THE CRAZY ONES

Dear Spike:

Maybe it was crazy. And maybe that was the reason that we decided not to tell anyone at first. And maybe that’s the reason why, after we found out it really wasn’t crazy, we still opted not to share it with any but our closest friends. Because maybe it was really crazy and we just didn’t know it was crazy, which — if you think about it — is what really makes something crazy.

Wait... I digress.

Back when we were painting your room — four or five months before you came, I think it was — I arrived at the end of the line of elephants that we’d painted, marching around the walls. I stood there, on top of the step ladder, with an artistic epiphany, of sorts. The rest of the pachyderms, spaced evenly apart, followed a simple pattern:

Brown elephant. Red elephant. Tan elephant. Brown elephant. Red elephant. Tan elephant.

The last one would have fit the pattern — keeping it going on and on and on, around the room and around again to eternity.

I looked down to your mother. “Could you hand me the yellow paint?” I asked.

“Yellow?”

“I want to do this one tie-died.”

She agreed. We’re nonconformists. Or at least, we’re as nonconformist as you’ll find among young, urban, middle-income, single-mortgage professionals. Well, close anyhow.

In any case, we wanted to instill in you a spirit of nonconformity. Because, you know, maybe Spike just wasn’t enough.

So above your closet door — still marching in formation, mind you — is one tie-dyed elephant. Even though it’s sort of hidden, up there, it’s one of the first things people notice when they come to see your bedroom. I like that. More than being a nonconformist family, I like people to think that we’re a nonconformist family.

Or maybe not.

Hmmm. This seems like a good place to get back to the subject of crazy.

Turns out I’ve found it really difficult to disclose the fact that we’ve opted to raise you a bit unconventionally. There’s perhaps nothing in life people are more judgmental about than child rearing. Everyone has an opinion about feeding, holding, talking, sleeping, kissing, soothing and singing. About the only subject we all seem to be able to get together about is diapers: Everyone agrees that babies wear them.

Except, your mother and I learned a few years back, that isn’t really true at all.

Back when your mom was attending Western Oregon University, we lived in a little apartment, above a church on the corner of First and Main in the town of Monmouth, just a block down from the college. Like a lot of colleges, Western had a museum on campus. For whatever reason, it was an arctic museum. Arctic. Right — like Polar Bears and Eskimos.

Which brings me back to diapers. Eskimo babies, we learned one weekend while on a tour of the museum , don’t wear them. Seems it’s a particularly bad idea to let your babies sit around in their own pee when you live in an igloo. I’ve never had hypothermia myself, but this seemed to make sense to me. And so the Eskimos potty train their babies — when they’re two weeks old.

You, as they say, weren’t so much as a gleam in our eyes at that time. But it did get me to thinking: If the Eskimos can train their babies to potty on demand why on God’s Cold Earth don’t we all?

And, of course, it turns out that — for the most part, we do. In China and Africa and India and much of South America and quite a few places in Europe, they teach babies not to use their pants as a toilet. And again, this seems to make sense, because really — particularly in places where people live on the equivalent of a few dollars a day — its not like Huggies are a top priority.

So when we learned you were coming, I did a little bit of research. There are a few decent books on the subject: I bought them both, though this really isn’t a matter that requires all that much study. It’s really pretty simple. When you were about two weeks old, I held you over the toilet and waited.

When you peed, I made a noise like a deflating tire: “Pssssss. Pssssssss. Pssssssss.”

And when you pooped, I made a noise like a revving car engine: “Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

It took all of two days for you to get the point. And so long as we remain attuned to your body language and normal patterns (you like to do your stuff after waking up from a nap, for instance) you definitely seem to prefer using the toilet to using your pants.
It’s not quite a “diaper free” lifestyle as the title of one of the books promises, but you have spent entire days in one dry and clean nappy. And on most days, we get by with three or four.

But although this has been one of the most exciting developments of your rearing, we’ve been hesitant to share it with anyone but our close friends and family. Because even though I like people to think we're nonconformists, in this country diapers seem kind of sacred.

Back when we decided to use cloth diapers instead of disposables, we got a lot of “well, you say that now” — even from people who themselves had never tried cloth diapers for their children.

Meanwhile, people with toddlers told us to expect to be “swimming in diapers for years.” And they said it kind of gleefully, which was really weird.

But maybe we are the crazy ones. And I admit, I did for a time fear that we may have sentenced you to a lifetime of Pavlovian excremental responses any time you hear a tire deflating or a car engine revving.

But then this week, your mother’s friend Sue — who was born in China — was present when I was holding you over a bucket, letting you do your thing.

