Birthday No. 33

My wife might be surprised to hear this, given how frustrated I was at dinner, but I had a really nice birthday today. At least I was having a nice one until WordPress ate my post. Gr. What was saying was that today was nice because I was able to go through the day without a lot of pressures or worries, which surprised me a little given the busy week I had. Donia went out of her way to take away as much pressure as possible, and she did a great job. I felt relaxed all day…until dinner. I was hoping for the birthday miracle of compliant children, but it wasn’t in the cards. Still, even though I flared up quite a bit, it went away pretty quickly too. It didn’t feel like it ruined anything. For me, anyway. Back to real life tomorrow, but turning 33 went pretty well.

Getting closer

This week was a pretty busy one, what with the holidays looming and all. At work, it felt like a frantic rush to get things done before people start leaving (or working hard to decide exactly how much leaving people can actually do). There wasn’t quite the same level of activity around the house, but since we got a little behind on things when the folks were here, there’s still some catch-up to do this weekend to be ready for Christmas.

And I turn 33 today, which makes me feel closer to something. I’m not sure what, exactly – I think I want to say adulthood, even though I suppose I’m already there. It’s not a bad feeling, though. With my birthday towards the end of the year, it works well to reflect back on things, and that usually makes me feel good. It’s been an interesting year in lots of ways. I’m glad to have it (almost) over, but I’m also happy for everything that’s been accomplished. I’m planning on having a good day today.

What a week

There were a few times during the past week that I thought of writing so that I could capture some of what was going on, but I just didn’t get to it. So now the whole thing will come rushing out.

Last Friday (the 4th), I picked up Mom and Dad at the airport. It was kind of cold, maybe around 30, with some snow on the ground from the night before. Not too bad. It would have been a nice time to stay at home, but I had to return to work for a stressful afternoon. I finished up later than I thought I would, so I ended up going straight to pick up Kate from swim team (and I took a call on the way), then as soon as I got home Donia and I headed right back out for a Christmas party. We had a great time before leaving around 9:30 to spend some time with Mom and Dad before they went to bed. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad were already in bed. So we watched TV and then crashed to get ready for Saturday.

I got all of four hours sleep for some unknown reason, then headed off to an elder meeting. That went fairly well, but I had to leave before it was over because Kate had a swim meet. We dropped her off for warmups, then had lunch and tried to pack everyone up. Paige decided not to cooperate. We dragged her screaming into the rec center, then I realized I had forgotten her shoes at home. After a quick trip to retrieve those, there was a little down time watching the swim meet and Quinn’s swim lesson, then we got some pizza for dinner and went to a drive-through live nativity. Then home and more crashing into bed.

Sunday was church in the morning, then everyone except Donia and Paige went to lunch (we were trying to get Paige to take a nap). We got home and picked them up to go to Kate and Quinn’s piano recital. After the recital (where both kids did great), Mom and Dad took the kids to McDonald’s and Donia and I went to the church Christmas dinner. When we got home from that….yeah, we crashed again.

Then the week started. I had planned on working half days, and I was able to do that, but it came at the cost of feeling like I was doing two things equally poorly. The first couple days in particular were difficult, but the good part was that life slowed down from the frantic pace of the weekend. We had Paige’s Christmas program on Monday night, but that wasn’t too bad, especially since I had the afternoon off. We had planned on doing Christmas with Mom and Dad Tuesday night, and that ended up being a pretty good choice since the blizzard started that night. The temp had been steadily dropping since that nice day on Friday, and the snow came in pretty heavy starting on Tuesday afternoon. We had several inches by the evening, and it felt good to be inside opening presents with that going on outside. The kids had a snow day on Wednesday, so I stayed home too and alternated work calls and shoveling. Everyone was outside for about an hour playing, even though it’s hard to romp around in a foot of snow. I was incredibly sore by the end, but it was still a very nice day.

The end of the week was sort of an exercise in survival. The half days started to add up, and the kids seemed a little overtired from all the stuff going on. The Schaeffer Christmas program was Friday night, and although I enjoyed it, it mostly felt nice to get it done so that all the concerts and stuff were behind us. Mom and Dad left yesterday, and today was a pretty calm beginning to the week (except for Paige barfing all over the place at church this morning – and it shows that it was a crazy week by how unfazed I was by that). I’m glad to be starting a “normal” week, but I also feel kind of confused. Sort of like last week was supposed to be Christmas, but it wasn’t, and so maybe this week is supposed to be Christmas, but it’s not. And work is very busy, so it’s not clear how much time people will be able to take off right now, and that confuses things more. For tonight, I’m trying to ignore all the confusion. And just crash.

Whirlwind

Way too much going on over the past few days. No need to go into all the details, but it’s been fairly nonstop. Some of it has been good (party last night), some not-so-good (getting in a rush because of a late work meeting yesterday). Tomorrow isn’t looking much better. And neither is Monday. I’m not upset about it, but I do like my down time. Plus, I decided I didn’t need any sleep last night. So I’m feeling all goofy tired. If you see me nodding off in church tomorrow…please just let me.

Last Piano Lesson

After four and a half years, tonight was the last piano lesson for our house (for now). We were fairly torn over the decision. We felt that it was OK for Kate to stop since she was in band now, but at the same time we felt like we hadn’t achieved our goal (which we never specifically set, so it was kind of hard to achieve). With Quinn, we felt bad about having him stop so much earlier than Kate, but we also felt that it was just driving him crazy. Ultimately, we just needed to bring it to an end. Donia is planning on having Quinn continue on with her in some form, so hopefully that will work until he gets to fourth grade and can get into band if he wants. So, although it comes at the expense of hearing the kids play, we will have a little less stress around here.

