He’s intended to be my middle son’s pet for the most part, and my son’s thrilled.  He immediately fell in love with this little one.

So, this weekend is all about incorporating in a new member of the family.  We’ve puppy-proofed my boy’s room (well, mostly), we’re making sure that we keep the coyotes away (I hear elephant urine does the trick), and my son’s worked out a way for the puppy to climb up into his bed.

The whole family’s pretty excited.  Well, the girl’s a tad perturbed that it’s not her dog.  Okay, maybe more than a tad.

Looks like maybe we’ll have to be a two-dog family. 

I started going with my boy so that we could help each other stay in shape, but it’s become a lot more than that for me.  It’s become a time to stay connected to him.  Both of us have some issues around our body image, although it’s slightly different for each of us.

One of the things I’ve noticed as I work out (and I’ve seen the same thing with my son), is that when I’m feeling connected, my body responds really well.  When I’m not, I get tired more quickly, aches and pains creep in, I have an over-all miserable time.

The other thing that happens is that there are times when one of the kids shows up.  When I’m working out, it’s usually one of the body image kids.  They can get pretty upset about what we’re doing.  For me, the main thing they have to say is that getting into shape may just ruin my marriage.  I’m not sure if you knew that having a good body automatically meant marital trouble, but there you have it.

And when they get stirred up, they start trying to pull kill-switches.  All of the sudden, my knees hurt, my lower back starts twinging, I get a stitch in my side (it’s kind of cute… when one body part aching doesn’t get what they want, they switch around).  Basically, they do anything they can to stop the workout.

My son’s kids are the same.  Last night, he had some reading to do, as well as some math.  He started reading but couldn’t stop.  Then it was too late to start on his math homework, so when I woke him up this morning, he couldn’t come with me.

I missed him.  I find that it’s easier to work harder when he’s there.  I enjoy having his presence beside me.  I also like chatting with him on the way there and the way back.

So tomorrow, I’ll look forward to working out with him again.  Or, if the inner kids show up, I’ll enjoy talking with them and helping them to integrate.

Either way, it sounds like a good morning. 

Because the oppotunity itself is almost irrelevant. It’s my response to it that’s so telling.

Having the offer made me feel worthwhile. But does my sense of worth really depend on someone wanting to hire me? I’ve been hired before. I’ve left jobs, too. Did my worth change when things didn’t work out? Does my value as a person have anything to do with my external circumstances?

Here’s another (more uncomfortable) truth. The offer made me feel vindicated. This was proof positive that anyone that “questioned my worth” was wrong. Go, me!!

Except that I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t prove anything. It’s just an offer that’s coming at kind of an awkward time that I’m not totally sure is a realistic plan.

So, this time through I would like to do things differently. Walk through the situation more present and conscious. Ask uncomfortable questions when things aren’t completely clear.

Because I think that this is all exactly what needs to be happening right now.

And that’s pretty stinkin’ cool.

I watched an adult transform into a confrontational child right before my eyes.  There was no logic to the reasoning that was presented.  There was little to no accountability for hurtful words or actions.  There was a complete disregard for healthy boundaries and guidelines that had been set in place.

And it was beautiful.

A good portion of the reason that it was so great was that I realized how often I do the exact same thing myself.  It helped me to see just how ludicrous it seems from the other side of things.

The other thing that was wonderful about it was that it was so clear how young this person was in that moment.  How young and in pain.  It was very obviously a cry for help.

So many times it doesn’t seem that obvious.  Someone is engaging in hurtful behavior, and rather than choosing to see that they are in pain and have their defenses up, I get offended and put up my own defenses.  Just in case you were wondering, having two people with their defenses up typically doesn’t go well.

Choosing in that moment to be soft and gentle, to show an increase of love towards them so that they know you’re not an enemy, that’s the kind of man I want to be.  Creating a welcoming place for the other party to be able to drop their defenses and let the real them show up.

Also doing the same thing when I’m the one with my hackles raised.  Softening.  Dropping my guard.  Letting myself be… me.

Healthy behavior is so simple.  It does feel pretty difficult to put into practice at time, though.

So, soft and gentle.  That’s the guy I want to be. 

And as we talked through it with her, it totally helped us with all of our own stuff.

That’s kind of the way I think it all works.  We don’t really truly connect with others until we’re willing to let go of our own expectations and learn to serve.  The service helps them, but it really helps us more.

There’s still a lot more for me to sort out here, but I just wanted to put that out there tonight.  I think service is something that I’d like to pay a whole lot more attention to.

I’ll let you know where it takes me. 

It was such a wondeful weekend, filled with joyful moments.  It (and their trip to visit) felt way too short.  There were awards ceremonies, preschool costume parades, wins, losses, lions and tigers and bears.  I laughed.  I cried.  It was better than Cats.

Briefly, it was magical.

I’ve discovered more and more how much it means to me to have family in my life.  I mean that in the broadest definition of family I can think of.  A group of people that love each other pretty much no matter what.  No member of that family is perfect, so we all get to learn from each other.  We learn how to be patient.  We learn how to be soft.  We learn how to love unconditionally.

Saying goodbye to family yesterday was painful.  But I’m not sure that it really had to be.  Because it wasn’t goodbye.  It was hasta luego.  “Until later.”

And that’s what I think it always is with family. 

This year, our youngest was a pink fairy.  A pink fairy with glitter.  Lots of glitter.

There’s glitter everywhere.  I have glitter on my head, on my face, on my arms.  I’m pretty sure that there will be glitter around for weeks.

I feel like a stripper.

But, man, was her costume a hit.  She pranced around, getting more and more candy, and more often than not remembering to say thank you without prompting.  Okay, with a little bit of prompting.  She was an absolute vision.

She challenged every single scarily dressed person we ran into.  “Are you trying to be scary?  I’m not afraid of you!”  She seems to land squarely on the “fight” side of the whole “fight or flight” thing.

She was a joy to behold.

And then there were the other parts of Halloween.  My middle son going off on his own for the first time to Trick-or-Treat.  My oldest’s first Halloween as part of the adults that make Halloween special for the kids.  Rights of passage for both of them.

Who would’ve thought that a night filled with goblins and ghouls could also be filled with so much joy?

I love Halloween!

Booo!!!

Today was my middle son’s birthday.  We decided to get him a scooter for his birthday, and when my wife went to go pick it up yesterday, she had our daughter with her.  She told our girl that the present was a surprise, and that no one could tell him what it was.

As soon as he walked in the door when he came home from school, our daughter yelled, “Scooter!  Scooter!  Scooter!”  Luckily, he’s learned to tune her out over the years, so he didn’t notice.  My wife grabbed the girl and went around the corner.  She told her again that it was a secret.  Our daughter put her hands over her mouth, giggled hysterically and said, “I’m going to tell him!  I have to tell him!”  My wife told her that she couldn’t, that we wanted to keep it a secret.  Our girl said, “I can’t do it!  I have to tell him!”  After further talking, she finally agreed to not say anything.

Yeah, right.

She made it all the way through that night and today.  She made it all the way up to the end of his birthday dinner.  We were minutes away from opening his presents before she blurted out, “Scooter!  Scooter!  Scooter!”

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise for our birthday boy, but it sure is one heck of a funny story.

I love the honesty and impulsiveness of young children.  She loves her older brother.  She knew he would be excited about the scooter.  She really wanted to tell him.

And she told us exactly what she was going to do.

As she grows older, we’ll work with her on her impulse control, but for now, we’ll just sit back and smile or laugh or do constant spit-takes as we see her interacting with the world around her.  Every moment is a revelation.  Every new experience is relished.  Nothing is held back.

And that’s the learning part.

As I get older, I find that I mute my positive feelings way too much.  Actually, I’m not sure that ANY muting is okay.  Pure unadulterated joy doesn’t need a filter, does it?  I guess that I do it because I’m worried about the other shoe dropping.  Or maybe it’s not socially acceptable to really experience joy.  I’m not sure.  What I am sure of is that I find it so endearing in little children, which is probably one of the reasons that I love them so much.

So, that’s what I had to say tonight.  And I just had to tell you!  I just had to!! 

That’s something that, for a lot of married people, spells disaster. Or at least some really uncomfortable times.

Luckily, I was blessed with wonderful in-laws. Having them here is a pleasure for my kids, for my wife and for me.

So, tonight it’s a super-short blog, so that I can spend with them while they’re here. I’ll be back tomorrow with a longer entry…

We have a carpet cleaner, because it just seems to make sense to have one on hand.  You know.  Because of the math.

I don’t love cleaning carpets. The detergent is a little smelly and is really harsh when it gets on my hands.  The carpet gets all wet and when I walk back over it it’s all cold and stuff.

Okay, that last one isn’t so much a real complaint.

Here’s what I do love.  I love seeing the carpets as the dirt comes up.  It goes from stained and dirty to clean and fresh.

My life’s landscape starts feeling like the dirty carpets sometimes.  There are so many things from my past that feel like the stains and dirt.  And for the first time, I feel like I have a carpet cleaner.  A way to clean up the old stuff.

Because the old stuff is just moments of disconnect that haven’t had a chance to heal.  And the only way to let them heal is to open up and allow the connection to happen.  I know, I know, but love really is the answer.  It cleans up the carpets.

So, I’m sitting in a room with a clean carpet, and enjoying what is beginning to feel like a clean soul.

