Dinosaurs in the Digital Age

As you know, we like our old vehicles. I’ve been driving Volvos – old ones – since I first discovered the joys of driving a heavily battered ’65 PV544 while living in Seattle back in 1986. Between then and now, I’ve bought and sold and traded and parted out and sent to the metal recyclers between 65 and 70 of these things. I don’t brag about much, but I know these cars better than most people, including Volvo enthusiast people.

For most people who buy a car, the process is pretty simple – and usually, it’s also pretty simple for people who like old obscure cars too. But once in a while some odd thing happens and those who prefer the relics are faced with adapting our luddite personae as well as our primitive conveyances into a world fraught with digital influence and tidy record keeping. There isn’t any Carfax report on anything in our garage (except maybe the Subaru, which we think of in the same vein as the freezer or the washing machine). There’s also not a Vehicle Identification Number (popularly known as a VIN) stamped on a silver tag riveted to the A pillar just inside the windshield on any of the old Volvos. 50 and 60 year old foreign cars were, alas, often not thusly adorned.

Typically, this isn’t any problem provided the car you buy has its proper documentation and that the documentation is itself proper. The first time I had to submit one of the Volvos for a VIN inspection it was after rebuilding a Volvo 122 that had been totaled. The Department of Motor Vehicles (and, I guess, law enforcement) wanted to be sure that the car I was driving was, in fact, the same car that was represented by my title and registration. I drove to the DMV and the fellow behind the counter walked out to the car, looked at the VIN, and checked the box on some form. There wasn’t any question that the car was the car I said it was, and that it was legitimately mine. And a few weeks later I had a new title emblazoned with the word "SALVAGE" across the top. Badge of honor.

But that’s not why I’m here today.

Fast forward a few years from that 122 VIN inpsection thing to two years ago, when D and I bought another old Volvo: a 1957 PV445, also known as a Duett. We bought this car from my friend Dennis, who had owned it since 1973. Before that, it was owned by someone who worked at the University of Oregon, and before that it had been used by Sheppard Motors, which is the Volvo dealership in Eugene, Oregon. They used it to deliver parts and run errands (which is the same thing we use it for). When Dennis got the car, he drove it around a lot and after a few years decided he’d restore it and make a few upgrades. One thing he did was remove the original engine (a weak little 45 horsepower thing) with the intent of installing a stronger and more current mill in its stead. Then the project stalled and he kept it stored in his garage from 1978 until we bought it in 2011.

Nothing wrong with any of this, but as is the case with many old cars, this one had originally been titled using the engine number in place of the actual VIN. Engines have numbers, and car bodies have numbers, but neither of these is actually the Vehicle Identification Number. The VIN is a unique and distinct number that can (er.. should) be assigned only to that one specific motor vehicle. Now that the original engine wasn’t in the car, the documents for the car didn’t match any of the numbers on the car. Normally this isn’t a problem, but if someone were to steal the car and remove the license plates, we wouldn’t have any legal documents to support our claim of ownership. D and I agreed: we wanted this to be correct.

Old cars titled by their engine numbers might seem like a weird thing. But it’s common enough that there’s a whole set of instructions at the DMV on how their employees are to go about facilitating the correction of this old practice.

When we first bought the car, we took the old title to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), explained the situation and the nice person there explained that it would be best to only transfer the title at that time, and that once we’d established ownership and had the car running, we could take it back to the DMV where they’d inspect the actual VIN, make corrections in their records, and send us a title with the right number on it. Two visits instead of one. One transaction per visit keeps the confusion to a minimum. Clearly, this is a good idea.

A few weeks ago, we got a letter that reminded us that it’s time to renew the registration and I remembered the title-doesn’t-match-the-car thing, so I went to the DMV in person to get the VIN inspection handled. A couple months ago, one of the fellows at the DMV explained the process:

– bring the car and the title to the DMV
– fill out a form
– go outside with a DMV employee and show him or her the VIN
– write a check
– be happy

So last week I went to the DMV. This is exactly what I like to do when I have a free afternoon, especially given that the only time I have a free afternoon is the same time that D can get away from work and tend to our young son. I didn’t want to subject him to the long wait that often accompanies a trip to the DMV, nor did I wish to submit all the other good people who’d be waiting in line to any potential stinky diapers or hungry fussing. And it’s not like we’d want to spend a sunny afternoon as a family together doing something silly like taking a walk in the park. Pff.

I arrived at the DMV and waited in a long line before speaking with the person who filters out all the customers who might not have all their documents in order, then waited in a cue until my number was called. As soon as he found that I had something other than a quick and easy modern-car-owner task to deal with, he was immediately exhausted. Or something. He sighed a lot. I said something about my next visit being quick and easy and he replied "I hope so. These things are a real pain."

We went outside for the VIN inspection. I opened the hood of the car and pointed out the VIN location to him. It’s visible from outside the car, but you have to know where to look. He looked around the inside of the windshield though I’d already told him it wasn’t there, then he looked at the body number, then the build plate that has codes that explain what color the car was and which engine and transmission configuration the factory had seen fit to install as it rolled down the assembly line. I mentioned again that the VIN was "this number right here."

"I can’t do this. You’ll have to talk with a supervisor."

"The number is right here. All you have to do is look at it and stamp the form, right?"

"I can’t do this."

And he walked back inside the DMV. He hadn’t waited for me, but I figured I ought to tag along, so I closed up the car and went back inside, where I found him talking to someone else.

"She’s the supervisor and she’ll help you with this. I’m late for lunch."

The supervisor was friendly and encouraging, and said "this is really simple – we just need to look at the number, then send the forms to Salem, and you’ll get a new title in a few weeks." Cool.

As she looked over the title, she then said "you know, there’s really nothing wrong with this title. This is a perfectly good document. Why do you want to change it?"

I explained the whole thing about wanting the papers to match the car and that I was really just trying to play by the rules. She replied in the same vein "you don’t have to do anything. This title is fine."

"Right, but it has the wrong number on it. I want the numbers to match."

"There are shops around that have number stamps that can put the numbers from your title on the car. I’d just do that."

"I have number punches at home. Are you saying I should stamp the car myself?"

"Well, you’d want to pick an appropriate place on the car, and I’m not sure how the shops that do that know where to stamp them."

"I really think it would be best to go through proper channels and do this the right way."

"Okay. Then you have to fill out this other form. Put the VIN you want to use (emphasis mine) in this space here and fill out that section there." It seemed odd to me that I was being allowed (instructed, really) to fill in the form that says ‘to be filled out by DMV people’ but I went with it.

She went away for a few moments and returned. "We can’t do the inspection here. You have to make an appointment with the State Police and they’ll do it. I’ve already contacted them so they’re expecting to hear from you, and I’ve flagged the title in our system." Then she put a big red stamp on the title I’d brought with me that says something like ‘referred to OSP for VIN inspection.’

I finished filling out the parts of the form as I’d been instructed, and she gave me a "go to the front of the line" pass that I could use on my next visit. She said things about trying to be helpful and wanting me to be able to avoid the long wait when I returned after taking the car to the police.

I felt like I was being sent in circles as a reward for trying to make things right.

One of the papers the nice lady at the DMV had given me had instructions on how to go about making an appointment with the police for this inspection. Not conveniently, the police station is on the outskirts of town on the very opposite end of Portland from where I live. It’s an hour away.

