June 2012
6 posts
6 tags
10 Fragments On Movement →
My newest column for Stillpoint Magazine is out, and I wrote it as we were unpacking our things in our apartment in Amesbury, MA. Now, it is published when we are packing up again. As of tomorrow, Alfie’s 1st birthday, he will have lived in 3 places in a year:
1. I live in Amesbury, and my plants are dying. Amesbury has identity issues. Its bucolic side is home to vineyards, farms, and...
May 2012
15 posts
6 tags
In the Mouth →
Latest column, in which my baby has her first kiss:
I go to New York for a reading and leave my wife and the baby at home for the third time in Grace’s 10 months of life. When I get back, my baby who is afraid of other babies touching her has kissed a boy. Her first kiss.
My wife says she will never forget the name Roy. She says our daughter leaned forward and touched Roy’s hand. Then stuck out...
6 tags
Stepping Out
We had a party for our almost-one year old (don't make me reflect on that yet. I still have until Friday). The highlight, besides the obvious shower of all things love-infested, was a small moment where I decided I wanted to step out the back door into the yard. Here's what normally happens when I want to do things like this.
Thought: I want to go outside.
Exhausting Mental Exercise: Where's my wife? She's already outside. Where's the baby? Inside, with me. She's getting "a break" so I shouldn't bring the baby out there. But I need a break. But, clearly not as badly, since I don't have a child waking up every few hours every night (if we're lucky) to attach himself and eat his way back to sleep. This logically means I should stay inside. Which means I really want to be outside.
Result: I stay inside.
HOWEVER. Here's the same scenario, plus grandparents that do not care about inside/outside, as long as they are near the baby.
Thought: I want to go outside.
Exhausting Mental Exercise: [see above]
Result: I go outside.
8 tags
How did I turn out?
My parents came up and helped out with the baby today, who is always good for other people. She knows how to be loved—my wife’s genes.
They took pictures and we envied my mother’s new iPad. New things. I tried to teach her how to use it. My dad kept angling for a second grandchild.
It’s not like he doesn’t have other kids. Or is there something to this not putting...
8 tags
Clapping and waving part 2
Seriously, why do we pin all our hopes onto these two gestures? Baby Grace is not having it. Maybe it doesn’t look fun enough? We’re clapping and waving like clowns on speed and getting nothing. Yesterday, she slammed two egg shaker things together and we got really excited about it. So sad.
My theory is she’s replaced clapping with dancing and waving with throwing her head back...
Wave & Switch
So, we got a little overzealous, I think. Other babies were waving. Other babies (younger!) were clapping. We needed that, so we started teaching alfie. Somehow, he got the two confused. Now, when I wave goodbye, he starts clapping.
I’m really trying not to read into this.
-bp
3 tags
books
we have 2 books by Nancy Tillman
we have 0 books by Maurice Sendak
who the heck is Nancy Tillman?
6 tags
Parental sacrifices
Anyone else ever do this? Follow your baby around eating what she’s dropped on the floor—so that she won’t? Maybe we should just get a dog. Or one of those robot vacuums. I mean, it’s 2012 already. Why don’t our houses clean themselves?
Those little rice puffs are everywhere now and they’re so small it’s like you’re not eating anything.
I’m...
7 tags
No Pain, No Gain, Or: Things I Keep Hoping Aren't...
Exercise: I'm not talking whey-guzzling gym town here. Just some basic calisthenics to keep the body from atrophying. This usual means some very ungraceful push-ups and sit-ups in what we once thought would be alfie's room, but is instead a patch of carpet surrounded by unfolded laundry, a changing table, and a writing desk that is stacked with everything but the evidence of writing. If I hit things at that right level of toning without overdoing it, a bit of soreness hangs around. And, as Dr. Wikipedia says, this "is caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibers."
Editing: All that cutting. "Having had a chance to be right" to "I was wrong."
Job: Put up with this. Endure. Keep taking it until one day (really?) things emerge as definitively the thing worked for.
Election Season: Meaning, ELECTION SEASON.
Plants: The oregano is growing like crazy. But, only straight up, in awkward stalks. If I continue making sure it gets plenty of food, water, and daylight, it'll keep snaking out in long, woody shoots that'll eventually flower, go to seed, and otherwise stop providing us with herbage. However, if I cut it back, its cells will divide, propagating and thickening into new, abundant growth.
-bp
5 tags
More On The Snooze
Sleep issues are no stranger to both writers of this blog. Sometimes I wonder if we have sleep issues so we write about them, or if constantly talking about somehow proliferates the problem.
Anyway: the problem remains.
We’re moving at the end of the month, and it’s become a nightly whispered mantra to say “no more.” Meaning: we want alfie in his own bed. He’s...
9 tags
Once Upon a Time →
“Once upon a time, this column used to be about relationships. It used to be sexy, or at least sexier. It used to go places, see people, attend events. Now—I have faced the fact—it is about a baby. It is about a 10-month-old named Grace who doesn’t sleep well, most of the time, who is pretty in pink and loves to eat and hates to drink and wants to keep moving always and wants to be...
5 tags
“Sometimes it’s like every parent you meet has his/her own advice column.”
– ms
Back To Bachelor
so, for 2 nights, my wife and son will be up at my wife’s parents’ home, and i’m here playing the part of “bachelor dad.”
tidbit 1: going out to pub trivia. caught myself caring way too much about my “reentry into society.”
update 5/2/12 10:54pm: bars are very weird. all my instincts were telling me to tell everyone about the specific way my son...
