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.

Finding Your Voice

The journey is often more rewarding than the goal.  The experience of getting there so often outweighs the experience of arriving, it ends up being the part of the story we tend to retell.  Is that because we gleaned some valuable life lesson along the way?  Perhaps that's why the journey is the part we ask others about.  End results are all well and good, but the fascinating aspect always involves how.

One of the hardest lessons of my life was learning to undo my upbringing.  Speaking up for myself was often labeled as "bragging" or "selfish," therefore it was bad and shouldn't be done.  This was a lesson coming from a shameless braggart full of stories that rarely held up under the slightest of scrutiny.  He was allowed to drone on an on about his supposed exploits of grandeur while I was forced to have my actions do my speaking for me.

"Actions speak louder than words" may sound romantic enough, but like many sayings in our language, this one falls short of reality.  One only needs to imagine trying to convey hunger using actions in lieu of words to see the flaw in this particular anecdote.  This approach will only ensure you are continually passed over for opportunities you desire, or are saddled with options you would rather avoid because it relies on the assumption that those around you are highly perceptive.  Nobody will advocate for you more than you, because people have their own agendas that rarely take your circumstances into consideration.  That's a hard lesson at any age, but even harder when you learn on the fly as an adult the way I did, because it forced me to change deeply ingrained habits.

When I became a father, I promised myself that I would undo the flaws that were passed onto me.  I never invalidate how my children feel, and always encourage them to communicate: they need to find their voice.  If they want something, they need to ask for it.  They may not get what they want, but at least they made their position known.  There is an unmistakeable sense of pride when you see these lessons being applied by your children.  Your ego swells a bit, and you try not to tear a rotator cuff while patting yourself on the back, until the entire scene unfolds in the most unexpected of ways.

My daughter, being the oldest, tended to get what she wanted out of her brother until he was able to find his voice.  It happened when she was five and he was three.  My daughter had already found her voice, and she really wanted him to play with her in her room.  She made it known that his presence was required because she needed help doing something.  The problem was her competition: Star Wars.  As she was demanding (not requesting) his presence, he could be heard quite clearly, playing with his Star Wars action figures, making laser sounds (Pew!  Pew!  Pew!).  He stopped playing momentarily to respond:

"You do it yourself!  I busy!"  He shouted from the depths of his bedroom, shortly followed by a renewed chorus of, "Pew!  Pew!  Pew!"

Busy indeed.  At least he found his voice.  I hope it continues to serve him well.

Counting On Daddy

We are the examples for our children.  If we show them that it's okay to disregard our health, they will follow our lead.  With my son's birth quickly approaching, I had a very small window to make some significant changes.  I was 29 and could no longer run, so getting myself into shape seemed impossible until a friend of mine recommended (and subsequently loaned me a copy of) P90X.  Although the now-famous workout had yet to reach the mainstream, there were still plenty of infomercials to be found on basic cable after sunset, and unlike most infomercials focused on fitness, this one seemed plausible.

I had been struggling to recover from multiple surgeries on both knees over a three year period, which, combined with my age and inactivity, had led me to fall into the worst physical shape of my life.  I have always been a thin man, and while I never developed a gut that hung over my belt, I had gone to seed and was unhappy with my physique.  That's when I decided I was going to do something about it.  

And so it began: I was going to get into the best shape of my life in 90 days.  With the help of a handy spreadsheet I found online, I was able to keep track of my workouts digitally, taking notes on limitations I encountered, as well as keeping diligent records of weights and reps.  Endurance athletes are self-starters by nature, and as a former endurance athlete, the objective data in the spreadsheet was all the motivation I needed.

Completing the full P90X program was a humbling experience.  In my mind, I thought of myself as an endurance athlete in the present tense, but P90X forced me to reevaluate.  Pull-ups and chin-ups were particularly challenging ... as in, I couldn't do one.  The program advises you to put one leg on a chair until you build up to doing them properly.  When I started out, I discovered that one leg would not suffice.  Instead, I needed both legs on the chair, and I couldn't do very many even with my legs doing most of the work.

That's where my daughter comes in.  Seeing me exercise inspired her to participate.  She was twenty-two months old and she knew her numbers and needed to help me count.  The problem was, she was still ironing out the whole sequential order nonsense as well as basic pronunciation.  Instead of counting my reps as "one, two, three," she would say numbers at random in her chirpy voice, making it even harder for me to perform any chin-ups or pull-ups.  

