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.
I bet it turns into a slew of rambling bs.
One thing I always tend to end my entries with is, "And now I gotta go do such and such for the kiddies." I always want to stress that, for an effective parent to give their kids happy, healthy lives, there's never enough time to fully devote to anything not kid-related.
That's just the way it is sometimes. Life demands attention. Adults take training to become adult-like, along with time for their brains to mature. It's time they lose once they become that way--like training for slavery in the name of betterment of a race. Wow, I smell science fiction novel here.
There's time to eat and sleep, hurriedly, and that's pretty much it most days. But also comes blessed free time after they go to bed, before you go to bed.
Friends will become distant when you don't spend your free time catching up with them. It becomes all-important: To not serve anybody. To serve yourself. To turn off your brain from 8:30 to 11:10 and watch some tv that has plot and subtlety. To eat the unhealthy food you don't want to eat in front of your kids, so they don't learn to eat the shitty way I do.
To escape the whirlwind, the fog of confusion kids live in, that into which the parent must submerge--where words don't make sense, everything is new and too hard to do, and the adults get mad when you ask for help in the wrong way. Where boundaries must be tested, because there's a whole world out there dying for you to explore it, filled with shining mysteries, and you're too short to reach anything super cool, and the adults are constantly telling you, "Don't touch that."
Kids have a tendency to act ... demanding. I'm reminded of those little devils on The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker who spawn endlessly and go, "Heh HEH! Heh HEH!" Those little, blood-red, pitchfork-wielding buttholes. They're like a three-year-old, following me around, reciting a list needs. While I'm ignoring her, since I'm busy doing the four other things that need to happen first, she starts banging the container of the thing she wants, but can't open, against the floor.
Or she'll just fucking color on the kitchen table after I just brought out her drawer full of crayons and paper so I could take a cat nap on the couch. Like she did today. (heh, my punishment was a 3-hr nap with dada in the middle of the day)
Apparently kids have brains which resemble ours, but they aren't developed enough to know some very simple things: what being demanding entails, that they're doing it, and why it makes people mad. They don't realize that they could probably do all that they're asking from you, themselves. They don't understand that one ought to act nicely to one's providers.
They understand very little of what we adults take for granted, what we all had to learn as children. It's the parent's job to simplify, simplify, simplify, and repeat, repeat, repeat.
You're supposed to love them too, and hold in your temper so they don't learn to have their own tempers. It's harder than it sounds.
Parents don't live, they serve. And they must serve by example.
∆∆∆ ◊◊◊ ««« …
So yeah, sure kids are gonna act out, but one thing I ought to mention is that I see Lucy, my three-year-old, my little unkempt angel, attempting to curry favor with me daily. I see her wanting to please me, to have me laugh with her, to have me recognize what she's doing and acknowledge it and explain it to her, giving her the words to use herself, to show me not only what she knows, but that she can articulate it with those words I taught her, and to have real conversations with me.
It happens a little every day, and more and more, life's little lessons sink in. I can see her learning every day, and I get the greatest satisfaction being the guy to teach her, to guide her along, to manipulate her to my evil ends, mwah hah haa … ...
And now I gotta be a responsible dad and go to bed before it gets too late.
Oh! But check this out--last night I went to the Comet tavern here in Seattle, and hung out in the sound booth, recorded three bands, and fucking headbanged and got sweaty. I ran into three good friends I hadn't seen in a long time, cause my busy parenting life had made me grow distant.
I had a kickass time, reaffirming my brütal side, my love of wrecking myself, of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and of live music. Also I got to hone my recording chops. Cool, right? It's better than in a band, for me, at this point in my life, cause I got to sit back and watch the bands and judge them from afar.
What's my point?--AFTER all that, I got home late. Lucy was in bed with mama when I went in to the bedroom to go to bed. She immediately throws the covers off, gets up, and starts walking sleepily to the bathroom. She didn't answer when I asked if she had to go to the bathroom, but I think she thought she did. I mean, who doesn't do that sometimes? So I followed her in there, and we sat on our toilets together and had a little moment.
She was nicer, cause she was sleepy. She asked me to turn on the light, then to turn it off, then on again, as her eyes adjusted to the light. She pointed to the non-see-thru window of the bathroom and said, "Look, the sun went down."
This gives me a bright idea, and at around 2:30 a.m., Lucy and I are standing in our big new kitchen, in front of the biggest window in the house, which goes down to about a foot off the floor--a great height for Lucy. I knelt to get on her level and we just talked about what we saw outside, among other non sequiturs.
"May(be), when I wake up in the morning, and the sun will come up, I can eat some foo(d)."
Gosh I love that kid.
Now I have to go to bed. Thank you for reading.
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.
