Swallowtail

I attended a funeral for a nine-year old the other day. Even writing that sentence stalls me out for the next thought.

Abbie was a sweet and feisty kid. She devoured hot dogs, strawberries, cherries, cherry tomatoes, salmon, mac and cheese, steak, you name it. She was tall for her age, or at least she was before the cancer hit. She swam like a fish, and her dad and I reveled in tossing the kids in the pool through the summer. That's where we saw them most of the time, the pool, since the girls attended different elementary schools and life had a bad habit of keeping all of us busy through the rest of the year. If I have a single regret after Abbie's passing, it is that I let the busy-ness of life keep us too far apart from them between September and May.

So, yeah... I attended a funeral for a nine-year old the other day. Word of a mass in her abdomen came at the end of the summer two years ago. We had a last Sunday dinner at the pool the week before she was due for the next round of tests and surgery. It was a blustery September afternoon two weeks after Labor Day, and I was determined to close out the pool season despite the weather. Abbie and her parents came, as did a few other families. The kids played, getting wet and cold one last time for the season, and then plowed through hot dogs, pork chops, salads, fruit and who knows what else. Abbie had been introduced to her therapy dog, and we all knew things didn't look good. It didn't seem to matter, though. She was as feisty and strong as always.

A week later, the news was that she had stage IV Rhabdomyosarcoma Embryonal. Stage IV. Those words stop me as much as the first sentence.

Abbie's strength rushed behind her as she fought a tough battle that fall, winter and spring. The surgeries went well, though. The cancer had done damage, but hadn't gone as far as it could have. The chemo brutalized her body. There were tough times, and we saw them occasionally. But a year ago, the kid attended Abbie's eighth birthday party. She was pale and had lost her hair, but the spunk was knocking that damn cancer out of her body. You could see it. And when pool season hit again, she had had the chance to ring the bell at the cancer clinic signaling the end of her treatments. She was clear, and by the end of the summer, the chemo port had been removed and she'd been able to swim again.

She demolished more strawberries. More cherries and tomatoes. Cupcakes at the kid's birthday party. And we all looked at her as the miracle kid. She really was. And her energy and spirit were a gift to everyone around her.

A few weeks later, though, the tide turned. On a routine check-up, they discovered part of her lung had collapsed. Within two weeks, the tumor they found was putting out 200 ml of fluid or more a day. It was almost exactly a year after the first surgery. And this time the cancer was back with a vengeance. The kid and I visited her in the pediatric ICU one evening to say hi. Abbie was groggy but insistent that we stay and talk to her, even though the nurses made us promise to make it a short visit.

Over the months since, I kept tabs on her progress through the caringbridge.org site they used to communicate with family and friends. They went through every possible chemo treatment and multiple surgeries. The cancer ravaged her body, but she kept fighting back through a Make-a-Wish Disney cruise, through a trip to New York, through hospitalizations. We weren't there at the end, but she had asked her friends to come visit the day after the doctors decided there was no further medical intervention. they gave her a manicure as she wore an oxygen mask and couldn't speak. That night, she let go and passed away in her parents' arms, listening to her favorite songs by Justin Bieber.

The kid asked about her often as we got word of the worsening struggles. I made mental notes that we should see them more, take them things, do something. But time and the busy-ness of life and job transitions always got in the way. I kick myself a bit for letting that happen. Scratch that. I kick myself a lot for letting that happen. The kid and I talked about it, and she is glad she got to see Abbie before things really trailed off, when that spunk will stay in the memory rather than tubes and medication and pain. I worry that this reaction skirts the grief I want her to feel, but the night after the funeral and the celebration at Abbie's school, the kid climbed on my lap and fell asleep.

And it occurred to me that maybe the kid's reactions weren't so much detachment as fear. She's seen a lot in her years, from divorce to my shooting to her mom and me struggling to iron out our parenting relationship to Abbie's death. I suspect she has learned a lot, and that some of these lessons will take years to sort out. Lord knows I'm still sorting out my own lessons — including the one about not letting the mundanity life get in the way of important things.

