Missing Items

by Phil

We're having an epidemic of lost items around here lately. Since my son is only 18 months old he hasn't noticed. While there are a few exceptions, he mostly plays with what's in front of him without much care. If a few things go missing here or there, who’s the wiser? Who? I am, that’s who.

If it was a singular ball or a block that went missing, I probably wouldn't even notice. The problem is that everything missing has been part of a larger grouping or set. It drives me kind of crazy. Let's review some of the items now. (These close-up photos make it sorely apparent that the parquet floors in our apartment are in desperate need of some repair.)

One of his Detroit Tigers socks. He loved those socks. When he wears them, he walks around all day pointing at them. Now one is gone.

The police car from his emergency vehicle puzzle board. (I haven't seen the tow truck since yesterday and fear it may have joined the other items on the list...)

The chicken from his set of stuffed barn animals.

Worst of all- The letter "P" from his name puzzle. I've spent days and days looking for that stupid "P."

When you ask him where any of these items are, he throws up his hands, looks around in his most confused manner and attempts to look as innocent as possible. It's as if he's trying to say, "Look, man, I'm as lost as you are here."

It's cute.

I don't buy it for a second.

Since he's the only child in our household and the only one who interacted with these items regularly, he's the main suspect. Unless we've somehow developed a serious kleptomaniac gnome problem or The Littles have moved in, the fingers are squarely pointed in his direction. Perhaps my wife and I need to play a little good cop/bad cop on his sorry butt under a seriously bright lamp. I could try sweating it out of him. My wife could offer him a cool sippy cup of water if he'd only cooperate. I'd ask him why he refuses to talk, only to realize it's only because he can't. If we were asking him his favorite snack (crackers or crah-cas) or to the opposite of up (um, that would be down, even he knows that), we'd be in the clear. The current position of these items, though? No dice.

I've wondered if there's a link between any of theses items. Is he attempting to pull of some sort of evil genius scheme where a sock, a tiny chicken, a police car and the letter P lead to his eventual rule over the planet? It just goes around in circles in my head. Clearly, I'm not Sherlock Holmes. But he just may be Moriarty. I could be over my head here.

It hit me a few days ago... I had the worst sinking feeling. He's recently discovered how to work his diaper caddy.

The culprit?

Have my wife and I been inadvertent accomplices in the renditioning of these objects? He throws the bag over their heads and we take them away? 

I said above that if a singular block or ball went missing we wouldn’t have noticed. We’ve only recognized these items that were a part of a set. It makes me wonder if even more has gone the way of the landfill.

There's actually something really sad about him playing a game, not realizing he's tossing away these things he loves forever. Of course we've never checked the trash bag of his diapers before (who would want to?) but I may just start now.

I’m still hoping some of these things may still pop back up somewhere. My theory may still be incorrect. I’ve never wanted to be wrong about anything more. But in the interim, i t may just be easier to move the diaper pail out of his room and avoid the whole mess before something of even larger value goes missing (like his beloved lion or bear). Ah, toddler curiosity- you both delight and torment me!

Inoculations

by Phil

It is my hypothesis that the sole purpose of toddlers within world ecology is the harboring and continued existence of viruses. Sure, within human relationship they offer their parents all sorts of joy and blah blah blah. But within the world as a whole, they are essentially virus farms.

Simply, they are germ bags.

I say this now because my son has shared his virus harvest with me and we have both been intensely sick all week.

My son has had a rough week and a half. Last Tuesday, we took him into the doctor for his sixteen month check up where he received 4 vaccinations. He had a slight reaction to them, which led to grumpiness and fever for the next two days.

That led right into the cold that he picked up somewhere. The cold involves fevers, chills, and, on top of a runny nose, a general stuffiness. So while he can't breath out of his nose, he can at least produce lots of mucus from it to run down his chin.

If that wasn't bad enough, he's also teething right now. Some of his molars are breaking through, leading to a lot of discomfort and anger. And drooling.

