Go Play Ball!

For the past month babydaddy got to play softball on a weekly basis, sometimes playing more than once a week. Ya see, babydady got asked to play on babymama's colleague's faculty softball team, that primarily plays against other student in the university's intramural league.

Babydaddy having never played organized baseball, softball or T-Ball in his life, this was going to be comical at best. Nuances of the game from a defensive positioning and strategy, etc. Many times I was just focused on two things, make contact with stick and ball, and run as fast as possible to the next base. In the field well, after couple of games in right field, it was clear I was better off being the catcher, which I didn't mind.

It's been humbling and fun for babydaddy to play a sport that he knows he's not good at. It's also good that it was competitive, but at the same time due to babydaddy's own skill level, he couldn't take the game so seriously.

Sometimes when opportunities present itself to us dad's, we have to take it. Even if it may be a humbling experience or something that's embarrassing. The need to get out, to have fun outside of family makes for good life balance, and if anything it's a great story to share with the kids. At the end of the day, they don't care if you won or lost, but just knowing that you're a "softball player" or that you have other roles than just official swing pusher, and lunch maker gives children other ways to identify/interact with their dads.

Say What?

Things that Babygirl has learned at school and mentioned off the cuff:

• "crybaby" as in her baby bro is a "crybaby"

• the act of choking- she put both hands around her neck and showed me that's how you choke i can only guess someone in her class is guilty of choking a sibling and not preparing for a suicide club

• various old school church songs that I grew up singing, guess she's now learning them at school

• the complete story of creation, the beginnings of Cain and Abel, and the tower of Babel

• "girls don't play pirates" as in this is what only the boys play at recess

• "this is boring" used in context, but not convinced she knows what it really means, same for "deal"

•  knows the middle names for most of her class, and learns Spanish songs, but refuses to say any Korean words

• awkwardly shy and silent, or totally and open book and singing songs for strangers

The whole instilling independence form the Montessori program is great, but hearing "leave me alone, I'm going to do it myself" sucks. Hearing, "I'm going to go outside, ok?" but its not really a question cuz she's already out the door swinging on her swings.

Since babygirl's teacher is totally on a pedestal, I hear myself saying "what would Ms. S say if you did this at school?" How many more months/years do I have before I lose all influence over my child?

Things I Just Figured Out

3.5 years after the birth of babygirl, and 1.5 years after the birth of babyboy, I continue to learn new things about parenting, and raising a child- more specifically a girl. Despite being a women's studies minor in college, and having good foundation of feminist theories and thoughts, as well as reading some parenting books/blogs, I learned something new recently.

Not even babymama cared to teach me this or go over the fine art of washing hair. As a guy, and a guy who's shaved his head many times, it's relatively easy to wash my own hairs. Basically, get arbitrary amount of shampoo in your palm and slap it on the top of your head and lather. This works when you have a short hair. When you're a gal or a guy with shoulder length hair this does not work.

Babygirl would complain that I was pulling her hair and causing her pain while washing her hair or conditioning her hair. It then it all made sense, if I placed the shampoo or conditioner more towards the end of her hairs, then it wouldn't take so much effort to lather her hair vs trying to get shampoo from the top of her head down to the roots.

I realize this isn't worthy of MacArthur Foundation Grant, and perhaps it's a no-brainer, but I like to imagine that some other dads out there have also not gotten the tutorial to washing their babygirl's hair painfree. Can I get a witness?

2 little monkeys swinging in a tree

Transitions+Longings

Moving to a different region of the country with no known friends or contacts can be challenging. Certainly if it wasn't for the family, the feeling of loneliness/isolation may be more pronounced, but spending time with children as well as babymama has lessened those feelings. Being a part time stay at home babydaddy also further causes me to feel isolated in some ways, which is something I can share with all the babymamas out there holding down the fort.

Transitioning to a new place in this day in age is probably very different than in the past, the fact that I still keep up with "local" news of my former home towns, as well as keep up with various interests all via the web, it's almost like I never moved.

Despite staying current and relevant in my professional field, pop culture, sports, politics, weather, etc., I have a longing for relationships, which is the struggle for every parent or stay at home parent, but knowing that I won't see the friends we left behind is now wearing on me. It's one thing to vicariously follow their lives via blog, msg boards, social media, etc., but those are all good forms of keeping in touch when you know you will see them in the immediate future, it's totally different when txt msgs and emails are the only means of sustaining friendships with no face to face contact. I miss interacting with wifey's neighborhood mama friends who would just stop by or I would see at playgrounds, the get togethers with my friends and their new families, as well as hanging out with friends without kids.

Forming and sustaining local relationships around children is simply going to be a long and slower process, like all things in the South.

In the meantime I have my family, and I have to recognize and appreciate what I got.

Land of Developments

It's been exactly 4 weeks since we've been in our new home in TN, and there's so much catching up to do. Obviously there have been many new developments and milestones as well, so here we go, let's play catch up.

Babyboy:
He is obviously helmet-less, in case you didn't know, he had to wear a helmet for a couple of months. Not because he kept falling and hitting his head, not because he was trying out for pop warner, but because he had a mis-shaped head. So similarly like a retainer, the helmet helped mold/shape his skull(as you may or may not know, a baby's skull is not fully fused and quite malleable).

Currently he's 14months, has many teeth, and likes to eat about anything. He's also in the phase of exploring the idea of whether he really wants to stand or take his 1st steps. Really he just likes to scoot, he never crawled, but he can move pretty quickly. If you can imagine how one rides a scooter or skateboard by pushing off with one leg, well that's what he does, while picking up his butt of the ground, so it's kind of quick lunge type of motion. It's quite funny to see if you've never seen a kid do such a thing(how advanced, huh? who needs to crawl or walk).

Like any boy, he's into trucks, and planes. We don't live in the direct path of the airport anymore, so we don't hear or see the airplanes, but weekly our lawn gets mowed by a riding lawn mower which he thinks is pretty cool. As for communicating, well he's good at pointing with his index finger, making sounds, and definitely says some sort of "mama" and "dada." He definitely tries to talk, definitely likes to sing, and definitely understands more than 20 words.


Babygirl:

Where to begin? First of all, it turns out in very age appropriate intellect, babygirl thinks that "Boston" is the name of her previous home, and "Tennessee" is the name of her new home. So it's always interesting when she tells new people that she used to live in "Boston" and now lives in "Tennessee," of course naturally like good southern folks, they also disclose that they too live in Tennessee. Which then leads to babygirl asking if they will come over and play princess, dress up, or have a sleep over.

Yes, the whole princess thing still continues, she's moved on from tiaras, and now has a collection of magic wands. She also continues to enjoy dressing up like ballerinas, faeries, etc. With growing up, comes the growing up of attitudes and sass, so that hasn't been too fun, but babymama and I are tempering well as possible.

Along the psychological developments, babygirl is definitely interested in weddings and the idea of having a husband. It may have all started months ago when she was intent on wanting to be a flower girl, then good friends of ours tapped her to be their flower girl in the fall, which of course led to many conversations that so and so were getting married. Naturally that led to "daddy, I'm married to you" not a question, but a statement. Telling her no, that this was not so, was like breaking up with a 3y/o. She was disappointed in the news that we were not married, and that I was married to babymama. This went on for a bit, and then she started announcing that her husband had died, and most recently she has announced that she is married to "Pooh Bear," and has a sister in law, "Anissa" who is married to a "John." Babydaddy hopes that penis envy is something she'll just skip over.

As you can see, her imagination has not diminished at all. Babygirl has an interest in reading, and letter sounds these days, as well as playing games on the computer. As you can see from the picture above, babygirl went to her 1st day of Montessori pre-school. Babymama and I are not all, lets be cool and get our kid into Montessori, but more importantly we know that babygirl can be quite the independent firecracker, who probably wouldn't fall in line in a regular classroom setting, so we thought this was a good move for her to get used to the whole school idea in an independent discovery mode way of learning, as well as for her to continue there for kindergarten if it was a successful year.

Babymama:

Babymama is big time these days, here's what the outside of her office reads, or do a little fill in the blank to get the full picture. After years of going to grad school while pregnant, going to classes after giving birth, and adjunct teaching while pregnant and being a mom to 2 babies, she's officially a full time prof at a university, with the options to stay, pursue her doctorate, etc. Babymama is fully into the #1 breadwinner role in the family, and doing the juggle of figuring out full time mom roles and full time prof roles. She got babygirl into a competitive new montessori program, has secured 2 nannies to work on 2 different days to watch babyboy during the week, fingers crossed got tenants to move into our condo back in the Dot, and has remained married(6 years) to a babydaddy who's currently unemployed and spends most days in mesh shorts and wife beaters. Who's better than babymama? I know I wouldn't want a different mama for my babies, nor would babydaddy want anyone else to be his wife.

Babydaddy:

Babydaddy is not one for change, he likes things to stay consistent, predictable, and the same(I sound pretty boring). So the move to TN was big, giving up 3 jobs, giving up city/bike commuting life to country rural life. If it wasn't for Babymama giving the family the opportunity to move, Babydaddy would have worked himself to premature death. So the respite of not working has been a big change, but can one truly rest when there's a family and kids? So despite not working, there's been many things that keeping him up at nights and pounding the coffee in the mornings. More importantly like everyone else in the family babydaddy is also developing and growing. Specifically developing into an adjunct faculty role of teaching for the 1st time, as well as having to teach on a subject matter that he's never taken as a student. Babydaddy will also be pursuing to be a small business owner. He's actively working on establishing a psychotherapy practice for children and adolescents. So definitely many new developments.

the whole family:

This is what our front door looks like. Some things are different, but somethings have stayed the same. For instance, we never use this front door, just like we never did at our old place. Our guests rarely used the front door at our old place, and it's unlikely guests will use our new front door. We moved from a 1300sq ft 2 level 3bdrm 2 bath condo with driveway and patio, on a corner lot on a busy street in a diverse neighborhood in the city. We moved into a 1700sq ft single level 2bdrm 1 bath ranch home with a 1 car garage, a long long driveway, on a main rural 2 lane road with 3 acres of land in the country. We currently have diversity of animals and nature.

We're all adjusting to the humidity and heat, but all enjoying the cool weather of 80 degree weather this week(never thought I would say that). We have yet to meet other biracial kids or inter-racial marriages, we maybe the only family of 4 with 1 car in the area, and miss having curbside recycling bin.

The other adjustments are the conveniences of the city, but all in all 20mins of driving in traffic in the city, or 20mins of driving in no traffic to get to any destination here is much better. We get better avg gas mileage on the car, but have to drive more miles than we used to, so it all averages out somewhere. 9.5% sales tax on everything, including clothes, which the great commonwealth did not have, but in TN there's no personal income tax, so that probably works out better than in taxachussets. Also here in TN the family has gone without cable tv, so that's rather new, and working out well. Babygirl has gotten comfortable watching shows online, or has gotten into watching Planet Earth series or Yogi Bear on dvd, as well as mix of dvd's from the library.

We're all developing in different ways and different speeds, but we're all in it together supporting one another most of the time and laughing and knowing as T.I says "we don't get down like ya'll" but we trying hard.

Ya'll stay tuned for some mo, ya hear!?!

Ellen and other things

Currently half the family- Babyboy and Babymama are out of town, leaving Babygirl and Babydaddy at home. Its been said that Babymama used to watch Ellen Degeneres Show  in the AM's when Babygirl was just an infant/toddler. I've been told like many woman out there, they would all dance together with the Ellen.

Babymama's Ellen watching days have been over since she's been back to work, baby wrangling 2 kids, and simply trying to find time to take showers in the AM. How surprised was Babydaddy when we turned on the TV, and there was Ellen or as babygirl correctly identified her as "Elwen"

The mind of the kids are definitely fascinating, each and everyday Babygirl is learning how to correctly use new idioms, phrases, and applying knowledge from one particular situation and demonstrating understanding by applying it to different situations. Babyboy is on the cusp of verbalizing English words, and he's fully aware that he's not a newborn anymore, but desires to be like one at times.

Babydaddy hopes that after the move, he will become a more prolific blogger :P

                                                                             Photo Credit: PalZoo

Happy Belated B-day!

It's true, baby boy had his 1st bday, and this daddy has yet to publicly acknowledge the momentous occasion on his dying blog.



As we prepare to leave the 617 after living here for 10 yrs, life is just crazy, but with unemployment looming for this babydaddy as he ventures into entrepreneurship, there will probably be lots of time to blog about the slower pace of family life down in the 423.