The Blog of The Letter B Photography » Los Angeles Maternity, Birth, Newborn, Baby, Child and Family Photographer

DAY 23  HAPPY 21 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!

EVENT 1 - BOY

There are a series of events that play out in our lives that will blow open our minds, leaving our skulls with smoking holes where our borders of reality used to lie.  Some of those events are… the first time you fall in love, the first time you see your children, the first time you have a near-death experience, the first time you are served pepperoni pizza by a mechanical singing coyote on a tricycle at a children’s arcade.

There is a *wow* factor as your brain readjusts itself to time and space.  What is seen cannot be unseen.  What once was, will never be again.  I have stood on the mountain top… and it was good.

This morning while my wife was at a meditation class (ie shopping at Target), Rory experienced his mind crumble and then piece back together directly before my eyes.  I actually had the opportunity to watch it happen, all of it, as though in slow motion.

The boy loves milk.  Loves the stuff.  I’m sure if it weren’t socially unacceptable, he’d be sucking on the teet during half time at his big senior game.  ”More!  More!  Please!  Please!  Please!” is his mantra at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I’m sure that, in his brain, he’s thinking something to the effect of, “Milk good!  Milk best!  Nothing better than milk!  MILK!”

But then there’s this other side of him.  There’s this side of him that loves M&Ms.  After he’s gone “potty” – a phrase I’ve grown weirdly comfortable using – he gets an M&M.  He hops off the toilet and goes running through the house screaming, “Chocky!  Chocky!”  (Chocky = Chocolate = M&M).  We place one in his hand and he savagely shoves the bright morsel in his mouth and runs off gleefully on tiptoes.  Again, I’m sure he’s thinking something to the effect of, “Chocky good!  Chocky best!  Nothing better than chocky!  CHOCKY!”

But wait… Rory, I’m about to open your mind to a dimension of such flavor sensations that you’ll believe you are eating in 4-D.

I ask both kids, “Do you want breakfast?” and they respond, “Yeah!” so I put them in their respective chairs.  I ask them, “Do you want… MILK?!” and they both say, “MILK!” and I can already tell that Rory is more excited than Quinn.  Sure, my daughter wants to eat breakfast but Rory is about to get a fix.  I pull out three glasses, one for each of us, and I fill them each half full of milk.

Rory leaps onto the counter and tries to grab it but I say, “No, we’re not done yet.  We’re not… done yet,” and the truth is I’m just as excited as he is.  I’m so excited to see what’s about to happen.

I pull out some chocolate syrup and I slowly drizzle some into each glass.  Both kids look at me, seemingly disgusted by the thin brown strands I’m pouring into their pristine dairy drink.  I’ve tainted perfection with… grossness.  They both squeal their displeasures and I say, “Just wait.  One more minute,” as I begin to stir, stir, stir.  Eventually, I can take it no longer and I slowly slide two of the three cups over to the kids.  Rory stares down into the dark, muddy milk and sort of pushes it away, completely unsure.

I look at Quinn and she’s dipping her fingers into it and tasting her fingers; interesting technique but it appears to be working.  I pick up my cup and lift it to my lips.  I say, “Look.  It’s good.  Try some,” and I take a deep drink.  Rory pulls his close to him again and looks into it, still questioning.  I take another drink and say, “Drink.  Chocolate milk,” and he slowly lifts the cup to his mouth.

Cue alternate reality.

He lowers the cup, a brown mustache painted thinly across his lip.  He looks at me like, “Could it be true?” before raising the cup back to his mouth and gobbling it down like a turkey in a rainstorm.  He slams the cup down on the counter and victoriously screams, “CHOCKY MILK!”

Life will never be the same.

 

EVENT 2 - GIRL

There are blueberries everywhere!  And not the good kind of blueberries either, the kind of blueberries that are sexual predators.  Yeah, I’ve been on the website, I’ve seen the dots; little blue circles that flag the map of my town, making my neighborhood look like an alien with pockmarks.  Oh my goodness, perhaps some things are just better left unsaid and unseen.  I’ve got a blueberry living a few doors down, I’ve got a couple of them living across the street, I’ve got an entire blueberry bush living in the complex next door to me.

My kids walk around in the front yard and every time someone walks by I have to stop and wonder if they’re some kind of total pervert out on parole.  Obviously we try to not leave our kids unsupervised but once in a great while we’ll leave the back doors open and the dogs will somehow open the gates and the kids will, one way or another, end up meandering around our back yard, exposed to every blueberry in a 1,000 foot radius.

