"Don't You Forget About Me"

Today was a day just like any other — meaning that a trip to Wal-Mart and the dump were on the dockett. Once at the dump, I hopped out and deposited our trash and recycling each in their respective receptacles, exchanged brief pleasantries with the city worker operating the compacter and jumped back in the car.

As I always do when leaving the dump (or anywhere, really) I glanced in my rear view mirror to check out Connor's disposition and also to be sure no projectiles were headed toward the back of my head.

As soon as I looked up, however, my head started to swirl.

Connor wasn't there!

In less than a second's time, I had mentally constructed several scenarios which would have enabled him to escape his carseat and exit the vehicle — almost all of which involved someone snatching him. Had he been kidnapped? Had he somehow gotten out of the car himself? Had I dumped him in the trash compactor by accident?

Oh yeah. I left him at home with Stacey's grandparents.

Dumbass.


I suppose it was a good test run. Surely we're going to have to deal with locating a lost child more than once in the coming years.

"Never Take Friendship Personal"

Wow. You like me. You really like me! Thanks for the positive reinforcement on continuing this blog. The death threats were welcome, too. I completely understand that a few of you would want to hurt my kid, lest I stop writing here, just leave my guitar out of this, okay? She never did anything to you, mmm'kay?

Now on with the show...

Some of the people I consider to be my best friends are ones that I rarely ever get to see.

Today, I met up with my friend Hunter, whom I've known practically since birth (her dad baptized me, and we took several family vacations together whilst growing up), but haven't seen in more than ten years. I've noticed that the friends that I've kept in touch with the best are those who I can not see for quite some time and then pick up right where we left off the last time we saw each other.

Hunter is one of those rare people.

The last time she and I hung out, we were basically kids — free of any meaningful responsibility. This time, however, we had kids, marriages, mortgages (her, not me, thank GOD), bills, and jobs (again, her, not me...bwahahaha) that have become as much who we are as anything else these days. We both also recently turned 30, although, as Hunter put it, she's "new at it" since she celebrated her thirtieth just two weeks ago.

Aside from the new additions to our lives, we caught up on everything else we were up to — which amounted to about six seconds of conversation as pretty much everything we do revolves around stuff that's child-related.

After a few hours of playing tea, banging on drums and chasing the dog, we reluctantly hit the road as Connor's batteries were in desperate need of a charging. He'd been run ragged by a four-year-old and two-year-old girl, and I couldn't have him being shown up by someone else's kids! By the way, speaking of the ladies, why do little girls insist on keeping stockpiles of naked Barbie dolls constantly at hand? I know why Connor might do it, but...ah, nevermind.

I suppose the next time I see Hunter, we'll be 40, and maybe — just maybe — I'll have grown up enough to have a job of my very own.

Nah.

"The Bitch is Back"

You may all rest easy. Cooler heads have prevailed.

After my thinly veiled threat to discontinue this blog, all three of my readers cornered me and conducted an old fashioned beatdown of an intervention, which involved a 9-iron, some spandex underwear and a yo-yo.

Although my heart may not be in it, I've given my word to keep writing here — and except for the situation involving that kid who claims to be my son in Tijuana, I almost always sometimes try and keep my promises.

I feel like I'm tapped out of stories, though. Who wants to hear about our adventures anyway? Does anyone care to hear that last night Stacey was tickling Connor's face with her hair when he suggested that she tickle his penis? Does anyone really want to read about how Connor will sit in the backseat of the car and say, "cookie now" repeatedly until I either shoot blood out of my ears or cave in and toss a few animal crackers his way? (Which reminds me of the story of my cousins teaching their younger sister that "now" and not "please" was the magic word. What's the magic word? NOW!!!) Why on earth would anyone want to know about Connor announcing to the checkout clerk in Wal-Mart that he was in the middle of a "stinky pooper?" Could anyone possibly care that Connor told an obese ederly woman riding an electric cart in the bread aisle that she was "not mama?" (After he said this, I replied — just loud enough for the woman to hear — "you don't know that for sure.")

You know, I might just have better things to do than spend my evenings toiling away at a blog entry? Do any of you care that I could have a life?

I don't, but I could!

