Christmas gifts. What kids need

Another "no duh" post provided to you by Daddy 40 per cent or more stay at home.  But it was a little epiphany for me.

I strongly think that one job of kids is to play and have fun, have adventures.  Adults should try to work and get things done.  Kids "job" is to play.  You think this is another "no duh" statement from Daddy here, but it's not.  Think about for how many centuries children were just thought of as little adults and were treated that way.  Even Freud.  Even he thought of them as little premature sex machines just waiting to reach maturity to have sex.  Just little adults "in training" for being an adult.  Some of the literature still refers to them as such.  But kids just need to be... wait for it.... kids.

Believe it or not, this is not so apparent even in our modern world.  I am talking socially now, not medically, though there is great debate on whether kids should be treated with "adult drugs" for sickness.

At any rate, kids got to be kids.  They have to play.

Therefore,  the Christmas gifts for kids have to suit kids.  I just think about it because all the gifts I received this year, besides a pass for the local swimming pool, were rather boring wishes.   I wrote a letter to the fabled giver of presents that I would like, after world peace and peace between my kids of course, a new pair of  long underwear, a long sleeve shirt, some new winter gloves, a winter hat (with the logo of my favorite band on it) AND a second weight barbell as I only have one.  Wow.  That stuff would bore the tears out of Santa.  Or maybe make him laugh his butt off.  I don't think of myself as a boring person, but maybe I am.

I would have asked for a collection of Bauhaus records, or even just one.   But I don't really need them right now.  I ll get them when I am a little more financially secure.  Maybe that will be never.  I can wait.  But, the long underwear can not wait. I don't want to get them next year. I want them NOW.

Likewise, games for my kids is what they need RIGHT NOW.  My kids need to play and I want them to play.  Of course they need new clothes too, but they get those any time of the year.  They need games for Christmas.

At this point I have to be a "parent on guard" and say that I am unwilling to buy them Xbox, Play Station, Nintendo and the likes.  Call me unknowledgeable and I don't know anything about these games, but it seems to me most video games use only your knee jerk re actions and thumb and finger co ordination. Maybe a little logic about where granny might be hiding with that knife or whatever.  Take the older games, even card games, they take logic, thinking and a steady hand to play.  Stratego takes logic and thinking. Even Battleship and card games, which are a lot of luck, take a thinking mind and some development in the brain to play.  I admit when I was growing up I was addicted to Pac Man, but, its kind of useless.  Super Mario brothers?  None of those hold a candle to the likes of board games and Monopoly.  Even Match Box cars take creativity and a bit of scientific thinking to figure out which car will go the farthest down the hill and how.  Yes, I know I am being old fashioned and a bit daft even if some new video games use some logical thinking to play, take me as being an old fart, but the old board games, even Barbie, are what really help kids develop AND are great fun.

I just had a great Christmas holiday.  For two days I played Monopoly with my girls.  Seriously, pretty much straight and only time out for opening presents, sleeping and eating.  This will be a Christmas I will remember fondly.  It was so much fun. 

Anyway, to criticize the new video games compared to the old board games wasn't the reason of this article.  The point was that video games or board games, you have got to give the kids what they want. Something fun.

And you know what?  Its interesting to shop for them also.  Just think, in five or ten years they are going to be boring teenagers who just want cool clothes or sneakers so they can be hip, cool dudes among their school peers.  That will be the height of boring shopping for me.  They say that kids younger and younger are asking for this stuff.  Oh man.  Get them a tank of tropical fish to take care of instead.

My friend bought his 15 year old son a (second hand) DJ record player.  How cool is that?  That is the

kind of "toy" teenagers should be getting.

OK, but again, the simple idea I wanted to get across is the jobs of kids is to play.  I know it is after the fact, Christmas was yesterday.  But if you  have to return some of the clothing you got them because it is the wrong size, why don't you also take a few steps down the mall or where ever to get them some game too.  Kids need to play.  They learn and they grow up, and they become adults... most of them.

Checkers. Get them an old fashioned game of checkers.  Everyone should learn how to play Checkers sometime in their life.

Been listening to Christmas carols and classical music devoted to Christmas the past couple days including while writing this.  Nothing but.   Not even the Beatles album CD Santa got my girls again for Christmas, though I am Jonesing to hear that.  We did watch, as we do every year,  the cartoon version of "How the Grinch stole Christmas"

2,999,999 more out there. Where?

Over the summer I had to clean out our cottage in a hurry and take or throw away a lot of stuff.  I am a very sentimental guy who has a strong memory for the past if you get me.  My Mother, not.  So it was terrible to see these birthday cards and all sorts of cards just tossed out.  It was history for me.  I am not a pack rat, just a believer in history.  Don't confuse the two. 

I have to get to the point now.  What I really wanted to talk about, query, is: where do all these things go?  Mostly I am thinking about games.  Cards of all sorts get burned or are biodegradable.  But games?  They are mostly plastic. What happens to them?

I looked at one of my most favorite games from when I was a kid, Hi Q, and it said on the box cover, "over 3 million sold".  3 Million!  And that was when we bought the game in the early 70s.  Maybe they sold 10 million all told.  I don't know.  But the point is, where did they all go?  I have one.  What about the other 2,999,999 or more?  Games aren't like your grandmothers earrings which get passed down from generation to generation. Its not like your grandmother says to you before she passes on, "here, take this heirloom and cherish it" and she passes you a game of Chinese checkers or Parcheesi.

Did they all go to the land fills? Or are they sitting in 2,999,999 attics or basements?

2,999,999 games of Hi Q sitting buried in land fills across the US and A?  Plastic.  600 years later they are still sitting there?  And how many others?  Milton Bradley, Mattell and Parker Brothers games, not to mention all the Barbies, sitting, just sitting in land fills?  I wouldn't believe it.  But...    I don't know

So I packed away STUFF into boxes and sent it FedEx overseas.  The Hi Q, Rubik's cube, Chinese Checkers, Battleship, Stratego (god, how I loved that game and how many times my friend and I played it when we were ten) Operation, and the funny clincher, Monopoly.

Thus the games will live on with me for another 50 years or thereabouts.  Then what?  Given to some school, or a library, or distributed to poorer peoples homes? Or given to the girl or boy down the street?  IDK

I still love them now and have introduced them to my kids with some success.  But really each generation has its own Heroes, TV shows, music and games.  Games usually have a shelf life.  Only a few like Barbie have been able to withstand and survive multi generations.  Its not like I see kids running to the store to buy Stratego these days.  They last a generation, if that.  Its like that with a lot of things except for the biggest names.  When I think of it now, the best "toy" or keepsake which probably no one has as a keepsake is the pet rock.  What a genius idea it was.  I mean for the future.  You didn't have to worry about it sitting in a landfill.  Just chuck it out on the street or anywhere and it hurts no one.  What a great idea as far as recycling goes. Did anyone keep a pet rock?

Music on the other hand, is going to be sitting around.  OK, no one threw away or should have thrown away their Beatles, Pink Floyd, or Led Zeppelin collections.  But only the real collectors care about saving all the Camper Van

cover to Take the Skinheads bowling EP.  I own one

Beethoven, Vomit Launch or even Partridge Family albums.  Cmon get happy. Its been thirty years or more since any of those bands have done anything and not many people know about them, let alone care about them.  'Cept for me maybe.

Its the same with games.  Besides for Monopoly, not many people really care about Stratego or Battleship these days.  Just me, maybe some other weirdo collectors.

 My life is the long and winding sentimental journey road.

What I ll probably do before I die is ask that I be buried or cremated with all my games, CDs and maybe a smattering of birthday cards and books.  Have them all come with me.  I CAN take it with me.  Why not?  I don't think many other people will care for my belongings.  Then when I am buried, or my ashes are buried, all the atoms will mix together and there will be an atom of Max mixed with Camper Van Beethoven's "take the skinheads bowling" vinyl EP.  Some tree will grow from my ashes, which will throw off acorns, which will get eaten by squirrels which might get shot by a hunter or eaten by an owl who will pass those atoms on to their children and the matrix for Max and Camper van Beethoven and Stratego will be passed along to some plant, animal, and human in the near future.

I pity that  (future) fool.

Nothing's ever lost.  Everything eventually ends up someplace else.  Isn't that nice to know?

Dads Depression I : Dads can be hurt by kids too.

There is a lot of talk at Dad conferences about the depression of Dads.  There are statistics about it. Maybe I should find some too.  I understand it all too well.

Look folks,  without having a doctorate in psychology, I can tell you with a great degree of certainty that people need to feel good about themselves.  They need to feel good about their work and what they are doing.  Perhaps some people need to feel they are contributing something to life, to society,  or at least to their family if they have one.  When you don't have that feeling of contribution, then  depression can develop.  Of course depression can be caused by other variables, but lets stick with this reason for now.

The problem is that many societies or communities still do not recognize dads as a main caretaker of kids.  I think even in the US stay at home dads are still considered a niche, an anomaly.  Dads should be working.

So when you are a stay at home Dad, your view of yourself must be very very strong to resist this mud that is thrown at you by society.  You are not doing something worthwhile they say.  When are you going to go out and get a job?  Be a real male and go and fix my car or something manly.

I can understand this attack quite well.  To some extent though it can be magnified within ourselves. In other words, perhaps the community is not saying this, but you hear it in yourself.  Your SELF is saying it to you on its own.

The irony of it all is that in many cases stay at home fathers are doing even better work than what they might be doing out in the community.  I can think of many jobs, but will not list them, where taking care of kids is more worthwhile than the jobs we get paid for and spend our time on.  When we all learn that taking care of kids, bringing them up with strong, good values and teaching them the difference between right and wrong is important and can be done by either parent then we will be progressing.  But it should be done by some parent!  Then we will have a stronger community and, yes, I kid you not, but many crimes will decrease.  I would say that is worth quite a bit!  And for what ever reason, if Mommy can`t be the caretaker, then it really shouldn't matter if daddy will teach and be there for children. 

But

After that lengthy introduction, what I wanted to talk about is the pain you can feel as a father when your kids reject you.

Now I am not saying they throw you out from the apartment, they don't want you, but they are just sort of not nice and hurt your feelings.

Like this.

My 9 year old  daughter called for me around 2.25am as she often does when she has a bad dream.  I heard her right away from the parents room and came to their kids room because I sleep like a deer.   She always calls for daddy because she knows I will come to her.  I hold her hand until she falls back to sleep, trying to hold my bathroom needs also which always come if I get up in the middle of the night.  If I am lucky she falls back asleep quickly and then hopefully I fall back to sleep quickly.  If not, I am awake for an hour.

But then, that morning, I came to wake her up at 7am and she said with a wicked sneer, "I want Mommy".  That hurt.

This last week my wife went to the theatre and I got home a little after she left.  They closed the front door on me, and said, "wait, wait don't come in yet".  Well that gets me a bit angry because usually they are closing their game they are playing on their phone and don't want me to see.  But then this time it was even more.  It was, "daddy, don't come into our room, go away."  Mind you they aren`t teenagers.  Teenagers might get away with saying that, but 6 and 9 year olds should not say that.  I went away cursing a bit louder than I should have.  Yes it made me angry.

Then ten minutes later my daughter came into the kitchen and said, the reason we didn't want you in our room was we were trying to fix the computer.  But we couldn't, so could you fix it?

Naturally enough I exploded and said in a rather loud manner, "oh, when you don't want me you tell me to go away, but when you need me then you come to me and say we need you, right after telling me to go away.  Well look, I have feelings too, I hurt too, and it hurts when you tell me to go away.  Whatever the reason."

That might have gotten to them. It got to me.  My younger daughter came in and said, I don't want to hurt your feelings daddy.  Do you want to play Go Fish? (a card game).

Yes.

Yes, daddies have feelings too and we can feel hurt.  I guess we are supposed to bite our lip and let it go. But isn't that what boys growing into men are taught?  Take it like a man.  Boys don't cry was the name of a Cure song.  Now is that natural? I ask myself? Whats up with that??  I just read an article in the NY Times today in which the subheading was something like, girls have more paths but boys have just one.  A friend of mine is able to brush it off like water on a duck, but sometimes for me, it doesn't work. I have feelings which can be hurt, just as kids do.  How else can you let them know that you hurt except by telling them?

Depression in dads can come from many directions.  It can come from society.  It can come from ourselves.  It can come directly from the actions of our kids.  Are we strong enough to just brush it off?  Sometimes.  Many times, no.  What to do when it strikes should be the topic of concern for all us stay at home dads who love our children.  For we  also have to love ourselves, or at least feel good about ourselves.

Paradise in summer. 2018

OK, its been a while.  It is the middle of September. My last post was in April.  Every time I write a new post, I say to myself, I have so many ideas, I will write more and have more posts this year.  Don't know what happened when I thought that.  I guess the ideas escaped from my cranium or I just didn't get around to doing a new post and said "oh well".

I would like my posts to be a small history of me, a father, helping to bring up my girls, moreso than a story telling time of my life.  In other words, I should tell more simple banal everyday happenings of my "history" as a father who loves his children and takes the time with them.

