Growing Pains

Edan and I have been mildly at odds this past week. We've both felt crappy-ish most afternoons, and she's either growing, or trying to move up a weight class in some toddler fight club she's keeping secret from her parents -- so who knows whether she's really pissed, or just reacting to all the growth hormones running rampant in her brain.

Subsequently, I've been working a little harder than normal to make sure daddy time kicks as much ass as usual.

And after the zoo, an afternoon of Edan-induced, aimless roughhousing, innumerable games of Candyland, plus a trip to see some very enthusiastic recent drama school graduates perform Suessical: The Musical, I've learned the following:

No matter how immeasurably joyous the preceding two or three hours have been, when asked, Edan responds like she's been caught in a rouse -- as if she's somehow been duped into having a good time by her father, the momentarily entertaining ne'er do well.

I'm sure it's temporary, but still, I'm looking at photos this afternoon, reminding myself it's only a phase.

Following Our Dreams

The past two weeks have been encompassed by The Purge. Slowly but surely, our things have escaped, retreating from our little duplex in the hands of new couples, college students, grandmas, old friends, and bags destined for Goodwill. We're in our 20s, we're not rich, and each of us moved to Austin with a less than a carload of clothing. Amanda's papasan chair, the only piece of furniture that made the trip, came down from Cleveland strapped to the top of her Nissan Sentra (which, especially after her muffler fell off in Arkansas, made us look and sound like we were driving a strange, mechanized giant tortoise/lawnmower hybrid down the highway).

Yet, until recently, our rooms and closets were heaving with untouched, useless shit -- whatever we'd bought so we wouldn't live like squatters in empty apartments, or held onto in case it got really cold one winter for 8,000 days in a row. It's the sort of stuff my angsty, anti-everything, adolescent self would've scoffed at while I turned up the volume, and let bands like the Dead Kennedys sarcastically tell everyone in my suburb to "Kill the Poor."

I'm glad we got rid of it, but threw a small hissy fit when I found my Close Encounters of the Third Kind DVD in the bag of stuff on its way to Goodwill. "Just 'cause you won't watch it with me doesn't mean it'll never get watched," I griped -- just like a teenager.

* * *

My parents recently moved, and, after being forced to haul my childhood stuff from Ohio to Florida, finally declared that it was time I claimed what I wanted, or accept that it'd be released into the eternal ebb and flow. It'd been years since I'd rooted through old baseball and football cards, sports trophies, stories I'd written for my middle school Power of the Pen team (a group like Matheletes, but for literary nerds), and some writing from grade school that -- even though it hadn't been assigned -- I'd turned in to my teacher anyway, because I was awkward.

There's still something comforting about the swish, swish, swish of sliding through cardboard photos of faceless ballplayers, and the tattered cover of an old, familiar novel. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that, after spending the better part of 10 years rejecting everything I grew up with, I'd eventually find it soothing to write from the couch with football on TV in the background.

* * *

After we'd strapped the shell on top of Amanda's giant Nissan Tortoise, and crammed it full of everything she thought she'd need in Texas, she took a roll of black electrical tape, and wrote "Following Our Dreams" in block letters across the back bumper.

Today, a little over two years later, we're closing on a house. Our rented duplex is growing barren, and the stuff we brought with us from past lives is mostly gone. The message taped to the back of her traveling turtle has fallen off -- but, nevertheless, here we are.

Back where we started, having the dreams we used to have. Again.

How I Lost a Bet, and a Dog

Amanda and I are fond of taking steadfast, stalwart positions on either sides of arbitrary, meaningless debates -- like, whether or not Dan Aykroyd is dead, and if it was Queen or AC/DC that sang Fat Bottom Girls. Quickly these become "bets," only we don't wager anything, which sucks, because seriously, who doesn't love the irony of Freddie Mercury crooning lovingly about big women? HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT? Which is to say, that I clearly have a superior understanding of these blindingly obvious pop culture talking points, and thus, win every time.

So it was with supreme confidence that I entered our latest discussion. The stakes were high. We bet a dog.

Background:

I've been begging for a pet for like a thousand years. At the outset, Amanda and I used to have cutesy couple quarrels about whether we should get a big dog (like I wanted) or a rat in disguise purse dog, which was her preference. But soon it became clear that my lovely fiance was simply delaying the inevitable. There was no resolution to this conflict, because the real issue was that she never wanted a dog in the first place. Not because she wouldn't love one, but because she thinks I'm not "responsible enough" to look after an animal.

Ouch. After I'd pleaded, groveled, given in to her demands and accepted that we might own some prissy little poodle (and reminded her, on more than one occasion, that I seem to do alright with the human being I'm responsible for every day), she still rejected my pet ownership application in the way that a mother puts her foot down with a petulant child. She might as well have taken a giant pair of gardening sheers and lopped off my testicles.

Continued at ParentDish.

Size Matters, Dude

A trip to the suburbs is a little bit like a special adventure to the land of wonder. Not to sound like some bi-coastal, elitist prick who uses expressions like "fly-over states" -- or to insinuate that I live in some uber-urban metropolis instead of an overgrown college town. The people are the same -- it's just the stores. They're colossal, elephantine, brobdingnagian -- so big, in fact, that I needed three words from the thesaurus to fully encapsulate their impressive girth within the bounds of language.

Sure, I'd prefer to do my shopping at locally-owned businesses, where they pay everyone fairly, and do their best to capture the good-natured small town spirit from America's mythic times of yore. But the only way I could afford to do that and feed my family would be to eat nothing but dry bread and cheese past its expiration date -- and let's be honest, unless you're sewing your own clothes and eating leftover stew made from what you grew with the other villagers in your community garden, your dollars are probably funding the ethically egregious exploitation of some malnourished 12-year-old, somewhere.

So while I buy my veggies from the farmer's market (and recycle, damnit), I'm still forced to shop at Target for furniture, else I'd be dropping half my newly acquired mortgage on a coffee table, or using some wobbly ass piece of shit I tried to make myself with wood from Home Depot (which isn't exactly the most good-natured of corporate superpowers, anyway).

Fortunately, in the suburbs, you're not stuck with boring old regular Target, there's Super Target! Seriously, these are like man-made Wonders of the World. I know it sounds like I'm being a sarcastic douche bag, but this is totally earnest adoration for whoever was able to conceive of such a well-designed, well-oiled machine of consumerist convenience. The automatic doors give way to a row of checkout counters that extends off into the horizon, a vastness like that which our ancestors discovered as they forged westward across the uncharted American plains, all covered in a pristine luminescence that says "shopper, you have arrived." For a moment we were motionless, temporarily stunned like small woodland creatures, trapped by the sheen of oncoming headlights -- and then it began.

We didn't even buy anything. We knew we were heading to IKEA (which is like Wal-Mart for snobby urbanites) later that morning, and I had the sneaking suspicion I wouldn't be as enamored with those funky Swedes as I was when I briefly considered decorating my first apartment in college. At least not enamored enough to spend hundreds of dollars of furniture that's about as raucous as a John Meyer concert, or some self-indulgent, naval-gazing Zach Braff movie.

But we wanted to know -- while we zig-zagged through display after display, dodging the other thousands of moderately-priced-modern-design enthusiasts (who all wanted to steal my fucking shopping cart) -- that, in the event we weren't ready to pull the trigger on an IKEA purchase, we had something to fall back on. Plus, we don't want our house to look like Edward Norton/Brad Pitt's apartment in Fight Club. Nevertheless, our brief trip to Super Target! made us feel much better about the money we finally did end up spending on a new entertainment unit, which will look nice in our new living room, which the previous owner recently adorned with new wood flooring, which, we discovered yesterday, he purchased at IKEA.

