lil'screamie

Happy birthday Dear Alex

2010-08-25T23:58:00.002-04:00

5 years ago you came screaming into the world, a month early and beautiful. It's hard to imagine how different our lives are now, how much bigger we are as people and better as human beings because of your patient instruction in the ways and wonder of watching someone become. It's been an astonishing six months since your sister Princess Maya was born, and you've grown so fast to be the best big sister. You're not the only any more, but you will always be the first. You teach BW and I how to be better parents every day, and someday your sister will thank you for breaking us in and tiring us out. You rock!

Sisters

2010-05-10T23:41:00.005-04:00

I've given up writing. I sleep at the capricious whims of an uncertain-of-her-primacy older sister and her endlessly-needy sidekick. I eat cold take-out standing in the kitchen while waiting for the bottle-warmer to get the formula to that happy just-right temperature for an easy feed. At the moment, we're all sick with some mysterious child-borne illness, yet here we are. It's all our fault - these two souls stuck together one way or another for the rest of their lives, and I couldn't love them more - they're sisters.

Alex and Maya

2010-02-21T23:36:00.004-05:00

They don't know it yet, but they're going to be best friends. Dear Alex has been wonderful about welcoming Dear Maya into our lives, as chaotic and unsettling as it has been. The first few days home from the hospital have been easy for me, though I've lost some sleep sympathetically with Beautiful Wife, it hasn't been all that bad - that'll come later, when there's no more baby-nurse, and I take over the middle-of-the-night shift to give BW a break. I remember more of that long grind of feed, burp, change in the weeks and months later once the excitement and charm of the first few days wears off.
Like Dear Alex, I hold the dense little bundle of baby that is Dear Maya, and feel love and wonder and joy without any concept of how much change this new little soul will engender.

Welcome

2010-02-13T23:35:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the world, you feisty little girl. Your cries made me laugh, and made me weep and hold my beautiful wife's hand even harder. You soooo wanted to be out of there, and here you are. This world's a cool place.

Signs

2010-02-13T21:23:00.002-05:00

A few nights ago I had one of my recurring, mercifully but infrequent "Apocalypse Dreams" in which civilization crumbles to burning ruin, but normal every-day stuff keeps happening anyway - this one ended a little differently, in an operating room with BW and an impressive array of surgical props, including a wall of X-ray plates that looked oddly like ultrasound images. I got a chance to look at them a little bit, and saw a little tag on one of them that said "Male" - Aha, we're having a boy.

Two days ago I was walking up 6th Avenue from my office to get myself a cup of coffee at a local Starbucks. I'd happened to cross to the east side of the avenue because of what looked like a little commotion with some smoke and a firetruck. I happened to look over to see what was going on as the building exploded with a cinematic fireball and the sound of a loud and otherworldly hissing as the windows blew out and shattered glass scattered onto the avenue. The orange and black fireball rolled up into a mushroom cloud of fire as I ran for the corner. Wow. Just like in the movies.*

Last night, Beautiful Wife went to bed as usual, then got up, mentioning that she might be "leaking" uh, as in "honey, my water broke and I'm going into labor". Wow, just like that. That fast, and eerily reminiscent of how it went for the birth of Dear Alex, though this time we were a bit better prepared, with bags packed and plans made, more or less...

*It was a Con-Ed transformer explosion in the basement, no one was hurt - the building had been evacuated.

Snow day

2009-12-18T23:57:00.004-05:00

The look on her face says it all.

A few weekends ago we went to our little house in the country for a quick get away from work and the day-to-day relentless busy-ness of being in Manhattan, and It went pretty much the way it always does - We had a wonderful drive with no traffic and perfect timing, with Dear Alex chatting amiably about everything and anything, and astonishing me with her command of language and it's nuances and potential for fun. We talked, and then suddenly, silence - she was out along with Beautiful Wife, asleep, more or less for the rest of the way. I still love the gentle exhalation of arrival, that turn into the driveway and the quiet at last of turning off the car and the gathering of will to get everyone out and into the house. Beautiful Wife opens the door and I scoop Dear Alex from her car seat all limbs and floppy dead weight as it occurs to me how much she's grown, and how long we've been doing this. I get a tighter hug and a whispered "I love you king daddy" as she falls back to sleep on my shoulder as I carry her up, up, up to her room and to bed. Saturday was a grey and cold lie-on-the-couch-and-watch-movies kind of day, and when the snow started to fall, it came as an endorsement of staying in and doing nothing save cuddling on the couch. It snowed beautifully, all afternoon, at times the world beyond the deck seeming to have disappeared behind the curtains of white. As evening came, I had that feeling that Dear Alex and I should get out a little and play, and decided that it would be good to make it a trip to the store to get us all dinner - good fun to try the car in the snow, and a chance to give BW a little break.

I had the odd thought while driving through the densely falling snow on the unplowed roads that this was a perfect moment, one to be savored for it's rarity. I read somewhere recently about how we don't really think to count and celebrate how many chances we'll get to do these seemingly ordinary things, and it put me in the mind to appreciate the beauty of watching thickly falling snow swirl in the orange-cast of parking lot sodium-vapor streetlights, and then wonder how many times in my lifetime I'll get to experience such a simple unmarked thing again. 5 times? 14 times? More than a hundred? Probably not.

I'm pretty sure that there's something about watching a child grow, and realizing how quickly that seems to happen that makes you stop and think for a moment about how much time - how many favorite experiences you'll be able to count, and count on having again.

On Sunday, the very first order of business was to go outside in the snow and play - Dear Alex had a little checklist: make snow angels, make a little snowman, go sledding.
All morning. Up the septic mound, down the septic mound. Up the septic mound, down the septic mound. Repeat. We had a very good time, and I noted that Alex has grown big enough to climb up and slide down all by herself, over and over again, though it's most fun for her when daddy sleds too. So I did, and I'm counting on doing that again. It makes her laugh to see me slide and fall in the snow, and it makes me happy to see her having so much fun. After a couple of hours of this, she abruptly stops - and runs into the house, having finally realized that she was freezing. Once inside and de-snowsuited and on the couch under a blanket with Beautiful Wife, I make her a warm cider and all is warm and cozy again. We decided then and there to stay in the snow another day. We took Monday off and instead of school for her and work for us, we went sledding again. It's one of those experiences worth counting.

Then and Now and Soon

2009-12-15T15:15:00.006-05:00

Just having a sentimental time of things, thinking about how much Dear Alex has grown and what an interesting kid she's become. So far, so fast - and I am still constantly awed and amazed that I have the chance to help this little person become.

I'm thinking about it because Beautiful Wife and I have another on the way, and I've been stuck for weeks, no, months as to how to write about it with the proper expression of the deep wonder (and terror) that I'm feeling. It feels like it's been a long time since Dear Alex was a baby, and she gets farther from that every day - my Dear Lil'screamie isn't so screamie any more, and soon she's going to be a big sister. Big news, and exciting times to come, to be sure. I wax nostalgic, and look back with some curiousity as to how we managed to have such a great kid - at the same time remembering the thousands and thousands of little things that made it so.

I love this girl so much that the thought of having another baby challenges me to imagine loving another child as much, but I'm comforted by the sure knowlege that it is not only possible, but inevitable. It's just a little hard to grasp right now. As I look back, and look at Dear Alex now in her excitement about being a big sister, I'm pretty sure that between the three of us there's going to be plenty of love to go around.

The wind

2009-11-28T00:27:00.001-05:00

Tonight the wind blows cold and hard from the northeast, coming off the lake with a roar in the trees, and it rattles the house in the country. It's a though nature has decided to let us know that change is afoot, and that the thin sunlight and gentle approaches to a new season are over - there's a real feeling of change in the air, almost an exclamation that winter is coming whether we're ready or not. There's a bright half-moon tonight, alternately casting stark shadows of the bare trees then disappearing behind wind-driven clouds, then lighting the night again - a scene I wish to wake Dear Alex to come out and see, to feel that quiet awe of the big wide world around us.
It puts me in mind of trips in the car from the city to the country, with Dear Alex awake and talking about the moon, the moon chasing us down the night, and calling out "the moon, daddy, the moon" and her delight with the peek-a-boo passing through the trees and over the hills. Tonight Dear Alex sleeps soundly in her big girl bed surrounded by her bunnies and the deep and sure knowledge of the love of mommy and daddy. She pointed out the moon to us last evening "a half-moon! in the daylight!" as we headed out to Brooklyn for our annual Thanksgiving dinner with aunts and uncles and family, then again later in the night as we left the city, tired and full and happy. We drove from the city and the lights and highways to the narrow two-lane country roads and into fog, an amazing and surprising fog so dense that it actually made me slow down, and take a little more care to get us safely home in the quiet and dripping dark. I will never tire of the routine of arrival - the sudden stillness of turning off the car then the flurry of activity, then quiet as I pick Dear Alex out of her car seat, wrap a blanket around her and carry her up the stairs and into the house and up more stairs to finally plop her unceremoniously into bed, usually with a nuzzle and a little tighter hug. Goodnight sweet girl.

Leap

2009-09-15T23:53:00.003-04:00

Suspended for a moment in mid-air, a perfect metaphor for how I feel for her right now, and where she is in her young life - suspended between the distant memory of being a toddler and the little girl that she's rapidly becoming. She's a blur of constant motion and I wish sometimes that I could just slow her mad rush to become, and hold her still and hug her for a little bit, while she's still a kid that has no filters and no idea that there's anything else in the world to do but have fun in the here and now. This time feels so fleeting, like that moment of equipoise between rising and falling.

Every day, Dear Alex changes and grows and gets smarter and wiser and funnier, and it is a joy to travel with her as she makes real the promise and joy built into the process of growing up.

5 Years ago today...

2009-09-12T01:41:00.003-04:00

Beautiful Wife became Beautiful Wife. I wouldn't change a thing. We've seen a lot of changes in our brief five years together, and I'm sure there's a lot more to come - I can't wait to see what happens next.

A blog is...

2009-09-08T22:00:00.003-04:00

I was in a meeting today, about a large and complicated website that I've been working on, and the subject of blogs came up, as it was desired to incorporate one in this website. There was a lot of conversation around what constituted a blog, and it was generally agreed that it had something to do with a heartfelt interest and knowledge of the subject in question. Some other more telling stipulations were added, including one that made me want to run home and write - A Blog (to be considered a blog) is "published to or updated more than twice a week." That makes me something of a lapsed blogger, and made me stop and think about the whats and whys of lilscreamie, and it occurred to me that I've failed, am failing to keep up with tracking the growth and changes that this whole mess is supposed to celebrate - the wondrous growth and development of my very own child. It's not so much documentation, but a less-than-rigorous celebration of the stuff I'm likely to forget by next week, next month, next year - in short, the telling details that generally go unnoticed or unmentioned, and the profound mixture of responsibility and absurdity that is being daddy. Dear Alex has changed and grown so much through the long months of my silence, and now I'm feeling a mad rush to try to recapture the incredible texture and detail of all that she's becoming - I'm afraid that that effort is doomed to failure, but I can certainly try for my very own benefit to write again to something that was a labor of love and joy, set aside only for the realities of making and keeping a life for me and mine, and my own inertia.

I will have to start writing again, as I've got the terrible assignment to write about Dear Alex for her kindergarten applications - Including the dreaded "Describe your child's personality and interests... including his or her strengths and weaknesses..." As if she had any weaknesses.

The whole NY kindergarten placement thing has been a real surprise to me. I first heard about it when Beautiful Wife and I were shopping around for preschools, and got asked the question about "where we wanted her to go to kindergarten, because certain preschools can get you on the track..." I'd just assumed you picked a school, paid some money, and the kid went there. Buyer's market, so to speak.

I was sadly mistaken, and have been working diligently to recover from that one ever since, going on school tours and fitting in with other parents trying to stand out but not stand out too much to give their kid the best chances at the best schools. I suddenly get it, and am awed by the depth and importance made of Where The Kid Goes To Kindergarten. It's a track, or a trap, but it can materially affect who Dear Alex is and what she might do 10, 15, 20 years from now. Amazing - the right school, well chosen can make a difference. We'll see how it goes.

Sculpture

2009-04-14T12:17:00.003-04:00

Dear Alex says: "It's called Scary lightning before the thunder comes - It's really called that."
I say that she's got a sense of design and composition, and it's fun to watch her build things, and take pride in her creations. I love that she gave it a name. She went on to explain that it works by "twisting it this way and that (she demonstrates) to scare away the thunder, after the lightning comes." I love her imagination.

Magically

2009-03-21T00:19:00.004-04:00

It's a certainty that objects have inner lives and can do amazing things and feel - and Beautiful Wife and I live with a kind of full-time magical realist, where she controls the show (a little bit) and can make anything happen - "what color do you like daddy?" and I say "blue" and Dear Alex can tell me "I don't have any blue cupcakes, but the wrapper is blue, so you can have pink." And then Dear Alex can give me a little blue cupcake right off of her pajamas, and I can eat it. Magically, she can make me a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs, and hand them to me as I pretend to eat and genuinely enjoy the joy she takes in my playing along in her world.

Snow Day

2009-01-19T00:13:00.002-05:00

Last night was one of those beautiful mid-winter nights that close gently and quietly, after seeing Dear Alex, then Beautiful Wife off to bed I got to stay up and think about "the question" and write a post about it and go about my business in this quiet house in the snow. As I looked out, it was snowing gently, an impossibly fine snowfall so light that it seemed that the flakes weren't really falling, so much as suspended like little bits of light. Lovely night and it made me think to check the weather - a call for a dusting to half an inch or so of accumulation overnight. Nothing to get too excited about, so I went to bed.
In the middle of the night, sometime after easy sleep and well before it was time to wake, Dear Alex had a bit of an accident in her bed - this weekend was our first attempt at letting her sleep in underwear for the whole night, instead of those nasty pull-up diapers - a welcome change for all of us, and it's clear that Dear Alex is ready for the change. The first night went just fine, but last night, she didn't quite make it - and it truly upset her terribly. There was a flurry of damage control activity, with me searching the room and her closet for something approximating a sheet to replace the one I'd hastily removed and, of course looking for dry PJs to change her into - all while reassuring her that "it was okay and that accidents happen, and that next time you'll get up sooner and find the potty, and you're such a big girl that you'll be just fine" all while wrapping her in a dry blanket and hugging her because she was so pathetically sad and cold and obviously dejected at her failure. I really felt for her, and tried to make all okay. We got cleaned up and dressed and it occurred to me how grateful I am for how simple it can be to simply take care to make someone, in this case Dear Alex, so much better.

This morning we were up before dawn, and as I was making coffee and heating water for Dear Alex's cup of tea I looked outside and noticed that it was still snowing, and that measly half-inch had turned magically into at least another six inches of fresh snow, and it was still coming down - today was a perfect "snow day" - and we're staying in the country 'til tomorrow. The kid and I went to the hardware store to play with her new car in the snow so that we could get cookie sheets to bake cookies and some screws for me to put up some shelves, and ended up with another sled - so that we could all play outside for the rest of the day on the amazing sled run that I've been building, and we did. We sledded. We baked cookies. We took a long walk in the snow on the frozen lake and had hot chocolate. At the moment, the car is stuck in the driveway (Beautiful Wife will take care of that in the morning - she's good like that) and Dear Alex is sleeping and all is right with the world.

The Big Question

2009-01-17T23:35:00.001-05:00

After bedtime tonight, and I'm hanging out with Dear Alex to have our usual wrap-up of the day, and Dear Alex asks: "Daddy, where do we come from?" I'm thinking that I'm going to get off easy on this one, so I answer "mommies. we all come form mommies. everybody has a mommy." Easy.
Dear Alex asks again: "No, where do we come from?" I answer "We are people and we all come from mommies and daddies and we come from love." There - a definitive and right-sounding answer that gives credit to everyone, and adds the magic of love, but that's not what she's looking for. "No, no daddy where do we come from... who made us, who made us?" Oh, that's a different question. A spiritual, cosmological, how-did-we-get-here kind of question. "well," I say, "That's something that a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about, and I don't really know. A lot of people believe that there is a creator, and a lot of people believe that we evolved, but there's a higher power that makes it all work, and some people that believe we just are. That's something called religion, that you kind of sort yourself out by what you believe about that." Alex: "But who made us?" Daddy: "well mommy and daddy made you, and our mommies and daddies made us, so people made us." "Oh," says Dear Alex, "But where did we come from?" (she's not going to give this up)"we just are." I say, "but this is something we can talk about when you get to be a bigger girl, because it's a very good question, and we can talk about it a lot." She asked, I danced, she asked again, and I danced some more - it's a great question, and the directness of her asking it repeatedly was something kind of startling to me - I haven't thought about life and existence from that direct a perspective in a long, long time, and I'm truly not one to dwell on the spiritual - but oh yeah, "Who made us?". I have to give her credit for asking an obvious question that'll make me think for a little while - I haven't really thought about what I believe beyond "we just are" for a very long time. For both of us, I guess it's something to sleep on.

Rite of passé

2009-01-13T23:31:00.006-05:00

A little running around to shake off the pre-performance jitters.
I love her confidence in this picture.

No caption necessary, really.

A moment of repose during the performance, Dear Alex is the one in the middle.

Five years ago, if someone had told me that someday in the hazy future I'd be going to a ballet recital - my own daughter's ballet recital on a cold day in January, I'd have probably gently changed the subject to something about motorcycles or airplanes or the weather.
It is sort of a rite of passage, I guess, for any father of a daughter - both the ballet classes and the inevitable performance of what they've learned. I know Dear Alex really enjoys her ballet class, she's surprised me many times with her dance vocabulary and impromptu performances at home of various moves and leaps accompanied by shouts of "sautée!" (jump up in the air) and "relevé!" (stand on your tippy-toes, arms up) all done with the approximate grace of a forklift - not that I'd do any better. It seems that Dear Alex has inherited my dance gene, or should I say, my lack of one. Not that it matters, of course, and I was relieved to see that she wasn't the only little girl that was - uh, movement-challenged. It's a three-year-old thing, I guess. The mind and the heart yearn for what the body can't yet do, but for some reason, there's real satisfaction in the attempt.
The group of five girls in the class (including Dear Alex) was easily the most disciplined group of toddler/pre-schooler's I've ever seen - they sat quietly, performed on cue with little direction, and stayed pretty well focused on the task at hand. There was a real charm in the collective performance today, the unselfconscious artlessness of the little ballerinas and their clearly heartfelt desire to get it right - it gave me a funny feeling. I think it might be pride for all of them.
Ballet is definitely not my thing, and I don't really think that it's going to be Dear Alex's thing either, but for now it's giving her discipline, a new vocabulary*, and something to be proud of - I saw that in her smile and confidence today, and it's one more thing to add to her list, my firefighter pirate princess ballerina. She may not be the picture of grace, but she's got a lot of heart.

*A lot of very fancy words like allegro and adagio and jete and passé, that I'm learning to love - Dear Alex is learning and using "terms of art". I love that.

King Daddy

2009-01-13T01:05:00.002-05:00

I was talking to Dear Alex this afternoon, and she let me know that if I wanted to, I could call her Princess Alex. I think I will for a while, just to see how it goes. Shortly after BW and I put her to bed, Dear Alex called "daddy" back in for another goodnight hug. She reminded me that I could call her Princess Alex, so I said "Goodnight Princess Alex" and she said "Goodnight King Daddy". I'm still smiling.

The very next day

2009-01-13T00:20:00.007-05:00

Watching The Little Mermaid for the 37th time

The Tickle Monster's next victim

She actually asked me to take her picture -
probably to prove to mommy that I let her take her hat off...

Sunshine and fresh snow and princess sunglasses

Screaming and spinning all the way down

It snowed all day on Saturday, a fine light snow from a heavy gray sky that made it the perfect kind of winter day to do nothing; We played "tickle monster" and "lump", We looked out the windows and watched the snow fall, and Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex spent a lot of quality time on the couch under blankets, watching "The Little Mermaid".
BW insists that this is an important part of her acculturation, and I'm inclined to agree, though I feel obliged to protest. All the kids are doing it, and if it weren't for mommy's support and guidance, Dear Alex would be hearing about princesses on the street or from her friends at school. It's something that we can be supportive about, and let her make her own choices... Dear Alex and I have had quite a few conversations around what I'll call the taxonomy of princesses, and deep conversations about her favorites, and which princess I like better and why. Dear Alex prefers Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) because she has "yellow hair", while daddy likes Princess Jasmine (Aladdin) because she's kind of spunky and has long black hair like mommy. Dear Alex is a little mixed about Princess Ariel (Little Mermaid) because of her red hair and "big eyes". But she likes all the princesses, just "Sleeping Beauty" best. I can't wait to throw Pocahantas (because she's the spittin' image of BW) and Mulan into the mix.

