The Playpen

My son, Dominick, is six weeks old. In six weeks, I’ve really only referred to him a few times. Most of what I have been writing about recently has to do with my relationships with my daughter and my wife. I was thinking about my post today, and feeling slightly guilty for not having mentioned him that often. Too much longer and people might start to think I don’t care at all. I arrived at the conclusion that I have once again fallen into The Baby Gap.

I try to be as open and honest as possible in my writing. I find that by lowering my guard a bit and being forthcoming with people I tend to deliver better content. At least I believe it to be better. The Baby Gap is just about as honest as it gets. The truth is, I don’t really have that much to write about my boy because I’m just not that into him yet. Now I am certain that if I had spoken what I just wrote in front of an audience I would have heard a collective “gasp” rise from the crowd. Perhaps even have been pelted by a few rotten tomatoes or old heads of lettuce. You’re not really supposed to say that you’re not into your kid, are you? It makes you cold and insensitive. A bad parent. One might even question your upbringing. But I do not believe myself to be any of those things.

To put a finer point on it, The Baby Gap is my term for the period of time from birth to around six-months-old where I feel completely disconnected from my children. I fell into the gap with Frankie, and I am in it again with Dominick. I watch my wife, Aline, sitting with our son on the couch, speaking to him quietly and looking lovingly into his eyes and shake my head because, as much as I would like to, I simply don’t feel it yet. I have not carried him inside me for the last nine months. I have not had to get up to feed him every two hours for the last one-and-a-half months. And I have not yet experienced any form of real interaction with him aside from changing diapers and cradling him in failed attempts to calm his crying while I wait for mommy to get into “feeding position.” We do not have a bond.

This might sound terrible and, to be honest, with Frankie I thought it was. I thought it made me an awful father and I honestly believed, as I read others talking about how much they fell in love with their children “the second they looked into their eyes,” that there was something wrong with me and that I would never really engage her emotionally. I was afraid that I would become one of those distant and hard-edged dads who never really become close to their kids because I just didn’t feel anything. I was supposed to feel something.

Then one day, out of the blue, Frankie looked at me and smiled. Not a faux-gas-smile, mind you. A real smile. Then she rolled over. Then she sat up. Then she laughed. Then she crawled. Then she hugged me. Then she walked. Then she made me a drawing. Then she made me laugh. And, last night, she said sweetly to me
“I love you, daddy. Sweet dreams. I’ll see you in the morning,” rolled over under her little comforter and went to sleep as I pulled the door to her room closed for the night.

It would be the understatement of the year to say I felt something.

Do I find myself in The Baby Gap because I am male, and require more visual stimulus to create an emotional response than my wife? Or am I there simply because six weeks isn’t really enough time to get to know anyone, even your own child? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Because tomorrow I will turn around and catch a fastball from my son, tousle his hair and throw him up on my shoulders as we laugh and play in the sunshine, and I will feel something.

For now? I’m A-OK with that.

-Matt

Did you know my daughter was a preemie and that’s why we started our online boutique, RedSparks? Check out our preemie clothes. They’re cute.

I grew up in the Midwest in a small suburb of St. Louis. We were totally landlocked and I don’t actually remember even seeing the ocean until a family trip to Disney World when I was a little older. To me, “the beach” referred to a 50-square-foot plot of hard-packed sand dotted with large, pale, sweaty men clutching Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and testing the structural integrity of cheap K-mart lawn chairs while listening to Lynyrd Skynrd mix tapes by the local lake. One can imagine the culture shock when I moved to LA some 15 years ago.

Perhaps my unfamiliarity with the beach and the ocean is why my daughter seems so behind the curve when it comes to all things aquatic. Sure, my wife and I love the beach and every single time we are there we say “we have got to come here more often.” But for whatever reason, perhaps simply possessing the knowledge that it’s so near and available to us whenever we want, we never go. Typically, we manage one visit to the beach per summer, three if we are lucky. I can’t explain what keeps us away from it. It’s beautiful, enjoyable, blissfully warm, full of endless entertainment possibilities and free. One would think that my daughter would be a dolphin by now, plunging into the waves with her Tim Bessell Rhino Chaser and waving goodbye to us the second we arrived at the shore.

She’s not. At all. She is terrified of the water, and that just should not be. We live in Southern California, for god’s sake. I recently began to realize she was behind when I saw the picture a friend of ours shot of her daughter for our homepage. Her daughter, younger than mine by only a little, is having an absolute blast in the water. Its clear to me that she is no stranger to the deep blue sea. It struck me, upon looking at the image, how vastly different her kid and mine were in this respect. We have yet to take a trip to the beach this year, but last year’s trip proved to be disasterous in terms of familiarizing Frankie with the ocean. At the very beginning, immediately after we arrived and placed our towels on the sand, she wanted nothing to do with it at all. The waves were too scary and, even when I held her in my arms, she wouldn’t let me go out farther than ankle deep. By the end of the trip, however, I had been making what I thought was quite a bit of progress with her utilizing a technique I called the “melting X.” This basically involved me drawing a large “X” in the sand with my toe just under the tide line, then racing out with her in between waves, stomping crazily on the X, and running back to safety before the next wave came in to wash it away. Things were going well and she was becoming braver and braver until, of course, she tripped and fell in the sand, allowing a wave to almost touch her before I snatched her up. After this incident, she would go nowhere near the water for the rest of the trip and we didn’t make it back to the beach for the rest of the season.

This post is rambling a bit, and perhaps its because I’m not really sure why I want her to be a little California beach girl and am having difficulty explaining it. I suppose it’s in someway related to my own desire to be more graceful and capable in the water myself. I have tried surfing twice in my life and almost drowned both times. I am fairly certain a third attempt would end my life completely. But she has a chance at it. She’s still tiny and the big, beautiful Pacific Ocean is practically in her back yard. This year, we have agreed to make the commitment to visit the beach as a family as many times as we possibly can; to get more in touch with the water and expose our children to one of the few beautiful and mysterious things our geographic location has to offer.

There are so many people who claim to be “drawn” to the water. People who have some type of bond or relationship with it that I fear I may never have. I’d like to give my daughter and, eventually my son, the opportunity to form that relationship. Perhaps, through them, I can one day appreciate what it means to be able to say “Dude. I totally grew up on the beach.”

-Matt

We still have a few Melissa Odabash swimsuits for baby girls left at RedSparks, our online boutique. Surf’s up!

You pick up a lot of buzzwords and jargon when you’ve trudged through Corporate America for as long as I have. Most of it makes my skin crawl, and I can never bring myself to say it. When someone tells me they’d like to “regroup on that and make sure we have our ducks in a row,” or that they’d like to make sure we “have all of our ‘i’s dotted and our ‘t’s crossed,” I actually throw up a little bit. I used to try to hold it in, but now I just yack all over the conference table, look up at the other meeting attendees embarrassedly and mutter “Don’t worry. We budgeted for that.” I can’t stand corporate jargon.

There is one catch phrase, however, that I have always liked and I believe its due to the fact that it can be applied to real life, family life, and that it actually means something.

“Do what’s in your twenty percent.”

The phrase, originally published by some financial guru who’s book I am supposed to have read but never will, is intended for companies who attempt to grow too quickly or spread themselves too broadly across to many areas with limited resources. According to the author, if companies take a look at 100% of their workload, isolate the 20% that is the most important and focus all resources on that, while forgetting all the rest, they will become successful. I have found the same to be true with myself and my relationship with my wife.

Sometimes, when I take a step back and look at everything that goes on in life on a daily basis, I have to chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Who in god’s name would be able to actually do everything we expect ourselves to do with any success at all? In this day and age, with family businesses, two working parents, day care, soccer, babysitters, piano lessons, doctors appointments, Dora…what am I forgetting…oh yeah, meals, there is simply not enough resource to get everything done. We set ourselves up to fail every single day. I am sure that many reading this will feel the exact same way.
The detriment of this situation is that we end up doing a whole bunch of things poorly rather than a few things perfectly, and this affects my relationship with my wife.

