No More Single Digits: More Thoughts on Parenting

It’s official. As of this morning, our house has no more people with ages in the single digits. MC is 10, and she’s been looking forward to today for weeks (in true MC fashion). She has the week off (because Maine schools give students a week long break twice after Christmas, supposedly so the kids in the north could help with potato harvests, back in the day), so she’s living it up for the whole week.

It’s always fun to see my kids grow and watch as their interests develop over time. MC can be super focused on whatever project she’s working on, and she’s got the patience to stick with them over time. She made a rubber band bracelet that’s probably something like 7 yards long. She loves playing Minecraft and Zelda (and is always a sucker for any video game that’s handy), and watches Netflix with abandon. She loves to build things, and she’s way into puzzles.

I see some of myself in each of my kids, though with three, different parts of me come out at different times. Sometimes that’s a good thing. When they’re doing things the way I would do them (and experience has taught me that particular way is good), then yay! When they’re making the same mistakes I make? That’s rougher, especially since there’s no real way to convince them that I’ve already been down that path, and they don’t need to do it too. Then there’s times that you wish they would do things the way you would do them, and it’s frustrating to see them make different choices.

Not that any of that has to do with MC’s birthday, or anything that she’s doing right now. Rather, it’s been a learning experience for me, as I’ve had to discover (lo and behold) that my way isn’t always the right way, and that other approaches can be as good or better. That’s something you don’t really get the chance to learn through a relationship other than a parent. With every other interaction in my life, I was never “in charge” of that person. I can’t tell my friends what to do (well, I can, but it doesn’t work out that well), and the same goes for family. Children, on the other hand, are people you at least theoretically have some control over. Finding the balance between giving them free rein and giving them the guidance they need to succeed is a tricky thing. With Tomas, I think we were much more heavy handed than was helpful. It just seemed to make sense: if you want it done right, make sure they do it the right way. But you see over time that simply doing everything you can to make your child succeed doesn’t actually help them in the long run, since they also need to learn how to get things done on their own. (Not that Tomas doesn’t know how to get things done on his own, but if I’d laid off a bit, he would have had an easier time of it, I think.)

Some friends of mine just had their first baby, and the father has asked me for advice multiple times. That, plus this birthday, has gotten me into a very reflective frame of mind. So much of parenting advice seems to conflict with itself, and I think some of that is because parenting is full of self-correction. You go too far one way, and then you have to compensate in the other. Back and forth, back and forth, and you do your best to do it right. And when you finally “figure it out” with one kid, you realize that each kid is different, and you have to figure it out all over again with the next.

So my advice might be totally wrong for a different child, but how is that helpful advice? In the end, here’s what I’ve come up for that might be universally applicable to parenting:

• Keep your relationship with your spouse strong. Assuming it’s a good, healthy one to begin with, the best thing for a family will be for that husband/wife relation to be the core of it. Spouse comes before child, though that might seem counterintuitive. Kids come and go. Your spouse does not. The two of you raise the child together. If you’re not on the same page, everything else is going to get much, much more difficult.
• Communication is key. Telling a kid “because I said so” might seem to work for a while, but there will come a time when that won’t cut it anymore, and if you don’t have any better reason for why you’re asking them to do something, then maybe you shouldn’t be asking them to do it.
• Consistency helps an awful lot. Consistency between what you and your spouse tell your child. Consistency in house rules. Consistency in expectations. That said . . .
• It’s okay to admit you’re wrong. In fact, it’s important. You will make mistakes. That’s okay. Kids need to know how to handle mistakes, and you can show them by example. So if there’s a rule you’ve made that’s not working, have a conversation about it, and change course. A family is a living thing. It will need to change and adapt over time.
• Be their parent, not their friend. It’s not that you’re supposed to be friends with your kids, but parents aren’t friends. They’re like friends, but different. As a parent, you will have to do things at times that no friend will do. You have to be the bad guy. You have to enforce rules. And you have to have your kid’s respect so that those rules will be followed.
• You need your kids to know they will be accepted and loved no matter what. You might not always love what they’re doing, but you still love them. If your kid makes a mistake, they need to know they can tell you, and you’re not going to overreact. Otherwise, they just won’t tell you. Secret mistakes have a habit of becoming much, much larger mistakes.
• You need to do things together, even if the thing they want to do isn’t something you’d normally want to do. One of the biggest ways to show love is to give your time to someone else. Not begrudgingly, but because you genuinely want to do what they want to do. By spending time with them, you’ll know them much better, and they’ll know you. Yes, you have to make money to support the family, but you also have to invest a whole lot of time. Without that time investment, everything else suffers.

I’m sure I could go on for a while longer on my soapbox, but that’s all I’ve got time for now. I have definitely not done all of those things perfectly, but I think I’ve always had those as the goal. I do wonder what things I’ve done as a parent will be the things my kids later on swear that they’ll do differently, because they didn’t like it. I’m sure there’s a list, but I’m not sure that I actually want to ever see it . . .

In any case, happy birthday, MC!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

On My Grandmother

These are far from my favorite posts to write. My Grandmother (Grammie) died on Friday quite suddenly. Often this is a bad thing, but as far as sudden deaths go, this was one of the better ones. She was fine on Wednesday, caught pneumonia Thursday and slipped away the next day, surrounded by loved ones. She was in her nineties. That said, all deaths are difficult. It can be very hard to be right there when your loved one is passing, but it’s also rough to be across the country.

Her funeral will be Friday, and this is one that I’m going to miss. I debated for a while before making the decision not to go, but in the end, it just felt like I’m not in a mental space where I can really dive into everything that funeral will entail. (Flying already puts me through the ringer. Adding in another viewing and funeral so soon after the August I went through . . . I can’t.) Of course, I also feel conflicted about that, but this is a no win scenario for me, and I’m trying to navigate it as best I can.

Grammie was the driving force behind so much of what went on in the family. I’ll try and capture some of that as best I can here, though it’s always impossible to do anyone any sort of justice in a single blog post. Here are some of the memories that first come to mind.

