Category Archives: Parentgood

Parentgood

3 + 1 = ?

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In the not-too-distant future, a new little Pepper will be joining our clan. The jalapeno will be almost 3 at that point. While in theory my recollections of the early days with him should have faded, I have a stubbornly keen memory and I remember in great detail just how difficult and overwhelming things were with him at first. (And this is despite having a normal/easy delivery and a healthy baby.)

After a full day of work and an evening of toddler wrangling, I often wonder what on earth we’re doing. On a rational level, we’ve always wanted two kids, the timing makes sense, and I think the jalapeno will make a great big brother. It’s just that in the short term, I feel like this is possibly insane. Continue reading 3 + 1 = ? →

Parentgood

Mistakes (I’ve Made a Few)

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D'oh!

As a parent, I've made my share of mistakes.  My most common mistake is the "over threaten."  And it happens way too often.  I have one particular example in mind.

My middle child (10 year old girl) had a friend over.  Youngest child (6 year old boy) was bothering her and said friend.  Things escalated and she crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed.  The real problem started when she refused to apologize.  (I really need to figure out how she can be so stubborn.  Where could that possibly come from?)  Whatever I was trying was not working.  I finally said that if she didn't apologize, she was going to her room for the rest of the day.  (I think it was around 3pm.)  She still wouldn't apologize.

I was stuck.  Not only was a I sending a kid to her room for 5 hours but it was the exact wrong punishment.  This is the kid that heads upstairs to her bedroom while the rest of the family is on the main level of the house.  This is the kid that I need to occasionally push to be a little more social.  This is the kid that read the entire Harry Potter series in four months.

Not only that, but after she spent an hour or so up in her room, I had a talk with her.  She was having some friend/confidence issues and that was the real reason for the lashing out at her brother.

I was faced with a dilemma.  Do I stick to my original punishment and leave her in her room for the rest of the night, or do I admit that it was too harsh of a punishment and let her out early?

I ended up letting her out of her room for dinner and allowed her to stay out for the remainder of  the evening.  What she really needed was some time with her family.  I know the best solution would be to not over threaten in the first place.  I also know it is good to stick with punishments that have been levied.  I just know once I've had a chance to really think things through I often come up with a much better solution.  I don't think it makes sense to double down on my own mistake.

What do the fathers (and mother) have to say?

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: Roundup

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Sitting here listening to some hockey (Wild win in Detroit, 4-2) after watching an episode of Homeland, drinking a glass of this, trying to figure out what my edition of Father Knows Best should address. I realize that any of those first three items could (and typically do) generate a whole day’s worth of conversation here at the World’s Greatest, but none of them really help me with the task at hand: namely, come up with something about being a father that is useful, challenging, interesting and LTE-inducing – all while keeping the post manageable, i.e., short.

More after the jump… Continue reading Father Knows Best: Roundup →

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: Reboot

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hey, everyone. i wanted to type up something more interesting and relevant in an attempt to resurrect this series, but i'm stuck in meetings and typing this from my phone.

the main point here is to solicit volunteers for future months posts. topics can be on whatever you feel like (see previous entries for ideas). let me know in the comments, and we'll see up a schedule.

besides that, how is/are your little bugger(s) doing? Pete's goal lately is to climb to the top of the world.

upcoming author schedule

march 21: Can of Corn

april 18: Algonad

may 23: Pepper

june 20:

july 18:

august 15:

september 19: freealonzo

october 17:

november 21:

december 19:

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: It’ll Get Better

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Its been a couple of months since it all started, so hopefully I can remember enough details to make this somewhat interesting. I wanted to start this installment of father knows best with an ode to the women who have to carry the load for the majority of the lead up and after effects of a birth.

Continue reading Father Knows Best: It’ll Get Better →

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: Roll With the Changes

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So if you're tired of the
Same old story
Oh, turn some pages
I'll be here when you are ready
To roll with the changes*

It's hard to believe that it has been 17 years since this happened. But it's true. The Boy is now a high school senior, on the cusp of adulthood and of leaving home to start making his way in the world. I don't remember growing older/when did they?

When our babies come into the world, we build fantasy lives for them and ourselves, and then we try to live those fantasy lives and mold our children to our fantasy scripts. It never works out that way. It's always much, much, much worse. And better. And different.

He was a tiny little thing, almost a month premature, having scared the bejeebus out of us for weeks in his rush to escape the womb half-bakef (how appropriate, eh?). And we poured all of our hopes and dreams and aspirations and neuroses into his tiny body. I wanted him to be an athlete, and a scholar, and .... And so much more. I wanted him never to get hurt, but I wanted him to be adventurous. I wanted him to be brave and strong and a leader. And my sweet little boy.

