Hey, it's only been eleven months

I thought maybe I should hit the ol' bloggy blog blog again, with an update and such. I'm working toward my early childhood education degree still, still have way too long to go. But it'll be worth it in the end, once I can stop being a poor bum.

I've been working on an idea for a podcast about parenting and video games, because those are really the only two things I know anything about, and even then it's pretty suspect. I think it could be a good project, though, provided I can find a cohost whom I feel comfortable with. That's going to be a big problem. The bigger problem, though, will be the finding the time to actually record things. With school, and both of the kids in the big bed, and a part time job, and taking the kids around to where they need to be, and other excuses...will I find the time to record? Or edit? Who knows! The adventure of dad-dom.

The general idea would be a podcast about raising a nerdy child, because there's a big huge old chance that my kids are going to be nerdy, because they are learning from me. I just don't want them to be bullied or whatever, because that fucking sucks, I know that from experience. Whee. Kids can be jerks.

So maybe a podcast could help some other parent out, give them ideas on how to raise a nerdy, yet well-rounded and emotionally secure child.

Hey, it's only been sixteen months...

Went for a hike along the Des Plaines River Trail today. Plan was to start at 7:00 or so and get as far as I could by the end of the day. What happened instead, I started around 9:30 and made it to mile ten before the blister on my foot got the better of me. Lessons I learned: listen when people say not to hike in cotton socks, and spend more than $20 on hiking shoes.

I hope to get back out there some time, after I can get some better footwear. It felt great to finally be doing something outside again. Gotta get ready for that Appalachian Trail hike! (Hey, a man can dream...)

I've had a goal of doing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail for years now. Whether I'll ever do it, I don't know, but I think it's important to have as a goal, even if I never end up making it. For now, I'll settle for reading different people's trail journals and what have you.

Even though today's hike didn't quite go as I had planned, I did have a good time out there. Got to have some time to myself, got to see some horses, got to see a mommy and baby deer... All in all, a relatively successful trip. 

As for the AT, I found myself daydreaming a bit today while walking about taking the boys along if I do go, maybe when they are out of High School. If they're interested, anyway. Who knows. I definitely don't want to force my own hobbies on them, but I can't say I wouldn't be excited if they shared my interests. I already know Henry has some interest in things like camping, or hiking, or fishing. I will hopefully be able to find some time this summer to help foster some of that.

Anyway, deer.

They were cool to see. As I walked up, the baby one was just laying down on the trail. The mother came up and tried to scoot it along after she saw me. Then a bunch of people on bikes passed by, probably wondering who this weird fat guy was taking pictures of the woods. Only one ended up looking over and seeing the deer, commenting on it, then commenting on how much her ass hurt on the ride away.

One Million Moms is a terrorist organization

Ok, maybe not really. But they might as well be.

If you haven't heard of A Few Hundred Moms That Think Their Opinions Are The Only Ones That Matter Because They Are (Not So) Secretly Pieces of Shit (AFHMTTTOATOOTMBTANSSPOS for short, although I prefer to just call them nothing) (a spinoff of the "American Family Association") they are this group that goes out of their way to harass companies, etc that dare to agree that yes, same sex couples do in fact exist and shouldn't be something that is hidden from view because a bunch of know-nothing know-it-alls don't like it. Their latest target has been this Disney channel show, Good Luck Charlie. The big offense of the show? Two women that are in a loving relationship and are parents to a child on the show. EGAD, MAN! TO THE PHONES!

I'm not going to write about the fact that the whole "homosexual agenda" thing is a joke, or that one person's religion should have absolutely no bearing on the beliefs of others, or any of the other many things that can be said about AFA and similar groups. I have learned long ago that if someone has an opinion about something (especially if that opinion is based on their religion) you are never going to change their minds. It's a futile effort. Besides, there are many people that can explain why the AFA and whoever else are complete pieces of shit much better and with more eloquence than I ever could.

What I mostly take offense at is the way these groups use their (and others!) children as shields to hide behind while spewing their hate speech. They use whatever mental gymnastics they can to show why someone that is gay is evil, or someone that isn't christian is evil, or that someone that disagrees with them is evil, or what the hell ever, and hide it behind a wall of "oh, it's for the children!"

First: children are not stupid. Sure, if you hear something enough while growing up, there is a good chance that you will (at least at first) believe it yourself. I had beliefs as a kid that I wouldn't dare agree with now. I'm sure many would say the same. But that's the thing: you grow, you become exposed to a new way of thinking, and you develop your own thoughts and beliefs as you gain more experience and more knowledge.

Second: children, even if they are your own, are not tools. They are human beings, that will hopefully grow up to realize that there is nothing wrong with being gay, or Muslim, or black, or whatever else people pretend is an affront to god.

The problem arises when you have groups like the AFA or OMM or anyone else that use their children as shields to hide their bigotry behind. They specifically add the word Family, or Mom, or Dad, or whatever because they believe that as precious as children are, nobody will ever try to say anything against them. If they do, well, they're just not focused on the children that matter! Or they use America in their name so if you say no, what you're spewing is bullshit, they can label you as un-American. It becomes nothing but a smear campaign, where they say "well, see, of course I'm on the right side! I'm doing this for the children!" but they're not. They are doing it for their own selfish inward hate. And to hide behind children, the ones that they say they are so focused on, is not only cowardly, it's absolutely disgusting.

I guess what I'm saying is Fuck You, AFA.

Footnote: This is why groups like this are complete garbage: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20784127,00.html
A five year old getting death threats because the character she plays on a tv show has gay parents. So much for it being "for the children", huh.

Post-title (it's my new music genre)

Not really kid related, but I guess it is in a way. I've been thinking about my life, now at thirty years old, with the kids getting  older every day. There are times that the kids want to do X or Y but I am so set in my lifestyle that I don't have the energy or whatever to do it. So I've started yet again on the path to losing some weight, getting in to some semblance of good shape, so I can be able to do things with them that either they want to do, or that I want to experience more with them. Things like more outdoor activities, for one. Not that I am anti outdoors by any stretch of the imagination. I long for the weekend camping trips, the fishing trips, the hikes and bike rides and everything, hell, even the sitting outside, away from the glow of the ipad or the television or whatever. Summer is still a while away (and with temperatures below zero this coming week, it really feels like it) but really,I ts not that far. Spring is even closer. Henry wants to go camping, I know. We did it last summer in the back yard, and it was one of his favorite things. Perhaps a mid-spring camp out is in order.

He's also really interested in fishing, and so am I. Although every time I think about fishing, I think of the time when I went fishing and the fish completely swallowed the hook instead of it just getting caught in the mouth area, seeing the fish die in my hand as I tried to work the hook loose. How much suffering did that fish go through at my hand? I don't know. Hell, it was what, fifteen years ago? The fish would be long dead by now anyway. But I think about it whenever I think of fishing. It won't keep me from doing it again, especially if Henry and Ian are really itching to give it a go. But I worry about them seeing the same kind of thing. I know it's impossible to keep them from knowing about suffering, and it would be completely shitty of me to try to protect them from real life, but hell, I'm their dad, and it's still hard to see them deal with hard situations.

But at the same time, I want them to know what the world is really like. I want them to realize that yeah, things get hurt, things die. Life is finite, and they need to make the most of it. I just want them to realize that before they are thirty, too.

Rambling post #42703

I was laying down with Henry tonight, talking about random stuff as he was getting ready to go to bed. We started by talking about stuff like how I'm proud of him for being such a good big brother to Ian and everything, and how I love him and I always will. I don't really know how it ended up coming up, but I had told him that I would be there for him for as long as possible, and even after I'm gone, I hope he realizes how much I love him and how important he is to me. He asked if I was leaving, and I told him no, but one day I'm going to be gone. He pressed the issue, so i told him that one day (hopefully) a long way away, I'm going to not be able to be there with him because I'm going to die, because all living things die. Maybe this was a stupid thing to say to a three year old, but I try my best to be honest with him. He asked why I was going to die one day, and I told him again that all living things die eventually. He ended up asking if mommy was going to die one day, too, and I had to tell him that yeah, one day, but not for a long time. He sadly said that he doesn't want to be alone. It was the single most heartbreaking thing I have ever heard in my life. I sat there next to him and couldn't keep myself from crying while holding him and telling him that he will never be alone, and that mommy and I will always love him. Eventually the subject changed to a lighter note and he drifted off to sleep happy. Now I am sitting here on his bed as he sleeps, writing this, and I am crying again looking back on it.

There are times that I wish I had some sort of religious belief, or that I could make myself believe in heaven or whatever, so I could tell him that even after I die I will still be there for him, and that we will be together again or whatever, but I can't make myself believe something like that, and I don't feel right about telling him something like that if I don't really believe it myself. At the same time, i desperately want to believe that there is a way that we will be together forever. So what can I do in that kind of situation? I really wish I knew. I guess I did lie to him in the end, I don't know. I just want him to know that his mom and I will always love him for as long as we live, but I didn't want to bring up the whole dying subject again.

I wish I could find a way to put things to words for him to explain how much him and his brother mean to me, but as can clearly be seen by the rambling post here, I'm generally not all that good at finding the best words to use.

Henry has a lot of questions. This kid is very curious about all kinds of things, and I love it. Most of his questions lately are about different sciencey topics, stuff like why do plants have leaves, or where do clouds come from*, etc. I try my best to answer them in an honest manner, yet simple enough for a toddler (and him and I look things up together if I don't know the answers).

One of the questions he has asked a few times is why the sun goes down. He's known for a while now that the Earth spins around in space, and that when it's daytime here, it's night time on the other side of the planet.  A couple of days ago he asked again, so I squatted down and told him again about how the Earth rotates, and I spun around, telling him to pretend he was the Sun and I was the Earth, and as I spin around, he's looking at a different part of my body, kind of like how the Sun shines on a different part of the Earth as the planet spins. 

Before I could try to explain to him the reason, though, someone else mentioned that the Sun goes down because it gets tired and goes to bed. Maybe it's just me, but this is such a boring answer. I was talking to my wife about the subject earlier...the thought that the Sun just goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning does nothing for me. Maybe it's because I'm not a toddler or whatever, but the thought of the Earth spinning through space, while a star shines down on different parts of the surface...it's just fascinating to me. Maybe I'm cheating my kids out of an imagination by telling them the truth about things, I dunno. I wonder if when they are older, they will find the facts as fascinating as I do, or if they will feel bad about not hearing the stories.

*I do admit to telling him that flue-gas stacks on the horizon while we drive were cloud factories once.

One step away from Hoarders

At least that's what it feels like in my house.

I am trying to go through all of the things that I have no use for, which inevitably comes to stuff that the kids own or have made. I am not completely crazy, at least--I know that I'll never need whatever random finger painting Henry pokes at twice before moving on to the next sheet of paper (I think I need to buy stock in a fingerpaint paper supply company), so many of those end up in the trash. But still, I find myself feeling bad about getting rid of random things, such as the bag of polished stones that Henry just had to have on one of our trips to the Zoo. I had thrown them out, because, really, does a three year old need a random bag of rocks that he hasn't actually looked at since about two days after getting them? But I found myself pulling them back out, because, I don't know, I'm stupid, I suppose. (I also like commas, and starting sentences with 'but'.)

I assume it goes back to me not really having anything from my childhood, so I feel bad about getting rid of anything from their childhoods. But (#3), comma, I know that they aren't going to care about not having the bag of stones or whatever item in one week, let alone 25, 30, 50 years. And it's not like I have any use for them, other than for them to clutter up the house and get in the way. When we moved into the bigger house, we were like, yes, we will never fill up this house with commas stuff, we have so much roooooom! But (4) here we are. And we have only had kids for a little over three years. What happens when Ian is making all sorts of art projects and wanting all sorts of bags of stones? What happens when they (gasp) start school and start bringing home even MORE projects and things? (Anyone have any advice on that front?)

I guess my choice is to cut down on the clutter and deal with the feeling of being a jerk by getting rid of their precious things, or I can realize that in the long run, the bag of stones or whatever isn't going to make a difference in their lives, so why live in a cluttered house, and raise kids thinking they need to hold on to every little thing? I say out loud that it's the memories that matter most, not the things. Maybe it's time I start listening to myself.