I bet it turns into a slew of rambling bs.
One thing I always tend to end my entries with is, "And now I gotta go do such and such for the kiddies." I always want to stress that, for an effective parent to give their kids happy, healthy lives, there's never enough time to fully devote to anything not kid-related.
That's just the way it is sometimes. Life demands attention. Adults take training to become adult-like, along with time for their brains to mature. It's time they lose once they become that way--like training for slavery in the name of betterment of a race. Wow, I smell science fiction novel here.
There's time to eat and sleep, hurriedly, and that's pretty much it most days. But also comes blessed free time after they go to bed, before you go to bed.
Friends will become distant when you don't spend your free time catching up with them. It becomes all-important: To not serve anybody. To serve yourself. To turn off your brain from 8:30 to 11:10 and watch some tv that has plot and subtlety. To eat the unhealthy food you don't want to eat in front of your kids, so they don't learn to eat the shitty way I do.
To escape the whirlwind, the fog of confusion kids live in, that into which the parent must submerge--where words don't make sense, everything is new and too hard to do, and the adults get mad when you ask for help in the wrong way. Where boundaries must be tested, because there's a whole world out there dying for you to explore it, filled with shining mysteries, and you're too short to reach anything super cool, and the adults are constantly telling you, "Don't touch that."
Kids have a tendency to act ... demanding. I'm reminded of those little devils on The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker who spawn endlessly and go, "Heh HEH! Heh HEH!" Those little, blood-red, pitchfork-wielding buttholes. They're like a three-year-old, following me around, reciting a list needs. While I'm ignoring her, since I'm busy doing the four other things that need to happen first, she starts banging the container of the thing she wants, but can't open, against the floor.
Or she'll just fucking color on the kitchen table after I just brought out her drawer full of crayons and paper so I could take a cat nap on the couch. Like she did today. (heh, my punishment was a 3-hr nap with dada in the middle of the day)
Apparently kids have brains which resemble ours, but they aren't developed enough to know some very simple things: what being demanding entails, that they're doing it, and why it makes people mad. They don't realize that they could probably do all that they're asking from you, themselves. They don't understand that one ought to act nicely to one's providers.
They understand very little of what we adults take for granted, what we all had to learn as children. It's the parent's job to simplify, simplify, simplify, and repeat, repeat, repeat.
You're supposed to love them too, and hold in your temper so they don't learn to have their own tempers. It's harder than it sounds.
Parents don't live, they serve. And they must serve by example.
∆∆∆ ◊◊◊ ««« …
So yeah, sure kids are gonna act out, but one thing I ought to mention is that I see Lucy, my three-year-old, my little unkempt angel, attempting to curry favor with me daily. I see her wanting to please me, to have me laugh with her, to have me recognize what she's doing and acknowledge it and explain it to her, giving her the words to use herself, to show me not only what she knows, but that she can articulate it with those words I taught her, and to have real conversations with me.
It happens a little every day, and more and more, life's little lessons sink in. I can see her learning every day, and I get the greatest satisfaction being the guy to teach her, to guide her along, to manipulate her to my evil ends, mwah hah haa … ...
And now I gotta be a responsible dad and go to bed before it gets too late.
Oh! But check this out--last night I went to the Comet tavern here in Seattle, and hung out in the sound booth, recorded three bands, and fucking headbanged and got sweaty. I ran into three good friends I hadn't seen in a long time, cause my busy parenting life had made me grow distant.
I had a kickass time, reaffirming my brütal side, my love of wrecking myself, of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and of live music. Also I got to hone my recording chops. Cool, right? It's better than in a band, for me, at this point in my life, cause I got to sit back and watch the bands and judge them from afar.
What's my point?--AFTER all that, I got home late. Lucy was in bed with mama when I went in to the bedroom to go to bed. She immediately throws the covers off, gets up, and starts walking sleepily to the bathroom. She didn't answer when I asked if she had to go to the bathroom, but I think she thought she did. I mean, who doesn't do that sometimes? So I followed her in there, and we sat on our toilets together and had a little moment.
She was nicer, cause she was sleepy. She asked me to turn on the light, then to turn it off, then on again, as her eyes adjusted to the light. She pointed to the non-see-thru window of the bathroom and said, "Look, the sun went down."
This gives me a bright idea, and at around 2:30 a.m., Lucy and I are standing in our big new kitchen, in front of the biggest window in the house, which goes down to about a foot off the floor--a great height for Lucy. I knelt to get on her level and we just talked about what we saw outside, among other non sequiturs.
"May(be), when I wake up in the morning, and the sun will come up, I can eat some foo(d)."
Gosh I love that kid.
Now I have to go to bed. Thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I encourage comments from any and all readers. Please lay your thoughts on me.