MenGetPregnantToo

Routines are Important for Families; So is Breaking Them.

 

1976: Nadia Comaneci earns seven perfect scores for her routines.
2009: The routine flight of US Airways 1549 becomes "The Miracle on the Hudson".
2012: My family and I feel the blues, perhaps because life has become too routine.

One of the great tenets of child-rearing is the importance of sticking to a routine:
- Get them to bed early, even while on vacation: it'll be easier to re-establish a routine for the school year.
- A calming bedtime time routine will facilitate getting them to sleep.
- Routinely insisting on proper eating habits will result in healthier children.

It's all true. Children do respond well to routine. Routine also makes it easier for a parent to not only manage their family's time, but their own as well.
Until routine becomes monotony.

Yesterday, we all felt it, but my son was the first to vocalize it:
"Dad, when are we going to do something different?"
"What do you mean?"
"Everyday it's the same thing: get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, go to school, come home, do my homework, eat supper, go to bed...I'm bored."

I tried to point out the diversions in the monotony: playing outside, crafts, after-school activities, tobogganing or skating on the weekend - but to no avail.
It could be a seasonal reaction. In Montreal, this can be a depressing time of year: days are short, the weather is cold and cloudy, the holidays are over, and January seems very long.
Even the activities we partake in aren't so much a distraction, but a necessity.
Not skating, or sliding, or building a snow-fort during the winter months would be nearly illegal in these parts, if not downright cruel.

Photo Credit

And so it goes.
Often, solutions can be gleaned from the smallest changes, which is how I intend to approach the problem.
Today will be 'Get Your Hands Dirty' day: I'm going to throw a large cloth over our dining room table, and pull out the paint, paint brushes, old t-shirts, Playdough, modelling clay and chalk, and let them have at it. Once that's done, I think we'll make homemade pizza for supper. It'll be havoc, and clean-up may be a scene from Les Misérables, but it will be a different kind of misery.
It's not much, but it's the best I can come up with,short of an unaffordable family trip to the Von Trapp residence.

 After that, it will be bath, then bed, then wake, then school, then February, then March, then the warmth of summer, then college, marriage, houses of their own, and my wife and I waiting for the grandkids to visit. It will all fly by, I know.
That's why, today, I will focus simply on all of us getting our hands dirty.
After all, without hands tumbled into a vat of chalk, 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci might not have had sufficient grip, and may never have show us her perfect routine.

 

 

 

7 and 4-Year-Olds are Worlds Apart. Want Proof? Watch Star Trek with Them.

The cat is out of the bag. I'm a Trekker. Or, at least, I was until eighteen years ago when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" went off the air. Since then, I've been just an average guy, contributing to a society without a solid Star Trek franchise, like a man in a science fiction witness protection program.
Fortunately, there has been some form of bizarre genealogical trickledown effect; my kids enjoy reruns of STNG on DVD. Granted, I only own one season (no, it's not worth my time, money, or freedom purchasing additional seasons or downloading them online), and within that season there are only one or two episodes to which I would assign a 'G' rating. This means we generally watch the same episode at each viewing.
 
It has been at least a year since my kids and I shared "Timescape".
Yesterday evening I sat, sandwiched between them, sharing popcorn, boldly going where no one had gone before.
The Boy - age 7 - has gained enough awareness of reality and science that plot holes are starting to bother him, and he can't help but point them out - ad nauseum.
The Girl - age 4 - has matured enough intellectually to find certain concepts and characters more frightening than she did one year ago. She has a more well developed sense of good and evil (Starfleet officers vs Romulans...boy, I already feel like a loser and I'm barely two-hundred words into the blog-post. Well, waddaya gonna do? It's the web; surf away.)
I imagined their 'maturation' resulting in closer bonds being formed over material more suited to both adults and children; more live-action, less Disney.
Instead the consequences are: more questions, and more talking. Lots of questions from The Girl; non-stop observations from The Boy.

He seemed focused on the unrealistically large inner space of the Runabout (shuttle craft) in which four of the crew members were flying.
The exterior shots of the tiny ship suggested one or two rooms only, yet, throughout the episode, the crew darts from room to room as through running through Versailles.
He pointed out this flaw every time Picard, Troy, Geordie or Data walked through the sliding doors from one part of the shuttle to another.

