Get off my Lawn

At what point did I become a complaining, "back in my day," crotchety old man?  I've decided the best choice is to vent my frustrations before I become an ist (racist, sexist, ageist, etc.)  First, I'd like to establish a fact.  I am not a Millennial.  I am not a Gen-Xer, perhaps a Gen-Y, but not a Millennial.  I've read the blogs about the Oregon Trail Generation and Xennials, both I agree with.  I had computers in my entire education, but also remember riding bikes until the sunset and not worrying about being abducted every day.  Here are the things I hate in my mid-30s.

1.  Coca-cola Freestyle machines.  This piece of crap took beverage delivery efficiency back 50 years.  It's great that you can make the ultimate suicide drink, but how about figuring out a way to keep 15 people from standing in line at a Sandwich/ Burrito shop?  Too much choice is killing us.  Remember when you had to choose between Sprite, Coke, and Diet Coke?  It's no wonder, my kids have anxiety when I they play rock, paper, scissors.  They are frozen in pre-regret.  How do you teach dealing with buyer's remorse when they can literally choose a Vanilla Sprite Zero?   And don't get me started on the ice maker portion of these monstrosities.  Ice pours out creating a mountain the perfect height for my 6-year old to scoop it into her cup.  Sanitation be damned.

I'm not saying the technology is bad, but the delivery slows down a process that messes with my lunch.  I've already had to find a table for 4 and wedge in a high chair covered in dried slobber Cheerios.  I've already ordered my food and have 4 cups to fill with no counter space to place the cups.  And where in the hell are the lids.  Seriously, you want to give me a different cup when I order water, fine.  But there better be a lid.  This 8 month old will spill my cup, and some 16 year old with zits is going to need a mop bucket.
Did you know there is an app for this?  Seriously, it will show you Freestyle locations so you can scan a QR code to preset your beverage.  I might download it so I know what restaurants to avoid.


2.  People who ask stupid questions on social media.  Mostly this goes toward people in my HOA Facebook Group.  In the age of Google and massive telecommunications, why ask any factual question?  Before you ask John Q. Public, place your question in a freaking search engine.  Seriously, its OK to even use Bing.  I don't mind.  Perhaps, you didn't do higher education research papers, I know libraries can be scary, but before you ask everyone if there are any splash pads for kids in the area (and I'm just spit-balling here) you should search "splash pads near me."  We have all of the knowledge in the world at our fingertips, yet I still see people asking "What day is the first day of school for my kid?"  Really, that's embarrassing.  Now if you look it up and have further questions like, "I know the first day is August 7th, but I've not been able to find information on what is required on a 2 hour school day."  then that is different.  It shows effort.  I think effort may be the thing that is lacking in our society.  Of course I can be incredibly lazy in other facets of life.

3.  Band-aids (and all other knock-offs).  When did this stupid thing start solving the worlds problems.  First of all if it has a cartoon character on it I can 100% guarantee it will fall off or be picked off within an hour.  I ran low on my on supply of bandages for my Achilles surgery a few weeks back and had to pilfer a Paw Patrol bandage.  That rubbery piece of junk miraculously only stuck to my leg hair, but not my skin.  What the hell, what kind of voodoo science is in that adhesive? Let me explain via a flow chart.

Ice packs are a close second in our house, but a kid could have a severed limb and they would still think a Band-Aid could fix it.  

4.  Banking.

Till next time, 

Skylor

14

Fourteen has been an important number to me for a long time.  Of course it was a horrible age. I assume it was for most of us.  For a boy/man you had to be tall, strong and fast to survive fourteen.  I was none of these. Fourteen is high school freshman year, where being picked on was my default.  It came from sophomores and juniors, my sister was student body president and had the senior class on lock down.  Mostly it was my soccer teammates, but baseball had its fair share even after I turned fifteen.  I was 4 ft. 11 and overweight (still am; actually I'm 5' 8" now, but definitely overweight), I was a horrible combination of band nerd and soccer practice squire.  I had a favorite hat that my teammates pissed on and never told me, but I heard the sneers and figured it out.  They thought I was too dumb to notice, but I'd already washed it by the next day.  You had to earn your place.  I did. In fact, fourteen became my number once I made Varsity two year later.

Fast forward to 2017 (to a completely unrelated topic).  Fourteen years after I married her.  That's twice the seven year itch, but I'm not sure that I could honestly admit to feeling scratchy.  Marriage is hard.  But I've never seen myself with anyone but her.  I didn't date much, mostly because as my wife said years ago, "you have no game."  I'm not good at making friends, let alone the kind of friend you spend the rest of your life with.  I can't fake interest well.  I cut off conversations when they bore me, small talk is a miserable experience.  My wife is not only my cliche' best friend, she is my only true friend.  A true friend is the first person you want to call with good news, bad news, and everything in between.  At some point over the last 14 years we've realized that we have no one else.  For a very long time I encouraged her to make decisions on her own, learn the tasks that I handle in the household and in general be more independent.  But after nine weeks of my own physical ailment, I've learned that my dependence on her has made my appreciation for her grow exponentially.  Perhaps, the fact that I handle the business of the household is because I am better suited for it, not that I am fulfilling some manly stereotype.  I'm proud that my wife contributes to our finances and in fact out earned me for more than half of our relationship (I was jobless and homeless on our wedding day, she had a good start).  

