Gratitude journal: Firsts

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Tonight I am grateful for the many firsts that a child can bring to a parent’s life. As adults, the number of firsts that we experience tend to diminish as we get older, but if you have a child, firsts happen on an almost regular basis.

Today my daughter pedaled a tricycle on her own for the first time, and I suspect that it was more thrilling for me than the first time I pedaled a tricycle by myself.

I honestly had no idea that parenting would be so fun.

Gratitude journal: Baby still cooking

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Tonight I am thankful for my unborn child’s decision to continue cooking for what we hope will be seven more weeks. We had a false alarm this afternoon, which sent us to the hospital for about three hours, but in the end, it amounted to nothing.

Obviously I want the baby to be born as close to full term as possible, but this week would have been especially annoying. I start my vacation tomorrow, and my plans for the week include a few rounds of golf, a movie, a Moth performance (providing my name  is chosen from the hat), an evening at the theater with David Sedaris, and a weekend book retreat in Vermont that Elysha and I have been looking forward to for a long time. 

I also have to make a trip to New York City to record an interview for use on the audio version of my upcoming novel, and we hope to accomplish a lot in terms of getting the house ready for the new baby this week.

Oh, and I have a novel to finish, too.

An early appearance by this baby would have ruined our plans entirely given me reason to be annoyed with our newborn rather than overcome by joy and excitement.

And that would have been just the beginning. 

My annoyance and irritation with the baby’s poor timing would have inevitably led to an essay or blog post about the lack of joy that I was feeling based upon the circumstances of the birth, and this in turn would have almost certainly led to people judging me for my selfishness and self-centeredness.

“You should just be happy that Mom and baby are happy and healthy, you jerk!” self-righteous (albeit correct) readers comment, probably with multiple exclamation points (the sure sign of a Neanderthal). 

As I tend to do with criticism of this nature, I would have then embraced the criticism, draping myself in it like a gold medal Olympian with a flag, because while it might cast me in a negative light, it would also be criticism based upon an honest reaction and genuine emotions, and I have a tendency to defend these qualities above all others. Authenticity is a quality that I prize above almost all others. Be honest and be true in all things is advice that I will pass onto my daughter when she is old enough to pretend to ignore me.  When I find myself expressing honest, unpopular, and even possibly craven ideas, I always assume that there are many others who feel or have felt the same way but have resisted expressing as much in fear of criticism. 

In these circumstance, I foolishly choose to carry the torch of honestly and openness for them.

More than once, this has led to several daggers jammed into my back, often stuck there by cowards who are unwilling to identify themselves.

Quite a spiral of events, all beginning with a premature birth. 

So tonight I am grateful to my unborn progeny for making the right decision and staying inside Mommy where he or she belongs. It preserved my busy week of vacation and increased his or her chances of meeting a joyous and excited father when he or she is eventually born. 

Gratitude journal: He thankfully fired first.

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Tonight I am grateful for the loud, rude man in the line at Boston market who was perceptive enough to notice me wince when he demanded a coupon for his next visit.

My reaction was involuntary. The man was genuinely loud, and I was standing directly beside him. He had been loud and rude throughout the entire process of ordering his dinner, but when it came time to pay, his demand for a coupon for his next visit was especially loud, and so I involuntarily winced.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

“Hooray!” I thought. “An invitation to criticize.”

Though I had been tempted to say something from the moment the man had opened his mouth, I purposely chose to avoid the confrontation in fear that I might slow down the line behind me.

I’m also trying to be slightly less confrontational in my life. I have a daughter now and another child on the way, and my friends seem to think my willingness to engage in verbal combat will one day get me in trouble. 

But ask me a question and I am obligated to answer.

“You’re loud,” I said. “And not very nice.”

Not surprising, this did not cause the man to lower his voice., Instead, he raised it, even though my remark was made with a purposely soft, almost whisper-like voice.

We exchanged a few verbal blows, neither one of us gaining the upper hand.  A few minutes later, when the man saw me typing on my phone near the doors to the restaurant, he left his seat and accused me of texting about him.

