wink     ; )

A Very Light Blue

I finished repainting the bathroom today. Boy am I glad to be done with that.

Title Wave

The whole family went to Title Wave the other day. Man that place is awesome. Basically, when our county library needs to get rid of books, they bring them to Title Wave, slap a price tag on them, and sell them to me.

So the other day was Educator's Day. Which means that Teachers and Educators get 60% off.

Tree is an Educator.

60% is a lot off.

The average (median) price of a book that is not on sale at Title Wave is somewhere in the $1.00 to $1.50 range.

60% is a lot off.

60% off of $1.00 is practically nothing.

We walked out with an armload of pretty cool stuff and it only cost us $6.00.

If we had remembered to bring our $5 gift certificate with us, we could have paid for our whole purchase using spare change.

Fare thee well my friends

Our best friends moved today. They will soon be living across the country. I spent much of the last month hanging out with them late into the night, talking and playing vintage video games. This past week, we went to Victoria together as a last hurrah. And now they are gone. We will miss them dearly.

May our paths cross soon and often.

Vacation

The whole family is going on vacation to Victoria, BC. We'll be back on Saturday. Don't expect much posting here as I don't htink we'll have internet access at the hotel.

This is the first vacation we've gone on with Spark that hasn't been to a family member's house. We're staying at a hotel. We've never taken Spark to a hotel. What are we going to do when he's sleeping? TV? Will that wake him up? Should we just leave him in the room sleeping and go to one of the common areas in the hotel and hang out? Or should we just read quietly in the room with Spark? Hmmmm...we'll see what works.

On being told from On High that I'm a bad parent

I was deeply hurt at church today. The preacher (not one of the elders on the preaching rotation, but a visiting preacher from another church) was giving a sermon on the roles of men and women. This topic makes me very wary. People who teach on the subject almost invariably make over-generalizations about each gender and the ones who teach in church will usually try to assert (either explicitly or implicitly) that the generalizations that they have highlighted are biblical and normative.

The truth of the matter is that the Bible has little to say about the distinct natures of men and women. "Men like sex more than women." "Women are by nature more loving and nurturing." "Men are bewildered by women." "Women think that they're always right." Each of these generalizations was presented as fact in today's sermon, and the implication was that all of these were biblical, and even normative. But nowhere in the Bible can I find support for these ideas.

But it was not these statements that really cut me to the core.

What really hurt was when the preacher gave his "humorous" rationale for why women are the ones who should be staying at home with the kids.

Imagine that women are better at men in everything, and maybe they really are. Say they are better CEOs and managers and workers and politicians. Great. They're out there working really hard and that's good. [dramatic pause] But then who's watching the kids? [laughter from the congregation]

Who's watching the kids??!!? Me, that's who. I'm a stay-at-home-dad and proud of it. And if you mean to imply that I am doing a sub-par job of raising my child just because I have a Y chromosome, then I have issues with you. Don't you tell me that my child is worse off with me as a primary caretaker because "women are naturally more nurturing and loving". Bullshit! Tell me to my face that I don't nurture and love my child enough.

I confronted him after the service. He apologized, but not for the right stuff. He "didn't meant to hurt me". Of course not. "There are always exceptions." he said. That's not my point. Look man, men are not worse parents just because they are men any more than women are worse employees just becuase they are women. You would never say that women are worse workers and then reply "Well you of course are an exception" when a woman points out that she works. Why would say the same to me? The fact that you consider me an exception just shows that you really do hold male parents in lower esteem than female parents. Everyone is always saying that fathers should be more involved with their children. Why then disrespect those who spend all day with them!

I don't want you to just apologize for "hurting me" (though I do want that and appreciate your apology for that); I want you apologize for your general disdain for men as parents, and for positing that disdain as a biblical principle form the pulpit. I don't just want an apology for the words, but for the attitude and values that caused you to say those words. But every indication in our conversation indicates that your attitude remains intact despite your apologies.

Obviously, the preacher today hit a nerve. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about our parenting decisions. I don't want to be the best "stay-at-home-dad" in the world--I want to be the best Parent in the world. I resent the idea that dads are held to a lower standard than moms. I especially resent the idea that no matter what I do, I can't measure up to moms. "A mother's love for her child" is held up as the gold-standard of human love. My love for my child doesn't measure up just becuase I'm a man?

Anniversary!

Tree, thank you for marrying me seven years ago. Thank you for all the wonder and joy and love and silliness and fun you've brought into my life. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Recovering

Tree is doing great today. She barely needed any assistance from me at all. Which is good becuase Spark was extra clingy today (as I expected he would be--punishment for not spending enough time with him yesterday). Tree spent much of the day sleeping, and most of the remainder on the internet catching up with what she missed yesterday.

The day ran very smoothly except that Spark cried tons every time I put him down to sleep. This is not normal for him; I suspect he is scared that when he wakes up, I won't be there (since that is what happened twice yesterday). He ended up skipping an entire nap today because he wouldn't stop crying. I felt soooo bad for him, but there isn't much I can do about it except for being there when he wakes up.

My only issues with the past two days have been my clusters. Both days I've had low level clusters that have lasted all day. They've been just bad enough to annoy me without disabling me or forcing me to take meds. It just made everything an effort (or more of an effort than usual). Ah well. In the end, it wasn't that bad. It did force me to be more intentional all day yesterday and today, and that is a good thing. If it has to come at a cost of some pain and the occasional staring off into space, then so be it.

Surgery for Tree

Tree had surgery today. Everything went fine and she is recovering now. It was minor surgery--in and out of the hospital in the same day. Tree is of course in terrible pain and is currently drugged up to the gills so that she can sleep. It took some serious maneuvering to get her comfortable. Hopefully she will be better off tomorrow.

Our friends who live just down the street from the hospital were kind enough to babysit Spark for most of the day so that I could be with Tree in the hospital. When Tree was in the OR or other times when I couldn't be with her, I would run back to take care of Spark, feeding him lunch or putting him down for a nap.

By the time we collected him at the end of the day, he was seriously starved for our attention. I had to keep him up an extra hour just holding and cuddling him so that he could get enough "us time" for the day to consider going to sleep.

I'm not sure how I'm going to take care of both Tree and Spark at the same time tomorrow. Neither one is going to be satisfied with only partial attention. I've got my work cut out for me. ;)