Day 2 Message to Family

dang it, hot

I only slept 4 hours last night. All the free time nearly killed me. But I did write. Conversely, I wasted a lot of time trying to upload that stupid video (below). I think I come off as creepy. I need to go for more kid friendly (in the video).

It is hot. Even at midnight. I was starving last night so ventured out of the room. We're near the convention center which in Latin means "nothing open after ten," so I ended up drinking beers at a bar that I did not want to leave because it's so damn hot. I mean I wasn't even enjoying the beers or the bar--to the extent they can't be enjoyed--as I'd already seen the Sports Center they were showing over and over, and I wanted food more than booze. But I didn't want to walk back into the heat. It's crazy. It's like every where you go you're just a few feet from a fire.

Are we sure Native Americans lived here before us? Or were we tricked into conquering a place no one wanted.

Guys Club at Park 09

Message to Boys from Phoenix

Sarah: Probably more annoying than interesting but special message for Otto at 1:18, for Paco at 1:52 and for Q at 4:52.

Trip to Phoenix 09: Time Sucks

I flew in with a conversational baiter. She wanted to talk to me so badly, and I'm usually that guy who will speak to anybody regardless of the detriment to me and others around me, but today, I stood my ground. My airplane neighbor, her largess spilling onto me, would spout little trinkets of conversational curiosity. "I went to Mardi Gras once and didn't like it. I didn't like it at all really..."

She lay out some meat and waited for me to walk into her steel jaws. It was hard but I didn't ask why she didn't like New Orleans. I looked out the window and down at the Afghani terrain of southern Arizona.

"A lot of people are so crazy for New Orleans, but I'm not," she proclaimed, going for pride but kind of sounding lonely.

I'd already been trapped once and by this very woman. Earlier on the flight we hit turbulence, and a lot of it. She grabbed her husband's hand and closed her eyes. The husband, feeling a little self-conscious with the drama, said, "she needs medication just to fly." I felt bad so comforted her with, "I don't know how the wings stay on these things."

From behind her clenched lids she exposed her husband. "I know he's scared too, I can feel the sweat in his hand."

And dryly he replied, "Honey, that's your sweat."

So there the door was opened to dialogue, and the discussion went from airplane safety to god. I call it Born Again Magic: The ability to take any conversation back to Jesus. The King of Kings, it turns out, saved my seatmates' business. She and her husband recycle electronics for a living and a year ago they were down to their last thousand dollars. Well she prayed, convinced her husband to pray, and even implored their employees to pray, and upon hearing all that chatter God tripled their profits. I thought that was great. Except I hated thinkng that people are dying in Bangladesh because God is distracted by the metals market.

From there I just wanted not to talk. I didn't know if we'd all end up in a vigil and feeling each other's sweat.

She set the trap again.

"Everybody sure thought Obama was going to be great but..."

And I looked towards the window and inhaled. It's like she knew exactly what would get me. Politics and a naked conjunction. I held fast and very nearly prayed for strength

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The trip to Phoenix is an hour and a half, much of that just up and down, but I'm still not sure what time it is. Sometimes we're the same time as AZ, and other times we're not. If we travel back and forth can we actually stop time?

I hope so.

My friend Jason pointed out that kids born the year we started college are now going to college. Jason is a prick.

I don't know for sure yet, but I think children, at least in the short term, help you forget time.

With kids you live in events, not hours and minutes. You're worried about things like potty training, which has no fixed chronological denomination, and time sneaks on by. Potty training should be a unit of time. Maybe something much longer than a month but not quite a year.

"How long were you in Nam?" A full potty training.

The same could be said for pregnancy. "It's been a human gestation since the Broncos last played!"

As parents this is how you live, not an hour of class with a thirty-minute lunch during a three-month semester. All these events, pottying, learning the alphabet, covering when you cough rack up real time until you're just a menopause away from retirement. If we put numbers on these things we might keep better track of time. I'm afraid it won't be long before I wake up and say, "Seems like yesterday Quin was just in diapers!" Now I could try to defy time and keep him in diapers into his twenties, or just be a better steward of time's presence. I guess this can be done by paying a whole lot of attention. I'm talking Ritalin attention. Taking in every detail and noting every change. Which might be impossible. Because in four weeks and a few days, a time frame I'll refer to as an "Otto", our newest kid has completely changed. And I don't know when it happened.

