Category Archives: Papa Prattle

Jan 22 11 comments
Papa Prattle

a tightening of harmony

I feel bad for her. Since Tessa arrived her world has turned upside down.

Ava is as full of life and imagination and wonder as you would expect a four year old child to be. She sings through most of her day and dances through the remainder. Her mind and mouth constantly moving as she weaves tales that Walt Disney himself would find engaging. While all of this continues to be true there is now something else. Something like confusion mixed with a bit of displacement I think.

I know this is normal. I know when a child is introduced into the family the older kids struggle with the change in attention and routine. The whole house works through a period of adjustment as we work to understand the puzzle we thought had been put together was really missing a piece. A piece that makes all the others fit that much more tightly.

Knowing the normalcy of all this doesn’t do much to lessen the pain I feel for Ava as she works through this new tightness. She has been doing more of the baby-talk lately. There have been some near misses as she dashes to the restroom. Evenings have become restless and on approximately twelve thousand four hundred and nine occasions she has ended up in bed with my wife and I just so we all could get some sleep. It’s just a season, we keep telling ourselves. Just a season.

You might think with her world having been shaken so much she would feel some animosity toward Tessa. None. Not one iota.

avnIf Tessa’s arrival wasn’t enough we have been potty training Jada, the 2 year old, for the last few weeks. While Jada has done an awesome job of this, and hasn’t had an accident for more than a week, it’s been another thing to draw attention away from Ava. Interestingly, Jada hasn’t had issue with the adjustments around Tessa’s arrival. Such is the blissful life of a two year old.

I can’t stand to see my children struggle and if I can fix it I will. I’m going to work on spending more one on one time with Ava and Jada. I plan on setting aside an evening a week for each of them where we can just talk, play, create, read and laugh. It’ll probably just be an hour or so after dinner and before bedtime but I’m hoping it’ll help. I’m confident we’ll find ourselves on the other side of this in pretty short order.

Jan 14 11 comments
Papa Prattle

Nothing much to say

I’ve started writing posts for this site a dozen times in the past week or so and have not been able to finish one of them. I’d like to finish them. Really I would, but everything seems to take either time or money and this particular task is requiring more time than I have, or am willing to give. I’m going to give this post a shot though. We’ll just run with it for a good 15 minutes and see where it takes us.

I’ve been feeling a ton of weight lately to really focus on being the Dad I want to be. The Dad my wife expects me to be. The Dad my children need me to be. I imagine having a newborn in the house is what supercharged this. This fragile little girl looking to us for care, comfort and love shakes me to my core.

nothing2_00

I look at Tessa’s sisters, Ava and Jada, and while they are still very young the evidence of how quickly the past several years has rushed by is displayed in their words, actions and hearts. I look past the little girls to their older sister and brother and marvel at the people they have become. A teenage girl that has thankfully not turned into one of those teens I can’t stand and a young man that has paved his own way toward the next season in his life when he will be starting college on a full ride athletic scholarship in the fall. Full ride athletic scholarship. I always knew he was THAT good.