I assured him that I wasn’t texting. I was tweeting. An entirely different thing. He didn’t understand at first, but when I explained to him that I was essentially sending a text message to about 800 followers, he expressed his outrage with considerable volume, causing me to leave.

Tonight I am grateful to this loud, obnoxious man for opening the door to criticism. Had he not noticed my wince or chosen to ignore it, I would probably still be annoyed with myself for letting the man’s rudeness go unchallenged.

Gratitude journal: Separated at birth

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I was sitting beside my teammate and friend in a meeting today when a colleague looked over at us and said, “You two are the same person.”

She was right. My teammate often describe our relationship in brotherly-sisterly terms, but in truth, that isn’t accurate. Brothers and sisters tend to fight, compete or at least occasionally annoy one another.

We don’t do any of these things.

We are more like shockingly copacetic identical twins separated at birth and rejoined years later in the halls of our school. We’ve reach the point that communication can be conducted primarily through a grin, a glance, or a movement of the eyes.

Tonight I am grateful to have her as a colleague, teammate and friend. 

Gratitude journal: Pink elephant availability

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Tonight I am grateful to the instantaneous purchasing and almost unlimited availability of the Internet.

I’ve been playing a game with my daughter that I call Pink Elephant. As we drive around town, I announcing that I see amazing and impossible things on the side of the road and challenge her to find them as well.

“Look! There are three dolphins having a picnic!”

“Look! A giraffe wearing a tutu!”

“Look! A hippopotamus playing the violin and eating string cheese!”

But the first and most popular of these impossibilities are the multitude of pink elephants that I routinely spot, to which Clara responds, “There are no pink elephants, Daddy!”

So after a recent game of Pink Elephant, I clicked on the Amazon app on my phone, searched on the term “pink elephant”, found one, and ordered it.

It arrived today. When I saw Clara this afternoon, I hid the pink elephant behind my back and announced, “Clara! I saw a pink elephant on the way home from school today!”

“No!” she said, a huge smile on her face. “There are no pink elephants, Daddy!”

“Oh yeah?” I said and then presented the pink elephant to her with a flourish.

She looked stunned for a moment but quickly recovered “That’s not a pink elephant! That’s a baby pink elephant!” Without hesitating, she snatched it from my hands.

Ten minutes later, Clara announced that Baby Elephant and Baby Katie (her favorite doll) are best friends, acting as if Baby Elephant has been living with us all along.

Presenting that pink elephant to Clara was the thing I was looking forward to most today, and the moment did not disappoint. It couldn’t have happened without the rapid availability and accessibility of the Internet.

Gratitude journal: Dancing in the kitchen

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Tonight I am grateful for the ten minutes of after dinner-dancing that my daughter and I did in the kitchen at her bequest. The music, selected by my wife, included Dancing in the Moonlight, Me and Julio Down By the School Year, and Let My Love Open the Door.

Clara loves to dance, and I love to watch her dance. She shrieks with delight as she bounces around the kitchen floor with an enormous smile plastered to her face. 

Regardless of what might have happened during the day, it is unlikely that anything could have topped these ten minutes with her. 

Gratitude journal: Plentiful Easter

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Tonight I am grateful for many things:

Great friends who have a knack of making us feel like family on days like today.

My daughter’s spontaneous and unprecedented sharing of Easter candy during this morning’s Easter egg hunt.

Former students who are willing to build towers, chase cats and play with my daughter without frown or complaint (and maybe even a little joy).

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The solitude of an early morning golf course and a surprising handful of perfectly placed shots in the company of a friend.

Clara’s first foray into baking with her mother.

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Her newfound love for tickling her father.

Gratitude journal: Peanut free Easter candy

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Tonight I am grateful to Tootsie Roll Industries, the makers of Andes Candies and Junior Mints, for specifically stating on their packaging that these products are manufactured in facilities that do not process peanuts.

As the father of a peanut-allergic child who also happens to have a keen awareness of anaphylactic shock, I take this stuff seriously.   

It’s nice to see this company does as well.

Gratitude journal: Four square

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Tonight I am grateful for four square, a game that my principal introduced to the school several years ago that has grown in popularity ever since.

