My baby grows

Beatrix is 15 months old, and rocketing up like a giant. Also, she’s smarter.

Lucy is three and a half, and she’s growing and learning too, but right now I want to talk about Beatrix. She did something last night that made mama and I crack up. Mama was brought to tears out of pride for her baby. It was a really beautiful moment.

Helping myself not relax

Lucy was playing Mario Kart Wii while I was reading from my laptop w/headphones on. BB was sitting directly in front of the tv.

I glanced over see Lucy erasing my player license. "GlennDoom's license will be erased. Are you sure you want to do this?"

(little finger moves to "Yes" with confidence)

"GlennDoom's license has been erased."

I looked over at her. I must have sighed pretty heavily, cause they both looked at me, expecting to have to brace themselves for my discipline.

Deciding to try to put my feelings into words, I said, "Don't do that on mario kart again. You just erased my player license. I'm not sure what that does, but it can't be good."

Lucy looks up at me while turning her face down in a frown, shaking her head and whimpering, like I'm a total asshole.

BB stares at me in wonderment.

Uuuuhhhhggghh. I'm slowly fucking up my kids. Ignoring them by putting them in front of the tv. Only speaking to them when I have something negative to say.

"Don't do (x)" dominates much of my speaking patterns lately. Lucy is really acting out a lot, exploring life, getting into stuff she shouldn't. BB is doing this too, and though it's to a lesser degree, it only adds to what I have to watch out for.

This I interpret in my brain as giving me more stress. I could just say, "My kids stress me out," but that's not true. I choose to do it. It's how I learned to self-medicate, possibly. Thusly, I turn into Dick Dad a lot, and it's not cool and I need to relax. Though the surrounding world doesn't exactly help me to relax, often I'm not helping myself to relax either.

Megan and I took our two girlz to the doctor a few days ago for BB's 15mo checkup. Our doctor is really cool, a woman about our age. She likes how we parent, she always says. She's even said we're her favorite parents that she sees.

Since it's in my nature to second-guess myself, I always reflect on it with a grain of salt. Of course, hearing it always feels good. Often I feel that I yell at my kids too much, but when it comes down to it, I'm nice to them way more than I'm mean.

But sometimes little things tip me over the edge, and I react in ways I regret later.

Here's my latest: I was taking a shower, and Lucy comes in and goes to the bathroom on her little toilet, which must be emptied directly after she goes. Also, she needed me to wipe her.

I had just spent 15 minutes brushing my long, tangly hair and going to the bathroom myself before heading into the shower, which would have been a great time for Lu to come in and go herself.

And I had been really looking forward to the shower, I was dirty and stinky, I had just gotten BB down for a nap, and it was all lined up.

But like it always is with kids, plans parents make don't EVER turn out the way they're ... planned. There's always a wrench thrown in the gears, slowing you down, making you stop, slow down and help your kids.

So my reaction? I get mad. I didn't yell, but I raised my voice at her, about how bad her timing was. How I was all wet and cold and I didn't like it.

But then through my anger fog, I begin to hear my brain telling me that it's not fair to get mad at her for that, she's only three years old, she's impressionable, and I'm scaring her.

I mumbled, "I'm sorry, I know you can't control when you have to go to the bathroom," but she was gone. Too late.

Sometimes I act like a dick and it's hard to take it back, cause you know the effects are lasting. I had to get back in the shower too, without talking to her about it.

It was a hard day for me overall. Last day of mama's workweek, and I was really tired of taking care of kids. It doesn't always hit me on our fridays, but last friday was one of them.

I think I'm allowed to have one a month. 

Setting-up-apt. progress today:

Me: Pine Sol'd the sink and wiped the wall trim all the way around the bathroom. And most of the floors. One sponge.

Megan: unpacked two sizable boxes, clearing space in dining room, set up the record shelves, moved two bookshelves on either side of it as big heavy bookends, placed records, kids books, and some cds on said shelves.

We rule. It was hard to pay a lot of attention to the kids today. Mama and I both were home all day, but our weekends are for getting things done. Lucy acted out a lot today, and it's no surprise, really.

I'll just have to make sure to give both of them lots of attention tomorrow.

Cause even though parents live to serve, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Right now I'm trying to type this real quick, drink my beer, text my friends, and get ready to play New Vegas, which is on right now, tempting me with its scary ambient tunes. My character looks on forlornly, waiting for me to jump at the controls... I'm coming, Abeladro... just a few.. more.. texts!

Oh, let me throw this out there: yesterday, I had a jam with two people. One is a good friend, the other is someone I met for the first time, a friend of said good friend's. Me on bass, good friend on drums, new guy on guitar. But get this--new guy has all sorts of sweet recording equipment, uses Pro Tools, has a bass rig with a Fender Jazz Bass that I can use (though I like mine better--I'm more used to it), and ... well, he sounds like my main man Jason Noble, RIP and bless his heart, Steve Albini, and David Pajo, but with his own style too.

My good bud on drums sounds like Todd Trainer, and Sebastian Thomson.

And my good gosh, they need a bassist with a good mid-tone, not a full low tone. That's me all the way, baby. We sounded pretty good together for our first jam, and though I was "trying out," I'm so totally in. They've already asked me to come back next week, same time same place, no big deal, but yeah dude, yawn, I'm totally a rock star now, see ya next week, when I'm big and famous dude.

Serve by Example

Lately on this blog I feel that I have been focusing on myself more than my kids. They're a permanent fixture in my life, and I take it for granted that people aren't as familiar with them as I.

Additionally, our move and my musical production career pursuance going on has been distracting me from blogging about them. So here's a little bit about my kids.

Moved

This week has been crazy!

We've switched apartments within the same house, and boy are my arms tired. However, the increased space in every room is immensely relieving. There are windows everywhere, the sun's coming in, I've got the front door open and a baby gate in it, and the air is fresh and clean.

Horse Pushing Cart

We're moving on Thursday. Right downstairs in the same house. Pretty weird.

We're going with Seattle Movers, a division of Mountain Movers. There is this other company called Awesome Movers, ("we're three men and a truck"), but the owner has a knee condition he's in physical therapy for. Sorry, ladies.