How Hollering At My Toddler Made Me a Better Man

Me and Henry.

I have a 5-year-old daughter, Violet, a 3-year-old son Henry, and a 9-month-old son, Charlie. I write about them for a living. So I should know a little bit about how young kids roll.

Yet, a few weeks ago when Henry more or less suddenly began to refuse to brush his teeth and refused to listen to me when I was practically begging him — in my newly carved-out role of single (exhausted) dad — to stop running up and down the hall each evening when his baby bro was trying to sleep behind our cardboard walls, it must have caught me off guard.

I tried to be mindful.

I really did.

This past year or so, I’ve read a lot about mindfulness and controlled breathing and generally being a Zen dude when the sh*t hits the fans as opposed to losing my cool or whatever. And it has made such a difference in my life that I can’t even begin to explain it to you. But please take my word for it. If you want to change your life, change your mindset. Control your blood, your steam, and the voices in your ear and you will surprise yourself with all the potential that has been snoozing so long down in your soul.

But Henry, Henry is the true test, my friends. Henry is so wonderful. Henry is my muse and my partner in crime. And as it turned out, Henry was the ticket to getting where I’ve been trying to go. I just had to holler my face off before I could actually get there.

See, I lost it on Henry a couple of nights. I just did. I’m admitting that to you here not because I’m proud of it because, trust me, I’m not. But rather, ironically enough, I learned a lot from something that could have easily just torn me apart and left me there, shattered on the parenting floor.

Let me just tell you my tale.

—

Boom. Boom. BOOOOOM.

Henry was finding new and improved ways to make the house shake and I could practically sense Charlie’s little eyes opening and the crying that would gush out of him here just 30 minutes after I’d finally laid him in his crib and gotten him to sleep. The day had been long, like any day these days.

Between my writing gigs and my shuttling around picking up and dropping off kids all over Tarnation, the hours fail me. There just simply aren’t enough to feel completed by sundown, you know? Most parents get what I’m saying. But it is what it is and even though I think I felt like I had a very healthy perspective about that then, now I can see that it was eating me up inside. I just wasn’t aware of it. And that’s where the danger lies, people.

Tired parents and ruthless toddlers, well, it’s basically mixing firecrackers with gasoline, right?

The first few times it happened, I managed to keep my cool. But then he actually did start to wake the baby up. And then he started this whole deal where he would run away, loudly — stomping and laughing, each time I was trying to get him to put his pj’s on and brush his teeth. You can second guess my parenting skills here obviously. I know how it goes with the internet. But let me just toss this old moldy plum at your feet, okay?

Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.

I’m dead serious. Parenting is one thing, but single parenting is something else entirely. I’ve done both and I know what’s what. The absence of a partner to step in and help out when things go awry is beyond words. But I know this is my bag, the seeds I helped sow myself, so I have no complaints really.

But Henry pushed the buttons, my buttons, all of them at once, night after night, until one night I just lost it. I hollered at him with my most booming voice, my monster breath raining down on him like sharp broken stars. The look on his face was total shock and fear. He’d never seen me like this really. But now he was and it scared the hell out of him. I told him I was furious that he had woken Charlie up again and that I was done with letting him walk all over me when he needed to mind my words and do what I was telling him to do.

I hollered at my boy, I didn’t lay a finger on him. That’s not my thing as a dad. But right away I felt like my words had been weapons, fists, or slaps. That’s how scared the kid was. His tears were nothing really. I mean, they were there and all but the real story was in the look on his face.

It destroyed me in so many ways. I’d taken a big step backwards from the man I’d been trying to be lately. I’d lost the edge that being cool gives you in life. And I’d made my son terrified.

He brushed his teeth alright. But our collective night was torpedoed. And trust, I sensed, had been pretty banged up, too.

—

The next night it was as if Henry had totally forgotten the previous night. He even amped up his shenanigans, woke the baby again, and ended up with his neck stuck in the bunk bed ladder because he was trying to get away from me while I was trying to hunt him down to holler at him hard again.

Hardly a success.

My soul felt full of holes.

What was happening here?

