Did you know that laundry baskets have aerodynamic qualities and that when you angrily throw one down the stairs that the airfoil shape gives it enough lift to smash into your wife’s collectibles?
Noah was going to sleep over with a friend. When they arrived to pick up Noah conversation revealed we were on our way to the store to buy a new laundry basket. In 1977, Billy Joel explained that we all wear masks. We know it. Society has its demands. Scout leaders are supposed to be even tempered and fair to the boys; No one smokes pot except Clinton; And we all drive the speed limit except when no one is looking. Still, we put on our airs, wear the appropriate mask, and try to be Stepford (see also) when in public. Noah’s friend blurts out, "My dad was mad at me once and kicked our laundry basket down the stairs breaking it!" His mother was in shock! Her mask had fallen! So I dropped my mask explaining, "Sounds a lot like how ours broke!" and she relaxed. See, when I threw the basket down the stairs I was angry at Cathy. When I kicked it across the basement shattering the basket, I was angry at myself.
I like not having to wear a mask. Tensions drop and we can enjoy each other’s company so much more. Without a mask, we are truly accepting a person instead of the image we and they think needs to be portrayed. After all, we are all just human and no one is without flaws.
So my development server is suddenly giving me 404s instead of webpages. Ok. I can deal. Let’s take a break and get a round tuit and figure out why Noah’s sound on his computer isn’t working. See, I have a game I want to share with him. We got the sound working but the game which lives on my desk is no where to be found. So all things constant appear to be in flux today. This isn’t right!
Two weeks ago it was Cathy’s birthday. This past Thursday, Noah turned 11 years old. Today Evan turns two! Two very fast years. When Amy was born, I bought a book and started writing her a letter a day which became a letter a week, then none at all. When Evan was born, I bought a book and never put word one in it. Ah! Good intentions replaced by actual doings. The upcoming birthdays are Amy turning five on June 10 and Sarah turning 14 on June 24 then Tommy turns 17 on August 15.
So this morning had a plan. At 5:15am I would be on a video conference with London that would end at 6am. At 6am I would rouse Noah, make sure he was fed, clothed, etc and send him off at 6:54am to his last half day of the 5th grade. At 7am, I rouse Sarah, make sure she is fed, clothed, etc and instead of sending her to the bus at 7:34am I would drive her to make sure she was at school early (8am) so that she could participate in BNN’s filming the 8th grader’s last day.
Plans! Technical issues got the video conference off to a late start. I got Noah started then checked on him to find him staring blankly at our barren kitchen. He didn’t want cereal so I ran down options: oat meal, cream of wheat, eggs, … We hit on eggs! So I roll into EduDad and prompt Noah to get a frying pan while I get a bowl and crack two eggs into it. Noah looks in the closet where we keep glassware, then he looks in the drawer under the stove, and finally in the cabinet by the stove where pans are kept. He adds some milk to the eggs and we beat them well. The pan is oiled and cooking commences. I instruct him on when and how to stir the eggs and I return to my video conference. 20 minutes later I check on him and he is still stirring the most well-done eggs you’ve ever seen. I failed to tell him when to remove the eggs! "I was waiting for you to come upstairs so I could ask what to do." Why didn’t he come downstairs and ask for help?! Of course, I feel rotten. With one minute to spare, he slams down his burnt eggs and goes to his bus.
I rouse Sarah and return to my conference call. We wrapped at 7:46am which was still enough time to get Sarah to the school but she’s AWOL! And Noah left the stove on! I call Sarah’s phone, the one she left at her friend’s house, and leave a voice mail but I know what she’s done. In her desire to be an independent teen and trying to not interrupt my work, she has acted on her own. However, as a parent, I want her to always say goodbye! I want her to say good morning. I want her to sneak into her mother’s room and get her mom a peck on the cheek! AND we had a plan. I was supposed to drive her to school.
I find the choices they made this morning amusing and good for their growth and learning; however, I feel that I bungled being a dad this morning. I feel I let Sarah down.
