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07/31/2006
Super-Size Me
I’m fat.
I pretty much always have been. Here’s the irony: I eat really well. I’m not kidding. I have a very healthy diet. My problem is alcohol, and the various forms by which it enters my body.
My alcohol related caloric intake is probably enough to sustain a family of four. But I recently read a post on Creative Type Dads that got me thinking about diet, and The Pickle.
I’ve watched Super Size Me, and I was horrified. I know that both my family and the wife’s have a social and genetic disposition to be ‘big boned’.
This issue is one that I haven’t put a lot of thought into, as I have generally regarded society’s infatuation with weight to be greatly over emphasized. I think Twiggy ruined nature’s concept of beauty.
For centuries mankind viewed a plump, ‘Rubenesque’ woman to be the picture of health, fertility, and beauty – and so have I. For many years I kept my subscription to Xlgirls.com (I'll refrain from linking that one) paid up, and have found the sight of a woman’s rib cage to be one of my top turn-offs in life.
Health and Athleticism are not equal to Weight.
Let me say that again. . .
Health and Athleticism are not equal to Weight.
They can be inter-related - but correlation is not causation, and the number of old fat French people should be the biggest clue that culturally we’re betting on the wrong horse.
I want The Pickle to have a healthy, happy, long life with her self-esteem built on a separate standard than the inaccurate picture of beauty and health that the media has marketed. This is the image that has been created because it is the impossible dream. It ensures a returning consumer base that will always be dissatisfied with where they are in relation to the ideal.
As long as we believe that this is what we’re supposed to look like – they will be able to sell their products.
Don’t get me wrong. America has the largest percentage of out of shape, fat, unhealthy eaters that the world may have ever seen, but to compare Roseanne to Calista Flockhart isn’t really fair.
The enemy should be McDonalds and KFC, not bread and pasta.
As much as I think “Honey We’re Killing the Kids” is an accurate portrayal of a large and serious issue in this country – I don’t know if scare tactics are the way to go.
Health should be the goal. Not Image.
I am certain that as The Pickle becomes mobile we will regulate her diet, and create a regimented system of activity – but I assure you we will go out of our way to keep from telling her, “you should look like . . .”
I guess I’m just trying to keep all aspects of the marketing machine out of our lives. I simultaneously want to keep the garbage food and lump creating entertainment industry out of her circle of influence while helping to make sure that her self-image and ideals are built on a realistic basis as well.
I suppose that is too much to ask.
I don’t know. It doesn’t help that both the wife and I are overweight. I am not sure on this one, but ironically it isn’t that big of an issue for me. I guess for me it all boils down to her health and self-image.
Watch her end up being anorexic . . . That’s parenthood.
Pickle’s Papa
11:28 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
07/28/2006
On Racism
We all have our prejudices. Some are created through personal experience, and others are built through paranoid ignorance.
I have managed to avoid the biggies of my generation and make-up. I have a true heart-felt respect and empathy for the Black Man, Muslim, Oriental and Jew.
Where I fail is my gut reaction and perspective on the Hispanic culture as a whole.
What I would like to clear up, right off the bat, is that I don’t necessarily think that my prejudice is wholly accurate or truly justified. It is, however, how I feel inside when I see the behavior of the Hispanics that are most evident in my environment.
We all fear what we don’t understand, and I don’t get it.
My father loathed his father’s prejudice. My grandfather hated all “Ni**ers, Jews, and Camel Jockeys.” My father worked very hard to make sure that my brother and I judged each person on the merits of their own actions, with no preconception of nature based on religion, or color of skin.
I bought it, and time after time he has been proven right. Almost every injustice that has been done to me in my lifetime - has been done by a White Christian Male.
I want my daughter to judge men, and women of course, on the same scale. I want her to see that each person is as capable of good, bad, or the cruelty of indifference on equal ground. True, there are varying socio-economic barriers that every person must conquer to get to that equal playing field, but nature and will are not predetermined by color or creed.
These are the prejudices of ignorance.
Mine is unfortunately a learned behavior. I do not know why karma has chosen to expose me to the sects of Hispanic culture that it has in the order and way in which I have been – but the end effect is a very low opinion of the nature and positive attributes of the culture.
Here is the overview:
My neighborhood is adjacent to Cleveland’s largest poor urban Hispanic community.
I have never known an educated Latino.
Over 50% of all Latinos I have known are criminals or liars.
My only general contact with Hispanics are the wandering youths in my neighborhood that harass women, children, dogs, me . . . in public places and convenience stores.
When driving to the highway all I see is teenage mothers and entire families on front porches at 1:00 in the afternoon.
This is what I see. It makes me distrustful, and it has created a very negative stereotype.
How do I hide this, or guide The Pickle in such a way as to not carry my perspective with her? Or do I chose to not hide my preconception and let her resent me the way I know she will when she plays out her own personal ‘West Side Story’.
I would like, most of all, for my opinion to change – but short of that I don’t know how to approach this. My primary flaw is my core indecision of what I want my desired result to be.
In the ideal world my goal should be to make sure that my daughter is happy and comfortable in her environment. We have no plans of moving anytime soon - so I need to make sure that The Pickle is open and accepting of other children as she is introduced to them in the various ways (i.e. daycare, playing in the park, carjacking . . . ) over the next several years.
My true fear is that I am not going to get over it. She is going to rebel as a teenager by running into the arms of some Teenage Latino Hood, and I am never going to see my daughter again – just so she can prove how ignorant I am.
What I am hoping will happen is that I will meet some nice Hispanic people that I like, relate to, and respect - that will change the way we all see each other, and maybe someday make me happy to accept their son as my son-in-law.
Pickle’s Papa
15:48 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
07/27/2006
Fooling the Aristocracy
I am a professional actor. I have a gift.
For years I did what I have come to express as, “running from my own personal trailer park.” As I became more educated and exposed to the various strata of society I became immensely insecure about my own behavior and knowledge.
To compensate for this I studied the behavior of the elite. I spent four years driving a limo while my acting career was getting started studying the way they, and every level of ‘wanna be’, interacted with each other.
I befriended several people of 'trust fund descent' along the way to show that I wasn’t just a court jester, but had the potential to become a Homer; that I too had the potential to be allowed to step out of my meager upbringing into the privileged class.
The truth is that I would sooner cut my penis off with a broken bottle of Glenlivet than have to play that game on a daily basis.
When I learned how to speak without saying and order the next round on me - I discovered the horrible fact of the dehumanization of culture. I have been given a glorious gift by my parents: the barbaric yawp.
At some point I came to a prophetic acceptance of self, and a surreal understanding that I have something that none of them can buy – a sense of peace, or at leats that's what I tell myself while balancing my checking account.
A former board member of my company, who worked in the Carter administration, told me a very funny story, which hinged on the punch line of, “just look them in the eyes like you know that they don’t belong here either.”
Since that period I have had a great deal of fun toying with the models of those I come into contact with. Somehow I have repeatedly found myself in circles and environments that expose me to situations where ‘the game’ is in full effect.
I have traveled Europe, and most all the major playgrounds of the US. I enjoy breaking the mold. Not in the Rodney Dangerfield ‘Caddyshack’ extreme, but in the subtlety of stepping in and out of the rules.
I can discuss any subject intelligently: art, politics, business, music, literature, history, you name it . . . I know it. I can also drop cuttingly rude and offensive witticisms in ways that would make Oscar Wilde blush.
This week we went going to Hilton Head. There are some rich people there.
It is my first emersion in elitism since becoming a father, and I wonder what my instinctive reaction will be. Will I blend in, or toy with the system?
I know that my relationship with society will be a great factor in the development of The Pickle’s identity. I want her to be comfortable in whatever social situations she will eventually find herself in.
One of the things my father did to me as a child in preparation for socialization was to embarrass me in every possible social situation. Whether consciously or not he went out of his way to break people out of their routines. He would flirt with waitresses while sitting at the table with wife and kids. He would tell raunchy jokes at the most inappropriate moments.
I still can’t figure out if this tactic worked for me or not. I know I was miserable then. But I don’t think he thought about whether or not it would make me more comfortable or not, and as I have gotten older I now know your comfort in public is most determined by your comfort with self.
He’s the real question – Was it for my benefit at all, or was it my dad just being my dad? I have a funny feeling he wasn’t doing it for me at all, but for him and the waitresses.
The same shit I do – at a different level, but for the same effect. We both like to drop the turd in the punchbowl; in spite of the fact that we know better.
So who knows if The Pickle will be a consideration as I venture forth into taking her into the valley of the shadow of civility, but I do know it matters - which I think is more than my father did.
And if you’re in Hilton Head this week, I’m the one with the white socks in "Prata" slippers (thank you MD) wearing the Whitesnake T-shirt. (and I don’t even like Whitesnake)
Pickle’s Papa
23:49 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
07/21/2006
Getting Myself in Trouble
For those of you who don’t know - my wife blogs too. Actually she has been at it a lot longer than I. She discovered it when looking for support during our extended period of attempting to have a child, and fearing infertility.
That worked out OK.
The thing is, she never wanted me to read her blog. It was her way of venting and complaining with impunity from those around her. Which I dig.
When I began blogging - everything changed, because I am an attention whore. I needed not only everyone online to read me, but her as well.
She has taken more of my approach as time has gone on and we have lost one of the most important aspects of blogging – the ability to bitch about those closest to you (i.e. each other).
The other day we decided that we were both going to write posts complaining about how the other is as a parent. This is to be done without fear of repercussions. The key is that we both, on the whole, feel the other is an amazing parent – but as long as its been over a year since I’ve seen my therapist, it would just be tacky to show up and bitch about my wife for an hour and leave him again.
So here it is. I am now going to complain about the wife.
P.S. – if you would like to read about my inadequacies please visit her site: Urban Drool.
------------------------------------------
I must say that my wife has been nothing but astonishing with The Pickle so far, and most all of the things I will be venting are my pent up paranoia and frustrations about her family.
We all turn into our parents, whether we like it or not – and I cannot stand my mother-in-law. I get sick to my stomach every time The Wife exhibits behavior that resembles her mother.
The biggest reason that I disapprove of her mother, as a parent, is that she had children for her benefit - not theirs. Instead of a family, she seemed to want a staff. I have shared enough on this site to let everyone recognize how twisted my home life was as a child, and I hear stories of what this woman did to manipulate her children and my skin crawls.
She ignores the actual needs of everyone around her, and gives both affection and gifts indiscriminately without any regard for what the people in her life are actually needing or even begging for.
It’s as if she lives in a bubble and thinks of what people would want or need instead of actually paying attention the signals and signs that they are giving. This is not to say that she does not give. She gives constantly.
And she expects results from those gifts. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to spend the day at their house because her mother did something for us. I feel like I’m being rented.
She cooks enough food for fifty people and wants you to take it home, or she shows up to baby-sit with a bunch of food that no one will eat. Then I end up feeling guilty for throwing it away after it has been rotting in my fridge for 2 weeks.
I told her to stop bringing food to my house, because I couldn’t take the guilt anymore. That went over well.
The Wife is by no means her mother . . . yet, but if there is one aspect of The Wife’s familial behavior that I want to weed out in this generation it is this.
My wife is a giving human being and I don’t ever want her to stop that, but I want to make sure that she does not use it as a tool for control – and I want to help ensure that she is giving what is actually needed.
My wife is not the most observant of people. She's just not. That is not meant as an insult - just a fact. Our daughter is a subtle dance of information and I am worried that The Wife will miss the guiding signals of what it is that she needs.
This is somewhat unfair because I spend so much more time with The Pickle than her and have gotten to know her signals considerably better, but what concerns me so far is the wife’s jumping to conclusions. (Get it? Jump . . . To Conclusions)
My wife has a certain automatic reaction to The Pickle showing signs of distress without ever actually taking the time to interact with her to discern what is really causing the issue. There is also the fact that when my wife is tired – The Pickle needs to go sleep. Finally is ‘the swaddle factor’.
