Uncategorized – Page 9 – developing dad

All of Life All Right Now

It’s about midnight on Saturday.

I didn’t always write at this time of day, but it’s pretty standard now. My life seems to crowd out my solo endeavors until at least this time many days. That’s life with little kids. At least that’s my life with little kids. Constantly doing. Busy cleaning. always something. It’s not a complaint, at least not most of the time. Its just what it is.

This weekend was Teddy’s third birthday party. Before having kids you have no idea how a third birthday party, which formally lasts from 11-3(ish) or so could possibly be an all day affair, but it is. It so is for us. Partly because we’re not the neatest or most organized bunch and partly because it just is. We had one set of grandparents, some cousins, two aunts and an uncle, which may not sound like a ton but in our tiny house it’s plenty. I can’t tell you how great it is having all of them there. Having time to spend with them and having time to see our kids becoming part of the larger family.

Tomorrow is our seven year anniversary and we’re getting a sitter! This is a red letter day for us and we are so excited to be going out. In the meantime you have no idea how much work it is preparing your tiny home-for-toddlers for a babysitter on a weekend day. Honestly, it looks like a frat house here by the time we get to lunch on a typical day at home. Not to mention the laundry a day like today got us behind on. Mommy and Daddy both work, both have to and Saturday is laundry day. All of us need a weeks worth of clothes ready by bedtime Sunday. Then we have to extract from the fridge that which might make us lose our awesome, though not nearly utilized enough babysitter. I blame her, but she’d never be freaked out by it, but it’s just common decency and we’ll try our hardest to make it nice for her.

Next is Teddy’s actual birthday on Monday, so we have to bake cupcakes for his classmates. Then next weekend, on Halloween we’re going to travel to my sister for her birthday and a visit with more cousins in Connecticut. They are wonderful people that we love and haven’t seen in too long. My parents will be there as well and it’s going to be great. And we’ll be sure to get back in time to receive trick or treater’s and to bring our own kids around.

Between then and now we’ll make and pack lunches, wake and put to bed, feed and bathe and comfort and discipline. We will play and read books and do costumes and watch favorite shows and change clothes and mediate arguments. We will say yes and no and no and no.

We’ll also receive a lifetime’s worth of ‘adorable’ and ‘cherubic.’ A decades worth of mischievous. We’ll stop disasters and cause smaller ones. We’ll argue and forgive and kiss and shout. We’ll laugh. A ton. We’ll drink more coffee and less water than is advisable.

Life is pretty full these days. All of these things will take place while we do our damnedest to maintain and even thrive in our full time jobs. The temptation, the one I give in to far too often is to stop seeing the whole thing for what it is and picking apart the individual tasks and finding in them frustration. It’s unavoidable I suppose. This time of life, the middle part, is incredibly taxing. There’s no end to doing and from time to time it all becomes too much. So we slide. Back to feeling overwhelmed and unappreciative. It’s understandable and forgivable to be sure.

But I have to take a minute here because something has occurred to me. I’m at the top of the bell curve. I’m at the fullest my life will ever be. There’s more work to be done than there ever has been and perhaps than there ever will be in this 10 year frame I’m in right now. Furthermore, I’m still looking at all of the people that will have meant the most to me when I cash it all in. All of the people who will play primary roles in my life when my story is over are all still with me. Still loving me. Still loved by me. Some have been here a long time and some have just shown up and what they represent is the universe of my life. And they are all here. All now.

It wasn’t always thus and it won’t always be thus. It’s the most amazingly full and wonderful time of my life and in the midst of all the noise I owe it to myself and to all those in my life to see it, to appreciate it, to be fully thankful for it while fully immersed in it. Which I am. I’m so incredibly thankful to have this roster, this cast of characters populating the story of my life. Each and everyone of them making life what it is for me.

The Misplaced Confidence of the Formerly Beautiful

Have you ever had a secret that was just too painful to share? I just know there’s someone out there who could understand me if I could just get over myself. Just stop stopping every time I start to address it directly. Fear is cruel that way. It gets in and feigns ultimate power and you believe it. But its all a charade. Any power fear has is usurped and misappropriated from its host. That power you feel being exerted on you, to apply the old horror movie trope, is coming from inside the house. Your house. You. The power is all yours and you have to claim it. As soon as you do fear will flee like the coward it is.

