Of myself for leaving all of you Wickidites for the last two months. Well, almost two months. I think that I am two days shy of being away for two months. I deeply regret that I have been away. It has been an arduous and long two months. Things have gone up and down. We have done a fantastic roller coaster ride of emotions. Things have been said and done that probably shouldn't have been said and done. Tempers have flared and apologies have been uttered. To say that life is too simple would be the biggest lie of the century. Anywho, time to get to the updating of what has been going on in the Arena. I will be multitasking so this may take longer than normal. Cooking dinner while trying to wrangle children and typing this is almost beyond my normal capabilities.
First things first, we have recently relocated to a different house to accommodate my special needs child. We now have a fenced in backyard so that he can have a therapy dog. It took four days and numerous trips in our van to get from one house to the next, but we did it and we are much happier now that the tantrums are fewer than what they have been. It was after receiving numerous complaints from previous neighbors because of his screaming and his tantrums, we felt that it would be best to try and get a different house away from people. Needless to say, we got what we asked for. We legitimately live in solitude here at the new place. No, not the hold from Skyrim, but we are the only family in our little strip of houses. The last family that was here moved out a few weeks ago under orders and now we are the only ones left. It is very nice to not have to worry about people who don't understand complain about something that is sometimes beyond our control. However, this little slice of privacy is very nice to have.
The children, the older ones, have discovered that I am now the meanest man alive. No, I haven't yelled at my children in quite sometime. I actually enjoy not having to raise my voice because my blood pressure isn't as high. The older boys have come to know what boredom is and why it is such a horrible punishment. I have recently come to the conclusion that yelling is no longer effective with my children. I have somehow managed to remain calm even in the face of disgustingly horrible and furious anger. Instead, I have embraced the knowledge that my wife has tried to instill in me for the last four years. I won't yell at them anymore, but I will make punishment about ten times harder. If you talk to my oldest stepson he will tell you that I am the meanest man on the planet. this is partly due to the fact that the last time he was here, he spent about a week and a half doing nothing but chores. I make them work for their playtime. Sometimes they get their playtime and sometimes they don't. It all depends on the severity of the trouble that they are in. I am one for education, so anytime they get in trouble at school, they are only limited to chores and reading because playing is a "reward" for hard work. My house was practically spotless because of all of the work that we did during that week and a half. The house is still clean now because I have kept up on it and I think that they are finally learning that being obnoxious little hellions gets them nowhere. It was a proud father moment once I realized that "child labor" in the form of chores is totally acceptable. I even helped them so that they didn't feel like I was just being a tyrant. He even told his dad that he wanted to spend more time with him because of me being "so mean". The wife was nice enough to explain some things to him before he tried to make a rash decision. He still thinks I'm "mean" but at least now he understands why. All of this came about because of both of the older boys getting in trouble multiple days in a row at school. I just sat in deep thought for about two hours while the boys were restricted to their chairs until I finally came up with something. We had a talk about my expectations and what I wanted them to do while they were in school and at home. Then I proceeded to give them a multitude of chores to do to finish out the day. This has been one of the best parenting lessons that I have picked up.
Work has also been one of those places that was once fun, but is now the cause of some serious stress. It isn't the fact that my job as a Safety Division person is so difficult, it is more along the lines of the civilian wench that works in the same office with us. I do have to specify the wench because the normal civilian lady, Barb, who works in there with us is phreaking awesome. We have tons of laughs with her and she is always there to lend a hand. This woman, let's just name her Denise, is a complete biotch! I believe that I wrote in an earlier post about her and how the division first met her. She came in all pissy because we were enjoying our lunch and having some laughs like all sailors do. Turns out, she doesn't like that and after "25 years of dealing with snobby sailors", she knew how to handle us. She called our chief, who in turn, turned into the biggest pansy I have ever met. No real backbone to speak of and he bends over backwards to please Denise, who isn't even in the office on a normal basis. She comes in maybe once a week and thinks that she owns the place. It has gotten to the point that we can't even fart in our office without having to clear it through her. Scenario: My buddy Rob and I had just finished lunch and we were in the middle of a heated Cribbage battle. Each of us fighting to get the final points to claim our respective victories. Rob brought in chicken cordon bleu, homemade cordon bleu. He also had a Dr. Thunder for his delicious beverage of choice. He let out one burp, ONE BURP, and this woman had a friggin cow. She went off on him like he had just killed her puppy and she caught him red handed. She demanded that he be seen by a doctor and come in with a medical condition that requires him to burp so that she would have to keep her mouth shut. It was the first time that Rob had burped all damn day. It wasn't like he was trying to disturb her work or anything. One simple bodily function that happens on a normal basis after finishing a soda and food. We all kept our mouths shut in fear of saying something completely mean and nasty to her. Trust me, I had insults on standby. My insults had insults on standby. Rob goes and sees the doctor the next day and comes back into the office. The news was what we all expected to hear. The doctor told him to tell this woman to go F(*& herself because there was no way that he was going to "diagnose" him with Bodily Functions. He said this loud enough for "Denise" to hear. There was a palpable tension in the room because I know that she wanted to say something but she couldn't because of what Rob had said. I have since talked to my chain of command from my parent shop to see if I can get out of there and into an environment that is more suitable for me.
I will leave the talk about Skyrim for the next post because that would just make this post way too long for you guys.
The wife just recently went through surgery this week. She is fine so don't worry. She is still sore and is having a little trouble breathing, but you would too if you had your chest region worked on. I feel bad though because today is our 4th Anniversary and we have spent a grand total of about 3 hours together because she is still feeling so bad. I don't mind because I know what that feeling is like. After having more than a dozen surgeries on the left side of my face, I know how she feels. It is very nice to be on Shore duty right now because I have until the beginning of next month to just sit at home and take care of children and make sure that she is doing okay. Theoretically, I will be on here more and more as the weeks go on. I have just been so terribly busy and off in my own little world. I apologize again to you Wickidites!
Stay tuned for the next issue from The Arena!
Wickid
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