Christmas Rant...sorry

Okay. Seriously guys, you've just gotta let this go. It's just so pointless. I wasn't going to say anything but I just can't listen to it anymore. I want to. I want to just ignore the whining and the drama and the anger and the ignorance and the denial and the intolerance. I really, really, really, do.

I just can't.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Not everyone who celebrates Christmas celebrates Christmas for the same reasons or the same way. That is called diversity. It's a good thing. Nobody has a patent and exclusive rights to the variety of holidays and rituals observed in the month of December. When someone says something other than "Merry Christmas" during December it is not an insult to you, it does not ruin Christmas, and it in no way takes away from the value of your faith or religion. It's just a greeting.

Apparently, this is somehow an insult? Seriously?

Why do people have to say exactly what you say when they greet someone in December? Why is that so important to you? Why do you get so sad/angry/upset when an otherwise nice person tries to say "hello" to you with a fairly traditional and inclusive greeting? They don't know your faith. They don't know anything about you, so they err on the side of something open and inclusive that respects that you may not celebrate Christmas. They don't know. Why is that a bad thing?

Nobody is upset about this though. Why? Why is this okay?

I mean come on!

Are you really so well-off, so incredibly blessed, so amazingly disconnected from real hardship, real pain, REAL problems that this simple greeting is so insulting? There are people who do not know where there next meal is coming from. There are people who are being shot at right now. There are people who are trying to drink themselves up to the courage to kill themselves. There are people who should be studying for a final rather than rant-blogging.

"We haven't eaten in 3 days"

Do you have people in your life that love you? Have you eaten recently and do you know where your next meal is coming from? Do you have a roof over your head and three or more walls around you? Are you allowed to worship what you want with little or no chance of being killed/maimed/raped/beaten when you walk out of church?

If not, email me. I know people who can help. Many of them are local churches, charity groups, therapists, and outreach programs who may or may not greet you with "Happy Holidays". They can help. I hope the greeting thing isn't a deal-breaker to be nice to you.

If you do, then please, dear God, please, let it go. It's not important. We just celebrated a holiday dedicated to being thankful. Be thankful you can celebrate at all, do so in whatever way it is you want and let people greet you however they want. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't take anything away from you. You don't have to like it and you can say whatever greeting you want right back.

And anyone who is insulted when you say this is a butt-head anyway.

My little burden

This post has nothing to do with Jojo. It's just about me, so if you are hoping for a cute little story and a picture of the best part of my day, it's not in this one. Go back a few or wait till Sunday.

I am prone to bouts of depression. I've tried counseling and all that stuff. It helped, but it still happens. I've come to believe it's a more than a little biochemical or biological or something like that.

Damn it Jim, I'm a mixed sci-fi reference, not a doctor.

Yeah, I know, I could have used a Doctor Who reference, I didn't. I'll get right on that.

The point is, there are things I do that keep my depression from acting up. I tried some prozac variation once. It calmed my anxiety and prevented me from feeling depressed...and everything else. I think medical science is just wonderful and we have medicine that is straight up saving people's lives better than ever. It was just more than I needed.

What works best for me is working-out. I train in martial arts and it fixes me in way I have a hard time describing. I am by no means a skilled martial artist. I may very well be one of the worst students. I'm okay with that, because being any kind of martial artist makes me a better at everything else. I'm a better psychologist, a better husband, a better father, a better friend, a better person. The health benefits are nice too. When I work out, I get depressed less often and stay depressed for a shorter amount of time.

I haven't trained in almost two weeks.

There, happy?

Right now I am straight up grappling with depression and worry. It's not pleasant. Guilt, worry, fear, and depression are hitting me like waves. Worse, it's making my time with Jojo hard to enjoy. That sucks.

So what's the point of this blog?
"Feel bad for me, I'm sad, boohoo"? No. I need no pity. I'll be fine, this is temporary and more important I know I am stronger than my depression. It's just fighting me right now. I gave it a chance, it took it.

"I need to go to a martial arts class"? Well, yeah, obviously. But, that's not really the point.

