April 11th, 2010 Day 5

Today is officially day 5. I know that mentioning what day number we are on each time I post a new entry might seem boring, but it is my way of constantly keeping track of everything, including how many days I have been doing that. As a writer, it is what I do. Observe, document, repeat. Observe, document, and repeat some more. There's a few things I am going to write about. Lets start with the first subject of the day.

Before I begin writing about the first subject, I'm going to give you all some background. Our daughter Zoe had a young lady from our church as her main sitter. The sitter started her own baby sitting business within the past few months. She is, I believe, her only staff member. She is also a stay at home mom of a few kids. Things were fine for a while, better than fine it seemed. However, one day we randomly got a note in our daughter's bag saying she was no longer welcome back. We owed for 2 weeks and had arranged to pay her when we came back into town from a trip we took spring break weekend down to Erin's parents house. We payed the balance like we had promised and she let her back, but there was something else I believe. We went by, talked to her, and agreed that the 30th of each month would be best because of the way the paychecks work out. I specifically asked her if she could update the contract so that it was official and she told us she would. She said she would have it to us two days later, but that never happened. On the 30th, we couldn't reach her to give her the cash for the one day we owed her and my wife received a text saying to find another baby sitter. I went by right as I was going to work and payed her the $7.00 we owed her. She said she was welcome back Friday. However, Erin and I decided we wanted Zoe to be with a baby sitter we felt we could rely on, and decided to change over to this older woman that is more like a grandmother. I called the current sitter and told her very politely we were taking Zoe elsewhere and we would come by to pick up her stuff. That was about two weeks ago.

So, on to the first subject. I was sitting here working on typing up the entry for yesterday's blog, and Erin randomly mentioned to me about a face book message she received. She got a message from the former sitter. Remember, I have not said anything to her at all since Zoe's last day there, which has been not quite two weeks ago. When I did, it was on the phone and Erin was right next to me. I tried to be as polite as I could, but the sitter came across to me kind of up tight. I turned to Erin afterwards and asked "Did I sound at all pissed or disrespectful to you?" and she said "nope, not at all." Well the face book message she got from this gal last night and she was like "Erin whenever Chris talks to me he is very disrespectful." Erin was blown away, and was like "What?! If you have a problem with my husband you need to talk to him." And the gal was like "Nope, not talking to him." And my wife was like "Well I'm not going to be in the middle of this."

Of course, after the issue with the other guard calling and trying to report me to the boss or whatever, hearing about the former sitter accusing me of being disrespectful made me a bit irritated. I would say "pissed" but I didn't feel that strongly. Strongly irritated is probably a better description. Irritated because this lady and I have not spoken in weeks, but somehow I'm disrespectful to her? It comes a point when someone is just simply trying to complain behind people's backs in order to try to make trouble for them. I had several thoughts go through my head last night. 1) Was she thinking that if she complained about this to Erin that she would get Erin and I fighting? That's obsurd. 2) Erin and I talk about everything, and to try to turn us against each other about something like this is pretty rediculous. 3) Another thought I had is that this gal is so overwhelmed with being a stay at home mom of 2 or more kids, plus being the one running her daycare all by herself, etc. 4) I thought about how to approach this situation that had me stressing out last night.

Do I approach her directly and try to talk to her about it even though she has made it clear she does not want to talk to me? Do I write a letter? If I did, what would I say? Would I be able to keep it civilized or would I end up going off on her? Based on the feelings that went through me when I found out what she said about me, I don't trust myself to keep it civilized with her. Do we start going to a different church so we don't have to come across this lady? Then I thought to myself 'that's rediculous. Why should we leave the church? We have done nothing wrong, and if she has a problem with us she will just have to get over it.'
I decided that the best way to approach it is to just continue to not say anything to her and hope that the longer we do not deal with eachother directly, hopefully she will get over what ever issue she is having. Personally, I have no problem not speaking with her. In fact, the way I am apparently is if I do not deal directly with someone I have had problems with, then over time I am able to move on with life myself also.