She was becoming not only fearful of the aggressive creatures inhabiting the bodies of certain Romulans, but she was also more frustrated this time by her own inability to grasp certain concepts: fractures in the space/time continuum, tears in space, the acceleration of growth and aging when in contact with unstable timeframe...you know, the usual stuff I hoped they would cover in pre-school.

The result of this, is little voices ping-ponging in my ear for 45 minutes:
- "How big is this ship, anyway?"
- "How come he screamed when he reached for the bowl of rotten fruit?"
- "Come on! Really! How big is this ship!?"
- "How come he's hold his head going 'No, no, no?'" (Here I tried my best to explainto my daughter the failure of the protective force-field jury-rigged by Geordie...but alas, she didn't quite get it.)
- "OK! Seriously! The ship is so small from the outside, how do they keep finding a different room?!?!"
- "Is he dead? Did she hurt him?" (No, I said, Troy just removed the skin-tight protective force-field in order that he, too, be frozen in time with the hopes they can revive him in his actual time frame and heal the wound he received from the alien inhabiting the Romulan.)
- "This is silly. I mean, look how big the other ship is compared to their little ship. The little ship is, like, the size of my room, and my room has just one room!"
- "Are the Romulans bad guys? Are they trying to hurt them?" (No, well, yes, Romulans are usually bad guys, but in this episode the Romulans are good guys....except for those three Romulans, who aren't really Romulans, but aliens appearing as Romulans in order to rescue their young trapped in the Romulan warp core.)...

For the love of Gene Rodenberry...when's bedtime???

It used to be, I would sit with them in silence, put them to bed, and clean up their popcorn.
But: they ain't babies no more, and the evil Romulan ain't no Little Mermaid...

When I wished they would grow out of that baby stage, I should have been more careful...maybe, if I can create a small tear in the space-time continuum......

 

Don't Worry, Son. One Day 'Daddy' Will be in the Header, Too.

A number of years ago, our local paper included a 'Women' section.
I was young enough the concept of male sexism needed to be explained to me. I learned that, without this section, many issues facing women would be excluded, or buried deep within the paper, due to a male-centric sense of what was important.

Years later, the section disappeared. By then I had gained enough wisdom to understand why: the solution to a lack of female-centric content was not to devote a section to the issue, but rather to hire many intelligent, well-read women into the roles of editors and writers, and include their opinions as part of the paper's overall content. It was not a question of wanting special treatment, but of equality.

January 25th, 2012:

Scanning the home pages of the Top 10 Parenting Magazines, according to AllYouCanRead.com, the following headers can be found (among others not pertaining to humans):

Babies, Toddlers & Pre-Schoolers, Big Kids, Parenting, Pregnancy, Motherhood, Baby, Toddler, Child, Mom, and  - from one not included in the Top 10 List, but popular nonetheless: Being a Mom.
I found no: Dad, Father, Fatherhood....anyway, you understand my point.

I will not for a moment suggest men have achieved equal footing as it pertains to parenting; I know too many men to argue that point. But, for those (of us) who look for answers and community support from our peers as it relates to the  stress, emotion, expectations, and  multi-tasking which are synonymous with a hands-on, stay-at-home, or working father; it might be time for our own section.

 

Fatigue Makes for Impatient Parenting; But Getting to Bed Early Would be Too Easy.

One lesson I keep trying to teach myself is: a couple of extra minutes spent with my children can improve the moods of everyone involved. Especially when I'm sleep deprived.

My son discovered my old Palm Pilot yesterday. "Where's the pen that goes with it?" he asked.
"Give me a minute." I answered.
"How do you type on it; where's the keyboard?" he persisted.
"I said, give me a minute, please." I deflected as I futzed with my laptop.
"How do you turn it off?" he continued.
Then I lost it: "Can I PLEASE have 5 minutes to finish what I'm trying to do here?! I'll be with you in a second!"

It worked, for two of the five minutes, but it is definitely not the type of positive interaction a family needs twenty minutes before supper (or any other time for that matter).
Granted, these exchanges are typical of any family wrestling to balance their individual needs with those who depend on them. There isn't a day in the week when a parent doesn't ask their child to 'give me a minute.'
We're always looking for minutes; we're always fighting for space; we're always mommy and daddy.
The difference between how short my fuse is can be directly related to a number of factors, i.e.: how much bickering there has been between my kids throughout the day, how much have I accomplished of what was important to get done, but, most important: how tired am I?

