A Father's Love

Becoming a father changes a person forever.  From the moment the child enters the world, nothing is ever the same for a father, or for that matter a mother, although becoming a mother changes a person even earlier I am sure.  The way a father views the world is different than the way an ordinary man views the world.  Nothing will ever be the same as it used to and a man finds that he has a larger capacity for love than he ever thought was possible.   Life moves beyond the self to include those around him.  The love of a child is different than any other love one can experience.  Having part of you go into creating a child does not take a way anything of who you are, rather it increases what you have to offer.  You find reserves of energy and patience that were previously hidden.  There is a desire to everything possible to keep that child safe and to help them grow into their own unique adulthood.  Every day that goes by sees a different challenge presented by a child, but every single one is accepted and surmounted.  Yet, through every challenge, every push of a parents' buttons by a child, there is deep well of love that never seems to go dry. 

Last night, I got home late from work and decided to have a bowl of ice cream and watch a little TV before making my way upstairs to go to bed.  With the ice cream done, I decided to watch a few more minutes of TV.  Well, somehow I fell asleep on the couch only to be woken up by our son screaming in his room, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, ahhhhhhhhhhh."  I waited a few minutes, hoping it would go away, but the screams got louder and I could tell there would be no going back to sleep for our son.  Something was up and I had to check on him.  When you are a father, you get to know the difference between the types of screams your child has.  I know when I can leave our son in his crib and within five minutes he will be back in bed.  I also know when no matter how long I leave him there, nothing will calm him and I will need to go in there.  Trust me, I have no problem waking up in the middle of the night to take care of our son, even if it means getting less sleep.  Well, I walk in, turn the lights on low, and see our son sitting in the middle of his crib; naked, shivering, wet, and screaming.  In essence, he looked miserable.  He has this new idea that he has to sleep naked in his crib so he somehow manages to take off his sleep and then his diaper, and since he can't control his bladder yet, he usually ends up peeing.  Since it is starting to get cold out, its not so much fun when you pee in your crib, naked, and then have to sleep in it.  So as soon as I walk in, I pick him up and he clings to me for dear life, shivering and shaking.  I just held him tight as I went to get another diaper, get him dressed back up, and get him ready to go back to bed.  I sat with him, rocking him and singing with him for about ten minutes before putting him back down.  As a dad, you don't always consider everything so my wife had to go in almost right after I left because I had forgotten to check his sheets to see if they were wet, which they were.  But that's another story for another day.  The only thing that mattered to me last night was comforting him, loving him, and making sure he got warm and dry. 

This past week, while depressing with the loss of a friend, has also made me realize how important certain things are in life.  Family and friends.  What is more important than that and the love we have for one another.  More than that though, it made me look at our son a little differently.  Not that I had any lack of love for him before, but seeing my friend's dad talk about him during the funeral made me realize just how special the bond is between parent and child.  There is so much that we will never understand about our parent's love for us until we have a child and feel that love ourselves.  We begin to realize that no matter what happens, the love we have for our child will never diminish, never go away, and stay with us until our dying day.  A parent should never have to bury their own child.  It has to be one of the hardest things to do on this earth.  Every time I try to empathize with Matt's dad, it brings such an upwelling of emotions that I almost can't bear it.  While I hope to never lose my son or my future child, I have had a glimpse of what it would be like, and I don't know if I would be able to handle it.  If you don't have a child and are reading this, you will never quite understand the sentiments I am talking about until you have your own child.  So over this past week, I have re-affirmed my love for my family and friends and have vowed to do my best to cherish every moment I can.  Life is too short to live it any other way.  I have always lived by the Latin saying "Carpe Diem" and will continue to do so till I leave this earth.  Carpe Diem, translated, simply means "Seize the Day".

Perceptions

This last week has brought an influx of thoughts and emotions.  I am still trying to sort through all of them and make sense of it all.  I'm sure in this instance, there will be a lot that will get left unsettled.  With the death of a friend, at a young age and unexpected, there are many questions that are going through my mind.  Yet, those questions will most likely go unanswered.  We will never know the why, and perhaps that is the most troubling.  In this instance, there are three stories to be told, yet we will only ever hear two of them.  Part of me doesn't want to know the truth, the answers from the other two stories.  I, for one, would rather live with what I picture as the why, not what others claim is the truth behind the whole event.  But that's me.  Others will crave the truth, seek it out at all costs, and in the end, it will do nothing to change the course of events.  What is done is done and nothing can bring back a friend from the grave.  There are many perceptions of what happened, depending on who you are and whether you knew the deceased or not.  (For those of you still wondering what I am talking about, I am talking about the death of Matt Lofaro last Wednesday).   Those perceptions go beyond the incident itself to the people involved, their decisions, and what led to those decisions that they made.  There are those, as I mentioned over the past week, who will view Matt as a criminal, a doped up person in need of cash, a low life.  And those same people will hail the cop as a hero, as doing his job, as ridding the world of another stupid kid.  Yet, those perceptions are based upon one instance in a lifetime of decisions that were made by those two individuals, the cop and Matt.  My perceptions are completely different.  Knowing Matt, I view the whole incident as a prank gone bad, a stupid decision that led to his death.  And for the cop, I view him as a trigger happy fool.  Yes, my perceptions are based upon my knowledge of Matt leading up to the incident and knowing that he would never do something like that.  Yet, if I was in another person's shoes and Matt was not my friend, would I look at it the same way or would I make assumptions about the people involved.  Having had this happen to a friend of mine, it makes me think that I will reserve assumptions in the future until I know more about an individual, but will I?  Or will I immediately cast judgement based upon my perceptions of a situation and no real knowledge of the people involved. 

