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(Dis)Oriented

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

“Hey buddy, wake up sleepy boy… who am I?”

Just a few hours before, during a rather benign shopping outing at a local home improvement warehouseouse, our boy took an unfortunate fall from the edge of the shopping cart on which he was leaning. Despite my best efforts to catch him, the back of his little head met abruptly with the cold concrete floor. A lengthy crying and screaming episode ensued and it took my wife a good while to get him partially calmed down. But, after awhile, his upset subsided and we went about our day.

That evening, after returning from a visit at his grandparents house, the boy approached me, his flush face moistened with his own saliva. “Daddy, I just spit up a little, but it’s not a big deal.” I asked him to show me where, and he directed me to a small puddle of partially digested strawberries (which he’d enjoyed during the aforementioned visit with the grandparents). My mind immediately returned to the skull-jarring incident earlier that day. Thankfully, our health care provider offers a type of “speak to a nurse and she’ll tell you whether or not you need to go to the ER” service, so I grabbed the phone and gave them a call.

After a brief explanation of the problem and confirming for the nurse that he was, in face, lucid, responsive and not having trouble standing or rotating his head normally, he threw up again. This time, the volume was substantial and I communicated as much to the nurse, to whom I was still speaking.

“Yeah, you’d better take him to the ER, just to make sure.”

We’d only ever taken him to the ER once before, and it ended up being a non-event. This time was different, though, as my wife was at work and I was in charge of two little ones. I made quick arrangements to drop our youngest off with her grandparents, pick up my wife and head to the Emergency Room.

“Fill out this form, then have a seat and we’ll call you when it’s your turn.” Obediently, the form was completed and returned and the waiting game began. Approximately two hours later, our name was called and we followed a member of the staff back to the innards of the ER where we were to await a doctor, or something resembling one.

“When are they going to come fix me up?”, he’d ask every so often. “I’m not sure, buddy - soon, I think.”

It wasn’t long before a nurse showed up to take his “vitals” and more carefully assess the situation. Aside from the fact that it was now several hours past his usual bedtime, all signs were pointing to coincidence. He was aware, in a good mood and more than willing to share all manner of minutae with the staff (centering particularly around the age of his younger sister and how much Bob the Builder enjoys, oddly enough, building).

“He looks like he’s doing well. You should keep his diet simple for the next 24 hours; bread, water, apples, bananas, that sort of thing. Oh, and you’ll need to wake him up every two hours. If he has a concussion and his brain is swelling, he’ll have a hard time communicating simple bits of information that would normally be easy for him.”

“So, what, we just wake him up and ask him who we are or something?”

“Yeah, that’d be fine. Just something to show that he’s aware of who he is and who you are.”

A short while later, he’d been “simply” fed and was destined to enjoy bi-hourly orientation tests for the remainder of the night.

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Beyond This Gate

Friday, February 27, 2009

It seemed like an eternity since we’d been able to experience that which many take for granted: an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Sure, we could very clearly recollect all of the long nights we’d spent awake with our kids when they were infants, but since our youngest is coming up on two years old, we’d figured the worst of it was behind us. Needless to say, we were wrong.

One of the best investments we’d made up to this point was a sturdy baby gate, but not for the reason you’d think. It wasn’t useful for keeping our kids confined within their room or out of another room so much as it was an alarm of sorts. Each night, we’d affix the gate to the doorway separating the hallway from the living room, dining room and kitchen (the last being an absolute playground for curious toddlers). It was held in place by a simple, spring-powered locking mechanism that used outward pressure to keep it locked against the doorjamb. If any of you have ever seen one of these contraptions before, you also probably know how easily a determined 3-year-old can dislodge it and gain access to the untold treasures beyond. We knew this, and so we trained our sleeping ears to hear exactly this noise and, if we heard it, to spring out of bed and head the little ones off at the pass before they treated themselves to a drawer full of steak knives and a cabinet full of dishwashing liquid. This was our only line of defense against these now-frequent midnight voyages.

But, as somebody much smarter than myself once said, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” The morning in question was, again, somewhat special in that we’d gone the whole night without a peep from either of the children. We were sleeping soundly, my wife and I, as the clock rolled lazily past 7:00am without any demands of breakfast or piss-free clothes. It was one of those things that, had we been awake to realize it, we would’ve cited as nothing short of providence.

Well, we did wake up shortly there after. I awoke first, squinting hard at the digital clock across the room. 7:20. “No freaking way…” Satisfaction quickly gave way to panic as I rose from the bed and glanced down the hall to find our trusted baby gate neatly leaning against the wall just next to the doorway it had originally blocked. “Shit.”

