Tag: Kids

The Low Point of the Week

We had two distinct low points this week. I just experienced the lower of the two.

On Monday afternoon the kids left our house to go to their dad’s house for a couple of days. I had to say goodbye to them. I didn’t want them to go. I never want them to go.

Today was worse for two reason. They left for dad’s about an hour ago. This time they are going for five days. We won’t see them again until Wednesday. That’s bad enough, but when they left I was in a meeting and I didn’t get to say goodbye.

From suck to double suck.

I wish this weekend was a mom weekend instead of a dad weekend. I wish they were all mom weekends, but I get the reasoning. Give me a break, it’s been nearly four months of quarantine and I am being a selfish brat. I’m not sorry. Blah.

I miss them already.

Wednesdays are Always Good Days

Today is Wednesday and Wednesdays are good days.  Why?

At some point this afternoon/evening, after the “school day” ends, the kids will be coming over.

Wednesdays and Thursdays are good days because Wednesdays and Thursdays (and alternating Fri-Sun) are kid days.

So That was a Night

We had to do some grade A schedule juggling last night.

My step daughter was on a school trip to Europe.  Yesterday she woke up in Barcelona.  She was booked on a flight to Lisbon, and then another flight to Boston.  The Barcelona plane had mechanical problems and was delayed for a long time.  Long enough for them to miss the connection in Lisbon.  Now what?

The tour company and the airline did some major league scrambling just trying to get the 33 students and all of the chaperones back into the USA.  They ended up getting onto a flight to JFK in New York.  From there they took a bus up to Logan airport in Boston.  Instead of picking her up at her high school at 4:00pm or so, we ended up needing to pick her up at 1:20am in Boston.  That would be rough enough on us old people, but when you add in the other thing…

My step son has a school trip of his own.  He’s staying in the country, but has to take a long bus ride.  The plan was to get him to his school for check in at 5:00am.  So if we pick up the world traveler at 1:20 and get home at 2:00, we’d have to get up at 4:00 to get ready to drop the other world traveler off at 5:00.  Oh, and then we had to go to work.  Yeah.

My beloved wife took care of the Boston side of thing and I took care of the check in side of things.  With the stress of the whole day and the fluidity of the situation, neither of us got much sleep.  I have no idea how much I got.  Three hours?  Maybe?  certainly not four.  The downside of yesterday is that I am possibly more tired than I’ve ever been.  I’m mentally useless today.  The upside is that step child #1 is home safe and sound, and step child #2 is off on a really cool adventure.

Fair trade.

Safe Travels

Safe travels, he said to his step daughter. He was trying to sound excited and confident and optimistic while actually feeling terrified.

She’s going far away for a few days.  She’s going to have an absolute blast, the time of her life.  I know this without a doubt.

Having said that… (wimper)

Last Night

Last night was a fun night. A number of the ladies of the game night group went out to dinner together, so one of my oldest and best friends ever, Larry, and I hung out at his house. It was kinda like old times except it wasn’t. This time we were joined by a six year old. Instead of the usual stressing about life and the trials and tribulations of taking a shot at the whole adulting thing, we watched Larry’s son drive his RC car up and down the driveway. It was great!

We took a shot at watching Highlander while editing it for television on the fly. You edit movies on the fly through the use of the fast forward function, reaching out and covering little peoples’ eyes, and strategic use of singing, “La La La!” really loud. We were successful for a good part of the movie, but once you get into the last third of it the intensity ramps up, as does the violence, so we stopped. It’s okay, Highlander will still be there the next time. Someday that six year old little man will be old enough to sit on the couch next to his old man and watch the greatest movie even made about an immortal sword fighter from 16th century Scotland and his adventures in New York in 1985. After all, there can be only one.

The initial plans for last night also included Mike the Lizardfish Bass Player, but he had spent the previous two days on top of a mountain and probably needed some sleep… and maybe some Tylenol or something. That just means we have to try it again soon.

