Dad Today

Celebrity Cousin

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:30:00 +0000

It's not only the Lanfer kiddos buzzing about their newest cousin...

Until a colleague congratulated me out of the blue, and explained she'd seen this announcement on E-online, I had been mainly focused on what menus we'll prepare, and what helpful projects we'll take on when James and I visit LA to meet baby Micah. Now we are also practicing our paparazzi blocks.

The morning after we got the news, we Googled Micah's name to see what it meant - "Who is like the Lord" - and Ashley and I simultaneously broke into Micah's raucous, joyful theme song, which has been playing or is being sung by us and the kids on loop all week:

Welcome Micah!

Congrats mom and dad!

The True Meaning of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:30:00 +0000

And the true meaning of Christmas is...maybe just maybe...

...somewhere in between this cute Christmas Eve scene courtesy of Boston's Old South Church...

...and this slightly disturbing but also cute morning after scene courtesy of one Aunt Mally...

Flying Baby Ready for Liftoff...

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:30:00 +0000

...but first a good look at his catcher.

From Oh Sh*t! to Shine

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Our house is well over 100 years old. In 2007, when we moved in, it had quite a few rough edges. Some we dealt with right away. Other projects we took on in anticipation of the LG and then the LD's arrivals. But some things we just never quite got to. Who has the time?

And in time, we sort of stopped noticing anyway - except when guests were about to arrive, which is why, two weeks before Ashley's family arrived for Thanksgiving, the dinginess of the long-neglected upstairs bathroom was just too much to bear.

We remembered that, when we bought the place, our Realtor had suggested this not-too-expensive treatment you can do to re-glaze sad, sorry, dingy old tile-work like ours. It seemed like just the thing.

So, Ashley called around and found someone who could squeeze us in just in time for our guests. "The only thing you need to do," they said, "is replace any cracked tiles" - of which there were 10, maybe 12 in our bathroom.

And how hard could that be?

That weekend, as Drew had his morning nap, Ashley hit Home Depot and came back with what seemed like all the necessary tools and tiles. When Baby Drew woke up, I hung out with him and the other kids, and she went at it.

An hour, maybe ninety minutes later, Ashley came down with flecks of blood on her hands and a look on her face that was not a happy look.

"What?" I asked.

"It's bad," she said. "Come look."

I followed her upstairs and found the surprise she'd discovered lurking under those 10 maybe 12 tiles, which had become several dozen more tiles to reveal the full extent of the water-damaged nastiness:

And I thought, "Oh s%*t." And I thought contractors. And I thought expenses we hadn't budgeted for. And I thought who knows how many weeks or months before we have a working bathroom again.

It was a low moment.

But that night, Ashley called in the help of friends who actually know what they're doing. And the next day, she went out to the suburbs, where our friend Curt is rebuilding a fire-damaged mansion. And Curt gave her all the tools we REALLY needed, and a crash course in how to use them, and a timeline to get it done.

"I need them back in two days," he said.

And so, for the next 48 hours, there was even less sleep than usual and power tools and more trips to Home Depot, and on the second day, a clutch visit from Curt that prevented us from drilling in to unseen waterlines and flooding our entire house.

And then it looked like this.

And then another friend, though gone for the weekend, had a neighbor let Ashley in to their Mission Hill apartment to collect their tile cutter, which James and I had a ball with in the yard, measuring, scoring, and cutting, and then him racing them the tiles up to the third floor for Ashley to set them in place.

And then it looked like this.

And then, after twenty four hours for the tiles to set, and another twenty four for the grout to dry, and then overnight for the caulking, with no time to spare, the glazing guy arrived, and we all split - wow were those some powerful fumes. When we came back that afternoon, they were still overwhelming. So, as the thermometer dipped into the 30s, we put on jackets and hats and gloves and left windows and doors wide open to let the fresh air in.

But that next morning...

What a great idea!

What a wife!

Thinkers

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Glad Tidings We Bring

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Merry Christmas from the laughing Lanfers...

...the LD (2011)

...the LG (2008)

...and the LB (2006)

New Shoes Take II

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Muck and water still irresistible, especially in new shoes.

Here was take I four years ago...

Social Norms, Petrified Wood, and Illicit Apple Gobbling

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Last year I went to a conference on what it takes for people to change behaviors and to live more sustainably. It was in Sacramento, California and one of the keynote speakers was Robert Cialdini - author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. His talk was on the power of social norms. One story in particular really stuck with me. It was about a test he'd run for the National Park Service in the Petrified National Forest.

The rangers were getting increasingly worried about how much petrified wood was being stolen by visitors to the park. They wanted some advice from this human behavior guru about how to change this alarming behavior. So, Cialdini and his team devised a test:

On a hundred yard stretch of trail through the park, they marked and carefully arrayed a set of steal-able pieces of petrified wood. As a base case, they calculated that 3% of the pieces were stolen when there was no signage at all.

Next, they arrayed the pieces again, and set out the sign the Forest Service had been using:

"Many past visitors have removed petrified wood from the park, changing the natural state of the Petrified Forest."

What Cialdini and his team found surprised them and certainly surprised the Forest Service. The percent of pieces stolen almost tripled - to 8% - compared to the base case. The sign sent a strong message that, "Everybody's stealing this stuff. Better get yours now before they're gone!"

A different message suggested a different social norm - one of shared responsibility and stewardship for a public treasure. It cut the rate of thievery almost by half to 1.7%:

"Please don't removed petrified wood from the park in order to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest."

I was reminded about this speech and this story earlier this fall, when we went apple picking north of Boston.

Near the entry to the orchard was an unmissable, hand-written sign on faded blue paper. It read,

"DUE TO WIDESPREAD THEFT, ALL BAGS ARE SUBJECT TO SEARCH"

While we didn't abscond with extra apples in our bags, thanks to Cialdini, I can now blame this sign and its unintended cues about the social norms in the orchard for any untoward gobbling of those crisp, juicy goods by these cute kids or their parents...

Can you blame them?

Little Brother

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Sometimes at Night...

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Sometimes at night, when the baby finally sleeps,

I don't.

One night at 2:23 AM, the chirping of a smoke alarm - its battery dying.

Another night at 3:13 , Maya crying, "I don't want Jamesy sleeping in the bottom bunk with me!" while Jamesy cried for being woken up by her crying at him. They were both so exhausted they had both fallen asleep while I read to them. I had slipped out amidst their snoozing before the usual sending of James up the ladder into his bunk.

At 4:07 one night, it was the restless clack-clack-clack of Scout the Dog, which got me picturing a foul surprise (again) in some forsaken corner. So I sprang out of bed, and rustled some pants from the pile on the chair in the corner in the dark. And I raced her downstairs and outside, and shivered against the middle-night cold, as she darted behind the azalea bush.

Another night it was the clock radio in James and Maya's room, somehow set and beeping at 3:15 AM.

One night, God knows what time it was after midnight, after I lost count of how many deep knee bends, and swaying, and singing, and humming head-to-head with the baby fighting me, fighting the paci, fighting sleep, until finally, he slept, and not only slept, but as I eased him slowly back into his Moses basket, miracle of miracles, he stayed asleep through the transfer.

But back in bed, my heart still raced. And it jumped again with each of his little stirrings, wanting and knowing I needed to sleep, but failing to find the switch.

At some point a body remembers how to drop off just like that after the midnight interludes of wakefulness...doesn't it?

Dodging Bullets and Perfect Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Last Thanksgiving, we hosted in Boston. So, after firsts and seconds of the AWESOME spread, but before dessert, Ash and I stood to make a toast. It began with a Hank Williams song - Thank God - and meandered through quotes by Shakespeare, Sojourner Truth, Blaise Pascal, and Princess Di with no obvious connection or unifying theme until we raised a glass to them all, and added Nat, Mallory, Mom, Aunt Mandy, Aunt Christy, and "all the third children born AND YET TO BE whom we can't imagine the world without."

