Tag: dad

Dad Brog (#166): Back in mah’ day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes as a treat, I take my kids to Waffle House for breakfast.  Or when I’m completely out of ideas of breakfasts for them, I throw my hands in the air and think F it, Waffle House.  Anyway, so I’m at Waffle House, my kids are going to down on a chocolate chip waffle, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a boy, probably somewhere between 11-13 years old.

He’s by himself, and he’s wearing a bicycle helmet.  A few minutes later, I see one of the very-Waffle House servers handing him a plastic to-go bag, that couldn’t have had more than a single person’s food in it, he takes it, walks out of the restaurant, hops onto an e-bike, and rode off, presumably going home or wherever.

Now before this gets too ‘back in my day’-ish, this wasn’t uncommon behavior for me, or any kids that age when we were that age, it’s just that most of the time, we were on foot, because most of our bicycles back then didn’t have adequate storage capabilities outside of dorky wicker baskets that sat at the front of your handles, and the fact that most restaurants weren’t nearly as reliant on take-out service as they are today.  Kids in the 11-13 age ranges back when I was there, were more than likely going to the nearest fast-food burger joint, and if they were taking anything to go, it was in a paper sack.

However, what this line of thinking grew curious about was the fact that the kid got on a e-bike, and after 3-4 pedals to get the bike starting, it was full-motor from there on, and before he could leave my sight, he was no longer pedaling.  E-bikes have basically become actual motorized forms of transportation for those under the age of 16 and legally unable to operate a four-wheel consumer-class vehicle.

I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing yet, but above all else, it is just one of those things that really paints the picture of how big the chasm is between kids of now, to when I was a kid, and especially to those in the generations that preceded my own.  Who knows, maybe having access and experienced with actual motorized vehicles that are expensive, and require maintenance will help build a better sense of ownership and responsibility in the kids of tomorrow.  Or, it’s the first step to heading down the path of Wall-E, where kids no longer have to walk, or even pedal their own bicycles anymore, and they’re destined to become fat immobile blobs of humanity after eating one too many Waffle House takeout meals.

Sometimes my sister and I lament about the differences of the generations, when comparing our kids to our own childhoods.  How kids today simply don’t know how to be bored and fend for themselves in a lot of applications, and how they have access to stuff like e-bikes, motorized scooters, apps to order takeout and services that can deliver all sorts of things same-day and immediately.

Much like our own predecessors lament, I suppose it’s kind of like a rite of passage for when every adult looks at the generation after them and opines, they don’t understand how good they have things.

Whenever I visit my brother, he takes me on bicycle rides, since that is something he’s grown quite passionate about since he moved to his current locale.  It’s something I always enjoy doing with him, and as the old adage goes, you really do never forget how to ride a bike.  But because he has more regular experience than I do, and for lack of an alternative, he lets me ride his e-bike while he takes his regular bicycle.

Shit weighs a ton, and is definitely not the typical bicycle that you dismount while it’s still in motion, leap off and let it come to a crashing halt on its side in the yard of the asshole neighbor, but it’s still a bicycle that anyone who’s ever ridden one can get the hang of in ten seconds.

Motor assistance is a really weird feeling at first, but I definitely see the appeal of it, and I liked having it available whenever I felt like I was really falling behind my brother, but for the most part, I was determined to pedal as often as I could.  I’d always get paranoid whenever the battery dropped from 94% to 93% and I’d be driven to try and pedal some juice back into the battery, but the point remains is that just because I had it, I didn’t really want to use it until I felt like I had to.

When I go on outdoor runs, I’ve been seeing clusters of mostly teens, now that especially school’s out down in Georgia, riding on either e-bikes or e-scooters; and the common denominator is that almost none of them are actually powering them with their legs, and just riding them around like personal vehicles.  I mean it’s cool that they’re able to get from point A to point B with less physical exertion, but not only is it eliminating any potential exercise for them, but it’s like that line from Cars: cars didn’t drive on it to make great time, they drove on it to have a great time.

Some of the best conversations I’ve had with childhood friends have often come on these leisurely, casual journeys, from one house to another, or the woods, the creek or the train tracks.

But before I wrap up this drivel, I’m curious about the people who take their motorized shit onto trails like the Silver Comet Trail, where I like to do my long-distance runs, when trying to accomplish the diminishing number of virtual runs that I sign up for.  It’s always an annoyance having to share with tryhard aggressive e-bikers, but it makes me wonder, if people motor their way for 25+ miles, do they really feel accomplished as those cyclists who actually pedaled the entire distance?

Not that I care, but that’s a curiosity that I wrap this up with.

Dad Brog (#165): Can’t even see the end of the tunnel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often the case with a lot of the time I write under the Dad Brog tag, things are going a little rough these days.  In fact, it’s like the difficulty of my life is currently sitting at a 9 on a scale of 7, and I’m having a hard time of accepting that this is just kind of going to be the state of it, given all the circumstances around me.

Frankly, it’s not so much my children being the source of lot of my general stress and anxiety beyond the usual every day gripes of parenting.  Sure, they can be little shits when they want to, and their listening skills have a tendency to become questionable at times, but in this case, they’re kids.  A six and four year old, being a six and four year old; defiant, rambunctious, playful, but otherwise pretty normal as far as being kids go.

However, it’s my third kid, AKA my elderly dad who is undoubtedly the largest source of my general daily angst, frustration and reason why my mood gets tanked faster than anything else.  Frankly, this wouldn’t be classified as a Dad Brog if not for the fact that my own dad has basically turned into a third child for me, and is about as functional and capable as my six and four year olds, with the exception being that a lot of his inability to function has mostly been on account of his own choices, and not because he’s a six or four year old.

I struggle on a regular basis to not let my frustrations boil over and take it out on my dad, but it’s really fucking hard at times when the things I request and ask of him are never absorbed, never honored, and never respected.  And with the recent diagnosis of early signs of dementia, it’s like he’s got a permanent excuse to be inept and completely oblivious to my life or my needs, and that I’m basically expected to be available at his beck and call, because he can always just chalk up forgetfulness on account of signs of dementia.

What frustrates me a ton is the fact that he put himself in a position to let his brain rot and degrade to its current state, by his own life choices over the last 10-15 years or so.  He lived in isolation, he had almost no friends, he didn’t have any real hobbies, and he basically resigned himself to stop bothering to keep learning things in life.  It’s like he was in prison, except on his own volition, based on the life of low stimuli he put himself into and refused to get out of it.

Whenever I boil over from him blowing up my phone on a daily basis, in spite of me telling him to please not call me during work hours unless it’s an emergency, and he keeps calling anyway, because whenever he gets bored, lonely or depressed from the shit life he bestowed upon himself, he dials me up, and it makes my blood pressure immediately elevate at hearing my phone go off because I know it’s most likely going to be my dad, and I wince like OJ Simpson in court whenever I confirm that it is.  But when we do speak, everything I state or ask or more often than I care to admit, chastise, the response always starts with “no, but…”

Pretty much everything I suggest or try and convey is met with no, but, or some other form of pessimistic nihilism, and if anyone has ever wondered why I might have such characteristics, then this is most likely where I am getting it from.  However, the difference is that I’m still clear of mind and often times police myself, and try my best to not have such a tone and scare everyone because I’m like a big fucking chupacabra that scares people really easily apparently.

But I also get a ton of resistance and questioning from everyone else in my life, be it my own children, and people I work with.  My kids question everything, and not always in the good way, but more like when I ask them to do something they don’t want, it’s always met with great resistance, and feet dragging, and complaining.  Any time I try and flag something as (obviously) needing clarification or push back or some factor that’s coming from a place of pursuing efficiency and less wasted time, I’m the one who gets tagged as being difficult, glass half empty, or just plain fucking negative.

People like to label me as overly negative or pessimistic, but the truth of the matter is that I’m surrounded by it, and I’m the asshole if I become a product of my surroundings. 

And this is where I am currently, sick beyond words at how exasperated and exhausted I am of everyone questioning me, complaining to me, resisting me, and just not giving me any modicum of respect.  I don’t feel as if anyone alive these days respects my opinions or my time, and unfortunately I don’t really anticipate much of this is going to change in the indeterminate future.  I see no light at the end of the tunnel, which is a really shitting feeling to feel, but with my life basically being a glorified babysitter and caregiver, there’s pretty much no time for anything else; believe me, there are a lot of things I’d like to do, like set up an old laptop to be a good emulator machine for a lot of retro games I feel like playing, or exploring the potential gold I could be sitting on with some of the CIB video games that I have, but there simply just isn’t enough time left each day for me to do anything that I want, beyond maybe catching up with exercise, going off brogging a rant, or watching 1-3 episodes of Batman the Animated Series, depending on how much sleep I want to sacrifice.