 

It sucks that a whole life can be upturned and spun on its head based upon one instance in a person's life.  Many people will look at only one instance without regarding the whole picture and make their assumptions.  People will perceive only what they read and see and anything else leading up that one point will mean nothing.  I know that there have been a number of points in my life when I was younger where if something had happened, people would have drawn assumptions about me that would have been completely incorrect.  Their perceptions about me would be faulty and incomplete, yet the majority of people will never look past the headlines, never dig deeper to know more about the people involved, and simply cast their judgement based upon a sliver of information.  I for one will do my best in the future to never judge a person based upon one instance in their life.  Its not an easy thing to do, to reserve perceptions and assumptions when access to the complete person is not always there.  Often times we never really know the entire person we are making assumptions about.  Whether it is in the news or not, whether it is a crime or just an instance in which we pass by a person, we perceive things about them, create our assumptions, and go on our merry way thinking we are correct.  How often are we wrong though?  How many times do we make assumptions, cast judgement, when our assumptions and judgements couldn't be farther from the truth?  Often times, we never know.  Perhaps we would all do well to take a little more time when regarding others and their situation.  Perhaps we should reserve judgement and not make assumptions.  Yet those things are hard to do when we live in a knee jerk society where everything happens in a split second and then is gone.  We rarely have time to figure out the truth behind a situation or a person.  We don't want to invest our efforts in something that we perceive as the truth yet could be just a fairy tale.  Yet, the damage we can do to others is irreparable sometimes and it speaks to the fact that we should slow down, take a little more time when regarding others, and not be so quick to pass judgement on them.  Yet many will continue on as they were, hurting others with their assumptions and faulty perceptions.  We can get angry at them, or we could move on with our lives.  I for one, as angry as I might want to get, will most times choose to move on and make my own life better.  Especially now, after the death of a friend with many casting judgement upon him, will choose to move forward and pay no mind to any who look down on him.  I know the truth about Matt and that is all that matters.  I don't know if any of this made sense, but I did the best I could to sort it all out.  Oh well, on to another day.

Monday Morning, and Then a Funeral

So today I have but a very short piece.  I spent most of the early morning hours writing my tribute to Matt Lofaro which will make its way into the Milford Patch either today or tomorrow I am thinking.  Its been an emotional roller coaster for me these past two days with a wake yesterday and his funeral today.  I don't have much more to say right now.  Well, I have a lot to say, but not enough time to say it in.  So till tomorrow, this short little bit will have to do.  If you want to read what I wrote this morning, with the occasional tear dripping on to the key board, check out the Milford Patch today and tomorrow.   As soon as I find out when the article will appear, I will let everyone know.  For today, smile at a stranger, forget the past and the future, and live in the present, for that is all we truly have.

Another One Bites the Dust

I wish the story I had today had a happy ending, but sadly, it doesn't.   A good friend of mine going back to high school, died yesterday.  Its a bizarre story, and not all the details are even known yet.  I first found out from the gentleman whose house I am currently painting.  My friend who died had referred me to this current customer of mine as he and his dad (who he worked for at the time) were replacing all the windows on the house.  Their part of the job had largely wrapped up and our mutual customer was texting my friend's dad about something.  The response he received was, "It doesn't matter, Matt's dead."   So right off the bat, something didn't seem right, and it bothered me that nothing was known or shared about how he actually died.   I tried finding out what had happened.  I placed a few calls with no response and finally, out of desperation to simply just know, I posted a question on Facebook to see if anyone had heard what had happened to my friend.  Well, that last option worked because my brother had actually heard what had happened from another one of Matt's friends.  So let's jump back quickly to early yesterday morning.  There was a robbery that occurred around 3:30 at a convenience store at a gas station.  While the robbery was allegedly in progress, a state trooper walked in, saw what was happening, and tried to stop the robbery.  He allegedly told the robber what to do, and upon the robber failing to listen, was "forced to discharge his weapon", killing the robber.  As it turns out, the robber had a mask on and appeared to be threatening the store clerk with a machete type blade.  Well, that robber was my friend, someone who I could never in a million years picture doing something like that.  His name, while not being released by the police, is Matt Lofaro.  Something about this whole situation isn't sitting right with me.  If what the police say is true and Matt was actually robbing the place, I will still be in disbelief that he could have committed such an act.  For anyone who knew Matt Lofaro, I think they would agree with me.  If asked on Tuesday if he could ever do something like that, I would have to say not in a million years.  Whatever got him into that situation, I don't know, but it still bothers me now.

