Parental Scale

My wife and I just went away for the weekend.  She had a work conference near Disneyland and we got a nice hotel room in close proximity of the magic kingdom.  We have been going together now for years and it has always been a wonderful trip.

Before we had kids we'd sneak away for great dates and a nice time out with some mutual friends.  After we had our first I'd stay back while Cristina went to her conference.  Even with the addition of another child we would make it year after year.  Last year after our third had been born once again we went, my wife with the infant in tow.

This year I flew solo with all three while my wife went and enjoyed some wonderful conferences; and this year it was a challenge.  At home all three kids is not nearly as trying.  We have multiple rooms, safe areas I can let them play alone, all sorts of toys, shows, activities and "baby free" areas for my boys to play.  But away from home we have limited space, toys, and resources with which to keep the kids occupied.  The weather this year was abysmal, so my fail safe last year of hanging by the pool was a no go.  So like a ship without a rudder, I attempted to wing it.  On Friday we played at Disney, but the crowds deterred me and I went back to the hotel.  Saturday, my grand plan of the pool was crushed with frigid temps and I lacked the ability to effectively call an audible.  So the laws of scaling difficulty came into play.  Slowly my crying daughter ate away at my patience, and when I finally got her asleep, my boys who were not giving me any sort of legitimate problems began to wrangle my last nerve.

Just like that I was losing it with them.  I had the patience for a crying kid for a long while, and when I endured that "test" a newer far simpler test presented itself, but my parental endurance was exhausted.  As my family has scaled in size, unfortunately not everything has scaled for me.  I am not 3 times more patient, and I don't have 3 times the energy.  Fortunately for my wife and I the rules of scale have benefited us as well.  Our kids do entertain themselves, and food prep isn't any more difficult, though feeding 3 kids who need constant attention is a chore unto it's self.  Ultimately I always thought that I could ignore whining and crying and it wouldn't rile my nerves, but I never planned on how little sleep I would get (or the poor quality of sleep), and how that truly effects my ability to effectively parent.  I also never planned on three kids waring on my nerves at the same time. I am going to need help when my kids coordinate their moves and don't have happy/unhappy accidental Dad overload moments, but rather a meltdown of their planning.

Choose to be Happy

I've been blessed with a unique ability to let go of work when I leave work.  Perhaps this is to my detriment, I never seemed to take my thoughts of work home with me when I did work in a creative field.  While I still did think of creative things, they were my ideas, and had little to do with my work.  Even after switching jobs to a field that was easily the least creative field imaginable I still manage to neglect thoughts of work at home.

All this is ideal for me.  When I am home I want to be with my family, with my kids, my wife, and my thoughts.  I don't lament a rough day, or for that matter spend much time reliving a great one at work, I just sort of plug on with what I was doing.  Lately that is cooking, I spend time in the morning coming up with menu planning, perhaps a walk in the afternoon for fresh vegetables with my wife and kids.  In some ways this is perfect, but my gift for living in my moment and leaving work at work doesn't translate elsewhere.

If things aren't working well with a certain aspect of parenting, or the gold standard of marriage woes; money.  I don't have work distracting me from it.  I seem to manage to use all my free time to contemplate, think, and worse yet brood.  My seemingly undaunted ability to live in the moment when I leave work, creates a polar opposite reaction at home, and one I want to change.

Lately my boys, who in all fairness are incredible kids, seem to rile my last nerve.  I know the real reason is they astound me, and in turn my standards and expectations have risen to such a point that I forget their ages.  Occasionally I will sit with Sean, and it will smack me in the face that he is a toddler and how could I possibly expect him to have the ability to reason at all times and not lose control of his emotions.  I manage to remember these things long after I have lost my temper, or worse, spent an afternoon in a horrendous mood, one where even my fun loving kids want little to do with me.

I love being a dad, and I think that is why this is hard for me.  I ofter hear complaints about fathers being at work at all hours, and work becomes they child's least favorite thing about dad.  In many cases "Dad" becomes almost a cool uncle who will always take you to the great places and do fun things, or buy new toys.  Or, for a short time was the case with my childhood, dad was the Godfather whom you never wanted to see, because if you did see him it means you really screwed up, or it was a special occasion.  I am not that dad, and have striven to be an active participant in the process of raising a child to be an adult.