Today my daughter tried to make a break for it, casually sneaking through the house with a “Don’t Mind Me” sort of attitude when… she was suddenly gone… this is actually the second time I’ve lost her this month.  Father of the Year Strikes Again!  When she doesn’t answer my call, I walk into the kitchen and find the back door open.  DANGIT!  My heart jumps into my throat.

Now, the truth is, we have a three and a half foot tall fence that runs the perimeter of our yard but, in my brain, all pervos actually have these really long ape arms so their reach is really fantastic (“The better to wrestle you into my white van, my pretty).

I shout Quinn’s name outside, quickly reminiscing of when my mom would shout my name from our back porch on summer nights, “John Lowell!  John Looo-weeellll!”.  I shout, “Quinn!  Quinn!” and then I let out one of those piercing whistles.  The kids will usually come running to the whistle but there’s no answer.  I jump off the back steps and I’m already freaking out.  Regardless of the fence, my cocker spaniel has figured out three different ways to escape from the yard.  Now, I’m no brainiac but I’d like to think my daughter has more common sense than a dog that repeatedly throws herself in poop.

Halfway across the patio, Rory comes around the side of the house, from our blocked-in drive way.  He says, “Hi!” and I say “Hi, buddy” and sort of push him aside.  Looking down the driveway I see Quinn at the very end, right at our sidewalk, being separated from The Blueberry Patch by nothing more than our front gate.  I whistle again and she looks at me and laughs.

I vow to myself that she’s going to get a spanking when she gets near.  Today’s forecast; a heavy thwapping with a chance of shouting.  She knows better than to be in the driveway.  They both know that they’re not supposed to be in the driveway without us.  These are the horrible and painful things about being a parent.  I don’t want to spank her but I don’t want to see her get hurt.  I don’t want some Blueberry from The Farmer’s Market to grab her and run away down the street.  This idea horrifies me and I have a strong feeling that it will absolutely never, ever go away.

I call her name again and she slowly begins the long walk back to me, knowing, I’m sure, full well what is coming.  She walks right up to me and smiles and it’s so cute and it melts my heart and I don’t want to do what I have to do but I want to make sure that smile stays safe.  I grab her by the wrist, yank it up over her head, say, “You do NOT go in the driveway alone” and thwack! slam my hand into the bare skin on her thigh.

Quinn, who is often times our stubborn child when it comes to spankings, has the proper way of it.  She drops to the hard cement and wails, grabbing at her bottom.

She played outside for the rest of the day and didn’t go into the driveway.

Blueberries beware; I carry a knife with me at all times.

DAY 22

I hope she can teach them all the beautiful things that I cannot.  She was/is an incredible mother and an even more amazing grandmother.

 

EVENT 1 & 2 - BOY & GIRL

Anyone that knows my son, knows that’s he sort of this monstrous being; a tall heavyweight looking for a challenge.  My daughter on the other hand is dainty and slim, concerned more about reading and details than about climbing and testing the durability of all objects within her grasp.

That said, these differences extend beyond their personality traits and well into their eating habits.  A standard evening in the Brookbank home looks something like this…

We place a bowl in front of Rory and a bowl in front of Quinn.  Each bowl contains the same food selection; tonight was salmon, sweet potatoes, cooked peaches, feta cheese and asparagus.  Another evening might be chicken tostadas with corn, black beans, cilantro, tomatoes and avocado.  If ti’s breakfast it might be french toast with eggs and bacon or turkey patties with blueberries.

Regardless what the meal is, the outcome is typically always the same.  Rory stares down into his bowl and begins eating the meat; classic caveman mentality.  Chicken, turkey, pork, beef, it makes no matter.  He systematically hand selects each piece until every morsel is gone save for the vegetables.

Quinn, on the other hand, does the exact opposite.  She delicately chooses each carrot, green bean, peanut and broccoli crown until nothing is left in her bowl save for a carnivore’s delight.

My wife and I ask them both the same question, “Are you done?  Are you done?  Are you sure you’re done?”  They both nod their heads ‘yes’ but just to make sure we rotate their bowls.  Quinn’s leftover meat goes in front of The Tyrannosaurus Carnivore and the fruits and veggies get tossed in front of the diplomat from the Herbivore colony.

They both take an additional ten to fifteen minutes to finish off the other’s plates before getting down to start the process of burning calories.

DAY 21

EVENT 1 - GIRL

I sometimes get a strange feeling of vertigo when I look at my kids and see a younger version of myself staring back.  The eyes, the mouth, the eyebrows and, as my brother-in-law is so fond of pointing out, “The Enormous Brookbank Toe”.  This final one is a trait I’ve overlooked my entire life until he recently brought it up.

