Man Up

About a week ago our garbage disposal mysteriously stopped working.  Wifey, who does not like to complain to the landlord about anything, insisted I make this call as she’d been in charge of the last few landlord issues. I sheepishly called the landlord to complain about our “broken” disposal.  This on the heels of some major work on other plumbing issues to the tune of several thousand dollars over the past month.  We just thought it was old and dead.  After all, these things happen.  Instead of being dead, a mysterious rock turned up.  Hmm.  Didn’t I see wifey cleaning the fishtank in the sink not too long ago?  And doesn’t that fish tank have rocks in it?

We played innocent…maybe there were some gritty rocks in our produce?  Yeah…that’s it!  After I got home that day, when Jackie debriefed me, I suggested no longer cleaning our rocky fish tank in the kitchen sink to prevent future jams.  Makes sense, I would think.  Or at least covering the disposal with something to keep the rocks out.

So when the garbage disposal seized up again this morning after I noticed Jackie cleaning the fishtank in the kitchen sink again, I wanted to scream.  Sticking my hand in the drain, I pulled out a day’s worth of food bits.  Boy was that ripe.  Photos omitted for the weak of heart.

I got pretty frustrated as some of the parts weren’t budging.  But.  Manly self empowerment prevailed and we saved what I estimate to be about $100 on a handyman house call.

So I managed to get it all sorted out on my own.  And look what I found?

Please let there not be a third time…

one more thought on flaky pastries…

When I was about five years old, my dad’s youngest brother was still in grad school at USC.  He would occasionally come by in his Isuzu Impulse (hey, don’t laugh…those puppies had lotus-engineered engines) and take me out for special adventures.  I recall tons of fun activities.  We would go to places like the McDonnell Douglass Museum of Flight (in Santa Monica), Museum of Science and Industry in expo park, out for ice cream, to Roxbury park, back to his apartment in Century City to watch quality programming like Speed Racer on Beta Cassette or build model airplanes or star trek ships.  It was really nice to have a non-parental adult figure, who enjoyed spending time with a kid like me.

I feel like as parents it’s easy to get caught up in the routine and take kids for granted.  I find myself complaining too much instead of enjoying the spontaneous and ridiculous moments.  Having relatives close by can help make kids feel like they can reconnect with the adult crowd.  Or at least it did for me.  I’m not so secretly hoping that if my little sister doesn’t wind up far away that maybe she’ll do the same kind of thing for Miss V when she’s a bit older and more independent (aka potty trained and relatively tantrum-free).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, flaky pastry.  The croissant.  This was and is my favorite pastry.  Perhaps because I have been told by wife, who happens to be an expert on the subject, that about a half stick of butter is folded into each one.  One one particular outing with my uncle, we had stopped at Music + or the Warehouse (wow, those places sound ancient now!), and then at Double Rainbow for a snack.  I got an ice cream and a croissant.  Now you’re probably thinking…”but what about his cholesterol!” No?  Well, that’s what my uncle used as his arbitrary reason for crushing my craving for a second croissant.  I’m sure he was right.  After all, there was a big cholesterol scare in the 80s.

I wonder what kind of arbitrary explanations I’ll come up with when I have to put Vivi’s whiny demands to rest. Right now we seem to be having good success by telling her, “it’s sleeping now, no more.”  She responds with the sign language sign for sleep, and a shushing sound.  It’s actually pretty cute.  I’d say it only works about 40% of the time, though.   I’m curious what other alternatives people have used to reason with little people.  “Because I said so,” seems like such a cop-out.

Or maybe I’m going about this all wrong, and you simply cannot reason with small children.

Random Observations

Age two is proving to be quite fun.  For instance:

Tonight we decided to dine out instead of heading home after the park.  Since we had Izzy with us, we were relegated to the patio area.  The dog was partitioned on the sidewalk adjacent to our table with a bowl of water, but the munchkin insisted on keeping him company.  this involved spilling his water.  She was very concerned about this and spent oh I don’t know…maybe 15 minutes, with a few cloth napkins not only mopping up the water, but also the wet footprints of passers by.  For some reason I found this incredibly endearing.  As did the people who observed this from multiple vantage points (sidewalk, restaurant, bar next door, etc…)

Last night I discovered a pleasant little game with the child.  It’s called “Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies Hop to their Doom.”  All you need is a box of cheddar bunnies, or other edible snack that could “hop”.  Then, you gently toss them on hard surfaces, causing them to bounce.  Squeals of joy, chase, pounce, devour.  I thought it couldn’t get any better until I had a stroke of genius.  Giant bunny hops, straight into my mouth.  That’s right, toss up a bunny and catch it in my mouth.  The child was downright jubilant at this game.  With each attempted chomping, she’d proclaim, “more, dada, more!”  So much fun.

