start-up dad

2009-08-09T19:03:00.002-05:00

"Dad, are there people stronger than us?" Kaden said to me this evening.
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people faster than us?"
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people more gorgeous than us."
"Definitely."
"Even more gorgeous than Kate?" (our next door neighbor)
"Yes."

"...But nobody can try harder than me."

Tyler Durden is my bladder

2009-07-31T20:29:00.002-05:00

"Momma, my bladder is angry."

"Really?"

"And it likes to pee in my underwear"

"Umm. Can you just tell it to hold on."

"Okay momma, I'll tell it to calm down."

we're going to have to rename the blog

2008-06-13T11:12:00.002-05:00

IMG_0991

New photos of Liam Hadid Hyatt, born June 10th, 2008 are here.

keeping regular

2008-06-08T20:15:00.001-05:00

muffin, originally uploaded by Nabeel H.

When you find a balance between structure and choice with a kid, it can be a wonderful thing. For us, on Saturday's we wake up, he happily says goodbye to mama and we rush up the street to get to the bus "before it runs away."

As the bus comes into view he screams, "it's 72 dada, 72!" The #72 MBTA bus stops, he jumps on board, sprints to the back of the bus and hurries me to sit down to hold his hand before the bus starts going.

As an aside, the public bus system is absolutely responsible for my son's mastery of numbers above 20. Has anyone else noticed that no kids books go above 20? Isn't the whole point of inventing zero that it makes large number sets as easy to understand as small number sets? Did no one explain this to childens book authors?

Anyway, I digress. We were enjoying a happy Sunday morning in Cambridge.

When we get to Harvard Square and he climbs off the bus I always look at him and say, "you want to take the escalator up or the elevator?"

I think one of the things he really loves about these trips is that it is incredibly structured with a good set of discrete choices. It reminds me a lot of when a start-up feels right and when it feels wrong. If it is total chaos and no structure you're never sure if you are in rhythm, but once all the questions have been answered and you are smooth sailing, then it gets pretty boring.

"Elevator or Escalator?" "Muffin first or Curious George bookstore?" "Which muffin do you want?" "Which book do you want to read?" Our trips to Harvard Sq are the same basic rhythm, with a bunch of choices that he gets along the way. And it's our own private ritual for dad and son.

And then there were three

2008-03-14T23:42:00.003-05:00

Kaden turned three not long ago, and we've just gotten the photos up on Flickr. My parents visited and got a chance to see his outgoing nature in action. He took control of the birthday party, getting games of chasing, hiding, and attack of the birthday blowouts.

"Trick or Treat Time"

2007-10-31T21:41:00.000-05:00

Here on Standish St we are blessed with a capacity crowd on Halloween every year. It is quite a sight to see, so much so that one family I spoke to had driven 30 mins to come trick or treating on our street. So after Kaden was done with his short trip around the block collecting candy, I set him up on our front stoop to hand out the goodies to everyone.

Kaden took this responsibility very seriously, greeting nearly everyone with "Trick or Treat Time" and dutifully handed each kid their allotment. When there was no one around he would pull the hood of his bear costume up and practice his "GRRR." But make no mistake, as soon as anyone got close he would pull his hood off quickly to show that he meant serious candy-giving business.

We've got a little video and photos below. Happy Halloween everyone.

Click on the photos for a the Flickr photoset:

kaden turns two

2007-03-06T02:58:00.000-05:00

his favorite birthday present was the bubbles.

photos here. more to come.

2006-10-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today I was faced with this essay question:

We are committed to building and sustaining a diverse population. How would your family contribute to this goal?

I was not faced with answering this question because I am applying to financial aid at Harvard, or for my one child permit in China, this was the application at the local day care. They even were kind enough to suggest, "attach additional pages if necessary." Additional pages!?

I've heard a hundred times that it is tough to get kids into day care nowadays, but this is an application for Sept of 2007. This is like a college admissions test or something, are you kidding me? And personally I think asking for the IQ test at two years is stepping over the line (just kidding -- I think).

We also have a scheduled "tour" of the facility (read: secret test of the parents). What's a good question to ask a friggin' day care facility? "Umm - looks like your doing a great job keeping the snot off the walls. We were looking for a less-snotted facility, and this might be it."

And of course I'm sure at some point they'll have him come by and play with the other children so they can OBSERVE him (man that sounds ominous). It will take all of 30 seconds before they find what I consider his adorable trait of trying to conduct classes (e.g. when the teacher says its time to put the blanket back in the bag he sprints to the bag and yells "BAGBAGBAGBAG" at everyone until the blanket is properly put away).

While I see this as a nice sign of leadership abilities, this will no doubt be viewed as a dictatorial trend unbecoming of their free-loving commune of a Cambridge day-care facility.

I know you say they probably don't care that much.. but I'm telling you, these kids get tagged quick. This morning at a two-year olds birthday party we overhead chatter about another family that went like this. "We like his parents, but we didn't want to invite the biter because it would have ruined the whole party." Does his mom know he's called that? I also heard about the pincher and the pusher today. What is this, Dick Tracy mafia-tots?

Perhaps I could opt out of this whole high stakes game of day care, you say? Buck the trend and all, what could happen?

Simple, we don't get the convenient day care up the street. Instead, we get some ridiculous out of the way daycare in Boondocks, MA so that Start-up Mom gets totally stressed fighting traffic on her five hour commute to day care every morning. She's stressed out, so Kaden gets stressed, which causes him to lose his unbelievably amazing trait of quietly going to sleep (sometimes ASKING to go to sleep) at night.

Instead all this horrid bad-daycare induced stress will cause him to scream and cry incessantly at night, and so his parents will be too tired to be good parents and he will never get into the grad school of his choice and therefore will turn into a supervillain bent on the destruction of the universe (there's a dictatorial trait for you).

Anyway, as you could imagine when faced with this prospect, I wrote one hell of a tear-jerker about my family's emigration from Palestine and a roaring tribute to the benefits of exposure to international basketball students.

Welcome to the world Mr. Fawcett

2006-08-20T16:29:00.000-05:00

Upon announcing to my wife that our friends and fellow bloggers Allen & Elaine had their baby, both she and Kaden cheered. I can't honestly expect Kaden to have understood, but at this point he is understanding so much that I half expect him to guess the name.

Today at ~~2:30p~~ 2:50pm, Owen Grady Fawcett, was born.

Congrats to the parents, and to a very lucky kid. We hope to see Owen very soon, and I'm sure Kaden looks forward to playing big brother and showing him the ways of the 1.5 years older world.

This birth puts the Fawcett's clearly in the breeders category, and we are happy to have them with us. Welcome to the rollercoaster of incredible highs and sleep-deprived lows that is kid-rearing.

It is times like these that remind me of the feeling I had just after we had our kid. First, it was that unbelievably overwhelming emotion of being forever linked to this new being. Then, soon after, it is something like - "we've been tricked! the breeders made it sound all nice a cuddly, and all this thing does is crap."

I jumped any parent I could, demanding to know how they conspired to withhold information from pre-breeders about the difficulty of infants. These interchanges would always end with them saying something like "it will pass soon" and me angrily grumbling something about "the party line" and swearing never to obfuscate the horrors and joys of being a parent.

Well, I can safely say that starting this blog pretty much solved solved my non-disclosure worry, so let me also add to the happy new parents that this whole kid thing is totally rockin. We scampered around the Children's Museum today and he was a barrel of fun. My favorite moment was when, after about five minutes of working diligently, he successfully diverted the water fountain toy to spurt water all over himself, all the nearby children, the floor, and some unsuspecting parents.

But the Fawcetts are a bit of a ways from that, so in the meantime Megan and I racked our brain for the things that we found we could not do without and sent them a little care package:

- Swaddling blankets: of all the early voodoo advice we got about babies (eg do fat babies sleep better?), this one I totally bought into and have first hand knowledge of working

- Stack Up Cups (The First Years): from just watching it at an early age, to counting as he stacks them now, endless fun with tower building and destroying

- Take and Toss Learner Cups (The First Years): Kaden pretty much rejected bottles, so we started sippy cups very early and this was by far his favorite of the many many many we tried.

- Giraffe Blankie (funbath), this makes him feel less attached to us, right?

- Flipper Gripper Baby (Sassy), we ended up with a lot of Sassy products, but this one easily has the most hours on it. There were days on end where this little spinning rattle was the only thing stopping Kaden from completely losing it in his car seat.

One additional thing worth mentioning here that we left off the list but continue to use like crazy.. a humidifier. Not for it's intended use, mind you. It's not like Kaden is in danger of petrigying himself from lack of milk intake, he's thankfully gotten over that.

No, it's that a good *cheap* humidifier makes a lot of noise that provides a great cover for the fact that we do, in fact, stay up later than our kid and are not allowed to put him in a sound proofed outhouse. Huge loud fan = cavorting parents not worried about an errant laugh leading to twenty minutes of rocking a four month old back to sleep.

