A Lesson Learned

As the father of three amazing kids, you might think that I could teach a Parenting 101 class.

Well, think again.

Let there be no doubt, I am still the student.

Rarely does a day go by that I don’t discover a new way of making a mistake.

Like I’ve said many times, there is no handbook to being a parent or at least I have never seen one.

I entered this parenting thing as cold as the Winter Carnaval in Quebec City.

And let me tell you, that’s cold.

The Carnaval is so cold.

How cold is it Gene Rayburn?

The Carnaval is so cold, they keep their ice sculptures outside to make sure they don’t melt.

That’s cold.

True story.  I’ve been there.

Ok, enough with the weather, back to the news.

For those of you longtime parents, stop laughing at me and just nod when I say -- kids become different when they reach the teens.

In the Jewish religion, we call it a Mitzvah, Bar or Bat.

The Catholics call it Confirmation.

Bruce Springsteen just called it Growin’ Up.

As a parent, this is a new world that honestly I was not prepared to enter.

Then again, I wasn’t prepared for any of this.

And neither were my parents.

My mom never met her father.  

My father’s father died when my dad was nine, putting my dad at the head of the table, while he was still sitting on a phone book.

My mom and dad had no siblings.

Family in our house was centered around Kristy McNichol.

So when my wife and I learned thirteen plus years ago that I was going to be a dad, she might as well have told me we were going to adopt a Komodo Dragon.

I knew the same about both subjects.

Nothing.

I have made my mistakes over the years, PLENTY of them, but when you are dealing with young-ins, the simple mistakes fortunately don’t do a whole lot of damage.

So I put the diaper on backwards, I let them eat a little dirt, I left the breast milk out.

Ok, that was a bad one. 

But now that the kids are actual thinking-speaking-reacting type people, the damage can be a lot more.... damaging.

For example, I have not been able to get it through my thick skull that my 13-year old daughter has exited the Kid Highway and is now traveling down Young Lady Lane.

She knows I love her more than anything, but now she’s entering an age where I have to be more creative than just saying it.

In fact, sometimes I get the feeling she doesn’t want me to say anything at all.

She’s got it covered.

A couple of days ago I noticed she was miffed about something.

What, I had no idea.

But instead of sitting on the sideline and watching her work through it on her own, I got involved.

Bad move.

I said... What’s wrong?  What’s bothering you?  What happened?

I probably asked more questions than the SAT exam.

And with each question, whatever was really bothering her became a distant memory.

I was now Public Enemy #1.

Unfortunately the conversation ended with fireworks worthy of the 4th of July.   

I got mad, she got mad.   

I got more mad, she went to her room.

The door closed.  Maybe even slammed.

Not the first time that has happened.

Not even the first time this week that had happened.

But it was so bad that my wife had to step in and give ME a time out.

And I’m glad she did.

I don’t remember every word in the lecture, but I remember the message.

Stay out of her airspace.  For now.

Let her fly on her own.   She will come back. 

Not in those words, but that’s what Google Translate told me. 

Stay close, but not too close.

She wants your ears more than she wants your words.

And be there when she needs you.

And she will need you.

Talk to her about music, a restaurant that you like, something you saw on iCarly.

Talk to her about ... about anything other than her. 

Considering my wife was once a 13-year old girl, I figured I needed to take notes and listen.

And listen I did, loud and clear.

Fortunately for me, I was able to apply my newfound knowledge almost immediately.

Yesterday we spent the day at the community pool with my wife’s family -- 14 in all, including nine kids, all 13 and under.

(That’s another blog -- one I won’t be able to publish.)

At the pool, I played with my six-year old daughter and three-year old niece for quite a while.

All the while keeping an eye on my 13-year old.

From the moment I got to the pool, I could tell she wasn’t really interested in hanging with me.

I think the fireworks show was still fresh in her mind. 

But the more fun the three of us were having, the closer the 13-year old got.

Within about 20 minutes, our gang of three became a quartet. 

The day became about swimming and nothing else.

Things went so well that when we left the pool, my teenager wanted to ride home with me.

We listened to music.  I listened to her.

No more fireworks, just a spark.

When we got home, SHE walked over to ME, gave me a big hug and said, “I love you dad.”

No cue cards or anything.

I think I passed that test.


When is the next one?

The Time Machine

Technology is a fantastic thing.

If you don't believe me, maybe I can tweet you from my iPhone or poke your Blackberry from my Facebook.

I must admit that as hard as I try and as much as I think I know, I'm still behind the curve.

At least when you compare me to all humans 13 years and under.

If I need any computer assistance, I don't need the Geek Squad, I just ask my kids.

But it's really not my fault.   My parents should've birthed me 40 years later.

Of course there are some advantages to being an antique.

To me SPAM was a junky food, before it was a junky email.

I remember when Macintosh was an apple.   Apple was a fruit.   Java was a cup of coffee.  A cookie was a treat.

Those computer guys have more of a food addiction than I do.

When I was young if you Google your Dongle too much, you’d go blind.

Password was a game show.

A virus made you feel sick.

