Sleeping Through
(18 months)
Dear Trevor,
You are some kind of guy.
Here's the story. It starts about two weeks ago. One night you wake up around midnight, and right away start crying hard. You tell Mommy, ‘Up.’ She lifts you to her body, your head on her shoulder. Then you cry for a bottle. (Your current word for bottle is bobby.) Mommy rocks you, and talks softly, but you continue to demand a bobby and she gets one for you. The same thing happens the next night.
We are concerned. You've been teething on and off lately, sometimes with a low fever and a rash on your bottom. It's a real struggle for us to see you in discomfort and feel helpless, so when we talk about what is going on we keep considering that you are maybe having a tough time over something we don’t understand. We’re committed to making your trip as painless as possible. And we’re dead set against letting you cry into a void. The way we look at it your mom and me represent the world to you. So if you cry, and the world doesn’t respond, we think that can become a conditioned expectation, and you will stop expecting that the world will meet your needs. Our experience in this world leads us to believe that if you don’t squeak you don’t get oiled. At the same time I am a follower of the Middle Way. That means if you squeak in a balanced, reasonable way you have every right to expect, and demand, if necessary, a reasonable response.
Last night you again wake up in the middle of the night and are a real pain. Mommy gets you a bottle, and after a few swigs you are still unhappy, and expressing it loudly. You want to be held and carried around, to do the kind of things you used to do on the mornings when Mommy didn't go to work, like wreck the jewelry stash in the top of the high dresser. Nothing pleases you, and Mommy has a miserable night until she finally takes you out to the living room and you sleep on top of her on the couch.
We talk about what might be going on with you, and I lean toward the theory that you w enjoy being up and don't realize what a drag it is for us. You just want what you want when you want it. Well, nothing wrong with that, except that mommy needs her sleep and there has to come a time for you to learn that, cute as you are, the sun does not rise and set exclusively on you. Now seems to be as good a time as any.
Also, I have been frightened by a story Andrew (not his real name) told in my men's group. His ten year old son is verbally violent with him and his wife. I think it must preclude their having a relationship of any intimacy. That scared me. If our relationship is not intimate you will fail to benefit from our experience and our love. There is so much we want to give you, that we believe will benefit you, that will be lost if our communication isn't open and loving.
So when you cry out tonight shortly after we settle down to sleep, I feel challenged to help you in the best possible way. You sit up on the pillow, tears flowing, crying loudly, and say bobby, cry some more, and repeat, bobby. Mommy gently tells you it isn't time for a bottle, and you don't want to hear it. You scream bobby at her, in a tone and at a volume I'd never heard from you—angry and demanding.
Mommy is sitting on her heels, I’m resting on an elbow. She looks at me. ‘What should I do?’ she asks.
Well, we'd made an agreement that we were going to do something different, and I think she is asking me to do it. I’m nervous.
I clasp your arms to your sides and lift you down to a lying position on your side, facing me on the pillow, and you really don't like it. You wail. My heart quakes. I hold your arms tight to your sides. I put my lips a few inches from your ear and in a lowered, but straight-forward voice, I say, ‘Trevor, listen to me.’ You become quiet right away, and I keep right on speaking. ‘It is the middle of the night. It is not the time for a bottle. It is time to go to sleep. We all have to go to sleep. Your mommy really has to go to sleep because she has a long commute. You will have a bottle in the morning. But now we must sleep. We are all here. Mommy will hold you, and we’ll all be quiet. And we'll go to sleep together.’ I release your arms.
By this time mommy is lying on her side behind you with her hand on your belly, and you reach up to fondle her ear, which is a favorite thing for you to do. You are stone quite, your eyes are closed, and in a few minutes you are asleep. We all sleep through the rest of the night. And through all the nights from then on.
Love, Daddy
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
We Are Pregnant
We Are Pregnant
Dear Boy or Girl,
It is passing strange to write a letter to a person I know nothing about—whom I’ve never even seen. I don’t even know if you are a boy or a girl. But I don’t care about any of that, not a bit. My baby, boy or girl, come on down. What matters is that you are my child. And I promise you this, I will do my best to take care of you, in my imperfect way of course, but here’s what I do know, we are going to have a good time, you and me, oh yeah.
*
This is how it begins: December 18, 1992
I’m alone in my Nyack office this afternoon, and at 2:30 your mommy to be calls me from her office. Now your future mom has a certain way of delivering information that I’m still getting used to. Maybe it’s from working in the world of business, but when it comes to facts, she serves them a-la-carte.
I say, ‘Bill Freeman.’
She says, ‘Hello Bill.’
I say, ‘Hi, what’s up?’
She says, ‘I’m pregnant.”
My mind flashes and fills with glitter. Nothing coherent occurred to me, so I said, ‘I’ll call you right back.”
A thrill flows through me. As if silk ribbons stretched through my body are being corrugated by an electrical wind. Gentle thrills pass in waves from my head to my feet. And back up. Or maybe they are continuous and run both ways at once. It is a wonderful, exciting experience. I have never thrilled before. The news of your arrival has whisked me into a new state of being. The feelings drive me to my feet and I pace the office, exalting over my fortune, yet a bit frightened to grasp it fully, afraid that in a moment the phone will ring again and some voice from the cosmos will say, Only kidding.
I call back and your soon to be mom and I flop around like a couple of kids who have just received a gift tree loaded with every kind of tinsel and decoration and present the world has ever contained—all sparkle and shimmer and light. It’s a wonder the telephone wires don’t explode, because we fire through them roman candles of laughter, cherry bombs of joy, skyrockets of silliness and ecstasy in reds and greens and blues and yellows. We blabber for a long time.
I’m back to pacing. Winning a lottery can’t possibly put a person through such ecstatic stress as this. And then I’m afraid of falling down and turning into a piece of blubbering blubber. Sweet reason arrives with the message, Good God man, get a grip.
*
Wow! Setting forth is always an act of bravery. During that first intoxication I felt like I had done some great thing. Like won the marathon. An idea your mother disabused me of a few weeks later when she was going through a spate of nausea and accused me of knocking her up. I had to admit that rather than a reward what I was looking at was an unearned gift, a blessing. So I went from hero to humble. That’s okay. For me being grateful is like donning a brand new suit, it feels good, and I’m sure it will feel even better as we go along—I just need to break it in.
So here’s the deal. You are my first and only child. The same is true for your mother. I’m fifty-six and she is forty-one. As the enormity of your imminent arrival impresses itself on me, I have come to the enlightened conclusion that: This Changes Everything. I couldn’t resist riding that old horse, and if it isn’t literally true, it’s got to be ninety percent.
I close my eyes and boost the various aspects of our lives into the firmament, like placing stars in the sky. Then I hoist you into a prominent position and everything scurries to reorient itself to the reality of your sun. Then I just start tossing up other stuff and it finds it own space and everything else shuffles to accommodate the new resident. There’s limits to how much stuff I can support at one time, so then I’ll just look at it. Here’s a funny thing, if I fall asleep, when I wake up, nothing has moved. That’s good. Because then I’m real quiet, and I can figure out what needs to be done in the world to get into harmony with the model.
So, anyway, the point is I spend all my thinking time puzzling about how to support your welfare. And also, what could I give you that would be special, that no one else could.
What pops up is a mealtime scene from my childhood. Me and the three girls who will be your aunts are gathered around a table at mealtime. Mother stands at the stove and Daddy is in the corner. And the four of us are clamoring for stories. Mom doesn’t tell many stories, but Dad is full of stories and he tells them well. More than anything the stories we want to hear concern how they met and their early life together, but, and most of all, tales of our own early lives. We learn one wonderful story about their early adventure, but about ourselves, zilch, nada, zero, nothing. So it occurs to me that when you turn twenty-one, or eighteen, or whatever, you might appreciate receiving a small bundle of letters about some of the early activities and experiences you are destined to forget— how you handled yourself, and what you thought, what was hard and what was easy. Maybe help you to understand who and what you are and how you got that way. I hope, for you, these letters will be something of value.
Love, Daddy
Dear Boy or Girl,
It is passing strange to write a letter to a person I know nothing about—whom I’ve never even seen. I don’t even know if you are a boy or a girl. But I don’t care about any of that, not a bit. My baby, boy or girl, come on down. What matters is that you are my child. And I promise you this, I will do my best to take care of you, in my imperfect way of course, but here’s what I do know, we are going to have a good time, you and me, oh yeah.
*
This is how it begins: December 18, 1992
I’m alone in my Nyack office this afternoon, and at 2:30 your mommy to be calls me from her office. Now your future mom has a certain way of delivering information that I’m still getting used to. Maybe it’s from working in the world of business, but when it comes to facts, she serves them a-la-carte.
I say, ‘Bill Freeman.’
She says, ‘Hello Bill.’
I say, ‘Hi, what’s up?’
She says, ‘I’m pregnant.”
My mind flashes and fills with glitter. Nothing coherent occurred to me, so I said, ‘I’ll call you right back.”
A thrill flows through me. As if silk ribbons stretched through my body are being corrugated by an electrical wind. Gentle thrills pass in waves from my head to my feet. And back up. Or maybe they are continuous and run both ways at once. It is a wonderful, exciting experience. I have never thrilled before. The news of your arrival has whisked me into a new state of being. The feelings drive me to my feet and I pace the office, exalting over my fortune, yet a bit frightened to grasp it fully, afraid that in a moment the phone will ring again and some voice from the cosmos will say, Only kidding.
I call back and your soon to be mom and I flop around like a couple of kids who have just received a gift tree loaded with every kind of tinsel and decoration and present the world has ever contained—all sparkle and shimmer and light. It’s a wonder the telephone wires don’t explode, because we fire through them roman candles of laughter, cherry bombs of joy, skyrockets of silliness and ecstasy in reds and greens and blues and yellows. We blabber for a long time.
I’m back to pacing. Winning a lottery can’t possibly put a person through such ecstatic stress as this. And then I’m afraid of falling down and turning into a piece of blubbering blubber. Sweet reason arrives with the message, Good God man, get a grip.
*
Wow! Setting forth is always an act of bravery. During that first intoxication I felt like I had done some great thing. Like won the marathon. An idea your mother disabused me of a few weeks later when she was going through a spate of nausea and accused me of knocking her up. I had to admit that rather than a reward what I was looking at was an unearned gift, a blessing. So I went from hero to humble. That’s okay. For me being grateful is like donning a brand new suit, it feels good, and I’m sure it will feel even better as we go along—I just need to break it in.
So here’s the deal. You are my first and only child. The same is true for your mother. I’m fifty-six and she is forty-one. As the enormity of your imminent arrival impresses itself on me, I have come to the enlightened conclusion that: This Changes Everything. I couldn’t resist riding that old horse, and if it isn’t literally true, it’s got to be ninety percent.
I close my eyes and boost the various aspects of our lives into the firmament, like placing stars in the sky. Then I hoist you into a prominent position and everything scurries to reorient itself to the reality of your sun. Then I just start tossing up other stuff and it finds it own space and everything else shuffles to accommodate the new resident. There’s limits to how much stuff I can support at one time, so then I’ll just look at it. Here’s a funny thing, if I fall asleep, when I wake up, nothing has moved. That’s good. Because then I’m real quiet, and I can figure out what needs to be done in the world to get into harmony with the model.
So, anyway, the point is I spend all my thinking time puzzling about how to support your welfare. And also, what could I give you that would be special, that no one else could.
What pops up is a mealtime scene from my childhood. Me and the three girls who will be your aunts are gathered around a table at mealtime. Mother stands at the stove and Daddy is in the corner. And the four of us are clamoring for stories. Mom doesn’t tell many stories, but Dad is full of stories and he tells them well. More than anything the stories we want to hear concern how they met and their early life together, but, and most of all, tales of our own early lives. We learn one wonderful story about their early adventure, but about ourselves, zilch, nada, zero, nothing. So it occurs to me that when you turn twenty-one, or eighteen, or whatever, you might appreciate receiving a small bundle of letters about some of the early activities and experiences you are destined to forget— how you handled yourself, and what you thought, what was hard and what was easy. Maybe help you to understand who and what you are and how you got that way. I hope, for you, these letters will be something of value.
Love, Daddy
Monday, June 7, 2010
Tackle
Tackle
(4 years, 11 months)
Dear Trevor,
Yesterday we were in Turiello's Pizza. Nino cut your slice into ten pieces, but some of them were still too big for your mouth. So when you started struggling to cut one with the side of your fork, I pitched in to help. I hacked up one of the pieces with my espresso spoon and slid the halves toward you across the aluminum platter. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘tackle this.’
You forked a piece into your mouth and said, ‘What's a tackle?’
Chopping at another piece, I said, ‘That's what football players do when they want to stop a guy that’s running.’
‘What guy,’ you inquired reasonably.
‘The guy with the ball,’ I said, ‘when he's running to make points, they tackle him to knock him down.’
‘Well,’ you said, ‘do they eat him?’
Love, Daddy
(4 years, 11 months)
Dear Trevor,
Yesterday we were in Turiello's Pizza. Nino cut your slice into ten pieces, but some of them were still too big for your mouth. So when you started struggling to cut one with the side of your fork, I pitched in to help. I hacked up one of the pieces with my espresso spoon and slid the halves toward you across the aluminum platter. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘tackle this.’
You forked a piece into your mouth and said, ‘What's a tackle?’
Chopping at another piece, I said, ‘That's what football players do when they want to stop a guy that’s running.’
‘What guy,’ you inquired reasonably.
‘The guy with the ball,’ I said, ‘when he's running to make points, they tackle him to knock him down.’
‘Well,’ you said, ‘do they eat him?’
Love, Daddy
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Penis Lifting
Penis Lifting
(3 years, 9 months)
Dear Trevor,
I’m reading The New Yorker and having my second cup of coffee this morning while you’re wandering among the profusion of wooden trains, tracks, trucks and building materials all over the living room floor. Then I notice you are trying to put a yellow plastic nut over your smartly erected penis. It doesn't fit and you give it up. A few moments later you're walking toward me saying, ‘Daddy, look.’
You've got the tin train engine with a golden cord, that’s a Christmas tree ornament, hanging from your penis. ‘See,’ you say, ‘I can hold it up with my penis.’
‘Indeed, you can,’ I reply.
Love, Daddy
(3 years, 9 months)
Dear Trevor,
I’m reading The New Yorker and having my second cup of coffee this morning while you’re wandering among the profusion of wooden trains, tracks, trucks and building materials all over the living room floor. Then I notice you are trying to put a yellow plastic nut over your smartly erected penis. It doesn't fit and you give it up. A few moments later you're walking toward me saying, ‘Daddy, look.’
You've got the tin train engine with a golden cord, that’s a Christmas tree ornament, hanging from your penis. ‘See,’ you say, ‘I can hold it up with my penis.’
‘Indeed, you can,’ I reply.
Love, Daddy
Smart Kid
(3 years, 2 months)
Dear Trevor,
Today you are three years and two months old. This morning, coming down in the elevator, you asked me a question I couldn't answer.
‘I don't know,’ I said.
You said, ‘Why?’
And I said, ‘Well, I don't know everything. Do you know everything?’
You said, ‘Sure.’
By now we are off the elevator, walking toward the rear door. I said, ‘Do you know why the sun comes up?’
You said, ‘Sure.’
I said, ‘Why does the sun come up?’
‘Because it's daytime,’ you said.
Love, Daddy
Dear Trevor,
Today you are three years and two months old. This morning, coming down in the elevator, you asked me a question I couldn't answer.
‘I don't know,’ I said.
You said, ‘Why?’
And I said, ‘Well, I don't know everything. Do you know everything?’
You said, ‘Sure.’
By now we are off the elevator, walking toward the rear door. I said, ‘Do you know why the sun comes up?’
You said, ‘Sure.’
I said, ‘Why does the sun come up?’
‘Because it's daytime,’ you said.
Love, Daddy
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