My Daughter The Mimic

I've told a few people these stories, but just in case you haven't heard them here you go.

Tessa is at the age where she repeats/processes/imitates much of what she hears. Most of the time I think I'm pretty good about what I say in front of her. Unless I'm tired or frustrated, then all bets are off.

Here's an example of unfortunate mimicking. One Wednesday I was home with all three kids. Patterson would not stop crying. Really, no matter what I tried it was over 45 minutes of crying-and the boy is loud. Needless to say my patience ran out, and I said to him "Patterson, please stop crying. Just shut up for five minutes." Not the usual tone I take with the kids, but again I said it to him, I didn't yell.

Well, maybe I should have yelled as Tessa heard me say it, and since I said it as calmly as possible, the phrase didn't raise any red flags for her. So a little later on it was nap time. I put her in her room, and the first thing she did was go to her stuffed turtle and say "Shut up Simon. No crying."

Ouch. Way to hurt a guy, Tessa. So then we had to have the whole conversation about how we don't say "shut up" and Daddy made a mistake and all that. So I've tried to be a little more intentional about saying things better, especially to the babies.

Her other mimic moment happened just a few weeks ago. It was early morning and I was trying to get Tessa up and out of bed. In true Brink fashion, she did not want to get out of bed. She was saying stuff like "No Daddy, don't wake me up." Even as I changed her diaper and changed her clothes she was saying "Quit waking me up." She resisted at all opportunities. She refused to move, making her body limp in an attempt to keep me from lifting her. She argued with everything I said, I've never heard the word "no" so many times in a row before.

Being a night person in the mornings is difficult. I'm tired when I wake, have little patience, and one or more things on me hurt. So obviously I lost it.

I picked the girl up and put her over my shoulder to go downstairs to breakfast. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I know that I was yelling at her about her behavior (and yelling at a child to behave is counter productive, I know, but how good are you at 5:30 a.m.)?
I remember yelling "We shouldn't have to do this, Tessa! You need to follow instructions and eat your cereal. Don't mess around in the mornings. I don't want to yell Tessa! I don't like having to do this first thing in the morning!!!"

Well, after breakfast we were getting her dressed for the day. Tessa has a game where she pretends to be a different person in the family and she assigns you another person to be. Sometimes she's Mommy, Melody is Tessa, Mommy is Dora the explorer and Daddy's Patterson. Vivid imagination on that one.

So she says to me "You Tessa and I be Daddy". Well, here's my chance to be a wiseacre. "I'm Tessa?" I asked. "Okay."

I put on my whiniest voice, "Don't wake me up Daddy. Quit waking me up."

She looked me in the face, called up the deepest voice she could muster and said "I don't wanna do this Tessa. I no like to yell Tessa!"

Damn, she got me. And I couldn't do a thing about it because she was right. And it was funny. And I deserved it. But it's still a little embarrassing.

Oh well, at least it's better than that time she yelled "cock" in the library. But only just.

Just Some Stuff

A few random disconnected and disjointed thoughts floating around in my noggin.

-Rams won one today. Doesn't happen too often 'round these parts, so you gotta dig it when it does.

-Kings Of Leon did a make up show here in St. Louis the other night. I heard it was average at best, and kinda short. They also showed up at the Rams game today and were introduced over the P.A. and shown on the big screens. People booed. Made me happy.

- Last football thing: Donovan McNabb needs to put some weight back on. I've seen him play twice this year and it seems that getting skinny has thrown off his balance or something. He's just not himself-and I like the guy. Just, seriously, have some ding-dongs or something. The man looks friggin' gaunt.

-Drive By Truckers are in town on Saturday. Once again I'll be there, this time with Valerie, Derek and Dad all in tow. I finally e-mailed the web site about naming my son Patterson. Maybe there'll be a response (hopefully positive), and maybe not. Either way, I thought I should share.

-Valerie and I had our first official date last night, one with just the two of us, since the babies were born. That was nice, we should do it more often. Went to dinner and a movie. Saw "The Other Guys" with Will Ferrell. Decent flick, pretty funny and a little bit better story than I expected. The best thing about it though is that Michael Keaton is in it. Always good to see that guy pop up in something.
Movies, by the way, have gotten ridiculously expensive in the past year or so since we stopped going. Really makes you do your research before you go.

-Speaking of movies, it's almost October which means horror movies aplenty for me and a blog post for you coming soon.

-Woke up this morning with a charley horse. Leg still hurts, and stairs suck. This used to happen to Valerie a lot. Sorry I didn't take it more seriously.

-Tessa has learned to mock me. More on that next time.

-Only three months til Christmas.

-Haven't mentioned Melody yet so...Melody.

-Read a lot from the second "Bloom County" collection I mentioned here a while back. I read it just before bed with a glass of milk and a snack. Had to stop, started dreaming about Opus and Milo. That's nuts, and a little disturbing.

-I wake up with a different song in my head every day. Last week I had both "The Hustle"by whoever that's by, and "Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies. You tell me which is worse. Mornings suck.

Awright, that's enough. I'll try to get back into the swing of things with this whole blog deal soon.

Long Time No Type

Been a while since I posted anything here. No real reason, just been a little tired at night lately and haven't had the time. I'm here now though, and I suppose the best way to do this is to get random so let's go.

1. Jackie Joyner Kersey came into the store today. Kinda cool. she posed for pictures with people, and upon my telling her about Valerie's love of the Olympics offered to bring back an autographed picture. Nice lady and a class act. Also really tall.

