SAHDism

a collection of thoughts by a Stay At Home Dad

“The Year of Living Sequeiralously”

  • Home
  • About Me
  • What Is Sahdism

Overthinking Things

September 17, 2017 by Stuart

The kids started asking me riddles that they had learned in a joke book.  It was clear that I was in a different state of mind than the kids…

Child: Daddy, what can you eat, but not for dinner?

Dad: Your words.

Child: Um, no. The answer is ‘lunch.’

 

Child: What can be served, but not eaten?

Dad: Justice!

Child: <pause for reflection> No.  The answer is ‘a tennis ball.’

Child: What city has no people in it?

Dad: Detroit

Child: <sigh> Electricity!

Filed Under: Anecdotes

Fun on the Farm

August 22, 2017 by Stuart

We have been having many day trips to visit various parts of New Zealand and we try to find learning opportunities in them.  We learn about birds, habitat, electricity, fluid mechanics.  Fun stuff.  Then, while driving by one of the numerous paddocks where cows are grazing, we hear a squawk of delight from the back.

“Oh My GOSH!!  I just saw one cow jump on the back of another cow! They look like they are playing piggy back.”

Luckily for us parents, we haven’t started the Life Cycle of the Cow lesson yet.

“Yes,” I say, “Cows like playing piggyback.”

Filed Under: Anecdotes Tagged With: school, sex

The Bitter Aftertaste

August 11, 2017 by Stuart

The kids are excited for my wife to come home in the morning after working a night shift.  They want her to make them breakfast as they all hang around for an hour of social time.

As with most of us, some mornings are less perfect than others for my kids.  And sometimes parents don’t have the emotional fortitude to not react.

Child: This crepe tastes weird.

Father to ungrateful child: You know what it tastes like?  It tastes like the last crepe Mama will make for you.

Filed Under: Anecdotes Tagged With: breakfast, mornings

Coincidence?

July 28, 2017 by Stuart

As I’m setting up the blog again after a few years of, well, life, I noticed that the top three topics have been: Alcohol, Housekeeping, and Tantrums.  Coincidence?

Filed Under: Reflections

A Moment of Inspiration

July 28, 2017 by Stuart

It’s early morning and I’m organizing the kids’ school lessons for the day while the house is blissfully quiet. (Side note, quiet is only blissful in the context that the house will filled with ear-splitting noise in a couple of hours, otherwise, the quiet would be depressing).)
While preparing, I flash back to a memory from sixteen years ago. I had recently quit my job in manufacturing and was spending a year in the Pacific Northwest. Part of the reason I left was that I was burnt out working on the manufacturing floor; equipment breaks and I would get called in to fix it. Sometimes I’d end up being late on other assignments and get grief for that, and sometimes I’d be called at night or on weekends – whenever the plant was running was fair game.
I hadn’t planned to go back to being an engineer, especially in manufacturing, and thought maybe I’d do something like volunteer teaching or tutoring. I contacted the local high school and offered to help, saying that my strong point was math. I envisioned helping some kid by ‘turning the light on’ in a given topic, where they’d finally understand something that confused them and they’d be happier and more confident.
The school said they’d call when they needed me, and it didn’t take long. I got a call from the school with an odd request – their shop class had a small desktop robot. The robot had broken and no one knew how to fix it. Could I come in and see what I could do?
– sigh –
I visit the shop class and it’s a pretty cool shop. I had to admit that I did feel at home here. I get to work and fix the robot. Then, just for fun, I program it. I make a little material handling routine that picks up blocks from one area and organizes them on the other side. Students come by to check it out. I told the shop teacher I could come back tomorrow and he says yes. The next day I created an obstacle course and students got to learn how to program the robot to complete the course.
On the third and final day, I take a few freshmen to the chalkboard to explain how some of the mechanics work – how rotary motions can be made into linear motion and why that’s important. I start drawing lines and writing basic linear equations and explaining them. I explain that making the robot work is WHY we learn things like linear equations – it’s not just meaningless busy work. I was on a roll.
And then the bell rang. I stopped talking, a little sad that I was done here, and got ready to say bye to the students. They just stood there around me at the chalkboard. I asked them,
“Don’t you have to get to your next class?”
and one of them replied,
“We have five minutes until the next bell, you can finish explaining this.”
So I turned around and went back to finish the explanation. As I wrote that last “y = mx + b” on the board, I started to remember what I had loved about my job, what inspired me. There is some pretty cool stuff that can be done with math, with engineering, and with manufacturing; stuff so cool that a bunch of fourteen year olds would ask to stay after class to learn linear equations.
So here I am, sixteen years later, planning lessons for my kids. I don’t know what subjects will spark their inspiration, but I hope they find it. And it is nice that I can be here, helping them look.

