Aliens have abducted my child

This is a follow up to a blog I posted in October about O's sleeping habits/anxiety, and how we were considering medication for him. After a lot of thought, consideration, and consultation with O's doctor and therapist, we decided to try O on some medication for his anxiety. Children with anxiety are usually prescribed an anti-depressant, like Prozac or Zoloft, O is taking Fluoxetine, the generic Prozac. I am happy to say that O's behavior and coping have improved greatly. I didn't want to influence any opinions on O's behavior, so we didn't tell many people he had started taking it. After 4 weeks I called his teacher to see her impressions, and she said his behavior was much better the preceding 2 weeks. I asked his instructor at the Little Gym who's known O for a few years, and she said he handled things and acted better in class. I asked his acting class teacher, she said his behavior had been like night and day the last couple of weeks. It confirmed what my wife and I had thought, that the medication was helping. We had removed the crib mattress from our room, and O was now sleeping in his room all night. He also was down to waking up only once or twice, usually for a bathroom break, and currently has slept through the night 6 of the last 7 nights. We're working towards eliminating the need for him to wake us up, but it's a process, and things are much better overall. O has been a model child since Christmas, he even volunteered to set the table for dinner. He has been doing things he never would have done before like going downstairs alone or watching A Nightmare Before Christmas. He still will occasionally lose control of his emotions, but those are rare, and he now regains control and gets over things much quicker. He's even being more patient with his brother, playing with him more, reading to him, and helping him do things. All in all, it's been like having a new boy, he's still the same O we love, but with a new improved calming software update. We'll reevaluate O every 6 months to decide how the medicine is working and if we need to change anything. Hopefully at some point sooner rather than later we can take him off the meds. In the meantime we'll continue too enjoy the sleep and watching him flourish uninhibited by his anxieties.

Christmas Cards

What is it about Christmas cards? We put so much effort into creating and sending them, but for what reason? I have to admit I like getting them. I get giddy with excitement each day when I check the mail to see if I got any. But I'm not really sure what the point is. There is the notion of tradition, but where did it come from. After an exhaustive search (okay I just checked out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christmas_card&oldid=332469173) I learn ed that not surprisingly Christmas cards were started as way to make money. Sir Henry Cole of London had helped introduce the Penny Post and later started Christmas cards as a way to get people to mail more letters and make him more money. Amazing a Christmas tradition that is all about making money? Next you're going to tell me the toy companies have a vested interest in Santa Claus? So throw tradition out the window, do we do them to keep in touch? With the interweb and social networking it's a lot easier to keep up with people now days, but there are quite a few on my card list that this is the only contact we have from year to year. However a picture in front of the fireplace in matching red sweaters doesn't tell me much. There are those that include the "Christmas Letter" in their cards, and I know a lot of people hate these. I for one am a big fan of them. I find it fascinating in what people deem interesting and important enough to include in these letters (full disclosure, I have in the past included a letter with my card). I also like to be caught up somewhat on what people are doing. Now the ones that are turned into cutesy little rhymes, fairy tales, or novels I can do without.

I'm at a loss, I'm not sure why my family sends out a Christmas card (that's not entirely true, it's because my wife tells me we are), or anyone else does. All I can tell you is why I like them, and that's for the pictures and seeing who likes me (or more likely my wife) enough to spend 39 cents (or whatever postage is these days) on me. Do not send out a Christmas card without a picture, I don't care if you just put a picture of your dog on it, I only want cards with pictures. The picture is what I look forward to when I open a card. They are like yearbook photos, so you can look back and see what people looked like in their 2001 Christmas card photo (my wife tends to keep old Christmas cards). It's always fun to see how people look and what kind of picture they choose to use, and to see how big kids have gotten. Then once received, they are immediately taped on the front door, for all to see the love and caring that so many have for my family as noted by all the well wishes in said cards.

I haven't even touched on the negative environmental aspects of cards, but I don't see a switch to emailed ones any time soon, so everybody go plant a tree to make up for it. And thanks to everyone who cared to enough to send me a card, you'll be getting ours hopefully soon.

Enjoying the season again!

The holiday season is upon us! Working for 18 years in retail, I became a bit jaded, and couldn't fully enjoy Christmas time. Don't get me wrong, I loved my job, and loved all that went on there at Christmas. It just meant trying to cram in decorating, parties, shopping, and seasonal activities into small amounts of time. I think anyone who has worked retail at Christmas will tell you, the last thing you wanted to do after a day of work was to go out amongst the public again. Working in retail, you have to be somewhat of a people person, but that doesn't mean you have to like them, and at the end of the day you usually didn't. Three years removed from work, and I'm starting to enjoy everything again, having the boys around helps too. J loves Christmas and everything that surrounds it, now I'm coming along for the ride too.

My wife loves Christmas music, and I used to cringe whenever we got in her car (around Christmas), because it meant we had to listen to it. My idea of Christmas music was the South Park's Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics album, complete with Merry F**king Christmas, Christmas Time in Hell, and The Lonely Jew on Christmas. Okay, I still think they are classics, but now I am actually enjoying listening to more traditional fare too. I even turned the XM holiday station on of my own accord the other day.

Decorating was always something that I didn't want to take the time to do, I had already done that at work. I still don't do much of the house decorating, because my wife enjoys it and does such a great job. I put the lights up outside (although not on the roof, to avoid me breaking my neck, we pay someone to do that), and on the Christmas tree. Much to J's surprise I did it without being nagged to, once again I am enjoying the season more. We get a real tree every year and it's always fun to pick that out with the boys and then decorate together.

Probably what I am enjoying most, are the family things we do. We are not very religious in our house, we don't attend church, so we don't participate in any of the religious aspects of the season. For us it is about our family holiday traditions, and PRESENTS. Yes we are part of the commercialism problem, but we also try to make sure to participate in the charitable side too, making our boys aware of those less fortunate and how it is important to help. A tradition to help do that, is where we go as a family and get some names off of an angel tree (the boys like to pick out boys their age, and maybe a girl their age too) and go out and get toys and clothes and things off their list. We try to let the boys pick things out so they feel a part of it. The boys also go with their grandmother and ring the bell for the salvation army. We also go see the Zoo lights, have Christmas eve dinner with my parents (which used to have to wait till I was off work), and of course the single Christmas eve present that is always pajamas. Maybe my favorite thing is the school programs, I can't wait to see Q's since it will be his first, and O always proves entertaining. Apparently we are even starting something new this year, where I attend the Festival of Trees (a charitable fundraising event, where people donate decorated trees and such to be auctioned off), with my wife, her parents, and her sister (and her husband). We'll see how that goes, in the past she just went with her mom, grandma, aunts, and sister. It was always an adventure to see what she might come home with. One year she bought a tree composed of Love Sac's (bean bags), it was huge, it took up half our living room, all told I think there were 8 or 9 of them stacked up with ribbon and lights strewn around them. I just wish I had a picture of it. I may crimp J's style, my understanding is that she is quite the bulldog when bidding on things.

Lastly there is shopping, I don't have to wedge it in late at night, or at the last minute any more, but I still have to try to decide what to get. At least now I have the time to do it at my leisure, and with both boys in school at the same time I can do theirs easy too. Overall it's just me enjoying the season and everything about it. Happy Holidays everyone!!!

What my child thinks of me.

Last week at school my first grader O had an assignment to write about his dad. Not sure what kids without a dad or with two mommies had to write about, but I digress. It was an interesting look to see what he really thinks of me, so without further ado, here it is exactly.

My Dad, by O

My dad is fun and good at games. My dad is not hard working and I am still faster than him. My dad is funny and nice and likes me and Q. He is the best dad ever. The End.

Overall a lot of positives, especially that last part about being the best dad ever. It warms my heart, but there are questions left unanswered. 1. Why do I only like him and his brother? 2. Does he really think he is faster than me? 3. What have I done, or rather not done, to give the impression that I am not hard working? I asked him these questions, and here are his responses:

"uuugghhh, I'm not talking to someone with coffee breath", once he's across the room,

1. "because like is better than love."

2. "Lets go have a race outside right now!", Q agrees and thinks he is faster too.

3. "because you aren't a hard worker", why? "because Q tales a lot of naps".

I think I got some answers there, like is better than love, and my sons have delusional confidence about their speed. I'm going to have to rethink this whole letting them win races sometimes, I thought I had made it abundantly clear in the past that I could be faster than them anytime I wanted. Still not quite clear about the hard work. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with him, I just would like to know where his impression comes from. I do know he thinks I spend altogether too much time at the computer, since he has asked me why I love it so much. It also could be a comparison to his mother, not just because she physically goes to work, but because there is no comparison there. J is a tireless worker at all times and puts pretty much everyone to shame in that regard. I couldn't dream of working as hard as she does. Maybe O is just trying to tell me to get a job so he doesn't have to look at me so much. Or maybe I just have to face the ugly truth that my child is right and I am not hard working. I might have to call my old work for their opinion, but I've always thought I worked hard to get the work done I needed to. The difference lied in what I thought needed to get done and the timeline I used for getting it done compared to others (mainly my wife). I've always procrastinated, but I feel I've done excellent work under those conditions. I guess I have some things to work on before O has to write another one of these papers, but I'll do that later. I need to think about my actions more too, and what impressions I'm making on my son. I can't wait to see how My Mom by O turns out too.

Days 2-5, tripping at the big D and going home

After a day of travelling and then a few rides and dinner, we were all worn out. We had chosen our hotel for 3 main reasons, price and proximity to Disneyland, and the fact it had a kids suite with bunk beds for the boys. We had stayed there before, but I did not anticipate the fight for the top bunk, because Q was previously too small. After much arguing and angry words a rotation was instituted, eventually it worked out they took turns on the top bunk and the sofa bed. In a minor miracle, O, whose sleep habits have been previously blogged on, slept through the night the entire time. Between daylight savings and the change to the Pacific time zone, the boys got up at 6, but that was fine since they slept through the night.



Having been to Disneyland before with the boys we have to learned to expect certain things. O despite talk before the trip, will inevitably let the fear and anxiety take over and refuse to go on most rides. The boys will want to buy many things in the stores. It is important to keep the boys well fed to improve moods. Armed with the knowledge of previous trips, we know to lower expectations. We told O ahead of time he didn't have to go on any ride he didn't want to. His biggest problem is that he doesn't like the dark, so almost any indoor ride (even kiddie ones), he won't go on. He actually likes going fast, and isn't afraid of heights, so most traditional ride fears don't apply to him. He always says he'll go on rides like Star Tours, but when confronted with the entrance, backs out. This year we just say okay and walk on, no trying to talk him into it. It's an excellent strategy that removed a lot of the stress. Even still we continue to ask in the hopes he'll say yes. J's favorite ride is Soaring Over California, and she really wanted O to ride it with her. In an attempt to facilitate this, we did what may not be one of our proudest parenting moments, we drugged him. We gave him about a third of an Alprazolam to try to calm his anxiety. It worked, and he went on the ride with J, he even told me he would go on it with me later. Of course later the pill had worn off and he wouldn't go on it again nor would he take the pill again. We were just glad that he could overcome his fears, medicated or otherwise.


