Nathan at Four
Today Nate turned four years-old and, unlike many days in the past month, it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. Summer camp actually went well, without us getting a phone call or a note sent home; there were only two or three complete meltdowns without the slightest provocation; and there was very little talking back.
I'm not sure what happened to my little boy, but something significant has changed. Maybe it's the age, maybe it's the pressure from Lily's birth, maybe it's the sudden discontinuation of naps, maybe it's something we're doing wrong. Or maybe it's all of those things and more.
I've not written anything in a long while for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because I don't have anything to say that wouldn't sound selfish and lame. There is no doubt that, compared to a huge percentage of the world, I am a very, very blessed man. And for me to complain about our problems at home or my problems at work seems arrogant at best. But that doesn't make the struggle any less of a struggle.
I love him so very much. I wish I could figure out what's wrong and help him (and us) through this change. But most of the time I am floundering and gasping for air.
We're still trying though.
Edit/Update: It seems really unfair of me to focus on just this past month and just the problems of this past month at that. I'm going to write something more balanced in a couple days.
reflection
(I've had this entry sitting in my drafts folder since June. I don't know how to finish it, so I'm posting it as is.)
On his 31st birthday, nearly a year after starting out on the great exploration of the Louisiana Purchase with William Clark, Meriwether Lewis wrote the following entry in his journal:
August 18, 1805
Meriwether LewisI soon obtained three very good horses. for which I gave an uniform coat, a pair of legings, a few handkerchiefs, three knives and some other small articles the whole of which did not cost more than about 20$ in the U' States. the Indians seemed quite as well pleased with their bargin as I was. the men also purchased one for an old checked shirt a pair of old legings and a knife.
This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.
reference (emphasis mine)
Here I am, 3 years past that point wondering the same thing. Except, of course, I've done nothing as awe-inspiring as explore and rigorously document the Louisiana Purchase. I don't know. In two more years I will reach the half-way point in my life (God willing). What have I done? What can I do? There were times when it felt like the answer was: most anything, but for a long time it's felt like: nearly nothing.
an uneasy feeling
Last week the husband of a coworker passed away.
The next day the father-in-law of another coworker, passed away.
The grandfather of a friend passed away during the week as well.
On Saturday, my doctors house burned to the ground.
Today, a neighbors house was destroyed in a fire.
Thankfully, in both fires, no one was injured.
And so I hold Nate and Heather a little tighter when we have a family hug.
yellow and blue
What to say? There was another (apparent) suicide, this morning, along the Metra train line I use. This time it was in Palatine. It was not my train but two trains in front of us.
Seeing a person covered by a plastic sheet on TV is an abstraction. Seeing a plastic sheet half-on and half-off the railroad tracks 5 feet from you, as your train creeps by at a few miles per hour, is a blow to the stomach. The police mill around, waiting for the coroner. The railroad employees cluster together waiting to (I'm assuming) inspect the track and the train. No one is near the body or even really looking that way. The person is a Something that has Happened. They are alone along the tracks where they came to rest.
Today, the person was covered in blue plastic. The last time this happened, there was one person, but there were two separate pieces of yellow plastic along the rails. I say this not to disturb or disgust but to impart a sense of importance: When you are around trains, please be aware. While this person (appeared to) set out to kill himself, there are others that are left alone along the tracks covered in plastic because of stupidity, because of ignorance, and because of carelessness. Don't be any of those things. Be safe and be smart.
recent news
I'm sick...I have a cold and I feel awful. I'm really glad I'm on vacation (starting tomorrow) until the 5th. I need sleep and I need food. (I can always tell when I'm getting sick because my appetite jumps through the roof.)
Also, my company is closing one of three large facilities, suspending a major project, and is laying off over 200 people. I have tried really hard not to be doom-and-gloom about the economy, because Fear Is The Mind Killer, but this is not good. I am still employed...but I'm more uncertain than ever.
holding on
The other day, Nate fell asleep clutching my hand to his body as if it were a stuffed toy. I marvel at the simplicity of this act and power that it has over my psyche.
He is so full of energy and of life. His joy seems limitless and his innocence is infectious. I want so much to write down and preserve all that he's doing right now...it is the source of so much amazement in my life... I can feel it all slipping away so very quickly.
....
It will not be long before affection from his father will be looked upon as a burden...something to suffer through... I will love him and He will, God willing, love me, but not as a boy...as a man. I know it's absurd, but I lament this change already, if only because I cherish it so much right now.