Home ownership, here I come!

Postmodern Parenting is So...Fish

Ever since my late teens, when I reinvented myself as a self-righteous maestro du fantastic, I've always been very attracted to the idea of enjoying art museums. The quiet, the contemplation, the serenity of genius -- piously arranged and thoughtfully lit, against the stark, white nothingness from whence the violent act of creation did sprung. Oh! Le vie! Mwa! Ha! Breathtaking!

So, despite the fact that, in practice, I find the majority of them to be dull and pompous, Edan and I recently spent some time at our local nod to cultural sophistication.

Smart-asseyness aside, there's actual some lovely and moving works of art to be seen at the Blanton Museum. However, we spent the majority of our afternoon discussing why some of the boys' front bottoms were covered with leaves while others were not, and staring at a series of three ultra-slow-moving videos in which the subjects' expressions gradually changed over the course of 82 minutes. By the time we'd seen that, made fun of all the paintings with men in silly wigs, and annoyed the college students who wanted to do their math homework in a space that resonated with peace and artistic life-force, it was time to hit the gift shop, grab a postcard, and be on our merry way.

But before we wrap this up, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate the volunteer guards for doing a fine job of protecting these priceless works of art from me and my thieving toddler. Obviously your finely-tuned skills of perception could read the large placard the two of us were carrying, upon which we had scrawled in large, black, block lettering: WE ARE GOING TO TAKE THIS SHIT. We figured it might throw you off our scent -- but boy, were we wrong. The two of us weren't in a room for more than 5 seconds before you appeared, poof, as if by magic, behind my shoulder, or stood staring in the corner, waiting to catch us in the act.

Or maybe you know the truth: that the three-year-old is strong and fast -- like a ninja -- capable of overpowering and outsmarting even a capable young man like myself. Before I could stop her, she'd set her devious plan of destruction in motion -- quickly fingerpainting in poop on anything that looked like it might go for more than a couple million at auction. She's crafty, and enjoys the irony of destroying postmodernism.

It's possible she gets that from her father.

Looking on the Bright Side

. . .

I suck in a deep breath, but my chest is tight -- trying to shrug the weight off before knocking on the door at daycare. It's a bad day, and Edan doesn't want to leave, so she whines from her car seat about going home, or to the park, or wherever -- barely speaking to me as she rejects the snack I packed for her. So we visit friends, but it's brief -- Edan's mom is done with work early, and I drop her off hating that our time together was spent trapped in the car.

And I sit there, staring at the dashboard, wondering if I'll always feel this tired.

* * *

That was yesterday. It'd been creeping up on me for awhile.

But less than a year ago, the life I lead now would've seemed like a ridiculous, impossible fantasy. With that in mind, I made a quick list of reasons I should be looking on the bright side:

1. I see my daughter almost every day. Think of the last time you were away from your kids for a vacation, or a business trip. Now take the feeling of those few days, and imagine it every week, over and over, until it's dull, throbbing ache. Allowing that to fade has been nothing short of amazing.

Continued at ParentDish.

Rainbows

Heather Craven, who I write with at ParentDish, was kind enough to feature this photo today, so I thought I'd post it here, too. Edan, Amanda and I have walked past this fountain dozens of times, and it always looks like this. I've tried to capture this exact photo over and over, and never quite got it -- until now.

Finally. Now we can go walking someplace else.

Singing and Dancing

There's a part of me that hopes Edan doesn't grow up to be an artist. I want her to fall in love with law, or medicine, or science, or marketing, or whatever -- anything that she can passionately pursue without living on the fringes, grasping at straws, and begging for people to care.

Not that my life is so terrible, or difficult -- but I'd like her's to be easier. Calmer. Normal, even.

