family – 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.

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.

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.

We’ve Broken The Little One

Teddy isn’t Charlie. Not by a long shot.

Firstly, he’s second. Secondly, he’s last. Which is to say, he’s the baby. Charlie is a training model. We love him fiercely, but there’s no denying that his very station means he’s the one we make all the mistakes with. He is then tasked with training us on how it all should look. He teaches us that all these transitions, the ones he’s made at least, are not to be so fretted over. We stress with him because he is at the tip of the spear for us. His firsts are our firsts. While we are going through them we can see all the ways we’ve made it hard on ourselves and even hard on Charlie. Fortunately we also see how resilient Charlie is and we learn that our screw ups didn’t actually screw him up. Just screwed us up, really.

Teddy’s the baby. It’s different. We can feel wistfulness because we now know how fast it all goes. With the first you learn how long a day is, with the last you learn how short the years are. How much it’s all slipping away. How much we aren’t ready even if he is. I would never say we sabotage, but more often with Teddy our screw ups are acts of commission. We don’t ever sabotage, but we deliberately do some real real stupid s#it.

So now, for the past month, and for as long as I can see into the future, we’re going to pay the penance for our misdeeds. My penance takes place on the floor of the boys bedroom between roughly 8 o’clock each night and 11. We’ve broken our boy.

It started innocently enough. I’d hold him in the glider each night, he’d slowly drift off in my arms. It was really quite beautiful. Last words always the same.

‘Open your butt.’

I know. Seemed needlessly assaultive to me as well. Turned out it wasn’t what he meant. I don’t really know how he came to this phrasing. I mean he seems to know what a butt is. But he was really just asking me to arch my back for a second so he could slide his inside arm around me as he snuggled in.

But now it’s been weeks since I’ve heard those three, magic, disturbing words that always meant rest was just around the corner for everyone. Not anymore. The little monster, and this does coincide with him discovering his voice (which in many cases could be classified as a hate crime if toddlers were prosecutable and adults were an oppressed class) just lays there, eyes wide staring at the ceiling. For hours. I frankly don’t know how he does it. I mean, he’s exhausted. At least he should be

This is not going to happen tear free. Nope. I’ve begun to redraw lines and enforce borders to try to break him. Which in this case means I draw the line at holding him in the stupid hope that he’ll relearn to fall asleep in my arms for no more than an hour. Hour and a half tops. But that’s it! Then, off to bed for you mister!

Will I lie next to you and hold your hand? Of course, buddy. I’m not a monster. What? That keeps you awake too. Sheesh. Well, let me just get a pillow and puffy blanky and make it comfy. We both know I”m gonna be down here for a while. But last night it was 10:12! 10:12 and he was asleep. I could leave! Until I stood up to do so. Then he whimpered. Then he whined. Before I knew it he was standing, crying and through tears and heavy breath he said, ‘hug me up, daddy!’

So of course I hugged him up. I mean seriously, he was sitting there, all cheeks, tears, crankiness and lovely. What was I to do? Say no? That’s some first kid nonsense. Charlie could confirm this if he weren’t feet away sleeping through the whole thing. Besides upon ‘hugging him up’ he fell asleep almost instantly. And we get to add, ‘Hug me up’, to the book of standard toddler phrases! But still, 3 hours nightly is a lot.

If you’d given me infinite monkeys on infinite keyboards they would never have banged out the phrase. One I never could have conceived of. One once conceived I would never have thought I’d so long to hear. But for all that is right and decent, Teddy, will you please go back to falling gently to sleep in my arms and uttering with eyes half shut.. ‘Daddy. Open your butt.’

The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Do, But It’s Pretty Easy

A co-worker, my office mate during our first pregnancy was 5 or so years further down the road from us with two kids, preschool and kindergarten. She was largely bemused by me and my behavior as an expectant dad. I would be now too. Expectant parents, the good responsible ones at least, are a bit silly. We were no different. I don’t recall what brought about the comment she made to me, but it’s stuck with me all these years. She said, ‘having kids is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But it’s easy.’
Well, this is the definition of a conundrum and sounds like absolute hog swallop! But it turned out she was right.

