The world needs failures. It makes all the rest of us feel some much better, so how can we make this happen. Did you honestly believe that I would set you up for failure? You probably wanted to drive over, visit me and knock me around a little bit based upon the title of this post. What I think that is important is to find the six most common behaviors that Fire Dads need to stay away from to ensure that their kids become successful and wonderful additions to society. (more…)
Ugh….I talked about it last post concerning boys and their connection to my girls. I joke about them going to live in a convent with a bunch of nuns until they are old and gray but realize that is probably not going to be allowed. The world seems to frown on kidnapping children and placing them in convents these days…Who knew?
So the world just came to a screeching halt the other day. Milana comes to me and tells me, “Hey, Daddy. Mia has a boyfriend. In my head, I’m still thinking this is just an innocent thing. They also call their friends that are girls their girlfriends. Okay in this case it is a friend who is a boy. I am not so lucky. New Fire Dad Enemy Numero Uno is named……JACKSON!
Have you ever heard of a woman named Corinne Maier? I did not either until an article showed up on my of my feeds about a week ago. The article was centered on a concept known as parental regret. Corinne is a mother of two children (keep in mind that this can also be found in fathers) who decided that she would have been better off if she did not have children. Her belief is that her children caused immeasurable harm to her both mentally and financially. Could these “monster” type of parents truly exist in today’s society? Do I understand where they are coming from? More importantly, do I hold some of the same beliefs?
I spent some time looking at the different comments that were made to give the idea of parental regret a fair shake. I think it is unfair for people to attack a woman/man for their own beliefs. People’s beliefs have caused too much harm to people that do not hold the same beliefs as other people. Do I believe that people need to hold the same beliefs? Absolutely not! I think it is important in society that people have the ability to listen to the “evidence” and make their own decisions. There have been plenty of times where I “agree to disagree” with people that I know. If I believe strongly about something, I will normally not be swayed by another person. What I try to do is listen and try and understand other people’s thoughts and see if that will change my mind or cement my beliefs that much more.
When it comes to parental regret, I am not the person that regrets being a parent. Are kids monsters sometimes? Absolutely, I regularly call the girls my little animals. Do they cost me money? Oh my goodness more than you can imagine. One cost me money…..Two I’m am going to take out loans and now with three…..I need to look for a bankruptcy consultant. Okay well not that bad….yet. Can they take their toll on you emotionally? OH MY GOODNESS…unequivocally YES! They can really make some hurtful comments. They can say things that would make a trucker cringe that they picked up at school. This and my oldest is currently only six. So am I regretting my decision to be a Fire Dad? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
My girls provide me with the most joy out of anything in my life. It could be the joy they have with anything that is new. I see what they create in their art classes. I get to see their loss of teeth. I get to be there when they go to the dentist. I get to have they try different foods. I get to be part of their learning. This is a short list because I did not want to bore you with all the little things that lead to joy in my life because of my girls. I try to find ways to make the experiences something that we will always remember while we are together….not saying that money is not an issue but there are ways to have a great experience and not give away the farm.
Now I am not being foolish or blind to think that more challenges do not exist in the future. I fear boys! Not because I do not have any but I know how boys think. I keep picturing myself from the movie “Bad Boys” where Martin Lawrence and Will Smith decide to greet a new boy into the family. Need a refresher on how I plan on acting with a close friend or my brother? Check it out on YouTube:
I plan on being that guy! There are plenty of other things that scare the hell out of me when it comes to my daughters….We can discuss fears in a future post.
The bottom line is that there are some things that I regret doing in my life. I have made mistakes that I wish I could undo but I cannot so I just move on and try to do better in the future. When it comes to parental regret, I can see where these parents are coming from but where they see negatives, I can outweigh them with positives. Where they see problems, I see solutions. Maybe it is the firefighter in me to try and solve the world’s problems (Lord knows we have plenty of them) but regretting being a parent is not me. I love being a dad and I do not seeing that change anytime soon. I am into Parental Delight!
Any of you have any feelings of parental regret? Parental Delight? Let me know below in the comments.
So an interesting conversation came up at bedtime today. As I stated in a previous post, I am humbled by the amount of work that the kids are facing today in classrooms. I remember sitting in first grade still trying to figure out how to keep my crayons inside the lines and wondering why paste tasted so delicious! Nowadays the kids are learning to read, do math up to and including multiplication and many other “advanced” skills. I am in awe to see how advanced the girls are becoming as they are challenged every day in class.
