Ommmmmmm…

Every week for the past few, I’ve participated in the Productivity Powerhouse blab with Steve Dotto, Mike Vardy, and Erik Fisher. If you’re not familiar with Blab, imagine Hollywood Squares with a topic. The presenters sit in boxes on the screen and you get to hear them jabber (blab?) at each other while those watching can interact through a live chat. These have proven to be one of the most productive hours during my week. In short, time well spent.

As is true to my nature, I’m a wannabe stand-up comic, so I spew forth in the chat and occasionally catch the eye of the hosts who give me a shout out. Last week, Steve and Erik proposed that I ought to be called Zen-Dad in lieu of Hectic-Dad, since the whole point of our monikers should be to put the goal in your name. Honestly, I would love to think that someday I’ll be Zen-Dad, but at this point I can’t even envision it.

Let’s face it, I’m still the Dad to eight kids. I watch an 18 month-old full time (close to 18 hours a day). I have kids flung from Maine to Colorado and Minnesota to Kansas. My wife is partial owner in five businesses, and I’m trying to run two while building a new one on the internet. At various times over the past years we’ve had the kids in upwards of sixteen sports, and several of them have gone on to compete at the national level. As a family we dash from place to place, event to event, with little downtime.

With my wife working as an Obstetrician/Gynecologist during the early years of our kids lives, it was really tough to work outside the home. Her schedule was driven by women having babies, so we had very little ability to schedule anything. Eventually it just made sense for me to move my work home to become the home-maker, caregiver, transportation-provider, etc. Fortunately, I love to work in the kitchen. I say fortunately, because my wife not only hates to cook, but she wasn’t available on a regular enough basis for us to depend on meals. Don’t let anyone every tell you that girls don’t each as much as boys! I have six daughters and two sons, and let’s just say that our meals took a lot of work. We can put away a lot of food, but despite the sometimes 15,000 calorie a day diets, we don’t have a single even slightly obese kid in the bunch. I’m a bit of another story…but that’s my own fault. Their active lifestyles, school, and sports took up all my time while they were young. Now that we’re into the second generation, I’m still using almost all my time to manage the kids or help them manage their lives.

Don’t misunderstand, I love it. I wouldn’t change places with anybody. But the fact is that my e-mail, iPhone, and iMessage could lead to a crisis just about anywhere in the country. When the kids have a disaster they turn to me. They always have, and I sincerely hope they always will. I love helping them out while continuing to guide them in handling their own problems. With eight of them ranging in age from 25 to 12 the breadth and depth of the problems can vary. Recently I had to drop everything and go to Colorado for three weeks to aid in my daughter’s recovery from Viral Meningitis. The first two weeks were spent getting an actual diagnosis. The subsequent two months have been spent helping her adjust from a highly active, sports-six-days-a-week personality to someone who is just now able to walk 200m without having to sit down. When her crisis began, I packed up and drove (overnight) to her house to begin the journey through the medical world from the patient-side. We are fortunate that most of what I do is either on the web or on my computer, so I was able to drop everything else and go. Not everybody has that luxury.

But that’s not really a Zen-like state. There was not quiet contemplation prior to the drive. I packed quickly and drove like crazy.

That’s just one example of what life is like in the Hectic Household. We have forgotten sports equipment several times a year that has to be taken to the athletes. One daughter was flooded out of her home and we had to find new housing for her…two states away. College has presented a series of emergencies and perceived-emergencies that have stretched my ability to help them deal with the issues.

On top of my nuclear family, my Mom lives two miles from us. My Dad died a couple of years ago, and she needs me to help out around the house. I honestly suck at house maintenance, but I do what I can for her. My Dad was a Depression-era baby, so he was able to fix just about anything with chewing gum and bailing wire. I on the other hand did not inherit his mechanical skills. Yet when the toilets are leaking into her basement, I was over there at 2AM trying to figure out how to stop the problem. It’s just what you do when you’re the first call for help.

Honestly, I would love to change my moniker to Zen-Dad, but I ‘m not sure I would really like it. Somehow I thrive off the confusion, chaos, and complexity that is the Hectic Family. I’ve gathered enough fodder for years of blogging, I’ve helped raise eight amazing kids, and I think we’ve made a dent in the universe. We may not have exactly planned the dent that we made, but we’ve made it nonetheless.

I’m sure Erik Fisher will continue to call me Zen-Dad when he has the opportunity, and I’ll embrace it with gusto. But for now and into the foreseeable future I have to stick with the reality that I’m Hectic-Dad.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way!