April 25, 2013

Tortoises, Hares and Strawberries

My smiley son Sam

My smiley son Sam

My son, Sam, has quickly found his niche.

Well, a kind of niche.

I’ve told lots of people – hell I’ll tell anyone who asks – that the boy has near perfect pitch.  Not that he can tell you the notes he’s singing, but get him started on a song he’ll complete it, on-key, no auto-tune required.

So imagine my surprise and slight stressed consternation when he got a large role in the school play this week.

I should explain a little . . . there’s a really amazing theater troop that travels the country from, of all places, Missoula, Montana.  (You heard me right, Montana!)  They show up at the school on a Monday, the kids try out for parts, and they immediately cast and begin rehearsals.  They hold the play on Saturday.

All four of my kids have done it before.  Abbi was even the lead one year.  They’re kids’ plays, usually fairy tales, but with some horrifically bent and funny take on them.  Abbi’s was the Little Mermaid.  Hannah, Noah and Sam all were in Sleeping Beauty.

This year, Sam’s doing it alone, and he did it because he really wanted to.

I haven’t seen the script, nor the play, but he’s a photographer in The Tortoise and the Hare.  I picked him up tonight, roughly 8pm, from the school.  He’s normally hitting the shower and readying for bed by now, but because of the schedule Sam’s facing homework and then the nighttime routine.

“I’m onstage almost the whole play,” Sam says grinning at me.
“That’s awesome, little man!”
“Yeah . . . although I didn’t remember all my lines today.”
“Well, it’s only Wednesday, Bud, you’ll get it.”
“Yeah…” his voice trailed off.
“You were playing your video games last night instead of learning your lines, weren’t you.”
“Umm….”
“You didn’t go to Umbridge,” was my response – a typical response when my kids say “ummm…”
“Well, yeah.  But I won’t tonight.”
“Nope…you have homework to do.”
“Can I have a midnight snack, Dad?”

I looked at him, ready to not cave in and tell him that he’d had McDonald’s – his sister brought it to rehearsal for him – but couldn’t.  He’d eaten at 5pm, danced, sang, and run around.  I was still ready to say “no” when he said:

“They gave us quite a workout.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…up, down, up, down.  They had us sing so much I almost hate singing now.”
“You hate singing?”
“Dad . . . I said almost!”

I smiled.

“Hey, Dad?”
“I’m not made of hey, Sam.”
“Oh . . . Dad?”
“Yeah, little man?”
“Can I get an extra snack for lunch?  I need something to eat before we start rehearsal.”

I had just bought healthy snacks, we had tons of fruit in the house.  Even though I’d made brownies, I asked him:
“I could put an apple in your lunch.”
“Mmmm.  Okay…although . . . I’d bet even money I’d be even happier with Strawberries!”

Even money.  Where does he pick up this stuff?  Laughing, I look at him and say “even money, huh?”
“Yep . . . I looooove me some strawberries!”

He finished his homework, I gave him a cup of Cheerios to snack while he worked, and put him to bed.  I had a video project I was completing and was about to slap together their lunches.  My inclination was to wash an apple and stuff it in his bag.

Then I saw the strawberries, and smiling, I started to cut them and put them in the baggie.  He may looooove him some Strawberries, but any kid who talks that intelligently in my house . . . deserves to get them.

Posted by on April 25, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 24, 2013

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

I wrote something about a year ago about how people all around me told me that they were seeing signs and getting signals from my late wife.  She was seemingly everywhere when somebody needed them.

Just not with the five people in my house.

I know that sounds harsh, and I’ve had people even say “she’s there, you just haven’t noticed or looked hard enough.”

That could easily be.  It could, I don’t know.  I’m not the best person at seeing signs, signals, and allusions around me.  I’m a guy.  Like most guys, we need a 2×4 to the head to actually know when someone – particularly women – needs something.

But this isn’t about me.  It’s not.

The kids, all four, with that smile.

The kids, all four, with that smile.

It’s about my kids.  Two kids in particular.

I don’t know why . . . and you’ll likely have noticed I’ve been seeing the difficult parts of my wife coming out in my daughters lately.  Now . . . my sons.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things that my kids do that remind me of the most beautiful and wonderful parts of Andrea.  When Hannah walks up and hugs me; when Abbi giggles and dances around the house; when Sam sidles up and uncomfortably, nervously asks me something with a nervous laugh; when Noah smiles; they all have those bits and pieces that were the whole of their mother.  When they laugh, particularly together, I can hear her laughing.

But then today . . . and yesterday . . . it all came sort of crashing in with the other parts.

The obsessive, compulsive, obstinate, have to get their way part.

This last couple days was the final work on what the school calls “biography in a bag.”  It’s pretty simple, get some artifacts together that represent your person, dress up like them, put notes together . . . all that goes in a bag and you present it to your class.  The problem is, both Noah and Sam had grandiose ideas but wouldn’t do anything about it until the last minute.  Their reports were well done, well thought out, even completely researched.

But then came the costumes.