The unfortunate part is seeing the testing that is associated with this level of education. This testing led to some tears this evening on both Mia’s and interestingly enough myself. She let me know earlier in the day that she was having some big tests. I might be dating myself here but it sounds the equivalent of my Iowa tests. The tests to see where the children are at with their peers both in the school and across geographic boundaries. She did not have too much concern earlier in the day but her anxiety did come out late at night.
She started to tear up saying that she was scared about the test the next day at school. She said that the longer texts in some of the reading questions confused her in the past. She was concerned that she was going to upset me by not getting these questions right. She said that these questions she had guessed at in the past and she got them wrong. Trying to bring at my logical side, I told her about how far she has come since she started her first grade experience. I told her that when she started she was not able to read the level of books that she has today. I told her that the books she reads now most certainly have more words than the questions in her testing. In fact, I told her that “mommy” had tried to trick her with some questions today while reading a book only to find that Mia comprehended what occurred in the story and was not fooled with the questions. She started to cry and this is where she tugged at my heart strings.
Thankfully, it was dark in the room and she could not see the tears starting to well up in my eyes. I said, “Honey, you have come so far and become so much better in reading and math by doing what?” She responded, “Practice, daddy”. I then went on to explain that she has been practicing almost everyday both reading and math with Mary and me. What I think I said next really made the difference to her because her tears turned to a smile and I got an extra special hug and kiss.
I told Mia that all that I expected from her was that she tried her best. I followed that up with that if she tried her best at everything she did she would succeed and I could never be upset with her. I repeated it to her a couple times and she finally realized that I was serious and that gave her relief. This also led to a super tight hug, a kiss and an “I love you, daddy”. She then lay back on her bed with what appeared to be a satisfied look on her face. My final “pearls” of wisdom was to tell her that to do her best she needed a good nights rest and a good breakfast like oatmeal in the morning. We pinky sweared that she would do that and try her best. Off to sleep she went.
As I sit and type this now, tears again seem to well up in my eyes as I try to navigate the pressures that impact the children and try to find ways that they can understand that all I can expect from them is that they try their best and I will always be proud of their accomplishments.
So this begs the question….Are you doing your best?
I cannot remember the day that I had my first sleepover at a friend’s house. I probably was a little older but Mia’s classmate, Payton, invited her and a girlfriend over for the night. I just took the girls to the Discovery Center in Rockford for an outing and her friend’s mom suggested that they do a sleepover. I thought to myself, “This might not be such a great idea”. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.
My concern was that Allie, her other classmate, got a little upset at their last attempt of a sleepover at about 11pm in the evening. She called her mom and dad and they ended up picking her up. While some might think it would be worthwhile to tell the child to stick it out/suck it up, I think it might be better to make sure they feel comfortable in that environment instead of causing them undue stress. I do not want the girls to think that I would not be there for them in the event they did not feel comfortable on the sleepover. I did not want Mia to have a bad first experience which might effect her desire to do it again.
The other girls were jealous and immediately insisted on being allowed to have a sleepover as well. Knowing that Cathy had her hands full, I promised the other two that we would have a sleepover at our house and invite their friends over. The mob of two thought carefully about my suggestion. They looked at each other, nodded and let me know that was acceptable. Crisis averted for now with future post to come.
The sleepover started at 1630 and Mia was excited the whole morning. She had packed up her “security” items in a bag the night before. She chose to bring a sleeping bag, a pillow, three of her most treasured “stuffies” and her Lalaloopsy [sic]. The bag sat by the man door waiting for our depature and a reminder to all that Mia was going on her first sleepover.
I dropped her off at 1630 and Cathy was very welcoming. Mia immediately detached herself from me and went to her friends. I could tell that this was going to be good for her. I smiled at Cathy and wished her luck and to let me know if there was any problems. She seemed comfortable with the five girls. I received several text pictures and updates on Mia which to me made it special. I felt like a proud Fire Dad because my little girl was all grown up now!
The next day, I woke up and found that my phone did not have any text messages on it. Two possible scenarios: Either Cathy and Dan were perfectly fine and the kids had a great time or they were now being held hostage and I would have to pay a king’s ransom for their safe return. I was hoping for the former! I texted Cathy before departing for the gym but her phone was off so I did not get a response for a spell. I suggested 1030 for a pickup and she said that would be fine. I finished up my workout and picked up Mia.
