alpha dad

a week ago lori and i suffered the accusation of "accidental parenting". whereas sears and brazelton keep an open ear to family beds, forced naps, sleep in a stroller, laisez faire, whatever works for the parents AND baby. the baby whisperer don't play. one night crawling into bed at 4am after giving a bottle to AOW - lori had bottle duty the night before, and I the night before - I said, "wait a minute we don't give the baby a bottle in the middle of night anymore." lori was up an hour later with AOW, this time for good. she pulled out the baby whisperer and that's when we got the bad news - we were accidental parenting.

i read the chapter on toddlers and took in the sobering news too. this little girl had taken advantage me...very cutely i might add.

so we took to undoing the damage blaming the move downstairs of 2 months ago on AOW's acting out. like the guy who took his kids to Venezuela in the book we opted sleep on the floor when she would cry for a few more nights. talk about suckers. it worked but i couldn't help but feel like she had one up on us again. so last night i got alpha with her.

after a discussion about how it was time to sleep, laying out her lovey, and setting her constellation turtle to green, i locked eyes with her. she looked away, looked the other way, looked at me around the way, then we locked eyes again. repeat 2 more times and then she came crashing down face into her lovey for 3 more hours of sleep. game on.

we'll see what comes next, until then i'll just be wondering in anticipation, anxiety, a bit of fear. not so alpha of me...

these colors after a run

after a family run last month we came across a giant american flag in prospect park. the same site where i saw a makeshift political circus the month before. these are key reasons why we hover around this park several times each weekend. it's always the same place but with ever changing events. of course we wanted to know whose flag it was (never did find out). we've all watched this symbol get reduced to the size of a lapel pin and here it was as big as a parachute. a huge parachute. about a 100 park goers would rotate around its edges yanking it up into a bubbly tent while kids of all ages raced around underneath it. most significant were comments overheard about how as liberals 'we really weren't too bothered by the flag anymore.' i had to agree. after 9/11 the republicans got to the flag first and together with yellow ribbons started the 'support our troops' movement. sitting on the other side of the aisle the lefties were left wondering how to politically oppose the right. to not love the flag? to not support the troops? we were made out to be unpatriotic. and here, watching these kids - too young to remember 9/11 or to be caught up in any movements - were just playing around it. and in spite of all of our nyc cynicism we actually are pretty wrapped up in this year's presidential run. i am excited for obama's chances on tuesday in a way i never thought possible for a presidential election. i won't be pulling the dem's lever as the ok choice but as my favorite choice. listening to the press commemorate the 2008 presidential run today on the radio i couldn't help but wonder back to this family run in the park and these photo ops. after a 7 year break up with this symbol it's nice to have it back in my heart.