First of all, let me say that Wylie is an exceptional boy. He has amazing athletic ability. He has the vocabulary of a five year old. He can be a sweet as saccharine. This morning he was lying in bed with Ms. J. watching his morning Sesame Street. I walked into the room and said, “Bye y’all. Have a nice day.” And Wylie goes, “Stop Dadoe! I need a bye-bye kiss!”
But something is terribly wrong. Either there is something wrong with him, or we have made a horrible parenting misjudgment, (the latter is much more likely) but he is well over two years old and still does not sleep through the night. No kidding. He needs our attention every night at some point. This morning he woke up flipping out at 4:00. He wanted in my bed. Then he didn’t want momma in the bed with us. Then he wanted a cup of milk, which he gulped down in about three seconds, and then he wanted more milk. When I would not give him more milk, he wanted back in his bed, where momma was now sleeping. Then we finally got him back asleep and I went back to my bed wide-eyed. I finally got back to sleep around 5:00, and Wylie still gets up at 6:30 ready to watch his shows. This was honestly a very average night. I think we missed something in one of the parenting manuals somewhere.
I’m sleepy! I love the boy, but I am ready for an eight hour sleep without his interruptions. Thank God for Grandparents.
Anyone with any advice on this is welcome to offer it. Anyone with kids, that is. If you have no kids, keep your parenting advice to yourself.
General complaints about work:
I really don’t understand why management doesn’t enforce a “no talking” rule at work. We rarely have to communicate out loud for business purposes, and if we did, there is email and telephone and instant messenger and bulletin boards. It drives me crazy to have to listen to people discuss ignorant, banal, and often times made-up nonsense. It is distracting. It keeps me from my work and keeps me from being able to concentrate on more important things like writing to you. Often times I will literally put my fingers in my ears to not have to listen to people talking about the jousting competition they were at this weekend, how many points their kid scored in pee-wee basketball last night, which pepper is the hottest, who is going to win Survivor, and what score their kid made on the ACT test. It drives me crazy! I actually had a lady at work tell me that her son had always made straight-A’s in class, “until he signed up for those damn AP (advanced placement) classes! Those things ain’t doin’ nuthin’ for him but ruining his grade point!”
Also the lady in the cubicle next to me has six gospel tunes saved on her hard drive that she plays over and over every single day. I even went so far as to subtly make her a mix CD of assorted tunes that I thought she would enjoy: a little R&B, some soul, some blues, some gospel, some pop. She listened to it once and went right back to listening to the same six tunes again. If I try to put on something, she just turns hers up louder.
Governmental Waste
So you say that you don’t believe all of the nonsense people spread about government employees getting away with anything and never working hard? I just took a call from a customer who had gotten locked out of a particular mainframe system. This is not a big deal, and is something that we deal with all of the time. We just call a number that rings in the office of the administrators for that system, and whichever of the four of them that is available will answer the phone and reset this person’s ID. This afternoon I called the number and after four rings it rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. The person who answered that phone told me that the admins that reset security violations had snuck out without saying anything at about 11:30 (this was at 2:00) She did not know where they went, neither did she know when or if they were coming back. Furthermore, she could not take a message because she worked in another division down the hallway and she was not even sure why she was taking their calls. I had to go back to my customer and say, “Sorry, but it looks like you are out of luck and are not going to be able to access that screen until Monday.”
That right there is your tax dollars at work, friends.
That is why I am a small government, privatization, no-taxes, libertarian-conservative.
TGIF!
Now I do not like Saddam’s mustache any more than the next beautiful and talented singer and actress does, but is that any reason to hate? I think not, Mr. Busch. I mean, Rosie O’Donnell has a similar mustache, but she is a harmless, humorous, lesbian. (A valid and wonderful lifestyle choice I might add.) Perhaps instead of trying to kill him, we should let Saddam host the Grammy Awards. Then maybe we could foster some understanding. I would gladly accept a much deserved lifetime-achievement award from him. Don’t hate, congratulate. Or as the great Jewish writer, Moses once wrote, “L'Chiam! Sie haut gevain a courva in de momma' s bouch! Shainera menchen haut me gelicht in drert! Oy! Mazeltov! And I should know, for I am tired and my ankles are a little sore.”
