Oh blogger why have you forsaken me.

Yes I left this blog high and dry. All the time I was gonna spend documenting the joys and challenges of fatherhood, I've spent in the trenches of the joys and challenges of fatherhood. Plus I have facebook and twitter now, which allows me to more easily share the wacky poignant moments of our lives.
So what have you missed? I'm talking to the blog here, I know he/she is mad at me for ignoring he/she for so long, so indulge me why I pay a little attention to he/she.

The boy as I affectionately call him on Facebook and Twitter (sorry blog, didn't mean to throw them in your face again, just trying to give you context.) The boy just turned 7. 7!! Can you believe it?? 7!!

We threw him a birthday party of course. The theme was magic, he wanted it to be a pokemon party, we didn't, so we overruled him in that old-fashioned parenting kind of way by just ignoring his request. He's getting hip to that, so we'll have to come up with a new tactic soon.
Man it was the most fun of all the birthday parties we've ever had, Mario The Magician. He was so great with the kids. The tone of his show is what really impressed me, he engaged them, he challenged them and he was always in control. It was a great parenting lesson. Of course it was easy for him, he only had to do it for an hour and he literally had a bag full of tricks and a bird, did I forget to mention the bird. And he was paid HANDSOMELY!!
We parents don't have the luxury of a bag full of tricks, or a bird, or an hourly wage. We just have to do it, every day, and the struggle for the right tone feels like a losing battle. Our challenges are the early morning, the getting ready for school, the getting up way too early after going to bed way too late. The get dressed, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, make your bed tone. The tone that is firm and patient and encouraging and loving and consistent. Try to find that tone at 6am on 3 or 4 hours sleep.
I need a bird. And perhaps an hourly wage.

I'll be back sooner then later blog. I promise.

Forgive Me Father

For I have sinned. It has been a ridiculously long time since my last blog entry. We've been so busy living our lives, to stop and document and reflect and project was the furthest thing from my mind.
My boy exploded!! He went from this gibberish talking, scribbling baby to this drawing, writing, reading, thinking child. He wants to understand and reason and make sense and be included and informed. I know parents have been doing this since the beginning of time, but to witness it is quite amazing. And he's FUNNY. And he lies.
What a shock it is the first time your kid lies to you. It's really about preservation, not a big trying to stay out of jail kinda lie, just about saving access to the things he loves. Like free golf trips and rides on private planes and... whoops, somehow I slipped into politics.

Shocking how similar it is.

School

I love Coleman's school. PS 51 has been amazing. He has great, great, great teachers. They are smart and nurturing and firm and he loves them. In just two months there's been this explosion of learning and an eagerness to do more and learn more. Every kid in public school, not just mine, deserves these kinds of teachers. But alas I know the deserve has got nothing to do with it. I knew a guy who was a teacher who boasted about how he would give assignments so he could finish reading his newspaper, during class. I don't talk to him anymore. Now I wish did, I would give him a giant, giant piece of my mind. I gonna find him on face book and "friend" him.

You told Harpo to beat me!

This discipline thing is such a beast. Time out, spanking, pinching, naughty chairs, privileges lost, talking, talking, talking. The problem is it'll be years before we know if what we chose to do worked! Maybe decades.
Today I heard a woman yell at her almost 3 year old, "if someone hits you, hit them back, I don't care who it is." Then she swatted him on his behind, I really got on my judgment horse. "How could she treat her child that way, he's only a baby?" blah, blah, blah. I had to stop myself.

She's only doing what she knows how to do. Aren't we all?

Our Own Town Hall

5pm around here has been hell on wheels. He's been up since 7, so he's tired, he's hungry but you don't want to give him snacks because then he won't eat his dinner. So he's just been this screaming, crazy maniac. It's like he's at a town hall meeting on health care and all he wants is his country back. It lasts in varying degrees for about an hour. Then just as quickly he snaps out of it and the sweetest boy you've ever seen looks at you with big saucer plate eyes and says "I'm sorry." Your heart melts and you take him in your arms and even though you don't mean it, you promise there will never, ever, ever be a public option for health care.

it's our job

Where are you? What are you doing? Pick that up? Put that away? Don't touch that? What did you say? I didn't hear you say thank you? Stop picking your nose? Did you wipe? Did you flush? Did you wash your hands? The constant monitoring - is exhausting.

But I guess it's what we signed up for.

Get in there

Look at him, he's only 4, 5 next month. He looks like he's about 37 years old. It's been a rough few months on the boy. He had a fever spell lasted about 4 or 5 days, maybe swine flu, doctor was too scared to tell us. Then he busted his lips at summer camp. He slammed his little fingers in something, the tips were black and blue for a couple weeks. Then an inner ear infection, left ear smelled like vomit. Got that cleared up with some antibiotics. Then right on the heals of that was an outer ear infection, some skin rash on his earlobe gone haywire. Required hospitalization for a couple days while they pumped him full of antibiotics via IV. I won't bore you with the details of how much fun it's not trying to set up an IV in the arm of a four year old. But Coleman took it like a champ, they immobilized his arm with a splint so the IV wouldn't come out and Coleman dealt with that splint like it was part of his arm. I was so proud. I was really proud of how brave my boy was.