New Beginnings

It has been a long time since I last shared my experiences as a stay-at-home father with the cyber-world. I have a good reason for the absence. In the crazy world of the stay-at-home parent, much is flip-flopped. Weekends are more work than weekdays, vacations often more work than non-vacations and, most of all, summer more work than school months. Indeed, for the stay-at-home father, summer is when the heavy lifting is done. (I mean this both metaphorically and literally as the constant presence of my boys increases my work-load and their growing has made wrestling them quite a chore). Thus, my incommunicado status for the past months. I couldn't blog because I was busy. Very busy. Often near insanity sort busy. Having one's children present all day every day will do that to a guy. To avoid the obviously unpleasant alternative of losing one's sanity, plans need to be laid. My strategy for the summer months involves routine, or scheduling, if you prefer.

My boys take swim lessons and tennis lessons over the summer. The swim lessons last for 30 minutes and occur every day. The tennis lessons occur twice weekly (from 11-12 for my younger boy, 12-1:30 for my eldest). Both boys continued with music lessons. My older son's piano lessons happened in his teacher's house on Monday's at 12:45 or 1 or 1:30; the piano teacher is a great guy and a wonderful teacher, but a tad disorganized so the lessons seemed to start at slightly (occasionally radically) different times depending on the week. Luckily, the piano teacher has a back yard where my boys could play while awaiting the lesson (and where my younger son and I could continue to play whilst my older boy had his lesson). My younger son's violin lessons occurred on Wednesdays at 11 am. His teacher lives too far away to hold lessons at his house. Instead, the violin lessons were offered in another family's house. I would describe this house as "loosely" in our neighborhood. It required a long walk. But walking is a forte of ours, and every Wednesday a-violin-ing we did go. To keep our spirits up during long, hot summer treks to and from music lessons, I decided that my boys and I needed (nay, deserved) some reward. Thus, we ate lunch twice weekly at our favorite restaurant (before piano and after violin). This restaurant is a frequent destination for my boys and I. The staff never give us menus. Instead they greet us with, "hey guys. Two apple juices, a Diet coke, a Peanut-butter and honey, a Grilled cheese, and a Rosewood Deluxe, right?" And they never forget to bring us two chocolate-chip cookies (split three ways) for dessert.

After the boys and I returned home, they would read or do other school work for an hour (on impressive days) or a half-hour (on less impressive days). The work would be followed by a celebratory hour-long TV show which would be followed by sports (baseball or basketball or paddle-tennis or football or soccer) until my wife came home. Thus, Mondays consisted of swimming, walk to our favorite restaurant, lunch, walk to piano teacher's house wait/play/pray for the start of lesson, walk back home, school work, TV, play. Tuesdays and Thursdays were made up of swimming, tennis, walk home, lunch, school work, TV, play. Wednesdays consisted of play, long walk to violin, violin, walk to favorite restaurant, lunch, walk home, work, TV, play. Fridays were the simplest: swimming, walk home, lunch, work, TV, play.

To see my summer summed up so concisely does not entirely do it justice. 'Swimming, walk to lunch, walk to piano, walk home, work, TV, play..... This sounds so orderly, so neat, so easily achieved. The words do not do justice to the constant battle to keep the peace, to maintain tranquility. Every facet of our summer days was occasionally visited by conflict. Fights between brothers, complaints about fatigue, complaints about hating whatever activity was next on our agenda, arguments regarding school work, regarding TV shows, regarding play. In short, each phase of every day this summer has seen its battles. Enjoyable battle to be sure, but combat none-the-less.

If I were a rapper, they'd call me Smoky the Bear because I'm always putting out fires. However, to be totally accurate, I would be a far more contented Smoky the Bear than the one who dominated the anti-forest fire push of yesteryear. The fires of disquiet that my boys constantly set this summer were annoying at times, but, for the most part, they did not mar what was a very successful summer. We are all happy, healthy, and ready for school. As the fires of summer cool, I must prepare for new fires to come. I am now father to a third grader and a kindergartener.