Alana has an unpleasant, unlikable tendency towards whining. She’s silent and strong when she wants to be, but she’ll mope and fret for hours…days…about something minor, easily overcomable, an idle sleight to her ego, a mere scratch to her comfort zone.   2 hours will pass with her sniffling and blubbering, punctuated by the occasional shriek, for no good gawddamn reason.

Its not cute. Its awful, and hurtful.   Strider bike, no. No! I…don’t…want…to!

Her adamant resistance to swimming has been the most frustrating. I was ok with it the first, oh, 5 times at the gym. But she is stuck on 1.5 feet. A huge regression from last year.   A few weeks ago she put her head under, by herself, about 5 times in a row while she reached down to the 2ft bottom and picked up her toys. Hasn’t done it since. I took her into the deep end, held her completely above water, and she nearly gouged my eyes out clawing at me to get higher. She is insanely terrified of water over her head, and eventually settled into a sobbing mass for about 30 minutes, stopping only when Beckie held her the same way i did and eventually sorta enjoying herself. Haven’t seen that either in a month.

Not having a pool sucks. Lawyers have taken all the floaties and waterwings out of the public pools. The zero-depth entrance and ability to bring small toys in are huge improvements from when i grew up, but since the Coast Guard hasn’t approved her Dora the Explorer floaties, they’d rather her get NO introduction to deep water!   Arizona lets anyone carry a M-50 anywhere, but i cant stand 5 feet from my kid with floaties on? Its probably anti-immigrant, and i think i will buy Nemo floaties next time. It makes me wonder again and again if I’d rather have a pool.   Without a doubt its the coolest thing you can do for your house. Its also the single biggest cost and time sink and risk. Chemicals and wearable parts for a year are more than our entire family gym membership, with zero effort on our part, or 40k, and G gets private climbing lessons for $9/hr.   Its got it all except the namby-pamby rules.

Alana has this glass ceiling about water, at least that’s how i see it.     I shove her into things. Beckie comforts her. That’s our parenting styles, that’s our approach. I’ve no doubt unchecked either would ruin our kids, but mostly they work well together. Except when they don’t, which usually coincides with our kids struggling. Struggling is an ambiguous term, and we almost always start at odds. Not a good formula for consensus-building and teamwork.   I see instances where their day-to-day progress stalls, a tactical view of a strategic problem, a players’ coach. I’m a great dad, but i expect my kids to deal with shit. Beckie is more about quarterly reviews and autonomy and day-to-day feelings. Gender conflicts for modern gender-neutral families.   I’m glad i have Beckie as a teammate, and some days when the kids aren’t occupying my entire bandwidth not dedicated to health and employment i remember i love her. I don’t want them to turn out like her, she doesn’t want them to turn out like me. Overstressed professional romance.

On Father’s Day, when Clarence Clemons died, the Springsteen song that stuck with me most was Devils and Dust.

What if what you do to survive kills the thing you love? Fear’s a powerful thing, it can turn your heart black you can trust. It’ll take your god-filled soul, fill it with devils and dust.

Wasn’t moving to Scottsdale supposed to put glitter on all this? I went to my first ever Scottsdale happy hour, 3 years after work moved to Scottsdale, 2 weeks before leaving. Then i dashed home to pick up the kids.

I punished G for the first time when she was mean to her sister after repeated warnings — took away TV for the night. She played Starfall on the computer, and took a step learning to put letters together to sound out words, another area we’ve been too lax with her when she doesn’t want to work hard. Brilliant, huh?

I got tired, bored and annoyed as shit cooking in the sun waiting for Alana to stop hating the pool at a friend’s party.   So I put her on the step and went to play with G while Beckie picked up the shattered pieces. An hour later we switched kids and i did it again. An hour later this was in full effect.