It takes a village

 
Restless and unable to sleep, I left the comfort of my warm motorhome and stepped out into the cool, dark night. As I walk through the towering redwood trees, making my way towards a softly lit, central area of the campground, I hear only a slight, repetitive squeaking to interrupt an otherwise still and silent night. I arrive thirty minutes early to take over my watch of a wild boar roasting over a bed of coals, while rotating on a rotisserie being turned by a small electric motor. squeak... squeak... squeak... The motor strains each time the heavy side of the 108 pound pig, made its way around to the 12-o'clock position before finding relief on the down side.

  In a chair on the far side of the rotisserie is seated my good friend of sixteen years, Ben; eyes closed and head nodding forward and back in a restless slumber. It was 3:30 am. I awoke Ben and sent him off to bed, added coals under the pig, started a fire in the fire pit right next to the rotisserie, and sat back in the chair, still warm from Ben's watch. The fire crackled as I gazed hypnotically into its dancing flames. Feeling drops of water on my cheeks, I looked up to see the tops of the redwood trees, outlined by the glow of the fire, disappear into the misty fog that was rolling in. It was a perfect. I sat back and contemplated the fact that in less than 12 hours, my brother Gooch would be wed to his amazing bride, Kim. Our entire summer built up to this one climactic event, and I was way too excited to sleep.

  It was not long before I was joined by Tassos; One of Gooch's pilot friends and coworkers, who had traveled all the way from Greece (along with another friend/pilot, Ed). I had only briefly met Tassos several hours earlier when he, Gooch and Ed, prepared the pig to go on the rotisserie. For the next hour and a half, I enjoyed some great conversation and some much welcomed company. As the time neared 6:00 am, Tassos released me from my watch so that I could try to get some sleep. Upon returning to my bed, I felt as if the moment I closed my eyes, I was woken up by Apollo and Orion. It was barely light out and my last chance of sleep was gone. It was time to get up and continue setting up for the wedding.

  As most of the food was greek inspired, I  was tasked with making some greek donuts for breakfast on Saturday while the next round of meat was prepped. In addition to the wild boar, we also roasted 2 young lambs on the day of the wedding. Gooch, Ed, and Tassos spent most of their time cooking meat either at the BBQ or one of the three rotisseries. We were well fed, and the food was delicious.

 Looking back a few days after the wedding, I realized what made this three-day, two-night, wedding/camping trip so amazing, was the diversity of friends and family, old and new, all coming together and working for a common purpose. And I mean working in a literal sense; everyone jumped in and helped decorate, cook, set up, clean up...it was incredible. It is how I imagine an old world wedding or even an early american wedding. Everyone in the village contributed in some small or large part to make the wedding day a special event. I think that everyone felt as if they were part of the wedding. Everybody contributed something that made this event all that much better. Everyone mingled and many new friends were made. By Sunday morning, what started out as several groups of strangers, some form the brides side, the others from the grooms side, had become one large happy bunch of friends. Even Apollo and Orion made new friends and both boys had a wonderful time.

  I could write endless stories of what I saw, and what I experienced on this weekend. It was memorable to say the least. Everything was perfect from the ceremony, to the weather. But besides the the fact that two people that I love dearly were married, I was impressed most by the quality of people that surrounded them that day. How everyone worked together as a team. How everyone got along and cooperated. How everyone, for those few days, became part of our own little village.

 

Apollo shared his thoughts about the wedding camp with me on Sunday morning, as we were getting out of bed. He really summed up the feeling that we were left with; "Dada, I want to live here forever, but only if our new friends can live here too. Can you make everyone stay?"

The art of self expression

Its 5:30am, and I am in exile; expelled from my very bed by an agitated wife. My spawn had been accused of pinching, bitting, slapping, head butting, and whining for the past hour. He made enough noise to wake up Apollo in the other room. I could hear him climb out of bed, his foot steps hurrying down the hall, and in he walked into our dimly lit place of slumber;
 "Dada, is the sun coming up yet?" he asked.
  "Take your baby and get out!" came an almost demonic sounding voice from the other side of the bed, before I had a chance to answer.  (Okay, not demonic, but highly aggravated. Sorry Melly) I scooped up my poor, neglected, starving little toddler in one arm, and grabbed Apollo's hand with my free arm.
  "Come on guys, let's get out of here before mama shakes the baby," I announced as we left the room.

We all climbed into Apollo's bed, and after a few moments of rocking Orion, his head pressed up against my chest, he was fast asleep. I leaned back into the pillows I had propped up against the wall, and slid down deeper into the warmth of the comforters; Orion tucked into the nest of my left arm and chest, and Apollo tucked into my right.
  I would have loved to have fallen back to sleep, but with Apollo still awake and whispering every few minutes, "Is it time to get up yet?", and "Is the sun coming up yet?", it was not meant to be. The grey light of the overcast, predawn sky, illuminated the room just enough, that I could look over their faces, studying every peaceful feature, and admire the extraordinary little men that I held in my arms. To feel their warmth and hear them breathing softly is one of my most prized memories of their young lives.
  I tease Melanie a lot about her little outbursts, however, I have to give credit where credit is due. She usually does really well on the random rough night, but by the second or third rough night in a row, she is ready for a little break. When this happens over a weekend, it gives me the opportunity to enjoy Orion (once he falls to sleep that is) in a way that I rarely get to. It is one of the greatest gifts of parenthood, being able to hold your peaceful sleeping baby in your arms.
~

  I am constantly amazed and fascinated by the mind of a toddler. Just by observing them day in and day out, you begin to recognize patterns to their learning and thought processes. Everything comes in waves. That is to say that there is a huge upswing in one area of development, followed by a lull while another area is ramping up. For example; language development can be in high gear one week and they will learn words, sounds, and phrases, followed by a period where the language is put to the back burner while the fine motor skills are on the upswing, and so forth.
  Orion's language development is on the back burner at the moment. He uses one word for everything! Food, water, milk, snack, ball...it doesn't matter, it all sounds like, "Uuuuuueeeeeeeeeehhhhh!", coupled with the gesture of a fully extended arm, hand stretched wide, pointing in the direction of what he wants. In between the demands, there is the underlined babble of nearly familiar but unintelligible words and phrase. Don't get me wrong, he is still learning words and phrase, he is just not actively trying to say new words every waking moment. Today, he surprised us with "All done" while doing the sign language for the same phrase when he finished his dinner. I have to point out that by far his favorite word is "dada", at least for the time being.
  Motor skills are in full swing right now. Orion climbs on and out of everything! Even his high chair. He has to be restrained just to eat dinner, if not, he is standing up in his high chair and trying to climb off of it. We never had to strap Apollo down to anything. Last week was fine motor skills where Orion learned how to effectively eat with a fork and how to stab bean's with a butter knife and put them in his mouth.
  Orion's greatest strength is that he is an observer. He watches everything. Nothing gets by without him taking notice. He acts out everything he sees, and takes note of every item that is set down. His favorite items are the remotes to the t.v. followed by phones. He climbs on anything he can to be able to reach a remote, and once he has it, he will point it at the t.v. and press the buttons. He likes to walk around with a remote or phone in his hands and we are always on a recon mission to locate and recover them. We even found the cable remote control outside, under the lemon tree, and various remotes and telephones have been found in kitchen drawers, laundry baskets, cupboards, and even the drawer at the bottom of the oven.  
   ~

  Apollo is becoming more of a character with each passing day. On a recent outing with his mom and Orion, Apollo needed to use the restroom.  Melanie took the two boys into the restroom at the store that she was in. While Apollo lifted the toilet seat and prepared to do his thing, Melanie had to corral Orion in the corner of the restroom to keep him from touching anything, or interrupting Apollo while he was taking care of business.  Then came that dreaded sound of urine hitting everything but the water in the toilet bowl. In a panic, Melanie spun around to see what was going on.
 "Apollo!", she exclaimed, "What are you doing!"
With his hips going wildly in a circular motion as if he was using a hoola-hoop, Apollo proclaimed, "My ding-ding is going craayaayaayaazy!"
  Needless to say, Apollo got a lesson in what is appropriate and what is not, and then had to help his mom clean the restroom. Melanie was sure that the employee's right outside of the bathroom heard the whole incidence. She avoided making eye contact with anyone and hurried out of the store, vowing to stay away for several weeks until she is sure no one will remember her.