I can’t really go to bed sooner than I do, because one of my kids is a problematic bed wetter, and I try to take them to the bathroom in the middle of the night to empty out their bladder to reduce the chances of a wetting episode, with it being a cautious game of chicken to not go too early in which there’s a lot of time left overnight for a wetting episode to occur, or going too late, and for there to already being a wetting waiting for me to have to fucking clean up in the middle of the night instead of 6:30 in the morning.

It would just be great if my life didn’t have to be so fucking insufferably hard, all the god damn time, and frankly it would just be great to have something to look forward to, because there’s a real lack of that in my world these days, and so I’m just kind of going through the motions at times, which is really unfair to my kids.

But for reals though, I really need my life to stop being so sucky more often than it is, and get me back to a position to where there’s more to look forward to in the day, than dreading.

Dad Brog (#164): nobody told me there’d be this much paper

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For about the first five years of parenthood, I’ve done my best to keep record of all the artwork that my children have created, be it at home, at school, camps or wherever they’ve been tasked to create something with their own hands.  Regardless of how it looked, it was always awesome, and I’d always take tremendous enjoyment out of the explanations that came from the imaginations of my children, and I always fall in love all over again with just how beautiful of minds kids have before they’re systemically neutered by lame-ass adulthood.

But my god, of all the parenting advice and resources I indulged throughout my journey before and into parenthood, nobody ever mentioned the part where two kids, much less one kid, generate about a small rainforest’s worth of paper in the things they create.

For those first five years, I tried to keep everything that they did, from drawings, gluing things to construction paper, cutouts of god knows what, dioramas, collages and whatever they made, I wanted to hold on to it.  Obviously, I know that’s not realistic in the long run, and for two nights after the kids went to sleep, I’d crack open the giant crate where I’d been hoarding all the artwork, set up my digital camera and some lighting, and I took photographs of everything that they had created; then I’d put them into the recycling bin for discreet disposal.

I thought about perhaps using my kids’ artwork as content for an Instagram account I toyed around the idea of, but haven’t pulled the trigger on account of reluctance and a general lack of time to really commit, but the point is, even if I tossed them, I still kept record of their creations, proof that they were on this earth, existed, and made things with their own hands.

However, my kids are a little bit older now, and school is really producing paper content commensurate to their ages, and without fail, at least 2-3 sheets of paper come home with #1 daily, and #2 brings home a bag full of art assignments every two weeks, and seldom are they in any standardized, easily archivable size.  Furthermore, our au pair is great at keeping them occupied with art and drawing, and they burn through reams of paper almost as fast as they burn through toilet paper in the house.

Needless to say, I’ve gotten to the point where I simply can’t keep up with the paper that my children produce, and it’s basically become drown in sheets of paper, or start tossing things when they’re not looking.

This isn’t a brog post if I chose to do the righteous option and solder forth with hoarding, and today I had to harden my heart as I took stacks of papers and drawings that my kids have done over the last year or so, and put them into the recycling bin.  It kills my soul to do it in such a manner, but at the same time, my mental state goes to the shitter if my house’s state of cleanliness matches the chaos that is often in my brain, and when push comes to shove, if I can’t help myself from time to time, I’m no good to be able to help my kids and family.

My kids won’t notice, but I do, and I can’t help but feel wracked with guilt at the choice of my actions.  Among these stacks were all sorts of drawings that were thought out, explained with exuberance, and in some cases, were probably drawings of our family, or their sister, or something else drawn with love and good intention, and here I am, the asshole dad who can’t stand clutter and chooses to toss them without record keeping, and the feeling absolutely sucks.

But again, as I’m so often reminded by so many people, sometimes I have to put myself first every now and then, and perhaps this is a reminder to myself that I should embark on my Instagram idea and use my chlidren’s artwork as a general basis for content, it might just help keep me accountable to be better about keeping record.

Year six of forever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Even to this very day, I still sometimes can’t believe that I’m a dad.  I usually have these thoughts in the mornings, when I’m watching my kids eat breakfast, and my mind thinks back to when they were but little babies that drank from bottles, and eventually fed by spoon, and then finger foods, and here they are not only eating with utensils, they have opinions, on what breakfasts I make them that they do like, or if they’re one of their pissy morning moods, and whatever I’ve made is automatically putrid trash.

