You Who

Sack of Sugar

When that conversation comes up, and it always does, I am a little reticent to say, “My first concert was the Spin Doctors.” So, after Hazel was born I thought that it would be great if she would be able to say that her first concert was her dad! Sadly I have not played any shows since then. (Jeez, I have got to get on the ball with that!) However, her first concert was pretty frickin cool anyway. - Langhorne Slim with some Decemberists and Sallie Ford.

Chris Funk and Seann Mckeel put this show together every month for Mcmeniman's Kennedy School called You Who. I heard about it a while ago while I was enjoying another one of my favourite Father Daughter activities (Mommy Matinee...more on that later). It is a variety show for kids that starts off with some crafts and dancing around, then there are a bunch of skits and more dancing and a short musical guest then they have a main musical act.

I think this sort of thing is great for kids plus they have musical acts that parents will enjoy as well. This last month we took Hazel to her second You Who concert which featured my old teacher, Laura Veirs with a backup band consisting of 3/5 of the Decemberists. She played this great Woodie Guthrie song during her set called “Sack of Sugar”. I had never heard this one before but knew that it would be one that Hazel would enjoy around the house so I learned it.

Padded Floors Worry No More

Waiting Room

This week we had our first official solo (Brian and Hazel) play date. She has had many babies come to visit her in our house but only when mom was around as well. We have also never been shy about taking her out to dinner with us or to parties and, pretty much, nowadays there are always other chillens around for her to visit with. Hazel is a very social creature, much more than her father.

There were many factors considered when we decided that I would be the stay-at-home-dad instead of my wife being the stay-at-home-mom. One of the big ones is that my personality is much more agreeable to hermit-like living. During my wife's leave of absence she could barely stand to go a day without visitors or a luncheon or what-have-you. I, on the other hand, take a great solace in the time that Hazel and I have together.........alone. I love the , what I call, “normal days” when we can keep our schedule. We get our walk in, I know for sure that she gets enough sleep and food in her system, I get a few hours to work while she is napping and then we get to spend an hour or two in the studio working on music.

As much as I love our solitary lifestyle I know (and my wife reminds me) that it is important for both Hazel and myself to socialize. So I have been trying to schedule in some sort of play date once a week or so. It has not been super successful up till now. My first attempt ended up with my daughter being stood-up (meGAN!!!!) and other tries have been chaperoned by my wife. And last week a hiccup involving my utter lack of dedication to my cellphone stymied our first playground foray.

This week we finally made it to what I call the Rumpus Room. It is a great Portland Public Parks activity where they set aside a time in this gym space at Peninsula Park for babies from 6-17 months to crawl around willy-nilly. There is a bunch of soft toys for them to climb around on and fall over and everything is nice and safe. Plus It is really nice to sit around on a padded floor and chat/compare war wounds with other parents. Cost? $1.

Josh and his son Walden met us there. I am very lucky to have good friends who are going through the same experiences we are. (That song, Waiting Room, I wrote about Josh and Sara as they were waiting for Walden to arrive)

Shiny Bells and Ribbons

This has been a year of firsts. I guess every year is...or should be. This one though has been chalk full of big iconic ones. That has been one of the best things about having Hazel around and having the opportunity to spend so much time with her. I get to see all of her firsts happen.

Today we went and got our Christmas tree. As this is Hazel's first Christmas I find myself thinking about traditions a lot. This is the time when we will be setting our family's traditions in motion that may well shape the touchstones of her childhood. Hoooo, when I write it out like that it sounds like a big responsibility. It is, I guess but so is parenthood. At the same time, my mental and physical exhaustion makes it a lot easier to take any shortcut I can in my holiday festivas. We brought up all the boxes of ornaments for the tree and then a few days went by and we couldn't muster the motivation to actually put them on the tree. So, instead, I have been periodically putting the ornaments that have no emotional ties. So, for the the first time ever we, currently have a very pretty Christmas tree decoration scheme. Absent are the miscellany of tokens from our combined childhoods. Remisce are the Star Wars figures/ornaments of recent years. What we have is a designer tree. It is very pretty and color coordinated and stylish. And maybe this year that is what we need...some semblance of order in our increasingly chaotic lifestyle. We have been talking about starting off Hazel's traditions by getting her an ornament every year. Maybe this year the only ornament on the tree besides the shiny balls and lights and ribbons should be her first ornament. Maybe this is the time when we should let go of our traditions a bit and give way for new ones for this new life we have created together.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You Are My Sunshine

I find it interesting how routines find their way in to our lives. They sneak up on you. One day you just realize that you missed something, "Hey, I didn't get to take a picture of that construction site for my time lapse project. Damn you, El Nina!". They are like a comforting blanket that we wrap around us to keep the winds of change at bay.

