There are times when I am simply blown away by how thoughtful my son Tyler can be. Out of the blue, he will give me a drawing, a card, or a simple hug and tell me that I “make his heart happy”. Sometimes, when he doesn’t know I’m there, I will watch him play with his sister, and I am astounded by how gentle and caring he can be.

For the most part, he is a sweet little angel. For the most part. That is why I am having such a hard time comprehending why he is trying to drive me insane.

One of the hardest lessons I have learned, as a person and as a parent, is that there is a time and a place to keep my mouth closed. Never one to shy away from sharing my opinion, I have recently concluded that the time for silence is far more often than I originally thought. Whether at work or home, with friends or adversaries, resisting the urge to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind has proven quite beneficial in virtually all of my relationships.

As a parent, I feel like I spend the bulk of my time trying to keep my kids out of harms way. I encourage them to try new things and develop new interests, but when push comes to shove I feel like I am constantly saying “don’t do that”, “get down” or “be careful”. I am a real joy to be around at a park.

I seem to forget the joy of flying off of a swing or hanging upside down from the monkey bars. I spent the majority of my formative years with various bumps and bruises, and I lived. I try to stop myself, to let them have fun and fly, but I seem to have a reflex reaction to tell them to STOP. Once I have blurted out the words, my dilemma arises. If they push back, or more accurately when they say “no” or “why”, what do I do? Do I retreat, admit the ridiculousness of my request and teach them to disregard what I say? Or do I dig in, fight the good fight and end up with a house full of tears that often include my own?

In certain respects, watching what I say with the kids is easy. Real panic sets in when Andrea throws out the occasional, “do these jeans make me look fat” question.. From what I can tell, there doesn’t appear to be a right answer to this. You would think that quickly saying, “no way, they look great” would be on the right track, but you would be wrong. Apparently if you answer too quickly, you don’t care enough to sincerely evaluate the jeans. On the other hand, if by chance, you make the fatal mistake of pausing to consider how the jeans in question actually look, you might as well book a hotel room.

Every once in a while, there comes a time when I must speak my mind. With a few years of parenting under my belt, I feel like I have learned the value of keeping quiet unless the issue at hand is actually important. Or at least if I think it is important. Like sitting down for meals. Since Tyler was born, he has been physically incapable of sitting still for a complete meal. I was fairly active as a kid, so I empathize with his plight. But as his dad, getting him to sit down and eat a complete meal with his family is something I consider to be important. And so, on one fateful day over 3 years ago, I said with full parental authority, “Tyler, sit down on your bottom and eat your dinner.”

I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, but the great “sitting still at the dinner table” debate is still raging in our house. We have tried a variety of methods to get him on board, but all efforts thus far have been futile.

Once, he said that he needed a seat belt on his seat, so I quickly obliged.

Child Protective Services, if you are reading this, I assure you that this was his idea, and we all had a good laugh.

Objectively, it really is quite comical. He just can’t sit still. Within seconds, he has one cheek off the chair, then the other, then he is under the table, then he is standing on the counter. I am sure that anyone else in the world would have a nice laugh watching him dance around the dining room. As the father who is trying to get him to listen to my words, do as I say and get a healthy meal into his system – with a pinch of my own obsessive-compulsive behavior thrown in – it is driving me into the looney bin. I try, with all my might, to stay calm, but each meal typically consists of me saying “Tyler, please sit down in your seat” well over 200 times. By the 180th time, my blood pressure is well over the safety zone for someone my age.

Sometimes I find myself saying things just because my parents told them to me. It’s times like this that learning to pause for a moment, to really think about why I am about to say something, can significantly impact my overall happiness and well being. As an example, Tyler had a cold recently and he ended up with a runny nose. After he sniffed a couple of times, I told him to get a Kleenex to blow his nose. “Why?” he asked. I wanted to say “because I told you so”, but that doesn’t seem to work in my house. Instead, even though I am not a doctor, I informed him that if he didn’t stop sniffing he would get an ear infection and would have to go to the hospital. It had to be true, that’s what my parents told me when I wouldn’t blow my nose. To be safe, I threw in a “Daddy knows best” for good measure. That conversation took place about 4 months and roughly 17,218 sniffs ago.

Originally, I didn’t really care that much if he sniffed or not, but now I am locked in an epic battle of wills with a 5 year old. And I am losing. Every sniff is like a punch to my stomach. And I hear every single one. Every time we have to stop whatever we are doing, debate the importance of blowing our nose and get a Kleenex. At the end of the day, I just want him to be healthy. But now, because this has blossomed into something much bigger than it should be, I am probably less than 40 sniffs away from losing my mind.

I have tried everything I can think of to explain to him the physics behind sniffing, and how it is not good for him to do, but it has not sunk in. At one point, I even appealed to his common sense.

