tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14985056040868235012024-02-20T09:53:57.897-06:00Being Dad in a Mom's WorldChronicles of a stay at home dad with a wife, two daughters, a dog, and a world of critics.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-54564896636185681912012-05-03T15:08:00.000-05:002012-05-03T15:08:16.437-05:00Freaking Out for Car SeatsWhen my girls were still in bottles and diapers, I dreamt about the days with bottles and diapers. I wished forward to a time when the dishwasher wouldn't be full of bottles and nipples and the freezer wouldn't be full of frozen milk. I coveted the times when a diaper bag and all its wonderful contents would not be an absolute necessity every time we left the house. Those times are over for us, but there is another milestone that we just passed and it is the one that has been the bane of my existence for the past six years. Car Seats.<br />
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When I was young, from before I can remember to when I was eight or nine, my family had an old green and yellow Ford cargo van. It was a beauty. It had one bench seat in the back with an empty carpeted cargo area behind it, and we would ride the back of the bench seat like it was a horse, and play all sorts of games and wrestle in the back while Mom or Dad was driving us somewhere. Now, if there had been some sort of accident, all of us would likely have been killed or maimed for life and it goes without saying that I could never drive around the suburbs of Chicago or Chicago itself without my kids strapped safely in their seats, but car seats are a massive pain in the butt. When you see some new mother or father carrying an infant car seat around, it just doesn't translate to the viewer how awkward it feels to carry this heavy thing out away from your body so your legs don't bump it and have your arm turned in the wrong direction to hold it straight. It is like carrying a water bucket, but the water is sleeping and if it wakes up your wife will kill you, and if it gets cold the women in the store will scold you etc... I am sure there are some parents out there with three or more kids who can blame their "tennis" elbow on carrying their kids around in car seats. And then there is the getting of the heavy thing into the car. (not my best sentence) If you have a smaller car, it is a miracle if you don't bump your head and jerk the baby all over the place in the process, and if you have any back issues they will just get worse putting in car seats. They have to be facing backward for awhile and so you see the classic chauffeur set up with dad driving and mom in the back seat entertaining the baby. <br />
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Then you graduate to the front facing child seat that will last until the kid is old enough for a booster seat. This has become a modern marvel of luxurious padding that does everything but keep your kid from sweating through the back of his or her clothes. This still has the five-point harness system developed by Nascar and it attaches to the car itself in about five different places, making it especially difficult to transfer from one car to another. When you have one child and you have to fumble with this harness system every time you get in and out of the car, it isn't so bad, but when you are on your subsequent children and you have to fumble with all of this while keeping an eye on your other children and standing in the snow it gets a little bit more frustrating. And then there is ML.<br />
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IR had car seat issues. There were days in the car when she would writhe and scream and pull at her coat because everything was itchy, and I thought those days were bad, but something happened. IR was putting on her coat when she was about three and a half, and she said "Daddy, I'm not going to worry about my coat or my car seat anymore." <br />
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"Okay," was my response, and I was happy to hear it, but I didn't believe her. I was not prepared for the ability of my little three year old to just make a decision to be okay about something. I was completely unaware that a child's will could work in my favor. I was wrong. She simply stopped worrying about it and from that day on she never had a tantrum in the car about her coat or the car seat ever again. That is IR. Anybody who knows ML knows that that is not ML. <br />
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ML is always convinced that the seat belt is too tight. She is also convinced that the car seat somehow hurts her butt more than any other seat, and the last wonderful problem she has is that her lower back gets hot. Needless to say, we get all three of these complaints in the car sometimes, and winter is especially bad because of the winter coat situation. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that if we were in the car more than five minutes, ML was screaming, "Tooooo tight, Tooooo tight" in her hoarse tortured voice, or "My baaaack is hoooootttt, my baaaack is hooooott", or "My butt hurrrrrts, My butt hurrrrts." It even got to the point where she would lean forward, stick her left hand in between her legs, under her butt and reach back with her right hand to pull her coat up off of her lower back. She would ride that way for hours. The only analogy I can think of is that it looked like she was sitting on the toilet and wiping her butt with both hands at the same time. Timeouts didn't work. Taking toys away didn't work. Completely losing my mind and scaring both girls didn't work. Ignoring her didn't work. Although my dad did tell me that when she did it in his car, he just sternly told her to be quiet and she did. Thanks Dad, that makes me feel much better. That didn't work for us, so we took it one step further--we threw toys away. I would pick a toy for the day and put it in the car with me and if she started to wriggle and whine about her butt hurting or her back being hot, I would show her the little doll or the plastic horse that I thought was expendable and threaten to destroy it, and there were times that I wanted to destroy it--I wanted to put that innocent little doll on the asphalt and drive over it or smash that helpless little plastic horse with a hammer. But I refrained from the violence.<br />
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It only took two toys gently placed in the garbage for her to take me seriously, along with some concessions on our part--or my part--I won't include my wife in my illegal activities. I put her in a booster before she turned four, which didn't solve the problem, but made the old car seat seem even worse to her, and I folded up one of IR's old fleece coats and put it on her seat for cushion, which did help a little. <br />
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Now, both my girls get in their seats and put on their seat belts all by themselves, and errands don't seem so bad now...until they fight over who gets to sit in the front of the shopping cart.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-70973120592188266572012-04-20T16:21:00.000-05:002012-04-20T16:21:18.553-05:00Back to School (Yes, I know it isn't back to school time)One of the complications that comes with writing a blog is timing. I have been wanting to write about the whole "back to school" process for long time, but my discipline has been lacking, but the blog is back and I can't move on without addressing an issue that every parent confronts. Getting a child ready for a new school year is more complicated than I ever thought possible. As I have in the past and will in the future I thank my mother and apologize profusely for everything she did every year of my schooling and for my being completely and utterly oblivious to all that she went through in the process. I love you mom.<br />
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As I am writing this, IR is beginning spring break of her first year of traditional schooling. She started kindergarten in August of last year, so the experience we had in getting her ready for this first year of school might seem overdue, but sometimes it takes a long time to digest and contemplate the traumatic experiences in life and I would like to think the time that has passed in the interim may have served to allow perspective on the subject. <br />
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There are too many corporate driven holidays to count these days. Too many reasons for people to get out and shop. But the whole back to school phenomena has escaped me for a while. I failed to see why a new school year required new shoes and new clothes and new everything as the ads would have me believe. I still fail to see why a new school year reguires new shoes, but now I understand that back to school shopping is not about shoes. Back to school shopping is about more than new shoes. Back to school shopping is about social status. Back to school shopping is about low school budgets. Back to school is about planning and competition. Back to school is about being ready. In other words, back to school is the litmus test of your readiness to parent a school age child. At least in my limited experience as a parent. <br />
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I know I have readers with small children who think they have braved the worst of the sleepless nights and gag-worthy diapers, but I can only warn you of the formidable dangers that lie in your path. Sleep deprivation has its own charms. I see the haggard faces of new mothers as they wander the aisles of the grocery store while their newborn babies wriggle in the car seats. I sympathize. But let me tell you about our first back to school shopping experience.<br />
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Start of School: August 22nd<br />
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Around April 15th : <br />
My wife calls me as I am picking IR and the neighbor boy up from school. "We need to go back to school shopping for IR" My wife announced. "Okay" I said in agreement, thinking at the the time that it was a little early. My wife loved school at IR's age and I despised it, and our ideas about back to school shopping fell along those same lines. <br />
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Around May 25th : <br />
I am laying in bed about to fall asleep and I am startled awake by my wonderful wife. "We need to go back to school shopping for IR!"..."Okay," I respond when my heart rate drops back below 150. <br />
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On about six different occasions in June and July I receive this text: "We need 2 go back 2 school shopping!" to which my response is "Okey Dokey"<br />
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August 20th: Back to school shopping at Target<br />
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We come prepared with the list. Pencils, crayons, hand sanitizer, two folders, markers, dry erase markers, paper towels, moist cleaning wipes, pencil box etc... But it is worse than it sounds because they are specific. The pencils have to be yellow and they have to come in a package of twenty. The crayons have to be in a package of sixteen and the dry erase markers in a package of four and they have to be the non stinky kind. The pencil box has specific dimensions as well. We get to the section of our Target that contains the seasonal items and find four half aisles of pencil, crayon, marker, and folder armageddon. Hand sanitizer is in the pencil bin and crayons are mixed in with the dry erase markers and none of them match the requirements of our little list. Those of you who know my wife know that she only busts out certain words when she is beyond her normal stress threshold, and before I can even begin to think of a way to make all of this sound better she yells "What the hell is this?" I am not exaggerating. The traffic jam of red plastic shopping carts fell silent for a moment as all the parents and kids in our vicinity processed what they just heard. <br />
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"Honey, its not that bad, we can get a few things here and try some other places. And please don't yell." I said. But one look at her face told me that I wasn't helping.<br />
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"When?" And the look I received with that question was all the answer I needed. This was my fault because we didn't go back to school shopping earlier like she said we should. And then she picked up a box of pencils and threw them in the cart. All the while our two little girls were saying things like "Here are some markers!", and "I found the folders!" <br />
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I was of the mind that we could just get some pencils and markers and crayons and be done with it, but my wife was convinced that if we didn't get the right ones that we would be the pariahs of the new group of parents we were going to be a part of. We couldn't have that, so we went to six different stores and pooled our resources with neighbors to make sure that we got everything we needed. <br />
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I found out later that most of it goes into the school supplies and the excess is sold at the end of the year. <br />
<br />Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-38610677093139818802012-03-21T15:39:00.000-05:002012-03-21T15:41:02.111-05:00AwkwardAs I sit here, staring at the title of this post and contemplating the ways in which I could possibly explain the absence of any new posts for a very long time, I find that my brain would rather focus on the awkwardness of the word awkward. I also feel somehow untrustworthy and lazy for neglecting something that I committed myself to doing. But in the interest of restarting this blog and hopefully winning back some readers I will fall back on something that two people said to me about my blog that I will shamelessly repeat here to explain my absence. These two people appreciated the honesty of my blog--more specifically the honesty in reference to actions or thoughts that someone else might have sugar coated. So instead of compiling a list of excuses as to why I have neglected to write anything for this blog for so long, I will be honest.
Pure laziness. The girls are getting older and can entertain each other for long periods of time, so the absence of any naps is just not a good excuse. I also wrote many blog posts after I started working nights, so that doesn't explain anything either. Even now, as I am writing this blog, my wonderful ML, who will be four in a few months, is happily squatting over a bowl on the floor with a necklace of beads dangling between her legs pretending to pee for my aged black lab. I think she is trying to potty train him, because he is having difficulty with that part of the aging process. For whatever reason, she could care less what I am doing right now. IR, who is six now, is at afternoon kindergarten and will happily jump down from the bus in a few minutes and refuse to tell me anything about her day, even though(unlike me) she loves school and isn't happy about the upcoming spring break.