Matt Lofaro was one of the nicest, most genuine people I have known.  Whenever I talked to him, some of the first questions out of his mouth were always how my family and I were doing.  He was down to earth, had just gotten a new job with a company that installs solar panels and had recently tried his hand at stand up comedy.  When last I was in touch with him, about a week and a half to two weeks ago, he seemed to be doing really well.  There was no indication that something like this could ever transpire.  Even the gentleman who I am working for had said on numerous occasions that Matt was one of the nicest people he had ever met.  They even went out for drinks after only meeting a few times.  He was the type of person who always looked out for his friends, helping them when he could and never asking for favors.  Such was the nature of the Matt Lofaro I knew.  I find it very hard to believe that in the course of two weeks, something could have happened which made him stoop to the level of robbery.  Its just not in the realm of the possible for me.  Details are still sketchy about what actually transpired yesterday morning at the gas station on the Post Road in Milford, but all I have to say is that he better have actually posed a threat to the officer who shot him.  At this point, I am mourning the loss of a friend, not a robber as most people will now know him.  The majority of people who read the news will assume that Matt was a criminal, destined to be downed by an officer's bullet at some point or at least destined for a jail cell.  One event will dictate how everyone views the rest of his previous life.  "There must have been some indications."  "He must have just been a bad apple."  He wasn't, and in my mind, however naive it may seem, he will never be a criminal.  Wherever you are now, Matt, know that you were loved by many.  Your life ended way to soon but may you rest in peace now. 

The Foliage Trip

I made my last trip up to Vermont this past weekend for a few different reasons.  The first of which was to re-enforce the roof of the pavilion that I built over the summer to withstand the snow that will inevitably pile up on it over the coming winter months.  The second reason was to return a few items that were too wet to stow in the shed due to rain the last time we were up there.  The last reason, was for a little relaxation and retreat from everyday life.  The most amazing thing to me was the change in fall foliage just during the trip.  Starting in Connecticut, it would appear that we are just approaching peak season for fall foliage, that short span of time in the fall where almost every tree is plastered with beautiful colors running the gamut from dark browns through reds through brilliant oranges and yellows.  While we are just turning that corner here in Connecticut, the scene changes quite rapidly as you head even a few hundred miles north to Vermont.  As I traveled up on Friday, leaving a little later than normal due to a crazy morning, I traveled from almost peak to peak to post peak.  The peak season right now is in most of Massachusetts, ranging from just north of the border with Connecticut to Southern Vermont after which it begins to taper off.   Massachusetts is absolutely beautiful with hills and peaks looking as if they are almost on fire with the changing leaves.  Southern Vermont right now takes the prize mostly due to its peaks and valleys, which when you pass through, give you perhaps the most beautiful scenes that can be found in New England.  Once you get about a half hour into Vermont, though, the colors start to disappear, leaving barren trees and patches of pine trees mingled in between.  While not all the leaves are gone from the trees even where my property is, the majority are.  Sometimes, I find it interesting to see a single tree covered in brilliant orange while all the trees around it are completely bare.  It is a testament to the difference that every tree embodies from those around it.  No two are the same, no two lose their leaves at the same time, and just depending on how the wind blows, one whole hillside could retain its color for a week longer than the opposite side of the hill. 

 

The trip itself was amazing to take, with me struggling to keep my eyes on the road instead of watching the colors pass me by at 80 miles per hour.  Up on my property, there is one small tree left that has retained its leaves up until now.  Its a small one just one edge of our clearing and its colors are astounding.  The range from a reddish brown near the bottom of the tree to a bright reddish orange near the top.  With no leaves on any of the trees, more sun breaks through and casts elegant shadows that dance in the wind.  Barely clearing a hill, the sun struggles to warm up the campsite, but with a warm fire going, you barely notice the difference.  Yet, all that will change over the winter.  The blanket of leaves that crinkle with every step you take with be compacted by the snow.  But for now, I will hold on to the memory of this past weekend in Vermont, the perfect fall weather, and the colors that now lay on the ground around the camp.  There is always next year, where the trees will be a little bit bigger and perhaps a different tree will retain its leaves late into the fall.  I love every season in New England, but for me, the two best are spring and fall, the time of birth and dying.  Two periods where everything pops for a few weeks. . Oh well, time to get back to real life, enjoy the fall foliage here in Connecticut, and keep on trucking through the winter. 

