Traumatic Event…Endured!

Today was Max’s date with the dentist. He had two cavities back on the molars, and even though they are baby teeth, those suckers stay around until he’s 8 or 9 years old, so we had to fix them.

For those who aren’t up to speed, here’s the nitty gritty of toddler dentistry. To get them amenable enough that they dental work can get done, they are dosed with some goofy sauce (a sedative that also creates a touch of amnesia. Nice!). I had been freaked out that Max would become a gibbering nutcase when the sedation took effect, but other than a little extra giggling and some wobbly legs, he was the same boy before the procedure.

After the sedation kicks in, the kid is wrapped up in a restraining pappoose and taken back into the work room, while mom and dad lose their minds in the waiting room.Though both the wife and I were crazy with upset, or particular manifestations were different. she couldn’t bear to be any farther away from him than she absolutely had to be, and I wanted to bolt away from the thing I couldn’t stop. So, she sat vigil and I got us coffee from the Tim’s around the corner. My rational mind knew that he needed to get his teeth fixed, he was safe and he was resilient enough to weather this little storm, but the powerless feeling of not being able to save him from something unpleasant drove me out of the room.

When I returned with coffee 10 minutes later, the work was almost done. they found a third cavity while excavating the first two, so we gave them the green light to fix it too. 5 minutes later, a puffy faced and sad boy was handed back to us. The poor guy couldn’t communicate with us, between the swelling in his mouth and the muscle relaxation of the sedative, and I think that made things even harder for him.

It took a lot of hugs and kisses from mom for Max to calm down, and for the next hour or so he would occasionally wail with sadness. But, as he snuggled on the couch and relaxed with his mommy, things slowly got better. He didn’t want anything to do with me, so I had to help on the periphery as mommy’s assistant. After a 2 hour nap and a little more relaxing, he was ready to go to his favorite restaurant, the pink restaurant (AKA the Mandarin). After dinner, we went to the bookstore, toystore and fishy store, and he was back in fine form. Whew.

 

Alright Kipling, I’ll give that one to you.

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss”

– an excerpt from the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling

The idea of risking everything on one big gamble sounds  foolish,not manly. At least, that has always been my interpretation of those lines. I’m starting to think that there’s another way to see it.

I don’t like failure. I don’t know if it classifies as a fear, but I sure do avoid trying anything that I’m not reasonably certain to succeed in. It’s partially the legacy of never really being challenged by school as a child. I became used to doing pretty well without putting out much effort. I failed to learn how to try again after doing badly. My preference is to try anything new in a secret and isolated location with no witnesses,  so that I can hide the fact that I am not perfect at everything.

I’ve been more and more able to handle being terrible at something and yet continue to do it: as an example, I will never be a squash pro (curse you, hand-eye coordination) but I keep playing every week. In fact, I’m starting to be aware of how my attitude changes my skill level. If I get worked up at making 1 mistake, others will soon follow. That happened on thursday, and I dug a pretty deep hole for myself in the match. But after going down 2 sets to 0 (3 sets are all you need to win a match), I stopped beating myself up and micromanaging my playing style. Instead, I focused on the number of points I needed to win, and I didn’t worry about what my opponent’s score. By mentally chanting the number, I maintained focus on the game and started to play really well. I kept thinking about the Colorado Avalanche who used the motto “Mission 16W” for their playoff run and Stanley Cup win in 2001. I almost pulled off the comeback win, but we were at the end of our booked time on the court, and the people waiting to play made me nervous and distracted. I hate it when my hang-ups collide.

I’ve found that it’s easier to try new recipes when I cook now, since I’ve re-catagorized those attempts as ‘learning experiments’. If they go badly, oh well. I’ll do it better the next time. I’m also going to work the experiment label into my fiction writing as well. I won’t know what genres I really can’t write in, until I try them out. And every good writer must have a pile of unloved and ugly short stories haunting their office or basement.

So, maybe instead of those poetic lines being literally about risking your money at a game of chance, it’s really about accepting the risk that comes with life. You cannot achieve anything of greatness or lasting value if you confine yourself to comfortable chances.

I’m not yer daddy, idjit!

The strict rules of honor and manliness that tend to make my life more complicated than I like might be entirely the fault of cowboy movies and fantasy books. Be forewarned that I’m writing this right after a rigorous session at the gym, so my energy supplies are bottoming out.  My brain is slowing down word by word. Must hurry!

I have been hung up on the idea of holding your friends to a level of conduct and behavior that I follow myself. If you are judged by the company you keep, then it makes sense to work at helping your friends be less awful. But I am not their parents. I’m not in charge of giving them advice and guiding them through their own stupidity. I don’t even have to categorize some of them as friends. Just because I socialize with a dude and sometimes hang out at his house while doing so, I am not legally obligated to bump his rank up to ‘friend’.

And what a piece of work this particular idiot is. I won’t catalogue the armada of poor, selfish decisions he makes, but trust me when I say that he is a mess. I felt bad leaving him in his own catastrophes, because he has kids and Max enjoys playing with said kids. But I have to remember how resilient the human race is, and how kids have been thriving and excelling far past the hurdles their dumb parents have put in their way since the end of time.

Old movies taught me that you have to respect a man when you’re in his home, but they also taught me that smoking and drinking shots of cheap Hooch are manly as well, so it’s time to rethink their influence on me. Respect doesn’t have to mean you support a guy’s terrible choices or lead them to a more righteous life. In most cases, it means you try to avoid calling him a dullard to his face, and don’t steal anything while you’re there.