You've been eliminated - Good Bye!

Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to meeeeee!
Happy birthday to me!

(I know, I know - strange title for a birthday blog post. Keep reading!)

Yes, today is the day I celebrate year #36. Although truthfully, the celebration is quite muted this year. Some of you already know this, but others will learn of this for the first time here. You see, a week ago, I learned that my former employer could no longer see the usefulness of my abilities at their company so they "consolidated and reorganized" and my position was "eliminated due to business necessity."

It was sucker punch to the kidneys, for sure, but I haven't been too emotional about it. Some will say, "it just hasn't sunk in yet" or "wait until you can't find another job - being turned down over and over again will get old quick." But I choose not to listen to all you glass is half empty folks. I'm a positive guy. Your bellyaching bothers me. :)

Instead, I will focus on the positive - so this is my way of getting rid of the negative.

For the past 10 1/2 years, I've worked for an insurance company. There were some "accolades" and there were some "you need to do betters." But I've come to a realization over the past week. Each day I went to work, I didn't really care. I went to work, completed some tasks, and then came home. There was rarely any passion for doing the work I did. The money was fine and it paid the bills. There were some funny stories and some stories that would make your head spin. But that's it....nothing life-changing about the work.

What I will miss is the relationships. I had a great manager. I had a couple guys I hung out with that I really liked. And I got to hang out with professional attorneys, (yes that's a positive for me). I learned how to interact with people on many different levels.

That's it, so here's my epiphany.

It doesn't matter what we do or even if we like it. What we remember is the relationships we build along the way.

This is going to sound strange, but I sort of like ending my job this way. I can dislike the "administrative people" who made this decision because I don't care about them like they don't care about me. Whoever made this decision doesn't know me or my family, and I don't know them. They were just watching the bottom line. The people I do care about were upset over this decision and that shows me how valuable I am to them...as a person.

So whatever God has for me next (and I WILL remember that God is in control of this situation - and if I get discouraged, I will count on each of you to remind of this fact), I welcome it with an open mind and an open heart. I don't know whether that will be in insurance or some other line of work. What I do know is that I get a chance to keep the relationships I've built at my prior workplace, and now I get to meet new people with the opportunity to build new relationships in the future. The way I see it, no one gets unfriended on Facebook and I'll eventually get to add more friends to my friends list.

Happy birthday to me, indeed.

World Famous

This is not meant to bash anyone who has previously, currently has or intends to have their children involved in modeling, television, movies or any other avenue for utilizing their child's natural beauty and thus profiting off the genes they passed onto their offspring. We have never done that with Lauren.

However, it's obvious we don't need to even try since others will do it for us. You see, we are members of Church of the Open Door in Glendora. My sister and her family are members of Magnolia Ave Baptist Church in Riverside. Lauren's cousin Sarah often invites her visit when their having a special event. One one of these occasions, someone snapped a picture of Lauren and their webmaster posted it on the church's preschoolers home page.

Now I know parents are supposed to believe their children are the cutest they've ever seen, but when someone else verifies that by putting a picture of your daughter on a website for a church you don't even attend, it makes you puff up your chest just a little bit.

Here's the link just to verify my point...

http://magonline.com/05ministries/preschool/index.html

She's my special girl!

Circle of Life

We had an interesting weekend...well, interesting in the diversity of it.

On Saturday morning, we went to a funeral for a friend of ours, whose mother had passed away earlier in the week. It was a beautiful memorial service.

Afterward, there was an informal reception and Dana was asked if she could watch our friend's son as he needed his afternoon nap. Without hesitation, Dana said yes.

I'm going to digress in this story as I have to give mad props to my bride. One thing to know about Dana is when a friend needs something...I mean, really needs something, she will go to the moon and back for them. I've learned a lot about how to be a friend from watching her. If you're lucky enough that she counts you as a friend, you've got an advocate in your corner, no matter the situation.

Back to my story...

That evening, we spent a few hours with my mother-in-law. She was watching Lauren for us while we were at the funeral, and Lauren always has fun when she's with her grandmother. She even had a cousin, Gabriel, to play with, so it was a fun evening with three generations playing together.

On Sunday, Dana was invited to a baby shower for our friend from church. She is due to give birth to a baby boy in a few weeks, so the showering was on. Luckily for me, this was a gals only party, so I was good with that.

Finally, later Sunday afternoon, we went to a wedding for a friend of ours from my work. He had a beautiful ceremony in one of the chapels at the Mission Inn in Riverside. We didn't party late into the night with the rest of his guests, as we knew we had to go to work the next day, and it was already a long weekend.

On the drive home, Dana said to me, "Wow, what a weekend. It was the full circle of life, ya know." And I couldn't agree with her more.

Friends and family...death and life...new and old...

The most amazing part of the weekend was how God was honored in each of these activities.

We thank Him for our friends.
We praise Him for our family.
We revere Him for his perfect timing in life and death.
We worship Him with our lives as we celebrate a life well-lived, the love of family, a mom waiting to give birth, and the beginnings of a new marriage.

