Cooking with Steve Whippo

Last night I was working with a fellow cook who's having his 60th birthday party later this month, a co-party with three other guys who are having birthdays around the same time.

"So, you're hitting the big 60 soon, huh?"

"Yeah! Yeah. Yeah I am."

"How do you feel about that?"

"It feels weird, man. It sounds old! Sixty sounds so old! There are times when I still feel like, well not only a 20-year-old, but a 32-year-old, and a middle-aged guy ... you know."

We talk a little more about it. The whole time I'm chopping tomatoes on one side of the room, and he's on the other, prepping piatas de carne and cutting beef on the slicer.

I'd like to interject here that Beatrix just brought me Little Red Riding Hood, recently acquired from the library, so I'm going to read it to her now and get back to you people later.
***
That was fun. Lucy joined in and it was good family story time. I'm a good character actor. The Wolf is fun to voice.

So Steve, my lead cook, he and I are prepping for the next day, and talking, right? He's a great conversationalist. We had 70s radio going on Spotify, and were both singing along to "The Sounds of Silence" and other standards. He's also a great singer, and comes up with ideas for my band all the time.

He wants my band to play his birthday party. He thinks it would be hilarious. I think he wants us to do covers. I think he wants to get up there and sing one or two, too. Hm. Maybe I should do a solo show? Bring my electric and acoustic guitars and bass and play along to some easy drum lines? Hmmm ....

I just texted my drummer friend. Hee hee. Gonna take him out for drinks and see if he wants to do it. A one-off covers show. Maybe get his band to be my backing band...

Alright, Steve and I are cooking last night, and here's the crux of my story right here:

I got a blister on my right index finger from where it rubs against the top of the knife blade from chopping so much. It still hurts. Lots of chopping yesterday—celery, cilantro, and buttloads of tomatoes. I like to do it by hand, too, instead of using the large slicer–I have more control over where the seeds and stem ends go and can keep a cleaner station. Although they do stain my white cutting boards red.

So here's the real crux of the issue, and how this long meandering rambling story belongs on a dad blog written by a daddy blogger:

Oh, look, a butterfly.

Okay, here it is.

Mm, sip of coffee.

So after Steve and I are done talking about ages and how old he is and his friends and our families are, we sing along to a few more songs on the radio.

I say to him, "So Lucy's going into kindergarten this Wednesday. I'm nervous, man. Nothing in my life, in many years has made me this nervous."

I told him about the two stress dreams I had this past few months, where I dreamed that Lucy was going into school tomorrow and I was completely unprepared.

Then Steve said something that is still sticking with me right now. It really stood out. It was the total golden nugget of wisdom from our conversation.

He said, "Well, you know, Glenn," taking on the mock voice of a guidance counselor or a father figure, "this isn't all about you."

It isn't about how I feel. Fuck me. It's about Lucy and how she feels.

"I mean, if you're really worried about it, you could tail her behind the school bus or something."

He's also good at deadpan.

Lucy's Going Into Kindergarten

I've got two kids, 5 and 3. The older one is going into kindergarten in two weeks, and it's almost all I can think about lately.

Late last month, I had a stress dream that she was going to be starting school in a week and that I was totally unprepared. I lay awake for a few hours as I realized September was over a month away. Maybe I'm a jumble of nerves? My kids mean a lot to me, I've worked long and hard to guide their growth.

I'm nervous, but trying not to be. Lucy has never had the structure of anything resembling school, not even day care. Megan and I have always been too broke to afford it. So I hope it's not too hard for her to get settled in.

Then again, I can imagine that some part of Lucy is anxious to get out of the house and experience more than what her immediate family, the surrounding neighborhood, and our homely (and deeply ingrained) routines offer her. She needs more of life than I've been able to provide, and that's why I'm very excited for kindergarten to start.

One thing I'm learning is that there's only so much you do to prepare someone for large, imminent life events and game-changing routine shifts. An adult equivalent would be starting a new job, I suppose. Going back to college as an adult doesn't last nearly as long as kindergarten and elementary school for a kid.

