Worth the Wait?

One of the more difficult pills to swallow in the transition to stay-at-home-hood from bread winner is shifting the focus of your monetary worth to something considerably more abstract. Admittedly this is something I struggle with to this day, especially since, after Zach left, I am no longer a financial contributer to our family. Even though my salary as a home day care provider was less than one-sixth of my previous wages, I still retained the feeling of pouring something into the pot from my end rather than just syphoning it out. In these troubled times, being a spending non-earner feels, to put it bluntly, akin to the way a deer tick might feel were it to possess a conscience.

So, how then, you ask, do I justify sitting at home on my tokhes, doing only the things I love to do? Well, that's just it; I love to spend time with Amelia and there is no price tag you can put on that. You can't pay someone to love hanging out with your kids the same way that you can't buy your way into love. Now, don't get me wrong, there are wonderful day care providers out there who care deeply about the well being of all their students and give everything they can to provide all the necessary means for healthy child development, but there is truly no substitute for the bond a parent feels with their own child.

Alright, now that I've made all the working parents out there feel like crap (not intentionally, of course), I will attempt to make it up to you by offering my exciting conclusion of free style friday:

http://stevedaycare.blogspot.com/2008/08/fsf-i-iv.html (for those of you who have just tuned in)

The year following the insemination of Helen September was the most difficult ever endured by Adolphus: far more than the years he spent conjuring the idea of a horse he could one day give a name to. Nary a moment went by he was not under extreme duress pondering the possible and quite literal miscarriage of his dream. In that single year he had lost almost 27 kilograms from his already gaunt frame, giving the appearance of something undead, and were it not for Berndi forcing the occasional schnitzel on him, he may have very well become the opposite.

To remain close to his investment, Berndi allowed temporary lease of the small loft apartment above his garage. Adolphus would have just as gladly lived in the barn with Helen, sleeping on and eating from a mere pile of hay, just to be near when his foal arrived.

All day he would gaze at the beautiful mare the same way a child would contemplate the wonders of what lie within a large gift beneath a Christmas tree. As she would lazily graze the meadows of Helmut's 600 hectare ranch just outside Düsseldorf, Adolphus watched fondly, perpetually as her guardian, and, indeed, her best friend. Miraculously, the mare who could bear nothing of all prior pregnancies, carried her foal to full term without even the slightest hint of complication.

The night her labor began, Adolphus was convinced his heart would spontaneously cease to beat. The idea of giving birth was one so foreign and beyond his control, he could have waged war on the concept were it some type of physical entity. A scream welled just under the surface of the face held calm only by sheer will in an attempt to contribute serenity to the agitated mother obviously in a great deal of pain. After what seemed to be days of solitary anguish, the veterinarian arrived and reassured Adolphus that the delivery was progressing exactly how mother nature intended.

'Mother nature?', he thought. 'My mother never understood this dream of mine, could the mother of nature possibly be more understanding?' He hoped and, being a man of fair weather faith, prayed.

A bolt of lightning cut the dead calm of the night standing the hairs of all creatures for miles on end. Whether there had been any stormy weather previous to that burst of intense white, Adolphus could not have guessed. The thunder which followed, though, was the only sound he heard apart from the braying of Helen as she grew weary with fatigue. Then he saw it; the first gorgeous hoof of the beast that would soon be his.

"He is coming!", He shouted with infectious glee radiating from his face like ripples in a still pond at sunrise. "His hoof. Ah, both of them. Yes, there they are. His leg. Oh, look Berndi, there are his legs!"

Berndi placed his hand on the young man's shoulder. The thought of how much money he could be making eased slowly from his mind, now giving way to the obvious joy brought to this boy who had so very little.

Adolphus turned and put his twig-like arm around Berndi's rotund middle and began hopping up and down. "I can't wait to see his face."

Sooner than he expected, he got his wish. The horses snout appeared resting on its front legs, as if exhausted from the difficult journey both he and his master had just faced.

"OK, doctor, go in and get him!" He implored the veterinarian, who was standing at the other side of the stall observing the proceedings.

"I can't, Adolphus. It is up to her. She is a strong horse. It won't be long, I'm sure." But the vet was not sure. Had he been sure, it would not have taken the ten additional hours from when they first caught glimpse of the head. Adolphus must have asked the vet seventy times, to which every inquiry he replied, "Every horse is different, son. Some deliveries take longer than others. There is nothing to worry about."

Finally, and close to fainting with exhaustion, Adolphus met his horse in its entirety. The foal dropped into the straw and lay motionless like the wet sock of a giant.

"Get up. Please, get up.", he pleaded with the newborn, hands clenched tightly at his chest. "Please. This means everything to me."

The mare stood then turned to face her offspring. Her long tongue extended and began to polish its soaken black mane. Almost imperceptibly, the foal stirred and lifted its tiny snout to greet its mother.

As it righted itself to a kneeling position in the straw, Adolphus heaved a sigh of relief in finally receiving the fulfillment of a dream seventeen long years in the making. As tears streamed down his drawn but lively face, he whispered over and over, "My champion. My champion."

The three men stood in awe of the spectacle of birth, sure they had witnessed a miracle within a miracle, and watched as Helen bonded with her newborn. After cleansing his shiny coat, she nuzzled and nudged its hind quarters urging him to stand upon this earth on which she, herself, could so majestically trot.

Slowly and awkwardly he placed his wobbly legs before him and pulled himself to a stance. It was then the men realized that the legs beneath this animal were half the length, at most, of any other foal they had ever laid eyes upon.

The vet gasped and his jaw hung open like basking crocodile. Berndi turned to Adolphus with his hands in the air and shoulder locked in a tight shrug.

"Oh, my." Berndi stammered. "A-Adolphus. I- I am so sorry."

To which Adolphus smilingly replied, "He's perfect."

Caution: Splash Zone

They say age is a necessity of wisdom but the opposite is not necessarily so.

My thirty-fifth birthday passed in recent history theoretically qualifying me for some totally kick butt knowledge of this mysterious world we occasionally dance upon. I'm just sitting here waiting for it to beam into my head like the automatic downloads of software updates my Macintosh computer requests on a bi-daily basis. So, yeah...anytime now. No? Well, I guess I'm going to have to earn it like everything else in the equitable stasis of human existence. Darn it, too. I was really hoping for a free handout, what with my birthday and all. Well, in the meantime, In the place of something incredibly deep and insightful, you will get this instead. Enjoy.

I'm not sure how many times you can read the same 12 page/12 word book in a row before your head bursts like a Gallagher watermelon, but I may be nearing the qualifying mark. Amelia's favorite (octo-daily) book these days is Duck and Goose's Book of Opposites, mainly because she likes to point out that the goose on page 5 is "sad" whilst herself making a frowny face and speaking with exaggeratedly empathetic overtones. The funny thing is though, even if I knew I had only one more reading in me before the folks in the front row would need raincoats and a tarp, I would still agree to read it five times beyond that. Yeah, it's really that cute.

Elijah has become quite the reading machine, too, and has completed almost all 40 thousand books of the Magic Tree House series. I can't tell you how much joy it brings to me to see him so involved in expanding his mind and doing it with reading material of a more practical application than that of pocket monsters waging in endless/pointless battle. It seems authors in our day and age have become quite clever in disguising education as entertainment to the pleasure of both parent and child. I mean, here is Elijah, voluntarily reading about world history without me having to do a single leg take-down with a half nelson in order to encourage the action. Thanks, Mary Pope Osborne: Let me buy you a watermelon.

Not Guilty

I hear the buzz.

It gets louder and becomes more difficult to ignore. As the buzz grows to an almost deafening level, I begin to pick up on the gist of the message, which is, "Just because you don't watch Zach anymore doesn't mean you can stop blogging. There are people who still read this thing who want to hear about Amelia and Elijah stuff, too, you know?"

I reply, "But I'm tired and I have a lot of chores to do" even though I'd rather get a hair cut with a weed wacker than to jump into some of the tasks on my to-do list today.

"Fine, Steve. Let your blog rot and wither away while all of us sit around wondering how Amelia's potty training is going and stuff."

"OK, you got me." I throw up my hands in mocking surrender with a smile, "But I won't like it."

Guilt is a powerful tool completely undeserving of it's bad reputation. I would venture to say, about half of the things which need doing in the world would not get done without the motivation of guilt. Whether it be recycling, weight loss, or piano recitals, we would be so much worse off without the noble acts guilt brings, as unpleasant as it may be sometimes. Just chalk it up as another victory for the hen-peckers. Please, eyebrows up, people.

With Zach at his new school these days, (I hear he's doing wonderfully apart from a little trouble napping in the new environment. Hey, let's see you take a nap with ten toddlers in the same room!!) we have a bit of a power vacuum to be filled, so naturally I have taken on the role of Zach in our household; to some difficulty. I'm still getting used to the position as it is a lot more responsibility than I had realized. For example, I had no idea how important it is for children's social development to desire the same toy at the same time. To me, all of the toys look exactly the same, so you can imagine how challenging it is for me to find exactly the right toy to make Amelia insanely jealous and hysterical. Zach was an expert at finding this toy, and evidently, much of Amelia's happiness depended on his doing so. With the way that I just try to hand any old toy to her, she may as well not even have any. They are cheapened beyond recovery by my total lack of taste and callous acts of kindness, so she tosses the toy back into the bin as if to say, "dad, if you don't mind, I'll handle this on my own.".
Zach, if you're reading this, could you e-mail what you think her favorite toy is? I promise I will just walk around the room with it of top of my head teasing her with it. What ever you can do, bud-zo, I'd appreciate.

