wink     ; )

Fever

Spark woke up miserable and burning with fever today. This is his first fever since he's come home. But after the initial bout of crankiness, Spark did great today. No vomiting or diarrhea. He was in a pretty happy mood and he napped well. We just had to make sure he was getting enough fluids and advil.

Nevertheless, he was burning to the touch all day, especially after his nap. I remain mildly worried.

Gotcha Day

We brought Spark home one year ago today! What an amazing year it has been.

Naptime

Normally, Spark takes a rather lengthy nap starting around 1 PM. This week, not so much. (Note: when Spark doesn't get an adequate nap, he is cranky for the rest of the day.) On Tuesday, I was running some errands. It was only noon so I figured I could make one more stop before having to go home for lunch. Spark then fell asleep in the car. He remained asleep during the entire errand. When we got home, he had been asleep for about half and hour. He refused to fall asleep again after we got home.

On Thursday, I took Spark to a playdate. We started driving home at 12:20. He was asleep by 12:40. He slept in the car until 1:00. He again refused to go back to sleep.

On Friday, Spark woke up 3:45 AM and refused to go back to sleep. I needed to go grocery shopping that day. Tree and I agreed that I should go fairly early in the morning in case Spark fell asleep early again. So I went to the store at 9:30. I pulled into the parking lot at 9:40, turned around to look at Spark, and HE WAS ALREADY ASLEEP! I tried to wake him up--he just opened his eyes halfway once, saw it was me, and just went right back to sleep. I almost burst into tears right in the parking lot. Instead, I just drove home and hoped that I'd be able to get him into bed without waking him up.

This time I got lucky. Spark stayed asleep and took a nice long nap.

Today, we put Spark down for a nap at 1 PM. He's been babbling in his crib now for an hour and a half, and shows no sign of letting up.

I don't know what's gone wrong with his sleep schedule, but it is seriously messed up right now.

Finalization

Today we finalized Sparks adoption. All that it officially involved was a judge signing a piece of paper. But Spark's travel buddies (the ones who came home from Korea with him) were there and we all went into the judge's chambers and they each got a toy. Then there was a signing and lots of pictures. Then we went out to coffee together and then to OMSI for a couple hours of toddler heaven.

20 months from start to finish. Spark is finally officially ours! Huzzah!

Pre-emptive self-punishment

Spark is turning out to be very easy to discipline. He starts getting upset if he even thinks that he has done something wrong. We don't even need to punish him; he pre-emptively punishes himself.

For example, when my friend was visiting, he left his wallet on a table by the door. Spark wandered over to the table and grabbed the wallet and walked into the study where we were talking. My response: "Oh Ho! [laughter] What have you got there?" My friend's response: "You've got a very smart boy there."

Somehow in those responses, Spark got the idea that he had done something wrong. He froze in his tracks and got a very worried look on his face. He then proceeded to burst into tears. No amount of reassurance that he was not in trouble and that he had done nothing wrong would console him.

So he's very easy to keep in line. Now how do I keep him from being oversensitive?

Walking Backwards

Spark has taken to walking backwards recently, I'm not sure why. It's rather cute as he tends to do it with a disarming grin on his face as if he's doing something remakably clever. This is all fine and good until he inevitably trips over some toy or hits his head running into some piece of furniture that he hadn't seen because he was facing the wrong direction.

I always see the collision coming. I never do anything about it. Sooner or later he's gonna figure out that he should check behind him every now and then.

On being told from On High that I'm a bad parent

I was deeply hurt at church today. The preacher (not one of the elders on the preaching rotation, but a visiting preacher from another church) was giving a sermon on the roles of men and women. This topic makes me very wary. People who teach on the subject almost invariably make over-generalizations about each gender and the ones who teach in church will usually try to assert (either explicitly or implicitly) that the generalizations that they have highlighted are biblical and normative.

The truth of the matter is that the Bible has little to say about the distinct natures of men and women. "Men like sex more than women." "Women are by nature more loving and nurturing." "Men are bewildered by women." "Women think that they're always right." Each of these generalizations was presented as fact in today's sermon, and the implication was that all of these were biblical, and even normative. But nowhere in the Bible can I find support for these ideas.

But it was not these statements that really cut me to the core.

What really hurt was when the preacher gave his "humorous" rationale for why women are the ones who should be staying at home with the kids.

Imagine that women are better at men in everything, and maybe they really are. Say they are better CEOs and managers and workers and politicians. Great. They're out there working really hard and that's good. [dramatic pause] But then who's watching the kids? [laughter from the congregation]

Who's watching the kids??!!? Me, that's who. I'm a stay-at-home-dad and proud of it. And if you mean to imply that I am doing a sub-par job of raising my child just because I have a Y chromosome, then I have issues with you. Don't you tell me that my child is worse off with me as a primary caretaker because "women are naturally more nurturing and loving". Bullshit! Tell me to my face that I don't nurture and love my child enough.

I confronted him after the service. He apologized, but not for the right stuff. He "didn't meant to hurt me". Of course not. "There are always exceptions." he said. That's not my point. Look man, men are not worse parents just because they are men any more than women are worse employees just becuase they are women. You would never say that women are worse workers and then reply "Well you of course are an exception" when a woman points out that she works. Why would say the same to me? The fact that you consider me an exception just shows that you really do hold male parents in lower esteem than female parents. Everyone is always saying that fathers should be more involved with their children. Why then disrespect those who spend all day with them!

I don't want you to just apologize for "hurting me" (though I do want that and appreciate your apology for that); I want you apologize for your general disdain for men as parents, and for positing that disdain as a biblical principle form the pulpit. I don't just want an apology for the words, but for the attitude and values that caused you to say those words. But every indication in our conversation indicates that your attitude remains intact despite your apologies.

Obviously, the preacher today hit a nerve. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about our parenting decisions. I don't want to be the best "stay-at-home-dad" in the world--I want to be the best Parent in the world. I resent the idea that dads are held to a lower standard than moms. I especially resent the idea that no matter what I do, I can't measure up to moms. "A mother's love for her child" is held up as the gold-standard of human love. My love for my child doesn't measure up just becuase I'm a man?

Busy Week

It's been a busy week for Spark since his birthday. Let's see...Spark has:

• Learned how to say "up", "apple", and "no". That last one scares me, but we didn't react to it and he hasn't said it again since, so maybe we are OK for a little while yet.
• Attempted to butter us up in order to get his way. He wanted some food off of Tree's plate. After being made aware that he was not going to get any of that food, he proceeded to kiss Tree's leg (an activity which he knows we find adorable), and then asked for more food again. When he still didn't get his way, he tried kissing her leg yet again. The kid is only one and he has already figured out the basic mechanics of how to manipulate people. Now all he has to do is learn how to not be quite so transparent about it.
• Graduated to full on walking. A month ago, Spark could only take about 6 or 8 steps before falling over. Two weeks ago, he could walk as far as he wanted, but he would only walk from Tree to me or vice-versa. But right after his birthday, he just started wandering all over the house. We now have a fully mobile unguided missile loose in our house.

In other Spark related news, we have been using the phrase "Uh-Oh" as our signal to Spark that he is in trouble as we don't use that phrase very often in any other context. Unfortunately, other people use that phrase all the time. And whenever they say it, Spark gets this terrified look on his face of "what did I do??" and then starts crying. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this.

On a lighter note, we've taught Spark to slap his hand to his forhead when we say "D'oh!"

Happy Birthday Spark

Thank you God for our son Spark who was born a year ago today.
Thank you for his birth parents who gave him life.
Thank you for his forster parents who took care of him while we were waiting.
Thank you for all the friends and family who came to celebrate his birth with us today.
Thank you for a beautiful day.

Spark doesn't like bedtime

Spark has decided to have trouble sleeping again. He used to just fall asleep no problem. Now he starts off fine, but then a few minutes after going down, he stands up and starts crying. If I come in to lay him down again, he is again fine for a few minutes, but then the cycle repeats. If I just let him cry, he cries for a verrrrrrry long time until he poops out and falls asleep. Then an hour later, he'll jolt awake and start crying again.

Not sure what to do. Especially since he used to be so good at sleeping. I wonder what happened. At any rate, something needs to change. I can't continue getting up a half-a dozen times every night. Combine that with my clusters waking me up and my sleep is a fragmented mess.

Stairs!!

Yesterday, Spark climbed two stairs. (Can he do more? who knows--we only have two stairs in our house.)

Also, I should add that on the day he started to walk, he also started drinking from a cup all by himself. True, he spilled quite a bit, but nonetheless...

And there are two words that he uses sign language for: "more" and "finished". Unfortunately, he uses the same sign for both words, decreasing the utility of both. Sigh. We're working on that.

The milestones are flying by. We're gonna run out of them soon.

First Steps!!

Spark is just learning new tricks a mile a minute these days. Today he took his first steps! He's also now proficient at crawling and can pull himself up to standing from a sitting position.

Amazing!

Spark Crawls

Spark started crawling last night! We were on the floor playing after his bath. He was desperately trying to get a hold of the space heater (which was on) about three feet away. I, of course, was holding him back. Then I realized that I was putting a lot of effort into holding him back, and that if I let him go, he would crawl right over to the space heater. I said as much to Tree, and she said "Let him go, I want to see him do it."

So I did.

And he crawled...

...right over to the heater, which we promptly had to move a more feet out of his reach. Very cool.

Bringing Spark to class

Yesterday, I attempted to bring Spark to one of my classes. My babysitter got very sick (she was throwing up) and I decided that I'd rather not have Spark exposed to whatever she had.

In previous weeks, my prof kept saying that I should bring Spark into class instead of leaving him with a babysitter. That didn't seem like a good idea to me, but I knew that my prof was game for it. I was fairly sure that Spark would just be a big distraction during class, but there was only one way to find out, right? And if he handled it well, then I wouldn't have to stress out about getting babysitting for any and every occasion--I'd be able to bring him with me to many things.

My class overlapped with Spark's afternoon nap. So I brought him to the classroom early and attempted to get him to fall asleep in his stroller before class started. If he did that, then we might be able to get through half of class with no difficulties at all.

Unfortunately, he did not fall asleep before class started, or indeed at all. And he decided to be rather vocal as well. And kinda whiny. D'oh! He was being rather distracting and I frequently had to take him out to the hallway to keep him from totally disrupting the class. (He would of course be completely silent the moment we entered the hallway.)

The hardest was when I was taking the quiz. He was very squirmy and noisy and I had to hold him in my lap. Not an ideal quiz taking scenario. Eventually, my prof had to sit next to me and entertain Spark so that I could finish my quiz. (Did I mention that this prof is the most accommodating prof I've ever had?)

I bolted after the quiz, skipping the last 40 mins of class so that I could put Spark down for a nap three hours late.

I have a feeling that I won't be trying that again anytime soon.