We did manage to go outside and get all wet and cold, and try out the sled, which was a lot of fun for both of us. Sunday turned out to be a perfect cold clear after-the-snow day, so we spent a lot of time making and using a sled run from the driveway towards the lake - hilarious to hear the girl sliding down the hill giggling to the bottom, only to say "again!" as soon as she got there. I did the daddy thing, and made the run longer, which just made the giggling and screaming go on longer - until Dear Alex decided it was time to go inside. Perfect, her red cheeks, snot running down her face and a smile that wouldn't quit.

Beautiful night

2009-01-10T00:16:00.001-05:00

We tried to leave the city early today, to get a head start on a weekend away at the house in the country, a constant antidote to the mid-winter grimness that seems to have settled in to New York to stay for a while.

There's a promise of snow, real snow this weekend for Dear Alex to see and play in, something that both Beautiful Wife and myself love and encourage, probably for reasons of a certain nostalgia too deeply buried to name. I know I loved snow, snowy days, and the real warmth of returning inside after hours of play, numb and red-cheeked and soaked.

It started off with a good plan, but devolved into a bit of a struggle that ended with a late departure and meeting Dear Alex and Nanny J. uptown at a 'playdate'. Beautiful Wife went in to collect Dear Alex, and returned a few minutes later - we bundled the girl into the carseat, loaded up and set off to get out of town only to come up against that late-Friday-afternoon traffic of others fleeing the city. A few minutes into the drive, BW noted that she might have stepped in dog-poop somewhere along the way, and almost instantly I caught the first whiff of that mournful smell of regret. A great conversation with Dear Alex ensued about the nature of dog poop and it's disposal, and how silly it was that it was on mommy's shoe, and more importantly how mommy should always look out for dog-poopie and you should step over it and not in it. The kid can be really funny. She was in a great and happy mood to be traveling tonight with us, and stayed awake long enough to see and comment on a beautiful full moon on the rise, chasing us as we headed west across the George Washington Bridge and into the night.

This post is about nothing, really, but the beauty of this night and a way to ease myself back into trying to write more regularly and clearly and well about the life and times of Dear Alex, to take notes on her quirks and my various fascinations with them.

Tonight, I wish I could wake her up and show her the biggest full moon of 2009, and take her outside to feel the dead cold and see the magic of this night as bright as day, with the trees sparkling in their coating of ice from the storm of last week. I would say "shhh - listen" and we could share the deep subsonic booming sounds of the frozen lake settling in for the rest of the winter, and the loud crackling of the deer walking through a neighbor's frozen backyard.

For now, Dear Alex sleeps, probably dreaming of princesses and bunnies. We'll get outside and enjoy the snow and the world tomorrow.

Change

2008-11-09T00:04:00.003-05:00

In the context of a blog about a three-year-old, the title could mean almost anything, as change is what Dear Alex is all about these days. I went away for a week and came back to a slightly more Alex version of Dear Alex, a little bigger, a little smarter, a little wiser. It's no single thing that I can put my finger on, but she grew, and there's a bit more personality there. Or maybe I just missed her, and have been watching more closely over the past few days, to see if she'd noticed that I was gone. She's been a little closer and a little more loving around me, so I'm guessing that she noticed - and we've talked about California, and the delights of video chat (that's really fun for a three-year old, by the way - seeing herself and daddy on a computer screen - it stuck with her a little bit.) "Am I in the computer?" "Yes you are, big girl."

One of the first things that Beautiful Wife and I did when I got back was to fulfill another promise that we'd made to Dear Alex - that she would get a real bed. The move from sleeping in a crib to a 'toddler bed' was something that Dear Alex had been looking forward to for a long time, and had even worked for by being reminded that all she had to do was not wake up screaming for mommy and/or daddy in the middle of the night for a few weeks. That worked wonders for us, as she got it and stopped the middle of the night wakings - and it worked for Dear Alex as she'd proved that she was big enough for a bed. She took to it immediately, and is so proud that she has a 'toddler bed' It's great to see how eager she is to show everyone and anyone her bed, and the night table next to it that she built with BW for her night-light candle and her cup of water and her box of tissues. The kid is definitely a Virgo, and has to have a well-ordered place for everything (and everything in it's place) If only I could get her to be that way with the rest of the things in her life. The bed thing has done wonders for her confidence and sense of control, and she mostly stays in it and best of all, actually sleeps. It's a funny thing, how little milestones help you see change so clearly - giving her a bed, and dismantling the crib just confirmed something that I've known for a while - Dear Alex really isn't a baby anymore.

Of course, there's that other Change:

Though lil'screamie is apolitical, I'll out myself and say that I wept with joy over the stunning victory speech of President-Elect Obama. After 8 years of W, I think we the people collectively had enough of the slow erosion of liberty, the dissembling and the lack of a forward-looking vision of the world and how it could be. I'm sincerely hoping that we as a nation have turned our backs on the narrowness of living in fear, and will be open to embrace the changes that will surely be needed to move from where we've been stuck for the last few years.

We need to rejoin the world as leaders and friends, and this election did a little ( I hope) to prove to the world that we're not closing up shop as the last bastion of hope. It's weird to say, but as a parent I want to live in a world that looks forward, is open , and most importantly has the willingness to try. The campaign and election of this new president proved to me that there is still room for hope and optimism in this country, that's what I support, and that's the kind of place I want my kid to live in.

It's my turn to travel

2008-10-30T14:02:00.005-04:00

Note Knuffle Bunny over Dear Alex's shoulder

-a lilscreamie file photo

Knuffle Bunny buys a computer from MacEnthusiast on Pico Blvd.

It was a tough call.

Knuffle Bunny sees the sunset from Santa Monica

I've been away from Dear Alex and Beautiful Wife for the last few days, on a business trip in L.A. to do some of that creative director thing for a TV spot. It's been a long strange trip so far with incidents and accidents that left me wondering how it would all turn out. It started on an awful Sunday afternoon flight to LA - I'm wedged in the middle seat in the far-back of the plane - tiny seat, passengers on either side. Early in the flight there was a bit of turbulence, and one of my seat-mates accidentally spilled a cup of water on the keyboard of my computer. Moments later, the screen went black.

I spent the next day visiting the Apple store in Beverly Hills, and was floored by the damage done and what it would take to get up and running again - lots of money and a lot more time than I would actually be here. It turned out to be faster and cheaper to simply buy a new laptop, copy over my old hard drive, and just get on with it.

After the drama and delay, it was a relief to get back to work and email. Even with the business of work and the drama, it's been surprising just how much I miss Dear Alex and Beautiful Wife, and how frequently they come up in the course of my days.

It's occurred to me just how important this thin connection by technology is - and how good even a little of seeing the kid can make me feel. It's been a long few days, made easier by that connection and the little bit of home that Dear Alex put in my bag just before I left - Knuffle Bunny, one of the many in her ever-expanding collection. I found Knuffle as I was unpacking and it made me cry. It's funny how you take the daily connection and simple presence for granted, and I've realized that this has been the longest continuous stretch that I've been away from Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex for three years. I've taken to taking pictures of Knuffle Bunny at various places in my travels here in California, to show my girl and share my stories with her when I return. It's a little thing, but it makes me smile.

One thing that I've noticed is that as Freelance Dad, I've had the joy of nearly constant presence with Dear Alex, and I sort of take it for granted just how special that is, but it robs you of the perspective of time and distance that makes you fully appreciate just how fast they grow. We had an almost-coherent conversation at 5:30 this morning, and it struck me that she somehow got smarter over the past few days - "daddy are you in california? I'm wearing corduroys just like mommy. I love you. Mmmmmwah!" (sound of a kiss)

I've been enjoying the work and this time among adults, but I'll be more than happy to get on the plane tonight and fly east through the night and into the dawn to rejoin my life.

A Dingo ate my baby

2008-10-05T00:15:00.002-04:00

Last known photo of Baby Kate - Dear Alex was just dumping her on the hood of the car...

Well, actually it was more like a golden retriever ate Dear Alex's baby. It was one of those weird things, that simply confound and amaze. Dear Alex and daddy are playing outside on this first very-fall-like day in the country, with the girl going in and out of the house, each time taking a toy out, then back to be replaced by another toy. this went on for a while, as anything with Dear Alex can these days as she tests and tries her abilities and my patience with her new skills and confidence. We'd been at this game for a while when she brought out Baby Kate, a non-assuming little blonde-haired baby doll, that Dear Alex has no particular attachment to, other than the occasional ministration and imitation of mommy. While we were out Dear Alex put the doll on the hood of the car so that she could go for a ride - at that moment we were surprised by the rush and tumble of a friendly golden retriever that came seemingly out of nowhere through the trees at the edge of the property, all wagging tail and eager- for-play affection. Dear Alex was delighted, though I was just a little bit alarmed by the dog's sudden appearance, so I stepped forward to see the dog turn from Dear Alex and in in a fraction of a second take the doll in it's mouth and run. Just like that it was over - the dog bounding away through the woods with the doll in it's jaws and Dear Alex standing silently with a look on her face that said something like "what the hell just happened?" There weren't any tears, Dear Alex simply said with something like quiet amazement "the doggie took Baby Kate away". That was it. I told her to go inside RIGHT NOW! and find mommy and tell her what happened, so that I could take off in pursuit - of course, by that time, the dog was long gone. Once Dear Alex was safely inside, I went off in luke-warm pursuit, following the path that the dog had taken. After walking through a few lakefront properties, I came to a home with a bit of commotion, and found the owner of the dog with leash in hand desperately trying to corral the wayward animal. She said she'd seen the dog run by with something pink in it's mouth, and had thought that that meant trouble... well, yeah. I'm not really sure what to make of things at this point, as she's no more responsible for the wayward dog's behavior that I am for my own dear girl's occasional missteps.
If I were I more tightly-wound New-York-City parent, there would have been police and counseling and animal control involved, but as it is, there's really no harm done. The woman promised to try to search the dog's usual hiding places, would be more than happy to replace the doll, etc... I left it at "let me know if the doll turns up. We're a couple of houses down the lake." We'll be sending out search parties tomorrow morning, and with any luck, we'll find Baby Kate. I am, of course, wondering how Dear Alex will process this event, but for now and for me, It's just another weird and slightly scary episode in my learning to be daddy.

The last few weeks

2008-09-12T15:15:00.002-04:00

We had a lot of birthday activity, with a party at her pre-school class, and a trip to the Bronx zoo and little presents every day for the birthday week, but I haven't really had the urge to back up and deal with the deeper emotional aspects of the changes that Dear Alex is growing through - it seemed that we turned a big corner once, that week that Beautiful Wife went to Vancouver for a shoot and came back to a newly-confident and potty-trained little girl. That was a big step, and it seemed to open up a new facet of Dear Alex's personality, with an urge for independence and an astonishing blossoming of her language skills. She not only knows what she wants most of the time, but is now perfectly willing to tell you. "Daddy you stay here, I'm going over here! Nooo - don't come with me!" I look at this, and her turning three and all of the new-found articulations of her personality as great and inevitable growth, but so much of it makes me a little sad, as there isn't quite the unspoken need for daddy to take care, and I've got a profound appreciation for those moments in the middle of the night when she still wakes and calls for mommy or daddy to provide reassurance or change a diaper. As much as I love the underwear, and her sly question - "Daddy, am I wearing underwear?" that she'll use as a way of telling you that she needs the potty, I still appreciate the concrete gratification of changing a diaper and enjoy the moment of sweet intimacy of taking care. As a bit of a balm for my own feelings of daddy-ness, a few days ago while Dear Alex was out, I spent the better part of a day sticking little glow-in-the-dark stars to the walls in her room - a sweep of stars that looks like the milky way from around crib-level in the middle of the night. She loved it in a quiet sort of way, and always remembers to tell me "Daddy, the stars are glowing." It's very calming to me, and I'm hoping it does the same for her.

Dear Alex has started into her third year with fits and rages - as though she's making up for not causing a bit of trouble through the rumored, but never-heard-from terrible twos. She's making up for lost time. She has developed a high-pitched shriek that really will peel paint, and has taken to chasing the cats around the apartment while squeaking at the top of her ever-larger lungs. We called her on that - with BW asking Dear Alex gently how she would like it if a potty chased her around the house yelling "KerFlush!!! - which is the sound of the dreaded loud loud potty. That captured Dear Alex's imagination, and her latest delight is sneaking up behind one of the lazy cats and shouting KERFLUSH! at the top of her lungs. It does make her smile when they jump.

Dear Alex just had her 3-year service at the wonderful doctor L's office, and seems to be doing quite well - all systems are go, and she was noted as being exceptionally bright. As Dr. L put it, "you guys are in big trouble..." That's putting it mildly. When she's not screaming, Dear Alex is hugely entertaining, and a real delight - when she's screaming, all bets are off, and BW and I do what we can to calm the rages and soothe the anger that comes, I think, from being able to think of things that she can't yet do for herself. She'll grow into those things soon enough, and we'll be on to the next stage of trauma and delight, which constantly leaves me in the wistful and curious place of looking forward to the next and waxing nostalgic for the now at the same time.

Four years ago tomorrow...

2008-09-11T23:07:00.003-04:00

... and it still seems like last week. Beautiful Wife became Beautiful Wife. We've certainly grown and changed and learned a lot over the last few years of life and love and lil'screamie (Dear Alex, not the blog) but the one constant remains - I'd do it again in a heartbeat. As I think I write every year, I'm a very lucky man - and it seems to me that it still can only get better.

Happy birthday Dear Alex

2008-08-26T23:23:00.001-04:00

The cupcake on her face says it all. She had a great day.

2008-08-26T01:08:00.007-04:00

Dear Alex dances to the blues at pier 54

After all of that, this: it seems like forever, but it also goes by so fast - the screaming lump of bottomless neediness now walks and talks and tells stories and gives the best hugs in the world.

Three years ago today:

2008-08-26T00:48:00.002-04:00

Dear Alex was pulled into the world, kicking and screaming. She's been screaming ever since - and our world is a better place for it.

Three years ago tonight:

2008-08-26T00:17:00.002-04:00

Beautiful Wife went to bed feeling a little funny, and got up a few minutes later to tell me that her water broke. We weren't quite ready*, thinking that we still had at least a week to go before the big day... At this moment all I can remember is the overwhelming sense of panic, and then forcing myself to be absolutely calm and seemingly ready for anything so as not to panic BW. We managed to get some things together, and out the door and into the late-night lower-east-side Stuy-Town darkness. We lived a good block, one way or another, from any kind of taxi traffic, but we needed to go uptown, fast. There really was only one way to go, heading towards First Avenue and hoping for the best. Providence provided, and I chased down a cab that had just dropped someone off in the loop that winds into the buildings of Stuy-Town, saving us at least a half a block of running. The ride to the hospital was like something out of a bad TV sitcom, with everyone a classic stereotype - anxious father-to-be, stoic cab driver of indeterminate foreign origin, tense and cranky but clear-headed wife, offering advice and commentary between contractions. BW, ever the producer, had a stopwatch with her, and was timing the contractions and grunting while gripping me hard enough to hurt. From what I'd remembered from the classes it seemed that the contractions were close enough together that we weren't going to make it to the hospital - a classic New York story, but one I think no one would actually care to experience for real. We made it to the hospital in what seemed to be the nick of time, then everything went into slow motion... A shot or two and into a hospital bed and then time stood still. The epidural slowed everything down, and the baby** that was seemingly so eager to enter the world suddenly wasn't.
I vaguely remember three shift changes, a lot of holding BW, and a lot of supportive words and the three really great nurses that saw us through the night - coaching, holding and urging BW on, but it was all to no avail - we finally got to that point of full dilation*** and beyond, and then it was over - the good (and I mean it, seriously) doctor determined that there was no way that the baby was going to come out the way it went in, so-to-speak. It was stuck. There was an impressive flurry of activity as arrangements were made for an operating room, and the rest is history...

* No matter what they tell you, there's absolutely nothing you can actually do to be ready, but there are things you can do to make it easier for everyone involved. We weren't quite there.

** The baby was still a baby - we really didn't want to know which kind. We'd sort of talked about names, but... I was genuinely hoping for a girl, but I didn't know.

*** Okay, Yay! it's the top of my baby's head! But seeing your loved one turned practically inside out and covered with gore is nature's way of desensitizing you to anything that baby-to-come can dish out, gross-out-wise.

Another day, another sculpture

2008-08-21T00:31:00.006-04:00

A different kind of sculpture, in a very different place - the end of a rail line in Port Jervis, New York, where we went to pick up Beautiful Wife from the train - Dear Alex and I travelled ahead without BW for an early start to the weekend. We found a magnificent piece of industrial art - an artifact from a time when rail was big - parked for the public in the weeds at a once-busy rail yard. I'm a huge fan of big technology and abandoned industry, so we really had no choice but to explore and expose Dear Alex to what a real train engine was like - not quite as cute as Thomas the Tank Engine, but it definitely got her attention. I'm sort of proud of the fact that she was interested in climbing up onto the giant black thing, and walking along the sides and seeing where the wheel was for the driver (there isn't any, by the way - no steering needed) and talking about the tracks (thank you Thomas) and just hanging out with this bit of history. When mommy's train arrived, she was duly impressed to see from ground level a real train with passenger cars arrive with the roar of the diesel and brakes and bell. "THATS A BIG BIG TRAIN!" Indeed.
As before, I love showing the kid the world and all of the magnificent stuff in it. It's fun, and her awe and delight constantly reminds me to appreciate the things we take for granted.

Why I (still) love the city

2008-08-20T23:23:00.005-04:00

Dear Alex is explaining the Giant Hello Kitty to me - She's a little bit excited.

Dear Alex was very comfortable with Hello Kitty's puppy friend.

Dear Alex sneaking up behind "watering bunny"

Despite the obvious and ceaseless density of urban life and it's challenges, there's a lot to be said for bringing up Dear Alex in such a high-energy and wonderfully engaging place. Last week we had a day together that sums it up nicely, with a trip to the Lever House - a building with public art on Park Avenue - the installation by the artist Tom Sachs of giant painted bronze sculptures of Hello Kitty and a few of her crew. Dear Alex was amazed - when we got to the plaza I turned her loose and she ran screaming "IT'S HELLO KITTY! HELLO KITTY!" I didn't know that she was such a big fan. All she wanted to do was run in circles yelling "HELLO KITTY!" until she decided that it would be fun to simply park her little butt on the steps at the base of the sculpture. The other part of the installation had a puppy, (which was a little smaller in scale and didn't blow her mind - as much) a superb sculpture/fountain of Hello Kitty's bunny friend Miffy - with water streaming from her eyes that terrified Dear Alex to the point that she couldn't look at it directly, but had to sneak up on it from behind. After a little while Dear Alex decided that "the bunny isn't crying, she's watering." So, Miffy has become "watering bunny," and the other sculpture/fountain of Hello Kitty shooting streams of water from her eyes is "watering kitty." Funny kid.

We had a great time - and we've been back a few more times since then, because it's an easy walk and Dear Alex wants to see it again, and again and again - and that special part of the walk where you can stand on a certain street corner and look down the Avenue and see her favorite building in the city - the Chrysler building. I didn't tell her to like the Chrysler building - she decided that on her own, and if you ask her, she'll tell you. I want to give her as much of the world as I can, and share the joy of discovery and experience. It's a plus for me that she's a great little kid who will react positively to almost anything. It also gives us something to talk about later at bedtime when Dear Alex wants to "talk about the day..." yet again.

What I know about parenting

2008-08-19T00:18:00.008-04:00

Baby Olivia and Dear Alex on the sliding board.
It's scary how big Dear Alex has gotten.
(I remember when she was just a peanut...)

This weekend we had guests in the country, a crazy great couple with their sweet Baby Olivia, and we had a fine time with the kids and talking over the joys and trials of parenting. It occurred to me that we were the putative experts, having ourselves survived the early months relatively unscathed, and having Dear Alex alive and well and mostly unharmed by us so far. Looking back, it's a little hard to believe that it's almost three years now that Dear Alex has been with us, and how completely our lives have changed. That really is what kids do - whatever you had planned or thought about changes forever and what we spent the most time talking about was how little that mattered, and how there is really nothing to do but relax and ride it out. After a while you forget the anxieties and terrors of that tiny age. It may be that the sleeplessness and the constant worry about whether you're doing the right thing simply strikes the tough stuff from your memory as it's constantly being replaced by the next challenge and the little triumphs of first steps, laughs and words.