Parental Guilt

I would have to say that for the most part, I don't have much guilt as a parent.  I feel that I give my all to being a parent, to being there for my son, to helping him grow and develop, and to set rules and boundaries.  Yet, as my dream of being able to spend more time at home with him has dissipated, and for the most part, disappeared, I do get pangs of guilt when I don't get to see him every afternoon.   We do eat at least one meal a day together as a family, breakfast, and for the majority of the week, dinner as well, but there is a part of me that would like to be there more.  Yet, it isn't exactly possible all the time.  This fall has been utterly crazy with work, and as I am self employed, I have to do the work to bring the money in.  Its not like a 9-5 where I can get there at a given hour and leave at a given hour.  My days fluctuate with the weather, with the job, and with a thousand other variables that get factored in.  Sometimes the worst guilt I get is when I go away to Vermont or when my wife tells me that our son was asking for me a lot in a given evening.  Those are the times where my heart feels like it gets twisted a little in an iron grip, squeezed just a touch to let me know I care, and wrenched to and fro.  I know I will not be able to be there for every aspect of our son's life, its just not possible, yet there is a part of me that would like to be.  Judging from my upbringing, the early years are the most formative when it comes to raising a child.  Those first five years have an impact that will last a lifetime and will guide a child into adulthood.  More goes into a developing brain during the first five years of life than at almost any other time of a person's life.  It is fundamental and there is large part of me that wants to make sure I have a hand in being a steadfast part of that first five years.  Two are now down and there are three to go.  These next three years will perhaps be the most fun and the most challenging, but I will love every second of them.  This all comes as I am heading to Vermont this weekend to close up the campsite for the winter.  My wife and son will not be coming as it will be too cold, but luckily its only for a weekend.  As for me, I love the cold and will enjoy the fact that I won't be sweating up there at all. 

But enough about my little pangs of guilt that come occasionally.  I'm sure I'm not the only parent to ever feel them, so lets move on to our naked son again.  Tuesday morning I went to get our son from his room as I normally do in the mornings.  Upon opening the door (sounds very similar to another post I had, doesn't it) I see him curled up in a little ball, naked.  As soon as he saw me, he popped up and handed me his PJ's and diaper.  Yup, this time he got everything off, including undoing the little flap that normally covers the top of the zipper.  Then again, the same thing happened yesterday morning, except the diaper didn't come off.  So after two mornings in a row of finding our son naked in bed, we decided that it might be time to get a two piece set of PJ's for him, that way even if he manages to get his pants off, he will have his shirt to keep him half warm.   That's the one thing he can't get off yet, his shirt.   At least it isn't freezing at night yet so he doesn't get too cold.  And not that it would actually get freezing in his room as we do have this modern convenience called a furnace to heat the house, but still, it does get a bit chilly at night.   However this whole naked child thing turns out, I really don't mind as long as he doesn't come running downstairs naked as a teenager.  Oh well, my mind is slow today and while I started this post yesterday and without the necessary time to finish it up and post it, I am finishing it this morning.  It could be my mind is slow due to lack of sleep.  I had a meeting last night from which I didn't get home till after 11.  So 4.5 hours of sleep later with a dog that persistently inched her way up the bed till I had half a bed to sleep on, and here I am struggling to bring words to fruition and get them down in a logical and decipherable manner.  Tonight will be another late night as I have darts so expect no post tomorrow.  Yup, my life has taken a turn from normal/crazy to crazy/insane.  The amount of sleep I have gotten this week is not nearly enough.  It went from 6 hours on Monday night down to 5 on Tuesday night.  Last night as I mentioned was even less and tonight will probably be around the same or less than last night.  Tired, tired, tired with no end in sight.  I'd say I love it but I fear I might be lying.  In any case, I'll just keep on trucking, trying to get these blog posts out as often as possible (another minor cause of a different kind of guilt) which has diminished I know, and most importantly try to to keep from getting sick.  Here is to Halloween, nightmares, and everything Octoberish.  (See, I told you my mind was having trouble this morning.)

Silence

Sometimes silence is a beautiful thing, true silence, without sound.  And yet, true silence is a very hard thing to come by, even during the early morning hours sitting in a house, staring at a computer.  If you sit long enough, without talking, music, or any distractions, the subtle noises that fill a house come to life, become louder, and speak volumes.  Just take the ticking of a clock, that innocent tick tock, tick tock, perpetual as long as the battery lasts that goes completely unnoticed during normal living.   It comes to life and gradually grows in volume the more you sit in silence.  The more I think about it, the more I actually like the ticking of a clock.  You never think to much of it anymore because for the most part, many clocks these days are digital, plastered on stoves, microwaves, computers, phones, etc.  Yet the larger wall clocks, powered by that innocent invention called the battery, are still around and still carry us forward.  If it wasn't for the clock, where would we be?  I would like to think at times that life would be a little simpler.  Things wouldn't be set in a finite world of numbers, time, schedules, and so on and so forth.  We could judge things by the sun, the setting of it, the rising of it, the moon and its phases.  Yet, we probably wouldn't be as productive without the clock.  We would lack definition.  But we would also have a more complete silence without the clock. 

