Memories : Enjoy them while you can and be sure to preserve your memory with your kids

Last week I said to my youngest daughter that I really missed taking my older daughter or either of them to school.  She said to me, "but Daddy, you didnt walk her to school?"   Geez.  Of course I did.  I even have posts from older years in which I talk about how sad I was not to walk her to school anymore.  Well, the days are not long gone, but .. gone.  But how can my younger daughter not remember?  She said, "you walked her to school before I was born?"  No.  "When I was in pre school", well yes, but also after you had gotten into first grade.  Then my older daughter was in 4th grade and I was still walking her, but not as much and that is when it stopped.  

How can she not remember?  

Well because even if memories start to occur by two or in the third year of life, and better by age 3, kids dont have strong memories, or explicit memories until say 6 or 7 years of age.  After pre school and the beginning of basic school.  It might be called childhood amnesia.  Long term memories are not well developed before this age.  

HOWEVER, the earlier years DO contribute to their overall good (or bad) development.  So the kids wont have concrete memories of travelling to all these places, but they will have intrinsic feelings that they had a good childhood comfortable and expanding and they did a lot.  Sort of fuzzy memories.  

You can solidify these memories or flesh them out with pictures.  For instance if you have pictures of your kids before they were three they may not remember the actual event but do remember the picture.  I even trick myself into thinking that I can remember.  I have a picture of me wearing big rubber boots which come up to my belly button when I was under 2 years old.  I tell myself that I DO remember wearing those boots.  But probably moreso I remember the picture of me wearing those boots very exactly.  I dont have the picture here, but I remember it quite well because I looked at it well into my "remembering years".  

What I wanted to try out is testing my younger daugther to see if she can rememberher earlier years.  Because here is an interesting but maybe sad thing.  It is said that younger kids, like a six year old can remember things from under two years old, but as they get older they in fact forget them and lose these pre memories.  Something with the way the long term memory location is being developed during teen age years. Well here is the exact quote

          "  Memories made in later childhood and beyond are more likely to stick because the young brain, especially the hippocampus and the frontoparietal regions, undergoes important developmental changes that improve our ability to bind, store and recall events"

So we can remember things from earlier ages when we are six, but then we lose them because they seem to get kicked out by a better development.  

Which kind of makes me sad.  Because already my youngest daughter (age 9.5) cant remember that I walked her to school or pre school.  And I did!  What if my wife divorces me and plants it in her head that I didnt do anything?  Especially when she is a teen ager and the earlier memories will get displaced.  What will I do? I ll be shouting at her, "I did, I did walk you to school. In fact quite often I CARRIED you piggy back all the way to pre school".     She will say, "no no, you didnt do anything for me", and then maybe I might doubt myself and ask myself if I really did do that? Because we all remember different things.  So maybe I actually never did it.  But I did.  But those memories CAN be taken away from me.  

Life and memories are so fragile ... is what it comes down to.  

So what you have to do Dads, is preserve your memory in your child.  Make sure when they are young, from a young age tell them about things you did. If you tell them enough, they may not remember the actual event, but they will remember you telling them the actual event, which may be as best they will be able to do for remembering it, and good enough. 

Or else you can take pictures.   Pictures .. well there is the proof. Me carrying you and I did that quite often.  And they will remember the pictures.  

So, enjoy your times with your kids.  BUT ALSO preserve those times by embedding those memories in your kids.  Otherwise, when they become teen agers they might say, "you did nothing. You did nothing for me".  And who knows if you will remember youself if you actually did anything.  

Just saying.  

It is funny. I have listened to Pat Metheny since the 80s. I went to his concerts  I think I caught him twice at least.  But I have never owned any of his music.  Finally this week I bought this CD.  Pat Metheny Group s "Imaginary Day" from 1997.  But just the kind of stuff I love from his band.  I have been listening to it every day. 

Roblox and my daughter. And everyones son and daughter

From this writing, Roblox (RBLX) came on the market ticker a week or two ago now.  What is Roblox? If you dont know, then you probably shouldnt read this blog because you dont have kids.  But I will review it anyway. 

Roblox is a game portal.  Please note it is not one game. It is thousands, even millions of games all on one site.  If you spent the rest of your life no matter how old you are just playing video games you would only dent the number of games already on this portal.  

