The Kicking.

     I haven't set an alarm in four years. A few people have contacted me lately asking why this blog has gone silent. To clarify: I haven't had to set an alarm in four years because my children wake me up. That's right, plural. We've had another one. Which means we either really liked the first one or didn't learn our lesson. I'm not always sure which one it is. Our second girl is about 19 months now and things are starting to calm down. A little. Which is why there is now time to write this post. On the other hand, maybe I have habituated to the level of insane living accompanied by having more than one child.

     It's probably the last one.

     Let it be known now and forever that I am not the world's greatest dad. I'm a good dad. Not the greatest. Little stuff annoys me way too much for me to be the greatest. Things that shouldn't get under my skin, get so under my skin it touches bone. And there is no reason for it! It annoys me when I go pee and am immediately thirsty. It's as if the issue of "full bladder" has just been dealt with, do we really need to begin the cycle all over again so soon? I have things to do today.

     It also annoys me that, apparently, we have to sleep with the door open. This would make more sense if you knew that our youngest slept on a different level of the house. However, we bought a baby monitor so it sounds like she's right in the room with us. Just...right there! It's a VTech Cordless thingy and, you know what? Works great. Has multiple notification settings (vibrate, lights, sound, small bombs) and have never had an issue with connectivity. Which begs the question: Why do we have to sleep with the door open? You don't need it open to hear the baby crying, which she still does, in the middle of the night, even though she's 19 months old. This also annoys me even when I'm asleep.

     I have always been a heavy sleeper. When I was a child, fire alarms would go off in our house and I wouldn't stir. Not only does this speak to my ability to sleep through anything, but also my mother's cooking abilities (sorry Mom!). When our youngest starts crying, I don't wake up, but my wife ALLEGES I most certainly "stir". To believe her, I more than "stir", I kick her until she gets out of bed and gets the baby.

     Is it possible I am so sensitive to annoyances that, even in my sleep, when my body should be paralyzed and I'm imagining a planet made entirely out of trampolines, there's a part of my brain that says, "Hey! Knock it off!" and then starts kicking? There's no way! Even if there is, can I really be held accountable? I submit that no. No I cannot.

     To her credit, my wife is an absolute trooper about it and hasn't complained until lately. And this has been going on for 19 months, give or take. *ProTip*, if you do realize your spouse is missing from the bed, you hear crying, walk downstairs, ask if there's anything you can do to help, and your spouse says in a very steady and calm voice, "stop kicking me and go back upstairs"; just go ahead and go back upstairs. Nothing good can come from the rest of that conversation. I promise.

The Activities.

Ahhh...pink crinkle paper, my favorite. 

     It's kind of difficult to know what to do with a four month old. I mean, I know what to do with her, like feed her, change her, hold her, etc., but right now, her absolute favorite thing in the world is a piece of cloth with cellophane in it. That's right, crinkle paper. It blows her mind. Some of my friends take their six month old to the zoo, the wild animal park, they might even take him to Kidchella at the New Children's Museum. It's pretty cool and all, but my daughter has an attention span of about twenty seconds. After that, all things stimulating just get filed away in the "OH MY GOSH I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE!" category. Evy would probably be as equally interested in my foot as she would be in feeding a giraffe.
     On top of all that, I have a feeling the frustration factor would be pretty high at anyone of these places. I'm kinda (read very) cheap, so when I spend a bunch of money on something, the we're-gonna-have-a-good-time-or-else expectation goes up in proportion to how much money has been spent. But Evy's a baby. She doesn't care or even know about my expectations. She's probably gonna miss a nap, which will make her fussy, which would normally be fine with me, but now it's "costing" me money because we paid for fun but not getting any. We'll be the family walking by and some wiseacre will throw out that "ooo, there goes a happy camper!" comment, I'll get in a fight, and then we'll be kicked out of the park/movie theater/zoo/church. Which is no good, because (with the exception of the church) we paid good money to spend the most time possible having as much fun as possible. All this to say, when I see an ad about Kidchella, or my friends are taking their kid to the zoo, I think of that crinkle paper, and smile. Evy has no idea what she's missing, but she loves that crinkle paper.

The Disconnect.

