Coming of Age

Amari will be two and a third in early March. That's right, we've moved on from weeks and months to fractions. I'm really looking forward to mid-April when she's two and six-thirteenths. I hear it's an awesome time in a toddlers life.

In all seriousness, this is the age I imagined writing about when Jen suggested I write a blog of my parenting experiences. Sure, babies are cute and ever-changing, novel and priceless, and the milestones of rolling, crawling, walking, and talking are note-worthy (I took many notes), but now that Amari's stringing together sentences, putting the pieces together, and dare I say cultivating a world-view (sort of), I find myself sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for what she might say next. Reminds me of that old Bill Cosby TV show, "Kids Say the Cutest Fucking Shit." 

Just the other morning I woke up and toyed with the idea of getting out of bed. Amari was still asleep next to me, tossing and turning, probably contemplating the same thing. Finally she noticed my eyes were open and she lift her weary head and said (with more enthusiasm than I ever say it), "Amari need coffee." That's my girl. The interesting thing is that she still doesn't use the pronoun "I." Early on I read in a parenting book that we should avoid "I" and "you" and instead use more concrete pronouns, "Dada loves Amari," and I took it to heart. As a result - for now - everything is "Amari..." 

Here are a few episodes of my own, home-version, of that funny, old Cosby show.

 --While cutting Amari's hair the other day, evening up a few stray pieces, she asked me, "Can Amari cut Dada's hair?" to which I replied, "Sure. When you're older." She paused for about five seconds and then asked, "Am I older now?"

--Although the two's have come with the whole-hearted development of the word "mine," I recently discovered a couple of advantages. The first is during moment of resistance - PJs and bedtime. When I claim it's time to put on my PJs and drink my bottle, Amari will let down her guard and claim her ownership. "My PJs, my bottle," and it's off to bed. The other advantage came during an apology. I can't remember the details, but when I said, "I'm sorry Amari. That was my fault," she was immediately up in arms saying, "No Dada, my fault." I'll enjoy this stage for a while.

--I brief truth-telling about potty training. Several months ago Amari took toe pee-pee-ing on the potty at home and we thought we were free and clear of diapers. I was excited, but the excitement quickly wore off for Amari and it became hit or miss - and there was certainly no training going on outside the house. I got lots of feedback from other parents including one who said, "When she's ready, she'll tell you." When I heard that I thought, "That's ridiculous."

Sure enough, after the quick and successful training of her friend Hunter, Amari was putting up her normal diaper-changing fuss, complete with kicking and whining, when I finally said, "Listen, if you don't want to wear diapers anymore then you have to potty train like Hunter. If that's something you want, then tell me." Silence. Diaper on. End of conversation. Three hours later, rolling around on the floor and playing with something or other, Amari paused, looked up at me and said, "Dada, Amari want to potty train." That was the beginning. An accident a day for the first three days, and since then she's been pretty solid. Except for the solids. Poop has been an issue, which appears to be resolving itself, but pretty traumatic for a while. Really traumatic for a while after that. We had to model making grunting noises/faces and helping her push them out, and I think she's getting better at letting go. A therapist friends says it's a very existential experience for some kids, but who knows.

--An indication that she is getting the poop idea came when I was trying to get a sticker off a page for her. "What's wrong, Dada?" Amari asked.
"It's really stuck," I said.
"You have to Mmmmmm (grunting poop noise with accompanied face) like poo-poo."
I obliged and the sticker came right off.

--And finally, the other night at dinner, Amari passed something to her mom and said, "There you go, babe." We definitely are watching what we say more closely, and I'm really grateful she didn't say, "There you go you ungrateful bitch."

More cute fucking shit soon.

My Love You

As Amari's verbal skills continue to evolve I find myself torn between correcting/teaching and enjoying the really cute toddler-isms that spill from her mouth on a daily basis. It's kind of like when foreigners speak English and sometimes their semantic inversions capture the essence of what they mean better than grammatically correct sentences. 

A recent trend for Amari has been the emphatic use of the words "very" and "really," which are both interchangeable and most often used to modify gerunds. Too much grammar lingo? Okay. Here's a couple of examples:

"Dada, Dada," she'll say as she whizzes by me in the living room, "I'm very running." 

Sometimes she'll also use them with nouns, "That's really table," though that one has already fallen by the wayside.

