Hello everybody, this is John subbing in for Jen for the next week and some. It is my duty to watch after, care for, change and feed our little Chub while Jennifer betters herself at conferences whose organizers have cryptic 6 letter acronyms which spell the vilest words. I won't repeat any of them here in case youth have surreptitiously located this blog and are reading it late into the night without their parents' approval and just a small blue flashlight to enhance the legibility of the screen.
It all started Friday night after arriving in Toronto . Initially, the idea that I would be mostly-entirely responsible for ensuring Rowan had a pleasant and hunger-free week seemed idyllic; you see, I have taken few consecutive days off from work, and have largely played assistant to the CEO when it came to the care of our son. I feel no shame or loss in this: it is simply a matter of biology and economics. Jennifer is better suited - and in some ways solely suited - to caring for our infant son in this first year of his nascent life. I am but a helping hand or two. She is far better apt at feeding and calming him, and I am better suited at winding him up and screeching with him. Our roles could hardly be more orthogonal, yet the each of us plays our roles crucially, and the balanced life experienced by our happy Chub would otherwise be different. I will - despite many rolled eyes and half-covered snickers - be the disciplinarian, and that being my ultimate fate, I am taking the time, now, to be the one who helps him smear cereal on the table.
"If at first you don't conceive, try and try again". That was my motto, a statement of principles against which I could measure the steady progress of my development as a partner; however, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your inclination to cynicism) we hit pay-dirt early in the process. Since the seminal days of our awareness that a chub was on its way (capital "C" Chub came only some time after he was born) I swore that I would participate fully and enthusiastically in as many aspects of child-rearing as I was physically capable of. By the 3rd week I had already begun sleeping through the majority of the night-time feedings and changings. I feel some guilt about the intense joy I get by slumbering through those late-night screams, but I feel just as much joy and refreshment; this is important when you've got to begin your work-day at 7am. We'll gloss over the long commute from the bedroom to my office for the moment, and focus only on needing to be at work by 7am.
This week is my week to play pant-wearing mother to Jennifer's skirt-wearing father. There are days when I envied her position. To stay home and worry about primarily that one thing, rather than alternate between the many responsibilities of work seemed an Elysium to me, a kind of second-life rebirth into a reality of few worries and cares. This, as you might suppose, is just a variance on the green-grass theory of desire, and as fragile as Faberge egg in a sand storm. It takes little to shatter this naivety that is so otherwise easily constructed from half-glances and ignorant suppositions. To care for a Chub is to put on hold much of what is entertaining to you and to take up what is entertaining to a 9 month old: this includes such intriguing tasks as standing, waving spoons, opening up drawers and the pitch-perfect imitation of a fire alarm. There are places where one can go to recover, but mostly they involve the exchange of money for glasses of alcohol. It is no small fete to raise a child while at the same time maintaining your identity and sanity.
This weekend, aside from being the commencement of Jennifer's conference, is also the occasion of Eli's third birthday and Simon's baptism. Rowan, though 3 months older than Simon, is yet to be baptized; but that only being 3 weeks away, we shan't dwell on it.
Life, already a maelstrom of traveling and long-hours of work and family visiting, was made that much more ... rich ... by the inclusion of The Chub. He has elevated life to a standard of which we could not have conceived; but with every new addition to one's life (be it child, spouse, or hamster) comes an added set of responsibilities. Life, in its most distilled form, is actually quite simple: it involves mostly the acquisition and consumption or food, the availability of shelter, mental and emotional stimulation from nature, and sometimes, interaction with others. Happiness seems sometimes challenging to obtain, but more often more challenging to hold on to. Greed, in the form of wanting either more, or better, happiness often leads straight in the opposite direction, and yet we are flummoxed to discover that a zippy car, or the latest sartorial wonder does not provide sustained fulfillment. Even the possession of high-class, high-rolling friends guarantees nothing more than a sure way to dispose of the money which is so difficult to come into the possession of in the first place. The need to possess, to have and to disburse, becomes so overwhelming and unbalanced that we are unable to grasp the simplicity of happiness. Chubby is the essence of that simplicity. Chubby is the bright light at the core of that happiness. He asks for nothing more than food, stimulation and love, and he returns the gift ten-fold. I can't claim to always understand why he wants what he does, and more often what exactly it is that he wants, but I have no reason to be suspect of his motives because he hasn't clouded or warped his view of the world to suit his prejudices: he has none yet. He will, as time moves on, likely accumulate prejudices by the cart load whether he is aware of it or not, and it is part of our job to help him accumulate as few as possible, while at the same time learning to shed some of the ones to which we've long clung.
