When My Kids Ask No Win Questions

How many of you think your kids are smart? Right, everyone does! How many of you have a child that asks a question that traps you into a NO-WIN response? Well I do! Or so it seems like that is what KBop did to me tonight. In case you’re a first time reader, KBop is our  soon-to-be four year old daughter. Well tonight she posed a question to me after I wrapped up reading books to her.  Ready for it?

“Daddy Are You Tired?” 

How the F am I supposed to answer that? I think it’s her version of a trick question! If I say “No, I’m not tired, I have to go downstairs and pack lunches, clean up and then blog and tweet until midnight,” well….you know what she’ll say, “I wanna go with you!”

So I said, “Yes, Daddy’s tired and needs to get to bed.” Her smart ass response, “Good, you can sleep next to me!”

UGH!!! Not what I had in mind, but what a cute response and totally well played!  I did chuckle and said, “Oh alright peanut, but I can only stay for 30 seconds.” (I know, what a mean daddy I am! haha, but she thought that was a long time, whew!)

So I’m keeping this blog post rather short for once, but my question to you, how would you handle this? Have you had similar incidents?

What a Week, Mr. Mom and Gettin’ My Ass Back Into Blogging

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!

I’m Living a Groundhog’s Day

Good God, kids have so much energy. They don’t stop moving, squirming, or fussing. And mostly, they never tire out and want to fall asleep at night. If you don’t know, my children are 4 and 2 1/2…so you know how things are going if you have similar ages.

Right, hectic at times!

I need to write tonight (now this morning). I think it helps me deal with the struggles I go through with my “Groundhog’s Day” life. Same thing day in and day out. Same mornings, same evenings, same old thing.

Ah, the beautiful morning…la la la LA la la laaaaaa!

Ok let’s start with the morning. It’s 5:45am and my son decides for some crazy reason that he is”bored” in bed and wants needs to wake up. Who’s name gets screamed? “MOOOMMMYYYY!!!!!”.  Who has to go in to his room? RIGHT! The author of this post, me, Daddy! I’m not going to ask “why is that?” because it won’t do any good. It’s been that way for over 4 years. My wife just loves to sleep. I an early bird (and night owl), probably why my kids are so messed up with sleeping.

At least lately I’ve been having my son stay in bed until 6am despite his concerns that he thinks it is boring. GOOD! I want it to be boring. I am also having him color pictures which he loves to do, which makes him stay in his bedroom (I’m in here now typing this). And right now I’m thinking that after his pictures we’ll go downstairs and do ‘adult things’ like fold the laundry. He’s going to love that? Who cares! It’s a morning adult task — and those are what Mommy and Daddy do when we wake up in the morning. I will refuse to turn on the TV like I’ve done many times in the past. He just needs to learn to sleep in until 6:30am at least.  Without sleeping in my son gets tired in the afternoon, his “batteries” wear out and takes refuses to nap at home on the weekends. This has an ill effect on our evening and bedtime routine. He is sometimes a real bear to get to bed, going into a meltdown just after dinner. So parents beware, kids NEED to nap/rest on the weekends. Or at least have quiet alone time, time to recharge. Definitely makes the night time more fun for all. (because lately I have zero patience for meltdowns and whining).

Ok so that was my mornings…now let’s learn about my evenings.