I was going to write at the end of the school year and say that that time of the year is rather sad.  The ending of school depresses me.  That is true only for me as a father.  It was never true as a student.  BUT, I have found that all endings are sad.  And to further complicate the matter it seems that everything ends.  The universe will end some day.  But the end of summer is bad too.  Especially when this will be the last time that I have my happy summers with both my girls staying at my Mothers on the lake in the woods.  Sadly, my Mother had to sell the summer house and we can not go there anymore.  It will not be ours.  I have been going there since I was 0, so this is a deadly blow for me.

Also, it was a perfect summer place for my kids.  Studies find that a happy summer for kids makes them stronger people.  And a good summer entails being outside playing and having small adventures.  Its true.  The house was perfect.  A lake 50 feet away to go swimming every day.  I had helped make it into a friendly lake with a sandy sloping bottom which I worked on cleaning out for 45 years, making it sandy and not mucky.  A great place to swim.  Throw the girls off my shoulders from the water.  My younger girl learned how to swim under water this summer and after that happened she didn't want to do anything else.  "How long do I stay under water, Daddy?  Count the seconds."  "I can swim over to the post under water."  She was really into it.  And now she could look for her own small shells on the bottom in the sand.

Ernest Hemingway spent his kid summers in roughly the same area as where we live in the summer.

And it is in the woods with fresh air and nature.  The year round they live in a bowl which captures the dust and pollution.  Here in the summer we live fresh, besides for the gdmd motor boats slowly polluting up the lake, but the air is good, the woods are good, the atmosphere is good. It is paradise for me.

Any father who wants to be more of a dad to his kids at least during some part of the year, should take the advantage of summer vacation to be with his kids, preferably without mother. I worry about men who are impatient and have a short temper, but I think a summer vacation is easier and more relaxed and is thus a good time to bond with the kids.  Besides looking out on the lake from our patio in the woods with the ferns and green and trees with the sun shining off the blue lake, the nicest part was reading to them in the night time and holding their hands before they went to sleep.  No scratch that.  The best was swimming with them.  Or was it throwing the football with them on the dirt road?  Or....?  Just being with the kids with not many hang ups is the best. All the minutes of the day.

I have written about summer before notably here or this one not to mention others and usually it is the same message: 
1.  It is a great time for dads to be with their kids
2. It is usually banal and not very interesting probably for readers
3. It is paradise

Its the same message today.  Like it or leave it.

More pictures just to spruce things up.

Traverse City Film Fest 2018. A Good Summer Event for All

Summer has to be good for kids.  This is a very important time of year for them.  You would think that school is important, but think of it:  you don't want your kids just sitting inside all the time, the whole summer watching TV or watching their cell phone playing games on it, do you?  And you don't want them running with the bad boys getting into trouble.  And YOU the parent has to make it a good summer.  Even if you set them up with a good summer camp.  It is important.  Put some time into it. 

Summer activities and a good summer experience overall will give the kids strength and lasting fond memories.  

As I have posted several times I have a paradise of a summer with my kids in Michigan. We swim, bike, walk around the circle in the woods, go to the museum and even grocery shopping is fun and something nice to do.  

I had a long vacation with my kids so we weren't going places every day.  I tried to go some place "special" every third day.  But besides that it was great just to be swimming every day and being on the lake.  

But one very special event which I tried to incorporate this year with my kids was the Traverse City Film Fest (TCFF).  This was the 14th year.  It was co founded and still partially run by the documentary film maker Michael Moore, along with literally hundreds, if not a thousand volunteers.   

The TCFF is not some pie in the sky film fest like the Karlovy Vary or Cannes film fest.  Nor is it "unheard" of.  It is internationally recognized and gaining more and more in notoriety.  This year Jane Fonda was the guest of honor for instance.  Others of noted esteem have been there too. 

I have to say this year it was much more to my tastes as it had a lot of interesting documentaries that I would have really liked to have seen.  I was a little hard pressed to find a movie (I know hard core movie goers will see three movies a day, but I thought with kids, one a day is enough, and even that was not necessary) that we could all like.  

great name 

I settled with a documentary which sort of covered a musical genre which the kids could like and a comedy too.  Bathtubs over Broadway was a documentary "starring" Steve Young, former staff writer for the David Letterman show. He digs into the unknown genre of industrial Broadways made for the company staff and pretty much only seen by these staff, of big or even small corporations.  It is an amazing documentary of a genre which is totally heretofore under the radar of everything from American history, to Broadway`s and company history.  

