Steroid boy!

As evidenced by this earlier post, I am both repulsed and fascinated by abnormally talented children. The fascinated part is easy to explain: a kid who can hit a three-pointer at 3 years old is pretty amazing. A genetic freak, perhaps, but amazing nonetheless. The repulsive part usually comes back to the parent. In most cases, it seems apparent that the parents are getting at least much if not more out of the child’s talent than the child.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a parenting no-no.

Thus, in that light, I give you Richard Sandrak, aka The World’s Strongest Boy, aka, Little Hercules, aka the latest installment in the amazing-child-lock-up-dad Hall of Fame:

Watch him bench press! Watch him karate chop! Watch him do cheesy 80s aerobics with a dynamic, bottle-tanned flair! Then alert child services, please, because this is four flavors of totally freaking wrong.

Enjoy.

As always, DadWagon readers, a where-are-they-now update would be appreciated.

Be the Ball, I mean Beach, I mean…

Should be me, but isn't
Should be me, but isn't

Had a fine time with JP this past Saturday. We had some unexpectedly wonderful weather here in Jew-York New York City, so I packed us a light snack and headed to one of the city’s least-known and nicest beaches—Jacob Riis.

It’s an interesting spot for many reasons, some of which have nothing to do with the lovely scenery. The park at the beach was first opened to the public in 1936, an early project of Robert Moses, after his Long Island-theft phase, but well before he became the unquestioned ruler of New York City and all its residents. (For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, please move out of the post and read, The Power Broker, by Robert Caro; the book is 1,344 pages, so I’ll give you a half hour to finish and then come back.) As such, the park is a beauty—lots of sandy beach, plenty of playgrounds and basketball courts for non-swimmers, a massive Art Deco clubhouse. Just ducky.

Unfortunately, it is about as far from any form of public transportation as any place can be and still remain within the city. Robert Moses history buffs such as myself know that this titanic, racist figure from the city’s past laid that out by design. No public transportation and only the approved, white majority would come to the beach. The more things change…

Anyway, there was an odd moment on the beach. JP and I were practically alone, building sand castles and collecting clam shells when it occurred to me how great a thing I was doing for my son as a dad. I really thought of it that way. Here was something small but memorable that my boy could look back on as an adult when I’m a broken-down alcoholic wreck, and know that at least once his Dad did something for him.

I find that I have these sorts of self-serving moments quite a bit. I’m having a fine time with my son and–boom–somehow I pop out of the moment and all I’m thinking about is how Dad-like I’m being. Terrible, and something I’m constantly working on eliminating, but there it is. I’m like the reverse Buddha of Dads—never in the moment.

But at least we got a nice collection of shells.

First the Worst, Second the Best? Nope!

Conventional wisdom has it that the first year of a baby’s life is the hardest (on the parents, that is): You get no sleep, you fret over every possible sign of ill health, and if it’s your first kid anyway, you have no idea what you’re doing.

But lately, I’ve begun to doubt that thinking. Partly because I’ve been really, really tired lately. This isn’t Sasha’s fault, or at least I don’t think it is. She sleeps about as well as ever, from 7:30 at night till 6 the next morning. There’ve been a few surprises in the last couple of weeks (including an 11pm screaming fit that lasted for hours and couldn’t be CIO’d), but in general we’re very lucky. Except that I’m falling asleep at 9:30 or 10 o’clock—just passing out like a brick on the couch. I don’t remember such a thing happening in the first year at all.

But that’s not why I’m thinking that the first year may be the easiest. It’s that now, well into Sasha’s second year on the planet, the worries are newly complicated: Is she learning language fast enough? Will she be confused by the multiple languages she exists in? Is she developing complex motor skills?

These are questions that aren’t easily or definitively answered. And they make me look back fondly on the first year, when the metrics for success were much simpler. Eating? Yes. Growing? Yes. Sleeping? Sometimes.

Whenever Sasha learned something new in the first year—like following a mobile with her eyes, or rolling over—it was basic, uncomplicated. She either did it, or she didn’t, and if she didn’t she would eventually, anyway.

But once she started walking, just after turning one, it all got messier. When we asked ourselves, “What’s best for her?,” the answer was, well, answers. And more questions. Decisions had to be made, paths followed. And we won’t know for years, or maybe decades, if they were the right ones. Oh, for the months when, sleep-deprived and stressed-out, Jean and I cheered every drop of milk Sasha downed!

Still, I’m not saying that first year was tops, but I remember having the impression that once we were through it, things would get easier. I guess I was misled. All I want now is some sleep, which is why I can’t wait for Sasha to become the kind of teenager who stays up all night and sleeps in till noon. Things will be much better then, right?

What Almost Made Me Cry Today: Joshua Ferris Edition

unnamed“The Unnamed,” the relatively new novel by Joshua Ferris, the acclaimed author of “Then We Came to the End,” was pretty much written specifically for me. It’s about Tim Farnsworth, a well-paid lawyer who works in Manhattan, lives happily in New Jersey with his wife and daughter, and is cursed with a disease that compels him to walk—and walk and walk and walk. His legs seem possessed, and whether he’s asleep at home or preparing for a court date, they’ll take control and lead him off in whatever direction for hours and hours, until at last they relent and he crawls into a corner and falls asleep, utterly drained.

It’s a potentially gimmicky story, but since Ferris is a good writer, he pulls it off, in part by not stressing the metaphors that spring easily to mind. Chief of which (at least for me) is: Is this a parable of in-built human wanderlust? What unknowable forces drive us out of our homes, away from the ones we love, and in search of what exactly?

Obviously, this is a matter of some concern to me. I love my family—they mean more to me than anything—yet I’m driven to leave home for weeks at a time. In part this is just a hazard of my profession, but I also happen to like my work quite a lot. I might even be doing this if I wasn’t actually a travel writer. The need to explore, to turn a corner into the unexplored, is just that great.

Anyway, there’s a point in the novel—spoiler alert!—where Tim, in the grip of his disease, decides simply not to return home ever again, to let his legs carry them as far as they wish, even if it means never sleeping with his wife or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with his daughter for the rest of his life. Years later, his wife tracks him down at a diner and pleads with him to return. He thinks for a minute, then says: “I don’t want you.”

It’s a tough moment, but a true one. For us solo wanderers, guilt is often our only companion, and I’ve often thought that it would be better for all concerned if my family were rid of me and no longer had to put up with such uncertainty. Wouldn’t it be easier if they simply knew I wouldn’t be around at all, and could just move on from there? Isn’t it selfish of me to force this insanity on them?

But inertia is a hard thing to overcome (unless you’re stricken with that unnamed disease), and such cataclysmic decisions are not in my nature. It’s actually easier if we all just go on as we are now—harried but happy—and save the tears for bigger, sadder days.