The Wife still swaddles The Pickle to nurse her and put her to sleep. The Pickle is now at an age where she needs to learn control of her limbs. By consistently swaddling her we are laying the foundation psychologically for us assuming the control and responsibility of her actions.
Every behavior at this age is a building block on which all other behaviors are built, and the most insignificant of interactions can lead to a lifetime of assumed roles. The Wife professes that she gets too distracted when she is not swaddled. I believe that The Wife just doesn’t want to put forth the effort to wean her into self-control.
These are the basic signals that worry me about the wife and what her environment has led her to believe is acceptable parent/child roles. The problem with these behaviors is that they are not conscious, and I certainly can’t say something every time I see it occurring (not if I intend to continue to live here).
But what can I do to express my fear of these behaviors? I know that we must come to a compromise about how we approach satisfying The Pickle’s needs, as well as the interaction and reciprocation of those needs in a healthy parent/child relationship.
The Wife has many issues regarding communication. For some reason as a child she learned that the only way to get attention was to talk constantly. In my mind this shows an environment, which didn’t listen.
I want The Pickle to trust that if she expresses a need – it will be met, or at least she will be given a reasonable explanation as to why it is not going to be met.
I am worried from The Wife’s initial reactions and interactions with our daughter that she is going to have a natural tendency to fall into her familial traps of ignoring the actual need and substitute a barrage of other ‘gifts’ just to make the noise stop.
I do not know how to make the wife recognize these behaviors, or even if she will find them negative – or for that matter if they will even ever fully manifest themselves. But I've done what I needed to do - state my fears, and used my blog for what it was for. Getting myself in Trouble.
Pickle’s Papa
08:36 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (7) | Email this
07/20/2006
Pickle's Paparazzi
Hi.
So this is cool. For those of you who cant tell - I am not a great photographer. Our friends and neighbors of several doors down (David and Judy), really just Judy - is.
She has, since the birth of The Pickle, taken to photoing da squdge on a fairly regular basis. Firstly - they have a good internet connection so they can upload photos quickly. Secondly - they take much better pics than the wife and I. Thirdly - Judy wants to do it.
What I am saying is that Judy has decided to manage an online photo album of cool Pickle Pics.
She suggested it and thought that a cool name would be Pickle's Paparaszzi (which is funny). . . so there you go.
I have created the site for her and have made the link available on this blog (up right). I know that she has a life and all, so it may not be up and running tomorrow - but I know her breed of OCD will come through for us all.
THANK YOU JUDY!!!!
18:36 Posted in Pickle News | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Random Thoughts
Here are some general notes and realizations that I would like to pass on. Each of these is very important, however as I have accumulated them – none has been worth a complete post on their own.
·If I were still single, I would borrow babies to pick up chicks.
·Only babies can smile innocently while peeing on you, and I don’t want to talk about my point of reference.
·You never feel good about the job you’re doing, but occasionally they let you not feel bad.
·Everybody knows the right thing to do with a baby, child, or mother-in-law.
·Never buy into any routine; she’s waiting for you to make the assumption – to change the groove.
·Sweet Potato encrusted eyebrows make you feel like a loser in public. . . it was dark in the house and I ended up having to do the ‘lick the thumb’ scrape in the park just praying nobody saw her orange Frankenbrow.
·Don’t tell anybody how good she is until the end of the visit or she will prove you wrong.
·A crying baby can get you out of any conversation.
·Bribing grandmothers with baby time can get them to sell crack for you.
·Vomit is a state of mind. If you don’t believe its bad – it’s not.
·All chores and meals are optional upon the signed written consent of The Pickle and her sub-personalities. They are the seven dwarves of hell – cranky, bitchy, cryee, bouceed, poopy, tired, and where’s mom?
·Any parent with a child older than yours can make you feel immediately insecure with the phrase, “Oh, you do (that) . . . we always did (this).” Because you cannot help but second-guess your own judgment or the advice of your pediatrician.
·People without kids think you’re a freak – unless they’re trying to have them or gay.
·Old people feel sorry for you.
·Other parents think you have it easy.
·Every Day is one you’ll never have back again.
·She’s only going to do something for the first time once, and the ones that come when she’s older – you don’t really want to be there for.
·The only thing better than naptime is when she loves you and is playful.
·There is nothing in the world like the sparkle in her eyes when she smiles.
·And I don’t want to go back to work.
Pickle’s Papa
12:09 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
07/18/2006
Guidance Systems
Guiding your child has historically not just been the job of the two people, but the overall responsibility of that child’s family and community as a whole. It has historically been a major function and value of our communities.
This is no longer the case. As mankind has developed mass communication, job-jumping, and the transient nature of ‘home’ - we no longer see this as a recognizable asset of community as we are no longer bonded to our communities as strongly as we once were.
We have a whole new world of community to replace these former systems. I have a community of fellow daddy-bloggers. I have a community of colleagues. Most people have a community of fellow congregation members.
But we are no longer tied to these communities as we once were. There was a time when if you didn’t agree with what you heard – you couldn’t just pick up your marbles and go. You were stuck there. But more importantly, the combined value system of the group helped to inform and guide the development of a child brought into these communities – whether you wanted it to or not.
Nowadays when you disagree with the people around you, you simply find a new group of people to surround yourself with.
It’s that easy, but what are we losing by removing the voice of community?
This lost relationship between child and community has different purposes at different stages of development. The points where I think it had the most value and is now missing in the biggest way is in the ability to have a trusted adult, non-parental voice in the age of teenage-rebellion.
My in-laws were brilliant at this, and I hope that my wife will be able to find and guide a similar scenario in our home.
My wife essentially grew up in the theatre. Her parents met doing a community theatre production in the mid-sixties and have spent the last forty years amassing a collective resume of thousands of shows. There was one company in which they were particularly active. At this theatre for most rehearsals and performances - there was a crib sitting in the green room where my wife and her sister were joyously entertained by actors and run-crew between shifts and scenes.
