I come out of blogging semi-retirement to present to you:

Levi, picking coneflowers, playing “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not.”  Son, that’s awfully depressing.

Pictures were taken at our church’s annual post-service easter egg hunt for the children.

Obligatory Easter photos of the kids are forthcoming, I promise.  But first:

So, like, apparently there’s a big game on tonight.  In celebration, I present this video.

For Levi’s birthday, we got him what every two-year old boy in Indiana wants:  a basketball hoop.  Actually, he would’ve been happy with a giant dump truck or a large box of styrofoam peanuts or a roll of bubble-wrap, but he certainly reacted well.  The problem?  He’s just a liiiiiitle bit too short to reach.  So we got out his ladder and let him go to town.

Go Butler.

Norah can be a picky eater.  She can also be quite stubborn. So last night, as she sat and steadfastly refused to eat her pork chops, succotash and rice, graciously provided by Rachel’s mother who cooked for all of us sidelined by the stomach flu, I tried every trick in my arsenal to get her to eat: Mmm, I love this meal, can I finish yours? Your food will taste much better warm than cold.  Grandmama made this meal special for you!  Everything on this plate is stuff you like!  Lima beans are loaded with manganese to help you grow!  No dessert until your pork is all gone. Until finally it just… slipped out.  You know, there are a lot of hungry kids in the world who would do anything to eat your supper.

Oh yeah.  I went there.  I used the “starving children in China” meme.

What was I thinking?  I mean, that crap never works.  Didn’t work when I was a kid, doesn’t work now. Four-year olds don’t care about hungry children in other places in the world. Hell, my daughter couldn’t even find China on a map.  Did I expect her to have an epiphany over that?

As expected, it was massive parenting FAIL.  She just blinked owlishly at me, cocked her head and said “What children?”

Never mind, honey.

She did eat her pork, after a final desperate combination of bribery and bartering (two bites of pork, then she can eat the rest while watching Cars in the living room).  She was particularly ornery last night.  The succotash and rice remained on the plate, waiting for the next emaciated foreign child to wander by and gobble it up.

PRESCRIPT:  There are some new readers to this blog, and I’d like to say two things to them.  1) Welcome! and 2) No, I don’t usually write this much about illness and disease. However, last night the universe decided to continue its recitation of the Aristocrats on my behalf by infecting me with my daughter’s stomach flu.  I haven’t thrown up since I was ten years old after eating a chicken dish at a greasy spoon in Chicago’s Chinatown, but I did so with both the skill and dedication of an Olympian last night.  Eww.  Since I’m now quarantined in the bedroom with a plastic tupperware and a laptop, it’s given me a chance to go through the random bits of detritus that are floating, unfinished, through my blog.

The following is a post that I started a couple of months back when my wife was saddled with the flu for over a week.  During that time I did double-duty, working from home and taking care of the kids, one of which ended up on antibiotics with an ear infection at the same time.  It was a week that stretched both my parental acumen and my relationship with my wife, and this seems as good a time as any to finish the damn thing.

No one who reads a newspaper or watches CNN can avoid hearing about the swine flu/H1N1, the OMG-WTF-PAND3M1C that’s been percolating across the globe for the past couple of years.  During that time it moved from its innocuous origins Out There ™ – you know, that place that nobody cares about because it’s Not Here ™ – to my daughter’s preschool classroom, a circumstance that has caused us no small matter of angst.  But that’s not the point of this post.

The kids didn’t get the flu.  I didn’t get the flu.  My wife did.  And in a lot of ways, that’s infinitely worse.

But you know what?  It’s HARD.  It’s incredibly difficult suddenly being thrown into the shark-infested waters of single-parenthood without any time for preparation.  The childcare support network that we’ve been blessed with suddenly evaporated that week, which left me with a sick spouse, two young children to care for, work responsibilities from home, and very little help.  None of which is even remotely the fault of my wife, who ended up suffering more or less alone, quarantined in her room with books and a laptop while her children were prevented from seeing her for fear of exposure to the fucking swine flu.

So in a lot of ways this post is also in part an apology to my wife.  The whole purpose of  being an enlightened dad is to avoid that old chestnut that men aren’t capable of being nurturing caregivers while at the same time being, well, men.  Over at DadCentric, some recent posts have been calling out not only the pop culture cliché that “good dads are hard to find,” or the pointing out of celebrity fathers doing what they should be doing as some sort of freakish Hollywood sideshow, but also the self-deprecating daddy-blogger (a trope that I myself have all-too frequently fallen into here) who inadvertently perpetuate those same stereotypes in the thinly veiled guise of being clever.  Guilty.  So what does it say about me that I had so much trouble taking care of my kids for a full week?  What does it mean that, in fulfilling what is expected of me as one half of a caregiving team, I nearly put my fist through the wall on several occasions? That parenting was so damn hard that I actually cried during the kids’ nap times on more than on occasion that week?

