How to be a Badass Dad

The most Positive Representation of Fatherhood in the Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:07:00 +0000

First there was Atticus Finch (okay, he was first from a book) who showed the strength and difficulty of a single father. Now there's Tatsuo Kusakabe.

Well who the hell is that?

Tatsuo Kusakabe is the name of the father in the animated Japanese movie "My Neighbor Totoro," written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 1988. It reached these shores shortly thereafter in VHS format, and most recently (with a new dub and voice cast) DVD through Studio Ghibli's partnership with Disney in 2006. It reached my house sometime in 2008 via Netflix and it has remained there, not being sent back ever since.

"My Neighbor Totoro" shows us a Japanese family in the late 50s struggling with many difficulties. The mother is stuck in a hospital room, her health going back and forth (with, presumably, tuberculosis), while the father and their two daughters move to a new house in the country that will be much better for the mother's health, should she get to come home.

The girls are excited about their new surroundings and always talk about what their mother and how she will like the new house so much. They are adventurous and imaginative and encounter some strange things going on in the new house.

It is how the father embraces the imagination of the daughters that I find so positive. For a long time now, the Ward Cleaver dad has been gone from popular media and we've seen more of a Al Bundy/Homer Simpson father figure. While this isn't all negative (at least these families have fathers who didn't run out on them, despite the many problems with their respective families), I don't think that we've ever seen a father as strong and supportive as Tatsuo Kusakabe. When the daughters tell him about the strange happenings in the house, where Ward Cleaver would dash their silly superstitions and Homer Simpson would run away, he says, "Great! I've always wanted to live in a haunted house!" he doesn't even bat an eye, he goes with it, enthusiastically and positively.

Tatsuo struggles to keep his daughters positive despite their distance from the ailing mother and his busy university job. He takes the bus to work and the kids walk to school with a kind neighbor, Granny. Somewhere in the mix, the youngest daughter, Mei, stumbles into a forest and finds a gigantic furry rabbit-looking thing called a Totoro. When she excitedly returns to tell the family about it, her father believes her instantly. He's excited that she has met a "forest spirit" and says that if he or the older daughter cannot see him, it's because he doesn't want to be seen, not that he doesn't exist.

There's no overarching plot to the movie. It's a character-based story, and while that might seem like it would be boring for kids, it's anything but. My daughters (one of whom looks an awful lot like Mei and the other like her sister Sastsuki) can watch it over and over without every wanting anything else. And the thing is, I can, too.

While the story touches on hardships and transitions in life, there's never any of that tension that makes a story too plot heavy. Everything is treated matter-of-factly, leaving the audience to understand that this is their life and that while our problems and circumstances may differ, they're a lot like us.

I'm a big fan of Pixar films, but they almost always follow a male protagonist. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But Miyazaki films almost always follow a strong female protagonist. I like this because I think it shows a positive picture of girlhood to my daughters--one not filled with princesses and ponies, of but climbing, exploring, and curiosity. If you've never seen a Studio Ghibli film, you really are missing out on quite a spectacle. Miyazaki movies are hand-drawn and often call for different media for their animation--water colors, charcoal, black ink, and colored pencil are all used in his films. There is a sensitivity for the art and soundtrack that rings through kids and adults. And the Disney dubs are cast perfectly and with an almost divine respect for the way the lips move. The actors and actresses speak in a rhythmic, almost snare-drum style to match the original speaking roles.

In all honesty, I recommend this movie not just to parents but to anyone who has a respect for film making. While Miyazaki certainly has more exciting flicks out there, "My Neighbor Totoro" is a pleasant, heartfelt story that is really, really hard to beat.

School Fund Raising and Harsh Indoctrination

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:48:00 +0000

My daughter was pretty excited when my wife picked her up from school yesterday. She had just finished an assembly where they showed her "all of the cool prizes" that she could win by selling stuff. In her little folder was a whole catalog full of useless stuff at outrageous prices. Along with that was another catalog of much more useless stuff that she can win just for selling these items. A particular favorite of hers was the stuffed cow you can have for selling 65 items. ("65 items" echoes in the background and fades out). A particular favorite of mine was the choice you get for selling 150 items--either a cell phone with 30(!) prepaid minutes or an actual $100 bill.

I know that you know this by now, but she's four and she's in kindergarten.

Bribing a kid her age with an exciting assembly featuring things you can "win" just doesn't seem fair. A hundred bucks? Do you have any idea how many hours you would have to work (or your parents would have to work) to sell 150 items such as $20 wrapping paper, $15 cookie dough, and $25 picture frames? Hours and hours.

I' ve looked through this catalog. It's not like I can just take it to work, pin it up above the coffee pot and wait for the orders to come spilling in. No one will buy. There's nothing worth buying. What the hell is this plan all about anyway?

There is something wrong with a school fund raiser that aims directly at the parents to order a few things so that their kid might get a prize or two (there is a generous "mystery prize" for selling one item...I think we'll take the cookie dough). The problem is overwhelmingly apparent: the parents lose money and the school doesn't make very much.

A public school gets funding from the surrounding community in the form of property taxes, sales taxes, and in some cases, income taxes. When I school sets up a fund raiser like this, they are asking for a little extra money from that community. But my $15 of cookie dough will not go directly to the school. A few dollars has to pay for the dough and the company that puts on the fund raiser. Then, about fifty cents or so goes to the "mystery prize" that will brighten my little kindergartener's day. At the end of it all, I'd guess (and it is purely a guess) that $3-5 will go to the school. Honestly, I'd rather spend the five bucks to directly support the school, if they need the money so bad.

The same thing happens with soda machines. The school installs them and they get sometimes up to fifty cents on the dollar. But, in order to keep their contract, they have to push the product, install more machines, and in many cases allow the students to drink sodas in class. Let's not tough the health issues that go along with this, but from a purely money point of view, this still picks the community's pockets without giving much to the school.

I know that schools are hurting for money. I know teachers should be paid more, too, and class sizes should be smaller. I hate to be the one to throw this out there, but maybe we should--as a community--be handing more money over to the schools if we believe in what they are doing for our community and expect them to do a good job. If we don't, let's tear the damn things down. I can't see how selling cookie dough and wrapping paper while teaching my kid to be motivated by money and prizes is a good compromise.

Anyone want to order anything?

Kindergartners Shouldn't be Tested

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:15:00 +0000

For that matter, I don't think anyone should be tested in school. I think tests are archaic ways to measure successful learning and at least as arbitrary as the grading system as a whole, but perhaps worse. They create unnecessary anxiety, pressure, and consequences. By no means should kindergartners ever have to take tests.

My four year old has had to do 20 minutes of standardized testing for the last two days. She'll be doing it for three days next week as well. And while these test times are mercifully short, they shouldn't be there at all.

What does one hope to measure by testing a four year old? The only thing that can be accurately measured by any test is how well a student takes a test--this is especially true for the very young and should illuminate the situation on all ages. Testing applies a pressure to perform in students that makes the completion of an education seem like an all-or-nothing search. It suggests that all students learn at the same rate, which they don't. Even the teachers applying these tests to the children think it's a waste of time. We may as well test them at archery or horse betting if we're looking for something to measure.

Testing cannot, by definition, measure creativity. And is creativity not a part of intelligence? Does it not lead to learning? Are we not to value creativity at all? I am in the fortunate position of college English professor where I never have to instruct students to fill in the bubble with a number two pencil all the way. I am in the fortunate position of getting a window into the creative minds of my students, to see how they solve problems, to see how they approach situations, and to learn a little about how their particular thinking developed. In the end, I am in the unfortunate position of having to then assign a measure to their level of accomplishment in my class. Fortunately, for me at least, this can be based on improvements, effort, number of tasks completed and many other factors that don't suggest right and wrong thinking.

That's what's so terrible about testing to me. Beyond being boring and encouraging students to not be engaged in class for years and years at a time, they suggest the existence of a single correct answer for situations. In many cases, when I was taking standardized tests, I would have to choose between answers that I didn't think answered a damn thing. Yes, it does say to choose the "best" answer, but why force me to choose between poor options, I always thought?

Why do we have such a lust for numbers and measures anyway? We are a society obsessed with statistics. The most boring meetings I go to involve someone standing up in front presenting statistic after statistic and linking them together to present a conclusion that they would have reached philosophically without the statistics in the first place. We use them to show everything. And we always--above all else--think that our goal is to show that every single person has the same potential for accomplishment and learning through the same time frame and methods as everyone else. This is, alas, not true. No one worth their salt actually believes it to be true. And yet still we strive for that pointless gold standard--to teach everyone the same thing through the same means at the same time and have them all progress at the same rate. People are not goddamn computers! The very idea is disproved by research all over the place and has been a useless idea since shortly after modern education began. And yet, still. Still.

We look back at 19th Century science and laugh at how people thought that lumps on a head or shade of skin can express intelligence and creativity. Some day--if humans are to evolve at all--we will be laughed at for our insistence on the trust we put in testing.

Students, at any age, are individuals. They should be measured as such. The completion of an education should be about its own intrinsic value and not the value of having a fancy piece of paper or the value of a high paying job. Should education be for everyone? Yes; but not the same education.

People, please, let's get our heads out of our asses. We're wasting the time of countless four year olds and their teachers and setting a low standard for what education can and should be for each and every person.

The Ghost of my Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:26:00 +0000

My daughters can easily find themselves frightened. An odd noise, a dark room, and they easily see the materialization of something unseen, of something other, of something frightening. And it doesn't surprise me that this is the case. Their imaginations are flourishing to such a bright and pretty place, it's not wonder the shadows are all the darker.

This morning, while getting my girls in the car for their mom to go get their eyes checked, Luna told me about how her friend, Cheer Rainbow, had a pretend unicorn for a friend. Cheer Rainbow--some sort of a totally ridiculous pony that follows Luna around--is so real to her that she even has her own imaginary friends. Now don't get me wrong, Cheer Rainbow isn't always fun to have around--for example, I regularly have to go and get her from the basement where she gets stuck every so often--but it is delightful to know that there are those with such rich imaginations.

The reflection of that imagination is found at night, with ghosts making sounds or aliens out in the bushes (I should note that there's a part of me that doesn't doubt the sounds could have been ghosts and dreads the thought of little eyes staring back from the bushes). But I find myself jealous of the fear that they experience.

It sounds stupid, because the last thing I want is to be actually afraid. But I used to like making myself scared. I loved camping and fearing what was out there. I loved watching scary movies and finding myself unable to sleep. I loved the dusky nights just before Halloween, reading Ray Bradbury stories and knowing that there is more to our world than I'd like there to be.

Even as recently as high school (or maybe, sometimes, college), I found myself unable to walk through a dark hallway without putting my fists up. But this past week, my wife and I have been renting horror movies and I have to say that they've done nothing for me.

Can it be that my imagination has withered to the point of not being able to be scared by a horror movie at all? That may not be so surprising, I suppose, as most of today's horror movies rely on gore to disquiet the nerves and that has never affected me much. But shouldn't I be open enough to imagination to have trouble sleeping after seeing a ghost movie while I'm living in a old house that I just moved into? (okay, 1408 was a good movie, and tense, but I slept totally fine)

I can't help but to think that something is lost. It could be that since I am no longer the center of my world, I fear something happening to my family a thousand times more than something happening to myself. I can't stand stories or movies where a kid dies. But I don't get scared, just disturbed and angry at the thought.

I don't want to think that the practical world is so important to me that I can't suspend disbelief long enough to get lost in a movie. Maybe the stories weren't good enough. Maybe the characters weren't convincing. Or, just maybe, my problem is the same problem that prevents me from seeing Cheer Rainbow and her imaginary, imaginary unicorn.

Moving On

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:51:00 +0000

At the end of next week, we are moving from Texas to Michigan. This is a big change for us. It's much bigger than our big girls know, but they are facing it with excitement.

On the horizon for Daughter Number One is kindergarten. After debating for the last five years if we were going to do public school or home school, we have decided to give public school a shot. Solstice seems to thrive on social interaction with kids her age. She seeks them out, asks them to be friends, and talks about her times with them for ages afterward. She also has an intense love of learning and can't wait to cut her teeth on the kinds of busy work that kindergarten has in store for her. We plan on keeping an eye on things and keeping our options opened.

Coming up for Daughter Number Two is preschool. We are enrolling her in a nature preschool two days a week. Luna isn't as in to other kids as her sister. All she really wants to do is play with her big sister and mother her little one. Two days a week in the outdoors with other kids will hopefully be something that will build her confidence and independence. She is a real treat to be around, but has trouble showing that to anyone outside of her family.

I will be teaching English at a different community college and am so far enchanted with my interactions with my fellow professors up there. I look forward to continuing my research on student engagement in writing and finishing my doctorate this year.

And for all of us, we're trading in the heat and humidity of the Houston area for the cool weather and snowy winters of Bay City, Michigan. We (think we) found a house and can't wait to move in to it. We've got to get used to driving in snow, shoveling snow, walking in snow, and other snowy things. We're stoked about it.

I hope to keep up with this blog more in the coming months and feel terrible that I've neglected it so hardcore since Daughter Number Three was born. Stay tuned!

Watching "Star Wars" with my 4 year old

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:01:00 +0000

It's Father's Day again. I don't feel like I can really write a reasonable post on Father's Day without ample repetition of my past self on the subject. So I'll share the story of how I decided to celebrate it this year, with doughnuts and Star Wars.

I woke up with the sun on this longest day of the year, because our properly named daughter, Solstice, came running into our bedroom the instant the sun peaked over the trees, hugging and kissing me and reminding me what day today is. While that is very sweet, it should be noted that this is an everyday activity; whether it is a special day or not, Soli likes to alert us to its presence.

I got the two older girls dressed and headed out the door to the only proper doughnut shop near here, about 7 miles away. And, as with every morning, Solstice talked: "What kind of doughnuts will we get?" Do you think Mommy wants some? Do they have doughnuts in Michigan? Where do doughnuts come from? What if they don't have doughnuts? What kind do you like? What if they're all out and the people say, 'Sorry, no doughnuts' and you don't have a good Father's Day?" And on, and on.

Now I love Solstice and I wouldn't change a thing about her. And though I wouldn't change it, I have never seen, heard of, nor imagined something that talks quite so much as my eldest daughter. No breath is wasted with her, all are spent with words.

On the way home, I tried to think of what else I would do to celebrate my self as a dad. I am a fan of the Star Wars saga and found myself in the mood to watch Episode III (yes, I dig the prequels quite a bit, especially Revenge of the Sith). In retrospect, I should probably have watched Return of the Jedi, the ultimate father-son movie, but honestly the ending makes me tear-up too much.

Solstice and Luna sat down to watch the movie with me. I'm not worried about the strange and sometimes frightening images they may see on the show, as they are the same things I looked at as a child. There's such a plethora of images that I feel that they mix and mingle into sensory overload. (I say this now, but no doubt nightmares of General Grievous will keep Luna and me awake tonight.)

I would like to share with you why this was such a challenging task for me to complete today. It was Solstice's talking. The following is a mish-mash of actual quotes spoken by my 4 year old during the movie:

What are they doing? Are they the good guys? Why are they in that space ship? Do you want to go in a space ship? What are those robots doing? Do you think the robots will get them? Which one is fighting that one? Why is Yoda so tiny? Did you know he is tiny? He's tinier than you! Yes he is! You know what my middle name is? No! My middle name is Butterfly House Explode! Yes it is! Do you think Chewbacca has a middle name? I think it's Princess Rainbow Bright Stupid Pirate! Well, he said 'stupid'! Why does bad guys say 'stupid'? Why are they being yucky? Do you think you could ride on one of those? Those are my friends. I don't want her to be a queen, I want her to be a princess. That baby looks like a princess.

And on, and on. Without end. She just doens't stop. I tried to answer her questions as openly and honestly as I could, with as few "Just watch!" comments as possible. But when the movie was over--and it's a long movie--I was relieved. I didn't get to revel in that last shot of the double-sunset because I was just so effing glad the movie was over and the question would subside. My dermination to finish the movie was simple stubbornness.

It gave me an idea for a money-making scheme. I thought I should watch lots of movies and record the commentary that Solstice makes throughout. People could download them and sync them up with their DVD players and have their minds blow. Butterfly House Explode, indeed.

I need a rest. Or noise cancelling headphones. Or a huge dose of patience.

Subtle Messages of Lower Expectations for Fathers

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:28:00 +0000

My family was at the zoo a couple weeks ago. It was a balmy Houston day and I was wearing our newborn in a moby wrap, my wife and I taking turns pulling the wagon with the older two daughters in it. We were watching some kind of smaller monkey as it carried its newborn baby on its stomach. I felt strangely primal watching it, admiring how natural it was to wear the baby instead of push it along in a stroller. We were finishing up a pleasant visit with the orangutans when I woman remarked to my wife, "Now that's an attractive husband!" Hehe, haha, we moved on. But the same thing kept happening. And it always happens when the whole family is out and I wear the baby, which is about half the time; people constantly make remarks about how awesome I am for wearing my youngest daughter. And for whatever reason, it's always moms and it's always presented as if I am somehow desirable because I yeild to carrying my baby.

And the half when my wife wears her? No guys hit on her, no women give her high-five, the baby receives her customary compliments, but my wife doesn't get the ego boost that I do.
It is a bit of an ego boost, too. I was never accostomed to walking about getting compliments or being called attractive.

Juging from my experience, it is expected that a woman should take care of a baby and it is above the call of duty for a husband to help out. That is also reflected in the incongruency of baby changing stations in bathrooms--about half of the time, there will be a baby changing table in the women's room but not in the men's.

The woman grows the baby and births the baby, I get that. And my wife nurses our babies, too. But since when does it become her charge to take care of every aspect of babyhood? I'm bigger and stronger, why wouldn't it make more sense for me to wear the baby than my wife?

What bothers me most is this: These women who gush over an involved father could easily have chosen that quality in a mate. If they find it so attractive that a husband should take care of a baby, why didn't they find that kind of guy attractive in the first place? I'm asking because I want to know.

It comes down to this: parenting (and marriage in general) is not a 50/50 thing; it's a 100/100 thing. Both parents need to give everything they have. It's not a matter of trying to get out of things easily, or pawning responsibilities on others. You give it all that you have. And when you have nothing to give, you trust that your partner's engine is still running. When you can get back on your feet, hop up.

Hidden within those very nice compliments that I get for being a father is the hidden code: our society doesn't expect as much from fathers. Low expectations create low performance. But being a parent isn't about performance, it's about joy. It is a pleasure to be involved with your children, and fathers shouldn't let mothers have all the fun!

Finding Balance

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:02:00 +0000

I reoccurring theme in this blog seems to be finding balance in the myriad of pressures a modern dad faces. That balance has been really hard for me lately. When juggling too many balls, the most probably outcome is to drop them all, unfortunately.

I was juggling a lot when the new baby came along. Between work, school, and home, there was a lot going on. Then the new baby comes into the picture, and things get out of focus. She's an easy baby, so far as that expression goes. She sleeps a lot, hardly cries, is easy to console, and a pure joy to hold and look upon. But saying "easy baby" is a relative term; nothing that consumes your every moment and thought is ever easy.

So how does a dad deal with all of this? Well, first of all, he appears to stop posting to his blog. Second, I have really had trouble making time to promote my book.

For about a year, this blog has been a very important project of mine. And, on and off, my fiction writing blog has been important. Writing my own books is another facet of my world that has been dormant. But the biggest problem has been my ability to sit down and work on my school work.

I've seen it a thousand times, as a professor. Students get a busy and the first thing to drop off is their school work. If they get a job promotion, or get more hours, they stop coming to class. After all, when push comes to shove, and you get too busy and tired, most students see the schooling as the lesser important task. And lots of jobs claim to support going to school, but in action things can be very different.

My school, however, boils down to one assignment. I am working on the last school assignment I will ever have to complete. And I haven't been able to touch it for four weeks.

It's a dissertation. And it's about a subject that I care a lot about. And I find it very engaging to complete a large project like this.

And yet.

At the end of the day, I have had trouble bringing myself to sit down and work. I have fallen into the trap that I have criticized more students for than anything else: treating an education like a chore.

So how does one do this? The family cannot take a back seat. Work cannot be neglected. I am in a place where I must ask more of myself than I feel like I can. But it's just for a few more weeks.

We all find ourselves here once in a while. Priorities must be kept in order, but we cannot neglect ourselves, either. I always say to people who wish for more hours in a day that they just need to use more of the hours the day has. That's what I will be saying to myself for the next week or so.

Still. It would be easier if there were two of me.

Big Week

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:29:00 +0000

First, we have baby number three. You can see my wife (in all her glory) on our big day on her one of her photo-blogs.

And, my book hit the Amazon shelves!

I only mention this because I want to say Thank You to those of you who have bought my book today. And because I'm actually impressed with my sales rank right now:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,763 in Books

I mean, yeah, that's not too high, bu it's not in the 100,000s like I thought it would be.

I'm pushing it, knowing that many people who may not have bought before may be more comfortable using their preexisting Amazon account. So, check it out, and help keep me below 25,000!

This has been a very exciting week for me.

What will I do with all these Girls?

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Daphne Blue Jocasta was born at 4:13am, a tiny 7lbs 13oz. We're home and very wiped out.

A perfect labor and delivery, by far Sue's greatest and fastest. But, postpartum, the placenta broke. Sue experienced the worst pain of her life and lost a lot of blood. She's okay now, bp is fine, but has to be more or less lying flat for a few days.

And the baby is...sleeping? WTF? Is she really ours?

Labor Day

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:37:00 +0000

We're in labor. We've been in it since 8:45 this morning, but things are starting to pick up. I can't stand the ambiguity of it all; the movies and TV would have you believe that all of a sudden the woman screams and moans and a taxi arrives to serve as delivery room.

In real life, my wife's waters broke this morning and we still don't know where we're headed to the birthing center. In the next couple of hours, I imagine.

Ambiguity or no, I'm excited. I'm stoked. Make it through tonight alive, and we're parents of three.

I'll keep you updated as things matter.

Whatever Happened to Intrinsic Value?

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:50:00 +0000

I take my daughters grocery shopping on Sundays while my wife does her homework. At the store where we go, the cashier gives the kids little play-money bills. They get all excited and take these play bills to a vending machine. After putting them in, they control a little grabbing arm that grabs out plastic bubble-balls. Once opened, these balls reveal stickers. What's on the stickers? Numbers. You then are supposed to put the number-stickers into a booklet provided next to the machine and save up these "points" to obtain prizes--little worthless toys of the store's mascot.

We did this today and I thought, "What the hell?" They get one prize and use that prize to win another prize. With the second prize, they can save it to win a third prize. When I was little, they just gave kids a free kid's cookie and we were thrilled.

I get it. Teach kids to shop. Teach them the value of spending money, saving money, begging to come back to the same store so they can try harder to get bigger number stickers to win a little folder with a picture of a shopping bag with a face and arms on it.

Why are we always teaching our kids to trade-up? Why is are things only done for the value of what they can be exchanged for? Whatever happened to doing something just for the value of doing something?

It spreads in their lives like a disease, climbing up their years and tainting their futures.

For example: my college students. For the most part, they don't say that they're there to learn (at least not at the beginning of my class). They're there to graduate and get a better job. A better job means more money. More money means more things. A bigger truck. A bigger house to hold more things. And on and on.

With that chain of events in their minds, why would they care how well they do on their narrative essays? The value of that narrative essay is, essentially, a single little number sticker towards a bigger TV when they graduate and get two or three promotions. It's meaning is totally lost.

We do this with our lives. Always looking down the road toward "someday" (as my bank puts it). You're supposed to save, you're supposed to upgrade, you're supposed to work harder to get promoted to a better job. At every instant, you're then just being handed play money to drop in a machine to get a plastic bubble-ball to save up number stickers to get something better.

A hamster in a wheel.

I want to teach my kids that you go to school for the value of it. You go because there are perspectives that you aren't familiar with that you can use or adapt to your own situations. You write essays because they're fun (if you're bent my way) or because they help you to make meaning out of life experiences or because it's a challenge that will empower you by overcoming.

You don't listen to music so you can get to the next song. You don't read a book to get to the back cover. You don't hold your baby in your arms so that they will grow old and leave you.

Of course, I didn't waste all this on them today. Luckily, my kids don't know about step three of their little prize-winning game. They get excited because "Look! I got a 3 and I used to be 3!" As long as that's enough for them, I'm thrilled.

My Wife says she Not Nesting

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:59:00 +0000

I've mentioned that we're cloth diapering. My wife just sent over a list of what we have to start out with, should the baby come along. For those interested to read what a diaper stash might look like (on paper--in life it is far more three-dimensional and now super-organized) here it is. In life, these are all color-coded. Blogger has seen fit to turn them into boldings and sizes. And the little names are either the store where she bought them online or the online handle of someone from whom she bought/was donated used ones. I'd like to note that I have not seen her this organized in our time together.:

Prefolds

12 unbleached Indian prefolds

6 dyed Indian prefolds

6 chinese prefolds

Fitted

11 small MJ Sherpa diapers $50 (mizzy)

1 small Calico baby tropical fish. $5 (mizzy)

1 small Calico Baby vintage kids $7 (mizzy)

1 small Sugar Plum baby (natural/blue snaps) $5 (mizzy)

1 small Chunky Bunns (nursery rhyme) $4 (mizzy)

NB Little witchy britches (blue tye-die) $4 (mizzy)

1 small pre-fitted grow-me-a-rainbow (sock monkey) $5 (kaccii)

1 small pre-fitted grow-me-a-rainbow (gnomes) $3 (kaccii)

1 small fitted Blue Dog (Dri-Line) animals and bugs $5 (kaccii)

1 small fitted – jolly rogers

1 small fitted – sugar skulls

6 small fitteds (pinks and purples) – (lemmings world)

2 small fitteds (first class baby and stars) – (facethemoon)

5 medium Little Lions fitteds (green, yellow, blue, purple and orange) $22.50 (alonwimonster)

1 medium wahm dinosaur diaper $5 (alonwimonster)

2 medium peewells – khaki and rust $22 (breathbox)

2 Sammy’s Sherpa One-size – good karma (alonwimonster)

1 SOS – gnome print - $20 (pinkmeetsred)

3 Goodmamas – buy 2 get 1 free! (bought new)

Wool

1 medium organic wool cover (Vermont Diaper co) – good karma (alonwimonster)

1 medium handknit (facethemoon)

small ‘Moss Tweed’ green longies – White Elephant Wool $8

Knit by me

Noro shorties

Noro and tan soaker

Blue and tan soaker w/cuffs

Yellow shorties

Red shorties

‘cranky pants’ longies (tiny)

tan longies (tiny)

my first 3 soakers that might not work

Pockets

6 medium fuzzibunz (jesamin) $44

Inserts

6 inserts (with fuzzibunz from Jesamin)

Covers

2 small bumkins covers – white $2 each (alonwimonster)

2 small imse vimse organic covers – one zoo, one farm - $14 (angelfalling)

1 small imse vimse bumpy day – white - $8 (liss07)

1 medium imse vimse bumpy bears - $8 (liss07)

1 large/mediumish sumbuns goldfish - $8 (liss07)

2 small Bummis Superbrite

1 small thirsties

2 one-size wonderwraps

Snappis

Four snappis

Wetbag

1 Goodmama large hanging pail – Carnival Print - $28

Other

Sheepy Pants Pattern $5.75

Full Measure of Devotion

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Balance in life and work is hard to acheive. At what point does putting family first mean that you sacrifice yourself for their good? I've been thinking about this recently as I've been increasingly short-tempered and withdrawn while working on and thinking about this dissertation I'm writing. In many ways, my concern for this dissertation is rotting my ability to enjoy an evening with my family. And yet, it is for them that I reach for this degree. A greater job security, a better job performance, a more knowledgable instructor; these things are ultimately important for my family.

We've been watching John Adams via Netflix over the last week. I had heard it was good and faithful to the book, and I have to say that I am very impressed with it.

We watched as John Adams told his wife that he was needed in France. He was a hero, a philosopher, and a patriot. His dedication to founding this country is nothing less than inspiring. Watching it, I realized something. Whatever other shortcoming I may have, there is one very major difference between me and a man remembered so greatly as John Adams: I could never put my country ahead of my family to that degree.

I understand that my times are different than his. That by putting his country first, he was providing freedom and opportunity for not only his children, but his posterity. But as valuable as that is, I am too selfish a man to do such a thing. I could never leave my family like that.

I feel like, in many ways, we have built a Tempest-like island in our family. Like Prospero, I am unable to let the rest of the world intrude upon that island. Thus the no TV thing, the hate of advertisements, the resentment of a consumer culture that would have us find meaning through objects and lifestyles through services. Quoting another patriot, Jefferson swore "hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." And I feel like it is the very minds of my family that this consumer-culture hopes to control.

I stray too far from my course.

I suppose devotion to family comes in many ways. From back-breaking labor, to traveling for business, to getting into mountains of debt on the way to an education to secure a meaningful job that ensures a quality of life and time home with the family. It seems an awful burden at times, being a father to a family and being a provider of futures. It's amazing that we do it.

I can see, at times, how this diachotomy can end up being a snake that eats its own tail. It's a line I will try to walk carefully.

Getting Ready for the Birth

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:15:00 +0000

I've been thinking.

There's a baby living inside my wife's stomach. It kicks and moves and stretches and sleeps and eats. Regardless of how happy it might be in there, it's outgrowing its space.

I can't believe we're almost there. We're almost a family of five. It seems like such a long time ago when we found out she was pregnant, and yet it seems like everything went so instantly. Incidentally, when we did find out, we were camping on the beach near Santa Cruz. My wife came out to the cliff where my daughters and I were watching the ocean and waved her pee-stick in the air excitedly. We explained to the kids that this was going to be a long time, but they'd have a new sibling, etc. And now Solstice goes around saying, "Do you remember that we were camping and daddy put a baby in you?" Real. Nice.

Whenever it happened, we're almost to the end of this journey. And the house is a mess. And until a couple days ago, we didn't have any clothes at all for this unknown person we're bringing in. And we've been spending money on cloth diapers for some months (that's another post). It's strange how you can just go and make a human for free, but that they don't come with anything. You have to accessorize yourself.

In many ways, there is no being ready for the baby. Saying that our preparations are making us ready is like being ready for a nuclear blast by putting on safety glasses. But really, this house is a mess.

I don't know at what point this pregnancy seemed real to me. As a father, I have the luxury of not having a constant and physical reminder of the impending. I have the luxury of even just not thinking about it once in a while, if my thoughts fall to something else. But intermittently throughout the last nine months, I've been struck by this overwhelming reality. The reality that we've made another interpretation of what it is to be human and we're going to be raising it soon.

We took a "survivor" childbirth course at our birthing center. It didn't do much for us but let us talk to other parents about their experiences. Then my sister bought us a Yoga for Childbirth class at the studio where she works in Austin. It was pretty neat and gave us a great review of the "gates of labor" and what to be looking out for.

And sill, ready isn't anywhere on the map.

I've talked to people at work about it. I have someone lined up to take my classes while I'm gone. But it is frustrating that the world insists on keeping up all the activity while you're trying to break-in your new life. It'd be great if every time it happened, people around you would courteously pause for a few weeks while you got your sea-legs. Of course, I suppose, they'd still not have resumed from my first kid.

We're sitting right now at 38 weeks. We don't have a record of going early; our first daughter was on her due date and our second was 8 days late. So I'm not holding my breath yet, packing bags for the birthing center or anything. We haven't thought about what food to bring, or what clothes to bring for the girls, should things happen at night, and we haven't memorized our midwife's phone numbers or even programed them into a phone. Hell, I don't even know where to find it written anywhere.

So, no. We're not ready.

We don't even know if this baby is going to be a brother and son or a daughter and sister. Hair color? Musical preference? Demeanor? Bad habits? We know nothing about this kid.

And yet.

With all of this under preparedness, our lives are going to have a huge hole in the hull and start taking on water fast once this thing finally bursts. But I know this particular iceberg is going to be worth all the trouble.

We are not ready for this at all. And I just can't wait.

Murder/Suicide is not Badass

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:07:00 +0000

I can't stand this new trend that has been keeping the media going for the last several weeks. A guy loses his job, comes home, shoots his wife and children and then kills himself.

Who could do this? Who could veer so quickly from a normal person to an absolute demon who would turn a gun on his family? And for what? For money? Really? Kill yourself, dude, don't go taking your family down with you. Or, better yet, just walk away. Or, hey, deal with it. Show your kids that there is something in this life more important than money and jobs and it's their love, for god's sake.

We live in a shared cognitive reality. We all agree that certain things are important and certain things are desirable. That's how a society makes sense out of things as quickly and efficiently as possible (even if accuracy isn't a goal) and makes it possible for society to continue to grow as an organism.

So we have money. If I write "100" on a piece of paper, no one wants it. But if I have a different piece of paper that has a "100" on it and it happens to be the one that everyone agrees is worth something, then people want it. I see this in my kids. One daughter gets a hold of a bead she found on the ground at a park. It's a nothing little dirty orange bead. And she drops it. Then, the other daughter picks up the bead and exclaims, "Oh, wow, what a beautiful bead! It's magical" and then the fight starts. The I-had-it-firsts and such.

The bead has no value except that it is exclusive. It can only be held by one person. This is the same thing as money.

And we've gotten to a place where this matters so much that the economy is not just a metaphor for our happiness, but is the happiness. I just don't like it. I can't stand the way this priority is splashed all over everything so pervasively that this kind of thing happens.

Loosing a job is sad, loosing money is sad, but killing your kids?

The most recent such killing happened today in Ohio. And what did the newspapers do first? They called the man's employer to see if he had lost his job. That was the first thing they did. As if in our new reality, that makes some sort of logical sense, some sort of justification or motive that should be respected. Turns out, he hadn't lost his job. The papers are baffled.

Anyway, it sickens me. To no end, this sickens me. Get your head out of your ass, people. Remember what your priorities should be. Why did you have the job in the first place? Security for your family? Don't put the goddamn cart so far in front of the horse.

I Believe in Santa Claus

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:35:00 +0000

If you've been reading long, you're probably sick of hearing me spout off with anti-consumerism rhetoric. At this time of year, consumerism and commercialization run amok, driving people like me crazy. And while I can't stand the commercialization of Christmas, I do firmly believe in the goodness of Santa Claus and I hope to pass his legacy down to my kids.

The Gift of Santa Claus

I was a firm believer in Santa Claus as a kid. There was nothing anyone said that could shake me. When at last my brother insisted that I "have the Santa Claus talk with Dad," it was the longest treatise on the mythos of Santa that I had ever heard and, in my youth, absolutely void of entertainment. It was void of another startling fact, considering the purpose of the conversation: never once did he say "There is no Santa Claus."

The way I remember it, and the 23 years may have gotten in the way a little, the whole thing boiled down to the fact that there wasn't a fat guy in a red suit who comes down the chimney, but that Santa was very real.

It's a point of view that I still embrace. I think of Santa as a powerful metaphor for kids; he's a way to show the specialness and magic of the holiday season in a way that they can easily understand. Explaining to kids why it is that we search for warmth in the society of each other during those long winter nights and how we set aside this time of year to explore the power of family is kind of hard to do with a two-year-old. But Santa is a specialness that they can easily grasp and willingly understand.

To me, Santa is indeed very holy. He is a symbol of the goodness and generosity within ourselves, an embodiment of that which we hold dear in each other, made digestible for the youngest members of our family and shown without cynicism or illusion.

Ultimately, he is the bow tied around the gift of the season; they will unwrap the present when they are old enough to understand what it is he has been covering within all those years.

The Commercialization of Santa Claus

And because I so firmly believe in the magic of Santa, I can't stand the endless interpretations of him into the cannon of consumerism. Even that which we hold most dear--and maybe especially that which we hold most dear--can be twisted into a sales pitch. No matter what religious traditions you hold (December 25th birthdays: Jesus, Horus, Zarathustra, Vishnu, Sol Invictus, Odin, and countless others), your very beliefs are exploited for store sales. Even your patriotism is slammed if you're not shopping enough. Consumerism is the new religion, after all. And I think that holding Santa up as the patron saint is disgusting.

I can't stand to see images of Santa used to sell things. I think it's plain wrong to show kids visions of Santa shopping in certain stores, drinking certain drinks, riding in certain electric razors, championing certain products, prescribing certain behaviors, and on and on. I think it's thoughtless and lewd to use his image to sell a product to adults or kids.

Of course, it's nothing new. In 1965, Charlie Brown complained about Christmas getting too commercial. And Dr. Seuss based the Grinch off of his own attitudes of Christmas commercialization and his search to resolve those feelings in 1957. He even wrote against the consumer Christmas during his college days in 1925.

Since the second grade, I've heard a million times that Coke invented our modern image of Santa with their ads in the 1930s. But this couldn't be more false. Images of Santa in our western canon have been identical since the end of the 19th Century. The roots of Santa's likeness date back to Odin, and probably he dates much further back. Our modern image has much more to do with the wonderfully image rich poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," more commonly called "Twas the Night Before Christmas," published in 1823.

Conclusion

So no matter what your holiday tradition, feel free to embrace Santa with your family. Focus on his goodness, on his purpose and strength as it speaks to that which we treasure in each other. Don't let the profiteering of a money-driven society tarnish something that is so good and true in its heart. Realize, like the Grinch and Dr. Seuss did, that Christmas doesn't come from a store. Santa embodies much more than purchasing; he represents giving of oneself.

Getting the kids Involved in the Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:44:00 +0000

For whatever reason, I've always seen images in the media of people stressed out and upset during the holidays. As an adult, I've heard time and time again people complain about present shopping or stress or family or whatever. I can't count how many people I've heard utter relief at the end of the holiday season.

I think that sucks.

No one is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to celebrate. The holidays are about family, togetherness, fun, happiness, and a lot of other stuff (depending on your religious bent) that is primarily good. You should be aware of the stress you bring into the house and how it effects the kids who just want to have an enjoyable season.

We try to have a pretty simple holiday, as far as presents are concerned. We don't want to bring a bunch of unwanted stuff into our house which is already crowded with too much. We try to limit what we get the kids to a toy, a game, a book, and whatever Santa decides to stuff they're stockings with. But then we pick up an extra thing here or there. And then our families send presents. So we do end up having an obscene amount of gifts under the tree.

I want my kids to feel the giving part of it, too. We donate a toy to a toys-for-tots program and let them pick it out. But as far as giving presents to other family members, they just can't keep secrets.

I can't even take these kids shopping with me when I'm looking for things for Mom because they'd spill the beans with enthusiasm the moment we get home. So we try to get them excited about other people's presents through a different means.

Decorating the present is a great way that they can take pride in gift-giving without giving up all the surprise. I wrap my wife's presents in brown paper and let them have at it with markers, stamps, stickers, and whatever else they want. Then, when Mom sees them, they are excited to show them off and take part of the credit for the gift as a whole.

When I was little, we used to make wrapping paper. We'd pick up a roll of butcher paper (I asked for some today at my grocery store and I swear the dude almost hit me before saying no; I have no idea what made him so angry) and make stamps to decorate the paper. We'd cut potatoes and apples into candy canes, stars, Christmas trees, and whatever else we wanted. We'd dip the stamps in paint and have at it.

There are lots of ways to get your kids involved in the holidays without emphasizing the commercial aspects. Cookie decorating, ornament making, greeting card designing, and a million more ideas that I'm sure are floating out there in your family's traditions.

The important thing is this: slow down, have fun, and look through their eyes. Take a look at what values you're modeling when it comes to the holidays and be sure to model them thoughtfully. Presents are a highlight, yes, an exciting interpretation of love and family that a kid can understand, grasping in reality rather than thinking in abstraction. With kids, showing is much more communicable than telling. Don't focus and fret on the metaphor and forget to show them what it's really about.

What to Expect during the Third Trimester

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Here we are, finding ourselves in the third trimester of pregnancy. I didn't write much about the second trimester, as it remained in our lives pretty uneventful as far as growing humans from scratch goes. But the third trimester, much like the first, is really hard to ignore; the changes and growth in this period beg for attention. Towards the end of the last trimester, the baby is gaining around a pound a week.

We've recently gotten to the point where not only can I feel the baby kick and move, but I can see it as well. Even with all of that interaction, it just can't seem real for me except in small flashes of reality being grasped in the remote parts of my mind. On an intellectual level, sure, I've been down this road before, it ought to be solid as anything in my mind. But on a bodily level, no, I just can't quite believe it.

While, as a husband, I get the pleasure of watching it grow from a distance, for the wife, things get downright troublesome. There are times just sitting around that I hear my wife grunt or exhale a soft moan. When I ask her what's wrong, the answer is usually that the baby kicked her in her stomach or bladder. And the baby isn't used to arbitrary distinctions like "day" or "night."

We're also at the point where the lost hours of sleep seem to manifest themselves as trips to the bathroom. Before we leave the house, my wife pees. When we get to the store, she pees. Before we leave the store, pee. At the restaurant, there may be 3 begrudging trips to the public 'throom. A husband can only imagine what a pain it is for a girl to pee in the first place, much less tripling the necessary times.

Tiredness. The tiredness has set in completely. Our two-year-old can out walk my wife. And something as simple as breakfast can drain her of energy some days.

But there is a certain amount of collateral effects from the third trimester in the husband's lifestyle. Besides offering support and sympathy during those trying times of discomfort, a husband must weather the storm of nesting.

When I was little, we had a golden retriever. She got pregnant when I was in the sixth grade and it was the first time I realized what a natural process the whole birth thing is. Not only in the strikingly magical way that she knew how to give birth and take care of helpless puppies, despite reading nothing about it, being told by no one, and never seeing it done by any of her peers, but also in the ways it worked through her before birth.

She was never a digger. Never. But all of a sudden, swollen with 10 puppies, she started finding shady spots in the yard to dig holes. Deep holes. Three and a half feet deep. Her body was telling her to make a den for her to give birth in and raise her kids. She at last accepted our substitute of a large refrigerator box and stopped desecrating the yard.

My wife is now digging holes of her own; not in the bizarre literal sense, of course. She's started, very subtly, her nesting. I know it will get stronger and become more of a daily tolerance for me.

There might be a sudden concern for paint on walls, or a rearrangement of furniture, shopping for tiny clothes, and sudden and consistent mentions of "being ready." Of course, being ready is a subjective term and I am of the understanding that there is no such thing as being ready for a baby until that baby is about six months old.

In the meantime, solidarity with the one growing your young may involve what sometimes seems like arbitrary organizational tasks. Roll up your sleeves and take it. Your usual routine will be plenty disturbed in the coming months anyway, get used to it.

The wonderful thing about all the discomfort and inconvenience of the third trimester is that you get ready not only to have a baby, but to be rid of the pregnancy. The loss of sleep thing? Nature's ways of getting you ready for a baby who won't be letting you get any sleep. The tiredness is small potatoes compared to the supernatural levels of tiredness you feel in those first few weeks. All those trips to the bathroom are simple compared to all the diaper changing. Those honey-dos can't touch the urgency of a baby crying.

Yep, it all makes sense. While we're in the first few weeks of the third trimester, I keep remembering that it gets heavier, harder, and just plain worse. The pleasure of meeting our new son or daughter is right around the corner, though, so we have much to look forward to.

ETA: The crying! How could I forget the crying? My wife usually as eyes of steel; nothing, it seems, can melt them into liquid. But when she's pregnant, OMG. She cries when she sees a majestic bird flying by. Today she cried thinking about snow (which we don't have here in he suburb of hell). I happen to think it's kind of cute, and it's all I can do to keep from giving her a hard time about it.

I just can't imagine how I didn't think of this when writing the original post.

An Open Letter to the Children's Television Workshop Concerning Breastfeeding

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:06:00 +0000

I grew up watching Sesame Street. My mom loved to watch with each and every one of us. For a long time, it was the only show that my daughter liked to watch. I find the general values of show to be responsible and well-meaning. Especially valuable to me is the normalization of reading; often characters are introduced into a scene who just happen to be passing the time with a book. But I do have a concern.

Sesame Street is a model for all young children. One morning I watched an episode that contained no less than 11 babies (or monster babies) being bottle fed. I think it is indecent of Sesame Street to depict these images. While I understand that the epidemic is to the point where bottlefeeding is the rule and not the exception, I think Sesame Street has a responsibility to show breastfeeding.

I understand that for the most part, a bottle is shown to establish that a character is a baby. It is a simple prop of babydom, along with the bonnet and pacifier. The bonnet is hardly used in the real world anymore, but it is still a basic necessity to making a puppet look like some kind of baby. I encourage a revision of your use of the bottle for the same ends. I find it useless and thoughtless.

Breastfeeding is normal. There is nothing about it that is in poor taste. There is nothing embarrassing about it. It is the single, unrivaled best way for a child to be fed. This should be pointed out to every child in America. Especially in minority groups, there is not enough breastfeeding. Sesame Street has set the standard for early childhood education and programming, and is usually way ahead of the pack when it comes to health and lifestyles. Please make sure you blaze a trail for this generation of children.

Bottle feeding was normalized through the media. While some of these normalization tactics (such as washing hair more than once a month) can be very helpful, other things that have been made normal by the endless appearance in houses and movie theaters can be harmful; cigarrette smoking, racial stereotypes, and the limitation of what it is to be a girl all come quickly to mind. It's time that we ended the reign of bottle feeding as the primary method that a baby eats by in the media. You can lead the way.

Certainly I'm not suggesting that you need to go out of your way to show breastfeeding. And no, I'm not making a call to initiate the normalization of the monster boob. But you can at least stop the thoughtless use of the baby bottle as a prop. Be more creative, be more socially responsible. But don't shy away from showing breastfeeding. Don't censor it as if it were vulgar or abnormal.

While, admittedly, we no longer watch broadcast television, I am a longtime fan of your show. We own a couple volumes of "Old School" Street on DVD and I enjoy the walks down memory lane of where I got so many values framed and modeled. Be on the right side with this one.

Our family Pet and Protector

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:35:00 +0000

The decision to have a pet is a tough one. It's pretty permanent, involves lots of work and housekeeping, and it effects almost every aspect of your family's life. That said, there are tons of advantages to having the hairy beasts around, if you're set up to take care of them.

My wife and I had been living together for nine months or so when my parents' dog had puppies. She's a white German Shepard and had a full litter of white pups. And we swore, swore to all we held dear, that we wouldn't get one.

We were living in an apartment upstairs. If we were going to have a dog, we'd have to move to a downstairs unit. My wife had just started taking classes at the college where I had just started teaching my very first professor gig. We already had one grumpy cat that my wife got before she met me. There was no room in our lives for the complication, the trouble, the training. We just couldn't get a dog.

You've already guessed, I'm sure, that we got one. We visited my folks and one little puppy won us over. My parents were calling him Tiny Tim. He was the smallest of the male pups and the friendliest. We caved in and accepted him as a Christmas present from my folks. We changed his name to Blitzen and he's been in the family ever since then.

Raising a dog is hard work. Really! It was three years before we had kids and the most time-consuming activity we had ever had. He understood the whole potty training thing right from the start, but his energy level was outrageous. He chewed things, got into things, and even tore apart our couch one night while we were out to eat. At times, we almost felt prisoner to this little puppy.

Years later, we'd laugh at ourselves when we looked back at how busy we thought we were with him. Yes, it was time consuming, and yes, he was energetic, but no, he was nothing near as all-encompassing as having a baby around. By the time a puppy is ready to leave his mom, he's already more self-sufficient.

Blitzen is in love with our daughters. From the minute we brought Solstice home, he has been preoccupied with them. He plays with them well, does his tricks for them, and even sleeps outside their bedroom door to watch them while they sleep at night. In every way, he is a member of our family.

Blitzen, as already states, is a German Shepard. I can't recommend this breed enough. His hair rests in gentle snow-drifts around the house when we don't sweep, so that's a pain. But he is kind and gentle with the kids and very protective of his home and family.

We didn't know he was protective, not really. He was always nice to everyone he ever met. But we discovered just how protective he was one day about two years ago.

My wife had left with the kids to go to a baby shower. I was just coming home. We talked on the phone for about 20 minutes before I got to the empty house. I opened the door to an unimaginable mess in our living room: the blinds were ripped off the windows, the coat rack toppled to the ground, the walls scratched up, and most of all, blood was everywhere.

Standing in the middle of the living room, wagging his tail, was Blitzen. His face and paws were covered with blood and he had meat stuck under his nails.

We pieced together what had happened: someone saw my wife leave and broke into the house. There, he met our dog. He scrambled to get out the windows and finally escaped out the door, which was chewed up to the point of needing replacing. The guy had already cleaned out three other houses on our street before getting into our house. You can read the newspaper article about the incident here.

Technically, no one in my family had their life in danger that day. Well, I could have come home in the middle of the burglary, but at least my wife and kids weren't there. But it easily could have been otherwise! Just a few weeks earlier, a series of home-invasions had struck the community--women and children were tied up while the house was ransacked in two houses in our neighborhood.

We've loved Blitzen very much as a pet, but it was then that we realized we had something more; we had a protector that would stop at nothing to make sure his family is alright. While he's scared of thunder, he didn't balk for a second when an intruder came in the door. I am always grateful to know that he is there at home when I'm off at work.

We have another dog now, too. We adopted a mutt (who looked like a shepard) last January. Little Vixen is some kind of beagle mix, very goofy, and much more skiddish than her big brother. And even though she's still doing those puppy things that can get old real fast, we're glad to be a family of people and pets.

Quantity over Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:29:00 +0000

It's always at this time of the semester--two weeks till the end--that I'm blinded by busyness. There's grading to be done, papers to write, meetings to attend, and holidays to plan. In the wash of things, I find myself being quiet at home (or, rather, my wife finds me being quiet) and relatively inactive. Once this comes to the forefront of my mind, I remember my priorities, try to leave work at work (at least until the kids go to bed, then I buckle down), and try to be fully present while home.

When I look back at the memories I have from when I was as old as my kids (2-4) there are some stand outs: my birthdays, Christmases, my sisters being born, and the like. But besides those special dates, much of my memories are wrapped up in normal days. Taking my brother to school and counting the minutes till he came home; my dad coming in the door from work; playing in the back yard; going shopping. After all, these "regular days" make up most of my life.

And it's also these regular days that make up most of our emotional memories. It's these regular days that are so important to our kids and their development.

I was lucky that my parents were never divorced. I understand that there are plenty of situations out there when a divorce may improve the quality of a kid's life, but it never would have been the case for me. Growing up, by the time I was in high school, most of my friends lived in families torn by divorce; most stuff kept at their mom's houses with stripped-down bedrooms waiting for them every other weekend at their dad's house.

Almost always, their dads tried to make up for things by spending "quality time." I understand the impulse with every fiber of my being; if I only got to see my kids every so often, I'd want each time to be a memorable event, trapped in the amber of their minds never to deteriorate. But that would not and does not make up for all the time spent apart.

It's the minutia of our everyday life that affects us. Our children see us as a model for adulthood (and life) every moment they're around us, not just as we shuttle off to Disneyland or the fair. Surely those big moments are important, but they will never be outweighed by the quiet moments at home, playing Hi-Ho-Cherri-O or reading books or playdough or drawing with chalk on the driveway or grocery shopping.

Incidentally, I imagine that it goes this way with marriages, too. Women want involvement every day, not just when the week closes, two precious days before we clock back in to work. Time spent together cooking, talking, playing video games, working around the house: this is quality time, no matter how mundane we may be driven to see it. My wife and I have made a ritual of a couple times a week sitting out in the garage after the kids have gone to sleep, her throwing pottery and me noodling on guitar. It not my subpar music that brings us together so much as the chance to just be with each other for a while.

My brother and I had a weekly ritual in college. We called it our "quality time." No matter how busy we got with school and homework and social lives, we always spent Monday nights together. Even if we spent the entire weekend at the beach with friends, it was just the two of us on Mondays. My brother didn't even answer the phone at this time (something I still can't believe). And what did we do? We watched WWF wrestling while eating Little Cesear's Pizza (the Monday special across the street from our apartment was five bucks for a large pizza and a two liter of Pepsi and we each indulged in our own). It was a ridiculous ritual; we could have chosen to do anything, exciting things, expensive things, big things. But sitting together for two hours while Stone Cold Steve Austin battled it out against Vince McMahon was a fine time for two brothers to talk about their week together.

Consider this during the holidays. The "special" times will never be as special as the actual time.

Merry Christmas...Already?

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:32:00 +0000

Last year was the earliest it every happened to me. It was September 10th. I was in a Barnes and Noble looking for a certain Kerouac book and started humming along with a familiar tune. Half way through Jack's section when I realized what I was humming: We Three Kings. The date again: September 10th.

Was it a mistake, I wondered? But the following song was none other than Bing Crosby, crooning those famous words about snow and Yule. And it was in Houston where the average temperature in September is in the upper 90s.

Has the world gone insane? Do we really start celebrating Christmas right after the back-to-school sales?

The short answer is, Yes, yes it has gone insane.

This year the mall in our little suburban stronghold was fully X-massed out on October 29th. The decorations were up in "town square" (a ritzy shopping center made to look like a street) the same day. They built the gigantic Christmas tree there this past weekend.

Maybe I'd be more in the mood if I lived in Vermont where it has snowed already. Maybe I'd be more excited if we had to lite a fire in the fireplace to stay warm. Or maybe I'm wrong; just because we live in the hottest place in the States doesn't mean that Christmas must be absent, after all. Just because I'll be sporting shorts and a t-shirt on Christmas Eve doesn't mean Santa passes us by. And I'm no humbug, believe me. So it must just be too damn early.

I read somewhere that part of the blame of moving the holiday machine to the fore rests on the whole economy deal. Businesses are afraid things are going to get worse, and since Thanksgiving rests on the latest possible date this year, they want us to spend our money as soon as possible, without regard to what things will look like when the ball drops next January.

But we are trying to keep things simple. Not because we need to save money--though that's a nice benefit--but because we don't want to drown the specialness of the holidays in merchandise. Presents are a great way to highlight a celebration, and certainly something that I always looked forward to as a kid. But, to me, the holidays are about family, togetherness, happiness, and unity. It used to be a great way for a people to face the coldest and longest nights of the year with optimism, hope, generosity, and laughter. For my family, it's a time to invest in each other, to show care beyond routine, to practice putting each other first, to make a point to wallow in each other's company.

While gifts are a great part of that, I hope that they don't overshadow it. I read a great book last year called Unplugging the Christmas Machine and it spoke to me a great deal. I always think it sucks to hear people complain about the holidays being stressful. They're missing the point. I have never been and never will be stressed out because of the holidays. I enjoy going out and seeing shoppers frantically search for parking spots and presents--I hope I don't delight too much in their misfortune. But the crowds actually make me happy because I strain to see the other side of their consumerism and stress: some part of them is spending their life-energy to benefit someone they care about. Even if they miss the point, I relish in it.

When buying gifts, it helps that my daughters don't watch any TV commercials. It helps that my wife doesn't buy into the notion of gems and metals kept artificially expensive mean I care about her. I have found wonderful handmade jewelry for her in the past that speaks volumes more to her tastes and maintains social responsibility, integrity, creativity, and so much more. My kids delight in simple dolls, dollhouses, books, and tools for creative projects.

So take a moment this pre-holiday season to focus your family on what is important. Explain the meaning of the holidays as your tradition sees fit and focus on that. Speak to the meaning of gifts and make sure that you don't indulge in them so much that you get stressed, that the kids get too much clutter they don't really want, and you end up with too little money. Talk about these things now, before the season actually arrives.