DadCentric

Parental Relativity and the Science of Time

One thing I've noticed since tumbling chaotically stepping confidently into parenthood is that time isn't the linear thing it once seemed to be.

Every morning, for example, I get up for work, take a shower, and if I'm lucky have a few minutes with the newspaper and coffee.  To me, this ritual takes about thirty minutes.  That's also what the clock on the wall tells me.

When Cheeky gets up, Einstein's theories regarding gravitational time dilation suddenly kick into high gear.  The time it takes for each and every stuffed animal in her crib to be handed to me for transportation to our living room feels like twenty minutes, but the clock on the wall says it takes three.

The time it takes her to eat pancakes, spread syrup through her hair, dance in her chair until she knocks over her sippy cup, and clean the embedded grapes from the crease of her neck seems like 45 minutes.  The clock on the wall says it was ten.

When Cheeky's tired and ready for bed, and requires her nightly dosage of TV-induced sedatives, it seems like an eternity.  According to the clock, that was only half an hour.

Of course, when she's in one of her patented good moods--the ones where she's running around with her arms in the air, bouncing off kitchen cabinets while laughing hysterically and giving us giant (for her) bear hugs--the clock says it takes an hour, but it only feels like a couple minutes.

Einstein said, "Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality."  Fine, but next time can it teach me how to flip that shit around?  This morning I swear I had plenty of time to get to work, but I was still an hour late.  I'm not saying it's all Cheeky's fault, but methinks the two minutes it should have taken to change her diaper took a hell of a lot longer....

Rudolph Redux

We thought we'd scarred the kid for life. Several nights ago, we DVR'ed the holiday "classic" (more on that in a sec) Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Unfortunately, the DVR stopped recording the show about 5 minutes before the conclusion.

We sat Lucas down to watch it (our status as Horrible Parents Who Let Their Kid Watch TV is well-documented, on this site and others). He enjoyed the show - the Abominable Snow Monster freaked him out a bit, but he seemed to be ok with the yeti's orthodontical denouement - but shaving those final moments off the show sure does give it a tragic ending. Of course, the full version ends with Santa and Ruldolph arriving at the Island of Misfit Toys, and picking up the rejects so that they can be delivered to all of the good little Protestant boys and girls. (As we know, St. Nick gives the Catholic kids the PS 3's.) In our version, the show ends with the Misfit Toys, huddled around a lonely fire, waiting for a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer that never comes. It never comes! (The toys, presumably, are then forced to kill and eat the polka-dotted elephant to survive.)

"The toys are sad," said Lucas. "Santa forgot them."

Oh Jesus. Bad enough that the kid's sat through 50 minutes of piss-poor stop-motion animation coupled with one of the more odious plotlines ever conceived (protagonist suffers cruel discriminatin at the hands of The Man(ta Claus), until The Man(ta Claus) realizes he can exploit the protagonist, then all of a sudden everything's hunky-dory ). Now he's left with an ending more suited for an Ingmar Bergman flick. This didn't curb his enthusiasm for the show - he's insisted on watching it several more times since - but he made the same remorseful little remark at the end. 'The toys are sad."

So Beth picked up a copy of the DVD ($9.99 at Target), and we sat down to show Lucas that the Misfit Toys do in fact get rescued. Except for Charlie-In-The-Box. Who the hell would want a Charlie-In-The-Box?

Twas The Night Before The Next Day

I've written before about the joyous Christmas memories from my childhood - what with the reading of the scriptures, the Jesus birthday cakes, the family prayers, and the give-one-of-your-toys-to-the-less-fortunate thing and all.  My God Good times.  My wife's memories, although developed under different circumstances, kind of turned sour as well as she hit her double-digit years.  Our collective attitude towards Christmas has historically sat somewhere in between why bother? and oh brother!.  It's just not something we celebrated, per se.

Last year, we tried putting all that aside and bought a tree for the kids.  Our oldest would have a week to look at it before being shipped off for two weeks (as is the norm) to her Dad's parent's house where she gets the whole White Christmas thing.  We thought our littlest one might get a kick out of it, but, considering the fact that she made it impossible to keep any presents under it till Christmas Eve, the whole tree thing was anti-climatic to say the least.  Nothing but an object that blocked our view out the window and left pine needles all over the place.  It did smell good; I'll give it that.  But it didn't quite put us in the Christmas spirit.

So here we are a year later. We're two weeks from Christmas and our house looks like it did on Thanksgiving, Halloween, and any other day of the week for that matter.  The Christmas shit is still tucked away in the rafters in the garage, the fireplace is still quardoned off, no lights are on the house and we have absolutely no idea if/when we'll even make an effort to Christmasize the place.  That, and I'm also leaving Thursday to spend time with my mother in Florida who is having surgery tomorrow.  I'll be back 48 hours prior to Santa's big day.  We're pretty much screwed on time even if we choose to do something about it. 

My wife and I (to a greater extent) are NOT traditionally inclined so we get somewhat lazy about all this holiday stuff.  Luckily, as I stated, our eldest gets the full Christmas effect with her Grandparents and her father.  But, man, if we could get away with raising our youngest without instilling that whole "need to do something" feeling when it comes to these holidays, that would be awesome.  However, since we don't live on Mars yet, that's gonna be next to impossible.  It's on us to at least give her something she can latch on to with regards to December 25th so that she's not sent home from preschool next year for saying "Who the hell is Santa, you frickin' retard?" to the poor kid asking her what she got for Christmas.  (You think I'm joking??).

So, I guess we need to get moving on this Holiday thing here, huh.  Or do we?

Santa's sleigh's got a hemi

Eighteen years ago, for one night and one night only, I was looked at in awe -- my arrival elicited stunned gasps and shrieks of delight.  But, I'll get to that momentarily.

The neighborhood in which I grew up was relatively close-knit.  For the most part, I at least knew who lived in every house, if not personally.  The kids all rode the same bus, went to the same elementary school and varied in age only by a few years.  It was a place where everyone was settled -- none of my friends ever moved away.  It bordered on idyllic -- not in a Stepford-kind of way, mind you, but more of a Leave it to Beaver or Willoughby (without the messy train exit).

We didn't do block parties or things like that, but there was one tradition that could be counted on yearly, without fail, rain or snow.  In the mid-1960s, some parents got together and decided to do something unique for the neighborhood kids.  They bought a Santa suit, fashioned a sleigh from sheets of plywood attached to a pick-up and delivered toys on Christmas Eve.  It was a huge hit, so they did it again the following year.  And the year after that.  And so on and so on.  New suits have been purchased since then -- and not some crappy, velveteen get-up with a cotton ball beard.  We're talking the real deal with padding for girth, wig and beard, and plush suit -- Mickey Rooney would be proud to don this suit.  The sleigh has been refurbished having seen its share of the elements and a soundsystem was added to set the mood with Christmas favorites.  It is the highlight of the neighborhood and residents welcome extended families and friends to their homes to take part.  It is quite a grand affair for young and old alike.

I had the opportunity to wear the suit in 1988.  It was my "appearing one night only" Madison Square Garden gig.  As a young child, you believed you were seeing the real deal.  When you started to reach the age of belief/disbelief you "knew" this wasn't him, but the other guy was coming later, and it's okay that Greg from a couple houses up is playing the role.  Even at the age of 11 or 12, I looked forward to a time when I could ride the "sleigh" and go house to house -- it just looked like a lot of fun.  And it really was.  The looks on the faces of the youngest children were priceless -- and very few cried (I think setting has a lot to do with it).  Older children are skeptical, but still get in the spirit.  And, well, some adults just might have dipped into a little too much egg nog by the time I arrived -- wearing mistletoe as a belt?  Slightly funny.  Wanting to sit your drunk ass on Santa's lap?  Not so much.  Santa's not that jolly.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable night and, I must say, rather lucrative.  Who knew Santa got tips?  And bottles of liquor?  But, as enjoyable as it was for me as an adult, I can remember how magical it was when I was a child.  I hope I can make it as magical for Little Dub and Dubyette.

Me and James Kim

Before I was a dad, husband, and surfer, I was a rock climber. Climbing is a great sport; good exercise, great opportunity to get out in nature, lots of chances to meet some very interesting people, and an excellent way to get yourself killed. One of the things that struck me about the sport was the often unyielding callousness displayed by climbers in the wake of other climbers' deaths - the climbing mags have monthly obituaries, and along with the usual niceties, the piece on the fallen climber typically offers up a detailed account of exactly how the guy or gal died ("...took a 300 foot fall off of a 5.10 route, died due to improperly placed protection..." - hell of an epitaph). The guys I climbed with and I used to read the death columns first. The hard truth of climbing is that you learn from others' fatal mistakes. Such knowledge might save your ass. I don't climb anymore - partially because I'm not in any kind of shape for it, partially because I have two living reasons not to take such risks.

James Kim's death was a tragedy. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know the tale: the Kims attempted to take a shortcut through the Oregon wilderness on their trip home, and got stuck on a snowed-in backroad in the middle of nowhere. Kim set out to find help, and perished in the attempt. By all accounts he was a good man; loving husband to his wife and loving father to his two little girls. His wife and kids are very, very lucky to be alive. James Kim died trying to save them. No greater love, the old quote goes, and holds true.

The story is heart-wrenching. And yet, part of me is angry. At James.

Nature is a hell of a teacher. I've been fortunate enough to have been schooled in such places as Denali, Joshua Tree, the Sand Falls at Land's End, and most recently the chilly waters off of California's Lost Coast. The basic lessons are always the same: Realize that nothing is routine. Know the area you're traveling through; the terrain, the wildlife, and above all the weather. Let people know exactly where you're going, and do not deviate from that plan unless it's to turn back. Assume that the worst will happen, and make sure that you have the knowledge and the equipment to get yourself out of a jam. And most important - weigh the cost. Is what you're about to do - attempt to climb that route, dive to that depth, paddle into that wave, take that shortcut - worth a life?

James Kim, by all accounts, did none of those things. He made mistakes that were avoidable, and he died. That's the cold equation that the remnants of the climber in me thinks about: this + this + this + not doing this = widow and two fatherless little girls.

Why am I angry? Part of it to be sure springs from the empathy I feel for him. Experience tells me that when I'm lost, stay put - I'm much more likely to be found than if I'm on the move. Staying put is not necessarily "heroic", as we like to think of it, but experts and history reinforce that it's the best course of action. Emotion, though...if that were me, I'd have been hard pressed to sit there and watch my family suffer and just wait.

But there's another, deeper thought.

A few days ago, I threw my surfboards, tent, sleeping bag, and other essentials into the Xterra and took off; north, to the hinterlands of true Northern California. Just me, all by my lonesome. (Read about it here, if you like.) Without going into detail, something happened on that trip that could've easily gone the wrong way - "the wrong way" meaning me in a hospital, dead, or worse. I didn't think much of it, even after the fact, but it hit me as soon as I learned of Kim's death. I thought of his family. I thought of mine.

Was I any smarter, better, more clever than him? Me, jaunting around unfamiliar territory, prepared for the known (weather, waves, sharks), yet failing to really think about the unknown, and the worst elements therein? I took the trip for entirely selfish reasons - wanting a bit of solitude, and needing to prove something to the world, to myself. I had a great time, and don't regret going, but what if something had happened? Yeah, the odds are low - just as the odds of your chute not opening are low should you decide to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. The price, however...the price is unspeakable.

I'm sad for James, for his family and friends. I'm angry at James for not weighing the cost of driving down an unknown road on an icy winter night. As I think back on my recent adventure, I'm angry at myself for the same reason.

(If you're planning on taking a road trip during the holidays, and you're heading through some potentially troublesome territory, check out the tips in this CNN article.)

There’s Nothing Like Christmas to Remind You How Much Your Family Shits You to Tears.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my family, but sometimes, they really shit me! How about you? Surely there’s something about your family that wafts its way into the hate node of your brain like an un-found dog turd under the bed? More on that later….

Here’s the deal internet. I’ll put my dirty laundry out on the web for you to read and you give me feedback so I can use you as a type of group therapy. Also, you get to let me know if I am either

A. Being reasonable or
B. Being a paranoid wanker who needs to get over himself.

Here’s the situation.

My Mum doesn’t think. I love her to bits but sometimes, she opens her mouth before she talks and inadvertently says things that are just plain old fucked. Ok, into the wash we go.

Example 1. 

Ring ring……ring ring.

Me – “Hello”

Mum – “Oh hi love”

Me – “Hey Mum, what’s up”

Mum – “I just rang to tell you we won’t be coming around to see the girls this afternoon”

Me – “Oh ok?…….I didn’t know we had anything organised”

Mum- “no, we didn’t, but I thought I would call you and let you know, we are really busy watering the gardens so we won’t be able to make it”

Probably not word for word but pretty close. That says to me my mother finds watering the garden more important than seeing her grandchildren. Now, I want you to keep in mind that this isn’t the first time this type of thing has happened. It happens pretty much every other week. She can’t come because she has to get her hair done, or she has a chiropractors appointment, or her cat needs it’s nails polished…..ok, I made that last one up.

Put in some detergent and relationship conditioner.

Example 2.

Mum - “Hi love how are you”

Me – “Good Mum and you?”

Mum – “Yeah good love, hey I got these masks for the girls. Would you believe in one of the houses I clean, someone had thrown them in the bin?? I thought, the girls would like those, so I got them out of the bin and cleaned them up a little so the girls can play with them”

She also does this all the time. Shit she finds at the dump. Rusty fucking trikes so old and crappy that I almost got tetanus just looking at the thing! I understand that she wants to help out and give the girls things, but come on. From the fucking bin people!!!!

Now the spin cycle.

Am I being irrational to think that this kind of stuff is a bit unreasonable? Is it worth mentioning to my Mum that it really frustrates both me and Wifey when she says these things?

Or am I just being a jockstrap?

So how bout you dear readers? What does your family do that really shits you to tears?
C’mon it’s safe…….they're not reading this anyway!

Timber!

We're getting our tree today.  This used to mark the beginning of the Christmas season in my family.  Now it's more like a half-time show.  We take a break from running around crazy, a very short break mind you, and spend some quality family time decorating the ol'  tannenbaum. 

Then we'll spend the next three weeks trying to keep the  baby from bringing it down.  I'm not quite sure what obstacles we are going to incorporate into our tree defense plan.  He's a slick one.  He climbs and squeezes, and I have a sneaking suspicion he may be able to fly.  He's incredible.

That being the case, we have options.  They make baby-proof plastic fences that we could put around it, but that creates two problems, a) we are dealing with a very small space as it is, and a fence sticking out an additional 3 feet is not ideal, and b) there's no such thing as baby-proof.

I could build a barrier out of baby repellent, that being baby food, diapers and age appropriate toys, but the dogs love that stuff.  That would be a whole new problem.

Another option would be replacing the tinsel with barbed-wire.  I'm leaning toward this one.  I figure that worse case scenario we might shed some blood, but what the hell, it's red- that's festive!

I must say, I have considered not getting a tree (egads!) or getting a very small Charlie Brownish sapling that would become all aglow with blankets and whatever ornaments I could steal from the doghouse.  It won 1st place you know.

That is a path I would rather not take.  I love Christmas.  I need my tree and my Bing Crosby and yuletide cheer.  I've got a Christmas jones.

No, we are getting our tree today and hoping for the best.  I'll give it an hour.

Greg Shall Wiggle No More

Here at DadCentric, we give our fair share of shit to the Wiggles. But it's with a twinge - just a twinge, mind you - of sadness that we bring you the news (actually, CNN brings you the news. We bring you the link, and some snide commentary) that Greg is leaving the group. Fucking Yoko.

Actually, Greg's health is cited as the reason he's leaving the band. He suffers from a chronic condition that brings on nausea, dizziness, and fatigue. (You all know what's coming next...wait for it...wait for it...) Now he knows how the rest of us feel when we're forced to listen to "Fruit Salad" for the fourteenth time in a row. (Thanks! I'll be here all week! Two drink minimum and don't forget to tip your waitress!)

Still, it's kind of sad. For as goofy as Greg and his mates are, the kids do love them, and they in turn seem to be good guys who really enjoy what they do. Good luck, Greg - you'll be missed. Or perhaps not - for as Murray says of Greg's replacement in the article, "Children tend to center on one thing so if he's wearing the yellow skivvy, he's got black hair, he's pretty much Greg." Interestingly, Eddie Van Halen made a similar comment about the guy from Extreme (site requires Flash, along with a healthy appreciation of cheesy one-hit wonder 80's hair band guys), after he was brought in to replace Sammy Hagar. (Yes, here at DadCentric we strive to bring you breaking news as it happens. Tune in tomorrow when I bring you an exclusive report: apparently, there's a new study out that shows that breastfeeding may be as good as or even better for your child than formula!)

Kids Know What They Don't Like. So Why Do We Take Them to See Santa?

Just a general question here, but why exactly do we punish our kids and ourselves by dragging them to the mall to see Santa Claus?

I know a lot of kids are like Ralphie, desperate to outline their laundry list of Christmas needs to Santa, but in my experience the majority of them fear the physical manifestation of the spirit of Christmas like he's Leatherface.

Why would we stand in a line longer than the box office for Jimi Hendrix's "Back from the Dead" tour so we can hand our child to a guy days-removed from his first shower since January?  Some of these guys noticeably reek of gin and trout, but DAMMIT JIMMY WE'VE BEEN STANDING IN LINE FOR TWO HOURS TO SEE SANTA AND YOU'RE GOING TO SIT ON HIS LAP SO DADDY CAN GET YOUR PICTURE!  No wonder so many of those kids look like you've just run over their puppy when you finally print the photos.

I admit to being one of those kids when I was growing up.  I freaked out when my Grandpa put on the fat suit and came ho-ho-hoing into the kitchen on Christmas Eve.  Santa was supposed to be a mythical figure who should be busy in the days before Christmas making his list and checking it twice, not lounging at the local J.C. Penney or interrupting our family dinner.  I liked him a lot better as an idea or a character, and frankly seeing the big guy in person scared the bejesus out of me.

All I'm saying is that we make absolutely sure that our kid really, really wants to tell Santa precisely what Xbox 360 game or American Girls doll he/she wants for Christmas before committing.  I don't think I can bear Cheeky reaching for me like I'm the last chopper out of Saigon while convincing her that this moment will some day be a precious holiday memory. 

Unless of course the picture can be used to embarrass her in front of her first boyfriend.  That might actually be worth it.

Once Were Warriors

Let's face it.  I'm aging, I'm out of touch and I'm no longer associated with the word "cool" (I assume that word is still used these days).  At 40, I'm more likely to get a hernia while taking a dump than function in a mosh pit.  My hair's greying, my eyes don't work well and I fart alot.  I'm old.  Old. Old. Old.  So it surprised the hell out of me when, last Friday, I was able to party it up till 2 in the morning without having 9-1-1 dialed on my behalf or, at the very least, breaking something.  I paid for it.  But I made it.

After being needled by my best friend to join him and another buddy for a night out, I broke down and bought a $37.00 ticket ($20.50 for the ticket + $17.50 in service charges) to see "Trail of Dead" at the Fonda Theater here in Hollywood.  Who is this band?  Well, if you Googled them like I did were anywhere near as in touch with the music scene as I am, you'd know they're an indy band from Austin, Texas.  Kind of geeky, but, pretty fucking powerful as well. Maybe I've lost my jaded sense of musical talent over the past decade, but, I thought they were very good.  Anyway...

After getting over my initial "I'm the old guy here tonight" feeling - which took a couple of beers, um...twice - my buddies and I assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that, despite being twice as old as 50% of the crowd there, we could still hang and maybe no one would notice how much we didn't fit in.  I think we were successful because not once did anyone call me "sir" or "mister" and no one asked why I stuck with the salt and pepper look instead of a fohawk. Of course, by the time the headliner came on I was pretty much shitfaced so I may have missed being called out.  It may be more accurate to say as far as I could tell we infiltrated the youth of America for a night without feeling like a doofus (they still use that word, right?) the whole time.

By the time the show ended it was 1:30am and I was freaking out since I haven't seen the ass end of Midnight in I don't know how long.  Hell, even in Vegas a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were still in bed by a reasonable hour. Anyway...with all the beer-fueled male bonding going on the previous hours, the boys and I managed to plan a half dozen more dude-time adventures that'll never happen.  You know how that goes.  You get all excited about not having the wife around for one night and next thing you know you've all but booked a Vegas run, chartered a fishing boat, bought tickets to the Super Bowl, and lots of other testosterone-laden stuff that will never come to fruition because, after it's all said and done, you're a family man now.  And family men don't get to do stuff like that anymore [unless you're Jason].  At least that's what my wife said.

So, after the three days and 12 Advils it took to recover I'm becoming suspicious that I just don't have it anymore when it comes to partying.  It's more like I have that.  And I think that is age.  Or maybe I'm just not charging hard enough - OK...no, it's not that.  Whatever the case may be, if I'm going to do this more often, I'm going to have to take it a little more easy.  And possibly get a fohawk.