Happy Fourth Birthday Grace

(Today is Grace's fourth birthday. She is four-years-old today!)

Congratulation to you Grace for achieving this milestone of growth. You are firmly entering that phase of life known as "kid." You aren't a baby any more (as you sometimes, and forcefully, remind us.) Indeed you are not a baby. You are very verbal, highly mobile, and absolutely able to speak your mind--things that babies don't do very well.

You are a very energetic kid, full of life and excitement. You aren't shy and are always willing to share your thoughts on things. One characteristic of yours that I truly love is your very expressive face. You don't know this (because you aren't always looking into a mirror) but you have many facial expressions that signal to us how you are feeling and what is important about what you are saying. In some ways you remind me of my cousin Karen. You are unique, but you have that "spunk" that she shows.

I am so proud that you love and respect your sister Sarah also. You look up to her now and follow her lead in many things (except for when you decide to dig in your heels and do what YOU want to do). She can (and has) taught you many things. Don't forget that she can be a good friend as well as a sister.

You are taking to your bike riding very well, which I am glad to see. I enjoy seeing that spark of confidence and pleasure in your eyes when you do something well and look for approval. I hope we let you know clearly how proud of you we are.

So, you are four-years-old today. I am very interested to see how you will continue to change as you grow. As I sometimes tell you when getting you in bed at night, you are my favorite Grace in all the world.

Happy Birthday! I love you,

Daddy

Party Month

For the next thirty days or so, it's going to be non-stop partying at our house.

Why, you ask? Especially since we aren't exactly known for tearing it up around here.

Well, due to a convergence of many things, we have a great deal of Events occurring between now and the end of July. Many of them are typical, but THIS July is especially celebratory . . . as I will describe forthwith.

Event #1: Grace's 4th birthday. The actual date is this Tuesday, but we won't be having a party for her and some of her friends until next weekend. What, exactly, will go on at this party is still up for some debate. Unfortunately, we live in a complicated world where the value of one's child and the amount of love you hold for that child is reflected in the complexity and inventiveness of the annual birthday party. By the lamentable standard, we love Grace very little . . . or so society would have you believe.

As regular readers to this site are aware, we've been rather busy at work for quite a while. By nature I am also more of a procrastinator than I should be. Therefore, Grace's party planning has been sporadic and unfocused. Lynda has been worried about this and is trying to come up with a good party for her. I have been cautioning her not to become too elaborate for a gaggle of 4-year-olds that often don't follow directions well. Unfortunately, my negativity can be construed as lack of interest or general laziness.

I am more of the opinion that getting Grace and a select few of her friends together, providing one game or activity, plying them with cake, and then sending them on their merry way is a successful party. I don't really think that Lynda disagrees with this, but the sticking point is what should the game or activity be? Since Grace wanted Dora the Explorer to be the party's theme, we are starting from there when trying to come up with an idea.

So, the anxiety sets in. Pump up the pool and just let them splash around? But we didn't TELL everyone to bring bathing suits when we gave out invitations on Friday. Hmmm.

Oh well, something will happen and a party will occur. We can't ruminate about it too much because of . . .

Event #2: Lynda's birthday. A week after Grace's successful party, Lynda celebrates her special day. How? Don't know yet. What am I getting her? Not sure yet? Do we have a babysitter? Nope. Will we have a babysitter? Maybe.

Success or failure doesn't matter because I won't be praised or blamed too much, because hot upon the heels of Lynda's birth is . . .

Event #3: Our anniversary (the 12th for those keeping count). Much like Lynda's birthday, I don't have a good handle on what will or will not occur on this special day. The fact that this come right after the birthday confused me and the whole planning process. Do I do two separate, distinct, and equally important events? Do I attempt to combine them into one whizbang blow out? What, oh what, do I do?

This is an important thing to consider, because I love my wife, but also because if I do a particularly bad job of it, I can't immediately turn to the next event to distract hurt feelings as we have been able to do for the previous few weeks. Nope, there is a two week lag in Party Month before

Event #4: Sarah's 7th birthday. Normally, this is the end of Party Month, but not this year. (But I'll get to that later.) We don't yet have a theme for Sarah's birthday, but I can guarantee that it won't be a Pokemon Party like the one we just witnessed yesterday with one of Sarah's church friends.

You might have thought that Pokemon--those Japanese Pocket Monsters that took America by storm a decade ago were dead and gone, but you would be wrong. Pokemon are back, at least in this youngest generation that weren't yet around when Pokemon first hit our shores. At Sarah's friends school, they broke out in Pokemon fever a while back and it literally swept the school. We were specifically asked to bring Pokemon trading cards as birthday gifts and it was easy to see why when the guests began to arrive. Each boy brought along his notebook containing his Pokemon cards and when they weren't playing on the Slip-N-Slide or eating birthday cake, they were swapping cards, making trades, and generally talking Pokemon. Even some of the girls at the party had their own Pokemon, though none of them brought their cards to swap and share.