Recently, things between Aline and I have been going really well. We all have our ups and downs, but with she and I the ups are way the hell up there and the downs are really really down there. For quite a while now, there just haven’t been any downs, and that’s because we are focusing on our 20 percent. We have both discussed what is truly important to us and essentially arrived at the same conclusion: we need to be in love with each other and we need to have fun with one another, whatever the cost.

For me, that means communicating. It means concentrating on not keeping secrets or not telling Aline something just because I think it will piss her off. It means being open and forthcoming with her and giving her the benefit of the doubt. Letting her react to what I have to tell her instead of assuming she won’t be able to handle it or keeping it secret to avoid blowups. This may sound like an easy thing for me, but it doesn’t come naturally. I have to work at it. But guess what? It totally works. She hardly ever gets upset with me for anything I tell her after all. As it turns out, she’s actually a pretty cool chick and gives me a lot more freedom when I’m being honest with her than she would if she felt I was hiding things. The result is that I am completely open with her and our relationship is stronger for it.

For her, it means controlling her temper when we do have an argument. She has a tendency to fly off the handle and say and do things that are excessively vengeful. As a person who has always felt that an argument is simply a tool in order to arrive at a positive compromise, I am not ok with saying and doing things to intentionally hurt someone. Especially someone you have two children with who you share every single day of your life with. This may sound like an easy thing for her, but it doesn’t come naturally. She has to work at it, and it totally works too. I have felt much closer to her and more willing to engage her in discussions or disagreements in a healthy manner knowing that she won’t pop at any minute. Again, our relationship is much healthier for it, and I feel much closer to her when I feel that she respects me.

This is our 20%. For us, working on those issues, concentrating all of our energy on the most important 20% of what we have to do in this entire ball of chaos called life has made a mountain of difference. Instead of lingering at the office for a few extra minutes as I might have done a few years ago when she and I were in not quite as great a place, I rush right home to see her and my kids, because a smile on her face puts a smile on mine instantly. Likewise, if I have to run an errand late in the evening, she doesn’t have to deal with the insecurity of wondering if I might actually be out sneaking a cigarette or having a beer somewhere in secret because she knows I would tell her if I felt the need to do that.

So maybe it does still annoy me when takes the hand towel out of the kitchen and walks around with it, just as it annoys her when she has to ask me to clean the damn fish tank for the 45th time, but you know what? Wet hands, a dead fish and two people madly in love with each other after 12 years together is about as close to perfect as it gets.

-Matt

I’ve been trying to come up with something Earth-shattering and amazing for this, my 100th post on The Playpen. This morning, after dropping Nana off at the airport and watching Frankie sob a little in the car on the way home, I realized that the following was the perfect choice.

I’m not embarrassed to say that I’m close to my mom. I am. I think that’s a healthy thing and the older we all get the more I think a guy who is close to his mom might be seen as a good thing instead of cause for an old-fashioned beatdown by the tether ball courts.

Since a week after my son was born, my mom has been staying with us. Sometimes, at the end of her visits, I admittedly feel some sense of relief just by having the house back to myself. I don’t feel guilty saying this because we all know its true and she appreciates getting back to the comfort of her own home as well. But this time? No relief. My mom rocked.

I have been hiding my terror for some time with regard to having two children and what it is going to mean to my relationship with my wife. We are both very stubborn, headstrong, controlling and hot-tempered. Sort of like vinegar and baking soda. Either one, sitting by itself on the couch watching Next Food Network Star (can you believe Teddy lied like that? The meatloaf was totally a collaborative dish), would be completely benign. But we all know what happens when you mix and shake. In addition to our volatility, I have also quietly been observing our friends who have two children, most of them fairly recently. I have seen their sunken, bloodshot eyes staring lifelessly into the distance as if dreaming of beautiful, quiet places far, far away. I have seen their hunched, withered frames moping about, sometimes stooping painfully to pick up a Thomas train or dirty diaper, then continuing on their aimless journey to mediocrity. I have seen them flare up at each other, ignited like a gunpowder keg at a statement as innocent as “honey, do you mind holding him for a second?” They are the walking dead. They are husks of human beings existing only to provide an eternity of thankless service for tiny little demons.

