I travel a bit for my real job.  My most recent trip was to good ol’ Columbus, OH.  Columbus was quite possibly one of the cleanest downtown areas I have stayed in.  It was also one of the most boring city centers I have visited.   I think that had something to do with the NHL season being over with and the minor league baseball team being on the road.  With all that said, the dining options were extremely Meh. 

When I am on the road, we use FaceTime to keep in touch.  We used to use Skype before we stocked up on iDevices.  My little monster likes seeing my face on the iPad or iPhone and usually is more engaging through a video conference than simply a voice call.  She usually recaps her day or tells me what she had for lunch or dinner.  There was one night, though, were I made a mistake.  I would even go as far to call it a rookie mistake.

It was nearing the middle of the week.  I gave them a ring like I did each night prior.  My wife answered and asked the girl to pause the program on the television so we could talk for a bit.  Carmen refused, curled up into a ball and proceeded to let out her patented grunt.  I really do need to call the trademark office for that one.  

What did I do?  Well, Mr. Genius over here started to tell her if she didn’t want to talk then she needed to go to her room so I could talk with her mother.  Yeah, I know!  What a big dummy.  I’m just some big face on a 3.5″ screen.  Who the heck am I to tell her what to do?  How can I discipline her when I’m stuck inside some gadget?  Not only that… I didn’t even give the wife a chance to do her thing to try to smooth out the situation.  I was too quick to respond in the way I did.  There wasn’t much soothing going on to try to get her to want to talk.

See, it was the same week she started her new school.  I was away for a few days at this point, so she was starting to reallyyyy miss me.  She’s still adjusting to the idea of the new baby on the way.  And here I was being a dick.

The truth is – I could’ve curled into a ball and acted angry at the world, too.  I was not too thrilled about being away for her first week at a new school.  I wished I was there to help her transition.  Rather than expressing all that, I was frustrated and lashed out trying to discipline her from afar.

I wish I was there to help my wife with the whole thing, as well.  I knew it was going to be a tough thing for her to do, but double that with a growing a tiny human being inside of her, triple that with needy pets and quadruple that with work being done on the house, well… Wow.  I really do feel like a big jerk now.

So now I have two people to apologize to all because I slipped and made an error in judgement.  Instead of letting my emotions get the better of me, I should have either tried to smooth things over with the little one, shut my trap and let my wife do the parenting (She’s pretty qualified to do so. I checked her papers.)  or told them they could call them back later when I got back from eating a bison meatloaf salad something or other.

Sigh… I’m sorry.

Soooo…. Who’s up for froyo tonight?!