TMI Tuesday: Feeding Off Daddy

We all have good days and bad days for various reasons. When it is a particularly long day at the office, I have to deal with some other issues, or there is just a lot of work to be done I tend to be quite stressed and can sometimes be a little abrupt (to say the least) in my demeanor. This is pretty much the way it has always been and I have done my best to try and keep those things from entering our home. This is especially important now because our son can definitely sense when something is a little off or if daddy is having a bad day. He feeds off daddy's mood.

Many times, my son’s mood reflects my own which is why I try my best to push everything aside, leave everything at the office, in the car, or where ever I can store those pressing matters, and focus on the present, focusing on just being with my son. I think this might be why he always seems to have a smile when I walk in the door although I can tell how well I am suppressing everything else by the simple fact of how fast he crawls to my ankles. At the same time I can tell when he senses that I am just run down or not feeling well as he tends to be a little more careful around me and comes in for hugs a couple more times than usual.

Lately, my son has gotten better at picking up inflection in my voice as well. I can see it in the look on his face after I say something. Actually, he understands a lot more than most people give him credit for as he is sometimes the first to laugh at jokes or to give me a quick glance when something I say catches his attention. While he has yet to speak a clear word beyond mama and dada, the vocabulary seems to be slowly building as well. In addition to my mood, I am really having to watch my words more and more every time I walk through the door.

This whole thing is something that really isn’t talked about much on the forums or is a main focus in parenting books but my mood has a huge impact on my son’s personality. He is a happy infant right now and I hope that he remains that way… I can’t imagine what he would be like had I not put forth the effort to leave all those things outside of our home. I definitely know that our relationship, our bond, would not be what it is today had I been a grumpy daddy every time I walked through the door. Now I just have to do my best to keep it up.

Time To Look At The Records…

I have been thinking a lot about my college days as of late. Things have changed so much since those years when my biggest worry was getting my writing done and sending them out for publication. While this writing holds some of the same qualities as the work that I was dong then it is still a completely different process but in the actual writing and, of course, all the other things that are swirling around in my mind as I put my thoughts on the page.

Thoughts of these days have been popping into my head both because I am itching to publish again but also because my wife is embracing her education in a way that I was never really able to do. Throughout my higher education I was always working on numerous projects in addition to getting the usual work done for class. I guess some things really haven’t changed.

My wife is completely different. She takes her education very seriously and always has which is why she has always exceeded my limited educational achievements. From graduating with honors from her undergraduate college to completing her first graduate class this past week with a 4.0. Both of these hard earned honors are things that I never even came close to in the years I spend in college. Honestly, I wish I had her focus.

It really makes me think about all the things that I have going on at this moment and all the energy that has been spent just trying to keep things moving forward. But I can’t imagine things any other way. As I have said before, I have to keep busy and if this keeps me from being an academic then so be it. A few years ago there may have been room for change but I am enjoying the hectic life too much to slow down. My wife is able to keep an academic pace and focus that has long escaped me, if I ever really had it, and while I am a worker, she is the thinker. Our respective academic records support me on this.   

I have always been a proponent of backing up your statements with facts. Unfortunately, I have to regrettably call my wife a liar at this point for a very simple reason… and I think you will all agree with me. I make this bold statement because for all the years that we have known each other and the nearly five years that we have been married my wife has always made some self-deprecating statement or allusion that I am so much smarter. Well, I am calling BS on that because if you look at the facts, I am clearly not the smartest one in this marriage.