 ⁼

     I'm not a computer genius. I think I'm better than most, but there are a lot of people out there better than me, and I'm better than all the people that currently live in my house. This means that when something electronic does goes haywire, it immediately gets passed to me. A friend who's in the same electronic situation I am laughs about this with me. What our wives don't seem to understand is that we don't know right away what's wrong either! We do some poking around, do some research online, take a best guess, try to see if anyone else has had a similar problem, and just keep trying until we find a solution. But the wives, they don't want to know this. I think they truly want to believe I have some magical power over all things computerized. I've talked about this in a little more detail in a previous post. Well, apparently I am to computers as Catie is to Evy.
     There are times when Evy cries, I have no idea what the problem is. She's clean, she's fed, she's the right temperature, but nothing seems to make her happy. At a certain point, I just hand her off to Catie. Nine times out of ten, Evy stops crying, goes all limp and slack-jawed, and then her eyes close. It's like magic! I ask Catie about this, and she says, "Oh, she just wanted to be bounced..." Bounced? That's what she wanted? How in the world did you divine "she just wanted to be bounced" out of that particular cry? It makes no sense to me. Catie and I sit down and start talking about this, because I can't pass Evy off to Catie every time she cries. Partially because it wouldn't be fair, but also because I'm going to stay home with Evy while Catie's at work. So, Catie asks me how I fix problems with computers.
     I tell her there's nothing really to it, I just poke around and see what I can do on my own. If that doesn't work, I look for other people online that may have had similar problems, and try what worked for them. She starts laughing and says, "that's exactly what I do with Evy!" When I think about it, she's right. When Evy was colicky, we tried a bunch of things on our own, none of them worked, so we went out and did some research. We bought a book, tried several new things, and found something that worked. When she cries now, I feel way more empowered. I sort of look at her like a computer, and just try stuff until the disks stop making that noise. And I guess when it comes to parenting I'm a lot like I am with computers: I'm better than a lot of people, but there's a lot of people better than me. Which gives me a little bit of hope. It lets me know I can help a few people out there with their children, and it tells me there's a lot of people out there who can help me. I'm not alone, and neither are you.

The Magi.

     Read "The Gift of the Magi" with my students today. Some of the punch was lost because of the old English used in the story. When I compared the girls hair to their PS3's and his watch to an XBOX 360, it made a little more sense. Each person trading their systems to buy the other person games for their system made it a little more clear. Turns out, making the moral of this story a "little more clear" doesn't make it any easier to understand. They were so taken aback by this vision of piles of video games with no system to play them on they couldn't grasp the concept that it was the sacrifice made my each person that meant so much more than the actual gift. I tried to help them see the beauty in sacrifice and how it paralleled love. Realistically, love and sacrifice are pretty inseparable. Reminds me of the Death Cab for Cutie song, Meet Me at the Equator.

The Halloween.

     Had a lot of fun during Halloween last night. It was good times, good times. There were several little girls at the party we went to and they had the best costumes! Catie and I got to talking about what we were going to let our kid wear when they were growing up. Now here is a shot of me as dressed by my mother when I was young. That should put in context what I'm about to say. I want to allow my daughter to wear whatever she wants. If that means the princess costume she wore for Halloween is going to be worn out due to constant use, that's fine by me. If the other kids at her school make fun of her, I'll have to ask her what's more important: having friends or wearing cookey clothes. I figure it'll kind of iron itself out, right? It's hard to imagine clothes being all that important, especially when she's young. But we'll see.

The Toot.

     That's right! We're having a girl. And here I thought girls were cleaner than boys... Of course, if you're going to be made of sugar and spice, there is some inevitable fermenting that will happen.

The Dream.

     Down the street from where I live there's a nice family.  They have a very productive lime tree in their front yard and they freely offer the fruits to anyone walking by.  There's also a little shoe box with a slot cut in the top and a sign taped to cardboard and attached to the back of the shoe box.  It says the little girl who lives there is trying to collect money for animals in shelters.  I'm not really sure about the details, but it says she's setting up a foundation for animals.  This started about four months ago, and now, the box is just laying on its side in front of the house, all wrinkled and water damaged.  I wonder if she checks it every day to see if some passersby put cash in.  Has she just forgotten about it or is she still hopeful every time she cracks the top of that box?  Is her dream of saving every animal everywhere just dying?  It's ironic because the animals the dream was supposed to save are dying as well.  Okay, maybe not ironic, but it is sad.  I guess that little box makes me wonder about my little girls dreams.  I know they won't all come true, but that doesn't mean they all have to die; either.  Any suggestions?  Short of using a plastic shoebox...

