Raising Kids In Today's World

First, my thoughts and prayers are with those in Paris and the families of the victims of today's attacks.

Sometimes, one of my single friends will ask me, "How can you have kids today?"

I know what it is they're referring to. See the above statements about the incidents today in Paris, for example. Then, you have to account for all the conspiracy beliefs that fall in with the current government here in America - which is scary if even a tenth of it is true.

The gun violence in major cities. The child molesters. Human trafficking. How could I have two little girls in a world with so much drug addiction, hate, racism, cruelty, etc...

I read where a kid in Tampa is possibly looking at sexual harassment charges because he wrote a few love letters to a girl in his class - none of them sexual, all of them just saying why he liked her.

The kid is 9.

It's rough wanting to parent some days, even without the pressures from around society. Some days, you just don't want to get out of bed and make yourself breakfast, much less feed your five year old. Then, you add in all of the external forces that seem to be working hard to make you afraid  you and cringe.

But then you get your butt out of bed and fix the kid a bowl of cereal.  Or you mix up the pancake batter.  Or you toast some waffles.  You fry the bacon and beat the eggs.

You get on with your life and you parent, because that's what you do.

How can I parent in this day and age? How dare I bring kids into this world?

I don't believe in having a "spirit of fear."

Because I'm not a coward, and I'm not raising cowards.  That's the short answer.

It boils down to the belief that things will get better and your kids may be the ones who make it better. It boils down to faith. Things may get worse but eventually, it'll all pass away.

My 5 year old is in love with Jesus. She prays, she uses a little Bible devotional app every night, and she sings about her relationship with God. She's 5. When she and I have some pretty serious talks, she takes it back to what God wants, what Jesus wants for her life.  And, her life won't always be easy for her, but when the going gets tough, she's a firm believer in an even tougher God.

How could I parent kids in today's scary society?

Because we need more kids with faith to move mountains. We need more people in our world like my kids.  Maybe that's arrogant of me to think, but I'm a dad, so get over it.

Time Flies When You Don't Blog

I've repeatedly said I'm going to start blogging again and failed to do it, so let's have none of that.

Let's begin with... what all has happened since I last blogged?

Lost a lot of weight.Got a new job in a new state. Moved. Was laid off. Went through a period of feeling sorry for myself. Gained weight back. Got another new job. Wife got a new job. Had kid number 2.

That's about it.

Here we are.  Oh, and I also tried starting a YouTube channel that got maybe 50 views.  You may have seen some of them.

So what will I talk about now that I'm "back?"

Kid number 2. Kid Number 1. Life, the universe, and everything.

Being a dad in this day and age is hard work, even with a very present wife to share the load with.  I'll talk about that in a later blog, I think, but not today.  Today, I end this blog here.

I'm back. Again. For real this time. Maybe. Sort of.

Autumn Fun

One thing I love about the age we live in is that I can make videos of my kid easily. Any time we go to the park, I can take a few hundred pictures, the phone processes everything, and turns it all into one big video.

For instance, during a recent trip home, I video recorded my dad walking around a small pond. It strangely reminded me of another video.

Anyway, I went to the park with Evie a few times over the past couple of weeks and made some great little videos. During the course of one of the little trips, I noticed a distinct pattern in my child's behavior: she is fascinated with autumn leaves.

No, check that.

She's fascinated with throwing these leaves at her dad.

Evie will run all over the park and gather up as many leaves as she can, just to disperse them at me with the highest velocity she can manage with her little arms. She's also let me know that one of her deepest desires is to make a huge pile and jump in them, but since we have currently have no yard of our own and maintenance actually does a good (albeit annoyingly so) job of keeping the leaves picked up around our home, it's hard to get that arranged.

For the moment, though, throwing stuff at her old man really seems to keep her happy. It's just leaves, it's not like she's throwing daggers or small automobiles at me, so I guess I can't complain.

Puh... puh... POWER RANGERS???

One thing I've learned about being a parent is that no matter how well I know my kid, she still surprises me.

If I think she won't like one food, she'll love it. Once I think I've got her craziness figured out, she shows me there are methods to her madness. And, speaking of madness, right when I think she'll break down and have a fit, she laughs the incident off and prances along.

Kids are confusing.

I love the fact my kid likes comic books. She wants to sit down and watch Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in the Justice League cartoons I liked in Jr. High. If a cartoon gets too violent, she quickly loses interest, but overall, she likes seeing superheros do their thing.

A few days ago, I was scanning through Netflix for something to watch when I stumbled upon an area I thought was long, long behind me.

Power Rangers.

Back in August I went to Comic-Con and the Green Ranger was there. He's an MMA fighter now. So there's that. That's the extent of my knowledge about the Power Rangers after the movie they made where they all got new plastic looking costumes.

Then I hear, "DADDY! DADDY! POWA RANGERS! POWA RANGERS! I WANNA BE PINK!"

Long story short, my afternoon was shot.

If you call watching one of the shows you secretly liked when you were a kid with your kid a shot afternoon.

It was like the whole "Doctor Who" thing all over again. It was fun.

And man is that show cheesier than I remember!

Power Rangers, not Doctor Who. I love Who's cheesiness!

Habitually Trying To Get Back Into Blogging

I constantly tell myself I need to get back to my blog.

I need to sit down and write and move on with my life and put the past behind me and finally let go. This one blog post, probably the last I really threw my heart into, was re-read today. By me. It's been a while now, and I think I'm ready to start writing again. We have made so many happy memories since then with the child we do have, I have to get over the one that we don't.

Also, when re-reading that, I realized there are several spelling and grammar errors so if you read it and want to carve your eyes out with a fork - I understand.

