Not So Little Anymore

     When I think back to these years with Julia, easily one of my fondest memories will be carrying her up on my shoulders. She loves going up there and walking and I love having her up there. It feels very, I don't know, fatherly, but in a youthful way. I hold her boots or shoes and we just talk about the weather or school or she sings some silly song in her Spanglish that she's been speaking lately (we call it Gibberish, she calls it Spanglish)

     Anyway, today, taking her to school, for the first time I had to wonder how much longer I can do it. She's coming up on 26-27 pounds probably, and, ugh, it's heavy for a walk. She's heavy up there, my shoulders got sore. She, of course, is oblivious to how much she weighs and how sore she makes daddy feel. I have to remind her to not bounce around too much. I'll be sad when these days are gone, but of course Ben is already starting to like the view from up there, so I have a few more years with him coming.

Babies are Expensive!

Ben's suddenly outgrown most of his clothes, the buttons on his pants can't stay closed and his onesies are all stretched tight. I volunteered to hit Target on my way home from work and holy cow, I walked out $115 poorer knowing he'll probably wear these clothes for all of like 3 months, maybe six tops.

     Still it was fun, mixing and matching sweaters and pants, looking for boy stuff instead of girl stuff for a change. Usually my wife does the clothing shops, or we rely on their very generous grandparents, but still it's fun to do it yourself sometimes.

     Getting him dressed this morning was fun, pulling over a new red shirt with dinosaurs on it and new brown sweatpants. He has this great smile in the morning like he's seeing you for the first time in years and it's pretty hard to not start your own day off with a smile, too.

Ups and Downs

     Had one of those mornings that reminded me of the joys and frustrations of parenthood all in about 30 seconds. I had just put Ben, who's 10 months, down on the floor in his bedroom while I was getting dressed in our bedroom next door.

     Julia, who's 3, remains obsessed with The Nutcracker music and can listen to it day and night. Sadly, we had left her CD of the music in the car the other day, and at the same time, my iPod, which has the music on it, was not charged so I couldn't play it in her room. She stood at our desk with the computer whining about wanting to hear the music in her room, so she could dance there. I kept repeating how it was not possible, how my iPod wasn't charged and we left the CD in the car, but it was going in one ear and out the other and the tears just started flowing and the foot stomping began.

     Here we go. Tantrum City.

     But just then, from around the corner of the door, I see this tiny hand appear and then the arm, and Ben's head. He has just started crawling, and so this was a big deal for him. He went from his sitting position to his tummy and just willed himself all the way into our room. And when he got there, he had a big smile and just rested his head on the floor as though he'd just crawled a marathon.

     It was funny and sweet and momentarily distracted me from Julia's waterworks. I finally made her happy by moving my desk chair to the side and clearing space for her to dance to the music in my room while my iPod charged. And Ben just watched.

Growing Boy

Okay, I can relax. Ben won't lie on his back until he's graduating from high school. As I've written before, my son's lack of interest in doing anything other than sitting on his butt has caused his mother and I a little bit of angst. He's nine months, already, and geez, it's time the kid caught up to his friends who are rolling over, crawling, reading, doing
some calculus equations and small physics experiments, and playing piano sonatas in their spare time.

We were starting to worry a little even though we knew we shouldn't, that all kids progress at their own speed, even if in his case it's the speed of a glacier. But the other morning, we went into his room after a restful night of sleep, and there the blessed child was, lying flat on his belly, and looking up at us with a big smile. My wife didn't put him like that. And I certainly didn't. So we could only deduce that the kid had, in
the middle of the night, miraculously rolled over. Say it with me, please.

Hallelujah!

He's quickly starting to raise his butt off the ground and crawl a little bit backwards so we now think it's only a matter of weeks before he figures this whole thing out. Of course, when he does, we will have to babyproof everything and panic over what he'll get into and instantly wish that he never learned to move and remained his lazy old self. C'est la vie.

Healthy Obsession?