This was my nightmare.

But having my mom with us taking care of things laid my fears to rest. She served as sort of a buffer for us during this period of adjustment and let us both see that we can handle this. I am also fairly certain at this point that we can do it fairly well, too, without either of us ending up chopped into little pieces and stuffed into trash bags behind the garage. Not having to maintain the home, take care of my older daughter 100% of the time and to be trapped inside the house for three weeks gave us time to breathe and it gave us time to adjust. We were able to just be a family for a little while and, in doing so, I was able to see what it can be like and how absolutely terrific it can be. Call me optimistic, but just having a glimpse of a really positive situation in one’s life makes it infinitely easier to weather the tough times. It allows you to focus on and strive for the positives in life and makes it easier to hunker down and just “get through it.”

So, for what its worth, thanks mom. You helped us out more that you can imagine. I love you, and I don’t care who knows it.

-Matt

I am the worst kind of know-it-all. It’s a character flaw of which I have been painfully aware for years and, frankly, am not willing to change. I love acting smarter than everyone else. Even if I know absolutely nothing about a particular subject I will find some way to wax on about it for the next 30 mintes, and will leave you convinced that you came to the right place for answers, even if those answers were completely pulled out of you-know-where on the fly. Throw a word at me that’s not in my current vocabulary? I’ll sit there and mentally break down the root, origin and prefix until I can figure out what it means for an hour before I admit to you I had never heard it before. Yep. I am a total genius. I know everything.

My daughter is four years old and still isn’t potty trained. This bothers me on so many different levels I can’t begin to list them here, but the top two are probably having to change sheets, pants and underwear two thousand times a week and just the fact that I don’t know what I am doing in the least. We are flailing. I am certain that if we were to be evaluated by an expert in child development or some potty training guru, they would laugh hysterically and tell us to simply give up at this point. We have done everything wrong and I am frustrated beyond belief.

Here’s where we are right now: I am certain that my daughter possesses the physical control at this point to hold it in until its time to go. I know this because she will go for stretches of two to three days with no accidents at all, even at night. I also know she knows where, when and how to go because, when she’s having a good day, she likes to “show off” the fact that she’s doing it. The problem lies in her “bad days,” which can last for weeks where she goes in her pants or in her bed every single time. I’m talking 5-6 accidents a day. Maybe more. Regardless of what we read in books and what we have been told by friends, this creates a great deal of frustration for Aline and I and we admittedly let her see it. So now, thanks to our maturity and brilliance, when she is preparing to have an “accident” she goes to one of her hiding places where she won’t be seen. Usually under the dining room table or between the couch and the love seat. She actually prepares to wet her pants. To make matters worse, she will walk around with wet underwear all day long before she will let us see it. Because she wears a uniform to school, we sometimes don’t notice that she has had an accident (its hidden beneath her skirt) for hours. This causes rashes and can obviously lead to greater complications.

I consider myself a pretty good father for much of the same arrogant reasons I listed in the first paragraph. But I am lost. I’m frustrated, confused and flabbergasted. We have “potty training” my daughter for over a year. That, my friends, is not normal, no matter what anyone says. Apart from the personal embarrassment I feel for not being able to quickly master this skill and know all there is to know about it, I am really concerned about her. I am worried that there may be some deeper psychological issues at play here, and that just won’t do.

So here I am, the great and powerful Oz, letting you see behind the curtain. I don’t know the first thing about potty training, and would love some help.

-Matt

If there’s a silver lining to this story its that, no matter how many accidents she has, we never run out of fresh, cool baby clothes. Check out RedSparks, our online store.

My wife and our newborn son have been home and resting comfortably for about a week now. In contrast to our experience with Frankie, this one has been incredible and everyone is enjoying being together.

A couple of days ago, I went back to the hospital to fill a prescription for Aline, who is still under doctor’s orders not to drive. Upon leaving the pharmacy, I stopped in the tiny vending machine area, popped a dollar into the coffee machine and, without thinking, pressed 1-B-7, the little code for a large cup of black Brazilian Roast. As I was reaching for the cup once it had been filled, I froze for a minute and the oddest sensation swept over me.

