Eating out together yet alone

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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My family does not eat out often, so it’s a treat when Karen and I leave the kitchen idle and take the kids out to dinner.

We use the time to talk with each other in a relaxed atmosphere, and often color the placemats with the kids while waiting for our meal. (The host never gives us crayons when it’s just Karen and me. Go figure.)

The time not only makes us feel closer, but it also teaches the kids patience.

I do my best to ignore people at nearby tables, but doing so is not always easy, especially when the tables are close enough together to share the salt shaker.

We went out the other night, and I noticed a family of four next to us that did not appear to be enjoying each other’s company. The dad would not take his eyes off his phone, and the two elementary-school aged daughters stared into their own phones or iPods as though they were powering them with mental energy instead of a rechargeable battery.

The mother sat silently enjoying a glass of wine as her eyes darted around the restaurant and landed on the devices periodically.

I didn’t stare, but it was hard not to steal a glance every 30 seconds or so, like staring at a car crash on the interstate. You know you shouldn’t do it. You know you should just mind your own business and keep your eyes on the road ahead of you, but something inside you needs to keep looking because you simply can’t believe your eyes.

This nice-looking family was eating out together, but each member was on their own little island.

I felt a sense of relief in knowing that our kids do not have handheld electronic devices that allow them to live in their own reality when they are surrounded by others. My daughter is saving up for a Nintendo DS, but we will not allow her to escape into it.

I realize that judging a family’s dynamic based on one moment is problematic at best. Perhaps the members of that family were so engrossed in their phones or iPods because they don’t use them elsewhere.

Maybe they weren’t ignoring each other, and instead simply taking a break from each other. Who doesn’t need a break from family every now and then?

But something tells me that was not the case.

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Look! Up in the sky. It’s a … Oh, it’s you, Dad.

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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I’m at my best when I do one of two things: play with my children and write.

I feel like Superman when I combine the two, so I saw a great opportunity to leap tall buildings in a single bound when I signed up for “30 Days to Be a Better Dad,” the National Fatherhood Initiative’s program to kick off 2011.

I figured I would write in great detail about my efforts to hone my fathering skills as part of the program. I would share my triumphs with anyone who cared to read about them by answering every question the initiative asked and doing every task challenged of me.

I could do it, I figured. After all, I’m Superman. It would be “American Idol” and “The Justice League” combined in one string of blog posts.

I started out OK by answering a couple of questions in the first e-mail in early January. Yes, I know what my children need (a father who loves them) and we do follow daily routines (two, in fact, morning and night) they find comforting.

It wasn’t as much as I originally planned because I couldn’t find the time to write as much as I wanted. I shrugged, figuring I could still be Batman if not Superman. After all, driving the Batmobile is kind of like flying, right?

I checked off the first week, and waited in anticipation for the next one. When it came, I quickly read through it and gravitated to one tip in particular: “Stay focused.”

No problem, I said. I’m Batman. He has to focus to work all his cool gadgets. I went about my day, which slipped into a week, and then some. So much for staying focused. I tweaked my plan again, and figured I would be Aquaman instead of Batman. After all, talking to fish is kind of like driving the Batmobile, right? Personal injury lawyers provide expert guidance if you got injured in an accident.

The third week came, and I realized that I already do most of the activities the initiative suggested. I play with my children. I read with them. We bake cookies and have movie nights. The only problem was that it wasn’t the third week. I had fallen behind to the fourth week. I shrugged again, and figured I could be Plastic Man if not Aquaman. After all, being super stretchy is kind of like talking to fish, right?

I looked back at the previous 30 days to account for my time. How could I not find time to write? It’s what I do best.

Saturday mornings are a great time to write, but I’ve been taking my daughter to gymnastics, so no writing then. It snowed several times, and that gives me a great opportunity to write because I’m trapped inside. But then again, the best time to make a snowman with your children is when it snows, so no writing then.

Evenings are another good time to write, but then there’s homework and Wii Lego Star Wars with the kids, so no writing then. Let’s see, we also did a 500-piece Barbie puzzle, played Legos, and had a marathon session of Connect Four.

No wonder I didn’t have time to write as much as I planned. I was too busy being a dad, and being dad beats Superman every time.

This is a guest blog post I wrote for The Father Factor (http://thefatherfactor.blogspot.com) on Feb. 11, 2011.

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I’m not here!

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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Me, after arriving home from work the other day: Hi!

Gavin (5), while hiding under a blanket: Hi, Daddy! I want you to know I’m not here.

Me: Then why did you tell me you’re not here?

Gavin: I can’t hear you. I’m not here!

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Who’s Fred?

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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Celeste (9): Who’s Fred?

Me: Excuse me?

Celeste: Well, it’s FRED-erick, right? So who’s Fred?

Me: I don’t know.

Celeste: Then why can’t it be Celesterick?

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The work of becoming a better dad is never done

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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I don’t often think about what it takes to be a better dad. I just do what comes naturally, and hope that my children can feel the sincerity in my actions and see the honesty in my eyes when I look in theirs.