Inspections are only available on Thursdays between 9 and 2:30, which means I’ll likely be crossing town on the busiest streets we have during rush hour. I’m thinking maybe I should take the car out and get pulled over for speeding by a trooper and ask him to do a quick inspection after he finishes writing me a ticket. That would certainly be more convenient.

Anyway, I called the phone number on the form and got a voicemail message that said "this number is no longer used for VIN inspections. If you need to make an appointment for a VIN inspection, call this other number and then dial 0 for an operator." After muttering something about the DMV having outdated forms, I called the number and dialed 0 and found myself speaking to someone employed by the Oregon State Police. Maybe she’s an officer herself, maybe she’s not. But whatever she is, she’s definitely the most competent and helpful person I’ve talked to thus far.

I told her the whole story and she was very interested in knowing which DMV had recommended having the VIN ‘added’ to the car. She asked if I knew the name of the employee (I didn’t – they don’t wear name tags. Probably for good reason.) Then she confirmed that I had the proper forms and asked me to make sure that the people at the DMV had filled in the sections properly. If the form isn’t perfect, she explained, the OSP can’t do the inspection in the first place and I’d have made the trip to the State Police only to be turned away and sent back to the DMV, where the forms could be corrected before going back to the OSP and then returning – again – to the DMV to have the forms processed. I’d think either of them could mail the forms to the office in Salem (of that I could do that part myself) but that’s now how the system [ahem] works.

I explained that the same woman at the DMV who had encouraged me to commit a federal crime had later had me fill out the form myself. The officer called my attention to the section in the middle of the page, which has to be filled out by the DMV employee before the OSP can do their thing. Mine was blank. The DMV employee who had ‘helped’ me had neglected to fill in this critical section of the form.

After thinking about better things over the weekend, on Monday I got the kiddo fed and changed, and piled him into the car so that we could both spend some quality time in the DMV office. The officer had encouraged me to pay a visit to a different DMV location, as she understood that I was less than pleased with how things had gone in my recent visit at the office nearest my home, but I was determined to return to the very same DMV. And so we (my son and I) marched on in. I showed my ‘go to the front of the line’ pass to the guy at the filter-out-the-unfortunate-customer desk, and he announced over the loudspeaker that I was to step in front of the fellow who was already at the very front of the line. Bambino in one hand, diaper bag and documents in the other, I sailed past the 50 or 60 commoners to my place up front, where I made eye contact with everyone nearby and apologized loudly enough that they might think I might not be a big jerk.

A young woman who explained that she was still in training called me up to the counter; I showed her the form and said the police had sent me over to get it filled out. She’d never seen this form and wasn’t sure what to do, so I suggested that she call the police right then and there. The officer I’d spoken with earlier said she’d be available all day long and would be happy to speak to whichever DMV employee might need instruction on how to fill the thing out. Some other employee came over to help, and then the two of them went to speak with another one, then they all came back to explain to me what I’d failed to do. "Oh, no, you’re not allowed to fill this out. We have to do that. You’re not even supposed to have this. I’m going to take this to the supervisor and have her fix it for you."

I noticed, then, that the supervisor that was going to correct my gross error was the same supervisor who had encouraged me to stamp my own VIN into the car, had refused to perform the VIN inspection, had flagged my records with the state, had stamped my title with heavy red ink, and had thoroughly damaged my faith in humanity just a few days ago. I mentioned to the three people that it was she who had counseled me in favore of committing a federal crime. The new employee looked shocked. The other two just kind of looked away, as though they weren’t at all surprised.

While one of them stood next to the supervisor as she was filling in the blanks, the other one said there were notes on file. That the problem was that the VIN is under the car and can’t be seen without getting underneath. I mentioned that this isn’t the case and that the guy who did go outside could see the number without even bending over but opted to cease assistance, and that the supervisor now filling out the form had initially stated that she’d do the inspection before changing her mind and becoming really unhelpful.

The supervisor went ahead and filled in the form for me, which I’m sure will be a very helpful thing. After it was returned to me, I happily noticed that it not only bears an official looking stamp as well as the DMV location that provided this excellent service, but it also bears her name and signature. I’m looking forward to taking this form to the Oregon State Police in order that they can fill in the remaining blanks and get me well on my way to correcting the paperwork on this old car.

The new employee who really did her best to be helpful apologized and gave me another ‘go to the front of the line’ pass for my next visit. Really looking forward to it.

Life, Punctuated

I’m no longer in charge. E is in charge. This gets tricky, because he’s not in control. So our household dynamic finds us in the situation in which those in control aren’t in charge while the one in charge isn’t in control. As is likely the case with all parents, our task is now to balance E’s demands with our own abilities to maintain and provide. Like a couple stagecoach riders propelled by a dozen horses that a moment ago stomped on a nest full of angry hornets and are now hell bent for leather on outrunning bees that can fly at a hundred miles an hour.

Lousy analogy demonstrates complete lack of flow from mind to keyboard. Obviously, it’s time to swap laundry from washer to drier. Not only have I lost what little control I thought I once had but I’ve abandoned use of definite articles.

Actually, he can control some things. He can control which way he points his eyes, thereby controlling what he sees. And he can control his little mouth by trying to keep it closed while I’m trying to make it open as I force medication between what will someday be his little pearly white chompers.

… assuming he gets his teeth genes from his Mama and not his Poppi. The maternal side of his genetic conglomeration is populated by pearly white chompers. The paternal offers little more than discolored things prone to both traumatic injury and decay.

Orally medicating a baby isn’t as hard as it might sound, really. E loves to be naked – a characteristic that we’re not sure comes from the maternal or the paternal side. So when we’re having fun changing diapers, between making urine fountains on the one end and spitting up milk on the other, Daddy finds the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this bambino’s cheerful disposition and gets the application of medicinal goop quickly accomplished.

We, his parents, are more freaked by control – or lack of same – than we are control freaks. At least that’s my assertion – I already know some of you reading this will disagree; and because I’ve sensibly predicted this disagreement and have stated such, there’s no need for anyone to be sending me emails about how wrong I am in this regard. Thanks anyway.

Another dynamic a new kiddo brings: punctuation. So if you’re right in the middle of something – anything – and there’s a bambino around, you’ll learn to live in such a way that you can instantly drop whatever you’re doing and attend to He Who Is In Charge. The flow of life radically changes faster than you can offer a fond adieu to the Old Ways. The ways that saw you working in the garden for hours on end while taking advantage of your ability to skip a meal or postpone some other typically typical activity that’s part of a reasonably reasonable daily routine. Or the ways that allowed you to, say, swap out a brake master cylinder on an old car. You can drop the wrenches easily enough, but it’ll take a good 5 minutes before you can get yourself clean enough to handle anyone else. Especially babies.

The necessity of living in a state that requires you be so suddenly available is the difference between delicious poached eggs on perfectly buttered warm toast and boiled eggs wobbling around atop something closer to old soggy cardboard. It means a fundamental change to your ability to enjoy any reliable frequency of the underappreciated and unimportant (but pleasant) activity we call bathing. Not since I was a Wildlands Firefighter have I been aware that three or four days without a shower could be so easily (and so completely without intent) achieved. Back then, we didn’t have access to a shower. Now I recognize it as the unused end of the bathroom as I gaze wistfully toward the shelf laden with the frequently unattainable cleansing elixirs.

