Tag: parenting

Why would a 5 Year Old Want to Die?

6/3/2019 – Monday

Last Thursday when I picked J up at daycare (H was home sick with Mimi) a teacher gave me an incident report stating that J said he wanted to kill himself earlier in the day. It went on to say, that when questioned, J clarified that he didn’t want to be there was all. I thanked the teacher and said I’d have a conversation with J. Inside me everything went fuzzy and I had to focus really hard on pretending to be unfazed. How did J ever hear about killing oneself as a thing? Was he depressed? Should I get him a therapist? What can I do differently to make him happy? When I talked to him on the car ride home he said he wanted to be alive and that he just didn’t want to be at school that day. I tried to tell him how great it is to be alive and that we’re so lucky to be blessed with life and how precious it is. But the dude is five, it’s not like these nuggets I tell myself everyday to stay upbeat are making him see the light. He doesn’t even understand what killing ones self is. But how the heck did he hear that to even say it? He probably caught it in a song or on a show and it registered. He remembers everything. He’s so smart. I worry about him being sad and scared in public settings. At home and with close friends he’s always having fun. I worry he secludes himself with the bigger groups. When I picked him up the other day, his class was outside and he was standing in the corner by himself picking dandelions. Then Friday evening at his graduation, he threw up and couldn’t go on stage with his classmates to sing. I don’t know how much was nerves and how much was the fact that he was running a fever and feeling sick. He did rally to accept the diploma when they called him. I know he has lots of good friends at school. I can’t expect everyone to think he’s as awesome as I think he is. I hope he’s strong enough to ignore the haters, love him for him, and be him always. There will be people that love him and people that don’t. There’s a lot of shitty and mean people in the world, I hope he stands up to them instead of trying to please them and be their friend. There’s plenty of good people to go around. I wasted way too much time growing up trying to be friends with jerks. I sacrificed my self-respect because I didn’t have any confidence.

Oh shutup, J is a natural born leader that people want to be around. He knows what he wants and is able to convince other people what he wants is what they want. I feel like I’m projecting my rough time from 7th – 11th grade on to his pre-school experience. The dude was sick, he was having a bad day, take it easy. He’s fine.

Plant your Flag

5/29/19 – Wednesday

Well I guess we jumped the gun on getting H back to school today. We got a call around lunch saying H had a low grade fever, didn’t eat his food, and said his ear hurt. So I left work early again to pick him up and take him to the Doctors office. Mom will be picking up his prescription for the ear infection later. No soccer for him tonight. J has ice skating lessons.

I finished the “When Breath Becomes Air” audiobook today. Tough listen. It’s the memoir of a super smart Neurosurgeon who was just finishing up all the years of schooling it takes to become a stud Stanford doctor when he discovered he had lung cancer. He primarily wrote it during his last year of life as he came to grips with his impending death. 8 months before he died his daughter was born. I was crying like a baby on the way to work today. Part of me was thinking about my Dad and how he experienced almost the same last year of his life. I was also thinking of my Mom and how she cared for him during that time. I wondered what it was like in those intimate moments between the two of them when they talked about death and what was most important as he fought for that last year. I thought about how fragile life is and how lucky I am to be here and have such a great family that I love so much and loves me back. I want to protect the boys from anything bad ever happening to them. I worry about those life defining moments that set you down your path in life. I know I’ll feel whatever pain they feel so viscerally it might as well be happening to me. There’s much physical and emotional pain to come. That’s okay. We get to live! For a short time on this earth we are alive and your mom and I will do everything we can to facilitate the life you imagine for yourself. We’ll also expand your imagination so you understand you can do anything. No matter what you decide, no matter what you do wrong or where you end up, we are going to love you always. I’m going to be the sappy dad that cries a lot and tells you how much I love you and wants to give you hugs. I’ll have a hard time letting go when you’re trying to turn yourself loose on the world. I’ll do what I can to help you but just because you want something doesn’t mean the rest of the world is going to cooperate. The rest of the world can be a real dick and it might take a while to show it how amazing you are. I know you’ll wear it down, you’ll keep at it. Eventually the world will be begging for mercy as you plant your flag with a smile on your face, just happy to be alive and doing what you love.

