Parenthood: Week 117 - Stalling For Buffy & Showertime

Ollie has had a hard time going to sleep at night this week. This may have to do with the fact that both Diana and me have recently started work and/or the natural evolution of his sleep patterns. On top of this, Ollie has learned how to stall.

One night last week, he tried everything. First he wanted “mommy hugs,” and then “daddy hugs.” There was the issue of socks. He asked to use the potty, for a drink of water and a diaper change. In between all of these requests, we left him alone in his crib where he persisted in asking for things for almost an hour.

Then he started screaming “BUUUUFFYYYYYYY!”

I walked in and saw him standing up in his crib smiling as he asked “Buffy huggle?” I turned around and saw Buffy standing in the doorway. I replied, “Okay, fine, Buffy huggle and then you go to sleep, okay?” Ollie reached his arms out in agreement.

I picked Buffy up and brought her close to Ollie. He reached around her head with his arms and leaned his head down onto her mane. After a couple seconds Ollie said with satisfaction “all done” and calmly lay himself down in his crib and went to sleep.

*****

Giving Ollie a bath has always felt like a chore to me. When Diana gives Ollie a bath, she gives him time to play and gets into it.  I’m much more business like and I just get the job done. So it’s no surprise that Ollie often requests to take baths with Diana.

Last week, we were having one of those nights with Ollie. Dinner with Ollie didn’t go very well, I was tired and stressed from work. I really wanted to not have to do anything but that wasn’t a choice. So when Diana asked “Do you want to do the dishes or give Ollie a bath?” I initially leaned toward the dishes, but after not having a very positive experience with Ollie that evening, I wanted to turn it around so I chose the bath.

Now I had tried taking a shower with Ollie before. It didn’t go very well. It was before he could stand and I ended up holding him the entire time, which didn’t really work. But now Ollie is a toddler and he loves the splash pad so, I figured why not give it a try. Anyways I could get my shower done in the process and save some time.

Ollie was initially skeptical about the shower as I explained to him what we were going to do instead of a bath. But once Ollie saw me turn on the shower, he got really excited.  I lifted Ollie into the bathtub and I joined him watching him squeal in joy as the water rained down on him.

We had a great time. He watched me shampoo my hair and he tried to do his own. We got soapy together and watched “bubbles go bye-bye” as we rinsed.  I got a sense of joy and pride when washing Ollie when he was an infant but it wasn’t fun.  Something about the kneeling at the side of the tub thing wasn’t really all that fun for me either. I could put on a show for Ollie and he would have fun but it didn’t do much for me.

Taking a shower with Ollie was fun for Ollie and me. Instead of me doing something for Ollie, we were doing something together, working through processes and bonding over the simple joy of getting clean.

Year 6: Week 1 - Ollie-Bear On The Loose

Our first week of school was kind of weird. We had teacher meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Today on Friday we had our first day of school, which will be immediately followed by a three-day weekend. So I’m not going to talk about teaching, because I didn’t really do that much teaching this week. Instead I’m going to talk about something that reflects the soul of my school.

During the teacher meetings this week and last week when I was in school doing preparation work, I brought Ollie to school. I hired one of my former students who is a current high school student at my school babysitter to watch Ollie. We were struggling to find childcare and one of the other teachers suggested this as an option.

I was initially concerned because most of our babysitters we had hired previously were older but I figured that I was going to be in the building anyways, so if something happened, I was around.  My school has playground, art supplies, a library and plenty of space for Ollie to explore so we decided to give this a try.

And it went really well.

The babysitter did a great job. She let Ollie take the lead exploring the school and she knew exactly how to keep Ollie from being too clingy when he happened to see me in the hallways. It was really beautiful to hear Ollie’s laughter echo down the hallway as the babysitter joyfully followed him around the school.

The other part of this experience that was really touching was how much other faculty and administrators welcomed and played with Ollie. For the past week, people at my school have been coming up to me telling me about their interactions with Ollie, when he was being babysat in the building.  Some of this is “I saw him and he’s really cute,” but the majority of these recollections include stories of people talking to him, reading him stories, and playing with him.

I witnessed this when I was walking down the hallway and I saw two teachers with the babysitter playing with Ollie, reading books to his.  This was clearly more than a one-minute walk by greeting. It was really touching that people were going beyond simply being welcoming to Ollie to interacting with him and getting to know him.

Part of this has to do with the fact that people who work in schools generally like kids, but I think it’s more than that.  Ollie is very sensitive to his surroundings.  If there's a place where something doesn't feel right, he can be clingy.  However, if Ollie feels that he is safe and comfortable like he feels at my school, he really opens up.

Earlier this week I was carrying Ollie out of the school after busy morning of fun with his babysitter.  I saw a group of middle school field hockey players collecting in the entrance of the school.  Ollie was tired but when I told him, "hey Ollie, look, there's a bunch of girlies," he perked up, jumped out of my arms and ran towards them.  Before I knew it he was enveloped into the center of a crowd of twenty girls, giggling as they said talked to him.

