EP26 – Parenting Is Like Playing A Game Of Dodgeball

On this episode, I want to tell you how being a parent in and business owner and being a husband, how it's like playing dodgeball?

So welcome back to this episode of, I don't know Jack about parenting, where I want to talk about dodgeball the game. I don't know if you've ever played the game dodge ball seen the movie dodgeball. But, the game is where you run as fast as you can grab a ball, you are trying to attack the other people by hitting them with a ball while simultaneously trying to dodge the opponents from hitting you with a dodgeball is complete in utter chaos. And I want to share with you have a mini clip of a version of what it's like to be apparent in my household because it feels like a game of dodgeball. This particular week.

My wife had taken vacation

We just got back from an extended vacation with the kids. Right. And, and when I say vacation, it's just away from school. It was one of those breaks, uh, at the time that this drops it won't be simultaneous, right. I prerecord these way in advance so that if I ever get a backlog, if it makes sense. So, uh, um, I'm trying to record podcasts, as they are dropping daily. Um, we, I just came off a long extended break. The kids were finally about to go back to school. My wife had taken vacation. I work from home. So having a house full of people is not conducive to doing the work while still celebrating, you know, holidays and the vacation. So I was super excited. Uh, it was a Friday and I'm like, oh, this is the, this is the weekend, this last weekend. And the both kids are going back to school.

My wife is going back to work. I can recreate my schedule, get back on track and really attack the year. Until the baby got sick right? And the baby, ends up on Friday, feeling so well that evening goes in and has 102 temperature on Saturday, Sunday the same. He does a little bit of projectile vomiting. I don't know Jack about parenting, but I know this. I can't send my kid to school with 102 temperature, no matter how much I would love to have my house back. So what happens Monday? I have to once again re adjust my schedule. The wife goes off to work. I take the little one to the doctor for the doctor to say has a 97.6 temperature, no fluids in the ears. Looks like it's something viral is eating us. They still not quite eating right. And they go, well, you know, just monitor him, but he could go to school tomorrow. Woo Hoo!,

Fantastic news to me. Right?

But that doesn't help me on Monday where I have a one year old who's in and out of naps, still a little bit of cranky and not eating and home with me. So we tend to that Tuesday's a fantastic day. Right? The kids are going back to school, can't wait. A wife is, they're setting up my schedule. I look at my schedule on my calendar and what does it say? Midday? Smack Dab in the middle of my day.

Oh, oh.

There's a furniture delivery and there's a three hour window and I tend to work in my office, which is a finished basement inside the house. And I really can't hear the delivery guys from here. So I'm going to have to work from upstairs, which means, you know, no recordings. Uh, you know, I can do phone calls, I could do my clerical work, I could coach my clients, I could do all of those things. But the things that I wanted to get accomplished that day, uh, it was just throwing a wrench in my day, not to mention they got here and they were here for two hours in and out of the house. Asking a ton of questions really just threw off the day. Wednesday was a miracle. Both kids in school, everything's good. The wife decides that she's gonna take a day to work from home.

Let me explain something to you

Her boss allows her to do that every so often. And it was a dream day as I got to come down to the office at 8:00 in the morning and I really didn't pop my head back up because the wife took care of picking up the kids and things of that nature until a little after 6:00 PM, which for me, let me explain something to you. You know, there's something about work for me and people say, Oh, you work from home. I love to have a 10 hour work day like that, or virtually nonstop poking my head up to grab something to eat. Other than that, just being at my desk and doing what I love to do, which is help people, empower people, make videos, research blogs, listen to other people's podcasts, come up with material to share with my listeners, my viewers, uh, ways to empower and help my clients.

I just love, love, love helping other people and that's why I create this podcast. So I had a phenomenal day of, of being down here working and then going up and when I have a day like that where it's nonstop and I really get to deep dive into work, it really makes for an amazing evening of our evening routine. Listen, I don't know Jack about parenting and the reason I will adjust my schedule because I'm an adult and I'm capable of adjusting.

Make sure and help the wife

I've have been doing it my entire life on the fly no matter what. But kids do not adjust well. So I will adjust my schedule. Really. I don't know much about parenting. I don't know Jack about parenting, but I know that kids operate better on a schedule. So when I can go up at 6:00 and it make sure and help the wife with dinner and the kids, the baby goes down at 6:30, like normal and my son is in his bath and shower time and reading books times by seven, 8:00, 8:30, he's in bed by 9:00.

He's out like a light. When we're able to go into that evening routine without a hiccup, it's a beautiful thing. And most nights my wife and I are great at this. The evening routine stays the same. We adjust the kids. Routine stays the same. We adjust. So Thursday, another fantastic day got to work, minimal interruptions eight to five. This particular day with minimal interruptions. It was great because I was like this is fantastic because I added on my workload because I'm taking a mini trip on Friday, which is tomorrow as of this recording.

It's just chaos being a parent

And I'm like, I'm gathering my things. Did this recording is actually a super late night. This actually early Friday morning is, it's 12:30 at night as I record this thing because I was like, it's just chaos being a parent, but how do we juggle, right? How do we juggle everything we do because I talk a lot on here about parenting and how we can manage or how I don't know or, or, or give you tidbits or things I'm doing, but it's about management of time and because I'm going on a trip in the morning, I had a, uh, moved a lot of my clients over to Wednesday and Thursday, which was amazing, right?

Because the wife stayed home Wednesday and Thursday. I able to have an absolutely beautiful day. My wife comes home this evening and she says, I don't feel well. For my wife to say she doesn't feel well being. She doesn't feel well, which means pending tomorrow I may have to cancel my one day trip. I was going to do a 24 hour trip.

She can't deal with a one and a seven year

And I would be back, but I can't leave my sick wife to manage two kids get to and from school. Obviously everything that entails that some people, some single parents out there and be like, I do that every day. It's not how it works in my household. We help each other. Right. And as much as I want to go on this trip that I've planned for months and months, if my wife is not feeling 100 percent, if she can't deal with a one and a seven year old bouncing all over her on her own. I may have to cancel the trip in the morning. When she went to bed. She was a trooper. She says, you're going on your trip. I'm going to be fine. You just need a good night's rest and I'm going to be going to work tomorrow and you're going to go on your trip and I'll see you on Saturday night.

And I'm like, just, I just don't see it. I didn't talk much about parenting in this podcast, but I did talk about playing dodgeball, dodging it all things and bobbing and weaving it. That's the life of a parent. Somebody, uh, my wife said something earlier tonight. What was it? Someone had asked her if she had done something. She says, I have two kids, I don't have my own life anymore. And some people would hear that and say, you know, you, you need to make time for yourself. You work hard, you do these things, the kids should not control your life. And my wife and I had children at a later age, right. We made a conscious decision... Individually because we weren't together all that. We weren't going to have kids until we were ready to have kids. We lived our life. We did all the fun things.

We are completely okay

We did. We both did a ton of traveling. We both explored a lot of things. We both excelled and advanced in our careers. So when we had kids, we both agreed that we would, um, we were established, right? So we would put everything that we had on our life was not our life anymore. We, we are completely okay with not going out as a couple. We go out as a family. We are perfectly okay with having a little bit of time for us together. Um, and some people would say, no, you need to build the marriage and do spend quality time, but not the way a lot of other couples may see quality time. Like we love it. And every time we have done this, every time we go out for an evening or every time we have a drop the kids off at a sitter or let the neighbors watch them or something like that.

Within an hour or two, we're like, are you ready to go home? Yeah, we're ready to go home. We want to be home with our kids. We absolutely love our home. We absolutely love our kids. And uh, you know, that's who we want to do. But dodgeball seems to be the game that is played for parents because we're, we're things are getting thrown at us, but yet we have to respond and throw things at other things.

And it's a constant juggle fast paced time of life that if you're not really conscious can go by and a blip. And if you're not making very conscious decisions like I shared earlier about how you're gonna manage your time with your kids and how they could depend on that being consistent, you may run into some challenges moving forward. Um, so those are my thoughts on today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Playing dodgeball as a parent, I imagine many of you can appreciate it. It. Listen, we're going to see you on the next episode.