But I did not expect you.

I did not expect that tiny little bundle of wrinkled skin, tubes and wires to grow up into a beautiful young girl. I did not expect you to become the pain that only a father who has failed his daughter in some way––an overzealous scolding, a disappointing Christmas, a missed ballet recital-–bears well after you have all but forgotten the failure. I did not expect that, after long, hard days in the office, I would race home past younger, less fortunate men simply enthralled in the privilege of seeing your smiling face and the warmth in my soul when you jump into my arms.

And I most certainly did not expect that, without even trying, you would manage to take a world that I thought was perfect and show me how much more sublime it could be while in orbit around you.

Happy Birthday, Frankie. You will always be my special girl.

-Matt

I’m nothing if not honest when I write. Granted I have a penchant for exaggeration, especially when a laugh is the desired result. But when it comes to raising children, I feel that being completely forthcoming is the best policy, and that most parents will identify with it in some way.

That is why it doesn’t trouble me too much to admit that I am over babies. I was after my daughter hit her terrible twos. It’s not that I don’t think they are cute and cuddly and its not that I don’t love them when they’re mine. It’s just that I am over them. They require a lot of maintenance, make annoying sounds and don’t really give much back in terms of conversation. For that reason I feel that, perhaps, I have been phoning it in a bit as the father of my son.

I take care of him when needed. Change diapers, hold him, play with him and put him to bed. But in keeping in line with the honesty theme here, I have treated it as more of an obligation than an opportunity. I don’t think he considers me a bad father by any stretch, but I also don’t think I have given him the same attention and love that I gave my daughter at his age.

The other day, however, something happened. He has taken a liking to cars and trucks, especially Matchbox ones. I was sitting on the kitchen floor with him, watching him turn a car over and over in his hands, examining it. We had played the “roll the car along the floor game” many times, but I decided it was time that we pushed the envelope a bit. I placed the car on the floor, my son studying my every move intently, pushed my thumb down onto the top of the car as hard as I could, then flicked my wrist forward, forcing the car to rocket across the floor, down the hallway and into the guest bathroom at lightning speed, finally slamming into the far wall by the shower.

My son watched the car for a moment, spinning on its back in the bathroom, then looked at me wide eyed…staring for a few moments before an enormous smile spread across his face as he broke out into a large, jovial belly laugh. He then took off down the hallway into the bathroom, stooped awkwardly to pick the car up, and ran back towards me, laughing all the way before finally jumping into my harms, prying my hand open and forcing the tiny car back into it. He then broke the hug, stood next to me, pointed down the hallway and waited.

It was at that moment that I realized two things. The first was that he was no longer a baby that gave nothing back in return. He had become a little boy that desperately wanted the attention of his father. The second thing came over me like a whirlwind. This was my son, and I had just taught him how to force a matchbox car to go much faster and much farther. We have played that game quite a bit since and he will likely not forget it. What else had I been teaching him? I try to instill good values into my daughter and raise her to be a courteous, well-adjusted human being, but with my son it is different. I am a man, and he is a boy. He was made in my image.

Immediately all of my flaws and negative personality traits washed over me and I saw an empty canvas in front of me, wearing miniature cargo pants and clutching a metal car. He is my shot, my chance, to get it right. I can teach him to be better than me, to be the type of man that people adore. I can teach him patience, respect for women and the basic concept of putting others’ needs before your own. He is a blank page upon which I can write the most epic tale of adventure, romance and happiness, full of mystery and intrigue, bravery and cunning. As his father I can author the happiest of endings in his life and weave a common thread of goodness and understanding through the various tragic plot twists of life. He is my son, and he is an opportunity to write a best-selling sequel.

Things are different now, and will be from here on out. He is watching me every minute of every day, learning and absorbing. From me and me alone, he is learning how to be a man and, while that bestows upon me an enormous responsibility that I had not fully realized was mine, I am more than up to the challenge.

I love you, buddy. Go get ‘em.

-Matt
There’s a holiday sale coming up at RedSparks. That’s all I have to say about that.

