Did you know you can spend an entire day going through YouTube watching/listening to music videos? If you have a day to give you can give it. I have done this more times than I want to admit, but I just really like music. I love finding live videos of artists covering other artists in particular. I will do my best not to do that today. iTunes is shuffling on the MacBook though making it tempting to just look at one video, which for me is impossible. Once I get started, nothing in this house will get done and I have so much to do. With so much going on even not going to a job every day, somehow I feel under the gun to do so much.
As I have overhauled each room in our house, all the junk I move out of one room finds itself in the next. I have run out of rooms. Our front room which really serves no purpose whatsoever, is now full of the contents of each room, mostly our office that we just don’t know what to do with. Everything from old hockey sticks to old scrapbooking materials. A pile of computer and stereo cords we will never use again, but look really important and expensive, so you don’t want to throw it away. One of the cleanest (house wise ;)) and most organized people we know is coming over on Saturday, so I really have to get going. Instead I’m sitting here getting sort of bummed out by Dashboard Confessional writing to you all.
I need to paint all of our baseboards and ceilings, (why do we have white baseboards they show everything that moves or spills something in this house?) pack up about 20 bags of clothes for charity/hockey fundraiser, laundry to put away, dishes to do, workout at the gym, and Good Lord my yard is in total disrepair. Uh oh a Don Henley song I like to belt out just came on, that always leads to me to look for more songs to sing. The newly cleaned out office with hardwood floors has great acoustics as long as I am the only one that can hear me.
Allegedly there is a squirrel or some other creature in our attic that no one hears except for early in the morning. I should really go up there and check, but the last time I went up there as soon as I opened the hatch I saw the biggest mama spider I have ever seen in the United States and behind her it looked like the movie “Arachnophobia.” I vowed to never go up there again without the flame thrower from “Aliens.” My family would tell you that I am afraid of spiders. Well this guy is “afraid” of nothing. I have a severe dislike for spiders that makes me want to burn my house down anytime I see one inside it. No big deal.
Now the Black Crowes are on?! iTunes is really making it hard to knock it off. Well I’m writing anyway. I did manage to get both boys off to school, dogs fed, some laundry put away, eventually here I will get to the gym. Just so much on my brain right now. My mom is fighting bladder cancer and she is winning, but it is going to be a perpetual war instead of a one and done quick battle like we thought. My grandma is fighting off some kind of wicked combo of old age. Losing weight having trouble eating, because it makes her sick, high blood pressure, and dehydration making her loopy off and on as if she has dementia, but as soon as she eats and drinks she’s right back to her stubborn completely with it state. It’s been a year-ish now without my grandpa and she just seems tired.
I spent a day taking care of her last week and it was a good, but bittersweet day. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into as I was left alone with her while she was still in bed just one night removed from a hospital stay where they couldn’t really say what was wrong with her. I can barely take care of myself, so I don’t know what my mom and aunt were thinking. Luckily, other than needing a walker to get around she was fine. I had to get her to eat and drink every two hours. We talked a lot and we would just sit and be a lot. She mentioned death way too many times for my taste, but I get it. Getting old really sucks. She’s been up and down and in and out of the doctor since then. Her and my mom are always close on my mind.
My estranged sister gave me a heads up that my estranged father may or may not have cancer as well. Then there are my punk sons as far as this week’s episode of Days of Gabe’s Life goes. Logan is becoming quite the thirteen year old handful. He says things to me I would still not say to my parents. I got my first “I hate you,” Monday night as I grounded him from just about anything that runs on electricity after bringing home three F’s and four A’s on his report card. Apparently, he is an all or nothing kind of guy. We busted him and Luke both not doing their homework and lying about it. They’re both wicked smart and they are very self aware of what they’re doing.
They feel like they are too smart to do some of their assignments and as long as their GPA is enough to pass the grade level who cares what they have an F in. They are both great at math, but hate it. So far neither one of them needs to show their work most of the time. They can just put down the answers and move on, because why would you show your work as long as you know what the right answer is? That’s a waste of time, forget that’s what the teacher told them to do. Unfortunately all of these theories are true and legitimate and we both know it. That’s not how school or life work though. You have to do things you know are stupid. You will have to do a lot of stupid things. Whether you could outsmart your way out of it or not.
Logan threatened to tank at hockey practice on purpose to embarrass me until I ungrounded him. He knows I get embarrassed when he sucks which is not great on my part. I don’t tell him that, it’s just obvious I guess. I told him as I have the other hundred times he’s made this threat, that if he wants to embarrass himself in front of his team that’s between him and his team and the coach. They are his responsibility as soon as he walks in the locker room.
At Liz’s suggestion from work, I told him we would just skip practice since it would be a waste of time and I would print out a bunch of math worksheets for him to do instead. She also said he would get up early and run before school. I am not sure who exactly was going to run that program. I have a bad knee and cannot run more than a few yards. I don’t think she would run on purpose unless a pack of wolves was chasing her or she went back to playing soccer. Easy to throw the hammer down while she is safe at work all night and I’m the one dealing with all the aftermath. (I love you though)
Magically he really wanted to go to practice and he would try hard, but I still needed to unground him, because “he gets it now.” Well bummer dude. Guess we will see next quarter. Then there is Luke who had straight A’s and one C. Again the low grade was due to not showing his work in math or just not doing it altogether. He was picking it up on his own though as we scaled back the Fortnight time limits before report cards were coming. His punishment for the C was to get his room clean. Like for real clean.
He’d been up there a solid two hours, so I went up to check on him and he’s watching YouTube on his laptop right next to a paper plate with three day old pizza crusts on it, a bowl of Halloween candy wrappers, a four day old half a bottle of chocolate milk, a two day old cup of vanilla shake, half a bag of Doritos on the floor, and about a week’s worth of laundry all over the place. We are raising really smart ass pigs.
A couple years ago I brought them and Liz to see my therapist. We discussed the man formerly known as “Scary Dad.” Scary dad showed up when normal dad got to his wit’s end and just blew up without warning threatening and handing out corporal punishment with a loud military voice and gritted teeth. I hated the guy for years, but I didn’t get the PTSD thing and I thought depression and anxiety were fake excuses for the weak. My therapist wisely taught me how to deal with Scary Dad and he rarely makes appearances these days. She told us all that gifted kids can act like little lawyers. They want to negotiate everything and be in control of everything. Parents will just get frustrated and want to just impose their will by any means necessary. Smart kids will still think their closing argument won their case whether they’re afraid or spanked or not.
We had to learn to call out the little lawyers immediately as they began their cases. We acknowledge to them we are aware they think they don’t have to do x,y,z and can argue their way out of it. We tell them we know they want to be in control, we know they want to be right and us to be wrong, but that’s not how this courtroom works. We are the judge, jury, and executioners. We can throw you in jail as we see fit whether they agree with our case or not. This approach has helped, but they still push us as far as they can. Sometimes, probably too often we let them. I just try and pick my battles. Behind the suits and briefcases they are both sweet and kind hearted little boys. I will warn them that they are getting to the Scary Dad level of pissed off.
For the most part they do not act wild or rude when we are out or they are with other people. Often when we are describing our arguments with them at home to other parents that know them, they look at us like we have three heads. They’ll say things that drive us nuts and make us proud like, “Logan said that? Not Logan… he’s the sweetest kid we know.” I have to swear he is not, but I think I’d rather he be a monster to me than to our friends or their friends’ parents.
Well it’s cruising up to 11AM and I really need to at least get to the gym and clean up enough stuff for Liz to think I did something today besides jam and play on my Mac. Later kids.
Jacked Up Dad 