Our kids both attend a great daycare school and he pick them up around 5:30pm and therefore get home around 6pm. Yeah, it’s not the most ideal situation, but we’ve gotta work and that’s just how it is. We’ve accepted it. So by 6pm, they are usually hungry, sometimes a little snack in the car helps with the hunger pangs.  Sometimes nothing helps and that hunger turns to them arguing. They BOTH want the attention of either Mommy or myself, whomever picked them up from school. Ok, that is natural for them to want to share their day with us. I love to hear it too! But not both at the same time. Recall, ages 4 and 2 1/2…so the battle between then ensues and my head is ready to explode.  Yesterday I had enough and just cranked the music up in the car — and I mean loud! It was the Cha Cha Slide song. They both love to listen to it and try to stomp their feet while strapped into the car seat. Of course the song only helped for so long. Soon after the next song came on, my son’s new favorite (Beautiful Girls buy Sean Kingston — don’t ask…he must like the beat…) things went bad, fast! My daughter started to sing along but didn’t get the words right…so that made my son go ballistic. I had to pull over and stop. That didn’t help. I had to get out of the car. That didn’t help. I then (honest to God) smacked his cheek very lightly to get him to stop. It did. He was being extremely disrespectful to me at that moment and it’s been a thing of his to yell at mommy and me when he’s upset. Anyway, I feel bad for doing that but I need a way for him to learn he cannot CONTROL us and I know that i need at way to not let his control me or my wife. Otherwise I’ll be crazy in 9 years when he’s a teenager!!

Ok, we’re home and I need a beer. Dinner was good and bathtime was good. Good!!! Earlier crisis forgotten.

Bedtime, yay!!

Noooo. Bedtime battle! I typically put my daughter to bed which was always an easy task until about 2 months ago. She’s starting to not want us to leave the room. Yeah, I know…that is common for 2 year olds and up. They start to realize we are not there in their room. But why does she cry??? Let’s investigate.

Does she seem afraid?

Heck no! My daughter says to me with a laugh, “Monster get my toes…better cover up!” So what do you think? Afraid? No way…just a stall tactic.  I won’t be fooled.

Is she screaming to get attention?

DEFINITELY!!! Even after a bath and fun times asking about her day and then 3 books, she still wants “One more book”.  If I hear that “One more time” I’m gonna freak out. Now wait….I’m not being a grumpy old Daddy. I’m being reasonable.  I’ve tried the “one more book” sob story many nights…and it turns into my reading her what equates to a whole shelf of books and lasting until 9pm.

So my thing is to enjoy about 30 minutes with her and then read three books, whichever books she wants. I try to read the last book in her bed, the others I read on the floor or chair. Then I let her pick a song for me to sing, like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, or “ABC’s“. Of course, last night I got half one through Baa Baa and she switched to ABCs. I just kept going with the flow and made a longer medley of songs. This is her way of keeping me in the room longer.

But after repeated warnings of “Daddy is going to bed now” I finally stand by the door as she’s crying out my name and slip out with a “Goodnight Sweetie, I’ll see you in the morning”. I then stand outside the door for a few minutes and soon the crying becomes wimpers and then nothing. I’ve peaked in after 10 minutes to sometimes find her sound asleep and other times she is still up reading books to her stuffed animals. I don’t mind if she is reading until 9pm. It’s good for her to learn to fall asleep on her own. My wife and I messed up with our older son, he still needs us to stay in his room. Things are getting better with that…some day things will be all good.

I found the below information on FamilyEducation.com:

Now, what about the screaming? Is she tired? Since she falls asleep in five minutes, it seems unlikely that her screaming is because she is not tired. To encourage a regular sleep pattern, try waking her at the same time each morning. At this age, one afternoon nap of no more than two hours should be sufficient.

If you stay in her room or extend her bedtime ritual, she interprets her screaming as successful. It would be better to leave the room and ignore her crying (though it may get worse before it gets better). (From Family Education web site)

Closing

I write my true feelings to share with others. If I did something bad I’ll mention it. Sure, I try to find humor in what I write, but this stuff is real. If you’re a new parent I want to give you my issues, my fun stories, and any ammunition you may need to battle similar situations that I’m facing. Good luck to all the Dads out there.

If you have similar situations let me know. I could also use some help from time to time and appreciate your comments and feedback.

How I Used 30 Minutes to Transition from Work to Home And How It Helped Me Be a Better Daddy

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!

But Daddy….Bears Eat Honey

ahem…ladies and gentlemen…

I am back tonight from a few weeks off from blogging. I am not sure where my nights have gone lately. Oh, that’s right…my Dad had bought me the first season of The Wire (HBO) and I watched 2-3 episodes a night for little over a week. Well anyway, here I am trying to jumpstart my blogging again. I find it relaxing and fun. Sometimes stressful when trying to think up new topics.