Sam and Noah both . . . “I don’t want to look like Sam/Noah does!”

I basically looked at the two of them and replied: “your guys both have suits on!  It’s a suit!  Not a Matlock searsucker suit, not a khaki sport jacket . . . these are guys from 1849 all in the exact same freaking black jacket, white shirt and tie!”

I got the Andrea Andrews cold stare.  Logic be damned, they want their own way.

“What do you guys want to do?!”
Nothing.
“Any ideas?!  I’m open . . . but it’s now 8:30 at night and your only options left are what’s in the house.”
“Daaad….” God, I hate that, by the way.  It’s like they’ve started puberty, too, and they haven’t.  ”my guy has a beard!”
“Okay . . . do you think your teachers will let you have a fake beard on since you’re supposed to go to mass before class?  Because all I can do now is split up cotton balls and glue them to your cheeks with spirit gum.  Then you’ll need cold cream to take it off.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but their looks got colder.

2013-04-24 07.00.53“You don’t understand . . . ” was how they started.  They looked at me pissed off, cold, angry, and sure they were right, even though they had no position they could take.

“Let me make this just perfectly clear to you…at this point you have to wear the suits.  Period!  It was 18-freaking-forty-nine.  They only way they’d look anything different was if they wore a zoot suit and those didn’t come out until the 20th century.  So, for the love of God, (and here I heard Bill Cosby coming out of my mouth before I could stop it) you’ll wear suits, with different jackets, and Noah in a hat . . . because I Said So! “

The boys rolled their eyes, threw up their arms and stomped upstairs to put on their pajamas.

Abbi looked up at me and simply stated . . . “and there’s Mom coming out of them for you.”

She was right.  Andrea would pitch those same fits.  Logic be damned, if she wanted something, she found a way to get it.

“Yeah,” I told her, “but the problem for them is . . . your Mom and I were partners.  This is a dictatorship.  Beside that, am I wrong?”
“No,” Abbi commented, smiling.  ”But were you ever wrong with Mom.”
“Yes,” I said, “though when I was right she would push, and poke, and push and poke . . .just – like – that.”
“Oh, yeah, I know,” said my daughter, getting a bit more down, “and I remember you guys having some real blowouts!”

She was right, too.  Most of those arguments stemmed from both of us digging a trench and refusing to move, right or wrong.

“Yeah . . . difference is I’m right today.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Abbi added, then smiled and said “doesn’t make it easier to deal with.”
“Yep,” I told her, smiling, “should never surprise us that when your Mom decided to show up for us . . . this is how she appeared.”

Abbi looked at me, grinned, and put the period on the night.

“She always did know how to make an entrance.”

Posted by on April 24, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 23, 2013

Dating Differences

Don’t get too excited by the title up there, this is nothing to do with a single father going on dates and more to do with a single father raising two girls.

Still . . . nothing makes my head swim quite like being Dad to two girls – one of them now the age I was when I first started seriously dating myself.  Even then . . . I don’t mind telling you at this point that I was painfully poor at it.  Still, it never stopped me from trying.  In fact, I had more than a few dates that were woefully laughable today.

I could go back into high school, I suppose, but my attempts in those years were at best painfully pathetic.  It’s probably best not to re-live those youthful attempts both for my own and those unfortunate few that went on the occasional date with me.  It’s best not to embarrass any of us further.

College wasn’t a lot better.  I went out with one girl who had just started modeling.  When she realized I couldn’t help her career as a local TV person she disappeared.  Another was Afghan and devoutly Muslim.  When she stated there was no way she’d ever end up with someone who wasn’t Muslim or willing to convert I knew there weren’t any other dates coming.  One girl, whom I sincerely liked, went with me to see George Carlin.  When he went off on a tangent about how much he hated anorexia – nay, said, to quote: “some rich bitch decides she doesn’t want to eat her cheeseburger?!  F**k anorexia!!”  I had no idea at the time that my date had been anorexic.  (In fairness to George, the old line used to be . . . if you weren’t offended at least twice at a George Carlin show, you weren’t paying attention.)

That’s just a few memorable ones.  Those don’t include the ones that had no spark whatsoever.  So you can see . . . my dating experiences were varied, strange, even odd.  All of them colored with my stammering, nervous, sweating and scared beginnings.  Even the date with Andrea, who would become my wife, was filled with strange, confused, beginnings.

But having two girls . . . my point here . . . that’s put a whole new perspective on things.  I honestly don’t know if the way my girls see things; hell, the way all girls here seem to see things is the way girls saw things when I was a kid.  I grew up seeing things much as my father did.  You went out with someone you liked.  You asked a girl out, or to the Homecoming dance or to the Prom because you liked that person, not just because you needed a date for those occasions.

But apparently I was mistaken.

For the last four years, all through the high school years my oldest had been through, the schools have pushed and prodded and encouraged a “you have to have a date” mentality for the school dances.  When each dance would approach, the desire to go or attend with a date was less a desire and more of an off-putting event.  But as the dances would approach and every…single…friend would attain a date, I would come home to the depressed, hormonal, upset daughter that just kills me.

