Grounded

I crossed into a new frontier of parenthood earlier this week when I dug deep into the archives of disciplinary action and plucked up this gem: "KAILEY, YOU'RE GROUNDED!" Up until now, grounding had no effect seeing as how Kailey had nowhere to go or no one to play with on the block. But now that the girls have discovered a friend down the street, grounding is back in play!

We've had a rough time getting through to Kailey that hitting is not an acceptable form of venting her frustration. The girls get into an argument, Kyra doesn't do what Kailey wants her to do, Kailey whacks her a good one, and I lose my frickin' mind...for the millionth time. I've tried just about everything to curb this behavior, including letting Kyra hit her back (moronic, I know).

This happened, again, on Sunday afternoon...in the van. I should have known better. I usually don't let them sit together in the same row for this very reason, but they had been getting along really well, prompting my momentary lapse of sanity. As we were driving they started arguing because Kyra wouldn't play Kailey's game. I pulled up to a stop light and told Kailey to get in the back row, and as she did, whap, she slapped Kyra in the head. I watched her do it in the rear view mirror. I summoned the strength within to postpone my breakdown until I was at least able to pull the van off to the side of the road. Then I lost my mind. Right there. In the van.

"WHAT DO WE SAY ABOUT HITTING!"

"No hitting."

"THEN WHY DID YOU HIT HER!"

"Because she wouldn't play with me."

"WRONG! TRY AGAIN!"

"I wanted her to play a game and she was mean."

"WRONG! TRY AGAIN!"

I could see people slowing down and reaching for their cell phones while trying to decipher my license plate number.

"WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN KYRA DOES SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE?"

"Use my words?"

"WHICH MEANS?"

"Tell you or Mommy?"

Yes, we've been through all of this before. Then I said it:

"KAILEY, YOU'RE GROUNDED. THERE WILL BE NO PLAYING OUTSIDE WITH YOUR FRIENDS, NO TV, AND NO TREATS FOR ONE WEEK!"

It's official. I've become my parents. I threw the car in gear and got the heck out of Dodge before the police could arrive. We completed our errands and returned home where Kailey's punishment commenced.

I've since come to wonder who grounding punishes more, the kid or the adult. TV and playing outside gets the kids out of your hair for a period of time. Taking it away means you have to entertain your kids (like that's a bad thing). Kailey fought her punishment at first, acting all mad and pouty at me, but she eventually embraced her fate and the two of us were actually able to enjoy some one on one time while Kyra played outside with friends. Whether it will end her hitting habit remains to be seen. And I'm still waiting to see if the police are going to show up at my door.

Coming to a Head

Kailey and I had a rough day yesterday. She was in one of her crazy, manic, non-listening moods that no amount of time-outs seem to cure. In fact, she acted as though time-out was a big joke which put me over the edge. "Does it LOOK like I'm joking?" I lashed out with veins bulging from my forehead. That alone was probably worth a laugh, but Kailey wisely shook her head "no". This situation repeated at least three times last night. I'd repeatedly tell her to do something or not to do something, each time going unheeded. I was mad and things seemed to snowball from there as I started taking her disobedience personally. Almost every word I spoke to her from there on out was cross. And when Diane got home from her trip, I washed my hands of the situation. "Welcome home, Hon. Here's your girls. Have fun."

This morning, Kailey took over where she left off from last night. The girls can't be in the same bathroom to brush their teeth without some sort of altercation, even though we have a double vanity. So I usually give them very specific instructions on who makes their bed and who brushes their teeth. This morning was no different, yet Kailey decided to do her own thing and brush her teeth while Kyra was already in the bathroom. A fight broke out and I nearly lost my mind. I sent Kailey to her room to make her bed, then I retreated to the family room to count to ten before placing my hands on my child.

Kailey came in shortly thereafter and she was hot. "Why are you mad?" I asked.

"Because you are always angry at me," she fumed.

It was like a slap across the face. I don't want either of my girls to have the impression of me as an angry father. I coaxed her over to me and sat her down on my lap. I told her that I didn't like yelling at her and apologized if I had hurt her feelings. But I also explained that I would discipline her when she did something wrong or didn't listen to me, both of which she had been doing a lot of in the past 24 hours. I gave her a hug and told her I loved her, and asked her to work harder on her listening.

