Cherishing the failure

My little boy has come a long way.  Now 28+ months old, he can walk, run, and climb, he can carry (empty) boxes and turn little wooden nuts onto bolts.  He can talk with reasonable articulation in English, and can name a number of things in Spanish.  He's undeniably clever and developing physical skills at a nice clip.

But with regularity, when attempting something that he easily did moments before, he falls flat on his face.  Very often the fall is quite literal.  And I am learning to thoroughly enjoy these little failures.

Just this morning, Jude went to swing his leg over a little Scooter that he rides around the house - this is a super simple action he has completed successfully countless times - but he started the maneuver from too far away.  It was funny to watch, one of his feet firmly planted about 18 inches from the front of the bike and the other foot kind of flailing around in space about 4 inches short of the seat.  And what came next was instructive: he realized the error, replanted the pivot foot a little closer, and successfully mounted up and off he went with a smile.

In the same kind of way, I'll watch him tear around the house like a little Nascar racer, looping from kitchen to dining to living rooms, ducking under and around table corners and sporting a kind of wild eyed look on his face.  Jude can manage this circuit with ease, except every once in a while the floor apparently reaches up and grabs him and he full on tumbles into the hardwood.  And then he gets up and takes off again.

We are in a great stage because these kinds of little accidents cost us little.  Jude has gotten good at falling without injury, and he rarely cries over it any more.  My hope is that he is cultivating resilience and patience with the bumps and tumbles that come with life, the little frustrations that can so easily reduce an adult to literal or figurative tears.  And maybe that's part of why I am enjoying watching my son fail - failure for him is not tiger pit or an insurmountable obstacle, but just one of those little things that happen before you move on with a goofy smile on your face.

and...relief

As I expected but feared would not happen, my son's fever broke and his personality returned in force at 1:30 AM this morning.  Rarely have I enjoyed being woken early as much as this time, with a little voice - still hoarse but somehow measurably more pleasant - coming through the monitor asking for juice and a snack and to play downstairs with his big rig.  In short, he feels much better and so do his mama and I.

fear

In some ways, every fear is of the unknown.

As a parent, the most common fear is that something could happen to your child.

When something happens to your child, the fear extends to what may happen next.

My little boy is sick this week.  Nothing tragic or overly serious, or so we heard today at the doctor's office.  Apparently he has an ear infection (or two), likely brought on as a "secondary infection" from his system being depressed due to allergies, or a cold, etc

I'm not taking it well.

He cannot tell us what hurts, or what he wants, or what he needs.  Our relatively articulate 2 year old has been reduced to a constant moan, with spikes of intense whining.  Normal treats, like juice, he treats with contempt.  He doesn't want us to take his clothes off; he doesn't want us to put clothes on him.  He doesn't want us to wipe his nose, and he doesn't want us to give him medicine.  Every action we have taken today has resulted in full body spasms as he fights us; he doesn't understand we are trying to help and hurting alongside him.

The whole experience has unnerved and shaken me, and it leaves me frightened about what could come.  Again - my son has what is very likely a common ear infection and will be back to normal soon.  But in the interim it is just too easy for our fear to fester, for us to fear that his pain - and our own - will somehow evolve and extend into something worse and longer lasting.

Love can be hard, and love can hurt.

Here's hoping that everyone feels better in the morning.

Month 23

Or 2Y - 1mo!  The 23rd month is always going to give up a little luster to the coming celebration of the big 2 year mark, but this month has been pleasant.  Not only has the weather turned a little crisper, but you, my boy, have graduated into the next grade of terrorizing your parents.  This month, you learned to climb.

Just a few short nights ago, while prepping for one of many holiday meals, you climbed right up onto a two step stool and "helped" Mama with her cooking.  And now, forever more, the knives will have to be put away, not to be left on the counter top for reachy little hands.

I blame it all on your new friend; we recently had dinner with another family in their home, and their son (your age +/- one week) was climbing all over the place and you took copious notes.  It's all good, though.  1/8 of a second after this picture was taken, you learned the second lesson of climbing, and the bruise didn't even last a day.

You also continued developing your curiosity this month.  As mentioned before, you get to go to the TN aquarium a ridiculous amount, and at each stage of your very young life you have reacted differently to the experience.  This last time you finally took notice of the jelly fish and maybe a little bit the giant crabs.  And for 7 or 8 seconds you checked out the under water observation bubble.





