aramis tries not to be an a**hole

[aramis]

Last challenge I realized I try to do too much, and I hurt my loved ones in the process. I take too many things on my shoulders, I chronically lack time to complete all this stuff and in return I kick myself for not being productive enough, I feel guilt of disappointing someone (even if it's only me). The worst part is I started to push away my kids (and wife to some degree) and treat them as obstacles and distractions when I focus on completing my tasks. This makes me avoid my family, get irritated when someone asks me to do something, even shout at kids when they don't obey or follow commands right away. I became mean and pushy towards them. It's easy, they won't stand up for themselves, they are only 9 and 5 y.o.

I don't want to be this person. The person I'm becoming. He's an asshole. 

 

To make things right (or at least a bit better), I will use this challenge round to work on my behavior, on setting priorities in my limited time and dealing with cause of this mess.

 

It's hard to put "I want to be a better dad" or "I want to be a decent human being" in measurable goals, so I just list some actions that come to my mind.

 

Main goal - to heal my relationship with kids

What I want to achieve?

I want to be more of a friend and support, and less of a drill instructor. 

How I will do it?

- On work week, I will spend at least 30 min with kids on fun and playful activities. More on weekends.

30 minutes might sound short, but I come back from work at 4:30-5pm. Kids have their TV time from 6 to 7, and after that - supper and bed time. This leaves a small window from 5 to 6 for doing something together.

 

- Turn my Saturday workout (fun activity) into something that will include kids.

Be it roughhousing, long walk, some kick ball or soccer, biking etc. Some move will do them good.

 

- Don't raise voice unless it's emergency.

This one will be hard, as I became short tempered and my kids can be extremely annoying sometimes. But I will do my best. 

 

- If kid misbehaves or messes on something, I will rebuke him. Once. Without dwelling on the subject. 

I like to dwell on a subject. I need to stop. 

 

- Tidy their room together once per week.

This way I maybe can teach them a bit of discipline in managing their toys. 

 

- Introduce behavior boards to note good and bad things kids do. Grant some form of reward for good behavior. 

I hope this show them it is worth to be nice. Rewards shouldn't be toys. I think rather ice cream, movie or something similar.

 

 

Secondary Goal - Do less, but do important things.

This goal specifically targets the cause of my restlessness - I try to do too much having too little time and I get overwhelmed and depressed. Anger is a cool coping mechanism (no, it isn't).

 

What I want to achieve?

I need some extra time to devote it to my kids. 

How I will do it?

Some tasks are essential, but other are just minor things. I need to prioritize my tasks and choose what can be postponed or maybe turned into fun activities to do with kids. 

 

Secondary Goal - stay fit. 

What I want to achieve?

I want to keep raising my fitness level in preparation to OCR some day.

How I will do it?

- Keep posting Daily Logs from workouts - this helps me with accountability.

- Introduce some KB exercises to my strength workouts. KB looks fun.

- Eat (mostly) healthy. Track food and weight, adjust when needed. 

- Rest. Maintain my sleep schedule and don't let myself stay up too long too often. 

 

Secondary Goal - stay sane.

What I want to achieve?

I want to relax. To ease on the pressure in my mind.

How I will do it?

- Less stuff to do should help.

- Research relaxation techniques, see if something strikes my fancy. 

- Learn to focus on success, not on failures. Maybe some sort of gratitude ritual?

 

 

For now, that's all, folks. I might edit this later, when new ideas come to my mind. Or not. We'll see.

 

All in all, this round focuses on self-improvement. Wish me luck. 

[aramis]

Sigh... I've got too emotional writing first post, but let it be. I won't edit it as a warning/reminder for myself. 

 

Zero week or not, I'll try to follow my goals already. Especially those about my behavior. 

 

Yesterday my boys were invited to a birthday party of their friend. I went with them and I think it went quite well. All three of us behaved, had lots of fun and laughs. Even in the evening back home when my younger pecked at his supper I managed to convince him (calmly and with a smile) to eat his sandwich. This afternoon/evening was a win.