Before on this blog I have of course disparaged video games as the enemy of fathers all over.  The interruptor of school and the pull for kids to backslide into a land of no responsibility and eternal bliss in gamedom ... which ends up like a HEL,  Well,  I probably havent said it like that before, but suffice to say, gaming has caused me trouble, especially during this covid school at home time.  

Here are some facts from Roblox.  75 per cent of kids under the age of thirteen in the US have or still play Roblox.  3 billion hours were spent playing roblox by kids in July 2020.  It increased a lot this last year because so many people couldnt go visit friends so they played on roblox even had parties there when they couldnt have friends over.  But the biggest thing is, roblox made in revenue last year close to 1 billion dollars (923.9 million) but in fact they lost over 200 million on that money. They lost mainly because they were expanding more and hiring more and filling out a lot more.  But now here is the stinger.  You know how they got most of their money?  They get it when players - and remember most of those players are under 13 and a good twentry five per cent of them are under 9 - buy stuff for their characters and buy virtual accessories.  Where are they gettig this money?  Well either they use their hard earned money they get from their parents for doing jobs around the house (allowance) or maybe they pillaged their parents credit cards or something nefarious.  Literally Roblox is taking candy from the baby's mouth.   And the time kids spend on roblox per day?  About 2.56 hours, 2 and a half hours a day.  

Now a) I dont want my kids watching more than 1 hour of tv a day on school days.  BUT,  this isnt tv, this is games.  This is playing.  Kids can play basketball or street hockey for two hours at a time.  Geez my girls and I can play hours of Monopoly.  We finish one game and they want to start another.  If I am home a week day we can spend a couple hours on Monopoly.  So what is Roblox?  Something to be limited like TV or a game and kids play games all afternoon as long as they get their school work done and any other responsibilities for work, like practicing an instrument.  When I was young I played at my friends house on the matchbox cars set up.  We played for hours any day when we had it constructed.  So what,  Now kids play on video games.  Is there a difference?  A game is a game. 

 Weeeelll, the thing is though that video games can be so mindless. Just using your thumbs and shooting.  There is little to no value in many of them.  Brawl stars?  Geez us.  Jumping or shooting is about the extent of many video games. I would rather they watch TV.  And it gets your adrenaline going with no exercise.  It is a zero  calories  expended exercise.  You dont lose any calories, you sit or lie on your tuff and drink and eat and go pow pow pow jump jump.  Mindless.  I see also that my daughter gets more agressive and anxious after she has been playing video games for some time.  Its not like she is expending any energy either, but she gets that agressive adrenaline rush with no exercise.  And when you do exercise you dont get more agressive, you get calmer, and more tired.  Not so with video games.  So the longer they play, the more calories they dont spend and the more agressive they get.   

B) Kids spending their money on this, to the tune of 1 billion dollars last year around the world.  All going where? To these roblox owners and the investors now.  But in fact many of the games, if not all are made by the online developers, not the studio or a group of people.  So in fact there are currently about 7 million developers and they make the money.  They made 328 million dollars last year.  You may say that is 46 dollars per person, but of course the good developers make all the money and most of them dont make much at all.  It is top heavy with a long long tail. According to Roblox themselves, 99.47 per cent of the delvelopers make a little more than nothing.  On the other side 3 developers made 10 million dollars or more and 29 developers made a million.  It sounds kind of like real life.  A very very few people make the most money while over 95 per cent of us just make ends meet or in fact dont make ends meet. Meanwhile the kids are spending the money on things in a video game, virtual dresses and stuff for their characters.  But  it is probably in the end coming from mom and pop which isnt much different from mom and pop buying the games anyway, or the kids going to the toy store to get the latest.  

So is this really really bad?  Isnt it just a new format for how kids play these days?  Well... again, thinking about it and writing it down, it is not as bad as I thought it was. In fact I should say that in the course of writing this post, I have sort of changed my mind on the damage roblox and video games can do.  BUUUUUTTTT, like everything, it has to be "eaten" and used in balance to everything else.  That is my one gripe left.  This can not be the substitute to kids for their social life.  Granted this last year was different and kids had to "stay away" from each other and so they clambered to socializing through games,  but in regular times, kids have to get out and run around, FOR REAL.  They have to socialize with other kids in person, not virtually.  

choc covered potato chips?

Like potato chips and chocolate, they can not live on video games and roblox alone.  They have to balance it with everything else.  But, that should probably be the parents job.  Yes this is difficult because if the kids go out and meet other kids, half the time they will just gather in person to play more roblox together. Not much difference.  There is an app controlling the amount of time spent on any one thing, on netflix or hbo, facebook and also on roblox.  You, parents have to find this and control it.  Two hours???  Its up to you.  But make sure they do other things and they should also practice their musical instruments.  Think about it.  They can play 5 hours on roblox in the day but cant practice the guitar or piano or violin for 15 minutes or half an hour?  Which will be more valuable for the time?  In other words 20 minutes of practicing a musical instrument is much more valuable than 2 hours of roblox video games.   

So say I. And I have told my daugther that countless times......

To no avail.  Gosh darned evil video games.  They sure make good parenting tough.  

This is my first post on roblox. I think I might have another one some time when I think of it more. 

Oh, I got a lot of my information from this article.  It has a lot of the statistics right there for you. 

Here is another one

I was listening to some techno eps I will be getting on vinyl this week in fact. Like this one

Jeroen Search. New ep on Figurex number 23

Also this one: BP057 

Mark Broom and James Ruskin.  Blueprint label. 

 

Also here is the table of the amount of money roblox 

developers make.  

Number of developers & creators	Range of rewards
962,452	$0+
3,749	$1,000+
1,057	$10,000+
249	$100,000+
29	$1 million+
3	$10 million+

Source: Roblox.

More Covid sports to play with Family

 

In most parts of the U.S. the virus is subsiding in relation to more people getting the vaccination. Where I am though, it is terrible. There are no hotels open or places to stay overnight. Ski areas for downhill are closed. 

My wife took our girls to the weekend cottage so they could take day trips to cross country skiing paths in the bigger hills. We were going to stay two weeks.  I came up on Thursday of the first week, but by then all the snow had melted and there weren't even any cross country trails available for skiing.  There was no more snow anywhere close enough. 

That is where I came in. Mission: to get the kids outside and exercising.  Getting them outside off their electronics and away from the TV.   Last year or maybe even  two years ago I taught them 2 square ball game. Good for two or more people. Me and Paul Kight in 4th grade were the school 4 square non registered champions. That was great fun. 

Now my youngest daughter is in 4th grade and she just beat me for the first time last week in 2 square. I  dont play my hardest, but, by the end of a 15 point game I am TIRED.  My older daughter is pretty good too, but their old man can still beat them most of the time.  hahaha

We also play some badminton and my younger daughter loves ping pong.  But those are for 2 people. 

But last week I introduced to them another sports game that needs at least three people to play and more if possible,  but minimum 3.  When I was looking up the sport so I could paste some pictures in this post, they only gave me pictures of baseball. But the game I taught them was BASERUNNER.

Baserunner was another great game I used to play with my friends in grade school. We lived on a street with a green parkway in the middle so we had a perfect area to play. The picture at the beginning of this post is the entrance to my street, down a block. That is the grassy parkway between the two sides of the street. The entrance from Main street pictured here is now on the National heritage land marks locations.  Interesting, because of the original wall made to signal you were entering a new village subdivision, the subdivision of Snyder. 

Anyway. We played baserunner sort of like baseball, but just running between two bases. Two catchers and the rest runners. Three outs or lives.  You had to be tagged to lose a life.  A run was running from one base to the other which the catchers protected and tried to tag you if you ran. The person with the most runs or last left in the game was the winner. 

We don't have baseball gloves here so we played with a big rubber ball not standing so far apart because we couldn't throw the ball so far. But we could throw the ball at the runner to tag them. There is just three of us but it worked. We would take turns being the runner, ten runs or three lives and then we would change runners.  Only once or twice did someone get to ten runs. Harder than you think.  

It was such a success, I am so happy.  Every day the girls would want to get out in the afternoon to play. We had to wait till my older daughter was finished with school and then we would get out around 4 pm to get in a full game, in which everyone had the chance to be a runner, before it got too dark or too cold.  I think that took about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Perfect for a good exercise session.  The weather is still cold but no snow anymore so we could get a game in before it got too cold in the late afternoon close to supper.  

But if you haven't played a baserunner game you would be surprised how much fun it is, also because it is funny.  Funny things happen that you can laugh at like getting the runner in a pickle in the middle.  Or trying to keep the runner from getting the second run when you miss the ball, "here here throw it".  It was just good fun and funny adrenaline.  

Sadly we had to go home in the middle of the second week because of the worsening virus, we had to stay in our own region for three weeks.  So if we had stayed longer they may not have let us back into our city home and I had to go to the store. I couldn't be away for three weeks. My wife had left on Monday so I was with my daughters by myself for two days.  That worked out fine and my personal "dad ratings" climbed a bit. The problem was it was still cold and they watched TV for over three hours in the evening.  I have trouble stopping them because we watch the Simpsons for two hours and I love the Simpsons too, so I watched also. But that is too much TV. Its really difficult to limit their TV with their gadgets. So I was real happy that they wanted to get out and play baserunner. 

At least some small success against the demon TV and video games. Score two for stay at home dad!

Listening to more jazz these days.  During this writing I listened to my vinyl of the two albums pictured below. 

Pat Metheny's "from this place" released Feb 21 2020, a year ago. He always rides on the edge of classic jazz, easy listening, fusion, so that it all snowballs together and you dont know what to call it, if it matters. 

Paul Desmond classic alto saxist from Dave Brubeck band who did a lot of albums on his own or with other big names, like this one with Gerry Mulligan. They dont break each other, they compliment.  Only complaint is the album is too short even with two more tracks on the reissue. I still need more when each side finishes.  

Increasing my repertoire

I think one of the most important things you can do as a parent is to provide good and nutritious meals for your kids.  Sadly many people don't do this in this day and age of lazy cooking, call for home delivery.  Home cooking is so much better for so many reasons only one being that it is probably healthier.  I think it is so important that your kids see you COOKING and MAKING the food instead of just buying things made.  What kind of message does that give them?  That cooking isnt for everybody. Not everybody can do it, like farming, and it isn't bad if I dont do it.  Wrong.  Cooking is for everybody and everyone should try to provide home meals.  The caliber of cooking doesnt matter.  Meaning, you dont have to be a gourmet cook or a Jamie Oliver, just cook. Make anything.  The kids seeing you make a creation, that is just about worth the whole value no matter what you make. 

Thinking about it from when I was a kid,  I really admire my mother all the more that she put so many meals on our table when I was growing up.  And even my father had some meals he cooked. His spaghetti is still ingrained in my memory as one of the most wonderful dishes.   Unfortunately whenever we asked him for the recipe he would just say, "oh, I put in a pinch of some thyme (he said it thyme pronouncing the th) some oregano, some pepper, salt and some other spices I forget.  Beef, tomatoes and paste etc etc..." and he never told us, he never could tell us, the exact recipe.  

But the point is, is that I remember him making the spaghetti, not just dumping cans or jars of stuff together, but making it from scratch.  Even if it hadn't been good, seeing him make the spaghetti would have been worth the whole meal.  But it WAS delicious.  He didnt order out. He never did.  

I watch the Big Bang theory TV series and I find it rather disgusting that they only eat order out pretty much.  I think they send a terrible message to viewers. It is a turn for the worse we have made.  That a company like Blue Apron could even be a big thing to exist.  Roll your own, as the saying goes.   

But back to my father and his cooking.  The funny thing is, my father was our caretaker for over half a year when our family followed him on sabbatical to Europe but my Mother couldnt go.  For the life of me I am trying to remember what he cooked every day.  All I remember is his fantastic spaghetti sauce completely home made.  He wasnt a griller and one can not survive on spaghetti alone.  What else did he cook in that year?  I have a journal somewhere so I have to go back and look it up.  But I wish I could remember off the top of my head.  I would ask him today (RIP dad), "Dad?  How did you survive that year without Mom? What did you cook and how did you stay sane with us three kids at home being obnoxious kids?"  Well in fact he developed a severe back problem and had to stay in bed for over two months.  And then the question is, what did WE KIDS cook and how did we survive?  

I have added three more meals to my repertoire in the past couple weeks.  I am rather proud of myself.

First of all, i tried the stuffed potatoe skins, but we dont get the same potatoes here that you can get all over the U.S. I guess the Idaho potatoes are the ones for baking because they have the real thick skin and you can get a good meal from the skin.   Here we just have the thin skin potatoes.  Still there is a recipe for making cuts in the potato and sticking stuff inside the cuts.  I tried that and it worked so so.  It needs more work.  

I have to say it was good with the stuffing. You can put anything you want in the cuts.  Like myself I like spaghetti sauce or sauerkraut.  But I think this recipe needs a couple more tries to be perfected.  

I dont like to copy what my wife does, I like to strike out on my own and make the kids meals from my own background but my wife taught me to make chicken kebabs which are pretty easy and tasty.  Just grind up the chicken breast with some garlic cloves and 120ml of cream.  I need more practice on them though because I thought you only had to bake them 20 minutes but it seemed that that was half time and they need at least 40 minutes like most of my meals do.  And furthermore I messed up the baked potatoes.  I still need more practice on them.  Mine were a bit soft on the outside and still needed cooking on the inside.  I didnt get a picture of them though.

What made me happiest was making the pork fried rice.  Pictured here.  I had been yelled at the night before because it had been my responsibility to make supper, but when it came to it, I hadnt planned ahead and messed up and my wife had to do it.  So the next night I planned in advance.  I got all the ingredients before and thought about how long it would take me and when I should start. The thing is, when I cooked it, nobody came to dinner except my youngest daughter. She didnt want to eat it because she had thought I was going to make bbq pork and didnt like the carrots in the mix.  I was really saddened by this.  Nobody came to my dinner.  I used the recipe from the delish.com website. So thanks to them. Here is their recipe

Pork fried rice is great because you can use anything and make lots of substitutes of nearly anything. Any meats or any vegetables. And this is a better meal than pizza who most people think is healthy but when it comes down to it, it isnt and shouldnt be for young kids except once in a while.  The pork fried rice has rice and vegetables and eggs.  Even meat is optional.  Some people might not like the frying bit, but I suppose you could try baking it too.  Needless to say, it is good.  I just hope my whole family comes to dinner the next time I make it.  It really bummed me out that they didnt come.  The above picture taken by my daughter is my own creation.   

Oh well, I ll make it for myself some evening I am home alone.  The point is to be able to cook good stuff for the family or just yourself.  Whether they come or not is their fault.  I will continue to work on expanding my repertoire.  

Al Dimeola has been a jazz guitarist for nearly 50 years. Most notably playing with Return to Forever in the 70s with Chick Corea.  Fusion jazz.  Then he has a fantastic live album with John McLaughlin and Paco on "one night live in San Francisco" which was pretty hot.  I have his cd and lp of his 2020 disk "Across the Universe" (pictured below) covers of 14 Beatles tunes.  I will buy the LP soon myself.  I have it available at Maximum Underground for a good price 2 lp. And CD.   My favorite tunes on it by the Beatles are Dear Prudence and Golden Slumber medley.  Both well done.  Give it a listen.  You can order it from Maximum Underground too if you like.  Write to me or my facebook site Maximum.underground 

The Biggest new DON'T for kids ?

 

What is the biggest "Dont" we told our kids in the past?  Dont accept rides from strangers. 

I am not sure if that is still true today.  Or maybe it shouldn't be.  Maybe the biggest NEW DON'T should be: DON'T take any pictures or videos on your phone camera of you or friends or siblings in anything but their clothes doing normal things.  (That is a bit long.  We need a short slogan.  Maybe, "Normal pictures only".  I don't know if that would get the idea across).  Anyway, I am sure you know what I am getting at.  

Why I bring this up now is because I had a little incident in January and it sent me reeling and I had to think about it and now I have to write about it.  

As I understood it from hearing both sides of the story, one sister had to send a picture of another member of the family to a school class of hers.  Now while that may sound innocent enough, of course the person sending the picture had to get the ok to send it from the other person.  So she said she had to send it secretly because no one in the family would want her to send a picture of them.  So she took a picture of her younger sister, in a normal setting, and sent it.  She did not ask her sister's permission, and that is where the trouble came in. Note, my daughter did not ask me for a picture.  She said that I wouldnt have let her send it, but I think I would have.  

Normal picture of kids 

So then what happened was the younger sister in retaliation started taking a video of her older sister who was still in bed in her pajamas.  Nothing dangerous, but of course the older sister did not like that and was trying to hide.  

This part was what made me angry and talk directly and strongly to them. I said, "No no no, no videos or pictures of the other person in bed, or in pajamas or anything besides in clothes and only if they are allowed to."  I said, erase that video right now. I dont even want it on your phone.  Get rid of it now.  

That was when she told me that her sister had taken a picture of her and according to her, sent it to some boy already in her class.  I went to the other sister to get the story straight and she told me the story of just needing the picture of a family member for school.  

(You see, it is difficult to even get the truth on the whole situation)

The stories were not accurate and there were misunderstandings, but the end result was I said  that no videos or pictures of the other person on phones or any gadgets in less than regular clothes and even those only with permission.  I said this to both girls and with equal strength no matter who took the video or picture. In the end the one sister deleted the picture and the younger sister deleted the video and she showed me she had deleted it.  

Really, the problem is, even these seemingly harmless pictures can wind up in the wrong hands and ruin a person.  It can be the start of other people making fun of them. Then it can grow to completely demoralizing them in school.  

You may have heard of the big scam recently of the Pornhub pornography portal getting in a lot of trouble because there is said to be a lot of underaged images there and films with people who did not give their consent to the film let alone wanting it on the internet.  The sad thing is to hear how it has ruined people to the point of suicide, for years. Even decades later they still can come across unwanted results from the pictures or the film.  These are not consensual remember.  

The underage part and non consensual really gets me.  This just results in the destruction of the human spirit, the destruction of the person and the utter lack of knowledge of how to escape the consequences. 

That is very sad for me.  Very sad.  And I really dont see how we will come to any positive conclusion on this.  In other words this is going to reoccur and reoccur for many years to come and destroy more people.  

Thus I had to get this across to my daughters NOW and in a strict, I mean business, tone.  Of course they know about this. They know more about electronics and how to use them than I do.  What they do lack has nothing to do with electronics and how they work, but just with how their brains work.  Their brains are of course not yet developed and chaotic and dont have the full reasoning capabilities.  Thus even if they know about this danger, I really dont think they understand who is "out there" that could take advantage of them and hurt them.  They dont understand how it could spread beyond their control. 

I am afraid of the talk I will have to have with them one on one later as they are a bit older about NOT sending "pictures" to their boyfriends, or any friends for that matter.  I am not looking forward to that. Many of the pictures which destroyed girls were just sent to boyfriends who pleaded for a "compromising" picture and the girls trusted the boys, they were their boyfriends after all, they wouldnt hurt them, would they?   But they did, it did, even to suicidal tendencies and extreme hopelessness. Changing schools to no avail.  Sleeping in cars to get away from a hometown.  It saddens me no end as to how their lives were destroyed rather easily.  

That is why I started now with this small flame up and I will have to re enforce the message later.  That is why now, I think the new biggest "DONT" for our kids should be: "DONT send, or even take, "pictures" (or videos) of yourself to ANYBODY".   

Thanks for reading. 

New Years: Off on the wrong foot

If this January 1st

 My wife makes me this lentil loaf at the beginning of the year so I will make money for the rest of the year.  It used to be lentil soup, now it is vegan lentil loaf.  It hasnt helped me one bit.  I am poorer now after all those years of eating lentils.  I am not going to eat any this year just to tempt the fates and flout the superstition.  Anyway I could just as well eat some pork and sauerkraut and that would do the trick too.  

The point being is that you are supposed to start the New Year off right.  The first day is how the rest of the year will be. Right?  Ie if you have a bad first day, then you will have a bad year.  I hate these supersttitions and yet you always grind your teeth and bite your nails if you dont follow them.  Right?  Well, then my year is doomed because I have really started it off badly.   I might as well just go into hybernation for the rest of the year and wake up in 2022 is what I am thinking. 