As I was getting ready to leave, Larry’s son told me I should just stay over. “You can have your own room,” he said. He’s the same age now that my step daughter was when I first came into their lives. If you could go back in time to any point prior to 2007 and ask me what I think about kids… my response probably wouldn’t have been all that positive. Not bad, really, just indifferent. I didn’t think I wanted kids. I had almost no experience with them. A few little cousins and small amounts of time with friends’ kids. Not enough to form an informed opinion.

Today, I have two step kids, three nephews, one niece, and a whole pile of friends with kids of their own. Ask me how I feel about kids now? I’ll tell you. They are the best thing that could ever have happened to our universe. My step kids… I can’t rave about them enough. There are no adjectives in the English language that can accurately describe just how much I love those two people. I don’t know how I got so damn lucky. I mean first I meet Jen and fall in love with her, then her kids are both superhuman amazing? What did I do to deserve this, and how can I guarantee that it will last forever?

Thanks to Larry and his son for having me over last night. I had a lot of fun. It was great to see you guys again.

Know what else is great? When I got home I had to bring the trash barrels in from the street. As I was carrying them up to the garage, my beloved bride, Jen pulled into the driveway. We were about three minutes away from getting home at exactly the same time. If you didn’t know better, you’d think we were meant to be. You’d be right, we were meant to be.

Tonight’s Events

Tonight has been interesting. After work I went to a spelling Bee. Both kids won their English class spelling Bees and earned the chance to compete for best in the school. They did not win, but they both did a great job. My step daughter the eighth grader made it through three rounds, and my step son the sixth grader made it through five. I’m very proud of both of them.

When I got home Jen was working on her computer in the living room so I went down cellar to watch a bit of the Bruins game. There I found a bit of a surprise…. Water. Three large puddles. It seems that while the Patriots and their deflated balls were beating the Colts in the pouring rain, some of that rain came in through the cellar window. I shop vac’d up the worst of it, but I can only imagine how wet it was on Sunday night.

And that, loyal readers, was my Tuesday night.

Best Thing Ever

I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that one of the main reasons I wanted to play in a band again was jealousy.

Both of my step kids have been playing piano for years. They’ve both dabbled in saxophone too, and my step daughter is very active in her school chorus, while my step son plays bells in his school band. He has also recently started taking guitar lessons. His teacher took a few of the students and formed them into a band. They rehearse on Saturdays and are going to play some Christmas music at an upcoming recital. Their big number is “Jingle Bell Rock”.

The first time I sat in the hallway listening to them play I decided it was time for me to get back into the game again. No more sitting on the bench for this fat boy.

Anyway, last night was my step daughter’s school chorus holiday concert. My wife, step son, and I were sitting together enjoying the show when the select chorus started singing “Jingle Bell Rock”.

That was the moment when the Best Thing Ever happened.

When the song began my step son smiled like he was going to split in half. He was getting a serious thrill out of hearing (what he probably thinks of as) his song. Then it happened. The little rocker dude started air guitaring. Like a Boss. Even better? With his left hand he was fingering the chord changes. He was air guitaring the actual chords!

Like I said, Best Thing Ever.

Mondays Suck

Today is Monday and it is sure turning into a major league suck of a day. It’s not because of anything that’s going on today, quite the opposite. Things have mostly gone well today.

Our Monday morning kid schedule now involves leaving ridiculously early so a certain honors band member can get to pre-school rehearsal. That means I have a chance to get to work super early. It also means I can get to work early enough to watch the previous night’s episode of The Walking Dead on my phone while sitting in the car. I did that a couple of times last year using my old iPhone 5. I did it for the first time using my new humongous iPhone 6 Plus this morning and damn it made a difference. I had the entire #BobBQ on the giant new screen and it was awesome sauce.

But if the actual events of this Monday aren’t the reason why this particular Monday is such a jerk, then what’s wrong?

I’ll tell you.