There exists a phenomenon in theater that I have felt many times, but have never been able to explain. I am certain that almost everyone has experienced it in one shape or form at some point in their lives. This phenomenon, this haunting and eerily wondrous awareness occurs long after the audience has filed out of the theater, when the curtain has been drawn, the lights doused and the stage emptied. It happens off in the wings as you gaze at the dim outlines of shadowy sets looming silently in the dark. Nothing moves yet everything speaks. It’s a tingle down your spine as, for a few brief moments, the ghosts of past performances and souls previously bared on that stage whisper to you chillingly. Its magic.

That’s what I felt, standing there alone with the coffee machine and I was filled with sadness.

It is a difficult thing to explain, but I realized at that instant I missed the hospital. The entire week I was there with Aline and the baby I was frantic and worried for everyone’s well-being. If you had asked me at any point during our stay if I would rather be anywhere else it would have taken me less than a second to respond absolutely.

But there with my coffee, almost a week later, I felt differently. I remembered the late nights, curled up on the fold-out “bed” in Aline’s room under a thin blanket, the almost inaudible sound of a television and the nurses’ muffled laughter down the hall creating a soothing soundtrack to the warm and loving conversation Aline and I were having quietly. I remembered us sitting together in silence as the room was bathed in the golden glow of the sunrise, happily gazing at our tiny boy sleeping contentedly in his bassinette. I remembered the bubbling laughter and noisy babbling of family members and friends congregating in the room while slapping me on the back, kissing our son and embracing Aline through tears of joy. I remembered the swelling in my heart and the tear in the corner of my eye as I watched my daughter lean over the rail of Mommy’s bed and place her hand gently on her brother’s forehead for the first time.

That hospital room had been our sanctuary. It had been our shelter from the realities of life and the real world where the only thoughts that drifted breezily through my mind were those of love and of closeness, of pride and happiness. As strange as it may sound, that hospital room had hosted my family’s own little adventure and, like the ghosts in the empty set, we all left a tiny little piece of our own souls there when we carted the last of Aline’s belongings out of the room towards the car.

I wondered, as I forced myself to leave the vending area and headed back home, if the man who entered that room behind us with his mop and his bucket of suds, felt some of the same eeriness I often feel in a theater. I wondered if he paused for a moment, both hands still grasping the handle of his mop, and looked around, perhaps feeling some of the warmth and love that had been left behind there.

Later that night I started to explain to my wife what I had felt, apologizing for admitting something as silly as missing being in the hospital and she stopped me halfway through. She looked at me softly and explained that she knew exactly what I meant, and that she felt it too. She missed carrying Dominick inside her. She missed his little kicks and hiccups and she missed every little bit of discomfort or pain she had been experiencing because those things reminded her that she was creating life. I believe that, while she loves being a mother, she misses the emotion and warmth that stems from becoming a mother almost as much. And, like me and my hospital, she knows that she will probably never experience those things again.

I take comfort in the fact that Aline and I have added our own miniscule branch to a tree that will continue to grow long after we are dead. But I also admit that I, the guy who joked with the nurses and with friends about never going through this experience again and made quirky statements like “two kids is two too many,” actually feel some sadness and a tiny little tug of regret in the back of my mind that, while Aline and I can nurture that tree for a while to come, we can no longer contribute to its growth.

Funny. Who would have guessed?

-Matt

As you may already know, my son, Dominick, was born May 28th at 7lbs 6oz.

Aline had some lingering health issues that have since cleared up and, although everyone is home safe and sound now, we did spend about six days in the hospital. Funny thing about hospitals, they make me all scattered and forgetful; I just can’t focus in them.

On the day we were discharged I was waiting for the elevator in the maternity ward, carrying my new baby boy proudly in his car seat by my side. An attractive woman wearing a silk blouse and a pencil skirt was waiting next to me, and was smiling and waving at my son, trying to get him to return the smile.

“He’s very cute,” she said to me kindly.

“Thanks! I think so too. I’m excited to be bringing him home. We all are.” I answered back cheerfully.

