New Year's Resolution and the Art of Skipping

2013 Came rolling in under the blanket of some sort of ridiculous flu strain that hammered our household and still continues to linger here on January 30th. I was ready for the new year and by New Year I mean christmas is over, lets get to spring weather. For New Years Eve, Azsure and I decided it would be fun to do a Forbidden Foods Night. Basically, we would go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of stuff that we used to love before we were healthy food nuts,(read fat. big and fat) and enjoy the preservative laden, trans-fatty goodness. We landed on a bunch of frozen TGI Friday Appetizers like potato skins and spinach dip and chicken wings. Here's a tip for everyone. That stuff is gross. Really gross. If you have been eating a generally boxed food free diet, when you reintroduce it your body will rebel. I felt pretty nasty afterward but we made it awake until the Eastern time zone new year which was good enough.

I normally dont make resolutions, per se, but have goals for the year which include some sort of growth or achievement. This year, I made a few related to spiritual growth. I have been in a spiritual search mode lately and a questioning one at that. I decided to attempt to look at things from a distance and question the possibilities of how and why I approach things the way I do. So I landed at the ideas that you see in the picture to the left and wrote them down, snapped a pic and put it my phone lock page so that when I pull out my phone, I see the list.

The basics of the resolution are to search out things that are good for my soul and leave things that are not good for my soul. Pretty simple right? Maybe? I don't know. I've been having problems with the letting go of things that are bad for my soul. Politics and ego are on the list and those are both tough. I'm an egomaniacal narcissist like most other humans and as far as the politics goes, everyone seems to have gone crazy and I find it hard to stay out of the pointing out that they are crazy. So, pretty much, I have been focusing on the things that are good for my soul. Listening to music, listing to things that make me laugh, saying "hi" to random people and smiling a lot. It's been very good for me and apparently good for my soul. I've been investigating things that I wonder about like buddhism and interesting space stuff like the Apophis asteroid. The asteroid itself isn't really good for my soul but the knowledge is. I've been consciously attempting to open myself up to the possibilities of just about everything in order just be happier.

Enter the skipping.

Lately, I have been noticing that Soijer skips everywhere. In noticing it, I realize that she has always done this. Any time there is distance to cover, she skips it. Kids like to skip. No big secret. What I have been noticing lately is the joy she seems to be experiencing merely by skipping. Yeah, you can see where this is going. I think to myself "hmmm....why not? Why not try some skipping and see where it takes me." I'm not really a stranger to doing odd things out in public. Once, years ago, when I was in a strange phase of doing the robot dance, a woman cut in front of me at the grocery store to reach a Hot Pocket and I robot danced at her in a threatening fashion. That being said, I am a little more self conscious around other people these days. Then it dawned on me. This little exercise could provide a "good for my soul" experience while at the same time allowing me to let go of my ego which is in the "bad for my soul" category. A Two-fer.

Now, it is one thing to skip through a parking lot with your 5 year old daughter.oh...look at that dad with his little girl. how sweet! It is quite another for a grown man to skip any measure of distance, Someone better call some sort of authority. Hence the aforementioned letting go of ego two-fer. Well, growth comes at a price so when I was a Meijer the other night getting some treats for Azsure and I, my opportunity presented it self. A toe in the water, if you will. It was dark so I had a little cover. I got out of the car, talked myself into it, and skipped, like a happy little schoolgirl, a good 50 meters to the door. A few people kind of looked at me and I did get an obvious "what the f*$k is this a$$hole doing" from one guy, but I really didn't care. It was hilarious. I even laughed out loud a little. There was joy. A decent amount of it. I don't know if it came from the skip itself or if it was the feeling that I pulled some sort of trick on everybody. It may have just been the look on that one guy's face. Either way, It was joyful and really fun. I'll probably do it some more because, regardless of what the actual act consisted of, it brought to the front things that are good for me.

I should assure everybody (My lovely wife) that I am not really going crazy or having a mid life crisis. I'm just approaching things a little differently. I literally woke up one day with a huge "why?" epiphany. Why is this? Why should I do that? It brought a large amount of understanding to me regarding the kids who ask why way too many times. I need to be willing to answer those questions and be ready to encourage them to try to find the answers too. I need to join with them, not just be the answer man or say "because I said so". I need to explore the possibilities with them.

That will be better for all of our souls.

A sweet new bundle of joy.......

As the beginning of the school year grew closer and closer, I began to daydream about long hours of kidless time. Long bike rides around town while doing errands, getting lists actually done, the library all by myself. All of the things that sound completely boring, but to be done without a couple of short stacks whining from the back seat about getting Cold Stone Creamery after knocking over a bunch of cereal boxes at the grocery store, is pure bliss. Don't get me wrong, when its fun time, its fun but errands need to get done to get back to the fun.

10 days. That was my time. 10 days. Then came the new "addition" to our family.

