Happy Halloweiner!!

I have fond memories of Halloween as a kid, before it was dubbed the devil's holiday. Back in the 80's it was about kids dressing like The Hulk or Wonder Woman and frolicking around the picturesque neighborhood, whimsically asking people for some candy. Everyone seemed happy and everyone was filled with the crisp autumnal air.

Over the past two decades, however, Halloween has lost its luster with me. It has become another highly marketable event for people to drop some serious coin on candy, deco and booze. And is an alibi for women to dress up as "a sexy (fill in blank with any occupation or character here)." At work I had built a rapport for some inventive costumer-y, but even that has faded a bit. I am pleased to announce that thanks to Benjamin, me and Halloween are back!!

I've heard before that when you have a child you get to relive some parts of your own childhood (hopefully just the good ones), and I can attest to how great this Halloween was seeing it through Benjamin's 21-month year old eyes. He had wide-eyed wonder trying to make sense of all these people running around with crazy wigs, rubber masks, and ill-fitting pantaloons.

We started off at his cousins' Halloweiner cookout where neighborhood kids gather to feast on salted meats before they chase it with sugary treats. He was able to debut his Itsy-Bitsy Spider costume for the family and get hugged to death by nearly everyone at the party - mental note: cute baby in spider costume could be the key to curing arachnophobia.

While Emily was visiting with some friends, I walked hand in hand with Benjamin to his first "ToT" customer. You could tell that he had no idea what we were doing or why he was carrying a plastic jack-o-lantern that was bigger than his torso. We quickly went over our lines, "Trick or treat" and knocked on the door. A nice lady answered and Benjamin peeped, "Tweet? Tweet?"

She "ooh'ed" and "aah'ed" and then she said, "Aww... she is the cutest little octopus I've ever seen!!" Candy obtained = (1) Tootsie Roll® midget

Little did Benjamin know that he just got about the worst loot you could get on Halloween - one inedible brown nugget. I'd rather get a penny. BUT, the fact that she dropped something into his little bucket, the entire "extort cuteness for candy" concept immediately clicked in his head. He was now a spider on a mission.

Benjamin didn't want to be carried, he wanted to hoof it on his own, but he was moving really slow for having 8 legs (RIMSHOT!) So he and I are holding hands while other kids and turtles are passing us, but I'll be darned if he never complained, never dropped his bucket and never threw a tantrum for the entire night. The funny thing to me is that Benjamin has no concept of candy and wasn't terribly interested in the stuff - he just enjoyed people putting stuff into his bucket. The one exception is when he scored a mini Play-Doh® container, he recognized the shape and thanked the couple with a, "Whhhhooooaaaa..." You'd think Indy had just discovered the Lost Ark.

We make it back to the house and ended the late night with the ol' candy dump to see whatcha got. I loved this part as a kid. Letting your eyes take in a treasure trove of brightly colored candies and discover new unknown treats (What's an O'Henry Bar?!). I have never been into candy, but it was the currency I would use to trade with friends in order to score an action figure or two. I may have been the world's first candy-launderer.

Benjamin dumped out his bucket and the little guy scored a nice mound of goods. We've never given him candy (except for a Dum-Dum® during hair cuts) so the fun-size bars were lost on him. The true delights were the stickers, a fake spider thingie, said mini Play-Doh® and a full size bag of Goldfish - which was definitely the score of the night.

The costume, the pictures, holding hands, walking down the dark streets and the smile plastered on his face were the ingredients I needed to welcome Halloween back into my good graces. After 20 years of Halloween being filled with scantily-clad vixens and various brews, I had forgotten who the night was truly for - the kids who get excited about dressing up like their favorite heroes, going on a quest for a bounty of treats, and blissfully falling into a candy-coated stupor.

Realistically Benjamin won't remember anything about his first "real" Halloween, but I will every time a midget Tootsie-Roll® is dropped into his bucket for the next 10 years.

"What'd you do this weekend?"

