Tag: fatherhood

Nerves of Steel

I’m nervous.

I don’t feel this way very often and, even when I do, I rarely let on. I pride myself on being flexible, adapting to situations as they come, taking in new information and adjusting accordingly. People tell me that they admire my calm, that they don’t understand how I can appear to be so relaxed in the face of difficult meetings, challenging personalities or mountains of paperwork. Somehow I manage to remain stoic, composed, cool under pressure through it all. I channel Yoda and Mr. Spock; I don’t let emotion get in my way.1

But this morning, I’m nervous.  Continue reading “Nerves of Steel”

High Stakes

Dear E and S,

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.

It’s a dangerous pastime, I know,1 but it’s one of the reasons I haven’t published a new post in around three months.

I’ve had a couple of posts that I’ve started and then scrapped. There was the one about it taking a village to raise a child that had to do with the grandmother at the beach club who gave me a suggestion that helped S stop screaming so I could get her to take a nap in her stroller. There was the one about watching E grow over the course of the summer and watching the transitions he made during his first year at summer camp. There were a few about the ways you two interact together, some about our community of friends in our neighborhood and more than a few about the different events in our political sphere.  Continue reading “High Stakes”

The Force Will Be With You… When You’re Older

E loves Star Wars.

He has masks of Darth Vader and Captain Phasma that he uses when playing dress-up. When T bought him new pairs of pajamas to wear to school for pajama day he chose the Darth Vader set over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set.1 He has a pre-reader book of Star Wars stories and loves pointing out Chewbacca, Han “Sola” and the “Stormtrippers.” He starts laughing anytime he sees C-3PO and R2-D2 and, once in a while, I’ll catch him glancing at the Yoda toy sitting on his dresser that he got from my father. When he was a baby, I would throw him up in the air while singing the Star Wars theme song and I would take his echoing toy microphone and say in my deepest voice, “E… I am your father.”2 We recently had to hide his “light-savers” so he wouldn’t use them in the house because things like this kept happening:  Continue reading “The Force Will Be With You… When You’re Older”

Baby, It’s Christmas (With Consent)

I don’t like Christmas music.

(It’s okay, take a minute. I’ll wait for you to stop hyperventilating and/or to pick up your laptop from wherever it landed. I suppose I should have put a “trigger warning” first to prepare you. Sorry about that.)

I don’t like Christmas music because I’m Jewish and my family was observant when I was young, so I don’t have the same personal connection to Christmas that the overwhelming majority of the U.S. population seems to. We celebrated Hanukkah and it was always made very clear to me that trees and Santa and mangers and red and green M&Ms were for other people, not us. Even so, I don’t remember ever being bothered by the onslaught of Christmas when I was a child. I probably didn’t pay much attention to something that I knew didn’t apply to my family, but I also don’t remember Christmas being shoved down everyone’s throats the way it is now.  Continue reading “Baby, It’s Christmas (With Consent)”

Boys Need Attention Too

Dear E,

I feel like I owe you an apology. Or, maybe, at least an explanation.

Your mom and I have been working really hard to make sure you’ve gotten enough attention over the last few months since S was born and, to be honest, I actually think we’ve done a pretty good job. We’ve each taken you bowling by ourselves a few times, you and I went out for ice cream, your mom has gone swimming with you… I can’t remember everything. My playing with you every morning before I leave for work is somewhere on that list too. There have been times when we’ve been more successful than others, obviously – it’s always hard with a newborn in the house – but I think we’ve been okay overall.  Continue reading “Boys Need Attention Too”

Watching What We Teach

I was on the subway on my way to work last week when two men near me began arguing.

I didn’t see how it started. Like so many other commuters, my attention was buried in my phone, split between a podcast and Candy Crush. I looked up when I heard the men raise their voices at each other and took out one of my ear buds so I could hear what they were saying. I was interested in the argument, but I also wanted to see if they would need to be separated or if I would need to move to another car. Listening to the argument turned out to be little help, as the men were both speaking Spanish, but from what I could gather, they had both gone to sit in the same seat and one man took offense at being pushed aside.  Continue reading “Watching What We Teach”

“Daddy, I Don’t Love You!”

Well, I finally got mine this week.

I’ve heard that it happens to every parent. It’s really just a matter of time and there really isn’t anything you can do to stop it. You can set up the circumstances and plan as best you can, but even the most skilled veteran parents are going to get it at some point or another. I’ll admit, I don’t know that I expected it this early – is four years of parenthood even considered early? – but I figured it was coming sooner or later.

Last week, E told me he didn’t love me.  Continue reading ““Daddy, I Don’t Love You!””

My Father’s Hands

My first distinct memory of my father’s hands is from when I was six or seven years old. There wasn’t anything remarkable about them; five fingers each, no marks on the skin or anything like that.1 They were just his hands.

I had been playing with Legos and had gotten two small pieces stuck together so tightly that my little fingers could not get them separated again. I remember thinking at the time that my mother would be the better person to ask for help. I should say, it was not because moms solve everything and a dad’s only purpose is to be able to tell his child where mom is, as some internet memes might have you believe.2 No, it was much more practical than that. At that age, I understood that I needed something small to get between my two Lego pieces and my mom had something my dad did not: nails.  Continue reading “My Father’s Hands”

Dear S

Dear S,

I wrote a letter to you a few weeks ago, but that was before I knew you were you. It was before I knew you were a girl, for one thing, although your brother was adamant that he knew you were. It was also before I remembered what it was like to have an infant around. I had forgotten about doing my best to find things in the dark so I wouldn’t wake your mother up while I was changing your diaper in the middle of the night. I’d forgotten about the Zombie Parent Shuffle, the dance steps that exhausted parents do as they pace back and forth while trying to rock their newborns back to sleep. I’d forgotten how quickly dirty laundry adds up and how frequently newborns need their diapers to be changed (seriously, turn off the faucet, would you?).  Continue reading “Dear S”

A Trip to Wonderland

I’ve always been a big fan of driving trips. My family and I never went on any huge vacations when I was a kid but we did go on different driving trips. When we lived in Chicago, we drove up to Wisconsin on a few different occasions, plus Indianapolis and Detroit. My parents made a vacation out of our move to New York, stopping at various landmarks along the way, and we made a number of trips after we had moved, as well, including a tour of battlefields from the Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania and a longer trip through Virginia to see Civil War sites. We drove up to Maine to see family friends and then to Ohio, after they moved, plus shorter trips to Connecticut, Boston and countless trips to Philadelphia to see my grandparents.  Continue reading “A Trip to Wonderland”

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