Nobody Talks About Wiping

OK, we're finally seeing our boy off to kindergarten. He's always been a bit ahead of the curve, likes to play with kids a little older than himself. He never had problems with moving into his own bedroom, getting off the nipple, adjusting to big boy food or the big boy bed (we waited until pretty late to get rid of the crib). He also jumped right up on the ol' toilet and learned to use it himself in short time. But nobody told us that wiping could be an issue, that we should wean him off being wiped by us or he could have problems at school. He has only been to school for 2 days, but he is still not comfortable using toilet paper and cleaning himself off. He needs help and the school does not offer that. He may experience some problems. They could take the form of constipation, as he may just hold it in rather than have to do his best or worst at wiping and return to class. Hopefully this one will iron itself out as so many other issues have. He's a brilliant little fellow who should figure it out in short order.

It's pretty strange teaching your kid to wipe his behind. "You take the paper rolled up so it's maybe 4 times thick and reach around, wipe yourself and then look, and then throw it in the toilet. Repeat that, wiping and looking and throwing it in the bowl, and continue until you don't see a big smear of foo foo on the paper. It may take about 4 wipes until it's mostly clean. Then you're good and you can pull up your pants, flush the machine and move on."

I've finally found my purpose!

What is going to happen?

Evan in SF, January 2010.



Famous words from our domestic yogi, Evan.
It is now April of 2010 and Evan will be 3 in July.
His language use has advanced impressively, even as he has remained in the 30 pound weight region for most of the last year. His head keeps growing. That heavy appendage sometimes leads and other times follows the rest of the body, and sometimes it goes clunk on the floor or ground. He gets entranced by what he is studying and then walking at the same time inevitably loses balance and down he goes. I hope he doesn't bang his head as much as I did when I was little. Today at the LA Arboretum, he was sitting on a bench in front of the waterfall there, a destination for the park walker, and off he rolls and bonk goes the head on the sidewalk. A nice older man approached him and jokingly chided him for putting a crack in the walkway. Evan got over it quickly, but it's a little scary. I guess he has to take his licks and learn to keep his hands more at the ready.

For several months he has occasionally said out of the blue: "What's going to happen?" Maybe he's just asking "What are we going to do today?" but the feel of the question opens up a larger picture of possible events unfolding. I don't know what's going to happen, my boy. Almost anything could happen. And yet, each day we have breakfast and play around the house, then peel away to a park or the library, return for lunch and a nap, then up again for more outdoor time before it darkens and he must again be inside, the eating of dinner, playtime with music, the brushing of teeth, some stories, and off to slumberland. Usually, that's what's going to happen.

The Crickets Are Eating Ice Cream

There is so much to say about Evan, especially now after 2 years and 3 months of his respiring. I haven't been a good text chronicler of his activity. Sorry, son. His use of languange is more and more astounding, as he has fully moved from the Ga Ga Goo Goo period of infancy to the full on use of phrases and long run-on phoneme rambles where he is practicing with the sound of sentences, the ups and downs and emphases.

He has come out with some great statements lately which I want to get down. The latest was asking "Does the grass cry? Do the trees cry? Does the dirt cry?" These were pretty hard to answer. Pamela thought he might be referring to grass getting cut down by mowers, but I think he was just personifying they and wondering if they expressed emotions as we do. Perhaps they do on a deep nervous system level, but I think plants bend and snap and crack with great resilience. I don't think broccoli minds much being eaten.

"The crickets are eating ice cream" was another of Evan's recent quips, as we took an evening walk and the crickets came out to spurp at the syrup of the night.

I'll try to keep a better record and have more of this material to put down here. Soon.

Phases, Part 2

Evan is almost 2 years old. He is still teething, with about 12 or 14 teeth more or less in, including some early molars. We give him baby Tylenol or Motrin usually before bed to help him sleep through the teething. So much has happened in the past 6 months developmentally. he doesn't do the "Kicky" activity as much, but does occasionally and almost does it for me on special request. His use of language and growing vocabulary may be the most fascinating barometer of his growth. He also seems to be bigger every day, although his size almost seems to fluctuate like a little ball inflating and then losing a little air, inflating again and losing a little. Perhaps that is how people grow: 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

Of course he is using "No!" a lot, in response to our trying to control his behavior by using that word more often than we should. Yesterday, he stood in his high chair and stared at me, firmly asserting "Sit down! Sit down!" as his way of preparing for and removing my expected response to his standing. He has many words in his vocabulary now, the latest being "Nut butta". His mom will give him almond butter with banana. he also likes dried cranberries, well all berries of course, and grapes. "Gok gok" is still pretty well used for trucks and cars, though he asks for "Engines" if he wants to go to the fire station. "Meems" is for creams, which describes the frozen yogurt store his mom frequents (and me too unreluctantly). "Ming" is the swing in our backyard or the park. He calls out for helicopters and airplanes and trash trucks and street sweepers in words which are pretty close to the real thing. We read as much as we can and have continued to keep him off television until he is at least 2, advice we've read about in more than one place. Recently, a friend studying to be a Waldorf School teacher said they recommend keeping kids off television until 5th grade, when they are about 10, since TV kills the child's inner imagination and ability to create inner visions for stories and ideas. Makes sense, if you are letting an external box do all the visualizing for you. We may let him start to see some Sesame Street and Thomas The Tank Engine, but Pamela thinks in 15 minute intervals and then off. Our town's new public library opened May 16 and is a great resource for the little boy, a beautiful temple honoring books and a place to meet other kids with a fun sitting area with chairs designed like big stacked books.

