Before I get into the meat of this, let me tell you a little about my personality style. I have always cared WAY too much about what people think about me. If you gave me a choice on being 'right' or 'liked', I would definitely choose 'liked'. It's been the bane of my existence in many situations. It's hard to lead a project in the corporate world worrying too much about what people think of you. This personality trait has caused me much anxiety over the years.
Ok, background set (and if you know me, you know I haven't gone deeply enough into just how true this is).
The other night, I attended a hayride party at my friends' house. This is a favorite annual party of mine and my kids. It's our first time to get dressed up for Halloween and the hosts always go all out. Over the last few years, I've met many of their neighborhood friends. There are even a few I've become acquainted with enough to look forward to seeing them again.
As I'm catching up with one woman about what's going on in my life, she asks me how my photography business is coming. I'm surprised because we just talked about how it had been a year since we've seen each other and I didn't start this business until recently. I ask her how she knew and she responds, "I read it on your Facebook page."
Here, a smarter woman would have said, "Of course!" I, on the other hand, responded by asking, "Are we Facebook friends?" Now, go back and imagine me saying that in slow motion. Go ahead and laugh, it didn't happen to you.
Luckily, this particular woman is either WAY TOO nice, or she has a firm grasp on the divinely ridiculous. I fessed up to being an idiot, asked her her last name, made the connection, and told her she was the subject of my next blog post.
There's more to the story - like how we became friends in the context of Mafia Wars instead of under the true umbrella of friendship, but I'll not sully the story by giving myself too good an excuse.
When you respond to someone with the sentence, "Are we Facebook friends?" you probably have too many Facebook friends.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Multiplicity
You know, I've always watched Funniest Home Videos with a mixed sense of smug satisfaction and veiled disappointment. I never had a kid who ran around the house banging into things with a bucket on his head. Or a kid who hides 18 frogs in her pull-up. Or a brother who paints his entire younger sibling with chocolate syrup. Obviously, I have funny kids. That comes with the territory of parenthood. But I've never had THAT kid. The one who leaves you responding with slack-jawed head- shaking. Until now.
I'm sad to say I have no video evidence of this, but I have good character witnesses who will back up my claims.
1. At 14 months old, Cade doesn't have a single word in his repertoire except "Uh." Uh means more, that, cat, no, yes, yummy, and pick me up.
2. He eats soap. He puts it in his mouth, makes a horrendous face, takes it out and looks at it, then puts it right back in his mouth to make sure it tastes that bad.
3. He likes to stick his hand RIGHT in the middle of a dirty diaper. It's impossible to change him anymore. I'd need three hands. One to lift his legs, one to do the diaper/wipe stuff, and one to keep his hands out of the action (this usually results in a bath - see #2).
4. He has discovered the joy of crawling with his forehead on the ground. He is still shocked each time he goes from rug to hardwood or over a threshold. He cries, looks at us like we put it there on purpose to torture him, and goes right back to it. He has constant rugburn on his head.
5. He hoards food. In his mouth. For hours. We fed him olives the other night and discovered olive pulp inside his cheek right before bedtime. Actually, this also applies to bugs, mud, Legos, and cat hair.
So, we have ourselves a living case of Multiplicity where my precious Cade is the tongue-shaving #4.
I'm sad to say I have no video evidence of this, but I have good character witnesses who will back up my claims.
1. At 14 months old, Cade doesn't have a single word in his repertoire except "Uh." Uh means more, that, cat, no, yes, yummy, and pick me up.
2. He eats soap. He puts it in his mouth, makes a horrendous face, takes it out and looks at it, then puts it right back in his mouth to make sure it tastes that bad.
3. He likes to stick his hand RIGHT in the middle of a dirty diaper. It's impossible to change him anymore. I'd need three hands. One to lift his legs, one to do the diaper/wipe stuff, and one to keep his hands out of the action (this usually results in a bath - see #2).
4. He has discovered the joy of crawling with his forehead on the ground. He is still shocked each time he goes from rug to hardwood or over a threshold. He cries, looks at us like we put it there on purpose to torture him, and goes right back to it. He has constant rugburn on his head.
