nearly wordless wednesday: school picture day

This is my nice smile for mommy.

Don't I look innocent?

Uh ... gotta go.

Dude, are you still pointing that thing at me?

I'm telling you, man, we're done.

Seriously? Do I have to tell you again?

Dude is gonna rock picture day.

could there be a cuter evil laugh?

For Father's Day I did an interview with Tatiana over at It Was A Very Good Year. One of her questions was what badass things my kids have learned from me. Here's one.

the birthday party conundrum

What do you do for a four-year old's birthday?

Every parent faces this, right? Do we have a party or take them someplace special with a friend? If we have a party, who do we invite? How big should it be? Do we have to invite the whole class? Do we have to invite THAT kid? Do we have to invite that kid's PARENTS?

We are facing this now. Owen will be four in July. He's old enough to be fully aware of this. He knows the date and will tell you if you ask. At his age, birthday=party. They are the same, inseparable. It's not your birthday if there is no party. I'm already anticipating psychic chaos when we tell him his birthday PARTY is on a different day than his actual BIRTHDAY. His little mind might crack.

But once we're past that, and assuming he's still functional, what are we going to do? Owen and Nicholas are three years apart. Nicholas will turn one about a month and a half before Owen turns four. We're not going to have a big blowout for the one-year old. I mean, he has zero clue. He'll be stoked about cake and ice cream, as this child lives for food. Other than that, who are all these people, and why is that thing on fire?

But for Owen it's a different thing entirely. He's a birthday party connoisseur now. He's been to so many he could plan the fucking things. He has strong opinions, some of which he has expressed out loud, some simply through his actions. Here are some of Owen's rules, as I understand them, of what makes a proper birthday party:

1. Bouncy house? Yes.
2. Cool toys and stuff scattered around for everyone to play with? Yes.
3. Open presents at the party? Yes (we'll fight him on this).
   
4. Organized party games? No. Absolutely no. Get that parachute away from me, I'll show you where you can pin the tail, and why is that dude wearing makeup?
   

So at least we have some clear dos and don'ts if we go the party route.

But is a party the best idea? Parties are expensive, and messy, and stressful. Somebody will end up in tears. Probably one of the kids, and quite possibly also me. When it's over we have to clean up and manage our exhausted children who live in our house and don't leave at the end. We could do it at an indoor playground, but we've done this twice before. Owen seems almost old enough to graduate to the next level of pay-to-play fun, but I refuse to take a child to Chucky Cheese who will not eat pizza. We've told him this. He says he'll eat pizza when he's four. We'll see. We could go to a park, but it's mid-July in Los Angeles. If it's 100 degrees, nobody wins.

So that brings us to Plan B - amusement park with one or two friends. I happened to land four free tickets to Legoland through work. I've never been, but folks tell me it's a cool place for young kids - better in some ways than Disneyland (less commercial and more age appropriate, and hopefully less crowded). So we're thinking we might invite a friend or two of Owen's to come along and spend the day there instead of a party. We'd still do cake and presents and stuff with the family, but no big thing. Lisa floated this idea to Owen, and he was into it. But I'm not sure he understands this would be INSTEAD of a big party. We'll see.

Whatever we do, I'm sure he'll have a good time. And the truth is, he's four - is he really even gonna remember this birthday? I sure don't remember my fourth birthday. I don't really want to try and out-party his friend's parties, and ultimately I'm not sure anything can top our day at the LA Department of Sanitation Open House. The day he got to drive sit in a garbage truck. They even let him blow the horn and run the thing that lifts the cans. I don't know about your kids, but next to spaceships and dinosaurs, garbage trucks are about the coolest thing ever.

Wish us luck with the birthday celebration. Whatever we do I expect you'll hear about it here before long.

sublime, ridiculous

I saw two performances yesterday that were as far apart as they could possibly be in almost every way.

First I watched my almost-four-year-old son Owen sing and dance and play and yawn and smile and wave his way through his preschool music concert. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen. I don't know if anyone whose kid wasn't in it would agree, but for me it was amazing.

Then last night I watched the almost-but-not-quite season finale of American Idol. It was horrible. Mr. Lady summed up many of the ways it was horrible quite well in this MamaPop review, so I won't rehash all of that. I just want to explain how seeing these two things in one day made my head hurt and my heart ache, not necessarily in that order. It was everything that's amazing and wonderful about music held up against everything that's wrong with the music industry.