A school that embraces my son, is an expression of my school's values, and the meaning and joy of being a community.

Naptime

Parenthood: Week 116 – One Of The Happiest Moments

Ollie stood in the hallway, tears flowing down his cheeks with a look of intense sadness and confusion on his face.

Most of the time when Ollie wakes up from his nap, he is a good mood, often being goofy, rolling around in his crib covering his head with his blanket. Every so often, he wakes up in a bad mood and this was one of those days.

I was home alone with Ollie when I heard his screams. I opened the door and tried to calm him down. He asked for me to put up the curtains and then immediately screamed that he wanted them down when I raised them. Ollie wanted to get out of the crib, but he didn’t want me to pick him up. He was discombobulated and he didn’t know what he wanted.

I reached towards him and moved him to the changing table against his protests. The new diaper didn’t calm him down and he continued to fight me as I put him on the ground in the hallway.  I offered him things that usually got him to calm down in the past like a book, some milk, a toy or a hug. With each offer, Ollie only got more upset and he pushed my hand away each time I tried to comfort him.

I had one last thing to offer Ollie that might calm him down, a change of scenery. Against his protests and attempts to keep me at a distance, I picked Ollie up and carried him downstairs.

Holding a screaming infant, requires support in your arms and also a feeling of softness. Carrying a screaming toddler is different. It’s an act that takes a more muscle, more force and an uncompromising stiffness, as you wrestle the toddler to stay in your arms.

I finally let him down at the bottom of the stairs.  I could feel the wetness of my shirt from Ollie’s tears on my shoulder as my brain raced to figure out what to do to help my son.

Then Diana walked through our front door.

Ollie reached up to her and she carried him over to the couch. Diana sat down held Ollie close to her. At first he continued to cry, but then he calmed down into soft whimpers and eventually, like the peace after a storm, there was silence in the house.

I went to the kitchen to do some dishes, exhausted from the ordeal, and thankful that Diana came home when she did. I don’t mind that Diana had the magic touch this time to help Ollie. Sometimes I’m the one who can help him soothe himself, sometimes its Diana. What matters is that someone can help him find his center.

After what felt like almost ten minutes of silence I heard Ollie soft and cheerful voice talking to Diana and Diana responding with patience and care.  Ollie had noticed Diana’s wedding rings and she was explaining to him how we got married, which led to Ollie and our family.

I stood back watching this conversation as Ollie sat up in Diana’s lap facing her, listening carefully to his mother. In that moment, both of them were so happy. It was like everything that they wanted in the world was right in front of them and in each other they fond true joy.

When I think about the happiest moments in my life life there’s Diana walk the aisle at my wedding and seeing Diana hold Ollie for the first time. Then there’s this moment, watching Ollie and Diana talking about our family, our love and our beautiful life.

Year 6: Week 0 – That Feeling Of Being Ready

I have never felt fully prepared for the beginning of the school year.

My wife makes fun of me for kind of being a boy scout when we go on trips. I always make sure to back extras of almost everything. This used to cause me more stress than benefit so with Diana’s help, I’ve eased off the craziness of trying to pack everything we could possible need and enjoying traveling a little bit more.

So why have I never started the school year with everything in its place and feeling ready to go?

The three times I was a new teacher at a school, it was impossible to be fully prepared. It is true as it is often said at my school that you really have to live through the year of a school and experience the year. You can prepare to a point but you have to be okay with not fully understanding events that happen in the school year and go with things as they come.

What about the other years, that I had ALL of summer break to prepare for the upcoming school year? There’s a lot of things that end up coming up like getting married, summer camps, moving, having a newborn baby at home and "life."   I’ve tried many different approaches to doing work over the summer and while things get done, work over the summer is never as productive as getting work done during the year. Other faculty and administrators may not be checking their email as often but the main problem is that without the energy of the kids, it’s really hard to stay focused and motivated.

I’ve learned to accept and be at piece with this feeling I get every fall when I don’t feel prepared at all for my kids. A lot of this is a feeling. I have music ordered; I’ve done a fair amount of organization in my classroom. I’m actually not in bad shape. But I would like to be further in my curriculum planning and I still have a bout sixty names to learn and seating charts to make, and music to learn, and photocopies to make, and supplies to order and . . . ugh.

Embracing the experience of being a teacher means that we understanding that teaching is a practice and that it is an art form that is never fully mastered and therefore can never be done.  Preparing is critical as a teacher and we should strive to set-up our classrooms and plans for our students' success.  But if you keep chasing the feeling of having every little thing in place, you will continue to be stressed out because you can't prepare for kids you don't know yet and the crazy unexpected events that happen every day in schools.

I get it y'all, it's super-stressful to get prepared for the beginning of the school year.  We all share that feeling of being of not being as prepared as we would like when the kids enter the room.  It's okay.  This feeling comes from a place of care and not feeling this way is a sign of apathy.