I did the right thing in making sure we were OK before she went to school, but the whole situation still lingers in my head. Lately I feel like I spend more time fuming about the girls' behavior than I do just enjoying my time with them. I don't know why that is, but I know that I don't like it.

I think part of it is battling the feeling of being rushed all the time. We're constantly moving or getting ready to go to the next thing: tutoring, gymnastics, softball, etc. Throw in homework, dinner, and the bedtime routine, and there's not much family time leftover. But that's just family life these days, and I don't want to spend the little time I have with the girls blowing my top because they are acting like maniacs as I try to corral them from activity to activity. I guess I'll just consider this an opportunity to step back and reflect upon what kind of father I really want to be.

Daddy, the Enforcer

Last night, Diane called me at work shortly before the 10:00 newscast, and as we were chatting, she gasped, "Oh my gosh, Kyra's still awake. She's in her bed singing. Here, I'm going to give her the phone. Tell her to go to sleep."

She caught me off guard. "Wha...why don't YOU tell her to go to sleep?" I asked.

"Because she'll listen to you. Here she is."

And with that, I was cast into the spotlight: it was showtime. Kyra took the phone and greeted me in her cheery voice, "Hi Daddy." Today was a half-day of school for the girls, which meant Kyra would go to school in the morning instead of her usual afternoons, and that she would get to take her lunch box and eat in the cafeteria with the other kids. Kyra was going to get to do big girl things and she was excited. Too excited to sleep. But still.

I quickly took my disciplinary tone with her, "Sweetie, it is WAY past your bedtime and you need to be up early for school tomorrow. Stop messing around and go to sleep."

"But Daddy..." Kyra ALWAYS has something to say.

"Stop messing around and go to sleep...goodnight," I enunciated.

"BWWWAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa," the sound of Kyra's bawling trailed off as Diane took the phone and exited her room. You'd have thought I thrust a spike through her ear. Have I mentioned before that Kyra has a flare for the dramatic?

Diane got back on the line and I thanked her for that pleasant and uplifting phone experience and then excused myself to get ready for the newscast. Sometimes I hate playing the heavy.

Extortion, An Excellent Motivator

Last week while at Kailey's gymnastics class (yes, it's not enough that the girls are on separate softball teams...they're now in separate gymnastics classes), Kyra busied herself by perusing the gymastics outfits in the "gift shop". The "gift shop" is nothing more than a coat closet with several racks of leotards along the wall, a couple of snack machines, and a cash register where all of my hard earned money resides. She hadn't browsed long before finding and falling in love with a pink, sparkly leotard. Sticker price: $36. All of my girls have been "blessed" with expensive tastes. Kyra ran to get Diane to show her this amazing find. If I had been there, the answer would have fallen in the category of, "Thirty-six bucks for something you'll be able to wear for six months max? No frickin' way!" But Diane is a little more tactful. She resorted to extortion.

Don't get all self-righteous and judgemental, because you know you do it too. Here's how it all shook down. Diane paused for a moment, then reasoned, "We'll see. If you can show me that you can clean up your messes without complaining and be a good listener, then maybe we'll get you the outfit." I love my wife. She's a freakin' genious. We've been dangling that little gem over Kyra's head all week long and it works like a charm.

Last night as I was getting the girls ready for bed, I asked her to clean up her mess in the family room which she did willingly. She picked up her toys and took them to her room, then returned to inform me that she didn't want to clean up her room. I quickly replied, "Then I guess you don't want that gymnastics outfit."

"Oh, all right," she moaned. "I guess I'll clean my room." A grin crept across my face as she moaped back to her room.

I wonder if we can stretch this thing out until she's eighteen.