First, why is there music? I think because of how it makes us feel. Good, bad, happy, sad, excited, scared. Music triggers emotions. It's both personal and communal. You can experience music alone, and it can be fantastic, and then there's this other thing that happens when you're part of a group hearing the same piece of music together. It can transcend the individual experience. It's not always better, but it definitely has the capacity to be more, certainly different.

Watching Owen and his schoolmates perform was the second thing - the community experience, and it rocked. We were all there living in this amazing moment of musical expression and togetherness. The music was all right, but the connection between the performers (our kids) and the audience (we parents) was powerful. It felt really good. We were happy to see our kids up there, and nervous for them to do well and have fun and not be freaked out, and overwhelmed by how they're growing up and what it all means and we're all feeling all this together. And it was awe inspiring. It inspired awe.

Then there was American Idol. This thing costs millions of dollars. It's tarted up like a showgirl in Vegas, and many millions of people are watching it on TV. It's down to two guys after months of basically weekly auditions, watching their fellow performers fall one by one around them. And they're up there jumping through vocal hoops yet again for the judges and the audience and the cameras. And then they bring out a quasi-established guest "star" and she sings some crappy song as a "big finish" and you know what? It sucked. Not them, really. They're ok. Pretty good, to be fair. They can sing, each has his thing, and they've clearly been working their asses off and they're basically pretty good. But what they're doing up there is the exact opposite of what music should be. It's all showing off and trying to create a personna and nailing some kind of style. It isn't about communicating. It isn't about sharing. It's purely commercial. It's sales. It's which of these guys will sell more songs/albums/tickets/t-shirts/action figures. That might not be what it's about for all the people watching, exactly, but that's what's it's actually about.

And I think about Owen up there creating this amazing experience for a few people in a room through music. And I think that is what music is really for. And I struggle to work out how to fold music into my sons' lives in a way that makes them cherish that. The community, the feelings, the making of music. While rejecting the artifice and glitz and bullshit that is American Idol.

As I listened to "No Boundaries," I longed for "Goodbye Now and Thank You."

Edit: I just realized this is my 10th post on this blog. Hurray for round numbers! Now, let's see if this one goes to 11.

kid's eye view

Owen loves taking pictures. Lately he loves taking pictures with my phone. We bought a new digital camera recently and offered Owen our perfectly good but somewhat older one. He wants nothing to do with it. He wants my phone. Of course, when not being used as a camera, my phone also doubles as a lightsaber, so can you blame him really?

Here are a few of the shots Owen took this weekend.

Starbucks with Dad

Playdate

Little brother's snacks

Little brother

Little brother!!!

Feet

mother's day 2009

Owen picked his own gift for his mom this Mother's Day. He's almost 4, and was excited about a secret mission with Dad to pick out a surprise for Mom. I tried to drive home how we shouldn't tell Mommy what we were getting her because we wanted it to be a surprise on Mother's Day. Any guesses how that went?

If you haven't known many 4-year olds, you may not realize that a gift chosen by a 4-year old is really a gift FOR said 4-year old, cleverly disguised as being for someone else. This works especially well when the recipient is a member of the same household, as it gives the 4-year old unfettered access to said gift after it's given. 4-year olds are adorable, charming, and unequivocally selfish, especially when it comes to presents. Since getting a Transformers toy (Optimus Prime, if you're keeping score) for Christmas, Owen's been intent on acquiring additional Transformers for himself the rest of the family. I got Megatron for my birthday, he wants to get Bumblebee for his brother "when he's a little bigger" (he's 11 months) and has been saying Mommy should have Prowl. So that's pretty much what Lisa expected for Mother's Day from Owen. Every mother's dream.

So I was pretty excited when we got to Target and spotted something else he'd wanted to get "for her" that hadn't come up for a while. She wouldn't expect this, so we might actually have a shot at surprising her. Though still basically a bowling ball with "Homer" written on it, it did have a slightly better chance of being something Mommy would even have fun with than a Transformer. After getting it gift wrapped at Paper. stopping so Owen could pee (and Daddy could pick up a case of wine) at Colorado Wine Company, and picking up lunch at The Coffee Table, we headed home.

