We Are Known

"Nothing that is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and whatever you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops."

I.

I couldn't help but think of this Judgment Day prophecy as I read about the Ashley Madison hack. The Judgment Day isn't here yet, but millions of families are experiencing their own smaller version. This week's Economist frets: "People will lose their jobs. Celebrity magazines and gossip columnists will have a field day." It's been worse, tragically. Despair has apparently driven some of the customers to suicide. The newspaper continues: "But perhaps the greatest significance of this episode is that it illustrates, more vividly than ever before, the woeful state of internet security." Well, yes, Ashley Madison is the umpteenth dead canary on the subject of cyber safety, and maybe this one has given the tech industry a jolt of urgency that will keep our data safer in the future if that's possible. Ashley Madison itself is surely ruined, and if the hackers have tossed this horrible website on the digital ash heap, then something good beyond improved data security has come about.

Meanwhile, and I think more significantly, we are warned, by the hack and by that repellent prophecy: Things have a way of coming to the light, and one way or another, they will.

II.

The Economist's editorial echoes the prophecy: "No doubt some people signed up on a whim, while going through a rough patch in a relationship, or while drunk. In the past, the mere contemplation of infidelity left no physical traces. But now millions of people's thoughts and deeds are open to public scrutiny." Proclaimed on the housetops.

Technology's brought the housetops closer, hasn't it? A hacker with a grudge could easily publish my digital profile - how I spend my time and money, where, when, and what I click. Companies have that information and use it for advertising, but it could also be used for embarrassment or worse. I find that thought as horrifying as the Bible verse. Sure, I try, in my tweeting and posting, to shape the image of the thoughtful, funny, family man who occasionally has something interesting to say. But my inner thoughts and behaviour are more than this, much of which I would like to remain covered, even if there are plenty of corporations and government agencies who (if inclined) could piece all of these together and click post. To be so fully known and not on my terms but on the terms of some anonymous institution or prankster is a hellish thought, and the network of machines I'm writing on has a much better memory than we do.

III.

Ironically, Ashley Madison's customers were probably driven by a desire to be known. It's a tension we all feel. We're petrified of being found out, and we're disturbed by how much soulless corporations, government agencies, insurers, and employers have on us, what someone with the computer know-how could dig up on us - even if we have, more or less, nothing to hide. There are intimate thoughts and feelings that belong to our inner selves that, if someone knew, could be used as cutting weapons to the most fragile part of our beings.

Still, we want to be known. We want eyes that see, hands that touch, hearts that feel these parts of us and acknowledge, understand, affirm, correct, forgive, and love. That's what we're to do for each other. That's what friendship is for, and that's also what marriage is for.

I suspect that most adulterers are in it for more than carnal passion (as delightful as that is). The Biblical euphemism for sex is "to know," and that hints at the truth that sex is, or is meant to be, a deeper knowledge of someone, that souls entangle themselves together as bodies do, oneness in a deeper sense. That's why we holy rollers keep insisting that sex and marriage are one in the same and physical unity consummates spiritual unity. The search for sex elsewhere, then, even if it's just pictures or mental images, could be a search for deeper knowledge, whatever we tell ourselves otherwise.

IV.

The author of Hebrews writes that sin "easily entangles us." How true, and this includes infidelity, which can be the results of "series of bad decisions" anyone can make, including creating an Ashley Madison profile "on a whim, while going through a rough patch... while drunk." Ashley Madison is designed to make this deadly entanglement easier. (It's ironic that a website designed as a platform for infidelity couldn't be faithful with its own users' data) The downfall of the website, of course, won't end a human failing that's old and popular; it's supply for an insidious, common demand. But there's a better way of knowing and being known.

V.

I'm a Christian, because to be a Christian is to revel in being known and deeply loved. The Psalmist sings:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;    you discern my thoughts from afar.... 

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before,  and lay your hand upon me.

If this is true, then it is either extremely scary or unspeakably joyous. I don't know how it makes you feel, but the Psalmist rejoices, and I do to. This knowledge isn't for maximising customer service, and it isn't to sell to a third party. It isn't for a list of enemies of the state. It is not to commodify us or use us or manipulate or hurt. This is the knowledge of Love himself, who is the ultimate Lover, because he knows us like no other, because he made us. He sees and delights in his workmanship, our talents, our potential, our joys, our humour, our place. Yes, he is well aware of our wretchedness. He knows the extent of our unfaithfulness, whether or not we find our names on hacked spreadsheets. Still, in his love he has drawn near, and we're invited to turn away from all that has warped us and delight in his love and, in doing so, be what we're created to be.

If this is true, then all will be known, one way or another, even the parts they haven't managed to digitise. This should discomfort us, except that, though we're known, but we're also loved in places nothing on this earth can reach.

VI.

There's a reminder here, not only for the married, but for anyone in relationship. As far as appropriate and possible, let's know our colleagues, our friends, our family members, and our spouses, and love their wonderful parts and do so in spite of their horrid parts. For those of us who are married, this means pursuing and receiving intimate knowledge with our spouses and not nurturing hopes to find it elsewhere. It means going on the difficult, patient, and wonderful journey of knowing and loving another person, and in doing so, giving them a foretaste of the love of God.

Germany vs. the USA - the Maternity Ward Edition

The main difference is the screaming. There's more of it in Germany.

Let me explain. My first daughter was born back in the good ol' US of A, while the second was born here in Deutschland, so I've gotten a front row seat to the birthing philosophies and practices of both medical systems.

In the United States, we pay good money for medical services, and for that reason, these medical services should be as painless as possible. This is, of course, the purpose of medical services, to painlessly prop up our bodies, regardless of condition, so that we can fulfil our purpose by getting back to work as soon as possible. Americans agree with classical economists with this purpose, that all things work together for the good of those who love profit and work hard according to its service. For this reason, Americans put great trust in profitable technologies to solve all our problems. Take, for instance, genetically modified food. Americans understand, and have seen irrefutable scientific evidence, that the only way to feed the ever-growing world population is to invest heavily in genetically modified foods, because what's natural has no way of keeping up with our industrial ways. This philosophy is also applied to birth. My German wife wanted to have a natural birth (we'll contrast the key German philosophy later), which was a novelty for all the midwives in the hospital. ("midwives" themselves were a novelty - what will those hipsters think of next?) Sure, the midwives were trained in the advantages of doing things naturally, but to actually have a woman in a hospital in America who wanted to be natural (and wasn't forced due to a speedy labor in the taxi cab) was exciting! Now, our daughter would be born on New Year's Day, and the hospital was full, perhaps because a number of families wanted their children to be the first born in the New Year (we didn't win that competition). But, there wasn't the kind of screaming you see in the movies. All the other moms sat placidly in their beds with needles in their spines, awaiting the child emerge with minimal resistance. From the silence, you'd think they were all waiting in those transport capsules from Alien. The screams from our end of the maternity ward must have been disconcerting.

Of course, for all our technology, no one noticed that our daughter was "sunny-side-up", i.E. facing the wrong way, until she was almost out. Moreover, and this is serious, a huge hole in America's healthcare system is postpartum care for mothers. Sure, we have all the appropriate vaccines and follow-up visits for the baby, good on-sight training and support groups for those who have trouble breast feeding... But rebuilding the woman's body through support and exercise is foreign to our system, yet it's such a boon to a woman's health, family, and happiness. Postpartum exercises is nothing but yoga for the yuppies who can afford it. Changing this seems like a pro-woman, pro-family, pro-life kind of policy we could all agree on.

