Just Need A Friend

The interaction between my two boys interests me to no end.  Griffin is five and Gage is two.  They are each other’s best friend and worst enemy.

My eldest has reached that age where he is becoming scared of things.  He’s cautious about people, afraid of what’s in the dark, and petrified of hydrogen peroxide.  I think sometimes he’d scream less if we just ripped his foot off instead of trying to clean the wound, but that’s neither here nor there.

Gage on the other hand is either not old enough or not smart enough to be scared of anything.  Sometimes I wonder if he ever will be.  I’ve told my wife, on more than one occasion, that Gage will be our ER baby.  He’ll be the kid that gets to know the nurses on a first name basis and have a file as thick as a quarter pound cheeseburger.  I must be partially prophetic, since Gage already holds the record for ER visits above his older brother.

Anyway, we’ve begun to notice lately, how Griffin uses his brother’s “courage” to his own advantage.  At his grandparent’s house, he’ll routinely send Gage into dark rooms to retrieve whatever toy he’s looking for.  And, despite great effort on our part to teach them the concept of privacy, he’ll ask his little brother to come into the bathroom with him while he uses it.

It’s not as if the little two-year old will be able to fight off whatever is menacing him.  Surely he knows this in his head.  Yet, the fact that he’s not alone has the calming effect he needs.

I’ve experienced something very similar in my own life.  You’ll think it sounds crazy, but before I was married, I couldn’t watch horror movies.  It was all fine until I lay down to go to sleep at night, and then the frightening images would roll back through my head.  Not so anymore.  Now that I don’t go to bed alone, I don’t have the same propensity for fear.

I’m not a psychologist so I can’t tell you why being in the presence of another human being has that effect.  Maybe it’s because I know that whatever situation comes up, I won’t be facing it alone.  Maybe it’s because I know I could outrun her if we were being chased by something.  Who knows.

What I do know, is that sometimes, it’s just nice not to be by yourself.

I don’t know how you feel about the Bible.  But a document that has survived 2,000 years has got to have something in it worth listening to.  Proverbs 18:24 tells us that there is a “friend that is closer than a brother.”  I’ve felt the closeness of a brother, and I’ve watched the closeness that my two sons share.  And I have to say, it’s a comfort to know there’s someone out there that will be even closer to me than that.

Sometimes, there’s no one around when we need them.  Yet, we’ll find if we reach out; God is always there.

Inappropriate Smiling

I suffer from a malady that, until recently, I thought was quite unique.  Unfortunately, I’ve passed it on to my oldest son.  After a little research, I found that we’re not alone.  There’s even a wiki-how-to that addresses the specific problem.

My son and I both suffer from smiling at inappropriate times.

How is this even an issue worth talking about?  What’s the big deal about smiling at inappropriate times?  Consider if you will, that your loving wife has had a horrible day.  The children have disobeyed all day, the youngest stayed up straight through his nap, the dog has thrown up 3 times, the eldest has flooded the toilet, and now you’ve finally come home.  The look of exasperation is evident on her face, the look of hope at a moment’s respite clear in her eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re home, it’s been a day,” says she.

And you know what’s coming, but you have to say it anyway, “Oh, I won’t be here for very long.  I forgot to tell you that I’ve got a school board meeting tonight.”

“I’ve cooked dinner,” she says, desperately hoping it will change the reality of the situation.

“I’m sorry,” is about the only response left.

The temperature in the room drops noticeably.  She’s needed someone to unload her day on, and now she’s got a reason.  You’re in deep trouble.  Before you know it, she’s in full fire hose mode, and you’re thinking, ‘Great, can this get any worse.’  And then it happens.  You feel the slight tug at the corner of your mouth and you think ‘Oh, please no.  Don’t let me smile.  Not right now.’  But the more you think about it, the more unavoidable it becomes.  The more solemn the situation is, the more undeniable the urge to grin.

In the earlier days of our marriage, this particular proclivity of mine served to throw a gallon of fuel on an already raging fire.  Fortunately, after twelve years of marriage, my wife has grown tolerant of my cheese-eating grin, and even stops to make fun of me when they occur.  In a way, it sort of helps diffuse the situation...now.

My poor son has a long way to go though.  The other day, we were in Burger King, and he had packed his little belly as tight as he could.  At this point, the only way to continue eating is to rear your head back and let fly with a belch big enough to shake the heavens.  He made me proud.  His mother, not so much.  She immediately set in to correct him on the proper etiquette of belching in public, and I saw the smile spread across his little face.