Use It or Lose It

All my life I've had a tendency to take the more difficult route in learning life's lessons: pull-ups on the clothes bar in your closet is not a good idea; flipping someone off in front of your history teacher will draw you a little time in detention; stealing the lids to the brand new garbage cans in order to play Knights of the Round Table will get you chased down by your mother; and peeing directly into the wind...well, you get the idea. Granted, these are all examples from my childhood and early adolescence, but trust me when I say that the process has followed me into my adult life. I've heard my most recent life lesson expressed thousands of times, but for me, lessons just never seem to sink in and take hold until I experience them first hand. And the lesson is this: use it or lose it.

Last week, a friend of mine informed me of the American Idol Songwriting Contest and invited me to submit a song. I guess another lesson I should learn is always see what you're up against before agreeing to do something. Since I was feeling cocky over completing my first song in three years, I took on the challenge. That was a week ago, Tuesday. The next day, a thought occurred to me: I wonder when the contest deadline is? I looked it up and my jaw dropped: April 17th, tax day. I had one week. Game over. Not gonna happen. I was already in the process of putting in twenty hours of overtime at work, and my taxes still weren't done. How in the world would I write and record a song in seven days?

Although the cards seemed to be stacked against me, I decided not to pack it in. I mean, I still had seven days, right? Actually, six. I spent Wednesday getting our taxes done. At some point, I don't remember exactly when, a concept came to mind that I thought I could run with, and I spent the next several days jotting down ideas and experimenting with rhyme schemes. I also pulled out my guitar and played around with several chord progressions until I settled on one I liked. After filling several pages with my scribbles, I finally sat down Monday morning to organize to my thoughts. I worked for about an hour and made significant progress, but that was the only free time I had. I entered Tuesday the 17th, deadline day, with an incomplete song.

I figured I had maybe two hours on Tuesday to finish, then record a demo of the song. HA! I pulled my Fostex MR-8 digital multitracker, and it's user manual, out of the drawer that housed it for the past year, and blew off the dust. Kyra was excited because she likes to put on the headphones and sing into the microphone while I accompany her on guitar. To her, this was playtime. To me, it was time to get everything set up so that when I took her to school, I could get down to business. We played for about an hour, taking turns singing songs. I love playing the guitar and having the girls make up tunes and lyrics on the fly. More often than not, they come up with some good stuff. I've been tempted to use some of it, giving them credit, of course.

I took Kyra to school, then went to work. I pulled out my guitar to lay down the guitar track to my demo. Remember, I didn't have a finished song yet. I thought I'd lay down the accompaniment track and then fashion the lyrics and melody to fit. After about ten false starts, I finally laid down an acceptable track. It was only a demo, after all, and I had already given in to the idea that whatever I presented was not going to be perfect. I just didn't have the time and I was OK with that. I recued the track to listen to it, but there was nothing there. Silence. What the crap! I forwarded through the track and found the beginning, roughly a minute in. Since I hadn't used the recorder in such a long time, I forgot to recue it after all of those false starts. Oh well, at least it was there.

I turned my attention to the lyrics, and after massaging them for close to an hour, I came to something I could live with (by American Idol standards, anyway). I then began to rehearse them with the guitar track I recorded earlier. This was the first time that I would attempt to sing the song in my full, head voice. As I was writing the song, I would rehearse it in a light falsetto that was usually audible only to myself. As soon as I sang the first verse, I knew I was in trouble: the key I had written the song in was too high for me to sing comfortably. Crrrrrrrrap! It wasn't always this way. I used to be able to sing up in the rafters with little or no problem, but since I haven't really used my voice consistently over the past few years, I've gotten a little rusty. OK, a LOT rusty. Life lesson? If you don't use it, you lose it. I got it.

Normally, I would say "No problem" and just transpose the song into a lower key, but I couldn't do that because my guitar is jacked up. It buzzes when I play certain chords, which is the reason I wrote the song in the key of E...no buzzing. So I was stuck. I also realized that the song was too long. If I was going to gut out the song in the key of E, I was going to have to shorten it, which meant re-recording the guitar track. What the CRAP!!

