Please Rise and Shriek for the All Honorable Olie

Two new developments to report. First, Oliver is now standing on his own. He can't rise to stand without help, nor has he totally perfected his balance, but his jello legs are suddenly a thing of the past. Just this last Sunday evening he still wobble-stood, forcing one to help hold him upright. Now, two days later he suddenly stands solidly on his own. Of course, he falls over when he loses his balance, which is often, but his legs no longer buckle. Just like that, he stands.

The second development is that he verbally responded to me tonight. He's often verbal, but typically with less intentionality. Late last week he started screeching, shrieking really. He's been trying out new sounds for some time and when he finds one he likes, it gets practiced over and over again for a few days, then on to some new verbalization. Shrieking is so now. "Babababa," "Dadadada," "Abababa" and "ffffff" are totally yesterday.

At any rate, he erupted into a delighted shrieking tonight after I tossed him into the air and I saw no reason not to join in on the fun. He shrieked, I shrieked back. He smiled, locked my gaze, then shrieked right back at me. I returned the favor, only to be one-upped yet again. Seeing that the competition was a dead heat, I simply joined in and we ended by shrieking in concert. Oh, what must the neighbors be thinking...

Sidebar (And 2 New Teeth for Olie)

Finally took a week of badly needed vacation time. The week off was frontloaded with heavy social activity centered around the 4th of July party noted earlier, but the pace slowed somewhat thereafter allowing for time to read and reflect. I’m embarrassed to reveal that it had been a long time since I had read fiction. A book titled “Reading Lolita in Tehran” caught my eye given Bush’s obsession with casting Iran as one axis of his evil triumvirate. A critical theme in the book revolves around women losing their freedoms during the 1980’s as the new conservative regime in Iran clamps down on what they view as western (primarily American) influence and decadence.

The narrator is a female literature professor teaching English fiction classics at the University of Tehran. After earning her doctorate in America, she elected to return to her family and her homeland. She spends the next 18 years in Tehran, and while the shifting sands are not lost on her, like many she avoids acting until much too late. Suddenly, everyday freedoms are gone and she faces a world where her grandmother had far greater intellectual and outright freedoms than does she. It’s a fascinating read, contrasting markedly and substantively with our own leftist shift in the U.S. during the 1960’s and also interesting for the insights it offers into the confusing mix of pro- and anti-American sentiment eminating from that region even today.

Back to Olie…he’s got two more teeth coming in now. The top two have now appeared giving him a rabbit-like quality. I'm here to tell you that this kid just gets cuter with each passing day. Gerber Baby, he’s been called. We’re about 1-2 weeks from him busting out all over the place (here comes the childproofing). He’s so ancy now, can’t stay still, constantly rolling every which way, but still no crawling yet. And he’s inherited that bruising, Herculean strength. He may turn out to be the type that skips crawling and goes straight to walking upright.

The end of the vacation played out poorly as Olie contracted the California plague and consequently we were visited by the Hyde side of our young son. Most unpleasant were those few days (for us and him), though we still managed to log a few hours at the beach between trips to the hospital and overall sleeplessness. Still, even within the unpleasantries, there managed to be a few tender moments. Seriously weakened by the virus and the voluminous fluid in his chest, he became inconsolable for long stretches, but eventually with exhaustion could be comforted via aggressive cuddling from dear old dad. He primarily seeks consolation from either his mother or his thumb, but something about a cuddle from dad freed him that day, if only briefly, from his general state of misery.

Picture Perfect

Maximizing Mayhem on the 4th of July

Similar to years past, the family spent the July 4th holiday basking in the Cape Cod sunshine, sand, and saltwater. For too many years to count we (the family) have hosted an annual multi-generational Independence Day party that culminates in Orleans town fireworks dancing and exploding over the harbor and front lawn of the family residence. It is always a delightful day and friends come from far and wide to partake.

For the first time in ages, this year’s party was overrun with children under the age of ten. The children ran amok, repeatedly scaling our 100-year old apple tree, then hucking the apples they'd knocked out of the tree over the fence at the neighbor's guests. They snuck too many sodas, gorged on hot dogs, ketchup and homemade creamsicles, and generally sought and succeeded in maximizing mayhem. At nearly 8 months, Oliver was awestruck by the older children. He's an intense dude, always studying the people and objects before him, and only later revealing whether or not he has warmed to them. That day the other children introduced the concept of chaos to him and study it he did. Now we can only hope that the lessons and takeaways he learned that day fade like those drifting ghost clouds left behind by the fireworks.

Letting The Air Back In

On the way home from Cape Cod last weekend, we got a flat tire. No biggie, you might think. After all, we bought the Volvo for its high safety ratings. As it turns out the blowout itself was a non-event. I easily slowed and moved to the side of the road. Upon inspection, it was clear the tire was shot. Unfortunately, there was not enough room on the roadside to change to the spare, so I had to drive a couple of miles on the flat tire to an exit where I could safely change the tire.

When I finally got stopped, I got out and the tire was smoking hot with the smell of burning rubber permeating the air. Ever the natural pessimist, the image of the Volvo consumed in flames quickly arose in my mind. Now I was rattled. Changing the tire turned out to be simple enough, but the prospect of hightailing it back to New York City some 200 miles on a skinny left me cold. In my pre-fatherdom years, I would have gone for it, immune to any risks I was taking. But that person was a couple of turns of the road back and I now found myself locking us down for the night in Providence, RI to await the local Volvo dealership opening first thing next morning.

Amazing are the changes that arise when you really have someone that needs you to survive. I’m a father now. Oliver requires what nourishment, guidance, and protection I have to offer (perhaps a frightening thought to those who knew me in my young 20's). At times I’m overcome by what that means, but mostly I revel in it. I wrote a paper in college while studying Heideggar titled "The Ringing of the Ringing in the Worlding World." I concede the title is absurd (though of course that was my intention), but the title attempts to embrace grabbing hold of Life, of Being, and really FEELING IT. I’m definitely feeling It lately, and moments like that flat tire certainly ring the ringing in my worlding world.