I’m off to lead 11 boys into a canoe trip in th Okefenokee. I am ill at ease with this trip. I feel like it could cost me my favorite client. Noah and I are working through an issue that as a father makes me want to hold him back. And I’m just not sure we are prepared for this kind of trip. We will enjoy it anyway! The knots in my stomach will relax once we are on the road.
Great Granny passed away. This meant driving to Parsons TN (map) (yes, that’s the whole thing.) Living in the South you tend to forget why people make jokes about the South. We do not hear our own accents and most of the jokes seem dated upon old stereo types because surely we are not that backwards! At least that is what I thought. Since our life has taken us down a path of being sequestered within our own house, I had forgotten what it was like out there. After loading everyone in the van with the misfiring engine (I thought it was a bad spark plug but had someone talk me out of changing the plugs..turns out it was a bad spark plug) and praying that we could drive across Tennessee and back, we hit the Interstate. It wasn’t long before we saw a flag pole towering over the trees to the right side of the Interstate flying the Confederate flag (debate with wife over its racial symbolism versus Southern pride/Southern heritage/historic symbolism ensues) then a couple of miles later to the left of the Interstate an aluminum, giant cross (I mean like 60 feet tall or better See the cross on I-75 by the adult bookstore and a cross in TX.). This thing could have doubled nicely as a water tower. Near Nashville we had a friendly store owner’s sign reminding people to "Thank a veteran — in English!"
Now Friday morning I awoke to find green writing on my forehead. I really need to quit falling asleep before my wife. As we packed I noticed the box that our "supplies" are in had moved from its hiding spot to the headboard so obviously the wife was prepared in case by some bizarre circumstance we ended up with a hotel room to ourselves.
We hit the first welcome center to grab a map and I was struck by Tennessee again. I had my phone in hand but couldn’t bring myself to take a picture. I should have! For walking out of the crowded welcome center was a man in overalls and nothing else. Granted, I think he had shoes but the baggy overalls with no shirt did not hide the fact that he wore nothing underneath them. This was textbook hillbilly.
We had a relatively pleasant trip to Parsons. I found that the van performed better at higher speeds…like 145 kmh. Once in Parsons we located the hotel and found out that Uncle Danny had lost the keys to his rental car but that’s a different story. Our family takes 4 rooms of the hotel. There appear to be no other guests. A quick count of the beds leaves some hopeful optimism that perchance Cathy and I will have a room to ourselves! The children tend to like to disperse themselves amongst the relatives they rarely see. Cathy asks if I came prepared since she left me clues like the writing on my forehead and the box on the headboard. With mouth agape, I explained I thought the box meant she’d taken care of things. Does Parsons have a drugstore?!
Hunger overtook our crowd. Let’s go to the fish restaurant where Granny and Granddaddy had their wedding reception! "It’s down to the traffic light and take a left. Has a big sign shaped like a fish." That’s right. "the traffic light" Our hungry mob takes off as we dilly dally a bit longer. After getting everyone buckled we follow the directions. Down to the traffic light and left. We immediately lose signal on the cell phones. Fewer dropped calls! Drive. Drive. Drive. Scratch head. Drive. Drive. Ah! Buildings. Drive. Drive. Bar. Drive. Bar. Hey look! It’s Patrick Swayze! Drive and finally! The restaurant with the big fish sign…and no lights on…and no cars in the parking lot…and no cell phone reception. We debate heading back to town to make a phone call for directions but decide to drive another mile and, sure enough, we locate the other restaurant with the big sign in the shape of a fish.
Our crew, which consisted of our Cathy, myself, Tommy, Sarah, Noah, Amy, Evan, Uncle Danny, Uncle Matt, Aunt Carmen, cousin Gabriel, cousin Abby, cousin Elizabeth, Granny and Granddaddy converge on the restaurant. We enter and the building goes silent as everyone stares. The waitress’ mouth hangs open as a single dish crashes to the floor. We blink and the noise of chatter and utensils clinking to plates return. I head to the restroom. Now, you know it’s gonna be good eats when on your way to the restroom you spot a Haynes manual on one of the patrons tables, the plumbing is run outside the walls, and the towel dispenser in the bathroom is cloth.
