Anticipation

Toy Story (1995) was the first feature length, computer animated film ever released.  Although the animation may appear dated when compared to current animation releases, it has aged surprisingly well thanks to the excellent filmmakers behind it.  Unfortunately for me, it was released to theaters right as I was scrambling to take care of my paperwork for my year on exchange, leaving me a short, six-week window to catch it in theaters.  Even in an era when movie releases in most countries were weeks, months, or even years behind release dates in the USA, my busy schedule as a new-arrival exchange student prevented any theater viewing until after it had already left theaters Down Under.

As the only working-class exchange-student (I won a scholarship to pay for my opportunity), I was constantly confronted with the reality of my limited means.  My father sent me a stipend that afforded me no luxuries, and often fell far short of necessities.  It was a fact that resulted in Toy Story being driven from my mind until returning home, where the movie was quoted to me endlessly.

The anticipation of the sequel by all of my friends in college prompted me to take the obligatory trip down to Blockbuster (yes, THAT Blockbuster) and rent the now-classic on VHS.  Of course I loved it, just like everyone else.  When the sequel was released, my friends and I were the only adults in attendance without children.  With belated apologies to anyone who had the misfortune to be in our theater, we were those guys in the back row, raucously laughing at all of the adult humor that went over the heads of the children.  Although a handful of fathers joined us, we drew the ire of the majority of mothers that day.

When Toy Story 3 was announced for a scheduled 2010 release, it was a sequel a decade in the making.  Most of the target audience wasn't alive for the release of the previous installment of the franchise, much less the original.  In short, Disney was clearly aware that its audience had never seen the first two movies in theaters, if at all.  So Disney did what Disney does: they re-released the first two movies in the theater in late 2009 in a money grab that paid off.

The one thing worse than being the loud college kids in a theater is being the parent who brings a crying/screaming infant to a loud theater and refuses to leave, ruining the experience for all the other paying customers — at least us college kids were engaged with the movie.  Having owned high quality versions of both movies for years, I took one for the team as I stayed home with my infant son so my wife could enjoy mother/daughter time at the double feature.

My daughter had never been to a movie theater at that point.  She was only two at the time, so it should come as no surprise that she had zero theater etiquette.  Of course, she had seen both movies many times, and possessing the gift of nearly flawless recollection, she had essentially committed both films to memory without trying.  So, in a theater full of many first time viewers, my two-year-old daughter watched these familiar movies as though she were home.  

That would seem harmless enough until that scene just before something terrible happens to Buzz, when my daughter shouted at the top of her lungs (in a silent theater):  

"Oh no, Buzz!!"

Her tiny voice echoed off the walls, prompting the adults in the theater (including my wife) to erupt in laughter, completely ruining the reveal of whatever happened to Buzz next.  I may not have gotten to see Toy Story in the theater, but the story of my daughter bringing down the house was worth the price of admission.

Hitting the Spot

Having children is the ultimate roll of the dice.  Unless you are wealthy enough (and willing) to pay for a Gattica-like process, children are the results of gambling, pure and simple.  We may tell ourselves that we chose our partners wisely, and are comfortable with the variables, but the reality of the variables dwarfs what we actually control.  The size of their feet, the color of their eyes, their talents, their shortcomings, as well as their personalities, are all a result of the most random mixture of yourself and the tiniest part that you control: your choice of partner.  Neither of you gets to choose which traits you would prefer to contribute (making sure to withhold anything you're not proud of).  You get what you get and you make the best of it.

Making the best of your abilities is easier when they're functionally useful.  For example, cooking happens to be one of those talents I inherited.  I can trace it back to my paternal grandmother, who could make a gourmet, mouth-watering meal out of just about anything.  I am grateful for the gift and have always hoped to pass it onto my children as it has served me well throughout my life.  Growing up in a motherless home necessitated trial by fire in the kitchen because single fathers don't believe in snacks.  If I wanted to eat, I had to cook or I didn't eat.  It's no wonder I started cooking at age eight.

Knowing how to cook was an asset for me in college.  I didn't give it a second thought until I realized that all of my roommates were constantly eating take-out, and I was the only one who used the stove.  I was also the only one who knew how to shop for groceries, which is paramount if you're the one responsible for planning meals.  I once had a supervisor who made the distinction between those who prepare hot meals and those who cook.  She insisted she was the former and I was the latter.  

One of the benefits of knowing how to cook is the rewarding love affair with consuming the finished product.  While I have an extreme fondness for eating, I'm not one of those who prefers eating more than cooking — there's simply nothing better than cooking a meal for people you love and watching them enjoy it.  It should come as no surprise that my wife is my biggest fan, often bragging to her friends about how well she eats, and always agreeing when I declare that a meal "hit the spot."  Nobody knows where the spot is, per se, but everyone instinctively knows when a meal hits it.

It should come as no surprise that my children love food, and love consuming my cooking (so much for the randomness of genetics).  They often wander into the kitchen just to enthusiastically inhale the aroma, usually coupled with a comment along the lines of "that smells GOOD!"

One night, when my daughter was four, we had just finished a particularly good meal.  Before I could utter my standby pat on the back, my daughter declared, smiling broadly, "That hit the spot in my tummy!"

Of course it did ... and it seems my daughter knows exactly which spot was hit.

Doughnuts and Cookies

Star Wars has always ignited my imagination.  The epic space opera taking place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...

To say it captivated me would be an understatement.  I remember shouting matches on the playground over which Luke Skywalker we would be: the light or the dark version.  Although we didn't realize it at the time, we were choosing between the bright light version (who knew only that he needed to be good), and the conflicted, Jedi version, on the verge of betraying everything as his father had done.  We all wanted to be the black-clad version, of course, clearly missing the intended message.

My son is no different.  He loves Star Wars, and is just as intrigued by the darker-clad versions of characters.  Thanks to the popularity of cosplay, my son met Darth Vader, prompting him to completely geek out, knowing Darth Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, his favorite character.  He also loves the prequels, despite the harsh critique coming from some of the more myopic members of the (supposedly hardcore) fanbase.  When Mark Hamill — Luke Skywalker — tells the fanbase to lay off the prequels, it should count for something.  Regardless of how the often fickle fanbase feels about the prequels, we love them.  They're Star Wars movies, after all, and we frequently watch them as a family.  

On one such evening after watching one of the Star Wars prequels, my wife decided to ask our six-year-old son if he would like to be a Jedi or a Sith.

"I want to be a Jedi!"  He proclaimed, posing with his dinner fork as a stand-in for a lightsaber, "like Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi!"

"Are you sure you don't want to be a Sith, like Darth Vader?"  My wife countered, knowing how much my son loves Anakin.  "The Dark side is really cool."

"No."  He insisted.  "I like the Light side.  I want to be a good guy."

"Are you sure?"  My wife asked him playfully.  "The Dark Side has cookies!"

"No!"  He proclaimed angrily.  "The Light Side has doughnuts AND cookies!"

Of course they do.

A few months later, my wife found a meme online that showed an office on Star Wars Day, depicting a storm trooper delivering cookies to cubicles, with the caption, "and you thought we were lying."  During dinner, my wife decided to show my son this indisputable, photographic evidence.  My son gasped audibly and remained speechless for the remainder of dinner, clearly full of thought at this revelation.

They clearly do have cookies!

Covered

When my wife and I found out we were going to be parents for the first time, we prepared ourselves for everything (or so we thought).  We stocked up on all the usual stuff like diapers, car carriers, furniture, and much, much more.  One of the areas we figured we would get ahead of the game on were safety items.  Namely, the plastic electric outlet covers for every outlet within the potential reach of a toddler.  In short, we were planning ahead, and may have even patted ourselves on the back a few times as a result.

While none of these things were really "out of the box" solutions, they were practical and easy for first time parents to implement.  Those plastic covers for outlets were perfect for my daughter, who's curiosity was no match for her inability to do anything about those pesky outlet covers.  I really shouldn't have been surprised at their effectiveness, considering my wife needed a screwdriver to remove them, and I needed a good deal of effort if I was going to forgo the use of hand-tools.

When my son came along, we were seasoned professionals.  We had done the parenting thing for someone his age, so this really was just an opportunity for a victory lap of sorts.  Other parents respected us more, and had largely dropped the condescending tone most first-time parents are bombarded with.  No, we aren't first-timers; we're experienced.  Enough said, right?

Well, no, that's not right, because my son is not one to follow norms.  He may not have bothered to crawl until well after most of his peers had started, but once he had established a viable means of transport he was always underfoot in a hurry.  Even worse than that was when he'd disappear, as most parents can relate.  Unseen and silent usually resulted in something troublesome.  

One of the first times my son performed his disappearing act on his mother, she found him in a corner in his room, playing with a pile of what turned out to be every plastic outlet cover he could reach.  He was scolded, and warned not to play with the covers, since they were safety items, and certainly not toys.  Dismissing this incident as a one-off fluke, my wife proceeded to replace all of the outlet covers, only to discover our son back in the same corner, less than an hour later, playing with the same pile of outlet covers.  

"How is he getting those out?"  She asked herself, bewildered.  "Are they loose?  Is he using tools?!"

My wife decided to find out.  She replaced the outlet covers a second time (nothing loose about the fit), then sat down on the couch in the living room.  Within a few minutes our son crawled out and handed his mother two handfuls of outlet covers.  He was very proud of himself.  

"Let's try this again," thought my wife.  

This time, she only replaced the covers to one outlet and remained in the room.  As if waiting for his turn in a game, my son crawled to the electric outlet and yanked out the outlet covers, one at a time, with his tiny, surprisingly strong hands.  Knowing how ridiculous the story sounded, my wife attempted to take a photo.  Seeing this, my son held one in each hand, presenting them to his mother, and smiled for the photo.  His pride was unmistakeable.

We had clearly not accounted for all variables, so we never bothered with outlet covers after that.  Our daughter was old enough to know not to play with electric outlets, and those covers proved to be a larger obstacle for adults than for my son.  Although we always knew a lack of covers could come back to haunt us, it never did ... well, that is until my son decided to build The Flux Capacitor, but that, as they say, is another story.

We Dug Up

The Great Recession arrived quite suddenly for many of us.  My wife and I were no exception.  Shrinking paychecks became a reality at a time when our expenses seem to be steadily increasing.  With our complete lack of effective money management, it didn't take long for things to get sideways.  Like many others, we did nothing to plan for the future, and were only living in the now.  There was no cushion to soften the blow, and we did the one thing that's guaranteed under those circumstances: we fell hard, landing on a painful dose of reality.

One of the first things to leave our lives were the frequent trips to the movie theater, or the impulse purchasing of home movies that may only ever be watched once.  Then we quit going to the theater altogether, outside of a special night at the drive-in (for a thrifty double feature) from time to time, and home video purchases of any kind became impossible to justify in most cases.  We made very few exceptions out of sheer necessity.

Then Pixar released their now-classic "Up" in 2009.  It was receiving near-universal praise from both fans and critics alike, and it was a movie we could take our children to see.  We hadn't been to a movie for more than a year, largely due to my wife's pregnancy throughout most of 2008, but by the time "Up" was released, my son had been born and was old enough to where taking him to the drive-in wasn't an issue.  

Although my wife was no longer pregnant, she was still recently post-pardem enough that the emotional heartstrings frequently tugged upon in "Up" were enough to release the floodgates.  As scene after scene passed, my wife and my daughter rode an emotional rollercoaster that would have made the filmmakers proud.  In our car, with my wife in the passenger seat, and my two-year-old daughter on my lap, they shed tears of sadness, followed by rib-cracking laughter, followed by tears of joy, and more laughter.  

Despite not being moved by the film as much as they were, I enjoyed it immensely and vowed to do all I could to make it part of my home movie collection as soon as it became available.  The problem was the timing of the release of the film.  Studios were pushing Blu-Ray releases over DVD releases, eliminating promotional release-related discounts, inflating the prices of both and completely pricing my family out of the market.  Movies on DVD were no longer available in the $10-15 range, and Blu-Ray pricing was typically 40-50% more.  We would not be purchasing "Up" unless something drastically changed.

The funny thing is, something did change.  My wife found a coupon online that gave such a deep discount for "Up" that the Blu-Ray/DVD combo package was only $10 — which was something I could justify for a one-off.  Despite not owning a blu-ray player at the time, it was hard to ignore such good value, and the DVD version would get plenty of use.

That first viewing of "Up" on home video was memorable.  My wife revisited the emotional rollercoaster of her first viewing, lamenting how little control she had over her emotions at the time.  My daughter was also invested, but in other ways.  While my wife and I related to the human characters, my daughter had a particular affinity for Dug.  

During the climactic finish, as Fredricksen and Muntz struggle for control of The Spirit of Adventure, Muntz kicks Dug hard in the face as Dug is trying to aid Fredricksen, causing Dug to yelp loudly in pain.  My daughter burst into hysterical tears, completely blindsiding me.  Before I could so much as put my arm around her, she yelled out, "Oh no, DUG!!!!!!"  More tears followed.

Her tears were as authentic as tears get.  I hugged her and held her for as long as she needed to calm down.  When she had finally composed herself (after leaving a puddle of tears on my shoulder), we finished the movie together, with her on my lap this time, just like that first viewing at the drive-in.  While us silly adults were hyper-focused on the themes of life, loss, loneliness, and redemption, our daughter wanted nothing more than to ensure Dug's well-being.  

We still love to watch "Up" as a family to this day.  My daughter is no longer two, but she still hasn't forgiven Muntz for his treatment of Dug — which isn't really surprising when you consider how little progress he's made on the path of redemption.

Hot and Cold

Fatherhood, like many things in life, is a lot like playing cards.  Whether you play poker or blackjack, or not, you understand that card games are where you are dealt a set number of cards that represent your hand.  You have no control over the hand you are dealt.  Your hand is instead determined by the fates, or simply the randomness of the universe, and you are expected to make the best of it.  Those who receive a better hand did not necessarily earn their position, though that does not prevent them from exploiting said position.  And who can blame them?  Nobody willingly folds a winning hand.

If the dealer in life, whomever that may be for you, decided to give you wealth, or siblings, or religion, or poverty, it is something that is determined for you the moment you are born.  You do not chose your parents, your brothers, your sisters, no more than you choose your language or where you are born.  Most of these are consequences of decisions made by other people.  Independent of any theological beliefs, most of us are here because of decisions made by our parents, biological or otherwise.

My children are no different.  They are here because of decisions their parents made, and their circumstances have very little to do with anything they have done right or done wrong.  My son, for example, was born with an anaphylactic allergy to milk protein — a protein that happens to permeate American society in the most unexpected ways.  It's in everything from bread and pastries, to prescription drugs, to chalk (that's right, dustless chalk, of all things), to everything in between that is both expected and unexpected.

Living with an anaphylactic food allergy presents its challenges, but probably not in the ways most would expect.  The most challenging aspect of living with a food allergy, for example, is navigating society (i.e. other people).  I'd love to say, "at least I can count on family," but I cannot, because family tends to be the least receptive, with surprisingly few exceptions.  The push-back usually comes from those who question the normalcy of the necessary precautions, completely overlooking the reality that, for my son, necessary precautions are normal.

This is not a character flaw.  It is simply the hand he was dealt, and he has no choice but to persevere — but he's still a child, so we do what we can to make his childhood as relatable to his peers as possible.  Yes, he can consume a dairy-free pizza if he wants to.  There's no law that pizza isn't pizza without diary.  He can also consume hamburgers and fries, just like his peers.  

Birthdays are another story.  That's where things can get tricky, because so many recipes for cakes call for dairy, and up until very recently, the dairy-free alternatives were anything but cost-effective.  Then there's ice-cream, which takes the proverbial crown of difficulty, because so many "dairy-free" options are made with dairy (regardless of how illogical this sounds).  That's great for a vegan or anyone else choosing not to consume diary, but when it's a matter of life or death, there can be nothing left to chance.

Thankfully, the market has changed with demand for dairy-free ice-creams, allowing us to locate coconut milk, almond milk, and cashew milk ice-creams that he can consume.  Sure, we had to go to random specialty stores to find them, but they're actually quite good compared with a dairy-based counterpart.  

On his sixth birthday, he was going to have his moment: cake and ice-cream like a normal six-year-old.  We were excited.  We had built it up for him (in our anticipation of the moment), so he could share in the excitement as well.  With our cameras in hand, he tried it, albeit gingerly.  Then he made a face that we were unsure how to interpret.

"Is it alright?"  His mother asked him gently.

Trying to force a smile, he responded, "it's too cold ... can we heat it up?"  He asked as he pointed toward the microwave.

Of course we can.  Even in the best laid plans of mice ... it hadn't occurred to us that ice-cream would be too cold for him.  Ice-cream is cold.  Everyone knows that!  That is, unless you're a six-year-old trying ice-cream for the very first time.  Clearly, normal is relative.

Say It Right

Being born into a mixed racial background presents a few challenges while growing up.  Some of us have legal differences like an inescapably ethnic-sounding name or physical differences (such as complexion or racially distinct hair), that make our mixed-race background quite obvious to our peers.  When one is born into these circumstances, hiding our ethnicities becomes impractical, whether we are ready to embrace them or not.  All of this becomes further complicated if your mixed backgrounds don't even speak the same language.

That's the part that affects me: different languages.  Many of us can relate to having grandparents that mumble or use words that have long since fallen out of common usage, but what if they also don't speak English?  My great-grandparents (in particular) were baffling at times.  Thankfully, my grandfather resorted to English after it became painfully obvious how little Spanish we understood once our Spanish-speaking parent had permanently departed.

The problem with coming from a Spanish-speaking culture and knowing very little Spanish is your isolation from entire sections of your family.  Interacting with cousins (as in offspring of a parent's sibling) is nearly impossible if you don't speak the same language — disputes always require bilingual mediation.  Although there are many relatives that can speak English, they prefer Spanish because it's what's more comfortable for them.  And who can blame them?  Isn't that what we all do: default to the tongue we are most comfortable with?  Then there are the endless uncles and aunts and cousins twice removed by marriage who genuinely don't speak anything but Spanish because they feel like Spanish is all they need to get by.  To each their own, but we simply agree to disagree.

Somewhere along the line, I decided to re-learn as much Spanish as possible.  "It is my first language, so I should at least be proficient," is what I told myself, and yet it was anything but automatic.  I started watching boxing matches in Spanish.  I insisted on interacting with Spanish speaking servers in restaurants in nothing but Spanish, fumbling my words, and making egregious errors along the line, but still learning.

That all changed when I became an exchange student.  I was in a country with a remarkable dearth of Spanish-speakers, yet was surrounded by exchange students from Spanish-speaking countries, who valued my terrible Spanish as their lone lifeline of communication.  As my year on exchange unfolded, they helped me with my Spanish and I helped them with their English.  We forged strong, enduring bonds as a result, admiring the progress we had all made — which was possible because I knew another language, regardless of how limited my knowledge was at the start. 

The need to know multiple languages in the 21st Century is only becoming more amplified as we move forward.  Knowing that my wife and I only use Spanish part-time in our home, we decided to use another tact to expose our children: Spanish Language audio on home movies.  Sure, Harry Potter in Spanish sounds odd to those of us expecting British accents, but what if it's the only way you've ever seen it?  Logically, my children would have no other frame of reference since my wife and I have maintained complete control: foolproof!

That's what we told ourselves until my daughter was able to dispel the myth.  She was three, and my wife was putting on a movie for her.  A movie was chosen and was in the process of loading the menu when my daughter had an additional request:

"I want them to say it right," she requested firmly.

"Say it right," her mother repeated absently, "of course, mija."  She then put the movie on in Spanish without another thought.

"No!"  My daughter was beside herself.  "I want them to say it right," she repeated forcefully, emphasizing the final three words.

Slightly confused, my wife did the only thing that seemed to fit our three-year-old daughter's  request, borne from such limited vocabulary: she changed the audio to English.  The effect on my daughter's mood was instant.

"Thank you, Mama!"  She beamed.  "Now they're saying it right!"

Duly noted.  She may not have been able to articulate the differences between English and Spanish, but she was acutely aware of them and knew which one she preferred, even at three.