Big Trouble

I know I have mentioned major steps in Reese's development before (Game Changer), but this is a little different. This is more of a realization that I have my hands full, or at least will have my hands full (VERY full) in the near future.

The other day I was in the kitchen standing next to the refrigerator and Ripken was lying next to my feet. Reese was watching Yo Gabba Gabba or Sesame Street or some other show. Or at least she was watching the show initially, because I noticed she had started to walk into the kitchen and right toward Ripken. As I watched her, Ripken noticed her, too, and he would look at her, then look at me. Reese only stared at Ripken and, in the awkward toddler way of walking, tried to creep quietly and secretly toward the dog. Ripken had his eyes on her, though, and then would look to me as if to say, "What is she planning on doing to me? Please save me!" It was actually quite amusing to see a 2-year-old attempt to sneak up on a dog that is looking straight at her.

When she got just in front of me and about an arm's length away from Ripken, Reese suddenly turned to me and said, "Boo!"

I was surprised. Not surprised insomuch that I jumped or was startled. But I was surprised because not once did she give any sort of indication she paid any attention to me.

I am no child psychologist and I have never taken any early childhood development courses, but it seems to me the behaviour she exhibited shows an incredible amount of intelligence. She tried to trick me. She tried to make me think she was after the dog. She tried to manipulate my train of thought. And she did more than try. She succeeded!

Last night at dinner Reese started playing with her food. Amy was scolding her, but Reese kept on playing with her food. Amy took away her food and tried to make sure Reese understood playing with food was not acceptable behaviour at the dinner table. Reese kind of slumped her shoulders as most people do when getting into trouble, but she quickly sat up, opened her eyes wide, pointed to the center piece and exclaimed, "Flowers!"

Now it is entirely possible Reese was suddenly happy to see flowers in the middle of the table, even though they were there all day (two days, actually). But it sure did seem to me (and Amy) Reese was trying to distract mom from discipline her. Reese was using the distraction trick we had been using on her! (Lessons I've Learned So Far)

Again, this sort of behavior shows (at least to me) an advanced way of thinking (at least for a 2-year-old). For her to use distraction, it shows she thinks she can get into the way Amy and I are thinking. She thinks flowers are so exciting to us, we will forget at her playing with food. Trying to guess other people's emotions is called empathy, and it is something some adults have trouble with. But here is a toddler attempting to gauge our emotional response to flowers.

Amy and I are in big trouble, because if 2-year-old Reese is already successfully manipulating my reactions and unsuccessfully distracting us from her getting into trouble, what can we expect when she is a teenager?

I shudder at the thought.

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Greatest achievement

I am a fan of trivia. I get it from my dad. We sometimes call my dad Cliffy Clavin, a reference to the know-it-all postman from the '80s sitcom "Cheers."

I get a trivia question e-mailed to me every morning. Sometimes they are easy, sometimes hard, and they cover all types of categories. The one yesterday was fairly easy - Which president bought the Louisiana Purchase - and the answer page had a sentence or two about the question. The answer page yesterday said the Louisiana Purchase was Thomas Jefferson's greatest achievement as president. It's hard to argue that statement considering it more than doubled the size of the USA for about $15 million and something close to 10 cents an acre.

I asked my dad, who was a history teacher besides being a trivia buff, what he thought the greatest achievement of the United States was. He was stumped. He said he would think about it and get back to me with an answer.

There are many things America could hang it's hat on - The Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, Panama Canal, Normandy Invasion, leading country and host of United Nations, etc. All of those are worthy achievements to be considered, even though the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were technically achievements before we became a nation.

When Amy came home from work, I posed the question to her. She waited just second and then asked me, "What is your greatest achievement?"

Right away I answered, "Marrying you and having Reese."

And it's true. Those are the things I am most proud of in my life.

There are other things I am also quite proud of, too, like becoming a professional journalist at 19 years old; getting a job (StreetZebra) without any type of connection or networking; being out of football for 17 years and then not only making the Portland Raiders, but starting at center, getting invited to the All Star game and being named second-team all-league; and, of course, beating cancer. I told Amy that I am most proud of my attitude during the cancer episode, because I mostly laid back and let the doctors and nurses and needle and drugs beat cancer. She said I need to give myself more credit. I am, indeed, very proud of my attitude, but I do not think I could have had that attitude (or, at least, I do not think I could maintain that attitude) for the duration of my fight.

I flipped the question back to her.

"What is your greatest achievement?"

She said her husband and daughter.

She then went on to describe other things she is proud of, and I think the one that most impresses me is she packed up her entire life and moved from Washington D.C. to San Francisco when she was 24. Moving anywhere is quite an ordeal, but moving cross-country, where you know no one? That's got to be scary. But she did it, re-invented herself, and emerged a successful woman. I think that's greater than anything I've done.