Be as prepared as you can be.  If not everything gets done, it's okay.  Work with what you got.  The most important thing we offer our kids it not an immaculate bulletin board or a perfectly planned lesson.  What makes the impact in our students' lives is our attention, our presence and our sincere interest in our students as learners and wonderful human beings.    

Parenthood: Week 115 – The Little Chatterbox

“Do you have any idea what he just said? No? How about you? Anybody?”

Sitting in a friend’s backyard, eight of us, all parents of toddlers were completely confused trying to figure out what one of our kids had said. Usually the parent of the toddler can figure it out but at least a couple times during a get-together, we are all stumped.

Sometimes it’s frustrating for the toddler to not be understood and sometimes it’s frustrating for parents who can’t understand their child, but most of the time, toddler-speak is endearing and adorable.

I remember Ollie’s first "word" that he said. It was “da” and of course people jumped to the conclusion that he was saying “dad,” but there was no meaning connected to this word. Ollie’s first real expression of communicative language with a handful of baby sign-language words we taught him. The speaking went in spurts. Sometimes he would make a lot of sounds, and then there were other stretches when he wasn’t so chatty. Now that we’ve entered toddlerhood, talking has been a big part of Ollie’s self-expression.

We are currently in that wonderful stage where we can encourage Ollie to talk but we don’t have to worry about correcting him when he mispronounces words like umbrella (or as Ollie calls it "biyaya").  At first Ollie just worked with nouns. Verbs became part of his understanding and now he’s putting together sentences that sometimes have direct objects! Ollie often leaves out articles and he doesn’t grasp the concept of pronouns. So we are often treated to Ollie’s third person narration of his own life.

Ollie often makes up words for objects, which makes senses, since to him, it probably seems like we are making up names for things all of the time. Sometimes we repeat back the words correctly to Ollie and other times we just go with his word. Now our conversations are sprinkled with toddler talk, sometimes when we aren't even with Ollie.

It can be challenging to figure out what Ollie is trying to say when he is upset and we are trying to help him. It’s in these moments that I need to remind myself of how far Ollie has come. Once upon a time, he didn’t talk at all. While his vocabulary and his ability to form sounds into words is amazing, there’s something about the way he talks that is really touching.

Ollie doesn’t just talk to us when he wants something from us. He tells us about what he is doing and what he did earlier in the day. He talks to us when he is happy and he talks to us when he is sad. Ollie loves talking to us and we love to listen to what he has to say.

It took me a long time to realize that sharing your life with people that you love is what brings meaning to life.

Ollie already has this figured out.

Walls (Circus) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

We walk through guarded. We learn as we grow up that we need to be cautious, that sometimes we can’t fully be ourselves with the people in our world. We put walls to protect ourselves.

Every time we have an emotional connection with someone, a brick of that wall evaporates. Sometimes it’s because we take a chance to share something about ourselves and other times it’s because we take the effort to look further beyond the wall.



I’ve been listening to Tom Petty’s “Walls (Circus)" non-stop since my wife and I had to say goodbye to a dear friend who was moving way. “Walls (Circus)” has always been my favorite Tom Petty song. It’s from 1996, the age when movie soundtracks ruled the charts and while I didn’t even see the Jennifer Anniston film She’s the One that this song is from, I’ve never forgotten this song.

There are times when a song so perfectly matches how you feel that even though you don’t fully understand what you are feeling.  And by listening to the song that somehow fits, everything just makes more sense.

The lyrics don't perfectly describe this person and our relationship. However, there are lines that resonate.  Our friend does has have a huge heart, and the lines about things being over and things moving on really do seem to speak to this difficult transitions in all our lives.

This song is about the dichotomies in life and how difficult it is to make it through. It’s about how we have these barricades and walls not only between people we meet but also with difficulties we face in life. It’s an important reminded that as distant as we may feel from the people around us and as difficult as life can be, walls do fall down.

This song is about more than hope. It’s about believing that with the love we share, joy in life is inevitable.

Distance has been a part of relationships in my life for as long as I can remember.  I had family in Taiwan, I moved away from college and after college people moved away from me.  It doesn't get easier.  You can choose to keep your distance from people for fear that they will move away or that a friendship will end.  It's so easy to game out how something will not work and it's so hard to look past these doubts.  It's a choice, and the hard choice is what life is all about.  Every time you take down a wall with someone else, it makes it that much easier to do it again and embrace the people in your life.

There is a wall between who you see yourself as and who you really are and only with the love of people who really see you, can you bring down that wall and love yourself.    

The distance between our friend will cause challenges, but it is a wall that will fall down.  Once upon a time, all I knew of this person was her name, and less than two years later, I'm having trouble imagining her not being around.  As past walls fell down, I know this new one will fall as well.

Some days are diamonds and some days are rocks.  But these days while lived apart, are more meaningful and beautiful, because we know there is someone out there thinking of us as we hold them in our hearts.