![[E-card] Sleep or Solitude?](https://dadandburied.com/wp-content/themes/llorix-one-lite/images/no-thumbnail-mobile.jpg)
07
Jan
Category: stress
05
Jan
My Top Ten Posts of 2014
If you follow my Facebook page, this might be a bit redundant for you. But after two weeks of drinking and eating and drinking and drinking, I barely have the energy to keep my eyes open, let alone write a new post. So I’m milking this “year in review” thing one more time.
2014 was a good year for Dad and Buried. I moved back to Brooklyn after 18 lackluster months below the Mason-Dixon line (they do things differently down there), got a few sponsorship opportunities with which I annoyed half my readers, and increased my exposure by infuriating people who read the Huffington Post.
So to ease myself back into the swing of things, I’m kicking off 2014 with a list of my ten most popular blog posts of 2014.
19
Dec
What Parents Want for Christmas
Growing up, when I asked my parents what they wanted for Christmas, they always made a (sad) joke out of it. They knew my brothers and I didn’t have any money, so they didn’t bother asking for anything real, like a new car, or a box of Cuban cigars, or a new furniture set.
Instead, they used Santa the way someone might use a genie: by asking my brothers and me for things that were abstract, theoretical, and totally unattainable. Just to make a point. They’d make requests like, “for you and your brothers to get along” or “a little peace and quiet” or “for you to behave.” Just totally insane shit that would never happen in a million years.
Now that I’m a dad, nobody ever asks me what I want. But if they did? I’d reply exactly the same way as my mom and dad. Because I was wrong; they weren’t joking.
The intangible, imaginary stuff really is what parents want for Christmas.
10
Dec
Parenting Reward Chart
A few days ago, we procured a reward chart for our son.
The hope is that by incentivizing his behavior we can train Detective Munch into a decent, reasonable person instead of the feral four-year-old he currently is. Our typical repertoire of threats is neither working nor healthy (nor really stopping because I’m terrible at this new “reward” method!)
So far, it’s been going okay. If he brushes his teeth (without a fight), or goes to bed (without a fight), or eats his dinner (without a fight), or gets dressed for school (without a fight), he can earn rewards like dessert, and TV, and not getting yelled at by a dad who is at the end of his rope.
It got me thinking about what a chart for parents would look like. So I made one.
09
Dec
Performance Anxiety
Before I became a parent, I didn’t know if I could handle it.
I had never even held a child, let alone changed a diaper, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I had what it takes. Was there a switch that would flip when I saw his face for the first time? Was the ability to care for a child something hard-coded in my biology that would suddenly materialize when my son was born?
Yes and no. I was lucky to love Detective Munch right from the start (though I can totally understand the adjustment period some new parents weather; there’s not much there there at the beginning!), but Morpheus wasn’t around to instantly upload the Parenting program into my skull. I just took it one day at a time – I still do – and slowly but surely adapted to my new role, and my new reality.
There are still plenty of aspects of parenting that I’m insecure about, plenty of situations I have yet to experience, and I have no real idea how I’ll react when confronted with them.