Sep
01
“A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.” – Ben Franklin
Disclaimer Note: I’m posting this as my submission to the DadsTalking $100 Date Night giveaway, where one lucky dad (and his spouse) will receive $100 for a much needed date night!
Why we need a date night and escape Chaosville (yes that is a real place)
Well if you lived in our house you’d know why we need a date night, Hell, we need a date week! I see my wife every day online when we chat via Google Talk or call each other to ask if we paid the bills this month. When we come home we are like daycare teachers and each have one child in our sights and care. Wife who?? Husband who?? Hell no, we only run around the kitchen like manic chefs that ordered too much seafood for kids that only eat see-food! Make ‘em mac ‘n cheese, they want nuggets, make ‘em nuggets they want mac ‘n cheese (but only EZ Mac). Good Lord kids! I remember when I had to eat chicken (ON THE BONE!) or hard-as-leather pork chops (ON THE BONE). And MILK was the only dinner liquid allowed.
Sometimes during this chaos my wife and share glares of disgust and sometimes bump into each other which usually results in us disagreeing about something. The tension levels skyrocket and that is like mixing up a Long Island Ice Tea and chugging it…the end result either way is that someone is gonna get ca-raaa-zzyy!
[If you do not believe me I can post a video if I still have it, I’ll hunt for it and post it if I do!]
What Will We Do On Date Night?
Most likely I will chase my wife around and offer her the $100 to to get a kerotin hair treatment if we could spend 20 seconds in bed! Maybe 10 (it’s been 4 years – read above for reason why!)
But in all honesty, my wife and I LOVE our kids and our alone time! We used to spend Friday nights at Barnes & Noble reading books, magazine and sipping Starbucks Cappuccinos. It was great. We would read articles and share what we were reading and even have a REAL conversation with the person sitting across the table, sometimes we would even interlock our fingers! It was a good ‘ole time and we have done that one other time in the past six years and it was amazing and weird that we got to be like “pre-kid” again.
We also enjoy peaceful dinners alone, at a restaurant, where we can ask for more sauce if the waiter brings us too little – just like our kids do. We’ve found a great BYOB place (which helps save us money as we’ve been putting two kids through daycare – one just moved onto kindergarten, but it’s been like a second mortgage) that is very quaint and romantic and it’s great to sit across the table from my beautiful wife and hold hands and talk about things we enjoy – our kids – without interruption. And yes we do, we do talk about our kids and how we can win at least one battle against them! Haha
Here are some other other #DadsTalking $100 Date Night entries that I felt like sharing so my readers can find new Dads to follow and read.
Over on Dad U he writes: http://dad-u.blogspot.com/2010/08/dadstalking-100-date-night.html
JR Reed writes: http://sexandthesingledad.com/2010/08/date-night/
The Better Husband writes: http://www.betterhusbandsandfathers.com/2010/08/my-100-date-night.html
Aug
31
“The key to change… is to let go of fear.” – Rosanne Cash
Today I was a proud father! My son, LT who will turn six in October, started kindergarten today. School is nothing new to him as he’s been in daycare/school since he was 12 weeks old (yes, it’s been a long time! But both my wife and I work) but today was his biggest step and transition. Ever!! He was going to attend Kindergarten…and take a bus…alone…for NINE minutes (an eternity to a young child with some anxiety issues). As most of you know, my son LT suffers anxiety from the wind and storms. Sure all kids have some sort of fright from strong thunderstorms, but LT is was afraid of just a light rain and cloudy skies. If you didn’t read my previous posts, here’s your chance to read how LT, his little sister and I had a great time running and jumping in rain puddles and how you and your child can overcome a fear of rain. As of my post on playing in the puddles, LT seems to have overcome some of the stress when it comes to rain and hopefully this will be a step in the right direction for him to conquer all of his fears, especially the Fear of the Unknown. (I honestly hope he can figure out how to conquer that so he can tell me!!)
Ok, so the backstory has been set on LT’s fright of scary things AND today was two scary things in his young mind…getting on the school bus and going to kindergarten for the first day. He just DID NOT want to go – he even thought by taking his shoed off four times he wouldn’t have to go. My mother, a retired kindergarten teacher, told me “you need to get him on the bus no matter what or how, or else it will be a battle every day”. I just didn’t know how this would be possible since I know my son and how worked up he gets over stressful and unfamiliar situations. I guess he take after me 100%! It tears me up inside to see him so frightened and screaming for Mommy and Daddy that I end up getting upset at the situation and find it hard not to act rash and out of control. That’s probably why my wife asked me to take our four year old daughter to her preschool a few minutes early – basically she wanted me out of the house so our son could stay focused and hopefully relaxed. I didn’t argue as I knew inside that was the best thing for him. Somehow my wife can stay calm during the most stressful situations and I give her credit for that.
