bigger ben

The Ascent of Man

2008-08-20T17:27:00.007-05:00

So our Ben is moving up in the world. Well, actually, Ben has been physically moving “up” at record pace, but that’s not what I was going to tell you. Then again. . . okay, now that I mentioned it, let’s just pull our truck over here to the right for a quick moment so I can tell you about this whole growing thing that Ben has been doing over the past 10 months. And by “growing” I mean “expanding to epic magnitudes.” And by “epic magnitudes” I mean, “HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL!”

I could actually spend time spouting the progression of his height and weight, or I could just show you a snippet from Ben’s growth chart. Let me point out the important stuff. The weight is charted on the graph at the bottom, and the height is charted above. I trimmed down the graph to show the most recent time period. Simple enough?

Okay, so now if you actually bothered to look at that picture, you’re probably wondering if the charts only go up to the 95th percentile, then what percentile would you call Ben? 105th? 120th? Ben is so big, he’s destroying the curve for all those poor little munchkins down in the 50th percentile. He’s so big he makes average kids look like toy poodles. Ben is literally off the charts. His weight is charted so damn high, it’s on the height chart! He’s so heavy, he actually weighs 35 inches.

And this is difficult for mom and dad. Because he is, after all, you know. . . three. He’s still a toddler. He still needs to be picked up and cuddled. He still likes to crawl into bed and squeeze between us in the morning . He still requires physical restraint at times. Have you ever gone fishing and caught a 42.5 pound marlin with your bare hands then tried to put shorts and a tee-shirt on it? Yeah, it goes something like that every day at our house. Except Ben has a few things that the fish doesn’t, like claws, a vocabulary, and a wicked right hook. And I haven't met a fish yet this side of the Mississippi that can eat a whole box of Macaroni and Cheese in one sitting.

So anyway. Let’s get this mutha back on the road. Ben is moving up in the world. Yes indeed! Anna and I are proud parents this day, because we found out Ben is being moved up an age-bracket at his day-care! He is currently a “peanut” with all the rest of the 2 and 3 year-olds, but starting next week he will officially be a “teddy bear” with the 4 and 5 year-olds. A whole 8 months early! Yes. My boy. My brilliant, charming, ever-expanding boy. Apparently the day-care (where he spends two days a week) chose the two brightest and bestest kids in that group to graduate to the teddy bear room a little early. Ben’s best friend in the world, Charlotte, is moving up too, and it’s a good thing Ben is going with because I don’t know if he’d survive without her. Charlotte, if you’ve never met her, is equally large and intelligent and - if it’s possible - even more energetic than Ben. Honestly, I still can’t figure out how the teachers make it through the day with the two of them and maintain enough energy to brush their own teeth at night. The husbands of these teachers, if they knew why, would be pissed at Ben and Charlotte because those two are probably responsible for completely trashing their sex lives.

So I’m bragging. I know. Ben is sooooo big, and soooooo smart. I’ll stop now. Next time I’ll write about all the terrible things Ben does to make up for it. Unfortunately, lately most of those things have been R-rated, so I don’t know if I should talk about them here. Let’s just say he’s been curiously obsessed with his. . .um. . . bits and pieces, and all the ways that he can manipulate them, exercise them, leave them hanging out of his underpants, etc.

My boy.

Stepping out of the Mud

2008-08-12T16:57:00.011-05:00

Hey there. Long time. How’ve you been?

Wow. Huh. . . how ‘bout that. . . Yeah, I’ve been okay. Better, actually - all things considered. . . Yes. . . definitely, it’s good to be breathing.

So I was thinking about how I was going to jump back into this. As you might have noticed, I haven’t poked my head in here since late last October, and that may have something to do with this little girl named Sarah that I got a brief opportunity to meet last December. She was darling. And only recently have I found that even though I can’t be with her, I don’t have to be ashamed of feeling warm-chested again. Of having high spirits once in a while. Of focusing on the good things. Getting back to some kind of new normal.

But maybe that’s not the way to get this started up again. There will be time for that story. I mean, I don’t know how I could possibly summarize everything that has happened over the past 10 months. Heck - every time I think about it, I get depressed at the thought that I haven’t more thoroughly documented that period of Ben’s life. But I have to start somewhere.

So then I start thinking that I should just jump headfirst into the cold water. Start things up as if I’ve never been away. Maybe share a story. Maybe about our trip downtown to watch the White Sox this past weekend. I’d talk about how Ben showed off his skills on the Fundamental’s Deck, or how his Uncle Mike sold him for a nickel to the fans sitting behind us. Or how Ben demonstrated his Chicago allegiance to every rotten Red Sox fan within shouting distance.

But. . .no, that’s not right either.

For every end there is a new beginning. And since we left off last October by quoting a two year old (in particular regarding his penis) perhaps it’s providence that we should begin there again. And so. . .

QUOTING A THREE YEAR OLD - PART I

As I helped Ben out of the tub last night, he wanted to show me this cool new trick he recently discovered. Ben is uncircumcised - and I suppose I should be more uncomfortable about broadcasting that kind of information in public, but hey, it’s not like it’s something I wouldn’t say to his future girlfriend when she first meet me anyway. “Hi, there, Ben’s ladyfriend. How are you? That’s nice. So where are you two going tonight? The movies? Which one? Oh, okay. I haven’t heard anything about that one yet. And Ben is uncircumcised. Just throwing that out there. I just . . .thought I should say that. I have pictures. And more than a few stories. You should check out my blog.”

Anyway, Ben figured out how to “pop goes the weasel”, if you know what I mean. And he decided maybe it would be a good idea to give it a name. Honest to God, Our Dear Lord in the Highest, he came up with that idea all on his own. Now, after he mentioned it I may have suggested a name or two, but I certainly didn’t make the final decision. He did that all by himself:

“Yeah! We should call ‘im Obi Wan Kenobi!”

Did you hear that, Ben’s ladyfriend of the future? Obi Wan "These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For" Kenobi.

Ah, me. It’s good to be back. :)

Thanks for the clarity, Sarah.

.

Quoting a Two-Year-Old - Part 1

2007-10-25T14:50:00.000-05:00

"My PENIS!"

This was screamed - quite loudly - at the crowded restaurant yesterday evening right after we finished our fries. Ben has been doing very well with the potty-training lately, and after his trip to the potty just moments before, he apparently. . . ah. . . got 'stuck' in his underwear, if you know what I mean. It was one of those moments when, perhaps, the more inappropriate word daddy taught him to say (donk) would have been a little less conspicuous. "My donk!"

"Mommy, you're my best friend."

It was one of those mornings. Another 5:30 a.m. wake-up call from the little monster in the room next door. Ben has found it to his liking to come into our room and cuddle for a while after he wakes up every morning, and by cuddle, I mean squirm and kick and whine and chat at our still-closed eyelids. I swear, that boy doesn't have any middle gears; it's 100mph or nothing at all. As soon as he comes out from his dreams, he's instantaneously revved up up and running out the door to start his day. Anyway, on this particular morning, neither Anna nor I were in any mood to greet his energy with even a small drop of our own. Ben was trying everything he could to get us up, and I gotta say, that quote above sure did the trick.

You see, Ben has been talking (and talking and talking) for quite a while, but only recently has he begun to put salient thoughts out to the world. And this was one of the first. It wasn't just, "I love you, mommy," you know? We still have no idea where he learned the notion of "best friend". It was very cool.

Indepenent thought - who knew?

Honey, you're looking a little. . .um. . .bigger

2007-09-06T20:30:00.000-05:00

If you can read the message on Ben's tee-shirt, and if you paid even remotely close attention to my last blog entry, you'll notice that Ben is proud to be a future big brother!" [You'll also notice Ben showing off his "Big Guns"] Yes, Anna went and got herself pregnant, and the gossip around town is that I had something to do with it. To be perfectly honest, I'm having trouble remembering the specific event. I mean, there is an overabundance of fortunate women in this world who have felt the dynamic electricity of my physicality, particularly as of late, and I'm reasonably surprised that there aren't any more alleged Mike Bonick offspring floating around the Midwest. I'm so virile, rumor has it that a lady in the middle of her cycle need only stand within the general vicinity of my loins to beget her impregnation. Let me tell you, the wonderment in my pants is a veritable force worthy of cautious respect and, when necessary, celebration.

In the words of Moses (who creatively rephrased the expression of some random Roman dude): Vidi Vici Veni (just think about that one some more. . .keep going. . . almost there. . . okay, got it?)

So our new tot should peek her or his head out sometime around the middle of April. And if you’ve really been paying attention to this blog, you’d know that due-date is right around Ben’s birthday. Anna has had conversations with both her doctor and her ovaries, and the general consensus is that she should expect to spit out the new baby between April 15th and April 18th, 2008. My bet’s on April 20th, which just happens to be the birthday of my boyhood idol - Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees. My back-up bet is on June 17, and only because the odds for that are so great, I’d be foolish not to throw down at least a few bucks on that line.

Anna’s doc took a few ultrasound snapshots of the New One (also being referred to as “little b”, “peanut”, “bean 2”, “squirt”, and my favorite: “tonto”), which you can see below. I’ve taken the time to annotate all the various features of my wife’s womb and the thing growing inside of it. You should know in advance that I’m terrible at deciphering these puzzles, so if you cite any errors in the Comments section, I swear I’ll steal your dog and sell it to Michael Vick.

1. Eye
2. Lung
3. Mutara Nebula (I think)
4. Totum Dependeat *
5. Professional Affiliation (and multi-year contract signing bonus)
6. Nonsensical Technical Jargon (‘Pwr 100%’ might indicate that our baby is all-powerful)
7. Parental Sleep Deprivation Gland
8. Detroit
9. Visage of the Virgin Mary

* Loosely translated from Webster’s Human Anatomy & Physiology: “Let it all hang out”

So, everyone around these parts thinks this one is a girl. What do you think – when the time comes, should we find out if there’s a penis attached there someplace? I don’t’ know. If you ask me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or girl. All I want is a healthy baby. And maybe the next super-star pitcher for the Yankees. That's it.

the way things ought to be

2007-08-31T13:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, it’s been another one of those months. It’s August 31, and I can’t believe I haven’t written even once in the past 31 days. It’s already Labor Day weekend! The summer is ending, the weather is turning, kids are trudging back to school, my arthritis is kicking in, the end is nearing. . . well, you get the point.

This past month has been a whopper. The Mife and I took a much needed vacation a couple weeks ago on a houseboat (down by the river) with our dearest friends (and sans our big/little boy), then the very next weekend we flew out west to visit with our long lost relations in Tulsa. And somewhere in between there we discovered something that I cannot tell you about at the moment for fear of decapitation by my wife (ssshh – don’t tell anyone Anna’s pregnant). Add to that my rapidly busying work schedule, and you have a formula for creating precious little free-time, as if we had all that much of it just laying around anyway.

I am so full of excuses. I should just shut up (but, of course, I won’t).

Anyhoo, the trip to Tulsa was wicked-good. My brother and his wife, Lisa, and my two sprouting nephews, Brian and Mathew, took us in for a nice bit of relaxation and greasy food. We peed in their pool, watched their arena football team win the division championship, napped on their couch, beat their butts in Madden 2006, and played on their drums. Marty and I spent a good part of one of those evenings soaked in tequila and limejuice, and Anna and Lisa got their toes did.

The best fun, though, was had by Benjamin and his cousins. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile so big and so frequently with kids not named Kayleigh in all his wee little lifetime. They just had an absolute blast together, which makes me smile all the more considering the Tulsa boys are so much older than Ben and they’ve rarely been able to see each other. It was a very nice thing to watch Ben interact with those two. And it’s fun to imagine them growing up together, even from a distance. The one thing they will always share - no matter how far apart they are, and no matter how much more awesome Ben’s dad is and always will be - is their name. They’re all Bonicks, and I’m proud of that. Even if they cheat at Playstation Baseball (yeah, you Brian).

Okay, everyone wish me luck. I’m going to go take my whipping from Anna now. If you don’t hear from me in the next 31 days, come look for me in the laundry room on the shelf next to the litter box. I’ll be the one wearing my intestines for a necktie and lacking a pulse. Pregnant women can be sooooo moody.

bursting at the seams

2007-07-27T11:52:00.000-05:00

As if there wasn’t enough evidence that Ben is. . . well. . . having a good time with this whole “growing up” bit, I offer these couple of anecdotes to make it even more clear:

Sometime last week on a random beautiful sunny morning set amidst a string of other beautifully sunny summer dawns, Ben found it fitting to wake up a little later than usual allowing his mommy that extra precious half hour of sleep she always seems so sore to miss. When he finally came out of his room and climbed into bed with Anna, he declared to her waking eyelids, “Mommy, I’m happy.” Needless to say, her day was instantly that much brighter.

Yesterday morning, Anna received a phone call from her dear friend Mary (whom Anna had happily agreed to help through her labor and delivery when the time finally came) telling her that, yes – the time has finally come! Anna had no one to watch Ben while I was at work so she made last minute arrangements with his part-time daycare to take him for an extra half-day. Later that afternoon when I picked up Ben I decided to treat him to a special boys-night-out for being such a good sport. We flew down to the nearest BW3 (that’s local-speak for Buffalo Wild Wings, or as I like to call it, Buffalo Yummy Yummy Yummy Yummy) and I ordered Ben the kids meal. Now wouldn’t you guess, it came with chocolate milk. We were planning on taking our food home with us, so while we waited the hostess offered to give Ben his milk. I supposed that wouldn’t be so bad, seeing as it was a treat to come here in the first place, so I sat the boy down on a bench and helped him get started with the straw. Now if you’ve ever seen Benjamin attack a cup of chocolate milk you’d know that once the straw touches his lips he won’t stop slurping until he’s suctioned every last drop of milk off the bottom of the cup. And if he can’t get ‘em all with the straw he’ll take off the lid and eat the cup just to make sure. But this time, about a third of the way down, Ben paused to take a breath, looked at me and said thankfully, “I like my daddy,” then resumed his assault on the milk. What a guy.

We’re just loving these moments with him right now. He’s reaching that stage where he’s developing a sense of empathy, and it’s just so cute to see it pour out of him. He accidentally kicked his Buzz Lightyear toy when climbing into the car a few days ago, and I heard him say to the toy, “Sorry Buzz! Sorry!” Anna just buzzes every time she hears Ben say, “Oh thank you, Mommy. Thank you!” He says it like that every time! “Oh thank, you, Daddy. Thank you!”. A couple of weeks ago he watched as his best buddy Noah was reprimanded by his mother for pushing Ben, and when he caught a glimpse of Noah crying at the top of the stairs during his “time-out”, we had to physically restrain Ben from running to Noah, all the while pleading to us, “I give Noah a hug. I give Noah a hug.”

He has such a big heart. Maybe that’s why he’s growing to be such a big kid - the rest of his body is just trying to keep up.

Would you look at that - a talking goat!

2007-07-02T14:13:00.000-05:00

Ben: Hey, goat! What are you doing just siting around there by the fence?

Goat: Ahhhhh, wise guy. . . I'm tied to it with a three foot rope! So pretty much my options are limited, you little. . .

Ben: So, you want me to untie you for a little while?

Goat: No, I'd love to sit on de asphalt all stinkin' day. . . Yes! Dat would be great! Would you untie me, fella, because my stinkin' hind legs, dey are frickin' cramped. . .

Ben: Hey, goat - I think you have a knot there on your face. . .

Goat: Eh?

Ben: A knot.

Goat: Oh that. Yeah. . . you better "knot" mention dat again, you little stinker. . .

Ben: [laughing]

Goat: So, eh. . . what else, fella? What are you doing? We should go get some beers and look at some girls or whatever. . .

Ben: Actually, me and my mommy were on our way to the Reggae Festival.