Another beatdown

 

Paige might have found her limit this weekend. She was horsing around with the kids on Friday and got bonked in the eye. She got the nice cut and shiner that you see there in the picture.

We thought that was pretty bad.

Then today she and Quinn were playing rough in her room and she started screaming. I strolled over, thinking we had another bump on the head. When I got in there, she was screaming with her mouth wide open, and I noticed a gap. Yep, her first missing tooth. Three years too early. Obviously things could have been worse, but we’re pretty sad that she’ll have a hockey player’s smile for a while.

Happy Thanksgiving

I meant to post this yesterday, but couldn’t fit it in between laying on the couch and laying on the loveseat.

I’ve never been particularly big on Thanksgiving. I didn’t have anything against it, but I’m usually looking forward to Christmas. That is still sort of true, but I really appreciated Thanksgiving this year. Going through the past year, gratitude was something in fairly short supply in my life. I probably would have classified myself as being more neutral, but as I’ve thought about it, there isn’t much middle ground. Given all the wonderful things that God has given me in this life, if I’m not actively thinking about how grateful I am for them, I’m taking them for granted and being ungrateful. Heading into the Thanksgiving season made me focus on all the incredible parts of my life and how temporary and special they are. I’ve been surprised at how much it has helped me put things in perspective. For example, work is kind of in the same state it was last year at this time, in that we’ve fallen behind on things and are playing catch up. So there’s a lot of stress right now and weekend/vacation/holiday plans are getting mucked up. Last year, I was very bothered by this. This year, I’m feeling more like time off is a gift instead of an entitlement, and I’m thankful for the time I get. The end result is that I enjoy the time a lot more – last year I would have spent all of yesterday upset about the situation. I guess I make it sound like I’ve turned completely around, which certainly isn’t true, but there’s been improvement. And that’s enough to make me happy for now.

Saying nothing at all

At this very moment, I don’t have anything nasty that I want to say. These thoughts happen to be on my mind, and so it feels fairly honest. But there are other days that I hold things in a little bit. As much as I want to imagine that I allow myself to be transparent on here or on Facebook, I know there are a lot of things I don’t say because of who is (or might be) reading. Most of the time, this is probably a good thing. For example, there are times that I get aggravated with my folks, who I know read this. If I were to just jump on here and post that right away, no one else that reads this would really care; they’d probably be as interested in that as almost anything else I post on here, but it’s not truly that monumental. Especially if the thing bothering me is small enough to have tucked it away from my parents, which is why I wouldn’t want them reading about it here. So rather than causing trouble or hurt feelings and getting little to no benefit from it, I stay silent. And like I said, that’s probably a good thing.

Facebook is a little different. Even though my parents aren’t on that, I still might not post a status update saying that “Seth Robinson is aggravated at his parents.” But I might post that “Seth Robinson is having a bad day,” without going into all the specifics that a blog post might pull out of me. I certainly see more of that type of thing on my Facebook feed than I do in my Google Reader, although people are still predictably reluctant to name names. The more serious version of the parent scenario is the boss scenario. I would imagine most people feel more impacted by interactions with their boss but even less comfortable saying anything because of the repercussions. It’s certainly a bottling of emotions – in the boss case, probably no more so than we all normally do at work – but on the whole, it’s probably a good thing.

Now, even though I keep saying “probably a good thing,” I really mean “mostly a good thing.” It’s always good to think before you speak, and it’s never good to be whining all the time. But what I’m really saying here is that social networking doesn’t seem to have much venting going on, and venting has a couple of good qualities. First, you get something off your chest. Even if you know the person listening might not be quite as invested, it feels good to talk through your problems. Which leads to the second benefit: actually working through the issue. The person listening might not be quite as invested, but that also means they’re not as emotional. You can get some new perspectives, including the fact that you might be wrong. In the Facebook example, the statement is fairly broad (“Seth Robinson is having a bad day”), and the responses seem to follow suit (“Sorry to hear that!”). If a blog post gets generated, the level of detail is likely to end up scaring off most, if not all, of the responses. I personally don’t expect social networking to perfectly replicate face-to-face interactions, particularly the small handful of close relationships that would allow venting. I do wonder a little about how well that is understood across the board, especially as a generation comes in that will have social networking as a huge part of their lives. More than that, I want to keep learning how to express myself. The broad brush strokes can be OK, but without learning how to constructively put in some pertinent details, I feel like I run the risk of having nothing to say and missing out on the potential benefits of this new community.

If at first you don’t succeed

Gotta brag on my girl a bit. Steve and Linda were over last night, and Kate wanted to sing her song of states and capitals for them. I was a little surprised that she wanted to do it, but she had memorized it and was wanting to show off a little. Unfortunately, her nerves got the best of her. She started stumbling, and when Donia tried to give her a little hint, she just froze up and then ran off. She was really upset. When she went to bed, she just waved and started going upstairs. Linda stopped her and went and told her how brave she thought Kate had been, but when she came back in, she said she just thought it made Kate more upset. So a little while later we hear Kate on the steps and hear a paper get dropped down. It said “Do you want me to try again?” With a “Yes” and a “No” to circle. Of course I circled “Yes” and brought it up to her. She had been crying, so she was still pretty upset, but obviously she didn’t want to give up. She came back down and sang the whole song (she held the sheet this time and took a few looks). She was super nervous, but she got through it. I was so proud of her. I couldn’t believe she had wanted to go for it again. I thought it showed a lot of grit from my (not so) little girl.

He’s not THAT old

Conversation from a drive to school this week, which started after Kate was talking about college:

QUINN: I’m going to go to college in Green Bay. And play for the Packers.

KATE: You’re not good enough!

QUINN: Yes I am.

KATE: No you’re not! You’re not as good as Brett Favre!

QUINN: He’ll be dead.