Walking quickly down the hall, through the door, I scanned the living room, then the dining room and saw no children. My pace quickening and my imagination quickly jumping from the steak knives to the dishwashing detergent to the…

“Hi, Daddy.” He was facing an open refrigerator door, each hand containing a partially-consumed orange. My eyes darted around the room in search of our youngest, whom I soon discovered sitting quietly in a nearby corner, systematically emptying every squeezable condiment bottle within their reach. Sitting in a pool of what appeared to be a combination of ketchup, mustard, chocolate sauce and sweet relish (that I still have no recollection of buying), she looked up at me and gave one of the three smiles that will get me to do just about anything.

“Dahdaheee!”, she squealed as she got up from her own private pool of gross. She ran the few paces between us and wrapped her sticky arms around my leg and squeezed as tightly as her little muscles would allow.

“Can you help me peel these? The outside tastes really bad!” I looked up and found the boy standing next to me, offering his pair of chewed oranges. I couldn’t help but smile, “you got it, buddy.”

As I stood over the garbage can peeling oranges and examining my leg covered in sauces, I realized why I was so barely affected by what I’d found. Sure, the kitchen was a mess and it would be a hell of a job cleaning it up, but none of that mattered; the drawer full of steak knives sat undisturbed.

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Administrative/Style Note

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Hello, your humble host here.

To all of you that have offered your compliments and suggestions regarding this new blog, I thank you.   By far, the biggest “complaint” I’ve gotten about this site is that it is written in the third person and that makes it either diffucult to follow or a bit detached-feeling.  Well, dear readers, you’ve sounded the Horn of Gondor and I’ve heard you.

All this is to say that there will be a slight change in format going forward.   Mostly, posts will be written (as requested) in the first person, and probably with a whole lot less dialogue.  I’ve discovered, as many have before me, that writing good dialogue is frickin’ hard.  So there’s that.

And, since I have your attention, I’d like to make a couple of points regarding this blog:

  1. Some of the content here, while presented as actual experience and/or events has either been embellished or fabricated entirely.  But, some of it is actually true.  My plan is to write it in such a way as to make the two indistinguishable from one another.  We’ll see.
  2. This site is very much an experiment.  I love being a parent and I love writing, so we’re going to see if the two can play nice together.

Thanks for reading.

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Through Clenched Teeth, Part 2

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Dad sat alone in the living room, replaying what had just happened with his boy. Why had he gotten so angry? Sure, his son was not only disobeying, but defying him. After all, he knew that there would be times like this. Times when he would be at serious odds with his kids, times when he would have to apply a little of that tough love he’d read so much about.

Nevertheless, Dad still felt like the world’s biggest asshole. He could have played that very differently. Hell, he’d seen his wife do it a million times and she rarely lost her cool the way he just had.

And what was the boy thinking after all that? There’s a difference between learning over what you have control and simply pushing Dad’s buttons because they’re there. Dad had always hated the idea that his children fear him, and he was definitely not going to have his kids thinking he was some hothead old bastard whose fuse was short enough to justify robotic obedience and fabricated affection. No, that just wasn’t an option.

Dad stood up and walked back to his son’s bedroom door. He was lying there, wide-eyed, looking at the ceiling and absent-mindedly twisting his blanket in his fingers. As Dad approached and disengaged the security gate, the boy looked over at him and sat up slowly in bed.

Dad slowly sat down on the floor next to his son, reached over and wrapped his arms around him.

“I’m sorry, my boy. I’m sorry I got so angry with you and acted the way I did. You didn’t deserve that.” As he spoke, be could feel his son returning his embrace and the tear streaming down his cheek.

“I love you, Daddy. I’m sorry I wasn’t listening.”

Dad pulled away and looked at his boy in the face. Brushing the hair from his boy’s eyes, he said, “I love you, too, my boy.”

He tucked his son into bed, walked slowly to the door and engaged the security gate and left.

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Through Clenched Teeth, Part 1

Monday, January 12, 2009

“I’m telling you, if I hear another sound out of this room, you won’t have toys for a week. Do you understand me, boy?”

Bedtime had become an issue of late with the boy, who had just hit the far side of three and a half years old. Dad longed for days past when the bedtime process was completely predictable, when there wasn’t this nightly fisticuffs with his son.

“LALALALALALALAAAAAAAA!”, the boy sang, just loudly enough to cause his sleeping sister to stir a few feet away in her crib. Dad could feel his head start to pound as he searched his brain for an even more horrible threat. But, sadly, he’d bet on his trump card with that “no toys for a week” bit and his son had called.

Dad stormed angrily into the kids’ room and began loudly gathering up as many toys as he could carry. The kids were both wide awake and crying now. The boy was screaming at Dad to leave his toys alone and the baby was just frightened by the intensity of the situation. But, as much as it killed him inside, Dad had to make sure that his son understood: he wasn’t screwing around.