And I'm pretty sure she drove the whole distance, too.

Which kind of ties into what my dad later said was the greatest achievement of the United States.

Transcontinental railroad.

Vampire, pirate or mermaid?

Amy had a work dinner last week and asked me an interesting question when she got home.

"Would you rather be a vampire, a pirate or a merman?"

Apparently it was a question someone threw out during the dinner.

As she works in the financial world, it was easy to predict the majority of her co-workers chose pirate. A pirate, at least in the romanticized views of Hollywood, leads a very exciting life of adventure. Who wouldn't want to chase after gold, drink rum until you can't see straight and socialize with women of ill repute? But pirate life was not what Captain Jack Sparrow (or even Treasure Island) portray it to be.

The fact is, being a pirate was a pretty nasty existence. You were poor. Like, real poor. You did bad things. Like, REAL bad things. (There are stories of pirates torturing governors of cities while his family looked on; and also torturing the family while the governor looked on.) But even if one decided to be a "good" pirate, you were still stealing from others. Maybe you could try to justify it by saying it is just like Robin Hood, but in a different location, but I could retort that it's just like the Taliban, but in a different location. And even if you were the only pirate on the boat who did not pillage and kill, your closest associates WOULD pillage and kill, making you an accessory to their crimes! (I guess if you did not pillage and kill, you could someday have a Gilbert and Sullivan play written about your life as a pirate king, but that would be a long shot.) So being a pirate generally meant you were going to be a bad person, or, at the very least, be associated with very bad people.

Being a vampire would be just as bad, probably worse, than being a pirate. Vampires are, literally, monsters. Piracy, on the other hand, is a merely profession, albeit a pretty nasty profession. Being a vampire may sound appealing (if you're a 14-year-old girl), but living forever really would be depressing. Sure, you could learn to play every single instrument in an orchestra, and learn every language in the world, and read the entire Library of Congress, but every single person you meet will die, even you are not the one to kill them. Not surprising, my wife and the only other female at that dinner chose vampire as their answers.

Me, I did not hesitate to say merman. Unlike the other two, being a merman or mermaid does not come with inherent evil issues (steal, torture, kill, drink blood, glitter in sunlight, etc.). A mer-creature is just another living being. You can choose to be good or bad. A mer-creature is not weighed down with the urge to drink blood, or sworn to burn down an entire seaport. As a merman, I could swim to a my mer-job, make my mer-money, and go home to my mer-family. What's not to like about that?

Hiatus

I realize it has been longer than a month since my last post.

Please forgive the extended hiatus. It was unintentional. No real good reason for the lay-off. There may be a lot of reasons, but none of them are real good.

The fact of the matter is I have had a pretty rough month or so.

It started with getting news that a man I played flag football with on Sunday mornings died at work. I did not know him exceptionally well, only the few hours each Sunday during the fall and winter when a handful of guys (and some girls, too) would meet at a grassy park and throw the football around. All told, I may have had a total of 180 hours with him, but he left an impression on me. I had talked with Amy about the group of guys I played flag football with and we had agreed it would be nice to have Curtis and his family over for dinner or lunch or something some time. But I never got around to asking him. His death really did hit me hard. It might be because he had a family (a son and two daughters). It might be because he was young and in shape (he was like Brett Favre at quarterback, throwing fastballs into double coverage and making broken plays somehow fixed; plus, he was a beast at linebacker). Or it might be because I don't have a lot of close male friends in this area, and he was one of the few I respected.

Shortly after the news of Curtis' death, Reese got sick. Like REAL sick. It was a Sunday night and Reese went to bed without too much hassle. She woke up before midnight coughing, so I went to her room and lay down on her floor to comfort her. Her coughing stopped and she was asleep in less than 10 minutes, but Ripken woke up and was whining. I left Reese's room and took the dog downstairs and let him out in the backyard, but he was still whinny. I was frustrated, so I just left the backdoor open and sat down on the couch and flipped on the TV to pass the time until Ripken chilled out. Reese would intermittently cough and whine for a few seconds, but would be quiet quickly thereafter and remain asleep (or at least silent) for 10 to 15 minutes before coughing again. Ripken had just settled down and had stopped whining and I was getting ready to bring him back up to bed (he sleeps in our room) when Reese started to cough again. Then I heard splashing. Then she started to really cry. I rushed up to her room as Amy was waking up from the crying. Reese had thrown up all over her floor (she has slept in her bed twice since we converted it from the crib, so she sleeps on her floor. Amy and I think she sleeps on the floor because she is a very active sleeper, rolling around a lot, and she fell off the bed the first night after we converted it.) The vomit was in her lap. The vomit was in her hair. The vomit was on the carpet. The vomit was on her blankets. I snatched Reese up and carried her to the guest bathroom and set her down in the bathtub. I stripped her and turned on the water. Amy came in and took over with the bath as I tackled the mess in the bedroom. We have a SpotVac that we used for accidents from the dog, but it was enlisted for a different dirty job that night. I started a load of laundry and continued my efforts in her room. Amy finished Reese's bath and got her new pajamas and took her into our bed. Then Reese vomited again. I stripped our bed and Amy took Reese into the guest bedroom. I was just finishing up cleaning Reese's room when she vomited in the guest bed. Amy had an important meeting at work first thing Monday morning and she needed to get to bed (it was approaching 2 a.m.), so she got some sheets, tossed them on our bed and tried to sleep. I got a bowl from the kitchen, a bunch of towels and had Reese in the guest bed. She threw up a couple more times, but she was done by 5:30 or so. She had diarrhea in the morning, but was relatively fine the rest of the day (I was a walking zombie, though). Reese was a little warm and obviously tired, but overall she recovered quickly. But when we put her to sleep Monday night, she threw up again. This time it wasn't as bad, and we didn't need to clean everything because she was on a bunch of towels, blankets and other easily washable sheets.