But see, here’s the thing.  If this situation were some sort of a cosmic test, some karmic final exam of my parental abilities in the face of enormous stress, then… I passed.  Not by much.  I’d give myself a C-minus – a “gentleman’s C” if grading on a curve.

Could I make it as a single dad?  Yeah.  Would I want to?  Absolutely not.

The experience left my wife and I at loggerheads.  She was angry at me for not taking more and better care of her when she was infected, and I was angry at her for (to my eyes) not once saying thank you for the sacrifices I made this week.  I didn’t want to spoon-feed her tea because I didn’t want the damn flu… but I put the welfare of my two healthy children on a higher pedestal than I did my sick wife, the woman who bore those two children. She didn’t express her gratitude to me in an overt way… but it’s incredibly difficult to do so when you feel so sick and it’s like the feeling will never go away. By the end of the week, we were so irritated with each other for these stupid perceived slights that we were reduced to sending nasty e-mails to each other — I from the downstairs futon (the Realm of the Banished Husband) and she from our bedroom. Ahh, marriage.

She apologized first, which she maybe shouldn’t have done, but it was appreciated.  And this, then, is my apology to her for my failure to understand that even the infected need comfort from the stressed-out single dad.  I get that now.  As hard as it was, I could have done more.  And I’m sorry.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the pundits on CNN love to talk about the “sexy” aspects of a pandemic like this one.  I get that.  It’s a fascinating study into how viruses originate and spread in our global economy.  But rarely do these reports get down to the ground level and see the impacts — both direct and secondary — that these viruses cause to the people who are infected.  With time and reflection, the pundits have concluded that H1N1, while most certainly a pandemic and cause for concern, was “not that serious” of a virus in the grand scheme of things.

On behalf of my family, I beg to differ.

As of yesterday we were fairly certain we had dodged a bullet.  Norah was feeling fine, was eating fine, hadn’t felt ill since that Sunday when she puked at her grandmother’s house.  She ate well last night and thoroughly enjoyed tearing around with her cousins for hours.

When Norah’s monitor woke me up at 12:30 a.m. I didn’t immediately register that it was her.  It wasn’t Norah’s typical “something’s wrong” crying.  All I heard was screaming.  Horrified, terrible screaming.  I’ve never gotten out of bed so quickly.

I think the impact of her vomiting all over her books on the floor of her bedroom shocked her as much as anything in her short life has.  I entered her room to see her sitting on the floor, staring at the puddle of vomit with wide eyes full of abject terror.  I expected to turn my head and see Dread Cthulu.

I stroked her hair and tried unsuccessfully to calm her down for five minutes before waking up my insomniac wife, who with the help of Lunesta had heretofore slept through the commotion.  She was able to calm her down and change her clothes while I scrambled for paper towels, old dish cloths, and plastic bags.

They say you’re not a parent until you’ve cleaned up vomit at 12:30 a.m.  I crossed that Rubicon loooong ago, and didn’t exactly need a reminder of my parental acumen.

We were up with Norah at least three additional times, though thankfully she hasn’t hurled again since that first (neé second)  incident.  My wife has reported, in between sips of caffeinated beverages and while rocking back and forth in a sleep-deprived near catatonic stupor, that she’s again on the couch whimpering, though she’s managed to keep down some oatmeal and chicken soup.  Levi is currently cranky, though unaffected.

We got barely a week’s reprieve between the pneumonia and this.  If the universe likes jokes, it’s obviously half-way through a particularly nasty and disgusting telling of The Aristocrats.  Not funny, universe.  Not fracking funny.

Editorial note:  There goes that ennui thing again.

Nothing sucks the soul out of you quite like having sick children.

We knew this was coming, of course.  As soon as we enrolled Norah into the plague-ridden social cesspool that is (by definition, not specifically our) preschool, we knew she’d be coming home with flesh-eating bacteria or Legionnaire’s Disease or whatever Venezuelan monkey plague has been making the rounds of the pre-K set.  Let’s be clear – I have absolutely nothing against our pre-school, which we adore and that is lovingly taught my my aunt Martha.  But not even hosing the children down with Lysol before and after each class would prevent them from bringing the Ebola virus into our collective living rooms.

