Here’s three of my favorite moments from the first week of Ollie’s life.
1. Some Light Reading - I’m so excited to share the world of books with Ollie. For the past couple days I’ve been reading books to him and its been a lot of fun. Also we got this great Art For Babies book as well as this Lamaze High-Contrast Crib Gallery for him. Now when he is laying in his crib as he falls asleep he can do a little bed time reading (don’t worry we’re not leaving this stuff in his crib overnight). Newborns can only really track black and white contrasts so these are perfect for him. It’s never too early to get the love of reading started in your children.
2. Bath time – Along with feeding your child and keeping him or her warm, keeping your kid clean is one of those innate parental instincts. It’s not like I’m a germaphobe, but it’s important to me that Ollie is clean. So when Diana and I gave him his first bath, it was a really cute family moment. For most of it, Ollie was not happy with us but then as Diana gently washed his hair he closed his eyes and calmed down. Diana wrapped him in a dry towel when we were done and I left to get his baby comb. Immediately, Diana called me back over. Ollie had just pooed all over the towels and himself.
Awesome, right after we had just got him cleaned up.
Also, we ended up using two washcloths and three full sized bath towels to do his bath.
How did that work out?
3. Saying Goodnight – Every night before I go to bed I crawl on the floor wherever Buffy has settled down for the night, kiss her on the forehead and tell her that I love her and pet her gently. Then I say goodnight to Diana and say I love you and we drift off to sleep.
Now there’s one more person for me to say goodnight to. It’s not like where the Walton’s or anything, but this adjustment is one of my favorite parts of having Ollie in our family.
Saying goodnight to Ollie has reminded me to not take this ritual for granted. The last words we say to the ones we love before we go to sleep are
thoughts that we hope comfort them through the night and stay with them for the rest of their lives.
It's been an amazing week and I can't wait to see what adventures we have in store with Ollie next week.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Dear Ollie - A Father's Promise
Dear Ollie,
Right now you are five days old and are sleeping cradled in your mother’s arms. It seems like just yesterday your mom and I were referring to you as our little poppy seed because of how small you were early in your life and now you are something so much more: our son.
There’s so much that I want to tell you about the first five days of your life, but I don’t really know where to start. All the events that have led up to you being in your mom’s arms right now are important because of what they meant to your mother and I. At the same time, those stories don’t seem as relevant right now because what truly matters is that you are safe, healthy and with your family.
So right now I’m going to tell you a couple things that I’ve been thinking about when I’ve been holding you.
Like any other father I have my hopes for you. I want you to be happy and healthy, but I also know that there will be times when you will be sad and very sick. I want you to find meaning in the bonds of friendship and love and also in the ends of relationships and the heat of anger. I want you to know yourself, and define your life not through comparisons with others, but by how true you are to yourself.
More than anything else, I want you to find meaning in sharing life with the ones that you love.
In the past five days you have changed the life of the people that have met you and even touched the lives of those who only know you through pictures and videos. You have brought light, joy and happiness into the world. In this way you will always be in our hearts. This will happen throughout your life as long as you let the spirit inside of you shine on the people you encounter in your life.
Your mother and I promise you that every single day we will tell you that we love you and that you are beautiful because of who you are on the inside. If there’s ever a day when we can’t say this to you in person we will think it as we close our eyes and go to sleep at night. Some day far from now when we have left this world, you will hear our voices inside of you fulfilling this promise and in this way, we will always be a part of you.
The future is like the darkness. It’s hard to know what’s beyond the light. Sometimes that makes us afraid. But every time I have stepped into that darkness, it has only brought more light into my life. In this way, the future is not something to fear, rather something to be excited about: an adventure.
Let's go on that adventure and don't worry,
I'll be there with you every step of the way.
-Dad
Monday, May 27, 2013
Oliver Jameson Tang - My Son
On Friday May 24th, at 1:39am, Diana and I welcomed our son, Oliver Jameson Tang into the world.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Year 3: Week 33 – One Day More
One of the signs of a healthy school is that once in a while the teachers and administrators get together to have some fun and show the student body that while they take their jobs seriously, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
At my school there’s the annual M&D show. It’s a combination of mash-ups, sketches and music videos. Two years ago, I was in a music video, last year I helped arrange a rap song on elementary school music instruments and this year I taught a group of seniors, juniors, administrators, teachers and staff members a parody of “One Day More” from Les Miserables.
“One Day More” is the “everyone sing about the conflicts they are currently dealing with at the same time”-song which echoes back to Bernstein’s “Tonight,” from West Side Story.
This was literally the last idea I came up with for the finale of this show. When the people organizing the show asked for some ideas I came up with about twenty and on a whim, I threw in “On Day More.” And of course it ended up being the one they wanted to do.
So we met a couple times and re-wrote the lyrics. The seniors were going to sing about leaving the school and the juniors were going to sing about becoming seniors. The administration and staff sang about the fact that they have to work over the summer when the teachers and students are away and the teachers sang about finishing their grade reports. (I walk on from the left side of the screen at 1:50, in a dark blue vest and red tie).
Teaching juniors and seniors was kind of refreshing, even though we met an hour before school started. I taught high school for two years at my first teaching job and I was pleasantly surprised at their attention and the how quickly they learned the music.
The administration, staff members and teachers were a different story. It wasn’t that they didn’t learn the music well. It was just tricky to teach them. I couldn’t really “teacher" them, because I wasn’t acting so much as a teacher but something completely different.
We wanted to have the adults sound good on stage but the rehearsals needed to be fun. We met multiple times early before school and it was important that this time was productive but also fun. This was our time to bond, to catch up and to really enjoy being together as a community by doing something kind of absurd.
Instead of waiting for everyone to be quiet before starting as I would with kids, I just barreled through conversations. Between repetitions, I let the group chat and I didn’t try to quell laughter when someone would made a joke. With some sarcastic yelling coming from me, weird analogies and over the top conducting we got it done and put on a good performance.
While it was a challenge to teach the group this song, it was a lot of fun. It’s a weird feeling to teach teachers, but it’s also really rewarding because they get what you are trying to do. Putting this together took a lot of time and some people may think that we are crazy for spending so much time on something like this. They're wrong, because it's doing things like this that makes a school a community and brings meaning to what we teach.
At my school there’s the annual M&D show. It’s a combination of mash-ups, sketches and music videos. Two years ago, I was in a music video, last year I helped arrange a rap song on elementary school music instruments and this year I taught a group of seniors, juniors, administrators, teachers and staff members a parody of “One Day More” from Les Miserables.
“One Day More” is the “everyone sing about the conflicts they are currently dealing with at the same time”-song which echoes back to Bernstein’s “Tonight,” from West Side Story.
This was literally the last idea I came up with for the finale of this show. When the people organizing the show asked for some ideas I came up with about twenty and on a whim, I threw in “On Day More.” And of course it ended up being the one they wanted to do.
So we met a couple times and re-wrote the lyrics. The seniors were going to sing about leaving the school and the juniors were going to sing about becoming seniors. The administration and staff sang about the fact that they have to work over the summer when the teachers and students are away and the teachers sang about finishing their grade reports. (I walk on from the left side of the screen at 1:50, in a dark blue vest and red tie).
Teaching juniors and seniors was kind of refreshing, even though we met an hour before school started. I taught high school for two years at my first teaching job and I was pleasantly surprised at their attention and the how quickly they learned the music.
The administration, staff members and teachers were a different story. It wasn’t that they didn’t learn the music well. It was just tricky to teach them. I couldn’t really “teacher" them, because I wasn’t acting so much as a teacher but something completely different.
We wanted to have the adults sound good on stage but the rehearsals needed to be fun. We met multiple times early before school and it was important that this time was productive but also fun. This was our time to bond, to catch up and to really enjoy being together as a community by doing something kind of absurd.
Instead of waiting for everyone to be quiet before starting as I would with kids, I just barreled through conversations. Between repetitions, I let the group chat and I didn’t try to quell laughter when someone would made a joke. With some sarcastic yelling coming from me, weird analogies and over the top conducting we got it done and put on a good performance.
While it was a challenge to teach the group this song, it was a lot of fun. It’s a weird feeling to teach teachers, but it’s also really rewarding because they get what you are trying to do. Putting this together took a lot of time and some people may think that we are crazy for spending so much time on something like this. They're wrong, because it's doing things like this that makes a school a community and brings meaning to what we teach.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Third Trimester
You know you’ve reached the third trimester of your wife’s pregnancy when a Superman trailer makes you cry.
After reading Superman comics my entire life, I never thought about how incomprehensibly difficult it was for Jor-El to send his son to earth and the challenge of Superman's earth father in raising an adopted child. Seriously, this trailer gets to me every time.
The third trimester has the feeling of a continued "hurry up and wait." There are times when I feel like the baby could come at any moment. Everyday things like getting a haircut become questions of timing: "What if I need to leave this haircut because Diana goes into labor?" So you rush to prepare some things and then . . . nothing happens.
The closer the due date got, the more I got used to this feeling of uncertainty. To a certain extent you just have to live your life normally. Most of the time this works, but every time my phone vibrates in my pocket, part of me starts panicking making me realize that my life has completely changed.
I still am doing good stuff at my job and I'm still keeping my hobbies like this blog and running going, but all of it seems to be simply activities that I'm doing to pass the time before my baby comes. It's not that these things aren't significant, they just don't seem as central to my life right now.
Just because my son hasn't been born doesn't mean he isn't with us. I gave Diana a mother's day gift because in my eyes she's already a mom. He's been with us for most of the past year. As much as I know it'll be different to finally hold him in my arms, we have a son right now and he has already brought so much joy into our lives.
Facing the coming of a baby forces your life into perspective. You think about yourself as a child and then you think about your parents and how you will fit that role. The beginning of your relationship with your partner comes to mind as you remember that moment when you decided that there really is something there that makes this relationship worth pursuing.
In the present you have to make choices of what to do with your time as the minutes go by faster and your responsibilities heighten. Your thoughts about the future weaves through your memories as your past transforms into hopes for the future.
While most of the time these thoughts and memories are flowing through my head, every once in a while there's clarity, a silence. In that moment, there is simply emotion. It's not an image, but a feeling of meaning, peace and contentment. It's like everything in my past and everything I hope for my future is right.
Son, thanks for changing my life, bringing light into my heart and being the peace at my center.
After reading Superman comics my entire life, I never thought about how incomprehensibly difficult it was for Jor-El to send his son to earth and the challenge of Superman's earth father in raising an adopted child. Seriously, this trailer gets to me every time.
The third trimester has the feeling of a continued "hurry up and wait." There are times when I feel like the baby could come at any moment. Everyday things like getting a haircut become questions of timing: "What if I need to leave this haircut because Diana goes into labor?" So you rush to prepare some things and then . . . nothing happens.
The closer the due date got, the more I got used to this feeling of uncertainty. To a certain extent you just have to live your life normally. Most of the time this works, but every time my phone vibrates in my pocket, part of me starts panicking making me realize that my life has completely changed.
I still am doing good stuff at my job and I'm still keeping my hobbies like this blog and running going, but all of it seems to be simply activities that I'm doing to pass the time before my baby comes. It's not that these things aren't significant, they just don't seem as central to my life right now.
Just because my son hasn't been born doesn't mean he isn't with us. I gave Diana a mother's day gift because in my eyes she's already a mom. He's been with us for most of the past year. As much as I know it'll be different to finally hold him in my arms, we have a son right now and he has already brought so much joy into our lives.
Facing the coming of a baby forces your life into perspective. You think about yourself as a child and then you think about your parents and how you will fit that role. The beginning of your relationship with your partner comes to mind as you remember that moment when you decided that there really is something there that makes this relationship worth pursuing.
In the present you have to make choices of what to do with your time as the minutes go by faster and your responsibilities heighten. Your thoughts about the future weaves through your memories as your past transforms into hopes for the future.
While most of the time these thoughts and memories are flowing through my head, every once in a while there's clarity, a silence. In that moment, there is simply emotion. It's not an image, but a feeling of meaning, peace and contentment. It's like everything in my past and everything I hope for my future is right.
Son, thanks for changing my life, bringing light into my heart and being the peace at my center.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners
The year I was born was a crazy year in music. There was Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy, and Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind” (I’ve written about all of these songs, just click on the song title.” These three songs have maintained status in pop culture in film and television commercials (Soprano’s, Zoolander, jeans commercials).
One song that really deserves a resurgence in pop culture is one of my favorite songs from my birth year “Come On Eileen.”
There’s so much that is weird about this song in such an awesome way. First off, Dexy’s Midnight Runners is named after the drug Dexedrine, and midnight running was the idea about dancing all night when using that drug. With this kind of band name you expect some kind of club, synthesized dance music. Instead you get a unique folk-inspired song, full of heart.
This song doesn’t really sound anything like the other songs that came out that I mentioned earlier in this post. Well none of those songs sound at all like each other which is one year 1982 was such an incredible year in music. “Come On Elieen,” has musical allusions throughout its structure from the opening violin playing the irish folk song “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” to mentioning of Johnnie Ray a 1950s singer-songwriter.
“Come On Eileen” kicks in with a myriad of instrument including a piano, accordion, trombone and saxophones and violins. Nothing about the groove feels like something that would chart on a the U.S. Billboard charts but it became a number 1 hit, sandwiched between “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” by Michael Jackson.
The lyrics are often misunderstood. Even when I follow along with them its still hard to understand what is being sung. Basically it’s a reflection on the previous generation and being amazed at how much this girl Eileen has grown up. The chorus, which I grew up thinking, was:
I remember dancing to this song in college, twenty years after it came out and feeling the dance floor slow down and pick up towards the end of this song. It’s really a beautiful musical moment that is rarely experienced in pop music.
“Come On Eileen,” is a beautiful song with so much spirit and heart. There’s a reverence to the past in its words and music and also an innocence that makes this song shine like the smile of a close friend.
Let’s bring this song back to the center of pop culture. It’s well-deserving of the attention and primed for a new generation to misinterpret the lyrics as they dance along to the sweet sounds of Too-ra-loo-rye-aye.
One song that really deserves a resurgence in pop culture is one of my favorite songs from my birth year “Come On Eileen.”
There’s so much that is weird about this song in such an awesome way. First off, Dexy’s Midnight Runners is named after the drug Dexedrine, and midnight running was the idea about dancing all night when using that drug. With this kind of band name you expect some kind of club, synthesized dance music. Instead you get a unique folk-inspired song, full of heart.
This song doesn’t really sound anything like the other songs that came out that I mentioned earlier in this post. Well none of those songs sound at all like each other which is one year 1982 was such an incredible year in music. “Come On Elieen,” has musical allusions throughout its structure from the opening violin playing the irish folk song “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” to mentioning of Johnnie Ray a 1950s singer-songwriter.
“Come On Eileen” kicks in with a myriad of instrument including a piano, accordion, trombone and saxophones and violins. Nothing about the groove feels like something that would chart on a the U.S. Billboard charts but it became a number 1 hit, sandwiched between “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” by Michael Jackson.
The lyrics are often misunderstood. Even when I follow along with them its still hard to understand what is being sung. Basically it’s a reflection on the previous generation and being amazed at how much this girl Eileen has grown up. The chorus, which I grew up thinking, was:
At this moment,Is actually a much sweater sentiment:
take off everything,
You in that fress
Oh, it falls on your breast,
Oh you’re dirty,
Oh, come on Eileen
At this moment you mean everything,There’s an amazing and sudden change in the groove into the chorus that happens with a shift in the meter dropping two beats that you expect to hear. Then there’s one of the most unusual musical devices in pop music an accelerando. Pop songs rarely speed up and slow down. There’s only a handful of examples when this happens. The moment when “Come On Eileen,” slows down and slowly grinds ups up makes you feel like you are hearing a live recording of the band.
You in that dress,
My thoughts I confess,
Verge on dirty ,
Oh, come on Eileen
I remember dancing to this song in college, twenty years after it came out and feeling the dance floor slow down and pick up towards the end of this song. It’s really a beautiful musical moment that is rarely experienced in pop music.
“Come On Eileen,” is a beautiful song with so much spirit and heart. There’s a reverence to the past in its words and music and also an innocence that makes this song shine like the smile of a close friend.
Let’s bring this song back to the center of pop culture. It’s well-deserving of the attention and primed for a new generation to misinterpret the lyrics as they dance along to the sweet sounds of Too-ra-loo-rye-aye.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Year 3: Week 32 – The Best Part Of The Concert
Last night I stood in front of seventy band students and conducted them through an arrangement of “Some Nights,” by Fun that I arranged for them. This group combined the three middle school bands as well as the high school band. The song was awesome and the energy my students brought to their performance reflected the great hard the work they put into learning and rehearsing this song.
I feel incredibly proud of this performance and the work all of my students leading up to that moment, however this performance was not my favorite moment of the evening.
That’s one of the things I love about concerts. There’s all these moments that happen around a concert beyond a performance that really make nights like this for me special.
After we warmed up I talked to one of my high school students that I started on the flute two years ago. She is now in the high school band and I was looking forward to working with her again. As we sat catching up on things, she asked me why I chose to teach middle school students. As I explained middle schools’ students potential for greatness, I realized how much I missed teaching this student and I remembered back to starting her on the flute and teaching her how to hold the instrument.
Then there was the moment when I watched my 6th grade band students enjoy watching the 6th grade choir. The 6th grade choir performed an African piece of music, the 6th grade band students started moving to the music. I was initially concerned that they were being disrespectful, but they were genuinely feeling the groove. The applause that group of students gave the choir was genuine and heartfelt and made me really proud of the admiration and musical respect they expressed to their peers.
My favorite moment of the evening involved my 8th graders. This was a class of students I had known since they were in 6th grade. As a band we worked really hard to bond and learn how to work together as a team. We went through a lot of different challenges but through it this entire band bonded as a group that had become one of my favorite to work with.
Last night was the last time they were going to perform with me and as I watched them after they performed sitting the audience, I realized how much I was going to miss them. I was sitting on the left side of the balcony with my 6th graders and my 8th graders were on the far right. From my spot sitting with my 6th graders, I looked over to my 8th graders and saw them laughing, smiling and genuinely enjoying spending time with each other. At that moment I felt proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with these amazing students.
The performance was great but it was these moments that made the concert special for me and an experience that I will never forget.
I feel incredibly proud of this performance and the work all of my students leading up to that moment, however this performance was not my favorite moment of the evening.
That’s one of the things I love about concerts. There’s all these moments that happen around a concert beyond a performance that really make nights like this for me special.
After we warmed up I talked to one of my high school students that I started on the flute two years ago. She is now in the high school band and I was looking forward to working with her again. As we sat catching up on things, she asked me why I chose to teach middle school students. As I explained middle schools’ students potential for greatness, I realized how much I missed teaching this student and I remembered back to starting her on the flute and teaching her how to hold the instrument.
Then there was the moment when I watched my 6th grade band students enjoy watching the 6th grade choir. The 6th grade choir performed an African piece of music, the 6th grade band students started moving to the music. I was initially concerned that they were being disrespectful, but they were genuinely feeling the groove. The applause that group of students gave the choir was genuine and heartfelt and made me really proud of the admiration and musical respect they expressed to their peers.
My favorite moment of the evening involved my 8th graders. This was a class of students I had known since they were in 6th grade. As a band we worked really hard to bond and learn how to work together as a team. We went through a lot of different challenges but through it this entire band bonded as a group that had become one of my favorite to work with.
Last night was the last time they were going to perform with me and as I watched them after they performed sitting the audience, I realized how much I was going to miss them. I was sitting on the left side of the balcony with my 6th graders and my 8th graders were on the far right. From my spot sitting with my 6th graders, I looked over to my 8th graders and saw them laughing, smiling and genuinely enjoying spending time with each other. At that moment I felt proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with these amazing students.
The performance was great but it was these moments that made the concert special for me and an experience that I will never forget.
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