So important are the cards that mini fights broke about between some of the boys about trades. Apparently, one boy felt that he was being shafted in a trade discussion and tempers flared--as they often do among seven-year-olds. Eventually peace was restored, but it was a close thing for a while.

So, Pokemon party is out . . . but what is in? Not sure yet. We've got to get through the first three events before we can decide.

***

Normally, this is the end of Party Month, but not this year. This year, we've got other things going in mid month that make it even more complicated. For you see, this summer involves three other Happenings that will keep up hopping and planning for quite a while.

Special Event #1: Release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie (July 11). Other than Spider Man 3, which I liked but didn't like as much as I wanted to, this is my most anticipated movie of the summer. By all accounts--and I've heard quite a few--this movie is very good. Easily the most politically dense book of the HP saga, OotP looks great in previews. I'm very excited.

But, that's not all. In the third weekend in July comes our vacation.

Special Event #2: We leave behind the drudgery of work and deadlines and parties and everything and head to Owensboro, Kentucky to experience my mother's Family Reunions. This is a big deal mostly because it's never happened before. Mom and her sister worked hard to put this together so we could meet her aunts, uncles, and cousins, people that most of us haven't met. I look forward to seeing these people and experiencing the town that my mom grew up in. It should be a lot of fun.

But, in the exact middle of this event, comes

Special Event #3: the release of the final Harry Potter book--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I wasn't alive when Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books were published in the U.S. in the 1960s, but I've heard stories about how people waited to find out the fate of Frodo and Sam on the cliffs of the Emyn Muil and they prepared to head into Mordor. Similarly, I've been waiting two years to find out what happens to Harry and the gang in this last installment of the HP story.

Who lives? Who dies? What happens? It's all up for grabs and I'll be in the middle of the family reunions when the book officially releases on July 21, 1 day before Sarah's birthday. I can't be reading the book during the reunion, because that would be extremely rude. But I will go out and buy it Saturday morning and I'll probably be reading it at night and on the drive back from Kentucky that weekend.

I mean, I've GOT to read it quickly. If I don't, I'll have to shut myself off from all media until I'm done, because the outcome will certainly be reported very fast. I might even take a day off of work Monday to finish it.

After this month of events, I might need that day for sleep, after all.

Shhh . . .

. . . don't tell anyone.

(I didn't bring anything home this weekend from work.)

This Job is Destroying My Brain

I'm in a very weird state today.

I don't have anything sitting on my desk that is an immedaite crisis (meaning it has to be done this afternoon) and so I find myself struggling to concentrate. But at the same time (and due to cruel experience that I have mentioned before) the back of my awareness feels like it's in a state of anxious readiness.

I dearly want to relax, but I'm afraid too . . .

Father's Day

I fully intended to post yesterday about Father's Day. I was sitting in church listening to the sermon and simultaneously working out phrases and memories in my head about my experiences as a dad.

Typically, I was going to put together something that was halfway between true memories and Hallmark treacle.

But . . . as the day wore on, I just couldn't get myself to sit down in front of the screen and type something. It seems like much more fun to do other stuff, or to do nothing at all (as long as I could get away with it). So, day turned into night and I found myself with nothing typed to show for a Father's Day.

But, I did talk to my dad on the phone yesterday and I committed the fatal flaw that I have committed several times in the past year and a half that has encompassed my Work Project From Hell. I got comfortable; I got relaxed; I actually said on the phone that I felt good, and happy.

So, Monday comes and the bottom drops out from under me once again.

You don't need the details, I don't need to think about them, and probably, a week from now it'll all be different--either because I have gotten over the anxiety and am back to being numb, or because we've found a way to struggle through the mess and everything seems somewhat possible again. So, why bother worrying.

It just boils down to ramping up the anxiety again, beating myself up internally again, and wondering when (God WHEN?) will it ever come to an end?


But, Father's Day.

Being a father (or a Dad, as I hope to be . . . if you understand the distinction) is more than Hallmark sentiments. It's coming home from a day like today and being the only adult (because your wife is having her own late night at the office). It's cobbling together something that resembles healthy food from two or three leftover meals in the refrigerator. It's eating the disappointing meal, and being glad that the kids ate MOST of it (especially the vegetable, thank goodness) and then cleaning up the kitchen while simultaneously trying to be Disney music DJ to one daughter and promising the other that "Yes, for the fifteenth time, we WILL play Blue Shoe, Blue Shoe, Who's It? Not You!"--whatever that game happens to be.

Being a dad means getting baths when you back hurts and kneeling down beside the tub on your knees is not at all pleasant. Being a dad means playing School with the girls when all you really feel like doing is laying down in a dark room and sleeping to forget everything that went wrong today . . . and trying just a little bit not to let that depression, anxiety, and frustration show in your face while you think about the several hours of work you really ought to do this evening once they are in bed.

That's what being a dad meant to me today. Tomorrow or the next day, it'll be Lynda's turn to go through this. Because, being a mom isn't different than being a dad. Being a working parent is what this is. Gendered rules need not apply here.