Diffusable Alarm Clock by Project Lab

My alarm sounds at 6:30 on weekdays; my son has to be at school by 8. The kids sleep perfectly though the night. This means: if I turn out my light by 10:00, I am guaranteed eight-and-a-half hours of sleep. With that I feel (mostly) refreshed, and much more able to cope with the general tumult which is synonymous with suppertime in our home.
The kids are asleep by eight, which leaves my wife and I two hours of adult time in a quiet house.
Until you do the math.

Even after the kids go to bed, there is still generally some finessing to do: finish his lunch, finish the clean-up, and transfer some laundry from the washer to the dryer, tidy the play area. Let's assume this is done by 8:15: seventy-five minutes before lights-out.
I cannot shift directly from adult-time in the living room to lights-out in the bedroom. I like to read before bed; not to mention usual bedtime grooming.
This means beginning that final stage circa 9:30 or 9:45.
An hour or an hour-and-a-half of childlessness is not enough.

Paul Simon wrote the Sound of Silence for a reason. Silence is golden. I feel myself decompress; that time allows my wife and I to have adult conversations - both as they pertain to our children, and to less important chit-chat which is healthy for any relationship - as well as time not talking together, simply sitting side-by-side staring at some form of useless entertainment.
Despite that, it is not generally difficult to convince one another an early bedtime is sensible; we're generally wiped-out.

The real problem is me, when I'm alone. This is when I'm really selfish. 9:00 movies, playoff football on the PVR, staying up for the big reveal on the reality show which I never planned on watching in the first place. I am selfish with this time, and I have no discipline.
So what?
The answer to 'so what' comes every morning at 6:30. There is not one morning when, upon waking, I don't promise myself I will get to bed early that evening...until that evening arrives, and I over-indulge in alone time.

Therapists always say: if it's important enough to you, you make the effort. Obviously, whatever walls I climb at suppertime are not high enough to scare me into falling into bed early that evening. What I am trying to do is to be more aware of my fatigue, as well as to take those extra five minutes to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with my kids, showing them how the Palm Pilot works. Then, maybe, they'll occupy themselves for a while, while I tend to their sustenance in the kitchen.

Until, as the therapists say, it becomes important enough for me to regress to the bedtime I had as an 11-year-old, the balance will have to be struck between a few more minute listening to my kids, a few less in REM sleep, and a greater awareness I am the cause of my own impatience.

 

What is it About Making School Lunches that Drives Me Nuts?!

For Christmas, cook for 15 guests; no problem.
One week prior to Christmas, host a 5 - 7 for 13 neighbors; bring it on.
Having to roll a tuna wrap, cut a few slices of red pepper, and fetch a serving of apple sauce from the pantry? Exhausting!
I don't know why.

How can I compete with this?!

My day today:

•    Feed my son, get him dressed, bring him to school. My daughter has pre-school in the morning on Mondays, so my responsibilities towards her are similar, only she begins thirty minutes later than my      son, so the whole routine is staggered.
•    Write this post.
•    Shower, shave, and iron today's clothes (since I'm too lazy to hang them and fold them neatly in the first place).
•    Head to Staples to pick up self-address labels.
•    Attend a meeting downtown.
•    Pick up something for supper (nothing too salty, my dad is coming over; he'll say something about the salt).
•    Fetch my son at 2:20.
•    Help my son with his homework while both kids demand snack (despite the fact that, since she takes two hours to finish a meal, The Girl will have probably just finished lunch) and listen to my daughter      whine that I won't let her watch TV while The Boy does homework.
•    Meet with the Hunter Douglas rep to discuss what compensation I probably won't get for incorrectly installed blinds.
•    Make supper (I'm thinking roast chicken and sweet potato - though it rates fairly high on the clean-up scale, that's compensated for by easy prep, decent nutrition, and low salt) for the kids and my dad      (my wife will be at the office).
•    Clean up.
•    Get the kids to bed.
•    Clean up.
•    and then.......make ONE lunch.

The part of the day I'm looking forward to least is making that %#^&* lunch.
What's with that?

I think a lot of it has to do with routine; like a smoker; like me with potato chips while watching television. There are certain moments which trigger relaxation, and the routine in those moments is important for a healthy human psyche.
For me, once the kitchen is clean from supper (something I generally try to do right after the meal while the kids have a dance party in the living room, or kill each other in the hallway, depends on the day), the house is tidied of the day's toy regurgitation, and the kids are in bed, I feel a wave of relaxation. Let MY time begin. I literally feel a physical sense of peace flow over me; my body recognizes the end of my duties towards other people.

