Category: Home Alone: Adventures of Dad & Turtle Biscuit

Home Alone: There’s A Reason They Don’t Make “Greatest Deadbeat Dad T-shirts”

While putting away Turtle Biscuit’s laundry last week I couldn’t help but notice how many tops she had that were emblazoned with some variation of “I Love My Dad” or “My Dad Rocks.”  Most, if any, of these tops weren’t purchased by me.  They were all gifts from Turtle Biscuit’s various aunties.

As I looked at these shirts in her drawer I couldn’t help but wonder, “what do deadbeat dads do?”

It’s a strange and admittedly awkward question but one that I couldn’t let go for the rest of that afternoon.

When I look back at these past four months I can’t ever recall being praised, encouraged and received so much support for something that seems so natural.  Friends, family members, even the guys at the gym have an utmost respect for the sanctity of fatherhood.  If a guy is leaving the basketball courts to go to work, church or even tend to his wife, the rest of the guys will not pass up an opportunity to crack a joke at his expense, especially if he’s leaving to go hang out with his wife.  But when I say I’m going to take the boys to school or to take care of Turtle Biscuit, not a peep.  There are never any jokes.

Think about all the teasing we give people who work hard, or that high achieving students get in schools.  Shoot, if I had a dollar for every time I was called a nerd, or defended myself against such allegations, Turtle Biscuit would have a fully-endowed college fund.

But now I simply change a diaper and it’s as if I’ve made a medical breakthrough.  For sure part of this are the low expectations that many have of a man’s potential to be a caregiver.  That said, the fact is we simply live in a society that adores fathers and fatherhood.

Which goes back to my question, what do deadbeat dads do?

It’s one thing to be a poor student because retailers aren’t pumping out “I got straight A’s” t-shirts.  But if you’re a deadbeat dad you’re living in a world that dotes and showers with love and appreciation everything that you are not.  How does a person exist within that setting.

Thinking about this question brought me back to this Chris Rock skit where he lambasts men who say “I take care of my kids”.  I always thought that Rock was spot on this bit, but four months into this fatherhood project, I’m learning exactly how right he was. (oh, and since I have to do this now: there’s cussing in the vid)

Home Alone: Road Trip

With both Snuggle Biscuit and I having work obligations in NYC on Monday and Tuesday we packed up Turtle Biscuit and followed the north star to the big apple.  And by North Star I mean the GPS on my smartphone.

We left Teen Biscuit and Singing Biscuit at home to fend for themselves.  Given that the house was still standing I can say this decision was a success at least in the Rumsfeldian view of Iraq definition of the word.

What I will say is that traveling with a baby is incredibly easy and incredibly hard.  It’s easy in the sense that they’re pretty much asleep the entire ride.  And for a short ride like NYC to DC, if you time it around their nap time, the trip is a breeze.

On the other hand, babies really love routines and anything that counters that routine can lead to all kinds of unforeseen effects.  Case in point, the drive up took longer than expected and therefore ended up bridging Turtle Biscuit’s two naps.  So once we arrived in NY and Turtle Biscuit was in an unfamiliar surrounding and being bombarded by new faces, she was completely overwhelmed.  Having two harried parents trying to make two different appointments  did not help either.

In the future, I think what Snuggle Biscuit & I (and this would be my advice to any parents traveling with an infant) should do is make sure we allocate some time for Turtle Biscuit to get acclimated to her surroundings. Parents should factor into the travel time 30min or so dedicated to easing the child in.  For example, if you’re pulling up at the in-laws for Thanksgiving, ask for some time alone with the child in a separate room, get her playing and comfortable and then slowly introducing her to the crowd.

Home Alone: Children Really Don’t Like Toys?

One of the things that was repeated time and again in our pre-natal classes was not to layer a baby’s sleep area with toys.  Expert after expert warned Snuggle Biscuit and I that harmless looking teddy-bears can suffocate an infant because of the child’s inability to push the bear off once it restricts their breathing.  Following this rule was a no-brainer, after all, the child will have plenty of time to play with her toys when she’s not in the crib.

