the sheep romper

Am I, like, in trouble or something?

Because I feel... bad about this romper.

Is it cute?

I knew it.  I look ridiculous.

Under the weather

We're all a little congested and cranky tonight, so no full update until later in the week. A post-blackberry-picking photo to tide you over:

Dad PROJECTS: Episode 1

Since I was 8 or 9, I've often thought about what I'd do when I had kids to show them that I cared about them, that I supported their interests, and that I could be relied upon without question. One of the aspects of fatherhood that I've most anticipated is the PROJECT -- that random Saturday morning when I announce that I'm embarking for the hardware store only to return and work all day on something that I'm trying to keep secret (but not really).  The one we'll all be able to enjoy with the hope that when they're older, the kids will want to help and learn what it feels like to build stuff.

I've always kind of known what the first project would be, and now that I've got a dad-beard, I figured it was time to make it happen.  This past week, I built Moss a sandbox.

Aforementioned dad beard

The sandbox my dad built us on Birnham Lane is one of my earliest memories.  I definitely enjoyed the Fisher Price sandbox we had on Heathrow (the lid had canals for boats that you could fill with the hose), but the square with the splintery corner triangle seats and their daddy long legs has always stuck with me.

We have a bunch of cats in the neighborhood, not to mention the mutts, so an open box wasn't an option.  I did a search for sandbox plans and found a photo of nice design with a clever built-in cover that folds out to child size benches.  It looked doable, so I drew up some plans, went to Home Depot, rented a truck, dumped all the materials at the house, and took the truck back, triumphant in the knowledge that this would be the first and last trip for this project.  I was super-planner dad and had considered all contingencies, eliminated all doubts, and explored all options.  (/sarcasm)

David arrived for a three day visit about the time I got everything home.  He spent the entire day (and most of the next) alternating between visiting with Calla and Moss in the house and slapping on SPF 60 to brave the burning California sun and watch me cut and stain boards.  Calla did not step foot outside the house this entire weekend because it was 95 degrees, so there is no photographic documentation of the building process.  She regrets nothing.

By midday Sunday, it was clear that my time estimates were a little off and I'd already had to go back to Home Depot for a second pass.  There would be several more trips over the next few days.  It took most of the rest of the week to get everything else finalized, and I probably put a lot more effort into it than I should have, but now that it's together, Moss has been playing in it everyday.

and possibly also eating some blackberries from the bush

Must.

Bury.

Foot.

Which is fine, since he almost simultaneously figured out how to tell us he wants to take a bath, using adorable baby sign.  (Check back next week for a video catalog of all of his adorable signs).

Because I'm at work, I of course miss a lot of his day to day.  Calla keeps me filled in when they do fun stuff, and it's been really special seeing photos of him really, truly enjoying something that I put a lot of effort into just for him.  

It's easy to get caught up in everything that's happening these days, which makes it hard to savor how well things have been going.  On top of making me feel like I've always thought a dad should feel, this kind of thing has been really grounding -- maybe even therapeutic.  I think I've needed an excuse to look for creative outlets for a while, and the immediacy of parenting has provided a fairly compelling motivation.

We'll work on it...

I know why he sings...

...it's because there's all sorts of fun pieces of gritzly crap to play with in there.

Lots of outside time lately

Between his ages of 0 and 3 months, I manically battled all germs and dirt and dangerous stuff within a 12 foot radius of this tiny baby.  Between 3 and 6 months I relaxed a little, but still instituted a no-shoes house policy, and brought clean blankets everywhere I went upon which to lay his sweet, perfectly unsullied head.  Between 6 and 9 months, he became mobile, and I slowly began to lose track of the exact types and quantity of disgusting filth he got on his hands and put in his mouth.  I at least tried to keep him from licking the dog toys, and I swept the house every morning.  And even as I became increasingly laid-back between 9 and 12 months, I had this lingering, compulsive sense that I couldn't let him mess around outside because I didn't want him to get hurt or super dirty.  We have always had a fair amount of outside time in the last year, but I still mostly held him, or only let him down when we were in a semi-sterile looking area, like a Google lawn, or a park made for kids his age with no sand.  Something really changed when he turned 1 though.  Suddenly all the reasons I had in my head not to let him explore started sounding really creepy and overprotective.  

So yes Moss, the grass in our backyard is scratchy and pokey, but you're wearing pants.  And yes the dogs poop back there, but I pick it up every day.  And yes, there are spiders that live in the leaves, but they're mostly daddy longlegs and other nice garden-y things.  And yes we have thorny blackberry bushes, but you'll learn not to grab them.  And yes, by the end of each day you have black feet, grass seeds in your shirt, and sand in your diaper, but as it turns out, that's kind of the way you measure how good the day was.  My hangups don't have to be yours.

Shouldn't have been afraid of the blackberries, he's better at not getting pricked than I am

"Brrsh?"  Rose hip.

Playing with Auntie Sarah's wallet after a diaper change

Moss helps Dad rake

Thanks Grandaddy Dean Roush and Gigi!

The most important part of the gift...

The actual gift of amazing radness

"Okay, you're right, it's pretty cool..."

Impromptu park picnic

Boring doctor appointments for mom are way more fun when there's a random farmer's market set up in the hospital parking lot.  Let's eat nothing but blackberries and nectarines for lunch and mess up our shirts!!

Tall, imposing, dark wood shelves with gold-leaved philosophical tomes

There is a family story that my mom tells, about how when I was some young age, I would look at books by myself after bedtime, and downstairs Mom and Dad would just hear "Plop. .... Plop. .... Plop." as I dropped them one by one.  Over the years my memory warped the story, as memories do, as my attempt to include it in one of my college application essays demonstrated.  As it turned out, I had unrecognizably romanticized the story in my sub-conscious attempts to project "collegiate material" to The University of Chicago, and described my two-year old self as "gazing up at never-ending dark wood shelves in quiet awe, sliding volume after volume of hardcover tomes off each shelf, burying myself in literature from such a young age" or some such schmaltz.  

When I asked my mom to proofread my essays, and she pointed out that my memory of the story may have been ever so slightly exaggerated -- it seems my tomes of choice were mostly Golden Books in my bedroom, and even when I did get into the grown-up (not dark wood) bookshelves, the selection was not nearly so erudite as I was trying to project.  I was annoyed at the time, but have since found it in my soul to forgive her frankness, (plus my revised essay became a lot more earnest and sweet).  Alas, poor Moss has our debilitating book addiction to contend with when he includes his version of this story in his college essays -- he really did start with the philosophy section of our (tall, dark-wooded) library shelves:

Okay so Knitting 101 is not so fancy, but there's definitely some Plato and Cicero thrown in there...

Thumbing through some Camus, some light afternoon reading

I'm really digging the placement of "Order Amid Chaos"...

Dear Moss: One Year

Oh Moss, it's time to learn what birthdays are.  They are great.  Everyone tells you how much they love you and they do things for you and you have the funnest day.  But, like, more than that happens on all the other days, I promise.

First we go to Google to have breakfast with Dad.

Which you love to do because UNLIMITED EGGS.

And that super fun "climbing wall" behind us...

Then we went to buy a very large number of balloons (18 balloons) because that's what you do for birthdays.  The nice man gave you noise cancelling headphones so you could watch the helium go into the latex, but it was still really loud.

Interesting, but also scary.

This part is less scary, yay!

Then we ate lunch like normal people, and tried to make it nutritious because you are going to eat so so so much cake later.

Wait, what's cake?

Carbs sweetened with other carbs, you say.  Um, yes.  I will have that. 

But I actually don't know what I'm missing yet so peaches and peas and water are the best thing ever right now.

Then we went to the park, because when you're 1, the park is such a wondrous place that we can just go there instead of traipsing around the city in the icky car seat to places that will be equally amazing to you as the park.

You may have needed a nap more than you needed park time, though, but you suffered through somehow...

Sand is an everyday food.

I think you are getting curls...

Working on your nonchalant sideways glance

"Look. At. This. Thing.  My life will never be the same now that this thing is in it."

You found a hole.  You always go to where there is a hole.

In a hole.

"Brrsh?" is what you say when you want to know what something is

Then we came home and you had the much-needed-if-not-fully-desired nap, and then Dad came home and then the BALLOONS CAME OUT TO PLAY.

The dogs were skeptical.

But you were not!

Your cake I made the night before, secretly out of things that are not actually that bad for you.

And bananas and carrots and raisins and butter.

But it was still really sweet, and I did put a bit of sugar in the icing, even though it was mostly cream cheese and applesauce.

And now let's have cake for dinner.

It was windy and the candle blew itself out, so you didn't get to do this:

...which is for the best, really.

Nom?

Yes.  Nom.

A sprinkler came on and distracted you from frosting-eating.  "Brrsh?"

Yes, the sprinkler is still on.  Brrsh.

Getting a little winded...

Second wind.

Thank you.

Oops, tart blackberry.

Yes, it can go on your foot, too!

And here are my obligatory artsy shots, for posterity.

And you're done.  Crawling away.

You look a little full...

And now it's time for presents.

Playing with your YBike from Mimi K

~~~
Every day is just better and better.  This was a really good one.  There aren't really enough words anywhere to talk about the things you make me feel and think.  It's too big for me to understand, but maybe you can understand those biggest things better when you're this little, before words get in the way.  Maybe you get it for now.