"Just Like You"

Evan, my oldest son, has recently become fond of a very unnerving phrase... "Just like you."
- Look, Daddy, I'm wearing a belt - Just like you!
- Hey, I'm eating a sandwich just like you!
- Grandpa has a hammer, just like you.
- Grant is wearing a red shirt... just like you.

Of course the narcissist proud father in us all loves this stuff. I read in a particularly liberal post-modern maliase of a book once that we all only procreate so that we can stare affectionately at little clones of ourselves. Hopefully that's not true. But, you can't deny that the innocent excitement of that toddler face at being able to aspire to similarity to the giant imposing adult figures in his life is endearing. It is awe-inspiring to watch him grasp at places where he is not one down from the world, not a little person in a world full of bigger and more powerful ones than he.
When our children are born they go through one phase after another of sorting out where they have control. With each new sphere of influence they are overcome with joy that they have more influence of their own destiny than they ever imagined. First, it is movement. My two boys both would awake themselves in the night just to test out the latest abilities of their legs, arms anything that they could control. From there they move to fine motor skills. They stare at their hands in wonder at the thought they can manipulate with those little fingers. Body parts to words (sign language for some) they light up with joy that their mumbled expressions of "More" or "Ball" or "All Finished" can inspire the perfect coordinated action from the godlike figures of mommy and daddy. But as they age into toddlerdom, children become clear that the primary way to exert their will on the world is through equality with those in power over them. Evan has talked for a year about being able to drive when he turns 16. He obsesses over what menial tasks he can do all by himself. And when he finds those things that his autonomy has finally caught up with his intentions, he lords it over the world to remind them that he can do what everyone else can do. He can cut his toast in half... just like you.
I do not fear my sons becoming powerful. In fact, I want them to have a gift I didn't necessarily have, which is the wise council to grow into the incredible power of being a self-determined human being and simultaneously learning how to use that power for good. It is not Evan's autonomy (preceived or real) that keeps me up in the night.
I do fear the object of his aspiration: me. I don't lose any sleep over his hope to wear a tie like me or have a snack like me or sit in the driver's seat like me. Those aspirations are above the table transactions, trades of his childlike innocence for the reasonable abilities of a maturing person. I can attentively give him the tools to acquire more influence over his crayons, his sandwich, his toys, even his own contentment. What is unnerving, and I believe should be unnerving for nearly every parent, are the under-the-table transactions. The just-like-yous they pick up on the open market that we would never sell them. Worthless abilities and personality quirks that we would rather they never obtain, but that they learn despite our best intentions. And they learn them from us.
I'm not talking about the toddler who cries "dammit!" when he drops something on the floor. (I promise he learned that from his mother.)
I'm talking about something more sub-terraneous, more subverse. I'm talking about a different set of just-like-yous...
- Look, Daddy, I'm wallowing in self-pity - Just like you!
- Hey, I'm eating to make myself feel better just like you!
- I have an insatiable ability to judge others, just like you.
- I am wearing several layers of character flaws... just like you.
Every day I wake up consciously aware that as much as I have worked to gain mastery over my small little domain in life, I cannot control the small and frustratingly pervasive flaws that my sons will learn not from the horrors of TV, not from video games, not from those dirty kids at school (although there is one or two that I would really like to have a little private chat with their parents...) but what they'll learn from me. There has become a common joke in my generation that we shouldn't be saving for our kids' college by their therapy bills. And while the self-depricating humor of such a comment is the love language of our age, I think the intent of the comment misses the point. No one goes to therapy for character development. No one goes on Xanex to become a great man. Do you know where they go to do that? Where do little boys and teenagers and twenty-two-year-old lost souls go to to become great men? They go to their dads. It is my prayer beyond words that twenty years from now what I today know as "I'm making my breakfast, just like you!" becomes...
"Daddy, I am exceedingly kind.
I am deeply generous.
I am resilient.
I live with a hope that overrides fear -
Just like you."

Son of the Bride

Things change. People change.

I've had people in both my personal and professional life say to me over the years, "I don't do change." Well, they might as well say "I don't do breathing," or "I don't do bowel movements." Now some people don't do change well, and that's a horse of a different color. My son Evan doesn't do change well. He gets all tied up in knots, throws fits and usually ends of up "not doing bowel movements" just to make a point.