This was your first year with real exposure to holiday food, and it turned out to be a good year for that. Both families (Mama's and Daddy's) celebrated Thanksgiving with above average iterations of the turkey, stuffing, potato, etc assembly.  At your Oma's house, you even got to show your climbing skills off out on the deck in pretty but brisk temps.

I should also mention that you are talking more, and with more sophistication.  I am more impressed that you look at a picture book and say "two mouses" than I am concerned that you haven't fully grokked the crazy English rules of plurals.

Along the same lines, it makes me and yo mama fuzzy and warm on the insides when you wander off in the house and we find sitting with a book, "reading" to one of your friends (owl, train, Pooh...)  It shows my bias, but I do believe that if we can get encourage your love of reading that the rest of your education will likely take care of itself.

We are excited about the coming celebration, and we are committed to recognizing your birthday despite the societal focus on the Christmas holidays, but we cherish each month, and 23 is no exception.  Maybe because you brought the style this month, hard.

I love you, son.  Stay cool.

Month 22

For those readers new to this blog, I write about a great many things but not very often (right now), but one thing that I write about every month on the 26th is my son.  He was born on December 26, 2010, and so he is now twenty two months old.  Except today is the 31st.  So I'm late.  Again.

On the actual day, the Chattanooga Zoo had a pre-Halloween event called "Boo in the Zoo", where you could bring your kids out in their costumes and walk around looking at the animals and the other kids in their costumes.

It was a lot of fun and maybe a little overwhelming but totally worth it.




Son, this 22nd month ended up being a pretty big in the course of our family's direction.  In some ways this shift had nothing to do with you, but from a different perspective it had everything to do with you.  The very short version of the story is that I made a decision this month to attempt a change in career.  After a lot of consideration, your mom and I decided that we both want to spend more and higher quality time together as a family.

I have more to say, about your development and about the changes in my career, but I'll save that for another day.  For now, know that you are my favorite little fireman in the world, and that you have an incredibly talented and crafty mama too!

the wonder wanders

Hit play and let this be the soundtrack for this morning's post:

[i would prefer a live action video, but I didn't see any suitable PS originals, and the cover versions on youtube for this song seem...not great?]

There is a heavy fog in the Tennessee valley this morning, and when my little boy looked out the window to see the school bus hurtling by, and then later the trash truck doing its duties, he watched and reacted as he always does.  There was no concerned glance at dad, as if to communicate "why is the outside so fuzzy and white this morning?"  No, he just accepted this novelty (in his experience); he just took it in and rolled with it.

When do we lose that?  The phrase "childlike wonder" or "innocence" or similar have risen to the level of cliche, but of course their commonality derives from the fact that kids are more open.

Is it possible to extend that state a bit later in life than is typical for children in the US?  And would that be healthy or beneficial or wise?  Are adult attempts to rekindle that sense of wonder in their own lives appropriate, and is it even possible do regain that state, or are those childlike moments really just a quasi successful short term delusion?

Watching my boy engage with the world is fun, and it does in some ways give me a little wormhole window back into the child's eye perspective, but I also recognize the danger in allowing nostalgia to put a Instagrammed [ed note. too au courant] romanticized, sepia toned overlay on my actual experiences as a kid.

Month 20

A few days late!  Sometimes life comes at you fast, you know?

This has been a great month.  I hate it when people toss around terms like "blessed" cheaply; after careful consideration, I can say that I have felt truly blessed in recent weeks to be stuck with a kid like you and a wife like yo' mama.

today, I weigh "awesome"

We took a trip to Asheville, NC this month, for a long weekend break from home.  After touring the Biltmore house, we checked out the little "village" they have built for additional tourist dollar extraction.  One bit was a barn with retired farm equipment set around for viewing; this is a great time to share with the world your intense passion for tractors...

old MacDonald better watch his back - there's a new farmer in town

I'm sure that I would have been happy in an alternate timeline where we didn't have a child, but this actual timeline has brought me so much joy, and so much of it in ways I could not have anticipated.  Hearing you say "tractor, tractor, TRACTOR!" with this gleam of hungry joy in your eyes is so much fun.