So yeah... I attended a funeral for a nine-year old the other day. At the end of the funeral, the kids were given butterflies to release. Each had a monarch in an envelope, and Abbie's parents were given a swallowtail to release. The monarchs flitted through the church courtyard, but the swallowtail landed on Jeff's hand and stayed there for a long time. After a couple of pictures were taken, the yellow swallowtail launched itself up and flew out of the courtyard and over the roof. That afternoon, Abbie's school closed down for a celebration of her life. Everyone had their nails painted, there was a dance party in the gymnasium, the yard was full of moon bounces, the kids got snow cones and popcorn, and a little after 3:00, while the school choir sang "Hallelujah," the kids released hundreds of purple, pink, and white balloons into the sky and chanted her name. the boy who had broken down in tears when he tried to speak at the funeral earlier, who was Abbie's earliest friend as a baby, found his voice and the microphone and thanked the entire school for making her life wonderful.

Abbie is gone now, but she touched more lives than anyone can count. And that means she'll live on forever.

Marketing to kids...

This morning, the kid was playing with Webkinz on the iMac. At one point, I glanced over and realized she was in fact surfing the new products and was watching a video about some sort of deluxe subscription service. My "dad" voice went on and I told her to turn it off or return to playing with the characters. She wondered why, of course, and I started in on an explanation of what was going on — that she was being sold products that she would then want me to buy. I've tackled these issues here before, but today's conversation came on the heels of the biggest lead-up to Christmas yet, or rather the first one where she's putting specific demands out that are coming from commercial influence.

Until recently, I kept a fairly tight cinch on the kinds of TV she could watch — pretty much locking the options down to Boomerang (which does not show commercials and recorded shows where she could skip the ads). And until she moved in with someone recently, her mom didn't have cable at all. At home, she has discovered other channels and begun to watch them when I'm not paying attention. And these channels are jam-packed with ads for all the latest toys every kid needs.

I thought about all this as I approached the Webkinz question this morning — and as I face a Christmas where she will be getting franchise-building things like American Girl and Nintendo DSi. Rather than shutting it all down and eliminating cable (at least not yet), it seemed like a good chance for a teaching moment. We sat in front of the computer, and I asked her why she thought the Webkinz site was showing her all the great products she could get to expand her collection. She said it was so we would go buy them — so far so good.

The next lesson was about need. I asked her why she "needed" the cute koala or yorkie toys, and she said she needed them so the animals she already had would have more friends. I asked her if she really "needed" the toys or just felt like she needed them and really just wanted them. We've discussed the difference between want and need in the past, so she aced this question. I went in for the kill.

The reason they make her "need" them, I explained, was because they know how to make kids want something so badly their parents get it for them. I added that we could get things we wanted when we can afford them, but I wanted her to understand that it really was just a way for the companies to sell more stuff.

Looking back and writing about it now, I wonder how best to keep approaching this lesson without being a thorough killjoy. It's not that I want to isolate her from every venal form of advertising and marketing to kids — I can't — but I do want her to understand when the shiny object they're trying to sell her might not really be all it's cracked up to be.

Friday Fun — a ukulele edition

Not sure why I've been on a little ukulele kick lately, but there you have it. Here are a couple of selections to lighten up your Friday. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Picked up from Boing Boing...


Another good one from Sophie Madeleine...


The requisite adorable kid that makes me smile every time. This boy is brilliant...

A Poem

One of the kid's assignments in school last week was to write a poem. I can only assume based on the result that it was a similar exercise to what we did when I was doing teaching trips in grad school. Be that as it may, I'm pretty proud of what she came up with:

Red is the taste of apples being picked,
Rassberry juice squirting in your mouth,
Ripe tomatos on the plant waiting to be picked,
The fragrance of roses in a vase on a table.
Red is yarn being played with,
Bean bags being sat on by children
and flowers in the sun.
The scent of cranberry juice in a bottle.