"Suck My Kiss"

When I was 14, I was hanging out with a friend of mine when his mom came into the kitchen where we were eating. She'd been out all day and hadn't seen her son (my friend) in a day or two.

"Hi, honey. I missed you," she said.
"Hi, Mom," he replied.

Then she kissed him...on the lips! You could have easily stuffed a sotfball into my gaping mouth. On the lips?! Your mom?!? Sure it was just an innocent kiss, but ugh!

This scene sent quite the shock to my relatively young system, but rather than rolling around the floor in a mouth-foaming, obscenity-screaming seizure, I tried to stay calm and internalize the horror I'd just witnessed. At this age, I'd never seen anyone that wasn't married or "going together" kiss like that, and it just seemed wrong. I knew, without even thinking about it, that I'd never kiss my kids on the lips.

Flash forward 15 years and I'm sure you can guess my dirty little secret, but I'll put it out there anyway: Hi, I'm Carter. My son is almost two years old and I still kiss him on the lips, despite lecturing my wife about doing it when he was firstborn.

(So that's how it is in their family!)

Personally, I'm defenseless on this issue. I can't help myself. He doesn't really know how to "kiss back" so having trading kisses on the cheek is somewhat unfulfilling. Plus, Connor doesn't seem to mind an innocent peck on the lips. But, I think we may have arrived at a solution to this problem...well, Connor has arrived at a solution.

He's using his tongue.

In the past week or two, he's started trying to slip the tongue whenever he's kissed. He experimented with this tactic briefly about a year ago, but stopped after a day or two. This time, I'm afraid, we may have to officially abandon on-the-lip-kisses. Whenever I'm getting close to his face, I have to keep a close eye on his mouth to make sure he's got his lips closed.

I can't believe I'm writing about my son giving me the tongue. I think I need to retire this blog now.

"On The Road Again"

As I've surely mentioned numerous times before in this forum, we are a family in transit. We've bounced around a bit the past several years and the ride doesn't look anywhere close to being over yet.

Stacey is in the process of applying for post-doctoral fellowships for next year while I stick my head in the sand and pretend that I'm physically and mentally unable to hold a job so I can stay home with Connor a little longer. I think writing this blog is undermining my attempts to convince Stacey that I have zero marketable skills, though. I'm not claming to be the greatest writer in the world — at least not publicly — but you'd be surprised how rare it is for someone to be able to compose a coherent paragraph. Me really total serious!

So, for the next month or three, we sit on our hands and wait to see if we end up in Atlanta, Athens, Montgomery, Huntsville, NW Georgia, Bangladesh, somewhere else entirely, or just stay where we are now. I feel like I'm living in a real-life version of the TV show Quantum Leap, just waiting for the jump that takes me "home" — although we've been on the move for so long, I'm not exactly sure where home is anymore.

I hear British Columbia is a nice place to live...

"Undisputed Attitude"

Up until now, Stacey and I have felt quite relieved to have avoided the "terrible twos." Connor is an unbelievably well adjusted kid and usually takes every little setback with a grain of salt. Today could very well signal the beginning of an unwelcomed change to our once-quiet lifestyle.

After being catered to for just over a week due to his hospitilization and resulting lethargy, he was rudely ushered into his post-sick world today. The verdict? One extremely unhappy tot and a veeeery long day.

First he wanted soymilk. Then he wanted chocolate soymilk. Then he wanted no soymilk. Then he wanted to throw his soymilk at my head. Then he banged his head repeatedly on the oven to show me he meant business.

The rest of the day followed a similar pattern.

If this type of behavior is to be expected from now on, we might be revisiting our desire to have more kids in the future.

"Formula for Failure"

Whenever I explain to someone what it is that I "do" to occupy my day, I'm usually met with the same stock reply. It goes something like this: "Oh, cool. That must be so great getting to stay home with your son. I'm sooo jealous!"

Whether these folks actually mean what they are saying in their unequivocal approval is another matter entirely. The point is that most everyone always commends me for staying home with Connor. (It reminds me of how it was when I was in high school when people would tell me how great is was that I was staying away from drugs and alcohol even though the people telling me how great it was were usually the ones that were imbibing on the weekends themselves. Go figure.)

