When perspective slaps you in the face

I’ve been dreading writing this blog and if you’ve noticed it’s been a few weeks instead of my normal weekly clip.  First before anyone freaks out; Nita, the kids, them mom’s and I are all still healthy, employed, etc.  But I did lose a friend a couple of weeks ago.  Due to some circumstances that don’t really matter anymore I hadn’t spoken with him for quite some time and I even avoided him in some cases.  This isn’t like the normal “we grew apart” or “didn’t have time to connect” issues that many of us experience.  This guy was a hair-on-fire-10-miles-a-minute kind of person.  And he drew you in to whatever he was up to.  I don’t regret any portion of our friendship and am glad he is at peace.  But the main reason I cried and cried and cried was his legacy.

You see JD was a once in a lifetime kind of soul.  He was so brilliant, so funny, good looking, had a great father, good friends, everything.  He had a good family, good job, and was a pretty good golfer and card player.  But the thing that got me was how many people loved and supported him and how he could slip away from all of that.  As a parent of the two most brilliant and beautiful children on the planet (I’m sure some of you may object but this is my blog) I have this master plan on how to guide them to success.  I even wrote Connor an 11 page manifesto on “how to be a man” while he was still resting comfortably in Nita’s tummy.  I have thought about the proper balance of God, work, study, effort, discipline, fun, silliness, self-effacing humor, and athletics. 

I included paragraphs on how to be a good friend, how to show respect, and how to stay on the correct path in the face of bad influences.  It is very logical, I think pretty well thought out, and not antiquated.  It does embrace old fashioned values, but in a 21^st century sort of way.  And then the funeral.  It was at that moment I realized that although I can arm Connor and Josie with all the tools, advice, guidance, and even a treasure map to success…I can’t guarantee anything.  You can only pray that it all “takes” and they choose wisely.  Now I’m not stupid enough to think that they would do everything I said or follow my logic to the letter into always choosing the right decision.  Heck I can’t even get them to do that at 4 and 2 and I lost Nita years ago; and honestly I don’t even take my own advice all the time. But I was hoping that with enough of that proper alignment that it would at least be directionally correct.  By the way as a funny aside, it isn’t just me that has a strategy for the kids.  Nita has a “bangs” strategy for Josie.  Yes you read that correctly no need to go back.  I suggested that since Josie’s hair is always in her face and we have to use clips or pig tails that we cut the front.  Nita looked at me like I was from Mars and then calmly explained her “bangs strategy.”  I had no idea there was such a thing.

I lost my golf swing a few months ago.  I mean gone, really bad.  What happened was I had a few injuries and just played through them.  Then with the wind and tournaments and other stuff I just started shortening things up and flattening them out.  I was just looking for something that would do.  As time went on and I repeated these bad habits it just came to a crescendo.  I needed help.  So I started on my lessons and realized that my swing had hit bottom.  The funny thing is I’d always been able to visualize my swing and make some corrections that would get me back to where I needed to be.  I think the funeral actually gave me the peace to accept someone else’s help.

Maybe that is the best lesson from the whole thing.  There are times in your life when you need help, we all do.  Who among us offers it to our friends and family?  Who among us accepts it for the gift that it is?  I love that both my kids want to do things on their own as they struggle for identity and independence.  Josie is the queen of refusing help and shouting, “I want to do it, I don’t need help daddy, I want to do it.”  Whereas Connor (who’d already been through that stage) is more apt to say, “Can you please help me daddy, I need help.”  I’m thoughtful on when I do and don’t help, knowing that sometimes learning from failure is more valuable than learning from watching the correct technique. 

I know my friend had some issues and we all wanted to help but it just didn’t work out.  I know it made me look at my own life a little differently and certainly my children.  It made me want to be more patient with my wife and friends and maybe not demand as much perfection as I normally do.  In case some of you were not at my wedding or my father’s funeral, I delivered a line from my father at both.  “Excellence is a state of becoming, never a state of being.”  So his gift was to never be satisfied with current state because you can always be better.  And I guess it has served me well over the years, but I may have unfairly applied it to others.  So I’m looking out for that.

Enough of that.  Halloween is a few days away and Connor and Josie have begged us to take them riding around the neighborhood daily to see all the displays our neighbors have put up.  They are really excited about the candy, costumes, and trick or treating.  For the last month we’ve had to tell Halloween stories for bed time.  Not SAW IV stories, just cute little Casper and trick or treat stories.  But you’ll see when all the pictures come in. Also, both the mom's birthdays were in October (photo shoot for Nita's mother). Nita’s birthday is coming up this week and the kids on the following two weeks.  There are lots of cupcakes in my future.  Oh and Connor can do the Gangnam Style dance.  Perhaps a video may show up on FB sometime soon.

