Jason's Blog

Over the last month the kitchen drain slowed down and then after flushing the drain it seemed to work faster so I decided to let it be. About two weeks ago it began to slow again, but with my back out I let it go. Wednesday my oldest daughter was organizing under the sink and she noticed it had been dripping for sometime; the water was stank. Back out and a barely able to move, I knelt down to take apart the drain. Within the first turn of the trap water began spilling everywhere.

Putrid air making me want to gag, I took the trap to rinse in the bath tub. Nothing would come out. I tapped and flushed, tapped and flushed again and finally a glob of goop surrounding a Popsicle stick discharged from the pipe. I wonder how that got there.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for sharing in my exhausted moment. Hey, share one of your stories by commenting on mine.

Before I could even sip my first cup of morning coffee, my energetic, over optimistic, happy go lucky children bombard me with questions about the weekend, what happened yesterday, who’s in who’s space, and I don’t like it when… Ummmmmmm. And before you know it the wife was out the door, the two little ones went there way and the older ones went there way and finally peace and quiet.

Seriously, that is enough to over whelm your brain and as parents we must go through it everyday. If you are a parent you relate to moments like these.

Here is what works for me. I close my eyes, I lower my head, I take a deep breath through my nose and I concentrate on the air as it goes through my nose and the feeling in my lungs expanding into my diaphragm. Now as I slowly let the breath out through my mouth I slowly lift my head and then when the breath is out I open my eyes. I’m grounded once again. I’ve mentally released my tension and I’m ready to move forward in my day.

Next time you find yourself going through a hectic time, try it, you might find that it works for you too. When I’m overwhelmed and I’m asked a question by one of my children, I do this to ground myself to give them my focus and complete attention . I then hear the question and answer it appropriately. Our children deserve it.

Everyday my wife wakes up before me and does her morning routine. Yoga, breakfast, getting ready for work and is the parent of all four children until I roll out of bed. Lately because my back is out and I’m awaiting surgery, getting out of bed is later and later, especially on the days I hear arguing coming from the restless little natives.

If it wasn’t my partners in life, parenting for me would be impossible. Yes, I am the stay at home dad that manages the house, takes care of the children when they get home from school. I supervise and make sure they are getting their homework done and that their chores are done correctly. I sweep, mop, clean the toilet (no one else will) , and clean up their chores. I also run my own business and try not to let that spill over into my stay at day time which official starts when the first child gets home from school.

Fifteen minutes after five o’clock post meridian time my wife walks through the door and hours of bottled up frustrations begin to flow from all five of us and some how she manages to ward her way through the physiological mess we’ve created for her and she restores common sense to the rest of us and somehow she mostly maintains her sanity.

What I am saying here is simple. My wife is big part of this family. My blog is from an exhausted dad’s perspective it can make it appear as I write that there is only five of us, but in reality, there are six of us and that sixth person is the one who holds the five of us together. I am not a single parent. My hat is off to those of you who do parent by yourself; You are true heroes.

So as I write the stories here, some funny and some sad, keep in mind that my wife Penni is my support and just as much a parent involved here as I am.

Jason

The day can quickly run away from you. I was so productive. I was for the first time in a long time, getting ahead of the game. Sitting in my chair with my laptop I breezed through my work. Before I realized it the two younger children were home from school. I wanted to keep plugging away at my work because I was in the zone, so I had the kids sit in the living room and do their homework.

Within an hour the other two were home from school. Not wanting to unplug I got them set to their chores. I do faintly remember my oldest daughter reminding me that I needed to start cooking the chicken; I kept plugging away. Then I heard the car pull into the drive and my wife walked through the front door. “Where is dinner” she questioned and at that moment I realized that even though I was successful in one area of my life, I completely neglected the other. Did the kids all do their homework? Where the chores done? I didn’t know.

I failed today. It means nothing if we are a success in one area of our life if we fail in all the others. Just because I was in the zone, My Daddy GPA was still 2.o. I failed to find balance. My clients may be happy, but I let the family down.

Luckily everything worked out. Dinner was saved by Taco Bell and the kids did an awesome job on their homework and chores without me. Tomorrow, however, I will cook the chicken. BALANCE…

Welcome to my blog. Hopefully you will find the stories and the comments in my blog to be at least entertaining and possibly even helpful.

As I am writing this welcome message, I have four children bouncing up and down, ready to go trick or treating. Thanks to daylight savings time being extended and not ending until next weekend we have an extra hour of this chaos until it gets dark enough for us to leave.

So what do parents like my wife and I do in a time like this… we take a deep breath and enjoy the ride because these exhausting times are the memories we will treasure for a lifetime.

Jason