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Home alone with the kids

by Andy Van Horn

Sure I can handle it

My wife asked me take care of our daughter so she could be a volunteer advisor at a drug prevention camp for a week in July.  What was I going to say?  "No."   I am 37.  I have multiple degrees in education and I taught school for 9 years.  I now work from home with an incredibly flexible schedule.  Most people would kill for the situation I have in order to be a single parent for a week.  I can handle this.  She asked in February.  You would think that this would give me enough time to be ready.  Oh silly daddy, that meant I had only 5 months to get ready.  Here is what I learned.

Zone D is the way to go.

While I am a musician by training, I understand sports and I live in LA where the main sports team is the Lakers (sorry Orlando).  Man to man is a valid defense in sports but when your opposition gets naps, seems to draw on an endless supply of energy, does not need to earn money and gets to sleep for 12 hours-while you do everything you could not do when she was awake (like relax, clean, cook, think)-then man to man will not work.  She can wear you down, even at 3 feet 6 inches tall. 

This is what I learned.  Make sure to take advantage of support, any support. By the end of the week, I had to take a 2 hour break to get rid of a headache.  If I had not then I would have been a horrible dad when my daughter got home from pre-school. I had the advantage of working from home so I made up the work at night.  So I also learned to use the resources you got.  Friends, family, educational TV (or any TV), flexible work schedule, whatever will give you some time to yourself to reenergize.  Let someone else carry the load for a little while.

2 minus 1 is not 1 but 0 in parent math

That is the amount of time that is now your own.  As soon as my wife left to go to "drug camp" (I got more sarcastic about her trip as the week progressed), I realized that the big things were not the issue.  It was the little stuff.  I give my daughter baths on a regular basis, I make lunch, I got breakfast and dinner covered, I put her to bed, I get her dressed but I never do all of them in one day, much less 5 days in a row.  While my wife would do some of the things listed above I would check email, look at a sports score, or think about going for a run (or actually go for one).  This week my personal time was gone.  It was not watching the super bowl or a night out with friends that I missed but rather the 15-30 minutes spread over a day that gets your brain in a different place. 

New Respect for Single Parents

My mom was a single parent and I know she had it tough.  She raised two boys on less than $30,000 a year, with no such things as video games, food delivery or summer camps that would take us for weeks at time.  But she was smart.  She got my brother and I involved in sports (both of us were horrible at it but we had fun) so we were at practice and games a couple of days the week.  This gave her time to reenergize.  I realize that this is what everyone needs.

The Return of the Mommy

She came back.  Child and father were thrilled but mommy was not feeling well and slept for 14 hours and then needed the next day to recover.  So daddy was not yet off duty but a weight was lifted.  She would read a book to our daughter while I could see what was happening around the world.  Just knowing that there was back up was a great feeling.

Not Dead Yet

By Jim Denny

Jackson, my 10-year-old son, has taught me many things about the world around me. A shower - no matter how long - is never long enough. It is never too late in the day, nor too close to bedtime, to enjoy a good snack.  And it is not against the laws of physics to project toothpaste from the sink of the bathroom to the ceiling of the bedroom around the corner. The world is a mysterious place, and I am immeasurably grateful to have him around to unveil these wonders, along with countless others, every single day. 

Perhaps more meaningful, however, is what Jackson has taught me about myself.

This was the first Christmas where Jackson was in on the "Santa secret." So, he knew it was his mom and dad who forked over the cash for his new iPod Touch, rather than some kindly bearded man up at the North Pole cobbling things together with the help of a few elves. And he appreciated it. He truly did. But realizing I had a child who is reaching that point where the realities of life start to creep over the bulkhead of childhood wonder gave me pause. And watching how he took to the iPod Touch without hesitation, fluently navigating his way to the app store and downloading more free apps than I could ever imagine needing in my lifetime, convinced me that the years between us are actually quite tangible.

"Why do you need all of those?" I asked. "You'll never get to all of them.

"You're going to download some sort of virus," I warned.

I knew exactly what I sounded like. I sounded like my parents. The echoes of mom and dad saying "I don't understand why you kids even want that Atari thing" or "Computers? Ha! Why would I care about computers? They can't do the dishes, can they?" haunted me from the dark corners of my mind. I have become the old person who "just doesn't understand."

So, Jackson taught me what I thought was a very simple lesson about myself - I am old.  But in reality, his lesson for me didn't actually end there.

Jackson's birthday is on Christmas Eve. His uncle gave him a Ripstick. A Ripstick, for those of you who don't know, is to a skateboard what roller blades are to roller skates, yet decidedly more unstable. It has a single castor at the front and one at the back. It looks something like two oblong ping pong paddles fused handle to handle. The front and back move independently, just to make things exciting, I guess. According to the instructional DVD that comes with it, it is actually possible to propel yourself uphill by shimmying back and forth and somehow maintaining your balance as you try to forget that the only things separating you from the unforgiving pavement below are two wobbly, gyrating wheels. Jackson was very excited to have his very own Ripstick. And for some strange reason, I was excited to learn how to ride it.

And so there we stood in the driveway, staring at it. We bantered theories back and forth on how one might get onto it without planting his face into the concrete. We talked about which foot should go where, or if it even mattered. Eventually, the talking had to end. Jackson stepped up and, almost immediately, tilted himself off. Again. And again.

"Dad, can you do it?" he said with the slightest bit of frustration in his voice. In fact, I was almost stunned by how his sincerity drowned out the frustration. Did he actually think I could do this? I was never into skateboarding. I've only tried to snowboard once. As excited as I was by this new toy, I was equally sure it was something I would never lay a single foot upon. For an old guy like me, this thing was a deathtrap. And yet, there Jackson stood asking for me to show him the way. 

"We'll take turns. How ‘bout that? We'll teach each other," I said.

And so it began. We stutter-stepped. We wobbled. We watched the instructional video a second time. And then, we started to roll. I even managed to catch a wheel in one of the driveway cracks and take a tumble without breaking a bone. I don't even think I bruised my ego. In the epitome of role reversal, Jackson ran to my side to see if I was ok. And on his very next try, Jackson started cutting turns back and forth. We were far from experts, but we were balanced and moving.

A couple of more times that day, we headed down to the neighborhood clubhouse to take turns riding around the empty parking lot. We were sharing an experience neither one of us had ever had before. For that moment, we were both free to experience the wonder of life, unfettered by the conformity of experience. We had found a new frontier together. There was no young, no old. Only the thrill of the new.

It is true. I may be old and only getting older. But Jackson has taught me that I am most assuredly not dead. Life, according to Jackson, is not yet finished revealing itself to me.

Fatherhood requires that I pass the benefit of my experience on to Jackson, in hopes that he will use the knowledge and understanding from it to reach heights far beyond my own grasp. But at the same time, Fatherhood begs me to rely not solely on the experience of my past but also to share in the sense of wonder that can only come from doing something you have never done before. Fatherhood, in short, is as much an adventure as it is a responsibility.

The other day, Jackson offered to buy me a Ripstick of my own with some of his leftover birthday cash. I just might have to take him up on it.

My 3 year old only wants Mommy.

My 3 year old does not want my help at night. She wakes up and wants Mommy. If I try to to help my wife and comfort our daughter, she ends up throwing a fit because she wants Mommy. She will spend up to an hour in her fit until my wife goes to her room and rocks her back to sleep. Does anyone know what I can do to help my wife and get our daughter to accept my help?