I talked with other parents, other girls of my daughter’s age (that she doesn’t know) even, and they all say that this is the way things are.   Have I been hiding under a rock for God’s sake?  At least now it’s the way things are.  You just go . . . get a date, almost any date, as long as they’re seemingly tolerable.

I never quite understood nor could come to grips with this concept.  As I said, I just wanted to go with someone I liked.  If that wasn’t going to happen . . . so be it.  I went alone.

But I also have a far different take on things now.  I was always the guy looking from the outside.  Seeing it from a girl’s perspective is new.  Before I’d have said that it was easier to just go alone or realized that the girl I wanted to date didn’t want to go.  But now I see these things as my daughters both see them.  Being alone yourself, when your friends all have dates . . . and you see guys who went alone, without even just asking you to go on a date themselves.  That’s got to be painful, even difficult.

As a Dad, it’s hard not to try and fix this, but some things are just part of life.  I also think, though my daughter doesn’t likely think this is the case, that being a smart, funny, quirky (yeah, I said it, even though women around me told me it’s the kiss of death) girl is hard for a guy.  Being a girl who’s likely an even match or – in many cases – smarter than the guy is even harder because they don’t like that.

But at the end of the day, I never thought about the fact that there were girls out there – nice girls, pretty girls, smart girls – who just wanted a date.  I didn’t think about the fact that going with a friend who is a lot of fun gives you a date and her a date and makes for a good night anyway.  I’m not sure which is the better mentality to be honest.

The hardest thing to come to terms with is the fact that I have to listen to the situations unfold and not be able to do anything about it.  Nothing.  Not one single thing.  I could try but then I’m the fodder of most 1980′s sitcoms.

But as hard as it is . . . I know that my daughters have amazing years ahead of them.  They get to meet people. fall in love, maybe have (another) breakups, but they will have the opportunities I didn’t.  My daughters have more confidence, as do my sons, and will get to go through life better than their father managed in those years.

At the end of the day, can you really ask for more?

Posted by on April 23, 2013 in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 22, 2013

Amazing Things

I’ve seen some amazing things.

Now, before you get all uppity and start asking me “what makes you so damn amazing?” let me remind you I said I’d seen some amazing things, not that I, myself, the author, am amazing.  That’s just egomaniacal.

But I have.  What I worry about is whether I’ve pushed my kids to see and do those same amazing things?

I never went out with a plan to see and do these things.  They just happened.  Many of them were for work.  Many were not.  It’s not like a post I made some time ago about doing things on a “bucket list.”  I often think about the things I’ve done and wonder about the world and environment in which I’ve raised my four children.  Is it the same one that I had?  Is it better?  Is it worse?

I had a great childhood.  Whatever issues came from my teenage years were my own, nothing to do with the people that raised me.  I was insanely fortunate to have been born to amazing parents.  Many of you might say the same thing.  Others of you may not.

It’s an odd balance, particularly since I’m it now on the parental front.  You want them to open up and be friendly and play around and have fun.  They also have to know that you’re the one in charge and when things go wrong the consequences will not be good.  You might call it a healthy dose of fear.  I call it reality . . . along with some self-preservation.

But I look at my oldest, Abbi, and think about where I was at her age.  She faces a lot of similar issues: dating; lack of a date for the dance; anger at misunderstandings….

But where I lacked the confidence and had an abundance of shyness she excels, even when she says she “hates people.”

Me...at 16, God Help me

Me…at 16, God Help me

But before her age: at 16 I had driven from Nebraska to Colorado – by myself – and visited my brother in college.  Think about that: no cell phones.  Middle of nowhere in Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado.  What if I’d broken down?  What if things went haywire?  Why did my parents let me do this?!  Two reasons, I think, though I’ve had no discussion about it: they and I trust(ed) my older brother.  They also gave me the tools – figuratively and literally – to limp along if something went wrong.  I had the ability to change a tire, tighten the plugs, check the distributor, all that.  In my 1977 Buick I was able to get to Colorado and back.  The result?  I went to the top of Mount Antaro.  I drove a 4×4 on a logging road.  I froze my a** off due to my brothers’ friends’ stupidity.  I had stories to tell…stories that got better every time I told them.  I saw the Who live, and the Doobie Brothers, and Steve Miller and a major festival with Taj Mahal, BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughan at Red Rocks.  All in those Colorado trips.

I turned 19, went to college, and taught myself to play the guitar.

But I guess it wasn’t enough.

The guitarist...

The guitarist…

My lack of confidence and willingness to blame everyone but myself for that loneliness and anger was also what spurred me to do the job I do.  The result has been my working hard at my industry – as a journalist – and seeing amazing things.  I’ve met presidential candidates; covered presidents; met amazing people.  I went to Afghanistan (okay, I went to Germany, flew to pick up wounded soldiers and spend 2 hours on the ground in Afghanistan…but I was still there!)  I saw the Pentagon right after 9/11.  I found pieces of the Space Shuttle Columbia on the ground.  I found a charred mission patch and wondered…”why do I do this?” only to be told…because you tell stories and people need to know.

