The Introverted Dad and His Extroverted Daughter

As I write this post, my daughter Caeli is hopefully asleep. She is the joy of my life and because everything for her is brand-new, it is much more enjoyable for the two of us. One thing I have discovered is she has her mom’s personality – even when she is quiet, Chastity is someone you do not miss. Me? I’m better off in the corner reading a book or newspaper than having to make what seems to be awkward conversation with relatives or childhood friends who still have me in one narrow little binder and lately, I’d rather be in the backyard smoking various meats.

My days are no longer my own, for they belong in this order:  God, Chastity, Caeli, Mount Zion, close friends, family, neighbors, and the rest of you. Rineco Chemicals fits somewhere in the mix, and after this long, I seem to have made my penance with those peaceful nights working in the control room beyond the riffs from Foo Fighters and those hilarious voices emanating from my walkie-talkie.

Fortunately, my daughter allows me to be a curator of her experiences. What do I mean by that?

While being her dad is lot more fun – and challenging – than I ever imagined, I also have the advantage of culling the banal with fistfuls of fun and more excitement than Pontiac tried to play up in the 1980s over any car outside of the Knight Rider Firebird. As much as I love playing airplane and Peek-A-Boo! with Caeli, I’m sure she’s just as happy during story time or when she finds that sweet spot on daddy’s shoulder to take a nap on.

Yes, I have become a co-sponsor of fun: Chastity and Little Miss Sunshine both have cuteness overload on lock in addition to their combined outgoing nature of go-go-go. They are the ones who get to go to the doctor’s office matching from head to toe and take crazy selfies in the car as well as the two-toothed grins and laughs during playtime.

Look @chatnes at what I just pulled from the camera pic.twitter.com/AMudpEmHMW

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) February 26, 2016

How have I learned to manage myself in the minefield of small talk and quick jaunts to Wal-Mart without running to the mental ward or to the newly opened liquor stores in the past thirteen months? Prayer, strength, and the fact that my in-laws live eight miles away for the extremely rare instances I have had to drop Caeli off. But…there’s more!

You see me rollin'...

I’ve learned to turn my obstacles into opportunities by relying on the grandparents for help.  Since Tim and Edna (my in-laws) live eight miles away and are really enjoying being grandparents, why not utilize their time and resources? It frees me up to take of business around the house, get a few hours of much-needed shuteye, or interview with prospective employers. Sometimes I just need a few hours to myself beyond the ninety minutes between my shift ending and hitting the sack for another five or six hours of sleep. Nonetheless, they are overjoyed with spending quality time with their only granddaughter.

No need in stopping with just the grandparents – we have great friends and neighbors to rely upon. While Cooper, Lorelei, and Samone are around her age, their parents also are appreciative of play dates. It’s also easy to walk next door or across the street during NFL season when New England is playing either Pittsburgh or Green Bay and vice versa knowing that the babies have playmates to make the times more special. Remember, we parents are the curators of our children’s memories, so let’s keep those as positive and exciting as possible.

Due to our circumstances and legitimate health concerns, we haven’t been able to bring Caeli along to very many parties. That will probably change as her play cousin Parker turns six and the following month her first cousin Aston becomes a big four-year-old boy. People will ogle and mosey themselves into snapshots that may or may not make it to social media (no worries – daddy has the majority of those pictures on the cloud), and she becomes more of an asset than a liability. Babies have a way of being the life of the party that even drunken nineteen-year-old fraternity boys envy. When she finally tires out, Caeli falls asleep; as the introverted parent, that is our cue to exit stage left.

Thanksgiving:  Ryan, Aston, Caeli

I absolutely cannot forget the single people in my life that might enjoy spending time with my daughter. Before Caeli was born, my sister-in-law Leeshun implicitly helped me figure out this uncle thing through Markel, Josh, Deshawn, and Evona. Instead of sitting around the apartment, I took the younger three out either individually or together for basketball or play dates and pizza to build some semblance of a relationship with them. As for Markel, I owe him a little more than the old Oklahoma drills from football two-a-days. They all are old enough to talk about stuff that happened at home or during the school days that I needed to know about – and some that simply made me shake my head. Any count, we all had fun.

Remember that even as an introvert, my daughter has needs too, including those that she may not be fully able to properly manage yet. For example, if we decide to jump around on daddy’s lap after immediately finishing a bottle, there is the potential that Caeli may throw up all over us and the floor. She wants to play yet we need to let that milk work its way through her developing digestive system before we resume playing again. Because she is her momma’s baby, she also requires a morning nap which we are able to squeeze in after morning therapy – during that time, I usually cook the evening’s dinner in addition to peruse LinkedIn and/or edit past blog postings. The naps are practically mandatory for a happy baby in the afternoon and nights when she hears or sees the other parent at the end of the day.

I’ve never been a fan of big crowds and anything over twenty people makes me feel uncomfortable. Of course, my church family didn’t know this about me until the past sentence – I can cast that uneasy feeling aside thanks to prayer and the strength to show an outward confidence in serving God through whom all things are possible. I still have to take care of my mental health, and that includes learning how to say no. I need some downtime to recharge my batteries and I shouldn’t feel any shame for doing so because at the end of the day, I am still Caeli’s daddy.

Lastly, I have to relax my expectations. Yeah, yeah, I know; I want Caeli to graduate from an Ivy League university but if she follows her parents’ footsteps and becomes a second-generation Reddie alum, I’ll be equally proud of her. Looking back on childhood, we had a slew of unstructured solitary play time where we were sent outside to play with the dog, ride our bikes up and down Friendship Road, or go exploring in the woods behind the house. I also must resist the temptation to enroll Caeli in MMA on her fourth birthday or Girl Scouts soon after and generally overbooking her life after the 3:30 bell rings at Springhill or Collegeville elementary schools. When I allow her to find ways to occupy her time freely (she’s one year old; I’m still watching in the same room if not in the next one), she follows the example and becomes more independent while knowing Da-Da is never more than a few steps away.

Being an introverted dad has necessitated the need to revise survival strategies in dealing with the outside world – liquid courage quickly becomes a weakness and babies do not respect hangovers. I do love that my daughter is such an extroverted child and she has not encountered a mean face – everyone loves babies, you know. The newness of life and the adventures that every day provides are teaching tools that prepare both of us for the future as well as shape her values and decision-making skills.