Don’t get me wrong, I like the age gap.
Well, I used to.
Back when my oldest was 5 or 6 or 7, it made life with a little baby a little easier. The ability to trust my oldest to fend for himself from time to time - with (pre-approved) screen time and (pre-approved) snacks - made caring for a newborn/toddler a little less fraught. (It helped that there was a new cutie in town and therefore what happened to the old baby was suddenly much less important! You’re old news, kid!)
I’ve never had two toddlers at once but I can imagine the anxiety. And the chaos. And the noise! Having a slightly older kid who could be left alone without injuring himself was a huge perk.
Unfortunately, that slightly older kid is now 13, and the five year difference is a lot more significant than it used to be, and while I don’t have ‘two toddlers’ levels of noise, I do have ‘two kids of vastly different ages and interests and personalities who rarely get along’ levels of noise. (They spend so much time warning you about the baby years they forget to tell you how much harder kids get when they become people with their own wants—for snacks and videogames—and desires—for more snacks and more videogames.)
Now I have two kids who are frequently at odds, one of whom is a surly, increasingly antisocial teenager who wants little to do with anyone else and the other of whom is a sweet, social 8-year-old who wants most of all to hang out with his older brother.
What was once convenient is now a challenge, especially when it comes to spending time together as a family.
Anyone who is married knows how difficult it can be to get two people to agree on something as simple as what to have for dinner or what movie to watch, and guess what? When you add a child to the mix, that gets even harder. Two children? Even harder! Two children with significantly different interest? Harder still! Two children with significantly different interests and significantly different ages? (Add the fact that the 8yo’s interests are still fairly childish and the 13yo’s interests are THE STUPIDEST INTERESTS KNOWN TO MAN and it’s a recipe for disaster.)
Long story short, Friday night movie nights have become straight-up impossible.
It takes three hours to decide on a movie and someone always ends up angry. (And if you try to explain to your kids that the sign of a good compromise is everyone being a little unhappy, they just get even MORE unhappy. Stupid kids!) The oldest wants more adult stuff, most of which is not even close to appropriate for his little brother, and the 8-year-old wants something about dinosaurs or snakes or Titanic (he loves Titanic for some reason) and refuses to budge.
The easy thing to do is split up but that sort of takes the “family” out of “family time” which is not ideal for Mom and Buried, and so the arguing continues until we choose something nobody actually wants to watch and that often gets abandoned halfway through (which is when I put the time in Miller Time).
Have I mentioned we haven’t even chosen dinner yet? The conflict here has less to do with age and more to do with my kids complaining about pizza. WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT PIZZA? It’s delicious, it has all the major food groups, and best of all, it’s convenient! Everyone loves pizza!
Except my kids. Okay, that’s not entirely true. The actually like pizza fine, they just love arguing more than they love pepperoni. And in their defense, we do have pizza at least once a week (which I think qualifies us for Greatest Parents in the World status), and sometimes they get sick of it and we’re forced to pivot.
The problem is that when it comes to food, my 8-year-old is the world’s pickiest eater. He primarily eats five things: chicken nuggets, hot dogs, mac and cheese, fries, and dessert, which actually works out, because it often means we’ll give him one of those just to shut him up, and then we can eat our own thing separately. The other problem is my my 13yo!
He’s not nearly as picky, but he is much more hungry. As a growing teenager boy, he has an enormous appetite—when he remembers to look up from Fortnite—but lately he only wants to eat one thing: the most expensive cheeseburger in his proximity! Which isn’t happening unless we decide to torture ourselves and bring the kids out to eat (serenity now!), so on family movie nights he’s usually forced to eat whatever Mom and Dad are having, which means he complains the entire time even as he scarfs it down because the only thing 13yo boys do more of than eat is cause pain in the ass.
Eventually everyone eats something and a movie gets (half-)watched, even if it’s just the one Mom and Buried and I throw on after we’ve kicked the bickering kids into another room. Then a day or two passes and we count the days until our next Family Movie Night, somehow forgetting the trauma of the previous week’s bonding session the same way the five years between our kids made us forgot the turmoil that comes with having a new one.
This is how the human race survives. For better or worse. (If we evolve past our love of pizza, it’s definitely worse.)
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Father’s Day Approaches
A few weekends ago, we held a little scrimmage, a cute little dress rehearsal. An exhibition game, really. Because as well-deserved and delightful as your Mother’s Day brunch/picnic/spa/hotel room alone experience was, it’s time for the real deal: Father’s Day!
We’re not messing around anymore. Moms may give you the silent treatment for a blown Mother’s Day but you blow Father’s Day and it’s a quick jaunt to the cigarrette store and I promise you he won’t be making a round trip! But don’t worry, I’m here to help you celebrate Dad right!
Put away those ties and socks and golf clubs, don’t bother buying the silly greeting cards about farting or the ironic World’s Best Dad coffee mug or the same old bottle of bourbon (actually still buy him the bourbon), and bust out the big guns: a copy of my book, Dad Truths, and a chance to win a Yeti cooler prize pack!
Kill two birds with one stone by buying the dad in your life a copy of my hilarious new book about the pitfalls - and occasional perks? - of being a parent and immediately sharing the proof of purchase to enter the big man into the sweepstakes for a shot at a bunch of Yeti goodies and Dad Truths swag.
Sure, not everyone can win the cooler set or the Dad Truths coozie but who cares! Even if you lose, the lovable dad in your life will have a copy of my funny, easy-to-read new book that finally speaks the truth about parenting, offers zero advice but plenty of encouragement, and doesn’t have nearly as many swears as my Instagram in case your dad is like mine and constantly scolds you about your use of vulgarity.
Consider the lack of f-bombs my gift to you, Pops! Enter below!