From my own experience, I can recall the feelings of how incredibly one-sided my relationship with Dear Alex felt - she was a black hole of constant neediness, without any emotional return-on-investment, so to speak. Babies don't really care - as long as someone changes the diaper or supplies the bottle there isn't going to be a thank you for a very long time - but the gratification comes later with a smile, or the feel of a tiny hand in yours and the feeling of amazing responsibility and capability for simply keeping them whole and happy. Baby Olivia reminded me of how sturdy and resilient (and cute) little babies are - the better to survive the inept ministrations of parents like me, who are constantly learning on the job, which is all any of us can ever do.

Just a moment...

2008-08-13T00:39:00.003-04:00

Beautiful Wife is with Dear Alex, BW is in the process of entertaining the kid and putting her hair up in a ponytail - Dear Alex asks, "is that a ponytail?" BW says "yes, that's a pony tail." Dear Alex follows quickly and sweetly with "where's the pony?" She makes these knowing little jokes all the time - and she knows what she's doing. She's got a funny and subtle sense of humor, and that's a good thing, I think. A great survival skill that can take her from serious and about to have a meltdown to laughing at some dumb joke that she's making or that I'm trying to make. Of course there are other times when she's unintentionally hilarious, like when she's trying to explain something to you that she's seen or done that she doesn't yet have all of the words for - and it sputters out in a combination of half sentences and randomly strung together words as she thinks a lot faster than she can actually talk. It leads to some great combinations of sentences and analogies that continually make me wish I had that filterless sense of creativity and abandon with the language.

Potty talk

2008-07-24T00:24:00.003-04:00

With the relative success of the recent adventures in potty training, there's been a lot of focus lately on the toilet, going to the bathroom, underwear and the like. Dear Alex has lately taken great delight in one story in particular, which has become a staple at bedtime, or actually anytime Dear Alex wants to talk about it: "Tell me about the loud loud potty." Now, I wasn't an eyewitness, Beautiful Wife had that particular joy, but it goes something like this:
"Alex had to go to the bathroom, and the secret quiet potty* was out of order. Brave Alex went to the loud potty with mommy and tried to go. A lady in the next stall got up, and the toilet flushed because it was an automatic toilet. Dear Alex got scared and jumped up and her toilet flushed, which scared Alex even more, because it was an automatic toilet too. But mommy was there to hold her and it was okay, and Dear Alex was so brave that we went to the restaurant and Alex got to have a special treat - She got Dibs!**"
For what it's worth, I'm paraphrasing this just a little bit, because as the story gets told and retold, new details emerge and it gets styled differently. The point here is really that there are things that stick in her mind to the point of mild obsession, which we talk out and talk about until she decides it's time to move on. I am sort of fascinated by this story, it's vividness and her passion for it. ( not to mention the humor in the compound-flush startle reaction) It had occurred to me earlier in the process of potty training that aside from her natural gifts, Dear Alex did have an odd fear of public toilets, those that she was not familiar with.
When she was still a real baby I had the happy occasion to change her many times in some less than nice bathrooms in stores and restaurants, and all went pretty well. That all changed one day when we happened to be at a Target store in Middletown, NY, which for some reason had the loudest automatic toilets (they flushed with a bang and a roar) and the bathroom also featured the loudest hand-dryers (you know, slap the button, hot air comes out) that sounded a little like jets spooling up for takeoff. Once again, I wasn't in the bathroom that time, (thank you, BW) but I heard her screaming from across the store. It kind of spooked her, and me too.
There are things that you do for your kid to protect them, to keep them safe and happy. That stuff is important. Then there are things that you can't really do anything about, and that really aren't that important - Dear Alex's fear of the occasional loud potty or dryer in a public bathroom (while certainly understandable) is something that she's really going to have to get over. I'm thinking about starting a campaign to take her to every public restroom, everywhere we go, hoping to desensitize her to what's really out there in the real world. In the meantime, the girl has definitely learned to hold it and pretty much refuses to go anyplace that's not home. She's still talking about the loud loud potty, and I'm all for it - we'll work this out together and move on to her next fascination.

*At the public beach near our house on the lake there's a clubhouse - it has a few bathroom options. The quiet, secret bathroom was closed, so they had to go to the "Ladies" - which, like the "Mens" is equipped with those toilets that flush automatically, if you so much as twitch in front of them. Startling, sometimes, even if you expect it.

** Crispy crunchy chocolate-coated ice cream treat, the Dear Alex suddenly loves. I'm half convinced that her joy in the retelling of this story is that it always ends with her getting the afore-mentioned treat.

Home at last.

2008-07-18T23:59:00.004-04:00

Beautiful Wife returned from Vancouver late on Wednesday night, and got to be the one that greeted Dear Alex first on Thursday morning. Beautiful and nice to see how happy she was to see mommy again. After all of my concerns about the not missing, and not feeling the absence - she certainly felt the reunion. There's been a bit of a love fest between the two of them going on for the last few days, to the point that I sometimes want to say "would you two cut it out?" I'm not jealous, or feeling left out - I certainly had my time with the kid, and it's really gratifying to see how attached and loving Dear Alex can be. She's grown so much over the past few weeks, and I'm deeply feeling the love, and a great deal of pride at her accomplishments. There's something that Beautiful Wife said to Dear Alex a while back that stuck - and Dear Alex has begun repeating on the occassion of a hug or a moment of closeness - "No matter how big I get, I will always be mommy's baby." It's a true and beautiful thing.

Brand Baby

2008-07-17T23:41:00.003-04:00

The motorcycle in question, in better days.

A few nights ago, as part of our usual goodnight ritual, where Dear Alex and I talk about our respective days as an interlude before sleepy-time, we got to talking about my weekend, when I left Dear Alex with Grammy and George, to do some business of my own. I told Dear Alex that I had to move one of daddy's old motorcycles from the city to the country, and that it was now in the basement of our house in the country. "just like my tricycle?" yes, just like that. ( her tricycle is indeed in the basement) "can I see it?" Of course. "We'll see it in the country" I said. "What motorcycle? Can I see it?" Dear Alex asked. Oh, she wanted to see a picture of the motorcycle in question. Being the guy that I am, I had that picture, and shared it with Dear Alex - after a moment, she pointed to a small point on the gas tank, and asked "What's this?" She'd pointed out the emblem on the side of the tank of daddy's old motorcycle, the BMW roundel - "That's on Grammy's car!" What's that?" I said It's a logo. "What is it?" It means that this company made this thing. "Low-go?" "It's on Grammy's car, and your old mowterrcycle?" Now, she's really interested. "Can I see it?" I tell her that yes, she can see it, it's right there in the picture, but that my motorcycle is old and very different from Grammy's car, they just happened to have the same logo. "Low-go, like Grammy's car?" We looked at the picture for a while, and Dear Alex asked to see the "low-go" again, and once again, being the guy that I am, I just happened to have one ( literally) lying around the house - a spare to replace the old ones, should the restoration of aforementioned "old motorcycle" get that far. I took it into her room and showed it to her, with the picture - "Yes! That's it!" She held it for a while and the read the letters - "B-M-W" (she knows her letters) What's that word?" It's not a word, it's a name, a brand, a company the makes things like cars and motorcycles and things like that.
"Daddy's red-seat motorcycle has B-M-W!" ( I have an newer R-1100RS, black, with a red seat - weird color combination, but that's BMW)
The logo is right on the side of the tank, prominent in the pictures that she's seen. It completely astonished me that she'd ever noticed any of this, any of these things - Dear Alex likes the blue and white, and enjoyed my explanation of what it represented - the arc of a propeller - "Like on an airplane!" Something that she's seen pictures of, and she's proud to read the letters - B-M-W. "It's a low-go!" I can't predict what her future brand-preferences will be, but it's almost a sure bet that she'll be positively pre-disposed to the BMW brand. This has nothing to do with anything but her astonishing associative abilities, and an amazing awareness of the world around her - who knew that she was paying attention? As a graphic designer and part-time semiotician, I'm fascinated by her attachment to this mark, and can only wonder how it will develop. It occurs to me that I could simply stick my spare roundels to her tricycle, and she'd be very happy, and never know the difference. It'd probably make her insane with joy, knowing that she had BMW like daddy and Grammy.

2008-07-16T00:09:00.004-04:00

Random and delightfully surreal picture from the archives of a visit to MoMA -
I love the space and the color. Dear Alex loved it too.

Tomorrow night Beautiful Wife returns, and not a moment to soon. It's been a strange week without her, with many distractions, and lots of travel and diversions, mostly to keep me busy and to keep Dear Alex entertained. That's usually really easy, as she doesn't need all that much to entertain herself. But today felt like the longest day - we sort of jumped the gun on talking about mommy's return, and Dear Alex lost patience with the waiting. This afternoon, she had a meltdown of magnificent proportions, threw a tantrum at the dinner table, and generaly gave me a picture of what the terrible-twos must be like. We've been very lucky. Though Dear Alex has her moments, she's generally been really sweet and reasonable (an odd word to use for an almost-three-year-old, but she really is) but today she wasn't. Enough said. We got through the storms, and managed to have a very nice evening, with a long hot shower for Dear Alex, and a few Thomas the Tank Engine books and a hug - a deep, long soul-nourishing hug on the rocking chair in her room. Peace. We had a quiet goodnight, and Dear Alex passed out without tears.
I've looked forward to (and written about) the joy of Dear Alex being able to express what's bothering her, and being able to talk things through, but she's not quite there yet, and she really wanted BW tonight. Nothing I could do about that but give her a hug and reassure her that mommy will be home soon. It'll make all the difference in the world.

Me and my shadow

2008-07-14T23:08:00.009-04:00

At the request of Beautiful Wife - a nearly impossible-to-find picture of Dear Alex and daddy together - I'm usually the one taking the pictures, so I'm never in them.

Dear Alex and cousin E, playing in the sprinkler. Astonishing fun.

At home today in an outfit of her own choosing. "...A is for Alex..."
Note the pink rain boots.

I had a long weekend this weekend - it started on Thursday, and went right through Monday. I drove out to the East End of Long Island so that I could drop Dear Alex off with Grammy and George, then on to the house in Pennsylvania to get some things done without the distraction of taking care of the kid - I did a lot of driving. As I finally got there, I realized that I missed Dear Alex and Beautiful Wife. It's funny how much has changed in me, and how weird it was to realize how attached I've become to both of them. It's one thing for BW to be away - we've been there before, but not having Dear Alex with me felt somehow wrong. I've gotten so used to having her around, a constant companion on my journeys. I called Grammy and George a few times, inquiring about Dear Alex and whether she missed me - No, actually she hadn't really noticed I was gone was the answer. It's the same thing with Beautiful Wife - Dear Alex has mentioned her a few times, and she called for mommy once when she got a little boo-boo (she skinned her knee again), but there's no sense of missing or sadness at our absence. One one hand, this is a good thing - Dear Alex takes things as they come, enjoys herself and accepts our comings and goings as a matter of course. On the other hand you want to say "but don't you miss me?" "I feed you and clothe you and change your stinky diapers in the middle of the night, for crying out loud..." "I miss you." Actually, it's really okay - I don't think that she's internalized the abstract notions of love and loss, and she correctly assumes that we'll return. As I've said before, Dear Alex has a certain equanimity.
My Saturday was an interesting one, and a trip down memory lane as I went into the city from Pennsylvania with a friend with a pickup to retrieve an artifact from a chapter in my life that has closed, a motorcycle that I've had for years - that was last registered and run in 2000.
It appalls me that I let it go for so long, and I'm determined to restore it to some shade of it's former glory, but that's something for another time.
Sunday I drove back to the East End, to collect my lovely daughter - my return barely registered. No running to daddy with open arms, just a sweet and welcome "Hi daddy". We had some fun playing in the spray from a lawn sprinkler with cousin Eliza, both little girls were wary of the sprinkler at first, but they soon got that it was a fun thing, and there are few greater delights than watching two little girls giggling like mad and running wild in wet green grass on a hot summer day. It's pretty easy to understand why Dear Alex didn't miss me all that much - she had so many other things to see and do that there wasn't time or bandwidth to process my absence... I'm still thinking about it, though, and still writing about it.
Today, we got it together and got in the car and drove back to the city - Dear Alex didn't really want to go, but she accepted the fact that the weekend was over, and we had to go see Nanny J. - That's how I got her moving. When it came time to get in the car, Dear Alex would not let me put her in a diaper for the ride home. She wanted to wear underwear. No more diapers. I'm thinking about the potential for disaster - the L.I.E.. Traffic. No place to pull over. Dear Alex wailing in the back seat. I had a very tense drive. Guess what? No accident. She held it the whole way, and let me know as soon as we got home that she had to go "pee-pee NOW!".
It's occurred to me that Beautiful Wife will return (in two days or so) to a very different child than when she left - Dear Alex no longer sucks her thumb, is completely potty trained, and for some reason has begun talking a blue streak. She's always been verbal, but for the last few days, she's been talking non-stop. It may be that I'm thinking about it because Dear Alex didn't nap on our trip back to to the city - she chatted. About anything and everything, sometimes to / with me, in her very non-linear style (it takes a while to figure out what she's talking about and where the conversation is going..) and sometimes to Bunny, and sometimes to herself. The kid didn't shut up. She talked about everything from anchors and blimps to zippers. Entertaining for a while, then a little annoying. I turned on the radio (talk radio - WNYC) and she kept on talking. I really believe that there was something about giving up the thumb and mastering the toilet that's given Dear Alex a new confidence in herself. Though she doesn't have the words to express it, I think she's really proud to have left babyhood behind. As she constantly reminds me, she's a big girl now.
Tonight, Dear Alex had the longest shower ever - it's odd to think that not so long ago we bathed her in a tub from Ikea. She wanted to shower by herself, so we did - I set it up, she undressed, climbed in and stood there for almost 45 minutes talking constantly about anything and everything while I sat on her little bathroom stool and read "What to Expect - the Toddler Years", trying to find some reference to what it means when kids don't miss their parents when their parents go away... On the other hand, Dear Alex did ask me to tell her about my day - "the day you went away", so I guess she did notice after all.

Tiny Pirate

2008-07-11T22:14:00.003-04:00

The Tiny Pirate with a peanut butter and jelly eye patch. Arrgh!

It makes me smile just typing it. Tiny Pirate. Tiny Pirate. It's one of those funny little things that Dear Alex says every once in a while, just to make herself laugh, or to make me laugh. It's a pretty random thing, and I never know what will make her do it, but every once in a while Dear Alex just blurts out "Arrgh, Tiny Pirate!" I know where the "Arrgh" came from, (and who doesn't like to talk like a pirate now and then?) but I really don't know where she got "tiny pirate" but it's funny. Usually, it involves her covering one eye with something - could be anything, a piece of tissue, her hand, or even half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's the eye patch. "Arrgh, Tiny Pirate!" I've tried to add a little more to her repertoire, but "scurvy landlubbers" and "ahoy matey" just didn't stick. The best she can do is "Arrgh, Tiny Pirate! Ahoy maybe!" I wonder what she'd make of "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." She's a funny little girl, and I love her improvisation and the randomness of her little pirate moments. Arrgh!

Today...

2008-07-11T00:49:00.006-04:00

Lunchtime photo of Dear Alex today - happy girl talking about the "blimp" she saw floating over the city. "it's a balloon! a balloon! a blimp BLIMP!" Completely unrelated to the post, but just amazing that she has a word for what she was seeing. Who taught her that?

...Another day closer to Beautiful Wife's return, and a long strange day for daddy and Dear Alex. We started the day on a grace note - a hangover from our chat the night before, with Dear Alex nothing but sweet and happy as I came into her room to answer that first morning cry. Out of the sodden night-time diaper, and into underwear (!) without a fight. After a few minutes, Dear Alex suggested that she might like to go to the bathroom, and did so without incident. She's getting to be quite good, and I love that if you ask her if she wants a little privacy, she'll say yes - then pee immediately as you leave the room. Much easier than waiting, waiting and suggesting that "it's coming"... good stuff, this potty thing, but we may be taking it too far. It's a potty all the time. A few days ago, Dear Alex was running around the house with one of the many soft toddler toilet seats we've recently accumulated on her head, and I was thinking that she was just about right - potty on the brain. But it works, and it's been amazing to see the difference in her, psychologically speaking. There really is a change, a certain understanding of responsibility that's engendered by suddenly being mostly in command of your bodily functions. I can honestly see a difference in her self-confidence and attitude. She feels like a "big girl" now, and is (mostly) acting like one.

Of course, the other thing from last night that wasn't really resolved came back - that fear (I'm pretty sure) of swim class. She dreaded it all day, decided that she'd much rather take a nice nap in her crib, or have another lunch, or go for a walk or do anything but go to swim class. Dear Alex was so distraught and had worked herself up to the point that as we got to the pool and her into her bathing suit, she threw up (yeah, threw up) all over Dear nanny J. Awful. Stinky. I took Dear Alex into the bathroom to clean up (and go to the potty), and let Nanny J clean herself up, and all was right with the world. Dear Alex had a great time in the water, blew bubbles, went under water, and didn't want to stop at the end. Baffling. Why does she dread something that she enjoys so much? This little quirk is a small thing, but it confirms to me that there's still a lot that I don't know about the mind of this child, and much that I don't know about how she really feels about things. I can't wait until she has the language to explain what she's feeling, and I'm confident that she will.

A little follow-up to the BLIMP! thing: As we were stuck in traffic on the L.I.E. We saw the blimp again, which excited Dear Alex trememdously. She loved that it seemed to be there for her today - a large and freindly giant following her through her day. "Hello blimp!"

C is for calm*

2008-07-09T23:06:00.006-04:00

Dear Alex having a moment on the floor. Like the weather the mood changed, but it was that kind of day.

Dear Alex enjoying a well-deserved pre-bedtime snack. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best, if you don't squeeze them too hard.

Dear Alex and daddy playing with the computer"s "cramera"

... As in the relative calm that follows a storm - today was like that, with changeable weather, cloudy skies, sun, a threatened thunderstorm and a little rain. The weather seemed to perfectly mirror Dear Alex's day - an emotional rollercoaster of a day, with periods of sun and a little hard rain. Dear Alex did not have an easy bed time tonight, but it eventually ended with calm, and lessons all-around. I tried putting her in her crib at the (slowly slipping later and later) usual time of 8: 30 or so, after a fun time of having a snack, going to the potty, (twice! high-fives and stickers all around!) and attempting to take a decent picture of Dear Alex and daddy together for Beautiful Wife. Thank you, iSight. We lost a little time on that because Dear Alex was absolutely fascinated by watching herself in almost real-time on daddy's computer screen. She made some pretty funny faces, and tried to play a game of hiding herself from the camera to see if she was still there, by ducking or bobbing from side to side and looking to see if she was still on the screen. Hard to describe, but I got what was going on instantly - there's a little bit of a camera lag that she noticed, and she was playing with it. Cool.
We had the usual chase around the apartment when it was time to switch from underwear (another accident-free day! I'm so darn excited!) to a diaper for the night, and get the PJ's on and the hands and face washed from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had for a snack. Easy goodnight stuff, then the meltdown. As I put her in the crib, Dear Alex began screaming. Nothing specific, just about everything: I want a hug! (gave a hug) I want a cup of milk! (gave a cup of milk) Change my diaper! I made a poopie! (changed diaper - not wet, nothing in it) I don't want my PJ's anymore! (I'm losing interest in this game) My knee hurts! (definitely not interested in this game anymore) I'm hungry! (we just finished cleaning the last of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich you had for a snack off of your sticky little fingers...)
Okay, it was time to pick Dear Alex up and have a conversation in the rocking chair - I kind of wanted to calm her down, get a big hug, and figure out what was really bothering her. It was the right thing to do. We ended up having a great conversation about a lot of things, a stream-of-conciousness dissertation that you can only get from a verbal 2.75 year-old. We talked about fear - something was definitely bothering her - she was afraid of automatic toilets, and loud things in bathrooms. Dear Alex definitely doesn't like loud noises, especially when she's trying to concentrate on peeing. Next up was a diversion to ladybugs, which she likes, but also sort of fears - not sure why, but she also kept repeating that it's silly to be afraid of ladybugs and that "ladybugs like Alex". She also repeated something that I say to her whenever she wants to see a ladybug, which I love - "you don't find ladybugs, ladybugs find you." (have you ever tried looking for a ladybug?) And she told me about the time there was a "ladybug on her finger and she put the ladybug down so it could go home." Dear Alex remembers everything. It's kind of scary. Our conversation moved on to the subject of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I guess she sort of likes, but has a hard time eating - I told her that maybe if she didn't squeeze the sandwich so hard, the peanut butter and jelly wouldn't ooze out all over everything, and it wouldn't fall apart. "oooh" says Dear Alex. We talked about being scared of things a little more, about going to the potty at swim class (we're getting warmer) and about crying about going to swim class (aha!) I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on with the swim class thing. Dear Alex loves the water, she loves to swim, and she has a weird attachment to her swim instructors, (oh, that's a story for another day) But the truth is, it makes her cry. I can't possibly say what she's afraid of or why, and neither can she - but at least we talked about it. Once Dear Alex was calm and cozy after our almost-hour on the chair, she gave me a big hug, and simply said, "I miss mommy." So do I.
We went to her crib, said a quiet goodnight, and all was right with the world. No more tears. Sometimes all you can do is listen and talk and hold on tight. Tonight was one of those nights.