Tonight we will be busy, ML has ballet and tap class where she will pay attention for about half the time and will spend the rest picking her underwear out of her butt and making faces at herself in the mirror. After that IR has gymnastics and tonight parents are allowed to watch so we will brave the busy parking lot and throng of families waiting to cram into the few seats available to take way too many pictures and videos. Even on this busy day, when dinner is rushed and life seems to move too fast, I am sitting here writing this blog and that confirms that I have no excuse for my long delay. Except that maybe I have been procrastinating with this first post for a while. I have never been good at introducing myself and I am even worse at re-establishing a connection with an old friend that I haven't seen in a while. Reunions make me sweat, and as this feels like that, I have been cowardly avoiding it.
I know better at this point than to make any posting promises, but now that the bandage has been ripped off, I will be back more often.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-71219054980202111572011-08-22T08:49:00.003-05:002011-08-22T13:00:18.678-05:00Swimming With Guy: The ResultsWriting a blog is tough because I want to write well, but writing well takes time and I wanted to get these results out fast, so please excuse the brevity of this post. I will write a longer blog about the experience of the triathlon and everything surrounding it later. <br />
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First, I would like to thank the Vitale family and all of my family and friends for being incredibly supportive. Secondly, I would like to indulge in what my old (yes I said old) swimming coach would have called "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda". <br />
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I did not win the swim, but my time was faster than the best swimmer from the 2010 race. I finished the swim in 8:28, two seconds faster than the best from last year, but about a minute slower than the best swimmer this year. <br />
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I didn't win the triathlon, of course, but my time "would" have been top ten from the 2010 race, but was only good enough for fifteenth place this year. It may sound like I am disappointed with that result, but I'm not. I am very happy with my performance and even happier that I was able to share it with all the people who are nice enough to read this blog. <br />
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The link for the results of the 2011 race is on the menu bar on the right. They are separated into age groups, but my wonderfully talented accountant wife has used her magical skills in excel to combine all the results into one list for me, so I could see where I ranked in the overall competition. If you would like to see that list, send me an email and I will get it to you.<br />
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My results<br />
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2010 Overall Time : 1:22:28 <b>VS.</b> 2011 Overall Time: 1:08:08<br />
2010 Place: 82nd <b>VS.</b> 2011 Place: 15th<br />
2010 Swim: 10:19 <b>VS.</b> 2011 Swim: 8:28<br />
2010 Bike: 39:00 <b>VS.</b> 2011 Bike: 32:54<br />
2010 Run: 27:30 <b>VS.</b> 2011 Run: 23:17<br />
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Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-62697024471564507602011-08-03T14:25:00.000-05:002011-08-03T14:25:50.845-05:00Swimming with Guy #2Shortly after Guy Vitale was diagnosed with cancer, my dad told me a story. I would love to say that my dad has the kind of memory that leaves no detail unremembered, but unfortunately it is more accurate to say that you’re just lucky if he remembers your name. Regardless, I have been using this story as motivation for months, so I will do my best to tell it accurately on my end. <br />
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I think it’s safe to say that there are some universal fears. It is a rare sixth grader that doesn’t dread walking the tiled hallways of junior high for the first time. In my time as a teacher, even the most confident students suffered the uncontrollable hand shaking, blushing, and accelerated speech so symptomatic of the oral presentation. It is rare that a day goes by in my house without my wife or daughters screaming “SPIDER!!!” and pointing to a small black speck moving slowly up the wall. But there are other kinds of fear. We are afraid of that lump just under our skin or that mole on our shoulder, or even worse, the look on our doctor’s face before he or she tells us that it is indeed cancer. I can’t imagine my reaction in a situation like that, but I know I wouldn’t be as brave as Guy was. When Guy was diagnosed, he had to endure that meeting—had to hear the words and process them just like everybody else who is attacked by cancer. He had to hear his oncologist, someone he trusted, tell him that he had stage four cancer, and he had to endure another specialist’s more pessimistic assessment that he only had three months to live. These are the kinds of moments that define us. There is no right way to react to a proclamation that you only have three months to live, but I think Guy’s reaction says a lot about who he was. Guy’s only words in that fateful moment…”Bull Shit.”<br />
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I can’t even begin to articulate the effect this story has had on me. As a writing teacher, I preached the importance of the minutest choices that we make as writers. As a parent, I lecture my daughters everyday about the importance of making good choices. In my attempt to be a triathlete, I am faced everyday with choices that will most definitely affect my performance on August 20th in the Three Rivers Triathlon. But I don’t think I understood what the important decisions were until my dad told me this story about Guy. I used to think that the important decisions were more macro than micro—that the choice of college was more important than the work put into a particular paper or the choice of job was more important than the choice to do your best every day or in each moment. When Guy said “Bull Shit”, he didn’t just say it once. He said it every day. He said it every time he felt nauseous but went for a swim anyway. He said it every time somebody poked him with another needle or made him lie still while they scanned his body. He said it every time he got out of bed in the morning and with every breath he took. Most importantly, he said it every time the voice in his head said “Wouldn’t it be easier to just let it happen? You’re tired. Nobody would blame you. Its stage four cancer, your chances are slim at best.” <br />
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I have spent too much of my life letting that voice influence my choices. I have spent too much of my life thinking that the choice to do something only happens once—that commitment means that all you have to do is show up. I used to think that if someone beat me at something it was because they were simply more talented or had been doing it longer and there have even been times that I very absurdly thought that they were just having a better day than me. I used to think that doing my best was only about giving everything of myself to a task on the day it “mattered”. I did my best last year at the Three Rivers Triathlon. I didn’t have anything left when I crossed the finish line in just over one hour and twenty two minutes, and I was proud of my performance on that day—I was proud that I finished, and I actually believed the voice in my head when it told me that the people that beat me were simply better. I actually believed that the men and women that seemed an endless parade passing me on the bike and the run were simply better than me. Now I know that they just made better choices—I know that they worked harder. Thanks to Guy, I approach these choices differently now.<br />
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Last year, if I was having a bad morning, exercise was the first thing to go. If I got up later than usual, ML was in a bad mood, or IR was especially sensitive, I would skip going to the gym. This year I have made different choices. Even if I work eleven p.m. to five a.m., then sleep until awakened at eight by two little girls fighting over a toy they hardly play with anymore, I still eat breakfast, feed the girls, feed the dog, get everyone ready and go to the gym. Last year, if I had made it to the gym on such a day I would have taken it easy. I would have let the voice in my head convince me that it was okay to make it a light day. I would have let it convince me that thirty minutes on the bike was enough, that nobody expected me to do much in the triathlon and that I knew I could finish and that was enough. This year I push just as hard as any other day. I make sure I get at least eighty minutes of exercise five days a week and I don’t let excuses get in the way. Swimming has been the biggest revelation. I realized that I have to choose to make every stroke count--that momentum is too easily lost when I don’t concentrate. When Guy said, “Bull shit”, he committed himself to the idea that he could beat cancer, so when I decided to do this triathlon to honor him I committed myself to the idea that I could win. Guy didn’t exactly beat Cancer, but he did beat his cancer for a while. His commitment to beat Cancer allowed him to live more than a year beyond his doctor’s original prognosis and he fought with everything he had until the end. I don’t think Guy would say that he regretted his commitment to beat cancer, knowing the outcome, because there were many rewards. He got to meet his first grandchild and be in the pool with him when he swam for the first time, and that is just one life experience of many that I’m sure he would never give back.<br />
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Like I have said before, my odds of winning this triathlon are only slightly better than the Cubs winning the World Series this year, but my commitment to win has driven me to work harder than I ever would have if I had just committed to finish. I have learned things about myself that I would not have known otherwise. At the time of the triathlon last year, I weighed in at 228 lbs. As of right now, I weigh 188 lbs. Last year, I competed in the Shamrock Shuffle, which is a five-mile race in Downtown Chicago and I finished in 47:50. This year, it was a stepping-stone in my plan for the triathlon and I set a goal in January to finish in 35:00. I didn’t quite reach that goal, but on April 10th I did finish in 37:31, bettering my previous time by more than ten minutes. More importantly, before that day, I didn’t think I could run a mile in 7:30 and not only did I do that, but that was my average pace over five miles. None of this has anything to do with talent. It all comes down to a commitment to the effort of achieving something that seems beyond reach. It is ignoring the voice that at this very moment is telling me to delete this entire paragraph because it seems like I am bragging and, worse than that, is creating expectations that I am afraid that I will not live up to. Just like Guy, win or lose, succeed or fail, I would never give back the life experiences and lessons that I have learned in the pursuit of this triathlon.<br />
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Guy’s daughter Alexis is an inspiration too. In fact, my decision to publish a blog at all was somewhat influenced by her bravery. I was terribly impressed by the idea of someone creating an organization, let alone a charity. It is one thing to have a good idea or a good intention, but it takes a special kind of drive to follow that idea all the way to fruition. Hopes Song is still fairly young though and, like all charities, needs a lot of people to believe in it enough to support it and give it strength. Sometimes I think people get discouraged from helping because they don’t think that their contribution is enough. What is the point? Right? We can’t listen to that voice. Credit card companies make billions on transaction fees that are sometimes less than five cents apiece. If ten people give ten dollars apiece, does that money somehow have less power than if one person gives one hundred? Yes, this is my appeal. According to the stats on my blog, more than three hundred people read my post “Swimming With Guy”, but less than twenty have pledged any money. If you don’t like my convoluted pledge scheme of giving Hopes Song more money the better I do, then just give whatever you can. If everyone gives a little, it can make a huge difference in the lives of the families that Hopes Song benefits. Hopes Song is a 501(c)3 charity and all donations are tax deductible. Please visit the website to learn more about the people Hopes Song has helped and donate if you can: www.hopessong.org<br />
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Here is my convoluted scheme again, if you would like to pledge based on this send me an email at mikesimpson484@gmail.com:<br />
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If Mike…<br />
Finishes I will give ______<br />
Finishes in the top fifty I will give_______<br />
Finishes in the top twenty I will give _______<br />