Here is my proclamation.

I am afflicted with the misplaced confidence of the formerly beautiful.

It may not be recognized in the DSM and their is likely not a ton of literature about this dreadful disorder, but for those few of us suffering from it none of that makes it any less real. It doesn’t make it any less painful.

It’s a pitiable reality I live day to day. One I don’t wish on my most attractive enemies. Every night I’m tortured by my reflection, reminding me that those looks I’ve gotten, those looks I’ve come to rely on for my sense of self, from attractive young women, those looks are no longer intended the way I still, sadly, receive them in the moment. All day I’ve stolen glances of others checking me out. Now, when I see what greets there eye in the world of funhouse mirrors I now live in I am left little room for doubt that one of two things has happened. One, they are looking on me as an oddity here in these places of the young and beautiful I somehow still think I’m rightly placed in. Or, two, horrifyingly, they are not in fact looking at me, but rather ‘keeping an eye on me’ the old, thick, greying gentlemen who clearly doesn’t belong.

Well I have news for you. Many of you will be me someday. Laugh. Go ahead, young beauties, but mark my words, beauty fades. Even on us, the most beautiful. You can only outrun it for a decade or two. Your number will come up some day. And when it does I hope you remember the way you look at me and judge me. I’m you, my friends. I’m you.

I too was able to claim a total and truthful lack of ‘game’ when it came to meeting the people I was attracted to. I was afforded all the free space on the high road. My best move was letting slip to a friend that I thought someone was cute. This actually led to nearly every relationship I initiated in my dating days. The other 90% were someone telling me that some other, similarly afflicted gorgeous person was interested in me. I never questioned. Of course they were. Then I’d decide if I was. If I was we’d date. For as long as I was into it. I assumed it was like this for everyone.

I was raised by humble and handsome people who didn’t burden me with the knowledge of the appeal of my strong jaw line, piercing blue eyes, broad shoulders, alabaster skin and buttery smooth baritone. I was 6’2″ and athletic on top of it. Lacking arrogance, I emerged in the world upon reaching majority a fully formed, devilishly handsome man free from the awareness of my native advantages over the average person. I assumed all people had yet to feel the bitter sting of rejection. Thinking it not at all unusual that someone might greet anyone with a sharp intake of breath followed by spitting out a phrase like, ‘Wow. You’re really good looking!’ Didn’t matter where I was. Interviews and church and other formal settings. I just assumed this was a common courtesy between strangers raised with manners and good hearts. I assumed everyone would have to hold their bosses at arms length. Out of respect for their dignity. I mean how silly would they have looked being rejected by subordinates. I always assumed my promotions were the same promotions anyone else would have received having dutifully arrived to work on time, answered most messages and was always available to smile and make small talk. These are the essential duties of handsome/good looking people after all.

But now, now I’m a fool. I still assume the never ending upward trajectory to continue despite having long ago settled into the middle. Thank god I met my gorgeous wife before my looks were so diminished. I managed to convince her, a fellow and currently gorgeous human, to marry me and quick. Before the fall of Rome as it were.

After a lifetime of the world and its inhabitants falling at my feet to help me over any and all challenges I didn’t even realize that I am completely lacking the skills needed for someone in my current, hideous form. Thank god I managed to attend and graduate college while I still was on the path of least resistance, which is every path for the beautiful among us. At least I have a degree to fall back on.

But today, today is my day to take back my life, to swallow my humiliation and face the world. I’m thicker then I was and my profile in particular is to be avoided. My once prominent jawline is doughy. My broad shoulders have slumped and my skin is, well, problematic. But that is not going to stop me from being proud of myself. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m going to eat better and care for myself more attentively. I’m going to run and use the elliptical and I’m going to do all the things everyone else has had to do forever just to keep up with me.

I may never be beautiful again. Lord knows I’ll never be as stunning as I once was. But who knows. I’m to understand that men like myself can still get quite a bit from life if we can make it to ‘distinguished’, so there’s still hope.

What Inspires Us to Blog?