It's not just tractors - you want to drive everything.  Anything with a wheel, you're going to wheel it.  And if it doesn't have a wheel, you're going to figure out how to drive it anyway.

no, I am NOT ready to stop driving the boat

Each passing month has brought new excitement too, in the form of opportunities to play and explore and experiment.  For example, you have learned both the solo and tandem approaches to sliding

Also?  You eat like a champ.  More and more, you are taking food off of Mom and Dad's plates, and in some cases when we are out to eat, you even get to order your own food from the menu.  At home, less of your food comes in a pouch with a picture of a baby or Elmo on it (ed note: you have always eaten a lot of fresh fruits and veggies), and more and more comes from the produce section of the store.

I've started thinking of you as "2"...maybe it's the concept of rounding up?  We have a few more months before you are officially 2, and I'm guessing there will be some new rounds of awesome in those months, and then we will have a special 24 months / 2 years post!  Stay tuned, and stay cool.

Daddy loves you very much!

Month 19

You woke up with a 102+ fever this morning, the morning after your old man turned 35.  Some mornings (and months!) are harder to appreciate than others.  Even so, the last 30 days had some highlights worth mentioning here:

• you traveled out of the country, to Aruba for a few days, to celebrate the wedding of one of Mom's cousins.  You did great.  I intend to write more, later, about traveling as a small family with a young kid(s).
• you have pretty well mastered eating with a fork
• while you are still not making sentences, you are saying many words, more clearly and in appropriate contexts.  It's very cool to see your ability to communicate (verbally and non-) improve so much over such a short amount of time
• on one of our semi-regular trips to the Aquarium, you walked pretty much the whole way around the exhibits, up and down ramps.  That was a big change from being carried or strollered around

So...sorry this month's post is a little mechanical and uninspired.  Be sure that you are still inspirational, but Daddy's kind of down today.

18 months! 1.5 years! wow!

Your mother and I decided pretty early on that we weren't going to do this "half birthday" non-sense...just because your actual birthday came the day after Christmas, it's your birthday, and we will be as ridiculous about you on that day as we want.

But...18 months does seem like a big deal, for some reason.  A lot HAS happened in this last month.

You got your first car (and you take personal safety seriously!)

You are learning to eat like an adult (this bit is home grilled pizza)



You even made a go at your first job, but it turned out that delivering packages was not your passion.

I have no video evidence to offer here, but this month has also seen you beginning to show your interest in expression via dance...nearly every day you find a chance to turn on the radio (you love pushing buttons), and we find you spinning, smiling, waving your arms.  It's quite a sight, and one we have yet to tire of seeing.

There is, however, video evidence that you are going to be awesome at hiding:



One of the things about this stage that constantly surprises me is how I see you...in one moment, you look like a proper little dude about town, like here where it looks like you are weighing the decision between San Pellegrino and the more quotidian DeerPark bottled waters:

or here where you seem ready to have a heart to heart chat:

but then, at other times, I look at you and all I can see is the soft, tiny chunk of love you were 18 months ago:

Son, we tell you all the time, but don't think we can say it too much: your mother and father love you.

Month 17

This month turned out to be full of interesting bits.  For one, you stopped drinking your mom's milk in the last few weeks.  This was a decision we made, a plan we agreed on, and when the time came you took the change in stride.  Your mom struggled a little, and still does - the intimacy of breastfeeding creates a very tight bond between Mom and Baby, and I know she misses that part of the evening; the bedtime feeding was the last to go.

Part of the rationale for weaning you this month was connected to the other big happening.  For the first time ever, Mom was away from you over night.  And not just one little Mother's-Night-Out, but a whole week!

The other side of that equation meant that this same week was Dad's first opportunity to be the sole care giver for you, several hours in the morning, and then from afternoon and through the nights.  For weeks in advance I had been building this little lump of anxiety in my belly, not sure of what to expect from the week but nearly certain that I would mess it up in some spectacular way.

I should not have worried.  Things went better than I could have expected, and probably better than I deserved.  The first night (my biggest concern!), you let me rock you to sleep without incident.  I sang to you for about 15 minutes (it turns out you like U2, Tom Waits, and I'm Just a Little Black Raincloud!), and you just closed your eyes and slept through until breakfast time.

And breakfast (that first morning and each subsequent iteration) was super easy too.  I should probably not brag too much, because when Mom reads this she will probably realize that I could take on more of these routine chores looking forward...