 

I think that in the modern day, it is almost impossible to create a room in a house that is completely void of all sound.  That is, unless we deem it necessary to pad our walls with sound absorbent material, to create thick ceilings and padded floors where even the pitter patter of our feet would go silent.  That is the stuff that horror movies and secretive government facilities are made of, not ordinary houses.  We have our refrigerators with their incessant hum, their little jolt to life that unless everything else is silent, you would never know occurred.  Even the hum of electricity can be heard if all else is turned off and silent.  For many these days, I can imagine that the slight hum of computers, and all our appliances is a welcoming, subtle, background noise.  It takes away the possibility that something is hiding in the corner, waiting to pounce on us, or that there might be a monster behind the curtain just waiting for us to walk close enough to grab us.  These thoughts all come flooding back the moment the power goes off.  Thinking of this true silence now, the only time we really get it is when the power is knocked out by a storm of some other calamity.  Only then do we get a glimpse of true silence, and only if there aren't backup generators running somewhere near us.  Sometimes I enjoy silence, but then again, I never truly get to experience it, so do I really love it, or do I just think I love it.  Even when I am in the woods in Vermont, nothing is ever truly silent.  Even the dark of night, there are sounds to be heard coming from the woods.  To think about silence as a complete absence of sound can be unnerving, mostly because we never really experience it.  Have you ever experience complete and utter silence?  I really can say if I have or not, but I probably haven't. 

He'd Rather Be Naked

Yesterday morning when I went to get my son out of bed brought one of the cutest and funniest moments I have had as a parent.  There have been many moments that I have thought of as funny, but this one definitely nears the top of my list.  Normally, when I go in to get my son to start our day, he is fully clothed and either laying down or curled up in a little ball.  Well, yesterday brought a little different scene.  I had heard him talking for a bit before I went upstairs to grab him so I knew he was already awake.  I opened his door to find him hunched over his knees in a little ball, still half asleep.  As soon as he heard the door open, he popped up, turned around, and handed me his PJ's that he was supposed to be sleeping in.  Instead, all he had on was his diaper which looked as if it was about to come off as well.  It probably doesn't seem nearly as funny reading about it as it did to me in person, but for those parents out there, I'm sure you understand waking up your child to find out that they figured out how to take their clothes off.  The problem with the PJ's he wore the other night was that they didn't have the little flap that covers the top of the zipper after his PJ's are zipped up.  With no flap snapped tight, the zipper was a piece of cake obviously to pull down and somehow wrench his PJ's off his body.  Well, after we got downstairs and took off his wet diaper from the night (yes, potty training has seemingly gone in reverse for a bit), we put his PJ's back on to keep him warm.  Well, that didn't last long as began taking them off almost as soon as they were put back on.  It seems our son just likes traipse around the house naked.  No worries, it provides for amusing times.  Especially since like every boy his age, his little penis provides hours of amusement for him. 

 

On a slightly different note, it is his second birthday this weekend.  What's on the menu for our little family gathering?  Hot dogs for our son and chicken for everyone else.  While his taste for food is slowly expanding, he is definitely no where near his love of food that he used to have.  So it will be interesting to see what else he eats on his birthday.  My guess is it will probably be apple sauce and banana bread with vegetables mixed in.  That is one thing we are struggling with getting him to eat, vegetables.  He just doesn't really care for them and as such, we mix them into his banana bread that he loves to eat.  Yet, he is trying vegetables more and more often just without much success in actually eating and swallowing them.  The other day, however, as my wife was picking vegetables from our garden, she had a surprise.  He took a chili pepper that had starting turning red and began munching on the end of it.  He actually ate about three or four bites of it before he got to the seeds of the chili pepper.  The seeds are always the hottest part of the pepper and as soon as he got a mouthful of them, it was like trying to get a burning coal out of your mouth.  It was cute and hilarious, but at least he was eating a vegetable.  Maybe we are turning a corner in regards to expanding his range of food.  Yesterday morning, he actually ate two pieces of cold, plain pasta, something that had previously not even made it past the lips of his mouth.  He is still funny when trying something new.  At first, he will put it to his lips and immediately take it away shaking his head no.  What is happening more frequently now is that he will actually bring the food back to his mouth and try eating it.  Most of the time with something new the food will come right back out, however, it is staying in there more and more of late.  Maybe our little boy is actually starting to grow up.  Whatever the case, he is joy, a wonder, and I love him to death!

October, Beerfests, Kids?

This past Saturday I went to the third annual Smoke in the Valley Chili and Beerfest, an event that has close to a hundred beers for tasting, a chili cook off, numerous bands on two stages, and close to three thousand people.   Despite the warm weather, which I wish was a little bit cooler, I had a good time.  Luckily, I live right up the hill from where it was held and walked down with a friend to attend.  My wife and son didn't go, because, well, its mostly a beerfest.  The great benefit to this beerfest at least is that all the proceeds go to charity, I believe towards breast cancer or something like that.  In any case, I expected it to be an adult crowd as you need an I.D. to get in and you are handed a little plastic cup for tasting all the beer.  Much to my surprise, there were a number of young parents toting their very young children around with them, while drinking beer, surrounded by what would become a crowd of half drunk adults.  I believe the youngest child I saw was close to a year old and the oldest had to be around 5.   But back to children being at a beerfest in a little bit.  I love the idea of a beerfest, a place where there is plenty of beer to sample, plenty of people to talk to and congregate with, and especially if you have friends there, a place to just kick back, hang out, and enjoy a beautiful afternoon.  It seems that there has been an influx of beerfests over the past few years.  They always occur during the fall, most likely because the notorious Octoberfest from Germany is held in the fall, and they are becoming widely attended events.  The beerfests and the influx of microbreweries and homebrews are making their mark and spreading, and I must say, I love it.  I was never one to latch on to the big, name brand beers like Budweiser, Coors, Miller, or any of those.  I like the unique taste you get with a more local brewery, the small one down the street that you can't find out of state.  Even those that are located in the New England area, I'd take any of those beers over the name brands any day.  I know Budweiser is "America's Beer", but for me its fading.  It never really tasted that good and with a plethora of other, better beers out there, why drink Bud?  In any case, I must move on to my only gripe with this past Saturday, the kids that were at the beerfest.