I’m on the official WordPress blog today, with several other bloggers, discussing what inspires us to blog. Check it out!

WordPress.com News

Every day, people from all around the world start a site on WordPress.com to share everything from photos from their latest adventures to deeply personal stories from their lives. What motivates them to do so? We asked seven bloggers from the WordPress.com community to tell us what inspires them to blog. Here are their responses:

Mica, Busy Mockingbird

My primary reason for blogging came from the multitude of projects I have going on all the time. A friend once said, “Oh, you’re so creative — I could never do THAT,” and I insisted that all art is trial and error. So I started the blog to share ideas about what I’m doing, things I learn, mistakes I make — just to show people that art isn’t always some mystical, magical, PERFECT thing. It takes work and practice and mistakes, and it’s okay to have fun doing it! I always get…

View original post 1,782 more words

Life Won’t Wait

Life is slippery. And fast. It’s hard to catch and if you ever do it’s impossible to hold for any length of time. The only effective tool for capturing life, at least as far as I can tell is gratitude.

Gratitude is often a step too late. It’s hard to notice the things that we should be expressing gratitude for when we are experiencing them. In general, my default feeling is ‘overwhelmed’. It lives with me moment to moment. It consumes me. I can’t seem to shake it. It blocks out so much that I should be grateful for.

Our family is emerging. It needs constant feeding and tending. We are so consumed by it’s care that we can’t manage to get any distance from it in order to simply appreciate it. We are caught up in the mechanics and logistics of the whole thing. At this point, having managed two full time jobs, two full time toddlers (two full time babies before that) and the day to day tasks that all of that entails we are so negligent of gratitude that it’s hard to find at times. Which is awful. Because gratitude is the key to it all. It provides respite from worry and perspective on life. It’s a feeling you are responsible for inciting. Simply expecting the magnitude of our good fortune (health, family, love, work, companionship, food, warmth, a home, etc..) to bring gratitude to us is a recipe for entitlement, gratitude’s opposite, it’s opponent even. My whining entitlement can obfuscate all that I have to be grateful for.

I’m sitting precariously atop the bell curve and if I don’t find a way to appreciate it I run the risk of missing out on all I can see from here. At this point in my life, unlike anytime before and unlike anytime after I am surrounded by all of the people that will make up the world I’ll have known. The new arrivals and those that preceded me. Every primary player in the story of my life is active in it right now. My children, my siblings and my parents are all here, all full of life and vibrantly available to me.

I’ve experienced gratitude in different ways. There is visceral gratitude, the type you feel in the moment. For me it’s often been while hiking. I don’t have the chance to do it all that much, and it was always a vacation activity and not an integrated part of my life. I’m not a person that meditates, but from what I hear about the peace that comes from that practice it’s similar. Perhaps for me walking in the woods is a form of meditating, focusing on a simple task that requires little thought. Who knows. But the feeling is wonderful. It’s a full appreciation for everything, from the air I breath to the wearying muscles of my body to the beauty of the world I’m submerged in. It’s a feeling of peaceful bliss and I hope to pass the love of it on to my kids once they are able to appreciate it.

The other form gratitude has taken for me is the result of a discipline and can be captured anywhere. At a desk. In the car. Lying in bed in the dark. I don’t practice nearly enough. It’s being put aside for worry and stress and fear. All the things I choose to carry instead of putting in the effort that gratitude as a discipline requires of me. It’s not even a lot of effort, but it can feel like way too much when I’ve tricked myself into thinking I can’t let go of those other things that I am carrying that are weighing me down, becoming heavier for all I pile on top. But I know, if I take the time to appreciate all that I have, and don’t just slide by saying things like, ‘I’m very lucky’ or ‘I really shouldn’t complain, I know I have so much’, but rather actually take five minutes to list the specifics of what I have to be grateful for I can access the peace that gratitude can provide. I can be consumed by gratitude. I can be relieved by the perspective it brings.

It’s a commitment I will never regret but one that’s so hard to stick to. I hope to instill a sense of gratitude as a discipline in my kids. But how will I ever do so if I don’t take the time to practice it myself? If I don’t change it soon they will instead inherit the burden I drag around in the place of peace, perspective and true appreciation for this beautiful life that isn’t permanent but is a gift to be treasured.