Even more fascinating than the physical appearances though, I think, are the idiosyncrasies that get passed down.  Somehow, whether it be through some magic of DNA or perhaps through imitation, my daughter has begun to do a face that my wife calls “Evil Teeth”.

Apparently, and this is only recently brought to my attention, I have a tendency to jut out my lower jaw, bare back my bottom lip and snarl.  When I say it like that, it sounds like I’m imitating a bulldog.  I once saw a picture of myself doing this and… it’s actually not very far off the mark.  I don’t know when this started.  I don’t know how this started.  I don’t know why this started.  Some people tap their foot, some people crack their knuckles, I happen to channel Teen Wolf when people start toying with me.

That said, it’s not something I do when I’m mad.  If someone cuts me off in traffic, I don’t drive up next to their car and growl at them like an animal.  It’s more the instances when someone is purposely messing with me.  Sometimes Jade will tickle me when I’m trying to read or she’ll put more dishes on the counter right after I’ve finished washing my final fork or she’ll wrap me up in a comforter while I’m sleeping and cover my face with a pillow and start screaming, “Are you getting claustrophobic yet?” knowing full well that I am hyper-claustrophobic.

Yeah, try waking up to that.

You’d have angry teeth too.

So this evening, my wife and I and my daughter were sitting on the couch while my son ran around exploring.  Jade and I were sort of just watching Quinn, the way you sometimes do.  Sometimes you just watch your kids and they’re doing nothing more interesting than staring at their foot and poking it like it’s a dead cat they’ve found on the side of the road, but to you, it’s the most entertaining thing.  I could easily equate watching my children to watching a Gilligan’s Island marathon.  Just give me a comfy chair, a peanut butter sandwich and a jug of milk and I’ll be good for at least six hours.

Anyway, Quinn is sitting on my wife’s stomach and she suddenly, and apparently accidentally, drops her doll and it flops lifelessly to the ground.  Quinn sort of twists her head a little bit and stares at “Baby” lying on the wooden floor then looks up at me and… Evil Teeth.

My little bull dog.

 

EVENT 2 - BOY

“PEACH!”

I come home from work today and my wife is standing in the kitchen shouting this word over and over again.  ”PEACH!  PEACH!”.  I come around the corner and find my son sitting in a chair and pointing at our fruit bowl.  I ask Jade, “What’s going on?  Why doesn’t she give him the peach?  And she tells me that he’s not saying peach… and before she tells me what he actually is saying, I already know.

As the kids are learning new words, they sometimes mispronounce certain ones.  For example, Rory says, “Rennn” instead of “Red” or “Wah-wer” instead of “water”.  That said, there’s not a whole lot of ways you can spin “Peach” before it becomes that other word.  That one word you must never say unless talking to a dog breeder.

Rory points to the fruit bowl and shouts it.  He shouts The B Word as loud as he can and it comes out just as plain as day.  Sure, it’s a sloppy version of “peach” but it’s also a very clean version of the word that shall not be named.

Jade says, “PEACH!  PEACH!” and I can tell that she’s freaking out.  I can read it all over her face; she’s imagining us dining in a Red Lobster and I our son is screaming for fruit like a drunken sailor.  Parents are covering their children’s ears and the restaurant manager is asking us to please curb the language of our young one.

I’m sure she’s imagining a situation where we’re at the park and Rory begins chanting for his favorite fruit and then a horde of children take up the mantra and our family is chased back to our hovel by the torch wielding angry villagers.

And then there’s the cat’s meow.  The Grand Prize.  The Full Enchilada.  I’m sure she’s imagining him in church.  Our pastor approaches us eating a small, yellow / red piece of fruit and Rory gets excited, points right at him and says something that sounds similar to peach but really just sounds more like the other.  There would be awkward silence where our pastor wonders “just where did he learn THAT?” and I’d try to explain but the deal would be done.  The bell would be rung, as they say.

“PEACH!  PEACH!” Jade cries.  ”You must say ‘peach’, Rory.”

“BEACH!”  It’s the closest he’s come but we’re still hanging in the gray zone.

Oh well, thank goodness he isn’t a hockey fan.  It could be far more disastrous if he were always going around asking about his puck.

DAY 20

EVENT 1 - BOY

More often than not my son tries to escape his scheduled bedtime.  Sometimes that means sliding out of bed and lying on the floor or hiding in the closet or standing by the door and simply shaking the doorknob furiously.

This evening we’d left the door open and, after placing him in bed, he casually stood up, walked towards the door and exited into the hallway.  I believe Jade was turning on their horse-inspired music box that plays “It’s a Small World” while I was putting Quinn into her crib / box.  I suddenly hear Jade say, “What are you doing?” and I look up to see Rory standing half in the shadows like a mobster.  The light is sort of crossing out his face so he looks really menacing.  I repeat Jade’s question since he didn’t answer, “What are you doing?”