I just don't understand why you would bring your child to an event that you intend to drink at.  I know that parents are supposed to be responsible, but with that many beers and nearly everyone drinking, its fairly easy to have one too many.  And that's not even the half of it.  It goes beyond bringing your child to an event that you will be drinking at, potentially heavily.  Its also about that atmosphere and those others around you who will not keep their drinking under control and make themselves look like complete idiots.  For instance, I was standing with my friends, drinking, as a young girl in her twenties stumbled up to a bin for donating clothes, and vomited down the side of it.  If your child saw that and asked why that woman threw up, what would you say?  Maybe, "Well, you see son, when someone has too much to drink, they sometimes get sick to their stomach and it all comes back out."  The child's response, "So will I catch their stomach bug then?"  "No, honey, your too young to catch it."  "What about you?  Your drinking.  Will you catch their stomach bug?"  "Well, I shouldn't because I haven't had too much to drink?"  "How do you know?"  It goes on and on and on the conversations that could take place about drinking between a parent and their child at an event like this.  Its just not a conversation that I feel should be had between a parent and their child under the age of say 13.  Maybe I'm being a little ridiculous and parents should start introducing their children to alcohol at the earliest age possible, but I don't think so.  I think its being a responsible parent when you don't bring your child to an event such as a beerfest.  Find a babysitter or just don't go.  As much as you might love drinking beer, is it really worth it to expose your child to that lifestyle at such an early age?  And lets not forget about the cigar tent and the plethora of men walking around with cigars blowing smoke everywhere.  I personally don't mind, but we all know what second hand smoke can do.  Bringing your child to an event like that is like asking them to consider entering that lifestyle themselves.  But enough of all that.  My son wasn't there, I had a great time, and I look forward to the one next year.  I do want to make it to Octoberfest in Germany one time during my life, but for now, I will enjoy the local beerfests in Connecticut. 

Another Long Start

So this week is off to a long start again.  I had a case of the Mondays yesterday and yet still managed to work a 12 hour day.  Today and tomorrow will be 13 hour work days for me followed by a shorter work day and darts on Thursday and a crash on Friday.  Yup, it just might be time to find someone to help me out with work.  In any case, short blog today as I need to leave the house early and don't have time to write longer than this.  Showa time!

Time for Time Outs

This past weekend proved to be a test of patience for me.  I mentioned a while ago that I am finding out, through the process of being a father, just how much patience I have.   I feel that for the most part, I do have a lot of patience compared to what I used to have.  Yet, I am currently having my patience tested by our son who is now in the mode of throwing temper tantrums.  We are starting to set the rules in our house as he is getting the age where he thinks he can do whatever he wants without consequence.  Well, that is quickly being changed.  I must say, for the most part our son is awesome, well behaved, and a joy to have around.  There comes a time, however, usually after his nap in the afternoon and before dinner, what I like to call the two hour witching period.  This is when his ego takes hold, he tries pushing boundaries, and when those boundaries come crashing down, his temper flares and all hell breaks loose.  So a little hyperbole there with all hell breaking loose, however, I can envision how bad it could get if we just let him continue on his little rampage.  I hate to burst everyone's bubble image of my son being wonderful with this news of temper tantrums, but I think that most parents would expect that from a two year old, especially since they have probably gone through it themselves.  These temper tantrums usually start over something innocent and stupid that he is doing, that either endangers himself, others, or objects in our house.  There is the occasion where he goes a little beyond what we allow him to do, but for now it is usually because something could get broken or he could seriously hurt himself.  I forget what it was on Saturday that sparked his little temper tantrum, but it was probably us taking something away from him or telling him he couldn't do something.  As soon as we told him that, he got this really ticked off look on his face, walked up to my wife who was sitting, stood in front of her, looked up, and took both hands and hit her on the legs.  The odd part is, I was the one who took something away from him or stopped him from doing something.  Regardless, I wasn't about to let him get the idea that he could just walk up to my wife and hit her or anything else for that matter.  So I grabbed him gently, sat him in my lap, and wrapped my arms around him.  He then proceeded to scream his head off, wriggle, shake, and attempt every way possible to get out of my grip.  He started kicking since he couldn't move his arms and at one point, I held him under his arm pits, suspended off the ground, while he turned beet red screaming his head off.  After about five minutes of that and me calmly telling him how we don't lash out when we get frustrated or angry, he tired himself out, actually looked at me while I was talking to him, and calmed down.  As soon as I let go of him it was like the temper tantrum didn't even happen. 