Finishes in the top ten I will give _______<br />
Finishes in the top five I will give ______<br />
Wins the triathlon, I will give ________<br />
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A character in Paul Coelho’s book, <i>The Alchemist</i>, said “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” I would like to believe that is true, but I have a friend who said something that is easier for me to believe. He told me, “Contrary to what you might think, and how some people act, most of us like to see people succeed and we combine our hopes with the hopes of people who are brave enough to declare their intentions to succeed.” I am asking you to combine your hopes with ours and give other people the chance to fight Cancer like Guy did.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-17064485214828445492011-07-13T16:08:00.002-05:002011-07-13T16:17:59.557-05:00Freaking Out for Kindergarten CocktailsImagine if you will, your worst nightmare--the thing or situation that scares you more than anything. Imagine that you are forced to endure this torture by people that claim to be caregivers, but worst of all, imagine that one of the people you trust and love most in life is holding you down while these "caregivers" torture you mercilessly. Imagine all this, but add something, add the fact that the person you love and trust is laughing while holding you down. My five-year-old daughter, IR, experienced this very situation not long ago. <br />
"Daddy, am I going to get shots at the doctor?"<br />
"I'm not sure honey, but I think so."<br />
"How many shots?"<br />
"I don't know honey, but you will be brave right?"<br />
"Yes. But I would like to know how many shots."<br />
"I will find out for you."<br />
"Okay."<br />
I have been present for every shot IR has received and the pediatrician has said that after they turn four it gets better. That statement never made sense to me, because the older kids get, the smarter they get, and the smarter they get, the better they are able to anticipate and imagine, and as that happens, their fears seem to grow exponentially. IR's ability to remember, anticipate and imagine has taken her fear of getting shots to a whole new level. I have to stress that the story I am about to tell is NOT exaggerated for effect.<br />
To save time, I scheduled ML's three year checkup at the same time as IR's kindergarten checkup. This was the first problem. ML didn't need shots so IR literally and figuratively felt the sting of unfairness. <br />
At the end of a fairly standard visit, the girls were declared healthy and I was told that IR would need the "kindergarten cocktail" of four shots. The doctor left.<br />
"Are we done daddy?" Asked the hopeful IR.<br />
"No, sweetie, you have to get some shots." <br />
"Does ML have to get any?" <br />
"No, she doesn't need any today."<br />
"Why do I need shots, but she doesn't?" At this point I should establish the IR Freakout Scale. It goes from 0 to 100, with 0 being completely calm and content and 100 being a complete loss of bodily control, hyperventilation, and borderline passing out. You might ask why not just a scale from 0 to 10, but I just don't feel like 10 provides an adequate description for her ability to freak out. At the beginning of the visit to the doctor, the possibility of shots had IR at about 35 on the Freakout scale. She appeared to be calm, but little things that didn't usually bother her were causing tears. When I told her that she needed shots and her sister didn't she jumped to about 55 on the scale. Tears started rolling and her hands went directly to her mouth. Bringing her hands to her mouth is a sign that the 50 threshold had been passed and we were getting dangerously close to a freakout. <br />
After a few minutes the nurse who was going to administer the vaccinations came in. She was a little gruff and very businesslike in her approach to IR. The sight of the tray with the needles immediately sent IR above 70 on the scale. <br />
"Daddy, how many?"<br />
"Four shots."<br />
"Four?" 85 on the scale now, full blown crying with sobs and hitches and pleading for some sort of pardon. It was hard to concentrate as the nurse was having me sign the necessary papers for the vaccinations. <br />
"Okay, I need you to put her up on the table and hold her arms, I will take care of the rest." The nurse said this to me and sent IR to 99 on the Freakout Scale. Full blown screaming and slapping away my hands as I tried to pick her up to put her on the table. <br />
"NOOOOO...NOOOOOO...NOOOOOOOOO" She kept screaming as I finally got a hold of her and put her on the table. The nurse crossed IR's arms in front of her chest and told me to hold her that way. I leaned over her and held her down with my face right in front of hers. "NOOOOOOOOO...NOOOOOOOO...NOOOOOOOO, please daddy, pleeeaaaase NOOOOOOOOOO" At this point I might confidently say that most parents would be heartbroken at the thought of being the one who was holding this beautiful child down while she was in such pain. My wife got a little teary when I told her about it. But I guess I am different, because when IR was dangerously close to 100 on the Freakout Scale, and my face was one inch from hers and I could feel her tense as each of the four needles pierced her skin, I didn't cry--I laughed. I tried not to, but I giggled uncontrollably. I tried to hide it, but I couldn't--we were too close, and as my lovely wife likes to remind me all the time, my whole body shakes when I laugh. So my beautiful, smart, sensitive and dramatic little girl was on the verge of passing out and I was holding her down and laughing, and she knew it. <br />
When it was over, the nurse told her to sit up.<br />
"PUT THE BANDAIDS ON! PUT THE BANDAIDS ON!"<br />
"Calm down sweetie, calm down." I pleaded, though I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. The whole scene was completed by the sight of my dramatic little girl walking stiff legged out to the car like she had casts on both legs. <br />
When my wife came home she asked IR how the doctor visit went.<br />
"I freaked out." She said and went back to her drawing.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-39700328348194391062011-06-06T15:39:00.002-05:002011-06-13T14:04:15.469-05:00The Count of Daddy CristoOne of the beneficial side effects of my new employment as a night stocker at a grocery store is that I get to listen to books on my ipod. They are technically podcasts of classic books that are in the public domain and read by volunteers--in other words, free. I have been enlightening myself with books that I have never had the heart to pick up and read. I have already listened to <i>Wuthering Heights</i>,<i> Crime and Punishment</i>, and <i>War and Peace</i>. Most recently I have been listening to <i>The Count of Monte Cristo</i>, and it has given form to my own thoughts of vengeance.<br />
<br />
For anyone who has not read The Count of Monte Cristo, it is the ultimate story of revenge. The shortest summary I can achieve goes like this: A man is condemned to life in a dungeon by his jealous counterparts, suffers fourteen years of imprisonment where he is educated by a fellow prisoner and given a map to a buried treasure. The other prisoner dies, the man escapes, finds his treasure, which he uses over the course of many years to exact revenge on the men who betrayed him.<br />
<br />
I am about to go off on a fantasy of revenge, but please understand that I don't equate anything of my life or my revenge with the good Count--I just need to think there will be payback someday. (Yes, Mom, I know you are enjoying yours right now)<br />
<br />
Someday, when IR is old enough, I am going to make her start cooking and doing dishes. I can only imagine what she will be like, but I know what I am going to say. IR is going to come in, after some sort of practice and plop down on the couch. “Hi sweetie how was your day?” I will ask.<br />
“Fine.” She will answer and not take her eyes off the TV. It will probably be Access Entertainment Hollywood Inside hosted by some child star whose career was revived by the Dancing With the Stars of past Dancing with the Stars where past contestants of Dancing With the Stars partner with a new b-level celebrity and are coached by the aging professional dancers. <br />
“I’m hungry.” I will sit down next to her and change the channel to Wheel of Fortune. Pat Sajak will just do intros and commentary at this point, because it will take him too long to remember if there is an E in “Riding in a Solar Car”. <br />
“So, eat something.”<br />
“I want you to make me dinner.”<br />
“Seriously?” She will take back the remote and change it back to her show. We will sit and watch while Will Smith’s three-year-old granddaughter, Willowina is photographed on the red carpet as an oscar nominee at the Academy Awards. “You are just telling me to make you dinner?”<br />
“Please make me dinner?” She will sit for another five minutes while Willowina tells the interviewer that she has wanted an Oscar since she was little. <br />
“What do you want?”<br />
“I don’t know.”<br />
“You just want me to make something?”<br />
“Yes, and I’m hungry, so could you do it now?”<br />
“Right now. Okay.” She will drop the remote on the couch and stomp into the kitchen and she will close cabinet doors a little too hard and stand for too long in front of the open refrigerator. I will hear her running some water and she will come back in and sit down again.<br />
“What are you making?”<br />
“Spaghetti.”<br />
“I don’t want spaghetti.”<br />
“Are you being serious?”<br />
“I don’t want spaghetti.”<br />
“Well, that is what I"m making, because you didn’t tell me what you wanted.”<br />
As an added measure I will ask for buttered bread and salad and not eat the salad and I will ask for seconds of spaghetti and not eat it. I will also use at least two forks and a spoon and I will find a way to dirty two butter knives. I will then proceed to get up and watch TV and then throw a fit when she cleans up my dishes. I will proclaim that I was not done eating and that I want more spaghetti. I could do that every night for five years and it still wouldn’t be even. <br />
The second chore that my daughters will be tasked with is the laundry. They will start by doing their own clothes, but I will let them do mine as well. I fear they will play the same trick I did on my wife’s clothes that I did when we first got married. Yes, I shrunk a few sweaters on purpose. I am not proud of it. I was young and stupid--something my daughters will also be. I picture my daughter ML at the wonderful age of fifteen, coming home from school and so excited to see me. She will run up the stairs and give me a big hug and tell me how much she missed me. She will also tell me about her day and how she aced her quiz on <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i> because we talked about it after she read it. Yes, this is a fantasy.<br />
But this will actually have to happen on a day we spend together. It will be a Saturday morning. I will walk into her room and throw off her covers. <br />
“What are you doing? Its Saturday get out!” She will put her pillow over her face and turn on her side away from me. <br />
“Get up, its laundry day.”<br />
“So. Go do the laundry.”<br />
“It’s your job now, so get to it.” I will continue this wonderful new day for ML by taking my shirt off and putting it in the hamper. <br />
“Why did you do that?” She will ask.<br />
“I just wanted to.” I will answer and go get a new shirt. Later I will accidentally drip some milk from my cereal onto my shirt and be forced to go upstairs and get yet another new shirt. <br />
“Did you do that on purpose?” <br />
“Of course not.” I will have to be careful here, because both of my girls will have been subjected to more than ten years of my almost constant sarcasm. IR already calls me on it sometimes. <br />
I will spend the rest of the day stepping in puddles, wiping my Cheeto fingers on my pants, eating waffles with too much syrup, and other things of the sort. I will also buy three sets of pajamas and refuse to wear them more than one night in a row. <br />
Is my pain and suffering on anywhere near the same level as the good Count of Monte Cristo? No, of course not, but when you have committed yourself to the care of tiny people whose brains are developing in unpredictable ways, strange things can happen to you. For example, you might find yourself fantasizing about being the father of teenage girls. What I have discovered about <i>The Count of Monte Cristo</i> is that it is as much about love as it is about revenge, so I don't feel so bad about plotting my vengeance on two of the three people I love most.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-90652654581412401662011-05-26T17:11:00.001-05:002011-05-26T19:14:29.404-05:00One Year Down...I have completed my first year of being a Stay at Home Parent, or SAHP as we in the "biz" like to call it (that statement could only be cooler if I said it out loud and put air quotes around "biz"--for anyone out there who has trouble detecting sarcasm, like my wife for example, that was sarcasm). I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but I feel like I am getting a handle on this thing. I mean, just the other day, I had everything under control. The girls woke up needy and whining, but after I enacted the no smiling policy (an SAHP classic), they happily picked out their own clothes (they actually did, I'm not just making an excuse for mismatched outfits), and we headed downstairs for breakfast. The girls had a nice breakfast of cereal and milk and after that we headed back upstairs for the brushing of teeth and hair, and washing of faces. They played in their room while I got myself ready and before long, and without drama, we were in the van and headed to the gym. <br />