 

I did my workout later, when kids were put to sleep. Also started doing KB swings with 16kg/35lb bell. This little cannonball is so fun

 

In food department, party food got the best of me. There was cake, pizza, cookies, lots of gummis etc. Almost no healthy food... I ended overeating my target calories by less than 100, so not bad after all. 

 

Doing less stuff is hard. There is this little gnome on my shoulder whispering into my ear "you are lazy", "you should get to work", "you fail everybody" etc. I try to ignore it, but it's hard. I fear if I don't have something to do, my "afternoon crash" will hit me and I'll be even more antisocial towards my family. Sigh...

[Elastigirl]

Love the parenting goals. Rebuking once and then stopping is SO hard. Especially when you think your kids doesn't "get it" I was nowhere near a perfect parent, but I did work on  those things. Now my son is an adult, and he sill likes to hang out with us, so I take that as a win

 

Yay for KB swings. Something about swinging a cannonball makes you feel unstoppable.

[foxinthenorth]

Very important goals. Sounds like you’re making some good decisions!

 

One of the things that helps me when I feel like there is too much I want to do and too little time is to remember that things add up over time. If I do one or two things for a year or a couple years, then a different one or two things, ten or twenty years from now I’ll have done a lot. Plus, focusing more attention and energy on one thing yields better results than a little bit of energy on a dozen things. And family is more important than any of those things. 

[aramis]

Yesterday I did good. Not great, because got distracted by stuff and didn't spend enough time with kids, but I kept positive mindset all the time and even when kids misbehaved we were able to sort it peacefully.

 

On fitness - running done, food in check. Went to sleep bit too late - was doing stuff I postponed earlier. Because of this, today I had hard time to rise on time (but I did).

 

No progress in mental department. I need to find a way to make me feel better about myself. I try to do less during the day, but my shoulder gnome makes me to sort all this stuff in the evening, hurting my sleep schedule in return. I need to break this vicious circle. 

[aramis]

Yesterday was... meh. I tried to be positive, but kids didn't give me a chance to spend time with them. When I came back from work I made them dinner, then older one was playing on the computer (he is allowed 30min 3x a week) and younger was watching him play. After that the asked if they can play longer instead of watching evening cartoons. Wife already agreed to it before I could react, so my plan to work out when kids watch TV collapsed (I work out in the room where PC is). This on top of feeling useless broke my mood. By the time kids were done I did two or three minor chores (but this didn't cheered me up), then sent them to pick their toys and gave them supper. Younger one was acting up, but at this point it didn't made me angry, just disappointed and blue. 

 

Workout (late in the evening), food and sleep was okay.

[Salinger]

Sorry that yesterday wasnt as good. I hope today is better for you. Following along and i think your goals are fantastic <3 x

[aramis]

Thank you, and yes, Saturday was way better. Morning was not-so-good, but later I convinced my boys to do some cleaning in their room. It ended as two two-hour decluttering/organizing sessions, but the results exceed expectations by a lot  Even my older said he likes "new look" to their room. Maybe this convince him to keep some level of order in their toys...

Also, I gave them "behavior boards" where we will mark good and bad things they do daily. If they accumulate enough positive points over the week, there will be some sort of reward on the weekend - cinema, aquapark or ice cream.

 

Cleaning took too long to find time for "fun activity" as Saturday workout, but I'll count as one the ~3km of walking done during the cleaning. And additional test drive of Turkish Get-Ups with 7kg KB later in the evening. Food and sleep were in check.

 

And about "staying sane" - I fed my shoulder gnome some chores done - prepared rice/carrot casserole for dinner (between room cleaning sessions), managed to get groceries for Sunday batch cooking and did some smaller stuff in the meantime. This done good to my self esteem. 