Routines for Bibi and myself will also change. It may well be a difficult transition for the younger sister. She'll be watching big sister get on the bus every morning, walking back home with me, and realizing the emptiness (not necessarily a bad thing) that comes when a standard member of the household is no longer there all the time.

I know it was hard for my family when I left at 18 years old for the east coast and stage production life. The experiences I had were life changing and they helped me grow up so fast, but part of me will always regret putting that distance between my family and I.

But as I try to remember back even earlier, when I was getting walked to the bus stop by my mom in first grade, it was ok. Everything always worked out fine. I remember her encouraging me to make the trek alone, and me being all scared and asking her to come with me, and she did, for a few weeks or so. It was snowy and cold and dark in the mornings during those northwestern Michigan falls and winters. Once my dog Bro followed me onto the bus, and it was a topic of great conversation in my house for a long time afterwards. He was so excited, the young puppy suddenly in the cramped aisle of a school bus, surrounded by all these squealing kids. I was really happy to be able to share my dog with everyone else.

Snowy, sleepy old Eastlake. What a great place that was to grow up. I miss it. The forests that used to surround the place mostly still stand, but the ones in which I used to ride my bike are mostly gone. My parents still live in that house, across the street from the post office, Manistee Lake past it, down the street, through the small field, down the hill to the train tracks, and beyond them, through the marsh. I'd play there almost every day as a kid during the warmer months.

Remembering further back, in kindergarten, my family had just moved to Michigan from California. It was a rental house in Onekema. It was huge compared to our previous apartment, and right on Portage Lake. You heard me, we lived in a lake house, in the middle of a bunch of woods, with a great, quiet, cozy neighborhood around us. It was so beautiful, and as a young city boy it was strange and wonderful. I learned to ride a bike there, to sled, to have houses with other kids to go to, to explore by myself. To feel my first real independence.

I'm sure my mom was glad to be able to let me out of the house to go play wherever I wanted without supervising me. The San Jose neighborhood we were in before was definitely not conducive for that, as isn't the Seattle neighborhood my family lives in now.

Onekema was sort of perfect for me. I started kindergarten there. But when I'd get on the bus, it wasn't a bus. It was a dark blue van. It would stop right in front of my house. My mom probably didn't even have to wake up my younger brother Ian to help me get on.

I remember my first day of school. I remember it quite well. Being nervous, but not scared, and surprised at that. Everything was new, and it was hard to fall in line, but I tried. By God I tried. My mom crying as we stood inside the living room, the blue van outside our house, waiting for me to get inside. I remember I didn't cry myself. I saw my mom doing it and it just looked kinda weird. The way the blue van looked inside, with six or so other kids seat belted next to one another, not knowing each other at all, knowing vaguely where we were going, but not the route there. Getting off the bus, being distracted by the actual big school busses and tons of other kids, that weird small hill which is an image still implanted in my mind, and a woman's voice saying something like, "Oh! No honey, over here!" and turning me around and corralling me with the other kids.

The classroom. The playground outside. The huge hill out front. Once I fell off a slide and was knocked fairly unconscious, or something. I remember sitting on top of the slide, and then I remember being walked inside the school hallway by a very nervous office worker. I was fine.

Once I was out playing on the playground, with the tether ball, and I remember hearing the bell ring but not paying attention. Then all the other kids were gone from the playground, and I was all alone out there. It was an oh-shit moment: 'I need to get back inside!'

Kindergarten was great. Onekema was great. I had a great year there. I realize that now, since I'm accessing and assessing all these memories. I was a five- and six-year-old kid without a care in the world. I remember making lots of drawings inside our living room. The nasty taste of the well water from the tap. The way it all looked, felt and smelled. My room, the storage room at the end of the upstairs hall, my parents' room, the bathrooms. Watching Transformers and Airwolf. My Aunt Joy teaching me about silent e's when spelling the word "maze" as I stared at the word on the crayon I was holding. My uncle Brad helping us all dig a woman's car out of the snow in front of our house. Walking with my dad and brother on the frozen lake in front of the house. Making huge snow forts. The song La Bamba—some neighbor kid was obsessed with it, it must have just come out. Exploring the swampy woods way out behind the house. My friends Angie and Allie's house—they had an Atari or Nintendo or something—those were the first video games I ever played. Sitting on the floor of their yellow room, three of us. I was playing with girls, and it was pretty cool.

First grade was a bit harder. We moved to Eastlake the summer previous, where I'd stay till the end of senior year. I remember recess was tough. As the new kid, I had no friends, so I'd walk around the playground slowly, not talking to anyone, waiting for the bell to ring. These were the same classmates I'd have until graduation. Some of them I still talk to on Facebook, but most of them I would rather forget.

It was hard for me to make friends in 1st and 2nd grade, but I did eventually do it. I remember having some size 4 shoes that were enormous on my feet, but I loved wearing them cause they made my feet look bigger. In 3rd and 4th grades I gained some good, steady friends. Justin Marquardt. He was a good guy, until 5th and 6th grades when he changed alliances.

In 5th grade David Eddy was my main bro, big tall lanky joker that he is. We got in trouble once going into the woods behind the school. He started playing basketball with the other boys and we drifted apart. Adam Rybicki was ok, but mostly a dick, always wrestling me and making fun of me in front of the other kids.

In 5th and 6th grades Brad Wilburg was my other homie. We'd lean on the fence at Kennedy Elementary, and across the way, Angela Onstott and Karen Revolt would lean on the brick wall of the school. We'd just look at each other. I had such big crushes on both of them. Summer Rapphun, too, and I think that last name spelling is wrong, but she's not on any social media. I liked her more than any other girl back then. I haven't heard hide nor hair from her since she moved away around 6th grade.

I was really into Megadeth and Metallica back then and the other guys respected that about me. I was probably the most rock-and-roll-type kid in the school. I'd have my Walkman and tapes all the time. Big, clunky headphones.

I met Josh Simmons in 6th grade, he was a new kid in my class with Mr. Petersen. After he'd been there for a while, we started to hang out. In 7th thru 9th grades we were inseparable. Josh and I grew apart when I turned into a stoner and he started dating Jessica Hewer. It was a bizarre love triangle then. Everyone loved Jessica, and for good reason. She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. I drew a Radiohead logo on her notebook in 7th grade chemistry, Mr. Northrup's class.

Matt Perski was a dick and a terror back then. People called him Dirty. He bullied Josh and I for years.

Stephen O'Sicky. That beautiful motherfucker. I'm so glad I met him. Big, gumpy, and a great drummer, we hung out a lot and played lots of music together. Then we moved to Hatboro, PA together after high school was over. We always had our differences, but we're still good long-distance friends to this day.

Jessica Hojnowski. I'll never stop loving you. What more can I say. It was long and convoluted, and full of drama and so many emotions, and it never would have worked long-term, but you taught me a lot, and I'm glad you did. So did your mom and dad. I'd like to see them again soon. Tell John the Firefighter and Barb that I love them, too. You and your family were anchors for me in those days.

Lucy, my daughter, is going to have all of this. I've given her life. She will have her own experiences learning, making friends, falling in love. Now I'm crying. It was all so real for me, and I'll never have it back again, but I shouldn't, nor do I need to. Lucy will have all of this, a wealth of experiences, a richness that comes over years of development. The beauty of a full life, lived with gusto, learning every day.

It makes me happier to be alive today. I realize I have a lot to yet teach my daughters. Though I haven't reached my full personal potential, my goals, I'm still a person. And my daughters and wife are people. We all have lives just as rich and full as my own. I was never wealthy, but it never mattered. My life is as perfect shining crystal, and everyone else's are exactly the same.