<br />
The girls sang along to the radio all the way, and held my hand willingly in the parking lot. Our gym provides two hours of childcare, which provides me with an extra incentive to go. ML had picked out her new jellies to wear and they were loud on the tile floor. For those who don't know what jellies are, they are clear plastic shoes that are usually tinted pink or purple. ML charmed me into buying them for her on an unrelated trip to Old Navy. If she wears them without socks, they give her blisters, and her feet sweat in them so badly that the sweat actually condenses on the inside of the shoe and they smelled after the first day. I find it disturbing that, at two years old, she is already willing to sacrifice the health of her feet for the sake of fashion. She has to wear socks to the childcare center in the gym anyway, so her feet were protected that day. At this point, I was feeling pretty confident, basking in the glow of my cute little girls running down the halls to happily submit themselves to the care of someone besides me. I was also basking in reflected happiness that ML was experiencing. She was running down the hallway, slapping her plastic shoes on the tile floor and loving the fact that everyone she passed was looking down at her and smiling at her cuteness. I was about ten feet behind her and feeling proud and happy that the morning went so well, listening to the slap slap of her little feet and watching her run in the cute bouncy way that only toddlers can right before they aren't toddlers anymore. I was jarred from my reverie by a man reaching for ML. By the time I realized what was happening, ML ran full speed into a water fountain.<br />
<br />
She fell flat on her back and already had a welt growing at her hairline when I got to her. I will never forget how loud the bang was when she collided with the metal of the water fountain, nor will I forget the shame of not paying close enough attention. ML didn't cry, in fact, she seemed to enjoy the extra attention from the ladies in the childcare center. She even managed to put on a contented frown as they put the ice pack to her forehead. <br />
<br />
Later that day, our neighbor invited us to Monkey Joe's for his son's birthday. It wasn't the official birthday party, which will also be at Monkey Joe's, but it was the actual day of his birtday, so it was just the birthday boy, his younger sister, and my two girls. Monkey Joe's is a kid's dream--a massive room full of massive inflatable bounce castles, slides, and pirate ships. The kids run around like they have completely lost their minds and jump and slide and knock their heads together and cry and jump some more until they are completely worn out, which makes it a parent's dream as well. My neighbor and I sat down while the kids played, and once again I was feeling proud of myself. I was letting the girls play and I wasn't following them around and making sure everyone was okay. ML was doing great and following her sister around and being a big girl.<br />
<br />
"Do you have any extra clothes in the car?" My neighbor asked.<br />
"No, why, did something happen?" I asked, looking around for my girls.<br />
"No, but I should have told you to put pants or shorts on ML." He pointed to ML lifting up her dress to dig her underwear out of her butt. And, once again, the gazillion year old universe was reminding me that a year doesn't make anyone an expert at anything, especially parenting. Every time ML would slide down one of the massive inflatable slides she would run to the next with her hand tugging at the wedgie that inevitably occured. So please indulge me while I release some frustration from that day.<br />
<br />
To the Mom obsessively cleaning her kids' hands with Purell at Monkey Joe's:<br />
"I see you looking at me--and yes, that is my daughter with her hand in her butt crack. I'm sorry, I have never been here before, and my princess of a daughter refuses to wear anything but pretty and dancily dresses. I see you looking at me while you force your boys to stop having fun and submit to their third round of disinfection. Why not stare at the mom of the kid who keeps sticking his finger up his nose? What about the little girl who looks like there is something radioactive travelling from her nostrils to her eager tongue? Why not make their moms uncomfortable? Did you see the kid who keeps keeps sticking his hand in his pants and scratching himself? Did you know that jock itch is a fungus? I got the message, you can stop looking at me and shaking your head. We aren't going anywhere. I paid my fifteen bucks and we are going to stay until I get the fifteen bucks worth of exhaustion that I paid for."Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-676833601757362052011-05-24T12:22:00.001-05:002011-05-24T14:05:30.011-05:00Swimming with GuyAlmost eighteen years ago, Guy Vitale challenged me to an open water swimming race. It was July--the week that he turned forty-seven, and I turned sixteen. We were in Ontario, Canada on a fishing trip with a group of fathers and sons that were connected by familial relations and friendship. Our cabin was located on a lake that was littered with pine tree covered islands and random rocks above and just below the surface of the fifty-seven degree water. It was a few days into the trip when Guy suggested that we race to an island and back. He always was an avid swimmer, and I was a high school distance swimmer at the time, so the challenge seemed appropriate if not for the frigid water.<br />
<br />
Our purpose in Canada was fishing, but kids can only sit in twelve foot fishing boats with metal bench seats for so long. On this particular day, it was decided by the adults in the group that the pre-adolescent and adolescent boys were in need of some washing. Three or four days without a bar of soap for a boy of that age is bad enough, but near constant contact with fish and warm July nights in sleeping bags zipped up tight against the whining menace of the Canadian mosquito creates the necessary conditions to prompt a man to force his son to bathe in fifty-seven degree water. In case you are wondering just how bad we smelled, it only takes an hour of exposure to fifty-seven degree water to induce hypothermia in an average sized adult. <br />
<br />
While we were treading water and our teeth chattered against the cold, bald eagles and enormous turkey vultures circled and landed on a nearby island where we dumped the carcasses of the northern pike and walleye that we caught that morning. Luckily, the bar of soap floated, and we passed it around quickly after doing our best to wash before losing all control of our numb fingers. I was about to climb out when Guy spoke up. “Hey Mike, I’ll race you to that island.” He said and pointed to an island that didn’t seem very far away. I thought he was crazy, and as one of the necessities of the trip was alcohol, I figured he was a little drunk.<br />
<br />
But he was serious, and so was everybody else. I was allowed the chance to restore circulation to my extremities while my dad and uncle stripped one of the aluminum fishing boats of fishing gear and threw in extra life jackets. It seemed appropriate and ridiculous at the same time that there would be a chase boat for swim that couldn’t have been more than a half mile. While I sat next to the camp fire, and Guy was in the Cabin getting his swimming suit on, I still had a glimmer of hope that he would back out. I didn’t know him as well at that time as I had the pleasure of getting to know him. If I had known what I know now about Guy Vitale, I would have known that my fate was sealed as soon as the thought formulated itself in Guy’s brain. <br />
<br />
We raced that day. We jumped in the freezing cold water, treaded for a moment while the air returned to our lungs and set off in the direction of the island. I won the race, but I was a high school distance swimmer at the time. I am confident that if we repeated that race at any time after my competitive swimming days that Guy would have beaten me handily. On August 21st, 2010, I competed in my first triathlon in Three Rivers, Michigan. It just happened to be my first open water swimming race since my race with Guy seventeen years earlier. Three days later, my dad called to let me know that Guy had died from an extended battle with cancer. I had known he was sick, very sick in fact, and in my rational mind I knew that the prognosis was not good, but in my heart I could not believe that Guy would succumb. He was an acquaintance when we raced, a friend of my parents’, but in the following years I was lucky enough to get to know him better. I would like to say that we were friends, and in many ways he felt like an uncle to me, and I’m sure that I am not the only one to feel that way. Guy was a benefactor. It seems weird to say that, but I can’t think of a better word. He was always eager to help if he could and I can say from my own experiences with him that he was a positive force in the lives of countless people. I can’t imagine a better definition of a successful life. <br />
<br />
Guy and his wife Andrea, through their tremendous example, raised three children who, not surprisingly, follow in their brave and confident footsteps. In what seems like the Universe or God or Fate stepping in, their son Adam returned to take over the family business about a year before Guy’s cancer was diagnosed. Their daughter, Alexis, gave birth to their first grandchild, Pierce, who had his first swim with his Grandfather in the pool that Guy swam in almost every summer day for I don’t know how long. Their youngest daughter, Kathy, works as a television news producer in Colorado, not far from the family’s vacation home. <br />
<br />
Here we finally get to the purpose of this posting. Alexis Vitale, a thyroid cancer survivor, courageously created a charity called Hopes Song. The mission of Hopes Song is to provide services to people diagnosed with cancer. Those services include financial assistance in the form of grants as well as educational materials and a website to create an online community for people battling cancer and their families. We have all heard of Livestrong and all the walks to cure cancer, but Hopes Song is a smaller organization that fulfills a very important element in the battle against cancer. These larger organizations provide billions of dollars for research in the pursuit of a cure, but those cures may be a long way off, and for families being attacked by cancer right now, there are more immediate concerns. Some patients need constant care, which costs money, and some family members take on that care, but that takes them away from their jobs. It seems crazy that a family battling cancer should have to worry about paying the mortgage, but they do, so Hopes Song is there to help. If you haven’t been there yet, I encourage you to visit the website http://www.hopessong.org.<br />
<br />
Up to this point, Alexis has engaged in many fundraising activities, the main course consisting of a line of clothing that she has designed herself. I have wanted to help, but anyone who has seen me dress my daughters knows that my knowledge of fashion is rudimentary at best, so I recently approached Alexis with an idea that has been fermenting in my mind since the week of Guy’s death. I am going to compete in my second triathlon in Three Rivers, Michigan and I want to do it in Guy’s honor and raise money for Hopes Song. <br />
<br />
If I am going to do something in honor of Guy Vitale, I have to commit completely and I thought that it should also be fun. So it you want to help, here is the idea: I have about the same chances to win this triathlon as the Cubs have to win the World Series this year, but in Guy’s spirit of hard work I am committed to the effort of winning this triathlon, and I want you to bet against me. If you want to give, please send me an email to me at mikesimpson484@gmail.com, and make your bets using the following scale:<br />
If Mike…<br />
Finishes I will give ______<br />
Finishes in the top fifty I will give_______<br />
Finishes in the top twenty I will give _______<br />
Finishes in the top ten I will give _______<br />
Finishes in the top five I will give ______ <br />
Wins the triathlon, I will give ________<br />
I know this isn't the most convenient or efficient way to collect pledges, so if anyone out there has the internet savvy and would like to help me create a better system, just let me know.<br />
<br />
If you need extra information in formulating your bets, I finished 82nd out of 147 finishers last year. My time was 1:22:28 and the winner finished in 1:01:24. I have worked harder this year in preparation for the this triathlon and will continue to train almost every day until race day, which is August 20th. I also welcome any questions you might have to help you formulate your bets—just put them in the comment box, and I will write a weekly blog posting in relation to the triathlon and answer all questions as well as relate stories about Guy and the works of Hopes Song. <br />