[aramis]

Sunday, Sept. 15th

 

My younger one was in continuous loop od "I want this, I want that" from morning till noon, so it was hard to cooperate with him. Despite of this, I took boys to county-level fire fighting sports competition my unit was participating (we missed commune-level event last week when my unit qualified for county). Our team in men's category took second place, and our female squad won gold

 

When we came back, my wife took kids and I had time for batch-cooking my work lunches. As we live door to door with fire station (and my part of family have long firefighting traditions) we participated in victory party there. In one moment, we had 8 children in our backyard chasing bubbles. Felt like kindergarten, but boys had fun with their friends, so I count this as a win.

 

Sunday is a rest day, so no workout, but after putting kids to sleep me and wife went for a walk (~4km). Food and sleep were in check.

[aramis]

Monday, Sept. 16th

 

Not much time with kids, even less playing. I've got stuck at work and came home late when kids were already playing on a PC. Later there was picking their toys before TV time, supper, bath and off to bed. Not much fun, but all went calmly. 

 

Didn't do any productive things, but spent some nice time with wife watching music videos on youtube

 

Done my workout after putting kids to sleep, kept food in check. Went to bed too late because said music videos...

[aramis]

Tuesday, Sept. 17th

 

Yesterday was good. After dinner boys played lego for a bit, then wife told them to tidy their room so we can go outside. Me and wife took boys to learn a bit rollerblading. Younger one still needs to grasp the idea of shoes with wheels, so I think I'll set his blades in tri-wheel config (one in front, two in the back - rollerskate style) for easier balancing. Then was TV time (while I did my sprints), supper and off to bed. No quarrels, no throwing tantrums. 

 

As mentioned, I did my sprints and kept food and sleep in check.

 

As being productive, I have bought air filters for my car and went to show my blood test and CT scan results to my doctor. Two thing off the TO DO list (I still need to replace the filters - will do it tomorrow).

 

Still no research done in the mental health field. But realizing the problem and dealing with chores/things slower helps a bit. 

[SkyGirl]

Sounds like you're doing well so far, Aramis, and I really like your goals. I am very familiar with the shoulder gnome (I call him the Voice) and he's very hard to learn to coexist with. I'm rooting for you in this challenge.   

[aramis]

Thank you  

 

Wednesday, Sept. 18th

 

Yesterday right after dinned I went to my kids' school for a parent-teacher meeting. I know there were things to organize in new school year, teacher needed to pass some info on learning program etc, but does it have to take so long? Because of that, I missed all the afternoon with kids... Ugh. Came back just to put them to bed. I was so annoyed by the long meeting I started to get angry with kids... my bad. Good thing I realized this and forced myself to calm down. Bad thing - I did this after jumping on them once.

 

Later I did my workout. Food was in check but sleep not so. I went to bed too late again. Gotta work harder on getting my sleep more consistent.

 

Mentally... nah.

[Salinger]

Hey! You noticed you were getting angry with your kids and stepped back, that’s a good thing so be proud of yourself. It won’t get better overnight and you did really well in my opinion. 

 

Keep going  xx

[aramis]

Thursday, Sept. 19th

 

Came home after work, decided to go running instead of having dinner with rest of the family - forecast told it will be raining later (spoiler - it did). When I came back I promptly ate and joined wife and kids in playing board games. After that spent an hour watching cartoons with kids. Later, as usual - supper and putting kids to bed. Didn't do anything productive, but at least I spent time with boys. This felt nice. 

 

In the evening I did some preparations for my weekend airsoft milsim event. I should have replace air filters in my car instead (I've bought them couple days ago already), but it was raining and I had absolutely no motivation to go outside, even for a short walk to the garage. 

 

As mentioned above, I did my running (with new PR), kept food in check and went to bed at reasonable time. 

 

The only thing I'm lacking here is something to boost my mood - I really need to dig into relaxation and gratitude rituals. But I need time for this...

[Salinger]

Great job on the PR!!! xx

[aramis]

Overdue report on last three days.

 

Friday, Sept. 20th.