Not bad for a Wednesday night. 

And, for me, it doesn’t matter if I’m indoors or out. If I’m outside, I feel like I’m a part of the elements, part of the storm, one of the manifestations of nature. If I’m inside, I feel safe, warm and protected while the air howls.

It’s a total win-win!

So, for tonight, I’m going to spend some time swirling in the storm. Then I’ll come in and huggle in the warmth.

It’s gonna be a great night!

And, the process is taking a while. Things are kind of in limbo. It seems most likely that everything will work out and they will move. But they might not.

We have a deal that has contracts signed and we’re now waiting for the checks to come in. We have no idea when that will happen. It seems most likely that the money will come in before Thanksgiving. But it might not.

We have projects that we want to shoot. Once the money has come in, it seems most likely that we will be able to do so. But we may not.

Those are just three examples out of what feels like a lot more of things that are unclear. And for every one of those unclear futures, there is a whole group of inner kids that are waiting to be picked up.

This time of extended waiting has allowed my business partner and me to further connect and find gentler ways of working together. This time has helped me to connect more deeply with my family. This time has helped me integrate some hurt and fractured parts of myself. All of those things are wonderful.

So, here’s to unclear futures. I may be hoping for things to become clearer soon, but for now, I’m getting a lot of use out of the mist on the horizon.

And it was.  The blog was great, but I’m not sure that it’s exactly what I wanted to talk about.  What I really want to talk about is that I’ve felt a little discouraged the past couple of days.

I feel a lot of shame over my disconnects, so admiting that I haven’t been quite as connected as I would like can be challenging for me.  But really it’s just good information.

I’ve been discouraged because it feels like I’m in the same place as I’ve been in before.  Things are feeling really similar.

And yet, I know that they’re different.  And the things that feel the same are all part of the plan.  The plan that helps me to integrate hurt and scared parts of myself that need love and attention.

So, even though this isn’t the blog that I planned, it feels like the one that I really needed.

And that pretty much applies to my whole life.  Things may not be going exactly how I planned, but I’m pretty sure they’re exactly what I needed.

That’s pretty awesome! 

Then the real excitement starts.  All the adults open up and decorate the trunks of their cars and the kids go around to the cars as if they were houses.  Lots less walking.  Lots more candy.  Good times.

One of the families that are friends of ours came by our car.  They have a daughter that is the same age as our little girl, and she was dressed up like a princess.  I told her that she was adorable.  She looked up, smiled at me, tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “Why yes I am!  Thanks!”  She then got her candy and went on her way.

Adorable doesn’t even begin to cover it.

And I thought to myself, why on earth do we lose that?  Why can’t I say that I’m adorable without mentally cringing (or externally cringing, for that matter).  Any compliment I give myself feels like it has to come with a ton of qualifiers.

Don’t want anyone to think I’m too big for my britches.

But who exactly is this “anyone” I’m talking about?  If I acknowledge my own good qualitites, does that make me arrogant?  I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

I would like to be as confident as that little girl, accepting… no, embracing the wonderful things that make up the wonderful me.

I love me, and I don’t think I need to be shy about it. 

It’s a part of me that I haven’t really been completely willing to let come out, possibly because it’s so precious to me.

One of the most romantic things I’ve seen recently was the wedding on The Office. There were so many tiny, touching, funny, profound moments. I will admit I cried when I watched it. I cried this morning when I watched just a part of it on YouTube. I cried later telling someone about it.

The most poingant moment for me was the last moment in the show when Jim looked right into the camera. His look said so many things. It said, “Finally! I’ve waited so long.”. It said, “She’s the most amazing woman ever.” Mostly it said, ” I can’t believe I’m so lucky.”

Those are all the things I feel for my wife. Problem is, I don’t always find special ways to express that.

I know that Jim is a character that was written by amazing writers. I get that. And, I want my wife to know that I want the words to be able to describe so eloquently what exactly is in my heart.

My new goal is to open up my heart (and my mouth) a little more often. I may not have their words, but I have mine, and when they’re connected, I’m pretty sure they will make their way into her heart.

I went out to Ventura today with my business partner and her roommate to look at some properties.  While we were there, we walked along the beach for a while.  We ate at a cute little Mexican place just off the sand.

I chased birds.

I love the beach.

Ahem.

Sound a little bit like someone was pointing across the street?  Why, yes, thank you.  I believe I was.

A couple of weeks ago we were approached about a project that sent up a lot of red flags for me.  It was something I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be involved in.  But I wanted to be fair-minded about it.  I didn’t want to make the decision for my business partner.

So I took my instincts and shoved them into some dark little corner of my soul.

