It’s a Wonderful Dad’s Life

Up Early

So looking at the clock, I realize that it is getting close to 6 a.m. I am up, obviously writing and needing to get ready for work soon.

Today, Kat and I will leave home at 7:15 a.m. to head to school. Kat’s neighbor will get dropped off to choir practice and Kat and I will stop off at Peets, where I will get a latte and Kat will get a hot chocolate. I will then drop Kat off at her school at 8 a.m. so she can go to Mandarin class and I will head off to work.

It occurs to me that I have time to cook oatmeal.

The kids deserve a warm breakfast today. And I am just the person to ensure that they have one.

Late Birthday Present

Last night, as I often do, I woke up in the early morning and started ruminating on situations at work and what I needed to do. In this case, there is a list of accomplishments for all of tech pubs and the work that my team had done was left off of the list. As I was thinking about the list and how I needed to talk to my boss to get my team’s accomplishments on the list, it occurred to me that for the first time that I can ever recall, I didn’t immediately start thinking that this was a personal attack on me. And more to the point, it didn’t occur to me that this was personally motivated, but just a simple mistake from a hardworking, and overly busy group of people.

This wasn’t a random event. I have started taking Laxapro, an SSRI that is supposed to start helping me reduce my anxiety. it is obviously working.

To me its like a magic wand was waved over my head to remove the effects of my past on my day to day reactions to life. I am curious and very excited to see how things progress.

If this continues, my 46th birthday will be remembered as the day that I once and for all took control of my own life. I once and for all experience life through a clear lens and not one distorted by an unhappy childhood. I once and for all stop projecting my own troubles on my wife and my family.

If this is the hint of things to come, this is the best birthday present I could have ever received.

End of the Weekend

After having lost sleep for a week, I ended up taking a half day on Thursday and a full day on Friday off so that I could just recharge the batteries and start to feel better. On Thursday, I spent the day relaxing and doing nothing. On Friday, Melinda and I went out and spent time together while the kids were in school. On Saturday, I spent the day doing laundry and cleaning. Today, I will spend the day fixing the sink,  finishing up the laundry, grocery shopping and hopefully getting more relaxation in.

To say I needed the break is an understatement.

Memories of the past caught up with me and this time, which is different from the past, I recognized what was really going on. I recognized that the situation at work that triggered the stress was only a trigger to my past and had little relation to what was really happening.

And I have to say, my boss was very kind to just let me take off those two days. After all, things are really busy at work.

So tomorrow I return to work, a little better. At least I have slept quite a bit in the last few days. And that does make a huge difference.

Anxiety, Work and My Past

Ambiguous environments are hard for me to work in. Specifically, ambiguous environments where I have little visibility or control of what is happening. And this is the environment where I find myself currently. I know there are changes. I know something is coming. I have no clue what those changes are and I have no ability to affect change on my end. I am literally adrift, at the mercy of currents I cannot see or control.

Now add on top of this add huge workload and added stress of needing to both hire and fire at the same time. My workload right now is keeping me working 10 – 12 hours a day, just to keep up. Its the time of year. I have my normal work. I have reviews. I have two positions I am currently filling. I am having to track the work of an employee who may not make it through a performance improvement plan.

So when I made a mistake and took a short cut on hiring a contractor, my boss rightfully asked me to slow down and make sure I have done due diligence on the hiring. And she was absolutely correct to do so. Hiring is such an important task.

But having to reverse course dredged up my past at a time when I was ill equipped to handle it.

I talked with my psychologist today and we discussed the parallels between now and my past.

And to make a long story short, I see now how easily I slip into a place where I feel worthless and undeserving during these times and how this is a reflection of how I was raised. And how my parents made it abundantly clear that they regarded me as a burden. How they made it clear that they really didn’t want me. How they made it very clear that I was worthless in their eyes.

On a happy note, I went back to work after visiting my psychologist. And 5 minutes in, I knew I needed some personal time. So I went to my boss and asked if it was OK to take the rest of the week off. And of course she was very supportive and ordered me to go and not look at email for the rest of the week. She ordered me to unplug. And she told me that, for what its worth,that I my performance is exceptional and that I have a great future at Juniper. Did I mention, I do have a very good boss.

Sleep

So over the course of yesterday and last night, I finally got some sleep. I think I was asleep by 10 p.m. and I slept straight through to 5:30 a.m. That coupled with the two or three hours I slept yesterday afternoon has really had an impact on my ability to feel normal again. I feel capable of having rational thought again.

Now the problem of getting a good nights sleep after a few days of insomnia, is that I immediately look at my actions over the course of the last few days and start to pick apart everything I did wrong.

And I did a horrible thing to William.

William couldn’t sleep and was making noises that as a way to vent his frustration. I reacted to those noises with anger. Telling him that he needed to stop or that I would give him a timeout. I then pulled him out of his bed and brought him to my room so he wouldn’t disturb the other kids. (Eric and Renee were complaining) In my room, William cried and instead of doing what a normal person would do, which was to hold him and soothe him and make him feel better so that he could get to sleep, I got angry and told him to stop. (like that was helpful).

Finally, when I came to my senses, I turned on the TV to distract him and it was enough that he was able to go to sleep.

I am a monster at times.

I am going to talk with my psychologist about taking anti-anxiety medication. Had I been on said medication, I would expect that I wouldn’t have been insomniac over the weekend. I then would have been more able to deal with child care issues in a productive, non-shaming manner.

At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that I don’t mess up my kids any more than I have to. And right now, I am failing at that task. I need to make a change.

Morning Report

Kat, as is a normal thing for her, is walking around the house singing. Now part of me thinks this is cute and endearing. She loves to sing and because she is singing the songs from choir practice, it is clear she enjoys that part of school. But then there is the problem that her singing does wake William up. And he has emerged today more grumpy than usual. He thinks the singing is annoying.

Last night, William was in quite a state. He was upset about his homework. When I came home, he was upset that he couldn’t think of any words that started with an L. Melinda showed him his writing book that listed leaf and lamp. Then he got a little better and worked on writing those words. Still, he had 8 words to go. I pulled out the Richard Scary dictionary. You would have thought I dipped his hands in hot wax. This was not an acceptable place to find words. He eventually found enough words to go on the sheet, but the road to finished was fraught with much drama and consternation.

After writing the eight words, he was supposed to write a sentence. He was very upset about that and I eventually decided that he was just needing to stop. So I put him out of his misery and allowed him to stop working.

Speaking of William, there is a parent/teacher conference scheduled for today. I am not thinking that this is a good thing.

We shall see.

Well got to run. I need to take Kat to choir practice and run off to work.

A New Party Game Has Been Invented

Just heard about a new game called: Don’t Be a D**K At Dinner With Friends.

You put your phones in the middle of the table during dinner. If you pick it up to answer it, you pay for the party.

I guess a girl in Ventura named Stephanie is credited with the game. Here is her blog discussing how the game works.

Took Kat to the Dentist

Yesterday, Melinda asked me to check Kat’s tooth. She had checked it and felt that there was a problem and wanted me to verify.

“I don’t trust myself with this,” she said.

I checked the tooth and thought it looked discolored.

Melinda’s face went white and tears began to stream down her face.

“Kat’s going to need a root canal,” she said. “She is going to need surgery.”

I talked with her a while, but it was clear that Melinda was very sad and fearful of our next move.

So I promised that I would take Kat to see the dentist.

The next morning, I called the doctor and they had an appointment available at 11. Fortunately, I was free from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. So I rushed to Kat’s school, picked Kat up and took her to the dentist to have her tooth checked. After the dentist checked Kat’s teeth, he said that she did have an infection in the tooth and that he would need to clean it out. But, there was no rush and she definitely didn’t need a root canal.

At the end of the appointment, Melinda showed up. I explained what had happened, what the doctor said, and what the next steps were.

Melinda then took over and scheduled the appointment for the clean up.

Most importantly, Melinda looked relieved. She looked very relieved.

Katherine’s Tooth

When I came home today, Melinda was worried about Katherine’s tooth and asked me to check it. She obviously thought something was wrong and wanted a second opinion. I looked at it and it had an ashen look to it.

Earlier, the tooth had a cavity caused by trauma to the tooth when Kat fell. The doctor had warned her that if this happened, that she would need to come in and get it checked. He warned her that she might ending up needing a root canal.

When I told Melinda the news, Melinda was shaken and upset. She didn’t think she could deal with handling taking Kat to surgery.

I told her that I would take care of Katherine and her tooth so she didn’t have to.

William and the iPhone

Dad, Dad, I found something on the iPhone. I can show you.

OK William, come here and show me, I responded.

Will came running in to my bedroom to show me Google Maps street view. I smiled, moved the map to our street and then said you can see our street too.

Trouble was I couldn’t figure out how to get street view to show up.

Here, let me do it, Will said and grabbed the phone.

Immediately he pushed the right button and boom, he was looking at a view of our street. He was so excited.

I was a bit humbled.