Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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birthday from scratch

Sunday night and I’ve got the place all to myself so the music is loud and I’m on the couch in my boxers.

After four days with just Keaton and I, I dropped her off at a friend’s place this evening for a slumber-party and all-day hang-out tomorrow.  I’ve got an all-day meeting at work with an after-work dinner get-together in the evening.  Not only are our friends watching Keaton all day (and Sunday night) but they’re picking Sharaun up at the airport too.  Sure nice of them.  And me, I’m feeling lonely.  I miss my little girl.

Spending a few all-day days with her was quite an experience, and gave me a good bit off appreciation for just how tiring it can be and how little time there is to “get things done” in between (without feeling guilty for completely ignoring her whilst doing so).  I’ve done the Mr. Mom thing before and I’ve always liked it, but each time I do I feel a little worse for harping on Sharaun over days-undone laundry.  It’s OK though, I’m a male and I forget fast.  Soon again I’ll be calling my work “work” and her “work” “work” (italics/quotes for snide).

Since Saturday was Keaton’s fourth birthday and Sharaun wasn’t going to be able to be here I wanted to make sure she had a good day.  I asked her Friday what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to make a “princess cake” and maybe see her friends.  So Saturday after taking her to dance class I told her we were going to stop by the store to pick up the things we’d need for our cake.  “No dad,” she said, “I don’t want to go to the store.  Let’s make the cake with stuff at home.”  Not sure we had enough “stuff” at home to make a cake (having never made a cake from “scratch” before), I decided to risk it.

Once home I did some internetting and found decent-looking recipes for both yellow cake (not the kind Iran is making) and butter cream frosting.  I did a quick ingredient tally and found we were setup right to make it happen, and then we dug in.  Previously on Friday I’d asked her what kind of “princess cake” she’d want and she mentioned a castle and some jewels and the color pink (go figure) and that she really wanted to somehow integrate her Polly Pocket Ariel doll.  I had the idea to make a tiered round “princess dress” cake and shove the little plastic doll into the top (the whole thing becoming her dress).  Instead of making one large sheet cake I did two rounds and a single cupcake.

In the end everything tasted fantastic and the only real “failure” was that I got gunshy on the sheer amount of powdered sugar that was supposed to go into the frosting (it seemed so sweet already).  It ended up too runny and more like icing, but it was still pink and yummy so I don’t think Keaton cared (plus she got to smear it on so she loved that).  We shared some pieces Saturday and Sunday and are trying to save a little for Sharaun, dried-out as it may be, for when she gets back tonight.  Anyway, check out the fun in the pictoral recap below:

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I have to stop this habit of only taking photos with my cellphone anymore.  The quality is so obviously crap but it’s just so convenient when it’s always in your pocket.  Maybe the next iPhone will ugrade the optics and resolution enough that they’ll be more passable.  Not sure I’ll ever get “good” pictures out of a cellphone, though.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun making cake, coloring, working on puzzles, dancing, watching Scooby Doo, cooking & eating spaghetti, and doing all manner of other adult-tiring things.  Kudos to my wife for doing that every day.  It’s fun, but it’s not all fun and it’s a lot of work.

Goodnight.

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i’ll cook the pancakes

Been a busy week blog.

Up in Oregon for the first couple days and then opted to stay home Wednesday to deal with all manner of decision-making prior to returning to work.  It’s ’round about 10pm on that same “work from home” Wednesday now and I’m just sitting down to write.  Sharaun’s watching bobsled on the Olympics.  I don’t get bobsled.  Feels to me like I’m watching someone ride a roller coaster.  What’s the skill?  The internet says it’s braking and steering.  OK fine, but cross-country skiing it ain’t (and hey, even cross-country skiing is a boring “sport” to watch, in my opinion).

Sharaun leaves tomorrow for Florida.  She’s going to be with her family and visit Mimi.  Mimi’s still in the hospital; still in ICU.  It’s frustrating to not entirely know what’s wrong with her, and to have things seemingly vary so much from day to day.  Being so far away from it all only compounds that frustration.  I’ve been urging Sharaun to go for a couple days, but I don’t think she was “ready” until just today.  Ideally I’d love for Keaton and I to be able to too, but it seemed important to me that at least she go now.  I know it will be a stressful and maybe emotional trip for her but I also think it’ll be worth it.   And, God willing, when Mimi makes it through she’ll perhaps thank Sharaun for coming.  Anyway she leaves in the afternoon, and Keaton and I will be on our own.