When is it too much of a good thing? I know my daughter, Julia, could be addicted to so many bad things that we have no right to complain that she's addicted to something good. She's 3 years, 5 months. And right now only one thing in the world matters. The Nutcracker.

See, about four or five months ago, she saw my wife watching the Nutcracker Ballet on TV. Since then, obsessed! She has two Nutcracker DVDs, a Nutcracker CD, my wife's wooden Nutcracker doll, a soft, plush Nutcracker doll we bought her so she wouldn't bonk Benjamin on the head with her wooden one, and of course white ballet slippers and a purple tu-tu. Not a day or night passes when she is not dancing in her room to her Nutcracker CD, by herself or with one of us watching her. She'll wake up in the morning and want the music over breakfast and want it at night with dinner. Yes, it's downloaded on to my iPod and has annoyingly popped up on more than one occasion during my jogs.

Lately, it's becoming hysterical as she will walk out of her room in only her white undershirt and tu-tu and we will ask what happened to her sweater.

"I took it off, I have to dress like Clara," she says, referring to the star attraction in the Nutcracker who does indeed dress in a white leotard that looks like a tank top undershirt.

So we just let her be. As I said, it could be worse. The music's beautiful. But now I have Tchaikovsky in my head at all hours? My only hope is that Coldplay will write a ballet I can give her soon.

Even Dads Get Mommy Brain

It's one of those mornings where getting out of the house for work feels like I'm leaving for a week-long vacation and frantically trying to not forget something important. My wife does an amazing job of prepping the night before since she leaves early and I take Julia to school. But still I can never seem to get the hang of just calmly walking out with Julia knowing I've covered all our bases.

Take today. Normally I "just" need my lunch, her lunch, her blanket, her snow pants, and my work bag. Check, check, check, check, and check. Oh, but today, I have the car, so don't forget to take that house-sized bag of dry cleaning too, since my wife and I are both running out of clean clothes.
And, oh, that's right, my wife is picking up Julia after school, so I need to somehow shove our stroller into the trunk and leave it at the school for her to bring Julia home in since our sidewalks are still too icy.

And, geez, don't forget those 2 giant bags of trash, one with Ben's stinky diapers in it, at the top of the stairs.

Anything else?

Nope, got it all. Good.

So 5 minutes later, pulling into the parking lot at the school. I unstrap Julia and suddenly do a Homer Simpson "D'oh" slap of my forehead.

"Julia, what did we forget to do this morning?!"

Big smile. "Ahhhh, brush my teeth. Now I'm gonna have dirty teeth, Daddy"

"Okay, sorry Julia, we'll brush them tonight."

Lug everything into the school, and get back behind the wheel when suddenly it hits me.

I forgot to brush my teeth too. "D'oh!"

Good thing I keep a toothbrush and toothpaste in my drawer.

Remember When Snow Days Were...Fun?

It's funny how your perspective on things changes as life moves
along. When you're 6 and school is cancelled, it's no big deal, a day to stay inside and bake cookies with mommy or daddy and draw a new picture.

When you're 16 and school is cancelled, it's cool, because everything at 16 is just cool. When you're single and 26 and school is cancelled, you turn the channel to get away from the school closing announcements. Doesn't affect you the least. Could not care any less.

But when you're 36 (or in my case, 40) and married with two kids and school is cancelled? Cancelled! It's just snow and a little ice! I can't stay home today! Honey, you have to stay home. No, I can't, I have a meeting. I know you have one too, but, oh, man, it's just snow! This is ridiculous! AGGGGGHHHHH!

In our neck of the woods here in Boston, this has been a particularly brutal winter and every time a flake falls from the sky, we prepare for the announcement. It happened again this week, and it completely throws our week out of whack. One parent stays home and is annoyed. The other goes to work relieved, but slightly guilty. And Julia, our 3 year old, she just goes about her life as if nothing's different. Feels like a Saturday to her.

Spring, you can't get here soon enough.