—

What was happening was basic kid stuff, really. But what wasn’t happening was my ability to sail smoothly through whatever choppy waters my kids might throw down for me. The series of sh*tty nights continued over a stretch of almost a week and by the end of it, I had started to feel as if the blood was drained out of my very veins. In the mornings, I’d apologize to Henry for yelling at him and he’d snuggle up to me like a cat who wants something. But we were in a holding pattern and I knew it and I was the only one who had to know it because he’s my lad and I’m his dad and it’s my job to make things right without making them wrong first, you know?

Each day was ruined by my night before.

I knew I couldn’t be this guy. I’d been letting go of all that crap. I’d been liberating myself from quick-draw reactions and terrible voices, from anger when all hope seemed lost. And now I’d fallen off the horse.

To hell with that.

I’d find another way.

—

On  maybe the fifth night of Hell Week, while I was cleaning up the dinner dishes and trying to come up with a new plan, I rammed into a very obvious wall, man. It occurred to me that Henry’s whole act in the evening was a pretty simple charade.

Oh my God.

Henry.

Dude isn’t trying to piss you off.

That’s what I calmly realized while I was wiping the sweet potato off of Charlie’s nose and watching Violet eat her popsicle in her favorite spot on the giant heat grate in the middle of the living room floor.

Dude wants just the opposite.

It cracked my skull like an aluminum bat.

Henry wants his dad to pay attention to him, every night, for more than a few fleeting moments of tooth-brushing bullsh*t.

I almost cried.

Hank the Tank wants to be with his dad, with ME, more than anything else in the whole damn world. And because he doesn’t have the words to express himself yet, well, he’s willing to commit minor crimes until it happens, until he has me right where he wants me.

We marched up the steps, same as it ever was. I could sense Violet grinding her teeth, probably hoping that things could be different tonight and that she could just watch her Netflix cartoon before bed in peace. Instead of the same old thing, the same old commands to brush and pajama-up, I pulled up the cartoons on my computer and I surprised my oldest son and my only daugter by scooching down in the bottom bunk bed with them.

I swear to you, both their faces lit up at once. They were mesmerized by my new improved  presence and the possibilities it held. How sad is that? They had gotten pretty used to me coming and going, fast, like a drill sergeant.

But not tonight. I pulled Henry into my chest and tickled his stomach until he almost puked and Violet hushed us. His laughter gave me something back that I’d lost recently. Something I could have damn well lost forever too if I’d continued down the hollering road. But I didn’t. I cracked the code, man. The simple little code of love.

Then I tickled him some more and Violet too, until they were both laughing their asses off.

We woke the baby.

Life is grand.

Image: S. Bielanko

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What I Learned About Grief After the Loss of My Grandmother

Dealing with grief is never easy. It doesn’t matter if you knew the day was coming. It doesn’t matter how old you are when it happens. When you lose someone you love, pain and sadness take hold of you. Depending on your personality, your first reaction might be to burst into tears or feel numb. But when you’re a parent, everything you do has an audience. We have to think twice about how we react in front of our kids and how we explain it to them.

Losing my grandmother a few weeks ago taught me many lessons. It was difficult for me to accept that the last time I saw my grandmother, someone I cared about deeply, was really the last time. But it also showed me how older children can deal with death in different ways. There is no right or wrong way —everybody has to find a way to face the reality of losing somebody they love and as a parent, it’s up to us to guide our kids through it.

My son had few words, but offered me warm hugs. At 12 years old he knew what I needed and simply gave me his love. My 9-year-old daughter was sad but didn’t know what to do with her emotions, so it was easier for her when I had answers to her questions and told her specifically what she should do in a situation she couldn’t control. Telling her to write a message for my dad or reassuring her that it was okay to feel sad, guided her through uncharted territory. She felt lost and needed me to hold her hand to figure out what to do with what she felt.

I felt terrible for leaving them while they were dealing with their grief but I really wanted to make it to the funeral in Santiago, Chile — which meant taking the red eye the night I found out. During those eight hours, I thought about whether or not I would have taken them to the funeral if they had traveled with me. If they would have asked, I probably would have said yes, because rituals bring you closure when you are able to understand them. If they had been younger, I would have probably preferred to do a different ritual, such as writing a letter to the person we lost, attaching it to a helium balloon and letting the balloon fly away, or planting a tree in memory of our loved one.

My cousins did allow their kids to attend my grandmother’s services and I realized they were so right in doing so. In my eulogy, I shared little-known stories of my grandma. Some were funny, but others showed how courageous she was. Like the time she tried to save her imprisoned brother after the military coup. By hearing these stories, her great-grandchildren learned more about the woman they only knew when her light was beginning to fade out. Afterward they asked me questions about her and her life. That’s when I realized that regardless of how you choose to deal with grief in your family, it’s important to talk. It’s crucial to answer your child’s questions. But above all, honor your loved one’s memory by remembering them always.

Image courtesy of Jeannette Kaplun

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New Report: Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing

by Carol Sakala

New Report: Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing

The country’s maternity care system is missing opportunities to provide better care and use resources more wisely by routinely intervening in labor and delivery in ways that interfere with, instead of promoting, supporting and protecting, innate biological processes that result in healthier outcomes for women and newborns. That is the conclusion of a major new report, Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing: Evidence and Implications for Women, Babies, and Maternity Care. The unprecedented synthesis of scientific research on how hormone systems function from late pregnancy through the early postpartum period concludes that commonly used maternity interventions —– such as labor induction, epidural analgesia, and cesarean section &mdashl can disturb hormonal processes and interfere with the benefits they offer.

Check out the report, booklet, fact sheets, infographics, and posters »

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Pope Francis Gives the OK to Breastfeeding in the Sistine Chapel

In his ongoing quest to become cooler than The Fonz, Pope Francis has made breastfeeding moms feel right at home in the Sistine Chapel.

The guy who gave evolution his sorely needed stamp of approval, gay people some long overdue respect, and benevolently washed the feet of juvenile delinquents, has now worked his way into the hearts of moms everywhere — not to mention the bellies of their babies.

While baptizing 33 infants in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Francis “assured the mothers they would face no judgment for nursing during the service,” according to People.

“You mothers give your children milk and even now, if they cry because they are hungry, breastfeed them, don’t worry,” he said.

It was a fitting scene as he stood beneath Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment” fresco. His position was consistent with his past statements on the topic, including when he said simply, yet profoundly, in 2013 that humanity should “give people something to eat” as nursing moms do their babies.

Breastfeeding in public often makes news as women are increasingly being allowed to do it in formerly taboo places at the same rate that other locations disallow it indiscriminately at worst or frown upon it heavily at best.

However, in one afternoon the Pope has essentially re-framed the conversation and made it known that disallowing babies from feeding on demand is, well, sacrilegious. If starving children in third world countries had an opportunity to eat, no one would tell them it wasn’t an appropriate place or time. The same goes for breastfeeding babies, including in a church, where some of even the staunchest breastfeeding advocates might have previously feared to feed.

While judgement of breastfeeding in public will likely continue to come from the usual suspects, it’ll be hard to argue moving forward that pews aren’t the place to partake. Because if the Pope has given the nod to breastfeeding in the Sistine Chapel, God only knows who can really argue with that.

Image courtesy of Pacific Coast News

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Motherhood Turned Me Into a Coffee Junkie

The other morning I was struck with a craving familiar to many Americans but decidedly foreign to me. I wanted — gasp! — a cup of coffee.

According to a survey last year by National Coffee Association USA, 61 percent of Americans consume coffee on a daily basis. You should take this finding with a grain of sweetener (hehe) since the association’s mission is to promote coffee’s popularity. That said, even if the real percentage of Americans who drink java daily is half of what the survey is reporting, that’s still a ton of people.

But, until recently, I was not among the caffeinated masses. I recognize this is peculiar because this means I survived countless all-nighters writing papers and studying for exams at a competitive college without a coffee cup by my side. I went on to work in frenzied newsrooms where survival-via-coffee (well, that and candy) was more or less the norm … and I still abstained.

I wasn’t taking some high moral stance on the beverage. I just didn’t like the taste and found that the caffeine impacted me far too strongly — my fairly vivacious self devolved into a chattering basket case even after just a half a cup.

And then came toddler no. 2.

My first years few years of motherhood were also caffeine-free. But once my second child reached toddlerhood and became entrenched in his terrible twos, I caught the coffee bug big time. On one recent, chaotic morning, after a succession of sleep-deprived nights — night after night, the children graciously took turns waking me at all hours for a variety of creative reasons — I found myself stealing a furtive glance at our latest kitchen gadget. It was a one-cup coffee machine — the kind that requires just a coffee pod, a cup of water, a push of a button, and POOF! One steaming cup of joe is ready for your imbibing, no pots or grounds required.

