Category: parenthood

The Tale of Employment Woes Continues . . .

Which has nothing to do with ‘The Man’ keeping me down.

But it seems that the hotel and PSAV higher-ups have interviewed a candidate for the position of which I am in right now. Thankfully, I knew about this ahead of time and was fully prepped by my boss that it was happening. Well, the hotel, apparently, liked this guy but I was told that they like me too. What is that saying about cake and stuff?

If they hire this guy and I stay he would be the director of a/v and I would go back to being a technician. I’m not quite sure what would happen to the current technician, maybe they would put him at the Gaylord Opryland. Which, if you are a floor technician, is not that cool of a job.

At the same time, though, I am hearing the Opryland PSAV rigging department is struggling and has been since I left to take the job I now have. I’ve been seriously considering going back to rigging to take care of that mess and wait for another director job to open up. My problem is that I feel that I need to be paid around what the other two guys are getting paid. Especially the rigging supervisor, who got a significant raise since I left. Which now doesn’t make sense if this guy doesn’t have the skills to keep the ship running. If I go back and straighten things out I should get a significant raise, too. Right?

It’s just that I’m a big wuss when it comes to confrontation and money. Deep down inside I know that I deserve it. The department ran well when I was there doing inventory, scheduling labor, along with some actual rigging. When I’m gone it falls apart. I need to do my own math I guess and point that out to my boss. But, also, on the surface we (the extrovert/introvert family) need an increase in my pay. There’s a parasite just waiting to stop feasting on it’s host (the Elder Extroverted Holy One), enter the world and eat my money (and that will cut into my beer money and as the Young Extroverted One knows, daddy doesn’t share beer)(I do, really, share beer. I can prove it 🙂 )! Which, as soon as EEHO graduates and gets a job won’t be that big of a problem. For now, though, we need me to get a more significant raise.

Sleepin’ Triple in a Double Bed

Hi, we’re the Extrovert/Introvert family. We’re co-sleepers.

I was going to post earlier when the Young Extroverted One slept through the night in her own bed. But I’m glad I didn’t because it has been hit and miss the last couple of days.

We started co-sleeping with YEO when she was a newborn. Apparently, we were lazy parents and didn’t want to play the ‘it’s-your-turn-to-get-the-baby game.’ Hey, it was great. YEO cries for food the Elder Extroverted Holy One rolls over and pops it in and everyone goes back to sleep. It was system.

However, the transition to crib after the weening process did not go too well. For starters, I’m not a big fan of letting the kid cry and get over it. It kind of makes me sad. So, the YEO has been with us for 4 years.

When she got older we tried everything to make sleeping on her own appealing. My folks got her a Thomas the Tank Engine tent when she was into the Thomas schtick. No dice.

When my lovely ladies were working in Montreat for the summer I painted the extra room a cool green color (her favorite color at the time), put glow-in-the-dark stars (even made the constellations that are in the night sky on her birthday. Yup, I’m a geek) and got her her own ‘big girl bed.’ She no likey.

As we all grew, either in heighth or width, we stepped up to a queen sized bed. Finally! Then we figured that maybe she didn’t like the small bed and that she would prefer a full sized bed. So, we move the full sized bed into her room. Uh . . . as if .

Well, since the summer and the increased renovations on the house next door to us we’ve had increased incidents of brown recluse spiders . So, the whole big girl room/bed thing was way out of the question. So, one day while the YEO was at her grandma’s house EEHO and I carefully picked everything up out of her room and literally threw it out in the backyard. We killed several of the buggers in the process and I still feel creepy-crawly all over my skin. Ugh.  Our neighbor was wondering if threw the YEO out of the house. If I was going to do that her stuff would be in the front yard!

So, with her room cleaned out and her original big girl bed replaced and some different arrangements of the rest of the furniture she seems very excited about her new, exorcised room. Her first night in there she slept there all night! It took her awhile to get to sleep but when she did she passed out. It was great! And continues to be great. The other night she came back into bed with us and last night she did as well but said she was crowded and moved back into her room. I think we’ve turned a corner. Just in time to do it all over again with the new parasite. What is it the kids are saying/typing/texting these days? W00T? I have no idea what that means.

All I know is that I am very proud of my big girl for making transitions when she felt it was the right time. The EEHO and I have always been the organic-like parents. We never really stuck to a rigid bedtime. We don’t do the vocabulary/science/math flash cards . . . anymore. When she ate the second pack of cards and didn’t get any smarter we gave up on the osmosis theory and the cards. Just Kidding (or is it, JK?). I kid because I love. We never forced giving up the pacifier. When she sucked her favorite one so hard it tore she looked at it and then us and said, “Paci broken.” And then threw it away herself. Very nice.

Every once in awhile we get impatient and try to force something. Like the sleep-in-her-own-bed thing. But we are the ones who get frustrated. And then the YEO will just do whatever it is whenever she is ready. ‘Nuff said. If she is going to grow up into a fine young woman or gamma girl it will be when she’s darn ready to.

Quotable Quotes of the Young Extroverted One Part VI

Elder Extroverted Holy One:  “Does daddy have a baby in his tummy?”

Young Extroverted One: “No silly.  Boys can’t have babies.  He has a beer baby.”

The EEHO and I like to compare belly size.  She has challenged me to lose my gut when she loses hers.  The cool thing about the loss of my gut is it won’t be poopin’ in diapers and crying in the middle of the night.

Or maybe it will be me after detox.

Freaky Friday

I felt that I had something in my eye so I was looking in the bathroom mirror as the Young Extroverted One was . . . um . . . sitting on the throne (it’s a long story that involves brown recluses that we share our home with and some other insecurities that we are still trying to work out).

I randomly said, “YEO what would you do if my eyeball popped out?”

To which she responded, “I would freak out!”

I was kind of hoping she’d say something like, “I would remain ever so calm and pick up your eyeball and put it in a bag of ice (what does one do with a popped-out eyeball?) and call 9-1-1 to save your life.”

Hell, I would freak out too. But don’t tell a potential victim whom you’re about to rescue that you’d freak out. Right?

The Young Extroverted One’s Joke o’ the Day

YEO: “Knock, knock.”

Me: “Who’s there?”

YEO: “Banana.”

Me: “Banana who?”

YEO: “Banana I didn’t know there was hair on my butt.”

Admittedly, I laughed out loud.  I was ready for a knock-knock joke that was meaningless and quite unfunny.  I was ready to dole out the ‘courtesy laugh’ that I have done so many times before in response to my daughters knock-knock jokes.  But this one was special.  What more could you ask for?  Butt, hair and banana all wrapped up in the punchline. Classic.

Well played, YEO, well played.

We hope you enjoyed the beer, oh, like I mean the movie, eh.

I have hit a dry spell. No inspiration whatsoever. What does one do if one is feeling some mental constipation? I guess I’ll just consult my trusty, dusty, molded-to-my-butt-from-being-in-my-backpocket moleskine to see if I wrote down any thought provoking ideations that have been written down but not yet vomited up here in my little acre of blogsburg

Let’s see here . . . hmmmm . . .

  • two wireless lavalieres in the Acorn Ballroom
  • conference speaker phone in room #423

. . . oh, I guess I use this thing for work related things too.

Here’s something:

I watch a lot of T.V. and movies. Next to hiding up in my little man-nook on my mac it’s another past-time I really enjoy. The only thing it has really done for me is make me a decent teammate on a trivia team. Heck, my brother and I would play a game we called “Vague Movie Reference” where we’d say some vague line from some vague movie and the other would have to guess the film. For example:

“I was like a one-man army, like Charlton Heston in “Omega Man.” You ever see it? Beauty.”

Any guesses?

With all of my productive hours of watching I have become pretty good at spotting actors that have been in many different roles in many different movies or T.V. shows.

“Oh hey! That’s the guy that played the dead body in ‘Law & Order’!” or “Look! She played the girlfriend of Jerry Seinfeld that one time.”

Well, why should I be surprised that, one night, when ‘30 Rock‘ was on the Young Extroverted One yelled out, “Hey! That’s Mister Conductor in my Thomas Movie!” She was referring to Alec Baldwin, of course. She wasn’t even sitting down watching ’30 Rock’ she was walking by the boob-tube on her way to bed. Maybe that useless skill that I have is genetic.

Kids are pretty cool. Well, at least mine is! =)

Summer Fun

I’ve been meaning to write about this earlier but life and work get in the way sometimes. But, first, I must give a shout-out to God for the rain! We’ve been needing a new roof since we moved into this house and right when we hire someone to do it it rains like crazy the day they were going to come down. Now that the roof is done (and the impending bill is possibly on the way) I was afraid that is wasn’t ever going to rain again. If anything to at least prove to us that our choice in roofer was a good one. The work done was proof number one and now the lack of leaking is proof number two. We’ll be passing around a plate to collect donations for the roof fund after this post. =)

Okay, now onto the summer fun portion of the show. I have always enjoyed catching lightning bugs on summer evenings. I got to share this enjoyment with the Young Extroverted One the other day and we had a blast! There’s just something about spotting that green flash and running towards it to only lose the thing because it turned it’s light off and kept flying. Once the YEO got the knack she was catching them like a pro. As we took a breather from all the running to and fro I pointed out the bats flitting back and forth catching bugs (hopefully mostly mosquitoes). YEO thought that was the coolest thing ever!

I have this bat house (not my house but actually a bat house) that I’ve been needing to hang somewhere but like every project on deck it gets put aside. I still haven’t finished the laundry nook (what’s smaller than a nook? cranny?) with the sanding and the hole filling and the painting. At least we can actually do the laundry! I’ve also been meaning to put up a swing on the front porch for the YEO. Because, according to her, the porch swing is booooriiiiing. Whew, I got some work to do. ugh.

Now listen to some money collecting tunes as we start the plate around . . .

Summer’s Here-Dad Loves His Work