Should anyone marketing deodorant need proof that continually adding more layers of the anti-stench stuff over successive bouts of sweat gland activation fails to provide a pleasant olfactory experience for anyone in the subject's proximity; I submit my simple existence as irrefutable evidence of exactly that. I don’t really know what happens when you mix Roquefort with Lysol but I might be getting the idea that it isn’t really anything you’d want to have inside your house. Or your garage. And it's a slurry you especially wouldn’t want attached to yourself such that escape or relief remains impossible. Given that I stink anyway, I would just keep wearing the same shirt between showers, but E spits up unexpectedly and frequently enough that I’m swapping t-shirts out at the rate of two or three a day. Without him, my hygiene would undoubtedly suffer further.

If you aspire to write and spend time doing just that, you’ll find that the notion of getting into a groove – or being on a roll – vanishes. Once that train of thought departs Grey Matter Station and begins picking up steam, the child’s built-in alarm system calls a halt to the rest of the world and you find yourself again consumed with taking care of the basic needs of the most important person in the world. Which is exactly what you really do want to be doing. A couple of times I’ve wished that E’s timing could be tweaked a little so that I’d know once in a while that I had (for example) a full hour to spend on some task. It’d be something like twenty minutes for a thorough shower, twenty minutes to take the Lambretta for a ride and twenty minutes to catch up that sleep thing that everyone in the house that isn’t E has been wanting of late. Though I miss the shower and the time watching eyelid theater, what I’ve learned is that there’s something really calming about not having the luxury of time that would facilitate such activities. It shifts one’s entire focus. All the things that were important – including whether or not you might have lunch sometime between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon – are now secondary. It’s probably exactly like meditating amidst the discharge of live ammunition. I should be so enlightened.

If you’ve got kids, you already know all of this. Nothing is more important. And it’s actually really cool to have something that’s so completely more important than anything that feeds your own desire, appetite, or ego. The transition into parenthood brings newfound purpose and worth.

I won’t add “meaning” to that list. I believe that meaning is internally manufactured by individuals and exists entirely independent of outside forces or influence. Meaning is a chosen response generated by the audience. But that’s a whole different topic that’s so convoluted and abstract that we’ll have to save it for some other day. Which is probably never.

As a new Daddy (and according to a couple friends, as a Libra) I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how this is going and how things could be better. I don’t spend much time thinking about how they might be worse (what’s the benefit of that?). As a wannabe writer coupled with the aspiration of becoming a “good” father, some amount of time has gone into researching what other parents are up to and how they’ve gone about securing their status among the Good Parents. That’s the list I’d like to join. At least I thought it was.

So here on the blog-o-rama, in the midst of my conversations with friends and family, and across that wide arena that is the internet itself, I find myself at the center of What Everyone Else Thinks. A vortex of influences clamoring for legitimacy. And these influences are, in fact, completely legit, which is unrelated to whether or not they each meet with my rather biased approval. The challenge they face is where they might rank within my own weak minded assessment as to their relative value of what Good Parenting might include.

I’ve mentioned some of the medical things we’ve addressed with E and I’ve credited the good medical folks who have helped us through some challenging moments. And the truth really is that E remains among the living thanks to their efforts – this became the case before he was born and was reinforced days later. Nothing I can do will demonstrate how completely grateful D and I are for what the medical peeps have done for us and for our son.

Fortunately, I guess, the medical peeps are satisfied to accept checks in exchange for their awesomeness. This is both simple and challenging.

The most recent round of medical stuff isn’t at all life threatening and hasn’t called for late night highway Subaru rocketeering from deep SW Portland to the Children’s Hospital in NE. And that’s a good thing – the Subaru transmission hasn’t been the same since. But we’ve come up with a new medical thing to deal with that led us to call the pediatrician’s office during their off hours. We got a prescription over the phone, got a concise list of instructions that would be easy to follow, got the scrip filled at the local pharmacy by a pharmacist who gave us more instructions that would also be easy to follow, and we went about our typically attentive approach to ensuring that we followed all of everyone’s instructions to the letter. We’re trying to do this parenting thing well and we’re still under the impression that the people who make metric tons of money ensuring that little baby boys like ours remain healthy possess an expertise on which we’re smart to rely.

Therein, as they say, lies the rub.

Our first medical challenge from several weeks ago found us doing exactly as we were told and coming up short in a really scary way.

Our second challenge that happened shortly after the first found us doing exactly as we were told and coming up short in a less scary but still significant way.

Our third challenge, which we’re still in the middle of sorting out, finds me walking a thin line between acceptance that not only am I not in charge but I’m also not in control (and trying to make peace with my stubborn and impatient self about this) and frustration or irritation or sometimes a little bit of disgust with the very industry I owe my deepest thanks. Here we are again but in this instance with a thankfully simple thing to deal with. Here we are again with a specific set of instructions we’ve followed precisely. And after a few days without any improvement, here I was again on the phone asking that same “Given our lack of results thus far, what’s the next step?” question I’ve rehearsed so many times in the last 7 ½ weeks.

Through this most recent inquiry, the answer we’d liked to have had at the start was finally bestowed upon my apparently only marginally qualified self after the whole thing should have been effectively resolved rather than having become progressively worse. Which is, quite precisely, the case. Everything we’d been told to do is really only about half of what we needed to do. The sole reason we didn’t do the other half of everything we needed to do is because we’d never heard anything about that other half. Because when we asked the very specific (I thought) question, “Exactly what do we need to do to ensure that this gets better as quickly as possible?” whoever was answering apparently heard something more along the lines of “I’d like to demonstrate that I’m really a half-assed parent and set myself up – again – for failure in the eyes of others, so please ensure that you tell me only enough of how to deal with this that I can spend the next several days causing my baby boy to cry his eyes out four times a day as I engage in this medicinal thing even though it’s not going to help in the slightest.”

Now that I’m thinking about it, I realize that sometimes I’m more than a little frustrated.

Due to my interest in what other dads are up to and what they might have to say about the challenges of being parents, I’ve checked out a number of dad blogs, articles written by dads, organizations that include dads who share my aspiration of getting a clue about parenting. All that kind of stuff. My friends who are parents have, generally, expressed some margin of understanding and an ability to relate their own experiences with mine. Certainly, there must be more people with questions and concerns like mine out there in the rest of this big world. And because we’re not among the first on this path, there must be an enormous resource base on which we might draw.

What I will never do is consult the television. Every time I see a news teaser, it says “coming up at six, blah blah blah, and what you need to know to keep your family safe.” Or it says “blah blah blah and why you should be afraid.” Screw those guys.

One of the blogs I checked out is written by a pastor who has kids. I figured that because he had something like nine hundred comments for one of his entries that he was probably really smart and that I’d learn something from the insight he readily shares. Conveniently, I forgot that agreement doesn’t equal truth – so I fell right into that trap. Everyone agrees, thus it must be truth. Insert analogy of ill-informed political parties making absurd assertions here.