But the thing I’ve realized is that I’ve had these adventures – and they were adventures – and never really shared them.  Some my partner and wife didn’t have any desire to have.  I’ve always wanted to see the Pyramids at Giza…she didn’t.  I was in awe of Germany and told her I wanted to take her there . . . and she simply said “meh!”  Sure, we had some together…climbing a waterfall in Jamaica; driving a motorcycle in Grand Cayman.  But those were early.  In the last 10 years, even, very little.

I’ve tried very hard, particularly in the last couple years, to let my children know that life can be adventurous.  You don’t have to go to Afghanistan or Germany.  You can go to Gettysburg or Yosemite or even London.  Life is the adventure and we’d lost it.  I don’t know where or how or why, it just went dark somehow.

With Abbi in New York

With Abbi in New York

But now . . . I’ve taken Abbi to New York, forcing her to see the Statue of Liberty.  I took Hannah to see the Who!, like her father did at 16.  Would I let my kids drive across several states like I did?  I doubt it, but then . . . they didn’t have my brother to go visit, either.  But they travel to my parents and my brother every year.  That’s an adventure!

What I want is my kids to have the adventure, the drive, and the skill . . . and the confidence to know they can do it.  I see them all able to do their own, amazing things . . . I just want them to remember they can do them.

Posted by on April 22, 2013 in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 19, 2013

Yelling, Shouting, Frustrating!

I hate yelling at my middle daughter.  I absolutely loathe it, as a matter of fact.

The other day I talked about how she was starting to show massive signs of her mother coming through her personality – and not in the best way.  Last night clinched it.

 

Andrea

Andrea

Andrea, you have to understand (if you’ve never read my blog), passed away two years ago, on our eighteenth wedding anniversary.  She went in on a Tuesday with a cough and passed away in the hospital on Saturday.  My daughter, Hannah, was joined to Andrea at the hip, and they were inseparable.  For that reason, I worried about my relationship with my middle daughter after Andrea died.

But back to the similarities:  Andrea, when we were first married and first had children in particular, had a habit of picking the absolute perfect moments (for her) of hitting every horrible emotional button of mine.  She would start an argument (or I would, it takes two, I know!) and get my slow build going.  Then she’d needle the little things that bothered me.  None of them had anything to do with the argument at hand, they’d just come out anyway.  Then she’d tell me to lower my voice, the kids might hear, and when the little ones would round the corner throw an emotional grenade at me so I would just blow.  Right when the kids were there.

She always apologized, but for years I looked like the angry guy who yelled and hollered and she was calm and cold.

Bear in mind, there was never anything evil, violent, or worse that came.  Just anger.  Pure, unadulterated anger that she could fuel like Ronsonol on a fire.  When I told a doctor about this after Andrea passed away, that I worried Hannah would only remember those things, the doctor told me it was best she knew that we were communicating.  ”You never got violent, nor did Andrea.  You never threatened to leave.  At the end of the night, you were in the same bed together and up the next morning.  She saw you were talking, though loudly, and at least you were communicating.”

Hannah in the middle

Hannah in the middle

Hannah has learned those very buttons to push, though.  In the worst way.

Where I had an equal relationship with my wife, Hannah has the feeling she’s in that position now that she’s tall, hormonal, and graduating middle school.

She isn’t.

Last night the boys came and informed me that payment for their school pictures was due tomorrow.  This, I knew, but I appreciated the reminder.

Then came Hannah, hormonal, angry, and threw out that hers were due today, “Daaaad!”  and proceeded to inform me that her teacher informed everyone of this, that I was late . . . and wouldn’t stop.  Just informing me wasn’t enough, there was an accusation of impropriety.  That’s where I threw her the Dad glare.

“You know, Hannah, it’s nonsense that your pictures are due a day before your brothers’ pictures.”
“So what, Dad?!”
“Okay . . . let me put it to you this way, then.  You want me to remember this and do what you want, when Abbi and I have done the dishes for the last week.  When you did your chores day before yesterday you didn’t finish.  Dishes were everywhere.  I can’t get any more garbage in the garbage can.”
She started to give me more attitude in the least pleasant of voices.
“For the last time, Hannah . . . I have no money.  None.  I get paid tomorrow!  I have a car that has 12 miles left of gas.  12.  That’s it.  I had to plan it out just this much due to your sister’s college deposit, your tuition, all that!”
She moped.
“In addition, HANNAH!  I have THIS much work to do (picture me with my arms wide, like I want a hug) and THIS much time to do it all in! (picture me with my hands next to each other.)  Then, when I have to do YOUR chores on top of cooking meals, making your lunches – which I do every…single…day…and then cook dinner, laundry, vacuum, dust, all of that . . . I have THIS much to do and THIS much time to do it in. Did I mention that I worked 10 hours yesterday and did THIS much work after it too?!”

Hannah’s eyes got glassy, but she was angry.  I saw it in her face.

“So when I miss some little deadline . . . like a freaking packet of pictures that I know damn well they’ll just make me buy the whole packet next week anyway . . . and your brothers’ pictures aren’t due until tomorrow . . . you might want to cut me just a little slack.  You see when I come home I do more work.  You come home, slog into your bedroom, that is so full of crap snakes could be living on the floor you wouldn’t know because of the layers of garbage all over the FLOOR!”

It’s hear the anger left her face.

“So when I missed one little deadline, or wait until the last minute to fill out a field trip form . . . maybe you might consider cutting me just a little freaking slack?!”

Hannah went up to the same said bedroom and shut her door.  Her sister, Abbi, looked at me and though grinning, I could tell she thought I’d gotten a bit too angry.

My girls...Hannah on the left, Abbi on the right

My girls…Hannah on the left, Abbi on the right

“Too much?”
“No . . . I just don’t know how she got it in her head she could act that way.”
“You know that if it had been your grandma none of this would even happen.  She’d have beaten us then made us do it anyway.”
“Oh . . . yeah.  But you’d have deserved it.”
“True.”

I sighed.  I hate getting angry.  It really, honestly, doesn’t happen often.  In fact, it’s very rare.  But . . . Hannah is learning the wrong things to do: the button pushing and the manipulation to try and get what she thinks is most important at the moment.  School pictures or food?  Those were the choices I gave her.

Still, I felt bad about how angry I got.

I got up from the couch, moved to head up the stairs to have a calm discussion with her.

But then I looked and realized it . . . she’d managed to disappear without doing the dishes yet again.  Some things never change.

 

Posted by on April 19, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 17, 2013

Her Mother’s Daughter

My daughter Hannah is one of the sweetest, happiest, most kind individuals I’ve ever known.

Most of the time.

Noah, Sam and HannahIn the last few months, though, I’ve noticed a change in her.  It’s not for the worse, don’t get me wrong, but it’s like somehow the influx of hormones hit overdrive and I’m having to deal with a teenager who’s still struggling with their own identity.  Now, before you tell me that’s every teenager, I get that.  But it’s never been Hannah.

Hannah was always the little girl joined to her Mom’s hip.  She loved her Grandma – my Mom – sometimes to the ire of Andrea, my wife, who thought she had Hannah as a complete and utter kindred spirit.  Hannah once, as a 3 or 4-year-old, after getting a new nightgown and a pair of fuzzy slippers from my mother wasn’t understanding that my parents were leaving to go home.  Hannah had grabbed a paper bag and inserted her teddy bear, the same said slippers, a second pair of pajamas and was waiting by the door to get into my folks’ car.  When my Mom informed her that she had to stay at her own house Hannah was crushed.  Tears welled up in the corners of her giant brown eyes and she said, huffing in tears the whole while, “but I wanted to go with you Grandma!”

That was Hannah.  The little, loving, sweet kid.

Now it’s Hannah the teenager.

Yeah, sure, there’s the acne that’s started.  More than that is my having to constantly ask her if she’s used the face wash and cleaned up and washed her hair.  I’m constantly telling her to take her hair out of her eyes, not because it bothers me but because she can’t see what’s in front of her and is constantly saying so.

“I’m going to take you to the salon and get you a pixie cut,” I told her recently.
“What?!”
“A pixie cut . . . you know, short hair like that girl on Once Upon a Time.  She looks good in it, and she’s a brunette.”

I’m still pulling the daggers out of my chest she shot from her eyes.

Now, while I deserved that irksome response, others I don’t.  Tonight was the best example.

I got home, unable yet again to cook due to the lack of counter space.  It’s not that my kitchen is too small, it’s because the dishes I’d ordered her to do seemed to have duplicated like rabbits.  I had no pans to cook.

A year ago I made a deal with my kids: I’ll cook.  If you have a meal you prefer, I’ll make it.  I’ll make desserts for your lunches.  Heck, I make their lunches.  I’ll do that, the laundry, vacuum . . . all they have to do is the dishes so I can cook.

Needless to say I’m the only one making good on the deal.

So when I got home to the mess and Hannah walked in, annoyed, yelling – nay, screaming - at her brother and then ordered me to fill out a field trip form it was my turn to give a look that would kill.

But it didn’t take.

“Daaaaaad!  It’s due tomorrow!”
“I know, I got emails from your teacher, the room mother, coordinator . . . everybody.  I’ll fill it out.”
“No . . . you need to fill it out now!“

That’s when I lost it.  Truly, completely, lost it.
“Oh . . . really?!  You want to eat tonight?  I have no room, no pans, no forks, no dishes from a kitchen that I was told would be clean when I got home and your most important issue is a form I already knew I had to fill out?!”

She got angry and started raising her voice.  She was, you see, right in her mind.

I bring this up because of several things:
1) she’s hormonal, 13, and just being a teen.  I get that.
2) Before you get mad at me, it’s still true…Hannah gets horrible PMS, just like her mother did.  Now it’s added to the hormones
3) This is the hardest…she’s showing signs and signals of acting like her mother.  Just like her mother.

Andrea, when I first met her, with that smile...

Andrea, when I first met her, with that smile…

I loved Andrea, let me be firm on that.  There were 10 million things about her I adored.  Her anger over random things was not one of them.  It’s hard thing to look into the face of my 13-year-old brunette daughter with the brown eyes and see the angry, fiery rhetoric of the blonde haired blue eyed woman I met twenty-odd years ago.  I also worry because that behavior didn’t help her mother, not one bit.  It didn’t scare me away because I could help her control it.  I don’t want Hannah to have to look at working on that for too many years.

But it dawned on me that there are a number of differences.  I have genes and DNA of my own floating around in her body there, too.  I also am not married to this girl, I’m her father.  Andrea was an equal and usually there was something that stressed her out and I could find the root cause of her anger.  For Hannah, it’s the random stresses of the day she thinks are most important.  Where with Andrea I had to come to compromises and was often far too deferential, with Hannah it’s different.  I love her to death, but this isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship.

“I have every intention of filling out yours, Noah’s and Sam’s forms.  I will fill out your registration packet for high school.  I have it all on a big list in my freaking head.  The thing you should worry about more, though, is the fact that I’m going to take away your guitar . . . again . . . if this kitchen isn’t cleaned up!”

It’s hard for me to see the darker side of Andrea coming out in my child.  Hannah and I have conflicts often because there was such a closeness between the two of them and a distance between the two of us.  We’re not like oil and water.  She hugs me every day, talks to me constantly and the horror I thought she’d face in losing her Mom isn’t as horrific as either of us thought.

Still . . . I’ve come to realize there are things I have to face that genetically bleed through in her hormones, PMS, and mentality.  It’s hard to see and face because it does . . . once in awhile . . . remind me of the best and the worst of her mother.  I miss all of her, not just the good parts, and she unwittingly lets them all bleed through at once.

Hannah and a friend

Hannah and a friend

But by tonight’s end, I saw the best as well.  When the four of them finally stopped fighting and the calm hit the room, they smiled as I read a chapter of a book to Noah and Sam and Hannah peeked in the doorway.

Of course . . . I had managed to fill out all five field trip forms, too.

It was then I saw the sparkle in her eyes and the happiness again.  It was then I saw the smile, the combination of all four of them smiling, and I saw the best of her mother too.

That’s when I knew she really was her mother’s daughter.

 

Posted by on April 17, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 16, 2013

Everybody Ought to Make a Change

It’s not often I upset my oldest daughter in a superior fashion, but I did it not long ago.

The catalyst for the anger really isn’t important . . . and it’s personal so I’m not going to go into major details of what happened.

But it upset her, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since the first weeks after losing my wife, her mother.  That, in turn, upset me.  It’s not that her crying or anger or upset behavior was what did it.  What made me feel the worst was the fact that I had been selfish and ignored any kinds of signs that built up to this display of emotion.  That was silly of me since I’d been keenly aware of her brother, who had not dealt, completely, with his mother’s passing, either.

But in talking with therapists, colleagues, relatives, friends, hell I talked with all but the plumber who lives down the street . . . it’s abundantly clear that my actions alone didn’t cause what was the teenage equivalent of steam blowing out of her ears.

My oldest, Abbi

My oldest, Abbi

This is a year . . . for that matter, it’s a season . . . full of change for her.  What she didn’t realize is that it’s a major time filled with change for all of us.  In the middle of the chaos of her emotions, still swimming – even if she wouldn’t admit it – from hormones and grief, she is facing a massive change in her life.

This wouldn’t even be the biggest issue.  Every kid – hell every family, and make no mistake, we’re all having to face these changes – goes through the stress and uncertainty of choosing and eventually moving to a college.  This signals a change in your life because your daily life is now under your control and yours alone, for the most part.  Sure, just like me, when she needs help, she’ll call her Dad and I’ll do whatever I can whenever I can.  She’s chosen a school on the left side of the country so she’s not so far away I can’t help.

But this breakdown came in the middle of wondering if she’d actually be able to choose or get into one of the colleges she wanted.  Her dream school was NYU, but beyond the fact that there is a major amount of work and craziness to get into their drama department, she also realized that their tuition – with no financial aid given at all - was equivalent to 2/3 my salary a year.  Not something you should take in school loans for an industry she’ll likely make little or nothing at in the first few years.

But add to that the fact that this change comes after two years of horrific, major changes for her.  She lost her mother.  Her father changed jobs (out of necessity).  We lost our home.  Then . . . for the same reason she couldn’t go to NYU . . . I had to move her out of the private school she was attending due to the fact I just couldn’t afford it.  We went from a dual-income family to a sole provider in a week’s time.

Moving schools scarred her.  It really did.  She lost a lot of daily friendship . . . daily friendship that just reminded her, day after day, after day, that she wasn’t there by sending her emails, Facebook posts, Tweets, and whatever other social media reminders of “miss you!” and “wish you were here!” and “why did you have to go?!”  That wore on her.  Then trying to make friends at a school where everyone by junior year had found their social circles . . . even worse.  Add to that the stress of boys asking cute underclass girls to prom and homecoming and you’re a senior with no date . . . for the same above reasons . . . and her life was crazy.

Then I came along with one little selfish event . . . and it wasn’t even the final straw, it was the half a broken piece of hay that flitted onto the final straw on the camel’s back and we watched the humps slam together and jiggle in their collapse as the camel himself broke in twain.

She’s doing so much better now, but the distance . . . the tiniest distance . . . it’s still there.  The tight-knit, insane closeness we always had isn’t quite as tight.

Part of it is my fault.  Part isn’t.  But one thing I realized, and now she has too, is that everybody ought to make a change.  Sometimes for the best…others because it’s just part of life.  None of us wanted the crazy two years we’ve had, but then it came like a storm through the streets of our lives.  We nailed down everything we could, but sometimes . . . things just float away.  That’s what happened with us.

My gorgeous girl . . . junior prom

My gorgeous girl . . . junior prom

But with a college chosen, school nearing its end, the new life, without people asking about what happened to her Mom, or how much work she has to do, or her father’s personal life or how he cares for 4 kids alone . . . that all goes away.

It was a good thing that for once, she sees this, finally, as a change for the better.

Posted by on April 16, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 15, 2013

Ten Years Gone
Noah, Sam, cousins and friends

Noah, Sam, cousins and friends

This is a story ten years in the making.

It’s not that it’s a tragic tale, it’s far from that, but it’s one of those cheesy, cliche’d lines that parents always use that comes to the fore.

“I can’t believe it’s been ten years!”

Particularly since the last two years . . . and it’s only been two since their mother, my wife, Andrea, died . . . have felt like ten themselves.

The boys were never supposed to have happened.  That’s not to say we were planning on terminating a pregnancy . . . it’s that Andrea had been so badly injured, both from infection and from poor surgical technique, that we had been told there was a slim to no chance Andrea could ever get pregnant again.

Then she got sick . . . like morning sickness, but it couldn’t have been that.  We looked for answers, went to Andrea’s doctor, all of that.  Then they did tests and told her that she had a kind of pregnancy that was dangerous, that the result could lead to cancerous cells, possible chemotherapy, monitoring for the next 2-3 years, all of that.

Then a week after we’re trying to figure out how to deal with the possibility of cancer setting in the doctors told us “oops!  We are sorry, you’re just pregnant!”

Just.

“Oh . . . and it’s twins!”

I don’t know about you guys, but when we went from “you can’t ever get pregnant again” to “cancer” to “you’re having another child” to “it’s twins,” I just about collapsed from exhaustion.  For years – and I do mean years – Andrea was angry and offended by my actions.  I never considered not having the boys, but we literally were about to double the number of children in our home in one fell swoop.  I also figured it would be two girls so that I’d have five women in the house, all with PMS at any given day of the week so I’d never get a break.  ”God has a sense of humor,” I tried to tell my wife, hoping the joke would break the tension.

It didn’t.  She was so angry, in fact, it almost ended our marriage.  She didn’t understand how I couldn’t be beside myself, jumping for joy. I couldn’t figure out how she couldn’t be totally stressed by the fact that we weren’t making a ton of money and barely made our house payment with two kids.  Now we were about to be four kids.

When Andrea carried them, she carried them for 36 weeks, roughly.  When the doc told her that it was now to the point her blood pressure was too high, they had to get the boys out, I swear she skipped like a schoolgirl down the hallway.  After the major problems of Hannah’s birth she was scared.  When I walked into the OR in my scrubs, I asked how she was . . . and she said she was waiting for the surgery to begin.  I informed her they were taking the first boy out already and she was floored.  Hannah’s c-section, you see, saw Andrea feeling the scalpel on her skin and the cut of her belly.  They had to eventually, after 3 times of this, knock her cold.

Noah came out, blonde, and Andrea said immediately, “that’s Noah.”  Sam was the same way, it was obvious who they were.  They had separate personalities and they were distinct, from day one.

So once they were born, the stress turned into care.  I had two boys, had two little characters who wanted to look to me for help and support.

We made up, eventually.  If you love each other you work on a relationship, you don’t ignore it or keep the other person at a distance.  The first 3 months of the boys’ lives were a whirlwind that I cannot remember for the life of me.  So much work and so little sleep.

We moved to California for more help (which was less than helpful) and to be closer to family, which now we take full advantage of when we need it.  Their sister, Abbi, looks out for them.  Hannah fights constantly with them.

But they were the last holdouts to go double-digit in age.  When they lost their Mom, these two boys were so amazing.  Noah, who was hard to contend with, had constant temper tantrums, always wanted his way, always wanting the toys he desired yesterday, not when we had the money . . . changed.  I can say, with certainty, that this child has not had a tantrum the likes he showed with his mother since she passed away.  From that first day, March 26th, 2011.  That’s amazing to me.  Sam, who was reckless and crazy and jumping off playground equipment . . . well, he still does that.  He broke his arm, but took it in stride, where he’d have fallen apart before.

