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

The other day I was asked to write a guest blog post on ChesterCountyMoms.com on the topic of What Dads REALLY Want for Father’s Day. Writing like I do, long winded sometimes, I brought more of my thoughts and feelings of Father’s Day and then some cool gift ideas.

So I’ll keep this post short and have you stop over the ChesterCountyMoms.com to read the full post!

Happy Father’s Day to all the other Great Dads out there!!

First off…I’ve taken a few months off from blogging and have been wondering how to get back into it.  I guess I need to start by just letting my fingers touch the keyboard for longer than 140 characters since I’ve been “micro-blogging” my life over the past 6 months via Twitter (Follow me @DaddysToolbox).  Sometimes I only have enough time between work, making dinner (I’m the cook that is also neglecting our recipe blog at TwoTonguesUp.com), and then spending some quality time with our two kids before rushing them off to bed, then tackling bills and other house chores, just to wake up and start it all over again. Such is my life!

Using Twitter to release some of my negative thoughts (yes, I said it and admit it) has been much easier than “setting up shop” in my basement and drafting a full blown blog post to unwind. So tonight, I’m going to tackle that feat and relax with some good tunes (a mix of Mark Knopfler & Death Cab for Cutie – random,eh?), a newly poured glass of Red Truck Merlot, and a lot of thoughts running through my head.

Tonight I’m going to write about my week as Mr. Mom (1983, shit that is an OLD movie) as my wife is on a short 4-day business trip and I’m doing double duty with two kids that miss Mommy.

Now if I didn’t have to head off to work in the morning, I think I would resemble Michael Keaton in this photo from the movie, when he’s seeing his wife off early in the morning and says, “Honey, if you call and I’m not here I’ll be either at the gym or the gun club.”

Onward with my Mr. Mom week…

Monday

So my wife left on Monday and it was me and our two kids (since the last I wrote, they’ve grown and are 5 1/2 and 3 1/2, boy/girl). The week started out pretty good, the kids and I came home on Monday and all was good. Simple dinner in front of the TV since they were like little zombies (tired from a FUN weekend). After dinner and shows we headed upstairs to get ready for bed and read lots of calming books. When it’s just one parent putting both kids together there needs to be rules stated. “Ok, I’m going to read ONE book to you then ONE book to your sister and I’ll be back in for another book and lights out.” So that’s what I did, shared my time between both of them, leaving their my iPhone with the one sitting alone in their bed. They like to send emails  check Facebook  play games on it. No problem, it makes putting both to bed so much easier!

Accomplished bedtime in pretty close to Solo Daddy record, I think it was 8:30pm, but then again, the kids were still exhausted from Sunday.

Tuesday

Easy morning, kids up and out of the house in record time. Weird. Faster than if Mommy were home…hmmmm??? Does that tell ya something? It does to me!

Tuesday evening headed over to a friend’s house for a quick after school playdate and dinner, then a small meltdown and home for the “Four B’s” — baths, brush teeth, books and bed. Pretty easy going. Mommy had called and talked to our son and told him to sleep with her pillow. That made things SO much easier. Bed by 9pm – a little later than normal.

Wednesday Morning

Today started off S—L—O—W and I sent a cross post to both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll spare a long drawn out explanation, this should do just fine.

Wednesday Night

Tonight was my “night off” and kids were going to stay at my parent’s house and I had a few movies planned. Not sure what happened, could be the alignment of planets, or that all the focus is on the huge environmental disaster in the Gulf, but for the past two weeks our kids haven’t wanted to stay with my parents. (Sorry folks, my wife and I do get a weekly date night and free sitting courtesy of Mama and Papa.) This same freakish thing happened about six months ago when our son decided he didn’t want to sleep over at Mama & Papa’s house anymore. We worked through that and after a few weeks “off” he and his younger sister were back over there having a ton of fun! And it is fun for them, they get to eat a good dinner, Mama likes that, and then play outside, ride bikes, walk to the fish pond, and even watch a movie or quick show.

So anyway, tonight the dreaded phone call came at 7:32pm and they wanted to come home. It’s understandable, they miss me!!! No, they miss Mommy. Papa drove them home since I wanted to quickly clean up the house so it’s all nice for tomorrow when Mommy gets home. Once the kids were home the whole after school routine starts. They tell me about their day, what happened, find some old Cheerios on the floor, go pet the cat, tell me the same thing over and over like I’m the one NOT listening.   And all this time I’m thinking, “Get them upstairs for the “Four B’s”.” It’s 8:00pm and we head up and they want to color pictures of birdhouses. Not sure where that idea came from but what the Hell, go for it.  I figured coloring was relaxing and gave us a little time to talk about the day since that is a routine thing to do.  Also during this time I was misting the room and pillows with the calming fragrance of Lavender oil. 

