Okay, S is out running some errands, and I just put the little guy down for a nap. Let's see if I can crank out an entry here. I had to resort to the pacifier to get Lil' S to go to sleep without major protest -- and by "resort to" I mean I gave it to him as soon as he asked. We've been trying to ween him off of them, but haven't had much success. (It's mostly on me. S is better about it than I am.) The problem is that they work too well. If he really needs to sleep (or more to the point, I really need him to sleep), and he's throwing a major tantrum, and I have this thing that I know will instantly make him go down (and it's not drugs), how do I not use it? Plus, yeah, he's getting a bit old for pacifiers, but what's really the harm? It's not like he's going to be a grown man and using them. At some point he will stop, right? I mean, at all the sleepovers I attended in grade school, I don't remember any kid still using a pacifier. Although, I did know some who still sucked their thumbs. Hmm ... I wonder if that's related.
Speaking of bad habits, we have another one going with the iPad during meals. This one, however, is 90% on S. She was (and still is to a slightly lesser degree) so worried about him being underweight that she would turn on the iPad so that he would zone out, and then she could scoop food into his gaping maw unabatedly. Now he insists on the iPad every time he eats. (And not only that he wants a specific iPad. That's when you know your kid is spoiled. When he has multiple iPads to make demands about.) The only meal he doesn't eat with the iPad is breakfast, which, not coincidentally, is the meal I usually serve him. We justify it by a) knowing that he doesn't get any screen time at daycare where he is most the day, and b) only letting him play "educational" games. I use quotes because I don't know if these games really are educational or not. Does a giant anthropomorphic R saying "Ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar" over and over, while images of rain and radios and rats flash on the screen, really help a kid learn to read and write? I'm dubious. Although, his teacher at daycare told S, completely unprompted, that he is the smartest kid in his class, in part because he knows his letters and numbers pretty well. So maybe it is helpful. Who knows?
Actually the incident with the teacher led to a (very) small quarrel between S and I. She was beaming with pride after it happened, and apparently I didn't give an enthusiastic enough response to her when she told me about it. So she got annoyed with me, and then I got annoyed that she was annoyed for such a (to me) silly reason. And that was pretty much that. The thing is, I am happy that he's progressing nicely, but being a bit ahead of the curve at a very young age doesn't necessarily mean anything. Kids mature differently. Plus, I don't want to be one of those dads who acts like his son solved the Riemann Hypothesis because he learned to count to 12. I'd much rather be the type of parent for whom nothing is ever good enough, so that Lil' S will achieve extraordinary success, but still feel like an insecure failure and resent me for the rest of my life and perhaps act out in inappropriate and embarrassing ways because of it. That's the dad I want to be. You know, just like Brain Bosworth and his dad. (This joke makes a lot more sense if you, like me, just watched the 30 for 30 documentary Brian and the Boz.)
Anyway, in other news, we went to S's office holiday party last night. It was pretty fun. For me it was a lot of standing around, sipping wine, nodding my head, and pretending to be interested in a conservation I wasn't really a part of. The thing about office parties is that people almost always talk about their work (shocking), and the background noise is often quite loud, so it can be difficult to hear people unless they are talking directly to you. For spouses, this means you only really understand about 60% of what's going on, so it's difficult to contribute anything other than the occasional "yeah", "right", and "huh, how 'bout that?". It didn't help things that they were blasting the techno music. Yes, that's right, somebody decided the most appropriate music for a corporate holiday gig in which the average person was 48-years-old was techno. *ootz, ootz, ootz, ootz, ootz ...* It was giving me a headache, and I thought to myself, "How about a little Bing Crosby? Would that be so bad?"
To be fair, there was a dance floor, but when they were bumping the techno, nobody was actually dancing. Later, when they started playing decent music -- Michael Jackson, George Benson, Prince (well, two out of three isn't bad) -- music middle-aged people actually know and think is fun, instead of stuff 19-year-olds at raves would listen to (or at least what I assume they would listen to; I don't actually know much about the 19-year-old rave scene; I don't even know if it is a scene anymore), people actually started dancing. But at that point, S and I had to leave to relieve the sitter and put Lil' S to bed.
The food was pretty good though -- as was the red wine, of course. They had all different sorts of cuisines -- pasta bar, taco bar, southern food station (shrimp and grits), sushi bar, and it all looked delicious. I didn't go too crazy with the food and the drink though. My body just doesn't like bingeing anymore (sad, I know). I told myself, "Okay, D, you can stuff yourself silly and regret it later. Or you can enjoy a normal-sized meal and not feel like shit later tonight." I mostly managed to do the latter. I still overdid it, but I didn't overoverdo it. For example, I only had two desserts, not five.