The menu reads "fried _____" You name it and they’d fry it. I had the seafood platter and later the nice lady at the hotel desk explained to me "that seafood platter is too big for one person! It could feed two." The seafood platter was fried catfish, fried oysters, fried clams, fried shrimp, fried something I couldn’t identify, fried frog legs (caught fresh out back), hush puppies (that’s fried bread for those that don’t know), my choice of french fries or baked potato (I order the baked potato but requested it fried), and two boiled shrimp just to prove they had something other than a deep fryer in the kitchen.
After dinner we head back to the hotel and I figure I’ll head out to the drug store; however, Fred’s Pharmacy and Dollar Store is ominously dark. Closed! Well, at least Food Giant appears open. Ironically, Food Giant appears to sell only food. Not looking good for the visiting team. Eventually I chance upon the feminine hygiene aisle and at the tampon section I see KY Jelly! That’s promising. Looking up and down the aisle I just am not finding any prophylactics. I start to realize that perhaps KY has some other use which probably has to do with shoving cotton in a dry place. As I am about to give up hope, I notice a bottle of KY personal warming lubricant. Now surely a "warming lubricant" has but one use! Still no condoms. Apparently some ladies prefer their tampons warm.
I consider giving up but decide to have to have some fun. I turn to the two teenage boys mopping the floor in the back of the store. "Do you guys sell condoms?" They stare at each other for a moment then say, "if we did, they’d be on aisle 11." (that’s the feminine hygiene aisle) Then one boy’s face lights up and he whispers, as if I should know better, "dude, BP. On the corner." He is right. I should have known better.
At the gas station, I purchase my 3 pack of wishful thinking and, to make some utility of the trip, purchase some STP gas treatment. For good measure, I throw in a scratch-off lottery ticket since one way or another I’d like to get lucky tonight. In the end, the condoms were unopened, the van still misfired, and the lottery ticket was a loser. However, I do return to the station before it closes for the night for beverages.
I returned to the hotel room and later that night Cathy was overcome with the sickness Evan had earlier in the week. So in the morning I head over to Fred’s Pharmacy and Dollar Store to get some Pepto-Bismol (if there is only one link you click today..make it this one!). Since this is a pharmacy I take a half a moment to look for condoms (out of curiosity). I see none! But they do sell Astroglide near the tampons. This town must have a bad case of vaginal dryness and teen pregnancies. I guess no prevention makes a big city out of a small town.
Breakfast time! Cathy rolls over in agony so we leave her in the hotel room callously failing to hang the "do not disturb" sign on the door so the cleaning staff trying to make their 11:30am deadline repeatedly open the door hoping to annoy Cathy out of the room. Meanwhile the rest of us have a salt lick disguised as country fried ham, bacon, sausage, pork patties, mystery meat, eggs and other artery clogging goodness for breakfast. It was delightful! I sorta lie to the family and tell them "Cathy is putting herself together."
We retrieve Cathy then head over to the funeral home and Cathy’s mother tries to assess who looks better..Cathy or Great Granny. Great Granny wins and various family members try to slip Cathy Tums. For the next hour and a half or so we play "herd the cats" with anyone under 3 feet tall while family and friends catch up and tell some great stories.
On Sunday, Amy visited Great Granny. On Wednesday, Amy was in the car when we drove Great Granny’s sitter from the hospital back to the nursing home. Amy cheerfully announces, "That’s Great Granny’s house!" That night Great Granny passes away. Friday Amy and I talk about Great Granny petting Lucy in Heaven. Saturday I held Amy as she looked at Great Granny lying peacefully in her coffin and bravely told her goodbye and that she loved her. My eyes watered for Amy then and as I type this. Tommy handled himself well but I could see him struggling with his emotions. Sarah always keeps things locked in and deserved awards for babysitting ALL the children without complaint. Secretly she is probably thankful to not have to visit the nursing home anymore. Noah was hard to read; he could be stoic and mature or he could have missed the boat. Evan was just on an adventure.