It’s a little magical this intentional type of disciplined gratitude. It’s a force field of sorts that can protect you and enrich your experience. Intentionally showing gratitude makes the world around you safer, more vibrant and provides you with both calmness and joy. It’s a practice I can’t afford to take for granted any longer.

Home, Home on Mamalode

I’m delighted that a story of mine, ‘Home, Home’ was published on Mamalode today! Please read the intro below and click on the link to read the rest of the story.

……………………………

They all start the same.

Teddy is the alarm clock. He is two and a half years old. This age comes with many challenges for the little guy and can lead to many challenging moments for us. It’s all okay though as evolution has whittled away at this problem for some time by now and as a result he is in possession of nature’s cutest adaptation.

He is unbearably adorable. All cheeks and just enough language to get his point across eventually after several missed guesses, while giving your heart if not your countenance a smile as you try to interpret his barely understandable babble/speak. Even if the way he pronounces a word like ‘truck’ is mortifying at first, it’s also sweet beyond words.

Little Man, Big World

I complain, mostly for comic effect, but occasionally sincerely, about the extremities of emotions displayed by my boys, who are 4 and 2. It can be overwhelming and exhausting at times trying to keep up. But lately the older one’s been starting to show shading. Middling not just between feelings but mixing them with thoughts and presumptions. Calculation and calibration. He’s developing nuance and forethought. His communication can be veiled by strategy. He’s different. He’s becoming a bit more independent in thought, developing an inner life. He’s becoming a little boy and revealing the nascent aspects of his character. The character he will be judged by independent of us.

All in all I’m sure it’s not a very big deal. We are all separate people. It’s a transition we feel lucky to be able to watch. We will be afforded endless opportunities to warn against danger, to praise the many wonderful examples we will surely see of his kind heart. We will be there to fight him when he thinks he’s right and we know he’s wrong. Hell, there’s even a far horizon, one perhaps not as far as I imagine, when we will be there to fight him when he knows he’s right and we think he’s wrong. That will be another transition. For all of us.

But for a second I’m going to take a breath and be thankful. Stop to acknowledge how lucky we were before moving on to how lucky we are in a new, future present. Be thankful for the time when we were his everything. It’s going to dawn on him soon that we’re not infallible, but rather flawed. It’s been nice for us to be his sun and him to be ours, all circling one another. Providing each other with all the power and light needed for an entire universe that existed in the spaces between us. Before he grew and his light couldn’t be contained in our galaxy any longer.

There’s still time. He’s a very very big boy and often people think him much older than he is. Hell, sometimes we hold him to account like a kid twice his age. But he isn’t twice his age. He’s still a few months away from five years old. He may be the size of an eight year old but he’s still naturally inclined to climb up onto my lap and tell me he loves me. He knows what it does to me now. Knows how happy it makes me. There’s certainly something lost in the exchange now that he’s aware of how his words effect me, but there’s a ton more gained. His spontaneous proclamations of love were wonderful and pure. But the thought that he sees me and knows how happy I am made by him saying, ‘I love you, Daddy’ and he does so not only because it is true but also because he wants to exercise this newly discovered power of his to make me happy, that packs a pretty powerful punch as well.

We’re going to do our duty bound best to foster his independence and we’re going to try to teach him what we find to be most important; that he think about others and how to be a kind and thoughtful person. But for as long as we can, in the bubble that was once a universe, we’re going to try our hardest to pay attention to the times when he isn’t ready to be a small boy in a big world. When he wants to pretend like he’s still a big man in a small universe. After all for all his eagerness to venture out he still needs to know that whenever he wants to come home and pretend to be the big kid in a two kid world he’s always welcome. Besides, he’ll quickly learn that doing that will make his Mommy and Daddy very, very happy.

Handle with Care

I sometimes take a picture of you because you’re just so adorable and amazing and beautiful. And sometimes I catch a hint of fragility in what the camera catches. Other times I see huge heaping mounds of it. Giant reserves of delicate. Like you’re a crystal chandelier in the shape of my beautiful boy. And then, in my minds eye, I see all the thousand ways you’ll be disappointed by the realities of life you can’t even fathom at this point. Sculpted from this thing of beauty into another thing of beauty to be sure. But still, that journey is treacherous and full of potential. Potential harm. Potential fortune. Potential damage and grace.