Kindergarten. It's essential.

I have to remember: perspective. The perspective of my five-year-old is so far removed from my own. I must remember what it was like for me as a kid her age, and she's got my hard wiring, so it's gonna be similar. I must remember to empathize with her as I do the five-year-old in myself.

School—how do you prepare for it? It's impossible, and useless to stress about. You just have to do it. Parents must let their kids do it. There are people working for the school who are paid to wrangle the children, make sure they don't get lost, and keep them entertained, exercised and educated. It's gonna be totally fine, and maybe someday Lucy will get in trouble. It happens to the best of us. I will love this girl till the end of time.

As I try to pinpoint what I'm stressed about, I come up with nothing. Why worry? It's cumbersome to all involved. I think it can be pinpointed as the animal instinct of keeping them safe, in case some larger animal tries to eat them. Are the chances of that high? What do I do, chaperone her at school? No, I trust other people to take care of her, and I trust her to be responsible. I let it go. I can finally let it go. It's been five and a half years.

This song just came up on my Spotify queue. Destroyer, School, and the Girls Who Go There. Beautiful medlies, nice relaxed vocals. And a gr8 flute line.

Video: Average Day KidCare

Here's a little taste of an average day at my place.

Humans are shaped in such a way that a they need a separate covering for their arms and chests and their legs

I've been watching a lot of Rick and Morty. The play there is extra-dimensions. Infinite #s of dimensions with all sorts of kooky playouts.

Last night, I woke up. Shit, it's August 21, or 23. Lucy's gonna start school in 2 WEEKS! I was up for another hour, all stressed out. I think I realized what I most fear in her going to school—her safety.

Her intellect is off the charts, man. She is a smart, funny, creative, social little girl, and she really takes after her old man. She's gonna take off in school in a way I never did, cause she's a girl, man. She's a girl. She's gonna be better than me. At life.

Just sent a sloppy cover letter to a PR firm looking for people, on the hope that hey, maybe it will make me stand out. I don't know. WHo knows with these things.

You know what to do if you're awake at night with stressful things swirling in your brain and you can't get them out and you just don't know wha 2 dew?

Look at some articles online that are totally unrelated and read them. Distract your mind. I recommend hitting up Reddit. There's a Subreddit out there for you somewhere, trust me.

Beatrix and the Social Lesson & Me and My Dad and the Report Card

My BB fell down today. She is so precious. Just so flipping cute. Her curly blonde hair, the way she can't yet pronounce her Rs or Ls yet, the way she still cries about everything, the growth spurts, the way she's calm, the way she always wants to spell words and memorize letters and their patterns. Everything about her.

Even when she gives mom extra shit just for being alive it's still kind of like, 'Well, you're still a kid. Some part of this is endearing, somewhere.'

So she first fell down crossing a street to go to the park. I wasn't looking at her, scanning all four directions for cars. Had Lucy's hand in my left, BB's in my right. All of a sudden BB's hand jerks down, and I look down and she's on her face, arms raised above her head. Just laying there.

I knelt and picked her up. Put her back on the sidewalk. Lucy was kind of scared I'd be mad, but felt better once I hugged BB and said, "You fell down, huh?" BB just had this crying face on, silent but ultimately expressive, mouth wide open. She's done this since she was an infant, a face Megan and I used to call the "Nothing is OK BB Face." The one she makes now is a trifle more mature.

I said told her she can't fall in the street, that if she does, a car might not see her, run her over, and she'd die. Thinking I was gonna write that and not gloss over any details, I pictured it sounding dickish, like the thing to do there was not to scold her but to just show compassion for the way she still can't seem to get her body to work with her. But it is the reason she cannot fall in the street, right?

She's 3 and she's still growing, learning. Her older sister, at 5, kind of gets it now. She's been thru 4, even. We met a 4-year-old at the park today, a girl with curly hair in a ponytail and a grey dress with a sparse, red pattern of birdprint-ish shapes, and a red bow in her hair, who BB ended up being friends with later. Her name is ... can't remember exactly, starts with A.