And so, two weeks ago, Norah got pneumonia.

She’d been coughing for a few days which she is wont to do if she gets the sniffles (nasal drainage, dontchaknow), so we weren’t particularly worried until the weekend when I noticed that she started running a high fever.  Seven days, four doctor’s appointments and two antibiotics later, she’s diagnosed with full-blown raging pneumonia and was this close (*holds fingers slightly apart*) from being hospitalized.  My sainted wife has exhausted her energy supplies, we put at least 240 miles on our new Honda (“DeFit”, named after Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe… Ulysses is no more) Fit, and spent over $200 on medical co-pays before the penultimate doctor’s visit when we were told that our now-coughing one-year old son ALSO has pneumonia and we better get him on antibiotics as well.

Head, meet desk.  Repeat.

Kids are resilient and tend to bounce back quickly from illness.  At least that’s what the parenting books say.  But it’s a soul-wrenching exercise to see your young daughter whimpering on the couch and watching “Up” for the third time that day because she’s too sick to do anything else.  Or to take said child into a steam-filled bathroom at 3 a.m. to read books because otherwise she can’t stop coughing.  Or to hold your young son while he’s burning up with fever.  They’re exceedingly sweet, my sick children.  They cuddle a lot more, for one thing, curling up into vaguely kid-shaped balls on my lap while they radiate heat like Easy-Bake Ovens.  But it’s a hard price to pay for a little extra cuddle-time with Papa.  I can’t enjoy it.  My entire collective will is concentrating on enfolding them, keeping them comfortable.  It’s as if my entire being is trying it’s damndest to penetrate into their cells, finding those viruses, and eradicating them.  Anything for my kids.  Anything.  I’d jump into traffic for them if I knew then they’d be better tomorrow, tonight, this very hour.

Antibiotics are miracle drugs, though I believe the experts who say we’re overusing them and using them unnecessarily.  Don’t care.  They got my babies better.  It took two weeks until they were back to normal, but they did get better.  Naturally, they defied all logic and shared the underlying crud with their papa.  I didn’t get pneumonia, but I was out for two days with the crud, which in and of itself sucked mightily.  The ONE time I asked them not to share…

It had been a week and all was well.  Until Norah threw up at her Granna’s house Sunday morning.  When my wife called my aunt, Norah’s preschool teacher to see if there was any stomach flu going around the preschool, she couldn’t talk long because she was too busy vomiting with explosive diarrhea.

And the pox on our household continues.

Head, meet desk.  Repeat.

Levi

The small one has reached that phase in his development where his vocabulary really starts to blossom.  Of course, he’s also benefitted from an older sister who likes nothing less than trying to get him to say certain things.  His vocabulary has increased to the point where he’s not only saying a lot of new words but also using a number of mangled phrases:  ”There you are!” “There it is!” “All done.” “I don’t know.” “Where is it?”  And naturally, there are the classics:  ball, keys, church, Papa, Mama, “Rorah,” ice, cracker.

But like his sister, he adopted quite a few words that are in his own language.  Much like Norah with her ubiquitous “Da,” Levi had adopted “Hnn!” as his “yes.”  As in:  Levi, would you like to go to Granna’s house?  ”Hnn!”  Would you like a cracker?  ”Hnn!”  Would you like to go play in traffic?  ”Hnn!”

Until recently.  He’s replaced “Hnn!” with the ridiculously cute “Okay!”  And the way he says it kinda makes it sound like a cross between the Geico Pothole Woman and <geekalert>the Peon from Warcraft II.</geekalert>

There are comedic pop culture possibilities here with training.  (Levi – Dilute!  Dilute! “Okay!” In what state does the Edwards family live? “O.K.!”)

Prescript:

Yes, I’ve been gone.  For a long time.  A long, long time.  I make no arguments. Jason Avant over at DadCentric – a group of dad-bloggers whom I constantly steal ideas from am inspired by – recently posted that there’s no such thing as writer’s block – only ennui.  And, well, I’ve had ennui in spades for about two months now.  My WordPress dashboard is full of stupid notes, half-finished posts, and the random detritus of an overly-fettered mind.  Now I just need to figure out what ennui is and how to get rid of it.  Damned French.  It’s like they have a different word for EVERYTHING.