This is a rambling mess of an entry, I apologize. The words are just not coming together.
Audra Mae's cover of "Forever Young."
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young."Forever Young" - Bob Dylan
Nathan at Two
Nate turned two years old on June 30th. Two years since he changed our lives forever. Two years of growth for him and two years of excitement and fear for me.
He is an amazing child, of course, being the son of 
helloheather. He knows nearly every letter of the alphabet and only occasionally mixes one letter for another. He's been able to count to ten for a while now and he can count to twenty with some prompting. There's no way for me to catalog the number of words he can say...he picks them up with the same ease he picks up sticks in our yard. The other morning (while on vacation actually) I showed him a picture of an avocado and told him the word once. That night he pointed to it and said "abbecaado." I was stunned.
He's patient and polite and he wants to be everyones friend. It crushes me when he greets a slightly older child (3, 4 years) with enthusiasm and a big smile on his face and receives nothing but a disinterested look in return (if he gets a look at all). I want to say to the other child's parents: "what's wrong with you that you can't teach your kid some manners?" Not once has the parent of the other child asked them to return the basic kindness. I worry that Nate will soon pick up on this and be discouraged.
Nathan rarely walks: he runs and runs with gusto. He explores and explores again. "Leave no stone unturned" is a mantra that he keeps close to his heart. He greets me every night with babbles of joy and tales of his day. I wish I knew what he was saying but then I think how wonderful it is to have that little bit of mystery.
I could go on and on about him...he is such a source of both happiness and stress in my life. He daily pushes me into new experiences and new struggles. My heart is torn by thoughts of him growing up and shocked by how much growing-up has already happened. I look back at photos of him from a year ago and struggle to remember how things were before. His second year has been a whirlwind of development in every way possible.
I've uploaded a selection of photos from the past year of Nate. They are sorted in reverse chronological order. Some of the photographs have context and others do not. The album can be seen here:
http://www.bernhard.us/photos/nathan-age1
Perhaps a better way to view these images would be to view the gallery in slide show mode:
http://www.bernhard.us/photos/slideshow.php?set_albumName=nathan-age1
Does my name sting your tongue?
This is going to be a selfish post. If you cannot stand that sort of thing, I would encourage you to not read any further.
Nate has been diagnosed with a peanut allergy. His body's frightening, but not life-threatening, reaction a couple weeks ago was confirmed with a standard "scratch" test at an allergists'.
Let me just say that this really, really sucks. And I don't mean it sucks because of how much of a lifestyle upheaval it is for us as a family...I mean it sucks because I won't be able to do a huge swath of things that I didn't even realize I wanted to do...
That's sort of confusing, so some examples:
- I was walking through the store and realized that he and I won't ever be able to take a hike in the park or along the bike trail and share a bag of trail mix.
- Very little dried fruit, in fact, can be consumed. It's almost all tainted.
- We can never again go to, or order from, Nick's Pizza. Ever.
- Almost all ice cream and custard shops are out too. I can't ever go and sit outside Tasty Freeze or Diary Queen at the end of a warm summer day and eat ice cream with Nate.
- We will never be able to pack him a pb&j in a lunch box for when his class goes to a park or a zoo or something.
- I will never be able to share a bag of M&M's (or almost any chocolate candy) with him at the movie theater
What is most frustrating to me about this whole endeavor is that he HAS eaten peanuts before. He's had M&M's and he's had crackers with peanut butter. One of the few meats he will eat is chicken from a chinese restaurant cooked in, you guessed it, peanut oil. And he's never had any sort of reaction to anything he's eaten. So, what changed?
...
And now, I read things like:
The AAP recommends delaying introduction of peanuts until three years of age for children with a family history of allergies in both parents or in a parent and sibling. The group also suggests that mothers in such families avoid peanuts while they are breastfeeding and possibly during pregnancy.
and I wonder how much of this is our fault. I'm not allergic to peanuts but I'm allergic to dusts, molds, pollen, smoke and, as a child, I was allergic to milk. So, was Nate set up to fail because we didn't follow (or even know about) these AAP guidelines? The more I read, the more it looks like we completely fucked up on this. No peanuts of any quantity until 3 years of age is the recommendation? Weren't we told that after age 1 things are ok? I don't even remember any more. We certainly didn't give him any substantial peanut butter until recently, but he had the chicken in peanut oil back in December.
