Category: Family

Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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We’ve lost our motivation

The bus was a very exciting part of school for Amy. As a kindergartener I never expected her to ride the bus but it was such a big deal to her that the first time we missed it she had alligator tears. Now she has grown indifferent. She has friends in the carpool lobby as well as the bus lobby. We miss the bus primarily because I choose to sleep "just another 15 minutes." I think perhaps it is time to start waking everyone 30 minutes earlier.

Our children grow so fast. The conversations. The logic. The sentence structures. The choices made. I am awed that she is only 5! I love watching the children grow!

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I’m an uncle!

Congratulations to Danny and Lucy on the healthy birth of their baby! It is healthy and I am told he/she/it is not the hermaphrodite I had bet on. Throughout the pregnancy, they artistically kept us guessing as to the gender of the child. I personally guessed it would be born gender neutral ergo I will forever call it Pat. However, apparently it was not born gender neutral and they have given the child a wonderful name derived of family names which implies a particular gender. Good job to all 3 of you!

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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).

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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.

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And what a merry Christmas it was!

Merry ChristmasTo 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. iPod nanos..the gifts we didn't buy 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.

dreaming of Santaafter Santastockings filled with caremagic sparklesMax and RubyYou'll shoot your eye out!

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. Sarah's broken toeWe 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!

SarahEvanNoahAmyGranddaddySarah

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!

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Parenting Lesson of the Day (or Stupid Dad!)

Narration: [audio:http://realityme.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/parentinglessonoftheday21dec2007.mp3]

ClearRxTarget’s Pharmacy has this really cool medicine dispensing system called ClearRx™ created by a woman whose mother accidentally took her father’s medicine. We switched from our favored local pharmacy at CVS, where the employees were friendly and knew us by name, to Target’s pharmacy, where we are more of a number, specifically because of this product. Evan is fighting a sinus infection and was prescribed some antibiotics by the doctor. He has taken to liking them and tries to do it himself holding the syringe in his mouth but I still have to push the plunder. Now if you are a brain stud like me and decide to show your 2.5 year old child how the plunger on the syringe works, expect to be wearing the medicine!

I let Evan hold the dispenser in his right hand then showed him how to press the plunger with his left palm. His eyes widen as a gush of antibiotic rushed into his mouth. I leaned back with satisfaction as I waited for him to do it a second time completing his dosage. Trying to figure out what he just did, the syringe came out of his mouth and he stared at it not unlike the break he takes between squirts when I am dispensing it. Then I saw it! The gleam in his eyes. I watched as the upturned corners of his mouth meta morphed into a devilish grin. In slow motion I shouted, "NOOooooo!" as a fountain of pink fluid erupted into the air to the joyous cackling of a demented child with a devil on one shoulder patting his back and an angel on the other bound and gagged. A pink rain fell upon me! And, by the way, when your child does this, keep your mouth closed unless you want the chalky taste of artificial strawberry burned into your taste buds for the remainder of the day. Smooth.

I think I’ll go back to trying to get the hippie in my drain to leave.