The second night you did do something weird, but it turned out ok.  After staring me down through the singing period (was it that you wanted a whole new batch of songs?  Or that you were hoping for more Gillian Welch and less INXS?), you let me put you in your crib - still awake - and leave you there.  This was after an hour or so of rocking and singing to you, during which you yawned plenty, rubbed your eyes, and snuggled in close, but did.  not.  go.  to.  sleep.

So I left you in the crib.  When I got downstairs and checked you on the monitor, you were still laying quietly in your crib, your little raccoon eyes (night vision cameras can be creepy) open and gazing up at me...  And so it went for another hour.  You did eventually doze off, but only after surprising me with this silent treatment.  I had expected tantrums and crying, and I got this very mellow, contemplative kid.  I convinced myself that you were working through some Trennungsangst about your mom being gone.  But hey, it was better than crying!

The rest of the week gave us opportunities for other "firsts": first bath time alone with Dad, first dinner trip out alone with Dad, first time singing Sunday Bloody Sunday as a lullaby...

I also gained some perspective on parents who are always doing this job solo, and came to understand just a little more how challenging that life must be.  I've appreciated (and loved) your mom since long before you were born, but a week where our only experience of her was over (an inconsistent) video chat link reaffirmed how central she is to our experience of Family.

In anticipation, I couldn't wait for this week to come and go and to be able to look back on it as "done", but now the rear looking perspective is bittersweet.  You and I had a great time, and we both know now that we can do this, we can hold it together for a few days at a time, just the two of us.

I love you, son.

month 16

You can never step in the same river twice, and no two months in your kid's life are the same...but, when I write the book of being a dad, I will probably comment that the pace of change and development and onslaught of novelty slows some in the low teen months.  You do new things, but they are really marginal progressions over the last few months.

The most striking "new" thing that I noticed in April was your ability to understand me and your mom.  We can give you pretty complicated instructions, and you carry them out (if you are in the mood, not distracted by the dog, not hungry, etc...) and that comprehension and ability to act on your understanding is very cool.

 

In so far as we have family "traditions", one that has evolved over the last year or so is a Saturday trip downtown, with a nice family breakfast and trip to the TN Aquarium.  We've found that getting there at opening time makes a HUGE difference in our collective ability to enjoy the exhibits.  You are not yet 2 years old, and you have probably been to the aquarium 10 times already.  On this most recent trip you showed more active interest in the fish and birds and butterflies, as opposed to just a general excitement in being "out".

There's a little park near our home, and Mom takes you there pretty often.  You have graduated from just swinging and checking out the more mobile kids to BEING one of the more mobile kids.  It's cool to watch you watch the bigger boys and girls  - you seem inspired by their excitement.  And then you try to steal their wheels.

You are obsessed with wheels - anything that you can spin or roll has your attention.  Your late, Great Grandmother gave you a vintage toy truck (a WalMart 18 wheeler with realistic engine sounds!) and you abso-freakin-lutely LOVE it.  And it has vintage features like tiny plastic parts that can break off and or poke you in the eyes.  So we keep hiding it, and you keep going to the hiding spot and pointing at where the darned thing is hidden and doing to "I want that" sign language.

The three of us - me, your mom, you - spend a TON of time together and I can't really imagine it being any other way.  I do not think there is one right way to parent and I don't know how our choices now will affect you later in life, but I really enjoy being involved in your whole day.

I have more and more pictures like this one, and the symbolic content is not lost on me.  You are both capable and comfortable ranging further and further from Mommy and Daddy, and that is bittersweet.  Your parents both want you to be confident and strong and interested in contributing to your community, and we know that means giving you space to develop your independence, but it is a constant battle against the instinct to cushion you against bruises, to insulate you from fear, to protect you from the world - let's just say we are going to do our best to keep you safe but not too safe.

 

You are my second favorite person in the world, and my best little buddy.  See you next month!

lessons I've learned

What's that you say?  Month 15 post wha'?  You can count now, little boy?!

I may not have written a March 26 post, but I sure did think about you a lot that day.  And today, I was thinking about things I have learned since we began this experiment.  In no particular order:

• most toys are not worth buying.  It may sound cliche, but you have had the most fun playing with wooden blocks, empty cardboard boxes, balls, and yesterday for the first time, a paper bag.

this video is long!

