Blogging is tough…

For those of you who read Life As Naps, you may have noticed that my posts have been quite few and far between lately. I am slightly introverted and a private person by  nature so blogging has always been a struggle for me but I did it because it was an outlet to get some of these crazy thoughts out of my head. Then people started reading it and started telling me that they read it, and instantly I was a self conscious teenager again measuring everything I said because I was afraid of what people would think of me.

So I go back and forth, I love to blog and get things off my chest and out there, but then I find myself fighting, well myself and deleting entire written posts because I don’t want to offend anyone with my thoughts. It was a whole lot easier when I thought I was completely anonymous out there and people that I had no idea of were the ones reading it. Its easy to be weak or strong or let your feelings show when you think that you won’t ever have to talk about or with them.

But then the flipside of that coin is that I do enjoy that people read my stuff and comment on my posts. I like the comments and the constructive criticism I have received and hopefully will continue to receive. I do enjoy when I can have a meaningful conversation with someone on something I wrote, because they can totally relate or they completely disagree and we have a frank, open discussion where in the end we agree to disagree.

So as 2012 approaches I am going to try and let myself go a bit and blog more often on a range of topics. I am going to try and let some more of the personal stuff out there, but I doubt that I will ever let the blogosphere know who I truly am. Sorry, its just not in my nature, and maybe that’s a good thing. Until then enjoy and be on the look out for new posts and please feel free to comment or talk to me, I would hate for this post to discourage that, even if it does push my comfort level. Being a little uncomfortable can be a good thing, right?

Christmas Craze…

Christmas is always crazy for our family. Both L Bird’s and my parents have divorced. My parents remarried a long time ago, but L Bird’s parents are still doing their own things. So because we come from separated families, we end up have five Christmases every year. We do Christmas with my Dad’s side, my Mom’s side, L Bird’s Mother, L Bird’s Father and then our own intimate family Christmas on Christmas morning.

So yeah, it gets crazy, but anyway our Christmas craziness started this past weekend with Christmas with my Dad’s side on Saturday and then with L Bird’s Mom on Sunday. At these two Christmases A Bird got a ton of gifts that she absolutely loves, but two of them stand out.

From my Dad and Stepmom she got a Disney Karaoke machine. She went nuts when she opened it. She has been putting in her CD’s and singing her little heart out, at the top of her lungs, of course with the volume cranked all the way up. How else can you sing, right? Then she found that she didn’t need the music to use the microphone and she found the echo knob. So she turns up the echo all the way and just says random stuff into the mic to hear herself. Sometimes it’s just “Daddy, what are you doing?” and then some times it is “woooooooooooooooo,oooooooooooooooooooo,oooooooooooooooooo” as she tries to be a “siren”. Yeah, that’s real fun.

The other gift that she is fascinated with is the a Wii game that she got from her Aunt A, Uncle E and Cousin J. It is Just Dance For Kids. We brought that home, fired up the Wii and she went nuts. It is actually a really cool game, it is made for kids so there are a ton of kids songs like “The Ants Go Marching”, songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, The Wiggles, etc. But it also has some harmless old school favorites like YMCA, Funky Town, and apparently A Bird’s new favorite “Everybody Dance Now”.

So here she is, dancing away:

So here’s to two Christmases down and three to go. Merry Christmas!!!

Wordless Wednesday

My little performer…

A Bird is growing up so fast and she finally has outgrown her toddler bed. So this weekend while she was having a spend over at Papa’s house, L Bird swapped out A Bird’s toddler bed for a nice big twin bed with brand new Tangled sheets and comforter. It was like that was all it took, A Bird came home saw her new “big girl” bed and flipped the switch. She went from 4 to 15 in about 30 seconds.

This past weekend A Bird has spent more time playing in her room than she ever has. She goes in there, turns on her radio, lays on her bed and sings her little heart out to Orange Cat who is normally trying to sleep on the end of the bed. Because she seems to really be enjoying her time in her room, I bought her a Carrie Underwood CD as a special treat. She loves country music and especially loves Carrie Underwood, so she has been listening to it non-stop.

Tonight, A Bird, L Bird and I had a tea party with cheetos and apple juice in A Bird’s room. After the tea party, A Bird cranked up her radio and gave quite the karaoke performance. She really is something else.

So without further ado, enjoy the show:

Inner Battles...

So I am fighting an uphill battle. That battle is changing myself and let me tell you what, change is hard! Apparently, I am a miserable SOB, and hard to be around most of the time and I don’t seem happy with the world around me. I don’t feel like I am that bad, I am actually very happy with my life, I love my wife and daughter, I love my large family, I love my small tight knit group of friends, and I have a job that I actually really do love. But I guess things need to change when everyone around you can’t tell that you’re happy.

I’m not totally sure how I got this way, but I have a pretty good idea. I’m a pretty private person by nature, so I don’t really talk a lot about anything. I have a real personal attachment to my thoughts, where I don’t like to put them out there. What I think is my business, and if I wanted you to know I would tell you. It used to be pretty bad to the point of if you asked me a question the likely response you would get would be “What are you the cops? Mind your business”. I feel I have come a long way from that place, but I still don’t offer up a whole lot in terms of conversation. Now I know that by now most of you have heard my sob stories of being picked on and getting into fights stories and the oh poor me, school of hard knocks stories so I’m not going to go into that, but my lack of vocalization probably comes from that place.

I have always idolized the Mob or Mafia, not the current wiseguys but the old school Mob that still had honor and its Omerta. Growing up the only way I found to stop being teased and taunted or bullied was to fight back. So I slowly started turning myself into a tough guy. I loved watching movies and documentaries or reading books about the old school gangsters. They fought and sought revenge and when they were done, it was over. It was as if it never happened because you never spoke about it again. The old Dons were men of few words and they played their cards close and never really said much of anything. The games they played were always calculated and won in their minds long before it was decided in the streets, but you wouldn’t know until after the fact because they never said a word. I modeled myself after these characters in trying to make myself as tough as I could be. I would pound out anyone who looked at me wrong, but you would never know it or see any trace other than the occasional bruise or cut because I wouldn’t talk about it.

I went on like this through my teens and well into my twenties before I finally grew up and let a lot of anger fade. But by then it seemed to be too late, I couldn’t talk if I wanted too and it would seem that I keep a stone face because no one can read my emotions.

So that’s where I stand now and it is unacceptable to me to keep going on like this. I am fighting to change myself to let more emotion show and I think I can do it, but it is definitely hard. It has been only a short time but I think I am making strides. I am trying to smile when I answer the phone, they say that if you do that people on the other end can hear it in your voice. I am trying to laugh more often and let more things go when it comes to L Bird and A Bird. I guess I am a little more strict or I think things should be done a certain way so I get a little twisted when it doesn’t happen that way. In the big picture these things are really small things that aren’t worth the effort or frustration I put into them. I am making a point to let the people I love know that I love them. I am just trying to make small changes, like kissing L Bird when she gets home from work, picking A Bird up, hugging her and asking her about her day when she walks through the door. Where before I would be so caught up in trying to get the nightly routine of starting a fire so the house isn’t cold, starting dinner so we can all eat early and hopefully together, letting the dogs out…. Blah, blah, blah etc. etc that I wouldn’t pay either of them any attention until things finally settled down later in the evening.

I am turning the tide slowly, but I’m turning it. Here’s to small changes that lead to larger overall changes that lead to happier lives.