• Grammie and Boba hosted a “Cabin Week” for all their grandchildren every summer. It was a week long stay at the family cabin they built up in the Wasatch Mountains. Even though I lived in the east, I would fly out to Utah for a month each summer, and they always made sure to schedule the week during the time my brother and sister and I were there. This wasn’t a simple vacation. Grammie planned the whole thing out ahead of time. She made all the meals (a big breakfast and a big dinner each day), ran the activities (arts and crafts, taffy pulling, board games, card games, and more), and kept it all running smoothly. These cabin weeks were a huge influence on me. I looked forward to them every year, and many of the things I love to do most intersect with things I did back then. Games. Movies. Fishing. Spending time together with family. It’s because of those weeks that my cousins and I on that side are so close. I can’t imagine how much work it would have been to coordinate this for around 15-20 kids (and no parents) each year, with ages spanning from around 6 all the way up to 17. But she did it, and did it wonderfully. (Have you ever tried making french toast for five teenage boys who have decided to do an eating contest? I think my brother had about 14 pieces all by himself. I wonder how many loaves she went through?)
• She continued that togetherness theme by having dessert at her house open to any family who wanted to come, every Sunday evening. Almost all of her family still lives out in Utah, so there were many Sundays when there would be around thirty people milling through at different times. Sometimes I’d get my favorite dessert of hers (chocolate cake with cool whip in the middle), and sometimes I’d get popcorn balls (which were my favorite to disparage, though they were still delicious). It was always a great opportunity to catch up with the rest of the family and find out what they were up to. (And it’s a big family. She had five children, all of them married, with over 20 grandchildren. Many families don’t have that kind of close knit relationship these days. She made sure hers had it.
• Of course, with all of that togetherness came a fair bit in terms of expectations. Grammie wanted all her family to be there, and when you weren’t, she made sure you knew she had noticed. We would get together at her house for each major holiday, and if I was going to skip out on one, I felt like I really needed a good reason. Sometimes that “mandatory fun” was something I bristled at, and I’ve tried to navigate the balance between family togetherness and independence ever since. That said. the close relations she fostered within her family is something I really admire, and I’m doing my best to do the same thing for my kids, even if it’s in different ways.
• When Denisa and I chose to elope, Grammie was one of the people I worried would take it the hardest, because of that devotion to doing all things together as a family. Missing out on a wedding? I didn’t know how that would go. So I was very surprised to see how genuinely happy she was for us, and how she never gave us any grief at all about the decision. (This was helped in part by the fact that we chose to get married in the Manti Temple, which some of her ancestors helped build. It was the “family temple,” and so that scored me some extra credit.
• She was also a big believer in finishing all your food, and eating what was put in front of you. I love to fish, but I don’t like to eat what I catch. During Cabin Week, when trout was served, you were eating trout. And if you didn’t eat it, you’d sit at the table until you had. Is there a chance I would have come to like fish over time, had I not been forced to eat it when I disliked it? The world will never know.
• Grammie and Boba served a mission in Jerusalem for a few years while I was in high school. She would diligently write letters every week, and she worked hard at fostering a sense of community over there. She was (if you haven’t noticed) an excellent organizer, a trait I likely inherited in part from her. Because of their work there, I decided I wanted to spend a semester in Jerusalem as well, and it’s one of my favorite life experiences.
• She kept close track of every birthday in the family, and card would arrive like clockwork. She still made sure to mail me a letter each year on my birthday. This is not something I have inherited. I’m terrible at keeping track of those details.
• She was a huge fan of books and movies. Always reading something. Always ready to introduce someone to a good classic film. The Cabin was stocked with a slew of great movies, and much of my appreciation for older films can be traced directly back to that collection she amassed.
• She was also an avid card gamer. Canasta was the game of choice, typically, but she was also fond of trick taking games like Rook or Hearts. Again, I played many many games with her, and long gaming sessions at the Cabin set me up for my love of games today.
• Her baking was fantastic. Pot roast dinners on Sunday. Birthday dinners for each of her children and their families. She gave all her family a copy of all her favorite recipes, and I still make many of them regularly. (Of course, the best and most used recipe is the one for orange rolls, which she created personally. No celebration is really complete without orange rolls . . .)
• Boba died seven years ago, and I know she’s been looking forward to being reunited with him. That said, it was also often amusing to see how willing she was to tell him what to do, and how ready he was to do it. I wonder how long it took once they were reunited for her to comment on something that really should have been done years ago.

As I said before, her death isn’t a shock by any means, but from that sampling of memories, it should be clear what an influence she’s been on me, and it’s going to take some getting used to, knowing that she’s no longer there in Utah, playing games and reading books and doing crosswords. She will be missed.

Thanksgiving Recap

I’m back from Thanksgiving break, and I’m happy to report all went swimmingly (almost). Did I successfully complete every last thing on my To Do list before the break began? Not quite, but I got the big things out of the way. The kitchen was completely decluttered and ready for use. The sunroom was decluttered, though it still has some piles that need to be given away. The wood pile was completely stacked in the shed (thanks to some superhuman help from friends). And our living room was also successfully clean for the first time in . . . 14 months? A long time, regardless.

So the overarching overwhelmed feeling was done away with, and I was able to focus on other things. Like eating. We also played some volleyball, hung out with friends, had a movie night, baked, got a tree, and I got all my Christmas shopping done (for the most part). Daniela and I lugged up all the Christmas decorations we have from the basement to the living room, and so our living room is once again a disaster. But at least it’s a recent disaster, and one we’re going to work on right away.