Keaton turns four this weekend.  I think that was another big factor in Sharaun not wanting to go.  I know it pains her to not be here for the actual day.  She’s informed folks that any sanctioned party will be delayed, but not being able to wake up and cook her some birthday pancakes for breakfast is tough for her.  So I’ve promised I’ll give her a fun day.  I’m trying to think of something creative for us to do… something that’ll make good memories and that’ll (being honest here) earn me some more of that “you’re such a great dad” praise I so love from Sharaun.  I’ve promised her I’ll cook the pancakes, I’ll bake a cake, I’ll get her a card.  Even still, I know she’ll miss being here.  I would too.

Goodnight.

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three books

I feel like this week is slow.  I’m stuck in amber and it’s a monumental effort just to get from bed to work to bed again in the cycle of day.  Sounds bad but I don’t intend it to.  I like slow.  Gives me time to think; feels like more hours in the day; makes me more productive.

Keaton apparently had some mega-fit, a fit to end all fits if you hear Sharaun tell it, Monday afternoon just before I got home from work.  Sharaun described it as topping the Disneyland tantrum.  That scar is still pink and puckered on my brain.  I was there for the Disneyland tantrum, I can vividly recall the delirium and the madness and the emotion.  I know how bad Disneyland was, I lived it.  And like veterans of America’s so-called “greatest generation” will spit on the ground and call us young folks “soft” and “pampered,” having weathered that tempest of awful behavior I think I know a thing or two about fits and their relative severity.  So for this fit, which I’ll call the grocery store fit, to best that… well, hell… that would certainly be something.

I mean I believe her.  She has no reason to exaggerate.  We have no contest of parenting one-upmanship whereby she’d be chalking up another mark in her column or anything.  So I can only take her on her word – this must have been a humdinger of a fit.  Part of what scares me, though, friends, is that I think we’re still just getting started here.  Disneyland, while still my high-water mark, will no doubt be eclipsed in time by something else; something that much worse in it’s own time.  And then again something else.  And again.  I don’t mean to say that I expect our wonderful daughter’s behavior to be a runaway truck or anything, a white dwarf compacting its way to nova or something… I only mean to say I’d be silly not to expect additional potholes on this road.  Things always seem seem worse in-the-moment and not-so-bad after the blessing of years; maybe I just mean to say that eventually all  passé  “old fits” will in time be replaced  by some nouveau “new fit.”

Sharaun pegged the epicenter, the Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, as a denied ride on the outside of the shopping cart.  Apparently this is a sometimes treat that she grants on some type of special occasion at one certain store… something about a carpeted area where she allows this sort of risky cart-ride if the whim hits.  Wherever that special place is, it’s not the grocery store parking lot and Sharaun told Keaton as much in answer to her request.  Like the tiny sunburst an errant rock makes in your windshield; like the long, thin lateral lines that appear in a snowdrift; a series of tremors at the base of a volcano – Keaton’s initial displeasure was but a harbinger of the coming storm.

OK so again I wasn’t there and I don’t know how bad it really was.  I’m trying to pretend I was though; trying to write like I was or put myself in her place or something.  I think they call it “identifying with your subject.”  Or, I imagine they’d call it something like that in journalism school or creative writing.  We were both there for Disneyland, and Sharaun swears this grocery store thing was worse, so I think I can somewhat accurately place it on the scale in my head.  I just do that and try to write from there, as if I were part of it when it actually went down.  Were I truly present I could likely flesh out this story with personal anecdote or some details about the parking lot or the shopping cart.  Instead I resort to cheap paragraphs about how I’m writing about it having not experienced it.  There; good.

Anyway the storm came and Sharaun called it nearly unbearable.  A screaming, crying throw-down against all things holy the whole trip through the store.  “Everyone was looking,” she moaned, tortured by the retelling.  “I restrained myself,” she said, “But I kept thinking, ‘Oh, if David were here he’d spank her right in front of all these people.'”  Boy, I didn’t realize I’m that heavy-handed.  This Disneyland thing really has marred my reputation. I swear violence is my absolute last option.  My spanking hand does not have a hair trigger.  But still, I fear she may be right in her thoughts.  Worse than Disneyland, and all the more “public” to boot?  Yes sir I may indeed have spanked her right there… although I can already tell you that in the alternate universe where it was me at the grocery store and I did spank her, it didn’t help a lick and, in fact, made things quite worse.

She did, in the end, restrain herself.  She continued her shopping undaunted.  Went right down the list anyway amidst Keaton screaming her head off and thrashing around in the cart.  For that I’m infinitely proud of her.  A small victory maybe, but I like to think at least one or two of those people looking on – even while mortifying her and very likely causing her to question her very mettle as a child-rearer – I like to think at least one or two of them did so as their backs straighten in solidarity.  “You do it, fellow parent.  You don’t take that.  You go right on with your business, go right on shopping.  Do what you need to do and let the kid bawl and whine.  With raised-fist I’m with you.”  I tried to explain this notion to Sharaun but it was lost in the rawness of her embarrassment.  I did tell her though that I was proud of her for not giving up on or rushing her errand because of it all.  And I really am.