God is good.

Heaven

We have never had a problem with Lauren and separation anxiety. She's been going to Donna's house since she was 10 weeks old, so it's never really been an issue. In fact, there are times when we see other parents deal with this at church or other places and we count our blessings.

Alright, to be honest, it comes up at times, but it's never been something we spend too much time dwelling on. Lauren has been well-adjusted for a long time to the routine that Mommy and Daddy both work. So Lauren goes to the sitter's house, and one of us picks her up in the afternoon.

The past couple of days have been different. I can tell she's been a little needy, wanting to spend just a couple minutes more with us before we go in different directions or to bed, or whatever. This morning however, was absolutely rich.

As I dropped her off at the sitter's house, she closed the door behind us and stood in front of it. I ask her, "what's up?" She said, "I don't want you to go yet."

I reminded her that if I don't leave right away I'll be late for work. We have this inane online time card thing at work we have to log in to that keeps perfect time, but that's for another post.

As soon as I reminded her that I would be late to work, I could see it in her eyes. She just didn't want me to leave right away. I got it. I saw her body language and praised God for reminding me, I'm a Dad first.

So I stopped trying to move her out of the way, got down on her level and said, "OK, what's up?" and this time I really meant it.

She said, "I want to talk about something."

"Sure, Lovebug (that's my nickname for her), what do you want to talk about?"

"Heaven" was her answer.

"What do you want to know about Heaven," I ask?

"What's it made of?"

Which brings me to one of my parenting styles. I will often answer her question with a question. I know for some people that's real annoying, but I want her to think for herself, not just wait for my answer to every query. So I asked her, "what do you think it's made of?"

"Wood...just like Donna's house." Which brought a chuckle from the other room as Donna was listening to our conversation.

I told her Heaven was more glorious than you could ever imagine, filled with gold and diamonds and all the things we think are precious in this world.

But as I kissed her one more time and she ran off to eat breakfast, I thought to myself, the most precious thing to me is my daughter, and my greatest hope is that she will one day put her faith in Christ so that she will be in Heaven with me. Heaven will then be made up with one of the most precious things I could ever think of.

First Hoop

OK...so...as you'll come to find...many of my stories will revolve around Lauren. I promise they won't all be about her, but 5 year olds do some of the best/funniest/strangest/awesomest things ever.

Tonight was a watershed moment for her. Standing by herself, staring at a 10 foot basketball hoop, holding onto a green soccer ball, my awesome 5 year old made her first unassisted basket. I wasn't counting how many she missed before that. I was just chasing rebounds all over the court, and it was a great time. This was my opportunity to be a cheerleader and build into my daughter's self-esteem.

It was odd that miss after miss she would let doubt creep in. How does a 5 year old even know doubt? Yet, when I said, "OK Lauren, let's go home," she wouldn't give up. She wanted to try it just one more time.

Then she made a second, and eventually a third. She makes me proud, but it's even better to see how she was proud of her accomplishments. She walked a little taller back to the car.

I've only heard of the issues facing young girls growing up in this society, and I can't even fathom the pressure she's going to be under as she gets older. I don't know how to overcome all the issues she faces, other than to love her and show her what a real man looks like.

It gives me a goal, something to strive for. To be the best dad/cheerleader/role model I can be. If I can do even half the awesomest things she does, I think we'll all be OK.

Daddy's Little Girl

I know women who say there is nothing in the world that can compare to the experience of child-birth. And I won't try to convince anyone here of anything other than that. But there are times when my daughter looks at me with those wide blue eyes and says, "Daddy - I love you!" To a guy, there's is nothing that can compare with that.

Lauren is Daddy's Little Girl, and I intend to keep it that way as long as I can.

Scraped Knees

Yesterday Lauren was playing outside in front of my parent's house. She was pretending to ride a horse while wearing a leotard, tutu and her crocs...an interesting fashion combination, but she's 5, so she's still learning her wardrobe choices.

Anyway, while pretending to ride her horse, she tripped and scraped both knees. She's been a lucky kid in that, she's got really good balance, so she's gotten this far in her life with very few minor injuries, and no real major injuries.

You would think this is the end of her life by the way she's been carrying on. She asked tonight if it would just be easier to go to Heaven now and that way she wouldn't have to deal with the pain.

So we've been dealing with a little girl who has been hobbling around the house bent over at the waist and knees with a hunchback who can't do anything for herself. Somehow scraped knees has affected her arms and shoulders. Like I said, new experiences for our little one.

The night ended with a phone call to Grandbob who reassured her this was part of becoming a big girl, God would heal her, and all was right with the world.

Which brings me to my point...I was trying to explain to my daughter that getting scraped knees is a part of growing up. I've gotten scraped knees so many times as a boy, I can't even remember them all.

I just wish as an adult I had scraped knees more often. That would be a strong indicator that I was spending enough time on my knees praying to my Father in Heaven for myself, my family, my friends and loved ones. I think we should all long for more scraped knees. We'd have less issues to deal with if we did.