the happiest daddy on the block

a book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

2009-05-15T22:10:00.006-04:00

chinese proverb

reading to my daughter has been a source of sublime joy. i love to use different voices and point to the words as i go. she started out following my finger when i read to her and seeing the closed caption when we would watch television. often we would quote stories and scenes when we weren't reading or watching them.

there was a time when she would recite books from memory, which would amaze her grandparents. now she has moved on to actually reading, which amazes me. the first time i realized it, we were looking at one of her many horse books and she told me the name of several of her favorites from the table of contents! before i knew it, she was reading her books all by herself without me even reading them to her once. she sounds out new words and repeats them when i correct her.

i couldn't be more proud. it really is wonderful to hear her lilting voice read nursery rhymes, advertisements, or even the newspaper. we love to visit the local libraries and i often carry big stacks of books to and fro. she likes to read to her animals; but i am glad that she still asks me to read the dr. seuss.

curious behavior

2009-04-15T09:49:00.000-04:00

we watch the cartoon version of curious george on public television every once in a while. i've never been a fan of the franchise even when i was a kid. even then i didn't understand why the man with the yellow hat always gave so much responsibility to his pet monkey. the cartoon seems to have taken it much further; whether george is entrusted with the repair of a space shuttle or taking the initiative and fixing the clogged pipes (almost) like he saw the plumber do it. it makes me a little crazy to watch it all happen sometimes. then i just have to take a deep breath and remember that it's just a cartoon.

at the end of every episode there is a video segment with kindergarten age kids acting out what just happened in the show. it really bothers me because they preface the narration with the caveat: "curious george is a monkey and he can do things that you can't do." then they proceed to show the kids doing just what curious george did.

i make a point of telling my daughter that she can do anything that george can do. and more.

this week she told me, "some of the things he does are dangerous though."

guaranteed personality

2009-01-07T17:31:00.007-05:00

"i'm all lost in the supermarket

i can no longer shop happily

i came in here for a special offer

guaranteed personality!"

i have heard a lot of this song lately. my daughter insists on playing it over and over. i can't say that i mind all that much since london calling is one of my favorite albums. i have to thank ben folds for this development in her musical appreciation. his version of it during the credits of over the hedge inspired us to dance and me to play the clash for her in the car. it's that easy. i even showed her how to use the remote control on our stereo so that she can play "number 8" over and over. sometimes she'll get preoccupied with her toys and i get to hear the rest of the album. if i play the song on my guitar she will sing with me during the "i'm all lost" part at the end. that's when i'm found. she's too cool for school.

the clash helped me define myself in my formative years. they inspired me to investigate the political machinations for myself and to question authority. that said, it's some heavy and heady stuff to have my three year old daughter listening in on. the imagery of the "hedges over which i never could see" completes the isolation of "nobody seemed to notice me". this sad undercurrent gets lost in the groovy busyness of the song. since she and i do most of the shopping together, there is a connection for us there; especially when we have to go back and forth looking for that last thing on the list.

toy jail

2008-04-30T17:55:00.002-04:00

we have a system for discipline in our house that has been working for us. it's called toy jail. rather than the extended wrestling match that the popular 'naughty chair' method can involve, we prefer this more relaxed approach. basically, we warn shuggie when she is being "mean" and give her a warning that we will put whichever toy it is that she is playing with at the time into jail. usually, the warning is enough; but sometimes we have to carry through with the incarceration.

the swiper

2008-02-22T21:09:00.002-05:00

shuggie and i are often in a power struggle. i can get a little controlling and over-protective. sometimes i get impatient and take things away from her, rather than getting her co-operation. as anyone would, she gets upset when i do this. it is at these times that i become the swiper. if you aren't familiar with dora the explorer then you haven't heard the cries of "swiper no swiping!" shug uses this quite a bit; and it is a reminder to me that i might be going too far. there are times when i need to take things away from her for her own protection; and then there are times when i'm just being a nervous nelly (aka swiper). when i see my inner control freak flag a-flyin', i can only sheepishly echo the words of the foiled swiper: "oh man!"