The Scare.

     For some reason, when I was little I lived to take years off my father's life, one scare at a time. I would hide in a closet, behind the over stuffed chair, or under a table for hours (read minutes as experienced by a kid with ADD) just so I could jump out and scare him. The only problem was, I would lay in wait, perfectly still, biding my time, until my dad would unwittingly stumble into my trap...then I would start giggling until my scare was about as surprising as getting junk mail. You know what he did though? He acted surprised. His acting wasn't all that convincing, but it worked on me. I felt like I really get the drop on my dad. It was cool! I think that's why I like Halloween so much. The Simpsons have their Tree House of Horror thing, SyFy (stupid name change, by the way) plays scary movies all month, and people get into a spirit I really dig. Any ideas on what Catie and I can dress up as? I was thinking we dress up real hillbilly like and tell everyone we're Brittney and K-Fed. Good?

The End.

     You know what's unfortunate? According to the Mayans, the world is supposed to end in 2012. My daughter is going to be about three years old. That just doesn't seem fair. I mean, here she is, just getting started, really getting the whole walking thing down smoothly, and BAM, end of world. Three years old! "Hey, you going to be starting preschool this year?"
"Nope, planet is going to implode."
"Oh yeah, I forgot all about that! I was going to put it in my calendar but that year didn't seem to be there...kinda like the thirteenth floor of a lot of office buildings."
"Well, if the planet doesn't blow up, we're in trouble because I haven't even started the enrollment process..."
"I hear ya! Those things are murder. Tell you the truth, I'd rather experience apocalypse than have to sit in those asinine registration lines and plead my case for a kid that can't even read A Tale of Two Cities yet..."
"Right, right..."
     Like I was saying, end of days sounds like it's going to be harsh. I mean, as long as books and movies are any indication of what to expect, I should be okay. Usually the mother ends up dying, I live on with my daughter, and we find some ruggedly beautiful woman to start over with...even though she can never really replace my "other" wife. Regardless, I guess I'm going to have to raise my kid as if the end of the world isn't right around the corner. Who knows, maybe she'll be the key to resetting the whole thing. Like, she'll accidentally turn the the calendar upside down and now we've got until 2102. Hey, it could happen...

The Flowers.

     I figure, since the baby is going to suck down our income like a roided up AIG going after your mother's retirement funds, now's the time to spend, right? So, go out and buy your pregnant wife some flowers. Partially because she's wonderful, partially because it may temporarily assuage the ever raging tide of hormones, and it may also get you points that can be redeemed in the evening hours... Seriously though, buy some flowers for your baby momma. If you think you can't afford it now, just wait. Gentlemen, start your wallets.

• 1-800 Flowers
  
• FTD (by the way, does anyone know what FTD actually stands for? I don't)
  
• Pro Flowers
  

The Cart.

     I was walking walking around Target, shopping, and I see this guy with a little girl in the seat of the grocery cart. But there was something different about this set of shoppers. While the father was physically there with his daughter, he wasn't "there". It was like they happened to be in the same place, but were total strangers. Anyone else ever see this?
     Is it possible there is a lesson in this? I've seen parents that are physically part of their children's life, but they just aren't emotionally part of their life. There's a level of intent that's important here. Instead of people who happen to be in the same room together, there can be a family that is actively participating in the lives of one another. This is what I want. I want to take my daughter to the grocery store, not go shopping with her in the cart. Does that make sense?

The Costume.

    One of our friends was lamenting about the fact that she couldn't find a Halloween costume that didn't follow the formula of a real thing, that is then either followed or preceded by the word sexy. Initially, I said, "there ain't nothing wrong with that...". Which she then followed up with, "let's see if you keep saying that when it's time to dress your daughter for Halloween." Turns out, there's a whole slew of sexy pirate, sexy nurse, sexy whatever-you-want costumes for children and preteens.

That's just not right.

The Duplicates.

