Spiritual Warfare

A lot has changed for us since my last posting. The Wife found a job and we moved to a smaller downstairs unit in order to save some money on rent. Unfortunately our new upstairs neighbors are something short of unbearable. It's not uncommon for them to play basketball inside their unit filling our living room with rhythmic a "thump, thump, thump. thump". Lately they've taken to throwing trash out of their balcony which lands in our patio... from the mundane items like discarded children's toys to the outright foul like used tissues.

We tried a few solutions to get them to stop this behavior:

1. We asked them to stop... "fuck you" was their response.

2. We called the cops... They don't throw parties until 3am anymore.

3. Collected and left their trash on their front door... They think it's some sort of game and threw it back.

Recently though, I discovered the answer. Jesus. Well, Christian praise music anyways. When it begins playing (our music is on a big random loop, we never know what we're gonna hear, it could be Jewel crooning "jingle bells" in the middle of summer) they close their doors and windows and retreat inside.

Jesus, not only does he save souls but sanity as well.

Toys

My father is always quick to point out how easy I have had it here in the U.S. He grew up immediately following the Korean War and watched his family's fortunes rise and fall like the tide. For most of his life, this meant poverty or at the very least, a daily struggle to move forward in life. Small things that I and my son take for granted, like store bought toys were a luxury that my father never experienced for himself but was determined for me to have. 

So growing up, while I never always got what I wanted, I never had to go without. The food I wanted to eat, the toys I wanted to have, in some way I always got those things. So there was that emotional legacy, my father provided for me that which he couldn't have himself. And in many ways I recognize this is the dream that all parents have for their children... for them to pass us, to achieve what we could not, to own what we could not, to validate our time here. 

Of course, I see that now, I understand that now, but when I was a child I was always furiously wanting. The more toys I could cram into my room the better, my shelves, illuminated by the soft yellow glow of my night light, transformed into a war zone where robots, soldiers and monsters waged a fierce and deadly battle. But my parents were not rich and even if they were to have come into money, I doubt they would have spoiled me in the way that I craved. And growing up, what I craved most of all, were transforming robots. Not transformers, but "Valkyries" from my favorite show "Macross". I begged them for these toys but these toys weren't just hard to find they were expensive. I never quite got what I wanted but I did get toys that were close, a repaint Transformer called "Jetfire" that I would take everywhere and have grand adventures with. But always, in the back of my mind, I recognized that Jetfire was not a Valkyrie and that the autobot symbol on his chest was an abomination. 

Years later, long after the plastic on Jetfire had grown yellow and brittle and passed away into legend and glory I found that those valkyries which I had so longed for as a child had been reborn. And I, wishing desperately to heal that valkyrie shaped hole in my heart have scrapped and collected and amassed a collection that embarrasses the me that is today but warms the heart of the 8 year old me, the me that always wanted and yearned but was never fulfilled. 

So today, these toys sit on my shelves in places of honor. The Baby looks up at them and asks to play with them and sometimes I let him hold them and smile as he pretends to fly them through the air, making swooshing sounds, knowing that my dreams live on through him, that some part of what I am, who I was, lives on through him, that chain unbroken. And I know that one day, one day soon, he'll ask when those valkyries will be his, so he too can love them and wage fierce battles on worlds that live only in imagination. When that day comes, I'll sit him in my lap, hug him and tell him, "When you get a job son, when you get a job."

Feeding Daddy

Two years ago I went in for a routine physical and mentioned that I get heart arrhythmia from time to time. Mostly when I go without sleep for a day so the doctor wasn't worried but ran the blood work anyways. The results were good, apparently my diet of cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers and fried chicken wasn't working out for me and I was ordered to diet and do something called, "exercise". So here we are today and I haven't had fried chicken in a year or so but decided to try the new KFC "grilled chicken". 

The results were disapointing. I'm not sure what their grilling process is, but I suspect it takes place in the same pressure cooker as their regular chicken as it feels and seems to have just as much grease as their fried counterparts. What they lack from their older cousins is the taste. It's just bland, bland greasy chicken. So... all of the heart stopping fat of their regular chicken, none of the flavor. 