The Tantrum of All Tantrums: Julia's Breakfast Meltdown

Julia likes school. Honest. She seems happy at her preschool. Her teachers say, for the most part, she's very social, only occasionally troublesome. She's excited to go and excited when we pick her up. Sometimes she doesn't even want to leave right away.

So how to explain what happened this morning?

It started right after breakfast. She seemed fine over waffles and sausage, but mentioned something about a "project" at school that she didn't want to do. My wife and I did not take it too seriously. Our mistake. Suddenly it was time to get ready for school, just after 8 a.m. -- and daddy had a presentation at work at 10 a.m. he could not miss -- and
Julia starts screaming. And crying. And wailing.

"I don't wanna go to school today!"
"It's okay sweetie, why not?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Holy cow. That was a scream. Runs to her room, slams the door. We try to follow her in there. She tries to hold the door closed, while screaming, "I don't wanna go. You can't make me."

Did I mention we thought she liked school? This came out of nowhere. For almost 45 minutes, it went on. We tried to talk to her, calm her down, reason with her, she was having none of it. It was 45 minutes of pure hysterics. Of course, we did not want to even remotely let her think that not going to school was an option. But daddy really did have a 10 a.m. presentation and, well, it's almost 9 a.m. now and that's pushing things.

Finally, after waiting outside a few minutes, I went into her room, found her on her bed, tears streaming down her face. I got down on my knees and held out my hand.

Let's play a game. "What are five differences between babies and big girls," I said.

Do big girls wear diapers? No, she said with a little smirk.
Do babies run up and down the hallway? No, big girls do! she said.
Do babies use the potty? No, big girls!
Do big girls talk? Yes! A smile, too.
Do big girls go to school? Yes, but then she started to crawl back under her covers.

A few more minutes of calm talk and we agreed she could bring her Nutcracker with her to school and that project she didn't want to do, I would talk to her teacher about that.

And out the door we went.

Daddy made his presentation with about 15 minutes to spare. "Pardon me if I seem a little frazzled," I started with. "My daughter just had a meltdown that made the Exorcist look like Bambi."

Three is such a fun age!

How Long Can I Blame This On Teething?

Easily the funniest scenes in that cute romantic comedy, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," are when the boisterous father, Gus Partokalus, keeps spraying Windex on everything as a cure-all. Got a bad bruise? Windex will help. Infection? Try some Windex. Bleeding? Windex will stop it. It's hysterical.

Right now I sort of think of teething as my own personal Windex. Ben is a serious cranky pants these days. He's 9 months and he's got teeth coming in on top and bottom. But he's also just going through other stuff. A cold. Minor surgery coming that's got his parents stressed. A sister who screams every word out of her mouth. The problem is it's impossible to know what to attribute his latest crying episode to.

My answer: It's teething. Always. For everything. Wakes up at 3 a.m. screaming? Teething. Won't eat? Teething. Crying for no reason at all, middle of the day? Teething.

None of it, in fact, may be teething. Who knows? But it's an easy answer and I'm stickin' to it. The only question is: How long can I keep using it? When he turns like 16, and refuses to even speak to me because I won't let him borrow the the car to drive around the block and storms away to his bedroom, can I still blame teething?

Stand at Attention

So the attempts to get 8-month old Ben to roll over continue. But it's becoming clearer that he may just go straight from sitting to walking. And it's sort of funny.

Right now he only wants to stand up, leaning against whatever object is nearest. My mother bought us a great gift, a Leapfrog table with lots of bells and whistles on it. If we try to sit Ben in front of it, he will lock his knees and legs so you can't bend them and insist on standing up.

Of course, that means we have to sit behind him or put a pile of pillows around him for when he inevitably falls backward. But it's just fun to see him so happy when he's standing there, like he's king of the world.

The idea of rolling over seems so farfetched to him, I can't see it happening. It might just click one day and he may figure it out, but for now, he's all about standing up and playing.

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