On the way home, we drove past a miles-long vigil/protest for Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Hundreds of people, the vast majority of whom were black, lined the sidewalks with candles, held up homemade signs of solidarity, and chanted things like "Black lives matter" and "I can't breathe". They were peaceful and didn't disrupt traffic. And I can guarantee you today they were not shown on any Fox News program.
Until next time ...
Speaking of bad habits, we have another one going with the iPad during meals. This one, however, is 90% on S. She was (and still is to a slightly lesser degree) so worried about him being underweight that she would turn on the iPad so that he would zone out, and then she could scoop food into his gaping maw unabatedly. Now he insists on the iPad every time he eats. (And not only that he wants a specific iPad. That's when you know your kid is spoiled. When he has multiple iPads to make demands about.) The only meal he doesn't eat with the iPad is breakfast, which, not coincidentally, is the meal I usually serve him. We justify it by a) knowing that he doesn't get any screen time at daycare where he is most the day, and b) only letting him play "educational" games. I use quotes because I don't know if these games really are educational or not. Does a giant anthropomorphic R saying "Ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar, ar" over and over, while images of rain and radios and rats flash on the screen, really help a kid learn to read and write? I'm dubious. Although, his teacher at daycare told S, completely unprompted, that he is the smartest kid in his class, in part because he knows his letters and numbers pretty well. So maybe it is helpful. Who knows?
Actually the incident with the teacher led to a (very) small quarrel between S and I. She was beaming with pride after it happened, and apparently I didn't give an enthusiastic enough response to her when she told me about it. So she got annoyed with me, and then I got annoyed that she was annoyed for such a (to me) silly reason. And that was pretty much that. The thing is, I am happy that he's progressing nicely, but being a bit ahead of the curve at a very young age doesn't necessarily mean anything. Kids mature differently. Plus, I don't want to be one of those dads who acts like his son solved the Riemann Hypothesis because he learned to count to 12. I'd much rather be the type of parent for whom nothing is ever good enough, so that Lil' S will achieve extraordinary success, but still feel like an insecure failure and resent me for the rest of my life and perhaps act out in inappropriate and embarrassing ways because of it. That's the dad I want to be. You know, just like Brain Bosworth and his dad. (This joke makes a lot more sense if you, like me, just watched the 30 for 30 documentary Brian and the Boz.)
Anyway, in other news, we went to S's office holiday party last night. It was pretty fun. For me it was a lot of standing around, sipping wine, nodding my head, and pretending to be interested in a conservation I wasn't really a part of. The thing about office parties is that people almost always talk about their work (shocking), and the background noise is often quite loud, so it can be difficult to hear people unless they are talking directly to you. For spouses, this means you only really understand about 60% of what's going on, so it's difficult to contribute anything other than the occasional "yeah", "right", and "huh, how 'bout that?". It didn't help things that they were blasting the techno music. Yes, that's right, somebody decided the most appropriate music for a corporate holiday gig in which the average person was 48-years-old was techno. *ootz, ootz, ootz, ootz, ootz ...* It was giving me a headache, and I thought to myself, "How about a little Bing Crosby? Would that be so bad?"
To be fair, there was a dance floor, but when they were bumping the techno, nobody was actually dancing. Later, when they started playing decent music -- Michael Jackson, George Benson, Prince (well, two out of three isn't bad) -- music middle-aged people actually know and think is fun, instead of stuff 19-year-olds at raves would listen to (or at least what I assume they would listen to; I don't actually know much about the 19-year-old rave scene; I don't even know if it is a scene anymore), people actually started dancing. But at that point, S and I had to leave to relieve the sitter and put Lil' S to bed.
The food was pretty good though -- as was the red wine, of course. They had all different sorts of cuisines -- pasta bar, taco bar, southern food station (shrimp and grits), sushi bar, and it all looked delicious. I didn't go too crazy with the food and the drink though. My body just doesn't like bingeing anymore (sad, I know). I told myself, "Okay, D, you can stuff yourself silly and regret it later. Or you can enjoy a normal-sized meal and not feel like shit later tonight." I mostly managed to do the latter. I still overdid it, but I didn't overoverdo it. For example, I only had two desserts, not five.
On the way home, we drove past a miles-long vigil/protest for Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Hundreds of people, the vast majority of whom were black, lined the sidewalks with candles, held up homemade signs of solidarity, and chanted things like "Black lives matter" and "I can't breathe". They were peaceful and didn't disrupt traffic. And I can guarantee you today they were not shown on any Fox News program.
Until next time ...
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