Oh.  on the way home tonight, wifey and I picked up some mediocre choc. croissants for dessert.  The child must have felt the same way about them, because she only made it through a fraction of the chunk we gave her. I mean, come on… this is a buttery, sugary, flakey delicacy we’re discussing.  Anyway, being the sugar junkies we are, when she tossed the remainder aside, wife swoops in, and takes a chunk out of half of it, and hands it to me.  I decided to partake.  “Ugh, it’s soggy!  Oh well.”

So I’m thinking to myself, when did it become acceptable to just pop a half licked soggy pastry in my mouth?  When did I become that parent?  You know,  the seagull type who disregards any sense of “disgusting” vomit, snot and poop (or really, anything germy) interactions.  This isn’t the first time I’ve caught myself finishing off her leftovers, either.  The worst part is, I know it won’t be the last, and my pangs of guilt are diminishing.

One last thing.  Took the kid to Disneyland for the first time this weekend.  Let’s just say that it was an experience that merits its own post.  I’ll get around to it eventually.  I just couldn’t let these observations pass by because they’re so unique to this age and I’d hate to forget how much fun I’m having on this perplexing journey of self discovery called child rearing.

Close Encounters

Last night as I was transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer, I noticed that all of the clothes were coated in a slimy sort of gelatinous substance. GASP!  “Aliens…hatching in our laundry!?”  If only.  So I proceed to the next logical source of information – le wife.

She gives me a perplexed look. Was it some kind of jelly that got left in a pocket? There were some random decorative gelatin floral vase decoration balls at the preschool we visited….no, that’s not it. Too long ago. Maybe somehow one of those desiccant/silica gel packets from munchkin’s freeze dried fruits wound up in the wash. I was satisfied with that answer and continued my chore of reaching into the abyss of the washing machine to extract clothes.

Then I found it.

A diaper.

Alien spawn would have been far more interesting.  You see, I was at a conference through the first half of the week. While I was off learning about the nuances of my new professional role in Pismo Beach (see photos), the wife was at home with a miserable toddler. Nobody wants to see pictures of the diaper, so I thought I’d share some photos of Shell Beach instead.

One can only surmise that the kid’s recent sleep regression, which involved pockets of sleep followed by incessant inconsolable screaming over the course of five days has rendered the wife remiss in combing through the laundry with care. End result, diaper disaster.

The real question is…was it originally filled with a chocolatey surprise?

I ran the wash a second time with extra detergent (sans diaper), just in case.

Now I can’t help but wonder what other strange places people have found diapers.  I seem to recall finding one under the sheets at the foot of the bed once.

Oh and did I mention that someone who shall remain nameless, once  washed one of our cordless phones?  Luckily I was able to pull it apart and let it air dry over night.  By some kind of miracle it still works.  I’ve also found used tissues, gum, chapstick, coins, etc.  Let this be a lesson to all: do fully vet your laundry before hitting that cycle start button.

Mixed Fruit or Good Cop/Bad Cop or just late night ramblings

Okay, so this post is mistitled.  I was originally going to write about the pitfalls of child comparison. Alas, that will have to wait for another time.

Instead, tonight’s episode comes to you from my seat on the so-called “man chair” in the living room as I listen to my daughter cry out in the next room. She’s been at it but a couple of minutes, enmeshed in what I like to call “moderate alarm throes”, and wife’s already prepared to throw in the towel and console her.  It’s almost scary how effortlessly I demand that we leave her to work it out: “Come on, what happened to sleep training!?  Can we at least wait 10 minutes?”  To follow up to my proclamation, in true lazy-dad fashion I send wife a facebook message rather than shout or walk down the hall. “11:40″.  Surely we can handle a 10 minute bawl session!  Right?

