The many faces of Jessamyn

After a recent dinner, Jess and I worked through the some emotions as expressed visually. We had a very good time with this, and here are the photos that resulted.

Skiing

In my youth, a trip to the ski slopes meant freedom within what seemed a constrictive world as it allowed me time to be solitary with my thoughts in an environment that brought great happiness to me: snow.

As a father, I am now sharing this dream with my children as only a good parent should. My son’s experience started over a year ago when he was only three. With a strap around his waist that seemed more like a tether fit for a dog, I attempted to educate him in the skills needed to navigate the inclines of the ski slopes. After three hours, I had a son with a smile on his face, and a backache that felt like someone had stuck blacksmith’s red-hot poker in the middle of my back. In learning to ski, my son quickly realized that someone would catch him with this method, so little effort was required on his part.

Fast-forward to this year, when we again hit the slopes together, but this time I decided to try a ski school since I couldn’t find the “tether” that we had borrowed the year previous. A very frustrated ski school teaching staff was burdened with a student that had been taught to ski in a limp form befitting of a escapee from a mortuary with ski’s attached. With a smile on his face, Joey would come off the top of the ‘conveyer’ (a great invention that someone should have thought of much earlier) at the top of the “bunny hill” and just fall over on the ground expecting some miraculous device or hands to hold him up and let him ski down the hill.

This was the truest definition of a ‘bad habit’ that had been given to my son in the previous year’s experience. What was I thinking?

After two hours of attempting to get him to teach my son how to ski, the patient instructors gladly returned him to my custody with an apology and the promise that further class sessions (something I’m sure they offered with great reluctance) would undoubtedly help.

Looking into the face of the full realization that my mistakes in mentoring had caused the current predicament, I set out to right this wrong. Determined, I ascended the hill with my son on the conveyor next to me with an internal will to teach my son something and gain results that correct the previous misleading direction. Time and time again, we descended the hill, with me on my knees trying to talk him through the actions: “now Joey, make me a great big huge piece of pizza” “now make it bigger” “EVEN BIGGER!”

At first, our progress was excruciatingly slow and in my own mind I’m starting to doubt my abilities and the thought of a nice warm car seat and quiet ride home are becoming a very tempting alternative.

Two things spring into my mind that cause me to reconsider and forge forward. First, the pain I felt the previous year is still prominent in my mind and a very real pain it is. So real, in fact, that I had popped several extra-strength Tylenol before heading out earlier. I don’t want to relive this pain in trying to teach Joey to ski ever again and this thought drives me to keep working with him to learn how to do this. Second is the thought of doubt that was cast by my wife years earlier when we were discussing the possible teaching of a musical nature to our then young son. She voiced a valid concern that not having spent much time as a drum teacher myself, I may not be the best prospect for teaching our son how to play something that means so very much to me. Not wanting to fail as a teacher and wanting to prove to not only myself by maybe also my wife that having great passion about something can lead us to be great as a teacher and a leader, I vow to not leave this slope until my son can ski.

An hour of patient work with Joey on that hill passes. I can feel some level of frustration starting to mount inside me at this point, yet the two psychological mantras keep putting me back on track and focusing my determination. Oddly enough, he is as focused on this as I am. In retrospective analysis from my daughters reaction to skiing, I’m amazed how brave and trusting he is about the even as a whole. No complaints, no whining, no not-wanting to try. The little guy is really giving it his best effort.

He looks at me and says: “Daddy, I really want to go on the bigger hills over there.” He points his finger at the four-seated “quad” lift that has been newly added since his father last visit to the resort some ten years prior.

“Well, buddy, if you can master stopping and turning, then you and I can go on there, but until we can learn how to do these, we can’t go there.”

Although he is somewhat understanding of the reasoning behind the requirement, he still voices his desire for a change in the current challenge level.

“Well, can we go over there to that rope?”

I give in at this point thinking that maybe learning the rope would help him understand the poise and position that we’re currently working on.