Some of that is age, some is just growing up faster than they should.

Ten years have gone . . . sometimes it feels like ten days.  In the last ten years, they may have felt like it’s more than twenty years.  Still, they’re amazing little gentlemen . . . we had a party, at their aunt’s house, love surrounding them, hugging and kissing their terminally ill grandma (Andrea’s mom) and they swam all day.  Noah, as a project, made his own pinata with a balloon, paper and glue for the other kids at the party.  They’ve grown more than I could ever have hoped.

Ten years have gone . . . I can only hope I am as amazed and delightfully surprised in the next ten as I have been the last two.

Posted by on April 15, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 8, 2013

Shall We Repair to the Kitchen Table?

There are a lot of things that happen on any given weekend in my house.  Many of them are fun, certainly, but many are certainly not.

But it’s the things that aren’t the typical, fun, wonderful occasions that I try to get the most out of since they might very well be the things that my kids remember.

Space Mountain, in line

Space Mountain, in line

Certainly, I took my kids to Disneyland last week.  That’s a memory they’ll always have and hopefully they’ll think fondly of the day they spent there and the fact their old man stood in line for an hour at a time with a bad back waiting for roller coasters that scared the crap out of one of them.  But those are easy memories, if you’ll pardon the flippant nature of the comment.  If you have the money and the time Disney is easy.  It really is.  You throw money to them, walk into the park and you’re really in other people’s hands.

It’s the seemingly little things that are really important to your kids and those are the things you have to remember are there whether you want to do them or not.

My best example comes from this weekend.  Two examples, really.

The first is a simple trip to the grocery store.  That’s it.  But it was important to 3 of the 4 kids.  Understand, they got cards from their grandparents for Easter, and each of them got five bucks.  They had thought, planned, I think even taken out a calculator to figure out just what they could buy with that five dollars.  It’s not what you’d think, either.

I don’t do a lot of bought treats.  It’s not because I’m totally organic or on a massive, non-corn-syrup avoid the preservatives kick.  It’s A) cheaper and B) easier on my nerves if I make the treats myself.  Bought treats literally drive my kids so bat-s**t crazy I end up peeling them off the ceiling and I’m exhausted before I even get to 9pm each night.  I can’t do that, I have too much work to do after they go to bed.  So when my kids asked me each day this last week why I stopped at the store on the way home without getting them first I suddenly realized they would remember I didn’t do the simple task of letting them spend their money on a simple treat.

So we went to the store.  It’s not what you’d think, either.  They looked at the treats, each got a small candy bar and a tiny little carton of ice-cream.  Not a pint, not a quart, but a single-serving ice-cream.  Hannah got a cane-sugar bottle of pop out of the micro-brew aisle.  None of it was Little Debbie cakes or the like.  I was proud of them, and when they were over-budget they put something back.  It was a little trip, but one they’ll appreciate.

Last . . . was just for my son, Sam.  He had a little stuffed dog he’d called “Spot.”  It goes with a grey stuffed dog I’d gotten him years ago.  It’s interesting, I never thought Sam liked the dog I’d bought him, but he clings to it, even today.  Doesn’t carry it around with him, or really even nestle with it at night, but he always wants to know it’s there.

Noah's Sock Monkey...a previous repair.

Noah’s Sock Monkey…a previous repair.

So when “Spot’s” ear started coming off he was sullen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not knowing what was going on.
“Spot’s ear is coming off.  I was tossing him around and I shouldn’t have.  Now he’s losing his ear.  Wish I hadn’t done it.”

I told him that if he put it on the shelf I’d look and see this weekend if I could fix it.  To him that meant Friday night.  Then Saturday morning.  Then Saturday mid-morning . . . until I realized he wasn’t being annoying or trying to bug me.  He was worried and wanted to know, for sure, if the dog could be fixed.

“Put him on the kitchen table and I’ll see if I can fix it,” I told him.  When he went upstairs to play a game with his brother, Noah, I sat at the table, sewing kit in hand, and sewed (yes, everyone, I know enough of how to sew to be dangerous.  I can even thread a sewing machine!  So there!) Spot’s ear back on.  I shouted up the stairs at Sam that it was finished and he leaped down, four at a time, hugging the dog.

I spent five minutes at the kitchen table . . . but he will remember that forever, I think.

Posted by on April 8, 2013 in Daily Diatribe, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 2, 2013

Dishpan Hands

No, it’s not a metaphor or simile . . . though with past posts I could see why you’d think that.

It’s one of the posts for The 365 Dads.  A new venture with my friend, Edgar Solis.

This week we tackle what may be my thorniest issue . . . the cracked, dried, painful hands from doing dishes.

Video segments to come soon, once we start shooting them.

Dave M

Posted by on April 2, 2013 in Uncategorized.

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