Oh, some things haven’t changed.

In sixth grade our school got its first computer, a brand new TRS-80.

That was so cool.

And so slow.

Pong was the greatest video game of all-time.

WAS.

Try to play it now.  I dare you.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) the kids of today will never know what life was like before YouTube.

Recently my 11-year old son and I were driving in the car of a friend of mine when my friend ejected a cassette from his dash.

"WHAT IS THAT?” my son said, as if he had seen a dinosaur.

A few days ago, I was grabbing a quick bite at home with the kids, enjoying one of my favorite meals -- Cereal Surprise.

The concoction du jour was one part Honeycomb, one part Sugar Smacks and one part Grape Nuts.

You gotta hit all the food groups.

My son and daughter each threw a french bread pizza into the microwave.

While we were waiting, I informed the youngsters "when I was your age, we didn't have a microwave."

Now who's the dinosaur?

Of course the conversation didn't stop there.

I told them we got water from the sink, not the dispenser on the refrigerator.

If you wanted to change the channel on the TV, you had to get up and do it yourself.  

Remote control?   What a concept.

From time-to-time, one of our three or four channels would go out and a graphic would pop up.

"Please Stand By."

So I'd get off the couch, go stand RIGHT next to the TV.

And within seconds the picture would always come back.

It worked EVERY time.

I told my 13-year old daughter that we never had a VCR player and that DVD were the initials of Mary Tyler Moore's husband.

Mary who?

In part fear and part curiosity, my daughter asked, "how did you watch movies?"

"The movie theatre," I said.

"What happens if you want to see it again?"

"You went to the movies."

"Again."

I honestly cannot remember my first cordless phone, but that had to be one of the great moments of my life.

As someone with some serious pockets of ADD, the ability to talk on the phone while doing something else was a real recipe for success.

And to think that someday they’d invent a cordless phone that you can use from the car.

Or the street.

Or the Starbucks.

What's Starbucks?

As if I didn't feel a million years old already, my son asked what types of pets we had when I was his age.

Well there was Sparky, my little Wooly Mammoth and Bubbles, my adorable Rhamphorhynchus.

How old do they think I am?

I gotta go.

The Golden Girls is on.

Sweet Chocolatee

I consider myself a fairly bright person.  For the most part.

I’m pretty good with money.   I’ve got a handful of street smarts and you don’t have to tell me ten times how to get something done.

Ok, maybe eight.

However when it comes to movies or magic, I am the greatest (and most clueless) audience of all-time.

I am amazed by everything, while figuring out nothing.

The big reveal in The Crying Game.... I wouldn’t have seen it coming if it had slapped me in the face.

I’ve been writing this blog for exactly three months, posted more than 60 entries and it wasn’t until tonight that I figured out that I am part of a cult.

A good cult, but a cult.

My cult is called, THE BLOGOSPHERE.

It’s a group, a large group, of people who have decided that it is time for their voice to be heard, even if you don’t really know who is listening.

In my case, I decided to write a blog about my new career -- unemployment.

I really didn’t expect anybody to read it, except for the handful of friends that I bombarded with links.

That was until Henry & Nicolas jumped in.

Thanks to them, my story was told at businessinsider.com and La Presse Newspaper in Canada.

Since then, I have had more than 50,000 hits.  Fif-tee Thou-sand hits! 

I realize to some of my blogging brethren, that number is just a blip, but to me, it’s a miracle.

I can’t even count the number of supportive notes that I have received.  

Actually, I can count them, since I saved them all, but you get the cliche.

Well, here’s the real point.

There is a wonderful person named Anne-Marie, who writes a French blog titled Montreal Chocolatee (http://montrealchocolatee.blogspot.com/).

I believe I have already properly documented the extent of my extremely limited French vocabulary, but thanks to the amazing Google Translate feature, I was able to read her beautiful blog today.

What I wasn’t able to do was read it without tearing up.

The subject was moi.   I mean, me.

She even posted her version of the “I Believe In Bacon” t-shirt.   Due in stores in 2015.

Anne-Marie and I have never met and probably never will, but thanks to this beautiful cult of ours, we are now able to follow each other on Twitter.

That’s what us cult members do, we follow.

I hope you are able to read her entire blog, which can be found at the link listed above, but if not, here are the Cliff Notes.

• I must say it is a blog as we do not read every day. Sir Bacon has a feather of truth sometimes unsettling. His adventures are told in a captivating, touching, and sincere way, whether with his professional approaches, with his children or his mother, whose condition worsens.

• I suggest everyone to go for a ride on the blog, be it for a minute or an hour, as was the case for me. The writing of Sir Bacon hung me from the beginning, I could not stick to reading a single ticket. 

Now I’m guessing the translation was not perfect, but thanks to Google Translate, you get the point.

And to me the point is this...

Honestly, between my unemployment and problems with my mom, I am going through the worst stretch of my life.  

It really doesn’t take a whole lot of support to give me a boost.

But what I got today from Anne-Marie was a whole lot of support.

And it feels great.

In any language.

Now if I can only figure out what Montreal Chocolatee means.