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Wed, Mar 24, 2004 11:47 PM
sometimes you find that you just can't quite get enough of your daughter. you find yourself stroking her hair, hoping she'll never move. you long for a hug, a head on the shoulder. you squeeze thighs and toes, and count tiny white hairs on never-shaved legs. you sit and watch, at a photo if she's not around. you feel time pass, and the earth spins with every new observation. you derive overt pride in everyday tasks, and secretly know that your daughter is, well, the most amazing thing on this planet and only you are in on the secret. but you don't want to seem cocky so you temper those thoughts with "oh, but she blah blah blah" and "i wish she would blah blah blah" and "65% of kids her age are blah blah blah", always aware that you're just trying to protect yourself, because she IS in fact quite perfect, so something must be wrong. that's not how the world is supposed to operate. but it really does, and you can't quite process the whole idea that you have found a source of endless fascinatioin and simple perfection. and it doesn't seem like i, for one, will ever fully grasp it.

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Mon, Mar 8, 2004 9:41 PM
when you find yourself with a night to yourself, you catch up on all the mental laundry that you had shoved into the closet of your brain over the last few weeks, or, sadly, months. especially with kids, you find that alone time has become such a rare commidity that you almost don't know what to do with it - you're paralyzed with opportunity, and so you end up watching Seinfeld re-runs on channel 13.

so, in case you can't tell, the wife's out with friends tonight, which leaves me with time to spend on my own. kaya went down like a dream tonight, despite her recent declaration that being apart from mommy and daddy is definitely not cool. and so now i stare at her on the video monitor, legs splayed out, pillow on her face (in the good, cute way, not the i'm-about-to-suffocate way).

the extra time to think allows me to reflect on how good things really are. away from the daily bullshit of baths and diapers and tantrums and rushing everywhere, i reflect on the comforts of being a daddy and a husband. as i've said before, it's a very grounding feeling, as if you're one with the Earth and stars, and you've created your own little branch on the great Tree Of Life (at least that's what they called it in Hebrew school) or whatever...you feel as if you're accomplishing so much by just getting through the day, and the empty angst of pre-parental life is replaced with the ultimate satisfaction of procreation.

my thoughts then wander to the future - i try, without much success, to steer clear of the 'bad thoughts' - what if my child is screwed up / makes a bad decision / gets hurt / etc? but i find those thoughts not as daunting as the happier occasions that will hopefully come to pass; things like weddings and graduations and big birthdays. those are the events that choke me up - the idea of my daughter moving on, growing independent, finding comfort in others. for someone who often finds himself completely devoid of emotion, i find the tug of simultaneous joy and pain oddly satisfying and tangible.

none of these feelings are new - i feel as if i've seen them all before in every bad sit-com and goofy AfterSchool Special i've ever seen - but, of course, they resonate so much clearer once you're there, sitting across from your 20-month old as she counts her own fingers ("one....two.....TWO!"). i take solace in math - hopefully i've got 20 years of this girl before she's fully independent, and that's 2/3 of my own life - but who am i fooling? she grows more independent of me every day. and letting go...i can say now that i'll not be very good at that.

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Sun, Mar 7, 2004 10:17 PM
imagine the worst pain you've ever felt, then double it.

that's what i awoke to at 5AM this morning. it's a long story, but the short version was that kaya slept in her own bed in our hotel room, and she rolled off the bed and landed on her forehead on the solid marble floor. i heard the noise, then the scream, and i just felt a horrible blackness rushing over me. a helplessness, a frustration and a surprisingly rational clarity as i began to immediately sort out what to do.

ok, this is sounding more morbid than i mean it - it turned out kaya had an enormous bump on her forehead - probably raised as much as a 1/2" - that chona immediately brought down with some ice and not a small amount of tears...but it was by far kaya's biggest injury to date, and it was truly scary.

short of that small, traumatic incident, this was a wonderful, tiring little vacation in mexico. we went to punta mita, a small resort north of puerto vallarta, where 5-star meets kids, and it was basically 2-year-old heaven. kaya and i spent our mornings in the pool - she ran around the very shallow end, drank as much of the pool water as i'd let her, explored the concept of a 'drain', and splashed around. lunch was french fries and ketchup, mango smoothies and eggs. afternoons were for exploring the beach, finding shells, deep green beach glass, drawing shapes in the sand, and watching the waves and the rocks.

it's exhausting keeping up with an almost-2 year old, but it's exciting to re-live all the things you did when you were a kid. it's been ages since i searched for shells on a beach, walked up the stairs on the wide railing, spent my day in the pool - and yet that's what vacations are really for.

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