You know how Mondays go - easing back into the work week, remembering all of the things you put off on Friday, and sharing "happy talk" with coworkers about what you did over the weekend. I work with a smattering of single people and hear their weekend exploits and it goes a little something like this:

"Yeah I didn't really do too much, we went out for drinks on Friday night and then went over to this club and ran into a bassist I knew in this samba band. We went back to his loft with a couple dozen people and ordered $400 of tapas and feasted on the sweet meats until 4AM. Saturday we just cruised on my friend Theo's yacht and did some whaling. The weird part is that we met up with some Mer-people and they took us to this sunken ship where we found gold coins and precious gems. After that, we hot-air ballooned back to shore and walked across hot coals, straight into a trance-Goa rave. Sunday was super low-key, we just had brunch with Obama at The Hague."

As these people are talking, I'm trying to think back to the weekend and tally up all of the cool things I did. Let's see - looked after Benjamin, maintained my home, went to church, ate 7-9 meals and didn't get enough sleep some how.

Ta-da!!

Ordinarily my shoulders slump a little bit after we do this exchange, especially when their response is something to the effect of, "Oh, well that sounds fun too...(ahem)...(shuffling of papers)"

But things shifted into perspective for me Labor Day weekend. We got back to the office on Tuesday and I'm hearing of people riding on wild unicorns and circumnavigating the Earth on the Concorde, and I thought to myself "Man! I had a great weekend!"

While these people were ticking off things on their Bucket List I was able to hang out with Benjamin during the sweet "play time" part of his day. We had family walks, kicked around a ball at the park, got in a work out, made and ate some delicious meals at decent times, went swimming with cousins, had a night away with the Missus, saw a movie IN the theatre, and still got some stuff done around the house.

I didn't get into detail when so

meone asked what I did that weekend, because I think they would still give me the "you poor suburban schmoe" look. But I truly think I had the better weekend filled with laughs, baby hugs, naps, some more first words, kissing of boo-boos - all thanks to Emily and Benjamin.

So next time you feel like you're getting big-timed by someone comparing weekend feats, just conjure up a little moment in time where your

little one put their head on your shoulder, laughed at your antics, or just splashing around during bath-time. You've got them beat, hands-down.

Photo Fun

This is short and sweet and more about the pictures than anything else. Benjamin is a real hoot the more and more he attempts to speak. It is almost a little game trying to discern what he means when he blurts out "Dah..." Is it "door" or "dog" or "dock" or "dork"?

I do sense that he is on the verge of some major speaking breakthroughs. And I secretly look forward to answering the endless string of "why" questions.

Enjoy the pics.

"Hi, I'm a Hollywood baby. See how casual I am?"

Not a bad family pic considering it is 9AM and both parents were running on zero sleep.

"The siren's call of the sea beckons me. It is rivaled only by the call of my Goldfish snack crackers."

It is still undetermined which side of the family he gets his latent vampirism gene.

A Complete Tragedy

No, you haven't accidentally logged into a different blog. And no we haven't undergone Father/Son plastic surgery. This posting is dedicated to a truly great friend of mine that recently passed away - Shannon Childre.

I really have (and still do) the best intentions of posting more often, but his death has forced me to hit the pause button on a lot of things over the past two weeks. Shannon and I have been creative partners for a good portion of the past 10 years. When I was an intern, he was the first person to really give me a chance and show me the ropes around the agency. We had plenty in common so we hit it off and made some great memories over the past decade together.

Shannon and I traveled out to San Diego for Comic-Con 3 weeks ago with some other coworkers to help our client man their booth. The second day we were there, he went out for a jog along the boardwalk by our hotel and collapsed from a heart attack, at the age of 39. One of our mutual interests was eating the right kinds of foods and giving our body a good sweat when we had the chance (it's harder to work it in with kids). A total and complete biological fluke left him dead shortly after he got to the hospital.

To add to the situation, he wasn't carrying an ID and we didn't discover that he was truly missing until he was a no-show at dinner that evening. We raced around the city to try and put the pieces together, went to the hospitals looking for injured John Does, and we sadly discovered him as a deceased John Doe. My body went into a complete shaking shock, the only other time I experienced this sensation was right before Benjamin was born. Except that was shaking from excited shock, not sad shock.

The whole event is filled with a series of "firsts" that I never wanted to perform a "second." Packing up his hotel room, flying his stuff home, trying to find words that will console his wife and two children, planning a memorial service, trying to work with his blatant absence. The entire flight home my body was completely tensed up trying to fight off tears, and I couldn't wait to get home and hug Emily and Benjamin.

There is hope though. Shannon's death has brought people and emotions out of the woodwork. About 500 people attended his memorial and is was a time for tears, laughs and celebration of who he was and a chance for all of these people who he positively impacted to get together in the same room to say "thanks" to him. And "thanks" to everyone else there. Compliments came off the tongue easier, people told one another how appreciative they were of one another - it was a great evening.

The tragedy is that Shannon wasn't there to see it, and that it took his death to shake people out of their rat-race funk and rediscover their own humanity. I eulogized him at the service (another First) and I tried to leave people with a positive message that they were his legacy, and for them to recognize the traits they admired in Shannon and apply them to their own lives. I also tried to pass on a simple lesson that came out of a conversation Shannon and I had - he recently started to learn how to speak German. I asked him, "Why?" and his playful response back was, "Why not?" It was just something he had always wanted to do, so he made a move to learn German.

My challenge to the audience at the memorial and to you today is to say "Why not?" more often in your lives. Yank those things off the backburner and just do it - take that trip, learn that skill, take a class, volunteer somewhere, or suck it up and ask that person out that you've been eyeballing for weeks. Shannon's passing is proof that life is clearly to short to not roll the dice more often.

The saddest part of this whole incident, and one that I haven't cared to dwell on too much, is the fact that his 2 year old boy (Griffin) and his 1 year old girl (Lily) will have to learn about their dad through stories, old pictures and mementos from his past. Something no child should have to endure. This obviously makes my imagination go crazy thinking how that could have been me and what Emily and Benjamin would do if I were gone. And that really makes me sad.

Who Taught My Baby How To Be A Jerk?

Is that bad, calling your baby a jerk? Benjamin has just turned a corner where his new found mobility has emboldened him to have a bit of an attitude. And some of the things he does, if any of us did them, we would be called jerks. Actually, we would be called something worse.

I'm not really calling Benjamin a jerk and he hasn't become "Damien" from the Omen movies, but he is definitely testing the limits.

For instance, if he's messing with an object he desires (phone, marker, remote, gold bullion) and we don't let him have it, he will run away squealing from us and then throw said object into the corner.

THEN, if we put the object back he will go back over to it, look you right in the eye and zing the object haphazardly behind him. And the look on his face says, "Oh yeah, you want this so much, go get it (ZING!)" There are some choice days where we call timeout for him more than the last 2 minutes of an NBA game.

And the absolute worse part is when he does the "Marlin" - a full body contort were his head and feet stiffen and fling in the opposite direction from his body. Much like a marlin jumping up out of the water and flopping around on the deck of your boat. At least now I know what it's like to be headbutted and kicked in the ribs at the same time. I could soooo make it in the UFC.

For full disclosure, he still has plenty of good moments and isn't filled with vinegar that often. The times that he has an attitude make up probably 5%, but going from 0% to 5% makes you think "oh no, is this it? Is the cheese sliding off his cracker? What did we do wrong? Whose teaching him this stuff?" Like everything else in the media, I guess we should blame the parents. Wait a second...

Life's a Zoo

Sometimes you just need a break, so I took one for 2 weeks. A break from pretty much everything except family. I had two big revelations, the first one is that I am programmed to remain busy. Even if I don't have work to do, I fill my time with some other form of work rendering me completely incapable of relaxing. That's why I never book a massage, I'd rather just rub my own shoulders so I feel like I'm accomplishing something.

The 2nd revelation is that every day I go to work, I am completely missing the sweetspot of Benjamin play time. I see him in the morning when he can't wait to eat breakfast, and then I see him at night when he can't wait to eat dinner, mess around a little bit and then go to sleep. I had two weeks of seeing him in his element and doing things that I didn't know he was able to do, like play piano. I kid.

(3rd revelation is how are all of these other people at Target at 2PM on a Tuesday??)

One treat is that my folks came in to town from TN to stay for about a week. They hadn't seen Benjamin since we was 2 weeks old, and Benjamin really has never seen them. They just looked like black and white polka dots to him. He had a blast, they had a blast, we all had a blast. They marveled at Benjamin's ability to do some things that are just kind of commonplace to us now. It was a great experience to see their joy from our little bundle of joy.

I did plan a family outing to the Ft. Worth Zoo while they were in town, which was the inaugural expedition for everyone. I thought that Benjamin at 16 months would be able to understand that there were exotic animals running around him, I was wrong. Let me set the stage a little bit with these three words - Texas, June, Hot.

We got there right when it opened to hopefully catch the animals in the midst of wrapping up their breakfast before they start running and swinging and breaking into dance in order to entertain the patrons. What we saw were animals submerged in water, huddled under any shade they can find or buried in a hole somewhere. To me, the looks on their faces read, "Please, send me back to Africa where it's cooler"

The animals that did play ball weren't interesting enough to pull Benjamin's attention away from people watching everyone around him. "Oh Benjamin, look at the huge gorilla right in front of your face... orrrr keep trying to touch that girl's barrettes in front of you" All in all we got to see about 1/3 of the park before we called it quits to find sweet relief in a room piping super cold A/C. And unfortunately there were no penguins to be found.

Spoonman

Benjamin's favorite appliance in our house is the dishwasher, sorry rice cooker. And the other day I was doing my household duty of emptying the dishwasher and Benjamin did something outside of his usual routine of trying to climb into the dishwasher.

He pulled out two spoons from the utensil caddy and trotted out of the kitchen. A few seconds later he came back to the dishwasher empty handed and pulled out two more spoons. I assumed he was playing a little game where he grabs the spoons, hoping that I chase him, and then tosses them into the dogbed like he does every other one of his toys (sorry Schmax).

I let him do it a couple more times until I realized he had taken every spoon we have and put them somewhere (these were clean by the way, so it also hit me that I have to watched all of the flippin spoons again). Curiosity finally won out and I followed him on his final spoon heist, only to discover that he has arranged (not thrown) all of the spoons on the window sill in our office.

Clearly, I know that he is not an artist in-residence with high-level cognitive thinking, but it was amazing to see how he was actually evaluating the current structure to determine where best to place the next spoon. It was a neat moment, and then a creepy moment. It reminded me of the Matrix where that little psychic girl is bending spoons with her mind.

Ultimately, it was one of those instances where you wish you could peek into someone's mind to see exactly what's going on in that noggin. There is, however, one thing I knew for certain - how Benjamin would react when I gathered up the spoons. Let's just say I'm glad they weren't knives.

It's Summer Baby!

(insert excuse for not posting stuff in nearly two months, but it involves saving orphans from fires and helping to topple the Taliban)

Since last we met Benjamin has gone through a bit of a renaissance progressing from "baby" to "toddler". It is amazing that in less time than a pro

motional period for free Time Warner cable a life form can go from craw

ling with little

understanding of language to a bi-ped that can communicate through sign language and remedial mutterings of english.

It is also a relief to my biceps now that I don't have to lug around 27lbs of dead weight everywhere. In fact, if I try and hold him too long he wants to bust loose and explore his house. He actually kind of struts a bit when he cruises around the living room and kitchen, like this is his joint. But then you get him in some of the other bedrooms and he is tentative like he is creeping around a haunted mansion with no flashlight. His eyes go wide

not knowing what lurks behind every nook and cranny. He also issues out a "Hmmpf..." sound almost like it is a sonar ping.

The decibel level in our house has also increased. He is definitely... finding his voice, not crying just doing his best impression of a caveman. Before I would get nervous if I heard him making noise, now I get nervous when he's not making noise. A sure sign that he is up to no good.

That's the other part of his renaissance, he dabbles in the arts of mischief. I call it mischief because he knows that he's not supposed to do something but he tests the boundaries anyway. Like turning on our bathtub faucet - he'll go over to it, look my way, and then turn it on and quickly turn it off and scurry away. I'll warn him with a timeout, and you can see him pondering the repercussions and still do it anyway. And he

takes the punishment like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape - he sits in his room and does his time with smile about how he tested "The Man".

There are a dozen other things to go on about, but I will stop here so I have more topics readily available to write about in the near future. Thanks for coming back to check this out, you're making sure that the terrorists don't win.

Sick of Being Sick

This is more of a pamphlet entry instead of a full-fledged slice of life, but I am so ready for March to be over. Sickness has ping-ponged between Benjamin and I all month, I think we've made it through though.

This past month has been riddled with co-pays and empty medicine bottles. Good riddance March, we'll reluctantly see you next year.

I think this picture says a thousand words of sick baby misery.

Down with the Sickness

I remember being sick as a kid as a somewhat enjoyable experience. People give you lots of attention, you get to lay around, watch TV and hot soup is yours for the asking. Now, being sick as an adult with responsibilities is terrible. Because you can't not (nice double negative) take care of some things - key work assignments, life obligations and helping care for your child. It is exhausting.

Up until this year, I have only get one unseasonal summer cold each year. I typically take lots of vitamins, lay low for two days and it is gone. I have been sickly since Valentine's Day, and I blame Benjamin. He has been sickly too, so I think we keep rubbing our sickness on each other through random wrestling and smooching. Oh, and we share the same pacifier.

Dealing with a sick baby is not ideal, but doable. Dealing with a well-baby while you're sick, not fun. Both of you sick? Terrible. Combine my ear infection, which totally messes with my hearing, and Benjamin's loud wail of discomfort and you have the real March Madness. I crave some kind of hibernation technology where I can go to sleep and wake up refreshed, Benjamin is better and my biceps are stronger. I can show you some preliminary drawings I have on cocktail napkins.

One thing that is interesting about having a sick baby, is that they are still really cute. They are super-cuddly and want to be held, and they have a cute-glum look on their face that says, "I-dun-feel-soo-gud..." Benjamin sneezed the other day and he blew a little snot bubble out of his nostril. If I saw you do it, it would be so disgusting. But to see him do it, it was cute as kittens. There is nothing cute, however, about sick baby diapers. Nothing.

The one-upside to this is that Benjamin loves taking medicine, to the point where he whimpers when the eyedropper of fake-cherry serum is empty. So when he gets older we plan on giving him a bottle of 'Tussin for his birthday.

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

February 13th marked the one year mark for young master Benjamin. Being 1-years old, we was oblivious of the the significance of the date and gave no speeches that regaled his first year of life. So I wrote one for him taking some educated guesses at what he wanted to say.

"Greetings friends, and salutations to my family. Let me first thank you all for taking time out of your busy lives to celebrate me completing one of your Earth years. Why, it seems like only yesterday that I emanated from my mother's womb covered in humanity, and stared upon my gracious and extremely good looking parents. These two people, who for simplicity I will call "Mom" and "Dad", have sacrificed greatly to get me where I am today.

I look back at pictures of myself when I was first born and I hardly remember that kid, I was so young and naive. But now I'm pretty self-sufficient - except for feeding, drinking, diapering, bathing, dressing and walking. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

I would also like to thank all of my extended family and babysitters for giving me the highest level of care possible, outside of that Super Nanny woman or Mary Poppins. I cherish all of those moments that you sneak me soda pop and candy while my parents are away doing whatever it is they do. I would also like to thank Pampers - you are truly the superior diaper that lovingly cradles my bo-hiney.

I leave you with this, who's the cutest baby in the world and has two thumbs? This guy! I now realize this joke would have made more sense in person so you could see me pointing to myself with my two thumbs. I'll work on the delivery before I turn 2. Thank you for coming, drive safe and goodnight."

My personal sidenote is that I felt like Kindergarten Cop during the party to make sure kids weren't killing themselves or pulling up our hardwoods - "Dher horribull..."

Snip, Snip, Sniff

There is a first for everything and it was time for Benjamin's 1st Haircut. Emily and I had grown tired of reading in between the lines of people's comments like, "Oh, look at THAT hair..." or "Poor little guy, he's got hair in his eyes" or "He looks like a baby Blagojevich!" We actually thought his longer hair was cute and endearing, plus we had a business model put into place for creating Baby Toupees.

He is approaching his first birthday so we felt the time was now to embark on this rite of passage. After a little investigation we found three business chains that specialize in cutting kid's hair. By the way, that seems so American that we need baby salons AND that there is enough demand and profit to support three different chains. U-S-A!

The correct name of the place we picked escapes me, but it was something to the effect of "cOOl Kutz 4 Kydz" - the more mispelled the kooler, right? This place looked more like a daycare than a barbershop - video game consoles buzzing, Playskool toys strewn about and the distinct smell of bubble gum and fear filled the air. Obviously the theory goes that if your kid is distracted enough with bells and whistles, they won't shriek like a banshee during the haircut. I doubt a licensed sociologist came up with this theory, but it works.

A couple of weeks before the haircut, I posited the question to Emily, "what is it about a haircut that freaks kids out?" If it was the fear of the scissors, I recommended holding a pair of scissors in our hands while we fed Benjamin in his highchair, you know, to get him more comfortable around them. This was vetoed for reasons unknown. My other cause of our kid's fear, I think, is us. In our efforts to make it special or memorable, it looks less like a haircut and more of a coronation of the Chosen One.

Despite our own hype, Benjamin did really well during the whole process. He sat in a customized fire truck chair and was thoroughly intrigued by a comb, I think he was also wondering why there is a "b" in the word. The only part of the experience that stirred his pot was getting spritzed with water to wet his hair. After that he got back into his exploration of his comb, nearly oblivously of me taking over 120 pictures with my new camera. I think I'm turning Japanese.

After the cut was done and his hair dried, I looked at him and saw a version of myself from 1978 staring right back at me. The "Bowl Cut" was all the rage when I was kid and when you have super straight hair like myself (and Benjamin) there aren't too many cut options. Looking at him, it was evident that after a few snips he had gone from baby to little boy. Our onesie wearing baby with crazy hair had passed the baton on to this penny-loafer wearing toddler.

This moment of recognition of childhood's fleet-footedness almost got a tear out of me, luckily the $28 bill for the "1st Haircut Package" slapped me back to reality. Seriously? I could have performed the 6 scissor snips myself. It's not like they were stylish snips, it looked like she was cutting constuction paper with safety skizzors. I'm trying to talk Benjamin into starting a baby mullet trend or to become a really artsty baby whose in touch with his inner-inner child.

That or I'll just fire up the Xbox, grab a mixing bowl and start up "Dalez HaiR-Do's 4 Childrenz"

The Little Gremlin

There are two things roaming the floors of our house on all-fours: Schmax and Benjamin. Benjamin has quickly become mobile and very proficient at his quasi-crawl. He doesn't do the typical forward, left-right-left-right crawl; it is more of sideways hopping-a-fence type maneuver.

When he does it once, it looks completely wrong and he appears disabled. But then he gets going and moves like the wind, it borders on watching someone walk and break dance at the same time. His new found mobility has forced the "baby-proofing" of our house. I put it in quotes because no amount of store bought goods can turn your house into a completely safe environment, unless you coated it in Nerf®.

I put off "baby-proofing" for as long as I could for two reasons: 1.) I'm not the handiest of people, I'll eventually get things right on the third or ninth time. 2.) Dealing with safety latches/covers/gates is a nuisance. Yes - I want to keep Benjamin safe, but I also wish you could simply explain to a 1-year old why you shouldn't drink Windex® (although it does look like delicious blue-razberry juice).

His new favorite place is on the kitchen floor, because that's where we are. Emily and I trying to prepare or clean up after a meal now looks like a couple's ice skating routine - constantly moving, cognizant of our footing, and wearing matching unitards. At some point during our figure-8's I'll need to quickly grab a dishtowel from a drawer and CLACK - the safety latch catches. So I skin my finger for not remembering the latch was there - it's like penance.

We did opt to not baby-proof one of the lower drawers so he can explore. He used to sit there quietly and gawk at his treasure trove of goodies. Now he treats it like a challenge to empty it out as quickly as possible. He doesn't even look at what's in his hand, he just chucks it aside like a little Gremlin.

Remember them from the movie? They were always getting into something and in a nano-second they will have some how completely dismantled it. What used to be machinery is reduced to nuts and bolts. This is Benjamin now. He is attracted to phones, remote controls, DVD cases and books. It also amazes me how his random button pushes will unlock functions on our remotes or phones that we didn't even know existed. I kid you not, he had the remote for 12 seconds and he some how turned on Spanish subtitles - no me gusta.

I do have a new favorite thing to do with him now that he can scoot around - The Chase. What is it about a chase that excites us humans? It's scary, yet exhilarating. We don't want to get caught, but we want to get caught.

I'll get down on all fours and stick my head out down the hall. Benjamin sees this and, smiles and scrambles away. If I don't chase, he pokes his head out and scoots down where he saw me last, I then lunge out and send him into a gleeful panic. The plot isn't very deep, but he eats it up. I feel like that is the first signature thing that he and I have created. And since his birthday is Friday the 13th this year, I think I'm going to perform The Chase in a hockey mask. I hope he appreciates the movie reference.

Sleeping with the Fishes

I've pondered and asked fellow kid-havers this question - what is the perfect age to start taking your kids to see/do stuff? In pre-Benjamin excursions I would see families dragging a newborn to the zoo/amusement park/state fair and wonder why this poor blob of a baby wasn't clapping and dancing a jig. But on the other end of the spectrum, I would see parents trying to make memories with their elementary school kids who were too busy playing their Nintendo DS to even give an apathetic roll of the eyes.

My unscientific study has pegged the sweet spot at 4-8 years old. This window of time is where you and your kids are getting the most out of the family excursion to zoos, caverns, rodeos, Disney World®. There are of course some things like amusement parks that have a wider span, but the 4-8 period is where it is fun for everyone and the kids are big enough to participate - in my completely unsubstantiated opinion.

We have gone and seen some things in the past year with Benjamin, but it had always been Emily and Dale taking in the sights - oh, and we have a baby with us. Benjamin is 11 months now and his mind has shifted into "sponge mode" where he is curious about everything. So we spontaneously hopped in the car a few weekends ago and went to the Dallas World Aquarium - side note it was about 80 degrees at the beginning of January. Take THAT East Coast!

It has been about 15 years since I have been to an aquarium, and a majority of my experiences were overseas in Asia. So things that are exotic here in Dallas were like catfish over there. And I've always known aquariums to be 90% fish, 10% not-fish. The aquarium here is about 40% fish, 30% birds, 20% mammals, and 10% gift shops.

So what did Benjamin think about it? Well, his reaction was valuable data in my query above about "how young is too young." He was still too young to really get into it. There were times where sea otters are practically doing a hip-hop dance routine and Benjamin was more fascinated by the ponytails of a girl standing next to us. The aquarium has a free roaming sloth on display, which by the way is one of THE most bizarre species on the planet, I held Benjamin right up to Mr. Sloth and the look on Benjamin's face read, "Eh, what else you got?" He also didn't get any of my Goonies references.

There were a small handful of moments in the main open atrium where birds and monkeys are flying/swinging back and forth that got Benjamin to perk up. One bird actually buzzed us and took roost on a pillar about 2 feet from a very cautious Benjamin. He looked at it, looked at us, looked at it again, and did the swatting motion with his arms for us to make it go away - so I shot it. With my camera.

The best part for me was interacting with Benjamin - pointing stuff out to him and being excited during those moments where he got excited too. I looked at it as nice foreshadowing for those future family outings where he is digging on the surroundings. His babyness did kick in at the end - sleepy, hungry, just done. Which shifts the way you look at exhibits from "Wow, look at the intricate colored striping on this Guatemalan Tree Frog!" to "Yeah, yeah shark, blah, blah stingrays."

I did have a daydream moment (I have these graphic hypotheticals often) when we were looking at this hu-mong-ous alligator. The display was pretty open and we were looking down, so this nightmare scenario began with me turning one direction and turning back only to find that Benjamin had some how made it into the gator cage. My solution was to throw the stroller down into the sand in front of the alligator, grab the nearby fire extinguisher and jump the barrier. You see the stroller would confuse the gator and delay his frontal assault, giving me time to get down there and spray his maw with the flame retardant chemicals, therein blinding him long enough for Benjamin and I to make our escape. The back up plan was to jump around his muzzle and hold the gators mouth shut, rodeo style until someone helped Benjamin out. Hopefully now you will never question my parenting skills. Well, at least not my hypothetical skills.

The Holidays

Part of me doesn't even want to write this, because I may come off as sounding too negative or down on the holidays. But I stand by my unspoken mission statement that I will straight-shoot people and peers about what having a kid is like. Despite the bill of goods I was given, which read something to the effect of "kids are nothing but lollipops and magical memories for you to experience with no personal cost."

Having a kid will reshape you and open your eyes to your own selfishness. Not selfish as in material things, but the intangibles - "time" and "your way of doing things". I am fortunate enough to get 2 weeks off during the holidays from work, and I have filled that time in year's past with reading, watching, playing and doing taxes (I know, I'm sick). This year had a totally different complexion with Benjamin - there was time to spend good quality and fun moments with him for sure. But there were other times I just wanted to pack him up and put him somewhere so I could go have some different kinds of fun. Basically compartmentalizing my child.

Half way through the break I threw a 48-hour pity party for myself and then came to terms with the evolution my life has undergone. Another positive to come from this temporary trough was that I want us to do more "fun" things. Emily and I are always busy, but it is doing routine stuff to maintain the status quo. I have created this legalistic dogma of doing work until it is done, and then and only then do I allow myself some fun. I lose, Emily loses and Benjamin will definitely lose if I keep that up. His childhood memories will be filled with Dad sweeping the house, grocery shopping and folding clothes. Not exactly Kodak moments.

For me, everything stated above is the best thing I got out of the holidays - it was a stretching process. Benjamin's first Christmas was not the storybook Christmas that Emily and were expecting. He actually got sick on Christmas Eve, which made for a rough day(s). He wasn't himself at all, wanted to be held and didn't really get into any of the gifts or the paper/boxes that they came in. His sickness also forced us to cancel some plans with friends (catalyst for my pity party) and for some reason I couldn't wait to take down the decorations around the house.

We did get together with our families for some fun times and it was neat to see Benjamin playing with his cousins and forming those bonds. I told myself that next year will be different when he is a little bigger a little more mobile and hopefully a lot less sick. But until then I look forward to creating more frequent events for the Alexander family to go do and experience. We have already kicked this new way of life off with a spontaneous trip to the Aquarium last weekend, and then I came home and did some housework. Hey, it takes a while for a leopard-seal to change his spots.

The World's Most Annoying Sound

(Yeah, yeah, yeah...make with the posts. December was a rough month and my time off didn't really seem like time off. More to come soon, I think I'm going to go for shorter more frequent posts)

Have you seen "Dumb and Dumber"? There's a scene where Jim Carrey's character (Lloyd Christmas) is on a road trip with a stranger and he asks the guy if he wants to hear the world's most annoying sound. He then lets out this grating, tinny sound that drives you crazy. I am pleased to report that Benjamin has become the new champion of annoying sounds.

He is capable of a noise that's hard for me to physically replicate. It's a mix of a cry, a yelp, a frustrated grunt and a malfunctioning clock radio alarm. And he does it...all...the...time. The first couple of times you hear it you rush over to help him do whatever he is doing. Then you realize he's doing it for effect and attention. So then you ignore it - ignore as much as you can a bombing raid or a train locomoting behind your house. I think I've mentioned before that our house echoes too, so that amplifies the noise and sends it directly into our eardrums.

Needless to say, I love him lots but I can't wait for him to talk.