Before the kids I had an absolute need to find consistency. To make that which was juxtaposed become resolved. To that brain there was a crisis, or there would have been had I accepted the statement, to make one of these opposing realities fail. After all how could it be hard and easy? A thing can’t be black and white. It just can’t!

Well, turns out it can. Because caring for my kids, providing for them, raising them, being there every minute is incredibly and sometimes seemingly unbearably challenging. It’s all the things you hear about but can’t fully conceive of prior to them arriving. And an absolute TON more.

Physically it depletes and even destroys some parts that may be revived to some extent but will never be fully what they were before. Emotionally they take you to your furthest limit and live on that edge, leaning on it and pushing it to the point where you have to break in order to rebuild your walls further out than you ever thought you’d be. Then they move there, to your new outer limit, lower their shoulders and push. Push until they break through and you are once again forced to build retaining walls further out. You can’t even remember where your silly emotional limits were before they arrived to push you, but surely you now think of your former emotional stamina as that of some sort of lower animal. Hard to imagine you ever thought a thing difficult before this.

Financially. Others focus on this and ameliorate it through hard work, smart work, good fortune, determination and single minded focus. I, being one who is unwilling and likely unable to eliminate this issue, pities these people. Mostly I pity them out of envy and defensiveness. That is as far as I’m willing to explore the dynamic so I’ll leave it there. But be it known, your money which you’ve always considered in short supply and wholly yours is now in shorter supply, much more necessary and barely yours for even the few moments in which you possess it. I’m not complaining and I remain aware of how insanely lucky I am to have what I have. But it’s still a grinding thing trying to make it all work.

Beyond this you now carry a burden that is beyond your comprehension until the moment that baby meets you. I daresay that moment came months earlier for my wife than it did for me. Still, once it appears it will be with you for as far out as you can look. Another human being, one completely incompetent and needing of you every single day, all day, is here. You love him and hold him and treasure it all, but it does weigh on you. I once knew a man who honestly believed he didn’t carry this stuff with him. Yet if you asked his wife and kids they’d tell you, he carried it nobly, and for ten years while the kids were young he moaned like a cow mooing in his sleep. Loud. Wake you up on other floors loud. Showed up with the kids and disappeared when most of them could shower, bathe and feed themselves. It hits us all.

The hard is evident and there’s an annoyingly long line of people who can’t wait to tell you this as you head toward welcoming your little baby to the world. It’s doubly annoying because the negative commenters, parents I now recognize as being in the midst of their own process of becoming who are merely projecting all of the above onto you because they need the support you can’t yet give them, far outweigh the positive. Like my office mate, Mary, who also said, it’s pretty easy. And it is.

Me, Karen and the boys... — Me, Karen and the boys…

It’s easy for a lot of reasons. Reasons that arrive to you with the baby. Because along with all the ‘what!’ comes boatloads of ‘why’. You are provided a wonderful, bottomless bucket of love and care. Endless and effortless motivation. Without realizing it you have all jumped into the river and are teaching each other to swim. We are interconnected and integrated into this life that we lead. All of us. Together. Before long you accept all the challenges as the life you’re now blessed to be living and you

move on changed, multiplied. Stronger for having broken. Deeper for having cared. Happier for changing that which you feared you could never change. Your life is now one you can’t even conceive of existing without these new responsibilities, challenges and love. So sure, it’s hard, but you’d not have it any other way. Which makes it all pretty simple. Easy.

Dysfunctional Bliss

This weekend I found myself in the ridiculous position of standing fast, insisting my child finish his pancakes before he could get his Skittles. I’d say its the principle of the thing, but I have a hard time coming up with the principle. Perhaps the principle is the simple exertion of authority. This sounds like bullying even to me, and perhaps it is to some degree, but until you’ve spent a good amount of your time with a four year old in your care you can’t know how important it is to hold fast.

I’ve spent a long time avoiding power struggles. It was a tactic that I not only employed, but one that I taught. Seriously. I co-wrote a curriculum that I’d teach to young adults working at a summer camp for kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities every year about the allure of a good power struggle, what it accomplishes and what challenges it presents. Then we’d work on skills to recognize, deflect, avoid and re-engage in order to avoid the power struggle. As counselors it was a no win game for them since inherently, as the caregivers, the power dynamic was in their favor. By accepting the invitation to the power struggle they were simultaneously lessening their own authority and feeding their charges defiance. Year after year I’d see the best of the best get sucked in. I thought to myself, that won’t happen to me.