1.  Pain

Having nothing to do with being a father or anybody in particular, last week I dont know what happened, and I guess you dont care, but I am just saying, I must have pulled a muscle. Or something happened.  I hope it is a muscle because then it can get better. If it is a bone, then I am in trouble.  It is in my neck so the pain is going down my whole back on the left side and even into my arm.  This isnt covid, I dont know what this is.  I tried a hot water bottle but nothing. Making my usual terrible sleep into horrible.  The type where your dreams correspond to the pain in your back. You try to find a position where the muscles are relaxed, but I cant find anything.  This reminds me of a good internet friend who disappeared a year or so ago who had colitis.  He said when he had attacks it was unbearable.  And maybe due to the colitis, maybe not, he would sometimes wake up screaming and or banging the wall.  Wow.  Where ever you are now, Rick B, I am walking just a little bit in your shoes these days.  

So this is making me miserable... and tired.  I sleep ten hours in the bed and still am tired.  And 

Then this the rest of the year

miserable.  Not really the mood for taking on kids.  Even taking a nap in the afternoon after I have only been up for 4 hours.  That is the back drop, the starter of the new year.  Again, hail to all you suffering right now from Covid or other even more unbearable pains or diseases.  I am able to empathize just a little. I sure wish it would go away. It just sucks all your strength and emotions into this pain. 

2.  No respect from my kids at the start. 

Here we go with this discipline thing again.  Look anybody who likes chocolate would sure wish to be able to eat chocolate 24/7 or potato chips, I like them too.  But you have to balance everything in life.  Not too much chocolate or chips. Not too much time on the gadgets playing the video games.  Equal amounts of vegetables and fruits and getting to your homework.  Gosh darned if one hour doing homework equals two hours of watching tv or video games.  Every adult knows this and most kids know this too.  But the shortest road to happiness is the one with no homework.  Yes, even over Christmas vacation there is still some stuff you have to get done and prepare for after vacation.  

Ow the pain!!!!

But when I tried to maintain the balance for my kids over vacation, even allowing for more fun and chocolate and chips every day during the daily movie together, I still got total disrespect on January 2nd.  Laughing and "yeah yeah" which means, right, like I am going to listen to you.  And even whispering by the kids against me.  Derision.  And this wasnt the Rodney Dangerfield "I dont get no respect", this was kid s bullying me.  My own kids.  It is very difficult to fight back, although you feel the temper swelling.  This is the time they recommend parents to take a step back and get out of the room away or listen to some soothing music.  Sit down away from the temper.  

I sat in my lunch chair and stewed.  I should have put on my new Christmas gift CD (pictured below).

The incident at hand was just that my daughter was messing around with her telephone at lunchtime at the eating time.  That time is sacred for me. It was when I was growing up and I want it to be now.  I have said before no gadgets at eating time. And this was the beginning of the year lunch eating together when we should be even more together and talking with each other.  Yet, it was just "yeah year, wait a minute".   And what was she doing which was so important?  Putting down her new spotify playlist on her new smart phone.  That got me.   That totally unnerved me.  Maybe it was a small thing. I guess I made too big a deal out of it.  You think afterwards.  I guess so.  But at the time it ruined me. 

 I just wanted to be alone.  Luckily they were going to their Grandmas for overnight and I WOULD be alone.  To stew in my physical pain and my emotional pain.  And I did. I really felt blue.  It really was not the best way to start the new years.  

The thing is, they recommend eating lentils or fish scales or pomegranates on the new year day in order to be more prosperous for the year to come.  But do they have anything to eat that will give you strength to be a good parent for the rest of the year??  I have never heard of anything. Please let me know if there is such a thing.

I pray the year will get better from this inauspicious beginning. And in fact when they came back from Grandmas on Jan. 3, it WAS better.  But my neck was still killing me.  

Listened to this CD my daughter gave me for Christmas. I was very happy with it. 

(Bob Dylan of course)

School during Covid Pandemic part 2

Now they are saying in some reports that kids ARE NOT doing as badly as they thought they were doing with internet schooling.  I think it was in California that they said it wasnt as bad as they thought.  Although admittedly, now I cant find the article and all I find are many more articles where parents complain or worry about their kids and on line learning.  