Small towns people are friendly! And there is a properness to everything. A small town Southerner can make you feel like you are family, like you have known the person you are talking to for years, and like you have been living in the town your whole life. You are welcome! We were treated fabulously. After all, most of the people around us were kin or long friends of someone in the immediate family.
The pallbearers were called to a meeting. Having only been to two funerals my whole life and having never been a pallbearer I was looking forward to this meeting as I had been told the instructions would be forthcoming. I was tasked with gathering up the 5 other pallbearers. I knew two. After letting three know about our meeting, I stepped into the funeral home director’s office and the two I could not find were there with the funeral director having carefree, grinning conversation which quickly wrapped up with my entrance and instead turned to the business of being friendly. Best I can figure everybody in Parsons holds two jobs. For instance, the preacher is also a farmer. The funeral director beyond any shadow of a doubt is also the auctioneer. With utmost seriousness and sternness the instructions were something like this:
It went without saying that no one had questions and we absolutely did not follow the plan for five minutes prior to the service the family had already seated and the pallbearers were sent to the chapel where the prayer was performed instead of the viewing room.
After the chapel service we drove slowly to the cemetery with the van threatening to sputter to a halt. That would have been embarrassing! The pallbearers lugged Great Granny to her final resting place (if you’ve never done it, coffins are heavy!) and awkwardly decided where to put their buttoners (lapel flower). Half went to Granny and half went to Great Granny. After the graveside service we played in the cemetery then hit the road. But that’s another story.
Noah has an opportunity to camp out in the Okefenokee for 5 days and 4 nights. The estimated cost doubled on me last night. I have concerns about the trip including:
Can I actually take 5 days off?
Shouldn’t that money go elsewhere?
My wife said that I was to make the decision and when I said, "we are going" she replied, "whatever" which in wife-speak means "wrong answer dumbass."
Are we properly equipped for this kind of trip?
If we pass, are we giving up a once in a lifetime opportunity (apparently this is a hard trip to book)?
Can Noah handle this trip?
Childcare during Cathy’s meetings and events
I feel like my gut is saying not to do this trip but I also think I am misreading my reasons for saying no. I have to decide today.
Yesterday I woke at 4am to get Sarah to the church for her ski trip to Sugar Mountain NC only no one was there. At 5am I am calling to wake her grandparents who in turn call and wake the preacher’s wife only to find out that the trip was canceled due to the fires of global warming. Sarah was supposed to call the day before and confirm that the trip was on but she summed up her 13 year old skewed view of prioritized with "I forgot" which translates to "I didn’t want to make that call. That’s stoopid.quot;
After returning a sad teenager to the house, I put out some fires on a client’s website then awoke Noah so we could go fire .22 gauge rifles with the boy scouts (see also and also). The boys did really well at the firing range. (Cathy has the non-cellphonepictures) When we returned home, the boys talked me into having a bonfire. The flames were huge and elicited concerned phone calls from two parents of children that were at my house.
As the night drew on, the bonfire stayed strong. I wanted to sleep and I also wanted to let the wood burn down further but the winds were picking up. Checking the weather, I confirmed that a wind advisory suggested strong winds throughout the night so I doused the fire for 10 minutes yet today it still smolders.
Yes, in college I drank to excess. When Cathy and I were dating, she was working a health fair and one of the booths was worked by a police officer with "drunk googles" which are these fractured things you put on to simulate intoxication then try to walk a straight line. He watched me walk it really well and coolly commented, "this guy has had too much practice." But college is long gone and I rarely drink now-a-days.