The teaching conflict was more evident when Amari walked across the living room one-day, napless and delirious, climbed up onto the couch, placed her head on my lap and said, "My love you, Dada." Unsolicited and completely by surprise - it was pretty much the best thing ever. Since that day, I now say, "My love you, too, Amari," and I'm not sure I ever want to go back. 

Hunter, Amari, and Oscar at the Botanical Gardens

Happy New Year

I always feel like I've been meaning to write for ages. I contemplated shutting down the blog because I feel guilty when I don't write, as if my silence might one day be interpreted by my muse as a loss of interest. Quite the opposite, Amari. Quite the opposite.

You are two years old now, and I feel as though our relationship is deepening all the time. I feel as though the hard work and commitment to consistent, disciplined, loving parenting is paying off. That's not to say I don't get frustrated sometimes - like when potty training seemed like a done deal and then took a few steps backward, or when the haunting "downstairs" saga continued on-off for the past few week - but when I do, when I grumble or fuss or complain, I always remind myself of all the amazing things you can do, the amazing things you do do, and the fact that you're only two years old now.

The potty training started on the early edge of the wide milestone window and I was super excited to be done with diapers. You seemed excited, too, getting stickers and treats and applause, and quickly becoming a very successful potty user. After a while, the novelty seemed to wear off, pooping presented its own challenges, and now we're still in diapers when we leave the house and some days your success rate is hit or miss. In talking with other parents I'm reminded not to have my own agenda. I usually remember this on a day-to-day basis - that the hardest days of parenting are when I try to make plans - but its nice to be reminded to keep the bird's-eye perspective.

As for the continuing episodes of "Downstairs: A Horror Story" it was a learning experience, a reminder that whichever style of parenting someone chooses there are going to be challenges, there are going to be benefits, and there are going to be consequences. Things also change, and the secret to successful parenting is adapting and adjusting to those changes. Routine is a part of our bedtime ritual. Some of the difficult nights that routine was interrupted for one reason or another. Other nights, it was identical, which led us to making some changes - beginning to wind down in the living room before we transition upstairs. So far, the last three nights have been perfect - no fuss about going to bed, 1-2 stories, bottle, and asleep in less than thirty minutes. Tonight, in less than five.

So, hurdles become memories become information that may or may not ever be useful again. At least not to me.

During the days, Amari and spend a lot of time drawing. She's a huge fan, and if there were one thing I would say she might be slightly advanced in, it's her fine motor skills. She's drawing faces already, with relatively round circles. The arms and legs jut right out of the ears and the eyes, nose, and mouth are kind of Cubist in their arrangement, but she's definitely already a better artist than I'll ever be.

She's also just a sweet kid. That consistency of drilling in manners and responsibility has her surprising me when I say thank you and she says, "You're welcome, Daddy." What did you say, I'll ask. "You're welcome, Daddy." She also cleans up her stuff without asking, reminds me to do the same, and gets on my case when I don't hold my smoothie or iced coffee with both hands. When the seat belt noise goes on when I'm backing the car up, she makes sure I buckle up. And when I say, "Me, too," she says "Me three," and will go as high as six, but when I say seven, she'll say, "No, you five. The other night, however, in one of her delirious states, she was counting all the way to ten, something Carrie and I didn't know she could do, and would finish by saying, "eight, nine, ten, feeeeet," and then throw her feet into the air. By the third time she did it, Carrie and I couldn't contain our giggles. It was just ridiculous and cool.

I love watching her put the world together. I love watching her mix things up in a way just as endearing as hearing foreigners fumble with the English language. Trick or treat took the place of please for a short time after Halloween, but now that Christmas has come and gone, and the ritual of turning on all the lights was predicated with counting, Amari now thinks the magic word is "One, two, three."

Christmas was wonderful. Sweet. Quiet. Jacob and Olga came to visit. We had a delicious Christmas Eve Duck a la Granny C, and by Christmas morning Amari had been opening a present a night for over a week, so the last few presents didn't were just another day in the ritual. She didn't get all cracked out, but really appreciated each gift and stretched out the process into late morning. Here's a short video.

http://vimeo.com/34598670

Now it's 2012 and although I have many intentions for the New Year - physical, spiritual, inter-personal - the ones I'll mention here have to do with parenting. Last year my intention was to have more play dates, more socializing for Amari, and I feel like I succeed, having as many as six parents over here on one occasion with a bunch of 1-2 year old's running around. This year, my intention is to do one new thing each week that will be novel and interesting to Amari even though they may not be interesting to me. This includes trips to different beaches, the harbor, toddler yoga (which we went to today), and anything else that might be fun.

