Minimalism: Honey, I Shrunk Our Life

When my wife and I met in our early twenties, neither of us cared much for "stuff." We were not aggressively pursuing career paths or looking for ways to get rich or own more and better things. In fact, we were quite the opposite. We wanted experiences. We wanted relationships. We wanted freedom and flexibility to explore our hobbies and interests and travel and be together. And, we lived this way for a good chunk of our twenties. We were backpacking instructors and environmental educators, baristas and ski instructors. We worked seasonally for mostly room and board with a stipend that barely covered gas and food for whatever adventure we planned between seasons. I am thankful everyday that we got to have these experiences and to figure out our interests, beliefs, and values, and what kind of life we wanted to build together.

But...

As many in our generation discovered, as our twenties gave way to our thirties, the pull toward stability and community and family became stronger. We couldn't raise kids working the way we were. We couldn't build any long-term relationships when we jumped around state to state, season to season. This was not a sustainable life that we were living; it was just a lot of fun. So, we formed a long-term plan. My wife wanted to be a counselor and I wanted to be a writer, and while we realized that neither of these jobs typically make a lot of money, it was where our talents and passions lied. Without going into the entire history (because I want to get to the present moment), we spent about six years or so working our way into our respective career paths. It was a long and somewhat expensive road that required more schooling and low-paying jobs to gain experience, but, we did it. By age 33, Allison had a private practice providing grief and infertility counseling and I had published a novel and wrote content in various capacities as a freelancer. We started making more money than we imagined possible (not a terribly impressive amount necessarily, but more than we had imagined). Life was good. 

But...

With the extra income came a loosening of our purse-strings and a casualness to our values around money, belongings, and how we spent our time. When both our twenty year old cars finally died, we took on a car payment for a new one. We took a trip to Hawaii and naively bought a vacation exchange while we were there, thinking it would force us to keep traveling as life sucked away more of our time. We used credit cards, under the rationalization that we could get travel points, and on months when money was tight, didn't pay them off in full. We did these things with full confidence that our income would only increase as time went on and all of this would get paid off soon enough. Then, life happened. We had a kid and wracked up a hospital bill for our portion of the delivery. Healthcare costs continued to rise until we were paying around $15,000/ year in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. We bought a bunch of kid stuff that we probably didn't need and filled up our apartment until we had to move, and then filled the new place too. I stopped working to stay home with our daughter, so we lost an income, all while the cost of living in Seattle (where we had landed post-graduate school) was sky-rocketing. 

So, when we became pregnant with our second child, we decided to move east, closer to family and somewhere with a lower cost of living. After some lobbying from our close friends who were also moving from Seattle for similar reasons, the Hardesty clan moved to Asheville, NC. We moved with a good chunk of savings to live off of while Allison rebuilt her private practice and only one moving Pod full of belongings. We now realize that we missed a prime opportunity to get back to our minimalist roots. However, because the cost of living was lower, we ended up in a rental with twice the square footage as our place in Seattle for $100 less a month. And, as much as we tried to conserve our savings and move-in slowly, we needed things. Like, all our things. We had no furniture except our beds and a family heirloom dresser. We brought our bikes and some of Sloane's toys and books, outdoor gear, clothes, and some kitchenware. That was it. Everything else, we decided, would be cheaper to buy again than to ship cross-country. And, so, we commenced re-buying all our stuff. To be fair, we didn't buy anything extravagant. Our friends in the area had some furniture pieces they were looking to unload, which helped, and I built our dining and coffee tables, and a new "big-girl" bed for our daughter so our newcomer could take her crib. Still, it piled up, the things one uses day to day: a microwave, a coffee maker, a toaster oven, couches, window coverings, shower curtains, garbage cans...the list goes on. Also, because public transportation is not...existent in Asheville, we had to buy another car, which brought another car payment. Within a year, our house was full again and our savings was depleted. Another child was born and another hospital bill was acquired. Also, a new person was added to our healthcare, which meant even higher premiums and out of pocket costs for baby's regular check-ups, immunizations (yes, we get them; you should too!), etc.

Finally, last month, we said, "Enough!" We started researching ways to simplify our life and reduce our expenses. This is when we came across Mr. Money Mustache, our new minimalist cult leader. I'll let you explore his story and unique perspective on your own; what I will say is that his tips have allowed us to grab this nebulous, unsustainable, and unrewarding American nightmare by the horns and make some tough, rational choices concerning our relationship with money, stuff, and time. In just a few weeks, we have reduced our monthly budget by $1500.

Minimizing Healthcare 

Our first move? We changed our health insurance to a high deductible, low premium plan, and now that we have, I'm left wondering why in the world we didn't do this years ago. My wife and I are healthy 37 year olds who exercise regularly, eat a pescatarian diet, and rarely go to the doctor. Our children are 10 months and 3 years old and have certain mandatory coverage that comes with all healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act (Thanks, Obama!). As we learned with the birth of our children, when one wracks up a bill at a hospital, the hospital puts you on a payment plan (given the dismal state of the American healthcare system, they're just happy to get their money). There's no interest attached to these plans; they tell what the lowest monthly payment is that they'll accept and you send them a check. Point being, it's ridiculous to shell out thousands of dollars a year to a health insurance company for a low deductible, high premium plan because you are afraid of getting hurt or sick and needing that safety net, when you could be socking that money away in an index fund to grow at 7% per year as an emergency fund for the same purpose. This way, if you don't get hurt or sick, that money is still yours, growing and accumulating in a way that will allow you to buy an even cheaper plan with an even higher deductible down the road (or until the U.S. shifts to a cheaper, more functional single-payer system like the rest of the world). A $10,000 deductible is a low enough deductible to save our family from financial ruin and this new plan is saving us thousands a year on premiums versus the $1000 deductible plan we've been on for years.

Minimizing Monthly Payments and Interest Accumulation 

After rethinking our healthcare, we renegotiated the terms of our credit cards and student loans, paid a company to get rid of our vacation exchange (seriously the stupidest thing anyone can buy; don't judge; and believe me, the fee to get rid of it was WAY less than paying the maintenance fees on this scam for the rest of our lives), changed to a cheaper cable plan (They get you with the bundles. It was only going to save us $10 a month to get rid of it and just buy wifi, which was our intention), and in an almost cosmic occurrence of serendipity (given its timing) were offered a colleague's broken (but free; they were going to donate it) 2005 Honda Odyssey. We fixed it for $1000 and sold our second car (making $1000), which still had $6500 left on its loan, and got rid of a $250 a month car payment.

Minimizing Grocery Costs (Without Sacrificing Quality) 

Groceries was another area where we found savings. We used to shop at Costco regularly when living in Seattle, but since Asheville doesn't have one and the closet is an hour away in Greenville, SC, we didn't know if the savings was worth the drive. So, we decided to find out. We saved our receipts from Ingles, our Asheville grocery store, and started putting our regularly purchased items into a Google spreadsheet. We broke each item down to the price per ounce, pound, or item (depending on what made the most sense) so there could be an apples-to-apples comparison, then looked at this site of 900+ Costco items and their prices broken down similarly and found out exactly how much a trip to Costco would save us. The total was a staggering $371 in one trip! And, since we drive a Prius and can get to Greenville and back on less than 3 gallons of gas, it was more than worth the trip.

To Rent or To Buy

Now that we have some extra money to work with, we've created a plan to be completely out of debt in 4 years. From here on in, we're committing to being a cash-only family. The one lingering question for us is whether buying a house is a worthy investment once we owe no one money. We've found mixed opinions from the experts. According to Mr. Money Mustache (and others we've been reading), an investment in an index fund that follows the entire stock market will consistently return 7% per year. The average return on a residential property over 20 years is 10.6%, not counting repairs, upgrades, remodels, etc (not to mention whatever your time is worth doing these things). We would like our own place. We do get tired of having to ask permission for every tiny alteration we want to do in our rental space, but we also enjoy being able to call the landlord with any tiny maintenance issue and spend zero time or money getting it fixed. I tell you all of this because I think there is a huge social pressure to own a house, especially once you have a family, and for many of Americans, as national statistics suggest, it's not the best move, especially if it's only going to pay marginally better than putting your down-payment, annual property taxes, repair savings, etc. in an index fund. Plus, with renting you have more control over where you live, which may be significantly closer to things you use day-to-day than where you can afford to live when buying. More on this in a minute.

Minimizing Clutter

Our minimalist transition isn't just about money. We also wanted to declutter our house and commit to not filling it back up with stuff we don't need. One minimalist blog claimed that the average person wears only 20% of the clothes they own. We wanted to see how true this was for us, so we started digging through piles of clothes, both in the closet and in storage, and managed to compile five garbage bags of adult clothes and four diaper boxes full of kids clothes to donate (along with a couple small piles of "Let's see if this gets worn in the next year or it's going too" clothes). We went through every closet, drawer, and cubby in the house (including the kids' books and toys) and organized it, tossing more stuff as we went. Our new rule: Everything must have a home. If we pick something up and can't think of where it belongs, we don't need it. This does several things: 1) It frees up mental space stressing out about clutter, 2) It makes the house easier to keep clean (freeing up time to be spent on more worthwhile endeavors), and 3) Allows us to know where things are when we're looking for them. Something else we discovered, after driving an entire car (packed to the gills) to Goodwill full of junk we don't need, is that if we do buy a house down the road, we could probably go smaller than the place we're renting and be just fine. A smaller place in an area close to everything we do on a regular basis would be ideal. We are in fact hoping to find such a place to rent when our current lease is up next June.

Minimizing Driving

Why move? Moving is, after all, also time consuming and costly. Well, for one we live in "the county." Meaning we are just outside the city limits of Asheville, off a very narrow, very busy country road. There are no sidewalks from our house to anywhere and no bike lanes (we haven't been on our bikes since moving here a year and a half ago. We biked frequently in Seattle). We literally cannot leave our house without getting in a car. While it's nice that we no longer have a car payment, cars still cost money, not to mention the environmental impact of driving everywhere, and the wasted opportunity for exercise. Thus, we would like to get within walking or biking distance of places we frequent. Mr. Money Mustache was nice enough to break down the costs of commuting for us. Here is what he says: For each mile you drive across two times on your round trip to work daily, it multiplies to 500 miles per year, which creates a $170 annual fee (read his article for details on this number). For each of these miles, you waste about 6 minutes in the round trip, adding to 25 hours per year per mile. For us this equals $1530 per year and 225 hours of driving! That's over nine full days a year (sixteen if you only count waking hours) just sitting in a car. And, that's just the back and forth to work that my wife does five days a week. I'd hate to see what this number is after adding my driving with the kids and our weekend trips around town. Mr. Mustache goes on to assume the average suburban commuter makes an average of $25/ hour making the financial loss of this time $625 a year per mile you live from your work (this is assuming of course you can turn that time into money). So, a grand total of $795 per year per mile you live from work. Then, he makes this point: $795 per year will pay the interest on $15,900 of house borrowed at a 5% interest rate. In other words, a logical person should be willing to pay about $15,900 more for a house that is one mile closer to work. We personally don't have a way of making $25/ hour with every free hour we have returned to us, but I think everyone in the family would certainly appreciate having two weeks worth of time returned to us to do something more worthwhile than drive. Hence, we hope to get closer to parks, school, work, restaurants, etc so we can get back to using our bikes and our legs.  

There will be more simplifying as we go along, but this is the question that will guide our future decisions: How efficient can we make our life and how can we use the extra time and money this affords us in a positive way? I'll update this blog as we go along and let you know how things are working out. For now, we are invigorated to feel like we're getting back to a philosophy from which we've strayed and one we feel is vital to our family, our finances, and the betterment of the world in general. 

No, Stay-At-Home Parents Are Not "Having So Much Fun"

As a stay-at-home Dad, I get this comment a lot. "Oh, you stay at home? That's so great. Are you all just having a ball?" Of course, being the respectful person that I am, I say, "Oh yes. It's a lot of fun. Challenging, but fun."

Challenging is, of course, my euphemism for "I am spending hours every day (and night) suppressing the urge to go on a gorilla-like rampage tossing furniture and thumping my chest until my children bow with respect to my beastly rage." (Healthy, right?)

Stay at home parenting is not fun. It's somewhere in the vicinity of Dante's Inferno meets the movie Groundhogs Day--monotonous, hellish, thankless work with the worst co-workers imaginable. Seriously. HR nightmares, these kids are. And my kids aren't particularly bad. They're just kids. Well, one is a kid. The other is a 3 month old, so not even a kid. But still, they're both more or less on par with how humans their ages behave.

The problem with the question, "Are you having so much fun?" is that it is completely oblivious to the work a stay at home parent does. No one asks anyone else in the workforce if they are, "Having so much fun?" No one. It doesn't happen. "Hey Bob, how do you like dressing in an uncomfortable monkey suit and going into an office everyday at 9AM only to sit through hours of soul-crushingly boring paperwork and unproductive meetings while pretending to like people you would otherwise never in a million years choose to spend time with? Aren't you just having so much fun?" See? Ridiculous. Doesn't happen.

If you're not a stay-at-home parent and you aren't married to one and you've never had to spend a full 24 hour period (with no help for ten of those hours) with your child to appreciate the work, forethought, stress, patience, and artful flow of a day that comes with full-time parenting, you may be asking yourself, what's the big deal? I love my kids. They're a blast. This is for you people. The rest of you get it. Whether you're the one doing it or you're hearing about it when you get home and attempting to replicate your partner's skills on the weekend, you get the challenges, and you get that it can in no way be characterized as fun. It's survival. It's war. It's lion taming without the whip...You get the idea. Let's have a look.

A day in the life...

Let's start with a night of disrupted sleep: Three year old has to "potty," three month old has to eat, cat jumping on your head, three year old "has something in her eye and needs a warm wash cloth" or needs the song changed on her sound machine or needs her nose blown, which she tells me by yelling, "Ah-choo!" over and over as loud as she can into the monitor until I come take care of it.

Then comes the wake-up call. Despite my daily protests, my daughter insists on throwing open my bedroom door at 6:30AM like an action hero bursting in on a criminal and immediately launching into a cacophonous word salad of every thought, feeling, and observation she is having in that particular moment. If she wasn't three, this be would warrant a, "WTF?! Get out of my bedroom!" But, since she is three (and she's mine), I groggily attempt sincere answers to her questions, patient validation of her emotions, and suppressed contempt for her incessant observations. "Yes, those are green curtains on my windows sweetheart. Yep, these are my pajamas. My hair certainly is a mess..."

Breakfast involves making things my daughter asks for, but that I know she won't eat, trying to get her to eat them, and then throwing them in the garbage wondering why I don't just flush dollar bills down the toilet at mealtime and save us both a lot of trouble. I prepare her food first, get her situated at the table, turn on some music so she's stimulated and doesn't immediately run off to find some other form of stimulation, then attempt to make my breakfast. My breakfast usually ends with me eating cold eggs or soggy cereal with a luke-warm cup of coffee after thirty minutes of fielding her requests and "redirecting" her behavior.

My daughter and I finish breakfast around 7:30. This is when my wife usually brings out the little one. My wife has about 90 minutes most mornings to eat breakfast, pump, take a shower, get dressed, pack her lunch, wash her pump pieces (so she can pump again at work), and get herself out the door, all while redirecting our three year old to me while I try to bounce our three month old into a passive state of acceptance that he is no longer in the womb. He takes a nap after an hour of being awake, and, when bottle feeding, eats about every two hours. Sloane and I have organized morning activities every day of the week, which start between 9 and 10, and it takes about 45 minutes to get all three of us dressed and ready to leave the house. Are you doing the math? And you thought those algebra problems in high school were just nonsensical calculations.

To make all of this happen, I must drag my son from room to room while demanding that my daughter listen to me and change her clothes, brush her teeth and hair, and get her shoes on. Usually, this is interrupted by the fact that it has been an hour and baby brother is ready to sleep again. So, I put him in the Ergo carrier, throw a binky in his mouth, and pace the house like a psychotic person for five to ten minutes until he falls asleep (Lest, you ask why I don't just put him in the Ergo and then help my daughter, he will not tolerate the Ergo if he is not tired and will not fall asleep in the Ergo unless I am continuously walking and bouncing). I do this while reminding my daughter fifteen times that we're going to finish getting ready to leave the second he falls asleep. Once he's out, I finish getting my daughter ready, get my own clothes changed, teeth brushed, hair combed, etc, pack our diaper bag for the morning, pack the sleeping baby in the car seat, fight the whining three year old into her jacket, yell goodbye to my wife who I've seen (not talked to, because that wastes too much time) for about five minutes, and systematically pack everyone and everything into the car.

We drive to preschool, open gym, the library, or the play room; I throw in one earbud and listen to the Morning Edition podcast on NPR, turn the obnoxious kids songs or Thomas the Tank Engine audiobooks we've heard fifteen million times to the back speakers, and hand snacks to my daughter over the seat while focusing on the road. This is honestly one of the best parts of the day--kids strapped in seats, baby usually sleeping, me listening to adults talk about adult topics in polite, coherent, articulate English. It's a little piece of Nirvana for about 15 minutes. I drive slowly.

At our activity, I get Sloane's coat and shoes off, get baby into the Ergo and bounce my way around the room/ gym as Sloane runs around like a squirrel on Red Bull. If it's preschool, I must persuade her to sit and listen during storytime, to share during playtime, not to throw toys, steal Play-Doh from the other kids, etc. Open gym is the stuff, because there is nothing for her to steal, throw, hoard, or hide, just lots of soft structures for her to run around on and bounce off of. "Preschool" is actually a free co-op on Tuesdays and Thursdays and lasts two hours (I have to be there). Beck, who I have to say is an extremely chill baby so far (but still a baby nonetheless), will usually sleep for part of it before needing to eat. Eating means me bringing a thermos of boiling water and a cup along and trying to guess when he'll be hungry so I can preemptively heat the bottle so he doesn't lose his mind in a room full of people while I spend five minutes trying to heat it and soothe him (and myself) at the same time.

I used to be able to actually play with my daughter during these activities. Now, much to her chagrin, I usually have to bounce nearby and try to be involved in whatever capacity Beck (or Beck's sleeping body on my chest) will allow. Sloane hates this and is growing increasingly spiteful of her brother's neediness, which is resulting in more and more attempts to get negative attention. This makes my job that much more pleasant. I totally get where she's coming from, I do; it's shitty; she got a raw deal and yet, it's totally not okay for her to turn into a raging sociopath just because we had another kid. So, after three months of threatening to leave places early or sit her in time out, we've finally started a responsibility chart wherein she gets smiley faces or frowny faces next to each behavior or responsibility she has done appropriately or inappropriately. If she gets more smiles than frowns, she gets a reward. It's only been a week, but it seems to be having some positive effects.

Anyway, back to our day. We get home from our activity around 11:15-Noon. It's been two hours since I fed Beck, so he's ready to eat again. Unfortunately, this is also the time Sloane has been eating lunch for her entire life and she's prone to much larger meltdowns than Beck if she isn't fed somewhere close to this time of day. So, I haul everyone and everything back inside, get shoes, coats, hats, etc off, hands washed, leave Beck in the car seat as long as he's happy (if he's not, I do all of this with him in one arm), throw a bottle in the warmer, while it is heating (it takes 5 minutes) I make Sloane's lunch and get her bib on and make sure she has no other requests from me before I retrieve the bottle and attempt to feed Beck. I say "attempt" because he is becoming increasingly distracted and picky with regard to eating. If Sloane is nearby, he won't eat. If I'm trying to eat, he won't eat. If there is any other stimuli in the room, he's watching it and not eating. Also, he likes his milk hot. Not warm. Not room temperature. Hot. Or no deal. Thus, while he is being distracted the bottle is cooling and two ounces in he won't eat it anymore. I think he's finished and start to get up, he roots like a wild beast, I sit back down and try again, he cries and looks at me like I'm an asshole for suggesting he drink room temperature milk. So, I heat it a little more. No problem; finishes the bottle. My little primadonna.

For those keeping score at home, I haven't eaten since my soggy cereal six hours earlier, so I'm not in a great mood and trying not to let that creep into my frustrations with my kids. Beck may give me five minutes to make my lunch, or he may sit in his swing and grunt at me like stuck pig until I pick him up again. In order to eat my lunch I must sit directly next to his swing with my food and interact with him between bites. Sometimes I am not entertaining enough and he insists I hold him on my lap while I eat. Where is Sloane throughout this you ask? Well, I started what is perhaps a not-so-healthy habit of letting her watch PBS shows on our tablet during lunch. It keeps her in her seat, eating, and it used to allow me to make and eat my lunch and even get some other life logistics taken care of. Now, it keeps her from distracting Beck while he eats and her from nagging me while I shovel food in my gullet while talking to a baby like a cartoon character full of helium. We all make concessions. People in glass houses, and all of that.

Ok, so everyone is fed, we're getting to what used to be my favorite time of the day: Naptime. For two years Sloane has taken a 2-3 hour nap starting at 1PM and I have done...whatever I want to do for two whole hours. I used to run on our treadmill, or write, or read, or prep dinner, or plan our weekend, clean the house, etc, etc. But alas, no more! Now, this is the most hellish part of my day. Mainly because it used to be so, so sweet. Here's the problem. Beck ate at noon, Sloane finishes lunch around 12:30. If Beck starts acting tired, I'll tell Sloane to play while I put him back in the Ergo and return to my psychopathic pacing until he's asleep again. If he's not looking tired, I make the horrible decision of bringing him to bed with us to read stories and spend the entire winding-down time trying to keep him entertained with one hand whilst holding a book (and attempting to turn pages) with the other. We get through it. Sometimes it requires stopping storytime altogether, getting him to sleep and trying again with a little girl who is now very tired and irritated and letting me know it. By 2, she's usually in bed and Beck's usually asleep. This is when I get my daily false hope that I will have a moment to myself to recoup. Everyday I get excited when they both fall asleep at the same time and everyday I am disappointed when he wakes twenty minutes later because it has now been over two hours AGAIN! and it's time to eat. He wails. I heat a bottle. He eats with eyes closed, teasing me even further into believing he might go back to sleep, which literally never happens.

At this point, we're eight hours into our day and I've had one twenty minute break. Patience gets infinitely more difficult. Now I'm left entertaining a three month old. There is nothing more boring than entertaining an infant. People always told me with Sloane not to wish away those early months. That's bullshit. They're painfully boring months. People only say this because babies are insanely cute. But if you're with one 24/7 seven days a week you will see that they do nothing but eat, sleep, shit, make a lot of noise, and...smile. If they didn't smile so much, they would never survive infancy. Cuteness gets humans to their first birthday. It's true. Look it up.

By the time my daughter wakes up around 3:30-4 I'm genuinely thrilled to see her. I barely notice that she is speaking stream of consciousness at the top of her lungs because I'm so excited someone has returned who can speak a reasonable amount of the English language. Unfortunately, it's been two hours again, and I have to immediately put her off to feed her brother. On a good day, she deals for twenty minutes. On a day where she wakes up cranky, she whines and demands things while I'm in absolutely no position to help her, which distracts Beck from eating, which makes the bottle cold, which makes this seemingly easy task a huge pain in the ass.

Once we get through it, this part of the day can be relatively fun. In warm weather we'll go to the park, in cold weather we usually stay inside and play with her cornucopia of toys and art supplies. I get on the floor with both of them. She's rested and excited I'm actually able to interact with her, and he's content because he just ate and likes watching his sister act like a crazy person (until she gets too crazy and scares the crap out of him, in which case he cries and I scold and we can't play anymore).

Around 4:30-5, Beck will take another short (20 minutes) nap. I do the usual Ergo routine, lay him in his swing, and start dinner. If Sloane is content with an art project, or building with legos, or the like, I let her run with that. If not, she has some apps on the tablet that she gets to play while I cook and listen to All Things Considered. I love to cook, so this can be an enjoyable time unless Beck doesn't sleep, or wakes up halfway through the process or Sloane gets whiny or impatient with me. I have to be prepared for an instantaneous melt down from one child or the other at all times. So, things that could be fun, or at least not stressful, rarely turn out that way.

Dinner is ready by 5:30-6. My wife gets home from work around the same time. Beck wakes up and wants to eat the second she walks in the door, which is usually okay by her because she pumped four hours earlier and needs the relief. Unfortunately, this makes eating together difficult because Sloane needs to be fed or she'll get fussy. Sometimes my wife eats as fast as possible and then feeds Beck (if he'll allow it), sometimes she feeds him in our living room, which is off the dining room, where she can hear us (but not participate so as not to distract Beck) and watch her dinner get cold. Dinner for Sloane is similar to breakfast in that she barely eats anything (it's amazing this girl can get out of bed with as little as she eats) and instead runs circles around the table until I want to puke or yell.

After dinner is a whirlwind of persuading Sloane to clean up her toys, doing dishes, giving baths, reading stories, singing bedtime songs, and tending to Sloane's fifteen nightly excuses for why she needs to get up or have us bring her something. Oh, and feeding Beck, which, when he's breastfeeding happens about every hour and takes thirty minutes. My wife is literally feeding him 85% of the time she's in the house with us. Once Sloane is down for the count, Beck still hangs on for another hour or so, which means either walking him in the Ergo, or Allison feeding him in the bedroom until he falls asleep. By then it's 8:30-9. Sometimes Allison goes to bed right away. Sometimes we try to watch TV for an hour. Sometimes we actually attempt to talk to each other. Regardless, we're both completely defeated by 9:30, so, we go to bed for a night of interrupted sleep and start the cycle over.

I'm not saying there aren't fun moments in stay at home parenting. And, to be honest, it is much more rewarding than many other jobs I could be doing, but please, enough with the "You're so lucky! Isn't it so much fun!" business. It's a job unlike any other, but certainly a job. Actually more like six jobs, with no breaks, no lunch, no benefits...you get the point. It's rough. Show some respect.

We Live With the Worst Roommate Ever.

A little over two years ago my wife and I got a new roommate and immediately I could tell it was going to be a struggle. We volunteered to let her live with us, so I can't really complain but...

Don't get me wrong, we love her. She's family and she's amazing a fair amount of the time. But, she has some issues. Like when she first moved in with us, her sleeping habits were atrocious. She'd be up in the middle of the night just screaming and when we'd go in her room to see what in the world was wrong, she'd want milk. MILK! In the middle of the night! And then she'd puke half of it up, of course, because whose stomach can handle that much dairy at 3AM?

Her room smelled like shit. Literally, all the time. My wife and I had to intervene. The stink was outrageous. And, her eating habits? You wouldn't believe! Every meal; every snack; EVERYWHERE. We're cleaning up behind her constantly. And she never offers to help. Sometimes I see her with a bowl of, say, yogurt, and I'm like, "Goddamn it, she's going to slam her face in that and then paint the wall with it." And I'm right every time! And does she clean it up when she's finished? No way. She just runs off and pretends like it never happened.

Now, I suppose I should mention (if you haven't figured it out already) our roommate is not all there. Physically, mentally, emotionally, she has some developmental issues. We have to help out a lot. You'd think there'd be some kind of assistance for people with her condition, but NOOO. It's all on us. We try to help her along by reading these really simple books and we're like, "Okay, it's a blue ball, we get it already. How can she not understand this?" It takes a lot of patience. I think she's starting to come along. We're able to read like 30 page books now, as long as there are a lot of pictures. But again, we love her. She's family. We volunteered. Whatever.

Sometimes, she can be a lot of fun. She has pretty simple interests. She'll laugh at silly faces and run around squealing with joy over nothing. We just go outside and you'd think she's at six flags. Her ability to find joy in the littlest things is one of her most endearing qualities. She's like a little zen master with how in the moment she is. One moment she's completely focused on, say, a puzzle, and the next minute she's running around the house dancing and singing because her favorite song came on Pandora. I know that doesn't sound focused, but she doesn't let the fact that she's only put one piece of the puzzle together get to her. I would be out of my head leaving a puzzle lying on the floor with only one piece in place, but when that moment is over for her, she's out. On to the next thing! And completely in the moment with whatever the next thing is. Needless to say, this leaves the house in constant disarray. I beg her to clean it up and she picks up like two things and runs off again. And then, if I get upset, she loses her mind.

Which brings me another issue. I'm pretty sure she has a personality disorder. Her moods...holy shit ya'll. They're insane. Like the other day when we were just sitting at the table having a meal together and she's intensely focused on putting her food onto every square inch of her body not covered by the giant smock I now make her wear, and out of nowhere she just starts screaming for this stuffed bear that she drags around everywhere. The thing is disgusting, and she's always putting it in her mouth. So gross. My wife and I bought two more of them and we swap them out and wash it when she's not looking just we don't have to smell it anymore. But that's beside the point, which is that she just starts screaming out of nowhere for this thing, and I'm like, "Look, I don't know where you left your bear. It's your bear. Besides, we're having dinner here, can you just forget about that inanimate yeast-infected friend of yours for half an hour? Geez!" And then she cries and I feel like the bad guy. But at the same time, I'm not getting up to go find that thing just so she can cover him with peanut butter and jelly (Oh yeah! The stuff she eats! There are like four things in the entire world that this girl will eat for every meal. It's amazing she's alive, much less has her boundless energy every second of the day). So, then, she throws an absolute fit. I mean crying and yelling and flopping herself down on the table and throwing food and utensils. Who acts like that? Seriously?

So, I don't know what we're going to do. Supposedly, her condition gets better over time. I'm not sure how long exactly, but when you live with someone like this there's a whole community of people going through the same thing and you all get kind of close. I hear it might take a couple decades before she can live on her own, and even then she'll need us to intervene periodically for like another five or ten years. It's rough ya'll. And expensive! Did I mention expensive? And she doesn't even work! But, at least we get the little windows of joy--and it really is pure unadulterated joy. Like, all the bad stuff I'm talking about, she is just as intensely positive when her mood swings. So, I guess we'll just hang in there and see what happens. Hopefully, we can teach her a few things and get her out of our house someday. Until then, we'll just try to stay patient and love her. Family is family. What are ya gonna do?

A Future I Can't Imagine

Two weeks around family at the holidays gives one plenty to reflect upon. There is nothing like the places of one's youth and the similar but strangely divergent lives of one's siblings to bring one's mind back to the days of yore. For the longest time, seeing family was just what I did. Of course, as a kid I saw my siblings and parents everyday. I woke up with them in the morning, went to bed under the same roof with them at night, ate meals with them, shared household duties, fought, laughed, cried, bonded, threw punches, showed up for good times and bad, defended each other, challenged each other, and influenced each other, both positively and negatively. We shaped each other. And yet, we all turned out incredibly different. 

I moved away from home when I was 22 and have only lived in my hometown for one year since--and that was ten years ago. I've gotten home less and less as jobs, relationships, money, and physical space have come between me and Louisville, KY. I get home about once a year now, which makes the experience more surreal. What used to be as normal and unconscious as breathing is now cause for introspection. A lot changes in a year. All of my siblings have kids. I have a kid. We're graying, balding. We have different responsibilities and interests. We pay attention to things that went unnoticed when we knew each other best. What makes it particularly surreal for me is bringing my wife and child to my hometown. I met my wife in New Mexico in 2002 and my daughter was born in Seattle two years ago next month. Neither of them have a connection with Kentucky the way I do, so to see them in my parents' house, juxtaposed to these people I've known since before I was my daughter's age affects me in the same way that staring at a familiar word for too long makes it look odd. It shouldn't be strange. My wife has been coming home with me for 12 years now. She knows my family about as well as I do at this point, but she'll never know how we've changed from back in the day until now. In the same way, I'll never know the difference between her brother and parents now versus thirty-five plus years ago. 

During the reflection period that has followed our most recent two week holiday visit I've been considering who my daughter will be when she's my age (and should we be so lucky, what her sibling will become). Until I was in my twenties, it never crossed my mind that I would be living 3000 miles away from my family married to a woman from the middle of Missouri, and toting my child home for the holidays to meet her relatives (aka: many of the people who made me who I am). It certainly never occurred to me that I'd be a stay-at-home dad while my wife worked full time to support us. In fact, most of my current life is outside the bounds of what I imagined it would be as a kid. And, I'm happy about this. Very happy. However, if I could not have imagined my current life, how can I ever hope to imagine my daughter's. And if I can't imagine her future, how do I prepare her for it? 

Of course, there are people who are very attached to their lives as they are. They can't imagine a life outside of what they grew up with and so they make no decisions that stray from what they grew up with. For some people, this leads to a perfectly happy existence aside from becoming very disgruntled when life moves them in directions they didn't see coming. For others, it leads to a miserable rut that seems inescapable. I could go this route in raising my daughter. I could give her a template of traditional life and skills that lead to success in a traditional life and tell her to be disciplined in willing this template into reality. She might be one of those who are perfectly happy with traditional life. It would certainly be the easiest answer for me. 

However, I have to remind myself that I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school K-12, went to church every Sunday, said the rosary while driving with my Papa, no matter how far we were going, and now I'm an atheist. I grew up in a white bread culture where suits and ties and respectable haircuts and work and family were what good honest Americans did with their lives. In college, I grew my hair to my shoulders, switched my major from accounting to English, became a backpacking instructor, married a fellow backpacking instructor with dreadlocks and a nose ring, and never looked back. My parents raised me for the life they knew and did so with the best of their knowledge about how one succeeds in such a life. They couldn't imagine my current life either. And how could they? This is the greatest evidence I have for not getting too attached to what my daughter will become--I have no idea what she will become. And how could I? So, it makes no sense for me to get overly attached to what she will look like or believe in or do for a living. I have no control over that, in the same way that my parents had no control over me becoming something different than what they thought I'd become. I'm not a bad person. In fact, I consider myself a very good person by most measurable standards. My wife and I are doing well financially. She's doing what she always wanted to do for a living. I'm writing novels, which I've always wanted to do. We make eating well and exercising and being socially involved in our community a priority. We try to support healthy, progressive causes...we're good people. I'm confident of that. And this is the best evidence I have that regardless of how attached I am to my daughter becoming one way or another, she likely will become a decent, contributing member of society if she is raised by decent, contributing members of society. Whether or not I put the fear of God into her and beat her over the head with lists of values and numbered principles and nit-pick how she dresses or wears her hair or condescend her worldview or stifle her philosophical pondering, she is likely going to turn out okay if she has role models who turned out okay. 

And this brings me to the point I originally wanted to make, which is that I have to be a person first no matter how much my instincts and culture are telling me I need to be a dad first and a person second. My daughter needs to see what a happy, healthy adult looks like more than she needs me sculpting her into some statue of success that, in my experience, has made very few people truly happy and in many ways is far from healthy. Can I tell you anything about the established rules and regulations of the Catholic Church? Nope. Did I get the gist of being a decent person by having the opportunity to be around decent human beings? Yep. Do I have positive memories of parents, teachers, and community members discouraging my dreams and beliefs because they didn't fit the template of the only life these individuals could imagine? Nope. Do I have a wonderful life because these people cared enough to even listen to my dreams and beliefs and steer me toward what they thought would be best for me? Yep. 

So, I'm shooting for the bigger picture stuff with my daughter. Skills, development, safety, respect for herself and others, honesty, integrity, self-reliance, grit, respect for evidence and logic, a desire to explore and learn and question, etc. What she does with it, I can't imagine, and I truly don't want to. I just hope she comes home for the holidays to visit her family. 

"That's What My Parents Did, and I Turned Out Alright."

It's the war cry of every adult who is in fact anything but "alright." Has anyone ever used this phrase to describe a healthy upbringing from informed parent trying to foster positive human development in their child? No. No they haven't. Ever. Is it not, by and large, a defense of unhealthy parenting techniques and stressful upbringings caused by uninformed parents? Yes. Almost always.

"Well, my parents practiced extreme patience and gave me choices and went out of their way to make sure I was eating healthy meals and developing secure attachment and being intellectually stimulated...and I turned out alright."

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Of course you turned out alright, because that's what parents are supposed to do. No one has to defend good parenting; it's self-evident.

"Well, I lived on Little Debbies and Mountain Dew and my parents never read to me and spanked and yelled at me all the time, and I turned out alright. They did what they had to do; I was a little asshole."

Sounds more familiar, doesn't it? Are children ever really "little assholes"? I mean, yes, sometimes, but only if you define "little asshole" as a young human with an under-developed brain and poor communication skills trying to assert his independence. Sadly, many adults still look back at their childhood and think, "I was such an asshole." You weren't an asshole, you were a child, doing what children do and being treated like an asshole by parents lacking an understanding of human development. If you continue to act this way as an adult, you're an asshole (though, to be fair, you were taught to be an asshole by assholes).

(And I will now stop using the word asshole. You're welcome.)

"I turned out alright," is a phrase that doesn't just apply to parenting techniques, but to parents' worldviews, values, education, biases, life-lessons, ideologies, traditions, activities in which they involve their children, and so forth. These are all things that carry an enormous amount of weight and influence in the development of children. They hang with us for life no matter how convoluted we later find them to be. We see people every day in the news spouting off information that is factually untrue, and saying it with complete conviction as though they have no doubt they are correct. We hear people everyday--even people with higher degrees and professional careers--discuss things they were told as children as though they are common knowledge when they have long been accepted as false by experts studying the topic in question. One would think these people would have learned this new information sometime during their studies, but alas, this isn't always the case. And, sometimes, even when it is the case, not everyone is willing to let go of what they were taught as children in lieu of what an expert on the topic tells them, even despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

Ay, and there's the rub.

Think about this for a minute. Everything we know, we were taught, or we have inferred from our personal experience with the world. Everything. Unlike our new computers, we do not come with information already installed at birth. Impulses, yes. Information, no. Babies aren't born knowing what is happening in the world, nor are they born with brains capable of inferring correctly what is happening in the world. Rather, we are born with brains prepared for anything (more on this in a minute). Thus, parents, teachers, communities, leaders, friends, etc. play a huge role in "programming" us with information necessary to survive and hopefully thrive in our new environment. However, people can only pass on the information that they have learned themselves. Is the information we are passing on true, or is it what we believe to be true? Or is it what we want to be true, even though it isn't, or what we were taught is true and never learned otherwise? Or--and this is the worst of all possibilities--we were taught something was true, later learned it is not true, and willfully chose ignorance over reality.

It would be reasonable, in my humble opinion, to define education as the act of replacing belief with fact. At one time people believed the sun came straight-up in the morning from some undefined place beneath our flat Earth and lowered back down into that unknown place at night. They believed multiple gods controlled the elements and that doing random things that they felt pleased the gods would make it rain or shine or warm-up or cool-off, etc. Of course, we now know these beliefs were incorrect and we can study the sun and the rotation of the spherical Earth and the complexities of weather with such precision as to predict what will happen a week in advance (no random god-pleasing rituals necessary). Those who have adapted to this new information have thrived and those who either have not received the new information or have chosen not to believe it have struggled.

With this in mind, we can see how important it is first for children to develop critical, analytical, creative, healthily-functioning brains and then to be given correct information about the world based on the best evidence available. When a baby is born, she has billions of potential neural connections in her brain. Think of it as all of the phone numbers in the world with which you can connect should you find such a call necessary. However, within the first year of life, her brain has pared those connections down to the necessary "phone numbers" that she actually needs to call in order to survive in her surroundings. So, if a baby is spoken to in English, her brain focuses on the connections that form the sounds necessary to speak English. If she is spoken to in both English and Spanish, her brain will hang on to the connections necessary to speak both languages. However, her brain will not focus on the connections that make it possible to understand and speak German (even though those connections are available). Our brains do a great deal of "paring-down" in the first year of development, and continue to do so throughout life--engaging certain connections more than others depending on what is needed to function appropriately in different environments.

This is why appropriate parenting techniques are so necessary. If a child lives in fear of being yelled at or physically abused because their parents lack the information and skills to engage and discipline them in appropriate ways, their brains will focus on fear connections, which do not involve much thinking, but rather engage fight or flight impulses more appropriate for primal animals. Instead of developing a neural map of appropriate behavior to get what they want/ need they become frightened and frustrated because they are incapable of articulating their very large emotions and their caregivers are angry and hostile with them for something they cannot help. Engaging their fight or flight response teaches them nothing except mom and dad don't care about what I'm thinking and feeling and are potentially dangerous. These unfortunate children lose a great deal of their ability to learn right from the get-go because their brains are frequently relying on impulsive brain-stem responses instead of developing connections necessary to become more articulate, competent, and intelligent people.

Not only is their brain suffering from parents creating stressful environments (or doing nothing to decrease a frustrated child's stress levels), but the child's body fills with the stress-related hormone Cortisol, which weakens the immune system, inhibits proper bone and tissue development, causes gastric and renal issues, causes increased blood pressure, and a whole host of other negative physiological issues. Thus, for a person to truly "turn out alright," they need to grow up in an environment that is low-stress and high stimulation, and be exposed to as many healthy life interactions as possible in their early years. People using this phrase and citing a high-stress, low stimulation, low positive-interaction childhood most likely have a very low bar for "alright," which isn't really their fault since they have likely fallen in with a community of people raised similarly who share their low standards of "alright."

There are better ways out there. Yes, they will require most to do some research since an unfortunately low number of Americans grew up in households that refrained from corporal punishment and impulsive disciplining, but these new techniques are available. The alternative is creating people who may find a way to make money; they may even overcome their poor start (the brain is mutable after all) and rise to positions of power and be viewed culturally as "alright" or even "successful," but this won't make these lucky few good or happy people, just wealthy and powerful, and potentially detrimental to the rest of us. The vast majority will not overcome a poor start. The vast majority will struggle academically and socially, they'll become hostile adults with limited capacity for creative and critical thinking, and they'll be a burden on their families and communities. They'll view experts as threats to their beliefs instead of gateways to their intellectual growth, and they'll literally become psychologically incapable of change without a great deal of work (i.e. therapy). Perhaps worst of all, they'll continue the cycle of misinformation, unhealthy behavior, and archaic beliefs and practices that lower the quality of life for society at large. In a place where everyone gets a voice and a vote and can contribute great things to the world or cause great havoc and suffering, NOT doing what your parents did may not only be your best option, but your responsibility to the rest of us.

That Sounds Like A Lot of Fun (If We Didn't Have a Kid)

I don't think I'm alone when I say there are times when I forget to insert my daughter into the equation when invited to social functions.

"Hey, some of us are going out to dinner tonight if you're interested."

"Sounds great!" I say...

Except, it doesn't, because I'll spend the entire meal splitting my focus between an attention-seeking toddler and friends without children trying to share their excitement and existential dilemmas while becoming increasingly intoxicated.

"We're going to the beach, you should come!"

"Sounds fantastic!" I say...

If we weren't meeting an hour before our daughter's bedtime and I didn't have to spend the entire experience directing her away from an obese woman's thong twenty feet away (this actually happened) while keeping her from ingesting half the beach.

I didn't want to be this person when I became a parent. Despite being thirty-three when our daughter was born, my wife and I were somehow the first of our immediate peer group to have kids. We wanted to make it look easy. We wanted to keep going out and show everyone that it's not so bad and that they should join the parent party. But I have since learned that this is futile, and no fun for anyone. The switch has to happen. Parents have to become family-first people, or live with the turmoil of having one foot in the world of early evenings and child-focused outings and the other in trying to appear sane and completely content with people already skeptical of your sanity for wanting children. Most people without kids don't care about your kid. They may enjoy playing with her for a few minutes here and there when she's around, they may allow you to tell stories that are of the utmost significance to you as a parent, but boring as hell to everyone else, but, ultimately most people without kids wish you had a permanent babysitter for your child so you could be the person you were before reproducing. They forget when inviting you to events that you will have to bring her along, or forget, as I do myself sometimes, that bringing her along doesn't mean she will sit quietly and allow you to carry-on as though she isn't there. In truth, both parties should consider what it would mean to invite a psychotic person to the event and then ask, "Does this sound like a good idea?"

This being said, some people do have relatively tame children. I have met a few who actually will sit still in a restaurant and entertain themselves with food and toys without the need for constant parental intervention. They can sit quietly on the floor and play while adults talk, and they only speak up when tired, hungry, or soiled. This is not my daughter. She's a wild woman--a huge presence with a big voice and boundless energy. She hates being restrained, be it in a high-chair, car-seat, changing table, crib, stroller, or by mom and dad's constant chorus of, "No honey, don't do that/ don't push her/ don't eat that/ let's stay over here/ he was playing with that first/ can you not pour that dirt down your shirt, please/ let's not rub peanut butter in our hair (you get the picture)." We turn our attention away for thirty seconds and she will inevitably find the messiest, most dangerous, most socially awkward way to entertain herself within a thirty-foot radius. And yet somehow I forget this about her on a weekly basis. Or, if I don't forget, I stubbornly insist that I am up for the challenge and go out anyway. If being insane is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, I'm as nutty as they come. But then, one has to be nutty to be a parent, because at some point kids do produce different results (after all, most of us, as adults, don't throw our food in restaurants and scream our heads off because we're bored--though, we may be tempted).

Hence, parents remove themselves from civilized society. Our houses slowly denigrate from tasteful, yet easily destroyed decor to brightly-colored durable plastic furniture and educational throw rugs--couches with food stains, and toy chests bolted to the walls. We create a sort of insane asylum for little people where they can literally bounce off the walls and rummage about impulsively without injuring themselves. We scatter toys throughout each room and in the yard so that no matter where the adults venture, the children may be entertained. Fortunately, our friends with children do the same to their houses, making it much more enjoyable for everyone to corral the kids into a playroom leaving the adults free to converse like grown-ups. Eventually, in such an environment, the kids will wear themselves out and can be fed in an area that is easily cleaned before carried off to a quiet back room to sleep in pack-n-play. Parents also know that an enjoyable night out does not mean an enjoyable morning after. Thus, we know to leave at a reasonable hour so that we and our child-ed friends can sleep before our lovely little ones crow like roosters at dawn.

We mean no offense to our friends without children. We really don't. But it is impossible to appreciate the muted joys of manageable social functions if one does not have a child. The criteria for such an event requires arriving on-time (none of this fashionably late business, parents do not appreciate having their very limited social hours robbed by those with a careless sense of time) and cutting the evening short no matter how much fun you are having (and this is earlier than you think, 10:30 PM tops). It requires the aforementioned safe and untethered environment for the children, and it requires drinking--if drinking will occur--to occur immediately so that parents can get a buzz on and sober up to drive home within a matter of a few hours. So, it is not that parents are shunning their friends without kids, it is that we know you all have no desire--nor should you--to abide by these guidelines and we can't bare your bummed faces expressing that we are the lamest people you know.

