A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.
Just rip my heart out with a spoon!
Evan, 3 years old: "Go playground Dad."
Dad: "We can’t do that right now."
Evan, weeping: "Go playground Dad. Pleeease. Go playground. Go playground now. Goooo playground puleease."
Dad: "I’m sorry. I have to work."
Evan, hurt and mad: "I not play [with you] anymore!" and stomps away from Dad.
Some people have wolly worms or twitching toes to tell them what the weather will be. I have my wife! She’s down and out with a severe migraine right now. That means an extreme change in weather, usually a drop in pressure, so tonight it is going to snow, snow, SNOW! I only wish she could do this without having to suffer such pain.
The house is 14.4°C right now. It was snowing today. Seems that the 3 year old has learned how to work the thermostat. I am now adding a digitally controlled, programmable, lockable thermostat to my wish list.
Temperature conversion by http://www.onlineconversion.com/
Wife ill. I have sent her to bed. Afternoon activities: program (finish a database audit trail system ie. track who makes all changes to the data, and finish a search engine), cook brownies for tonight’s Boy Scout Christmas party, pickup high school girls from school, buy ornament hooks from AC Moore so we can finish our advent calendar and let the children begin the Christmas countdown (aka this year daddy has his stroke). Maybe feed the children (which may involve a trip to the grocery) – there is some debate as to whether or not tonight’s Christmas party has real food (figure that out). Clean and prepare the children for tonight’s activity. And be kind to the wife and check on her to make her comfortable. That’s it.
Because I posted this picture instead of that picture Cathy took a picture of me in 40°C or 50°C weather when I took a quick moment to decorate our skeleton.
Tommy, back from college for 9 days: "Dad, is it normal to have all the skin on top of your foot just die?"
Tommy has returned from college for a 9 day Thanksgiving break. Noah is home from school. Evan is up from his nap. Cathy has taken Sarah and a friend to the movies.
Evan, raising one finger then another like a peace sign: "I have Noah at home. I have Tom at home."
Love and importance!
I’ve just been on the phone with Sprint because one of their customers has left a pseudo-threatening/hateful comment on my wife’s blog. They advised immediately filing a police report so that their corporate security department could escalate the issue faster than if I handle it myself. I really don’t like giving hateful people this much attention. It’s best if they just go away. People, the Internet is far from anonymous! In cases like this, you don’t leave a bread crumb trail; you leave a paved boulevard.
Noah, 12.5 years old: "Who is Tom Sawyer?"
Dad: "You’ve never read Tom Sawyer?!"
Noah: "I’ve heard of him. He was on Fairly Odd Parents once."
I am trying to work. Evan comes downstairs carrying a game CD and a case for Mart Kart Wii because he likes playing Mart Kart Wii with me. Instead of acknowledging the cuteness and giving him the 4 minutes it takes for him to get bored with the game, I got frustrated with the distraction and angered that a CD/DVD was out of its case being handled by a three year old. Don’t ever forget, they just want your love and your attention! To give a child what they want often takes very little. Make the time.
Evan: "Dad, let’s get dressed as pirates up there." (Up there meaning up stairs.)
Parenting is driving down the road, hearing a child sneeze, looking over your shoulder to see a one inch slug hanging from her nose, and rapidly finding a tissue without wrecking the car.
My son has experienced his first ever Emergency Alert System message on the television..and it wasn’t a test!
Evan, 3 years and 5 months old: "Daddy! Come look at tv."
Dad, hears that an Emergency Alert System message is on: "It’s okay. It’ll go away in a moment."
Evan, turns television off then back on and message is gone: "I fix it!"
I’m under a lot of pressure right now. I’m trying hard to close out a project. The end of projects are always the most difficult because time and budget is usually running out. Often the client realizes they want features that either were never requested or not implemented for whatever reason. In using the product during testing, user interface issues arise or the enduser finds it would be easier with just this "one simple change". Those are generalizations to "many projects" and not necessarily talking about the one I am on. But today I have been really trying hard to reach a couple of very specific goals and it hasn’t gone as fast or as smoothly as planned.
Enter the children. Since its nearing 4pm, Sarah has to be picked up from the high school, which is right across the street from Party City aka Halloween Depot. So Amy and Cathy are off to get Sarah, costumes, and accessories leaving me with my computer and Evan until Noah gets home to babysit. Of course, Evan just wants to play with Dad so he comes down to my desk and starts moving things around. In his cuteness, he wants to help so while I type on one computer, he starts typing on the other and unknowingly messing up my test bed. I lose it. No tv Dad for me today. I’ll reserve 50 lashings for myself later when in great self-flagellation when I punish myself for my loss of temper. Of course, that won’t change the fact that I sent a crying 3 year old packing to an empty upstairs. I feel like crud. I should work at night while they sleep. I just cannot figure out when I’d sleep. Time to go make amends and give some hugs.
