The Rembrandts - Goodnight

Here's one of those songs that is really cool....and then you have kids it becomes even cooler.

When you need someone, that you can turn to
Honey don't you know-You can turn to me
And if you need a hand, to help you hold on
Honey don't you know-You can hold on me
Because you've given me the moon
Oh of this you're unaware
And you'll be moving on so soon
To the life that's waiting out there
Goodnight my sweet angel-It's time to close your eyes
Goodnight my sweet angel-I'll see you when you rise

Conflict Resolution

I am not good at conflict.  I avoid it whenever I can.  And playing referee when the kids fight is not really a strength of mine.
I seem to have two main strategies:
     1 - yell until both kids are crying.
     2 - ignore it and hope it goes away.  Neither of these seems to work very well.

Option 1 usually leads to all three of us in tears and grumpy with nobody talking to anybody.
Option 2 usually leads to escalating fighting until I resort to option 1.

In this morning's Wii related conflict, magically Option 1 lead to Option 2, which lead to a peaceful and happy resolution.  They are playing together and being nice to each other....and this after I made them both madder when I tried to help and eventually gave up and left them to fight it out.

What does all of this mean?  It means that after nearly 11 years as a dad, I still don't really know what I'm doing.....and I'm wondering if I ever will.  But somehow, it all seems to work out.

The Dad Who Cried Wolf.

I like to be on time.  I have to be on time.  I really do not like being late.  

Back when I worked in an office, if I had a meeting at 9:00, I was always the first person in the room, probably at about 8:45.

Church starts at 8:30 so we get there at about 8:15.

The movie is at 6:30, so we're in the lobby buying our popcorn at 6:10.

I tend to spend my mornings during the school year yelling things like "Hurry up, we're going to be late!" or "Get dressed so we can go!!!!" or the all-time great "I'm leaving in 2 minutes with or without you!!!!  (like I'd ever leave without them....that would make them late.)

In the six years I've been getting my kids ready for school, we've never been late.  We've probably never even been close to being late.  But, none the less, every morning finds me yelling the warnings as if the sky were falling.

And my kids are on to me.

This week my daughter is going to Girl Scout day camp.  We live about a 3 minute drive from the camp and it starts at 9:00.    This morning I yelled kindly urged her to get dressed.  It was 8:20 and we had to leave RIGHT AWAY!  She just mumbled something like "relax dad," and kept watching TV in her PJs.  

She got dressed.  We made it in plenty of time.  The sky didn't fall.  

Passing Time

What in the world did Stay-At-Home parents do all day before Bejeweled Blitz?

Summer Math

The kids are staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house this week so it gave me a chance to get the living room de-toyed.  Under a pile of notebooks, art projects, and random drawings, I found the math workbook I bought for my kids at the beginning of summer.  The plan was to work through it a little each week to keep all the math skills they had learned during the school year from dwindling.  We even took the book on our van ride to Florida in June.  In my head we were going to pass the hours on the road with fun math activities.  Spend fun summer mornings at the kitchen table with story problems.

Looking back, that may have been a bit overly optimistic.  But look at the book cover.  Look how happy those kids are....how much fun they are having.  I assumed it would be like that for us too.

As it is, we're well into August, and the kids have competed exactly two pages each in the math book.  The last page my son did was his 0's and 1's multiplication facts...so basically he can still count to 10.
My intentions were good, but my follow through was a little weak.

Music

I'm questioning what it says about my parenting when my 10 year old daughter is singing with the radio in the car and yells out the phrase "call me up if you a gangsta!"

um....maybe I'll change the station.

Lunch for Breakfast?

My daughter's choice for breakfast today was a Cheese Pizza Lunchable.  I started to tell her to choose something else until I realized my main issue was the word "Lunch" on the box.  How can you have that for breakfast?  Once I got over that, everybody was happy.  I mean, it's probably I step up from the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-tarts she usually has, right?

Staying Home

Today I realized I am giving new meaning to the term "stay-at-home-dad" this summer.
Today, the kids are at Vacation Bible School, while I stay home.
During June and July, the kids had summer school, while I stayed home.
Next week the kids are spending a week with Grandpa and Grandma, while I stay home.

Maybe I need to come up with a new name for what I do.......

"Cab driver" is too obvious.
"Lazy Dad" is too accurate.
"Part-time working-laundry doing-hot dog cooking-lawn mower" doesn't really have a good ring to it.
Maybe I'll go with "Dog watcher".

"Hey Nathan, what are you doing today?"
"Oh, I'm just staying home with the dog.  You know, he may need to go outside and stuff."

I think I'll go with that, unless you have a better suggestion.