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The Amazingly Obnoxious Sound of the Baby Buzzer!

June 2, 2011 at 10:03 pm , by 

Six months.

The Dadabase

Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?  No, it’s not that weird mutant sheep sound that Jim Carey makes in the classic comedy, Dumb and Dumber. Instead, the noise that rattles my cage and ruffles my feathers every time is the cry of my son.

Yes, he is an easy going little guy.  But he is human.  So when he cries for lack of sleep or food, everyone in the room becomes aware of it.

It’s a high frequency, shrill, scratchy, siren that makes me turn my head a little sideways whenever I hear it.  There is no way to ignore him when he cries.

His cry is motivating; that’s for sure.  It instantly motivates me to rush to fix whatever the problem is; mainly so the noise will stop wrecking my inner ears. But also because he’s a little baby who can’t communicate the way we adults can. All he can do is cry, at this point in his development.

So I have to respect that process, despite the fact that his crying is downright offensive to listen to.  He doesn’t ask nicely.  He doesn’t give me a minute to finish up whatever I’m in the middle of.  Hearing that cry is the worst sound to be interrupted by.

The Dadabase

But God knew what He was doing when He designed babies to cry like they do. Imagine a world where you could actually ignore a baby when they need something.  I can’t.  A baby’s cry is part of the necessary breaking-down phase of parenthood.

My son’s cry is the height of what I call “the baby buzzer.”  If his cry is a “10″ (on a scale of 1 to 10), then down at “1″ is his gentle correcting sound he makes when I am rocking him to sleep, but not holding his head at the right angle.

I hear, “mrrrraghttk…” It’s like his way of saying, “Nice try, but no cigar.”  That sound makes me think of a cross between Frankenstein and the sound effect when you touch the tweezers to the metal in the board game Operation.

It can be challenging for me to deal with a baby who can’t communicate the same way as I do.  Because I am a guy who is obsessed with open, clear, positive communication. But with a baby, a lot gets lost in translation.  Somewhere between my “Why are you crying?!” and his “I’m laying down on my pacifier and it’s hurting my back!”

I’ll be glad when he and I speak the same language.

Yes.  I know, that’s a whole other ball game: A kid that can say “no.”

baby sleeping

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Learning to Crawl and Working Out the Kinks

May 31, 2011 at 9:02 pm , by 

Six months.

baby crawling

We are on the brink of that epic moment, when Jack’s upcoming freedom of mobility becomes his parents’ newest responsibility.  At six months old, Jack is figuring out how to crawl.

Last Monday in between commercial breaks of The Bachelorette premiere, my wife Jill had just left the room and I was hanging out with Jack on his play rug. Having just muted the TV, I tossed the remote control aside.  It landed a few in front of Jack.

He got that intuitive look in his eyes.  Jack focused all his strength and energy on that piece of modern technology.  And then he went for it.  A few seconds later: mission accomplished- TV remote in mouth.

In a classic ’80′s sitcom tone, I called out to my wife: “Uh, Jill… you’re gonna want to see this…”.  I removed the remote control from Jack’s slimy hands (it was like taking candy from a baby), gave it another toss a few feet away from him, and again our son crawled towards the new location on the rug.

The Dadabase

Once Jack realized he could crawl, he didn’t stop until his bed time.  We learned that other great motivational tools include cell phones and cameras.  If it’s an electronic device, it’s worth the crawl.  Of course, at this point, his crawl isn’t perfected.

Instead, it reminds me of what Alex Pate got me for my 10th birthday at the local bowling alley on April 20th, 1991.  (More on that event in an upcoming post potentially entitled “Don’t Drop the Baby!”)…  I’m referring to a wind-up Ninja Turtles action figure called Creepy Crawling Splinter, because Jack’s crawl is so low to the ground and his legs sort of get lost in the shuffle.  It’s amazing, yet sort of hilarious.

My favorite crawling moment so far is when I came home from work recently, I took off my “work clothes” and placed them on the couch as I walked to the bedroom to grab a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.  In the seconds that I was gone, Jack had looked up from his play rug and saw what he thought was his daddy.

babySo he crawled up to my pants’ leg, then made a sad crying noise when I didn’t respond. Yes, he saw my clothes and thought I was sitting there on the couch.  So he was really surprised when I walked up to him from the other room.

But as much weird stuff that goes on in our house in efforts to entertain Jack on a daily basis, I’m sure he won’t be questioning why he has two dads.  He’s more concerned with improving his mode of transportation.

baby

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The White Sheep of the Family

May 31, 2011 at 6:16 am , by 

Six months.

Jack may have been born as a Mexican baby, but he has gradually morphed into a little Norwegian boy.  The supreme irony is that when Jack was born, he almost looked too dark to be my son.  Six months later, it’s the opposite situation.

If you grew up in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, then by default one of your favorite sitcoms was Full House.  And whenever you think of Uncle Jesse, you think of his awesome video for “Forever” where he is wearing a black leather vest while in a bathtub surrounded by candles.  Also featured in the music video were Jesse and Rebecca’s twin sons, Nicky and Alex.

For me, I was always distracted by the fact that a dark featured Greek guy and a normal complected woman with reddish brown hair would have sons that had blonde hair, blue eyes, and light skin.  I already had enough trouble believing that Danny Tanner would have three daughters with blondish hair when he himself had black hair (Bob Saget is Jewish in real life) with their mother who was also Greek; she was Jesse’s sister.  But light featured kids don’t come from dark featured parents, especially when there is a Mediterranean bloodline… I thought to myself for 20 years.

When Jack was born, and in the month or so to follow, he was a Mexican.  His skin was darker than mine, his hair was jet black, and his general features just simply looked Hispanic, or at least Italian. That’s because my maternal grandmother, Delores “Lola” Mendez is a dark-featured Mexican from Buffalo, New York and my Italian grandfather, Albert Metallo, was a dark featured Italian from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In fact, when you climb both sides of the family tree (both my wife’s and mine) you continually find dark haired people with dark eyes. But there is the fact that my wife’s paternal grandfather was a Norwegian orphan adopted by an American family, who married an indentured servant from Ireland.  In other words, despite the influx of “dark genes”, Jack evidently adopted the underdog “lighter” genes.

My wife and I have a blonde haired, blue eyed son with porcelain skin.  He’s sort of the “white sheep” in the family. And now that he’s officially six months old, the age at which a baby’s eye color remains permanent (based on what I’ve read), we now know it’s official.  Granted, I realize there’s a good chance that the older Jack gets, the darker his hair will get.  He may not always be blonde, but he will always have lighter skin than his parents who have a subtle olive complexion (skin with yellow and green undertones).  And people will always ask us, “Where’d that boy of yours get those pretty, deep blue eyes?”

Knowing me, I’ll probably reference Nicky and Alex from Full House every time I answer that question.

Pictured below:

1) The Four Generations of Shell in December 2010; my grandfather Shell is sitting in the middle, holding my son Jack, in between my dad and me.

2) The Four Generations of Metallo/Mendez in January 2011; my grandmother Metallo is sitting in the middle, in between my mom and me.

3) In May 2011, Jack is holding a sign that reads, “I am 6 months old today.”

*To get a better idea of just how different Jack used to look, look on the right side of the screen and click on the archives.  Start at November 2010, the month he was born.

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God Only Knows What I’d Be Without You

May 29, 2011 at 10:36 pm , by 

Six months.

There is a reason why the sentimental song “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys  is always playing in the back of this dad and husband’s subconscious. Truthfully, I have to acknowledge that the days of my life are ultimately numbered; as are my wife’s and son’s.  And that’s why I just can’t take one single day for granted.

If I’m being really honest, I might have to admit the song has at least made my eyes water more than once or a few dozen times, but only because of the deep and heavy subject matter that it always makes me think about. And I may or may not be the only person who has the same kinds of thoughts when I hear the song; I don’t know.

It ranked #25 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Released in 1966, the song was one of the very first pop songs to reference God in its title, though it was not necessarily a religious song.  No doubt about it: “God Only Knows“ by The Beach Boys has remained one of my favorite songs, ever since I first heard it twenty years ago on the 1991 episode of The Wonder Years, entitled “Heartbreak.”

While its nostalgic mood and melancholy emotion are what have always grabbed me, it wasn’t until a few months ago when my wife and I decided to watch the entire series of HBO’s Big Love (via Netflix) that I began to consider the value of the lyrics.  The show features “God Only Knows” as its theme song, so a few times everyday for a few months, I was exposed to the powerful song.

It’s very possible to love “God Only Knows” without actually understanding the meaning of the lyrics.  Admittedly, the lyrics do seem to be a bit confusing and conflicting. For example, the first line is, “I may not always love you but long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it-I’ll make you so sure about it.”  Up until recently, I just assumed the speaker was doubting the future of his relationship with the woman he loved at that point in his life.

