We’re only a few days from February: How many of you are still keeping to your resolutions? How many of you made resolutions? How many of you know what a resolution means?

Dictionary.com lists one definition of “resolution” as a decision or determination. So what decision did we make for this year? To save more money? Eat better? Finally start using the treadmill gathering cobwebs in the basement corner?

For whatever reason, we often think a resolution has to be this grandiose idea we must let everyone know on social media. We think that if we put it out there others will hold us accountable and we’ll have to stick to it. Friends, that is not the case. The resolutions we make are for ourselves and not for others.

I used to make big resolutions like the ones above, but things changed when I became a parent. I realized this: While it’s good to be healthier and wiser with your money, the main thing you need to do every year is be better than you were the year before. You do not have to change much about yourself if you just try to do a little better.

That is my resolution every year: Do better.

And what does this mean?

To me it means to be there more for my children — every day. For example, one year I started working two jobs, leaving me pretty tired during the week. However, instead of focusing on being tired, I refocused the energy I did have toward my children. Whether it meant reading a few books with them or just being silly with them in the house until we fall down from laughing too hard. I want their memories of their dad to be good ones, not “dad was always too tired to play with us.”

I also need to do better with the world around me. While I know I cannot change every problem in the world right now, I can change what is going on around me. I can smile more to the people I pass on the street as I walk to work. That one smile could change a person’s day. Try it out sometimes. Just smile. And say hello to people, too.

We have to remember we are our children’s role models. As their parents, we must set a good example for them. If our children see us trying a little harder every day to improve the world around us, it will encourage them to have that mentality in life. I would love if my children never stopped doing better their entire lives and always strive to be better than they were the day before.

Just imagine how much our children can accomplish if we showed them how to do better.

So if your New Year’s diet plan hasn’t been working out like you hoped, instead try focusing on what you can do better for yourself and others. And try doing that a little more of that each day.

Photo: © Natallia / Adobe Stock.

Disclosure: This potty time post is sponsored by Pull-Ups® Training Pants. All thoughts and opinions are the author’s.

In a parent’s life, you see true joy and excitement in your child’s eye at a few special moments: when he is presented with his first birthday cake, taking his first steps or, in my son’s case, when he saw a box full of Pull-Ups® Training Pants with Mickey Mouse on them.

That’s right, my son was ecstatic about opening the big box that arrived with enough training pants to get him ready to join the Pull-Ups® Potty Partnership.

This box and its contents are the beginning of a major transition in my son’s life, a transition even he understands is a big moment in his life – potty training. This box and the Pull-Ups inside are going to help give him the independence he needs on his potty journey and – believe it or not — going into this, I knew that it was going to be a fun journey.

I felt my son was ready for this move to Pull-Ups because he would start mimicking myself or his sister when he would follow us into the bathroom. At potty time, he would try to slide his diapers off and sit on the stool in the bathroom. Although he never did anything in the potty, this was a sign that he was ready.

The Pull-Ups Potty Partnership has a cool website dedicated to helping parents at this stage in their child’s life. To start, I went there to learn my child’s Potty Training Personality.

Find their personality? Yep. Knowing your child’s personality helps you select the potty time teaching methods your child responds best to so potty training will be easier.

According to the quiz, my son’s potty personality is a Puppy: Lots of energy, pretty easy to direct, loving, enthusiastic, and irritable when tired, hungry or sick. That described my kid down to a tee. Knowing this would help my wife and I use ways that best motivated his learning and made potty time fun time.

So how do we make pooping fun?

When we potty trained his older sister, we used charts, songs and games to get her to use the potty. The chart had her favorite cartoon characters on it. We would use one sticker for when she did No. 1 and two stickers for No. 2. We sing a song with her where we would just repeat, “Come out poo-poo, come out!” before you knew it our little girl was potty trained.

Since it was kind of easy with our daughter, we thought potty time would be easy with our son, too. Boy, were we wrong. We quickly learned potty training shouldn’t be done through a one-size-fits-all method. Kids are unique and special in their own ways and the key to success in potty training is working WITH your child’s personality, not against it.

Our son was not as ready to start using the potty as we initially thought. Even though he loved putting on his Pull-Ups, he would not let us know when he needed to go to the bathroom so we’d find many surprises for us in his Pull-Ups every now and then.

