FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATE, MON, MAR 16, 2009:

3:49pm Christian reports: Berkeley (7lbs, 7oz - 20 in - 9.9 Apgar Scale) sends her love to all. She’s now feeding for the 1st time like she’s been doing it her whole life!

***

BACKSTORY:

Two and a half years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting my son, Beckett, for the first time.

As a first time father, Beckett’s arrival in our Ft. Worth, TX hospital delivery room — and his mother, Karla, who did all the heroic work that life-changing day — truly humbled me.  Trying to convey to my own mother on my cell phone a minutes later what it like to see him born and to hold him in my own arms was nearly impossible.  I simply lacked the words.  Tears replaced them as I fumbled to express myself.  Luckily, she understood and let me go back to my wife and son, telling me to give her a call later that night when time allowed me to fill her in more fully.

While photographs have allowed me to ‘remember’ those first few minutes/hours of Beckett’s young life, so much of what took place that afternoon has faded into the funky contours of the human brain, lost to the natural passing of time.  Even the entries I posted on our family blog only hit a few highlights, often written long after they took place.  The sense of the in-the-moment immediacy and wunderlust, however, was impossible to translate…

…until now.

FAST FORWARD:

Two and a half years later, my wife and I returned to the same hospital delivery unit to meet our first daughter, Berkeley.

Since Beckett’s birth, our family blog has magnified significantly from a tepid attempt to semi-privately ‘journal’ a few family moments here and there to the development of a robust hub of digital stories, photos, and videos that are now regularly shared with hundreds of family, friends, colleagues, and strangers around the world.  At last count, we’ve crossed the 2,250 blog post mark…and that was before our daughter’s birth.  We suspect a ‘few’ more will be added, too.

Additionally, we’ve added an iPhone to our tool set, not to mention dualing Facebook accounts for both parents. This means that just-in-time storytelling options have been magnified far beyond the boundaries of what a family blog can pull off.  Seems that blogging is so last status update.

It was only a matter of time before we’d put it all together, letting our family and friends grab a virtual real-time seat with us as we prepared to deliver our daughter via type-n-post Facebook status updates. something that would have been inconceivable not that long ago.

• Ever wondered how you’d tell the story of your child’s birth through the lens of 140-character Facebook status updates?
• Ever wondered what it’d be like to Facebook status update every step leading to, during, and after your child’s birth?
• Ever wonder how such a story would read, one status update at a time?

This is our story, told 140-characters (or less) at at time.

Continue Reading »

“Beckett’s Dad” (aka Christian) still proudly calls himself a “new papa” even as Beckett nears his 2nd birthday this coming September. Christian lives in Ft. Worth, TX with Beckett, his middle school principal wife Karla, and 2 furry dogs (Tucker and Flaco). Beyond being a daddy blogger, Christian’s “think:lab” blog explores the future of learning, emerging technology, and his passion for school architecture/design (which he did professionally before returning to life as a high school English teacher in the fall of 07). Read more about Christian on the Dads page or search for his past posts…

It all started so innocently.

Setting the scene:

Backyard summer afternoon in the suburbs of Chicago while visiting his grandparents. The sun making delightful leaf shadows on the patio. Slightly warmed breezes catching the side of our faces, tempting parents’ desire to take a nap. Toys of all shapes and sizes laying around in much-loved fashion. A kiddo rummaging around with his latest l’object de la curiosite.

Like so many of you parental-types have experienced time and time again in moments just like this, it was a decidely non-moment moment in the bigger course of things. And yet, there his papa was, video camera in hand, filming in a just in case sorta way…

…when things suddenly went a little crazy:

Watch Out For The Wild Beckett (Note: feel free to click the link to see it in the land of YouTube if you can’t see the video above)

In 17 sec home video clip, papa suddenly watched as his kiddo went from

a) inquisitive, calm, quiet, focused, and gently playing to

b) savage, erratic, out-of-control, hungry like a wolf, a bit loony, and the envy of every extra on the set of a Lord of the Flies remake…

…causing papa to back up, back up, run, run, run, laugh, giggle, run, run, laugh some more, run, run, and stay out of the way of those dang toddler chompers until the wild critter of a kiddo…

…showed that underneath that crazed bull of Pomplona ‘guise of his lay a once-again adorable toddler accidentally pulling the curtain back on his poker hand with an unexpected post-attack smile that made things at home good and loving again.

Phew!

***

As I re-watch this video, thinking about how unexpectedly Beckett changed the dynamic of what appeared to be a non-moment moment, it dawns on me that such a video is less about the kiddo than it is about the parent.

Let me explain (although many of you will certainly predict part of the punch-line well in advance).

First, we new parent, 1st-child types have a tendency to read a great deal into every little ol’ thang out kiddo does. Eats a meatball with his left hand one afternoon, and suddenly we’re rushing to the guidebooks to see how many left-handed artists and world leaders have littered the annuls of success in history. Junior begins banging on a drum with at least 3 accurate strikes in a row, and suddenly we’re contacting Julliard instead of MIT for an early admissions packet.

Truth be told, most kids do stuff that doesn’t mean a dang thang. We may see it with the clarity of Nostradomus. That’s our perrogative as a new parent, 1st-child type. But it guarantees nada, zippo, nil.

Second, kids change and change fast. Beckett’s mama is a middle school principal, so she’s well-acquainted with the concept of the changeling (oddly quirky horror/suspense films from the 70’s aside) when a 7th grader comes in wearing a I <heart> Jonas Bros. t-shirt on a Monday only to be supplanted with a Jonas Bros stink like bad cheese headband the very next afternoon. Middle schoolers are by their nature changelings. But so are anonymous toddlers and babies fresh out of the delivery room and donut-lovin’ kindergarteners playing Cat Woman Saves the Day and homeschooled kiddos of some unknown age/grade group. In the case of a toddler bearin’ teeth in the backyard, it’s a good thing to remember…

…especially so you’ll have time to get away unbitten.

Third, that camera is an odd historical record maker. Sure, it catches the non-moment in all its second-by-second glory, but that means little in terms of real history. Instead, it becomes yet another biased nostalgia spinner and new parent, 1st-child type bragging apparatus that muddies the honest truth of childhood in all its glory. Yes, Beckett did move from zeoo-to-sixty on the attack papa speedometer the other day, but then again minus the video of proof it would have been a soon-to-be forgotten blip on the family’s advent calendar of memory. Video means existence? Or does it?

More accurately, it is the what conclusions do you make of the kiddo’s and his papa/mama’s behavior question that should linger. After all, the kid was just being a kid. The parent, however, was entering a whole new territory of post-modern child-raising behind the lens and YouTube upload.

Fourth and finally, I am left thinking less and less about the child’s behavior (odd or adorable makes no difference), and more and more about the culture of parenting that

a) stands on the sideline videotaping every second of junior girl’s mid-week soccer match or junior fella’s awkward flute recital,

b) keeps a camera handy even in non-moment moments like the one above just in the random chance that papa will have to dodge an erratic growler once known as his lovely baby boy, and

c) what it all means when we new parent, 1st-child types then go on to blog about it all.

And perhaps it is that last point that makes me wonder more than all.

As a blogger who has been writing/uploading for more than 4 years now — 2 of which have included the impending arrival of and eventual life evolution of his son Beckett — the cultural implications of gestalt, scattershot blogging is still something of a wild card at the life poker table for me.

What started innocently as a digital for the grandparents project by blogging stories, photos, and videos of a grandchild that lived many states away from his elders has naturally morphed into something larger, more curious, and with greater Google link potential.

Today 22 month old Beckett’s own blog has a readership that extends well beyond the boundaries of family and close friends. Likewise, his papa is now blogging about the act of being a parent with a group of other like-parent-blogging-minds here at This Mommy Gig. All of which means that for Beckett, childhood can’t help but resemble The Truman Show a bit at times, full-fledged digital:native or not.

As to what that will mean in the years to come, I’ll tell you when we get there.

Or you can just watch the videos and draw your own conclusions.

~This is the first post by one of our dad contributors - Christian Long. We welcome these great guys willing to share their side of the parenting story once a week!~

“Beckett’s Dad” (aka Christian Long) still proudly calls himself a “new papa” even as Beckett nears his 2nd birthday this September.  Christian lives in Ft. Worth, TX with Beckett, his middle school principal wife named Karla, and 2 furry dogs named Tucker and Flaco.  Beyond being a daddy blogger, Christian’s “think:lab” blog explores the future of learning, emerging technology, and his passion for school architecture/design (which he did professionally before returning to life as a high school English teacher in the fall of 07). Read more about Christian on the Dads page………….

Standing on the front lawn of the house the other night after putting wee Beckett to bed, I stood proud in papa land one week before my 2nd Fathers Day. This was one of those moments. Adeptly shifting from reading Richard Scary segments to my toddler one minute to tackling the lawn before sunset the next, I felt the very definition of the father archetype. Something 50’s television would be challenged to improve.

Well, save for that pesky lawn. And an equally pesky lawn mower.

Grass blades – normally short enough to keep the neighborhood landscape police at bay – had run a bit wild as of late thanks to a lawn mower with a faulty starter. In other words, no matter how long I stared at the lawn, it wasn’t getting any shorter. And the neighbors certainly weren’t going to be able to play pretend much longer. Thank goodness my kid was too young and too asleep to be embarrassed.

At least for the time being.

Eventually, a solution whispered my name. Seemed only logical to dig out the electric weed whacker from some dark corner of the garage. Figured, hey, at least I could trim the walkway & garden edges. This would allow me to fake it for another few days, keep the neighbors from gawking, pretend the 6 inch high island of grass spanning the width of the lawn was merely a trick of the eye.

With the pathway edges trimmed crewcut tight, I began to sweep the weed whacker’s blade further and further into the inner circle of the wave of unmowed grass. With each pass, the impossible suddenly became possible: the lawn was in fact being ‘mowed’, although by a decidedly incorrect tool.

Since the ‘mowing’ took decidedly longer than normal – thanks to having to rely on 2 spinning plastic cords rather than the full-on power of a Honda multi-stroke engine – my mind had plenty of time to wander. And wonder who was watching.

And it struck me:

This act of mowing the lawn in broad daylight with an electric weed whacker – both front and back, mind you – seemed the perfect metaphor for being a parent.

Here’s my thinking:

1: The Neighbors Are (In Fact) Watching:

Being a parent means exposing our greatest mistakes/weaknesses in public.

Whether bared on our front lawn as the kiddo jumps naked in and out of the blue plastic kiddie pool or while trying to explain why the young one is eating sand-covered raisins after spilling their snack cup at the playground, we parents are nothing more than a mis-cut construction paper scrapbook of social foibles waiting to be gossiped about by best friends and strangers alike.

Part of becoming comfortable as a parent of a little one, I’ve learned, lies in becoming Paris Hilton comfy with this public scrutiny. Sure, we may feel the hot gaze of a posse of strolling grandmothers when we fail to dress our sons/daughters in legitimate Sunday best as we rush out the door to church, but there’s a pretty fine chance that those same pursed lipped grannies long ago once handed their young charges rush-made mayonnaise sandwiches when they realized they had run out of lunch meat as the school bus pulled up.

Best thing we can do is to smile at our public watchers with something just shy of overt paparazzi-be-danged bravado, faked like a master thespian nailing well intended lines in front of a testy audience. Call it exhausted parent wishful thinking or a humble acceptance of our small part in the great human drama. Either way, our kids will do just fine if they head to daycare with their pants on inside out. It’s the nature of the new parenting beast.

And we might as well have an audience along the way.

2: Choosing The Wrong Tool for the Right Job:

Lately, my son has taken to calling butter (to be spread on his English muffins) as “mama cheese”. This grew out of a craving for more Laughing Cow cheese one recent morning when he demanded that my wife hand over the butter dish she was using. To his young eyes, her butter looked like his cheese. Logical. She merely shifted his attention by claiming it was “Mama’s”. He bought it. Butter has been known as cheese every since.

Like this odd on-the-fly rephrasing of basic dairy items, much of our 21 month experience as new parents can be described as using weed whackers to mow lawns.

Sure, we bought all the right new baby gear the books and endless baby shower guests suggested, from the odd Diaper Genie to to the silly intercom system we’ve never used to special pacifier clips ultra easy to re-attach in a pitch-black bedroom when infant cries robbed precious parent sleep. But we also have been faking it most days:

• Letting him use his sidewalk chalk on our lawn furniture rather than pull out the official Crayola paper.
• Reading Christmas storybooks in June because its easier than looking for something else.
• Calling all forms of water – whether a pool, a bath tub, a park fountain, or even cold toothbrushing faucets – “bubbles” because we’re too tired to figure out the language nuances he’ll grasp at this stage of the game.

It is, after all, our god given right as new parents to use the kids shirt sleeve to wipe his nose even if we could walk down the hall to get a fresh hankie.

And you ain’t gonna stop us, no matter what the perfect parenting books say.

3. Ingenuity is Everything:

There are 3 things we try to do every morning before tucking Becket into his car seat for the daily ride to daycare.:

1. Peek into his bedroom several times without interrupting the wee one throwing a mini-tantrum in his crib as he attempts to shake the effects of sleepyhead.
2. Ask Beckett to help feed the dogs, letting him pour the coffee cup full of dry kibbles into the bowls one by one before he goofy-walk carries them over to the official ‘spot’ where both furry ones settle in for mealtime.
3. Try to figure out what bowl – blue one, red one, white one? — he wants to pour “O’s, O’s, O’s” in (aka “Fruit-flavored Cheerios”) for the morning breakfast ritual with papa.

Lately, however, we’ve added a bit of a Vegas gamble to the picture:

Have kid stand on a ladder and play with a live blender.

What? Yup. Just ‘cause we like to keep our new parent selves on our toes. Gulp.

More accurately, with mindful eye, we have tried to integrate the tiny bugger into our quest for a healthy adult breakfast. You see, Beckett remains uber-fascinated by everything we do on the kitchen counter, which as you can imagine lies well beyond his convenient eye-scan given his sub-2 year old height. Cleverly, he figured out that the kitchen step stool could solve part of the problem. We thought it was well hidden between the fridge and another counter. He proved otherwise. And that meant that if mama/papa were going to make fruit smoothies, he was gonna fight to get his fingers on the blender buttons where the real action lay.

I’m not sure Dr. Spock had a when sharing the blender with junior chapter in his famed parenting texts.

I do, however, know that with safe mentoring and a teflon belief that there’s nothing with supporting the kid if he only wants to learn/mimick real world behaviors, there is no reason why Beckett can’t be part of the morning smoothie team. Not only does it ensure he willingly sips strawberry/banana concoctions, but it also means a potential tantrum morphs into a giddy-faced toddler raring to go to school. And if a bit of ingenuity at the kitchen counter is risky, the risk is IMHO worth it.

Unless someone has a nanny they’d like to donate!