Year: 2003

It took me two children to truly appreciate the squishy newborn baby phase. With our first baby, I was so concerned with caring for the fragile needy little thing, I didn’t really appreciate what I had.

During Aaron’s first few days he seemed more fragile than huggable, too.  But now, we’re all about the huggable squishy baby.  It’s just so fun.  Hold him to your chest and that squishy little body mushes right up against yours, and his little hands claw and grab with all their might for some purchase.  He’s grabbing you — you’re holding him — that’s all there is.

We were wrong about Aaron.

We had the kids’ grandmother (Po Po) over for a couple of
days to help with babysitting while Lillian recovered from her night shifts.  It was also a time to acclimate the kids to their grandma before we go out and take in a show.  It looked like things were progressing swimmingly.  So, on the last day, we head out for the show, and left the kids with their grandma.

We gave Grandma a call during intermission.  She reported that Aaron went into an uncontrollable cry that lasted half an hour. (That’s a really long time .) She couldn’t comfort him or feed him at all. What finally did work was trying to feed him with the lights out.  The theory was that if he couldn’t see that it wasn’t Mommy or Daddy feeding him, it wouldn’t be so scary.

So it looks like we were wrong about what sets him off.  It isn’t just that he doesn’t like strange places. And it isn’t just that he likes to be with Mommy and Daddy. He like to be with Mommy and Daddy at home.  Period.

This weekend was the weekend of our anniversary.  We pretty much know our family’s limitations, so we set our expectations appropriately.

What we had was a nice, relaxing day with the family.  We’d expected to order in for dinner.  But I was getting a craving for Chevy’s tortilla chips and salsa.  And that craving just wouldn’t go away.  We were going to have to try and go out for dinner.

We considered our options.  Since we couldn’t bare the idea of suffering our friends with Aaron, we were going to take the kids with us.

And so we did.  The best part of the dinner was watching Maddie dip her tortilla chips in the salsa and eat them.  The way two-year-olds do adult  things is just so darn cute.  But it didn’t take Aaron long to realise that this wasn’t home. 

The little guy wouldn’t be corked.  One of us had to hold him while the other ate, then we’d trade.  This is a routine with which we’re getting familiar.  Luckily, there were a few other new parents there, and we noticed more “I feel for ya buddy” looks than “you’re ruining our dinner” stares.  At least we’d hoped so.

Mother’s day didn’t totally suck, although I did fear for the worst. There were lots of reasons why this Mother’s Day wouldn’t exactly be the best.

1. Tired Mommy: Lillian worked the previous two nights at the hospital, and desperately needed some sleep when she returned home at 7:00am on Mother’s Day.  Which wouldn’t be such a problem, except:
2. Sick Toddler: Maddie’s had this cold that’s lasted for over two weeks.  It’s not that bad, but she’s got this persistent hacking cough, and the cold makes her a bit moody.  And when she’s moody, then if Aaron cries, she cries.  Which brings me to the next point:
3. Crying Baby:  Aaron still prefers to get his milk the old fashioned way: With Mommy’s warm touch and loving face about 18 inches from his.  That meant that I would have the dual task of engaging Maddie while trying to keep Aaron distracted from the fact that I don’t have the equipment he so desperately wants.  Keeping this house quiet was going to be nigh impossible.
4. We cannot go out:  Although Lillian deserved a night out at her favorite restaurant, it wasn’t gonna happen.  It just wouldn’t be fun, even if we did.

But what happened was Lillian made the wise choice to let Aaron take his naps with her.  I didn’t want his wiggling to keep waking her, but that turned out to be the lesser of two evils.  At least he wasn’t letting loose with that terrible cry.  Lillian did manage to get some sleep, and she came downstairs to let me know what her special Mother’s Day treat was going to be:

Shopping for pants.

If you don’t think that’s special, then I suggest you try and go shopping alone with an agoraphobic baby and a hyperactive two-year-old.  It can’t be done.  Lillian still wanted the family together, so we all went, and as I chased the girl, Lillian got a little quality shopping in.  Then back home for another nap for Mommy and baby.

Although we really cannot go out for dinner, we could order for pick up.  And that’s what we did.  Lillian got her favorite meal and dessert after all.

It might not have been the best Mother’s Day ever, but it turned out pretty good, considering what we had to work with.

I was going to write about how Maddie barfed three times in three days, the latest of which got her clothes, her pillow, flat sheet, fitted sheet, and mattress pad.  A new record.  But what happened last night blows that away.

Listen all you other parents, our son just raised the bar for embarrassing moments.  I’m posting this here so that y’all can just be glad you’re not us.

I didn’t blog about the time we took Aaron to his grandmother’s for babysitting, and he lost his ever-loving head with fear.  Completely out-of-control inconsolable terror and panic.  Crying so hard he was near passing-out from oxygen depravation.  It was just like the day before that when we went to Noah’s for lunch and he did the same exact thing.  Grandma figured the little tyke already recognizes “home” vs. “where the heck is this?”  That’s a pretty solid theory, since each time we got the kid home he was better than fine.  He was happy.

