Somebody's Watching Me

First let me say this about "Another Brick in the Wall", your wife is not secretly talking to me, I am not reading your mail, and I do not live in your attic. Of all the posts that I have done this one rates second behind "You Can't Handle the Truth" for comments, emails, and phone calls. If you feel like Brick was for you, it was, it was for me too. We are all building walls, just make sure that you spend some time tearing it down as well.
Now on to our regularly scheduled posts, enjoy-


When I first heard GEICO's new advertising campaign the business man came out in me. I couldn't help but think what a waste of money the new campaign was. The Gecko had such momentum, nationally known, all over billboards, I would guess they had little Gecko stuffed animals, key chains, coffee mugs, et al. Now, they have to change thousands of billboards, trinkets, production for radio, TV, print, etc. Yet, when they came out with a stack of money with eyeballs on it, it seemed to work, much to my amazement. I guess I conceded my original incorrect perception when an employee of mine came to work singing "Somebody's Watching Me" and then said, "that's just the money you could be saving with GEICO". When I heard this, I figured the new ad campaign was going to stick.
However, when I see the commercial with the music from Rockwell, Somebody's Watching Me, I can't help but think about when my kids were younger. Just in case you don't remember when your kids were young, every time you were dropping a deuce at home with small children, it seems like the children seek you out like a smart bomb heading towards a terrorist's bedroom window, they seek you out with laser like accuracy from 150 miles away, like a moth to a flame. The funny thing to me is it always seemed like the kids sense of smell was totally shot, but I digress.
Often when I am calling my son for a chore or to discipline I wonder if his sense of hearing is totally shot. Sometimes I think he is completely deaf, because he definitely has a unique ability to ignore me, so on several occasions I decided to check his hearing by saying something like, "cake" or "cookie" just to make sure that his hearing is okay, it is. My son had multiple ear infections as a baby so my concern for his hearing is genuine. My daughter though has the same situation going on. I can instruct her to her face while she is looking at me in the eyes and then ask her to repeat what I just said 5 seconds earlier and she has no idea.

Bottom line, I am worried about my children not listening to me.

One thing that I really found disturbing is when my daughter started snapping at people. It wasn't all the time but if her Mother or I felt like we needed to remind her of something she already knew, she would give an aggressive look and snap, "I KNOW THAT". My wife and I were confused, why does she do this? Where did she learn this from? Of course in my world, my children learn all of their bad behaviors from other children at school, never from home. So my wife and I coached her (see Life Coach), "honey, when somebody reminds you of something you already know, you don't have to answer so aggressively, just simply say, thank you for reminding me". Well the proverbial chicken came home to roost the other day when my wife, in an attempt to help, decided to remind me to take something with me on a trip. The first thing in my head, you guessed it, "I KNOW THAT", to my credit, I stopped the words just as my teeth were parting. A light of wisdom shone down on my head like when Moses parted the Red Sea, imagine angels singing in the background, indeed it was a miracle. Finally, I opted to use wisdom and I responded with, "thank you for reminding me". I was pleased with myself for not putting another brick in the wall, but it also was then I realized that my daughter picked up her little snappy attitude from me and not the heathens at her school. All this time she was just emulating me. I finally realized that I needed to be less worried about my children's inability to listen to me and concern myself more with what they see in me.

Red Fox Followers, I assure you, somebody is watching you, and it's not the money you could be saving with GEICO.

Click on the post title above and enjoy a little tune.

Be intentional, be engaged, be interactive, be a Red Fox Father.