The answer is no on all counts.  Wife enters the room, picks the child up.  Crying intensifies, almost in protest.  Let sleeping/crying babies lie, I think?  Now it’s calming down.  Thanks to the bottle and a soft bosom.  So now I’m left with my thoughts and a derailed post.

As a kid, I always just sort of assumed that being a mischiefmaker nerdy video game and fun loving type, that it would translate into me being the permissive parent.  After all, I’m much less of a worrywart than my wife, and in general try to live in a very optimistic and carefree fashion.  So I find myself wondering almost daily how it is that I have become the voice of reason, the voice of authority, the bad cop.

Interlude: wife just told me she had to wake munchers up because she was having a nightmare.  Compassionate?  Yes.  Life or death?  Hardly.  Nightmares suck, but they make you tough, and they’re certainly not always worth an intervention.  Unless it’s Nightmare on Elm Street, in which case they make you dead.  But I digress.

Now that peace has been restored I sit in my comfy chair, alone with my rambling thoughts.  How the hell did I become Bad Cop?  I’m supposed to be mister silly fun easy going care free laid back (insert more cool superlatives) dad!  Instead, here I am telling my partner to ignore our clearly distressed child.  While my heart does ache to hear her sob, the selfish part of me knows that we need to get the kid back on a regular sleep schedule.  That selfish part is what speaks up, demanding that we let her fend for herself.

And maybe that’s what it is.  At the end of the day, I’m just more selfish.  Who’s kidding who, being a parent is all about sacrifice.  We all knew it going in, but nobody prepares you for the depths of how close to the edge that can push you.  And it’s perhaps my desperation to maintain some sense of control, normality, and a desire to raise smart and self sufficient children, that really pushes me to lay down the law.  I seem to recall a jest about how we’d all be extinct if kids weren’t so damned cute?  It’s so true.  But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let a toddler steamroll my rare slivers of adult time with her tantrums, nightmares, machinations and manipulations.  I refuse.  I’m the adult here dammit.

Oh God.  There it is.  It’s out.  I’m the adult.  Nobody prepared me for this.  I’m just putting on a show.  Asserting authority like I know how to wield it.  Are my children bound to see through it?  I mean, let’s be honest, based on tonight’s exercise, it’s clear that just because I put on the Bad Cop badge, doesn’t mean anyone gives a hoot.  It’s like someone just handed me the keys to some really complex piece of machinery without any sort of instruction manual and said, “you’re in charge now.  Don’t fuck it up.”

My wife often recounts how her childhood was not filled with rules, spankings, or serious discipline.  Instead, both she and her sister were well behaved by a deep-seated and crippling fear that if they did anything to displease their parents, there would be no hesitation to be completely and entirely deprived of any parental love.  That kind of strict rule of parent law has its own emotional consequences, but it surely resulted in obedient, capable and independent children.  How do I find a way to emulate that but without the part that leaves my children with self-esteem issues?  Questions beget more questions.

So I’m doing the best I can.  I don’t want a spoon fed coddled little girl who expects the world to be her oyster.  The world sucks sometimes.  I want to protect her from that, but I know I can’t.  So in my head I tell myself that being a tough dad sometimes means, hopefully, producing a child who is also tough enough to endure and triumph over all the challenges life will throw at her.  Maybe I’m just expecting too much from a toddler and need to relax.  Either way, in my mind I know that if I don’t step up, nobody’s going to do it for me.

Or maybe it’s simply time to dust off that book…”positive discipline” and attempt to strike a balance between iron fisted rule and complete toddler anarchy.  Control and stability are just illusions anyway.  The sooner I get used to that, the better.

 

Some thoughts on milestones

This week marks two milestones in my family.  I turn thirty, and the muncher turns two.  I seem to recall wanting to capture more of the time between these sorts of occasions when I first set out to blog about being a new dad.  As with many aspects of parenting, the best of plans seem to get derailed, if not completely scrapped.  Somehow instead of regular updates, I’ve let nearly seven whole months slip by without a peep.  Shame on me.

BUT!  In my defense, (I always was good at making excuses), major life events have unfolded.  Rather than going into meticulous detail, let me sum up in timeline form:

May/June – Receive advance notice of workforce reduction, commence job search.  Wife begins teaching preschool again to make up some cash, Vivi goes to daycare a few days a week and thrives.  I kid you not, the little tyke would actually nap for 2 hours on a hard floor in a room full of other active kids.  Now, if only she’d sleep like that for us.