Otto looks at us now. He's waking up to the world and he definitely fits the bill as an "old soul". Or at least "an elderly person upset with the service at Denny's." Occasionally he lights up. He'll be staring at the ceiling fan and I'll say "Otto..." and it startles him. He's got this "who in the hell are you" face that cracks me up. I'll be holding him, cooing at him and bouncing him on the pilates ball (Lord bless this gift from angels) and he's shocked I'm there.

The good news is that he's sleeping better. He still makes a lot of squeaking noises, and with the strength of a hundred babies can rip out of his swaddle so he can swat at his head. He's really got a problem with punching himself in the face. And the pacifier only causes more problems. He gets mad at it and starts chomping and flailing and by then all you can do is get him out of the crib and go work on your core. Sarah may have rebounded so well with Q and Otto because she spends several hours a day balancing on an inflated sphere.

It's a lot of changes and fast. I worry one day Quin won't be the most loving person on the planet, but I'm sure he'll want to pull pack on the hugs and kisses some time soon, hopefully for him before he joins the football team.

I always thought it was weird and maybe a sign of instability when someone grabbed a child and growled, "I just want to gobble you up," before actually gnawing on them. But a horrifying reference to cannibalism seems to be the best way to vent the frustration of change and time and love. I mean I want to get a marsupial pouch for each of my boys and maybe if I spend every waking second monitoring them I won't come to one day to a houseful of teenagers and wondering what in the hell happened to our children.

Local Children Frightened by Constipated Baby

Rock n' Roll Lifestyle

Constipated Infants. It's a cool band name. In our household it's also a popular Internet search term. I saw Sarah had already clicked some of the same headlines that caught my eye. Purple were the links for "Constipation in Baby" and "Infant Constipation: Symptoms, Causes, Treatment." None of them had much for little guys like Otto, who for the last 24 hours has been groaning instead of sleeping. His strained baby grunts come from a belly tightened with gridlock. I don't how this could happen. He DRINKS his food. So I imagine a marble or wad of dog hair about to shoot out like a little cannonball.

I've been manipulating Otto's tiny legs in a rowing motion. This, according to an Internet video, will help get the gas out. A woman demonstrated it using a stuffed animal. I was worried it hadn't been tried on humans, but then Otto started gassing with every pull of his leg. He was like little, fecal billows and I could see why this shouldn't be done on real people if it can be avoided.

It's been a rough weekend. We stayed up late Friday night watching season 4 of Weeds (nice move with the sonogram, Nancy, but you're still a dumbass for ratting Guillermo) counting on the kids' naps to catch up on sleep. Well no one napped. With a bazillion dollar wedding to emcee Saturday night, I needed rest badly, but Q has started teething again and he didn't take the 2-hour nap that we hope to count on until he's 18. Q has been manic. It's like living with Axl Rose. There's some pretty good performances, but at any moment there could be a meltdown and the show's over.

Well, I got back from the party at 1 this morning. Quin was up at 5:30, and Sarah was already busy with the Constipated Infant (the whole house is a rock n' roll analogy, except without the sex and booze, just the erratic behavior and Motrin,) so it's been a wakey wakey time ever since. This afternoon I found myself in the sleeping aid section at Target looking for Mylicon. It's a gas relief medication, not an insomnia cure, but I had this image of one big baby blast and then calm throughout the house. I'm not sure the Mylicon helped, but Otto eventually did rattle the neighborhood.  He let one rip for all of us...he farted for all of mankind.  Sarah and I sat up and congratulated Otto and then each other. It was like we'd just landed something on the moon.

As for Q, he's out. Motrin is his Pharma Phriend. We're no longer afraid of drugs. Back in the early Q days Sarah and I would be disheveled and weary in the dim light of Quin's nursery. He'd be screaming and we'd be going cross eyed trying to measure exactly .4 of a milliliter. Nowadays I'd administer it with a foot pump.

Sarah just asked the time. It's nearly midnight...again. A couple of years ago I would have panicked that we may never ever get any sleep as long as we live. Now I know I was wrong. We WILL never ever get any sleep. It's just accepting it that matters.

Otto is now asleep.  Quin is awake. Welcome to the Jungle.