Sweet Pea

When I think about how I want to prepare Natalie for adult hood, my thoughts go to ways I can make sure she  doesn't get hurt. By hurt I keep thinking about some horrible guy she could end up with.  When I think about how I want to prepare Ben for adult hood, I think about ways I want to make sure he is strong enough to survive.  I want both (soon I will have to say "all three") of my children to be smart and well educated.  My  instincts with Natalie however seem for me to be centered around making sure she doesn't get hurt.  With Ben I just want him to be tough to be able to take what life throws at him.  Interesting I think.

Beast of Burden

I had a discussion with a family member not too long ago about how relationships can be strained by children.  How you can spend so much time focusing on them, that the couple will then be unable to focus on each other and the relationship can suffer or in some cases cease to exist. 

I pretty much disagree with this.  My opinion is that it occurs because there is a subtle cultural notion that children are a burden to a relationship.  A sort of unspoken undertone of how kids damage relationships and "ruin your life".   There is an assumption that happiness in a relationship comes from what I call the passion stage of a relationship.  You know the one.  This is the stage where you’re always holding hands, always cuddling, and spending time alone.  Going out, staying out late.  Afternoon naps.  All the warm and fuzzy feel good stuff that most of us have experienced.  As any person with kids can tell you.  Good luck getting any time doing that stuff!  But why does a relationship need all that to survive or prosper?  Can’t the children be seen as a positive result of that stage?  Can’t we accept that the first phase brought us to this phase and embrace it?  The shared experience of raising children in my mind should bring you closer together, not push you apart.

The last two times my wife and I went to dinner alone, we both felt that something was missing.  I am not going to lie to you.  Not having done our best impression of a competitive eater and asking for the check while we were still eating, was a nice change of pace.  But after we got over that part, there was not much else to enjoy.  We knew we could not go out late or drink too much, or do any of those things in the first phase.  So the whole experience seemed sort of muted to us.  It became an exercise of watching the clock, and wondering what to do next.

Where I think we do well however is; to just be okay with the phase of our relationship we are in.  If the pre disposition is that a relationship is strengthened by children as opposed to weakened, I think it will could change how people view the introduction of children into their lives.  Maybe there needs to be that strong first phase to get though the kids phase.  Maybe the relationships that don’t make it were never that strong to begin with.  Part of it could be; we are all just too focused on ourselves and what we want so we can be "happy".   

A few nights ago  the four (almost 5) of us went to Friendly’s.  Benjamin ordered his favorite ice cream and I got to help him eat and watched him get hot fudge all over the place.  Natalie, our daughter, tried some ice cream for the first time and loved it.  We shoveled down our food.  The kids got upset more than once.  My pants got hot fudge on them.  The table was a mess.  I looked at my wife and smiled.   It was the best time.   

Daddy? What are you doing?

A simple question, and one that I get asked a lot.  Sometimes I really have no idea.  I am the husband of a wonderful wife.  A father of two young children.  A four year old boy and a one year old girl.  The daily challenges, triumphs and failures of raising a family from a fathers perspective.  This is what you will find here.  I hope you find it interesting.