That's all, I love the beginning of new years. I love the opportunity to begin anew, to recommit myself to the things that are working in my life, and to re-focus energy on the growth edges I may have been neglecting or become complacent with.

I love my life, I love my family, I love my friends, and I love my community.

Happy New Year.

Downstairs!!!!!

Sometimes it takes a little trauma to shake off the cobwebs, dust of the keyboard, and do a little blogging. Last night provided just the right jolt to what had become - even during and in wake of family visits and holidays - a lovely, lilting pace in the Fishman household.

Carrie put it best at three o'clock in this morning when she said, "Oh my fucking god, this is like a horror film." And it was - the long awaited sequel to "Mmmba, Mmmba, Mmmba," which was inspired the timeless horror flick, "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." All three were filmed on location at Fish Manor with a budget under $10 (not including the therapy and beer that were needed to recover).

Much like its prequels, "Downstairs" began innocently, disguised if you will like any other of the hundreds of nights we'd spent together. We played in the afternoon when mom got home, had a delicious shepherd's pie for dinner (although Amari wasn't very interested), and small dessert afterwards (very interested). At six-thirty, Mama called an audible to our normal routine and let Amari slide without a bath. She seemed tired and ready to go upstairs.

As usual, we took her upstairs together, bidding goodnight to all of Amari's toys, the hallway, her future room, and so on, then lay down in bed where Mama reads her a story and Dada goes downstairs to work. Fifteen minutes later, Amari strolls back into the living room - without Mama - and proudly proclaims, "Downstairs." Mama followed shortly after, telling me that she'd tried to bluff Amari by saying, "You can go downstairs, but Mama's sleeping." Apparently Amari might have a future as a poker player.

We decided to let her stay up. We watched an episode of "Royal Pains", she played an colored and tried to help me work from time to time - which was not really helpful at all. Towards the end of the episode, she began dumping out bags of puzzle pieces and moving dangerously close to our elevated Christmas tree. Already frustrated by her "help," I decided to put an end to her extended evening by snatching her up and taking her back upstairs. No sooner had I hit the landing than the tears began to flow and wails of "Downstairs, downstairs, downstairs," ensued.

We reached the bedroom and the haunting cries continued, "Downstairs, downstairs, downstairs!!!" We offered bedtime stories, bottles, pacifiers, hugs, rocks, etc., but they were all declined with a stern, "Downstairs, choke, sob, downstairs, huff puff, DOWNSTAIRS!!!" It took all of eight minutes for Carrie and I to look at each other, exasperated, as if to say, "Okay. Downstairs sounds awesome." So - not really knowing what else to do and very uncertain if it was a good idea - downstairs we went.

The faucet shut off immediately, tears continued to dribble down her face, but she was quiet, save the residual gasps of a long, hard cry. Her body took half breaths as she calmed down in my lap, snuggled against my chest. As the air left her lungs each time, however, I could have sworn I heard a faint whisper, "Downstairs...downstairs...downstairs..."

Much like other horror films, hindsight made it easy to find the mistakes we'd made along the way. Although we didn't have sex or say, "I'll be right back," or go out into the woods alone with a flashlight, we did let Amari have dessert without much dinner, we skipped her bath, and then I acted out of frustration and gave her little opportunity to transition. Live and learn.

Fifteen minutes and a bottle after our return downstairs, Amari was drifting off in Mama's arms, as sweet and innocent as a the pre-water gremlins. Finally, with our own little moguai curled up and sleeping between us on the couch, it was easy to pretend that the horrors we'd just survived had never really happened at all.

Mine and Geez Parties

Some days are just about surviving.

Although I love that my job allows me to be a full-time stay-at-home dad by working post-bedtime, the major drawback is the inverse relationship between income and sleep. Coupled with Amari's recent acquisition and extensive use of the possessive term "mine," and I end up being a tired, grumpy, impatient, relatively ineffective dad. 

