School Boy

What a whirlwind these last two years have been. It feels like Marty was a teeny tiny baby we just brought home from the hospital, I blinked, and suddenly his teacher’s giving him homework.

As of September 2019, Marty goes to school, and he loves it. He takes the bus to ACDS in Plainview five days a week where he learns, plays, and interacts with other students. It’s a fabulous place, and I fell in love with it instantly. In just the last month or so, I’ve already seen significant strides in his verbal communication, not to mention the incredible maturation and bravery. While he exhibited trepidation in the first few days, he quickly began vocally requesting to get on the bus to go to school. He often tries to drag his backpack to the door, asking me to walk him to the bus stop so he can go to school.

As I’m sure most parents would agree, putting your baby on a bus for the first time is among the scariest things you’ll ever do. Part of me felt completely terrified wondering where he would be at all times. What route is the bus taking? What if he gets on the wrong bus? How will I know when they’re going to arrive? Well, being the obsessive-compulsive parent that I am, I could not allow for his location to be a mystery. After a week or so, I purchased a remarkable product called “jiobit.” No, they’re not sponsoring this post, but wow is this gadget incredible. It allows for real-time tracking so I keep it on him at all times. As the company advertises, it’s a little smaller than an Oreo cookie, and it uses WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular, and GPS to pinpoint his whereabouts. It’s the next best thing to following the bus to and from school (which I’m told many hyper-protective parents have done at times).

Sometimes there are moments where I recognize why I had to wait until I was older to have children. That is, I don’t really think I would have been ready or truly capable of being the parent I am now at 39 when I was 29. With his mother working nights at St. Francis, it is my sole responsibility on most mornings to get him up and ready. A typical day starts for me when my alarm goes off at 6am. That alarm essentially affords me 30 minutes to get myself ready for work because at 6:30, it’s Marty time. Once he’s awake and his diaper’s changed, the next 20 minutes or so are spent feeding him breakfast and signing along to music with Alexa. I then let him play for a few minutes before dressing him and loading up his backpack with the lunch bag his mom prepared the night before. We walk down to the end of the block, and he’s on his way at 7:30.

To most parents, this may seem like nothing. In fact, as we are now expecting our second child (a baby girl) in a matter of days, I’m sure I’ll look back on this stuff and laugh at how easy it truly was. However, as a first time father, the responsibility of taking care of him can be quite daunting.

And while sending Marty off to school, knowing he loves it there, is wonderful. One of my life’s greatest treasures is working and living in Long Beach which has allowed me to frequently come back home at lunch time to greet him off the bus. He arrives at our door shortly after 12:30 every day (it’s only a half-day program at this point), and I get to see his smiling face through the window as he points and mouths “dada!” in my direction. When Anne and I bring him through the front door, he exclaims “home!” with much enthusiasm.

Being Marty’s dad is far and away the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I mean, the other night when the Rangers scored their first goal of the hockey season, Marty charged into the room to sing and chant their goal song with me. He’s not yet two years old, but he knew exactly what had happened and he wanted to celebrate with his dad. How cool is that? I’m sure adding a daughter to the mix will increase life’s challenges but also exponentially increase the amount of love in our family — something it seems isn’t even possible.

If working in Long Beach is not an option in the near future due to politics, I’ll have to come up with a solution that allows me to still earn a decent living for my family while maintaining some semblance of a work/life balance. There are potential career paths in Manhattan and at various locations on Long Island that I will have to consider, but I must admit that being my own boss is an attractive option at this point. No matter what I decide to do with my future, the choices I make will all be based on what I feel is best for my family. That’s really what motivates me, and I cannot imagine any other factors even coming close.