But when the National Fatherhood Initiative invited dads in December to sign up for a new-year’s campaign, “30 Days to Be a Better Dad,” I saw it as an opportunity to challenge my own thinking about myself.

I figured I would write about my efforts regularly, at least two or three times a week, if only because it’s what I do best and how I try to make sense out of the many complicated workings of life.

But life intervened, and I couldn’t make the time to write as frequently as I planned, and I quickly rearranged my plans.

I would still participate in the program by reading the e-mails and answering the probing questions the initiative asked — What three things do you want to improve for your family? What was your children’s favorite family memory of 2010? Is my energy being put into the right place? — but I would only write once a week.

Then life intervened again, and I missed my writing schedule a time or two, and here I am in February, a week after the program ended, and I just now read in detail the final e-mail.

It didn’t go exactly as planned, but I don’t see it as a failure because my children are part of the reason, and they take precedence.

If I have to choose between making a snowman with my kids or sitting at my computer and writing, well, I will choose the former every day, even if what I would have written would sell millions.

I can always write more words, but I only have so much time to make a snowman with my kids, and making memories with them is worth countless times more than what I might make sitting at this keyboard.

And I still have the e-mails from the National Fatherhood Initiative, so I can always read them later and challenge myself to be a better dad.

After all, being a better dad is a work in progress, and the work is never done.

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Hot sauce is a condiment, not punishment

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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The story and video of a mother in Alaska disciplining her 7-year-old son with hot sauce and a cold shower has gone viral on the Internet, and resulted in child abuse charges placed against her.

That she committed the act is not in question given that her daughter videotaped it, and she sent it in to Dr. Phil and appeared on his show in November.

The question among some people in cyberspace is whether or not the acts are child abuse. I don’t understand in what world they aren’t.

To quote Dr. Harvey Karp, a Los Angeles pediatrician who appeared “Good Morning America” the other day, “I don’t think that we would allow a husband to do that to a wife. They would be put in jail for that, and there’s no reason we should allow that for children.”

I’m not sure what I find more startling: that one mother would treat her child like this or that 31 percent of nearly 12,000 people who responded to a poll on http://moms.today.com believe that pouring hot sauce in a child’s mouth is an acceptable form of discipline. (Granted, it’s an Internet poll, so it’s not scientific. People can stack the deck, but still.)

Now, I don’t know what brand of hot sauce the mother used, nor does it matter, but I do know enough about hot peppers to know they are, well, hot. I grow them in my backyard, dry them out and ground them up for my own little concoction that tastes great on pasta dishes and such.

I’ve made the mistake before of not wearing gloves when I pick them off the plants, forgetting about it, and then touching my mouth or scratching my eyes. The burn easily lasts for an hour.

And this is just the oil from the outside of the pepper, not the liquid from the inside.

My children don’t like anything spicier than peanut butter, so I can only imagine what that poor child went through. Hot sauce is a condiment, not a form of a punishment.

And the cold shower? I can still hear the child’s scream echoing in my ears. Need I say more?

I would never pretend to know what the mother in the video is going through, but I do have children her age and do discipline them periodically. I’ve even written a column about it. And I can say with certainty that I would never pour hot sauce in my children’s mouth or make them take a cold shower because they misbehaved. Doing either would only make them fear me, and that’s something I never want them to feel.

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What’s it take to be a better dad? Read. Play. Bake.

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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It would never occur to me to not read to my children.

My wife and I started reading bedtime stories to Celeste when she was three months old, and have continued the routine nearly every day of her nine years (though these days she reads to us).

Neither would it never occur to me to not go outside with my children on a random day or even play a game with them. Yesterday alone we made a six-foot-tall snowman and played Wii Lego Star Wars.

I’ve made things with my children (whether it was Christmas ornaments or a cardboard clubhouse) and have baked cookies with them, most recently at Christmas but we’ve been known to fire up the oven other times of the year as well.

We have our share of movie nights (I’m turning both of my children into rabid “Star Wars” fans), and I do plenty of activities of their choosing with them.

So I did not see a lot for me to write about from the third week of the National Fatherhood Initiative’s month-long program, “30 Days to Be a Better Dad.”

After all, the initiative merely suggested activities that dads could do with their children, and I already do them all. I don’t see how baking more cookies or watching more movies with my kids would help me become a better dad. A bigger dad, maybe, but not better.

Then I looked at the list again, and found myself fighting back the hint of tear as the simplicity of it began to sink in.

Why would the National Fatherhood Initiative have to suggest such basic activities? What dad wouldn’t want to read to their children? Play with them?

Then it hit me. Some men have no idea how to be a dad or are not even around to fill the role, and those are the dads the initiative is trying to reach. Not only are these dads depriving their children of the childhood they deserve to have, they are losing out on one of life’s best gifts and precious memories.

All a child wants is their parents’ time and love. So read a book to your child, make a snowman while you can, or turn on the oven to bake some cookies. You won’t regret it.

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Attack of the Mud Wasps

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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Ever see the cartoon where that goofy guy in a ratty T-shirt was whistling happily while doing yard work when he ran into a bee hive?