* I know that I should be beyond stupid things like A...B...C.. as an excuse to get me into a post, but it seemed to fit somehow, and I'm battling a serious case of writer's block, so whatever it takes...I'd rather write than not.

B is for Beautiful

2008-07-08T23:10:00.008-04:00

Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex on one of our previously undocumented trips to Coney Island.
Dear Alex isn't so sure about the train ride she's about to take with mommy.

Dear Alex picture from today, as she's telling me about going to Canada.

Another picture from today, just a smile for BW.

... As in Beautiful Wife and of course Dear Alex. BW is once again out shooting in Vancouver - still my favorite city, the place of that real western light and wonder that makes it feel like anything is possible, which of course, is absolutely true - anyplace. I think that Dear Alex has the key, and I'm definitely hoping to follow her lead - because in the curious and imaginative mind of a nearly-three-year-old, anything really is possible. Today she decided to ride her tricycle to Canada to see mommy, and she took her bunny friends (There's a growing collection of bunnies, and her relationships with them is kind of fascinating - but that's for another time.) along, talking to them and instructing them to "be careful" and "watch out" and "hurry up", all things we say automatically to Dear Alex a hundred times in the course of a day. It's a great and instructive thing to watch her learn and play freely without the constraints of reality, but also to see her think about things as well. Before her trip we went to the large map on the wall so that I could show her exactly where mommy was, that little dot on the upper left corner - and Dear Alex was where the little dot a little lower on the right corner is. "Okay let's go!" Fun. Silly. Beautiful. I wish that it were so easy.
I dug out a box of pictures from our time in Vancouver so that Dear Alex could see the place we were talking about, and I looked again in wonder at our selves from a time before there was even a thought of a lil'screamie. Looking back, it occurs to me that anything really is possible, that I could find such a beautiful and wonderful woman and have such a life is a testament to that.
Today, Dear Alex was a joy - sweet and funny and imaginative and all over me as it sinks in that mommy really isn't coming home tonight or tomorrow. I'll take the hugs, of course, because I miss BW and there's nothing in the world like an Alex hug. We had a perfect potty day again today (note to self - you really know you're a dad when this matters...) and a goodnight/bedtime without tears. Wow, anything really is possible.

A is for Alex

2008-07-07T23:42:00.004-04:00

...And Dear Alex is amazing. That's been a running comment for me for a very long time, and I don't suppose that it's unique. Every father, every parent, must feel this amazing pride as their kid learns something new, does something new, or simply moves forward along the path from little savage to civilized human being - and so it is with me and my child. Dear Alex and Beautiful Wife and myself take great pride in the "potty charts" that grace the refrigerators in our home and our home away from home. The sheer delight of Dear Alex for another sticker or star or smiley face for a successful bathroom attempt makes me smile for her for her pride at succeeding at something that we as adults simply take for granted. Good job Alex!

Daddy moment

2008-06-24T23:20:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago we had a delightful country Saturday with pancakes for breakfast, a morning at the beach on the lake and Dear Alex and daddy in the cold, cold water. After an hour or so, after your limbs go numb you don't really notice the cold anymore - but you really begin to appreciate the energy of the kid that's become your sole focus as she willingly runs into the water and submerges with no regard and full confidence that you'll be there to pull her up and out, cold and proud to have been underwater and ready to do it again (and again) - A few hours later the weather changed, with low grey clouds and the rumble of thunder from the west. The light changed from gold to silver to flat and dark in the course of a few minutes, and we hastily packed up the canoe and motored across the lake to home. With rain on the way and some shopping missions to perform (mostly acquiring clothing and stuff for the girl - I forget what it was specifically, but then again, she almost always needs something) Beautiful Wife and I took Dear Alex to one of the nearby -marts. We found the right-sized perfect pairs of shoes (aha - sandals, more shoes! that's what we were looking for) and headed home. Right on cue, after a few rounds of "Yellow Submarine" (her fondness for the works of The Beatles will be the subject of another post, for sure) in the car, Dear Alex fell asleep in her carseat as we drove home in the rain. We've been here before - time to get out of the car, but the kid's asleep taking the very rare afternoon nap, which she richly deserved. What to do? Let her sleep. Beautiful Wife went into the house to do some emergency cleaning. (we haven't vacuumed for months, and it was beginning to look a little like the outside inside, with all of the dirt, leaves and twigs on the floor) I stayed outside with her, lest she wake up and freak out that there was no-one there. It was still raining, but I took the oportunity to do a little leaf-raking and yard cleaning (all within sight of Dear Alex sleeping in the carseat) After a while, I got tired of the required watchfulness and the futility of actually trying to accomplish anything while keeping one eye on the kid in the car, and tired of being rained on, so I decided to simply open the back hatch of Dear Alex's station wagon and climb in. So, picture the grey-green Pennsylvania light, and a little silver station wagon in the rain next to a little red house in the woods, with a sleeping child in the carseat and a tall-ish man twisted to fit in the little cargo space with my feet against the windows as the rain came down. Beautiful. If you haven't had the opportunity to watch your child sleep deeply, peacefully, confidently, it's a wonderful thing. From where I had twisted myself, I had a perfect profile and could watch her face change and think about what she must be dreaming. There was something about the perfect closeness, and stillness of Dear Alex against the confines of the car and the rattle of the rain outside that made this moment worth remembering.

Father's Day

2008-06-15T22:37:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've written to lil'screamie - consider it a much-needed early-summer vacation from thinking too hard about the what's and whys of Dear Alex. We've had an eventful past few weeks, and there's a world of stories that really need documenting, as memory becomes unreliable with the multitude of details. We've had a real burst of activity, with visits from both of my sisters, and a trip to the Hamptons over the long Memorial Day weekend, and visits to the New York Aquarium and the Bronx Zoo and MoMa and Coney Island and carousel rides and the various side-trips that seem to be what things are about these days. Beautiful Wife and I have been busy, with plans and trips to places to engage Dear Alex with the world, and by any account, it's working. I've really been enjoying our outings and new experiences, and it gives me great happiness to say the Dear Alex has enjoyed it too. It makes me wonder, though, about what it is that we're doing, and how much of it is for her, or because of her - The Kid is a great excuse to do anything for the sake of her entertainment and education, and that's okay by me. I've been trying to remember if I could, anything that I remember from my deep childhood that would help me know what she's getting out of these many experiences - I draw a blank, and I know that someday, she will too. For now, the details and freshness of our day-to-day adventures stand out for her vividly, as stories that she can tell in a very halting and rudimentary way as we talk about her day(s). It feels like something important, and so we go on.

This weekend, being Father's Day weekend, was somehow more important and reflective for me, as I've come to really appreciate what being 'daddy' is all about. In the beginning you are there somewhat by surprise, somewhat by default, as you are indeed certainly responsible for at least half of the awesome creature that is becoming another human being right before your very eyes. In time you grow to really understand that it's not a fearful learning experience, or a new job, but something that you've been training for all your life, though you didn't know it at the time. Everything that's happened to you informs how you are and will be with the most amazing challenge of your life - and you meet the challenge and do the things that you'd never thought you'd ever do with a smile, and grace and the patience of a saint. At least that's what I hope for and want to be - only the best and the everything to my Dear Alex. The beauty, of course, is that it is returned in kind, with hugs and "I love you" and the joy of helping Dear Alex grow.

One of those places, one of those times

2008-05-13T22:42:00.002-04:00

A silly, self indulgent post about the power of pictures, nostalgia, and the tricks of memory. As I was taking these (and many other pictures) of Dear Alex over the last weekend, I had this sudden, powerful sweeping sense of nostalgia for myself and an imagined Dear Alex of the future. I had this feeling that for whatever reason, this day, the moments of running in the sun by the old boat racks by the lake will be something that she'll half-remember, as I half remember things like this from my childhood - that sense of place and freedom and safety, turned loose by my parents to run harmlessly wild for a moment - that moment poised somewhere between toddler and child and kid. There's something powerfully timeless in this place - it's an everyplace that you can see in thousands of pictures of kids by the lake, an almost cultural universal. I was tempted to turn the pictures black and white, or give them a kodachrome fade to push the sense of instant history I felt when I was taking the pictures, but there's no need for affect - time itself will do that. This is not meant to be a depressing post about loss and nostalgia, but something about the universality of that feeling of wonder that we share with our children as they grow and (hopefully) remember how they got to be who they are.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T00:52:00.002-04:00

To any and all that might check in - Dear Alex has the best and most wonderful mommy in Beautiful Wife, and they're so great together. It shows in the wonderful little person that Dear Alex is becoming. I love what they do for each other and all that they do for me. Happy Mother's Day.

Another city weekend

2008-05-04T23:19:00.006-04:00

Creepy and hypnotic jellyfish at the aquarium - I could have stayed there for hours, watching the oddly meditative motion, but was saved by Dear Alex and Beautiful Wife.

Dear Alex shares her fries with Beautiful Wife. Nathan's is an original.

The picture you're supposed to take - in front of the "Wonder Wheel"

Another round on the carousel - 5 times, and she didn't want to quit.

I didn't want to stay in the city this weekend - it really seemed like one of those weekends that would be good to get away from the constant press of the city and it's demanding rhythms, but it didn't work out that way - again I was stymied by my own inertia, and Beautiful Wife's exhaustion at the week that was. To her credit, BW came up with a plan B that worked spectacularly well to change the mood and make the low energy and low grey skies bearable. We got in the car and had a mission to go to the aquarium in Coney Island. It started out to be one of those "educational" trips that you do with your kid, and ended up being a really satisfying day of fun and play and learning off-the-books, so to speak. We got to the aquarium and into the parking lot and turned the car to face the famous "cyclone" a wooden rollercoaster that is still running. Dear Alex caught that and the "wonder wheel" a huge and seriously antique ferris wheel - and definitely wanted to know more about those things than any of the mysteries of the deep involved in the aquarium. We worked out an effective compromise, and basically ran through the aquarium, stopping to see some yellow fish, a surprisingly large and docile sea-lion and her progeny, and a tank of sharks and turtles. Dear Alex was not all that impressed, though I was and could have spent a lot more time there just watching the fish swim roundy-round. It is a nicely put-together place and well worth exploring - we will go back. I did have a moment to get lost in an exhibit about jellyfish - It was oddly mesmerizing, watching these simply hateful creatures swimming peacefully and majestically in tanks with all-blue lighted backgrounds in a completely dark room. Creepy and fascinating, and Dear Alex and BW had to drag me out...
We had lunch at Nathan's Famous, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and looking at things and riding a carousel, around and around and around.
It ended up being a long day for us, but we had a lot of fun, and it was a delight to try to see this storied place through her eyes. Dear Alex had a great day, and she's becoming a sweet and complicated little person - but for now she lives and takes great pleasure in the "now", and that's a terriffic reminder to let go of what you think you want and enjoy where you are.

Grey Friday blues

2008-05-03T23:33:00.004-04:00

She still loves the yellow raincoat, and the weather certainly made it appropriate.

Dear Alex among flowers - serious, sweet, and if you look closely,
covered with snot. That's my girl.

Friday was a long day - Dear Nanny J had the day off to take care of some health issues, and though it wasn't supposed to be all day, that's how it turned out - I have no issues with taking care of Dear Alex all by myself for a whole day, but this one was different, and it put me in a less than hopeful mood. The weather was perfectly dreary, and it matched the way I think both of us were feeling - we had a fine morning, with a trip to the coffee store (one of the half-dozen Starbuck's within easy walking distance) for daddy, and a lot of books. We had a super time completely destroying the apartment, with clothing and books and toys spread from room to room to room, but there was something off about Dear Alex, and although she enjoyed our various activities, she wasn't her usual playful self, wanting more to sit quietly, not eat, and just be lazy-messy. I was restless and a little bored and cranky myself, as there were some things that I was hoping to accomplish, now out of reach with the responsibility of taking care of the kid. Eventually it dawned on me that there was going to be no reprieve, so I figured that it might be better to just get out of the house and do something, anything to break the funk. Dear Alex and I went for one of our epic walks, ending up at the East River, to play in a sandbox and contemplate the fog and mist and chill of this strangely fall-like day. A few days ago there was sun and warmth and a promise of spring, but lately, there's been a cold grey chill that feels more like November than May. We ended up having a great (if not a little subdued) time, playing in a chilly, wet sandbox until Dear Alex was covered with sand, and running around the small park and to the fence at the edge overlooking the East River so that Dear Alex could see the many boats and tugboats that went by. We spent a long time in the park, and spent a long time at the river, watching for boats - Dear Alex was fixated - It made her happy, I think to imagine her friends from books; Scuppers the Sailor Dog, and Scuffey the Tugboat out on the cold waters flowing endlessly past. The only thing better than watching the river was the long hot bath she had when we got home - raisin fingers, raisin toes.

The waiting

2008-04-29T22:54:00.001-04:00

It's been interesting, the last few days, as we've really gotten the potty-training thing into high gear - with great hopes of getting it over with sooner rather than later. It's been a very uneasy time around the house, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the ever-present "waiting for the accident" which has and will surely come again. I give great credit to our wonderful Nanny J., who is a committed to this as the rest of us for her stamina and dedication to getting us all through this stage in Dear Alex's development with a minimum of fuss and a real spirit of hope for the dear girl's progress. It's like this - Dear Alex has spent a large part of the last few days running around the apartment naked - much to her delight, but also to facilitate immediate access so that she might "pee pee on the potty" instantly, without encumbrance. While the whole experience of the delightful little girl running naked through the apartment has it's moments of fun, it also carries a certain tension for daddy, waiting for the inevitable accident, and it requires a certain watchfulness that is maddening. As I'm between jobs and home, I signed up for this "pee-pee patrol" to help Nanny J. help Dear Alex into the "big girl" world of underwear and the responsibility of knowing when it's time to go - she's not quite there yet, so every moment on a sofa or a rug without a diaper has become fraught with tension and an accident waiting to happen - no bad so far, but it's been hard to do anything else as we watch the clock and wait for the time (every twenty minutes or so) to put Dear Alex on the potty, just in case. Most of the time, she's been a good sport about it, but it does interrupt her play and free-range fun around the house, and leads to a lot of crying and protests of "I want to get down" and "I want to play" - to her credit, Nanny J. sits patiently and encouragingly through it with Dear Alex on the toilet until we surrender, with hopes for the next time. So far (two days and counting) we haven't had any accidents on the floor or furniture, but we also haven't kept up with the business of cleaning, doing stuff around the house, and figuring out what's next for me - It's a fine and learning time to watch Dear Alex go through a thing that separates the the big kids from the babies, and gives her a certain pride, even though she hasn't quite gotten it right yet.
I know that she's already figured it out, and is just waiting to make the connection with the urge and the action of elimination and we'll be through it quickly, like all of the other bits of development we've been through. I'll miss the needfulness, and the simple act of care that changing that midnight diaper has come to represent for me, but I know that there will surely be more trying needs and changes to come. In the meantime, the waiting is the hardest part.

What happened

2008-04-29T22:52:00.001-04:00

Dear Alex still absolutely loves her swing - we did this off and on for four hours, and she never tired of the up and down, and she's even sort of figured out how to make her swing go by herself, but likes it better when daddy pushes.

But the best part was the delight she took in watching Beautiful Wife in the swing nearby -
"mommy swing daddy push!" Happiness all around.

Beautiful Wife came home from California, bearing gifts for Dear Alex and the reunion was happy and without recrimination. Dear Alex knows that mommy's here and daddy's here and all is right with her world. We had a weekend of reunion and business in the city, and a long week of work, and then a wonderful weekend away, with BW doing a magnificent job of making up for lost time in re-acquainting herself with Dear Alex and her big girl ways. It's been a wonderful and busy time, and hard to even think about staying up to write it down.

Becoming Dear Alex

2008-04-15T22:44:00.003-04:00

Dear Alex holding Sad Thing...

It's been a long strange journey with Dear Alex over the last week and a half, and because I've been trying to write about her daily for Beautiful Wife, I've actually had the happy opportunity to pay closer attention to this child's many moods, idiosyncrasies and her ever-developing personality. It's definitely deepened my appreciation of her and her equanimity. She has fun, she pushes her limits and tries things and sometimes fails, but also sometimes succeeds. She takes it as it comes. There are so many little things that add up to make it fun and rewarding to watch this slow but daily growth in capacity and awareness, and it amazes me how complex and nuanced Dear Alex has become. I'm using big words and complex sentences to try to process what I'm trying to get at with this, wandering around a point intellectually, just to sum it up - I'm in love with Dear Alex, and the person she's becoming. There are little moments that make me smile, like her insistence on frequent hugs, especially when she somehow intuits that I'm feeling a little down. Because in her words, "hugs will make you happy". Or her instinctive reaching up to hold my hand as we come to cross a street. She'll put her free hand up in perfect imitation of the orange hand on the crossing sign as we wait for the "walking man" to appear. She knows a lot of things that I don't anymore, like how to talk to and relate to inanimate objects - I've been trying to come to a way to write about that, her understanding of the secret life of things and how utterly charming it is to hear her say a fresh "good morning" to the coffee table, and a cheery "hello" to her guitar, and maybe make up a song or two for the carpet on the floor. Of course, I'm writing about the universal experience of any two-and-a-half year old, but she's my two-and-a-half year old. As Dear Alex will sometimes say, "you and me, daddy."

Dear Alex has interesting relationships with her many stuffed animals, and a definite hierarchy of who's who, and for what emotional need she may be experiencing. There's the one constant, the ever-more-threadbare "original bunny", but the others, like knuffle bunny, they come and go - occasionally in the crib, occasionally banished for reasons known only to Dear Alex. She has developed a complex relationship with one unfortunate-looking stuffed bear who she named "Sad Thing" - definitively banned from the crib at bedtime, but sometimes called for when Dear Alex feels the need to cheer someone or something up. Dear Alex loves Sad Thing, then doesn't.

She takes pride in what she knows, and will share that with you if she's feeling like it - sometimes she doesn't care to engage with anyone at all - and can play by herself, endlessly inventing and reinventing scenes and scenarios to put her fleets of taxis and trucks and trains and little plastic people through.

Ah, what I guess I'm getting at is that incredible imagination, that I'm finally coming to appreciate now that she can sort of communicate just what the heck it is that she's doing - This is developing storytelling, and I'm hoping to give her lots of great ones to tell.

Free-range-toddler

2008-04-15T00:23:00.005-04:00

Dear Alex getting a lesson in the simple joys of dropping rocks in the water off the dirty dock - and a lesson about never going near the water without mommy or daddy.

Dear Alex at home in her crib, in the hoodie that she wouldn't take off for a day and a half. No big deal.

This morning I did my usual check to see what was new on boingboing.net, and found a link to this: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/ and it kind of struck me that, well, Lenore Skenazy is right on, and we're already practicing what his smart woman is suggesting. A long, long time ago I started lil'screamie with a half-serious and not very well written post about "protecting your baby from the dangers of sharp edges", and a host of other things that struck me as absurd fear-mongering to sell products - It bothered me then, and it still bugs the crap out of me. I think it's our responsibility as parents to let our kids get dirty, make mistakes, experience the consequences of making a bad choice, and to learn from that experience. I really want that self-confidence and strength that engenders. I personally can't wait 'til she's old enough to run down to the deli to pick up some half n' half for daddy's coffee. In the country, I try to take her outside as much as possible and really let her run free, And even occasionally leave her alone (never out of sight, just out of her view) to see what she does, and see how she's doing. She almost never notices that I'm not hovering behind her, and she just plays. How simple is that? This weekend, she found herself a pile of leaves - a deep pile of leaves, up to her waist, she waded in sat down, and buried herself in them. Wet and dirty and cold? You bet. But she had fun, and I didn't worry - when she's not so sure about something, Dear Alex will give out a little cry for "daddy", and I'll always be there for her, but I won't micro-manage. The article and blog that inspired this post are directed more at slightly older kids, and at parents letting kids be kids - an appropriate backlash, I think, to a culture that's gone waaay over the top in protecting our kids from harm and germs and failure and, well, life.
I'm all for lightening up, and it's never too early to start teaching a kid the skills they need to separate what's safe from what's dangerous, what can really hurt them from what's unreasonable fear, and how to tell the difference.