It's a very big challenge for me. I honestly really want to march right up to her and give her a piece of my mind. However, I do not know if that would solve anything. In fact, it could make things worse. So no, I will not. I will try to let it go and hope she will give it a rest. Yet another thing on the list of things that we are going through during this difficult time that will be better by next year. We all go through challenges and must do our best.

So on a more positive note, this time I included two pictures posted up above. One picture is a chalk drawing on the driveway by our daughter Ally. I've always known that she is a fan of art. She draws a lot. It's never the same type of drawings. It's always different things she draws. Well I guess maybe I had never paid attention as closely as I thought I had. Today after she had drawn outside for a few minutes with the chalk, I went out to get my college book from my truck so I could work on homework and her partial picture caught my eye. So far she had only had this very creative, colorful, and beautiful multi-colored sun drawn. I have not looked at it since she went out and colored it some more.

Well when I caught a look at the colorful sun you see up above, the thought that went through my head was "wow, our daughter has potential as an artist." I know it may not be much of a drawing right now, but you know what? To me its amazing because I don't think i could draw even that. You know what I did next? When I came inside with my book, I walked over to Ally, put my arm around her and said "Wow hon, you did a great job on your drawing. I want you to know that if you want to draw, if you want to do art like that, I want you to go for it. I want you to do what makes you happy." It made me think "What if when she goes to college, she decides that she wants to get an art degree?" Then I answered my own question with "I think she should do what makes her happy. If she wants to draw or do other kinds of Art as a career, I say hell yes, you go girl!" The funny thing is, when I grew up I was always told "Go to school for something that you can get a good job in." That's a big reason why I am going to school for nursing. However, I will be starting school online continueing on a degree I started while in the Air Force. I want to manage and possibly own a hotel in the future so this degree will help move me in the right direction.

The other photo up above is a picture of Ally petting our husky's belly. Today I knew I was going to be posting an entry here, but did not know if I would be posting a picture since I'm off till Tuesday night. After taking the picture of her drawing and then petting the dog's belly, I knew what I would be uploading.

So last night, we decided we would go to bed earlier than we had been. I had posted my blog online, and Erin had gotten her homework done and turned in. I had not gone to the Y or worked out by going out for a walk or anything. I had a feeling I would not feel up to it. So, with that in mind I wanted to do as much as I felt up for last night. When we went up to go to bed, I made sure to bring the novel I'm reading and I read till i got to the next chapter. It was about 30 pages. So, when I finally laid down and tried to go to sleep, I still felt ok because of having written my journal and read. I thought to myself "I will just have to be sure to get out and do some form of exercise on Sunday, even if just a good walk, something. Then I will have stayed on my plan."

So tonight around 8PM, we put Zoe in the stroller. She kept saying "GO GO!" which means she wants to go somewhere. If we aren't leaving to go anywhere we will be like "No! Stay Stay!" Well we went. We walked down a few blocked, turned right, walked down a couple of blocks, and turned left again. We walked down three or four more blocks to the Jewel grocery store and returned the movie to the red box machine. We did, of course, rent two more movies. Then we turned around and walked back the way we came, heading back home. We all grabbed a glass of water when we got home, and I hooked the dog back up outside and gave him some water as well. It was a nice walk. It also made me feel good because I had done some form of exercise. The only thing I didn't do last night was write in the book I'm working on, but thats ok.

So for tonight, the lesson is this. It goes along with the idea of walking away, but is not exactly the same. Talking about your problems is important. The lesson for tonight would be to keep an open mind and to always be willing to talk to the people you have an issue with. Doing so helps you to work out whatever the problem is between you. However, the catch is this. In a situation where there is a problem between you and another person, whether or not it is more on their side than on yours, here's what I say. If the other person tries to complain about it, but will not talk to you about it, then let them cool off. I have noticed and learned in the past that when someone is trying to get attention through means of complaining or being a pain, sometimes you just do the walk away approach like we discussed last night. This should be done only if you know that talking is not possible. So there you have it readers. The lesson for tonight is to be willing to talk, if the other party is willing to work things out. I'm sure you will know if it will even be an option, but you always have the option to walk away if you absolutely need to. I will write for you all again tomorrow.

Thanks for being here!

CB