Superior mother-care aside, Germany still has its own quirks. In Germany, medical service is almost an embarrassing necessity, sort of a sell-out. We have friends who send their daughter in our local "forest" kindergarten, where the little tikes forage around in the freezing rain and all the crafts involve tying sticks and leaves together with twine, and this is much more natural and therefore better than doing anything in a building. I'm surprised that they don't have forest hospitals, where patients lay on piles of leaves and surgery is performed with sharpened sticks, because it's natürlich. The word natürlich has a deeper, richer meaning than the English word "natural." It harkens back to a nobler time where we weren't so reliant on tablets and mobiles and shots and clothes, and people weren't so obsessed with bourgeois notions like pain avoidance or morality rates. Natürlich is better. Take, for instance, genetically modified food. Germans understand, and have seen irrefutable scientific evidence, that the only way to feed the ever-growing world population is to stop any and all investment in genetically modified food and go back to doing food the natürliche way that has fed mankind through the ages. Nonetheless, Germans, like everyone else, want to live and be comfortable, so they begrudgingly accept medical technology to keep us alive and warm and comfortable (gemütlich, which is almost as an important natürlich over here - if you have a product that can manage to be gemütlich and natürlich, believe me, it'll sell well here - but many things in Germany seem to be a struggle between Natürlichkeit and Gemütlichkeit). As having a baby is a natural process, however, Natürlichkeit trumps Gemütlichkeit, as we could tell during our hospital visit when the midwives (standard-issue over here) bragged about their hospital's low rate of epidurals. They went on to cite statistics about the horrifyingly high rate of epidurals by those snaggle-tooth, hill-billy American women who, for some backwards reason (probably involving fast food and a general lack of discipine), are reluctant to embrace the immense, natürlich, pain Mother Nature has ordained for them. Hence the screams. When we were waiting for my wife's labor pains to get going (no drugs, of course, only the help of the cocktail, which was sehr natürlich), we heard the mom ahead of us screaming like she was going through an exorcism. Oh, but in Germany, my wife got a hot tub to sit in during the process, so I guess there was a little Gemütlichkeit after all.

After the birth, however, the advantages of Natürlichkeit are clear. Our basic insurance covered standard midwife visits and, as I write this, my wife is at her postpartum gymnastics class, rebuilding and restrengthening her body with peer and professional support. Both systems, of course, helped bring a beautiful little girl each into the world and so for them, through all the quirks, I give thanks.

Notes on the Second - VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

This is the seventh and final chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

This is the sixth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - V. Chunk

Five years ago, after the first was born, I chunked up. A lot of dads do. If you don't believe me, go to Facebook and look at pictures of your new-father friends. Then watch from the day of birth until about three months as the papa's cheeks swell, love handles pour over the side of his skinny jeans, and all his shirts start to develop little mouths between the buttons as if screaming for help. The new mom shrinks, the new baby grows, the new dad expands. I never got really fat, but it's enough chunk for me to get a little queasy-cringy every time someone breaks out the photo album. Moving to Germany and regular exercise, among other thing, has kept me reasonably fit sense, and I want to keep it that way. This time around I'm determined to avoid the chunk.

Papa-chunking is hard to avoid though, and there are two reasons. One is a new kind of tiredness; the other is a vague sense of karma. First the tiredness. During stressful seasons at work or study, I'm tired, but I need exercise. There comes a point when my brain can't take it anymore until I put my running shoes on and burn five kilometers like I'm Lola. New baby tiredness is different. It comes from staying up late with a baby intent on exercising her new lungs just to give'em a spin. When she's finally swaddled and asleep, I'm exhausted. Keep in mind, I've done very little physical activity except catch her every time she does those scary little newborn trust falls from my chest. Additionally, I've paced around and sang to her and watched terrible early-morning television that I'd have been better off not knowing about in the first placed. After she's finally quiet, swaddled, and sleeping, I'm not ready to hit the running trail, the weight machine, the basketball court, or however else we men keep our college boy figures. I'm ready to pass out on the hallway floor or ready to eat, and this is where the vague sense of karma comes in.

The vague sense of karma is the big reason for papa-chunking. After all, holding and comforting a tiny little human being for three and a quarter hours while she cries her little heart out is a GOOD. EFFEN. DEED. And because it's a good deed, I deserve seven cookies, three pieces of that good cheese we were saving for New Years, four spoonfuls of peanut butter (plus a couple of illicit swipes with the index finger), a hunk of that good peppery salami, a Magnum bar, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. And my vague sense of karma tells me that if there is any sense of sovereign justice in the world, this three-and-a-half minute snack will have zero effect on my waste line.

So this time round, I haven't shunned the jogging trail, even though part of me wishes I could stay on our couch until my funeral. And, even though it's the Christmas season, I like to think I've held the binge-eating in check. Stay away, papa-chunk. You're not welcome here.

(At this point, the blogger takes a break to throw away the wrappers from the three chocolate Santas Clauses he took to write this post)

This is the fifth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - IV. She's So Friendly

Part of the purpose of this post is to "treasure these things in our hearts", which sleeplessness, stress, and an unfortunate bout of disease have made difficult this week.* The sleeplessness, at least, serves a purpose. The times when I am awake with her are little treasures in and of themselves, the first father-daughter moments where I have her all to myself. Whenever I first look into her wakeful eyes, the first word that comes to mind is "friendly." I never thought an infant could have any sort of friendly disposition, but she does. It's as if she says, "I'm content to let you be who you are, and I want to get to know that part of you better." The sentiment reveals itself not only in the way she looks up at me, but also in the way she coos and grunts when she's hungry. She cries a lot as a colicky little thing, but crying for her seems to be a last resort. She's a friendly person who would rather communicate through less intrusive means. I'll play the little baby games; I stick my tongue out, and she mimics me. I experiment with different voices to see how she reacts. I show her different patterns. And of course, I sing.

Babies aren't carry ons or blocks of wood. They're little people with little personalities, and it's the privilege of a parent to treasure these things so early.

This is the fourth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

*This sentence was written in mid-December. Chapter 6 has the details.

Notes on the Second - III. Woman

Awe is the appropriate response a thoughtful man has to the woman he married. Awe usually requires a certain thoughtfulness. Being thoughtful means using your thoughts to poke through the stress and distractions and day-to-day muddle that makes everything too urgent for awe. When we can't do this, events come along to bring it out. My sense of awe, neglected like I neglect this blog, focused and compounded upon itself while watching my wife give birth. Most dads would agree with me here.

The cocktail worked so quickly that we had no time for drugs or anything else. The birth was going to be all natural, with the help from a midwife, a doctor, and a hot tub. It's hard for a man not to feel so unessential to the process, even as I brought her water and gave her a shoulder to lean on. We walked back and forth, we tried different positions and "labor massages," and in the end, pretty much anything we planned didn't really work, other than to say: "full steam ahead!" The midwife was a hero, making a little moan every time my wife yelled in agony, which apparently helped, and spoke words of comfort through the torturous fear between labor pains.

