DADWAGON

Well, it took me a few months, but I had the opportunity to try on DadWagon’s favorite small-bore transgression this month. My little family trekked out to Brooklyn to visit friends, and what did we do? We all took our kids (these friends have a three-year-old) to the local gastropub. Yes, friends: I dipped a toe into the babies-in-bars argument that we here at Dadwagon refuse to let die.

It was nice. The pub (Double Windsor, just past the edge of Park Slope into Windsor Terrace) has a raft of beer choices, and a modest menu of really excellent food. It was lunchtime, and the rest of the clientele was child-free until just before we left, but it was uncrowded and quiet, and both kids spent most of the time preoccupied with toy cars and crayons and grilled cheese. Nobody in the bar threw us ugly glances; nobody seemed the slightest bit perturbed that we were there. I had one drink; my friends each ordered a flight of beers.

We left stuffed and not drunk, and the entire experience was what you call civilized living. Nobody sane would say our kids were at risk for a future of alcohol abuse, and I can confidently say that they ruined any grownups’ bar experience that afternoon. Particularly because we wrapped it up by 2:30. An entirely defensible position.

A Brooklyn dad and his kid performed a flat-out-awesome science experiment: They built a little foam capsule containing an HD video camera and an iPhone (for its GPS capabilities), tied it to a group of weather balloons, and sent it up into space. More here, with links, where I wrote about it on Friday.

I’m sitting in the Kansas City airport as I write this, waiting for a flight home. Unlike the road missives of Dadwagon’s traveling stalwarts (which is like a Wilbury, but with less guitar), this isn’t a post about how much I miss my son while on the road. This was JP’s mother’s weekend, so I wouldn’t have seen him anyway, and I scheduled my trip–reporting for my book on weird Jews–around that.

I won’t go into all the details of what Hebraic oddities I’ve encountered here in the midwest (for that you must buy the book), but I will say that I went to Sunday school at a Classical Reform synagogue this morning, and spent the whole weekend with the rabbi.

My book is about Judaism, and much of the writing (for pay) that I’ve done involves the topic. This means that I’ve talked to lots of rabbis, spent plenty of time among observant Jews (I’m not), and I know the sales pitch. There may come a day when I join a congregation, but right now isn’t that moment.

But I have respect for those who lead a religious life, or more importantly, are willing to commit to a religious community, particularly one in which the stakes for joining are rather high.

For example, the congregation I visited had in the past been picketed by followers of Fred Phelps. Phelps is a lovely gentleman, best known as the defendant in a Supreme Court case which will determine if he and his co-bigots have the right to picket the funerals of U.S. military dead with signs that read “God Hates Fags.” This, apparently, has something to do with Phelps’s belief that the military should not allow homosexuals to serve. Phelps, it seems, isn’t much on Jews either.

I couldn’t help thinking about the children in the congregation who got to witness actual sectarian hatred being directed at them. According to the rabbi, the kids weren’t scared of the protestors (local christian groups staged their own counter-protest), but they were curious about why these people were carrying signs claiming they had been condemned by the supreme being.

Anti-semitism is a serious issue, and it’s perhaps better dealt with in a more serious forum than this blog. But a will share a single thought I had today while at the congregation: a real world exists beyond the shelters we construct for our little ones; this reality of which I write is often unpleasant, occasionally hostile, and potential dangerous ; and we can’t entirely protect our children from it, no matter how much we would like to.

That, unfortunately, is the way it is. As for the headline above, it’s a Groucho Marx reference, and I invite you to read it here. Make of it what you will.

A week doesn’t seem a long time, until you consider how incredibly freaking fast these DadWagon kids are changing. It’s white-knuckle business, raising children. One moment you’re like Christopher, astounded that the baby played alone for 10 minutes, and in a breath, you’re already in Theodore’s shoes, contemplating the fact that your child, who can’t yet properly wipe his own ass, is about to take a standardized test for next year’s school. No wonder then that Matt, whose daughter only started needing shoes a short while ago, is already wondering what the hell to do for sex education.

But if we feel like our kids are growing up too fast, then we’re also somewhat to blame for it. Nathan is too busy watching Bob Saget TwitVids, feeding his kids mystery meat, and exposing them to Tea Party politicians. Matt simply ditched to China–giving us a DadWagon post with a dateline from the Hong Kong Airport! Theodore, instead of spending quality time watching Old Spice Sesame Street with his kid, was cursing at a car seat he couldn’t install and sweating the pending C-section delivery of his breechy daughter.

Oh, there were some mothers this week.  Christopher’s baby-mama returned (with the baby, thankfully) Theodore’s mom was called a scumbag and Nathan pumped the BedStuy kid-rap “Stop Looking at my Moms.”

But mainly it was just dads doing what they do: missing time with their kids, thinking about French women.