Tired

[Editor's note: This, like all posts that date prior to January 9, 2007, was originally posted at my former Woebegotten Wonderland blog that was destroyed for many very good reasons and a few pretty pathetic ones. They will all be labeled as "re-runs" here. I apologize for the blatant recycling hack-job, but the truth is I don't write that much and some of this stuff is probably better than I am likely to write any time soon. It seemed such a shame to let it go to waste.]

I am tired.

I don't mean that I'm feeling tired right now (though I am). I mean that I am tired as a state of being. Whenever asked how I'm doing, if I were to be truthful about it, I would respond "tired".

Why am I tired?

Because I am a parent. It is absolutely amazing how little sleep you can manage to get as a parent.

If you read my previous posting you might mistakenly believe that I am only temporarily tired due to a short-term sleep deprivation issue related to caring for a sick child. Yes, the other night Josh was up all night barfing. And yes, I stayed up with him all night, holding his hand, rubbing his back, holding his puke bucket, and cleaning up his mess. But no, that is not the reason I am tired.

It may be a reason, but it is not the reason.

As I said before: I am tired because I am a parent.

When you become a parent you know to expect to initially lose some sleep. Babies cry. That's what they do. They eat. They poop. They cry. That's about it. If you've seen any movies about babies, read any books about babies, or have known anyone who has ever actually had a baby then you must surely know that babies cry. And when the baby cries all night, its parents do not sleep.

That is something everyone ought to know going into the whole parenting deal. What they don't tell you is that this sleep deprivation thing doesn't get any better.

How do I know?

I have no babies.

I have children. "Big kids" they like to call themselves. I have (accounting for upcoming birthdays) a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old. They are well spaced. By this I mean that people who don't have children of this exact spacing tell we that they are well spaced. Parents with children of similar age differences just give me a knowing, pitying look.

To have three children this close together means that I have three children currently young enough to wake up at any given hour of the night needing a drink. Or to go to the bathroom. Or who just need to be held. Or who have an ear ache, stomach ache, head ache, or any other mystery ailment that needs immediate parental treatment and then empathy sufficient enough to allow the ailing child permission to spend the rest of the night not in his own bed, but mine.

Any child of the age of any of my children is likely to at some point subscribe to any of these aforementioned behaviors. Having so many of these children reside in my house just makes the odds favorable that it will happen tonight.

So I'm tired because my children keep needing me in the middle of the night, right?

Maybe.

But I'm not sure that I wouldn't be tired if I wasn't urgently needed for some mystery ailment in the middle of the night, anyway.

Being a parent means that I am responsible for the well being of my children. I am charged with their care.

Their protection.

Their well being. And not just their physical well being.

I am entrusted with the responsibility to ensure that they not only survive to adulthood, but become reasonably well adjusted adults when they get there. I am charged with loving them more than myself, and making damn sure that they know it.

They have to know that they're loved. Not just to academically assent to the idea that they are loved, but to experience it.

It's hard work to love someone so much, so I am quite tired from it.

But it's good work, if you can get it.

Yes, I'm tired. That is unlikely to change. I'm tired just thinking about the upcoming time when instead of having three young children who need me and know it, I'll have three teenagers who may need me even more and not realize it.

Or if they do, they'd never let me know.

I can remember seeing my parents take turns sitting awake in the living room at late hours in the night. Either one of them would be alone in a rocking chair or a recliner on any given night. Superficially they might be reading a book. Or maybe watching a movie on TV. I never thought much about it. They'd just tell me that they couldn't sleep. It seemed odd to me, but not in a way that I was inclined to devote my limited and otherwise engaged mental resources to it.

That was before I became a parent.

I get it now. I understand exactly why they would be awake in the middle of the night. I don't understand this in a way that I can adequately articulate. I just experience it.

See, to be a parent is to always be necessary. A parent's job is never done. And some nights you just have to remain "on duty", even if you don't know why.

I'm glad for these days when I do know why.

I was up last night because Maggie's ears hurt. I was up the night before because Caleb was too cold in his room. I was up the night before that because Josh was throwing up.

In ten years I may be up because I just don't know where Josh is. I may be up because Maggie might want to try to sneak out of the house. I may be up for any number of reasons that I frankly just don't wish to think about right now.

I may just be up because I might be necessary. A parent can always be necessary.

I am tired, and I will most likely remain tired for quite some time.

I'm tired, but satisfied.

There's another writer in the family

[Editor's note: This, like all posts that date prior to January 9, 2007, was originally posted at my former Woebegotten Wonderland blog that was destroyed for many very good reasons and a few pretty pathetic ones. They will all be labeled as "re-runs" here. I apologize for the blatant recycling hack-job, but the truth is I don't write that much and some of this stuff is probably better than I am likely to write any time soon. It seemed such a shame to let it go to waste.]

My son Josh just wrote a story on the computer.

Josh is very interested in all of the things I do. He had so much interest in the guitar from watching me play that he convinced his mother and I to buy him one for his fourth birthday. I got my first guitar when I was twelve, so he's got a pretty good head start. I'd like to think he'll be a virtuoso. It doesn't really matter, though.