Requiring only a rubber playground ball and painted square, four square transformed recess from a time when children wandered in playground like lost nomads in search of an oasis into thirty minutes of engagement and fun. While not every student plays four square during recess, the great majority do, and it has made the time much more manageable and pleasant for all involved.

I was playing four square with the kids today, hopping from square to square, and I found myself recalling the time when four square was not played at our school.

There was always a kickball game back then, which failed to hold students’ attention because so few players are involved at any one moment. A football game appeared from time to time as well, but it usually devolved from touch into tackle fairly quickly and had to be stopped.

And that was about it. Everyone else was basically a nomad until four square came along.

The world has been a kinder, gentler place ever since.

Gratitude journal: Three good geeks

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Tonight my students competed in my annual science fair.

I was extremely proud of their efforts. Their projects were truly first rate.

In order to determine a winner (a necessity for any science fair), I require expert judges. This year three friends (a physicist, an engineer and a statistician) volunteered their time and and gave nearly their entire evening to my students.

They were enthusiastic, energetic and meticulous throughout the process, even though this meant a commitment of almost four hours.

For two of them, this was their third year serving as judges, so they knew what they were getting into. 

I’d like to think that if I were in their shoes, I would have performed with the same with the same level of dedication, scrupulousness and excitement, but I’m not so sure that I would.

Tonight I am grateful to my three somewhat geeky scientist friends who demonstrated that education, sacrifice and volunteerism remain important parts of their lives. 

Gratitude journal: The denial of ice cream

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Tonight I am grateful that I did not grow up in Park Slope in 2012 where lunatic parents are attempting to ban ice cream trucks from the public parks because saying no to their children is difficult and sometimes makes their children cry.

“Along with the first truly beautiful day of the year, my son and I had our first ruined day at the playground. Two different people came into the actual playground with ice cream/Italian ice push carts. I was able to avoid it for a little while but eventually I left with a crying 4-year-old.”

No parent wants their four-year old son to cry, but if he cries when he is refused ice cream, those tears are a necessary and important part of growing up.

What I hear in this statement is a selfish woman who had her “first truly beautiful day of the year” ruined when her four-year old boy acted like a four-year old boy.

Thankfully, not every parent in Park Slope is an idiot.

One mom — who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being ostracized by other parents — said her friends want an ice-cream ban, but she disagrees.

“People just need to say no,” the mom said while with her son at Prospect Park’s aptly named Harmony Playground. “I say no to him all the time, and I feel his wrath. But he needs to hear that no.”

This mother is right, though why she is worried about being ostracized by a bunch of lunatic parents is beyond me. She should embrace the threat of being ostracized and use her free time to find more intelligent, reasonable friends.

There’s nothing worse than your kid becoming close friends with a spoiled brat.

I had very little growing up. Treats like ice cream were so rare that we learned to never even waste time asking for it. Yet I look back upon my childhood with great fondness. I was a happy child, and I learned how to be happy without the need for material possessions and ice cream.

These children in Park Slope need to learn these same lessons, and yes, learning these lessons can be difficult and even painful at times.

But what’s the alternative? Insulating your child from every possible temptation? Curbing desire by eliminating anything that your child might find desirous?

Tonight I am grateful to have grown up in a place at a time when the happiness of a child and a parent did not supersede the importance of a lesson learned.

Gratitude journal: Location location location

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Tonight I find myself grateful for my location. I live in Newington, CT, two towns over from the state capitol of Hartford and in the relative center of the state.

This positions me about two hours west of Foxboro, MA, home of the New England Patriots, and about two hour east of New York City, the center of the universe.

As a Patriots season ticket holder and an author whose publisher is located in Manhattan, it’s a pretty good location.

Equidistant from these two exceptionally important entities in my life.

My wife and I also have family and friends living in the city, and I find myself driving there with ever increasing frequency for events like The Moth, making our location ever more ideal.  

We are also about ninety minutes south of my in-laws, who make their home in the Berkshires, which means they are close enough to see them fairly regularly but far enough away to prevent the unexpected visit. 

The perfect buffer zone.  

Tonight we drove into the city to celebrate my wife’s grandmother’s 90th birthday. While I do not particularly enjoy driving into the city, especially when the overall drive time exceeds the amount of time I am actually spending at the restaurant with Nana, it’s nice to be able to get there without too much trouble.