June – October – Pick up extra hours working for the manager’s office of another municipality to make up the difference as I continue working a reduced schedule at my then current job with as much dignity as I can muster.  Work with mentors and coaches.  Workshop my resume.  Network like it’s nobody’s business.  Comb internet sites, publications and other sources of info for job leads.  Apply for 60+ jobs.  Interview like mad.  Second interview with fury.  Come really close on multiple occasions, but still empty handed.

October – Accepted an offer working in higher education on budget issues.  In Long Beach.  Of all the places to wind up and all the jobs, this is the most surprising, and potentially awesome.

November –  Present: Relocate the family.  Start over.  Adjust to life in a new community.

A big ball of stress.  And it was too close to heart to bare to the world as I was going through it, so I hope that you will forgive my respite.  Anyway.

Back to the subject at hand.  Milestones.

I was commenting earlier to my coworker who asked about turning thirty that It just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal since I became dad.  The age is just a marker, but having a kid made me feel immeasurably more grown up than turning “a year older”.  It might have something to do with sleep deprivation or really having to fight to have “me” time to pursue my own non-parenting interests.  Birthdays have never been a big deal to me, so I feel like I shouldn’t get on my pedestal and shout to the world how awesome I am for making it to thirty.

Also, and this is the nervous-nelly that lurks within me speaking, if you really pause to think about it, every day that you and your family are still alive is a miracle.  I constantly think about how easy and unpredictable it is for things to go wrong for someone.  Did I cut the grapes small enough for V?  Will I hear her if she’s choking in the other room or will I wander over in 5 minutes to find a blue toddler?  Will she run out into the street one day before I can catch up to her?  While I know that these are highly unlikely and irrational fears and generally suppress them well, I can’t help but think.  Thousands of these types of “freak” scenarios unfold each year, and you just never know.  So to me, making it 30 years seems huge in light of the fact.

Two is also a milestone for the kid.  She’s in full toddler mode and this stage is rife with both challenges and joys.  Two is the age we can stop counting her age by months and just say she’s “two”.  Finally.  I’m guessing we’ll still toss half-year increments in there just for good measure since there’s still so much going on.  But this is a big deal.  Trying to track your child’s age in months is a surprisingly frustrating undertaking.  We were constantly second guessing our declarations of her age when asked.  Enough of that already.  It’s also a milestone for us.  We didn’t completely screw up our child.  She’s “normal”.  Or at least we think so.  We still check with pediatric standards once in a while.  But generally speaking, she’s a happy, fussy, temperamental delightful little child and I couldn’t be happier.

Can't have a post without a photo!

Take me out

to the ball game!

Clan Olin @ SJ Giants

The only way this could have been more awesome was if she had a uniform.

Last night was the little one’s first excursion to a (semi) pro baseball game…the San Jose Giants!  A ball at its finest!  Joining us were our entourage of (babyless, unfettered) friends , and a jolly time was had by all.  We initially had planned to skip the outing because someone was dealing with double ear infections, following her bout with roseola and a canine tooth.

Despite all of our concerns, it was so hot in Los Gatos yesterday while I was at work that I called Jax up and insisted that we attend the game with our friends, Vivi’s tempestuousness be damned.  So she came over, but not without insisting on feeding herself in town before we got to the stadium.  You have to understand that my wife grew up without ever really eating fast food.  Anyway, we ate at a greek restaurant in town, but I declined, instead anticipating the smorgasbord that lay in wait for me at San Jose Municipal Stadium.

When I was a kid, even before I understood the mechanics of sports, I knew I liked going to sporting events.  Tailgating, crowds, excitement.  It was all very riveting.  Most of all, though I remember that at ball games, there were no restrictions on food.  Soda, pizza, popcorn, licorice ropes, peanuts.  All fair game.  No holds barred.  Last night, I relived that joy, and Vivienne also got a taste of the future.

No words, no words. They should have sent a poet.

Mm, first churro, and boy is it delicious!

When we got home, as I lay in bed, my stomach was making all kinds of funny noise, I cursed my forgetfulness.  With such food comes a price.