It was also that week that she was sick that a friend of mine had died from a form of brain cancer called Glioblatoma multiforme. That news hit me harder than the news of Curtis's death because I had worked with her at Disneyland. Catou, which is a German form of Catherine, was young and beautiful and successful and athletic, but she had been suffering and battling this cancer for two years. Her parents would send out email updates regarding her fight, but the last few updates seemed to show that the end was near as Catou would be awake and alert less and less and her appetite was going away. I am thankful to her parents for the updates, but it was also sometimes hard to read. But every update added that Catou was in good spirits and not in pain. Still, it was incredibly sad to hear that parents were about to bury their daughter, and maybe that is another reason her death hit me so hard.

The next week, I came down with a nasty cold which zapped whatever remaining strength if I was a zombie before, I don't know how to describe what I was with that cold. A lot of orange juice later, and the cold subsided, but on Monday I woke up with the worst back pain I had felt since 2000. Most of you probably know, but for those of you who do not, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer on May 1, 2000. But I did not go to the doctor because of any "cancer-related issues," whatever the hell that means. I went to the doctor because I had incredible back pain. I had the back pain for about a month. I did not do anything significant that would have caused the back pain - I was not moving furniture, I was not lifting boxes of books, I was not tipping cows over in the middle of the night. My back pain was unbelievable. I could not stand, I could not sit, I could not lie down. I was taking 15 to 20 anti-inflammatories a day, and yet the back pain persisted. Why did I wait so long to go to the doctor? Well, I was 24 at the time and wildly optimistic and reasoned I pulled a muscle. Second, I did not have a whole lot of money. And third, and most important, the magazine I was working for did not give me insurance. Yet. I received insurance and went into the doctor the next day. The doctor took an x-ray of my chest to see if he could see anything wrong with my back. He instantly saw a tumor in my chest pushing on my lungs and saw my lymph nodes were swollen and pressing on my spinal column. Not fun. So when I had major back pain again, my mind thought of cancer. The death of my good friend due to brain cancer probably had a major reason I thought of my past issue because I have had back pain in the past and never thought about cancer. My back pain this time was so severe, Amy came home for lunch, saw me efforting to do regular house work and called in to her supervisor and to say she had to stay home with me. I went to the doctor's office that afternoon, and then went to the hospital the next morning for a blood test (Amy had to stay home Tuesday morning for that, as well). The blood test came back perfect, so that was a relief. But I have been going to a chiropractor and message therapist weekly ever since.

Halloween was OK, except that it was on Monday night. Not that Monday night Halloween is anything horrible. But the San Diego Chargers were playing that night, and I really wanted to watch the game. It was hard to pay attention when the doorbell kept ringing every 30 seconds, but seeing Reese hand out candy and then ending with, "Ba-bye. Thank you." She was not scared or timid even if the costumes were more mature and bloody. She was happy and excited to meet the trick-or-treaters at the door.

Reese's two-year birthday was low-key, just the three of us at home. We used Skype to talk with grandparents as she opened some presents. I made a cake to look like Sesame Street's new central character Elmo. I wasn't too sure it actually looked like Elmo, but when I showed it to Reese, she immediately said, "Elmo!" That was all of the confirmation any chef could ask for! Two days later, we flew done to Long Beach. Saturday was her birthday party at my sister's house, complete with a Sesame Street bounce house. A handful of my closest friends and their families came to help celebrate, and I think everyone had a blast. The next morning, Amy and I drove up to Santa Barbara to have lunch with one of Amy's friends. We then drove up the California coast to spend four days and three nights in the Carmel/Monterrey/Big Sur area for our fifth wedding anniversary. We drove back Wednesday morning, and hit some hellish traffic on the way back. What should have been about a six hour drive back was about a nine hour drive back. Actually, it was more of a four hour drive and then a four hour crawl. Santa Barbara is only about five total exits on the freeway, and it took us an hour to go from one end to the other. Thanksgiving was back at my sister's house with all of my family and my brother-in-law's family. The next day we went to my other sister's house and let the cousins play together one last time. The weather was phenomenal - bright, clear, sunny. The weather - and the way Reese played with her cousins - made it difficult to leave the next morning, but we had a plane to catch. Arriving in Portland, the weather certainly made it feel like November and autumn, but it didn't feel like home.