I hate it. I remember fantasizing, just a few short weeks ago, that I would be able to magically keep that word out of Amari's vocabulary by modeling sharing, using the general ours, telling her that nothing belongs to anyone, and basically being an all-around communist dad. Fortunately (?), we do not raise our kids in a vacuum, nor am I positive I don't bark "No, that's my coffee" every morning before the caffeine makes me well again, and eventually Amari learns things from the world around her and makes them her own. Literally. By saying, "Mine." All the fucking time. 

Okay, I'm kind of exaggerating, but the sea is calm for so long, the sunset winds feel like a typhoon. I was talking to my buddy Noah about it this evening. He has an expression that he uses sometimes that recently started to get under my skin. He'd tell me about a challenge he was having with his daughter and add at the end of the story, "You'll see." I think he meant it as, "It's hard to know what you'll do until it's right in front of you," but I took it as a preemptive "I told you so," like he was assuring me that I would have the same experience.

Prior to Amari's birth, I believed him. What did I know? Since then, I've learned we have different kids with different temperaments and as a result different challenges. Reya is more of a fire cracker, independent and free. Amari is mellow, but much clingier and whinier. The similarity this weekend came when Amari started throwing the word mine around cavalierly as she clutched things to her breast whether they were hers or not. As the volume (amount and loudness) of the word increased throughout the day, all I could hear in the back of my head, chanting like the murdered twins in The Shining, was Noah's voice saying, "You'll see...You'll see...You'll see."

I definitely see. And it blows.

Anyone surprised Amari had her second birthday last weekend? Seems like only yesterday she was a sweet, innocent, mine-free toddler, running about, sharing shit, and not giving a damn what was who's. Seriously. Overnight - like a Mine Fairy came down and left a possessive pronoun pamphlet under her pillow. The sixty-four thousand dollar question now is how to find a balance between allowing her to assert herself and teaching her to share. I'm already getting some ideas from the books we have and from other parents who have suffered before me.

Prior to the fairy's arrival, Amari's birthday went well. She loved her presents - a baby doll, a tractor, a kite, a tool kit, a play dough set, and a sweater - and she loved everyone singing to her so much that she ended up singing to herself late into the evening. The end of this video shows her sugar-induced, American Toddler Idol audition:

http://vimeo.com/31818008

Another quick story came a few days after Halloween. We've always been big on teaching Amari to say please and thank you, assuring her that she'll generally get what she wants when she does. Halloween upped the ante when she learned that saying "trick or treat" gets you candy. The next time she was at Granny C's house and wanted some of her chicken, Mama asked her "What do you say?" to which Amari replied, "Trick or treat."

And finally - demonstrating the truth that with great manners comes great responsibility - last week when I asked Amari if I could change her diapers she gave me her first, "No thanks," and walked away."

Happy Halloween

And happy first anniversary to the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. The Day of the Dead will forever be yours.

Yesterday, however, belonged to Amari - and all the other little rascals running around being all cute and stuff. Last year Amari was a tiger, her best buddy was a dinosaur, and our families met in town for a brief moment and a photo opp.

Halloween 2010

As the day went on, the weather turned cold and rainy, wet enough for us to cancel our adventure to the Mendocino Village where there was rumored to be music and clowns and other circus acts. We never knew what we missed...

Until this year.

This year Amari was going to be a tiger again, but dad thought that was ridiculous and purchased alternative costumes at the local thrift stores blow-out sale. At the very least, Amari would have animals and  Disney characters to dress up like on casual Fridays. The tiger suit quickly became a tiger jacket, Winnie the Pooh was declined via hand gesture,

That means "No thank you."

a couple of hats (although equally cute and impractical) just missed the cut,

and ultimately the softest and cuddliest costume of all was chosen - the ladybug.

As ladybugs are wont to, this one liked to travel with her family.

This year the ladybugs managed to fly down to Mendocino and see the music, the clowns, and the other stuff for the themselves. 

It was fun and cold, with cold winning out in the end. There were awesome costumes including a DJ Lance and the Yo Gabba Gabba clan, an Alice in Wonderland family, and a very real looking construction crew with traveling Roundabout.