We sat down at the table to eat. Owen and I had worked out a plan to leave the presents in the car until tomorrow, so Lisa could open them and be surprised on Mother's Day. Owen seemed cool with this, but when she asked him if he'd had fun on our adventure, it took abut 10 seconds before he chimed in with "I can't tell you what we got for you, but when you open it you'll see it's the Mace Windu one." We smiled at each other and started laughing. Mommy knows her Star Wars characters. Element of surprise, gone. Cat, say goodbye to bag.

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. Hope you like your lightsaber.

p.s. Mommy will also be getting something from Daddy, something which is actually for her and which I think she'll like quite a lot.

will walk for shoes

Just a quick post to share some video of Nicholas' early bipedal adventures. This video is from yesterday and I swear as of today he's talking twice as far. He has on fear, which is very different from Owen at that age, who was very cautious.

Speaking of Owen, notice him adjusting a scarf on the blue alien riding creature he calls Cloudy. He may be a budding fashion designer.

keeping our kids safe

A friend (who is currently childless, incidentally) sent me this link: Stop worrying about your children! Maybe she thinks I worry too much? It's an article on Salon.com by Katharine Mieszkowski, profiling Lenore Skenazy. Here's the summary:

Kids today are just as safe as they were in the '70s, says "Free-Range Kids" author Lenore Skenazy, and what's really distressing is an alarmist culture that refuses to let them grow up.

I tweeted this link (that's twitterspeak. if confused, see this post) and set off a really active and passionate discussion about how best to keep our kids safe.

What we all seemed to agree on was this: we must strike a balance between raising our kids in a bubble and letting them run wild without constraint. But the space between those two extremes is vast, and enough to leave this parent scratching his bald head wondering what to do.

I don't know the answer, but of course I have some thoughts. Here are a few that came up during the discussion, and after.

I had a lot of freedom as a kid, and spent a lot of time hanging out unsupervised with my friends. My parents worked when I was young. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I started getting myself to and home from school on my own, but I think it was around 10. Well before that I was riding my bike or walking all over the place with my parents not really knowing where I was.

My wife grew up in New York City. She was riding buses alone by age 8 and subways by 11. This was when the crime rate in NYC was much higher than it is today (she'd rather I didn't say EXACTLY when this was), yet many people who read the article thought it was crazy for her to let her 9-yr old ride the train alone.

The subject of sex offenders came up. Are we better off knowing about registered sex offenders in our neighborhoods? At least the ones that have been a) convicted and b) honest about their current location? It is probably better to know than not know, but it's also hard to know exactly what to do with the information. I also suspect it's more important to teach our children how to behave with people they don't know (and those they do) than it is to keep a constant watch on this house or that apartment building.

I want to be logical and level headed about how I raise my children. But I'm terrified that anything bad might happen to them, and want to do whatever I can to prevent that. At the same time, I want them to be self-reliant, independent, and not live in fear.

And that's really the biggest issue here: fear. I think we're much more afraid of all the horrible things that might happen now than our parents were, yet I think the chances of those things happening are generally no higher. In some cases they're actually lower. But what are odds when it's your own kids in question? The chances of getting attacked by a shark are ridiculously low. They're even lower if you never go in the ocean.

Are we more realistic and better educated about the dangers of life, and protecting our kids accordingly? Or are we irrationally influenced by the scare tactics of the media (swine flu, anyone?) into sheltering our kids beyond reason?

I don't know the answer. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please comment.

Edit: After I posted this last night I spotted this story about a mom in New York who spent the night in jail after dropping her kids on the side of the road for misbehaving in the car. It reminds me that in addition to the moral, ethical, and just general right-minded parenting questions this issue raises, there are also legal issues to consider. Jeez, as if we didn't have enough to worry about!

old school

Owen is already learning you can't go home again, even if he doesn't understand that yet.

We've had pretty good child care luck. When Owen was born in 2005, Lisa took seven months off.

(Before you get all excited and start applying for her job, this was seven months without pay. Lisa's an opera stage manager who gets contracted per show. So basically she took no contracts for seven months. So didn't get paid. So we lived on one income, which was not the most fun thing ever, but that's not what this is about.)