Sold & Old!

5/28/19 – Tuesday

Tuesday after Memorial Day. I’m sitting at home with a sick kid at 3pm. H has a fever, cough, and runny nose. He’s watching Super Truck. We sold the house on Saturday. The thing sits on the market for 35 days with no offers, then we ended up getting a flurry of three between Friday and Saturday. A couple from Chicago was the winning bidder. They’re letting us live in the house until August 4th. On Saturday we were getting a lot of calls from the realtor when we were out at Mimi and Poppa’s. It was pretty exciting and a huge load off to get the house sold. Now we just need to pass the inspection.

Mom and I went out to dinner and a concert last Wednesday to celebrate her birthday. You two went to Mimi and Poppa’s because we had house showings. We ate at Mabel Gray and it was delicious. Then we saw Jim James (lead singer of My Morning Jacket). There were plenty of good seats still available. The show was good, but I was nodding off so we decided to leave early and go home to go to sleep. Not having you two bust into our room in the middle of the night to try to sleep in our bed was awesome. You stayed the night at Mimi and Poppa’s on Thursday night as well. By Friday, we were missing you and couldn’t wait to get out to the lake to give you big hugs.

The night before, J smashed Mimi’s ipad in frustration and ruined the glass cover. Extremely not cool dude. We’ve started a money jar for J to collect enough money by doing chores to pay for the repair for Mimi.

Aunt D came to the lake with her daughter on Saturday. You all had a fun time. We caught some fish in the net, went for a boat ride, got ice cream, and jumped off the raft.

You started coughing more on Sunday and then yesterday you had a fever. It didn’t stop you from playing outside though. You don’t want to miss out. On Sunday, H and mom caught a bass with a nightcrawler. It was pretty awesome. We think we’re going to get more into fishing this summer. I want to catch a pike off the dock. We’ll see how my patience holds up.

I went to take you boys for a canoe ride on Saturday and discovered a dead possum underneath where we had stored it for the winter. There were stinky guts all over it. Peeeeeee-youuuuuu! Or as H would say after I say that when I’m changing his diaper, “Peeeeee-meeeee!”.

Mundane Retelling of a Day

5/18/2019 – Saturday

House all cleaned. Ready for a showing at 12:45. Best buddy and his girls are on the way. When they get here we will go out to lunch then head to a nearby park. The boys are watching Justin Time and have been for the last 3 hours. I feel bad about all the screen time but really needed to clean the house. Plus it’s educational so they’re probably getting a leg up on the competition thanks to Justin.

Yesterday we closed on our new house. So now we officially own two houses, which puts a major strain on the wallet. So we need to sell the current house soon. The former owners of our new house are renting from us through the end of July. We didn’t do a good job keeping up our current house, which I think is why we’re having trouble selling it. At the new house we will stay on top of fixing everything as soon as it goes wrong.

The realtor got the boys nets, a bucket, spelunking lights, and a box for any critters they catch at the new house. He got me a book about bird watching so I can learn about all the pretty birds we’ll see out our back window.

I got mom a surprise night away in Detroit at the Foundation hotel with her friend yesterday. They ate at Takoi, a funky Thai restaurant in Corktown. Me and the boys got cheap Chinese then went to the park. They were pretty good, but I did have to take a book away from J for dumping sand out of the sand box after I had already told him not to. After the boys were asleep I watched a couple Game of Thrones episodes. J crawled into bed with me at 5:30, and although it’s a king size bed he wanted to use my shoulder as a pillow. Fine by me. You both don’t like to be left alone at night. I wonder if we’re meant to sleep in a pack like a family of bears would do. I hate to see you both get so sad and lonely when I close the door. Hope that’s not damaging your emotional growth or something.