Events Leading Up to Today
On Saturday morning I was woken up with a loud, angered voice from my son, “Daddy, wake up and turn on the TV for me now!” I was groggy and not understanding or moving fast enough for him so he repeated it, “I SAID, ‘TURN ON THE TV FOR ME!’” Ok, now I was awake and beside myself as I’ve never seen LT act this way so early in the morning (I do say, early in the morning as other times he has lashed out in an inappropriate voice). I did go downstairs and was nicely saying to him, “Now LT, we do not speak that way. Where are your manors?” “Daddy, I need the TV on, just do it!” WOW, what the Hell happened over night??? This was crazy and I thought about raising my voice but kept a calmer voice because something surely was wrong. Just about this time my wife came downstairs and told me to go back up to the bedroom and sleep. (I did since I was most likely still dreaming or having a weird nightmare since two things that never happen were happening, my son doesn’t usually demand things so early in the morning and never has my wife gotten out of bed before 8am on a Saturday AND told ME to go back to bed). So while I slept in until 10:00am (I think I’ll have a better chance of winning the lottery 6 times before that happens again) my wife spoke to LT and was able to gather from him that he was very anxious about going to school and:
- not knowing anyone
- not knowing where the bathroom is
- scared of the bus
- afraid none of the kids would talk to him
- not remembering the teacher’s name
Gee, these sound like pretty darn common things to be afraid of to a 5-6 year old. What strikes me as odd is that he’s toured the school three times before today, we had a summer BBQ and invited most of the new children and families over, he’s met the teacher a few times and last week at his open house he showed me the bathrooms, oh and he was on a school bus at least 6 times last summer for field trips with his Pre-K. So ok, you can cross off number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 since he’s been there and done that!
So what was he afraid of? Nothing! It’s that DAMN Fear of the Unknown!
The Dreaded Morning Has Arrived
Ok, today arrived and no way in Hell was LT going to school. We did have it marked on the calendar as August 30th, so it must be correct, but his little mind was moving 1000 thoughts a second and he was scared. He did eat his bowl of Apple Jacks which was impressive and put on his cool “May the Force Be With You” shirt with Yoda on it. I thought “what an appropriate shirt and hopefully it would bring him some guidance from The Force”. Nope. He was adamant about not going, “I’m not going, I’m not going, I’m not going" and on and on and on. So I say to him, which I’m already regretting tonight, “May the FART be with you!’” He laughed. Whew! He’s calming down a bit so we kept it going for a bit and then it was getting crazy and I could see him saying that at school and being known as the “Potty Mouthed Kid” on the FIRST DAY of school! Crap, what did I do??? Well the only thing I could have done to help him relax for a few minutes, took his mind off it and made him laugh. I’m not usually that type of guy to do things out of order or off the norm, I’m more structured and (anxious and stressed) organized and whatever…wait, this is about him, not me.
So like I mentioned above, I left with my daughter and my wife got LT all ready to head up to the bus stop. I find out later when talking to my wife on the phone that it was just God awful to get him on the bus. Luckily other kids were waiting for their bus to arrive and LT was on his own bus since he was going to a private, full day kindergarten (since we need full day and our school district only has half day). Some of the kids talked to LT and asked him how he was, this helped a bit until the short yellow bus #60 rolled up and Mrs B. said, “Good morning, LT". Now my wife had to help him on the bus and she was practically in tears and couldn’t look back as she got him on the bus. He was screaming for her as the bus drove away. I would have been devestated! Thankfully, we received an email an hour later from one of the mothers of another boy in LT’s class. She said that when the bus pulled up to her house LT ran off the bus and sprinted through the woods that LT and another boy and her son were all doing fine and happy on the bus! WHEW what a relief and my wife and I were glad to hear that and knew LT would be ok at school. Like I said, he’s been in a school setting since before he could walk and has interacted with a lot of children and different teachers in his lifetime.
