The Hungry Wolf: last night's bedtime story

Once upon a time there lived a hungry wolf who predictably longed for all things bacon. He day-dreamed of hot bacon bulging out between thickly sliced buttered bread. He once even tried a dish of bacon ice cream which he thought was both awful and wonderful.

As a teenage wolf, after reading a National Geographic on factory farming, he had committed to a life of vegetarianism. However, as he aged, his enthusiasm for this lifestyle change had waned. He now endlessly longed for all things bacon.

If bacon was a color, it would’ve been his favorite color. If bacon was a Saturday he would wish away all the weekdays for it to come sooner. And if bacon grew on trees he would wish away the millions of years of evolution that had put him on all-fours leaving him incapable of either climbing trees or building a ladder to get to the bacon.

There were brief moments in his day when he did not dream of bacon: when he looked for a soft place to lay his head for the night, or when he searched for a discreet place to pee and poop, or when he was actually in the process of eating bacon. When he was consuming large quantities of the greasy, salty meat, his mind would waft upwards to more lofty matters such as his thesis on world peace and wolf ethics.

However, in recent days he had been thinking about the old wolves’ tale of the three little pigs. And so, this morning, after doing the Saturday crossword, he headed out across the rolling hills to find a pig and attempt to blow down its house and consume its piggly contents.

Up and over fields he wandered until through a gap in a hedgerow he glanced the brightly red house of the first little pig. As the wolf neared it he recognized the house was built of ladybugs. Perhaps a million of them, he thought, then corrected him self to guess that this was probably several billion ladybugs. As a fairy tale character he did not question the concept of a house built of ladybugs, instead he immediately set about with a plan to demolish the house instead of simply demolishing the implausible concept of the house itself.

“Oh little piggy, little piggy, come out of your house!! I’ve got bacon on my mind!” he taunted the wee little piggy. He then huffed and puffed and away flew all the ladybugs in a million different directions, or perhaps more.

Above the tops of the hayfield he saw the head of a pig in rapid retreat heading towards her big sister’s house.

In hot pursuit, the wolf wondered what the second pig’s house would be made of. He assumed it had to be a stronger house than a house made of ladybugs. As it came into focus he discovered that this house was constructed entirely of small monkeys. All crammed together and inter-locked, this was in fact a formidable structure to blow down with his wolf’s breath.

His own obsession with food led him to the key to demolishing this house. He left to go shopping and returned with a shopping cart of bananas. Moments later the wolf was killed. Crushed to death by a massive rush of hungry monkeys. The wolf’s funeral was attended by the 3 little pigs dressed in their best black dresses.

It was only years later that the son of the wolf set out to even the score and complete the proverbial 3 pigs story-legacy.

Wolfred the 8th, son of Wolfred the 7th headed out to demolish the house where the 3 pigs now lived together. After weeks of searching the rolling hills he came across the house of the 3rd pig.

At first he was not sure this was the house. Each house, as the story went, was stronger than the previous. This house was made of tuna salad.

As he approached the uneven white walls, with protruding pieces of tuna and celery, the wolf stopped to ponder on the rising sound coming from across the field. Within a few seconds the wolf was crushed to death by a massive swarm of small cats driven crazy by the smell of melting tuna salad.

Alternative ending:
The young wolf cried out: “little piggies! Little piggies! Let me in! Let me in!” To which one piggy cried back, “only when you renounce your carnivorous ways and commit to a lifestyle of vegetarianism.” The wolf reflected on his life: where he was at, where he was going and announced that he would give up the eating of meat. He renounced bacon and was welcomed in by the little piggies, whom he then ate.

Alternative ending:
He renounced bacon and was welcomed in by the 3 little piggies. They then spent the rest of their days making little paper boats down by the bank of the river. Under these circumstances we can confidently say that they all lived happily ever after.

Note: the types of houses that the pigs lived in were picked in advance by Havana and Ilyana.

Overtime, Bedtime and Building Pyramids

The falling sensation woke me. And so I continued to trudge the slippery road that I’d created for myself.

It was 8pm. I’d left home for work at 4.40am and had arrived home from work at 7.45pm. It was a long hard day. And now I was on their bed, fabricating a version of the three little pigs for Havana and Ilyana. As usual, making it up as I went along, but with the burden of a 15-hour shift weighing down on my creative syanapses.
I’m working at the very furthest reaches of the bay area, on a busy 400-man construction site. My sore joints are pounding away at the job, trying to see the end of the proverbial tunnel.
I get to draw a breath while sitting in the portable. But its hardly restful, listening to the surround-sound ominous din of reversing big rigs and forklifts and wondering if a large piece of machinery was gonna be dropped on me or back up on me and flatten me. But I open the door and the light and fresh dusty air floods in and I return to the drudgery and high pace of my construction existence; along with all the other worker ants crossing paths and standing aside for cranes or moving materials.
My day’s highlight, while at work, remains the same. Thinking of the girls as I left them. Curled up on their predawn beds, newly covered up, innocent and wonderful and peaceful in their dreams. And the job juggernauts forward. Me doing overtime, millions of others with no work to speak of.
I get home and they are already pj’ed and waiting for me. The girls are demanding “coffee shop.” A nightly serialization of my experiences at the local coffee shop, with the local zoo animals that work and hang out there. I don’t have the emotional-creative energy to make up something from scratch and so I opt for a variation on a traditional theme. The three little pigs.
This story was perhaps originally created to justify how those in brick houses survive life’s natural disasters and those of us in trailers or mudhuts will have our badly-built homes swept away. If only we’d had the money to build a brick house then maybe we’d not gotten eaten by a hungry wolf. Work hard, we're lectured, and you'll be safe from roving wolves. At some point the homeowners/renters in the story became pigs, convoluting the moral of the story. Surely, it’d only be natural that the wolf would eat the farm animals? Or maybe pigs made the moralizing more palatable for children.
So there I am, half asleep careening through some made-up version of the 3 pigs’ adventure of being pursued by a hungry endangered species, and I crash into the void of sleep that keeps telling me, you’re on a bed: sneak in a nap, it’s not like you’re driving a car, drift off, drift off. And so I do, dragging the story down in my wake.
A cue to my state of mind weaves its way into the story's plot: the first little piggy builds a house of pillows. The next pig, as I wrestle to get back my audience’s attention, builds a house of legos and then the third, a house of Barbie dolls. “A Barbie house?” repeats Havana, sharing a half-disgusted, half-amused look with her younger sister.
Then, in exhaustion, the story hiccups and I begin by trying to end a sentence which I cannot for sure remember how I started. I am aware that I am talking nonsense but assume the girls may not be distinguish between the funny creative nonsense and the plainer, simpler type.
At the end, I close the non-existent bedtime story book, exhale and rise up to sit on the side of the bed. As I reach the door for the final farewell, Havana enjoys the moment: "Daddy, there’s no farmer in the three little pigs" she explains. Evidently a farmer wondered into the story. Despite this happening in recent minutes, I have no recollection of having referenced a farmer. Although it sounds credible.
“Well the farmer was working overtime girls, he’s in everyone’s story tonight, all over Oakland. But now we should let him sleep too.”
Every moment of overtime at work, is time less with the girls.
Even with all this society's evidence of prosperity, in the end, we’re all still out there building pyramids for the pyramid owners. And in a society driven by the priorities of the pyramid owners, time with our families is hardly of importance.

Swimming, Shoelace-tying, Pooping: Traversing Life's Small Hurdles

This morning Havana was a little weepy. She held onto Ilyana's hand and explained to her that summer was over. On Monday Havana returns to Elementary school and won't be able to come to pre-school again. She offered her consolation. "Don't worry, Ily, you'll see me after you finish school on Monday."

Little Ily's response was poker-faced, as it almost always is. You never know what or how Ilyana is processing emotional information she receives. Things enter her small brain, then she reshapes it in words consistent with her own conception. To the outside world this is sometimes upside down, sometimes right side up.

Both girls are growing upwards at their own paces. Last week Havana moved out of the world of velcro and into the world of laces. This transition she conquered quickly and efficiently. Ilyana's small victories remain more primitive. "Daddy! Daddy! Sisty!" she will yell. Havana and I will look at each other. It's old news to us. We traipse into the bathroom and are introduced to Ily's latest product as if it's a work of art, which on some level it is.

On Wednesday Havana's mad arm-and-leg flailings in an indoor pool came together to create a symbiosis of floating and moving forward on water. I have never known her to be so proud of any accomplishment in her five years out of the womb. We figured one day she may possibly grow tired of her given name. That day came. She now wants to be known as 'the swimmer' or simply, 'swimmer.' I shared with her that in my teenage days some of the lads down the pub used to call me 'the fish' for my drinking abilities. She was unimpressed. "I am not a fish, I am the swimmer" she insisted.

I suggested we mark the event with a "swim victory celebration." All four of us will go see Ponyo, the Japanese Animation. Although, it is the story of a fish that turns into a girl. At least I think that is the plot. Havana was excited. It has been over a year since we've tried to go see a movie. This hurdle was not to be jumped. From a young age Havana has been quite sensitive to intense sensory exposure. Perhaps when Karen was pregnant we played our stereo too loud. (Or not loud enough?) Well, after about 5 cinema-surroundsound-minutes, the noise and images were too much, so we went and got our money back. I imagine Ponyo crossed the species threshold all the same.

So this afternoon we will instead have a Dance Party celebration of Havana's new identity as one of the world's aquatic humans. Havana will pick the music: my guess is she will pick the Human League or Michael Jackson. And without hesitation as soon as the first notes pumps out, she will without any contradiction in her head, be yelling, "louder Daddy! Louder!" And her out of water body will be flailing in perfect unison with the dancing notes in her head.

First Phone Call

My "Hello" was followed by silence. Then the response from the other party was "Uh, who is that?" So I suggest, "Uh, you called me. Who are YOU?" This could've gone on all night. This time the long pause was followed by, "Uh, is Havana there?" Then I realized this was a little girls voice. "Oh, I'm sorry is that Tiara?" "No, its Marnay." "Hang on. I'll get Havana." With hand covering the phone's mouthpiece, I whisper to Karen, "It's a bloody call for Havana. From Marnay." Her first person-to-person, ever.
As usual Havana's parents were entertaining a bunch of lefty union people. A unionist from Columbia and another from Brazil. The girls were hunkered down in a snowstorm with Winnie the Pooh, in another room.
I pass Havana the phone. She has talked on the phone before but never got a call before. "It's Marnay." I pause the movie. Havana listens to the phone and tells me there's no-one there. I take it back and check that Marnay is still there. I nudge Havana, "you have to talk first, before the other person responds." "Oh," she nodds. ". . . . uh, Hi Marnay"
I returned to the meeting with the international comrades, giving her some privacy. And a couple of minutes later Havana yells, "Dad, I'm done with the phone!"
Later that evening Karen asked her how her first phone call went. "Well, she asked me what I was doing. I said watching a movie. Then I asked her what she was doing. And she said she wasn't doing nothing." This appeared to be the full extent of the conversation.
At this point in Havana's story-telling, she got animated with her hands, and her urban accent got ratcheted up. "What does she mean 'nothing?' I mean she's on the phone isn't she?. . . She has to be doing something. She musta been standing there or something. How can you not be doing nothing." She was perplexed. Perhaps small talk is good for the playground, but not the phone.
As the world around us are twittering and even texting, Karen and I often feel that we're not sure we want to keep up with each new breakthrough in so-called communication. But it was nice to know that someone younger than us is more comfortable small-talking in person than through some form of technology. I know. It's just one of life's temporary hiccups, but it was nice to have it while it was here.

Havana's Grandmother Dies

Last week my youngest brother sat bedside holding my mothers hand as she died. On Monday we buried my mother’s body. My mother was not a union steward or political activist, but she was a worker and a fighter.
When my brothers and I were youngsters my mother worked 3 part-time jobs. She cleaned a local pub, then served meals at our school and on the way home from school we would watch through the window as she waitressed at a local café. In our early childhood money was always short. We rarely missed a meal, but ate a lot of bread and jam. More often we experienced winter nights going to bed early to stay warm.
This was in a way my mother’s choice. It was this way or the brutality that marriage to my dad had been. I am grateful my mother freed us from that. We eventually emerged from that emotional shell shock.
When I was nine, we three brothers were then taken from my mum. The state deemed my mother “unfit” essentially because she had no man. For two years we paid the price of a backwards government family policy. I now know that losing your children is far worse than losing a parent.
Our economically rocky life eventually stabilized when mum got a unionized factory job at EMI. Then my brother hit 15 and left school apprenticing at a local garage, bringing in a second wage to the family. Life evened out a bit.
At the funeral on Monday I included in my tribute a word about how mothers in this world are expected to be saints. Yet, they are given neither the resources nor the respect to live up to this. Our world is hostile to women, there’s no other way to say it. Yet mothers survive and if anyone sees good in me or my brothers, they see my mother in us.
My mother was something before a mother. According to those that knew her then, she rode a motorbike all over West Wales without a helmet, apparently she was a troublemaker at school which she left at 14 and her last surviving sibling called her the best sister you could ever have.
On the day before the funeral, my younger brother and I headed up the hills behind my father’s old house. Up the winding lane to the rocks where we three each took a stone on the day we scattered my fathers ashes nine years ago. The Welsh hills right now are full of tiny white noisy lambs each coupled with their scruffy grey mothers. As urban as we are, we recognized one lamb was literally a day or two-old, judging by its spindly body and awkward gait. On that walk we saw perhaps six lambs lying listless, with mother nearby. This seemed worse than the one lamb aimlessly circling its dead mother.
My younger brother cared for my mother in recent years. Despite having his own family and children. He bathed mum, shopped for her and comforted her. He changed her in the middle of the night. In her last months she stayed at a National Health Service care home. On the way home from work every night he would pop in to see mum. He is a great son, but only the son that my mother produced.
It must have been hard for my mother to leave us and all those that loved her. Her life improved the world. She parented without judgment or criticism. She taught us not to be talked down to and she taught us solidarity and its sister, love.
I will repay the sacrifice my mother made for us by doing all I can to tear down this world that can create a billion different Ring Tones, but cannot put to work the 13.5 million unemployed.

Havana's Baby Clothes Quilt (layout design1, before sewing)

.... a mere 425 squares :)

Bedtime Malarkeys

“Mama! Mama!” Havana called from the girls’ room. Its 8 O’clock. Bedtime stories are done and its essentially mummy and daddy time. That’s the theory. It is also fairly routine for us to pop back and hear some badly-constructed reason that is preventing the descent into sleep. This time Havana tells her mom: “I don’t know where Ily is!”
Ilyana sleeps in a beautiful white crib with long bars on all sides, somewhat like an ornate cage with no lid. Since she was 3-months old this has been her place of rest. In recent days Havana has been climbing in and Ilyana's crib has become another venue for “showtime.” “Shows” in our house invariably involve what could loosely be called acrobatics, dance and/or dress-up, or some combination thereof, where the grown-ups are compelled to watch. Ilyana has consequently now learnt to climb into her crib from the head of her sister’s bed which is beside the crib.
So when Karen is informed that Havana does not know where her sister is, she looks at the crib and for the first time in Ilyana’s entire long life, our 2-year old is not in her crib. Next to Havana is a large lump of gathered bedclothes and some life form evidently squirming underneath. Like a jack in the box, Ilyana’s head comes to the surface yelling, “I’m here!”
So the girls get to sleep in the same bed. Havana likes goofing off as much as any of us and two in a bed almost too small for one, is a recipe for such malarkeyness. However, unlike her sib, Havana likes her sleep. And so an hour later when we visit the girls, to cover them up, on our own way to bed, we see a quiet, subdued but wide awake younger sister. It was too much excitement for her. Havana is dead to the world, fast asleep. Ilyana is lying awake possibly wondering what would be the next frontier to be broken, now that she has graduated, albeit by escape, her crib.

Mom makes Dresses 4 Christmas

Karen made 3 dresses for Havana for Christmas. She's been working on 2 quilts of squares from Havana and Ilyana's baby clothes for the girls: a total of 950 4-inch squares! Yes, 950. So Karen took a break during December to make 3 dresses for Havana as shown!

Secrets and Suprises

One calculation in measuring the success of a surprise birthday party is fairly simple: the level of apparent surprise at the exact moment of the intended surprise. For those lined around the room uniformly hollering the surprise, it is the look on the face of the birthday person that reveals all.
When this occasion visited me on Saturday evening I utilized the limited skills one accumulates for such rare events in an attempt to look surprised. I picked up the mail in one hand, appearing to look down at it, as I walked into the ambush stridently. However I was somewhat genuinely surprised to be physically attacked by a dozen kids armed with large balloons. That detail I could not have envisaged.
I knew this whole thing was coming. It was my birthday weekend. I was not sure of the time and place, but the whole affair had been confessed to me, in whisper, some days earlier.
It was probably the power of intimating with parent that drove Havana to lean into her daddy and confide that “they are doing something for your birthday, it’s a Secret.” By bringing me into the conspiracy of the surprise I was concurrently excluded from the actual surprise.
It would have been justified to be mad at Havana. But there are many occasions when a child of diminutive vocabulary makes a parent with more vocabulary, feel short of words. This was one such moment.
I didn’t have much time to figure out how to respond. Without much thought I stopped on the sidewalk, leaned down to my daughter, and eye to eye whispered back to her. “In a couple of years your Mom will be forty. I will be organizing a surprise party for her. Won’t that be nice? However, I will not be telling you about it because it will be a bloody secret.”
She grinned back at me, “too late Daddy, ‘cause now I already know!”
Thus the parent-to-kid life lesson of this story, tossed clumsily at my daughter, made no impact before it was summarily returned so fast as to leave me once again speechless. Unsurprisingly.

Kindergarten, Dickens and the Proven Fact

Last week our almost 5-year old daughter began Kindergarten at the public elementary school two blocks from our house. Such transitions are generally anxious times for both the child and therefore for the parents too.
Wednesday evening I attended the Back to School night and along with a dozen or more parents, overwhelmingly moms, I listened as the teacher explained her hopes for the children’s year within the school district’s mandated curriculum.
“Basically, Kindergarten is the new 1st Grade” explained the teacher, a 30-year veteran of the Oakland School District. She went on to explain how the school is required to have every 5-year old be able to read by the end of the year. “We teach reading 90 minutes each day. We have 2 science classes a week and math for a minimum of one hour a day” she explained. The school day for the four and five-year olds is 7 hours long. There are 3 recesses, including lunch and no music or art to speak of.
As I left, I thought: OMG, our daughter’s childhood is over. The rat race begins here. Get up, go to school, suffer, come home tired, go to bed, get up, go to school. While children don’t have to work in factories in this country, nor are parents forced to sell their children, the earlier and earlier start of the drudgery of work is no sign of social progress.
Additionally, on the day the country of Georgia was rewarded with $1 billion from the US government for doing the oil business’ dirty work in the Caucuses, we were asked to donate toilet paper, hand sanitizer, paper, children’s snacks and other necessities on a long list the teacher gave out.
When picking up Havana the next day I chatted with the teacher. She had implied in her talk the night before that the curriculum was too much for the kids and not necessarily the best for their general development, adding, “the children start raising their hands right after lunch to ask if it’s time to go home yet. They are tired.” She explained that her hands were tied with the high-performance pressure of the curriculum. I responded that the politicians play football with our kids to try to prove, through testing, that they’re strong on Education. She smiled and nodded.
The testing-driven style of education is a retreat to pre-civil rights era education. In Charles Dicken’s critique of Victorian Schools, Hard Times, the main character is a Member of Parliament and the owner of a local school. His railroad-method of education has no room for exploration, imagination or dissent. The children are seen as ‘little vessels’ to be filled to the brim with facts. The two strains of education were taught as one: for the children expected to become managers, they learned how the teacher taught; for the children of the workers, their education was essentially about obedience and tipping your cap to the bosses’ “fact.”
Meanwhile there is the additional factor at our local school. It is considered an under-performing school. All schools with lower income children are this way. So, the school is under even more pressure than many schools to raise test results,
Our Kindergarten teacher does a great job. The mandated pressures on her to teach strictly by the book and timetable makes her job more difficult.
She alsohe mentioned that our daughter is running around, chasing the boys in the playground and generally happy.Havana confided to me that she already has two boyfriends.
On picking her up one afternoon, I noticed from a distance that while in line a boy pushed by her, she turned and jabbed the kid to get his attention. These apparently small skills, of learning how and when to stand up for yourself and how to enjoy the people around you are among the most important skills we learn as kids.
With both McCain and Obama committed to variations of No Child Left Behind, our kids will be forced to continue the monotony of fact-driven education. Working class kids are more likely to survive because they are more likely to see through the system’s veneer.

first swimming lesson

Today's first swimming lesson belonged to Ilyana, but of that, later.
Havana took classes this summer and lost her caution of water. She can hold her face and breath under water and paddle with a life vest. Her wee buddy Tristan and her were paired up, and in eight half-hour classes over two weeks Havana was, air-assistedly, able to swim.
Ilyana, on the other hand, miserably failed her first swim class today.
We were at the park. She was hamming it up as usual. Our newly-2 joker was yelling "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!" as she climbed around the play structure. Ritualistically, I would come to assist, she would grin and run off. The joke was repeated ad nauseam, eventually building up to the day's ultimate disaster.
Out of nowhere Illy cried out,"I wanna go potty." So off we went into the park's bathroom structure. I pull her things down and place her squarely onto the toilet seat. Then things got crazy. She raises her hands and yells,"I'm falling! I'm falling!" Then she stabilizes herself, returning her leaning arms down to her side. She laughs in my face. This is 2-year old funny. I show a slight smile. Then she does it again."I'm falling! I'm falling!" But this time. Splash! It was a sad moment in her comic career. One which all comics hope to forget.
I grab her before she disappears into the Oakland Parks Sewer system and she lets out a horrendously loud wail, demanding sympathy. I try not to laugh as I dry off her butt with the paper available.
I considered explaining the lesson of what just happened to Ilyana to her, but it seemed that her recent near-disapearence was more powerful than any words I could concoct.
Well, she managed to get back on the proverbial "bike" and pee and so all was not lost, bar a little 25-month-old's unrelenting cheekiness. And that, only temporarily.

The Swedish Connection

I wasn't sure that the leap to punk music and hip hop was going to stick. It was Havana and I's first musical connection. Our Friday afternoon dance parties, while mom was at work, were dominated, admittedly, by music of my choice. Stereophonics, Cyprus Hill, the Stooges. Oblivious to their meanings, she learned the words. We cranked up the volume, "louder, louder" she'd cry, and we danced. We'd run back and forth across the front room. I'd swing her around. She'd try swinging me around. We'd bounce. But Havana's first love with my music was to be short-lived.
I later realized that in order to appreciate my music, it was necessary for Havana to first pass through other music. Less complex, less angry, more sedate music. Pop music. It was impossible to make the leap direct to higher forms of music. Havana needed to procede through her Abba stage. And that's where we are. Dancing Queen. Mama Mia. Fernando. SOS. Waterloo.
I suspect that her mother is encouraging her, but I cannot produce any concrete evidence. Although Karen has suggested that Abba should not be judged superficially. That the catchy exterior of their melodies are twinned with darker lyrics, overwhelmingly about sadness and loss.
Almost every evening the parents are invited to take a seat on the sofa for a SHOW. Havana rushes back to the girls' bedroom and puts on her old Halloween pink tutu, returning to look for her little dance partner. Bjorn's piano intro opens and the two are off on their performance: Illy making spins that fall before completion and Havana showing off her latest dancing mad skills, while increasingly lip-synching the lyrics.
Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find.

Glam Rock and Hair Consciousness

Havana has long hair and is very attached to it. She makes tails with it, she has it up, she has it down. Once every few weeks she will spend an hour in front of the mirror in what could either be described as playing or working on her hair.
I am regularly reminded by our children that I have no hair.
I, inturn, regularly remind them that a more accurate formulation is that I have no hair on the top of my head. In our house, like in society in general, hair that is not on one’s head is presumed to not even exist, while hair on the head gets all the special attention normally associated with the crown.
Living in a house with three persons who have hair on the tops of their heads, it would be easy to find myself excluded from the many rituals associated with hair. I have instead tirelessly forced myself into the world of hair on the head.
I do, however, find myself generally sidelined into hair maintenance. I brush and comb other people’s hair. I wash other people's hair. And it is within this narrow role that I have had to find my own style. For instance, I do not and will not use hair de-tangler, chemical, organic or otherwise. This was not an attempt to be the parent that is never picked to brush hair. I am fairly hair aware.
I am also the cutter of hair in our house. I will probably never be trusted to cut adult hair, but I have exclusive rights for the bang-cutting of our offspring.
I have developed my own style of bang-cutting. I have perfected the cute-crooked-line bang. Like all things made of great skill and talent, each haircut appears that it took no effort whatsoever.
I also prefer what we call the 90-day cut. The 90-day cut, applied only quarterly, provides the whole family with more time to spend on things beyond hair. This cut at first strikes the observer as severely short, but as each day passes it slowly and subtly becomes less and less short.
As a family, we recently watched a YouTube video of a glam-rock star from the era of my own youth. Karen half-mockingly queried if the singer’s large heap of hair was his own or a wig. Before I could reply, Havana confirmed that it was his real hair. “Mommy, didn’t you hear him sing, you can run your fingers through my hair. He didn’t say you can run your fingers through my wig.”
Hair consciousness.

Boyfriends, Marriage and our first Punch

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It landed on the wrong kid at the wrong time. But it landed. Zack got clocked and was down.
As the first parent to arrive, post-scream, it was somewhat of a bizarre scene. One boy standing. One boy down, with hand over eye, crying, and a third child under the covers of the bed, hiding. It didn’t take long to figure out the guilty party, from the victim, from the witness. We knew Havana could dance like a butterfly. We’d hoped she’d be able to sting like a bee. But why Zack?
I had coached Havana from a young age: "if a boy hits you, you hit them back. It doesn’t matter what the teacher tells you." We want H to be confident around men and not to flinch at male power as it eventually invades her world. So, if life proceeded in a straight, predictable, line, then the boy who should have got clocked is the boy that clocked her first.
During the post-punch investigations it became evident that the the punch was neither an accident, nor particularly justified. It was Havana's first boy-punch and I was asking her to say sorry to Zack. This isn't how I'd planned it.
Zac and Tristan were over at the house playing with Havana. In previous weeks Havana had floated the idea of marriage to Tristan. Initially the slight-framed blonde almost 4-year old, had confused Havana's overtures with woman-loyalty issues. Havana told me that Tristan had decided he was going to marry his mother, implying that no other female was going to step between him and his mom. After a while he lowered his guard and on occasion agreed to marry Havana. Unfortunately in the meantime Havana had received a commitment from Xavier and Tristan was reduced to the category of boyfriend.
On the day of the punch, Havana, in a very relaxed mood in the comfort of her own home had been yelling to Tristan, "hey boyfriend." While cute on the surface, this also represented her tug-of-friend war with Zac. Zac is really into to sports. Havana isn't. When Havana plays over at Zac's house she'll often end up just picking through his books while Zac races outside on his wheels. Today, Zac and Havana were in a tug over Tristan's attention which ended in violence.
Tristan and Zac were wrestling in the spare room. As I imagined it, Havana tapped Zac on the shoulder and clocked him. He went down. Tristan stood stunned and Havana hid amid the bedcovers.
Zac is a sweet kid, didn't deserve to be hit and it pained me to explain it all to Zac's mom. However, it was nice to know that Havana can punch and can punch a boy when necessary. If she can cleanup her selection process all will be well.
,

Love, Love, Love

Our routine on weekends begin with Ilyana waking up, calling out and being carried with her blanket under arm into bed with the big primates. She may or may not fall asleep and gift her parents with an extra hour of shut eye. Then Havana will call out and/or trape into our room, also with obligatory blanket.
Today was special. It was the day that Ilyana (20mos.) woke up and noticed Havana looking at her. She then gazed back, stretched, smiled and spoke the words we all like to hear, this time directly to her sistie (as Havana is known). "I love you"
NOTE: the essence of any story is not in the detail. However, it should be disclosed that Ilyana's exact words were "I luh you" and "I luh you Hava."

Cousin Tuesday, boyf'd Tom, Havana and Ilyana

The Institutional Time Out

In many ways our childhoods are marked by a series of "firsts." As we grow, they become increasingly infrequent and less important.
18-month-new Ilyana can have several firsts in a day. Yesterday she turned the pages of a book one at a time, as if she had joined world of the literate. She smacked me square in the right eye, a first for both of us; and said the word "mouse."
Havana, now almost four and a half had her first Time Out at school. Led on by a five year old, she had taken sand out of the sand box. The girls were then cautioned by the appropriate authority, ignored the warning and went back and took more sand out of the sand box. This kind of thing, if not nipped in bud can lead to the collapse of a preschool.
Havana's accomplice was given a long Time Out. As a first offense Havana got a short Time Out. In adult minutes I imagine they are both short Time Outs. Havana's punishment-free run was over. For over a year she avoided this situation, either by blatant good behavior or subterfuge. I like to think a large part of it was the latter, but what's hope got to do with it.
When I picked up Havana, her teacher took me aside to let me know what happened. Havana had cried and her teacher was almost as upset.
Later in the day, talking to other parents at the pre-school, it became apparent to me that Havana was in a minority. Most of the kids have had Time Outs.
On the way home in the truck I didn't exactly know what to say to Havana. I reminded her that people can do bad things, but that no kids are bad. She echoed this, having heard that from her teachers. There wasn't much more to say so I high-fived Havana for finally having a Time Out. She was not sure how to take that.

Sleep and Sanity: underated aspects of parenting

Once in a blue moon Havana wakes up with a scream. Her subconscious is probably processing some aspect of her mad life as a 3-year old. As I enter her room and sit down bedside, with a gentle pat on the back she will often roll over and head back to her dreams. Other times she will already have begun to semi-coherently describe her dream to me. Then mid-sentence she'd turn over and return to scene that first woke her.
Crazier dreams no doubt emanate from Havana's 11-month old sister. Ilyana, unfortunately, will probably never be able to verify the visual contents of her slumber. Most likely she dreams of crawling, of standing, and the classic dreambreaker: of falling. Either way: when she wakes she wants only one thing. Ilyana’s demanding March to drink from her mother’s font every 3 hours remains unimpeded.
One night some 5 or 6 months ago her parents celebrated Ilyana’s first full night of unbroken sleep. We celebrated without full force, aware that worshiping the false god of the return of deep sleep would likely be premature. But for a full day back in January of this year we were lighter on our feet and carelessly expended the energy that we wouldn't need for that next night of unbroken sleep. That next night never came. We instead returned to the real world of uneven, shallow sleep, lying in wait of that sweet primal scream. And like the sun and moon, it came. And one of us rose up from bedside, as if carrying the entire weight of a million years of evolution on our frames, and zombied into Ilyana's room.
Sometimes I wish I too could return to the days when I was unencumbered by social restraints and could let out my own primal scream. But it’s too late. I can’t go back. But that doesn’t prevent my envy that Ilyana can scream as loud and long as her lungs will bear. Unlike the emotionally restrained adult world, babies can emote without a care. But like all babies she can also go from terrifying screech to giggle within 10 or 15 seconds. And it’s all socially acceptable.
Of the thousands of parenting methods available on bookshelves in California, ours tends towards attachment parenting. While we do not let our kids sleep in our bed, nor hang off our bodies all day, moreso, we do not let them cry unattended nor do we view our children as an inconvenience to some notion of our “careers”. Parenting is an inconvenience and a pleasurable one. It is full of adversity and struggle, the ingredients that can add color to what may have been the greyness that went before. Our single goal beyond keeping the young ones fed, clothed and sheltered, is that we attempt to help them be somewhat emotionally secure. That’s it.
But goals come at costs and ours is that for the first 12 months, with the exception of one January night, we have not slept past four hours in one stretch.
While the demands of parenting constantly press down on us, we have managed to construct our weekends around ourselves as parents. We do the normal kid stuff: the zoo and the park. But all stands in shadow to our single weekend goal: that our two children’s afternoon naptimes coincide and that their parents get about 4 hours a week locked away in our own room. After all, as flight attendants remind us, when the air mask fall, you put yours on first, so that you can breath, then you’re in a place to help the tiny ones get the air that they need.

First Crimes

It was her first verifiable crime. Albeit, a crime that few District Attorney’s would take to prosecution.
Havana and I went shopping for ink and car batteries. Meandering around the office supply store so as to get in and out as quickly as possible, Havana was in awe. The high ceilings, the bright colors, the light and of course the candy shelves at kids’ eye level. Usually Havana gets to point and yell to me before facing the inevitable denial of her candy request. Today she picked up some sugar and chocolate item packaged in a flashy wrapper. “We don’t buy candy babe, you know that” I reminded her. She knew that, but maybe she thought that on the millionth visit to a store she would get her wish. 999,715 visits to go.
After purchasing the ink, the clerk handed me the bag. It was lightweight enough for a three year old to carry, and good work training. “Yes, I can carry that Daddy.”
We went into the Auto supply store and went up to pay for the battery. Once again, even at the Auto store there was kids’ eye level candy: tons of it.
As I picked her up into her car seat in the front of the truck she tugged the plastic bag she held firmly. “D’you want me to take that, girl,” I enquired. She replied, all adult-like, “that’s okay daddy.”
As we got home, she rushed in the front door and spilled the bag onto the coffee table with a red shiny bag of skittles skidding out across the tabletop. “Where did that come from,” I asked. These days Havana’s boilerplate response to any wrong-doing, large or small, is a complete and utter denial. “Where did the candy come from?” I asked again. “Nowhere” she replied. She sunk into the sofa. She knew she had broken some inane adult rule, but she wasn’t sure which one. Whatever she’d done wrong she realized the distance between her and her candy was going to widen.
“Did you take it from the office store or the auto store?” I asked.
“I didn’t take it.” Figuring the loss of candy possession was building too much emotion into the moment I moved on to the moral of the situation. I held back from saying that stealing was wrong. We live in a society based on stealing from the working class, so stealing will always be based on who is stealing and who is getting stolen from. “Havana, stealing from a store will get you in trouble,” I lectured. When Havana is old enough to know the whens, hows and ifs of shoplifing, she will know how not to get caught. But that’ll be several years down the road.
At 3 years of age, there’s a lot of lecturing going on about rules. It’s annoying from the parent’s perspective, but necessary. Kids are little adults with less experience, and helping them learn to be independent, dialectically entails a lot of rules.
I was of course a little proud that some massive corporate store lost 25 cents worth of profits and that Havana unawares of the big wheels that turn capitalism had played a large role in this miniscule dent.

School Daze

Havana sat down on the sofa and read her book outloud to us. It was a combination of words, and sounds that could be words in a toddlers head. Sometimes the wordsounds were looped together poetry-like and sometimes clumsily piecemealed into sentances apparent.
Then Havana looked up from her book at her audienced parents. "Zip your lips!" Havana quietly commanded, adding, "Throw away the Key!" And then with an appropriate pause for full emphasis she raised her finger, "And listen to me!"
This re-enactment was our first exposure to life inside Havana's story time at her pre-school. We figured it was some kind of outside influence, as she topped her lesson with the hilarious, yet utterly serious, "I've told you 5 times!"
Those poor bloody pre-school teachers.

"No One Likes a Boss"

Family mottos, like the family silver, are most commonly associated with the rich and those that try to ape them. But if a family motto is no more than the parents establishing its own slogan, its own moral banner, why should we not have them too?
So we have one. It's not in Latin and it has not found a home on a wall in our house, but Havana can recite it on command. It's short, as mottos should be and, we hope, pointed. However, just as I was helping Havana recite it, she broke out into a parallel family motto. Aparently Karen has also already established a motto with Havana. One sounds very similar to the other and each was born unaware of its motto-dopple.
So, after a half dozen recitations of "No one likes a boss," Havana broke out into Karen's family motto, the appropriate, "nobody likes a Princess."
So there you go. Two social systems for one. Capitalism and feudalism. We have them covered.

The terrible draw of the Chupee-pacifier-sucker

"that looks good - what is it?"









"and where can I get one?"

the hoarse whisperer

Havana recently got a cold, which may be connected to her last bout of teething, which has given her a rhaspy vocal tone. This has only added an edge to her new fixation with whispering. Now she's whispering with her hoarse voice, communication has taken a few short steps backwards.
Whispering is normally associated with secrets and not with notions such as, "I want my crayons out" or "can I play with my clay." These passtimes are hardly clandestine in our house.
The whispering coincidentally became the fashion some days after the newborn moved in. When there is a diaper to be changed or lactation to be done, someone wanted something else at that same moment. The struggle over parental attention was a war that needed to be fought and won in Havana's eyes.
Timing is important in such a struggle. Almost 6 months after Havana has been potty-trained, she now began to hide in a corner while her mom was totally pre-occupied with breast feeding Ilyana. Then she we would walk in the room bow-legged, with a lump hanging down from her pant seat. This worked. Now, while I'm at work, Karen has been known to jump up with baby secured to the nipple and chase down the dirty bomber. And all three have to make it into the bathroom before a major cleanup is required.
The war to win back full parental attention in one mind, still needed to be fought. Yelling hadn't worked. Ignoring her parents was not going to work and would also defeat the object. So, the whispering had begun. And low and beyold, one parent would stop what they would be doing and ask the other parent, "what did she say?" And it went on, "Hey, Havana what did you say?" She would reduce the decibells and increase the body language, which lured her prey in even closer. The cold and aquired hoarse voice was an asset in this fight.
Finally we cottoned on. We could've begun whispering, as parents, in retaliation. But we're not the children in this relationship. So we didn't. Well, Karen thought it was an immature response if the truth were known.
We still stoop down and ask her to repeat herself as a small concession to a small person confronted with a big change in her world.

Not exactly what we ordered

The three of us were equally excited about the eruption into our world that is Ilyana. Two of the three of us had a closer concept of what to expect from this new development. We did what we could to prepare Havana. But like birthday parties or friends about to visit, sometimes the event is so exciting in a small person's brain that it doesn't allow room for details. Such was Ilyana's birth and consequent first month of life.
Havana has done all a girl could do to get Ilyana to act like the sister she expected. She prodded. She poked. She pulled limbs. Yet Ilyana has not yet acted like a baby sister should. She doesn't talk. She doesn't walk. She can't play. She hardly engages in the simplest of all communications: eye contact. And eye contact. That's okay for teenage love but hardly the first rung of play. And that's what Havana believed we ordered: a playmate. A sister.
Eventually Havana will get a reaction out of Iyana, something more complex than a wail. And even if it's not what she thought we ordered, she doesn't want it returned.

Baby sister born: July 20th 2006

Finally, Ilyana emerged from her mothers bump and joined the rest of us. She came out fighting, screaming and kicking, but is slowly ajusting to our less warm and cozy world.
Havana has been a big sister since Ilyana moved on from being a worm in her mom to being a little baby in her mom. She is dotingly fond of her new playmate and is not too upset that we won't let her tattoo her yet.
Her tattoo days will come.