Sibling Moments

With my younger son turning two in a week, there’s a been a newfound focus between my wife and I in watching how our boys interact. We run for the camera when they’re holding hands or sitting in the pull-wagon together, calling out to the squirrels. We watch a playful pillow fight with glee until one of them pops the other nearly across the room. Watching the growth that goes on is a bit addicting. You can mentally chart the developments - the younger one running into the older one’s bedroom to wake him up in the morning; the older one helping the younger one get snacks down from a pantry shelf that’s too high. It’s cliche, but sometimes you wish that time would just stand still.

My wife and I are both very close to our siblings. My brother lives locally in the DC area, her sister back on Long Island. There’s a strong tug that goes on to see it through that your own children not only get along, but form unbreakable sibling bonds. But you can’t will that into your children and into their personalities. You just try to set the right environment and hope for the best. Repeated stompings on a neatly built Lincoln Logs set might cause tears, but isn’t likely to cause long-term damage. At least that’s what we keeping telling ourselves.

You Remind Me of the Babe

One of the many joys of fatherhood, for me, has been revisiting my records. Trevor Bolder’s recent passing from cancer at the age of 62, for example, sent me back to my David Bowie collection, specifically the Ziggy Stardust years when Bolder served as bassist before joining Uriah Heep. While I’ve always loved Bowie’s glam rock records, they took a backseat long ago to the Berlin Trilogy once I got to college.

Oh, there will be tears.

One time in college I happened to be in a grocery store with some friends (as college age kids are wont to do). I remember distinctly going through the aisle of Mtn. Dew Code Red and Coke Blak (we didn’t have Chicken and waffle flavored chips yet, dark times) and hearing a child crying. I can’t recall specifically becoming aware of the child’s cries, but I’m fairly certain they began before we even entered the store. Growing increasingly annoyed at the child’s suffering and how it was impacting my crucial snack decisions, I turned to my friend, saying, “Can someone shut that kid up?” As we rounded the next aisle, I could tell we were closing in on the source of the crying. It was then that I laid eyes upon a mother with a small, crying child, suspended in some sort walker, with braces on both of her legs. The image has stuck with me for many years and at the time (and even in reflection) makes me feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. Sure, I could say there’s no way I could have known the child was in an incredible amount of discomfort. And that’s true but it doesn’t make the feeling any less awful.

I bring this up, because up until recently this is the single strongest emotion I felt for a random child. Once I had a kid of my own, all of that changed.

U-N-I-T-Y (through sleepless nights and lots of tears)

All forms of social cliques have their style of initiation. Call it, “hazing,” or “paying dues,” or simply “learning the ropes,” but everything from sports teams to fraternities have them. As a fan of punk it’s usually some form of learning about the right bands and learning where the right shows are. It probably doesn’t hurt if you’re socially awkward or a bit of an outcast. And, while most forms of official hazing are illegal (or at least not allowed), parenting has its initiation which includes certain things that are probably outlawed several points in the Geneva Conventions.