• it is wise to rotate toys in and out of accessibility.  A car you haven't seen in a few weeks is like a BRAND.  NEW.  TOY!!!  But with the added value of slight recognition.  Also, and related: if you don't seem to enjoy a particular toy, we just rotate it out and try it again later.  It's pretty cool how you can totally not care about a multi-colored rolling wooden wheel toy for months, and then chase it around the house screaming hysterically (happy) for half an hour.
• As with toys, so with food.  When you were a little guy just beginning to eat "real" food, you LOVED avocado.  And then you didn't.  And now you do again, some days.  Same with strawberries.  And yogurt.  And most everything else, except bread and french fries - you hardly ever turn those down.
• sleep is not a science.  some nights you sleep for 7+ hours, some nights you don't.  You have two data driven and analytic parents who have run the studies looking for correlation, causation, pattern recognition, and witchcraft, and we have figured out that we don't know what the deal is.
• stoicism is important for dads, and yet is harder to practice when you are a dad.  I have always given consideration to possible bad outcomes, but when I think about how and what could happen to by best little buddy I get all, well, unstoic
• one never knows what is going on in a kid's head

• making you laugh is the best.  It makes me feel better than making money or making a mai tai, or watching The Big Lebowski.  Novelty is so powerful with you, and I'm constantly thinking of things I can show you or do for you that will get you going on that goofy, toothy smile and then ramp it up into the chuckle.  The belly laugh is more than I can ask for, and when it comes it's like jumping the fence onto Shields-Watkins field after UT beat Florida in overtime...it's a rush.

month 12 - Happy Birthday!

today was great, my favorite little man!

I will definitely write more soon about this first year, but I wanted to say today that I love you and you're number 1!

11 months

Happy yo 11!

Wait...that's from craps...

Seriously, Happy 11 months, little buddy.

I like to think this crying jag took place after you read the month 10 post and felt really bad about how you never sleep and your mother and I are at wit's end...but really, you were just having a grumpy moment and I was feeling picture happy.

The sleep really has gotten better in the last few weeks, although there are plenty of nights that you get your mom out of bed 3 - 5 times.  Those nights do not make for pleasant mornings.

In other news, you had your first Thanksgiving out of the womb and it went pretty well.  Now that you are officially the youngest member of both sides of the family tree, you get plenty of attention.  Your birthday the day after Christmas is sure to be a test of that theory, as most everyone is going to be partied and holidayed out, but for Turkey day you were a big hit.

This month has been a big one for your relationship with your big brother Frodo, in some complicated ways.  As shown here, you two like to hang out and have similar interests.  Frodo has also warmed up to you as a partner for play - he brings you his toys and gets you to chase him around the house.  But we also had a scary moment yesterday...you poked or pulled on the Grumpy Old Dog side of Frodo and apparently hurt him enough that he snapped out at you and we got this...

This was your first real injury and your mom and I were beside ourselves for most of the day, and still when we talk about it we both get a little weepy.  You are fine, and within minutes of the "incident" you were laughing and ready to play, and you and the dog have been trying to get close for some cuddling since, but Mom and I are going to take it slow with the reintroductions.  To be fair, my big sister split my lip a few times and my big cousin dumped me out of the back of a wagon for a broken collar bone, but the site of seeing you bleeding and those moments of frantic worry about how bad it might be and how bad it might have been came as a pretty big shock for tus padres.

So back to the happy stuff - you have become much more mobile in the last few weeks and you have learned to wave - it is still adorable, every single time it happens, when you see me walk into the room and you sit up and wave at me.  I can't even imagine what it will be like when you can talk (at least for that short window that you can talk but haven't yet learned to be ironic or sarcastic....)

We need to shoot more film, but this moment catches a lot of what was special about this month:



I love you so much, little Man.  One year is coming up so fast, and you and I need to come up with a plan for how to deal with your mom realizing her little baby boy is growing up!

Month 10 UPDATE

Maybe it was Jessica's threat of Ferbering, maybe it was the public shame the prior blog post, maybe it was the universe recognizing that the Time Had Come...but our little man has strung together a mostly consecutive series of nights sleeping 5+ hours at a time!

month 10

New for this month: less treacly sentimentality and more grumpy Dad.