In the meanwhile, my partner was looking for some input, because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do either.  Since I had chosen to cram all of my concerns into the nether regions of my psyche, they weren’t at all present for that conversation.  Basically, she left feeling like I had talked her into the project.

Now I’ve got all of the splintered kids inside me feeling completely betrayed, both by me and by her.  You can see that this would not be conducive to an open, connected, loving environment.

Luckily, my business partner is very sensitive to disconnect.  She stuck with her feeling that there was something up, even when I was trying to back her off by telling her how I felt like I was under a magnifying glass.  Also luckily, I don’t like to be disconnected either.  Once I realized that I had hurt her feelings quite a bit, and that it seemed to be continuing even after “figuring things out,” I knew that her instincts were on to something.

The original disconnect was small.  It was a misunderstanding.  Even the topic of the disconnect, while profound, certainly didn’t have to be epic.  My business partner and I share morals that are very similar, despite the big differences in how we were raised.

And, we always end up figuring it out.

Now the only thing is how not to take that freaking long next time.  Two weeks (while significantly down from the two months that it might have been at one point) is way too much disconnect for me.

I’d rather be connected any day! 

I don’t really want to go into the details, mostly because I’m not sure that it’s really about that at all.

Because is news really ever disappointing?  The resounding answer in my head is, “Absolutely.  Yes.  You know it.”

But there’s a smaller voice that just gently says, “Things are happening the way that they are supposed to.  You’ll see.”

Darn that voice.

Because I’ve found over the years that it’s inevitably right.  There have been so many moments that I was sure spelled doom and destruction, that upon looking back were exactly what needed to happen.

This, I’m sure, is another of those moments.

Which just means that I’ll have another chance to recognize how amazing a universe we live in. 

I’m okay with that!

When we call, we have the kids talk first, and then we take over once they’re done.  The children usually take about ten or fifteen minutes.

Today they talked for, like, an hour and a half.

It was pretty stinkin’ cute.  Even the little one chatted for quite a while on her own.

They just hunkered down and talked and talked and… talked.  And my parents loved it.

Sometimes I forget how much the simple act of connection means to all of us.

When I was about twenty, I lived in Spain for a couple of years.  I missed my family, but it didn’t bother me that we weren’t able to constantly talk with one another.  I prided myself on the fact that I wasn’t homesick.  No biggie.

In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that I was just disconnected.

I love my family.  And I can honestly say that the disconnect during that part of my life led me to be much more aware of how often I stay in touch with them now.  So, while I regret the disconnect then, I’m grateful for the connection now.

And that’s really all that we can do, right?  Keep looking at what we’re doing and assessing whether we are more or less connected than we were last year, last month, last week.  If the answer is more, great!  What can we do to connect even further.  If the answer is no, great!  What can we do to re-establish that connection.

I’m grateful for the time that my kids had to stay connected with my parents.  I’m also grateful for the time that I had to do the same.

Connection is such a beautiful thing!

Instead, I’m going to talk about going to Edwards Air Force Base.  There was an air show today, and we took the kids out to see it.

The trip out was supposed to take about an hour.  It took four.  And a half.

When we got out to about a mile or two away from the exit, traffic slowed down to a crawl.  We spent the next three and a half hours creeping along, straining our eyes to see the planes flying off in the not-so-far distance.  We managed to hear the planes breaking the sound barrier, which was the first of the events.  We saw some of the aerial displays from over the hill.  But we were still stuck in the car with the kids starting to bicker with one another.

So I started a sing-a-long.  I know, I know… but it totally worked.  The boys were dismissive at first, but totally got into it as I started bellowing out tunes with my little girl (she thought the whole thing was awesome).  We had a great time until I ran out of tunes.

Eventually we got there.  It looked like some kind of refugee camp or something out of Independence Day.  We were all parking out in the middle of nowhere, then walking across a baked desert wasteland to get to a bunch of big old canvas tents, where we were strip-searched.  Okay, they only wanded us, but still.

We were then loaded onto buses (about this time, I was beginning to wonder if this were some extremist plot for population control) and shipped out to the air show.  We got there three hours after the show started, with about two hours or so remaining.  My wife was pretty convinced that the day was shot.  And, in her defense, it was about 500 degrees out there on the blacktop.

But then something amazing happened.  We started watching the planes fly.

And, man, did they fly.  They were doing things that I’m pretty certain would’ve given Newton a conniption fit.

We watched men and women take to the air and do amazing things.  Things that only birds should be able to do.  And it was magnificent.

Sure, it was basically NASCAR in the air, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen that many halter tops in one place in my life, but you should’ve seen my middle son’s face.  He wants to be a pilot.  I’m pretty sure that there will be no talking him out of it now.

He was glowing when we came home.

Yeah, I’ll take four and a half hours in a hot car any day for that.

Up, up and away!