Tyler: – SNIFF -

Me: “Tyler, please blow your nose.”

Tyler: “Why?”

Me: “I have told you why. It isn’t good for you to keep sniffing. You need to blow your nose.”

Tyler: “I’m not trying to sniff.” – SNIFF -

Me: “Look, Tyler, why are you sniffing?”

Tyler: “Because my nose is runny.”

Me: “Your runny nose is your bodies way of getting rid of the stuff that is making you sick.”

Tyler: “EEEWWWW”

Me: “I know! So, why would you want to suck that back into your head?”

Tyler: “I don’t.”

Me: “Exactly.”

Tyler: “Thanks Daddy!”

Me: “Your welcome buddy.”

[Pause]

Tyler: – SNIFF -

I think that his sniff has stayed around for almost 4 months just to provide a growth opportunity for me. I have never heard of a sniffle lasting this long.

And, ironically, not one trace of anything wrong with his ears.

I have heard it said that silence is golden. I think, for the first time, I actually understand the implications of this statement. In many occasions, silence has given me the opportunity to really think about what I am about to say, and what the ramifications of my words might be. Sometimes I still have to say things that I don’t really want to, but I understand that I must, and I am ready for whatever comes. Other times, I have been able to catch myself from saying things that really don’t need to be said. I think there might be something to the old adage, “think before you speak”.

To say that I was raised in an environment where independence was valued would be an understatement. It wasn’t just that my parents preached self-sufficiency, they firmly believed that needing or asking for help from anyone was a sign of weakness. I am a strong advocate of being independent, but when it is taken to an extreme, the results can be troublesome. Don’t get me wrong, I like being able to tackle the countless projects around the house that Andrea comes up with – the subtle difference between “tackling” and “completing” is a subject that we often debate – on a daily basis. It’s just that, over the past few years, I have realized that the “me against the world” attitude I have developed since childhood, is flawed.

Regardless of the task at hand – chores, sports, school projects, etc. – I worked my buns off to ensure that I could do it on my own and wouldn’t have to ask anyone for help. To this day, I am still not sure if it was foolish pride, needing my parents’ validation, or what, but I can’t even begin to count the number of times I made things much harder than they needed to be. One time, I even strapped a full-size sleeper sofa to my back with a bungee cord and carried it up a flight of stairs, just to avoid the embarrassment of asking for help.

The sense of accomplishment I felt when I was finally able to get the couch up the stairs was drastically overshadowed by a partial hernia and the fact that I was unable to walk upright for nearly four days. Well done.

Unfortunately, it seems as though the “insurmountable obstacle” is always looming and eventually, a challenge arises we can’t handle on our own. For me, it happened when, out of the blue, Tyler started having seizure-like episodes. I have never felt as helpless in my entire life as I did during the 4 – 6 weeks when he was ill and no one could figure out why.

Prior to this, I felt like I could fix just about anything. But this time, my son needed me and there was nothing I could do. I was resigned to pleading with doctors, nurses, testing facilities and insurance companies trying to schedule whatever was necessary to figure out what was wrong. With my ego aside, I begged anyone and everyone for help. And they did.

The response we received from friends, family, coworkers, doctors and everyone in between was overwhelming. People brought us meals, prayed for us, babysat Kailey while we ran Tyler to appointments, researched possible explanations, gave me paid time off at work so I could focus on Tyler, everything. I had spent my entire life refusing to believe that I needed help from anyone, but I was wrong. I never would have survived without all of the help that I had previously been too proud to ask for.

Since that time, I have come to realize that it isn’t me against the world. Or at least if I continue to think like that, I know that I won’t get very far. The people in my life, and the relationships that I have with them, have gotten me where I am today. There is a part of me that still struggles with admitting that I need help, but sometimes I do.

Often, there are challenges that I face that are overwhelming, or where I simply don’t have the right skills to get the job done. Having a strong support network has allowed me to reach out and get help when I need a hand. And it hasn’t made me less of a person, I feel like it has actually made me stronger.

As much as I love my children, there are times when their behavior literally has taken years off of my life. I can feel it. My wife and I are both intelligent, rational people who, on more than one occasion, have been brought to tears simply because we cannot figure out how to get a 5 year old to sit still for more than three minutes or a 2 year old to drink milk. Prior to having kids, I felt like I was in control of my life, of my emotions. Now, I spend most days feeling like a clueless parent praying that I am not failing my children. I love them unconditionally. I want nothing but the best for them. I would die for them in an instant. I just can’t get them to eat broccoli.