No, “The Photo” becomes “The Photo” late at night, hunched over a laptop after the kids are in bed and the digital camera import is complete. It different for everyone, and not all of one’s friends or family will even understand why it is “The Photo.” It happens when, with tired eyes, you scroll through the day’s activities and suddenly stop on a picture of your child with her friend. You freeze on that picture, innocent in its subject matter and composition, but so full of meaning that it brings a lump to your throat. As you gaze at your daughter’s face, your mind rewinds through her life at lightning speed; the 3.6 lb tangle of wires and monitors in the hospital, the first step, the first kiss, and the first “I love you, daddy”. The Photo makes your stomach twist into knots of pride and heartache, and provides digital documentation in full color that your life, and more importantly, hers, is moving so fast that you have’t even noticed what she has grown into.

The Photo makes your eyes tear up slightly, and forces you to tiptoe to her room, quietly open the door, and gaze at her not-so-tiny sleeping frame in her not-so-tiny bed, pausing to watch her breathe for a few minutes before gently kissing her cheek and pulling up her covers, with a gentle brush of her hair and a whispered “I love you, baby.”

Everyone has The Photo somewhere and they all different, yet all the same in message and meaning. The Photo is a reminder to enjoy every single minute of your daughter’s life together, because before you know it she will be someone else’s.

Slow down, baby girl, I don’t want you to grow up on me yet.

-Matt
RedSparks.com

I relate the births of my daughter and son to these experiences. Frankie was a skydive. A whirlwind of chaos during which my only survival tactic was simply survival itself. Complete instinct and reflex. Dominick was a bungee jump, comparitively speaking, and I had time for concern. I still do.

I have a son, you see. A son. I am admittedly a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the roles of a man and a woman in the household. Fault me if you will, but I still believe that a man is responsible for certain aspects of raising children, likewise for women. My wife could most likely go back to work tomorrow and earn a higher salary than me, yet I believe it is still my responsibilty to teach my son business and management and so forth. It’s how I am wired.

During this little break of mine I have had a great deal of time to finally process what having a son means to me. I consider myself to be a good father to my daughter. I nurture any talent she may find intriguing, blow dry and style her hair, take her to the playground and read long (dear god, so very long) books to her at bedtime. But she is still a girl and, like it are not there are some things I just can’t teach her. At least not as well as my wife. My son is different. He is my responsbility. Perhaps not so much now during the breastfeeding and the vomit and the poop, but soon. He will learn what kind of man to be from me, and that frightens me.

I do a fairly good job of coming off spotless here on my blog; presenting myself in ways that mask my flaws and emphasize my strengths. The truth, however, is that there are likely more flaws than strengths, and I am not sure that I can hide them from him. In five years I have learned that children learn by example, not words. They are observant and absorbant, and no action taken by either parent goes unnoticed. He is watching. Already, at 10 months, and he is learning, and I have not yet grown up. I have not taken the necessary steps to fix those things about myself which I do not wish for him to inherit, and I don’t know why. What I do know is that I want him to be a good man. A decent and honorable man, and I have become painfully aware of the fact that, if I don’t make some changes soon, his odds of becoming that which I want will be noticably increased.

So to him I have this to say.

Dominick,

-Matt

Pretty cute, hey? OK, on to other things. What do Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon and Nickleback all have in common? That’s right! They all write amazing, thought-provoking and brilliant lyrics. I, however, believe that they may have met their match. Remember how we cut back on TV for Frankie a while ago? Well, it is having a profound effect on her, and we intend to keep it up. For starters, she is much more mellow and well-behaved. Not perfect, by any means, but better. The second thing I have noticed is that she is beginning to rely on her imagination more for entertainment, and that can only be considered a very positive thing.

Take yesterday morning for example. She loves music. loves it. In fact, she adores it so much she has taken up songwriting as a hobby. She will usually crank out two or three new pieces on the way to school in the morning, and some of them are actually pretty good. Yesterday morning, I was finally able to talk her into letting me record one of her better ones – a melancholy number about a crying dolphin that is so cool it doesn’t even need a name. The lyrics are deep. So deep, I am embarrassed to admit, they fly high over my head. In case any of the rest of you have this same problem, I have taken the liberty of transcribing them right into the video. I think you’ll agree that the potential impact of this piece on today’s society could be mind-blowing. Enjoy, and look for it on iTunes.

-Matt
Did you remember that we started our online baby boutique, RedSparks, for Frankie? Yep.

The I.T.W., or “Interesting Things Walk”, is basically a photography hike. I strapped on my Nikon D40 and she strapped on her Fisher Price Kid Tough Digital Camera and we embarked on a long journey to find and document all things interesting around our neighborhood.

