Whining.

Joy has started this new way of crying. Before, her crying was strictly clear and purposeful. There was no real middle ground, either she was upset and crying, or not (refer to aforementioned checklist). I never appreciated how much I enjoyed this more or less binary state until this week. In the communications industry, any new gizmo or geegaw has a multitude of options, and when I sold a particular gizmo to any customer(s), I would try to talk the customers out of 95% of the options, or conveniently forget to tell the customers about them. Honestly, for the most part, they didn't need them. Secondly, if I "allowed" the customer to have the options, or enabled the options, I would be stuck dealing with this gizmo and it's million options for the lifespan of the gizmo (or the company heh heh). Too many options are too confusing to most of us. I am NO exception.

This "middle ground crying" could be described as "whining". I really can't describe it any better (I would have to embed an executable sound file, and I am NOT that nerdy...really). It's definitely a cry of sorts, but she's not committed to it, so it comes out kinda wimpy. Now my point is, if SHE'S not committed to it, why the heck should I be? Just because this thing is making noise, must I respond? Modern philosophy says yes. You should respond to all crying a newborn makes. That begs the question, "for this process, define a newborn".

So the analyst in me wants to define this New Operational Parameter. What does it mean, what processes does it spawn, and what processes spawn it, and how to mitigate it? I found out last night that this noise occurred during a wet diaper situation. Wet diaper usually spawned a much more aggressive noisy status, but last night, there was a wet diaper, and there was whining. Joy usually gets up at around 7 am, eats, gets a new diaper, and goes back to sleep for an hour or so. Sometimes there is crying before this sleeping. This morning, there was whining. She's beside me now, sleeping like a... hmmm... I'll think of something; let me get back to you on that one. In any case, the procedure was the same; she's fed, changed, and sleeping, but in the interim there was this whining. So, obviously "wet diaper" spawns the whining, and "fatigue" does too. So, obviously, whining is not a clear indicator of any status I can find so far. Inconclusive.

What processes are spawned by the whining? Most of them fall into my court. I've been treating the whining as any other status indicator so far, again I refer to the checklist, and results are very unsatisfactory. The whining makes me check diapers, try to get her to nap, make sure she's warm, see to it she's fed... does this sound familiar? Inconclusive!

One of my philosophies is Be Somebody, Don't Be Nobody. Be who you want to be, exist on some plane, wave your flag, say it proud. Be a lover, be a fighter, be a builder or be a killer, it doesn't matter, just be someone. Be all about that person. BE. In that philosophy there is no room for whiners. By the way you can't BE a whiner. That doesn't count. So, here's my progeny whining. This hurts me at a level I've never seen before. Is this a mirror into me? Am I looking at me when I look at her? They say that true greatness is defined by what you do when nobody's watching. She doesn't know anybody's watching. This is a disturbing turn of events, I can say with certainty. She only has the tools I (and my wife) gave her. This whining did not come from my wife. I was in the delivery room, I saw what happened. It was clear to me at that point that my wife was the kindest, most loving, most tender, toughest, baddest, strongest mofo ever. This whining came from me obviously.

I am looking at myself when I look at my daughter. She gets it honest, I have to admit. How can I "fix" what's "wrong" with her, if I can't do it for myself? HAH! Maybe this is one of those times when I am supposed to make her better than me. That's kind of bullshit, isn't it? If I make someone better than me, that means I don't walk the walk. That means I don't practice what I preach. That's not true (Id like to think)! Maybe the best thing I can do for her is not to focus on her imperfections, but to point out my own, and let her think about it. I can't make her be better, but I can show her what NOT better is, and let her DECIDE to be better. That's the only way she's going to improve over her life. So maybe instead of getting frustrated about her whining, I should teach her how to deal with her issues, and let her stop whining herself. Maybe even before that, I should deal with my own issues. Maybe I should take my life by the horns and be in charge of it. Maybe I should stop whinin....