Into the breach

This past week we completed about 90% of the verbal colonoscopy that is the home study process. The contractor, a pleasant middle-aged man named Dennis, came over and interrogated interviewed us for about 8 hours, 5 on one visit and 3 on a follow-up. It was exhausting, to say the least, but nowhere near as much as the class we attended on Saturday.

We have 9 sessions to attend, 2 per Saturday for the next 5 weeks, with a break on Labor Day weekend. We've now completed the first two, which are largely introductory and relatively benign. Most of the conversation seemed to be about navigating the bureaucracy, managing expectations, and keeping DHS looking like a wonderful shiny happy organization. After all, it's for the children.

That last part comes off a little cynical, perhaps because it is. There's a lot of whitewashing going on, even when the folks sitting at my table and directly across from me brought up their direct, recent experiences with the bureaucratic heavy-handedness of that same organization. Like 80% of the class, they're involved in a kinship adoption, but for some reason one of the children involved has been institutionalized and they're getting stonewalled by DHS regarding her care. They're being told quite bluntly that not only is she "none of their concern", but if they don't drop it DHS can and will take the other kids away from them too. It's downright surreal, coming from an organization which throughout the class had been portrayed as having nothing but every child's happiness and well-being in mind.

Granted, much of this may be perception and perspective, but government bureaucracies are notoriously intractable, so I'm inclined to believe the gist if remaining skeptical on the particulars.

That said, the class itself isn't particularly difficult, since like all government programs it is made to accommodate the lowest common denominator. For example, I distinctly remember reading one section which painstakingly described a concept in several sentences that could have been summarized in a single word had the writer assumed the intended audience to have a high-school graduate's vocabulary. Most of what is said is basic common sense -- perhaps not to some, but to anyone with a little brains and a modicum of compassion. There are a few legal factoids that were new to me, but they could have been summarized on a 3x5 index card. I didn't really need 6 hours of lecture to pick them up, and they mostly pertained to foster families, which doesn't really apply to us.

The greatest danger of the class is boredom and fatigue. My brain checked out with about 30 minutes left in the second session. Luckily all they were doing at that point was reviewing -- again -- those half-dozen items which had been explained in grueling detail for the previous 2.5 hours. Not even the mighty power of 5-Hour Energy could keep me focused at that point.

Lest it sound like I'm being snarky (which I totally am), I should give props to the ladies doing the teaching of the class. They have a required syllabus handed down from on high, and they're not really allowed to deviate from it much. But they are doing their level best to keep it as interesting as possible, even though the curriculum has all the flavor and consistency of oatmeal and they're basically allotted 5 metaphorical raisins to drop in it.

Only 7 more sessions to go.

Things are starting to happen...

Color me shocked, but the home study contractor is actually calling my references. This is perhaps the first time in 20+ years of job interviews and various other forms. I'd come to think that the "references" section of any form was just a test to see if you had 3 imaginary friends.

Imagine my horror when folks who actually know me started saying that they got a call from "the guy" asking all sorts of impertinent questions. One such question was, of course, "would you recommend him as a parent?" My boss told me privately that he had no idea, really... all he knows with confidence is my worth as an employee and some random bits about my interests. But he's heard I have dogs, and they're still alive, so he figured that counts.

Let's hope my other references at least thought of that much.

I can't wait...

...to do stuff like this.

Home study in one week! Classes in two!

It moved! A little.

At the beginning of May, we filed the paperwork to get the home study going and our classes set up.

About a month later, we got a call from Tonya, who scheduled our classes for August-September, which is the first round of Saturday classes available (we didn't fancy the idea of going after work for weeks on end).

Yesterday, we finally got a notice from the home study contractor that they've taken our case out of their inbox. So it only took 2 months to be notified that our paperwork had made it that far through the bureaucracy. Moving at the speed of government, this must be a new record!

Preach it Sister!!!

I want to marry this post and have like ten thousand of its babies:

Momastery: On Profanity

Favorite bit:

Or maybe He’s talking about language intended to exclude people. Religious talk does that sometimes. Religious words can be used to make people feel in and other people feel out and if they’re used that way, to suggest that some people are “God people” and others aren’t, then I think religious words become profane.

I try to keep my language clean, I honestly do. But I refuse to feel as guilty as some think I should when it proves difficult or impossible to maintain the facade. Like many/most(/all?) men, I am a bottler of emotions. There's a microbrewery in my heart that serves up a creamy ale in frosty shatterproof bottles of the finest sublimation. Occasionally the bottles get shaken up and the tops pop off and then there's a giant mess to clean up.

To prevent this, I've been practicing at expressing myself instead, especially when it comes to anger or frustration, and sometimes that just has to include the naughty words because no other words will do. Some have suggested this is evidence of a weak mind or vocabulary, but I think it has more to do with the fact that some emotions are violent and require violent language, otherwise you're not really expressing them.

Watchin' the dog...

...watchin' you.

