TIB Parental Thread

We offer (and I'm not shilling here) a CrossFit Kids program through my gym for an hour a day - comes out to like $100 or so a month, but during that hour we wear their asses out.
The parents who've started up love us because they CrossFit, they eat, they nap, they wake up, they eat, they play, then they sleep like bricks overnight.






My boys are in Boston with their dad and stepmom for a while. So I'm basically kidless and husbandless all summer. The boys' dad is leaving them in Boston with their stepmom for 5 weeks while he goes back to work.
They are NOT pleased.

So I'm dealing with frantic texts from them saying "save us, we don't want to be here without dad" and I'm stuck with the reality that I can't do anything to make it better.

Ugh. Parenting, in moments like that, sucks.

 

This should come in handy.

 

So right now the boys are watching a movie with gratuitous violence, race war, scantily clad women, death, Annnnnnnnddddddd under age drinking! Father of the year in the five year old category right here.

 

So in the wake of Kenny spending all night in the hospital I am enjoying my own bout of death.

The problem is, the rational part of my brain tells me to, "keep that little germ factory away from us!"

However, the dad part of my brain says, "no, no, no, he's sick. He needs cuddling and funny faces, and lots of hugs."

Unfortunately the stupid dad part of my brain always wins that argument.

 

My little dude ran full throttle into a tailgate last weekend. The goose egg was bigger than a golf ball. He still has a vertical black stripe on his forehead that looks like magic marker.

I always thought that my primary duty as the father of a toddler was to make sure he didn't drink poison, chop off a finger, or burn the house down. I'm starting to doubt my ability to uphold my duties with this one.

 

Bullshit. Personal injury on a child is inevitable, especially to boys who regard pain and the infliction of it as some sort of voodoo pleasure. You can't prevent everything bad from happening, mine slammed her head into a bed corner and I could see her skull in the hole. And she's a little girly-girl. It happens.

 

At a young age I decided to see how long I could spin in circles before I got too dizzy to stand. Luckily the edge of a filing cabinet caught the back side of my head during the fall. Dad was extremely happy when mom had to call him at work to say she was taking me to the ER to get stitches.

 

Meh, it's inevitable. When mine was 2 1/2 she was running around the huge square coffee table at bedtime, singing Ring-Around-The-Rosie. She booked it on a corner for 10 stitches above her eyebrow. The intake dude at emergency laughed when we checked in and asked "coffee table?" She turns 24 today and still has a scar.

 

I know it's inevitable, but my little dude's favorite pasttime seems to be testing the density walls and other hard objects with his head. It's one thing when dad does it, it's not ok for junior. Just a chip off the ol' block, I suppose.

We had a road trip this weekend and little dude didn't get a nap at all on Saturday. He slept until we woke him up at 10:00am on Sunday. Hooray for no-nap Saturdays, amirite?

 

It is crazy the flips you do from kid to parent. I find myself looking forward to school resuming with an enthusiasm that was once reserved for summer vacation and Christmas.

 

HELL YES. I can't wait till they're back in school. It's a good thing that on Friday they're leaving for a week with their grandparents, because I'm about ready to duct tape them halfway up a wall and leave them there. They're stuck in daycare with each other all day every day and getting on each other's nerves like crazy, which means I've listened to so much whiney 'She's looking at me!' type shit that I'm starting to get an eye twitch.

 

It's not hard to entertain a young kid. Just taking them to a park with a playground could kill up to two hours. I bet the museum would thrill a kid, my daughter is 4 and she likes them. Chucky Cheese would be fine as long as you don't eat or smell the food there. Or Despicable Me 2. If it's hot, take her to splash pad or pool. Do you guys have splash pads? Young kids go apeshit for them.

 

From one babysitter to another, pick out a few activities that you think she might like to do that won't make you pull your hair out (this part is important), and ask her what sounds like most fun to her. Kids are people and like having choices. Also, don't worry about the girl thing, kids are kids, and inevitably worrying about it or putting emphasis on it is the best way to turn a non-issue into an issue.

 

Dude, you're in Boston. You have the Aquarium, the Museum of Science, and an awesome children's museum. Hell, the Aquarium just did a full reno, with a brand new ocean tank.

That should be plenty of stuff to occupy her.

 

The ONLY reason I anticipate school with any joy is because my food and electric bill are lower. Otherwise - the school year wears me out.

But mine are always gone through the summer, so I only get three weeks with them.

 

Question to the step-parents: how do you avoid being bullied by your stepchildren while minimizing animosity? My boyfriend's four year old has already pulled the "you're not my mom" line on me, which wasn't particularly bothersome because she's four, but his ten year old gets pushy sometimes. I haven't run into anything too problematic, but she starts middle school next year, and middle school girls are difficult to say the least, so I'm already trying to plan for how to deal with demands for makeup, outings with boys, et cetera, without her telling me she hates me too often.

 

This is a very simple fix. Because children are notoriously difficult to deal with and earn respect from. The easiest solution would be to break up with him and avoid dating people with children from other relationships so you skate by the bullshit and still remain happy and sane.