Well, at the time it wasn't the greatest pick for my kids.  They didn't quite understand the humor or history.  HOWEVER, I think in retrospect and over their next years growing up, they will remember it fondly and as an oddity of their childhood that their father brought them to.  And they will be glad about that.  

It was funny that a couple days after we saw the film we were walking down the street still

Steve Young

during the festival and my kids saw the "star", Mr. Steve Young.  I didn't.  After they passed, they exclaimed and danced around, "it was him, it was the star of the movie.  He just passed us!"  As if it had been Jane Fonda or Madonna herself.  I thought that was a good sign.  I wish I had see Mr. Young, I would have thanked him for his fine performance and what he did, finding all this musical history.  

Besides that we saw a Saturday morning matinee  (It could have been at 10am instead of 9am though) of short films having to do with kids as the stars.  Some were mini documentaries, others were short films.  This was a great collection I have to say.  There was a kids short series three days.  Wish we could have seen more.  

That same Saturday they had a kids arts and crafts type little fair in a park on the bay.  I am not sure of any other film fest having that kind of set up during a film fest, but maybe I am wrong.  Not to mention the dusk family film shown outside on the beach park also.  

The point being that the TCFF is a good combination of small town homey festival, like the local asparagus, rhubarb, beaver or in the case of Traverse City, cherry festival, that happens in every town across the US in the summer combined with big tix serious films on the same level as the Venice or Toronto film fest.  My only gripe is they could do a bit more for kids on the film level and in an interesting way.  Not just the mainstream stuff that kids might like, but really interesting films for kids which might not be making it into the mainstream (is there such a thing?)  Or more aspects on making the films themselves at a kids level which could get kids interested in films behind the scenes more than just at a You Tube level.  

Clinch Park on the Bay

Downtown Traverse City, Michigan

Besides that, the TCFF has the beautiful location of picturesque Traverse City on the bay. It has the celebrity status along with a good enough kids section which makes this whole film festival a wonderful adventure any family would do well to go visit in the middle of summer. I think years later my kids will remember this particular event I took them too. I will. I hope we can make it there in future years.  

Michael Moore and Jane Fonda 2018

My interests dont (always) interest my kids. Duh.

What is still hard to understand even after 10 years of being a father, is that the things that are important for kids are different than those for grown ups.

Uh,.... duhhhhh.

I know you said that.  You are saying, "this guy is not smart at all.  And he is a father? Oh man."
Yes, I know its an obvious idea.  But still as a father you say to the kids, "wow, wouldn't it be great if we did this?"  And they are kind of like, "No, not really.  Maybe".  And I m not talking teen agers.  Just kids.

I had some profound thoughts when I was thinking about this post.  One thing: that small kids, and elderly people sometimes have something in common.  They like small things.  Details.  Don't rush. Look at this bug said the kid to his Dad.  Look at the sunset said the 80 year grandma to her 50 year old son.  I think when we are kids and elderly we take it easy.  Somehow when you become a teenager, you start wanting more and more.  More excitement, bigger and bigger adventures.  Been there, done that, give me something more.  And it stays like that throughout adulthood, at least for many people.  Ernest Hemingway type adventures.  In fact Ernest Hemingway was the same way.  When he was an adult, he went lion hunting and volunteered in the war.  When he was a retired man, he went fishing.  When he was a kid, he went camping in Northern Michigan. See the differences and similarities between different ages?

I could go on and on about this comparison, and maybe sometime I will expand on it, but let me get to the story.

So,  the week before Easter we took a family holiday.  Skiing in the Austrian Alps.  I don't ski, I walk, or sled.  All the others ski.  The sledding lanes were closed.  72 ski courses and you would think they could try to keep ONE sled path open for the less ski abled.  But no.  And the walking paths were very lame too.  An afterthought.  Either on roads, or just less used ski paths.  I am going to write to the Salzburg department of tourism about this.  Not everyone is a skier.... but I digress.

By Friday my youngest daughter was kind of skied out.  That was understandable.  My wife learned how to ski from a military veteran and still thinks of skiing as kind of a discipline, hardcore military training.  Well, maybe not sooo hardcore, but my daughter is six.  4 hours a day skiing is a lot.

So it was decided that while my other daughter and wife would be skiing down one of the highest mountains in Salzburg, Austria, my younger daughter and I would take the cabin lift up to near the top of the mountain where they had a platform outside.  It is 3029 meters, nearly 10 000 feet up (Mount Everest is 33 000 feet high, but still 10 000 feet is much more than a hill in Florida or Ohio).