My wife had been wanting to get a dog for a while and was hoping for a specific breed to run long distances and be protective and all other traits that everyone wants in a dog. The internet told her that a Rhodesian Ridgeback fit her description to a T. Well, as luck would have it, after a few weeks of search, we found one at the Decatur Animal Control. She was 4 months old and cute as a button. No ridge and possibly mixed with boxer. We took her home that day.

We named her Zuzu and she was the cutest thing ever. We spent a bundle on all sorts of gear that a Standard American Family needs. The local big box pet stores will tell you what you need, by the way. So very helpful. Thank You. Crate, toys, treats, leashes, harnesses, just about everything you need when you adopt a dog. Adopt your pets, people. Seriously. We had our new little ball of puppy energy and were all in the sweet honeymoon phase of happy, wrinkly puppy headed wonderland.

Enter Zuzu, ultra strong, chewing, spastic, warrior princess. Ho. Li. Shit. As a professional child herder for 7 years, I can handle some pretty crazy stuff. Ephram covered head to toe in a Costco sized vat of vaseline. Soijer, similarly covered head to toe, but in poop. But this was a challenge. A highly mobile, chewing machine with the talent of seeking out the most important things and destroying them and with boundless energy. Seriously, I felt like like Sarah Conner in the Terminator "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop! ever! until you are dead! Couch pillows. Kids Toys. Our tree in the back yard. My Triathlon Bike. My freaking triathlon Bike? Coats. Gloves. Anything and everything that this little beast could get her mouth on was chewed to bits. There was jumping on random people and digging giant holes in the yard and all other sorts of crazy behavior.

I was having complete adoption regret but was determined to get a handle on this animal.

We tried a few things. People told us we had a dominance issue. Zuzu would not leave my wife alone with jumping and nipping. She, my wife, needed to assert her dominance they said. Not the best idea. It made for a confrontational back and forth and was frustrating to us all. We went through Puppy I and Puppy II at Petco. She did really well. Did I mention that she is a genius? Sit, come, lie down, blah blah, all the basics, she was a pro. But the aggressive behavior towards my wife as well as other visitors persisted. We needed some help. We were considering shock collars, pinch collars, anything that may work. I didn't feel good about causing our new pup pain but we were getting desperate. Enter Bob Ryder at Pawsitive Transformations. Compassionate, humane training. No intimidation or painful reinforcement. Hippies unite! We called him, he came for a 90 minute consult and by the end, Azsure was sitting on the couch and Zuzu was sitting politely on the floor next to her. We hired him for the 5 session Canine Good Citizen package. That package just ended a few days ago. Bob is awesome. Zuzu is a different dog. Controllable at least. Still a bundle of energy but manageable.

And I love the crap out of her.

She is my buddy. She still has her problems and needs but she is here and sweet and beautiful. She brings me happiness and stress and calm. Often, I go over to where she sleeps in front of the fireplace and baby talk to her while I scratch her belly. I'm a 38 year old man baby talking to a dog. Why? Because she loves the crap out of this whole family. She gets that funny dog bendy wiggle when my wife comes down in the morning to go to work. She is always willing to play. Always. With anybody. She has some sort of weird dog sense that it is time for the kids to come home on the bus and she goes and sits at the window to watch for them. She is our newest member of the family.

and I am grateful for her.......

Back to "the life"

It's been almost 7 years since I became an At-home Dad. It started when Ephram, my 6 year old son arrived. I took a part time job 2 years later with our church when my daughter, Soijer was just a few months old and continued until the December 2011 move from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Bloomington, Illinois when my wife took a new position with her company. So now I am back to it. At-home full time. Domestic engineer. Homemaker. Mr. effing Mom. God, I hate that name

I've always considered the job of raising my kids my primary occupation but it seems that having an actual money making job title had a little more comfort in it than I thought. That actually irritates me because I loathe the whole psychology of "men" feeling like "men" and having problems adjusting to a role normally held by women. I'm pretty much over it now but am still just a little pissed at myself for the tiny amount of weirdness I felt the few times I told people I was an At Home Dad.

I am enjoying the role more than ever. Not the cleaning of the giant house that we purchased, but the act of parenting my kids. I've had some epic games of hide and seek and am teaching Ephram to play chess. I'm continuing my nazi health food regimen, interspersed with fun treats. Calm down., and just generally embracing the fantastic age that my kids are at. I am doing my best to teach them how utterly crappy the general social attitude is towards things like value, health and convenience are , as well as the important stuff, like how Justin Bieber's complete body of work can't stand up to Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer"

All in all, I am pretty happy to be back being Dad all the time. As I mentioned earlier, my kids are at a great age. They worship me. They think my ability to take any word and incorporate it into a song about poop on the spot that rhymes and everything is the coolest talent ever. yeah, it really is. It's fun. Sometimes irritating and stressful, but fun. So yeah, it's good to be back


Here We Go.