We introduced our son to a potty training progress chart and showed him how he could put a sticker on it whenever he did any of the items listed there. It started pretty well but the important thing I also learned about using stickers is that they are most effective when used as an immediate positive reinforcement rather than as a goal to save up for later. Toddlers don’t have a solid sense of time, so we always gave him the sticker right away and let him show off his progress to family members and friends.

We also used a song to make potty time more fun for our son.

Our son loves to sing and dance, so why not sing the same song that we used to sing with our daughter? We did but it seemed like we sat there forever with him waiting for him to have some sort of movement. We never tried to rush him, for fear that he would not want to sit on the potty, so we just let him take his time.

As of this moment, we are still potty training but making progress. Some days he lets us know he has to go due to the cooling sensation he gets from the Pull-Ups® Cool & Learn® Training Pants. While by then it was too late, it really did teach me to start to recognize the signs of needing to go because we had a breakthrough recently when he ran to the bathroom all by himself and called out to my wife. When she walked in, he was sitting on the potty where he peed all by himself.

Maybe this is the moment that we were waiting for … we’ll see what happens next.

If I couldn’t contribute to my family, couldn’t care for my daughter, then I shouldn’t be here anymore. I started writing a letter to my wife and children.

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As summer neared its end, it appeared no teaching positions would be available for me in the Chicago public school system that upcoming year. I had to look at my options.

I relished the fact that no full-time job meant I would be able to take my daughter to her first day of kindergarten, help out at her school and pick her up every day. I picked up odd jobs here and there to help us out financially but, little by little, our savings were dwindling.

Things were good, but not being able to provide like I used to began to get the best of me. My mood began shifting. I started to keep a lot of things to myself, going into a deep funk that I thought I had a handle on. Depression never really leaves you, you just get good at hiding it from others. Or at least I did.

I feel like I’ve been suffering from depression since junior year in high school. I didn’t know it was depression back then, I just thought I was moody. As I got older and started reading more about it, I realized I was depressed but felt ashamed about feeling this way. I hid it from my family and friends and tried my best to not let it get the best of me. Even as an adult, I have been hiding it but being unemployed brought it on even more.

As the next summer came, I again was on the job hunt. My wife was the only one working and my daughter would always cry when we had to drop off her mom in the morning. It would become a normal routine: She would cry on the ride to and back, and once we got home she would return to normal.

One morning was different.

I was depressed about facing another year of unemployment. The constant calls from debt collectors were taking a toll on me. That morning my daughter’s cries were too much for me to handle. The entire ride home she screamed and yelled she wanted her mother and I tried soothing her, as I did in the past, by telling her “Mom will be home soon” and “She will call you when she gets a break at work.”

It seemed everything I told her was being drowned out by her cries. I knew once we got home she would relax and play with her toys like nothing was wrong, but like I said, that morning was different. She kept crying and said she wanted to go to her grandparents’ house (my in-laws). As much as I tried soothing her, nothing worked. I caved in and called my in-laws.

The crying stopped as soon as she was picked up.

The letter I never finished

What kind of father was I if I could not take care of my own daughter? What did it say to my in-laws that my daughter did not want to spend the day at home with her dad because she missed her mom?

That moment pushed me to the edge.

If I could not contribute to my family like I wanted to, I decided I should not be here anymore. I grabbed my notebook and pen, and started writing a letter to my wife and children.

The tears soon began flowing from my eyes. I started feeling ashamed about having these thoughts, but I still felt that it was the best thing to do.

I got as far as writing down my wife’s name before I couldn’t write anymore.

When you are a stay-at-home dad, most of the people you would normally reach out to for help are not around during the day. They are at their jobs. As I sat near my laptop sobbing, I decided to reach out to my fellow dad bloggers online just to talk to someone. I needed to get these thoughts out of my head.

As soon as I hit the navy blue “Post” button, they started messaging me. A few sent me the suicide prevention hotline information, so I went to that website to “talk” to someone. It was strange how I did not want to talk to one of these counselors, but I felt comfortable reaching out to my brothers about what was troubling me.

The funny thing about having a virtual “suicide prevention chat” — it would take four to five minutes for the person on the hotline to respond to my typed answers. The dad bloggers I talked with online were giving me feedback or advice instantly.

