Category Archives: Parental Guidance

Parental Guidance

One More Year

hat.jpgLast year, I wrote an appreciation for The Baby on her third birthday. Here it is a year later, and she’s turning four, which I can barely fathom. She talks better than me now. She’s learning her letters and numbers at lightning speed. I’m looking into kindergartens (to enroll her in, not just peeping through the window). She has become extremely opinionated about her daily wardrobe. Truth be told, she’s not The Baby any more. She’s a little girl.

I can barely say that, or even write it, because it seems so insane to me. The amount of time that’s passed in her life already is unfathomable to me, as difficult to wrap my head around as the concept of infinity (which I had to do when she asked me ‘What comes after space?’ and I tried to explain to her that space goes on forever). And I realize that so many of the cute things she said and did when she was little are dangerously close to being lost in my memory (because I need that brain-space to remember crappy 30-year-old commercials).

So I’m furiously trying to compile all these items so they won’t be forgotten (in a Word doc, because computer programs never become obsolete!). Like how when she was newborn, she wouldn’t cry, but make a ‘mew’ sound, almost like a kitten. How when was only a few months old, she used to light up when she heard the Feist tune used in an incessant series of iPod ads. How she had a set of play keys and would toddle around the house trying to “unlock” all the doorknobs she could barely reach.

spacecadet.jpgAs I compiled these things, going in chronological order as much as I can, what I keep coming back to is how gloriously silly she is, and how that allows me to be silly in a way that would be impossible without her. Like how she’s watched Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure so many times now that I recite scenes from it with her, verbatim (at her insistence). Or how she does the herky-jerky dance from Mr. Show (don’t worry, I just let her watch the dancing part). Or how she wants to be a “spaceman,” and asks mommy to make her a spacesuit out of tinfoil. (Stunning results seen here.) Or how, when she’s taking a bath, she loves to see me slide past the open bathroom door in my socks, often backward. (I’m talented.)

With each passing day, as she discovers something new, I feel like I’m discovering it right along with her. It helps that she has an affinity for things I like, such as The Adventures of Pete and Pete (she does a spot-on impression of Artie, Strongest Man in the World). But it’s so easy to be jaded and cynical about everything in this world, and having her in my life reminds me that there are wonderful things in it.

When she was first born, and I’d see her lying in her bassinet sleeping, I’d approach it slowly and listen for her breathing. It seemed impossible to me that something so unbelievably tiny and fragile could be alive. I thought a strong wind could hurt her. As time goes on, you realize that kids are much tougher than they appear. I’m astounded at how quickly her bumps and bruises disappear; you can literally see her heal over the course of a day.

Even so, when your child is hurt, it pains you like nothing you’ve felt before. Earlier this year, The Baby came home from school in an odd mood. She’s very often cranky, but this was something different entirely. She seemed depressed. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she said “nothing,” in this sad, distant voice that told me it definitely wasn’t nothing.

I did lots of things to cheer her up, putting on her favorite shows, taking her out for pizza, then getting her ice cream. She’d be happy for short bursts, then I could see a switch go off, as if she remembered “oh wait, I’m still sad,” and she would settle into a funk again.

Finally, as we walked back home, I got the story out of her. Some boy she was friends with at day care said he wasn’t going to play with her anymore. He would play with some other girl. She was heartbroken, and it broke my heart, too. It was her first taste of rejection more serious than me not giving her a cookie, and I realized this was the just the first of many heartbreaks that awaited her. I thought about being a little kid and how awful it feels to be excluded, usually for reasons you’re never told or can’t understand, and I felt the weight of all that sadness on me.

We were walking home on an overpass above the Long Island Expressway. She likes to watch the cars zip back and forth beneath her, especially at night, and the Manhattan skyline glisten through the exhaust haze in the distance. She stared in that direction, but really didn’t take any of it in.

“You feel sad?” I asked

“Yeah,” she said.

“You know what I do when I feel sad? I think about things that make me happy. You know what makes me happy? You.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sometimes I’ll get sad or mad during the day when I’m away from you, and I’ll think of something silly you did or said and it makes me happy. Maybe you can think of somebody who makes you happy and that will make you feel better.”

She thought for a while, hand on chin, and named a classmate, not the one who’d just rejected her. “She makes me funny!” she said, which I interpreted to mean, She makes me laugh, and added, “I like to make people funny!”

“It’s nice to make people laugh,” I said, “because when people laugh, they’re happy.”

“Yeah…” she said, with a little laugh herself. We went home and watched Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure for the 8 billionth time. She laughed as hard as she always does for the Breakfast Machine scene, and when Pee-Wee yells IS THERE SOMETHING YOU CAN SHARE WITH THE REST OF US, AMAZING LARRY?!

She could not stay awake long enough to see her other favorite part, Pee-Wee overdubbed in his movie cameo (“Paging Mr. Herman…”), and fell asleep curled up next to me. I carried her to bed, laid her down, and kissed her good-night.

Watching her sleep, I thought about how tiny she once was and how I used to think her every breath was a miracle. And I thought about how fragile she once was, and still is, and how there isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do to spare her one second of pain. Though I’m sure I could do anything for her, I haven’t been called on to do anything Herculean yet. Usually it just takes a 98-pound man-child wrapping scotch tape around his face.

Parental Guidance, Tuneage

Where Nursery School Meets Loony Bin

As a parent, you realize very quickly that you’re going to have to watch a lot of crap on TV you really don’t want to. At first, it’s because you realize a certain program can calm down a hysterical baby or hasten sleepy-time. (For my kid, that certain program was Predator.)

Eventually, your child will develop his/her own tastes and want to watch the same movie or show over and over and over again. And thanks to DVDs and video on demand, it’s easier than ever before to indulge this OCD. Of course, none of this stuff is meant for your adult eyes/brain, but some of it grates on you more than others.

Like many preschool kids, The Baby went through a Caillou phase, which I believe she has finally outgrown (knock on wood). If you don’t have children, you have probably never seen this show and I suggest you continue to avoid it. Caillou is about a four-year-old bald kid who is an enormous weiner. I can’t think of a better word to describe this kid; “weiner” covers it, with its implication of profound uncoolness.

There’s nothing really wrong with the show in aggregate, but the character of Caillou drives me up the wall. He has a squeaky little kid voice with a pronounced Canadian accident. He is preternaturally well-spoken and well-behaved in a way that no four-year-old has ever been. And everything in the world must revolve around him. If you remember The Kids in the Hall sketches with Bruce McCulloch as Gavin, Caillou is like a slightly younger version of that.

Oh, and Caillou has songs. Almost all little kid shows do, but these songs feel slapped together, both lyrically and musically. Really slapped together. I think they were all written by Garth and Kat.

This clip below is a perfect example. I can’t remember why Caillou is singing about being in a rock and roll band, not that it matters. The song clearly takes longer to listen to than the composer took to write it.

And yet, when I heard this song, it struck a chord. It reminded me of something–not despite its threadbare intellect, but because of it. It rattled at the back of my mind for a while, searching for a connection, until it hit me like a bolt from the blue: It sounds exactly like Wesley Willis’ “Rock and Roll McDonalds”. Don’t believe me? Have a listen.

In case you don’t remember or were too young to catch him the first time around, Wesley Willis was a schizophrenic who rose to “fame” in the 1990s thanks to songs he made with Casio keyboard presets, which he used to drive away the “demons in his head” that would take him on “hellrides”. Some of his songs were about how much he loved music, some were about beating up superheroes, and some were obscene rants involving animals.

Of course, since every Wesley Willis song sounds exactly the same, you could say “Caillou’s Rock and Roll Band” resembles any of them. But I think this comparison is more apt than, say, “Eat a Panda’s Ass.”

Parental Guidance

Don’t Talk to Me About Parenting Philosophy Until I’ve Had My Coffee

This morning, as I dropped The Baby off at day care, another parent was talking to one of the teachers about her kid. Apparently, he’d been “bad” the day before, committing transgressions such as pouring an entire juice box into a Little People dollhouse (which I, of course, found hilarious). He also threw a block at an unnamed girl, which prompted said girl to smack him in retaliation.

“It think I know who that girl was,” the teacher said, and gave my daughter a knowing look.

This troubled me, so I bent low and asked The Baby if she’d hit this kid. Her answer was unclear, but her hemming and hawing suggested that she probably had. “You shouldn’t do that,” I told her. “If somebody hits you, tell the teacher.”

“But it’s good if she sticks up for herself!” the teacher said, clearly not bothered by any of this.

“Yeah, but she can stick up for herself without smacking somebody,” I responded.

“It’s okay,” the mom said, lowering herself to eye level with The Baby. “If [KID’S NAME] does that again, you can hit him. He deserved it!”

Thanks, Other Kid’s Mom! You just gave my kid license to hit your kid whenever she wants! Just because you said she should only do it when your kid “deserves” it, that doesn’t mean she will, or that she’s a capable judge of when retribution is called for. I saw her once charge across the room at another kid because she thought he looked at her funny. (By the way, there is nothing more simultaneously adorable and terrifying as a baby on a rampage.)

Also, once you say something to a three-year-old, it can not be unsaid or dislodged from their brain. Did you once say it was okay to eat jellybeans before dinner? You now have a kid who expects to eat jellybeans before dinner every single night for the rest of their live, because you said something in passing once.

And this is all happening at 7:30 in the morning, people. I am in no state of mind to start an argument over conflict resolution among three-year-olds, or to simply tell this other parent to mind their own beeswax. I just wanna kiss The Baby goodbye and drive to work without getting sideswiped by a Hasidic school bus (the deadliest vehicles on the Williamsburg streets).

So I just said, “Well, I gotta head to work now,” hugged The Baby and went on my way. I fully expect to be punched in the head when I get home tonight.