Tattoo

Immediately after marveling at my copious body hair, people who see me without my shirt always ask about my tattoos.

“What do they mean?” Is always the question.

They mean I was an idiot in the 1990’s.

Yes, I was part of that sad, unfortunate crowd who was convinced burying a needle filled with ink into your skin somehow made you different. I believe the number of us lonely souls is roughly 40 million.

And for you kids out there, getting a tattoo is mighty stupid. They never go away and the chances that you’ll still be interested in an obscure Star Wars symbol 15 years later is mighty slim.

Well gang, I made the mistake again! I got an “e” today. For elephant! Or was it for eggplant? I forgot.

Steve is currently painting a big mural in Elijah’s room. A jungle. We offered to pay him, but he flat out refused. So I suggested we go get tattoos signifying our love of our kids. My treat. And Steve can’t resist self-mutilation.

My “e” was relatively painless. Steve’s “F” (Finn) was tougher because he is running out of arm real estate and had to get his on the tender underside of his arm. We didn’t get a Rory “R.” Because I’m not a tattoo bank.

I’m certain I will regret this immature decision. Around the time Elijah starts stealing space cars and telling me how much he thinks I’m a space dork.

But until then this little “e” will remind me how much I love that little guy.

p.s. I do realize I am tacitly giving him permission to get a tattoo or whatever futuristic thing kids will be into. Like attaching an extra bionic arm of something.

p.s.s. Diana thinks it’s cool.

p.s.s.s. Don’t worry. The photo has it reversed. We won’t have to change his name to “9.”

2nd New Years Eve

There is a hip restaurant not far from us. It’s a place that would have been uber cool in New York circa 1992. Lots of exposed brick and not a drink under $12. Which means it is the height of cool in suburban Evanston 2008. Fortunately for us, they hosted an under 12 New Years Eve party tonight. $15 for unlimited pizza and balloons (cash bar). But Diana and I thought, what the heck?

We found ourselves surrounded by Evanston’s elite hip parents and their offspring. Every Jordan, Dylan, Emma and Eli north of Chicago was in attendance.

We immediately realized that the owners of said cool Evanston restaurant had no idea what they bought into. It was bedlam. The windows rattled at the screams of children. The tight jeans wearing staff stood wide eyed, frozen at the onslaught of anxious, overprotective moms. The line for free pizza was near riot level. And the owners actually attempted to cordon off a huge pile of balloons for the adult New Years Eve party set to begin several hours later. The poor guards were overrun within minutes.

I stood in the middle of the dance floor, with Elijah on my shoulders watching my beautiful wife rip a piece of gourmet pizza into Eli sized bites among a sea of screaming children and I thought to myself for the second year in a row, “This is the greatest night of my life.”

I immediately lowered Eli to eye level and tried to explain my love for him. “Eli. I love you so much. You are the greatest kid in the world. You make me so happy I can’t stand it…”

Eli began shouting, “Down! Down!”

So, like last year, I’m going to use the last blog entry of the year for a special message to my son. Don’t read it, jerks.

Dear Eli,

Every day I spend with you is the best day of my life. I am so very lucky you are my son. I am also very lucky to have your mom, who is the greatest, prettiest, coolest mom in the world.

And let us not forget the greatest dog in the world, Grover.

I’ll promise you this, my son. I will do everything in my power to make you happy. We’ll have lots of fun next year. Just you wait.

Love,

Your dad.

Ah Adah?

Long ago, before Elijahs and sippie cups and Exploratoriums, Diana and I honeymooned in Thailand. Where we rode elephants. Why? It’s the Thailand equivalent of drinking Margaritas in Mexico. You just have to. While Diana loved the adventure, I found our encounter with the elephants to be terrifying. Not one of them could fly with their giant ears and they seemed to always be on the lookout for opportunities to smash us to pieces. And they were covered with weird wiry pubic hair.

What does this have to do with Elijah who wasn’t even a concept 5 years ago? Well, he currently is obsessed with elephants. He can’t get enough Adahs. Oh yeah. He calls elephants “Adahs.”

There is a scene in “Jungle Book,” his current favorite movie, that involves a troop of Adahs stomping around. Eli stomps around the living room in time with the Adahs and it is just adorable. He kicks his little leg into the air and pounds the carpet while saying, “Adahhhh.”

He has also added Adahs to his current list of things he needs to know the location of. “Ah Mommy? Ah Finn? Ah Go Go? Ah Adah?” And so on.

Unfortunately for the rest of the animal kingdom, Eli could care less about anything that doesn’t have a long trunk and poos in gallon form. We went to the library today, like every other bored child in Evanston. I found a giant book about the zoo and tried to read it to him. But he refused to look at any page that didn’t contain valuable ivory.

He is currently upstairs napping, clutching the stuffed Adah he got for Christmas.

Jane Goodall

Last Night, Steve and Tom arrived at my house at exactly 8:00:01 for our Friday night beer drinking slash TV watching slash staring at each other fest. No matter how much we encouraged her to join us, Diana concluded jamming needles into her eyeballs sounded like more fun.

So she decided to sneak upstairs and observe Elijah as he drifted off into sleep. It started off as a mission to go read her book in bed, but when she got to the top of the stairs she realized Eli was still awake and had yet to notice her. So she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled over to Eli’s crib

Here’s what Diana saw:

8:01pm: Subject thrusts buttocks into the air. Possibly in an attempt to release noxious odor. But most likely to look cute.

8:03pm: Subject burrows head into corner of the crib. This maneuver is called the “Dan McNulty.” Don’t ask why.

8:05pm: Subject completely flips in the crib and attempts the “Dan McNulty” on the western side.

8:07pm: Subject sits upright in crib and calls out, “Daddy?” Observer considers going to get daddy but concludes daddy must be in an in depth conversation with brother about who can win an arm wrestling match between The Hulk and Thor and doesn’t want to be disturbed.

8:08pm: Subject drinks from sippie cub like a drunken sailor and flops back down. Buttocks in the air.

8:10pm Subject declared the Cutest Baby In The World and Observer goes to bed to read books.

Ah Rick?

If you can make it through seven years of college and manage to look at someone’s spleen without barfing, you get to be called “doctor.”

If you can make it through Iowa and Hillary and Joe the Plumber, you get to be called “president.”

And if you can make it through one slightly gross evening at the Evanston Hospital Maternity Ward, you get to be called “dada.”

So imagine my surprise when a certain twenty month old started calling me by my first name.

I arrived home from a trip to Atlanta last week and found Marianna and Elijah sitting on the couch. Eli was extremely excited to see me and said, “Rick! Rick! Rick!”

I said, “Whatchoo talkin’ about, Eli?”

Marianna said, “Oh, he call you ‘Rick’ now.”

I said, “I assume you spank him for this offense.” And Marianna just laughed the laugh that means she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

Now, I’ll tolerate most everything with Eli. The poop. The occasional tantrum. The poop. But I will not accept being called anything but “father, dada, dad, pops, daddy” or “El Dadderino.” There’s a certain smug Liberal Arts major jerkness I find in calling your parents by their first names.

Thankfully, he doesn’t call me ‘Rick’ full time. He just seems to do it when I’m at my most vulnerable.

Like if I’m struggling to wipe Grover’s muddy feet after taking him on a sub zero walk.

“Hi Rick!”

“No. I’m dada.”

Or if I’m swearing while assembling the new treadmill we got for Christmas.

“Ah Rick?”

“No. No Ricks here. Only dadas.”

Diana thinks it’s hilarious. Grover, thankfully, still calls me “daddy.” But now that he’s 28 in dog years I think he’s being sarcastic.

Tradition

I never really understood how family traditions were created. I figured it was a slow, glacial process where one day you looked up and said, “Oh, I guess we throw dishes at the wall every Thanksgiving.”