Ketchup (or is it catsup?) on the towel

2008-04-13T23:17:00.007-04:00

Pink Pony and Dear Alex on the couch. They have amazing conversations, and she takes great care in treating pony well.

On the deck after the rains - a gray and windy day, perfect for a big black hoodie to hang out in. Dear Alex won't take it off.

Today started early, as daddy forgot one of the basics at the house in the country - closing the bathroom door to Dear Alex's room - because when the sun comes up and the light comes in, Dear Alex is awake with a vengeance. We both got up at 7am, with Dear Alex being in far better shape than I, as I was up late working on my ambitious "getting rid of excess baggage project" in the basement. It was empty when we moved in, it's practically full now. I managed to get to my goal of filling the requisite two full garbage bags... If I keep it up, by next winter I'll have a clean slate. As if.
It was a cold, gray and rainy morning, almost the exact opposite of our day yesterday, but the low clouds and lower temperatures outside made the house feel like a small and cozy island of warmth as the wind-driven rain rattled against the windows as I carried Dear Alex down the stairs for the first diaper and cup of milk (and cup of coffee) for the day - I'd managed to remember to turn on the heat, so it was a comfortable place to watch the light come up and the magnificent clouds and rain. If the light yesterday was warm and golden (it was), today it was silvery, cool and flat, but still, a beautiful day on Planet Earth. Dear Alex remembered our conversation about the moon and the earth from last night and asked me again to show her pictures - first from a book, and then the "computer" pictures of the earth from space. I'm glad she remembered, and it feels like something we'll talk about a long time from now. We pretty much did nothing else but flop on the couches, and build things and drive toy cars around and read books. At some point, Dear Alex decided that her friend the giant pink pony should get to lie on the couch, too, so she somehow managed to haul this giant stuffed pony (thank you sister Linda) onto the couch - much to my dismay, as that was my spot. We got it together, and eventually went outside so that Dear Alex could get cold and dirty and wet, playing in the huge piles of leaves and muddy ground after the rain. She had a lot of fun, and it was fine with me as I'd thought to bring a change of clothes, and there was a nice warm hoodie sweatshirt to put her in. That was it - her thing for the day, which she's still wearing over her PJs as I write - a few-sizes-too-large black caterpillar (the bulldozer company) hoodie, with a yellow fleece lining. I'll peel it off of her in the morning. Late in the afternoon, we got in the car - Dear Alex didn't want to leave the country - nor did I, really, but I've got work, and we'd be missed. Dear Alex fell asleep right after we crossed into NJ and didn't wake up until we were sitting in traffic at the George Washington bridge. A nice quiet and reflective drive for me, and a chance to think over the wonder that is life on earth (forgive me, I still can't get last night's stargazing and subsequent conversation out of my mind) and the fun of sharing what I can with Dear Alex.

The curious title of this post comes from something later - as we were moving all the things from parking the car up to the city apartment, Dear Alex took a little fall in the hallway to the elevator - no big deal, tears and cries of "I've got a boo-boo on my fingerrrrs" which daddy of course, kissed each sticky little finger in turn and cured on-the-spot, no problem - She was fine. We got upstairs, and I got a wipe to clean her fingers, did so, and gave it to Dear Alex to hold (she's like that - "I want the towel", so, okay...) A few minutes later she started shouting to me that there was "ketchup on the towel - ketchup on the towel" - I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about - but it was blood - her blood, seeping from around her fingernails and her cuticles - I've honestly never seen anything like it, and it kind of freaked me out. There was also blood on everything else she'd touched - the couch, her clothes... It stopped pretty quickly, and I cleaned just about everything up, but as before, I've never seen anything like it... and it was weird and scary to me that Dear Alex has no idea what blood is, and that I had to really make an effort to not freak out and scare her... All is fine as I write this, but it's one of those things we take for granted. - Dear Alex has had a safe and healthy life, to the point that she has no idea of the implications of (or even a name for) blood or bleeding- other, I guess, than sometimes ketchup might leak out of us.

Dear Alex and the moon.

2008-04-13T00:05:00.005-04:00

Another Saturday morning on the couch, watching endless re-runs of "the crying baby" on daddy's computer - a little clip of her crying madly for "mommy, mommy, mommy" - I wonder what it is about it that fascinates her.

At play in the country, having fun outside - lots of snot, but so-o-o much better than yesterday.

A moment of reflective joy next to pony. The whole trip was really because she wanted to see "pink pony."

We finally had enough of the city, so Dear Alex and daddy came to a joint decision this grey New York Saturday to get in the car and go to the country - Dear Alex had been hinting at it for days, and I've personally been on my own crusade to go, if for no other reason than for the change in scene and perspective, and the time to think and pause - it's a small mental break from the routine and the pressure to find something engaging for the kid - though just walking down any street provides enough entertainment for her to do it for days, with the constant and ever-engaging questions of "what's this and what's that?" We had a fine ride in the car, and as we were crossing the George Washington bridge Dear Alex told me that she was going to fall asleep in her car-seat, and she magically did - somewhere just after Paterson, NJ - just like that. Out. She woke up just as we were crossing the little bridge into Pennsylvania, and we went to the store and bought enough groceries to stay for a week - even though we're going back to the city tomorrow. I should never food-shop when I'm hungry. We did nothing for the rest of the day but hang out, and play outside and visit briefly with our kind and wonderful across-the-street neighbors. It was a very nice day - a reminder, a taste of a summer yet to come - warm in the sun with that hint of cool winter-was-just-here undertone. There's no sign of green in the trees yet, but you can just feel it coming. We had a late dinner, and got the PJs on at 8 or so and put on slippers and I put the girl in one of Beautiful Wife's jackets (which she loved) then we turned out the house lights and went outside to see the night sky - something Dear Alex and I haven't done in a long, long time. There was a beautiful perfect half-moon high in the sky with a scattering of stars, not fully out as the sky went from black at the zenith to a deep pink purple on the horizon from the long sunset. Dear Alex was amazed, and asked me about the moon and where it was up in the sky and "is it big?" And I told her that it was indeed very big, but it was very far away, and that's why it's so small in the sky. She sang "twinkle twinkle little star" to the stars, pointed to one she decided was her favorite, then asked me again "where is the moon?" - I said it was far away, but it traveled with us around the sun, and then I tried to explain to her how it all worked - that the Earth was a planet that went around the sun and the moon was like a planet that went around the Earth. She's a little young for the whole celestial mechanics thing, but it seemed to hold her attention. Somewhere along the way I told her that Man had walked on the moon back when daddy was little, and someday someone might do it again - this absolutely floored her - I had to explain it, then show her pictures of the Earth from space, and pictures of astronauts on the lunar surface. (thank you, internet) She noted the helmets and gloves and (in her words) "the big thick coats" (the spacesuits) they were wearing. Her biggest question to me was "what was her name who walked on the moon?" As I said Neil Armstrong, It occurred to me there was never a her on the moon. Pity. We both got something out of staying up late tonight, and It was a weird delight to hear my daughter say "I live on earth." I love this girl for the questions, and that through the whole time we were outside, she never stopped looking up in amazement at the sky.

Domestic disturbances

2008-04-10T21:26:00.001-04:00

I came home from work yesterday, just making it in time to take the hand off of Dear Alex as Dear nanny J. was leaving - usually I make it in time to have a little debrief about the day, and a heads up about what's been going on around the house and with the kid. We had the usual hugs and a little play, and it slowly dawned on me that there were some things out of order - a broken lamp in the living room, a drawer handle askew in the kitchen, a print fallen off the wall in dear Alex's room - I started to wonder what had happened while I was out. (actually, that could be the subject of a lot of posts, I am constantly wondering what actually fills Dear Alex's days...) It was no one big thing, but the accumulation of mute signs that the place was falling apart around me. Not that foreboding, actually, but it fits with the strangeness that's been going on for the last few days, and made me wonder. I've been a little tired for the last few days, as I haven't really had a solid good night's sleep.
Outside, the City of New York has been preparing to repave a large chunk of Third Avenue, a very heavily trafficked approach to the 59th street bridge. What that means is that they've been doing the work at night - all night, with a giant pavement eating machine that makes an impossibly mournful growling groaning sound, so deep and ever-present that I think I've internalized it. That continuous noise isn't the problem - The giant pavement eating machine makes pass after pass, growling along and dumping the ground-up pavement efficiently into a semi-sized trailer that rolls faithfully along beside it, with the occasional ring of a stray large chunk of chewed pavement on steel a bright counterpoint to the heavy bass of the endlessly running machine. It's the jackhammers that wake me - all of the cuts around manhole covers and curbs require more precision than the gentle loud giant can provide. Even with fancy soundproofed windows, it's a constant - and I fall asleep tentatively, waiting for the next burst from the jackhammers. It's a miracle and a wonder that Dear Alex has slept through it the last two nights, especially considering that most of the noise is outside her window. It seems to only bother me.

So, it turns out that there's not a poltergeist in the house - Dear Alex and her busy two-year-old self caused the minor destruction that I came home to - pushing her considerable fleet of taxis (it's always the cab's fault) into the lamp bringing it to the floor, her attempts to see what was on the kitchen counter, hanging from the drawer handles pulled it loose, and slapping that print that's been hanging over her changing table forever finally brought it down. My sleeplessness is real, and the giant pavement-eating machine outside my window is to me only an apt metaphor for the grinding nature of how things are feeling to me now, counting down the days until Beautiful Wife returns.

This one's for Dear Alex

2008-04-09T20:57:00.003-04:00

...Who occasionally reads lil'screamie. (sort of) Beautiful Wife on a horse. All the way over there in California. (Dear Alex runs to the map on the wall and points)
The last time I saw BW on a horse was our honeymoon, and that's starting to feel like an awfully long time ago - not because of boredom, but because so much has happened in the three and a half years or so since our wedding - a blur. But then again, the time feels light like nothing, the blink of an eye.

Music appreciation

2008-04-08T22:07:00.002-04:00

"Good morning table, I love you, candle"
(note object in her right hand - LED candle, banished from her room last night)

Bling bling "YELLOW is my favorite color and carpet's on the FLOOR
Furniture is good and three little birds in your eyes of blue!"

..and then we got serious.

This morning, Dear Alex was a wonder - all sweetness and light, it was the best of times. As I have written, there is a lot of satisfaction in that good morning ritual, needs unspoken and familiar easily met. We started early today, with plenty of time to play, and get into the morning in way that I haven't seen in a while. Dear Alex was in a musical mood, and she played a song on her yellow guitar, completely off key, atonal and random - but with real joy and energy. It was fun to watch, but it was impossible to sing along. It strikes me that this is important stuff, that she's fearlessly combining and recombining songs and music that she's heard to make something her own and to entertain herself and play for an appreciative audience. I love this quality of creative fearlessness, and freshness and doing what feels good because she likes doing it, and as bad as her singing might be - she really doesn't care, and I'm certainly not going to tell her - ever. At some point, her mood changed, and Dear Alex stopped the random strumming and singing, and asked "can I play xylophone"? Of course. She got very serious, and played and sang a pretty creditable rendition of "twinkle twinkle little star" softly, and hit the keys of the xylophone in time, with great care and precision* - it's as though she was telling, no demonstrating to me that in addition to flying her freak flag, she could also play by the rules, and do it pretty damn well. It was amazing, but then again, Dear Alex is amazing. I write about this not so much to boast about her musical talent (that remains to be seen) but in wonder at what drives her performance and her fearlessness... Oh, wait - It's that two-ish lack of self consciousness - no filters, because there are no cultural references yet. I love it, but why then the careful, considered performance to close the musical morning? Maybe she just wanted to see if she could.
Waking up to Dear Alex is my second favorite thing in the world, second only to waking up next to Beautiful Wife - Five nights away, and only ten more days until BW returns from California, but who's counting?**

*Dear nanny J. had arrived by this point, and witnessed the whole performance. It stopped her, too.
** So far, It's 23 diapers, 6 meals, 2 baths, and 5 solo Putting-Dear-Alex-to-Bed rituals. (not that I'm counting, or anything)

Attachment

2008-04-07T23:13:00.004-04:00

Not really about this post, but an image from another walk with daddy - Dear Alex was absolutely fascinated by the YELLOW! sidewalk, and couldn't stop walking over it, back and forth - we were in no hurry, so we got to hang out and talk about YELLOW!

As I mentioned in a post before, I got to spend a little time away from Dear Alex on Sunday - four hours off from solo dad responsibility. It was a little odd, the unexpected silence - the deadness I felt almost immediately on walking into our empty apartment. An hour earlier I couldn't wait to hand her off for some downtime, but all of the sudden it hit me how weirdly attached and accustomed I'd become to the company and responsibility of the kid. I really didn't know what to do with myself. I was lonely, and honestly couldn't focus on what exactly it was that I had wanted to do. I set to planning some errands for us to fill the times that we'd have together after work and before bedtime - walks to take and things to buy to entertain her and get her out in the world and ask me questions and show me things from her always fascinating point of view.
I went to work today and had the chance in between actually working to think about that a bit, and I missed her today - and I wonder where in the scheme of things I fit in Dear Alex's world, and how she thinks about Beautiful Wife and daddy and our respective presences and absences in her life - after our weekend spent mostly together, I went and disappeared for the day today, yet she accepted me tonight with open arms and a hug and a kiss. In a way it's not so fair - I get an hour or so in the morning and a little more than two hours at night to spend with the kid. Dear nanny J gets all day. The mornings are the best, the quiet dark room and Dear Alex's sleepy-sweaty head coming up over the edge of the crib for a hug and a lift to the changing table and a cup of milk. It's a reassurance, and a routine that feels like a very complete act of fulfilling the responsibility of taking care. It's something concrete to change a diaper and give a hug and provide nourishment. There, I did that. The other stuff (and what's on my mind) is a lot harder - am I present enough, does she feel the love - does Dear Alex know how much love BW and I have for her and that mommy would be here if she could? Does she feel the closeness and our wishes for the best for her? Probably not, most likely she's not really thought about it at all, but you can never tell.
We had a nice adventure tonight, a walk to the grand post office to ride the escalator and mail a letter, then a walk to the local Home Depot to ride the escalators and get a few little things - but it was mostly for the walk, and specifically, the walk with daddy which she's been doing all her life - When all else fails, we go for a walk - and we're both happier for it.
Dear Alex misses Beautiful Wife, and so do I. Any distraction these days is a welcome one, and any chance to give the kid something positive and concrete to remember beyond missing mommy is a comfort to both of us.

Daddy's tired

2008-04-06T21:06:00.004-04:00

One of those pictures that will haunt her forever - Dear Alex wearing Grammy's reading glasses and expounding on the implications of the moon and shadows on the second Gecko child of "The Goodnight Gecko". Yes, she's wearing underwear on the outside of her PJs - Don't ask - it was her idea. She's two.

Today was a long and strange day - Dear Alex woke up screaming for mommy at 7am, but I went in and changed her diaper and gave her a cup of milk in the crib, and she went mercifully back to sleep without protest. I was awake - but it was good to have the time and that relative morning calm to pull myself together and shower, and figure out the arc of the day to come. It ended up being one of those always slightly-behind-the-curve kind of days, with just about everything (meaning everything having anything to do with Dear Alex) moving in absolute slow motion. It feels as though Dear Alex has decided to protest the absence of Beautiful Wife by simultaneously staging a sit down strike and a hunger strike - She was sweet and good natured and nice (no tears or tantrums) but she was also either in a fugue-state of momentary focus on everything but the task at hand (putting on a sock, picking out a book, having a diaper change) or simply completely oblivious to the fact that there even was a task at hand (absoluely no attention to anything but her own considerable internal and occasionally verbalized stream of consciousness...) that it was as though we were moving through molasses. It easily took an hour to transition from her much-loved flower PJs into an outfit that sort of resembled clothing - but of course at the last minute Dear Alex had a change of heart, or mind, and decided that she wanted to wear "blue jeans like mommy and daddy". I should point out that I was wearing khakis at the time. She's like that. We were on a mission of course, I had a secret agenda of getting Dear Alex to Grammy's house to hand her bad self off so that I might have a bit of time to not attend to Dear Alex (not that I mind taking care of her, mind you...) It eventually happened, and she was whisked off to the birthday party of cousin Austin, a great kid, but 6 years old with 6-year-old friends. I'm sure it was delightful, but that bedlam probably would have put me finally over the edge. Grammy and George came through, took care, and managed to keep Dear Alex entertained and loved and reportedly content for something like 4 hours - Dear Alex also got a new pair of smart YELLOW! sneakers that light up when she walks in them, which is really funny to watch as the girl tries to walk and look for the lights at the same time. Until she gets over the novelty, I'm going to have to watch out for her lest she walk herself into a wall or a fire hydrant or something as she's looking down and behind - or maybe I'll just put her helmet on...
Today was a good day, ending with a family dinner in celebration for a bunch of us that have birthdays around this time of year, so a big shout out to all in the family, and another thank you (!) to Grammy and George is in order. As for Dear Alex, she pretty much held it together, and we got home and had a late bedtime thanks to the astonishing amount of chocolate cake (mmm-sugar) she ate - breaking the hunger strike, I hope. Dinner was interesting in a way - it had me thinking about the kid, and how her wonderful attitude and relative sophistication (odd word for a two-year-old) can lull one into forgetting that she is only two-and-a-half, but it comes back to you when you realize that the child you're sitting next to is like a little time-bomb that could go off at any second, the subject of her own unknowable triggers. As parents we try to figure out what those triggers are, call in the bomb squad, and cut the wires before anyone gets hurt.

After the show

2008-04-05T23:14:00.004-04:00

How do you top the greatest show on earth? You can't possibly, so Dear Alex and I went for a long walk instead, actually a couple of them. There were errands to run, and supplies to get, so we spent the rest of this oddly, finally spring-like New York city day outside - the girl was in the best of moods, and wanted nothing other than to hang out with me talk about the circus and wear her pink gloves. I'm not sure what this new fascination with the gloves is, but she really wouldn't think of going out without them - and telling everyone that she "HAS GLOVES ON"
(Her emphasis, not mine) We did some shopping and walking and telling strangers about her gloves. (I genuinely love the effect this little girl has on jaded New Yorkers - people just like me, who generally couldn't be bothered by anything, just light up at her little quirky self) We spent some time walking back and forth over a painted yellow square on the sidewalk ("IT'S YELLOW!") and then went home for a diaper change, and then right back out to go shopping again for food and a trip to the "raincoat store" (Dear Alex's new name for Conran's) where we spent a good hour sitting in chairs and handling expensive fragile things. It's wierd, but for all of her two-ish ness, (i.e.: pink tu-tu and fireman's hat over camouflage pajamas and brightly colored striped socks) Dear Alex seems to be drawn to good design - the trip to the raincoat store was her idea not mine, and it took me only a minute to figure out that's where she wanted to go. We had a slice of pizza for dinner, went food shopping, and got home in time for an easy bedtime. All the walking we did certainly tired her out. 30 seconds and done: "goodnight daddy." Goodnight Dear Alex.

Greatest show on earth

2008-04-05T22:31:00.002-04:00

Possibly, probably, If you're two-and-a-half. Dear Alex and I went to the circus today (thank you Grammy and George) and the kid was mesmerized. Fascinated. Astonished. I have absolutely no idea what she thought about what she was seeing, but she really couldn't stop looking. She danced to the music, clapped her hands at all the right places, and seemed to have a really good time. It held her attention for nearly three hours - all of the other kids in the room lost focus there for a little while, but Dear Alex kept watching, and I kept watching her - just trying to process that fascination. We were in a box, about 8 stories above the show, so it might have been a little bit like watching TV to her - that remote "it's happening over there" sense, but Dear Alex had a great experience today. She got to see live elephants (her favorite part of the show) and tigers. ("MEOWWW says the big cat" she said to me - though you really couldn't hear what they were saying from so far away) This will stick with her for a while, I think. There were a lot of acts, and some bits with a clown stealing the show, and some dance spectaculars that had Dear Alex bouncing up and down and doing her side-to-side shuffle right in time. Fun, really. This will be a tough act to follow.

L.A. time

2008-04-04T21:15:00.002-04:00

So I said goodbye to Beautiful Wife again today, who's on a plane to Los Angeles as I write. It was an exceptionally hard goodbye for me, as it's going to be the longest, and probably most difficult stretch of separation that we've seen, not just for the duration, but the timing, and my own need for something beyond the simple focus on getting through every day. To put it directly, I'm jealous, and it should be me making the incredibly difficult and heroic wage-earning journey. But it's not my turn - BW is great at what she does, and will do well over the next couple of weeks.
I'm comfortably working again on a web project, but one without the immediacy and romance of making television. I know that were the circumstances reversed, it would be just as hard, but BW would do just as well at taking care with Dear Alex as I'm bound to for the next two weeks. It's a complicated thing, making a living making advertising of any kind these days, so we all do what we can. There were many times when we were there together, and remembering that certainly helps.
Heading west does feel different, and it's kind of like heading towards the light - 3 hours earlier almost erases the time it takes to get there and suddenly it's warmer and there are more possibilities and the light and even the air is different. I write about this because I know, I've been there and I love it and I'm going to miss BW - Have fun, Beautiful Wife - you're going to be great. Tonight Dear Alex proudly pointed out California, and even Los Angeles, and told me that "mommy was flying there up in the sky". Indeed.