Goat: Oh, the eh. . . Ragu Festival? I heard about that thing on de AM radio. Yeah, sure. Sometimes the old man zookeeper passes out and leave de AM radio on, so I get to hear de oldies songs, you know, and some current events kind of things. It's not M-Tz, you know, like you kids listen to dese days, but it keeps me company. I don't watch de TV you know, because I'm not allowed in de house.

Ben: [laughing]

Goat: So you are going to go to de Ragu Festival, heh? Maybe I can tag along? That would be fun. We could do de mosh pit? Throw me around. Put me on de mosh pit, pass me around. Crank it up, Benjamin!

Ben: We only have two tickets.

Goat: [sad pause] Oh - that hurts.

Ben: Yeah, well. . . we're going to go anyway.

Goat: Nice, nice. You're going to go and have de good times, and I'm going to sit here on de asphalt. . . and stinkin'. . watch my tail get smaller.

Ben: Sorry, goat. But we gotta go now.

Goat: Hey maybe you can come tomorrow, you know, like eight o' clock, we can go dancing or something?

Ben: I don't know. . .

Goat: You should stop by.

Ben: You know, I'm kinda busy. . .

Goat: Ohhh, all right. . . I be busy too, sitting here on de asphalt with de rope tied around me. . .

Ben: All right, my mommy is calling me. I really gotta go.

Goat: Okay, okay, kid. Have good mosh-pitting!

terrible horrible no good very bad. . . age

2007-06-28T14:26:00.000-05:00

I never thought I would need to have a kid of my own in order to make me feel like a kid again. I mean, I’ve never really had that much difficulty finding my “inner child”. I doubt that anyone I know, outside of maybe my own son, would actually mistake me for an adult. And I have to admit, I kind of like it that way. But my son did something the other day that forced me to look more closely at the reflection I see in the mirror every day and realize, once and for all, that I am all growed up. Shit! It happened to me too! I don’t remember the moment the change occurred - it must have been years ago – or maybe it was just a gradual shift from youth to adulthood made imperceptible by the focus I’ve placed on my career, my wife and my family, and a modest acquisition of knowledge along the way. Maybe the gray hair popping up all over my temples has something to do with it. Maybe the world is just spinning faster than it used to. No – heck, it must be global warming. Yeah, that’s it.

Either way, I’m screwed. I’m officially old. As crusty and wrinkled as your grandma’s upper lip. Might as well toss in the towel now. Save myself the trouble of dementia and arthritis. Just pack up my bag and take a long walk off a short pier. Do they have ice-cream in heaven? Will you play “I'm a Barbie Girl" at my funeral?

Anyhoo. It was my son that forced me to realize this terrible news, as if the mere fact that I AM A FATHER wasn’t enough in the first place. And he did this to me with one cool little trick that he apparently learned all on his own - he did a summersault. He bent over at the waist, looked between his legs at his mommy behind him, tucked his grinning face into his chest, and rolled. And then he laughed and did it again. When I saw this for the first time, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. My kid just figured out how to do a summersault! Sweet! How much fun is it that he’s discovered how to do something that we've all done so many times in our own lives? It’s kind of like playing catch with him for the first time, or seeing the look on his face the first time he ever ate candy. How nice to relive those memories!

No - not that nice, really. It just makes you feel old. After Ben finished rolling around the living room, I got down on my knees and attempted my own summersault. And, as ridiculous as it must have looked, I did it. I may have nearly put my foot straight through the TV, but I did it. The cat ran out of the room for fear of being trampled, but I did it. And it was then, as I sat panting on the ground with my arms wrapped around my knees, that I realized I hadn’t done a summersault in more than 10 years - at least. I couldn’t remember. How is it that 10 years of my life could have gone by without my rolling around on the floor end-over-end until I got dizzy? What have I been doing with my life? What else have I been neglecting? Hand-stands? Skipping? Jumping-jacks? Making wet imprints of my butt on the driveway after jumping out of the pool? Frying bugs with a magnifying glass? Ahhhh! I’m so old! Someone save me!

I don’t know what to do now. Maybe I should go out and buy myself a hand-knit shawl. Actually, I should probably start thinking about what I’d like to see carved on my tombstone. “Here Lies An Aged Old Man - The Oldest 29-Year Old Who Ever Lived” or “Don’t Sit On This Here Grass – I Just Ate Mexican For Dinner”.

Or maybe I just need to practice my summersaulting. And skipping. Come to think of it, my whistling and bubble-blowing could use some work too. I’ll stop eating my vegetables. I forsee a lot of cartoons in my morning routine from now on. And I’m going to start pulling girls' hair and throwing rocks.

Hey Benjamin! Let’s go outside! I want to climb the tree! No, c’mon, let’s go! Forget your calculus homework, I want to go spit on bugs!

inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened

2007-06-26T09:46:00.000-05:00

Today’s blog is dedicated to my mother-number-two. Why? Because she provides me motivation to continue writing here, she was one of the main reasons I started to write here in the first place (due to her out-of-town condition), and she is the only one left who still reads what I write here. And because she practically demanded it. And - oh yeah - because it’s her birthday! Happy Birthday, Mormor!

So instead of forcing you to read whatever crap is surging through my brain on this particular morning, today we’re going to try something a little out of the ordinary. Ben has been bugging me for months to take control of the keyboard and write his own thoughts for you, but I’ve been hesitant to allow him that satisfaction. Not so much because I’m afraid of what he’ll say, or because I’m worried he’ll click the wrong mouse button and accidentally get transported to some kinky adult web site, but mainly because he can just barely identify all 26 letters in the alphabet and I don’t think he’d ever finish his blog using the 'hunt-and-peck' method of typing. Not to mention he doesn’t even know how to say “punctuation”, let alone comprehend it’s meaning or usage [I guess you could say the same about me, but that’s neither here nor there]. So instead, I’ll be Ben’s ghost writer, his correspondence officer, his fingers and spell-checker. I have the little kid on my lap, and he’ll whisper his innocent little thoughts into my ear – okay, check that. He’ll scream them into my ear. Okay, Benjamin, I’m shutting up. . . Okay, fine – you can talk now. . . Okay, already! . . . No, you can’t hold the mouse. . . Because I need it. . . Could we just start already?

Hi, Mormor! Happy Birthday! I love you! You rock!

Never mind whatever Daddy was typing up there; he can get so confused. I love him, I really do, but sometimes he can be just a few fries short of a Happy Meal, you know what I mean? [I heard that, Benjamin]. I don’t know how you keep reading this thing, other than to look at all the pretty pictures of me. I know I get tired of listening to Daddy after just a few minutes. [I heard that too!]. I try to talk as much as possible, as a matter of fact, to drown out whatever drivel my parents babble at me. It’s always “Benjamin, do this,” or “Benjamin do that.” “Benjamin, say please,” and “Benjamin, no hitting.” “Benjamin, take off your shoes,” and “Benjamin, you shouldn’t splice dissimilar thermonuclear reactor couplings in a 100% oxygen environment!” I figure, if I just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, they won’t be able to get a word in edgewise, especially since I know that they think it’s just oh so cute when I try to talk in full sentences. They are such pushovers! Someday I’m going to parlay this cuteness into a sweet new ride at their expense. [Helloooo? Benjamin, I’m right here! Have you forgotten?]. Just type, Daddy. You’re not paid to comment.

Where was I? Oh yeah - my Mormor. So this weekend I got sick, Mormor. I had some kinda hand, hoof and mouth disease. I must have gotten it from the cow in my flip-up book, the one with the brown spots on his butt. It really hurt, I must say, but after the first couple of days I was just pretending the pain to get more popsicles. I didn’t have to eat any vegetables for five straight days! [All right, I’m not even going to comment on that one, Benjamin.] I’m feeling much better now, but I figure I could stretch it out a few more days, just in case I don’t feel like going to bed on time, and then Mommy will let me stay up late cuddling in her arms.