Baby Drew is now four months old. And it's true. It was true the day he arrived. I thought, here you are, my son. Who can imagine the world without you?

But not too many months before last Thanksgiving, we were still deep in debate about whether or not to even try for a third baby. Life was plenty full already with James and Maya. We were through baby and toddlerhood, and sleepless nights, and nearly through diapers. We had found a rhythm and balance that left openings for Ashley to row again, for me to run and even to write, for date nights. Did we really want to go back again?

But it's just a phase, we said to each other, their babyhood so brief.

So, I spent time wrangling with hypothetical budgets, working to convince myself, and then Ashley that we could actually afford it, even if James didn't get a K1 spot in the Boston school lottery, and we had two preschool tuitions to swallow.

Yet even as we leaned further and further in towards going for it, one of our biggest hesitations was, with two beautiful, healthy, thriving kids, and with us getting older, aging into the domain of "high risk" pregnancy, the worry that were we were not only greedy, but needlessly rolling the dice.

But for all the pros and cons that we tried to weigh objectively and dispassionately, in the end, we wanted to give James and Maya their Nat, or their Mallory. In our very full family, we started to feel that somebody very important was missing.

But even with that agreement, as we stepped out into this together, that last worry proved hard to shake. And throughout Ashley's pregnancy, it was easily triggered. Twice at a routine check up, Ashley measured on the small side. This raised enough concern for her OB to order an extra ultrasound, and for us to run to the internet (as a rule, probably a bad idea - but who can resist?), where we found all sorts of reasons to FREAK OUT!

When we had that extra ultrasound, the technician and then the doc assured us everything looked perfectly normal. Yet despite their assessment, a part of me felt a little unsettled all the way until Drew was born. And when he was, that part of me felt like we had just dodged a bullet.

But what if we hadn't?

All those weeks and months day dreaming of one day swelling with tears and welling with pride as our child hit home runs, or executed flawless ballet leaps, or delivered their valedictorian address, or whatever. Imagine all of a sudden those images vaporized, replaced with uncertainty, with sadness, perhaps with fear, or a daunting awareness of the need to provide perpetual care ?

What would that feel like? And how would I react? How would it hit my family? My marriage? My faith?

A new book - A Good and Perfect Gift by my friend Amy Julia Becker - takes these questions head on.

The day her daughter, Penny, was born, was the day Amy Julia and her husband learned Penny has Downs Syndrome - a total shock as Downs had been explicitly ruled out during their extra ultrasound weeks before. The joy that they felt at the arrival of their beautiful, healthy., and in so many ways thriving daughter was clouded by this revelation. It instantly wiped away their expectations - spoken and unspoken - of a child who would grow to be every bit as capable and accomplished as they are.

The book gives an honest account of those darkest first days - one that does not filter or sugar-coat the kinds of questions and doubts I know I would have, but would be the hardest to say out loud - questions like, "Will I be able to truly love this child?" Or, "Will my love always be checked by a disappointment for who she is not and will never be?"

The years that follow are a crucible for Amy Julia - for her faith, for her relationships, for her sense of herself, and for her whole world view, as she slowly develops what she describes as a "ferocious and complicated" love for her daughter. At the same time, she comes to recognize that there is nothing complicated at all about the joy and love Penny stirs in and shows for others.

It is a beautiful story and I highly recommend the book - and not only for parents or friends of parents of children with special needs. There is wisdom for all parents here.

Reading the book, I couldn't help but think of Ashley's step-sister Becca, and her daughter Riley, whom we all saw again in early October at the beach in Jacksonville. This followed months and months of forceful reminders by Maya, "You forgot to pray for Riley!" if ever we did. So, when we saw Riley, Maya and her brother were perplexed that God had not, after all those prayers, finished his work of healing yet - that Riley still breathes with the help of a tube in her neck, that she takes her food through another tube that goes straight to her stomach, and that though she now has the strength to sit up on her own, she can't yet crawl or walk, and that she makes signs with her hands to talk.

Yet to James and Maya, none of this mattered. Their delight in their cousin Riley and their joy in her company was uncomplicated and unmistakable.

It helped me see, as did Amy Julia's book - how what may seem at first an unfathomable gap between preconceived hopes and a difficult reality can reveal itself to us a good and perfect gift.

Maya and Riley - Two good and perfect gifts done up as
Playsilk Fairies, or Gypsies, or I don't know, ask them.

Amy Julia is in Boston for a reading this week, Wednesday night at 7:30 PM at the Vineyard Church in Cambridge. For details on this or other events, to read an excerpt of her book, link to her blog, and more, visit www.amyjuliabecker.com.

Young Boy and The Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Eat your heart out Ernest Hemingway

First Night Solo with Three

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

I had my first night alone with all three kids. Ash had a meeting. Again the bottle was a bust. Drew fought it and fought it and cried and wailed and wailed, and gagged on the few drops gravity dropped into his throat. So, after a few pages of their bedtime reading, when I kept pausing to bounce and rock and try soothing their baby brother, and they kept insisting, "Read it, Daddy!" I finally said, "Sorry, it's bedtime, guys." And I left them begging for more in the dark. Not long after, Drew, out of sheer exhaustion, finally fell asleep. And when I checked on his big brother and sister, they were out too. All asleep. That's something, I guess. But it sure wasn't pretty.

And that's

all I want to say

about that...

Conspiratorial Proclamations

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

Grams was the only one who actually heard my favorite line by far from the nor' easter week at the beach.

Maya, to Avery, in her breathless, dramatic pause after each syllable way:

"WE

CAN'T

TELL

THE

ADULTS

ANYTHING!"

Wow.

Can we trust her?

The Smile Paradox

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

On days that baby Drew's tears have been unrelenting, when his red-faced, soundless, I’m-about-to-die wails have utterly scrambled my brains, when he won’t tolerate being set down and my back is killing and arms falling asleep, and when his older brother and sister have been so long neglected that they - understandably - start acting out, and I snap at them, which just makes it all so much worse…on those days, I depend so much on Drew's end-of-day routine, when I climb in the bath with him, and I hold him in the water, looking up at me. And though during the day those deep baby blues still seems more captivated by anything to my right or my left or over my shoulder than in looking directly at me, in the tub he always catches my eye. And when he does, his eyes sparkle and I get the widest, explosively joyful smile. And when I get that smile, all the tensions and stresses and anxieties of the day melt away. And I understand in that one moment of eye-to-eye father-son connection the paradox of these periodic studies that discover how much “happier” non-parents can be than parents (here's Lisa Belkin talking about a recent one on her Motherlode blog for the New York Times: "Why Does Anyone Have Children") alongside the certainty from parents in the face of such social sciency findings that we would never give it up - not in a million years.

Can We, Can We, Can We, Please Daddy, Can We?

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

"Can we, Daddy?"

"No."

"Why"

"Because I said no."

"But why?"

"Because you'll get all wet and then cold and we don't have anything for you to change into."

"I don't mind," he says.

"I don't mind too," she echoes.

"Please, Daddy?" he says.

I hesitate and, "Please," she says.

"OK," I say.

And they're in...

Following the leader. Copley Square, Boston, MA

Drill, Baby, Drill!

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:30:00 +0000

After umpteen steps, and forty-five thousand screws, and nuts, and bolts, and brackets of various sizes and shapes packaged in clear plastic baggies labeled A through K, and passing the baby back and forth, so I could work on it, then she could work on it, and managing the very enthusiastic, but not exactly helpful help from James and Maya, the finish line of bunk bed assembly was finally in sight.

But then Ashley called my attention to an unmissable instruction at step one. The instruction was in a box with bold black lines. It was in ALL CAPS. It was surrounded by exclamation points. So when I say, "unmissable," I mean unmissable in the sense that it was unmissable to her and to anyone else but a guy like me who feels a misplaced sense of superiority to the very idea of assembly instructions.

The instruction of note was to make sure to save the long board with the four holes for the top front. And unfortunately, I'd put that board on the bottom, in the back.

So, as I sat there contemplating unscrewing and unbolting the whole thing and starting over at square one, I felt an enormous amount of gratitude for Pops.

Because when my old one just happened to break during one of his visits, Pops had insisted on buying me a new electric drill.

"A man needs a drill," he'd said.

At that moment, with the finish line (and the starting line) in sight, I understood how right he was.

Photo Credit by Creative Commons Attribution License
"Bunk Beds" by mrbill

On Believing You Can Do Anything and Then Doing It

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:30:00 +0000

In the wild, and somewhat random throwing of this and that and various baby and kiddo gear into the car for our 1000 mile road trip to a three week chill-out by the lake, I pulled a set of books off the shelf. I was optimistic that, even with three kids, we might just somehow find a minute or two here and there to read.

And we did.

One of the books I threw in my green backpack was Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist, which I'd read before years ago, and loved, and thought I might revisit. The Alchemist is a simple, beautiful fable about following our dreams and fulfilling our destiny no matter what. Its protagonist is a shepherd boy, who does just that. It is a surprising and moving adventure.

My copy of the book is the 10th anniversary edition, which includes reflections from the author on the beyond-his-wildest-dreams success of the book, which he wrote and published in his late thirties. Doing so for him was a fulfillment of his own life-long passion to be an author. “People are capable at any time in their lives of doing what they dream of,” writes Coelho, even despite being, “told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible.”

That certainly wasn’t the message I heard from childhood onward. If anything, it seems the cultural norm in the United States is to tell our kids they can do whatever their hearts desire. At some point, when they’re older, perhaps we start to helpfully suggest “practical” alternatives to wildest dreams. But if our kids are more likely to do as we do than as we say, than the most important audience for us to speak our you-can-do-anything message to is ourselves. Because how much more will our kids believe they can and should chase their dreams, if they see us chasing ours?

So, as a guy who has always dreamed of one day making my living as a writer, and who keeps plugging away at it one way and another, I have always enjoyed and been inspired by The Alchemist and by the author’s story behind it.

I made it through most of the book on the drive (the book is short, and the drive long). So with all this on my mind at Lake Rabun, I was particularly delighted by James, who was, on his first day, reluctant to jump into the water from the little platform at the back of the boat - maybe six inches above the water - unless I was there to catch him, and to keep his head from dropping too far below the surface of the water. But on his second day, he was puffing out his cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie and plunging off the dock - about a four foot drop - with Scout the Dog bounding off after him.

Again and and again and again he jumped. And each time, we all said, "WOW!"

And then one time, bobbing about in the water after yet another plunge - still just on his second day - he looked up high to the boathouse roof, and announced, "I'm going to jump off the top."

"OK," I said. And I followed on his heels as he climbed up the wooden ladder, and raced along the dock, then bounded up the stone and wooden steps to the roof.

"I'm going to do it," he said. "I can do anything."

I followed him to the edge. And when, looking down, he hesitated, and said, "I don't want to." I said, "You don't have to, James."

And then he jumped.

I was shocked, and amazed, and so proud.

We all were.

I was inspired too.

"I can do anything," he said.

Anything.

Worried Look

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:30:00 +0000

He looks like a worried old dude - jowelly, furrowed brow-y, and whispy receding hair. Or if not exactly worried, at least it's the look of an old dude, saying, "You have got to be kidding me."

Whatever it is, I love this shot...

A first plunge in the lake. Thanks, Dad. No really, this look on my face means, there's no place I'd rather be. (Is this going to go on much longer?)

Schadenfreude

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:30:00 +0000

As we meandered our way beneath the cool canopy of dark green mountain laurel on the gradual ascent to Hemlock Falls in the North Georgia Mountains, James ran ahead, and Maya seized the moment. She took my right hand in her left and asked, with a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye, "Is this the one Jamesy likes?"

"Yes," I said.

"James!" she called, "I've got your hand!"

Wow, I thought, what schadenfreude.

Lately, I have really enjoyed watching James and Maya together. Their friendship really got turbo charged when baby Drew was born, and especially when the two of them were swept up to Maine by their Beppy and PopPop for nearly a week of swimming and parades and carnival rides in the run up to the Yarmouth Clam Festival, plus the company of their spell-bindingly cool, hands-free roundup-doing, my-life-is-a-dance big cousin Rachel, plus late nights and more ice cream and other special treats than they ever get to gobble up when there are no grandparents exercising the grandparent prerogative to give them all that good stuff.

I remember when we first had James, we were so overwhelmed. But going from three kiddos down to one infant - it felt like we were all of a sudden on a honeymoon. I mean what do babies do but sleep and eat and coo and now and then need a new diaper or change of duds? Oh, sure, they do cry too now and then (like every two hours all last night). And the interrupted sleep is disorienting. But unlike that first time, when the crying seemed to scramble our brains (mine especially), and made it feel like a triumph to simply to pull of taking a shower or darting to the bathroom without some disaster striking the baby, this time, we just threw him in the Ergo, took long walks, slept in late, went out to dinner at JP's new, hip Tres Gatos Tapas Bar, and more. It was awesome.

But we missed the bigger kids too. They are so much fun right now. And we were a little worried about little Maya being apart from us so much longer than she ever had been before. We shouldn't have.

When I finally drove up to collect them, they greeted me by asking, "Hi, Daddy. Can we stay another day?"

That next week it was clear that their Maine adventure had made them buddies in a whole new way. And it made me glad to imagine the many ways they will lean on each other, and depend on each other, and love each other through the years.

But there on the trail to Hemlock Falls in Rabun County, Georgia, if there ever was a worry that their relationship would be like one gag-inducing Hallmark card after another, that worry was vanquished. They will spend their lives pushing each others' buttons too.

Thank God for siblings.

Lake Love

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:00:00 +0000

A week of paternity leave, plus two of vacation made for three at Lake Rabun in the North Georgia mountains.

Wow it was good.

So good.

And it was over too soon.

Except for life transitions between school and job, or job and job (and sometimes not even then), we have never taken this kind of time. Time with no drop offs, no pickups, no hand offs, no school, no work, no cell phone service even if we wanted to use them, no anything at all but just us and whatever we felt like doing each day together .

This kind of time shouldn't be so rare.

And for all of those days, my favorite shot was my second shot on Day 1...

Bro and Sis, Lakeside

How to sell by the hundreds not millions...

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:13:00 +0000

The kinds of questions and bedtime interactions that make some wonder and write books that sell millions about come on now, kid, go the f*ck to sleep - make me wonder a little why I didn't think of that, except for the obvious answer that these are the kind I can't seem to get enough of...

At bedtime, Maya asks,

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Maya."

"I have a question."

"What is it, Maya?"

"Why do little lambs have wool?"

"Why do you have hair, little girl?"

"I don't know."

"It's the way God made you."

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Maya."

"When I grow up, I want to be a lamb."

"OK, sure."

"Daddy?"

"Good night, little girl."

New Blue Eyes

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:00:00 +0000

These first weeks with Drew have reminded me of our first weeks with James. The brotherly resemblance has done it more than anything else. But so have the wandering new baby eyes. They reminded me how stressed we got about James not being able to focus, to find us, or to track bright colored objects that we moved side to side right in front of his face. The stress was fueled by the often helpful guide What to Expect the First Year, which told us to expect he should be able to do all those things long before he could (they should call that book, How to Get STRESSED OUT JUST IN CASE the First Year Because Your New Parent Anxieties Aren't Already Hyped up Enough). We even had an eye check scheduled with a pediatric ophthalmologist - which we canceled, when James all of a sudden stopped just staring at the molding beyond us, and looking right into our eyes.

It's been the same with Drew, though situated just right, he is already seeing and cooing right at us, which is amazing. In this photo, however, while I'd like to say he was catching my eye and smiling at me, he was just being bedazzled by our lamp, just over my right shoulder.

On the Fourth of July

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:00:00 +0000

By the time we got to the 4th of July, we were nearly two weeks passed our due date, and wondering if our baby would decide to be an all-American-born-on-the-fourth-of-July type - with fireworks to mark his/her arrival, and to celebrate his/her birthday every year.

In the days and nights before, and into that morning, contractions were getting more regular and more intense. But still, when anyone asked, Ashley's verdict was the same - "nothing to write home about."

It was a beautiful day. So, we set off early for Walden Pond, where we took turns playing in the water with James and Maya, and swimming deep, deep, deep out into the middle of the cool, clear water. When it was my turn to play and Ashley's to swim, I kept one eye on them, and another on her, as she made her way 100, 200, 300, 400 yards out, and now and then stopped to tread water as another contraction washed over.

What would happen, I wondered, if, all of a sudden, out there in the middle of the Pond, they WERE something to write home about?

But they weren't.

It felt great to be out there, weightless.

Baby wasn't ready yet that morning.

The last time we were in town for 4th of July weekend, we'd opted to stay closer to home, joining the hundred or so who congregated at the top of Peter's Hill in the nearby Arnold Arboretum - where you can spot the tops of the highest explosions, but little else, and listen to the Boston Pops playing - if somebody brings a radio and finds the right station.

It was OK, but left us wanting more - something more like the live scene we'd taken in once before, years before that, when we'd had an awesome dinner at East Cambridge's East Coast Grill, then made our way right to the banks of the Charles on the Cambridge side.

Now THAT was a pretty awesome scene. And so was crush of humanity, the absolute madhouse of pedestrians, and strollers, and bikers, and traffic going nowhere, trying to get out of there and get home.

So, I was all for trying something different than the Arboretum, but was also pretty nervous about returning to the Charles. Maybe just a bit closer, I thought. Why don't we try the view from the top of Larz Anderson Park in Brookline? It's a little bit closer. Maybe it has a better orientation towards the river. It certainly is a point from which we would able to make a clean and easy getaway to the Cambridge Birth Center if need be.

But I lost the debate.

Everyone wanted a better view - Ashley, James, and Maya, plus Pops and Grams, who were back with us by then waiting for THE day, whenever THE day would come.

OK, I said. But at least let's get ourselves, just in case, to the Cambridge side of the river. Because I suspected that, if it was all of a sudden TIME - as well it might be with all the walking we had in store - and if we were on the Boston side, then nothing but helicopter or act of God would get us across to the Cambridge Birth Center.

All week long, Boston news media were echoing the plea to leave cars at home - adding that T service would be free after the show.

In hindsight, given our circumstances, we should have ignored this public service advisory. But we didn't.

At 9:00, we woke up the kids, who were at first groggy, but then perked up for the much-hyped middle-of-the-night adventure. We piled them in to the double stroller. And we set off down the hill for Forest Hills Station.

From JP by T, the quickest way to get to the Cambridge Side of the Charles, is to take the Orange Line into Downtown Crossing, then change to the Red - when all systems are go, that is.

At Forest Hills, the trains were less than half full. But by the time we got to Downtown Crossing, they were packed. At the underground station, we shuffled off with the masses, and made our way to the stairs - where the kids hopped out and grabbed grandparents' hands, and I stalled traffic by plodding down the steps carrying the massive stroller. Then we made our way down the stuffy, gritty hallway, and onto the platform for the Red Line.

On the inbound-to-Alewife side with us, the crowds grew and grew and grew - massing in clumps at first around the giant fans, then fanning all across the platform, as one, two, three, four, five - and I lost count - outbound trains came and went on the opposite side. Finally, with only 30 minutes left before the show, all of us getting more and more hot and bothered, more restless, an announcement came over the loud speaker - "Due to a disabled train at South Station, inbound service will be running with delays."

We headed for the exit and started walking - just under a mile to the river, and time running out. We cut to and through the Boston Common, where hundreds were gathering on the hillside below the Frog Pond.

"Maybe we should just stop and watch from here," suggested Pops, very sensibly (or maybe it was Grams). Less of a crowd. Easier getaway.

Good points all. But no. At that point, I was too focused on our goal, however foolhardy, and on leading our little crew to the river side.

With less than 10 minutes before showtime, we finally made it into the crowd on Storrow Drive - which is about as close as you can get to the river. But it is also lined by massive trees that seemed sure to block our view.

So we kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking - taking note of the ambulances and medical tents scattered among the crowd as we went.

"How far are we going?" someone asked.

"I don't know," I said, and kept walking.

And we kept going, until the fireworks started. We finally stopped walking - at least for a moment. And we settled in for what turned out to be a great view of a fantastic show. The kids were spellbound - though James was soon also overwhelmed. He crawled back into the bike trailer. Maya, on my shoulders, cheered for more, more, more.

When it was all over, we started walking again. For our return trip, rather than retrace our steps into the middle of downtown, it seemed like it would make more sense to aim for a further-out Orange Line station. The closest one, I thought, would be Mass Ave - maybe a mile, or mile and a half from where we were.

But when we got to the Mass Ave exit off of Storrow Drive, the crush of humanity was CRUSHED. From way up on Mass Ave, all the way down the ramp to where we were, it was back to front to back to front people - going nowhere.

"Let's keep walking," I said, adjusting my mental map to take us to the next exit, and across the winding Back Bay Fens to Ruggles Station instead.

By the time we got to the next Storrow Drive exit, the foot traffic had thinned out enough we could walk at as good a clip as our tired and tiring group could handle. But, distressingly, the car traffic also started appearing right alongside of us. So we gradually formed a single file line, up the highway exit ramp, as cars screamed past, blinding headlights and blaring horns.

So, it was a relief to get off the street and onto the walkway through the Fens. Though soon I was doubting my bearings, and wondering if what had felt before like a short cut, was turning into a long-cut detour. It is never easy to fly as the crow flies in Boston.

By the time we emerged from the woods and into the street lights near the MFA, I figured our group had marched four, maybe five miles. They were hurting - Ashley especially.

A group of college kids set off some firecrackers 20 yards ahead of us, then raced down an alley. James freaked out at the too-close-for-comfort BOOM!

When we made it to Huntington Avenue - maybe a 1/4 mile still to go before we got to the station, Ashley had to stop and sit on a bench. She got quiet as the contractions got more and more intense.

Pops started trying to hail a cab. All were full.

I knew that the number 39 bus also runs to Forest Hills, and would pass right by us on Huntington Ave. But when a first finally came, it was wall to wall, window to window people. It didn't even slow down for us. Neither did the next. Or the next.

We all took a deep breath and, when Ashley gave us the queue she was ready, we set off again for the T.

When we finally got there, and it finally came, it was not, as we feared, packed too.

Bleary-eyed, exhausted, and relieved, we sunk into the seats, and soaked up whatever AC those long-past-their-useful-life cars still cranked out.

At last, after midnight, at home and in bed, the contractions dissipated again, and Ashley fell to sleep.

I lay awake there thinking...

Thank God for saving us from our own stupidity.

It sure would have been a dramatic entrance and birth story.

I'm glad it wasn't.

***

Creative Commons Attribution License Photo Credit:
Boston Fireworks 2005 by monkeyatlarge

The Coolest New Handheld

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan Lanfer) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:00:00 +0000

It doesn't run too many app's - at least not yet.

The few it does run, however, sure pack a wallop.

Memory capacity so awesome you can't even measure it in bytes - at least I can't.

Compatible with countless docking stations (though it has his favorites).

Battery life like you can't believe.

And the most beautiful interface imaginable - what can only be described as coming from the mind of God into our hands...