    A couple of days ago when I was awash in a sea of baby junk, there was a sound piece of advice given in the comments. There was a lot of good advice about particular things to buy, but one person gave long term advice we may be able to use far into the future. The good thing is that it was pretty simple: Don't buy so much crap. Baby's want you, not stuff. Makes sense.
     I know I'm going to love my daughter, and part of that is trying to give her what she wants when I can, but I also don't want her to be spoiled. This means I'm going to have to say no when I could actually say yes. That's probably not going to be too hard. The tough part is limiting the toy intake from the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and birthday parties. One idea Catie and I had was asking people to make a small donation to her college fund instead of bringing toys or clothes. Is that insane? I mean, we'll buy her enough toys and clothes to keep her happy. But the issue is going to arise if/when we have more than one kid.
     There's no reason to have two of everything! Why do people do that? My sister and I had to share a lot of things. Not clothes...except for that one time...but sports stuff, school supplies, food. We had to share! Learning how to share was mandatory. Well, the other option was one of us (my sister) was going to be killed, but when ended up sharing...most of the time. I guess the idea is to help my daughter plan for the future while understanding that she can't get everything she wants. Trust me, I had a friend that married someone who thought she deserved whatever she wanted...it was bad.

The Stuff.

     Went shopping today for baby stuff, just kinda looking around. Okay, really? Do we really need that much stuff? Really? Also, I don't get the difference in all the stuff. Graco or Evenflo or Chicco or BOB or a billion other names I can't remember. How am I supposed to tell which ones are good, which ones are bad, and which ones are just meh. I need help here, PLEASE! Can anyone of you tell me what you have, if you like it, and why I'm supposed to pay a kazillion dollars for one stroller or two dollars for a different one, when they pretty much do the same thing. I'm afraid I'm going to grab the wrong grocery cart, except I'll have to deal with a wobbly wheel for then next three years instead of just a few aisles. Little help here? Please?

The Magic.

     Anyone ever see the Dark Crystal when they were a kid? I still remember watching it when I was young and I loved it. It was so magical and cool and puppets were never so real. Plus, I think it was the first movie I ever watched where I thought there was a deeper meaning. The whole thing with the Skeksis and Mystics being inextricably connected while at the same time representing complete opposite aspects of personalities presented a new understanding of people as neither good nor bad, but both. It opened a whole new world of imagination for me and I still think Henson was a genius. I like the movie so much I've shown it recently to friends who never saw it when they were young. Well, I've noticed that people who didn't watch certain movies when they were kids, and experience them as adults, the "magic" factor is severely reduced. I just figured the same thing would happen with my kids. But alas, I there is hope!
    Dark Crystal 2 is coming out in 2011. Appropriate for a one year old? Maybe not. Will she remember it? Probably not. Is she gonna be there anyway? Oh yeah. I just hope the magic will be there for her as she grows up. Not just with Henson movies and super sweet sequels, but with everything. I want her to appreciate perfect mornings, sun rises, and real friends. I am beginning to notice that the older I get, the less magic there is in the world. The magic is probably still there, but my blindness to it is getting worse. I'm hoping our daughter may relight the fire of my imagination, just to make sure I can keep her imagination stays alive as long as possible.

The Pokemon.

     I'll watch Saturday morning cartoons with the best of them. No problem. I can even sit through the occasional Scooby Doo episode if only to see if it's actually going to be a ghost this time instead of an angry old man who would have succeeded if it hadn't been for those darn kids. But there has been a significant decline in the quality of...something. That's the thing, and I can't put my finger on it. The animation quality has gotten better, the story's are more in depth and full, the character development is, well, there actually is character development! On every level cartoons seem to be getting more adult, complex, and better quality but they just suck. Pokemon is (hopefully) starting to slip out of style, but I'm sure it's going to be replaced by some equally shoddy toon all about a boy and his magical hair brush...or something just as stupid. There's no doubt about it.
     The thing is, I'm probably going to be forced to watch the Wiggles, or some other similarly mundane, inane, and insane show that just has a bunch of guys on it that couldn't hack it in the real world. I'm tempted to agree with Mitch Hedberg when he said that any book is a children's book if the kid can read it. So why do the cartoons feel so dumbed down? Now you may want to say that because I've gotten older, smarter, and more mature it would make sense for animated shows to no longer hold the same sway over my adult mind. Well, you'd be wrong. I still like cartoons from my youth, but I also like some of the newer ones. Of course the staples like South Park, Family Guy, and the Simpsons are cornerstones of late night viewing, but I also enjoy the occasional Robot Chicken and Harvey Birdman, attorney at law. Love them! But they're probably not suitable for a newborn to enjoy. It seems inevitable I will be left sitting in a small room watching morons bumble around, but I'll enjoy it because it entertains my daughter. I'll do everything I can to keep my TV from becoming a babysitter, but I make no promises. There are times when parents need breaks, otherwise they go crazy. I've seen it, and it's not pretty.