By this time, Diane was home from work and the girls were home from school. My "two hour project" was stretching to four hours and beyond. I recorded the guitar track over, this time with only a couple of restarts and recues, and then moved on to my vocals. I figured I'd give it one run through and be done with it, but I screwed up the first verse. I hit the "Undo" button which was only supposed to delete my vocals, but it also erased the intro of the guitar part. MOTHER PUS-BUCKET!! WHAAAAT THE CRAAAAAAP!! I was furious. It was late afternoon, I had been working on this song for most of the day and had nothing to show for it. I'd had enough and was ready to pack it in.

"Don't quit," Diane admonished. She assured me that she would keep the girls busy and gave me the green light to finish the job, so I returned to my makeshift recording studio. I laid down the guitar track AGAIN and quickly moved to the vocals. I practiced them a couple of times to warm up my voice and to ensure no screw ups, then hit "Record". I got through the first verse fine, but began to struggle at the end of the 1st chorus. Verse 2 was OK, but I was outright hurting by the end of the chorus. I mustered all of my strength to get through the bridge, but by the final chorus, I was flat out croaking the melody. It wasn't pretty. "It's a demo. It's a demo. It's a demo," I kept telling myself as I finished the song. Only later did it occur to me that I could have recorded the vocals in sections, taking a breather to rest my voice. But I wanted it done, and I got it done.

I walked into the kitchen where Diane and the girls sat at the table, grinning. Kyra had her hands over her ears, Kailey mimicked me singing, and Diane asked me if I was OK, all of them basically busting my balls. "It's not pretty, but I'm done," I replied. Not really. It took me another couple of hours to read the manual, then go through the long and tedious process of converting the tracks to a stereo .WAV file, uploading the .WAV file to my computer, converting the .WAV file to an .MP3 file, and submitting it to the Idol contest. But I eventually got it done and I was exhausted. And even though I got it done, it felt like I had wasted the day.

Lesson learned? Use it or lose it. If I used my multitracker more often, I'd know the ins and outs and not have to rely so heavily on the user's manual.

Use it or lose it. If I sang more regularly, I'd maintain some of my range. Granted, getting older will suck some of that range from me, but still.

Use it or lose it. If I'd write more regularly, I might have had a song already in the can that I could have tweaked/submitted instead of killing myself to write and record a whole new song.

Use it or lose it. Lesson learned? Probably not.

Shoulda Done My Taxes, But I Wrote a Song Instead

One of the reasons I started blogging was to give myself a regular outlet for writing. For several years now, I've had a monstrous pile of mental crapola that has been blocking my ability to write music. As a musician, that really sucks. The pressure has been mounting as the dry spell extended over three years, my notebooks filled with broken appendages of lyrics and chord progressions that I just couldn't bring myself to finish. I needed to break that spell, and blogging is one exercise I've been using to "write" myself out of my songwriting funk. Truth is, I really haven't worked that hard to break through; I haven't "made" myself finish a song, allowing it to be what it is. If I get to a point where I'm stuck or don't like where the song is heading, or if the song doesn't seem like it's bound to be a Top 40 hit, I abandon it and move on. I've revisited my creations on and off over the years, made some revisions, but no completions. Until this morning.

I should have worked on my taxes. Kailey was at school and Diane and Kyra left early to go to the zoo for Kyra's kindergarten field trip, so I had the house to myself. I had several hours to get a great start on our taxes, but seeing as how I have the gift of procrastination, I decided to pull out my guitar and diddle around instead. I played for a few minutes, messing around in E minor. It's always E minor these days. If I ever actually get around to recording a CD, I'm going to title it "Songs in Em". Suddenly and unexpectedly, my muse began to speak. I don't have a problem getting my muse to speak, it's just getting a complete thought out of her that sucks. I grabbed my notebook and began to write, the first verse seeming to flow from my pen.

"That's pretty good," commented my muse as she began to float away.

"Get back here and help me finish this thing!" I growled as I grabbed her by the throat.

"Hey, take it easy, Bub!" She likes to call me Bub. "You're strangling your muse!" I apologized for being so rough and explained to her my need to finish the song. She agreed, so we worked on it for a couple of hours until I was satisfied that it was a good stopping point. Like me, my muse is global and easily distracted, and she tried to flit away a couple of times, but I stuck to my guns and kept corraling her and urging her to keep working with me.