On a final note, as a personal commitment to Guy and his friendship to me, I plan to win the swimming portion of the triathlon. That may sound like a bold declaration, but triathletes are notoriously bad swimmers.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-8498635721947454872011-05-20T13:08:00.000-05:002011-05-20T13:08:31.319-05:00More Questions, Part Two of Nine ThousandThe only thing better than a five-year-old asking endless questions, is a two-year-old joining in. Here are just a few of my philosophical conversations with my daughters.<br />
<br />
"Daddy, why is Kool-Aid purple?" IR asked me over a lunch of macaroni and cheese.<br />
"Well, grape Kool-Aid is purple, not all of it is. But it is purple because they make it purple with dye, just like you did with snow at school that one time."<br />
"Who makes it purple?"<br />
"The people who make it, honey."<br />
"Why do they make it purple?"<br />
"That is a good question. I guess because some grapes are purple so they want it to look like that."<br />
"What is my color?" ML asked, sticking out her tongue.<br />
"What do you mean?" I returned.<br />
"What is my color?!" <br />
"I don't know what you are talking about." I snapped. She opened her mouth again and I realized the meaning of the question. "Your tongue is purple sweetie."<br />
<br />
New parent warning: If your child happens to have bright green poop, don't panic, it is a result of drinking grape Kool-Aid. Berry Blue Kool-Aid results in electric blue poop. Yes, I am the father of the year for continuing to give Kool-Aid to my kids in light of this discovery.<br />
<br />
On other days I get questions like this:<br />
"What is that?" asks IR.<br />
"That is a rhinoceros."<br />
"Why is it a rhinoceros?" She persists.<br />
"Um, because that's what it is honey." <br />
"Because isn't an answer Daddy." <br />
"Yes, I know. It is a rhinoceros because that is what the people who name things decided it was going to be called."<br />
"Why is it gray?"<br />
"Because it lives around gray stuff and it makes it harder for it to be seen."<br />
"Why?" <br />
"What was that joke you were telling me yesterday?"<br />
"Why did the chicken cross the kitchen?"<br />
"Why?"<br />
"So he could poop on a plate." Then they both giggle.<br />
"Why did the chichen cross the kicken?" ML blurts.<br />
"Why?"<br />
"Because."Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-76399849579742419672011-05-12T13:00:00.000-05:002011-05-13T15:49:24.737-05:00The Princess and the BossWe are once again on to a new phase in the developing personalities of our little girls. These traits have always been there, but recently have taken primary positions in the hierarchy of their personas. <br />
<br />
ML is a princess--no qualifications necessary. Her clothing consists anything that can be described as "dancily" and must look pretty when twirling. Anything that is sparkly or pink or both is a bonus. She loves dancing and singing being complimented on her pretty dresses. She is enamored with pictures of her beautiful mommy in her wedding dress and, much to my dismay, claims that she is married when wearing an especially pretty and dancily dress. <br />
<br />
IR is the boss, but much like a good manager, answers dutifully to the management structure in the house. Mommy is, of course, President and CEO, as we adhere to the matriarchal structure inherited through the maternal familial lines passed down through generations of my wife's ancestry. Daddy qualifies as Vice President and COO, which gives me enough authority to run the show when Mommy is at work. My position does not, however, exempt me from the rules that we have imposed upon our lovely little girls, which gives IR the authority to remind us when we happen to forget the rules. <br />
<br />
Just the other day we were eating lunch, macaroni and cheese as usual. <br />
"Daddy, I spilled. Daddy, I spilled. Daddy, I spilled." ML whined. She didn't spill, every now and then she will take a drink, fruit punch Kool-Aid this time, and inexplicably let it trickle out of her mouth onto whatever she is wearing. I don't know why she does it and it is one of those things that would induce me to spanking if I did that sort of thing--an irrational response of course, but in these moments, rationality is difficult. <br />
<br />
"Why? Why did you spit out your drink?" I snapped. "I hate when you do that!" I wetted a paper towel and dabbed her pink dancily dress even though I knew she would soon take this one off and go to her closet in search of a clean dancily dress. <br />
"Daddy, we don't say hate." Ir whispered to me when I was done. I took a breath.<br />
"You're right sweetie. I'm sorry. Now eat your food girls." I replied and sat down to eat a sandwich. I took at bite.<br />
"Daddy...Daddy...Daddy...Daddy...Daddy...Daddy." Ir kept saying while I was trying to finish chewing.<br />
"What?!" <br />
"You shouldn't talk with your mouth full." <br />
"Then why did you..." I started impatiently, "You're right sweetie, I'm sorry. What did you want?"<br />
"What do you mean?"<br />
"What did you want when you were saying my name?"<br />
"When?"<br />
"Nevermind."<br />
"Daddy?"<br />
"What?"<br />
"Can I please have some more water?" <br />
"Yes, just a second." I got up and put the cup under the ice dispenser. It turned and made grinding noises but nothing came out. <br />
"What's wrong Daddy?" Ir asked as I opened the freezer door to see what was wrong.<br />
"The stupid ice maker isn't working." <br />
"Daddy, we don't say stupid."<br />
"You're right sweetie, I'm sorry."Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-76630890503851089992011-04-28T16:35:00.000-05:002011-04-28T16:35:33.685-05:00Strength**Serious Warning** This particular posting contains serious content. If you are a reader of this blog for something light to do on a break from more serious things, then be forewarned.<br />
<br />
I have been debating including a recent change in my situation as a Stay at Home Dad, but it will be hard to write about my days without explaining the difference. I have recently been looking for a part-time job that didn't interfere with my being the primary caretaker of my daughters or my wife's work, and since my wife doesn't get home until six p.m. or later, that doesn't leave many options outside of working overnight. I applied for overnight operations at Lifetime Fitness, overnight stocker at Target, and overnight stocker at a grocery store. Much to the detriment of my ego, Lifetime and Target didn't think I was a fit for those particular positions, at least that is what the emails said. But, recently, I was lucky enough to be hired at a grocery store as an overnight stocker. The manager who interviewed me said, "We are just going to go ahead and hire you right now because you are the first person who said anything more than ""I like the Cubs"" when I asked them to tell me about themselves." High praise. <br />
<br />
So now, on three to four nights a week, I make the short drive to the store, clock in, and commence opening boxes, putting cans on shelves, stacking toilet paper and making sure everything is orderly and facing out. It is perfect in that it is physical enough to keep me awake, but brainless enough to allow me to think about other things. During the week, I work from eleven p.m. to five a.m., so when the end of my shift approaches, I stop what I am doing, push my cart of broken down cardboard boxes back to the bailer, load the boxes, compact them, collect my things, clock out, walk out from the fluorescent brightness into the light blue pre-sunlit sky. I make the short drive home, quietly creep up the stairs, trying to keep the dog from making too much noise. I wash the store off my hands, take the store uniform off, sneak into bed in the minutes before my lovely wife's alarm goes off. I wake a couple hours later to my little girls playing in their room.<br />
<br />
The day after my second shift went exactly like that, but when I woke up, everything made me angry. IR was yelling "Daddy! Daddy!", so I jumped out of bed and ran into their room to find her distraught over a thread that was unravelling from her favorite blanket. <br />
<br />
After making our way downstairs, I realized that the house was abnormally cold. I checked the thermostat and it read sixty-four. It was set to sixty-nine and the furnace wasn't running. I spent the morning running back and forth from getting the girls breakfast to trying everything I knew how to do to get the furnace running again. I didn't feel irritable, but I was snapping at the girls.<br />
<br />
"I want more ice christies." ML said as she spooned some milk into her mouth, dripping it all down her pajamas. <br />
"What do you say?" I snapped.<br />
"You have to say please." IR whispered.<br />
"Peas I have more ice christies?" ML whispered, following her sister's example. <br />
<br />
Later I was getting them dressed and they were happily playing with each other and not paying any attention to me. "ML, please come get dressed."<br />
"IR go first!" She said and went on playing with her fairy dolls.<br />
"IR, please come get dressed." I said. She usually dressed herself, but I didn't have the patience to wait for her to do it.<br />
"Okay," she said but continued to push a car across the floor.<br />
"IR, get over here right now and get your clothes on!" I didn't feel as angry as it sounded, but the effect was immediate. She dropped her car and slowly walked to me. I expected her to start crying. This is the girl who cries when we calmly ask her to cover her mouth when she coughs, or completely melts down when I tell her that she needs to practice writing her J again. And this latest outburst was just the last of many impatient requests. She didn't cry. She walked right to me and as if trying to balance herself while putting her pants on, put out her skinny little arms, but instead of putting her hands on my head, as she normally did, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek.<br />
<br />
"I love you Daddy." She said and smiled. <br />
"I love you." I said and returned her hug. I know it is fairly cheesy to admit this, but it seemed as if a fog was lifted and I was happy. I can't imagine being more proud of my daughter than I was in that moment. Many people are sympathetic, or empathetic, but that sympathy usually gives way to defensiveness and anger when faced with someone who is mean to us. I was mean to her and she had every right to be upset with me, to cry, and to pout, but she was strong enough to forget her feelings and worry about mine.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-70265377182493797142011-04-18T16:16:00.000-05:002011-04-18T16:16:39.047-05:00More MistakesAfter my very unkind posting for public consumption of my cousin's unfortunate baby launching, I realized that I have endangered my children in more ways than just banging one in the head with a pot or stepping on the other's face. Let's be clear, I have never harmed my children intentionally, so please don't call any agencies.<br />
<br />
A little over two years ago, when IR had just turned three and ML was about six months old, I was home alone with them during the day. It was springtime then as well, and just like now I started to get a manly hankering to grill some meat. Sorry, the words grill and meat just naturally follow words like manly and hankering. Not the same when you say something like "I had a manly hankering to drive my minivan," or "I had a manly hankering to put pigtails on my daughter." But I need to get back to my story, as I said, the nice weather put me in the mood for some grilled meat. We live in a townhouse, and kitchen is on the second floor above the garage with a sliding glass door that opens onto a small porch that is cantilevered over the parking lot. <br />
<br />
I made the necessary preparations for cooking some pork chops, like starting and cleaning the grill etc... It was still a little cold outside, but I had shorts and a t-shirt on, which is my normal uniform for being home with the girls. IR was in the wonderful territory of learning who she was and what the world was around her, and ML was just starting to crawl. IR was already being a good big sister and trying to coax her sister to some toys across the room when I stepped out to check the pork chops. I slid the door shut behind me and turned to see IR hanging on the handle and pressing her face against the glass. I pretended not to see her and was going to open the door with her swinging on the handle. I pulled on the door, but I realized quickly that IR had accidentally locked it. The lock is a little black lever that sits right under the handle. <br />
<br />
"You locked the door sweetie." To which she responded with muffled giggles and dropped from the door.<br />
"IR, you locked the door, can you push that little black lever up for daddy?" I don't know why parents start speaking in the third person, that is the subject of another blog. IR didn't understand so I pointed to the black lever and pretended to push it up. Her response was to mimic my movements on the glass. If I wasn't standing on a porch, ten feet off the ground, in shorts, a t-shirt, and barefoot in forty degree weather, I might have thought it cute how she put her little finger adjacent to mine on the other side of the glass and moved it up and down with increasing intensity. <br />
