Six Ways Kids Ruin Your Life

Six Ways Kids Ruin Your Life

Having kids changes your life in many ways, and not always good ones.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to vent about the irritating ways my son’s existence has forced me to alter my own and to show the world that having kids doesn’t need to change everything. Yes, becoming a parent definitely changes capital-E Everything, but it doesn’t have to change little-e everything.

So far, Mom and Buried and I have done a pretty good job of maintaining some semblance of our old lives even as the constant, daily, inescapable presence of a (now) toddler has forced us to make certain adjustments. Certain inconvenient and annoying adjustments.

We’ve been doing okay. But we haven’t been able to avoid every headache. Because kids ruin your life.

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Eye of the Toddler: Using Your Kids to Stay in Shape

Eye of the Toddler: Using Your Kids to Stay in Shape

Kids are stress-inducing.

Unfortunately, they’re also time-consuming, which makes it difficult to alleviate your stress, and stay healthy, via the time-tested method of exercise. If you don’t have time, you probably aren’t going to bother shelling out for a gym membership you’ll rarely use. And good luck with trying to use that treadmill you bought during his nap; if there’s a louder piece of equipment this side of the drum-kit my in-laws bought my son, I haven’t come across it.

What’s a parent to do?!

Don’t fret; I have a solution! Like Rocky in Siberia (actually, it was filmed in Krasnogourbinsk, but come on), you have to work with what you’ve got. In this case, what you’ve got are kids.

Luckily, they’re even better than a Bowflex!

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Christmas Heave

Christmas Heave

My wife worships Christmas.

Once the Thanksgiving dishes are done, it’s all Yule all the time. Nothing but Christmas music in the car, nothing but Christmas movies on the television, nothing but Christmas shopping on the weekends.

And she was like this BEFORE we had the kid. Now that he’s here, and he’s alive enough to begin to understand Santa and presents and cookies and the tree and all that, not only has Mom and Buried’s Christmas-loving resolve strengthened, but I no longer have a Scroogey cane to stand on.

Especially on Christmas Eve, when there’s work to do!

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How To Control Your Children

How To Control Your Children

Earlier this week I wrote about the ways my son is my puppet master. He often literally controls my body, forcing me to watch what he wants to watch, go where he wants to go, dance when he wants to dance, etc. It can be frustrating.

But I’m an adult and he’s a toddler. So while he gets a fair amount of leeway, since he’s both the cutest child of all time and the likely future of humanity (or its ruin, as indicated by the shadow he’s casting in this photo), he is really only able to control me when I let him control me.

Otherwise, I control him.

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The Papa Master: Five Ways My Kid Controls Me

The Papa Master: Five Ways My Kid Controls Me

Nobody wants their kids to run their lives.

Mom and Buried and I are doing a pretty good job of preventing our little tyrant from eliminating all of our free time (i.e., our drinking) and running roughshod all over our social lives (i.e., our drinking with friends), but, fantastic parents that we are, we still spend a lot of time with our son, doing what he wants. Or what we think he needs. Or what we think he’s saying he wants (he still doesn’t do English so good).

And while we do our best to have separate identities other than just “Mom” and “Dad,” there are still times he has control of our lives. And, in some cases, our bodies.

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