Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: stay at home dad (Page 9 of 11)

Stay at home dad stuff, domestic tasks

To Pre-write, ahh the value

September 26, 2013 / / 4 Comments

So we are starting this Pre writing challenge (see my page here) and today is one of those days that it would be incredible to have a few posts lined up I could just hit publish and be done with it.

This morning, I went out and turned on the car so it would be warm when I took my kids to school.  I do it most every morning because it is cold.  A few minutes later, we went back out to the car to go to school and it was making some strange sucking, bubbling sound.  Of course the kids start to panic and I did a bit when I looked under the car and there was a huge puddle of transmission fluid!

Now I am paranoid about transmissions.  They break way too easily in my opinion and are incredibly expensive.  I do a lot of repairs on the cars and can do most things short of tearing down the engine or fixing the transmission.  I did a bunch in high school shop but it didn’t cover transmissions.

So we took the other car to school and I am dreading what I am going to find.  I hope it is a gasket on the pan, or a screw has fallen out, something I can repair.  I finally get the car jacked up and get under it and guess what.  It wasn’t the transmission after all.  I almost peed myself with relief.

Come to find out, Chrysler had some brilliant idea that the power steering fluid needs to run through a small cooler like a radiator.  One of these hoses had burst and the power steering fluid in a Dodge Caravan is actually transmission fluid.  There were several unprintable 4 letter words used to describe the lineage of certain engineers and their anatomical deficiencies.

So this is an easy fix for the car.  If it were not for the internet and auto repair forums I would not have known all of the things that I needed to fix it.  The net is like that.  Out there and waiting to suck us in.  Larger point, I have a bunch of stuff to do today and i am putting some of it off so that I can write this post.  My normal writing time was spent outside under the car.

This brings me to the value of having a few posts in the queue waiting anxiously to emerge.  I have been thinking for the last couple of weeks that I would like to have 3 posts available for this because there are days when Doctor appointments and other things just prevent me from writing.  Then along comes Carlos Velez at Conscious Me.com; with this guest post about how Pre writing is your friend.  Struck a chord with me and over a few days the Pre-Writing Challenge was born.  See my Pre-Writing challenge page for more info on how to join.

It would have been nice today to say, “I just am not going to write right now.  I’ll post #7.”  Didn’t happen but at the end of the challenge it will be so.

Thanks for being here!

Justin

What Do You Mean? I Have Kids?

September 26, 2013 / / 2 Comments

I have been trying to decide how bad it is to wake up with Disney songs in my head. Not any of the traditional songs from any movie but one from a princess collection DVD that we have. I don’t believe that it has even been played since dialysis almost a year ago!

My point is this: how much time are we devoting to the minutiae that encompasses our kids lives? I know that most stay at home parents will know their kids fairly well. Nuances of speech and mannerisms can tell you more about your child than you realize. For those who work, how much do we actually know about those nuances and can we recognize them?

Very simply, the more time we spend with our kids, the better we willknow them. Sure there are logistics involved and places to run to and things that have to be done. Sometimes, spending “time” with the kids is running them around in the car. How well can you observe them while driving?

One of my favorite things to do is to watch them play outside. And by watch them I mean from inside the house. I haven’t used binoculars yet but I am not above it. Just watching them play by themselves gives you wonderful insight into their developing personalities.

One of my most favorite memories is of my son. He was barely 4 and had received a red wagon for his birthday. There is a small hill in our front yard and seeing him run up and down that hill, dragging that wagon for all he was worth and smiling ear to ear was one of the best things I had ever seen. I watch him now playing on the swings in the backyard and playing with the dog and I have one of those warm fuzzy feelings. The same feeling you get from a Norman Rockwell painting or one of those TV shows from the 50’s where life is idyllic and nothing can go wrong. What did I learn? The boy like to run and tow things. He has several trucks tied together so they can “tow like a trailer”. I let him help hook up the trailer when we go camping and he is fascinated by the interplay of hitch ball and coupler, let alone the safety chains.

Quick, when did your child learn to whistle? Time’s up. My older daughter still can’t. My son tries but doesn’t get much going. My 3 year old learned while on dialysis. She taught herself because Mickey Mouse was whistling and she wanted to try. It was almost embarrassing for the doctors to bring all of their colleagues around because this little 2 year old (at the time) could whistle.

It has been said so many times now that it is cliche. “Kids grow up so fast!” Cliche but true. My 9 year old lost a tooth last night and informed us this morning that she has lost 20 teeth because she has all of the golden dollar coins that she has received from the tooth fairy. She is saving for a pony. She is also sneaky. She writes quizzes to the Tooth Fairy and demands answers. I am just glad the Tooth Fairy answers her queries with the same enthusiasm that Santa Claus does.

My wife and I decided long ago that we would not push our kids into things that we wanted them to do unless they wanted to as well. We also decided that we would watch and see what they gravitated towards and nudge them that way.

My oldest has always loved animals but may want to be a Nurse like Mom. She is spending a week with my sister the vet tech on their farm this summer to learn more about taking care of animals. She is also writing a story that I am going to explore in another post. I may have her blogging by Independence Day!

My Son is almost 7 now but loves anything with wings or wheels. He wants to fly in the Navy. He also wants to drive fast. Personally I think he should be a NASCAR mechanic. We will have to see with him.

My 3 year old will probably end up in the medical field. She has a doctor set and doctors everyone just like she was doctored in the hospital. We have all had dialysis and transplants. She has dolls with kidney scars. Of course, she would love to be Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty as well. There is time.

