Antisocial Dad

an·ti·so·cial

   [an-tee-soh-shuhl, an-tahy-]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

unwilling or unable to associate in a normal or friendly waywith other people: He's not antisocial,  just shy.

2.

antagonistic, hostile, or unfriendly toward others; menacing;threatening: an antisocial act.

3.

opposed or detrimental to social  order or the principles on which society is constituted: antisocial behavior.

4.

Psychiatry . of or pertaining to a pattern of behavior in which social  norms and the rights of others are persistently violated.

Recently my wife called me antisocial. Me. Antisocial. Right!!! That's funny right?!?

At first I adamantly denied her proclamation and tried to cite reasons why I am NOT antisocial, "I have like 1000 friends on Facebook!!". Sadly I couldn't really bring up any valid responses to her claim.


It is true I have lost touch with many of my friends who would typically be around or within a phone call on any given night, but I am not what is defined as an antisocial person as you can clearly see from the definition above. I am not. I swear I'm not. Really.

Some of my friends have moved to different states. Many of my friends are still living the party life and are sans offspring. In either case I have lost some common ground with my old friends. The fact that they are my friends (they all know who they are) will be the common ground always moving forward but for the most part we have all grown in different directions.

It is okay to grow in different directions; it does not mean we are not still friends it just means that we have grown in opposite directions. It is pretty simple really; no need to complicate things.

We still get together from time to time to have some fun and reminisce about the past. Some of my friends even come to my home and enjoy time with my family on the weekends and my son loves them. They are his friends now and they come to see him (he never lets me forget that fact). I am sure my daughter will slide in there right in front of me on that issue in the future as well.

Anywho; back to this antisocial jab that was thrown in my face.

I don't get it.

I still play hockey once a week and meet new people doing that all the time. I talk to people all day at work; I am in sales afterall. I don't shy away from conversation when I am in social situations and I certainly have no trouble talking to new people.

I think she was referring to my penchant for staying home rather than going out to the club on a Friday night. Maybe she was alluding to the fact that the total number of minutes used on my cell phone plan pales in comparison to her usage. Maybe it is because I just would rather play cars in the living room or sword fight in the back yard with the two year old than attend a party or go to a bar.

The truth is that I am enjoying my time being a dad.

I like to spend social time on the ice with guys I hardly know because it is a healthy way to have fun. We speak a common language and play the same game.

I don't like hang overs. I love my friends and I talk to them on the phone. We get together from time to time but they don't have responsibilities like I do. Many of them have homes and good jobs but the one thing that separates and will always separate (until they procreate, that is) is that I have two wonderful kids that need me and with whom I want to spend as much time as I can even if it means that I am losing a few friends along the way.

True friends understand my disappearance and they will always be called friends and they will always be on the guest list. True friends call and the first thing they say is "how's the family". True friends can tolerate when I have to cancel or respond to an invitation as a no show.

The truth is that I may be becoming antisocial in a way but I believe it may be healthy for me and my family.

I am still me and I still have things to talk about. Those things just might include spit up, poop, boogers and how to teach a child the proper way to hold a hockey stick or golf club.

Heck I had a party at the house recently with some friends and it went swimmingly. I might even attend a wedding this summer and I am planning the family reunion. If that isn't socializing I don't know what is.

If this is an antisocial existence then I guess I am antisocial. I like it.

True Friends might even read this.

Benign Terror

Benign Familial Sleep Onset Myoclonus; at least that's what the doctors call it, is characterized by repetitive muscle twitching while sleeping. It can also be characterized by intense fear and worry in parents of newborn babies.

Although the diagnosis is a mouthful and often will bewilder anyone who hears it, the prognosis is thankfully cheerful and non-worrisome.

We brought our newborn daughter home last weekend only to encounter a rhythmically shaking sleeping child. To put it in simple terms we were freaked out.

Being admitted to Children's Hospital with a 4 day old is terrifying. All you want to do as a new parent is relax at home with family and friends with your new baby but instead you are tossed into a whirlwind of emotions and what ifs. What is even more terrifying is when you realize that your 4 day old daughter needs to be hooked up to an EEG machine to be tested and observed overnight.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with medical devices an EEG is a brainwave scanner that requires the patient to have electrodes glued in multiple places on their head and results in them looking as if they are wearing a multicolored Predator dread lock wig. It measures the electrical activity along the scalp to record the voltage fluctuations in the brain resulting from ionic current flowing from the neurons in the brain and is typically used to determine whether a patient has Epilepsy or just muscular convulsions.

