Working Late

Today was an almost 12-hour day at work. Although the girls woke up early and I was able to see them today, my son, who appreciates sleep as much as we wish our daughters would, was sleeping when I left and sleeping when I came back home. During the day our son put together two firetruck jigsaw puzzles all by himself and told my wife, "Daddy is going to be so surprised!" I was, but I didn't get to show him or tell him. I realize that at this point I don't have to work this late with great frequency and that missing this moment with my son isn't that big of a deal right now, but that frequency will likely increase and these opportunities will likely decrease when I move to the firm next year. I worked for two years at a law firm prior to law school, then again each summer during law school. One trend I've noticed among lawyers is that they get into the habit of working late, sleeping in the next morning, and coming in late. Is there much an associate can do when that is their partner's habit? On the other hand, my judge is always at work very early in the morning and is able to leave early and spend a great deal of time with his family. I hope that that is the habit I develop while working with him and continue to maintain at the firm so that missing these moments is still the exception rather than the rule.

Charlie Brown's Disease

We've been living in a dream world until now. Once children reach a certain age their ears tend to become infected with a common disease that lasts until they have children of their own. I think it's called Charlie Brown's disease, because all they can hear when adults speak is "wah wah wah wah." We took every precaution we could, and our son was able to keep it somewhat at bay until he turned four. Perhaps a part of it is that he has a bad cold, but no matter how many times my wife and I asked him to cover his cough, our request went unacknowledged.  Our daughter, on the other hand, was more susceptible to it. She succumbed to the disease at age two. We also have a nine-month old, and prospects aren't looking up.

To our children's credit, they spend seven hours in the car driving home from Thanksgiving vacation. They also had to deal with tired, inattentive parents once we got home. They are all sick. Finally, we are all dealing with the end of vacation blues and hanging on to the fun memories of the past week with our family and sweets.

The Cycle of Sickness

Our son is pretty sick, so we're postponing our trip back back to DC from visiting family at Thanksgiving.  On the one hand that gives us more time with our family.  On the other hand, that also means another day of missing work due to illness. I'm beginning to wonder if life will ever be normal again.  I think that at least one person in our family has been sick since at least 2006 when we first let people touch our newborn son.  Since then, it has been transfered to my wife and me, then back to him.  As more kids came, the cycle became a little longer--there are now two more kids for the sickness to travel through.  Most recently, it was transfered back to him from his baby sister.  Medicine does not break the cycle.  One possible solution is to have more kids so that it takes longer for the sickness to get back to me.  Just kidding.  The cycle doesn't really go in order.  It is as unpredictable as a $.25 rubber ball that has been hurled against a random wall in a pitch black room.  As my older brother and I learned as boys, it is uncertain where it will ricochet next, but it is certain to hit you at some point.  Moreover, the end of one person's illness typically overlaps with the beginning of the next person's illness, meaning that even when I am well there are kids needing 24-hour attention and sometimes I have to take the night shift.  I'm currently in the market for other solutions.

Vacation Victory

One of the challenges of vacation is coordinating efforts between two full-time parents.  You'd think it's easier with two parents home all day.  If so, you would be wrong.  The minute one parent sees the other he or she immediately thinks, "Freedom!"  Obviously, both parents can't be free of responsibility at the same time, nor can one parent shoulder all of the burden.  It is neither fair for the mom to have the dad take his turn as the stay-at-home parent nor for the dad to expect to be uninvolved for eight hours as if it were a regular work day.  Figuring this out took up the first day of our vacation.  Once we did, we felt that each day was victorious.  We had a game plan that allowed us to enjoy our extended family, our kids, and each other each day.  At the end of each day, we felt we'd achieved an important victory.  Miraculously, our vacation on the road was relatively stress free and a lot of fun.

Courage

Our son has been more mouthy than usual on this vacation, probably because he is with other kids and they  get pretty worked up when they play together.  We asked him about it tonight, and he knew it was wrong but said, "But I just want to be like other kids."  He's four, so I don't think he said that out of a deep sense of insecurity; rather, it was probably that other kids seem to have more fun than we apparently let him have at home.  Either way, I cannot stop thinking about how to help him feel confident enough in himself that he will do the right thing regardless of what other kids do.  Lately, he has also been excited about warriors, knights, superheroes, firemen, policemen, etc.  He thinks they are brave and courageous.  He's even asked what courage means.  We've tried to take advantage of his questions about these heroes to explain that courage means doing what is right even when its hard and you are alone in doing it.  He displays courage often, and we also try to point that out whenever we see it.  At some point, however, we know that he will really need to choose for himself, and he can only do that when he really feels it is right.

Since starting this post, I realized that my son shows courage by simply loving other kids for who they are and withholding judgment, something he did not learn from his father.  I tried to follow his lead tonight by inviting one of the more rowdy kids to join us for bedtime stories.  The more I tried to treat him with love, the more I loved about him.  To modify my earlier definition of courage, it means to do what is right but also to withhold improper judgment.  I guess I have some work to do too.

Thankful for Dishes

Our Thanksgiving traditions are not unlike those found in many other homes.  We go around the table and say what we are thankful for.  It is a wonderful tradition; however, I feel a little guilty about what went through my head as my turn was coming up.  You see, I can't cook, so I played with the kids while my wife, mother, and sisters made our Thanksgiving dinner.  So, when everyone was talking about what they were grateful for, I was thinking about how tired I was.  I was tempted to say, "I am thankful that I get to do dishes after dinner because I need a break."  But I said something more appropriate instead--I am thankful for my angel wife.  Not only is she my best friend, but she is also much stronger than I am.  It is a mystery to me how she can care for three kids every day, keep our home, and, hardest of all, take care of me.  And for the record, I am extremely grateful for my kids.  Part of the reason for this blog is to help me evaluate and improve myself as a corporate dad so that I can be the kind of dad my kids deserve and need.