We have all heard the expression “choose your battles wisely”. It makes sense that we should only be prepared to fight for something that is truly important to us. In the past, as someone who liked being in control of everything, I had a tendency of erring on the side of choosing too many battles. I never really thought much about anyone’s feelings; I just wanted to be right. The reality is that even when I would “win”, my relationship with my foe – colleague, spouse, friend, family member, child – would suffer. But at least I would occasionally “win”.

Now, as a happily married man with two wonderful children, I have reached the conclusion that for me, the “choose your battles wisely” expression needs to be amended with “because you will most likely lose” at the end. Particularly with respect to Tyler and Kailey and their inability to register the sounds that come from my mouth.

Learning to pick the right battles has played an important part in my development as a mentally stable father.

All I really want in this world is for Tyler and Kailey to be happy, healthy and safe. I want them to grow up in an environment where they know that they are loved unconditionally. But before I had kids, there was a part of me that wanted more. I had strong opinions about parenthood and I was going to have perfect children. My kids were going to sit still, not fight with each other, not pick their noses, not talk back, not throw food, listen to me, not jump on the furniture, eat their meals, say please and thank and not cry hysterically in public for a toy or a cookie. When I started out as a father, I picked these battles. All of them. And it always ended up with all of us in tears and me feeling like a failure as a father. Now, I have learned that kids will be kids and if I want to survive to see my 40th birthday, I am going to have to let some things slide.

I still, on an almost daily basis, get too worked up about something that I shouldn’t. I have great kids, but they are still kids. They are wild and rambunctious and prone to breaking things. I could choose to fight with them over everything, but I try to focus on only what is important, like eating. Every mealtime in our house takes roughly 7 months of off my life expectancy, but I have chosen to fight this battle. A typical meal involves running from the table, complaining about food, hitting, eye gouging and crying.

I will not give up. Getting them to eat fruits and vegetables is too important. I wish we could have pizza or hot dogs every night, but we can’t, so the battle rages on. Someday, when they are older and not languishing with nutrient deficiencies, I am hopeful that they will thank me!

This may come as a shock to the people that know me, but I don’t actually know much about women. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am in a happy, loving marriage, but the reality of the situation is that I am fairly clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. I know. Shocking.

And I was such a smooth operator growing up.

You see what a good looking stud I was in school and I am sure you are questioning my sincerity, but it is true. You could take everything I know about women and fit it into a thimble. I actually don’t really mind being clueless. There are times when I cherish my wife’s unpredictability. Keeps things fresh.  However, there are times when I feel like I must be losing my mind.  For the most part we (my wife and I) just like to think of it is a constant “educational opportunity” for me.

That being said, I have learned one thing about women.  It is a little something I call the “17 Minute Rule”. Armed with this information, men everywhere can improve all of their relationships with the women in their lives.  Men, grab a pen, you are going to want to write this down:

The 17 Minute Rule: A woman will remember something wrong and/or stupid that you do for the rest of your life.  She will remember something nice that you do for 17 minutes.

Seems simple, but knowing this has dramatically reduced the number of stupid things I do on a daily basis (my wife may disagree). It has also taught me to properly time all of the wonderful, sweet things I do on a daily monthly yearly basis. Throughout my life, I have learned the value of timing. I started working at Enron just in time to be part of their historical collapse. I also started working in homebuilding just in time to be a part of the monumental collapse of the entire industry. If anyone knows the importance of timing, it is me. 17 minutes isn’t a huge window of opportunity, but it is better than nothing.

To surprise my wife recently while she was at the gym, I cooked a lasagna because her parents were coming for a visit and she was stressed about dinners for them. I was so happy because even I knew I was doing “a good thing” and that it was going to make her happy. As I was finishing up, I remembered the 17 Minute Rule, so I started planning. The World Series was starting that night, so I decided I would tell her about the lasagna 14 minutes before the first pitch and then spend the rest of the night enjoying the game with my feet up. I figured there was even a chance she would bring me something cold to drink! That was my plan, but I made a rookie mistake.

I was too excited to tell her, so about 12 seconds after she walked in I couldn’t resist and I blurted out the news. My timing couldn’t have been worse. While she was very happy – so happy in fact that she almost started crying – she was also very late. As is often the case in a house with little ones, somebody is always late for something. Needless to say, after a whirlwind 2 minutes of changing Kailey’s diaper, packing a lunch for Tyler and changing into a more comfortable outfit, she was back on the road and I spent the next 15 minutes bemoaning my lack of restraint.

While I didn’t exactly capitalize on my full 17 minutes of glory in this case, it did remind me of just how good it feels to do nice things for those that you love.  Putting a smile on Andrea’s face made me feel fantastic the whole rest of the day.  As a side note, if a loved one almost cries when you do something nice for them, it might be a sign that you need to step it up a notch with respect to your giving. Probably wouldn’t hurt the relationship any to pick up the slack in the doing-nice-things department!