"Honey, no, push the black lever, the black lever, please sweetie, push the black lever up!" My increasing intensity seemed to take the fun out of the game so she ran into the living room. It was then that I realized that I couldn't see ML, who was just barely crawling at that point. I imagined her chewing on a power cord or falling down the stairs. I banged on the glass. "IR! IR! Please come here!" She came back, but slowly--she thought she was in trouble. I can't blame her, I was mad and a little frantic. "Honey, please push the black lever." I said after I had tried to calm myself. She came to the door and sat down facing me. "Please, sweetie, I will give you some candy if you push up the black lever."<br />
"Tandy?" She replied, standing up.<br />
"Yes, I will give you two candies if you push the black lever." I held up two fingers to the glass, and she responded by putting two fingers on the glass. We repeated the earlier exercise. I pointed to the black lever and she pointed to the tip of my finger. I got frustrated again, and she ran away again. This time I pounded the door with the palm of my right hand in frustration. "IR, get back here right now!" I knew this wasn't going to work. I knew that none of it was going to work, so I was allowing myself to be angry. She didn't return, so I started to consider other options. I thought about breaking the glass, but I didn't know how and I couldn't help think of the cost. <br />
I thought about jumping, but I was barefoot and for some stupid reason the fact that it was chilly out made the blacktop seem even less inviting. I climbed over the rail and tried to hang from the floor of the porch to gauge the distance, but I couldn't tell, and I couldn't let go. I tried to hang from the satellite dish that the former residents of the house left behind, but it was really flimsy. I looked up to see IR hanging from the door handle again and was relieved to see that I was forgiven for my earlier outburst. It was then that I jumped down onto the hood of the truck we had at the time, and luckily was parked under the porch. It wasn't too bad, but the cold blacktop did sting a little as I jumped from the hood. I opened the garage with the keypad on the door and went upstairs. <br />
"Daddy, are you okay?" IR asked as I picked up ML and was relieved to see no injuries. <br />
"No sweetie, you locked me out." I know, I know, it wasn't on purpose and I shouldn't have been mad at her, but I was. "Look daddy, I can do it! I can do it!" She said.<br />
"What can you do?" Her response was to run into the kitchen and push the black lever up, unlocking the door. She couldn't have been more proud of herself, and though I am very proud of her for many things, pride was not on my mind in that moment. <br />
Later that day, they were in the truck with me on the way to drop them off with their mother. It was a circumstance of us both working. To get to my class on time, I had to take them to my wife instead of waiting for her to get home before leaving. I was going through an intersection and was surprised by the car in front of me stopping in the middle of the intersection to avoid a pothole. <br />
My wife called me later to tell me that IR had told her all about our day together. First, IR told her mother that I locked her out of the house, and second she told her mother that I had said a bad word in the truck.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-4506355530552409112011-04-13T15:56:00.001-05:002011-04-13T16:49:22.416-05:00Eleven-Year-Old Black Labrador Retriever Seeks New SituationFamilies with small children need not apply. My name is Truman and I am taking this opportunity to advertise my desire for a new family. My family doesn't know of my intentions, so please don't tell them about this. <br /><br />I am an eleven-year-old male black lab. Yes ladies, I am "intact" with a nice pair of, well you know. I can catch a frisbee, but I must admit, that my age and lack of attention from my family has hindered my ability to catch more than a few frisbees before I collapse in front of a water bowl and hyperventilate for a few minutes. Yes, I was in better shape a long time ago. My master took me for at least two walks every day, and my mistress would let me sit on the couch and they would scratch me behind my ears all the time. My master would throw the frisbee and I would catch it. I don't know why, but the sight of a frisbee would make me almost lose my mind with excitement. In the first year, they let me sleep on their bed with them, or they would at least let me get up there in the morning. But about six years ago, something changed. I noticed my mistress started to smell differently and I felt an intense urge to protect her. If I only knew what this change meant for me, I wouldn't have been so eager to protect her. <br /><br />Well, she had a baby and eventually another and my life couldn't have changed more. My master still walks me, but only once a day if I am lucky. Sometimes he is too tired or lazy and just lets me out the front door and yells at me if I take too long doing my business. I don't know about you, but I have a process for going to the bathroom. I have to smell for other dogs' business and make sure they know who I am by leaving my scent, and I can't just poop because my master is yelling at me. It is either going to happen or it isn't. He makes me so mad sometimes too, because he pays so much attention to his precious babies that he forgets to let me out when I need to go. I whine and walk towards the door, but he just ignores me, so sometimes I have to be a little more obvious. I drip a little pee in front of him and continue to dribble all the way to the front door, but its hard to stop once you've started, and I'm not a puppy anymore. Then he yells at me and runs to open the door and by that time I have emptied half of my bladder so he inevitably steps in it and gets more angry with me even though it is all his fault. <br /><br />I'm not even allowed in their bedroom anymore, they yell and scream about how I lick my paws and make the carpet smell. What do they expect? I am bored out of my mind, so I lick my paws. I know the sound of it drives them crazy, but I can't help it sometimes. They really get mad when I lick other places. Sometimes, I get an urge to lick my butt, and whatever is in there gives me a little high and I forget where I am for a minute. By the time I gain use of my mental faculties, they are yelling and telling me that I am gross and to get out of the room. <br /><br />Nobody pays attention to me anymore. Guests come, but I get so excited at the prospect of someone petting me that I end up knocking into someone and then I get locked in the basement until they leave. The kids are okay, but they try to hug me and they don't pet me very well. And besides, they scream if my tail hits them, or heaven forbid I accidentally step on their little feet. Of course, all is blamed on me, so I just try to avoid them. I must admit that I do appreciate the little one. She must feel bad for me, because she is always "accidentally" dropping food on the floor for me. Sure, she cries if someone sees her doing it and blames me for eating her food, but I know that is just so she won't get in trouble. <br /><br />I know it is disloyal of me to want to leave, but I am a good dog and I deserve more attention. In the interest of not falsely advertising my ability to type or use a computer I must admit that I cannot do either. My master's brother must be an Apple Iphone salesman or something, because he is constantly showing people all the things his Iphone can do, so I asked him to find me an App that translates dog's thoughts. He wants a labradoodle, but his wife doesn't want a dog, so I told him that I would find a poodle bitch and make some strays that he could adopt. I don't think he liked the plan, but he helped me anyway.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-10255035658543731392011-04-11T16:11:00.000-05:002011-04-11T20:50:47.727-05:00Mistakes we make with our children (new title for the entire blog?)As a preface to this entry, I would like to change the online names of my daughters to IR(five-year-old) and ML(two-year-old). I don't want this blog to come up if a future friend, enemy, or the worst of all, frenemy, Google's them, so I will continue to keep their names out. (I know I didn't say boyfriend...shutup)<br /><br />I would like tell a story about karma. I don't particularly believe in karma, but we sometimes get what we deserve, so when that happens I will call it karma. <br /><br />I have a cousin, we will call him BA, who has a new baby boy. To say that BA is accident prone is like saying that a tsunami is wave. I am being a little mean for including this story in my blog, but if I was really mean, I could write a blog everyday for a year about all the things that BA has done to either embarass or hurt himself. I can only imagine the things that are in little baby BA's future, and I'm more than a little envious of all the stories he will have to tell about his father. <br /><br />A few weeks ago, I got to see BA, his wife EB, and little boy BA at a wedding shower. Usually EB takes the opportunity of seeing me to tell me stories about BA and the absent minded things he has done, but this time, BA was more than happy to tell me a story about EB and little boy BA. <br /><br />"Last week, EB was sitting on the couch and little boy BA was laying next to her. She was doing something else and the baby rolled sideways off the couch." He went on to describe how his lovely wife performed a spiderman, Tom Cruise, or ninja like move and caught little boy BA with one hand a split second before he hit the ground. I think he teased her about letting him fall off the couch, even though, to me, it sounded like he was more than impressed by his wife's superhuman quickness in saving their son from hitting the floor. <br /><br />Not long after telling me this story, BA was trying to figure out how to eat his food while holding his infant son. BA has trouble eating a peanut butter sandwich without getting a stain on his shirt, and nobody knows this better than his wife, so she told him to put little boy BA in the car seat and then move the car seat next to her. So BA gingerly placed his son into the car seat and grabbed the handle to swing it over to his wife. The problem was that he didn't lock the arm of the car seat, which allowed he seat to swing forward as he lifted it. Little boy BA didn't have a chance. As the front of the seat fell down, the back leaped forward, launching the baby into a head first dive into the carpet. There was a brief moment of stillness while everyone, including the baby, tried to figure out what just happened, but that ended when he let out a nice little scream to express his displeasure. I waited the obligatory few seconds to make sure the baby was okay before I laughed, and my wife scolded me until she realized that EB was laughing as well. <br /><br />I was nice. I told BA how I accidentally hit IR in the head with a pot when she was two. Okay, yes, that was after I laughed for a while and, yes, maybe I reenacted the position of the baby on the carpet after he was launched into a faceplant, but I was nice after that. <br /><br />So here is where the karma comes into play. The day after we got home, we were in the living room and one of the compact fluorescent bulbs in our ceiling fan burned out, or stopped working, I don't know the correct phrasing for when a bulb that is supposed to last for six years stops working after six months. So I got out the step stool to replace the bulb. IR and ML were playing on the floor around me and my wife was sitting on the couch. I climbed to the second step and unscrewed the old bulb and went to step back down. I felt something soft under my foot and looked down to see that it was ML's face. She had layed her head on the first step and I didn't know it. I jumped off and stepped on a toy and almost fell down. ML screamed and wouldn't let me console her. She went right to her mother and it was then that I saw a big red line across her cheek where it was pressed into the step stool. She eventually forgave me with a little smile after I got her a baggie of ice, but that just made me feel more guilty.<br /><br />So BA, as long as you never step on your son's face, you will not be as bad as me.