sorry it is an old picture, but this is my boy
See I don’t want to start this post in the usual way that I normally do with words like so, and or I am, this is kind of a post about telling secrets without actually voicing the words because I was sworn not to tell his mother about what we talked about last night my son asked me not to tell his mother, well I am being a little sneaky and underhanded but technically he didn’t say I couldn’t blog about it so I am, knowing that his mother reads my blog, and I am not physically telling her anything and I am not even blogging to her, I am blogging in general to all of my friends not just her, ok I think we all get the point I am making so on with the telling already. Sheesh already running off at the mouth aint he.
So I went school clothes shopping with my son yesterday and we were getting uniforms for his school, making sure he had the right color pants and shirts, oh and remind me to go back and get some long sleeve ones for winter, alright I am getting on with the story, so I asked him what size pants he was wearing and he said heck I don’t know so I looked at the back of his pants and they said 33×28 cool that was easy or so I thought, we go through and find all the polo shirts in all the right colors and size then we have to have a certain type of pants, no cargo, no extra pockets and so on, well that took a minute for us to find but we did and I grabbed a pair of 33×28 Dickies pants and said go try them on, well he didn’t want to but with a little dad type persasusion he decide it would be a good idea to try them on, so I am standing there waiting and I finally go over to the fitting room and say how do they fit, they don’t, ok so I grab a pair of 34×28 and give them to him, they didn’t fit either, ok so I gave him a pair of 36×28 pants and all of them are in the men’s section and he tried them on and I said what about now, and he said yep they fit, cool we are in the green now and only went to one place to get his uniforms so I grab 6 pairs of pants in different colors that is for his school and we head to the check out, pay and zoom we are gone. So we finish our day of shopping at the mall for shoes we eat and grab some things for mom, and now we are really done and ready to go home, see I really don’t see why you go off and tell something that isn’t really important to the story Dan, you need to get to the point and tell them what happened. Ok so I am a little wordy get over it I am telling a story here, so we get home and this is where I should tell you a little more about my sons physical attributes, that is if no one wants to complain about going off on a tangent, he is 12 and he is probably not even 5 foot tall and well he is, he is chubby, he has a shelf belly just like his older brother Michael, once again not important, bullshit it is cause it tells of what he looks like. His belly starts at his throat and ends right at his waistline so that should give you an idea and he probably hasn’t seen his penis since he got one, ok that was not even the correct thing to say about your son Daniel keep on point and get to the point, how am I supposed to get anything done with all these interruptions, ok so we got home and he is at that height that he doesn’t quite fit into normal length pants so his grandmother hems them for him. So she grabs all the shirts and all the pants and puts them on hangers and pointedly asks me if he tried them on I said yes I was standing right there, ok so she hangs them up and then later she asks Dylan to get a pair of his pants for her to measure the length and she would start hemming them, so in Dylan fashion he drops trousers right in the hallway, did I ever tell you that none of my children especially my daughter and my youngest son have no inhibitions? Well he grabs the pants and pulls them on and he has to lift his belly out of the way and suck in on the rest of his gut to get them snapped, they don’t fit. And well nanny looked at me and said did you see them after he had them on, I said no he was in the little dressing room and he said they fit, and by looking at him and the pants you could tell they didn’t fit, she then said you can’t trust him to tell you if they fit I did it once and they ended up not fitting, so now I look like an ass and his pants don’t fit and I got to go all the way back and exchange them for a size 38×28 men’s pants, you could see the pain in his face as it fell, his feelings were hurt and I wasn’t sure why and I thought at first it was because of what his grandmother had said, so he takes them off and storms to his room and shuts the door, I watched him go thinking there is a problem and I need to find it and fix it the best I can, so after helping nanny put the pants in the bag finding the receipt and getting lectured the whole time, I wasn’t listening my son was upset and I wanted to know why?
So I knock on his door and I walk in and you can see that he is almost in tears and I ask him what is the matter, now usually we do this thing that when he don’t want to talk to me about something I usually let it go but this time I couldn’t so I asked if he was upset with his grandmother he said she sort of hurt his feelings and I said but that isn’t all of it is it, he said no and it took a little bit for me to get it out of him but he finally told me, almost on tears that he was upset because he was only 12 years old and was wearing a man’s 38 pants, my heart broke. So I told him that it was ok and he shook his head and told me he didn’t want to look like both of his older brothers, and I said I understand but what do you want to do about it, he said I don’t know, I said I can give you some advice but that is what I did for your older brothers and they didn’t take my advice, but I will tell you if you want me to. He shook his head and looked at me like I could fix the world, hell I can barely get my own ass out of bed in the morning, do I really have the right to give my son any advice, I did it for his brothers so I will do it for him.