So he's breathing through his mouth because of the stuffiness but there's the added bonus of copious drooling because of the teething.

So lovely.

And wouldn't you know it, this happens to be the week when he picks up on the fact that our faces have different parts, all of which have names that he needs to be told immediately. Not only does his face have all of these parts but so does Dads!

Little tiny hands going right from pointing at his own snotty-drooly-mouth-nose-area to comparing those same areas on my face! Oh, and yes, those are my eyes you're poking. Thank you for the inoculations.

I seem to be about 24 hours behind him in my symptoms. It's like watching some horrible, tiny version of my future self struggle through the day with no power to change course.

Is it any wonder that I woke up this morning feeling as those someone laid asphalt over my lungs during the night? This insane congestion has settled into my chest that is so physical in nature it's hard to believe. I've never had the opportunity to compare and contrast, to be able to tell that my left lung is much more phlegm-filled than my right. I'd like to thank my son for expanding my horizons in wholly new ways that I never could have anticipated.

At this point the two of us are just struggling through as miserable heaps of misery. I'm hoping we'll come out the other side by Monday. This is his first major cold. It's kind of heartbreaking to watch a toddler go through all of this at the same time with no real understanding of what's going on or ability to do anything about it.

Luckily I have married some sort of superhero that has sailed through this miasma of pain unscathed. I don't know how she has escaped this horrible fate but I wish her luck on her virus-free trip through this life.

Don't laugh at me. I was once like you.

Halloween Hipster

by Phil

Halloween!

One of the best parts of Halloween is all of the absurd baby costumes. When babies don't have any control over their lives or haven't yet developed a fear of looking ridiculous, they offer a blank canvas of potential. It's the perfect opportunity for later, teenage embarrassment when you pull out the photos to show their friends.

Last year, when our son was only about 4 months old, we didn't do too much. We did put him in a pumpkin for a few minutes. Don't worry, the pumpkin is lined so he didn't get all goupy.

We also had a little skeleton onesie that he wore on a few occasions, including the All Souls' Processional since we were living in Tucson at the time. (Side note, try to make it to Tucson for the All Souls' Processional at least once. It's an amazing event.)

Our son rolled over for the first time on the same day as last year's procession!

So this year we wanted to put him in an actual costume. We started out with a store-bought dragon that was super cute. We were having an indoor party, though, and we were worried that the padded costume would be too warm. It would have been fine if he were older and we were going trick-or-treating outside. But indoors, it was a no-go.

Shortly before Halloween, Richmond held it's annual Folk Music festival. We went and had a great time (I'll write a post about it soon). We noticed that there was a large number of hipsters hanging around the festival, which led her to wonder aloud how hipster parents dressed their toddlers. Do they try hard (while making it look like they didn't try at all) to make their toddlers tiny hipsters? And... boom! New costume idea.

We returned the warm dragon costume and set about putting way too much thought and work into making our son the most repellent hipster we could. We succeeded in the hipster part but failed at repellent bit. He was the most adorable snob ever.

The results-

You may notice a few details about his costume. The thick-rimmed glasses, the androgyny of the purple scarf and too, too tight jeans (which are actually jeggings from the girls' department), the floppy hat and stripped socks. 

The plaid shirt clashes with the purple scarf and the lime green deep-v t-shirt (see below) in a way that says, "I don't care." The hoody is properly redundant with the floppy hat.

The right leg of his jeans is rolled up to avoid catching the chain while riding his fixie.

We worked on wearing those glasses and a hat for a week before Halloween. He looks at them as  playthings, just like everything else in the world.

Waiting for the poetry jam to start. He's got some free verse he's going to drop on the unsuspecting crowd. His sun metaphors are completely deck.

And, of course, his messenger bag has a skull on it, as do his socks. The skulls don't match, sending the message that he just can't put in the effort. 

That's a candy bracelet in his right hand there. 