Amelia has enrolled in a toddler tumbling class down at the rec-center, which she gets incredibly excited about. Her favorite part of the class is at the very end when the teacher breaks out a huge, brightly colored parachute for the parents to lift high in the air while the kids run and scream like crazy monkeys underneath. Eventually, the parachute droops down on their heads as they sprint to the sides, each generating a static charge powerful enough to drop a horse. I think if she were given the opportunity, Amelia might sell off our house and live under a parachute.

Elijah is keeping in shape through these winter months with a wrestling class where he is being taught the proper way to assault and pin kids his own size. The way I figure it, I would rather Elijah be taught the proper wrestling techniques from a professional instructor rather than from the Power Ranger's academy of theatrical planetary defense. Maybe that's just the underwriter in me talking.
On a side note, I'm sure Elijah would want me to notify you that he won his first wrestling match last night with a single leg take-down and a half nelson pin. Be afraid. I know I am.


Lastly, and because I asked for it, Amelia's potty training is going great, measured, of course, by the successes only.

Will it stop?

Amelia and I walked down the stairs this morning with her usual load of fifteen stuffed animals and her essential blanket to get some breakfast while seeing Elijah off to school. It was a morning like any other morning of the week except for one small detail. Zach was not in his high chair eating his waffle, banana and yogurt breakfast greeting Amelia as she sat in her booster seat.

"Where's Zach?" She asked motioning toward the empty station.

"He's at orientation for his new school." I replied.

As I stirred some oatmeal into some yogurt for Amelia something occurred to me; just how quiet it was then, and would be from now on. Now by no means am I saying that Zach is a loudmouth, because I think decibel for decibel, Amelia might by able to beat him in a screaming contest by three, but rather that they engage in perpetual conversation with one another in their own language during the times I am preparing breakfast or lunch. It's very amusing to listen to both of them giving instructions to each other on how to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the day to day lessons given by their respective parents, all the while without using any actual words. As a family, we were able to enjoy this exchange every morning for the last year.

It makes me sad to think that we will be losing their daily banter after today. While, sure, I chat with both of them individually all the time I can never seem to get that free flowing, experimental ramble they evoke from each other. Honestly, I think their words sound more fun than talking about shapes, colors and the letter "A", anyway, so from here on out, I will be speaking only Zach and Amelia's language, aka Zamelish, so as to lesson the impact of Zach's departure on Amelia. Enjoy.

Baabaabaabaa. B'danke bwowket.. Ish..ish..foood. nah, nah, nah. ogut. toklat. mamee wock. I'shah buh pop. Bap pap, dacket, itten. Poppy, elmo, poppy, neh'ee, b'danket. Nigh nigh.

That's right. Nigh, nigh, everybody.

So long

When you go through "contacts" listing of your cell phone, do you sometimes see names you would love to call and just say, "hi" to, but it has  been too long since you have spoken and you're not really sure if you still have anything in common with them anymore? Do you feel like a call out of the blue would be too awkward to bear and you might just end up trying to force small talk about the weather or news? Well, if you are anything like me, I enjoy hearing from long lost friends even just to tell me they are OK; or even if they want to tell me they're not OK, I am all ears either way. 

At least I hope you're like me, because today I am that long lost friend calling out of the blue after a multiple week hiatus from the blogosphere.

So how is the weather where you are?

Yeah? Here, too. 

Wow, so how about that Obama, eh? Yeah, tell me about it!

OK, then. Great talking to you. 

Go Gators!

Bye, now.  

Oh, you're still here? Good. Because this week is a momentous week in history and you should dedicate the next minute or so to reading so you can find out why. 

This approaching Friday will see my prize pupil graduate to begin attending an institute of higher learning (which happens to be much closer to his home). Yes, Zach will be moving to his new daycare at weeks end to sorrowful goodbyes on the parts of myself and his best bud, Amelia. 

It's amazing to think back to when he first arrived at my doorstep wrapped in a blanket, laying in a bread basket with a note attached reading, "I like mac and cheese"... no, just kidding, his parents have way more social grace than that. It was a Longaberger.