Maybe it’s you. Maybe I’m not just a proud dad that’s just insanely obsessed with my kids. Maybe your specialness, your perfectness is not a function of my pride. Perhaps you are magical and I’m afraid of being at the helm and breaking you by some silly decision I make that seems necessary that I’ll grow to regret years from now.

I could stare at the pictures of you, the you you are now, on the precipice of independence and I dread the pain that growing up can be.

You’ll be fine. I know that. But you’ll be broken too. You have to be. Good, happy little boys can’t survive growing up. If they could they’d never grow up. Which sounds good until you realize that never growing up makes it hard to be a good man. That’s just the way it is. It’s okay. If you figure out what’s important from being a boy you can pull some of those parts out and take them with you. You may have to pack them away for a time, but they will be there when the time comes and you need them again.

A broken arm is one thing. I can handle that. Easy, actually. But the thought of you being teased or picked on or not knowing what to do in a school cafeteria and feeling sick and disoriented because you think everyone doesn’t like you, that thought ties me in knots. I got caught up in that process when I was a kid. I cried everyday for months when I was sent to school the first time. I was removed eventually and allowed to return the following year, but by then I knew to be cautious. I knew people didn’t like me. I knew they didn’t have to. What was wrong, though, was that I looked at the few that enjoyed making fun of me and thought ‘how can I do what they want me to do? How can I make them like me and stop picking on me?’. All along there was a world of kids who’d have been delighted to play and be my friends. But I just kept trying to impress the cool kids, even shunning kids I’d have gotten along with great who weren’t at the ‘right’ table.

Eventually I figured it out and sat safely where I didn’t want to be. It was mostly fine and it largely defined who I was to the world, or at least to my classmates who comprised the entirety of the world for me then. It took so long for me to be the me I liked and was comfortable being. I learned early on how to make them like me and I leaned on that all the way through school, which I hated because of how it all began. I spent so many years not liking me, internalizing the voices of all the wrong people.

All because I had some tough early days. The types of days grown ups like to say are ‘tough but you get through them’. Days we fool ourselves into thinking aren’t all that important because we were 5 and how much damage can really happen to a healthy and loved 5 year old. But we’re wrong. We can get hurt and scar up in tender places at very young ages. Even those of us that had enough of everything. I see your precious face and your beautiful and awesome expectation that nothing breaks and everyone will love you always and it scares the hell out of me. Because some day you’ll feel weird, alone and scared. And you won’t know why. And it will break you as it must. In the end I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about the ‘weird’ and the ‘scared’. You need to get through these things. We all do. But if we can help you with the alone part for as long as possible and stay present for the times you’ll need to explore being ‘away’ than maybe, just maybe, a small but invaluable piece of you, a piece of the you you are now might be able to make it through to the other side. If it does I hope that you are able to see all the things that I’m getting to see in you. If you do you’ll see what all that breaking was for. You’ll know once again what it feels like to be a fragile chandelier. To look at something you love so much that you can’t even imagine it ever not loving you back. The mere thought makes me break just a little.

5 Ways Being a New Dad is Just Like Being a Rock God

I have an original piece, not seen before, up on The Good Men Project today!

Before clicking through please take note, this is an uncensored piece of comedy writing that may not be everyone’s cup of tea.. There’s some inappropriate language and some downright alarming material. So, if your up for a laugh and can handle a little over the line language please, go check it out!

http://goodmenproject.com/families/5-ways-being-a-new-dad-is-just-like-being-a-70s-rock-god-jrmk/

Scary Daddy, Good Daddy: How to Deal with Anger in the Moment

I have endless tender feelings for my sons. They know without question that I love them to the ends of the earth. They also know I’m scary. Really scary. – See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/families/anger-and-the-good-dad-jrmk/#sthash.YjVonURX.dpuf

Sharing is Caring...

Sharing is Caring...

Mica, Busy Mockingbird

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