As I was saying, we've been lucky. Lisa stayed home longer than many can, and the single income thing didn't kill us

(Although I'm not super excited we may be doing it again soon. And no, Lisa is not pregnant.)

When she did go back our moms each came to help for several weeks.

(Which also didn't kill us, though in some ways came closer.)

And with Lisa's sporadic work schedule and piecing together babysitters here and there (that sounds like we dismembered them. we didn't) we didn't put Owen in daycare until he was over a year old. Having seen many friends hand their kids off to infant care at 6 weeks, we were happy we could wait, and Owen thrived (and continues to, thankfully).

When the time did arrive to start him in daycare, we found a place close to where we work in Downtown LA that we were really happy with most of the time he was there. When we did have issues, they addressed them (mostly. took way too long to get me a new keycard for the security gate.). Their hours were RIDICULOUSLY convenient (6am - 6:30pm. That is not a typo.). The location worked well for us (and was right near the train station which Owen loved). The director and staff were friendly and caring, and the teachers Owen had really seemed to love the kids and what they were doing. Oh, and it was cheaper than almost everyone else I knew was paying. I still don't really know why, but I'm not complaining.

This is the Old School.

(We've always called it school with Owen, even when it was really just daycare. Also, I feel strange posting the name of the place, but if you're in LA and interested email me and I'll share. If you still want the info by the end of this post.)

Owen LOVED the Old School. Once he got over being left somewhere besides home, and apart from the inevitable tough days now and then, he loved it. He made friends before we knew he was old enough to HAVE friends. It was a strange experience visiting friends whose daughter was in his class and seeing they had something going on which had nothing to do with us or time they'd spent together while we were around. They were tight, and that happened all on their time, not ours. He loved his teachers, and often he didn't want to leave when one of us showed up to take him home. How could our house compete with all these toys, kids, and a playground right outside? We saw his social skills blossom, and get this - they basically potty trained our kid for us. No kidding, one day they were like, "start sending him in underwear, he's ready." I felt like tipping them.

Then we got pregnant with Nicholas.

(Clearly, it was my wife who actually got pregnant, but we're a team, so I say "we got pregnant" even though I realize she is the one with the uterus and did all the actual gestating and pushing the baby out and it makes me sound like kind of a new age parenting hippie to say "we got pregnant" but there I said it so whatever. Again, this is not what this is about.)

When we started contemplating how to handle the logistics of a second child, we decided two things: We were getting a nanny, and we were moving Owen to a school closer to home. We'll call this the New School.

The New School is four blocks from our house (Old School: 10 miles). The New School has been lauded by friends since before we had kids as the best thing that ever happened to their kids. It's only slightly more expensive. Having Owen at the New School would allow the nanny to pickup and dropoff (Car Talk, anyone?), and meant he'd be in school with neighborhood kids, some of whom might end up his classmates for years. Also, as Kindergarten started to loom, we wanted him to have a slightly more academic atmosphere than the Old School provided. Theirs was basically structured play, with crafts and stories and circle time, which is great for little ones, but lacked the beginning reading and math we think is important to at least start introducing somewhere around age three.

(This makes it sound like we've spent much more time thinking about educational theory and approach than we have. We basically play this thing by ear and try and do what Owen's ready for. Honestly, the way notes home from his teachers at the Old School were spelled, I was not sure I wanted them teaching my kid to read, sweet and well meaning as they were. Also (and this probably bothers me the classically trained musician more than most), his teachers could not sing. I don't mean they didn't have beautiful voices. I mean they couldn't carry a tune in a fucking bucket. Owen still has trouble matching pitch and I blame them. We sang to the kid, but they had many more waking hours with him in those early days, and how the hell can a kid learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when it sounds like there are only maybe 3 1/2 notes in the song and their relationships to each other are entirely arbitrary and vary from one verse to the next? Does that song even have verses? Whatever, you get the point. And again, this is not what this is about.)

So we decided to move Owen to the New School. We thought a lot about timing this move. Knowing he liked his Old School, we didn't want him to associate leaving there with the arrival of the baby (fucking baby you came and I had to change schools and I hate you!), so we decided to wait and move him several months after Nicholas was born, while Lisa was still off work (she couldn't take quite as much time off with #2, further reason why we went with the nanny option). We actually made the switch while out of town on vacation, so when we got home, Owen started in the New School. If he were older I think we'd have wanted him to have a chance to say goodbye, but at 3 we just thought that wouldn't make sense to him. He'd probably think we were saying goodbye for the day and coming back tomorrow.