The screams came from every part of her body and soul. They contained fear, pain, determination, and love, somehow shameless and proud at the same time. In labor, there's a sense of irrational urgency, and yet a wise, determined patience. In all of these paradoxes, the culmination of the 9-month process of giving life, the woman in labor is more animal, more angel, and more human than a man could ever be.

During the final pushes, she grabbed my shoulder as the doctor and midwife directed traffic. "Grabbed" - no. She crushed my shoulder between her fingers. It hurt for a week, though that'll elicit no sympathy from a birthing woman.

At the end of it all, my daughter emerged from my wife. They let me cut the cord, and they sat her on my wife's broken body for her first meal. There were tears and greetings and pictures and weighings. We had a new person to get to know, but my wife was nine months ahead of me.

This is the third chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - II. The Cocktail

We have friends who lovingly refer to one of their sons as their "margarita baby." You laugh, because you know. Your decision to get pregnant may have been lubricated by a cocktail (or three). Well, in Germany (and perhaps other back-to-nature oriented northern European countries), there's a cocktail for the end of the pregnancy. No, it's not Mommy's little Jägermeister to ease the her into a stupor so she can forget the experience. It's the labor-inducing cocktail, and it works. (In fact, don't go googling it and making it for yourself at home, which may be tempting with 9-months and nothing moving. We've heard of mothers going for the home cocktail, resulting in some unwanted, unsafe, home births.)

It works, but it's not delicious, according my wife. The back story: My wife's water broke the morning of my daughter's birth, so we packed what was still left to pack, sent our first daughter with her grandmother, and moseyed on over to the hospital, hoping the labor pains would come soon. Well, the pains were there, but they were too wimpy to take on woman. By the afternoon, the midwife, for no extra tip, poured the cocktail. My wife sipped it down over the next hour - it's mostly nut oils, which isn't exactly "great taste, less filling." But I repeat: it works. Not only does it work, but from what I understand, the labor pains it induces are less painful than those from the medical procedure we were familiar with from having our first daughter in the States. But Labor pains they were, and my wife suddenly became capable of balling up steel beams with her fingers.

This is the second chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second

I. The Waiting

Our second child was late. Ok, late is a stupid term. Every doctor, nurse, and midwife we talked to reminded us that the "due date" was really just the middle of a range, and real earliness or lateness can involve a lot of unpleasantness. She came eight days after the due date, which isn't late. It's right on time, like a wizard.

But it felt late, especially when the doctor told my wife, eight days before the due date that "THE BABY IS LOW! GET READY! IT'LL COME AT ANY MOMENT!!!" We spent the following to weeks like Olympic sprinters waiting for the gun, head down, bottoms up, cleats sharp. This stressed us, especially as we invited everyone around us to get in sprint position - my in-laws, who were to pitch in with our first child during the labor adventures, my co-students, who were ready to pitch in with my projects and take copious notes should I suddenly get called to the hospital.

From then on, every conversation began with a look of expectation. "Is the baby there?" My daughter's kindergarten, university, church, street. Texts and Facebook, Email (remember Email?). It could get tedious. "No, not yet. My wife is uncomfortable, but she and the child are healthy. She's due the 13th, but it could be up to ten days after it." Every time. Tedious, but part of me loved it and not just the part of me that craves your approval. I loved it, because it's much better than the alternative. Those around us saw my family - my unborn child, my wife, my daughter, me - as something worth caring about. That old question, "how are you doing?" honestly asked, means something.

II. The Cocktail

We have friends who lovingly refer to one of their sons as their "margarita baby." You laugh, because you know. Your decision to get pregnant may have been lubricated by a cocktail (or three). Well, in Germany (and perhaps other back-to-nature oriented northern European countries), there's a cocktail for the end of the pregnancy. No, it's not Mommy's little Jägermeister to ease the her into a stupor so she can forget the experience. It's the labor-inducing cocktail, and it works. (In fact, don't go googling it and making it for yourself at home, which may be tempting with 9-months and nothing moving. We've heard of mothers going for the home cocktail, resulting in some unwanted, and unsafe, home births.)

It works, but it's not delicious, according my wife. The back story: My wife's water broke the morning of my daughter's birth, so we packed what was still left to pack, sent our first daughter with her grandmother, and moseyed on over to the hospital, hoping the labor pains would come soon. Well, the pains were there, but they were too wimpy to take on woman. By the afternoon, the midwife, for no extra tip, poured the cocktail. My wife sipped it down over the next hour - it's mostly nut oils, which isn't exactly "great taste, less filling." But I repeat: it works. Not only does it work, but from what I understand, the labor pains it induces are less painful than those from the medical procedure we were familiar with from having our first daughter in the States. But Labor pains they were, and my wife suddenly became capable of balling up steel beams with her fingers.

III. Woman

Awe is the appropriate response a thoughtful man has to the woman he married. Awe usually requires a certain thoughtfulness. Being thoughtful means using your thoughts to poke through the stress and distractions and day-to-day muddle that makes everything too urgent for awe. When we can't do this,  events come along to bring it out. My sense of awe, neglected like I neglect this blog, focused and compounded upon itself while watching my wife give birth. Most dads would agree with me here.

The cocktail worked so quickly that we had no time for drugs or anything else. The birth was going to be all natural, with the help from a midwife, a doctor, and a hot tub. It's hard for a man not to feel so unessential to the process, even as I brought her water and gave her a shoulder to lean on. We walked back and forth, we tried different positions and "labor massages," and in the end, pretty much anything we planned didn't really work, other than to say: "full steam ahead!" The midwife was a hero, making a little moan every time my wife yelled in agony, which apparently helped, and spoke words of comfort through the torturous fear between labor pains.

The screams came from every part of her body and soul. They contained fear, pain, determination, and love, somehow shameless and proud at the same time. In labor, there's a sense of irrational urgency, and yet a wise, determined patience. In all of these paradoxes, the culmination of the 9-month process of giving life, the woman in labor is more animal, more angel, and more human than a man could ever be.

During the final pushes, she grabbed my shoulder as the doctor and midwife directed traffic. "Grabbed" - no. She crushed my shoulder between her fingers. It hurt for a week, though that'll elicit no sympathy from a birthing woman.

At the end of it all, my daughter emerged from my wife. They let me cut the cord, and they sat her on my wife's broken body for her first meal. There were tears and greetings and pictures and weighings. We had a new person to get to know, but my wife was nine months ahead of me.

IV. She's so Friendly

Part of the purpose of this post is to "treasure these things in our hearts", which sleeplessness, stress, and an unfortunate bout of disease have made difficult this week. The sleeplessness, at least, serves a purpose. The times when I am awake with her are little treasures in and of themselves, the first father-daughter moments where I have her all to myself. Whenever I first look into her wakeful eyes, the first word that comes to mind is "friendly." I never thought an infant could have any sort of friendly disposition, but she does. It's as if she says, "I'm content to let you be who you are, and I want to get to know that part of you better." The sentiment reveals itself in the way she looks, even in the way she coos and grunts when she's hungry. She cries a lot as a colicky little thing, but crying for her seems to be a last resort. She's a friendly person who would rather communicate through less intrusive means. I'll play the little baby games; I stick my tongue out, and she mimics me. I experiment with different voices to see how she reacts. I show her different patterns. And of course, I sing.

Babies aren't carry ons or blocks of wood. They're little people with little personalities, and it's the privilege of a parent to treasure these things so early.

V. Chunk

Five years ago, after the first was born, I chunked up. A lot of dads do. If you don't believe me, go to Facebook and look at pictures of your new-father friends. Then watch from the day of birth until about three months as the papa's cheeks swell, love handles pour over the side of his skinny jeans, and all his shirts start to develop little mouths between the buttons as if screaming for help. The new mom shrinks, the new baby grows, the new dad expands. I never got really fat, but it's enough chunk for me to get a little queasy-cringy every time someone breaks out the photo album. Moving to Germany and regular exercise, among other thing, has kept me reasonably fit sense, and I want to keep it that way. This time around I'm determined to avoid the chunk.

Papa-chunking is hard to avoid though, and there are two reasons. One is a new kind of tiredness; the other is a vague sense of karma. First the tiredness. During stressful seasons at work or study, I'm tired, but I need exercise. There comes a point when my brain can't take it anymore until I put my running shoes on and burn five kilometers like I'm Lola. New baby tiredness is different. It comes from staying up late with a baby intent on exercising her new lungs just to give'em a spin. When she's finally swaddled and asleep, I'm exhausted. Keep in mind, I've done very little physical activity except catch her every time she does those scary little newborn trust falls from my chest. Additionally, I've paced around and sang to her and watched terrible early-morning television that I'd have been better off not knowing about in the first placed. After she's finally quiet, swaddled, and sleeping, I'm not ready to hit the running trail, the weight machine, the basketball court, or however else we men keep our college boy figures. I'm ready to pass out on the hallway floor or ready to eat, and this is where the vague sense of karma comes in.

The vague sense of karma is the big reason for papa-chunking. After all, holding and comforting a tiny little human being for three and a quarter hours while she cries her little heart out is a GOOD. EFFEN. DEED. And because it's a good deed, I deserve seven cookies, three pieces of that good cheese we were saving for New Years, four spoonfuls of peanut butter (plus a couple of illicit swipes with the index finger), a hunk of that good peppery salami, a Magnum bar, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. And my vague sense of karma tells me that if there is any sense of sovereign justice in the world, this three-and-a-half minute snack will have zero effect on my waste line.

So this time round, I haven't shunned the jogging trail, even though part of me wishes I could stay on our couch until my funeral. And, even though it's the Christmas season, I like to think I've held the binge-eating in check. Stay away, papa-chunk. You're not welcome here.

(At this point, the blogger takes a break to throw away the wrappers from the three chocolate Santas Clauses he took to write this post)

VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

Naming and Being Named

Call me Jon. Or Jonathan. I try to be uncomplicated about my name, and, as both Jon (or John) and Jonathan are common names, I'm happy to go with whichever name is left available in our particular social setting. If there's someone called Jo(h)n, I'll be Jonathan, which still sounds attractive, though three syllables is a mouthful for lazy, friendly banter.

As a child, I insisted on Jonathan. My mother told me I was named for the biblical Jonathan - David's best friend who willingly gave up the throne that was his birthright to make way for God's anointed - and the name means "gift from God," and my parents considered me a gift. So, it was clear, even in my little ears, that there was depth, love, and meaning to this choice. Besides, it somehow sounded more special. The monosyllable is so common in popular literature and culture, and I was blissfully unaware that my name was part of a naming trend in the 70s and 80s - the fact is, there were always several Jonathans in my classes. (Think how many GenX and Millennial writers share my name)

My family moved to Florida when I was 13, and I was ready to shed my awkward, middle school baggage, and calling myself Jon felt like a clean break. This initiated my present naming situation: to my family, at least the family I grew up with, I was and am Jonathan, to most of my friends, Jon, and at the workplace, a confusing mix of the two. This worked well from school to young single life, but marriage and other circumstances have mixed the two the two names in ways that feel strange. My wife, in her transition from friend to family, still calls me Jon, and I think this is good and right. To my daughter, I am first "Papa," and she knows that I am "Jon," but I'm not sure if she is aware of my full name. My parents and sisters still call me "Jonathan," and whenever they refer to me as Jon, usually whenever they intermix with my friends, it's almost as if they're referring to someone else. Likewise, I knew my sister's husband before their marriage, and to him I was Jon, but now he's adapted to call me "Jonathan," with the same results: it always takes me a couple seconds to realize he's talking about (or even to) me. Identity is relative. I try to be uncomplicated about my name, but I'm not.

I'm satisfied with my name, nonetheless, and the sacrificial love displayed by the biblical Jonathan is a source of aspiration, and my parents probably had this in mind. These reflections about my own name accompanied the deep sense of sadness I felt when my daughter told me she wished she had a different one.

Her name is Joy, and I admit this was a hazardous choice. It's not especially common, which is a blessing for trend-resistant parents and a curse for sensitive children who want to fit in. It's less common here in Germany, and though the word is known and pronounceable here (this was important to us, of course), it's not unchallenging either. The word is overused in flippant speech, cartoons, and advertising, and to boot, her birthday is dangerously close to Christmas. The name is a target for songs and puns, and anyone who knows me well will know that in this regard, her father is a the chief of sinners.

"Joy" was on our shortlist almost five years ago when we arrived at the hospital, but we wanted to get a good look at her before we came to a final decision. She spent the first 24 hours outside the womb nameless, but the decision had been made in my heart from the moment we made eye-contact, and I don't think I could have been convinced otherwise.

Here's why. When it comes to love, I am in a position of privilege. I grew up loving my parents, loving my sisters, loving my friends, and loving God and experience love from each of them. Since then, I've added the love for my wife and the love of her family, and I'm well aware that none of these are a given. I knew I would love my children, but I didn't think it would add much to what I already had. I was wrong. Holding my daughter in my arms added a completely new dimension to my love for which I could have never been prepared. This love multiplied the anxiety that I could lose something so precious. She could be driven away later in life; tragedy could end it sooner. New parents are aware of the horrifying thought of sudden infant death syndrome, and the idea that my child could be robbed of her breath for no apparent reason made, for me, the sound of a snoring baby the most beautiful sound under heaven. Every day, every hour, every second of her existence became a gift of great price, and thankfulness compounded upon thankfulness enriched my life in ways that never would have occurred to me otherwise.

This deep thankfulness for life and for love is called joy. It's something that marketing campaigns and Christmas ornaments can only hint at, but it's something that all of us who get to properly love another human can experience. This reflects an even greater joy, the joy of the Lord, the joy of his unadulterated love, a joy we see through the glass darkly, but which the Bible insists is our strength, dour and self-conscious as I am. It was the only word that could come to my lips on that day as I looked in her dark eyes, doctors and nurses scurrying around me to repair my wife's broken body. A day later we gave her the name Joy, and whatever silliness our culture adds to this word, it has never been inappropriate.

I'm told it's a small administrative hassle, getting your named changed. I can imagine a future so individualistic that we change our names with our fashions, and that no one need, after a few drinks, to grimace and admit that they hate their name - they can just get it removed and replaced and inform their friends via text message. My daughter, sick of puns and Christmas songs, could do this one day. I hope she doesn't. I hope that her dissatisfaction with her name is just the short-lived fancy of a four-year-old and nothing deeper. I hope that she'll understand the meaning of her name, how much joy and love she gave her parents, how it reflects her intrinsic worth, how it reminds us of the joy of the Lord, our strength. There's an old-fashioned comfort here. In these times, where the question, "How can I add value to the organization?" is so much more pressing than, "What is the chief end of man?" the idea that value can be not just achieved but also imparted by those who gave us life is a cry of blessing. In naming, we can participate in this, and in being named, we can remember.