Think of your kids. Do you know what radio stations they listen to? Do you know what movies they are liking as they grow up? My Wife and I are bad influences, Star Wars and Indiana Jones are among the kids favorites now.

Last preachy point. Observe your kids. Hang out at your computer and let them interact with each other, but watch them. Learn their intricacies. Play up their strong points. Help them with their weak points. Above all, Love Them Like There is No Tomorrow. They grow up so fast.

SAHD Friday: Cooking school

September 26, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Well we finally decided that it was time for my 10 year old and my 7 year old to learn to cook.  A bit at least.  My 7 year old gets to push the buttons on the microwave and put the cheese in the macaroni and cheese.  More will come as he can handle it.

My 10 year old is learning more and more things to cook.  And how to tell if the pasta is done, and how to make Jello.  She is able to turn on the oven and put things in and out.  It is rather nice that the kids are getting old enough to do some things around the house.  It is especially nice when we have to take care of the new baby.

The most surprising thing to me is how quickly they are taking to the chores and learning.  They are learning how to put things together for dinner and they are learning not to be afraid of the stove or the microwave.  I think half of the excitement of cooking for them is being able to use the appliances that have been off limits for so long.

I think one of the most important things that we are all learning is trust.   My wife and I are learning to trust our kids to do things without us showing them how.  The kids are learning that we do trust them.  They are also learning that the things we have been saying for years about the stove being hot and knives being dangerous are true, and not just something we made up to repress the kids with.

This whole journey of letting the kids grow up can be overwhelming.  They will always grow physically.  They will get bigger and need new clothes and shoes no matter what we do.  The trick is to let them grow mentally, adapting to their personalities and aptitudes as they can handle it.

Giving them more responsibility is a fine line between “too much I can’t handle it” and “not enough to keep my interest for long”.  That is a line I constantly test as a parent.  There are things that I remember doing at their ages that my kids are just not ready for yet.  They are coming.  The trick is to  keep them interested so they don’t drift away on you.

They want to mow the lawn now….I am not quite ready to relinquish that yet.  On the front yard people see at least.

Have a great weekend guys, thanks for reading.

-Justin

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Constantly Amazed: Chronicles of a 8 month old.

September 26, 2013 / / 1 Comment

8 months ago Tristan, my second son was born.  Despite everything that went on at the first, he is growing like a weed and doing all of the normal things that babies should be doing.  Even though he is my 4th child and I have watched the other three go through these same phases and it always amazes me that A- human babies do the same things as they develop, and B- they are constantly intrigued and amazed with the world.

Little brains are empty but tend to fill up with everything even though short term memory is really short.  String gets forgotten for toes, they get forgotten for remote controls, they get forgotten for the phone when it rings.  And put Mom on the speaker phone from work and the kid can’t figure it out.

Another fun toy: Ceiling fans.  Turn one of those on and it is good for at least a few minutes.  It is fun watching Tristan learning to rollover and try to crawl.  That should be sometime this week if it keeps going like it is.  It does really make me reflect on my other kids and how they developed the same way.  And differently!

Readers of this blog now know that my oldest is 10 going on 23.  Thinking back 10 years to when she was rolling over and trying to crawl puts somewhat of a sad smile on my face.  I love to remember all of them doing the same things but knowing that this is the last one is kind of sad.  Watching the baby jump up and down in the exer-saucer reminds me of my other son.  And how this will be the last one to use it….for a while.

The next 8 month old I will be observing will be my Grandchild, and good grief I am starting to think I am getting older.  I still feel like a kid but, wow.  So for now, I will be watching every tiny move that Tristan makes.  I have been very lucky to have been home to watch my kids grow up.  Seeing most of their milestones has been a fantastic experience that I can’t recommend highly enough.

It is fantastic even if you are not home watching the kids, it is exciting to go from something that just cries and poops to one that plays and is watching everything around his world with a smile to one who can do things for you and take the garbage cans out.  Benefits to having older kids even though I don’t trust them to mow the lawn; my wife wants to mow patterns and words into the lawn and I am not having any of that.

But back to the baby, we notice that he (like the others) finds EVERYTHING interesting.  Small bits of paper, shoes, and socks are great chew toys and I am convinced that it gives them a leg up on imagination later in life.  Case study: my nephew vs Cameron my 7 year old.  Nephew: loves sea life and dinosaurs.  Will play with them only how they were meant to be played with.   Cameron: loves cars and anything with wheels.  Plays with anything and everything in some way that makes them go fast and crash or transform into something else.  Drives my nephew nuts when a tyrannosaurus is riding a truck and jumps off to kill ninjas before the Army takes the dinosaur out.

Imagination rocks, I can’t wait to get him writing.  My 4 year old has a great imagination as well, the tales she was spinning for the kidney clinic staff the other day were hilarious.  The doctor was literally wiping his eyes from laughing so hard at this 4 year old in a princess dress.  I can only hope that Tristan will follow suit and be creative, just because we let him wander around his world and explore as long as he is safe about it.

I can’t wait for the long term ride that this is becoming.  Thanks for dropping by folks, there will be more to come I am sure.

-Justin

PS. I am working on a program that will be part instruction, part support group, part mastermind group and all about being a stay at home dad, released in modules until a whole book is finished.  Look for more details to come and let me know if you are interested in joining me.  Thanks again.

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