Get this, at the second platform, they said we had to wait as it was too dangerous for small kids to go to the highest platform at this time as a wind came up which was pretty dangerous.  A wind?  It wasn't wind, it was clouds.  The mountain is in the middle of the clouds and you know what its like when your plane goes through the clouds?  It rocks the plane.

you cant see that i am holding on for dear life

After half an hour we could go up, and I tell you,  I'm no high stakes adventurer, but for sure I felt just as much excitement boiling in my blood as Ernest Hemingway did hunting in Africa. And when we went outside on the platform, I was scared.  I mean, you see the tips of mountains all around you, and there is a wind blowing which you figure if it hit you in the right spot you would be carried to that mountain top over there.  And that mountain top was a hundred feet down and a hundred feet over yonder.

I slid slowly over to the sign which said how high we were and my daughter took a picture of me.  THAT was an adventure!  In the meantime they made an announcement that it was dangerous, especially for small children to be on the platform.  I loved being up there and the thrill of it was great, but I also like life and did not want to be blown over the edge to be impaled on a lower mountain spike top.

After that, this is the Kitzsteinhorn, for anyone who doesn't believe me or wants to check it out, we went through the tunnel THROUGH the mountain. I have to say, this was as exciting for me as going through the tunnel and coming up right behind Niagara Falls on the Canadian side which I also have done.  To be walking in a tunnel through the mountain, I cant explain it well enough, but it just gets the adrenaline going.  It is amazing.

There was a beautiful museum along the tunnel also with pictures and explanations of what can survive there at that height and discussions of the permafrost and climate change.  Very well done.  And again, to be inside the mountain!  Wow.

You cant see the wind in the picture

There was another platform outside at the end of the tunnel, but it was even windier now and the other mountain tops were closer by and instead of being impaled or dropping onto a mountain top you would just be splattered against a mountain wall if the wind picked you up.  You ever see a wind pick up a car driving over a bridge in winter? I have and I weigh less than a car.  So....
Needless to say, this was a pretty big tourist attraction for me.
My daughter... she didn't seem so thrilled with it.

OK granted, she was both scared and fearless going out on the platform to take my picture, and I took pictures of her.  But then she didn't want to stay out there.  She was more interested in turning the crank to make a little copper souvenir of our trip to the Gipfelstation.  She was turning the crank before I put money in and she would not leave till we had figured out how to get one of these souvenirs.  And we had to count quite precisely how many times we turned the crank to make the souvenir.  It told us to turn it ten times, so she counted the turns meticulously with care.

The tunnel museum was so so interesting for her.  I did have to read all the plaques and information blurbs for her, but of bigger interest was going to the restaurant after that and getting a hot cocoa.
 She was comparing this coco to other hot cocoas she recalled.  I couldn't listen to this hot topic, I was just looking out the window marveling at the snow and the wind and the mountains.  I don't think she looked out the window at all.

you cant see the 5 inch snowman.  Its there

What pleased her most was that it was getting late and we wouldn't have time to stay at the next level down again, we would have to go immediately to the next level cabin car going down right away as they would be closing pretty soon.  This was great news to her as she really couldn't wait to get back to our apartment and just be "home" there.  She did enjoy making a small snowman on a lay over at the next level down.  She demanded that I take several pictures of her with her snowman, which was about 5 inches tall.

And when we were in the mountain gondola going down, what was interesting for her was not looking out the window at the amazing heights and scenery, but stabbing at the snow on the floor on the parket which was sort of like a welcome mat with patterns with holes between them.

This is why I mention again that I have to remember that what is important or interesting for an adult is quite different from what is interesting to a kid.  Please excuse my own stupidity, but sometimes it just hits you like new and you have to grasp this concept again.  "No, this is interesting for me, but not for my kid, and whether it should be interesting for her is not for me to say."

Still, please excuse again my complaining, but when you get down from this height of pure adventure, pure "wowness" and your kid says, "I liked skiing with my class more," and proceeds to start her tenth fight that day with her sister, it just makes me scratch my head.  But who is being misguided here?  Is it me who needs the big lion taming mountain top adventure who is silly? Or my daughter who finds more fun and interest in climbing a snowbank and making a five inch snowman?  The little things in life are just as interesting as the tall mountains?

Sigh.  Give me a minute still to grasp this idea, because it is eluding me.  I have to repeat it again, lets see, yes: kids interests are just not the same all the time as adults.  Neither is wrong?  Right?


There are hundreds of pictures of the Kitzsteinhorn mountain, but I am putting up a couple of my own here.  But go to any Kitzsteinhorn www site to see some amazing pictures.   But those are just pictures.  Being there is something else.