Our family has several routines in place that comfort and appease us; Friday night date night, Wednesday music night, Sunday morning pancake breakfast. There have been a lot of changes in my day-to-day schedule over the last several months. The absence of a regular 9-5 job has left me bereft of many of my old routines. I miss that comfort, not to a Rain Man degree, but I certainly miss them. So, Hazel and I are finding our new routines together. It seems like we both feel more at-ease on the days we adhere closer to a schedule.

My favourite daily activity is our walk; we are amblers. Sometimes we have a destination and others we just pick a direction and head out to see what adventures will come our way. Hazel's abundant curiosity is contagious. I watch her to see what sorts of things peak her interest and then I see those things in a new light. She is like a little spotlight focused on the things I forget to notice.

We are very lucky to have a large, hilly park near our home with lots of deciduous trees. More days than not we end up at least passing through this park. It is a perfect looking glass to see the signs of the seasons changing. A few weeks ago we started taking the extra Sunday morning pancakes to the park with us on Monday to feed the birds. Hazel loves watching little animals move around our feet and I love to watch her when she does.

Still Falling in the Net

Fallin in the Net

The last two weeks have brought a boon of new areas in Hazel's development. I have been dreading some of these things for a while now.

In retrospect, the first few months of my stay-at-home dad time were pretty easy. We found a pretty nice routine. Get up at 7 or so. Get the coffee ready for mom and dad, Fix a nice bottle of milk for Belle, see mom off for her work-day, lay Hazel down for a nap, have some quiet time, go for a walk, rinse, repeat...

All of a sudden she has started teething, eating solid foods, chatterboxing, grabbing at the facial and head hair, and, most devastatingly...crawling! Up until now I could set her down on her back anywhere I pleased while I read a magazine article or made myself a mess-o-potatoes without a care in the world. Just check in every few minutes or so to make sure she was smiling. That the the sum total of my concerns...to make sure she was smiling. Now I can't set her down for more than five seconds without her rolling off the edge of the bed or grabbing an extension cord. You set her down and the first thing you know she if off crawling towards the nearest vertical surface she can find to try and steady herself against for her next big trick...standing! But as soon as she gets herself up in an awkward splits-type stance halfway betwixt a kneel and standing she topples over and bangs her head on whatever she is on top of.

Lord begordy! Whatever hair she hasn't already yangk out is now falling out from the worry.

Thank bejesus for my bastient...the pack'n'play in cahoots with the arched playmat. With some adjustment to allow for her new height range, I can now leave her to her own devices for upwards of 15 minutes at a time.

The pack'nplay's forgiving sides are made of mesh that catch her falls and are breathable when, in her moments of frustration, she parks her face against it's walls. Also, it's floor is as forgiving as that of the floor of a bouncy-castle you might find at your county fair

Thanks you pack'n'play for your forgiveness and arched play mat for your beautiful support arms that give my baby the means to challenge herself in this time of growth.

I hold you as you pound the keys

Oh Gal (Lo-fi version)

In the last few weeks before our daughter arrived, once we had completed the preparations on the house I started getting antsy. My thoughts drifted towards filling the house with music.
"What instruments do children play?"
"What did I like to play with when I was a kid?"
I went on an Amazon spending spree to snatch up every noise-maker I remembered ever playing while I was growing up. I got wood blocks and kazoos, triangle-chimes and that ribbed wood thing you rub a stick across to make a frog-like sound. I filled a basket full of these things plus all the shaker eggs, tambourines and cow-bells I had in the studio. "This is our child's gateway to music", I pronounces to my wife. She gently explained that our child would not be able to use them for a long time but I held steadfast. "Investments", I called them. “Investments in the future”.
Fast-forward six months...
Once I became a, mostly, stay-at-home dad, I tried to figure out ways to spend as much of my limited time down in the studio tinkering. Luckily, Hazel, our lovely daughter really enjoys watching and hearing me play music for her (especially the banjo). Now when she is fussy one of the best methods I have to calm her down is to take her down to the studio and sit her in front of the basket full of noise-making nick-knacks. She does not quite have the coordination down yet to get A and B together but she loves to wave the mallet around and every once and again she hits something that makes a noise like the ones I show her and then she does her darndest to repeat the results.
The other day I was sitting at the piano with Hazel in my lap, as we have done on many occasions before. While I was trying to flush out an idea I had she slapped at the keys like she usually does but actually started to get them down hard enough to move the hammers to the strings and made a sound. I stopped what I was doing and listened to her play for a bit and then I began playing something way down on the low keys while she continued on the middle ones. We were making music together. It was random and spare but it is a moment I will remember.
We have laid out a pretty diverse and lush palette for her to draw from when and if she chooses. For that I am proud. I am looking forward to seeing what sorts of things she comes up with on her canvas.