Every now and then, though, I get an entirely different reaction to my explanation for being a stay-at-home dad. Take, for example, a telephone conversation I had with a long distance friend a while back. We were catching up on what was happening in each other's life when she got very curious about me staying home with Connor. If ever I had a tape recorder handy, this would have been the perfect time to whip it out. No transcription from memory could ever do this conversation justice, but I'll do my best.

ME: Yeah, I'm having a ton of fun. I'd never really thought about doing this before, but it's been a blast so far.
HER: I'll bet. It sounds great. You know a lot of guys would feel like failures because they weren't providing for their families and had to stay at home.
ME: Uhhh, well...
HER: No, I mean it says a lot about your character that you're able to handle it so well. A lot of guys would be too proud to stay home.
ME: It's not really an issue of pride, it's...
HER: Oh, I know...but still, to not be able to support your family has to be hard, and it's nice to see you handling it so well, that's all. That's not rude is it?

There's no way more certain to feel like a failure than to have someone tell you that you shouldn't.

"Vacation"

Although it was just the teensiest bit nerve wracking at the time, is it wrong for me to have slightly enjoyed Connor's stay in the hospital last week? Oh sure, on the surface that sounds like a completely self-centered, inconsiderate statement — do I ever make any other kind? — but allow me to explain before you delete my blog from your bookmarks folder...and let's be honest; this is the first thing you read each day, isn't it?

As I alluded to last week, I can't stress how relieving (and stress relieving) it was to have someone else washing Connor's linens — especially when they were soaked in diarrhea, blood, vomit of some combination of all three. Even though my sick son may have disagreed, it was also nice not to have dimininshed his food supply during the entire week since he couldn't keep a single thing down. He now has exactly as much pre-prepared food in our freezer as he did a week ago. Score!

Plus, since Stacey's mom came into town and basically did every menial task that we asked (and didn't ask), I had plenty of food of my own to enjoy. I probably ate more take out food last week than I have in the last six months. Sure Connor may have lost a few pounds, but my belt is a tad tighter.

I wasn't the only one to notice the respite from our daily grind. Stacey commented that, even though she wished Connor hadn't gotten sick, it was nice not to have daily responsibilities to worry about and just hang out watching cable TV and indulging in take out burritos from Moe's — even if it was in a quarrantined hospital room.

The only lasting downside to the hospital visit will come when we get the bill. As broke-ass fools (that's what we put on our tax returns under "occupation" this year, by the way) we decided to go with a health care plan with a high deductible ($10K...ouch) figuring that we were pretty healthy folk and could go a year without any hospitilizations.

Apparently, Connor didn't get the memo.

"Take Me Home Tonight"

Well, we're back home. What day is it?

The last 639 hours (or something like that) have been a total blur, but I'll try to put the events of the past few days in some sort of order. I'm sure I'll ramble a bit, so come back when you've got about three hours of free time. Maybe I could read the entry to you while you sleep?

When Connor woke up Monday morning, I was greeted with a scene of disturbing horror; There was vomit dripping from his crib giving his room the appearance of a zombie film set. It was chunky, smelly, it looked like brains, and it was merely the beginning of our ordeal. Everything I tried to put in him (soymilk, juice, banana, dead bugs) came right back out within a minutes. After a few conversations with the doctor's office's nurse on call, we decided to wait the nasuea out and see what happened during the night before we took Connor in to the doctor on Tuesday – based mostly on the advice of the nurse.

By midnight, we were sitting in the emergency room at the hospital with a dehydrated and thoroughly exhausted little boy. Four hours later, we got called back. Two hours later, we finally got some medical care. Mistake number two (after not taking Connor in mid-day on Monday) was visiting the ER on the busiest night the hospital has ever had according to the attending nurses and doctors — again, a move advised by our nurse.

Oops.

By the way, if anyone ever doubted Stacey's tenacity as a mother, they should have heard the condemnations she was offering under her breath while we waited for someone to help our chapped son who had been without liquid and peaceful rest for nearly 12 hours.

By 4 a.m., he was pleading for water in an unsettling stupor.

"MOMMY?! WATTY?!" (over and over and over)

It didn't make the wait any easier. Keep in mind, also, that the decision-making parents had had no sleep to this point.

By 6:30, Connor had finally been hooked up to an IV, although he pulled it out with his teeth shortly after its insertion. Enter IV #2, one seriously cross kid and an exasperated medical team. After avoiding a catheter insertion (THANK YOU, JESUS) to test his urine, Connor was finally admitted to the hospital.

Although the rest of the day was rough (much more vomiting, more intravenous-induced rage) Connor finally got some undisturbed sleep — though Stacey and I were essentially awake through the entire ordeal. Stacey's first real sleep was in the bed with Connor on Monday night — in so deep a sleep, in fact, that she didn't wake up when the nurses checked Connor's vital signs throughout the night. She asked a nurse if there were any jokes going around about her being the deep sleeper with bad breath.

Either she got off easy, or the nurse was too polite to tell her the truth.

Each day Connor got progressively better until he was finally discharged late this morning. He's still a bit queasy, though (and I'm afrraid we may have already caught his leftover germs). He napped for nearly six hours this afternoon before spraying the most noxious poop you can imagine.

(Without exaggeration, the odor was BY FAR the worst thing I have EVER smelled. Should the governnent ever consider using particular odors as chemical weaponry, they should really come see me first.)

The next few days should be filled with plenty of questions (will we get sick?, will the diarrhea last?, why would anyone want to see a Kid Rock/Scott Stapp sex tape?), but at least we're home.

There's no place like it.

"Lie and Wait"

Oh, you want an update? Okay, Connor is in the hospital.

More?

Cripes...alright.

Basically, Connor crashed his motorcycle while trying to do a one-handed wheelie to impress the girl across the street. His doctor said that his symptoms look more like the rotavirus but I'm not buyin' it. Besides, who wants to tell people that their kid is pooping so much that it creeps up his back to his neck or that the setting on his mouth has been switched to "exit only?"

He's tired. I'm tired. His mama is tired. We're all ready to go home, though it looks like it will be another day before we get discharged. One positive observation: if he's gonna be spraying feces everywhere, at least someone else is washing the sheets. The downside? The diarrhea could last for seven to ten days.

I think this kid is gonna be sleeping on butcher paper for awhile once we get home.

"Sick of it All"

We had the most beautiful weather today: it was 60 degrees, gorgeously sunny and windy. Of course Connor had to totally ruin it and get himself stuck in the hospital. Thanks, kid.



I've had no more than a hour of sleep (total) in the last two days and Connor is still in the hospital. Think I feel like making a full-blown entry tonight?

"Vomit Spots"

A haiku to sum up the day:

Connor puked the whole day long
I feel queasy, too
Oh dear, God please make it stop

Sorry...that's all the blog you're getting today. It's 10:20 p.m. and this kid is still awake — albeit in a barely conscious state with a suppository slowly melting inside his bum, waking up only to dry heave and then pass out again.

"A Predator's Portrait"

We discovered today what we had not-so-secretly feared since moving here in August: there is a child molester living in our neighborhood — it would happen the day after I wrote about how there were good points about living out here.

Looks charming, don't he? (edit: is that better?)

A friend of Stacey's forwarded us a link to a website where you can search by address to see just how close you are sleeping to the philthy pedophiles. We've consulted the state's registry before, but it didn't have an actual map so that we could visualize the distance between us and the defilers. Since we're pretty unfamiliar with this particular corner of the world, street addresses alone are about as useful to us as an Oscar statuette will be to George Clooney to help him get dates — he's doing pretty well already, ya know what I mean?

I'm not so sure this new knowledge is a good thing — for us at least. We already didn't feel particularly safe walking in the neighborhood due to the overabundance of wild dogs, Confederate flags, reclusive neighbors, "no trespassing" signs, and abandoned trailers. It's not like knowing for a fact that there's a convicted sex offender just a few doors away is going to decrease our safety level any. Plus, I have a feeling a certain grandparent (or three) is, at this very moment, speeding in our direction with a trunkload of ammunition, landmines and tasers.

I feel bad talking smack about our neighborhood because we're in such an awesome situation right now (except for living in The Village of the Crazies, of course), paying a paltry sum for rent to some family friends who own the house we're occupying — thus enabling me to stay at home with Connor while not living in a one-room "apartment" somewhere.

The facts are in, though. Stacey's fears have been confirmed. Never doubt a woman's intuition. I learned that lesson when she told me she thought I had OCD — long before I noticed it myself and years before my diagnosis.

But, I guess I can't chalk that assessment up totally to female intuition. If you saw our linen closet or my meticulously organized CD collection (which is currently languishing in storage, and it's driving me NUTS), you'd probably have come to the same conclusion.

"The Sound of Silence"

Although it may seem like I'm constantly complaining about living in East Nowheresville, I do enjoy the solitude. Last night, for example, I stepped outside to grab something out of my car at about 9 o'clock. I immediately froze because, for the first time in a while, I heard absolutely nothing. Although we've lived out here for seven months (with five to go) I've never really been out at night much. My "day job" requires me to be up at a reasonable hour, and there's not much to do here once the sun goes down anyway — or when it's up for that matter.

Coming from a somewhat more rural environment (although Mayberry could be considered rural compared to this place), I'm used to a little noise, but the tranquility has certainly been relaxing. There's nothing as cool as hearing Connor's tiny voice booming across our quiet cove when he calls for Murphy.

But, the solace comes at a price — realized once again today as Connor and I made the hour drive into Greenville to have Stacey's car serviced at the dealership. While the car was being worked on, Connor watched a Wiggles DVD, thus inducing a state of near-catatonia. Once the car was ready, instead of heading home, I decided we'd do a little sightseeing — in addition to a romp at Toys R Us and a fancy lunch at the greatest restaurant in the entire world: Taco Bell (and, no, I'm not kidding...seriously).

My grandparents lived in Greenville when I was growing up, and it's a town I'll forever associate with visiting them. The only time I've been back since we moved my grandfather into assisted living in Atlanta ten years ago was for his funeral in 2001. It's always a surreal experience visiting a place that you remember from childhood but haven't seen with adult's eyes. Driving around I found many familiar haunts (the professional building near my grandparent's house where I used to skate, the Fresh Market, a run down used car dealership that used to have a train car as it's office building...the train car is gone now, but the lot is still called "The Train Used Cars"). Even though it was nice to see all these places again (including my grandparents' old house and the cemetary where their earth-bound bodies are buried) I couldn't help but feel a little cheated.

Stacey still has all of her grandparents — and until a few years ago, she still had a great-grandparent. Living closer to Greenville than I ever have before, it would be unbelievably fantastic to have Gran and Gramps so close to us and have Connor get to know them.

Plus, I'd have a ride around town when we needed to have Stacey's car serviced.

What?!

"Broken Foundation"

Grim news, folks. The diagnosis is not good.

I don't know if the proper description is "torn," "broken," or something else entirely, but Connor's drum is on it's way out. The drum head began to show signs of distress (you'd be distressed too if someone was constantly banging on your head with sticks) a few weeks ago because of his predilection for hammering on the defenseless intrument with spoons, but it developed a fatal rip sometime this afternoon — probably during a marathon session of, "Connor drum? Connor drum?"

Of course, he does like to stand on the drum and use it for his personal launching pad, as well. Surely that didn't help matters much. Okay, I may have beaten the crap out of it myself on an occasion or two...

At any rate, the drum that Connor's has banged (slowly and quickly) for so long is nearly dead. Say a prayer for us. This one might be more traumatic than the loss of any stuffed animal or woobie. I've been eyeing the piece of crap drumset at Wal-Mart, but at $250 it's a bit out of our price range and way out of his age range. In time...

"Fight For Your Right"

As expected, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed into effect a law today that is specifically designed to challenge the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion — that, of course, being Roe v. Wade...though I doubt there are many unaware of the landmark case (probably far fewer than could describe Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, I'll bet).

The bill, which bans pretty much all abortions (except those in which the life of the mother is at stake) is most definitely going to be challenged in court — the question is just who's going to step up and when?

Until Connor came along, I maintained a fairly laid back view about abortion. Although I've always held a personal belief that the "procedure" was wrong, I felt that the government better have a damn good reason to tell someone what to do with their body — Pro Choice by default, I guess.

But, once Connor dove headfirst into our lives (literally, although it was more of a gooey, slow-motion Pete Rose-style slide into home plate), I became much less resigned to the quadrillions of abortions that happen every second...well, I think that's what I heard Rush Limbaugh say, at least. I couldn't imagine loving anything or anyone more than I love my son, and I have equal difficulty imagining a scenario in which someone wouldn't welcome that love into their life with open arms.
But, we have the distinct misfortune of living in a world where no issue is ever cut and dry, and no situation is ever the same for two different people. Babies are born every day into lives that no one could ever hope to endure or to parents that didn't want them in the first place. Trying to come up with a resonable argument against abortion in cases such as these — other than, "uh, God says it's wrong, mmm'kay?" — seems awfully difficult to me.

I suppose I don't have any real point with this missive other than to generally piss people off, since I took no clear stand on perhaps the most divisive issue of our day; I just hope that we can fix some of the other problems within our society (poverty, welfare, a general lack of compassion for others, a severe lack of recognition for the genius that is the film Army of Darkness, poor funding for schools, et cetera) so that abortion ultimately appears to be the unthinkable alternative to allowing a human being to enter a wonderful world full of opportunity and love.

"Conceived Through an act of Violence"

According to a recently released report from The Parent's Television Council, programming for kids is filled with violence, and, "disrectful, aggressive behaviors."

Also according to the group, "programming for kids" includes The Cartoon Network's offerings. Have YOU watched The Cartoon Network? The word "cartoon" may be in the channel's title, but a kiddie channel it ain't. Sure, I'd let Connor watch it when he's a little older (and if we somehow figured out how to get cable on a rabbit-ear TV), but he's already seen a mob hit on The Sopranos, so he's already pretty desensitized to the whole "violence" thing anyway.

What struck me most about the study, which I read about on CNN.com, was the following sentence: "The report also criticized the networks for airing children's programs with questionable language, such as "stupid," "loser" and "butt," as well as sexual innuendo, insults, bullying and putdowns."

I can't even count the number of times I've used "stupid," "loser" and "butt" in the same sentence, but I don't feel like an excessively violent person. Sure, there are large hand-shaped buises on Connor's butt (dammit, there I go again...oops, I mean dammit...I mean...) but he should have known better than to cry in public. I'll give him something to cry about.

So kids watch a little bit of violence every once in awhile...or every day...or all day every day. Look, the important thing is that they're entertained, am I right? I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

"Stranger By The Day"

To put it plainly, my day is a study in contrasts. In the morning, I usually wake up around the same time as Connor (eightish) and play the role of nurturer and caretaker. Get breakfast ready. Provide clean clothes. Brush teeth. Supply constructive playtime. Et cetera ad naseum.

But, once Connor goes down for his afternoon nap, I am free to indulge myself in everything I'm missing while he's awake. (And, yes, I'm aware that Stacey will probably scold me for not missing Connor when he's asleep, or even enjoying myself during his nap times 'cause she's pretty hard up to hang out with him these days.)

Yesterday, for example, I got a big package of pre-release CDs as part of one of my freelance gigs and spent the afternoon geeking out with my iPod. By 5:30, though, I was back to being Dad — heating up dinner (I'd say "cooking" but I don't want to get scolded on two points in on entry) and once again providing stable care for child.

Today's activities might provide an even clearer dichotomy: Pre-naptime was pretty much like every other day — eat, clean, play and poop (and I'm not saying who did what, either). But, once Connor was asleep — and in between me trying to gather my writing clips so I can make a legitimate push for freelance work — I managed to "find" a couple of mixed-martial arts fights on YouTube.com. (I seriously need to block that particular site and Google video as well 'cause they're severaly draining my naptime productivity.)

While Connor was sleeping, I was watching Tito Ortiz mangle Ken Shamrock's face and watching Rich Franklin demolish pretty much every one in his path. But, by this evening, life returned to "normal" once again. After dinner, I vacuumed the downstairs while Connor followed me around with his toy vacuum.

Should I relinquish my "dude club" card now?