Sibling Anticipation, or "Mom, are you pregnant yet?" - Contributor Post

A few days ago, I had a rehearsal and Mom needed a nap, so I volunteered to take the monkey with me. He loves hanging out at the theater, so it was no problem to talk him into tagging along. In the car, though, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“Jerry, I just realized that I’m a really lucky kid because I have two dads: my step-dad, and my real dad.”

“That’s right buddy...you’re pretty lucky!”

“And when we have a baby, the baby will be lucky to have two dads, too!”

This kid is relentless. He’s been dropping hints about wanting a little brother/sister for a little over a year now, and recently he’s picked up the pressure like a closer at a used car lot. It used to be that he would just harass The Cricket about it, but lately he’s expanded the scope of his campaign. And, as you can probably tell, he’s not entirely certain how the whole thing works; he’s under the impression that since I’m his step-dad, if and when his mother and I have kids together, his real dad will be those kids’ step-dad. It makes sense, I guess, if you don’t know about things like divorces and custody arrangements. When you’re six, shit is simple.

So I did what I was always do when six-year-old logic leaves me speechless; I diverted.

“What do you think would be your favorite part of having a baby in the family?”

“Well, I could just teach it stuff...like how to make paper airplanes and play X-Box games. Oh! Jerry, did you notice that I’m getting better at making paper airplanes?”

Thankfully, the six-year-old logic is coupled with a tendency to randomly change subjects; I’m pretty certain it’s just a tactic to throw us off our balance, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last of the baby talk.

Sure enough, on the drive home from school yesterday, the tone became very serious as he said, “Jerry, I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that buddy?”

“When we have a baby, will we have a baby shower?”

He’s like a CIA interrogator, asking surprise questions and slowly chipping away at your resistance.

“Probably so, buddy,” I replied. “I mean, if we have a baby, that is. *If* we have a baby, we’ll definitely have a baby shower. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just wondering who I’ll invite to the party,” he replied innocently.

“Oh. Gotcha. Who would you like to invite?”

“I’m not sure. Being pregnant takes a long time, so I might know different people by then.”

You have to admire the tenacity, and the ability to visualize an outcome so convincingly, but where the hell is this baby obsession coming from?

Later that night, he was back at it.

“I think we should talk about what name we’re going to call the baby.”

“Well buddy, Mom and I have already talked about what names we would use if we have a baby.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, walking out of the room. “I just don’t want the baby to not have a name.”

Of course, all this talk of babies has me squirming. Divorced at 38, I’d pretty much written off the possibility of being a dad, and I was okay with that. Then I met The Cricket and I got an instant 4-year old son, and I settled into the Step Dude role nicely. I’m still kinda shaky, but I’m learning as I go and getting a little better at it every day.

Now I’m 41, and I’ll be honest: the thought of having a baby simultaneously exhilarates and terrifies me. I know I couldn’t ask for a better partner in the endeavor, but I have all these doubts about whether I would be up to the task. What if it turns out that I’m a good step-dad but a shitty bio-dad? What if I fuck it all up and my kids end up hating me? Or worse, what if I don’t like them?

But none of that matters to a determined six-year old. He wants a baby sibling, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to take no for an answer. So I expect I’ll be hearing more about it on the next drive to school. I know one thing for sure: if this kid ever decides to go into marketing, I’ll be first in line to hire him.

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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiancee, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com


 

A Six Year Old Discovers the Power of Now -- Contributor Post

Today, Jerry Kennedy from Choosing the Truth gives another great tale from his time as a step-dude. Very Catch-22.

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Over the 4th of July weekend, we took a family road trip from Sacramento to Orem, Utah to visit my soon-to-be brother-in-law and his family. It was a short trip: we drove out on Thursday, stayed and played Friday and Saturday, and drove back on Sunday. Almost as soon as we got there, the Man Cub started his countdown clock for when we were going to leave.

“Why can’t we stay longer?” he asked, and with good reason. He was really enjoying his time with his cousins, who he only gets to see about once a year, and was disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer.