Ever notice that when you take such absolute stands they almost always bite you in the ass? I feel so bad for my kids. Before I had them I was a perfect dad. Seriously. I could have easily been a dad-coach. I could write a dad behavior plan with detailed instruction on how to interact, how to behave, what to let your kid win on and how to always end at the result you wanted to and I could have guaranteed the results if you committed to the process. It’s what I did and I was good. Parents consistently praised our abilities, mine and those that worked with and for me, to bring out aspects of their child that were wonderful and yet to be seen. We were good. So what the hell happened that made me so, so… mediocre with my own kids?

It’s a simple answer, really. Its the expected answer, though perhaps one you can know to be correct without fully understanding why. It’s because I love them so damn much. It’s because they love me so damn much. It’s because we resist every separation and on a level we aren’t even conscious of, we know that we have to separate to survive. Granted, it’s decades away, but when you love something this much you need a few decades to let go fully. it’s because disappointed expectations is a part of the process for both growing up and being a parent. It’s because we each, parents and kids, think there’s some version of a perfect god in the other which is hugely disappointing when a perfect god is incapable of resisting the urge to punch and kick you (toddler attacking parent and NEVER the other way around) or when the perfect god has chosen to make a thing like Skittles and then made them ‘bad’ for you. It’s because on the grandest and most minute level we are engaged and intertwined so thoroughly with our children that in order for them to grow up and be independent we must be constantly working at cross purposes, us holding on to whatever control we have in order to ensure their safe passage and them trying desperately to gain more and more self direction in order to learn through trial and error, the very errors we try so hard to protect them from, how to navigate the world. The one tiny piece of information I lacked that would have assured my burgeoning dad coaching business its failure was nothing less then the very nature of parenthood and family. The parent child relationship at its best is by definition dysfunctional. Magically, blissfully, frustratingly and wonderfully dysfunctional. So much so that I can’t help being proud of the little tykes and how maddeningly defiant they can be.

Finding Compassion and Mourning Loss

Most of what I write is done in my head while I’m actively engaged in other pursuits. If an idea sticks around long enough to congeal into a sentence and if I whittle and hammer that sentence into something I think might be of some value, I jot it down. Usually digitally, but this trait is so ingrained that I have boxes and boxes of handwritten sentences from the past 25 years or so stacked in various spots in and around my house. Of those I would guess that a substantial portion, perhaps as much as 5% of them, are about the topic of suicide. A good chunk from my teens and twenties was about my sincere and often serious consideration. It was a part of my character I referred to as ‘my death wish’. For me I faked my death by drinking ungodly amounts of liquor both sadly and alone. There are innumerable times in which I put myself in situations in which I could, and even should have wound up dead. I suppose that for me it was enough of a manifestation of my feelings to satisfy me.

In retrospect I have a hard time understanding why I was so sad. I thought I was awful for no real reason. And not ‘I’m really in the dumps’ kind of awful, but rather, ‘the lives of those near me would be better if I were dead. I make life awful just by being in it.’ It sounds crazy to me now, but when you have a soundtrack of your own voice working to construct sentences around such a feeling all day every day, it can really start to blot out reality and sound rational when it isn’t ever given the light of day to be refuted by the world around you.

Another part I’ve spent a good deal of time writing about was my grandfather. When I was 12 my grandfather killed himself. I’ve written quite a bit about this privately, but so many other people, almost all of the people in my life, are so effected by it that I feel sometimes like something as basic as simply saying it, saying that my grandfather killed himself is somehow stealing the pain of others or exacerbating the pain that others are experiencing. No one tells you not to say it, it just feels like something not to mention.

It’s had perhaps as profound an impact on my life as anything else. I’m a middle kid from a giant Irish-Catholic family and the timing of this for the person that had to bare the brunt of it in my household could not have been worse. Six kids to raise, more than half of them teens and a toddler for good measure. She has handled this with grace as she does all things. Much of the story is hers, but the small part that has been mine has been a weight and I bring it up only to inform you of the root of my perspective.