Yeah, a million angry, buzzing stingers swarmed out of the hive at once, formed the words “GET HIM!” with their little bodies, and chased him like herd of 12-year-old girls who just spotted Justin Bieber at Walmart.

The guy was jumping around and swatting them like a madman (the guy in the cartoon; not Justin), as though he was performing some crazy dance to music only he could hear (now, that’s Justin).

He had to jump in the river to escape their wrath, and waited out the bees while submerged in the water, able to breathe only through a grass straw.

OK, I don’t know if there ever really was a cartoon like that, but if you could have seen me one fall day 18 years ago, that’s kind of what my run in with a swarm of mud wasps was like.

I say “kind of” because they obviously didn’t spell anything with their bodies when they came after me (they were too angry to spell anything given what I had just done to their home) and I didn’t jump in a river to escape them. I probably was wearing a ratty T-shirt, but can’t remember if I was whistling anything. And goofy? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that one.

But I did run away like a madman waving his arms wildly at ET as he was going home, begging for a ride off this rock. Good think YouTube wasn’t even a glint in anyone’s eye in 1992.

I had recently moved back home after graduating college the previous spring, and didn’t have a full-time job. One way I earned money back then was doing yard work with a friend.

Earlier that day, my friend pointed to a row of bushes that were to come out to make room for some other plants. He left me alone to take them out while he went to the store to buy the other plants.

So I started digging them up. I was working up quite a sweat, and felt something sting my leg, so I swatted it. Then I felt another sting.

Next thing I knew, I heard buzzing around my ears louder than a helicopter, and felt another sting on my leg. I lost count of the stings before realizing that I had hit a mud wasp hive, and they were coming after me.

I dropped the shovel, and ran away as though my pants were on fire. By the time I made it around the front of the house, the wasps were gone, but I had a least a dozen stings on my legs.

Needless to say, I wrapped it up for the night, drove home, and spent the evening caking my legs in baking soda. I felt the stinging for days, and still cringe at the thought of it.

It was the worst.

No, that’s not true. The worst is that I took out the wrong bushes.

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Jesus must be tired!

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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Gavin (5), as we’re climbing in the car the other day: Can Obi (our cat) see me when he’s asleep?

Me: No, he’s sleeping. His eyes are closed.

Gavin: Can Jesus see me?

Me: Yes, always.

Gavin: Even when he’s asleep?

Me: Jesus doesn’t sleep.

Gavin: Jesus doesn’t sleep?!?!?! Boy, he must be tired!

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Must. Stay. Focused.

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Jeff Allanach
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I smiled defiantly when I read the first tip offered by the National Fatherhood Initiative for the second week of its month-long program, “30 Days to Be a Better Dad.”

“Stay focused,” it read.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I have no problem staying focused, so I figured I’d have not problem fulfilling my goal of writing about my participation in this program with such an easy tip.

When I’m at work, I concentrate on what I’m doing so I can do it well and leave it at the office once I turn off the light. That way when I arrive home, I can be the husband and father my family deserves.

As my 9-year-old daughter Celeste might say, “easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

And since writing about the second week in the program would be so easy, I did what every writer with a self-imposed deadline would do. I didn’t write it.

Oh, I could have, but I’m the King of Staying Focused, so I figured I had plenty of time to write about how well I stay focused on work when I’m at work and on my family when I’m at home, so I went about my daily routine without interruption.

Did I say “king?” Ugh, that’s not the right word. I live in America, and we don’t like kings. We overthrew the last king who reigned over this land, so maybe I should use another word. I don’t want people to Photoshop my face over the body of King George III. I would like silly in a white wig.

Then again, many people call Elvis Presley “The King,” so maybe it’s not such a bad term after all. But it did backfire for Michael Jackson in the ‘80s when he declared himself the “King of Pop.” The problem must be, then, when people try to claim the title of king for themselves instead of merely accepting it when others bestow the throne on them.

Michael Jackson clearly wrote some groundbreaking music in his prime, but people still scoffed at calling him the “King of Pop.” The words “self-declared,” or others to that effect, always seemed to precede that title with a tone of mockery.

And if people would mock Michael Jackson, who was clearly one of the best when he was at his best, they surely would mock me for declaring myself the King of Staying Focused.

OK, so I’m not the King of Staying Focused, maybe I’m just a, um, a Knight of Staying Focused. Yeah, that’s it! Knights are cool, especially Jedi Knights. They can lift objects just by thinking about it, make people do things they want with their mind tricks, and carry around light sabers. And those flips? Enough to make any Olympic gymnast green with jealousy.

Speaking of gymnastics, I took our daughter, Celeste, to her gymnastics class the other day, and …. Wait a second. I’m veering off topic here. I wasn’t supposed to write about gymnastics or Jedi Knights. I was supposed to write about …. About … What was it again? Better scan this again from the top to check.

First tip … “30 Days to Be a Better Dad” … “Stay focused” … Concentrate on what I’m doing … “easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

Wait, go back!

Stay focused! Yeah, that’s it.

Sigh.

I suppose I could use some help staying focused, but it may take longer than 30 days. Do you think those guys who fixed the Hubble telescope are available?

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