I told him that there was a way to help him feel better and that if he followed my advice and did some simple things it would work in his favor, and asked him again if he wanted me tell him and he said yes. So I said the problem you are having is that you feel you are fat and that you don’t think you should be at 12 wearing a man’s size 38 pants, is that the problem? He said yes. I said ok the first thing I wanted to talk about was what and how much he was eating and when he was eating, and I said all of us do this, most everybody in the world has done this including me, it is called boredom eating, you don’t have anything else to do so you head to the kitchen and bam you got something to do get a snack or eat something and you do and it is usually late at night just before you go to sleep, right? He said yes that he did that and I told him hell son I did it just last night, and we always have something sweet on hand whether it is a cake, cookies, brownies or even store bought junk food, nanny is a baker plain and simple, can’t stop her and can’t tell her not to do it, it is what she does to combat boredom herself. So I asked him about how many times a day do you think you eat. He said one to two times a day, I said there is part of your problem if you only eat once a day and it is dinner what happens, he shrugs so I continue and tell him that you gorge eat, you eat as much as possible because you only fed your body once that day, now I ask him what do we usually do after dinner, he said around on computers or watch TV and then bed. So I say what do you think happens to all the food when you are not active, he said it turns into fat, right I say. So I tell him to make sure that he eats more than one time a day, I don’t care if it breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner or whatever I told him it would be better for him to eat several small things all day long, it will give him energy and will keep him healthier. I asked if he understood what I was trying to say, he said kind of so I explained it more to him and I also talked to him about portion control, and I asked him when he gets his late night snack usually pizza rolls how many do you get, he said I don’t know a plate full, I said ok so more than twenty, he said yes. Well I said that isn’t portion control you just pile them all on the plate and don’t care how many is there and eat them all, yes. I said one of the best ways to lose weight was portion control, I don’t care what you eat I said but I care about how much you eat of it. He kind of gave me a funny look I could tell he didn’t understand so I said that if you eat smaller amounts more often it is better for your body and digestion than eating twenty or more pizza rolls at 9 in the night, so he kinds of got the idea I am going to have to work with him on that, so I said when you eat how do you know if you are full or not, he said of course when I am done eating, no that is not really right yes you are full when you are done eating but are you over full where you are uncomfortable, he said yes. I told him that when he eats to notice how his stomach feels and when you feel full or comfortable then stop eating, still one more thing we will work on but he is getting the idea and I can see his is thinking about what I am saying. So now I ask him what are some things that he could do to help him lose weight. He said eat less, yes that is one way bit what are some things you can do for yourself to help you lose weight? He said work out, bingo I said how and what would you do to work out, he said I can’t do anything the treadmill doesn’t work and the nautilus machine downstairs is broken, I said is there anything else you could do right here in your own room to help you lose weight, he looked around and said nothing, so I asked him if he remembered what a PRT for the Army was, he shook his head and I told him it was a physical readiness test to see if a soldier was in shape and they gave them periodically as a check and I asked him if he remembered what I did to get ready or stay ready for those tests, he said no, I told him I did sit ups and pushups and that the Army had a standard of how many you were supposed to do to get a good score based on your age, and he asked how many did I have to do to get a good score, I told him 100 pushups and 50 sit ups and run 2.5 miles, and I told him I always screwed the run, my body apparently doesn’t work that way and the Army recognizes that and adjusts your scores accordingly. So I told him that he could do them in his room and for himself, well we went downstairs and was looking at the nautilus machine to see if maybe we could fix it, we can’t cable is broken. So we talked about other things like riding his bike or there was a part of the machine that wasn’t broke where you suspend your own weight and then pull your knees up to your waist or you could use your whole leg and put them out in front of you, I said try it and he did and he couldn’t even hold himself up and he tried and tried till he was out of breath, I said there you know what you were doing he said ya I was trying to get up there, I said nope you were exercising, I said you can come down here all day long and try to get up there and eventually you will get up there and I showed him the correct position to be in when he finally got up there. So we went and sat down by the machine and he said will you work out with me, I said no, and here is the reason why, it isn’t because I don’t want to, it is because of this and only this. You have to do it for you and want to do it for you and nobody else, he said you won’t even push me to do it, I said what like a drill sergeant he said yes, I told him that then he was only doing it because I was screaming in his face for him to do it, and he asked but isn’t that what happened in boot camp, I said yes but that was different they were changing me from a civilian to a soldier.
I finally put it to him like this, I said the only thing in life that will help you is you, now people may do things like this with you but if you are doing it for yourself and know why you are doing it then that will make all the difference in the world, because the only one who can do it is you. I said remember when I went to the hospital for the first time, yes, I said did I do it because I was told to or did I do it because I needed to do it for myself, he said I think you did it for yourself, I said right I had a problem that needed to be fixed and I went to the hospital so that I could fix myself, not your mother or you or anyone else, I did it for me. And you have something that is making you upset right, right, you are upset because you don’t want to be 12 years old and be wearing a size 38 men’s pants right, right. So I said I have given you some advice and I have told you some things that you can do to help you fix the problem for yourself, I said you can choose to take this advice, the same advice I gave to your brothers or not it is your decision, but remember you have to want to change and you have to want to change for you, not me or momma or nanny, only for you, do you understand, yes I guess so, I said that is not an answer it is either you understand or you don’t, and he said he understood. I then told him that only one person in our family has taken my advice about much of anything and that was your sister and it wasn’t about this, and your brothers both came to me with the same problem, he says ya but they are still fat, and I said that was because they didn’t follow the advice I gave them, and I give you the same option I gave them either take the advice and do it or don’t and live with the way you are, and if you are comfortable with you then so am I, I said no never worry I love you no matter what you look like or what you do or if you don’t take my advice, that is not how a dad works, it aint how we roll, no look I have been quiet most of this story and let you tell it the way you would tell it, but you are not ghetto or a gangster and neither id Dylan, so stick to the southern boy way of speaking, damn ok. In the end it is up to him whether he takes what I have told and runs with it or not, the ball is now in his hands, and will see one way or the other, but never ever think that I don’t love my son.
With much gratitude and devotion,
Dan Kline and friends!