I call those guys my “brothers” because that is exactly what they are. I grew up with two older sisters and all my cousins were female. Being a part of the dad bloggers community creates bonds that are kind of hard to describe, but when I finally met some of these guys in person at a conference in February 2015, there was no awkwardness there.

We all know about each other’s families and jobs from our blogs and Facebook posts. We were all connected. From guys who just started writing online to those who have thousands of followers, we are all striving for the same thing: To change the world’s perceptions of dads. I am extremely thankful for these guys and wish there was a way I could repay all of them for helping me through this really bad moment in my life.

The journey back

I talked to my wife about what happened later that night. I threw out the letter because I did not want that reminder in my life. I decided I needed to seek some sort of help. The thought of seeing a psychologist scares me, but it is something that I must do to get better.

I still have my dark days. I don’t think they will go away, but I try to not show it in front of my kids. I used to hide my depression from 8-to-4 when I was at work. It’s a little different when you are home all day with your children and have to put it aside until they go to sleep.

I have been fortunate to start getting a few paid online posts for my blog. That helps out a little, but we still have our days when things get tough financially. I am now working two jobs that I enjoy, but I would love to be in front a classroom again or have a regular 9-to-5.

Lately, the song “1 of 4” by Aesop Rock has been playing on repeat in my head. This song talks about his battle with depression and encapsulates what I have been going through. As I previously stated I can not thank my brothers enough for what they did for me, but these words are just the beginning.

“I guess it is kind of funny when you look at it from a step back,
How one man can literally buckle under the same pressures
Other men operate normally under
I have scoped this out from all angles multiple times
I have been over everything in my head, still I can’t think anymore
But I guess sometimes, when you can’t breathe,
there are people there to breathe for you
I am lucky enough to have those people around me
Thank you for helping me to not die
Thank you for helping me to not die”

Suicide Prevention Help

If you ever have suicidal thoughts or are battling with depression, seek out help and remember that your life has meaning in this world. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers 24/7/365 help through its website, www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org, or over the phone at 800-273-TALK (8255)

A version of this first appeared on FanDads. Photo: PdPics

With the new year around the corner, a lot of us will be making resolutions about getting in shape.  I know that I try to keep myself in good health to keep up with my kids, but every now and then I ask myself: Why do I torture myself?  Here’s a post I originally wrote for Fandads.com that gives an insight to this question.

See that picture above? That is the only picture taken of me during the Spartan Super that I ran last weekend on August 15, 2015. While I may look like I’m doing good in that picture, things did not turn out that way. Look at me. I’m covered in mud. I look out of breath and I could probably pass out at any minute, so why do I do this to myself?

This all started when I had my first child. I know I told this story a thousand times before, but I knew that I needed to be in better shape to take care of her and also to be able to play with her even on days when I came home tired from work. This extra stamina has sure come in handy, especially after baby #2 was born. My little guy is non-stop energy and it takes a lot to keep up with him.
After my first Warrior Dash I was hooked and wanted to do more. When doing these races I would come home with a few bruises here and there, but the bruises were an awesome reminder of what I just accomplished. They were also a story to tell. A way to share my experiences with others and hopefully trick… I mean, convince them to join me in one of these races.
Not only did I really get into obstacle course racing, but I also got into running, too. There was something about the calmness of just running by myself, okay sometimes I would be surrounded by other runners, but just something about pushing your body to make it across the finish line. I started with simple 5Ks then gradually moved up to 8Ks and finally running a full 10-mile race.
So again the question is why do I do this to myself? Why do I put my body through this pain? I guess the answer is to feel alive and know that I can accomplish anything if I focus on it. Now while I know that sounds like some “George Mcfly/Zen/Load of crap” it’s the truth.

As a dad there are days when I feel completely overwhelmed. I wake up and hear nothing but my kids calling my name all day… well not my actual name, but I hear “Dad” about a million times throughout the day. “Dad, my brother hit me!” “Daddy, I don’t want to take a bath!” “Dad, I want the computer now!” “Go ask your dad.”

Now before you start thinking I hate this, I hate that some of the things that I am called for is something that they can either do or find themselves. When I was little I was always taught to be self-sufficient and not rely on other people and that is what I try to instill in my kids. I don’t want them to become spoiled-entitled-kids that are always relying on their parents to do things for them.

