Man Note: Love's Cowardice

Thanks for the quote, Bob Marley!!!

I'm a monster.

My love makes me a monster.

My use of love for my own purposes makes me a monster.

This post is going to be hard for me, but it is one that I must finish.  Before I begin, let me emphatically state that this post is about me and my capacity for love, and NOT the objects of my love.  This is an introspection and not an accusation.  In my recent self-evaluation, I've been looking at my behaviors and trying to find things I can improve on, ways of getting out of my own way.

In evaluating myself, I came to a realization about my roles, which is largely the reason I started this blog.

I am a husband and a father.  These are two of the biggest roles I have ever taken on in my life, but I have been abusing my roles.  It is a two-fold abuse.  I have been abusing myself in my roles and I have been abusing my loved ones.  I use the word abuse because it is accurate, it conveys what it is I mean to say, but it makes me wildly uncomfortable.

I have willingly chosen my roles, but lately I have been using my roles as a way of excusing myself from my life as opposed to a way of enriching my life.  I have put the anchor of "responsibility" so heavily around my neck that I have had very little room for anything else.  Instead of seeing my marriage and my child as the blessings that they are, I have used them as a downer, an excuse for not living up to my potential.  I have shouldered myself with the burden of doing all things for them.

What is funny about this, is that I have probably been at my least helpful during this phase.  I have been surly, combative, and depressed.  I have not engaged in my normal activities with the family.  I have stayed away instead of joining them in activities.  I have buried myself in work and called it "working for my family" when it has been doing anything but "working for my family."

This quote is for my family.  They don't deserve my disrespect.

I have been burdening myself with an over-proportioned sense of responsibility.  The sun and the moon do not rise and fall because of me.  I am not responsible for all things.  I can do what I can do, and that's about it.  I have been abusing myself with my inflated sense of responsibility and its been crippling.

I mentioned the flip side of this inflated sense of responsibility earlier.  I've been surly, combative, and depressed.  The depression has caused me to want to place blame.  I've been silently blaming my family for my actions, and the sheer injustice of this does not escape me.  It is so unfair to them that I have been projecting my sour feelings on to them.  Most of the time, they don't have any idea as to why I am so surly.  This realization has been one of the hardest for me to deal with.  The thought of causing my loved ones pain, and all because I've been struggling with my self is horrifying to me.

But this isn't about making myself feel bad for past sins, it is about moving past this depressed phase and getting my feet underneath me.

So here's where I stand on this: I've been a coward.  I've used my love as a way of avoiding risk, of avoiding myself, and I vow to stop.  I vow to use my love relationships as a way of filling my cup instead of capping it.  I vow to treat my loved ones in the way they deserve to be treated.  I vow to treat myself the way I deserve to be treated.

And I vow to take a pin to my inflated sense of responsibility when it gets out of control.

It's going to be hard work, but I want this.  I want it a lot.  I deserve it, and my family deserves it.

For now, I simply ask their forgiveness.  And patience as I work through this.

Another piece of wisdom from Gandhi.

Father Notes: Patience

It's been a little under two years since my daughter asked to try to ride a bike.  Lately, she has witnessed more and more of her friends getting proficient at riding, and I think it finally piqued her curiosity enough to give it another go.

My wife told me, "You better put those training wheels back on for a minute.  It's been a long time."  So, I listened as my wife is often smarter than I am about these things.  I tend to be more of a "full speed ahead" type when it comes to teaching my daughter things.  So, I sat on the floor of the garage and I reattached the training wheels to my daughter's now undersized bike.  We took it for a spin down the road and back, but she kept saying she was scared, that the rattle of the training wheels was unnerving her.

So I went back to the garage and set about undoing the training wheels from the tiny bike.  I was worried that this would be another excuse, another false start toward getting her to do something I REALLY want her to be able to do.  I could feel myself already starting to push, to get short and sharp in my tone.  I wanted her to do this.

With the training wheels off the bike, I set off down the driveway where my daughter sat on the curb looking nervous.  I stood there with the two-wheeler and looked down at her.  "What's going on?"  I asked.

"I'm scared."

"I know you are, honey." I said. "I don't expect you to not be scared.  It's what we do with our fear that is important.  Someone once said, and I can't remember who, 'Courage isn't the absence of fear.  It is moving ahead anyway, even though you are afraid.'" (Sorry, Nelson Mandela, for the horrible misquote).

"Okay," came her soft reply.  "But you won't let go, right?"

"Right," I said.  I worried a little about this because most parents realize that there comes a point where this is going to be a lie.  If she starts doing it on her own, I will let go.  I will let her take off on her own, even if that means she crashes a couple of feet from my open hand.

Shea did great though.  She got back on the bike, and within 50 or so feet, I wasn't holding the bike anymore.  My hand was resting against her at the back of the seat, but my fingers were not clenched there.  I was providing no guidance, no direction with it.  I simply rested my hand at her back and watched her go.

For anyone who has gone through this moment as a parent, you'll understand the joy of it, the upswelling of pride as you see your child physically mastering a new skill.  Shea rode "unassisted" for a couple of seconds each time before I clenched back down and kept her from falling off sideways, but I could see her gaining more encouragement.