No Discipline on a Wednesday

5/15/19 – Wednesday

Pretty standard Wednesday. In the morning H and I had bowls of granola and watermelon slices while J and Mom got a little extra shut eye. J & H ignored our requests to get your shoes and jackets on and get in the car as usual. (Sidebar: Why the fuck do the kids not do anything we tell them to do? I hate being the bad guy. I hate having to think of shit to take away from them. Lately we’ve been taking away books at night. Books are good for development so I need to come up with something else. I don’t like threatening to remove TV time in the morning because if I have to follow through on that then the alternative is they get a bunch of toys out that will then require an extra five minutes of cleanup I don’t have. When I do Google searches asking how to get kids to do what you want it says not to repeat yourself, use fewer words, see it from their point of view, don’t talk until you have their attention, and stay calm. It must be fun for the childless to write that bullshit. I hate losing my temper, but I don’t know what to do aside from working toward becoming a licensed hypnotist. Tomorrow I’ll try to get on their level and make it super fun then I’ll report back.) J cried the whole way to daycare because he meant to grab a third bag of fruit snacks and I wouldn’t let him go back in and grab them even though mommy had said he could. So bad daddy was in effect. Zero sympathy from me. I told him crying was pointless and turned up the music. Then I made up a song about J crying, which eventually made him laugh and stop crying.

We had a house showing tonight so we had to be elsewhere. After H’s soccer we went to McDonald’s because they have a play structure. It was so much better than last night when we went to a trendy new rooftop bar and spent 3.5X as much. The food was junk and we had the only kids in the place, big thumbs down. McDonald’s play structure had plenty of padding so we could let them go with limited supervision until the coast was clear to come home. As always the day ended with hugs, kisses, and I love you’s, as it should. I’ll now continue watching season 7 of Game of Thrones.

Mother’s Day

5/12/19 – Sunday – Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day. That’s the first thing I said to mom when she joined me and the kids in the basement a smidge after 8am. The boys and I were enjoying Clif bars and watching Vampire Weekend perform on Friday night’s Jimmy Kimmel. We had her presents and cards ready for her to open. She got a new band and battery for her Shinola and a fancy scale. Her weight has been inching upward so it was time for a not so gentle reminder to get that shit in check. Haha. Actually, the old scale has been giving some odd read outs lately and I’ve been telling her to stop freaking out about the scale and that it’s only a number and all that. It was the source of an argument earlier in the week so I thought the scale would be a good way to bury the hatchet. Plus she’s pregnant, so she’s going to want to monitor the upward poundage.

Oh snap, I buried the lead. Yes kids, mom is pregnant. But you don’t know it yet. Today we told Mimi and Poppa and Nana. We’re going to wait to tell you until after the first doctors appointment. We’re doing this because if something bad were to happen we couldn’t bear to see your sadness. And we really couldn’t bear telling you. So, fingers crossed all goes well and we’ll be telling you in a few weeks. I’m excited and nervous to bring some more offspring to the world. You’ll be great big brothers.

I was ansty all day today. I’m blaming the second cup of coffee I had in the morning before we went to church. I couldn’t relax. I think no matter how much I did it would’ve felt like it wasn’t enough. As always it was a huge hassle getting the boys out of the house. Nobody was listening, I was running around with my hand in the air threatening spankings like I was doing a jazz dance number. Mom was annoyed I wasn’t moving fast enough. Plus with it being her day she shouldn’t be the one to have to kick it in to overdrive to get us in the car. I finally get you both on the front porch and H pisses his self. I’d been so pumped when H pooped on the potty earlier I decided it was no pull up time, even at church. Mom: “You sure?”. Me: “Yup. He’s a big boy now.” Cut to mom changing him while I cower off to get J in the van.

At church I was kind of paying attention, but not feeling it as much as I normally do. I got glassy eyed when the Pastor mentioned his dead mom and talked about the mother hen as enforcer, protector, and doer of the family. But I didn’t drop any discernible tears like I normally would. Then after church we went to the neighborhood bar for brunch. Usually it’s pretty good but it took an hour for the food and they kept forgetting stuff. H pooped on the potty at the restaurant though!

You both fell asleep on the way home and while you were sleeping mom showed mimi the positive pregnancy tests. I recorded it. It was pretty funny. Mimi said: “You peed on these?”. Then I got some chicken marinating and went outside to do a little yardwork after Facetiming Nana to tell her the good news.

