Limitations

Sometimes, as a parent, you have to realize that there are just some things you can't do. My dad used to say, "I can fix anything but a broken heart." That was a very poetic lie. While a very gifted electrician, my dad couldn't even oil my baseball glove properly. He'd always take it to my grandpa - his dad - to get the job done right. I have to hand it to the old man, even if he won't admit it openly himself, he knew when something was beyond him.

Lately, I find myself wondering what the future holds for me. Not "me" as in "me and my family," but myself. The solo act, not the group. Plenty of opportunities are now spread out before me. I could drop probation and go back into the ministry, which is something I want to do very badly. I could stay in probation and stay at the same position I'm in, which would lead to insanity on my part because its such an undervalued job - even by my colleagues - that it often leads to my just wanting to stay home and hide under my covers in depression. If I switched to casework, sure I could have a normal nine to five and Monday through Friday schedule, but then our daycare bill skyrockets and I'd basically be giving up on my own personal dreams.

I'd be throwing in the towel on something I worked hard for. My credentials, my skills as a pastor and preacher, which I don't think are all that shabby - though one year in youth ministry has left me with enough doubts to fill a swimming pool.

Not the plastic kiddie pool you buy every summer at Wal-Mart, either. I'm talking Michael-Phelps-practices-here-pool.

But I want to go back.

I know that may be selfish. I'm certainly not going to make the same amount of money I make here in Indianapolis, we'd probably have to move pretty far, and there's a slight chance that things could turn out to be pretty rough for a while when my wife has to find a new job and start all over there.

Its a pretty scary concept, starting over. We've decided we're not too thrilled on our kids growing up in this city. Not that people we know have kids who have turned out horrible, its just that when you work in a job that constantly exposes you to the grimy under-belly of a city, you tend to want to get as far away from it as possible.

The fact is, wherever we go, if it is where God wants us, I have to believe He'll take care of us. Call it faith or call it religious overzealousness if you want, either way I have to believe it.

I believe that at some point in every man's life he is forced to walk the stairs in an imaginary castle he has built for himself inside his mind. The stairs lead to a balcony from which he is able to gaze out upon the kingdom he has built for himself. Either he stairs out in wonder and awe, or hangs his head to weep.

There will be no weeping when I'm done climbing the stairs. I have my limitations but I also have my faith. I have to cling to that at times as any shipwrecked sailor may grab at driftwood. This can't be it for me.

This can't be it for my family.

Its not that we're so incredibly unhappy here. When we recently listed the pros and cons of staying and leaving, we realized we were okay staying in Indianapolis.

Just okay.

I justify my desire to leave my current job by saying to myself, and to my wife, that it would probably be better for Evie and kids to be named later, that leaving this city would be what's best for our family. We're both from small towns and living in the city isn't something we are really, completely sold on. Though the convenience of having a McDonald's nearby anytime you get a little hungry is convenient, its also led to my recently mentioned fatness. I think I'm fair in saying it would be better for our kids, to be honest, and my wife agrees.

Its just difficult giving up what is comfortable; what is safe.

Lately, the thought of me being my own worst enemy has plagued me. I've spent the last few months telling myself that nobody can stop me but me. The problem is, I'm starting to wonder if my true limitation - the one thing holding me back - is nothing less than myself. My fear of change, of being uncomfortable for a while.

The fact is, simply, nobody limits you but you, and while I am worried about what happens to me, whatever decisions I make impacts my family. The minute I told the pastor "I do" and became part of a couple, I ceased being "me" and started being "we."

If I live my life by always following the comfortable road, my daughter will grow up having a coward for a father. I can't let that happen. I have to think about what's best for all of us and not just myself.

That's what it means to be a dad. Not always focusing on what's easy, and not always focusing on what you want for yourself, but what's best for your family.

Okay, I guess the rant is over.

Favorite Foods

Evelyn loves eating. I'm sure she gets that from me. Today I made her a homemade pizza roll-up. I don't know if that's what its official term would be, and I realize I'm not Chef Ramsey whippin' up anything original.

All I did was take some shredded mozzarella cheese, a few turkey pepperoni slices, and wrapped it all up in a wheat tortilla, then stuck it in a microwave for about 25 seconds, and re-wrapped it all so that nothing could fall out.

She loved it.

It got me to thinking of some of her other favorite foods. The roll-up today was inspired by the cheese roll-ups at Taco Bell, which she loves (as established by a previous blog). Happy meals are okay, but not the chicken nuggets so much as the fries. She likes a hamburger, but not the beef part.

When we were eating Chinese every Friday, the chicken nuggets there were her favorite, until I introduced her to the sugary donuts. Then it was game over, next restaurant, because she's not eating anything until she gets her little cake.

Subway, it appears, also has a favorite dish for my daughter, but its not whatever you buy her. She wants to eat my sandwich or my wife's. The chips and the salsa at On the Border are some of her favorite things in the world. Which surprises me because that stuff is hot.

I could go on and on, because as I said, she has a lot of favorite foods.

Human Hurricane

We recently changed Evelyn's crib into a toddler-sized bed. The devastation has been apocalyptic.

Every morning she wakes up and since we have a gate on her door so she won't fall down the stairs, my daughter decides to play in her room.

By play I mean destroy, kill, destroy.

A week ago, her room looked like the neatest, cleanest place in our home. After one day of her new bed and being allowed to roam freely within it, it looked like a small pack of wolves had run through. After three days, a herd of dinosaurs. After about a week of this, it looks like the valley of Megiddo will one day.

If you don't get that reference, take a class in eschatology.

Anyway, its been pretty bad.

Today, for instance, she figured out how to climb up the side of her dresser and successfully pulled her piggy bank down on top of her, along with several pictures that were neatly framed up on the top of this chest of drawers.

Of course, I was still preparing for work, but at the sound of this sonic boom I went rushing into the child's - dare we still call it a room at this point?

There she sat upon the floor, just browsing through the fallen debris, searching for whatever treasure she may have unearthed.

Someday soon, and believe me when I say its coming, she's going to learn the meaning of "clean your room."

Language Barrier

Sometimes I hate this. I'm not going to lie. My daughter has a hard time talking and gets frustrated when I have no clue what she's saying.

I give to you exhibit A: Lunch today.

After eating about eight chicken nuggets (Wal-Mart brand, and yeah, we're not only cheap we enjoy them) she brought me her bowl and grunted out a few short commands. I took this to mean she wanted something to drink because, in my absent-mindedness I had forgotten to give her a sippy-cup of milk like I normally do. Naturally, I poured some cold 1% into one of her cups.

You'd think I'd stabbed Elmo. She began to cry and push the cup away. This was frustrating me now, as much as it was her. I offered her juice. No dice. Offered her water and got a resounding "uh uh!" and more shrieks and weeps.

Finally, I realized she was still hungry, so I fixed her some fruit and animal crackers. She's now sitting on the couch happy as can be as if nothing just happened and she didn't just subject me to the torture of self-second-guessing and wondering if I'm about to do something that causes her demise.

I'm not sure when the speech therapy starts, but I hope its soon. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, because I try to work with her on words, enunciation, and just recognizing things, but its very trying to my patience when she doesn't seem interested at all.

Its not like she's a mute or anything. When I gave her the food she said, "Thank you," very clearly. I think she just struggles to express herself with what she's thinking. Whereas, "thank you" may just be an automated response she's learned to perform when she receives something.

I don't know. It just seems like there's a language barrier between me and my daughter and its frustrating.

Is this what having a teenager is like?

Sneaky Ninja Kid

So here I was, sitting here trying to decide which topic I wanted to write about, and something grabs my leg. Not in a scary way or anything close to that. I just felt a calm little hand gently pat my knee while another arm rested on my thigh.

My first thought was, "That dog is getting on my nerves." Jack, our very affection-hungry dog has a bad habit of coming up and slobbering all over whatever part of your body he can rest his head. Not only is it disgusting, its pretty annoying. Especially when you're wearing clean pants.

But in this case, no. It was my daughter. Literally, ten seconds before this occurred I noticed she was sitting peacefully on the couch watching Word World and munching on her peanut butter sandwich I made her for lunch. I turn around, log in and start to blog, and then the knee pat.

I never heard a thing.

She could have stabbed me in the kidney and I'd never had known who got me. She could have slipped some poison into my drink and nobody would have ever thought it possible. How did she climb off the couch so quietly? No grunt, no squee, nothing. Just silent death creeping up behind me. Had she hesitated by about two minutes, I no doubt would have heard her break wind and grunt as she destroyed another diaper.

Its like she picked her timing too perfectly.

There's something very creepy about this. Very creepy. Granted, my dad loves to hunt, my grandfather loved to hunt, and of course, as a teenager I spent some time in the woods slaying just about any kind of animal the great state of Illinois' hunting license permits you to kill. Perhaps stalking her prey is in her blood.

Or she's probably a small, deadly assassin just letting me know that she can end me at any time of her choosing.

Sneaky little ninja kid...

You'll Melt Your Eyes

I did it as a kid, too, but this is ridiculous.

Evelyn will stand arms length away from the t.v. screen and sometimes even reach out to touch it. Which annoys me because its a really nice television and I don't want sticky fingers all over the display while I'm trying to enjoy a football game or some Doctor Who.

"Evie step back or you'll melt your eyes!" I caught myself saying this morning. I don't know if that's true, but give me a break. It can't be good for her eyes, can it?

My mom used to tell me it would ruin my eyes, and I do have trouble focusing them sometimes. This leads to migraines, which lead to even worse blurred vision at times. Its frustrating to think that maybe my mom is grinning every time I go to the eye doctor and thinking, "I wish I was there so I could say 'I told you so.'" Not that she would, but it irritates me sometimes that she could be so smug and not even alive.

That was meant to be a little humorous, so if you're not laughing I ask that you forgive my morbid sense of humor.

Evie has started doing what I used to do. Scoot back and the second a parent's back is turned, inch forward. Except this kid doesn't know how to inch. She rushes in like a housewife at Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

Of course, the real complaint is that she's blocking my view. No, wait. Not really. The real complaint is that in about five years I'm going to have to shell out a few hundred dollars to buy her glasses, which she won't want to wear, so I'll have to spend more money on contacts.

Its frustrating.

Here's a message for my daughter in the future: So someday, if she reads this through Coke-bottle lenses, I just want to say "I told you so" and now you can pay for your own eye-care.

How ya like them apples?

Raising Evie

I don't know if you've ever seen the show "Raising Hope," but Jennifer and I got addicted to the first season thanks to Netflix. The show follows the exploits of a young single parent who ... you know, I can't make this sound good. He got a serial killer pregnant and now he's raising their baby. Despite that, the show is pretty funny and often has a good little moral to the story. And hey, Cloris Leachman is in it with the unattractive girl from the Goonies. You can't beat that, right?

One of my favorite stories on the show is where the main character, Jimmy, finds out that his dad would wear a disguise every Halloween in an attempt to scare the boy into running home and giving him a hug. "I’m sorry but when you turned thirteen you barely hugged me anymore and then that ... high five came along. I had to do whatever I could to feel your chest against mine." Jimmy of course felt betrayed, but by the end of the episode his daughter gives him a really tight hug and he understood.

Hugs from your kid are the best.

Evie was up sick last night. She kept crying and crying. For the first time since I don't know when, she clung to me until she fell asleep. I realized how much I love hugs from my kid.

Don't get me wrong, she's a sweetheart who will just walk up and put her arms around my leg to give me a hug, or if I'm angry at a football game while sitting in the floor she comes up and wraps her arms around my neck and mutters something that sounds a little like, "It'll be okay."

As a Jets fan, I expect to get those a lot.

But the fact is, as a parent, there are few rewards in life that are as wonderful as genuine affection from your child.

Burt Chance loved scaring his kid into giving him hugs, but the hugs that were given out of love are much better.

Top Ten - After almost 2 Years

I haven't made a list of things in some time on here, so I thought today I would have some fun and type up the top ten things I never thought I would say as a parent after my first two years. That's right, its been (almost) two years since Evie popped out.

Its crazy how time flies.

It also should be noted that these are in no particular rank or order, and most were said more to myself than to my daughter, but still...

The Top Ten Things I Never Thought I'd Say (as a parent, after two years of being a dad):

10. "We don't put things in the dog."

9. "Don't stare at people... oh, he's staring at us. [Whisper:] Stare back until he cries." [at a restaurant where another toddler was watching us eat]

8. "How did you manage to... never mind. Let me get the wet wipes."

7. "Don't eat the crayons. Don't feed them to the dog, either. Crayons are not food"

6. "Hey, sit down and watch Doctor Who like a normal person."

5. "When, exactly, did you start pooping?"

4. "You can sit on my lap but if you start farting nap time is gonna come early."

3. "Give me that. How did you get that? Okay... I don't want to know. I have to wash my hands now. Your hands, too."

2. "I don't know what you're saying but if I could interpret it I'm sure it'd be something about how much you love me, or how you're plotting something."

1. "You have to wear pants. People are going to start thinking you've spent too much time around grandpa."

That's all for today, folks!

When Did That Happen?

I've written before about the importance of cherishing the moments I have with my kid while she's little because I realize she'll grow up too fast. This morning I got smacked in the face with how true this is.

I had fixed Evie some breakfast, and since she was really helpful this morning, I turned on "Sid the Science Kid," a PBS show she really seems to enjoy. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but take all the annoying voices in the world and pack them into an elementary level science class, and you have a basic idea of what we're dealing with here.

Evelyn sat quietly watching her show and munching on her breakfast while I read some news. When the Science Kid made his way off the t.v. another show came on. An educational program that annoys me more than Sid the Science Brat... uhm... kid. Characters whose actions and voices grind on your spine worse than any Barney episode. The new bane of parents has a name and it is Word World.

I'm kidding, I actually don't mind that show. As long as that Duck character doesn't make an appearance. Seriously, if I still had an orange pixelled dog and my old Nintendo Zapper, that character would be toast (If you've never played the old Nintendo game "Duck Hunt" you're just not going to get that).

Anyway, the theme to Word World came on and I hear Evie's small red chair flip over, small stomps across the living room floor behind me, and a small voice exclaim "WAD WOOD!!!"

It made me laugh but then I realized, holy cow, she's talking a lot better. And not just talking, recognizing words, too. She will, if you ask, will point to her ears and say "eahs," her eyes and say "aish," and her mouth and say "mow." Even if you ask where her hands are she'll stick out her little mitts and wiggle her fingers, naming them "hans." Sure, its not perfect English, but its a lot more than she was doing around Christmas time.

Her progress in the past month alone makes me hopeful we won't have to go through any speech therapy. Most of the credit probably goes to my mother-in-law for taking a whole week while she was here and working with her on words and letters. Since Kaye visited, it seems Evie has really taken off on her enunciating.

But that wasn't the end of the day for me. No. She returned to her seat and finished cleaning out her bowl, then picked it up and walked to the sink, only to rest it on the edge of the counter. She put it right where we normally sit our dirty dishes after a meal.

When did that happen? Who taught her that?

Mind. Blown.

Its safe to say she's growing up even faster than I had anticipated.

Its almost scary.

Favorites #3: Its Meant To Be Humorous.

I love this blog because it is a constant reminder that not everything I write on here has to be taken incredibly serious. I don't always have to think deeply and come out with something prophetic, or semi-intelligent. Sometimes I can just have fun blogging.

You may not have enjoyed looking over the past few blogs, and I promise this will be the last of the Favorites for a while, but I've really enjoyed looking back through past blogs and digging out some of my personal favorites. Its also been nice having a small break. Hopefully this will keep me writing throughout 2012.

Yes, I am being dramatic. It's meant to be humorous.

The "Baby Crazies" continue, but I think I'm starting to make the most of them. After last week's post (the very night of the post, actually) Evelyn decided to show that she is not just a baby, she is a force of nature. A force to be reckoned with. Not just a baby, a villain. A horrible villain the likes of which Cobra Commander, Lex Luthor, and Skeletor have never seen.

And she did it with a smile.

That's how the sick, twisted minds of babies work. I realize that now. Babies, as I am now discovering, know that their parents are naive. They know we are gullible morons who believe they only want some milk and a diaper changed now and then.

I now that we are! We are those gullible morons. You may be reading this and saying to yourself, "I wasn't a gullible moron with my kids," but you're only believing that because they want you to believe it.

You must understand their cries are not the whimpers of infants. They are the battle shouts of a warriors in a never ending coup d'état on parenthood.

This is the past few nights have gone:

On Friday night, Evie (now known as "Evelyn the Skull Crusher" by her biker gang) decided to feign sleep from 10:30 pm to 12:30 am. No doubt using this time to plot her next great scheme. Without warning, just like an earthquake, she awoke with a fury so deep and bitter it was almost beautiful in all its glory.

My wife, who had sustained many injuries throughout the day from this tiny barbarian was too weak to continue in the struggle. So I grabbed my weapons and entered the fray. I remember looking her in the eyes, after at least two attempts to feed her from a bottle and muttering something to the effect of, "You may win this battle, but I shalt not die in vain!" An evil smirk twisted across Evelyn the Skull Crusher's face as she filled her diaper with a foul mustard colored stench.

I'll never forget the horror I experience upon opening that diaper. Never.

Every time I close my eyes I still see it's disgusting composition looking back at me as though it, too, were alive. It has been burned into my mind forever.

At the time, I tried my best to use it to strengthen my resolve.

I grabbed the formula I had already tried to feed her twice and with the resistance of a spy who was determined not to succumb to a truth serum, Evie fought back as she guzzled it down. To distract her, I had turned on the television to watch an episode of Smallville I had recorded earlier in the night.

Before the theme song and opening credits rolled, Evelyn, the great villain, the bane of parents within our home had fallen asleep.

I was victorious.

Yes, I realize I am being dramatic. It's all meant to be humorous. Because if there's one thing I have learned about being elbow deep in poopy diapers and sleep deprived, its that if you cant laugh about it you will go crazy.

But I have enjoyed it all, even more than I enjoyed turning that little adventure into some sort of fantasy story.

What really happened was Jen went to bed because she was tired and I volunteered to stay up with Evie. She cooed and "talked" for almost an hour before I finally got her to take her bottle.

I wasn't going to dare to wake up Jen, because a) I want to prove to the world and myself that I can do this fatherhood thing and do it well and b) because my poor wife has been sleep deprived since we got home from the hospital.

Finally Evelyn drank her bottle and yes, I was just starting to enjoy Smallville (which is almost an oxymoron at this point, that show is really dragging on....) and I took her to her bassinet and she slept for a solid 3 or 4 hours. Which was nice.

See? The dramatic version is so much more exciting.

I wouldn't trade the real experience for all the gold in Middle-Earth and Narnia combined.