While patronizing the various cinema
establishments this week I missed out on a couple calls from the Cali-Daughter
and Wingman. That serious failure on my part was rectified last night by a long
and thoroughly enjoyable call. She had her latest pre-natal doctor visit this
week and the First Blog Reader continues to develop
apace with all signs positive for both mother and child. Wingman on the other
hand spent three hours with the mother of his child earlier this week in child
caring instruction. My daughter is a supremely competent planner.
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| Wingman in Diaper Class |
I must have been a complete loser
while preparing for my first child (the Cali-Daughter herself) because I didn’t
receive any of this training. I can imagine going to my company commander and
telling him I had to take a class in diaper etiquette. Both of my kids are so
far ahead of where I was at their age and I can say that without the slightest tinge
of envy. I do have the benefit that can only be supplied through experience. I
offered sage advice such as being careful if it’s a male child when you first
open the diaper. My eye was sore for a week after learning that lesson the hard
way from my favorite son.
This most welcome call did offer both
my wife and I a break from what was a very frustrating situation. I was volunteered
to translate a booklet at work from English to Spanish. The gringos I work with
think I’m completely fluent in Spanish and that’s what my wife and I speak at
home. There is, however, a huge difference between speaking a foreign language
and writing it with proper grammar. Therein lies the rub leading to last night’s
frustration. I brought home the first six pages I translated yesterday so she
could review and edit for grammar.
I’m an impatient person by nature. I
want to finish something as quickly as possible and move on to whatever is
next. The search for the perfect solution is sacrificed to the faster, but
acceptable imperfect one. This collides directly with my wife’s more careful
and measured approach to work. We sat next to each for several hours last night
working on the translation.
She claims her grammar is not what is
should be and lays the blame directly on me for being less than Cervantes when
it comes to hablaing her native tongue.
My loose association with proper Spanish grammar has allegedly infected her
ability to discern the right answer, at least quickly and then there’s the
whole accent thing over certain letters.
Since she knew people from work would
see this, including native Spanish speakers, and would assume I would be
drafting her into helping – we were searching for the perfect solution. Cue the
tension as my patent lack of patience bloomed despite my best efforts to
suppress. It’s tough to be aggravated with someone who’s doing you a favor.
Unfortunately we’ve hung around each for so long she knew I was getting angry
despite my best efforts to mask it. We wouldn’t have survived more than three
decades of marriage if she wasn’t able to overlook my personal failures and we finished
the review intact. I think the phone call from the left coast really helped.
We are strangely unencumbered this
weekend; our first free weekend in a long time. Since nature hates a vacuum my
wife has decreed we’re going to spend part of Saturday completely re-organizing
the basement where my efforts at storing items after the move has come under
severe criticism. I don’t have a dog in this fight now because I’m completely
in her debt and there are still more pages to translate.
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