But sometimes I just quietly watch them while they eat, and I think back to my mom doing the same thing to me, and me thinking “whaaaat???” whenever I caught her staring.  I don’t remember what her answer ever was, if she even answered in the first place, but being a parent myself, I’ve come to understand why she was doing it in the first place, because I have to imagine she was probably thinking the same thing I think whenever I just watch my kids, that it’s still amazing that we have kids and that we are parents; bonus if the kids themselves are pretty good ones.

Today marks year six for my eldest, the one that started me on this path of being a parent, and like I stated above, there are times where I still can’t believe it.  Life as a childless adult feels like such an alien, foreign concept that I’m often flabbergasted when I see people who live such uncomplicated lives for basically nobody but themselves for the most part.  Sure, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the freedom, frivolity and sheer ease of not having to feel responsible for the life of young children, but there are times where there’s nothing like witnessing your own children grow into the world, and feeling somewhat responsible for helping shape them into the people they’re becoming.

Few things make me laugh more than hearing my children using some of the more common phrases that I use, like for example, #1 was getting tired of explaining some Pokémon thing to #2, and she bust out a how many times do I have to tell you, and I lost it right where I was sitting, because there’s absolutely no doubt where she picked that saying up from.  Maybe that’s not the best thing to be picking up to reflect on me, but it’s just an example of just how perceptive and how much of my kid my kids are capable of being, and seldom does a day go by where one or both of my kids don’t bring an avalanche of joy to my heart at some point.

And just like that, my eldest is six freaking years old.

She’s smart as heck, wants to know damn near everything she can about Pokémon, still enjoys reading with dad, and appears to be quite the math whiz, based on the fact that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen an incorrect answer on her math worksheets throughout the entire school year so far.

She’s very observant, picks up on everything, and has the marvelously beautiful imagination that only a 5-6 year old can have, whether she expresses it through drawing, coloring or making things out of whatever she can get her hands on; Legos, wooden blocks, MagnaTiles.  I love building things to instruction with her, but it’s most fun when we disassemble a Lego kit, and then she’s free to build whatever she wants, and when she’s done she always has these elaborate backstories to the structures she’s building, and the figures that are living in them.  I’ll tidy up her room in the afternoon, and by the time bed time has come, she’s built an entire town of structures, with origin stories for everyone that’s living in it, and I don’t remember being nearly as imaginative as she is now when I was six.

What I really love is that she still wants to be picked up and carried by dad all the time.  There was one moment I had thought to myself at what age does it seem weird to be doing that, but it didn’t last long because I remembered that there would one day come a day where either she doesn’t want to be held any more, or for whatever reason I’ll be unable to do it, so I put that silly thought to bed, and I’m happy to pick up and carry my kid whenever she asks, because I’d rather get in all my carries and hugs in while I still can.

The point is, happiest of birthdays to my eldest child.  It’s been the greatest honor of my life to be your dad, and I love you (and sissy and mama) with every fiber of my being, and the simple objective of my life has always remained the same, to be the best dad possible to you, always.

Dad Brog (#163): rattled

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife, the girls and I went to the Asian market the other day.  When we were on our way out, #1 got a little ahead of us, and began crossing the street on her own.  Mythical wife managed to get her attention to stop and come back and that she knows the rule that, hands held when in the parking lot.  No sooner than she got a hold of her hand, a Lexus SUV came flying into our periphery, before coming to a stop, maybe 2-3 feet away from mythical wife and #1; but adjacent to them.

Had both of them been 2-3 further into the crosswalk, they would have been hit and run over, entirely.  Me yelling out HEY to the reckless driver wouldn’t have done anything to stop them.

Naturally, justifying the stereotype of being some of the most unsafe drivers in the world, it was an older Korean woman, maybe a few years younger than my mom, who was driving the car.  She looked up at us with shock and concern in her face, pantomiming bowing her head in apology at her neglectful driving, and I gave her a stare that I wish could induce death, for the danger she potentially could have put my family in because she was probably too busy checking fucking KakaoTalk on her fucking phone instead of paying attention to the road in one of the most attention-requiring zones there could be, directly in front of a grocery store.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and ironically it was a good lesson for my kids to learn at the very real dangers of parking lots, since up to this point they bemoaned having to hold a grown-up’s hand every now and then, and wanted to flex moar independence that only kids of this age can.

