the life so short, the crafts so long to learn

Another day. Another week. Another Hour.

And then wild surprise. Time spent with a toddler is rarely ever boring, that’s for sure.

The best part of life with a toddler might be watching that tot ripen seemingly right before your eyes. I swear I come home to a different Benjamin each day of the week. His comprehension, his vocabulary, his annunciation, his throwing-arm. . . everything. Golly, if you and I continued to mature at that rate, we’d probably do pretty well on Jeopardy. We’d also have a lot more hair growing out of our ears.


It was only a week or two ago that I struggled with Ben to get him to say simple things like, “baseball”, “basketball”, ”deoxyribonucleic acid”, and “swimsuit edition.” Now he’s reciting Chaucer.

Ben: “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote. The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.”

Dad: [long pause and confused look on his face] “Huh? Just eat your vegetables, smart-ass.”


And it isn’t enough that he can say all kinds of great new words. No - now he actually knows how to use them. Now that Mommy and Daddy (whom Ben will sometimes call ‘Mike’) can actually understand the words that are coming out of his mouth, it’s a lot harder to play dumb and ignore his wishes. If Ben wants to watch Blue’s Clues, instead of fumbling out the words, “coos boos”, he can more accurately tell you what television program he would like to watch (again and again and again). And that makes it a lot harder for Daddy to say, “Coos boos? What did you say? Baseball? You want to watch baseball?”

That tactic apparently doesn’t make Ben very happy. I came home yesterday from work and found that he had set a parental-lock on all my favorite sports channels.


A dear friend of ours, a dear friend who has a toddler herself, also saw this extreme acceleration in her son’s mental capabilities during the month or two before his second birthday. I think she’s just trying to make us feel better; her son’s vocabulary and reasoning is to every other toddler’s speech capabilities as Immanuel Kant is to Jessica Simpson.

As it stands, Ben is now the most well-versed male in he family. He just started grammar-checking this blog entry and, wait – nope, he stopped after the first paragraph, threw up his arms and wondered aloud whether or not I am even trying.

Kids these days.

family on demand

So I admit it has been way too long between posts (again), and I’m sure my readership has fallen down in the range of one or two regulars – most likely me and my cat. So this post is for you, Callie, as soon as you figure out how to read (and perhaps gain self-awareness).


But alas, I still have no time to write. As it turns out, fatherhood involves a lot more than learning to raise your child and maintain your relationship with your wife. You also have to maintain a relationship with your boss, your clients, your colleagues. . . your paycheck, really.

I recently fell in love with an Adam Sandler movie called Click. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s about an architect named Michael who is strained with the tug o' war between his family and his career. Now, I don’t know if the producers necessarily had me in my mind when they developed that script (as I am also an architect named Michael), but I do know that they must have been spying on my house when they decided to name the father’s son, Ben. Eerie. No seriously, they did. The father, Michael, is an architect and he has a son named Ben. And his wife is really hot. I mean, how could they not have plucked that story line right out of my life?

I should also mention that we recently saw another movie about a young architect named Michael (Last Kiss) and I’m pretty sure I remember that architect dude from the Brady Bunch was named Michael too. What can I say – I’m a walking cliché. And a poet - who would’ve known it? Anybody want a peanut?

I digress. . .

Anna thinks I like the movie because it contains a scene where a guy farts in another guy’s face, and numerous scenes where the wife looks super-duper waaaaaaay hot. She might be right. But I see myself as a more refined sort of man, fully capable of understanding the deeper meaning in deep films such as Click. So maybe - just maybe (the fart scene is pretty damn funny) – I like the film because it serves as a poignant reminder of how bad things can get when you let work get in the way. Okay, maybe not poignant, exactly, but it’s close. It’s pretty emotional for an Adam Sandler flick.

I have had some unique opportun- ities in the recent past to further my career in such a way as to potentially alienate myself from my family, and I am proud to say that each time I have chosen against the paycheck. I have found that, as tiresome as maintaining a family can be at times, it’s still the thing I value most - the thing I wish to be remembered for. More so than any building I work on or client I impress. It wasn’t a difficult decision, exactly. In fact, I already made that decision when I decided to impregnate my wife (high five!), but it’s taken me all this time to merely begin to understand the implications of that decision (just like the Oracle said it would be – thanks, Neo).

But walking the walk isn’t easy. Not for me, not for my wife, not for my kid – not for Callie. And certainly not for my heartburn/ulcer/blood pressure/insert-malady-here.

And let me state it here, in case anyone out there doesn’t immediately understand that inside my great big head there is room for more than just my selfishness and ego: I also understand that Anna faces this same kind of problem with her job, and I’m not trying to belittle that. But I am not Anna - at least, I don’t think I am - and as such, I think it’s best not to put any words in her airway. Lord knows there are enough words there already.

You older dads are probably laughing at me. “You only have one! And he’s not even two yet!” I know, I know. Give me some slack. I’m slow to catch-on. I’m learning. But I’ve seen a lot of dads who've chosen their careers over their family, and I’ve seen how that turns out. And let me also state that I understand the difference between taking the paycheck to survive, and taking the paycheck to buy yourself a Bentley. I have even more respect for the dads out there working three jobs just to keep the roof tied down to the house.

And one last disclaimer - I also know that there are some dads out there who can afford their Bentley without having to sacrifice their family time. I wish I was in that situation. Then again, if that’s what I wanted, I would've never chosen architecture for a living. Or married a nurse.

I think I’m going to go play the lotto.

one two three four five

And oh yeah, at the tender age of 22 months, Ben can count to 20. No assistance, no prodding. 1 - 20 and the only hiccup comes when he sometimes forgets the 16, or when he gets so excited to yell "TWENTY!!!", he forgets to say "nineteen". Anna and I are currently working on getting this on film for the non-believers.


Next up, differential equations. And finishing our spaghetti without having to take a shower afterwards.