Well, this year my brother Steve decided to manufacture a tradition. He declared, “From now on we are all going to 3pm family mass on Christmas Eve.” Diana thought and said, “I’ll see your church and raise you Champaign and appetizers immediately after.” Diana and Steve then spit into their hands and shook on it. In my imagination.

I got pretty excited about family mass. Then Diana told me family mass does not, in fact, feature a puppet show and a balloon drop. All it is is a regular mass where they don’t mind when your kid screams. Thank goodness.

Di, Elijah and I settled down beside the other Evanston Hamanns and wedged Eli between us in the hopes he’d behave. It also gave him a chance to practice his favorite new word, “Stuck.” He boinged between Diana and my legs saying, “Stuck. Stuck. Stuck.” He made it through the first song at which he clapped enthusiastically.

But then he immediately remembered this was the place of head dunking and started howling.

Being that it was family mass, no one noticed or cared. But I have a pathological desire not to be the dad whose kid ruins Christmas mass, so I scooped Eli up and went looking for a hiding place. I’m not sure who designed our church, but they forgot to add a basement, closet or anything resembling a small cage. In fact, everywhere I went, the acoustics would send Eli’s cries up to the ceiling and down directly into the ears of the grade school Mary, Joseph, Sheppards and Wise People. But they were all pros.

After Eli slapped away the priest’s hand who was attempting to bless him, Diana said, “We’re outta here.”

We spent the rest of the evening sipping bubbly and watching Finn try to prevent Eli from destroying his new Star Wars stuff.

I haven’t been mushy in a while on the blog. But I am dumbfounded at how lucky I am. This child, for all his hilarious attacks of grouchiness at the worst possible minute, is the light of my life. I love him so much it physically hurts. And I can’t tell you how awesome it is to have the greatest wife in the world who I can share this little miracle.

I hope you all had a great Christmas/Chanukah filled with bubbly and cheese and crackers and non-destroyed Star Wars stuff.

Ah Finn?

For years, my idol was Wilco’s lead singer, Jeff Tweedy. I concocted elaborate schemes to become his best friend. I tried desperately to shorten the six degrees of Kevin Bacon that separated us. I even contemplated converting to Judaism so I could just so happen to show up at his temple. I’m sure somewhere a lawyer is drafting a well-worded restraining order as I write this.

Luckily for Elijah, his idol is his cousin Finn. It’s much easier when the object of your obsession lives five minutes away. I’d say roughly 3,000 times a day Eli looks out the window and inquires, “Ah, Finn? Ah, Finn?”

Even more luckily for Eli, he got to spend two glorious days with his idol at my parents’ for a pre-Christmas spectacular. Eli shrieked with glee as Finn shoved him to the ground. He positively howled when Finn chased him through my dad’s living room and crashed into the glass French doors. He even attempted to mimic Finn’s sippie cup drinking style. Which involves sprawling across the arms of a recliner.

Unluckily for me and Diana, Eli wanted to spend quality time with Finn at 4am Saturday night. We bolted up in bed to the hysterical cries of Eli. We held him and he sobbed, “Whaaaaaaa. Ah Finn? Ah Finn?”

The combination of being in a strange darkened room and not being able to see Finn rendered him unable to go back to sleep. We tried rocking him and fetching him water, but he kept crying and inquiring. Crying and inquiring.

Finally, I put him on my chest, which calmed him down. He wriggled into a comfortable position and drifted off to sleep. However, his comfortable position included jamming his shoulder into my windpipe. I tried to reposition him, but that only served to wake him up.

“Whaaaaaa. Ah Finn?”

At which point he wriggled back to cutting off my air supply. I laid there, convincing myself that I only needed 20% of my usual oxygen intake and I drifted off (blacked out).

Thankfully, I woke up not dead the next morning and took Eli out to the kitchen for breakfast. He got headed off at the pass by his idol, who resumed chasing him for the next 12 hours.

p.s. The only photographic evidence I have of the two boys is this image from last April. The Wolfman in the background is Steve. I also think that’s Grover’s nose on the right.