Parenting Brings Out the Philosopher in Me

My mom often tells people (or so she tells me) that her greatest accomplishment in life has been me and my brother. Now, while I have to admit that Greg and I are two strapping, responsible, respectful, big-hearted men, I've always felt very clear--and mom, if you're reading this, don't take this the wrong way--that I needed more than children to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Believe me, Jackson was the absolute epicenter of my life for more than 10 years, until he had to make room for Sarah to share that epicenter. More recently, of course, he's had to skooch over even more for Max. But when I'm on my death bed (and please, whoever decides these things, make it a comfy one), merely having been a father won't give me the sense of fullness I'm hoping for.

I was thinking about this recently as I drove around doing errands with Max in tow. The way everyone responds to him, you'd think the stroller contained Michelangelo's David, and in a sense, I suppose it does. Every baby really is a work of art. Regardless, I started asking myself, what does a person have to do for his life to be considered a success? Does he have to be remembered and beloved beyond his family, friends and loved ones? Must he invent something that changes the world? Weed out evil wherever it exists in the world? Raise money to build schools in third-world communities? Take in homeless pets?

I asked Sarah what she thought, and her first instinct was to say that someone who achieves happiness is a success. But that's too easy--there are plenty of terrible people in the world who achieve happiness without any chance of being considered a success in the final analysis.

Is it as simple as treating others with kindness and respect, and being mindful of everything that's flowing around you? Spreading love to those you touch, and accepting the love of others in a deep and meaningful way?

Hopefully, you didn't continue reading this post in the hope that I was going provide an answer, because quite frankly, it's not possible. Success is an awfully big word, and with so many people doing so many things and living their lives in so many ways, there has to be more valid definitions of success than just about any word in the English language.

What I do know is this: If I were to die today, I'd consider myself a success in some regards, not so much in others. I think I've learned to be a good husband and father who's willing to acknowledge and try to address his flaws. I also have managed to build a life that allows me to rule my own schedule, and that in itself is worth more money than I could ever imagine making. But I've also demonstrated a penchant for having big ideas, and even starting to execute them--but never seeming to finish them.

So there you go, I've worked it out. If I want to ultimately consider myself a success--and really, in the end, whose approval do we need more than our own?--I need to become a better finisher. Yep, I'm gonna get right on that. Once I usher Jackson into adulthood, navigate Max through childhood, figure out how to be the best husband I can be to Sarah, and finish updating all the remaining elements on our house, that is. I certainly hope this success thing is all it's cracked up to be.

Now that I think about it, Jackson and Max have given me a big head-start. My mom has had it partly right all along.

Max, the Emerging Person: We Must Be Doing Something Right

Right before our eyes, a little personality is forming. Not that we didn't expect that--kind of hard to keep your child a completely unformed infant. But the speed at which it happens is surprising even for this experienced parent. Every day, Max seems to expand on his understanding--and ability to interact with--the world around him.

One day he starts really being amused by things, laughing and smiling at anything that causes him pleasure. Then he's suddenly reaching out to try to grab things, sometimes bouncing so excitedly he seems to want to get up and run after whatever he sees. At this pace, it won't be too long before he's taking dictation and making dinner. But I jump ahead. Currently, he's pretty focused on noticing things that escaped his senses earlier--people eating, light switches and fabric textures are all capturing his attention throughout the day. This is especially apparent on the changing table, where his contortions to grab at the light switch or to feel the wall or to grab the clothes we're preparing to put on him make the simple act of getting his diaper on seem more like making mid-flight repairs to a fighter jet.

He seems to enjoy pretty much all forms of play, within reason, and when we leave the house, he bewitches all who see him with his big blue eyes and bouyant smile. This causes us no end of entertainment. Mom singing and dancing to goofy 70s tunes? Check--big smile. Dad shifting and contorting his body in all manner of movements? No problem--he loves it. Big bro Jackson, making silly faces at him? Nirvana. Our neurotic dog, Q, standing in the corner, staring at a blank space on the wall? Hilarious in his eyes. And the TV? Forget it--he's mesmerized by even the most banal HGTV fodder.

But let's be fair--lots of babies are wonderful when the big people are making an effort to entertain them. But what separates Max from the pack is what he does when we're NOT making him the focus. This is one good-natured baby. Kitchen needs cleaning? Put him in the bumpo seat and watch him happily follow our movements around the kitchen. Take him out to restaurants? This is where he really shines, sitting happily in his car seat for 90 min, even 2 hours, while we enjoy a leisurely meal with family or friends. Yard work day? Not an issue--stick him in his activity center (we call it his "office") and he'll happily spin around, grabbing and pushing and chewing on the built-in toys, occupying himself for an hour or more.

And then there's the reaction to the group dynamic. This is where lots of babies have problems with anxiety as new faces enter the picture and over-stimulation lurks around every corner. This past weekend was a big test on this front--Sarah's and my parents were both in town, and we attended my niece's first b-day party, meaning lots of family members and friends were poking, prodding, holding, ogling and generally wanting a piece of Max. Naturally, he seemingly has no problem with this, being handed from one person to another, even being fed along the way, and never missing a beat. We know the stranger anxiety period is coming--it's as inevitable as death and taxes--so we're enjoying this malleable little person as much as we can before he turns into Chucky and makes handing him off a lot more difficult.

Truthfully, though, Sarah and I don't really fear the whole stranger anxiety thing--we fully expect Max to continue to be interested and energized by any and all stimulus for the foreseeable future. We've made a point of encouraging this flexibility by not shielding him from noise and chaos, and now both of us have the sense that this is going to be a ping-pong ball of a kid, bouncing enthusiastically from one source of entertainment to another, eager to interact and learn, regardless of what's going on around him. Then again, if we do find ourselves struggling with him some day down the line, we can always sequester him in our bedroom and put on the latest episode of "House Hunters."

Full-Time Daddy Days Are Like Shnitzengruben

What the hell are shnitzengruben, you may ask? For my cinematically challenged readers, they are the German sausages Lilly Von Schtupp (Madeleine Khan) serves to Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) in Blazing Saddles, prompting an exhausted Bart to declare upon his return to the jailhouse, "Them shnitzengrubens can really wipe you out."

So now, you're saying, it all makes sense. Now that your favorite blogger/two-time parent has had a couple of months to get accustomed to this solo daddy routine, he can safely report that it remains one of the most exhausting regimens one can subject himself to. From the earlier-than-usual rising, to the non-stop calls for entertainment, to the lugging the increasingly heavy car seat around, to the frenzied rushes for warmed-up formula bottles as an end-of-his-wits 5-month old screams in the next room, it is a routine that is not for the squeamish among us 44-year-olds. Never mind the fact that I actually try to work on these days, too.

Take yesterday. A seemingly innocuous day, the highlights of which were a visit my the housekeepers, a trip to the park for some swing time, and the nightly effort to get dinner rolling with a pent-up, babbling baby in tow. Sounds pretty manageable, yes? Well, let's not forget about the other things that weave their way into the day--the driving Jackson to/from soccer practice; the scramble to de-clutter the house so the housekeepers can actually clean; a furious string of emails to schedule an interview for a story I'm working on; the attempt to repair a broken leg on one of our dining room chairs; the calls for paperwork to be faxed (and re-faxed) to my real estate agent cousin, who's helping Sarah short-sell her underwater condo; and, of course, the increasingly impatient catcalls of a baby who no longer is content to stand in his circular activity center and fumble with all the colorful built-in toys surrounding him while Daddy handles the aforementioned tasks.

All of which leads me to this familiar refrain: How do hard-working single parents do it? I'm talking about the ones who have few resources, work multiple jobs, rely on childcare they can't afford, and have no option but to put on a happy face for baby at the end of an exhausting, never-ending, blindingly stressful day. These people are the heroes of modern society, and quite often the ones that ass-backwards laws like Arizona's anti-immigrant stance target.

It's a thought that makes me very thankful to be a privileged, educated, middle-class white man who can work from home and handle the demands of parenthood with aplomb. Now excuse me while I get back to balancing Max on my head as I pay bills, plan dinner, keep my clients at bay, and try to squeeze in some quality time with the human breast-milk factory who shares my bedroom.

4 Months Old, and Taking Control of His Life Already

You know that feeling you get as the parent of an infant, the one that tells you that your newborn knows something that you don't? Well, go with it, 'cause it's true. I have proof.

Last week (yes, this is evidence of my too-infrequent posting habits--I'll try to pick that up), Sarah's mom was in town, so I got excused from a trip to the pediatrician for Max's 4-month checkup, which includes two shots and an oral vaccine. Mind you, up until this point, all of the previous pediatric appointments--even those that ended with shots--had been joyful occasions (well, up to the insertion of the needle anyway), with Max showing off his numerous wonderful qualities (which obviously have nothing to do with me), and the doctor finding him endlessly entertaining. At one point, she told Sarah, of Max's seemingly excessive nighttime sleeping patterns, "Don't question it--just consider yourself lucky."

Something tells me her tune was a bit different after this latest appointment, in which Max launched into what has been described to me as an epic meltdown. Even though he left the house his usual happy self, he apparently started to crack right as Sarah and her mom walked into the doctor's office with him. He proceeded to cry, louder and louder, throughout every second of the exam, sending unsuspecting infants and their sleep-deprived parents running for cover. I picture it like a grotesque cartoon in which we zoom in on the baby's crying mouth, which is consuming all of its surroundings.

Things got even worse when the doctor decided to find out if a fever might be causing this outburst, and lo and behold, Max's temperature registered at over 100, enough to get any new mother headed down the worry path, and Sarah was no exception. What was especially disturbing about this fever was that there were no signs of it earlier in the morning AND Sarah had given Max a dose of baby Tylenol (since thrown away amid the recall!) in anticipation of the shots. (The previous round of shots was followed by 5 painful days of Max wallowing in discomfort.)

In any case, the upshot of the tantrum and accompanying fever was that the doctor decided to skip the shots and vaccine and have us come back. Which apparently was just what Max had in mind, because by the time he had settled back in at home, and mom and grandma had filled me in on the theatrics, he was back to his normal self. I mean fully back--no crying, no fever, no nothing. And here's the weird part--the fever never returned. It was as if the whole thing never happened.

There's only one conclusion a sane person can draw from this episode: Max did not want those shots. How he knew he was getting them, where he found the inspiration to hatch his diabolical plan, and what gave him the self-awareness to recover so quickly is totally mystifying--not just to me, but to Sarah, her mom, the doctor--everyone involved.

Which brings us back to my original point, about your baby knowing something you don't. That something is how to really best meet his needs. Because heaven knows, his needs do not include pulling his pant leg so a giant stranger can jam a needle into his thigh. I just hope it's not a foreshadowing of what will occur the first time we ask him to clean up his room. I have to admit, though, I'm thinking about using his strategy the next time I'm asked to spend my weekend doing yard work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, We May Have a Giant On Our Hands

Nothing in my family history suggests that I was due to have a big kid. In the 150-plus years of Kontzer/Ledner family history, the tallest person I'm aware of is my brother, who stands a whopping 5-10, maybe 5-10 1/2. I, on the other hand, topped off at about 5-7 1/2. Sarah's family's not exactly huge either. A bit taller than mine, but only one or two relatives that eclipsed the six-foot mark.

So imagine my surprise as I've watched my little Max's height and weight track well above the middle of the curve at his pediatric appointments. Today, a woman at the dog park said, "what's he, 6, maybe 8 months?" When I answered, no, actually, he just hit 4 months, she was visibly shocked. "Wow, he's a big one."

This might have something to do with his seemingly endless and insatiable appetite. Max eats noticeably more than Jackson did as a baby, which should be no surprise to anyone who's privy to Jackson's current eating habits. (No breakfast, no lunch to speak of, a snack under duress before soccer practice...it's not a pretty picture.)

Come to think of it, Max's car seat has gotten pretty heavy to lug in a hurry. He's outgrown much of his 3-6 month clothes and is already wearing a lot of 6-12 month stuff. His head is the size of a small watermelon. His legs look like standing rib roasts. Trying to wipe away spit-up that's found its way into the folds of his neck is like trying to retrieve a pen that's fallen between the driver's seat and center console of your car.

But if all of that ends up with me having a son who can push around opponents in the key, see over people in a crowd, or get things down from the top shelf without a step-ladder, then it will have been worth the back strains and longer-then-expected feedings.

A Day in the Life of Daddy and Baby

It's day one of week two of the Sarah-Goes-Back-To-Work Non-Experiment, and, from a fathering perspective, it's been wonderful. Don't tell Sarah, but Max is much less fussy and much more in the flow when she's gone. No surprise there--there are no boobies to latch onto, or be tempted to latch onto, or to communicate spiritually to him, calling "Max, over here, two ripe nipples with all the sweet mother's milk you need, and all ya gotta do is cry!"

Nope, it's just him and me, man to, uh, man, mano a mano, tête-à-tête. The showdown at the O.K. Changing Table. But seriously, it's been more like one of those buddy films, only instead of two cops chasing bad guys, it's a bald, middle-aged writer and a drooling, babbling infant prowling the streets of Albany, California. With each day that we spend together, we develop an ever-more comfortable rhythm to our day, which goes something like this:

8 am: Baby wakes up after his typical 10-11 hour sleep, and Mommy nurses while Daddy reads the paper in the "office"
9 am: Daddy has all the intention in the world of getting up and going for a run, but instead just stays in bed with Mommy and Baby.
10 am: Mommy leaves for work
10-11 am: Daddy makes ridiculous faces and even more ridiculous noises as he manipulates Baby's body in ways that clearly please him judging from the onslaught of smiles and spit-up.
11-11:30 am: Baby sits in his little spinny toy, or on his baby chair on the dining table, while Daddy checks email and gets a bit of work done.
11:30: Baby downs a bottle of sweet mother's nectar, then begins rubbing his face, and lays down in his crib and naps until about 1.
1-2 pm: A repeat of 10-11 am, only this time Daddy tries to get lunch eaten during this time because he was too stupid to make himself get that done while Baby was asleep.
2 pm: Baby downs another few ounces of milk, Daddy eats his now-cold leftovers, and then it's time for a walk.
2:30-3:30 pm: Daddy struggles through the neighborhood with a stroller and two crazy terriers (at least when Sarah's dog, who's usually in the custody of her ex-husband, is visiting, which he is now), a tangled mess of wheels and leashes and spit-up devastating all in its path.
3:30-4:30 pm: Baby, who has fallen asleep on way home, naps while dad catches up on some email and starts to think about that dreaded topic--dinner.
4:30-6 pm: This is the most chaotic time of the day, with soccer practices, grocery shopping, and other errands always seeming to pile up.
6 pm: Baby gets tired once again, goes down for another cat nap, sometimes after a bit more milk, sometimes not. Daddy starts assembling the elements of dinner, trying not to make any noise loud enough to wake up Baby.
7:15 pm: Baby, seemingly detecting that mommy's breasts, which are now on the way home, have entered within a 5 mile radius, begins to become hysterical.
7:40: Mommy pulls up, causing a huge sigh of relief in Daddy and a sudden burst of joy in Baby, and all is well with the world.
8:25: After nursing, and just as the rest of us are about to eat, Baby's bowel explodes up his back and down his legs, and Mommy and Daddy finally get to sit down to eat about 8:45, after de-poopifying their hands and arms.
9:30: One final nightcap on the breast, and Baby goes down for the night. Daddy foolishly stays up another 4 hours, only to pay the price with another wonderfully relentless next day.

Really, what it all adds up to is this: Stay-at-home Daddy is the best job in the world. And the boss is simply the best; he can't even dress himself or form a sentence. Who doesn't want a boss like that?

Life's First Wonderful Gift

Anyone who's raised a child knows that after those first weeks of infancy, a magical thing happens: Your child discovers the gift of joy.

There is nothing quite so spirit-filling as seeing your baby's glowing face smile at your expanding attempts to entertain him or her. And let me tell ya, my spirit's been getting its fill these past couple of weeks as Max responds with growing enthusiasm to our raspberries, kisses, and increasingly aggressive manipulations of his little body. We've moved on to the stage of arm-waving, torso-tickling, and up-and-down bouncing.

All of which is making mornings quite the happy little scene in our bedroom. After Max nurses, Sarah and I spend what seems like an eternity lying in bed, propping max on our bellies and watching him laugh and smile and yelp with glee as we run through a combination of tried-and-true happiness inducers and new attempts to push his joy to new levels. Like this week, I introduced turning him upside down and gently flipping him. He's not sure he likes it, but he hasn't complained, so I have no intention of pulling back.

One thing that's making me highly focused on fully enjoying this ritual each day is the fact that when Sarah asks me if I remember this or that from Jackson's first months, my answer is almost always no. The memories are fleeting, having been overtaken by years of school and soccer and neighborhood play and trauma and life changes and pre-adolescence. I do, however, still have total recall of lines from 70s movies, so I'm not sure why my child's development is a fading memory. The subtleties of the human brain aren't exactly my area of expertise.

What I do know is that my surviving memories of Jackson as a baby are a lot more uniformly positive than the memories I'll have of him as a pre-teen. Living with a pre-teen is like having a roommate--one who doesn't pay for anything, leaves lots of messes, and likes to insult me as many times as possible each day.

Eventually, the same will probably be true of Max, so for the time being, I'll just keep soaking up his joyful embracing of the world and try not to think about the snotty little roommate he'll eventually turn into. There will be plenty of time for that nonsense.