Category: Life

Missing My Wife When The Crisis Strikes

B, Fatherhood, JSL, Life, Sick

I’m a confident father who is ready for whatever life can throw at me.  If my wife wants to go to a family event, blogging conference, or anything else, I’m more than happy to watch the kids solo.  Most times, it’s father-son-son bonding time.  Fun times at the park, going out to eat, or just hanging around watching TV.  These things I can more than handle.  I live for these moments.  However, when something doesn’t go right, though, I feel my wife’s absence.

Don’t get me wrong.  I miss her when everything’s running smoothly.  It’s just that, when things are going well, everything’s going according to plan.  I’m comfortable on-plan.  The boys are having fun, B’s having some much-deserved time off, and I’m getting extra bonding time.  It’s win-win-win-win.  When bad things start to happen, though, I miss her insights into what we should do as well as her assistance in handling matters.  I just don’t feel as sure of myself when flying solo.

On Friday, B left for a family function.  That night, after going to sleep, JSL woke up with a coughing fit.  It sounded like he was congested and having trouble breathing.  I tried getting him to settle, but it wasn’t happening so I pulled him into my bed.  Usually, this helps him breathe better since his head will be elevated more.  It didn’t seem to help much, though.  I was up half the night with him.

The next night, after talking with B on the phone, I tried to get JSL to drink some liquid children’s Mucinex.  Now, JSL is afraid of taking this medicine.  He’s afraid it’ll make him puke.  He’s so afraid that he gets himself all worked up and… you guessed it.  He puked.  All over the hard wood floor and carpet (and again in the tub.  Somehow, he missed most of his clothes.

At this point, he was not only sick, but overtired.  There was obviously no way he would take his medicine.  Normally, I would change him and then B would stay with the boys while they fell asleep and while I cleaned up the mess.  Instead, I needed to stay with them.  I tried cleaning up the hard wood floor’s mess while asking NHL to get JSL in his pajamas, but that only resulted in NHL laughing at JSL’s shirt being on backwards.  *sigh*  Over I went, corrected the error, got the boys ready for bed (teeth brushed and gone potty), and asleep.  Then, I cleaned the floor and rug.  Then, I cleaned the tub out and reexamined JSL’s clothes just to be sure.

I’m so glad that B’s home again!

The Legacy of Steve Jobs

Life, Technology

I was going to write a review post today, but that will need to wait for next week.  Last night, I got the news that Steve Jobs passed away.  While I might not own any Apple devices (B has an iPod Touch that her parents gave her when they didn’t use it anymore), Steve changed the way I use computers many times.  He designed computers with graphical interfaces when needed to type in commands.  He saw a future in computer animated films and helped make Pixar what it is today.  He saw a digital future for music and pushed the music industry towards this future at a time when illegal file sharing was seen by the industry as pushing them to ruin.  He innovated in smart phones, tablet computers and many other areas.

Steve wasn’t just a technologist, though.  He had some pretty wonderful views on life in general.  Here are some quotes from a commencement speech that he gave in Stanford in June of 2005.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

 

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Of course, for full effect, don’t just read his words, but watch and listen to them too.

Rest in Peace, Steve.  You will be remembered for changing the world for the better.

Just Call Me Type AB TechyDad

Life, NHL

During the recent open house at NHL’s school, we spoke with his teacher.  During the conversation, she urged B to relax about some things, saying it is under control.  B admitted to being quite a Type A personality.  That got me wondering: What type personality am I?

In most respects, I’m a Type B.  I’m laid back and am willing to let things happen.  I’ll take action when I need to, but I try to stay calm about it.  Perhaps this is my mother’s influence (she always told me not to “rock the boat”) or perhaps this is the result of being bullied growing up (staying unemotional was a way of protecting myself).  In any event, I’m willing to just accept what happens and make the best of it.

This aspect of my personality makes completing projects difficult.  I find myself relaxing about deadlines and putting off important work to relax with video games.  I often-times need a Type A personality pushing me to move past the deadline.

On the other hand, I can be very Type A at times.  I don’t like going out without some sort of plan as to what we’re doing.  Just “seeing what happens” isn’t my kind of outing.  I might not plan out every second of the excursion, but I’ll want to know the basics.  Furthermore, once I have a schedule of events in mind, I’m very resistant to changing it.  When Irene threatened to ruin our Disney World trip, I clung to the schedule up until the last moment.

