A Nightmare on My Street

Yesterday

“I had nightmares last night, but I can’t tell you what they were about because you’d freak your head out.” — Olivia

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5:40 a.m.

Hah! It’s not Olivia’s nightmares that would freak me out. I just spent what seemed like hours in the midst of a bad dream that sends shivers down my spine. It was about Olivia, and she refused to go to sleep for hours and hours, kept getting up, and didn’t care about what I said or did, or what consequences or punishments I would use.

Currently, the parents of this house maintain a thin veneer of control over the children. Putting aside the nice desire to fully embody love and logic and the application of natural consequences, when metaphorical push comes to real-world shove, we rely on other strategies to exert control. My nightmare was of a child who fully and completely realized that she could not be controlled. It’s good to have parental ‘authority,’ but worse than Freddy Krueger scary to be confronted with the fragility of it in the middle of the night.

 

Freewheelin’ thoughts

Today was the first day that Olivia and I commuted to work and pre-school via bike. I arrived at work an hour late, trashed a freewheel, and was generally slow and unorganized; so all-in-all, it went well. The freewheel was old, had worn cogs and a stretched chain. Now I have a new Shimano freewheel and a new chain. At $52 with labor and on-the-spot repair, it beats the cost of a cheap automobile repair. Life is good.

I wondered if my children will share the same zeal that I have for bicycles. Could be that they will grow up with parents that like bikes, they’ll experience being occasionally wet and cold with them, and as adults will happily adopt whatever SUV’s will be called in twenty-five years. Maybe they will associate bicycles with frugality, and will look at their upbringing in frugality, home cooking, and limited commercial entertainment and will spend the remainder of their lives rejecting their parent’s choices. These are the thoughts that went through my head while riding into the city this morning.

Olivia, on the other hand, was merrily singing, “My daddy, my daddy, my daddy is the greatest.” Wish I could’ve had her miked up.

Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons

 

Everyone in the Pool!

The family selections for the men’s college basketball tournament have been entered in the Johnny Quest Memorial Candy Bar Pool, and the prognosticated champions are:

Lily	Winthrop
Olivia	Wisconsin
She-Who	Kansas
Mr Yaharatata	Kansas

Despite having the same final selection, I am very hopeful that I will not lose to my wife for the second year in a row. Yes, this is a family affair—if daddy’s going to spend that much time watching basketball over the next two and a half weeks, everyone else figured they may as well join in. It’s the only pool I’ll be getting in for a while—we are supposed to get 4 to 7 more inches of snow on Friday. Happy Spring in Wisconsin.

But it’s not all TV around here. This evening, the girls played a board game with me (Grouchy Ladybug), and were introduced to a standard playing card deck by mommy, who taught them that childhood favorite, War.

 

The hair store

In the category of Blindingly obvious if only I’d taken a minute to give it half a thought, I offer you my daughters’ hairstyles.

I realize now that I liked the fact that Lilian’s hair had grown long and, with the exception of some tidy-up trimmings, had been left to grow. Then today, momma took the girls to the “hair store,” and Bammo! Lily comes home with a wedge cut. If you don’t know what a wedge cut is, well, good chance is you’re a guy, and it doesn’t matter anyhow. What became blindingly obvious to me in that moment was that I was going to have no control, and little influence, over how my daughters will look. Not that I wouldn’t have come to that conclusion anyway, but I really hadn’t thought about Lily actually getting shorter hair.

Now that the bubble has been burst, I am steeling myself for the nose ring, purple hair and totally unflattering clothing that will be coming our way soon. And I do mean soon, because even though the infant and toddler years do seem to last a long time (due to the fact that I was awake for twice as many hours as in pre-child years), now it seems like it’s starting to fly by.

 

Giving away the bride

My wife and I attended a wedding in Chicago today. Claire was able to babysit the children, so everyone was happy—Claire gets paid to enjoy playing with our children, our children like to hang out with Claire, and the my wife and I get to attend a ceremony and reception party without having to manage the inexhaustible demands of two young kids.

Tears came to my eyes when the bride and her father made their entrance into the church, and it had little to do with the bride. She is a fully capable adult marrying a very loving and nice man. My thoughts were on the father and the ceremonial act of escorting his daughter down the wedding aisle. It struck me as the finale of active fatherhood, a movement from father to grandfather. Perhaps if my daughters and I are fortunate and reach that event, I might view it in some other manner, such as with relief, or joy.

Undoubtedly. my mortality-tinged view is influenced by the death of my father earlier this month. With my daughters as young as they are, I am still looking forward to many more years of being an active dad. It’s difficult to contemplate retirement from that role, and it’s really tough to feel like my usefulness to my daughters will someday end. I suppose it won’t really end, but will rather evolve. Still, it’s all too easy to feel myself in the shoes of that father, walking his daughter up the aisle—I am in no hurry at all to reach that day.