Under the Table and Dreaming (or navel-gazing on New Year's Eve 2008)

Should I or shouldn't I publish this post? That's something that I've been struggling with since I wrote it back on New Year's Eve. On the one hand, no one could possibly be interested in this type of navel-gazing (to cite the title of this post). On the other hand, my dedicated readers like full access to all of my ruminations. Nay, they demand access to those ruminations. And someday I'll look back on this post and think about how young I was at 36.

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I started feeling old around 1:00 yesterday afternoon. The Philly relatives are planning to come down to D.C. for the Georgetown-UConn basketball game, but because they want to attend the womens game, which led to some initial confusion on our end, we need to pick up the tickets at the box office on campus. While the Hoya men play at the Verizon Center with tickets sold online, the women continue to play at McDonough Arena on the campus with tickets only sold on site. Incidentally, it's going to be a slaughter - UConn playing G'town in womens basketball is like the best team in the country playing a high school team. Oh well, at least we spanked them this past week in mens b-ball.

In any case, Maddie and I headed over to buy tickets yesterday after lunch. It was a stunningly sunny day as we trudged down O Street towards campus. In general, we don't spend much time west of Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. For one thing, it's dirtier, more crowded, and louder over there than on our side of the neighborhood with lots of students and their messy trash cans crowding the sidewalks. More importantly, I tend to get a little weirded out when walking through my old college haunts, constantly seeing carbon copies of my twenty-year-old self. Luckily, the school is on break, so Maddie and I had a peaceful, student-free walk through the campus to the box office. On that walk, we passed through the main quad, by the library, and down the road past my old dorm where I looked up and unsuccessfully tried to figure out which window was my freshman room. After finding the box office closed, we wandered back through old paths that I took numerous times during my college years, marveling at the new construction. It was simultaneously striking how much things had changed, but how much was just as I remembered it from back in the day. Maddie and I walked back home, sans tickets, with thoughts of how, at the end of college, the world is spread out before you like a blank slate just waiting for you to make your mark. Not that one has regrets, but one naturally wonders what could have happened differently with different decisions. Hell, rather than working for the Board, I could've made a mint at Lehmans and helped bring down the world. That's probably not better, but it would've been different.

Last night, a colleague of mine from work posted a playlist on his Facebook page comprised of songs that his research assistants suggested. The list included a bunch of old bands, like the Clash, but what really caught my eye was the inclusion of Joy Division. They were a late '70s punk/new wave band whose career was cut short by the suicide of their lead singer back in 1980. "Geez," I posted on John's page, "Were any of your RA's even alive when Joy Division was?" "Nope," he replied, "But you have to admire their knowledge of and enthusiasm for that era." A historical study for them, but I remember listening to Joy Division and the Clash in middle school. And listening to the old, but cool, bands like the Doors. R.E.M. was an underground, college band, while U2 had just started to break through.

Today, Abby and I took the kids to daycare where we offered Margaret the opportunity to stay home with Papa, which she declined in favor of Power Tots (her toddler gymnastics class) and Show-and-Share (her show-and-tell event at school.) I dropped Abby at work and headed out shopping to see if the stories of outrageous sales in our recession-bound economy were true. While waiting to pick Abby up afterwards, I flipped between radio stations. Q101, the "alternative rock" station from my earlier years in D.C., and 107.3, a "mix" station that plays "hits from today and yesterday." In both cases, I was struck by how many songs they played from the early '90s. Q101, which ostensibly is still a "hip" radio station, was particularly dominated by grunge and descendants of grunge. I sat there and listened to Pearl Jam ("Betterman") and Blind Melon ("No Rain"). About halfway through the latter song, I started thinking about how old the songs really are. At least 15, and perhaps almost 20, years each. In some part of my mind, I still think of these as "new" songs, but they're really no newer than the Monkees song ("Pleasant Valley Sunday") that I heard on the official "classic rock" station.

Music is an interesting thing. In some ways, it can take you back to the time when you heard the songs. Makes you feel young again, as if things haven't really changed all that much. At the same time, however, it can make you realize how far back that time actually was. So, I sat there in the car, thinking about how the "Big Chill" and "thirtysomething" were attempts to tie the Baby Boomers back to their past through music, although the Boomers are now collecting social security, and wondering about what would be the equivalent retrospective for Generation X. Perhaps it's Q101.

To celebrate New Year's Eve, we headed to First Night in Alexandria with some friends and their daughter. Although there were tons of venues with all sorts of interesting acts, we were confined to the kid-friendly shows at the Jefferson-Houston School for Arts and Academics on Cameron Street. There, Margaret got an excellent balloon ladybug from a clown and danced to Mister Don, while Teddy lumbered all over the place. The kids had a great time while we had fun hanging out with our friends and marveling at the chaos associated with kids.

During an intermission in Mister Don's kids act, we headed next door to watch a young band in the school auditorium. They had a saxophone and a violin in addition to the standard bass, guitar and drums. My initial thought was, "These guys have some sort of Dave Matthews thing going on." In fact, the second song they played was "Dancing Nancies" from the Dave Matthews cd "Under the Table and Dreaming" (hence, the title of this post.) I sang along to show Abby that it was actually a song. Looking around, I saw a middle aged woman also singing while all the teenage kids stood with blank expressions. Later, they played "Runaround" by Blues Traveler, which Margaret and I again danced around to, along with the other older folks in the room.

Upon getting home, I busted out my old Dave Matthews cd's, having been put in the mood to listen to them by the band. I was struck by two things. First, in the cd cover, the Dave Matthews Band listed a P.O. Box to join their fan club. Think about that. Although the cd was put out in 1994, that was so long ago that the internet didn't exist enough for a band to have a website. They were still using P.O. Boxes. Second, as I told Abby, I was once able to play a bitchin' version of "Satellite" on the guitar. No more, however, as my guitar skills, bitchin' or otherwise, have long since departed.

As befits an exciting New Year's Eve with kids, the night culminated with me putting in a set of early '90s cds - Live, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and the Spin Doctors in addition to Blues Traveler and the Dave Matthews Band - to revel in that music while writing this post.

On the one hand, all of this makes me feel old. I'm convinced, based on listening to Q101, that music hasn't really progressed since the mid-90s, but I suspect that's because I'm just fundamentally out of touch. And a New Year's Eve at home eating a frozen pizza, as we ended up doing, just doesn't seem that fun. While at CVS, I spotted some couples dressed to the nines, obviously heading out for exciting times. In contrast, I was paying for our frozen pizza and trying to keep Margaret from disassembling the candy rack.

At the same time, Margaret had this enormous grin on her face while prancing around to Mister Don. Unlike the other kids who tend to walk around with blank expressions, Margaret has this big grin that she puts on during such events, like she did at her Xmas pageant at school. We see it and, despite our natural parental bias, I'm sure that everyone else picks up on it as well. She just looks like she's having a blast. And everyone smiled at Teddy as he cavorted around, shaking the various musical instruments that he managed to pick up or trying to grab (and likely pop) other kids' balloons. So what if we were listening to Mister Don sing a bad version of She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain? I sang a better version on the way home in the car, and I think that Margaret appreciates my singing much more than she does that of Mister Don or anyone like him. And Margaret loved the frozen pizza. Which really is all that's important.

Another Christmas in Connecticut

We just returned from our trip to Connecticut for Christmas. The important stuff (i.e., the pictures) are included below. But the brief summary is as follows.

It snowed a lot the days before and after our arrival. Margaret and Teddy had fun in the snow, although we spent almost as much time getting them prepped and out the door as we did actually playing in the snow. Which is pretty consistent with my recollection of snow days as a kid.

Abby and I then deserted the kids for few days to head into New York City where we hung out with Eleanor. A lot of fun (esp. being sans kids), but I don't think that I could live in NYC at this point in my life. Too dirty, too crowded and too expensive. But it's a nice place to visit. Although it was cold. Damn cold.

Margaret enjoyed all of the hoopla associated with Christmas including making cookies and opening presents. In fact, she really seemed to grasp the gestalt of the whole event as it's defined on her mother's side of the family. She did get worn out by the excitement of opening presents on Christmas day with the initial excitement about opening each present eventually replaced by a desire to immediately play with each one.

Compared to last year when he was just a blob, Teddy was naturally more involved in the whole scene, but he was primarily interested in playing with the wrapping paper and, more generally, creating havoc. He's a walking disaster at this point, and I would just complement him with a "Good job, boy!" as he found something new to pound on.

Our drive back was fraught with delays as we ran into bad traffic throughout New Jersey and Maryland. But we sang Beatles songs and showtunes for the kids which kept them happy, for the most part, until they eventually fell asleep.

Merry Christmas!

Margaret took part in her first Christmas pageant today at daycare. For the past few weeks, she's blasted out tortured versions of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Often, she has sung them while we're walking home. She has especially liked to yell "Hah, hah, hah" after the line "Used to laugh and call him names" in the Rudolph song. And she has enthusiastically yelped "Hey!" at the end of the line "One horse open sleigh" in "Jingle Bells."

People that we've passed on the street have seemed to think it's funny, especially since Margaret has been sitting in the bottom seat of the stroller lately so they haven't been able to see the source of the little voice spouting these songs until they've passed us. But it's been like a broken record for me, although it does keep her from moaning, another favorite pastime during the walk home.

In any case, Margaret was very excited about the show. Once they came out to perform and she spotted us, however, she collapsed into tears. One of those "I'm a baby girl" episodes that she's exhibited lately. It took a while to get her back with the group, but we eventually managed to do so, and she was happy enough once we did. Funny thing but, after all of the practice in the stroller and at home, Margaret appeared to forget the words when the time came to perform. She couldn't even really manage a "Hah, hah, hah" or a "Hey!" at the appropriate points. But we couldn't really fault her as all of the other kids seemed to suffer from similar stage fright.

Early Xmas photos

We got our Christmas tree over the weekend. Margaret and I decorated it while Teddy tried to pull down the ornaments until he was banished to his bed. We also tried to take some photos for our Christmas cards, but we weren't very successful, as you'll see in the photos below.

"It's just very frustrating..."

During our recent trip to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, a number of my dedicated readers admonished me for playing favorites. "He's a good boy," they said about Teddy. "Just look at him go! Even if he's getting in trouble, it's nothing personal."

Before getting into the important substance of this post, a few of notes about our trip to Cleveland. First, Abby, Teddy and I visited the "Christmas Story House" where we were photographed in front of "a major award." Frankly, the visit wasn't worth the $7.50 we each paid for admission, but I suppose that, as Abby said, we can at least say we've done it. Second, I got a number of comments, and read numerous angry columns in the Cleveland newspaper, about how the Feds refused to bail out some Cleveland bank and instead gave money to some Pittsburgh bank that was used to buy that Cleveland bank. What's funny (sic) is that a colleague of mine who spent the holiday near Youngstown got reprimanded in a similar way by his relatives. Upon returning to DC, his impression was that Ohio is a really depressed (and depressing) place. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but some people there certainly are bitter.

In any case, back to the subject of this post. Despite the fact that I praised Margaret and slandered the boy in my last post, since our return, Margaret has repeatedly done her best to tick us off. She has become, almost overnight, incredibly petulant, often about completely trivial issues.

An example. One of her recurrent complaints involves getting an insufficient number of some food item. Margaret wants a certain number of fig newtons or olives or croutons, and so on. Specifically, she wants FIVE of whatever she's been given, and she holds up her hand, with fingers spread, to indicate how many she wants. (What's really ironic is that she often doesn't bother to check whether or not she actually has five of the relevant item.) These foods tend to appear either before dinner or as a post-dinner treat. In the former case, we'd like her to hold out for more stuff until dinner. In the latter case, how can she complain about how much dessert she's getting? But she's very adamant about needing five! So she starts to wail at which point we try to explain, in vain, how she can't have more. Perhaps we're being too stubborn, but it inevitably deteriorates to the point where we're threatening either to take away the food that she has (which elicits more howls) or to give her a time out in a chair or her bed (which gets a similar response.)

This type of stubbornness, often accompanied by wailing, has occurred in lots of situations since we've gotten back from Cleveland (e.g. her clothes, who dresses her, what shoes she wears and so on.) I start by trying to reason with her, often by pointing out the unimportance of the relevant issue. No luck. Then I try to ignore her or move on to something else. This occasionally works, but often doesn't (and it can be hard to ignore her as she dials up her crying.) Next, I move on to arguments about how things could be worse, noting how unpleasant she's being. Again, no luck. We eventually escalate to the point where I start making threats (e.g. time out in bed, food taken away.) At that point, we're done. She's howling, I'm completely pissed off, and no one is being very rational anymore.

A few months ago, a neighbor across the street dropped off a few books about toddler behavior problems. In the past, I haven't been too keen on consulting those types of books. They tend to involve impractical advice that, frankly, doesn't apply to my perfect little daughter. And, in any case, my parenting skills are such that I can deal with any problems that arise. Tonight, however, after Margaret basically missed dinner due to a completely pointless meltdown about how many croutons she had, I told Abby, "You know, we may want to take a look at those books that Donna gave us." It would appear that the terrible twos have made a belated appearance at our house. To illustrate that it's not just me, Abby later commented, after recovering Margaret from a time out in her bed, "It's just very frustrating..."

As for the boy, he's been getting up at 4:30 in the morning lately which isn't ideal, but at least he goes back to sleep once we bring him into bed with us. And he's displaying a good sense of humor and good belly laughs that are much better than the petulant wails of his sister.