zen.org Communal Weblog

Today our son Patrick and I went out to do a bunch of errands. Drop clothes off at the laundromat (our washing machine is broken), drop off lots of recycling, and do a follow up supermarket run for the pieces we need for this week’s recipes.

Just after leaving the recycling center, a cool new place that just opened, from behind me P said, “Dad” with a bit of desperation in his voice. As I looked in the rear-view mirror he coughed a couple of times, then suddenly started barfing. I’m driving at 30 miles an hour on a fairly thin road (Ireland isn’t known for its huge thoroughfares) and suddenly he’s freaking out and exploding, launching his breakfast over his legs. That’s only happened a few times in his little life in very different settings, but each one is pretty concrete in my memory.

Anyway, I entered this funky crisis mode that freaks me out a little when I look at it in retrospect. Normally in any day-to-day thing actions involve some level of forethought. You think for even half a second about what you’re going to do with lots of random actions. But not when a kid is in trouble. Jesus. As soon as he started to be sick, I saw that a bus was just pulling out of a spot where the road widens a bit, and pulled right over. An old guy with a cane looked at our car with some worry as it flew over to the side of the road, came to a screeching halt as I put on the hazard lights, and I jumped out of the car. There was traffic coming from both directions, and as a collective group they all got pissed off at me at the same time. My car was still covering half of the left lane turning it into an alternating one-way route, but I didn’t really care. For all I knew Patrick was going to choke to death. The only fair description of the emotions was fuck the world. Nothing else was important.

I ran to the other side and threw open the door. I got Patrick out of his seat and stood him next to the car. Off came his jacket and pants, now unwearable. I grabbed cloths and some moist towelettes out of the glove box to clean him up and try to get his seat back into a usable condition for the return home. I had to let him hug my shoulder when he started sobbing in response to the shock of what just happened. His boots and the bottom of his shirt were awful, but eventually his clothes and his seat were finally clean. He was lifted back into his seat, tucking my jacket around his now-bear legs as I strapped him in. I left messages at home and on Elana’s mobile phone to let her know that we weren’t going food shopping and would return home.

On the way back he said from behind, “I’m sorry I choked Dad. I cried after. I’m sorry I was sick Dad.” Heartbreaking. I offered some consolation, emphasizing how important it was that he was feeling better and anything that happened didn’t matter a bit.

I got a brief call on the way from Elana where I could tell her that he was okay and coming home. By the time we got home (half an hour later: cardboard isn’t recycled here without individual effort but we’ll talk about that another time), I think I figured out what had happened. He had a big breakfast, followed by a few bits of chocolate (for pooping in the toilet entirely on his own, a big step), then a 30-minute drive in a warm car to the recycling center next to some plastic bins with wine bottles, beer cans, and juice bottles still with the smallest hints of unpleasant smells. All the ingredients to a good old hit of car sickness. (I’ll try my best to not read too much into the fact that both Elana and Patrick are now on record as having gotten motion sickness from being passengers in a car I was driving…I like to believe I’m a decent driver, even if I’ve got a funky car accident in my past.)

After he was home for about half an hour, we gave him a little apple juice which stayed down, then a light lunch of chicken sandwiches made using the rest of what we had for dinner the night before. (Definitely something for The Accidental Cook.) The lunch went well, with Patrick back in his usual (amazing) good spirits. The rest of the day progressed without any further drama.

I realized at lunch how the human brain seems to enter a completely alternate state when your child is in trouble. I didn’t actively think about the right thing to do. I just acted. Similar in sensation to sheer panic but with apparently coherent thought, my emotions and impulses focused on making Patrick feel better, now. Find out what was wrong, and make it right. No choice in the matter.

It’s kind of frightening how this mode of thought completely overpowers you. I couldn’t have done anything else if I wanted to. Only when he was back in his seat, calm, and ready to continue home did I really feel my brain thinking clearly again. I’m looking forward to further long periods of clear thought, thank you very much.

余艾蕾 and I put together what we like to call Zoe Type, a glut/GL program that I was seeking for my Junior Hacker, Zoë. Well, something like it. I put the source up.

Today I discovered The Bitterest Pill, a really fun podcast by a stay-at-home/”shut-in” dad. His topics aren’t all about parenting (politics, music, women in business suits, you name it) and the end result is a great mix of tales and tidbits in a really easy-to-listen style. One of my favorite shows included a brief discussion comparing Sesame Street and Blues Clues. No mention of Dora’s helpful use of Spanish, but that could be for another show—that and another topic: why on Max and Ruby do you never see an adult taking care of Max? It’s always Ruby, the slightly-older sister, tasked with what their parent(s) should be doing…

Though 余艾蕾 has had Zoë on a music keyboard, yesterday she showed her first interest of being a human at a computer keyboard. So I dug through some Debian Jr. stuff and came up with Tux Typing. I think she liked it, the only problem was that the space bar is pause.

If anybody has any suggestions for a computer program that just does stuff on the screen related to random pounding on the keyboard I would like to hear about it. Apart from an occasional spat of Freeciv and the web I never see any graphics on my screen, so I really have no idea what is out there.

Even though he falls asleep in his own bed, just about every night our 3 year-old wakes up somewhere between 10pm and 1am to come into our bedroom, climb over me, and snuggle down between us. Many a morning we’d wake up to find him there, neither E nor I with any memory of his arrival.

As comforting as it is to feel his warm little body cuddling up to us, I think he’s forcing us to come up with a strategy to make him opt for his own bed more often. The last few nights a combination of accelerated feet swinging out of nowhere, “Dad I wanna go downstairs,” and head-butts have made us get little sleep. It’s as if he were 6 months old again. If he slept through the night in a civil manner, he’d be more than welcome. But our kidneys and heads can’t take much more of the abuse.

Last night I think we can count perhaps 3 hours of real sleep. I’m up at 6 today while E sleeps in, and this afternoon I expect I’ll crash for a couple of hours to be in even close to a decent mood for the evening.

There’s plenty about a young P that we’ll miss in a few years, seriously regretting not keeping a more active journal of his funny quirks, new discoveries, and happy moments. We’ll lament our poor memories, knowing for any one tidbit we kept we let a dozen disappear forever. Yet somehow I suspect this random sleep deprivation isn’t going to be as quickly forgotten. 🙂

As I type, Zoë is trying to extract milk from my thumb.

Patrick and I were reading stories out of a book of “children’s verse” today. Turning the page, I see a story titled Tender Heartedness. Sounds harmless enough for a 3 year-old. It is a book of stories for children, right?

You tell me the age of the kid who should hear this gem. 🙂

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.

Zoë, just over four months old, is no longer the youngest person at day care. I’m happy a baby started there half her age. With us, wherever she goes she is the center of attention, up till now she was also the center of attention at day care. Maybe now she will be second seat for the first time. Can’t have a child with a big ego, you know.

Last night, I was playing with our two year-old son Patrick in the livingroom before dinner. A complex system of wooden train track spread its way across the floor, bridges and tunnels and sudden turns galore. But for some reason, we both appeared—at least momentarily—to be fast asleep on the floor.

The whole project had started in the kitchen with a sudden crash against my legs similar in force to that of a miniature freight train. Looking up at me with his head now tall enough to reach my waist, eyes wide and mouth wider, was a very eager Patrick.

“Dad, want to play a puzzle, hmm? Want to? Hmm?” came the invitation. I mean, seriously, how could I possibly say no? We went into the dining room where he selected the Winnie the Pooh alphabet puzzle, a great Christmas gift from one of my aunts. Making our way into the livingroom, he looked back a couple of times to confirm I was still following him and hadn’t suddenly vanished back into the kitchen.

Interest in the puzzle lasted only long enough to get pieces out of the box. (When prompted he correctly identified the letters ‘A’ and ‘D’ on the large puzzle pieces, our little genius. Will it happen if I try again now? Nah, probably not.) A few minutes into the effort, one attempt to join ‘K’ and ‘F’ pieces together made obvious to anyone watching just how seriously flawed this puzzle was. It really didn’t matter anymore.

Puzzle pieces cast aside, P went straight to one of his current addictions: trains.

About half an hour went by with the detailed construction of a modern transit system. Once all imaginary passengers of his 1-Engine-and-4-Cars train happily traveled over his bridge a few times, it became clear to P that his work here was done. He stood up from sitting on the floor and walked (all of two feet) over to me. His arm wrapped around my neck, and his other hand firmly grasped my shoulder.

“It’s time to sleep,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. With the aide of his body weight, he pulled my torso down onto the floor. Not like a professional wrestler, but still not the most subtle action you’ve ever seen. Propping himself up, he pulled my left arm over so it was reaching across the floor and lay down with his head resting over my elbow.

Two seconds later from on top of my arm came a loud resonating snore, coupled with an impressive exhalation of air. A pause, snore and breath repeated, then his head popped up.

“Dad, it’s time to sleep!” Oops. I guess I’d been leaning up too long. My head rested against my shoulder, and as he began his next amazing snore I offered my own version. A couple of snores later he started giggling and looked up at me. Eyes open, he gave another strong snore, and exhaled with force into my face. More laughs from both of us.

“Want to sleep again?” he asked me. These questions tend to be clearly rhetorical, so his head quickly went back down to my arm for another round of who can snore better? in which I would surely be in second place.

A few minutes later it was dinner time, and he leaped up and ran out of the room, leaving me to quickly restore the floor to its previous state. As I put the last of the train cars into their box and lifted the puzzle to put it back on its shelf, I got another one of those curious emotional floods. Not an urge to cry or that sort of thing, more the sensation you get when first waking up from a good night’s sleep.

I’d just spent the last half hour with my head clear of everything, relishing in nothing but P’s unrestrained happiness. His incredible curiosity about everything couples perfectly with a form of pure innocent joy. Evidenced by scheming grins and squeals of delight, his good spirits prove to be just as contagious as his laughter.

I’m working on fourty years, Zoë is working on four months. I have decades of immunity built up, she has weeks. Why do I get sick just as often as her? I don’t expect to never have a cold again, I just thought that I should be immune to some colds out there when she isn’t.