Then I read about how this pastor is sure he’s not the only parent who’s had the thought of holding their kid underwater, just for a minute or two, because of how frustrating parenthood can be. He continues, talking about how parents shouldn’t feel guilty if they give their kids Chicken McNuggets once in a while, and that forgiving yourself for screwing up is important. I can accept the McNuggets thing and I can agree with the forgiving yourself bit. But that “pretending to drown your own children” thing strikes me as really plain awful. And there’s a long list of accolades from other parents, thanking this pastor guy for being the one to speak the words that all these other parents were previously afraid to admit had wandered through their own minds. Hundreds of parents, thanking this guy for his courage to admit what they also felt.

I was floored. I told my terrific wife about it and then we were both floored. This was a blog recommended to me, not one that I’d found by surfing the net. This man is plain sick between his ears.

Anyway, I won’t be visiting that pastor’s church unless I’m looking for a doorway in which to expunge the results of poorly prepared and undercooked shellfish and an overfull bladder. My stubborn self is now quite certain that this man has absolutely nothing of value to offer me.

Realizing that every abstract thing on the internet can be found on facebook in a much neater package, I looked for some dad blog stuff there and found Dad Bloggers. Perfect! I have peers, and they’re right here on facebook!

Er. Wait a second. Most of the stuff on their page includes links to Iron Man action figures, Star Wars stuff, comic book giveaways, something about angry birds and a blurb on the Superman Blue Ray thing. Interspersed among these commercial seeming entries are links to other dads’ blogs, some jokes, and references to things that seem like they might actually be interesting and useful. But what’s with all these posts that look like ads for toys? It’s like television without moving pictures. Not for me. I get enough advertisements on the regular Facebook thing that I don’t need to go looking for more.

All the time leading up to E’s birth I was wondering how I’d handle dealing with the challenges that E himself presented. And now that he’s crying and fussing and cooing and smiling and eating and sleeping and barfing (and finally laughing!) his way through each day I find myself surprised that the challenges of child rearing have more to do with the continual input regarding all the ways I ought to be doing this thing differently. I have only myself to blame. If I hadn’t taken the initiative to seek out the expertise of my peers, I wouldn’t have learned that pastors who blog about their wives regaining their pre-baby figure and that they think it’s okay to daydream of waterboarding their own children are, according to the internet, speaking on behalf of parents around the country.

I want no part of this alleged norm.

I wonder if the medicos who continue to not disclose critical bits of information that directly affects E’s well-being are lumping us in with parents who confuse McDonalds with actual food or if there’s something about us that indicates that we’re too stupid to follow directions more than three lines long. I’d like to say that I want no part of this apparent norm, too, but the truth is that we’re kind of over a barrel. We’re going to need doctor types again. I guess our task is to figure out how to present ourselves as the kind of parents who actually intend to follow through.

We’re the parents who, when we say “We will do whatever is necessary to ensure a positive result,” we actually know what we’re saying. And we actually mean it.

I’m disappointed to realize that our use of diplomacy and kindness seems to have been mistaken for weakness and a lack of resolve. I’m bothered to realize that I’m now having trouble coming up with an approach that won’t include posturing and loud voices and acting like a lunatic to get my simple point across.

Our next appointment is in less than a half hour. Which means I don’t have time for a shower.

This should be good.

All best,

Cameron

Hunting and Gathering

A lot of this fatherhood thing isn’t exactly what I’d expected.

I take comfort in this realization given that fatherhood probably hasn’t been what any Dad has ever expected since the very first time that one guy’s seed managed to find its way into that one girl’s ovum and then their magic mix managed to settle on a precarious perch deep within the…[er… not bowels… ummm] (aha!) cavern of her womanhood.

No, wait. Cavern is completely the wrong word. Niche? Crevasse?

Shit. Now I can’t even select appropriate verbiage. I’m doomed.

A couple weeks ago, a robin (the bird kind, not Batman’s honcho) showed up at our bedroom window. We wouldn’t have noticed if he’d just been standing on the fence (which he does a lot of the time) but for some reason, he’s been flying into the window. Not in through the window – against the window. Bonk bonk bonk. He does this until I get up out of bed (always makes me happy to do this before the sun is up) and show myself, then he realizes there’s a big animal right there and he returns to standing atop the fence a few feet away. As soon as I’m out of view, he returns to bonking against the window over and again. There’s no line of sight from there to anywhere, and he does this before we turn the lights on and we don’t have plants nor birdcages or any other thing that we think might be attractive to him in our room and we really can’t figure out why he’s kept on with this routine. It’s the avian equivalent of banging one’s head against a wall.

We closed the blinds but he kept bonking the window. What’s he trying to tell me?

Our little boy is now something like six weeks old and he’s doing pretty well. Logistics are my highest priority right now, with emotional things and mental things coming in tied for a close second. What I mean is that it’s more important to me that we make sure he gets enough to eat and isn’t too cold and has clean diapers than it is that I get whatever emotional feedback a son of this age might provide his Papi. I’d like that emotional feedback, but it’s not as important as making sure the mechanical side of things are in proper order. So I hope for positive emotional feedback from other sources, an approach that’s worked pretty well thus far. Sort of. I’ve noted that some of the feedback I get is about how things aren’t going well or how I don’t really know what I’m doing. Tell ya what, though: he’s fed and he’s clean and he’s warm. The rest of the world is secondary.

You’ll recall our adventurous hospital trip in which we learned that the mechanics were coming up short and that, though all indicators were positive, E was coming up short in the nutrition arena. We got right onto a new feeding program and turned all of that around and once things were back on the proper track, our lactation consultant started working us toward some changes that were going to make all of this ‘feeding the bambino’ stuff work even better. Cool.

I’ve noticed that everyone who works in the office where they have lactation consultants happens to be female and have wondered, occasionally, whether or not this is an industry unpopulated by men. I’d think there would be plenty of men eager to work in such a field, though I can certainly understand that a male lactation consultant might well find himself short on clients. This really does seem like the kind of thing that women would prefer to share with other women. Plus men don’t have breasts and are likely unable to offer relevant experience or insight. At least not from a primary source perspective.

Anyway, we got E back on track, went to the consultant, and learned that now that he was big and strong, he’d never let us underfeed him and that all we really had to do was make food available to him whenever he made it known that he was hungry. If the natural thing came up short, we’d supplement with formula (which we didn’t want to do initially, but we readily accepted when it came down to “this is necessary if you want to be sure he’s getting enough nutrition.”) Done. Bring on the formula.

… but before we use that formulaic stuff, we had to ask “What’s the very best formula on the market that doesn’t have weird ingredients nor BGH nor GMOs and isn’t made by the CIA, doesn’t call for fracking nor clearcutting and is exactly the stuff that Adam and Eve would have chosen if their own natural supply had been in question?”

We realize that Adam and Eve were receiving regular visits and consultations from a guy who could totally manipulate the system such that their natural supply would never be found lacking. We don’t live where they lived, though, so perhaps that’s why we don’t have the same benefactor standing at the ready.

We were told that the difference between all of the various formulas on the market is exactly the same as the difference between Coke and Pepsi. While I’m wondering if that’s the difference between aspartame and high fructose corn syrup, the lactation consultant fills me in: They’re all the same and they’re all fabulous and anyone with half a brain would happily provide this powdery mix to the single most important person in the history of everything. Oh. Simple.

With this in mind, my fabulous bride thought it’d be smart to have a look into the various formulae available for feeding our precious bambino. After all, there wouldn’t be so many from which to choose if there weren’t some differences that well informed people such as we’d like to think ourselves would want to know about. The first among the criteria was that we wanted something as close to organic as possible, so she looked at those brands thusly promoted. What she found didn’t exactly fill us with confidence.

