Growing Up Wth The Kids

Pete put out the challenge so here it is. 

Here are ten songs that should be on an eighties album.  The criteria for these songs was this question:  “If I were a D.J. and had to purchase one eighties album to throw in the mix, what songs would either get the crowd to sing, dance, or say ‘this is our song’?”

These are not necessarily my favorites and I limited myself to only one song per band or singer.

1. Love Shack by B-52s

2. Should I stay or Should I go by The Clash

3. Come On Eileen by Dexby’s Midnight Runners

4. In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel

5. One Night in Bancock by Murray Head

6. Don’t You Want Me by Human League

7. 99 Loft Ballons by Nena

8. Every Breath You Take by The Police

9. Tainted Love - Soft Cell

10. *groan* Y.M.C.A. by the Village People

This month’s trial has been almost a complete failure.  I was not prepared for the withdrawal symptoms of caffeine.  The goal was to go cold turkey and it hasn’t happened.  I’m drinking a cup of coffee as I write this.  I had to have caffeine.  There is an extreme amount of work to get accomplished and  I was sitting behind my desk,  light-headed, unfocused, and miserable, and worst of all I wasn’t getting anything accomplished. I told myself that this is a temporary condition and I would get past the withdrawal stage, but I couldn’t afford to do it at the expense of my work.  So, I am drinking coffee. 

To try and salvage some of the trial, I have limited myself to a single large cup a day and I am moving that down to a single small cup next week.  I haven’t had any soda or other caffeinated beverages besides the cup of coffee each day.  I have been good about drinking water the rest of the day.  I sometimes forget the orange juice in the morning and the wine at night. 

This last week has been tough.  The “cold” that I have been complaining about since mid-January continued to get worse and as it did I continued to be busier and busier. Saturday was the climax of a big fundraiser we had been working on and I was nearly kaput.  I never got out of bed on Sunday.  Yesterday I had to take my son to the doctor and the doctor examined me.  Turns out I have acute-Bronchitis and was on the onset of pneumonia.  The doctor forbid me to go to work today and put me on anti-biotics and an inhaler.  So the boy and I are home today.

About a month ago I started a bedtime routine with my son.  It starts with brushing our teeth.  At eight o’clock I tell him its time to brush our teeth.  Usually, he will drop whatever he is doing and run to the bathroom saying, “teef, teef.”  With great effort and a humorous choppy grunt that sounds like “uh-huh-huh-uh” of Lorain Swanson from Mad TV, he pulls himself onto the closed toilet seat and waits while I put toothpaste on his toothbrush.  We have a little bit of a power struggle at this point because he wants to do everything by himself and grabs for the toothbrush right away.  I persist until I’ve gotten the brush to all of his teeth and then let him have at it while I brush my own teeth.  We usually play a copy cat game, where I’ll make different sounds while brushing and he tries to do the same.

After our teeth are brushed, he runs into the living room and gives everyone a kiss goodnight.  Then he dashes into the bedroom and closes his door.  We hop onto the rocking chair and read a book of his choice. Sometimes we read for ten minutes, sometimes it is only for two or three.  Then he points to the light switch and it is time for the lights to go out.  I carry him over to the switch and he hits the lights. 

With the lights out, we get back into the rocking chair and say our prayers and then he lays back with a blanket (he calls it a night-night) and I tell him a bedtime story.

I really became interested in the idea of telling a bedtime story just before I started the bedtime routine. I have been fiddling around with an imaginary world that hopefully will be big enough to house any adventures that he and I can create.  I have created a couple of characters that I use now and I’m just practicing with the stories.  He is really too young to understand to follow the stories, but it sooths him and he listens until he falls asleep or decides it is time for bed.  When he decides he is ready for bed he will point to his crib and I know it is time to give him a kiss goodnight, to tell him I love him and help him settle in.

I look forward to the day that starts recognizing the characters and suggests what they do.  I hope this tradition becomes a memory he grows up with and continues with his own children. Maybe he’ll even use some of the same characters.

 Do you have any bedtime routines?

Yesterday was the first day without caffeine, dairy, and artificial sweeteners.  It was horrible.  I did fine until about 9:30 in the morning and then I was useless.  I probably could have been more effective from my bed.  I couldn’t concentrate.  I was hungry the whole day.  I couldn’t get rid of a headache. And I was sleepy, so sleepy.

This tells me, I’ve become pretty dependent on caffeine.  I didn’t sleep any better last night, besides being sleepy.  It took a supreme effort of will to get up this morning and even after Pilates I am still dragging.  I don’t normally have coffee until around eight.  By the time I’ve been up this long, I am usually fairly alert.  But, today I am dragging.  Perhaps, I am feeling some residual effects from painting this weekend in combination with the cough I have.  Maybe, its not fair to judge yesterday and today on my lack of caffeine.

We’ll see how the next couple of days goes.

This weekend I learned why I have never seen an overweight painter.  My sister had a house fire a few months ago and the builders are just about done rebuilding.  Before they can go any further the entire house needed to be painted inside, starting with a primer that covers and kills any remaining smell of the fire and then two coats of paint.  Every wall and ceiling needed paint.  We got the entire house done, except the kitchen only received one coat before we ran out of hours in the weekend. Every inch of my body hurts and I am dragging. 

Because I was not able to take the time to leave her house and cook my own meals, I was dependent on eating the delivered pizzas.  So, I allowed myself to wait until today to begin the trial.  Today begins day one without caffeine.

For the first time in my life, I am really bummed about having a snow day.  We had a special Grandparents Day celebration planned for school and it has been canceled.

 I’m going to take today and get some files sent to the lenders and then I’m taking the daughter to the mall.  Pray for me….

The first thing I’ve learned is that most life begins at 6:30 in the morning.  Grunts, groans, gasps, sputters, coughs, yawns, creaks, pops, cracks, beeps, blares, stumbles, shuffles, flushes, and the hum of the television all begin around 6:30 as the rest of the world begins to wake and curse their alarms and start their morning hustle to get ready.

The second thing I’ve learned is that if you want to guarantee that you have an opportunity to do something, you have to be up and working when life is silent. Maybe for some people this can be done after the world has gone to bed, but for me it means getting up before the rest of the world.  If you don’t get in those things that you want to guarantee at that time you will be hard pressed to make them happen the rest of the day. The one exception I have is getting in my 30 minute walk at work.  I have to be in the gym with the kids from 7:15 am to 7:50, so I am reasonably safe in knowing that I will have that opportunity.

The third thing I’ve learned, is that if that time is dedicated to physical, mental, and spiritual health, you will be more conscious of all aspects during the day.  If you take the time to exercise, you will be weary of what you eat.  If you take the time to prepare your actions for the day, you will be focused on accomplishing them.  If you take the time to pray and spend time with God, you will be more conscious of His will guiding you and you will handle all matters with more Grace. (Maybe not perfect or close to perfect, but certainly with more Grace than before.)

The fourth thing I’ve learned is that establishing a morning routine, requires  conscious effort throughout the day.  If you decide to drink or stay out late or do anything that will make it difficult in the morning, you can quickly slip out of the morning routine.  They say it takes 21 days to make a new habit.  I’m not sure if 21 days is enough to change your sleep schedule.  Waking up at 5 am still doesn’t feel like habit to me.

Finally, I’ve learned that giving yourself a goal of thirty days is powerful.  Even now, if I think about getting up at 5 every morning for the rest of my life, I feel overwhelmed by that thought.  Steve Pavlina talks about these 30 day trials as an strength training exercise for your will power.  He is right. I wasn’t perfect on this trial, I missed waking up a few mornings, I failed to exercise a few times.  But, I was consistent enough that I believe I can do better the next time, and I’m not afraid to try another experiment.

This brings me to February’s challenge.  I have found that getting up early is a powerful way to start my day, and I want to continue doing that.  But, it is not going to be a direct goal for this month (though it will be a byproduct).  This month is going to be focused on a fairly restricted and repetitive diet. That will look similar to the following:

Breakfast- Orange juice, oatmeal (with walnuts, raisins, and cinamon)

Snack- apple and a handful of mixed nuts

Lunch- Whole grain bread, with a veggie patti and a bowl of soup

Snack-carrots and a handful of mixed nuts

Dinner-Chicken breast (cooked with either wine and rosemary or plain grilled), a vegetable, and a glass of wine

Snack (optional) -popcorn with zero calorie butter spray

Water- 32 ounces minimum before 1 pm and a second 32 ounces by 7pm.  No maximum amount of water.

On Fridays and Ash Wednesday the chicken will be substituted with fish (yech!).  I have given myself permission to moderately deviate from this on February 15 and 16 and 17 as I may be out of town on those days and will not be able to cook my own meals, but I will have to try to come as close to those meals as possible.

I will not be drinking anything other than what was mentioned, orange juice, water, and wine. Note, there isn’t anything on the diet that contains caffeine. I have been drinking caffeine daily, since I was a kid.  I anticipate that I will go through a withdrawal period for the next 2 weeks.  I have lots of ibuprofen on hand.

I am hoping that my sleep improves and I actually notice a greater alertness throughout the day, by the end of two weeks.  I chose not to vary my meals for three reasons: One, I don’t have to think about what I’m going to eat for the day.  Two, I don’t have to worry about over consuming calories.  Three, it will be easy to identify if I did cheat on the diet.

This diet might be really boring, it is certainly repetitive.  If I thought that this was all I could ever eat again, I’d certainly fail on it tomorrow.  But, its only 28 days.  I can handle it for that long.

I won’t be reporting on this everyday.  I will be tracking stats, but I want to use this morning time for other writing purposes, sometimes for blogging.  Sometimes for other writings.  I will dedicate Mondays to writing about this trial.  I will also report anything significant.

Today, I am going to enjoy a couple cups of coffee.  I am going to miss that. But, its only for 28 days….right?

I must have started my count wrong or something, because according to this, yesterday would have been my last day of the trial.  Yesterday went fairly well.  I had a lot of work to do and very little time to do it, as I had committed to running games in the afternoon for our school kids-yesterday was student appreciation day.  That left me with only the morning to get done what I needed to do.  I picked three MITs and went to town.  One took considerably longer than I hoped, but it got done and managed to get the second done just before it was time to run the games.  The final MIT was a short task that I was able to accomplish at the end of the work day.

I still don’t feel, fully organized.  I haven’t had time to do a true weekly review, which involves a mind dump of everything weighing on my mind.  I think I have gotten a little reprieve and will be able to do it today.  I was supposed to take a few select students to a regional mass today, but that school has been canceled due to inclement weather.  It would have been an all day event, now my time has opened up.  So, I shall use it to do a weekly review.  This will be my number one MIT.

Since I have an extra day, before February begins I will use tomorrow to do a review of this months trials.  And I’ll announce the February trial.  I may not blog everyday about next months trial, as I would like to use some of this time in the morning to write about other things as well.   I haven’t had much opportunity to blog about kids, parenting, family life, or anything else that involves growing up. 

Where are Days 19, 20, and 21?  They will be included in here as well. Much happened over the weekend, most of it really wonderful, some of my choices…not so great.  Let’s begin with the not so great and see what can be learned from them.

During the kids lunch on Friday, I played dodge ball with them and the very first time I threw the ball I threw out my elbow and shoulder with it.  The pain was quite intense, but admitting that I’m old and out of shape would have been more unbearable so I continued to play the whole recess, sucking wind through my teeth with every throw.

That night was my bowling night, so I was going to have to throw even heavier balls in the evening. The choice to play through the pain at lunch wasn’t exactly a good one, but not nearly as disastrous as my choice for that evening.  I knew it was going to hurt to bowl, so I told my wife I was going to have a few glasses of wine to dull the pain.  I didn’t drink until I was sloppy, in fact I bowled one of my best series ever, but I did drink enough to give me a hang over in the morning.  (I just learned an old English term for a hangover earlier in the week, womblety-cropt, and I think subconsciously I was looking for an excuse to use it.)

This one hangover had far reaching effects on me.  I missed getting up at 5 the next morning, I missed exercising, and I almost missed out on a really wonderful Catholic Men’s Conference.  I did make it to the conference, where I heard an absolutely incredible speaker and two other really good speakers. They had to be good to keep me engaged the way I felt physically.

Because I didn’t exercise and I didn’t get up I pretty much gave up on watching what I ate and I ate poorly.  I slept in Sunday to about six and then got up with my son and made breakfast for everybody.  I ate with them, even though I should have stuck to the diet food.  I kept putting of exercise thinking I’d do it later in the evening.  But, we had a full day of looking at houses and then grocery shopping.  By the time I got home, it was time for bed.  I chose to eat fast food and you can tick of another day on the trial.  Yesterday, I missed the alarm, because my wife, who hasn’t figured out how to turn off my alarm just turned the volume all the way down.  I missed out on exercise and then had to rush about the day and go to a large meeting out of town. I chose bad food for lunch, but pulled it together last night and said enough.  So, here I am.  I feel quite disappointed with myself. 

I learned a lot about myself though.  I now know how quickly I can spiral out of control, if I don’t start my day off right.  If I don’t get in my exercise, prayer, and organize my day before others wake, I might as well hang it up.

Now for the good parts.  Like I said, the Catholic Men’s Conference was wonderful, despite being all womblety-cropt.  I have never enjoyed being told I was going to Hell quite as much. Father Larry Richards was the key speaker and man was he good.  He didn’t pull any punches.  He called out every man and told us all about what being a man really means.   I don’t have time to get into his message here, but perhaps I will find time to at least share something later.

The other part of the weekend that was great involved the house hunting.  We made a mad dash to find a place to live around here when I first got the job.  The place is okay, but not a place we want to purchase.  Sunday we looked at houses and found the one that everybody in the family loves.  I have wanted a house in the country and this one meets that criteria.  It sits on five acres and is those five acres are surrounded by woods and cornfields.   We put a bid on it yesterday and if God is willing and we get the house we will be moving the first of March.

Yesterday was a long day. In preparation for the board meeting last night I identified just how much there is going on at the school.  Catholic Schools Week starts next Sunday and there are events planned for every day of school.  Events require coordination of people and resources, which requires time and effort.  Then the week after we have our big raffle and spaghetti dinner, which again requires people.  The week after that we are hosting Smart Discipline, which is supposed to be America’s largest parenting seminar.  The last two events require marketing efforts in addition to the pooling of people and resources.  On top of that, our technology plan should be coming back for review and will need to quickly be fixed and kicked back out to the government along with a lengthy form in order to hopefully get some discounts on next years phone and Internet budget. And speaking of budgets…it is time to begin planning for next years.  And then there is the presentation I need to make at next months board meeting that will show the ideas we have in place to begin growing the school.  And then…. 

I could go on. I could pull out my hair, but that would only speed up the balding process and distract me from the work that needs to get done. Instead, I will use this morning routine to my advantage and pick three things that would most help me get done what I need to get done and then focus on them and forget the rest.  I’ve got the things I need to do written down, so I don’t have to remember them. 

Also, the end of the 23 day trial is nearing and I need to have a new one picked out soon.  I need to pick the one thing that I believe will best help me next.  Not sure if that is giving up caffeine or doing something else.