The Acceptance.

     My parents and I got into the logistics between accepting a person and approving of their behavior. The example used was when a kids hand gets smacked because they reach for a hot pan. We still accept the child, but their behavior is not okay, so they get punished with a smack on the hand. Just about everyone would agree with this type of swift punishment. The greater good is their health, so a swat on the hand to keep them from third degree burns is acceptable. The problem arises when they get older and start participating in risk taking behaviors where the pay-off may not  be worth the risk. Promiscuity is one of those things. I want my kid to be healthy and safe and hopefully not knocked up, but I also don't want to throw them a spring-break sized supply of condoms and tell them to go wild. If I had my way, my daughter wouldn't know she had a vagina until after she was married. It probably won't work that way, but a father can hope.
     So what's a dad to do? I want her to be safe, I hope she'll be able to talk to Catie or I about that kind of stuff without feeling judged or unaccepted. She needs to know what's right and wrong, and I'm going to tell her. At the same time, if I come down on her too hard, I'm going to push her away and I won't be able to help because she won't listen. If she's going to marry someone I don't approve of, someone that beats her, to "put my foot down" with an emphatic no may do more to solidify her decision than to change her mind. Supporting her while not supporting bad choices is difficult for me. It seems like this is the artisitc part of parenting. Teaching her right from wrong while still letting her know I love her regardless of what she does seems to be at odds with punishing her.

The Behavior.

"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man." ~B.F. Skinner.

     I'm not sure what's worse, that I'll inevitably begin rewarding and speaking to my daughter the same way I do with our dog, or that it will probably work. Positive reinforcement works really well with animals...and kids. Kids are (probably) smarter than animals and they should see right through those rewards. Shoot, I should be able to see through rewards, but when it comes down to it, the reason I do things is because I think good things will happen in return. That's why the idea of karma is so comforting. It's nice to believe the people that wronged will eventually get theirs, but what's more promising is that all the good stuff I do will bring me more good stuff. Or at the very least cancel out all the horrible things I did in high school. You know, theoretically. Instead of throwing my kid treats and teaching her to sit, stay, or speak I'll be smiling at her, talking in a really high voice, and teaching her to sit, read, and speak. Okay, so there are some disturbing similarities, but kids can take it so much further! Still, if people are so much smarter than animals, why does it take so long to potty train them?

The Kings.

     The Kings of Leon are playing at Cox Arena and Catie and I are on the guest list. I'm excited. Then Catie reminds me this is probably going to be one of the last shows we go to for a long time. I think I've written about anticipating my loss of freedom, but it's starting to get more and more concrete. That's it. I'm mourning the loss of my freedom! How much am do you really want me to talk about it? Sheesh, ya jerk.

The Signing.

     I knew I would get cold feet before I got married. Everyone told me it would happen, so when it did, I was prepared. I still got freaked out, though. I was only 25 and, if I do it correctly, I was only done with a quarter of my life. You mean to tell me I was prepared to decide how, barring the proverbial beer truck, I could spend another 75 years with this women I had only known for three years! That's a huge decision. As a matter of fact, if I hadn't had some cold feet, I would've been more worried. Because it's an important and (hopefully) a lifelong choice, there should be a point where I get nervous, otherwise I wouldn't be taking it seriously.
     I kinda feel the same way about fatherhood. Catie and I weren't planning on getting pregnant. Not even a little bit. When I found out, and after I changed my pants, I was really excited. But some time between the excitement of just having found out, baby showers, maternity clothes, larger breasts, looking at new houses, thinking about which car is going to get the baby seat, picking a name, and figuring out what color we're going to paint the nursery that doesn't exist yet, it occurs to me: am I really ready for this? Truth be told, I'm probably not. I'm having the fraternal version of cold feet. I know that not having a baby isn't an option, and it's not that I want to get out of it, it's just that I wasn't planning on it. Everyone tells me if I wait until I'm ready to have a baby, I'll never have one. Well, no worries there!
     That's where signing up is important. Signing Up means being committed, it means Showing Up even when you don't want to, are afraid to, or think you're unable to. If it just gets me past the cold feet, that's pretty much what commitment is all about. I'm not just going show up, I'm going to stick around and be committed; not only to my wife, but to my new family. I'm just hoping they can help me be a little courageous.