Gift of the Magi, Steve Jobs edition
If you haven’t read the O. Henry classic then go read it! Then come back.
Ever thought how credit cards have changed that story? Carl and I are finding out (sort of; we’ll probably liberate some savings).
This year we set a limit of about $75 on each other’s gifts, which is still (if you think about it) pretty extravagant. But I decided to go over the limit and get Carl an iPod Touch. And he decided to go over the limit and get me an iPhone. I guess Apple is ruling our house. We will pay in January. But the connection is strong.
And yes they are incredibly fun. For people with no cable TV, they’re awe-inspiring. So tell me your favourite apps so I can go look them up. :)
In other news: My parents got us a turkey roaster and a kitchen scale and I like both (!) and Noah received a Playmobil take-along castle from Santa as well as a Buzz Lightyear doll, and from us he received: Chutes and Ladders, nerf swords, and a preschool-sized-yet-authentic skateboard + gear. No, we are not practical people. :)
He got more ancient Egypt from Carl’s mum and from my parents he got a new (to us) kind of Thomas: The kind that is plastic and runs around on batteries. Since I have, NO JOKE, $2k worth of wooden Thomas this was a shocker but… Noah loves it. And that’s what counts. He also got a Lite Bright…from the 70s. The original one. With circa 1978 Superfriends papers, still unblemished. And pegs in baby food jars. He is running quite a little vintage toy collection from my parents’ attic. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but he loved it so again - that’s what counts right? Although we will have to declutter.
(Did I mention he has two Star Wars shirts that fit him just a little large that were originally…mine? Preserved, also, in the attic. See also: Hoarders.)
Today was a great day
[Re: work screw-up; is fixed. It was administrative. I did an interview with someone last week about "why did Tiger Woods cheat" (sad media note: saying that cannot possibly out me since everyone and their dog did that interview last week) and he said that high powered sensation-seeking men basically have to do something risky to get their adrenaline high and once they're famous that becomes doing something as stupid as that. While I am not sure I buy this argument, I did start to wonder if I occasionally royally procrastinate while that one item gets worse and worse in order to feel the adrenaline rush myself. Sadly I do not have the talent to go with it.]
And now onto today.
6:15 Noah wakes me up to ask if we can please decorate the (pre-bought disgusting kit, but we will never eat it!) gingerbread house. So, starting a bit later at 7 after breakfast has been consumed, we do.
Then we played Playmobil general store. Then we played Little People (ah… the Little People. Just when I was about to pack them away.) Then we went to his school holiday party and Noah played in his first piano recital. He played middle C, in quarter notes, alternating hands at regular intervals. It was very exciting.
Then Santa came and Noah was entranced. But not shy. He went up to Santa and said “Hi Santa! I’m Noah from XXX Trail” where XXX Trail is our address. Noah asked for a Playmobil castle and a “stormtrooper bigger than Daddy.” Fortunately Santa pointed out that said stormtrooper would not fit in his sleigh.
Then we came home and chilled out in front of YouTube and watched the Star Wars Christmas special, fast-forwarding through a number of bizarre things. (Jefferson Airplane!) Then we played Star Wars together ad nauseum and had pizza and read books.
It was a very ordinary but extremely fun day. Well, ok, the party was not ordinary but it was low-key and very enjoyable.
Noah did go to the doctor last week as he was still suffering diarrhea, but also because he was pale and tired out beyond what you would expect. Carl took him, but our doctor is concerned that he might be anemic. To be truthful about it, we have been a little worried for some time that he is excessively pale. So far the recommendation is to come back in a month and also to increase the iron in his diet. (He does take vitamins, but without iron, as it creates other issues, but we may change this.)
I sat down and looked at his diet though and short of frying liver (I’m actually going to get pate) I’m not sure what else we can do: on the plant front he eats black beans, chick peas, and lentils; kale, spinach, dried figs, raisins, dried apricots, and so on. On the meat front we do eat beef and salmon. We only eat whole grains, and the odd times we don’t, they’re fortified for the most part. I’m not sure about trying oysters, especially as they come with other things.
I will pay more attention to combining vitamin-c rich foods with meat + plant iron all in the same meal, but really? I don’t think we can address this via diet. However I’ll keep a journal and see what’s what. Noah is at what will probably be the most neophobic stage, but it’s never translated into a white diet. Right now his most requested meal is either soup (minestrone or pea) or baked breaded eggplant with buckwheat noodles. You see what I mean? Well, ok. He also eats Zoodles from time to time (1 per month). And tonight we had pizza, with steak and spinach on it.
Screwing up at work
I screwed something up at work and I feel like shit at 3:50 am. Sometimes I’m really not sure what my problem is. Anyone else ever feel that way?
The power of fathers (Carl)
So this is my post about Carl and Noah, which sort of touches on Thursday.
The thing is…I can walk out of my house 4 hours after a vomiting episode. And I will still feel bad and guilty because I just want work to STOP and stay home with my kid (and yes, I can if it is “an emergency” but one thing I’ve learned about the job-kid-life dance is that it’s not the clear-cut emergencies that are hard; it’s working out when to give up trying to decide if it is/find alternate care/etc.)
But I will know that Noah will be having the best care. Maybe even just slightly better than me, when it comes to illness, only because I tend to get a little more nervous and communicate that nervousness to Noah. Whereas Carl still will respond and take him to the doctor, but he doesn’t get as tense about it.