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-33809532739026609952011-04-06T20:46:00.000-05:002011-04-06T21:26:41.068-05:00Back by Popular Demand, or Polite EncouragementIf you sincerely appreciate this blog and don't just check in on it every now and then to be a nice person, I apologize for my absence these past few months. I have to admit, I thought people were just being nice to me when they told me that they liked my blog. I was in the midst of my passion for my blog when I did something that I should not have done. I cruised the so-called popular blogs. I was bombarded with pictures of various things like sleeping babies posed to mimic famous paintings, and I was bored to death with matter of fact accounts of everyday things that I would hope that my wife would know better than to tell me about. Yes, there are things about my lovely spouse's day of which I simply don't need a recounting, just as she really doesn't need to hear every detail of my day. I was amazed and appalled that some of these ridiculous diaries had hundreds of followers. They were everything that I didn't want my blog to be, and it made me think that if I kept going that I would fall into the trap of writing about things that nobody cares to read, so I stopped. <br /><br />So if you were just being nice when you complained that I hadn't blogged in a long time, then this is karmic revenge. I will be the guy who shows up to your party after you accidentally talked about it in front of me and invited me to avoid awkwardness. I will be the neighbors who actually show up on your doorstep after you say "We should really get together sometime." to avoid a long conversation at the grocery store. On the other hand, if you were sincere in your urging for me to blog again, I will do my best to give you something to do instead of work, and hopefully it won't feel like work to read it. <br /><br />You all have my cousin, Doug, to blame for the revival of my blog. I assume most of the readers of this blog know him, but for those of you that don't, here is a brief and relevant description. Doug is the opposite of your mom. If your mom is the only person who tells you that you are pretty, smart, handsome, brave etc... then you are pretty sure its not true. If your mom tells you that you could use some deodorant, then you better go get some. If Doug is the only person who tells you that you stink, you check with your mom before taking a shower, but if he gives you a compliment, first you check to make sure you aren't dying or something, and if you are satisfied that you, in fact, are not dying, then you are pretty sure the compliment is sincere. <br />Now, let me admit, Doug has never read the blog, but he relayed messages of encouragement from other people and that is enough for me.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-38003862383338481012010-10-06T13:26:00.000-05:002010-10-06T14:53:09.872-05:00Screw Athletes--I'm Glad to be a Role ModelSomeone wants to be like Mike--not Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, or Michael J. Fox--Mike Simpson. Me. The four year old boy that lives in a townhouse next to ours wants to be like me. I'm honored. I take this boy to pre-school with the Tomboy, and we all play outside together with the other neighbor kids. Here is the conversation as relayed to me by his mother:<br /><br />Mother: "What do you want to do when you grow up?"<br />Boy: "Nothing."<br />Mother: "Honey, you can do anything you want or be whatever you want, but you have to do something."<br />Boy: "No I don't."<br />Mother: "You have to have somewhere to live, so you are going to have to work."<br />Boy: "I'll just live with you Mommy."<br />Mother: "Everyone does something."<br />Boy: "Not Mike. Mike doesn't do anything. I want to be like him."<br /><br />When I started this journey, this might have bothered me, but now I just think it's funny, and kind of true. I know I know, I do things. Stay at home parents do a lot. We do a lot of cooking. We wash a lot of dishes--everyday, all the time, sometimes more than we need to because somebody doesn't want the pink plate or the orange cup. We do laundry. We drive kids to school. We clean up after creatures that are smart enough to imagine that a piece of cardboard is a spaceship, but evidently not clever enough to know how to put it away. We read books that make our kids smarter, but us stupider. Yes, I know that isn't a word. We answer questions that make no sense. We clean bodily excretions that make mere mortals gag. We settle brawls over who had the Buzz doll first. We sit through lessons of various kinds, and though I haven't had to do this yet, I know that many stay at home parents drive their kids to endless practices and other endeavors. <br /><br />But sometimes I feel a little bit like Homer Simpson in an episode of The Simpsons where he was a truck driver. He discovered an on board computer that put the truck on auto pilot. It did everything so Homer didn't have to do anything. He flaunted this discovery, only to be attacked by the other truck drivers who didn't want their secret revealed. My wife thinks I need breaks when she gets home--I know, wonderful right, but I get breaks during the day. Having a second child was way harder than one at the beginning, but now it makes things infinitely easier. There have been days when I could leave the house for more than an hour and the girls probably wouldn't notice. They entertain each other better than I ever could. <br /><br />I have been doing this as my full time occupation for more than five months now, still pretty new, but so far so good. I have never been so universally content with a career choice. If I were the little neighbor boy, I would want to be me too. He is wrong about me not doing anything, but in a way he is right, because I don't do anything that I don't want to do.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-17363842957699264442010-10-04T14:04:00.000-05:002010-10-04T15:43:30.027-05:00Advice for Potential Dog OwnersIf you are considering adding a dog to your family, please read this and be warned. Dogs are great. I love our dog, but there are a few things that might have changed my mind about getting him in the first place. Here is a list of pros and cons that might help you make a better decision.<br /><br />Pro #1. Love. Once you have truly made a connection with your dog, you truly experience unconditional love. I can be mean, dismissive, and downright nasty to my dog and he still prefers me to anyone else.<br /><br />Con #1. Love. There is absolutely no way to get your dog to get the hint when you don't want him around. My dog will stand in front of me, wagging his tail, breathing stinky breath all over me, waiting for the slightest acknowledgment of his existence. <br /><br />Pro #2. Protection. He would never hurt anyone, but he is a big black lab with a big black lab bark that has scared more than a few people. I let him out to pee once and a big burly utility employee happened to be checking the meters. My dog barked and charged the poor guy, sending him falling backwards into the bushes before nuzzling him in the crotch and wagging his tail. I felt bad for the guy because I could hear his buddy laughing at him from their truck.<br /><br />Con #2. Protection. 8:30 pm. The bulldozer has just stopped crying from her crib--We were just about to give in, because it sounded like she was going to possibly make herself sick with crying. We can still hear the Tomboy flipping pages in her books at the top of the steps, but it is only a matter of time until she gives up and goes to bed. We are unwinding, almost giddy with the freedom of sleeping children. A ridiculous commercial plays on the TV where some giant termite with a pizza box rings a doorbell at someone's house. The dog, in his hyper vigilence, barks his big dog bark for about ten seconds. Just enough to wake the Bulldozer into a screaming fit and guaranteeing a night of little elbows and toes keeping us awake in our bed.<br /><br />Pro # 3. Activity. There are many days that I begrudgingly walk my dog, and feel grateful for the reason to get outside and enjoy the air.<br /><br />Con #3. Activity. There are many days that I begrudgingly walk my dog, and feel bitter towards him for needing to poop.<br /><br />Pro #4. Kids that don't fear animals--especially the excitable eighty pounds of pure muscle that is our dog. My girls can do anything short of trying to stick something in my dog's rear end, and he will simply ignore them and walk away.<br /><br />Con #4. Small children and dogs both want and need attention. This is the big one. If you have small children or plan on having them, stay clear of dogs. We had our dog for five years before we had the Tomboy, and he was a great dog. When he received the necessary attention and activity, we were all okay, but kids take that attention and activity away--at least for us it did. This all starts a downward spiral that slowly destroys all memory of why you got a dog in the first place.<br /><br />You start to wonder if the dog just started to smell bad, or if you just started to notice. The occasional licking of paws, butts, and crotches gets worse with inactivity and compounds manyfold in its irritating quality. If you don't vacuum at least once a day, your kids' clothes start to collect dog hair and it makes you feel like a bad parent. If having two small children is enough to make you ignore your dog most of the time like we do, the dog searches for ways to get your attention. In our case, this includes pooping and peeing in the house, especially when he gets in trouble for something else. Here is a scene that has happened and will probably happen again.<br /><br />It's seven pm. The girls and I have had a long day of ups and downs, and my wife has had a long day of work and we just went through a dinner that consisted of spilled drinks, uneaten food, and whiny girls. We sit down and guiltily hope for bedtime to arrive. It is hot and the girls insist on crawling all over us and fighting over who gets to sit where. The dog is standing, facing me with his hot stinky breath washing over my knees and a solitary drip of slobber drops from his tongue and lands on my foot.<br /><br />"Get away from me!" He jumps back and happens to dig his claws into my wife's bare foot.<br />"Ouch. Get out of here!" The bulldozer has gotten up in the turmoil and in his haste to get out of the room, the dog knocks her to the floor. She screams and we yell at the dog and he proceeds to start peeing. He starts at the top of the stairs and wiggles a trail of urine down the stairs and onto the landing before I can shove him outside. <br /><br />So, before you choose to bring that special puppy home to meet your family, think long and hard. Dogs are great--I love my dog, but I don't think we will be getting another one anytime soon.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-54341270806745714552010-09-20T13:15:00.000-05:002010-09-20T15:06:16.204-05:00Shiny Happy (pretentious judgmental) PeopleOkay, maybe not so shiny, but happy for the most part and definitely pretentious and partly judgmental. If you have ever been to one, you have probably guessed that I am talking about a wine festival. And yes we went, so I guess I have to be lumped in with the group. This particular wine festival was my first and, since I don't drink wine, wasn't my idea. My wife likes wine and she has been working very hard so I agreed to go and tote two little kids around a grassy field from stand to stand while my wife and her friends from work waited in line for one ounce sips of various wines in the misty rain. I consoled myself with little squares of cheese and sausage from various vendors. <br /><br />I wasn't really that bad and it wasn't our first choice to bring our kids, but we aren't really that babysitter savvy, so we brought them and they had fun. They ran around in circles and chased each other around various people that were standing in line waiting for their one ounce samples. They ate crackers and pushed sticks around in the mud and got dirty. I did my best to corral them, but every once in a while the bulldozer would run into someone's legs and fall down. Sometimes she would walk in a zig zag fashion front of someone who was trying to pass her. "Watch where you're walking." I would say and pull her out of the way. Most people were nice, but a few weren't so shiny and happy. <br /><br />"Why would you take kids to a wine festival? Are they interested in wine?" One very nice woman asked.<br />"So rude! So rude!" Another woman spewed as the bulldozer had the audacity to slow her from getting to her next ounce. I sympathized with her. I mean, it was fierce competition to get into line to get your ounce of blackberry zinfandel or apple merlot. In the time that the bulldozer was slowing her down, one or two people probably got into line before her. Worst of all, the festival only ran from 3:00 pm to 8:30 pm, so if she missed a moment, she might miss a few ounces. <br /><br />We weren't the only ones with kids there, but perhaps they are right. We shouldn't expose our young impressionable girls to that kind of atmosphere. The might grow up to think that it is acceptable for their future husbands to wear short dress shorts and sport coats and drive little sports cars to wine festivals while their kids are home with the nanny.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-58968039263425272692010-09-14T13:05:00.000-05:002010-09-14T14:39:51.648-05:00First Day of Pre-SchoolI guess this couldn't be a dad blog without the obligatory first day of school posting. Just like her mother, and nothing like me, the Tomboy was excited for school. The kind of excited that prompts her to ask about it everyday for the past two weeks. <br /><br />"Daddy, do I have school next day?"<br />"No honey, not until next week."<br /><br />"Daddy, do I have school today?"<br />"No, not until Monday."<br /><br />The other problem is that the Bulldozer is quite attached to her sister and, as all siblings do, believes in the right of all little sisters to do everything their big sisters do. <br /><br />Tomboy: "I'm going to school tomorrow!"