After School Smiles
Trust me, even though your child might get pushed guided onto the bus in the morning kicking, screaming, crying and scratching at the bus windows, when that bus pulls up in the afternoon to let him/her off, they will be all smiles and so freakin’ glad to see you that whatever happened in the morning can just as well stay there! Hopefully LT will be able to take this experience someday and learn to change his outlook and let go of the Fear of the Unknown.
“The key to change… is to let go of fear.” – Rosanne Cash
Here are a few articles from some good websites on dealing with stress and anxiety for young children going to Preschool, Kindergarten, etc.
So if you’re a parent of a child heading to kindergarten this year or next, please start now and take some steps to help combat any stress and anxiety about The Fear of the Unknown. I wish I had!
Aug
20
If you’ve been reading my blog for the past month or so you may know that my 5 1/2 yr old son has some anxiety toward rain, wind and storms. Well last week we had the “perfect storm” – gentle rain, no wind and cool temperatures. After picking up the kids from camp and preschool I asked them if they wanted to go home and run around in the rain and jump in puddles. We have NEVER done this before! I guess Cathy (my wife) and I never wanted to get wet and have to deal with wet kids, clothes, mud, etc. If we were outside with the kids and it started to rain, we’d always say, “Hurry up, let’s get inside so we don’t get all wet from the rain!” Hmmm…I’m now wondering if this had an effect on LT’s anxiety toward rain?? God I hope not!
So anyway after asking the kids if they wanted to run around in the rain — BOTH of them shouted out “YES!!!” and I was shocked to hear LT say he would do it. I just hoped it wasn’t a short-lived desire to play in the rain, or that the rain didn’t actually stop (which it looked like was going to happen).
We arrived home and I told the kids to hurry up and put on either swimsuits or old clothes and get outside before it stopped raining. They immediately flew inside so fast and changed, even my 4 year old daughter who always wants help to get dressed was back downstairs in about 2 minutes. Now if they would only move this fast when it’s time for bed!
“Alright, who’s ready?” I said as I opened the deck door and shoooshhhhh – out they flew to the yard and driveway. I joined them in stomping in the rain puddles and running up and down the driveway. I had wanted this day to happen so I could get my storm-frightened son outside in the rain with me and show him that it was fun and nothing to be afraid of. He had a blast telling his little sister to run with him up the long driveway. Then both kids thought about the playset and going down the slide.
Of course, I was a little hesitant (that’s my nature, I too am a little anxious and stuff) when they said that but then thought, “what’s the worse that could happen to them? They could break an arm, or maybe just have a kick ass time!” Yep, they had a blast! Kbop was the first to go down the rain covered slide and ziiiippppp she flew down it so fast that when she came off the end she slide 5 feet on the wet grass. She burst out in laughter and ran back up the ladder to try again. LT was at the top of the slide and slid down as well, but he’s like me, cautious and therefore kept his hands on the sides. He still went down fast but landed on his feet with a huge smile. I loved seeing that smile and how happy he was for playing in the rain and not being afraid.
We must have played outside for about 30 minutes. We were pretty wet and cold and headed inside for a warm bath and jammies before dinner. It was a great time in the rain – amazing that it was our first, but not last!
Posted under Uncategorized
Aug
17
Thanks to Chester County Moms for the 4 pack of tickets and opportunity to take my son to see the Philadelphia Eagles live public practice on August 5th, 2010 as part of Eagles Flight Night 2010. LT and I had a great time and you can read the whole recap over at ChesterCountyMom.com
Jul
25
I had been promising my son that I’d let him help build a Bee House that I saw in the May 2010 issue of Family Fun Magazine. So this weekend I kept my promise, a few days late, but none-the-less we were outside in the unbearable heat and humidity cutting wood on Saturday morning at 7:30am. A Dad’s gotta do what a Dad’s gotta do!
Not sure if any bees will “move in” this summer since we’re a few months late with building the house and hanging in our flower garden area (which is now overrun with weeds, cuz this Daddy sure isn’t weeding when it feels like 104 degrees!)
Why Build A Bee House?
Hmmm, that’s a good question. Most people don’t want ANY bees on their property and we’re building a house to attract them AND lay eggs in. (I guess this is better than my plans to build a beehive for honey!) Hope my neighbors are cool with this! Well from reading the article in Family Fun Magazine this house is intended for Mason Bees (Wikipedia), gentle non-swarming bees that rarely sting. Ok, sounds more like Barry B. Benson from Bee Movie. So we’re hoping that next spring and early summer we’ll get some new “tenants” and they help to pollinate our wild cherry trees and wild flower gardens throughout the lawn.