When I was in art school, we had a photography project in which each student was assigned a small section of a road. We were to photograph it, then return for a critique. The first round photos was all the same; street signs, building facades, trees, etc. Our teacher, Dennis Keeley, lambasted us and urged us to look more closely or “go deeper,” as he put it. By the end of the assignment the photos were terrific. There were homeless men, shots of unkempt, empty hotel rooms with drained liqor bottles in them and an abandoned, unexplained campfire. I tried to pass this lesson on Frankie during our walk.

“Yes, that’s a tree, sweetie, but what is interesting about it?” She ate it up and got some pretty damn good photos if you ask me. Let’s critique a few:

Her first photo was simply a textural study, clearly intended to stimultate intereset by focusing on contrast caused by strong horizontal and vertical lines.

Her next one (two actually), surprised me. She knows that we don’t throw fruit roll up wrappers on the ground because it will hurt the trees, but I was amazed that she so adeptly illustrated her commentary on the cancer that is humankind, and its apparent commitment to furthering the decay of Mother Earth.

I was impressed with not only the composition of her next piece, but also with the maturity she displayed by visually stating her opinion that, even though we are a free people, declining property values in a struggling economy bind us to a larger degree to the pursuit of the almighty dollar, effectively “fencing us in” to our mortgages and rental payments from which we may feel we have no escape.

And this one is just a pretty flower.

All in all it was a terrific experience. We had a great time and I have vowed to to it again soon. The interesting thing was that, when we returned home, TV was all but forgotten, and we spent the rest of the day doing creative activities, of which my personal favorite was Playdough for the simple reason that we made this and that it is totally badass.

So, yeah. TV off for a while. At least more moderation. She took her creativity seriously on that day, and I am pretty sure she can’t wait to do it again.

-Matt

RedSparks.com

She’s four now. I cannot, for the life of me, tell you why anyone even mentions the terrible two’s, excepting that they have perhaps not experienced the four’s yet. Dear god almighty how we battle. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point while my daughter was in her second year of preschool in the Fall, she became a screaming banshee of stubborness and antagonization. The entire break this year, which lasted three weeks but felt like three years, was chocked full of arguments.

“You’re going to clean up your room becaue I am telling you to. Now.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are. And if you talk back to me once more you are going on time out, understand?”

“No I’m not. PPPPPBPBBBBHHHHHHH!”

“That’s it, young lady, you are on time out. Sit on your chair.”

“No.”

“Then I will put you on it. There. Is that better? I’m setting your timer, and if I see you reach out and pull leaves off of the piano plant, you’re getting another five minutes. Got it?”

Tiny four-year-old arm raises toward piano plant, ever so slowly. Reaching….reaching….reaching. “Pluck!”

“OK, fantastic. You just got another five minutes. I can do this all day. Are you happy now?’

“Yes.”

AAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!

You get the idea.

A fairly significant change is beginning to take place. My tiny little daughter is beginning to become her own person. She has her own personality, her own thoughts and her own ideals. I believe that her stubborness is an indication of her desire to grow, perhaps not as much underneath the protective wings of her mother and father.

I contemplated this as I drove into the school parking lot and opened up the door to take her out, fully prepared to hold her in my arms and comfort her and tell her that, while we had a terrific time on holiday break, it was time to return to school like a big girl. Then I would wipe her tears and walk away with a heavy heart, bearing the guilt that comes from abandoning your sobbing child as she calls after you with open arms.

She flew out of that car and left me in the dust. Not even a goodbye or an “I love you, Daddy!” She was just gone.

When I finally caught up to her at the classroom and signed her in, I peered through the window and watched her speaking excitedly with her group of friends, who had gathered around her, listening and nodding.

Slowly I turned and walked back to the car. My little girl isn’t so little any more, and that sucks

-Matt


She IS still little enough to fit into all the awesome clothing at RedSparks, our online baby boutique. Shopping always makes me feel better, doesn’t it you?

As my friend tuned in the boom box to the countdown which, at those particular coordinates could only be found in Spanish, I stepped out of the cave and clambered up to the top of a large mound of boulders to gaze at the city lights far, far away. My body was warmed by alcohol and God knows what else, and as I looked at the tiny luminescent grid in the distance my thoughts were consumed with only one thing; myself. As the frigid desert air whipped through my fleece I said under my breath “I’ve beaten you, Los Angeles. You lose.”