As the layers get peeled off, the costume keeps going! His deep-v is also a message tee, expressing his contempt for whatever it is you like because it's clearly not obscure enough. The tee reads "That Thing You Like is Dumb" There's no punctuation. Who has time for periods?

Fingerstache! (Don't worry, it's washable marker and came off immediately.)

This one is blurry but I had to include it because the expression is classic.

And, of course, we end on the chest (temporary) tattoo that includes wings and a message.

Yeah, we tried way too hard. The hipsters would look down upon us for putting in the effort. But we had a blast. By the time he reaches his teens this costume isn't going to make any sense to him at all but we can reassure him that he was very hip and with it for awhile there.

Today he's back in regular jeans and a Superman t-shirt. The him-of-yesterday scoffs in the general direction of the him-of-today.

Surviving October

Normally, October is the month I dread. That's because it's the time when Stacey (as part of her duties as co-director of an honors program on campus) heads to Europe with her class. Sometimes, it's for two weeks, sometimes, it's for the full month.

This year, it was the latter. So, I was on my own, with Brady, for a whole month. Without help from family.

But you know what? Surprisingly, it went really smooth for me this time.

I'm sure a lot of it was the fact that Brady is now seven, and therefore a lot easier to handle. But I also think that it just boiled down to self confidence. I just felt more able to handle things on my own. I even took having no help from family or friends as a badge of honor. I could do this, and not worry that I was going to somehow burn the house down, or cause economic calamity.

That's not to say I didn't hit my wall now and then. Truth be told, it can be really lonely, and sometimes just communicating with friend through the Internet isn't quite enough. I missed Stacey; she has been possibly the only person I feel I can talk to. She's certainly the only sustained company I have in this state (we have a lot of friends that are students at Utah State. The problem is, they eventually decide to graduate, and move on).

So it's hard, from a social standpoint. It's tough when you have no one to sit down and bullshit about random things with, or watch MST3K/Rifftrax with. I really had no one to hang out with. So in that regard, this period has tended to be really rough for me.

Having stuff to do helped keep me from going too stir crazy. In previous years, I would have my comics to work on, but I was between scripts this time. So, I had no work to occupy my mind. So, I put my focus on other things, like cleaning the house, or continuing on my weight loss journey (30 pounds as of today).

I also tried to spend a lot more quality time with Brady, which I found was a bit more difficult when she was younger. Now that she's seven, it felt a lot easier to go do things, work on homework together, or just hang out and watch episodes of Beakman's World ad nauseum.

So, despite the occasional mental/emotional roadblock, I survived the month. More importantly, I think I felt like for the first time, I really had a grasp at this whole "dad" thing. That probably sounds crazy considering that I've been one for over seven years now, but I don't know if I ever felt 100% comfortable. Like I wasn't sure if I really knew what I was doing. Like I needed to defer more to Stacey and others regarding what was the right thing to do.

This year? I knew what I was doing.

One last thing: I need to give a lot of props and admiration to all the single parents out there, or the families that have one parent away from home for a long stretch of time. While it's been doable, it was difficult to do this for a month. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like when you're truly on your own, raising a child. Whether it's for a month, a year, or an indefinite period of time, my hat goes off to you all.

Guilt by Separation

By Phil

There's a certain amount of guilt that I feel whenever I have a "day off" from taking care of my son. This includes both extended periods of separation overnight and even short single-day excursions. I know it may seem crazy to many people but it's a natural reaction to the way that my life now works.

Life has a natural ebb and flow. There are periods when it doesn't seem like we can slow down to take a breath. Alternately, there are the times when it's all puppies and sunshine and relaxed weekends.  The last few weeks, there haven't been many puppies or relaxed weekends (there's still been sunshine, though). It has been nutty busy here. My wife has been working a ton and I've stepped up more than usual to make sure the house doesn't add more of a burden, to free her up as much as possible to be successful.