5. He hoards food. In his mouth. For hours. We fed him olives the other night and discovered olive pulp inside his cheek right before bedtime. Actually, this also applies to bugs, mud, Legos, and cat hair.
So, we have ourselves a living case of Multiplicity where my precious Cade is the tongue-shaving #4.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Don't count your chickens
I handed Stone a camera this weekend to keep him occupied while I photographed sisters at the Botanical Gardens in Ft. Worth. The pictures he got were pretty awesome. I thought I might have had an artistic genius on my hands. I made a web album, sent it to his grandparents, bragged, you get the drift.
Here are some shots from the first batch:
Pay close attention to the rear view mirror in this one...
After all that, he asked for the camera while I was working in the office and I gave it to him. Who am I to deny his growth as a future savant? Here are some of the second batch:
There's a certain simplistic beauty in the consistency, right?
Here are some shots from the first batch:
Pay close attention to the rear view mirror in this one...
After all that, he asked for the camera while I was working in the office and I gave it to him. Who am I to deny his growth as a future savant? Here are some of the second batch:
There's a certain simplistic beauty in the consistency, right?
Friday, October 2, 2009
Metamorphosis
I'm writing this mostly to process. For cathartic purposes. It's finally happened and I guess I should have seen it coming, but I honestly didn't. My oldest child has been body-snatched.
I lived the creepy sci-fi moment two weeks ago and I'm still waiting for it to make sense. Let me backtrack a moment. We started seeing notes in Pearce's daily planner from teachers. This was not a shock. He's always been a bit of a talker. Dratted DNA. Those notes were joined by an amassment of failing grades, an email from the Math teacher, a phone call from the Science teacher, and finally detention.
Detention? By the time this word rolls around, we're on our fourth 'enough is enough' talk with Pearce. It's time to take it to DEFCON 3.
DEFCON 5 - everything is normal
DEFCON 4 - each parent handles discussions and maintains radio communication with the other (Pearce's dad and I are divorced).
DEFCON 3 - parents schedule a formal face-to-face talk with child. Punishment is decided by both parents, set at both houses, and communicated to child. Teachers are informed.
DEFCON 2 -
DEFCON 1 -
You might notice that DEFCONs 1&2 aren't defined. Yet.
During this face-to-face with Pearce, he finally blew a gasket and dramatically informed us that if he did what he's supposed to do, he'd 'just become another slave in the school'. That he didn't understand why he had to respect adults if they didn't respect him.
It's like my kid is living his own pre-pubescent Breakfast Club and he chose Judd Nelson's 'I'm-a-disrespectful-clown-to-mask-the-pain' character. He's much more of Emilio Estevez's 'I'm-a-jockish-follower-who-taped-a-guy's-butt-cheeks-together-to-fit-in-with-my-football-buddies' character. Not that I'm condoning that behavior.
He finished his tearful diatribe and I was officially lost. Up to that moment, I always thought Pearce and I were alike. I was the kid who celebrated an 'S' (satisfactory) in conduct. Mostly, I stuck with the 'N' (needs improvement) and irregular 'U' (use your imagination). But, I NEVER bucked under the saddle of authority. I knew that point where my teacher had had enough.
At any rate, Pearce stunned me into silence. I'd been handling most of the conversation to that point because Frank had a wisdom tooth removed earlier in the day, but he stepped in after seeing the horror on my face. It was the highlight of the conversation for me because the anesthesia and cotton in his mouth gave him a Marlon Brando effect that was awesome to behold. In his best Godfather imitation, he told Pearce that he understood him because they were so much alike.
What? Wait. Hard-headedness...defiance...flippancy...
That's when I had my epiphany. It's not my fault!!! I wanted to shout it from a mountain! Pearce isn't in trouble because of my genes! It's Frank's fault. Oh happy day! If Frank had switched from Marlon Brando to open-mouthed Donald Sutherland, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Humor aside, I actually left that conversation feeling confused and defeated. Pearce was struggling and I had no tools, wisdom, or frame of reference to help him. It was my first parental roadblock. Like writer's block of the heart.
