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Colleen decided it was time to start potty training Julia. Juju has expressed an interest, but lacked the focus to follow through.

That’s not entirely fair; Julia is two years old. A two year old lacks certain requisite personal qualities to succeed: an attention span, fine motor skills, and the realization that not everyone smells of piss.

I digress.

Initial forays were met with frustration, the liberal use of toilet paper, jaundiced socks, and little more. This time was different.

Colleen pressed the Potty Watch into service. For the uninitiated the Potty Watch is an egg timer that you strap to your toddler. Its purpose is to remind the trainee that it is time to void, regardless of whether one needs to or not. It is the pattern of behavior that we are concerned with here, not actual urges. The theory yields results, tangible results. The lesson comes at a price.

The Potty Watch emits a grating, woefully off key selection from the toddler canon. Somehow, against all reasonable logic and odds, it works. I continue to be amazed at the progress she makes with (and without) the watch. Her sense of pride and ownership are palpable. Julia completes the job at hand, looks into the abyss, and exclaims:

I magic.

I am a perfectionist — in the worst possible way.

It is a wonder that you are seeing this post at all. The truth is  I labor over each of them (though it may not seem as if I do) for ages. I agonize over small things, the minutae, the bits that interest me. I tweak and pull and preen until the piece suits my tastes and to that end I have a full dozen posts that you will likely never see. It is folly.

I am a perfectionist — in the worst possible way.

I would rather put something off than risk being mediocre.

Yes, we did. Major news networks have announced, what will become, the 44th president of the United States of America: Barack Obama. I am pleased as this marks the end to eight years of poor policy, stewardship, and a general disregard for civil liberties. I am optimistic about the future and look forward to what it holds for Americans and the country which we call home.

My great grandmother, May, could feel the weather. My great grandfather, Steve, could read the clouds. I can feel a thousand things but their depth of feeling and connection to their surroundings has confounded me.
Our perception of the world around us, of time, is a curiosity. My own sense of time has changed fundamentally over the years: I mean to describe a part of it here.

Many find calendars indespensible: it meters our commerce, vocations, and leisure. It fixes memory to the head of a pin.

I loathe it.

I believe the observed New Year of the Gregorian calendar is artificial; this synthetic construct has served only to disrupt our circadian rhythms. It confuses and disrupts what was once the domain of nature. Did my forebears suffer the same nagging sensation of imbalance?

My alternative is not revolutionary or unique, though my ritual may be. Necessity forces me to follow convention, however, I privately observe my own calendar. My year ends with the terminus of fall — a natural time for one to reflect. It is a time of harvest, of plenty: an opportunity to survey the labors of the spring and summer and take measure of what has been done. It is this harvest of memory that I treasure above all fall rituals. It is a time to gather what I have sown and draw it close to sustain me during the long winter.

Memories grow distant and long, just as the shadows, in fall. It is in these memories that I meditate and take communion with my past.

I believe that life is an adventure.

I believe that no matter how routine or mundane or trivial a day may seem, there is always something to be gleaned from it.

My wife loves to take pictures, and this passion provides an avenue for realization. We purchased a new camera a few months ago and the moments she has captured are simply magic. The routine, the mundane, the trivial: I see them with new eyes — hers. It can be hard to describe what someone brings to your life, particularly when their contribution is vast (as hers is). These photographs serve to document, in myriad ways, the adventure and wonder that surrounds us.

Life is an adventure — because she is in it.

For this, I am most thankful.

My oldest daughter, Grace, hoarded spare change for the last year. I would find her squirreling away money, gathering it in her tiny fists and depositing into a pink plastic pig. Her focus was singular — when asked what she was saving for the answer was consistent: The Minnesota Great-Together. The State Fair is colloquially known as The Great Minnesota Get Together; Grace, in her pidgin toddler speak, truncated it.

Time is cruel: anticipation draws out the seconds — they slacken as the shadows do in late August. Time is particularly cruel to toddlers, and their parents, as a sensible explanation for it is elusive. “The Fair is nearly here”, we would tell her, “a few weeks longer, Gracie”. She waited. Patiently.

The Fair did come. It was magical.

She spent with care and measured restraint. She enjoyed the sights, sounds, smells, food, and the rides. The stories that come from her three visits this season still bring a smile; on difficult days I can close my eyes and take myself back there: to her wonder and her smile and her laugh.

Approximately 365 days after my last post I have returned. Life continues to challenge, confound, surprise: we celebrated the birth of our second child this year (another girl); I took a new job; I have failed to properly maintain personal relationships; I have aged another year.

For my thirty-first year I have a series of resolutions:

Make my family the priority
Keep in regular contact with my friends (both near and far)
Post regularly
Write a decent short story
Write five good poems
Write five bad poems
Purchase flowers for my wife no less than 12 times
Visit my brother
Take my wife out on no less than 12 dates
Take my daughters out on no less than 12 dates
Enjoy the company of my parents regularly
Write a compelling web application in Ruby on Rails
Organize the IT Guild into a formidable collection of personalities and talent
Finish no less than eight novels
Attain Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Attain VMWare Certification
Volunteer my time to a charitable organization
Teach my children how to be kind and generous
Create five original recipes and share them with the world
Exercise regularly

Surely some of these are trite, however, I feel it best to note them all. I cannot avoid what I can see — these are the things I shall do this year.

ad multos annos!

Today I turn thirty.

I weep for my youth.
I weep for my hair.
I weep for my pride.
I digress.

Thirty is not a substantial drama; thirty is a milestone. It is a milestone which I identify, acknowledge, and ignore. I focus on the following during this time of struggle and inevitable reality:

I have a wonderful wife.
I have a wonderful daughter.
I have a wonderful life.

The aforementioned realities are static not transitory. I live a most charmed and blessed life.

My daughter is a wonder.
I arrived late at the fair; a thick and sticky evening, the daylight clung to us all as did the sweet scent of fried food. I was late.
My wife and daughter had already spent the better part of the day at the fair enjoying the sights and sounds and smells; my task was to find them in midst of this Great Minnesota Get Together. I found them west of the Education Building, in the Kidway. One must understand the nature of the Kidway — it is a miniature version of the Midway with all of the colour and intrigue and toothless Carnies.

Grace devoured it; she flitted from attraction to attraction with nary a care for her mother or I. She was curious about these mechanical curiosities — just as she was with the John Deere equipment displayed on Machinery Hill. She was curious about it all: the people, food, and folly. The fair was an enormous, technicolor, undulating dream — she was its avatar. Instead of a sword she carried an ear of corn. Instead of a crown she wore a pink paper hat in the shape of pig’s ears. She thoroughly enjoyed the day and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her, my champion.

I have learned to live with loss; I suppose we all do at some point in our lives. Today marks six years since my brother Chris passed away.

Loss defines.

I remarked to friends and family in the days after he was gone that everything mattered more. Each choice, each action, each in-action: each would be measured against a more perfect ideal and each would require meaning. After six years I have realized this pursuit is fruitless — I cannot find meaning and purpose where there is not any. I cannot make reason from unreasonable circumstances. I can not make possible the impossible. What his loss has taught me, though, is that I can learn to love and accept and prioritize.

I have made my peace, imperfect as it is, with his loss. I have found meaning in those empty and vagabond days after he left. I learned that I can love for an eternity without condition or possession: that I can love an idea, a memory.

I vowed to teach my children about their Uncle — their Uncle Chris. I talk to my daughter Grace about him each night and she now says his name: Unka Kiss. For now, this is enough.

I miss our shared history. I miss my sounding board. I miss my brother.

With all that I miss, I still have love.