So, once in a blue moon I might buy a six pack of beer and have one beer a night while watching television with Cathy. On rare occasion we buy a bottle of wine. I certainly do not hide it from the children. They should know that it is alright for an adult to have a drink. Apparently I was wrong. The last bottle of wine was purchased with our full complement in the car so Noah witnessed me walk into the liquor store and knew that later Cathy and I drank some wine! (of course, Cathy probably has all of 4 glasses a year) So, Noah took it upon himself to check out a book from the school library titled something akin to "Alcoholism: Someone in my family drinks too much" What a good caring guy! Of course, he is going to be a nervous wreck before he reaches high school if he keeps worrying like this.
Evan has an ear infection and sinus infection. He is taking antibiotics but a comedy of errors has left him without a decongestant so green slugs continue to pour from his nose.
No school tomorrow so Noah has a friend over. The boys have graciously allowed Evan and Amy to play in their room and it was so nice to hear raucous laughter from all 4 children. Until! I hear the laughing words, "He’s gonna lick it!" I bolt to the room to see a huge slug stretching from nostril to lip. I race to get tissue to nose but before I can reach him the boys have their victory and more. Not only has Evan tasted the horrid slime but he has spread it to his hands looking like something from You Can’t Do That On Television! And they cackle.
Wish their clothes would grow with them. At least I am not alone. A parent at karate was complaining about her children all wearing "floods" which made me feel a little less bad about Noah’s high waters.
Humans have a predisposition for species preservation. We must reproduce! Women quip that they don’t need men; they just need a petri dish. However, men contain the other half of the equation for that petri dish. The testicles house the all powerful, life initiating, spermatozoon! With great power comes great responsibility. These little critters so strongly desire to fertilize an egg that they can cut off a man’s rationale mind and cause him to do impulsive, stupid actions popularly known as "thinking with the little head." At some point there will be a successful fertilization leading the man to say "you missed what?" followed by "you mean this does something more than just feel good?" and finally coming to the conclusion "so for the next 9 months we don’t have to worry about protection?"
Raising children is perhaps one of the most challenging and rewarding purposes in life. Children bring joy and pain and fear and self-doubt…oh the self-doubt!…and fulfillment! Influencing a life and leaving a legacy is amazing. It is immortality as a piece of you lives on in your children. Parenting a child comes with the responsibility to impart morals and a belief system upon the child. [s.b. pe]
I have never understood divorce. When I was 13, I was certain my parents were going to divorce and I was horrified. I always thought marriage was "til death do us part" but I am not a stranger to divorce as my first marriage, without children, failed. I also know the divorce rate is something like 50 percent (80 percent for families of children with special needs) right now which is sad. I still believe that many of those marriages could be saved with counseling.
"Research shows that couples show up in counseling on average five years after they should," the doctor said. "Couples should pay attention to some warning flags and start addressing problems before the relationship is highly damaged." [T]here are four warning flags that de-stabilize a marriage: criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness. When these characteristics are consistently present in a relationship, they lead to divorce 95 percent of the time… [Source]
When a divorce involves children, awkwardness ensues particularly when remarriage occurs. We all want to be married to our spouses but none of us want a relationship with our spouses’ ex although I suppose there are cases where the new and old spouse might really get along. Everybody’s divorce is unique with its own custody issues and legal arrangements. In some cases the ex stays in town and in others the ex moves far away. In either case, the ex has to make a decision about how involved to be in the children’s lives.
My wife also had a starter marriage. In her case, the ex moved 1000 miles away. Noah, now ten years old, was then one year old. I entered the picture two years later. It took several years for Noah to understand roles in a family because of living a few years in his grandfather’s house, "that daddy guy" calling occasionally and visiting twice a year, and then having me in the picture. For awhile, any male figure would easily substitute for "dad" and the reaching out for a father figure was seen in the various ways Noah clung to soccer coaches and other males in his life. Eventually biodad’s calls became less frequent, sometimes with gaps of months at a time, and visits reduced, by his choice, to once a year (or less). He visited this weekend for the first time in over a year and spent 45 hours with the older three children.