2. My father is on a blues vacation right now, traveling through the Delta from Memphis to Tupelo. He's going to be visiting some cool sites and obviously hearing some good music. A big highlight will be the Robert Johnson museum (located at a crossroads, maybe?) and Stax records if he can fit it in. Sounds pretty cool. Hope he's having a great time.

3. In other family news, my second (?) cousin Ray died last week. I didn't really know him, but family is family. Condolences to all. Rest in peace Ray.

4. Also it appears that my Great Aunt Marguerite isn't doing well, so prayers for her.

5. In happier family news my brother Derek and I are going to be able to reveal the info about our newest band soon. New name, new presentation, some new songs. Same us. Well, three out of four ain't bad. Ha. Seriously though, I'm very excited about this whole thing and I think people will dig it. Watch this space for details.

That's it for now. Back soon.

Labor Day Round Up

I'd mentioned before that I had lots of plans for Labor Day. I also have two twin babies. Therefore, not a lot got done. Here's what I did do, in no particular order.

1. Watched the MDA Telethon. Mostly. Actually, this was the first year in a long time that I slept through at least as much of it as I watched. Again, twins.

2. Got my hair cut. Severely. As promised, I'm conducting an experiment to see if I can get down to two haircuts a year. We'll see. When I cut my hair super short like this, I never fail to be surprised by how German I look. I tend to focus on my Irish heritage, but there's a strong German streak there as well, and right now you can really see it. I'm also still trying to get the beard to look right. When I first got it cut, the beard looked really long, and looked shaggy and unkempt. Not like terrorist levels or anything, but not good. The trouble is, when it gets too short it just looks pathetic. Oh well.

3. Went to the in laws on Saturday for a family get together. Played catch with the kids, by which I mean I caught them as they flew off the elevated slide in Granddad's back yard. Not as easy as it sounds, a little too late on my part and it's flat on the face and crying. We really had to enforce the taking turns rule to the point where I wound up scheduling the order. That was Tessa's fault-in her excitement she went down the slide too early-when I had just caught her cousin Abby, who wound up on her butt and was not happy about it. But she was okay, so it's all good. Also Melody peed on her Aunt, which she will never live down.

4. Went to Vintage Vinyl on Friday night with my brother. Did a little "crate digging" through the used L.P. section. Wound up with four records for ten bucks...not too shabby. It's probably a good thing I don't live very close to Vintage anymore or I'd do nothing but spend money there. Now if I'd only hook up that turntable in the basement I could play 'em. One of those things I meant to accomplish this weekend I'm afraid.

5. Spent time with the family. That's the best thing about actually having a normal weekend off for once. I already feel like I don't get enough family time some days so it's nice to have that. Sure, the kids can drive me crazy when they all act up simultaneously but there's more to it than that, fortunately. Apart from playing with Tessa at her Grandparent's house I took her shopping with me, did a little reading with her and made up some stories together at bed time. I was also able to connect a little more with the babies, even getting Melody to begin repeating sounds after me. So even though it's a lot of work having three kids and they take away a lot of my time and most of my energy, it's all worth it.

So all in all, a good weekend. Back at work tomorrow like the rest of you. Hope it goes well for us all.

Until next time, remember: Don't pick at it, you'll only make it worse.

Seriously...Give

Hope your Labor Day weekend is going well, mine is. Hey, while I've got your attention, how's about we get serious for a few minutes, okay?

As I type this, the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon is on television. Actually, it's the local part, but you know what I mean. Look, we all know that the telethon is the biggest train wreck on t.v. We all cringe at the talent, laugh at the crap production, and long for the days when Lewis was intentionally funny as opposed to the hot mess he is now. And we've all been guilty of tuning out during the testimonials.

But we should be better than that. The tuning out part, I mean, that other stuff is okay. Why do we tune out the hard part? The whole point of the telethon is the stories we hear about the people whose lives are affected by Muscular Dystrophy every day. This is a disease that can and does strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. People's lives get turned upside down all the time. Parents lose their children. Children lose parents. Brothers and sisters are taken away. Slowly. Painfully. And there's still no cure.

That's uncomfortable and scary. And that's why we tune it all out. We, as a whole, don't like to watch that kind of stuff so we don't watch it, we don't think about it and we don't do anything about it. Again, we should be better than that.

Okay, fellow parents, this part's for you. Most of us are used to watching our kids grow stronger every day. We enjoy watching them grow up and become responsible citizens, and carry on as well rounded adults who will one day give us grandchildren and take care of us in our declining years. But what if that wasn't the case? What if our kids were getting weaker? What if we had to sell everything we had to keep them alive? What if we had to watch them die and we were powerless to stop it? Don't you think you'd want someone to listen to your story and help?

Or, how about this...what if you hit your mid fifties and suddenly begin to lose control of your speech and your muscles? What if it's your spouse? Try explaining to a small child that Mommy can't hold her kids anymore and she never will again.

See, MD, in any of its forms, doesn't care about you. It doesn't care how old you are, how rich you are, your gender, your race, if it's your birthday or Christmas or anything. It's not necessarily hereditary, and people don't cause it. If it wants to get you, it will. And there's still no cure.

Feeling scared yet? Feeling guilty yet? You should be. So give a little something why don't you? You don't have to give a lot, even a dollar is welcome. Hey, you see a firefighter throw fifty cents in his boot. Well, make sure he's part of the program and actually taking donations-don't just bum rush the dude. You get the point. Call in during the telethon, or go to http://www.mda.org and give a little something. You'll be doing a good thing and you'll feel good too.

Alright. You may now go back to your Labor Day celebration in whatever form it takes. I'll check back in soon with some lighter stuff. Good night and God bless.