Instructions and Photos
Here are the instructions and then some detailed and fun pics that I took of my two kids helping me build the house.
How to Build a Bee House for Your Backyard Beauty (Disney’s Family Fun Magazine, May 2010)
Here are our pictures, you can click and these will open in a lightbox.
The kids had fun measuring and marking each board I needed to cut. Best thing to do is to measure (yourself) the first piece and cut it then have your kids match up the ends and draw a line where you need to cut the next board. This cut is on an angle so make sure the board ends match up before your kids draw your cut line.
LT looks so serious when drawing this line. He was having a great time and I could see the joy on his face!
I like this pic. He looks like a little carpenter. I had to teach him how to hold the straight edge with his thumb and pointer and draw a line at the same time. At first he didn’t hold the straight edge and the line was a bit curvy!
All of our cut pieces for the Bee House.
Tape the six panel pieces together to give them some stability while nailing the roof and base.
Hammer away little man, just don’t whack my thumb or fingers! (I think the monkey PJs helped!)
Ok, Bee House is all nailed together and now we needed to mark all of the drill holes. I measured each hole like the instructions said, but you could pretty much eyeball this step.
OSHA do not look! I forgot to have LT wear his safety goggles. Oops! Anyway, he helped drill about 3 holes and was done with this step. That left me with a lot of holes to drill. NOTE: drill slowly and pull the bit out every now and then to remove the sawdust and free up the bit. I drilled random depth holes throughout the panels. Oh, another good tip: take some duct or electrical tape and mark your 10′” drill bit at the 8” mark so you know when you’ve reached max depth.
Definitely drill where you can make a mess. This is NOT something for the kitchen table. Leaves a lot of woodchips and sawdust. The holes are rough so you need to move on to sanding them.
You need to knock out all of the sawdust by turning the bee house over and whacking the back a few times with your hand. Or just knock the house on the concrete floor a few times. Then it’s time to sand the rough holes and remove and “hanging chads”.
The last step is probably the most important! Find one of your kid’s slippers and display it proudly next to the completed Bee House! LT chose Spiderman slipper.
Ok and lastly, my two kids and their completed Bee House! They had a great time and I think it’s because LT is wearing one Spiderman and one Hulk slipper!! KBop is still eating her French Toast sticks for breakfast.
Let me know if you try this DIY Dad Project and post a link to your fun and photos!
Jul
23
Here I am again sharing some Dads on Twitter that I’ve "met". Some of these guys I’ve tweeted over the past few months and others I have recently followed or have been introduced.
@AngusNelson
@Bharville
@FotoDad
@DanDadDoes
@IntentionalDad
@Shutter_Dad
@DaddyDown
@Phronc
Leave a comment or http://twitter.com/DaddysToolboxif you’d like to be listed on a future Fatherhood Friday post!
Jul
20
How many of you think your kids are smart? Right, everyone does! How many of you have a child that asks a question that traps you into a NO-WIN response? Well I do! Or so it seems like that is what KBop did to me tonight. In case you’re a first time reader, KBop is our soon-to-be four year old daughter. Well tonight she posed a question to me after I wrapped up reading books to her. Ready for it?
“Daddy Are You Tired?”
How the F am I supposed to answer that? I think it’s her version of a trick question! If I say “No, I’m not tired, I have to go downstairs and pack lunches, clean up and then blog and tweet until midnight,” well….you know what she’ll say, “I wanna go with you!”
So I said, “Yes, Daddy’s tired and needs to get to bed.” Her smart ass response, “Good, you can sleep next to me!”
UGH!!! Not what I had in mind, but what a cute response and totally well played! I did chuckle and said, “Oh alright peanut, but I can only stay for 30 seconds.” (I know, what a mean daddy I am! haha, but she thought that was a long time, whew!)
So I’m keeping this blog post rather short for once, but my question to you, how would you handle this? Have you had similar incidents?
Jul
16
For my third installment of this #FatherHoodFriday post, I’ve chosen these great Dads. Some of them I’ve been following on Twitter for a while, and a few others I just started following this week. So check them out, follow them and if they have blogs, stop by and read more about each of them.