Noah gets excited about the fun they will have but afterward is always reserved as if depressed or in deep thought although it could just be overtired. This morning he definitely had a sadness about him. Tommy gets so nervous and giddy that he almost needs tranquilizers. He has not come to terms with the divorce yet and fears scaring biodad away so there is great pressure to please. Even after Cathy and I married, Tommy thought biodad and Cathy would remarry. It does not help that biodad has lied about the nature of the divorce blaming Cathy. Just before the visit, I asked Tommy, "Why are you so nervous?" He replied, "Imagine if you had a relative that visited only once a year.." I interrupted with "I’d be mad." And Tommy went blank as if the thought had never occurred to him. Sarah is bitter. None the less, the girl that refuses to say "I love you" to any of her relatives, avoids hugs and touches, and frequently refuses biodad’s phone calls, gave a long, endearing, goodbye hug to biodad. After the visit, the children are always out of sorts and crotchety.
This visit made me think more than any of the previous visits. Biodad has become a total stranger to these children yet, without question, we send them off to a Motel 6 for a weekend of less than quality parenting and supervision. Tommy came home Sunday in the same clothing that he put on Friday morning. Noah didn’t bathe once. Games included unsupervised silly string wars on the balcony. Sarah and Tommy were left alone at a Motel 6 while biodad and Noah went shopping. During the visit the children do not feel comfortable talking to their mother on the phone, do not say "I love you" and, in Sarah’s case, only talk when biodad is out of the room. Sarah is coming of age and has developed into a shapely young woman. Prior to this visit, I had never questioned the sleeping arrangements but I made issue of it this time! Turns out, in the past, Sarah has slept in a chair. I would not hand my children over to a total stranger but without question we hand our children over to someone that we only know of his past. We know nothing of what this person has become except that his belief system, morals, and choices do not coincide with ours. He is their biological father, the sperm donor, but he is not a father to the children; he does not choose to take an active role in their lives although he could.
There is no question that this situation is confusing to the children. It even brings turmoil to Amy. And I feel it emphasizes the difference between the children instead of uniting them as the brothers and sisters that they are. Is there a point at which you become so uninvolved in your own children’s lives that for the sake of their mental health and well-being that you should just step out of the picture? Is there a point at which we are acting irresponsibly to not change the nature of the visits to a supervised situation? Truly, what are the rights and responsibilities of impregnating an egg? Legally you have to provide monetary support but does that give you ownership and entitle you to some perverted display of dad greatness so that your ego feels you have fulfilled your fatherly duties by spending 45 hours out of the year with the children? 45 hours is half of one percent. If you were expressing it as fractions of a dollar, you would have to saw a penny in two. I cannot fathom being separated from my children. I am not in his situation. I cannot begin to guess what goes through his mind but it seems to me that either you want to be involved or not and to have such a tenuous holding on does not seem healthy for biodad or the children.
Ultimately, I imagine the children will make their choices and come to terms with biodad. I suspect that Sarah is not far from her reckoning. Noah will follow in due time. Tommy may never get there.
I know they rather be playing video games or watching tv. Today I wrangled Noah into helping me. He won one of those new Playstation2s that are thin and sleek. The old, bulky Playstation2 will become a communal gaming system in the living room. Noah would much rather be playing his new system but I forced him to come downstairs. and showed him how to pull wire through the ceiling. Then we fished it up through the wall to his bedroom where I showed him how to connect the wire to a RJ45 in the same face plate as his cable jack. We talked about wiring then came downstairs to learn how to crimple a plug onto the other end of the wire. Then we learned what a switch is used for and where the Internet connection comes into our house. Although Noah was good company, it didn’t really peak his interest until I showed him how we could plug the a wire from his jack into the back of his new Playstation so that he could play online. See, the old style Playstations did not have a network jack built-in and we never purchased the newwork adapter. Noah lit up! (And can say he wired his own room for the Internet)
Husband to one wonderful wife, father to five fantastic children, juggler, technophile, freelancer, DIYer, adventurer, volunteer, KO4NFA (2m/70cm), WRMJ225 (GMRS)
Disclosure:
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