Daddy Going Backwards

We spent a few minutes with the backyard swing yesterday, me moving around the boy in the swing. He spends only a few minutes in there now before requesting "Down! Down!" Yesterday he commented on me walking around him with "Daddy going backwards." And it just seemed like a very astute summation of my life in general in relation to being a new father. In his newly forming ability with language it may have been simply that I was walking backwards to push him from a better vantage point. He likes to walk backwards out of the room sometimes, and we'll say "Bye-bye" as he leaves the room. But in my being an older dad, 46 when he was born and now 48, I do feel like I am traveling backwards away from some peak of physical and mental ability. If the first half of life is moving forward and involves constant growth and change towards being more complete, then perhaps the 2nd half involves the slow disassembly of that accumulation, the slow falling apart of the self. Daddy going backwards.

Evan at 16 Months

It's been 6 months since I've reported here on my fathering experience and much has happened. We moved to a nice little house in Monrovia, a small town which feels unpretentious and friendly towards kids; they're building a giant new library on the town square. There is a Friday evening Family Festival and Farmers Market that gives the week some rhythm. Evan had his 1st birthday, including a party a few days before which was attended by many great friends who hung out in the yard and ate yogurt and cake. We took Evan to Lake Tahoe for his Mom's family's annual retreat there in August and also made it to Santa Cruz to celebrate Pamela's Mom's birthday in October. The summer was long and hot, beginning the week we moved, with 100 degree temperatures in May. It's still hot in November.

Evan has been making remarkable strides in development the past few months. He's been on the verge of walking for that long, taking his time and we're not going to rush him. His vocabularly is developing almost exactly in parallel. He has always had astute vision, noticing planes in the sky and remote lights at night. He now has his own word labels for many things, some are close to our language and others are his own. Cars and trucks are "gukocks" and I think that guttoral term applies appropriately to those noisy things. The downside of our "All American" town is the large number of car and truck obsessed people who drive loudly by our house, often while he is napping.

Evan continues to love covering his face with a sheet on the bed and then going into an athletic routine of kicking and laughing or panting excitedly. He kicks with his legs AND arms and the smaller kicks build into larger full body kicks, where his legs lift way off the bed. I sometimes narrate the action to him as he goes: "Little kicky, little kicky, little kicky... Big kicky!"
He no longer has his tongue out between his lips much, but does have a series of funny faces, including one where he scrunches his nose and mouth up and breathes heavily through the nose, something my sister's girl Emily did, and then another kind of parrot like smile that I think is involved with him using his tongue to try to lessen teething pain. He has been teething for many months and has had only the front 2 teeth on top and bottom break through, several months ago now.

Evan recently started taking a pharmaceutical iron supplement because his pediatrician became concerned when his weight dipped into the lower 10%. We don't feed him red meat products, being largely vegetarian ourselves. Very important issues as he is in his great brain growth and development stage up til about 2 years old.

Evan auditioned for a Huggies commercial today. We went to a mothers group Thanksgiving pumpkin pie party at Pamela's friend Janene's house yesterday which I think was a blast for Evan, just being around other kids instead of penned up at home with his darn parents. He also attended 5 or 6 music and movement classes this fall at the town community center, met a bunch of other kids. It has been a wonder watching him grow. We get more sleep now, as he usually sleeps through from 10PM until about 5 or 6 and then might sleep for another 2 hours in our bed before rolling around to say "Get me up, I want a day!"

Phases of the Son

Evan is now 8 and a half months old and I have had little time to write about the experience of fatherhood. I take what little downtime I find to pursue other interests which have been crowded out by this little visitor from inner space.

I have wanted to document certain activities or actions, what i am calling phases, that he exhibits which strike me unusual or remarkable. They may just be the usual steps of growth ina baby, but strike me as unique, which every parent sees in their baby's first actions I'm sure. The first one, I may have mentioned, is the great use of his tongue as a kind of weathervane. He has had his tongue out since the beginning and seems to use it to feel the air. His smile with tongue has encouraged me to smile with a bit of tongue also. I am learning from his habits probably more than he learns from me. The second phase or odd habit of Evan is what I used to call Pre-kaboo, because it is similar to peekaboo but came ahead of the call-and-response actions of peekaboo. When lying down, Evan will grab a towel or "burp cloth" and throw it over his face, covering his eyes. He then begins kicking and flailing a little, seeming to be in a kind of euphoric state brought on by the absence of defining vision. Pretty fascinating. This started at about 3 months and continues. The third phase is less pleasant for Evan because it is his response to teething, with which he has had some pain since he was 4 or 5 months old. (Drooling is another indicator of teething pain.) His response I've called Pile Driving, as he takes one hand or an object held close to his mouth and then uses the other hand to beat the first hand or thing into his face. Seems to lessen the focus of the pain for him. Weird but real stories from the the trenches of BabyLand.