          Thanks for reading.

Skiing, or not, as the case may be.

Could have learned how to ski here

If I had known when I was five years old that I was going to have daughters who could ski so well, I would have right away at that time asked my parents to get me some skis and a teacher and get me learning how to downhill ski if they could have afforded it. 

Well, sadly I did not, and sadly I can not ski downhill.  

I don't know why I didn't learn.  One of my older sisters learned and she had great times going on ski weekends with her friends. She loved it. I don't think she does it now though, but probably because she lives in an area of a state which doesn't have much downhill, maybe cross country. I don't think her son learned how to ski.  So maybe it wouldn't have helped to have learned how to ski when I was five.  Maybe not.

Five? Yes five.  If there are three things you should get your kids to do as soon as possible in life it is in this order:  start learning a second language,  eat and like fruits and vegetables, and if you live in a state which gets winter or you are near mountains, teach them to ski and ice skate.  (Fourth would be to get them to learn to play a musical instrument or sing).  

Swimming is a close second, but if there is one thing which is great to do with the family as a family outing in winter it is skiing or ice skating.  Ice skating is probably better, because you can hold hands and skate together or play chase or mess around on the ice.  But it is only an hour or so outing.  

Skiing is an all day family event, if not a full weekend or EVEN a full on winter week holiday.

I think I have mentioned it before, but my one daughter started skiing when she was three.  The other started when she was four.  This is about the right time to get them going.  We tried to get the second daughter started at two years old but it was a bit premature.

 She just stood there crying on her skis and wanted her mother to help her and help her take the skis off. I think she went up the pulley a hundred yards once or twice.  Anyway, she was ready at four.  Now she is six, just two years later and she is going down pretty big hills by herself and not falling. She is skiing well. The older one is not Ester Ledecka ... yet,  but is a little ski devil who doesn't need any help.  Now they are skiing down hills like these pictured.  

It is really a great shared family activity.  Its not that you allgo down together and hold hands, but skiing downhill just pumps up your adrenaline a lot.  It is a natural high, and you know that everyone feels the same so that when you get to the bottom of the hill you are all smiling and you know why. You all are sharing in the excitement, even though it is not a team sport. At the end of the day, probably for the rest of your life, you can talk about "going down that one time" or "that one hill" or that one time it was icy, or...  all the shared downhill skiing experiences in your memory, memories, collectively.   Its a great bond for the entire family.  

Except for those who don't know how to ski.  

I know what you are saying.  You are saying, "well remedy the situation and learn how to ski.  Its never too late."   Well, no its never too late for some people and for some things, but believe you me, it would be easier to get skis on a horse and teach IT how to downhill ski than me.  Really. 

So where was Daddy today when Mom and the two girls were bonding skiing downhill?  I went off on a hike up the hill on the green line. I did around 10 kilometers in three hours up the mountain and back down.  I didn't bond with anyone, not even Mother Nature.  I was alone with my thoughts walking through the snow.  I was composing and going over a book I am writing which takes place a lot in the winter.  And I was thinking about this post on bonding doing downhill skiing and me not bonding walking through the woods.  By myself.  

Dads, if you can not go back in time and learn how to ski when you were five years old, I strongly recommend you try to learn now and take the whole family skiing.  Either that or go sledding all together.  That is pretty good too.   We will do that some weekend and then I wont be able to compose any post when I am doing that because the adrenaline will be soaring.  

 C`mon, the NFL season is done, get off your tushes and get outside with the whole family.  

Discipline for Parents. How to be a Better Child.

Please note, by far I do not support any form of violence or abuse of kids.  Please do not get the impression by reading this that I do, or that I regularly yell at my kids.  There is joke and  hyperbolic content in my words, tongue in cheek.  Thank you. 

Just going to tell you that lately I have been reading a lot of parenting blogs.  How to be a fine parent.  How to be a better Dad.  I have a favorite link on the side of all my posts for instance, this blog: MichaelByronSmith: Helping Fathers to be Dads  I have much respect for the advice and support and help, don't get me wrong, all of them in fact, I wouldn't have a link for a blog if I didn't like it.  Being a good parent is a learned job, it doesn't come by heredity or automatically.  No it doesn`t. 

But... 

One of these girls should be writing blogs
Not sunning themselves in the English rain

I think something is missing.  Or there is an opportunity for a new niche of blogs.  

Let me explain.  