Gratitude journal: Surprise

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Tonight I am grateful for the potential for surprise that fills my life as an author. Today my agent informed me that we had received an offer from a French publisher for Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. Just like that, my book will be translated into another foreign language and sold in another country.

I woke up thinking that this would be a relatively uneventful day, but by noon, I was going to be published in France.

Surprise!

Earlier this week I received news from my film agent that a production company has expressed interest in Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. While this means absolutely nothing (both of my other books are currently optioned for film and television but nothing has happened as of yet), this news brings greater possibility to my life.

Surprise!

I also learned this week that the book has entered its fifth printing in the UK and its third printing in Australia.

Surprise!

Admittedly this was an especially surprising week for me, but it’s the possibility for surprise that I find myself especially grateful for this evening. Before publishing my first book, my life was relatively predictable.

Not unhappy, uneventful or unfulfilling, but marked by considerably fewer surprises.

Being an author requires a great deal of patience. Weeks and months can go by without a speck of good news and sometimes some absolutely dreadful news. But knowing that surprises like the ones that filled my week could be just around the corner make the hard work and the endless waiting all worth it.

Gratitude journal: A stolen kiss

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Tonight I am grateful for a stolen kiss, which wasn’t really stolen considering it was requested that I steal it.

After putting Clara in her crib, I asked for a kiss goodnight and she refused, which she does quite often. Instead, she typically latches onto Elysha and cuddles with her while Elysha sings her a song and I turn out the light and leave the room.

As I stood in the doorway tonight, ready to turn out the light, Clara said, “Daddy, come steal a kiss”, a phrase that I use from time to time when sneaking in and kissing her while she is busy doing something else.

It’s one of those moments I suspect I will never forget.       

Gratitude journal: The ticking of the clock

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I find myself struggling to find gratitude this evening.

I left the house at 6:30 this morning and returned at 8:00 this evening, thanks to a day of teaching followed by a series of parent-teacher conferences. As a result, I spent about 90 seconds with my daughter today, who was already in her crib and nearly asleep when I finally returned home. 

I can’t tell you how upsetting this is to me.

And I get to do it again tomorrow.

And I already did it yesterday.

Nevertheless, there were things to be grateful about today.

  1. My conferences went very well.
  2. My students worked very hard throughout the school day.
  3. One of my colleagues is keenly aware of the number of hours that a classroom teacher works during the week of parent-teacher conferences and has done her very best to ease our burden throughout the week, including today. I can’t tell you how much this means to classroom teachers. For this alone I should be supremely grateful.    
  4. I received great news from my agent regarding sales of my new book in the UK, Australia  and New Zealand.
  5. My audiobook publisher sent the audio recording of the first two chapters of my new book, and I loved it.

In truth, there was much to be grateful for today, but the almost complete absence of my daughter looms large over everything else.

So I try to find gratitude for all the good things that have taken place today, but instead, I find myself grateful for every minute that ticks off the clock, for each minute that passes brings me closer to the moment when I can pluck my daughter from her crib and squeeze her again.

Gratitude journal: Daddy

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Tonight I am grateful to be called Daddy.

My daughter is three years old, so Daddy is probably safe for a while, but I know that Daddy will eventually evolve into Dad.

And while Dad is just fine, there is nothing like walking in the door after a twelve hour day of teaching and parent-teacher conferences and hearing your daughter scream “Daddy!” from the back of the house, followed by the scampering of her little feet as she runs to the front door. 

Gratitude journal: The best of friends

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As you may know, my next novel, Memoirs of an Imaginary Fiend, has already been released in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and even places like Dubai and Singapore. Anywhere that my British publisher, Little Brown UK. might ship books.

In the US, however, the book doesn’t publish until August.

Unwilling to wait for the August release, several of my friends have decided to purchase the UK edition of the book, despite the additional cost of shipping from overseas, and despite their assurances that they intend to purchase the US edition as well.

I find these decisions quite humbling.

Tonight, one of my friends received his overseas shipment and sent me this photograph.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the friends that I have in my life.

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