Crying in the Shower

Upon realizing my selfishness regarding getting my wife a neck pillow while our son slept fitfully and ate even less, another set of interesting, and selfish, events occurred.

During Christmas of that year, our son, who was only about 8 weeks old and screaming incessantly each and every day, was making our lives more and more difficult. We were both working and it became clear that both of us were beginning to work harder and harder at not coming home early to have to take care of him. There was something missing from both of us: compassion. I remember standing there asking out loud, "What's wrong with him?" and my wife saying, "How should I know?" Thus, the first lesson in eliminating selfish parenting: You won't know what's wrong with your infant when he/she's screaming. They can't tell you and you'll never really guess. It could be anything, but most of all, if it happens all the time, it could be colic. If it's colic, begin by telling yourself "This isn't personal. My child isn't doing this to make me crazy, reduce my free time, kill my sleep patterns, anything else." Realize that you've just signed up for the most difficult job on the planet: You're a parent now. Your work issues, your relationship issues, all of that stuff is nothing compared to becoming a parent. Let your frustrations go with your children because they will only carry over into every other aspect of your life and ruin your demeanor everywhere. Let it go.

Christmas Day year 1. At my parents house, after getting three or four hours of sleep, our son would not stop screamining. Again. Christmas Day. And we're very tired. How could he need to eat every 90 minutes? Hadn't we just fed him? At this point we had shifted him to the bottle and milk because the recommendation from the pediatrician was to do so because he might not be getting enough from mother's milk. ("That'll be $95.") But we were in the same situation with the screaming. And it just kept up all day long. My parents, bless them, said to us, "Take a nap. We'll take care of him." Forty-five minutes later, the screaming started again. And wouldn't stop. And there was no room in their house that was not pierced by the sound. We got up. We decided that he was probably as tired as we were, so we tossed him in the back of the car and went for a ride. Forty-five minutes later we were still listening to screaming and things were not improving. By six that evening, our son had had enough. And he crashed out in his car seat. And we were left in peace for the first time that whole blessed day. But all we wanted to do was sleep.

The day after Christmas was exactly like Christmas Day. Screaming and more screaming. Something was obviously wrong, but not just with him, with us, too. We were ragged, angry, raw. Our emotions were spilling over and we just didn't know what to do anymore. This parenting thing was really not working out. And then a voice of reason, my wife's mother, spoke to us, "Why not take him to the doctor? His belly's distended. I think he's got really bad gas." We took him to the doctor. He had bad gas. He was allergic to cow's milk. We shifted him to a different formula. Things began to improve. But on that day, after all we'd been through, we were unable to diagnose our son's distended stomach. All we knew after the beatdown was his screaming. We saw nothing else.

If this is happening to you, realize that if you know nothing else and have quit thinking, "What could the issue be?", you're where we were. And you may be shutting down your capacity to care because you're simply tired of the situation. Resist the urge. Let the sound go. Keep thinking about what the issue is. Be a detective. When you can't take it anymore, when the sound is coming through and strangling you, put your baby down in a safe place and walk away for 10 minutes. Let the sounds reverberate in another room. Get your head together. Let those earlier thoughts about shaking the baby go. But don't forget that when 10 minutes is up, you need to face reality. And facing reality as a parent can be a daunting task.

A few days after that Christmas, I was talking with a perfectly selfish friend of mine, who's daughter was born 10 days before our son. He was frazzled. His whole world had collapsed around his ears. "I was standing in the shower yesterday morning, just crying, saying out loud, 'What have I done?'" He would become one of the better parents I know. But at that time, that moment, the feeling was mutual. And that's selfish. Your life is going to change when you have children, no matter what. You signed the contract, now you must live up to it. Get over it. If you think you're still going out with your buddies on Thursday nights until 1 am, begin to consider another night and another time to come home. Because you'll be very unhappy when your wife kills you. You don't have to give up your time. You just have to find places to sneak it in. The same goes with your relationship. If you're having sex all the time before the baby and the well suddenly goes dry for the next year after the baby comes, don't blame the baby. It might just happen. This side effect, no matter what anyone says, is common. Your personal relationships will change. They have to. You're no longer the big fish in the small pond. Though your child can't tell you you're not going out Thursday nights, that child can certainly scream it to the point of understandability.

This is critical: It is not personal. Your child did not come into this world with the goal of ruining your life. Embrace the changes. Work with them. Modify your world to work. It's more rewarding than harboring anger and resentment that you can no longer get your 1 hour of "me" time each and every day. And if you think it's bad for you, think of your spouse. Talk about the changes. Be honest in realizing how it's affecting you both.

Last thing: Your finances will change. That 1984 Porsche in the 3rd garage? Get used to spending less time babying it, less time driving it, and don't rule out needing to sell it. You've got a college to fund. Don't be a jerk.

The Selfish Only Child Parent

This is the first of a series for a book I'm writing. The title of the book will be the title of this blog.

This book is for every parent with a small child. It will be for every parent who ever felt like screaming, while their child was throwing a fit in the theater/hardware store/grocery store, et al, "Why me?" Here's the net-net (I hate that term) of the book: Selfish people make bad parents. But there's hope.

I should know. As an only child and one prone to being internalized and focused on everything being about me, the transition to father from husband was traumatic, to say the least. Here's an outline of what I'm going to write about:

What's selfish?
What's a selfish parent?
How do you know if you're a selfish parent?
Examples of a selfish parent
Coming to grips with being a selfish parent
The selfish parent and discipline
The selfish parent and playing with your kids
The selfish parent and bedtime
The selfish parent and meal time
The selfish parent and eating out
The selfish parent and running errands or shopping
The selfish parent at the movies
The selfish parent of 1 or more children
The selfish parent wondering what they've done to their life with the birth of their first child
Creating a selfish parent support group
The selfish parent and the pool
The selfish parent and the holidays
Why the selfish working parent always seems to work late
Why the selfish parent is constantly appalled or embarrassed for no good reason at all
The selfish parent during pregnancy
Getting back some of the selfish parent's "me" time
Why the selfish parent thinks "strong-willed" children and consequential parenting is crap
Coping with another child when you're sure the first was to be the death of you

There's more. Lots of it. And none of the above is in any particular order. It's a matter of putting down all the notes I have and letting things fall where they may. Hell, if two people can write a book about guys being "not that into you" and have women around the country suck it up like cocaine at a frat-house initiation, then why can't I write this book?

Let's start with something really basic: I understand why people shake their kids. I don't condone it. It's just not right. But I understand why they do it. Life is difficult. Kids can make it that much more difficult, especially when they're infants. When our son was born my wife decided to give breastfeeding a shot. She was a trooper. She stuck it out. She just didn't feed our son enough to fill him up. On top of that, he was colicky. Our pediatrician never came out and told us this until he was almost 4 months old and it had, for the most part, passed. This is when I almost killed her.

This is why I want to be a pediatrician. See if you recognize this exchange at the peds office:

You: "My son's nose is running and running and he's had a 100-or-so temp for 4 days. Is there anything we can do? Is it a sinus infection or something else? Do you have any recommendations?"

Pediatrician: "It's a virus. There's nothing to give him. It'll have to run its course. $95, please."

Now it doesn't work exactly that way, but it sure seems like it does.

Our son 1) wasn't getting fed by his mother, bless her heart 2) he was colicky 3) he was two weeks early and a bundle of nerves. We were sleeping very little (my wife even less than me). Here's the sleeping arrangement: At night we'd trundle up to our room, me carrying the rocker and my wife gingerly carrying our son, praying he'd not wake up and start screaming. I'd place the rocker next to the bed, she'd place herself in it preparing for his next feeding, and I'd go to sleep. When he would wake, he'd scream bloody murder. I'd wake up, see if my wife was okay, stay awake a minute or two, and then go back to sleep. This was happening every 90 minutes or so throughout the night. Here's how bad it became: At one point, in a delirium, I said to my wonderful wife, "You know, I should look into getting you one of those neck pillows while you're in the chair." To which she replied as lovingly as possible, "No you idiot. We need to figure out how I can sleep in our bed again." Never had she been as clear in the months following our son's birth. Never had I felt like such a schmuck.

Talking Turkey

Effort. Today's word is effort. Effort is what you or others put into what they do, they think, or how hard you or they work to understand something, someone, or a concept. Effort is lacking, half-hearted, or whole. Rarely do we get 62% effort unless we're measuring machine or on-time efficiency.

Work relationships are about effort. We all work with people we don't necessarily like. Those we don't like have poor grooming habits, cuss in inappropriate situations. or have any variety of disappointing features about them. But we learn to work with them. They don't have to be our friend. As a matter of fact, they are rarely our friends. That's why we call them co-workers. When your co-workers become your friend, you have developed something special indeed. This entry isn't going to whether that's a good thing or not.

As I mentioned yesterday, the analogy I'm using for my involvement in my current company is, "The engineer in the art class." When you put the detail-oriented, process-focused engineer in the art class, the rest of the students are justifiably concerned. Will he make me use a process that limits my creativity? I won't have to have a pocket protector, will I? Do I need to sharpen my pencils just so? Will I be limited by a color palette I don't like?

This is my dilemma. As much as the engineer tries to get across his abilities and how they can work within the art class, the more resistance, the lack of effort. Distance is threatening. So is process. The mantra becomes "We can't/don't..." instead of "How do we...?" And, because like any organism that feels attacked or threatened, the organism is lashing out with no explicit attempt to understand or include. Instead, the engineer is viewed as a threat, an intimidator.

How do we win in these environments? How does the engineer introduce concepts that are non-threatening without kowtowing to the "but we don't do it that way" mentality, thereby compromising what is the core being of the engineer? Throw distance into the mix and the equation becomes that much more complicated. I'm in one city; the rest of the team in another. I am nothing but an outpost, an aggravator with scary ideas.

And it comes back to effort. To this point, it has been my effort that, successful or not, has been in evidence. And the feedback to my effort has been that I am intimidating, threatening. Personality styles aside, it appalls me that so little effort is made by adults to continue learning and challenging themselves with concepts that they don't understand. The mentality of those who reject certain thinking or presentation styles of new thinking because it is intimidating is as abhorrent as the Salem Witch Trials. "I don't understand you; thus you are a witch! Drown her!" If this were the prevailing thought of the 19th century we'd still all be behind a plow 14 hours a day.

Effort. Challenge. These concepts are part of what is often described as "the comfort zone". And once we're in it, we need a massive attack to force us out of it. But after we've stepped out, had our toes crushed, but learned from it, we begin to grow our zone or at least be less afraid of something that challenges our comfort boundaries. And so, the engineer in the art class.

It is not the responsibility of the engineer to explain the process in a vacuum. The art class needs to work just as hard to explain what they're creating and how they're doing it. There is no one-way phone conversation, just as there cannot be understanding until both sides explain and complements developed. The engineer can learn from the art students as much as the art students learn from the engineer.

It comes down to effort. Make some. It's really worth it.

What This Blog Will Cover

For those of you who have hit this blog wondering what I'm going to blog on, welcome. For the rest of you, welcome anyway.

There are lots of things to write about. And I've got plenty of opinions on lots of things. This is what makes blogging great. But I'm already off topic.

I'm going to talk about whatever hits me in the head. I may be at work, at home, or on the road. A little about me: I'm approaching 40. I have a wife and two kids (5 and 1). I own a very nice home. We earn an excellent living. It took me 34 years to figure out what I wanted to do with myself when I grew up, and I'm still modifying that concept, almost daily.

I consider myself a social liberal but a fiscal conservative. For reasons of employment sanity I don't talk about my political leanings at work, but am more than happy to absorb everyone else's rantings, if only to reinforce my own beliefs or let the wave of truth wash over my misinformed opinions. I can't think of a political party that I really associate with right now. And I am concerned that our definition of Democrat (pompous limosine liberal) and Republican (wacko right-wing religious zealot) might tear the country to pieces, or at least eliminate the two-party system when it becomes the Religious and the Agnostic parties. More on that later.

I am not a finisher. Thus, if you run over one of my blogs and wonder where in the world I was going with it, you're not alone. I am not ADD or ADHD or have any other malady. I like to think about lots of stuff all the time. A Creative Writing English degree made me somewhat of a sentence and English language snob. (That does not mean I use each and every construct correctly, though. I sometimes get quite creative.) More on this later. I think there's a lot to be said about the changing use of our language and how it's just okay for people to quit speaking and writing correctly in English.

I love baseball. I was crushed by the 1994 strike. I'm still forgiving these overpaid blowhards for what they did to the game. This latest steroids issue is another topic on which I intend to write. Maybe a lot. But baseball will probably get its fair piece in this blog.

I love my job. There are few things in life as challenging as what I've decided to do. Put an engineer in an art class and you'll see a lot of confused art students and one decidedly uptight engineer. Thus is my work life. I closed down my company to roll up into a marketing and advertising firm, which shall remain nameless here, though with enough Googling you'll find a reference to me and it somewhere. We're all still trying to figure out what the engineering student is doing in the art class. I plan to write a lot about this, too. If you're wondering how I'm an engineer, I'll get to that. It will take a treatise explaining what it is I do and how to put it in context with an agency for you to understand. Hell, I don't understand some days. But I'm not willing to give up on making this work.

Well, I'm wrapping up my opening salvo. If you've enjoyed it, come back. If you haven't, well, join the club. I don't much like reading everybody's dreck, either. But that may be because I was not entertained (challenged, laughed) or that I really didn't care about your canker sores. More on that later, too.