Tag Archives: father

Nerds United

Fresh Content Day 43: Life with a Toddler

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I know it’s crazy, but I don’t bring up my son a lot on social media. I do here and there, of course. I don’t ignore the fact that he exists. But I have several friends who would love to have children of their own, but for one reason or another, the Good Lord hasn’t provided them with that blessing yet.

I was in their shoes once. My wife and I tried for years to start a family. While we had our struggles – including losing one pregnancy about twelve weeks in – our friends were having their first kids or their second kids. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t hurting. That behind the smiles and tears of happiness there was also anger and tears of sadness. So with those memories always in my mind, I never want to feel like I’m rubbing it in my friends’ faces that I have a child while they wait for their prayers to be answered.

So on Day 43, when I didn’t see any headlines today that brought with them some inspiration, no new trailer to break down, and nothing left to say about tornadoes (sorry Jay), I turned to my wife and said “what should I write about tonight?”

She said “write about living with a 15-month-old.”

So…let’s see. Our son is up and running and playing. He loves to be outside. We have a playset in the backyard that was here from the previous owners. We ordered a toddler swing for it so he can swing anytime he wants to.

I’d say overall, he’s pretty good with our two dogs. But he accidentally stepped on Lucky’s tail last week. She didn’t appreciate that. He made it up to her by dropping food from his high chair down to the floor. I’d say all was forgiven after that.

As I said, he’s more mobile now. We’ve had to make adjustments to how we store things, like our/my expansive movie collection. It used to be in alphabetical order. Now I’m just happy if he hasn’t chewed on any cases that day.

He likes to play ball, either rolling it back and forth or picking it up and bringing it back to us, so we would roll it and he’d go get it and bring it back. Yes, our son is good at playing fetch.

Some days he doesn’t feel so good. A couple weeks ago he had a temperature for a few days straight. It’s times like those that I’m happier than normal to be married to a nurse, because when I would have freaked out, she kept a level head, and “Lil Man” pulled through just fine.

It’s amazing what we have found that he enjoys. I mean, he’s a little kid, so Mickey and Elmo are right in his wheelhouse. But we also will watch The Muppet Christmas Carol every week. It’s a good show to capture his attention, and as such, I now have many of the songs set to memory.

Here he is watching The Muppet Christmas Carol during dinner.

Lately, he’s been practicing for Easter Sunday. We went to two Easter Egg Hunts (you read about one ten days ago) and will do Easter and Grandma and Grandpa’s on Sunday, complete with a little egg hunt there. So he’s been picking up things and putting them in his Mickey basket (he doesn’t know he has a Yoda basket for Easter).

Here’ what I know…we have a super little boy who likes apples almost as much as he likes saying “apple.” He says “appy” because he’s a happy kid (or because he’s going to be the next great app developer…I’m all right with either). He runs to meet me at the door when I get home from work. He doesn’t like it when mommy leaves for work in the evening.

Truth be told, we couldn’t ask for a better child. He makes us laugh every day.

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Nerds United

Fresh Content Day 26: The Forgotten Sunday

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Plain and simple…I forgot to write last night. Part of that was I had been awake until the wee hours Sunday morning doing laundry. So I was tired.

After my wife, our son, and I headed north to visit family, the little guy fell asleep on the way home. It was necessary. He was tired. But it was a little later than his normal nap, so we knew he would be up a little later than normal.

Here’s the thing. My wife works nights, and when she works, I can usually have our son asleep by 7 or 7:30. There are occasional anomalies where he’ll stretch that out a little longer, but for the most part, certainly by 8pm, he can be out. When mama’s home, he likes to stay awake a little longer. I am convinced he just loves her more than me. But I digress.

So as Little Man is fighting sleep, I finally just scoop him up and hold him until he finally gives in. But at that point, I was tired, and I went to bed myself. Hence why I didn’t post last night.

A nice thing happened to me at church yesterday. My wife worked Saturday night and since we had planned on the trip up to see family, she stayed home and got 90 or so minutes of sleep after her 12.5-hour shift. So it was just me and the boy. And he does pretty well in church. It’s rare for him to scream, but he does make noises. I try to keep him relatively calm. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes, not so much. Yesterday was a day where he was trying to talk over our priest while the priest was reading the gospel. So knowing that my son probably wasn’t going to just clam up for the homily, I stepped out to the back of church with him. I was right. He didn’t shut up. But my hope was that at least the sound would be muffled somewhat. So we go back to our seat when it’s time for the collection and when there’s also some music to help cover up the boy’s enthusiasm for Jesus (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). Having never attempted this before, I gave my son the check for the offering and without hesitation, he tried to chew on it. I’M KIDDING!  He placed it in the collection basket right on time, and got a nice smile from the usher.

