Originally posted on Okay, Fine, Dammit

The minute Emma was born, I knew something was wrong. I’d swallowed a horse, fought its hellish bucking to the death, turned myself inside out, until I won. Until she slid breathlessly — literally — into the world. I listened for her bourning cry but it did not come, because she was not breathing.

I lie there, split apart at the seams and bleeding out, and watched
the scene as if from above. I bore witness while the midwives pumped
oxygen into someone else’s baby for eleven minutes before they called
9-1-1, before two ambulances delivered both of us to a nearby hospital.
It was all for naught anyway — by the time we got there, she was
breathing on her own as if nothing had ever happened.

When we left the hospital for home, Emma was perfect in every way
but one: she would not nurse. She could not suck. I knew the
powers-that-be wanted to remedy the situation with a feeding tube, to
rapidly ameliorate the problem and neatly close out our file, but she
was our second child and so I had faith in my body, and in my baby.
Somehow I held patience as she lost weight.

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Originally published on Julie Pippert: Using My Words.

It
was a pretty innocuous mother’s club meeting, and we were talking about
babysitters. I don’t even recall why it came up, the talk about
babysitters. Conversation unrolls so organically in these meetings,
these times we get together, without children, and get to just talk.

But
sitters came up in conversation and the turn of that conversation
surprised me. Greatly. Apparently around here it’s bad manners to quote
an hourly rate for one’s babysitting services.

“You know what
gets me?” a mom said, “You know what sitters I prefer? Who I pay the
most to? The ones who say ‘oh just pay me whatever.’” She went on to
explain that (and this is my paraphrase not her exact statement) to
her, it came across as very forward, rude even, when these sitters said
they charged X dollars per hour.

My mind rolled that concept
around for a minute: it’s cheeky and rude to state upfront how much you
charge if you’re a babysitter.

I looked around the room, seeking
the people who ducked their heads to avoid disagreeing or the people
shaking a no with their heads, and waited for someone to say, “Well for
heaven’s sake, it’s a business. Of course they need to—and
should!—tell you in advance how much they charge! How else will they
learn to value their own worth and services? How else will they learn
to deal with people and money? How else will you be able to figure out
how much to budget and how much cash to have on hand for the time?”

But not one person did. Not one ducked head. Not one shaking head. Not one verbal alternate perspective.

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Originally published on Family Clay, Smushed Together and titled Koson’s Lesson.

This is a long one, but stick with it. It’ll be worth it. I promise.

It was a Thursday night in the fall of 1982; I was fourteen years old. I remember the day of the week because in our soccer league, Thursday nights were game nights. My father was our coach, and on this night we’d just lost to a bigger, more skilled team. After the loss I was walking back to the parking lot with my teammates (dad was trailing far behind, talking with some of the other parents) when somebody from our team must’ve said something to some members of the other team about how hard they sucked or how big their mommas were. The three largest guys on their team were pretty sure I’d said it and wanted to show me how much they didn’t appreciate it. As I turned to see what was going on (at this point I had no clue), I saw the three (much) larger kids coming my way.

At the time I stood about 5?10? and was pretty skinny. But I had a big
mouth, and it sometimes got me into more trouble than my 160 pound body
could get me out of. And while I hadn’t said anything to these guys, I
wasn’t planning on backing down.

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Originally published on The Newborn Identity

A couple days ago I said that, thanks to Rigby, I had cared for Madeline flawlessly for the most part. I’m not going to say this statement was untrue, but I will do my best impression of a contract lawyer and direct you to the statement, “for the most part.” Before you get too worried please realize that no babies were harmed in this production. Nonetheless, I may have made one pretty bad mistake while caring for Maddie that, when I realized what I had done, made me tear up. Wait. The contract lawyer in me has advised me to revise that statement. I didn’t tear up…dudes never tear up unless “Field Of Dreams” comes on TBS…I just inexplicably found that wetness had appeared on my eyeballs.

So, as you may know, Maddie is off the bottom of the weight chart for her age not only because she was a preemie, but also because she has been adversely affected by the media’s tendency to glamorize women of nearly anorexic weights. Okay. Maybe it was mainly because she was a preemie, but I’m pretty sure that re-run of “The Simple Life” I once watched while feeding her didn’t help.

Anyhoo, the first week I was left home alone with Maddie my wife left me with a million instructions on how to take care of her. There were ten steps to be followed when changing a diaper, elaborate demonstrations of how to swaddle her, heck, there may have even been a long discussion of how to even breathe around the kid. That last one may have been an exaggeration, but it gives you the idea.

At the end of my first week as Maddie’s day-time caretaker Heather came home and was very impressed with my work. Had I correctly instituted the ten step instructions on how to change her diaper? Check. Was I able to swaddle her pefectly in ten seconds or less? Check. Did I put two scoops of formula into the 110 cc’s of water every time I fed her? Check, er, what? TWO SCOOPS? I thought it was just one!

Heather’s jaw dropped. “You’ve only been giving her one scoop?”

I cleared my throat and said, “Um, er, perhaps?”

Originally published on moosh in indy.

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Originally posted on Nitro Vista

I got yer “bathroom language” RIGHT HERE….

I’m surprised it took this long. I almost made it to the end of the year.

Alas, I’m finally enraged at Isaac’s school, and in full, hit-the-mattresses belligerent dad mode.

Isaac is an intensely smart, hyper-sensitive 6-year old. While he has no qualms about speaking his mind, he is generally socially gracious and appropriate. Ours is an open and honest relationship. If he does something wrong, he comes clean. He has neither the inclination, nor really even the capacity, to tell lies at this point in his life.

His teacher loves him, and has had nothing but effusive praise for his intelligence and social skills.

Now I’m not so blinded with love for my firstborn that I cannot admit that he can be a wildass screaming hellion on wheels at times. But he is by no means a disciplinary problem. It is usually quite simple to correct his behaviour with a positive suggestion. He gets this.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when he came home with an unsigned
form letter in his backpack, informing us in the haughtiest possible
tone that he was being disciplined for using “bathroom language” in the
lunchroom; and would we please discuss this with him, provide a list of
5 “appropriate topics” for lunchroom conversation, and sign and return
the form.

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