Those were fun times indeed, with Fred, Zach and Amelia, the spunky three, keeping me on my toes all day long. While it was three times the fun at play time, it was also a bit tricky to manage on occasion, what with me having only two hands and all. Parents of triplets, my hat is off to you. 

After Fred left, though, it was just Amelia and Zach, who have become very close. It's a funny kind of relationship in which I believe Amelia thinks of Zach as her son and Zach thinks of Amelia as some type of ogre. Granted she is a super cute ogre who is fun to play with, but an ogre nonetheless. And it is of no fault of her own, as it is only because she is a bit taller than he. The height difference can be a little intimidating sometimes when you're the little guy on the playground, though. Fortunately, for Zach, he has always had an even taller friend than the tallest kid in school who also happened to be a peaceful mediator and could resolve any territorial disputes with book time, crayon art, or snacks. 

All in all, despite any disagreements they have over who gets the "rootin' tootin' pig racer mobile" they have interacted wonderfully with each other and are both happier as a result of having their everyday play-date in a type of kinship only siblings can share. 

Zach, we will miss you buddy. And remember this advice for the future, never feel like you can't call just because it's been a long time. I will always love to hear from you.

Don't be testy

Under the dictionary definition of "male", our dog, Niko, no longer qualifies, therefore we are considering adding an "le" to the end of his name. On the brighter side, there are only seven days remaining in his forced victimization to Queen Elizabeth's fashion advice: Yikes, girl...what on earth were you thinking?!!

Please, folks, try to remember while looking at this picture, pity is a weak emotion and will serve only to make your quest in becoming pack leader a more difficult one. 

The Absence of Krampus

Santa was good to us this year, as he is often expected to be, (despite a few white transgressions I've personally beheld in the household) delivering just about everything we had hoped for. A large part of the everything was being able to spend Christmas with the people we love, making it a true success to be recorded in the annals of historic celebrations. The only present we couldn't have was the presence of a few loved ones living afar, but fortunately, via web cam or, at least, Christmas spirit, we could be with everyone else...you know who you are!

..and a happy New Year.

Our kids, who are still very much kids, still see Christmas mostly as "the day to get presents", which makes sense, since one's true appreciation of together time kicks into high gear only in adulthood, usually right around the time when the family tree of origin becomes too large for the flower pot in which it was planted. Even still, under the materialistic pretenses of toy wishing, it was enjoyed thoroughly; maybe even three quarters to the extent of Santa's jolly; and that's an awful lot.

Among Amelia's favorites were a kitchen set, which includes an oven, cookware and knives that can cut through toy bread like a lightsaber through warm krylonium: and, her other favorite, a Dora the Explorer rocking horse, which looks to be more fun than most of the playground equipment I remember riding on as a kid : I know what you're thinking, but the weight limit only goes up to 45 pounds, so you might be just a tad too big. Sorry.

Elijah has been darting all around the house with his new spy-gear equipment in his quest to become the next James Bond...by the way, he likes his chocolate milk shaken , not stirred. Most of his lego sets have taken on more of the form of Star Wars vehicles and less of giant plastic puddles of pointed pokey pieces, to Elijah's (and Dad's) delight; though Elijah admitted to me that he enjoys the part of putting them together best. Such is life. All fun rides come to an end, but I suppose you just have to get back in line and wait for the next one to start.

Speaking of fun rides, Zach, too, has been enjoying the spoils of Amelia's high tech Dora hobby horse. Zach rides that pinto as if it were lightning streaking across the western planes in search of the promised land of gold and tasty snacks. Just this morning, I could have sworn I heard him hollering yee-haw. Yep, it's that fun...but remember folks, before you start making travel arrangements to come over to our house, there's a 45 pound weight limit.

--------------------------

A man and his seven year old son were laying on the couch on Christmas day among mounds of wrapping paper and carelessly torn open boxes.

"Did you have a good Christmas, son?"

"Yeah, it was pretty good."

"Just pretty good?" Dad inquired.

"Well, it's just that," the son began whispering, "last night after I went to bed, I thought I heard a noise in the living room and tiptoed down stairs to see if Santa was here."

"So, what did you find when you got there?" asked Dad

"It wasn't Santa."

"No? Who was it"

"It was you, Dad. You were standing next to the fireplace, and you were eating the cookies off the mantel that I had left for Santa."

"Oh, I see." The man paused, unsure how to proceed.

After a long hesitation, the son whispered pensively, "I've been thinking a lot about what I saw last night, and I think I might have figured something out."

"Really? What did you figure out, son?" His dad, at full attention, perked up in his seat eager to hear his son's revelation.

"Well", he said, "We probably could have gotten a lot more presents if you weren't such a jerk."