Well tonight was easy. My son helped me think of it. Actually, he didn’t help think of it, he just gave me the idea from a very cute thing he said…”Daddy, Bears eat honey!”

Huh?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. What does he mean?? Then it struck me….I had asked him if he would like to try a spoonful of honey to help soothe his nagging cough. And again his response was “Bears eat honey!”

See…it makes sense. He’s four. He reads books with bears. Bears that eat honey. Just like Winnie the Pooh. And the same reason the image I chose for this post is a honey bear. Those poor bees…they get no credit. I’ve never seen a BEE-SHAPED honey container.

So anyway, I thought it was cute what my son said and wanted to share that with everyone. Also, here is a post I wrote back in March 2008 about the same thing…the Nighttime Coughing.

By the way, all is quiet in the bedrooms. Guess the humidifer, vapor rub, a little bit of honey and his grape lollipop worked!

Disclaimer: there is no scientific proof that a lollipop helps soothe a nighttime cough…but holy crap I think it worked!!

Also I grabbed the image from Carlisle Honey, check out their site.

The Best Part of Putting My Son to Bed

Image via Wikipedia

Tonight was perfect! Our son "allowed" me to take him to bed tonight.  He usually demands Mommy, but tonight she had a 8-9pm conference call with for work and therefore it was my turn.  I typically get to take our daughter (20 months) and put her to bed so my wife and I share the parenting duties. So this was special for me, I get to take my son to bed!

Anyway, I really enjoy putting Boo to bed . It’s a great bonding time for him and I. I try to ask him how his day was and what he liked best about daycare.  Which of his buddies did he play with and other things throughout the day.  I want to make him feel comfortable with sharing that information with me.  He does for the most part but then reminds me, "Daddy, READ the book!"

So there we are sitting in his room, I’ve tucked in a 3′ Bob the Builder , "Mr Ted" (my son’s teddy bear that he made at Build a Bear ), and somehow found enough sheets and comforter to cover up Boo. We keep the lights low and usually have his closet light on to give us just enough light to cause serious eye damage when reading books to him! I’m not kidding. It’s NOT bad when it’s black type on white background like 99% of the books out there, but those 1%, the children’s books that are black font on a red or dark blue background, yeah right. Like I could barely read that in full sunlight!  Tonight was ok though, Boo has what he calls his "spinner" — a spinning light toy he got from Mama and Papa when they took him to the circus in Philly over the weekend. He kept holding the button to make the colored lights spin and supply me with a faint glow so I could read to him. It was great!

But with the lights dim, the fact that I was up until 1:00am last night, and I had a long day at work, my eyes wanted to close so bad! Now how many of you have caught yourself reading to you children and then start to make up words, sentences, whole thoughts!? I do but then Boo is quickly there to say, "DADDY! That is NOT what it says!" I just smile and think, "Man, if only my memory was as good as a three year olds!" He calls me out on my dozing off every time. And I don’t mean to get sleepy, it’s just so relaxing reading to him.

So after two books Boo was starting to nod off, guess he had a long day as well. So I stopped reading and just laid my head on the side of his bed and rubbed his back a bit. (I’m sitting on a hard wooden stool!) In a matter of 5 minutes he fell asleep and I dozed off for a bit as well.  I would wake up every now and then because my butt and legs were numb from the wooden stool! But what I love most is watching him sleep. He looks so peaceful and innocent and it’s at that moment that I feel so good about being his Daddy!

If I’m up late I always check on both kids before I hop into my bed. They’ve usually squirmed out from under the sheets or sometimes have even done a 180 and are sleeping with their head at the foot of the bed! I get them back to a good sleeping position and tuck them back in, make sure their favorite stuffed animal is within reach, kiss both of them on the forehead and whisper, "Daddy loves you so much!"

It’s 11:40pm now, and I’m heading up to do just that! Can’t wait!