Finally, she got on the bike, pushed off, started pedaling, and I let go.  I let go, let go.  I allowed my hand to fall to my side.  Shea rode for about 10-15 seconds before putting her feet down and bringing herself to an awkward stop.

She turned to look at me about 10 feet behind her with my hands in the air and a smile on my face.  Then, we back slid.  I praised her for doing it all by herself, but when we set off to try again, she did worse and worse.  She kept stopping short, or she stopped immediately after my hand pulled away.  It was fear making its move again.  She knew in her mind that she could do it, but the fear was holding her back from really taking off.

When we got back to the house, she was ready to quit.  She didn't want to ride on our street any more.  Then, and this is the moment that really makes me proud, she asked if we could go to the park.  "There aren't as many hills there," she said.

"Done," I said.  "Let's get mommy."

So we gathered Tracy and made our way to the park where there is a large, newly paved parking lot.  It is wide, mostly flat, and open.  She had originally wanted to ride the bike paths around the park, but when I told her she could try riding in the parking lot, she looked excited.  There was nothing really in her way, nothing to crash into, no real traffic coming along, and we started again.

As soon as we got her on the bike and pushing off, she took to it.  She didn't go far, she didn't go long, but she did it all on her own.  She even fell once, scraping her hand and foot a little bit, but she got back on and did it again.

As I sit here now reflecting on what happened today, I can't help but realize how patient I am going to have to be in the coming years.  I am going to have to let her find her own way, her own time, for when she is ready for things.  I will always want things for my daughter's life.  I will always hope she acquires this skill or that talent, but I am going to have to let go of driving her.  I'm going to have to let go of my own time frame for things because the last time I tried to teach her to ride a bike two years ago, we both went home disappointed, and she could probably read that on me.

The other thing that I remembered today is that anything worth having is worth trying for, worth practicing, worth coming back to, even after a long absence, and so I knew I would write today.  If I am going to teach my daughter about acting in the face of fear, then I need to lead by example.

Homework: Act Like a Lady...Think Like a Boss

When I picked Shea up from school today, we set off for home and had our daily small talk.  We covered our usual topics of school, play, her friends, etc.  We then set the agenda for the day.  We were going to go to the store and then return home for homework.  We agreed that both of us were going to do our homework.  She had a composition to write, and, guess what?  So did I.

I had to do my own daily homework of writing, and we agreed to do it together.  I hadn't planned on sitting down to write, but an opportunity presented itself, and I decided to take it.  Thus, you find me here in the blogosphere brainstorming on what to write.  This can oftentimes be the hardest part for a writer, discovering your subject, but today was easy as I latched on to a small detail from my drive to pick up Shea.

On the way to the school, I was behind a car with the bumper sticker, "Act Like a Lady...Think Like a Boss."  My first reaction was, "Right on, sister."  Then I stuttered a moment and had to rethink my original idea.  I wasn't sure if I liked the "Act like a lady" part.  I decided this would be a great chance for Shea and I to have a talk about it, to pick her brain and see what she thought about what it meant to "act like a lady."

After our initial small talk, I told her about the bumper sticker I saw and asked her what she thought.  Her first answer, "Good."  I had to press her a little bit to see where she truly stood.  I followed up with, "What is a boss?"

"Someone who tells other people what to do.  Like at work or a teacher."

"Is that different from being a lady?" I asked.

She had to think hard on this one.  "Yes," she said.  "Ladies are nice."

"Is it mean to tell someone what to do if you are in charge?" I asked.

"No," Shea said after a moment.

"So a lady can be in charge and tell people what to do, right?"

"Yeah," Shea said her voice rising in excitement.  She was on board with this whole train of thought.

"So...if ladies are supposed to be nice, then what other types of things are ladies supposed to be?" I continued.  I even air quoted the "supposed" to emphasize the point.

Shea struggled with this one, so I changed my line of questioning.  "Is there anything a lady is not?"

In my college lectures, I always tell my students that it is easier to say what they are not than to actually say what they are, so I took this tact with Shea.

Shea came back with, "Boys can lift heavy stuff."

"OK," I said, "But how often do you practice lifting heavy things?"

"Not a lot," she said.

"So what would happen if you practiced lifting heavy things?  Would you get better at it? Would you eventually be able to lift heavier and heavier things?"

"Yes," she said.

"OK," I said, "so are there girls who can lift heavy things?  Girls who work hard at being strong?"

"Yes," she said.

"So would you say that girls are strong?"

"Yes," Shea said, again her voice rose at the idea.

"So it's not just boys, is it?"

"Nope," she said.  She even had a hint of a giggle in her voice.

"So, let's run through some words and you tell me if it describes girls."

"Okay," Shea said through her smile.  She's used to me by now, and she knows my little word games with her.

"Strong."

"Yep," she said.  I lobbed the ball to her on that one.

"Smart."

"Yep," she said.

"Funny."

"Yep," she said.

"Pretty."

"Yep," she said.

"Powerful."

She took a moment on this one.  She asked me what the word meant.  I told her that being powerful meant that you could do things on your own, that you commanded respect from others, and that you were able to do things on your own without help.

"Yep," she said.

I reached across the car and gave her a high five.  "Sounds right to me," I said.  This girl makes me proud.  She has a natural sense of her own power, but I'm always careful to have conversations with her that reminds her of it.  In all my time as a college instructor, I saw so many young women who had lost a sense of their own power and were slowly reclaiming it through the process of a self-guided education, but it makes me wonder at how spectacular they would be if they simply didn't have to go through that culturally indoctrinated period of self-doubt.  As a parent, I know some of it will happen, but I hope to be an advocate of my daughter's own self-worth throughout her lifetime,  to maybe soften some of the trappings of adolescence.

It was a wonderful conversation, and one that I hope she remembers and takes to heart.  If she doesn't remember, then maybe she will one day read this and either remember or be reminded of how her daddy sees her.  When we got home from our errands, my daughter and I sat at the kitchen table together.  She did her school work and I got the chance to reflect on my day with her.  These moments are small moments, the moments that make up a life, and a good life at that.  I hope to spend many more hours working with her like this, showing her that writing, thinking, and questioning are all a part of how we navigate the complexity of life.

All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

This Is How I Love You

It has been a long time since I've posted on my blog.  I've been undergoing a phase of personal transformation, and I didn't feel steady enough to post here, but recently my mind has turned more and more to the blog.  Today, my mind locked on an idea that I finally felt compelled to bring to the page.  Here goes...

I've been making a lot of changes in my life recently.  Examining the way I identify myself, making career moves, and trying to become more present in my life in real ways.  As I was working around the house this afternoon, my mind drifted back to a story I wrote during grad school at Pacific University.  It was titled "The Little Things" and it was one of the most personal stories I wrote during that phase of my life.  It was also the story that taught me the most about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to live my life.  As I was elbow deep in dirty toilets today, I thought back to the things I learned in writing that story.  And this is what I thought about as I scrubbed away.

Recently, I created this chalkboard for myself.

Self-imposed chalkboard chores

I don't know why the idea came to me in this particular form, but I know that the idea came from the feeling that I was somehow disconnected from my own home, from my family.  I've recently taken a position that requires me to work nights, a situation that removes me from the evening escapades of my family, and I was feeling like I wasn't present when my family was in the home.  I couldn't miss work, so I had to find another way to participate in my family's life.  This was one small answer to that nagging feeling.

In a marriage, in a family, there are all kinds of compromises that must be made, all kinds of sacrifices that must be made in order to keep the family unit afloat, but that doesn't mean that I had to be absent, or inactive, in my family's life.  The chalkboard chore board gave me an opportunity to feel like I had contributed to my family in a real way.  It allowed me to be of assistance to my loved ones, even if I couldn't do so by being physically present in the room.

My chores are an expression of my love.  My contribution to the household is a way of leaving a love letter every day that shows my family that I love them and want to help them navigate their busy modern lives.  My love may not be present in a hug or a kiss at bedtime, but my love is the scaffolding that holds up the structures that enable them to be successful in their lives.  Each of these things are small, minuscule efforts, things that can be done in short periods of time, but they still are what they are...they are expressions of my love for my family.  They are a statement that says I am there for them in all the ways that I can, even if some of those ways are "invisible."

I don't like the fact that I barely get to see them these days, but I will make every effort to make sure that I am a presence in their life in all the "little" ways that I can.  It sometimes takes a little swallowing of pride, a little mental coercion to get myself to play "Suzy Homemaker," but when I am done at the end of the day, when I've taken a chore off my spouse's plate, or prepared the home to receive my daughter, I feel like a man.

Father Notes: Play Time

I've been feeling a bit disconnected from Shea lately, like I've been working too much and not having enough unstructured time with her.  Unstructured time is the cornerstone of our relationship.  With so much always going on with the family, I've always taken it upon myself to make sure to spend those aimless afternoons with her without an agenda.  Tonight, I found some of that time and I can't even explain how much I missed it.

After I picked Shea up from my mother's house, we came home to find only the dog waiting for us.  We'd beaten Tracy home.  As we came into the house, I asked Shea if she wanted to change out of her school clothes and get into something more comfortable.  She looked a bit sweaty.  She asked if I wanted to come upstairs and make sure she picked out something that was "appropriate" (her words).  She instantly pulled out a purple sundress, and I said, "Why not?"

After she changed her clothes, she asked if she could show me something.  I agreed and she led me out to the backyard.  On the way out the door, I grabbed my wife's camera on a whim.  When we got outside, Shea stood on the tiny paved path between the lower yard and upper yard and simply gestured at the strawberry plants around her.

She wound her way amongst the bushes, careful to not step on any of the ripened, or unripened fruit, until she had collected a good handful.  She offered me up a couple of strawberries like they were the greatest candied confection one could find. Which is kind of true, as strawberries from one's own yard, warm from a late Spring day, dance along the tongue like few things can.

After our quick after school snack.  Shea led me on a walk around the yard, warning me to watch out for dog poop as we walked.  We simply strolled around the yard, looking at the spot where the old play structure used to be.  We talked about maybe setting up garden boxes in its place, and Shea wanted to make sure she would have some say as to what we planted.

Shea then asked me if I wanted to play a game.  Here are the rules as I understand them:

1. I stand in a patch of dandelions while she stands in a patch of dandelions across from me.
2. When she says go, I am supposed to reach her dandelion patch while simultaneously preventing her from reaching mine.  We are on opposing teams.
3. I can't tag her right after she tags me, although the tag element and what it meant to be "it" still eludes me.

This game basically involved the two of us running past each other and standing in the opposing teams dandelions for about 10 minutes.  Somehow she won, and then I attacked her and the whole thing devolved into a tickle fight.  Afterwards, she shoved flowers into her toes and presented them to me as flower flip-flops.

Once she regained her wits and grew bored of the flower flip-flops, she spied a hula hoop left forgotten on the grass from a couple of days previous.  She lit up with an idea.  "Watch me, daddy," she cried from the middle of the lawn.

She spun that hula hoop better than I remembered.  She actually kept the thing afloat for a couple of seconds, which is a grand improvement from where she began.  After she got tired of the hula hoop around the waist, it was around the arm.  When she got tired of trying to swing it around her arm?  We concocted a game to see how many ways we could throw the hula hoop to each other from across the lawn.  She rolled it.

Threw it overhand.

Tossed it like a frisbee (not a resounding success).

Two-handed-over-the-head-axe-toss.  Look at the intensity of the preparation!  This was serious business, people.

At this point, I've lost many people to the overly sentimental musings of a father, but there is a point to all of this.  The point is this.  We had an amazing evening with Shea that night.  She came inside, did all of her chores, ate her dinner, obeyed everything we said, and was in a good mood the entire time.

Our children crave our attention and our time, and most of the parents I know give it to them, but we don't always do it in the free-associating, agenda-free format that kids prefer.  Shea loved careening from one activity to another to another with no sense of a plan.  She wanted to be free of restriction.  She wanted her mind to dance and play from one pleasurable moment to the next without me saying, "Five more minutes," or, "You can play with that after you do this, that, and the other."

The whole endeavor probably took 30 minutes, an instant, an eye blink, a mere pittance of time, but it made all the difference.  I could keep this blog post focused on Shea and how it did great things for her behavior and temperament, but I think the real winner in this situation was me.  The two of us played in the grass together, barefoot.  We ate sun-kissed strawberries and played a game that had almost no rules and no real objective.  Then, we played catch back and forth with a hula hoop.  All of those things, every one, was like an aloe to my often stress-burned heart.  I came inside after playing with Shea, kissed my wife, made a fresh dinner by her side, had a snuggle before Shea went to bed, and simply found myself connecting with my wife.  Talking, at ease, and decompressed from the day.  Play time is important.  Not just for Shea, but for Tracy and I too.  I got a dose today, and I think I'm already jonesing for more.

Thanks, Shea.  You did good, girl.

Father Notes: The Serenity Prayer

Image Source

In the age of 12 step programs and reality shows that focus on addiction, most people are familiar with the Serenity Prayer in one form or another.  In the last couple of days, it has popped into my head for an entirely different purpose.  It has popped into my head as a father.

As many of my readers know, my daughter had a stroke when she was born, which caused some mobility/agility issues in her left side.  She toe walks on the left and likes to keep her left hand clenched, which makes fine motor skills like those dealing with buttons difficult for her.  For the most part though, Shea is a happy and well-adjusted little girl who doesn't have to deal with too much push back from her "difference."

That is until recently.

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Over the past couple of weeks, my daughter has been coming home from school saying that she is playing by herself at recess.  The first thoughts that struck Tracy and I was that there must be some drama in between her and the other girls at school, some childhood snafu that would dissipate in a couple of days.  I talked to her about it a little bit more and I realized we were wrong.

Her issues do not arise from some emotional/psychological drama with her fellow classmates, but it originates and grows out of her sometimes limited mobility.  The sun has been out and all recesses have been outside in the playground and field surrounding her school, which is exactly as it should be.  Since the kids have a lot of room to run, all the games they've been playing involve chasing each other down, playing tag, etc.  Shea has been feeling left out of those games, or at least frustrated with them, because she is only able to run fast for short distances.  In her words, "I can only run zoom, zoom for a little while."

Because of her stroke, her body fatigues quickly.  It is not a mental issue, it is not a lack of desire to play with the other children, but it is a lack of physical conditioning and ability that holds her back from these games.  After a couple of minutes, the game of tag or chase moves on without her and she is left standing alone in a field or a playground and, at times, she feels abandoned, alone, like her friends don't want to play with her.

This breaks my heart.

It isn't the physical reality that breaks my heart, the need to focus more on Shea's strength and endurance.  That part is the easy part.  We'll build a plan with her physical therapist and start to work on exercises that will both increase her flexibility in the left leg, but also build strength and endurance so that she can run better, longer, faster.

The part that hurts me is the fact that I can't really do much about the emotional pain she feels.  Yes, I can nurture her and tell her she is fine.  I can support her and tout her other gifts.  I can make time for her and soothe her when she is sad, but I can't really change the reality of the playground.

This is where the Serenity Prayer has been coming to mind.  For those of you who don't know it, it goes like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference. (Source)

My daughter's life is going to contain moments like this, moments where things seem unfair and hurtful.  I will do anything in my power, not to defend her from those moments, but to shore her up in ways that she will be able to navigate them.  My job is not to eradicate the situation.  I can't, for another just like it will arise down the road.  I can't eliminate unintentional emotional slights any more than I can prevent her from feeling bad when she encounters them.  In fact, I can't even call this situation an error.  I can't blame the kids for carrying on with their game of tag. I can't blame them for running around in a field full of sunshine.  I can't blame Shea for feeling bad about it.  There's a whole lot of "can't" in this situation.

But I am haunted by the image of a raucous playground full of screaming kids, bolting around as the sun glints from the frame of eyeglasses, their squeals of delight ringing in the air, and, in the foreground, a single figure.  A single figure who looks left and right, finding a gap between herself and the others, and realizing, maybe for the first time, that she is different in a way that makes her feel isolated.  A tiny figure standing in the midst of an early spring heat and wondering why.

Image Source

There is little I can do for this, and so I turn to the Serenity Prayer.  I turn to the things I can do, the ways I can make that isolated figure feel powerful and strong, happy and connected.  I can organize play dates and individual time with the boys and girls.  I can begin to work with the therapist to strengthen the organism of the body.  I can organize "You and Me" days where she feels like the center of attention and connected to her father.  I can give myself to my family and be present when we have family time together.  I can allow her to follow her interests and enroll her in sports, dance, horseback riding.  I can do all of these things, but I can't save her from that hurt, and I ache with the futility of that realization.  Instead, I turn to another line of thinking in the hopes that it will shore me up in this situation.

Happy Little Girl!

I think that this too will make her stronger.  That it will make her wiser.  That it will make her want to work harder in physical therapy.  That is will make her be inventive in how to engage her fellow students in ways that seem fun and exciting.  That she will grow up as an adult who knows both joy and sorrow, the yin and yang of life, and she'll have all the skills she needs in order to navigate what every adult knows is coming, the bittersweet complexity of adulthood.

Promise-ary note: You and Me Days

In my house, we have a tradition of "You and Me" days.  These are days dedicated to Shea.  My promise for the week was to spend some dedicated time with my daughter.  It may sound ridiculous to have to promise this, or to give it such a finite and specific time frame, but in the modern life, it is easy to lose track of yourself and your attention.  As such, I liked putting a specific time frame on it, a way of keeping myself accountable.

Last Friday was a free day for Shea.  Her school observes Good Friday, so she her day, and mine, were free to do what we wanted.  She spent the night at her grandparents house the night before, so Tracy and I could go experience the awesome-ness that was "Captain America: The Winter Soldier".  I promised her that I would pick her up at 11 after I got some work done and the "You and Me" day would begin.

When I arrived at the in-laws house, she was ready to go!  She was excited to have me all to herself, and I was excited too.  She quickly got dressed, combed her hair, and literally dragged me along to the truck as we waved goodbye to her grandparents over our shoulders.  The day had begun.

First stop, Red Robin for a quick bite of lunch.  Shea had eaten a late breakfast, so she wasn't hungry, but I hadn't eaten a thing.  As a compromise for being patient while I ate, She scored this:

Strawberry milkshake deliciousness

She barely drank any of it, claiming it was too sweet.  Shea doesn't get a lot of sugar, so things like this can kind of be an overload.  While we sat in the booth, Shea told me about school, made up stories about the different decorations around the restaurant, and simply caught me up on her life.  She was on OUTPUT!  I don't think she stopped talking the whole time we were there.  It was nice to hear about her friends, how she was getting along at school, and just listening to how big she is getting.  She's beginning to have a sense of fairness-unfairness about the world, and some of those distinctions bother her at times.

After lunch, we were off to the Family Fun Center in Wilsonville.  Tracy, Shea, and I have been here a couple of times now.  We've celebrated birthdays with Shea's friends and just popped in as a family for a little bit of mini-golf.  It's a great place to hang and play if it isn't too busy.

Because she's been there a couple of times, Shea knew exactly what she wanted to do.  She shot across the arcade the minute we were inside the doors and ran to the bowling game she loves so much.

Ready for some frames!

I made a concerted effort to keep my phone in my pocket pretty much the whole time we were there (beyond snapping a picture or two).  We played arcade games, climbed through the KidZone play structure, shot some mini-golf, and played a wall-sized version of Connect Four, which was a big hit for her.  What surprised me was how good she'd gotten at the game.  She didn't need any encouragement from me on where to place her pieces.  She's grasping concepts and strategies more and more all the time.

While the point of all of this is to simply make myself available to Shea, I reap a ton of rewards as well.  When I give dedicated time to her in unusual environments, then I get to see her capacities in a whole new light.  My little girl is growing up fast, and her development is only accelerating.  I was amazed at how social and outgoing she was with other kids in the KidZone.  She was especially sensitive to the little kids, making sure they were doing okay and giving up her turn on slides and things so that they could go first.

While mini-golf was more a comedy of errors than anything else, I can see her working her body in new and interesting ways, which is a blessing for a father who has watched her go through years of physical and occupational therapy.

Fore!

She was crushing the ball, and starting to get a sense of form down (when she wasn't running after the ball and smacking it willy-nilly!).

More than anything else, I walked away from the day realizing how much more of a conversational partner she is these days.  She tracks stories really well, remembering interesting details and pieces of dialogue.  She has a sense of social justice, or fairness, that exceeds anything I think I was aware of at that age.  There are times when I wonder if this is because she is slightly "different" from the other kids, has other challenges, and so she sees the world in a way I don't fully understand.

When we got in the truck after the Fun Center, she turned to me and said, "Can we have another You and Me day?  This is only our first one this year."  It simultaneously thrilled me and broke my heart.  I thrilled at the thought that my daughter loves having this time together, that she seeks it out, and isn't growing up too fast.  It breaks my heart because it is April.  It is April and I haven't made the special effort to organize a day where I make her feel special too.  I'm with her a lot.  We are together as a family a lot; it isn't that she doesn't have time with me.  It is that I haven't made that special and concerted effort to carve out a space for her that is unique, special, and, above all else, fun.

I'm going to work harder to find my way to her, to find the space in my days to take her to the park, to take her on a hike, to hit up the zoo.  You and Me days are not about extravagance or spectacle; they are about making sure that one of the most special people in my life knows that they are.

In the days that followed, Shea dropped a couple of heart bombs on me.  She said, "Do you know what I love the most about you?  That you are nice and kind to everyone." Heart palpitations nearly killed me.  This was followed a couple of days later by, "I love you, daddy.  I just wanted you to know that."  We were driving to school and it came out of her completely unprompted, just a spontaneous expression of her affection.  This closeness, this bond of affection, is built on You and Me days.  It's built on the idea that love is paying attention.  If you love something, you pay attention to it.  Simple as that.  I need to make sure she feels my attention.  If she does, then she'll never doubt my love.

I wonder what we'll do next?

Personal Note: Turning It Off

We all have our "it."  For me, it appears to be work.  I am a worker born and bred.  I work a lot.  I work for money AND I work for self-satisfaction.  Because of this, I sometimes have a hard time "turning it off" and focusing on other things.  This can lead to dysfunction in other areas of my life, whether it be my relationships, my health, or my free time.

I was, of course, working today, looking up the relationship of Hector and Achilles from the Trojan War because there was a reference to it in my students' reading assignment. As a result of looking up these mythic heroes, I landed on a post on a Christian website by Gene Veith as he discussed the two heroes in relationship to an article by Mark Edmundson entitled "Do Sports Build Character?" The two men used the myth of Hector and Achilles to illuminate different aspects of character, different aspects of what it means to be human, and I found myself sliding down the internet rabbit hole and becoming obsessed with an idea that led to a click here, a website there, and eventually a detour into my own blog.

The point is this, and it comes from Mark Edmundson himself, "...what is most appealing about Hector—and about a certain kind of athlete and warrior. Hector can turn it off. He can stop being the manslayer that he needs to be out on the windy plains of Troy and become a humane husband and father. The scene shows him in his dual nature—warrior and man of thought and feeling. In a sense, he is the figure that every fighter and athlete should emulate. He is the Navy Seal or Green Beret who would never kill a prisoner, the fearless fighter who could never harm a woman or a child. In the symbolic world of sports, where the horrors and the triumphs of combat are only mimicked, he is the one who comports himself with extreme gentleness off the field, who never speaks ill of an opponent, who never complains, never whines."  

Much of what I obsess about in my personal life is this exact dynamic.  How do I ambitiously pursue the things I want in life while still being a "man of thought and feeling"?  How do I create a life that is stable and loving for my family and friends while still maintaining my teeth-bared, no-holds-barred, I'm-going-to-get-mine attitude toward my writing and my career?  The answer is simple.  I can be both things.  I am allowed to be both things.  These are not aspects that are necessarily in conflict with each other, but they are aspects of being a person that need to be "activated" in their appropriate times and places.  

I can be Hector the warrior and I can be Hector the father.  My daughter will learn from seeing both sides of me.  She will come to understand tenderness, but she will also understand strength, but, most importantly, she'll come to know that there is a time and a place for each of them.

Father Notes: Raw Egg Shea

As a parent, you have to allow your children to experiment. At dinner the other night, Shea decided to tell us all the things she would eat raw.  Beef, chicken, pretty much any kind of birds, but not dogs or cats, or pretty much any other animal that could be deemed "cute."

Tracy and I were quizzing her back and forth when Tracy said, "Would you eat a raw egg?"  Shea didn't have to think about it for long.  She said, "Yes."  I immediately got up from the kitchen table, got a raw egg out of the fridge, and held it up for her.

"You would eat this?" I asked.

"Yes," Shea said with absolute certainty.

"Do you want to eat it?"

"Yes," she said.

"If I crack this egg, then you have to eat it," I replied.  Tracy sat there watching the give and take, nodding.

"Ok," Shea said.  I cracked the egg.

This is what followed:

She was a trooper about the whole thing, not backing down from the challenge.  I don't think she'll be asking for any raw eggs in the future, but I was proud of her for following through on her word.  She did a great job.

Some people wouldn't feed their kid the raw egg.  They'd worry about an uncooked egg making their kid sick, but what is life without a little risk.  She wouldn't get that ill.  Plus, it was pure comedy watching her choke that thing back.  "I think I'm gonna barf" is my favorite part.  I can't wait to show her this when she is in her teens.

Here's the final shot:

Father Notes: Getting Kids to Eat

I've just got done having "the" encounter with my daughter.  She didn't eat her dinner last night, choosing instead to go to bed early.  I was at the restaurant working, so I had no idea any of this was happening until I got done with work and checked my phone.  My wife had sent me a text to give me the heads up about what my morning would look like.  These are never fun.

My wife giving me a heads up.

While we almost never have to do it, we've had a couple of encounters with Shea refusing a meal.  The rule in our house is: if you don't eat it for dinner, you get it for breakfast.  If you don't eat it for breakfast, you get it for lunch.  You can see the trend here.

I was ready for the morning, even waking up a couple of minutes early in order to get the day started.  I figured there would be some initial resistance, but Shea usually caves once she realizes I'm serious about holding true to my promise.

Today was a bit different.  Shea was bargaining, playing the "I'm going to throw up" card, and even having an emotional breakdown at the table.  It was a mess.

Let me give you a bit of background on the situation first though.  Shea asked her mother to make the soup.  It wasn't that Tracy and I had cooked up liver and onions and were forcing her to eat it.  In that situation, she is required to take three bites and then she doesn't have to eat any more.  This situation was a bit different, so the rules are different.  We tell Shea that if she asks for something, then she has to eat it.  She doesn't have to finish it, for we are not "clean plate" parents, but she has to give a valiant attempt at eating whatever she has requested.  This is the reason we are being firm with her.  She asked for the soup.  Tracy made the soup FOR HER.  To turn her nose up at it once it has materialized is something we don't think is okay at our house.

So, it's 7:30 in the morning and Shea is sitting in front of her Broccoli Cheese soup.  She's cried, she's bargained, and she's threatened to get sick on the floor.  I'm standing firm.  At one point, Shea says, "It just smells so bad."

"OK," I say, "Plug your nose and eat."

"I can't do both," she says, trying to plug her nose with one hand while giving a halfhearted effort to scoop soup from the bowl.

"Here you go," I say, producing a small plastic clip from a kitchen utility drawer.  "Use this."  The girl actually put the clip on her nose.  I couldn't help myself, so I snapped a quick picture.

Nose Clip Soup

It didn't work as well as she hoped, but she got a good five bites in before I let her off the hook.  She's a good girl, but sometimes you simply have to put your foot down and make sure they understand that the rules are there for a reason, that you are not willing to compromise on everything, and that they won't be able to negotiate themselves out of things they've gotten themselves into.

In the end, it is "just soup."  I know this, but at the same time, we need to have some kind of principles that we enforce in our house, and I don't think this one is an unreasonable one.  If you ask for something to eat, you eat it.  Seems pretty cut and dried to me, but it begins to feel ridiculous when the child is in the middle of a tantrum and you can feel your blood boiling.  At that point, it isn't about soup.  It is about parenting and principle.  My daughter wanted to get away with something, and Tracy and I weren't letting her.  Sorry, sweetheart.  Not today.

Shea's a wonderful girl, and I have no doubt that she'll be back to her perky self by the time school is in session, but it was a challenging morning.  We'll have a better afternoon as I've arranged some time for Shea to hang out with both my mother and me this afternoon.  Fingers crossed for a good attitude.  I'm hoping to see a girl who looks more like this:

Birthday Party Face Paint

Father Notes: Art Time

Our table covered with sketchpads, the nice Pentel markers, and colored pencils.

Last Sunday, my daughter asked if we could have family art time.  She's a little artist who likes to work in multi-media, incorporating paint, crayons, scraps of ribbon, cut up paper, and all sorts of other baubles into her artwork.  She loves it when we pull out the art supplies and get to work as a family.

The thing about how we do it, and the thing that I think is good for her, is that mommy and daddy have their own art supplies.  Tracy and I have our own spiral sketchpad, our own fine point markers, and our own charcoal pencils.  These are the more expensive art supplies, and Shea knows she'll get to use them if we have "family" art time.

I think it is important for Shea to see that her parents have these things.  It takes art out of the realm of being a childish pursuit and turns it into something that anyone can do at any age.  For me, I find it critical to teach children that art is a lifelong pursuit, not a childish whimsy.  I am not a fine artist.  Nor am I a professional painter, but I am someone who enjoys the pursuit of art, the challenge of it.  Art challenges parts of the brain (and the fine muscle control of the body) to do something it is unaccustomed to doing.  It is another way of thinking, of observing the world, of engaging the imagination.  It is an important method of interacting with the world, of being alive.

Shea and I spent the whole afternoon together making pictures.  After my first one, Shea started to emulate my picture, to mimic, and try her own hand at what I had done.  My picture inspired her to try new things with her own art in a safe way.  She tried to draw new things and worked with the "composition" of her picture in a new way as a result.  I was impressed with her willingness to try.

Shea's picture which mimics mine.

