So today was the last of the daddy days week and lucky for me schools were closed as well. So, naturally, I took my kids to Epcot. Epcot at Disney World is generally not thought of as kid friendly but mine love it and they requested it over all the others. They, like me, love the ride in the big ball better known as Spaceship Earth. Also, they are huge fans of all the other great things found here. Not so much the food and wine festival happening now though. I didn’t get to try much at all, certainly no alcohol, but we’ll go back before it ends.

Anyway, there was a couple of interesting things I wanted to get in writing before I forgot about them. One of the attractions in the Living Seas pavilion is Turtle Talk with Crush. You know, the surfer dude talking turtle from Nemo. Anyway, it’s this really cool thing where you go into a room with a giant video screen and the animated character appears. Only it’s setup like you’re actually talking to the character himself and he directly interacts with people in the room via live hidden camera the “hydrophone.” The kids are asked to sit up front and if Crush calls on them the children can ask him a direct question. Besides the standard question a 2 – 10 year old can come up with(age, favorite whatever, etc…), I admire when they get stuck with something different and improvise it out well. Today was such a day. There was one little boy who instead of asking a question proceeded to invoke the “shocked” face of the character by telling him “my dog just died after getting hit by a big truck.” I’m glad I wasn’t the only insensitive prick in the room that laughed out loud. There were at least 3 of us and one was an MMA fighter so I felt comfortable. He did have a tattoo on his outer elbow that said “Insert Chin Here” plus some MMA garb on so I new he was for real. The character handled it well and let the kid ramble on a little, even asking a few questions, but moved on to something better. After 2 soft questions the last kid also said “My dog died too.” This time though Crush cut him off and quickly ended that show.

The second most interesting part of the day happened at some little attraction withing the techo-hall Innoventions. Somehow we ended up with 5 other people inside a game show about velcro. With little talent to pull from I was asked to come be a contestant. Not wanting to look the scardy-cat to my girls and knowing there would be no photos or video, I willingly obliged. It was me against some other dude and they put aprons on us and we were to race in putting diapers on doll babies. There was one minute to add a diaper and a bottle to as many doll babies as possible and attach it to our aprons. I won’t tell you I trounced the other guy, because we actually tied with 6 done out of the 8 diapers supplied so I felt good, got a Big Winner sticker, and we left.

Funny how nice people will try to engage you in a conversation by guessing where your from based on the sports apparel you wear isn’t it? I actually had it happen to me 3 times today. 1 for each of the teams being shown. I was wearing a New York Islanders hat with a Denver Broncos t-shirt and my daughter was wearing her Crosby Penguins shirt. One guy told me he was from Queens and liked the Isles, cool. Another told me their oldest son just gave up basketball to play hockey and he had the same Penguins shirt and asked where from Pittsburgh we were from. The last told me I just got some snow back home. All were corrected but I appreciate there are nice people seeing other people they perceive to be as nice so they are compelled to strike up a conversation.

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

So for this week, the wife was out gallivanting with her Aiming Low crew in Boston and New York. I am terribly jealous of her trip because those are 2 of my favorite cities to go and visit. I haven’t been back to Boston since I started eating seafood, so I’m anxious to return and gorge on the local fare. I am more jealous of the Manhattan part of the trip, or as I call it “the city.” I grew up on Long Island and don’t get back often enough. I still have the majority of my family living there so any excuse to visit them is always welcome. Being able to go to the city as an adult is a special treat, although a rare one. Generally when I go back to long island, it hardly ever includes a trip to the city. Matter of fact, I’ve only ever spent one night of my life in the city. I want to do that more.What I was most jealous of though was the Islanders had a home game against our hated rivals from the city and we won, we beat those bastards for our first win in regulation of the season. Yeah, we may be crappy, but we beat them.

Enough about my desires to tag along on the trip. What I have really learned this week is that I have some deeper dislike for all the stay at home parents out there who complain about it. Now I’ve done this before, meaning run the entire household, sans wife, for days at a time. I completely understand where most of the complaining comes from. It’s a lot of work. Never ending work. Sometimes unrewarding and often under-appreciated work. Notice I did use the word “work” because at the end of the day it feels like it. Compared to the work I do while I’m actually at my job, I think I’ll trade you any day. Not buying it? Here’s a list of all I did yesterday that I think proves I’m qualified to comment.(Not in actual order of occurrence)