There are people who will read this who may have thoughts about my sharing of my perspective and my past. All of these peoples opinions are valid. As are mine. The thing is, we all see the world through our own personal keyhole. With such limited access to such a broad subject as life, what we see through that keyhole is at least as informed by what is on our side of the door as it is by what is on the other.

There have been several occasions, most recently the passing of Robin Williams, which have brought me closer and closer to a tipping point in terms of my feelings about suicide. My thoughts about those that go through with what I thought about often as a young man. Sadly, an event in my circle occurred last night which has made me think about the subject once more. An event so sad and only sad that I find myself changed.

A young man, far younger then me and far too young to have died, passed at his own hands last night. A man I didn’t know well but a person who profoundly touched many of the lives that have touched my own. There is infinite sadness filling the hole he has left.

Until now, due to my early, personal and all consuming experience with coping with suicide,the subject,I have held very stern and fairly cold and unforgiving opinions about people that have chosen to end their pain this way. I’ve always had endless compassion and empathy for the survivors. The sons and daughters and the brothers and sisters and of course, the mothers and fathers and husbands and wives. I’ve witnessed as best as one can from a short but protected distance the journey that ensues for those closest to the person in such pain. My feelings of anger led me to a position all these years of anger and judgment. How selfish, I’d think? These were my firm, defensible opinions. Not uninformed I might add. And every time popular culture would start godding up a Robin Williams for example or before him the similar feelings I found myself feeling in the aftermath of the overdose death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I’d find myself prepped and ready to unleash all of my pent up anger and frustration and judgment. I’d craft an impenetrable wall of logic, passion and scorn, wad it up into a ball and hurl it at the world.

With this event, with this tragic and epically sad event I feel nothing but compassion. I fear all the judgment I’ve made in the past was merely a way of releasing the anger I felt at my grandfather for compromising my family. To some degree it took me getting to a certain age so I could get some perspective. He was my papa. If parents are gods to a child as the world slowly emerges while they hold your hand, Papa’s are Zeus. To such a small creature as myself the thought of compassion or empathy for Zeus sounds crazy. But you grow up and you learn that they are simply human, just like you. You know this earlier, but emotionally it takes some time to think of them as anything but residents of Mt. Olympus. This latest news has informed that perspective and filled me with sadness.

I’m sick for the mere thought of his parents. The journey they are on now is one with no maps, no guarantees and virtually no guides. I am positively sick for them.

He was a young man who accomplished impressive things in his short time. Not of the typical, garden variety worldly accomplishments kind. He accomplished great acts of caring and loving and giving that I was afforded the opportunity to witness first hand a thousand times over at the place where I knew him. It was a place of work, yes, but it was more a community of caring and he was an admired practitioner in a land of giants. To know that there was so much love their for the taking had it been what he needed just kills me. Love of truly good people who thought the world of him. And not just yesterday, everyday. He was squarely in the middle of this powerful community. And even that didn’t save him.

I have been there. I often had to remind myself of how awfully I judged people that did this in order to keep myself from trying it. I think it was chemical and I think it was situational and I think it lasted much longer than it should have because of depressants. Alcohol. But I also think I did things that put me in a position to die, and not little things we all did a few times, real things. I’m lucky. It always surprises me when I hear people say that they can’t imagine what he must have been feeling. I always assumed we all could understand it. I can put myself at the moment. I can see how one gets there. I can remember being that age and that stage and feeling it. Intensely.

As has been true since I first found out it had happened, my thoughts and feelings about my Grandfather continue to evolve. Thankfully. Now, as a man, as a parent I have a great deal more understanding and acceptance that despite whatever was happening, he didn’t know how his final act would so effect those around him. He had no idea, couldn’t see so far beyond the giant pain that was hurting him so deeply. Whatever ideas we all think we have about the event, we don’t know. What we can surmise though is this. He was in extreme pain. He was a man that loved his family dearly and deeply and the pain was enough to block out even that. So now I take the time to feel sorry for him. Truly sad for him. It took me almost 30 years.

Meltdowns and Moments

There’s a lot of little boy in Char these days but his fading toddlerhood is grasping tightly and asserting itself. He’s resisting a change that is as inevitable as it is terrifying as it is exciting. With every transition like this parts of him pass to history and parts of us do as well. While the resistance can be annoying, we all get it. We understand more than he knows. We abhor the idea of him being independent in all the ways we are diligently training him to be. We’re at the ‘finishing school’ stage of toddlerdom. We are working to teach him courtesy, niceties, the expected behavior of polite society. As a conscientious objector to such responsibility he is reverting to earlier tools of resistance, such as crying, yelling, aggressively resisting direction, stamping feet and crying louder.

The kid is in an epic phase of melting down. He has the toddler equivalent of senioritis. He’s resisting the change that he wants. Now that it’s upon him he’s freaking out. When I think of it this way I’m able to have some more patience. He doesn’t want to be acting this way either. He just is discovering that big parts of life are not controlled by him and he doesn’t believe that the way life should be.

He’s taken to hurting us to test the limits of his powers. To explore the darker side of life. He is fond of telling me my status in his eyes upon seeing me. “I don’t like you, daddy.’ He’s even said he hates us. He’s four and we are the safe space to explore these things, so I tell him that that’s fine, but that I’m still the grown up and he has to obey me because I’m in charge. I tell him that mommy and I and his teachers are in charge because we know how to keep him safe. To which he says, having heard who the hell knows what, ‘but daddy, I don’t like you.’

But here’s the thing, Charlie. In the way that you mean it, that I’m doing something that makes you unhappy or uncomfortable, even though it’s what must be done, in that exact same way, I don’t like you right now. In fact, when I see you, changing into a boy, leaving behind most of your toddler ways, and for the final time putting down all of what was you as my precious little baby, I too don’t like you for doing it. Were I as in tune and in touch with my emotions as you are, and lacking all of the niceties of adulthood, I’d have an epic tear spewing meltdown too. I may not be thinking it when I’m pulling my hair out trying to convince you to take your medicine or brush your teeth, but you are beginning the long walk away from me. You’re simple need to grow up is chipping away at your need for me. And once you’ve had that feeling, the feeling I still have for you, feelings that are ever so slightly less necessary with every tiny milestone you cross, I am sad and wistful. Sometimes I yell and shout and try desperately to hold on to every inch of my influence and necessity, because, and this is where I’m with you my melting down boy, the second I was given that gift of being your daddy I’ve treasured every difficult, painful, joyful, hysterical, maddening and delightful aspect of it and I know that I’m never going to have any of it back. I’m going to grow, and our relationship will morph into other things, but I’m never going to rock you to sleep in a swaddle ever again. I’m not going to change another one of your diapers. I won’t be buying you stuffed animals at Thruway rest stops and delighting in catching you in the rear view mirror, snuggling your buddy until you fall asleep. More things will be added, but now begins the subtractions. You are growing up, and for that I’m mad at you. Don’t mistake me, I’m proud of you, thrilled for you, impressed by you and awed by you and everything you do, even the tough and challenging stuff. Its just that I’m also sad. And when I realize what that portends, I’m even a little mad.

Life is full of change and transitions and they often are as painful as they are exciting. This won’t be the last time you are made uncomfortable by change. That’s okay. The changes are okay and so is the discomfort. The discomfort and the resistance are signs that we continue to move through life, accepting challenges, some of our choosing and many that are thrust upon us. While it may not be pleasant all the time, change is the one constant. Everything changes all the time. Resisting the change, being uncomfortable and even angry at the change makes you human. Keep changing, keep resisting, keep fighting and keep crying. It’s the road to where you’re going. It’s a road with beautiful and tragic changes and sometimes it’s hard to know which is which until it’s over. But keep changing, stay curious, keep that fire that so infuriates the people that fear the changes as much as you do and don’t be afraid to be afraid. Without the changes and the fears and the failures you’ll never get to where you’re going. But once you get there, and for me that’s here, with you and your brother and mommy, you’ll appreciate every fall and every wrong turn that got you to precisely where you were meant to be.

The Dumb Dads Guide to Love and Parenthood

Those of you reading this are parents. If you are not a parent, go away. Go outside. Have a drink in the middle of the day. Have two. Go speed dating and drive anywhere within ten hours to go see live music that makes you happy, or even sad if that’s your thing with music. Go read a book, for hours, until you are so tired you fade to sleep. You get the hell out of here. Stop reading this instant and go live the life you will look back on fondly someday. Leave this echo chamber. You don’t belong here and the chatter of this place will only annoy you. TAKE. A. NAP. and know that we all look at you with piteous envy. Pity cause babies are awesome. Envy because of every other thing. Almost literally, every other one.