He does look the part of a guitarist. He's watched me play every chance he gets and mimics me well. He's got good form and plays with a loose wrist. That's the first (and often most difficult) lesson I give to my students, and it just came naturally to him. He just picked it up by watching me. I never had to intentionally show him anything.

I have not intentionally shown him how to use the computer to write, either. But last night he asked me if he could write a story on the computer. Apparently he has been interested in doing so ever since I started this webpage. It's something else that Daddy does, and so it poses an inherent interest to him. I have no problem with this, though it makes me wonder how many bad habits of mine he feels compelled to emulate (but that's a topic for another time).

Josh says he wants to be a writer. On the way to take him to school today, he even asked me if we could go over his story, change some things, add some stuff to it, and just generally make it better. I'm actually excited about the prospect. My almost six-year-old son wants to get into the proofreading and editing process for writing.

This whole course of events has inspired me.

I get to write here. I get to write music. I get (have) to write at school. I get a lot of opportunities to write, and I use them as best I can. But my kindergartener just wrote a story. Granted, it's a kindergarten story, but it is a story.

I haven't even attempted a work of fiction in a long time.

Well, now I have.

Here is a link to a new work of fiction I am writing. I don't really know what it will be. It may just be a short story. I may get carried away and make it a novella or (heaven forbid) a novel. I don't know. The point is that I am writing.

I will keep you updated about its progress, as well as music news, in the future.

Good morning! Is there anything else I can do to make your day worse?

[Editor's note: This, like all posts that date prior to January 9, 2007, was originally posted at my former Woebegotten Wonderland blog that was destroyed for many very good reasons and a few pretty pathetic ones. They will all be labeled as "re-runs" here. I apologize for the blatant recycling hack-job, but the truth is I don't write that much and some of this stuff is probably better than I am likely to write any time soon. It seemed such a shame to let it go to waste.]

As you may or may not know, my wife and I split parenting duties rather efficiently. While I am at school, working in the studio, or fulfilling my duties at the church she is a wonderful doting mother for our three fantastic children. The rest of the time they're my problem. Shannon is also in the process of training for her new job while still working out her notice at her old job. The upshot of this is that I plan to see her again in about two weeks.

My daughter is sick. My daughter also loves her mother very much and is willing to put up with her father in the absence of a suitable adult care provider. She also wants to brush her hair.

NOW.

Why is this a problem?

Daddy has no hair brush.

My wife called this morning to mention that when she left for work she forgot to take Maggie and Caleb's shoes and jackets out of the car. (Apparently Josh got his own out last night and then took them with him to school this morning like the responsible oldest child he is.) I ought to, Shannon said, come by her work get them after I get the kids up and ready.

Now that's inconvenient. But its not that big of a deal. What's ten minutes out of your life, right? So Maggie and Caleb get up, have breakfast, take baths, get dressed, and have the most messed-up-looking-moppy-wet-shaggy-dog case of bed-head-been-washed-but-not-brushed hair I have ever seen.

Caleb is a boy. Caleb is a boy's boy. It's like his first word was football. He's not yet two, but he'll tackle a six-year-old (or even a twenty-six-year-old) that looks at him the wrong way (or any way). We call him "Bam-Bam". His favorite toy is a plastic bat, and no living being would dare come near him when he wields it. He's something of a Viking warrior/Norse god type of personality. So his hair is messed up. Good. It's more intimidating this way. "Bam-Bam" must conquer, bed head or not.

Maggie is a princess. She is so much of a princess she will not allow anyone to call her a princess because she does not yet have a crown. There are only two colors in Maggie's world: pink and purple. I think it's actually one color: pinkandpurple. She likes dresses. She likes bows. She likes hair bows. And she likes hair brushes. She brushes hair. Her hair. My hair. Caleb's hair (until "Bam-Bam" attacks). If it's hair it needs to be brushed.

Apparently what Shannon forgot to mention when she called earlier about things my children need that she accidentally has is this: she is in fact a hair brush black hole.

Shannon has a hair brush that she keeps in her purse, at work, in the car, or wherever else she is likely to be at any given time. The rest of the family has a hair brush that stays in the bathroom in a drawer. Whenever anyone needs to brush his (or more likely her) hair, that person knows to go to the bathroom, take the hair brush out of the drawer, perform any and all necessary brushing, and always put the brush back. There is never a question of where the hair brush is. It's in the drawer.

This morning there was no brush in the drawer.

Or in the bathroom. Or in the living room. Or kitchen. Or bedrooms. Or any room in the house. The hair brush is not here.

No big deal, right?

Did you forget about the sick princess?

There are tears. There are sobs. There are wails. There is an inconsolable princess and no hair brush.

So I call Shannon at work and find out that she couldn't find a hair brush and accidentally (accidentally?!) took ours to work with her. Realizing exactly what this development has done to my physical, emotional, mental, spiritual (and any thing else you can think of) well-being she asks, facetiously, "Is there anything else I can do to make your day worse?".

Nothing came to mind.