PS - since I know how music-focused the Fawcett's are, it is serendipitous that I just read yesterday via BoingBoing about the lullaby cover songs of such alt.rock standards as Radiohead and Nirvana.

PPS - Allen's firsthand account is now online here

It takes a...

2006-08-13T16:30:00.000-05:00

There's a perfectly good reason I haven't blogged in a little bit.. everything has been going so well! Its been generally so positive, and I know that the surest way to bore people to death is it to regale the world with tales of how the times are all so wonderful and pleasant and la la la.

The other shoe will drop soon, but for right now it's so damn good that when it's close to his bed time and we say, "ready to go to sleep" he actually nods his head, says "yeah." Then goes over to the crib ready to hop right in a snuggle off to bed. I can see my father shaking his head and mumbling under his breath, "I battled through being a journalist in Far-East Asia and this is the boring stuff my son can produce. Where's that drama!" as he unsubscribes from the now entirely mundane tales of his grandson.

Yep, life with Kaden has certainly stabilized a lot from the early months of uncontrollable crying and projectile poop. We are in that wonderful blissful period where he sleeps well, plays like a mad hatter, and talks up a storm (although mostly in a language we don't understand). And we are enjoying it as much as possible because if there's one immutable lesson about this child-rearing experience it is that just as soon as you adjust to something, it changes.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that the infamous "terrible twos" are right around the corner. So I'm sure there will be much to post about soon, and in the meantime I'm keeping the photos flowing every week.

Besides, just because he's been generally a fun (if exhausting) little guy to be around, doesn't mean that the rest of the world has been behaving. There was the recent incident in a Starbucks where Kaden was walking around with a plastic bag in his hand and the woman took the bag FROM HIS HAND and then scolded me saying, "he shouldn't have plastic, it could choke him."

I was about to reason with her that I was standing right next to him, so that was doubtful. But then I realized she is the type of person who lives her life in fear and is far from my help. She has commanded her relatives to give only wooden toys, and cowers in fear if she is forced into using a microwave-save plastic bowl in the microwave (if she owns one). Meanwhile her kid is full of splinters and bruises from swinging his heavy mallet-like wooden toys at both his own head and his parents.

I like wooden toys as much as the next person, and I certainly rant about the horrors of cheap, loud, plastic toys as much as the next guy. But do it because you like it, not because you are afraid of something. And please, I understand it takes a village and all, but scolding another adult for something innocuous like a plastic bag of crackers? More like, "it takes a village idiot."

what noah's kids must have done

2006-05-20T15:12:00.000-05:00

If you haven't checked the news lately, Cambridge has had the kind of rain that makes mayor's declare disaster areas and some to suggest we should be building arks. I would complain more about our brand new basement flooding, but it seems a little petty that we got a little wet concrete when several local towns had to be evacuated.

The rain also meant Kaden spent a week cooped up inside, which drove him absolutely batty. The only help was his extensive time with the most annoying toy ever. It is a mass of loudness, plastic, buttons, and primary colors. His grandmother (my mother) bought it for him. It's infested with Disney branding, I don't even think there is an off button, and even comes with repetitive Disney music that bores a hole into your Cerebellum only to creep back out five years later and bring you to your knees.

But of course, Kaden loves it. Grandparents everywhere take note, kids absolutely love the Mickey Fire Engine Team Activity Ride On (even the lengthy title gives you a hint at how over the top this thing is). Your kids will resent you for buying it, but who cares, you weren't buying it for them anyway. You were buying it for their no TV watching, Jack Johnson listening, sensory deprived grandkids.

Without it during the rainstorms I think we would have seen a re-occurance of cujo. So thanks mom.

But still, one ADHD inducing toy cannot sustain an entire week. So once we got so sick of the Mickey March I was ready to burn plastic, we packed in the car and headed to the one surefire place to entertain everyone. The grocery store.

Yup, I highly recommend in a situation like this packing up and heading to the local Whole Foods. First, there are tons of people for him to try to get the attention of, and all those colored items to pick up, mess up, and hope someone else cleans up. It's like a little activity center, only with massive heavy squeaky metal death-trap grocery carts rolling towards your son's head as he bends over to pick up a box of Rice'a'Roni. I like to think that adds the little bit of risk that keeps it interesting.

I would also highly recommend a toy store (no need to buy, they always have stuff out to play with), and when all else fails just go to a gym with child care. The cost of the child care at a gym is typically less than a babysitter, and you get a precious hour or two getting fit and ready for the wailing that ensues once he realizes that he is headed back to the your shiny new home/his worst nightmare.

The good news is that the rain has now stopped, the basement is dry, and Kaden finally got outside.

As life tends to be one adventure after another, he immediately found his very first rain puddle and rather quickly and set about cavorting in it. Click below for a little peak into the best thing about rain.

2006-04-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

I've been planning this post for a while now, but it's not quite turning out the way I intended. My hope was to tell you that I saw Kaden asleep in his crib in his brand new room for the very first time. I could describe him all splayed out and contorted, pleasantly dreaming of large cupcakes or a dozen golden retrievers that want to do nothing but sit still and be patted.

You see, we just moved. In our old place, the floors were so creaky that rarely could you get a peak at the little guy without waking him. I have particularly vivid memories of rocking him to sleep when he was a couple months old, then trying to tiptoe out the door stepping on strategically placed masking tape where the floor wouldn't creak.

And last night I did actually see him asleep in his crib, but it wasn't exactly as idealic as I thought. You see he had a hacking cough, so bad that he was alarmed and wouldn't sleep alone. Since we just moved we had a mattress lieing around that could easily be plopped down right next to his crib (convenient for me). So last night I woke every hour or so to his hacking and crying and then consoling him back to sleep. I think nature makes toddlers get sick all the time just as a final way to get even the most callous parents to fall for them.

Actually, despite his sickness he has really taken to the new place, and we are settling into life in Cambridge, Ma. We do miss our old place, though. We'd really made some great friends, there were wonderful parks everywhere, and the place did feel very much like ours.

However.. I'm happy to trade the squeeky floors for new bamboo floors, and the chance of lead poisening windows for brand new Benjamin Moore eco-paint. I can already see the teeth marks in the molding.

Here are some photos of the move through Kaden's eyes.

2006-03-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

Kaden did a total faceplant in the sand today at the park. I mean an arms splayed, feet up off the ground, mouthful of sand kind of faceplant. So after he falls, he pops back up immediately but is clearly upset. But not because of what you think. He's upset because his hands are dirty.

When did this kid, who used to not care if his hands were covered in his own projectile poop, become a neat-freak? He's a screaming, crying, holding his hands out until a clean them, then smiling and running on to play, kind of neat-freak.

Just when I thought I was getting to know this little friend of mine, he pulls the rug out and changes on me.

He used to hate getting into his chair at dinner, for instance. Now when I say, "ready to eat?" he runs giggling to his seat so fast it gives me a twinge of guilt that we've been starving him. Maybe he was laughing when I tickled him in the vain hope that eventually I would feed him. Maybe his baby fat is just fat and really he needs some assistance from Christian missionaries before he'll be a well nourished child. How am I to know? Not like I've actually done this before or something.

Of course, if he actually WAS starving, then we wouldn't be such a picky eater. Yup, the kid who used to down everything from Adana Kebab to Saag Paneer has suddenly become a picky eater. He'll still eat many things, but he's entered that control phase where he wants to feed himself. (Metrodad recently wrote a great post on the food topic)

This is cute when you watch him fill his face with mac'n cheese just so it's clear that there is no room for that pureed squash you have in your spoon. But it also means that dinner takes an hour as he eats one-single-pea-at-a-time.

I'm trying to adapt, knowing it always probably be like this. This week it's adapting to him going from wanting a really nice 15 mins of storytime before bed, to him demanding to be put straight into his crib so he can go to bed all on his own. Next week he'll want to dress himself, and soon enough it'll be him wanting me to drop him off a block from school so he meet up with his friends and show them how to light farts.

One thing has stayed constant though, he still loves to dance.

---

New Music

Air: **
Lemon Jelly: ***
A new mix of 40s swing (Duke Ellington, etc): ***
Franz Ferdinand: **** (especially when coming from my cell phone)

2006-03-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got a little glimpse into what this blog is going to be like in a couple years. It was our monthly board meeting (venture backed startups have board meetings constantly) and my friend Marc got a phone call during it. Turns out his ~~2 1/2~~ five year old has just learned his mobile number and apparently called him during the meeting. Marc picks up and immediately she pipes in,

"Hi. What are you doing?"
"I'm in a board meeting."
"Is it called that because everyone is bored?"

Well...

While Marc's kid seems to be adapting to new technology quite impressively, Kaden seems somewhat anti-tech. Sure he wants my mobile and my Tivo remote, but that's not because of the technology as much as it looks like an excellent chew toy with buttons.

For instance when I try to show him the benefits of streaming digital music, his interest only lasts so long. He seems to love the little experimental music sessions I've been having with him, but only a few minutes go by before he longs for the cold spinning plastic that is Compact Discs.

Like most parents I actively dislike the generally unlistenable category called "kids music." I am trying to show him the benefits of music that is not reminiscent of something a SWAT team would use to flush out hostage takers. He likes the stuff I've been playing, but seems drawn back to the tangible spinning discs. While I frantically try to flip to a new song ("Kaden, wait, we've got over 10,000 of them on the hard drive!") he rambles back into his room and gives the "want" sign up at the CD player.

If you're not familiar with the hand signal for "want" that's because Kaden made it up. Here we are trying to teach him "please" and "milk" and he invents an easier to demand things.

Admittedly it's cute, he points his hand in the direction of what he wants you to manipulate/bring to him/carry him to/use and then turns his hand kind of like he's screwing in a light bulb.

At first I thought, "how wonderful - he can communicate better what he needs and that should lead to less frustration." And it does lead to less frustration... for him.

For Megan and I, he is using his "want" symbol kind of like an old adventure video game. Kaden sometimes just aimlessly points his hand and signals "want" at inanimate objects just to see if they'll do something. It's like he thinks he is in King's Quest and suddenly some wooden board will flip over and reveal an apple core which will somehow, ridiculously, allow him to unlock the secrets of the CD player later on.

Despite the somewhat tiring work it can be to manipulate/bring to him/carry him to/use practically everything in sight, it is wonderful to have him communicating more. He's talking gibberish all the time, with a few basic words (mom, dad, apple, cheese, and thanks to his birthday, balloon). What's even more amazing his how many words he actually understands.

It is common now to come home and excitedly find that he now understands "belly button" and tries to lift up Megan's shirt to show you when asked. I'm predicting that particular trick will go over well with strangers. Let's hope he kicks that habit before kindergarten.

---

Kaden's new music this week (rated from 1 to 5 stars, with 5 stars being when he is so excited he does something I've never seen him do before - like a triple lutz or something).
Brazilian Girls: ****
Stevie Wonder: ****
Jamiroquai: ***
Kool & the Gang: ***
Cake: **
Spoon: **

I'm thinking next week's music appreciation will include a little Manu Chao, Jackson Five, and Jack Johnson (he did do the Curious George soundtrack after all).

What could possibly be poignant enough for his first birthday.

2006-03-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

For those keeping track of Kaden via the age tracker, you'll notice that Kaden turned one years old last week. You wouldn't have known from the blog because I fell down on the job of even posting about it. This is not for lack of trying, I've just found it hard to find the right thing to say.

I started this blog with the idea of keeping it through his first year, cataloging the early "shock and awe" of having a first kid. Originally, this was supposed to be the farewell post for the blog. A nice reflective look back at the year + 9 months and a closing of a chapter.

But I've found this blog to be really helpful. It has helped me take the time to reflect a bit on what has happened that day/week/month, to stay in touch with some friends that normally would have become more disconnected, and even to get some helpful feedback and advice from others.

So, the grand farewell is not to be, we'll push on and I hope you'll continue to listen in now and then. Thanks everyone.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos from his birthday. Both sets of grandparents flew up, and we have some wonderful obligatory shots of birthday messiness.

Here for the album
Here for the slideshow

we don't need no stinkin press clippings

2006-02-20T18:40:00.000-05:00

So, apparently CBS News has graced this dear blog with its presence. They've taken note of this here blog and not surprisingly do not find it up to the standards of CBS News.

Some fathers publicize their baby's latest party tricks. "Kaden now waves, claps, knows to back himself down stairs, and, get this, he WALKS," Start-Up Dad blogs. "He's tromping all around the house falling and getting back up and falling again." I'm hoping his audience is mostly family members.

Duh, it IS for family members and friends.. it's a BLOG. Although the mainstream press has been jumping on the blog bandwagon, they still don't seem to get the idea of the personal publishing revolution. I'm not even going to address their lack of understanding of sarcasm.

In other more relevant press news, Daddy Types covers our friend Allen's great video of him breaking the news of a baby coming before his Mom can get to the blog to read about it.

(CBS News, via Daddy Types, who does a better job summing up this article than I did)

For more on CBS News, you can see their ridiculous attempt at a blog. Where they try to reach the masses by posting by posting tidbit news not worthy of broadcast.

Filled with Wonder

2006-02-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

Congrats to our friends Allen and Elaine, who just did the "baby is eminent" post on their blog to announce they are having a kid. Nothing to put a smile on your face like waking up in the morning, firing up your laptop, and seeing an ultrasound of your friends' tummy. I look forward to the excited, harried, tired, frustrated, and jubilant blog posts that are sure to follow.

Since Allen is such a music fan, I know he (and anyone else reading) will enjoy a funny article in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago, the Preschool of Rock. It struck a certain chord because Kaden has become completely music obsessed.

Kaden started dancing pretty early. We'd play something with a beat and he would shift his shoulders back and forth as he wobbled his head from side to side smiling broadly. I'm glad I caught it on my cameraphone before he stopped doing it because it was adorable. He looked like he had been possessed by Stevie Wonder.

(no that is not him protesting his Gitmo-like treatment behind the kid-prison. yes that is actually him happily dancing even though you can't hear the music.)

Then a few weeks after he learned to walk he started using his legs to dance, doing the patented "leg press" baby jig. It's just the cutest thing when he walks over to the CD player, stares up at it like he's praying to the god of happy butt-shaking, and begins to stomp his legs and move his body up and down.

If anyone has suggestions, I'm looking to expand his musical experience very soon as we've worn through my patience with the 3-4 good CDs he has now (Schoolhouse Rock, Danny Zane, Squirrel Nut Zippers).

His addiction has gotten so bad that this morning after I had finished the morning wrestling match to get him dressed he immediately pops up all agitated. He's yelling angrily and waving franctically and I'm trying to figure out if I accidentally buttoned a body part improperly. Then it clicks that he's waving at the CD player.

"you want music?"

and he smiles.

What sound does a Panda make?

2006-01-22T17:06:00.000-05:00

You see, we've got this ark (of the small stuffed variety), and it has animals. I've been trying to teach Kaden about animal sounds because it seems like the thing to do at this age. Lions, snakes, elephants, all good. But what's a creative and emotive way to make the sound of chewing bamboo?

And don't even get me started on what I've tried for giraffes.

Kaden is in a learning frenzy, and I have done a terrible job keeping you guys up to date on everything he is picking up. In the last month it feels like anything we expose him to he mimics back immediately.

Kaden now waves, claps, knows to back himself down stairs, and, get this, he WALKS. He's tromping all around the house falling and getting back up and falling again.

Actually Kaden (could he read) would likely take umbrage at that comment. He's a pretty darn good walker and mostly falls when he has either gotten excited or gotten a double-ear infection to throw off his balance.

Double-ear infections, by the way, pretty much throw off everything. By mid-week I actually had Kaden sleeping in his old baby car seat next to me because it was the only thing that he could actually fall asleep in. The double-ear infection made for a particularly horrible week that culminated in me having to leave my sick and crying kid in my sick and exhausted wife's hands while I went to Europe.

Sitting on the plane across from an adorable one year old kid while you leave your sick family for business causes a particular kind of deep grinding guilt. I had visions of my parents calling me to tell me that I am SO not the modern dad they raised and needed to take better care of their grandson.

"We didn't raise you to conduct yourself in this manner," they would say in an authoritarian tone usually reserved for pets. By the time my plane landed I was rapid dialing my cellphone to make sure Megan was still alive and not filing for divorce. And I'm not even Catholic.

Such is the attachment I'm starting to form with Kaden. I knew I would love him, but I miss him in a way I hadn't anticipated. It's no secret that when Kaden was first born neither of us had the kind of immediate attachment to this crying lump of flesh that other parents talk about. But as he has developed a personality, we've developed a really strong relationship.

When I walk in the door and he stumbles towards me, arms outstretched and walking like frankenstein with a toothy grin, it's a highlight of my day. That certainly doesn't mean I'm going to pull back on the throttle with my business - other than delusions at 20 thousand feet my life is actually very balanced - but the feeling is a bit of a surprise to me and could take a little getting used to.

the snot heard round the world

2006-01-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

An old friend from High School (Sam Horoschak) just captured an absolutely great shot of her child. So great in fact that it rocketed to the #1 most viewed photo on Flickr for a day this week. Her kid is in complete meltdown over not being able to ride his tricycle in the middle of the street. One of those precious little tantrums about the tiniest of things, and a great photo.

NOTE: A few days later Sam seems to have become disenchanted with the attention that the Internet seems to send to it's newly famous (at least she wasn't the Tron guy). She has since made the photo private, but I've left the link up on my little tiny corner of the web for those friends that know her.

2005-12-11T21:10:00.000-05:00

I guess I had it coming to me, not being nervous at all about having my first weekend alone with Kaden. I was practically pushing Megan out the door to enjoy her weekend with Jenny in New York and not worry. I mean, I'm a modern Dad and all.. I've spent plenty of time with Kaden and done everything there is to do. Of course, I hadn't done it all one after another, but that's just timing. A mere formality.

So Megan leaves in the early morning and Kaden lulls me into a false sense of security by being all laughing and happy... then I try and put him down for his nap. Suddenly it's screaming, crying, crazy cujo Kaden for 45 miserably long minutes. I thought he was never going to go to sleep.

Then he wakes up and, sorry folks but this blog is about baby's, he craps the biggest crap you've ever seen. He must have channeled his inner horse because it's one of those out the diaper, down the pants, onto the sheets, covering his SHOES kind of crap.

So now I've got a crap covered baby who is full of energy and ready to play after his nap. As you can imagine, changing him is a writhing, squirming, total mess. On top of that I seem to have forgotten how the washing machine works because it has two identical detergent bins and I have no idea which is which. Finally, after reading the manual to the washing machine and going through a half-case of baby wipes in vain, Kaden and his now crap-covered father took a bath.

And that was about 10:30am.

If your happy and you know it hit a clown.

2005-12-03T09:44:00.000-05:00

When a baby learns the mechanical joy that is hinges, a parent would hope that leads directly to something like, I don't know, a love of turning book pages. Or perhaps constructing his own kiddy-gates to save me another trip to Target. Instead, Kaden uses his newfound knowledge to open the top to the diaper genie and plunge his hand inside every chance he gets.

Yep, Kaden is busy, busy, busy. He's in full Louis & Clark mode, turning up every pillow and diaper to see what's underneath. And once he's gotten a good look at everything, he's entirely bored. That's one reason why our recent trip to Chapel Hill for thanksgiving was so great. It's a new living room, kitchen, dining room, and dog to explore. Back at the old home in Boston, he's seen it all. Kaden even has this bored look that he pulls out at about 5pm every day. He backs away from his play table, crawls to the middle of the room, and turns around and stares at Megan like, "come on, DO something."

Parenting at this stage is pretty much like being the activities director at a Club Med. You are constantly coming up with new things for him to do. This leads parents to do some pretty unfortunate things. For instance, I took Kaden to a music class the other day called Family Music Makers, and it was clear that I simply had not been driven desperate enough to appreciate this class.

What I found was a room full of otherwise healthy adults clapping and dancing while their children utterly ignore them. With the exception of one or two kids who were old enough to get it, this was basically an excuse for parents to see other parents. Only, with the unfortunate prancing around like it was campground karaoke. I know we are desperate to occupy our kids, but couldn't we all just play with toys and talk?

That's not half as bad as the horror show that I missed because Megan took Kaden. It's called Gymboree, and it is either just horribly out of touch with the modern world, or it's a cult.

Gymbo the clown goes up and down, up and down, up and down... until you are sufficiently brainwashed.

First, you take your kid to some office park and into a non-descript room. In this non-descript room is one very creepy man with a really irritating therapist voice. You know the kind - where he is talking so soft and monotone you just want to throttle him. And behind him is... wait for it... a massive clown's head.

The clown is apparently named Gymbo, which sounds like a junkie's name to me. The creepy instructor also has a stuffed Gymbo that he uses as his "baby" for class. So here you are, in the non-descript room with a massive clown's head hanging above you staring at you. And all the while Mr.child molester is playing songs on a ukulele while articulating a stuffed clown in the manner that you are supposed to touch and move your baby.

Then when your done with your half-hour creep-fest you walk outside where there is a white van with tinted windows that you get into so they can take you off to their clown-cult brainwashing camp. Okay.. so there was no white van, but it's still pretty ridiculous right?

But that's what the little bugger drives you to try. His processors are just running too fast and he needs to learn more. Thankfully, there is Isis Maternity. It's just up the street, offers a bunch of classes, and has a complete absence of clowns. Just yesterday while I was off in Germany on business, Megan went there for a perfectly normal music class.

As usual, Kaden was completely ignoring all the adults making fools of themselves right up until they started singing, "If you're happy and you know it..." And he sat up, looked around smiling, and started to try and clap his hands.

He missed terribly, but it made it all worth it.

Re-startup Dad

2005-11-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

I didn't have a good frame of reference on parenting before embarking on this attempt to build a human from scratch. I never really had a pet, except an anole in the 8th grade that I kept on my shoulder constantly. Unfortunately the little lizard lasted only a few weeks as he was unable to hold on during a roller-coaster at King's Dominion. (I plan to treat Kaden a little more gingerly, and they wouldn't let me take him on the ride at this age anyway.)

So really other than that very brief encounter, my closest reference on what it's like to grow something, take care of it, and try to make it work are the start-up companies I've helped build. There have been four companies so far, and although managing a balance sheet is certainly different than raising a human, there are similarities. In both cases you can take the same set of founders (parents), they can have two kids, and life will somehow make them entirely different from each other. Also, by the time you get to your second or third, you are a lot more laid back about the whole thing.

But of course a company is just a company, and if the problems get intractable and you lose enthusiasm, you can leave a start-up. After four years building my last company, I've decided to move on to the next challenge. The first three companies I helped start were successful, and much like with a kid who leaves to explore the world my hope is they will flourish and grow more successful than I imagined. Then of course I can overstate my share of the credit for their great achievements.

Although I will likely be founding or joining another start-up momentarily, this is also a great opportunity to spend a little more time with the kid growing so quickly in front of me. I only hope some day to found a company that is 1/10th as engaging as Kaden is. Perhaps then I will be driven to grow it over decades instead of years, offering a place for a Kaden to try his hand at shepherding as he gets older.

Morning Glory

2005-11-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

Kaden spoke this morning! He said "Da-Da" -- and not just once, I got him doing it over and over again. Yes I think this is incredibly cool, even though at this point it is more of a parlor trick than actual recognition of the contributions of his paternal side. For instance, although he does seem to like saying DaDa, it still ranked lower than his affinity to click his tongue.

I sat on the kitchen floor this morning and was saying DaDa, when he made a gurgling sound that had roughly the same rhythm as my oft-repeated phrase. Grabbing hold of that thin evidence of recognition, I of course started bombarding him with the phrase. After the three of four-hundreth try, the drool had effectively left his mouth for it's more familiar place (his shirt) and he let out a little "DaDa" again. Then again, and again. We're in business.

Of course, he has since refused to repeat this feat this afternoon, but that's not surprising. I've noticed that Kaden's abilities to do new things seem to spawn in the morning, and then take a few weeks to work their way to the rest of the day. There was probably two weeks when he first started smiling that he would only do it prior to 10am. I was convinced that this was because he was happily thinking of the fine evening of malevolenty destroying our sleeping habits, but the pattern has emerged with crawling, standing, and will probably be the same with chatting.

I wonder if this says something about how all our brains work in the morning? After we have had some rest (some more than others), and not yet filled with the event after event - maybe that's when we are best suited to learn, react, and be our most creative? Hmm.. maybe the Today Show and reading Metro aren't the best ways to spend the first few hours of the day.

2005-11-06T06:18:00.000-05:00

I've found some of the lost shots I had of our trip to Vermont a few weeks back. I've added them to the original set here.

If you sign up for Flickr (the photo site I use to post these photos) make sure you add me as a friend. There are more photos of Kaden (like you need that) that only friends & family linked on Flickr can see.

2005-10-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

Kaden is sick. When he was first born we heard horror stories about newborns getting a fever. How if in the first six weeks there is some worry about bacteria or avian flu or something and you have to take him to the emergency room to.. get this, have a spinal tap. Images of that happening led me to simply err on the side waiting till the seventh week to take his temperature for the first time.

But our little Scrambles does not have a fever, and at seven months old he is long past spinal tap fears anyway. He has a cold. Just writing it sounds petty. It brings up visions of a cute little nose making cute little sniffles, perhaps him needing to cuddle a little more. With all my pent up fears about fevers, I hadn't even really considered the distructive possibility of the cold.

Why did no one warn me about colds? All the former smiles and happiness that we've enjoyed the last couple months are temporarily missing. He's pissed, he's sniffly, and he's tired - oh so tired. You see for someone who enjoys sleeping with a pacifier in his mouth, having a stuffy nose is like being caught between a rock and a pile of snot. Either he can sleep with the pacifier in his mouth or he can breath. Or, as Kaden has found, he can scream his head off like this decision is Sophie's Choice. Cujo is back.

And I feel like a total wimp Dad. This is just a cold? Cause this stinks. And it doesn't help that Megan has it too, so it's about as gloomy around here as the Boston weather.

Kaden + Start-Up Mom head to North Carolina with the grandparents while I'm off to Finland, so hopefully both will be nursed back to health by the grandparents. Get the chicken soup ready Leesie!