This morning I woke up and had a family. I had a beautiful and intelligent daughter and a handsome and alert son. I had a supportive, attractive, brilliant wife, trying her best to hide her fear. I had a mortgage and I had a tuition. I had a real life. And I had knowledge. I had grown a bit and, as I looked back on that New Year’s Eve, I could not help but scoff at my previous, arrogant self.

In the ten years that passed between conquering a city containing 3.5 million people with individual lives and the moment the sun kissed the roof this morning, releasing steam into the dawn, I learned. I learned that I most certainly conquered nothing, and that my purpose had been all wrong. In that ten years I had built an empire, which crumbled. I rebuilt it, only to see it crumble again. I had the rug yanked out from under my feet, and detested life for treating me so poorly.

Somewhere along that oh-so-short timeline that is a decade, I came to an awareness. One that I will use to shed light on every decision I make for the rest of my existence. I realized that, in life, there is no rug. The things that we perceive as stability, security, success and power are all just temporary facades over which we have absolutely no control. We can nudge them and, if we are lucky, maybe even influence them from time to time. But at the end of the day, our lives are in someone else’s hands; a disucssion for another day. I realized that, no matter how hard I tried, how hard I fought, there really was only one true constant in this great big mess called life. Only one thing that I could depend on. Only one thing that made me human. People.

Throughout all the ups, throughout all the downs, there have been people in my life; in all of our lives. People that reach out, that pick us up, that show us love and that extend a needed hand without consequence. There have been people that have made us laugh, inspired us, caused us pain, and awakened us. There have been people that have loved us. I can say without a doubt, on the dawn of a new decade, that people, and the relationships we have with them, are the meaning of life.

Every man, woman and child deserves our respect, admiration and compassion. None of us is any greater, or lesser, than the other. I swore when I started writing online that I would never write a “New Year’s Resolution” post, but I’m doing it now, and would like to suggest that anyone reading this try, at leat a little, to do the same.

This year I am committed to only one thing; to being a good human being. Losing weight, quitting smoking, spending less money; these are all selfish goals that can be carried out on the side. I am committed to helping those who need it. To offering assistance to those less fortunate, to humbly privding a shoulder to those in pain and to those who can benefit from a few small words of encouragement. I have realized that my, our, purpose in life is to support and nurture the human spirit, to put one’s problems and concerns aside and ask oneself “What can I do for you?” This, I believe, is the path to remembrance. Complete selflessness is a mark that nothing else can leave on the face of life, and I intend to do it.

When life gives you lemons, share them with others.

Happy New Year to you all. May peace, love and happiness be yours in the upcoming year.

Sincerely,
Matt, Aline, Frankie and Dominick.
RedSparks

It’s funny how my definition a hero keeps changing. When I was a wee lad, my hero was Tommy Herr, second baseman for the St Louis Cardinals. He wasn’t a particularly memorable player, but he played the same position I did for the best baseball team in the world, and that was enough. Then, as I grew a little older, it was Wonder Woman. Actually, now that I think about it, puberty and the gold-winged red corset might have had a bit more to do with my interest in Lynda Carter than her actual heroism. Either way. After that, it was basically every lead guitarist in every eighties metal band that rocked. George Lynch, Nuno Bettencourt and Eddie Van Halen, to put a finer point on it.

Now I am a grown man. With children and a wife and a mortgage. The wistful daydreams of screaming solos, cheering crowds, wild backstage parties and chugging Jack Daniels out of the bottle have faded, and I am faced with the actuality of what a hero truly is. I struggle with it on a daily basis.

Losing my job has been less than awesome. Luckily, my neighbor runs a pretty succesful construction business and I have been helping him out, which has allowed us to stay afloat for longer than we would be able to had he not been around. This is fortunate for two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is income. The second, however, I did not expect to discover on the very first day I dropped my daughter off at school and drove to a job site in Beverly Hills; an introduction to humility.

Not even a month ago I would come home after an eight hour day and complain to my wife about how tired I was from having sat in my office all day staring at a computer screen and attending very important, earth-moving meetings. I would note how my eyes burned and my back hurt, and would self-righteously plop myself down on the couch with a loud, ever-so-exhausted sigh. Boy, was I beat.