Ahhhh…soothing bedtime…F NO!

The kids were tired…and tired kids mean their ears don’t work, just their mouths.  So a little whining and non-listening really frustrates me so I had to put myself in timeout to relax. It’s funny when you stick yourself in timeout because my kids started wondering WHY DADDY IS IN TIMEOUT. They told me I could get out and that I was being good. Too funny!

After two minutes of timeout/ignoring them I read one book to each of them, it’s typically three books each.  I read the first book to my son, then went into my daughter’s room and read one, then back to son’s room to hug and kiss. He was asleep in a minute! “Energizer bunny” on the other hand, she could stay awake all night I think. I’m surprised she’s not sitting next to me at 12:50am as I type this! But anyway I did finally get her to sleep after rubbing her legs, and scratching her back. I have NO CLUE where and when that shit started but it better stop. She’s like “No, scratch to the left…no..up up up…on the skin!!”  Yeah, and she’s 3 1/2!  Great, look what I have ahead of me!

Alright folks, let me know you actually read this post by leaving me a comment. I appreciate it! I’m going to try my hardest to write shorter, more frequent posts and get back into things. I think it will be a great soothing thing for me to do each night. Oh and I have to stop typing now or go open another bottle of wine…better save that for next time!

What I LOVE about weekend mornings.

Kids get up at 6am and 7am, and I get up too. Then they bark orders like “where’s my juice” “the show’s over” “come quick, I see Zuzu Pets on TV” and my lovely wife is snuggled up warm and cozy in our bed getting her beauty rest. Well she better come downstairs looking like a freakin’ Victoria’s Secret model!!

Oops, sorry to cut this short, gotta go take the breakfast orders, then cook it and clean the kitchen! (ok, stop laughing, this is reality!”

And I do it with a BIG ASS SMILE!

Well what an awesome lunch I had today!

No I wasn’t at a bar watching a sports game or out with my coworkers, instead I spent a nice hour taking my (almost) five year old son, LT,  out to Pizzeria Uno’s. I had mentioned that I would like to grab lunch with him one day and this morning he asked me, “Daddy, when are you taking me to lunch?”

“Well today is good!” I replied, LT smiled!

So just before noon I left my office and did the 3-minute drive to his school (he’s in Pre-K). He was so anxious for me to arrive and when I got there he hopped up, ran over and pretty much pulled me out of the building. He was READY to grab lunch with me! He was so excited, I could see it in his face, his walk and voice!! That made me feel special and excited to be taking him to lunch!

A few months ago his class went to Uno’s on a little field trip and they got to make their own pizzas. So as we walked from school to Uno’s, LT was telling me ALL about how he got to make the pizza and wanted to do so again. The only thought that came to me at that moment was, “oh boy…they better have make your own pizzas”!  Luckily that is the FIRST thing on the kid’s menu, whew…crisis averted.

Making his own pizza – no sauce, of course

While waiting for the pizza to arrive I started asking him about his day, what’s been going on at school and if he’s ready to watch the Eagles game with me on Sunday — he just smiled. (He took his “Swoop” Eagles Mascot stuffed animal to school for show ‘n tell today.) I think I’ll be able to have him sit and learn a bit about football as he’s starting to show some interest and want to be with me more and more. (Just so you know, I’m not a huge sports fan or the type of Dad that needs to sit on the couch all weekend and watch sports.)

Ok, pizza arrived and LT begins to add the cheese – only! He does not like sauce…or so he thinks. When we get other pizza he eats it, sauce included, but when he makes his own — it better have NO red on it! LOL!!

LT had such a fun time at lunch and asked to go again. Of course he also said, “Next time Mommy can take me and you take K-bop (our daughter)”.

I had a GREAT time taking LT to lunch today. I’m sure it is a day that he will remember for a long time and most certainly a day that I will never forget!  I will plan on taking him out at least once a month to spend alone some quality Daddy/Son alone time!