It wasn’t really until we were driving home did it really start to sink in to me at just how fortunate we were that nothing happened.  Like I said, #1 was extremely close to getting hit by a car, and frankly I don’t know how I’d have reacted if that actually did happen.  More than likely I’d have wanted to kill the ajumma behind the wheel who was responsible for it, but I was playing the scene in my head where I struggled to curse and scream at someone in my elementary-level Korean.

I’ve seen my child in hospital care and with tubes and all sorts of apparatuses attached to them.  I am in no rush to ever have see such again, and I don’t know how I’d handle it if I had to, against all of our wills.

Needless to say, I was quite rattled by the whole situation, and by the time I got home, I had decided it was probably for the best not leave the house any more for the day.  No matter how much we try to protect our children from the very real dangers of the world, it’s like at any given point, it’s always just that close, at any given moment.

Dad Brog (#162): Three over three

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m halfway tempted to change the title of my dad brogs to the above, but really the hope is that this is a one-time blow-off kind of rant, and that when the smoke clears dad brogs remain being about my kids and my journey through fatherhood, and not really any further about being a parent to an elderly Korean parent on top of it.

Regardless, three over three is pretty succinct in how I’m feeling these days, because I have three human beings in my care that over the age of three years old, and they’re basically all fucking kids.  Two of them being my actual kids, but the third being my dad, whom, like many Korean parents throughout history, has chosen to go down the path of being as inept as possible, as needlessly dependent as possible, and to require as much care and patience as an actual child needs.

I thought I was right on the money when I came up with the general basis of The Korean Story™ but one thing I was completely blind to was what life was going to be like when the parents actually do hit that feeble senior life, and it’s the responsibility of the children (me) to basically become the parent, all while trying to not inhibit progress when they (in)conveniently want to remain the parent and demand respect and authority without any warning, spontaneously.

But basically my dad has become my third child, much to my dismay, and over the span of the last 12+ months, it’s been my biggest challenge trying to be the adult in the room, and steer him into decisions that are my best attempt to be for his benefit; just like my actual children.

It also doesn’t help that conversing with him, I can understand about as much as I can my actual kids’ excited ramblings about Pokémon or whatever fandoms they fancy at the time, primarily on account of the worsening language barrier, and the rate in which he listens to me when I’m trying to tell him do so something is about as successful as with my kids, that’s leading me to feel this way.

But it’s at its worst when I’m with all three of them at the same time, and my kids want attention, and my dad wants to ramble on about something that’s not important but he’s pretending like the fate of the world rests on it, that I’m asking myself what my life really is right now, and I’m pondering just how bad my blood pressure must look at these specific junctures in time.

However, the difference between my kids and my dad is that they’re heading in opposite directions as far as their attitudes towards independence.  Whereas it’s a routine struggle to negotiate with my kids on what they think they can do versus what I know they’re not capable of, it’s a constant struggle with my dad to try and get him to do things that I know he can do once he learns how to, but he refuses to even fucking try because he’s assuming everything has passed him by and that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.

I got him a television, a smart one, so that he could avoid having more than one remote control, because the presence of anything higher than one results in a system failure, and the television would collect dust, unused.  I set up the wifi, Netflix, and an app specific to Korean television, but trying to explain the concept of apps is like trying to explain quantum physics to an inanimate onion.  I’ve set things up so that turning on the television and going into the Korean television app would require three total key presses, had him write it down with drawings of the buttons, but after two days, I’ve learned that he’s hit system failure and hasn’t turned it on since the one time he tried and failed to get into the app.

I wouldn’t dare say that my dad is lacking in intelligence, but what he really is, has become fucking lazy and defeatist, and is making his unwillingness to learn my problem, and the problem of the scant everyone else in his life who has tried to help.

And let’s not get started with his iPhone, and it just makes me mad at the world for advancing into gradually worsening ageist times that completely ignore the existence of the elderly, who almost have no options other than smart phones, full of all sorts of features and functions that they not only need, but their presence makes the elderly go into system failure, and just give the fuck up on them, which doesn’t help that we’re in a modern age where not having a phone is tantamount to not having lungs.

Today, I went to visit my dad, and brought the girls with me, so we could do an activity that I intend on making a permanent standing monthly event, on top of any other visits that could happen throughout.  And as much as I love knowing that my kids can actually spend some time with their grandfather, and that my dad can actually spend some time with his grandchildren and actual blood relatives, much less human interaction, it was pretty high-stress.

