wordsimageslife
an exploration of life as a parent & designer

Signal but No Service?

Picking up a wireless signal but not connection to the web. So whille I comfortable scribe waterside, the posting will have to wait until I get into the office. Listening to one of my favorite songs by The Cure, I Love You. It's got the best lyrics about what love feels like, or even what true friendship feels like.

As I mentioned last night, today marks three weeks since my father passed away. I got three copies of the death certicate yesterday and finally had the courage to read it this morning. (Funny concidence about threes, there). On a more positive note, it's an extremely beautful day, the sun is warm, the water is reflecting it with a sparkle of joy and I'm just trying to capture one of those warm rays to lead off the day. As you may be able to tell, writing today is a bit difficult. I'm uncertain of what I want to say and I really don't want to whine or complain, because who the heck wants to read that.

Can I just say that five-year old girls are sometimes difficult to deal with. Now, as a kid I had a problem with sensitivity, so I'm more sensitive to it in my own kids. (Sensitive kids don't get treated well by other kids). And when Izzy started whining and crying, the tearless kind which a parent usually defines as mellow drama versus real crying, about wearing a uniform to school. "I don't like wearing a uniform,' she cried. Now, I'm thinking either something else is bugging her, she's still tired or just wants to be a pain to me in the morning. (Just kidding about that last one). Anyhow, in my brilliant parenting technique, I tell her to stop crying, get dressed or I'm going to get mad. She and I have an on-going discussion about crying and whining for things. She knows I have little or no patience for it and she seems to do it more often than not. Now, the Catch-22 is that if I do yell at her for it, well then she will cry. So, what do I do, when I really start getting mad at her, instead of yelling loud, I use a whisper that clearly says I'm not happy with her behavior and she just better knock it off. In all honesty, it rarely works. No one said this was an easy job. I really think I need to find a better way of dealing with it. I could just ignore her, that works with Liam when he has his minor fits, and tell her to get dressed. But usually that results in her going to slowly, which again creates a situation where intervention isn't always pleasant. Man, how did our parents put up with us for so long? I guess it's a good thing that we love our kids so much. Because if we didn't, we probably wouldn't work so hard at these kinds of things.

Well, it's time to get to work. Sunshine certainly can be therapeutic by this morning I realized that I miss being in NOLA. It was, despite some of the bigger issues, something that I managed to enjoy a lot more than I can probably admit. It was just a great group of people, great music and a few days away from the stress of work and in some ways, normal life. But now that I'm back to reality, I must deal with it and take it head on. None of this passive aggressive BS that I sometime use to function in uncomfortable situations. A very agstute friend suggested I do function that way sometimes, and appreciating the insight, have found it to be true and something that needs to change.

On a truly positive note, and the first public disclosure of this information, I will be one of seven in-house designers featured in a piece on in-house design being produced by International Paper to help promote one of their more popular lines of text and cover papers. This is incredibly cool and I was personally surprised that I was recommended by a designer I truly worship. It was quite an honor and I can't wait to see it.

Posted by robdesign at April 29, 2004 09:24 AM