Not bad for a seven-year old.

The annual trip to Ann Arbor — parenting lessons

Buttercup hurt me badly tonight. It wasn't direct or malicious, and I'm not sure she even realized how bad it was. The thing is she stole something — or rather four small charms — from a store. Then she lied about it.

Here's how it happened. My father, his daughter, Buttercup, and I were at the Ann Arbor farmers' market, and dad took the girls in to look at a funky little kids clothing store inside the building. Both girls were clamoring for charms bracelets, and my dad and I got on the same page for once. There were going to be no new trinkets for the girls.

Fast-forward a few hours. We'd been at the game, and the girls had been intermittent. There were good times and irritating moments. There was tiredness — a football game on a cold day can be loooooong. On balance, though, we were doing well.

Until we reached the Jolly Pumpkin Pub — a new brewpub that I needed to check out.

At some point in the meal, I playfully pulled Buttercup to me. There was an odd crunch in her pocket. I had an instant suspicion about it. I asked what was in her pocket. She said it was one thing, and I gave her an odd look. Then she said it was "bark." On questioning, she kept trying to explain why bark that she'd had no access to at any point in the day would be in her back pocket. After a few minutes of this, I escalated to threats.

First, she'd lose her allowance for the week. She was willing to do that. Second, she'd lose her allowance for the rest of the year. She was willing to do that. When I threatened to take away the Annie dress I'd just bought for her to wear for Halloween, then she melted down. Still, she wouldn't fess up to what was actually in her pocket. Finally, I just reached over and got the four charms out of her pocket.

She had stolen and lied about it. It was a willful act. And it felt like a gut punch to me. In seven years of parenting, I'd never felt so hurt or so challenged.

I told her that her mom and I would have to talk about it. She cried louder. I told her that she would have to return the charms to the store and apologize. There was more crying. I told her that she would be punished. Greatly. And to each of them, she whimpered that she would do anything — anything — not to have her mom hear about it, not to have to apologize to the store. She was not going to be off the hook, however.

At this point, I'm still at a loss for how to deal with it fully. The store was closed, meaning Grandpa will have to handle returning the charms, along with a letter from Buttercup. The kid knows that she did wrong, and that her mom will soon know that she did wrong. She knows that she will be punished. I just hope it all sticks in ways that make sense.

I've got a good kid.

That's really what it all comes down to. I may get frustrated with her distractibility and with how slowly she can move in the morning. I may wish that she cleaned up after herself better or that she was a little more diligent about finishing projects, but the truth is I wish I did these things better. I may wish she didn't act like so much of a know-it-all at moments — and I know there are people who would say the same about me. I may wish she was a little better team player at times, but I also can't really fault her for following her own muse when it strikes her.

In the end, what it really comes down to is that I have a good kid. She does what she's told most of the time. She has rolled with some pretty strong punches over the years and come out a healthy, smart, loving, fun kid. She's not perfect, but then I'm not a perfect parent. I'm not sure I'd have it any other way really.

Just musing... your regularly scheduled programming will resume shortly.

trust is what it all comes down to

The NYT published an utterly brilliant, potentially tear-inducing piece by Simon Van Booy on being a single father the other day. In it he recounts the loss of his wife to a sudden, fatal illness and his subsequent path of raising his daughter alone.

He touches on some important moments. He builds friendships with mothers, taking advice and shared experiences from them. He worries about cultural and media role models for his daughter is in the thick of the Princess phase. He struggles to find other men with common experiences to share and have a community. Ultimately, he finds that he just "thinks differently about everything" and manufactures happiness and memories with his daughter when and where he can. And when he gives a thumbnail description of the evening when all aspects of life routine go slightly wrong, I can't help but feel like he's given a thumbnail of my life in the whole piece.

The truth is being a single parent isn't easy, but it also isn't as hard as some people make it out to be. You make your own reality, your own moments, and when it comes to the ups and downs of daily life and routines, we muddle through the same way everyone else does. I recognize (and have written extensively about) the choices and compromises in my life, but then there are moments like the ones Ivey describes making eggs in the kitchen and later shaving that wipe out any sense of loss for the choices made.

