Dad Post #231

So we Disney'ed. It's a verb, right? Like Google (Hey Michael, google 'Magic Kingdom princesses' and tell me who's the hottest) and Facebook (No Megan, sorry Baby, no facebooking until you're 18). For the record, the former is fictitious – or at least I phrased it differently – but the latter is real and true and on a stone tablet somewhere at home, or it should be. Disney was great fun. We rode rides and saw shows. We shopped and ate with reckless abandon. We swashbuckled with Jack Sparrow and did stunts with Indiana Jones. The Little Mermaid is, indeed, a pretty princess, and I nearly barfed aboard a Starspeeder, zipping – as instantly recognized by Michael – through Tatooine, Naboo, and Hoth. The simulator really tossed us around and I was shaken when we 'landed.' Megan and Papa Mike were unruffled and fine, and Michael wanted to go again. I told Michael he'd make a good rebel pilot, but I'm a Jedi and I don't do that shit; I wear robes and meditate and kick ass with my awesome brain and light saber and this little thing called The Force, baby! Although, once again, I phrased it differently. They have a Starbucks at each of the WDW parks but I refrained; it didn't feel right as there was a refreshing absense of ads everywhere for unrelated brands and products. And yes, I'm so cozy with Disney now I use acronyms; WDW = Walt Disney World in Orlando versus WDL / Disneyland in Anaheim. Bam! At this point, we could veer off into criticism of what seems like an ugly, keep-up-with-the-joneses commercialism all around us, but that is cynical and negative and, frankly, not how I feel about Disney; I respect the man, the mission, and the parks. My parents took me to Disney when I was roughly M 'n' m's age, and I'm grateful. I'm happy to pay it forward. Although, a scrub of financial records would reveal a disproportionate outlay from my parents; they basically covered my second trip to WDW also, but three decades later and this time with my kids. Now I feel inadequate and confused. Oh well, these are feelings as familiar as friends, when it comes to self-critiquing my parenting of M 'n' m. I covered our airfare, at least, which wasn't inconsiderable since I booked it too late. But Grandma Barb and Grandpa Mike took it from there, and dropped a gangsta roll (versus a paltry chip-in here and there from me) to make memories for M 'n' m at Disney. Thank you.

There is a final thing, Disney-related, that I'm extremely grateful for: The parks are big and busy, and I constantly felt a little hand nestled in mine or reaching for it. Yes, I enjoyed two days of closeness with Megan, who is more stingy with affection than Michael. She was my shadow and I was hers, and that, to me, for any length of time, is priceless.

Dad Post #230

I said to Megan today, "I remember the day you were born, Baby. I loved you so much that day, and every day since." Megan ignored me. She was playing 'Crossy Road.' Her device is more important than her dad. Crossy Road, of course, is a rip-off of 'Frogger,' which was invented during my childhood, thank you very much. Crossy Road my ass!

We're in Florida for spring break. It snowed half a foot the day we left Chicago. Haha! The Cubs play next week. I love watching baseball at Wrigley in my winter coat and seeing my breath and the players in Under Armor hoods and masks and extra layers so they don't freeze to death. The postseason at Wrigley is always cold, too :)

This evening, M 'n' m and I attended a cocktail party in Florida. We're staying with Grandma Barb and Papa Mike, but Great-Grandma Bev has a place here, also. We sat and sipped drinks with Grandma Bev and her friends. Michael is a 7-Up guy; Megan likes juice. The partiers were all about seven decades older than M 'n' m. I told the kids, "Learn what you can from these folks, they don't make 'em like they used to." I thought for a second and added, "Especially the men, Michael; they definitely don't make men like they used to." Depending on interpretation, I sounded like a chauvinist, a feminist, or a dumbass, but I meant it with deep respect, for men and women. Michael didn't really hear me anyway, but at least he wasn't playing Crossy Road. My son will never be drafted, hopefully, and endure something like D-Day, or the invasion of Germany, like my grandpa who fought for General Patton. Michael probably won't work in a coal mine and die from black lung, like my great-grandpa. As a young man, the same great-grandpa lost his wife following complications during simple surgery, which meant my grandpa lost his mom when he was only Michael's age. Tough breaks. I wonder if M 'n' m can even fathom life without cell phones and the internet. Because it actually happened! No shit! Not long ago, people had no air conditioning, remote controls, automatic transmissions, or vaccinations. They survived without microwaveable meals (that are so preserved, they are essentially immortal). But our ancestors had stillness, hard work, healthier food, and unridiculous media. It's good to rub shoulders with people who are many thousands of days older than we are.

Dad Post #229

In an interesting article recently, I read: “It seems like a lot of what you end up doing as a parent is trying to figure out ways to save your children from you.” This resonated with me. Is it because I’m a crappy parent? Maybe, but mostly it inspired thoughts about how previous generations didn’t even go there; our grandfathers didn’t turn the focus on themselves. They weren't uncaring or ignorant. Far from it. They simply had a different playbook, culturally and socially. The consciousness and science of the era were different, also. Life was different. And so parenting was different. Not better or worse, just conducted with other things in mind. We likely fell a little short back then, but we fail in other ways now. Having awareness of un-optimal genes and environments we throw at our kids is probably good. Bowing to their every whim and analyzing behavioral minutia is probably not good. I find that life is a lot about happy mediums. Parenting is not a democracy, but, conversely, 'the preacher's kid' is a stereotype for a reason; authoritarian parenting sucks the warmth out of folks. Kindness is important to me, and now I'm not talking about being a parent, but a human being.

There are three things I insist are abundant at home: books, sports gear, and writing utensils. Regarding the third, we have more pens, markers, highlighters, BICs, Sharpies, and rollerballs than an Office Depot. We have wooden, mechanical, and colored pencils. We have scratch & sniff pencils. We have crayons, pastels, watercolors, and chalk, if that’s your thing. We have swarms of writing instruments in every room. It's a ubiquity like an infestation, and yet when asked to do homework, I've heard young voices tell me they have nothing to write with.

Actually, M ‘n’ m knock out homework pretty quickly. It’s other to-dos they neglect, like cleaning up the mildew experiments they seemingly undertake by piling wet towels over dirty clothes after a shower.

I read that Robert Downey Jr.’s son is “still in blissful early life, with no idea that his father is unlike other men.” And yet I thought, every father is unlike other men (to his children). Semantics, I suppose, and most of us aren’t Ironman or Sherlock Holmes, but every dad – potentially – possesses a uniqueness, value, and celebrity in the eyes of his children. We need to actuate this influence, though. Maybe it’s a power more subtle than the laser- and pulse-beams Iron Man blows things up with, but it’s a very considerable and lasting thing, our fatherly impact and reach. We need to be positive and constructive with it; we need to honor and earn it; we need to rise to meet it with the best and brightest versions of ourselves. Amen.

Dad Post #228

I watched the newish, highly-acclaimed movie ‘Boyhood’ and thought a lot about Michael. I hope my son’s life is a bit more stable, normal, and healthy than the one depicted, although Michael has divorced parents, an untraditional home-life, and a deep, stoic sensitivity akin to the boy in the movie. He’s growing up fast, my son, and he’s big; he’s been long, tall, and sturdy ever since I met him at Northwest Community Hospital almost 12 years ago. His feet are nearly the size of mine, which is good; I won’t be sharing but he will (if he has any expensive footwear I like). I will, however, avoid shoes that are aggressively fermenting and noxious, which generally disqualifies everything worn by guys his age.

Michael and I have interesting conversations about certain things now. These talks are initiated by me, and mostly one-sided, but he doesn’t fidget or withdraw or radiate strong discomfort. He was noticeably struck by my candor a few days ago when we discussed language, specifically the kind you don’t fling around in front of your grandmothers and teachers. I was honest and not ignorantly rigid. Credibility is important to me. We talked about respect, class, intelligence, perception, reputation. But I also indicated I don’t expect him to be the PC- or pristine-language-police. I know he’s tried foul language on for size, and I told him so. I've never heard him, but I was his age once, and I know how it is. Michael raised an eyebrow but not a disputation. I said, "I hope you discovered it doesn’t fit or feel so great," and he nodded. He’s heard me say ‘shit’ for sure, but not often. And I've said worse, but again, not often, and never with him around. There's a time and a place. It's best not to be shocked and confused by our modern, real world. I told him it's okay to laugh at a dick joke once in a while, but it's not okay to put people down, or be lewd and disrespectful. I was believable. Life is full of battles and principles and moments. I try to pick mine carefully. Because I remember, like it was yesterday, looking at Michael in the nursery when he was twenty minutes old. I remember the overwhelming emotion. There is nothing more important. I want to parent him with high principles and morals – for his own happiness and well-being – but with a sense of reality and groundedness that doesn’t render me, frankly, unreliable or full of shit in his eyes. I want him to live this life, not fly above it or avoid it somehow. Being a teenager is a ride, baby! I'd like to be a place of truth and stability for him. Especially when he needs reprimand. Because he won't be perfect, and if he is, that itself will cause concern.

Stuff I love finding in my piles of papers

Dad Post #227

Sophie, Michael and I walked out of Yorktown Mall last weekend past a very colorful, beautifully-knitted mitten. It was partner-less, which is conspicuous for a thing almost always found in twos. Indeed, it was wet, dirty, and all by itself in the middle of the road. Since I have a weird, distractible, hyperactive mind, I blurted, “That poor, lonely mitten.” And there it was… the name of our band! Yes! We are starting a band and calling ourselves ‘Lonely Mitten.’ It has such an unbeatable ring to it, and God knows we have the pieces: Michael is a cello prodigy, Sophie plays the trumpet like Dizzy Gillespie, Cole is also a genius on the cello, and Megan is learning the flute recorder in music class. All four will probably attend Julliard someday. So we have strings, brass, woodwinds. I know some kickass guitar, specifically two Nirvana riffs and one each by Alice In Chains and Bob Marley. So there’s that. Jeanette is up for maracas and vocal accompaniment. We’re thinking less cowbell than Christopher Walken, but our creative souls are wide open, man, we just wanna feel the music, we wanna BE the music. In fact, I can already feel it! Holy shit! Lonely Mitten is gonna change the world!

For the record, as leader of Lonely Mitten, I won't be as intense as J.K. Simmons in "Whiplash," but my bandmates WILL BE AMAZING or they WILL BE PUNISHED!

My two favorite things are coaching and shopping for used books. Yesterday, at the Salvation Army on Grand and Union (near the Merchandise Mart, my professional home), I stumbled on this little gem. It's so very perfect for Megan :)
 

Dad Post #226

I read this from Dierks Bentley (a country-musician) recently: "I thought I was a man until I had kids, and then I realized that my life had just begun. It tears away the person you were before, builds you up to become the person you have to become, makes you learn a lot of skills - a lot of man skills. That all comes with a kid." Well, it's a life-changer, I know that much.

I like Vanity Fair magazine. Revocation of my man card has been threatened for this affinity, by my badass hunting buddies, but the writing is exceptional, and Vanity Fair does other creative things like ask people, “Would you pick your child’s genetic traits if you could?” Happily, I read that 83% said, “No, I'd leave it up to nature." Whenever we doubt humanity, it reaffirms its heart, altruism, and tradition.

Here's another parenting anecdote I read recently from Bill Bryson's "At Home." Bryson is a brilliantly funny and informative writer. (Sometimes I wander off my well-worn path of murder mysteries, books about Native Americans, acclaimed fiction, Christian and Buddhist exegesis, and Robert B. Parker novels.) And so I came across this: "In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War." My how the pendulum has swung. The obedience / affection equation is an interesting one. I think, at a minimum, we over-entertain our children (and no parent is more guilty of this than I am). Bryson adds, humorously: "By withholding affection to children when they were young, but also then endeavoring to control their behavior well into adulthood, Victorians were in the very odd position of simultaneously trying to suppress childhood and make it last forever. It is perhaps little wonder that the end of Victorianism almost exactly coincided with the invention of psychoanalysis."

Continuing with Bryson: "What is often striking - and indeed depressing - is how freely parents withheld not funds but affections. Elizabeth Barrett and her father were intensely close, but when she declared her intention to marry Robert Browning, Mr. Barrett immediately terminated all contact. He never spoke or wrote to his daughter again, even though her marriage was to a man who was gifted and respectable, and based on the deepest bonds of love." Hmm. A tough call. Naturally, no one will be good enough for Megan, but maybe a writer-philosopher-poet like Browning is preferable to the parade of unexpressive, mentally-flatlining meatheads I'm afraid she'll bring home. Okay, glad I got that off my chest.

Michael doing some winter work...

... on a swing he has sculpted into a beautiful thing to watch. It all looks pretty good to me: his stride, hip-turn, square shoulders, right elbow, rolling hands, head position. And, of course, the proof is in the pudding; he hits it hard. I don't feel safe anymore unless I'm behind a pitching screen. I'm not sure how he arrived here, as some of these things aren't very teachable; putting it together naturally is an 'either-you-have-it-or-you-don't' situation, I've always thought. But as I said before: Grandpa Byard (who was signed by the Chicago Cubs) died on a Friday night, and on the Saturday morning that followed, Michael had a baseball game. He started to look like a hitter, as I sat and watched with watery eyes, and he's looked like one ever since. His dad can hit, too, and so can his Grandpa Mike; he has good genes :) Michael also knows how to watch the great hitters now; he observes them in their full idiosyncratic glory, their rituals and tendencies. He knows how to mimic and visualize himself with the same impressive ability and confidence. And he keeps working at it. Hitting isn't easy. It takes reps. It takes maintenance. It takes working through slumps, doubts, and inconsistent moments. But it feels great to hit a ball over a fence; to crush it, drive it, connect so purely it feels like you've just hit a scoop of ice cream. There's a lot of nuance, subtlety, instinct, anticipation, focus, precision, and cool-headedness required. It's a perfect blend of physical and cerebral skill, and Michael seems to like the challenges it offers.

Megan and Dad at basketball practice