As I soon learned there’s a funny twist to this toy story, infants don’t care for toys all that much, or rather, they could care less about them.  When Snuggle Biscuit returns home from work Turtle Biscuit’s eyes light up.  If she sees her bottle while I’m warming it up, she’s raring to get a go at it.  Sit her in her chair and she’ll amuse herself staring at her hands for a good 10minutes (that’s like hours in adult years).  But if you plop a teddy bear or any kind of toy in front of her, she’ll look right past it.

All of this went against what I thought was a truism for all children and of all ages: THEY LOVE TOYS.  Sure, you don’t hand a one-year old an X-box and expect them to beat the computer at Madden.  But I was confident that by the time she was a month or so Turtle Biscuit would get a kick out of a teddy bear.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this new information.  And it wasn’t until I overheard an interaction between Teen Biscuit and Singing Biscuit that I was able to unlock the mystery of infants and their distaste for toys.  Singing Biscuit had just discarded his Happy Meal toy almost as fast as he opened it.  When asked why by his older brother he couldn’t give an answer, and like older brothers often do, Teen Biscuit provided him with an answer: “because you don’t know how to play with it.”  Well for once the teenager was right and after he took a minute to show Singing Biscuit how to play with the toy, Singing Biscuit’s interest was suddenly piqued.

When I thought back on that incident what I realized is that early on in life children don’t like toys as much as they do the interactions surrounding them.  Think about it, when children play with toys their either also playing with their friends or others their age.  Toys are also a vehicle through which they can occupy an alternative and often more equal universe with adults.  Toys are associated with fun, imagination and often camaraderie. The happy child is not the one whose room is filled to the brim with all kinds of gadgets and trinkets, but rather the one whose been fortunate enough to share and play with the few they have with the ones they love.

Turtle Biscuit is still no more interested in Sophie the Giraffe than she is in NPR.  What I have learned and will remember though, is that the way that I introduce her to that toy and others is that it will have profound effects on who she becomes as a person.  And as I am finding out little by little everyday, on me as well.

 

At-Home Dad Convention- Washington DC

The 16th Annual At-Home Dads Convention will be held in Washington DC on Saturday October 8, 2011. The Convention will once again be presented by the National At-Home Dad Network, Daddyshome, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation dedicated to bringing at-home dads together.

via At-Home Dad Convention Information – Washington DC.

Home Alone: Dads of the World UNITE!

My Teenage Boys Are the Anti-Christ post sparked a nice twitter exchange between me, DanTresOmi and Bill Campbell. Toward the end, Bill concluded we needed to develop a unique parenting army to tame those nefarious teenage boys TEENAGERS.  Maybe there’s a dash of hyperbole in that paraphrase but I’m sure you get the drift.  Bill’s comment reminded me of a conversation Snuggle Biscuit and I had two weeks ago after I returned home from dropping off Teen Biscuit at a party.

Earlier in the day Teen Biscuit had voiced some dismay about this party saying it was going to be a “sausage fest.”  In spite of this dismal forecast for that evening, Teen Biscuit still decided he wanted to go.  Cool.

You could imagine my terror when I showed up to drop him off and saw scores of teenage boys waiting outside to get into the party and countless others posting up next to their cars.

As I drove back to the house I felt bad for all the dads whose daughters were likely to attend this party.  Did these men (and moms) know the horrors that await?

Immediately, I thought wouldn’t it be great if we parents (Dads in particular) had our own CB radio system that we could use for moments like this.  Rather than driving away helplessly as someone else’s child was affronted by more Axe cologne, body spray & deodorant than any human should endure, what if there was a way to give other parents a heads up.

But, if the Dad CB Network was up and running I could’ve just sent out an APB to all the dad’s (and moms) in the area to abort operation drop off.  The number of sleepless nights that such a network could avoid led me to shout out the car window as I drove back home “DADS OF THE WORLD UNITE”

Home Alone: Teenage Boys Are the Anti-Christ

Of all fatherhood cliches the one that I thought that I’d surely be immune from was animosity felt toward teenage boys. After all, I’m co-parenting a teenage boy and worked with countless others as a teacher and mentor. But as soon as the nurse let me hold Turtle Biscuit for the first time that fateful day in December an anti-teenage-boy hormone seemed to start mutating within me. I realized that this had fully taken over my brain when while Snuggle Biscuit and I were at the local diner one night getting some dessert and I spotted a teenage couple having (a too-damn late for my tastes) dinner in the booth across from us.

At first the boy seemed like a very nice young man–dare I say–someone I might even be proud to call a son.  Then, he did something that I will never forget, and right then and there I realized that Teenage Boys were indeed the Anti-Christ, and I in effect became a stereotypical dad with a daughter.  What sin did this young man commit you ask?  I shudder to relive the horror, but for you dear reader I will.  The young man looked her straight in the eye and said something that made the young lady smile.

Yes, I know.  The horror…..

This realization about teenage boys is only one of many things that I thought I’d never do as a parent that are starting to come to bear.  Here is an abbreviated top-3 because this list is growing by the day:

  1. Never thought I would become my parents.  But in short order my parenting style is rapidly developing into a zany blend of Claudette and Francy Lafargue tastes, habits, and sayings.  All of which I vowed as a kid to never torment my own children with…well that was a short-lived vow.
  2. I say “when I was your age.”  I still can’t believe that I do this…
  3. Stockpile snacks/Hide snacks.  It always confused me as a child why my mother would keep a stockpile of snacks while simultaneously proceeding as if these snacks were hidden and out of my reach.  Yet, whenever Snuggle Biscuit and I come back from grocery shopping, what’s the first thing that I do? I put half of them out and the other half in secret spots throughout the kitchen.  You could imagine my embarrassment a few weeks back when I noticed 7-year old biscuit pulling over a chair so he could retrieve some oreos in one of the hiding spots in the cabinets above the sink.

Hallelujah…The Baby is Sleeping Through the Night

The anticipation around the first time a baby sleeps through the night is so profound that I am surprised there isn’t a pagan holiday to celebrate this joyous day in a family’s life. I mean, I’d have at least expected some kind meetup to commemorate the event, but alas, nothing except groggy disbelief about whether what you think just happened really happened.

In my case, I went from wondering if I really got that much sleep to… Oh MY GOD!!!! Is she alright?

Were it not for Snuggle Biscuit groggily telling me that Turtle Biscuit had indeed slept through the night, I would’ve sunk back into the bed thinking that I had slept through my daughter’s early morning cries.

Sure, Snuggle Biscuit is actually the one who gets up and feeds her, but were if it not for me rolling over and elbowing Snuggle Biscuit in her side she might not know it’s time to get up.

But that’s all water on the bridge these days because joy to the world, the baby is sleeping through night.

For more on the adventures of Dad & Turtle Biscuit Click Here

Home Alone: Color Coding Gender

When Snuggle Biscuit and I were preparing for Turtle Biscuit’s arrival we agreed that we would not lavish her in pink surroundings. Neither of us believed that pink should automatically equate to girl, and we knew more than likely that most of her gifts from friends and family would feature some sort of pink. Moreover, as a person who’s read ample feminist and gender studies scholarship I knew a thing or two about the ways that gender was color coded in society and therefore didn’t want Turtle Biscuit to feel boxed in.

What I wasn’t prepared for however is the language that accompanies this color coding. For example, Turtle Biscuit has an assortment of caps, most of which are pink, and two are gray. Whenever she wears the pink hats everyone quickly deduces she’s a girl. But whenever she has a gray hat on, people are either very cautious about using any gender pronouns, or they automatically presume she’s a boy. An innocent enough mistake, but what strikes me is the difference in compliments that Turtle Biscuit the boy receives as compared to Turtle Biscuit the girl.

When she’s mistaken for a boy people comment on her size, her likelihood to get her dad’s height, and will often make a joke about her being mischievous. When’s she’s presumed to be a girl, it’s always a series of comments about her beauty, her calm demeanor, and her hair.

No one ever says she’s big and hairy, instead she’s beautiful and has a full head of hair.

No one ever says she’s beautiful and tall, instead it’s that she’s big and and will likely get her dad’s size.

I am sometimes amazed listening to person having mistaken her for a boy, devise a whole male identity for her.

What’s striking is that this is what happens to a three month old who only cares about her sleep and her feedings. I can only imagine what the conversations will be like as she gets older, and when Snuggle Biscuit or I aren’t around to correct people or to make them second guess their assumptions.

Going into this journey I knew that the optics and language of gender roles was infinitely complex, three months in, I’m realizing that this gray area was deeper even I expected.

For more on the adventures of Dad & Turtle Biscuit Click Here

Home Alone: The Dad Aesthetic

Last summer I had a conversation with my good friend Brian Gaffney about fatherhood. As he and I swapped stories about his adventures with his two boys and mine with Snuggle Biscuit’s two boys (Singing Biscuit & Teen Biscuit) we marveled at how similar fathering was to jazz. Both art forms–we concluded–required a capacity to improvise, to take conventional knowledge and turn it into something spectacular.

Now that I am spending more time with Turtle Biscuit, I am also realizing that the jazz & dad aesthetics have another similarity: one must be willing to occasionally counter their intuitions. The clearest example I have for this is that whenever someone sees a crying baby the first impulse is to pick her up. It makes sense. As adults we associate crying with distress therefore if a child is crying, she must clearly be in distress.

Yet, as I am learning not all cries are created equal and picking up the child is not always the right thing to do, regardless of what my instincts say. For example, just a few moments ago Turtle Biscuit awoke from a nap prematurely. She had only been asleep for about twenty minutes, and this is a point in the day where she’ll sleep for a good 2-3 hours. I ran in the room when I heard her. A few months ago I would have immediately scooped her up. Instead, I made eye contact, made it clear that she was not alone, and went back to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes. As I washed dishes I heard her whimper a bit, and there was a moment when she almost mustered a cry (and I almost went back in to get her) but I kept on reminding myself that she’s sleepy and as nice as it would feel to be cradled in Dad’s arms, an afternoon nap would feel even better. And wouldn’t you know it, by the time I was done with the second dish she was already sound asleep.

After that conversation with Brian I started thinking about who were some of my favorite dads. After all, if fathering is like jazz then we must clearly have some exemplary fathers—who are the Coltranes & Ornette Coleman’s of this Dad game. I have a few like friends Kevin J, Mike Molina, of course Brian, Minkah, Josh H. and Gene Jarrett whose Dad skills I’ve admired for a while now. And then there are men like Neil, Kamau and Kwame who I’ve been blessed to know well enough to know that they studied under some Dad legends in their own right, Dad icons like Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bobb and Mr. Flaherty–Dad impressarios who I’ve cribbed more than a few tricks off in my lifetime.

In due time, I hope to have my name among the greats, but in the meantime, I have a basket full of clothes to fold…

For more on the adventures of Dad & Turtle Biscuit Click Here

Home Alone: Watch Out Jean Grae or Nicki Minaj

I figured it was best to send the warning to both rappers because I wasn’t sure which would be the better reference point for my readers. But as of today, I think it became official. Turtle Biscuit will maybe probably not become a rapper but she sure can spit. If you think Grae or Minaj can spit a mean 16bars, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen Turtle Biscuit drop her 16 bubbles.

Yep, she’s at that phase where she’s mesmerized by her ability to produce spit bubbles. It gives her minutes (which is hours in adult years) of enjoyment every day. Not to be deny her potential rap career, whenever Turtle Biscuit starts to spit, yours truly is there to provide a beat that she could rhyme over. These days the beat is courtesy of WAMU’s classical radio station 90.9. Not since Biggie has someone been so ill over Wagner.

Hey, say whatever you want, I have every right to be biased, I’m her dad, but in my humble opinion, Turtle Biscuit is the Great Bubbler Alive….

For more on the adventures of Dad & Turtle Biscuit Click Here