O is really funny about rides he won't go on, because in his fear is fascination. Anyone who goes on a ride is expected to give a very detailed account of everything to do with the ride, usually multiple times. It's like he is trying to go on the ride vicariously.

The other thing we have found that makes Disneyland fun for O is Tom Sawyers Island and the Redwood Creek Trail on the California side. These are play areas where the boys can just run around and have fun with no lines and no ride worries.

Overall O was really good the whole time, not much anger or yelling, and behaved very well. Q had some struggles without his regular nap, but performed admirably as well, although he was upset about not being tall enough. After searching for shoes that made him 40" tall before the trip we were disappointed to find that Disney's 40" is apparently higher than the 40" of my tape measure at home. He was just barely undersized and couldn't go on a lot of rides he wanted to.

The plane ride home had it's moments. O was again worried about take-off, and when the plane veered out over the Pacific, he freaked a little bit. "We're going to die, we're going the wrong way! We're going to crash in the ocean! We're not supposed to go this way. Mommy we're over the water, that's wrong, we're going to die!". Of course he's yelling this. Soon the plane veered back over land and he was okay, but that wasn't the end of the fun. On final descent, Owen decides he has to go pee. At this point we can't use the plane's so we tell him to wait, we'll land soon. Of course this doesn't help, because even though we land soon, we have to taxi, and wait to get off. My guess is O had to go for most of the plane ride, because it was obvious he had to go, that and he felt the need to let everyone know, VERY LOUDLY. I was worried he wasn't going to make it. We get to the gate, but are in row eight and have to wait for everyone in front to go. O is in the aisle with J, hopping around clutching himself, loudly saying,"umm, excuse me, I have to pee, could you hurry please!". J is mortified. They hurry off the plane while Q and I gather our stuff up. J relayed what happened in the bathroom. He hurries into a stall (in the woman's restroom), and proceeds to relieve himself and let out a loud "aaaahhhhh! I feel so much better!". J said the woman in the stall next to them just starts laughing. Once in the car to drive home, Q announces that he has to pee too.

As I read this post I am happy that there aren't more stories and that it went as smoothly as it did. This was a fairly low stress trip overall and I don't think I could have asked for more. Except that O would sleep at home like he did there, we were very sad it did not carry over.

Day one- Going on a trip to Disneyland.

We took a family trip to Disneyland last week, and I kept some notes about the trip to blog about. I'll split it into a couple of posts.

Anticipation is a big part of going on a trip. I have a friend who goes into what I like to call "vacation mode", at least a week before any trip. He just shuts down, and all he can think or talk about is his upcoming trip. (Dave I am talking about you here). Apparently with O anticipation=anxiety. The night before the trip he did not sleep well out of excitement. All morning he was worried we would miss our plane. At the airport we had to walk at warp speed to our gate. I left J with the boys at the gate while I went to get us some lunch, big mistake. While I was gone our plane started boarding, and O freaked out. He started to yell and apparently make quite a scene, since J called me and told me to hurry. J could not get him to calm down, he was worried the plane would leave without us. I got back and he was still in his heightened state of anxiety. I pulled him close to me and tried to mellow him, but instead he yells out "Stop! Get him away from me! Let's go!". You would have thought I was trying to abduct him. So we did the only thing we could to console him, got on the plane. He settled for a second, but then comes the worry over takeoff. He's flown many times before and been fine, but now suddenly he's worried, sometimes I don't get the kid. Once we were airborne, he was cool as a cucumber, like nothing had happened. Once again my Jekyll and Hyde son. Next we'll see how he handles the cab ride to the hotel, and the big test, if his anxiety will let him go on the rides he wants to at Disneyland.

A deep dark roasted secret

I've been keeping a secret from my wife, and this blog is going to be how she finds out about it. I am not proud of that, so my love, I'm sorry this is how you found out. Like most things, it started out innocently enough, once or twice a week. It was so easy, it came naturally, and it felt so good. I wanted that feeling more and more. I had tried before, but it was only on the rare occasion, and it never became a habit. I think it might be here to stay now. I'd like to blame my boys, or my mom, but really I am the one who has done this to myself. I'm an adult, responsible for all my actions, so I did it too myself and now must face the music.


I have been drinking coffee.

There I said it, it's out there, I'm sorry I didn't tell you J.

O's sleeping habits have been killing me, and some java in the morning makes me feel sooo much better. It's kind of weird, because I've never been one to drink much coffee, just on the rare occasion. I didn't want to have to rely on it, so even in college I didn't drink it. I did down my share of coca cola back then, but as I grew older and wider around the middle I knew I had to give up either that or beer. Beer won. I'm sure my wife is wondering how this could happen, we've never even had a coffee maker in our house. It started with a cup at the Starbucks in Target after a particularly rough night with O. After that it was a cup on Tuesday and Thursday at my mom's when I would go for a walk with her and my sister after dropping the boys off at school. Now it has expanded to stops on the way home from dropping O off at school. It's gotten to the point where I shopped the coffeemakers at Costco the other day. I'm even starting to get picky. No more Starbucks, not for some corporate boycott, but because I don't really like their coffee, McDonald's coffee is actually better. I am sticking to straight coffee too, no lattes or frappucino's, I don't need the calories. I can even rationalize that I am doing this for my health, because there has been research showing the benefits of a cup a day. I might have to start drinking more red wine for my health too.

My next step will be picking out the proper machine. Having worked in a kitchen store for years, I know I have many options. I also was spoiled working there and drinking the coffee from the $1000 we had there. I won't be getting one of those. I am a bit out of the loop on machines and what's available, but I'm thinking about one of the single serve or pod machines. I'd consider a coffee press, but there is much too much work and mess with those. Anybody with recommendations or advice is welcome to weigh in. Help me to further my habit, that is thankfully no longer my dark roasted secret.

And so it begins

My sweet lovely wife left out of town this morning to Tampa for work until Friday night. It went about as expected, O was up about every hour, I'm guessing because he was worried he wouldn't be able to say goodbye. Everyone was up earlier than normal and then O proceeded to have a fit that "he would die" if she went. Once it was decided that we would take her to the airport, he was fine about the whole situation. Most of the day went by swimmingly, the boys played well together and I got to watch football. Late in the afternoon they came out of the bathroom with a bottle full of soapy water. Says I, "what are you doing?" "we're doing an experiment". "where are you going with the water?" "outside". "not outside, keep it in the bathroom sink please. what kind of experiment?" "just an experiment" "ummm, okay, but please don't make a mess, and keep the water in the sink". "okay daddy". I don't know what I was thinking, I should have checked up on things, but I didn't. About 15 minutes later "Help!! Daddy help!!! There is water all over, it's spilling out of the toilet!" I'm still not sure what the experiment was or exactly what they were doing, they really didn't feel like talking once I started yelling. The only thing I got was that O was just trying to make the toilet paper go away by flushing it down. There was probably 2/3 of a brand new roll of tp gone too. Lovely. After that mess, I thought it best to go out to eat. My choice was to go to a microbrewery I can't go to with J, because they have stuffed deer heads on the wall, and she is phobically afraid of that. "No! I'll die if I have to go there, that place is awful!". Lacking the strength to argue or fight that battle, we went instead to the Italian Denny's, the Olive Garden. I don't mind the place, I quite like the salad, but tonight was less inspiring than normal. I'm not sure if our server was new or just lousy, either way a serious dink. At one point he comes to inform me the kitchen is out of penne pasta for my meal, but they will use ziti if it's okay. I'm fine with that, but how does a restaurant like that run out of a pasta. He brings me my beer, but no glass, earlier he tried to give me a Coke I didn't order. All the chairs have wheels on them, it's like the restaurant bought chairs from an old office building. Because of this, Q manages to fidget his chair out from under him and fall and bonk his head on the floor. The waiter does bring the boys food out when it is done, which is good, now Q can quit crying in my lap and eat. I wait for my dinner, O finishes his before mine comes, I am assured mine will be right out. A shrimp pasta comes out, but it's not what I ordered. Hungry and not wanting to try and explain this, I just eat it and wonder if the person who got mine liked it. About three bites into mine and Q has decided he doesn't like his and he's leaving. He pushes his chair back and hops down, except that with the wheels his chair slams back into the couple at the table next to us having a romantic dinner (or as romantic as any dinner can be at Olive Garden). I apologize and put him back in the seat explaining that I have to finish my dinner I didn't order. Q proceeds to start crying. The waiter comes back and promises more bread sticks to the delight of O (he had earlier been promised more), and takes O's drink to refill. He doesn't ask if I want another beer, nor does he refill my nearly empty water. I ask for a box for Q's. He comes back with the bread sticks, 2 boxes, and O's drink cup with a lid but no straw for him to drink it with. One might have thought he would leave the check since I asked for a box, but apparently I was too subtle. Mercifully the check comes, but at this point O, bored with everything, is trying to drink from his cup with no hands (and the lid off because there is no straw), and dumps it the table, himself and his chair. He yells that he needs a towel, I tell him to move, but he can't because he is sitting with his leg through the hole in the armrest and will get even more wet if he tries to get out. Our waiter tries to help with O's napkin, but he's basically an idiot and no help, so I tell him I've got it. Q asks, now can we go, slams his chair back again, and almost takes out the tables food being served to them. "yes as soon as daddy signs this little paper". I'm not a mean person, so I still left shit for brains a 15% tip, but I also left ice and water everywhere too. I'm hoping the rest of the week goes a little bit better, that and I never have that waiter again.

You have now entered the slacker zone

I've been having real motivational issues the last week or so. It probably has to do with the situation in my last blog, but regardless I have really been slacking. I just don't feel like doing anything I don't have to right now. The dishes are stacking up in the sink, Transformers are all over the office floor, puzzles are all over the kitchen table. The bathrooms are in desperate need of cleaning as are the floors and kitchen (in hindsight, I kind of miss the cleaning lady, and no dear I don't want her back). I haven't showered since last Friday. We end up having pasta, eggs, or getting food to go for dinner. Even the Tivo is almost full because I haven't been watching shows. In fairness there are a large number of children's shows on it that my son won't let me delete (we have 30 episodes of Phineas and Ferb alone), and my wife has many shows she is behind on. I have been feeding and clothing the children and making sure they get to and from school, but not much else. I should go work out, or do something otherwise productive, but I'm just not feeling it. I think part of it born of the frustration of parenting my two darling boys and their inability to play nice (I had one of those "what in the hell am I supposed to do with you two" moments earlier). In fact I have new nicknames for them, Q is now the Instigator, and O is the Reactor. Q right now is into doing things to test me and his brother, and see how many buttons he can push and for how many times in a row. O provides the perfect foil for this, and thus he is the Reactor (it also works on the nuclear reactor level, because that is the level of response O provides). So I'm just kind of through with the two of them, and that feeds into my blase.

I guess the next question is what exactly have I been doing? Writing this blog, it's a good distraction. Mostly I've been spending entirely too much time online on two things. No, one of them is not porn. One would be my usual obsessing over my fantasy football teams, for all the good it is doing for their success. The other has been looking into this whole blogging (mainly reading other people's blogs) and more specifically daddy blogging thing. Not that this is shocking, but I am finding I have no idea what in the hell I am doing with this blog or blogging in general. There are some really talented people out there doing this, not only do they know what they are doing technically, but they are great writers too. I mostly just ramble on incoherently. Some of these people are even making (or trying to at least) make money from their blogs. There are whole forums and groups devoted daddy blogging. I am way behind the curve on all this stuff. In matching my mood, I'm not sure I care. Would it be cool to be read and have my writing recognized, of course. I don't want this to become boring or tedious or even a job. Right now this is therapy to me, an escape, I'd like to keep it that way. Now I need to snap out of this funk and get the boys bathed and the kitchen clean before my lovely wife comes home. If she asks, I've been working really hard at home.

Pseudo-single parenthood

My family is in the midst of what I like to call my periods of pseudo-single parenthood. These occur during my wife's busy season at work, which as a CPA on the tax side means February through April, and then from mid August through October 15th. It's always a bit of an adjustment, because my wife is the sweetness and light in the family, she is the one who brings the joy and the happiness. I bring the grumpy sternness, I am the nagging, yelling enforcer. So without my wife around as much to balance the house, we all get a bit on edge until we can adjust. September is always the hardest, because we have the added adjustment of a new school year.
I don't want to make it sound like she isn't home at all, she just isn't around as much, and has to work more from home (thankfully today's technology makes this possible). For instance this past weekend, she logged 36 hours of work from Friday to Sunday, with only Friday and half of Saturday at the office. We do adjust, but it takes a couple of weeks, and usually involves me irrationally yelling more than usual (This is something I am really working hard to curb, to provide a better example for O, and because it doesn't do any good. Yelling doesn't change their behaviors or make things go easier, so I really am trying to find different methods to handle things.). The main problem I think is that we just get sick of each other, my boys get tired of looking at and listening to just me, they'd much rather look at the beautiful smiling face of my wife (can't say I blame them for that). Dinner becomes and adventure too, because it's a little hard to cook for two little boys and one adult, so we eat out more. Of course the boys can never agree on what to have (or anything for that matter, we've tested and no matter what, given two choices each boy will choose differently), so there are times when that means we have cereal for dinner since no one can agree. One nice thing, is that my wife always tries (and is successful) at being home for bedtime, because it is a very involved ritual that is hard to do alone. Over the years things have improved with regards to her work, when she first started she had to work many more hours as an associate, and she couldn't really work from home either. Of course we didn't have children then, so what it really meant was that I got to stay up late drinking beer and playing video games. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this is hard on J too, she misses time with all her boys and the stress release it provides her. It's also hard on her health, she doesn't sleep well, or as much, and she forces Tylenol to up its production to keep up with her demand. That's why at the end of busy season we always take a trip, to come together again both physically and mentally and bring light back to our family. More to come about the trip.

The sad state of my fantasy football team.

I am in a deep depression over my fantasy football team. I take great care and pride in the drafting, maintenance, and success of my teams. After having won two years in a row, I currently sit second to last with a record of 1-3. It's killing me, I'm doing everything I can to stop my slide, waiver wire pick-ups, trade attempts, upside plays, but none of it is working. I'm trying to figure out where I've gone wrong, and I think it started with getting the first pick in the draft. It's not that I was disappointed getting Adrian Peterson, it was where it put me for the rest of my picks. I do not like picking first, I'd much rather pick later and not have to wait so long between picks. The league is a ppr (points per reception) league so with my second two picks I got top receivers, Roddy White and Boldin, neither has played up to snuff. I missed out on decent QB's because they all went earlier than expected. I was happy to end up with Hasselback late only to have him play well, then get hurt. My other mistake was drafting Raiders, as a Charger fan you would think I would know better, but I thought McFadden could go big (the Raider's rushed well last year), and Zach Miller was the highest TE on the board when I drafted. My sleeper WR picks all bombed or are hurt (Eddie Royal, Earl Bennett, Lance Moore). I did draft decent RB depth late with Ray Rice, Joseph Addai, and Felix Jones, but all are in timeshares and I'm never sure who's going to be the one to go with from week to week. That has been my other problem, guessing wrong on who to start. I would have won week four if only I had picked Addai or Rice over Mc Fadden (or if AP would have had a good game). I think my other big problem was holding on to my players too long and missing good opportunities to improve, I should have booted Royal, McFadden, and Miller much sooner. I remain hopeful I can make a turn-around, get in the playoffs, then maybe get lucky and pull off a miracle. I'm already fully obsessed with my team, so really I'm going to have to be smart and lucky. At least I have the satisfaction of my wife's team (which I also manage), being the top point scorer and in second place in her league, and fantasy basketball is just around the corner to give me a second chance at victory.

It's 3:00 in the morning, are your children sleeping?

It's 3 in the morning and I have a headache and can't sleep. This is all courtesy of O, I have spent the last hour trying to rationalize the fear away so he could go back to sleep in his room and me in mine. Funny thing is, fear is not rational. So he has ended up the same place he has most nights for the last week and a half, on a crib mattress on the floor to the side of our bed. We've developed a pretty consistent pattern, sometime between 12 and 2, he wakes me up, either by yelling out from his room, or scaring the shit out of me standing next to my bed. From there I make him pee and get back in his bed, he then tells me he can't sleep. "why not O?", I ask, "because I'm afraid", "of what?" say I, "of being alone". I then try to understand and convince him he's not alone, last night he got bored with that and went back to sleep and I got to go back to bed. Tonight, he was on to that, and whenever I would get up to leave he would stir and we would be back at square one, so now I'm at the computer and he's on a much too small mattress in my room. We came up with the crib mattress, because me sleeping on his floor or J trying to sleep in his bed was not working, and no one was getting any sleep. We have always steadfastly refused to allow our children to sleep in our bed with us, it's an excellent rule, I recommend it highly. Not to say there hasn't been the rare night they were allowed in, but that never turns out well. You would think a king size bed could hold 2 adults and a small child, but it ends up feeling more like a WWE cage match complete with eye gouging, kidney kicks, and wrestling for covers. I've never slept in a smaller section of my bed than the nights I've shared it with a child, how a little body takes up so much space I'll never understand.

All this lack of sleep, and O's fears of the weather (and other things) is pushing us to consider some alternatives. We've been taking O to a therapist off and on for about a year, since J had her surgery. It's been a help, if not to him, then to me in ways that I can deal with and help O. We're wondering if it's enough now as we become more sleep deprived. We're going to talk to a doctor about putting him on some anti-anxiety medication. In general I am very conservative about medication, don't use it unless it is really necessary. When it comes to medicating my child with something like this I'm even more reserved. You're messing with the brain with these drugs, his still developing, very bright brain. I worry about fixing one problem only to cause another, and that's without worrying about medicinal side affects. I know plenty of people (friends and family) on these sorts of medication, and they can be very helpful, but as a parent I worry. If it will help him live a better life though, I think I need to try it. J is worried that if left unchecked his problems will just continue to mushroom out of control, and that is a real concern, you don't want his fears to take control and limit his life. I have seen his fears keep him from fun before. At the happiest place on earth, Disneyland, he was unable to really enjoy, because he was too afraid to go on rides that he wanted to. He would go up to the entrance, and then turn around because he was too scared. He's threatened to boycott school over weather reports of impending storms, I had to pick him up from school one day because he had made himself sick worrying about dark clouds and strong winds. I didn't send him to school on Halloween last year because all the kids dressed up worries him. If medication can help him with these things I think I've got to try it, for him, I don't want him missing out on life because it rains. One thing I've had to fight through all of this, is worrying that I have somehow made him this way. Could I have done something different, was there something that happened that made him like this? It's hard not to beat yourself up about it, but I have to know this is just how O is, and maybe he doesn't have to be. That's why we're going to do everything we can to help him, even if that means medication. You can be damn sure though, that I will know everything I can before making the best decision for O.

I Want! I Want! I Want!

I've been having a lot of I want/need things. I'm putting those together, want and need, even though they are separate, because often when you want something bad enough it can seem like a need. Really I only need food and shelter and a new Iphone. Okay, maybe the last one is just a want, but it's not fair everybody else has one, I want one too! I don't know what my deal has been lately, but I seem to have the need to single handedly try to restart the economy. I think it started a couple of months ago, first our camera, and then our video camera broke within a week of each other. As a parent of two darling children, it is an absolute requirement of society that I be able to reproduce images of said children to share with the world. So I guess those really were needs. Then I had to get on Amazon to do some birthday shopping for a friend. A long standing problem I have is my addiction to purchasing DVD's (see pic) and now Blue-ray discs (it used to be cd's too, but ITunes fixed that). I have hundreds, and I rarely get to watch ones that aren't kid related, and yet I compulsively have to buy them. To my credit, I come by it naturally, my dad is actually worse than me, you should see how many movies he brings home, I at least try to be somewhat selective. So once on Amazon, I couldn't help but shop their disc sales and get myself a few presents too, definitely a need. While on there I browsed around and found all the new upcoming video games. I almost had myself convinced that I needed Beatles Rock Band, but 4 Guitar Hero games that I hadn't played in months and no place to put the drum set convinced me otherwise (but if I bought Guitar Hero 5, I could get Guitar Hero Van Halen for free, so very tempting!). While doing all this Internet browsing it was becoming quite apparent we needed a new computer, it didn't help when my brother informed me his phone had a faster processor in it. By computer standards, our pc is ancient, it's older than both our children combined, and doesn't seem to understand these new fangled websites everyone keeps coming up with. It's response time, once fast, now reminds me of when I used to log onto Prodigy at work and it would take 3 minutes just to open a page. This was most definitely a need, J concurred, and I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. I almost needed to go the Green Day concert, but it ended up just wanting that, and needing to go the Pearl Jam show next week. At other times recently I've wanted new couches for the basement, a laptop, the NFL Sunday Ticket, a 3 wood, a puppy, and a Prius, but so far none have proved to be needs. As a family we did need a vacation, so we planned and booked a trip to Disneyland. I keep feeling like Steve Martin in the Jerk when he is breaking up with a woman and says that he's fine because all he needs is this lamp....except for this tennis racket.... and this thermos. I keep thinking this is all I need, except for that shiny new IPhone, no really, I need it! My old phone is kind of coming apart (see pic), and I won't have to buy a golf GPS, because there is an app for that, and I can track my fantasy football on it too, and FB, and my blog. See I really do need one!!

Lonely boy.

I had one of those weird parent moments last night, the moments you can only have as a parent. We had gone to dinner after O's acting class, and both boys wanted to ride home with J. This is usually a joyous occasion, because it means a peaceful ride home without yelling and screaming, and I don't have to hear the kids either. It also affords me the chance to listen to my music very loudly, something I enjoy greatly. I used to do that daily on a nice 35 minute commute to Park City. People often dislike long commutes, but other than a few snow days, it was a great ride. It was peaceful and scenic, and complete with high speeds and loud rock and roll. Last night should have been a flashback to this, it wasn't. Even though the music was turned up, it seemed very quiet. A flash of melancholy came over me, I was sad, I missed my boys. It didn't upset me that they had chosen to ride with J, I was just missing a little piece of me. It's just one of those things that comes with having kids, they become part of everything that you are. That said, about halfway through the ride, I got over myself and rocked on!

I have job security!

Yesterday I went golfing. My wife was kind enough to rework her schedule so that she could takes the boys to school and pick up Q. It may be the last time that happens. I think O thought maybe he could get away with something since mom was dropping off. He threw a fit and was not going to get out of the car, the teacher had to pull him kicking and screaming. Another teacher had to come and help, apparently it was not a pretty sight, and my wife took it hard. Things don't stop there, because she still had to wait before dropping Q off. First he told her that she was parking in the wrong place to wait, then while waiting they called me. Here is my conversation with Q "hi honey how are you?", trying to hold backs tears "daddy will you please come home now?", "I'm sorry honey, I'm golfing far away, I can't come now. Be good getting out for mommy, and don't cry", then I just hear crying. Q tells J that daddy walks him into school (I did once, but won't again), so of course mommy complies. Unfortunately J didn't remember the time to drop Q off and is 15 minutes early, which is fine except that he has to go in a room other than his classroom which he doesn't like. He falls apart, "mommy no, don't go, I want to stay with you! moooommmmmyyyyy!". I am proud of my wife, she stayed strong, handed Q over and left. I knew Q would cry at drop off, because he has been with me, so I anticipated he would be getting a day off of school. To my surprise, the softy of the two of us, turned out be the enforcer that day. Of course after drop off was finished, the first call was to inform me that she would not be doing it again, that it would henceforth be my job. That's fine with me, as long as she keeps the job of cutting fingernails and toenails, I hate that one.

My mercurial child and his meltdowns

O started his acting class today, and I couldn't have hoped for a better start. First off he came out of school in a good mood, secondly he was fine going to his new class, even though he had no prior knowledge he was going. A surprise and he took it in stride, that was good. He got a little worried when I wasn't sure where the class was, but stayed calm. We found the building and the room, and he went in without hesitation, I was shocked! He didn't worry about where I was, or what I was doing or anything he might normally do. About halfway through he came out, I worried about what was next, but it was just a potty break. He was so excited to get back, he wouldn't even wait for me to finish in the bathroom and raced back to class. It was at this point I became happy with myself and my son, we had found an activity and place he really enjoyed. I jumped the gun a bit. Next thing I know, he comes bursting out the door with the teacher chasing after telling him not to run out of the room. He's screaming, "I hate this class, I want to kill everyone, I want to kill myself!" I should note here that my son is not homicidal nor suicidal, he just has emotional issues, as in he can't control his. Once he loses his emotions like this whether it be from anger, anxiety, or fear, it becomes very difficult to rein back in. Apparently he was upset because he didn't want to be an angry bear, he wanted to be the laughing happy chipmunk. I kid you not, this is what he was upset about. He goes back in, and shortly returns just as angry, because now he has lost the privilege to play the bear. So now he is angry about being a bear, angry with himself for losing control, and angry that he doesn't get to participate, everything has built up now so that he runs and hides in a corner between a garbage can and the wall just sobbing and screaming. Two eleven year old girls there for another class watch this whole thing and inform me that he is in the right place and is going to make a great actor, they are serious about this. At this point he is neither calming down nor stopping screaming, so I physically pick him up and take him a flight of stairs up, away from everything to try and calm him down. Of course he screams out that I'm hurting him as I carry him up, always love the implications of child abuse. He says he just wants to go home and he never wants to see this place again, I ask that we talk to the teacher first. The teacher says he was great the whole time and she wasn't sure what happened, but that she would love to have him back next week. She said they were taking turns with the bear and chipmunk, and she's not sure why he ran, because she was actually going to have him be a chipmunk. O just keeps crying. pleading to go home NOW! We finally leave, and the entire 8 minute walk back to the car, he yells and complains, asking why I would sign him up for such a class, why didn't I tell him (we had discussed it the night before), and my personal favorite, how it was the worst day ever! O is a master of hyperbole, even better than Bill Walton. I just told him we weren't talking about it until later. After a few minutes driving in the car, he's calm, and tells me he is hungry and just wants to go home and have pasta for dinner. It is at this point I remember that most of his meltdowns, can be traced back to contributing issues, i.e. he's hungry or tired. I ask if that was part of his problem, he says yes, and agrees that he liked the class and will go back again next week. I actually stayed calm through all of this, I don't always, I often get frustrated with the irrationality of it and him. It goes better when I am calm, it just gives me a headache and need for a stiff drink or two later. You watch, next week will be the best day ever and why can't he come to the class more, it's never a dull day with O, I can tell you that.

Choosing your child's destiny

My wife is convinced that O needs an activity outside of school. Not that I disagree, but choosing the right one is a big decision. I don't want to pigeonhole him, but at the same time I do want to funnel him into things he would enjoy, we're shaping the direction of his life with this type of decision. O has not found his niche in life quite yet other than schoolwork (he is of course a very bright boy!), so what we choose now will affect future life altering choices. The first thought of activity for boys is athletics, but O isn't the most athletically oriented boy. It's not that he's uncoordinated or couldn't do them, it's just he's not that interested. He'd rather read his Garfield books or play with his plethora of stuffed animals, or watch TV. Q on the hand is probably going to be a little jock, wants to play anything with a ball. Despite this, our first thought was soccer. O waffled about wanting to play, but ultimately my procrastination made us miss the sign up, so no soccer. Next we considered flag football, swim lessons, and Jr Jazz basketball. O has a strong need to be very good at anything he does (he broke down in tears when he didn't win his kindergarten spelling bee), so I voted down flag football, just didn't think he'd like it or excel. Swim lessons are a struggle because he fears going under water (like panic attack fears it, which make parts of lessons difficult), so we put those off. O to my surprise wanted to play Jr Jazz, but we were too late for this session sign up. We moved on from sports, what about a musical instrument? No dice, not interested. Then I hit upon an idea, some sort of performance class/group. O is a natural performer, loves the attention, and for all his anxieties, getting up in front of a group is not one of them. This is a boy who did a stand-up routine for his kindergarten talent show and totally killed it. I had a hard time bringing myself to sign him up for one of those theme park type performing song/dance groups, I'm not so masochistic to want to sit through those performances (although I would for my boys). We decided on an acting class at the university youth theatre group, and amazingly were not too late to register despite class starting today. I hope it's the right decision, and he enjoys himself. Who knows, we may be creating a monster, another Hollywood diva actor, lord knows he's already got down melodramatic.

The evils of moon sand

I was all set to blog about trying to raise two very different boys the same and equally, when Q gave me a much better topic, the evils of Moon Sand. In a much larger sense, the evils of TV commercial mail order products for children. I like to refer to O as the marketer's dream, the kid is the ultimate childhood consumer with an endless amount of wants and desires. I think it's partly a product of his generation and the continual bombardment of advertising they see, not only on TV, but the internet as well. O goes beyond that, at 2 he would ask what your favorite Pixar movie was, he can tell you the upcoming toys for kids meals at fast food restaurants, we choose cereals based on the enclosed movie toy, if it's branded, copyrighted, or trademarked, he has an interest in it. This is especially true if it's advertised on TV (My wife and I joke when fast forwarding through Tivo'd shows about rewinding to watch a commercial, because that's what O does, he enjoys ads.). He's also spoiled, not just by his parents, but grandparents, and aunts and uncles, so his many desires are often indulged. The worst of these have been of the mail order/act now and receive this free bonus variety. We all grew up with Playdoh, a wonderful multi-colored clay with endless possibilities for fun. It was messy, but manageable, you could use one piece to clump up the rest and pick it up, it was usually possible to keep the colors separate as well. Alas, it had it's problems, if left out, it would dry up and no longer be of use. Along comes Moon Sand, it won't dry out ever, you can mold and shape it into anything you want, it comes in multi-colors, and has a handy carrying case to play and store it in. Don't be fooled by the ads, you can put it in one of the molds, but it's never all coming back out, and what does come out is not the shape of the mold. It doesn't stay in the carrying case, it sticks to everything, clothes, hands the table, the floor, then gets tracked everywhere. I attempted to curb this by instructing Q to stay at the table and tell me when he was done playing and I would get him. Silly me, instead he came over and showed me how it was sticking to his knees, his socks, and his shirt and to tell me it spilled everywhere. We started with 3 colors, we now have one that looks like a colored sand bottle shaken up. The worst part is it never dries up, so you never have an excuse to throw it away, it's a slow battle of attrition, sweeping bits of it away with every use. As big of pain as Moon Sand is, there is one that is more evil, and I'm not talking about the Pixos/Aquadots that got recalled for containing GHB, I am talking about Floam. I'm really not sure what you are supposed to do with it, or what the point is, but it's not what they show in the commercial. Floam is like brightly colored snot mixed with super glue and tiny styrofoam pellets. I'm not sure what you can do with it, because as soon as I took some out of the container it wouldn't come off my hands. It's one of those things that makes you want to jump around yell "ooh ooh, get it off, get it off!!!!!", it just feels gross. Worse, it took me 4 times washing my hands with soap before I felt I had gotten most of it off. I drew the line with the Floam, it will never be played with again, a man can only stand so much. Next time we can discuss Lego sets that you put together once and then will never be able to find all the pieces to put it together ever again, and yet boys insist on playing with them and wanting more sets.

Why blog?

I have considered blogging before, but always stopped short, because I figured nobody really gave a shit about anything I had to say (a pretty good assumption). I'm not so narcissistic to think I have anything important to say, so why start now? I'm writing for me now, because I enjoy it, if someone else enjoys some of it too, even better. Some people keep journals, I'm going to blog. If nothing else my sister will like getting to read stories about her nephews. I have to give some credit/blame for me doing this to Libby, and her incredible Libby Logic blog. Her blog is irreverent, clever, and flat out funny, a must read. I'm going to aim a lot lower than that, so expect much less from mine, and you might enjoy it. I will openly admit this blog will gravitate mainly to the topic of my lovely workaholic CPA wife, my two adorable boys (O who is 6, and Q who is 3) and being a stay at home dad. I will blather on about other things as well, sports, movies, TV, food, fantasy football (soooo excited for football season!), maybe a little politics, and other inane things. Do not expect any talk of religion, something I find to be ones own personal issue. Without further ado, my first post......

I'm teaching my 3 year old to lie! I feel really bad about it, I really do, but it's better this way. O has just started first grade and going to school all day, it's a big adjustment for him. To complicate matters, he is convinced that his brother and I party all day without him. I know this, because every day after school, he greets his brother with great hostility, and says all we do is have fun without him. Despite being only 3 his brother takes great pleasure in pushing his brother's buttons, and excels at pushing them. Q loves the theatrics O goes through whenever he gets upset, so he tells him what we do while he's at school. To avoid angry outbursts and ease the school transition, I have been asking Q not to tell O about things we do. For his part, Q has done a wonderful job not revealing the events of the day, perhaps too good of job. I could reason he's learning there is grey area, not just black and white, but that would be BS, I'm teaching him to lie. Maybe he'll grow from it and make a wonderful politician as an adult, he just better not ever lie to me. I'm trying to convince O he's having much more fun at school than we could ever have at home, but that's just me promoting lying more. Hopefully he'll buy that one, so that it can be me doing responsible adult parental lies rather than his brother practicing plausible deniabilty for a career in politics.