Thankfully, Cathy and Dan looked in good health with no rope marks on their wrists:). Mia looked a little tired and they were doing some sort of dance game on the television. The beds were out in the living room by the TV. Cathy said that Mia was up til almost midnight – the latest. I guess I could be proud of such a trooper but I knew this would mean her attitude would be not so good for the rest of the day (and it wasn’t). She already had breakfast which Cathy and Dan prepared. It rivaled many restaurants in that they had bacon, eggs, muffins, milk, orange juice – just to name a few). I was JEALOUS! The girls did art and she brought her projects home. They took numerous pictures with a modern day Polaroid. I thanked both of them for being so kind.
Cathy let me know that Mia could come back again for another sleepover. That made me proud of her that she had behaved good while at the sleepover and encourages me to allow her to do it again in the future. For now, I am working on setting up Milana and Bella’s first sleepover. Please make sure you check up on me to see if I make it out alive!
Being a firefighter and a father is truly a unique experience. The schedule allows you to become an integral part of your children’s lives; if you choose to do it! Our schedule is a typical 24/48 schedule where we are on for a 24 hour period and then off for 48. While I dislike the loss of those 24 hours, I do try to take advantage of the 48 while I am at home.
One of the ways that I try to give back to my daughters is trying to participate in different school functions. School functions that I have participated with include different field trips, family nights out and school centers. Each one of these activities provides me the attachment to the girls that I adore.
Today was centers in Mia’s class. Not only do I get to interact with Mia but also with all of her classmates. I think that this is important as I get to see her with kids her age and how she interacts with them. When I show up, I sit at table awaiting for one of the three groups to join me. While the table is made for someone a lot smaller than 6′ 3″, it is still enjoyable. Because I have built a small rapport with all of the kids, I usually get smiles and a lot of waves from the kids.
I have to give it to the teacher’s as they come up with some fun educational games. Today was a game called Syllable Snowmen. There are about 40 flashcards which each contained a word. There were equal amounts of 1, 2 and 3 syllable words. The goal is to have the Head (one syllable word), Body (two syllable word) and legs (three syllable word). All the kids did great with the game as I made it a competition between them with an interesting twist. I wanted them to work as a team; similar to what I am familiar with as a firefighter.
I told the kids that they were going to be timed to find and put together their snowman. The team building came in that they turned the card over and worked together to figure out the word and the number of syllables. Some of the kids are good with words and some not so good but to my surprise, they worked together to get the job done. I told the kids that you might be the “best” individually but the team would always be stronger and faster as a group than even the best individual. For the most part, the kids seemed to embrace the idea and made me proud of the group.
At the tail end of the center, the kids were starting to say they were hungry and started to lose a little interest in the game. The hour and 15 minutes ended too quickly as it was 11am. The kids all lined up for lunch carrying their lunchboxes. I got numerous high fives from some of the kids. More importantly, I got a big hug from Mia. I told her that I loved her and would see her in a few hours when she arrived home. I hope that some of the ideas that I provided the kids have at least a little impact on their lives. I look forward to my next center day with the kids.
I’ll be the first to admit that some of the movies that are produced can have more of an effect on children than I ever imagined. I have watched my fair share of children’s movies because the girls will watch them not just once….but like 1000 times (or more). The newer movies seem to have some underlying messages that I believed were more for the parents benefit and chuckles and would pass over such young developing minds.
Interestingly, I found that children actually can and do grasp some of the ideas that are brought up in these movies. Concepts that I would think they would not be aware of in the first place. The ability for young children to pick up on these ideas can be pretty impressive as I saw with Milana just the other day.
I was kind of bummed that Milana’s birthday is two weeks beyond the date set by the school board of Sept 1. This means that she will be held back a year from where I believe where she belongs. She turned 5 in 2017 but was held in preschool. If she was born August 31, she would have been in kindergarten. To get her prepped for next year, me and Mary have been working with her on reading. The books that I use are from Mia’s kindergarten class. She is doing a great job on them and more impressive is that she is able to comprehend what is being talked about in the book based upon questions at the end of each one.
How does this relate back to Zootopia you might ask? It’s all about her ability to perceive what is occurring in the story. More importantly, she understands one of the underlying messages about bias to the different animals within the Zootopia universe. Interestingly, her understanding and questioning of bias occurred prior to the movie. She saw the firefighting profession as one dominated by men. I told her that she could do anything that she wanted to do. I encourage all my girls to do this. I think it is important for them to pave their own ways and what makes them happy.