season of the fair

2008-02-18T17:33:00.001-05:00

my daughter is in love with horses. so much so that she calls herself "little horsey". any coin-operated horsey ride that we see must be tamed. "can i ride it daddy? please! can i? can i? can i?" sometimes i take alternate routes home so that we don't pass the places with such equines. recently, we had an opportunity to go to an indoor fair that had a full size carousel. this was the first time that she had seen a real merry-go-round; and the awestruck look on her face in this video says it all.

toxic toys

2008-01-11T21:09:00.000-05:00

"when the world is running down,
you make the best of what's still around."

this holiday season i've felt like scrooge or the grinch or burger meister meister burger when it comes to the endless stream of toy recalls.

since just about every toy seems to come from china, it makes them all suspect. we could wait until a consumer advocacy group decides to test the toys that we actually have or until the companies announce a recall, or we could test for lead ourselves. unfortunately, the the us consumer product safety commission (http://www.cpsc.gov/) has declared that home testing kits are unreliable.

so what's a concerned parent to do? should we wait until consumer groups get around to randomly testing the toys that we actually have at home? should we wait for the companies to announce a recall and hope that our children will be alright in the meantime? should we get rid of all of the toys? here are some practical suggestions:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/2007/08/five-things-par.html

i have not gotten around to the inventory of all of the toys in our house. yikes. god forbid that i get rid of something that my daughter will miss. she's still upset about the purple golf ball that has disappeared. still, i don't want her to get caught up in the toxic materialism.

i need to simplify. certainly, we do not need all of the piles of stuff that folks feel obliged to buy during the holidays. it's the thought that counts; and yet it makes me uneasy when i think that there are folks all over the world fighting to survive against hunger, disease, and oppression.

my problem is that i'm a hoarder. i love recycling and reusing and...yes, even regifting. i don't like to throw things away. our basement is filled with things that we might need someday. i love my stuff. i have more books than i can read and more music than i have time; and still i pine for things that have been lost, broken, or misplaced along the way.

and then there's the newest latest. we all get caught up in the hype machine that tries to tell us what we need. there is a restlessness that burns in our guts that cannot be sated by the promise of the product. all too often i have felt the buyer's remorse over some disappointing new purchase. even if i really enjoy a new album or sweater or toy, i eventually get bored with it and seek out something new.

a lot of the things that are dangled in front of us are only a distraction from the things that really matter. i think that the toy recalls are really a wake up call for us. we all know somewhere deep down inside that the industry that fuels our economy is not sustainable. our convenient disposable culture makes for a disposable world.

a depressing sight this time of year is the piles of dead christmas trees ready to be carted off to the local landfill. it has always struck me as strange that we celebrate the season of life by killing a tree. that's why i prefer to use an artificial one. i know that there are folks that make their living by growing and selling real trees, and that they must have some usefulness; and yet i still have that initial reaction of disappointment whenever i see them.

"shine on what we throw away. shine on what we keep." one man's trash is another man's treasure, though it takes a special self-abnegation to dig through dumpsters and landfills. it's hard to imagine what value toxic toys might have. at the very least they can serve as a cautionary tale. perhaps the people that will survive in our increasingly toxic environment are ones who have developed a resistance to the nasty chemicals.

i can't help but smile when shuggie gets all excited about playing with the cardboard tube left over from a roll of wrapping paper or a bucket of snow. it gives me hope for the future.

creature comfort

2007-11-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

my daughter picked out this cinderella costume...

...but prefers pajamas. probably because the material is some cheap scratchy fabric that might cause a rash if she wore it too long.

at what point do we embrace uncomfortable clothes? when we become more concerned with what other people think than how we actually feel? mama-pajama says "i never embrace scratchy clothes" and why should she? why should anyone?

well, we found another costume that "little horsey" embraced wholeheartedly. on halloween morning we braved the fog on campus while the professor was in class; and were greeted with smiles wherever we cantered.

no daddy no !!!

2007-10-20T01:11:00.000-04:00

my wife jokes that our daughter is in a punk band and it's called
"no daddy no !"
i imagine fists pumping in rebellious fervor to the beat of her stopping feet. they call it the terrible two's (the terrible two step?); but it started well before her second birthday, and i imagine it will continue long into her life. as it has for me.

shuggie and i are in a power struggle over everything. she doesn't want what i give her, my help, or even my presence sometimes. we like to give her a choice whenever possible; but even then she can take her sweet time making a decision or keep changing her mind. she will resist getting changed, cleaned up, or out of the bath. or she'll insist that her mother does it instead of me. some of this is separation anxiety from professor mommy; but most of it stems from the way we interact.

i see a lot of myself in little shuggie's tantrums. that's because we're mirroring each other. i keep trying to stop her from doing things and she does the same thing to me. she learns her moves from us. it's for this reason that we do not spank. it makes no sense to model violent behavior and expect anything else back. there are plenty of other ways to discipline.

my impatience has a lot to do with it. if i am running late then i start to take charge and push things along. it's all about control. and i'm inconsistant. sometimes i let her do things until she reaches some arbitrary threshold, and then confuse her when i finally decide to act. i have to be careful when i reach that frustrated place. it doesn't help for me to lose my cool.

i get confused myself. i know that i cannot watch over her all of the time and that she will learn most effectively when she makes mistakes; and yet i cannot let her climb up a bookshelf, put her hand on a hot stove, or walk into traffic. so the push and pull of her developing her individuality and me protecting her becomes an ever evolving dance in which we learn from each other.

truth be told, part of me likes the idea of my little girl being a rebel rebel and questioning authority. of course, i see myself there.

it's called negativism. not thy will, but mine be done! contrarianism for its own sake: a kneejerk reactionary rebellious willfulness.

this is vital for the development of a healthy ego; and a part of all of our lives. and yet, when do we draw the line with drawing the line? do we ever?

certainly, we are all motivated toward getting what we want. sooner or later we're going to butt heads with someone. life involves continuous compromise or conflict.

the more i hang onto a preconceived idea of how an interaction with my daughter will go, the more upset and challenged i become. and the degree to which i push her is the degree to which she will push back.

sometimes i'll try and push things along when she is taking a long time as the decider. and the way that she will go for the opposite of whatever i suggest lays the groundwork for increasingly complex interactions involving reverse psychology and other subtle forms of coersion.

"mad at daddy" is rather direct. and challenging. the challenge is for me to take a breath and relax, to choose my battles and try and have fun, and to give my daughter enough freedom to grow and learn.

i'm getting better at what my wife calls "transitions": guiding shuggie from one activity to another. for me, it's all a lesson in patience.

don't fence me in

2007-09-08T18:54:00.000-04:00

i am of two minds when it comes to fences; and that ambivalence had me wringing my hands over the decision to put a fence in our backyard. hesitation and procrastination kept me from making any decision at all; until it was effectively made for me.

my objections consisted of the utopian sense of the land as a common treasury for all too share. certainly, a fence mars the natural beauty of any landscape with its obnoxious obviousness. as the old song goes, what gives anyone the right to keep people out or to keep mother nature in? there is something within us all that doesn't love a wall.

on the other side, there have been stray dogs that have ventured through our block and one neighbor saw a bear; so the idea of keeping strange animals out was a major factor. being able to let our little girl shuggie and our dog moosey brown run free in the back yard was another. i was fatigued with following shuggie around and keeping her from venturing into one of the yards next door. moosey brown had to be tied up to a tree and would bark constantly if she didn't see us. we had a fence at the place we had lived before, and there was no such poochie paranoia; so we knew it would be better for her to roam with relative freedom within a fenced yard. walking the dog two or three times a day was a real hassle as well with baby in tow.

i was sitting on the fence about getting a fence; all the while trying to balance my needs for security and freedom. as someone who enjoys shortcuts, scenic routes, and roads less travelled; i've done my share of jumping fences in my travels, and have had enough bruises, ripped jackets, and tear gas for my taste. a world without fences seemed like a better one to me; and i couldn't help thinking we would be spoiling the scenery for the sake of convenience.