After the last of the toys had been tossed with more than a little frustration into the hall closet, Dad knelt down next to his son’s bed. With their faces less than 3 inches apart, Dad barked in a whisper, “don’t you make another *sound* or, believe me boy, you’ll regret it.”

With that, he stood up abruptly, walked to the bedroom door, engaged the security gate and left.

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Fecal Phobias and Cold Ones

Thursday, January 8, 2009

“I don’t know, man. I’m not sure how I’m going to do with this diaper changing thing. I guess I’m just not a huge fan of feces. And, I already told Sarah that I refuse to change a diaper.”

Dad had been having his buddies over for beer and conversation on Sunday nights for years now. The conversation on this particular occasion was centered around John’s unborn son, who was due to be born sometime in the next few weeks.

“Look, you’re thinking about this way too much. It’s not like anybody enjoys handling human waste, after all”, said Dad. He’d heard this story a million times before - soon-to-be-fathers who take some sort of stance to the effect of “I don’t do diapers.” Dad couldn’t help but find this idea utterly hysterical.

“But, honestly, what if it gets on your hands? On your clothes?”, John asked with a faint sense of panic.

“There are a couple of things you need to realize, my friend”, Dad said as though he were addressing a room full of first-year medical school students. “First, you will get it on you. It will get on your hands, under your nails, on your clothes. Not to mention all over the sheets, blankets, changing table and floor. Second, you’re being a huge baby about this. To sit there and tell us that you flat-out refuse to change a diaper is both asinine and childish. It’s part of being a freaking parent.”

“I guess I just don’t understand why it’s something I have to do. I mean, Sarah’s job is to care for the kids, mine is to earn our living. Don’t you think I have the right to set a few ground rules? I’m the one who is spending time away from the family in order to put food on the table.”

“John, grow up.” Dad was getting annoyed at his friend. “Your wife’s responsibilities are just as important as yours, her ‘job’ just as hard and taxing as yours. Besides, of all of the things you could ‘take a stand’ on, this isn’t where you want to put your chips, believe me.

“You realize that, once they get a little bigger, the whole feces thing only happens about once per day, right? I mean, with ours, I rarely ever get the pleasure because it normally happens while I’m at work. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get to roll up my sleeves and handle some poop every now and again. Besides, once your technique is in place - which will take about 2-3 weeks, tops - it’s business as usual. You crack it open, whisk it away as quickly as you can, swab the decks, replace the diaper and go on your merry way. An experienced diaper changer can do all of that during the Law & Order commercials and still have time to get a cold beer.”

John cracked. “Alright, alright, enough ranting at me. I’ll give it a shot. But I’m seriously going to call you the first time I get shit under my nails just to tell you how disgusting it is.”

“Well, I’ve been there, but go right ahead. I look forward to it”, Dad said with a smile.

Dad got up to fetch a fresh beer. “…and still have time to get a cold beer?”, he thought. “What, am I in marketing now?”

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Don’t Beat Up the Little Girl

Sunday, September 28, 2008

“Son, listen to me. Your sister is much smaller than you are and doesn’t like to play that way. You need to be gentle with her.”, said Dad, his patience beginning to wear thin.

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Now, I want you to go give her a kiss and tell her you’re sorry for knocking her down, okay?”

His son ran over to his little sister and, almost knocking her over yet again, plants one on the side of her head with oomph behind it to cause her to lose her balance.

“Sorry, baby!”, he said, almost cheerfully as he ran over to the toy chest to retrieve some entertainment.

While watching this transpire, Dad can’t help but get a little more pissed off. I mean, it’s as though his son was only half-listening to what he had said, processing enough of the conversation to know what he had to do in order to pacify his father. There seemed to be almost zero consideration paid to the “moral” of the story - that he was simple too rough with his barely-toddler sister.

Dad fought back the urge to renew his disciplinary tone with his boy, but thought better of it. He was, after all, only 3 years old. How much could he really expect of him? “Well”, he thought, “I suppose it’s the aptitude he displays in most other areas that make me think he’d have little trouble with this. I mean, the kid can say his frickin’ ABC’s at 3 years old. How can he not wrap his head around the concept of  ‘do not beat up the little girl who lives in the next room’.”

But that was the trouble, wasn’t it? Dad thought long and hard about it and came to the (fairly obvious) conclusion that his son’s ability to retain information didn’t translate into an innate understanding of boundaries and interpersonal relationships. The trick was going to be reminding himself of this the next time his son decided to play steamroller to his sister’s uneven asphalt. This, like many other lessons, would surely require repeated instruction.

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