Frenzied Daddy

Miss K got herself signed up for little league this spring. Well, ok, we signed her up, she didn’t have much to do about it. She loved her soccer class last year (was it last year?) and we’ve been anxiously waiting for another chance for her to run around playing some sports.

She’s not totally convinced yet. We’ve had about five practices and two actual games. She’s playing T-ball. Both games. someone has run into her. She didn’t like having a collision. And she’s not happy about having to wrestle the other kids for the ball. I mean, one kid hits the ball, it goes wobbling and bouncing through the infield and seven of nine kids on the team run for the ball and dogpile on it.

Not big on playing their zones. That’s ok, I wasn’t either One of my biggest team-sports failings.

She gets a turn to hit the ball off the tee every inning of three innings. And then she gets to run around the bases, but she has a hard time remembering to pay attention and run around the bases when the other kids hit their ball.

The whole team, though, is funny. Like friday night, when the ball went into the outfield, and five kids all “fell over” and put their legs straight up while they were chasing it. And today, when one of the at-plate team members kept leaving his base and instead of running to the next base he tried to catch the ball (in the pack of little leaguers).

I don’t know if K is having fun, but I sure am.

I really liked my doctor over in northeast Portland when I started seeing him. He was youthful, chipper, he took some great photos up in Forest Park. And he was more or less in my mothers’ neighborhood, so a trip to the doctor could be easily combined with a short visit with them.

Then I managed to smash a fingernail. I don’t remember how it happened, but I hadn’t done it before, and I kind of wanted him to look at it and say “oh that’s normal.” I also needed to check on my allergy meds. So I made an appointment. When the day came to visit, I showed it to the receptionist, who was about five years older than me. Her response was kind of a condescending “Oh, honey, I think you’ll live.” I mean it was a smashed fingernail, it was growing out, right? I knew it was going to grow out but I just wanted be seen. It was my money, right? I saw him and he looked at it and said what I imagined he’d say, and our lives went on.

Then came the day a few weeks after I got my shoulder pulped at SCA fighter practice. My pauldron flipped up and the other fighter plowed full force into my shoulder. It got really purple and black; one of those big, deep tissue bruises that I’m sure you’ve had too (You can see a brief shot of this kind of bruise in “Whip It” directed by Drew Barrymore). I’d had some, usually on my butt cheeks, but as this one healed it felt kind of gritty inside the muscle. And while I knew it was going to take a while to heal, I wasn’t sure on the pattern; was this “grit” inside the muscle normal? Were they clots? Clumps of muscle? I didn’t know, so I made an appointment.

Yeah, he was impressed at the bruise but totally shocked that I let someone do that to me. His response was along the lines of “yeah it’ll take 4 to 6 weeks to heal a deep tissue bruise like that, now go away because you’re scaring me.” Not particularly helpful, and he didn’t seem to think the “grit” was important. For the record, it hurt like hell for six months and I could still feel it a year later. I still thought of him as my doctor, but for the record we were no longer within the “honeymoon.” No matter how cute his assistants were.

The real severance came when Ms B and I were pregnant with Miss B. Yeah, 13 years ago. Ms B and I went to the doctor and had an interview- the place is a Family Medicine place, and we were looking for a pediatrician. And while I don’t remember exactly he said, he was pretty condescending to my wife and to my unborn daughter. At that point, I reflected on all the other times we had talked and suddenly it was in a different light. We never went back, and found a great pediatrician at OHSU (and followed her to Evergreen Pediatric in Vancouver), then I started going to SWMC for my doctor appointments.

So there’s a reason to be polite to your customers Video not required.

Last Thursday and Friday, Ms B got to see my morning ritual. Wake up Miss K, try to put clothes on me while she screams at me and tries to stop me. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tiring. This is why when there’s someone else home I try to get them to get K ready for school. I think she and I are sort of locked into the same story every morning. She’s trained to throw an unholy fit, I try to keep my balance and eventually just start yelling, as I’m trained to do.

Ms B’s response was “Wow. Miss B didn’t do that…” Uh, yes, honey, she did. Kindergarten for both the girls was a horrible “get out of bed” time. And isn’t really a whole lot better when Miss B’s in 7th grade. It’s why I started the rule of “If you want to be on the computer before school, you need to be dressed, washed, and ready to go.” I don’t know what I’ve done to make it so bad, but I hate getting them out of bed.

What I have done is offer to take them to school in their pyjamas. (“offer” isn’t a strong enough word… threaten.. is more like it.) I got as far as getting B buckled into the car one morning before she finally decided that I was serious.

I know that at least part of my problem is that I wake them up suddenly, then they get thrown into clothes and rushed out of the house without so much as a good morning. So that’s my goal at least this week; to give miss K some “wake up” time. Ms B sometimes wonders why I like it so much when they go to bed “early.” — I think that they don’t get enough sleep, which leads to this too.

On the plus side, I only have a few more years of dragging them kicking and screaming out of bed. We should make the most of it.

Hope all your Easters are great. We’re not celebrating this year; most years I try to get egg dying kits and get the girls some chocolate, then hide the eggs in the yard and they can go find them. We worked through this with Miss B and then a few years with Miss K.

But you know something? They don’t eat the eggs, the eggs just sit, lonely, in the fridge waiting for some delicious egg salad to be made. I eat the egg salad. And the eggs. And I’ll eat the chocolate. They don’t need me to buy more chocolate, there’s almost always more in the house. Every year, we’re appreciative of the grandparents who send/deliver easter baskets. And I try to live up to what I think I “should” be doing. Well, let me tell ya, I’m not doing that any more.

I don’t know what would fill the place in our hearts where the stone rolled away from the cave where Jesus lay. Maybe Shaun of the Dead? OR some other fun zombie movie (can’t be too scary, Miss K would throw a fit). And next week I’ll make sure to pick up some Easter Candy. I hear Ms B likes the malted milk eggs.

Have a great Sunday, and try to stay at least partly dry. And watch for the risen dead.

No game tomorrow. Well, with the rolling thunderstorms, hail storms, and buckets of rain, I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am. Oh, sure, it’s 40 degrees outside, and the rain is torrential, but surely my kid wants to get as muddy as the pro-ballers get.

Doesn’t she?

And don’t worry; I’ll be uploading photos as soon as I get some. Some great photos of her hitting a ball and running around in the mud.

I generally say that I don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I like rain, I like sun — I like the mixture of the two, about three days of one, then about three days of the other. I say “about” because I like the unpredictability. However, it’s been getting harder and harder to keep my sunny disposition the last few winters. Part of it is the cold. I think as I get older and more acclimatized to how Ms B likes to keep the house (80 degrees? Really?) that stepping outside into 40, 50 degree weather gets more difficult. Or maybe my fur’s just thinning.

So what do I do to keep my head up when it’s cold and wet outside? Well, I’ve been off my meds for a few months now; the Prozac and the welbutrin. And I’m reluctant to go running in the wet. I’ve never been very good at indoor mechanical exercise (the elliptical or the rower), it just seems pointless. At least with running I’m “going somewhere.” So what I am doing is trying to eat more vegetables and drink more (vitamin D fortified) milk, and I’m taking the stairs at work.

I’m breaking work projects down into four hour blocks and feeling “accomplished” when I get them done. Small goals, quickly iterated over.

And I’m planning to get my bike fixed, and I’m waiting until it’s a little drier to start running again. Small goals, small successes and hope. That’s how I’m fighting depression.

How are you doing it?

You know, it’s hard to keep my momentum when 75% of my comments look like “nice blog. Btw, visit hot-viagra.com!”

Trying something new this year. Miss K has been signed up for t-ball, You might remember that Miss B tried baseball too and hated it. Miss K is different; she’s a different kid. She’s taking to that teeball like, um, a cat takes to tunafish. Run around? Hit a ball? She’s delighted.

I’ll have to post some pictures.

On the other hand, Miss B is thrilled that I’ve purchased tickets to Kumoricon. She thinks she’s going to sew a costume and cosplay. But if she’s going to sew a costume it’s going to be straight construction of a t-tunic and trews. Maybe some pretty trim. Cosplay; faugh.

In a semi-related thing, the girls got cheap foam swords from Michaels’ craft store and beat the snot out of each other with them. I had to take them away and show them the wrist snap and how to lunge. Now we have a broken sword and I think replacing it with boffers would be a good idea. Anyone remember the particular width of the inner pipe in a boffer construction?