Except for that %#^&* lunch.

Would a TV Dinner be so bad?

Sometimes, I'll be so desperate to do nothing, I'll postpone lunch preparation until the following morning; big mistake. I've learned denying myself a slow coffee in the morning is worse than delaying the gratification of evening peace.
It never takes more than fifteen full minutes, generally, with clean up included. But, it goes against the wave of routine my body yearns for. The thousand-and-one decisions I make during the day carry less weight than ensuring at least three of the five food groups are packed into a plasti-vinyl lunch box: chop the fruit, chop a veggie, where are the darn Tupperware lids???, he didn't like last night's supper, should I sneak him leftovers anyway since I won’t be around to hear him complain?...he won't die of starvation, right? Where are the %#$% Tupperware lids?!?!?

Laughably, once I'm done, I'm always relieved by a) how little trouble it really was, and b) how glad I am I didn't leave it until morning.

When will I learn?
I suppose the feeling will gradually recede, like facing your fear of flying by travelling by plane as often as possible.
I'd better deal with it before September, however: my daughter starts kindergarten in September. That means two lunches instead of one. Maybe, like the mass production principle, the second lunch won't require as much effort as the first? Maybe, by then, I'll be less bothered by The Big Bad Lunch.

Come to think of it, my inability to accept the BBL (Big Bad Lunch) as part of my routine is very similar to my inability to get myself to sleep early, despite promising myself exactly that every time the alarm goes off in the morning...well, look at that...my next blog topic!

 

Here are some School Lunch Ideas

Perhaps - As Infants Do - We All Need Our Heads Supported.

He's about four feet tall, weighs slightly more than fifty pounds, and is at the limit of what can be referred to as comfortable when I cradle him as I did seven years ago.
But, I can still feel my son relax in my arms, his head in the crook of my elbow, as I carry him downstairs to his bedroom.

My neighbors' new son is nearly one month old. Holding him the other day naturally brought back memories of my own children at that delicate stage: soft bones, unfocused eyes, twitching muscles, and a steady flow of warmth radiating through his onesie. 

Photo Credit
After seven years, my son has begun to assert his individuality. With more frequency he insists on creating -  and seeing through to completion - projects of his own. His has filled a box with his own office supplies: Post-Its, a stapler, hole puncher, pencils, pens, erasers, sticky tack, and a plethora of other provisions. He has become more insistent and objectionable concerning what he should be allowed to hoard, and what he no longer has any use for.
He is no longer memorized by pre-school programming; there is no more mystery to behold in mundane objects such as coffee percolators and garage door openers.
He's growing up.

But, as the day ends and his courage is weakened by fatigue, he expresses only a muted defiance, in the form of a petulant whimper , when I scoop him up like a baby to carry him to bed.
I believe this is a metaphor for us all. We grow brave and distant because the adult world necessitates it. But we all have softness to our bones, eyes which become unfocused, muscles which ache and twitch, and we will radiate warmth when someone takes the time to support our heavy heads.

Photo Credit

The Problem with the Working vs. Stay-at-Home Mom Debate: Everyone Demands a Winner

The same raging debate surfaced again on talk radio the other day: who has it easier, the 'stay-at-home' mom, or the ‘working’ mom.
Even the label 'working mom' infuriates - and rightly so - the mom whose work is it to take care of her children 24 hours-a-day. Of course, the fact 'stay-at-home' dads are not considered in the equation infuriates me, but that's another blog-post altogether.
The problem with the debate is: both sides demand a winner be declared, when, in fact, neither can be clearly defined as easier than the other. Yes, I know, I'm not a mother, but I have spent plenty of time working long hours outside the house, as well as many being a 24/7 father. I've noticed whenever I'm working outside the home for a long stretch, I look forward to returning to being a full-time parent. Conversely, during a period of day-after-day not stop parenting of two young children, a couple of weeks at a desk surrounded by adults sure sounds great.
Defining one of these scenarios as absolutely more difficult depends on too many variables; most of all the incredibly unique and infinitely different personalities of both parents and children. And to a lesser degree, the following:

While at work:

•    Colleagues may want your attention, but they don't hang off your pant leg to get it.
•    You bathroom-time is alone-time...always!
•    When you hold up your index finger to let people know you're on the phone, they generally apologize, and wait their turn.
•    If the person sitting next to you doesn't like their lunch, you don't have to cook them something else, or threaten to take away their Blackberry.
•    When a colleague falls asleep, it's not your cue to continue dusting, vacuuming, and doing the laundry.
•    Co-workers will hardly ever talk to you two at a time as though the other one doesn't exist...especially not when you're in the washroom.
•    If someone at work is sick, they either stay home, or you keep your distance from them. You don't have to keep them hydrated, change their soiled diaper which leaked onto fresh sheets (which now need washing), fetch their meds, and wonder how soon you can call the clinic before they tell you you're overreacting.
•    After lunch, you don't have to spend 30 minutes cleaning up, and then start thinking about pulling everything out again for a company supper.
•    You're not surrounded by group of people who, for eight consecutive hours, communicate at the level of a Tickle-Me-Elmo.

While at Home:

•    Play dates not only provide relief from baby talk, but also demonstrate other children are even crazier than yours.
•    Unlike adults at an office, your kids never ask silly questions which they could answer themselves by taking one minute to search Google on the computer the company provided them.
•    You never get stuck in traffic on your way to parent, especially on the only day you're due to give a presentation to the board.
•    There are moments, however rare they may be, when the kids nap a little longer, play on their own, and let you have some tea. If only I could get my office mates to nod off for two hours.
•    When people see you're a very busy and efficient and parent, they're not so impressed they bring their children to look after.
•    People don't call you at home asking you explain to the repairman, who is standing in the living room, what sort of sound the heat pump was making before it went on the fritz.
•    You don't have to leave home at rush hour, after eight hours of parenting, and arrive at work just in time to walk into the office and pitch in with supper.
•    You can't be fired from parenting, leaving you wondering how to provide your family's next meal.

There. Nothing solved. No winner.
At the end of it all, I only need be declared a winner by 3 people, the ones who share this home.

"Eat a Mommy?!"...No, no 'Edamame!'

Wikipedia: Edamame bean is a preparation of immature soybeans in the pod...

...sounds like the kind of treatment my kids need before being presented with a vegetable.

Forever a challenge: sneaking something green and healthy onto my kids' dinner plates.
Yesterday, it was  -18 degrees Celsius (0 Fahrenheit) without the wind, -32 C (-25 F) once it was factored in. A second consecutive day of skating on the outdoor rink was out of the question; my cut-off is -15. A round of phone calls determined play dates were an impossibility...what to do allllll afternoon? MOVIE!


To the theatre we went to catch the 1:30 showing of Puss In Boots. (Before I go any further, is it wrong - or in anyway unhealthy - to admire the virility, and swashbuckling style of a fictional, animated cat? I think I need help). We each had our own portion of popcorn, the kids each had a can of Fruitopia after the man at the concession stand swore it had significantly less sugar than apple juice (he even offered to wait while I compared labels - I have a feeling he's never stood in a line with a child overheating in a snowsuit).
Either way, I didn't really care. I was killing three hours, we were all happy and out of the cold, and besides, it's not like I was giving them soda, right?...Right?

They both fell asleep in the car on the way home. Perfect. 4 o'clock, the kids were passed out. All which remained in the day was to transfer them to the sofa, and let them work out the fuzzies and play while I figured out what to serve for supper, which I swore to myself would have to be healthy.
Rummage, rummage, rummage...chicken breast, excellent.
Rummage, rummage, rummage...salsa....hmmmm....interesting. Is it mild? Yes. Perfect. Are there enough vegetables in salsa to allow me to possibly justify serving only....ok, ok, no.
Alrighty, so we have: chicken, salsa, and a little rice in the rice-cooker to absorb juices and sauces at the bottom of the bowl. All that's left are those pesky veggies.

What is it about veggies? How often can you give a kid raw carrot sticks? Doesn't the carotene eventually give them a form of veggie-jaundice?
Broccoli? That was yesterday, and it was a fight. We tried Brussel Sprouts the day before...."Look kids, they're little, tiny, mini-cabbages...cute!"
"Really? How many do I have to eat before I get my cookie?"
Sigh.
But, alas! In the freezer: what light through yonder window breaks? I see a bag of corn kernels, and....edamame.
They're just like sweet peas, right? Nutritious, right? Says so on the package...

Everything, save the rice, gets dumped into a wok, and, voilà: 'Salsa Chicken with Corn and Edamame.' It always sounds so official when it's strung together like cooking shows do.
Now, to the table.
I preceded this meal with a short speech summarizing the great day that was: movie, popcorn, 'juice', etc. I state the price for this is no complaining about supper! Your bodies need veggies or you'll be 4.5 feet tall for the rest of your life.
At first, of course, I'm always told hot meals are too hot; can I get an ice cube? This time I resisted since often the ice cube not only over-cools the meal, but creates a watery base which saps most of the flavor.
The Boy insists it's still too hot, and just sits there, moping. He awoke at 6am and the fatigue is catching up...please, just eat some food. "It's too hot." It's not, I just tried it, and look, your sister's eating it. "I'm too tired". Please give me a break, you can't go to bed without supper, you'll be starving. '"Pout, pout, whine, whine, gulp."...a mouthful finally makes its way down his throat...then another.

The Girl, oddly, is not refusing the veggies, but rather rummaging through the meal with her index finger. Why? She likes those little green things. She's searching for edamame. Naturally, it can never be too easy; she doesn't like the salsa, which is poured over everything. As a solution, she's picking out the edamame, and cleaning it before she eats it.
Once again, I drag out daddy's favorite line: "Look, kids: you had snacks at the movie, so, after this, there's no dessert. If you don't eat enough supper, too bad, you'll be hungry."
No one seems to really care.
I suppose neither do I; not for one meal.
I remember, when they were infants, they would go through periods of refusing breast milk or whatever was on the menu that hour. The pediatrician comforted us by promising children will never let themselves starve to death; we should just wait it out and try again later.
When is later for broccoli? When is the breakthrough for Brussel Sprouts, spinach, bok choy, asparagus, tomato slices, and all that other good stuff?

I’ll wait it out and try again later. Until then, I need to know: can a child survive on popcorn and edamame? I have to begin prepping supper service in a few hours...

 

Four Bad Moods at Once: The Perfect Storm

"I never meant to make you cry
And though I know I shouldn't call
It just reminds us of the cost
For everything we've lost
Bad timing that's all"
- Blue Rodeo

...A beautiful song which speaks of a relationship's bitter end, regret, and the acceptance of inevitability.
Or, is it about one crabby-ass family dinner at the Bodanis house Thursday night?

Any parent will acknowledge - usually with a guffaw and sly smile - dinner time is a young child's witching hour; school is over, their brains have been taxed by hours of practicing upper and lower-case letters, grouping fruit into bundles of five for purposes of addition, and struggling to read compound words.
Outdoor recess, indoor lunch, and after-school play in the yard has sapped them of any pent-up physical tension. Finally, downtime before supper (in our house it usually includes a good thirty minutes of television for the offspring while the adults have quiet during dinner prep. After 15 minutes, though, my daughter grabs her apron, drags her chair to the counter, and assumes her position as Sous-Chef), slows them down long enough to allow fatigue to finally catch up.
It's at that point a request they go to the washroom and wash their hands before coming to the supper table triggers the daily march toward resistance, whining, and the practiced repetition of a child's favorite word: no.

We parents are, of course, also wrestling our own end-of-day symptoms: fatigue - both mental and physical, hunger, as well as the need for a little quiet. We, unlike our kids, have no choice in the matter: 'Dinner won't cook itself'. No truer axiom was spoken.
The difference is, adults generally have (or are supposed to have) a more well developed coping mechanism. In our house, if I'm a little down-in-the-dump, my wife usually has enough positivity to keep the general mood from flying off the rails. The reverse is usually true when she's off kilter.

BUT...there are those days...like Thursday. Extra homework for the tired boy, a general bad mood for the strong-willed girl, and frustration from Mom and Dad exacerbated by an odd, grumpy old guy improperly installing blinds in our living room and dining room: the series of three pull-downs on each window now have large gaps between them, and run away from each other at an angle when drawn towards the floor. Let the series of phone calls and helpless demands of restitution begin.

"Turn off the T.V. and come to the table,  please."
No answer.
"Turn off the T.V. and come to the table,  please!"
No answer.
"Turn off the T.V. NOW!"
...groan...moan...eye-roll...parents lose patience.
"Go wash your hands, please."
No reaction.
"Go wash your hands, NOW."
...groan...moan...eye-roll...parents lose patience.
Kids complain about food.
Parents lose patience.

