Father to Son
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Cracking me up
Can I say how much you really crack me up? Today, I was working on the computer, and you came up to me with a pair of morracas and a tamborine. You handed me the tamborine, looked at me and said, "Are you ready to rock?"
I wasn't quite sure that I heard you right, but then you repeated it. I'm not sure where you heard it, but you said it with the most innocence and lack of guile. It is things like this that make me fall in love with you again and again each day...
It may sound cheesy, and twenty years from now you (and I) may look back on this and think how silly I was to feel this way...all I can say is that, right now, right this moment, I honestly can't think of anything that is more important than you. The life that you've given me is immeasurable. I can only hope that you feel this same way someday...it would be the best gift you'd ever get.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Hotel Rwanda
Last night I saw a film that I would like to share with my son someday. Hotel Rwanda is the type of film that teaches invaluable lessons about responsibility and humanity. I can't imagine watching the film with my son until he is about 15 or 16, as it has some fairly extreme violence in it, and he wouldn't really be mature enough to fully understand the messages that this movie can provide until that time. In the meantime, I would like to come up with a list of films that are absolute must viewing with children of all ages...these films should be informative and teach the lessons of responsibility, trust and brotherhood (among many other lessons that we'd like to teach) that we'd all like to see our children learn.
Here is what I have so far:
- Hotel Rwanda - an absolutely brutal portrayal of the Hutu massacre of the Tutsis. Watching this movie I was ashamed of being a supposedly intelligent and informed westerner. It's not so much that the western world turned its back on the Rwandans that bothers me (although, don't get me wrong, that in itself is horrendous). Rather, the thing that really bothered me about the way the western world abandoned the people of Rwanda was the fact that the problem was a product of western culture...the fact that the Dutch invented the distinctions between the Hutus and the Tutsis makes the fact that they (and we) abandoned them at their point of need all the more egregious.
- Good Will Hunting - this may seem an interesting film on a must share with one's children list, but it has some pretty impressive lessons about using your skills wisely and not taking life for granted.
- The Princess Bride - perhaps my favorite movie of all time, this film can teach about the powerful connection that generations can have when effort is put into creating them. The fairytale story, in and of itself, is fun and entertaining, but what I really love about this movie (and even moreso the book, which if you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you get the 25th anniversary edition) is the important role that the story plays in drawing the characters together and giving them something to share...this is the kind of environment that I would think every family wants to create and share.
- Bambi/Old Yeller - really, the only reason that either of these movies is an important event to share with one's children is that they can provide lessons about the nature of the world and an opportunity to demonstrate methods for dealing with loss. I'm a big proponent of being honest with children and not sheltering them unnecessarily...at some point children need to learn the skills involved with grieving, and these films can act as a catalyst for those lessons.
Friday, March 18, 2005
"A son is the promise that time makes to a man, the guarantee every father recieves that whatever he holds dear will someday be considered foolish, and that the person he loves best in the world will misunderstand him"
Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
The Rule of Four
This quote is a bit negative in tone, but considering the fact that you and your mother have been gone for more than a week, while I'm living in the dorms here on campus, I'm feeling a little negative.
It's tough to convey how much you and your mother mean to me...it really is true that you don't know what you have till it's gone...luckily, this will make the time we have together all the more special. By nature, I'm not a very emotional person...I don't cry at sad movies, but I am human, and being without you and your mother has been tough on me. Especially hard when we talk on the phone...not that you'll remember, but you actually do talk to me on the phone every day, and you say things like "daddy come home now?" or "wanna go home to mommy daddy house." These comments really make me confront the fact that we're apart...at times like these, I do want to cry.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Making Daddy Laugh
Another thing, since I didn't want to only post about the bad today. The other day, we were upstairs (probably watching your garbage truck video - man you love that DVD), and we decided to go downstairs. I was carrying you down the stairs asking you which room you wanted to go into, and you kept pointing towards the living room. Thinking that this wasn't good enough and that you needed to say the words, I kept asking you things like "can you use your words?" and "what room is that?" All the while, you looked at me like I was the dumbest guy you know (of course, realizing that you don't know that many guys, I probably am the dumbest guy you know...but, then again, I'm probably the smartest guy you know as well...so it all evens out in the end). Finally, after standing at the living room door for a few minutes, exasperation took over, and I said "that's the living room." You looked me dead in the eyes and said "ok...go with that!" I couldn't stop laughing at the way you said it so matter of factly.
Fevers In The Night
You certainly frightened us the other night. Actually, let me be a bit more precise, you frightened me. I don't want to pretend to speak for your mom, but my guess is that she was scared as well. You've been pretty good about sleeping through the night since you were about 1 year old, with a few exceptions, and the other night was one. You woke up crying at about 2 in the morning, and I went in to try and calm you a bit. As soon as I picked you up, I knew there was something wrong. You were burning up...seriously, you were hotter than I had ever felt another human get. I called your mom, who came in and we gave you some baby Tylenol, hoping that would help break the fever. We took you in to our bed, and tried to get you to sleep. About an hour later, you woke up again, and the fever hadn't gone down at all. We took your temperature, and depending on which thermometer we used (you've probably guessed that your mother is somewhat of a packrat, so we have like 5 thermometers) you were anywhere between 99.5 and 102 degrees. We checked the package of the baby Tylenol, and found that it was past the expiration date. At this point, I decided to go out to Asda to get something (thank goodness for the 24 hour supermarket). I bought some fever reduction medicine and some cooling pads and came home. We gave you the medicine and put one of the pads on you and you went right back to sleep. When you woke up in the morning, your temperature was gone.
The funniest thing was that you seemed calmer throughout this whole affair than either your mother or I were. You kept playing with your trucks on our bed as if it were the middle of the afternoon as your mom and I ran around getting thermometers and checking medicine. Even after I had left to go to the store, you apparently wanted to go downstairs and watch TV. My trooper...don't ever scare us like that again...
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Been a while
Okay, so it's been a while since I wrote anything here, but that's not for a lack of having things to say. Actually, there are so many things to say that it's difficult to organize them into a coherent whole.
I just reread an earlier message about how my son had changed in the week that I was away in China. Well, he's grown in leaps and bounds since then. He's actually getting his sense of humor and realizing what it takes to make mommy and daddy laugh. It's tough to be upset when he knows all of the buttons to push. He's also been expanding his vocabulary and his language structure. He's speaking in complete sentences, although the syntax and grammar haven't quite gotten there yet. He surprised me the other day by pointing to a library book that his mother had checked out for him, and saying the title: Jayjay the Jetplane, and the saying: "I like this one book." It absolutely floored me.
On a different topic, with the change into 2005, the new year is going to see some pretty dramatic changes to our lives. There is a chance that I will be getting a job that would require me to be away from him and his mom for months at a time. This, needless to say, I am not looking forward to. I love the way he runs up to me after I come home and hugs my legs while screaming "daddy!" I don't know how I would handle living without that for any length of time...
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Coming Home
I've recently returned from a week-long business trip to China, and I've been floored by the changes that I've seen in my son in just that short a time. I realize that the normal tide of change wears upon us so gradually that most of us don't even notice the changes until we're knee deep in water, but I didn't expect them to be so dramatic and quick. I also realize that I won't be able to be with my family every day for the rest of our lives, but that realization only serves to reinforce the desire to be there during the times of intense change. I feel like I've lost a chunk of development, and I can't get that back.
Maybe it was just the fact that he needs a haircut, but somehow I doubt it. He had filled out, and grown. When my wife and I measured him, he was an inch and a half taller than the last time...which seemed to be only weeks earlier. He was speaking words that I didn't even think he knew - and no, not the blue grammar that you might expect...more mundane words like kite and outside.
Anyway...this post is just to document the fact that I notice when these changes take place. I wish that I could take a step back and recognize the changes on a daily basis, but the tide won't let me...