“Well, Jerry and I have to go back to work on Monday,” said the Cricket. “We’d love to stay longer, too, buddy. Maybe next time.”

“But I want to stay longer,” he grumped.

I decided to take a stab at re-directing his thoughts by engaging him in a sure-fire, totally age-appropriate philosophical discussion about being present. I know, in hindsight it sounds ridiculous to me, too. What can I say? Sometimes I get carried away in my enthusiasm to impart whatever wisdom I’ve managed to scrape together, especially when I have a captive audience strapped into a child safety seat, safely tucked in the rear of the car, where there’s no danger of me seeing him roll his eyes. Look, I never said I’d got the hang of this parenting thing yet. Anyhow, back to being present.

“Hey buddy,” I said, “can I ask you a question?” This is how I always start the diversionary tactics, and I think he’s starting to catch on; I may not have seen the eye roll, but I’m fairly certain I heard it. He humored me anyway.

“Yeah.”

“Are you having fun, thinking about going home?”

“No,” he whined. “That’s why I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here and have fun.”

“But you’re not having fun right now, are you? Because you’re thinking about when we have to leave, and that’s making you feel sad, and so you’re missing out on the fun you could be having right now, aren’t you?”

He eyed me suspiciously. I don’t blame him; I am, after all, only a step dude. I’m also the guy who once tried to convince him that eating his broccoli would make his magic stronger, and that he’d managed to make the clock disappear once he’d cleared his plate. Try explaining that one to the kindergarten teacher when she tells you he tried to turn one of his classmates invisible. And so when I say things that he doesn’t already know to be true and factual...well let’s just say he raises an eyebrow in consideration.

After a few seconds of deliberation, though, it clicked. He didn’t even say anything else, just wandered off to find his cousins so they could play. He grokked it: enjoying his now was more important than worrying about the future.

I, on the other hand, had to take a minute to process what had just happened. I realized that just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have given a flying fuck about leaving until we’d strapped him in his car seat and were driving away. Why? Because up until recently, he had no concept of time. Everything in his world happened now. There was no past, no future, only what was right in front of him. But that was starting to change. Now some old dude was having to remind him to stay present. The same old dude who was constantly telling him “Ten more minutes to bedtime,” and “We’re leaving for school in half an hour.”

I can’t think of any better example of how we screw ourselves up into the giant balls of stress by the time we’re young adults. On the one hand, we preach the value of time and we push deadlines and timelines and schedule every minute of every day, and on the other hand, we tell each other to slow down and smell the roses. No wonder we’re fucked up: we can’t even decide whether to live in the past, future, or present.

Jeez. I hope he’s ready for a discussion about duality and paradox on the drive to school tomorrow.
















 

On Mayhem, Meltdowns and Mood Swings -- Guest Post

Jerry Kennedy, stepdude and writer at Choosing the Truth, is here talking about the inherent moodiness of the children, in a way in which we all can only nod our heads in resignation...and then joy. Thanks, Jerry!

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Shortly after I first moved in with my then girlfriend (now fiancee) and her 4-year-old son, I told her that living with a child was an awful lot like living with a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic suffering from multiple personality disorder and delusions of grandeur; two and half years in, I still think that’s a pretty accurate comparison.

Don’t get me wrong: the Monkey is a delightful little human being, capable of melting your heart with his sweet smile and his infectious giggle. It’s just that he’s prone to the occasional sudden change of temperament. And by “sudden”, I mean he can change moods faster than Clark Kent can exit a grungy phone booth in blue tights and a cape.

Apparently, he’s not alone. When I’ve shared my observation with other parents, they always kind of nod and get the far-off look of a shell-shocked POW. It turns out that most children go through these periods of, shall we say, difficulty? Call me naive, but this was kind of a surprise to me. As a childless person (and therefore clearly an expert on parenting), I’d always assumed that kids who acted out were the result of bad parents; or if not “bad parents,” at best well-intentioned parents who lacked good parenting skills.




It’s okay; go ahead and laugh now. I deserve it. In my child-free cocoon, I would look at parents and say things like “If only they would say no to that child every now and then, they wouldn’t have this little monster on their hands.” Yeah...I was that guy. As I quickly learned, though, this parenting shit is hard. I mean really hard. Like “doing a Rubik’s Cube while juggling chainsaws on a tightrope suspended over a pit of hungry crocodiles” levels of hard. And that’s on a good day.

But they’re not all good days, are they? Sometimes, our days are not so good. Sometimes, our days are pretty freakin’ bad. And sometimes, when the Moon is in the seventh house and Mercury is in retrograde, we’re get the pleasure of the meltdowns. Jumping Jesus on a pogostick, the meltdowns.

I’ll never forget standing on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with the Monkey while his mom went to ride the Giant Dipper and having him screaming at the top of his lungs at me for literally five minutes. To the point that he was starting to hyperventilate and turn red in the face. To the point that I was starting to worry that people were going to call security to come and rescue this poor child who I was clearly torturing with hot irons. And all because I wouldn’t let him have a root beer...or something. I’m still not entirely clear on what it was all about. I finally ended up calling Cricket; she jumped out of line, rescued me from my stuttering and blundering, and that was the end of our day. We’d only been there an hour (Santa Cruz is a three hour drive from home) and we were going home.

Here’s the clincher, though: on the walk back to the car, the tiny demon immediately resumed human form and wanted to know if we’d be coming back to the Boardwalk later in the day so that he could ride some more of the rides, and also could he have some ice cream. W. T. F?

I’m learning, though. Where once I was a terrified, uncertain, semi-adult person, I’m now a slightly less terrified, almost not quite certain, bordering on being a grown up person; and I owe it all to Douglas Adams and the art, or rather knack, to flying. Adams says that the knack to flying is in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. The real trick, he says is in having your attention suddenly distracted at the exact moment you’re about to hit the ground.

When this bit of advice first popped into my head with regard to my parenting technique, I thought that it meant I needed to distract the Monkey immediately before the tantrum started. I tried that, and it worked spectacularly. I’d tell him no, he couldn’t conduct an experiment involving enriched plutonium, see the familiar twitch of an oncoming meltdown, and immediately burst into a silly song or ask him if the moon is really made from elephant boogers; if I timed it right, he’d completely forget about the plutonium and we’d be on the path to Crisis Averted City. Thank you Mr. Adams!

But as I get a little more comfortable in my parent skin, I think Douglas had a bigger, much more important message for me. I’m finding that as I travel the Step Dude Path, I often trip on one of the many obstacles along the way and, in a sense, throw myself at the ground. It’s not very often that I miss, and I spend a lot of time nursing those bruises. Every now and then, though, I get distracted just before the inevitable crash; a silly giggle, a toothless smile, or an unexpected Father’s Day present...and suddenly I’m flying.

 

Confessions of a Formerly Reluctant Step Dude -- Guest Post

I'd introduce Jerry Kennedy here, but he does a damn good job of it, himself. Look for more of him at Choosing the Truth.

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So I’ve been staring at this blank page for a week now, wondering why in the hell I thought it would be a good idea to request a spot as a guest blogger for Darlena. I mean, I’ve been a blogger for awhile now (my first blog post was published in May of 2009...did we even have the Internet back then?), but I’ve always written about subjects that I knew pretty well. Whether it was sales and customer service or my own journey of personal development, it was stuff I knew. But to contribute to a parenting blog? That’s a different animal entirely.

Parenting is brand new for me. I have no children of my own. Up until 2 years, 7 months, and 14 days ago, I was certain that I never would have children of my own. Recently divorced after 17 years of marriage (yeah, I’m that old), I was planning to live out my days footloose and child-free. And then it happened: I walked into my friends’ house for a birthday party, and I walked out in love with a single mom. You know what they say: “the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley...” Or at least that’s what Robert Burns would have said.

Anyway, the point is that I was suddenly in love with a woman who had a four-year-old son. Like really in love. Like stupid in love. And I decided that I wanted to be part of her life, kid and all. I mean, how hard could it be? I’d missed the really difficult parts (dirty diapers, random projectile vomiting, sleepless nights, crying fits, terrible twos, terrible-r threes), and everything should be a piece of cake from here on out. Right? Uh-huh...and jelly beans really *are* Easter Bunny poops.