No one at the table is speaking to anyone else; child makes derogatory comment about the vegetable side-dish and gets sent away from the table.
Parent feels guilty.
Parent goes to bring the child back to the table.
Child says he's  busy...parent loses patience.
Child finally returns.
Silence...chew, chew, chew...silence.
"What should we do about the blinds?"
Silence.
"No opinion?"
An opinion is barked; it includes the words 'lawsuit' and 'money back', as well as some euphemisms for words not to be spoken in front of children.

Finally, after another prolonged silence, two things happen which I believe are key to resolving Everybody’s Really Bad Day:
1) A couple of deep breaths are taken; there is an acknowledgement that everybody is, indeed, having a Really Bad Day. This recognition of foul emotion helps deflate the tension.
2) We treat ourselves: there was ice cream in the fridge; tonight is not the night to fight over vegetables and healthy portions. Eat a little main course, and get the sprinkles; let the serotonin do the work.

Eventually they fall asleep; we put on our pjs and flop onto the couch to stare at absolutely anything or nothing. We look at each other, and one of us regurgitates a very cathartic "Holy s%$t, that was nasty."
The other responds: "Yep, and it will all start again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day."
Finally: "Nah, tomorrow will be better. Today was just bad timing, that's all."

 

Maybe the World Doesn't Always WANT to be Changed by a Salad?

"CHANGE THE WORLD ONE SALAD AT A TIME..."
...So commands this one-pound, over-packaged plastic box of San Marino Mix I recently purchased at the grocery store.
Really?
Change the world?
With a salad?
Cruelly, the verb tense is imperative; my salad is insisting I change the world one salad at a time. They're not even offering to do it themselves, or - by using the gerund participle tense, 'Changing' - hinting they may be actively improving life on our planet with their packaged vegetable. No, apparently it's all up to me and my moulded container of leafy greens.

This is part of a green shift run amok; an out of control spirit of Kumbaya reacting to oil spills, mortgage fraud, and credit card debt; it's fresh produce's version of the 'Occupy' movement. It's right up there with catch phrases such as: "Let's do some good", and "Let's put families first", and "Let's make a difference". Remember when changing the world was as easy as "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle"? Now even corporations campaign for a slice of  'better the world' holistic pie.

It cannot be fixed with a Caesar Salad. And maybe it shouldn't be. It all comes down to our little piece of this great cosmic puzzle, and whether any harm or healing we're responsible for will matter four billion years from now when, statistically speaking, humans as we know them will no longer be around.
 

As a father of younguns, I have less time than I used to to contemplate my place in the universe, yet I seem to be doing so more frequently than when my only worry was running out of coins for the wash-o-matic in my student housing complex. I waffle a lot where my meaning of life is concerned. I'm a firm believer in the butterfly principle: even the smallest pebble can create tsunamis. Therefore I must also believe one person can make a difference. But, what does that mean? A difference to whom? My wife and children? Sure. My friends and colleagues? Maybe. Beyond that? Meh...not so sure.

For several years I dabbled in stand-up comedy; it was then I developed my theory that fostering good feelings in people, a couple of dozen of audience members at a time, would result in a better quality of life for them, and those they encountered later on. Voila, my good deed was being done. Such was my justification and motivation for telling jokes at a rate of $50 per night, rather than joining Habitat for Humanity.
Now, as a father, I at first thought it behoved me to foster greatness in my offspring. But, the older they get (they have attained great wisdom at the ripe old ages of 7 and 4 - although they still hate flossing, and still pee on the seat), the more I realize they have been born with strong, independent, and defined personalities and ideas. Perhaps I am here to encourage and comfort; to make them aware of what is possible, more so than to influence and insist on courses of action. Yes, the adults set limits, we build the walls of the maze, but the children choose their own corridors; we just try to block those openings which lead to cliffs.

I'm trying to be more Zen vis a vis my children as well as the rest of the planet's population. As my son pointed out to me late last year, sometimes they just want you for that extra moment: can we read an extra story; can you help me finish my Lego hospital; can I help you make pizza dough? So often I feel rushed to usher them to bed and have a portion of the evening to myself I forget how each of these things require only brief periods of my time, and yet can reshape the entire mood of their day. Our second story last night was The Magic Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs; several times it makes the point that humans have only been on earth for a relative wink. Maybe it's not about creating huge waves with pebbles; maybe it's just an extra page of a book, or an extra block placed on a purple hospital, and extra hands in the pizza dough. From there, Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be. I needn't try to change the world, and I certainly shouldn't feel pressure from salad in a box to do so, I've got enough on my plate already.