Recent NPR story on SAHDs

The other day, I caught part of this on the radio. Here is the entire story:

“Stay-At-Home Dads, Breadwinner Moms And Making It All Work”

Link to the story and 200+ comments

Stay in your bed and GO TO SLEEP!!

In the last month or two, Will lost his desire/ability to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Not sure how or why but it’s driving me nuts.

Historically, our ‘routine’ was in pajamas, teeth brushed and bedtimes stories read by 8 or 8:30pm, at the latest. Usually, after in bed, he’d bang around for 10-15 minutes then silence. Now recently, he gets out of bed between 3 and 37 times a night with excuses like:

• can I have a band aid?
• I’m thirsty
• I’m hungry
• I’m still thirsty
• I can’t sleep
• I need to look at myself in the bathroom mirror
• I have an idea, tomorrow, let’s go fishing

As I write this, it’s 10:21pm and he is still awake after I put him down two hours ago…Go to SLEEP!!!

The reaction:

At the end of the day, because I’m tired and often I don’t react well to this situation. I know I should be more patient but its a struggle. KW is much better about reacting with a ‘positive’ solution (let’s read one more book) vs my ‘negative’ one (if you get up one more time, I’ll take your beloved Orca whale stuffed animal and throw it out the window).

Normally, I have more patience, honestly.

From the 15 minutes of research I’ve done, the ‘routine’ is a must have. Which we do. He knows the routine, we discuss it so no surprises. Perhaps we could be more consistent with the time we get him into bed….

The cause:

Could he be going through a growth spurt? The easiest cause to point my finger at is that he sometimes naps at school. And he did today. But, some days with no nap, he still can’t get to sleep at a reasonable time, for a 4 year old.

So, what suggestions do you have to help get our 4 year old to stay in his bed and fall asleep at a reasonable hour??

Never under estimate the power of the jinx

I’m into my third week of training for my next marathon after taking off about 2 months for an injury. Haven’t discussed the current training much here, because I truly believe if I talk too much about my training, specifically how its going pretty well, I will jinx myself and an injury will pop up. I learned at a very young age: Never under estimate the power of the jinx.

Where did I learn such a valuable lesson, (or paranoia)….?

Growing up in North Carolina, in the 1970s, the number one show in reruns was The Andy Griffith show. It seemed to be on, at least once a day, every day for the entire 25 years I lived in the state. One of my favorite episodes was called “the jinx.” A local, is deemed a ‘jinx’ which naturally Barney believes and Andy thinks is non sense. Barney is determined to prevent his best friend Andy from being infected by this jinx that he combats the threat with one of the all time great quotes from the show:

Barney Fife: “Fly away buzzard, fly away crow, way down south where the winds don’t blow. Rub your nose and give two winks and save us from this awful jinx.”

After all these years, thinking about that episode still makes me laugh.

Back to running…. I was originally talking about my Marathon training. The knee is holding up and I’m hitting 30 miles this week and completed a 12 mile long run last week. So far so good. The only downside is that I wish I had another 4 weeks to get into BQ shape since this course is ideal for setting a PR.  But at least I should be able to run (but not race) the Tunnel marathon in 10 weeks. From where I was in February (not running), I can’t complain.

But periodically, I still rub my nose and give two winks.

New favorite song

Will really enjoys music. Often, he’ll play his toy piano or guitar. But what he really loves is to sing. And he is not shy about it.

He has sung at school, at friend’s house and even at a restaurant. Hope we can help nurture that type of self-confidence. Wish I had it…

Currently, his favorite song is “Leaving on a jet plane”, which I think I’ve discussed earlier. Prefers John Denver to PP&M. And he actually knows about 90% of the words.

But the other day, my brother had sent a video of the latest Brit (alt rock, folk, whatever label) wunderkid and I played it with Will nearby. Within 5 seconds he ambled over and asked, “what is that?”

He stared at the screen, silent, in the zone. Asked to hear it again.

It’s Jake Bugg, at just 19 can express the longing of one decades older. If you haven’t heard of him, likely will soon. Powerful stuff:

Christmas List

Following Will’s sense of order and preparation, today, out of nowhere he asked that I write down his Christmas list.

As of today, here is what he wants for Christmas:

• Concorde toy plane
• Jumbo Jet
• Pen
• Butterfly toy
• Obama airplane toy ‘that makes noise’
• Little Rabbit Toy ‘that hops around all by itself’
• Horse toy that ‘walks all by itself’
• Kindle ‘when I’m old as my dad or age 5′

And to make sure Santa would see this list, when he walks into our kitchen, I was told to post it on the kitchen wall board.

Tough decision

Today’s weather is nearly perfect. High of 67 and bright, warm sunshine. The type of day just made for a nice long run. Today, I’m supposed to run 10 but not sure I should. Tough decision…

My knee is not 100%, still have some ‘tightness’ above and around the knee that just isn’t right. But, it doesn’t hurt to run, I’m just sore after. Last week ran 8 and surprised at the lack of soreness next day. Oddly, the knee was more sore after an easy 4 a few days later.

Since the 8 wasn’t traumatic, going for 10.

The safe route would be to scale back, not push my mileage and bag the July marathon. But, not ready to do that, yet.

Let’s see how 10 goes.

Save the little things they say

Yesterday, at, as my friend Todd calls it, the “BM” (Ballard Market), one of the check out folks spoke to Will as I loaded our supplies on the check out belt. Asked him his age and he replied “4″. Next she turned to me and smiled then said, “make sure to record all the great things he says. They give the best advice.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear the suggestion to record him but was surprised to hear the reason to record- ‘their advice.’

Speaking of what great things to save or savior that toddlers say…the other day, I wish I could have prerecorded what he said in a public place and then deleted it before he said it. Will and I were talking to a group of parents and one 2 year old, that we do not know very well and Will turns to the 2 year old and says, “I like your penis.” Stunned and embarrassed, I grabbed him and lowered down to speak directly into his face and warned him about using ‘bathroom words.’ I didn’t want to over react, since that would reinforce to him that saying that word leads to parental reaction. Then (of course) within seconds, the 2 year calls out, “penis, penis, oh my penis.”

Now I’m even more embarrassed, luckily the child’s mother saves the day by saying, “yeah, we are very familiar with that word.” And I try to laugh it off.

Glad I didn’t make a big deal of it because I know it could have been much, much worse. Could have been the ‘F-bomb’.

So, what amazingly, inappropriate or embarrassing words has your child spoken in public?