I cannot imagine a better way to learn about the nuts and bolts of life than sitting backstage at a theatre. It’s like life in purgatory. All you see is the preparation and stress.
The other side of this is that throughout the years she was able to develop individual relationships with grown-ups outside of the influence and control of her parents. In the circle of a community theatre, or any community for that matter – you find that it is essentially the same group of people that you end up being around for years on end.
This is a community, and in my wife’s case – as she grew older and hit the point where she no longer trusted the opinions of her parents these people functioned as such in the traditional sense.
I want The Pickle to have people that she can trust enough to go to, with the stuff she can’t talk to us about, that I know will give her sound, informed, and caring advice. It is a very important part of growing up, and I want to make sure that we expose her to a wide array of trustworthy and intelligent people that will be our community as she grows up and out of our control.
My wife and I are very lucky that neither one of us were ever molested, abducted or anything of the like. Maybe we are the minority. I don’t know, but I hope that we have the appropriate judge of character when exposing The Pickle to any potential adult role-models.
I know that it is a horrible thing to think of, but I think that a great deal of the way that these relationships are initiated and managed will help to ensure that she is exposed to people in a safe way. Because it is also the job of community to protect its young from it’s own darker sides. If we are able to find healthy group situations then these groups will also act to police themselves and guide healthy non-parental adult/child relationships.
I don’t know how many children are molested. It seemed as though it was every other girl I dated in college, and as much as I have historically professed to deny the dangers of the world – I am not stupid enough to not recognize that it is a legitimate fear of parenthood.
My goal, in this regard, is to protect her without creating a sense of fear of men or society in general.
In this situation I have to trust in the nature and purpose of community. When most children become teenagers they stop hearing their parent’s words and more than anything need informed and caring adults already established as trusted icons that can help guide them through those rough years.Who knows where these people will come from that will help guide the choices of our children.
I was lucky enough to have had great teachers that helped instill goals and dreams for adulthood.
It is a wide variety of factors that help built the influence of community, and we have to start working on how we expose our children to our communities now - if we ever hope to fool them into believing that these people aren’t just telling them what we want them to hear. The last important factor in this is that we need to help to foster these relationships at an early enough age to ensure the her trust of people that we trust will be a good influence.
I know that this is unlikely, but it did work for my in-laws – and day-by-day I am slowly learning to steal every bit of positive parenting from every potential source I can.
I am not sure how this is really going to play out for us, but my goal is to find a group of people, whom I trust, to help be there for my daughter when she needs advice – and feels she cant come to us.
Pickle’s Papa
19:22 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
07/16/2006
How much is too much?
One of my early goals with The Pickle has been to make sure that she is a functional social creature, and what I am starting to worry about is that what I am truly doing is laying the groundwork for her to be a trampy urban socialite.
See, recently I was thinking about how good of a job we have done at making sure that The Pickle has been exposed to safe, engaging and cultured social situations. What I discovered in looking at this was that she in fact has had more of an intense social calendar than most club-hopping suburban trailer-trash ‘hoochie-mamas’ trying to disprove that “this is too much eye-liner.”
My daughter is 5 months old, and so far she has been in more restaurants, bars (classy wine bar for friend’s birthday), zoos, parks, parties, plays (including 2 musicals), and general social encounters than I had by the time I was in college. She had her first meal (mushed up slices of Avocado) at Cleveland’s top Japanese restaurant and sushi bar, and this is what began my quandary.
One of the general rules of parenthood is that we all screw up our kids in an equal and opposite reactionary fashion from the way that our parents screwed us up. I want to make sure that I am not overcompensating for my lack of socialization by submerging her in society to a level that she loses the opportunity for individual introspection and creation of her own identity separate from the people she is surrounded by.
Here’s the problem. Because I had no socialization as a child – I don’t know what is actually appropriate. I thought I would be able to gauge from her reactions to the situations that we put her in, but so far she has shown no sign of anything resembling a desire to not embrace people.
This weekend she went to the opening of a local production of Little Shop of Horrors, and the backstage reception afterwards to hang out with the cast and such (you know, normal 5 month old behavior). You would think that at some point the child would have shown some signs of sensory overload or ‘maxing out on people’. I know I would, but she didn’t. Matter of fact she was the biggest flirt in the place and ate up every bit of attention that was thrown at her.
I don’t know if this is a positive or not. I am very proud of the fact that we, as parents, have done a good enough job of satisfying her base needs to create the foundation for her to trust her environment and people in general, but at what point is that a liability?
Everyone in the world isn’t always going to have her best needs in mind. Nor are they all going to be there to support and care for her. Matter of fact, someday someone will want to actually do her harm in one-way or another.
Am I creating a sacrificial lamb by teaching her that people are OK?
I am moderately nervous about this, but on the other hand (if you’ve read any of my previous posts you’re aware of this) I do not want my daughter to ‘fear’ her environment.
The problem is how to teach discretion without instilling fear. I want her to be comfortable with herself and the world, and yet still have an understanding of the darker nature of man. I know that somewhere, somehow someone will hurt my daughter. Be it schoolgirls playing favorites, a teenage boy who breaks her heart, or even something much more malicious and horrific. There is going to be psychological and perhaps even physical damage done by people.
How can one prevent this without removing your child from the world?
I hate to say it, but I actually trust that people will do the work for me. You see, in every aspect of human behavior I believe that our duality and balance of nature is evident. I hope that she will see the flaws in the day-to-day behavior of people and be able to extrapolate that idea inherently to the understanding that people as a whole are not necessarily to be trusted at their word in all situations.
I know that this is a lot to expect, but I think the leap isn’t as impossible as one would initially assume. Especially when it is almost impossible to eliminate the news from our lives. I think that expressing the fact that some people do bad things is a lot more relevant than expressing that there are bad people in the world.
I am a firm believer that under the right circumstances we are all capable of acts that we would normally find reprehensible, and finding ways to express that idea to my child as a way of judging others behavior and evaluating potential risk in social situations will be one of the key tasks I will need to address in her safety as she ventures out into the bestial world of uncivilized society.
The other key aspect of over stimulated societal contact is that of value placement. For the most part, society as a whole puts way too much emphasis on physical appearance. I want to make sure that The Pickle understands that her value to society, a man, and her family is a much more complicated and difficult creature than simply her ability to highlight her cheekbones or manipulate boys through flirtation. It is also very important for me to convey the idea that her worth is not related to her dress size or how similar she looks to whatever the icon of the day is.
I know that these two ideas are working in opposition to the overall message that I will be submerging her in by constant contact with society, but I am fairly certain that children learn more by what you do than what you say, and I know that her mother and I will teach her what is important by reinforcing appropriately, and guiding her through the barbed wire of social behavior as best we can in preparation for the inevitable threats to her ego and well-being that are so unavoidable in this world we live in.
Every generation is an experiment built on a mistake, and like all those ahead of us we will strive to build the perfect human as best we can. To all those who are on the same path of misguided parenthood I wish you luck as well, and I will be sure to let you know what I’m screwing up along the way.
Thanks for listening.
Pickle’s Papa
22:07 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
07/14/2006
Carrots Anyone?
Recently I was hanging out with Mya's Mommy, Mya, and Ryan. During the visit I had such a horrific poop experience that I must make an immediate addition to my online catalogue of vileness.
The Pickle was in Mya's swing when she expressed her desire to no longer be in the swing - I picked her up.
What happened next was bad.
Apparently the poop (because yes, there was poop) had found a way to completely bypass both diaper and onesy, but stick to her leg - just long enough for me to pick her up and cradle her butt. At which point - I ended up with a handful of shit. Her first carrot shit - in my hand.
Now this is primarily my fault. To quote Ryan, "I was worried when I saw your daughter in those hot pants."
See, several months ago I begged to have a couple of nice onesies that actually fit her at the time. For some reason everyone gave us clothes for 6 month olds with the idea that she would soon outgrow anything for either 0-3 or 3-6 M. Well, the problem with that theory is that I spent the first two months of her life calming her crying fit as I attempted to put one leg back into the pajama leg it was supposed to be in - instead of the one where both legs had ended up.
To alleviate this, I begged Mya's Mommy and my mom one day when we were group shopping at The Disney Store for some cute onesies for 0-3 M. To show my appreciation and the value of these outfits - I have continued to dress her in them well past the reasonable point where they actually fit.
Thus the 'hot pant' reference. Well, as she sat in the swing - she had apparently maneuvered her anus in such a fashion to completely circumvent the restraint any diaper or 'hot pant' would put on her impending poopage.
This is when she made launch.
What confuses me is how the poop could stick only momentary to her leg. Because the instant I touched her it immediately released into my open palm. All of it. I had a handful. My screams of horror were heard in the kitchen where the grown-ups were, and Ryan was sent to help - despite his silent protestations.
He held The Pickle, in the classic Nicolas Cage, Raising Arizona, arms out, head turned away fashion whilst I got myself into a capacity to be able to clean up the pickle (i.e. scraped the poop off my hand).
I then had to instruct Ryan as to which way to turn the baby so that I could wet wipe her down to the point where we could remove her hot pants. The reason I had to give directions is that Ryan refused to look anywhere near The Pickle or her orange stained legs.
This was problematic.
When we finally got her onto the changing pad and freed her of her Daisy Dukes - There was not an ounce of poop in her Diady.
And this, Ladies and Gentlemen just goes to show - If you dress your daughter like a whore . . . you're gonna end up with a handful of shit in public.
Pickle's Papa
09:03 Posted in Pickle Icky | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
07/13/2006
Is That Peanut Butter?
It is amazing the things that we, as civilized creatures, will do (and touch) in order to perform our parental duties of ‘warm, safe, and dry.’
The reason I point this out is that we fulfill these obligations - being well aware that our little angels will eventually be teenagers, and that they will swear that they hate us - and wish that they had never been born. We all know that this will happen. We did it ourselves, and have heard the warnings of all parents that have trudged onward on the path before.
We, in this first generation of blogging parents, have a unique opportunity to completely catalogue and submerge our children in the overwhelming amount of information and proof that we did in fact do our best, and despite how screwed up our kids may end up being – maybe it wasn’t our fault.
With that being said, I would now like to record several things that have happened between my daughter and I which I hope to utilize later on in her life when she is just way too cool to be seen in public with her parents, or just too grown up to listen to what we have to say.
My father was a genius at this, and I have perhaps the best ever being put in your place story that has ever been told.
When I was a junior in college I was home visiting and was getting ready to go out clubbing with some friends from high school. I hung out in a fairly intense electro-goth circle of friends, which meant that there was more leather and hair resembling palm trees meandering about the kitchen as we were headed out the door than one could readily imagine.
So we were headed out the door, me and all my punk rock friends. Now I swear it just happened to strike me at that moment how short my father is (5’5”), and it was really the first time I noticed that I was taller than him.
I said, “wow dad, you’re getting pretty short.” And then in front of all of my friends he looks at me and says, “yeah, you’re gettin’ pretty big for comin’ out the end of my dick. . . ”
That folks, is what you call a show-stopper.
I don’t think I have ever fully recovered from that moment.
The key is, no matter how much you grow up in life there are certain unquestionable trump cards every parent has, and we as bloggers have the ultimate opportunity to not let those slide.
For me, aside from some diapers that have made me question whether my daughter is digesting food or just holding it for some strange fermentation process, I have one moment which will always illuminate just how far you’ll go to take care of your child.
The first week The Pickle was alive The Wife was bedridden, and it was my job to facilitate the care of baby and mom (shuttling baby to and from mom and food to and from mom)– as well as changing all diapers.
The first day or so, as all parents will attest wasn’t so bad. The poop was a sticky tar-like substance that was pretty easy to manage. The weird thing that happened was that the nurse said that there would also be a slime-like substance that was in her vagina that needed to work its way out before she could really urinate.
