daddy in a strange land

hope

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:13:38 -0800

I still remember election night 1992, my first presidential election. I was 18 years old and a first-year in college, away from home for the first time. Ronald Reagan was the first president I and my classmates could remember, and we had spent almost all of our childhoods under Republican administrations. Now, finally, we were ready and able to voice our opinions, to make a change, to usher in a new era—to vote. I remember walking the halls of my dorm until late at night, the lights on in every room, televisions tuned to the news in every lounge and common room, large groups of 18-year-olds bursting with energy and excitement glued to the incoming results. I can still remember running from room to room, giddy with the feeling that not only were things going to change, but that we had made them change, listening to groups of my classmates singing choruses of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” loudly and off-key from every lounge in the dorm.

Sixteen years later, on another election day, I am feeling all the emotions that that 18-year-old me felt, only more so. Sixteen years ago, I was just a kid, only just beginning to realize what it meant to be politically active and responsible, to be a citizen. Then, we thought in vague generalities about “the future” and “changing the world.” We were in college—that’s what we were supposed to do. Today, those phrases are so much more concrete. When I say “the future,” I am speaking my daughters’ names. When I talk of “changing the world,” I am planning out the legacy I leave them.

I remember, during college, coming across a copy of an obscure, recent memoir by a biracial lawyer in the library during one of my “multiracial studies” research jaunts, looking for stuff about people like me. When, a few years later, a classmate emailed other alums of color asking for support for a Harvard Law alum running for office, I recognized the name, and took note. When that same man took to the stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and gave voice to the unspoken hopes and desires lodged in my heart, I held my breath and dried my tears and thought, this man is going to do something. Change is coming.

When he first threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, I like many I knew, was hopeful, but still thought, no, not yet, he’s not ready, but he will be. But with every speech, and every new vision of the future, I became more convinced. It was time. If not not, when?

When I sent in my absentee ballot last week with my vote for Barack Obama for President of the United States of America, I voted not only for myself, but for all those on whose shoulders I’ve stood on, and for all those who’ve struggled and journeyed with me, and, most especially, for my daughters, and for theirs, and for all who will come after. I voted as a multiracial American yearning for a future that looks like me. I voted as a fighter for social justice who has to believe that ideas like “hope” and “change” have the power to move mountains. I voted as a father who wants his children to grow up in a world where it’s a given that they can do whatever they put their minds to, and where it’s doubly a given that to fight for what’s right is what it means to be not just an American but a human being. I’ve seen the saying all over the internet recently, and I believe it, I feel it inside: “Rosa sat so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Barack could run; Barack ran so our children could fly.” This is the promise, this is the legacy.

On Halloween, my first-born daughter’s birthday, we came home to find that the “No on Proposition 8” sign in our front yard had been taken down, torn in half, stuffed in a tree, and replaced with a neighbor’s stolen “Yes on 8” sign. This is the world we live in, where fear and disagreement lead to hate and human dignity is given short shrift. That is not the world I want to raise my children in. I have no illusions that, by electing Barack Obama president, the world will magically change overnight. But change is going to come. It’s already begun.

And when our second daughter is born not long after Inauguration Day, she will carry a reminder of this always, in her name. Her middle name will remind us of what we all need, and of what we all can give to each other.

Hope.

[Hat-tip to Raymond Roker for the video from Vote for Our Future which is at the top of this post.]

four

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:30:47 -0700

Four years ago today, you were our little trick-or-treat surprise, and ever since, you’ve taken us on an amazing adventure.

Over the last four years, but especially in the past year, we have watched you grow and change and learn and try new things, becoming ever more who you are and who you will be. You live life by playing games and singing songs and telling stories and solving puzzles, and it is our privilege and joy to watch you, guide you, and love you through it all, in awe and pride.

You are not a baby anymore. You are our big little girl. You look, and talk, and act like a big kid, and sometimes, we’re still amazed by all you can do, all that tiny newborn we met four years ago has become.

And sometimes, you remind us, as if we could ever forget, that, as the cliche goes, you will forever be our baby. Last night, hopped up on sugar and overtired crankiness, you cried out for me as your mama tried to put you to sleep, as she does every night. Usually, I leave the room after reading a story and mama does the rest, often falling asleep beside you until I have to wake her so she can go to our bed. But last night, you fought sleep and sobbed and called for daddy and so I came and relieved mommy so she could bake cupcakes to take to your class today. I lay beside you, you got a drink of water, and finally starting to calm down, you grabbed my right arm to your chest. I was sweating, so I knew that you were probably hot too. Though you were quiet, I asked if you were hot, and you answered, Yes. I turned on the fan and returned to your side, our heads touching. You reached out your right arm and flung it up and backwards so that it encircled the lower half of my head, your hand touching my right cheek. And finally, just like that, tired out from a sugar crash and from crying and from just being tired, you fell asleep, your arm cradling my head just as my arms used to cradle your entire small body.

The coming year is full of more adventures for you. Come February, you are going to be an awesome big sister. Next fall, when you’ve graduated from preschool to kindergarten, you’re going to love school. You are slowly but surely getting too big for your weak old daddy to carry, let alone cradle in my arms and rock to sleep. But no matter how much you grow, or what you learn or do, you will always be our baby.

Happy fourth birthday, baby. We love you.

it’s a bird, it’s a plane...

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:10:03 -0700

...it’s a...

...girl!

Or rather, as both la dra. and her OB agree from looking at yesterday’s ultrasound, there’s a 95% probability that it’s a girl. Of course, that means that there’s a five percent chance of a surprise, so we’ll see come February, but for now, we’re going with “girl.”

Okay, let’s back up.

This pregnancy has been very different from what la dra. experienced when she was pregnant with The Pumpkin. With The Pumpkin, she had “morning” sickness so bad that she lost weight in the first trimester and was on Zofran. This time, not much more than a few weeks of slight evening nausea brought on by hunger. Last time, she craved fruit and vegetables, and I had to freeze nine months’ worth of bacon sent to us via my uncle’s gift subscription to The Bacon of The Month Club (yes, that’s real, and yes, we did have a gift subscription, and yes, we did eat it all), unless I wanted to both make food she couldn’t eat and make her throw up with just the smell of cooking it. This time, baby’s makin’ mama a carnivore—I even bought her jerky to keep at her office for snack.

So you know what “they” (the all-knowing “they”) say when one pregnancy is totally different from the first, right? That whatever the sex of the first one was, the new one is probably the other? So we’ve been running with that theme, everybody going, “Oh, you must be having a boy,” even la dra. saying, “I think this one is a boy.”

Yeah, so we were a little surprised yesterday when the 20-week [that’s the half-way mark!] ultrasound showed no penile or testicular evidence whatsoever. At 20 weeks, The Pumpkin was inconveniently positioned so that we couldn’t see between her legs [cuz everybody knows that that ultrasound is to find out the sex, right? not to, you know, check the progress of development and see that it actually has two legs to peek between], so we didn’t know until seven months that she was a girl. But even then, I tried to keep the possibility of a surprise open in the back of my mind, just so we wouldn’t get freaked out if our reading of the ultrasound turned out wrong. Just like I’m trying to do this time.

But la dra. and her OB seem pretty convinced. Though her legs weren’t totally open, la dra. said that when the tech was scanning around, she didn’t seen anything that looked like boy parts, and the OB agrees with her assessment of the actual between-the-legs snapshot. [I could see what they saw after being pointed to it—I mean, I was one of those people who never saw what was in those Magic Eye posters in the ‘90s, so what do I know? BTW, the photo above? I’m told that’s her head. If you look closely, you can sorta see a Skeletor-like face in there, if you’re at the right angle. Heh.]

And so. Another girl. And just what our sister-craving Pumpkin ordered. [She came with us, BTW, and was thrilled to see “baby” on the monitor—after, that is, we calmed her down after answering “no” to her question, couched in her favorite baby-voice, “Baby come out today?”] It’s funny. Just like last time, we’ve been stuck on boy names, but had no trouble coming up with the single perfect girl’s name (first and middle).

Ah. Speaking of names. So, now that we “know” we’re having a girl, how do we get The Pumpkin away from her chosen name for her little sister? Cuz I’m sorry, I’m all for including kids in the naming process, like letting them choose between two names you already like (or one name you like and one name you know they won’t choose), but we’re not naming the baby Tuzana. I have no idea where she cobbled that one together from, but now that we know it’s a girl, she’s even more insistent on the name. Last night, I tried to broach the subject, telling The Pumpkin about the name we’ve picked. “No! Her name is Tuzana!” Uh. Okay. How ‘bout, that can be your private, special name for her? “No! She only has one name!” Oh crap. Even tried to explain the concept of nicknames—didn’t take.

So we’re not pushing the matter for now, hoping that we have enough time to figure out a way to deal with this. Just for kicks, of course, the baby’s name on this blog will now be 2zana. Hopefully, between now and February, some of y’all will give us some ideas so that that doesn’t get on her birth certificate too.

empty nestin’ it

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 07:28:07 -0700

Another school closure break + grandparents 2 to 3 hours away = more crazy schedule shuffling. The Pumpkin’s preschool is closed for two (2!) weeks between the end of summer session and the beginning of the fall semester, and so, la dra. find ourselves again spending some quality time alone together. Heh.

This is only her third time away, after one night at Nana’s in January and then our weird bifurcated spring break during which she actually only spent four nights away from us, 2 each at the home of each set of grandparents. [Here are my first and second posts and la dra.’s first and second posts about that week.]

This time, we drove down to Riverside on Saturday and stayed overnight to belatedly celebrate both my sister-in-law and father-in-law’s birthdays, and we left The Pumpkin happily running around on her grandparents’ lawn with her cousin Kuya on Sunday afternoon. On Wednesday, my father-in-law will drive her to my parents’ house in LA and make the hand-off. On Saturday, la dra. and I will drive down to LA to spend the night at my parents’ to belatedly celebrate my dad’s birthday. On Sunday, we’ll all drive home together, and next week childcare will be a jumble of us taking advantage of the generosity of The Pumpkin’s two best friends’ moms and my boss (who’s letting me work from home the other days).

For those keeping score at home, that’s a grand total of SIX nights away from her—er, I mean, away from home. Yeah, right, away from home, cuz I’m talking about her, not us, right? Heh.

Despite the fact that The Pumpkin was offered mango ice cream for breakfast on Sunday [because she was whining because she wanted mango and there wasn’t any in the house] while we were still there sitting at the table, which, of course, means that as soon as we were gone, it was back on the menu, and, of course, the fact that we miss her, we’re all fine. Nana reported that she took a nap after we left, which she hasn’t been doing at school and didn’t do on Saturday, so that was good, and she took a nap yesterday too. Which she woke up early from because of her Nana’s snoring, which she can usually sleep through—she woke up, turned to her and said, “Nana, you’re too loud.” Heh.

Yesterday, Kuya wanted to take her to John’s Incredible Pizza Company, to which she’s been once here, and she had a good time playing with her big cousin. She’s having fun with little (well, “little” being a relative term as he’s almost as tall as her and he’s not even 1-and-a-half) Moose too. And of course having grandparents who dote on her doesn’t hurt either, I’m sure. Every time we call down there, Nana has to force her to come to the phone, and she just laughs, parrots what she’s told to say in a funny “I’m playing” voice, and then runs away. Clearly, she’s fine.

And you know, so are we. On Sunday afternoon, on the way back to Bakersfield, we were able to stop at some old friends’ in Pasadena for a bbq and just hang out and stay late. Last night, we actually went out on a movie date, saw The Dark Knight, and had ice cream after. [Sadly enough, just yesterday my work ran in our print edition a blogpost by a RaisingBakersfield member about parents taking little kids to violent PG-13 or R-rated movies, and sure enough, there was at least one kid The Pumpkin’s age in the theater.] Of course, before we went out to the movie, I ran home from work to heat up some Filipino leftovers for dinner [my father-in-law packed us up enough food that we don’t have to cook at all this week], and I kept waiting for la dra. to pull up in the driveway. Finally, she did—after having started on her usual route from her work to The Pumpkin’s preschool to pick her up. Luckily, she hadn’t gotten to the freeway before she realized it and turned around.

The rest of the week, we’ve got dinner at a friend’s house, we might drop in at a monthly get-together of local progressives, we’re taking some friends out to a farewell dinner before they move from Bakersfield to San Diego, and we’ll probably stop in at another friend’s Olympics opening ceremonies viewing party. All without worrying about a babysitter (which, longtime readers of this blog will know, is not a concept we’ve quite grasped yet, unfortunately). Then, on Saturday, we’ll join our happy, grandparent-spoiled daughter at my parents’ house and go celebrate Grandpa’s birthday.

Funny how this “growing up” thing isn’t just for the kids, huh?

guess what?

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:30:31 -0700

So maybe this worked after all.

Yep, after much trying on the part of her parents, The Pumpkin will, at age 4-and-a-quarter, become a big sister in early February.

This week marked our survival of the first trimester, and thus, our happy little secret is now public. la dra. is doing well—some evening nausea, though nothing like with The Pumpkin [she actually lost weight during that first trimester, her morning sickness was so bad], and well, apparently, after the first pregnancy, one feels a lot more pregnant a lot sooner, compared to the first time. Hopefully, now that we’re out in the open about this, you can get her perspective on things over on her blog.

We’re definitely excited over here. Even before, when we were still trying, The Pumpkin had started expressing her desire for a sibling. And not just a sibling. She wanted a little sister, specifically. And she still wants only a little sister. We’ve tried telling her that we don’t really get a say in the matter, but she will not be swayed.

“Would you like a little brother, sweetie? Like BFF’s little brother? What names do you like for a little brother?”

“I want a little sister.”

D’oh.

She’s even given this sister a strange, made-up name [must be her Filipino heritage exerting its influence, heh]: Tuzana. Uh. Yeah. I don’t think so sweetie. But hey, at least it’s not “Lion” anymore. Maybe Tuzana can be the sex-as-yet-to-be-determined’s in utero blog name, huh? Though I do like what Lumpyhead’s Mom called Lula before she was born, especially in light of our recent anniversary cruise to Alaska, during which we were just pregnant without really knowing it: Akutaq. That’s that native Alaskan “ice cream” made of seal fat mixed with fish and berries. Yum. [And OMFG am I delinquent on my blog reading! LM’s popping out another one this month and I didn’t even know! Sorry! Congrats and good luck!]

Speaking of naming things, now that we’re out in the open with this, I need to update my tagline. And yes, I know, the last time I asked for suggestions I ignored the handful that were so graciously offered in favor of “cuz strange is what you make of it.” But now, at least, there’s a theme, right? Here are my ideas so far:

it’s so much stranger with two
strange v. 2.0
2 x the strange
now with twice as much strangeness
double your strange, double your fun
it only gets stranger from here

Whatcha think? I’m sure you can top those. Heh.

Anyway, I promise to try to post here (and all the other places I’m supposed to post) more regularly. Well, okay, more frequently, at least, anyway... At least until February, then all bets are off. Heh.