Two Parental Concerns

     I have been a parent for over two and a half years.  Our daughter is wonderful, she makes me laugh and she also tests what little patience I have.  When she was born, I experienced what every new parent experiences.  The awe of witnessing your child entering the world and taking its first breath. And if you're a dad, trying not to stare at the afterbirth.  I don't have the stomach for seeing what is inside the body outside of it.  I know that stuff falls out, it's natural, I just cringe a bit.  And I tried not to see the doctor sewing up my wife after her episiotomy.  Holding my daughter was plenty of distraction.  A whole new experience was before me as were the questions I asked myself.  "Am I ready for this?  What do her cries mean?  How often do I feed her?" 
     And another question, "What if she can see ghosts?"

     Being closer to age forty than thirty, I am somewhat surprised I still have a fairly active imagination.  Yes, the thought passed in my brain about spirits being drawn to my baby.  Was there any reason to think that this was reality.  No, of course not, I came to the conclusion.  There was no supernatural or paranormal activity of any sort in the house the two years before our daughter arrived.  I never walked into a bedroom to find our dog staring intently in a corner, growling lowly at nothing.  No weird knocks or disembodied voices.  Lights in other room did not come back on after I turned them off. 
     The logic of my mind was broken by the thought of "Aren't ghosts attracted to children?"  They hide in closets and attics, right?  Only to appear when mommy and daddy are in another room.  Nothing had happened when we brought her home.  Any fears of ghostly activity were put to the grave.  Until my wife mentioned a few things.
     She mentioned three things in fact.  The first, voices in the baby monitor.  Not just from our daughter, but someone she said was having a chat with her.  Hmm, I said.  Interesting.  A bit spooky.  The sound from a baby monitor sounds like white noise mixed with a little static.  But very not very loud.  If any ghost voices were to be heard, they would have to talk loudly.  While the monitor was on I listened.  No, nothing ghostly.  That was written off.
     Second, and this is what kind of gave me a chill, my wife said, from the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow run quickly behind her and into the kitchen.  It was late at night and she was in the living room feeding the baby.  When she told what she saw.  I paused in my tracks and said something like, "That's awesome" and went into the kitchen.  No shadow there.  Now the third incident.
    Our daughter woke up hungry about three a.m. and the routine was for my wife to tend to her as I prepared a milk bottle.  The warmed milk would be brought to the baby's room where my wife sat on a rocking chair holding the baby who drank it quickly.  I left mother and daughter to lie down for a minute.  Upon returning my wife told me that she thought she saw a shadow in the doorway.  Not again, I thought.  Despite suffering from not much sleep, I quickly debunked her sighting.  Across from that room in the hallway is a laundry hamper and linen closet.  The doors are not painted white like the walls, but are darkly stained wood.  Someone who would be very sleepy would glance up and see what they think is a shadow person watching from the doorway.
     I chalked it all up to sleep deprivation.  An unrested mind can hallucinate.  Casper never paid us a visit and that concern vanished.  Besides, I have other things to be scared of: Dallas traffic at rush hour and career politicians.

     The other concern I have now, like ghosts, is also heard and unseen.  Flatulence.  She finds farts downright hilarious.  And when are they not?  Perhaps in church, court, and maybe during surgery.  Nothing makes her laugh quite like ripping a few.  The issue is that she does it and proclaims, "Toot!".  And in public.  The grocery store as well as the waiting room at the pediatrician.  It's all very unlady-like and cute at the same time.  But, where did she learned this habit?
    Obviously, it is learned and perpetuated from the mother.  I think that as a father I have a doody, I mean duty, to raise my daughter to be a respectable and well-mannered lady that will treat flatulence as a bodily function, not something to laugh at.  Even if the dog does it as he sleeps and inadvertently wakes himself up by doing it.  Is that funny?  Well yes, because he looks so puzzled at why he was suddenly awake.  That look of "What was that?" is awesome. 
    I can hope that as I change her next diaper and she lets one loose, she will outgrow the giggles.  If she is a lost cause, I do have a son that will be born soon and boys never laugh at farts.

