Connections

This weekend, Claire created a new game. She asked me to sit at the end of the slide so that she could slide feet first into me.

Each time she plunged into my side, she burst into laughter and I grabbed her sides, started tickling her and buried my face into her neck. She cackled uncontrollably, losing her voice completely sometimes, and she climbed back up the ladder to do the crash course all over again.

It reminded me of how important physical play can be for a child. At lease for Claire it is. She lights up any time she makes physical contact with me, with anyone. She slithers up against me like a cat, wanting to continue that connection for a long time. It's why she loves to rough-house. She throws herself on top of me and rolls around on my torso, like a cat flopping on the floor.

I feel something between us too, too. I'm not talking about sexual attraction, of course. I'm talking about simple human connection, the verification that we are human beings who belong together, that we're safe close to each other. It's more than the feeling I get when I held Claire as a baby or when I hold Paige. It's a synergy, a reciprocal validation -- of love, I guess. It's one reason why I'm eternally grateful we had children. Because it's different than any other feeling I've experienced.

I'm sure it'll stop before she turns 15. But if it doesn't, I won't complain.

My own medicine.

Claire got mad at me today for moving her play-doh off a chair. Somehow, I messed up the play-doh in a way I don't fully understand.

She told me not to fool with her play-doh again."I mean it," she said.

She continued...

Claire: “If you don’t cooperate, I am going to leave.”

Brent: “Where are you going to go?”

Claire: “I don’t know. I will see when I get there.”

Week Two

Spent much of the day watching Paige or Claire or both while mom tended to errands. I was laundry to do, floors to mop, calls to make and dinner to cook. A typical parental-leave day.

On my lone break I went for a run. It was 3 p.m. The sun had an eerie burnt-orange light, as if it was shining through a stained glass window. The day was glorious. Running through Tryon Creek seemed a bit like running through some cathedral of light full of comfort and levitating beauty.

Claire has become an involved three year old. She's her own person now. She speaks in long, complete sentences. She corrects me when I use the wrong word. She jockeys to get what she wants, offering, for example, to put away the cookies so she can sneak a taste of one. She anticipates the impact of some of her actions. She forgives easily. Except when she hits, of course.

Paige began sitting up on the floor. She needs the support of a nursing pillow, but she can stay upright. She likes this view. She falls quiets and focuses on whatever's in front of her, be it a blanket, toy or pillow. It's a new view. Kind of like a run through a park on a fall afternoon.

Day One

My wife's first day back to work in five months. Leaving home for her was nearly as tough as labor. She actually tried to leave three separate times this morning before she actually, physically, departed us.

The girls were good to me. Their mom, before she went to work and while I was out of the room, pleaded with the eldest to treat dad nicely. To cooperate.

"I am cooperating," the eldest said twice today.

She was.

Paige was, too. She fell asleep just as we entered the library for toddler storytime, which Claire ate up. She jumped around. She clapped. She answered the storyteller's questions. Paige, meanwhile, slept like, well, a baby.

Later, at home, they both went down for naps at the same time.

Even later, Claire amazingly followed my directions. I told her to leave me and Paige alone and play outside on the swings. I was trying to quietly rock Paige to sleep at the time.

Not a bad day.

Funny, though. Early this morning, I found myself outnumbered at the park. In several ways.

I took the girls to our favorite greenspace a block from our house. Claire climbed the gym and the rocks. Paige hung out in the stroller.

Soon, three other women each with a toddler came along. All three, it turned out, weren't moms.

They were nannies.

"Oh really," one said to the other. "Which agency did you go through."

"I met the family on Sunday," said another. "They were soooo great. They want me fulltime. And it's great 'cause it pays really well."

At one point, one of the children fell from a rock, scraped her knee and burst into tears. Her nanny didn't see it because she was talking to me.



Later, back home, while she was swinging, Claire told me, "I pushed that girl off the rock."

"You did!?!?" I said, trying not to show my alarm.

"Yes," she said.

"What happened when you did that?" I asked, bending down and looking her square in the eyes.

"She fell down and scraped her knee," she said. "And she cried."

"I'll bet," I said. "That hurt her."

"Yeah."

"What could you have said to make her feel better," I asked.

"I sorry."

"That's right. I wish you would have said that."

"Yeah."

We hugged. She can be a devil. But she's learning to repent.

Why this?

Back at it.

Three years ago I took three months off to spend with my first daughter.

Daughter No. 2 gets me now. Actually, both of them do.

This family leave might not extend 12 weeks. Not enough money in the bank. But I figure with two, the potential for entertaining and enlightening strokes of parenting is almost twice as great.

Thus, this blog. Separate from this one.

We'll see how it goes....