<br />Bulldozer: "I go to schoo morrow! I go to schoo morrow!"<br /><br />She has to carry her backpack too, and she seems fine until we get back to the van and she realizes that her sister is not there. It is then that she cries and asks where her sister is. <br /><br />The big problem is me. I detested school and would do anything to get out of going, so I have a little anxiety over my kids going to school. We put the Tomboy in daycare for the first time when she was eight weeks old. Anyone who has done that knows how wrong it feels to leave your defenseless newborn child in the arms of strangers. Pre-school is not nearly as hard, but it still feels wrong to me. But I would do anything to get out of school. <br /><br />I guess in my anxiety I didn't think about what moms do on their kid's first day of school. I was the only one who didn't have a camera. I felt like the guy who goes to a wedding in white socks because he forgot dress socks. I felt like they were all looking at me. "Where's his camera?" All the kids were posing with the teacher one by one while we all crowded around the door, waiting to get in. The Tomboy saved me, "Daddy, I don't want a picture."<br /><br />"Okay, sweetie, no picture." And with that she hugged her teacher and walked into the room, no tears, not even a goodbye hug, she was just gone. The Bulldozer wasn't the only one who noticed her empty car seat.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-48229985065093338522010-09-09T21:17:00.000-05:002010-09-10T13:02:41.390-05:00The Queen of Tattle TaliaMy four year old, AKA the Precious Tomboy, has claimed a new title. She is officially the Queen of Tattle Talia. Her innate need and ability to tell on her little sister makes me wonder if her calling in life is to be hall monitor/police officer. As a parent, this presents a unique connundrum. <br /><br />Con #1: It is annoying. It is incredibly annoying, and I find myself scolding her for telling on her sister. <br /><br />"Daddy, the Bulldozer is looking at me and I don't like it."<br />"I'm sorry honey."<br />"She's still doing it."<br /><br />Pro #1: It is helpful. Sometimes it is a lifesaver when the bulldozer is doing something potentially hazardous, harmful, or potentially life threatening.<br /><br />"Daddy, the bulldozer is writing on the wall."<br />or<br />"Daddy, the bulldozer has scissors."<br />or <br />"Daddy, the bulldozer is standing on the table"<br /><br />Con #2: It is really annoying. Super annoying. Match the need to tell on someone with a flare for being overdramatic and you have a problem. The precious part of the Tomboy refers partly to her extreme flare for the dramatic. If she doesn't think that I see the bulldozer push her or hit her, she acts as if she has been mortally wounded, but if I react quickly to reprimand the bulldozer for her transgressions, it is as if it never happened. <br /><br />Con #3: The bulldozer is an instigator. At two years old, she already likes to get a reaction out of her sister. Mix that with the Tomboy's over dramatic reactions to things that happen without my knowledge and you have a problem. I am positive that she attacks her sister (yes, attack is the right word) when I am not looking to get a bigger reaction. I know that you are thinking, "Of course, she doesn't want to get caught", but my theory is that she does it to get a bigger reaction. She knows that the Tomboy screams louder when I am not looking. <br /><br />Con #4: Guilt. <br /><br />"Daddy, the Bulldozer scratched me boo hoo hoo."<br />"Is it really that bad?"<br />"It hurts Daddy."<br />"Should we go to the hospital?" Yes, I know, I shouldn't be sarcastic with my four year old daughter.<br />"Noooooo. But it hurts Daddy. Look." She points to three deep red lines on her arm that I know will scab later.<br />"I'm sorry honey." It is at this point that the bulldozer swaggers in and smiles at me and refuses to say sorry.<br /><br />Con #5: It is incredibly aggravating. <br /><br />"Daddy, the Bulldozer is going to tell on me!"Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-36736346862564805652010-09-08T13:47:00.000-05:002010-09-08T14:04:24.971-05:00Okay, I am officially not the Master of NapsI spoke too soon. If you have read my previous posts would might have come across a blog posting that boasted of my absolute mastery of getting kids to take naps. I still follow all of my steps, but I might get one nap a week if I am lucky. Now I get an hour of listening to them play together and then I go into their room to find every toy, blanket, and pair of shoes that can possibly fit on the floor and two kids who are triumphant in their ability to wait me out.<br /><br />A few days ago, the day we had been afraid of arrived. I put them in their room for a nap and returned an hour later to find chalk handprints all over the hallway walls and an empty crib. The Tomboy was surprised to see me.<br /><br />"Where is the bulldozer?"<br />"She got out."<br />"I can see that. Where is she?" It was then that the two year old Bulldozer with chalked hands jumps out from the closet door and yells.<br />"I get out! I get out!"<br />"How did you get out." It was then that the Tomboy tries to climb over the railing of her sister's crib to show me.<br />"Like this Daddy."<br /><br />In short, this posting is to officially relinquish my title of Master of Naps. Maybe I can be the Master of Putting Toy Story in the DVD player now.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-23320902032329209892010-09-07T15:39:00.000-05:002010-09-07T16:25:04.420-05:00Anyone for Leftovers?There is a lot about being a stay at home parent that most people don't think about. Sure, when I tell people that I am a stay at home dad, most people say things like "I couldn't do it", or "Good for you", but I get the feeling that some of those people think that it wouldn't be that hard or that they wish that they had the means to stay home with their kids. I get that. I feel pretty lucky that I get to be with my girls for all of these important memories. But there are a few things that get old and stay old and never go away. Yes, laundry is harder because their clothes are miniature and hard to fold, but the biggest surprise to me as a stay at home dad was how much time I devote to feeding two kids that together weigh less than seventy pounds.<br /><br />Breakfast can be easy if they aren't sick of Honeynut Cheerios or cinnamon waffles, but sometimes I make pancakes or eggs and that introduces the second problem with the feeding schedule--dishes. I want to go back to my college self and slap him silly for thinking that washing dishes was hard. I wash more dishes in one day than I did in a week when I was single. The sad thing is that my sink was always full of dirty dishes that I would clean when I needed them. If I let dishes pile up in the sink now, the whole house is paralyzed. When my wife and I were newly married, her grandparents came to see us and the dishes were my job then too. My wife was traumatized to find out that her grandmother did our dishes before she got home from work. I still think about that day when the dishes are piling up. <br /><br />Lunch and dinner are infinitely harder on the feeding front. This introduces the third problem with feeding two small children--the waste. I feel terribly guilty about the sheer mass of food that I throw away on a regular basis. For a while I went the "Momnivore" route and tried to survive on the food that they didn't eat, but I felt like a vulture waiting for them to confirm that they were done eating, and we would very often have a meltdown from a child who was suddenly hungry for what I had just eaten. I also thought it would help me lose weight, but it had the opposite effect. <br /><br />If we lived in the country I would get pigs and feed them solely on the food that my girls don't eat. Those would be some award winning pigs. I have also considered opening up a stand at a farmers market to sell the leftovers for compost or to some starving college student. <br /><br />The only sure-fire thing that they will eat without complaint is macaroni and cheese, and lucky for me, they don't like the microwave variety--it has to be Kraft Three Cheese shells--Thanks to my wife, who likes it too. The pigs would have a great time with the green beans, apples, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, etc..., but they would have to do without macaroni and cheese. <br /><br />This leads me to the really big problem with feeding two small children. It is demoralizing and painful (yes I am being overly dramatic) to spend a lot of time preparing a meal that you think is going to be a hit and be healthy, only to have your kids push it around on their plate and say that it smells funny or that they don't like it. With that in mind, Mom, I have to apologize. I am sorry for complaining about the Shake and Bake chicken, or the Old El Paso taco night. I am sorry for complaining that we had pork chops or orange roughy too often. I am sorry for every time that I ever turned my nose up to anything you cooked for me.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-43758811315527220062010-08-25T13:56:00.000-05:002010-08-25T13:58:03.065-05:00Ode to a Special DadThis is mainly a blog about funny things or stupid mistakes, but it is also about being a dad. Today I want to dedicate this blog to a special dad who passed away after a battle with cancer.<br /><br />Guy Vitale was a wonderful dad and great guy and his life is an inspiration to me. I have known him for a long time, because he was a friend of my parents and a neighbor to my cousins, but I didn’t really get to know him until a fishing trip to Canada about 18 years ago. On that trip I got to know a kind and funny man who liked to goof around and be silly—far from the serious businessman that I thought he was. Don’t get me wrong, he was a successful businessman, but that was only a small part of his personality.<br /><br />Shortly after our trip to Canada, my parents unfortunately divorced. Don’t worry this blog isn’t about divorce. One of the many drawbacks of divorce is that friends don’t seem to know how to handle it. There are three ways that people handle a divorce in their social circle. The first and most common way that people handle a divorce is that they choose sides. For some reason they felt that if my parents couldn’t share a home anymore that they couldn’t share friends either. Other people abandoned my parents altogether. The last option available to friends is to stay friends with both people. <br /><br />I have been and will always be grateful to Guy for being one of the few people who remained a good friend to both my parents. <br /><br />He helped me with a job when I needed it, and I am one a many that he did that for. There are too many moments of kindness from Guy that I can mention in one blog, but to Guy I say thank you. Thank you for being an example of a good and kind man. Thank you for being a kind and gracious friend to my family and me. Thank you for showing me how to be silly and fun and still work hard and succeed. To the Vitale family I can only say how sorry I am for your loss. He was the real deal.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498505604086823501.post-43702741966166447322010-08-19T13:27:00.000-05:002010-08-25T13:04:55.231-05:00The Precious Tomboy and the Girly BulldozerI'm getting tired of labeling my daughters the Four-year-old and the Two-year-old, but I am not going to publish their names online until they are old enough to give me permission, so I have decided to give them online names that are indicative of their personalities.<br /><br />My oldest daughter will from now on be referred to as the Precious Tomboy. She prefers to play with boys and generally plays with toys that society sees as boy toys. She likes to play with cars, trains, and action figures and while she does play with dolls, usually it seems to be her way of acting like an adult or big sister because all she does is put them to sleep or in time out. She also hates dresses and loves her t-shirts and running shoes. The precious part refers to the elements of her personality that society sees as feminine. She is a wonderful and gentle big sister. She is a perfectionist and likes everything to be a certain way. She also has a flare for the dramatic. Sometimes it is hard to tell if the world is going to end in seconds or the tag on her shirt is itching her neck. She loves to run and play in the dirt but heaven forbid she gets too dirty or an ant happens to scamper within three feet of her.<br /><br />My two-year-old is just the opposite and will be referred to as the Girly Bulldozer or just the Bulldozer. She loves dolls, babies, pretty shoes, and dresses, but she is very likely to get those pretty clothes covered in dirt while she jumps and rolls around in any dirt she can find. She is an instigator too. She likes to cause trouble and she likes to play rough, especially with her sister. Both girls are pretty athletic, but the Precious Tomboy has the classic advanced language skills of a girl, while the Bulldozer's physical development seems to be outpacing her language skills.Mike Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17535904516589976754noreply@blogger.com0