In Zootopia, the main character a bunny named Judy Hopps, is in the law enforcement field. She is treated differently due to her sex. The other animals talk to her differently almost as if she is inferior and cannot handle the job as a law enforcement officer. The girls watch this over and over because they enjoy the different animals. What’s more important is that we have lightly discussed the issue with the girls to see their level of understanding. They see Mary and are proud that she is in Judy Hopps spot but Mary has provided a strong foundation for the girls to understand that the girls can be whatever they want to be. What it takes is practice and hard work. Those two things will be repeated to them regularly so that they make the choice to best suit them.
On a lighter note, as of right now, Mia wants to be a “hair cutter”, a brain doctor, a police officer and a firefighter. Milana wants to be a brain doctor. Bella has decided that she wants to be a priest. Each of these makes me proud as i know that whatever occupation they choose, it will be the perfect fit for them.
I am always excited to see how the girls do with out in public when we go places. Too see their reactions can be quite priceless although I sometimes dread what might come out of their innocent little mouths at the wrong times. Needless to say, we were planning a family excursion to the dentist’s office. WE LOVE OUR DENTIST!
I might be biased because our dentist Bryan Cichon from Randall Ridge Dental in St. Charles is my cousin. I have been going to him for years now and would never thinking of changing for a variety of reasons beyond any family relationship. Interestingly, it is a 40 min drive to get there but time is definitely not a deciding factor when you get quality for the kids!
Reasons for the Dentist Love
First, he is a great person outside of being our dentist. He is very kind and caring towards the whole family. He makes it a pleasant experience even when you have three different personalities that are battling for attention. Second, he makes the girls feel comfortable in the chair. They joke with him and he has a great time with them. This might be because he also has kids and knows how to interact with my girls. It just makes it easier when they are excited to go and see him because of the experience he provides them. They always will ask when they are going to see Cousin Bryan the Dentist. Last, he makes me comfortable which is not an easy feat. I stopped going to the dentist for about 13 years because I HATED every single one that I went too. I never had a good experience with them and swore I would just stay away. My plan was to have all my teeth ripped out out when they rotted and replace them with some bad ass implants that get screwed in…Welcome awesome white fake teeth. Dr. Bryan made sure that I did not have to go through the physical torture or expense of doing this. He has made me a believer in dentists once more.
Back to the Girls
Mia Getting Her Teeth Checked
Dr. Bryan has two dental hygienists that were working that day. Unfortunately, with three girls the math did not make sense. All I heard for the 40 min trip was a battle of who was going to go first. I tried to explain to the girls that I was not going to make the decision. We would go in the order called. This seemed to appease them as trying to get on my good side would not do them any benefit. Mia was the first in the chair. I snuck in to get her picture in the chair which she was more than willing to stop her chatter and do an “action pose” for me. I just felt bad for Dr. Bryan who had to listen to her chatting up a storm.
I thought it would go in order of age…and so did Milana. Well talk about monkey wrench – Bella was called second. Immediately, I saw Milana’s face drop and she started to cry. She was crying because she was not going into the dentist’s chair. I flashed back to the moment that I DREADED my moment in the chair. I would have happily traded spots with the other kids within the room. I would have been happy to say to the dentist, “Yeah, take the other kid there….I’ll just wait”. Obviously, Milana did not get that gene of dentist dislike….more likely because Dr. Bryan is awesome with the girls. Thankfully, Maureen (dental hygienist) promised Milana that it would change next time. I again went into the room with Bella to get a picture. Stubborn little monster would not even give me a smile.
Art has always been something that the girls want to do. While art seems to be disappearing from the classrooms as schools find it not important, I think it is important an element of expression for the girls. I want to see what they are picturing in their heads. They enjoy spending time doing different techniques that they have seen or done in other places.
It seems every place that I go with them, art plays a role. For instance, I took them to Moretti’s restaurant. The host provides them with a menu and 3-4 crayons. It keeps them busy for about 10 minutes before they are ready to move on to something else. I try and go to the gym as much as I can. When the girls come along, they are surely doing art for a period of time there as well. We go to the Discovery Center….a ton of art projects are made during our short time there. This past time, I took the girls and a couple of their friends only to find that my hoodie pocket was filled with their “art”.
While I like giving the girls the opportunity to express their art, I am finding that with every outing I have at least 3-4 pieces of art per person. To make matters worse, I converted one of the rooms downstairs into an “art room”. All the kids stuff is now downstairs “contained” to one room. The markers, the crayons, the pom poms, pipe cleaners and everything else known to man. While this was a great idea, I now have tripled the output of my young picassos. What was once done only outside the house is not being done inside the art laboratory. Don’t get me wrong I do love the work that they do but I am finding it to be burdensome of what to do with it.