I just learned of this site tonight, Dad-Blogs.com, a new, freakin’-awesome site for us Dads! Dad Blogs is a site based on the vision of two dads, Joe Schatz (author of Joeprah) and Pete Janelle (a.k.a peteej from My GPS Camera Phone). Thanks guys for for getting this site off the ground!

First Impressions

I just joined and am very impressed by the layout, the interaction and how simple the site is to navigate and find groups, participate in forums, find buds (friends), write reviews on movies, beer/wine and much more. I can’t wait to actually be more awake to dive in and see who else had joined and what groups are out there.

Shit, this site has it all for us Dads!

Gotta Love the Posts!
Just to get you started…here are two of my (or soon to be) favorite posts. I’m going to have to read, re-read, share, and explain myself to my wife.

Top 6 Things Not to do if you want More Sex with your Wife

…and another post that I NEED to learn from

Parental Cursing Could Become a Child’s Habit, No Sh*t

Ok, so here is a snapshot of my profile to give you an idea of what the site looks like.

Another sweet aspect of the site is that I joined the group for BEER DADS, where we can chat about the beers we all enjoy and so badly need at night. There is even an event scheduled for tonight, 2/20 9pm to chat. I’m hoping I can make it!

Well, enough babble from me…if you haven’t yet checked out Dad-Blogs.com, do it now.

Also, stop over to Building Camelot, where author Tyler, wrote his review on Dad-Blogs.

How many of you are from families where both parents work?

How about just one parent that works?

Well in our family, both Mommy and I work, and we work hard during our 9 hour day away from the kids — they both go to school/daycare. Mommy has a little longer of a commute (30 mins from work to daycare) and therefore a little more “transition time” from work life to home life. Me on the other hand work minutes from our kid’s daycare — and I used to be the primary parent for evening pick up — giving me like 3 minutes to destress from a busy day at work to both kids so excited to see me. Sure it’s awesome to have them excited to see me…but I was always experiencing both of them trying to talk over one another, tell me about their day, and just trying to fight for my attention.

My attention? How could I pay attention to them with only 3 minutes of downtime from work? I try and I try and I never seem to be able to do that.

Well lately my wife, the saint that she is, has been picking up the kids and I’ve been heading home directly from work. I get home around 5:30pm and take care of the kitchen. Some nights it’s emptying the dishwasher, others it’s just cleaning up the bomb that went off from the morning!! Shit everywhere! And sometimes I might just do nothing — just to relax. I need to relax! I’m a high stress individual , not a good mix for a 4 and 2 year old right now. (I’ve written about that before…and probably write more on that subject again!)

Finding the time to relax and enjoy playtime

So…as I was typing. I’ve been heading home before the rest of the family. Take tonight for example. I left work at 5:10pm and stopped off at ACME (food store) to grab a few things for a salad (it was eat lite night) and return a RedBox movie rental (My Best Friend’s Girlfriend – or something like that). So by the time I got home it was 5:40pm. Not too bad — I had 30 minutes of transitioning from work to home (the drive is usually 15 minutes). I felt good when I got home!

What Worked

Having dinner almost ready when the rest of the family arrived home made all of us more relaxed. No more last minute running around the kitchen like a one man chef at a busy restaurant. No…it was rather peaceful. The whole night was peaceful.

I had the kid’s dinners ready, food on plate, milk in cups, napkins, forks and spoons for them. Then i prepped a simple salad of baby spinach, feta and sunflower seeds for my wife and I. Poured her a glass of Shiraz and I enjoyed 2 Heinekin Lights. (It was eat lite night).

I did not yell tonight! That might be the first night in like months I didn’t have to raise my voice! It was a great feeling. And I could tell that my son really liked that. He would say, “I Love you Daddy!”

So after dinner he and I went into his playroom and created a pretty kick-butt GEOTRAX train layout. He was so excited that I went in and ASKED him to play trains with me. I usually try to clean up and do house stuff so my wife and I don’t have to do that once the kids are asleep. We do need our own time as well. But she packed lunches and cleaned up while the kids and I played.

The Best Night Ever

Well at least tonight ranks up there in Top 5 nights for me. There was absolutely NO WHINING! That’s right. No Whining at our house! Or none that I remember, so that’s good. Took my son up to bed and read him 3 books. He kept saying he had fun with the trains and than he loved me. That sure makes me feel good and I do feel good about it! I made his night!! and he made mine!

Now I just have to remember to stay calm and continue this!