The other day, I carved out a day just to spend with the kid. We haven't had many of these moments recently — whole days and activities that were our time — and I missed that connection. It occurred to me that in the midst of my work schedule, her camp schedule, the random detritus of daily life, relationships, social times with friends and neighbors, sleeping and eating, I was forgetting to make space for father-daughter time. By this, I don’t mean going to a movie or eating dinner; I mean taking little trips, leaving unstructured time for exploration and little adventures. When we came to the end of that day and were tired from going out in the woods and then to the pool, I saw smiles from Buttercup I haven’t seen in a while. They might have been there, but I wasn’t paying as much attention. When we sat down to watch baseball, then, and she fell asleep on my lap and I listened to her breathing settle into a deep sleep, I felt more at ease than I have in a while.

I thought about this again after a conversation with B Mére about schedules. We were moving into the summer schedule of traded weeks (always a melancholy time for me), and she wanted to feel free and clear to take the kid out of daycamp when she had the time and inclination. I reacted and defended the social time and camp activities as important for Buttercup. But the truth is I was reacting against B Mére’s ability to make and create time for fun. I wanted that same freedom.

And this is where my experience and Van Booy’s most diverge. He lost his wife to death; I lost mine to divorce. Ivey must struggle daily with the pain and emptiness of that loss and his daughter’s reactions to it; he won’t struggle with the clotted communication and conflicting patterns of parenting with an ex. He won’t have to deal with any lurking resentments and occasional competition that can linger after a divorce. Regardless, this is not about comparisons.

After reading Van Booy’s piece, I was reminded that ultimately this life is about a child’s trust and small, good moments. Read his words.

they grow up

Despite my mixed feelings about the country of origin of Buttercup's new clothes, I can't help but admit how cute she looks in them. What really strikes me about this picture, though, is how grown up she looks all of a sudden.



Kids go through these jumps from time to time. Five years ago, we were at my mother and stepfather's house in Ohio, and Buttercup went through the first of these jumps I truly recall. She was just shy of two and fully in the midst of toddlerhood. Bopping around playgrounds, slurping down cereal bars, apple juice, and bananas like nobody's business, figuring out new words all the time, stringing together sentences. She didn't stop doing that, but one day her face grew up. She stopped looking like a toddler and started looking like a little girl. It was sudden, and I almost missed it—but for my mother pointing it out.

A similar thing happened a year ago when her end-of-year ballet recital was approaching. The day pictures were taken and costumes went on, I watched her turn from a little girl, a kindergardener, into a kid, a girl heading into the "real" elementary grades. Even though their dance was simple, the control she suddenly showed over her body and the way she stood changed. With her hair pulled back, gone were the goofy bangs and little girl moments — there was a kid, growing up.

The other day, I felt another of these moments approaching. She seemed to have grown six inches in a day, and her sense of self seemed to have leapt into the stratosphere. With the newly pierced ears and evolving fashion sense — each day's outfit is carefully crafted — she's become a whole new person again. Then I looked at the pictures we took of her outfits after the Hanna box arrived the other day, each tried on in different combinations, and in her pose and expression, I could once again see the big kid she's well on her way to becoming.

It's a remarkable journey, this parenting thing.

Summer's here, ballet's done.

We just finished ballet season. What this means in practical terms is no more rush to get the kid to practice on Thursdays — or pick her up from practice — and no more mornings spent scrambling to make sure that one of the pairs of tights and one of the pink leotards is clean. For the past few weeks, this has also meant a great deal of time spent at the ballet studio.


First, there were the pictures. While they happened on Buttercup Mére's weekend, I made a point of running down to the studio to catch the kid in her costume for the first time. There's nothing quite like the pride on her face when she gets to put the costume on and show it off. The fact that we got to keep the costume this year was an added bonus. I envision many moments of costume-wearing, and would not be at all surprised to see her make it the choice for Halloween this year. In fact, saving the money wouldn't be a bad thing at all...

Then, there were two Saturday rehearsals.The first locked up two hours, the second four hours. Having done theater for years in high school and college, these extra rehearsals didn't surprise me. We worked around them, and I used them as time to run errands. One even provided a rare opportunity for lunch at Can Can — the roast chicken salad with asparagus and Meyer lemons is phenomenal.

All of this was — in theory — a lead-up to the final weekend of performances. Said weekend began with dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsal was originally scheduled to begin at 3:00, school schedules be damned, but the theater bumped the time to 4:00 the day before. The kids converged, got made up, and all the rest. In the interest of juggling life matters, I stopped at the theater briefly after work to check on Buttercup's status and then left for a little over an hour. When I got back, they were just wrapping up, and Buttercup got changed. They'd been there for almost four hours, and all of the kids older than seven were heading for the dress rehearsal black hole. We went home — it was one of my rare times to put my foot down in spite of Buttercup's begging to stay and watch. Our neighbors were having a porch party, and I knew the next day would be long.

The next day began with the run to farmers market mentioned below. After a brief stop at home to chill out and get changed, we were back at the theater by 11:10, a few minutes ahead of the call so one of the moms could help Buttercup with her makeup and hair. (This is one of Mr. Mom's failings.) After lingering until I realized that a dad's presence was no longer acceptable in the dressing room, I decided to run home and bring back food for her. She'd need the extra strength for two performances that afternoon — or so I thought.


I picked up my ticket and touched base with Buttercup Mére who'd decided to come to the first of the two shows. Then I settled in to capture the magic. Now, kids' ballet performances are an even mix of cute and painful, and this one was no exception. There were plenty of cute and awkward moments. There were pauses at odd moments. The usual thing. They had ballet and tap and hip-hop and song-and-dance routines. They even had a little dance party scene to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and an adorable moment of a five-year old singing along to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." And then there was Buttercup's class, out for their adorable performance as dancing toys. All two and a half minutes of it. That's it. That and a walk-through as part of a later bit of stage business, and some adorable bouncing around as everyone sang the name song during the curtain call. But in the end... it was two-and-a-half minutes, and I will not deny feeling like two years of these classes should have gotten Buttercup and her classmates a second appearance, a real dance, anything. In fact, I was half-embarrassed to sit through the second show next to my father as he kept waiting for them to have another shot at the lights so he could get a better picture.

Ultimately, I know there will be more opportunities next year. The six and seven year-olds will be seven and eight year-olds, with more coordination and better abilities. There might be a tap routine since her teacher made a point of telling me how quickly she was picking up on the steps. Hell, if I let Buttercup add a hip-hop class, she might even get to do one of the "really cool" routines. And that's all well-and-good, but I can't help feeling like I just paid $100 per half-minute of performance.

That said, I guess you could say it all paled when you saw her face wearing that costume, and her eyes when she carried the two bouquets of flowers. I guess you could say when her eyes twinkled that every cent and every second was worth it.

Weekend notes, pt. 2 — after the show

Though slightly out of the blue and slightly off-budget, the Annie experience was surprisingly good.

We bombed out of the house with barely an hour and a half to spare before the performance. On the way, I called the box office and secured two tickets — including a half-price one for myself. We pulled up in front of Tarrant's to get a quick dinner. Tarrant's is one of those places in town that is generally reliable — sometimes very good, rarely bad — and it's location across the street from the theatre was ideal.

Service was quick and good. Buttercup was looking a little faded, but perked up when rolls appeared. I ordered a cup of the chicken and corn chowder for myself — perfect on a dreary day — and white pizza with spinach and tomatoes for us. I asked the waitress to add feta, without asking what the charge for an extra ingredient was. The question would have been a good one to ask, however, since apparently all pizzas are priced based on optional ingredients — whether they're listed as standard pies or not. The menu isn't clear about this, unfortunately, and I might have changed the order if I'd known that our $11.95 pizza was going to run $17.95 instead. Given the timing when we were asking her to box up half and bring the check, it wasn't worth saying anything; I might mention it next time though.