Don't get me wrong, son - I still love you, maybe even more than last month, but month 10 marks the point that I am

OFFICIALLY OVER THIS "NOT SLEEPING" CRAP.


Seriously, those 2 weeks when you mostly slept through the night are a distant, months ago memory at this point.  Nine nights out of ten, now, you tend to sleep for an hour or maybe two, and then you scream until your mom comes to cuddle and nurse you.  Nothing else works.  NOTHING.

I mean, if I come and get you out of the crib, you scream at me like a Ring Wraith.  If I play with you for an hour, turn on the TV, threaten and cajole you, I can sometimes get you calmed down and back to sleep AFTER 2 HOURS.  Your mom is better than I am, in several ways, and my patience with 3 AM histrionics and hysterics is extremely limited.

The aggregate loss of rest has affected every corner of my life, from diet and exercise to creative output and my relationships with others, and especially my relationship with yo mamma.  See, what happens is that when you go all Munch on us 3 - 4 times a night, the net effect is to have two adults barely functioning on diminished rest and who have both expended the whole of their respective patience reservoirs on your bullshit...

[For the sake of the occasional reader of this blog - I (and the wife)

desperately love my son, but I do not always love the things he does.]

This month was not a total mess: you got pretty proficient at crawling, you can pull your self up on anything that will hold still for a second, you have mastered the consumption of a staggering variety of fruits and veggies...although the first 2/3 of that list is terrifying in some respects, and the last 1/3 has represented a significant jump in our weekly food bills.

Another significant development is that we are beginning to begin thinking about starting the process to detach you from your mom's boob..."weaning" sounds weird, so we'll call it GOB (going off-boob).  Our general GOB plan has been to stage down to a final disconnect on your birthday.  The last pediatrician's visit through a wooden clog into the works...he suggested that you couldn't take straight cow's milk (a component crucial to our GOB strategy) until AFTER your birthday...  But still, the revolution is coming, and while it may not be televised, it will likely be photo-documented.

Speaking of, and to go out this month on an up note, the requisite pics of you being adorable:

Love you, son.  I promise Thanksgiving won't take your 11 month thunder, but XMas might be too big for the both of us.

month 9

Son, you are now three quarters of a year old...that's 0.75 if metric catches on in the States by the time you are old enough to care.

For the stat keepers - you still have only 2 teeth, although I feel more coming under your pink and healthy baby gums.  Your average hours of sleep per night has dropped back into the ~ 3-4 hours area.  You weigh just under 20 pounds.  Oh, and there's something else...




And suddenly, everything changed!

We love you, son.  This year is flying by, and it's both exhilarating and terrifying to see how having a kid transforms the formerly quotidian into an exhausted, happy mess of a family routine.

It should be apparent

Being a parent can be so hard sometimes. 

month 8

Month 8 has gone pretty well - you are eating lots of non-boob food and so far we have seen no evidence of allergies.  You did have a trip to the doctor for a fever that turned out to be one of the most trying 3 hours of my parenthood (so far)...a rotation of highly skilled phlebotomists and nurses took turns jabbing, pricking, and poking you for samples of your precious baby blood, and it turns out you don't like being jabbed, pricked, and poked.  Who knew?

But mostly late July to late August has been kind to our little family (despite the 95 degree F days ad nauseum).  Here are some of the highlights, with minimal explication:

Post bath time hair brushing is one of my favorite parts of the process.

And speaking of bath time, the combination of your ability to sit up and your realization that we're not trying to drown you has made your cleaning sessions far more pleasant.

You still do not crawl...we're trying not to freak out about the pace of your development in this area (everything else seems to be coming along well and per a fairly typical schedule)...what you do do is this superman-esque flying thing.  The more you want something that's out of your reach, the more you lift arms and legs.

Narcissist.

Of course, your mother and I take hundreds of pictures of you every month, so maybe it's natural that you think you are super handsome.  But, of course, you ARE!

Hmmm...maybe a theme?

Sleep continues to be the biggest daily struggle.  This pic is from an afternoon nap, and you have really come along in regards to that kind of sleep.  It's the nighttime routine that needs some work, but maybe by the September issue of the Look at My Amazing Child! your mom and I will have cracked that puzzle.

Love you, Buddy.

Was supposed to post something

here a couple of days ago...

Will have to get to that soon.