Baby Dracula

Baby J likes applesauce. We buy her little cups with foil on top that look like this:

If she gets one of these little containers into her hands, she bites down on the foil and then sucks the applesauce out through the holes like a vampire.

Baby Farts

Every now and then, Baby J will let loose a deep, rumbly fart. Shamelessly slow and low, these baby farts take a long time to complete. They sound almost like adult farts only funnier because they come from such a little person. Baby farts are pure comic gold.

But occasionally, Baby J will rip one in public. Usually, it's at the library where everyone is quietly focused on whatever it is they have in front of them. And in that silence, it sounds so much like the fart of a grown man that I feel the need to proclaim my innocence.

"I just want everyone to know that was the baby and not me!"

Or something to that effect. Part of me feels like I'm selling out my daughter. I feel like I should own up to that fart even though it's not mine. Defend my daughter's honor or something like that.

But, really, what is the protocol in situations like this? Do I apologize? Excuse my daughter? Just laugh? Rip one myself? Who knows?

Ancestors and Descendants

I heard an interesting podcast recently about ancestor worship and how it is expressed in Western culture.

Genealogy is a popular hobby and is pretty much the closest thing we have to modern-day ancestor worship. But, in reality, genealogy is more about the searcher than the subjects. People who scour the branches of their family tree do so to find out more about themselves, to bask in whatever glory they find radiating from illustrious progenitors. It's not really worshipping anyone but yourself.

The podcaster, David Bouchier, put forth a theory that ancestor worship has been pretty much discarded in our culture for the sake of descendent worship or worship of our children. People once hung pictures of their great ancestors in their homes. Now it's all kid pictures.

I think it all boils down to whether we exalt the past or the future. But that's just my two cents. Check out the podcast by clicking this link.

Listening To: Dear Science by TV on the Radio

Days Off/On

One of the coolest things about being an author/illustrator is when I get to go into schools and do presentations. I like to do individual class visits so in any given day, I see about 100 wiggly kids. This week, I had three such engagements so I saw a lot of kids. I can't bring Baby J with me when I go on these school visits so we arranged for my wife's mother to come and babysit for a few days.

Even though I went into a bunch of classrooms and hung out with hundreds of loud children, I kind of consider my time away from Baby J a bit of a vacation, a few days off.

It's strange when work is your vacation.

Listening To: Still Bill by Bill Withers

Attack of the Snow Wolves

A friend of mine knows someone who knows someone else who knows someone else (etc.). And word has come down this grapevine that there is a pair of parents out there somewhere who tell their child, whenever he misbehaves, that if he's not good, they'll put him outside for the snow wolves. It is reported that this child once had a nightmare about snow wolves attacking him and his parents (who I think are psychologists as the story goes) manipulate his fear to guarantee submission.

Now shocking as this may be, it's important to remember that this is pretty much just hearsay and there's little reason to dial the Department of Children and Families hotline. Normally, I'd hesitate to post an unconfirmed case such as this but hearing about the attack of the snow wolves got me thinking.

There is often a struggle for power between parents and kids. It's a natural part of family dynamics. We want kids to behave. They want to empty out all the drawers in the kitchen and play with sharp objects. You might call it a conflict. Perhaps even a fight. But I wonder how often parents fight fair. How many respectfully and reasonably try to negotiate power struggles in their families and how many use less than savory tactics to ensure they win?

I wonder if I fight fair. I've never told Baby J I'd feed her to snow wolves but I'm sure I've tipped the balance in my favor 100 times or more.

Listening To: We Are the Only Friends That We Have by Piebald

Have a Ball

I took Baby J for a walk down by an athletic field today where some kids had just started soccer practice. Once she saw what they were doing, she screamed, "Ball!" and ran like hell onto the soccer field. I picked her up and placed her elsewhere but she is persistent baby. She wheeled around and went straight back to the soccer field squealing, "ball, ball, ball!"

I took her a nearby drug store and bought a big, red, playground ball. Then, we went back tot he athletic field and I turned her loose. She ran back and forth kicking, licking, lifting, dropping, fighting and biting her new, beloved ball. It was so flippin' cute my cheeks started to hurt after a while from all the smiling.

Flag of Japan?

Listening To: Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman

Artistic Growth

Baby J has branched out in her artistic endeavors. She's moved away from her crayon art stylings from before. It's amazing what she can do with a yellow highlighter, a ball-point pen, and a little drool.

She calls this one "boo boo dada book bleeg bleeeeg!"

Listening To: Don't Mess With the Dragon by Ozomatli

Cracker Axis

Baby J loves crackers, saltines especially. But whenever I give her a whole one she bites from one corner which shatters the rest of it into cracker crumbs that land on the floor.

To prevent this from happening, I break the crackers in half, try to make them more bite-sized for a baby. There are two ways to break a square cracker into equal rectangular parts, two axis or plane of cleavage. We'll call them North to South and East to West. The crackers only break evenly on one axis. Try to break one along the wrong axis and it crumbles into dusty cracker shards. And you never know just by looking which is the right way to break it so the halves comes out perfect.

But somehow, I know how to do it based on touch. My fingers have split approximate 2,045 crackers at this point and they learned to intuitively find the proper cracker axis.

I'm pretty proud of this newfound skill though I'm fairly certain it's not going to help that much during my lifetime.

Report

An organization called Save the Children has just published a report ranking nations by a number of factors including maternal mortality rate, the mortality rate for children under-five, and the percent of kids in preschool. The US doesn't score very well and has been defined as a tough place to be a mother. In addition to the measures mentioned above it was said that the US has "the least generous maternity leave policy -- both in terms of duration and percent of wages paid -- of any nation."

Dang. I'm raising my next kid in Ireland.

Read a news report here.

Listening To: An American Paradox by Strung Out

Of Time and Typos

I must admit there have been some quality control issues here at Dawn of the Dad. Primarily, it's my tendency to overlook typos when reviewing my daily entries. It's shameful, I know, to post things with spelling errors and grammar flubs, but, at this point, it's pretty much unavoidable.

You see, the time I give myself to blog each day is a narrow window between the moment Baby J finishes breakfast and the moment we step out the door on our way to playgroup or something. It comes out to be a bout 20 minutes or so and there's usually a diaper change in there too. So I dash off these posts as quick as I can without much time to look back at my work.

So I ask you, dear readers, to please forgive my mistakes. There just isn't enough time in my day for careful editing and revising. If you see an egregious error and you are so inclined, let me know and I'll fix it.