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Who are you? And where’s my son…

Friday, September 26th, 2008 | Author:

Okay, I totally sat down to write this scathing message about the fight my son and I had this morning and how I was ready to ship him to military school and only see him on holidays. After yesterday’s post you would probably think I’m bi-polar but what you don’t know is that yesterday’s post was written two weeks ago on a night when Jeremy and I were all lovey-dovey and life was good in my house. I purposely waited for a time like that (not too rare but rare enough) because I wanted the birthday message to be free of sarcasm and filled with love; which it was if I do say so myself, which I do.

Anyway, as I sat down the dog decided that I could walk him or I could pick up poop off the floor and being smarter than I am lazy, I walked the dog.

Then I sat down to write the blog and noticed that I had received an e-mail while walking the dog telling me that one of my websites had an issue that needed to be fixed ASAP and since they pay part of my bills, I decided to fix it ASAP.

Then I sat down to write the blog and the front door opened and in walked my son so I braced myself for round two of the argument from this morning; only the argument didn’t come. The little so-and-so walked in and came || that close to apologizing for his behavior this morning and then started talking about his day and soccer practice and then…AND THEN, he started doing his homework without a single comment or snide remark or anything!!!! Ridiculous. How, oh how am I going to remain mad and argue with a kid who behaves that way! I might even wash his soccer uniform for his game tomorrow, that’s how good I’m feeling right now.

Do you think it would be too much to think that this might be the beginning of a new, mature relationship in which the 15 year old child in the house begins to behave like something within the 15 year old neighborhood? Please God! Would that all the prayers and petitions that I have prayed for the past few months for him could come true…I love him, really I do but this morning I was ready to e-mail him to his mom in small, e-mail sized bites.

Now, where’s my daughter?

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Apply copious amounts of Jagermeister…

Tuesday, September 09th, 2008 | Author:

I used to believe that you could cure just about anything with Jagermeister.  I mean, you have a cold, try a little Jager. Ingrown Toenail, Jagermeister. Bad breakup from a long-term relationship, two shots ought to do it.  But I will shortly have 2 teenagers in this house and I don’t even think my old friend Mr. Meister will cure this one.

Jagermeister. Sometimes too much is...well too much

Jagermeister. Sometimes too much is...well too much

The funny thing is, I clearly remember saying at the birth of our second child (our daughter) “It will be just perfect, 2 years apart, boy then girl; perfect.  He’ll be able to protect her and they’ll be about the same age emotionally; it’ll be perfect”.  What kind of an idiot am I?!?!?! I am so ready to just chuck the two of them out of the house and talk to my wife about adopting a couple of Chinese kids who will be grateful for every single thing they have.

Right now, I’m refereeing the latest match in which child #1 is upset (not unhappy; livid) because child #2 chews her gum too loudly while child #2 (we’ll call her “the master of needling”) is pushing her book bag toward child #1 an inch at a time, while he’s not looking, just to get him all worked up about her stuff in his space.  Of course it doesn’t help that 14 (about to be 15) year old boy child believes that he deserves the same amount of respect (let’s call it reverence) from 12 (about to be 13) year old girl child that a World War II veteran of Omaha beach deserves from his country. Yeah, I got a whistle right here and I’m about to red flag the both of them. They are so lucky that I’m pro-life from conception to natural death right now! (That’s a joke folks, just a joke; remember blogs are therapy).

I wish I could even look forward to the hour or so at night after they go to sleep and I get to stay up and just enjoy the peace and quiet but who am I kidding; they could stay up so much later than me as to border on silly. The moment their little heads hit the pillow, so does mine and it’s light’s out for daddy baby.

It’s really too bad we don’t live in Texas anymore.  When we lived in Texas, the law was that I could buy my kids alcoholic beverages in restaurants (kind of a parental consent override to the drinking age law).  If we were still in Texas, I could apply the Jagermeister to the source of the problem (them) rather than the victim (me).  But I won’t do that either because I’m alone and what fun is it to get drunk when your wife is halfway around the world?  I mean, if I’m going to drink something that tastes like the distillery mixed Vick’s Formula 44 and Grain Alcohol; I at least want to be able to ply my lovely bride with it as well and then ravage her rockin’…oops, err, I mean hold her lovingly all night long.

And then there’s tomorrow night when I’m supposed to start attending a new men’s group that one of the priests at our church just recently started.  It’s all about Christian Fatherhood (in fact, the book we are using is called Christian Fatherhood by Steve Wood).  If you enjoy irony, you should be hog heaven right about now. It doesn’t matter though because my copy of the book has not arrived yet and I haven’t been able to read the first chapter like I was supposed to.  We’re supposed to smoke cigars after the meeting so I feel like I should go (cigars are a real guy thing and make our testosterone levels rise up).  Of course, I haven’t smoked a cigar since Thanksgiving Day 2001 (which might explain my low levels of testosterone more efficiently than just blaming middle-age) so I’ll probably just turn green and puke but there should be some entertainment value in that and I’ll be able to come home and blog about it…Yea!