Oh and the punishment.  Poor Keaton.  Never before has the toy room simply been “closed.”  I mean, it’s the room with all the toys.  For an almost-four year old what else is there but toys?  I found this all out upon arriving home that night… Keaton’s eyes still red and puffed from tears and Sharaun screwed up tight.  She got three books.  Three books and that’s it.  She didn’t even get to pick them, I’m sure a final rankling indignity in her eyes.  Three books and everything else was sealed off in the toy room, entombed.  The doors stand closed and the light is off and the blinds are drawn.  I heard about the punishment from a huffy Keaton before I heard about the reason for it from Sharaun, she caught me at the door on my way in.  “Wow,” I thought.  Sealing off the toy room… this must be something big.

Two days without toys or TV.  Three books and that’s it.  Yeah I’m proud of my wife.  She’s doing a great job with that girl and I’d be hurting without her consistency.

Goodnight.

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crack eggs like julia child

Happy Wednesday.  Week’s half-gone already.

After dinner tonight Keaton was asking for dessert.  Not that we do dessert as a regular thing, but she pretty much asks about it after each dinner.  Most times we just remind her that not every dinner is followed by something sweet.  Tonight I suggested we make cookies.  Keaton helped me dump in and mix the ingredients and then run the beater to blend it all together into a mushy dough.  She busied herself licking the beaters while I dolloped out the dough.  Afterward she used a fork to score them for baking (peanut butter chocolate this time around).  They came out OK… sort of overly salty and not very sweet.  Next time I’d adjust the recipe in both regards.  At least we had a good time.

I love doing with her.  Not just being or being-around but actually cooperating, teaming up, collaborating.  It’s surprising how much she knows and how decent she is at things like following instructions.  It’s in these instances when I tend to appreciate how much she’s grown up in her just-about-four years.  I can remember her helping me in the garden a while back and that she was too worried about getting dirt in her shoes to really enjoy it.  Now she cracks eggs Julia Child.

I’ve had this plan or idea or maybe notion… I’ve told Sharaun about it.  Keaton’s going to be four in a month and I think she’s old enough to go on a solo back-country hiking overnighter with her dad.  Well, not truly “solo” in that case I suppose, but meaning that she and I could have a daddy/daughter trip into the wilderness together.  I’ve been doing some trail scouting (online, since there’s currently snow in most of the places I’m checking), looking for a short hike in and out with relatively small change in elevation.  Despite wanting it to be short enough for her to hack, I’d also want it to afford us a chance to really get away into the open wilderness.

Last summer she aced the Happy Isles to Vernal Falls footbridge climb with Sharaun – so I know she’s got some stamina.  I’m thinking something along the same lines, around a mile or less in country and then an overnight campout in the backpacking tent.  A campfire with some good camp-food and marshmallows.  Maybe some books to read or a lesson on constellations or just listening to the wildlife before bed.  We could bum around the following day checking out nature, trying to identify the plants and trees by name or inventing our own names for land features (oh man I’m a nerd when it comes to this stuff).  Then break camp and head back down.

As adventures go, I think she’d rate this highly – and taking her out to show her God’s beauty in natural form is ultimately appealing to me.  Gonna do it for sure; already been hyping her on it for when the weather gets nice.

Goodnight.

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i blame the fetus

Back from Oregon. Wasn’t nearly as wet or as cold as I’d expected. Even saw the stars some nights and some snatches of blue sky.

I didn’t write, though. Between work and doing stuff after work with work people and hanging out with family there wasn’t time. And maybe my fit of productivity the past couple weeks was due for a slowdown anyway. We came home early Monday morning so I could make it into work that day. The plan worked, but it wasn’t the best of days.

Up at 4am to catch the train to the airport, then our flight sat at the gate for 40min longer than it should’ve, then the bus to the car. I got rained on as I walked into work and my umbrella caught the wind and broke. At lunch I dropped my crusty roll in the elevator and scalded my thumb when I spilled hot squash soup on it. It’s karma. Punishing me because I took the Lord’s name in vain when my umbrella broke. Karma, God, whatever…

Tonight (Monday as I write) Sharaun’s got one of her infamous pregnancy migraines.  When she’s got one, she’s 100% out of commission.  This means that it’s Keaton and I on our own and fending for ourselves.  After we ate, we washed up and decided to put on a movie.  Is it saying something about me that I’m genuinely excited about the quality improvement on this new 50th anniversary remastered edition of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty?  I watched somewhat rapt comparing the new vibrant widescreen to the old dingy pan-and-scan we’re used to watching.  We don’t watch movies all that much… I actually start to feel guilty watching television as a form of “interacting” rather than doing something truly interactive.  Nine times out of ten I’ll put on some music and we’ll play house or Memory or dance together.  Tonight, though, dad took the easy road.