She also had trouble with the number seven.  If she referenced 7up soda, it sounded more like "smell it up," but when she was talking about the number after six, but before eight, it was "fuddiss."  Don't ask me how she settled on those, because my wife and I still haven't figured it out, but my workouts became much less efficient with my daughter's assistance.

"One.  Two.  Eight.  Fuddiss.  Tree."

That's how you count!  I was able to complete the program shortly after my son was born, despite my daughter's efforts.  She may not have been helpful, but she thought she was, and that was good enough for me.

Entomology

One of the more remarkable aspects of parenthood doesn't really take shape until your children start attending school.  This isn't something anyone really prepares you for, either.  Parents only seem to relate shared experiences like this after the fact (much like the less-than-rosy aspects of pregnancy).  In school, your children spend most of their time with people outside their household, and yes, they get to make friends and play games at recess, but more importantly, school is where they receive their first taste of principle learning from someone other than their parents.  I suppose had my children been in daycare, they would have experienced some of this prior to attending school, but we were fortunate enough to never need daycare.

The oddest aspect of my children attending school (for me, anyway) is their genuine enthusiasm.  I remember initially being eager to attend school as a child, only to have that feeling evaporate as the reality of the grind set in.  Education "back in my day" was painfully dull.  Days filled with unnecessary repetition, coupled with lots of yelling and corporal punishment made for a poor learning environment.  Fun was rarely a consideration.

Thankfully, watching my children learn is anything but dull.  In fact, it is something to behold.  They're like sponges, eager to soak up everything within reach.  They're fascinated by things most adults consider to be mundane, because they're learning, reading, and discovering the mundane for the first time.  While I'm sure they will become just as dismissive as I am when they're adults, I'm grateful that moment has yet to arrive.

Their interest in (and enthusiasm for) learning is surprisingly contagious — especially when they decide to share as though we couldn't possibly know a thing about that fascinating subject they just learned in school.  When my son was in kindergarten, for example, they were studying insects.  The age appropriate nature of their studies involved identifying insects properly and understanding the differences between insects and arachnids.  During dinner, he decided to share some of the finer points he had learned during class.

"Insects have six legs, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen," he advised us.  "Spiders are not insects."

"Very good, mijo!"  My wife exclaimed, though he waved her off immediately as though she were ruining his train of thought.

"Spiders are not insects," he reiterated, before flexing his arms and dropping his five-year-old voice into as low of a growl as he could manage.  "They belong to SPIDER-MAN!!!"  

Of course they do.

Modeling

People behave in ways they're often unaware of (or only marginally aware of).  Since we are being ourselves, everything feels normal, or at least as normal as we expected from yesterday, or as normal as we expect tomorrow will be.  We tend to assume our sense of norms are the same as others, yet this couldn't be further from the truth when you consider that all of us learned our sense of normality from different sources, which are then magnified exponentially when you factor in race, culture, as well as one's regional origin.

This innately arrogant approach becomes amplified once you enter the realm of parenthood, because you have now become the example by which very impressionable, miniature versions of yourself are now taking their cues.  The real question then becomes: am I setting a good example?  If you haven't asked yourself this question as a parent, perhaps you should.  "Do as I say not as I do" was a favorite of elders when I was growing up.  It was in heavier rotation than that new pop song on terrestrial radio stations (didn't we just hear this?!).

The problem with this antiquated approach is the reality that we learn from the examples others set before us.  Minding our social graces comes from more than just the verbal reminders.  The examples of when and where things are appropriate come from those whom we look up to and respect, even when those people are modeling poor behavior.  Everything from vices, to spending habits, to political and religious leanings, to our attitudes toward genders and people from differing ethnic backgrounds, are being keenly observed and incorporated by those sponges we call our children — yes, everything.

I remember the exact moment of this epiphany.  Thankfully, I hadn't been a father for too long prior.  My wife was nursing our newborn son, and still avoiding things like caffeine and alcohol, but craving sour treats like lemonade.  My daughter was two, and playing with her tea party set.  She was serving drinks while I watched football, and offered me a choice.

"Daddy," she asked, "would you like coffee, lemonade, or beer?"

Without thinking about what I was doing, or the (poor) example I was setting, I was largely transitioning from coffee to beer while watching football every Sunday during football season.  It seems someone took notice.  Perhaps I should have been drinking more water.

"I'll take some lemonade, please."

This was the first of many steps toward setting a better example.