 

I thought I would be all set for the weekend with temper tantrums.  Lo and behold, I was not.  Instead, I had the pleasure of dealing with another one yesterday, although not nearly as severe as the one on Saturday.  So a little back story to this tantrum yesterday.  Our son loves to pretend to cook on our stove and as such, we let him use real utensils, real pans, and everything.  One of the things he loves is the small measuring spoons.  Yesterday afternoon, as we were in the kitchen getting dinner ready, our son slides his stool over to the cabinets, climbs up, and grabs a small measuring spoon from the counter.  He runs off with it into the living room.  I normally wouldn't have a problem with him playing with the spoon except he had it in his mouth and was running from one couch to the other with it hanging out of his mouth.  I asked him three times to take it out of his mouth because he could get seriously hurt by doing it.  After three times of him not listening, I went over and took the spoon from him.  Well, that was the last straw for him.  I saw the look in his eye, the drastic change in his demeanor, and he went to grab a pillow and throw it.  I told him before I left the room that if he threw the pillow, he would be going into time out.  I will give you a wild guess now as to what happened.  Yep, he threw the pillow, probably thinking that I was joking about the whole time out thing.  So I went over, picked him up, brought him into the kitchen where we sat down, him in my lap, and wrapped my arms around him in time out.  I explained that we were now setting time limits as a measure of the time out, explained what the time out was (as we really didn't have to do that before), and why he can't just lash out when he can't do what he wants.  He freaked out for a few minutes, but calmed down much quicker than he did the day before.  There was one point where he freaked out and added two minutes to his time out, but during those last two minutes he calmed down and relaxed on my lap.  By the time the two minutes were up, he was totally calm and back to normal.  Maybe the time outs are working their magic quicker than we expected, but then again, maybe not.  I have a horrible feeling that the worst is yet to come.  Judging from the tempers that my wife and I used to have when we were younger, our son is going to be a challenge in the years to come and I am going to have to grow some patience on a tree for harvesting when necessary.  Oh well, he is still a joy to have around and I love him completely.  Now it will just be a matter of setting rules and enforcing them judiciously and fairly.  I hate rules so this should be interesting!

Non-Universal Health Ins.

Its been a whopping 2 days since Obamacare, our "universal" health care law, went into effect and already there is evidence that 8 million Americans will still not be eligible for health insurance coverage.   While the whole law is convoluted and hard to decipher, here is my understanding of it and how Americans are being left un-insured when everyone is supposed to be covered.  So in order to qualify for the federal subsidies that are supposed to help with the purchasing of health insurance, you need to make a certain amount of money.   Essentially, you can't be living in poverty to buy health insurance and as nice as it would be to say that there aren't that many people in that situation, there are.  For those that don't make enough to purchase health insurance on the "health exchanges", they could be covered on expanded Medicaid programs that are specifically in place to help the poor.  Medicaid was meant to be the program that filled in the gaps that the "health exchanges" couldn't, but only if individual states decided to expand their Medicaid programs.  Out of all 50 states, only 24 expanded their Medicaid programs with 26 the declined to do so.  I do not align myself with any specific political party, but the 26 states that declined to expand their Medicaid programs are dominated by Republicans.  Without the expansion of the Medicaid programs in 26 states, there is a large gap that leaves those roughly 8 million Americans without health insurance.   To make it even more twisted, and this is a good thing for those 8 million Americans, they will face no fine for not having insurance because the Medicaid programs in their states were not expanded.  Confused yet?  I sure am.  I thought universal health insurance was supposed to be, well, you know, "universal".  My take on the definition of universal is that it is all encompassing.  Then again, what do I know.  Will this current health insurance law help many people out?  Sure, but not everyone.  It is becoming evident that in the midst of trying to provide all Americans with health insurance, there are those that are being left behind as usual.  What's the solution?  Well, from what I have been reading, the immediate solution would be for those 26 states to expand their Medicaid programs so that almost all Americans could have health insurance.  Yet, I don't know the likelihood of that actually happening. 

