Category: raising kids

two-face and smiling darkside

September 7th, 2019

September 7, 2019

9:01 am

They walk by without saying good morning, even if I’ve said it first. They sit in front of the TV, a tablet, their phone and let the dog or cat eat from their abandoned cereal or snack bowl. Hey…wait a minute. When did they start eating on the couch?

There are clothes and bath towels piled high on the bathroom floor. Bookbags, lunch bags, and backpacks on the dining room floor. Toys, books, shoes, headphones, and stuffed animals on the staircase.

In short, there’s stuff everywhere. Every single day. It gets picked up. Eventually. Usually after three times of asking, two times telling, then finally a shout.

“Kids, it’s time to get this placed cleaned up!”

Then come the groans. The moans.

The teenage one—two-face, I like to call him because I never know what kid I’m going to get—he’s the smartest kid in the world. Just ask him. He’s so smart that he cannot stop himself from responding to me and my wife with smartassed comments. Sometimes he’s so smart with his responses that he takes us down long, twisty confusing rabbit holes. Just this week, asking him to stop stomping around the house when he’s simply walking from room to room led to his broken explanation of my alignment with forces involved in the oppression of the disenfranchised. I took his phone away. Then mine went missing. I was afraid to ask him if he’d taken it because I could have very well left it anywhere. I found it the next day, on the bathroom floor next to the toilet. I want to say it was him, but I’m not sure.

The ten-year old—smiling darkside, I like to call her (but definitely not to her face)—scares me sometimes. Cute and bubbly on the surface, she’s ready with wit that cuts, bites, and slices so quickly that I’m never sure what’s just happened. Did she just say that? I’ll ask my wife as my little princess runs up to her room and slams the door. I follow her up sometimes and stand outside her door. I think about barging in, but I’m pretty sure I’d see her fashioning a shank or stabbing a voodoo doll with pins. One that looks like me.

Raising kids ain’t easy. If you say it is, you’re probably not a good parent. Well, maybe you THINK you’re a good parent, but you are probably one of the people that cut me off in line while dropping off my kids at school. Or you’re in one of the NO PARKING spots. Or better yet, you’re so much better than everyone else, you make your own spot. Showing your kids how it’s okay to be impatient, stupid, a bully. I realize we don’t have to look far to see this kind of behavior—just look at the so-called leaders of this world—but keep in mind, you have taken on one of the most important roles there have ever been. Being Mom. Being Dad. None of us are perfect. Our kids aren’t perfect. And striving for perfection is senseless.

Does it bother me that my kids don’t always listen? That they don’t always pick up after themselves? That at times I think they have somehow subverted power and are actually in control? Certainly. But this back and forth, this everyday routine of never knowing what you’re going to get except for stuff strewn about the house is incredible, moving, and I can never ask for more.

Do good today. Spend time with your family.

~ KJ
my soccer field, my trampoline

September 3rd, 2019

Writing another book. Most of it’s been written. Only need to do the hard part, which is go through it story by story, line by line, word by word to make sure it sings, it speaks, it streaks. That it does what it’s supposed to do. Even then there are no guarantees. It could fall flat. Be another stack of papers I stuff away in a desk drawer. But that’s okay. Getting the shit out gets me closer to the good. Ten pages of nothing usually yields one page of something. This book will be about 80 pages, so be prepared for eight pretty decent pages. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Once this thing is done, I want to have a signing in Alpena. Maybe at Thunder Bay Winery. The one I had there a few years back for CUTTING TEETH went well. I like wine. I like books. I like people that like wine and books.

∞

The wind is crazy. Full of energy tonight. Big bulky clouds floated across the sky as I watched my daughter practice jumps and flips and spins on the trampoline. The enormous, billowy monsters had orange and pink bellies as they crept over the horizon. Thunder grumbled. But my daughter—growing up and away from me each day—kept at it. Springing around even as sprinkles turned into big cold drops.

“We can try again tomorrow,” she said.

∞

I got to watch my boy play soccer tonight. It was only practice. I was a hundred yards away, parked in the back parking lot of the high school. The sun was blinding as it fell down into my line of sight. But I squinted. Pulled the sun visor down in the car and watched.

My pulse quickens when his foot touches the ball. My adrenaline rushes when he kicks his body into high gear and blasts down the field.

The kid is kinetic. Fluid and quick. I know, I know, he IS my son and I am biased, but seeing him out there on the field makes me happy because I can feel how much he loves it.

I can’t wait for this weekend when his season begins.

∞

It’s funny.

Nights like this. When I haven’t got much to say, but I know that I need to do this. Just pound away at the keys for a little bit.

Get clear. Refocus. Release.

That’s why I do it, I guess. Why I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.

These letters. This punctuation. They are my soccer field. They are my trampoline.

~ KJ
summer vacation

August 25th, 2019

sun
Copyright @ Brooke Stevens, 2019

Handprints on windows. Fingerprints on the fridge. A pair of wet socks in the sink. Cereal bowl and spoon sitting on the couch. The smart TV shows THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL to the dog. She’s curled up in a big pink blanket, surrounded by a dozen stuffed animals, and has a purple bow on her head. She wags her nub.

Lights are on in the bedrooms, the hallways, the writing room, the den.

There are dollops of bright blue toothpaste on the bathroom countertop. Water drops splashed across the mirror. A toilet that hasn’t been flushed all day. I hit the handle, down it goes.

Strands of toilet paper are wrapped around the railing of the back staircase like garland.

There’s a bird’s nest in a bucket in the mudroom. The garage door is wide open. My hammer, two screwdrivers, a saw, eight rusty railroad spikes and a pile of driftwood are on the floor.

Outside, the garden hose snakes across the driveway and floods the flowerbed. I shut it off and walk to the backyard where a yellow sweatshirt and more socks—one red and one green—hang on the fence. The gate is open.

There’s a tent set up. Soccer balls, books, Tupperware, and pots and pans are spread throughout the grass.

And there she is. Ten years old. Flat on her back on the trampoline.

“Hi, Daddy!”

She’s smiling, moving her arms and legs—making a snow angel, I guess—under shapeshifting clouds and a sun that promises no end.

~ K.J.
color

July 9th, 2019

We walk past the boat harbor. Sailboats bob in the bay. Purple and yellow flowers line the sidewalk as we pass the water treatment plant. They are not enough to take the mind and nose away from the stench, but the smell doesn’t bother us. It’s something we have come to know as home. I think of the waste—from people and pets, from all that we consume—running through pipes and filters. Water getting clean again, running back through more filters and pipes. Running out of hoses. Filling glasses, bathtubs, and ice cube trays. Drip, drip, dripping from leaky faucets and seeping into our dreams at night.

“Look! Look!” Oogie shouts, pointing toward a flock of herring gulls soaring overhead. They move over the harbor and the playground, past the bandshell toward Lake Huron.

“Pretty,” my wife says.

And it is.

All of it is.

The shimmering waves. The squeaky swings as kids sway back and forth, laughing and shrieking. The big ugly mountain of salt kept near the river for the winter that’s months out but getting closer every day. The crumbling armory that’s been turned into a place for laser tag. And my wife and daughter searching every milkweed along the river for caterpillars on the edge of the city mowing line.

They find four tonight.

“We need fresh stuff to eat,” my wife says. Not to me, but to the two fat colorful creatures she has on a leaf in her hand.

“Yes!” Oogie cheers. “These guys are hungry!” She is beaming, carrying two caterpillars in her small hands.

A monarch butterfly rises from a lilac bush when we are about three blocks from home. We are silent but happy as it follows us as if watching to make sure that we’ll do good. When it is satisfied that we mean well, it flies off toward our neighbor’s garden.

When we get home, I mix a drink. It’s time to unwind. I will sit on the front porch and listen to this small town settle its way to sleep. But first, I look into the world my wife and daughter have worked so hard to create. Their butterfly house. The place where caterpillars eat and poop and eat and poop and grow and grow until they know it’s time to climb to the top, form a J, then tremble and shake themselves into a smooth, shiny chrysalis.

Last year, it gave birth to nineteen monarchs. My wife and daughter named them all. We only lost one. I’m not sure of the name. Something like Stan or Earl. Definitely a male. He rose up to fly away, made a wide loop out over the yard then came right back and landed on the porch in front of our dog. Our cute, harmless Buggle that apparently thought it was some sort of treat. She chomped little Stan or Earl up into bits, spit him out, then cowered between my legs. I moved quickly to pick up the pieces, sure that my daughter would be devasted.

“Aw,” she said. “It’s okay, Dad. He probably wouldn’t have made it far anyway.”

“Survival of the fittest,” my wife added.

So far this year, there are fifteen waiting to make the change. Nine chrysalises and six caterpillars. They haven’t given them official names yet, but they have a list. Like parents choosing possible names for their unborn baby. Waiting as patiently as possible for that new and incredible life to have its one chance to wake this world to color again.

~ K.J.
Parenting 2019

May 15th, 2019

You’re not parenting. You’re giving in.

I’m not sure if it’s laziness or delusional behavior, but the way you’re doing it is wrong. Unless your kid can pull herself up by her bootstraps and make herself better because of some intrinsic values given to her by God, magic, or happenstance, she’s probably going to repeat the shitty pattern you’ve laid out before her.

Pop-Tarts, Mountain Dew, and candy bars.

Pajama pants in public, 33 extra pounds, and selfishness.

Throwing your weight around like you matter.

You fucking dummy.

We are on a ball of dirt, whirling through space and time, and you actually believe you’re special? That you’re somebody? A force to be reckoned with that deserves respect?

Get over yourself.

You cling to people that support your thoughts because you’re afraid of growth, change, and accountability.

Blame the government. Blame your neighbors. Blame your genes, your family, your friends.

The issue here isn’t everyone else.

It’s you.

Parking like an asshole.

Cutting in line.

Putting people down so you feel better.

Parenting via fats, carbs, wifi, and stupidity.

Dragging your kid down, down, down.

Burying her in layers and layers that will shield her from ever having the opportunity to live the life of beauty she was meant to have.

All because you’re just another mouth-breather.

Afraid to rise up, do the work that’s important, put on your big-boy pants, and take a stand.
nice or not

April 10th, 2019
nice or not Download

It’s so early, but so late.

I wouldn’t have this perspective if I’d had more to eat or less to drink. Nothing would make sense, and these words would not fall into place like this had I not gone through all that I have in my life.

And I haven’t gone through much.

At least that’s what they tell me.

I am after all, white.

And male.

And semi-privileged. Which means my parents worked their asses off to make sure I had what I needed to succeed—food, shelter, and an insurmountable amount of love.

But I don’t want to get into the haves and have nots. I did that once before—writing about riots and the poor decisions people make when they are oppressed and frustrated—and a woman said that she felt sorry for me. I didn’t understand, she said. I couldn’t understand, she said. I was ignorant, she said. All because I mentioned that the issues we have can be boiled down to something simple—you’re either nice or you’re not.

My kids get it. Other kids get it too. They don’t see color or history or gender or whatever other labels we do. They just see good. Unless their parents have poisoned them. Making them see what they want them to.

You know who you are. Devils.

We do everything we can to complicate this life. Create issues that don’t exist. Blame people for their ignorance and try to push them into some category that says—indirectly, of course—that they are less than others.

But that’s not true.

The overweight fella collecting carts at Walmart is not all the different from the man loading his cart with organic veggies, cage free eggs, protein shakes, and booze.

The elderly man offering savings in the form of a coupon-filled flier at the entrance of Meijer is not so different than the lawyer and his family buying candles, chocolate, and video games.

We are all in this together.

Human beings on a big ball of dirt and water whirling through space.

But we don’t want to break down to the basics.

We want to be special. To be heard.

We are so selfish that we believe it’s early, but late.

We believe that our perspective has the power to shape. That if we have less to eat or more to drink everything will make sense. Words will fall into place and finally we will express all we’ve gone through in this life.

We are ignorant, they say. All because we believe the issues we face can be boiled down simplicity—either you’re nice or you’re not.
- KJ
magic stuff

December 3rd, 2018

December 3, 2018

We’ve got the cold wrapping up all around us. It’s time for long johns, parkas, and insulated boots. Trekking through snow and slush. Penguin-stepping over ice. Or dodging puddles. It is Michigan, after all. Twenty-seven degrees right now at 7:32 pm but it could be 45 by tomorrow morning. Even with all the gadgetry, computer models, and confident weathermen and women, we never know what we’re gonna get. We can predict and assume, extrapolate and forecast all we want, but the truth is we just don’t know. Try as we might to make sense of this world, there are factors—magic stuff, I like to think—beyond our reach, our science, and our beliefs. But that’s just me. Forty-five years old and realizing more and more each day how little I understand and know.

~ K.J.
ticking

September 25th, 2018

(this is a work of fiction)

Getting too old for these crazy things.

Polishing off a bottle of wine at 10:14 pm, well after the kids have gone to bed.

Too locked into the norm to believe I can write with the best of them—Stephen King, Margaret Attwood, the writers for Ozark.

But I have time left.

It is ticking.

I hear it sometimes over the ringing and clicking and voices, as I waver between the now I’m dissatisfied with and the tomorrow I want. Well aware of the colossal mistakes I’ve made.

Ignorance. Stupidity. Hatred. Foolishness.

Simply being unaware of the power we hold and should honor as living things.

I’ve written lots of stories.

A few poems.

And I have plenty of journal entries that will need to be burned before they are read by anybody but my wife and my kids.

They already know how flawed I am.

Mood swings.

A tendency to drift off from the moment.

“It’s like you’re never really here,” my wife said to me one night.

We were eating dinner and having drinks at The Courtyard.

I had been out of the hospital about a week. We had some extra money—somehow, I managed to save—and so, we were celebrating. I was alive. I wasn’t in jail. And now that I had come back from the dead, I was seeing things.

It started with the all-too-familiar feeling of somebody over my shoulder, watching me.

Then it escalated.

I was seeing bits and pieces. Moments of lives that weren’t mine. The woman in front of me in the checkout line at Walmart. Her husband dead, but right there beside her, encouraging her not to buy the brisket. He’d eaten too much meat. Year after year after year. And now, because of an exploded heart, he was dead.

It moved on to others.

The girl working at Dairy Queen making cones and sundaes and Blizzards, all while her Grandma that died of throat cancer stood beside her.

Coworkers at the coffee pot. Their dead relatives hovering.

And family…oh, the family.

But oddly enough, the people closest to me didn’t want to hear.

Except my wife.

She wanted to know everything.

And so, I told her.

Every time I sensed a something, I shared it. But the more a person entertains certain thoughts, the more those thoughts come alive.

They begin to kick and scream. They want to be seen.

Heard.

Understood.

And when a man is expected to understand the more of everything that waits patiently below the surface, he begins to realize…

He’s too old for crazy things.

Like wine at 10:38 pm. Well after his wife and kids have gone to bed, and he is certain he’ll never be able to write with the best of them because there isn’t much time left.

And it has been ticking.

Barely perceptible over the ringing and clicking and voices.

Just another man. Wavering between the now I’m dissatisfied with and the tomorrow I want. Well aware of all the colossal mistakes I’ve made.

~ K.J.
something unsavory

August 20th, 2018

I don’t want to let things roll off my back. I want to react. To feel, to fight, to see, and believe. I don’t want to be in the background waiting my turn. I don’t want to stand by and listen as the ignorant and selfish try to pull us down and backward. I want to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. I’ve been working hard for far too long to fall into step and follow someone else’s lead. Too much time has passed, and my path is deep in the making.

There’s a couple of lines in my mind tonight. From a movie called The Switch. Jason Bateman and Jeff Goldblum are talking, and Jeff has this wonderful, truthful line about what drives a man sometimes.

It goes something like this: “I’ve told you about hungry dogs in the cellar. You know, if you don’t feed them, don’t acknowledge them, at some point they’re gonna get out somehow and do something unsavory.”

I felt like that this evening. Sitting on the couch. Enjoying a little TV time with my wife and kids. Happy to be home and together and relaxing, but at the same time teetering. Feeling that I just needed to get out. Get away. Have a little time by myself to decompress, unwind, get centered again. There are times, for whatever reason, that a man doesn’t feel appreciated. That he doesn’t feel wanted. That he feels absolutely alone even when he is in the best company he’ll ever keep. I don’t know why it happens. I can never predict when it will happen. But it does. And then, I get all twisted up and stupid because I feel guilty for feeling. I feel bad for not wanting to sit and smile and be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. After all, the moments I have with my wife and kids will never be repeated.

Not in dream. Memory. Not even in the afterlife. This is it. All we’ll ever have.

But I have to remember that there’s a me in all of this. In all we have. And maybe it’s not a bad thing to get away sometimes. Half an hour in a hot upstairs writing room. Cup of wine. Fingers on the keys. Little bits of inspiration all around me—family pictures, books waiting to be read, an old Woodstock typewriter and all of its ghosts, haunting me. Hunting and pecking or typing in a mad rush of fluidity. Strangers all around that I hear but can’t see.

Maybe it’s best I let it all roll off my back. I shouldn’t react or feel or fight or see. I just need to believe that patience is the key and that waiting silently in the background is as brave as a man can be.

Sooner or later, I’ll get my chance to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. And when I do, I’ll do whatever I can to make my own path and take the lead.

~ K.J.
Kids, look up.

August 18th, 2018

8/18/18—For my kids.

You gotta look up. Look forward. At the sky. If you stare too much at the ground beneath your feet, you miss out. On smiling strangers. Monarchs bouncing through the air. Clouds that look like animals. Maybe something from last night’s dream.

It’s easy to miss out on opportunity, to put your tail between your legs and mosey along meekly if you are not observing, listening, open for more. Don’t be afraid of getting hurt, losing your way, or failing. Mistakes are for learning. Those that don’t understand that, those focused on perfection, are the most flawed of all. But don’t hold them in poor regard or avoid them. Embrace them. Empathize.

Saturday morning bells from the church down the street. It’s nine a.m. and counting. Seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to weeks and months to…

Is there any time at all? What’s this insatiable desire we have with putting numbers to everything? Clocks and codes. Sizes and calorie count. Weight and height. Cell phone numbers, serial numbers, social security numbers, and those most wanted numbers of all—those that land on our paychecks. How did we get so brainwashed? So controlled.

Ever think about how hard it is to think for yourself? Probably not. Isn’t that part of our problem? We have this magnificent existence with heart and brain and gut and spirit, yet we give it up without much care if it means we will meet someone’s approval. Kind words. A compliment. Our name on a plaque, respected in meetings, or put down in black-and-white print. Shouldn’t the one thing we simply need be our own approval? A recognition earned when we finally find the way to live within the many fibers of this daily existence without losing our happiness.

Some people don’t understand that, and never will. But give them the benefit of the doubt.

It is possible to be a devoted husband and dad but speak honestly about the trials, oddities, and outright foolishness of marriage and family. It’s possible to be best friends if you accept each other’s ugliness. A person can be an excellent employee for a gas station, a non-profit, or a billion-dollar company day-in-and-day-out while questioning capitalism, the thirst for oil, and voting whatever way they damn well please. And a person can do these things while being an artist, an engineer, an entomologist, a doctor, a dreamer, or a drummer in a band. Don’t get caught up in the game the world plays at pitting one side against the other, and don’t look down on others. We are meant to be multidimensional. We are meant to question and learn and share and think and feel. We aren’t here for anybody else, but us. And the trick is that everybody else and everything we do helps make us…well, US.

You can be one thing to one person and another thing to another. And you can do both of them well. Don’t get pigeonholed. Don’t ever become someone’s bitch, even if you have to play the role for a while. That’s what this life is about. Playing roles. Doing what it takes through the art of compromise a little here and a little there without totally compromising the fiber of your being. Remember, it’s quite all right to bend—just never, ever break.

You gotta look up, kids. Look forward. At the sky. If you stare too much at the ground beneath your feet, you’ll miss out. On smiling strangers. Monarchs bouncing through the air. Clouds that look like animals. Maybe something from last night’s dream.

~ K.J