With projects, my Type A personality kicks in during the middle of a project that I love.  I begin to chart out every aspect of the project, assign an estimate for completion and plan my work over the course of the next week or so.  I’ll spend hours coding one little feature because it needs to be perfect.

I can see the buds of this duality in NHL.  He’ll be very laid back about some topics, not particularly caring when (or if) something gets done.  Suddenly, though, Type A NHL will kick in and he’ll obsess over whether something is perfect or exactly when something will be done.

Of course, at this stage of his development, it’s quite clear where the A-B line is.  If you ask him to do something, it gets put into the B bucket.  Clean the toys on the floor?  Sure, that’ll happen.  Eventually.  (Maybe.)  Meanwhile, if it is something that he wants, into the A bucket it goes.  What TV show is on right now?  Sorry, mom and dad, but right now Looney Tunes Show is on and it’s a new show and I’ve got to see it right now and I know it’s being recorded on the DVR but it’s ON RIGHT NOW DON’T CHANGE THAT CHANNEL!!!!!!  (insert Stabby Face ala The Animated Woman.)

I guess, as NHL grows, I’ll be getting a taste of my own Type AB medicine.

Temper, Temper

Emotions, Fatherhood, Life, Parenting, Temper

Most people who know me would say that I’m very even tempered.  Perhaps to a fault, even.  I can take abuse after abuse and keep my calm while trying to resolve the situation.  Indeed, if we’re ever in a situation where we need an even head, I’m the person who makes the call.  When we need someone to be forceful and perhaps even raise their voice a bit, B handles it.  (See?  We compliment each other’s talents nicely!)

However, I have a confession to make.  I actually have a very bad temper.  A horrible one, in fact.  The problem is, my temper doesn’t usually flare against people unless they are very close to me.

Growing up, I was bullied mercilessly, but I rarely lost my temper.  Meanwhile, my sister could make me blow my top with a single word or action.  She was so good at it that she made it into an art form.  She would do something to me designed to make me lose my temper.  I would blow my top and get physical (e.g. push her down).  She would cry to my parents.  They would see her down and me standing over her and I would get punished.  At the time, I thought it was horribly unfair.  It still is, but I understand it more now that I’m a parent.  When you have 2 kids with conflicting stories as to what happened, the best you can do is rely on what you have seen occur.

Later, my sister got married and moved out.  My father became the person who pushed my buttons.  In this case, he didn’t mean to do so.  It was just that I was living back at home after the freedom of college and was having trouble following the “it’s my house, you’ll do it this way” rules.  So we’d fight (verbally, rarely physically), not talk to each other for a week and then (spurred on by my mother who hates conflict) would make up just in time for the next fight to begin.

Once I moved away from my parents, we got along much better.  He’ll still get on my nerves from time to time, but not to the “I’m not talking to you for a week” level.  Now, the people close to me are my wife and my kids.

I’ve written before about how I get quiet during arguments with B.  This is primarily because of my temper.  If I talk while I’m upset and my temper flares, I’m likely to make sweeping generalizing statements that are highly hurtful and not true at all.  This will not only hurt my case (nothing shatters your argument more than a poorly thought out personal attack), but will hurt B’s feelings.  While it might feel better in the short term to rant and rave rather than hold back, it’s better in the long term to calm down before discussing sensitive topics.

That leaves the kids.  Ideally, I’d like to say that I keep an even temper at all times and never yell.  This isn’t an ideal world, though.  I try to keep an even temper and not yell, but lately it seems like the boys have conspired to push my temper to the brink.

First, NHL will refuse to do what we tell him to do and insist that things have to be done the way he wants them done, WHEN he wants them done.  Then, JSL, having just seen his brother get in trouble, will repeat his brother’s actions perfectly.  NHL will yell and scream while JSL will make mocking faces.  My blood starts to boil as I raise my voice telling them to behave.  Finally, I’m yelling outright at them and sending them to their room.