That was two weeks ago and things are better - not perfect - but better. Pearce and I have had good talks since then about how he's a funny kid, but part of being funny is learning timing. And how in the middle of class is bad timing (i.e. NOT funny). We had the heart-to-heart about how he feared I was on his teachers' sides and I had the chance to explain to him that we were all on HIS side. Which probably sounded like that 'This hurts me worse than it hurts you' mumbo-jumbo my dad pulled on me when I was a kid (which makes total sense to me now).
I just thought boogers, slobber, dirty diapers, and throw up was the messy part of parenting. We hadn't hit 5th grade yet. Sheesh.
I lived the creepy sci-fi moment two weeks ago and I'm still waiting for it to make sense. Let me backtrack a moment. We started seeing notes in Pearce's daily planner from teachers. This was not a shock. He's always been a bit of a talker. Dratted DNA. Those notes were joined by an amassment of failing grades, an email from the Math teacher, a phone call from the Science teacher, and finally detention.
Detention? By the time this word rolls around, we're on our fourth 'enough is enough' talk with Pearce. It's time to take it to DEFCON 3.
DEFCON 5 - everything is normal
DEFCON 4 - each parent handles discussions and maintains radio communication with the other (Pearce's dad and I are divorced).
DEFCON 3 - parents schedule a formal face-to-face talk with child. Punishment is decided by both parents, set at both houses, and communicated to child. Teachers are informed.
DEFCON 2 -
DEFCON 1 -
You might notice that DEFCONs 1&2 aren't defined. Yet.
During this face-to-face with Pearce, he finally blew a gasket and dramatically informed us that if he did what he's supposed to do, he'd 'just become another slave in the school'. That he didn't understand why he had to respect adults if they didn't respect him.
It's like my kid is living his own pre-pubescent Breakfast Club and he chose Judd Nelson's 'I'm-a-disrespectful-clown-to-mask-the-pain' character. He's much more of Emilio Estevez's 'I'm-a-jockish-follower-who-taped-a-guy's-butt-cheeks-together-to-fit-in-with-my-football-buddies' character. Not that I'm condoning that behavior.
He finished his tearful diatribe and I was officially lost. Up to that moment, I always thought Pearce and I were alike. I was the kid who celebrated an 'S' (satisfactory) in conduct. Mostly, I stuck with the 'N' (needs improvement) and irregular 'U' (use your imagination). But, I NEVER bucked under the saddle of authority. I knew that point where my teacher had had enough.
At any rate, Pearce stunned me into silence. I'd been handling most of the conversation to that point because Frank had a wisdom tooth removed earlier in the day, but he stepped in after seeing the horror on my face. It was the highlight of the conversation for me because the anesthesia and cotton in his mouth gave him a Marlon Brando effect that was awesome to behold. In his best Godfather imitation, he told Pearce that he understood him because they were so much alike.
What? Wait. Hard-headedness...defiance...flippancy...
That's when I had my epiphany. It's not my fault!!! I wanted to shout it from a mountain! Pearce isn't in trouble because of my genes! It's Frank's fault. Oh happy day! If Frank had switched from Marlon Brando to open-mouthed Donald Sutherland, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Humor aside, I actually left that conversation feeling confused and defeated. Pearce was struggling and I had no tools, wisdom, or frame of reference to help him. It was my first parental roadblock. Like writer's block of the heart.
That was two weeks ago and things are better - not perfect - but better. Pearce and I have had good talks since then about how he's a funny kid, but part of being funny is learning timing. And how in the middle of class is bad timing (i.e. NOT funny). We had the heart-to-heart about how he feared I was on his teachers' sides and I had the chance to explain to him that we were all on HIS side. Which probably sounded like that 'This hurts me worse than it hurts you' mumbo-jumbo my dad pulled on me when I was a kid (which makes total sense to me now).
I just thought boogers, slobber, dirty diapers, and throw up was the messy part of parenting. We hadn't hit 5th grade yet. Sheesh.
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