Okay, I’m going to bed.  The only part of the day that I still control is bedtime.  The kids have to turn off everything electronic at 9:00 PM and lights out at 10.  I love it, I am still the king of the castle, I control the night! God bless you all.

Category: Catholicism, Family  Tags: , , , , ,  2 Comments

Failure to communicate…

Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | Author:
I’m not always a great communicator.  Don’t get me wrong, I always have a lot to say and I always say a lot but there is not always a whole lot of meaning to be derived from the words that come out of my mouth.  I think that’s why I am loving blogging, because I can always go back and read what I’ve written later and if it doesn’t make sense, I can edit it.  I wish I could do that with the spoken word as well.  Now I know what you are saying…Hobbit, you are saying, most people learn to think about what they say before they speak the words but anyone who knows the Hobbit knows that there is no gatekeeper on the mouth.  It endears me to some and ostracizes me from others but, as my boss is frequently heard saying, at least you never have to doubt what he’s thinking about!
I’ve heard stories about how Abe Lincoln, in his younger days, got into several fights and one duel (with pistols, which was interrupted) because of things that he said.  In later life, he learned to write out his words before speaking them and the story is that many drafts of letters were found in his desk after his death that showed his increasing constraint with each iteration.  I’m not sure why he kept the old versions but some of them were old enough to suggest that he made a regular habit of it.
Honest Abe was a great communicator

Honest Abe was a great communicator

Now you might want to know where the Hobbit is going with this here postie thing and why this seems to be important to him.  Over the past 3 days, I’ve had several conversations with my children that I don’t necessarily want to take back but I certainly wish I had handled better.  Chores were getting a little lax and with Mrs. Hobbit (AKA, that is Affectionately Known As, the Enforcer) off fighting the war for God and Country, Hobbit here had to put the hammer down.  Since Mrs. Hobbit and I tend to fight our battles a bit differently, the kids did not respond to my second and third requests in a manner which satified me that they understood who was in charge.

Having one teenager and one ’bout to be’ teenager, I know that they are hard-headed, stubborn, and sometimes, well let’s just say, unintelligent; but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to look one straight in the eye, ask them if they took care of the Hermit Crab, have them say yes, and not have to go to the Hermit Crab cage to see if they in fact did take care of the Hermit Crab.  Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet! So, after much ‘communication’ with the young’uns, I believe they at least understand where the line is that they crossed and that if they cross it again, papa hobbit is going to have an aneurysm and make them care for his vegetable self for the rest of his life.  Those kinds of threats work so much better than corporal punishment I think.

Anyway, though it sounds like I’m placing all the blame on the kids, really I know where the blame lies.  It is my mothers fault, completely and utterly.  I can remember being about 14 or so and having a particularly ‘good’ day.  My mom looked me square in the eye and said…you know what’s coming don’t you…she said ‘One day, you are going to grow up and have children exactly like you!!!‘  So there you go, I have a son who has picked up all of my worst male habits and a daughter who has picked up ALL of my worst habits!

Okay, okay, I know where the comm problem is in our house and I would love to tell you that I’m working on it diligently.  To be honest though, I really only think about it late at night when I’m feeling guilty about how I reacted to something that happened that day and trying to goad myself into going to Confession as every good Catholic should do monthly (which makes me NOT a good Catholic lately).  Can’t we all just g ge get along??

Category: Catholicism, Family  Tags: ,  3 Comments

I love Fridays…

Friday, July 11th, 2008 | Author:

Not the restaurant mind you, though they aren’t too bad but Fridays always seem to give me hope.  Even with the prospect of laundry day tomorrow, I know that I’ll get to spend a lot of time with a good book over the weekend and that always makes me happy.  I had a very busy week this week so I’m glad to have a couple of days to just relax.  My daughter is lobbying for a sleepover and a movie with some of her friends but we’ll just have to see.  She doesn’t realize that with mommy gone for six months, things need to be easier not harder.  She sees it as more freedom since she only has to get past one parent (the easier one at that) instead of two.  Today was even better because I didn’t have to run or workout either.  All I have to do today is watch my diet and that’s been pretty easy since I stayed in my office all day and all I have is slim-fast and pretzels in here!

I Skyped Debbie twice this morning (doesn’t that sound dirty) and we did some chatting in between so it was even better than normal in that area.  Not being able to touch my wife is not easy for me, I’m a very touchy-feely person so when the brain sees the wife but can’t touch her, it does funky little things to your thought process.  Oh well, only 182 days left :-<

I hope you all have a blessed weekend.  Hopefully, I’ll have some time to post this weekend.

Category: Family  Tags: , , , ,  2 Comments