Now, in my mind, I figured the rope tow would be very easy to accomplish. You just grab and go, right?

We let the line clear in front of us before attempting this, yet I still think it is going to be an easy task.

I tell Joey to grab on tight to the rope and let it pull him up to the top of the hill and reaffirm that I will be following right behind him.

He grabs on.

In my late night musings of Discovery Channel shows to numb my brain enough to sleep, I’ve often come across a show called ‘Deadliest Catch’ where a film crew accompanies several crab-hunting crews on their cold water Alaskan endeavors. What I see in front of me is something a viewer would expect from one of those shows, save for the fact that what is being towed up in front of me is not a fish on a line being dragged out of the sea, but a four-year old laid out face first on the ground with his hands firmly gripping the rope.

He did exactly what I told him to do: he held onto the rope.

After clearing the rope line once I got him to let go of it, we both agreed that the conveyer would be a much better choice for the near future.

Fortunately, they have a much longer conveyor that ascends to the hilltop right next to the rope tow, albeit at the deficit of speed.

After the lengthy ride to the top, we both get off and again attempt descending the hill together, though, this time, Joey seems to understand more about what he is trying to do?

Did the drag on the ground behind the rope knock something lose here?

The “pizza slice” command diatribe quickly transforms into a more fun game of “red light, green light” as we play our way down the hill.

Within a half hours time, he is learning how to turn and even go through a small tunnel they’ve setup for the pupils.

Our fun unfortunately comes to an end after they close down the ski school and open the slopes up to the more aggressive older students and general public. We are now subject to snowboarders, people cutting through off the big hills, and just plain crazy people that thought a day on skis was a great way to avoid whatever other suicidal intentions I would have wished they would have pursued someplace other than near my son.

We both leave the slopes tired and exhausted, yet I am filled with a pride in my son for picking up something I didn’t think he could learn so quickly. I am also filled with pride in bucking the chains of limitations that surrounded my faith about my own abilities to give a gift of learning to my own offspring: I really can teach.

The following weekend, I retried this event with my three year old daughter, but hit a huge brick wall with her confidence. After a hour of attempting to convince her to try, both of us gave up and agreed that maybe skiing was something best left for daddy and Joey.

It breaks my heart to not be able to share this with her. I have visions of her being one of those cute “ski bunnys” that rarely dot the ski hills, but have profound impacts on their fathers outward confidence. I will again re-try this with her next year, and maybe a little more experience and confidence that comes with age will help her to persevere.

At this point, I can’t wait to get back out there and start “tearing up” the slopes with my son… well, only as much tearing as a forty pound snow-plowing child can do… I’m still happy either way.

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Perpetual Clean

Bath time seems to be the best time to take pictures of Jocie as it seems to be the point during her day that we can get her in one place for any period of time. Given her diet (cat or dog food and vast quantities of food that more than doubles her older siblings mealtime intakes) and her activities (changing channels on the TV, making a mess of night side stands, unrolling toilet paper rolls, attacking pets, pestering her brother or sister at whatever they are doing, etc) she really needs a bath, trust me.

These are a few snaps from one recent cleaning session.

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Reminiscing

It is amazing how spending the day with an old friend can really breakdown the frantic lifestyle we live in and bring you to a holistic perspective that allows us to calmly reflect on the changes in each of our lives.

A busy existence generated a fork in life paths between myself and a very good friend where once existed a shared vision of the same dream. I’ve known Mike since I had just entered High School, as he was one of my older brother’s best friends. Later in life, our paths intersected and became a road by the sharing of talents as we were both fellow musicians.

After returning from the Peace Corps, we had decided that several of us were going to join and build a band together (this would be our second attempt at the same band, minus the lead-guitar player whom was more interested in female leads that sang over-produced “pop” music scraped from the radio than playing original compositions). It was decided that we would build a house together (well, actually Mike make the decision), and we would all live there, record there, and make that our home base to tour from.

