Monday, September 2 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning, friends! Happy labor day. Hope you're taking it easy this morning. Our family is having a slow start - we just finished eating some breakfast out on the porch, and now Marissa and Rodney are watching Spider-Man on the couch while I knock out a journal entry.

Yesterday was a wonderful day. Kelly and Jeremy spent the afternoon with us. They got to our place around lunch time. We heated up some leftovers and let the kids burn some energy in the backyard. Afterwards, we walked to the biergarten. We had such a wonderful time. It felt good to catch up and chat about anything that popped into my head. We also had some great toddler synergy happening. I think when you have at least two toddlers in the same room, you have a golden opportunity to play their bombastic energy off of each other and tire them out for later. Rod was so tired last night that he almost fell asleep while I was reading.

It was also pretty great to "nerd out" about raising toddlers. Having a young kid, I sometimes get a little self-conscious that I talk about my kid too frequently. I'm not an egregious offender, but there's enough young parents floating around society that give us a bad rap. You know the type - the kind that tie everything back to the kid they're raising. The kind that will never let you forget about their kid, no matter how tangential or wildly unrelated it was to what you were already talking about before they started showing you pictures of them in the bath.

All that to say is that the stigma is real, and even parents with enough self awareness to know that the eyes of the world are not actually watching them raise their child still worry about over-sharing. "Do I talk about my kid to much?" is a question that crosses my mind every time I show someone a picture or tell a funny Rodney story. But all bets are off when you're with another family like Kelly and Jeremy. They're in the trenches with us, and it felt good to trade war stories about tantrums, sticky fingers, and public urination, unhindered by the nagging little thought "do I talk about my kid too much?"

This morning, we're taking it slow because we're planning on getting a lot of stuff done. First, we'll probably go to home depot. Marissa needs some art stuff, and I was going to peruse the grilling department to see if they carry anything that can clean a poor Weber grill that is caked with a few summers of soot and neglect. To be honest, I've never cleaned my grill before. Marissa surprised me once and managed to clean half of it, and that was the best it ever looked (besides when it was coming out of the box). But I knew I had to clean it at least once this summer, which is why I committed to loading it into the car and driving it to the class reunion this weekend. I knowingly cornered myself into cleaning it.

After cleaning the grill, Rodney and I are going to make some peposa. It's a great recipe for long days at home, because after you load everything into the crock pot, you have no choice but hang out in the kitchen and straighten things up for a few hours. Once I'm happy with the kitchen, I was going to use the rest of the time before dinner to work on some code. Marissa and I had an idea for making a family "hub". As I'm currently picturing it, it's just going to be a website with a bunch of shared apps and tools. Right now I'm working on a home chores module - something that will keep track of who is supposed to do what and how often. I'm even thinking about wiring in some friendly slackbot action so each morning you're reminded of what you're supposed to get done. I find the chores module particularly exciting, because for the longest time I've been keeping it all in my personal notes.

After dinner, we'll ride out the weekend scaries together. Marissa and I have some more TV to watch, but I'm thinking about making another batch of palmiers to bring into work. I tried them last night, and they turned out really well. It's a puff pastry & sugar biscuit folded in such a way that when baked, it puffs up into a little heart.

Hope you all enjoy what's left of your holiday weekend. Take it easy, grab a loved one, and drink a beer with them outside. The rest of your week depends on it.