Worm, I promise you’ll get to love your baths. Right now though, just try to imagine you’re on the sunny sandy beaches of Jamaica with the warm ocean water lapping at your feet…
Dad, If This is Jamaica, Where the Hell is my Rum Punch?!
May 2011
Archives for posts with tag: Stay-at-home dad
After all that eating, we gotta be sleeping! Me napping with my new best friend!
The Art of the Perfect Nap!
May 2011
I’ve been busy. That’s my excuse for GPOD grinding to a halt. It was a great idea back in March…but then life got in the way. So my new year’s resolution is to keep all the kids’ media organized (kind of like my brain) from the start. I’m bringing this branch of MVG back to life. And I’ll be adding one for Smush…so bear with me while I fast forward through this past year of Worm’s life! And the pics will all get a date stamp.
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May 2011
This is like one of those “Come on guys. What the hell are you doing with me?” pictures.
He’ll appreciate it when he is older and can reflect on this picture…or maybe not.
Since I Can’t Control My Face Muscles, I’ll Just Tell You. I’m Giving You the Stink Eye.
Children are precious gifts that radiate purity that most of us adults have long since purged from our bodies. Every creation, natural or man-made, is wondrously new and exciting to them. Life exists in a world filled with magic and splendor amplified only by the one true way to live, being sensorially submerged in the present moment.
One of the major treats of being a dad (other than getting poop under my fingernails) is watching my son (and soon, daughter) morph into something beautifully human. I get the opportunity to experience the nuances of life through another pair of eyes. It’s as if I get to be reborn.
Worm, You’re Quite Possibly the Least Scariest and Most Huggable Monster In the Universe!
This Halloween we didn’t buy enough candy, we destroyed our pumpkins and we forgot to cook up any caramel apples. With the hustle of life with a toddler, the wife and I did not get or make any Halloween outfits for ourselves. We even waited until the last day of October to fetch one for the Worm. Spider or monster? And even at 4pm that same day, we were debating whether or not Steph should return home sans costume. I tried to make amends with myself for the half-hearted attempt, but gnawing inside was the idea that I could have done more to make my favorite holiday what I wanted so badly for it to be, memorable.
The pint-sized outfit accompanied Steph home from work. And just as soon as the little monster was stuffed inside, all of my holiday shortcomings disappeared and I forgot about our imperfect Halloween. The Worm had me entranced. The twice discounted and finally clearanced costume became his skin. Where there were once small hands, two furry little claws happily snatched at candy from the bowl. His floppy new feet skipped across the kitchen floor, all the while jiggling the sewn-in polka-dotted pot belly on every step. Giggles, squeals and laughter were this monster’s fierce sounds and it filled the house with its infectious energy. The blue costume became the embodiment of all that defines the spirit of Halloween for me and as quickly as Worm absorbed the new threads as part of himself, he consumed me as well. I could not take my eyes off of him.
Halloween has a special place in my heart. I have fond memories of the fall season and everything about it resonates in me. I still get giddy when the season approaches and melancholic as it leaves. So seeing the joy on Worm’s face this past Halloween brought up those great memories and feelings from years gone. That evening, Worm and I shared a moment so similar yet so different, that I’m stuck with a loss of words to describe it. On the surface, I not only saw him, but saw my own childhood as well. And underneath, I recognized a sliver of myself that would carry on in him after my body has completely failed. The very definition of fatherhood was as apparent as the little blue monster standing in front of me. It touched me so hard that I was crushed by its magnitude. I realized in that moment I had been born again.
Gavin – 18; Dad – 7 (You really made this Halloween special Worm! Thanks!)
Related articles
- What Not to Do For Halloween (mevsgavin.com)
It’s the Frightful and Elusive Worm Yeti!
Stay at home dads are being spotted on playgrounds all across America! Once shunned from society, SAHD sightings have surpassed the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman if they’re the same guy. (Though, the statistics are marred because some of the grizzly, unkempt SAHDs are occasionally mistaken for Yeti…) Other SAHDs who have worn disguises for years, are finding increased acceptance. They have tossed off their wigs and heels and can show their true selves to the public without being ridiculed and emasculated. We are not ashamed to be SAHD anymore! (Cue up the music…”It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah it’s raining men!”) It’s a new era for us! You can’t spell millennium without M-E-N! It’s impossible! I’ve tried!
A few years back in history (because you can’t go forward), the Women’s Liberation Movement brought more women into the workforce. Excited (and possibly hysterical) mothers dropped their aprons and hair nets to rush off into the working world. With the mass exodus from the home, neglected irons melted pants, abandoned ovens burned bread, and worst of all, unsupervised children were left with no one to answer their cries for food and love.
Fortunately, the supersonic hearing and ninja-like instincts of fathers everywhere picked up the distress signals. What summoned these “ordinary men” to spring out of their office chairs and back towards the home was the selfless desire to save mankind by rescuing the forsaken toddlers and babies of this fine country and investing in their livelihood. Many fathers cast off their work uniforms exposing tight red underwear (very much unlike Spanx) and a matching red cape (Not terracotta, not chestnut, not fuchsia and certainly not amaranth. RED!) These heroes instantly dropped their work lives and flew (at the speed of sound, of course) home to put out the fires that their wives had so carelessly ignited. Children were scooped up with one hairy powerful hand and soothed by the gentle manliness of the other. Never before had young ones, families and the entire universe felt so safe. And it’s getting safer as more fathers are staying home with their children.
Fathers all over the world continue to answer this call to be the noble stay-at-home parent. So, the next time your workweek lunch break shows you a dad holding a child (or holding a beer, or even holding a child holding a beer), thank him or give him a corn dog or something. Because it’s your future, the Earth’s future he is looking out for.
In the last ten years SAHDs have doubled, but the percentage of dads that stay at home are still small at 3.4%, according to Boston College Center for Work and Family. To read an informative blog post that has a good point of view on the SAHD trend, click the article link below. (Nanny.net also features information on finding a nanny near you, becoming a nanny, and information about nannies in general.)
Related Links:
Are Stay-At-Home Dads on the Rise? – Nanny.Net Blog
The Worm’s got a bad habit. He is a TV zombie eater. (Thanks to me, it didn’t take long for the bad habits to start. First, this. Next month, it will be cigarettes and tequila for dessert.) I have a huge pet peeve about mindless eating and this is quite an irritating conundrum…for me. Worm doesn’t seem to mind.
When Worm’s sitting in front of me with a plate full of food, he picks at it. I could sing and dance for him, but it hardly boosts his appetite. Soon, boredom sets in and he’s chucking his sandwich bites at the dogs or letting them lick the jelly from his sticky fingers. It’s not that Worm isn’t hungry, because he is. Though to him, eating is pointless work with no real benefit. (I tried to explain the notion of calories and how food gives toddlers energy, but Worm is certain he is powered by the sun. Why else would he get tired at night?)
When I flip on the boob tube, cue up Curious George, and place the Worm anywhere near the TV screen, he locks in like a missile on target. His eyes glaze over, blinking ceases, and his motion slows. Worm’s alter ego, the TV zombie, has been channeled. I pass a spoonful of cereal under his nose and the secret trap door drops open to accept the offering. Access has been granted.
For the next 20 minutes, I don’t get flailing arms, pursed lips or the bobble head. The beast is hypnotized and I am free to shovel hundreds of calories into its belly. And Worm has no idea anything is amiss other than Curious George finding himself in trouble, yet again.
The Dual Eating Personalities of the Worm (TV Zombie Personality Shown Above) Notice the Eyes…
I’m relieved that once the TV is shut off, the zombie disappears and everything is back to normal. (One day this on-off switch may get faulty…but then there are medications that will fix everything! I digress…)
I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. I’m perpetuating the problem by feeding Worm in front of the TV, but I can’t feed him very well any other way. Feedings are less than 30 minutes long when the TV zombie is eating. Otherwise, I chase normal Worm around the house for 90 minutes coaxing him with anything possibly palate pleasing. (Say that three times fast!) It’s exhausting. (Chasing Worm around, not the tongue twister…) I can only imagine at our therapy discussions how Worm will blame me for his poor eating habits and explain to the doctor how he sleeps in front of the TV with his pet monkey on a pile of Cheetos, Twinkies, and Bon Bons. And as karma has a way of punishing us for our past misdeeds, his monkey will eventually eat my face and the cycle will be complete. I am a horrible father and I will pay for it.
For this post, I can’t give either one of us a point. We’re at a stalemate. He needs to eat. I need to use whatever works right now to facilitate that. I can foresee that I will have to be smarter and more crafty to keep up with the evolving Worm. It’s time to turn up my game a notch.
Gavin – 14; Dad – 7 (No Change)
The Worm took his first steps today at 7:45pm. But, my mom saw Worm walk hours before. He walked in her dream last night.
I’ll be the first to tell you that my mom is as intuitive as they come. We always joke about how she reads minds…and we both know there’s a lot of truth to that.
Here’s part of an email that she sent to me this morning at 7:16:
I had a dream last night that my Honey Bun took 4 steps, fell, then 5, fell, and after continued walking. Maybe, today is the day he puts his foot forward : )
And this evening Worm took 4 very shaky first steps and sat down. It was a pretty awesome moment! Thanks for preparing us, mom!
I’d better charge my camcorder. Tomorrow may be a good day to capture some baby bipedal activity.
Yay, I Took My First Steps Today!
Me vs. Gavin 