A lot happens in 349 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds

I swear, you blink, and you miss it. 

Easter 2011 (nine months)

Easter 2012

Pay No Attention to that Boy Behind the Curtain

I grew up singing in the shower. I don't know why I felt so brave standing behind that curtain, but as soon as I stepped under the water I'd let it rip. I wouldn't sing a cappella though. I had to have some cassette "blaring to high heaven" to guide me along. It was usually the same tape over and over - there's comfort in repetition. I bet I sang along with side A of Rick Springfield's "Working Class Dog" tape almost every morning of my 8th grade year.  I don't even know one song on side B.

Although I no longer sing in the shower (I have more consideration for my family), if Charlotte's not sleeping I'll will blast shower music for myself. Again, there's very little variety. Last year my iPod played the Presidents of the United States every morning, and 2011-2012 school year looks to be the "Year of the Black Keys". 

Why the Black Keys? Daphne noticed that Charlotte likes them. When Char was crawling down the hallway one summer morning last year she heard "Tighten Up" coming from our bathroom. She stopped crawling and started bouncing on her diaper in sync with the beat. After several bounces Charlotte switched directions and zipped into our bathroom where she sat on the rug and continued to groove to the song. 

That's my girl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpaPBCBjSVc&ob=av3e

Let's Just Keep the Talk Small

When we visit the Downtown Farmer's Market we bring our dog Maggie with us, and I'm prepared to answer questions about her. She's large, white, and quick to smile, so dog people often want to know the basics: breed, age, and how much she sheds. Most compliment her demeanor, share a bit about their own dogs, and continue on their way. It's nice.

Little kids often enthusiastically quote "Despicable Me" when they see her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNLJDR-XbVY&feature=related. It's cute.

Sometimes the conversations get too personal, though. One woman mentioned that her Great Pyrenees had recently ran away, and she began crying in front of me because she so missed her, " ...p, p, p, puppy..." Another woman told how her Pyrenees was run over by a school bus... in front of her kids no less. Being a teacher without sub plans, she had to grab a shovel and quickly bury the dog behind the barn before going to school covered in "...dirt, dog, and tears..." She also started crying.

I'm not making fun of these ladies, but what do I say to those kind of stories? Especially when I'm trying to enjoy a thick slice of delicious coffee cake? It's uncomfortable.

What's worse is when people stalk your dog. During the first stop they learn her basics, and then ten minutes later they run over saying, "Hi Maggie! Did you want another pet from me?" The third time around they are even more demonstrative, "Oh look! Maggie missed me! Come 'ere you big lover. You love me Maggies don't 'cho? Don't 'cho love me?" Maggie is patient with these people, but when they start hinting that our dog would really prefer to go home with them instead us, we all leave. It's time.

Usually I'm already covered with little bits of cookie crumbs and drips of kabob sauce, so I don't need to get their crazy on me too.

FYI: Maggie got dressed up to wish you a Happy Easter:

I think she could be in a Cadbury Egg commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oamnDsxFLyg

Water Boreding

This is the second year we have taken Charlotte to "Water Baby" swimming lessons in the spring. Classes are once a week, and during the 30 minute lesson, you hold your child in water that comes up to your chest. While singing songs like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" you help them float on their stomachs and later on their backs. The swimming activities last about 15 minutes. The remaining time is spent playing with toys in the shallow end where the toddlers can walk around and pour water on each other. It's a relaxing way to spend part of your evening, and many parents sign up to repeat the five-week class. We went four times last year, and we're on round two this season.

The only scary part is when you sing "Ring Around the Rosie", and you are encouraged to submerge your child when you get to the "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down" lyric. (It's even more disturbing if you believe the song is a reference to the Black Plague and the burning of dead bodies.) You're told it's really scarier for the parents than the babies, and I think that's true. Last year Char cried some during the "ashes, ashes" dunkings, but this year she smiles, so I can see that the swim lessons are working. 

Actually, "ashes, ashes" used to be the only scary part of water babies. But last night we had an instructor who was new to us, and she didn't follow the above pattern. Not knowing our water baby alumni status, she kept shouting all of her instructions directly at me as if I were deaf. I felt like I was back in wrestling practice.

One water baby goal is to learn the proper hand position of "scooping" the water with cupped hands. We were told to walk in a broad circle with our kids floating on their stomachs. The instructor then spent a minute with each child, grasping their wrists and moving their arms in the appropriate scooping motion. That's a great concept, but there were ten kids in the class, and that meant keeping us circling in a holding pattern for well over ten minutes. I don't know about your child, but mine doesn't want to concentrate on anything for ten minutes straight. She got bored and then frustrated. Twice the instructor caught us moving Char to her back, and twice she shouted directly at me, "On their stomachs, parents! Keep them on their stomachs!" When she spotted Daphne hugging Charlotte in an effort to clam her down, she clapped her hands at me, "Work with me, please! Stomachs!" Grudgingly Daph placed Char back into the proper scooping position. 