I blame the fetus.  Pregnancy’s a mess; and more than once I’ve thanked God that, for me, it’s merely a spectator sport.

It’s late now and I should be getting to bed.  Only, sometimes I think it’s not entirely worth it.  About 50% of the time I can’t get to sleep when I want to anyway.  Why is it that it’s so easy for me to fall asleep on the couch after getting home from work, yet when I finally retire for the evening and want “real” sleep so badly – it refuses to come on-demand?  At “real” bedtime I’ll lay flat as a board in bed and think of a million different things I’ve no reason to think about.  Money.  Time.  Music.  Work.  All sort of topics which would be much better served on a waking brain rather than one tortured for sweet slumber.  I read somewhere that you shouldn’t be on the computer in the last half hour before you want to go to bed, that it overstimulates you and you’ll have a hard time “coming down” to get to sleep.  That’s probably true.

We finally got the car back last week, just before leaving for Oregon. I almost forgot how to drive the thing.

Goodnight.

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loss prevention

We went to Disneyland back in December with friends.

I took advantage of a promotion and got in free on the day of my birthday. Even though I came down with a stomach bug partway through the day it was OK. I wrote about it here so I won’t write about it again. I have a different story from the trip so I’ll write that here.

While we were there Keaton threw probably the biggest, loudest, most fantastically ridiculous fit of her short career so far. We shared a two-room hotel “suite” with our friends. They have Jake who’s of age with Keaton and we get along well with them and the kids get along well with each other so as joint vacations go it was good from a getting-on standpoint. This day, my birthday, I had left the group at the park and retired to the hotel early because I felt terrible and was near losing my stomach. They returned later in the evening, affording me some good time for resting and recuperation and sparing themselves the hazard of being in close quarters with me and the sole bathroom I was mostly stuck in. Of course Keaton hadn’t napped, and she was out of sorts.

I don’t remember what started it all but likely it was sassy-talk or something from Keaton. Sharaun told her to sit on the bed and not get off the bed and that she was doing a time-out on the bed. I was also on the bed resting under covers, trying not to move much or think much but just lay still and get the better of my bowels through the power of my mind. The bed was now Keaton’s prison for her bad behavior and that meant she was screaming and crying and carrying on next to me in my deteriorated state and it was making me feel worse and I got angry with her. I told her to “stop.” I overcame my malaise and started parenting. Things got worse.

I’ve been meaning to write about what I’ve named the “dam breaking” thing that’s been going on with Keaton recently.  This is the phenomenon where nothing – not soft words, not hard words, not consequences, not abandonment, not the rod – nothing can slow the rolling snowball of her building tantrum.  It’s a relatively new thing, but it’s supremely frustrating and makes a body feel helpless to do anything positive.  This was one of those times.

All I did was a loss. She got louder and more ridiculous. Flailing and screaming and coughing for breath and red in the face. Not wanting to spoil the child I let my anger manifest all old school and took to spanking her. She kept going. I kept going. It was a back-and-forth volley, escalating tears and screams on her for escalating smacks on my part. Still none of it to any effect. All the while our friends were trying to afford us as much privacy as the little room allowed, and may have even retreated into their semi-separate “room” to give me some space. Didn’t matter, I knew in my head they could see and hear my performance.

Because of this it was all deathly embarrassing and personal. She’d lost control, I’d lost control, and here we were like we’re on a reality show with the voyeurs behind the fourth wall watching it all unfold with their mouths gaping. I imagined the thoughts going through their heads: how they’d have done it differently, how they’d react were it their child and we the ones looking on, how they’d never beat their child so. Oh it was so embarrassing! Afterward I knew that the spanking wasn’t right, hell even during I think I knew it wouldn’t be effective. Ben loves a story I tell about a time I spanked Keaton for hitting Sharaun.  To the rhythm of my spanking I told her firmly, “We. Don’t. Hit!” A wonder the child’s mind didn’t explode at the hypocrisy.  It always feels wrong anyway, and it feels even worse, sorrowful down to the soul, in front of an audience.