the whole process was a bit surreal. of the four fence companies in our area, only one appealed to us. to be honest, he reminded me of my dad who used to run his own business; and he was very responsive to our concerns. another came out and measured the yard and sent us a several estimates for types of fence that we did not want and not one for the type we did. one company didn't do chain link. and still another salesmen was too busy to even come and give us an estimate.

we talked about sending a note to all of our neighbors (we have six contiguous neighbors though only five are affected directly) to give them a heads up; but the fence folks came two weeks early. then we had to double check the property line when the crew went closer than we had agreed. it would have been a ridiculous waste of time to have to pull up the cemented fence poles and move them a foot over.

drawing boundries taps into a primal place. of course, a fence is all about control; whether it's in my back yard, berlin, or the northern chinese border. and yet, the security that comes from such measures is intertwined with fear. this kind of territoriality is reflected in the way moosey brown will chase squirrels out of the yard.

still, that doesn't mean a low fence can't be amiable. "good fences" can "make good neighbors" by making sure we don't transgress that invisible line in the grass. there is a comfort in the structure of it.

now that it's complete, i'm still not sure how our new chain link will affect the already awkward conversations that often comprise neigborhood relations. it has certainly made my homelife much easier. moosey brown gets a lot more exercise as she chases squirrels, cats, and bunnies around the yard; and so does shuggie as she chases the dog. moosey and buddy (the big black dog next door) have been sniffing and socializing through the fence like star crossed lovers. now when shuggie decides to take off high stepping across the yard, i don't have to jump up and go running after her. the only trouble is that we have to keep the gates locked; because both dog and daughter have figured out how to open them. i guess that the sense of security is temporary indeed.

the happiest daddy on the block

2007-08-24T23:11:00.001-04:00

there are few events that change your life like becoming a parent. it combines the bewilderment of falling in love with the utter sense of inadequacy you might feel as a child on the first day of school. you literally lose yourself in the reality of it. the first few months of sleep deprivation bring on a physical and mental depletion that defies comparison. the experience is a trial by fire that only parents can understand.

i had thought that my many late nights of partying and bleary sunrises would prepare me for it. not so. at least then i could catch up on my sleep. there is no such opportunity with a newborn. there is no repreive from the trench warfare that comes hourly (or, if you're lucky you get a three hour break) in the form of diapers and feedings and screaming that only gets louder. i remember one particularly rough night where i was shaken awake by my frenzied wife who shouted in desperation: "how can you be sleeping through this?" the answer can only be sheer exhaustion.

i don't know what is normal in this regard. the word normal seems pretty meaningless sometimes. in any case, new parents are much more sensitive to every little cry than the seasoned veterans who can tune this stuff out. many baby books focus so much on what could be wrong that they only heighten the paranoia. for us, 'the happiest baby on the block' by dr. harvey karp was a life-saver. the idea that a newborn needs to have the constant comfort of the womb simulated as much as possible to ease the transition to the less consistant care of the outside world might seem like common sense; but the practical tools he describes make all the difference. there is a calming reflex that can be triggered by simulating the conditions of the uterus. there are five steps: swaddling, sideways, shaking, shushing, and sucking. and they work!

the swaddling took the most practice. our daughter was (and is) a little houdini. every time i was sure that i had her tied up good and tight in her little blanket, she would wriggle free one arm at a time. i had to hold her in her little cocoon and work the other steps holding her on her side while gently jiggling her back and forth and shushing in her ear. of course, the bottle and the pacifier work their own magic; but they could be refused if she was upset. in the worst moments, daddy would have to step up and do this strange ritualistic baby dance. i did have extensive experience with strange late night dance marathons.

all of this might sound very negative and daunting to any prospective parents; but the strange part is that these hard core months of indoctrination are fond memories for me. there is a sublime sense of joy and peace that overtakes you when you are snuggled together with mother and baby and you forget the clock and the pressures of everyday life. i suppose that many new fathers escape this when they go to work; and they are missing out on one of life's most profound pleasures.

i'm sure there's all sorts of psychological explanations for it like shell shock or stockholm syndrome; but these experiences are what forge a family. the closeness of that time seems womblike in its own way. my sense of self became intertwined with my wife and child. it created a real connection between us; and it has made me the happiest daddy on the block.