In many of these blogs they teach you, or write about staying calm and getting away from stress parenting and most of all yelling at our kids.  

I agree with that.  

To think of how it used to be, and worse, for centuries and centuries, it can make me cry.  I mean, even just one generation ago it was quite normal for kids to be hit or even whipped.  That probably didn't even go out till I was a kid, and it may have been around just ten or twenty years earlier in the 1950s.  I can fathom that even now a lot of kids are getting whipped in places in the world.  That, I must say, is very very sad for me.  It shouldn't be like that.  

In the US, they seem to be moving even further and trying to move parents away from yelling at their kids.  I can agree with this too.  Yelling at your kids only teaches them that yelling is OK and they will mimic your actions and may start yelling at their friends, or whomever.  Worse yet, they may grow up to yell at their kids.  A cycle of wrong parenting continued.  I am against the yelling, even though, it may be very hard to change, admittedly.  

Fathers in particular will find this new rule especially difficult to unwind and reject.  Naturally yelling may still be one of fathers methods of discipline, though we have evolved to not include hitting anymore..... hopefully.  

So I was reading a blog about a positive method of discipline, not punishment, not yelling, but teaching and education (I didn't need to say both those words, they are pretty much synonyms).  In fact the word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina, which means educate and of course a disciple is a learner of a teacher.  Discipline is not punishment, there should be no yelling.  

I was thinking about this a lot, but all that popped into my head while reading is all the yelling that goes on in our household.  I was asking myself, how can this change?  How can we teach our six year old to stop yelling at her parents constantly.   

Hmmm.  

I thought about how I could turn around the lesson of the blog and give that information to my six year old.  Here is the blog and here is how I might change it on a couple of the points. 

1. The core of positive discipline: There are no bad kids, just bad behavior.  Changes to, There are no bad parents just bad behavior.  

"Look my daughter you have to realize that when there is a bag of chocolates sitting out over night, your father, a confirmed chocoholic belonging to chocoholics anonymous, is going to nab one chocolate when he is up late at night and the chocolate is calling him.  Though in earlier days or years, the whole bag would be gone.  And please don't yell at me for sitting on your bed, I really just wanted to kiss you good night and it is hard to do so without putting some part of my body on your just made bed. Yes, I realize you like it tucked in and straightened, but that is no reason to give daddy a yelling.  It was just bad behavior on my part in wanting to kiss you good night.  Wont happen again.  And I am truly sorry for throwing away that little tiny crumpled up piece of paper which was sitting on the floor in the hallway, I had no idea it was part of your scrap paper collection.  I thought it was a discarded piece of cardboard box from the chocolate box which should be thrown out.  I know I know, bad behavior on my part.  But please stop yelling at me at the top of your lungs about it."  

2. Instead of pointing out what the child did wrong, show the child how to set things right.  Becomes, instead of yelling at daddy, tell him how he can set things right.  For example, you the parent could say “That was not a good choice, we don’t yell at daddy for everything. Do you want to say sorry and make daddy feel better?”  

3. Whenever possible, offer choices.  After offering empathy, you can take it to the next level by offering her some choices. Choices give your child a sense of control. Not only is she not “bad”, instead of being “punished” she is given control… Here are some of the choices you can give her, I suggest.  "Now honey, after you have decided that yelling at daddy is not the best answer, you can make it up by being extra nice.  For example, you can clean out the bathroom toilet which is my job, but it hasn't been done in two weeks.  Or you can go buy me a bag of potato chips or chocolates so I have my own dessert instead of taking yours.  Or you can just stop being a mean, nasty kid and stop yelling and being loud and apologize and stop your yelling because it s driving me crazy and sometime I m just going to Pow Alice, right in the kisser and.... 

whoa whoa whoa,  that isn't one of the options, that is a line from the TV show the Honeymooners.  I just need a time out or time in, whatever the case and relax now.  Breathe easily, count to ten, better make that one hundred.  Lets calm down everybody.  

I really learned a lot from that post on that blog site.  I must disclose I did plagiarize some of the text from that post to my post.  For the full text and educational experience, I give you the link once again here. And please use education and not punishment the next time you are disciplining.

But I have to add at the end, that I am scouring the web for some blog written by a three to six year old on better understanding toward their parents and using education with parents instead of yelling at them all the time. 

I still haven`t found what I`m looking for.  Maybe if we all look together.... we still won`t find it. Obviously an opportunity there for some aspiring three year old.

In the end, my six year old told me to go to the corner and sit on this chair as I had been a bad Daddy.