The song isn't truly finished. It still needs some tweaks here and there, but it's the most complete song I've written in a long time and I'm relieved. I put a lot of work into it and forced myself to keep at it, which I haven't been able (or willing) to do in quite a while. It's not going to be a Top 40 hit, and I'm OK with that. But I will finish it and I will record a demo of it. And hopefully this will open the door to more songs.

Now I've got to finish my frickin' taxes.

Building a Case for Worst Father of the Year

Recently, we've been having issues involving Kailey's decision making abilities when it comes to resolving conflict with her younger sister. Forsaking our constant reminders to "use her words" to settle issues, Kailey has chosen instead to pummel the crap out of Kyra, or at least that's what you'd think when you hear Kyra's horrified yowls from the other room. In reality, Kailey merely pushed, hit or kicked her out of frustration, but Kyra is such a sensitive soul that Kailey may as well have danced on her face. Still, pushing, hitting or kicking is not acceptable, and Diane and I set a course to put all such activity to an end.

Six months ago I seemed to find a solution. Time outs weren't working, and my spanking her for hitting her sister seemed to be a little inconsistent. One afternoon, totally exhausted after putting Kailey into time out for the umpteenth time for hitting her sister, I decided to give the "eye for an eye" solution a try. "The next time you hit your sister," I explained, "Your sister gets to hit you. Do you understand? Your sister gets a free shot. Then you'll know how it feels." Now I understand that there's inconsistency here as well, but at least it seemed more appropriate than me hitting her. I also explained to Kyra that it did not give her free reign to hit back; she was only to hit Kailey when I TOLD her to. Yeah, right. I was hoping that the mere threat would scare Kailey out of her hitting mode, and for a while, it did. But one day Kailey decided to test my threats, and I finally had to call her bluff. I called Kyra over after Kailey hit her in the arm and told her to hit Kailey back. Kyra is such a sweet girl that her idea of "hitting" was to give her a love tap on the arm. Kailey fell on the floor wailing and wrything in pain as though she had just taken a right hook to the kisser. Problem solved. After that, Kailey "used her words" or consulted Diane or me when Kyra was bugging her.

Last week though, Kailey relapsed into her old behavior and forced my hand to return to the "eye for an eye" technique (Super Nanny would be so proud). Yesterday after enduring two time outs and two threats of Kyra's retaliation, Kailey finally forced my hand. She had just kicked Kyra in the hand right in front of me, and I asked her if she wanted Kyra to kick her back. Kailey cast a defiant gaze at me. "Do you want Kyra to kick you?" I repeated, hoping she would back down. She didn't and gave me a nod. "OK, Kyra. Come here."

Now I was envisioning the love tap Kyra gave Kailey six months ago, but Kyra had apparently had enough of Kailey's bullying. Kailey was stretched out on her back across the chair and ottoman. Kyra walked up to her and, in a flash reminiscent of a ninja warrior, drew her leg up to her head and karate kicked down directly into Kailey's stomach. WHAM!! Kailey doubled over and started bawling.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, mortified. "Kyra, she kicked you IN THE HAND!!"

"You told me to kick her," she rationalized.

I had, indeed, told her to kick Kailey with no instruction as to where or how hard. She had me dead to rights. I sent her over to the couch and turned my attention to Kailey. Huge wet tears rolled down her face, and I suddenly felt like the world's biggest jerk. She was crying freely and I was surprised that Kyra's abdominal blow hadn't knocked the wind out of her. Kailey calmed down after a minute and I realized that the whole incident looked and sounded worse than it really was. It was at this point that I started laughing uncontrollably, which DID worsen the situation. It sent a mixed message to Kyra, who joined in my laughter, and to Kailey, who began crying harder. I collected myself and explained to the girls that there would be no more hitting, kicking, or pushing of any kind. They were also told not to tell their mother of this incident or they would be shipped to Siberia.

I later confessed my stupidity to Diane, and we agreed that if this didn't teach Kailey her lesson, nothing will. I know I learned mine: always give detailed instruction to a six year-old who is poised and ready to exact revenge upon her older sister.