“Pssssss. Pssssssss. Psssssssssss.” I whispered in your ear.

Sue laughed.

“That’s the same sound my mother used to make for me,” she said.

Yup, we’re nonconformists. Just like one billion Chinese, another billion Indians, another billion people on the continent of Africa and a few billion more scattered around the rest of the planet.

And, of course, the Eskimos.

Love,
dad

TASTE THE COMPLEXITIES

Dear Spike:

I knew our vines had been productive, but I didn’t realize just how much until I began to harvest the grapes, this afternoon.

I’ve never had much of a green thumb, but our garden has done particularly well this year, with lots of zucchini, a few other squashes, peppers, mint, basil, oregano and an amazing crop of tomatoes — so many that we’ve always had several to eat with dinner and then had plenty extra with which to make salsa and pasta sauce.

There’s something deeply satisfying about picking a fruit or vegetable that you’ve grown yourself. Most exciting, for me, are the grapes. I love finding the thick, tightly-packed clusters of berries hidden beyond the broad leaves of the vines that grow on the south wall of our garage.

Wine grapes don’t look or taste like the grapes you find in the store. They’re usually much smaller, rounder and darker, and if you press one against the roof of your mouth, letting the juice trickle over your tongue, you can taste the complexities which give different wines their individual characters.

When the vines had been picked clean of their fruit, there were enough Zinfandel and Cabernet grapes to fill two five-gallon buckets. After the grapes were pressed (you helped — and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit) we had about three and a half gallons of juice. From that, we’ll get perhaps 15 bottles of wine.

Wine isn’t hard to make — just add grape juice, yeast and a few clarifying and stabilizing elements over time — but it’s hard to get right. In that, it’s not unlike many of the other pursuits I find most enjoyable in this life: Those things that take a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

Some dads play “go fish” with their kids. We’ll probably play a lot of poker. It takes five, maybe ten minutes to learn the rules of Texas Hold’em. If you can play ‘go fish” you can play poker. I figure I’ll teach you when you’re three. If you’re going to take my money anyway, I might as well make you earn it.

I heard a Harvard business professor today talk about how he encourages his students to learn to play poker. Understanding risk management, risk tolerance, odds, mathematics, aggression and emotional control are keys to success at the table — and in the business world, he argued. “The students who get good at poker, I never worry about how they’ll do in the real world,” the professor said.

I don’t know about that. But I know that within a deceptively simple game — each player is dealt two cards, five more are ultimately dealt face-up on the table, the player who can make the best hand or force everyone else to fold their hand wins — is an intricate, frustrating and beautiful contest.

Same too for the game of soccer. Two teams of 11 players. Two goals at opposite ends of the pitch. No hands. And yet this simple game has the power to halt wars, effect worldwide economies, and bring entire nations of people to their feet.

I wondered today, as I was spreading the yeast over the surface of our grape juice, whether the reason I enjoy being your dad so much is because fatherhood, like winemaking, poker and soccer, is at once so simple and so complex. It's easy to become a father. But being a good dad takes work.

There are, of course, a few notable differences.

If the wine spoils, there’s always another crop of grapes to harvest next summer. When you’re dealt a bad poker hand, there’s always another hand to play. And when your football team fails, there’s always another game, another season, another World Cup.

There will, of course, never be another you.

Given the deep satisfaction I get when picking a fruit or vegetable from our garden, I can only imagine how satisfying it will be to see you develop into an interesting, intelligent and decent adult — one who can enjoy this life in all of its simplicities, all of its complexities and all of its opportunities to grow.

Love,
dad

FRAGILE AND RESILIENT

Dear Spike:

The alumni magazine from Oregon State University came in the mail today. It’s typically a pretty skimpy publication, but I usually flip through it to see if any of my college friends are featured.

This edition included a story about the Beavers’ storied run to the 2007 College World Series baseball championship, another article about an OSU grad who produces the records of a rock band I like and a third feature about a new assistant football coach, Jay Locey, whom I covered when he was running the legendary Divison 3 program at Linfield College.

And so it was that, having spent quite a bit more time leafing through the pages than I normally would have, I ended up in the back of the magazine, reading the obituaries.

The first entry was a graduate from the Class of ‘23, Christmas Jean Tuttle Gaily, who boarded a train for Corvallis at the age of 16 and didn’t return until she’d graduated. At the time of her death, she was the oldest living graduate of OSU. She lived to be 105 years old.

One of the last names on the list was Sommer Nicole Chambers, from the Class of ‘02. She lived to be 29.

Sommer was my friend and, for a short time (right around the time your mother and I started dating) my housemate. We met for the first time on a snowy winter day, when she and two other animal rights protesters had locked themselves into small cages in front of the Memorial Union to protest the use of animal test subjects in the university’s science labs. I penned the story for the student newspaper.

Needless to say, we didn’t have a lot in common. She was a heavily tattooed anarchist who worked at a local animal shelter and was raising orphan raccoons in her garage. I was a midshipman in the U.S. Navy Reserve with a part-time job at the school paper.

Over the months, we got to know each other better as she tended the bar at the local coffee shop I frequented — mostly late at night — to read, study and write. After a while, she stopped kicking me out at closing time, I think because she felt better having someone around as she closed out the register, mopped the floors, cleaned out the sinks and locked the doors. I suppose that’s how I ended up in her rather limited circle of trust.

But as things often go, we fell out of contact shortly after graduation. I got married and began a career in the papers. She traveled the globe teaching English and working to promote western ideas about animal welfare, most recently in South Korea.

I didn’t feel surprised when I saw Sommer’s name in the back of the magazine tonight. She always seemed to be a shooting star. And I suppose that one condition of having a lot of friends and acquaintances in the military, in a time of war, is that you grow used to seeing familiar names in the obituaries — even those who would never have the first thing to do with the military.

But I did feel sad. And regretful. And guilty. In an era in which it has become so easy to keep in contact with far away friends, I’ve made a pitiful effort at doing so.

You’ll cross paths with many people in this life. And you can’t keep in touch with all of them — not in any sort of meaningful way, at least.

But do not allow those who are important to you to slip away. Like Sommer Chambers and Christmas Gaily, life is both fragile and resilient.

And so is friendship.

Love,
dad

MEET THIS WORLD

Dear Spike:

Three months have passed since the day you arrived. It’s amazing to me how life can seem to move so fast and so slow at once. It’s hard to remember what life was like without you. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in your short lifetime. And at the same time, I feel like it’s gone by so quickly.

You’re still so very small — people mistake you for a newborn — but to me you seem so big. You are, after all, twice the size you were when you were born, with beautiful chubby cheeks and ever-fattening legs. You’ve long since grown out of your premie clothes. And with every passing day, it seems, we find another outfit no longer fits you.

Your first act, every morning, is a smile. And lately, you’ve been finishing the day with an hour-long screamfest that your mother and I have come to call the “9 o’clock freak out.” It’s OK, though, we love you still.

You no longer need us to support your head. And I can’t help but think you’re practicing to meet this world with your head held high. You look so confident, I feel like I could send you off to college tomorrow.

And, at the same time, I worry that I’ll be sending you off to college tomorrow. Everyone tells us: “It goes so fast — enjoy it while you can.”

So this month, at least, you and I are going to slow things down. Today was my first day of paternity leave, and we celebrated with a morning stroll through the aviary. As usual, you perked up when you heard the peacocks, the cuckaburra and the cranes call out. And I think I saw you following one particular scarlet ibis as it dashed back and forth about its cage.

Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll go too the zoo. Or perhaps we’ll just sit in the backyard, in the hammock, and swing and swing and swing.

I’ll read you a book. Maybe we’ll take a nap together. Maybe I’ll bring out my guitar and play you a song or two or three. And maybe I’ll write you a new one.

And we’ll live another lifetime together.

Love,
dad

A BANJO GIRL

Dear Spike:

Your mother stopped going to her weekly banjo practices when she was eight months pregnant. Lately, I’ve been trying to get her to pick it up again. She keeps saying she will — some time later.

But after what happened Saturday evening, I’m pretty sure she’ll be playing again very soon.

You were crying. She was rocking you. I was fiddling with a music sampling program on my computer, trying to find a tune for a video, when I came across a few short banjo riffs.

And just like that, you were silent.

We weren’t sure at first. It might have been a simple coincidence. So I turned the music off.

And you started to cry.

And I turned the music on.

And you were quiet again.

The only plausable explanation, of course, is that you could remember the sounds of the banjo from when you were inside your mother’s womb. And that brings me great joy, because if you can remember music from before you were born, it makes it easier for me to believe that the things we do together now — walking through the park, singing, rocking and reading — might just stick to your psyche in the years to come.

Who knew you’d be a banjo girl?

Love,
dad

OUR FIRST DAY

Dear Spike:

We spent our first day of “Daddy Daycare” together.

I’m still alive. So are you, for that matter.

Yeah us!

Love,
dad

LOVE HER SO

Dear Spike:

We had a lovely visit with your grandparents this week. When it was over, we all crammed into the car to see them off at the airport. They kissed you and kissed you and kissed you again, and then, finally, turned and walked toward the terminal.