Then I started helping my neighbor, and I was reminded, once again, of why my much sought after hero status continues to elude me. These men work. Hard. It is not rare to see their trucks absent from the driveway at 5:30 am, only to return briefly at dinner time, then disappear again into the night, not returning until well after I am in bed. They demolish, lift, saw, strain, hammer and sweat all day long, seven days a week. They do not complain, they do not rub their eyes, they do not stretch their weary muscles and they, most definitely, do not sigh. They do whatever it takes, whatever is needed, to provide the best possible lives for their families each and every day. That, in and of itself, is heroic. But it goes much farther than that, and I never would have realized this fact had I not been given the opportunity to work with them. It is this additional phenomenon, I believe, that has finally provided me with the correct definition of the word “hero.”

I find it difficult to explain. I believe the best way I can decribe it is “mindset”. It is how, when they are worn to the bone, aching and exhausted, they approach others and their loved ones. Somehow, through it all, they manage to be loving and supportive husbands, fathers and friends. Any time I find myself in a patch of adversity in my life, I work to get things “back on track,” and in doing so become frustated, angry and selfish. I feel as if I am owed something better and, when things do not go exactly my way, develop a large chip on not one, but both shoulders. These men are different because they have learned that, in life, there actually is no “track”. It’s just life, and they do not waste a second of it. They work harder than anyone I have ever known, yet still come home to their friends and families with a smile on their face and a bounce in their step. They do not lash out, become frustrated or mistreat anyone, and there is no doubt in my mind that if I asked my neighbor at 10:00 PM on a Sunday night (practically the only time he has to see his children) to patch the hole I put in my wall in an attempt to put up surround speakers myself, he would be over in less than five minutes to help. Smiling.

A true hero is one who puts his entire self aside for the benefit of others, whatever the cost. A person who works impossible hours at backbreaking job in order to proide for his family is a hero. A person who forgets about his own situation and provides support, patience without strings and a shoulder to a close friend during trying times is a hero. A person who, no matter how dire the situation or how bleak the outlook, can not only say, but prove to his family that everything will be just fine is a hero.

I am not a hero. I am, however, fortunate enough to recognize that this time in my life may not actually be a terrible time at all, but rather an opportunity to learn from those who are. I am almost certain that I have been somehow guided to this very point, and would be a fool to consider it anything but a blessing. And, if I work hard enough at it, maybe, just maybe, one day someone will write something like this about me.

-Matt

I felt a swell of pride as my wife ran her hands over my bulging, shaved pectorals the other day day and said “Build me something, baby.” Who knows? Maybe I’ll keep doing it.

Apart from that, the only noteworthy news is that we finally took my daughter to an appointment that we have been guiltily putting off for some time. Her four-year vaccinations. Having watched shots administered to our six-month-old son recently, I can say without a doubt that taking a four-year-old is a considerably different experience. They know. And they remember. They are little people who experience pain the same way we do and, as we dragged her into the doctor’s office, our hearts were aching. She was to get four shots. How in the world were we going to get through it? After the first, I suspected, there would be no way she would let them do it again, let alone another three times, and my mind was filled with visions of her tiny body strapped to an operating table bound in leather restraints, screaming madly.

But she amazed me. Not only did she not cry, but she watched; each and every one. She stared, unflinching, as the needle pricked her skin not once, not twice, but four times. After the third, she looked up at me, unblinking and stated “Daddy? I don’t think it’s that bad.” I couldn’t believe it. She was an absolute trooper, it almost frightened me. But I was prouder than could be and my wife’s eyes welled up with tears as we congratulated her and headed off to the market to buy candy canes and ice cream.

Seeing her get through that experience, possibly one of the most traumatic things a four-year-old can edure, without so much as a flinch got me thinking. My daughter is strong, stronger than I even knew myself. She must have gotten that from somewhere, right? I’m thinking her parents. She’s watching us, every day, and learning from how we handle tough situations. At that very moment I vowed not to undo what we had instilled in her. We’re not backing down in the face of adversity, we’re rising up. We will get through this, and we will pervail on the other end. I’m too proud of her to be scared.

-Matt

Now’s as good a time as any to pick up something for your kid for the holidays at our online baby boutique, RedSparks. Know what I’m sayin?