Book backtalk

Sometimes, I wonder whether our dedicated reading to Nathaniel is backfiring.

Lately, we have been reading a book called, "Sam and the Firefly." In a nut, it's about an owl named Sam, who befriends a firefly named Gus and teaches Gus how he can write in the nighttime sky with his light. Gus, ever the miscreant, then uses this newfound skill to wreak all sorts of chaos, such as causing cars to crash and airplanes to collide.

Sam is horrified as he witnesses this spectacle, and he lets Gus know it. To this, Gus replies, "Let me be, you old hoot, you old owl."

In the end, Gus does something good with his firelight writing in the sky, and so the meaning is he's learned that it's better to use this talent for good than for bad.

We figured that would be the message that Nathaniel, our nearly 3-year-old, would have gotten, too.

Yesterday, as I was driving him and Isaiah home, Nathaniel began screaming. These were ear-splitting shrieks, uttered for no other reason than to annoy Daddy. I asked him to stop. He let forth with another screech. I told him to stop. He shrieked again, and then hurled at me: "I will scream if I want to. Let me be, you old Daddy!"

Wonder where he got that from?

For good measure, Natty Lou underscored his resistance to authority by screaming again, even louder than before. And, for the first time, I pulled the car over with a screeching halt, turned around, glared at him and told him if he didn't stop, he'd sit in that car for a long, long time.

He got that message. At least for now, my words carry more weight than a book.

School Days

A quick post, this one. Nathaniel has just finished his first week of school. Well, his week is really just two days. But he made it, although I have precious little to report, as we know very little about what he did.

We know so little because Nathaniel has been so beat that he's a verbal vegetable by the time he's been picked up and transported home. The little information we have comes from the daily activity log provided by his teacher, Miss Stacy.

Day #1: Nathaniel "played with Magnatiles, enjoyed playing outside and listening to 'Ira Sleeps Over.'" He ate apple straws and drank milk during morning snack, polished off his bagged lunch and gulped down some Cheez-its and water in the afternoon.

Day #2: Nathaniel listened to the book "Froggy Goes to Camp," played with building blocks and talked about what made him happy as part of this week's theme of being in touch with your feelings. The best description, however, was this: "Nathaniel also enjoyed showing us his dance moves."

Now that's the boy we know and love.

He also napped, by george – for the first time in weeks. He must have been exhausted.

We snapped some pictures on his first day (see above). We think they really express a range of emotions balled into one: the innocence, the nervousness, the competing tension of angst and excitement. Looking at these photos, it's clear Nathaniel had been thinking for a while about this day. He alternated between silent and chattering repeatedly, "Are we going to school?" on the way.

When we arrived and went inside, Nathaniel turned oddly silent. He looked around and seemed somewhat intimidated by his surroundings. When one of the teachers tried to engage him to play with some blocks, Nathaniel sat still as a statue, just nodding. After a few minutes, though, he began to relax. Michelle was the last one to leave, and as she bade him goodbye, he gave her a kiss and turned quickly back to playing kitchen.

That's our boy, too. He had been talking about school for a long time, and now he's there. And it looks like he'll be happy, too.

School

There are moments in a child's life that a parent marks as important. A baby's first word, crawling, walking, and other milestones. They're important because they mean a child's made a major developmental leap, physically or mentally.

Tomorrow, Nathaniel starts school. This is one of those moments. It's not formal school, per se, but he will be immersed in a structured environment and receive formal instruction for the first time. There will be playtime, nap time and I would imagine general goof-off time, but the pre-pre-school's basis is on teaching the children who attend.

Nathaniel has been looking forward to this day for months. In fact, the idea of going to school served as his primary motivation to be potty-trained. Now, still about two months shy of his 3rd birthday, our little guy is pretty close to being fully versed in the business of doing your duty in the bathroom. The credit goes mostly to him. He was driven to learn to do his business in the potty, knowing that the reward would be to go to school (and the lollipops along the way).

As a parents, it is a bit bittersweet. I was thinking about all this at church this morning, as I watched Nathaniel playing the piano – not badly, I must say, with perfect posture at the bench to boot. He suddenly seemed bigger to me, more grown up. No longer could I mistake him for just a toddler. He had a veneer of maturity that made it hard for me to see him other than a little boy, forming his own views and opinions and full of hopes and promise. Where had the last three years gone? How did my little boy suddenly seem so grown? So, in a way, I'm as excited as he is about school – the beginning of the opening his mind and his imagination to all that scholarship has to offer. But I'm just a bid saddened, knowing that a phase in his life is ending, never to return, except in my mind.

Watching your children grow is exhilarating and heartbreaking at the same time.

Goodnight Irene

You all may have heard a hurricane swept into New England last weekend. It raised quite a stir, from the frenzied pre-landfall reporting to the unexpected flooding Irene produced in Vermont and upstate New York.

Around here, Irene summoned up some impressive winds and waves, and even gave me a chance to play reporter again for a day. (You can read that story here.) I ventured outside about 1 p.m. on Sunday, about four hours after the most powerful elements of the hurricane had swept through. I was bowled over by what I saw: stately trees snapped in half, innumerable branches strewn in the streets and on sidewalks. In some cases, the leafy debris was so dense it blocked my path, and I had to find another route. A 40- to 50-foot tree had fallen over a few blocks from our house, and it appeared to be lying on some power lines. First responders had blocked passage on the street with yellow caution tape. Not much further away, on the main street that runs through our quaint downtown, at least one massive tree had given up the ghost, taking a pole and several power lines with it. Just up the block was part of a two-by-four, some cables still attached, hanging in a web of wires overhead. It looked as if a projectile had been fired and been ensnared in a web.

Here's a video of what I saw downtown:

Four blocks of the main street had been blocked off because of the downed wires, some of which danced with each gust of wind, like a puppet to a techno beat. I walked on, down toward the water, just a few blocks away. There, I watched the water boil, wave after foaming wave churning their way northward into the town harbor, and splitting their guts against the rock walls. I was awestruck. The bay was angry, impetuous, whipped by the lashes of its slavemaster, the wind. Standing near the water, the droplets washed over me as if I were standing in a summer rain. The marinas were vacant; the boat owners had moored their vessels in open water. I get that now. Why would you subject your craft to slamming against a wooden pier that may come unmoored when you can tie it in open water and let it rise and fall with the current, no matter how strong?

Here's a video from the harbor.

I returned from my walkabout about 2:30, I think, and despite the carnage I had witnessed, all was well chez nous. Michelle had planned well for a power outage; she had filled the bathtub (in case we needed water to flush), she had filled up many containers with drinking water, she had cranked up the cold settings on the refrigerator and freezer, she had stacked the freezer with frozen Tupperware to keep it cold as well, and she had moved some easy eats to a cooler. Thanks to her, we were ready, more or less.

It didn't seem necessary. Irene was dying down by the afternoon, albeit with some gusty last breaths. At one point, Michelle and I looked at each other: We were in the clear, we thought, and we were talking about breaking down our storm preparations when ... the electricity went out.

OK, the power is out. No worries. In fact, it was kind of fun! For the next two days, I'd submit we partook of quite the adventure. Neighbors checked in on neighbors. We dined two consecutive nights with our friends across the street, the St. Angelos. Feasted, really. Pancakes, turkey sausage and fruit salad the first night and spaghetti with meatballs, sausages and grilled zucchini the next. Clearing out your fridge does have some advantages.

Come nightfall, an eerie calm fell over the streets. It was dark (naturally) everywhere you looked, the inkiness spoiled only by darting shafts of beams from flashlights or headlamps. Inside homes, lit candles gave off a charm and warmth that lights fail to deliver. Wandering outside with a glass of red wine in my hand, I looked up and was bowled over by the starry skies above. I saw constellations I didn't even know existed. I even saw the faint wisps of the Milky Way. It's astounding how the ambient glow of even small towns can blot out the night sky, and take us further away from the natural world.

Anyway, for four nights, we were tossed back in time – when simpler things – a book, conversations with family and friends – held sway. Before 9 each night, we were bushed; it felt like midnight, and we headed to bed. I understand now why, before electricity, people rose with the sun and accomplished much of what they needed by nightfall. You simply can't do that much in the dark.

At 3:30 a.m. on Thursday, amidst the roar of generators all around, Michelle nudged me awake. "Notice anything different?" she asked.

On my back, I opened my eyes. Light streamed down on me. Still groggy, I blinked a few times before I made the connection.

Electricity had returned. Hallelujah. I never felt so grateful for something I've taken mostly for granted.

Money, Money, Money

Haven't filed in a while. I'll take the convenient excuse that I returned not long ago from a trip to North Dakota to "play" with Michelle's two brothers, one of whom lives in the Peace Garden State (sounds hippie-like, doesn't it? The residents must be confused with, say, Rhode Island, or some other super-liberal state). I'll detail that trip once I load some photos.

This post has to do about a little boy who's wising up to the concept and value of money. This past weekend, I was doing some cleaning in the kitchen (at least that's how I imagine my activity there) when Nathaniel came up to me brandishing a quarter.

"Daddy!" he said. "I found your money."

"You did," I said. "Where did you find it?"

"In a drawer."

"Which drawer?"

"Your drawer," he answered, without the slightest sense of guilt.

I considered whether I should reprimand him right there for rummaging around in my things.

"Oh. Then it's my money. Can you put it back in the drawer, please?"

"No," Nathaniel responded without a moment's thought. "I'm taking it to the bank."

The calculus: Start your investment by taking someone else's money and putting up none of your own.

Pretty shrewd, kid. I'll give you that.

Nap Time

I am at home today enjoying a holiday that few others get. In case you're unaware, today is Victory over Japan Day, and Rhode Island is the only state in the country to still recognize it. State and municipal offices are closed. Brown University is closed. Private businesses are open. Even federal offices are open. Yes, it is one strange holiday.

Since Michelle works at a private company, she went to work, and so I am watching the children today. We've had a nice, relatively relaxing time so far. We started the Day with Daddy with the usual 6:30 a.m. wake-up call from Natty Lou, who wandered into our room and crawled into bed with us. This has become a ritual since Nathaniel began sleeping in his "big-boy bed" a few weeks ago. His room adjoins ours, and while there is a door between our rooms, there is no lock, which means that Nathaniel can wander into our room anytime he wants. We've considered a few ways to keep him in his room during his naptime. One option was to put a latch on his door. We immediately ruled that out, because we felt that he may look at his room as some sort of punishment, rather than a tranquil, restful place. We decided to put a gate between the rooms, which prevents him from coming into our room – although he could scale it – but allows him to see in our room, so he doesn't feel "locked in." We hope we're sending the right message.

We don't put up the gate at night, although we have entertained that idea about every morning Nathaniel comes into our room and wakes us up. When that happens, we try to coax him to cuddle with us, a ploy – I admit it – to keep him in the bed, so we can sleep a little longer. It rarely works for long, for when Nathaniel is awake, he is ready to take on the day. He initially gets under the covers with us, but after a few minutes, he usually says, 'I'm hungry,' and no matter how hard we try to convince him that his hunger pangs could wait another half-hour or so, once he gets locked on a thought, he won't let it go.

And so it was this morning. He let loose a tremendous pee in his potty (TMI?), and I led him downstairs for breakfast – Daddy's signature jalapeno-infused scrambled eggs and cantaloupe. As he was finishing, Isaiah and Michelle came downstairs, and the little one ate some pureed pears and Cheerios. Nathaniel has been a wild man lately, even more energetic than usual, and we're not sure why. I think it's because he's not getting enough sleep. His naps have been really erratic. Perhaps it's the transition to his bed, and the fact he's no longer contained, as he was in the crib. He's never been compliant with napping anyway, so his ability to move around may be exacerbating his general resistance to afternoon shuteye. Whatever the case, he's been challenging lately. Knowing that, I wanted to get him outside and running as soon as I could in the morning. So away we went, to the playground on the water.

We stayed there for a little more than an hour, and then got on to one of Daddy's favorite activities, which is eating. The bagel shop downtown in our fair bayside town is always a favorite destination. Nathaniel gets a blueberry or cinnamon-sugar bagel with cream cheese, and I'll splurge on a sesame bagel with fresh lox, capers and cream cheese. Yum! I had the rare forethought of bringing a bottle for Isaiah, kept cold in an insulated container, and a pouch of pre-made organic sweet potatoes and white beans. So, we all dined in style, a pleasant late-morning meal.

By the time we finished, it was about 11:00 and time to shove on home. Isaiah was due for a nap, and Nathaniel needed to follow soon thereafter. Failure to meet these unscripted deadlines penalizes children and parents alike. The children get knocked off their routines, and that means pain for the parent, because they turn into emotional wrecks. It's an incredibly fine balance.

Anyway, I thought I had everything going to plan. I got Isaiah up to nap, and armed with a bottle, he promptly fell asleep. Nathaniel, against his nature, relented without little fight for his quiet time, too. I came downstairs, and I thought I had it made.

Anything but. About 45 minutes later, Isaiah popped back awake, and he has been a nightmare since. He won't fall asleep. In fact, he's screaming right now, in the middle of the afternoon, when he normally is dead asleep. It's painfully obvious he's exhausted, so this outburst should be short (I hope.). About a half-hour after I left Nathaniel, I went into our room to get this laptop. I opened the door, and to my left, I noticed Natty Lou's door was open, though I had closed it before. Just as I was about to close it, I looked down. There, right next to the gate, was Nathaniel's outstretched form, his head resting on his blanket. He fell asleep as close as he could get to us. How sweet. I guess he loves us, after all.

Ball boy

Isaiah loves his balls.

Let me rephrase that. Isaiah loves basketballs. We have two basketballs in our house, one a small, bouncy inflatable and another a mini regulation ball. We have a hoop in the house. It's one of those that looks like the real thing, with a net, a post and a clear plastic backboard with the painted square to aim those bank shots.

I love playing with this hoop. Scarcely a day goes by when I don't launch a shot. The hoop is located in the playroom (itself converted from our dining room), and it faces the den, which means I can back up into the den and hoist long-distance 3s. I've never been a long-range marksman, but what really makes the shot difficult is we have a low-hanging light in the playroom, right in the path of most shooting angles to the hoop. A made 3, therefore, needs to be a graceful shot without too much arc (or else it will hit the ceiling) and with enough precision to avoid smacking the hanging light and incurring Michelle's wrath. It's a miracle the light has remained intact, and that the hoop remains in the playroom.

Back to the balls. Nathaniel has not shown more than a passing interest in either basketball. It's more of a stop along his daily rip-roaring tour through his toys. If you can imagine the toys to be like food in a cafeteria line, the basketballs would be something like broccoli and carrots. Yes, he'll put some on his plate every now and then, but they wouldn't be his first choice, not by a long shot. It shows in his shooting as well. When he does interest himself in a basketball, he'll grab it, clutch it in both hands between his legs and fling it in the vaguely general direction of the basket. On a few occasions, the ball has made it through the hoop; however, usually, it's caroming off the ceiling, his toy shelves, the buffet ... or that hanging light.

Isaiah is not shooting buckets, but he's sure more interested in the basketballs. Like with other toys, he approaches the balls with a studious bent. He eyes them carefully, then reaches out, touches it, rolls it slowly. He taps at it. Now that he can crawl, he'll nudge it and watch intently as it rolls away. Sometimes, he gets in a sitting position and grasps the ball with both hands, either slapping at it and smiling or laying his hands on it, like a preacher baptizing a child. His emotion is so Zen-like, it's as if he's trying to decipher the ball's meaning.

He's especially fond when I sit near him and dribble. His little red head will bounce up and down in time with the thump of the ball on the carpet. Then, I'll roll the ball over to him, and he'll clutch it greedily and slap down hard on it with his hands, attempting to mimic the dribbling. When he gets too exuberant and the ball slips out of his grasp, he'll look at the ball and then at me, his face nearly expressionless, as he calculates the next move. "Do I want the ball that badly that I'll crawl over to it? Or can I wait out that big guy there who's sure to fold and get it for me?

Can you guess who usually gets the ball?