That may be true or it may not be, but internet schooling is much more difficult for parents than regular schooling.   Here, let me list some points.  

1.  Food is much more of a financial time strain on the family with internet schooling.  

Usually with regular school, the kids are eating lunch at the school.  We pay something but it is subsidized by the government and is not as expensive.  It is not as expensive as making them a lunch every day at home.  Home cooking, and my wife is a good cook and tries very hard to keep them fed with good home cooking, not just store bought stuff, adds more to the budget that is for sure. 

Also the time.  You have to have a breakfast, a snack, a lunch, a snack and a dinner.  whoo.  So you have to do the shopping for this.  It is much more time.  Me, I dont prepare so well, so I tend to do a shopping before the meal.  But admittedly if I had to do that every day I would go crazy.  My wife says, lets do a big shopping once a week and load up.  Yes this is better, but we havent gotten to doing it this way EVERY week. So we go back to the fly on the run.  Oh darn I have to go to the store and get food. I know this is a first world complaint. For people who have the sickness or live in poorer countries they can not relate to me.  What am I complaining about?  Well, yes, with the covid pandemic you have to do more shopping.  And you have to budget more money for shopping.   

2.  More responsibility on the back of the parents to help the kids.  

I was dumbstruck a couple weeks ago when our younger daughter's teacher started yelling at the kids that their parents were not doing enough to teach the kids!!!!!!  A) Who is supposed to be teaching the kids?  B) Oh my god, I try to stay available to my daughter every day to help her with the classes I can help her with, Math and English. My wife takes the other classes.  We help her every day.  My wife often doesnt go to work, or takes a small holiday to help the kids more.  Where does this teacher get off....

OK, I dont know what all the teachers are doing. I am not watching them the whole school day, but I do know that my younger daughter's day is finished with internet schooling usually by lunchtime, beginning at 8am.  Then what?  What does the teacher do? I dont know.  But we make lunch and then get going with work and studying.  Lets schedule it out: math at so and so and english in the evening.  She will do some homework by herself from 1 to 2, walk the dog and then since the weather was pretty decent and no snow nor was it really cold yet, we went to the park several times to play ping pong on the tables there outside. This was during my lockdown in November.  That was nice "work", I dont deny, but I am not doing my job.  But then again, my kids are my job also.  But what is the teacher doing?  I can say matter of factly that while the kids are home doing school on line, we, the parents have a lot more work with them in the form of school work, fun work and food.   Please teachers, dont make enemies with the parents at this time.  

3.   More discipline.  

Internet schooling is such a pain.  Normal school is easy.  The kids sit in their chairs and they pay attention.  If they dont pay attention then they can get yelled at or chosen to do the next work on the board.  Internet schooling, there is no such thing..  The student can turn off her microphone.  Ok, you dont need it on all the time, only when you are talking or called upon.  But then when it is off you can talk to anyone else and nobody knows.  The teacher doesnt know.  And then you can turn off your camera too and start looking at your phone or playing a video game or generally not pay attention.  I yell at my daughter to pay attention, she yells back saying another student is "at the board" or talking and she doesnt need to have her camera on.  Well, pay attention, I say.  But Daddy, I know this stuff, it is so boring.  Pay attention.  Dont get arrogant.  Still the same problem with technology, you can be doing three different things when you should be just doing one:  paying attention and learning.  In school, in person, that happens.  With technology on line school, it is a lot easier to wander and lose focus.  Thus Dad has to either watch all the time, not possible.  Or Dad has to make spot checks and make sure they are paying attention and yell at them if they are not.  Not my favorite job.  

4.    MORE STRESSS.  (yes, with three "s" es.)

I dont know what they would be thinking if they think they should use more on line teaching in the future with kids.  I, as a parent, decline, disagree, disparage the notion that this would be a good idea.  Banish the thought. Parents, and I have more than just anecdotal evidence, are way more stressed with internet schooling. 

I just answered a survey to this affect from a professor from North Carolina talking about my experience during covid with school for our K - 12 kids.   I am interested to see what she will find out.  I will be watching and let you know, hopefully in January.  

Are our kids REALLY doing better or about the same as last year before the pandemic?  Well even if the kids are not doing so badly, I can tell you that I and my wife are doing worse.