Irina 9/16/09

Irina Kobasic (pronounced ee-DEE-na, hence the nickname "Edie"), about a month shy of her fourth birthday, New York City, September 16, 2009.

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Virtual Refrigerator Door Dept:

Two paintings that Irina did today. Finally some real art on this page!

beanbots #2

(Click to embiggen.)




UPDATE: A redrawn (more "on-model") version of this strip is up over at act-i-vate:


Click image for full strip.

The Vomit Comet

No need to get into too many details to set this up: long story short, the other night on the New York State Thruway my three-year-old took a half a bite of rest-stop pizza and promptly threw up everything in the world all over everything in sight. I had to use whatever I could find lying around the car to mop up her seat, and create something she could sit on to ride the rest of the way without completely freaking out.

After getting home and getting the kids down, I break down the car seat and haul her clothes and all the detritus to a laundromat, figuring it’s better to do it in an industrial machine rather than sully my wife’s most treasured possession. I get there just in time for last wash, and later as I’m hauling stuff out of the dryer I notice the laundry lady eyeing me sideways. What is her problem, I’m wondering?

And that's the moment where I had one of those beautiful moments of clarity where I was able to stand outside of the situation, free of all egoic illusions, and see what I looked like at that moment to the eyes of the world: I’m a slightly sketchy-looking guy who’s showed up in the middle of the night at a laundromat he’s never visited in his life, without so much as a laundry bag, carrying under his arm a bunch of questionable items including but not limited to: a small rug, a sheet and pillowcase that don’t match, some odd-looking straps that do god knows what, and oh yeah, at that exact second I’m holding in my hands a little girl’s underwear.

Someday I might look back and wonder when exactly it was that my dignity and I parted ways for good, and I'm thinking this might be it.

Change we can believe in

New York has been given a monumental makeover in the 20 years I've been here, but one obstacle they will never conquer is the concept of public toilets. How the hell does anybody have kids in this city? There couldn't be a more hostile place for children if you had to walk them through a cave full of bears. Have you ever tried to find a place to change a diaper in midtown, like I did the other day? After about ten blocks, the best idea I could think of was to just walk into the dining area at Taco Bell, put her on a table and let it rip. Hey, why not. It's Taco Bell. It's practically a public toilet already.

I was trying desperately to remember how I used to handle situations like this back in my drinking days. Then saw an inviting-looking standpipe on a side street, and I remembered: oh yeah, I used to just take care of whatever I needed to right out in public like an animal. Which is just what I did. Someday my daughter is going to be lying on a couch somewhere, talking about a recurring nightmare where a hairy behemoth is groping her in public, and people are just walking by, not intervening at all apart from the occasional disapproving glance.

Edie & Maggie

Irina (right) and her second cousin Maggie, playing with dollies at my Aunt Sue's house. Escanaba, MI 11/26/08.

Get Dressed, Part 2

Get dressed, damn you!

This is what it looks like on pretty much any morning that my wife has to leave for work early.

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On another topic entirely: I know it's the most typical, annoying thing in the world when someone tries to act like their kid is so talented and blah blah blah, so my apologies but I just can't hold myself back.

Edie & Roxy

Keeping up with a baby is a full-time gig. Just ask my two-year-old, who always seems to have her hands full making sure that baby Roxy doesn't play with things she shouldn't play with. Or taking toys that she is allowed to play with out of her hands. Or placing toys in front of her just so she can take them away two seconds later. 

They say at this age the older kid has a hard time with the creeping realization that the little one isn't just another temporary houseguest. Edie takes the attitude of a small-town sheriff, with the baby something like a teenage hot-rodder who's rolled into town for repairs. Edie won't cross the line into outright brutality. She sees it as her job to behave in a sufficiently harassing manner so the young troublemaker doesn't get any ideas about staying put for a spell.

Galveston

Faith and Edie playing in the rain at my in-laws' beach house, Galveston Island, TX, April 2007.

Little known fact

Little known fact about me: my kisses can now heal pinched fingers, skinned knees, and insect bites of all kinds.

Edie & Grandparents

Edie with Grand-Paul and Mama-Sue at our house, 9-1-08

Sleep it off, you baby!

We started the dreaded sleep training on baby Roxy. If you ever want to feel like the worst person in the world, and there aren't any seals around, or clubs to hit them with, may I suggest sleep-training a baby.

You might not think that sleeping is something that anyone needs to be taught how to do-- certainly not anyone related to me-- but when it comes to babies this is something of a learned skill. They get tired but they don't know that the proper response to that is to put your head down and stop crying for five goddamn minutes until you fall asleep. If you want them to take a nap you have to be a bit of a hardass and let them wail in the crib until they exhaust themselves. Eventually--eventually--they figure out that they can skip the crying part and go right to the good stuff.

I'll go in once or twice to comfort her during the crying-it-out process, because I'm not a complete ghoul. It's absolutely heartbreaking. She's wild-eyed, traumatized. She looks like Christopher Hitchens after he got waterboarded for that Vanity Fair piece. The good news is, she's tapping out at about 15 minutes, which is very encouraging.