He learned to talk at an early age, and the words came in torrents, in joyous gushes, in imaginative jumbles. He confidently made up labels for things. We would see a large piece of equipment and he would name it with all the self-assurance of a technician, never mind that he had made up the name on the spot. We would take walks in the neighborhood and he would enthusiastically shout out greetings to every child, "Hi, guy!" confident that he was making a new friend, even as they were giving him weird looks. The phone would ring -- nanny and poppa calling, or grandma and grampa -- and he could talk for half an hour without breathing.
Continue reading Father Knows Best: Roll With the Changes →

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of GWAR

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqxtaJfH7UA
(NSFW)

i think this is a conversation we've had here and there before, but i thought we might as well reprise it all in one place.

i try to get Famished Pete in front of speakers as much as possible. honestly, my classical and jazz aren't what they should be, but i know that's the best for him right now. at the same time, i try to mix in a bit more of the eclectic-though-hopefully-stimulating-and-baby-friendly, like joanna newsom, the decemberists, sufjan stevens, etc. for some reason, i've hesitated on pushing the straight rock/pop music until he gets a bit older, though i'll make exceptions for some of the classics. i've no real desire to feed him any of the straight childrens' music. i'm sure his mother and preschool will give him plenty of that without my help.

i guess the conversation i want to start here is the role of music in your children's lives, or perhaps the role it played in your own life as a child.

for my part, i've got total control right now, but as Pete grow up, he's obviously going to branch off on his own. i really don't want to push my tastes on him too much, but i still want to make sure he's not a fanboy of the next decade's linkin park's, nickelback's, or general grog of commercial crap. i'm sure it's going to be a fine balance.

my dad did a pretty good job with me, i think. he rarely pushed anything, though he gave some recommendations from time to time (i did pass on REO speedwagon). at the same time, he bit his tongue when a young joe occasionally brought home some god-awful crap. one of his best influences he had on me regarding that which was before my time, and i'll get into a little later why future generations could miss out on this, was his LP collection. it was down in the basement, and when i was a younger lad i would idly flip through it now and then. didn't really have much effect on me, though an interesting name or cover might inspire me try something out (like that plasmatics album my dad had for some reason; didn't take). then, i would hear a snippet of something or hear a band name and think, hey, dad's got that, and i would run home and pull it out. got into a lot of stuff i wouldn't have gotten into without that, which in turn lead me to many others i couldn't live without today.

after peckish jane's repeated nagging request, i recently put my large CD collection in storage temporarily as space is at a premium right now (i've still got books of CDs lying around, but i like having the CDs themselves out). it made me think that, what with everything moving over that digital horizon, kids aren't really going to get that opportunity as LPs, cassettes, CDs, physical music you can hold starts to disappear. sure, if they hear a name or song, they can have it on their phones in about ten seconds, but i still think they'll be missing out on something.

(quick aside: i am so pissed iPods didn't exist in high school for me. i was one of those kids that carried a 100 CD book around with them everywhere they went. also, i didn't have a car in high school, so this metro transit warrior often had to shuffle around his backpack and perform CD transplants with the discman while hurriedly speed walking to catch the 5. dropped and scratched a good number of CDs that way. come to think of it, i'm pissed CD-Rs weren't around then either.)

i'm not going anywhere in particular with this, just trying to start a few points of conversation. listening to and playing music was a huge part of my life, and i want Pete to enjoy it the same way i do, without shoving it down his throat. what do you play for your kids? what has surprised you about what they respond to? what was that band that came along, woke you up, and set you on the path to good music (cliché, but nirvana)? how did you react when your kid came home with an alto sax in 4th grade?

Parentgood

OMG!! Raising a Teenage Daughter

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Copyright 2011 Baby Blues Partnership. Dist. by King Features Syndicate

My daughter turns 18 in a few days and we will send her off to college three weeks later.  Since most WGOM citizens have younger children or are just starting families, I thought it would be interesting to hear from someone on the backend, someone who successfully (I think) raised up a kid and is preparing to send her out into the world.  What I write below is based on my experiences raising a daughter (and a nearly 16 year old son) but also from talking/venting with friends and relatives with similar aged kids.  The following is both advice and just top of the head rambling.

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating:  Girls are harder than boys.  Girls are harder on their moms than their dads, although your mileage may vary.  This just isn’t our experience but the experience of all of our friends who have both boys and girls.  I think it’s because girls (and their mothers) generally are more emotional.  There’s more drama involved with girls than with boys.  Issues that are a BIG DEAL to girls and moms get shrugged off by males.  It’s not a bad thing (especially for us dads), but something that you (and particularly your wife) will have to deal with, especially once your daughter hits about age 10.

The flip side of course is that girls are closer to their mothers.  It seems counterintuitive I know but the fact that moms and daughters battle one another means that they have a closer relationship.  There are things that my daughter tells her mother that she wouldn’t dream of telling me, and not just issues related to “women’s personal hygiene.”   So being a father to a teenage daughter is kind of a mixed bag.  You are relieved that you don’t have the battle scars your wife does, but you kind of envy the bond that those scars form.