But Evan, like any other human on earth is going to have to sort it out because change happens. Last weekend my mom got remarried. For those of you that don't know, my dad, 2 1/2 years ago, died from a very painful battle with cancer. In the process of that battle my mom (and he at the time) moved halfway across the country to Colorado. After he passed she had the difficult, if not sometimes impossible task, of redesigning a life for herself. In short, she had to invent the most difficult change of her life.

But this little post is not about her. I will leave her to tell her own story. In the lead up to my mom's wedding the question of choice always was, "Are you ok with this? Are you doing alright?" In my usual abrupt style, I tended to throw people off balance with an honest and direct remark that, I have learned, was the opposite of what they were expecting.

"I'm thrilled. This is exactly what she wanted."

"What about you?" they would ask.

"I'm not sure you noticed on the wedding invitation, but my mom getting married isn't about me." I would reply to a confused scowl coming back.

There is no place card at the table for Son of the Bride. There's no slot on the program, no set aside moment for giving a "son's toast." And that is as it should be. A person gets married to begin something new, to change, to set a course yet uncharted. And while everyone carefully selects characters from the past to take with them into their new future (of which Son of the Bride would be an obvious choice) a wedding is not inherently about the past.

A wedding is about that indubitable change. That intake of fresh oxygen and the rush of blood to the cheeks at a bride's first dance.

Carolyn's past is full of many wonderful and important things. Many of which I was a part of. Card parties in Steamboat Rock. Endless Thanksgivings giggling to Grandma's antics at the farm. A long lonely drive from Denver to Iowa to put my dad's body into the ground. Countless Christmas Eve and Easter services sitting in the hard pews of the Baptist Church.

But on November 13, there was no solemn monotone prayer, no linoleum tiles. The days of the past were a distant memory and all that existed was the rosy flush of a bride in her first waltz. On this night there was no hospice, no tears of regret. On this night, all there was was change. And the little Baptist girl from Steamboat Rock danced.

Best Friends?

The Defendant:
Evan Richtsmeier, age 3
Crime: attempted fratricide

The Victim:
Grant Richtsmeier, age 10 months
Proof of the crime: screaming his head off.

Scene 1
Me: "Evan, what did you do to Grant?"
Evan: (remorseful gleeful) "I pushed him."

Scene 2
Evan: "Daddy, Grant's crying in the kitchen."
Me: "What did you do?"
Evan: (proudly) "I was riding him and he fell down."
Proof of the crime: Grant's bloody gums recently face-planted into the tile floor.

Scene 3
Wendy: "Evan let's get out your LEGOs." She walks to the closet to get the LEGO container. Evan starts to voraciously collect rubbermaid tubs and boxes in order to build a bunker worthy of Moammar Quadhafi.
Evan: (screaming) NO!!!! Don't pour them out yet! I haven't finished building my wall so Grant can't touch them."

Scene 4
Pediatrician: (innocent fool who thinks that my son is cute) "Evan, who is your best friend?"
Evan: (without missing a beat) "Grant is!"

I have two boys. And maybe I'm the sucker of the year, but I honestly think they just might be best friends. My youngest son, Grant, gets a Xanax-style dose of happiness just by having Evan in the room. He thinks its funny when Evan comes running at him and pushes him into a pile of pillows. He won't eat his carefully crafted bowl of gummable food unless Evan is eating. My oldest son, Evan, has to be held in confinement in our room every morning so Grant can drink his bottle in peace. There are many mornings where Evan lies in bed next to me whimpering about how he just wants to go see Grant. When Grant finishes his bottle without the interruption of Captain Corrupto, Wendy yells down the hall, "Green light, Evan!" And Evan subsequently goes sprinting down the hall so he can see Grant as if he's never seen him before.

Now it is possible of course that Evan has confused the concept of "best friend" with a very similar concept called "interactive whipping boy." Let's be honest, subtle distinctions are not the traditional arena of three-year-olds. Evan has a room full of stuffed animals, but nothing is so dear to him to tackle, throw across the room, yell right in the face of as Grant. But I think there is good news for Grant on the horizon. And that good news is called: genetics. I think that while Evan pretty much picked up an average build from the gene pool of life. Grant, on the other hand, inherited my freakishly tall torso and Wendy's very long legs, which queues him up to be about 6'9" 280 pounds. Give it about 15 years and things are not going to go well for Evan. I have a feeling you get both these boys past puberty and the scales are going to tip in a very distinct direction...

The Defendent:
Grant Richtsmeier: age 15
Crime: attempted fratricide

The Victim:
Evan Richtsmeier: age 17
Proof of the crime: dislocated shoulder, broken nose, dislodged tooth, and the look of shear joy that can only come from getting beaten up by someone you truly love.

The Scene
Me: "Evan, why is there blood all over the floor?"
Evan: "Cause Grant punched me in the face."
Me: "What else did he do?"
Evan: "I think he dislocated my shoulder and busted one of my teeth."
Me: "Grant, what the hell heck is wrong with you? Why would you beat the crap out of your brother like that?
Grant: "Because he's my best friend."

Pretty/Beautiful

It's pretty here. Probably better than that, it's gorgeous here. Pretty is such a small word. Twenty-two year olds are pretty. In fact I saw two of them just yesterday, sitting by the pool practicing being pretty. The young man post-pubescent boy wonder kept strategically adjusting himself so that his eight pack abs would flash golden in the sunlight. His counterpart (who was deperately in need of a Muslim conversion and a burqa) was wearing a two piece bathing suit which vaguely resembled an elastic belt with buttocks hanging out. I think she may have had some back problems because she kept snapping her shoulders back and thrusting her chest at the boy.

Wendy and I debated how old they were and decided that no matter how old they were, they proved without a doubt how old we were. I asked Wendy at what age a person realizes they are pretty. She pointed at them and said, "That age."

Today, I'm sitting on the promenade of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on the big island of Hawai'i on the last day of Wendy and I's little kid-free getaway. Wendy left last night because she is a better parent than me (let's be honest folks... it's true). All the while, I am giving myself one more fleeting day to catch my breath, have a clear thought and successfully wind myself back up again for the muscular sprint to the end of the year.

It takes an enormous amount of focus for me during this era of my life to think clearly, to concentrate. It took me a good three days here in Hawai'i, for me to calm down long enough to not constantly be wondering about what else I should be doing, what projects were on the verge of thermonuclear self-destruct, who in my little world was next to be dangerously wobbling near the brink. In short, it took me nearly three days to stop managing.

For all practical purposes, managing is what I do for a living. Sure I manage under the auspices of financial planning, but more tha anything I get paid, to keep a system running, to keep the boat at sea, to maintain a steady course. And the sad thing is, it doesn't take much in the way of ideas to manage things. In fact, most days I find that a good idea makes managing more difficult. An idea causes you to question the system, upend the status quo, push the boundaries, acknowledge the quaking fissures steaming below.

I am sitting on an island that exists in all it's splendor because of quaking fissures. volcanic cracks that exploded in dangerous upheavals creating a once-treacherous landscape resembling something like the dark side of the moon. But out of the heat and tumult came this:






Perhaps this is why, every so often a person must stop managing, stop organizing and think. Why a person must sniff around the dark and dank places of one's life or business and consider the impending chaos that brews below. Thinking is not pretty. You can't wrap up concentration in bikini and put it on the cover of Seventeen magazine. But from recognizing the challenging deep around, from the discovery of threatening lava tubes and cracks, can come something beautiful: an idea.

An idea that threatens the safety of situation normal, and with it carries the possibility of an extraordinary day, week, month, year, moment. The solitude and silence required to think, to truly consider, is not pretty. But ideas are beautiful.

"Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way.
I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the
appalling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere."

- A. A. Milne

Rhyme and Reason Reign Once More...

“Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.”

I know.... Posting twice in one day is just setting everyone up for missed expectations later on. So don't get your hopes up, I'm bound to dash them against the rocks at a later date. But I couldn't let today pass without a celebration of something brilliant. The Phantom Tollbooth. I learned today that this brilliant piece of children's literature by Norton Juster is currently celebrating 50 years in print. An achievement by any standard.

But this no random achievement. It is the wide wake of a work of uncommon brilliance that is so rarely seen in our day or any other. For those who don’t know it, the Phantom Tollbooth tells the story of a boy, overcome by boredom and overstimulation and incapable of calculating the immeasurable wonder and wisdom of the world that surrounds him. He is the kind of boy that we have tried to bury in apps and electric guitars and Xboxes in our day, but is all as common now as he was 50 years ago.

In his search for meaning he is whisked away to a land that has lost its meaning as well, trapped between the feuding brothers, King Azaz, lord of Dictionopolis, and his brother the Mathemagician, ruler of Digitopolis. Milo’s guide through this strange world is a watchdog named Tock whose goal is to help Milo know what to do in the face of too much time. Legend has it that the world was once brought to peace and prosperity by twin sisters: Pure Rhyme and Sweet Reason, who have now been banished to a place so mysterious that the skies clap in thunder at the sound of its name: The Castle in the Air.

But this story is more than just the traversal of a bored little boy through a magical land of wondrous creatures. It is the story of what goes wrong in all our worlds when we lose the plot, what happens when we undermine our pursuit of meaning, what succumbs us when we are overcome by the next step and the step after that.

In the end, though I won’t betray the details, Milo learns that his life is rich with meaning and significance. Not in the foolish 21st century way where everyone is special just because they woke out of bed in the morning. No, Milo’s meaning comes from that old wisdom of consuming the marrow of learning, growth and understanding out of every misstep, every moment. It is the realization that one’s way is found not in the light of perfected optimism or carefully manicured safety, but in the risky pursuit of difference-making, mistake-making and a world where the two can, if handled correctly, be one in the same.

If you’ve never read it, shame on you and begin today.
If you haven’t read it in years, do what I’m doing and pick it up afresh.
And most importantly read it to your children. In a world of Twilights and Hunger Games, it may just teach them something more than the importance of their own feelings, their own hungers.

Our world, much like Milo’s, has banished Rhyme and Reason to a distant mythical place, it is perhaps in the sage wisdom of Norton Juster and others like him that we could release them from their occupation and Rhyme and Reason might reign once more.

“And remember, also," added the Princess of Sweet Rhyme, "that many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you'll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”

Opportunism: Halloween Style

So it's Halloween. Worst holiday ever invented. Yes, I know, it's for the kids and they're so cute and blah. My kids are cute in their normal clothes. Most kids are cute in their normal clothes. Many kids are not cute in Halloween costumes. In fact, they just look weird. Plasticky Darth Vader comstumes with no helmet (cause the helmet is hot of course). Furry puppy costumes that shed more than golden retriever. It's ridiculous.

And let's be honest, Halloween is not for the kids. Halloween is for the parents. It's to provide and excuse for proud papas like myself to have one more reason to take ridiculous pictures of their children and post them on facebook so that people can affirm me. I am a 21st century American and I covet your affirmation, particularly through "likes." (And followers... particularly followers. How is one to know that one's blog is witty, charming if one does not have an array of followers?) But I digress, back to the subject at hand. Halloween is (for reasons that I cannot possibly understand) an excuse for perfectly normal well-thinking adults the other 364 days a year to dress up like idiots and parade about using their equally dressed up children as shame-shields to protect them from the honest self-reflection of just how silly the whole thing is.

This is the part where some people reading this starting crying in a rage and tears begin shooting horizontally out of their eyes. It's gruesome to imagine, but what the hell, it's Halloween and gruesome is in style.

I'm not afraid of the rage. Bring on the haters, I say! Bring them on! A friend and coworker of mine (who knows who she is) absolutely loves Halloween. Is practically religious about it. I attempted to cancel the annual Halloween dress-up and potluck at my office this year (the only real use of positional authority I have ever undertaken) and was nearly run out of my office by people in tailored suits and pitchforks. She was in the lead wearing a pirate costume and sporting a particularly menacing sword. Call me nutty but I just think its a little weird for an office of white collar professionals to trade in the suits and ties for an afternoon of warmed over food and awkward costumes. One year a particularly hairy man showed up as a hooker in a belly shirt. I really thought that was going to end it. But, of course, it didn't. Not even a decree from the high office of regional vice president (my office: doesn't that sound important??) could shut down the Halloween frivolity. And that is because Halloween is an opportunity.

It's an opportunity to normally reasonable adults to act out their deeply held fantasy of dressing up like a very large chicken.
An opportunity to convince your boss that while you look like you just rolled out of bed and forgot to shower and get dress and behave like a civilized person, in reality you are dressed up like a "little boy in his PJs." (That's just gross by the way.)
An opportunity to drive down the street to where the houses are larger and they don't know your kids you using your kids as a front can load up on candy at the houses that give away the full sizers.
An opportunity to stand at the street corner in front of your mini van and smile as your kids beg absolute strangers for the most unhealthy food they will consume in the next 30 days.
An opportunity to post pictures of your kids on facebook and make witty comments about them for the benefit of your circle of "friends." (Check! Got that one done yesterday... there is a budding opportunist in us all... even me.)
An opportunity to destroy perfectly good clothes with ketchup and menacing makeup so as to finally achieve the heights of your All Hallow's aspirations: bloody ghoul vampire twilight monster dragon.

And so for a few more hours, I guess we have nothing left to do but to embrace the opportunism. Paint your face green and tie a rope around your neck. Splatter blood down your shirt and practice your most menacing grin. Find a McMansion half mile a way with the lights still on and see how many full-size candies they'll let you take before wondering just how long ago you crossed over through puberty. Rise to the occasion. Celebrate the quintessential value that makes Halloween a purely American holiday: opportunism.

Otherwise you'll have to wait another 365 days before it is culturally acceptable again to take advantage of your neighbors generosity, have an excuse to not clean up your yard for a month, and eat the most transfats you can in the shortest amount of time all in the name of a holiday. Take the plunge while you can friends, cause times like these don't roll around but once a year. It's opportunism time: Halloween style.

Fathering Magazine

Let's call it the American Mothers' Industrial Complex. It is the endless array of products, books, magazines and propaganda directed at the modern day mother to get her to go into more debt than she's ever seen simply based on the fear that she is in fact her own worst fear... she is a bad mother. Now, some might say this is really the American PARENTS Industrial Complex, but I disagree. You see, I am an American Dad. I have read browsed looked at pretended to look at such amazing titles as What to Expect When You're Expecting, What to Eat When You're Expecting, The Baby Book, Birthing From Within, Potty Training Boys, and of course The Sears Baby Book. (And no, that is not the long-form of the SEARS catalog. Let me tell you, that would be a huge improvement. Around our house we heretically call it "The Bible.") And in all of my reading book-collecting I have realized one thing, there are no "parents" in America. There are moms.

Now before my shiny new blog gets egged (What's the e-version of egged?) by the millions of self-assured mothers out there, let me say once and for all, "You are wonderful." No, really. I'm serious. You're fantastic. And we don't say it enough. You're the best. And you don't have to read every book or browse every magazine to prove that you are not your mother. We know you're not your mother, and trust us we, the American Dads, are thankful for it. But I learned something very early on as a parent in this here 21st century. "Parents" is a euphamism for "Moms."

Three years ago when I was a brand new Dad, I thought to myself, "Nick, you are going to do this right. No more screwing up!" So, I set out to be a knowledgeable parent. And like every parent I started in the most logical place: using Parenting magazine as toilet reading. The first couple articles I didn't pay any heed, but as I was about 3 or 4 articles in, something began to get to me. The articles were all written to "parents" but the pronoun in EVERY article was feminine. It was always "she." It didn't take long before I was noticing it everywhere. Not just the pronoun usage but how the entire culture of parenting in America in my generation was focused around mothers.

I'm sure I will have some social/political rant at some point in this blog as to what kind of craziness started this and I'm sure that said rant will include multiple references to liberating women only to enslave them to a culture of expectation and fear, but THIS POST, this post my friends, is warmer and cheerier than that. This post is a happy introduction a glad little tongue-in-cheek homage the sperm-supplying, barf-bagging, catch-playing, home-too-late, tired-too-much, failing-more-than-we-should other sex. This post about Dads. It is for us, the begrudging Mad Men who somehow find ourselves unwinding the dual income households of our parents. We are the wage-earners (barf), bacon-bringers (yikes), pressure-cooked XY-chromosomed, chubby-around-the-edges men who have no magazine of our own. Welcome to Fathering Magazine, readership 1.

Come on, people, you've gotta start somewhere.

I have always wanted to be a dad, but I never knew how. Most days I'm making it up as I go and to be honest I make more mistakes than not. Following me always is the silent ghost of my father, who died to young and taught me only by example. I'm building this plane while I'm flying it people, and I think most of my man-friends are the same. I'm calling you out "Parenting" magazine. I've got your number "Parent-Teacher Conferences." Consider yourself on watch "Young Family's Group." We're on to you, and we know that most of the time people think we'd be better off keeping our suits on and staying at work a little longer.

I'm starting a Movement. I'm calling it Occupy Parenting. Because "parent" is a role my kids need in two varieties. Not just a mom and mom-stand-in. We are the 50%. And we Dads will be Occupying the parenting whether you invited us to or not.

But we would rather not attend the breastfeeding class. Thank you.