Slowly… ever so slowly… he begins to take a few steps backwards.  I slowly back away from the crib and, realizing we’re in a very delicate dance here, take my time.  If I move too fast he’ll – RUN!  He turns and takes off down the hall and I plunge after him.  By the time I make it to the living room, he’s already on the other side.  I watch him literally try to leap over the back plate on his tricycle, snag his foot on the wheel and crash down into the wooden floor, face first.

He doesn’t stop.

Without any hesitation, he immediately pops up and keeps running.  By the time I hit the tricycle, he’s on the other side of the dining room.  I watch him do some Spider-Man style aerobics that are nothing short of amazing.  In one leap, he jumps and rolls onto the couch, stands up, pounces onto the arm of the couch and begins scrambling over dead space onto the island.

I catch him just before he tries to slide off the other side of the counter.  Does he have the moves like Jagger?  No.  But he certainly has the moves like Steve Prefontaine.

 

EVENT 2 - GIRL

This evening, while Jade was encouraging Rory to pee in the toilet, Quinn and I were able to spend a small handful of moments alone in the living room.  Half the lamps were on and half the lamps were off so the house had that nice orange glow to it that homes get around 8pm.  My wife had picked up during the day so the floor was spotless save for a few scattered toys here and there and Nirvana’s in Utero album was gently thrumming through my computer’s tiny speakers… which really give more juice than you’d expect.

I used to listen to this album when I was going through those awkward teen angst years and it’s perhaps one of my favorite Nirvana albums with it’s weird soft grunge vibe and hard drum beats.  When I first began listening to this album, I lived in my parent’s basement and was roughly 14 years old.

I begin banging out drum beats on the floor and Quinn begins to laugh.  I pick her up and I cradle her in my arms like you would a baby and… she doesn’t squirm or try to escape.  Instead, she just lays there and stares into my eyes and I sing to her.  “Like some babies smell like butter / his smell smelled like no other / he was born scentless and senseless / he was born a scentless apprentice”

Honestly, I have no idea what these words mean but more often than not, I don’t think music is about sense or reason.  It’s about something deeper and more visceral.  Quinn just listens to me sing and I squeeze her against my chest as tight as I can until she wheezes.  It’s one of her favorite things; being smashed, I guess you’d call it.  Once I release her, she laughs and then throws her weight into me, urging me to smash her again.  I wrap my arms around her and squeeeeeze.

We hang out like this for a few more minutes before Jade and Rory come back and our quiet moment is broken.  It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a different thing.  We all lie around on the wooden floor together and laugh and talk about the day’s events and discuss music and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be listening to this song with my grandchildren some day.

DAY 19

Little man with my dad in South Dakota.  Love the men that are influencing this little boy’s life.

EVENT 1 – GIRL

My children are very different; black and white, tall and short, boy and girl.  The way they handle and process things is very different and the way they each develop is very different.  For example, as I was looking at their growth charts today, I realized that Quinn, at 18 months, was the same height Rory was at 12 and it’s about a solid 4 inch difference.  Also, when you’re only 36 inches high, those 4 can be the difference between getting the banana off the counter or going hungry.

My son tends to be a little noisier and my daughter tends to be a little more reserved.  This is not to say that one is right and the other wrong, it’s just to say that they’re different and both excel in their own ways, at their own things.  This is also not to say that Quinn doesn’t have her moments of complete and utter, unadulterated chaos.  From time to time she’ll get a bee in her bonnet regarding some small snafu that escalates into a full on seizure consisting of her lying on her back, slamming her head against the floor and screaming at the top of her lungs, tears, saliva and snot dripping down her face.

When you try to comfort her, she screams louder and acts as though you’re sliding bamboo shoots under her fingernails.  Sometimes this happens in private.  Sometimes this happens in public.

Yeah, this is another airport story.  Sorry if they’re getting stale but that trip was so rich in content that I’d hate to forget any of it.  I’m sure someday, as an old man I’ll look back fondly and say, “It wasn’t so bad; kids in planes” and then I’ll read this and remember that having children on a plane / in an airport is like trying to control two untrained doberman’s in a butcher’s shop.  They’re both tugging at you and growling, snarling and trying to steal food from people.

My daughter has gotten into some M&Ms and has begun to suck on handfuls of them, spreading the red and yellow and blue and brown all over her hands and chin and forehead and shirt and pants and back of head.  I grab the candies from her, not because I necessarily want to but because I don’t want her to make an even bigger mess with a plane ride still ahead of us.  I ask for them and, as expected, she says, “NO!” and then begins to run away.

