The Runtyun

She was born the same month that I was, forty years later though. When the excitement of the birth was over and the baby was clean and wrapped up in her birthing cloths, when I stopped feeling woozy and found a certain control over my emotions. The nurse handed me the cooing little bundle–my daughter.

She was warm in my arms. All I could see were her eyes, they were so big. I know that at only a few minutes of age there is not very much for a baby to reference, yet she looked straight at me and she had me. At the time I did not know the adventures that I would go through as a father. The things I would endure as a parent and man. At the time all I saw were eyes and a bright red pudgy face and a little bubble of saliva at the corner of her mouth.

I put her down on the birthing table and just stared. What had I done? This little creature, perfect with ten toes and ten fingers, one little head that looked too big for that little body. What had I done? I put my hand out to her to see what she would do. Nothing. I guess she could not see–being only few minutes old. My finger brushed her hand, she did not jump, but reached out and gripped my finger. She was strong!

She would have to be strong coming into the life I was involved in. We went through a few struggles before getting to the somewhat stable life we live now. During her toddler years she was very out going. Her smile in the morning was brighter than the sun at sunrise. It carried me through some of my darkest days.

Now she is so wise, yet strangely naive. She can understand things beyond her years, yet in another minute ask a question so innocent that I can only wonder. The Runtyun is growing into a fine person despite my parenting skills.

I have stumbled through this whole parenting experiment and you know what? She is doing pretty well despite me.


Sunday, February 10, 2013

12-02-27 No Internet


When we are at home we use my phone to access the internet. It is not the fastest gateway but it is adequate for our needs. Actually, when we are watching something on Netflix and the feed needs to buffer, the Runtyun and I will talk about stuff or merely endure the pause in the programming. I fool myself that we are learning patience and sometimes even the art of conversation. (believe me I am not an artist there!)
I tried to run an update on the phone software this week and everything went well. Well, at least until I tried to connect to the internet, I should say. My phone would not allow the internet to be tethered. The technical details are beyond me and this story. Suffice it to say, the Runtyun could not watch Suite Life and I was on an imposed moratorium of the Xfiles! Oh the pain of it all!
Neither one of us knew what to do during this time of duress. I fought with the phone trying to figure out what was wrong while she wondered about listlessly. I kissed her good night and decided to go to bed early too. I fiddled with the phone a little before turning off the light. I still could not get a tether going to connect to the net.
Saturday came along and I was still trying to figure out the issue ( can you say “Obsess Much”?). Well, life goes on even if the internet does not, so we went about our Saturday stuff. Finally we went to a local coffee shop that had WiFi. I could not take it any more! After doing some research, I found a course of action to reinstall some stuff to the phone and started to fix the thing. Well, downloading updates and software uses lots of battery power and the phone died on me and I could not get it going again. The weekend was getting worse and worse.
Deep breath time. We went to a battery store. We figured the phone was OK and I left the battery to be tested over night. We got home and made dinner.
We talked during the meal, nothing profound, just talk. We did the dishes and settled down to a Redbox movie. I settled with my phone, plugged in this time, and finished the process to get it working as my modem to the internet (read: gateway to my version of sanity). Finally I got it working and we have everything as it was again. We finished the movie and started to have a pillow fight. I do not know how it started, but we had an epic pillow fight, the Runtyun held her own, but I finally prevailed! Something about age and guile will prevail against youth and stamina every time!
The time we spent not watching Netscape or surfing the internet, we really spent time with each other. Wow, I had forgotten how much fun my kid really is! I think we will have to have dinner away from the TV more often. We had nothing to do, no TV anyhow, and spent “meaningless” time with each other. Finally, it was time to go to bed, she grumbled about it, but was snoring within 5 minutes.
olc
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