She looked away from him and up at the floor indicators above the elevators for a moment before she asked “Who’s his agent?”

My jaw dropped. There I was, having lived in Los Angeles for over fifteen years, and I had allowed my poor son to go six days without representation. I mean, I forgot everything. No agent, no media junkets and, worst of all, no auditions. Six days. I was shocked and embarrassed. As she got on the elevator I could only stand there and look away in shame.

As soon as we got home I developed my plan to catch Dominick up with the rest of the kids his age and get him “out there” as quickly as possible. I would have to move fast, which everyone knows creates a greater potential for over-exposure, but I had no choice. This first thing I did was to leave messages for Michael Ovitz and Joe Simpson. I told myself that whoever called me back first would represent Dom. Cross that one off the list.

Next, I had to create some Dominick buzz. The quickest way to get people talking about a celebrity is through the tabloids. So I quietly leaked these photos to Star, Globe and The Enquirer.

He’ll be the new “it boy” in no time.

Finally, he needed a makeover. He’s a good-looking boy, no question, but I was a little concerned that he may be a little too “hard-edged” looks-wise to land some of the more sensitive, John Cusack-type roles. I needed to soften him up. For a brief minute, I entertained the idea of giving him kind of a goth, sexy Adam Lambert kind of a look.

Then I thought to myself “What am I doing? Lambert hair on a baby?” It was just getting too silly, you know? Sometimes I take things too far and need to pull back a bit.

Finally I decided that less is more. I wanted him to land the big parts, but I also wanted him to be perceived as more than just a pretty face. If I made him up too much, I feared that he would end up going down the Matthew McConaughey road and would never again be able to play a role with his shirt on. So I decided to go with an intelligent, approachable head shot that would show his versatility as well as a certain level of refinement and character. Sort of like a cross between Anthony Hopkins and Judd Nelson.

I started by removing the bags under his eyes. We can’t have our leading man looking tired all the time, can we?

Then I added a simple yet debonair pair of Armani frames. Not too flashy, not too sophisticated.

Last but not least, an elegant and striking Dolce and Gabbana pin-striped 3-button suit with a Zegna tie rounded out the look.

With that I was satisfied. My baby boy, while definitely off to a late start thanks to my own neglect, was now officially integrated into Los Angeles society, and would be sitting across the desk from James Lipton in no time. Watch out Brad. Watch out Leonardo. There’s a new kid in town.

Break a leg, Dom. And welcome to Los Angeles

-Matt
You can dress your kid like a celeb too, you know. Check out the hot baby threads we’ve got at our online boutique, RedSparks.

For the most part, today was fairly quiet and uneventful.

I woke up today and decided to go wash the car. I like to go to Wash World because the lines are shorter than the car wash by McDonalds and there are usually vacuums open. Things went pretty smoothly, and I opted for the New Car Scent air freshener, which I always enjoy.

I tried the new carnitas bowl from El Pollo Loco for lunch and it was so-so. I’m not sure why they call it carnitas when its made of chicken, at least I think it was, but either way, I won’t have it again. It was a little gristly for my taste, even when you drown it with cilantro dressing. I give it a 3.

Talked to my old roommate from college. He had so much talent back then. I was surprised to find out that he had opened an adult novelty shop in Torrence and was living over his parents garage. Don’t know why he doesn’t draw any more, but to each his own I suppose.

I also took a nap around three. It was OK. The dog barked and woke me up a couple of times. How com she never barks when I’m awake?

All in all, it was a pretty average and ordinary day. Not a very exciting post. It is what it is.

-Matt

PS – Oh! I almost forgot. Aline gave birth to this little dude!

Welcome to the world, Dominick! I love you already.

Today might be one of the most important days in our lives. My wife, pregnant with our second child, has managed to lug that selfish little bugger around in her tummy for thirty-six weeks.

Why is that significant? For so many reasons. To name a few:

1. Thirty-six is a month longer than our tiny little preemie daughter made it, spinning our entire lives wildly out of control on some god-forsaken roller coaster for the better half of a year.