But then we go to rock shows, where performers leap around the stage, dazzling the dozens of kids before them. I see Edan staring at the musicians, throwing herself around the dance floor, twirling and laughing with other children, completely overwhelmed by the pounding beats and melodies. And then the other part of me wants her to dance as hard as she can, and sing as loud as her little voice will allow, and to live life believing that the very best things are hidden around corners, under rocks, and in all the dangerous places.

I want her to know the joy of being completely out of control.

As I think this, the dad sitting next to me is having trouble shutting off the toddler talk switch. I can remember when Edan was the age his daughter is now, and the nervous anticipation that comes with being ready to pounce at any moment -- preventing a fall, or pointing out something fantastic with the amplified enthusiasm you use with wobbling toddlers. He lunges to stop his daughter's fall, sighs as she wanders off, and finally says to me: "That's some reALLY FUN SINGing and DANCing!"

And I nod, laughing. Because he's absolutely right.

So whether Edan spends her life busking on street corners, trying to raise awareness about underprivileged farm workers by hitchhiking across South America, or makes pitches in corporate board rooms about product flow and brand management, I hope she knows moments like that -- when the singing! and dancing! is absolutely perfect.

Putting On My Game Face

...

I was totally jock-tastic for awhile there, and would go from football, to basketball, to baseball -- completely obsessed with spending every afternoon feeding my addiction to any organized competition that involved flying balls and a highly-specific, imagined construct that dictated the rules of play. Quarterback, pitcher, point guard. Dudes, I rocked.

Obviously I've strayed somewhat from these glory days of yore. Much to the chagrin of junior high coaches around the world, it turns out there's actually little use for my sporting skills in adult life. Sure, I'm still obscenely competitive -- which is great and all -- but most people think that playing to win at community kickball or forcing your three-year-old to follow the rules in a simple game of Candy Land indicates some kind of hang up. Too bad these people are LOSERS.

Seriously though, the one adolescent athletics lesson that remains relevant is The Game Face.

Just in case you're not a competitive person, The Game Face is kind of like a Poker Face -- or the face you put on at your in-laws house around the holidays to hide that you think they're awful. This doesn't have to be anything like you're normal face (which is why you see football players screaming at each other like crazy people right before a game starts, when mere hours before they'd be laughing and joking with commentators about their off-season fishing trip...or whatever). It's how you convince yourself, the opposition, and the world at large that -- no matter what's going on inside -- at this moment, you are an ass-kicker.

Continued at ParentDish.

How I Sneezed My Way Through Monday

Those are tissues. Let's not pull any punches, I feel like a big pile 'o ass.

That's how I spent my afternoon. I lasted about 20 minutes (and got totally soaked) before I felt the cold hand of death smacking me across my snotty-ass face. Still, it was fun.

The end, until tomorrow, when I feel hopefully feel human once again.

Le House du Fantastic

Over the past week, we've been learning the finer points of the home-purchasing process. Namely, why each and every homeowner we've spoken with has made a point to emphasize the drama, heart-ache, pain, and joy associated with making a purchase that you're committed to from now until your mid-50s.

Maybe our friends are just stressballs.

I don't wanna jinx anything, so we'll skip the details, but, most importantly (albeit after a little sparring), the offer we made was accepted.

This has yet to sink in, so I'm currently pulling a Keanu Reeves -- reacting to something enormous as if were oddly innocuous, simply responding with: "Whoa."

Or, in one of his more eloquent, Point Break moments, "I just caught my first tube today...Sir."

Big, Booming Noises Are Very Attractive

Giving in to the small part of myself that's perennially hunting for clues amidst a layman's paranoid schizophrenia, I got out of my chair to investigate the thunder richocheting through my neighborhood, echoing off the houses -- literally making the furniture shake as I cracked upon the front door.

It's possible that I was exposed to James Bond, Johnny Quest, or Apocalypse Now a little too early in life, because amidst the aural chaos, I felt like a boy, half-expecting to discover that South Austin had been invaded by a militia of rocket-launching Libertarians from East Texas.