Being the only adult in the room for hours on end gets tiring, and have my kids wanting to run around and touch and climb everything in sight, and then there’s my dad with shit for legs, needing a walker, always a fall risk, and there’s always a deficiency in coverage somewhere when trying to do the even most mundane things like get in the car, go into a restaurant, or any small task.

My dad hardly understands the girls’ speak, the girls don’t understand anything my dad says, we all love each other, but like so many cases in my life these days, I’m smack dab in the middle of being pulled in numerous directions, and I’m fried by the end of the visit.

Naturally, coming home, I get obliterated by two massive highway issues because Georgia is smart and loves to do all their road construction right in the heart of the weekend, and then I come home and my wife is pissed because I’ve been gone too long and even if she understands the circumstances, it’s me that the anger is taken out on, and I’m just like what the fuck, might as well blow my fucking brains out.

Shit like this is why I haven’t been so apt to buy into the concept of thinking or hoping that with a new year comes a fresh start, because I know all the shit going on in my life; it doesn’t matter what number is at the end of the year, because a lot of the things I’m going through are some long fucking games, and ain’t no resolutions or hustles going to change anything quickly short of winning the lottery and just buying off a whole shit load of the problems away.

It’s almost funny how it wasn’t long after getting my vasectomy that my dad decided to transform into the third child I wanted to avoid having by having a surgical procedure, but considering the angst and darkness that swirls through my mind when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and overstimulated, it most certainly is fucking not.

Dad Brog (#161): they’re feeding themselves now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every single day, I’m the first person up in my household, because it’s important to me to be ahead of my kids, so that I can get the day started calmly before they wake up, generally prepare breakfast and try to have it ready for them, and so I can ease myself into the general chaos of life and parenting.  Rarely do I ever have a reprieve from this schedule, and it’s kind of hell on earth on days where I either have a slip up and oversleep, or my kids decide to get up earlier than planned, and I’m put into a position of working from behind instead of in front.

Recently, I left the house at 6:40am in order to go pick up a moving van, in order to transport some larger items to my dad’s new joint down here in Georgia; I’m long past the point in my life where making multiple trips is a viable option, and even if there was a higher cost in renting equipment and driving an unfamiliar vehicle, the end result would be accomplished in one-fell swoop.  Also, with Icepocalypse looming, it was imperative that I moved my dad’s things to his home as soon as possible, so that I could get back home in order to bunker down with my house, so this was actually a do or die kind of day, and I’m fucking over how often these types of days have been popping up in my life.

My idea was to pick up van, grab Chick Fil-A on the way home, one, to give myself a reprieve of having to make a breakfast for the kids, and two, to have something ready to eat in the event that the kids were somehow awake and active when I got back home.  I get the Chick Fil-A, and as I’m pulling back to my house, I can see a light on in the upstairs, which means that the kids have definitely woken up and sprung themselves out of their rooms, which wasn’t what I was hoping on, since in good mornings, they sleep closer to 8 am and not 7 am, and it was barely 7:15 at this point.

I walk in through the garage, and there are the girls, sitting at the kitchen table, eating cereal, looking at me.

“Hey girls, where’s mom?”
“She’s sleeping”
“Ohh, is [au pair] with you then?”
“No she’s sleeping too”
“Sooo, you came down and prepared your own breakfast then?”
“Yep”

And there we have it, my kids have demonstrated some self-sufficiency that I didn’t know that they were capable of.  Ages 5 and 4, and they’re already capable of bringing themselves downstairs, using chairs to climb up and grab cereal from the very top shelf of the pantry, and fixing themselves up their own bowls of cereal.

It should worth mentioning that they went straight for my cereal, the Special K with chocolate chunks that I favor above all others that their mother introduced them to, so I can’t even have my own cereal anymore without having to share, but I’m not (that) salty over it, as much as was amused and impressed by my kids’ independence and demonstration of some truly big kid competence.

I did mention that in the future, I’d rather them wake a grown up to help out, because of the risk if they fell out of a chair in the pantry, or if the case where the jug of milk wasn’t only a quarter full, it definitely would have weighed too much for them to pour it, but I told them that I wasn’t mad, and that I was really impressed with their self-sufficiency.

But all in all, I’ve got kids that have given me a glimpse of the ability to fend for themselves, and we’re one small step closer to the point of where they’re not going to need dear ol’ dad and probably be considering putting me into a home one day.