So this was my first parental job. When I went to wipe my daughter on the second day of her life I discovered a vile substance that can only be compared to the slime from ‘You Cant Do That On Television” or what you’d get in the little plastic eggs at the grocery store. What really made it bad was that it seemed to be spot-welded to her skin, and the more I collected the more started to appear until I am bear handedly pulling slime out of my daughter like a booger on a rubber band. When you get a booger like that you expect there to be a red tip on it from the spot it was attached to your lung, but I was terrified that if I saw a red tip it would be the start of her first period.
‘This is fatherhood’ was my first realization. I was sleep deprived, and traumatized from the worst labor ever.
This is what I plan to bring up when she tells me I never put her needs ahead of mine – because folks, I really needed to not do that.
Yet someday - she will not believe I have her best interests in mind when I tell her she cant ride on a motorcycle, or shoot heroin into her eye, or god forbid join the cheerleading squad. I need to make sure that I have enough guilt creating fodder to ensure that she will never . . . Wait a second this is starting to sound all too familiar.
Maybe that’s not the way to prove that I love her. Maybe its just by loving her despite how much of a psychotic teenager she becomes.
Not that I’m going to give up keeping track of all of the fowl shit that I have to do – but maybe I’ll just use it to show her how responsible you have to be, to be a parent . . . and that will keep her off motorcycles.
Pickle’s Papa
13:21 Posted in Pickle Icky | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
07/12/2006
Gone Fishin'
And yet again I’m ripping off Denver Dad to write a post after he’s already touched on the subject – here’s my justification . . . he only suggested the idea of this, and I’m going to tell a personal story about my own . . . OH, Nevermind.
The general idea is that it is important to try to have a life outside of being a parent.
Denver Dad’s point was that being a happier/healthier human will make you a happier/healthier parent. Now the way that I got to ‘my time’ – was actually in an effort to make The Wife a happier/healthier person.
The Pickle is starting to develop relationships. It is obvious to me – who is trapped alone with her 10 hours a day that she is starting to form bonds – at least with me, and Mr Crinkle Cow. As the wife is at work all week I thought it was very important to schedule alone time with mommy. This would help to develop their trust and relationship.
Why would one need to schedule this you may ask? Because every weekend since this child was born has been a whirlwind of social events – running from here to there and being juggled between here, there and dozens of adoring fans.
The Wife and The Pickle are never alone together. Even when I was in school it always turned into a time for people to come visit or take the two of them out, and I think that this is important.
On my end - since The Pickle has come home, and The Wife has gone to work - I haven’t really had any time that was truly ‘Mine’ . . . unless you count locking yourself in a library for two weeks to produce 120 professionally written pages ‘a break’. I don’t, but we've all got a different strain of masochistic pleasure. So run with it. You be you.
So in planning my Saturday, I looked back into the excursions of my youthful free days (all those months ago), and although the season is wrong I could think of nothing better than to pack up my waders, fly rods, and go stand in a river for a couple of hours to ‘find myself’.
Yes, Pickle’s Papa is a fly fisherman - or at least a collector of amazingly overpriced gear that would facilitate the faking of such a hobby.
The truth is I don’t fish to actually catch any fish. I fly fish for an excuse to stand in a river for hours on end – waving a hook about myself to keep random strangers from getting too close to engage me in conversation. I have never caught ‘the big one’, nor do I think I would know what to do if I even hooked him.
This is somewhat surprising as we live very near the ‘Rocky River’. It’s just west of us, and is home to some of the best Steel-Head fishing on the Great Lakes. For those of you who don’t know ‘Steel-Head’ are the Salmon of the Great Lakes, and travel up into the bigger rivers to spawn. They usually do this in Spring and Fall. It is neither of those.
I did however have a goal for the day, and over a thousand dollars in gear to justify that I must know what I’m doing.
As it turns out – I didn’t really need to pack my stuff up at all, because another of my equally tranquil life experiences comes from the simple act of driving itself, and I thought with gas prices so low – who needs to go fishing? I started driving in the morning, and saw what I think I can safely say was most of Northern Ohio by the time I finally got home.
I’m not talking interstate driving either. I was just haphazzardly turning down whatever road looked intriguing and taking it until I accidentally figured out where I was. I had a blast, and I think I figured some stuff out too. What, I’m not really sure of - but I do know that I have slept a lot better since then, and I’ve been a lot less nervous whenever anybody holds the baby. I did get a sunburn on one arm – but I guess that’s the price you pay.
So there you go.
The Wife has decided that this is something she wants to do on a regular basis now. I suppose that means I am actually going to have to get out of the car in the future to do something, but I think it’s a good plan. It will help to keep us both much more in touch with what’s important – balance.
Pickle’s Papa
07:05 Posted in Parenthood | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
07/10/2006
Confessions of a recovering masogynist
I have not historically been very respectful or supportive of women. OK, so I ‘ve actually been an ass-hole most of my life. The thing is, like most of our behavior as humans – I was trained to be that way.
If at some point if the actions I was taking stopped getting the desired result – I probably would have stopped, but here’s the surprise . . . it didn’t.
It seemed the more childish and rudely I behaved – the more women seemed to run around trying to satisfy my every need. This constant behavior by the opposite sex undermined my ability to respect them because, in showing little or no self-respect, it was difficult to try to give them something that they obviously didn’t feel they deserved themselves.
Now I know there are a million sociological factors that go into every individual insecurity complex, but at what point does the blame game stop?
The key is that I now have a daughter, and if any ass-hole ever tries to treat her the way I treated most every woman I came into contact with – I’m gonna string him up by his testicles and make him watch Mommy Dearest on a loop for days on end.
I think the key is to make sure that she understands that she deserves better. That no one has the right to treat her as a puppet, and that she doesn’t have to buy into what the television is selling.
All of this is much easier said than done, but I think the beginning starts with me. My daughter is going to watch the way I treat her and her mother as the first example of how men interact with women, and right now – some shit has got to change.
It’s weird how I can want my wife to be so many things to me – that I never want my daughter to be to a man. It all of a sudden makes me feel very disrespectful of my wife, but I guess part of me, as human, wants my daughter to find a much better man than I am.