The machine was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law. I wasn’t thrilled with her generosity at first, given my long-time aversion to coffee. Sure, here was something for my two-cup-a-day hubby, but for me it might as well have been an oversized paperweight.

That fateful morning, I gave it a chance. I made sure to lace the final product with plenty of milk and sugar, took a deep breath and sipped. It tasted … pretty good.

I kept going. Pretty soon, I reached the bottom of the mug. I braced for the jitters to kick in but there were none. Apparently, my motherly exhaustion had managed to squelch my body’s tendency to treat a cup of coffee like a snort of cocaine. But I did find myself feeling more energetic and that mattered a lot.

Suddenly, the once-dreadful process of changing my rambunctious toddler from pajamas into regular clothes was fun. Trying to get away from me, eh, little guy? I’ll catch you, squirmy pants! Frying some breakfast while the older kid incessantly demands chocolate milk? No problem — let me quickly pour you a glass, buddy, and then I’ll be back to flipping that omelet before a single spot is singed brown.

All at once, I understood the memes flooding my Facebook feed in praise of coffee, especially from fellow moms. It all made sense now — the reverence, the dependence, the addiction …

But surely, some of the effect is psychosomatic, isn’t it? Coffee isn’t some sort of magical wonder drink that can transform a bleary-eyed mommy into butt-kicking morning maven, is it?

Is it?

I don’t know that, but I do know that I’m sure as heck going to keep drinking it. National Coffee Association, meet your new best friend. I am the 61 percent.

Image courtesy of ThinkStock

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I'm All About the Drop-Off Playdate

Recently, my kids have been having playdates that consist of me dropping them off at a friend’s house and leaving them there for the rest of the afternoon. These drop-off dates are usually set up by the other parent, who insists that I leave my child, go about my day, and pick them up later.

Hmmm. How do I put this?

BEST. AFTERNOON. EVER.

Seriously, how great is that?

Drop-off playdates are like free babysitting on a snow day. The stars align to give you a rare, unplanned chunk of free time without the guilt or nagging worry about the wellbeing of your children. The kids are safe and happy. And you, my fellow parent, get to exhale and rejoice in the silence for a few hours. Repeat after me: ahhhhhhh.

This drop-off playdate is a new phenomenon for me. For years playdates were either meetings in a public place or going over to a friend’s house and staying with them. This format was fine, I certainly didn’t mind it in any way, shape, or form. I may have even enjoyed it on occasion.

But now that I’ve gotten a taste of the drop-off playdate – a taste of freedom – I can’t go back. At this point if I can’t set up a drop-off playdate for either of my kids, they’re not having a playdate at all. (I’m kidding. Sort of. Maybe. I’m not sure.)

In case you think I’m exaggerating, here is a list of everything I got done during a recent drop-off playdate:

1. A workout that wasn’t rushed.

2. Lunch with my wife at a place that pointedly did not have a kids’ menu.

3. A stop-off for a cup of tea that included a chocolate chip cookie that I didn’t have to share because it’s my cookie, dangit!

4. Errands. Glorious, glorious errands without two kids letting me know repeatedly how boring errands are. (I know how boring they are. I don’t need the heads up.)

The drop-off playdate-induced chunk of free time has become precious to me. I don’t take lightly. Freedom should never be taken lightly – especially when it’s freedom from your children. To honor and, more importantly, protect the free time I have been given, I live by a simple rule: When it comes to drop-off dates, you have to reciprocate. (Please don’t rap that. No one likes a parent who raps.)

Don’t be that person who always drops off their kids but never offers to have the other kids over. It has to be a two-way street. Firstly, it’s just rude not to offer. Secondly, and most importantly, if you don’t offer to have another parent’s kids over after multiple drop-off dates, you will find yourself cut off from these afternoons of leisure you have come to cherish and enjoy. You will officially be put in parenting jail with no get-out-free-card. Do not pass go. And then you know where you’ll be? Spending more time with your kids. And no one wants that.

