Attachment

The emotional attachment we feel to our babies and children is an interesting thing to contemplate.  We often see and hear in movies, TV, books, and in discussion all the varying degrees of attachment to newborns, and until/unless one has experienced it, it can be hard to really understand how it's possible to instantly fall in love with a new creature like a newborn.

I know I didn't really believe it at first either, but as Lori's pregnancy with Henry progressed and all the things we went through with it, I was ready to meet Henry.

The delivery itself was a nightmare (if you haven't heard it already, it's another long story for a different day), so when I finally saw Lori and Henry being wheeled back into the room, I was already an emotional wreck with what was going through my head.

The nurses handed Henry to me.


and almost immediately, he opened his eyes.  I saw a little Asian kid that I knew instantly was My Son.  And I completely lost it.  And of course, the nurse wanted to take a picture of that moment which was not exactly at my best, but I tried to keep it together as best as I could.  I felt like I bonded instantly with Henry.

With Evie, it was different.

I don't know if it was because her delivery wasn't as emotionally fraught as with Henry so I wasn't as bought-in to the stakes or what.  But when she came into the world and I held her, I didn't feel that instant connection like I did with Henry.

Sure, she's cute, tiny, and helpless, so naturally, I'm going to take care of her.  But it felt strange even at the time that I didn't have the immediate bond with her.

Of course, that took care of itself over time, and the phrase "daddy's little girl" is a very apt description of not just her but our relationship.
       
 

Henry was "My Buddy" since Day 1 -- hell, since Minute 1, really.  With Evie, it took a little longer to warm up.  I honestly don't recall anymore when that moment was, if there was any particularly defining moment or whether it was just a gradual build-up over time.

We didn't bond right away, but I think it's safe to say that it's not a concern anymore!

On This Father's Day

I posted as a joke that I'm a third-rate father on a friend's post, but in a way, I realized that it's kinda' true.  I don't want to be labeled as "the best father, the best husband in the world," because then, if I was already the best, what do I have to aspire to, to work toward?

What's my goal and inspiration if I've already achieved the status of "the best?"

I have to work at this thing every damn day (and I sure as hell know that I'm not 100% successful every day).  Sure, today might be the day that Dads are celebrated, but we can't rest on those laurels, even for one day.  If nothing else, then today should remind us that we need to keep working, to continuously earn this praise and respect, not just expect it.

From a kid's perspective, I know it's hard to have lost a father.  Many of you are in this scenario, and those of you who know my history know that I'm right there with you (ESPECIALLY those for whom this occurred so recently).

I certainly had a hard time coming to grips with the loss of my dad in 2003.  I still feel pangs of wistfulness (and to a degree, guilt), but it drives me to be better in my own role.  To make my father proud of me as well as doing the best that I can for Henry and Evie.  I may not grieve anymore, but it's still weighing in the back of my mind.

Was my father the Best Dad in the World?  Of course not.  He was struggling and learning the best he could within his own circumstances, just as I am.  I know I'm not the Best Dad in the World either.  I'm just a guy trying to not be a total screw-up for these kids, and as we've seen, being a total screw-up is not defined by levels or amounts of social status, wealth, or privilege (coughDanTurnercough).

If nothing else, then today is a day of reflection and contemplation.  As the kids are upstairs blessedly having a nap so that I can sit here, drink a few beers, and work on this post, I think about my role in their lives, the degree of influence I have, and the responsibility that comes with it, especially given the "status" assigned to them and their particular needs (and the reality is the depth and breadth of that responsibility really can't be fathomed unless one is a parent of a child with special needs; it's a different world that has to be lived, not explained).

This week marks the official beginning of my summer schedule at work.  It means I'm putting in more physical labor at a higher pace and urgency than at any other time of the school year.  In a way, it's fitting that Father's Day comes as the day before this "second season" so to speak, because now I have to shift into higher gear as an effect of financially providing for the family.

This is the day of crystallizing my place in the family dynamic, of defining my role and responsibilities.  Of reminding myself within myself, "don't screw this up.  Your family needs you not to screw this up."

Today, I reflect upon my family.  Tomorrow, I get back to work, in more ways than one.

Steps to Dealing With the Zoo

1. purchase annual membership to Detroit Zoo (because you calculated that two trips with a family of four will more than pay for the membership fee).
2. burn a vacation day on a weekday that your son has a day off from school because special-education schools need to alter their schedules and furlough days in order to continue providing services through the summer while adhering to the whole "days in session" thing (it's a K-12 thing; just follow along with me, if you're uncertain about what I'm referring).
3. pack everyone up into the van and head down to the Detroit Zoo on a Friday morning.
4. determine right away that you should have parked on Level 3 where the ramp is, because the kids freak out in elevators.
5. be thankful that you packed snacks in the backpack to stave off the hangry.
6. understand that the kids can handle about an hour at the zoo, and make your way with due haste toward the front entrance when they lose all coping ability at the back of the park.
7. be prepared for unreasonable wait times at the restaurant that you stopped at for lunch and determine that even 15 minutes is too long of a wait for a table. Leave immediately and go to a restaurant you know won't have that long of a wait for a table.
8. order your kids' lunches and a couple of extra-tall beers for Mom & Dad.
9. finish lunch, head home, dose the kids with Magic Sleepy-Time Juices.
10. Mom and Dad high-five each other. You just took the kids to the zoo and nobody had an unrecoverable meltdown.
11. think about going to the zoo again to see other things you didn't see the first time, but now armed with more information about what the kids can handle and how much time you have before having to pack it in and just GTFO.
12. use this information to plan other, longer trips elsewhere because we can't live shut in at our house for the rest of our lives.

Thanks, Evie

This Winter 2016 semester is winding down to a close. I have to attend one more class tomorrow night, and then next Tuesday is the final in another class. After that, my first year of grad school is done, and I have the summer off until September, when I begin my final year of any and all college ever again.

"Ricardo"
Cordoba GK Studio classical

But I have to thank Evie for one little thing. She insists that I play my acoustic guitar, to the point where she'll pick it up and bring it to me. She'll bat away at the strings on occasion but most of the time, she just walks away after I strum a couple of chords. But she makes me play it anyway.
You might have seen my recent project to clean up Madeleine (a very heavy-metal guitar, because it has pointy bits). I wouldn't have been inspired to do that had I not started playing again, and I wouldn't have started playing again had Evie not insisted upon it.
I started saving my allowance since the beginning of this year to do what I've wanted to do for a long time: buy an honest-to-goodness Gibson Les Paul just to be able to say that I own one (kinda' fell in love when we toured the Gibson factory in Memphis in 2007).
I don't intend to join any more bands or head out to jam nights at a bar. That's not in my lifestyle anymore. But call it a bit of a status symbol. And I was calculating about the end of this year that I'd have collected the cash to buy what I was looking at (and also proud of myself for planning the purchase with cash rather than credit). This weekend, I found a "blemished" item for about $400 less than its retail price, so I moved on it after thoroughly examining the shop's purchase/return policies and also exchanging messages with them.
Had Evie not demanded that I play, the LP might have remained an unattainable dream, and I wouldn't have thought to start saving part of my allowance every week. Or sell my bagpipes in order to generate additional funds for an instrument I WOULD play (the set that has remained in its case untouched since 2008, after I made the decision to return to college; see how all of this comes together?). The sale of the pipes pushed my savings to the point where I could move on the blem guitar.
So of course, to match the rest of the arsenal, it had to be the right color.

"Madeleine"
Jackson KE3 (standard D tuning*)

"Ty"
Conklin GT-5

This is a stock photo of what's coming:

"???"
Gibson Les Paul Studio T

It's entirely possible that I name this guitar "Evelyn," because she was pretty much responsible for this happening (and I'd have to use Evie's full name because there'd be no confusion then, since she has no idea who the hell "Evelyn" is anyway).

* Because standard D tuning makes it more metal, naturally.

The Buckethead Kid

Years ago, Lori and I went out to dinner to Joe's Crab Shack, when it still existed at the Utica Park Blvd. location (the one by Dave & Buster's, the building which is now a Red Ox Tavern).  It was a warm evening, though not hot so we were wearing light jackets.  I don't remember if it was spring or fall.

But it was a busy enough night to where we were waiting outside, along with other parties who were ahead of us.  Among one of those parties was a little girl who was keeping herself busy while her adults were preoccupied.  She was maybe 8, 10 years old.  She caught our attention because she was indeed keeping herself occupied during the wait.  She was examining the fixtures, the landscaping, and then was clearly wandering around, making up games in her own head.

I don't remember the exact circumstances anymore, but for some reason, she had a bucket.  Maybe it contained crayons or other things, but either way, she had one.  And at some point, she ended up wearing the bucket on her head while wandering around aimlessly, waiting for a table.

We thought that was awesome, because she did so without any sense of foolishness or attention-grabbing.  She just did it because she wanted to.  None of her adults paid her any heed.

Based on her actions, her body language, and the degree of self-assuredness she projected, we immediately knew this girl was a dork.  And that is meant in the highest of complimentary ways.  We chuckled and remarked to each other that one day, when we have kids, we would be blessed to have our own bucket-head girl.

That girl is Evie.

Evie is our bucket-head girl.  She has zero qualms about looking or acting silly, because quite frankly, she doesn't know of such a thing.  Granted, she's young enough to where she hasn't been broken down by the system, telling her "don't be so silly," "stop acting foolish."  But maybe that's the point.  To her, silly is fun.  Foolish is a good thing, because it makes the adults in her life laugh.

Where is the harm in playing?  What is to be negatively impacted if one is walking around with a bucket on one's head when one is harming no one, or disrupting another?  Social norms are, of course, a complicated set of circumstances and rules.  But when one is a child, why not?

Evie has put all sorts of objects on her head, and on our heads.  She checks out her reflection, and smiles.  She poses.  She admires herself, wearing a basket on her head.  She talks on a stick of cheese as if it was a cellphone.  She has conversations with her stuffed animals.

She's two. She hasn't been told that she's being silly, or foolish.

In that, we adults could learn something.  Within the social norms, we've, in one way or another, been told to stop playing.

To take the buckets off of our heads.

Stop having pretend conversations through inanimate objects.

That gap between the couch and the end-table is not a secret passage to a mysterious land.

There is no hidden world inside the bookshelf, so stop climbing in it.

Maybe this is why we're so angry with and mean to each other on the Internet.  We've been told to stop playing so often in our real lives that out of envy, we want to make sure others don't have the fun we can't have.  Because when they do, they don't seem to grasp the gravity of the horrors of reality.

But who says we have to?  Why do we have this need to memorize the horrific details of every current event, whether criminal or merely salacious?  Why are we not allowed to play?

What happened to our buckets?

Evie has hers (even if it's a cheap vinyl basket).  I hope she never loses it.

Confirmation, Maybe?

A while after we got the official diagnosis for Henry's FXS, and we had to explain not just his behaviors, but delays in progress to the layperson, I started harboring thoughts in the back of my mind that I sometimes wished that Henry would just be officially diagnosed with autism, just so I could stop having to explain what FXS is, how it works, and what it means.

We had a consultation with a neurologist to look into Henry's sleep patterns, and while I won't get into the utterly ridiculous suggestions this doctor had to "resolve" Henry's sleep issues, part of the paperwork involved exactly what I wrote above in the first paragraph.

A review/examination to determine if Henry is on the ASD spectrum.

I think it's a foregone conclusion, actually.  Since ASD is such a broad-ranging condition, no one person with ASD can be effectively compared to anyone else with ASD and expect to see similar results.  Henry doesn't necessarily exhibit the "typical" characteristics of an autistic person, but that's because there's really nothing "typical" about autism.

What a lot of people may think when they hear "autistic" is Dustin Hoffman's Rainman.  That's not a typical representation.  Not every person with autism looks forward to fish sticks and Judge Wapner.

We hear qualifiers like "high functioning."  That's pretty much a rationalization to say that a person with autism isn't nearly as Rainman-like, which may make those who are unfamiliar with this world a bit uncomfortable.  It's a way to reason a degree of "normal" when such "normal" is not an option.  It's how to determine how close to "normal" the person with autism is, so that it's not as uncomfortable to deal with.

To note: this is not meant as a criticism; I understand that the world of special-needs kids and adults can be rather scary to the general public, because it's a world of unfamiliarity.  As a parallel illustration, while Lori has familiarity with Japanese culture, it was a complete world-turner when we all went to Japan a few years ago and experienced the train station at rush hour.  Even going to the Outback Steakhouse that was down the street from our hotel and sitting at the bar to have a few beers was just slightly different than what we would experience here in the US.

Nevertheless, there is a recommendation to determine officially if Henry is on the spectrum.  This, to me, is a mere formality and confirmation that Henry is indeed autistic.  Of course, that also means that I have to work out how to describe it -- is he autistic, as a characteristic in the vein of being tall or half-Asian?  Does he have autism, akin to having brown hair?

At the end of the day, I think that's something I'll have to work out later.  But for now, it's just one step closer to pretty much having that one word to describe him without having to spend any additional sigh-filled effort in explaining the ins and outs of FXS.

While I do explain FXS whenever I can and at every opportunity, I read my audience and most times, I see that glazing of eyes when the attention is slipping and I'm about to lose them.  Those are the times when I'd wished I could just say "he has autism," and be done with it, because despite the controversies surrounding Autism Speaks, it has at least put autism closer to the forefront of the social consciousness such that people understand that even if they don't know what it means to be autistic, it's at least something they've heard of to understand that when we say our child has autism, or that they see that we're sporting that colored-puzzle-piece merchandise, they understand that we have a long and hard road ahead of us, even if they don't know what it'll be like.

(and that was a hell of a run-on sentence, if I do say so myself)

Point is this: people have heard of autism and as such, can display more sensitivity and tolerance toward our children's behavior.  I don't have to explain what it is, which can get exhausting (and thus making me feel like a terrible FXS advocate as a feedback loop).  I had wished for a DX of autism just so I could stop explaining all that Henry is.

It appears I may be getting this wish.

Of course, just because it's on paper doesn't mean that my son is any different.  The diagnosis doesn't change who he is or what he does.  He's still that same goof who wants to be tickled until he collapses; who tries to walk from the car whenever we got to the store, but starts to get nervous when we enter the store until he feels secure in a cart; who loves Aldi's veggie sticks; who has incredible hand-eye coordination to be able to track a rolling ball no matter how big or small it is.

What it would do, though, is give us an out.  Which was what I'd wished for earlier.  And now that it's becoming a likely reality, I'm having second thoughts.  Doubts.  I don't think I want to let the explanation go with just "he's autistic."

I think he and the FXS community deserve more than just me blowing it off because it's inconvenient for me.

Things I Took for Granted Before Kids

Finishing a whole cup of hot coffee.

"Hey, you wanna go get a drink?  I know we have some beer in fridge but....aw, let's just go!"

"It's 10 o'clock.  I think I'll get out of bed."