When they’re in their room and I’m calming down, I’ll get hit by a streak of guilt.  They’re testing boundaries and need to be given firm reminders of what is and isn’t appropriate, but I feel awful when I yell at them.  I *want* to be the fun loving parent who plays with them all the time and has a blast.  I don’t want to be the rule-setting parent who comes down hard on them if they decide to scream and try to run away from us in the middle of a store.  However, I have to be both.  It’s a tricky line to walk sometimes.

I definitely have room for improvement in not letting my temper get the best of me.  I’ve had success in the past with the “repeating things three times” method.  (Tell them once.  Say “Second time… [repeated message].”  Then say “THIRD TIME! [repeated message]. Do NOT make me repeat myself AGAIN!”)  I need to force myself to rely on methods like that more than yelling.

Do you ever find yourself losing your temper with your children?  What do you do when this happens?

The Harsh Reality of Grown Up Expenses

Life, Money

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to be a grown up.  I remember, back when I was a child, “expenses” was a fancy word which my dad might use to tell me why they couldn’t afford to buy me that new toy that I wanted (after I had gotten tired of the other once-new toys I had).  Money was a boring subject which only got interesting when you found some on the sidewalk.  As an added bonus, the perspective of monetary value was all skewed.  That’s a fancy way of saying that I thought I was rich when I found $10 on the ground.

As I got older, I began to understand more and more what money was and how important it could be.  To some degree, I was still protected from the harsh realities.  My parents paid the bulk of my tuition and other assorted costs.  The rest were paid by loans.  Oh sure, I’d need to pay those back, but to a college student, paying by loan (which wouldn’t need to even start being repaid until you graduated) was essentially the same as free.

Once I graduated, I decided to get a job.  This wasn’t so much because I needed the money, mind you, as because I wanted to accomplish something.  I had decided against graduate school because that seemed like more theoretical work and I wanted to make stuff.  Meanwhile, having left the college dorms behind, I moved back in with my parents.  Yes, I bought a car and thus had payments to make, but the lack of rent, repair costs and more kept me from feeling the harsh sting of reality.

Still later, I got married and B and I lived in an apartment.  I was finally in The Real World.  We made rent payments, paid our phone and cable bills and made sure all the other expenses were taken care of.  I saw that splurging on something for me made a dent in our saving account balance and so I tried to rein in my urge to splurge.

When we had NHL, of course, the expenses multiplied.  Suddenly, there was this little guy who almost literally ate money.  We needed money for clothes for him (which he went through all too quickly), money for diapers for him (which he’d fill up for us), and, once he began eating solid foods, money for food for him.

Next, we moved into a house.  This was the American Dream, right?  Own your own house?  Well, at times the Dream seemed more like a Nightmare.  Some days, it felt like everything in the house gathered in a great big conga-line waiting for its turn to break.  It felt like money went out for repair costs as fast as it came in.  Add in a second child and I often felt like I was running on a monetary treadmill.  One that someone turned up to level 20.  Jane!  Stop this crazy thing!

Why the sudden interest in money?  Well, as you know, we booked a trip to Disney World for just the two of us.  This is a splurge for us as our usual “time to ourselves” is a meal out (preferably someplace we have a coupon for) while B’s parents watch the kids.  Still, it’s our 10th anniversary so we figured we’d do something special.  Considering that our honeymoon was also in Disney World, this will, in some ways, be a second honeymoon for us.

Still, once the trip was booked, that conga-line marched on.  First, our bedroom TV went dead.  This was an old, CRT, non-HD television so it was bound to die eventually.  I lugged it downstairs and brought in a spare TV we had.  (Also, an old CRT, non-HD set.)  Except, that set was dead too.  So we had to buy a new TV.

Then, last night as I was shutting down and preparing to go to sleep, I tried to close my laptop.  I felt something odd, like it was snapping in two.  Alarmed, I opened it up and saw that it was coming apart.  Panicked, I booted it back up.  Luckily, it still worked.  I just couldn’t close the lid.  So I backed up my laptop, shut it down, and carefully put it to the side.  Now, I need to find a place to repair it and hope it doesn’t cost too much.  If it does, it might be cheaper to just buy a new laptop.  Either way, it’s another expense that we really didn’t need.

Some days, being an adult is overrated.  Can I go back to being a kid again?  Maybe just for a day?

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