Early Birds

I think my son is developing into an early bird. He's sleeping through the night now (which is a blessing) and he's shaping up to be an early to bed early to rise kind of guy. At three years old I guess it's hard to be sure of anything, but as his patterns have stabilized a bit, so I'm thinking this may just be his natural tendencies rising to the surface.

That's been one of the additional challenges of his having cerebral palsy, distinguishing between the traits that have come with the disability (and may retreat over time) and the traits that are his personality (and are likely to stay for life). It's a bit of a nonsense exercise on my part, but I suppose it's part of every parents interests to try and peer into those little eyes and try to divine the person that you're just beginning to understand.

One thing I think I can say with some certainty, is that my boy seems to know what he wants and when he wants it.

"I'm sleepy - story time," is something I've heard now a few times as my son has begun to understand himself when he's getting tired. After a little time reading, and of listening to him tell his little jokes to himself while he giggles, he's usually sound asleep. It's wonderful.

On the other end of the night, he's equally clear, but it's not so wonderful.

"It's still dark - go back to bed," I say most mornings with my head still buried under a pillow while my son tugs at my arm in the pre-dawn dark. The little guy knows what side of the bed I sleep on, and for whatever reason, has decided that I'm the easier target in the early AM.

"No - it's the day time," he says, lack of evidence non-withstanding, "I'm hungry."

"It's bed time until the daylight comes," I've been trying to convince him with very little luck.

Some days I win this argument, and the boy will go back to his bed for another 30 or 45 minutes until the first weak light of morning is apparent. But more often than not, he'll escalate his position with tears or angry shouts and I'll get out of bed with a grumble.

"Yogurt please," he says after getting me down the stairs and into the cold kitchen, "Blueberry then Vanilla."

I'll set him up with a spoon and a cup of yogurt and watch him go at it for a bit. He's still not very good at getting his left arm into the act, so he's doing most of the work with his right, but he's gotten fairly effective at spooning out at least the top half of the yogurt before asking for assistance.

Then I try to work in some of the things our orthopedic surgeon has asked us to do to keep his left arm from growing stiff or losing resiliency. I'll massage his left arm and stretch it and try to help him grasp the cup with that hand while he digs away with the right.

"Loosen it up man," I say as I wiggle his affected arm and rub it up and down. He usually obliges me with a giggle or two while I help him angle the cup for better digging.

It's by now that I'm thinking that it's not so bad getting up with the little guy. It gives us time together to get to know each other; time for me to understand who my son is and time for me to understand how to help him in the day to day with his disability.

Sometimes, especially when it's still dim light leaking into the kitchen and the world just beginning to wake up, I feel like the proverbial father bird out with his little bird pecking for breakfast.

"You're an early bird," I'll tease him sometimes.

"Daddy!" he laughs, "I'm not a bird. I'm a boy."

"Yes," I think while I laugh with him, "You're my boy."

Good night.

Good Will

Tonight was a rough commute. I live in a city, and work in the suburbs (go figure), so the approach to my town at the end of the day feels a little like the approach the X Wing Fighters Pilots have to take to destroy the Death Star (did I just give away the fact that I'm a nerd?).

There's nothing though that makes me so upset as having someone in a flashy car making trouble for everyone on the road.

"Who do you think you are," I said to myself tonight after being cut off by an older man in a new sports car - a sports car I might add, that I dream of owning when I win the lottery.

Between the outrage that I felt at being cut off and the insult of seeing such a piece of work drive around in a car that I admire, I had to restrain the urge to respond with a gesture and a few choice words.

It took a while to shake off those negative feelings. They weren't at all assuaged when I saw the very same driver do the same thing to several other folks - they must have taught him that at Imperial Storm Trooper Academy.

"Five car lengths," I said to myself looking up at the very short distance that all those maneuvers had netted for the jerk, "All that nastiness for five car lengths."

I wonder sometimes about those folks. I wonder how awful it would be to know that however they feel about themselves (good or bad), they channel such negative force into the world; make a lot of folks around them feel bad. I know it's a small thing, really; I mean, nobody got hurt, but who knows how far a negative force can go in the world. It's a little like the dark side of the force.

I was wondering about that for a while tonight, and just a few minutes ago, a friend of mine posted something so kind and thoughtful on my Facebook wall that I just radiated like a warm cup of tea for about five minutes.

"Where did that come from," I thought, and realized how, without really knowing it, my friend had overcome the ill will of that jerk on the road with their good will.

"You never know how far a good act will go," my Dad used to say to me, and I guess it's true.

I hope I can take what I was given and send it on a little further.

Good night.

October Snow

Everyone's talking about the early snow that's falling tonight. I think the most common things I'm hearing or reading are "... can't believe," or "... can't remember," when folks look up or out at the thick flakes.

For me, although it's been a long time, I do remember a snow once in October. I remember most vividly that I was only half way through the list of yards that I'd agreed to rake when those two icy inches of snow fell. It made the remaining work hard and muddy and cold. But when the sun came out afterwards and I plied up those clumps of matted leaves with my little steel rake and the earth released that musty smell that it has when it's scratched up after having lain beneath snow and leaves, I remember thinking it felt more like Spring than late Autumn.

That odd, out of place feeling, stayed with me that whole season and it wasn't until the holidays that year, I think, that I got some sense of normalcy back.

Now the feeling is stronger, if a little different. Not that I'm out raking leaves for hire these days. But this untimely weather has scratched up memories that have lain under the passing of many years and I feel a bit like I'm walking in an earlier time. It's like I'm being led by the hand by some ghost out of a Dickens story through a time in my life that seems unreal to me now.

I'm always dumbfounded by how much feeling goes with those memories, and how fresh it can feel, even though it's been years since the things that made those feelings happened. People and times that I'd thought I'd forgotten or at least forgotten to think or feel about when they stopped coming in and out of my life. And though I'm hardly a Scrooge, I feel for a moment like him re-examining the turns that led me out of that time and towards the place that I am now.

It's late, or early maybe, and I'll be off to get the last hour or two of sleep I can before the kids wake up and bring me back to the present. I can see from the window that the cars outside are frosted with about an inch of wet snow - not too bad; shouldn't keep us from going out Trick or Treating on Monday.

Though there are not leaves to rake for me this year (benefits of city life) there's enough else these days to get me back to the present in a hurry. And it's just as well. I'll let that cold silvery hand go at the first gleam of sun in the morning. Just a couple of hours more.

Good night.

Normal Days

My little guy's story time is over and I'm sitting here while he settles down in his toddler bed.

"Is that your 'puter Daddy," he says as I browse and type on my laptop.

"Go to sleep," I say and he laughs, and laughs and settles down.

It's part of a routine we have now. Toothbrush, story, talk and rest while I type. I look up at his sleepy face periodically for the hour or so that I sit with him (he still takes a bit to put down) and think of myself at his age.

Sometimes, if it's a long night, I'll let my imagination run a bit and draw up conversations that might occur between the versions of myself at different ages; like a split screen between different Daves. I wonder how much we'd feel we had in common, or even if we'd like one another.

Normally, these imagined pairings cross decades of lived experience. The open eyed toddler looking up at the grown man; the slim shy teenager speaking hesitantly to only slightly less shy adult that I've become; the seedling and the tree.

But for some reason I can't explain - maybe it's those first few cool nights of fall - I find myself faced with two men very close to my own age. The new father that I was after my first child and the newly minted father of a disabled child trying to come to grips with a radically altered life.

"Geez man, look at all that grey hair - what the hell happened," the new Dad Dave says, looking a bit stunned.

"Lost some weight big guy - and looking rested; nice going," says the second, sleepy, cranky Dave, "What's it like to get 5 hours of unbroken sleep pal?"

"You guys want a beer or something," I ask in the empty kitchen, wondering if I have three beers (and then realizing imaginary beer or wine will do fine).

"Sure, what you got," says new Dad Dave.

"The last thing I need is a hangover," says the cranky Dave, "Got a ginger ale?"

And we sit, the three of us and talk out the last few years. We review all the tough days and the good days and the days I've nearly forgotten. I look at their eyes. The aged but eager eyes of my new Dad Dave and the "what just hit me eyes," of Cranky Dave.

"What do these guys see now," I wonder.

It's all nonsense, I know. Those two guys that were are long gone and this guy with grew hair that fits into the jeans of the younger guy and can look the cranky guy in the eyes is what's left.

It makes me wonder the way I used to wonder what happened to the perfect days when the sky was blue, or those terrible ice storms that brought down power for a week when I was a boy. It makes me wonder what happens when the thing you thought would never change has begun to change or is gone altogether.

There's no answer to these things I know. It's like trying to catch the smoke from a candle.

But every once in a while, a song will come on the radio, or the moon will show up over the rooftops and silver a thin cloud or the house will go quiet (really, really quiet) and I'll feel for a moment like I used to; like I've slipped on a pair of shoes that have sat at the back of the closet for a couple of years - I'll remember. Soon enough though, those moments will go too.

My little guy is nearly asleep and with any luck I'll get to watch something on TV in a bit while my wife puts my daughter to sleep. I'll check work email and - luck willing - I'll be asleep before midnight.

"The new normal," they say; "You can get used to anything." I know it's happening - It may already be done. What felt strange and awful and amazing is now just another day.

Another normal day. Good night.

Dizzy Days

I've been off line for a bit due to something with the odd name of Labrynthitus. Though it sounded more like the punchline to a medical knock knock joke when my doctor told me, it was actually a temporary problem with my inner ear that disrupted my sense of balance.

"You're going to be dizzy for about a month Dave," he said, "And you might have some ringing in your ears."

"You mean four more weeks of this," I asked in dismay at the time. The onset of what I came to call "the rockin' dizzies," was so sudden and strong that I had hoped it would retreat just as quickly.

"Uh-huh," he confirmed, "and no driving for a few days - at least until the dizzy feeling has grown less."

And here I thought that my kids were the only ones to make my head spin for so long.

If you've never had this, the closest I can compare it to is the feeling of just having stepped off a roller coaster - kind of woozy and wishing I had not had a hot dog for lunch. I wouldn't have thought how important balance is until I had it working improperly for so long.

So I had to slow down for a bit and as the computer gave me a headache during this time I had to disconnect too. It was a quiet month thankfully. I was able to travel by subway to work and the kids were out of school. I did my best not to do anything 'bouncy,' which the doctor had warned me against, and rest and recover.

Having all that inactive time really reminded me how good it is to be busy and how lucky I am to have some flexibility. I was also reminded how lucky I am to have such a good family to help me.

I'm also fairly sure now that good balance depends on more than just one person's efforts. I wouldn't want to go through this alone. I feel like one of those high wire acts where every person in the act gives a little more when necessary to keep the others from falling.

Caught on Tape

My little boy is becoming something of a verbal tape recorder these days, playing back each interesting word or phrase that catches his fancy. He's gotten pretty good and can let off these little adult phrases with all the intonations in the right places.

Sometimes, as you can imagine, this behavior can be very cute and appropriate, like the other day when I thanked the barista at our local coffee shop and my little guy said, "Thanks! Have a good one!" Or even cuter when he'll bring a phrase back from memory at some randomly appropriate moment, like when the other night I expressed some frustration about the lack of ice cream in the freezer he said, "Not today, Sorry!"

At other times though, the use of his internal tape recorder can be a little too revealing.

About a month back, we were preparing for a party. We were expecting family and friends and my son and I were out in the car running errands. This being a small city, the driving can be somewhat challenging. When we came to one of the tougher four way stop sign intersections on our traveling circuit, some hurried gentleman in a ragtop Audi made a pretty good attempt at a rolling stop that wasn't going to stop.

I stopped flat and steered away to avoid an impact. I caught the driver's eye, waggling my finger at him and let out a choice phrase (as I thought) under my breath.

I was very angry at the time, but forgot about the whole thing after a few more turns and a couple of stops on our errand route. It wasn't until we were back home later that morning that I realized I'd made a mistake.

We'd come in the door and found my wife's Mom and her brother had arrived. They were helping to set up.

I set my son down and he began to play with his toys. I went into the kitchen but hadn't been there long before my wife called me back.

"What's he saying?" she asked me.

My son had set up his stuffed animals on the couch. He was standing stock upright with an extended arm and was waggling his finger straight at a purple bear: "Stay right there jack-*ss!"

"Um," I said shuffling a bit and feeling sheepish, "Not sure where he picked that up."

Guess I need to be more careful.

Roll the Wrists

I've started teaching my five year old some of the basics of collegiate wrestling - no throws or turns or locks mind you - just some basic things about balance and escaping. As I've known them, school yards are generally places where more pushing and grabbing happens than actual hitting, so I'm hoping to enable her to fend off some of the natural aggressors.

I was much older myself when I learned to do this, but I found that just being able to fend someone off makes enough of an impression; bullies turn elsewhere when they see you are going to be work.

"Let me try it again Dad," she says each night now - I never expected how much she'd like the training.

I started with something I was taught when I took wresting in high school. There was graduate of our school who'd come back from his college program on occasions to practice and assist teaching us.

"Simplest trick there is," he told me one day, "When someone grabs one or both of your hands, just roll your wrists over and take their initiate away."

"If you're fast enough," he added, "Sometimes you can surprise them enough to pull them off balance."

So we've been taking turns at a quickest draw in the west contest each night to see who can free their hands more rapidly from a sudden attack.

"Got you again," she laughs when she slips out of another parry, "I'm faster than you."

I regret when we're doing this, the necessity of teaching any self defense. But it's sitting right at the end of her nightly exercises.

• Writing
• Reading
• Math
• Self Defense

I wish I didn't feel the need to enable her. I wish even more that I didn't feel the need to train her so that we can work together some day to help train her little brother. But I know too well what a play ground can feel like when you don't know anything about self defense. It can be a lonely place.

I'm hoping if I can keep the training fun and defense minded (no hitting - just escaping for now), it will boost her confidence and make her world more manageable. I hope that by teaching her to keep her hands free, it will make sure that they're free to do the math and the reading and the writing.