Packin'

4th grader. All "grown up" now. Still need to eat. The fine art of packing a lunch isn't hard if you follow some rules:
1)ASK: Your child knows what they like. At times a lunch bag returns home with much of its contents still present. That's not always their fault. Let your kids know that you won't take it personally (and DON'T) if they shun certain things that you think they would or should like. Keep it real though, dad. The school nutrition board may consider pizza a vegetable, but Cheetos are not a fruit. The trick is to find a blend of good (or at least, not bad) for them, and good to them. Sandwiches are easy enough but, find a good bread that they like. Or try lawash or pita. The shit's round and that's just crazy. Pita can be stuffed and lawash can be used to make a roll up (lay the sandwich ingredients in a flat lawash and "roll it up." Slow poke western thinking has finally placed these options in almost every grocery store and market. 2) VARIETY: I like to pack 4-5  things besides the "main course." Vegetables cut into convenient sizes (these can be pre-cut in advance and kept at the ready in the fridge.) Fruit such as grapes and strawberries or peeled oranges are great. Bananas get beat up by lunchtime, and does anyone really enjoy bruised and brown bananas? Get a banana in them at breakfast if you can. Apples, I have found, are a crap shoot. Pears? come on now. Unless you can pre-slice these things, the odds of consumption are not good. And slicing these things risks "the browning" which is death for kids' lunch bag items. A sweet of some kind such as a couple cookies (not 1, not 8), and a savory offering like Sunchips or pretzels or crackers/with some cheese slices. My son likes juice, but I rotate this with water. And remember, do YOU like to eat the same thing everyday for lunch? Mix it up. 3) PREPARATION: PACK LUNCHES THE NIGHT BEFORE. Less AM chaos. 4) INJECT SOME FUN: I draw on the bag, or stick a funny note or drawing into the bag for my son to discover like "Hey, are you having a good hair day?" 5) PANIC: Don't. Most schools that I know of, have a lunch program that you can pre-pay an amount towards. I use this in emergencies when the home packed lunch just doesn't work out, and it happens. I also put a couple bucks in my son's backpack in a secret pocket that he and I know about.

Embrace Technology / Part 1

Sometimes you live here, and he lives there. Enter Facetime. Get it and use it. Sometimes you get to sit through a long call where you see more of the room then him, while he narrates a project he's working on with silly putty, or pennies, and sometimes you get to see him wear a spaghetti moustache during a thunderstorm, and tell him everything is going to be OK. It doesn't matter. You're with him and he's with you.

Stitches

Learn to sew on a button. It's easy, and it will provide you with a great (though let's be real, an inflated) sense of personal accomplishment as caregiver supreme. I took what was called Home-Ec (home economics) in high school. I built enough birdhouses in junior high. Also a cutting board. my mom still has it.

Kids do things to things. Clothes are things. Getting comfortable with fixing, patching (and knowing when to cut bait) is key in the single dad's house. I promise it won't emasculate you. In fact, it may even add to your status as a modern, or renaissance  man. But, as "Bob" would say, baby steps get off a bus.

It is also a must to know how that iron works. I don't iron my son's clothes except for a trip to Mass (not Massachussets) which, by the way, we are WAY overdue for. But that's between our Maker and us. Anyway, that iron also puts patches on holes, which if not included in the "style" of those small pants, will certainly appear in due time. The best time to sew a button on is not at 7:00 in the morning. That's a good time to "go get another shirt." I prefer doing any sewing at night, when the news is on. I don't want to watch the news anyway. it's all bad. But that's another post...

Get The Hell Out

I live in Michigan. It's beautiful here. It's beautiful other places too.  Like Colorado, where I lived for 6 years. I loved Colorado, but there's NO BIG WATER and, if you grew up in Michigan, you have water in your blood. Literally and figuratively. I don't think it's beautiful in Oklahoma. I think one "tolerates" Oklahoma, and prays for family to move away to other exotic locales, like Nebraska, where they can visit. But this isn't really a travel blog. At least not yet.

My son and I have bikes. Bikes are a cheap date, and we try to get on them when the weather allows which is a great deal of time in Michigan. We create "destination" trips for ourselves. I usually carry a backpack and, a bike ride may include a trip to the market for dinner stuff (or lunch stuff), a stop at the coffee shop, and maybe the yogurt stand if it's in the evening. The point of this is that we spend time together, seeing things one passes quickly in a car (or never sees at all), and we talk. Sometimes about nothing at all, and sometimes about something that might be bothering someone, or something that has someone really happy or excited. Bike rides are a great time to listen to your kid(s).