Alex in bunnyland

2008-03-24T10:28:00.006-04:00

Did I ever mention that Dear Alex really likes bunnies?

I don't think there's any more to say, really. Her face says it all.

Best of all, it's yellow

2008-03-17T11:42:00.005-04:00

Because Beautiful Wife had to work a bit this weekend, we stayed in the city yet again. It was a chance to take care of those odd little things we wanted to get done, and a chance to take Dear Alex shopping for a much-needed raincoat. Well, not that much needed, but we did want to get her something to wear in the rain, as she's rapidly growing (3 feet tall and rising) out of her existing assortment of coats, and they're not all that waterproof. So, with April showers coming and all, we got Dear Alex a raincoat. I should probably say The Raincoat - the definitive yellow slicker with a matching hat that she can wear for the next year or so, or until she decides she's over yellow. It's astonishing how excited she got over this yellow (it's her favorite color) raincoat - form the moment she first saw it in Conran's (great kid stuff) she had to have it. We spent the rest of the day walking around outside, and yes, it did rain a little bit just to make it all worthwhile. Just watching her delight in this over-the-top outfit made me smile and think about how wonderful it is and how easy it can be to make this kid happy. She made a lot of people smile.

Top o' the stairs

2008-03-14T12:48:00.007-04:00

It's been a while since we've had the chance to get away to the country for anything more than a "drive by" - a quick visit where all you really get to do is turn the house on, put the kid to bed, make a few meals, play in the snow a little bit, then close the house up and leave. I have all sorts of nostalgia and longing for a time when we can actually stretch out and stay for a while, to enjoy the splendid isolation. In a way, that's unrealistic, and it's not likely to happen anytime soon with the rush of work and the intense pressure and travel of the jobs that Beautiful Wife keeps getting handed. That's okay, I guess - because it's better these days to be working than not. But still, I sorely miss it - time feels different there, and Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex and I can simply play. A long time ago I wrote about the 'thing at the top of the stairs' that magically kept Dear Alex from climbing and playing there - eventually, it's powers diminished and I shoved it in a closet. Now that landing is a favorite spot, and Dear Alex has a wonderful time hanging out there, and delightedly dropping things from above - and we have a new game - 'catch the slinky' as she tips it down the stairs - hey, it works like magic! BW got the giant stuffed pink pony into it, and the kid goes wild. I am absolutely fascinated by the kids imagination, and the delight she takes in the silliest things, and the best thing is - it's contagious.

Happy Birthday Dad

2008-03-10T22:42:00.002-04:00

Had my father lived to see this birthday he would have been 81 - not a stretch these days, but it didn't happen that way, and I sorely miss him. I owe him much for my character and my strength and patience, and I'd surely thank him for that if I could. He was a grand man who lived his life as well as he knew how, and enjoyed all that he got to do. After losing his beautiful wife - my mother and part-namesake to Dear Alex, he held on, but his life was never the same.
I know that he died from chronic, congestive heart failure - but at another level, he died from a broken heart. Not the acute pain and grief of immediate loss, but the grinding day-to-day without someone that he clearly ultimately loved beyond anything else in his life. I know how that might feel, just from how much I've discovered in the day-to-day that I love my Beautiful Wife. Not something easily written about, but you certainly know it when you feel it.
I dearly wish that my father had lived to see the wonderful little girl that Dear Alex is becoming - He'd have gotten a kick out of her spunky little self, and would have loved her magnificent hugs.

Elmo deathwatch day 30

2008-03-10T01:01:00.003-04:00

Ever since we had the wonderful occasion to see Sesame Street live, which is an experience worthy of at least several blog entries that I couldn't possibly find words for... we've been living with the shadowy company of a helium-filled mylar Elmo presence that's hovered over our everyday activities: Grinning relentlessly down over the dining table, hovering mercilessly over the bed in mommy and daddy's room for a few days, drifting from room to room, hanging out in Dear Alex's room leering down with those loveable pop-eyes. He's been dragged around by his string, toyed with by the cats, and squeezed repeatedly by the kid and survived it all. Elmo's been around. Elmo's seen it all. He's definitely hung in there, through subway and cab rides and tantrums, but Elmo is finally showing signs of a little wear and tiredness beyond his years, and has begun to sag a little bit, his features distorted by a very slow leak and the wear and tear of being a simple mylar balloon subjected to the hands of Dear Alex. He hasn't been his formerly jaunty self for days, and tonight he was finally banished from her bedroom by Dear Alex, probably because he's no longer charming, but kind of scary looking. It's a wonder that he's lasted so long. I'm wondering how I'm going to explain his absence after I deliver the coup de grace and stuff him into a d'agostino's bag for immediate disposal.

The good day

2008-03-01T23:10:00.006-05:00

Yes, she was in her PJ's until about 3pm, but having a lot of fun making "action art"
I swear she was channeling Jackson Pollock.

Dear Alex had a great time with daddy outside in the fresh snow.
Sweet and funny little girl. "Are you happy daddy?" Was what she'd just asked me -
"Yes" was the only possible answer.

I'd said in my last post that today was going to be a good day - I was right and wrong, but it hardly matters. I was up late last night, truly loving that cozy feeling of the 'house in the snowy woods' and the oddly romantic notion that you'll only get from someone from the city that doesn't have to deal with the pain-in-the-ass reality of it every day, something that occurred to me after a brief email exchange with one of my truly nice country neighbors. I had that remembered feeling from when Dear Alex was a baby of taking great care to turn down the lights, make the coffee and prepare for the next day as Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex slept through a beautiful, driving snowstorm outside. My "good day" started at 7am, with the distraught screams of Dear Alex, with a litany of complaints. After the hug, the diaper, the reassurance, and the cup of milk, she went sort of back to sleep at 8-ish, leaving me wide awake with that startled feeling of "what just happened?" I had a cup of coffee and watched it snow for a little bit until the dear girl was truly up and ready to be lifted from the crib into my arms for a ride downstairs. We played, and played and scattered things from room to room until it was time to clean up and start all over again, and have breakfast and and a diaper change and another and more play. The only thing missing was mommy, who slept and slept and slept, until I was actually beginning to worry. Just before noon Beautiful Wife joined us, and all was right with the world. Let's say it was a low-energy day, and we had a lot of fun doing very little but playing and painting and just hanging out at home, with everyone just where they should be. Dear Alex told BW that she was "pretty" today without prompting (really did come out of nowhere) and that daddy was "awesome" (I think she was trying to say handsome, as coached by BW) but I'll take it...
As I've written before, it's the little things and the every day accumulation of details and wonder that make it all worthwhile. Watching Dear Alex paint and play and make music and love her beautiful mother made today the good day I thought it was going to be after all.
And yes, we did make it outside to play in that beautiful snow.

Into the night

2008-03-01T01:06:00.003-05:00

We finally got it together in time and space to be in the same place at the same time to get out, out, out of the city this weekend - a return to what used to be a normal routine. A frenzy of packing and stocking up on food and stuffing things into bags remembering to take important things like socks and shoes (and Original Bunny) for Dear Alex, and all the dirty laundry for Beautiful Wife and myself , and remembering the little detail things that are easily forgotten if you haven't travelled in a while. We did okay and finally got into the car at around 8:20. Beautiful Wife and I had a brief moment to talk before she succumbed to the chronic tiredness she still carries with her from Mexico, and Dear Alex uncarachteristically fell asleep before we hit the GWB. As we crossed into New Jersey, there was an easy silence as both BW and Dear Alex were down for the count, leaving me in that position of grave responsibility for driving the two most important people in my world into the cold dark, and snowy night. I was glad for the snow, and it's endless streaming past the windshield, a reminder of other times and other trips like this, looking forward to that moment of silence and repose at the end of the journey. It ended up being a long drive, but we got to step out at the end of it into a driving snow, fine and sparkling like powdered sugar, fresh footsteps in new snow, and into the house to put Dear Alex to sleep in a place she loves. Dear Alex, for some reason didn't have the same romance with the end of the trip, and the trip to the crib. She screamed and screamed and screamed - a jarring note to end an otherwise idyllic journey. To her credit, Dear Alex fell asleep quickly - I think it was just the break in her routine - Beautiful Wife has taken to our bed, and all is quiet as I write and the snow keeps falling. Tomorrow will be a good day.

Another New York Day

2008-02-24T22:36:00.005-05:00

Beautiful Wife did not enjoy her time in Mexico, and she brought back with her an illness, and a tiredness that is beyond any of my attempts to care for her, so, so far it's been a dismal reunion. I'm frustrated only in that I wish that there was more that I could do to help, but BW, to her credit, will have nothing of it. The only upside is that today, Sunday, I took Dear Alex for a very long walk in the cold to keep her from waking BW, which under normal circumstances, is pretty darn funny, involving a poke to the eye, with an ever-so-innocent "are you sleeping. mommy?"
The answer can only be "no, not when you're poking your finger in my eye. " It's funny, but it didn't feel right for today, so out we went. We just headed west, for no particular reason other than it wasn't a direction we often went, and were rewarded with a number of discoveries in our still relatively-new neighborhood (two years and counting)- we live not too far from Carnegie Hall, so that if the guitar thing (or the ballet or the singing) ever works out, it won't be a stretch to go see the debut... Dear Alex and daddy had fun, walking wih the stroller and commenting on the passing cityscape as the neighborhod subtly changed, and the dear girl had to constantly stop and ask "what's this?" as she discovered more and more things that were painted yellow (her favorite color, by the way) as we made our way west. We found a fabulous sculpture just down the alley from Nobu 57 - a place Beautiful Wife and I ate once, a long-ish time ago. A giant bronze frog, about the size of a Volkswagen, that truly amazed and delighted Dear Alex. Despite the cold, we spent nearly 30 minutes examining and touching and pounding on it. After that, there was nothing else to do but finish the walk in the cold and go to the "pizza store" so that Dear Alex and I could have an early dinner together. Sometimes, I really do love living in the city, though I miss being in the country a lot these days - I need to see a clean swath of unsullied snow once more this winter - As Dear Alex put it "Snow is dirty" what's left of the snow of last Friday is black and yellow and rapidly (and thankfully) vanishing.

Home at last

2008-02-24T00:20:00.004-05:00

The Perfect Yellow Guitar

The talking plastic fake camera

Beautiful Wife has returned from Mexico City, tired, sick and maybe just a little cranky - but that's okay, she's home. BW brought some very nice things home with her for Dear Alex, some very pretty little clothing items, but the best thing of all - a yellow guitar.
I haven't written much about it, but Dear Alex loves "YELLOW" if you ask her, it's her favorite color. If you don't ask her, she'll tell you. Walking down any street in the city with her has become kind of funny, as every other car is her favorite color - "Look daddy - it's a YELLOW taxi - that's my FAVORITE color!""It's YELLOW!"
The guitar is great, it's yellow and small, made of wood and has strings of green fishing line, but it's authentically shaped - a scaled-down version of a guitar. She's already spent a lot of time strumming it, in imitation of a favorite teacher at one of her day-school-music things, and has had a super time making up songs to atonally sing while plucking away randomly. She made up a song about the wood floor in the apartment, then a song about the carpet that somehow de-volved into Dear Alex's hilarious cover of "close to you". (I think that's her favorite song, though it might have been replaced by the theme from Thomas the tank engine.) It's fascinating watching her invent and make random connections and just go with them.
I love the guitar for a lot of things that I really believe make a huge difference -
Sure, it's a cheap (really) tourist souvenir-type thing, but it's handmade. It's not injection-molded plastic. There's no branding (other than the hand-painted inscription of (" Mexico") or cartoon character tie-in (Dora... would be just right for this one, but it would be plastic and make really annoying sounds, with pre-recorded exhortations to "play" in spanish) It's just a cool thing that Dear Alex already loves. No batteries and sound chips required. I love Beautiful Wife for finding this and seeing it for what it is.

I'm ranting about this because a very nice and very well-intentioned neighbor recently gave Dear Alex some very nice things including a "Diego wildlife camera" which is of course made of plastic and doesn't take pictures. It has a sound chip that alternately exhorts you to "take pictures" and mentions things like llamas and monkeys. I'd be more specific - but I've hidden the camera, and I can't remember where. It was driving me crazy. As an antidote, yesterday I gave Dear Alex one of the many obsolete digital cameras lying around the house, and other than showing her which buttons to push, left her alone with it for a day (the camera was miraculously unharmed). I'll post some of the results when I get around to uploading the chip.
I think I'm coming down in favor of the real. The unbranded, unmerchandised experience of doing things - like playing a wooden guitar and making up her own songs.

BW is asleep as I write - ill, exhausted, and in the getting-over phase of what sounded like a tough shoot. I've been there, so I'll do all I can to make it better.
She's the best.

Keep your pants on daddy

2008-02-21T22:27:00.005-05:00

Dear Alex and her bunnies - that's mommy bunny and daddy bunny kissing.
I'm quite sure there's some compensating going on for Beautiful Wife's absence,
but she's having fun, and has been carrying them everywhere lately.
There's another post in this somewhere.

Dinnertime cute attack with Nanny J. Dear Alex is cracking herself up.

Gratuitous bathtime picture, but also, an interesting repeat of the obsessive
ordering and re-ordering of the cups. This went on for a while.

Three nights ago it was the cat in the night-time, two nights ago it was an astonishingly full diaper that woke Dear Alex at two in the morning, this morning she woke up uncharacteristically early for her usual sleepy self at 7:30.
What these three wakings have in common was that each time I went to get her, Dear Alex dropped the immediate complaint and the first thing she had to say was "do you have your pants on daddy? In two of the three cases, I didn't - but it doesn't really matter to her whether you're wearing pants or not. ( I should point out that for better or worse, in no case was I naked...) - It's just some weird fascination with ones state of dress or undress. It started a while ago, but seemed like one of those odd little things that Dear Alex gets obsessed with every once in a while, but this one stuck. It's been going on long enough to become kind of a family joke - It's a salutation and a goodbye that almost always gets a laugh. It's extended to Dear Alex greeting me with an excited "You have pants on!" or a question "Do you have your pants on?" (yes) "You have a shirt on and shoes and socks!" of course, this applies to Beautiful Wife as well. I'm waiting for the day when Dear Alex busts out in public with "Keep your pants on mommy!"

The kid is funny, as though to compensate for the absence of Beautiful Wife, she's been having serious cute attacks for daddy about three times a day - I mean lots of affection, elaborate hugs, punctuated by giggles and conversation about the weirdest things. She excitedly told me a story for about half an hour today, and while she's usually pretty articulate, I have absolutely no idea what she was talking about. It was fun to listen to, though I really couldn't do much but smile and nod. Sure, there's almost always the chance that she'll slip into a whining, cranky two-year-old at any moment, for now she's an angel.

Alex and the cat

2008-02-19T22:54:00.008-05:00

From the archives: Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex, back when winter was fun.

Dear Alex is "so tired" that she must pretend-nap immediately.

Menacing hairy things, or decorative throw pillows? You decide.

I miss Beautiful Wife something fierce. It was that kind of day for Dear Alex, too, though she's not really talking about it all that much, but you can tell. She alternates between bursts of energy and crankiness, and has added a new thing - bringing her blankets from the crib, and flopping on the floor in a perfect demonstration of ennui. Dear Alex just lays down, as if to say "I'm so tired".
On the upside, I've been getting a lot more attention from the girl, with elaborate hugs and kisses and climbing on daddy - usually as she's asking "Are you happy, daddy?" You can't really say no to that.

I can relate to the tired thing, though, as last night we had "The curious incident of the cat in the night-time" again, as Dear Alex woke me up at 4 in the morning screaming "Daddy daddy daddy! Cat in MY rocking chair! Cat daddy daddy daddy!" There's a lot about this I really don't understand, because it raises so many questions. First of all, because we've had this happen before, we have an elaborate policy that's become part of the bedtime ritual: "Inner door open, outer door closed"
(Dear Alex has a short hallway leading to her room and bath) The door was closed. (Easy answer, cat was in the room at bedtime and I missed her in my usual "do we have two cats?" sweep of the closets and room.) Second, how did she know there was a cat there, and more specifically, that it was Gracie? It's one thing to say that, well, the cat made that cat noise (that Dear Alex loves to imitate - "MEEE-OWWWW, MAO!") But both of them squeak like that. It was dark in the room, so I didn't, couldn't say which one it was until I got a light on - It was indeed Gracie. Third, why did it bother her so much,( she likes the cats and spends good parts of her day chasing them around) and just when did it become her rocking chair? It's not like the cat was trying to climb into her crib and suffocate her, or claw her eyes out or anything like that.(Fortunately, neither one of the cats has anything close to a temper - and they're about as threatening as decorative throw pillows - which they kind of resemble) Dear Alex is just kind of territorial, I guess. I'm still baffled as to how she knew it was Gracie, and why it was important enough to wake me up in the middle of the night. It's one of those unknowable mysteries (that only Dear Alex has the answer to) that she's just not going to tell me.
We removed Gracie, had a diaper change and a hug and I eventually got back to sleep, just in time to wake up.

Are you happy, daddy?

2008-02-18T22:53:00.005-05:00

From the Dear Alex archives - with the question face.
Yes, that's a big gusher of snot.

Dear Alex has a way of cutting to the heart of things - this is her new question, and it always makes me smile. It's not a philosophical question, and Dear Alex seeks no nuance. The only possible answer to the question is either yes or no.
Usually the answer is "yes, of course I'm happy." It really has to be, because I generally am. In truth, there are many times I'd sincerely like to talk about what might be making me unhappy at the moment she's asked the question. It's because this well-timed question usually has something to do with something that Dear Alex has done or is about to do that she knows annoys the crap out of me. It's her own way of saying that she knows she's doing something wrong, and is doing her best to charm me out of getting mad. I love it.
Every once in a while, though there is a certain seriousness, a directness to the question that gives me pause. Did she really just ask me that? Does she know what sad means beyond the immediate here and now of "Daddy's unhappy because there's trucks and cars and toys and trains and books and puzzle pieces and stickers and clothing strewn from one end of the apartment to the other, and there's Cheerios in daddy's shoe, and daddy went out the other day to get coffee and go to the store with a sticker on his face that he didn't discover until he was on the way home...". That sadness beyond the immediate is something I think that she knows of, but doesn't yet have the words for, and something she's working on, for better or worse. As I've gone on about many times before, she's a smart kid, and very little escapes her.
I know sad. I've been there, and Dear Alex seems to get it, to occasionally rise above her awareness of only her own bad self, to consider the feelings of someone else. I may be reading too much into it, but I think there's a good soul in there.
Someone once said of Dear Alex "She knows the secret of the universe, but she's not telling anyone."

"Alex stand on the blue D and you stand on da udder D"

We had a good day today - Nanny J. came back, and took Dear Alex outside for a long time to play on this oddly-warm February day, at one point the temperature (64º) was the same as Mexico City, where Beautiful Wife is for the next (counting down) 5 days. We played letters, a game invented by BW, that basically consists of Dear Alex telling me which letter to stand on as she does the same. She knows her alphabet, backwards and forwards, and has started to figure out that those letters make words. I swear she's going to be reading before she's potty-trained.

Day One - Alex's cranky day

2008-02-18T00:21:00.005-05:00

Dear Alex was fascinated by the shoes. I wonder where she gets it.

Dear Alex liked the red box on the sidewalk.

But the yellow was her favorite.

"Shiny, shiny"

But the yellow was her favorite.