What have you been doing at your house? How are the doggies? I miss you so much. Whenever I play baseball in the front yard, I think of you and how we played baseball the last time you were here in town. I still think it was a little weird that you kept throwing your long dress over my head and playing hide-and-seek, but I’ll just chalk that up to the long-term effects of your being surrounded by a bunch of other cheese-heads for the past few years. By the way - when are you coming to live here in Illinois? We would have so much fun! I would totally take you out on a date to the ice-cream store, and let you buy me all the ice-cream I can eat! Pleeeeease, come and live in Illinois?

Okay, Daddy says I have to go to school now. Normally I would put up a fuss, but he doesn’t look all that awake yet, so I’ll catch him a break. Besides, I can’t wait to go play with all my friends and go down the slide and swing in the playground. I love you so much, Mormor! I hope you have the greatest birthday ever! Tell the doggies I said hi!

[Happy Birthday, Momma. We love you!]

a peach is not always a peach

2007-06-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

These past several days have proven to be some of the most trying afternoons I’ve experienced in my role as a primary source of comfort and stability for my son, a provider of warmth and love for my wife, and a well of sustenance for the ego and confidence required by that one X chromosome and one Y chromosome buried deep beneath my skin. Trouble arises. And then there are those times when trouble finds it appropriate to arise en masse.

This blog has served as a trivial little chronicle of my explorations as a newly-minted father, and I have always written with an audience in my head comprised of twenty-or-so rows of other newbie fathers and twenty-or-so rows of fathers-to-be. The elder dads - the seasoned veterans sprinkled amongst rows 37 through 40 - have no real need to observe the thoughts of a confused twenty-something dad trying to describe his encounters with parenting other than to chuckle at the memory of their own assuredly similar experiences with their own families. For them this is comedy. And for them I’m sure the accounts of my troubles seem inconsequential in retrospect. So, ye grand old men, now would be the time to switch back to the Discovery Channel and pass out on the couch. And if you chose to stick around, please try not to laugh out loud. The kid, after all, is finally asleep.

And so, the point of today’s sermon is: sometimes parents need some comfort too. Sometimes parents need a break. Sometimes parents can only be divided so many ways. And this is laughable to me because, well, we’re only a family of three. We’re haven’t yet been dissected into seventeen different parts expected in seventeen different places at the same time. We’re only up to eight or nine. And on any typical day those eight or nine pieces of us will work themselves into a nice little rhythm - a great background track - and you’ll rarely ever hear them drop the beat. Oh, maybe the kid might get sick. Or Dad might get stuck at work too late. Mom might be tired. Kid might be acting-out. But sometimes, all at once, dad gets stressed, mom loses focus, the two fall apart, anger ensues, feelings are hurt, stability is broken, claims are staked on the bed and the couch, the clouds are forming, the sky is falling, the Sox are losing, your stupid cat is staring you right in the face. . .

. . .and then your son - your darling son, your perfect, smiling, sun-dipped wonderment – finds himself in pain. He’s hurting, which is a fear every parent knows all too intimately. It‘s our single greatest fear. He’s hurting, and now’s the time when each parent needs to lean on each other to help him make it through. To help each other make it through. He's hurting, and he needs you both. Together. Right now.

But you can’t. At least, you don’t think you can. She’s not the one you want to lean on right now. And you’re certainly not willing to be her buttress. Hell, you’ve only just begun speaking to each other in a civil manner, and now. . . now he’s hurting. And you have to help him. Together. For crying out loud, why the hell does this have to happen now? Couldn’t this all have waited for another day? What the f***!

But no, this isn’t about us. It never was. This is about him. Why did we decide to bring him into our lives if we’re not going to do whatever it takes to make his life the best possible life we can piece together out of our own, faulted existences? I suppose the answer is easy. You have to forget your problems for now. It’s not your choice anymore, really.

You comfort him. Together. You show him how solid of a rock you can be together. You make sure as hell he doesn’t have any uncertainty about the foundation he’s standing on, even if he is only two. And when you’ve rocked that poor, uncomfortable boy curled-up between you to sleep, you fix the other problem between you. Now. And as fast as you can. The things you said, the wounds you’ve inflicted upon each other, could take forever to heal. But you need to start that process now before he wakes up and the pain comes back.

I apologize if this isn’t the usual light and fluffy, “fatherhood is the bomb” blog entry. This is for me really. I'd like to think I’ve learned a lot from that wise old guard of fathers that are sitting in the last few rows of my mind, but if there are only two things I am allowed to take away from my encounters with them, it would be this:

Sometimes being a father and a husband is the greatest thing you’ll ever have the fortune to experience.

Sometimes it’s not.

Either way, you still have to BE the greatest father and husband.

Now smile :)

there was a star danced, and under that was a bigger ben born

2007-06-12T15:35:00.000-05:00

Editor’s Note: I began writing this blog entry on the eve of Ben’s 2nd birthday and I am just now finishing it. It’s been a little busy, this life of mine. Rest assured Benjamin is doing fine, as is his mama. Benjamin says hello to you from the living room, where he is currently playing tee-ball with everything in the room but the tee-ball itself. Benjamin also just asked me to apologize to you on his behalf for my neglect in writing this blog (he is so ashamed of me), and for not letting him have that last cookie. What?! Nevermind the cookie, Benjamin! It’s mine! No, Benjamin - it’s mine! No, mine! No, no! Mine!!!

April 16, 2007:
We come to this again: Twenty-four months, seven hundred and thirty days, a couple doctor well-visits and a couple doctor sick-visits, a sixth diaper size, and another five hundred fifty million worried thoughts. From size 2T to 4T. From those shaky, uncertain first few steps up the neighbor’s sidewalk, to a confident yet still wobbly run around the house. From a climb up five meager stairs in the hallway, to a climb atop the towering playground with a baseball bat in his hand and a handful of toddlers on his shoulder. Eating with fingers to eating with utensils (usually). Two naps cut down to one. From “mamma” and “da-dee” to “Happy Birthday to You!”, and “No no, mommy - that’s MY bread!”

Looking back on what I was thinking at this point last year [holy holy holy macaroni], I’m glad to see that some things haven’t changed. Ben is still one very happy kid, and he still has a penchant for making us laugh. It all started at 6 months old with his ear-to-ear grins [chuckle]. Then, when he figured out that he possessed the ability to make the people around him happy - and sometimes downright hysterical - he amended his comedic repertoire to include the “snort” [natural selection], which he loved more than anything to perform for his grandparents on Saturday afternoons, and a never-ending stream of goofy faces, a wiggly bottom, and cracker dancing [cracker dancing].

And he’s still big. Freakishly big. Have you ever seen an engorged lemur? Yeah, um. . .no - me either. But I bet Ben is a lot bigger. His latest trip to see Dr. Bolton provided us with the opportunity to plot his height and weight on this dandy little chart [see here]. If you look closely, you’ll see that his weight is plotted so far above the weight-curve, it almost makes it onto the height-curve. He’s the size of a large 3 year-year old. . . brontosaurus.

The funny thing is, he’s stopped eating. When he was little (now that’s an oxymoron) he would eat anything you placed within 30 feet of his face. Peas. Carrots. Chicken. Tennis shoes. Now, you could put an ice cream-covered cupcake with candy sprinkles and chocolate-covered yumminess on his plate, he’d take two bites, start playing with the frosting in his hair, then fling a spoon-full of cupcake at the wall until daddy gets too frustrated to watch anymore and has to leave the room to go watch baseball.

37 inches. 37 pounds. That’s an inch per pound. If he keeps this up, he’ll grow to be over 16 feet tall! He could be a professional apple-picker.

And now the talking. It’s taken him some time to get a good hold on the speech thing, but he’s finally coming around. He can count to 20, say his ABC’s (the song is a little muddy, but it’s cuter that way), and he has a few phrases and sentences that he uses with regularity. I think one of his favorites might be, “No no daddy!” because that’s just about the only thing I ever hear him say when I’m around.

