Backing off

Drove Luke to school the other day.


Nothing unusual about that, I drive him, his brother, and two other children to school just about every day. The unusual part was how I managed to suck up my need to force my view on the world.

Luke got into the car with a comic strip annual and proceeded to read it all the way to school. This from a kid who suffers from motion sickness and finds himself nauseous on any long car trip. The normal me would have lectured him on the link between reading in the car and the resulting motion sickness. But not the me in the car that morning. That me kept silent.

It drove me mad! My sense of order was profoundly out of balance. Here was something I knew for sure; reading in the car would make him nauseous. Somehow I managed to ignore this potential threat to my son’s wellbeing. I had hoped that there would be a lesson to be leant as the repeated discussions about reading in the car had obviously fallen on deaf ears. Now was his time to learn the lesson the hard way!

We got all the way to school without an inkling of nausea.

No hard lessons either.

It struck me that the problem could possibly be me. Trying to make my son see the world in the same way I see it, has been frustrating for both of us. It was insightful to see him do something his own way, which to all manner of my logic could not work and yet it did.

Perhaps all my son needs is a little more room. I just cannot believe that it could be this hard to provide it!

And he read all the way to school again today...

Too much to do in one life time

Another week has blurred past living memory...


Isabella is back on sleep training. She found herself in the bad habit of waking up every other hour at night for a bottle. Now, she is going bottle free and not loving it.

Luke came third in his weight division at the Boland Judo trials and made it onto the Boland team. The SA Nationals take place at the end of June.

Matt fought like a champ, again, and won his division. He is too young for the Nationals, and seems completely unfazed that he will not be representing his Province, just yet.

I was even asked to join the team as a master. Hmm, I will have to think about that...

Six different community projects ate up some of my time. Nothing major, but a number of steps in the right direction for all of them.

Read 2 fiction books and half a non-fiction book. It turns out that Luke has read over 4,000 pages during his first school term. Not bad for a 9 year old, especially when one considers that one of those books was the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’!

A massive fire in our nature reserve has wrecked havoc. A friend’s wooden house is still standing unscathed, even though the fire burnt everything around it! 15 other families were not as lucky...

I got stuck into work and have started to produce some deliverables for a new project.

I entered two running races. This is my year to break my 3 year old goal of running two 21km races in less than 100 minutes.

I fell upstairs whilst rushing to deal with an Isabella screaming session at night. I kicked the stair so hard that I spun around and landed my pelvis on the corner of the stair. It was a little painful, and now a little bruised...

Realisation has struck home that I have written very little that is meaningful of late. Time to find time, and do some thinking.

Easter is only a week away. I am looking forward to the time I will get to spend in prayer from Thursday onwards.

Sacrifice

I am amazed at how time flies.


Donna and I have just celebrated 13 years of marriage. Isabella has turned one. We have been in Cape Town for 7 years. I have been on my own, business wise, for almost 3 years. Matthew starts big school in just over a month.

I think everyone understands on some level how fast things move, yet we don’t seem to notice it. Perhaps not until Christmas shopping time when everyone comments on how the year has flown by. The same sentence usually ends with the wishing away of time as they explain how much they are looking forward to taking a break.

Last night we attended Luke’s junior preparatory prize giving. It was very sweet and all of the children were recognised for their strengths. I realised just how little time I have left with my lovely little boy before he turns into a raging hormone. This clock is ticking and there is no turning it back!

If I really want to make a difference in his life; and for that matter a difference in the lives of anyone around me, I have to do it now!

What that means is that I need to sacrifice some of the things I want and like to do. That time and energy, I need to invest in him. Of course there is a good chance I could carry on the way we always have, and he would turn out just fine.


But what if that just is not enough?

and time goes on...

Luke and I took the Beast down to the sea for a surf. The Beast decided to stay at the beach and watch the two of us frolic in the water. A good call! The waves were small but it was hard work to tow Luke out to backline after every wave that he caught. He still has not mastered the art of duck diving and hence the need for my muscle power. Unfortunately, my muscles were feeling somewhat depleted after a mere two and a half hours at the Judoka practising all of the throws required for my Brown belt grading in two weeks time.


Just last week, Matthew asked if he could go to surf lessons, and so we spent Thursday evening in sea together. It was a very short session, but then again the weather was abysmal. Perhaps one day, I will get to spend some really valuable time surfing with my two boys...

It was wonderful to be in the water again. To feel these tiny waves sliding under my feet. To watch Luke’s joy as he experienced the same sensations! Somewhere in all of the salt water, sea spray, and beautiful blue sky I finally made the decision to declutter my life. I have thought about it, blogged about, and talked about it, but now it is time to do something about it.

Just about every evening in my week is taken up by some or other activity. I hardly see my wife in the evenings anymore. That must change! I want to spend more time with my wife doing stuff, instead of us doing our own stuff at the same time. For that reason, Action Cricket, Action Soccer, and Forum are all activities that must cease immediately. Other activities like some of my charity and church stuff will need to be phased out. Especially the stuff that I attend but make no meaningful contribution. That is just a waste.

Hopefully I will just be left with the crèche as a charity project, judo and surfing as my sporting pursuits, and time for my wife and children.

And then perhaps I can try again to be the father and husband I really yearn to be!

Pushing too hard

I had a surf the other evening that left me with the feeling that one day I may actually learn to surf competently. It was a thrilling experience to taste what lies at the next level of my sport and know that I can do it!

The other day I towed Luke through the shore break and to the end of the long Vic Bay right. I was hoping that he would hop onto this wave and thoroughly enjoy the wonder of surfing a real running wave. This wave is of course filled with challenges, not least of them being the rocks onto which it breaks. Playing bump with them is not advised! After being very excited about this session, Luke suddenly was in tears. He was perturbed by the rocks and the size of some of the waves. Knowing Luke, I understood that he had just told himself he could not do it. From bitter experience I know that this is the time to pack up and head for home. I tried to push him into a couple more waves and he did his best to avoid surfing them. I got frustrated, telling him I was not going to bother again, which of course made matters worse. Then I got us out of there.

The whole experience got me to thinking about how far I should be pushing my children. It is easy to see the benefits of him growing in this sport that he loves, but how much of his growth needs to come from within rather than from demanding dad?

My six years of learning to surf has been driven by my desire to succeed, and the joy I take from exercise in the bosom of nature. It has also been a humbling learning curve that just does not seem to end. Luke’s incredible ability has been driven by natural talent. I know that at some point natural talent is not enough and one must put in some hard work to become really good. Luke is probably only a couple of weeks away from seeing the breakthroughs I saw the other evening. Something that is both thrilling and frustrating for me. I would have loved to take the shortcut route to where I am now! Seeing Luke squander that opportunity is frustrating for me.


By pushing him too hard, I run the risk of ruining something that could bring him great pleasure for the rest of his life. Then again, if he loves what he is doing, he is a winner already. Is there even a need to push him any further? Perhaps my role as a parent is to facilitate his environment so that he is able to get the most enjoyment out of his activities, and that is all.

When he decides he wants more, I will be there to support in any way I can. But he needs to make this decision himself!

Another fine parenting line!