As a reaction, my wife declared "The Day of Phil" two weeks ago. She explicitly told me that I was to take a Saturday and do whatever I wanted. She would take our son and I would be free to do as I may. (No, this did not include debauchery. Get your minds back on track.) She told me to sleep in, explore the city, or even work (yes, long stretches of free time to work is a novelty and considered relaxing to me these days). It was a nice recognition from her for the weight that I've pulled around the house. It felt good.

As the week went on and The Day of Phil approached, the feeling of guilt that I described really came over me in earnest. However, I was determined to enjoy the day of freedom without my "extra appendage" as Angie called him recently.

Now, if someone gave you a day to do anything you wanted, including sleeping in as late as you wanted, what would you do? The start of my day is a perfect example of how my life has changed. I didn't sleep in. I actually let Angie sleep in and I got up with our son. (She let me sleep in the next day still.)

My new jogging stroller arrived that week and I was dying to try it out. What has happened to me? I was given the chance to catch up on sleep and I'd rather get up to try out a new stroller with giddy excitement.

Our son was pretty intrigued by the stroller and kept inspecting it all week...

 

...with excited results.

I've become such a giant dork. Some would tell you that this was always my natural state. Do not believe these people. They have some sort of dark ulterior motive, the goals of which are shady and sure to be destructive. Now, however... giant dork.

I was more excited about that stroller after my run than before, which seems just about impossible. In short, I love it. So does our son. I think I'm going to do a post solely about the stroller. I'm telling you, it's love. LOVE!



And you know what? I'm totally satisfied with that decision. It's one I'd make again because I had a blast running with my kid in that stroller.

So after the run, it was off for the solo part of my day. I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, a place I'd been wanting to check out since we moved to Richmond. I walked around a bit and grabbed a late lunch. The freedom was fantastic. It was also strange. Every now and again, I caught myself looking for where my son had run off to or looking up thinking I'd heard him.

Within the structure of my family, my role is, primarily, to take care of my son. As much as I enjoy it, it's also my job and I feel a certain level of obligation to do it to the best of my ability- both for my wife and to ensure that my son doesn't turn out to be some sort of broken wing-nut.

The strange thing is that I have a tough time turning that part of myself off when my wife is around. I continue to feel like I should be the one doing the bulk of the work with our kid when, really, it should be an even split. But since I live with my "work," there's no real separation for me. So when she takes him for more than a few hours on her own, it's difficult for me to feel like I'm not shirking my responsibilities.

(My wife is an amazing mother who can handle any situation thrown her way. I have full confidence in her.  These feelings are completely my own and come from a place of wanting to do my job for my family. I feel like I should throw that out there for anyone who may be questioning my wife at this point. This is all me.)

I've talked with other stay-at-home parents about this and I've heard varying levels of agreement with this feeling. It's the kind of job without vacation days or sick days. When I have a migraine, I tough it out and do my best. That's not a complaint. It's a recognition of the reality of being an at-home parent.

Since there is so little space between my independent life and my life with my son, the two can blend into one big miasma. The danger is losing yourself to the job because you love your kid so much and pour so much of yourself into them.

I have an all-day conference to attend tomorrow related to my work. I won't be there when my son wakes up or goes to bed. It will be an entire day without him. Guess who's already feeling guilty about that... With recognition of the pattern though, I'm hoping I can break out of it.

Perhaps I need a few free days here and there so I can shake these feelings. Being the most well-rounded and grounded person I can be is the best way to ensure that I'll be the best father I can be.

I'm going to Philadelphia in a month for two days. How much you want to bet I'll still feel bad about it?

(Geez, this post made me sound like a crazy person!)

Where one ends, another begins

by Carlos

It's been over a month since my last blog. I've been looking all that time for a moment to write this. In a sense, this is my farewell blog. I say that not so much because my 'status' has changed, but because as a part time worker, I really just don't have a moment any more.