“This is not funny, Griffin,” his mother said.  And something in my brain immediately kicked in, and I thought, ‘Yeah, it actually is kind of funny.’  So, I quickly got up and went to get a refill on my already full drink.

Now armed with this knowledge, can you even begin to fathom what happens when I go in to correct him for some error, only to see him struggling to keep the grin off his face?  The results tend to be about as far from correction as can be.  He starts smiling, then I start smiling, and before you know it, there’s not a bit of righteous fury or indignation left in me.  Honestly, how do you convince a kid of the seriousness of the situation when you can’t keep a smirk off your own face?

Maybe someday there will be a cure for this social malady.  Until then, my son and I will suffer in silence…grinning like hyenas.

I'm So Weak

Earlier this year, I ruptured a disc in my back.  My wife bought me a grill for a Valentines/Anniversary present.  We went on our anniversary to pick it up, and since she was pregnant, I refused to let her help me hoist it into and out of the truck.  “Cripple”, I called her and poked fun at her delicate condition.  Little did I know how the words would come back to haunt me.

Months of x-rays, MRIs, doctor visits, therapy, and epidural cortisone injections proved unfruitful.  This was probably not the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, but it was the most consistently enduring.  The disc had ruptured onto a nerve that went down my leg.  The more sitting and walking I did, the worse the pain got.  Eventually, I could only get relief by lying down.

The day of surgery finally came and went, and the doctor was able to remove all the offending disc tissue.  Relief from the rupture was immediate.  Relief from the surgery was something a little slower in coming.  Even now, I’ve only been back in the gym for few weeks.

Did you know that in some cases the muscles in the human body can begin to atrophy as quickly as 3 days if they are not being used?  Of course, diet and previous level of exercise can greatly affect this, but even a moderately healthy individual will notice the effects in mere weeks if they stop their exercise routine.

I lay on my back for weeks.  I’m still amazed at the amount of muscle I lost.  Now, when I’m working out, trying to do crunches, my abs shake like I’ve never attempted a single sit-up.  It’s frustrating, but something I’ve got to work through.  The doctor said I’ve got another disc that’s looking iffy, so if I don’t get in there and strengthen my back up, I’ll be back in the same condition.  That’s a thought I just can’t bear.

But even now, I can take solace in the words my oldest son told me when he was a mere 4 years old.  As I sat at the house that morning, I was complaining about how I didn’t want to go to work.  With wisdom beyond his years, Griffin looked up at me and said, “Daddy, sometimes I don’t want to go to school, but I have to do it anyway.”  So, I went to work.

I think our society has become so inundated with entertainment that we feel like having fun is one of our inalienable rights.  Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, fast food, video games, and a DVR full of this week’s latest offerings.  Maybe it’s just me that struggles with this.   

Responsibility is more than just a 24-point word.  It’s a choice.

What's That Smell

I went to the gym on Monday.  Yeah, me.  I have to go in the morning, or otherwise I’d never get to spend any time with my kids.  Thankfully, I’m able to shower at the gym before going straight to work.  I’m sure that if that weren’t the case, my co-workers would insist that I wait until the evening to do my fitness routine.

Another advantage to going early is that I can get the workout done before the heat of the day sets in.  And, man, has it ever been hot.  Lately, it’s still in the nineties at 8:00 pm.  So, there’s that too.

I figured out, Tuesday morning, that there’s one flaw in the execution of my daily routine.  When I finished my shower and started getting ready for work, I popped the cap off of my deodorant, and immediately noticed that there was nothing there.  What had happened, the previous day, is that I left my gym bag in my truck all day, and the ‘solid’ deodorant melted up into the cap.

I salvaged enough to make due for the day, and then explained the problem to my wife that evening.  She had a great idea of leaving the Right Guard Power Stripe container in the truck, but setting it vertical so that the deodorant melted back down into the container and became usable again.  I thought it was brilliant.

So, Wednesday morning, I took two containers of deodorant; one to use, and my busted up bottle that needed fixing.  After my workout, I carefully placed BOTH bottles in the cup holder of my front seat.  I did that because I’m smart, and knew that both bottles were going to melt.  I left them there all day long, so the sun could do its job.

When I arrived at my truck to go home, I noticed that the sun had done exactly what it was supposed to do…and then a little more.  The deodorant had melted so completely that it seeped out of the bottom of the container and all over my cup holders. 

Thankfully, it didn’t leak down onto the carpet.  That would have been a mess.  Still, I can’t get all the melted deodorant out of my truck.  These are the kind of cup holders that slide into the dash.

The upside to this is that my truck has a crisp, clean, manly smell to it.  It’s sort of refreshing, almost invigorating to ride in now.

The downside is that Power Stripe deodorant doesn’t melt evenly.  When I opened it up this morning, it was a hideous, twisted, melded mess that I was almost afraid to use.  I did anyway.  The alternative would have ended up being just as unpleasant.

Pregnancy Hormones

I love my wife. I really do. I just want you to understand that fact before we go any further. That being said, God did not bless me with the medical knowledge to understand why the hormones in a woman’s body can have such an effect on them. Nor, does it seem, that He has blessed me with the wisdom to see when they are roiling about inside of her. I’ve found that pregnancy takes that lovely feminine feature and amplifies it beyond publicly desirable levels.

I’m a bit jealous of the fact that women have this intuition that leads them through situations. It’s almost like an innate navigational system. What I wouldn’t give to have a little voice in the back of my head to say, “You have now crossed into a hormonal mine field. Shut your mouth. Make a U-turn at your earliest possible convenience.”

Yeah, I don’t have that.

It was a bright, sunny Saturday morning. I was laying at the end of the bed, thoroughly exhausted from trimming both the Bradford Pear and Holly bush in the front yard. My sweet loving wife lay down at the top of the bed and pulled my right arm up above my head. Instinctively, I jerked it away from her, fearing that she was about to poke me in the armpit. Some of you would say I have a guilty conscience, that I was afraid my wife was paying me back for tickling her at some earlier point in time. Clearly, you’ve never met my wife. No former provocation is needed (though I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done something to deserve it).
As it turns out, her intentions were totally pure…this time. She was attempting to pull me up closer to her so we could snuggle up and spend some time talking. She immediately told me as much, at a high decibel level, punctuated by the slamming of the bathroom door.

This whole interaction greatly confused our five-year-old who witnessed the entire debacle. Like the proven dunderhead I am, I told him that, “Mommy was just trying to be ornery, but didn’t want to admit it.” I made sure she heard me when I said it.

At this point, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that there’s not a great deal of difference between a hormone-saturated pregnant woman, and a gas-soaked pregnant woman. In the case of the former, my off-handed comment served as the spark. Where I had simply hurt her feelings by rebuffing her earlier, I had now managed to set her ablaze with my most recent explanation to our son.

To my credit, I immediately tried to iron out the situation. However, I was told, in no uncertain terms, to leave the bathroom. Sometimes, a tactical retreat is the only correct move.

After a little while, we were able to talk out the situation, put our boy’s mind at ease, and eventually laugh about it. Still, if your field of work happens to be Bioengineering, and you’re looking for the next big idea. Let me suggest a hormone-sensing, speech navigation system. It’ll go a long way towards keeping us guys out of trouble.

Beginnings

Do you ever get that feeling that you're never going to get ahead in life? Just when you think you've got a little bit of breathing room, the water pump on the car goes out, your youngest child develops a rash the size and shape of Rhode Island (requiring an ER visit on a holiday weekend, no less), or your ten year old dog develops a medical condition that the veterinarian burns through $1,000 and never finds (turns out to be due to weight issues). The point is, your life seems to reach this equilibrium where you continually try to get your head above the waters enough to take your next breath. Depressing isn't it? It wears on you after a while.

If this sounds like your life, I've got some good news for you. I found something that helps. It's the simple fact that you are not alone. Oh, sure, it doesn't make the problems go away. It doesn't head them off before they reach you, but there's comfort in knowing that there's someone else with you. Remember back when you were a kid and the violent storms of spring came rushing in during the night, or you had those horrid dreams of werewolves running across the moonlit hills? Did you run to your parent's room? Most of us did, not that our parents could stand up and tell the storm to be still, or fight off a pack of shape shifters (unless your dad was a Navy SEAL or something). It was the mere fact of their presence that made the difference.

I hope that, as I share my life with you, you'll be able to draw strength from the fact the we're all the same, and we deal with the same issues. I'm a young father of two boys with one girl on the way, and it scares me to no end that my children will grow up to be like me. I'm a husband, trying to meet the demands of fatherhood, domestic responsibilities, and still trying to have a relationship with my wife. I'm a professional in my field, trying to balance work obligations with family time. I'm an avid video game player and cave explorer with little or no time for my hobbies.

This would all be challenging enough, without the hurdles of life popping up at random. So, I invite you to come along for the run. I'm sure you'll see a little bit of yourself in the day to day situations, and maybe even get a laugh or two as I trip over the ever rising hurdles that pop up at random. That is, if you're the type of person that finds humor in the misfortunes of others.

You know who you are.