Amari ended up getting her first taste of trick or treating - an experience (albeit brief) which perfectly demonstrated the reinforcing power of chocolate. At our first stop Amari was too shy to recite the line we'd been practicing for days. "Trick or treat," I modeled, and the woman gave me a handful of candy. Amari became immediately interested and out-going. At the next house, she managed to get the words out and say thank you for the Butterfinger. By the third house she was knocking on the door, holding out her bag, and by the last house we went to when the gentleman opened the door, Amari pushed it from the outside and started to walk right in as if to say, "Where's the candy at, dude?"

By sunset, the ladybug clan was tired and ready for some ladybug mac 'n cheese. For live action shots of the evening, enjoy this video. 

http://vimeo.com/31461768

Happy Halloween, Amari.

We Make Babies the Old-Fashioned Way...

We spurn them. Good old John Houseman. I loved that guy - had a philosophy professor in college who was a dead ringer for him. He would ramble poetically about one theory or another, have us all eating out of his hands, hanging on every word, agreeing with every thought, then would invariably end his lectures by saying (a la Houseman), "You may all think this theory is absolutely correct (unanimous nods), but in fact you will soon see that it is (pause) totally wrooong."

For months now I've wanted to start a second blog called MyMotherIn-LawIsFreakinNuts.com, to which I'm absolutely certain I'd be submitting to more often than this one. On a daily basis she reveals new phobias or cautions me with catastrophic, worst-case scenarios in response to completely innocuous situations. If she catches me giving Amari - god forbid - a piece of paper to crumple up, she might say, "You should really be careful about paper cuts," then add, "there are lots of arteries near the hands," and conclude with, "she could get infected and die." Thank you, Dr. Becker.

Tonight, however, it was not her irrational fear of the world that pissed us off, but rather the unsolicited parenting advice that she felt compelled to walk all the way over to our house and yell at Carrie. I came home to similar sides of the story which can be summed up as follows: Carrie was stressed, Amari was tired, and Carol was frustrated. The details are irrelevant, but the skinny is that Carrie changed her mind about asking her mom to watch Amari because Amari was being very needy and clingy. Carol got upset that Carrie was responding to Amari's tears and changing the plan and felt so strongly about it that she came over to our house a few minutes later to give Carrie a piece of her mind.

Carol proceeded to tell Carrie that we are spoiling Amari, that Amari is manipulating us, and that we need to just let her cry sometimes or else we're going to end up with a little brat...probably some etcetera and some "you listen to me" and some "I've lived a lot longer than you" and some "blah, blah, blah." When I spoke with Carol later I was very diplomatic. I said, "Carol, if you I weren't completely confident in the job I'm doing, I might take what you said personally. Do I have blind spots as a dad? I'm sure I do, but I don't think you're describing one of them. I do let Amari cry, but I also let her know that when she's done she can come talk to me or if she wants to cry and be held I'm happy to do that, too."

I went on to explain the transition Amari is going through - that gap between understanding everything but not yet having all the words at her fingertips. It takes time, patience, and in my opinion, love. I don't really care if I spoil Amari by picking her up, holding her, giving her attention, and letting her know that she's safe. What else do kids really need? Discipline, guidance, boundaries - for sure - but all of those things will come more easily when a child feels safe and loved.

Manipulating us? Please. Amari is as much a behaviorist as I am. She knows that she gets a response when she whines or cries. Until the recent development of her language it was her go to move, so she still reverts to it in a pinch. Our responsibility as parents becomes encouraging her to elicit the same response (our attention to her needs) through different means such as talking, being patient, asking, helping, etc. I know I sound like some kind of robot, but I'm not. I'm just saying that although Carol thinks Carrie and I are haphazardly responding to Amari's every whim, there is a lot of consciousness in what we're doing and how we're doing it.

Are we immune to mistakes? Hell no. Are we perfect parents? Not even close. Do we know for certain the impact our actions will have on Amari's development? Of course not. But we are raising Amari with a philosophy that makes sense to us, that we believe in, and that we hope will help Amari develop healthy, secure relationships with us and the other important people in her life.

As always, more will be revealed. In the meantime, Carol, please take your unsolicited parenting advice back to your place, and the next time your dogs are whimpering, whining, or barking for no apparent reason, I encourage you to ignore their evil and manipulative ways, and just let them cry it out.

Manipulative Little B-Word