Is it fallout from Oak Ridge? What’s this white stuff in the air?! Oh, the children tell me its "magic we don’t have to go to school dust." I’m not buying it. They went off to school too overjoyed at the snow to concentrate on their studies. I know Noah will daydream and chant over and over that at any moment they will cancel school and send everyone home; he won’t hear a word today. He was first to notice the snow and gleefully asked, "do you know if they cancel school?!" to which I replied, "Yes they won’t." The children are very happy today. And yes, I bought milk.
Category: Of Being Dad
Fatherly posts.
Why I like getting up at 2am
Between 2am and 6am I can knock out a bunch of work! No phones ring. Even the dogs don’t need walking. Since I got up at 2am and have been diligent in my work, when Cathy woke with a migraine this morning, I was able to send her back to bed and move my work upstairs. Being upstairs with one eye on the children and one eye on the screen slows me down a little but conceptually I could take 4 hours off (realistically I need to keep pounding keys hard and fast) but the stress is off. I don’t think I could do this from an office.
From the mouths of babes
Dad, 6:30am: Turns on bedroom lights
Dad, 7:00am to Tommy: "Are you going to school today?"
Tommy: "Yes Dad."
Dad, 7:10am to Tommy: "Get up!"
Dad, 7:20am to Tommy: "Are you going to school today? Get up!"
Dad, 7:29am to Tommy: "Sarah’s leaving."
Tommy springs to action: "It’s 7:32. I didn’t have a chance of making the bus today!"
Your children will never hear anything you say
My children just learned hot things melt plastic. Gee. Where have I heard that before?
They also now know that popcorn was not always made in the microwave.
Tommy: "Why wouldn’t you just use a microwave?"
Mom, not answering to avoid saying: "Because I’m old enough to remember when microwaves didn’t exist!"
Proud Dad So Happy He Wet Himself
This is one of those blogging moments that most people don’t want to read but I’m posting it anyway. My boy pee’d in the toilet! And on the toilet and on the seat and the wall and the floor. Yes, he recognized he needed to go and knew what to do! Of course, aiming and control seems to be an issue. Dude has a bladder and a half too! We could be a diaper free house soon! Even the puppy seems to be getting it. We may not even need the training pads that we used with Molly.
Holiday Cad
I let another holiday slip up on me but this time I had plans! I had a very specific hour set aside to get my shopping out of the way. Unfortunately, irony usurped that hour away from me.
Mobilizing the family
How do you mobilize a family of 7 with one car? The details have been published. Here is a typical evening for us:
- 4:00pm Wake sleeping two year old. Send 5 year old’s guest home. Dress 2 year old as 11 year old and 14 year old arrive home from school. Instruct 11 year old to grab homework materials for the car and shove some Tylenol into him.
- Tommy stayed after school for LAN Club. No one brought games so it is basically canceled. Must go to high school to pick him up then zig zag through rush hour traffic toward downtown to get Sarah to her last climbing practice before their final meet.
- 4:40pm Sarah has been dropped off. Make a U-Turn and proceed to the exact opposite side of town to drop 11 year old off at Karate practice.
- 5:20pm 11 year old at karate practice. Take leisurely drive to BFE so 17 year old can have his horse riding lessons
- 6pm Drop Tommy at S.T.A.R.. Barn cold and unsafe for little ones so we speed off to shop in Turkey Creek. The cable to the upstairs television quit working so a new run of wire has to be installed before Lost at 9pm!!
- 6:30pm Call 14 year old to confirm she got transportation home otherwise rework schedule.
- 7:00pm shopping is complete and picking up 17 year old from barn. Good weather and they run late.
- 7:20pm leaving S.T.A.R. to pickup karate kid.
- 8pm Karate kid in hand rush home to install cable while wife gripes that we are going to miss Lost and it won’t be on the DVR.
- 8:30pm install cable
- 9pm Watch Lost
- 10pm resist urge to collapse and return to programming.
Squirrels in the Attic – update
I put a live trap in the attic to catch the squirrels and move them to another part of town. After I feel sure that I have them out, I’m going to seal up the hole they are using to get into the attic. I have been warned that someone who sealed his attic prematurely ended up with $2000 in damages in one day. That person removed the adults but was unaware of the babies in the nest. Now I am a bit concerned about the same situation. When do squirrels make babies?
During LOST last night we heard rustling in the vicinity of the live trap. Bingo! I was certain we’d captured our first squirrel. Cathy, concerned for its well-being, encouraged me to go check on it (immediately after I had made a bowl of ice cream). I climb into the attic. You cannot stand in our attic. Every 16 inches, maybe 22 inches, there is another truss so you are hunched over awkwardly squeezing through these triangles while inhaling the asbestos fibers floating in the air from disturbing the insulation put up there decades ago. I usually go up with a breathing mask but its buried in the mess in the garage. I work my way down 9.144 meters* to where I have the trap. As I approach the thumbing of an irritated squirrel gets louder and louder as if to say, "My territory and your slow dumb indefensible butt came up here with nothing but flashlight!" I get about 3.6 meters* from the nest when I see th trap is empty and unsprung. And when I say empty, I mean no squirrel and no bait! All I did was feed it! I’m thinking it is time to install a squirrel cam in the attic and stream it over the Internet.
*Conversion courtesy of Onlineconversion.com.
This is not the family I wanted!
My five year old has decided she’s had it with this place. Last night she emptied her chest of drawers into a crate and packed many of her toys in bags. All her clean, folded clothes are in one big pile. The room is wrecked. And as livid as Mom has become running away is probably not a bad idea for all of us! This is her second threat of running away. The first was before Christmas and was abated when I asked, "who should get your Christmas presents?"
I don’t understand this behavior. One, I thought threats of running away did not come around until age eight or nine. Two, she does not have a terrible life here. We believe hands are not for hitting so corporal punishment is avoided in this house. I will admit that Amy has received a couple of spankings but it makes Cathy very angry with me. I grew up under the threat of the belt so it is ingrained in my head as a means of behavior modification. No, I do not agree with it and regret the times I have employed corporal punishment.
Her reason for wanting to run away was because she was not allowed to go play with her friends today. It pains me to hear her yell out, "This is not the family I wanted." and talk of no longer liking anyone in the family. I believe strongly she is modeling this behavior from someone but I don’t know if it is a neighbor friend, school friend, or television.
Too cool to come out of rain
I offered to drive the van to the bus stop as shelter to two middler schoolers and two high schoolers and all declined. One declared, "it’s not raining" as my windshield wipers ka-thunked before my eyes. It’s cold too but you’d never know it by the way they all refuse heavy coats and try to minimize how much of their body their light weight coats actually contact. At least the girl had the common sense to be using an umbrella!
Dad of the year nomination revoked
Bad Dad sent the kindergartener to school today with nothing but Scooby snacks for lunch.
Update: Yesterday Amy came home and admonished me, "You forgot to send me lunch. All I had was Scooby snacks. I was starving!" And man was she ever put out. She was whimpery and whining and crying. She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a feast of a sandwich, fruit, apple sauce, and cookies. Then she laid in bed and boohoo’d that we never feed her. She gave it the royal treatment! Around dinner we talked about things she could do if it ever happened again including talking to the teacher, the cafeteria volunteers, or the cashier at which point she cheerfully responded, "I did! I had mashed potatoes and … and … and … and strawberry milk and … The IOU is in my lunchbox." Boy does she know how to milk guilt!
Today she was sent with more food than she will eat.
Dad’s are perfect
Which makes it extra painful when we make mistakes particularly when you can’t seem to back out of the mistake.
Just want to play with the children today
I want to be building forts, playing games, and laughing with the children today. My brain isn’t working at full capacity today. But I remain focused on my work because before I can play with my children, I must provide for them.
Parents are obliged to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and spiritual development for their children. Theoretically, each of those should have equal importance. In reality, they have to be prioritized based on the situation at the time. Single parents amaze me. I do not know I would manage a family without Cathy! That is not entirely true. If I were a single parent, I would build a support system around myself of friends, family and services. As a matter of fact, we have such a support system already. I imagine that as a single parent I would have to use that support system a little heavier.
It is difficult to meet any of those obligations without money. Unfortunately, the amount of money you make/have is rather proportional to the quality of care you can provide your children. That is not to imply that a poor person is a bad parent or cannot give their child a quality education; however, a greater amount of money makes it easier to provide quality services. For instance, food choices are often governed by making ends meet. The quality of services you receive at the doctor’s office can be determined by your insurance carrier. I have observed people on TennCare having longer waits than people on private insurance. Those on TennCare may get interns while those with private insurance get the nurses and doctors. Money definitely impacts the quality of shelter which can be provided. Quality clothing can be had from consignment stores, hand me downs, and sales; however, money may determine how often clothing is purchased. Even spiritual development can be impaired by money problems since time to give spiritual guidance has to be allocated to earning money.
Whoops. This post was supposed to be about how much I love my children. Didn’t mean to slip into "I want to see poverty abolished" (even if I do).
2008 as usual
The evening here is pretty typical. The boys are locked in a 9×11 foot room having a pooting contest. It’s eye watering in there! The youngest two are tearing a room to shreds as my wife cleans a different room and hollers threats to the older children that they should be cleaning. The teenage girl hides in the open and pretends not to hear. I am downstairs cursing at my computer because I can’t type faster. The usual.
And what a merry Christmas it was!
To all to whom I have not responded, thank you for your well wishes!
To all to whom we did not send a card, you were not forgotten! There was probably a technical reason like needed your address or my mad cow caused me to fail to get you on Cathy’s master mailing list.
Miracles and angels came through to help pull together our Christmas at the last minute. The children were well gifted and very happy with their presents. 
We had a wonderful visit from both sets of grandparents and Aunt Kelly.Cathy and I promised to be budget minded and agreed to not buy each other anything which is why we are both now the proud owners of new iPod nanos. We both cheated feeling the other was well deserving of a new toy.
Each year it seems one of the children gets a bum deal. This year it was Sarah’s turn. Both Tommy and Sarah received new office chairs for their desks from their grandparents. They were thrilled! I prompted Tommy to hold off on assembly until I could help him. Sarah did not heed my warning and broken open the package of numerous parts in the midst of our unwrapping mess and started assembling without checking the parts list nor understanding the instructions. (She’s going to drive like Cathy! "It felt correct to turn this way. NO! I didn’t take a left turn at Albuquerque this time.") We could not find the screws! 6 screws AWOL. We even pulled the trash back inside and went through every piece of wrapping and package that had been discarded. Tommy learned and quickly went over his parts list only to find a critical piece missing. We quickly discovered his critical piece was already attached to his chair. It wasn’t until a day later that Sarah and I drove to Home Depot and purchased bolts and washers that we realized her bolts were already in their respective holes. 
We figured this out because we could not get the new bolts to go into them! Doh! She also received a Nabaztag but it still isn’t working. Story to follow. which is finally working! After creating an account at Nabaztag, you can send a message to her rabbit over the Internet or with your phone and it will speak the message to Sarah. Oh, I almost forgot. When assembling the chair, Sarah dropped a heavy part on her foot breaking a toe. Poor Sarah!
The children had a fantastic Christmas and so did Cathy and I. Now back to work so I can finish paying off this one and put away for Christmas 2008!
