Blood

Katherine Fleischer Park on Elementary School Field Trip Day can be a treacherous place. All those kids appeared to be doing some sort of math scavenger hunt, running around with tape measures and questionnaires. Thumper followed them around in absolute awe. He went into the little wooden playhouse, and I'm not saying he was pushed necessarily, but he fell off the bottom step of, hmmm, let me see, Google Google Google, ah yes, these stairs. I ran over and scooped him up while two other adults helpfully told me that he fell down. Really? You think so? I laid his head on my shoulder while he made that long, silent, preliminary cry.

You know what turns a laid back, let-him-explore-for-himself kind of dad into a nervous helicopter parent for the rest of the day? Laying a comforting hand on his child's head and having it come away bloody.

It was a small cut, and he was over it in a minute or two, but man, half an hour later when the five-year-old who's been kicked out of three daycares for "aggression issues" decided it was time to "help" Thumper bounce on the rocket, I may have yelled a little louder than was actually appropriate.

Gorillas Touching Socks

So I've kind of fallen off the Weight Watchers dietary wagon lately, but I'm still working out, so that's good. In fact, I jogged outside today for the first time in a long time. The boy's got a bit of a snotty cold that I didn't think the gym child care ladies would appreciate, so we jogged the four-mile neighborhood circuit this morning instead. Apparently all the working out on the treadmill is getting results; the last time I ran the circuit, I was walking three and jogging seven out of every ten minutes. Today I jogged the whole thing without stopping, and knocked six minutes off my best time. Maybe I should start thinking about finding a 5K or (gasp!) a 10K to start training for.

And when I was dressing the boy to go out on our jog, as I pulled his socks on, he said to me, "There's no gorillas touching my socks." Not sure that I heard him correctly, I asked, "No gorillas touching your socks?" "Nope," he said. "Not today."

That Rodney, He's a Card

So there's this thing that's occupying most of our mental and emotional energies lately, leaving both Aerie and me somewhat useless at the end of the day. The thing is, it's not something I can really write or talk about much; it's a painful family situation that's not my story to tell, but it makes us both sad. And it sends ripples across the family pond, creating other situations that need resolutions. Since Aerie is the World's Most Capable Woman, she's the go-to gal for resolutions, making her more sad, and more tired, and it's just kind of wearing us both down a little bit.

Luckily, the sun may be coming out tomorrow, etc. etc., and everything will be fine, though different. In the meantime, I'm wasting my free time blowing up jewels on Facebook and robbing drug dealers and taking over gang territories on Playstation 2, so I'm not posting much. So here are a couple of amusing anecdotes about my day ushering at the big football game. Smiles everyone, smiles!

So as I may have mentioned, I supervise one of the gates through which students enter the stadium. Rodney's my bullhorn man; it's his job to work the crowd when the lines build up, reminding students to have their student ID's out and working to redistribute the lines evenly. For some reason, whenever people see a line, they think they have to stand in it, even if there are shorter lines fifteen feet away.

Anyway! That's Rodney's job: working the crowd with a bullhorn. I tell him, if the students ask him to use his bullhorn to get a good fight song going, or other school cheer etc. etc., that's great, that's just good customer service, by all means, indulge them. Just never ever, as in never, hand over the bullhorn.

So the rush comes, and I look up, and I see Rodney standing out there, surrounded by four hot, scantily-clad college girls. And one of them is holding his bullhorn. So I go out there and ask him, "Rodney, what happened to not relinquishing control of your bullhorn?" And he grins at me, looks down, and quietly says, "I know. They just smelled so good."

So there's that.

And then! Around halftime I notice a group of adorable little girls in blue cheerleader outfits enthusiastically belting out a cheer routine. I wouldn't guess that elementaries have cheer squads, but they certainly didn't look old enough for middle school. So they're out there doing their thing, and there's a bucket in front of them, and one of their mothers is holding a giant poster board that quite clearly solicits donations to help them travel to somesuchplace or nother for a cheer competition of some kind.

Well, crap.

I know this is not allowed, but I call on the radio for confirmation from my higher ups that I'm going to have to be the heavy here. I describe the situation and ask, "Do I have to put a stop to that?" I get the one word reply: "Yes."

Well, crap.

So I approach the mother with the sign, and I tell her, "I hate to be the guy that has to tell little girls they can't do their cheer routine," etc. etc. "It's against University's Rules and Regulations," etc. etc. "But they can't do that here." She was very nice. She understood. We watched them finish their chant, then she gathered up the girls, who were very excited to be doing their thing outside the giant stadium, and they moved on. I hope they didn't move far, just far enough to be off of University property and still well within reach of lots of potential donors. Or at least out of my sight range.

