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?

I paused for a moment, realizing that I had just opened a far-too-complex conversation with a four-year-old, then replied “I didn’t actually lose it, sweetie, like the way you lose a toy or a doll. They just decided they didn’t need me any more so I won’t be going back there.”

“What about your board? Can I still draw on your big white board?” she asked.

“No. Not on that one. That board belongs to them. It’s OK, we have markers and a smaller board at home. You can still use those.”

The questions kept coming. “So where will you go after you drop me off after school?”

“I’ll go back home, kiddo.” I aswered.

“You’ll work at home?”

“If I can,” I said, now regretting what I had gotten myself into. “The last time this happened to daddy, before you were born, I did pretty well for a while doing graphic design and consulting.” I immediately felt a bit foolish for expecting my daughter to understand the concept of “consulting”, but she took pity on me and let it go.

We drove in silence for several minutes, each of us wrapped up in our own thoughts before she asked another question.

“So you’ll just take me to school and then be at home? For how long?”

“Hopefully not too long, but the last time this happened it was a lot longer than I thought so, yes, I’ll be at home for a while.”

Thoughts whirled in my mind as I awaited her response, and with a furrowed brow and a heavy heart I began to formulate complicated answers to what I expected to come next; explanations of the term “recession”, a model of typical corporate downsizing in a cash-poor financial structure and why middle-management marketing was no place for a person to be these days. How was I going to let her know all of this would be OK? Why did I even bring it up to a four-year-old?

Finally, after careful thought, she shouted her reply.

“YAAAAY! Now we can play together all the time!!!!”

I smiled a little knowing that, once again, her point of view was the better one.

-Matt

I am tired. I cannot, in good conscience, complain about being tired because, until my wife gets a bit more sleep, she most certainly has it worse. However the fact does remain that two kids takes a lot out of both parents, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t feeling some of the effect. This is the reason why, last night when my daughter was engrossed in NickJr.com and mentioned that she wanted to skip her bath, I willingly obliged and enjoyed 20 minutes of the Saints/Falcons game on Monday Night Football. A rare treat these days. This little detail, which may seem slightly extraneous at the moment, will mean a great deal as I continue my story.

Daylight Savings is the anti-christ. At least when you have children. I remember fondly the days when Aline and I would cherish the extra hour, looking at the clock, smiling and nestling back into the blankets for a blissful 60 minutes, free of charge. With kids, however, that hour matters. The first words out of my mouth this morning when I woke with a start to see Frankie hovering over me at 5:40 A.M. were “Frankie? Tonight we are going to learn how to tell time.”

Aline had endured a particularly rough night with Dom, so I begrudgingly trudged through Frankie’s morning school routine, my persona completely devoid of any real motivation or fight. I gave her a bagel and, when I glanced at the cream cheese smeared all over her mouth upon having finished it, let my head fall back to the couch cushion and thought to myself “Forget it. It’ll be easier to clean off when it dries.”

As I was getting her into her uniform, I noticed that I had inadvertently selected the “bad polo” that she wears under her jumper. It’s bad in that there is a big marker stain on the collar that will not come out. We keep it for emergencies. Since it was slightly chilly this morning and she would be wearing her sweatshirt over it, I decided to let it go. No one would notice.

Because I allowed her to skip her bath the night before, her hair was a mess. About halfway through me trying to brush out the tangles with her complaining loudly in my ear I simply gave up and wrapped the whole mess up in a pseudo-pony tail and finished it off two hair ties to hold it in place. A red and an orange.

Finally, because she was so tired and so whiny, I gave in to her demands and let her select a piece of her Halloween candy to enjoy in the car on the way to school. A grape lollipop. What the hell. At least it would keep her quiet.

I was starting to feel much better, and even had a little bounce in my step as I was walking her from the car to her classroom. By the time I reached it I was in such a good mood I burst in, a huge smile on my face and shouted “Good morning, everybody!”

Her teacher smiled at me, looked at Frankie, then back at me. I held her gaze, bobbing my head with that huge grin still plastered on my face for about another thirty seconds before finally asking “What?”

“Um. It’s picture day today. Picture day,” she said.

Now completely serious, I looked at my daughter as my heart sank. There she stood in all her glory. Crusted cream cheese, tangled hair, a stain on her shirt and a purple mouth and teeth. I couldn’t believe it. What made her haggard and unkempt appearance so much worse was that I couldn’t even say I had forgotten picture day. I didn’t even know. Sure, we had the form at home and I suppose I could have looked at it, but I did not. To add insult to injury, I had no cash and no checkbook, so my daughter’s teacher had to write a check for me. That’s right. I’m in to Miss Cindy for $37.00. With juice.

I made the drive back home with my head hung low and my heart pounding, playing out the scene in my mind of me telling my wife what I had done to our poor hopeless daughter on picture day and fearing for my life, wondering what I could possibly say that would make this right.

All I could come up with was “Thank God for Photoshop.”

Matt

My daughter normally looks brilliant. That’s because she wears clothing from our online store, RedSparks!.

We traveled back home to St Louis to visit my family last week. The last time we did this it was with one child, and things did not go well. This time, with two, I was expecting the worst. Fortunately the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars because both kids were little travel cherubs, and the trip could not have gone more smoothly. Frankie was completely stoked to be flying on the big airplane and spent most of her time coloring,

and Dominick basically just ate and crashed the whole time.

Mommy got to have a little chill time with some friends of ours,

and daddy did too.

Frankie and her friend spent time off by themselves doing girl things,

and Dominick just checked out the scene.

Because of the time difference I was awake to see the sun rise on the first day or two, but my stepdad’s wicked-awesome metal bird sculptures kept me company while I drank coffee outside and waited for the others to get up (They’re for sale, by the way…so is his awesome other work. Just thought I’d throw that in there.)

Pretty good trip, I’d say…I’m glad we went.

The problem is that, since I’ve been back, I have lost all interest in things electronic, including the internet. Traveling and visiting family does that to me. Being away, disconnecting, jabbering away until the wee hours of the night with friends and family and eating big breakfasts with grandparents always places the laptop squarely onto the back burner.

So here I sit, looking at a white page half-full of not too much, struggling for content that will not only entertain, but that will also ignite the little literary pilot light that burns inside me from time to time, and cannot do it. So I thought I’d take the easy way out and just flat-out talk about myself. I don’t have to think about it and it will buy me some time until I actually have to think of something good. 10 things about myself that almost no one knows. Here we go.

1. I love glowing yellow light at night. Think paper lanterns, the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and old Japanese homes nestled in the forest. Love it.


2. I used to use a body wash from the Gap called Grass. It smelled like a lawn that had just been mowed. I loved it and was really pissed when they discontinued it.


3. I am a master of electronics and can handle almost any home theater setup but cannot, for the life of me, keep my Bluetooth headset charged.


4. Once, for Halloween, I went full drag as a French Maid. After my girlfriend (yep, it was Aline) did all my makeup and I put on my wig I looked in the mirror and was very, very bothered by how hot I was.


5. I eat way too many eggs.


6. If she were real, I would leave my wife for Princess Jasmine.


7. I throw up if I ride in a car or a train sideways.


8. Birds, of any kind, make me incredibly uncomfortable. I also think that all birds are dirty. I do not know why.


9. When someone else is talking, and they start to get that little phlegmy, gurgly sound in their voice, I subconsciously clear my own throat and continue to do so until they clear theirs.


10. My largest character flaw is that I will immediately begin laughing uncontrollably the second anyone falls down, regardless of whether or not I know if they have hurt themselves.

So there you go. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something better on the next one.

-Matt


Don’t forget to check out our online baby boutique, RedSparks. It’s dope.