On a quick side note, it's also worth mentioning that the pizza was very good. The crust had a good flavor and the cheese and tomatoes were nicely done. Had I known that the spinach wouldn't be fresh, I might not have ordered it. The mushy green lent a bit too much liquid to the pie.

Dinner wrapped up, we headed across to the theatre. Theatre IV is a local theater group that puts on a few children's shows a year. They've done Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and many other classics. They link in regularly with schools in the area and generally do great work. Tonight was no exception.

The sets were beautifully done, and the actors all seemed to be having a great time. This could have been last-performance bounce, but it seems more likely that they were just generally enjoying themselves. (This is only borne out by the tears streaming down the lead's face at the curtain call.) The singing and dancing were mostly very sharp. Two of the best parts: Buttercup asking if the dog was real, and her friend E asking if it was the real president up there. (For those who don't know, FDR plays a significant part in the show.) The only trick watching the show for me was getting past various anachronisms and implausibilities that are distracting, but hardly central to the story.

What also surprised me was how much of the show I remembered, and how much it touched me. Frankly, it was still a very good time when I saw Annie on its first national tour in Chicago in 1978. We were spending quite a bit of time in that city — a place I still remember very fondly — and all hell hadn't broken loose. At eight (or almost eight), the worst experiences of elementary and middle school were yet to come. My parents were still five years from telling me they were divorcing. In other words, it's a time that has deep and positive memories — the Cubs at Wrigley, Stuart Brent Books, the museums, the zoos, camping and skiing trips.

What surprised me tonight was how easily a cheesy, mawkish — albeit very catchy — libretto can pull out a whole flood of memories and associations that have laid buried for years. And how easy it is to welcome back the memories, and how much they put the present in perspective.

notes

That odd speck on the earlobe is one more step in our journey. It's a big step too. Getting the ears pierced was a chance for Buttercup to grow up a little bit and do something before anyone else in her class. For me, it was a chance to negotiate another stage of the parenting waters — my plan was to wait on the ear piercing until she was eight, but Buttercup Mère decided she was ready. We went back and forth a bit until I accepted that there was no point in forcing the matter.

The end result? Buttercup came home, proud that she'd gotten her ears pierced. She was ecstatic that everyone was going to be so excited, and that she was going to be the first in her class with real earrings. What struck me was how much older she suddenly looked.

Of course, there was one more perk: the next morning, she was ready for school by 7:15, and we got out of the house before 8.


***********************


Buttercup. That's her new nickname.

It came about one Sunday a few weeks ago when we were walking back from a friend's house. As we walked along Meadow Park, she started picking buttercups. One after the other she started rubbing them on her nose until she'd given her nose a shiny gold tint. I joked that I was going to change her nickname from Banana to Buttercup.

The next morning, as I dropped her off at school, she stopped me. She said, "Daddy, it's Buttercup."

"Done, and done," I said. Declaring her own nickname — one more little leap in growing up.

More Corporate Madness: How "helping" our kids could hurt in the long-run

I've been hearing rumblings on DaddyTypes and from my friend Phil who makes toys (among other things) about the law that the Consumer Products Safety Commission has drafted to go into effect on February 10. Considering my usual interest in small producers and quality products versus the marketing muscle of mega-corporations, I will take a mea culpa on not paying closer attention until this post. Apparently, the law affects toys and clothes, and it may be retroactive to extant items — whether or not they contain lead.

The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children, mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger — including clothing — be tested for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven’t been tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they actually contain lead.

Effectively, what the government has done is to ensure that small producers — anyone from a single maker like Phil to a small company with small revenues — must go through the same costly testing requirements as the corporations whose shoddy practices caused the problem in the first place. Word on the virtual street is that many producers simply won't be able to afford to make and sell their toys or clothes anymore. And that you may not be able to find and buy all those gorgeous handmade kids sweaters, blankets, wood toys, felted animals... you name it.