My knee jerk reaction was to initially save all of it. The girls made it for a reason and it was important. Two words: NOT POSSIBLE! It started becoming ridiculous to try and keep the lid on all the new things that were being produced. Okay it was time for a change so I went to the opposite direction. I started throwing it all out! I can see that look of disgust on your faces of how bad I am for doing this to their art. Well the bottom line is that they are mega producers and even the recycling bin was feeling overworked and underpaid. I explained to the girls that the garbage man was a connoisseur of fine art and he loved keeping all of their stuff.
Okay…Okay….So I felt bad about having only the garbage man being excited about his weekly “haul” of fine art. I came up with a new plan which appears to be working okay for the last couple of days: computer program. While I realize that they are not getting glue and glitter and all the other junk all over….Wait a minute not such a bad thing so far! There is a learning curve with the program but they are doing basic art by using it right now which is nice. I then let them save it to their own folders so they can “enjoy” it as many times as they want. I have also imposed a new rule that they can keep 10 pieces of art which I will plaster on the walls of the art room. If they want to keep a piece of art, they have to remove one of the 10 that exists on the wall. PURE GENIUS!
I have found something that might fix the load of guilt that I feel throwing their art work away. We will see what happens. This all could implode and my house may again become a disaster of artwork at every turn. Only time will tell.
Any thoughts on what the best way to deal with the mountain of art that you have in your house? Let me know below!
So how did this fire dad live it up on the introduction to 2018? I worked at the police department! My thoughts as I signed up for it were to have a quiet night as most people have heard of a thing called a taxi or a service like Lyft or Uber. For the most part, I was spot on. It was relatively quiet until we got reports of a accident with injuries on Route 59. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured in the three car accident with seven (7) occupants. That pretty much made up my night including going beyond the dropping of the ball in Times Square. Finally got home and went to bed about 0245. It didn’t take long until I was out.
Thankfully, the kids kept the noise down to a low roar until I fully woke up about 0900. For some reason, I thought what a good idea it would be to make some food for the week. Well considering, I seem to only make big batches (thanks fire service), I started with the vegetarian enchiladas found here:
Just full disclosure, I do modify (add/delete) things from recipes but this is the base. Needless to say, the standard recipe will definitely be a great but adding things sure can make it even that much better. For starters, I dice up sweet potato as one of the ingredients that is not listed. I add more spices based upon how it is tasting. One of these days I might just measure it to make a recipe of my own that you might enjoy. After it was said and done, I had three huge trays of enchiladas for the family. It was Milana approved, so you know I got it right this time!
I could have stopped there but I had a helper that wanted to give me an assist in the kitchen. I saw that we have about 7 green peppers that looked like they were a little overripe so I figured that they need to be cooked. Mary had sent me a recipe for vegetarian stuffed peppers that morning so I figured we would give it a go.
Mia helped pouring two cups of quinoa into boiling water. While that was cooking, she started “painting” all the green peppers with sunflower oil. After she was done with that she helped pour the black beans and corn into a bowl and put a cup or two of Costco salsa to the mix. She mixed it all up for me. Might have mushed the black beans a little but it will all be good. After the quinoa was done, Mia helped by mixing all the items together. She wanted to stuff the peppers but it was time for her nap. Needless to say, I wanted to get them cooking as the enchiladas were done. I filled and cooked them while the girls slept. It was probably better that I did as there was a big mess from me “carefully” spooning the stuff into the peppers. We had 12 halves since the girls wanted to eat some green peppers as a treat before bed.
What I was most proud of is that all three girls tried all the food at dinner time. The enchiladas were a hit! I would give them a 10 out of 10 for taste. The girls agreed and ate all of those. The stuff peppers were about a 6 or a 7 out of 10. They seemed kind of bland. I should have known better based upon the ingredients. I will try them again but I will give them the fire dads extra ounce of love next time. The bottom line is that it was a fun experience working with the girls on New Years to make some family food!
The world needs failures. It makes all the rest of us feel some much better, so how can we make this happen. Did you honestly believe that I would set you up for failure? You probably wanted to drive over, visit me and knock me around a little bit based upon the title of this post. What I think that is important is to find the six most common behaviors that Fire Dads need to stay away from to ensure that their kids become successful and wonderful additions to society. (more…)