Okay, so the TL; DR version is this. My son is talkative during Mass. I do my best to keep him from being a distraction. And after Mass, an older woman sitting a little bit in front of us walking passed and said I was a good dad. I said thank you, and that I’m trying.

Both are true. I am appreciative of kind words I receive, regardless of what they are about. When a superior at work tells a customer that I’m the go-to guy to answer their questions because of my product knowledge, it means a lot. And I try to reward their confidence by being *that guy* when it comes to questions. Even my co-worker across the showroom asks me questions.

When someone says I’m a good dad, it’s obviously rewarding. I was also thrown off a bit because I don’t know if I’m ready yet to be called a good dad. My dad is a great dad. I have no problem seeing the qualities in my friends that make them good fathers, and acknowledging those and telling my friends they are good dads. I just don’t know if I’m doing all required of me to be classified as a good dad.

I don’t say that looking for a pat on the back or an “atta boy” or anything like that. I’m just sure that I can do better and look forward to being a good dad for his entire life, not just seen an hour at a time on Sunday mornings. If he makes it through his life being kind, showing respect, and treating others right, I’ll then look back and say I did enough to be considered a good dad. In other words, the Golden Rule. Or the new Commandment – “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Until then, I’ll just keep telling people that I’m trying.

Nerds United

#ToughCallTuesday 6 – Title Unknown

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I admit as I write this that I don’t know which direction this post will take. But it’s Tuesday, and I’ll be dipped if I don’t bring you a new Tough Call post.

The problem is that even now, I don’t think this one is a tough call at all.

I did something this past weekend that I can’t remember doing in recent memory. I intentionally skipped a televised game of my favorite college football team. Now, I’ve missed games in the past. And I’ve recorded them and watched them later. And I did that as well this past Saturday.

The difference between this game and all of those previously is that it was completely my choice how I spent my Saturday afternoon. At other times, I had commitments that I had agreed to before I knew of the starting time. This time, I was asked to go golfing – with my dad. And I readily and enthusiastically agreed.

Here’s the thing. My dad isn’t old. I anticipate (as well as hope and pray) that I get another thirty or so years with him. I hope he gets to see his grandchildren for many years, and if fate is kind, his grandchildren’s children.

So why does nine holes of golf seem so important?

Long story short? I didn’t spend as much time with him as I could or should have growing up. Am I playing catch-up, or trying to make up for lost time? Probably.

I’m not going to say I was a perfect kid. I wasn’t. I was a smart ass. Some days, I was a dumb ass. And I was lazy. I would rather sit on the couch and watch movies or play video games than pretty much anything. I could have learned so much, but I was too busy doing nothing at all.

So when my dad asked if I wanted to go golfing, there was only one answer for me. Nothing beat nine holes with him, drinking a few beers, smoking a cigar, talking about the current events in sports, family, etc. It was something I never knew I was missing until I took advantage of the opportunity to be a participant. It’s not that we didn’t have anything in common, it’s that I didn’t really know how to talk to him when I was younger, a teen. He was always the authoritative figure. Having grown, I am now able to see him on more equal terms (not completely, the man is still my hero and everything I aspire to be in a father).

As the day draws closer to my being a father, well, I don’t think I have a better role model than my own dad. He let me make my own choices as far as hobbies and interests. He was my coach as well as my dad. And I got to play catch with him, shoot hoops, etc.

I don’t write any of this to brag. I know not everyone had similar experiences. Rather, I write this as a reminder to myself to be that same kind of father to my children.

I will let my child(ren) choose between Marvel and DC, between Star Wars and Star Trek. Even let them choose their own favorite Doctor. But I hope they learn from the mistakes I made as a youngster.

I hope they choose to spend some time with their old man.

So this week’s #ToughCallTuesday isn’t tough at all.

I’ll always choose family. I’ll always put my kids first. They won’t always get everything they want. But they will never be in need. And “like my father before me,” they’ll get a dad who comes home from work and says “let’s play catch” or “let’s read a book.”