writing through lebron colored glasses
(hannah and me, part twenty-five)


i knew that i wanted to sit down and write this morning, but i didn't really have anything gnawing on my creative nerve. truly, the only thing i can think of this morning is lebron james and how happy i am that i didn't turn the tv off the three separate times i told sarah "cleveland just lost the game" and go to bed. but i do know that it's been a while since i went "hannah and me" on y'all's ass, so i'll just talk about her for a few minutes.

hannah is going through a "phase". i hope it's a phase. i really do, because there are many times in the last month or so when her hard-headedness has left me wanting to find a brick wall to drive my head through. i have been hesitant about talking about it here, though, because i can already feel the eye-rolling and hear the snickering from the parents that may read this and have already dealt with a three year-old and i can't stand the thought of them saying something like "oh, they are just three.", or "you are getting what you deserve.", or "they are acting just like you at that age." all of those things may be true to some degree, but damn if that doesn't simplify things a little too much, right? i have never been a huge fan of painting with a broad brush or generalizing to the "n"th degree. it just makes everything seem too "ecclesiastes" for me. 'there's nothing new under the sun'. 'your own opinions are just variations of opinions of people that came before you.' bullshit. bullshit. bullshit. everything than hannah is doing right now, every way that she is reacting to me and sarah, every button of mine that she is pushing has EVERYTHING to do with me. and her mom. and the teachers she's around at school. and her classmates. and people at church. and she, in a very natural and reactionary way, is developing into her own little person that, oftentimes, is not happy with the direction her world is taking. and when hannah ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

all of this, the newfound attitude and aptitude for displaying said attitude has made me question and account for my role in what is going on. am i doing what's best for her? am i making the right decisions? am i treating other people in a way that she'll see and want to treat other people? most of the time, i think the answer is yes. sometimes it's not. tuesday night at softball (church league, mind you), some dickhead was flapping his lips all game. i mean, all game. and he sucked. so, finally, as he was on third base talking shit and prancing around and off the bag like an idiot, i told kiker that if he left third base again to throw the ball at his head and maybe we, as a team, could teach him an important life lesson. that lesson? don't be a dick. the dick and i (who i am sure came across as a dick too) jawed back and forth. he wouldn't shake my hand after the game and i imagined this scenario in my head this morning while i worked out...i imagined walking up to the fields next week with hannah and coming across the guy and him making a comment or asking me if i was going to raise my daughter to act like i did in the softball game last week. and my immediate imaginary response to his imaginary question was, "if by raise you mean crack on douchebags when she grows up? then yes. yes i am." i then imagined hannah telling maine about softball asking her what a douchebag was. ugh.

clearly, i have some work to do. as a person and most definitely a parent. i mean, i will definitely raise hannah and caroline to be aware of douchebags and be able to call them out in a very clever and articulate way, but i have to be careful in how i raise her to define a douchebag. i can't go painting with a broad brush.

hannah's "phase" has an awful lot to do with me. i know that. she is stubborn because her mommy is stubborn and, dude, i am fucking stubborn. but she is also very, very sweet. quick to hug. quick to smile. quick to talk to complete strangers and quick to make most people around her fall in love with her. i hope there's a little some of me in all that too. and i hope that as she grows out of this phase and into the next, i can help her sweet to rise and her sour to sink.

love you, baby girl.

p.s. - amare may have the tattoo, but lebron is black (basketball) jesus.