So she's dependent on me.  I'm dependent on her.  I need her to take over when the kids hang on my last nerve.  I recharge and take over when the same happens to her.  Even if it is just 10 minutes after she took over for me.  Two tag team wrestlers slapping hands over and over as we keep the three smaller more agile spawn from pinning us.  Those days are exhausting, they test our minds, our souls, our self-control, and every gift of the spirit God gave us.  However, they are the days I depend on my mate.  They are the days when I know the greatest team I'll ever be on is our family.  I love my wife,  I can't do life alone.  As long as she is willing to forgive and work, and as long as I return the favor, I plan on dying with this wedding band on.  So since you'll eventually read this hot stuff, I am OK with doing the things you think I'm better at, Lord knows you are better at plenty.  

Married Up, Exhibit A

As previously stated, I cut off conversations when I'm bored.  I'm fully aware that I do this to my best friend/wife as well.  I'm working on it.  I also do it to my kids.  This is one of my greatest flaws. Their stories never land. The plane in my mind is still circling the runway.   My older son sounds like Elmer Fudd, constantly repeating the same opening sentence to a discussion; "Guess what? Guess what?" etc...  My daughter gives every detail of the situation other than the subject and verb.  If she could just start with:  Friend at School... farted, then I could fill in that it was in the lunch room in an odd time that everyone was quiet, and the detail of the other friend squirting milk out her nose would have made so much more sense.

I'm rude, and I never see it when I'm doing it.  It takes a true partner to except me with my flaws and help to make me a better person.  She does it.  I hope and pray that fourteen years from now we will have moved on to a new flaw, I have several to choose from.  

Pirate Life

To begin, understand that I'm a father of 3 kids under 7.  I won't use there names here, but the oldest is a 6 year old girl, then the 4 year old boy, and finally, the 6 month old boy.  As far as I'm certain these are my only progeny, though I did go to some killer parties in college, which have some vague gaps in my memory, so anything could have happened.  My wife and I married in 2003, and while marriage takes a ton of work, and I'm learning everyday, I'm going to keep her.  I tell this to set a scene.
Everything in my life circles back to poop.   Whether helping my son accurately wipe, or holding my daughter's hair while she's firing from both ends thanks to the damn stomach virus hitting our house for the 3rd time in a year, or changing what can only be described as toxic waste from my youngest's first round of "solid" foods.  Poop analogies come with parenthood.  I'm 100% accurate in saying until you are a parent, you won't understand my time requirements, the importance of leaving work on time, or why a social night office party is of no interest to me.  Hell, didn't you know it was bath night.  Lord I hate bath night.  Can't we just take them to the pool again?  Why is the bath such a royal pain in the ass?   If you start too late, the natives get cranky and start whining.
I hate whining.  I tell you this if ISIS commanders had to listen to the whining of my kids, they'd blow themselves up and the world would be a better place for it.  Can we militarize the sound of my son whining because his sister buckled her damn seat belt first and he didn't "win?"  Compound it with all the whines of children across the country, and I think we could drive a piercing audio wave into the brains of our enemies.  Accompany that with a cannon firing 3 week old contents of the diaper genie, and I'm certain peace overtakes the earth.  See what I did there?  Brought it back to poop.

My current situation is this.  I'm recovering from Achilles tendon rupture repair.  This morning was going to be the big day where I get to walk again, but the scab from my incision busted and bled. So while a new scab grows I have 12 more days of my pirate leg crutch.

When I was a teenager, I didn't have a clue what my purpose in life was.  I had hopes and career dreams that were dashed at 22, so I worked.  A decade and a half later I'm still working.  I like my job, the benefits are good for me and my family, but by no means am I changing the world.  So what is my purpose?  It's those damn kids.

My purpose in life is to be their Dad.  That's it.  I'm not an entrepreneur.  I'm not going to be the founder of the next must have app for your phone.  I'm just a dad and a husband.  What's crazy is, my wife and I we're happy DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) for 7 years.  A family tragedy (something I may cover at a later date) changed my thinking, she agreed and here we are in 2017 knee deep in baby crap.  Again.

So back to my pirate leg.
 If my purpose in life is to be dad, but I can't run, jump, and play with them, then I feel like all I'm doing is barking orders and yelling a lot.  I can't move quickly, so last night's "Dad did I wipe good?"  was a comical race against time.  Can I hobble in there before he pulls up his Paw Patrol underwear?  Am I too late, or did he actually do a good job, but is in desperate need of a thorough handwashing?  This is my job.  I am dad.  I'm going through the motions right now.  I know mom's talk about this stuff all the time.  But dad's need to know we are doing a good job too.  And for those of us who find ourselves with parenthood as their purpose in life, being on injured reserve can strike deep in the corners of self worth.  I'm not depressed, or in danger or harming anyone.  I'm just bummed out.  It's summer in the south.  I should be riding bikes with my kids, and playing in the sprinkler.  At times in the past I'd scoff and roll my eyes at such a request from my daughter.  She needs everything to be a big production. But right now, as I sit on my ass, I'd do anything to be apart of that production.  This too shall pass, I know its temporary and I know other people have much bigger issues with health and family.  So today, I've decided, I've got 12 more days till I can walk.  That is 12 opportunities to find something immobile dad can do that mobile dad never did.  I'm going to add them to my repertoire in hopes that wiping an ass is just a phase I get to grow out of.

Till next time
God Bless,
Skylor