But how can I expect her to do that if we, as parents, only show her the roles we’ve played to date. I guess it shows that to want her to be more – we have to try to be more.
Every day I try to be a better person than I was the day before, and as a father the ways in which our flaws and dreams are exposed to us changes, and the pressures and ways we influence the nature and value of our child’s lives grows in ways that we never could have expected.
In the mean time I need to see if The Wife has finished shining my shoes.
Pickle’s Papa
11:15 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
07/07/2006
To the fear of impending travel
As part of my reward for finishing grad school we are flying down for a week to stay at a condo on Hilton Head that the in-laws have rented there. The Pickle will be almost six months old as we stick her on a flight to Atlanta, to meet up with friends - before renting a car, and driving for five hours over to a beach and a bottle of Jameson or two.
Sure, it seems like a good idea . . .
There is part of me that is absolutely terrified of us becoming THOSE people on the flight, and me turning into my father in the car. Luckily this is a fairly short flight, Cleveland to Atlanta can go pretty quick. The keys, as I see them, are that we get underway as soon as we’re seated, and are allowed to get up ASAP.
The Pickle is amazingly tolerant as long as she is walked around; nonetheless, I am concerned – not only for this flight, but because this is a test flight in prep for what is to be the mother-of-all-baby tests.
The Wife’s sister won a Fulbright, and is going to be in Belgium finishing her DMA for essentially the next year. Her family has put together an all out frontal assault by planning a mass visit in February (imagine, I married the underachiever with the law degree).
The Pickle will just be turning one year old when we plop her in our laps for her first trans-continental flight. We are very intelligent people, yet we make decisions like this.
We have also planned a fall weekender trip to NY to visit friends. The idea is that in the first two shorter trips we will fine tune and hone our flight catastrophe scenarios and emergency tools and tricks before the ‘Biggie’ in February.
The good news is . . . I will be drunk for the trans-continental, cuz it’s the only way I can handle that flight. I know from experience – or maybe its just that I’ve never tried to do it sober.
Well, the last time I asked for opinions and advice it was one of the few posts which actually got zero responses – so I hesitate to put myself out on that emotional limb again, but . . . if anyone that has flown with infants has any advice I would greatly appreciate it.
Pickle’s Papa
13:02 Posted in Pickle Perdicaments | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
07/05/2006
Seeking Tolerance #2
This is one of the funniest and most tragic stories I have from my life as a professional actor, and what I hope to do by sharing it – aside from making you laugh is to show the value of perspective and how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
One of the ways I put my wife through Law School was by working at one of our big LORT houses (union theatre) in their children’s series. Throughout the years I have played more ridiculous characters, and put on more fur and tails than I would care to mention, but it was a great job. We performed 12 shows a week, Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am and noon matinees during the week - for every school bussed in from a two county radius.
I was at the bar by 3. – with a pretty decent paycheck.
This is the story of Pecos Bill and The Ghost Stampede. I was playing ‘Pa’. Every performance began with a spotlight that came up on me as I sat on the edge of the stage and strummed a guitar recanting the history of Texas.
Now, when you’re doing back-to-back shows you’re generally running around like a chicken with your head cut off between them trying to re-set props and costumes – cuz you’ve got like 15 minutes before they start to seat the next group.
When a 10:00 show starts late, cuz of traffic or poorly planned bathroom breaks or just sheer incompetence it puts a damper on the second show starting on time.
This is the case of the day in question. We were running late. Technically we were in ‘act fast, go home early’ mode – which happened more than I’d like to admit. When we finished the first show – we were supposed to be starting the second one.
No good.
Thus begins the worst experience of my professional career.
There was one piece of information which the stage manager neglected to pass on to us before we walked out to start the second show - a half-hour late . . . this was a special needs class. This was important information to have.
We were all already in a simmering state of malcontent to begin the show.
And then as I finally started the show, I was immediately struck by a kid sitting in the front row off to my left who was talking, and I dont mean whispering - this kid was putting on a show of his own. I couldn’t make him out completely because he was just out of my spotlight and far enough down to where I didn’t want to look over at him, to give him any more focus than he was already taking on his own.
Now, you have to remember – at this point I just thought he was another randomly bad kid. So I was barreling through my monologue just focusing on being louder than him. It was at the point that he got up on his knees to talk to the person behind him - that I could take no more, stopped my speech to snap my fingers at him and said, “hey! I’m over here.”
. . . the entire audience did a unified gasp - as I, was apparently the only person in the room (or perhaps the county) that did not know that this child was blind and had Tourettes.
Yeah . . .I stopped a play to yell at a blind kid with tourettes.
The good news is that I was not the only cast member to fall down on this one. Later on during the show there was a moment when Pecos was supposed to have thrown cactus seeds and the cacti sprung up out of nowhere all at once. To do so an actress pulled a ground row (fake row of cactus that were laying across the lip of the stage) up by a rope.
Apparently the kid I had abused earlier wasn’t the only blind child in the audience because as ‘Ma’ pulled the rope, the two red tipped canes, which were lying across the front of the stage, went flying end over end into the audience.
We were done. As a cast we had reached the end of our ability to act and deal reasonably with the fact that we were horrible, horrible people.
At the end of every show we had a talkback section where we fielded questions from the audience before their busses arrived. We were in bad shape by the time we got to curtain, and really should have cancelled this one, but our stage manager decided to push onward.
Now in all of my years of doing these - I know who to ask questions of, and so did the person fielding them that day. The problem was that only one child raised their hand, and it was perhaps the last child on earth that you would have wanted to raise their hand – even more that the blind kid with tourettes. This girl had a sullen psychotic gleam in her eye that you could read from the fifth row, and yet she sat – the only arm in air.
Michael reluctantly called on her and this is what she said –
“My mommy’s in a deep . . . deep . . . sleep.”
. . . thank you, goodbye.
We were at the bar by 3:30, and that was my worst working day as a professional actor.