The Other F Word

It was just about two weeks ago that I wrote about the dilema of raising Reese for an appreciation of punk rock music and the ethos of "Fuck Authority." (Click here to re-visit that amazing piece of writing)

Well, it turns out there is going to be a documentary coving that exact topic. Instead of interviewing boring subjects like myself, the movie asks how it feels to move from punk rocker to dad for actual punk rockers. (The movie's website says people interviewed played: Black Flag, Pennywise, NoFX, Bad Religion, The Vandals, Rancid, DEVO, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adolescents, Everclear, Total Chaos, T.S.O.L., Circle Jerks, blink 182, Bouncing Souls, Rise Against, and US Bombs, along with professional skateboarding icon Tony Hawk and professional BMX rider Rick Thorne.)

I was super excited to see this movie, but now I see that it is in limited release (VERY limited release, as in, like 17 theaters). I guess the only way I get to see it is take a vacation to one of the cities the weekend it's playing (San Francisco? Seattle? San Diego? Berkeley? Los Angeles?) or sign up for NetFlix and wait for it to come out on DVD.

You would think there would be a pretty sizable audience for a movie like this in the greater Portland area. Portland does have a pretty big anti-authoritarian groove to it. But that groove is more geared toward hippies than punkers. And about the only thing punkers dislike more than being told what to do is smelly hippies. (Seriously. It's called soap and water, hippy. Use it!)

But if you do live in one of the select cities where this is showing, go see it and tell me how it is. Also, it has a pretty cool title: The Other F Word.

Hurt birds

When I was in college, I dated a girl a little bit older than me in age, but she seemed a little bit younger than me in terms of emotional age.

Let me explain...

First, she was a cheer coach at her old high school. She was a cheerleader in high school and started coaching cheer while a senior there. She did not understand why I didn't start coaching football. While coaching football is not a bad fit for me, at the time I was 19. I did not have a teaching degree or a substitute teaching credential or anything close to that. But she didn't understand why I couldn't have helped coach while I was still in high school. I tried to explain that coaching high school football was not the same as coaching high school cheerleading, but she didn't get it. I have nothing against cheer or cheer coaches (my sister was a cheerleader and I have a track record of dating cheerleaders), but football is close to a 24-7 job, and it is a job highly sought after. Coaches generally are also employed at the schools they lead. Some are teachers, but others work in security or janitorial work. But either way, schools aren't looking for 19-year-olds, let alone a senior at that school.

This girlfriend and I worked together at the time we dated. This job had quite a bit of downtime between actual work time, so all of the employees congregated together during breaks. Someone (I don't know who) had a little book that came up with scenarios that prodded philosophical answers. I thought it was really cool, and this girlfriend bought it for me as a gift. Nice gesture, but it was the downfall of our relationship.

This girlfriend and I tended to differ on our answers, which is not a bad thing. Amy and I are quite different and sometimes look at things in polar opposite directions. But Amy and I also have quite a bit in common. This girlfriend, though, would take my differing view as some sort of insult to her opinion.

The final straw that eventually led to our breakup was a question from the book and how I apparently am I cruel and heartless bastard.

The book scenario was something along the lines of: You are late for work and while leaving your front door, you see a bird with a broken wing in your lawn. What do you do?

 I said I would go to work and possibly call animal control once I get to the office (assuming I had an office at this mysterious mythical job). She was appalled. Pretty sure she said she could not be with someone who would be so mean to the poor defenseless bird. She would get a shoe box, line it with a silk pillow and gently nurse the bird back to health. She did not add, but it was implied, that CPR would be administered whether or not it was needed.

I tried to defend my stance by slipping in the caveat that if I was not running late to work, or if it was a weekend (because this mysterious mythical job was obviously a 9 to 5, Monday thru Friday gig) I would do whatever I could for the grounded bird.

Didn't matter.

I tried to reason that I was no veterinarian, and me trying to heal the bird would likely cause irreversible damage.

Didn't matter.

I tried to argue that the bird could very well pass on some unknown disease to me (this was at least a decade before the bird flu invaded our vernacular).

Didn't matter.

The only answer was to drop everything and care for the bird.

Apparently I was a monster for failing to understand that.

We didn't stay together much longer after this disagreement.

I bring this up because I hope Reese A) does not see me as a monster, and B) respects people who disagree with her.