It’s because of last night.

My step daughter has been developing this weird hang up about sleep. She gets really freaked out if she can’t fall asleep at night. I’m not talking about insomnia, I’m talking about a 13 year old kid who has a rocket scientist of a brain and who once in a while likes to sleep late on weekend mornings. Yesterday she slept pretty late, and when bed time came around she wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep again. The result? She was so scared about not being able to go to sleep that her mind raced in a million directions (which made it worse) and eventually she started to make herself actually physically sick. It was just an upset stomach, but I have no doubt it was stress related.

We talk about this a lot these days, and my take is that her occasional inability to go to sleep right away is normal. Absolutely 100% normal. I expect that every kid in the known universe experiences the same thing at least once in a while. Hell, every grown up does too. It happens to me all the time.

I used to try and explain it to her, but she would be so upset that I might as well have been speaking Swahili. Now I have a different approach. Now I just casually say things like, “Oh well. Go read a book until you nod off.” She’ll ask what happens if she doesn’t nod off. I respond with something like, you’ll go to bed early tomorrow. Usually if I go super casual, she’ll stop worrying and think that maybe it’s not that big a deal. Last night that didn’t happen. Last night she was nauseous. Now, she did spend the weekend in the house with her mother who is dealing with something that looks like the flu, and as I’ll explain later she wasn’t the only one with an upset stomach last night.

So while I was sure her stomach distress was stress related, it was definitely there. We had nothing in the house that could help so I went to CVS. This is about 10:30 last night. An hour after her bed time, and probably half an hour after I was ready to go to sleep. I got her some Pepto and by 11:00 she had take a dose… a small dose. I was still being as casual about the whole thing as I could, and was joking about how bad Pepto tastes when the night got really weird. That was the moment my step son came into her bed room asking me to get him some warm milk because he couldn’t sleep either. This was a new one at our house. He usually drops off nice and fast. Of course, as he gets older he too is discovering the joys of sleeping late on a Sunday, and that morning he had slept later than I’d ever seen him.

I told him he didn’t need warm milk. All he needed was to just unwind. I told him to grab a book and just read it until he dropped off. That’s one great thing about both of my step kids. They are super avid readers. Give them a good book and all the world’s troubles can melt away. He wasn’t upset in the same way his sister was, he was mad. “Urgh, why did I let myself sleep late today”, he said. I put a stop to that thinking as quick as I could. There was nothing to get mad about. Sometimes, people like to sleep late, and sometimes people have trouble falling asleep at night. It’s nothing to get mad about, it happens to everyone alive. Absolutely every single one of us.

As he went back to bed, it sort of set his sister back a little. She was freaked out again. She said that she didn’t like being alone in the house. She meant that she didn’t like being the only one awake. I asked her if I, fully dressed having just come home from the store, looked like someone ready for bed? I told her that there were four of us in the house, and three of us couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t be alone that night, literally or figuratively. I think that helped. She relaxed a little and picked up a book.

Of course this whole thing had me so would up that there was no way I was getting to sleep any time soon. I unloaded the dishwasher and then scoured the house looking for dirty dishes. I did a quick cleaning of the living room, just straightening things up a little. I made my lunch for Monday, which I just finished a minute ago, and I took a dose of Pepto for myself. Why? I think it’s weight watcher’s simply filling’s fault. You see, that program lets me eat peanuts. In the last few weeks I’ve been hitting the peanuts pretty hard. On Sunday I went a touch overboard and I think it made me a little queasy. I eventually did go back to bed, but it was a little after midnight before I dropped off, and then I was up again briefly at 1:30, and then the alarm clock went off at 5:00.

So my Monday isn’t sucking due to anything that’s gone down on Monday, it’s sucking because there was almost no sleep on Sunday. I suggest that if everyone in the industrialized world would just go home and nap for 2-3 hours, then this particular Monday would improve greatly. It would still suck, it is still a Monday after all, but it would be better.