Later, when things had calmed down, my buddy did the neighborly thing and consoled me in the way men console other men. “I know how frustrating that can be,” he said, empathizing, “You feel like there’s nothing you can do, like everything makes it worse, so you do what you can. We’ve been there before, trust me.” And even though I know it’s the kind of stuff people say to each other to ease each other’s spirits I’m still ashamed that I whacked my child in anger in front of them. Oh I can smile and laugh and act like it’s all par for the parenting course, and, in reality, I suppose it is, but it still makes my stomach twist to think about it.

Goodnight.

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sun dried tomatoes

Today I write non-linearly. Or, every day I write non-linearly. But today I tried to write non-linearly. Happy Thursday.

I hate to say it because I’ll probably jinx it, but I do believe I’m back.

Writing is coming to me more easily than it has in months, and the blog has benefited from it with a return to the daily posting heyday of years past. Honestly, I think it’s taken me getting back between the pages of some good books for this to happen. When I read more, I want to write more. Seems backwards since both take time and time is scarce, but allot budget for both. I’ve come to conclude, then, that being involved in a good book is key for me in terms of my motivation to write. I read words put together so nicely, see concepts created with sentences, and I want to rush off to the keyboard and do the same. I’m fairly transparent, so you’ll see my “style” shift to the style of what I’m reading at the moment… but that’s OK with me.

Yesterday’s fog lifted today, made for a slightly warmer but equally as gray day comparatively. At night the solid blanket of clouds distributes the light from the moon (now waning gibbous and just slightly out of round) throughout the sky. You’d think that the diffusion would waste some of the brightness, but going to bed last night whole of the sky was like a pale lighted sheet. It was so bright, in fact, that I said something to Sharaun about it as we climbed into bed. She said something contrary; “It isn’t all that bright,” or similar. “Sure looks bright to me,” I thought silently, not rising to the moment.

In the morning when I woke up the pants and shirt I wanted to wear were in a crumple on top of the dryer. I had to pull out the wad of clothes currently in there, add it to the bigger crumple on top, and give them a ten minute whirl before I was even halfway comfortable wearing them. While I waited, I paced the house in my boxers.

I looked out the window in the front room, the one that looks out onto the garden box. I never did plant a winter crop this year. I even had Cynthia donate all her wonderful organic seeds to me before moving out of the country. She and I went as far as to pick out and bundle up a selection of winter crops to plant. Never got around to it. The garden is a massive tangle of dead dried tomato bushes. Amazingly, though, although everything else has returned to the dust from whence it came I spotted some green sprigs. Imagine my surprise when I pulled four well-developed carrots from the soil. Plants, they want to grow.

After getting dressed I roused Sharaun, my chauffeur at present. Keaton was in the bed with us so she woke too. Almost every night she calls from her bedroom and asks if she can come sleep with us. We deny her gently almost always, and she goes back to sleep. This is actually a vast improvement from her older M.O. where she’d simply wander up to the bedside and tap your shoulder to wake you, asking to join us under the covers. It was harder to say “no” then as “no” involved walking her back to her bedroom and re-tucking her in (I know, it didn’t have to involve that… but it did, to avoid complications). Not sure why she started calling from her bed instead, but she’s effectively solved that problem for us.

She got invited in last night because she called out around 3:30am saying, “Dad, I have to go potty!” I sometimes wonder how I’m always able to wake and post-process what I’ve heard when it comes to Keaton. Other noises and other voices would likely go by unnoticed. Must have something to do with what’s good for the species; genetics; God. But I do wake and my brain replays for me what did the waking. I sat up slightly and re-heard, “Dad, I have to go potty!” “Go ahead baby. Get up and go potty.” She was wearing a pull-up. “Just pull down your pull-up.” Light flooded into the hallway and I heard the tinkle and the flush and the faucet. When she was done the light flicked off and I heard, “Dad, can I come into your bed?” It was Sharaun who answered.

“Yes baby, come on in.” This surprised me a little, although not much in my half-awake state. Sharaun’s usually a big proponent of Keaton staying in her bed for the nights. She came to my side. I hoisted her under her arms and rolled her over me into the canyon between Sharaun and I. “I’m so proud of you Keaton,” Sharaun said. Now I get it. Maybe this is a reward for her waking to use the potty. “Yeah babe,” I said, “You woke up and used the potty just like we talked about. That’s great!” We snuggled us three. I took one last look out the window to marvel at that glowing fleece of a sky, the moon’s glow doled out even across the suspended droplets of cloud, before sleep took its revenge on us all.

Even though there was still pee in the pull-up come morning, I can’t help but see it as progress. Tonight we’ll reiterate the get up if you need to get up thing, see if we can provoke a repeat performance. One step at a time.

Goodnight.