February 2014

Childhood memories are a wonderful thing, most of the time. There are a lot of things from my childhood that I have blocked out, but there are some memories that I have that will last forever. This past Saturday, I got to do something that I have not done in a really long time. I went to a college basketball game with my Godfather.

I can not tell you how many times growing up, my Godfather and his son Matt and I went to see UNC play. I remember going to basketball games at the Dean Smith Center as a young boy and watching in awe of the teams play and more importantly how Coach Dean Smith was on the sideline. I remember how my Godfather was with his son and myself, he took us to places on campus, always paid for our meals, told us that we could never repeat the bad words that were used at the game. These are the childhood memories that I cherish the most.

This past Saturday, my wife and Godfather went to the UNC vs. Wake Forest game at the Dean Dome and it was like I was a kid again, relieving so many childhood memories. My Godfather and I were high fiving, booing the refs and just having a blast. We talked about games this year and games that we saw years ago.  These are the things that I’ll never forget. These moments of being a kid and relieving my childhood memories and one day very soon, I’ll get to take my sons to the Dean Dome for their first game and they too will begin making their own childhood memories.

Read more

We don’t hit, we don’t PUSH, we don’t kick and we don’t bite. I feel like I am repeating this all the time lately.

The boys have been, well boys lately. They are pushing each other around and hitting. Luckily, no one has gotten hurt, but we are really trying to get this under control. Tonight, we are staying in a hotel, as we are traveling to visit family and the boys Godfather and wouldn’t’ you know, the boys were pushing and Baby B was pushed into the corner of a table. He wasn’t hurt, thank goodness and it happened right in front of me and there was nothing that I could.

After a gasp for breath, Baby B let out a LOUD scream. I couldn’t do anything but hold him. And make sure that he wasn’t bleeding.  After a minute, he was ok and ready to start playing again. But, I had to talk with Baby A. I had to make him understand what he did was wrong. We talked, he repeated the we don’t hit, we don’t push, we don’t kick and we don’t bite.

We have to walk a fine line with discipline. This would have been the perfect situation for spanking, but would Baby A understand what he did was wrong? I don’t know? But, I do know that pushing can/is dangerous. I’m just lucky that with being out of town at the ER.

 

Read more

Last night the boys and I were driving the nanny home and I made the mistake of driving past the Chick-fil-A. Rookie mistake, I know, but it was too late once they saw the red sign. So as we drive past, the boys start asking to go to Chick-fil-A, but they have both been having stomach issues and I just didn’t think that going for dinner was a good idea.

Well for the next 20 minutes, Baby B, now mind you, this is the one that only said Ma and Da about 8 months ago. And he is in the back seat saying “I go Chick-fil-A” and “go to Chick-fil-A me?”. Man, that got me. But then I got thinking about how the boys could really eat there every day. They love that place and so do I for that matter. A Spicy Chicken sandwich and let’s not even talk about how good the waffle fries and sweet tea are. Crap, now I want Chick-fil-A.

But as we are driving home, I thought about how the media really went after the Chick-fil-A corporation and the picketing, etc after the comments about same sex marriage.  And mind you, we are talking about the media, making comments, that a private business owner said in expressing his views. But, when just a few weeks ago, the snow storm that hit Atlanta, Ga and there were thousands of motorists stranded on the side of the road and a Chick-fil-A manager, fired up the grills and started making sandwich for stranded drivers so that they could eat, that received very little attention in the media. It is sad how our media focuses on such negative stories, but the ones that they should give the most attention to, the one where thousands of stranded drivers were given a free sandwich, even when many attempted to pay, they received the My Pleasure statement in return, that is not the lead story on the evening news.

So, I could easily substitute the beginning of this song from I Could eat to My boys could eat and it still works, but I think that Tim Hawkins got it right with this song.

Read more

I love watching it snow, but crap I hate when I see snow damage. Looks like we have water damage in the boys room.

It is one thing to have damage in our room where it effects my wife and myself. It is another to have an effect on my kids.   I love watching the snow fall, but today the snow damage is not making me feel very good as a father.

Read more

I knew that it would happen, just didn’t know when. But more importantly, I was wrong in who the conference would be for.

My wife and I have always said that Baby A would be in trouble for talking too much in class. But, how wrong I was. We had a parent teacher conference last night for Baby B and things that the teachers have observed thus far in the 2nd half of his preschool year.   All in all, it was not a shock, but somethings that were said almost brought me to tears. Not because he is doing anything wrong, but because he has needed extra attention from the teachers.

I try to remind myself over and over again, they are two separate kids and last night, I did the same thing to the teachers.  They are twins. They were born early. They are boys. All things that lead to developmental issues/challenges. And as we deal with this one, which is just really starting to set and define more structure for Baby B, I know that he will be just fine. As with his speech, it just took a little help and time to get him where he needed to be.

So, 1 parent teacher conference down, I’m sure there will be more in the future.

 

 

Read more

I believe that you learn something new everyday, whether you choose to or even admit it. And sometimes I think that it takes a few days or even longer to realize that you’re learning something new.

I’ve had a rough week. Some would consider it to be a helluva week, compared to what some go through with cancer or the lost of a loved one, I would consider it to be a light week. But I got home, I was tired, physically, mentally and emotionally, emotionally. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, I just wanted to see the boys.

I got home, took a deep breath and just smiled at the boys. They each got down off the sofa and ran over to me and hugged me. The day started getting better right there. The day, which was close to 7pm, changed.

And as we are walking upstairs to put the boys down, they both looked at me and said Thank You for carrying up their trains to bed for them. And I just smiled, because really, I should be the one saying thank you to them.

You see, my life is better today because of those two little boys. My life has more purpose and focus than every before. My life today, is centered around raising those little boys to be good young men. My life is complete, because I have them.

So kids, thank you for being you.

Read more

Truly a 4 letter word that I can no longer wait to never use again. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, you can ready about it here, my wife and I started using the Dave Ramsey budgeting tool and honestly, I took a stab in the dark on a few things, i.e. Gas and Food, but I have to stay for our 1st month, I was able to notice a few trends:

1) I wasn’t that far off with my guess for Gas. I budgeted $400 and we spent $425.
2) I budgeted $500 for groceries and we spent $550.

Not bad, right? I had over budgeted on a few things, i.e. I built in $100 for Doctor visits, but we didn’t use that, so we were still within budget. But what really came from this budget, was a sense of responsibility and more importantly, encouragement, because not only did we stay within our budget, 3 other things came from our 1st month of budgeting:

1) We gave more in January than we did last year to charity.
2) We did not eat out as much, because we did over spend in our grocery spend, we were able to cook more and take more for our lunches, which also reduced our eating out and saved us $25 from what I had budgeted.
3) We paid an additional $250 last month towards paying off our debt.

DEBT is a really bad word and one that I would encourage everyone to focus on getting out of and never using the word again. I’ve had numerous conversations with a close friend that is in the Financial industry regarding the Dave Ramsey plan at the end of the day, I asked him one question and it was one that he couldn’t answer and here it is: “If I am able to get out of debt in 2 years, does it matter if I follow the principles of Dave Ramsey or someone else?” And he simply smiled and said no. My point is, I like Dave Ramsey’s plan, it makes sense to me and is giving me and my family a path to follow to get out of debt. We didn’t get in debt overnight and we had a lot of fun getting in debt, but it is going to take sacrifices to change those habits and get out of debt.

My wife and I have had a lot of conversations lately around debt, but more importantly our future and out future looks a lot more clearer and brighter knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Read more

Growing up in the south, we didn’t get snow very often, maybe a few inches a year and that was if we were lucky.
So snow was something that I always looked forward to seeing as a kid.

But now, as an adult, it stinks. There is nothing worse than shoveling out cars and sidewalks. Snow is supposed to be fun. Snow ball fights and snowmen, these are things that are fun about snow. Not shoveling.

Sometimes in life, we get sunny days. Sometimes we get rainy days. And sometimes, we get snow. And it looks like this winter, we have gotten a lot of snow and we still have several more days of it.

I miss the days of watching snow fall to the ground. I remember the anticipation, running to the window to see if it had started yet. Now, though I still love watching it fall, it is the after effects that I dread. But today, I watch it snow and love watching the boys stand at the window and point to it with excitement. I hope that they will grow up loving it the way that I do.

Read more