIFE is in diapers and hungry and Mom’s tuned into the TV and dad’s beer buzz just kicked in.

Or Mom’s scrambling to get that bottle going because dad had to pick up another shift to make some extra cash and mom’s just worn out but another hour and this kid will be sound asleep.  All that kid knows is connection and attention and affection.  All mom and dad know is Take Care Of This Baby!  Love This Baby!

Sorry parents, I don’t mean to judge you.  Most of the time it’s just kids being kids and those kids are pretty awesome.  But the 12 year old in the toddler play area, well, you’re a shitty, inattentive parent whose iPhone5 should be crammed up your ass the wide-and-flat way.  Instagram that. 

Case closed.

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Asleep At The Real

Sleep is a fickle lover, idn’t it?

If I were to be embraced by sleep nightly, welcomed into her arms and pulled deep into her embrace, for her to put forth all the effort to make me feel safe and refreshed, eventually I would need less.  And when she decides what I feel about her she makes up her mind without consulting me on my feelings.

She whispers into the ears of my wife “he’s with me…” and my wife may get jealous.  Because her Sleep isn’t infusing her with rejuvenation.  He eludes her.  He brushes past her with a wink.

He teases her.  He approaches her and tells her to relax, only to step away, returning well after a normal sleeping hour has passed.  He exhausts her.  While she waits, I slumber lightly.

So little sleep is causing so many other issues.  Advice comes and goes.  Insomnia, well, that’s a hard one to shake off.

And if nobody’s feeling rested, everything else blooooows ass.

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A Sandwich Too Small

George Carlin once said a lot of dirty stuff you want to scream at people writing checks at a grocery store.  He also said “Women are crazy and men are stupid.  But women are crazy because men are stupid.”  Something like that.  I often see little bits & pieces, graphics here and there taking digs at how dumb or helpless men are.

I won’t defend all men.  I can’t.  A lot of men are dickheads.  A lot of men are also great people.  Some are incredibly normal and unnervingly personable with no explicit personality issues.  Some guys are complete sociopaths and should have died in a Jeep rollover a long time ago and had their organs go to save worthy lives.  Some guys, however, are good Men.

They have to get up and go to work every day to keep the lights on and bills paid for their family.  They do it with a song in their heart, even if somedays that song is “Necrophobic” by Slayer.  And they do it because they love their family.  On the way to work they burn an hour in the car.  On the way home they burn 75minutes and have to go to the store to get something for dinner because the loves of his life are at home, tired, sick and haven’t had the energy to get dinner together.  When he gets home he realizes he’s on patrol to get the kids bathed and in bed while his wife zones out on exhaustion and a chest cold she got from their daughter’s last play date. 

Oh wait, shit… he has to iron some shirts for work, too.  And fold the laundry and get another load going so the kids have stuff to wear for the rest of the week.  It’s only Tuesday.  The days run together.  Gotta get a sitter for Saturday night, too, so he can take his wife out for anything, even for just two hours of face time.  Did the bills get paid?  Better check the online bill payer.  Get that handled.  Kid’s lunches for tomorrow, check.  Kids bathed and in bed, check.  Shirts ironed, check.

Oh look… it’s 11:40pm.  Everybody is asleep except him, who was also up before everybody else today.  And everybody is asleep.  At home, in their beds, safe, and resting.  A good day.  Done.

And that’s part of the gig for the moment.  Handling a lot of shit.  And keeping schedules together.  And working and making money and trying to keep Life from digging her heels in and being a bitch, instead of a dance partner. 

He made the mortgage payment, car payment, insurance premium, kid’s lunches, doctor’s appointments, and read a couple stories to the kids.  He didn’t put together some wet-panty plaque to post on Pinterest about how hard life is.  He didn’t make a snarky Facebook update about how he’s running the show.  And no, he didn’t make a sandwich. 

Maybe tomorrow he’ll treat himself to a meal combo under $5 somewhere. 

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Having a Second Baby – A Preview

My wife’s about 11months pregnant right now, and we are beyond ready for this new baby to arrive. Even while our first one is off & on crying in his room instead of SLEEPING THE HELL OUT OF THE NIGHT, we’re pretty happy about the pending arrival. In the preceding months there have been a few discussions with other parents and friends about a 2nd baby. The best way to summarize these talks is “Mostly positive but it’s okay to shut your noisehole.” It’s amazing that some people believe simply having an opinion and a voice make either of them valid in everybody else’s world.

I have seen a lot of seemingly unsolicited voicing of the sentiment “WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP PROCREATING?!” and “I don’t want a baby ever, OMG, what would I do with all the random dick walking around my apartment?!” Hey, kids force you into a role you aren’t really ever ready for, but if your heart’s in the right place, you get ready pretty quickly. In the meantime, you realize that maybe all that dick isn’t in your best interest. Sucks to have your priorities, morals, and ideals shuffled for you. Life will do it if you don’t.

As for kids in restaurants, I feel really sorry for people who hate it when a kid saunters in and makes a little ruckus. Those poor folks think they have the right to a fancy, quiet dinner at Olive Garden! Hey, money-poor assholes, save up a few more bucks and eat elsewhere or head to the bar. The parents are doing the best we can to keep that kid under control, the good ones among us leave if the kid’s losing it, and it sucks ten times as much for us. So keep your stink-eye for your doctor when they say “Hey, how about a little less dick in your life?”

Sure, there are people who do NOT want kids. Some of them already have kids. Some of them don’t want the intrusion into their life of work, school, extended adolescence, I CANNOT FUCKING CONCENTRATE WHEN DANCING WITH THE STARS IS ON, promiscuity, drunken camping, and/or Crossfitting. Other people just don’t have the drive to procreate. Why can I still hear the judge’s scores, AND getting questions about what I’m doing? Leave me alone, I’m talking about how great our life is… faaaaawk…

So here’s the deal…
We’re parents. We parent. We are a family. We aren’t hobbyists when it comes to child-rearing. We’re sold on the idea of soccer practices, sports camps, play-dates, reading books to our kids 20 times a day, and major life prioritization. That’s for us to deal with. When I hear (from a few people) “Man, we think just the 1 kid is too much,” we already know that doing it well for just 1 kid – as there’s no real “Right” way – is hard enough. But we wanted another kid.
And our 2 kids will someday replace the scores of people who don’t want kids. Hell, they’ll replace US. And when the anti-kid folks grow old and diaper-filling, I will present to my kids a list of their names, and say “Yeah, they didn’t want to add to the generation that is now alive to help them in their final days.”

All I can hope is that we’ve taught them to do the right thing and stay out of other people’s business.

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