Hungry Hungry Daddy

The Baby's terrible two's started more close to 3 and for the most part, I don't mind. He's figuring out himself and what he wants and that's a good thing. I do mind when it comes to food though. I've sat around enough people in various reasons who don't like certain foods or make little faces or are constantly asking, "what's in that?" to know... well, I hate those people. It's food, that's what's in that. 

For a while, our trick with the "little trees" worked fine but no longer. Recently he's begun informing us when he's had too many vegetables passed to his plate and by too many, I mean one. And by "one" I mean a tiny speck of green the size of the finger nail on his baby finger. He's more than happy to eat vegetables that have been battered and deep fried but as it's my goal not to see him on a day time talk show, we keep pushing on him such appetizing foods as blanched soy bean sprouts. 

Today we both finally reached out breaking points. He with the soy bean sprouts and he signified his intolerance by making little gagging noises at the table and refusing to feed himself. Suddenly he was 4 months old again and wasn't quite sure what to do with those appendages at the ends of his arms. And I, well, I had had enough with gagging sounds, whimpering and little 3 year olds who had forgotten how to use those appendages at the ends of their arms. 

First I tried the bribery, elaborate promises of the great out doors and plunder in the form of new train track extensions. It was a bit like negotiating with the North Koreans, ply them with gifts, get suckered in by their enthusiastic agreement to terms and then frustration as they continue to do nothing. Then came the threats, promises to remove his new Gordon train and Cranky and all manner of toy trains and their accompanying accouterments. Tears welled up but food remained unchewed, unswallowed and hands stayed limply prone at the side. 

So here we are, 5 hours later. The unwanted food lies in the sink and the Baby lies laying on the floor weak and listless from hunger. His feeble cries for milk, cheerios, fish crackers, and dinner rolls met with sharp and quick rebuke. And I, feeling sorry for the little guy, have also forsworn food as it seems too cruel to enjoy food while the little one sups only on water. 

But soon it will be dinner and we'll see how long this hunger strike lasts. I'm willing to wait it out. A kid free of food snobbery is worth the dizzying pangs of hunger. 

Hangin' On

That would be us, only the squirrel looks far more comfortable than us. Three months down and still no work. 

Our Deepest Fears

Fear is something that's been peddled around a lot this past decade or so. Fear of the unknown, fear of people who pray to different gods or speak in different languages or who love differently. We've done a lot, or condoned a lot in the name of fear... choosing to grasp onto that which makes us different rather than that which unifies us. I try not to live my life according to fear but having a small person in training under my care has changed that in many ways. 

When Aidan was born the first fear was that he had all his proper bits and pieces not too many bits and certainly not too few pieces. Then he flunked his hearing test and that launched a year long fear that he was deaf. Then when we realized he wasn't we picked a new fear, autism, and I would carefully watch to see if he laughed or made eye contact or arranged his toys in certain ways. These fears were so consuming that regular fears like not feeding him shellfish until after his first birthday escaped us and our undeaf, unautistic baby boy was happily munching on shrimp shu mai long before he turned one. 

As he got older our fears turned to corners and bright green fluids that look like something yummy but definitely were not. We managed not to wrap our apartment in foam but we did put child safety locks on every cabinet and drawer. With every milestone we discover a new fear and we're faced yet again with that choice of whether to conquer it or to give in to it. Do we sleep with the window's open or do we put up iron bars?

At least, that's how the fear manifests for me. For my still unemployed Wife the fear comes in her worrying over finding a job. Endlessly searching through job listings and in constant communication with colleagues and former coworkers she struggles over the fear of being homeless of having to sell off our possessions and move back in with our parents. So she locks herself away in the spare room, studies technical manuals and emails strangers hoping for that one lead at that one company who wants her just as much as she wants them. 

For our son, his fears are different. He fears falling into the toilet while he goes to the bathroom. He fears being left alone or having to sleep alone. He demands that we hold on to his leg while he sleeps and in the middle of the night, he'll blindly flail around with his hands to make sure we're still there. He fears he won't have enough to eat and he jealously guards his food and shrieks, "MINE!" when I try to grab one of his crackers. But mostly though, he's deeply afraid of being eaten. 

