Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Tag: kids (Page 2 of 7)

SAHD Friday: The new one slows us all down

July 9, 2014 / / 4 Comments

This title proves prophetic today.  I had forgotten just how much an infant forces you to slow down certain things.

Over the past 2 weeks I have had to slow down many times, with my writing and housework and yard work.  I have watched more movies and tv shows in the last 2 weeks than I have in the past 6 months when I started this whole online venture.

I have been writing about unplugging the past few days and I think that he has a lot to do with this.  Now, if you have read any of this blog in the past, you know that my family is very important to me.  I love doing things with my kids and I really am excited to watch them grow and develop.

It is so much fun to see them grow and change through all of the ages.  It is fun to see their tastes in music and movies change and mature as they grow.  It is also fun to see what the new one will choose when he can control what to watch.  My 4 year old is finally gtting into some of her own things and not just copying her older sister.  My son has always kind of done his own thing, it will be interesting to see if my new son follows him or does something totally new.

I think it has been good for all of us to just slow down.  It has been good for me to get off of the computer and just hold the baby for a couple of hours at a time.  These are the times you can’t get back if you miss them.  This is exactly why I am a dad.

Being a Stay At Home Dad allows me to see all of these milestones.  These 4 kids I own make me want to work my butt off and be able to stay home with them and all of the things that they accomplish.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Have a great weekend!  We get to watch fireworks tomorrow!

-Justin

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why I stay at home, part 1

July 9, 2014 / / 6 Comments

I am a stay at home dad.  I have touched on this before and I am I will again.  So it may be asked why?  Why is it that I stay home while my wife works.  Well a simple answer is complicated in coming.  Here is part one of a peek into my life so far.  BTW, I have decided I will run my fiction stories on Saturday’s if anyone is interested.

Way back when, after high school I was doing the college thing with my wife (then girlfriend) and things progressed, we got married and she graduated.  She was one of those who has known what she wants to be when she grows up from about 5 years old.  I was not like that.  I am still working on that one.  She wanted to be a Nurse and so she became.

In the meantime we had our first child and when here came to there, we looked at the budget and decided that almost 80% of my income at the time would go to daycare.  We couldn’t justify that so I stayed at home and took online classes working on my degree.

Through this and that our second child came along and the same argument held.  I would be working to pay for daycare and someone else would be raising our kids.  Of everything, that was the most important.  My wife and I would raise our own kids.  We would be responsible for their development and how they turned out.  No one else would be in charge of them.

I think that has had a very positive impact on these kids.  I the “old” days of my parents at least there was not daycare.  When I was a child it was available but I would say most kids were raised by their parents.  As I got older, more kids were being raised by others.  We were not going to let our kids be raised by others.

I did go back to work for about a year when my son was small and my wife was pregnant with our 3rd.  That was hard for the family but it worked.  Things finally were looking around and I was thinking about school again so I quit work in April of 2007 to do that.  Two weeks later my 11 month old had a seizure and was diagnosed with Kidney Failure.  That led to 16 weeks in the hospital to get her regulated and healthy enough to come home.

Kids songs and Dirty Lyrics

July 9, 2014 / / 5 Comments

I was watching TV with my 4 year old the other day.  Usually she has the TV on while I am writing or commenting or otherwise trying to build my empire.

If you have a 4 year old or anyone who records their age in single digits with “and a quarter” you will know that they get focused on one particular TV show and beat the hell out of it.

My oldest daughter was born right before DVD became big.  She had a lot of video tapes.  There were certain ones that I prayed would break.  Some did.  Some “really” did.  One I know I stepped on “accidentally”.  It played for another year or so.  Then DVD came along.  You can’t let them degrade like a videotape.  They just keep going and going.

It is bad if you know where the scratch is on the DVD and it seems weird to not have it there if that show is ever on TV.  So now it comes to this.  Kids get obsessed.  All of my kids have been obsessed with the Wiggles.  My daughters have been obsessed with Dora The Explorer.  My youngest still is.  She is also obsessed with Scooby Doo.  I like Scooby Doo.

With that obsession you get many many repeats of theme songs.  They watch multiple episodes, get the CD, and sing them all of the time.  It is inevitable that those songs get stuck in your head.  And after approximately 12 million times “Dora, Dora, Dora the explorer” starts to get…..well….twisted in my mind.

A decidely PG-13 begins to form.  Followed by something that would make George Carlin blush and sailors run away crying.  I won’t write them here, this is a family friendly blog.  You can fill in the blanks for yourself.  Sometimes that is just how my mind twists…..

Don’t tell my toddler about the barbecue of Scooby Doo or Boots the monkey’s after hours endeavors.

Do you have any kids themes that need to be remade???  Comments are waiting!

-Justin

4 year olds fishing for 8 month olds

May 27, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I had somewhat of a horror movie moment the other day.  I took my 4 year old and the baby to the Wal Mart to get the essentials, you know diapers, milk, screws etc.  I am, if you haven’t read about it by now, somewhat of a fishing nut.  I always want to go fishing, even if I don’t get the chance.  So when at Wal Mart, I cant help but walk through the sporting goods section.

It was there that trouble shocked my brain.  Now, Amelia, my 4 year old decided to break her foot last weekend so she had to ride in the cart while Tristan, the baby rode in his car seat in the upper deck of the cart.  Amelia started talking about how she wanted to go fishing with her pink fishing pole and how she was going to catch a big fish with Daddy.  I was so proud.  Up until now we give her a bit of line tied to a butterfly plug that she could thrash around with.

I started thinking, her birthday is in 2 months, she will be 5 and she could go fishing for real….hmmm.  Let’s get her a tackle box and some hooks and we can go to town.  It was at that point she piped up and said how much fun it would be if she could fish with Tristan.  I said OK, and then she said she wanted to teach him how to cast.  All I could think of then was her tossing back a real live hook and catching the baby.  More than once.  My daydream vision had multiple hooks in his body and Amelia tossing him into the lake, car seat and all.

Maybe she isn’t ready for a set of real hooks all to herself.  I think we can wait another year to jump off of that bridge.  I still bought her a pink tackle box and some pink power bait to go in it.  We are still going fishing.

Thoughts?  Questions? Criticism? Misguided attempts at humor?  The comment section is waiting for your fingers to fill it with wisdom.

Have a great weekend.

Justin

PS- any ideas for podcasts let me know!  I want to talk about what you want to talk about!

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