DADWAGON

This video report isn’t new, but it does seem to be making the rounds—it came up on my Facebook feed recently from a few friends including the artist and worthy kid-lit author Edel Rodriguez.

Anyhow, the guy in this video—trekking through Colombia with books on his burro—is inspiring on many levels. For me, it’s also a reminder of how hungry kids are for books, and for learning. No matter who they are or where. Everywhere kids want to learn. It’s mother’s milk.

Just something to keep in mind when we think about how flawed schools in this country are. They literally are managing to turn children against learning. Impressive.

In response to Matt’s post from earlier today about how he has accepted his masculine shortcomings and let the hired help fix things for him, I would just like to say: I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!!!

I moved about two weeks ago, which has required what I consider an excessive amount of time in an Ikea buying shit furniture that I am responsible for putting together. This, to quote a blatantly incompetent colleague of my girlfriend’s, is not among my “core competencies.”

But Matt, dear all-thumbs Matt, I soldier on. With tiny allen wrenches, and hammer bruises on my thumbs, and drawers that don’t quite glide, and shelves with holes that you hardly even notice in the right light.

Am I ready for plumbing? You betcha! Am I ready to actually accomplish plumbing? Hell no! I’ll tell you that one fellow who’s convinced I’m a bona fide construction master, by the way, is JP, who most definitely knows no better—and that’s the way I’m keeping him: ignorant and worshipful.

Last. One of the dressers I put together has to have one of the shelves taken apart and redone. My girlfriend, for reasons that apparently are endemic to her gender, has been walking around the house with a smug grin on her face. Seems at some point in my recent construction phase I made a comment about maybe trying to build something other than Ikea furniture (I said a bench), and her reaction this morning: “And you wanted to build a house.”

For effete assholes like myself, there are few things more potentially insulting to what remains of our manhood than a visit from a repairman. These guys, with their toolbelts, plaster-dusted hair, workboots-really-used-for-working, and ability to, you know, fix things with their hands, represent everything I am not. But hey, when the bathtub is leaking through the ceiling of the downstairs apartment, you gotta call someone, right?

Actually, my plumbers are pretty great guys, and not at all intimidating in that “Hey, you catch the Jets game? Hand me that roll groover” way that usually terrifies me. Joe and Kev showed up when they said they would, cut holes in the wall, dug around inside, and replaced a bunch of shit that needed replacing—without making me feel like I was a pussy for not being able to do it myself. Partly, this was because whoever put our tub in originally, 10 or 12 years ago, did an extremely bad job, and Joe loudly complained about their stupidity, and about idiot clients who hire cheap, inexperienced plumbers to do work that should be done by seasoned pros. Translation: You were smart to hire me instead of trying to do it yourself.

Which: yes. In reality, I can take care of a lot of most several some basic home-maintenance issues, and am not really as helpless as I’m making myself out to be. I can install an air-conditioner and assemble Ikea furniture; I even own a power drill, for goodness sake (not cordless, alas). But the better part of valor here is knowing when you’re outclassed, and sitting down to write a ludicrously large check to someone else to fix it for you. That’s what I did, and if you think that’s somehow less manly than wrecking the tub myself, I’ve got an extra-large pair of balls for you to suck.

Not Super… Just Mom tipped us (via this heartfelt if rambly post) to People magazine’s profile of Mark McGrath, lead singer of the band Sugar Ray. He and his fiancée, Carin, have just had twins, and we are informed that they went the IVF route after “Herculean efforts” of more conventional babymaking techniques. Let’s set aside that Hercules’ most significant labor was cleaning out the manure-filled Augean stables, which somehow doesn’t conjure up images of a rock star screwing his wife to the point of mutual exhaustion. But never mind that. The thing that leapt out of the story was this quote:

Hartley is a calm and happy baby — always smiling. She sleeps through anything, and melts my heart when she smiles from her soul. Lydon, on the other hand, is a bit more fussy. He needs to be constantly entertained. And if he doesn’t get what he wants he belts out these heavy metal screams (Adam Lambert, eat your heart out!). We had to let him cry it out the other night and poor Carin was crying too … in another room. As for me, I just put on my headphones and let little Ly learn one of life’s great lessons. I think the Stones said it best: ”You can’t always get, whatcha want…”

He put on his headphones to block out the noise of his wife and child crying themselves silly?! Who does this? (Judging by the smirk on his face in the photos, a douchebag, that’s who.) I’m certainly not going to wade into the cry-it-out wars, but there’s something I’d like to note here. We often forget a key piece of information when attempting to manage baby behavior. A 4-month-old is learning a lot of things, but the cause-effect connection is simply not there yet, except in the barest simplest ways: Hungry = cry. Bright light = eyes snap shut. You cannot—cannot—somehow say that you’re “teaching” a 4-month-old a lesson. He can’t suddenly say, “Oh! I didn’t realize that if I just go to sleep, it’ll all be fine.” Baby brains do not yet work that way.

It is as if someone walked up to you on the street and said a nonsense word, like “Bleem.” Then repeated it: “Bleem. Bleem. Bleem.” Then more insistently: “Bleem!” Then urgently, with panic: “BLEEM! BLEEEEEEEM!” If he says it louder, does it make it clearer what that person wants from you? Of course not. It just starts to freak you the hell out. That, I think, is a baby’s-eye view of the world.

In short: Take your damn headphones off and give your kid a hug. And save one of those embraces for your sobbing ladyfriend, too, bud. If the babies keep you awake, well, welcome to daddyhood. You’ll sleep when you’re old, the way the rest of us will.