In a world of play

Lil Bit is growing up so quickly.
Check out Mila and her new best friend Silas at the dolphin show of the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

In the past week I have been spending more time taking Mila to have play dates with several other youngsters and to hang out with their parents. Another stay-at-home dad, Ben, and his boy Silas have teamed up with us for excursions and babysitting swaps. At her current stage, Mila doesn't do too much direct playing with other toddlers, favoring parallel play, but with Silas she is a little more outgoing. They enjoy making each other laugh through circular chase games and putting their foreheads together.

It is tempting to make every day a series of fun play activities and excursions, and of course these are great highlights of my days. I am still learning how to incorporate housework and other tasks into my time bonding with Mila. In the meantime, I'll share a couple of pictures from our latest excursion. These are from our most recent trip the Cylburn Arboretum, right before a short afternoon thunderstorm:

A little enlightenment, please...

Marie recently requested a raise at her job with a company that shall remain unnamed. The main premise of her request centered on the recent increase in her work responsibilities, but also happened to mention the end of my teaching job and our recent switch to Marie becoming the primary working parent. (Note to self: avoid mentioning personal situations to future bosses.) Unfortunately, Marie's boss seized on this mention of home circumstances and completely ignored her argument about increased work responsibilities. I must share a sampling of written statements from her boss and and a human resources administrator who shall remain unnamed:

"The real solution is for your husband to find another job and for your income to be frosting on the cake."

"We hope that your husband lands on his feet soon."

"We wish your husband the best of luck in finding employment."

Haven't we come further than this in society's acceptance of different parenting and work roles? Wow.

Blue Ridge Camping Lessons

After an action-packed weekend at Artscape (nearly on our doorstep), I decided to take Mila on a camping trip to the Blue Ridge mountains. Marie could not come because of work, so this became the first night that Mila had ever slept apart from her mom. Roughing it, to be sure. We left late Monday morning and made it to the entrance to Skyline Drive at Front Royal, Virginia, within two hours. Once we got on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, we drove slowly (while stopping at overlooks) for probably another 45 minutes until we arrived at Mathews Arm campground.

I should mention that the idea of going camping alone with my 21-month-old daughter, as much as it would surely be a great bonding experience, was also slightly terrifying. I had never experienced being the sole guardian of her well-being for such a long period of time, and Mila had never experienced a full day and night without nursing either.

Things were off to a good start when I managed to get the tent up by myself while managing Mila's involvement with the process. She had some fun dancing inside the tent, and we had a little bit of reading time before venturing out for a hike. We took a short walk, on which Mila got a Smokey The Bear sticker from a campground host, and arrived at a trailhead. Although I had looked forward to doing some serious hiking on this trip, Mila was unusually disinterested in covering much ground. Instead we shortly made our way back to the campsite, where I attempted and failed to start a campfire. Soot-covered, I prepared some cold Tofu Pup "hot dogs" on buns, with a roasted corn and black bean salsa as relish, along with cold baked beans, and blueberries. Mila completely dissed the Tofu Pups, then found her spot in the front passenger seat of the car and single-handedly devoured the blueberries. She seemed content with the berries, plus baked beans, some peanuts, and bun, topped off with some apple juice. We met the dogs of our neighbors a couple of sites up the hill, and were in general good spirits.

I had to struggle a little bit with my expectations of how one should appreciate a natural environment after driving a long distance to be in it. None of my pre-conceived ideas had to do with sitting more in a parked car and pretending to drive. Perhaps Mila wanted to feel in control of where we were traveling, who knows. Anyway, this was OK for awhile but I soon wanted to do things outside of the car. I would ask Mila if she wanted to walk, or go read in the tent, and she would repeatedly practice her new favorite word, "No". She wanted to hang out in the far back of the car where the dog usually was, and in the backseat, and in the front seats. She would point out where Mommy usually sat. She especially liked being at the steering wheel and playing with all the various levers. And she wanted the car key. When I put the car key in my pocket and wouldn't give it to her, she actually took my hand and put it in my pocket to get the key! I wondered at her ability to think about manipulating actions by others, and I wondered how far I should let her have her way in a situation like this. 

Attempting to segue from Mila's interest in putting her doll in the carseat, I offered the idea of driving to a nearby place to walk or just take in the sunset view. When it became clear that she would have to get in the carseat, the answer was a clear "No". Each time that I subsequently tried to pick her up and move her out of the car, or to the tent, or into the carseat, it resulted in fitful yelling and screaming to echo through the trees. I'm not sure why I didn't have the foresight to get a campsite a little further from neighbors, but I became embarrassed about the unhappy noise and also paranoid about whether I was being considered a possible kidnapper or someone equally horrible. I'm not sure how many 30-something males I have seen camping alone with a toddler, if any. I was also concerned that the tantrums were linked to Mila's anxiety about being so far away from her Mom overnight. At one point, the crying was so overwhelming as I tried to get her settled in the tent that I scooped her up and quickly buckled her into the carseat, driving out to the main road to give our poor neighbors a break. The crying didn't stop and I didn't drive far before turning around. Arriving back at our campsite, I just decided to let Mila have her enjoyment exploring the inside of the car until she felt more comfortable and in control of things. At some point during all of this, Mila saw that I was a bit depressed and spoke to me directly in the most sincere babbling tone, seemingly explaining all the necessity behind her actions.

Finally, I again asked Mila if she wanted to get down from the car and go read a book in the tent, and she replied "Teh" in the affirmative. We got settled in the tent and read by flashlight, a favorite being songs from the "Maracas" book in the Music Together series. After only one more period of toddler anxiety, involving the door of the tent and the word "Mommy", we both fell asleep under the stars. 

At some point during the night (time became unmeasurable after the battery of my cell phone died), I awoke to hear the sound of a large animal walking in the woods around my campsite. Whether it was a deer or a bear I wasn't sure, but I knew enough to have all food stored in the car. Within the first minute of my hearing this, like at a certain point in the movie Jurassic Park, a drizzle of rain began falling. As the fly of the tent was in the car, I waited awhile to determine how much water could be deflected without the fly. When I began to feel water drip on my head, I knew it was time to act. Luckily, I encountered no large animal in my way and heard nothing more as I made my quick trip to the car and got the fly positioned over the tent. 

When we woke up (for the final time) in the early morning sunlight, Mila was bright-eyed and happy. She quickly wanted to get on her shoes and explore the outdoors. We had a leisurely breakfast at our picnic table, but soon had to move in double-time to get our tent packed up before the distant thunderstorm wasn't so distant. We got it all in the car before the rain began falling, which it did for only about 5 minutes. We drove southward on Skyline Drive all the way to highway 33, where we would make a short run down to Charlottesville, town of Mila's Daddy's birth. During a short hike at Skyland, Mila got to see two deer at a fairly close distance. I only wish that she had been awake when I saw a small black bear bound across the road just north of Big Meadows.

When we arrived in Charlottesville, we had lunch at an Indian buffet (favorite of Mila's), stopped at a Ben & Jerry's (where Mila fed me Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and took almost none for herself), and called Marie from the public library. We made it through, Mama.

Things to remember to bring next time:

1. More water

2. Hooded sweatshirts for all (even in the summer)

3. Insect repellant

4. Starter sticks or something for the campfire

5. Ergo baby carrier

6. Mommy

The young experimentalist

Mila has taken to playing Tim Feeney-style percussion, placing various objects on the surface of a drum and exploring new timbres. Her favorite items for this technique are some Mardi Gras beads and a bowl. Other instruments of choice include: toy piano, kalimba, recorder mouthpieces, Korg KP3, theremin, Roland digital piano, and of course turntables. Her toy instruments live under my electronics table in the music/play room, creating one shared musical space for the family. While I play music, Mila will often join in on the toy piano underneath the turntables. She is really showing amazing growth at the keyboard, playing single notes and intervals in rhythm, methodically moving up and down the keyboard then breaking out into a frenzy of baby-fisted note clusters. One of these days I want to record an improv session with Mila and other musicians from Mobtown Modern.

It's great to watch Mila enjoy making music on her own terms, and I hope she always sees it as enjoyable and not something that her dad just expects her to do. I don't want her to feel pressured into being a musician as she gets older. I just want to provide her with access to all types of instruments that she can pick up when she wants. Of course that's still a kind of conditioning, but can parenting really be without indoctrination?

Daddy's hair adventures

Having hair clipped short and a toddler strapped to my front gives me the impression that I can move among any people and be socially accepted. The short hair cut is like camoflauge: I can be hip-hop, good ol' boy, arty hipster, young professional (or.. maybe not). Having a toddler brings smiles from people in most any location I have passed through, at least among most women. Especially in some Baltimore neighborhoods where fathers and toddlers are not the most common site, it can feel like serving as a vessel for the spread of benevolence over urban guardedness. 

I didn't get as many obvious smiles when I had proto-dreadlocks for most of the past 6 weeks. It's amazing how much feelings about one's hair can affect social perceptions. My motivations in cultivating dreadlocks had a lot to do with starting a new chapter as a stay-at-home dad outside the system. I had an image of how they would look and feel when fully formed, and expected that it would remind me of a commitment to live a natural and healthful lifestyle, symbolizing a spiritual allegiance to consciousness above social norms. And looking cool. Unfortunately, I hadn't stocked up on scalp-friendly dread shampoo during the early stages of forming the dreads, and put my scalp through some itchy abuse while using regular bar soap. It was time to say goodbye to the experience of panhandlers in the Inner Harbor addressing me as "Knotty" and "Dread", in recognition of my hippie guilt. This past week, Mila got to watch me clip them off my head one hot afternoon, and didn't seem to really see me any differently. Well, my head feels a lot cooler. No regrets here.

 

It begins...

At the end of my year teaching in the Baltimore City Public School System (as of June 13, 2008), my wife Marie and I decided to try switching roles in parenting and working schedule. She is now the primary earner for our family while I begin a new phase of life as a stay-at-home dad. I finally get a turn to hang out with our daughter Mila for most of every day. It is something that I have desired for almost two years, and I now have a chance to live it. My father-in-law requested that I keep some type of journal to share my experiences on this journey, as it has always been a dream of his. I hope that through this blog I can share these experiences with a wider circle of friends and family. Let's see how this goes.