I looked over my shoulder to get some support from another parent, but the mom behind us was dutifully dragging her limp and sobbing boy through the water. "He's really tired of holding his head up," was her way of explaining his flow of tears. 

Finally it was our turn for the "scooping". The instructor, her face framed with her long, wet hair, glided towards us with her smiling mouth open and her chin under the pool's surface. I know she was trying to show our daughter how fun it is to blow bubbles, but looking at her approach through Charlotte's eyes - the loud woman with the white teeth was terrifying. I didn't even apologize when our daughter started yelling. I'd yell too if she had grabbed my arms.

At the end of the class we were given a whole five minutes for playtime, and for a treat each baby could go down the slide once, but only once. I didn't want to risk Charlotte wanting to slide twice, so we just left.

I think we'll switch to the Wednesday night class.  

Such is Life

When I discuss literature in my classes I try to suggest interpretations to the material that students might not have considered, but I'll be hard pressed to ever tell a student that their perception of the material is wrong. I don't believe any stories or essays are written for the exclusive purpose of being published in a high school textbook. So, absolute answers to textbook questions do not exist. Nonsensical answers do not count, but almost every well thought out opinion is valid. 

With this in mind, here's "C'est La Mort" by The Civil Wars. I hadn't yet read the lyrics when I first played their CD in my car, and without a working knowledge of the French language I didn't hear a song about a love that lasts to death and then beyond. 

Instead, as I'm  cruising around in a car littered with picture books, sippy cups, and teething rings, I heard a song about a parent making the impossible plea for their child to not grow up and grow away. I actually had to wipe away a few tears.

Funny how parenting affects interpretation, but c'est la vie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCsNZUAN3E

Hoopla

Today I noticed that one of the sophomore girls in my class is wearing large hoop earrings. Inside each hoop, suspended by tiny chains, is the gold word "Juicy".

That reminds me of the road construction crews I worked with my buddy Bob during our college summers. We were just local help who would work the roads while the crew was in our part of the state. As soon as the job was done in our area, the crew would move to another county. And happily our jobs would be done. 

I have a lot of road crew stories. This one's short.

I think Bob and I called the regular crew members "lifers", but each man had his own nickname, usually assigned through job or odd quirk. I.E., the guy who drove the steamroller was "Hot Rod", the guy who wore a shark tooth necklace was "Tooth Fairy, and "Juicy" was the one who stuffed huge wads of tobacco between his cheeks and gum. Part time help didn't merit nicknames. "Rich college kids" like myself were simply hated by the lifers (as if rich kids work really worked on road crews).
Anyway, back to her earrings. I don't know what image that little girl is hoping her Juicy jewelry is projecting, but I bet it's not long streams of blackened spit.
I hated that job.

PS. If you were a college kid on the road crew, and you felt something wet hit your bare back while you were bent over shoveling out a hole, it wasn't rain - it was Juicy spitting on you.

link

One More Time

The second cat we adopted from the local Animal Rescue League had a tail that could bend into seemingly impossible, Dr. Seuss-like shapes. Daphne named him Theo in honor of the children's book author Theodor Seuss Geisel. 

During his first week as a Monson he and Daphne bonded. She was sick, but our other cat Chip was so angry that another feline had joined his ranks, he wasn't going to give her the time of day.  So Daphne went to the back bedroom where the "new" cat was sequestered.
The second she lay down on the spare bed Theo jumped into the crook of her arm, tucked his head under her chin, and purred themselves to sleep. He was quite a comfort, and it was feat he repeated every night afterwards.

Theo's ARL paperwork didn't include a medical history, and during his first veterinary checkup we were informed that he would need medication everyday for the rest of his life. That didn't deter Daphne; she was hooked. For the next eight years he would have to take an oral medication once a day, and further down the road he required two injections of insulin.

Although I administered some of his insulin shots, the bulk of Theo's care fell on Daphne's shoulders. She was the one who kept strict track of his weight, his medicine refills, and his vet visits. Daphne brushed his coat and brushed his teeth. The summer his eardrum broke and Theo decided to stop eating, it was Daphne who sat with him in the bathtub and fed him through a syringe three to four times a day. Each feeding took about an hour, and it was three weeks before he ate on his own. No wonder Theo slept along side her every night. He was her little boy.

And her boy was always sick. Just say "vet", and he would run and hide. The veterinary technicians knew him so well that when one tech, Kim, heard that Theo wasn't doing well she called us on her own time to ask about him. We run into people from the vet's office at the farmer's market, and we chat like old friends. Which I guess we are.

I suppose someone could argue that the money we've spent on our animals' veterinary care could equal the price of a decent used car. But I don't think very many people have a hundred pictures of their used car and their family together:

I'm sure you can see where this email is heading; the use of past tense is a give away. Despite Daphne's best efforts, Theo's cancer and heart disease were beyond her control. Theo stopped eating again, but he continued to gain weight due to the fluid building up inside him.