Do a couple searches or head on over to the Handmade Toy Alliance for more information.

UPDATE: Here's a good post from Consumerist on it with a couple good links beyond...

H/T to Neatorama for catching my attention.

community parenting, a reminder

I am reminded after tonight, after this weekend, after this past month and year of what it means to be a good parent. It means to love and care for your child(ren) and all children in your life, whether they are family or friends. And a good parent shows the same respect and love for your child.

my most surreal moment as a parent, so far...

The moment I turned around and found Banana trying to teach our neighbor's daughter about meditation...


Mind you, this is not something I (or anyone else as far as I know) has actively taught Banana.

mornings, pt. 2

Is it something in the moon cycle? Do darker mornings also mean darker moods for Banana?

This morning, I was up and let Reilly out earlier than usual. I was on target for a morning where everything was pulling together, and then Banana woke up. From the get-go, she was cranky. Considering she'd been cranky the night before, I was a little disappointed that ten hours of rest hadn't reset her mood switch. Nonetheless, her crankiness kicked off another stressful morning. She decided she didn't like the new rice milk I'd bought over the weekend. She didn't want yogurt. It was cold. Her leg hurt. Her stomach hurt. She didn't want to take a shower before she ate.

Unfortunately, I had to play the role of both good cop and bad cop. The good cop was understanding and sympathetic and offered to make oatmeal. The bad cop had to threaten to cancel dinner with our friends this evening. In the end, everything worked out. We made it to school a little later than I'd hoped, and Banana was very helpful in getting stuff out of the house.

I did, however, have to sit and breathe for a few minutes after I'd dropped her off. The stress of it all had taken its own life in my head and back. Raising kids is stressful enough, but when you're the only parent and you have to play every role at all times... well... it seems like every positive, wonderful moment has the possibility of dropping precipitously into a minefield of frustrations.

some mornings are like this

8:01 a.m. - We've successfully passed waking up, having breakfast, and getting dressed. Banana and Daddy are both happy and getting ready for the final push where Daddy will eat his breakfast while pulling together the lunch box.

8:02 a.m. - Back in the kitchen to eat a banana and have vitamins.

8:03 a.m. - "Daddy, I don't really like bananas." "Really? When did that happen?"

8:04 a.m. - "Daddy, I don't really feel like going to school today." "Really? Why?" "Because I don't feel good." All evidence points to the child being fine.

8:05 a.m. - The voice is getting whinier. "Daddy, I don't really like the Y Aftercare." "Is it because AE is still being mean to you?" The eyes are beginning to look puffy. She nods.

8:06 a.m. - "Sweetie, we can talk about it later, but what I need right now is for you to finish your vitamins and finish getting ready for school." The puffy eyes have now begun to water, and the whimper kicks in. I'm still trying to measure my words and my tone while the whimper turns inexplicably into a full cry.

8:09 a.m. - We're into full meltdown, and I'm trying to take in a bit of my fruit and yogurt while simultaneously pulling lunch materials together and trying to talk down a little girl who is now saying that I am "the meanest daddy in the world" and who is begging for mommy. Mind you, nothing has passed in the past two minutes since I asked her to finish her vitamins.

8:11 a.m. - "You know, Daddy, I don't really like lemonade." Lemonade dumped and water poured, Banana exits the kitchen.

8:12 a.m. - How the fuck am I going to get everything together and get her to school and me to work?

8:13 a.m. - I find her in her room in abject tantrum. Why? Some of the water spilled on her diary. Offers to dry the diary off are refused. I stalk out of the room and make it halfway down the hall before correcting my approach.

8:14 a.m. - I kneel down and tell her that I'm very sorry she spilled the water, and that I'm very sorry that she is upset, but that I very much need her to get some shoes on and brush her teeth.

8:15 a.m. - I pick her up and hold her for a couple minutes.

8:18 a.m. - I leave the room as she is putting on socks and her pink Chuck Taylors.

8:21 a.m. - She trots in the kitchen, grinning. She has brought some coins with her. "We put it in the Fox bank at school," she announces. "Can you get your teeth brushed?" I ask. She nods happily and bounces back to the bathroom.

8:28 a.m. - We begin the final move toward the door. I am still befuddled.

8:32 a.m. - Outside, locking the door. "It's the third day of Fall, Daddy, and it reeeeaaaallly feels like Fall."

8:33 a.m. - "Yes, it does," I say after a deep breath. The air is cool, and I'm still befuddled.

mornings like these...

Banana was still a groggy ragdoll by 7:45 this morning when I finally got her out of bed. Before that, she was playing a bit of a game, and smiled a little when I'd nudge her or tickle her, telling her it was time to get up. Judging from the way she'd visibly fall back asleep each time—little twitches, deep breathing—it was pretty clear, however, that she could probably have slept for a good, long time. We've had some pretty active days, after all. Unfortunately, my life and job still don't generally afford me the kind of flexibility where I could just let her stay in bed any longer. Of course, I'm also caught by a guilty feeling that I might have sent her to daycamp overtired and maybe under the weather, and the sense that my first instinct should be to make that time rather than fulfilling my duty-bound, Protestant work ethic.

babies!

Sunday's Times Magazine ran an interesting piece on the dropping birthrate in Europe. Granted, there are concerns about the death of towns or the drop-off in a society's population that are worth discussing, but what struck me about the piece is the implication that a society must reproduce at or above its current population. Or more to the point: the implication that our societies must continue to grow. I suppose it's a reasonable assumption to be made by a society in which average family size continues to grow. The fallacy comes, however, when you consider questions of an exploding population—how people will continue to feed and be housed in an ever-more-stressed environment?

I wonder about such things whenever I see a family with two kids about to add a third, three kids about to add a fourth, and beyond. Granted, I would never tell any of my friends who do have more than two children that they should have made a different choice, but I still wonder about the long-term prognosis of a society where the norm is becoming R + X (replacement plus extras). When we've gone from 2.1 children as an average to 2.9, mustn't all of our institutions, stores, cars, and so forth continue to grow? Aren't they already expanding past the point of sustainability? If that's the case, what should our long-term prognosis be?

Just thinking out "loud"...

milestones

Banana gave me the best Father's Day presents ever...

First swim:


And first lost tooth:

toothiness

This weekend, Banana and I engaged in a bit of extreme consumerism. We each picked up a few new outfits and new shoes. Call it yet another foray into wearing both parenting hats. Anyway, she has been excitedly putting on new clothes each of the past few days — and lightly bemoaning her school's ban on sleeveless shirts. The most exciting part of the day was not, however, the shopping.

As the afternoon was wearing on and we had returned from the mall to take care of a few small fun things in Carytown — she got to buy a new doll outfit with the change we had saved — we stopped at Can Can for a snack. I eschewed Can Can when it first opened in 2005 because it seemed to be trying too hard to be a bit of Paris stuck in the middle of Richmond. Over the past few years, however, the place has grown on me. Their food and service are consistently excellent, and it is one of the few places I can sit at the bar with Banana. The bartenders are friendly and attentive, and there are rarely smokers in the times we might linger for a snack and a loaf of bread.

So that afternoon, we stopped to cool our heels for a bit. Banana got soda water and a bread basket, and I ordered an Oberon. We chatted happily with the bartender for a few minutes, then Banana said, "Daddy, my teeth hurt." "Which ones?" I asked. She pointed at the bottom front teeth. I reached down and wiggled one of the teeth, and my little girl's eyes got as wide and bright as the summer sun. She started giggling, then wiggled the tooth herself, then giggled some more. By the time we left, the bartenders and women sitting next to us had all heard about her loose tooth. I'm not sure I've ever seen her so genuinely excited about anything.

Friends have asked what the going rate for the tooth fairy is. It was a quarter when I was a kid, so I'm guessing a dollar is about right now. Inflation, y'know...