This article has some great research and commentary on canine behavior. We've got three pooches hanging around the house, and I can attest that they miss no opportunity to associate some cue with some action.

Our TV makes a characteristic musical tone when we shut it off. The dogs have learned that when they hear that tone, it's time to go outside and go potty before bed. I've demonstrated this for the delight of various visitors: watching TV late at night, all three dogs conked out on the floor in various places, completely dead to the world. We'll be talking in normal tones, the dogs never waking or stirring, and I'll say "watch this".

Remote: *click*

TV: "bee-dee-boop"

All three dogs will go from complete unconsciousness to on their feet in about the space of a second, then scamper to the kitchen door to be let out.

What's even more interesting is treat time... they know their individual tricks:

Zeus: speak, roll over, down, up, etc.
Zoe: speak, high-five, down, sit, etc.
Zack: "I can sit."

"Zack, speak!"

"I can sit."

"Zack, roll over!"

"I can sit."

Yeah, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, though I'd still bet on him in a contest against Simple Dog.

Where was I? Oh yeah... my point was, when it's treat time, if you hold up a treat but don't give them a cue, they will actually start running through their repertoire of tricks (or in Zack's case, he can look more and more pathetic as he sits and drools) in order to get the treat.

All of this is leads me to my observations of my cousins and brother, with their kids, which say to me that it's pretty much the same with kids -- with the added wrinkle that kids can actually communicate in English. I've seen my cousin's husband simply give his kids a look, and they quiet down, change direction, shut up, or whatever. I've seen my brother giving nonverbal cues that prompt my little nephew to immediately anticipate that something's going to happen, even if he's not exactly sure what it is. And I'm sure that the added language element factors in, in ways far too complex to map with my limited interactions.

Of course, from the Tricia debacle and my own experience with dogs, I know all too well how easy it is to "teach" bad behaviors by not being cognizant of the constant observation. I know what's required to have perfectly behaved dogs, and frankly it's more than I'm willing to invest, so I settle for dogs that mind when it's important for them to mind and who understand how to peacefully coexist in my house (e.g. stay off the furniture, don't poop on the rug, food that's on the floor is fair game but anywhere else is cause to get your snout slapped, etc.).

The interesting thing will be trying to do this with kids. A friend recently told me that as you are with your dogs, you will be with your kids. So I don't expect to be trying to wring perfect behavior out of them; I just want them to coexist peacefully, mind when it's important to do so, and learn a few things (tricks?) along the way, like not pooping on the rug.

Fitness

One of my goals as a potential father is to instill a desire for physical fitness in the kids. It was never really discussed around our house; my brother and I participated in a few sports in Jr. High, but neither of us were very good at it. The term "athlete" was not in the top 10 words one would think of to describe us. But we were teenage boys, fairly active anyway, and not getting fat on our own, so the subject of fitness was sort of taken for granted.

That's why it came as a surprise to me at the time (but shouldn't have) when I woke up one day at 25 years of age and 50+ pounds overweight. I didn't really do anything about it for another 10 years, and now I deeply regret all that time I wasted as a fat guy, especially during my 20's. So among other things, I'd like to give our kids some pro-fitness ideals; not in the idea that they're going to be participating in varsity-level sports (though it's fine if they do), but with the idea that physical fitness is a thing worth pursuing for its own sake.

I work out regularly (5-6 times a week) doing the P90X and similar workouts, but I've never been much of a runner. I do like getting on the bicycle though, something for which I haven't had any time since moving into our current house 2 years ago. So this past weekend, with the wife-unit off shopping, I decided to dig out the ol' WalMart special and put 10 or 20 miles on it (wound up being 20 -- /flex).

After pumping up the tires and packing all my essentials into a little handlebar bag, I took off in a random direction with no real plan except "go that way until I get tired of it, then turn". It was 95 degrees out, but I'm used to that kind of weather, so that wasn't a big deal. All my time in the gym ensured that the effort didn't really bother me either.

What did bother me though, was my rear end. I didn't realize it was possible to get saddle sores from a bicycle. By the end of the ride I felt like I'd been whacked in the crotch with a 4x4, repeatedly, for the last 2 hours.

Does not make a good seat

I always kind of smirked at my dad's insistence on a big cushy bicycle seat, figuring I was tough enough to handle the bar of hard plastic that comes with the average WalMart special, but I'll be darned if I didn't wave the white flag right then and there. I ran off to the local sporting goods store and found a nice cushy seat and mounted it on the bike straightaway. Apparently my butt has aged less gracefully than the rest of me (in just the last 2 years!), because that new seat is the bee's knees. And after the wife-unit tried it out, she bought one for herself.

As a result of my little adventure though, she's gotten a renewed interest in going for bike rides as a way to spend time together, and I think it will carry forward into the kid-future. I'm still working on just how much I want to play "father as gym coach" and force the little rugrats (well, at least the teens) to get off the couch and do some P90X with the old man. That aside, I can definitely see bicycling -- especially with the distances and difficulty we have in our local area -- as being a good start to communicating the fitness ideal.