 

Quite okay day. When I came home from work, we ate dinner, picked toys in boys' room together and then my older was playing Minecraft while younger one was watching. Boys asked for longer computer time in exchange for their evening cartoons. I used this time to finish my preparations for weekend event. When doing so, I checked on boys from time to time. Later we made supper and put them to bed. 

 

Did my workout later in the evening. Food was in check and I went to bed relatively early.

 

Saturday, Sept. 21st

 

Left home at 5AM and drove 100km to airsoft event. Had lots of fun. And as a side quest, when going back to respawn point I gathered over 5kg of mushrooms  No playing with kids, obviously.

 

No workout but lots of walking - over 15km. Food based mostly on canned meals from military rations so no fresh veggies, but caloric and protein-wise - on point. Sleep almost non-existent as event lasts 24h and there was lots of fighting during the night. 

 

 

Sunday, Sept. 22nd

 

Event ended at 9AM. We packed our base, cleaned terrain, picked garbage and went home. When I came home (around 1PM), I organized my stuff, made dinner and played with kids a bit. Later me and wife took kids to a park. We promised them ice cream and rollerblading for a good behavior, but since their behavior boards didn't look all good (but not all-bad either), we decided we postpone rollerblades, but took them for ice cream and long walk instead.

 

Sunday is my rest day, so no workout, but I ended doing total of 8.5km of walking anyway

 

Food - ate less than I should, but mostly real food (one exception - hot-dog on a gas station on my way back from the event). Went to bed early to catch up on sleep. 

[aramis]

Monday, Sept. 23rd

 

I totally succumbed in "play with kids" department. First - all the time someone needed me to do something - my dad needed help with scaffolding by the garage wall, my mom with the computer, wife with sewing new dress... And second - I felt like shit (more about it lower in the post). So, I just orbited around the house while kids were playing Minecraft, watching TV etc. On the plus side - I was so passive and resigned I haven't raise my voice when they misbehaved. 

 

Forced myself to do my workout. I knew all too well I will kick myself if I pass on this. Surprisingly, working out haven't cheered me up like times earlier.

Ate way too few calories during the day (didn't ate proper dinner - was busy doing something else), balanced it with supper. Not very healthy, but daily kcal and proteins wise - okay. On a plus side - back to "no junk food" nutrition. Sleep in check.

 

Mentally - yesterday I was resigned, felt and treated myself like second-class person. And all the things everyone wanted me to do only pushed me in this mindset even more. Like "I'm not important, my needs are negligible, I'm just a servant". And on top of that, one of my best friends forgot to give me the date of his mother's funeral, so we missed the opportunity to accompany her in her last voyage. I can think of a milion excuses why he forgot, but deep inside it still hurts.

 

I'm really tired of this rollercoaster - kids' behavior changes daily from angels to goblins and back again, my mood and self esteem bounces up and down, sometimes I just want to run away and hide somewhere dark and quiet... but again, my obligation/responsibility kicks in and forces me to forget about myself, somehow endure it (or bottle the sadness up) and keep doing what needs to be done.

 

P.S.

Edited post to fit better in challenge goals scheme. 

[aramis]

Tuesday, Sept. 24th

 

Failing my kids again. Got stuck at work, came home at 5PM, quickly ate dinner and went for a surprise management meeting in my firefighting unit (I'm a treasurer). This took till 6:30, when kids were already watching TV. I gave them supper and accompanied my wife in putting them to sleep (brushing teeth, changing to pajamas, reading bed stories etc). 

 

Fitness wise - did my sprints session in the evening (8:30PM - 9PM), kept food and sleep in check.

 

Mentally was very similar to day before till I went running. I do my sprints uphill (and walk back down) on rarely used side street. This time there was a tractor and I out-ran it on my way up  This popped the bubble - I started laughing and suddenly felt way better. Looks like I needed some sort of kick out of this twilight zone. 

[aramis]

Wednesday, Sept. 25th

 

Came from work late again, but this time decided to go with the flow and "actively watch" my kid play Minecraft. About this time wife left for her night shift. Later helped them tidy their room. When they watched their evening cartoons I watched some youtube vids on lower back pain and anterior pelvic tilt. After that gave kids supper and put them to bed (bathroom, pajamas, bedtime stories). Not very playful, but calm and nice afternoon for sure.

 

Fitness wise - did my workout in the evening, kept food and sleep in check.

 

Mentally - I try to remain calm. From negative emotions and positive alike. Maybe if I stop the rollercoaster and find some baseline in my mood it will be easier to deal with everyday struggles.

No research on relaxation/gratitude yet.

[Salinger]

Awesome out running a tractor hahahah so fun xx

[aramis]

Thursday, Sept. 26th

 

Wow, I left work on time 

Came home, ate dinner with family, then spent time with kids and wife. My older one has his school compulsory reading, so we just cuddled into a couch potato and listened him read. Later kids went to play in their room and I had a bit of time, so I changed my wiper blades (old ones smeared water all over my windshield instead of wiping it away). After 6PM they went to watch their cartoons, so I gave them some snacks (fruit mousse - if I eat healthy, thew will too  ) and went running.

When I came back it was already supper time and after that I put them to sleep. It was good afternoon  

 

Regarding fitness, everything is in check. One thing I need to change is timing of my 5K runs - it gets dark so fast I need to switch to running at weekend to do it by daylight - after all I don't want to twist my ankle on some rock or stick I won't notice in the dark. 

 

Mentally I was calmer. Did some research on relaxation, found some options that may resonate with me (progressive muscle relaxation, breathing exercises and mindfulness). Now I need to find a way to incorporate them into my day. Not much progress, but better this than nothing. And I fed my shoulder gnome a bit: first - changing the wiper blades, and later in the evening I repaired my airsoft replica drum magazine which broke at last event.

[foxinthenorth]

On 9/24/2019 at 11:01 PM, aramis said:

Mentally was very similar to day before till I went running. I do my sprints uphill (and walk back down) on rarely used side street. This time there was a tractor and I out-ran it on my way up  This popped the bubble - I started laughing and suddenly felt way better. Looks like I needed some sort of kick out of this twilight zone. 

Yay! Sometimes you do need a kick. I'm glad you found one.

 

10 hours ago, aramis said:

Regarding fitness, everything is in check. One thing I need to change is timing of my 5K runs - it gets dark so fast I need to switch to running at weekend to do it by daylight - after all I don't want to twist my ankle on some rock or stick I won't notice in the dark. 

Have you tried running with a headlamp? Could be an option if you find you still need to fit a run in after dark.

[Salinger]

Please can you come change my window wipers?? hahaha i have the same issue, on the back window!!!! 

 

Great job, sounds a lovely day xx

[aramis]

I'd love to

 

Friday, Sept. 27th

 

Yesterday all my time with my boys was spent at my older son classmate's birthday party. Kids were having fun and I was one of three parents at the party (the rest left their kids and went their way), so I was helping to manage the mayhem - there were twelve nine-year-old boys, one girl, and two 5y.o. boys. I'm surprised the house still stands after this party  

But anyway - not much personal time with kids, but for sure they had fun and I was present in moments of need (for example when my older got hit in the head with a toy and started crying). 

 

After coming home and putting kids to sleep, I did my workout (at ~10PM) and soon after went to sleep.

 

Food-wise I failed - I overate my target by almost 700kcal. I planned snacking in my daily nutrition leaving 1000kcal for the party, but the appetizers at the party took the best of me - pigs-in-a-blankets, Oscypek, Brie and other cheese types... I'm crazy for cheese. Especially mold ones or smoked. At least I didn't snack on chips, fries and other junk food.

 

I didn't execute any relaxation techniques, but I try to set my mind on more gratitude and success-focused mindset. I try to consciously notice small things I succeed at (did all my tasks at work on time, kept my temper in stressful situation etc), acts of kindness from other people I can be grateful for (some driver gave me place for merging into traffic, girl at cash register smiled at me).