So A, before her or my kids had exchanged any words, picks up this long, green, plastic, smiling spoon that BB brought with her from home. She was sitting on the swing, her spoon on the ground beside her where I told her to put it, as she's fallen off that swing several times, and I keep reminding her to hand on with both hands.

Jesus, I even got mad at her when she didn't put her shoes on today after I asked her four times. Sometimes I get mad at some dumbass shit. No wonder my kids get worried that I'm gonna snap at them. I was so mad I couldn't even articulate that I wanted her to just put something on her feet, but didn't want to confuse her because she was putting on boots and I said to put shoes on. My 'shoes' term was just ambiguous.

I even said, and this is classic, "How many times do I have to tell you?" Ah, hilarious. Kids really do make parents into monsters. It's not the kids' fault, it's not the parents' fault. We're all just kids raising kids. Thank God the scientists keep figuring stuff out, because if it were all just parents spending their formative years procreating, we'd never evolve.

Once in high school my dad kept repeating to me to bring home my report card. I didn't do it because he was there almost every day working as a counselor and psychologist, and figured he could pick it up. My grades were bad, though, and I knew it. I didn't want to face his reaction. But not doing it, not bringing home that report card, for like two weeks got under his skin something fierce, until one day at dinner when mom wasn't home, he asked me if I'd brought it home, I said no, and I remember him sitting there, at the same seat he sat at every night at dinner and any time of day when he sat at the table, and he just kind of sputters, "No!"

He yelled it, and he didn't know where it came from, but he was running with it. He told me this afterward in apology. Because after that, he got up and walked over to me. I can't remember if I was already standing, or if I had gotten up to walk away from him. I was 16 and getting really rebellious. Starting to really not care, you know? Thinking I could do this on my own and fuck my parents. So I start to walk away and he gets up and grabs my arm.

I wrestle it out of his grasp and he fucking grabs it again. And that was as physical as it got, my dad is not a fighter, though he was when he was a kid, and it still shows sometimes. He talks about times at school when he had no choice but to fight, and how he also wrestled on his school's team. Anyway, we just stared at each other at that point, for a few long seconds. I didn't try to wrestle my arm away any more, not wanting to provoke anything either. My dad and I are alike in this way. We both believe in pacifism, and that fighting, though fun if you've got the balls and the willingness to bleed, is counter-productive.

So this girl, A, takes away BB's spoon. Just runs up and grabs it and runs away, quick as day, and BB watches her. Now, mom of A has a little 1yo baby in her arms, and is saying her name over and over again, asking where she got the spoon. BB doesn't initially appear phased until I say, "She took your spoon," in a conversational tone, like, Wow, look at that thing that happened, instead of, Wow that was not cool she sux.

But BB slowly gets that Not OK face on as she gets off the swing and walks over to me. See, I was sitting on the other big kid swing next to her, tired from swinging her. I saw it all go down. By the time she gets to me she's got full crying face on, and she's whimpering a little bit. This was a really not-good surprise for her. She's not in daycare so she only has her sister to contend with, and this, I could tell, was an important social lesson. The lesson being that kids do this. Finding a way to deal with it comes later.

So mom asks me, "Is that your spoon?" I nod. She gets a glimpse of BB's face and how she's coming to me in her silent grief. "Oh, no," she says. Goes over and makes A. come back to us and give BB back her spoon. This girl was on the entire other side of the park with that spoon in no time, so it was a long, slow walk back as the girl kind of soaked up and realized what she did, and also probably had to contend with the fact that she really didn't want to give it back, it was a cool shovel.

So she gives it back. BB's better.

BB fell a second time today off the swing, a while later in the park trip. The mom and I had met before, and after the spoon business was over, we started talking and figured out who our mutual friends are. So this was about an hour or so later. We had a good 2-hr trip at the park today, our usual stay. BB must have been tired today. Probably going thru a spurt. Body getting all awkward and moving funny on her.

So I'm pushing her pretty high, right? She's loving it, but then as soon as I give her a really good one and get her going fast, she fucking loses her grip and falls, scraping her back on the new, undulled wood chips lining the park floor. Man, that must have sucked. I walk over to her and she's got that face on again, but isn't making any sound. She did whimper a few times and I tried my best to console her, but I didn't hug her because she had wood chips all stuck to her clothes and in her long, snarly curly blonde hair. That hair is a bitch to brush, by the way, and she cries every time. Gotta get it cut. Megan's worried it will lose all its beautiful curl.

After I cleaned her off, she says, "Let's do it again," and walks over to the swing. What a fucking trooper. DAMN she's awesome. So I swung her again.

Going home, Lucy wanted to go down to the pond, but I had to refuse, as we had been there two hours, and also I had to get to work. I said to her, "I know you want to, but it doesn't matter. I just don't have the time. I want to go down there too, but we can't right now." Then I threw in something thing about how wanting something doesn't mean you're going to get it.

I remember being a kid myself, in rural Michigan, and people saying simple shit to me, and thinking they were dumb, but really it was me who was dumb, and they probably felt dumb having to dumb their thoughts down to tell my dumbass what time it is.

I brought my report card home for my dad. He looked at it, sighed, and said, "OK. Thank you for bringing this home." He understood.

Job Opportunity-not for me, for you!

Hi everybody. Is it Father's Day today? Huh, that's nice. Is everyone having a good Sunday? Sitting around, drinking coffee like me? I hope so.

My kids are both still sleeping at 9:25 a.m. Time to blog it up. Got a job opportunity to broadcast.

I just turned down a position with Arbonne as a consultant. It would be up my alley as far as my skill set goes, but I feel like I'm too close to a job in social media, PR, or writing to give up my search now.

If any of you readers think you'd be good at setting up parties (call them 'classes' or 'meetings' if you want) with people (it's going to be vastly ladies), talking to them about skin care, makeup, health and wellness products, helping them find a product or two that would be right for them, and not have to sell or deliver anything yourself, you might be a great consultant.

You can work as much or as little as you want, and the only time you'd have to leave your home would be to attend the parties you'd set up.

My friend Jennifer is putting together a team of 4 or 5 people right now, and she and I went out for coffee a few days ago to talk about it. She's really nice and down-to-earth. Hit me up and I'll put you two in touch.

I met Jennifer for the first time at the Northgate Target here in Seattle. It was Lucy's birthday and I was shopping for girl clothes, as was Jennifer. It took me a good half hour at least, cause I was picking out several outfits, and I had never done that before for a little girl. Jennifer and I passed by each other several times, and I think I mentioned that I was gonna buy jeans for my Lucy, and she remarked that she can't get her daughter to wear denim.

So we keep shopping and talk a little bit more, no introduction or anything, just two strangers passing by within life's whirlwind. Fast-forward to last week, when my whole family went to Lucy's new kindergarten orientation & ice cream social. I saw Jennifer over there by the signup table, and I said to her, "So I was shopping at Target a while ago, and we were both shopping for clothes for our kids ... " and she immediately recognized me. She surprised me with the questions she asked, totally like a journalist, or someone for whom networking is their bread and butter.

Sounds familiar. This is probably why we get along so well. She told me she's a consultant, and I asked her a little about it, and then told her I'm on the job hunt. She proposed a coffee date to talk about it, to which I readily agreed, and last Friday we met at Forza by Green Lake.

She's a really nice person, church-going and a choir director. I've never heard her sing, but I bet she's a master. Her husband is a school music teacher, so they're a musical family with their three kids.

She started with Arbonne eight years ago and now she's done dabbling, as she told me.

So there you go. I was almost sold on it, but going home afterwards, talking with Megan, and then sitting on it for a day, I had to decline, but I did offer to help her find other people who want a change in employment and would be good at this.

Found my first referral this morning. Yes! I love spreading the goodness around. Job hunting is hard work, and it involves a lot of hurt feelings which one has to learn to take in stride. Especially since I'm trying to break into an industry in which I have no experience.

Next blog, I swear I'll talk about my kids more, I swear it! I had to get this notice out first.

The Working Stay-at-Home Dad

Fudge man, working till 11 p.m., having to get up at around 8 to look after the kids (not a terrible time to have to wake up, granted), and then going back in at 2 the next day,

...

Let me just say this: I want a 9 to 5. A steady schedule. I mean, I've got a steady schedule now, meaning it's the same from week to week because my boss has been cool like that, but with the kids every day, and the trying to find a job related to my communication degree, and doing this social media volunteer gig, it's tough.

Looking Back, A Critique of Self

The very title of this blog describes holding onto something that might naturally die: my ‘metalhood.’

Shame and a sort of mild disgust fill me when I look back on my posts. Though specific examples momentarily elude me, it’s happened too many times to be trifling. My reactions to my past RMTD writings can be boiled down to this: the attitude was too negative.

What is it I’m trying to retain, my overrated youth, my immaturity, my foolish anger, my weaker moments, my failures? Metal music is about raging against the system, and being a good parent requires going along with the system—that of tried and true parenting practices, evolutionarily honed and scientifically learned.

The writing was all wrong, and the concept of metal parenting is antithetical. Metal music is mostly obnoxious. I want to turn it all around. Somehow. I have some options, including changing this blog’s name, or starting over with a new one.

Let’s look at how it all started, this Retaining Metalhood Through Dadhood blog.

The year was 2009, and I had just had my first kid. She was amazing, a quite medium-mannered baby, with no health problems. Now me, I am usually a medium-mannered person, albeit a bit animated at times, but I admit now I was a quite a protective dad, treating my new child at times like a very breakable porcelain doll than the strong little skinny human she is (anyone who saw me toss her in the air to her delight may disagree). I would have dreams where I tossed her up and didn’t catch her, of her hitting the ground after a hard fall, and I’d wake up in a panic, instantly sitting up in bed. I’d constantly be worried about her hurting herself irreparably if she was out of my sight for a single minute. Maybe that was part of why it took her three years to start playing in her room by herself?

She would cry every time I went to the bathroom until she was around five months old. My choices, in my mind, were to either hurry thru it as best I could, or take her in there with me. What I did not realize is that a little infant baby can indeed be left alone for bits of time, say for parental bathroom breaks, and will learn not to cry so much eventually, and that, most importantly, I needed not stress about it as I did.

Around seven months of age, Megan and I were still getting up to get her out of the crib every time she cried at night, which was happening more and more often, which we were invariably conditioning her to think was acceptable. When we read that after six months of age a baby is capable of understanding that if the parents don’t come every time she cries it won’t erode her trust in us, we changed our behavior and within a few days she started sleeping the whole night through.

What I did not realize was how much the parents shape the child. Children learn by example. It’s really up to the parents to model behaviors they want their children to adopt. Also, I was 27 years old. I had no idea about anything, other than that you have to work to survive. Career-wise, a bachelor’s degree seemed more and more like a distant, unreachable goal the closer I got. When Megan and I conceived, I was on my third college with lots of momentum, in Bellingham, while she lived in Seattle. Naturally I quit school to raise my kid and be with my woman after quite an emotionally difficult year apart.

When Lucy was born, Megan and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of an old, slightly smelly apartment building in Seattle, with a living room window facing Roosevelt, a bus stop bringing buses to a noisy stop just below during the day. The black roof of the short building just outside the adjacent window reflected heat back at us during the summer months. Megan stayed home for three months, healing from her cesarean section, while I worked part-time. Then she started working again, and I was on my own with a baby forty hours per week.