2. Thirty-six is a developmental milestone in the term of the pregnancy, after which the baby’s lungs, typically the last thing to develop fully in an unborn child, should be completely developed. Although there does still exist the possibility that may not be the case, it is very unlikely.

3. Thirty-six is a number that magically causes everyone – Aline, me, the doctors, my in-laws, our friends, my daughter, even our dog, to relax. Everyone just breathes easier, and that can in no way be viewed as a bad thing. We could all use some deep breaths right about now, and today lets us take them.

In one more week my son would not even be considered premature from a medical standpoint and, while I honestly don’t expect any complications, would be admitted to the PICU instead of the NICU as a full-term baby were he to require any special care.

That’s something to be pretty damn proud of in my book and is certainly worthy of a little (just a little has to be ok, right?) early celebration. Thirty-six weeks. He made it.

They grow up so fast, don’t they?

-Matt

Lets face it. Guys don’t get a lot of love during pregnancy. No, I’m not whining. Just pointing out a simple fact.

The truth is I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure lately. It looks like Aline could possibly deliver a bit before her due date again, although not anywhere near as prematurely as Frankie was, and I have found myself a bit panicked and short on time.

I’m always amazed when people tell me they don’t know about RedSparks, our business. We built RedSparks and started selling preemie clothes and baby clothes when Frankie was born early, and I write about it here all the time…almost to the point where I feel embarrassed about mentioning it. But it’s significant in this case because RedSparks lives in our extra bedroom, which is also supposed to be baby boy’s room when he arrives. And I haven’t done a thing to get it ready. Not one bit.

Saturday night I was frantic. I realized I had virtually no time left to clean the garage out, move all the inventory, shelves, computer equipment and packaging material into said garage, paint the baby’s bedroom, set up the crib, make it all cute and liveable and so on. I was way, way behind, and that means stress for my wife. I need to avoid that right now.

As if by some kind of miracle, my phone rang. It was my buddy Matt. I have known Matt for 31 years. He’s practically blood, and our families have remained close though what should be referred to as nothing less than thick and thin. He was matter-of-fact and to-the-point:

Matt: “Dude. Is the nursery done yet?”

Me: “Uh…not really man. Not really.”

Matt: “You’re not doing that by yourself. Let me call my in-laws. Helga and I are coming over tomorrow. She can hang out with Aline so she can have some fun and you and I are gonna crank that work out. Cool?”

My chest puffed up, my machismo kicked in and I stuck my jaw out, fully prepared to hit Matt with one of those “Don’t worry about it, dude. I got this” type of male responses.

Then I thought for a second and just gave up. My shoulders relaxed, the tension melted from my face and I sighed. This is what true friendship is all about, and Matt was being a true friend. The truth was, I didn’t “got this” at all, and just hearing him say that lifted half the weight I was carrying off my shoulders.

“Dude? Thank you. I appreciate this more than you can imagine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yesterday morning they came over. Aline smiled and laughed more than I have seen her do in a while:

And Matt and I got to look uber-sexy in front of our ladies by turning this:

Into this:

Not too shabby, eh? Matt’s help turned what would have easily been 3-4 days of work for me alone into a one-day affair.

I am more sore than I remember being ever, my face is so sunburned that the guy in the next car on the way to work this morning flipped me off and called me an Oompa-Loompa, and I’m so tired I can hardly see straight, but you know? We had a great time. Both Aline and I were glad to have not only their help, but their company as well.

Soon. Very, very soon there will be a new member of the Pfingsten clan, and things will be so chaotic that for a month or so we won’t think about anything but ourselves. So I wanted to publicly thank Helga and my dear friend Matt for everything they did yesterday. Last night, after they left, I made one very simple observation to Aline, and she agreed with me: True friendship, and I mean true friendship, isn’t based on what people buy for you or what people can give you. Its based on love, respect and support. Its based on heart and on soul. And when you become close enough to someone with whom you can let down your guard and actually lean on them once in a while, you had better hang on tight to that forever because, believe me, it ain’t that easy to find.

Thanks, Matt and Helga for everything you did. It means more than you know. I love you guys.

-Matt