Today was a low-key day. Originally I'd thought that maybe we'd go to the country, to see what was left of the snow - but because of my own low energy and Dear Alex's iffy mood, I let that thought pass. Dear Alex was just a little out of sorts this morning when she woke up screaming for Mommy mommy mmmmooooooommmmy!, and the mood lasted pretty much all day. She was on her own little toddler roller coaster, alternating between sweetness and hugs and terrible rages. I'm as much to blame for that as I really didn't provide sufficient distraction (like a trip to the country or a museum) to divert her attention from mommy. I did manage to get her calmed down, and dressed and changed and hugged and fed - a little bit at a time, as getting her to sit and eat has become a real trial. "Daddy I want to play". No, eat. Then you can play. "Daddy I want to play". No. eat. "Daddy I want to play". No. "I don't want to eat an-y-more". But you haven't eaten anything, and you're going to tell me you're hungry later. "Daddy I want to plaaaaay". Eventually I give up, and turned her loose from the tyranny of the table. Of course, an hour later, she's cranky as hell, throwing things and whining - "daddy I'm hungry. hungry." We got it all sorted out, and Dear Alex spent the day grazing on snacks and fruit, and eventually went out for a walk in the cold. We ended up having a great time, walking, walking, walking. I took my old familiar route down Park Avenue, and we had fun window shopping for shoes ("shoe store") and money ("bank, bank") and fell into a game of finding colors in the city. We found Red and Blue and Green and "shiny" but best of all, "Yellow!" The kid's a freak, but I love her for it. We had to stop, eventually because of the cold and a big wet diaper, but after a little bit we went out again for a run to the grocery store, to restock on the essentials that I'll prepare and Dear Alex won't eat.We ended up having a lot of fun, and a good night and a long bath and a mercifully quick goodnight as Dear Alex was tired from all of the walking and no nap today. Note to self: There's a trade-off here: no nap= easy bedtime, but, no nap also equals full-on attention, and the ever-present edge of crankiness. Ultimately, we had a good day, but it was tinged with a little sadness, and little loneliness, and though Dear Alex and I disagree about some things, (no more Clifford or Caillou or throwing toys or not eating) we have common ground on one thing - we miss Beautiful Wife.

Beautiful Wife

2008-02-17T00:09:00.002-05:00

Is away again tomorrow. Tonight was tears and a sad goodnight to Dear Alex, who is aready favoring daddy by some instinct, or insight that only she knows. I feel sad tonight, as BW is indeed going away again for a week to produce another spot in exotic Mexico. In other times, it might have been with me, but circumstances change, and with change we grow. The kid has been great, and I'm sure she'll do fine, it's been me that I worry about, and the dear responsibility of bringing Dear Alex through the absence of Mommy, mommy, mommmmmy! yet again, as BW goes and does her thing. This is to begin another minor blog revival, as I will try to write again every day about the progress of Dear Alex, and her astonishing way of cutting to the heart of the matter to ask "Are you happy daddy" when things get tough. "Why yes I am dear girl, but I miss mommy already..." Enough said. Bon Voyage BW, Stay safe.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T00:19:00.002-05:00

To any and all, but especially Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex. It's been a while since I've had much to say, though there's lots of stories to tell. Tonight, though, it's about love and affection for BW who's been nothing but busy lately doing the production thing, and will once again be travelling - this time to Mexico. Another week away, and I'm already starting to miss her.
I've spent the last weeks building my own website for professional reasons, in hopes of winning that just-right job, an amazingly dense learning curve, but I'm happy with the results. It's good to be adaptable, but it's been a bit of a slog. Too much time in front of the computer to fall easily into writing about the relentless progress of a precocious two-year-old. I'll get there - tonight, though, it's all about love. Happy Valentine's Day.

Golf Kamp

2007-12-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

Despite my disavowal of such things, I had a sort of revelation and a breakthrough at some point this week about the game of golf. I'm quite sure that there's no latent pro-golfer in me, but I had the occasion to go out with some gentlemen for a nice walk in the sun on a very nice green, while randomly hitting a little white ball with a dizzying variety of sticks. It was fun. Nothing too stiff and formal, just a beautiful afternoon. After some consideration, I've come to understand what it is about the game that is so compelling, to the point that I, too have caught a bit of the fever - the compulsion to hit that ball a little better, a little more consistently, with more predictable results. I had the chance to take myself down to a nearby driving range to get some practice, to get that 'more predictable result', to work on the swing - 200 some odd balls later I had to stop, mostly because of the blisters on my left hand - there's a reason golfers wear those dainty gloves. I narrowed my club of choice down to a beautiful driver, a 3 wood(?) that seemed to have the magical qualities of consistency and predictability for me - when I hit a ball, it went, usually in the same direction, with some force and distance. I played it until I could repeat it like 5 balls at a time- Ahh, good. I won't completely humiliate myself on the next outing. I was wrong. What worked that day, really didn't the next and I have no idea why. Chalk it up to another of life's great mysteries, but now I know why people get so maddeningly obsessive about the game of golf. I will never think badly of another man's choice of pursuits again. It worries me a little that I feel so compelled to keep at it, to get better, to prove to myself that if nothing else, I can do this thing. Right now, I'm in golf paradise - or I would say golf kamp, or golf hell, but my opportunities are limited by the wonderful, but always demanding Dear Alex, who cares not a whit, and has no feel for daddy's compulsion to improve his game. Maybe that's a good thing. Finding time (or squeezing in time) for one's own pursuits has become a small obsession for me over the last few days, as I am certainly in paradise for someone like me - with the ever-present temptation of driving ranges and golf courses and even worse, a delightful general aviation airport not 20 minutes away. I did make the time to go flying, to re-acquaint myself with the ins and outs of flying a light plane, seriously, for the first time since Dear Alex came into the world. I have to say that in my two-year absence, things have changed. The laws of physics, and the actual act of flying a plane remains the same, and I can honestly say that I've still got it, but somewhere along the way the average rental aircraft has moved into the 20th century. The instrument panel looked like a freaking video game, and the throttle and mixture controls are all digital with a glass panel where the tach and other analog gauges used to be. The good news is that I can still fly a plane, the bad news is that it could take me a few days to master the systems and new technologies onboard. Change is good. Beautiful Wife, I think, understands my need to do these things, and has indulged me as much as she can, what with Dear Alex suddenly finding her terrible-two-ness. I wrote glowingly of her sweet goodness and her having skipped right through the terrible-twos to a terrific place - boy, was I jumping the gun. The kid's alright, to be sure, but has developed a leech-like attachment to either or both of us (with BW taking most of the hits, probably due to her extended absence) Dear Alex can't burp without mommy (or occasionally daddy), so it's been my loving duty to spare BW the constant on-duty status. So far, it's been a wonderful vacation in paradise, but well tempered by the realization that while the delights of grown-up recreation are tantalizingly close, they remain just a little out of reach. On the other hand, it's been a delight to watch our little girl grow wildly in scope and will, and to watch her delight in the sheer physicality of being outside with one or the other of us, from early in the morning until well past what used to be her bedtime. We'll probably have some serious adjusting to do when we get back to the cold grim north, but for now it's been spectacular to watch Dear Alex blossom and whine incessantly while doing so.

Dear Alex at the beach

2007-12-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

Last year when we did this, we visited the beach but once, as Dear Alex clearly wasn't ready for the majesty of the ocean. I remember her crying, and tears as we tried to get her close to the water. She had the chance at the beach a few times over the last year, and has gotten a little bit more comfortable each time - but again, when we went to the beach, there was a bit of fear, and Dear Alex took a little convincing to even get close to the water. It's amazing how quickly she took to the ocean and now how hard it is to get her to leave - she could and would sit in the surf for hours, taking great delight in getting knocked over and splashing in the water as it recedes. I took her out in the surf today, and while Dear Alex hung on like she'd never let me go, she also giggled her head off each time we jumped up with a swell. I think she likes the beach - which is a good thing, I think, as both Beautiful Wife and I have separately loved the beach as children, and I can't imagine not having had that endless summer at the beach childhood. t's a testament to Dear Alex's passion that it took BW and I taking turns in the sand and water with her to satisfy her desire to play in the "big big sandbox" (the beach) and the "ocean". But there is one thing that I certainly never thought of - certainly not when I was a kid, about how powerful that big ocean is, and how quickly it could take a little peanut like Dear Alex. It should be clear by now that I'm not the most paranoid of parents - but that edge of splashy warm delight, and that rush of water has a power that you rarely consider unless you've got that awful responsibility of being daddy. This is a time when you have a secret reserve of watchfulness that you didn't even know you had.
The same is true, of course, with the swimming pool, though it is a much more controlled environment - I love the water, and I want Dear Alex to take the same joy as I do, so it's never about fear - it is about paying attention. Today Dear Alex made an unprompted leap of faith, literally into my arms, that made the daddy thing very happy, and very real.
Dear Alex sits on the top step of the steps with the handrail into the swimming pool, and says, arms raised, with a smile on her face "swim to daddy" I'm standing waist-deep in water a few steps away. The dear girl crawls from the top step to the second to the third into water over her head and pushes forward into my arms. Without stopping to check if I really was going to be there, or looking. Of course I was there, and of course I'll be there. We spent an hour or so at the same game - I don't think either of us was tired of it when it came time to stop.

Alex in wonderland part 2

2007-12-29T22:33:00.000-05:00

One we arrived in Florida, Dear Alex seemed to sag a little bit - it took a little too much energy, and she really wasn't her usual spunky self. The dark circles darkened, and the mood got moodier, though her generally good nature remained. Dear Alex didn't feel so well, so there's a certain disjointed, lonely quality to the usual sure-hit photo-ops from this part of the trip. The dear girl really was miserable despite the loving and lavish attention from Grammy n' George, who should win some sort of award for being such swell grandparents. After consulting with a pediatrician, it was a pretty simple thing. A cold. (though I hardly approved, we decided that it'd be okay to try Benadryl - It did seem to help, and for a while her nose stopped running and she stopped slapping herself in the face. All we could really do was wait it out... and feel really bad for her. After just two days in the sun, and the pool and outside, Dear Alex has rebounded to the point that she's busting with good energy, and has to be dragged screaming from all of her chosen activities, be it the pool, the beach, or her golf. I'm not kidding - It's great that she's having so much fun fun that she tires herself out so completely that naptime and bedtime go without a fight. g'night dad (don't let the door hit you on the way out) g'night mom. See you in the morning. Of course, bedtime and going to sleep are one thing, but sleeping through the night is another. Dear Alex has been sleeping magnificently, but she's also been waking up early - early for me in any case. Two consecutive days of 6am, with Beautiful wife lovingly kicking me out of bed to go soothe the screaming child in the next room. It's been a piece of cake - A quick hug and a diaper change, then back in the crib. But Dear Alex doesn't really go back to sleep - I know, because for the last couple of days, I've fallen asleep (sort of) on the bed next to the crib. It's not really sleep, more of a half-doze, punctuated by slurps, snorts, silences, and bursts of chatter fron Dear Alex, as she sucks her thumb, snores, and talks to her bunny friends in the crib. You can't really sleep through that... mostly it's waiting in anticipation of the next odd sound or gurgle - leading up to the extended silence, which is followed by "poopie diaper, poopie!" Dear Alex will surely soon be ready for the toilet, because she's anticipated it two days in a row now - the false alarm, followed in a matter of minutes by the real thing. At least she's allowing me the joy of changing her diaper again. For the first few days after the return of Beautiful Wife, only mommy could do the honor. good for her I say, but damned inconvenient for BW.

Travels with Dear Alex

2007-12-29T22:23:00.000-05:00

Note that this was written without internet access (can you imagine?) - It's a series of long-ish descriptions of what we did for an entire week in Florida, which couldn't have come at a better time.

We begin another adventure today, as Dear Alex and Daddy head to Florida for a break from the cold grey city. Beautiful Wife, who returned from Vancouver as promised last Saturday night, is still chained to the job she was out shooting. She'll be joining us next Saturday. BW is suffering as much as the rest of us from the effects of too much grey, too many germs (most likely brought home by daddy's little incubator) and too little rest. We're all a little sickly in one way or another - and I'm concerned that BW and Dear Alex are circling around another round of pinkeye. (what the heck - make it a round of pinkeye for everyone - on the house!)
I do feel pretty badly, though - our usually cute-as-a-button daughter is looking a little worn around the edges, as though she's been keeping late hours and maybe got slapped around a little by her ex. I mean to say that she's got some dark circles under her eyes, some seriously blotchy cheeks, and has more or less given herself two black eyes by repeatedly, compulsively, slapping herself in the face. It's a little odd, and I feel like a not-so-good-dad to have her out in public like this - but hey, it is self-inflicted, and trying to restrain her from doing it just makes it worse.

Daddy's still in recovery from a good, simple freelance assignment that turned on me like a hungry dog...It started well, but got complicated pretty quickly, and turned into what might as well have been an all-nighter. There's nothing like getting a call in the middle of the night, when you know it's going to be a very latenight / early morning - "would you mind picking up diapers and milk on the way home. We're out of everything." That's a statement, not a question. And yes, it is my responsibility to keep us in household supplies of all types - that's what daddy does.

My little freelance job came out just fine, but it left me feeling a little hollowed-out. But I must say that I do enjoy working, and the company of adults and the opportunity for problem-solving that it brings. (which isn't to say that solo travels with Dear Alex doesn't have it's share of opportunities for problem solving - it does, in spades.)

The first part of our journey - the getting up and out was fairly easy, and we had a great ride in the black car to JFK - Dear Alex is excited to travel, and was happy to talk about the terminal the airplane and florida we're going up in the sky. She got to see a subway train on an above-ground track, an of course decided that it would be more fun to take the train to Florida. Or drive. By the time we got to the airport, she was in full melt-down mode, and wasn't really interested in air travel anymore. Getting the refrigerator-sized suitcase to the check-in and my little darling through security was challenging. One thing to note, though, a crying toddler certainly eases the passage through crowded airports - but It's not the most relaxing way to travel. By the time we got to the gate, Dear Alex had either accepted her fate, or had simply tired herself out from all the screaming. With no more fight in her we had a great flight. Dear Alex sat on my lap for the taxi and take-off and fell in love with the whole idea of flying again. We had an entire fruit salad, a bag of bagel chips, and some animal crackers. By the time we hit cruising altitude, Dear Alex was asleep - and stayed that way until we began the descent. We shared our seats with a nice young woman, who I'm sure was sure she was in for the worst (seated next to the baby on the airplane - few things more hellish to anticipate) But it all worked out okay - as though to make up for the pure hell she gave me going through the airport, Dear Alex was nothing but sweet and delightful through the entire journey.

The day away

2007-12-19T00:52:00.000-05:00

There is something about waking up in a house in the snow - a heavy silence, even quieter than usual for the country. And then of course I remembered that I was not alone - I had the ultimate responsibility for Dear Alex, her well being, her entertainment, her nourishment - all solo. I had the joy of waking up before Dear Alex, so I got to appreciate that silent cold not-quite-there-yet feeling as I made coffee and waited, thinking about lighting a fire, then about a book "A box of Matches" by Nicholson Baker, wherin the story (which goes charmingly nowhere) chronicles the thoughts of a man in the mornings over the course of using a box of matches. Duh. Did I say I considered lighting a fire? I didn't - only because I'd just have to clean it out and close up the house a few hours later, and there were other things to do, like start the pancakes, and figure out how the logistics of the day were going to work out. Breakfast and entertaining Dear Alex would be easy... And the day turned out to be a charm. We played in the snow, a soft deep dry cold weather snow, for about two hours. Dear Alex walked on the lake, fell on her butt, then fell down again on purpose in the soft stuff, and generally took the snow thing very seriously - pointing and gesturing and telling me that it was "white, and softee and smooth and cold." She pulled her baby-bathtub turned sled around for a while, then decided it was time to go in. I was frozen solid and glad to oblige. The rest of the day worked out pretty much as planned - a trip to the far-away local Wal-Mart for lunch, and a long drive back to the city. It felt like we'd been gone for days - but it was less than 24 hours. Sometimes you just need a little change. Dear Alex slept like a baby (forgive me) on the way home, and didn't wake until we were pulling into the garage. A nice warm bath, and she went to bed early without complaint - nothing like a few hours in the cold to wear out a two-year-old.
It would have been easier and far more practical to stay at home in the city, but then again it would have been the same as last weekend, and the weekend before, and the... I guess that the point is really to remember that it's about doing. What the hell. We had fun.

Day seven - daddy's wild ride

2007-12-15T00:06:00.000-05:00

So, a long day in the city, with Dear Alex's 'playgroup' morning and the apprehension and anxiety about getting her into a good pre-school, as though she wasn't already smart enough to kick a kindergarteners' butt. Dear Alex wailed as we entered the clessroom - my bad I suppose, as I had told her it would be like her other classes, and I guess the more institutional setting bothered her a bit - "go home, daddy, go home - gohomegohomehoooomeahhh". After about two minutes, Dear Alex found a firetruck to play with and invented an elaborate story to go with where she was driving it around the classroom - at one point one of the teachers asked me who was the creative one in the household, based on Dear Alexs' incredible imaginary friend 'tik-tik', the destination as given by the dear girl for the firetruck - "We're going to tik-tiks house!"
The teacher was duly impressed, and I, of course, answered that both Mommy and daddy were 'creative', and that Dear Alex has a rich and varied storytelling life. It's all true, and fascinating to listen to. I've decided that the whole school thing, while important, is not a make or break proposition for the girl. For crying out loud, she's only two - and a bright and quick two as well, as I watched her with a few other kids her age - Dear Alex has a certain reserve, a consideration of situations that other toddlers seem to lack - not in the negative, of course, but Dear Alex looks first, then jumps - always mindful (except at home, of course) of what's going on around her. She's a keen observer, and to me that's a good thing. She's going to do well in the world.

Now, about daddy's wild ride - We ended up going to the country for the first time in a long time, mostly because the dear girl asked "go to the country?" Something I think she's been missing for a while, as have I - so why not? - I can be just as cold and lonely in the country as in the city, and with all of the basics are covered, tonight was as good a night as any for a drive with Dear Alex, who fell asleep before we made it to the GWB, not waking until I turned the car off in the snowy silence in Pennsylvania - The girl is a delight and warm and safe, and we'll have a good time playing in the snow tomorrow.

Day six - on educating Dear Alex

2007-12-13T21:35:00.000-05:00

Note: The pix are completely unrelated to the post, just some fun:
Dear Alex still loves the firemans' hat.

For some perverse reason, she's become obsessed by "the crying baby" and takes great delight in watching a video clip of her own bad self whining for mommy - I'm not sure what to make of it, but it makes her laugh.

Dear Alex "pretend washing" Original Bunny - Bunny goes into the washing machine, Dear Alex would come out and announce "washing bunny" - then go back into the laundry and shout "She's done!", then repeat the process - about twenty times. Baffling.

Tomorrow is a big day for Dear Alex - her high stakes 'play group' for admission to our pre-school of choice, and it strikes me that it's an astonishing marker of how far we've come since she was a squishy little ball of screaming baby. I remember when we thought she'd never figure out the walking thing, and then when I thought she'd never stop the walking walking walking thing. Now she walks as though she's been doing it for years... well, months, anyways - and there is that bit that she's now exactly the right height to bump her head on any and every table-top, which she's been doing at relatively frequent intervals (daaaaddy!-I got a boo-boo) But she's now learned to duck elaborately most of the time when she percieves something that might be at head height. It's funny to watch.
On of the things I never worried about were her words - Dear Alex has words for everything, and delights in learning new ones and trying them out. She knows the difference between "escalator! - we're going on the escalator" and "elevator!", and seems to delight in the naming of things - that's a game we've been playing for a long time - "Daddy what's this! - this! - this!"
A walk down the street will get you - "a shooooe store - a book! store - a bank - that's a big big bus!" (emphasis is from Dear Alex).
Language and the use of words has always been a fascination of mine, and it's such a delight to be able to see the learning process in real-time. When she calls for me in the night (as she still does) it's still usually the formless howl of "DaaaadyDaddydaaaady" - but once in a while it's "Daddy - come here please - come to my room please". I live for that, and for the day we can actually talk about her books - right now, it's something between a duty and a chore and a great pleasure to read with Dear Alex, as she insists on reading two books at a time - the one that you're theoretically reading to her, and one that she's hypothetically reading herself. It can be frustrating, but if you call her on it - "are you paying attention?" She'll say yes, then finish the line you were about to read. My own theory is that she's bored. She can't read yet - but really wants to figure out what those marks mean, and in the meantime just takes comfort in holding a book that she's memorized, as you read to her a book she already knows by heart.

So, what will tomorrow bring? A deep question - I sincerely hope that Dear Alex warms to the idea (which I've already introduced - good suggestion, Beautiful Wife) of meeting a new teacher like Miss Chrissy, and going to a New School! (Emphasis mine) She's excited, and we'll see if that excitement beats her always awkward first few minutes of reserve...