Personally, I love it when he tries to mumble out a conversation that only he, I’m guessing, can understand. It’s so funny! You ask him a question like, “How was your day today, Benjamin?” and he responds - his chin half-buried in his chest, sheepishly looking back up at you with that crooked grin - with a low-volume stream of unintelligible vocabulary and cute mutterings interspersed with his tiny little breaths and just a few clearly-spoken words like “doggie”, “park” and “slide”. I can’t say that I know anything more about his day than I did before I asked (other than, maybe, that he met a dog at the park, picked him up, carried him up the ladder and pushed him down the slide) but hearing him try to hash it all out for us is well worth the time.

And of course, with all this growing, learning, and reasoning flying around his bedroom, we’re bound to experience a couple drawbacks. A few weeks ago Ben decided that he was too cool for his crib. And every morning at 5:00 a.m. he would let us know. Leaping out of his crib, Benjamin would prance into our bedroom, his two favorite stuffed-animals in tow, grab a children’s book on his way to our bed, and proceed to read to us while we slept. And by “read to us while we slept” I mean, “sat on our pillows while our heads were still there on the pillows and demand that we read to him RIGHT NOW or else he’ll go downstairs all by his self, turn on the television and mistakenly turn up the volume thinking it was the channel button until it gets so loud that it no longer seems worth it to stay in bed any longer dreaming of the days when 5:00 a.m. on Sunday morning meant you had 7 more hours to sleep before you even thought about waking up.”

So we set him up with a “big boy” bed, which (as I write this nearly two months later) he has promptly out-grown. Funny how that works.

So. . . I must go now. As Ben likes to say as he sees me off every morning. . .

“Bye bye, daddy! Go to work. Have fun!”

the life so short, the crafts so long to learn

2007-03-25T09:21:00.000-05:00

Another day. Another week. Another Hour.

And then wild surprise. Time spent with a toddler is rarely ever boring, that’s for sure.

The best part of life with a toddler might be watching that tot ripen seemingly right before your eyes. I swear I come home to a different Benjamin each day of the week. His comprehension, his vocabulary, his annunciation, his throwing-arm. . . everything. Golly, if you and I continued to mature at that rate, we’d probably do pretty well on Jeopardy. We’d also have a lot more hair growing out of our ears.

It was only a week or two ago that I struggled with Ben to get him to say simple things like, “baseball”, “basketball”, ”deoxyribonucleic acid”, and “swimsuit edition.” Now he’s reciting Chaucer.

Ben: “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote. The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.”

Dad: [long pause and confused look on his face] “Huh? Just eat your vegetables, smart-ass.”

And it isn’t enough that he can say all kinds of great new words. No - now he actually knows how to use them. Now that Mommy and Daddy (whom Ben will sometimes call ‘Mike’) can actually understand the words that are coming out of his mouth, it’s a lot harder to play dumb and ignore his wishes. If Ben wants to watch Blue’s Clues, instead of fumbling out the words, “coos boos”, he can more accurately tell you what television program he would like to watch (again and again and again). And that makes it a lot harder for Daddy to say, “Coos boos? What did you say? Baseball? You want to watch baseball?”

That tactic apparently doesn’t make Ben very happy. I came home yesterday from work and found that he had set a parental-lock on all my favorite sports channels.

A dear friend of ours, a dear friend who has a toddler herself, also saw this extreme acceleration in her son’s mental capabilities during the month or two before his second birthday. I think she’s just trying to make us feel better; her son’s vocabulary and reasoning is to every other toddler’s speech capabilities as Immanuel Kant is to Jessica Simpson.

As it stands, Ben is now the most well-versed male in he family. He just started grammar-checking this blog entry and, wait – nope, he stopped after the first paragraph, threw up his arms and wondered aloud whether or not I am even trying.

Kids these days.

family on demand

2007-03-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

So I admit it has been way too long between posts (again), and I’m sure my readership has fallen down in the range of one or two regulars – most likely me and my cat. So this post is for you, Callie, as soon as you figure out how to read (and perhaps gain self-awareness).

But alas, I still have no time to write. As it turns out, fatherhood involves a lot more than learning to raise your child and maintain your relationship with your wife. You also have to maintain a relationship with your boss, your clients, your colleagues. . . your paycheck, really.

I recently fell in love with an Adam Sandler movie called Click. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s about an architect named Michael who is strained with the tug o' war between his family and his career. Now, I don’t know if the producers necessarily had me in my mind when they developed that script (as I am also an architect named Michael), but I do know that they must have been spying on my house when they decided to name the father’s son, Ben. Eerie. No seriously, they did. The father, Michael, is an architect and he has a son named Ben. And his wife is really hot. I mean, how could they not have plucked that story line right out of my life?

I should also mention that we recently saw another movie about a young architect named Michael (Last Kiss) and I’m pretty sure I remember that architect dude from the Brady Bunch was named Michael too. What can I say – I’m a walking cliché. And a poet - who would’ve known it? Anybody want a peanut?

I digress. . .

Anna thinks I like the movie because it contains a scene where a guy farts in another guy’s face, and numerous scenes where the wife looks super-duper waaaaaaay hot. She might be right. But I see myself as a more refined sort of man, fully capable of understanding the deeper meaning in deep films such as Click. So maybe - just maybe (the fart scene is pretty damn funny) – I like the film because it serves as a poignant reminder of how bad things can get when you let work get in the way. Okay, maybe not poignant, exactly, but it’s close. It’s pretty emotional for an Adam Sandler flick.

I have had some unique opportun- ities in the recent past to further my career in such a way as to potentially alienate myself from my family, and I am proud to say that each time I have chosen against the paycheck. I have found that, as tiresome as maintaining a family can be at times, it’s still the thing I value most - the thing I wish to be remembered for. More so than any building I work on or client I impress. It wasn’t a difficult decision, exactly. In fact, I already made that decision when I decided to impregnate my wife (high five!), but it’s taken me all this time to merely begin to understand the implications of that decision (just like the Oracle said it would be – thanks, Neo).

But walking the walk isn’t easy. Not for me, not for my wife, not for my kid – not for Callie. And certainly not for my heartburn/ulcer/blood pressure/insert-malady-here.

And let me state it here, in case anyone out there doesn’t immediately understand that inside my great big head there is room for more than just my selfishness and ego: I also understand that Anna faces this same kind of problem with her job, and I’m not trying to belittle that. But I am not Anna - at least, I don’t think I am - and as such, I think it’s best not to put any words in her airway. Lord knows there are enough words there already.

You older dads are probably laughing at me. “You only have one! And he’s not even two yet!” I know, I know. Give me some slack. I’m slow to catch-on. I’m learning. But I’ve seen a lot of dads who've chosen their careers over their family, and I’ve seen how that turns out. And let me also state that I understand the difference between taking the paycheck to survive, and taking the paycheck to buy yourself a Bentley. I have even more respect for the dads out there working three jobs just to keep the roof tied down to the house.

And one last disclaimer - I also know that there are some dads out there who can afford their Bentley without having to sacrifice their family time. I wish I was in that situation. Then again, if that’s what I wanted, I would've never chosen architecture for a living. Or married a nurse.

I think I’m going to go play the lotto.

one two three four five

2007-03-11T00:41:00.000-06:00

And oh yeah, at the tender age of 22 months, Ben can count to 20. No assistance, no prodding. 1 - 20 and the only hiccup comes when he sometimes forgets the 16, or when he gets so excited to yell "TWENTY!!!", he forgets to say "nineteen". Anna and I are currently working on getting this on film for the non-believers.

Next up, differential equations. And finishing our spaghetti without having to take a shower afterwards.

leftovers

2007-01-25T16:05:00.000-06:00

These are just a few of the random pics that escaped my notice during the holiday festivities. Mmmmm. . . turkey.

Ben wearing the suit that his beloved Mormor bestowed upon him. If you find yourself wondering why the suit looks like it was made in 1982, that's because it was. I think she said that the original owner was Ben's Uncle Jonathan who was forced to wear the suit when he was two years old. Needless to say, Ben had the jacket off as fast as he could because it prevented his ability to throw stuff at the other kids, and the vest didn't last much longer. The tie (oh dear God, the tie) has been burned to prevent its future use on some other unfortunate kid. [Editor's note: Anna does not necessarily agree with my assesment of the outfit, and I suppose I really don't either, but Mormor lives so far away north she couldn't possibly reach all the way down here to slap me into submission.]

Ben wearing the propeller beanie that his Uncle Dan wore the night before on his 30th birthday. I don't know who looks more childish with the hat on, but I can tell you for sure which one is the wrinkly old man.

Our Christmas card. Ben is laughing, Mom is loving, and Dad is. . . . big. Our dear friend Krystal of Bliss Photo took the shot and deserves all the credit in the world for making us look like a happy, loving family. I honestly don't remember her taking this specific shot. All I remember from that gray afternoon was Anna verbally abusing me and beating Benjamin with her purse. If you look closely at the picture you can almost hear Anna wispering into his ear: "If you don't smile for the God-blessed camera I swear to hell I'll lock you up in your crib until your skin rots and your legs fall off." She can be a scary woman, that Anna Marie. [Editor's note: This account of the afternoon is totally untrue. The afternoon of the photo-shoot was actually one of the rare exceptions when Anna is not beating someone with her purse.]

wheezing and sneezing

2007-01-25T14:24:00.000-06:00

Ben has been sick for almost three straight months now. It started with a head-cold that turned into a cough, then that was followed by the stomach flu which ended just as he picked up another head-cold, followed by some viral pink-eye, then by a hacking cough combined with some seriously runny nose, which led to the croup, rubella, trypanosomiasis, the measles and then just this past week - trench-foot. This is beginning to get out of hand.

Anna and I accredit all of these various maladies to the other children at Ben’s part-time daycare, and in the trypanosomiasis case, I’m certain that creepy-looking Amazonian kid with the flies buzzing around his head is to blame. Daycare centers are like laboratory centers for disease control, where instead of trying to isolate the disease and contain it, the disease is spread as widely as possibly under the assumption that if everyone gets sick, then eventually no one will ever remember what it was like to be healthy and the new state of affliction will become the status quo (the principle of monogamy works the same way, but that’s a subject for another day).

If you plan on bringing your kid to daycare during the winter months, you might as well just inject the virus directly into their bloodstream and save yourself the stress of wondering whether or not they’ll catch it on their own. And then you can turn the dripping needle right around and inject it into your own arm, because there is no way in hell you’re going to come out of this winter as healthy as you went in.

Doctors will try and tell you that all of these viruses and bacteria floating around in your kid’s bloodstream are actually a good thing, as the kid's immunity for the diseases will be well established by the time they are school-aged. Don’t let them fool you. They have a vested interest in propagating disease. It keeps the business steady and the Maserati full of premium gas.

Ben has taken to his various diseases with surprising poise, except when it comes time to take his medicine. We’ve tried everything, believe me. Putting the cough syrup in his orange juice. Wrapping the chewable Tylenol with a gummy bear. Telling him that the liquid Motrin will give him wings and make him fly. Nothing works. If it’s liquid, he’ll spit it in your face. If it’s chewable, he’ll let it dribble out onto his shirt. It’s not because he doesn’t like the taste; in fact, I think he really likes the taste of the chewable tablets. The problem is he is a “little delight” entering his “first adolescence”. And when you combine that with itchy eyes, sleepless nights, and being stuck in the house all day long, you’ve got yourself one angry little tornado. It’s enough to make a daddy want to go back to the bar and enough to make a mommy want to remodel the kitchen with her fists.

I suppose the winter has to end at some point. In Chicago it only lasts for 5 months - that’s not even half the year! We should be so lucky! With only two months to go, how many more diseases can our little bug-catcher possibly get?

something wicked this way comes

2007-01-16T14:47:00.000-06:00

Woah woah woah! Wait a minute there, buddy. Where did that come from?!

One minute he’s an adorable toddler who watches Sesame Street, trips over his own feet, dances without a care in the world, and repeats everything that you say with the cutest toddler-lisp. . . and then all of a sudden that sweet little thing has left the warehouse through the door marked 'EXIT HAPPY CHILD' and is replaced by an irritable, growling, bull-headed, menacing miniature tornado that came in through the door marked 'ENTER HOLY TERROR'. It’s an F5-class tornado. An F6, if there is such a thing.

My brothers tell me that the same thing happened at their own houses when their charming little balls of joy left the building around the same age. This exodus of reason and innocence, I am told, marks the official start of the terrible-twos. They say that during the coming year you will expend more energy screaming phrases such as “no”, “stop that”, and “let that cat out of the toilet RIGHT NOW” than you will saying things like “Hey beer here!” or “Wassup”. Your vocabulary will be rife with words that your little tornado really shouldn't be exposed to, and of course those will be the only words your tornado will choose to repeat.

How about that? Awesome. Super.

I did some internet research when I happened upon Dr. Greene [www.drgreene.com] who has this to say about my problem:

It is unpleasant to have anyone passionately disagree with you. When this opposition comes from your own little delight, the situation is decidedly disagreeable. Many people call this important phase of development the "Terrible Twos." I prefer to call it "The First Adolescence."

I prefer to call it “This Sucks”. And I like the way he calls the tornado a “little delight”.

The hallmark of this stage is oppositional behavior. Our wonderful children instinctively want to do exactly the opposite of what we want. We have nice, reasonable expectations and they say, "NO!" or they simply dissolve into tears. Suppose you have some place to get to in a hurry. Your son has been in a great mood all day. . . until you say, "I need you to get into the car right now." He will, of course, want to do anything except get into the car.

Or, if it he is anything like my son, he will want to slap the car in the face and tell it “no” until the car just can’t take it anymore and runs away with his cat to hide in the basement and watch college basketball.

As if this weren't enough, children in this phase of development have a great deal of difficulty making the choices they so desperately want to make. You ask your child what he would like for dinner, and he says macaroni. You lovingly prepare it for him, and then as soon as it's made he says, "I don't want that!" It is perfectly normal for him to reverse a decision as soon as he has made it, because at this stage, he even disagrees with himself.

Oh, great. You’re telling me he won’t even agree with himself? What?! How is that possible? So, not only have our “little delights” left the building, but they’ve left us with a schizophrenic tornado with an inner struggle?

His task is to gain skill at making appropriate choices. To help him accomplish this, offer your son limited choices at every opportunity. Two or three options generally works best. Make sure the choices you offer fall within an appropriate agenda. Your son still needs the security of knowing that he's not calling all the shots. When it's time to eat, say something like, "Would you rather have a slice of apple or a banana?"

And what do I do when he chooses the apple, takes a bite out of it, spits it on the table and throws the remainder of the apple at the cat? Should I offer him to either: a) pick up the apple and put it in the garbage, b) take the banana instead, or c) throw the cat at the remainder of the apple.

I like to think of the process as similar to childbirth. Labor is a very intense experience. Pain, after pain, after pain eventually produces something beautiful-- a child is born. The episodes of oppositional behavior in "First Adolescence" are psychological labor pains -- one difficult situation, then another, and another, and as a result your son's own persona is being born psychologically. This is a beautiful (but difficult) time with a truly worthwhile result.

I thought the whole advantage with being a man was that we didn’t have to experience labor pains. I thought that was the trade-off women made at the beginning of time - they chose to have stunningly hot features and all sorts of cool biological gadgets in exchange for growing babies in their womb, while men chose a more streamlined version of the female model in exchange for superior mental capabilities.

I’m probably making Ben out to be the worst-behaved toddler on the block. He’s not. Probably not even close. I think Anna and I have been doing a decent job maintaining a happy, disciplined household so far. But when Ben starts rejecting even the fun little events that we used to enjoy together (saying “yo” and bumping fists, for instance), it makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong.

Maybe someone else besides the venerable Dr. Greene can help me out here. Is it okay to verbally abuse my child? What would be considered going too far? If I yell louder than my son, will he acquiesce? Will he respond to Twinkies and chocolate milk? Is it too soon to consider military school? Is there a way to de-program the word “no” from his mind? Is there a simple way we can board up the “HOLY TERROR” door and keep the crazies out? Surely someone must know.

reductio ad absurdum

2007-01-13T19:45:00.000-06:00

I hate to keep writing about how big our little boy is growing, so from this point on I promise to suspend any comments that I might have concerning his fantastic size. Unless, of course, he starts to shrink.

For now there are enough subjects regarding Ben’s personality to discuss for weeks upon weeks, which coincidentally will probably be the next time I get around to posting in this blog. Of course since I just made that statement, Murphy’s cute little law has it that I will instead find myself posting here every day. Hrmph. Sometimes you win, sometimes you waste a lot of time at work writing a blog about your kid.

Speaking of work. . . the child is entering a new phase in his pursuit of a greater vocabulary, and it sure doesn’t make mommy and daddy’s vocal lifestyle any easier. Suddenly, without warning of any kind, Ben is really getting into repeating things. Now, he’s been repeating things for months, but it used to be that we had to ask him.

“Benjamin, can you say: boo-ya?”

“Ah-Boo!”

“Good! Can you say: daddy?”

“Da-deeee! Ga ah-mung men!”

But now he repeats the last word of every sentence you speak. It usually sounds something like an Abbott and Costello routine, or a really bad TV sitcom:

“Hey Ben, let’s go upstairs and wake up mommy.”

“Ma-mee?”

“Yes, mommy. Let’s go wake her up. She’s had enough rest.”

“Esst?”

“Rest. Sleep. You know, night-night.”

“Neye-neye?”

“No, buddy, not for you. For mommy. She needs to wake up from her night-night.”

“Neye-neye.” [he lays down on the floor and feigns snoring]

“Okay, big guy. C’mon, let’s get up now.”

“Now.”

“Yes now. Let’s go get mommy. She needs to make us some dinner. I’m hungry.”

“Uh-gee.”

“You’re hungry too? Okay, let’s get mommy’s lazy butt out of bed so she can make us some dinner.”

“Uh-gee.”

“Right. I know, I know. Me too, buddy. C’mon, let’s go wake up mommy.”

“Ma-mee!”

“Yes. . . mommy. Let’s go already. Mommy’s slept too much.”

“Muh-sh”.

[frustrated] “Hey, Ben – can you say ‘magnetohydrodynamic’?”

[long pause]

“Ma-mee!”

For the record, I believe I can honestly say that it was Anna who first broke the most essential of those rules that your friends pass on to you when your kid gets to be about 18 months old, and that is: watch your f*cking mouth! This morning our innocent little creature uttered his first semi-obscenity - “jerk”. And it was his mother, not his father, who planted it in his pliable little mind. I just hope Anna remembers that moment when we’re getting lectured in the principals office about our son calling his 3rd-grade teacher a dirty whore (you would never believe how much Anna throws that term around).

I’m sure I’ll have plenty of things to add to his slum-vocabulary over the next several years; I’m far from innocent. But I wasn’t the first.

In an unrelated story, several weeks ago The Ben was naming all the farm animals in a book of his, and when we got to the picture of a pig, he emphatically yelled “mama!” Now, something tells me the blush in Anna’s cheeks wasn’t exactly a symptom of her inherent bashfulness, and she took the erroneous insult with surprising poise (she ripped the book into seventeen pieces). In his defense, the book was actually attempting to demonstrate the relationship between various different farm animals and their mothers, so the pig was indeed being portrayed as a “mama” pig.

Ben more than made up for his indiscretion a week or two later when I held up the latest edition of the Victoria’s Secret catalog (God bless Victoria’s Secret), pointed to the model on the cover and asked, “Ben, who’s that?”

“Ma-mee!”

Good dog.

Told you so. . .

2007-01-13T18:44:00.000-06:00

For those who ever doubted Ben's size, here is a pic from a typical day at the Red Wagon daycare. See if you can pick out the 20-month-old kid amongst all the other four- and five-year-olds.

Hint: it's not the one with the fake beard, who is staring at my photographer wife a little too strangely, instead of helping that poor little girl learn how to read. I'm watching you, buddy. . .

Okay, if you still haven't figured it out, he's the one that the kid in the orange shirt is sneering at because Ben is about to steal his girlfriend (the Asian girl who just can't take her eyes off Ben).

christmastime was here. . .

2007-01-12T19:26:00.000-06:00

. . . and it was a good season for Benjamin. Here's the recap:

Reading with his mama on Christmas Eve. I think the book was titled, I Don't Wanna Sleep, I Just Don't Wanna, and I Swear To Buddha That I'll Cry Until Your Ears Bleed If You Put Me In That Friggen Crib.

Ben's loot was enough to fill our entire living room. The TPC (Toys Per Capita) of our household is probably greater than that of most small European countries. Anna bought him the train set; I was the lucky one who got to put it together.

Our virtuoso. He's played alongside the masters but sadly, it has been three weeks since Christmas, and the shelf life for such performances just isn't what it used to be.

Here he is (in the same pajamas) waiting to open presents on Christmas night at Grandma and Grandpa Bonick's house. The Opening was a massacre of biblical proportions (and why biblical, you ask? Because Jesus would've wanted it that way).

This last one is a quick shot of Ben assisting Anna while putting together some strange new toy. Ah, Christmas.

peas, please

2006-12-12T21:42:00.000-06:00

Okay. This installation is going to be a gushy one, so if there are any jealous parents out there who will find it hard to read about why my son is the coolest little bag of fun that the planet earth has ever had the pleasure to coexist with, then maybe you should just skip on over to whatever other website you were planning to visit today. I need to write this, you see, not because I’m trying to compare my kid to yours, or because I actually think that my situation is unique (I would entertain any argument for why your kid is the coolest kid in the world, so long as it is submitted in writing within 30 days), but because I feel the need to remind my future self - who is currently praying that his 7-year old Benjamin would just sit the hell down and shut up already – exactly how great things can be when your kid is only 19 [months]. Because they are. Great. I mean. . . so far.

Benjamin is learning a lot. About everything. The other day he learned how to transform his crib from a comfy little prison cell into a platform for base-jumping. Yup - he's figured out how to climb out of his crib. The day has finally come when there are no longer any boundaries we can erect that our baby boy can’t climb over, crawl under, or leap in a single bound. Heck, we took down all the baby-gates in our house several months ago, since Ben (whose middle name is Momentum) could easily barrel through them as if they weren’t actually made of solid wood and steel.

But I have to admit: I actually encouraged his escape from the crib because it is really a milestone of sorts (like eating with utensils, or pointing out where his balls are), and I’m sick of my brothers saying things like “Oh, he hasn’t climbed out of his crib yet? My kid did that when she was three months old.” We lowered the mattress in his crib to the lowest setting before he was even one, and I figured that it would take him until he was 12 to actually climb out since the mattress is effectively six feet lower than the top of the railing. I couldn’t climb out of that crib if I was a pole-vaulter. But he did it.

And that’s not even the worst part - he also knows how to open his bedroom door. Ooooooh, shiver. Can you hear the sound of the creaking door? That’s the sound of lost freedom. Because he’s too young to understand that he must voluntarily stay in his room, even if he is wide awake at two-thirty (remember that time?), but he's too goddamned big to be forced to stay in his room.

And therein lies our problem. Due to Ben’s incredible size, he can do things that his brain just isn’t ready for yet. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he is the size of a small 4-year old. Seriously. We took him to a Holiday Pageant at his daycare last weekend, and when they brought out the 4-5 year-old group, I was stumped looking for Ben in the crowd. “Where’s our guy?” I whispered to Anna next to me.

“Those are the four year olds, goof,” she said. Four year olds? You mean those aren’t the toddlers? Ben is twice their size!

After the older kids finished butchering all of my favorite Christmas songs, they wheeled out the toddlers, aged one to two. And then walked in Ben carrying three toddlers on his shoulders and one in his pocket. He was like a man among small ants. He was huge!

But he acts his age. In fact, he acts slightly older than his age - from what we can tell he is as mentally advanced as a 24 month-old. But the crowd doesn’t know that. They think he is a 4th-grader who has been held back for six years in the pre-pre-pre-school class. He cried when he caught a glimpse of his mother at the end of the performance (which consisted of the teachers singing Twinkle Little Star while the toddlers repeatedly fell off their stools), he couldn’t form full sentences, his diaper was soaked, and he had a stream of mucus hanging from his nose to his shirt. Mentally, he is still a toddler. He just so happens to be 24 inches taller than the little squirt falling off the stool next to him.

And by the way, he really likes peas. I not going to say much else about this strange fact, other than that I’m not entirely sure who passed on that particular gene, and I would like to see a record of where Anna went shopping between July and August of 2004.

Well, I haven’t gushed as much as I thought I was going to - I apologize for going on and on about his size (damn, he’s huge). So this is for you, future Ben: I love you. You are so much fun to be around. You have a certain personality. I think I can positively affirm that you are unlike anyone else I have ever met, and after 28 years of life, I think that is saying something special.

Now get out there and make some big-time money so you can buy me a house on the beach. And put down that school bus before you hurt someone!

even though I ain't got money

2006-12-12T20:23:00.000-06:00

Sorry to be away for so long - it's this thing called life that keeps getting in the way. And this other thing called Benjamin.

To recompense, here are some fun images from the past 6 weeks:

This first one is a cute video from Thanksgiving where Benjamin kept my dad up past his bedtime singing songs and playing the guitar.

This is Ben's grandpa showing his grandson the biz. You can see from the look on Ben's face that he is having problems with the spatial relationship between the public volumes and the private, and the architect's use of materials on the east building facade remind him of that poopy diaper he made last week's after eating mommy's "surprise" chili.

While we're on the musical merry-go-round, these next few are from our visit with our dear old friend, Mary and her wonderful piano. Ben may not be prodigy material (yet), but he sure loves his "mu-nick". He won't go to sleep until we've either sung him a song, or watched some live music on TV (Hi-Definition Pearl Jam is the way to go, baby).

This is Ben's second hair-cut, courtesy of Uncle Dan and his rusty clippers. I was personally against his getting his hair cut, seeing as he barely has enough hair to do a toddler comb-over, but level heads did not prevail that Thanksgiving evening and Ben ended up with a military crew cut. Sir, yes sir.

This is Ben's hat.

This is Ben's ass.

Trains and computers. Fun for all.

"From here I can see the extent of my playground kingdom, and that cute toddler beeotch who better bring back my stolen shoe."

Ben and his best bud, Noah. Or as Ben calls him: No-nah.

Ben and The Mife. My peeps.

da-doo-doo

2006-12-12T20:12:00.000-06:00

Original post: 11/15/06

Not much to say right now - Ben has been doing all the talking lately anyway. He seems to have discovered the back of his throat and all the fun little noises that you can make back there, and if I hear him say the word “no” one more time. . .

Actually, his use of the negative has, for the most part, been rather appropriate. Anna has willingly taught him how to use the word, don’t ask me why, but it still surprises me to hear him use it. For instance, if you ask, “Benjamin, do you want some more carrots?” you’ll hear, “ummmm, no.”

If you ask, “Benjamin, are you ready to take a bath?” He'll state very concisely, “no.”

His use of the word is very clear and you can sense the rationality in his inflection. He really knows what he is saying, unlike so many of the other times when he simply repeats what you've just said.

He is currently learning the alphabet, and once in a while he’ll actually surprise you and say the next letter before you even get to it. Of course sometimes his guesses are a little too premature. Like when you get to “C” and he says “da-doo-doo”.

“No Benjamnin, not yet. A – B – C. . .okay, now Deeee. . .”

“Da-doo-doo.”

“No, no, no. Deeeee. . . . Eeeeee. . .”

“Eck!”

“Nooo, not X. Eeeee. . . Efffffff. . .”

“Effffff”

“Yeah! Good job! Now Geeeee. . .”

“Geeeee. . .”

“H”

“aaych!”

“I”

“eyes!”

“J”

“da-doo-doo!”

“Okay, fine. Fine. W. . . X.”

“Eck!”

“Y”

“eyes”

“And Z!”

“Zeee! Dee-en! [The end] More! More!”

Editor’s Note: This was written several weeks ago, and since then, Ben has filled in quite a few of the holes in his alphabet. His favorite part is L-M-N-O-P, which of course is followed immediately by da-doo-doo, eck, and zeee.

99th percentile

2006-10-27T19:01:00.000-05:00

Impossible.

That’s what I said when Anna told me the recent news. Benjamin, fresh off a visit with his baby-doc, had grown to the incredibly immense size of 32 pounds 12 ounces and 35 inches tall. Benjamin now weighs just barely more than a slug, which, for the uninitiated, is defined as the amount of mass that accelerates at 1 ft/s² when 1 lb of force is exerted on it (at least that’s what this smarmy English dude told me). This is also the weight of an average 3½ year old. Yes, you read that correctly. Ben probably weighs more than your kid if he/she was born anytime after April of 2003. Now, considering Benjamin was born in April of 2005, I would think that this is worth expounding upon.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know that our little boy has been abnormally large for almost all of his abnormal life. He was born a pedestrian 7 lbs, 11 oz, and measured a mere 20 inches tall. But ever since he was introduced to this thing called “solid food”, his girth has rocketed straight off the charts. His weight has maintained a level above the 99th percentile since he was around 6 months old, and I would imagine we’d find it nearly impossible to locate another member of that upper one percent. To the best of my memory, I have only seen one other kid Ben’s age in the past 18 months that appeared to be bigger than bigger ben, and that kid doesn’t count because I think he was actually a polar bear.

And the interesting thing is, Ben’s rate of weight-gain has actually slowed down! For the first time his height is almost exactly proportional to his weight. While Ben’s length was always well above the 90th percentile, he is now around the 99th. That’s about the height of your average 30-month old. Or the height of a standard barber pole. Or a small house. Put another way, Michael Jordan would have a difficult time leaping over Ben’s head (and who’s to say Ben couldn’t just reach up and swat the ball away? I can just hear Ben telling Michael to “get that weak sh*t outta here!”).

It’s amazing. Ben is so big, other smaller objects gravitate toward him. At any given moment you’ll witness an array of crayons, food particles, and neighborhood animals orbiting his midsection.

He is so tall, he hits his head on the very same table just three weeks ago he could walk under unimpeded. We’ll soon have to buy a new kitchen table for all the dents and nicks Ben has created with his forehead. And no object is safe on the edge of the table anymore. While most parents start worrying about placing their drinks too close to the edge of the table when their kid gets to be two or three years old, we’ve already had to take everything off of our table because Ben can reach all the way to the middle. Candles? Decorative centerpiece? Forget it.

Ah well, such are the joys of parenting in high-speed. I suppose it’s only appropriate, given the times that we live in, that our kids should grow up too fast as well. I just thought that when my parents kept telling me that we should treasure these moments because they’ll sweep past you before you know it, that that would include treasuring a baby-sized baby as well. Ben hasn’t been baby-sized since he was four months old.

And I thought for sure by now Anna’s arm would fall off from under the weight of the “infant” she’s carried around for so long. And her back! She’s forced to pick up and lug around a three-year old on her hip because although he can walk, he usually can’t walk fast enough. Let me ask you: when’s the last time you saw a skinny little mom at the mall lugging around her three-year old instead of letting the kid run circles around her?

We had a toddler at 6 months. We have a pre-schooler at 18 months. What will we have at three years? A pre-teen? An adult? A horse?

slippin' and slidin'

2006-10-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

I would just like to point out that last weekend's Chicago Marathon winner, Mr. Robert 'Sweet Lou' Cheruiyot of Kenya, was released from the hospital today after suffering a "bruised brain" during a tragic collapse at the finish line due to the even more tragic stupidity of the marathon event planners. I would also like to point out that he was wearing an outift apparently inspired by his earlier viewing of this here blog and the recently-posted image of his long-time pal, Mr. Benjamin 'Sloppy Kisses' Bonick.