For my post of the day I’d like to let everyone know that Jeremy Biser, Discovering Dad, has a Spotlight Feature of me on his blog. It was a great honor to be asked by Jeremy to be included in his weekly series, Discovering Dad Spotlight Series On Dads.

Please head over to learn more about me and to read the great articles that Jeremy writes!

My Spotlight writeup is here.

       …

Guess it’s about time I faced up to the fact that I’m a HIGH STRESS DAD and need an avenue to deal with the tension, stress, exhaustion and other things going on right now. That is why I started this blog, to write away any stresses I may have. When I started out that was my sole intension, then I quickly wanted to write about fun events and other things, probably to avoid my real posts of releasing tension and stress. Well I’m going to have to start being more open on my blog and writing about the events in my life — the way I intended this blog to be in the first place. I’m not going to always write to release stress, but there will be times where I just need to type to calm down.

A Weekend Party (of stress)

Over the weekend my wife, kids and I were all at a party and I couldn’t fully relax and enjoy the day because I was worried that one of my kids were going to fall off the slide; get trampled on while on the moonbounce; or something – anything! I’m always looking for WHAT can happen to my kids and HOW they might hurt themselves rather than just taking a deep breath and heaving a huge sigh and just tell myself, “Jeff, everything will be all right. Kids are very durable, resilient and can take bumps and bruises much better then an adult!”

Let’s take this for example, my soon-to-be two year old daughter was sliding down a curvy slide and as soon as she started down the slide she would run into the edge of the slide on the first curve with her Crocs and just about launch off the slide. If that didn’t happen she would get all out of control and end up tumbling down the slide. Of course she would laugh and giggle so much as she thought it was a blast — me??? My heart stopped with every little thing she did! (That makes the beer drinking at the party not as much fun!) So why couldn’t I just let her enjoy the slide?

Climbing Up Slides

And then I was being the strict Dad and telling my kids not to climb up the moonbounce slide. That is a major pet peeve with me, “CLIMBING UP SLIDES”, but I know ALL kids do it, or eventually do it. I’m sure I climbed up slides when I was little. I also wore plaid pants and striped shirts AT THE SAME TIME but that doesn’t mean my kids should climb up the slide! (I was a child of the 70s and 80s.) However I do have a “fun” side and can see how if it’s not going to hurt someone else’s child or cause no harm to my kids that climbing the slide could be fun. Also, I do realize that this climbing is a way for them to not listen disobey release structure and be adventuresome! Everyone needs to do things that are not every day things. For my son who attends a great daycare, he follows the rules and is such a great helper at school. We get good reports almost daily from his teachers on how he held the door open or how he helped to get all the lunches together. That is great but when he gets home all of that stops. Home is his time to let go and release the structured life he leads at school. I guess I also get stressed because I’m just getting done with MY structured day at the office and come home and have to transition from office worker to home worker/daddy. It’s a tough job but I wouldn’t give it up at all!

Why Am I Stressed?

Well my theory, which is probably right on the money, is the fact that I lost my younger sister to cancer in 1986 when I was thirteen years old, she was ten, and I’m afraid of losing my kids to anything, falling down, getting a bump/bruise, etc! I guess it’s kind of natural to think that with all of things things that happened when I was 10-13 years old.

My sister, Jennifer, had battled cancer for 3 years beginning with a malignant brain tumor that was successfully operated on, almost fully removed, radiated, chemo’d and then she was recovering. Her hair had started to grow back and she started being able to do things with her friends more often. Our family lives were just getting back to normal when it was found that the cancer had spread to her bone tissue in her hip. I can’t really remember when the bone cancer was found but I do remember that is was very fast to debilitate her and eventually led to her passing away.

I am lucky though that she had enough strength in her final hours to mumble to my parents to wake me up shortly after midnight on January 26th, 1986 to have me come downstairs and hold her hand and give her a kiss and a hug. As I’m writing this I keep remembering things about that night, our last night together, and I recall that I said something like this to her, “Jen, things will be OK. You just continue being strong. I love you!” I of course knew then that she was not going to be healthy enough to live and that the cancer had gotten so bad. I think my Dad woke me up early that morning, Jennifer had passed away just a few minutes before. I was thirteen and remember that I wasn’t sure how to be sad and cry, I don’t even remember if I cried at all. But now, I am grateful that I was able to hold her hand and comfort her and let her know we would all be OK, and I still think back to that time and see how lucky I was to have the chance to say my goodbyes!

I love you Jennifer.