But the only conditional phrase in the sentence is “as long as there are stars above you.” The reference is to the love of his life still being alive.  If the stars are above you, you are on Earth. If the stars are below you, you are in Heaven.

So as long as the two of them are still alive together on Earth, he will always love her. Because despite the grandiose idea that two people can romantically love each other forever and be married eternally, the popular rabbi Jesus taught his followers that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.” Though it’s difficult for me to grasp and to deal with, I realize I will only romantically love my wife in this life, not the afterlife as well.

So much hangs on that phrase “as long as there are stars above you,” when looked at from an eternal (and Christianized) viewpoint.  I want to be married to my wife forever, not until one or both of us dies.  So when I think about how my romantic love for her is limited to this life and this Earth, it makes me sad.  And the song “God Only Knows” always points that out to me.

There is one other particular line in the song that I thought was peculiar: “If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on believe me, the world could show nothing to me so what good would living do me?”

My interpretation is that the lyricist is saying suicide would not be an option for him if she died before he did, but in essence, life would lose its flavor and he would have to essentially find a new purpose in life.  Because she ishis life.

I think about that concept; probably nearly everyday.  Yes, I have been blessed with my ideal wife and one magical son, but for how long?  I don’t sit around and worry myself sick about them, knowing that any of us could encounter an accident or random freak medical condition or unseen poisonous spider bite.  But in the deepest of subconscious ways, there is a part of me that does always worry about something happening to them, or myself.

I just can’t imagine my life without my wife and my son.  Yes, my eyes are watering as I type these words.  So what can I do?  I can make sure through my actions, communication, time, and presence, that they know how much I love them. That they are truly, literally the world to me.  With or without the stars being above us.

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“This Close” to Being Mr. Mom

May 28, 2011 at 10:59 pm , by 

Six months.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

When my wife and I moved from Nashville back to my hometown in Alabama a few weeks after our son was born in November 2010, we spent the next four months not only learning how to take care of a baby but also constantly looking for jobs. At first, we were just trying to find a job for myself.

But as the months progressed and Baby Jack’s behavior was becoming more predictable and had switched solely to formula (instead of also relying on breast milk), my wife decided to start looking for a job as well- as we were getting desperate for income.  We figured if nothing else, she could get a job first, then eventually I could.

She had just got her Master’s degree in Childhood Education and had spent the past couple of years working for the glorious Vanderbilt University.  It started occurring to me that my wife probably had a more impressive resume than I did. After about a week of applying for jobs, my wife was called back about a job she applied for.  This particular job paid $20,000 more a year than what the average man makes in this city.  If she got the job, there would be no financial need for me to work too.

We didn’t want to get our hopes up though- for anyone else who has experienced recent unemployment, you probably relate to being constantly disappointed each time a new opportunity arises.  My wife was told by the potential employer that it was between her and nearly a dozen other people.  Then a few days later, it was between her a few others.  Eventually, it was between just my wife and one other person.

Well, for whatever unknown reason, my wife didn’t get the job.  I miraculously did get a job at the very last minute, right as we had come to the reality that the best option for us was to move back to Nashville.  The exact same week I was hired for my sales job at the playground equipment company I work for, I was informed I had officially been chosen as the daddy blogger for Parents.com.  In other words, though I was completely willing to become “Mr. Mom” and had no problem at all with my wife making the moulah while I stayed at home with the baby, it never happened.

I never become the updated version of  the 1983 Michael Keaton, overloading the washing machine with soap and having bubbles flood the laundry room.  Just imagine how uber authentic The Dadabase could have been if I was a stay-at-home dad.  I could have been like Tony Danza on Who’s the Boss?, wearing an apron and vacuuming the curtains.  Yes, just as my wife is completely qualified and capable of being the one who goes out everyday into the work force outside the home, I could have been a stay-at-home dad.  And man would I have been cool for that.

But fortunately, she and I both got what we really wanted.  I get to go out and assist the sells of playgrounds to elementary schools, city parks, churches, and Jewish communities centers.  And my wife gets to do all those things here on the home front which exhaust and intimidate me daily.  I make a better Mr. Dad than I do a Mr. Mom.  So to the Mr. Mom’s out there, you impress me.  And to the stay-at-home moms out there, you obviously amaze me too.

I was this close (implying that I am making a pinching-like gesture with my thumb and pointer finger to measure a half an inch) to being Mr. Mom.  But my wife didn’t get the job and I got one instead.  I could have done it, but I didn’t have to. And that’s a good thing because I would rather leave the tougher job, of staying home with the baby and taking care of the house, to the professional: my wife.