P.S.-  The idea for the preceeding was probably funnier as an idea.  There's always next week. 
                                                

A Beginning

     Thought about doing this for awhile.  Or is it a while?  I think it's awhile.  Anyway, I decided to go ahead and try this.  If you choose to read this, let me lay down a couple of rules.  The subjects will be completely random and the language may get coarse at times.  It depends how cross I am when I write.  Apologies to the squeamish. 

     A brief bio: I am 38 years old.  I am a news photographer by occupation.  I am married with one child, another on the way.  I like movies, sports, and writing.  Work often interferes with the last one.

     With that out of the way, here we go.

     I have been resistant to social media for a long time.  Myspace came into being and I heard quite a bit about the site from others at work.  People would have their pages up to show me and I wasn't that impressed. I didn't see what the point was.  To me, it looked like drunken college pictures and short communications with other people.  Was email not good enough?  This something that kids did nowadays.  Middle schoolers did Myspace is what I had decided.  Afterall, I was 31 years old. 
     Then Facebook popped up.  "What's that?", I asked. 
     "It's like Myspace", was the reply.
     "Huh?", I said. 
     "Do you have a Myspace page?"
     "No, I'm not a fourteen year old girl", I responded.
     "Well, everybody has one", said the other person.
     "Everybody in the eighth grade", I said, getting slightly irritated.  "Why is it different from Myspace?".
    Some explanation was given to me and I never set up a page.  Shortly, the rest of America got one.  I resisted.  An old friend of mine sent me an email inviting me to join Facebook.  I clicked over to the facebook.com and stared at it.  Naw, not doing it.  I felt it was a tool of a narcicist.  I am relatively introverted and generally don't draw much attention, which would make me a great super villain.  Weeks and months went by and I bit the Facebook bullet.  I don't know how many "friends" I have and I never made it a point to have hundreds.  I don't know hundreds of people and the fact that there are no prizes for having a ton of friends, I'm okay.  It is nice to see what old friends are up to.  It seems to have reduced the need for high school reunions.  I glance at my Facebook page once, twice a week.  When my daughter was born, I had to feed her and not be on the computer so much.  Dad stuff.  Now companies want me to check them out on Facebook.  It's become a handy marketing tool I assume companies use to see how many people know they exist.  Doritos, I know what you are.  I know where I can obtain you.  I am not going to "Like" you on Facebook (please bring the Four Cheese flavor back). 
     Some time later, in the Dallas, TX newsroom I call "where I work", a reporter brought up in a meeting that there is some thing called Twitter that is like Facebook, but more immediate.  Instead of writing a message on your Facebook wall, you write it on Twitter.  But, you can only use 140 characters.  I furrowed my brow and sipped my coffee and had an internal dialogue.
     "What practical purpose do Tweets serve?"
     "I'm not sure.  But the reporter says Jay-Z is on it."
     "Hmmm, he still hasn't friended me on Facebook yet."
     "Should we do it?"
     "No!"
     Twitter has become rather popular.  As I thought, celebrities use it to tell everyone practically nothing.  Athletes use it to say dumb things.  Apologies are usually tweeted afterwards.  Twitter does have a practical use.  News reporters use it because local governments will send tweets out if there is vital information that needs to be passed on.  I drank the Twitter Kool-Aid sometime last year.  I use it to follow comedians I like and news.  That's about it.  I think I have four followers.  I don't tweet much, don't have anything vital to say. 
     So now I have started a blog.  The final phase of accepting social media.  I still bristle a bit when I hear the term 'social media'.  As I said, I am a bit introverted and I guess writing about stuff on a blog is odd.  More of that later perhaps.
     It's 1:41 am as of the time of this writing.  Time for sleep.  Not sure who will read this and I guess you can leave comments.  I might read them, but in case, respectability will be met with respectability, insolence will be met with insolence. 

P.S. -Watching America's Best Sandwich is not a good idea after a workout.