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!

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!

Way to go Buddy! I’m so proud of my son for becoming comfortable jumping into a swimming pool!! Of course, I still freak out when I see him do it and go underwater for 8 seconds. But it no longer seems to phase him.

Today, both of our kids spent the morning and most of the afternoon over at my parent’s community pool while I did some work on my basement project and my wife did her things. I think it’s best this way since I tend to overreact to small things and get freaky when the kids don’t listen to me at the pool (or anywhere for that matter).  I think if I was with them today at the pool my pre-K son wouldn’t have had the courage or confidence to jump in without someone holding his hands or catching him and he also probably wouldn’t have learned to swim with his face in the water.

I think my parents do a good job of watching and teaching the kids things at the pool and tend to me way more relaxed that myself and my wife.  Probably since grandparents have already raised children (us) and no what to expect.

So anyway, I’m very proud of my son for what he accomplished today. He’s been going to 1 hour swim lessons with this Pre-K class every Friday for a few weeks and has been learning how to blow bubbles and the instructor has them do back float and then pulls the kids in the water. Guess this helps to build confidence!

Today my son wanted to show Mommy and me what he’s been learning and then some! I wish I had my camera to snap photos to remember. Guess I’ll just have to read my blog posts in a few years to remember this day!

B R E A K I N G N E W S ! ! !

[Candyland, 2/12/2009] It looks like tonight that Mr. Mint and Gramma Nutt have finally been caught. What crime did they commit? Let’s just say they were in the wrong place when cops raided Gum Drop Mountain after an anonymous tip.

In parenting terms…I gave my children’s Candyland game a time-out.

Why you may ask?

Well because it was getting late in the evening and we were all playing a quiet game of Candyland. My wife usually “stacks the deck” in favor of our kids and lets them draw the cards with the candycane, gumdrop, gingerbread man, etc. Well for whatever reason — I drew a pretty sweet card and traveled the the front of the pack, at least 20 spaces in front of my 4 year old son. Well……….

Tip #337 of the Parenting Guide – Let you Kids Win

With the combo of being 10 minutes from bed time, me going halfway to the finish line (in front of my son), that just made my son just lose it. He said, “I don’t want to play anymore, I NEVER want to play again!” Of course, those words were just that — words. But he pushed all the pieces off the board and I just about had it and therefore took the game and stuck it on the top of our canopy bed frame. In a time-out!

“HAH!!! that’ll teach you,” I thought with a smug look on my face. Well did it work?

50/50 I would say. Of course, I actually felt like I got my point across to him. He was saying sorry about 100x at Formula 1 speeds – he does that when he knows he’s wrong and my wife and I are going to take something away or not allow him to do something as a form of punishment. He knew that he did something wrong, but he was just over tired and couldn’t think it through.

Sure, I was being a hard-ass Dad, but i just needed to do this. My son is NOT the type of kid that does well in time-out (himself) so i resorted to removing the game from the child. I read that somewhere a year or so ago, ‘stick the game or toy into timeout has good results’ (I’ll have to dig up that article again).

My son one that can be talked down from his rants and rages by my wife -God bless her! She is really good at talking to him and making him understand what happened, why he was in trouble, and in this case, why the game was in time out on top of our bed frame!

I guess my point is this: Parents, choose wisely on what you punish for and how you punish. Maybe I went a little overboard on this one…but I still think he learned from it.

We’ve yet to play Candyland again.

For those of my readers I was asked to submit three short posts about my experiences bringing home our second child. Myself and two other fellow Daddys and bloggers wrote short posts for Building Camelot.

The third and last installment of our stories are now posted. Stop over to Tyler’s site at Building Camelot to read. Read the third installment here.

Read the first installment of the series on Bringing Home a Second Baby.

Read the second installment of the series on Bringing Home a Second Baby.

Also check out these other Daddy Blogs for some good reading!

Elliott from 21stcenturydad.com

Chris from Dad of Divas

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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How many parents have the beginnings of gray hairs due to a whining toddler or preschooler? What causes your child to whine? Why does the sound of whining drive parents crazy? Why do I feel like I’d rather hear someone run their finger nails down a chalkboard right now!?

Battling with a child that constantly whines is no fun — for both the parent and the child. Trying to stop the whining using threats or time outs probably won’t work either, and most likely end up in a screaming match of “BUT I WANT TO!“  And I’m not sure which side (in our house) wins.  Sometimes I have to give in to my 3 1/2 year old son because I just can’t take the constant whining. I know…this only leads to future whining. And I know it does. We just battled it out today with Boo because he wanted to ride his electric 4-wheeler but the battery was dead from the previous day’s riding (and Mommy and Daddy forgot to recharge the battery overnight).

Boo was adamant on riding the 4-wheeler and didn’t listen to us when we were explaining that the battery didn’t have any “juice” left. I tried to tell him it’s like “when you eat lunch, you get energy…the battery needs to get it’s energy. You can ride later today”.

Well that just didn’t cut it for him, he needed to ride it then and there and this led to a whining meltdown and power struggle.  What finally worked was Mommy taking him inside to “cool down” and then once he was calm, and able to actually hear her, she talked things out with him.  Boo is a child that seems to do best when mommy or I talk about things to him and explain the situation. Of course, during a meltdown nothing you say will ever be heard!