Life and love interceded in the middle of the plans, and I stepped back to move in with the woman I would eventually marry. Mike moved back to Nicaragua and met the woman he would marry. They returned to the US as a threesome (a young daughter of Mike’s wife in tow), and we again tried to start something part-time on the side.

In the end, noble intentions failed to manifest themselves in firm manufacture on my part, and years grew between contacts.

On a cold February day, I dragged wife and family through weather conditions imported from somewhere north of Nome, Alaska (negative digit temperatures, 40+ mps winds, zero visibility, pileups that closed the highway at multiple points… well, you know, the sort of driving conditions I love most) to visit with a long lost friend.

Their home was the warmest in hospitality which stood in stark contrast to the weather outside. Our families spent the better part of the day together enjoying each other’s company while Mike cooked a feast of native tastes from South America.

In talking and catching up together, I was reminded just how important it is to make these lifelong connections with people and how interacting with them can bring us vision not only into our friendships but into ourselves as well. I’ve always felt a close bond with Mike, and had really wanted him to be my best man at my wedding, yet time and distance separated the possibility, and though years existed between our last contact, the conversation never reflected it.

Good friends are forever, that much is for sure, and no matter where life takes us, what we think of ourselves, or how we choose to live, these good bonds can bring greatness to those that try and forge them.

Will you be my friend?

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Me and three

Jocie and I had a ‘daddy daughter’ bonding experience last night as we sat at the top of the stairs and played with some Lego’s that Joey had left in the play room. While I repeatedly put the cubes together into a tall wall, she persisted in removing the blocks one by one and handing them back to me.

We laughed and kept countering each other's productivity until she realized that gravity would help to pull a thrown block down the stairs. Apparently this was much more fun than the interaction we were participating in. She squealed with delight as individual blocks started raining down like bombs of World War II on the city of London towards the unsuspecting populous of dogs and cats below.

The event was short lived as only a finite number of blocks had been absconded from the bin in the main floor’s living room by a nearly five year old.

Returning to cleaning up the house (the wife was at class and it’s my noble duty as a father in need of his wife's respect to prove his ability to juggle three kids, dinner, bedtime, and sanity against cleaning the house up to prove my worth…. Sure, it’s no big deal, right?), a naked from a ‘falling-off the potty incident’ three year old alerts me that her little sister has now attempted to assist her older brother in his quest to relieve himself.

Splash…. “hehehe”… splash… “Weee!!!”

I run in to find my oldest holding the lid up (he hasn’t learned that another fifteen degrees in the lids arc will net it a gravitational hold against the basin that holds the water for the toilet and alleviate the necessity of holding it while he is mid-stream) and a barley one year old figure leaning over the side in a pose reminiscent of a child that’s dropped a precious toy down a wishing well. She’s splashing away in what I’d like to believe is clean unfettered water (well, as clean as toilet water can be…. It seems fine for the dogs…), yet I know it’s anything but that.

During the removal process of separating Jocie from the toilet, somehow an hand wetted with the liquid is placed into her mouth. I’m filled with total disgust at this moment. Her wrongdoings are quickly punished with a brisk rinse of both mouth and hands with water and liquid soap and a placement at the far end of the hallway far away from the bathroom.

I return to try and clean up the mess made all over the side of the bowl, floor, and lid top. My Son had decided that standing on the stool that his next oldest sister had just used, prior to her incident, was an appropriate decision before he did his “duty” yet failed to anticipate the elevated position's affect on his output projection angle in relation to the ring of the seat, and thus coated a clean underside of a toilet lid with requisite spray emanating in an arc-like pattern on surrounding surfaces and neighboring sink cabinet.

Like a bullet, our zoom baby appears from her short marathon and rushes just past my reach to the other side of the bowl where she again darts into the now visibly unclean water with her hands for yet another time.