Parenting and Entangling Love

Part of having a child, a wife, bills, and interesting things to look at is that I don't write as often as I would like. By way of saying, I wanted to respond from my little corner of the web to an interesting online writing kerfluffle about the challenges and joys of parenting, but I'm a little late thanks to the challenges and joys of parenting (I'm writing these words with one of those Disney sing-a-long films running in the background). Here in Germany, a couple of journalists complained that modern demands of parenting and career simply can't work, but shrug and say they might as well try to make it work anyway. Then, Ruth Graham's protest against all the negative, "honest" parent-complaining drew a lot of attention (at least in my social networking sphere), including Rachel Lu's beautiful, thoughtful response. Lu wrote one of those "I-wish-I-had-written-that" essays clarifying my jumble of thoughts and feelings about parenting-angst with a lovely description of joy and love in parenting. The whole thing's worth a slow read, and I wanted to highlight a couple points she makes towards the end:

Finally, I should address the most critical question: Is it worth it? If so, why? Certainly, there are cultural changes that could make the plunge into parenthood less daunting. It would be possible, too, for parents to feel less stressed and more affirmed. Still, child-rearing will always be miserable and magical, for more or less the same reasons. It’s a “happy pig or unhappy Socrates” sort of conundrum. Parenthood makes life harder, but also richer. It’s less pleasant but more meaningful. That’s because love fundamentally changes us as human beings. Like the dissatisfied Socrates, we can look on the unburdened (including our own former selves) with a certain amount of wistful envy, but it isn’t in our nature to want to stuff love back into its Pandora’s box.

She ends with: 

An employer could never get away with drawing up a contract like the one you implicitly have with your kids. So yes, it’s reasonable to be a little bit terrified. It’s no small thing to let another person become the main star of your life. It’s even harder when you realize that one day they’ll just walk right out the door again, leaving you twenty years older but no longer able to sleep in on a Saturday morning.

Still, if the opportunity beckons, you should do it. Because if you don’t, you’ll be the person who chose the happy pig over Socrates. You don’t want to go to your grave knowing that one of your most important life decisions was to run away from love.

These thoughts are seconded by Jennifer Senior, author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. In her interview on Fresh Air, she documents the "no fun" part then gets to the joy, and like Lu, she knows what we all know, that the joy is worth it, even if it can't be numerically verified:

And, you know, the studies don't focus on (the joy) so much. I have to sort of go to philosophy and novels in order to discuss the joy. The problem with these studies is that if you're feeling good about something, you know, you rank it a five. So that moment that I was describing with my baby looking at me and cooing at me - which was, like, just like this transcendent moment in my life - would rate the same if I'm doing everything on a scale of one to five, as, like, a dinner with a friend, if I had a really great time at that dinner. In the same way that, like, you know, on Amazon, you know, a John Grisham novel and, you know, and Charles Dickens like kind of get fives, you know, but they're not necessarily the same experience, you know. 

And also, I can't remember who said this to me - I think it was George Vaillant, a psychiatrist who is kind of a poet-philosopher, too - he pointed out that, like, it's kind of like using a number to describe a taste. You know, how do you do that? So I think that social science misses a lot of the joy.

And, you know, one of the remarkable things about joy is that it is sort of predicated on this idea of being very connected to somebody. I think Christopher Hitchens described, you know, having kids as, you know, your heart running around in somebody else's body. And that feeling is so powerful, it's almost scary, because there's almost, like, an implied sense of loss about it.

It's, like, you love somebody so much, that you are almost automatically afraid of losing them, like, that this connection is so deep, that you can't think of that connection without thinking of that connection being broken. So joy, in some ways, is almost a harder feeling to tolerate than sadness, in some ways, because it's so powerful and makes us so vulnerable. But it's why it is also so profoundly special and what makes parenting, to so many of us, so huge and incomparable.

So, a hearty amen to both from this papa across the pond. Both women (with an assist from Maria Popova) reminded me of C.S. Lewis' famous reflection in The Four Loves: "To love is to be vulnerable. To love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it in tact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers and perturbations of love is hell."

Choosing lasting, difficult joy over immediate happiness is an ancient problem, and the fact that children are more of an economic burden than necessity thrusts today's (Western) family into the center of this choice. I've no special insight into this, but I'm encouraged: the fact that we're talking about it means this joy is not dead, and I wonder if paradoxically, we comfortable westerners are taking the joys of entangled love more seriously. This reminded me of something I noticed in that other great love entanglement: marriage. When I first came to Germany, I was told that Germans, consistent with the trends of most of Western Europe, were marrying later than Americans. I assumed that this meant they no longer took marriage seriously, that in a post-religious age they had deconstructed a ritual of religion and state enough to render it meaningless, or at least with much less meaning. Maybe at some point they'll muddle through the ritual and smile for the camera like distracted teenagers in a confirmation class, but more important is a fuzzy concept of love independent of the things our ancients had passed down.

It didn't take long to realize my assumption was wrong, at least among the students, young academics, and young professionals I interacted with. Sure, I'd hear people deconstruct marriage to justify premarital sex, but at the end of the day, marriage was a damn serious thing for most people, particularly for those in relationships. I found those living together didn't see their lifestyles as an alternative to marriage, but they saw marital commitment as something they couldn't lightly go into without a lot of practice and growth together. They were avoiding a complete entanglement, taking tentative steps into the rosebush, keeping the exit available, because they weren't about to make a commitment they didn't think they could keep. From this position, marriage was wonderful but overwhelming. They wanted it as much as the Bible-belt American standing before them, but with a deliberate slowness. I can imagine approaching child-rearing the same way, and it looks like more and more westerners are following in this path. The general seriousness about the topic impressed me, and it still does.

I sympathize. I had always wanted to be married, and yet the act of getting married cost me more courage than I could carry myself. Then our daughter came along, and she flooded our lives with love and joy but also with so many worldly worries that without the help of some god-fearing friends and family members, well, who knows how far we would have sunk. And still, both steps are the steps in my life where I can most clearly look at them and pronounce them good. I say this from a position of privilege - both my wife and I come from great families where martial promises were honored and children were viewed as gifts from the Lord. Not everyone grew up in such luxury, and I can understand how those without it might find the promises of love and joy of children much less believable, and all the "honest" parenting blogs could be a stumbling block for anybody. Entangling yourself in love is more and more a heroic, deeply serious step, the risks are no longer hidden behind smiles, closed doors, and rigorous cultural standards. It's serious stuff, and it's good we're all still talking about it.

Honest talking and writing doesn't hide the mess, the failures, or the heartbreak, but neither does it stay there, and I'm glad Lu and Senior reminded us how to write about the sort of things that don't fit on clever charts or Buzzfeed lists, but fit into philosophy, novels, poetry, and prose. The seriousness with which we're taking the commitments that irreversibly entangle our hearts to others mean that there's a hunger for it. And those of us who are presumptuous enough to tape our thoughts to the Internet should remember that writing about love and joy are worth the effort.