The reason I tell this story is to show the importance of communication, and setting realistic expectations for the situations we find ourselves and our children in during our life journeys. That was not the worst group of kids I ever performed for by a long stretch, but the situation that led up to it; as well as the lack of information that was given to us and to them (don’t lean your canes on the stage, ask questions about the show) set us all up for failure.
Childhood is a guided path, and if The Pickle is going to be able to healthily deal with the uncomfortable circumstances that we all must encounter – it is my job to prepare her for the play by communicating expectations.
True, life is more of a constant improvisation - but the premise is the same. We, as parents, have a duty to prepare our kids for the reality that the show isn’t always about you, and give them as much information as they could possibly need to play their role.
We are all the stage managers of the show that is childhood, and it’s important to remember that there are other jobs besides starting on time.
Pickle’s Papa
p.s As a side note: A couple of weeks later as I was walking from my dressing room to our stage - I crossed paths with your standard burly Union Stage Hand - whom I had never met. As our path's crossed he nodded, smiled and asked me, "yell at and 'tards lately?" . . . just to show the depth and breadth of the level of offensive I had actually reached. I dont think I have ever done anything so completely demoralizing as that.
11:58 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
07/02/2006
Seeking Tolerance #1
So I am about to break almost every major rule about what you’re supposed to blog about, but I swear I’m doing it for a good reason. I know we’re not supposed to talk about Politics or Religion, but I want to talk about how we influence the beliefs and values of our children – and it’s pretty hard to do without discussing the ideas that are deemed ‘core’.
OK. I am now going to say two things about myself. One of which, at least, is going to make you dislike me. The first is that I am pro-life. The second is that I am a fairly staunch non-Christian. So I have now pretty much isolated myself from the majority of the populous by believing in one core value that is diametrically opposed to the other in terms of our general society.
The key to this is that I made a choice based on the wonder that is free will. I was allowed to make a judgment about what I have discovered as ‘truth’ in my life.
My parents raised us to question authority, but also gave a strong base for understanding right and wrong. I have never stolen anything, and value life and freedom more than most anyone I have met. It is this upbringing which has allowed me to understand the value of opinion. . . because mine changes, and it’s allowed to - as I am shown more and more along my path.
At the core of my belief system is the understanding that this plane of existence is beyond our understanding. To assume that we could possibly comprehend whatever it is that has built and fills this world with life would perhaps be the biggest sacrilege of all.
I see god in all things – because that is how she has shown herself to me.
This is not to say that I lack acceptance in others. I married a woman who is equally pro-choice as I am pro-life, and yes – we knew this before we got married. What allows for this mutual respect is that I know she put just as much thought and passion into her opinion as I have mine.
My daughter is going to grow up in our house. I know that I have come to a state of peace internally because of my faith. Although it is drastically different from most other people’s concept of God, I know that the living result is basically the same for me as it is for them.
This is what I hope for The Pickle. To have the ability to build her concept of the true ‘Super-Power’, in relation to what gives her understanding and peace.
I do have some dissent in relation to most organized religion,and I view my moral job as a parent to keep those concepts out of her psyche. One of things that I always hope to create for her is an environment free from fear, and one way in which I hope to do that is by ensuring that she never has the image of GOD as ‘Big Brother’.
I never want her to see god as judgmental, cruel, or vindictive. One of the key aspects of any church’s control of people has always been the threat of god’s wrath. My god does not hate me enough to sit around waiting for me to make mistakes to punish me for them.
It is this fear of god that I hope she never has. I wish to teach her right from wrong and set very high guidelines for the moral code by which I expect her to live; however, I want her to live this way through respect, and the process of living to honor what has filled us with life. This is a separate concept than admitting that one's true nature is evil, and to satisfy god one must give up free will in accordance with the prescribed rituals and behaviors deemed appropriate by a human conglomerate of 'Holy Men'. I dont buy it.
I think to honor god she must not see herself as a mistake that he created or that in some way she must struggle to try to fix or deny herself to be what he truly wanted . . . but a gloriously rounded creature made with in the ideal of love and trust in the idea that free will is to be embraced and respected within the bounds and codes of nature and love. The core concept which seems to be lacking in most religions, that I want to ensure that she has - is a sense of responsibility for one's own actions.
The reason I go into all of this is to prove that I have a strong, out of the norm value system that I don’t necessarily wish to simply super-impose on her brain. One of the best things about my concept of faith is that it is completely built around my life experience, and the ways that I have been exposed to what I term as ‘Sacred.’
Unless you are so insulated from spirituality (which usually takes a church to do) that it is impossible to not see that there is something larger at work than man - I cannot imagine her stumbling through life without a god. I want her to discover this on her own and put it in terms that are relevant and guiding to her in the most poignant of ways. As she grows and seeks enlightenment I will take her to whatever mosque or church she desires.
I have read The Bible, The Koran, The Book of Mormon, and Lao Tzu. Although they all say the right things - I know they are inherently man’s vision of god, each adapted to the culture that they are intended to reach.
My father made us memorize passages from The Bible when I was a child to learn morality and to introduce us to God. My father was, and is, a very religious man – who never preached. He studied in the seminary to become a priest – gave up on that. The military sent him to a Baptist Bible College where he got thrown out for arguing the validity of speaking in tongues, and then he discovered Buddha in Vietnam (he's a hoot when the Jehovah Witnesses knock on the door).
As a child in the desert we used to have evening family time, which he called, “church of the open campfire.” This was my earliest concept of worship – family in nature, being at one with your environment. We sat around a campfire honoring the spirit that filled us, and the world around us.
You can basically trace my belief system directly to him, but at no point did he ever tell me what he thought. My father allowed me to discover my god, and I hope to do the same thing for The Pickle.
I just hope he’s not one of them that makes her shave her head funny.
Pickle’s Papa
p.s. Yes, I know I'm going to hell. But if you feel that you must tell me that as a comment - I probably wont delete it . . . unless you're mean. I deserve it for being dumb enough to post this.
21:16 Posted in Pickle Ponderings | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this