Raising Daddy

• 21Apr

  So Much for Lines in the Sand

  The First Six Months No Comments

  It is a sad, sad day when a man comes home to find that his wife is trucking his prized man toys up into the attic. Last Saturday was that day for me.

  Sara and I live in a quaint, cozy (a weak euphemism for small and cramped) home. One of our biggest qualms with having a baby was space. We have two bedrooms and I had one set up as a makeshift office before the baby was born. Losing that office was hard, but I made the sacrifice. We converted the second room into a nursery and I moved a large portion of my stuff else where. What did stay was a book shelf and a few of my man toys.

  This past Saturday morning, I woke bright and early and headed to school for some graduate studies. Class was long and tedious, but I got through it. I came home with a smile, ready to officially start my weekend only to discover that my sister and mother in law were at the house. In the living room were boxes, ready to be sealed then lugged up the stairs into the attic.

  I started looking around to find that almost all my treasured junk was there, my globe, lava lamp, and even my Chipper Jones statue. Sara’s mother and sister had decided to do me the favor of gathering all my tacky collectibles and doing away with them for me. The baby’s room had been totally rearranged and a few other things taken down and added to the collective clutter of my small home.

  I asked Sara what was up with this and she replied, “We’re taking it up to the attic.” “I see that, but that’s all my stuff.” I interjected. “Well, we kept out your Mario and Luigi bobble heads.” My sister in law added.

  Gee, thanks for the consideration, sis. Then to make matters even more splendid, when Sara went to move my stuff for me, my Chipper Jones statue fell out of the top of the poorly packed box, smashing to the ground, much like the Braves season last year. AWESOME!

  With a frown, I lugged all my treasures up the stairs and into the hot, non-insulated space. Most of it will probably melt over the summer. I’ll later go to rediscover all my great toys only to find an indistinguishable blob of plastic, with the faint stamp of made in china still present on the bottom of it. But this is only the cherry on top of the anguish sundae I have been eating lately.

  I am slowly watching my house being taken over by baby junk. What I had hoped could be contained to the nursery has expanded quickly to take a part of my bathroom, half the living room and a large corner of the kitchen. Baby junk will soon creep into every crevice of my life.

  The inside of my car looks like the Toy’s R Us giraffe took a big steaming dump in my backseat. Toys, blankets, diapers, and a giant car seat deface what was once a holy sanctuary where I would pump heavy metal music and pretend I was the fifth member of Metallica, entertaining thousands of screaming fans everyday on the way to and from work. I fear the next step will be the switch to blasting Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana CDs, in which case I will secretly grow fond of the music and be forced to drive my car off the side of a cliff.

  But all that is beside the point. I ultimately knew this would happen. I am angry because my mother and sister in law found it appropriate to come to my house and rearrange things. Or to be more specific, pack things up and move them to the attic. I would like both of them to consider the idea of me doing so in their houses. That venture would go over as smoothly as a Tsunami.

  And the issue does not lie in whether or not they did a good job of rearranging the room. They did a stand up job. It’s the fact that when I came in I got that look. All you guys know that look. That look like I am a jackass for mentioning it. Well, you are both jackasses for coming in here and moving my stuff. My wife will never let me put all that crap back out now.

  So much for boundaries and so much for lines in the sand.

• 12Apr

  Life is kicking me in the balls

  The First Six Months No Comments

  Lainey has exploded into a monster child. Within three weeks time we have literally seen the little goblin go from 0 to 60 in mere seconds. What was a squirming, cooing and immobile worm last month is now a mush eating, slobbering, teething, and babbling little caterpillar about to sprout wings and fly (or rather crawl) anyway.

  It used to be that I could prop Lainey up in the corner of the couch, grab a Wii or Xbox controller and have a good solid hour of nearly uninterrupted relaxation. Me sitting on my end of the couch and her chilling out on hers. I did not have to worry about her toppling or rolling over, becoming bored and squealing for toys or heaven forbid, actually rolling off the couch. Now we have not a moment when we are not afraid that she is going to take a tumble, head first, onto the hard wood floor if she were left unattended on any peace of furniture without straps or rails!

  Life has suddenly become a giant kick in the nuts. Mornings are chaos. It is a consistent routine I always manage to miss a beat or two on every day. Evenings are not much better. Between cooking and doing a little housework, maybe hitting the gym, feeding and bathing Lainey then putting her down to bed, it becomes a struggle to get anything outside of those few steps done. Couple all this new found stress at home with work, and I suddenly fear that I will quickly become gray and bald very soon.

  About five weeks ago, just around the time when Lainey began her metaphoric transformation from the little worm into something new that squirms and eats more, I was sitting at my desk when one of my co-workers came into my office crying. She had been laid off.

  The leadership of the organization had cut dozens of people from the payroll. Some were lousy employees who deserved what they got, some were good, and in the case of my sobbing co-worker, some were great.

  It became obvious to most of us who still had our jobs that the leadership in my organization was not simply poor, but pathetic. No audit or research of any kind had been done before these layoffs, nothing. Some departments were forced to part ways with employees who had specific skill sets that no other co-workers possessed leaving those departments virtually non-functional , like an engine without a serpentine belt. And in the case of my department, we were reduced to half a staff.

  This has resulted in a poison atmosphere. Bitterness quietly fills the halls. And not only are most of us angry, we are scared. What would happen to my family if I were laid off next? And how can I have faith in an organization that appeared to give so little forethought to their decisions before proceeding?

  At that moment, I made the decision to go back to school and peruse a Master’s Degree. My plan is to do everything I can to alleviate the fear of not being able to provide. I see so many people with no education or skills around me struggling. It’s daunting to think of not being able to provide for my family. I never want to be in that position.

  This current atmosphere should be a hard life lesson to all of us. It is time to suit up, dig in and get hard core. Learn something new, find new ways to market yourself and simply be golden. I have decided to go hard core on developing myself. I tackle new projects at home, pursue more technical undertakings while on the job and have even volunteered to take on new tasks at my Alma Mater for little (or really no) pay at all.

  The day the layoffs happened, the division director (my utmost superior before the president and CEO of the organization) came into our offices to explain what was happening. I could tell he was not believing the propaganda he had been told to spread anymore than we were. Of course, I felt the need to protest and that is when he looked at me and said something that changed my life:

  “Well, I wanted to tell them to fire you, but it just didn’t make sense. I had to let her go.”

  I could not tell whether he was being sarcastic or  serious, but it was obvious that he could not justify firing me. Aside from my direct supervisor, I am the only person in my organization with my skill set. That idea set the tone for my new outlook on life.

  Be indispensable, be irreplaceable and be magnificent at whatever you do.

  So Life, get ready to take a few more cheap shots at my balls, cause I am about to make things a lot harder on myself. I may as well be a catching 105 mph fastballs from Randy Johnson in his prime, with no face guard or pads on. I really have no idea how I am going to endure three years of graduate studies and maintain what I am already doing. But I will nonetheless.

  And maybe, just maybe, someday I will make enough money to tell Sara to stay home and have tons of babies, cook me dinner every night and iron all my clothes for me. It will be just like Leave it to Beaver! Then later on in life when Lainey is whining about doing her algebra and chemistry homework, I will be able to look at her and say,

  “What, you’re whining!? I used to change your diapers while solving calculus problems with nothing but my BRAIN! No pen, no scratch paper and no calculator. Then I’d feed you with one hand and type essays with the other. Do your homework… wuss.”