A Sad Day

This past Thursday, after coming home from softball, I was greeted at the door by my wife's aunt, a strange man (strange as in not familiar to me), and my sobbing wife. I knew immediately something was horribly wrong.

My wife's father had passed away, at only 59 years old. While I never got to know him under the surface, I have plenty of grief from knowing what my wife, her mom, her brother and sister, her aunts, and her grandparents.

No one should ever have to bury a child. I can't imagine the magnitude of such grief.

It will also be difficult talking to our two boys, who loved running downstairs to jump on his lap and watch TV or play video games with their "Bepa." He loved them right back more than they'll ever get to know.

They've both already asked about where he is. The two-year-old may eventually lose any recollection of him, which is part sad, and part good I guess. The three-and-a-half year-old will likely remember him, and will be confused I'm sure.

I'm going to do some surfing on the Net for advice on how to communicate to young children about such a loss. Do you even do it for kids that young?

My God, they're talking about him right now as they finish their breakfast. The two year-old is calling for him as I type.

Rest in peace, Bepa.

Waking up After Falling Asleep with the Toddler

It's been 12 days (13, actually, as it is past midnight) since I've last posted. I just haven't found, or rather made, the time to do it. Blogging is not the only thing I haven't done as much of lately.

Part of the reason is that most of my personal Internet use is late at night when the boys are asleep, but my wife and I are breaking our 3 1/2-year-old son in to sleeping in his own bed - what we call his "big boy bed" as we attempt to entice him into sleeping in it regularly. The name is meant to distinguish the crib from a toddler bed.

When we first took him out of his crib and put his younger brother in it (who turned two today, or rather yesterday...happy birthday Hen-Hen!), we had to lie by him until he fell asleep. That got old, so we had him sleep with us in our bed for a year or so. Now it's time to finally get him in the "big boy bed," but so far it's only working when we again lie by him until he is out. This typically means I too fall asleep, and thus, no late night TV, Internet use, etc. Tonight I woke up and decided to touch base with the rest of the world online before slipping off to bed for good.

There is a bit of controversy surrounding whether you should let your toddler sleep with you and for how long. I personally find nothing wrong with doing it for several years until the child lets you know they are ready for there own bed, but that doesn't mean I want to be doing that. Hopefully, it won't be long before he is ready to lie in his own bed and fall asleep without one of us by his side.

By "several years," I don't mean until the child is 16...or anything near that.

Getting Old

I turned 43 Sunday. Birthdays are kind of cool, but I'm really not much of a holiday or "special annual day" kind of guy. I like events and happenings, so Christmas is fun because of the get-togethers. Thanksgiving dinner is always great. But I'd just as soon do without the vast majority of the obligatory purchases that come with holidays and "special annual days."

(Speaking of which, I would happily tell my wife she doesn't have to give me a Father's Day present in June if I don't have to buy her a Mother's Day gift this weekend. Oh, I'll go the extra mile...breakfast in bed and all that. But spending money just because, well, that's what people do? Ughh.)

So I sit here and ponder what to write about being 43, and nothing comes to mind. A birthday truly is just another day.

OK, one thing does come to mind. I still only feel about 25. That's a good thing I guess. I'm about 15 pounds heavier than I was when I was 25, my back gets more stiff after softball games, stays stiff longer, my left knee is showing some signs of aging (but still functions at 99% for most things I want it to do), and of course the gray hairs seem to be more present on my lap each time I get a haircut.

Actually, because I do feel wiser than I did at 25, I'd more accurately say I feel about 29. But physically, it's a few years younger than that.

Whenever I go upstairs at home, I don't limp, I don't walk...I run. Literally, sometimes with speed in mind, as in trying to see how fast I can do it.

As long as I have the ability to run up the stairs, I will feel young physically. As long as I have the desire to, I will feel young mentally.

See You Later, Gator

My wife and I hoped to see a gator on our recent golf trip to Myrtle Beach. We saw two at the Heritage Club, the #33 public course in America in 2009 according to Golf Digest. We saw them in and by the lake that borders the par 5 eighteenth hole (which I parred with a fine drive, well-placed lay-up, soft lob wedge to the green, and nearly-holed birdie putt). To the right is what it looked like from a distance.

Here is what it looked like when my wife risked making me a single dad by taking snapshots of it from ten feet away :

While she was not holding up any group behind us (we were a two-some playing between groups of four), I started scolding her after about 30 seconds of this. This particular animal was docile; asleep perhaps even. But one quick move, and I might have been a widower. Or at least a man with a one-legged wife.

What in the name of Chubbs Peterson was she thinking?