Arghhh…. I’ve had enough at this point and quickly place the now giggling uncontrollably post-infant protagonist into pajamas.

Not thinking about her bathroom obsession (even though the lid is now closed, she’s still a bad omen when left to her own means in a bathroom…. And I should have rememberd this), I took the older two into their rooms and quickly dressed them for bed.

Silence…. And for several minutes I think nothing of it. Yet, something about being a parent puts you in tune to this sixth sense-like concern over silence. Normally, our house is a constant deafening drone that accompanies children that I can barely think, and my wife is plagued by constant ‘evening headaches’ that result in the common statement of “would you kids settle down, you’re giving me a headache!” But now, there is no sort of sound coming from our baby who sends out an unending squabble of little noises which allow us to track her like some sort of house-born infant radar.

Quiet….

At this point, it’s a bad thing.

And it can only mean one of two things. Either she’s sleeping, which is highly unlikely given the female quotient of our household’s penchant for exuberant energy, or she is getting into big time trouble.

A quick run towards the bathroom rewards me with the view of a standing one year old coated in what appears to be three feet of white snow. Yet on closer inspection this ends up being the entire contents of what was recently a new roll of toilet paper.

My frustration level at wanting to portray the vision of a perfect household ends in an immediate bedtime for the littlest one.

For the next two hours I will be continually reminded by her that she was not ready to go to bed yet. She waits ‘till after 10:00pm before silently giving in to defeat.

And at 7:30am, I’m re-acquainted to the same happy faced presence that she wakes with each and every morning.

It’s times like this when I’m so glad to head to the office.

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Strolling through a Wintery Park

Fevers and colds have struck our two eldest children forcing them to stay home from going to school.

In the now free time I have on my way to work created in the absence of the morning drop-off procedure, I took a quick yet cold stroll through a favorite park (one I've written about here before).

In an attempt to combine two lessons from a photography composition book (the use of lines and their relationship to emotions and trying to use distant focal objects to draw the viewer into the photograph), I endeavored to apply thoery in action. Here are some pictures taken during this lesson.

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Violation of a Teacher's Coursework

While Jenny took a brief lapse from her homework studies to make a family dinner, two willing younger students took an opportunity to assist their mother in her college studies.

In a proclamation about making things more “beautiful”, Jessamyn owned up to her responsibility in the part of the class handouts now covered in florescent pink highlighter doodles that also adorned the outer edges of the accompanying course book (which was fortunately bought used online at a fraction of what the cost could have been if it were new) which has now found permanent ownership due to its now altered and unsellable condition.

As proud she was for her part is this edification endeavor which she no doubt thought necessary, her brother required a more rigorous interrogation to determine his role in the whole event.

Within the thick book upon which Jess had done her magic was also found the work of a different artist’s hand.

The word ‘Joey’ was clearly visible on several page tops, yet the author decreed ownership of the work to his younger sister.

“Nope, I didn’t do it. Jess did.”

“Are you SURE you didn’t color in mommy’s book.”

“Nope, I’m sure. Jessamyn did all of it.”

At this point, Jessamyn felt the need to reassert her part related to the evidence at hand.

“Yeah, I made it ‘beautiful’ for you mommy. I colored it pink, and I did this one… and this one… and this one… all for you!”

Like a lawyer playing out a good piece of evidence that wasn’t properly listed on the discovery motion yet springing it on the court, an inquisition faced barrister interrogated the suspect now sitting in the witness stand, aka, the far side of the couch.

“Master Joey Pike… it would appear to me and the rest of the jury of your peers that this handwriting located on the distal tip of yonder page bears significant resemblance to your very own signature.

In fact, we’ve had our own panel of handwriting experts examine this and the several other similar signatures seen on pages 102, 348, and Appendix IIX sub-page 14 and they have determined a 98% positive match to your handwriting.

What say you now, you villainous, thieving, purgerous, non-truth sayer?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot, I did that too.”

jp