As we drove away, your mother looked out the passenger window and watched them as they gathered up their suitcases in front of a sliding glass door.

“They’re crying,” she said. “They love her so much that they’re crying.”

The depth of love you will feel from all sides of your family will be oceanic. Perhaps you know this already. Or sense it, at least.

I am often saddened when I think of how far we live from everyone in our family. But as I’ve told you before, we are a family that finds family wherever we go. Already, you are finding family here in a growing group of people who know you and love you and would go to the ends of this Earth for you. And I find some consolation in the knowledge that your concepts of “family” and “community” will be little different.

As for those special family members with whom we share blood? We will speak frequently. We will write and exchange photos. As the years and technology allow, we will find new ways to tell each other that we love each other.

And we will wait, eagerly, for our next visit.

Love,
dad

FEEL LIKE FAMILY

Dear Spike:

Your mother goes back to work this week.

I was greatly looking forward to beginning my paternity leave this coming Monday. But with half of my colleagues still hunkered down, down south, waiting for what is almost certainly going to be bad news in regards to the lost miners, my boss has asked me to stay on for a few more days.

I like feeling wanted, so I agreed — though I made him promise not to send me back down to the mines, since your mom’s going to be working and we have no real daycare plan.

Finding someone to care for you is going to be part of my job when my shortly delayed leave finally begins, on the 27th of this month. I’ve already asked around and visited a few places, but I’m having trouble finding the right mix of attributes for our family.

I’ve whittled down what we’re looking for to three things:

• We need to be able to afford it.
• We need to be able to trust it.
• And it needs to be available.

And in this situation, best two-out-of-three ain’t gonna cut it.

For the most part, of course, I’m going to be your daily caregiver. The way I work is particularly conducive to being an ‘at-home daddy,’ and I’m excited and eager to begin this part of my life. But there are going to be times (like last week when I was called to the mines) when we’re going to need to have someone we trust to care for you.

Most of my friends who have children have family nearby. But our closest relative, your Great Uncle Dave, lives five hours away. And though we’d love for Dave to be your nanny (as it happens, he was the first person you ever smiled at) I just don’t think you’re quite ready to smoke, drink and gamble that much.

This much I know for sure: We will never leave you in the care of anyone who doesn’t feel like family to us. You are too valuable and your company is too precious to simply give to anyone.

Love,
dad

SO WE WAIT

Dear Spike:

I’ll make camp tonight on a cliffside in the Uinta Mountains, overlooking a freeway on which a small army of reporters has surrounded the entrance to Crandall Canyon.

We’re all waiting for word on six men who were trapped when the coal mine they were in collapsed early this morning. It’s been more than 16 hours now with no word from the miners. The mine owner says it may be three days before rescuers can get to where the men are trapped.

And so we wait.

I’ve only just begun to understand how fathers feel about their children. Many of the men trapped in this mountain are fathers. All of them have fathers.

I cannot imagine the depth of their fear, longing and dread this evening.

I’ll miss you tonight. And I will think of you all night long.

Love,
dad

BROUGHT SUCH BEAUTY

Dear Spike:

You awoke last night in your mother’s arms to the shrill songs of an legion of crickets, the gurgling of the Green River and — barely audible behind it all — a nightingale calling for moon to rise. Fainter still, the wind rustled through the stickly trees and bushes, making a sound like sandpaper on soft wood.

We’d spent the day with our friends in a tiny town across the Colorado border, before seeing them off in a tow truck this afternoon. We then pointed our wagon back to Dinosaur National Monument, where we were met by ancient petroglyphs, primeval fossils, jagged mountain peaks, rainbow-painted rocksides and this glorious desert symphony.

Yes, I thought, this is how camping should be. This is what camping should sound like.

And then, as if in reply, you began to cry.

And cry.

And cry.

And scream and wail and squeal and moan and shriek.

Innately, I wanted to soothe you. But quickly, I simply wanted to quiet you. It wasn’t a full campground — but it wasn’t empty, either.

No, I thought, this is now how camping should be. This is not what camping should sound like.

If there was ever a time in which I fully understood how much our lives have changed, it was in those moments, when your tears washed away the sounds of nature like the Green River washes through these sandstone mountains.

Yes, I was frustrated. But not for a moment did I wish it were not so. Just as the river has brought beauty to this desert range, so to have you brought such beauty to our lives.

The crickets, the nightingale, the wind against the trees — those sounds were here when the ancients painted these caverns walls. Those sounds will be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

We broke camp this morning exhausted and eager to return home. And as you slept, the whole ride back, we laughed at how contentedly you seemed to be slumbering.

Yes, I thought, this is how life should be. This is what camping life sound like.

Love,
dad