But obviously not really.

Shooting into the sky above the local university were the best kind of fireworks. The 4th of July kind -- that crack the air around them and make your chest cavity shake. Edan's mom had picked her up from daycare earlier that afternoon, and Amanda was working late, so I'd been at the house alone all day, catching up on work until my brain melted into goo. So it was a little bit dreamlike, standing on the front porch, watching the colored lights.

Boom.

Home

Edan and I kept in the shade as best we could, hiking through the woods yesterday afternoon. September is still summer in Texas, but the leaves show hints of turning brown, just like their northern cousins. In the evening, in the breeze, you might almost fool yourself into believing the season had changed.

We stood on the banks of a small river -- one that only exists after a good rainy season. In drier months we'd walked along the rocks, but today we were skimming stones across the water. Edan took off her shoes and waded in, while I sat and watched the big, brown dead leaves collect at her feet.

As I skipped my rounded rocks across the surface, and she began to splash around, it felt just a little bit like fall. Like the season I remember, skimming rocks from the shore of Lake Erie -- the sounds of high school marching bands echoing in the distance, and the air peppered with a hint of the bitter winds to come.

Ten years later, it's a moment that still feels like home.

One Last Photo, and Then I'll Shut Up About Our Trip to Florida

In all honesty, I'm only posting this because I think I look cool in those sunglasses. Plus, I like the light as it sneaks through the holes in the playground.

Oh, shit. I'm so vain.

Uh, So We Just Put an Offer On a House

The further life prods me into my 20s, the more my defiantly-held notions of spending life as a bohemian artist en le squalor fantastic slowly fade into the distance. I used to believe that I'd sleep on borrowed sofas in the ghetto, producing food, clothing and other bullshit necessities of our consumer-driven, materialist society (you know, The Machine) from love (or art, or magic, or something).

Seriously, what the fuck was I thinking?

Today I hammered a large, sturdy nail into that coffin by initialing, signing and dating a series of papers that constituted an offer on a house. An entire home. That Amanda and I will own. We're straight-up grown-ups.

Word.

Of course, even though I was never going to do this -- ever -- I'm now eagerly anticipating a response, hoping very much that our offer will be accepted.

Shit. I didn't even look at the house before we signed away the next 30 years of our life (because, let's be honest, between Amanda and I, her opinion is the dealbreaker). But after I picked Edan up from daycare, we drove through the neighborhood and looked at the place from the outside. I thought it was cute as hell, and could immediately see all of us living there. Plus, Edan thinks it's "fancy," which has got to count for something. (Before you get the wrong idea, it's not fancy in any way -- I blog for a living for Chrissake -- she's just easily impressed.)

So keep your fingers crossed. And if anyone wants to rent a decent duplex in South Austin, I hear there's one that'll be available in the next couple months.

Suddenly a Grown-Up

Contrary to many parents, who worry that their child will got lost in the bustle of a busy airport, or morph into a screeching demon when the flight is preparing for take-off, I'm most concerned at check-in. For days before our trip commences, I have visions of suspicious airport staff who, after reading two (albeit only partially) different last names on Edan and my tickets, subsequently demand to see some kind of legal documentation verifying that I can be trusted to travel safely with this pleasant little girl who might be my child. When I don't produce it, they'll call their supervisor, who will call security, who will call the FBI, and before you know it I'm locked in a windowless, white-walled interrogation room, blinded by the single fluorescent light that's swinging overhead, while being barked at as part of some "good cop/bad cop" routine by two guys who think I'm a threat to national security.

But this never happens. And actually, our flight to Florida was easy -- helped along by Good Dog Carl, Hop on Pop, a Christmas-themed Dora coloring book and a potpourri of snacks packed lovingly into tightly-sealed Ziploc bags. Edan is a traveling rock star.



Continued at ParentDish.

It's All Good in Florida

Needless to say, we've all been very entertained.

Happy weekend, all.