 

Where do Babies Come From?

Well it wasn’t exactly that, but it was pretty funny nonetheless.  Before I go there I want to come right out and say what a bad daddy and husband I was this weekend.  I played in a fancy member guest golf tournament that included an open bar all around the course. Let’s just say that if we’d have been handicapped by consumption we’d have run away with the title.  But we weren’t…and we didn’t so there’s that.  But a good time was had by all and even though we went from second to sixth, not a single bad word was said to the other.  To the golf ball, the hole, the course, trees, bunkers, hazards, etc. there were plenty of bad words. But to my partner, there were none.  Good times.

While Nita was cooking dinner I walked in the kitchen and there was Connor holding the absolutely sharpest knife we own.  I freaked out.  Nita thinks I over reacted.  He’s 4.  Almost.  He should certainly not be holding a santoku knife.  About seven years ago we had what we called the “Jambalaya incident.”  You see Nita makes an awesome jambalaya.  So she was at the island dicing the onions when all of a sudden as I’m washing some vegetables…By the way, this was still before kids.  Back then we used to cook in the kitchen together and laugh and leisurely talk about our day.  We’d drink a glass of wine while prepping dinner and a 1 or 2 hour meal prep was no big deal.  Now, well you know if you have kids.  If I’m at the dinner table and I want to tell Nita something about work and it happens to be a five minute story, it takes 12 because we usually have to get someone more milk and or read “Goodnight Goon” the latest Halloween book in between stories.

Anyway, back to the dicing.  So there’s Nita cutting away and I heard a loud and distressed, “Oh No.”  I was an EMT so I immediately took her to the sink and started pouring cold water to check the depth of the cut.  Nita (before childbirth) was kind of squeamish about blood and that type of stuff and didn’t want me to touch her wound, much less assess and dress it.  So off we went to the emergency room.  When we got to the Doctor and told him what happened Nita asked, “What do you think?”  He joked, “I think you need sharper knives, this finger should have come off.”  So we got sharper knives.

And here is Connor with the sharpest one of them in his almost four year old hands.  Nita still thinks I over reacted, but hey man; I have a few basic jobs.  Keep them out of prison, keep them out of the hospital, teach them right from wrong, kill bugs, fix non-plumbing items around the house, and make them great athletes.  There is some character and scholarly well rounding in there, but that is for both of us.  If my tombstone reads, “He over reacted his way to awesome kids” I can live with that.

So while at dinner we’re just talking about school and Halloween and Connor notices our little video picture frame.  He sees a baby picture and asks, “Mommy how was I born?”  Nita proceeded to tell Connor about carrying him for 9 months in her tummy and then going to the hospital and then pushing and then out came Connor.  He then asked about Josie and we repeated the story.  Then he asked about me.  So being adopted I told him about the same story until the end when I said, “And then my mommy said, ‘I can’t take care of this baby.’  But right then Abuelita said, ‘I’ll take him and I’ll love him and care for him and raise him as my own baby.’”  Connor seemed somewhat impressed with the drama.  He then asked, “Mommy, how were you born.”  I said, “Her story is much less impressive.”  We all laughed while Nita said, “DUDE!”  Then he asked how Abuelita was born.  Mom told a story about her brother running over to get the midwife in her village and then really described foot positions and the spanking to get the air flowing.  Connor’s eyes were as big as oranges. 

I then had the idea of showing the kids their birth videos.  (No not the head out video, the first minutes).  So first was Connor’s clean up, temperature check and eye gel.  He was so teeny tiny.  He cried and shivered.  Connor was CAPTIVATED as was Josie.  We asked if he wanted to turn it off and he said he wanted to keep watching.  Then we showed the video of Connor meeting Josie for the first time.  That too was adorable.  Connor kept pointing to Josie and looking at her and saying, “That’s you Josie, that is little Josie when you were a baby.”  It was a pretty cute night.  I’ll have to re-read this someday when they get in a fist fight or are at each other’s throats for something. 

We usually tell stories during dinner or read books and the kids just love the adventures.  It was funny because when we were first married, we ate in front of the TV all the time.  We’d watch movies or get into a TV series or both.  We joked that when we had kids we hoped to have at least one night a week at the dinner table with no TV.  Now it’s the exact opposite.  Every night is at the dinner table and once every couple of weeks we’ll do a “fun family movie night” where we’ll watch a Disney movie and eat pizza in ManCave.  I hope this lasts for a while.  A few of my favorite people are about to have babies in the next few months.  One is a vet the others are brand new.  I’m not offering any advice other than one thing that has helped me.  I love hearing the stories from veteran parents.  If for no other reason than I can anticipate those events and play it out in my head how I would handle it when it came to be my turn.  So enjoy the blog new parents, plan accordingly, and don’t let them play with knives.