Playing With Toy Guns

I've always wondered what I would do when my son began to want to play with toy guns.  We've never had toy guns, but we knew he would eventually be introduced to them through some friend or relative.  The truth is toy guns was always fun for me growing up, but I've also seen other kid take it too far.  After all, kids are now playing realistic and violent video games and grow up enjoying violence.  So, when his cousin introduced him to playing guns today, I was presented with three options: (1) tell him "no guns" while his cousin played on, (2) let him just play and learn his cousin's rules, or (3) teach him my rules by playing with them.  Option 3 is the best method.  It is the only kind of lecture I know that always sinks in.

Nasal Catheters

Since the beginning of flu season, noses have not stopped running in our house. After flying through boxes of tissues, waking up with babies who can't suck their thumbs and breath at the same time, and scraping plaster off of morning faces, I've come to the conclusion that someone needs to manufacture nasal catheters for home use.

Time-Out for Daddy

Perhaps one of the most important things I've ever done as a father was to put myself in time-out. As our bedtime routine was coming to an end, so was my patience. Apart from what I posted about a baby screaming all night long, the second most frustrating thing in the world is repeating my children's names without any response despite the fact they are mere feet away from me. But putting myself in time-out really got their attention. I stepped back to a corner of the room, folded my arms, looked up to the ceiling, let out a huge "I can't believe I'm doing this" sigh, and counted to ten. The kids were mesmerized and their faces reflected a combination of "this is funny" and "I can't believe my eyes." Seeing their faces was so funny to me that I started laughing before I got to ten. I came back to the kids, gave them hugs, and said, "Wow! It really does work. I feel better already."

Talking It Up

One way to get our son to get ready for church is to remind him that the Primary would sing a special song to him and give him a treat. The plan came at a cost, because right before Primary he refused to go.  He no longer wanted them to sing to him.  But we eventually persuaded him to go.  Our talking up the special Primary birthday treatment stirred up so much anticipation that when the Primary began to sing our son began to scream and my wife had to take him out into the hallway.   Interestingly, he gave a talk in church a few weeks ago, really just a line as part of a Primary program.  He worked so hard to memorize it and delivered it well.  I was somewhat surprised how confident he was, knowing that he usually gets embarrassed.  I think the reason is that we talked to him about it matter-of-factly and didn't make a big deal of it.  I think because we didn't talk it up so much, he didn't get too nervous or anxious about it.  I think we're coming to realize that the expectations of a child are very fragile things. In our case, it seems to foster confidence in our son to treat big deals as small and small ones as big.

As Deep As A Stack of Pancakes

This morning I came downstairs to see that my wife had made pancakes. Somehow, while still sick and sleep-deprived, she managed to wake up early with the kids, feed them, and let me sleep in. But there was still a stack of pancakes for me. No sooner had I sat down to eat, then my little girl came up to me, looked at me with her big brown eyes, held out her arms, and said, "Daddy Daddy." My wife clued me in that my little girl wanted to sit on my lap while I ate. I looked at my little girl and said, "I'm sorry sweetie. I can't eat and hold you at the same time." Then tears welled up in her eyes, and she began to cry. I couldn't resist; I gave in. She sat sweetly on my lap as I ate pancake after pancake until there were only two left.  As soon as I started on the next pancake, quick as a flash she snatched the last one, ate it, and hopped off of my lap. It finally dawned on me that I had been charmed by a master con artist. She loves me, I know, but apparently her love for me is only as deep as a stack of pancakes sometimes. At least she took my dishes back to the sink for me.

Topping the Frustration Chart is . . .

The spell of our little baby girl's charm was broken last night as I went from a concerned parent trying to help my sick little girl fall asleep at night to a deeply frustrated parent ready to set the screaming baby down, pop in some ear plugs, and try to get some sleep during the early morning hours. Thankfully, my wife (who was also sick) took over early in the morning and our baby girl finally ran out of screams. I've experienced many frustrating things in my life, but nothing comes close to staying up with a baby who will not stop screaming and crying.

By the way, we found out she has an sinus infection and were able to get her some medicine. Right now, she is sleeping pretty soundly. Hopefully, we won't hear from her again until noon tomorrow.

Don't Try Too Hard

Perhaps it's my law degree, or perhaps it's my personality, but I'm very cautious about what I say, almost to the point of being insecure. At home, that often translates into trying too hard to not to say things that would hurt my kids' feelings or trying too hard to compliment them. This complex is compounded by the fact that I feel a little guilty that I only see them a few hours each night. Interestingly, because they are treated with an excess of caution, they respond with an excess of sensitivity. It could be that my mind was so caught up in an opinion I need to finish drafting for the judge, but I wasn't making my typically excessive effort to be sensitive to my kids' feelings today. In fact, I sometimes forgot they were kids and spoke to them like I would to my wife. The result, I'm surprised to say, was that they weren't overly sensitive to the things that I said and they responded more, dare I say, maturely.

Child Conspirators

There are days when the kids seem to conspire against me. I picture them tapping Morse Code through the wall between their room at night, planning to spend the next day driving me crazy by doing everything I've repeatedly asked them not to do. Our son conspired to wiggle around in his seat during dinner and spill food on the floor. Our little girl conspired to wrestle with our son whenever we were trying to get his attention. Not wanting to be left out, our baby girl conspired to swat at everything that came near her, including toys, food, and faces. Then again, I'm sure they feel the same way about me sometimes, that I must have decided the night before to be bossy and impatient the next day. Whatever happened earlier in the evening, we were able to put it behind us by wrestling before bed.