Now that it’s just us, allow me to tell you, my people, the people that will ‘get me’, what’s the what. But before that, if you go around telling people things like, ‘I never had any troubles with it. My kids slept through the night from the start.’ go to hell. Seriously. Get out of my sight. Its fine if your little magic unicorn babies were perfect. I believe you and I’m happy for you. But if you’ve been exposed to the same parent talk that all of the rest of us have and you still choose to say such things to people having really difficult times, I have no need of you. Disperse. You are not welcome here. You are simply one of two types of people. You are either just straight up a mean person that practices the unhealthy art of Schadenfreude or you are so lacking in self awareness and just plain old awareness that I don’t allow that you could possibly enjoy this. Get. Scatter.

For the rest of US, the brave truth tellers unafraid to bare themselves, failure in front (I happen to suffer a similar biological trait, come to think of it) this is our story. I wish that this were a list of misfortunes and that I would be deserving of your feelings of empathy. But it is not. It is in fact a listing of decisions made, some of them resulting in unnecessarily difficult situations, bordering on the untenable. While I appreciate the empathy you may have, I warn you now, it is undeserved. These are the decisions of a dumb and loving dad who has made many decisions that could be mocked by anyone with even a passing understanding of foresight.

We have a spare room, yet we choose to put our two toddlers in the same one. This is the result of idealism mixed with laziness. This is a standard form of reasoning for me. One that causes many a situation I regret, but one that almost never results in me learning a lesson.
We were so overwhelmed, and perhaps so old, that it took so much of our energy to get through the baby times that I walked away from a job because I wasn’t good at balancing my responsibilities. This comes from love. Pure love. Its dumb and defensible and I’d do it again. But if you’d like to donate to the dumb daddy fund please note this in the comments. I’d link to a fundraising page, but, you know, lazy.
We have had exactly one evening (maybe 3 and a half hours, give or take) away from our kids. Ever. Our oldest just turned 4. This may be the dumbest, and oddly, considering what it is we’re talking about, the laziest of our transgressions.
For all our tough talk with our kids we break like 7th grade shoplifters in the mall security office when they get feisty. Our precious little boy is now four and like many other four year olds he’s added a hefty dose of monstrousness to his repertoire. It’s to be expected and yet, it’s incredibly unpleasant. We are considering just barricading ourselves in the kitchen and throwing sugary treats at him when he gets ~~angry~~ emotional.
We have a memory of putting our little man to bed and it taking all of five minutes. Granted, the lead up has always been a bear, but now, both of them require their own hour of support, love, confrontation therapy and 7-12 separate tuck ins. I’m not really sure what of the many dumb things we’ve done has resulted in this, but make no mistake, whatever part of this is natural, we’ve done our share to make sure it is as bad as it can be.
Superheroes. We dumbly allowed these to happen. Damn. Wish I could have that one back.

Their is no amount of trials and tribulations that having kids has brought us that could even move the scale when it is balanced against the shear awesomeness of having kids. But my god, will I ever stop adding to the challenges with my own stubborn commitment to being a dummy.

Luckiest Kid In the World

I’m pretty sure that my faded feelings of angst were borrowed. Perhaps they’re inherited. Whatever the case may be they are sincere. At least at one point they were. they’ve largely been replaced by more literary feelings better described as ennui or melancholia and these occupy a tiny spectrum of my mood wheel that would be a teeny tiny fraction of the area formerly owned by angst.
This is not to say that it wasn’t come upon honestly. While my supporting documentation wouldn’t seem to support my general affect, that’s not the same as saying the feelings were an act. They weren’t. They were just an inheritance. A side effect of a temperament that can lend itself to self-pity and biology that can skew toward depression.