I’ll admit, originally I felt a little guilty about the drop-off playdate. I felt like maybe I should hang around at the other family’s house and do my part. Even though the other parent was always like, “No! Go ahead and go! Enjoy your day. We’ll be fine here,” I figured they were just being polite but secretly beseeching me not to abandon them with multiple children.

But here’s what I have found: The other parent doesn’t want you around. It’s just one more person they have to entertain. It is actually easier for them to watch your kid than it is to have you there, basically just getting in the way. They ask me to go … I’m gone. So if you think about it, I am actually doing them a service by leaving. By embracing my freedom, I am making the afternoon easier for them, which is all that they want.

Or maybe other parents just really hate me. Either way – I’m good.

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The Moment I Watched You Become A Mother

I’ve held my breath, waiting for it, that moment that the transformation would begin, like the slow warmth moving from your toes after the cold.

I’ve shook my head in sorrow for the women who haven’t found it, willing themselves against it or blocked by the chemical trappings in their brain furrowing in the darkness.

And although I’ve seen it time and time again, in many different forms and in many different families, it never fails to leave me in awe and wonderment —

That moment I watched you become a mother.

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment it happens, but I can tell you that I always know when it has. A woman will enter the labor and delivery floor with that casual, self-assured presence of the childless, maybe chewing on a piece of gum, probably checking her phone every now and then, waiting for the hard part of labor to kick in. And she will leave, maybe chewing on a piece of gum, probably checking her phone every now and then — but she will never be the same.

For some women, it’s the journey through labor that does it, the force of the contractions rocking them to the ends of the earth and back, dragging them through a pain they didn’t know existed. Yet when they emerge victorious at the end, their eyes bear the knowledge that life is always stamped with death, that without pain there is no birth.

For others, it’s the moment of birth, the sudden appearance of a baby who at once seems unfamiliar and yet whose heart seems to beat within their very own, in the glorious merging of the mundane physical with the infinite power of the spiritual.

And for others it’s in those quiet, still minutes that pass in the days of recovery, It’s in a literal pouring out of self as blood and guts and milk are expressed and piece by piece, a new identity is sewn back together.

I’ve watched and wondered when it would happen, observing you quietly behind my station at the nurse’s desk, never telling you the truth about what is to unfold. I don’t tell you because it’s a truth that only your body can unveil, a journey that no one but you can travel. I’ve left you in the middle of a labor, my shift ending, where for you, it was all beginning. The next morning, when I tiptoed into your room, I saw that while I had slept my night away, your features had changed as clearly as if someone had stamped “Mother” upon them with a heavy clang.

I have contemplated what exactly it is, what exactly happens in a woman’s body, in her mind, in her soul when she becomes a mother, but it’s difficult to pinpoint just one change.

Instead, the transformation is a look in their eyes, a connection with that wellspring of life, a new meaning from going to the brink of themselves and coming back with the knowledge in their very bones. It’s in the way they walk, tenderly as raw flesh has been spilt open, but resolutely, their limbs heavy with the weight of the world that has been imprinted on them in their nine-month journey.

It’s in the mothers who blink back tears when we wheel them out, arms empty when a passerby lashes them with the whip they can never escape: “Oh, look, she just had a baby!” 

It’s in the the mother who talked so fast she didn’t have time to think when she handed her baby over to her adoptive parents, as if one moment of silence would cause her meager wall of strength to crumble down around her slippered feet.

It’s in the young mother, the stark contrast to the backwards cap and energy-drink slugging teen next to her texting pictures of the baby to his friends, with the quiet transformation I see on her face, like a gentle rearranging of features on a face overnight.

So know this, dear mother: you may wonder, that first time you go somewhere without your baby, that sharp intake of breath you take when you realize that a piece of you is missing, if the world can somehow tell that you are more, that no matter what you do and where you go, that you will be forever marked as a mother.

And I’m here to tell you that yes, it is there, your mark of motherhood.

It’s not always the stray Cheerio on your pant leg, the “just in case” diapers stashed in your purse, or the dark circles under your eyes you hope no one notices. But it’s always there, in your eyes, in your bones that have borne the weight of another, in your arms that know what it’s like to carry the world, you are transformed.

From the moment you became a mother …

And forever.

Image property of Chaunie Brusie/J&J Brusie Photography

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