And that’s the thing about Carl as a dad…he’s not the second parent, he’s the other-first-parent. There was a time, around when Noah was one, that I didn’t think this would happen. And in some ways I think going back to work hastened the process because as far as the morning routine goes, after Noah and I eat breakfast together and I leave, I have no idea what happens. He shows up eventually at school clean and dressed and with the proper snack/paperwork/whatever. He and Carl have their thing. It helped, to carve out that space without me.
But of course the root of the goodness is that Carl’s an excellent dad. He’s much more in the moment than I am, and it’s a good match - I plan things, sign up for swim lessons on time, and get the laundry done while playing Magnet Man/Baby Cat with Noah along the way (two different games, in case you were wondering); then we head out together to the library and cosy up with some books for quality time. But Carl sits down with Noah and focuses on painting or Legos for 30 intense minutes and then has a mad tickle-fest. He’s really good at just being there in the moment and not obsessing on the mess. It’s quite lovely.
He’s also gentle and kind. He’s always treated everyone in the system with pretty much infinite patience (I’m sure I don’t know who screamed down the stairs that this wasn’t her life and she was going to go fuck random strangers to prove it *cough*) within firm boundaries (I did not go do the fucking) and it turns out that’s the kind of dad he is. He has loads of patience with Noah, but he doesn’t just give him carte blanche to behave however he wants either (when necessary).
When Noah is having big emotions, Carl helps him identify them. Sometimes they paint them out. Sometimes after I leave in the morning they paint a dream Noah had or a nightmare. So I come home a lot of days to a whole little history in art. (We have an easel set up in the kitchen.) They laugh together a lot (actually we all do). There is an ease between them that is so genuine, and so primal. When Noah was in pain today he cried for me and in the next breath he cried for Carl. He truly feels safe with us both.
It’s really lovely. I really hope there is nothing that ever really interferes with that; obviously, if mythology is to be believed, there will come a day that Noah has to take Carl on in some way. But I have faith it will work out. Noah has a real man and a real father. It’s super neat.
This is what fear is
Note: Thanks everyone who emailed me about the site. I did forget to renew the account (which was going to an old email address) and then after that I screwed up the nameservers, but apparently all is good at last. I am emailing people back but slowly.
This week I have come up against the fear wall again. Last weekend Noah and I were merrily making sugar cookies and I moved a can of tomato paste to get the vanilla and it popped open and paste came spewing out. Noah and I watched in fascination! And then I wiped it up and threw it out and we washed our hands and went on our merry way.
Tuesday I had a really nice interview with some of the people at Bereaved Families of Ontario, for a work piece.
Then Wednesday night Noah woke up at about midnight vomiting. He threw up about four times total and then went back to sleep, but of course, I did not. I cleaned up, not just the bathroom but then disinfected/bleached the kitchen and the doorknobs and everything else, because if someone is vomiting it must be, you know, my fault. I fully recognized that this was an OCD moment out of the legacy of living with my mother, who always treated anyone sick like they had bubonic plague, and would then serve rice & plain noodles for a week because her fear of meat and vegetable born illness would be triggered. But anyways, so I cleaned up and then I thought hmmmmmmmmmm that can exploded.
So, I Googled. And I learned that botulism is like NUCLEAR WASTE. If a can explodes you should basically don a gas mask. And you have to bleach everything. And throw the rags out. I’m not kidding! Eeek!
Then I read that 30 per cent of people who get botulism, you know… die.
If this were a movie you’d have some amazing tunnel-like cut effect here, because all of a sudden there I am at 3 in the morning in The Bad Place. (In my head.) The place where Noah dies. Honestly, I am wondering when this ends, if ever. It is just safer to feel the horrendous, crushing fear along with the images of how that would be (body, funeral, empty house) now that he is generally heathly and 4 years old? Is it because this is the season of Emily? Is this getting worse? Is it just a bump on the grief train? PTSD? I don’t know but too many nights like that and I will end up having a heart attack. I think the problem is that it’s not just the fear; it’s the fear that comes and then with it all the images and feelings of when the fear was accurate; that day we walked in on the tech crying at Emily’s scan.
And the thing is, I knew I was freaking out. I just couldn’t actually stop it. On the outside it was very calm ’cause I couldn’t move. Anyways, I got back to sleep somewhere around 5, in time to get up for six. Carl stayed home with Noah (more on this in a later post) Thursday and I worked but it was not connected work; it was pretty dissociative. Friday I worked half a day as I’m interviewing people (interns) and then headed home.
Only perhaps Saturday did I actually start to stop planning for the end of the world as a sort of background to the rest of my daily life. Then of course, this morning (Sunday) Noah had horrendous abdominal cramps for about 15 minutes so I rushed him into the clinic. By the time we were seen (about an hour and half after the pain stopped) Noah was dancing around in excitement. (Sigh.) The diagnosis is either continued virus or virus-induced constipation. The doctor was not overly impressed with the possibility of botulism contamination given that the can was a commercial can and no one ate anything, but did humour me by having Noah wriggle his eyebrows.
Anyways, the thing is… parenting in the age of anxiety is well, anxious enough, but I think we strike a good balance. But when we slip off that balance, my god. It is really tough.