MenGetPregnantToo

I Think I Have Some Brad Pitt Issues...

As a teenager, I remember wishing I could be certain people: Jon Bon Jovi, Rob Lowe, Neil Peart (Yes, I know, one of these people in not like the others. What can I say? I love the drums).

A quarter-century later, I simply accept there are people I will never be: such as Brad Pitt.
The guy is perfect. Frustratingly, tauntingly, consistently perfect. If he were a pizza he would have all your favourite toppings, be fresh, be delivered on time, and be free.

I am not delusional. I refer not to the real life Brad Pitt in his jammies with morning breath and in need of a shower. I don't know that guy at all; that citizen of the earth, that husband, that father.
The only Mr. Pitt I know is the one who filled my Panasonic's screen last night as I watched 12 Years a Slave.
(spoiler!) Unbelievably, this guy swooped in yet again to save the day, and was sensiitve and handsome as ever while doing so.

My immature envy dates back to 1994's Legends of the Fall. 
That hair. That perfect hair. As much as Val Kilmer induced my Top Gun 1986 peroxided buzz cut, Brad's 'River Doo' encouraged me to grow it long. His was dirty blonde, with a slight wave and a magnificent sheen. A river ran through his, and then a breeze ran through it, followed by a woman's fingers. Before all that, I'm sure a salon-grade shampoo and conditioner ran through it. 
Mine was thick and gnarly, and puffed out at the sides after 8 weeks of growth.

Beautiful Hair Legends Brad

Fine. River Brad may have been beautiful, but, in 1994, I was funnier than River Brad.
But then came Fight Club Brad, and Snatch Brad, and Ocean's Brad.
Shit. He was pretty funny. Shit shit.

Eventually I became a father. That's why I had forsaken my movie/rock star career; to be the best father I could be.
Now Dad Brad has 6 kids. Shit.
BUT! It must be easy managing 6 children when you are supported by great wealth and power.
Then I saw World War Z.
In his opening scene, Z Brad is a father talking about the pseudo secret service job he has given up so he may devote quality time to his family. He talks about this while cooking breakfast for his movie kids. He looks pretty good doing it. He looks like a natural in the kitchen. He seems to relate easily to children. Shit. (Yeah, yeah, I know it's a script! Indulge me.)

12 Years a Slave finally broke me.
Amid my anguish and tears, toward the tail end of a history lesson I was all too ignorant about, there is Brad. His hair was two-thirds on its way back to River Brad length; an Amish-trim beard - which looks so quirky on an Amish person - only accentuated his cheeks which are way to chipmunky-cute for a 50-year-old (he's 50!?! wtf???). 
What is he doing there, on this plantation? (spoiler!) Not only is he building a home with his bare hands...he's saving the day. Again.

"I was a slave for 12 years. Guess who showed up in the 11th year to bust me free? Brad Pitt!" Of course he did.

 

Chimpunky-Cute Amish Brad

He even produced the movie.
He didn't only free the slave, he schooled me on 19th century prejudice and cruelty.
Thanks, Brad.

According to IMDB, Super Brad's 68th production as an actor is called Fury.
The synopsis?

April, 1945. A battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Wardaddy and his men face odds in their attempts to strike at Nazi Germany.

Yes, of course Brad is Wardaddy.
And KillingZombieDaddy.
And SavingSlavesDaddy
And PerfectHairDaddy.

Me? I have the beginnings of a male pattern baldness thing happening. If I don't give up my Brad Pitt issues soon, I may end up with serious self-esteem issues.
Given my age and follicle situation, I should focus my attention elsewhere...like on that damn sexy Patrick Stewart.

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"Just One More Thing, Daddy." An Attempted Bedtime Story.

The kitchen is clean, the lunches are made, Episode 3 from Season 3 of Breaking Bad lays dormant within Netflix's belly. Maybe, if all goes well, the Episode 3 viewing will be followed by Episode 4 before I fall asleep on the couch.

The only impediment to Episodes 3 & 4 about a Chem teacher turned meth dealer (manufacturer!) are Things One & Two who lurk upstairs...far from dormant.

                                                                                    *****

TOOTHBRUSHING:

"Okay! Let's go! Toothbrushing! Chop-chop!"

Initially, they both comply. Shocking.
They have retrieved their toothbrushes from their holsters along the bathroom wall, applied the paste (Watermelon flavored toothpaste? Really?), and put in two short strokes along their lower left molars.
Then, it begins: Procrastination. 
The Boy parks his toothbrush in his cheek, sucks off and swallows any cavity-preventing ingredients, and asks: "What are we doing this weekend?"

It's only Monday. We have no milk or bred for Tuesday's breakfast due to the short-sightedness which seems to accompany being a parent over 40. I'll be lucky if these kids are still alive on Wednesday. The weekend? He's got to be kidding. 
"Sweetie, please. I don't know. Just brush up and let's get to bed, okay? Daddy's tired."

During this exchange, The Girl has, unlike her brother, avoided swallowing the toothpaste (she believes me when I tell her it's unhealthy). Instead she is leaning over the sink, using clenched teeth and saliva to create a Watermelon Colgate volcano.
"Okay! Enough! Finish up! It's bedtime!" I bark. (Later I will hypocritically remember my essays which pontificate about not sweating the small stuff. But, caught up in the moment, I'm determined to kill joy.

PYJAMAS:

"Okay, go get your pyjamas on. I'll wait for you both in my room. If you hurry up there will still be time for story."
"Daddy, can you help me?" she puppy dogs.
"Okay. But quickly. Let's go."
"Race up the stairs, daddy!"
She puts her hands on the first step, waits for me to line up next to her. I know I'm going to lose - I'm clasping a small grouping of dirty laundry in my left hand, my balance is completely thrown. 
I lose.

"Hop up, munchkin." I motion to her bed, wooing her with a pyjama top like a matador to a bull...a bull measuring 4'2" at the shoulder with a braid flopping over the top of its head making it look like something out of a Julie Andrews movie.

She hops up. And then hops up and down and up and down and somersaults and leaps and flops. How does she not puke?
"Sweetie. That's enough. If you want me to help you, stand still. Otherwise I'll go put my own pyjamas on."
"Okay, okay!" She complies. Angry Birds pyjamas bottoms: on securely; Angry Birds pyjama top: successfully buttoned.
Success.

"I have to pee." says the fully-dressed bull.

Sigh. "Gooooo." I sing-song.

While she tends to business and sings the accompanying on-the-potty set list, I call after The Boy:
"You ready for story?!"
No answer.
"Kiddo? Are you coming?"
No answer.
Sigh.
I head back downstairs to peak into his room.
He made it as far as pulling his pyjama bottoms around his ankles. His school t-shirt has not been removed, but he has had time to add several page-saving Post-Its to his book of science experiments.
"What are we doing this weekend?" he asks. Again.
"Buddy, I'm tired, your sister's tired..." (an outright lie) "...please get your pjs on and come for story."

I walk the flight back upstairs.

STORY

"Can we each pick a story?" they both ask in overlapping sentences.
"No. There's no time for two stories now. I warned you about that after supper: if there was too much goofing around, there would be less time for story."
I hate myself and the curmudgeon I've become. But there's not quite enough self-hatred to nullify my love for Breaking Bad. The kids are getting just one story.

"Can I chose?" she asks.
"Can I chose?" he asks.
"He chose yesterday!" she says (which is true). 
"No I didn't." he replies (he and I both know he knows that's not true. But, I admire his effort - let the burden of proof be on the accuser). 

"Daddy is choosing!" I insist in that infamous 'And that's final!' tone.
The each exhale a couple of syllables of complaint before I steal their momentum with:
"It's that, or nothing!"
Muffled grunts are close enough to silence. I proceed with my reading - two chapters of Mary Pope Osborne's "Magic Tree House" series. The language is advanced enough The Boy won't feel talked down to; the story is simple enough - and the chapters short enough - The Girl won't get bored.

TUCK IN

 I leave him in my bed with his Tin Tin book as I stretch my arms towards her, inviting her to be carried to her room.
"Carry me by my feet!" she squeaks.
"Sweetie, that's really hard on Daddy's back." Who am I? When did I become this person?
"Pleeeease?"
Sigh. Her room shares a wall with mine. Just get it over with.
With a 6-year-old suspended upside down over the upstairs landing, I walk the 8 feet to my daughter's bed room. I feel something  cinch between my shoulder blades as I lift and lower her onto her bed.
I don't worry about the pain. I'll lie on the heating pad during Breaking Bad. 

"Song?"
"Okay.  A short one." Although, truthfully, our repertoire of bedtime sing-alongs does not include anything longer the 75 seconds. The exception being those nights she insists on singing an original composition - those can be opuses.
"Wait!" she blurts "I didn't pee!"

Pee. Song. Hug. Kiss. Goodnight. 
One down.
Back into my room to collection the first born. 
He outweighs his sister by 10 pounds. A piggy back is the best I can offer.

I drop him on his bed and pull the sheets up over his shoulders. As I lean in to kiss him, his head connects with my chin as he sits up to get out of bed and go to the bathroom.

Resigned, now, to watching only 1 episode of Breaking Bad, I sit silently staring at Casper the Guinea Pig while I wait for The Boy's return.
Casper is already asleep - no song, no story, no piggy back. Her parents must have been real disciplinarians. 

The Boy returns. He shuffles back into bed; I once again draw the duvet over his shoulders.
"What if there were no gravity?" he asks.
We talk for a short while about the universe.
"What are we doing this weekend?" he asks.

"Sweetie, enough." I kiss him one last time. "Good night."
I walk in the dark towards his bedroom doorway.
"Dad?"
"What?" I retort, somewhat impatiently.
"I love you."
He gets me with that every time.
"I love you, too."
"G'night" he sighs as he rolls over.
"Good night."

ADULT TIME!

 I press play on Episode 3.

 By the time I wake up half an hour later, Walter is back living at home, Skyler has spilled the beans to a lawyer and is sleeping with Ted, Hank has turned down the job in El Paso, and Gus seems to have been able to delay the Mexican cousins from assassinating the series' hero.

 I'll try again tomorrow. 
At least my back is feeling better. The heating pad must've done some good. 

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10 Signs I've Become Just Like My Parents

For my inaugural post as a regular contributor at Parentdish.ca, I took a short look in the mirror. Fading away was the careless teenager whose mouth would get him in trouble and whose fast sprint got him out of it. Instead, the reflection--and personality that goes with it--is beginning to more and more resemble...my parents:

Family resemblance: 10 signs I've become just like my parents.

Credit: Getty Images.

Little Kids Like Rust & Garbage but They Also Love Their Mom & Dad

"Here, hold this!" he said as he stomped back over small dunes of dried lake weed and neighborhood refuse.
It was a fishing lure; its hooks rusted, dangerous, and congested with pieces of old small-gauge line. Despite its resemblance to Little Mermaid's Flounder, this treasure my 8-year-old had plucked from the St. Lawrence River only made be worry about the diseases we would all contract after bringing it home.
But, to him, it was awesome.

"Mommy, you hold this. Make sure it doesn't fly awaaayy!" she said, her arms flapping in imitation of the Gull who had left his feather for her to find.
My wife looked at this quill: grey and white and black; matted and dirty after days, or weeks, or months floating past the municipal shore lines of Montreal's southern shore.
Gross to Mom and Dad, absolutely thrilling to their 6-year-old daughter.

Shore Line by Stephanie Wallace

It was 6:30 on a Friday night. We had just completed a family supper at a local pub (yes, they had a kids menu; yes, my kids each had a sip from my pint).
After dinner, doggy bag in hand (I suppose, since we don't have a dog, it's really just a bag of leftovers), we walked down a side street to stand alongside the water at low tide. The dried remnants of what normally shifts and floats beneath the high tide was left behind for a few hours, to be picked up again once the cycle continued. 

Our kids are at a great age. They are far enough removed from the pre-school stage of not being able to sit at a dinner table for ten minutes without throwing a spoon across the room, yet also years away from the cynical teenage years during which they will simply want us to leave them alone.
For now, they hopped and skipped from their parents to the waterline and back, sharing observations, and dropping treasures at our feet.
"As gross as this rusty fishing lure, and e-coli laden feather are, we should remind ourselves how lucky we are that they want to share this stuff with us at all." I said to my wife.
"I know." she answered. "Soon, their allegiances will shift. We'll be out, their friends will be in."

We reminded ourselves that this period in our children's lives is fleeting - as are all stages of life - while we collected that evening's cache to return to the car: a rusty lure, leftover poutine in a brown paper bag, a dirty feather, and an orange rock.
At some point, while skipping along the sidewalk, my daughter lost the stone. Despite backtracking with Mom in a serpentine search pattern, the rock was gone for good.
Somehow, during the four minutes she was the stone's keeper, my daughter had become so emotionally attached to it, she was extremely distraught at the thought of leaving it behind.
Her solution was to leave a note for Santa in front of the fire place at home.
Sure, Santa usually only comes at Christmastime, but maybe he would make a special trip 'cause he knows I loved the rock, she argued.
You can always try, I said - fighting my urge to quash the fantasy.

Feather by Lindsay Smith

At home, we washed the lure (carefully. Boy, those hooks are sharp!); rinsed the feather, and parked the poutine next to the yogurt in the fridge.
The kids were still in bed early enough for my wife and I to stick our feet under a blanket and treat ourselves to a movie.
"She's gonna be really disappointed in the morning when Santa doesn't show up."

Yeah, but being disappointed because you believe in the impossible is what makes 6-years-old a beautiful thing.
Reminding ourselves of all that is impossible is part of what makes getting older a little ugly.
My wife and I show signs of rust, and occasional sharps edges after of years weathering the tide. Yet, we remind ourselves how lucky we are that, to our kids, time with their parents is still something to treasure.

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Secrets and Smokes at Two Minutes to Midnight

Men Get Pregnant Too is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project.
Today's post was inspired by the memory of the only slumber party I remember attending.
It was 26 years ago.
While today, I'm too tired to remember where I left my ball cap, or to stay awake past ten o'clock, at 15 years-old it was about the relationships strengthened and bonds formed in the wee hours of the morning.

Enjoy, and thank you for reading:

Secrets and Smokes at Two Minutes to Midnight

Image credit: sofia vizcaino with katherine sandoz

 

Parents: It's Never Too Early to Plan for Your Death.

I was born on December 29th, 1971.
I used to keep that date hidden from social media. Partly because I never cared for the caravan of drive-by birthday greetings on Facebook; but also as a method of fortifying that invisible border between what I felt was private, and what I was prepared to display on my digital front stoop.

Since Thursday last, I put less importance on guarding such insignificant details.
Thursday last, my wife and I began the process of assembling an official Last Will and Testament.


Reader by h.koppdelaney

We are both in excellent health; but, as we age, we receive more constant (and less subtle) reminders of our mortality.
Our children have already attended five funerals: two great uncles; a great aunt; a great-grandmother; and the father of my closest friend. 

At each of these gatherings, conversation naturally sways away from what is new, and more towards what is old. My peers and I realize that, though most of us are only in our 40's, life's pace is no longer too slow, as when we were children and students, but now has a step or two on us.
We analyze our bodies not by what is growing, but by what is receding.
Being the architect of your Last Will forces you to shift from foraging to conservation: it is a time to consider not what is left to acquire, but rather what can be lost.

Leaving the notary's office, our intellects and emotions concocted a brew of logic and worry. 
Although assuaged that our wishes were now clear, and that our children would be looked after according to our wishes, being asked so many questions concerning possible illnesses and inevitable death convinces one that such a fate will become you at any moment.
Getting on a plane without my children never seemed so foolhardy as after beginning the machinations of a notarial Will.

Our children are 8 and 6 years old.
Since becoming parents, we have been reminded at semi-regular intervals - mostly by our parents - of the importance of providing for the needs of our children should we no longer be alive, or able, to care for them. 
"A Will??" we thought. 
We've only just become parents!
Let us deal with sleeplessness, feeding, meconium, whooping cough, fifths disease, teething, walking, falling, talking, running and fevers first, OK?

Eight years into caring for our children, we finally realized how careless it was to not consider who might care for them when we are gone.
The notary's questions only emphasized the mess our families would have been left to tidy without any direction:

If one of you should die, do you want your spouse to have complete control over your family's assets?
If only one of you should be gravely ill, does your spouse have the legal power to make the ultimate decisions concerning life support or palliative care?
If you both die, who cares for your children? And where?
Who controls finances for your children?
At what age may your children control their own finances?
Should the people you have named as primary caregivers not be able to fulfill that role, what then?
And on, and on. 

As important as these decisions are, it is most important to understand these measures may be required at any moment. Yes. Today, or tomorrow, or not for decades.

I am as relieved to have these questions answered for my children's benefit as I am saddened to imagine them being guided through the morbid process of packing suitcases and spending their lives in a home other than the one they know today.

Perhaps that is why this discussion, this visit to talk about sickness and death, was delayed for nearly a decade.
'Death' is an ugly word.
But, for an 8 and 6 year-old who have just lost their parents; two words are just as ugly:  'uncertainty' and 'loneliness'.
While this Will forced me to consider my own death; it also forced me to consider something far more important: my children's life. 

 

My Children Near a Frozen Lake

 

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My Kids Came of Age in a Montreal Traffic Jam

Hello Readers,

Most of you are not from the Montreal area. But, this city, like most medium-to-large metropolitan areas, drives its motorists crazy with its never-ending construction projects, mislabelled detours, and lack of proper signage.
Although the story below takes place on Highway 20 - a main corridor leading into downtown Montreal - the feeling that years of your life are being lost to to your brake pedal is one which is shared by millions of motorists daily.
Road-rage: another reason aliens hesitate to visit this planet.

 
Traffic signs by sfllaw

Monday, 7:30am,
February 2013:
My 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter are strapped into their respective
booster seats. No longer prisoners of the 5-point harness, they are free to
reach books stored in the seat pockets in front of them, as well as the booklet
containing their favorite CD’s. These distractions will be more than enough to
occupy them during our commute to Daddy’s work in the east end. Mom has her
morning copy of the Gazette and, at least for the moment, control of the car
radio.

All this media will be helpful as the on ramp to the 20 eastbound is already
backed up. 5.2 centimeters of snow fell around midnight last night; salt trucks
were deployed just prior to 7am this morning.

Two days
later:
We are just past Sources Boulevard. A tow truck on its way to remove a stalled
vehicle from the side of the road clipped a minivan which was attempting to
pass that salt truck Monday morning. There were no injuries. After attempting
to survive on 4 apples, 2 bottles of water, fishy crackers and a granola bar,
my wife has been bravely hoping fences with the kids on her back alternating
between bathroom and snack breaks at Tim Horton’s.

Her next trip may have to be to a pharmacy: although clean-shaven when I left
home; my stubble is really beginning to irritate me.

Wednesday,
8:42, March 2016: Thankfully,
my wife took over driving duties a couple of months ago. I was able hop out,
run into that mall at the Dorval circle and purchase a laptop. Who knew the
airport’s free Wi-Fi extended all the way to the 20? I just completed my son’s
high school application. I had intended to send him to an institution somewhere
near home, but I think I’ll also register him at a school in Lachine in case we
never make it back.

I’m impressed with the new overpass here. They completed it six weeks ago; traffic
is really flowing over us nicely.

I also must shout out to Mazda for creating those two fold-away seats in the
back as well as a Bluetooth connection in front. Both were invaluable for
hiring and housing the private tutor who has been instrumental in keeping up my
children’s education during these tough times.

Tuesday
6:40pm, August 2023: Just
passed Angrignon. You won’t believe our good fortune. Not only has our son been
accepted to Veterinary College in Guelph, but he is engaged to his tutor. Sure,
she’s six years his senior, but, at 18-years-old, we feel he’s old enough to
make his own decisions. Besides, you can hardly blame them, they’ve spent a
decade together in the back seat; plus she’s been instrumental in getting him
into that school in Guelph. Yes, I know, Guelph is west of here; that’s a
problem right now. Fortunately, my daughter left the car a month ago to go get
her driver’s license. Worst case scenario, she’ll swing by on the west-bound
side and drive her brother and his new wife to Ontario.

Friday
7:10pm, October 2029: It’s
just my wife and I now. That “daughter rents a car and drives to Guelph” plan
worked like a charm. The two of us
lost our jobs long ago. Fortunately, we’ve become so close with many of the
construction workers along the way, we are now official members of the union,
and are living very comfortably in the front seat of our Mazda (boy, the
Japanese really know how to build a car!) thanks to direct deposits from a CUPE
pension.

Sure, we miss the kids, but at the moment we are lost in the romantic glow of
the new Turcot Interchange. It really is beautiful. Once we figure out how to
get on it from here I’m gonna open the car windows and really let it all hang
out for the rest of the trip downtown.

Saturday
8:45pm, July 2032:
We’ve been diverted due to the Jazz Festival.

We are back enjoying a steak at Magnan’s in Pointe-Saint-Charles. Fortunately,
we are also joined by our two children, and five grand children. They are so
cute. My son has a lucrative Veterinary practice set up in a new
commercial/condo complex just a block west of here. It was part of that
gentrification project back in the late ‘10’s. My daughter is completing her
degree in civil engineering. Although she was offered a bunch of cash to work
for a construction consortium working out of a small office in Laval, she chose
instead to head the committee working out the final kinks in the traffic flow
in N.D.G. around the nearly-completed super-hospital.

My wife and I are going to head home after supper; tonight are the season
finales of both “Survivor” and “Here
Comes Honey Boo-Boo’s Kids” - two shows we never miss.

Our kids and I have agreed to make this Magnan get-together a monthly
tradition.

My daughter suggests that for our next supper out, we take the 40; apparently
it flows quite nicely.

 
Montréal orange paradis by racineur

Second-Guessing is Key to Any Marriage, I Think.

Scenario: 7:40am. Temperature of 4°C (39°F). Today's forecast high is 16°C (61°F). The forecast also calls for a 40% chance of showers "later today".
How do you dress your child?
Discuss with your spouse; I'll read War and Peace. When you both agree on an answer, email me. I'll be halfway through Moby Dick by then.

 

In my experience, fathers completely reject the cool morning air and ignore the risk of precipitation. Mothers subtract 5 degrees from the actual exterior temperature, and prepare the child for the odd chance the 40% chance of showers becomes weather Noah would never venture out in. 
The real key to any marriage isn't coming to an agreement between husband and wife; it's getting your kid out the door before your spouse sees how you've dressed him:

"What, no boots?! No sweater under his jacket?!"
"They say a forty percent chance. Plus, it's heading into the mid-teens later, his feet will be hot, and he'll end up all sweaty."
"Or, he'll freeze at recess, have to walk around school in wet socks and sneakers all day, and ruin another pair of shoes."
"Fine, you dress him."
"You know what? Whatever. You take him shopping for new shoes every three months." 

The truth, as with most things in the universe - certainly when dealing with marriage politics - is somewhere in the middle. 
It's cold now, but he won't freeze.
It might rain later, but shoes dry, and he won’t get athlete's foot by wearing a boot for a couple of hours. But bickering about it is part of the pattern, isn't it?
As much as we allow our children to experience sibling rivalry, and we expose them to their friends' toys without ourselves being strong-armed in buying them for our basements, adults have the same need for conflict.
It's familiar; it allows us to constantly test boundaries with our spouse. When the conflict has passed (or been stifled and saved for that big blow-up a couple of times a year), it reminds us the person we married accepts our faults, and the relationship can withstand some stress.

Game - Confrontation by h.koppdelaney via Flickr

I think one of the reasons space aliens have not made themselves (plainly) visible to humans is sometimes - just sometimes - we argue over really stupid s**t.
 - How many more minutes of a movie should the kids watch before bed? The whole thing (45 min), or only another ten minutes? 
- Should they have a cookie for dessert and risk cavities and a habit-forming love for sweets, or should we deny them and spend the final hour of the day in Armageddon?
- If they are going to get a cookie, is it once they've eaten three pieces of broccoli, or four?
- Should we argue with them for twenty minutes, denying them the rest of the movie until they're in their pyjamas, or should we extend the evening by ten minutes after the movie to change them later? 
- Should we punish our spouse for not standing up to our in-laws, or allow our in-laws to punish them for taking a stand.

It's funny, isn't it? All the minutiae we fill our pie plates with before smothering it into our spouse's face.

The reason our grandparents - if they've survived life and each other - have such a distinct charm; the reason they have that quirky, edgy, pattern-filled rhythm to their relationship is:  they've been through a half-century of second-guessing.
But, at some point, he just told her he loved that crummy sweater and, yes, he's going to wear it every day; and she's told him that yes, the house looks better with the bathroom door closed - so leave it that way, will you?

After fifty years together, should we be so lucky, we will barely notice those quirks anymore. We'll mind our own business as we watch our children and grandchildren battle it out with their spouses.
One day we'll learn to cut all the bologna. Then, aliens will touch down and my wife will say to me:
"If you'd listened to me, they would have been here years ago." 

 

 

The Sandwich Generation Demands More Rubber, Less Ham & Cheese

Sandwich: flavorsome filling coddled between soft slices of baked grain.
Sandwich Generation: Children who have become parents, while still shouldering the responsibility of being their parents' children.

*****

Chronologically, I qualify for inclusion among the other sandwiches on the shelf. Fortunately, my parents - as well as my children - are in excellent health.
My peers are not all as fortunate.
Some have children with special needs, others have parents who are ailing; and among my friends are those who are dealing with both situations simultaneously. 
They are not so much being pressed or squeezed by their responsibilities, but rather are being stretched and pulled apart.
A caretaker's psychological and physical peace is not compressed by the kind of pressure applied by a vice, but rather is thinned by forces straining them in opposite directions.

This generation is not built of layers like a sandwich, but of elastic losing its dimension.
It is the constant changes in direction - work, home, children, parents, schools, hospitals, care facilities, teachers, nurses, doctors - which stress the cohesion of us adult tweens.

My friend just lost his father.
This is where we are now, we Gen-Xers. We've transformed from that group of directionless adolescents caring about no-one, save ourselves. Now, twenty-five years later, we're learning what it is to care for everyone else despite ourselves.

It's an awakening, the transition from attending weddings to attending funerals. Eventually we'll attend weddings again - our children's; and then funerals again - our friends'. 
Forty years from now my kids will leave behind the label of "gen-whatever-we-are" and become "gen-whatever-you-need-us-to-be".
To be all those things to all of those other people, they will have to be much more rubber, and much less ham and cheese.

 
Photo: Hand in hand by Fabrizio Salvetti

 

 

 

Exercise?! The Last Thing I Jogged Was My Memory.

I have a stringent running schedule. It's like clockwork. It's a little OCD, really.
For about seven consecutive months I run 3 to 4 times a week. I'll work towards a half-marathon, one either in my hometown or a short drive away in Ottawa.
After the race, I'll intend to take a week off and begin training for a full marathon imagining myself an uber-fit 40-year-old smoking all the twenty-something's who run races thinking they know what it means to be in shape. 

But, inevitable, after the race weekend something important comes up: like a once-in-a-parent-of-young-children's-lifetime dinner and a movie with my wife. I'll skip running that evening. (I never run in the morning. I know there are parents of youngsters who wake even earlier than their kids to work out. Those parents are just plain crazy.)
The morning following "date night" (which is really just sitting next to each other in bucket seats rather than on the sofa, and watching a really big silver screen instead of the TV in the den), I'll sleep in and have a slow breakfast. I justify that laziness as an extension of Date Night.
A couple of days later I'll skip running because it's too hot. I'll skip the one after that because of some sort of appointment; and the one after that because I haven't blogged frequently enough due to my rigorous training.
Then I'll take 7 months off because I'm discouraged and out of shape. 

So it goes: 7 months on; 7 off.

Jogging in Morning Light by h.koppdelaney via Flickr

I'm at the tail end of the 7 months off, and I'm feeling it. My back is stiff after watching The Newsroom back-to-back to True Blood. My shoulder hurts when I lift one of my kids (remember when you used to lift both of them simultaneously? Are they bigger, or are you older? The answer is 'yes'.) Every twenty minutes or so, I flex my neck muscles and turn my head - the move is followed by a satisfying cracking noise where my head meets my body.
I need to get back out there. But, boy, I really don't want to.
Why can't running be like sex? Why can't I remember how good it felt last time? I think the reason is because, where running is concerned, I spend the first ten minutes thinking "this *&@n' sucks!"
There is a fantastic rush which accompanies a good, long, sweaty workout. Unfortunately, it will take me at least two months of training to get to a place where I feel I'm doing more than working my way towards a heart attack. 

I remember how running gave me more energy. I remember how once I became active, I wanted to remain active and was therefore a more productive father, husband and human being. But, man, at the end of the day I'm just too pooped.
My daughter begins kindergarten in two weeks. As a result it will be the first time in 7 years both kids will be out of the house for thirty-one hours and forty minutes each week. 
I'll have no excuse.
Certainly not when I face that group of moms who gather outside the school brandishing Lululemon running gear and Bluetooth headphones linked to their MP3 players.
I have an MP3 player.
And shorts.
And shoes with a little bright red velcro tag with my home address and phone number on it so the medics know who to call once they revive me. 

Some parents find the time, others don't.
Some parents make the time, others can't.
How do you do it? Do you do it?
I know I should, especially now that I have the time. 

Of course, we're redoing the entrance way this fall. I don't know how long that will take...but I can certainly arrange to work on it for thirty-one hours and forty minutes a week.