And that robin keeps bonking against the window.

That is, there are 3 major brands that make organic formula:

Nature's One - their formula has brown rice sugar as sweetener - research found that this organic mix contains measurable levels of arsenic in it. Remembering that arsenic has enjoyed popularity among those who wish to harm others by ensuring its ingestion, this seemed like a nasty thing to be giving our little one. To their credit, since the discovery, the company reworked their product to ‘address the arsenic concerns.’ However, in that announcement, the company stated that the changes made apply only to its formula with certain use-by-dates:

“When we tested the new versions of the two dairy formulas, the levels were either undetectable or nearly so. The company says its new formulation has use-by dates of January 2014 (Dairy with DHA & ARA), July 2015 (Dairy), or later.” (Emphasis added.)

So for us to use this one, we’ll need to keep track of what the use-by dates are so that we can avoid feeding this nasty arsenic stuff to E. My uninformed brain thinks it’d make sense to pull affected product from the market rather than just cycle it through the consumer base, but that’s why I’m not given the responsibility of making such decisions on behalf of delicate infants.

Similac enjoys a substantial share in the market, which makes it seem like it must be pretty good. Unfortunately (again, by my own feeble reasoning), this one’s sweetened with sucrose, which gives it a much sweeter taste than some of its competitors (and probably makes it a lot more popular with the kiddos). Sucrose is worse for tooth enamel than other sugars (not that E has any teeth yet) and the concern is that this extra sweetness will lead the kids who rely on it to spurn other, possibly less sweet, formulae. Some studies suggest that this might lead to overeating, which can lead to unduly rapid weight gain, which has reliably been a statistical predictor of childhood obesity. This doesn’t sound like the one we want, either.

Earth's Best. Now here’s a promising name for baby formula. Who wouldn’t want the very best thing available for their bundle of joy? This one, D found, uses some process known as “the hexane method” to extract DHA and ARA (these are good things that are found in breast milk) from algae and soil fungus. But hexane is a neurotoxin (uncool), a by-product of gasoline in petroleum and is considered a hazardous air pollutant by the EPA.

So among the readily available and highly touted “organic” baby formulas found on drugstore shelves, each appears to contain (or be influenced by) some really hideous thing that we’re quite certain comes up short in our standards for E. I might eat that stuff and not worry so much, but what’s good enough for me isn’t nearly good enough for the boy.

Bonk goes the robin. Bonk bonk.

Then D found another brand: Holle. Of course, this one’s made in Germany, which is the country that maintains the highest standards for food anywhere on Earth. If we were to buy this, it’d cost less than the stuff we can get at the corner pharmacy, even if you include the overseas postage. This is the obvious choice. As fate would have it, though, Holle isn’t approved by the US FDA (I wonder why that is…) and thus, is unavailable in the states. Not only that, but the smart Germans who sell the stuff have already gotten into trouble for sending it over to American parents who’d like to take advantage of Germany’s high standards for baby formula.

This means that unless you figure out a way to circumvent the rules that you can’t get it over here. You’d have to have some pretty sweet connections overseas to make this happen. Or you’d have to check out some of the online forums where other dedicated parents share information.

We shared this info with others who pay attention to things that babies are frequently exposed to here in the US and our friend Andy mentioned that he’d recently been researching HB3162 that has to do with toxic stuff and that he found that Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort Bath, Breck Kids 2-in-1 Shampoo, Disney Princess Bubble Bath, and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo all contain formaldehyde. Last I knew, this stuff had proven itself useful for preserving bodies which are no longer in use. We certainly want to keep the bambino around for as long as possible, but we weren’t thinking of making this happen through the use of preservatives and so we’ve added this items to the list of things we won’t be using.

Bonk.

Before he was born, we talked about what we were concerned about in terms of raising a child in the US. We’d be concerned about things no matter where we were raising a child, but we’re doing it here, so the conversation is really only relevant as it applies to the states. Don’t go thinking we’re picking on the US of A just for kicks – we’re looking into what’s relevant based on where and when we live. That’s all.

Right now there’s a big debate here in Portland about whether or not the city should add fluoride to its water supply. Those in favor assert that this will reduce what they’re calling an epidemic of bad teeth, especially for kids whose families might not be able to afford proper dental care. Aside from me thinking that if dental (and medical) care were available to everyone at no out of pocket cost, this would be less of a hot topic, I’m personally unswayed by the assertions that fluoride is good for everyone. I think it’s good for some of us but not for all of us. I’m not opening this for debate and I don’t need to know what you think about it – you won’t change my mind and I won’t change yours. It’s up for a vote. Cast your ballot and let’s be done with it.

Collective bonking. We're all bonking the window now.

The Portland fluoride thing doesn’t really matter in our household, because the water that comes through the pipes in our house isn’t from Portland. It’s from the Tualatin Valley Water District, and they’ve been adding fluoride to the stuff for a while now. This means that, because we don’t want E to drink fluoridated water (he doesn’t have any teeth anyway), we have to buy bottled water… which is a concept we despise in the first place.

In the baby aisle at the store, next to the organic formulas containing arsenic or potentially addictive sweeteners, and those processed by hexane are nice big jugs of water specifically intended for use in making baby formula. Bravo! Someone’s taking initiative. But wait.

I pick up a jug and have a quick look at the label, thinking it ought to say something like “completely pure unadulterated water from a really clean source carefully distilled in a sterile environment by people who believe in health first and profits second” but instead find that they’ve added minerals to it. Maybe that’s okay. Then I notice that they’ve added stuff to improve the flavor of the water. Because, apparently, the sweeteners in the formula we’re supposed to add to this water don’t make the flavor yummy enough.

Now, this is absurd. I can assure you [and the makers of flavor enhanced water and formula that contains weird sweeteners or is processed with weird stuff or has the potential to be essentially addictive and lead to an increased likelihood of obesity] that our little boy doesn’t need any of that to be motivated to eat when he’s hungry.

What he needs is pure water and formula that’s made by people whose standards are guided by the notion that people – especially those unable to make good choices for themselves – deserve access to nourishment that doesn’t include toxins.

This seems really simple. Obvious.

My primary concern about raising this boy remains related to the quality of what we loosely refer to as “food” in this country. And given how complex it’s been to secure only two items – water and baby formula – that we can feel good about providing our little one, I’m not filled with confidence when I think about how we’ll go about introducing him to things like fruit and vegetables.

Something tells me this is going to become harder instead of easier.

Bonk. And bonk.

I’d never have guessed that I might consider moving to another country solely based on food quality. But here I am.

Cameron

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Mire

It’s been a while since our last blog session, and as you already know that’s because we’ve become a family of three since the last time I had any time to type anything at all. If D and I had expanded our family through the route of bigamy, I’m sure there’d be a whole lot of new things to try to figure out and a long list of family dynamics in need of reworking or reinventing or creating from scratch, which is kind of what we're doing anyway. We’re not bigamists, though (fine with us if you are, so don’t get your boxers in a bunch) and so our approach to expanding the family unit was – by some very good fortune and a terrific vacation in Mexico – by virtue of conception. I’m certain that there’s a correlation between having found a healthy scorpion in our hotel bathroom and D becoming pregnant. We’d been hoping [and actually doing a fair amount more than simply hoping] for conception for the last few years. But it took the magic spell of a creepy yet doomed poisonous critter who met his end at the heel of a frantically wielded shoe for pregnancy to befall us. That wasn't all it took, but it was a key component.

Fast forward through that nasty separated disk and some sciatic nerve pinching and a good lesson in the relative values of Eastern and Western medicine (the former proving itself far more affordable and far more effective than the latter), a visit from the Mom-In-Law for the holidays, and a boring list of normal life stuff and we find ourselves looking at the calendar about a month ago, well into a healthy pregnancy that included a lot of tests and inspections and stuff like that, every one of which gave positive indicators as to the relative health of baby and momma. So as of a month ago, D and I had been to lots of appointments at the Women’s Health Center near our home in fabulous Portland, Oregon and during the final several visits, the doc and the midwife and the assistant and the ultrasound tech had all been saying things like “it doesn’t hurt to pack your hospital bag early” and “don’t be upset if he’s born before your sister arrives.”

I was immediately suspicious. I'm often immediately suspicious of things people say, but I was more immediate and more suspicious this time around than most. They wouldn’t say things like that if they thought D was going to go full term. My razor sharp brains elicited the obvious message: We medical professionals all think your baby will come early. This was fine by me – I was pretty excited to meet the little guy and see what he looked like out here in the atmosphere instead of the ultrasound images we’d been getting every couple weeks. Young parents don’t get so many ultrasounds, but D qualifies as “AMA,” which means “Advanced Maternal Age,” which really means “Old.” So we saw lots of pictures of the kiddo but we were getting impatient and wanted the tactile experience. And though we knew we'd be really busy once he was born, D was really very uncomfortable almost all the time and we thought it'd be nice to bring that discomfort to a close.

All our friends and relatives wanted to meet him too, and as you read in my last entry we’d asserted that everyone would have to get a pertussis booster. The problem that assertion led to was that I didn’t specify that anyone already current on their vaccine wouldn’t need the booster and the only people that had to get it were those whose shots were outdated, or those who didn’t remember whether or not their shots were outdated. One result of this was that a close relative who doesn’t think vaccines are a good idea in the first place agreed to wait until the kiddo is older to meet him in person (even though he recently had surgery and very likely received a booster without even knowing it). Another result is that a whole bunch of people we care about are now current on their pertussis (and diphtheria and tetanus, each of which are nasty things we're sure no one wants to suffer). There were other results, too, but those aren’t any fun to think about and I can’t come up with a way to present them that includes any levity.

And this was our first real venture into the realm of parenthood. The most common piece of advice we’ve received from other parents is to remember that we have the final say in everything even if we’re wrong about it, and that people will be offended along the way. Sometimes it’ll be us offended, sometimes it’ll be others. We won’t be keeping score.

There was a betting pool about when our son would actually be born. His due date was March 19 but after all the smart medical people started saying the things about not being surprised if he’s early, we all started picking dates. I picked March 10, D picked the 11^th (11 is her favorite number) and a few other people picked other dates. Very early in the morning of the 10^th it became apparent that the process had begun, so we called the doc. The doc told us to go to the hospital and that he reckoned that we’d have a baby today. We went to the hospital where they ran a couple tests and sent us to an enormous room called a “birthing suite,” telling us that today was the day. Birthing suites are really nice. There's a bed for mom and a long couch for dad, a private bathroom, a rocking chair, another chair, two sinks, a television (which we don't need or want in our lives but it adds to the fancy factor), extra bedding and a closet.

I won’t go into too much detail, because there’s no need and because the details of all this stuff are already known in a general sense and it’s really nobody else’s business anyway but suffice it to say that although he arrived several days early, the process of his arrival wasn’t as quick and easy as we might have hoped. Demonstrating that he loves his Mama more than his Papi, he chose to slow things down in order that he’d be born well after March 10 as I’d guessed, and instead made his debut at 1:43pm on March 11. As our friend Chad pointed out, E was born on the only palindrome date of the year: 31113. Obviously, this is extremely cool even if it does demonstrate that he loves his mom more than his dad.

Our own Moms had come to the hospital on the 10^th, as we’d told them it was “any time now.” After continuing to tell them this all day and well into the night, we then told them to go back to our house and get some rest, which neither of them wanted to at all. But they did so anyway. On the morning of the 11^th, I called and said something like “any time now – come on down!” and they instantly appeared in the waiting room down the hall, which is as close as anyone who isn't the dad is allowed to come. The docs and everyone were talking like we were an hour or two away. The moms waited.

And the docs kept talking like that for another 8 or 9 hours. Until, at last, our family of two instantly became a family of three. As anyone else who’s been down this path will attest, this was the most amazing moment in either D's or my own lives. We were spellbound. For the next twenty minutes or so we huddled together in the middle of the flurry that was a dozen hospital professionals, each of whom was quickly taking care of a specific and important task. We were the calm in the middle of the storm. Eye of the hurricane.

Then she fainted, which makes sense after more than thirty hours without being allowed to eat anything other than lollipops and popsicles.

I finally had a chance to collect the new Grandmas, which was an enormous relief for each of them after having waited for many hours beyond the the ‘any minute now’ they’d most recently heard. It doesn’t help that they can’t talk to one another. They sat and grew increasingly concerned. They called the nurse's station and were told that the nurses aren't allowed to tell anyone anything. Sorry Moms. We did our best.

For the next couple days, we were visited by lots of other medical people who checked things and told us things they thought we needed to know. We were pretty grateful for all of this. And finally, they sent us home. A friend of mine told me about the time he left the hospital with his first child and said something about walking out the door feeling almost bewildered, thinking “Really? They’re  just going to let me leave with this new baby?” We didn’t have the same sense of disbelief when we finally made our exit but what we did notice was that every single thing in the whole world had made a fundamental change while we were sequestered within the hospital.

I suppose part of it is that I now feel that, for the first time, I might believe myself qualified to be called a Man. Up til now I’ve wondered how it’s possible that I’ve been able to keep everyone fooled.

The first day we were home, we spent our time marveling at this amazing new thing, trying to not be overwhelmed with the knowledge that no matter how difficult this might get that we simply cannot quit and absolutely must not fail, and feeding him and changing him and watching him sleep.

We'd been told, by the nice lady who taught the “you’re going to have a baby” class as well as the lactation consultant and the nurse and some other person wearing blue scrubs and all of the books we'd read that the way to know that the bambino is getting properly fed is:

1)     feed him until he stops feeding
2)     watch his eyes roll back into his head as he enjoys feeling sated
3)     burp him and have fun watching him spit up a few times onto your clean shirt
4)     let him gently drift off to sleep until he wakes again and demands food
5)     repeat.

What nobody told us is that this is exactly the same routine a newborn will practice when they’re not getting enough to eat and are becoming exhausted and dehydrated. On our second day home, E (our son’s name starts with E) turned yellow and was, quite suddenly, inconsolable. We checked his log (we keep a “eat pee poop” log for the tyke) and realized he hadn’t peed in far too long. I can go that long without peeing and so can you, but little boys who tip the scale at a whopping five-and-a-half pounds are supposed to pee a lot more often than the rest of us.

Anyway, I called the doctor’s office at about 1 am and talked to their person on call, who asserted that the right thing to do was load E into the car and make our way to the Emergency Room at the Children’s Hospital here in Portland. We’re glad to have one of these in our hometown, though we weren’t glad to have need for it in the moment. Clearly, this was a time to move with purpose.

Usually when I'm on the phone for our collective benefit, D asks questions like "what did they say" and "what do they think?" She wants all the details, which is the smart way to do things when you’re going to be making decisions. But this time, when I replied with only "they said to bring him to the emergency room right now," instead of asking questions, she sprang into action, was dressed, had her 76 year old mother dressed (we told her to stay home but she adamantly refused), got E dressed and into his car seat and we were out the door in moments.

Some might think poorly of a new father who exceeds the posted speed limits with a brand new baby and mother in law in the car. But at 2am, we found it a clear and dry night without any traffic and the Subaru has nice new tires, and I did qualify for a competition driving license a few years ago, and we were all wound up about E who was now in and out of consciousness and wasn't always responding to D. I will make no apology to anyone that E's second ride in a car attained speeds that may have included triple digits. And should something like this happen to us again, I won't hesitate to do exactly the same thing.

We made it to the hospital, parked illegally, ran past a fellow who was smoking a joint next to the "No Smoking" sign and checked E in. The three of us spent the next three days there, with E getting IV fluids, Mama's milk and milk bank milk, and blood draws about twice a day until his bilirubin level dropped and his sodium went back to normal and a host of other important things went from marginal-at-best to better-than-average. There's nothing like watching an IV attempt go south and seeing your four day old baby bleeding out of his head. The only thing that's worse is seeing his mother when she catches a glimpse even though you're holding her hands and trying to block her view and reminding her that you're in the right place and that very good people you don't even know are focusing all of their attention, love and expertise on your child.

Most of our friends who are parents have expressed their support and concern when we’ve told this tale. Most of them. This was really scary – I mean THE most scary thing I have ever experienced – but it wasn't so far outside the norm that we can count on someday having this be our only ‘taking the kiddo to the hospital’ story. It means we might do things like this again. If E is anything like his father, we should be on a first name basis with the ER staff in the next few years. I have a new appreciation for what I put my own parents through. And I might secretly be hoping he gets his "Hey, look what I can do!" genes from the other side of the family.

Since we came back home, everything has been going very well. He's gaining weight faster than expected, he poops and pees as often as he should, eats lots and lots, and does all the things babies his age are supposed to do. It took us an extra week or so to find our new normal than we expected but we’re happily settling in as best we can. It’s tricky to do this with D’s sister, brother in law, niece, nephew and mother all here at the same time but it’s been really nice to have their support.

It does seem a little funny to me that D’s Mom so quickly responds when E starts crying, swooping him up and into her arms and then coddling and cooing him until he calms down (she’s very, very good at this) and that when she’s not doing that, she’s telling us that we’re teaching him that crying is the best way to get immediate attention.  She does this thing more than anyone, then tells us we’re doing this thing too much already. There have been a lot of little ironies along the way, each made unusually complex given the different views on everything even remotely related to child rearing. I can assure you: having been raised by a rather liberated woman for a mom myself, my views on how much and in what ways I ought to participate in this baby raising gig are quite different than my Mom-In-Law’s views. She lived through World War II, then raised two daughters in a culture and at a time that didn’t make a lot of room for Dads when it came to changing diapers. We’ve got cultural differences at work that are, I believe, unlike those enjoyed (?) by most other families.

And that’s exactly what D and I signed on for when we got hitched three years ago. Neither of us would change a single thing.

All best,

E and Co.

                                                      

 

Making Whoopie and the Nuclear Threat

If this one makes the cut and gets posted today (most of the verbiage I spew into the pixels does not), there are a scant seventeen days staring D and I right in the face. These seventeen days are the only things standing between our current state of wedded bliss and our pending graduation to Nuclear Family. This presumes that the bambino – we’ll call him E – shows up on schedule, and everyone has explained very clearly (and many times over) that they almost never show up on the Due Date. Our dearest Seattle friends’ bambina made her debut fully two weeks early. If that happens to us, we don’t have seventeen days to get our act together. We may well really only have three days between wedded bliss and nuclear family.

Holy Crap.

I don’t know why they call families Nuclear. When I think of anything Nuclear, the words that come to mind include stuff like fallout, disaster, meltdown and war. None of these sound like the kind of thing I want for my family (or yours, either) but they do sound like things I’ve already experienced in my interactions with my own relatives at one time or another (and I’ll bet you have also). I guess I was hoping that E might bring an end to those kinds of events within our familial clan. For a minute there, I was thinking that maybe this nuclear family thing is based on the atom as its model. The new bambino is the nucleus, as he’ll be right in the middle of everything, and the parents must be electrons, negatively charged and flying in circles around the kiddo at something like Mach Two. In families that have more than one kid, I guess the parents become shared electrons, which must make them even more frantic, and that’s probably why electrons are negatively charged in the first place. I think this model has merit. But based on my own experiences with family members, the other nuclear references also seem to fit. Surprisingly well, which is both kind of cool and a little bit bothersome.

We’ve all certainly experienced fallout within the family. I have relatives I don’t speak with (by my choice), and other relatives that don’t speak with me (by their choice). The ones I don’t speak with have done things that I don’t like, and by my assessment, they’ve come up short in both the integrity and the accountability arenas. I’m not sure why those other ones don’t speak with me, but I don’t think it has anything to do with a shortage of personal accountability on my part. I’m pretty good about that. Must be something else. I would like to know, though, so I could either 1: be accountable for whatever I’ve done, or 2: feel better about not being in contact with people I really genuinely care about.

And as any family has, we’ve also danced with disaster a time or two. I don’t think there’s any correlation between disaster and family, though. I think disaster happens to people, and affects those peoples’ relatives differently than it does other people who lack the same personal connection.

Meltdown is easy. Everyone I’ve ever known has experienced a meltdown at least once. Maybe when each family member is having their own meltdown at the same time it leads to disaster, which is probably one of the things that happens before fallout. Or maybe disaster is what leads people to experience meltdowns. Either way, these things both precede fallout.

War is a horrible awful thing that I used to think everyone wanted to avoid. The political talking heads all say that they hate the war thing, and I don’t imagine too many young men and women are really all that eager to go to some other place where they don’t speak the language and engage in violence against the locals. I’ve known a number of combat veterans and not a single one of them liked being in combat. Not one. Within extended families, it seems like war is pretty common, and in my own family we might have a couple people who act like they’re pretty happy to maintain open hostility toward other people in my own family. I can’t think of very many families that don’t have at least a quiet simmering remnant of disdain for other people in the family that’s based on past disputes. Family members, just like diplomats and politicians, can be pretty good about pretending whatever lousy thing happened isn’t all that important anymore and we’re all able to move forward with our happy lives. They can also be pretty stubborn, which makes things harder for everyone else.

So here we are, my bride and I, thinking we’re going to do something different than whatever everyone else has ever done and we’re not going to create a family that will include war or disaster or meltdowns (well, maybe meltdowns are unavoidable with babies) nor fallout. Right.

One thing we’ve learned from two of our doctors and a whole throng of their assistants plus the midwife who taught our four week class on how to know when to go to the hospital and what to do once we arrive there and the woman who taught the breastfeeding class and the how to change diapers and swaddle babies and give them baths class is that Pertussis - commonly known as Whooping Cough - is a really big deal. It’s a big deal for babies that get it, and over the last while the number of affected people has been on the rise, especially here on the Left Coast. In Washington, which really is just across the bridge from Portland (and it’s a short bridge), the people who make decisions about how to rank infectious diseases have decided to call this round an “epidemic.” Sounds fancy.

They’re not calling it that on our side of the river but they sure are assertive in making sure we’re clear on the importance of not exposing our bundle of joy/meltdown generator to this particular form of ick. When adults or big kids get it, they get sick for a while and that’s that. When babies get it, it’s a real problem that’s awful to deal with and is often fatal.

Fortunately, protecting oneself – and my son, who I’m prepared to fiercely defend even though I haven’t met him yet – is really simple. Go to the local pharmacy, get a shot from a young woman who doesn't even look old enough to drive, pay $23. No doctor required. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: despite some of the things I don’t like about how my country handles some things, there are a whole lot of things that it handles really very well. Let's hear it for big pharma.

D and I told everyone in our family - that we speak with - and everyone else that might want to visit that they have to get a pertussis booster. The ones I don’t speak with don’t need the shot because they might never find out about the kid and regardless, they’ll never be invited into the house. For my side of the family, that was pretty easy. Everyone went to the pharmacy, spent a half hour and a few bucks and walked out with a sore arm that felt like it had just been filled with cold peanut butter. Actually, not everyone. The one relative who is convinced that inoculations are unnecessary and that they do more harm than good said he wasn’t going to get a shot. We agreed that he'd wait to meet the newest member of the family.

Meanwhile, in a small town in the north of Italy, D’s Mom, G, was looking into getting the shot. She found that no one at the pharmacy was of any use, so she made an appointment (which is harder there than it is here) and went to her doctor. The doc ran a bunch of interference and told her all about why she didn’t need the shot, and they went back and forth for a while until the doc finally understood that G wasn’t going to back down nor leave nor be quiet about any of it until she got what she needed. So the doc wrote a prescription, which G dropped off at the unhelpful pharmacy, then returned the following day to collect the now filled prescription, then took the magic serum back to the same doctor herself on another day when there were appointments available, where the doc put the serum into the needle and gave G her shot. I think pretty highly of countries that provide medical care to everyone who lives (or visits) there but given that this took four days of driving all over the place in a country where gas costs twelve dollars a gallon and dealing with people who are born with a special talent for making things harder than they need to be, I’m pretty happy with how these things work over here.

Shortly after I’d become convinced that Italy isn’t handling this pertussis vaccine thing very well at all, we heard from D’s sister, who lives in London. London is in England, which is the country that – for a really really long time – acted like they owned pretty much everything all over the world. Which was kind of true up until all the people who lived in those places but weren’t British realized that they’d rather do things their own way than follow the rules of the Crown and sent the Brits packing. So it’s easy to think that this former superpower that once ruled almost everything would probably have their act together when it comes to keeping their citizens in good health. It’s easy to think that the relative health of everyone that lives there might be a priority and that the former rulers of the Earth are smart about how they take care of their subjects.

D’s sister went to the local health clinic kind of place and explained that she needed to get a pertussis booster shot and was instantly denied. Because in England, the only people eligible to receive pertussis shots are pregnant women and children. So she said something polite and British sounding, then went to a hospital where there’s another clinic and – presumably – someone able to think beyond the scope of whatever’s printed on the documents distributed by the Ministry of Health. The hospital people, though, were unswayed by the whole “going to America to see my new nephew” scenario and didn’t care much about how important those vulgar yanks might think these apparently rare shots really are.

Realizing that going to the trouble of coming all the way over here from clear over there only to have someone like me close the door in her face would be lousy, she then made an appointment and went to see her own doctor. The doc, being all British and having that stiff upper lip thing remained completely convinced that the British way is the best way for everything and was unable to understand that people who don’t live on the same quaint island that he does might prefer to handle the health care of their babies in a more proactive way. So he refused, and said all the same stuff about there being a shortage of this vaccine and that there’s really only enough for pregnant women and children.

It takes two weeks for the vaccine to really provide protection, which means our London based relative has to get her shot in the next two days if she intends to come inside our house. Which she does, and we desperately want her to be here. She has to be here. Those uncreative Brits started to really annoy me.

So I called the State Department and asked a very nice and professional woman if she or her colleagues had any good ideas. They didn’t, really. So she transferred me to the office that takes care of inoculations for US Government employees who are going overseas somewhere that calls for getting shots before departing. They were nice people to talk to but they weren’t people who could be helpful when it comes to figuring out how to get Italian citizens living in London shots required by American doctors.

Next, I called the UK embassy in Washington DC, where they have a very sweet young lady who answers the phone in a perfect British accent and asked her how we might go about making this all happen and she sweetly apologized while explaining that she’d never heard this question before and that she didn’t have an answer. Which was all very nice but served only to convince me that everyone under British rule is in cahoots and unable to even speculate on possible solutions to problems like these. Apparently we’re the only people in all of America who have family members in the UK who’d like to visit their newborn relative. The odds of that being the case seem pretty thin to me given that there are more than fifty three million people over there and more than three hundred million over here, but here we were, presenting this scenario for, apparently, the first time in history.

Realizing that the way Americans are handling this pertussis thing is infinitely better than the inaction taken by the Brits, I started thinking that the US Embassy probably has a doctor, and maybe if we were really nice about it there might be a way to have my sister in law to get her shot from the Americans living in the middle of London. After a few attempts at making a phone call to London (which is simple for D but not simple for myself) I finally did get through to their answering machine, which told me that I could leave a message if I wanted, or wait until their regular business hours and call back to speak with a person. An American person.

By now, D and I are both doing a fine job of acting like electrons. We’re frantic and negatively charged, but because we don’t have the positive force provided by a proton rich nucleus to orbit, we lack focus and sort of bounce off the walls, occasionally bumping into one another and finding out exactly what happens when two negatively charged and kind of frustrated electrons crash into each other. It’s pretty cool.

This morning, D called her sister to find out how forceful she’d been with these health care people whose approach to medicine is apparently to stand around in white lab coats and tell people that they don’t actually need medical attention and we learned that she’d been to many more so-called health care facilities than we’d realized, that she’d been much more than appropriately insistent about it and that nobody anywhere was at all useful. We didn't realize how hard she'd been working at making this happen, and we really didn't fully understand just how absurdly stubborn those British health care employees can be. But she pulled it off. After a zillion attempts, she found a doctor somewhere in London that had enough of this magic serum that he could spare a dose. So she’s getting the shot, and all of this frustration has been for naught. Italy 1, UK 0.

It’s strange. We’re not germophobes, we’re not worried about dirt, we want the kiddo to experience as much as possible, and here we are being all insistent about this one thing already. We want to think that we won’t be this pushy and demanding all the time but given how significant this one little silly thing managed to become in just a matter of hours I’m left wondering. Maybe we've already become a couple of those hyperparanoid parents unwilling to negotiate or consider perspectives that differ from our own. Or maybe we're simply exercising appropriate caution.

Whatever it is, at least we know E isn't going to suffer whooping cough.