It's just so damn frustrating. And the more I read the worse it gets. The scratch test said peanuts-only and the allergist said that other types of nuts are fine, but most all peanut-allergy websites say things like "...most experts recommend peanut-allergic patients avoid tree nuts as well." Well now what?
As usual, I end up floundering at the end of my post. I'm just tired of being stressed and frustrated with this whole thing. I want him tested again by a different doctor because I don't want it to be true. I don't want this bullshit allergy shoved in my face every single day...I don't want to be "that parent" that has to talk to all the other parents in the school or at the church function or any other of a million fucking common events that we want to go to where food will be served asking about peanut content.
Oh, and Nate also tested positive for a salmon allergy. So there's that too, just less so.
Hitting home.
With the housing market clearly favoring buyers, helloheather and I took a tour of two homes for sale back in December. The first was empty, as it was being sold by a relocation company. It was decent enough but did not strike us as the right fit.
The second, however, was still occupied but had a pending foreclosure. As we walked around, four young girls and their smiling parents stared at us from photos on the mantel and walls. The artwork of these girls decorated the fridge and their bedrooms. The family's cats sniffed us as we went by.
Our tour of the house threw my conceptualization of the problems in the housing marking right out the window. I find it hard to describe the feelings I had after we left the house, but depressed was certainly one of them. I don't know the details behind the foreclosure, nor do I want to find out. That's not the point. These four girls are innocent victims of something they had no control over.
What if something happened to my job and helloheather and I were unable to make house payments? What if we were faced with a foreclosure? The loss of our home, as a concept rather than a thing, would be (to me at least) devastating.
Perhaps I'm wrongly projecting my feelings of our home onto this family. Maybe they don't even like where they live. I rather doubt this, but I suppose it's possible.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I found a compassion for this family that weeks of statistics on the radio and online had been able to hide. I had become numb to the reality of this situation because the numbers being thrown around are too abstract. This experience has given me pause and my heart goes out to all those families that have been similarly affected.
Sick again
Nate became sick again on Friday. The viral-really-scary-might-get-dehydrated kind of sick. helloheather and I spent hours upon hours on Saturday and Sunday forcing Pedialyte (tm) into him every 10 minutes in order to stave off dehydration and another hospital visit. It was a scary and stressful and agonizing weekend.
He is on the mend, thank goodness, but my nerves are shot. I'm a wreck and helloheather is not fairing well either. I know that I'm far too nervous a father to begin with, but this last event has me downright frightened.
I just don't understand how people can take care of two, three, five, and six kids at a time, when I can't mentally handle just one.
(untitled)
Why is it that the smallest things seem to find each other and then merge and meld until they're really big and really angry and really a serious problem?
Why is it so difficult for me to recognize this happening? Why is it so difficult for me to bring about change?
I think there's something wrong with me. Some set of instructions that's missing. The guide to doing shit that everyone else knows how to do and has been doing successfully since the age of 10...
Nathan at 13 months
(24 days late, sorry. )
A year and a month is what it took for Nate to become, for all intents and purposes, independently mobile. His 13th month was marked by marvelous change. Not only did he start walking more than a few steps, but he is now able to stand himself up from a sitting position without holding onto anything. He can walk on level ground, the bumpy yard, or even more irregular ground of the camping area of the KOA in Union, IL.
helloheather tells me that, after I've gone to work and Nathan wakes up, he comes into our bedroom and makes his "question?" noise. He looks for me all over the room. I cannot describe how torn this makes me feel. I'm so proud and happy that, despite the fact I can only spend about 2 hours a day (during the work week) with Nathan, he knows and misses me; that he enjoys me enough to wonder where I've gone to in the mornings. But at the same time, I wish so much that I could be there for him every day, not just on the weekends.
I hope...I really do hope, that I can:
Don't you know that I'll be around to guide you.
Through your weakest moments to leave them behind you.
Returning nightmares, only shadows.We'll cast some light and you'll be alright.
We'll cast some light and you'll be alright for now.Crosses all over, heavy on your shoulders.
The sirens inside me waiting to step forward.
Disturbing silence darkens your sight.We'll cast some light and you'll be alright.