nothing2_000

There is simply this colliding of emotions and paths right now and its difficult to stay focused on any one thing for fear of missing something else, and they’re all good things. All good things. I believe that part of the weight to be Dad comes from a feeling that somehow I don’t deserve for things to be going as well as they are. That somehow I need to earn it, again and again. Five children. All happy. All healthy. The odds just seem to be against this. I’m grateful for what I have in my family every single day. Every single day.

~~~

I run through my reader when I can and a post on Daddy Brain caught my attention. It featured the following video which speaks 100% to where I am these days, the passion I wish I knew how to push forward, outward, upward. I need this feeling to be contagious.

Dude to Dad (Changing More Than Just Diapers) feat.

Hugh Weber at Dude to Dad put the video together. If you have it in you, click on through to YouTube and leave a note. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

Jan 07 17 comments
Papa Prattle

The boy and his stone

A young boy was once given a stone. It was no ordinary stone. It was comfortable to hold, iridescent and warm. When held the stone would hum a faint beautiful melody. In the the boy’s eyes the stone was perfect in almost every way. In fact, its only blemish was some faint carving that had almost worn off over time.

The boy happily accepted the stone and began to play with it. He would wrap and re-wrap ribbons around it for hours at a time. He would curl up into a quiet corner to listen to it’s sweet, sweet music. He would forsake his friends, family, and other toys to be with his beloved stone.

The boy’s parents would take the stone away from time to time and try to make him play with his friends, but the boy would scowl, and sit silently while his friends played around him. They would eventually leave him alone and play amongst themselves.

Time went by as the boy played with his stone. One day he looked up and was startled to see an old man peering at him through a window pane. The boy jumped up to run away and so did the old man. It was at that moment that the boy saw his stone in the old mans hand. He angrily reached out for it, but realized the stone was still in his own hand as well.

Puzzled, the boy looked closely at the old man and realized it was only his reflection. He looked around him and realized that the world around him had changed. Years had passed. His siblings had all grown up and left home. He was all alone.

He sadly looked down at his old, bony hands as they tightly clutched his beloved stone. As he looked at the stone the writing carved on it from long ago looked clearer to him in this light than it ever had before. It read “Do Something Else With Your Life”.

He sat and he cried, but there was no one to blame but himself. He could have spent more time with his family, but instead wasted his life playing with his stone. It became clear to him now that the carvings were meant as a warning to others who would be mesmerized by the stone’s iridescent beauty, and beckoning music. He furiously carved the words deeper into the stone’s surface so they would be more legible to someone else. He opened the window, and threw the stone as far as he could. He did not have the heart to destroy the stone, or bury it, but he needed to get rid of it. Alas, it was too late.

Time only moves forward, and the time wasted today in trivial pursuits can never be regained. Spend what time you have on earth wisely……… with the ones you love.

I wrote this short story yesterday for my son who is addicted to his Nintendo DS. The stone is a metaphor for that infernal machine.

DS His older sister, whom he adores dearly, only comes to visit us 2 weeks out of every year. He longs for her visits, but spends his time in his room and plays with his DS, even while she is here. We just put her on a plane bound back to her home last Sunday, and he’s been beside himself with grief that the time he spent with her was too short, yet he made little effort to be with the family while she was here. We frequently had to coax him to come spend time with us.

The DS has been an on-going battle in our household for quite a while. Against my wishes, and better judgment,  it was given to him by my ex-wife as a Christmas present two Christmases ago. I refused it at first, but to keep the peace between my daughter and her vindictive mother I begrudgingly allowed it.  It has been a problem for us ever since. Most of her children are video game zombies. It is her way of getting peace and quiet after a hard day’s work, and I think it might have been her parting shot at my new family. We’ve been divorced for 14 years, but the bad blood between us is ever present. I can hear her cackling in satisfaction as she flies off on her broom after reading this. Her mission completed.

I am struggling with just taking the DS away and letting him play with it for only limited amounts of time per week or letting him figure out for himself what is really important in life. In the meantime I am having to deal with the moping, sobbing and wallowing in self pity from him missing his sister. It might be time for some tough love.

Dec 30 11 comments
Papa Prattle

Resolution: a decision to do something

resolve I rarely partake in the whole new year resolution tradition. Many times it just feels like an opportunity to set oneself up for failure. It’s much easier to attach the label “work in progress”. With all that said, I am going to resolve a few things for the coming year. Some of this has to do with the fact that I’m getting older and need to pay closer attention to the changes I need to make for myself and my family. Another reason is because Tyler at Building Camelot asked me to.