The good news is I think we succeeded in making the school move not about the baby. Owen loves his brother and has never connected his arrival with changing schools, that we know of. That said, the school move was a little rough at first. The first few days were great. He was all caught up in the novelty of the new school and the differentness of it all. We naively thought we were home free. But about a week later we heard:

"When can I go back to my Old School?"

My heart sank. Because of course he couldn't go back. We'd structured our lives around him being close to home, not to mention paid money to the New School and given up his spot at the Old School. It was time to move on, but how do you tell that to a 3-yr old? We told him the New School was his school now, and he was going to keep going there. Thing is, I wanted him to WANT his New School, and by extension to have fond memories of his Old School without actually wanting to go back there again. Which is totally unrealistic, especially since I also have my moments of pining for my past. And I'm 35 - he's 3.5. I'm a whole power of 10 older than him.

But those moments pass, and before long, he did get past it. Mostly. Pretty soon he wasn't asking about his Old School anymore, and was really having fun at his new school. He made friends, he likes his teachers, he's learning all kinds of cool stuff. And the logistics are working out great and we're really happy about the move.

But now and then, it comes up. We see someone from the Old School - at a birthday party, playdate, etc. - and he asks about going back. But the more time that's passed, the more his Old School isn't really the place he knew anymore. Almost all of his friends have moved on. Most of the teachers we knew and liked are no longer there. And, of course, he's not the same kid he was, either.

And maybe that's the hardest thing to accept.

He's changing.

And it's all good. It's what's supposed to happen. He's growing up. And that is both the best and the hardest thing to watch. He's the same sweet funny cuddly charming kid, but at the same time, he's not. He's different every day. And that is, as much as anything, why none of us can ever go home again. Because not only is home not the place it was when we left, but neither are we the people we were then. We change. And that's what's supposed to happen, but sometimes we think back and sigh a little about who we were, and will never be again. At least, Owen and I do.

do not underestimate the power of the tummy

Owen is obsessed with Star Wars.

Owen is 3 3/4 (he'll correct you if you say he's 3 1/2), and obsessed with Star Wars. He's probably too young for this fairly violent (and completely awesome) series of films (and cartoons - did you know there were cartoons?!). But we love it, and thought he would love it, and he does, so yahtzee! The thing is, I couldn't take much more Diego. Or the Wiggles, oh my god the Wiggles. If you've managed to avoid this particular Australian import, count yourself extremely lucky. I thought we were so clever to have kept Barney out of the house, then the Wiggles flanked us and moved in. Clever Wiggles. Anyway, Owen has now seen all six Star Wars films, the Clone Wars animated feature, and many episodes of the Clone Wars animated TV show. He owns three very realistic, battery operated lightsabers, complete with lights and sounds, and has played Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga on PlayStation3. He's definitely too young for THAT. We're horrible parents.

But that's not the point. The point is, he's most obsessed with particular aspects of Star Wars. Much to my wife's chagrin ("I thought I had more time!") his fixation is primarily on the female characters who aren't wearing a lot of clothing. This includes Leia in the early scenes of Return of the Jedi, Padme Amidala after the arena scene in Attack of the Clones, and Asohka (Anakin's padowan learner) in Clone Wars. All have bare midriffs, shoulders, legs - you get the idea. He also digs Jedi and lightsabers, but likes them best if they are defending (or wielded by) scantily clad females. We think questions about whether he might be gay are pretty much answered.

When Owen wants to watch Star Wars, he usually asks by saying something like, "I want to watch Star Wars, where Princess Leia gets captured by Jabba, and has a tummy." Having a tummy means her tummy is bare. When he sees someone with their belly showing he asks "Why does she have a tummy?" When he isn't wearing shoes and doesn't want to walk on something without them, he'll object, "But I have feet!" We were driving one day and talking about the beach, and how he wouldn't need shoes and could run around with bare feet. From the back seat: "Silly Daddy, not bear feet, KID feet!" So it's just feet. And tummies. So back to that.