So what to say? What to talk about? Hmmmm...

My daughter.

This kid is a joy. In fact, I am almost convinced she is pure joy personified. That, or she is sneaking candy when we aren't looking, but for now we'll just say she's a happy kid.

She's 3 and a half now, and starting to really show her personality. She looks like her mom, and often shows her mom's attitude, but there is so much of my geekiness in her it is so hard not to be proud. In fact, if you look at the pictures I posted before I sat down to write this, you may notice we had a lightsaber fight. This is actually the third time in the past few weeks we've been able to get outside and work on her Jedi/Sith skills. I'm actually quite proud of the fact that she wants to play with the toy light swords.

Sometimes, unexpectedly, my heart will melt when I pick her up from daycare and hear, "Daddy, I wanna watch Star Wars" from the back seat.

But then, then there are scenes like this.

I feel like a parent who does a pretty good job, but when you sit down to pray before a meal with your family, and your daughter offers to pray, or she starts to actually ask questions like, "Where is God?" and "Where is Jesus" it makes me pretty happy. It helps that I feel like I'm prepared to answer those questions, or at least break them down to a level she can understand.

Recently, at the dinner table, she prayed the whole "God is great, God is good, thank you God for this food" prayer, and when I prayed differently, she tried correcting me and told me that's not how you're supposed to pray. Imagine me, this 31 year old bearded sasquatch sitting down with this tiny 3 year old and explaining the intricacies of prayer, and why it's okay to pray your own way, because God hears the prayers of his children. What's crazy is that she understood it. The way I explained it must have clicked perfectly because she hasn't tried correcting anyone on how they pray, and has even expanded a little on her own prayers. Okay, they all still begin with "God is great, God is good, thank you God for this food" even when it's night time prayers and she's about to go to sleep, but hey, progress is progress.

Today, after we had our lightsaber fight, we went to Taco Bell and had lunch. I realized it's the first time we've been able to sit down one-on-one in a while. The lunches we used to have every Friday have dissolved since I transferred to my new job and new schedule. It really reminded me of why I loved them.

I got to sit there and talk to my daughter about anything. Mostly, the conversation was about the cinnamon twists and why Daddy wouldn't share ALL of his Doritos (she got half the bag, by the way). But it was nice just hearing the little girl across the table from me talk about anything she wanted.

Long story short, I'm going to try and blog more often. Again.

Some pictures (Because I haven't written lately)

So... I haven't updated nearly as much as I had hoped lately. But here's some pictures to make up for it.

And here's an older one, just because:

They Grow Up So Fast

All Done Daddy!

So this morning I was doing push-ups, minding my own business, trying to lose weight.

Then, my daughter, who had just finished her breakfast of waffles and strawberries, decided to show me the plate.

Up close.

In my face.

As I was coming down for another push-up.

FACE FULL OF SYRUP.


These are the joys of parenting.

Who You Gonna Call?

One thing you should know is that my daughter is very articulate. She doesn't say "Daddy" like a normal American child may. Whereas most kids say, "Daddee," my daughter puts an almost British sounding spin on it. "Dat-tee," she will often say. She has various tones when she says it, too. For instance, when I break wind, there's a tone of disappointment in her voice: "Daaat-teee!" or if she needs something, a sense of urgency, "Dattee! Dattee!"

It brightens my day when I come home and hear, "DAT-TEE!!!" and hear small feet pounding into the carpet as she runs up to give me a hug.

I mean, as big, bearded and manly as I try to be, I love the kid and it melts my heart. It is the kind of thing every father should want to hear.

Last night, around 4 am, I thought I was actually having a dream about it, too. Which, to be honest, sounds kind of weird now that I think about it.

Sleeping, I heard, "DAT-tee! DAT-TEE!"

In my dream, I was surrounded by darkness and I could hear my daughter crying out for me and I couldn't find her, and I woke up scared something had gone wrong.

It had. I woke up and stumbled in the dark to her room.

My daughter stood there, just peeing on the floor. I picked her up and moved her to the toilet quickly, getting that wonderful feeling of urine on my feet that most guys only know when they wake up in the middle of the night and completely miss the toilet. But that's their own brand, and this was my kid's. So... extra gross.

She was crying, sad that she'd had an accident. I cleaned up the mess while she finished on the toilet, consoled her, cleaned her up and changed her clothes. Then, I put her back to bed and went back to bed myself. My wife had dealt with these situations enough recently, I figured I'd let her sleep and not try to wake her up any more than I had to.

Right before I dozed back off I realized something that made my Father's Day...

When my daughter is scared, afraid to have an accident or just needs someone to help, she calls for her daddy.

Dessert is Heck

Imagine if you will, a soldier. He's trapped behind enemy lines, fighting each day just to survive. He sleeps maybe three hours a day, gaining sustenance from whatever roughage he can get his hands on.

In the afternoons, he runs from the enemy, hides from them, and does whatever he can to avoid them in hopes that he'll someday be reunited with his unit.

He's lost all contact with the outside world. What thoughts race through his head? "Is the war over? It has to be ongoing, otherwise why are they still chasing me? What news do we have from Washington? Is there even a Washington DC still standing? What about my friends? My family?" A million questions with a million possible answers are all he has for entertainment.

One day, after everything has taken its toll, he loses his last morsel of hope. He lays down in a field to die.

As he hears shouting and gunfire, all he can hope for is that his captors grant him a swift death before the vultures have the opportunity to pick meat from his weakened bones. But they aren't the enemy... they're his friends. He's been rescued. He's safe.

Now, imagine a 3 year old girl being told before a meal that if she cleans her plate she'll be given ice cream.

From my daughter's point of view, these stories are pretty much the same.