Was the break as restful as I would have liked? Well, probably not, since I hadn’t really thought about Christmas at all before the break, and I spent a lot of time figuring out what to buy for everyone and (most importantly) what homemade gift I was going to make. That’s a tradition I’ve really enjoyed, and I’m glad we started it. Over the years, I’ve made a wallet, a wire tree, two maps, a hand-bound book, a collection of home movies, a kitchen, and more. This year’s is shaping up to be a doozy, if I can actually pull it off.

I do think that generally speaking, I’m a person who ends up being busy by default. If I have free time, I fill it with something, and while that’s normally just the way I like it, I’m learning that I need to do a better job at ensuring I don’t get too much on my plate. Saying no is a learned skill, and one I’m still getting better at.

Either which way, it was nice to have the days off and to get things ready for the big December. Last year we were in the middle of the kitchen renovation still, so I’m very happy to have one be more normal this time around.

I hope your break was good as well. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Resident Party Planner

I like parties. I like planning them. I like holding them. (I don’t like cleaning the house to get ready for them, or cleaning the house once they’re done.) Ever since I was in high school, I was happy to call up my friends and organize some kind of activity, whether it was getting together to go to a movie, go out to dinner, or just go over to someone’s house and hang out, I liked making all the phone calls and getting it all organized. (Probably a sign of impending librarianship, I suppose.)

I still like doing it these days. (Don’t get me wrong: I hate calling strangers on the phone. I have no idea why I’m so comfortable calling friends but can’t stand calling people I don’t know well. That doesn’t really make sense to me, but I suppose I don’t always have to make sense.) I know that a lot of the time, if someone doesn’t step up and organize fun, fun just doesn’t happen. So I like having a house that can host the fun, and corralling my friends into coming over for the fun. Over the years, we’ve done a slew of different parties. Groundhog Day (of course), Halloween, Christmas, Bowl Games, Super Bowls, New Years Eve, movie nights, game nights, and more. My party-planning has taken a bit of a back seat to the house renovation, just because our house is such a constant mess, but now that we’re getting close to the other side of that, I’m hoping we can fully get back in the swing of things.

It really made me happy, then, to see Daniela step up to the plate and show that she’s really interested in the same sort of thing. She came to me saying that she missed the Halloween parties we used to do, and that she wanted to organize one for this year. I’m tight on time, so it was a great chance for me to hand the reins over to her. She sat down and came up with a list of people to invite, and I helped her work out some of the logistics. (Dinner or no dinner? Trick or treating? What time? What time to meet at the house? When should we finish?)

But that’s the easy part. She also handled calling and inviting people, which seems to be much more difficult for this generation. It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that she was calling actual adults, inviting whole families to the party. I sat next to her, coaching her through it, and she did a really good job. (Especially when it came to leaving messages. That proved to be particularly stressful, but I admired the way she barreled forward and didn’t let it bother her.)

We’ll see where she goes from here. If this becomes a thing she really gets into and enjoys, or if she just tries it out and moves on to other things. For now, I’m just happy I get to go to a party that I’m not completely planning. 🙂

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Saying Goodbye

I drove Tomas up to Bangor yesterday morning. I had originally planned on just dropping him off at the curb at the airport, but then I realized he was checking bags, and that wasn’t something we’ve really done when flying before, so I parked and went in with him to give him one last bit of support before he headed off on his own. I went up with him to security (it was his first time in Bangor’s small airport, though I’m sure he could have figured it out himself), gave him a hug, told him I was proud of him and that I’d miss him, and then told him there was no way I was going to stand there waiving to him the whole time while he went through security. We said goodbye, and that was that.

I’ve been through a lot the last two or three years. Global pandemics. Job insecurity. The loss of a parent. But somehow simply saying goodbye to my son at the airport proved to be the hardest of all of those on me, emotionally. There are many, many ways I’m chiding myself over that fact. Many other parents deal with much more difficult goodbyes. He hasn’t passed away. He hasn’t stormed off in a rage. He’s leaving to go do something I’m fully in support of, and he’s growing into an amazing man.