Along with the inconvenience of not being able to step more than three feet from the machine with your newborn daughter comes the feelings of dread and utter despair due to the fact that you don't have any answers. Even if you did you can't do anything about it.

Minutes turn into hours and a single night seems to be a week in this tiny room where you are questioning everything from your faith in God to your previous actions that have resulted in this demonic karmic retribution. If I pray will anyone listen? Why should God answer this prayer? What if it is epilepsy? How can she have a normal life? What did she do to deserve this? Can we cure it?

You start thinking about joining support groups and what kind of schools there are that will accommodate your child while giving the best chance at a good education. You think about how terrible preteens are and the name calling she will have to endure. How will our son handle this? How will this change HIS life?

These are just some of the thoughts I had. I've never had anything happen worse in my life than spending that night there under those circumstances and I hope we never have to do it again.

There were moments where my wife and I could relax and laugh and just hold her close to the bed but they were fleeting when we started talking about the what if scenarios. The questions returned. Can she ever go to sleep overs? What about movie theaters? Will she play sports and learn like all the other kids? How will we as a family deal with this? Suddenly all we knew was questioned and we didn't even have an answer.

Although it seemed like an eternity our answer came pretty quickly in the form of a wide eyed thumbs up from the very compassionate doctor. I have never met a more cheerful and reassuring doctor in my life. A God send was this man who walked with a cane and has first hand experience what it is like to be in our shoes; on our side of the bed.

I honestly never thought I could be any happier than when I heard the words "It's absolutely nothing you need to worry about. She is a beautiful healthy baby and you can go home."

I can now say that I have been enlightened as to how a parent of an epileptic child must feel and I want to acknowledge how strong they must be to handle that and progress and live life. I am sure it gets easier to stomach once it has set it and you develop some sort of routine and understanding but I am sure that the feeling of helplessness never passes along with the worry you feel for your baby. You all have my dearest sympathy and thoughtful support because of the taste I got of what you have to endure everyday. I am sincerely in awe of your abilities.

So Benign Familial Sleep Onset Myoclonus it is (say it with me people). I will learn it and remember it always as the way Aria came into our lives and immediately stole the show. Not only did she steal our hearts but also scared the crap out of us from day one. Every time she sleeps and does her "dance" as we call it I will repeat it as a mantra just to reassure myself that she is okay, she is perfect and she is beautiful; and she didn't even need lessons.

Now my wife notices that I too twitch a bit when I sleep so I guess it is all my fault ....... just as I'd expected.

Supermarket Superlatives

Being a dad is probably the toughest thing I have ever done. Being responsible for the life and development of another human being is one of the most humbling experiences one will ever encounter. The ego was checked at the door to fatherhood and my needs have become secondary to the needs of my son.

That being said; we dads get a bad rap from society in general. Most of us are seen as secondary care to the mothers of the house. A lot of us (unfortunately) are seen as the selfish other half to the parental equation, and don't get me wrong there are plenty of examples where this is true. I don't know if it is due to the generations of opinion formed before us in regards to the hierarchy of the house but I feel like we aren't appreciated or revered as much as mothers by society as a whole.

I am not discounting the role of the mother. I believe that all reverence for motherhood is warranted and appropriate. You women squeeze a child from your nether regions for crying out loud. That alone deserves a pedestal for standing upon.

What I am talking about is this. Every time my son and I are at the grocery store together (which is pretty often) I always get the same reaction from the hoards of women in my general vicinity. It usually goes a little something like this "Aww look at you two out at the grocery store. You are such a great dad."

"Thank you. We are just buying some yogurt, but thank you now move along nothing to see here."

The condescending comment somehow (in my mind) discounts my role as a father to my son. Somehow just because I take my kid to the grocery store to get some food while my wife is at school it makes me a good father.

What about the life skills I impart on a day to day basis? What about the time I spend teaching my child about animals and volcanoes and bikes and all the other things in life that he is inquisitive about? Don't these actions make me a good father?

While I appreciate the backhanded compliment being slung my way just for making a routine trip to the grocery store I would much rather it be a normal occurrence that doesn't deserve praise.

Are we as a society so steeped in gender roles that when we see a father at the store with his kid we are permitted to think that it is cute because this father is going above and beyond what other fathers are doing? Are we really going above and beyond?

Are we as fathers (in general) so lazy that when one of us steps out of the norm it seems so unnatural that mothers and others feel they need to compliment us?

I guess what I am saying is that as a father and husband I share duties with my wife. Both of us do dishes, laundry (her more than me), shopping and cooking etc... We both enjoy helping with the sustenance of the house and are more than happy to do what it takes to keep life going.

I would like to assume that the men of my generation aren't sitting on the couch with a bag of chips and a remote but rather taking an active role in the family. It is hard to shake generations of stereotypes I suppose. Maybe that is why every time I am standing in line telling my son why he can't have another bag of Skittles some elder woman will say "boy aren't you a great dad for doing what you are doing."

I get it. I don't particularly like it but I get it.

Moms get the praise of raising the family and dad is a paycheck. Dad is the worker bee and has been for generations. Dads aren't supposed to shop and cook and clean but we do now.

All I am asking is that everyone take notice of the fathers of my generation and realize that we aren't what we stereo-typically have been throughout the years. We are taking more responsibility and enjoying the challenge. We are taking more of an interest and reaping the benefits. We care more than to just come home from a hard days work and sit on our duffs for the nightly news with a beer and a TV dinner.

It is time for us to start making it known that although we appreciate the praise it is time for the women of the world to stop complimenting fathers in the checkout line just for being in the checkout line. I don't stop every mother I see with their brood and say "Hey you are a great mom for taking your kids to the store with you". It just isn't kosher to say those sorts of things to mothers. Why is it so universally okay to say it to dads?

It is hard enough being a dad without the condescension so next time you feel the need to compliment some random Joe for doing a "woman's work" while in the company of his children, stop and think. Look at his kid's behavior and their general hygiene. If they are clean and well behaved maybe you don't need to toss a compliment because I am sure he already knows, just like you mothers know, that he is a good father and the calm surrounding him speaks to the volumes of its truth.

Origin of the story ...

The origin of the name "Dada's Shoes" is something of a cute kind of story.

I have a lot of shoes. I also have a tendency to leave my shoes laying around the house, which drives my wife insane.

It goes like this. Dada gets home from work. He sits down in his chair with the little one and pets the dogs. The shoes come off. There they lay until the next morning or, more likely, until my wife walks by and says "there's dada's shoes again where they shouldn't be", before moving them to the shoe closet in the hallway (or throwing them down the basement stairs).

She has said this so many times that my son caught on very early and started picking them up and saying "these dada's shoes" and throwing them in the hallway with a sigh. It became sort of a running joke around the house due to the fact that it was one of the first phrases from the kids mouth.

Here's to my penchant for shoes and the greatest ones ever worn.

Being Cool ...

I used to be so cool. I always had new clothes, I was invited to all the fun parties, I had friends (lots of friends), I was a regular at shows and I had friends in bands (good bands). It is unfair how much fun I had when I was in college. I forgot how cool I used (key tense is the past) to be until my wife and I went out to dinner together for our anniversary.

I used to get excited to go out and have a fancy dinner and spend money going out to a show or a movie. Nine times out of ten I would know ten people before I bellied up to the bar. Nowadays I know noone and I feel out of place in bars. It is as if I step into a different world everytime we venture out into the night anymore.

What happened? It isn't as if I as a person have changed much really. My attitude about life hasn't changed. I am still a happy go lucky person who wants nothing more than to have a little fun in life before it is gone. My taste in music hasn't changed and neither has my taste in good spirits and ales, although my appetite for the latter may have been suppressed over the last few years I still like to imbibe from time to time.

So what is it?

My priority in life before children was fun. It was fun in the sense that I wanted to be out with friends drinking and staying out late. At the time it was the cool thing to do; to enjoy my time with friends creating memories that we can all hold on to and look back on.

My priority in life now is fun. It is fun in the sense that I want to enjoy as much time as possible with my family and help my son grow and learn and enjoy his life as much as possible. It is the coolest thing I can do to ensure that my son and my family grows into something beautiful.

Priorities change, but they don't. The number one priority in life is to enjoy the time you are given on this blue marble of a planet in this mortal coil. It just so happens that circumstance dictates how we enjoy that time and how we view its "coolness" factor.

There was a time in my life that I couldn't dream of having kids; let alone having a wonderful, charismatic and smart kid that impresses me every minute of the day. I thought I was the coolest guy in the room and maybe I was then (probably not). Now that I have a family I can't dream of anywhere I would rather be on a Friday night than in my living room wrestling around and watching Phineas and Ferb.

So what happened? Am I less "cool" now that I don't wear 200 dollar jeans and spend 100 bucks every Friday on drinks and food? Am I less cool now that my best friend is a 2 year old and instead of grabbing a beer we go out for milk shakes? Maybe I am but you won't hear me complain. I still think I am pretty damn cool. It's not as if I started wearing sweater vests and pleated khakis. I didn't start exclusively listening to classical music and polka all of a sudden. I still have most of my friends even if I don't see them as much as I used to. Heck, I still have friends in bands. I might never go out and watch them play anymore (I have grown to hate smoky bars) but I still have friends in bands nonetheless.

I have a house, a beautiful wife and son (and a daughter on the way). I'd say I am even more cool than I used to be. I have a real purpose now. Rather than just existing to exist I now exist to provide, educate and love for the benefit of something greater than myself and my selfish wants. How cool is that?

Would I still like to spend a bundle on clothes and cars? Yeah why not (who doesn't), but that's now an afterthought.

The cars and the clothes will come in time. What matters is that now everyone surrounding me is happy and that I am happy with everyone surrounding me. I couldn't be any happier if a safe full of gold coins fell on my parked car right now. Well that's a lie. If that happened I would be happy and warm on a white sandy beach building sand castles with the kid while the waves crash around us (oh to win the lottery).

Am I cool? To Ryker I am the coolest guy in the room still ...

Let's hope that lasts a long time because when that coolness wears off then I am going to be truly lost.

So when you parents are out and you feel like you are less cool than your childless friends who are always partying and seemingly having endless fun think about it for a minute. Think about what they go home to every night. Think about what they miss out on. Smile knowingly because you truly know the meaning of cool.

Writer's Block and Number Two

I have been suffering as of late. I am suffering from a lack of interesting things to say. They call it writer's block. When you are trying to start a new website and keep people interested writer's block can become very stressful.

I have had a few ideas on what to write about and every time I sit down to plot it out it just comes out all wrong.

Recently (directly after Christmas) we started what most people refer to as Potty Training Boot Camp in our home. With another baby on the way we decided the quicker we get our son out of diapers the better. With that goal in mind we set out on what we thought was going to be the most difficult journey in parenting we had yet to face.

Boy were we wrong.

This kid must be as driven as we are about getting rid of diapers as we had little to no problem with tackling #1. It was amazing how quickly he caught on to peeing in the potty and recognizing when he had to go so he could notify someone about it.

With #1 out of the way we kind of eased him into tackling #2 and crossing that task off the list. With the sweeping success of getting him away from peeing in the diaper we were uber excited to get away from cleaning dookie as well. Not as easy peasy as our critically acclaimed success we had attained prior.

I don't know why kids have such an issue with pooping in a sitting position. Maybe it is because they are so used to their assumed stance on the issue (pun intended). I mean we would put him on the pot and read him books, sing songs, let him play with cars and everything else under the sun that can appropriately be done whilst sitting on the porcelain throne. Heck, we even put his potty in front of the TV and let him watch an hour of cartoons once. No go; but as soon as we stuck that diaper back on and let him go ... BOOM goes the dynamite!!

Back to the drawing board.

So it went. For about 6 weeks we were still at an impasse. We tried and cried and trucked along and one day he looked up at me and said (I think it was Super Bowl Sunday actually) "I have go poop daddy". So I went to put a diaper on him (futility leads to weird rituals) and he stopped me and said "Not in a diaper, on the potty".

"Okay let's try it."

Boy did he go. We invited the neighbors to look at it and threw a party!! (that part was totally fabricated but seriously I cried tears of joy and danced down the hall)

Ever since we have had a house broken toddler with no use for diapers. For safety's sake we still put a pull up on at bed time but we are thinking that is going to stop soon as well.

What I am trying to say I guess is that I don't really have any advice for you if you are trying to potty train because I feel, even with the minor set back, like we had it too easy with him. I suppose if I can offer one bit of advice it would be to have patience if you reach an impasse. You can't force it (pun also intended) so you need to let it happen on it's own time.

Your child will tell you when he or she is ready for the big game so to speak and when they do you will feel a great sigh of relief in knowing that your shit wiping days are behind you (with this one at least) and that you can save a ton of money on diapers from here on out.

So here I stand. A proud father of a child who pees and poops in a toilet like a normal human being, and he is only two (gloating yes). I am very proud of my kid and very satisfied with his progress in every single way.

I am running out of things to write for now but I am sure it will pick up. I might expand my focus a little bit. In fact I will have to, seeing that we are having a daughter in April.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks Tina!!

Focus on Greatness

I have never been great at any one thing in my life. There I said it.

This statement has been rising up in my thoughts a lot lately. I see professional athletes making it big because they are great at one sport. I see VP's and CEO's rise up because they are great at a certain facet of business. I see musicians make it huge because they are great at their instrument or they have a great voice. Actors, Doctors, Salespeople and the list goes on.

The fact is, I have never dedicated enough time to ONE singular subject or activity to become great at it. It isn't for lack of encouragement to do so (I have had plenty of encouragement in my life) but rather it is due to my lack of interest in pigeonholing myself into one single skill. In my life I have had the opportunity to become a master at many different things, as we all have. As human beings we are born with the ability to focus on one subject and master it or we can choose not to have focus; thus enabling our minds to grasp aspects of many different subjects.

Focus I guess is something that I have lacked in my past life.

I was once focused on becoming as good as I could have been at hockey when I was in high school and I became a pretty good hockey player. The fact of the matter is I am from a region that doesn't exactly produce NHL All Stars on a regular basis so I (like many of my peers in Western PA in the 90's) was limited to playing high school and club hockey and not making it past freshmen year club hockey in college. The realization was that I wasn't going to be an NHL'er and that was okay with me. I was far from being good enough to even chase the dream. That is something I learned quickly when I tried out for a division 1 program and took my first blind side hit during scrimmages from a guy that looked like he was thirty and hit like a mack truck. Must be something in the Canadian water.

Since those days (10 years ago I graduated high school), seeing that I was never going to be a professional athlete or an Oscar winning performer, I have kind of made a choice that I want to learn about as many different aspects of this life that I can. I used to say (cheesy I know) that I wanted to be a modern day renaissance man. I took my time graduating from college because I wanted to take classes in a few different majors because I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to be as an adult worker bee, and still don't. Took a year and a half off to work and play. I did some travelling and bought some cars. So on and so forth.

So here I am. Jack of all trades. Father. Husband. Salesman. Beer league center ice man. Son. Blogger. Thinker. Brother. Golfer. Shade Tree Mechanic. Tim Taylor.

Father. It sticks out and permeates me to the core. It is the one aspect in this life that has become effortless for me to focus on. Fatherhood is the best profession in the world for me. I am responsible for teaching life skills to my son and soon to be daughter (oh I forgot to tell you that we are having a baby girl in April of this year) and I take the task very seriously. If I can be truly great at one singular thing on this earth before I die I hope it is being a father.

After all, being a father requires one to wear many hats which is something I feel quite capable of doing. You are a teacher, a counselor, a disciplinarian, a coach, cheerleader, bus driver, provider, etc... but the best thing about being a father is that you are constantly learning from and evolving with your children throughout their lives that are infinitely intertwined with your own.

Digging deeper into the issue.

When my children show an interest and aptitude for a subject, be it music, sports, academics; should I push him or her to focus on the subject to become great at it? After all the ones who get the glory it seems are the ones who excel at their chosen discipline.

It is not I who will ever be recognized with a parade for what I do in my life; I have accepted that. My children however still have the chance to someday ride on their own float and get paid tons of money and respect for being great at something singular. All I want as a father is for my children to feel like they are something special everyday. In order to do that should I encourage them to dedicate their full attention to what they are most interested in from the beginning or should I encourage them to try many different things and choose for themselves.

The only clear cut answer from historical results is to focus on one subject and forget about the rest until after you have mastered what was first and most important.

Does this approach seem like a feasible one for development. Will it leave my children wanting more or will they revel in it from the recognition?

Do Mario Lemieux or Serena Williams ever think "I wish I would have spent more time learning science or something else" or do they love their lives knowing that they were the best, at one point in their career, at what they did and in doing so they have afforded themselves a life that no mere mortal will ever know?

People always say that a balanced education is the best approach to life but we always cheer for those on the top of their game. Which one is it?