So when I run, it is just me out there. No kids calling me to do something. No kids crying because one is playing with a lego set that the other one wants at the moment. When I run it is just me and my music tuning out all that is wrong with the world and just letting me focus on getting to the next mile.

I run, crawl and jump through mud, because I want my kids to see that I am doing most of these things on my own. I say most, because during these obstacle course runs you help the person next to you if they are struggling and vice-versa. You become part of a community that does not give up and helps those in need. I want my children to grow up this way. I want them to see an obstacle in front of them and not be afraid to overcome it. I want them to be independent and always do their best.

And you know what…I think this picture below is the start of my little girl going on that path to independence.

My little girl rocked that course and all her fears disappeared as soon as the word “Go” was shouted. It was such an awesome experience seeing her run, jump and crawl like I have done so many times before. She felt so great afterward that she has been wearing her medal and headband everywhere we have gone for the past few days.

As for me. There was no medal put around my neck that day. No pictures of me jumping over fire or carrying logs on my shoulder this time. I did the one thing that I told my kids not to do, I gave up. I started cramping in my legs and while I tried to tough it out and walk it off, the cramps were just too strong to let me continue. I could have pushed myself harder, but who knows what bigger injury I would have caused myself it I continued.

Yeah, some tears were shed and I felt like I failed myself, but sometimes you have to know when to quit to come back stronger the next time. Just like the quote from Batman “Why do we fall.. so we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Yeah I fell to the race this time, but now I know what I must do to overcome it next time.

Oh yes, there will be a next time.

Hey there dad, so you just signed up to the dad group and you’re wondering what happens next. Well, if you are a little confused hopefully this post will help you out a little.

1. Get to know your fellow members.

A lot of the dads in the group come from different neighborhoods so try to find and get to know the ones in your neighborhood. This can come in handy whenever you find some spare time and just want to hang out with a fellow dad from the group. It could also come in handy when you want to car pool to a Dad’s Night Out event.

2. Do not worry about missing a meet up.

There are always a lot of meet ups planned, just look at the calendar, so don’t be afraid if you miss one or two.  Some of the locations might be a little out of the way, so you can pick and choose accordingly.  Also, it does not hurt to go out of the city every now and then. So look at the calendar and plan out which ones you want to go to and then have fun.

3. Join a discussion.

Every now and then discussions pop up on the site asking for suggestions or interests in potential meet ups.  Here is a good way to see what might be coming up and maybe suggest a meet up or two. It also is a good time to just talk to your fellow dads dicuss parenting questions that you might have. You never know, there might be another dad out there that was the same question as you.

4. Socialize. Socialize. Socialize.

This one at times might be a little hard depending on the age of your child and how much attention they will need. When you are at a meet up, try to talk to as many dads as possible. By doing this you are establishing friendships with other dads and also growing your network of dads that are just like you. It’s also great to sit back with another dad and just watch your kids playing together.

5. Have fun!

This is the main thing is to just enjoy yourself when you are out with the dad group. Be it a play group or a Dad’s Night Out, just relax, have fun and enjoy the camaraderie of being with other dads that are trying to make a difference in their children’s lives.

My son recently celebrated his second birthday. These past two years have flown by. It feels like he was just learning to crawl the other day. Now he is running around, getting into the refrigerator and keeping me up late on some nights.

There are days I just stare at him. Even when he is destroying the playroom. And I wonder to myself, “What kind of father am I to him? Am I really getting him prepared for the future?” I guess I will get the answer to these questions as the years progress, but I decided I will write him a letter, just in case he needs direction.

Hey, big guy,

Let me start off this letter for your second birthday by telling you I am very proud of you. As you are growing I can see your personality starting to take shape. It scares me at times because you are a little hard-headed, like your mother. However, I’m happy about that because it means you will not easily back down from what you believe in. That is a great trait to have. Don’t ever lose that.

You are adventurous, cheerful, fearless, loud and full of life. Those are also traits I do not want you to lose. I love just sitting down and watching you explore what is around you, be it jumping from couch to couch or constructing objects with your blocks. You amaze me with your imagination. There are times when you sit by the window and just examine everything in your sight. I can tell you are questioning why things are the way they are. You want to ask me about them, but your words are still being developed.

I cannot wait until the day when we can just sit on the stairs and talk about all that surrounds us. I do this with your sister. Soon, I want to hear your questions and try to answer them to the best of my abilities. I am not an expert on everything, but together we can expand our minds with new topics and learn. Learning is a great thing. I hope you and your sister appreciate all the world has to offer you.

I remember how we decided to go to our local park one day and I forgot that it was under construction. When we got there it was all fenced up and we could not play in there, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. We ran around and looked at the new park and I started picturing us playing in there as soon as it opened up.

We made a good situation out of a bad one. That is something that you should always try to do. Instead of complaining about the bad things going on, do something to turn it around and make it a better situation.

I know there are times I am not with you 100 percent. By that I mean we are in the same room playing together, but my mind is wandering somewhere. At those times, I am thinking about things that I should not be thinking about. Things like: bills, my career, our home and what the future holds for us. Instead of thinking about this stuff, I should be focused on the now. I should just be enjoying the moment and not worrying about what is ahead.

Once I read a book about focusing on the present rather than the past or future. I have lost that ability and I need to do that now with you and your sister. You two are constantly changing and I do not want to miss a moment of that.

Remember as you get older there are things that are going to happen to you that you can not control. What makes you the person you are is how you react to those situations.  I feel that your mother and I are raising you with so much love that when you come to those moments, you will rise above them.

Now some of my favorite quotes that will help you out in life:

“Do, or do not, there is no try.”

“If you put your mind to it, anything is possible.”

“Never give up, never surrender!”

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

“You got a friend in me.”

OK, big guy. That’s all for now. I didn’t mean to take up too much of your time, but I hope you come back to this post every now and then because I think you will get something different from each reading.

Love you,

Your Daddy

Who knows? Maybe he’ll read this, maybe he won’t, but I think he will … when I’m not looking.

A version of this first appeared on FanDads.

The Chicago Dads Group recently attended “What’s Happy Got to Do With It?,” a workshop with parenting expert Dr. Deborah Gilboa and sponsored by The Second City comedy group that let us find fun in how we parents deal with certain issues that come up when raising kids. One thing I got out of that workshop that I use every night with my little girl was the game of “High-Low-High.”

According to “Dr. G:”

1. High-Low-High teaches kids that everyone has fun and struggles each day. Resilience is the ability to overcome a difficult experience, and this reminds them that they can, and often, and go on to have fun again.
2. Parents have struggles, too. When everyone in the family plays, kids learn their parents also must overcome challenges, and so we model resilience as well as talking about it. Even better, our kids will respect us more if they understand more about the good and bad we face in a day. We don’t need to discuss or explain every challenge, but they also shouldn’t think that everything is easy for grownups.
3. Starting and ending with a “high,” or good thing, demonstrates optimism. We should always look a little harder for the good than the bad, and end on a positive note whenever we can.

I feel that this is a great activity to do to promote discussion and just find out what your children are thinking or how they process their days. It’s also surprising to see how they get invested in knowing what were your favorite and not so favorite moments.

With my little girl, we save High-Low-High for the end of the night. Our nightly routine consists of her brushing her teeth, choosing a book or two for me to read to her and then playing the game.

It’s kind of funny to see how our “high-low-highs” differ between myself and my little girl. When we first started doing this her highs and lows were more geared to getting things she wanted or did not like. For example, she would say, “My high today is getting the (insert name) toy or book and my low is that my stomach did not feel good today and my last high is that I ate a cookie.” When telling her my highs, I would mention our walks to school and reading her a story at night and my lows would be something like not hearing back from a potential employer or having pain in my knee.

As time went by our “high-low-highs” started changing and becoming more personal and meaningful. Her highs would include spending time with family members, helping out around the house and seeing certain classmates in school after they missed a day or two. Her lows would be not seeing certain classmates because they were sick, that her aunt was sad because her mother had passed and that there would be no school the next day.This routine of ours is something we look forward to every night and she always reminds me that we have to do it. I can not wait see how High-Low-High is going to evolve as she gets older and once her brother is old enough to join us in our daily ritual. Doing this, I feel, is creating a deep bond with my children that will teach them that they can talk to me about anything and that everyone, even parents, have their highs and lows.