So last night, we go to a Chinese Banquet for Lillian’s mom.  We ate lightly all day, and were looking forward to seeing all the family in one place again and eating lots of good food.  And showing off our darling children.

After we get there, and hand Aaron to about the forth loving person, he’s determined that this was not home.  This was, well, where the heck is this?  His little “not home” alarm goes off.  The inconsolable panic sets in.  The kid cries that cry babies do when they eat millipedes or something.

This is too painful and embarrassing a memory to relive.  Although we’ll never forget it.

Lillian and I trade off the kid, and the one with him walks off to an empty part of the restaurant.  He’s not hungry, doesn’t need to suckle, not hot, not cold, not uncomfortable, not wet.  Just terrorized.  Nothing either of us did helped.  So one of us ate, while the other tried to hide with him.  We traded off about every other course.

Didn’t the kid pass out eventually?  Yeah, once, for about 15 minutes halfway into it.  That’s not long during a 3 hour banquet.  When the banquet was over, we were so glad to be heading home, so no one else could see what bad parents we must be.

When we got in the house, Lillian was the first to realize:  Aaron was cooing.  He was happy again, and wanted to play.

We can’t take him anywhere.

When you’re a parent, you learn a lot about how to treat certain spills.  Some salad dressing ruins your clothes instantly.  Blood cleans easily.  Vomit cleans well if treated quickly, but can leave a permanent mark otherwise.  Because of the danger of vomit stains, all parents are well versed in the art of sniffing out hidden vomit.  It’s like a game of bile Marco-Polo.

Last night, just after I turned off the computer, Maddie woke up crying.  She was very congested, and couldn’t inhale enough between breaths.  I ran in, knelt beside the bed and held out my arms.  She got up just enough to collapse forward into my arms.  I scooped the rest of her up, and tried to calm her.  The poor girl was hot and sweaty from the crying.

Lillian came in, too, but I was already holding the girl.  Maddie still couldn’t get a good breathe in.  I got the feeling from her convulsions that she might throw up, so I told Lillian this, and started to head to the bathroom.  But before I even got in the bathroom, I felt a certain heavy warmth on my shoulder.

Maddie threw up on my shoulder.  The same shoulder that she covered in blood two months ago.

So I put her down long enough to take off my shirt, and picked her back up again.  The shirt had to be rinsed immediately.  But if she were to barf on my bare shoulder it would be no big deal.  Vomit cleans from skin easily.

Lillian and I went through the panic list.

1. We don’t know what to do!
2. When do we decide to go to the hospital?
3. Did our friends from Hong Kong give her SARS?
4. Is the mold that’s holding our house together toxic?

But we came to our senses pretty quickly.  I thank God I have Lillian around in case of emergencies.  She’s got a good head on her, and she always knows what to do.  Experience is showing that I only have one reliable instinct:

Scoop up the kid, and let them barf, bleed, and cry onto your shoulder.

As I do that, we both assess the situation, and try and calm the child.  Lillian’s the one who makes it to step two, and takes appropriate action.  But I like to think that I’m helping out a little as the kid soaks my shirt.

This Easter, we took Maddie to her first Easter Egg hunt.  It was also our first Easter Egg hunt in Silicon Valley.

Watching MTV today makes me feel like a crotchety old man.

Back in my day, it was called Easter Vacation, and we went home to visit Mom for a week.  Then we went into the backyard, and watched the kids hunt for Easter Eggs and chocolate bunnies.

  It wasn’t called Spring Break.  And we didn’t go to some tropical destination and watch girls flash their boobies at strangers.

Now, the way I remember Easter Egg hunts was like this:  You boiled eggs, and colored them with food coloring the day before.  You also bought some chocolate bunnies and other treats.  Then, you’d hide the eggs in the grass, shrubbery and by the house and backyard fence.  Some eggs would be in plain sight.  The best treats would be pretty hard to find.  If you had enough kids, you’d let the little kids go first, and then do a re-hiding for the bigger kids.  One parent would be following her kid around with a camera, and the other would be enjoying a lemonade with the other fathers.
 
Cut to present day.  We were warned to get to the park an hour ahead of time.  We couldn’t quite do that, but we did get there a little early.  As we walk into the park, we discover that large sections of some baseball outfields have been sectioned off into areas based on age group.  We make our way to the 3-year-olds’ field.  All around the perimeter were kids and their parents just waiting for the signal to start hunting.  We take our place in what seems to be the last available spot up close to the “do not cross” tape.

I survey the field, and think to myself, “It’s just one big baseball field.  You can’t hide any eggs here.”

Just before it’s time to go hunting, the volunteers shower the field with little candies.  “Oh,” I realize, “they’re not going to hunt delicately painted eggs.  It’s a big candy hunt.  Fine by me.”
 
Then a voice of authority booms over the loudspeaker.  We can’t make out everything he says, but he repeats this part about three times:  “Parents are not allowed on the field with their children.  The egg hunt is for the children only.”  So, apparently they’ve had some trouble with this last year.  Then we hear the countdown:

“Three…  Two… One!”
 
When the buzzer sounded, we scooted Maddie into the field and waited at the sidelines.  She stood there stunned, as all these kids and their parents dash onto the field and scoop up the candy at their feet.  It didn’t seem like anybody was staying at the side lines.

Lillian screams at me, “Go!  Go!  Go!“

I gingerly sneak onto the field to point to some candy.  But there isn’t any anywhere near us.  All the other kids and their parents have already made their way to the center of the field and were now meandering around looking for the missed pieces.

Maddie’s missing out.

We’re missing out!

That’s it, I grab Maddie’s hand, rush her over to an area that still had some candy, pointed to it, and stood guard as she did that cute little baby squat to pick up the candies.  If anybody came near us to steal our candy, I was going to give them what for, by God.

Then I look for the next patch of candy to bring Maddie to, but that was it.  There was no more candy.  Anywhere.  The whole Easter Egg hunt was over.  In 80 seconds.  Everybody was leaving the field, counting their loot.  Just like that.  I look back at Lillian, who had to stay with Aaron.  She looked back at me with the same look of disbelief.

Maddie and I head back to Mommy and Aaron.  We gave Maddie lots of praise.  “Wow, look what you got!  That looks great!  You got lots of candy, huh?”  At first we were shocked that it was over so quickly.  But it just meant we had more of the day to play together.

It turned out to be a pretty great Easter after all.

Maddie wakes up before her mother and I do.  She crawls out of bed, and scampers across the hall to the master bedroom.  Sometimes I’m awake enough to hear the soft little pad pad pad of her feet on her way in.  Of course, I don’t yet have it in me to wake up or acknowledge her.  So I just let her walk around to my side of the bed, and hoist herself up and into it.  (I might have to scoot in, to make room for her.)

She turns on the TV, which we set to her station on a very low volume, and we let her watch for a few minutes.  But she tires of this before I can muster enough energy to wake up.

So she’ll turn the TV off, crawl out of bed, go to the dresser, open my sock drawer, and pull out the top pair of socks for me, and throw them on the bed in my general direction.  That never gets me up.  She’ll run back to the dresser, open up the next drawer, and fish in the coin holder until she finds a coin with the right traits.  She’ll put that in some convenient pocket of my pants.

Then she’ll return to my side of the bed and announce, “All done.”  She’s prepared me for work.  Time to get up and start the day.

That usually works, and I force myself out of bed.  It’s a nice way to wake up.  My two year old wants to help me get the day started.

Once it didn’t work.  She then ran off to the bathroom, and ran back to my side of the bed.

She’d brought me my cordless electric razor, and turned it on for me.  That got me up.

We bought “Lilo and Stitch” for Maddie.  And she loves it.  It’s great to see her so entranced in a Movie like that.  (OK, sometimes it’s disconcerting to see her so entranced in front of the TV like that…)  Anyway, Stitch is this little cuddly sentient alien weapon.  We didn’t know exactly how much Maddie loved watching Lilo and Stitch until during one dinner, when she started chewing, or rather ravishing her food just like Stitch would.  She’s scoop an impossibly large amount of food on her spoon, and say, “Yaaummm!”  Then she’d get as much into her mouth as she could in one go, and chew ferociously with her mouth open, spilling crumbs everywhere, “Yum Um Um Um Um Um!”  And then, giggle maniacally, of course.

My parents came for the weekend a couple of weeks ago.  They volunteered to watch the kids for a couple of hours while we take in a movie or something.  It’s been a long time since they’ve changed a little baby like Aaron, so we re-acquainted them with his changing table and accessories.  Lillian was driving, and the rest of us were gathered around, watching.  She didn’t have his wiener covered with a cloth, and when I pointed that out, she said, “It’s OK,  he just peed two minutes ago.”  That was fine by me, I thought.  The kid’s empty.  And as long as my parents knew where the cloth was, all’s well.  Of course not.  In less than 30 seconds, Aaron fired off a pee stream straight onto his onesy.  We should have known.

So, one day last week, I come home from work and enter the kitchen.  Lillian’s cooking.  Aaron’s in his bouncer.  Maddie’s playing with whatever’s at hand.  The phone rings and I get it.  “Hello?”  And I hear just a little background noise, so I know it’s not a computer.  But no one replies, and the caller isn’t hanging up.  I figure it’s a telemarketer, but wonder what’s taking him so long, because I can hear the background noise.  I give him another “Hello?”  Then I hear what sounds like gentle breathing.  Like a kid.  So I figure it’s one of Maddie’s cousins, and I tell Lillian, “I think there’s a kid on the other link.”  So I ask, “Who is this?”  And just then, I see that Maddie’s playing with the cell phone.  “Maddie?  Maddie is this you?”  And I watch her say “Uh huh,” as I hear her voice through the phone.

She’d just happened to hit the right buttons to turn the cell phone on, and redial the last number called.  It was Maddie’s first unassisted call!  And she called me!