Church with a four-year old is an exercise in controlled multitasking.  You simultaneously try and socially engage with people who don’t wear diapers or pony underwear, listen to the service, sing, keep the small one from knocking over the advent wreath and fetch him from the rock pit at the front of the sanctuary, provide snacks, stave off preschool ennui (there’s that word again!), and commune with God.  And that’s just before children’s time.

Thank you, God, for sending your Son to be born, we ask on this third week of Advent.  And for Crayola.

My daughter’s getting pretty good at the whole drawing thing by now, sketching pictures on her knees using the chair as a drawing table.  She’s recently been joined by her three-year old cousin, a confirmed Mad Sribbler, and this Sunday they knelt side-by-side in front of their chairs, in abject worship of waxy color sticks and construction paper.  Amen.

This mostly went unnoticed by me this past Sunday as I continued to retrieve Levi from the rock pit.  After all, if they’re content, I can divert that segment of my brain to more important duties.  Like removing Levi from the rock pit.  Again.

Nothing really prepares you for that moment when your preschooler presents you with one of Those Pictures, though.

“Papa!” she shouted, over top of the scripture reading.  ”Look at this picture I made you!”

Shhh, child!  Inside voice! “It’s wonderful, honey.”  Followed by the eternal question with regards to preschool art: ” …Aaaaaand what is it?”

“It’s YOU,” she stage-whispered, quietly enough for only three rows around us to hear, “on the POTTY!”

Awesome.

“I… see.  And what’s this thing beside me?”

“A rocket ship!”

Okay, awesome! Nothing says “potty” like a picture of a launching space craft.  Based on the giggles from the rows surrounding us, there were other congregants who thought this was as funny as I.

I’m posting her handiwork.  It’s quite good.  I’m concerned with the size of my belly button, and with the fact that she so effortlessly captured the essence of me on the crapper.  But who can argue with a rocket ship?!  I’m keeping this one.

Potty time is AWESOME! (click for full size)

I don’t often post links to articles on here, as I prefer this blog be a chronicle of my own experiences as opposed to others.  But Motherjones.com has an interesting article on the pink vs. blue debate and its cultural history and impact on childhood development and gender roles.  It’s a fascinating read.

I say this as a father of a four-year old confirmed pink princess and a 19-month old boy who, given the choice, will always choose the truck over the doll.  I’ve noticed the color segregation in Kohl’s and have always struggled with the fact that, while Norah often wore “boys clothes” as a child (and still does when we can cajole her out of her cotton-candy colored tops), Levi doesn’t have a single pink thing to his name.  My wife has a strong resistance to dressing him in anything remotely “girly.”  I’m of the opinion that if he wants to wear Norah’s Tinkerbell dress-up costume, he’s welcome to it.

It was an interesting and welcome read as I continue to process my thoughts regarding gender roles while raising my two young children.  You may enjoy it as well.

Code Pink

As little girls go wild for pink, parents see red and marketers see green.

—Photo: JeongMee Yoon

September/October 2009 Issue

WHEN MY DAUGHTER WAS BORN about a year ago, I was suddenly buried in pink. The only gender-neutral clothing appearing on my doorstep was the brown uniform of the guy delivering piles of packages containing untold yardage of powder-pink cloth: pale-pink blankets to swaddle pale-pink diaper covers, monochromatic onesies and rompers that redundantly announced “baby girl” in contrasting embroidery. (Thank God my generous gift givers did not send any of those bow-festooned headbands designed to confirm the femininity of a bald infant.)

We’ve come a long way from my early-’70s childhood. Those were good days to be an ungirly girl: I wore work boots while sharing a sandbox with the progeny of some of the authors of Our Bodies, Ourselves. In those circles, it would have been absurd to suggest that girls’ clothing be exclusively stitched with butterflies and blossoms or that boys be clad in T-shirts emblazoned with something requiring an engineering degree to build. Such totalizing distinctions were seen as defunct at best, and at worst, harmful. Yet many of the self-described feminists who had dressed their own children in primary colors and overalls were now deluging me with enough pink to adorn a Barbie convention. What happened?

Maybe they were just buying what’s out there. Kids’ clothing stores are sharply divided into boys’ and girls’ sections, with no demilitarized zone in between. Healthtex touts its toddler boys’ line as “rich with fun, rough and tough images of cars, dinosaurs and animals in vivid bright colors”; its girls’ line is “adorable with flower art and embroidery in light and airy colors.” Restoration Hardware’s nursery designs are exclusively pink or blue, as is almost all of Pottery Barn’s kids’ line. Everywhere you look, American kids appear to be waging a national color war.

(Read More)