Chubby (all chubs) epitomizes the "right life" because they lack the sourness that seems to come with long life; that is the cynic in me. Chubby epitomizes the "right life" because he gives as much as he receives, often more than he receives, and often without recoding it in his ledger. It would be better to have no memory than a long one since no grudge can be long maintained without the ability to recall it. Even a written account of a perceived wrong is difficult to lift off the page and animate with the same jaw-clenched ferocity of a deeply etched memory. The forgetfulness of the elderly knows this. Chubby spends his day chubbing hard - not because he has anything to prove, but because he is alive, awake, and a day of hard chubbing is a day well chubbed. When he finally lets go at the end of the day, he does so peacefully because he knows that he chubbed as hard as he could, and that no opportunity to chub was wasted on aimless reflection or navel-gazing. I only wish that I can learn from his example and, on my death-bed, be able to fondly recall the day when I chubbed beyond the point of exhaustion.
Saturday morning broke to find Jennifer poking me in the head and whispering "are you awake?" I was not awake. She put a shushing finger to her lips and indicated the lump of gently rising and falling joy at my side. Rowan was asleep on his side with his mouth open, still enjoying a dream of warm milk and an infinitude of fingers to grasp. He finally woke at a quarter past 8 to a driving need for play. Jennifer had already dressed and left by taxi for the conference and away from her wubby. She left with trepidation and want. Want because she would be apart from her wubby for nearly eight consecutive hours, and trepidation because he would be in my sole care for those same eight hours. She had nothing to worry about, for Anna, Chris and Emily were about and able to entertain Rowan while I showered; to hold him while I bagged up some food; and to manage him while I attempted to feed him a thin concoction of cereal, water, breast milk and fruit. That I managed to get him fully fed, and with little spillage and fuss, is a testament less to my abilities than to Anna's experience. I and Jennifer are, and always will be, grateful. Emily and Chris had departed for the restaurant in advance of us and ordered Emily (what I expect was) a chocolate-chip pancake. My mouth salivated with envy, but my first task was to ensure my son did not go wanting. Fortuitously our food order arrived just as I was carefully maneuvering the last spoonful of muck into the tight-lipped fellow. Entertaining him while we ate was as simple as magazine he could ruffle and mangle: the simplicity of happiness. Breakfast was delicious, sufficient without being excessive, and paid for with cash because they accept neither credit nor debit card. I'm certain we're living in a plastic world, but I am (as I sometimes am) mistaken. It does help that Jen and I have sworn an oath to live by cash rather than credit in an effort to prepare for the burden of a larger-than-life mortgage; it doesn't help that I have yet to fully embrace the idea. Who walks around with more than a few dollars in their pockets? What happens if you get mugged walking down Queen St in the middle of the day? These are legitimate concerns of which we should all be ... concerned. Whosoever doubts this should walk around the shabby streets of India waving 10 Rupee notes - it is both dispiriting and scary as heck.
After breakfast I followed Anna and Emily to a small boutique at the corner of Queen and Pape. Ah, I must interrupt to make you aware that I was carrying Chubby, not carting him around in his stroller. At 20 pounds he is not heavy, but nor is he light enough to be lugged about kilometer after kilometer. Recognizing that I was thirsty, and dangerously in caffeine debt, I made the necessary excuses and walked in the direction of coffee. A thought struck me as I made my way down the sunny side of the street, shifting Chubby constantly from arm to arm to distribute the pain: I don't have any money (see above). This meant walking two blocks farther than I had expected with a 20 pound live weight swinging from my shoulder. Bank, bank card, PIN, money, and coffee. That was the order in which life proceeded. Naturally, I had not taken into account the need to carry the coffee once I'd got it. Being endowed with only two arms, and being in possession of two items which were not ambulatory, I was driven to wonder how I would manage the long trek back, dropping neither precious bundle. After many stops and load rebalancing I made it home (which I shall refer to it, it being someone's home) with both unspilled. I had just time enough to take in a few sips before it was necessary to prepare lunch for Rowan. As my coffee cooled on Chris and Anna's lawn furniture I quickly heated up the barbecued chicken and vegetable slurry we'd brought. After an hour of laboured feeding and grand entertainment, Rowan was fully fed and chubbed. He was put carefully to bed where he stayed for a miserly 30 minutes, leaving me time only to finish my coffee and prepare for Eli's birthday.
Jennifer left her conference and boarded the subway headed for Shepard and Yonge while Chubby and I wound our way in the opposite direction to the dry-cleaner's. The Don Valley Parkway , though a benighted 3 lanes in two directions, is among the most frustrating ways to traverse Toronto in the North / South direction. While I am sure that its architects had in mind a swift and uncluttered byway they did not account for the preponderance of commuters who use its paved way for the constant movement of their ungainly bulks. I caught up with Jen most of the way to Gihad and Caroline's house - and this includes the time she spent picking up a gift bag which I'd neglected to. The birthday had a vast undercurrent of children moving about and an ample supply of Lebanese food which I gladly ate, having forgotten to feed myself that day. After dinner and cup-cakes we bade farewell and moved to put Rowan to bed after a long day of ... yes: chubbing. He struggled not to be put down, feeling perhaps that there was still a microgram of chubbing left to be done, but ultimately weariness took firm hold of him and dragged him off to sleep.
Sunday morning I woke to find Rowan again asleep by my side. It seems Chubby is spending as much time in our bed as in his own, and with the long travel we have before us, he will surely shift the balance heavily to that one direction. He is a sleepy Chub lately.
I managed to shower and change without waking him though the hood-fan in the bathroom was roaring loudly. Once awake a quarter past 8, I worked with Anna to feed him while I rushed to collect together food and clothing. Today was Simon's baptism and Jennifer was again at conference which left it to me to get Rowan and myself up there in time and with the necessary tools for half-day survival. Though I love spending time with my Chub, a full time career will never be made of it. It is all-consuming and requires an almost complete subversion of your needs to those of the child; and I have too long lived for myself to make that transition easily. Perhaps the years will educate me, and perhaps a second child will finally break through the thick wall of habit and teach me a new reality, but for the moment, this is what I know, and it is a challenge. There is no reason to dwell on the difficulty of focusing on my child because it is a transition which must be made gradually. Without a crisis to force an immediate change, small steps are right steps.
I met Jennifer after an arduous climb up sets of stairs with a stroller and child in my arms, and a hard walk through the gale winds. She fed him while we talked about his morning and then accompanied us to Timothy's where I had intended to nab a bit of food and coffee, but managed only the coffee. By eaves-dropping on the store clerks I understood that they had not been aware of the conference, and had been cleaned out early in the day. The coffee was enough to brace me for my hard walk against the wind, and so off we went. Rowan fell asleep in the car and I decided to take the long way home, and allow him an opportunity to reclaim lost sleep; or perhaps I got lost a little.
After feeding him two dinners and rocking and singing him to sleep, I am now finishing off this web log entry for the days May 30 and 31, 2009.
The End