As I chase her down the hall in long strides, two thoughts cross my mind.  1.) It’s incredible that you’re smart enough to answer my question with a declarative statement.  2.) It’s incredible that you don’t understand that my legs are six times longer than yours and it will be years before you beat me in a race.  And with that, YOINK! the M&Ms come out of her hand and into the trash and… there it is… cue The Fit.

My son has pooped his pants, right in the middle of the airport, a concept that escapes me and an activity that only children and crazy people seem to be able to get away with blame free.  My wife grabs a diaper and some wipes and says she’ll be back in a minute before heading off towards the  bathroom.

I kneel down next to my daughter and I put my hand on her stomach and I say, “Quinn.  You need to just relax.  Let’s clean you up,” and I try to lift her up but she throws herself violently back to the ground and I just exhale slowly.  People are staring but I assume that half of them have or have had children and feel nothing but sympathy for me and the other half don’t have kids so whatever they’re thinking is probably stupid anyway.

I think about pulling some airport appropriate / kid friendly snacks out of the diaper bag when she suddenly sits up and mid-scream, looks around and notices my wife is gone.  The scream drops out and everything goes silent.  My daughter looks left and then looks right.  She definitely notices that someone is missing.

And then… and this is one of those moments that come out of nowhere and once it’s done, it’s done, and you know you’re suddenly in a whole new stratosphere.  Quinn looks right at me and she says, “Where Mommy?”

Whoa.  I need to run this past a Junior High grammar teacher to make the official call, but I’m pretty sure that’s a sentence.  That’s TWO SEPARATE WORDS STRUNG TOGETHER TO FORM A NEW THOUGHT!  It’s not “banana” for “banana”.  It’s not “juice” for “juice” or “down” for “put me down”.  ”WHERE MOMMY?”  The amazing thing is the word “Where”.  That is such an intangible word.  I can point to fruit and say, “Apple” and they understand that this red circle is an apple.  But how do you teach them what “Where” means?

I’m totally blown away and, even in the chaos of the moment, I have to stop and go, “Did you just ask me a question?”

 

EVENT 2 - BOY

My son is still trying to figure out this toddler bed scenario; the crib with the missing side.  My wife and I think his mattress may actually be slanting towards the floor, not just because he’s fallen out of his bed a couple times now but because… well, it looks like his mattress is slanting towards the floor.

We try to put blankets down underneath him so that in the event that he does fall, there is something there to soften the blow but as of late he’s begun to pick them up and throw them into his sister’s crib.  He’s also begun to get out of bed and open the closet door.  He’s also begun to throw a vast amount of toys, clothes and garbage into Quinn’s crib while she sleeps.  In the morning we’ll find her with 17 diapers, 4 bibs, 18 wooden blocks, 4 belts, 6 shirts, a few pairs of pants, 3 dolls and, not joking, a rocking horse.  She’s sort of Tetris’d herself in amongst the junk like one of those weird reverse Z pieces that no one likes getting.

Two nights ago, we put the kids to bed and, 20 minutes later, THUNK!  AHHH!  Rory has fallen from his crib and it really did sound like it hurt so I go in to check on him and, sure enough, he’s standing in the middle of the room with his hand on his face and I immediately wish there was something I could do to help him.  If we put the blankets down, he moves them.  If we put the side of the crib back up, he crawls over it and falls from even higher.

At a loss, I place him back in his bed and he screams and immediately jumps out of it, apparently feeling like, “That ain’t happening again tonight.  One fall is enough”.  So I pick him up and sit down on this enormous fluffy chair that has these great big arms on it and this foot stool that presses directly against it and is perfectly level with the seat cushion and I wonder, “If only there was some other way…”

…and just like that I have one of those parenting “Eureka!” moments.  I lay my son down in the chair which is just a little more narrow than his bed and I cover him up with his blanket and I say, “Do you want to sleep in the chair tonight?”

Truly, I have no idea if this is a good move or a bad move.  Sure, he may develop some weird chair fetish that ensures that he must sleep in his chair instead of his crib… but so what?  I’m 30 and I do that.  So long as he’s not rolling out of bed and breaking his neck, I’ll happily take the chair / bed, I suppose.  Plus… maybe it’s only for tonight.

The following evening I put him back in his bed and he goes to sleep easy enough.  This morning I enter their room and find him curled up on the chair like a lap dog.  He looks sheepish, like, “You caught me”.

I look into my daughter’s crib and there are 43 items inside of it.

Everyone has had a busy night.