The tummy fixation isn't new. He will consistently notice and comment on anyone with a bare belly. He's into observing and pointing out body parts, and tummies are special, I suspect because they're less often spotted than say, heads. Visiting a local motorcycle shop with my stepdad, Owen spotted a poster of a woman in a bikini, leaning suggestively against a motorcycle. He took inventory: "She has legs, and she has a tummy, and she has those, and she has arms ..." That was a few months ago. By now I think he knows what "those" are called (his baby brother is breastfeeding, after all). He's nothing if not observant.

If you aren't already, you should be reading Tanis Miller's blog, Attack of the Redneck Mommy. She's funny, and smart, and Canadian, and often blogs about her boobs. What more do you want? Anyway, I follow her on Twitter and had her avatar up on my screen when Owen walked by. He stopped and looked at the picture for a bit, and then in a slightly shy but impishly smiling way said, "Why isn't she wearing a shirt?"

I think she might be, you just can't see it in the picture.

(Impish smile) "She looks like she's ... captured."

I told Tanis about Owen's comment. She says this is why she'll never change her avatar - according to her, her real photo? So not captured. I suspect we may have planted the seeds for a rich sexual fantasy life for our not-yet-four-year old once he's a bit (read: a LOT) older. I also suspect Redneck Mommy would be proud if that's true.

So, that brings us back to Star Wars, doesn't it? I'm king of the segue.

As I mentioned, in addition to the mostly naked women of Star Wars, Owen likes the Jedi. He wants to be a Jedi when he grows up. He holds out his hand and screws up his face and wonders why no people or objects move around the room from his powers. It's awesome and a little heartbreaking. I've given him no reason to think he can't be a Jedi when he grows up. I hope he never stops believing he can. As Yoda said about not believing, "That is why you fail."

Star Wars creeps into almost every conversation now. Last week Owen asked, "What kind of car does mommy have?" A Honda.

"What kind of car does daddy have?" A Toyota.

"I like daddy's car better ... because it has Yoda in it."

My faith in humanity bolstered, I now think introducing him to Star Wars was a pretty good idea. We're awesome parents.

elmo vs. the easter bunny

Some giant furry creatures we trust, others we don't. Why is not always clear. Honestly, I would have expected this to go the other way.

The Easter Bunny ... ok.

Elmo, not so much.

stuff that's hard

I'm not good at sticking with stuff that's hard. I tend to start things then not see them through. Here is a list of things I've started and not really finished to my satisfaction.

• guitar lessons
• bass guitar lessons
• voice lessons (yes, I got a degree, but more on that later)
• blogging (see how sometimes I try again?)
• working out (i'm back on this one, and so far so good)
• losing weight (see above)
• pyramid schemes (this was a bad idea. it's good I bailed)
• writing thank you notes
• cleaning up immediately after cooking

I get all fired up about something new. Then days, weeks, or months (ok sometimes a few minutes) go by and I've forgotten about it completely. Blogging is a good example. Last October I discovered a whole bunch of blogs by fellow parents I found inspiring, motivating, funny, and generally awesome. So I thought, hey, I could do THAT. So I started a blog. Because it was free, and because I could. I wrote a few posts. They were pretty lame. I couldn't think of much to write besides "hey, look, I have a blog!" So that petered out after a few weeks.

Today I'm starting again. We'll see how it goes.

I was inspired in part by two amazing people and the unbelievable community of love and support that has grown up around them. They are parents. They blog. They're on Twitter (I'm on Twitter to. @badassdad05. Come find me and say hi.) They're funny and warm and open and generally awesome. They are Heather and Mike Spohr. You can read about them on their blogs The Spohrs Are Multiplying and The Newborn Identity. Be forewarned, it gets pretty sad. Last week they lost their little girl Maddie, 17 months old. Lisa and I went to the memorial service today, and it was beautiful and positive and completely emotionally exhausting. I'm really glad we went, but man it was rough. And I'd never met Maddie. So I can't begin to imagine what her family is experiencing. Well, maybe I can begin to imagine it, but then I really want to stop imagining it because it's horrible.

So, I've decided that if they can stand up at their daughter's funeral and say things that are funny and moving and poignant then I can write a few words now and then. And pick up my guitar more often. And practice songs I don't already know.

We'll see how it goes.