Last Friday, after school, we took Theo to the vet one more time. It was a one way trip, and we were with him to the end. As my daughter would say, there's one less "kit-ta" in the world. Considering the recent deaths of local children, this is not a tragedy. But it still hurts. That injection may be painless, but it stings for a long time. It's been a week, and Daphne still can't sleep well without her purring buddy.

I've been dreading the subtle changes. The second cat box in the basement will disappear, and the medicine dropper that's been stationed on the ledge of the kitchen sink since 2004 will vanish too. The back of leather chair in the basement won't be dented again, and the closed doors to the storage unit won't rattle in protest. No one is going to trip me while sprinting downstairs to get to fed, and if I leave the door to the deck open for more than 15 seconds I won't have to chase after anyone. There will be less fur on the bed covers, but the bedroom won't feel quite as warm either.

Like the vet bills, I'm not ready to add up all these little removals. There'll be a larger void there than I'd care to admit.

Spontaneity

Yesterday I was in my car waiting at a stop light. To my left, in the turning lane, was a young professional woman with huge earrings checking her makeup in the rearview mirror. I have no idea what radio station she had on, but her mouth flashed into a bright smile when a song came on she knew. 

Within seconds she was singing along and dancing practiced arm moves in her car seat; her earrings were swinging all over the place. It just made me smile, but I'm glad she didn't see me watching her dance. It made my drive to work a lot brighter.

Later that evening I was getting ready to grill in our backyard, and as I was climbing the deck stairs to get the burgers "Gold on the Ceiling" by The Black Keys came on my iPod. I have no idea how to get some one's gold on the ceiling, but I had a flashback to the gal at the stop light. It was dark, and we have a high fence, so why not? I stopped my climb and started playing air guitar. Then I gave up on the air instrument and returned to the yard to dance around and perform some improvised moves for a minute or so. That may sound dorky, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Here's hoping that if you have some spontaneous fun this weekend no one catches you in the act. At least as far as you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCIDkFI7ew

What kind of improvised moves you ask? You know, like covering your eyes with the left hand and waving the index finger on your right when they sing,  "I ain't blind, it's just a matter of time."  But that's just an example. I didn't do anything like that.

At least as far as you know.

http://mithan415.hubpages.com/hub/Storing-Gold-In-Your-Home

Rubber Slides and Padded Mats

Ever pull up to a stoplight on a busy multi-lane street and hear car brakes squeal? My first thought is "Is that my car?" and I'll try to casually roll ahead a little so I can press the brakes to check.

It's the same experience at a mall's crowed playground, and you smell a dirty diaper. My first thought is "Is that my kid?", and I'll try to casually bend down to Char's backside to check. Sure it's awkward, but at least I wasn't the dad who pressed his face far enough into his child's diaper that he could have suffocated himself. That guy's gross.

Happily, this weekend anyway, it was someone else's car and someone else's kid.

Random observations after visiting various toddler playgrounds in local malls:

1. The bottom of the slide is much more dangerous than the top. I didn't see anyone fall off, but I witnessed plenty of crashes at the foot of the slide. Some pileups were five kids deep.
2. Nothing exciting happens when I'm watching my girl play, but if I look away for a couple of seconds there will be a minor disaster. So, it's just like home.
3. I can always smell warm pretzels. 
4. Parents treat the playground like it's an elevator; none of the adults talk to each other. Maybe they're just too tired.
5. Or they're too busy looking at their cell phones.
6. I know that little boy who just ran full steam into Charlotte and sent her flying into the padded bark of a rubber tree didn't mean to hurt her. But while I'm picking up my sobbing girl and watching him rounding the corner for lap number two, I want to trip him.
7. And his mom who didn't even see it happen because she was too busy staring at her phone instead of watching her human torpedo.
8. But I don't...

At the sound of good music, I'll sing or I'll dance

About a month ago the three of us were coming home from a short shopping trip, and Charlotte had had enough of being trapped in shopping carts and her car seat. The iPod full of children's songs wasn't cutting it anymore, and every book handed to her was thrown overboard, "No, No, No, No, No!" A meltdown seemed imminent. 

Luckily, I'd been recently previewing some St. Patrick's Day music in my car, and I had a hunch that the little girl who likes the banjo and bluegrass music might also like the "sing along style" of Irish drinking songs. So I hit play.

After a few seconds Charlotte started clapping her hands and kicking her chubby legs. Daphne was a bit bewildered by my music choice, but could see how much Charlotte was enjoying herself, "Have you two listened to this before?"

"No, I was just guessing she might like it."

Daphne then leaned back between the front seats to talk to Char, "Okay, we'll play this for you. But as soon as you say the word 'pint', we shut this off."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJhbFu78kqQ