We also have shoes. Shoes are an even cheaper date than bikes, and if you're lucky you get to hold a hand. My son is almost 10, and still holds my hand. When weather doesn't permit bikes, walking is great. The sights, sounds and smells of outside are different, so it's a different show than the one in warmer months. These walks can also have a destination or itinerary element to them, we just have to park the car at a spot that works into the route. In a pinch we walk around the neighborhood, where it's good for my son (and I) to have a presence in our community. Afterall, we live here. Finn and I BOTH live here. We know the woman who has the cute dogs, as well as who to go to when our bike tire is a little flat (Wally, the saint next door.)

Sometimes we ride the bikes down to the big park by our house and take the football or the frisbee and toss it around. This inevitably leads to that mystical event in which kids attract other kids. It's a joy to watch, even though it usually means I  get rotated out of the tossing sequence. I am happy to watch from the bench. Kids don't give a shit about religion or culture.

The point is we get outside, and so what if sometimes my son looks like Richie Tenenbaum.

Finn Joke

What do you do when you see a spaceman?
You park your car, man.

Home

If you're like me, you "share" your child. I have never gotten use to this term, but there it is. The judge, the court, the Friend of the Court, and the lawyers can use it. I don't.

From the start, it was very important that my son realized a sense of "home" when he was with me. We live in a small brick bungalow with two bedrooms downstairs. The studio/office is upstairs and, also occasionally spread across the dining room table, particularly during tax return season. One is mine. The other is his. All his. My son has complete ownership of this room. I clean it once a week and go sock hunting. He likes green. he really likes green and he picked the paint, the sheets, etc.  He picked what went on the walls and he even had a "no girls" sign on the door, though that's long gone. As far as the rest of the house goes, he absolutely has a say in matters, but we decide issues of decor in sort of a faux-democracy (it's more of a monarchy actually, but I am a fair and just King.) The fridge is covered with his stuff and the bathroom is a haven for a variety of play objects that float or do not. Also, when he is with me "projects" and "props" migrate out from their storage areas to find purchase in various areas in the house: Magic tricks in the kitchen? Sure. Hot Wheels track down the stairs? Why not. Hot glue gun on the Eames Storage Unit? NO WAY!

The important thing is that this is his house just as much as it is mine, and he knows it. He sits on the porch, rides his bike around the block, and works the microwave with complete confidence.

The Prince even got a fish to care for and look after.
It's the King's fish now.

Yours, Not Theirs

I have issues. You have issues. We all have issues. Being thrust into the world of single fatherhood can't help but make some of these worse, and maybe even hatch some new ones. But these issues are OUR issues, not THEIR issues. Work it out dad. See a therapist (I do.) Join a gym (did that too.) Get "good" for you, and you'll be good for them, and they need you to be good for them now more than ever.

Be Unique

Finn and I had a discussion about being unique yesterday before he went back to his mother's. He thought some teenagers in a cafe were pointing at him and laughing at his new hat and very long hair. Those of you who know Finn are aware that my son has a certain swagger. A swagger that I would not alter for anything, but this seemed to bother him a bit. There are challenges that come with parenting, single parenting is more challenging still, and single parenting by the likes of me, well, there are no books on tape for that. Still I think Finn and I get by. Though I wanted to say something to the kids in my best "mentoring" tone, I refrained, realizing that it would embarrass Finn, and if it taught any lesson at all, it wouldn't be the right one. I told Finn to look at my hands and tell me what he saw. "Tattoos, dad." I asked him if they were ugly "Not to me." he said. I asked him if these told people everything about me, whether I was a good dad, whether I liked Lebanese food, enjoyed baking and didn't drink, or whether I love the magic tricks that my son shows me. "No." I asked him if he knew those things about me. "Of course dad." I winked at him and said "Part of being unique means you don't always get to pick what people may think, but the ones who love you know what's up, and that's all that matters."

In a related story, ironically, a man at the gym today said to me "I don't know why anyone would get tattoos on their hands. Do you have any regrets? You MUST." I just said no. What I wanted to say was "Yes sir. two. one, that i didn't get them sooner, and two, that they seem to attract commentary from stool such as you." but I didn't. Practice what you preach dad.