While she took individual elements from my picture, she made sure to make hers different.  She turned to me at one point and said, "See how your sun is behind your cloud?  Mine is separate."  She took the elements of my picture and started making it her own.  The hearts buried under the ground?  Those are lost jewels that haven't been found yet.  The waterfall is also flowing into a pond, not a lake, for a lake is big and her pond is small.  Each element had a story, a narrative behind it, a reason for being that began shaping a world around her picture.  Her art inspired a story, which is yet another way of thinking about the world, another way of knowing.

It is important to give our kids time to create, and to watch them see our own attempts at it.  Art isn't just giving your kids crayons at the restaurant so they will behave.  It is a pursuit worth dedicating an afternoon, an activity worth their attention and ours.  When was the last time you sat down and spent some creative time with your kids?  When was the last time you broke out the paints, the crayons, the clay, the play dough, or the pipe cleaners?  It may be time to engage them and yourself in a little artistic play time.  You'll never regret it.

And if you won't take it from me?  Here it is from the mouth of the girl herself.

Father Notes: Drawing with your Kids

Shea and I took a couple of moments today to sit down together and break out the art supplies.  Shea asked if I could show her how I make faces in the "detailed" way.  I make cartoony type faces, nothing fancy, but Shea asked to learn something specific from me, so we sat down together and each began to work on our drawings.  I went shape by shape, line by line, in an effort to show her how I draw my faces.

Shea's drawing didn't look anything like mine, even though I know she was trying to imitate me.  While she drew, I repeated my original directions ONLY.  I tried to not over-correct unless she asked me for help.  When she did, I gave a little pointer here and there.

So, what's the reasoning here?  Well, I think we are too quick to try and make our little ones into perfectionists.  I know I am guilty of this at times, jumping in when a word is mispronounced, or taking over a chore/project in order to show her the "right" way to do things.  It's not a great habit of mine.

Somehow though, when it comes to art and creativity, I tend to be a little more forgiving.  I realize that each person's art is their own, that their style needs a little space, a little light and air, in order to grow.

What usually results is something new and interesting given its own space.  So, after a couple of minutes of working on a face, Shea decided that her picture needed a background.  She told me to draw Rapunzel for her.  There was a princess book lying nearby and so she gave me my creative prompt based on that.

Shea's drawing turned out great, full of color.  The background really makes the picture pop.  Mine is a simple imitation, which has its own merits in terms of learning to draw.  It was a nice little break in the day.

Shea's artwork:

Mine:

Sometimes it is hard to let our little ones color outside the lines, or do their own thing, especially after they asked for some help, but I think it's important to let them discover their own way of doing things.  I'm usually pleased beyond belief when I see the final results of these creative efforts.

It Takes Big Balls to Be a Parent, Or Does It?

Photo Courtesy of Medical News Today

A study released in the fall of 2013 showed that men with smaller testicles tended to exhibit better parenting skills than their bulging counterparts.  It sounds ridiculous, but its true. The thinking that led to the study followed a train of thought similar to this one: previous studies linked lower testosterone levels to increased involvement in parenting, so this led researchers to question if the volume of the testicles (which is associated with sperm quality) also played a role in the parenting habits of fathers.

Their assumed reasoning sounds logical, right?

I read through multiple media treatments of this study, and the coverage was shameful.  Most outlets carried stories that basically said "Big Nuts, Bad Parent."

The fact that biology and behavior is connected isn't news.  The correlation is obvious, for there are many biological/behavioral relationships.  This one shows there is a linkage between mating effort and paternal involvement as indicated by the size of the testicles, but the truly interesting portion of the study comes in the later comments by the researchers themselves.

James Rilling, the study's author, says, "Event though some men may be built differently, perhaps they are willing themselves to be more hands-on fathers.  It might be more challenging for some men to do these kinds of caregiving activities, but that by no means excuses them" (Whiteman).

Obviously! In the news blurbs about this study, the nuance of the issue is completely downplayed.

It's fine for biologists to study the body/brain dynamic.  It's a wonderful exercise in exploring the world around us, but when news of this nature is being delivered, it needs to be tempered with a greater dialogue surrounding the mind/body relationship.

I can hear some of the men who frequent the bar where I work now.  "My wife wants me to (insert activity here) with my kid, but I got a pair."  Of course they'd be saying this in jest (at least I hope), but it is another arrow in the quiver of machismo, another way of closing the dialogue about what it means to be a man.  I'd like the media to sponsor a larger debate about how the biological, while the engine of many human behaviors, is not the driver behind the wheel, not the conscience that operates the engine.

Montana's Own Testicle Festival (Couldn't Resist)

Photo Courtesy of I Must Be Off

In the meantime, I think it takes a lot of balls to stand up and be proud of involved fathering.  I think it takes machismo to actively choose your children in ways that haven't, historically, been viewed as masculine.  I'm proud to say I'm a diaper-changing, doctor's-office-visiting, vomit-cleaning, dress-up-party-having, ballet-dancing type of father.  As to the size of my testicles? Well you can infer what you want.  This isn't Craigslist, people.

Whiteman, Honor. "Dads with Smaller Testes Are Better Fathers, Study Shows." Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.