Though we were poor, stressed, and had no social lives, things were happening at home, little things. When kids grow up they go through milestones and if you miss them, they’re irretrievable. I wanted a writing outlet to have these memories recorded, and also to keep my writing practice up. Hence, the idea of creating a blog seemed the way to go. At the time, I was going through a metal resurgence, playing a lot of it on guitar and writing songs in that style, inspired by early Metallica and Megadeth, my personal favorites. And I had this notion that having kids makes people lose their edge, that cool parents abandon cool stuff and start enjoying Michael Bolton, Coldplay and U2.

That’s why the name Retaining Metalhood Through Dadhood seemed right for me. I was still a metal guy, but I wasn’t angry. I just like really loud, distorted, fast guitar lines that are rhythmically complex. It’s exciting to me. Perhaps a name change is not the way to go for this blog. Perhaps it can be saved. It’s all in what you put into it, right? A person is a collection of their experiences, and a blog is a collection of writings, nothing more. Perhaps the answer is to fix it by making future writings more positive, to update more often with good posts that will eventually overshadow the rest.

It is not surprising to me that my parenting skills were at zero those five years ago, but when I look back on it, I always think I could have made better choices. But then I think of how my kids don’t have wherewithal now, that humans grow on a continuum, and that there is never a light switch flicked that signals a skip from one age to another, further down the road. There is no way to learn quickly, or to fold space and skip the embarrassing moments. Life seems to occur one lesson at a time. So can I blame myself for my less-favored choices, for my parenting failures? Were they indeed failures if they amounted to a learning experience for me? My daughter has always been stronger than I realize, and she’s okay now, as far as I know, despite my perceived missteps along the way.

As a 32-year-old father of two, I’m more experienced and mellow—not perfect, but better. I trust my children and myself more. We have daily arguments, and sometimes I think I’m a dick tater, but then I tell myself that I’m here every day with them, I make money for them, clean up their messes, and still find time to entertain them. I use positive reinforcement, and I encourage intelligence and talents over beauty. With all that in mind, my kids can stay under my yoke and do everything I tell them. It’s a pretty sweet deal, really.

I’ve decided. I’ll keep the blog. Metal rules. Parenting rules. The two concepts don’t have to be antithetical together; they can be what I make them.

GWAR's Oderus Urungus Reads 'Goodnight Moon' [Uncensored]

It's Tough Being 2 and Having to Pee at Night

I just had the cutest experience.

So I'm sitting here on the couch watching Breaking Bad. Fourth episode from the end of the series. Stuff's getting intense, right?

It's 12:40 a.m. Dark out. I'm home from a later-than-usual night at work.

Marie looks in the trash can, sees the meat, Hank calls her and she asks, "Why is there what looks like brains in the trash can?"

I hear noises from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen. Someone opening a door and shuffling around. The girls' room connects there, as does the back door, so my first thought is, 'Someone's breaking in and is in here right now.'

I pause Breaking Bad and walk over to the wall and look around into the kitchen. It's Beatrix. I've never seen her get up in the middle of the night before. Luckily it's the one night this week I'm up late. Usually I'm in bed by this time.

Why? She had to pee! She was super scared, though. Tears in her eyes. Poor thing. Turning her eyes away from light sources, all tired, probably confused.

I went in the bathroom with her and helped her pee in the little toilet on the floor, and I think she was really glad I was there to help. She might not have gone to wake either mama or I up. It looked like she was headed right for the bathroom.

Maybe she was tearing up because she was psyching herself up for a scary lone jaunt through the darkness just so she could relieve bladder tension and sleep again. Or maybe she thought she'd make one of us mad by waking us up. Hm, that makes me afraid of my own temper.

On the walk back to her room she broke into a light jog. I cuddled in bed with her for a minute, but I think it annoyed her, so I got up and left the room, dad duty accomplished. Maybe it didn't annoy her. Sometimes she moves suddenly.

Perhaps tomorrow we can talk about it and make a plan of action for future night bathroom excursions. That would be the good dad thing to do, wouldn't it? That and do the dishes.