Painting

Just an old picture of painting on a rainy day. Only two kids. No school yet. Nothing to do and looking for ways to kill time. Those were the days...... of course there were diapers too. Don't necessarily miss the diapers.

Stung

Yesterday was a nice day and I had a bit of time to kill while my youngest was in preschool, so I went for a run. As usual I ran barefoot and, as usual, I had a very pleasant time. After the run I did a cool down walk and some stretching, and then cut across the lawn of the preschool to get back to my car. That's when I stepped on a bee. It was unpleasant. I've been stung quite a lot in my life and I hate it every time. It's something that you never quite get used to. 
Later on I was telling my wife about it and she held little sympathy. I run barefoot, what do I expect? It was just a matter of time! I pointed out to her that in all my many years barefoot upon this planet, this is the first time I've ever been stung in the foot. I argued that stepping on a bee was a pretty low occurrence thing. To back up my claim I put forward the fact that I've been stung in the lips three times in my life, and only once in the foot. Perhaps we should worry less about wearing shoes and more about wearing full face helmets?
Sometimes I think we spend a lot of parental energy worrying about the wrong things. We talk about how to stay safe around strangers, but it's far more likely that a child will be harmed by a person they know than a stranger. We worry about school shootings when most children who are shot are shot accidentally in their own homes. We tell them that drinking, using drugs, and having premarital sex are bad, but we don't admit that it's the consequences that are bad, while the actions themselves can be quite a good time.
I'm not sure what my final conclusion about all of this is. My foot is incredibly itchy and that makes it hard to concentrate and type. I think we spend a lot more energy on things what we're worried about than the things that our kids should be worried about. We feel like we know the people we know, and that we have control over the guns around us, but what other people might do and what guns they might pick up are scary. We worry about what would happen in our lives if we let vices in, especially when we see them destroy the lives of those around us. Maybe the next time I'm warning my kids about walking barefoot though the grass I'll start to worry more about their lips than their feet, and I'll realize that even the simplest parts of parenting aren't as simple as they seem.

Acceptance

On my way to drop the kids at school the other day I passed a group of kids waiting for the bus, rather, I passed two groups of kids waiting for the same bus. They had clearly segregated themselves into the "us" and the "them" and each group stood on their own side of the road. It got me to thinking.
When my kids started preschool at age three there were no groups. Everyone was a kid and everyone played with each other. Sure, the rowdy kids played with each other more and the quiet kids played with each other more, but for the most part, this was the class and just being in the class was enough to be friends. Nobody was looking to find their place in the world because there was nothing to find. I'm a preschooler, you're a preschooler, we're all preschoolers! Let's play!
Sometime between then and junior high, the whole idea that we all fit in everywhere falls apart and they start to tear the larger group into smaller groups. They split by sex and by personality and by ability and in my kid's school, language. They fragment into small groups and they stand together with their faces turned inward to their group and their backs to those that don't belong. I saw it at the bus stop and I see it when I'm at any school function. Already I'm seeing a lot more back and a lot less face myself when my older kids are around their friends.
I know that this is all normal. They're deep in the process of becoming themselves. From now on it's the interaction with their peers, and the acceptance of those peers that will largely determine who my kids become. If they're a boat at sea, I know I'm not the rudder that steers them, or the wind that pushes them along, I'm merely the ship builder that hopes he's built a straight keel for them to move forward on. I want to help my kids, I truly do, but with each passing day I can see that who they become and what successes they have in life increasingly depend on them. I can't make their friends for them. I can't do their work. No only can I not fight their battles, but most of the time I can't even see them if they don't want me to.
Before we had kids a lot of people told us that the hardest parenting was when they were little. They needed you to feed them and change them and take care of pretty much every aspect of their existence. Their neediness was exhausting, physically and emotionally draining, and it was hard. They get bigger and they get more independent and things do get easier. That much is true. I'm starting to think that maybe there are two hard times though. The first part when they need you for everything, and the second, which is starting to happen now, when they might not need you for anything at all. Acceptance of that will be hard.

Teamwork

With as much bickering and fighting as there is around the house on a typical day, it sometimes surprises me to look back at pictures and see the kids going about jobs with excellent teamwork. I like to look at the pictures and remember an idyllic time when they were getting along and solving problems with conversation and compromise instead of screams and insults. Then I remember that the reason that I took the pictures in the first place was because it was so cute and unexpected for them to be cooperating like that. This wasn't normal behavior, it was odd enough and special enough that I needed to take a picture of it so that I could remember a single moment of cooperation. Someday I'll forget the fighting and these pictures are what I'll have left. I'll like that.

Diabolical

The Easter bunny is a diabolical fiend. Don't get me wrong, the guy's awesome, but he is not a kind and gentle bunny when it comes to hiding eggs. It is fun though.

Mugs

We have a box in our garage that is completely stationary for 364 days a year. It sits and collects dust and is never moved or opened. The day before Easter each year, I pull it down from the shelf, reach inside, and grab as many coffee mugs as my hands can carry. I call them coffee mugs because that's what they originally were made to be. If you judge an object by it's use, then they aren't coffee mugs any more, they're dye mugs. 364 days of hibernation for one vinegar fueled bright and cheery dye session. If mugs could be happy, these would be happy.
Click through the jump to see the rest of the pictures.

Two Wheelin'

The last of the kids had his maiden two wheeled voyage this morning. He was very excited and wanted to make sure that I shared it with everyone. He was a bit wobbly and his turns leave something to be desired, but he's well on his way to multi mile biking adventures. The longest journey starts with a wobbly trip down the driveway as they say.