Sometimes I just need a little prompting.

Tyler asked several dad bloggers to participate in this project and the resulting post is pretty great. I encourage you to check it out.

In 2009 I resolve to:

  1. … show my kids more of the world. This may not translate into world traveler but it should mean learning more about different cultures and experiences beyond our own doorstep.
  2. … show my kids more of my world. Help them understand a little more what Daddy does when he is away from home all day.
  3. … be more involved in school activities
  4. … continue to work hard to see things as the kids see them. I need to remember that my kids are children with limited experiences and regardless of how old they seem they are still very very young.
  5. … continue to work at not bringing home work frustrations.
  6. … make a real effort at letting my children see me happy. Really happy. The day to day responsibilities can get to the best of us. The kids don’t need to see this running off of me.
  7. … quit letting vacation time accrue and take more of it off with the family.
  8. … get better at doing my daughters’ hair.
  9. … be a good example at healthy living. We all have our vices. There are a few I should get rid of
  10. … practice what I preach
Dec 28 9 comments
Papa Prattle

Another Christmas in the wind

As I type this the winds in our neck of Michigan are howling something fierce. I can’t sleep when the wind rakes over the house with such ferocity so I get up and enjoy the wee hours getting reacquainted with so many of the sites and blogs I follow. Good quiet time to be sure.

Just a day ago there was almost two feet of snow covering every square inch of ground. Today it is all gone. One good 55 degree day with a little rain and black ice warnings turn into flood warnings. Oh the wonders of this season.

Our Christmas ended up being pretty magical as you might imagine would be the case with a house full of children. Half of whom are in that delightful place where there is no question the big guy exists. The other half continue to humor their Dad and for this I love them dearly.  Where the sound of every bell is a jingle bell and the sighting of any red clothing sparks questions around what Santa wears when he isn’t in the sleigh.

Christmas2008_01 This year the big gift for the little girls was a kitchen for their play area. A KidCraft kitchen whose cabinets seem to close better than those in our own kitchen. The girls absolutely  love the thing and have spent every day since serving up some pretty fabulous  pretend meals. It seems Jada, the two year old, is particularly fond of soup.

The downside to the whole kitchen is it amounts to more places the kids can hide toys that aren’t at all kitchen related. This drives my wife a little crazy. You know, everything in its place. Yeah, right.

It ended up being a pretty good year for the big kids as well. Their big gifts were cameras. An entry level DSLR for the college bound boy and a cute and fancy point and shoot for the girl. They both seemed pretty pleased.

Christmas2008_03 Christmas2008_02

We also had the pleasure of hosting some family for the holiday which made it all the more special. It was great for them to see the kids in their element and have an opportunity to meet the littlest sister, Tessa.

Christmas2008_04

I’ve one last week of vacation before returning to work. I’m not quite sure how to break the kids in to the fact that I won’t be around all day, every day. Best not to think about it.

A very happy and prosperous new year to each and every one of you.

Dec 21 9 comments
Papa Prattle

Claim it as your own

claimit-lead I’ve been off work since December 10th, the day Tessa was born, and won’t be returning to the office until January 5th. A nice break from the daily grind to be sure but more importantly it has been an awesome opportunity to reconnect with my family during those normal awake hours. You know the hours I’m referring to right? Those that occur between the moment you say your goodbye’s as you leave for work and the time you come home for dinner. It turns out a lot of good stuff happens in those hours.

The message I’d like to share, in a nutshell, is to not take for granted those times you get with your family when they are at their peak.

It seems that every single time I get a nice stretch away from the office I come to this realization after a few days. This time it came while sitting down to dinner. It crashed down on me how this dinner time space normally plays out with me tired from a full day at work, my wife tired from a full day of being Mom and the kids tired because they run a million miles a minute all day long. This day though was different, sure we were all still tired from a full day but the difference is we were tired from shared experiences. Experiences that had plenty of laughter, good times and productivity.

Various evenings, on a normal day, looking into our home may find me getting frustrated with the kids because they aren’t listening, aren’t behaving, aren’t eating dinner, aren’t, aren’t, aren’t. My wife has told me for quite some time that this is their “bad time of the day”. Great, I would think, their bad time gets to be the only time I’m around to enjoy them. How is this fair.

My wife is a very wise woman and she was right in this case as well. What was wrong is how I chose to react to it. I began to expect it. And what happens when you expect things to be rotten? They often are rotten, and worse yet you do little to try and change it figuring it’s a forgone conclusion.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t gotten better as time has rolled on. I believe I have. Having the benefit of hindsight, I wonder if I had been told earlier on, even before marriage and children, that it is ‘vitally important to claim every moment with your family as your own’ if I would today be stumbling in and out of this realization like I’m rehearsing for a bit part in a remake of Groundhog Day.  I’m thinking not. I’m thinking this is something you either get as you journey through fatherhood, or not.

I’m just grateful I do get it even if I lose it on occasion. I’m especially grateful that I’ve recognized this now, again, during the holidays. It would be an absolute shame to be stumbling around now, taking bits of the holiday magic each time my footing is lost.

Claim it as your own.

Dec 16 10 comments
Papa Prattle, Proud Papa

Sisters teaching sisters

It’s difficult to write about those close to you without mentioning their names. I’ve been doing this but the writing ends up feeling a bit forced to me, disconnected. I’m taking off the kid gloves and will be naming names going forward, at least the names of the little kids. The big ones will continue to be referenced generically.

Roll call:

The boy (aka, the brother)– the 17 year old
The girl (aka, the big sister) – the 13 year old
Ava – the 4 1/2 year old
Jada – the 2 1/2 year old
Tessa – the newborn

With Tessa’s arrival our household has moved into a whole different plane of existence. It’s a good one. No doubt. Just different, as it should be.

sisters3 For the longest time Jada has been the baby. We seemed to encourage her to stay the baby over the last couple of years, not knowing for certain if we would be welcoming a third or not. We let her keep her pacifier longer than Ava did. We’ve put off potty training or at the very least have not been very aggressive in moving her from diapers.

We spent so much time with Ava on the basics, letters, numbers, colors shapes and the like. When Jada came along there simply wasn’t as much time for this one on one instruction and instead of the structure we had used with Ava, Jada got OJT (on the job training) with probably the best instructor of all, her sister.

We were always conscious of Jada’s milestones and made sure she didn’t fall behind where we thought she should be. She never has fallen behind but she reached them at her own pace which seems to be the way Jada likes to do things. Ava is different, she likes a schedule. She prefers lists. Jada doesn’t really buy into anything until she has convinced herself that it is the way to go and there is little rushing these revelations. Once we figured this out it made things easier for everyone, especially Jada.

sisters1 Both Ava and Jada have taken to their new sister incredibly well. We aren’t surprised. These girls are the most nurturing, loving children we know. It sometimes seems they are more in tune with the feelings of those around them than they are their own. We may have nurtured this awareness but there is no denying they were born with it. They really do amaze us each and every day.

Tessa is so lucky to have them as big sisters. As Jada learned so quickly from Ava I’m sure Tessa will learn just as quickly from both Ava and Jada. She will have the benefit of both of their distinct personalities.

sisters2Time goes by too quick.

The infant phase passes in the blink of an eye. Before long Tessa will be sauntering around the house with the same confidence and cavalier nature her sisters possess.

It’s best to stay about the business of enjoying the baby Tessa then.

Nov 21 15 comments
Humor Central, Papa Prattle

Fellowship of the Häagen-Dazs

haagen Each evening as the little ones are tucked into their beds invariably Mom or I are called upon to tuck them in one more time. As the favored among us goes about our parental duty the other has a far greater task at hand as they slowly approach the freezer and pull from its heavenly glow the ice cream. The ice cream that no child can truly appreciate. The ice cream that has never known the existence of the descriptors sugar free or low fat. Yes, this is our ice cream.

The role of the other parent is to quietly bring the bowls from the cupboard and fill them to the point of brimming. The flavor of said ice cream is really inconsequential. The true joy lies in the act of eating it. Eating it without children. This is the one thing we don’t share. With anyone.

By the time the chosen one emerges from the children’s room the bowls have already found their way into the basement living room. Side by side they sit on the end table between the couches, and so the only couple of hours we have to ourselves begins. Bliss absolute bliss.

One such evening we hear a sound. Like practiced ninjas the bowls are placed on the table and covered with a napkin as we sit quietly, judging the silence.

Someone is moving.

They are close now.

We hear them stop at the top the stairs and my wife and I share a glance. The glance that says without words, “It’s your turn, isn’t it?”

From the top of the stairs comes the call, “Mom … Dad”.

“You guys are supposed to be in bed. What’s the problem?”

“We can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“We hear bowls scraping.”

I blame this on their mother. She hears everything. Next time we’ll eat directly from the container. That must be quieter, right?