 

What makes this worse is that since the majority of the 26 states that did not expand their Medicaid programs are in the South, race is being drawn into the issue.  Those states have a larger population of poor blacks and Hispanics than do the rest of the country, and since those states didn't expand their programs, racial prejudice is being blamed as one of the reasons.  I don't know if that is actually the case, but I sure as hell hope it isn't.  It is said that time heals all wounds, yet obviously not enough time as passed for the racial wounds of the better part of the 20th century to heal.  Never having lived in the south, I don't know what it is like, and therefore, won't comment.  What we need to do is stop blaming race as reason for this, or a reason for that.  Lets move on already.  Whatever the reason for those 26 states not expanding their Medicaid programs, I highly doubt it is due to race, but more politically charged instead.  The Republicans have hated Obamacare since it first came to the plate a few years ago.  They have tried time and again to stop its inception, and on Monday, their persistence led to our government shutting down.  While I'm not necessarily a fan of Obamacare, namely because it fails to provide everyone with health insurance, to shut down our government and leave 8 million un-insured because of political affiliation is preposterous.  Such is life.  All I do know is that this next year will be interesting in regards to Obamacare and how it will truly affect everyone, or not affect everyone.  What I do know is that the deductible on my health insurance, a very good one that my wife has through her job, will go up from $3000 to $4500 a year.  I guess all those who have good health insurance will be paying for those who are just now being able to afford it.  What can we do?  Nothing.  This health insurance law is not truly fixing anything.  The health insurance issue in this country is much bigger than just providing health insurance to the poor, it is about leveraging costs amongst companies so that they can actually be reduced, it is about holding the pharmaceutical industry accountable and taking away their lobbying ability in Washington, and it is about many more things that I don't even know about.  In essence, I am done talking about it.  Good luck to all in this next year with regards to health insurance. 

Scared of Fake Lizards

In addition to apple picking and head butts this past weekend, I forgot to mention a funny/not so funny moment I had with my son on Sunday.  During his afternoon nap, my wife had to run out to pick up some art work she had submitted to a show.  It wasn't long after she left that he woke up from his nap and was ready to go for the afternoon.  As is normally the case with any afternoon, he wanted to watch cars go by on our street.  So with nothing else to do, I took him out front with a chair and proceeded to watch cars go up and down our street.  We watched cars for about a half hour before he wanted to get down and go inspect my Jeep Wrangler.  Besides watching cars go up and down our street, he loves to play inside cars, crawling between the front and back seats, playing with all the controls, pushing buttons, and pretending to drive.  The fun part about letting him play in any car is that you never know what is going to happen when you actually turn the car on.  With my Jeep, there aren't nearly as many buttons and knobs to push, pull, and turn, but he was still having a blast, especially with opening and closing the doors.   Of course, while he was playing inside the Jeep, I was running around the outside of the Jeep playing hide and seek and making him laugh hysterically whenever I would pop up unexpected.  After a few minutes of that, I sat in the passenger seat while he was in the driver seat playing.  At one point, he pointed to a lizard that I have sitting on my dashboard (fake of course).  I picked it up and showed it to him.  He didn't know what it was so he was cautious at first.  Then I moved it towards him like it was going to tickle him.  Well, he backed up quickly, leaned against the driver side door which hadn't latched all the way from him playing with it, and started falling out of the Jeep.   I had two options, let him fall and crack his head on the curb, or grab his arm and pull him back into the Jeep.  I obviously chose the second option.  Reacting with the speed of a puma, I grabbed his arm as he was halfway out of the Jeep and pulled him back in.  I grabbed him harder than I probably needed to, but in the heat of the moment, I would rather grab him too hard than not hard enough and have him slip out of my grip.  So with disaster averted and him back in the Jeep with the door firmly closed, I went to go put the lizard that was laying on the driver seat back on the dash. 

 

As I touched the lizard, he started screaming at the top of his lungs in fear and crocodile tears started pouring from his face as he tried to disappear into the driver seat.  I have never seen him that afraid of something ever, and it was all because of me.  It obviously wasn't intentional, but the series of events conspired to create a fear of lizards in my son.  Thinking about it right afterwards, I could see that he associated the lizard with two things; a) falling out of the Jeep and b) a really firm grip on his arm pulling him.  There was a direct association between pain and falling and my tiny fake lizard that is about 5 inches long.  Even a few minutes after the event happened, I wanted to see if the fear was lingering.  I simply touched the lizard which sent him into shivering, tears, and screaming again.  So, lesson learned, don't by any fake lizards for my son.  I laughed after the fact because while I understood his association between the events, I had never seen something like that first hand and while I felt horrible about it, I also laughed.   Such is life, I am sure within a few years he will get over his fear.  Then again, maybe he won't.  Only time will tell. 

 

On a slightly different note, I got to feel our new child moving around the other day as my wife and I were sitting on the couch watching TV.  According to her, it seems that when she is up and moving around during the day, the baby is still and sleeping.  As soon as she sits down for a little bit, the baby wakes up and starts moving around, kicking, pushing, and doing whatever else it does inside its little home.  It was just as exciting as feeling our son kick when he was inside my wife.  Its almost like its confirmation that there really is a baby in there and that it is alive and growing.  The kicks and pushes were obviously still fairly faint, but they were definitely there.  Even the movement was pretty cool, sliding around, doing its flips or whatever else it does.  I am pretty sure that I have no idea what is coming after our new baby is born in terms of the craziness of life, but I know that I will love it.  At this point, I am just taking everything one day at a time.  When the time comes, I will go nuts, but for now I am trying to maintain my sanity.  So far I am holding on to it.  So far...