@GetReadyDad
@DaddyFiles
@NukeDad
@BetterHusbands
@SeattleDad
@EdAtHomeDad
@GreatDadNews
@LukeNavarro
@MichaelsDaddy
@Big_Daddy_Paul
If you want to be included in next week’s #FatherhoodFriday tweet me @DaddysToolbox or drop a comment below.
Here are 2 links to my previous posts for #FatherhoodFriday
Fatherhood Friday #1 – A List of Cool Dads to Follow – 27 Dads listed
Fatherhood Friday #2 – A List Twitter Dads – 15 Dads listed
Jul
14
My two kids are very much different when it comes to rain, or at least right now. LT is a 5 1/2 boy and Kbop will be 4 in August. Kbop doesn’t have any fears it seems (and that scares me!) LT on the other hand, he’s our first child and therefore is the one that we always looked out for during his infant, toddler, preschool and now KDG years. This probably has led him to learn to be cautious and timid when it comes to new things and most recently rain and storms.
He’s always been afraid of thunder and lightning, as most kids are, but ever since the huge wind and rain storm on June 24, 2010 (link to photos on Flickr) he’s been deathly afraid. We were at the Phillies vs Indians game with my Dad (Papa) and had left just before the storm hit. We were stuck on the Platt Memorial Bridge heading to I-95 when the winds shook the bridge and hail started to come down. We couldn’t see more than 5-10’ on either side of the car. LT was having a crying fit and asking “WHAT IS THAT?” when the hail started to pelt the car. There wasn’t much I could do since we were on the road and there was really no place to pull over. I did end up moving in between two car seats in the backseat of Papa’s car to sit with LT and hold his head in my arms. It helped calm him somewhat but he was still crying and scared like I had never seen him before, and that scared me (inside).
So I KNOW that this incident has left LT with a serious fright about thunderstorms and wind – oh yeah, he’s never liked wind either! I think he saw Mommy and Daddy playing around once when he was 3yo that we were blowing away. How would WE know this would have scarred him!! [Parents: Seriously, don’t pretend to get blown away in the wind! It may lead to anxiety and fear of the wind. It seems to have done that in our situation.]
Ok, so how can I work to fix my son’s fears of the wind, rain, storms, and whatever else he becomes afraid of? Cuz that is what Daddy’s are supposed to do – we fix things, protect our kids, and make things right. The only thing I could think of was to spend some time outside in the rain, probably by myself at first, and then convince my son to come outside and play with me in the rain. It’s kind of funny because my wife and I have always said, “No, you can’t play outside right now, it’s raining!” or “Hurry up, let’s get inside before it rains!” Like we are making him think that the rain is a bad thing or something. So the next time we are both at home I was hoping to Throw A Rain Party – Simple & Fun Rain Play For Kids! (FunTimesGuide.com).
We’ll have to gradually work into a fun time in the rain and recondition our kids so they know they ARE ALLOWED to jump in puddles, get muddy, splash water on us, slide in the mud (i.e, be a kid). Of course, we will all be in VERY OLD clothes before we step out of the house!
So my question…
What you would do in my situation?
How would you help your child overcome the fear of rain and wind?
Do you think going outside can make things worse for him?
(Of course, I’m not taking him outside in a thunderstorm – but some year, he’ll want to sit outside – safely – and watch a huge thunderstorm pass overhead and get sprayed with mist and rain…I loved doing that when I was a teenager – not at 5!)
Here are some pretty cool articles about other fun ways to play with your kids in the rain.
How to Play in the Rain
Teaching Kids About Rain & Floods
Should Children Play Out In The Rain?
Fun Ideas For A Kids Rain Party
Jul
09
Ok folks, here is a list of fifteen more Dads that I follow on Twitter. I’ve been tweeting my #FollowFriday #FF list of names for a while now, but really wanted a way to capture the lists of great Dads out there in the Twitterverse. Click this link for last week’s list of Fatherhood Friday Dads on Twitter.
Here’s the alphabetized list and if you’re NOT yet following me, here’s my Twitter account @DaddysToolbox.
@BackPackingDad
@BuckDaddy
@DaddyGetsItDone
@DaddyPOV
@Dads_Garage
@DCUrbanDad
@HighTechDad
@NickCheeseMan
@PapaRocks6
@RealAuthMen
@SavvyDaddy
@SuburbanDad
@TheDadTrade
@TheGoKart
@WrittenDad
Stay tuned for more great Dads to follow next week. If you know of a Dad that should be included, please leave me a comment or tweet me @DaddysToolbox.