Tags: stress, parenting

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Well this isn’t probably too much of a shocker to most married couples with young children. What is with a "mommy " that the kids love that they need to cling to her and almost smother her, leaving me the poor old lonely Dad?  For instance, I used to be the bedtime "go to" parent for both my son (about a year ago) and my daughter up until about 3 weeks ago.  She’s going on two this August and our son will be four in October. Why had my daughter decided she wants MOMMY for bedtime. This really puts me in a bind because I would love to read books to my kids, especially if there are no "power struggles" or meltdowns at bedtime.But like I mentioned, lately, both kids want mommy.  It’s ME that makes the funny voices and sing silly songs about the day to them, so why do they chose her over me?

Maybe because I’m the disciplinarian in the house. Might be because I try to be more strict . Probably because my wife enjoys having fun where I tend to worry about the next meltdown or what "might" transpire if the kids aren’t in bed by 8pm.  So I guess it’s natural for them to gravitate to the one parent that has open arms all the time. But then that creates additional stress in the house, where my wife doesn’t get any "downtime" to herself like I do if she’s doing both bedtime routines.

Now don’t get me wrong. I would LOVE to read books and do the bedtime thing, I have this ritual with my daughter where we read a few books then as I put her into the crib we wave goodnight to the butterfly decals on her wall, then give BIG KISSES, then Eskimo Kisses, then BIG HUGS. Then up until about a month ago, she would immediately fall asleep.  Now since she is almost 2 yo she is beginning to realize we are leaving her alone in her room. Tonight was a battle with her. She really wanted Mommy. It’s the 2 year old thing, the sense of losing a parent. 

"HEY WHAT ABOUT ME IN THE CORNER!!!  I’m over here sweety!!"  those were my thoughts. I tried everything in my ‘toolbox’ that I could think up, dancing like a weirdo, sticking things on my head, begining to read a book to try and lure her over, hugging her…none of those things worked.  Probably actually SCARED her more with me dancing with a book on my head shaking a maracca. And that image is no doubt scarying some of you right now!  Do you know what worked? Me saying, "alright, Daddy going to read book to you, or Daddy go downstairs now!" (yes i do talk to her like that sometimes so she understands better).  She did. She said, "Go Daddy" and stopped crying for Mommy.  Hmmm, I think she thought I was going to get Mommy. Wrong! I stood outside the door for a bit and then she started back up sounding almost like a firetruck, "Moooommmmyyyy, mommmmyyyy,  mmmoommmm —daaaaaadddy", I flew into her room in a flash when I heard my name.  I wanted to reassure her that I was there. So then all was good and quiet, she no longer NEEDED Mommy and settled into the chair for a book and BIG KISSES then to bed!

As for my son, well I did get to convince him to let me read a book on Sunday night. It was a compromise that I read the first book then Mommy would come in. That seems to work for him, unless he’s so tired and fighting sleep.  Anyway, we had a great time. He enjoyed it and so did I, but he still puts up a fight — which I don’t want to make a war — when it’s bedtime and I say, "Hey buddy, Daddy is ready to take you upstairs."  "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I WANT MOMMY!!!!!", is what he screams, "You can put me to bed tomorrow."  Well you know what happens tomorrow???  Yup, you guessed it, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I WANT MOMMY!"

And I remind him, "But you said tonight was Daddy’s bedtime night."

"No, you do tomorrow!"

Oh boy, I see the pattern and tomorrow never comes!  But some nights I can get him to "permit" one story and then we have a great time together. Like Sunday night when I was reading him a  book I snuck one hand under his blanket and tickled his belly. He giggled and said, "Hey Daddy, you tickled me!"

"No I didn’t, see…my hand is right here!" I replied, showing him the one hand holding the book, the other still under the covers.

"Um Daddy, your OTHER hand," he chuckled. So i slid the hand out and showed him both, then continued to read a book and did the same thing over. He was laughing and that makes every minute reading him a book that much more enjoyable.  So after the book I told him to TELL me a story. "He bud, why don’t you tell me the story of the Three Little Pigs"  It was sooooo cool, he started it out and told it pretty darn good for his age. It was cute. Had each house built correctly and in order,  "Straw, sticks, bricks". That was great!

So in the end, is this stuff common? Like do other kids like and crave one parent over the other?  Is it a phase? Am I a weird Dad?

Hopefully it’s a common thing and a phase that will pass because right now it makes me feel incapable of being a good father and I know that I do have some flaws, hey don’t we all!!??