Signs of My Times

As either a marker of achievement or lameness, this is my 100th blog post. I have too much crap to say I guess.

Many of us have things in our lives that make us feel old. For some, it's baldness, male or female unfortunately. For others, watching our kids' birthdays come way too quickly. For most of us, looking back on how much things cost (gas at $0.99/gallon around 1998-99, $0.29 and $0.39 cheeseburgers and hamburgers at McDonald's, etc.), what were the cool cartoons growing up (Disney afternoon, Thundercats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, etc.), and what were the cool fashions that are popping up again as "retro" (pegged pants, neon glasses, etc.) remind us of simpler, easier times. For me its gray hairs.

Keep in mind, that there are some of my friends who can remember, oh about 16 years ago, when I entered Woodcreek High School as a freshman, the days in math class where I would allow any and all members of the opposite sex to pick through my #6 length hair to find and pull out the single digit gray hairs I had then. So this is nothing new. My head of hair that is. I've been dealing with the ever saddening view point from my barber chair of seeing a higher ratio of white vs. black drop to the salon floor with relative exponential progression for more than a decade and a half. Today was a new low.

As those creepy and scary two numbers, 3 and 0, march ever onward toward my life, it is with much weeping and gnashing of my teeth that I admit the following: I have (now had) a gray chest hair.

I'm not a hair-less guy. As my wife remembered and shared this evening, I once had a friend in college "nair" my back hair into a cross. Somehow, I, along with my brother, captured this hair growing gene from what appears to be thin air, and have been developing it with relative ease since we hit double digit ages and it has consumed my body.

Another flashback to high school. My senior year during volleyball season, I used to dye my hair the color of whatever school our next game would be played at in order to advertise to our tiny fan base where we were playing without saying a word. In order to do so, with my jet black mane, I needed to bleach it everytime first in order to allow some of the lighter colors to show up. Hair does not and has never scared me. Until today.

Today marks the day I admit to the world and finally, more importantly since lying to yourself is foolish, to myself that I am o-l-d. There are some guys at my work, in their late 40's, full head of hair and not a gray hair anywhere to be found. Could be dye, but knowing how cheap cops can be, its probably legit. Sure they might have wrinkles or other signs of aging, but to me, no signs of their actual length on this earth are visible to the human eye. Me however, I can now no longer strut care free shirtless at a pool or the beach with the knowledge that my rug of a chest is monochromatic, but that it is now and forever will be (since I won't be dying my chest hair in this life) polychromatic. Sigh......

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 3 Discipline of a Parent

I don't like to discipline. I understand it is an inevitable part of proper parenting and without it our kids would run amuck, but I still don't like to do it. Not for the full reason that most of you may be thinking. I definitely don't like causing my own child pain, but I also don't like to do it because I don't ever feel like I am fully doing it correctly. Let me explain. Discipline, Godly discipline, is used to correct, teach, and encourage. If done correctly, the child will A) still feel loved, B) know of their sinful heart, C) be prayed for, D) and continue to learn about their need for a Savior who can heal them through His own sacrifice and love. Here's my problem. While I try to explain all of that, I always feel like I tainted it by my own pridefulness. My telltale sign for knowing Nick needs to be disciplined, is because a frustration, anger, or combination of the two, has welled up inside of my own prideful and sinful heart. Sometimes it's to the point where I don't even feel as if it would be right to discipline him when I'm in sin myself and need my own rebuking. So, in those failing moments, I let it go and let him continue. I will still persevere most of the time, following through with my God ordained responsibility, and I try to remember to ask my 20 month old for his forgiveness as he's crying and hugging me, but in all honesty, it doesn't happen a majority of the time. I'm sure I am not alone in this problem as mankind, particulary the men of mankind, have a major ego problem and don't like to be questioned or disobeyed. I know somewhere in God's infinite wisdom are Scriptures that point in the right direction for my own heart and its cleansing. I'm also sure in Ted Tripp's Shepherding a Child's Heart there is profound knowledge just waiting for me to revisit it. But in the meantime, while I'm being lazy and just thinking about all this, it sucks to need discipline while needing to discipline.

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 2 Time is on My Side

I have one son. Either due to my inability to multi-task or his sheer amount of energy, I've conceded to the latter, I am unable to get anything done unless he is distracted. All to easily I have relied on my friends, Dora and Diego. I know television is bad for your kids. Fries their brains and all that jazz. Teaches them they don't have to use their imagination, the writers of cartoons will do it for them. However, selfishly, how can I get anything done? I'll tell you how. Give him a sipee cup of juice, some cheez-its, and turn on one of the 10 DVR'd episodes of Dora or Diego and plop him in my recliner to enable 20 minutes of uninterrupted time. This may be extended to an hour if my other orange buddy Nemo and his race car friends Lightning and Mater are in the neighborhood.

Does this make me a horrible father? Probably. But just like life, it's about balance. Should I put him in front of the TV all day? Absolutely not. Does an hour at a time kill him? Not right now it doesn't.

Maybe the problem is compounded by our recent move into a new home and the endless things that need to get done. Painting. Flooring. Landscaping. Hanging. Rearranging. On and on and on. I'd like to say that once things settle down and we get settled in the TV time will be cut into tiny bits and removed slowly from his life. Probably not the case, but a man can dream of the day his only kid is content playing with Lego's for hours and hours with no adult supervision required.

It is probably coming across as I don't like to spend time with my son. I assure you that is not the case. I love playing with him, reading to him, showing him how to fix things, how things work, sneaking candy to him, pushing him on the swings, and the endless supply of life that I'll get to show and teach him. But sometimes, I need to put a desk together, upload pictures, fix the lawnmower. And yeah, these are MY needs and MY needs are supposed to come second to HIS needs. Most of the time. In a perfect world. And it is my desire for this to be my reality. But as is my life, my world slowly creeps up into everyone else's. Sad but true.

And, as a side note, is it ok if he's watching "Christian" TV like Veggie Tales or if the show has good "morals" closely resembling Christianity? I think about these things as I drive around at work. Let's take Ni Hao Kai Lan for example. Super sweet cute Chinese girl teaching the Chinese language and what it is to be a good friend. In the process however, her friends are constantly displaying poor behavior and what not to do. Not something I want Nick learning or thinking is remotely okay just because his friend Tolby did it on Nick Jr. the other day.

I guess when you break it all down, the best way for me to teach my son and myself is to go back to the Scriptures, showing him how to emulate Christ. Not Moono, Boots, Larry the Cucumber, or his earthly father. Using the example of a God who subjected Himself to an earthly body, suffered and died so that His Father would have all the glory and we would have joy eternal in an endless life and worship of Him.

But man that's hard to remember when I need to rewire my surround sound system...

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 1 Supporting Other Dads

Primero de Mayo. A reason to celebrate Cinco de Mayo early and eat Mexican food and desert with good friends. That's what I thought anyway. See, we gathered tonight at our church and had dinner, played with our kids outside on the playground, inside the gym with a ball, and smacked a pinata. Little did I know the night would end in such catastrophe. Here's how it played out: All kids under 5 weren't able to get more than 3 pieces of candy out of the pinata, so the youngest of the adults, who will remain nameless, busted it open. The cornucopia of candy that spilled out was quite impressive and any little kid with even a basic knowledge of what candy means went after it, Nick included. Being that it was almost time to go and he had gone WAY too long without a diaper change, we allowed Nick to suck on a piece of a lifesaver while we changed him. Oh, and don't call CPS or judge us with the next piece of the story. Since we are such stellar parents, he gagged on the lifesaver while he was laying down being changed, and we continued to let him suck on it. Unbeknown to us, those multiple gags were just priming the charge. Once the cleaning was complete and the pajamas were zipped, I picked up the claymore to leave our fiesta. Just as I lifted him off of the chair he had been laying on, and my shirt spread wide at the collar, my wonderful son proceed to spew what can only be described as a major hazmat incident entirely down my shirt.

Let me pause and explain a critical piece of information. I have had old breast milk aroma spit up projected onto my face, neck, and down my shirt before. I've cleaned up all manner of food items from restaurant floors and patios. I've stood in the same water at the same time that baby poop has resided in. I've even been peed on my bare stomach by a little boy's geyser. I have not, however, ever, ever, ever had adult smelling vomit spewn down my shirt, onto my neck, and permeate my nostrils in the way that I did tonight. I've seen and dealt with plenty of drunks while I'm at work with all kinds of bodily fluids on them, but I glove up. I've seen a few major fatalities with major organs where they shouldn't be, doesn't bother my stomach a bit. But puke on me? Nope, nope, nope. Back to the events of the evening.

It was at this point, as I held Nick at arm's length and pleaded with my wife, as I had abandoned all relation to my firstborn, for her to take "her son" and she was unable to physically hold anything over five pounds as her body was convulsing from laughter, that I saw what true support of a fellow father looked like. My good, no, there's an upgrade in status necessary here, great friend Kevin reached out and took my chunk covered son from me as my eyes were welling up from the stench. Not only did Kevin remove my poor son who was scared and almost crying from the breakdown of his father's mental capacities, he went one step further. I had attempted to remove some of the vomit from the inside of my shirt by pulling it away from my body and in doing so felt, as I am again now do through the retelling of this nightmare, pieces of Nick's regurgitation falling slowly down my neck, chest, and stomach. I then pushed my shirt back against my body to stop the flow and unintentionally pressed said pieces deeper into my chest hair. At some point, unknown to me as time seemed to stand still, Kevin had passed off Nick to Katy and gotten some paper towels. Throwing caution to the wind, Kevin, this highly trained and veteran father of two more months than I, jumped to my aid and attempted to wipe off some of the vomit from around my neck so I would stop flailing about like a fish out of water. It is with the utmost sincerity that I offer my apologies to him for probably yelling at him that his efforts were causing me to feel the spew bits roll around on my collarbone area and yell "I feel it running through my chest hair!" and rip away from his assistance. For this, I am so, so, sorry Kev.

Unable to stop my own bile from building in the back of my throat, I tried distracting myself by doing what I felt was necessary, help clean up what had fallen through my shirt and onto the floor. Big mistake. Bile increase at an exponential rate. While Katy was distracted by trying to find one of our iPhone's to capture this moment in history, I took someone's advice and left the building to remove the source of most of my soon to come night terrors, my shirt, and not do so in as public a place as a church hall. I ran to our truck, removed my shirt, threw it on the rear floorboard, cranked up the air, and rolled down all the windows. I quickly realized the stench was still way too close and grabbed the shirt to throw it as far back in the bed of the truck as was possible. Embarrassed, still smelling the mustard gas on my chest and neck, and a little nipply, I sat in my truck as my scared son and grinning wife came to join me. I did offer apologies to all the ladies as they exited the building and saw me attempting to cover myself and my half-nude body as they walked by. Great night to pick the closest parking spot I might add. Before closing this story, I must say, don't hold any ill will toward Katy for the pleasure she took in the situation or anyone else who laughed and enjoyed it. I'm sure it was quite a site to behold to see a 240 pound CHP officer gagging, dry heaving, and whining from a little throw up. Again, it was not baby spit up, it was full on adult smelling vomit.

Oh yeah, and I decided to break up my few and far between blogs into categories I can more easily follow. This way I can keep this going in a series for as long as I can [;p[to monitor my own progress or regression. In this case, regression.