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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This morning kind of felt like a gut punch. But I came back for more. And I got popped in the mouth. Then kicked while I was down. It just seemed like a lot of stupid things happened, and nothing felt like it was going right. I capped off the day by not getting home in time, so I had to meet Donia at piano lessons to pick up Paige. The whole thing gave me a nice headache. It’s absolutely the kind of day that is good to see in the rearview mirror. Goodnight.

No, I’m not looking for pity (or comments). I’m addressing a thought I had that came from reading Chuck Klosterman’s new book. In the first essay, he makes the point that people today for some reason expect to be famous, and they believe that they are unjustly unheard and that their voice is worthy of getting out there. He didn’t directly touch on blogs and social computing, but it rings true that getting heard is a large reason behind Web 2.0. I can’t deny that I have had some thoughts along those lines and felt slightly disappointed when I have gone to write something and known how incredibly trite it is. But to me, there is something else behind all the blogging and status updates and tweets. There is a catharsis in community. It feels good to say “Here’s what I think” or “Here’s what’s going on,” and it feels even better if you think that someone is on the other end and it’s not just a journaling exercise (which isn’t without benefit by itself). That’s what keeps me coming back, even when I’m gone for whole weeks at a time and even when I doubt that I have anything worthwhile to say.

With that said, this was my day. We all went to church together for the first time in a month, and even though the kids were acting up a bit, it felt good to have us all there. It can be hard to get in the right frame of mind at church since there are usually so many to-do’s to take care of, but today felt balanced and calm, if not 100% worshipful. After church, I took Kate and Quinn to run a few errands before choir. In between buying some presents and hitting the library, we listened to the Vikings game on the radio. Kate believes she is a Vikings fan, though I’m not sure how serious she is about it. Quinn was following the action, though, which was kind of cool. After choir, he got to watch his team, the Packers. He didn’t understand that it was an upset, but he was happy that they won. At dinner I was marveling that the month is half over. Heading into the holidays, I know that things will get busy and I’ll really start to feel like I’m running out of time, but this was a nice weekend to have before that craziness begins.

As previously mentioned, we had the kids’ conferences this week. Donia kept saying that conferences are pretty boring; that’s not quite the word I would use because it sounds a little negative, but the general notion is correct. Our kids tend to do well in school and behave themselves. There really isn’t much to talk about. Of course, we’re as pleased as we can be to hear good things about the kids, but there aren’t many surprises. As far as details go, that turned out to be the case (with one small exception – Paige is apparently not quite as compliant and willing to be corrected as the other two were).

There was something that struck me this time, though. All the teachers made a comment about the job that we have done with the kids. It has always interested me that for all of the intentional things that we might do to shape the kids, there are significantly more unintentional things that turn them into who they are. On top of that, I believe there is an intrinsic makeup to each kid that we get handed, and the shaping and forming happens within that context. I’m not trying to be self-deprecating (though I often do go that way), but some of the things we were getting compliments on are things that we just can’t take credit for. So the thing that stuck me was the awesomeness of the gifts that we have been handed. The first feeling that hits when I think of that is something close to terror: “Please don’t let me screw this up!” But that passes and what is left is excitement. Of course I have a huge responsibility, but I also get to be an observer as Kate, Quinn, and Paige become the people God has planned for them to be. I believe there are incredible things in store for them, and I am anxious to see those come to pass.

It’s gotten to the point where I only seem to be able to muster the energy to write on the weekend, and by then I’ve forgotten anything that happened during the week. I remember that it was a pretty busy week. Work was kind of hectic, and I had class for a couple mornings, which made things even worse. Donia and Paige both had strep early in the week; it’s never good to have Mama down for the count. Then the kids had their normal slate of activities along with teacher conferences (which was the one thing I meant to write about and probably still will once I am done with this pity party). It’s nice to be relaxing this weekend…but hopefully we won’t get cabin fever since we have absolutely no plans.