The reality of my life couldn’t be more at odds with this discordant temperament. My family in all directions is nothing but wonderful. I have 5 to 8 siblings depending on how that term is defined. Strictly biologically speaking I have 5, but if you count all of the kin that grew up with seats at the table and familial relations it’s definitely the more inclusive number. All of whom have been a delight to know. They are smart and funny. Challenging and tolerant. They are supportive and fun. While we don’t all see each other as much as we’d like, we are a hoot to be around when we do get together. My brothers and sisters are generous with their time, money and love and we all have a deep appreciation at this point for the family we were blessed with.

My nuclear family at the moment is in a constant state of becoming and it’s a process i so clearly delight in. I’m learning every day to be better at being okay. My natural tendency to harsh self-criticism has been mitigated by the perspective and presentness of parenthood. It is impossible to dwell too in depthly at this point in my life and I couldn’t be more grateful. The morass that my wallowing would accompany was a useless emotional appendage that had become a dependable crutch and occasionally a warm security blanket. Make no mistake people, light depression surrounded by loving support is a perfectly sustainable and comfortable existence. It’s just not a very productive one.

But the greatest gift I’ve been given are my parents. I spent my youth, roughly age 9-30-something, defining myself away from them. A ridiculous but necessary endeavor. The only problem is I’m actually the luckiest person on earth in this regard. And this is not just bias. Other people, considerable numbers of others, would agree with this. My parents have opened their homes and their hearts to anyone in need for as long as I can remember. They have literally played Santa Claus for the world without ever taking credit. They hold hands and say prayers every night for all of their children, all of their children’s friends and express genuine thankfulness and appreciation for the beauty of life itself in the midst of challenges that would crush me and many others. Their generosity has literally known no bounds.

Beyond this they are such wonderful barometers of what is important in life. This year they have put the home I grew up in on the market and downsized to a beautiful new home that is much more suited to their current needs. While we are all delighted for them, it has come with nostalgic feelings that are hard to process. But my parents are so in tune with who we are and what we need that they took the time to address it in the most loving and delicate of ways.

We received our Christmas box at our door a few weeks before the holiday and having little ones, immediately banished it from sight, not to be opened until Christmas eve. When we did so we were thrilled to see the wonderful toys and gifts for the kids we knew would be in there. My mother knows little boys and the big trucks and wrapped boxes are all a big part of the mornings excitement and they nailed it. But underneath that were some gifts for us. My mother put together a beautiful album of photo’s lovingly taken of the house in all it’s glory and then in all its spacious emptiness and shots from outside and from the windows. Everything I’ll need in my dotage to be transported back in time to the place that will always be my specific home. It was enough on it’s own. But my mom also included a disc. And this is where she truly gets it. She went into a room in our old homestead and recorded herself singing all of her favorite Christmas carols. Can you even imagine? In such a self-conscious world to be reminded by this humble and beautiful servant of what matters. My mothers voice is my most native language and this is a treasure that I will take and place alongside so many others that I’ve been lucky enough to receive from my folks.

Further down in the box was what my mother always sends. At least it appeared to be. It was a holiday piece, covered in holly decoration intended for a mantle for now and perhaps for a subtle centerpiece on a table once the kids can be trusted with such things. But it was more that that. Under the holly was a short cut of a tree. It had been created by my father, a talented artist who worked his whole career as an industrial designer. He had taken pieces of fallen wood from our home and fabricated this beautiful Christmas piece with his own hands. It will be loved and featured for the rest of my life. Because it is perfect. But also, and mostly, because it was made truly lovingly and thoughtfully and with a purpose to provide and show love to me and to my family.

At the bottom of the box was the final piece of the gift. It was a multi page narrative of the history of our house. It was a beautiful narrative from a designer, highlighting his choices in designing the house. He was not an architect, but he knew what he wanted so he learned how to design a house and did so. In a weekend. I know this and am bragging, but he is humble and would never mention it. He noted the wide walkways and large rooms meant to house his giant and growing family some 35 years ago. He recalled the glorious moments and the wonderful warmth of the family life that it so perfectly supported. His concrete and intelligent mind drifted to his heart and he shared personal and subtle examples of the life this house had hosted. It was so beautiful and could barely get through reading it to Karen that first night. I will take this piece out to read at least once a year. It will be a part of my life forever. And there’s nothing they could have gotten me that will mean more than they did.

The lessons I’ve learned and my wonderful good fortune is sometimes lost on me. But thankfully I have reminders that mine is a wonderful life indeed.

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