I remember events when we were childless. Those with kids were there, but not present, and usually disappeared abruptly without my understanding why or even taking much notice. I never stopped to consider what they did with the rest of their evening when they left a party at six o'clock while the rest of us devolved into drunken hyenas. Now I know. They went home and sadly lamented their inability to join us in our devolution. They watched television or read a book or perhaps had another drink and tried not to bring up endless life logistics and then went to bed at nine-thirty (and were excited about it).

So, please, to the child-ed and childless alike, may we come to the understanding that our lives are incompatible without some serious compromises. Parents, get sitters if you're going to hang out with childless friends, and childless friends lower the hell out of your expectations when hanging out with parents. Understand that that extra hour of laughter at the end of the evening is costing us an extra $15 in sitter fees and robbing us of an extra hour of sleep (which in turn robs our children of a patient and competent parent the following morning). Parents, stop expecting your friends without kids to care about your child's developmental milestones and try to talk about something worldly. Read a newspaper (aka: a news website, what is this 1998?) before you go out. Bring up something halfway interesting. Childless friends, forgive us if we are incapable of bringing up anything halfway interesting. To the childless, we cannot start a "kids welcome" function at six o'clock. Toddlers go to bed at seven and they are relatively inflexible with their routines. Parents, stop getting offended that your childless friends don't plan around your decision to have a kid. They aren't bad people for not living family-friendly lives 24/7. In fact, they're doing us a favor by boring themselves to tears just to spend some time with us and our family. If we can all take a few things into consideration when hanging out together, we can make this work. If not...well, it was fun while it lasted, may we part ways in peace.

It's Not You, It's Me: Parenting Self-Awareness

One of the more difficult aspects of being a parent is remaining mindful of my own mood and present stress-level. I can't count the number of times I have put my daughter to bed in the evening and thought, "Geez, she was in a mood today," only to realize later, after I have relaxed, that, "Geez, I was in a mood today."

This is not to say that toddlers don't have moodiness like the rest of us; it's just that their moods are usually less tainted by the concerns of adult life. That is, toddlers aren't as complicated as their parents. My negative mood could be stemming from a conversation with a friend or family member that riled me in some way. It could be from a life situation I'm thinking about, or a financial situation I'm thinking about. I could be dwelling on how I exercise about half as much as I did before becoming a parent, or how my writing has all but ceased due to lack of time and energy to be creative. On the other end, I could be in a good mood because I actually slept for eight hours, or because I played well in my weekly basketball game, or because I got some time with friends to have adult conversation and laugh (not that raising a toddler doesn't come with its fair share of laughter).

My daughter's mood can change from negative to positive about eighteen billion times a day for reasons that are intensely present and neurologically unregulated. She could be upset because she woke up too early and decided to cry (and I use that phrase loosely, more like reacted) until my wife or I came to get her out of her crib. Even then, she may throw a fit when we pick her up for reasons that are unclear to us and, I'm guessing, unclear to her. She has no filter, no thought process around feelings. "I'm groggy," manifests itself as arching and flailing and crying, making her initial morning diaper change--after peeing herself for eleven hours--impossible. Two minutes later, she may see the cat or a toy she's interested in and be playing and smiling like the previous emotion never happened. Seeing a food she wants (right this goddamn second and screw you if you can't open a banana peel instantaneously with your mind) seems to be as intense an emotion as me smashing my finger with a hammer. Mom walking out of a room for five minutes to change clothes sucks as badly as a close friend leaving town forever. And, when she returns, it's as joyous as seeing that friend again after a decade of barely speaking.

These feeling are constant for a toddler, and ultimately beyond their capability to regulate. They lack impulse-control, and try as you might to instill some in them, their brains simply aren't developed enough to achieve this discipline. In fact, the frontal lobe, which is responsible for impulse-control, isn't fully developed until age 25 (so, slow your roll on making those big life decisions in your early twenties, millennials). Thus, the difference maker for whether my daughter and I have a good day together isn't whether or not she is in a good mood, but whether I'm able to shelve my heady emotions and be present with her moods. I have the ability to respond, rather than react, to her ever-changing emotions. If she throws a fit for five straight minutes over my not letting her go outside (because I happened to open the front door to get the mail and reminded her the outdoors exists and that she "likes to go to there"), I can't let this outburst continue to rattle me when those five minutes pass and she is ready to dress her teddy bear in her pajamas and laugh at him. I have to roll from "Worst experience in the world!" to "Greatest experience in the world!" seamlessly and constantly if I ever want to have a good day. It's a level of Zen that is nearly impossible. True, I have the ability to respond instead of react, but in the same way that a surfer has the ability to calmly navigate tidal wave-like swells breaking overhead while enjoying the ride to shore. Sometimes it's going to end in getting your head slammed into the sand. It's all a part of the process.

My ability to stay present often comes from what I do for myself in the times that I am not navigating my daughter's tidal wave-like wants and needs. There are no days off as a parent. Weekdays come and go; weekends come and go. Early mornings do not; baby's needs and wants do not. If I neglect to exercise and choose to eat like a nineteen year old living on his own for the first time, I am in a poor state to stay present with my daughter. If I try to go out for drinks with friends and don't get to bed at a decent hour, we both pay the next day. Parenting is much like any discipline I've been a part of; the healthier and more focused I am, the better I preform. In school, in sports, in relationships, in work, in writing, the more present and focused I am, the better I am. And, healthiness doesn't mean never going out for drinks or indulging in hedonistic pleasures. All work and no play can be just as detrimental as Tiger-mom-like structure. What I can't do (and can't really understand how other people do) is be apathetic. Apathy is a downward spiral. The very nature of not being present is not knowing you're not being present. Thus, if I never do the things that keep me present I never get the clarity to look back and critique the times I wasn't being present and suffered for it.

In noticing the connection between self-awareness and parenting I have become more aware of the connection between presence in the moment and all things in my life. Hanging onto an emotion I was having five minutes before while writing a frustrated email to a customer service department when I am currently presented with the opportunity to go for a run is pointless and unhelpful. Ruminating over shortcomings only gets in the way of overcoming those shortcomings. I have to thank my daughter for these lessons. She's a Zen Master without even trying. She feels things fully and authentically and lets them go immediately to move to the next moment. I miss a few shots in a basketball game and I'm in a funk the rest of the game. She slams her head into a wall and thirty seconds later she's chasing me down the hallway laughing hysterically. So, in this regard, I have many things to learn from my underdeveloped offspring. In the meantime, I can only strive to focus on my own state-of-being and respond appropriately to the toddler-ness of my toddler.