The real question is what should I be doing when I’m feeling anxious like today. The new house is much bigger so the yardwork will take a lot longer. I think I’m going to hire someone to do the yardwork though. There are better uses for all this anxious energy. Like writing. That’s what I’ll do. I’m going to change the names and make this more generic, then I’m going to start a WordPress site. I’m going to write 4-5 times per week, allot money for marketing, and keep pushing until I have enough visitors to generate advertising on my page. I’ll also start a sister site where I’ll post my crazy stuff from college. Yikes. Gonna have to tone that stuff down a bit. It’s called a side hustle and I need one that doesn’t involve house projects. Right now I’m going to get started on season seven of Game of Thrones. The hardcore tenacity will have to wait. But it will be done!!

I’m Here for You

5/8/19 – Wednesday

Celtics season is over today. Bucks won in five. A Star is Born was pretty shitty. In the morning when I drop you boys off at daycare I always tell you to have fun and be nice to people. Lately I’ve been throwing in listen to your teachers and give everything 100% effort, but I don’t want to muddle the message too much. Have fun and be nice to people pretty much covers it.

I think a lot about how much I love you boys. Usually after I drop you off and I’m in the car on the way to work after the teachers have had to peel you off of me. I don’t want to leave you either. I want to take you out of there and go to the zoo. I imagine how your day might go. This morning I heard one of the kids tell J he liked his new haircut and that he looked handsome. You boys are out there in the world of daycare every day. I worry you get sad. The teachers say you get happy as soon as I leave, but I’m sure you have moments during the day when you wish you could just be with mom and dad instead of with all those people you don’t know as well. I have those moments too. I was always pretty sensitive. Like if my mom was the last one to pick me up I’d get sad. And I used to wish my Dad didn’t work so late. Sometimes he’d get home from work early on Friday and play HORSE with us. I want you to know that even if I’m not there all the time, you’re my number one priority in this world. I’ll take care of the expected stuff like food, clothes, and shelter, but I’ll also show you how to have fun, work hard, and be nice to people. Beyond that, it’s mostly up to you. I’ll get into whatever you’re into and help where I can. I hope you’re comfortable telling me how you’re feeling about things. I might not be able to help you, but I can always give you a hug. Tonight, I was staring into H’s eyes as he was laying in his bed. He kept his gaze right on me and we had a good old staring contest. You’re not a mind reader, but my eyes were telling you I love you and I’ve got you.

Buy this House & Dance

5/4/2019 – Saturday

Mom took the boys to a mommy/son dance yesterday. On her orders I had stopped at the florist to get two single roses for the boys to give to her. (Sidebar: I was next in line for the cashier and there were two people behind me. This old lady moseys in and walks right up to the counter and asks to pick up her order. She sidled right in front of me to yell at the cashier: “Yeah, pick up for Cunt McCunterson!” I really wanted to notify her of the fact that there was a line in a very impolite way, but I resisted. However, when she was filling out her cards and asked the audience how to spell choreograph, I didn’t help her and you know damn well I knew how to spell choreograph.) I told the boys to give the flowers to mom, ask her to the dance, and say “these flowers are beautiful, but not as beautiful as you”. They gave mom about five seconds with her flowers before taking them back and tearing them apart petal by petal (She loves me!).

While they were at the dance I ate a dairy-free dinner since I decided yesterday that I’m not doing dairy anymore. Me and cow titties have had a good run, but there’s been enough flatulence to call it a day. After that I spot cleaned the many stains on our upstairs carpet. Most of them have been in there long enough to make it a lost cause, but I did get a milk stain out of H’s room that I should’ve cleaned up 8 months ago when it happened. When they got home from the dance J was sent packing without bedtime books because he wasn’t listening and he face rammed mommy while she was trying to show me videos from her phone of H doing an amazing twerk.

We had an open house today from 11-2. No takers, five visitors. Going to drop price from 375K to $360 or $350 soon. I’m trying to tune out my inner insane person because every time I clean something it opens my eyes to something new that sucks about our house and I say another promise not to neglect our new house like we did this one.

