Tag: parenting

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Beat It

I stopped at Casey’s for a free birthday donut on the way to work, then blared sad music all morning in the dark. Melinda finally said something about the cricket in the office, so we’ll just have to see if she figures it out before she leaves us.

Summer wanted me to go to the doctor with her, so I took the afternoon off. I met her at Fast Glass to drop the Murano off to get the windshield replaced and the front door windows tinted, then we went to BFD for lunch. The asada was super dry and overcooked today, but we had the same server I had the other day and the service was great. Then she dropped me off at home so I could get some laundry done while she went home to clean up.

I must have lost track of time, because she came back to get me and I had to stop in the middle of my laundry to go to the clinic with her. When we got there, they reminded us that no visitors were allowed due to COVID. I should have known better. She went on in, and I waited in the car. At least I remembered my Pixel Buds.

Once she was done, we got gas, drugs, then picked up the girls so she could get them to their karate test. They dropped me off to get the Murano before the shop closed, and it took them a while to get me processed and out the door. I got to their meet in plenty of time to sit with Summer, Mom, and Dad to watch the class get worn down doing basic gym exercises.

Most of the test seemed random and designed solely to exhaust everyone, but they eventually got to some more exciting, non-vocabulary stuff. The best was saved for last though, when they ganged up for three-on-one fights, and then Eaddie’s five-on-one fight to earn her step up on her brown belt.

We all headed home, and I finished my laundry. Autumn evidently had a tantrum and will have to be dealt with later. After tonight, I think we’ve all learned that it is not only perfectly acceptable, but likely necessary to beat our children.

Because I’m bigger, stronger, and most importantly more stubborn than you.

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Libraries Are Loud

It was frosty this morning, but turned out to be a beautiful day. I spent the morning at the high school again, and cleaned up some more random work. Just before lunch, I was in the library jabbering with the girls when our conversation caught the attention of some of the kids in the room. It really got me considering the podcast idea again, but it would be so much work to come up with weekly content. I’d nearly have to mic myself and just go back every day to recover useful content.

I just went home for lunch and ate the leftover Subway sandwich. Then I went to the junior high to get my computer chair. Brody had a couple questions, so I had a look and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon there.

The girls walked from the high school to Oakland, so I picked them up on the way across town. I had to get some gas at a much higher price than I had gotten used to paying. Then we went to Summer’s shop to get their karate gear. Both of them were having fits about different things, but we made Autumn go to karate anyway, and then I took Eaddie with me across town so we could have a chance to talk about her feelings.

Things got better pretty quickly after we all sat down to talk together, but they’ll both need to work on addressing things more immediately. Summer bringing home Zaxby’s probably helped their moods too.

I developed a pretty good sinus headache, so I wasn’t worth much after that. At least I had plenty of time to get to bed early.

When the Teachers Are the Bullies

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Widening the Path

Mike and I were sent to the high school all day again today, with an added task of mounting a touch panel that was already prestaged. I feel so much less overwhelmed having someone there to help me sort through all the student devices. For the first time in forever, I feel regularly whelmed.

Nobody went out for lunch, so I just stopped by Burger King to grab a quick bite before going back to the high school. It was another short afternoon, and then I went home until Eaddie asked me to take them to Strikers Bowling Alley for some kind of multi-date. Summer met us there, and after some back and forth on whether or not we would bowl, we ended up leaving the kids for some dinner at Stoby’s.

When I got back home, I had to do some major excavating to clean a path to the bathrooms. Dad was able to schedule a quote with someone for the bathroom remodels, and though I can see progress in all the cleaning I’ve done this year, it would still look like a hoarded mess to a complete stranger.

Yes, this is better.

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On the Subject of Customer Service

I had a few new things come in this morning, so I spent all day working on those. The kids were back, which meant I had to work around the bell schedule again. I also kept getting phone calls instead of work orders, but fortunately it wasn’t anything too serious.

Summer got a lunch break, so I picked her up and we went to Brangus. A big group of the guys were there with Dale, and it hurt my feelers that not one of them said a word to me about it. I knew it was Gary’s birthday, so I guess it was my fault for not finding my way back to the shop before lunch, but a text doesn’t seem like too much trouble if they wanted me there. On the plus side, our waitress was my favorite, and remembered my order.

I spent all afternoon fighting my way around a switch configuration, which really ended up being due to port security and forgetting that there was another network device in line that kept breaking things as I fixed them. I won in the end, except for some lag in how often PaperCut updates printer IPs.

After work, Julie brought me some leftover donuts from work. Then Summer came over and took a bath while I finished up some leftovers. Autumn called for a ride because Nick’s car quit on them on the drive over, so we picked them up.

While the girls were inside watching TV, I called Belkin WeMo support for help with my new light switch that won’t update firmware. The support was surprisingly really great in spite of having to call back when the line went dead the first time. The guy I got the second time could tell I knew my stuff, so we sped through the troubleshooting stuff really quickly and he escalated the issue with an expected callback in a day or two. Best of all, they’re open 24/7, so I really can take care of it when it’s convenient for me.

Once off the phone, I had to play catch-up on a conversation with emotion that the girls were having. We de-escalated pretty easily, and set some expectations. With that, the leash will get just a little bit shorter, and the behavior will have to show marked improvement.

Finally, just before bed, I ordered a new Shorai battery for the Shadow. I had to email the manufacturer this afternoon for the correct part number, and they responded in like an hour. Of course I went back to MotoMummy for the battery, since they’ve always been spectacular on top of having the best price by a long shot. This time we’ll see if they can draw my namesake on the shipping box.

“Like hugging a giant rotisserie chicken.”
Sometimes you just have to take the compliments as they come.

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Talk About Feeling

It was pretty brisk getting home this morning, but I did it. Work was really quiet, and I just spent most of the morning trying to catch myself back up mentally. I took a moment to do my wellness questionnaire, and made an appointment for my wellness visit the same day as Summer’s dentist appointment.

I took a late lunch and brought Summer a Baconator since I knew she could really use a lunch break after returning to work. Then I went by the shop for a little while, but Ben wasn’t there to chat. I went back to the high school to wrap up, and the afternoon went by really quickly.

The girls had karate, so I ran home to change and to take a peek at the Grom to see what kind of damage we were looking at. The handlebars seem a smidge off, and the headlight leans left a bit now. The right handlebar stop seems not to work, but I couldn’t tell why. Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad, but maybe I’ll feel more confident working on a tiny, cheap bike that isn’t also my main ride.

After getting the girls to karate, I went by my parents’ house for some fish soup. They had already eaten, so I just ate on my own. Dad had some comments for me that required some thought, so after eating and heading back home, I decided to go back up to Summer’s for the evening.

The girls were all winding down, but Summer brought them in to chat, and we kind of just made sure everyone was happy. Maybe there are assumed guidelines to the whole step-thing that I don’t adhere to, or maybe it’s a lack of anyone else seeing the interactions of my family in their own home. Maybe they’ve underestimated how long we’ve all been around each other in such close quarters. At the end of the day, the Captain’s got to go with his gut.

No complaints from the crew tonight.

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Two Tired to Ride

Autumn came into the bedroom this morning and almost immediately pitched a fit about wanting to go to their father’s today. We had plans to go out for a bike ride, and she wasn’t about to settle for not getting her way. Summer ended up letting them go for a couple hours anyway, then got up to make breakfast. Eaddie had cooked all but one of the eggs though, so I just made some tiny bacon sandwiches out of some sliced “everything” bread.

Once the girls left, I went home to get the bikes mounted to the car, then showered. I suggested that Summer should talk to Nick about Autumn’s behavior lately, so they ended up getting to my house over an hour later than I was expecting them. The girls were behaving pretty well by then though, so it was a pleasant enough drive up to Washburn Park.

The girls took off without us, so Summer and I caught up to them at the other end. My front tire still had a pretty bad leak, but I made the round. On the way back to the car, I split off from Autumn while Eaddie and Summer picked up the rear. I beat them all back after taking a bit of a break at the pump station.

This little bitty kid came up the hill after us, having beat his family to the car as well. Just before they got there, he climbed up onto the trunk of their car and said he was going to pretend to sleep. He played completely dead while his dad picked him up. Summer said he cracked a smirk when I ratted him out, but I missed it.

After the ride, we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Autumn had a tiny bowl of bún bò Huế to go along with the rest of us, which made me happy. We looked at a couple houses online after seeing the one on Inglewood put up a realtor sign. We couldn’t find its listing though.

When we got back to the house, Summer helped me unload the bikes, then went home with the girls. I put my car on the battery charger, then came in for a quiet evening by myself.

The Natural State

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Turn It, Leave It, Stop, Format It.

It rained most of the day, which didn’t help me get out of bed. I seriously contemplated calling in for a half sick day, but I knew I had work orders I wanted to close out. It still ended up not being a very productive day, and I left more confused than when I got there.

Greg came by in the morning to deliver an iPad and chat for a bit. Then I met him, Josh, and Zach at Brangus for lunch. The afternoon seemed to drag on forever while I fought my new flash drives and their intermittent read-only status.

After work, I ran by Leonard’s to look for an o-ring for my paintball tank. They had the typical black ones in my size, but I couldn’t find any urethane ones that were recommended. I made a quick stop by the shop to deliver some stuff from the high school, then went on to my parents’ house for some leftovers.

The girls got home shortly after I did, and were shocked at the state of the living room. Eaddie was loud all night, looking for attention, while Autumn was in a noticeable funk. We spent some time talking about our feelings, and I hope it helped, but they all need to learn to let it out more often.

Trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it.

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Say, “No” to “No!”

I decided to go in for a half day today since I had a few things I wanted to take care of before the three-day weekend. Everyone started at the shop, but then I was off to the high school. I stopped at Casey’s for a free slice, then got to work on testing printer deployment to users instead of computers. It took me way longer than I expected, and I think the point of failure was initially drivers. By the afternoon, I had it working on at least one computer.

I left a while after lunch time once I reached a stopping point. I cleaned up some leftovers at home before trying to earn some loot boxes in Overwatch. It was pretty frustrating to work so hard for them, only to get almost exclusively duplicate items. Eventually I started working on cleaning up a bit around the house before Summer was ready to get gas.

I met her at Shell to use my 30¢ discount, then came home again to continue cleaning until she brought the girls over for the evening. We had planned to go to Harbor Freight, but I think picking up dinner took a bit longer than expected. On top of that, the girls had gotten a bit too comfortable in their disobedience and needed some firm direction. You know you’re off track when they start suggesting their own punishments. It will only get more strict from here.

We ate our Popeye’s and put off Harbor Freight for the following morning. I got a little distracted while the girls watched some TV, and then we called it a night.

Go ahead and add the number to Child Protective Services to your contact list, because you’re gonna need them if you act like that again.