• Got both kids ready for costume days at their schools complete with set of change of clothes after costume activities
• Hot breakfasts provided and lunches packed and ready to go
• Shuttled both kids to their respective places of daily education
• Get to salon, shut-up, to get my scheduled haircut
• Grocery store shopping, which I actually really enjoy
• Tidy up the house a bit, with some around the house tasks including laundry and dishes
• Handle issues happening at my paid place of employment
• Retrieve children from respective places of daily education
• Shuttle children to shopping mega-store, plus one other, for upcoming holiday needs and promised rewards for achieved excellence in education facilities
• Get kids focused on completing their homework
• Carve a double headed pumpkin for upcoming holiday
• Roasted and candied seeds from said carved pumpkin
• Went to a spur of the moment dinner with brother and sister in law
• Prep children for and get them in bed all safe and tightly tucked in
• Do some order fulfillment for my wife’s at home business while she is away
• Tidy up the house a bit again
• Prepare lunches and backpacks for next day
• Go to bed myself. Well after midnight…

The work I do for a living professionally has many challenges and requires technical skill found in many books and reliable online sources. The work I do at home is purely 100% improvisation. There are no black and white rules for running a household or exercising common sense in daily situations. I’m not saying one is easier than the other in any fashion, but solutions are easier to clearly find most of the time in my office based world. Being a manager in my workplace with directly reporting employees, I can say there is little difference in managing them versus managing my kids. Often times I think managing the adults is much more of a challenge than managing the children. Youthful inexperience is much more tolerable when questions and situations arise that common sense will solve.

Also, my pet peeve with employees are those that ask me questions that make it seem like I am doing things for them. I always ask what they’ve done first and when I hear “I’m asking you…” I get miffed. Tell me how you used some common sense and experience with other things to break down the problem and where the solution might lie. I fucking figured most of the shit I deal with out myself, why can’t you do the same? Especially when I am out on vacation time. I got several emails this week that after an hour of ignoring with some people, I got a never mind figured it out myself email after. To that I smiled.

My daughters are 5 and almost 4 and they figure out way more than they ask how to do. Or at least they only ask once or twice and then it’s done. They will be very successful I think with that kind of mental capacity.

In terms of being a stay at home parent, the daily grind is really no different. Once you establish and set a solid routine, everything flows like sand in an hourglass. There are always slight variations here and there but that’s what makes the deal not feel robotic. As long of the core remains intact, there is little to no chaos. Break the routine, insert the chaos. The office place is no different. None. Zip. Zilch.

The difference is in the rewards. The rewards from doing a good job as a stay at home parent are more rewarding than those found in career work. For those of you without children, you can argue with me on that point all day. I understand your side of the argument. I lived it for several years before I had children. I still see things I was responsible for creating in use today and it’s very rewarding. When your children reflect that back though, it touches your soul in just a different way and invokes a different kind of appreciation.

I love this job at home. I love it so much that when I’m at my job that pays all our bills, I often daydream about the ability to do it full time. Problem is, I’m worth more in the job marketplace than what a stay at home parent gets paid. That and my wife has degrees that qualify her to manage a hotel or be a school teacher. Both careers have crappy pay and therefore I’m worth way more in the marketplace and I have no degree. I have 13 years experience doing what I do and that’s worth more than any degree in my chosen field. Offer me a salary with full benefits to be a stay at home dad though, consider my 2 week notice served.

My daughters and their awesomeness

So last night I went to an awesome Halloween party. It was incredible. The whole house was themed and decorated and just plain cool. There were lots of awesome people, lots of food and booze and hosted by a pretty awesome guy. It was a great party and I had a great time and look forward to next year’s event. My ass was groped by a Canadian Border Patrol officer, I got a hug from Madonna, talked hockey with a guy who’s sack was hanging out, and shared much good conversation with Mugatu and Katinka from Zoolander fame. I, myself, was a person of walmart and my date was octo-mom. Hopefully a good picture of my outfit, which included liquid pants from the miley cyrus collection will surface.

Oddly enough, I have only one picture from the party and it’s this one which was a picture of OHMommy on the wall from a family vacation. I guess with all the cameras I saw floating around I didn’t need to take any myself.

If you wanna see all the pictures showing up around the awesome party that was, here is the flickr group. I am half in one of them as of right now.

In other news, after dropping off the wife at the airport today, daddy week has begun. How did I start it? I decided last minute, as in on the way to the airport, to take my girls to the Magic Kingdom. They were pleasantly surprised and thoroughly entertained to say the least. We had a great day. I even got to see Shaq in person, I went to go take a pic with him but his handler said he was no longer doing so by the time I got close enough. Here is a distant pic of him. They guy is big….like just under 3 feet bigger than me.