Vicarious Rocky

My neighbors like prey. They feed birds and squirrels and get upset that the outdoor neighbor cats eat their birds and squirrels. In fact, they once nursed a cat-attacked bird back to health in their kitchen for a week. When the neighbor cat brought me a twitching bird I thanked her for the honorable gift, picked it up with newspaper, and tried to smother it (out of kindness) on my way to the dumpster.

So it was a real treat yesterday when I saw an explosion of feathers outside my dining room window. It seemed at first like the "explosion" was eye level, but I figured that couldn't be right and I got up to see which cat got the pigeon. I was tickled to see a Red Tail Hawk standing proudly on the fat, winged rat. He sat there a long time. Long enough for Sage to snap a lot of pictures, none of which he saved because he swore they were no good (they were probably fine by my standards).

This picture I found on Google is how he looked, happily standing there on his pigeon, except that the picture shows a different kind of Hawk.

Indy's imagination is taking off. The most endearing part is that he keeps telling stories and putting all of us into them. And twice now he's told us he loves us in this strange, 3rd person, story telling way. The first time was with Sage. They were making up stories about a "Big Scary Claw Fish" who turned out to be a really nice claw fish that liked doing everything Indy does all day.

At the end of the story, Indy says, "Baby Claw Fish loves Big Daddy Claw Fish." Sage and I had to keep ourselves from melting into puddles on the floor.

Then this morning, I got some third person love. We were pretending to be cats in his new trampoline, blow-up house thing, which he has declared a cat kennel (I do not know where he learned the concept of kennel). We're in there snuggling and he says, "Baby Meow Kitty loves Mommy Kitty." Sigh. Lovely.

He has never expressed any first person love. Is it a basic confusion of pronouns? Is it something more complex in the mind of a child. Anyone have any insight?

Last month I finally discovered Text Messaging. For the longest time I thought I was getting charged a lot so I refused to do it for that reason. I wouldn't even open them. Then Sage let me know that I was being retarded, my phone plan included texting, and I should try it.

Well, why didn't someone just tell me it's instant message on my phone?! I love IM, of course I'll love texting. There is one exception though. I can't do the whole text language thing. I try. I write things like "Where R U?" And then I feel the Grammar TA in me cringe, and my over 30 genes force me to erase and write: "Where are you?"

I know. Why bother. I could just write an email, since most everyone I text has email on their phone. Lame. I am Lame.

At first, I was kind of horrified, but Sage is right. It's a fun annual tradition to take this picture. It's a gratitude snapshot for sure. And in 20 years, we'll compile them into a book and be amazed.

It was awesome. He loved that ridiculous Jeep. We pretend we're going to MARCs to buy a new toy. I shoehorn myself into the passenger seat, he starts her up, and turns on the radio. Then I ask three times if we're "there yet," until we park and shop in our house -- selecting one of way-too-many new toys. We open the trunk, throw the new toy in, and drive "home."

The best part has been spending so much time with him. Six solid days together, one day of work, and now six more days in a row. Why do I work again? Oh yeah, Jeep Hurricanes.

50 degrees, rain, 60 mph gusts of wind. Just like the ones I used I know . . .

Sage and I were wrapping Indy's presents last night and they always look kind of pathetic for some reason on the kitchen table (Jeep Hurricane aside), so Sage worried that we were not being generous enough with Indy. Of course, I made fun of him and asked if he wanted to build a new room onto the house for all the toys, since they are literally in EVERY room of the house.

It's so easy to get generosity confused with materialism with kids. They just get so happy when they get stuff. You start to feel like you are in charge of the release button on some kind of joy machine. Maybe I should press it more?!?

I think true generosity with kids is more difficult though. It's playing the game they want to play, the awful boring one, for as LONG as they want to play it.

It's really being present when they talk to you. Like Sage yesterday having a full 5 minute conversation with Indy about a Mouse Indy saw last summer. Then Sage listened and asked great questions as Indy made up elaborate stories about the mouse. The mouse was living in his room and talking to him about mouse friends and cats or something (see I was not "present").

I was a slow, day-dreamy kind of kid, so this is probably just my vision of generosity for that reason . . . but I also think it's generous to give kids the time they need to relax and experience things on their terms. I remember hating a person's hand behind my head guiding me along to the next thing. It can be frustrating and boring as an adult to spend 25 minutes on a walk down one side of a tiny street. But I believe that's the kind of generosity that really lasts.

I woke up this morning at 5 am and it took me an hour to get back to sleep because I was too excited about X-mas. Ridiculous.

I just kept thinking about how flippin happy my kid was going to be when he saw that Jeep Hurricane. He's been making Sage play the video for him online. And he told Sage this morning that he let Santa know he needed an action traction monster car.

They sent me a flip video camera. And I am so retarded and not tech savvy, I called it a flip phone in my first video. But who cares?!? I got a free Flip!

Booo. Disappointing storm. Not very stormy. Most we'll be getting is 6 inches. Ah well. Clearly I'm not the one shoveling at my house. ;) Holly lives in Syracuse. I bet she'll get a lot! Make a snow angel for me Holly!!

What is it about the weather? I guess it has to do with the thrill of survival. As long as I'm not traveling and not worried about said survival, I LOVE crazy weather. Big-ass snowstorm coming our way. The radar picture shows this looming mass of snow and ice creeping toward my little town. We could get a foot of snow! I plan to bundle up, get the kerosene heater from work just in case, stock up on salt, make sure the snow blower works, and hunker down. Gotta love modern living!

11 Days since my last post. For shame! Work got a little batty there for a second. Everyone thinks they need to accomplish year end goals before Dec. 20^th. It’s ridiculous, but I contribute. We were calling around last week for HVAC stuff for our new office space and a cleaning company to come in for 2008. All shit we should have done in October. All shit we could do and will only resolve in January. And yet, we too succumbed to the year end bustle.

Some updates:

- My big sales meeting led to a big nothing so far. I follow up Monday to get an official blow off or stall out. But, Joe and I did well, I think, as good as can be expected, so I’m not experiencing any self-loathing over it.

- Back to St. Louis in January. Ice Storm here I come!! This time I’m thinking of taking my family with me, so it’s bound to be the storm of the century. Mark your calendar – Jan. 16 to 20. Get your generator now.

- Indy is asking Santa for this and he’s getting it.

“Some assembly required” is an understatement. Sage’s weeknights before X-mas are booked building a car.

- I got my haircut again. I like it!



- I am taking a day off work today and plan to do selfish things by myself. Yeah, me! On that note, bye!

OK, so I kind of FREAKED out yesterday with Indy. It all began, really 2 weeks ago, when he took a high level of interest in the Curious George story, "Curious George goes to the Hospital." George thinks a puzzle piece is candy, swallows it, and then goes to the hospital and proceeds to have a grand old time. I adore the stories, but honestly, H.A. Rey must not have fully appreciated the power of suggestion to toddlers.

Anyway, my kid's been putting everything in his mouth now and it gets a rise out of me, of course, so he thinks it's awesome to put coins and rubber bands and pen caps and all kinds of random shit in his mouth. If you're sitting there thinking, "well, keep that stuff away from him, idiot," then I'll send a three year old to your house this weekend and you can try to keep real world items out of his reach.

OK, so he wakes up Saturday morning and tells me his tummy hurts. I figure he's constipated and feed him tons of fruit. Then he gets a fever and gets kind of listless and wants to take a nap. "How's your tummy, still hurt?" He says yes, again, don't forget the power of suggestion. He wakes up after 40 minutes in bed screaming for me. Not normal. So I run upstairs and he's standing up shaking uncontrollably like a leaf, sobbing, saying, "No. No. Maaaammmmmyyyy."

So I proceed to take him into my bed and grill him like a Guantanamo Bay detainee. "Did you eat anything special? Different? Something like Curious George would eat?" He's just laying there totally exhausted and wide eyed. And then H.A. Rey's power of suggestion got to me and I begin retelling the story, "Indiana Lewis Goes to the Hospital."

At this point I remembered I had a mother and called her. She proceeded to act as my nurse hotline and talked me off the Curious George inspired ledge.
Does he have color? Yes.
Can you push on his Tummy? Yes.
Did you take his temperature? No, let me get that.
Did he eat today? Yeah, a lot.
Does he have bad dreams? Yeah.
Do you feel stupid and inexperienced yet? Um, yeah totally. OK, kid is now playing happily with the thermometer. I'm gonna go.

Ok, so she didn't say that last one, but it was fairly evident.

Indy is fine now. He has constipation. He has a bad fever. And some kind of snot cold thing.

First there was the Adwords Editor blitz on Friday. I like Editor like I like Excel. I know they're fabulous programs, but they make me nervous. It's way too easy to click somewhere incorrectly and fuck up the whole document. Bah.

Now there's a little ice storm that Sage's plane has to land in and then Sage has to drive home. Obviously this has nothing to do with my actions, but trust me, I'm uncomfortable.

And Wednesday is frosting on my cake of discomfort. A sales meeting I get to have with a very big company. A "Meet and Greet" they call it. I am not typically the ambassador of SageRock. I am luckily taking Joe with me. I think he loves sales about as much as I do. So, two happy high C Disc test types, who are both pretty un-sporty, are at the free throw line hoping not to shoot an air ball. Again, Bah.