Ten Things To Say to Young Children That Guarantee Their Parents Will Never Ask You To Babysit Them Again

You know you've thought it. You watched the darling couple get married, settle down, blossom, and then, oh tears of happiness! the woman's belly turned into a baby bump, grew, and, before you can shake a pastel-pink rattle - pop - that plushy miniature human is resting and cooing in the arms of a glowing young Mother.

Twelve-thousand Facebook photos later (good luck analyzing those, NSA!), those two parents, all smug and smiling on the Internet, really need a break. I mean, they haven't seen a film since the first Ironman came out, and the wife always mutters "vodka cranberry" every time her bundle of joy comes running. So, they ask you, their very dear friend to babysit. Of course, they think you'd babysit! You've known them since college, were present at every significant event, you wept at their wedding (and overpaid for that tux/bridesmaids dress, mind you) and kept a social media vigil while their child was being born! I mean, of course!

You have two options. You could tell them the truth: "I don't think your kids like me, besides, I can't be confined to your house when you don't even have HBO! I mean, hello, Game of Thrones!"

Nah, I didn't think so. The best approach is the passive-aggressive approach, because it keeps relational conflict below the surface - where it belongs. So option number two is to warp the minds of their kid(s) into such a twisted little pre-kindergarten knot that those mooching parents never ask you to babysit again. You'll have to sacrifice one night of freedom, of course. But to be free for the rest of your life, tell those lil' anklebiters any combination of the following:

1. "Interesting how your dad made you eat all that salad. Dinner at my house was always a snickers bar with a side of gummy bears. Healthy, and better tasting too."
2. "Baseball is an indoor sport. Extra points if you hit Mom's blender!"
3. "Why doesn't your mom still breast feed you? I guarantee you everyone else in preschool is still breast fed."
4. "Your bed is a dangerous place. If your parents loved you, they'd let you sleep in their room."
5. "Yeah, I smoked to impress people at school. It worked, too! Don't regret it one bit." 
6. "I brought over my favorite movie! It's about a little girl like you! It's called The Exorcist!"
7. "Baths are completely unnecessary. A waste of time, if you ask me." 
8. "Wiping your bottom is completely unnecessary. A waste of time, if you ask me." 
9. "Let's call your granny and ask her why Mommy always pays more attention to her iPad than to me." 
10. "Good night! Remember, I promise you can drink a Coke for breakfast." 

Oh, and if you try any of these with my daughter, I'll release a live badger your living room. 

Family Expressed

How do you express your family? I'm not sure if express is the right word, but I can't think of a better one. Let's see... those people who you live with and share genes and jeans and eat with and love and hurt and see and avoid and mess and clean. How do you present them to the world? After all, if you want the world - friends, colleagues, potential networking contacts, co-members, sports fans, and whomever else - if you want them to actually understand you, they need to understand your family, or at least the pieces you allow to show.

For this purpose, I often utilize that wonderful, free public relations platform called Facebook. There, we wash ourselves and dress up like birthday cakes and smile to create professional-looking photographs that are clearer than reality. They're so clear, they cause the blind to see. Or we get spontaneous shots of playgrounds, snowmen and Christmas presents, family happiness and instant memories. I'm writing with my tongue between my molars, but I do this, and I love it. All these things are worth celebrating like victorious children. Then there are other things beneath the pictures. Messes, tedium, delight, sin, forgiveness, sex, conflict, joy, and things only for the realms of pastors, therapists and bartenders.

To get a more complete family portrait, you need art. For his family portrait, Benjamin Hofer crafted ten songs which lovingly and resolutely fill out his first full-length album, Family History. A few items of business before I continue: Ben is a dear friend - he was the best man at my wedding, and I in his - so you should hear the bias in what I am about to write. His wife Lauren Shea Little on vocals and Wendell Kimbrough in the production chair are also friends. But please taste the free single and see for yourself. This is a good album, perfect for your Saturday-morning song list. (And for a quick overview of all the other useful information surrounding the album, visit Justin's blog)

Ben and Wendell layer vocals, guitars, banjos, percussion, whistling, and plenty more to create the album's thoughtful sound. The production itself is impressive, and it's a compliment to their work, the mastering, and the technology that the album sounds three dimensional, like the musicians are in the room with you and not next door. Most of the music is pleasantly subdued, which makes the title track more of a highlight when, as if releasing some pent up emotion, the musicians start rocking out and fill up every available space with sound.

But even more than layering music, what Family History does well is layer emotions. There are happy songs like "Man's Own Heart" or "We'll Be Laughing" (a personal favorite for me) that carry a splash of regret. Likewise, the sad songs like "Huron, SD" aren't joyless. It's so tempting to talk about family (or for that matter history, love, or politics) in one dimension, and Ben's emotional alchemy not only tells broader stories, it holds the listener to his or her better angels.

However personal Ben's songs are, you'll find yourself nodding, relating and humming along. I spoke with Ben today, and he talked about the joys and pains of sharing family history, but at the same time, he knows that these songs will mean different things to different people. Our families leave us our own scarred map of memories, and Ben's Family History might help shine a light on yours.

One more thing. We expect our entertainment to reach out and grab us. We need a little pizazz from the first page, scene, or song to convince us that we should pay attention. Most of Ben's songs don't reach out and grab us, and I mean that as a compliment. We're adults; we don't need to be grabbed. We have the ability to sit and listen, and that is a marvelous gift. Family History is full of songs like the title track,  "The Dream of Joseph Cornell" or "Huron, SD" that won't greet you at the door like a salesman. But if you sit and listen, you will be rewarded with rich stories told by rich music. As soon as you can, sit down and listen to Benjamin Hofer's Family History. It comes out on April 6th.

The Picnic (Home Sick)

We didn't want to get sick, of course, and we tried everything. But sickness is part of life and winter and public education, and, on the night my daughter's fever set a personal record, our sainted pediatrician was open late treating a relentless line of sniffling kindergartners. That was Thursday, we got the medicine Friday morning. It's Saturday afternoon as a write this, and my daughter is restlessly watching one of the "BBC Earth" films. She wanted to see the one where "the shark eats the seal," which is the first one. This might sound like bragging, as in, "I-got-my-daughter-to-watch-something-educational-nanny-nanny-boo-boo," but really, this my penance for letting her watch a DVD of Disney Princess greatest hits earlier this morning.

Speaking of morning - this morning was very short. Blessedly short. For all the suffering and worrying about a sick child, there is one delicious mercy. We slept in. All of us, including teenie one. Normally, one parent sleeps in while the other does his or her Christian duty to wake up like it's a Tuesday to feed and clothe and entertain a tiny little person. This morning, for perhaps the first time in her life, she out-slept the both of us. I woke up to nothing but sunbeams and quiet. My wife had already gotten up to fix coffee. Our church had it's women's day, where all the ladies sang and ate and encouraged. So I think she's having a good time, even if she had to get up for it. The poor woman. She had a terrible night sleep anyway. My daughter has a fever, but I wasn't spared the sniffles, which means I snored like an eight-hour freight train. My wife informed me of this first thing when I emerged from the bedroom. Maybe she didn't sleep in after all. 

So after a leisury breakfast involving peanut butter and bananas (when you find peanut butter in Europe, you buy lots of it), I helped my sick little daughter up. She ate her light breakfast, slurped her antibiotics and played and toddled around. Not needing much attention, I left her to do some Internet reading (don't worry, my chair was about five feet away from where she was laying on the couch). 

I got lost reading a lovely essay, when, I felt a little tug on my jeans pocket. She's up. "It's time for a picnic, Papa!" I look outside. Snowflakes, lots of them, but too indecisive to stick to the ground. Not picnic weather. Nonplussed, she unrolled a piece of bubble wrap from a package we opened long ago and laid it out on the living room floor. She invited me to her feast, and Î sat down. "What are we eating?" I asked. 

"I have hambooger for you, papa!" 

"mmmm... hamburger. I love hamburgers." I wanted to ask if they were made with horse meat, but I don't think she's up enough on current events to get the joke.

Hamburger finished, she announced, "Î have spaghetti for you!" I'm normally not in the mood for a bowl of spaghetti after a burger, but I didn't wan to be impolite.

"Thank you. Mmmm... that's some good spaghetti!" 

Then we each took a few minutes to pop the bubbles in our picnic blanket. 

Real lunch was served later. I let her watch the Princesses (while wearing her official Cinderella dress) while I fried up some pressed sausage and boiled some potatoes. The Germans call pressed sausage "Fleischkäse," or "meat cheese." It's because it looks and tastes like meat but has the consistency of cheese. I realize this sounds like a form of cafeteria torture, but it's actually quite good, especially if you have onions and a bit of Bavarian sweet mustard. I managed to fry it up on the 2nd try - the first time I left it in the pan too long and the alarms went off. Delicious, even after hamburger and spaghetti. 

Surviving the German Winter Part II: Play in the Snow

This is part II of a four-part series on surviving the German winter. You can read part I here. 

Once the snow comes, the kids naturally want to play in it. My daughter has seen enough Christmas specials to know that as soon as the ground is white, all the neighborhood kids burst out the front doors, armed with sleds and cherry-red mittens. They make enormous snowmen with pipes and coal for eyes (I have never seen a three year old walking around with a pipe and and two lumps of coal, though I guess that's what they all did in the 50s when the Christmas specials were filmed) and toboggan down enormous hills. These are my memories as well. What I don't remember is the battle Armageddon my mother must have went though just to get three kids dressed for the winter. I'm struggling with just one.

It takes about seven and a half hours to dress your average three year for snow. Five of those is just getting her little fingers into those friggin mittens, but the rest consists of several pairs of tights, wooly socks over thins socks, hats not truly designed for children, water-resistant snow pants with zippers to bleed your fingers and the most incomprehensible pair of snow boots in the world (they look so simple, then you try to put her feet in them). Once my daughter is wearing enough layers that I could safely roll her down a mountain with a sled (don't worry, haven't tried it, no plans to), she removes her scarf from her lips and announces that she has to go potty.

With this news in mind, I teach my daughter three choice curse words, and frantically unbutton and unzip enough for her to do her business at the proper way in the proper place. By the time everything's ready to go, of course she's already soiled herself. I can now only sigh and check which of her many layers are salvageable and which need to go directly to laundry. My daughter, then, sees her shadow in the bathroom light and declares six more weeks of potty training. Or, I could just remember to let her empty herself before we hit the sleds.

Of course, we've managed to go out in the snow a couple times this winter. It's fun - watching a little girl discover how snow crunches under her little boot is a reminder of all that is good about life. But it only takes a couple of snowfalls to crush a few of your idyllic snow scenes, and this has much to do with the nature of snow itself. You really can't have it all. Snow that is powdery and good for sledding is rubbish for snowmen, and wet, heavy snow ain't up to snuff when it comes for sledding. The snow is the great decider of your activities, even as your daughter is screaming "I WANNA BUILD A SNOWMAAANNNNNN!!!" Nope! We're going sledding, darlin'! This is after we built a snowman that looked more like a six-inch dollop of whipped cream. Just like in the commercials.

The New Saturdays Mornings

Waiting in line at the post office a few years ago brought about this reflection on Saturday mornings. I, content and well-rested after sleeping in, reading unbothered and eating my wife's apple-cinnamon pancakes stood in front of a beautiful and exhausted young mother. Married and waiting for children, I knew my idyllic Saturday mornings were numbered. Now, a father of an almost-three year old, Saturdays are no longer us time. My wife and I can no longer enjoy the executive breakfast or the lazy reading and comfort coffee and all the other Saturday pleasures afforded to young married couples. Parenting is a great job; it's the best job I've ever had, but you don't get to take a day off for a well-deserved sabbath.

My new Saturday mornings run like this. My daughter's noises wake my wife up. The noises could be singing, crying, talking, laughing, grunting, coughing or any combination thereof, but my wife wakes up. My wife sleeps like a soldier - any small noise and she is up and ready for action. I'm glad she's not the kind to keep a gun under her pillow, or else I'd get shot in the ribs every time I needed to use the toilet at night. The noises can come at any point between 7 and 8:30 AM, the later the more merciful. My wife rouses me with an elbow and a whisper of "Schatz," which in this context is German for "darling." I wake up, fumble with whatever clothes I can find and exit the bedroom stage right. I let my wife go back to sleep. Saturday morning is her turn.

I go to my daughter. She's usually happy to see me, though sometimes she protests, "Mama! NOT Papa!" "Sorry kid, you're stuck with me." is my response. I pick her up.

***

What follows is a philosophical discussion about the potty. My more progressive argument is that big girls, including all the cool kids in her future kindergarten, go pee pee on the potty. The potty is the future, and even though I'll still love her if she's wearing diapers during her drivers' test, it is good and just and right to take the porcelain splash. It's well worth pointing out, I continue, that those who use the potty are often rewarded with gummy bears. My daughter's arguments are more agrarian, a kind of curmudgeonly conservationism suspicious of change and newfangled technology. While she has successfully tried and used the potty, she doesn't think the evidence for permanent change is very compelling. The diaper has served her well for almost three years, keeping leaks at a minimum and promoting a lifestyle where nothing need be interrupted just because nature calls. Indeed, if more adults wore diapers, then economic productivity would increase as toilet breaks decrease. And isn't the toilet break just one more staple of the lazy, anti-capitalist worker? In the same way, my daughter can continue coloring, playing with her dolls or watching "Baby Praise" without that unproductive walk down the hall. In any case, the toilet is cruelly cold, especially in morning.

***

After setting a livid toddler on the toilet with a 50% chance of achieving the desired result, we move to our living/dining room. She scampers to her toys and I take a dreary walk to the kitchen. Any walk I take in the morning is dreary until I have my coffee. I make coffee. While the coffee drips, I put my daughter's oat meal in the microwave, grate an apple to put over the oatmeal, pour her milk, take out two pieces of bread, put it on a plate, spread some delicious German spreadable over it (either creamy honey or creamy meat), put a mandarin orange next to the bread. The coffee is finished. I pour my coffee, pour some more milk over her oatmeal and voela! breakfast for two is served. Restaurant quality multitasking.

After putting the appropriate plates in the appropriate places, I pick me daughter up to bring her to her seat. She then erupts in a declaration of independence. After all, she can climb into her chair by herself. I let her do so. While we eat, I pop open the laptop. Now I know some of you are judging. The laptop at the table is against all conventional parenting wisdom. Screens distract from loving attention, and technology is harmful to child development. Technology should be kept away from the child until it is able to grow its own cucumbers and spear its own fish in the river. And besides, I'm a terrible example. Let me respond. First, I still engage my daughter. I really do. Second, we always eat a computer free family lunch in traditional German fashion, as well as an evening bread. And third, who doesn't read the newspaper at breakfast? I just don't have a paper version.

Breakfast is finished. I push my daughter's stool back so she can get down by herself. Any of the following could happen: reading a children's book, listening to a children's CD, drawing on the doodle board or putting a farm-based puzzle together. Personally, I'd rather keep reading the screen, like in the old days. At the couch, or at the table or (in nice weather) out on the balcony. Often, she plays, and I get to read. But then, I feel a little hand tap my knee. Time to close the laptop or the the book. Her turn. Whichever book is on. "Curious George?" "Mickey Mouse?" "Little People?" "ABC?" "Jesus?" She usually asks regarding on her mood - usually a particular book stays her favorite for about three weeks or so, and comes back again after a few months. But I read. I reluctantly put aside my selfish pleasure of a morning built around me. Not that there's anything wrong with that, when no one else is there. But love is a less-accessible pleasure. Close the macbook, the newspaper or the book. Put the child on the lap, read the book for the thousands time. The annoyance gives way to a certain joy that's stronger in memory, but always there. I give the characters voices, she tells me what's in the pictures. Love and love. Coffee helps.

Not Athletic

From the moment my legs could kick, from the moment my fingers could touch the leather stitches and lacing of a ball, from the moment I could watch modern titans put on superhero costumes to reap points, touchdowns, goals, runs for their city, country or university, I have loved sports. My earliest audio memories include my father's voice, my mother's voice, my grandmother's voice and football commentator John Madden's voice. (if you don't know who that is, ask your American friend to imitate Madden's trademark "BOOM"! He would yell "BOOM" for touchdowns, good hits, good blocks, good runs and effective athletes foot fungus removal. "BOOM" is America's answer to "GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!")

My dad took me to my first baseball game when I was just five - Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field, standing room only, industrial stadium nachos, Cubs lost to the Mets. I dressed up like Washington Redskins' Quarterback Joe Theismann for Halloween. My walls were decorated with the likes of Michael Jordan, Charlie Ward and Gred Maddux, among other titans of my youth. Today I can straddle the Atlantic and rage and rejoice with the tides of European and American football. (to those who think one or the other is boring, then you need better cultural understanding: Americans like to hit things and need to take frequent breaks. Europeans think life is too complex for winners, losers and scoring opportunities.) With every major tournament my spine gets sparkly and my eyes get tingly (or maybe I overcooked the barbecue). Athletic feats! Matching uniforms! Philosophical arguments about meaningless things! Yes, from the very beginning, I could watch sports like a champion. Playing sports, however, was a different matter.

You see, the problem, the suffering, the shame, is that I was always awful at sports. Really awful. From the moment the first gentle grounder avoided my baseball glove and went through my legs because I was imagining dinosaurs sitting in the dugout, I tried to keep up, but never quite had that spark. My trophy case is full of participation trophies and the occasional coach's award for team spirit. I tried, but sports required an amount of concentration I could only give to stories and television, as well as a coordination that only existed in my muscular imagination. (My imagination needs no performance enhancing drugs)

Now, this never stopped me from useful childhood participation in team sports. But from the little leagues to pop warner, coaches recognized my deficiency. They would place me in positions that required the least amount of participation. In baseball, that meant left field, the part of the diamond where it was statistically unlikely for a ball to reach me. I'd stand there fantasizing about hitting home runs like Andre Dawson while my teammates fielded double plays. By the way, baseball's the worst for a non-athletic person. In all other sports, I could hide my inability in a cloud of dust, cleats and team activity. But when I came up to bat, all eyes were focused on my stance, my motion and my strength, and this knowledge hung on my mind like an ice brick. It's like every play is a penalty kick. My greatest triumph was whenever I was walked. "Good eye!" my coach would shout, encouragingly, after I trotted to first after not swinging through six pitches. Yes. My "good eye" (where did I leave my glasses?) and the knowledge that not swinging was my best chance at reaching first base.

When I played youth soccer, the coaches always had me play sweeper. Now, in Germany, sweeper is a hallowed position, but in American youth soccer, sweeper is where you put a slower person who doesn't have the hands or the attention span to play keeper. Essentially, I would stand in a defensive position and dream about dinosaurs attacking the neighboring parking lot, and if the ball got close, I was supposed to kick it away from our goal. I remember actually kicking the thing, like, three times. The rest of my teammates would fight tooth and nail for goals and glory. If we won, I was overjoyed for our group effort. If we tied, I was relieved. If we lost, I wept. But no matter how the game ended, there were free soft drinks for everyone, which was by far the best part of youth team sports. I did score a goal, once, when I was seven years old. My coach let me take a penalty kick, probably to fulfill some contractual obligation to have everyone touch the ball at least once. Without any particular strategy in mind, I kicked the ball straight ahead as hard as I could, and the keeper was kind enough to had been standing somewhere else. I was ecstatic, and my father, to his eternal credit my biggest fan wherever I went, erupted in a triumphant scream like I had just struck out Willie Mays.

It's a horrible thing for a boy to be bad at sports. It's like a fish being bad at swimming. It's like a calculator being bad at math. It is psychologically and spiritually important for boys to test their speed, strength, agility and endurance against one another, and to overcome - to triumph. Sure, there are other talents out there, but none so primal as athletic prowess. For such amazing feats, the athletic boys received respect, honor, swoons and early first kisses. I would play in the playground and in the large backyards of Virginia, hoping desperately that at some point, mind and body would kick in to find me home-running, slam-dunking, last-second-diving-catch-for-a-touchdown-celebrating like all the other neighborhood boys, for whom these things just clicked like the button of an old-fashioned coke machine. Instead, I was the easy out, the last pick, the "everybody go long except you" guy.

I kept trying though, and in high school, I ran cross country - a sport that required zero coordination and that valued camaraderie among under-nourished high school kids above talent. A sport for the weirdoes, where I was a four year junior varsity member and a winner of the coach's team spirit award. And I still run today, for fitness and vanity. Fitness, because I want to live a long and comfortable life, and vanity, because I want to give my wife a reason to look up from her iPad whenever I walk to the shower. It's for those reasons that this past Saturday, participated in my first public sports event since my cross country days. I ran the Plochingen 5K.

Saturday was brutally hot. Now, I'm from Florida, and Florida is brutally hot, but Florida is at least decent enough to have a violent thunderstorm every afternoon to cool things off. On Saturday, every air particle hung over the pavement like it was in suspended animation. Every speck of dust, every piece of pollen, every smudge of pollution stuck to the the inside of your lung like old rice in a pot.

But we persevered! My goal was 25 minutes, and in the face of rainforest conditions between three-story houses and the occasional friendly man with a garden hose, I reached it! Crossing the finish line, I tore off my shirt and flexed my muscles like Mario Balotelli, except that my body hair to muscle ratio is much higher than his. Ok, actually I kept my shirt on and walked like a drunk in an obstacle course towards the water station. My wife cheered (we even had our own WAG section!) and my daughter cried (mainly because of the weather). Ok, so a girl overtook me on the last lap. That doesn't matter. What matters is that I reached my goal and I had fun. Besides, everybody deserves a victory dance.