I want to be a part of the entire process of raising a child, and that includes the doldrums, the fun, and the difficult.  In marriage I can manage to move past things rather quickly, my wife and I have been blessed with communication that comes with an ease that I really prayed for when we first met, I want my wife, my partner in life to know where I am and where I want us to be going.  Like wise I want to know where my wife is and where she wants to be going; we want to be in lockstep as best we can.  My ability to move past things with money and kids is poor at least half the time it seems and the difficult part is that it seems to perpetuate discontent.  As if it tints my world view and everything becomes that color.  I usually manage to end this malaise after a day or two, but rarely is it before my children have gone to bed...and usually after I have lost my temper with the going to bed process.  Thoughts of money have similar effect, but in that case the kids are purely collateral damage, and even my wife can be taken into my quicksand.

Doing things I love, like listening to great jazz, and cooking should lift me from the haze, and even lately I find this isn't the case.  I feel like there is a paradigm shift to be had somewhere, and then I recall my words I sometimes find using with my children "choose to be happy."  Sean, the child who can make me laugh like no other is 2 and a half and throws a great temper tantrum.  He is relatively easy to remove from a bad mood, just offer him a tangerine.  A little super sweet orange fruit and almost without fail he will stop the flow of tears and turn to you after shouting "NO!" he will pause almost to actually hear your offer and say in a quiet voice with puppy dog tear filled eyes "yes."  At times we will be going to a place he loves or doing something that is his favorite and something will happen and it will be endless screaming (and man that kid can scream) and I will break down forgetting he is a toddler and practically yell "choose to be happy."  No wonder why he does not listen to me, even dad has a hard time doing that.

The Joy of Cooking

Having been a fan of cooking in the kitchen for some time I find it amazing it took me so long to buy a book that in some circles is considered the back bone of any cook book collection.  My newest found escapade into the artistic chemistry that is creating food has finally brought my desire to buy this book to the fruition.

So while perusing the book store the other afternoon I finally decided I should  buy this book, and I did.  There are a whopping total of 4500 recipes in the book, a bible thickness, and a funny touch only one silk ribbon book mark, though my first meal made from the pages required 2 different pages with my recipe.  Cooking has become an escape as my last few posts have discussed but a little more for me.

My mom, who happens to live overseas, came in town for her yearly visit.  My children have grown tremendously since her last trip nearly a year and a half ago, and my family grew by a beautiful daughter in that time.

My mom valued cooking for our family and equated her cooking to her expression of love for us.  We'd eat all sorts of things, always with little spice and never with butter.  My mom, a child of the 50s and 60s grew up with the advent of the dreaded vegetable oil solid that is now a trans-fat nightmare of margarine, but I can't fault her for that, and it did after all give me the greatest pie crust yet with Crisco instead of butter or lard.  My mom who has become far less of an exploratory cook as she has aged was quite the explorer as I remember our dinners.  She would try anything and everything, her recipe index would likely provide enough meals to have a new one every night for the rest of our lives, and she would still tear out recipes from the food section on Thursdays.  My mom, as a house wife, knew the intrinsic value of eating as a family, and preparing fresh healthy food.  It even took my mom till I was nearly 12 to finally decide it was okay to get a microwave.

As my mom and I visited we noted how different we are, and the similarities between her and my other siblings.  But cooking and "dinner time" we do share.  She commented that I would be a great chef, and I disagreed, cooking for me is more about feeling and less about trying to figure out how to make money from it.  The time came for dinner and I made our kids a quick meal since we were having a late adult dinner due to my brother getting off work late.  I made braised stuffed pork chops with home made Italian stuffing.  It took me longer than I thought it would and the mess I made was worthy of a feast, not a simple dinner.  But as my brother and our wives with my mom sat eating our food, which I slightly over cooked, it did give me joy.  There was a joy to cooking.  I really loved preparing food for my family, I loved knowing that I made this from scratch, with herbs from my garden and it wasn't a quick 15 min. exercise in microwave heating, but rather a process that produced a delicious meal to be the backdrop of our family at table breaking bread.  It seems to me that when I spend a little more time creating a meal; it is more than just dinner.  It becomes a center piece to foster the building of relationships.