And yet I’m still upset about it, and I’m having a hard time keeping it together, to be honest.

I know dads are supposed to be the emotional bedrock of a family. The ones who stoically keep it together at all times, because crying is weak. But honestly, I have come to realize over the course of the past 2.5 years that all that suppressing of emotion over the years is taking a real toll on me. I’ve actually been trying to cry more recently, knowing that it’s an excellent way of getting stress out of the body. Strangely, it’s required real effort for me to do it. I have had to really focus on allowing myself to feel that much sadness.

But seeing Tomas say goodbye to MC and Denisa and Ferris? (He’d said goodbye to Daniela the night before, as she had to leave early yesterday morning.) That about pushed me over the edge. I had to leave the room for a bit, as crying is one thing, but crying in front of people is still a bridge too far for me. Going up to his empty room last night, seeing it all dismantled and put away in preparation for MC to move in there, I just sat on his bed and bawled for fifteen minutes.

Some of this might stem from experiences I went through growing up. I lived with my mom in Pennsylvania. My dad lived in Utah. My brother, sister, and I would go out to Utah for a month each summer, and for Christmas every other winter. That always involved a car ride to the airport when we left, knowing that I’d be away from one parent for a month, and knowing that parent was sad. Then it involved another car ride to the airport on the way back, with the situation reversed. I hated (hated) those car rides. The sick feeling that would settle into my stomach as those goodbyes approached.

Taking Tomas to the airport yesterday, I had that same feeling again, and it set off some deep-seated memories in me.

Again, everything that’s going on for him is a good thing. He’s on his own, learning to do his own thing, but he’s got a lot of structure and support around him to help him as he makes that transition. He’s going home to Slovakia, which will give him a chance to connect with that side of his heritage. From the day he was born, Denisa has worked on teaching him Slovak. This has been something we’ve tried to be preparing for for a long, long time. He was excited to be off, and I can relate to that. I remember being in his shoes, nervous about what might come, but still really wanting to finally see how I did on my own. To set up my life the way I wanted it to be. (Though when I watched him head off for security, I had a very hard time not seeing the little boy I’ve known for years, going off to do something that I can’t help him with.)

I know none of this is unique to just me. I know literally billions of people have dealt with this over the years. But for Denisa and me, this was a first. A significant first in the same way it was a significant first for him. There aren’t a whole lot of those in your life. Leaving home. Getting married. Having a baby. Sending your child off to school. Having your child leave home. And just like all those other firsts, I’ve found it isn’t really something you can understand until you do it yourself. I’ve been dreading yesterday for the last half year at least. It was worse than I thought it would be.

The good news is that we got to talk to him yesterday evening. My father picked him up from the airport and will take him to the MTC today. Tomas had a great trip. I was surprised to hear he talked to a stranger all the way from Bangor to JFK, then he went to dinner with another stranger in JFK, and he met several other people who he had good interactions with. Having a missionary name tag can sometimes be a liability. People judge you without even knowing who you are. But it can also be an asset. The man on the flight from Bangor knew many members of our church and knew all about missionaries. Some members saw him in JFK and took him to dinner, knowing what he’s going through. And to have Tomas not just talk with those strangers, but to sound like he even enjoyed it?

He’s making big strides already. 🙂

Anyway. That’s about all I’ve got to say about that for now. We’ll get to talk to him once a week, which is so much more than I got to do as a missionary. That helps with this transition, but I’m sure it will continue to be difficult as I learn to adjust. Our family at home is now down to 4, and that will require some retooling for everyone. Tomas and I did a lot together. Playing Magic. Playing video games. Watching sports. I’ll likely end up switching up what I do week to week as well, tweaking things to spend time with Daniela and MC more. We’ll see where things all settle in a few months.

Thanks for all your well wishes. They’re very much appreciated.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything