Shotgun Daddy

Farewell to a Friend

Henry suffered his first broken heart today.  He had to say goodbye to his friend Haley.

Henry and Haley met at daycare when they were each somewhere around nine months old, and their friendship grew as their paths took them through the same preschool and elementary classrooms.  Like me, most of Henry's friends have been girls, and Haley has always been his best friend.  They shared toys at daycare, took turns on the slide in kindergarten, collected flowers and leaves in the first grade, and played tag in the second grade.  They even shared a dance at the school's Valentine's Ball.

Most importantly, though, Haley was Henry's protector.  She sat next to him in class to keep him on task and helped him navigate the politics of the playground.  

A few weeks ago we learned that Haley and her family would be moving away.  This afternoon they invited us to a farewell party at their summer home on the beach.  Henry had a wonderful time playing in the sand and the sun, drifting from one friend to the next but always thinking of what would happen at the end of the day.  Even as he was paddling in the bay or building castles in the sand, he would wander back to us from time to time and ask how much longer it would be until we had to leave.  He had already warned us that he would probably cry when it was time to say goodbye.

As the sun began to set and cool breezes started teeth chattering, it was time for us to go.  Henry and Haley stood next to each other for several pictures, then hugged each other goodbye.  Henry walked bravely to the car, but on the drive home I noticed his lip quivering in the rear view mirror.  I reached my hand back and set it in his lap.  I felt his small hand in mine and listened to him cry.  His heart was breaking, and so was mine.

Henry was sad for the rest of the night, first lying next to his mother on the bed, then sitting in my lap as I watched a baseball game.  I tuck Henry into bed every single night, but tonight he needed something else.  He needed a little extra love.  "Mama's gonna tuck me in tonight," he told me, and said goodnight. 

Tomorrow I will tell him about Elissa.  Elissa lived across the street from me when I was Henry's age, and she was my best friend.  We hatched plans, shared imaginations, and even said "I love you" to each other -- that last part was a secret until just now.  My family moved away when I was in the third grade, and Elissa disappeared from my life but never from my heart.  How could you ever forget your first best friend?

When I tell Henry the story and show him the pictures, I'll tell him that I was just as sad as he was when Elissa and I said goodbye, but I'll also tell him that my story has a happy ending.  Two years ago Elissa reached across cyberspace to find me, and now we're friends again.  

Haley might be moving away, but they'll always be friends.

Strawberry Fields Forever

 The only cure for the depression that rises with the final few days of a long vacation is a fun outing for the entire family.  For us, it was a trip to Tanaka Farms in Irvine to pick strawberries with our good friends.  If you live in the area, you owe it to yourself and your children to plan a trip this spring.

Here's how it works.  You pay thirteen bucks a person for a guided tour of the farm -- complete with samples of each different crop along the way -- and a basket to fill with strawberries at the end.  The farm is completely organic, and the vegetables taste nothing like what you're used to.  The onions are sweet and biting, the carrots explode with flavor, and even the spinach tastes good.  Henry was in heaven, and even Alison and Kate were brave enough to try everything.

The best, though, is saved for last.  You haven't really had strawberries until you've plucked them directly from the plant and popped them straight into your mouth, still warm from the afternoon sun.  I walked up and down the rows, first helping Henry and then Kate as they searched for the largest and juiciest strawberries.  Alison did just fine on her own.

We brought home five boxes of strawberries which Leslie magically transformed into seventeen jars of jelly by Friday evening, spinach which I paired with balsamic vinegar for a nice salad on Saturday night, and a bag full of green onions and carrots which I sautéed for Sunday's dinner.  It was a great trip, and a great way to spend one of our last days of freedom.

Bravest of All

 When it's time for bedtime stories for Henry and Kate, we usually read two books, one chosen by each child.  If you're in the business of reading bedtime stories, you know all too well that for every Cat in the Hat on your child's shelf, there is another title that seems to have been written by a chimpanzee with a typewriter.  So some evenings are full of beautiful literature, while others leave you searching for a spoon with which to gouge out your eyes.

Tonight Henry chose The First Thanksgiving, a well-meaning story which conveniently avoided the entire issue of genocide, while Kate brought out a watered-down version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears which ended with the Bears making breakfast for their "guest."  We've definitely had worse.

The highlight of the evening, though, was a book that I chose, Bravest of All.  Published in 1973 (and sadly no longer in print), this Little Golden Book was one of my favorites as a child, and I've loved sharing it with my own children.  The story itself is wonderful, as it centers around an old firefighter name Jonathan who endures the condescension of the younger firemen at his station until he earns their respect in the end.  There are vivid pictures of dancing flames, wonderful passages of descriptive language, and a plot that grabs young readers and refuses to release them.  Kate was hearing the story for the first time tonight, and she stopped me half way through, breathlessly asking, "Can we read this story again next time?"

But the best part by far was before we started the story and I told them that this book -- this actual book -- had belonged to me when I was a little boy.  "Do you mean that Mum (grandma) read this book to you when you were a little boy like me?" asked Henry.  Indeed, she did.

As proof, I opened the book to the title page to show them were I had neatly written my name thirty-five years ago.  Alison found herself drawn from her homework to examine my five-year-old handwriting and correctly observed that it looked just as if Henry had written it.  And then we read the story.

The beautiful thing about literature -- and yes, I consider this book to be literature -- is that it can be something different each time you read it.  I vividly remember being thrilled by the drawings of fire trucks and ambulances and frightened by the snakelike flames when I was a boy, but now I'm drawn to the theme of redemption offered by the ending.  Each time I read it with my children, I'm surprised by how emotional I become as I turn to the final page, but it's not just about the words I'm reading.  It's about the words my mother once read to me, and that my children will one day read to my grandchildren.  And as they turn the pages and read the words, I'm certain that memories will come flowing back to them, memories of a night in January when they sat close to their father and listened to him read one of his favorite books.

 

  
 

Happy Birthday

Had he not passed away forty years ago, today would've been my father's 85th birthday.  He died five months before I was born, so I never knew him, but I've always been struck by what a profound impact he's had on my life without ever being physically present.

A picture from my parents' wedding day always sat atop my dresser as a child, and dozens more photos filled an album on my shelf, but he has always existed within me as much as in the photographs.  People who knew him would comment on similarities they saw in me, from the expected physical resemblances to hand gestures which had somehow passed through our shared DNA.

People told me what a wonderful man he was, telling stories of his grace and humanity, almost always finishing with an account of hundreds of mourners overflowing from the church on the morning of his funeral.  Depending upon my outlook, he was either an inspiration to guide me or an ideal I could never hope to reach.

Mainly, though, he has been a reminder to me of how precious life is.  He was only forty-four years old when he died, and for the first thirty years of my life I was convinced that I would follow him to an early grave.  There was nothing hereditary that I needed to worry about, just the overwhelming idea that if it had happened to him, it could happen to me.

It didn't affect my day-to-day living, though.  I still fastened my seatbelt when I got in the car, made plans for the future, and saved part of my paycheck each month, but I never thought much about being old or playing with grandchildren.  Until I met Leslie.  She changed my life in ways too numerous to list here, but the single biggest difference was that I suddenly saw my own life extending beyond my father's.  I had found someone whose hand I wanted to hold for the next fifty years, and that made all the difference.

There was a moment when our son was born.  When the nurse handed him to me and I held my son for the first time, I felt my father with me as I rarely had before.  I wept as I realized that he had never been as lucky as I was in that moment.  He had never held his son, never looked into his baby's crying eyes and seen the future shining back at him.  As was our custom, Leslie and I had told no one the name we had chosen, and so when the nurse asked, my emotions overwhelmed me and I had trouble speaking the name he would share with me, my father, and my grandfather.

When the nurse asked again, I responded more clearly.

"His name is Henry."

Like Pulling Teeth, Again

Alison is nine years old, but none of her teeth have fallen out -- I've pulled them all. I'm not sure if that's completely true, because I seem to remember her bringing one home from school in an envelope, but you get the point.  She's never been very patient about anything, so we shouldn't have expected it to be any different with her teeth.

Henry, however, is different. His two front teeth were loose for months, flapping up and down, side by side, making his mouth look like a two-car garage. Whenever I asked if he wanted me to take a look at them, he'd shake his head, wiggle them a bit with his tongue, and then forget about them for a week or so. I was fairly certain that they'd come out in his sleep or be swallowed with a bite of food, necessitating an I.O.U. left for the Tooth Fairy.

On Monday, though, Henry asked me to pull them.  It was comical how loose they were.  The first came easily with only a few drops of blood, and the second was such a breeze that he didn't even feel it come out.  It wasn't until his tongue went to wiggle it that he realized I had already plucked it out.

The funny thing about Henry is that he's a little bit afraid of the Tooth Fairy.  When he lost his first tooth, he insisted on cleaning his room top to bottom before going to bed since he was convinced that the Tooth Fairy would take some of his toys if they were left lying around.  The second time, he refused to put his tooth under his pillow because he thought he'd be scared if she accidentally woke him up.

With this one, he was a bit more brave.  But even though he didn't say anything, I could tell he was nervous at bedtime.  He hesitated when I told him to put his teeth under his pillow, suggesting instead that we balance the plastic bag on his headboard.  

No, I told him, they might fall down and the Tooth Fairy wouldn't find them.

He accepted this and crawled into bed, two teeth poorer, but a little less afraid.  He awoke the next morning to find two golden dollar coins, and all was forgotten.

{Photo courtesy of L.Saito}

Not His Cup of Tea

Sunday in the Park

We spent our Sunday afternoon riding bikes at El Dorado Park.  Here's the video proof, with words to follow tomorrow.  Leslie bought me a Flip video camera for Father's Day (very cool, by the way), and this is the first film I've actually edited with it.  Since all the camera work was shot from the seat of a bike, it's a bit jumpy at times.  Apologies.

A Recipe for Fussiness

Here we sit at 7:53 on a school night, watching Ratatouille behind the auditorium at our kids' school. Of course, this makes no sense at all. Bedtime, afterall, is in seven minutes, but Linguini and the Little Chef have only just realized that they can cook together. There's still more than hour of fun to go. Somewhere in someone's head, I suppose, this all sounded like a good idea, but don't you think someone might've suggested that they do this on a Friday night? Or maybe that they wait a few weeks until Daylight Savings ends so the movie could've started at 5:30 instead of seven? As it is, it doesn't look like the kids will see their pillows before nine, which should make for a fun morning. I'm secretly hoping that every kid in school is fussy tomorrow, just so they think better next time. Is that bad?

Back to School, Back to Sanity

After work today I put on a long-sleeved t-shirt for the first time in months. I'm not sure why, but I love wearing long-sleeved t-shirts, and I probably have about a dozen of them, almost all of them purchased from the the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet in Honolulu. For me these shirts are kind of a sign that the fall is coming, and since there was a bit of a chill in the air this evening -- and by "chill" I mean 65° -- I said goodbye to the summer and embraced the autumn. When Kate saw me wearing the faded, olive green H.I.C. shirt that I've worn about a million times, she stopped dead in her tracks as if she'd never seen it before. With a huge smile she announced, "I like that shirt on you, Daddy!" Last winter must seem like another lifetime to her. How could she possibly remember what I was wearing back then?

But of course the best sign that the fall is coming has to be sending the kids back to school. Don't get me wrong -- our summer was great. But by the last week of August we were all suffering from too much of a good thing, and it's been nice to get back to the rhythm of the school year: everyone up at the same time, home by 3:30, dinner at 5:30, homework, bath time, bedtime stories, and all three kids in bed by eight.

As difficult as it is for me to believe, Alison has moved seamlessly into the third grade. She loves her teacher, just like always, and continues to make us proud. Henry misses his kindergarten teacher, but we're thrilled that he has the same teacher that Alison did in the first grade. We're looking forward to big things from him this year.

Kate, meanwhile, has finally -- FINALLY -- started pre-school. While Alison and Henry were both shy and quiet for most of their pre-school years, Kate is already making friends and chatting up her teachers. Today, for instance, she told one of her teachers that Henry really likes to play pirates. I'm not sure how that came up, but apparently Kate felt it was information her teacher needed to know.

And so it goes. One year washes into the next, and before you know it all three of your children are in school. They tell us that we should pay attention, that years from now we'll look back and wonder where all the time has gone, how our children could possibly have all graduated from high school, gotten married, had children of their own. Perhaps. Or perhaps I'll just be thanking my lucky stars that I can sleep in again on Sunday mornings.

Like Pulling Teeth

Some of Henry's friends have teeth that look like picket fences running across their smiles, with each tooth spaced evenly, better to let the breeze blow through. Henry's teeth, on the other hand, are packed tightly against each other like tiny pieces of porcelain. So when he looked up at me last Saturday to tell me about his day, I knew just by looking that he had his very first loose tooth.

While his older sister had waited eagerly for her first tooth to fall out, I don't think Henry ever gave it much thought before I interrupted his story to ask if his tooth was loose. He stopped instantly -- and Henry never stops anything instantly -- and his eyes narrowed slightly as his tongue investigated. At a loss for an answer, he responded with a question of his own.

"Huh?"
"I think your tooth is loose."

A sliver of darkness stood next to one of his lower teeth, and when I touched the tooth, it wiggled. Leslie and I were excited for him, but Henry didn't seem too interested.

Later that night when he bit into a sandwich during a class picnic at the park, he suddenly became much more interested. His tooth bent forward and blood dripped from his lower lip. Now he was scared. I think I've pulled out almost all of Alison's teeth, so I offered my services to Henry. He refused, and his tooth hung on for another day.

By Sunday afternoon I had had enough. He was complaining that it hurt when he ate, and when he talked to us, the tooth waved back and forth like a white flag of surrender. It had to come out.

But Henry wasn't interested. Not even the magical stories I told him about the tooth fairy could outweigh the pain he imagined, so I had no choice but to lie to him.

"Why don't you lie down in my lap here so I can get a good look at your tooth?"
"No, Daddy."
"Don't worry. I won't pull it out. I just want to look at it up close, okay?"
"Okay, Daddy."

Thirty seconds later the tooth was out, and Henry was smiling...

Later that night Henry tucked his tiny tooth underneath his pillow and asked me about the tooth fairy.

"Can I see her?"
"No, she'll come while you're sleeping, take your tooth, and leave a surprize."

Suddenly, he started to worry.

"But I don't want her to come! She might take all my toys!"
"No, don't worry about that. She'll only take your tooth."
"But she will wake me up!"
"No, she's just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. She doesn't want you to see her."
"Yes, she's gonna wake me up!"
"How come?"
"She's gonna say, 'Henry, I'm taking your tooth!' And she's gonna scare me!"

I finally convinced him that everything would be okay, and he went to sleep.

He was awake again and in our bedroom at 6:15, earlier than he has ever gotten up, and he was complaining.

"The tooth fairy took my tooth, but she didn't give me anything!"

Leslie lifted her head and scolded me with sleepy eyes, but I hadn't done anything wrong. True, I had almost forgotten, but I had slipped a Sacagawea Golden Dollar under Henry's pillow just before I had gone to sleep the night before. I took Henry back to his room where we found the coin on his floor. He crawled back into bed with his reward clutched in his fist, and we all lived happily ever after.