We'll cast some light and you'll be alright for now.José González - "Crosses"
Comfort not
As helloheather has pointed out, Nate is having a very difficult time sleeping. And while she is up with him every hour or so, I generally wake up and then go back to sleep. Sometimes I will get up before her and try and comfort him but, with one exception, he rejects this and becomes more and more distraught.
I wish I understood why he was having so much difficulty staying asleep. I know that, right now, part of the problem is teething. He's getting at least two molars and a possible third tooth in at the same time. That cannot be fun.
And if his not sleeping were not enough, Nate still rejects almost all foods with textures. He simply will not tolerate anything but puréed "Stage 3" style foods. And perhaps we are sending the wrong messages, for when he has tried "chunks" of even easy to chew foods, not only has he coughed but has gagged and choked. This has caused us to whip him out of his chair to try and help him clear the object out. I wonder if such a reaction on our part is causing him to reject these foods outright. But what can be done? I cannot simply stand by while my child, with a panicked look on his face, gags.
Both behaviors are very stressful to me, though I believe the food-aversion will resolve itself over time. But the sleep problems, given that he has /never/ slept more than a few hours at a time since his birth, seem insurmountable. Nothing we have tried has helped in the least.
I look at the up-coming family camp out and the trip to Denver with much trepidation.
Nathan at One
Nathan is now one year old. Despite my brains best efforts to sabotage the whole works, he's turned out to be a wonderful child. He is so friendly and happy; he's so very interested in the outside world. He loves sticks and bugs and the dirt. And yet he also loves baths and showers.
July 2007
How did this happen? All my nervousness and anxiety seems to slide off of him. It's like he's coated with anti-crazy-daddy Teflon (tm).
He used to be so very small. So tiny in my arms. I remember walking back and forth with him in the hallway thinking "wow, this is hard work, carrying this 8 lbs around." I'd /love/ to carry around only 8 lbs of baby these days 
He turns pages of books with ease, points to a thing and makes a noise (wanting us to tell him what it is over and over again), eating more and more foods every week, chasing the cat, and yes growing and growing. It's just mind-boggling sometimes to think of how different he is from even two months ago, let alone a year ago.
July 2007
Before Nathan was born, I was filled with arrogance and ignorance of what being a parent would be like. Here, a year later, I can say I'm now only ignorant. I have been (at least, I hope I've been) humbled by my son. So, if I ever foisted my pre-parental arrogance upon you, I truly apologize.
Nathan continues to make a lot of progress towards independent walking. We're trying to count the number of steps he takes at each attempt (though sometimes he's so fast!) and we're up to a max of 8 or 9. His walking has been less and less "accidental" (where his distraction by an object or person has facilitated a few steps) and more by choice.
First Birthday
I'm not certain what the next year will bring, but I'm hopeful it will be as amazing as this one has been.
I know mommy and you sir, are no mommy.
Nathan has slowly but surely started showing a distinct preference for helloheather these past couple weeks. It started off simply as times when he was tired or hungry (or, in most cases, both). But the attitude has spread to other areas of his life. When I was trying to feed him sweet potatoes and apple sauce the other night, he kept looking across the table to helloheather, with imploring and pleading eyes all the while moaning. One morning, when getting ready for work, he was sitting and staring (and yes, smiling) at me from the floor. But as soon as helloheather came back into the room, he scrambled over to her legs, grab on, and try to pull himself up.
Logically I know this was bound to happen. I see him only a few hours a day, while helloheather is with him nearly every waking moment. And he does greet me with gusto when I arrive home from work, which is always a joy. Sometimes he really works himself up into a frenzy of happiness, rolling around or grabbing onto whatever he can and squeezing. His emotional responses are very strong.
There are times that I feel that fatherhood has turned me into a sack of crazy. Other times, though, I think perhaps it's simply thrown the crazy into sharp relief. The worry, the stress, the over-protectiveness is entirely a product of my own mind. I wish I could figure out a way to turn down whatever it is in my subconscious that feels I need this. Because I really don't think I do. However, it comes as naturally to my day as drinking water. "Hey, it's been an hour or so since you've had a worry...why not stress about how Nathan doesn't use you as a jungle-gym?"
I know that, while my brain is wrapped up in this nonsense, I'm not remembering the really important stuff. Like how he looks when he figures something out, or how he used to be when he was just a few months old. How he used to look without teeth (what a strange concept that seems now) or how he used to lay so calm next to me when I read him books. I have all these precious memories being covered with mold and slowly rotting away thanks to the climate of my subconscious.