So there you go. Those are my Bad Guy stories for today. The game was too early and the opponent too unranked for the students to come out in drunken droves, so I only got to anger a mere handful. But at least I got to crush a middle-aged man's flirtations and chase off a gang of adorable little girls.

Watch Your Mailbox, Grandpa!

To write, one must hold a crayon and speak the words out loud.

Why I Should Not Speak to Strangers

I wonder about names. Do they come in waves, and how? How is it that we thought Tucker and Connor and Noah would be unusual names we might bestow on our baby boy, only now to discover that every time we go to the playground Tucker, Connor, and Noah are all taking turns on the slide or throwing sand at each other in the sandbox? Were the names already prevalent, and that's how we came to become attracted to them, though we didn't notice? Or does a whole generation of parents all simultaneously decide that Noah would be cute? And to what degree is Dr. Carter directly responsible?

Anyway, I've decided I need to shut up already and stop telling parents that "we almost named our son __________________." Why? Because somebody finally asked me, "Really? Why'd you change your mind?" And I couldn't think quickly enough of an answer that wasn't, "Because we thought he might not like the other kids at school calling him Tucker the F**ker."

You Met Me At a Very Strange Time in My Life

That's a quote from Fight Club, Mom.

1. I'm not real keen on the new look. I have a suspicion that this is one ugly color scheme, but I was getting tired of the last one.

2. Happy Kissiversary, Aerie!

3. Things have been pretty strange around here, stressful and aggravating and also fun and amazing and tiring.

(a) There are serious disruptions taking place in Aerie's family, and we're hurting for them and worrying with them about what the future will hold and also hoping it all doesn't spill over too much into our little world.

(b) I also spent three straight weeks spending most of my free time working on a large copywriting project, and it couldn't be clearer to me that it's not a lot of fun and puts more stress on my family life. It does pay well, and it would be easier if I were better at managing my time.

(c) I'm struggling to stay motivated with Weight Watchers. As I've noted before, success gives me an inexplicable tendency to sabotage myself. I've kept up the exercise, though I think I've got a rotator cuff injury that's making weight lifting a bad idea. I'm still hitting the treadmill, though. In fact, I had a new personal best yesterday, burning 1070 calories in 60 minutes. I've got to say, The Crystal Method's Drive is my all-time favorite workout album. I think it was released as part of a promotion of Nike's integration with iPod, or something like that, which makes it about as corporate as you can get, but man, it's effective. I only wish it was long enough to get me all through a full hour instead of quitting at about 45 minutes. Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel... Bad, right? Wait a minute, what was I talking about again? Oh, right. Stalling on the weight loss. Yeah.

(d) Thumper's been testing a lot of limits lately, and has developed a strong tendency to contradict everything that's said to him. We have whining, and screaming fits, and "I won't..." and "I can't...", and conversations that tend to follow these lines:

Me: "It's raining."
He: "No, it's not raining."
Me: "It's not?"
He: "No, it's raining."

So the stress and frustration from (a), (b), and (c) tend to make (d) less bearable, but every day I'm reminded by the people around me how wonderful he is. Wherever we go, people tell me how cute and big and smart he is. We had one of our best playdates ever this week, with 4 other kids on the playground all about the same age as he. The kids played together and shared toys with minimal friction, the 2 moms, a babysitter, another dad and I were all friendly and talked Halloween and potty training and developmental milestones and mothers-in-law. And they all expressed amazement at Thumper's age. The dad even said, "He can't do that yet!" when Thumper pedaled a borrowed tricycle on a circuit round and round the playground. So I'm daily reminded how lucky we are with him, but still, I'm doing a lot of yelling lately.

So, uh, yeah, all of that just to say I haven't updated much lately, and I don't like my new layout here, but I really don't have the time or motivation to change it. We're doing a National Downs Syndrome Society Buddy Walk today, which will be fun. And my beloved database project that was suspended indefinitely has been revived, so there's more work such that I may actually someday be able to signup for ushering shifts online, glory hallelujah. Facebook's responsible for my light posting, too. Curse you, you evil Bejeweled Blitz!

Place

Here's 100 Words on "Place," inspired by Velvet Verbosity:


She hasn't got a place, though she could if she tried. No matter where she is, she's happier elsewhere. The fault is in the place, in the people that occupy it.

She lights another cigarette. She doesn't smoke, not really. Not anymore. It's a temporary fix. The stress is unbearable. She deserves a little outlet, no matter what they say. They don't know when to keep their mouths shut. They can't imagine what she's been through.

The baby cries. "That's got to stop," she says. I make a face. I roll my eyes. "I can't ever say anything," she says.