time is the devil

i was reading a post from a friend of mine on bloggingbaby.com and it got me thinking. what's in a parent? what makes parent? who are parents?

i have been spending quite a bit of time away from the home lately. between overtime at work and preparing to open a play this week, any free time has been spent taking a deep breath and figuring out what's next. somewhere in the shuffle i am married and i do have a daughter. now, i haven't forgotten this, but i would like to find more moments where i could relish these two things that make life worth living. hillary and i had our 8th wedding anniversary this past wednesday and i can't even tell you for sure if we kissed let alone any activities requiring less clothing. so, i am making a vow to maximize the time i do have with my family because we all know that i won't slow down until i'm forced.

i do feel that the time i spend with calli is worth while. she will always know who i am and that i love her. so to answer my questions, i do have what's in a parent, i am what makes up a parent, and until i die, i will always be a parent. even though i have a lot going on it won't stop me from being a part of my family and balancing a life i can be proud of.

holy crap i just reread this post and i did vomit in my mouth a little. sorry i had to bore you with feelings but whatever.

no, no, noooo she's too young

i find it hard to believe that a person, a child, hell a baby can know how to work the "system" at the age of 15.5 months. to clarify, when i say system i'm referring to the institution of parenting. i am well aware that by age 13 one has the system down to a science. but a baby? seriously?



i think robert (our roommate) and i laughed for about 15 minutes the other night when calli began her life-long pursuit of testing me as a parent. at first my jaw was on the floor but then i thought, oh my god... she is smart (insert single tear about half way down my cheek). for so long hillary and i have said-- "well if nothing else our kids well be cute." now that's not us being too proud of the way we look, we just thought we needed something to justify how our kids were more than likely, not going ivy league.



so, robert and i were sitting on the couch watching my darling daughter roam the living room in search of any two things she could smash together. when from the corner of her eye she caught the light bouncing off the edge of an oh so tempting cd case. with all other thoughts and plans quickly forgotten, her only goal in life was to get there and grab hold of her favorite. beck midnight vultures. instead of getting off the couch i simply called her name in the hopes that she'd listen to me, see the wrong in what she was doing and turn to apologize.



yeah, you're right.



so i called her name again this time with that stern dad voice. again my attempts have apparently fallen on deaf ears. she finally reached the basket of cds and turned to look at robert and i. she then set up distraction with a smile and not so subtlety reached behind her back and grabbed a cd. i am completely shocked at this. how the hell does this child, who has been walking for maybe a month and a half and can barely say anything other than poop, know how to manipulate. i tried so hard to remain the parent but my efforts were useless. and we laughed. and we laughed. and we laughed. not laughter from the humor of the situation but rather "oh shit i cannot believe this"laughter. at that moment i saw myself... and my life became difficult.

there must be humor somewhere in this

well... here we are again. it seems as though calli may be a bit sweeter than we thought. as you can see, she has been bitten again while at daycare. oh no... you're not mistaken, i too count five different bites. so what exactly is a parent to do at this point? my instincts tell me to take this kid who has bitten my daughter for the second time and shake... well... let's just say i know that's not the right thing to do and have, reluctantly, moved on to more appropriate measures. have my wife take care of it.

wow what a puss. why couldn't i have stepped up to take care of the situation you ask. my justification went like this.

"well, you spoke with them earlier and i think maybe you should continue to work on this matter. there's no telling what i could say and at this point i can't really control the amount of expletives that may fly from my normally clean mouth."

yeah, you're right she rolled her eyes, became the strong one and called. they were extremely apologetic and assured us this would never happen again. they also removed the girl from calli's class.

you know, these are the times that parenting seems an impossible job. you want to look out for your child's best interest but at the same time you have to realize these things happen. but how much do you let happen before you pull a child for one facility and enroll them in another where biting will inevitably happen?

all i know is that convenience is a total bitch. but you better believe the next time something like this happens, there will be hell-to-pay.

*since beginning this post the culprit has been moved to a different class and believe it or not has done it again. i'm not sure what has been done but when i find out i'll let you know.