Filed Under: Anecdotes Tagged With: work/life balance

The Year of Living Sequeiralously

July 25, 2017 by Stuart

There have been so many stories to tell since our journey began that I have struggled putting enough words to any single one of them. More so has been the challenge to find a good ‘first’ story, one that kicks off appropriately this Year of Living Sequeiralously. Many have come close – the (almost) $400 sandwich and the two pounds of meat I slow roasted (in the minivan at the airport parking lot during the week long heat wave) come to the forefront.

But just now, after Mick left for an evening shift after spending the whole day with us, as the low winter sun streams into the kitchen from the north (north?) west, and I’m watching the kids playing in their shorts out on the trampoline that came with the house we rented from a family of 6 who are on their own adventure, listening to Dino nice and loud, simmering some curry and rice for dinner, I realized that the epic story is that the five of us went through months of separation and moves and emerged together just wonderfully. Epic is in the everyday, and so begins the Year of Living Sequeiralously.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: work/life balance

Maybe Don’t Sign Your Name Next Time

June 2, 2017 by Stuart

Got the stretch washed for the first time in years. We can now see clearly the writing etched with a stick in the hood.
Someday soon my child, whose name begins with H A R, as shown in Exhibit A, will get smart and write something other than his name, and then we are in big trouble.

harry's name etched in car

Filed Under: Anecdotes

A Shitty Way to Sell a Home

June 2, 2017 by Stuart

…so one of my other kids didn’t want to be outdone apparently.
Last weekend I was at our house mowing the lawn and keeping up the yard so it looks nice for showing (we are selling it). Said child has to do some business so I take him inside to one of the pristine bathrooms and get back to yard work.
Today I am back to clear out some remaining items and I go downstairs to do my periodic check and smell poop. I worry something went awry with the plumbing!
I was both relieved and irritated to discover that said child forgot to flush down his nasty (NASTY) colon cleansing.
My love never wavers, but sometimes my eyebrow twitches a little more

Filed Under: Anecdotes Tagged With: toilet training

The Fury

May 4, 2017 by Stuart

Hell hath no fury like the morning after spring break

Filed Under: SAHD-isms Tagged With: tantrums

Nap Time Reflection

September 29, 2014 by Stuart

As my youngest takes a much-needed nap, I feel compelled to lay next to him for a while. With each passing day, a phase of our lives as parents to newborns-toddlers-preschoolers wanes and, for all the excitement of what lies ahead, there is also a sadness of letting go of the chaos with all its imperfect beauty.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: aging, sleep, third child

Next Page »

Recent Posts

  • Overthinking Things September 17, 2017
  • Fun on the Farm August 22, 2017
  • The Bitter Aftertaste August 11, 2017
  • Coincidence? July 28, 2017
  • A Moment of Inspiration July 28, 2017

Archives

  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • September 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012

Tags

aging (3) alcohol (14) breakfast (5) cooking (8) daughters (6) exercise (5) first-time parents (1) food (3) housekeeping (12) house rules (5) illness (3) language (3) Life Before Kids (5) mommy (2) mornings (8) outings (11) safety (1) school (3) sex (4) siblings (2) sleep (10) style (5) tantrums (10) third child (2) toilet training (5) work/life balance (3)

Copyright © 2023 · Genesis Sample Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in