I thought I was busy and tired when I was at home with one kid. I thought I was busy and tired when I was at home with 2 kids. Three kids just about pushed me over the edge. They're older now, but now I'm taking care of them after school and after I get home from working as a substitute teacher; now, I'm busy and tired! What's next??? Are grand kids even more exhausting?

Anyway, not to be a stay-at-home dad has been my dream after about day 3 when I started. It's finally here.

I asked my youngest if she remembers when her sisters were at school and we used to play hide-and-seek. She used to hide under the laundry basket and she used to say, "loo can't find meeeee!" (she can't pronounce her y's). She says she doesn't remember. Well, I remember, and I liked those times. In fact, I'm a little sad now that it's over. How I dreamed of the day when I could go back to work, and the work is good. But now that it's over, I realize how much time I spent trying to escape.

I can only hope that I don't let these times slip past me. It's true; they grow up so fast.
If it's ok, I'd like to say farewell to the past 5 years of my life; I really don't know what to say... it's been good, it's been bad. For sure, it's been real. Peace to you...

And I tip my hat to all parents. I don't know how double income families do it. I'm happy I'm not them. And to all you guys who change the diapers, get up in the middle of the night, and stop the endless bickering between siblings; When you get baby shit on your hands, when your favorite shirt has vomit on it, when you have to take the car seat apart again because they had an accident, when you're at play groups and you're the only dude over the age of 3, when you have to go to 'Mom and tot' time at the library, when it seems like you're the only guy who is driving a mini van, when it seems that you have more in common with your buddy's wife because of their kids than you do with your buddy, when night comes and you have a hard time realizing what really got done that day, and when you can't even remember what day it is; brother, this time will end. Make of it what you will.

Peace

Tres

"Waaahhhhhh!"

My first thought, as I hear the human alarm clock that is my 3 month old, is "Where's my wife?"

And then the slow realization begins to overtake me. My heart begins pounding, my head sweating. There is no backup. This is a solo operation now.

My wife has gone back to work.

This summer, we were blessed with our third daughter, A. She has been a fantastic baby. It's as if Superman (that's who I assume sent her) made her super happy and super chill so that we would love having three kids. "Hey Mom! Hey Dad! I don't cry a lot; I smile a lot; you made a great decision!"

We were also very fortunate that Carrie was able to take an extended maternity leave. She was off all summer, returning to work after Labor Day. It was like she was a teacher, but without all the smoking, drinking, and threats.

Our summer was great. We hit up museums; went to the zoo; and all the other typical summer activities. We were able to run errands with minimal hassle. I was able to take a few of the day gigs I normally pass up. After all, I have a live in babysitter, who also happens to be quite the looker.

It was our best summer yet. We really loved being home together.

However, all good things stop. (or something like that)

I totally forgot what it was like to deal with a newborn exclusively. When we were both home, we can share in the diapering, playing, changing. (Carrie was in charge of the nursing; my nipples were too sensitive.) So I had to deal with all of this myself.

And not just A. But two other kids under the age of 4, both of whom, demand more attention every day. L & E were both sad to see their mom go. But I've got to say they've both been a big help. We always assumed L would be a great help, being of the first born persuasion. But E surprised us, but only a little. We thought she'd have a harder time with A. She was our baby before, but now she was the big sister. And she took it on with gusto. She's been as helpful as L ever was. With the two of them entertaining Ava in the bouncy seat, home maintenance has become easier.

And I miss Carrie. It's odd, that I would enjoy having my wife around to help with the kids, share in the kids experiences, and laugh with. (SARCASM) But I do. And I know she misses all of us, too. Her tearful calls from her cubicle tell us so. But she's a champ. And she does a great job supporting us. And by us, I mean Earth.

Three kids have me flustered, but happier than ever. I have to relearn how to get L prepped, and ready to go to preschool; how to keep E entertained and engaged; and how to feed/clean/clothe A. Having three kids isn't that much different than two, but enough to make me start over from scratch with routine. It's almost like learning how to walk again.

Actually, it's more like learning how to run again.