Day five - slow news day

2007-12-12T21:53:00.001-05:00

Dear Alex had another good day today, but for a two-year-old, there's really not much to it. She spent the morning happily recreating the New York Holiday traffic jam outside the window (pictures 1, 2 ), with her fleet of taxis and Thomas, then went to play gym and a play date that daddy skipped. "Have a good time, I'll see you later" - To Which Dear Alex replied "Daddy stay here!" - Indeed I do, and I will. The challenge isn't in the day-to-day stuff, especially with Nanny J around to absorb some of the the time-suck of reading, and reading and reading the same books over and over again (while Dear Alex reads her own book or two) and taking her outside and walking and walking - all things that I've done too, and dearly enjoy. It's that moment of silence and responsibility that happens the moment we see Nanny J downstairs and into the cold night. This evening, she decided to be fire-girl (picture 3) for a while, so what the heck. I'm glad she's still into that costume. It's kind of fun. Note the pink rain boots - she put them on herself. There was some talk of a visit from, and dinner with Grammy n' George, but it ended up being George who showed up for a while to be entertained by Dear Alex, We spent a fair amount of time sitting on the couch, and sitting in her room, just watching Dear Alex play. Her imagination, and her narratives about what she's doing are fascinating to watch. (Note to self: I think Tom is still in the microwave in the play kitchen - "don't get sick Thomas!") The kid's a wonder. We closed on a high note with Dear Alex doing an astonishing interpretive dance to "These are a few of my favorite things" ( I'm feeling we may have a little too much Julie Andrews going on...) , although she knows the words, she didn't sing for George. All in all, though, a good time was had by all - but we're going to have to do some work to put bedtime back where it belongs...

Day four - the whining

2007-12-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

Not Dear Alex, but daddy: Mommy come home!
Today was one of those perfectly forlorn, dreary mid-December days - cold, ended with spitting rain, not the sort of days that make for happiness and light, though Dear Alex was perfectly wonderful this morning, and we seem to have developed a routine that works for us pretty well. Once she's well and truly up, I go in and change her diaper and put her back in the crib, saying "daddy will be right back." Then I go finish making coffee and fetching the mandatory cup o' milk, and loiter in the kitchen a little bit to see how long it takes her to notice that I'm gone. Why? Because I can stay next to the baby monitor and listen to her talk to her awesome menagerie of crib-mates - It's pretty amazing. She doesn't make up stories so much as play back the things BW and I say to her, plus a few off-the-wall free association kind of things re-combined with bits of songs and books she's long since memorized. It's too random and stream of consciousness to even try to write down, but it involves Honey bunny, knuffle bunny, Tom, (her new name for Thomas the tank engine) Brother and Sister. "Watch out Sister, be careful Tom oooh haaa raindrops on roses round and round Brother!" Fun stuff.

In other news:
Today was a playdate day - So, two two-year-olds, two nannys from Trinidad, and two cats. The craziness I described the other day was multiplied exponentially - I was outnumbered six to one. All I could do was leave, as there was no way anything else was going to get done around the house for the rest of the day. The good news is that (as before) it all got cleaned up, and no one got hurt.

Dear Alex had her first bath since last Friday (Picture 1 - above) - after days of boycott, she actually said to me tonight "Bath daddy..." I was more than happy to oblige. That's her "smile for the camera" smile. She's getting better at it, I think. (Picture 2) We had a pretty good time picking out PJs, and hanging out with Brother and Sister, along with Tom and Honey and Knuffle - they seem to be back in rotation - we had a fun conversation about the nature of the two of them, who is who, and what they mean. She's certainly consistent with who's brother and who's sister, but she's not letting on about the why. (Picture 3 - above - from the archives
) I don't know why, but I'm fascinated by her relationship with Brother and Sister - it comes and goes, but it's consistent in it's tone and manner.

For a variety of reasons, today wasn't the best of days, but it does have one redeeming feature - we're one day closer to Beautiful Wifes' return.

Day three - wish I were there

2007-12-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

I could be talking about how much I wish I were in Vancouver with Beautiful wife, but that really goes without saying. Today was one of those dreary spitting rain generic mid-winter days, full of the knowledge that there's surely many more like this to come- grey, rain, cold, grey.
The real wish is that I could somehow get into the mind of Dear Alex, and tease out the threads of her amazing imagination. The free-association connections she makes and the other-worldly dimensions of her creativity alternately baffle, and inspire me. Even though Nanny J. returned today, I still spent a lot of time playing with and wondering at Dear Alex's playtime fun.
This morning started at the usual and merciful 8am, giving me time to actually be awake and aware at the good-morning-milk-coffee-diaper-change ritual. Dear Alex was dressed and ready to go for her ballet class, (picture 1 - yes, there's a tu-tu under that top) which unfortunately was called due to the fact the she was the only one that showed up - apparently there's something (conjunctivitis?) going around. So home she came, and spent the next hour or so chasing the cats around the house (picture 2 - under the table, in hot pursuit of Gracie). Somewhere along the line Dear Alex noticed te Ella-bella pie-eye didn't have a tail, so she decided to give her one - made from a sticker from a book that Grammy Bobbi gave her. It was fantastic to watch, and it's fortunate that neither of the cats are inclined to scratch. After Ella-bella pie-eye got tired of being chased while having stickers applied to her ass and departed the scene, Dear Alex decided that Gracie needed a new tail, so took up the chase with her - All of this accompianied by Alex repeating "here's a tail, here's a tail, here's a tail".
What prompted this, I have no idea, but it sure was fun to watch.
After tormenting the cats (in the nicest possible way), it was time to empty out the footstool, play all of the musical instruments contained therein - including something I've never heard before: A drum solo of the ABC song, complete from A to Z completely unprompted, uncoached, right down to the extended "meeeeee" at the end (picture 3 - banging atonally away). Nanny J was there, I have a witness.
Up next, (picture 4) Dear Alex Played 'Alex-in-the-box' for a while, talking to herself about "in here-out here up-down-out" Fun and all, but then it was naptime. To wrap this up, Dear Alex got a new friend today - a Thomas the Tank Engine to go with her 'trainshow', that she immediately fell in love with - inventing an elaborate stories involving the toy and conflating it with the few Thomas books she has, and other odd bits of things - when the thing came off the tracks she said "don't get sick Thomas, it's okay" (Picture 5 - Dear Alex comforting Thomas the Tank Engine) - then we made a tunnel for Thomas to sleep in, so as not to add yet another thing to her already over-crowded crib. We end (Picture 6 - Just before her hypothetical bedtime, expounding on her day) with Dear Alex, back in her box, talking about her day. I love this little girl, and I guess it's a tribute to BW that she's got such a fun, open sense of play that can take her from ballet to music to trains and tracks in a day - I'm sure we'll get to princess this and princess that eventually, but right now I'm rooting for the engineer.

Day two - Mayhem and chaos and sweetness and light

2007-12-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

It sounds more dramatic than it really is, but this was one of those days that I think exemplify the strange duality of life with a two year old. As Beautiful Wife is away, and nanny J. is off for the weekend I got to see the entire arc of the day, without interruption. Dear Alex started my day as usual with the 7am warning cry, where she simply wakes up screaming - then falls promptly back to sleep, leaving you a little dazed. I got up briefly, listened carefully for any further activity, and hearing nothing, chose to go back to sleep with the certain knowledge that it would not be for long. At 8 or 8:30 Dear Alex was up in full force - screaming "diaper, diaper!, poooopie diaperrrr"! That's the cry you really can't ignore. So, good morning my beautiful daughter - forgive me if I carry you at arms length to the changing table, but oh my, you are stinky. There is a certain delight in this, of course, because it's something that's easily fixed, and it certainly fosters a connection. There - I made that better, and got a great hug and wiped your butt and your sleepy-sweaty forehead to get those sleep-matted curls of hair off your face. Daddy made coffee, and a cup of milk, and the day got off to a slow start. That's something I've seen more of recently, this lazy morning thing with Dear Alex. She definitely did not want to do anything in particular, but wandered around the apartment in her PJs, flopping on the floor or furniture, usually with a book or two and her new "knuffle bunny" in the other.
We had breakfast, and read a lot of books and Dear Alex finally picked up some momentum - we got dressed, and finally her energy level soared. I was in a mood to clean - Dear Alex had a different agenda - wanton destruction. She went through the living room like a tornado, emptying boxes, pulling out books, and removing all of the cushions from the furniture. For a short while, I tried to keep up, picking up after the whirlwind - but I gave up, interested in seeing how it would play out. Awesome. Stuff everywhere. It seemed to satisfy her enough that she could simply throw herself down on the floor without any fear of injury, as there were cushions everywhere. (see pix above - I only wish I'd taken some wider shots of the devastation) This went on for a while, and I'd finally had enough - no anger, just a sure knowledge that it had to stop before someone (Dear Alex) got hurt. Without asking I chased her down, got her dressed to go out to howls of "no no noooooooo", and we went outside - no stroller, no diaper bag, no hassles, just a change of scene. It was great - Dear Alex instantly became the sweetest and cutest little girl in the world. We went to "the trainshow, the trainshow" the bookstore, and had a great time getting daddy coffee and Dear Alex a cup of milk. Today, we love Starbucks even more. We stopped at Ray Bari pizza for lunch (I love living in the city) By the time we got home, I'd completely forgotten about the mess that was waiting for me to clean... Dear Alex went down for her nap at 2:30, and the mess was gone by 3:00.
Note to self: It's very good to have a place for things, and to know where to put them.

Day one

2007-12-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

Dancing with the fire chief

Knuffle Bunny!

Brushing, brushing, brushing...

This begins another minor Lil'screamie blog-a-thon for Beautiful wife, who's lucky enough to be spending a week away in beautiful Vancouver, BC - our favorite city, and a place that holds a lot of power and fond memories for the both of us. I am, of course, jealous, and remember the wonderful arrival in the morning, and seeing the lights on Capilano as we drove in from the airport, disconnected in time and place from our world to find Douglas Coupland's "City of Glass". Altogether too beautiful to deny, too powerful in it's precious setting to not fall in love with, and not fall in love in - We really do have roots there.
Tonight was a sad one, with the realization on Dear Alex's part that mommie was really "gone away" - we spent an hour with the camera looking at pictures of Dear Alex and mommie, made a chart with stamps on it for how many days BW would be away, brushed our teeth, and went to bed late after a lot of hugs and reassurance that BW would indeed return, when we got to the last house on the chart. I miss you desperately already, BW - please find that energy that we found and bring some of it back. With love, anything is possible.

2007-11-17T16:26:00.000-05:00

Not a new picture, but from a beautiful day towards the end of October 2007 - Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex at play. It's one of my very favorites - a picture that sums up an awful lot of how it feels to be Daddy, and to live as we do these days.
Lil'screamie (the blog) was never abandoned - It's more as though it was allowed to lie fallow for a while as Daddy figured out a way to manage the sheer density of life and the progress of a spectacular child. There is an endless fascination in watching your own child grow, and how is it possible to share this magnificent intimacy? The truth is you can't - and I've really given up on the hope that this record, as evanescent as it is will capture the details of my new life's work. The only way forward, really, is to simply note the significant passages as one can, and hope for coherence later.
It seems that it will never be a narrative, but a series of snapshots that provide a little context and content - it turns out that there are no turning points, no real significant passages, just an endless and delightful parade of incidents and moment that demonstrate that the Dear Baby Alex has transitioned from infant to toddler to child seamlessly and without difficulty. And that's all you can ask for.

Snow. Tires. Responsibility.

2007-11-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

We had the chance to get away from the city this last weekend, and I was more than ready for it - It was October - a month of weekend plans and halloween parties and business that kept us in the city with it's own promise and delight, but this weekend away was surely needed. We left the city in a very light rain, the roads a little wet, and I drove with my usual caution, hoping to carry both Beautiful Wife and Dear Alex safely and surely to The Undisclosed Location. As we left the city up the FDR all seemed okay until I hit some spots of undrained water on the road - the car hopped a bit and slid side to side, so subtley that I think only I (with my hands on the wheel) felt it. Ahhh, hydroplaning, a little slower worked better. I'd felt a little oddness in the handling of the car before, but put it down to something else (an undiagnosed noise and un-fixed squeaking from the front end) and chose to ignore it. I forgot the most basic instinct that I've learned from years of motorcycles and flying - If it feels wrong, it probably is. If there is a problem it won't go away by itself, and the best thing to do is fix it now, before it hurts you. I write this to 'out myself' and remind myself to never take what seems like a little thing for granted. Don't ignore your instincts. It was all okay in the end, but getting to Dear Alex's house in the country had me so tense and 'clenched' that I ached the next day. Under other circumstances, it would have been a great drive - the girl, true to form, did not fall asleep, and felt compelled to comment on all that passed, drop things from her car seat, and whine for them, all while I'm hanging on for dear life - The drive was maddening, but eventually magical as the rain turned to snow - and Dear Alex calmed down, probably as mesmerized as I was by the large snowflakes streaming hypnotically past the windshield. We made it home without incident, and I had the gratifying moment of silence as we shut off the car and the snow fell silently in the headlights. Beautiful Wife took the girl upstairs and to bed, and all was right with the world. On Saturday morning, Dear Alex had a great time looking at, commenting on, and walking in the freshly fallen snow before we left to get a set of new tires for the car. We spent Saturday morning (I took the girl to give BW a break) at a 'Tire Center', and Dear Alex had a great time seeing the car up in the air without it's wheels and walking daddy endlessly around the parking lot and splashing in puddles. It made a world of difference - nothing wrong with the car - just needed tires, all around. This is not really a lilscreamie post, but more of a reminder to myself to not ignore the gut, especially when there's others involved. I've come a long way from when I could just get on a motorcycle, make it work, and get away without a care. It's an odd and humbling feeling, being ultimately responsible for a new person's life.

New girl in the house

2007-11-10T01:00:00.000-05:00

I've been busy not working lately - catching up, mostly on life and the things you put off while you're trying to find time in the daily work routine. One of the more important things that was on my list was to find a replacement kitty for Emma, my Manx cat that died way too young - Dear Alex missed her, and I surely did. I'd been looking and waiting since last February until I found a cat that seemed right, and bless the internet - and petfinder.com - there she was. It took a lot of email and some planning, but I'm happy to say that a new adopted Manx cat has a home, and feels right at home in her new place. She was adopted as 'Pepper' - a fine name, to be sure, but as she sang to me all the way home from New Jersey, and that I have a history of names with my cats, and that Dear Alex had a definite preference (When asked, the first choice was "Pie-Eye", then "Tik-Tik", her new names for everything) by parental fiat the name of choice is 'Ella', or occasionally 'Emma', depending on whether or not Dear Alex is paying attention. The names are interchangeable to her, and I guess that's okay for now. Ella's adjusted well and quickly to our routines, and her place in the household. After a few days of hissing, I think that Gracie (the other cat) has found a new friend just as she had with Emma. It is funny to me that Ella (or Pepper or Pie-Eye) has claimed Emma's favorite spot as her own, and is more or less open to the approaches of my sometimes less-than-gentle two-year-old. Many thanks to saracats@aol.com for helping make this happen. Adopt a cat.

Costume crazy

2007-11-06T00:26:00.001-05:00

Although Dear Alex was certain about the fireman costume she did have a lot of play with other bits and pieces of other outfits - we'll haunt her with this one for a long time...

A week of halloween

2007-10-31T23:55:00.000-04:00

It's finally over - an entire week of Halloween parties and festivities that have been by turns fun and funny and opressive and delightful. We gave Dear Alex plenty of choices when it came to Halloween costumes - she passed on the bunny, the ladybug, and the princess, and firmly let us know what she wanted to dress up as - a fireman. I'm not sure where it came from, but it was definitive. It may have come from the dress-up play at one of her classes, or maybe it was a visit to a fire company many months ago - I have to say that it was a good choice, a durable, wearable costume that looked pretty tough on a cute two-year-old. I liked her choice, and she did too - She wore the hat and coat around the house for days, and to at least four parties.
It's been dress-up time around here lately as Dear Alex has been trying out all sorts of combinations of clothes and costumes from her collection. She has an apron, and monster truck boots, and a poodle costume from last year, and a tu-tu that someone gave us when she was born - the combinations have been unintentionally hilarious and creative.

The fireman costume was something, though - It's very much as though she took it seriously. We made the occasion to take her for another visit to a firehouse, where she was warmly welcomed by a real fireman. (who was also impressed by her choice) Dear Alex got to see a real big red fire truck up close, see the lights and the steering wheel, and got to see what happens when a real emergency call comes in - the fun stopped, we stepped out, and they left in a hurry. I hope no one was hurt.

Goodnight moon

2007-10-22T00:58:00.000-04:00

I just watched a beautiful golden half-moon set over water, and wished that Dear Alex was awake to enjoy the view, to say a quiet 'goodnight moon' to the light in the sky that has held her attention since she was just a baby. (I know I've written about this before) It has something to do with my own fascination, being of an age that lets me remember being a child that got to stay up all night to witness man's first steps... Looking up tonight I thought about that, and what she'll see in her lifetime. It's positively humbling to be a parent, and to have hopes for an unknowable future. It's enough for me now to marvel at Dear Alex's memory, and the fact that we read 'goodnight moon' to her often enough that she can still recite the back cover from memory: "This classic bedtime story has lulled generations of children to sleep..."
Beautiful Wife added the clause " and you are my child, so I read it to you" and it stuck -
So from now until she knows better, every book ends that way.

Teriffic twos

2007-10-15T22:47:00.000-04:00

Dear Alex seems to grow a little bit every day, and so far (knocking firmly on real wood right now) there's been no sign of the dreaded "terrible twos". Honestly, she definitely has her toddler moments, and certainly has her share of obsessive behavior, but who among us doesn't? Of late, Dear Alex has been all about mommy, and can't seem to bear a moment without her, or without a careful explanation of where mommy is, and when she'll be back, and she seems to regard daddy as merely around to give her what she wants when she wants it - kind of like Beautiful Wife, now that I think about it. I mean that, of course, in the nicest possible way, in that there's very little I wouldn't do for either of them - it's an extraordinarily happy and easy time and Alex has an astonishing ability to hypnotize and / or charm you into forgetting the whining and crying and (so I've heard) two-year-old behavior by breaking into song, reciting words from favorite books, or breaking out into the most amazing and unintelligible stories of something she's done or wants to do. It's a great time figuring out what the heck she's talking about.
I'm impressed mostly by how many words she has, and the odd things (songs, stories and games - including the entire back cover from "goodnight moon", and all the words to "The wheels on the bus...") from the dim dark past of months ago that she remembers.
Another great delight of late has been her ability to express what she wants and what she's feeling - this is not something that she's completely mastered by any stretch, but it's been great to be able to hear and act on "Alex hungry, Alex tired, Alex go for a walk outside" - at least you know what she needs, and can help. That's what I'm here for.

Best toy ever

2007-10-12T15:56:00.001-04:00

From Dear Aunt Linda: The magna doodle. I'm thinking of getting a few more of them for Beautiful Wife and I to play with, as well as one to keep in the car, one for the house and one for the city, and maybe one as a spare. Dear Alex loves it, and has a great time endlessly making dashed off expressionist gesture drawings, then making them disappear. No batteries, no mess, just quick gratification. Dear Alex likes to sit with daddy and make me draw things for her to erase. She gets wierdly specific about what to draw and where - then takes great joy in erasing it, and making me do it again. Forget the producer thing - she's got the makings of an advertising Creative Director.

Three years ago today

2007-09-12T11:38:00.000-04:00

Beautiful Wife became Beautiful Wife. Though there have been many changes in our busy lives over the last three years, one constant remains: I'm still a lucky, lucky man.

Post Office

2007-08-31T23:41:00.000-04:00

A couple of horribly (yet delightfully) blurry images of
Dear Alex in motion on her new favorite thing.

We live a couple of blocks from a really grand post office - the kind of thing the government built when mail was king. A vast space with marble floors, high ceilings, banks of P.O. boxes and best of all a two-story open lobby with working escalators. It's a public space, and of late Dear Alex and I have been going to the post office every day to go in the "door that goes round and round and ride the moving steps up and down. okay!" I can't take credit for discovering this marvel - Beautiful Wife took her here on a real postal-related mission, and it kind of blew Dear Alex's mind - I'm not sure what it is, but she dearly loves her "eskalaterrr - moving stepss". Of course writing it does no justice to the delight of listening to her get the word "escalator" out. A couple of days ago, Dear Alex came to me when I got home from work to ask if we could go outside and walk to the post office, go in the revolving door and ride the escalators up and down. It made me stop for a moment - she'd made a pretty completely thought out plan of what she wanted to do, found the right words, and asked to do it. I'm impressed, and more than happy to oblige. This is the stuff I live for right now - being able to understand what Dear Alex wants, and give it to her. I'm quite sure that there will be a time when those requests will be more complicated and less charming, but for now it's a lot of fun.

Happy birthday Dear Alex

2007-08-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

...Happy birthday to you. Two years ago today Dear Alex came into the world a week or so early and perfect. The world is a much happier place with the kid in it, and it's enough to note that she seems to be having a lot of fun.