I guess it all started when he was a wee little baby. I would playfully nibble on his little cute hands and say, "I'm going to eat you!" and he would squeal and laugh. Little did I know I was sowing seeds of fear and terror. 

The other day the Wife and Aidan when to a well known resturant that features a large anthropomorphic mouse as a mascott. The picture at the start of this entry is from that trip. As you can see, Aidan is not having fun. Later that night I asked him about his visit and he was enthused and excited as he told me of the whack-a-mole game and stuffing his face with pizza. But when I asked him about the big mouse he got quiet and it almost seemed as if he got physically smaller. 

I hugged him and asked him what was the matter but he just pulled closer to me and looked down and away and wouldn't say anything. I asked him if he was scared of the mouse and in the smallest whisper, a whisper that was barely more than a chilled breath, a whisper that made my heart sink, he said "...yeah...".

I hugged him closer, "What's wrong? Why did the mouse scare you? You like little mice, right?"

He looked up at me. His eyes conveyed a desperateness, the sort of pleading cry for security that only the very young can convey to the people they trust fully and in that same hushed quiet still voice said, "... mouse eat me..."

"Mouse eat you?" I asked... choking back the bales of laughter.

"...yeah..." he whispered. He was serious, he was in the grips of his fear, as he looked away I could see the flash of a pain and shame so deep and so earnest. I held him as the laughter bubbled it's way out of the deep darkness of my soul. 

"The mouse doesn't eat you." I comforted him as my face broke into a big cheshire grin. The guffaws came, there was nothing I could do. 

"Mouse eats me." he said again all earnest and sad and more than a little hurt that I didn't believe him. 

An Allegory for the Trinity

My son loves the Pixar movie Cars, if we let him, he'll watch and rewatch that movie all day long... happily and contently the way some people pray or meditate. 

As with any religion, Baby is completely taken with the central character, Lightning McQueen, and owns shoes, books and numerous toys engraved with his image. When we bought him his first McQueen car, a small matchbox style diecast car, he was in love. He would take that little car everywhere always clutching it tightly in his little hands. His love was so perfect that he would clutch that little toy car as he slept. So when he lost it we realized there was only one thing we could do... we rushed out and bought another McQueen car for him. This one was larger in hopes that it would be harder to lose. Eventually Baby's aunt learned of his devotion and for Christmas he received a Lego type McQueen car a present. It was around this time we also found the first toy car that fallen behind his changing table. 

So now he has three cars, each the same yet unique. And each car has a special purpose and fills a unique need. The first car, the smallest one, he calls "Baby McQueen car". It is this car that accompanies his on his outings. Small enough to slip into his pocket he carries Baby McQueen with him everywhere. The larger diecast McQueen car has no special name and it stays in his room. The rear axle is bent and the car doesn't roll freely and often it gets neglected. Hidden under books, tossed in with other toys but it's always there for him should he go looking. The final McQueen car, " 'eggo McQueen" is the toy that he loves the most dearly. This is the one he can take apart and re-arrange. When he decided the aggressively portrayed eyes were scarey, he took them off. When he decided he liked them, he put them back on. Sometimes McQueen shares parts with the 'Mater and for a while he sported a little police siren from another set. But it's always " 'eggo McQueen" and Baby looks for this toy when he sleeps and even in the middle of the night his little hand gropes around in the dark searching for the comforting touch of the cool plastic. 

Stir of Baby

When my Wife was laid off, we immediately made some cost saving decisions. We gave up our fancy Arrowhead bottled water with the nice cooler/heater combo water dispenser and we also gave up cable along with going out for dinner and other things. Where we drew the line though was with our Netflix subscription. Those happy red envelopes have done a lot to keep our spirits up and I love watch social documentaries using there "instant watch" feature. 

Watching movies is a bit of a juggling act though since the Baby rarely finds the movies that we rent to be the sort of thing he would like. The distinct lack of talking anthropomorphic trains and animals in the Wristcutters: A Love Story, for instance, meant that he was be bored to tears. And by tears I mean running around in front of the television finding out what new and interesting sounds he's capable of producing. This usually leads us to let him Cars or Thomas the Train with a bowl of Cheerios and a sippy cup full of milk. This diversion lasts for about thirty minutes and he'll come out of the room carrying three or four books which he'll demand to be read. Usually I'm pleased at his academic dilligence but having the oversized Thomas the Train book thrust into your face whilst watching Angelina Jolie curve a bullet around a room to assassinate a room full of assassins is somewhat distracting and the Wife will point out that watching Angelina Jolie curve a bullet around a room to assassinate a room full of assassins is of dubious value in the proper care and feeding of a two year old. So either one of us gives up on the movie to go be a parent or we both admit defeat and go and play with the Baby. 

But when it comes to watching movies, I'm a trooper. If I have to stay up till midnight so I can watch my movie in peace, then that is what I'll do. I'll wait till the Wife and Baby are asleep, lower the volume pop in my movie and enjoy two hours of Baby free entertainment. Such was the case the other night when I was watching Stir of Echos. If you haven't seen it, it's about Kevin Bacon being able to hear dead people. Yes, like in that other movie, but not as good. 

So there I was, the room darkened, only the glow of the TV while creepy images slowly seeped their way into my brain when I sneezed. I sneezed and from the blackness I hear, "Bless you...", at this point I'm not ashamed to admit I was a little scared. I'm completely startled by this quiet disembodied voice and then I hear it, "... honey."

"Aidan?" I cautiously call out into the dark hallway.

"Yeah." Comes the reply, the voice quiet and small.

By now I've put the movie on pause and I'm walking over to his bedroom, 

"You awake little guy?"

I see him in the doorway, the door opened ever so slightly his face still in shadow, a pinpoint of reflected light glinting off his dark brown eyes the only betrayal of his presence as my eyes struggle to adapt to the darkness.

"Yeah... I'm awake already" He responds and then after a short pause, he sighs and opens the door fully, his little arms outstretched, demanding a hug.

Romantic Tragedies

Valentines Day was never a big thing for the Wife and me, even when we were dating. A small gift and a nice dinner was our usual routine. It's not that we were trying to be anti-consumption or anything so noble, it's just that she's hard to shop for and she appreciates small sincere gestures over large ones... which is lucky for me because I'm horrible at the later. Having to plan and orchestrate a night out fills me with so much dread that I shutdown. By shutdown I mean I sit in my pajamas and watch TV. And by TV, I mean anime. Yes, Valentines Day sends me running to my geek safety blanket.

Since the Wife is currently between jobs and we're trying to save money, I decided this year I would rent her favorite romantic movies and spend the evening snuggling while the Baby sat in his room watching Thomas the Train and Cars. So I rented for her "The Notebook" and dug out our copy of "Serendipity" and we settled on the couch and started watching.

"The Notebook" is a favorite of hers and it's a real tear jerker. We finished it, had a small cry and I made her promise that if I ended up suffering from senile dementia that she wouldn't let me die in some home. After cheering ourselves up with some chocolate cake we moved on to "Serendipity". It was about half way through when it dawned on me... it dawned on me that these "other" in these movies are going through tragedies, the worst moments in their lives. While we're laughing and crying with the romantic leads, their "other" is watching the person they love most in the world plotting to cheat on them, leave them, at the altar, in front of their friends, their families, God. 

Sure, it's easy to cheer on the leads when their "other" is someone evil or manipulative. Or is it? Is it right to sit there and wish pain, loneliness, humiliation on someone, just because we don't like them? Because they have an annoying laugh? Or do we not even notice? In "Serendipity" we don't even see what happens to the other. The dumping takes place off screen and we laugh with Sarah as she finds out the good news. The good news that somewhere another woman just had her heart ripped out and that she's out being consoled by her family and friends. While her ex-fiance is doing what... feeling guilty over his callous betrayal? No, walking around in park, wistfully dreaming about that certain someone. 

So to all those "others" out there. The ones who did nothing wrong while the ones you loved most plotted and cheated on you and then cruelly stabbed you in the back, leaving alone at the altar all in the name of true love, I hope you too find yours. 

Randomly Disgusting Things

To the group of underage lesbians at the Fremont Barnes and Nobles....

Please, no wants to listen to you discuss your favorite masturbatory positions whilst catching up on the further adventures of Naruto or the X-men. There's a time and place for everything and the manga aisle at 4pm is neither. 

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Allergies

I have allergies. Just regular pollen and cat allergies. Sometimes I wonder if I have a wheat allergy but according to Jenny McCarthy a sympton of that particular allergy is autism and so far I haven't had a desire to line my toys up by size so I think I'm safe to continue to eat bread and ramen. I do take multi-vitamins and on occassion I eat my son's gummy-vites so the miraculous anti-autism properties may be offseting the effects of all those noodles I've consumed these past two weeks. 

But back to allergies, they've been crazy this winter. Mostly because it's been feeling more like spring than winter and the trees have beautiful little buds on them and the flowers are blooming. And I experience it all in a drug induced haze. I'm sure you've seen that commercial with the people saying live *** free. Where they extoll the non daze inducing virtues of their particular brand of snake oil. Well, they never considered people taking 8 of those little tablets at once. 

Predator Reboot in the Works!

Supposedly the Predator movie franchise is gonna get a reboot. I thought I'd toss my hat into the ring:

What if, instead of grizzled old veterans, they were all young, fresh out of the academy. And all male is boring, have at least one squad member be a hot female lead (it will help if it's obvious that she's never seen a gun before, much less fired one). And the commander is in love with her but is unsure about all the killing. He would like to retire to mexico and fix cars or something. And one of them is a scientist, not even a commando and he hates war too so he's always trying to get them to not kill the predator. 

And the predator isn't an alien, it's an angry indigenous person trying to save the rainforest from evil american imperialism. Because the commandos are going to blow up his home village to make way for an oil pipeline and he needs to race home to cure his sick wife with a special flower that grows in the amazon and the wife also just gave birth. And they're trapped in a pit and it's raining. Raining poisonous frogs. genetically engineered poisonous frogs.

And the climax is fought in a big cave, where the Predator (it's his title given to him by the wise and blind village elder) smears mud on himself to disguise himself from the commando's night vision technology (technology bad, traditional good) and he uses the venom from giant spiders (that he fought and killed in act II) to defeat the commandos. But at the end, the commandos are actually winning, when commander and hot commando have a crisis of faith and turn on their comrades (evil) and save the predator. 

The film can end with the predator saving his sick wife and new born baby, (with the wife being hawt now) she holds the baby while he holds her and she looks up and smiles and they both look up into the blue sky and then we pan down from the blue sky to a beach house in mexico, a trendy CW band playing on a radio, commander is now AWOL and fixing cars (yes, on the beach) then some beautiful legs appear in front of the camera walking towards commander, shot of beautiful swaying ass, oh look, it's the hot commando she ran away with him! 

the end.

The Joys of Taking The BART

We spent the day in San Francisco's Chinatown enjoying the flower street fair for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebration. We hung out with our friends and their 2 year old baby ate some food, took some pictures and generally had a great time. We called it a night around 6:30pm and by 7:00 pm, the Wife, the Baby and I were on the Fremont bound BART train. What follows is an actual conversation transcribed to the best of my memory:

White Female (WF): ...well, I had to take about 7 years off from work because my daughter had  a nervous breakdown.

Black Male (BM): What? How old is your daughter that she's so emotional?

WF: She was raped.

BM: Like a date rape?

WF: No.

BM: Like a real rape?

WF: The police called it a rape of oppertunity.

BM: And she's not over it yet? Did you try therapy?

WF: Yes, she's in therapy now but these things take time, anyways my husband is out of work and I'm looking for a job now so we can make the house payments.

BM: ...(unintelligble)... sending all our jobs... ...Americans are STUPID!

WF: Have you ever been to Mexico? There are people starving down there!

BM: That's not our fault! NAFTA is stupid they're taking all our money!

WF: No honey, that's the War, that's what's bleeding us dry.

BM: Have you ever heard of 9/11?

WF: No, that has nothing to do with it, this is Bush's war, he's the one who got us into this mess.

WF: Honey, we don't know what real hunger is here, we've never been hungry.

BM: So? First they sent our auto jobs to Japan and now NAFTA is taking the rest of our jobs! 

WF: Well, I know lots of Spanish people and they're good people.

BM: So? Why do we have to take care of them? What about Canada? What about Japan? They have all our money, why can't they take care of the Mexicans? Why we always gotta take care of everybody? They're just sending all our money back home, soon, there won't be an America left!

WF: I want to work too, I just don't think I have more of a right to work than other people...

BM: Let them work in their own country! Look, Mexicans send their money to Mexico, Asians just buy Japanese cars, shop in Chinese stores and send their money home. Sending all our money overseas! Ain't gonna be an America at this rate! Ain't gonna be an America!

WF: Well, do YOU wanna pick apricots and strawberries and grapes? Those people work jobs we don't wanna do! I mean, I have a strong will but even I wouldn't want to work out there all day for minimum wage!

BM: Now wait a minute, wouldn't be no minimum wage if it weren't for those Mexicans taking the jobs from Americans.

WF: No! Americans don't want those jobs!

BM: Well, I wasn't talking about labour anyways, I was talking about real jobs like construction. But those Mexicans are lazy. I work in construction and we hired a bunch of Mexicans, they work for maybe 4 hours and stand around and waste time for the rest of the day, they're lazy. Like in Hayward, there was some freeway project they gave to some MEXICAN company took them six months, should have only taken one month but those Mexicans...

WF: I don't believe that. I've worked with Mexicans, they work hard.

BM: They're good for slave labor like picking fruit but not for real work. They don't do 

quality job like REAL Americans! If you want something built right you need an American!

WF: I really wish you hadn't said that...

BM: SLAVE LABOR! It's all they're good for!

WF: ...

At this point the conversation ended and the White Lady got off at the nearst stop, as she left she called out to him, "Well, hopefully Change is Coming!" and left. The Black Man put on some Sony headphones and was quiet for the rest of the trip to Fremont. 

Unexpected Impacts In The Life of a Two Year Old of Having Unemployed Parents

We're well into our first official week of my wife's unemployment. So far so good, we took a day trip out to a local regional park, went walking along one of its scenic yet child friendly trails and discovered that our kid doesn't like to walk about halfway through the trail. This made the remaining half of the walk a sort of mind game between us. He would pout and demand to be hugged which is code for "carry me to the car now!" and we would pretend we were in a race or try to bribe him with mango juice. At the end of the trip we resolved to take him out walking more to break those legs in but so far we've sat around at home. 

His refusal to walk uphill or along trails came as a genuine shock to me as he actually loves climbing up stairs and escolators, or as he calls them, "lello-latows". But then again, I should have figured that his love wasn't for the walking or the exhilaration of defeating a challenging set of staircases.... no, for him the exhilaration came from machine itself. The endless row of little metal teeth that magically transformed itself into steps, that danger at the end when the teeth magically reappear and try to grab at your toes.

Now that I think about it, there's a near endless list of things mechanical and man made that he loves. For starters, wheels. He loves wheels. He touches them endlessly and points them out with the sort of glee that usually only prospectors who have found the motherload can muster. He loves things things attached to wheels, wagons, cars, the lazy susan in the cupboard that now lives in the closet because we had to hide it from him he loves it so much.  He loves elevators which share the same name with escolators which sometimes lead to bitter anguished tears when the elevator is placed close to the escalator and I can't figure out which he is demanding to ride on and usually ends up with us going up one, down the other and up again. He loves airplanes and trains, little yellow bulldozers and turning the light switch on and off as he shows his mastery over our little electron slaves.

But he does have a nemesis in the mechanical world. Electric motors. The type found in vacuum cleaners. Their angry high pitched whine drives him to heights of terror and panic. His fear and dread are very real to him and the mere act of taking out the vacuum cleaner has him running to his room in anxious aversion. In the past he would stand there in stark terror, eyes filled with tears as I vacuumed the remains of the cheerios that failed to meet their end in his devouring maw but now he runs. And to him, it must seem like I'm chasing him with it as I methodically work from room to room. He runs to find refuge only to find the vacuum cleaner whiring its way down the hall slowly towards him, back and forth, back and forth, closer and closer the glowing lamp at the front of its head like some evil glowing eye. Our son has come to name his terror, it's the green dinosaur and it lives in our hallway closet. He tells us stories about his nemesis, "Green dinosaur eat Ainan!" he'll tell us at night if he's in particular need of reassurance. 

Not because I was lazy and more keen on watching the television but out of love did I abstain from vacuuming. Rarely did the green dinosaur emerge from his den, instead the little hand vacuum had to make due cleaning up the little crumbs, random cheerios and the other debris and detritus that a two year old produces as he eats. No more though, with my wife home to act as a shield and guardian, a hand maiden (well, not anymore) of virtue to protect our son the vacuum cleaner is out in force. My heart sings with joy as I hear it weasle out little bits of dirt from the carpet, the crunch crunch of little bits of dried cereal being worked out of the nylon forest and into the HEPA sealed plastic depository of dust and debris. Cheerfully I watch as it marks its progress in the closet the whine of the motor masking out the cries of a frantic two year old as he runs from room to room screaming in terror, the Wife chasing after him trying to reassure that which cannot be assured. 

When the chore is done, my son stands over me as I coil up the power cord. Insisting upon seeing his mortal enemy put away properly, sealed into its den once more. 

My Baby The Ninja Shower Thief

I get a hair cut once every season or so. I'm lazy like and since I have such little experience with hair cuts I usually get a rather bad one so it takes a while for it to grow out and for me to get over the demoralizing traumatization of walking around looking likeI was on the losing end of a fight with a weed wacker. So it's a vicious cycle, I fear hair cuts so I don't go which leads to poor decisions when I'm there which just re-affirms my deeply held belief that people who cut hair, hate people and me in particular. 

Before in the crazy bubble economy days of two weeks ago, I would have splurged the extra three dollars and gone for the hair wash and style after the cut but since we're poor now I decided I could probably handle the hair washing part on my own, paid the bill and with the baby in tow went home to take a shower.

Now, the water heater in our apartment is a tempermental beast and I usually run it for a minute or two to figure out if it's going to be hot enough to shower in. Sometime during this time Aidan had decided that he would like to shower instead. Aidan doesn't shower, he takes baths and by baths I mean he sits in the tub and plays with his Thomas the Train bath toys and sings the Thomas the Train song to himself over and over at the top of his lungs until he prunes up enough to scare himself. At which point he starts to yell, "Honey! Done NOW DONE NOW DONE NOW!" 

This is the point where I ask him, "You're done now?" and he'll respond all nonchalant, "Okay, I'm done now" and show me his wrinkled fingertips, "Winkley!" Since we're having family over for the weekend, I decide I'll take this oppertunity to wash his hair. We both try to avoid this as much as possible since the hysterical shrieks and water splashing followed by the crying and demands for hugs by the wet soapy baby are a bit much for me and he doesn't like to be clean. No, that's a lie, he loves to be clean, he's fastidious about washing his face and hands but not his hair. He's like Sampson, no one touches his hair. 

Undaunted by his furious howls of protest and not in a small way fueled by my irritation by having my shower denied, I set to work massaging the shampoo into his hair at which point he yelled out, "Ouch! Honey, you're broken me!" More crying and tearful accusations of broken him and ensue and eventually he's clean, I'm soaked and now there's no more hot water. 

Inappropriate Baby

As the baby gets older I'm finding the Wife and I have to be ever more discreet with what we say around him. He's recently taken to lifting up his shirt, pointing at his nipples and proudly announcing, "Boobies!" with a big grin on his face. 

In public he came up with this new gem, "Papa-ish! Don't kill me!" at which point he shrieked and ran away from me. Hilarious until the people at Target stared at us. Makes me long for the good old days when he would just yell after me, "Honey! Be right back!". 

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Like most kids his age, our 2 1/2 year old son hates vegetables. There's a few he likes, such as potatoes, but only after they've been frenched and then deep fried in oil, sprinkled with salt and served in a paper container of some sort, preferably from In & Out. Baking or mashing the potatoes seems to be some sort of abomination to him and he refuses them with nearly the same intensity as when we try to brush his teeth. 

Being good parents concerned with providing a healthy diet to our one and only precious we've worked tirelessly and diligently to work the green stuff into his diet. We found we can sneak some veggies in if we chop them up finely and mix them in with his normal food and we've been able to do this pretty successfuly with blanched spinach but he's caught on. It's at the point were there is a clear inverse relationship: the more vegetables we try to get him to eat, the less he eats. He'll declare, "All done!" and then hop off the chair and run off to engineer another great train crash involving his Thomas the Train and whatever other poor hapless toy that happens to be laying around.

This is followed 30 mins later with the sort of mind numbing repetitious pleas for food that only a 2 year old can manage. It usually begins with him standing in the kitchen, eyeing the hawaiian (whole grain) bread dinner rolls and then whimpering. The whimpering, if ignored will turn into out right pleading, little hands outstretched, fingers opening and grasping the air, "mine bread! mine!". The Wife and I still ignoring him, she off in a room furiously updating her resume and tracking down job leads and I, bundled up in a blanket trying to enjoy the Lakers game. Go Lakers!

By now, the Wife has closed the door and I've turned up the volume to drown out the sorrowful pleading bleats, "Mine bread NOW! Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread nooooOOOOoooow!" Our son fully fails to grasp our exasperated sighs as signals of our displeasure, or maybe he does and doesn't care. In any case, the wailing is a sign that the tear gates are about to be unleashed and big salty tears soon well up from his eyes and roll down his cheeks all the while he continues his mantra, "Mine bread now" but now they're interrupted by sniffling sobs. It's around this point where I break down and give him his bread, "Okay... papa gets you bread." but now he demands a hug as well. I'm sure as he's latched on to me like a little koala bear munching on his nutrionally void dinner roll that he's grinning to himself for yet another succesful manipulation of dear old dad.

This is all to say that one day, yesterday, we discovered that our son, the champion of vegetable rights, LOVES broccoli. Only, we call them "little tree" and he gobbles them down with a sort of rascalion glee. His eyes light up and shoves them in his mouth and chomps away. I think he imagines himself some great lumbering dinosaur having his way with trees, certainly when he declares, "Ainan eat tree!" I have cause to smile. 

Cutting Costs

The realities of our unemployment are slowly sinking in for us. I went through this when the dotcom bubble burst but this is the first time the Wife has been out of work, at least against her will. Her severance package was generous compared to some so we have a few months before we start cutting into our savings and start the slowly decent into financial destitution and ruin. 

All our doom and gloom hasn't stopped us from eating out, however. Yesterday, lunch consisted of tasty organic sodas, some organic chicken soup, sandwiches with chips and some turkey sausages on the side. Afterwards we split a danish for desert. I know, we should be budgeting and we should be cutting such obvious costs like eating out... but when CostCo features such fine dining nearly everyday for the incredible cost of free, well, it's easy to forget we're poor. 

An Unemployed Family

My wife was laid off today. I've been unemployed for a while now taking care of our 2 year old kid. 

We've been expecting this for a while now and we've been trying to save money but I went and canceled our cable TV and phone service this morning right after I found out. 

I felt kinda empowered as I unplugged our faithful cable set top box that had so duitfully recorded hours of House and Battlestar Galactica without complaint. The amber display acted as the only clock in our living room and it blinked off for the last time as I unceremoniously unplugged the cord and shoved the entire mess into a a grocery bag for delivery at our local cable office. 

But as I sit here in our darkened living room I find I'm missing that amber clock and the faint hum of the hard disk drive as it would record our shows. I know that it's probably already on a truck or already installed in someone else's living room... telling the time for that someone else, recording that someone else's favorite shows. I hope they're happy together. 

I'll miss you set top box.