  Upon hearing this story from Melanie, I of course, laughed hysterically and uncontrollably. Melanie was not as amused, however, and blamed my genetics and lack of parenting skills for his behavior. Obviously, this was not meant as a compliment, but I sure took it as such. What father wouldn't be proud of his sons first attempts at artistic self expression. Besides, I am sure he was just practicing writing his name anyways.

                                                                                                                      

I pay the bills!

Whoa!! This summer has gone by incredibly fast. For not taking any major vacations or doing anything all that fun, we were/are incredibly busy. School is back in session for the teens. Aden is a junior and Ian has started college. In many ways, I am glad school is back in session, but it comes at a price. It was nice to have a few weeks with no teens in the house while they were off on various adventures of their own. Now everyone is back under one roof and the old bad habits and routines are falling back in line. I don't mention Ian and Aden very often in this blog as I fear I would come off as being too crass and over the top sarcastic. I could write a daily blog on those two alone, and I would probably call it something along the lines of; "Really?" in light of the many times in a day where my initial reaction to something one of them says, does, or does not do.
  And as if we need any more turmoil and drama above and beyond Apollo and the Mungie. It is all hands on deck from the moment they wake up until well after 10:00pm. Apollo is fighting some major demons right now. He really misses being the top dog around here, and is very put off by Orion needing so much attention. He is acting out in order to gain back the attention he feels he is not getting. The irony is that he is getting more quality attention than ever before, he just cant stand seeing Orion getting any attention at all. That said, as Orion has gotten older and more mobile, Apollo is finding that he can actually play and interact with Orion and the two of them will have a great time together.
  The days are whizzing by now as we have so much going on. I will divulge more in a few weeks on what we are up to, but for now, I can tell you that every moment of our days, for the time being is booked up. I wanted to squeeze in this quick update while I can spare a moment.
~
  Orion is WILD!! He loves to rough house, wrestle, be chased, and startled. He climbs on everything!; In and out of our tall bed, up on the tables, furniture, he even climbs up jungle gyms and goes down slides on his own. He needs constant stimulation and attention. He is incredibly stubborn and although he wants your undivided attention, he wants to do everything himself including eating and drinking, He is very efficient with a fork and is only happy if he can feed himself. Spaghetti is by far his favorite food and is much better when it is squeezed in his hands and then shoved in his mouth and slurped up, so no fork is necessary in that case. Orion has 6 teeth now and not only does he use them to eat but also to bite his mom when she is not giving him what he wants. He also likes to punish her for not serving up the joobs quick enough, by bitting the nipple...he is going to find himself weened if he keeps that up.

  Apollo is my comic relief. He may be Melanie's bane, but he is hilarious to me. I know that a lot of his attitude comes from me, but so much of it is strictly Apollo. He likes to stick his butt out at you and shake it back and forth while mocking you; no one else in this house does that. The funny thing is that in contrast, he is very shy in front of strangers, and often will proclaim "I'm too shy to that person."  Once he warms up to that person he will report to me, "Dada, I'm not shy to her anymore."
  My proudest moments are hearing my words come out of his mouth. His timing is impeccable, however, he is going to learn the hard way that it is not okay to back talk to his mother. There are frequent power struggles and ultimatums between Melanie and Apollo, and Apollo likes to push his mom to the edge before he backs down. A recent exchange went as follows; (Please keep in mind that he is very sarcastic throughout this exchange)
Melanie: "Apollo, you need to pick up your toys please."
Apollo: "Mama, you need to pick up my toys."
Mel: "Apollo! Right now!"
Apollo: "Mama! I'm the boss! You pick up my toys...Right...Now!"
(At this point I am getting some very dirty looks from Melanie....hehehehe)
Mel: "I am your mother, that makes me the boss!"
Apollo: "Welllllll mama, I pay the bills!"

Orion turns 1

  The light from the nearly full moon streaming through the bedroom window, illuminates the room with a pale glow that falls gently upon the face of my littlest man. He is breathing softly as he sleeps. His eyelids reveal the movement of his wandering, dreaming eyes underneath. His features are outlined by the moon glow. They are soft, subtle, and peaceful, yet they reveal little about his personality when he is awake, save it for his extraordinary sweet nature. Orion has one little arm extended up over his head with his fist loosely clenched, his other had rest upon his belly.

  It has been one year since I first heard Orion’s voice, laid my eyes upon his perfect little face, and held him in my arms for the first time.  I was filled with joy and pride. His pale blue eyes pierced my heart when he looked at me. I wondered who he would become, what kind of personality he would have, and how he would affect our lives. A year later and all I can say is that I could not have guessed anything about his personality correctly, except for the fact that he would be loud. In fact, my first impression of him when I heard his first cry was, “Wow! This kid is loud!”

  Orion is a virtual whirlwind, leaving chaos and destruction behind him where ever he goes. He gets into everything…EVERYTHING!! We have resorted to closing off rooms, using baby gates to limit his access to parts of the house, installing child proof cabinet latches, and training ourselves not to leave anything on the edge of the counters. Each day presents a new challenge for us as Orion develops new skill sets. He has now started climbing on chairs and buckets to reach more of the counters. The buckets we keep in our kitchen have flour, rice, or sugar in them. Apollo uses them to stand on to help with the dishes or to help cook. Orion has discovered that he can climb on them too, and reach more items on the counters. Everything is then thrown on the floor. Drinks are always a prized treasure for Orion, and we are usually alerted to the fact that he is standing on a bucket in the kitchen, when we hear his shrill scream as cold water and ice douse his little body and then splash onto the floor. He seems to get drenched at least once a day from finding an abandoned drink.

  Orion’s hands and feet start moving the moment his eyes open. He moves constantly and is always looking for new stimulation. He will even attempt to fight off sleep by shaking his head wildly from side to side while while screaming! Orion loves to scream and is very proficient at it. He screams when he is happy, sad, bored, hungry, tiered, playing, protesting, walking…if he is awake, he is usually screaming. Our next door neighbor summed it up best; “ I can always tell when you guys are home and when you are gone. I can hear your baby screaming 24-hours a day.”   We are trying our best to help Orion find his words now in hopes that talking will reduce the amount of screaming. Besides “mama”, “dada”, and “no, no” he is mumbling “I want this.” It’s a start.

  In spite of the screaming and mass destruction, Orion is an amazingly fun baby. He is always smiling and laughing (between screams, of course). He loves to be chased and squeals in delight while running and giggling. He is adventurous and inquisitive. He loves to wrestle, rough house, and bang things together to make noise. He is quick to give hugs and kisses, and will always greet you with a smile.

 In his first year, Orion has turned our home upside down, deprived us of sleep, kept us on our toes,  captured our hearts, made us laugh, made us cry, and has brought a whole new level of joy to our home.  I will take the screaming and destruction any day as payment for having this wonderful little soul in our lives.

  Orion, you have doubled my capacity for love. Your sweetness, sense of adventure, and playful nature has made my life a whole lot better. Your smile lightens up the whole room as well as my life. I am proud to call you my son.

Happy Birthday son. I love you.

Learning to swim

  There are times as a parent when you get glimpses into the type of person that your child will become. Sometimes you cringe, and sometimes you are super proud, and other times you just have to laugh out loud. 

  Apollo has been taking swimming lessons. Melanie has been the one to take him, so I get to hear all about it from her, but I had to take time out of at least one work day to experience it for myself. This was one of the moments when I was both very proud, and laughing hysterically out loud. 

  The goal of the "Tadpoles" class, is to teach the most basic water skills and to build up the child's confidence in the water. 

  They teach them to kick their legs, stick their faces in the water and blow bubbles,....

 go on their back and kick their legs with their arms stretched out over their heads,...

 and they even play games!     It sounds like great fun and what kid wouldn't be sucked in and then go with the flow?.....Can you say, Apollo? Yes, believe it or not, it is my son that has to do things his way. What Apollo is really learning from this class is how to express himself, negotiate, communicate, and to step outside of his "shy" bubble, and possibly even how to flirt a little.
  When the instructor changes activities, the three other kids in the class follow right along with her and copy her every move. Apollo will just sit back and watch.
 "Apollo, would you like to join us?" I heard the instructor ask.
"No thank you, I am too busy right now," he replied.
"Come on, you're missing all the fun Apollo," she said, trying to appeal to his sense of fun.
"Well, I am just going to stay here and watch."
When it came time to play rings, wouldn't you know it, Apollo had a new set of reasons to do things his own way.
The swim instructor asked, "Apollo, I am going to throw this ring into the water. Do you want to go get it for me?"
 "Ummm, I only like the blue ring, so you can have the yellow one."
  Fortunately, this instructor does not take no for an answer and always gently pulls Apollo into the mix of whatever she has the class doing.

As a technique to get all the kids to join in and get their hands in the air and to help them learn to use their arms in swimming, the instructor asks all the students to use their superpowers and put their arms in the air like they are flying. Of course all the kids but Apollo did this. When, his instructor asked Apollo why he wouldn't join in. his response was, "I don't have the flying power."

"Well, what super power do you have Apollo?" she inquired.

"I have the power of fire...it's in my legs." he replied confidently.

  I laughed for the entire 20 minutes of Apollo's swim class that I was able to attend. Not only was I impressed by my sons individuality, but I also enjoyed the fact that the other students were impressed by Apollo's "fire powers". Even the instructor coaxed Apollo multiple times by telling him, "come on Apollo, use your fire powers!"
  Later that evening, I quizzed Apollo about his lack of flying powers, and tried to remind him of his dreams; "Hey, remember all the dreams you used to have about me and you flying? That means you have flying powers!"
Once again, I was schooled by my own son, "Actually dada, I only go flying with you, and it is in the mornings, in the clouds by the mountains. The kids at the pool are only pretending to have flying powers...but they can't fly in water."
Class dismissed!

The wounded giant.

  Seated on the balcony of a mission style hotel, I watch as palm trees bend and sway from the stiff wind in the courtyard below. The sound of water splashing in twin, 250-foot long, water fountains, nearly drowns out the sound of the palm fronds flapping wildly from the wind. The midnight air is comfortable, and carries a hint of jasmine and alyssum. The fountains have many lights which are changing colors in unison, illuminating the crystal clear water, causing the ripples to shimmer on the surface. It sounds like paradise, a resort in Mexico perhaps, however, if I look beyond the most distant palm trees who's trunks are spiraled with hundreds of white lights, I see two ribbons of light, red and white, moving in opposite directions.  It is interstate 5, somewhere in California's vast central valley.

  Inside the hotel room, all is quiet. Orion is passed out and Apollo is unwinding watching a movie; a sharp contrast from the car ride a few hours earlier. While driving on I-5, we watched a bright orange sun setting against a golden, cloudless horizon. The silhouettes of steel high voltage power line towers, looked like 100-foot tall giant stick-figures, marching in tandem to meet the sun where she touched pastel violet hills far off in the distance. Orion squealed with delight repeatedly from his carseat, while Apollo answered back matching pitch and decibel. The sound was deafening and almost spoiled the serenity of the setting sun which Melanie and I were trying to enjoy. This is the end result of driving nearly 2,500 miles in the past 11 days with little ones in the car.

 This last leg of our road trip was not planned but was an important one. Sixty hours ago, we left Santa Rosa for southern California, to visit my ailing father. My dad will be 82-years-old in a couple weeks. He is active and always on the go, and I have never known him to sit still for very long. He is one of the toughest people I have ever known. He never complains when he is sick or injured and has always kept moving when the same ailment would have left others flat on their backs. My dad has a giant's presence in any room and enjoys good conversation, story telling, political debates, and expressing his opinion whether you want to hear it or not. As you can imagine, when I hear my father is sick enough to be hospitalized, I know it has to be serious. I also know that he would not go to the hospital on his own, and it was my mother that dragged him there. My greek mother stands a mere 4 foot, 11 inches tall and is dwarfed by my fathers 6 foot, 1 inch frame, however, she can be very persuasive and forceful when needed.
  My father was hospitalized with heart failure, fever, loss of appetite, pain in his legs and hips, anemia, and low potassium, among other things. A whole battery of tests, and because of the perseverance of my greek mother, my dad was found to have an autoimmune disease, and is hopefully on the road to recovery. Our short trip to see him was both to be supportive and in hopes that seeing the grandchildren would lift my father's spirits. Because of some of the underlying conditions, visiting with my dad proved to be a real task. We were required to wear gloves and gowns and had to convince the nursing staff to allow Apollo and Orion into the room to see him. Fortunately, by Sunday afternoon, my father was discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis, direction, and a plan of action.

  I drove my dad and mom home from the hospital and I could tell that my dad was happy to finally be out of there and he was excited to be headed home. My parents live in the mountains. Their home is on a hillside, and consequently, there are thirty steps to get to their front door. As my father has too much pride to allow any one assist him, we watched helplessly as he climbed the steps slowly and deliberately, both hands grasping the hand rail on his right side, pulling himself up, while lifting his legs one by one. As hard as it was for me to watch, I imagine it was harder for him knowing that we were seeing him in this weakened state.
  As I needed to return home by sometime Monday morning, it was with heavy hearts that we departed my parents home and began the journey back to our own home. We would have liked nothing more than to spend a week with my parents helping them out while my dad began to mend. Alas, I find myself writing in the wee hours of the morning, instead of sleeping, trying to make some sense of our temporal existence, and our all too short visit with a wounded giant.

The Mungie

  I do not pretend to understand how the mind of a toddler works, but as I have said before, I find it fascinating! Apollo has some how come up with the word, "Mungie". How?...what?...where?...I may never know. The first time I heard him use this word or name, he was talking to a bowl of tadpoles that he had just helped to catch. "Hi lil' mungies", he would say repeatedly, "Dada, did you see my lil' mungies?" Over the course of the next few days, he started to call Orion, Mungie. I love nicknames, so as you can probably guess, Orion is now Mungie (among other things). Oddly enough, the name suites him; he is a lil' Mungie!
  June was a transitional month for our little Mungie. Orion reluctantly made the progression from crawling to walking. I say reluctantly, because as with Apollo, I think Orion has a better understanding of cause and effect, or action and reaction, than most kids his age. Simply put, the higher you fall from, the more it hurts. He has been walking around the house for months now with the aid of anything that would slide across the floor. On occasion, Orion would be preoccupied with a toy in his hands and he would forget that he was not holding on to anything and he would take a few un-assisted steps across the room. Once he noticed his error, he would squeal in discontent, and drop immediately to the floor.

 
Every day that passes, Orion waddles around on two feet more, and crawls less. How I miss his crawling already. It was like watching a mechanical windup toy crawl across the floor. Now a new era of terror has begun in the house of Miles.
    Everything sacred is in full lockdown mode. Cabinets, drawers, counters. Blender might be a better nickname for our little Mungie, as he leaves a path of destruction in his wake, that even a Vita-Mix would envy. Cant see into a drawer that is higher than your head? no problem! Just open it, stand on your tipi-toes, reach in and pull out everything that your little hands can grab, and throw it on the floor. And if you can't get a cabinet door or drawer to open, scream at the top of your lungs and throw yourself to the floor as if you just lost the world series, and then turn on the waterworks. This may not open anything, but apparently you sure feel much better afterward. (I might have to try this at work!)
  This twenty two pound baby of ours, pretty much runs the house. He is bossy, demanding, and loud.(Melanies genetic's) Those three traits are a bad combination. He wants what he wants, and he wants it now! He counteracts this with his sweetness and playfulness. If this little Mungie likes you, he will lay his head on you even if you are a dog laying on the floor or a radio playing a song he likes in the back yard. He is as much fun as he is trouble.

  The affect of Orion's larger than life presence in our home has begun to take its toll on Apollo. I believe that Apollo is feeling like he has been pushed aside and is now second to Orion. We have gone through great pains to avoid this predicament, yet we have found ourselves in the midst of it. Apollo mostly manifest this thru a bit of passive aggresive behavior, but he also will take it up a notch or two if the mood strikes him. Apollo likes to place toys just out of Orions reach, pinch his leg (unprovoked), block him from coming in or out of the house, or push him out of his way if Orion is trying to interact with him. It is challenging to find the right way to react to this type of behaviour in an effort to not perpetuate it further. Melanie has decided that the best approach is for Apollo to surrender on of his favorite toys as a consequence of his actions. The toy is placed on top of the refridgerator where he can see it as a constant reminder of the consequence until he earns it back for good behavior. This approach is working marginally well, however, I do enjoy the fact that Apollo will approach me when this happens and tell me his side of the story;
 "I am really mad at mama! She took my Finn McMissle car from me!" He will announce.
"Were you mean to baby brother?", I will enquire.
"Yes! Because he wouldn't stop looking at me! I want you to be rough to mama and put her in a time out and get me my Finn back!"
~~
  If I end up in the hospital, you will know that I tried to be "rough" with mama.