So here, in no particular order, are some lessons I’ve learned about myself from stepping into the “step” role and living with the child I know as the Monkey:

1. I do, in fact, have a temper, and the fuse is shorter than I could have imagined. All my life, I’ve been laid-back, even-tempered, able to keep my cool in any situation. It was a badge of pride for me, like a super power; I was Guy Who Never Gets Angry. That is, I was GWNGA until a small, angry, red-faced person started shouting “NO!!!” at me at full volume. I’ll never forget the day I snapped: before I knew what had happened, the Monkey had lost every privilege for an entire weekend and, if I hadn’t had the good sense to walk away, would have probably been restricted to his room until he was 35.

This might not seem like a big deal to some folks; after all, I didn’t get physically violent or shout. To me, though, it was devastating. I felt like a major failure because, despite my outer appearance, I was *angry*. And over what? A defiant child. What kind of superhero was I? How could I go from Guy Who Never Gets Angry to Dickhead Who Takes Away Legos and X-Boxes For Life in under a minute? I have no idea, but for a split second, I wished he had more toys that I could take away.

After we both cooled down, we had a chat. I apologized for overreacting, and he apologized for yelling, and we decided on a slightly more reasonable consequence for his behavior. It’s happened a few times since, but I got some great advice from my coach (aka Mommy). She told me that when a child is upset like that, continuing the conversation is only going to fan the flames. So now, I walk away, wait until he calms down, then we talk. Don’t get me wrong: I still see red, but now I take it as my signal to stop. Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re so enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.”  I think he meant children.

2. I don’t know anything about anything. When I first met the Monkey, he was a big fan of dinosaurs. That’s actually a bit of an understatement; dinosaurs were his life. One of the first conversations we had, he asked me if I knew what the biggest dinosaur was. I confidently said, “Brontosaurus!” I don’t actually remember what the right answer is, but that certainly wasn’t it. Apparently, science has learned a lot about dinosaurs since I was a kid, and I hadn’t been keeping up. When I would read stories to him at bedtime, he usually wanted me to read from his dinosaur book; it was full of dinosaurs I’d never even heard of, in spite of collection of Michael Crichton books.

And that was only the beginning. From planets (Pluto isn’t a planet?) to primates (WTF is a bonobo?), from comics (there’s really a villain called the Abomination?) to cartoons (how did I not know about Adventuretime??), I’m kind of a dunce. Or at least I’m a dunce when it comes to things that little boys find interesting. Living child-free for so long, I had no idea that so much had changed. I’m still woefully inadequate when it comes to dinosaurs and Marvel comics, but I’m learning...mostly by pretending to be Nick Fury sending him on a mission when I drop him off at school.

3. Being a step dude is one of the coolest things ever. In the beginning, I was super reluctant to have the Monkey see me as a parental unit. He had an amazing mom and a dad who was an engaged and active participant in his life. He had no need for me to be anything other than his mom’s boyfriend. Besides, I was certain that any child who viewed me as a parent would be irrevocably damaged; I was afraid of the responsibility, afraid of the commitment, and afraid of the attachment. I was so awkward about it, in fact, that at one point he started introducing me to his classmates as his brother. I think that was even more confusing to his classmates, who always looked at me like “Seriously? That old fucker is your brother?? No way!” Kids can be so cruel.

Eventually, though, as it became more and more clear that this was a family unit I wanted to be part of, my reluctance subsided. I became comfortable with being called the Step Dude and, eventually, “my stepdad.” I certainly lucked up: I get to be an active participant in the life of an amazing child, even if he is sometimes headstrong and grumpy and yells at me. It’s all worth it when, in one of his lucid moments, he looks up from what he’s doing and says “Jerry, I love you.” Four simple words that have melted the frozen heart of a soulless, old curmudgeon to the point that I’m now looking forward to someone calling me Daddy.