The point is:

Everyone, every single damn person on this planet, since the beginning of time and until the end of our species, has and will have some personal burden to deal with. It may be some minor depression, or a learning disorder, or a physical handicap, or poverty, or whatever. But everyone has at least one.

You can give up and blame it for all your woes. You can use it as an excuse for your crappy attitude and bad behavior. Or, you can face it, figure it out, make a plan to overcome it, and then execute the plan.

Yeah, the plan might not work. That happens. It's called a setback. They do not excuse giving up and not making a new plan.

Not pictured: lots of setbacks.

Simply put, the point is: You will be burdened. You choose how to respond to it.

Overworked Son-day

This week I had 106 pages to read, a 5 page paper to write, a 20 chapter test to study for, and a 45 page group project to organize. Fortunately, Jojo is super helpful.

Even now he can...oybv960y9-b7 -9

...Reach the keyboard. Awesome. Helpful.

Yeah.

DST Son-day

I think I may be past the hump of "waytomuchgoingonkillmenow". I got the priority cases under control (for the moment). The independent study students are about done testing kids. My group project is moving forward. I'm still busy, but I'm past the 'over-busy' part. I think.

I have a sleep debt that is killing me. Last night I paid a bit of it off, but I don't expect to get out of the hole at least until after Christmas.

Yes, I know, I will count you at some point.

We had a TON of fun with Halloween this year. We took Jojo to haunt the zoo this year. It was SO BUSY! It was like the 3rd night of it and the line circled the entrance. There had to be like 1500-2000 people there. Some of the costumes were great. There was a Beetlejuice that was just flat-out impressive. Also, just before the entrance was Darth Vader next to a star trek officer. That was kinda awesome. There was also a lady who was just...well...her costume would be perfect at certain Halloween parties where kids are not welcome. Oy.

The booths were great. Sonic, Wal-Mart, and Dr. Pepper were impressive. I carried Jojo through most of it and the crowds were nuts, so not many pictures. We didn't collect candy this year because Jojo won't eat it and none of the rest of us need it.

"Guys, I'm 10 months old. You understand I don't care, right?"

We had fun, but next year are going to go a little later. That way the crowds will have a chance to disperse a little. We were planning on doing the Story Book Forest at Arcadia Lake, but we got tired and didn't.

Finally, we did get some photos done in his costumes. Sadly, the young lady who did the last two photos sets is no longer working at the studio we've been going to. The lady who did this set was fine, but just not as skilled. She also had a pretty intense energy that overwhelmed Jojo (and me). Rather than motivating Jojo's personality out, she just kinda filled the room with her own energy and Jojo wasn't nearly as expressive. I don't blame him. We needed the photographer to be at about a 4 to 6, she was rocking at an 11. Exhausting.

Still, I'm not disappointed. We got some good photos, not the quality I am spoiled to, but not bad at all. Here's a few of them. 

Revival Son-day

Okay folks, seriously.

Ihavebeensobusy. 4real.

Everyone tells me that this course is the hardest one in the MBA (almost certainly designed to weed out the ones who do not really want it and should not be here - and it works because about 1/3 of the class is gone now). They better not be lying cause wow.

I mean, the class is not actually that hard. None of the assignments (in and of themselves) are all that horrid. The trick is I was kinda busy before I started the program, so...now I'm just always busy. 200+ pages of reading a week is no big deal. A 9-page report and presentation is no big deal. Having a wife in a masters program, a 10-month old, a full-time job, AND then add the above. That starts to creep into sleeping time pretty quick. When a lightning storm kills power and you lose 5 hours or so of work on said report...now we are into big deal range.

Regardless, it hasn't all been bad and hard and what not.  My mom and I celebrated out birthday on the 3rd (mom) and 6th (me). We went to Dave and Busters. My parents like going to D&B and like collect tickets. However, spending those tickets seems to be the worst part because there is nothing in the reward area that my folks actually want. It's weird, but I totally get it and I'm pretty much the same way. However, my folks had like 20,000 tickets or something. So, it's kinda out of hand.