I took the boys to H’s soccer class while mom did some last minute cleaning. They did the soccer lesson on the tennis courts. Every time H runs I picture him falling on his face. I feel like I’m just waiting for them to get hurt. Then we met up at the dinosaur exhibit. Driving down the long, rolling, winding lane of the perfectly manicured grounds of the prep school made me wish we could send the boys there. Part of me wanted to pull out of the deal on the new house, stay in the current one, and put all dad’s life insurance money into tuition. Even all that money would probably only get you kids through grade school. Then we’d have to pay our own money when Dad’s ran out, which would really cut into our plan to retire in key west by age 60. The public schools in our new town kick ass, you’ll be fine.

We ate lunch at a new place. J and H each got pancakes that were amazing. I had to violate my dairy-free lifestyle in order to test them for heat. It took a few bites to make sure they were just right for consumption. H had a pretty huge milk spill. Accidents happen. No nap for J today so he was acting extra insane tonight. After having to tell him five times to brush his teeth and put his jammies on I was at my wits end. Then when he kept putting his nose in my face like he did to mommy that was the last straw. I’m going to head downstairs now and watch “A Star is Born” (Bradley Cooper / Gaga version) with Mom. Sleep tight.

Secret Cookies & Kindergarten

5/2/2019 – Thursday

H successfully avoided his third straight day of getting a time out at school for roughing up his buddy. As J would say, he was being bad H, and we want good H. H woke up when I did at 5:30 this morning. He stayed behind with Mommy for breakfast (toaster waffle with bananas and syrup on top) while I went off to Orange Theory fitness where I managed to not shit my pants.

Mom picked up J at school early so they could go check out his future kindergarten class together. He loved the toy cars selection so it should work out for him. I picked up H at daycare then we met up with Mom and J for dinner while some potential buyers took a tour of the house. H was crying because mommy wasn’t there and he didn’t want to go out to dinner and his foot hurt and he wanted to hold his medicine and he wanted to buckle his self in. That 5:30 wake-up call was biting him in the ass. At dinner H was running around the restaurant like a crazy man. I thought he was trying to find a corner to hide in to take a poop. So I carried him to the bathroom and put him on the potty in hopes of a clean deuce since I didn’t have any extra diapers. Hysterics ensued and there would be no potty poop, luckily there was no poop in diaper either.

I was on solo bedtime duty tonight so mom could get her hair did. Both boys were cray cray after tubby time. I was getting frustrated and starting to lose my patience. I didn’t scare them with any wild outbursts of rage, but H did lose any chance of a treat tomorrow and I pretty much had to hog tie him to get his jammies on. I gave J my phone while I put H to bed. We had a deal to split a cookie together after I got H down. We had just finished our delicious cookie mom brought back from San Diego when H burst into the kitchen, having picked his lock. Luckily he didn’t notice and I told J not to blow our cover. I discreetly wiped up the rainbow sprinkles and H was none the wiser. Sucker! H escaped his room three times before finally settling. I read J Cars 2 for the 3rd time in the last week. His favorite scene is when Mater goes to the Japanese toilet and he acts out like he just took a huge poop. He learned everything he knows from me.

Tubby Time

4/30/19 – Tuesday

It’s 9:09 PM, halftime of the Celtics-Bucks game. Celts trail by four. J is departing my room after a thunder induced visit. There’s a steady rain and the occasional thunder clap, pretty peaceful if you ask me. I’m more worried that he hasn’t pooped since Saturday. Looks like he’s holding in a belly full of shit. I gave the boys tubbies tonight and they were acting insane afterward per usual. The routine at the end of the tubby is they lay down in the tub side by side until the water drains out. Then I restart the water to rinse off the suds by dousing them with water from big bubba keg cup. They like getting their nuts splashed. Then there’s a struggle to see who can be the first one out of the tub, with J winning tonight. I bundle them both up like burritos in their towels, then they run around screaming until the towels fall off. Tonight they were showing off their booties.

Then they were playing their guitars singing a song about cheese and tacos. It took a long time of them not listening to a word I said to finally get them settled. We read The Incredibles and Monsters University from the Disney book in J’s room. I’ve put in a no Cars 2 rule the last couple days because I’m so sick of it. I got H down by sitting cross legged in his room and humming the go to sleep song. Now I’m going to get back to the Celts game.