Since the Last Time

Since the last time I wrote anything from the Dad Chronicles…well, it’s been a while. The summer of 2016 has been one of the most overworked periods of my life if not the most time I’ve spent at my job – and although I’ve made a few bucks to pay down various debts and honey-do projects, I have been perpetually tired with empty pockets and an emotionally starved family needing its fearless leader. I don’t like working 72 hours every week, but I still have to provide for my two in more than just a couple of pesos and the occasional play date. Maybe my employer (who picked up the tab on the little ca’s hospital bills) could help me out a little more with a departmental transfer and bumping my hourly pay to what I’ve gotten lately with the epic overtime permanently; sadly, I’m nearly indispensable simply for working the graveyard shift and doing a halfway decent job while toiling six nights per week.

For all of the #NICUNurses out there @UAMS @archildrens, thanks for helping us with our superstar #CaeliStrong pic.twitter.com/qAyyZRfUNs

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) September 13, 2016

Don’t get it twisted:  the money is cool, but I’m looking for money and the opportunity to be more valuable than just some random peon.

I have a dream, y’all, and that dream includes a life change that more than benefits the three of us greatly. Just so everyone knows, we’re not leaving Bryant anytime soon. 

So what’s been up lately?

Caeli graduated from the High-Risk newborns program at Arkansas Children’s Hospital a few weeks ago and is doing remarkably well with her therapies thanks to prayers, her fighting nature, and mastery of nearly every skill babies of her age must be able to do. Am I still signing her up for MMA on her fourth birthday? Possibly, but what we want for her is to be able to play and share with other children without beating them into next week. Her fighting nature comes from her feisty mother along with being born at 24 weeks and spending those 146 days battling for her life last year in the NICU. What we do not need to do is leave an open plate within her reach as the food will find its way onto the floor!

Introducing the 2016 High Risk Graduate - Caeli Elise! God is in the blessing biz #CaeliStrong @chatnes @archildrens pic.twitter.com/cOr5qEBG4R

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) July 29, 2016

Even as parents of a super heroine toddler, sleep is an elusive target.  When Caeli lays down, Chastity and I had better find a few moments to catch a quick nap!

Life before we lost sleep

With all of the things that are working out, one project still looms:  the storage building. I probably should have paid someone to finish it out by now, and after two-and-a-half months of letting materials sit in the backyard taking hit after hit of every weather phenomenon possible, I just hope the plywood and 2 x 4s are salvageable so we can get the thing up once and for all, and I can move on to the next project on the ever expanding honey-do list.

Here's the before:

Chunkin' up the deuce to the Dad afro, gray hairs and all #blackdadstyle #blackish pic.twitter.com/Cpt3stU4J9

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) July 30, 2016

Now, the after:

Here's the after. I know I still have a spiky gray patch up front #blackdadstyle #byebyeafro pic.twitter.com/y0uPdtXz25

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) July 30, 2016

We still run from one fire to another, meeting after meeting, doctors’ appointments, therapy sessions, and to places where we are considered to be simply bodies until we’re critically needed (again, this summer at work. Prior to our fifth wedding anniversary August 6, I’ve only had six days off since June 2 and am admittedly burned-out to the point that any day can be my last day at the job. Thanks to saving on the run and planning conservatively for the next few months even when it could be easier to simply go out and purchase a brand new pickup as a visual display of hard work paying off. I remembered what it was like to sit back and choose the role versus being forced into anything that marginally paid the bills several years ago). 

Since the last time I posted anything from the Dad Chronicles, I must have finally reached my breaking point and instead of doing something really stupid that causes detriment to the surname or negatively impacts how I provide for the family, I found a different venue to combat it.

What?

Laughter.

At my age, fisticuffs are certainly not the answer and picking up that game-changer will guarantee me serious jail time. There are better ways of managing conflict even though I am better known for simply ignoring the hot air. Why not laugh it off, then? Besides, I thoroughly enjoy matching wits and calmly shredding contrary point-of-views with a few well-placed statements in debate:  You just cannot defeat a professional wordsmith who knows the word surrender is not an option with juvenile insults.

I can laugh when it’s all over and more now because it frustrates the ignorant among us.

When even watching ESPN no longer matters, I will have Chastity and Caeli.

When I smoke that final rack of ribs and pass on the Oklahoma Joe, God will still continue to order my steps.

If I ever get to retire from work, I’ll still be daddy. I’ve said I expect to get out of the workforce around 75 years old, but that’s assuming I mainly use that muscle between my ears and delegate better to those whose expertise shines more than my own instead of repeated manual labor that makes an insane profit off my blood, sweat, and tears for someone else.

After I finally close the Dad Chronicles for good and cease life as the creator/one-man band for AD&AD, it will still serve as an ebenezer of what the past nine years of consulting, blogging, and technical discipline have been about. You know, the internet never really dies; it’s possible that someone could find my original Angelfire website to see what was important to me nearly twenty years ago and what web design in the ‘90s looked like rife with complex hexagonal HTML codes for every color and symbol under the sun. I still have the books in my storage facility back home if you don’t believe me. While a lot of people used Dreamweaver to create their own pages, I learned the old-fashioned way of what happens when one bad line of code mucks up hours of hard work writing and testing on every available platform possible.

Working Girl

I’m tired of missing out on so many things in life; what was the purpose of working an average of eighty-five hours per week throughout my twenties and early thirties if I am still doing it as I near age 40?