For perspective, the giant stuffed animals usually go for like 8 to 9 thousand tickets. So they could get one...or two. But all they had was these truly horrid looking gorillas and a banana...a smiling banana. That's not happening. On our way out, my dad noticed a really cute set of stuffed bears (polar and brown) that were really cute, but not in the store area and no price listed. So he asked and it was (*shockingly*) well within the number of tickets he had. So he got it for Jojo.

How big is this bear?

bed-sized.

We also got Jojo a pair of little plastic frisbees. He obsessed on them for some crazy reason. In short, a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow, we plan to go pumpkin picking and get photos done of Jojo in his Halloween costumes. I said costumes. We got two. We love Halloween. I'm looking forward to haunt the zoo more than I'm looking forward to his birthday or Christmas.

I'll post way more photos on FB, but these are the costumes we got:

I'm not jojo!

neither am I!

State Fair Son-day

Mo and I took Jojo to the state fair on Monday. It was kinda strange to think that the last time we went to the fair Mo was just entering her 3rd trimester and it would only be another few months before he was born.

Last year it was brutally hot and Mo ate like a hyena. It was fun to take pictures of her and whatever she was eating now. We also went on a very busy day and just moving around was difficult.

"nom nom nom kill you nom nom nom"

This year, we went on a Monday afternoon and the crowds were much more manageable and less intense. We could move around easily even with the stroller. The weather was fantastic. It was bright and sunny, but not oppressively warm. It was comfortable for all. We easily found places to sit and feed Jojo. Jojo was a joy during the whole thing. He looked around and smiled at people. When he got fussy it was mild and just because he was hungry.

My parents joined us shortly after we got there and hanging out with them was lots of fun. We had some food and got very full. My parents like to look at EVERYTHING. Mo and I are more for look while you walk and we often found ourselves stopping while my parents looked at something.

We finally bought something at the fair (other than food). We always mean to buy something to support the vendors and the fair, but never really find anything we are willing to buy. This year, mo found a cute little art box and had it customized with Jojo's name.

It has chalk and stuff inside and the back is a dry erase board.

The children's petting zoo was impressive. Normally it's common petting zoo animal (goats mostly), but this one had a deer, llamas, donkeys, and (of all things) a wallaby. Jojo is not really old enough to care and stared at things with his "I am not impressed" disdainful look.

So, your momma is a lama?

We did have some fun at the AGtropolis. Mo petted a baby chick (I like to imagine eating that same chick at chick-fil-a eventually). We also did a horrid thing to our son.

you can see the hate in his eyes.

Long-weekend Son-day

Mo is finally done with her three 7-11 shifts per week. It was a good idea on paper, and it got us to this point, but I am not sorry to see it go. She is back to doing just three 7-7 shifts.

We are going to start having my folks watch Jojo on Saturdays. That's cool, but it will be a transition. I am hopeful it works out well. But, we could not do it this weekend. My folks were busy. So Mo took a weekend off and I took a couple days off too. We had four whole days to spend together. We really did not know what to do.

We did a lot.

Mostly it was homework, sleeping, various and sundry chores and appointments. We did make time to spend with friends and family. We kept really busy and seemed to be driving all over town.

"One more word and I am turning this car around into oncoming traffic!"

We also took a trip to the Zoo with Jojo. We saw the elephant show. It was really fun. We even took the little guy to the children's zoo. He still can't walk and had no interest in the goats or other assorted petting zoo animals. The goats seemed mildly interested in him, but he just watched the other kids and adults. Mo wanted to let him play in the water a little but we really didn't bring water clothes, so this happened.

"I'm totally going to catch it this time, hold me still!"

Today we took him to the new doctor for a 9 month check up. He's healthy and doing fine. He's 30 inches or so and 20 pounds or so. He's big. The average height for a 1 year old is about 28-29 inches. The average weight is about 22 pounds.

Eventually, he will start using real words and not the near-constant and loud "babble-yelling".