So finally after 30 minutes my wife was able to talk him down and make him understand. From that point on the day was perfect. He even laid down on the couch and took a nap. Something he hasn’t done for months on the weekends.

Parent’s Magazine has some other great ways to deal with your child’s whining or demands.

Ok well maybe I need to set a New Years Resolution just like this other Daddy did for his children and for him!  I was Stumbling (www.stumbleupon.com) the web tonight and up pops this site called Diapers to Donuts with the following blog post:

Diapers To Donuts: A Fathers New Years Resolution
This year, I am going to do things a little differently. Well, A LOT differently.

I fear I have become one of THEM – those tired, weary fathers I see making their way home on the train each day. You know who I’m talking about. The ones who like to make jokes about hiding in their basement to watch the football game. Yeah, them.

I don’t want to be one of THOSE guys. I don’t want my children to grow up like Britney Spears, raised by Bratz dolls on some kind of Godless culture where little girls are told to act like supermodels and boys are immersed in countless images of violence while Daddy is busy at work or hiding out watching the game on TV.

This year, when I come home completely exhausted and cranky from a nightmare client meeting to the point that all I want to do is focus on my own sad little problems, instead I’ll focus on you. read more

In reading the full post I looked at how I am, how I am as a Daddy and as a husband.  I’m grouchy, stressed out all the time and probably not a lot of fun to be around when at home.  Outside of my home (I can call it the Quiet Zone) I’m usually pretty relaxed, even the daily stresses at work don’t get me so upset. Maybe it’s our old dog that is always in the way and I’m practically tripping over her.  Maybe I’m grumpy because I don’t get enough sleep (yes, this is probably a major factor — hmmm, it’s 11:37pm right now, probably should be sleeping).  But in the end I just think it’s me. I let the small things stress me out.  Like this weekend, my three year son old crying and whining about not having the right kind of cheese on his crackers…why would that stress me out? It shouldn’t at all!  Or the fact that he and one year old  sister may not share or play nice together.  I guess like the other article, there are WORSE things that could happen to our kids.

I do enjoy the good, fun times with our kids. I really do. And seeing the smile on my son’s face is priceless. It makes me feel so good inside! Just this weekend he nodded off on his car ride back from the store with Mommy and I was going to drive him to fill up a 5 gallon water jug. Just as I got into the SUV (this always happens) he started to wake up. I thought since Mommy was no longer in the car that he would freak out, instead, this HUGE smile came over his face and he squeaked out “Daddy!”  I just smiled and said, “Hey there Buddy!”

It was a warmer than normal January day today and I wanted to get somethings cleaned in the garage and leaves raked up but also wanted to have Boo (my son) outside with me. I asked him if he wanted to ride his tricycle but he saw his scooter. I put his helmet on and watched him ride around the garage and driveway. He almost took a good spill one time but caught himself. I just go numb and paralyzed when I watch him almost fall off the scooter. It just freaks me out.  But he only rode that a few times around and then saw the bigger bike, the two wheeler. I said, “ahhh the big boy bike ok let me help you”. He didn’t refuse this time. At first Boo didn’t know exactly what to do so i was coaching him. I loved this moment and can’t wait until spring when he and I can be out there learning how to peddle. He didn’t want to stay out too long today as he hands were getting cold.

So anyway, I need to bring focus back to the kids and give them all the attention that they need and demand. And let me tell you that probably isn’t all that much. Boo is starting to do a lot more independent play, that’s good, but that also means (now that I think about it) that he’ll soon be wanting to do things with friends and nothing with me. Hmmm….I guess I better think that through and spend all the time now playing trucks, trains, with puzzles (but NOT the princess ones that my wife let him play with), his legos and whatever else.

What part of my resolution needs to be is not trying to push my daddy responsbilities onto someone else like my wife, my parents or tv/dvds for Boo to watch.  He needs to be able to play with me.

Ok, here’s the end of this lengthy post.  this is the type of blog entry I wanted this site to contain. I just never found the time to do this! thanks to the real author on Diapers to Donuts for making me realize what needs to be done!

PS: don’t misread the above, I have spent great quality time with my son. I tend to want to leave the house on the weekends and a few times in the past month I have taken him with me to Target or other errands. That is the special time, the fun time, the Daddy time.  We had an awesome father/son lunch at Red Robin the day after Christmas. It was a good day!!!  (Ok, another resolution better be to go to bed before midnight 4 nights a week! so this post is over at 11:59pm)

This is a great article to read (from another blog called brip blap) and comprehend if you are a parent. Now my wife and I have to adjust this article a bit since we are both working and the kids go to day care, but some of these still apply.

Don’t ‘decompress’ for an hour after you get home.

Turn off cellphones and BlackBerries when you get home. 

Those are two of the easiest fixes we can make when we get home after picking up the kids. We need to make a change because right now we are struggle with the comments: “I folded all the laundry”, “But I emptied the dishwasher last time”, “I put the kids to bed everynight”, pretty much whatever we can think up.

So when I landed on this article I thought I should help spread it around and give some ideas to other parents dealing with similar situations.

Read the full article written by Steve on brip blap » how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse