Sometimes I start with a title, other times I write the entire post first and choose my title based on what I wrote. Tonight I start with the title. Immediately upon writing it, I realize that the title is misleading, because it implies that the Night is the subject and that Writes is the thing that it’s doing. Which is nonsense. I do the writing around here. No, in my head it was the Night (adjective) Writes (noun), like the DTs or the heebie-jeebies. In other words, the title is a problem. I could change it BUT I WON’T because problems are what make the world turn. Just ask that guy who sang about the problems and the b-words. I feel like things worked out for him pretty well.Read More »
Tag: parenting
Chasing Toddlers
I write a lot about how parenting is a pretty raw fargoing deal. That’s because it is. You never work so hard for so little appreciation in your life as when you’re parenting a toddler.
I’ve written about how kids are basically black holes, about how I no longer have the freedom even to move around my own house anymore, about how they made me ruin forever my cool by buying a minivan… it goes on. It was pointed out to me by a loyal reader (*cough*totallynotmywife*cough*) that all this ragging on the parenting life makes it seem like I don’t enjoy it. And while, sure, okay, there are certainly moments when I long for that simple childless existence again — a time when I didn’t have to live in fear of some sharp-ended plastic doohickey left by the toddler sticking up into my tender underfoot, when I could rest my hand on the coffee table and not have it come away sticky, a time when I could close the door and enjoy a nice deuce in peace — on the whole I really love it. Being a parent just has a way of filling me with this sense of accomplishment, happiness, and… I dunno… rightness.
That being said, some moments just have a way of refining all that general goodness to a razor-sharp, crystal-clear, shot-to-the-gut point that I could almost forget the week we spent in February washing baby bedsheets EVERY DAY because he was pooping huge quantities of what looked like, but did not smell like, chicken salad. I could almost forget the screaming fit he has every night when I leave him in bed for the night, his betrayed little toddler eyes welling with tears as I close the door on him and leave him with his nightmares (of course, he passes out two minutes later, but those two minutes really hurt the heart).
I had one of those redeeming moments yesterday. Read More »
What Day Is It, Even? (Or, a teacher’s ode to Summertime)
I mentioned several posts ago how babies are basically localized black-holes that wander through your house and crash into your coffee table, sucking up space-time and stuffing stale Cheerios in their mouths, those slobbery, germy little event horizons. So time has no meaning in my house at all right now. Basically, if it’s daylight out, we try to remember to eat and wash the stale sweat off ourselves. If it’s dark out, we try to put the kids in their beds so that we can put ourselves in our beds.
But that’s life as a new (repeat) parent. (As soon as I typed “repeat” before parent, just there, it immediately struck me that the phrase was not so very different from “repeat offender.” Which is horribly apt. Parents of multiple children should be referred to as repeat offenders: obviously they didn’t learn their lesson the first time around and they need to go into the penalty box again. The penalty box filled with poop, urine, vomit and tears.) I’m down with that. Trouble is, I’m also a teacher, and for teachers, a similar phenomenon takes place annually.Read More »
The Barnacle
The times, they are a changin’ at Casa de Pav.
Once upon a time, back when it was just my wife and myself and Sprout #1 (the animals don’t count for these calculations), my wife was head and shoulders the favorite parent. Like, don’t even bother with the three-legged race or the egg-spoon relay, she had this thing wrapped up with Sprout #1 from the word go. It’s not even worth trying to break the thing down into categories; the boy clearly preferred her in virtually any situation in which there was a choice.
His language even told the story. He has plenty of vocabulary to say “Mommy” or “Daddy” in response to questions like, “who would you like to read your bedtime story?” or “who would you like to brush your teeth?” or “who would you like to scoop the pulverized, mashed-potato consistency poop out of your butthole?” (It’s not always bad to be the second choice.) Read More »
Toddler Life, Chapter 171 – Bathroom Steak
It’s come to this.
That, indeed, is a picture of my two-year-old in the bathtub and my steak sitting on the counter. Never mind the clusterfargo of bottles and shampoos and towels on the counter, that’s called sharing a bathroom with a toddler. I’ll come back to the picture in a moment.
I want to talk right now to those of you reading this blarg who don’t have kids, who are planning to have kids, who don’t have kids yet, or who occupy any other spot on the spectrum between definitely-not-having-kids-ever and having-kids-tomorrow. I know you’ve read the blogs and websites and books about having a child and the way it will change your life. It’s all true. Read More »
Accidentally Inspired 