Sunday, August 24, 2008

It’s not a job…it’s an adventure. But is it a “sacrifice?”

This is a post that I started red hot, and didn't get to finish at the time, so I apologize up front for the fact that it won't go near where I had hoped in terms of scope or distance.

It’s been a good month for us here on Oahu, and while things have been as crazy as ever, we’ve had a lot of real good days. Preschool goes well and the twins really like going. They spend a lot of their time away from school talking about going back to school. Also, while we are only three weeks in, they are now able to come home and talk to the rest of us about what they ‘did at school today’ which is a really fun wrinkle to our conversations.

The Bear is adjusting as well. She misses her brother and sister terribly at times when they are at school, but has been somewhat consoled by some of our activities together-playgroup and library time, plus the occasional “Madeline” cookie from Starbucks. There’s three in the pack, and she gets to share two of them with the twins, and she likes that. The time at the library has been particularly fun for her, as she gets to run around, sit in all the chairs, read all the books she wants, play with all the stuffed animals she wants, and take dives into the huge stuffed doggie that they have on the floor. Honestly, the thing looks so fluffy that I want to dive on it. Perhaps someday…It’s been fun to see who she is on her own though.

The potty training has been good overall. They still have accidents, but in general, they tend to happen at home or on the way to places, rather than while out in public, which is a good thing. There are steps forward and there are steps back. To be frank, the child who is most motivated right now is the Bear, as she’s got “I-wanna-be-a-big-kid-it is” something fierce. And we let her practice, and she occasionally produces results. It’s endearing in a way that almost slows me to look past the fact that she has learned how to remove her clothing, and her diaper, even when taped and turned around, pretty much at will. Almost. I won’t go deeper here except to say that the messes the wife and I have cleaned up are Jackson Pollack-like in their scope and delivery.
All in all, August has been a good month for us as a family.

There have been two pieces of conversational note that have gotten themselves stuck in my craw. The first is a comment that was made to me by an acquaintance, a relatively new one, who, upon learning that I was a stay-at-home dad, made the comment that, “Cool man. Must be nice not to work.” He followed that up with a litany of praise for how I’ve beaten the system, and can just “chill with your kids all day.”

Now, he’s a younger guy, and it came off to me as the kind of thing that a younger guy who doesn’t really know what he’s saying, might, and in this case, did say. I did notice a young mother, who is also an acquaintance eavesdropping on us, and the angle at which her eyebrows raised at that comment has perhaps not yet been analyzed by our top mathematicians.
I smiled at him and said, “I’ll tell you pal…I’ve had a lot of jobs. I’ve been a lot of things from Postal Worker to Vice Principal to Garbage-man. I’ve never worked harder in my life than I do as a stay-at-home parent.”

The other mom quietly let out a “Damn right,” and went back to pretending to ignore us.
The young man with whom I was speaking then jumped into a whirlwind of activity asking about what it was like to be a garbage-man, and if I’d ever found anything cool or any dead bodies or anything. He’s a nice kid, and I decided not to trip him as he got up to go tell someone he’d met a guy who was a Garbage-man. Well, maybe I didn’t decide to not to as much as I missed, but who’s to say?

Now, I’ve spoken in this space a number of times about the nature of work and how I see the “work” I do now at home and with my kids, and in fact the work of all stay-at-home parents in a very different light now that I’m doing it. I won’t rehash those same stories, except to add that this kid, and the drama of the last month with preschool and all the other transitions have led me to recall the old Armed Forces slogan: It’s not just a job…it’s an adventure.

And I really think that’s true. When one thinks about the nature of adventure, it’s really a trip into the unknown, and I’ll tell you this gentle reader, the kids and I rarely end up doing exactly what we’ve planned, or at least we don’t do what we planned how we planned it. And some of the results are often a lot of fun. Some of them result in me nearly getting into fistfights at the State Library, but that is another story, also told here previously. (See January. I still want a piece of that guy)

We had a bit of an adventure today, and this one was completely unplanned. After morning swim lessons, dropping the wife off at work, and then heading towards the Discovery museum, we got stuck in traffic, and ran out of time for that activity, so we headed to the Zoo.

And we ended up having the best day there that we’ve had in quite some time. Sun bear was back from vacation, and the Tigers are expecting, and even though we recently lost the Meerkat, everyone is moving on in a positive manner.

This is one of those posts that I started and didn’t get to finish when it was hot in my heart. But, short story is that they were great. The kids talked all day at the Zoo about how they couldn’t wait to tell their friends from school about the thing that they saw at the Zoo, and just in general, they were a lot of fun to be with. From start to finish, they were fun. I could expound, but I’m tired, and I want to post this before I leave for Ohio in a few days.

The “sacrifice” bit was going to be a statement on a comment that someone made to me recently about how the life that I have chosen is a sacrifice. That I’ve given up something to be where I am.

They meant it as a compliment, and I took it as such, but at the end of the day, I think that the days that we spend on this Earth are not measured by anything other than what we were able to do to care for the people we choose to be with. I’ve chosen to care for my family. To me anyway, that’s no sacrifice. It’s a gift.

This would all have been far more eloquent had I more time. Perhaps I’ll be able to hammer out some good stuff on my trip, and maybe make some headway on the novel.

Thank you for all your support.

No comments: