Family Activities

[JTQ]

But also, especially with the older one, she doesn't ask for anything. She doesn't ask to do anything. If you give her a choice of what to have for dinner or where to go she won't suggest anything.

I think this is a "chick thing". My wife and daughters were all fairly picky eaters when the girls were young (wife still is). I'd go anywhere to eat. Deciding where to eat really became a joke to me. It was like pulling teeth to get any of them to pick something, and it did make a difference to them where we ate because they were so picky. I'd just start suggesting places I absolutely knew they didn't want to eat at until they'd finally tell me what they wanted. I think we have a meme in the "Butthurt" thread about a woman on death row with the last meal illustrating this point.

My wife's experience ... But she has a fantastic relationship with them to this day. My growing up was more about us, the kids, and I rarely if ever speak to my parents today. Not out of any sort of animosity, just due to no share interests or experiences.

I think this is another "chick thing". Women can just talk about stuff, or not stuff, they just like to talk. Fella's are searching for information. You probably don't call your dad unless you have a particular question to ask him. You wife calls her parents just to check in. There is an old saying (that I remember well and often), "A son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for the rest of her life."

For family bonding, people knock it, but TV really was a pretty good "bonding" event for my daughters. They had a lot of activities, and were diligent about doing their homework as soon as they got home from school, but for "down time", they really loved just sitting together and watching TV. My girls are incredibly close to each other. They each have their own friends, but I think they'd rather spend time with each other than anybody. They really didn't do any specific activities together, other than the family travel, and watch TV together.

[rob_s]

I should probably point out, and upon further reflection this morning after reading, replying, and having more coffee...

What this sums up as is that I'm looking for something OTHER THAN travel sports. if you want to debate the merits of travel sports, go seek out the other thread and pontificate there, but it's not for me and there's nothing that's going to be posted on an internet forum that's going to change that. Been there, done that, pretty much ready to burn the t-shirt.

What I'm hoping to do is replace the activity that benefits one child to the detriment of the rest of us with an activity that benefits us all. I'm fine with the rec league, which is one night a week and one game a weekend, for about 1/5 of the year, but I'm done with travel that consumes two nights a week and entire weekends for 1/4 of the year (and up to 1/2 of the year as they are now talking "fall ball"), and in truth should consume more than that since the two official practices a week are meant to be matched with nightly ball-tossing at home. If you're the kind of person that naturally gravitates to that kind of thing, no amount of telling someone else "you just have to..." is going to change that other person.

Also, to be perfectly frank, I'd be pretty happy sticking closer to home and having a more relaxed lifestyle, but the wife is go-go-go (probably from all that excitement as a kid) and so the dream of moving to the country and taking it easy is pretty much shattered. So much so that I'm bucking to move back into town ASAP even though it means losing my shop, guest house, giant pool, and relative peace and quiet. No need for all those things if you're never home to use them.

[entropy]

Don’t take this the wrong way....

Perhaps the whole process starts with sitting down, reconnecting with the wife, and setting some new goals??

It’s easy to get stuck in the “roundabout of life”. Always busy, always hurried, always trying to pack 30hrs into 24. Along the way, important sh!t gets pushed aside. We as a family have done better than some with this, not as good as others or could be IMHO. In 2 months, our house will be very different and very quiet. Its important to set long term foundational goals too.

Our 3 are about as different as differnt could be. We gave up on “big together things” and just rolled with what each wanted...which was very, very different. Every year or two, we did an “everyone thing”. A few years back, we went dog sledding/aurora watching in AK. This year was the last “real chance” to get everyone together. Much (and I mean MUCH) to my surprise, the UNANIMOUS vote was to RV to the EAA airshow in Oshkosh. My initial suggestion of it was pure sarcasm. Imagine my surprise when even the 18yr old daughter’s eyes lit up. Just when I thought I had the game figured out....

Just roll with it. I think part of being a Dad/Husband is being a chameleon. Don’t try to force things or overwhelm. Most of us are prolly “type A” folks here. This is one time to be a B. The most important thing is to enjoy and cherish every freaking nano second. In a blink...its all over.

Edit to add:

I had a very good friend and mentor that passed way to early. He was about 15 years older than me. One morning we were up at his lake cabin. Me, being the young Dad with 3 sub-10yr olds was the usual flurry of morning activity...planning this, planning that, helping get one of them dressed, attempting to pacify the wife who didnt much care for an outhouse... Anyhow, I walk out side and see my buddy sitting in a lawn chair with a cup of coffee. This to me was a waste of time. Afterall, things needed to be done! I asked him what he was doing. His reply: “Enjoying life.” That prolly :30 second snippent of his wisdom has always stuck with me. Thanks Chuck.

Enjoy life.

[rob_s]

Just roll with it. I think part of being a Dad/Husband is being a chameleon. Don’t try to force things or overwhelm. Most of us are prolly “type A” folks here. This is one time to be a B. The most important thing is to enjoy and cherish every freaking nano second. In a blink...its all over.

That is much more my speed. But what happens is that if I don't have something to fill the time, it gets filled for me with shit I don't want to do. Hence this thread, and trying to find acutally fun shit to do instead of what we're currently doing. I'd much prefer to just take things easy, but that's not in the cards, and taking it easy is how I wound up losing my last 10 weekends to softball.

I had a very good friend and mentor that passed way to early. He was about 15 years older than me. One morning we were up at his lake cabin. Me, being the young Dad with 3 sub-10yr olds was the usual flurry of morning activity...planning this, planning that, helping get one of them dressed, attempting to pacify the wife who didnt much care for an outhouse... Anyhow, I walk out side and see my buddy sitting in a lawn chair with a cup of coffee. This to me was a waste of time. Afterall, things needed to be done! I asked him what he was doing. His reply: “Enjoying life.” That prolly :30 second snippent of his wisdom has always stuck with me. Thanks Chuck.

Enjoy life.

this is very much me. One thing I have finally gotten the family on board with is taking it easy in the mornings when we're on vacation. I am not interested in flying across the country or the world just to wake up at 5 AM and go tear-assing around the countryside. That's what we do at home. When we are on vacation I still wake up at 5 (can't sleep in, thanks to the day-to-day routine at home) but I take my sweet-ass time getting going. Whatever local attraction or activity we're doing that day will still be there at 11 just as if we got there at 8. If you go look at my Seattle thread we did a TON of stuff, but none of that started before 10 or 11.

Which, again, is why I can't take this travel sports shit. Games at 8, they want us at the field at 7, the field is an hour away, on both Saturday and Sunday... fuck that.

But, again, if I don't fill the schedule, the schedule gets filled, so the solution is to fill the schedule with something that doesn't suck. That doesn't mean I can't fill the schedule with being at the dirt track at 11. Or the range. Or in the canoe. Or on the courts...

[Chance]

This might sound a little unorthodox, but maybe consider video games? Systems like the Nintendo Switch can support up to eight people playing at once and a lot of the games are kid friendly. Some games are motion-activated, which can get everyone up and moving, and others are the traditional sit-and-play.

Looks like they're on sale for $300 at Best Buy. Plus, the thing doubles as a portable game console, so it can keep them entertained in the car.

[OlongJohnson]

Also, to be perfectly frank, I'd be pretty happy sticking closer to home and having a more relaxed lifestyle, but the wife is go-go-go (probably from all that excitement as a kid) and so the dream of moving to the country and taking it easy is pretty much shattered. So much so that I'm bucking to move back into town ASAP even though it means losing my shop, guest house, giant pool, and relative peace and quiet. No need for all those things if you're never home to use them.

I'm sympathetic to this. Because Texas, the smallest house I could find that was nice enough to move into and in a good neighborhood is twice as big as I ideally want. I have one a-hole, but three toilets to clean. Cleaning the house and keeping up with the landscaping takes a significant amount of time. I had a crew doing the lawn, but when I decided I wanted it to actually look good, I ended up taking it over myself so I'd have control and be able to have things done the right way. I'm not going to have low-income people I don't know inside my house where it's really obvious there are guns present, even if they don't actually see the guns. Nothing would be apparent to a casual visitor, but to someone who walked through all the rooms and opened closets, stuff would be obvious.

I actually worked on cars and bikes a whole lot MORE when I had an 800 sq. ft. apartment and a one-car garage that I had to move the bikes out of before I could get in and do anything.

A note on the bikes. Off-road vehicles take a TON of maintenance, especially when their drivetrains are exposed to the dirt. Cleaning, lubing, etc. I'm "probably" more OCD than most, but the last few years when I lived in SoCal and got into that, I'm sure I spent nearly as much time maintaining the bikes as the engines were running, if not more. The main advantage they have over boats is that they don't sit in the water, and you can store them indoors and walk away, so they aren't getting attacked by the elements while they sit.

You're mechanically sensitive as well, so expect that if you go down that road.

[JTQ]

The more I read your posts rob, I'm beginning to think it is your wife, not the kids that is the issue. It sounds like the kids don't really care one way or the other, but your wife seems to be driven by a need for activity. Maybe she needs the hobby, so the rest of you can chill back at home while she's off doing something.

[rob_s]

The more I read your posts rob, I'm beginning to think it is your wife, not the kids that is the issue. It sounds like the kids don't really care one way or the other, but your wife seems to be driven by a need for activity. Maybe she needs the hobby, so the rest of you can chill back at home while she's off doing something.

I don't think there's an "issue" per se, but if there is one it's more driven by her I suppose.

She stays home and deals with all of the household stuff during the week, and deals with all the kids' stuff after school like homework and gymnastics and feeding me. I can't complain, my dinner is virtually always on the table when I get home and the kids are usually already bathed so the evenings we can pretty much chill before the kids go to bed. So I think by the weekend she's raring to go when I'm trying to wind down from a week of work. I doubt it's all that uncommon, although at least a few of the guys I work with have wives that seem to want to lay around all weekend too.

But if I can find something that we can all do together then she'll most likely be fine with it. What's not likely to happen is weekend after weekend of sitting around the house, which truthfully isn't what I want either. I personally like a good balance of saturdays out on the town, Sundays home doing home shit. Frankly it was all working out pretty well until travel sports fucked it all up, but now I need to find something more substantial to displace the travel sports. Especially since I'm now hearing talk of fall ball...

[Surf]

Rob, I did the same thing from when the kids were getting old enough. We played every single sport when the season came around, some year-round sports, plus year-round martial arts, gymnastics, ballet, you name it. Ran ourselves, and the kids ragged. My wife was push push push. This IMO really wasn't a family thing, but a kid thing. We eventually had to pick sports and streamline the activities. There just wasn't enough hours in the day.

We travel a lot now, but I enjoy the simple stuff that is easy access to us and not so expensive, which is often the beach. I am a water person, and so are the kids. A lot of things we can do together like surfing, SUP, fishing, snorkeling, diving, etc.

We also enjoy shooting and bows. So I like our short outer island trips as we have our place for shooting, hunting, ATV, etc. We also have a great condo in a large resort on the same island, so that contrasts our off-grid property and includes a lot of water activity, so we usually spend time in both places in one trip. That is a great mini vacation with a lot of family activities and a little less expensive vs. travel to the mainland or out of the country. We enjoy our off-grid property as it keeps us limited on the electronics and brings the family closer.

I am a pretty simple guy that likes to do projects and work around the properties. While I enjoy it, it is more like work for the rest of the family. The wife loves to travel, and I also do, but it can get hectic. The good balance for us is adding in the simple stuff, like the beach, bbq, and cooler.

One thing we are experiencing with the kids now at 14 and 12 is that they are often staying over at a friends house or vice versa and having the entire family together on the weekend is hit or miss, unless we are away for the weekend. Then we often take one of the kid's friends with us, which isn't bad.

[rob_s]

One thing we are experiencing with the kids now at 14 and 12 is that they are often staying over at a friends house or vice versa and having the entire family together on the weekend is hit or miss, unless we are away for the weekend. Then we often take one of the kid's friends with us, which isn't bad.

One the one hand, I'm looking forward to this. On the other hand, I know I'll miss the time we're in now when it's gone so I want to enjoy as much of it as I can now.