Continue reading OMG!! Raising a Teenage Daughter →

Parentgood

Papa Don’t Preach 7/7/11

32 Comments

I have been a father for 5 months and 10 days. With that said I think it is fair for me to say that I am one of the least qualified people here to make any comments on parenting.  Then again for the past year, since we knew we were expecting, other people have been telling me how to raise my kid.

Those people really tick me off.  It is with that in mind that each time I am up to write a fatherhood column here on the WGOM  I will present something  I will do if I ever add to my herd. This will be directly influenced by what I did wrong with the Calf. So take my write ups to be what not to do with your children.

First off, I am going to see to it that our unborn child, herein known to as Kirby, sleeps in his crib from the first night. When the calf was born we weren't really sure where to put him down for sleep. All we knew that was wherever we laid him down he was going to wake up every two hours. So, we did what was easiest for us. Of the many hand me down baby items we received for the Calf he seemed to fall asleep best in his Calming Vibrations Chair.  So we set the chair up on the coffee table next to the couch in our living room and let him sleep there. Since he woke up every two hours anyway, I would just stay up until around 1am, wake up Ms Buffalo and then she would sleep on the couch, feeding him and changing his as necessary until around 6am when I would begin getting ready for work.  She would sneak in about a hour nap and then take care of him until I got home for work.  Rise, lather, repeat.

At about two months the Calf got a little bigger he began sleeping though the night-- assuming he was in his chair. I mean 10-12 hours straight though. After being awoken every two hours by a crying baby this was a revelation. We got to share a bed again. Now, we love our baby but it was nice to be able to snuggle up in our hay stack once again so we just let him stay in his chair. We didn't want to jinx it.

At around three months the Calf  kept growing, as children are wont to do. We commented on how he was getting bigger and bigger and before you know it he wouldn't be able to sleep in his chair much longer. We had a bassinet that we would try to put in our room but it just wouldn't take. He had to sleep in his chair. We joked about how he couldn't spend the rest of his life sleeping on a coffee table. Ms Buffalo thought this quip  to be especially funny because there may or not be a photograph of me in my early twenties sleeping on a coffee table.  Either way, we figured it was best to not ruin a good thing and we had better let him just sleep in his Calming Vibrations.  We did however take the batteries out of the chair. He didn't seem to mind and I was happy to not be spending money on batteries anymore.

When he crossed the four month barrier he was over two feet tall and closing in on 20 pounds. His chair is graded for 25 pounds so we were starting to get a little bit worried. We would give him his bath, feed him, put him down in his Calming No-Longer Vibrations Chair, let him get to sleep and try to carry him into the crib. This lasted for about three nights as we soon decided, screw it, let's just let him sleep in his stupid chair. I don't want to keep getting up out of bed.

5 months has now come and gone and the kid still won't sleep anywhere except this stupid chair. His butt is on the ground in it. It doesn't even bounce anymore. He has gotta be at least 22 pounds now and this chair is no longer practical for sleeping.

With that said I just spent the last four hours trying to get him to sleep in his crib before remembering that I had to write a a column about being a dad for the WGOM.  As you would imagine, I put him into his Calming- I Don't Vibrate, Bounce, or Do Anything Anymore- Chair and he fell right asleep. I am sure that he will sleep for the next 8 hours.

So remember above when I said other parents giving advice is a pain in my neck? Yeah, I take it all back. If anyone has any tips on how to make a kid sleep in his crib I am all ears.

Parentgood

Father Knows Best: A Fatherhood Story

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*It appears that the poster we lined up wasn't able to meet deadline. So, whether he knows it or not, JoePos will be our special guest writer today*

Throughout our cross-country move from Kansas City to Charlotte, friends have asked the same question again and again: How are the kids taking it? It's a thoughtful question, a heartfelt question, and I very much appreciate them asking. But, the truth is, they already know. They're taking it exactly like just about every kid who has ever moved. If there's one thing you can say about moving, it is that the feelings are universal ... and cliche-ridden. Just about every adult who has ever moved to a new place has felt overburdened and has promised themselves, at least on some level, to never move again. Just about every child who has moved has felt, at least on some level, like Ralph Macchio from The Karate Kid.

Our girls are 6 and 9 and, so, have been a spectacularly erratic bundle of emotions. This is particularly true of Elizabeth, the older one. One minute, she's excited about a new life. The next she's collapsed in tears. The next, she's talking giddy about the puppy we're going to get*. The next she's talking about how she will never have a happy thought for the rest of her life.

*Fathers are not above bribing daughters.
 
 

There are a million things that have jolted me about being a parent, of course, and one of those is the drama. Even as a kid, I thought those family sitcoms on television were overwrought, but as a parent I have found that LIFE seems to be overwrought. A disagreement at recess, a cross word on the school bus, a misunderstanding with a friend, all these turn into long conversations right out of the The Brady Bunch with the slow version of the theme song playing in the background.

 
 
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