Tag: parenting

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Build Me Up

I had to go downstairs to help Peyton and Heaven with some stuff this morning, and Muad’Dib snuck downstairs with Janice. Then he started being rowdy around us, and I had to take him outside to burn off some energy. It must have been the smell of the other dog that got him wound up so tight, because he ran around a bunch, and then came inside and tried to do it some more. I ended up taking him back outside and putting him on a short leash the rest of the day. He knew he was in trouble.

I went to McDonald’s for lunch and made him wait in the car. Service was expectedly terrible, and I got a guy “in trouble” for going behind the counter to get his own drink cup when nobody responded to his cries for help, but my food was okay. Then Shane put me on the spot in the afternoon when his new girl couldn’t enroll her laptop in Intune due to a licensing issue. Fortunately I was able to figure that one out pretty quickly.

Eaddie had her first ballgame in the evening, so I ran home to change and pretty immediately got picked up by Summer to go to Tech. We were super early, found seats, went back out of the stadium and found Eli’s family, and waited outside with them as the band marched up, played, then went inside and played a pregame show. I thought we might leave for food during the game and come back for halftime, but we stayed.

I tried to play Don’t Starve on my phone, but couldn’t do much because it was hard to see and the touch screen controls were terrible. I did get most of my map plotted though. Halftime was super short, and Dardanelle came to play with Tech for some reason, so we actually only got to hear a couple pieces from Eaddie’s set. Then we headed home to crash.

I had an anxiety attack in the kitchen trying to track down whether the kids had brought in a package. If they didn’t, then we’ve got a package thief.

Let me down.

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Stay.

I went to bed super early with my feet up, and woke up just before my alarm. That got me out the door without a rush, and we made it to Morrilton before I decided to stop in at Wendy’s for some breakfast for a change. They weren’t in much of a hurry, so I got to work around the same time as usual. I got in and tinkered with PRTG and the PLCs some more, but didn’t really make any meaningful progress.

I actually ate my breakfast slowly throughout the morning since I had such a tall cup of coffee, so we went to lunch really late. It was nice out again, so we went to Taco Bell and shared a box. I was really proud of Muad’Dib for listening when I told him to stay at the table outside. He actually laid down and waited while I went in a couple of times.

When we got back to the office, Shane was there and asked for a laptop and an account, but didn’t have any details. I went upstairs and Teisha at least got me information on the account, and I spent the afternoon trying to wipe a couple of laptops. The whole process was way slower than traditional offline imaging, so I may end up using a flash drive with bootable media in the future if this becomes a habit.

As I sat there, I started to spin a bit as I felt my heart race and my blood pressure rise. I ended up taking a clonidine pretty quickly and rode things out, but I couldn’t really tell why I spiked. Caffeine and sugar? Salty foods? Stress from work? I alerted Teisha just in case, but I leveled off after a while.

Mom was making bún bò Huế for dinner, so we got back to town and waited for Summer to get home, and then I ran over with Muad’Dib while Summer drove. Along with cooler days are earlier sunsets, so Muad’Dib and I had to hurry and get the rest of his run in. He did not hurry. He made me proud with his obedience, and then immediately frustrated me with his whimsy. At some point I stepped in some poop, presumably of his, and may have tracked some into the house, so I cleaned the floors just in case.

Eaddie called just as we were finishing our run, and put me on the phone with Shaana. They wanted to add Eaddie to their family plan since Eli got a new iPad and they were giving Eaddie his old one. Eaddie’s Apple account has always been a frustration because their father had it set up at an AT&T store, and we never actually had any control over the girls’ accounts. I wanted Eaddie to figure out her own account and manage it herself since she was old enough, but she’ll just continue to ride along whoever will take care of her, and that’s a disappointment.

I had an anxiety attack while head-down in some Vine stuff, and then tried to wind down quickly to get as much sleep as the night before.

I don’t know what’s next either, but I have a pocket full of stones and a reckless kind of hope.

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Burn It Up

I picked up a couple biscuits from Hardee’s on the way in, which held me over to a pretty late lunch. Muad’Dib and I went to Casey’s for a slush, and then Sonic just for a snack. We shared some pickle tots, and I burned my entire mouth on some Ched ‘R’ Peppers. The afternoon went by incredibly slowly in spite of how late I took my lunch break.

Eaddie had her first ATU band event at the train depot in the evening, so I picked up another slush on the way home, met Summer at the lube just briefly, and continued to the house to wait for her. The kids were there for a moment before leaving to get ready.

Summer got there and we stopped by Casey’s for a couple more slushes before going to the depot. The block was absolutely packed with people, and the band was huge, so there really wasn’t a good place to see everything. Summer sat with Eli’s parents briefly, but I had to walk around with Muad’Dib because he got too hot, and the band was too loud to be that close.

We wandered around for a while until they started, and then stood in the heat for most of the music. Muad’Dib and I left a little early to get the car going, and then we all went back to the house for the evening. Summer and I cleaned up the ribs because the kids finished the whole hog I had left. The night seemed to drag on, so I managed to get to bed a little earlier than I had expected.

incongruous

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The Power to Automate

I felt less bad this morning. It was my day to try and complete some tasks, so I dug into block coding with Power Automate, sent off my fixed asset checklist, and at the end of the day, played with the Vuzix smartglasses that were given to me. I took a break in the middle of all that to get a Big Mac – my cheapest local meal that isn’t a dollar frozen burrito from the Walmart. The fries were really sad, so I stopped at Sonic on the way back for a dollar corndog.

I had an anxiety attack just as I was driving away from the office, so I let the car do its thing. Eaddie wanted to take Eli and Ceci to my parents’ house to swim, but Dad wanted me there as an adult to watch over them, so I changed clothes when I got to the house and rode Muad’Dib over on the Onewheel to meet them. Mom was actually home early too. I sat outside with the kids and dripped sweat after a while.

Mom said they still had fish soup, so I brought that in to heat up just as Eaddie said she was going to their house for dinner. Mom went out to water plants, so I ate alone and then finished my walk with the dog. He was pretty sluggish and we cut about a mile off our route.

It was recycle and trash duty when we got back. The kids stayed out late, and I tried to sleep early.

what if then else

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At the Table

We had a staff meeting this morning, and it was interesting to have a seat at the table. I learned a lot about the business in a short amount of time, and it doesn’t look like there’s any slowing down. Later in the afternoon, I had a meeting with Shane as well, and came up with a few tasks to actually resolve.

I took a rock to the windshield on the way home and got a round-looking fracture on the far passenger side of the glass. It looked like it formed a cone that went deep into the glass, so I don’t know if it will be fillable, but if it is, at least it will be out of my line of sight.

Summer worked really late. I stopped to see her for just a moment, then made it to the house to bake some potatoes for dinner. She fried potatoes the other night, and it looked like she left a bunch of small ones for some reason, including one that had been cut to remove a bad spot. I wish she had chosen differently.

Noah was still at the house, but Eaddie was nowhere to be found. He was in and out, smoking on the porch, and dragging his stank into the house. I opened some packages and then ate alone before taking Muad’Dib out on a walk. I helped Dad fold the pool cover when we stopped by there, then had a bite of some fried noodles Mom made.

It was a quick and frustrating winddown, but early to bed.

Un-

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Horn Corps

Summer had brunch planned with Trent and his new gal pal, so we met them at Stoby’s. It was a relatively short meal with them and her little girl. When we got home, we packed for a night in Little Rock to watch the Drum Corps International competition. Eli came over and we got out of town a little bit later than I expected, but we were still ahead.

We checked in to the Embassy Suites and had time to sit in on the Manager’s Reception for a couple drinks and some snacks. Then we went to dinner at Cheddar’s just a short distance from the War Memorial Stadium. It wasn’t terribly hot after the sun went down, but it was super humid with an hours-long event sitting on stadium bleachers. The bands definitely got better as the night went on, and I was surprised to learn that the Carolina Crowns were there. I was only familiar with them through one incredible YouTube video I saw nearly a decade ago. This was a much larger ensemble, but they were great.

Traffic wasn’t terrible getting out, but I may have inadvertently cut somebody off. It was a short drive back to the room, and we had a mix of people crashing and cleaning up before bed.

I expected more drums.

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Breaker Breaker 1-8

I got out early enough to stop at Hardee’s for a Frisco breakfast sandwich on the drive in to work. After driving all the way to North Little Rock yesterday, today felt like a breeze. Teisha wasn’t there yet, so Joel gave me a quick tour upstairs and showed me to my office. It took a little work to get into my laptop due to two-factor and unfamiliarity with their setup, but we eventually got it. I rearranged very lightly until Teisha came to get me and start my paperwork downstairs.

We worked on that for a bit, and then she gave me a tour of the downstairs. It will take me quite a while to familiarize myself with everyone there. When we got to the customer service office, they had a tiny, fluffy dog hanging out in there. I tried not to get too excited, but it would be neat to be able to bring Muad’Dib on occasion.

I finished the morning reading through training documentation, which mostly didn’t really apply to my role, but had to be done. Then I left around lunch time so I could get back to town for my hematologist follow-up. I stopped at Taco Bell in Morrilton to get something to eat on the drive, and ran into Francis as they drove through the drive-through. He stopped to chat, and then I got my order and hit the road.

I was worried about being late, but when I got to Genesis and started to check in, I noticed the clock said I was an hour early. My guess was that the laptop was in the wrong time zone, so I left an hour earlier than I needed to. Fortunately they were able to squeeze me in, and the doctor tried to get me on a lower regimen of iron and a return visit in six months. I suggested instead that I should just call it good and walk away. He seemed surprised, but then agreed that a follow up with my PCP would be good enough to monitor my status before deciding to proceed with any specialist treatment.

When I had just gotten into town, I passed Suzanne and called to see if she wanted to get together. After my appointment, I met her, Dawn, and her dog Elvis at Point Remove for beer and pizza. We chatted for a long while in a mostly empty taproom, and I avoided fussing about stolen valor with their fake service dog.

I went home after that, and Eaddie was in the shower. I discovered Muad’Dib had chewed up a bunch of stuff he had evidently pulled off of Summer’s dresser. I tried cleaning up a bit, and when Eaddie finally presented herself, I addressed the fact that I had disabled her Discover card after I found she had thrown away a bunch of good stuff, including a metal spoon from our silverware drawer. She walked back to her room, left out the pizza box that she didn’t finish, and then came back out to leave, saying she wished I had brought it up sooner. She was super upset, got choked up, and nearly started to cry, which I didn’t completely understand. My goal was to address it with her in a way that wasn’t demeaning or embarrassing in front of her friends the night before, so I really don’t know how I could have approached it any better.

Summer was home shortly after that, and we talked about it. That went fairly expectedly, and then I walked Muad’Dib around the block while she took a bath. He had been outside all day, so I gave him a bath when we got home. The girls talked at some point, and then we all talked together, and then they talked, and then Eaddie came to talk to me. She just wants us to split up, plain and simple. I don’t feel like I’ve been taken seriously as a disciplinarian, and at this point she’s already on her way to living her own life anyway. I’ve done what I can, and I don’t expect to make any sweeping changes on a weeknight after my first day at a new job. Maybe we’ll figure it out tomorrow.

So you’re just gonna like… trust me?

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Unvaluable

Eaddie accidentally locked Muad’Dib out on the wrong side of the baby gate last night, so at some point I woke up and he met me on the other side of the closed bedroom door. He slept well with me after that, and I was only a little bit disoriented when my alarm went off to get ready for work.

I stopped at McDonald’s in Atkins for a bagel and made it to work a little late, as planned. My desk had already been scavenged for parts, but I still had my docking station and a couple monitors. I got things set up, and then Randy immediately had me start imaging a couple of laptops for him. I had to fix the OS deployment in SCCM after they had changed some things, but I got everything working well enough.

I probably worked more today than I did the rest of the month. Randy also needed the web server fixed to host student photos, which was easy enough to do. My biggest concern was getting what I wanted copied over and brought home.

Kyle really wanted a Chinese buffet for lunch, so Randy drove us all the way up to Jacksonville since there didn’t appear to be a closer one. Maggie and her youngest, who had been hanging out with us in the office all day, met us there. It was called “New China” and looked very similar to the one in Russellville, but I think they had a better variety of foods. I really liked it. The only big disappointments were the thinness of the egg drop soup and the temperature of the fried fish.

I cut the afternoon short because I had to get across the river to have my blood drawn before my follow up appointment tomorrow. When I got to Genesis, they seemed confused that anyone would tell me to just walk in and have blood drawn, but they got it done after a short wait. I continued toward home after that, through a little bit of rain, and decided to stop at Bitec to confirm my start time and whether I needed to bring anything else with me for my first day. Joel appeared to be the only one there, and suggested that I might bring my two forms of ID just in case any paperwork wasn’t completed.

Summer was making cupcakes when I got home, and Eaddie was preparing to have some friends over for an evening of Guitar Hero. They had me order some Domino’s at a near-extortionary price, which I then went to retrieve with Muad’Dib, because he really wanted an adventure.

Eaddie had one or two new faces over, along with a couple other familiars. They stayed in her room to play while Summer finished the cupcakes. Earlier in the day I suggested that she might just make sure to have some free time to spend with me, but it ended up being a really rough night of aggravation and confirmation of misalignment.

I took out some trash and discovered a nearly-full dumpster. Eaddie had thrown away a bunch of stuff when she cleaned out her room, and an unsurprising amount of that stuff was perfectly good to keep, sell, donate, or reuse. Much of it was brand new, and several were types of things we had recently purchased more of because we didn’t know we had any. I pulled out a small box full of stuff before I became frustrated enough with the constant swarm of flies and mosquitos, and came back inside. I cleaned up a couple of messes that were left behind, fixed some things that were done poorly or outright incorrectly, completed some abandoned laundry, and finally sped through my “me time” before going to bed.

Just because they’re intrusive doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

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The Flamboyance

Summer disappeared this morning to run some errands, and Muad’Dib finally got up from between my legs, freeing me from my splayed prison in the night. He crawled up beside me, then pushed himself into me to be the little spoon, so I had no choice but to lie with him a little longer before getting up. It was his birthday, after all.

When Summer got home, she had already picked up most everything she needed to throw Eaddie’s pool party. She had a little bit of prepwork to do, but all I really did was pull out the collection of flamingo gifts and take a shower. Eaddie got up and left for something, so we just got everything ready.

Summer had to leave for some new wrapping paper, and she left all the food on the floor, so Muad’Dib helped himself to a bag of hamburger buns, then hid what remained of it in his little spot by the fireplace. By this point, I couldn’t do anything but roll my eyes. For some reason, she also bought huge Ball Park buns to go with the cheap, shrinking, frozen burger patties, and somehow that was the more upsetting part.

We eventually got everything to my parents’ house, and we started blowing up balloons for a big flamingo arch. Neither of us had ever done that before, so we didn’t really know what we were up against. There were a ton of balloons, and our air pumps were woefully underpowered. Dad pulled out an electric pump for inflatables, but it didn’t push out enough pressure. I ended up blowing up many of them by mouth, but I was so hot and sweaty by that point that I didn’t really ever hyperventilate.

Once the balloons were inflated, she went outside to set up and I assembled the arch. It came with a neat little plastic strip that hooked onto the knots, and I just went down the line filling in the best I could. I had a giant one blow up, and a couple others fall off, but we eventually got it mostly done and carried it outside. That was when the fireworks really started.

I don’t know if it was just the heat, or shifting of the things in the wind or against other objects, but balloons started randomly popping loudly enough that it scared Muad’Dib. He pretty immediately ran away, and nobody seemed concerned enough to chase after him. At one point he actually ran out the fence and started running toward home. Luckily Eaddie and Eli saw him on their way over, and stopped to pick him up.

From that point on, he stayed mostly in the cabana. It was hot anyway, so he didn’t have a great time. We took a dip in the pool, I had to run home for a couple things. I took Muad’Dib with me because he really wanted to go. He just stood at the car door and waited to be let in. We got our stuff and headed back as others showed up.

I had to restart the charcoal at some point, but eventually got things going. I was getting smoked out, but people were also crowding me at the grill, and I couldn’t get out of it. My eyes burned on top of the sweat that was already irritating me. Julie and Kevin took over the grill after that.

Overall the party was a success. The kids seemed to have an okay time, though things did seem less centered around them due to the limit on outside friends that could be invited. We all ate, Eaddie opened presents, we had mushy milk cake, and then people filtered out. Summer, Dad, and I cleaned up, popped all of the balloons we spent so long filling, and eventually got loaded up to go home. Just as we were about to leave, Mom decided she wanted some hamburgers and I had to partially unpack the trunk to get food for her.

We finally made it home where Eaddie and Eli were hanging out. They had plans to leave for the evening, but I had one giant, stuffed flamingo left to gift her that we had forgotten at home. Once they left, I made Summer and myself a couple drinks and thought we’d get to sit down for a moment, but then I realized how late it was. I left her on the couch and went to wrap up my own chores, but apparently I wasn’t vocal enough about it and she got her feelings hurt.

She went to bed, I did my thing, and then it was off to bed.

Flocking fabulous.

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Back to the House

I decided to take this morning super easy because none of the breakout sessions have been revelations. I got everything packed up and checked out just in time to get a car wash and make it to the Junior Academy just in time for a late lunch. I found Ben, who had already eaten, and sat down for some catfish and chicken strips. It was pretty good for HSTI.

I went to the Q&A session with DIS, then waited for door prizes. Randy and Kyle were gone by the time I left the hotel, so when they called Kyle’s name for an Igloo cooler, I volunteered to take it to him. I got out, had another car wash, then stopped at Sam’s Club to get some booze for Summer.

The drive home was a pretty good mix. I stopped to get some spring water, then let FSD take me through Hot Springs Village. Once I hit the twisties, I started passing cars and doubling the speed limit. I got stuck behind a couple of slow people for a short while, but overall I was able to pass easily.

Julie called about weekend funeral plans, and I had to stop at McDonald’s for a restroom break in Dardanelle. I eventually made it to the house, unloaded, greeted Muad’Dib, and then found Summer once she was out of the shower. I barely had enough time to unpack before we had to load up and go to Witherspoon for Eaddie’s band camp concert.

Summer wanted to watch all of the bands, so we sat through two shows before Eaddie got on stage. They did well, and then we went back to the house where Summer went straight to bed. I unboxed all of the Vine stuff that came in while I was away, and then went to bed myself.

But home is where the heart is, so your real home’s in your chest.