Boy pushes dog off roof onto train tracks

Dear J,

We were back at the same place. Like the last two days. I helped you climb up onto the cement platform. It was about 5.5 feet high and next to the train tracks. We watch trains go by from here sometimes. “Daddy, come up!” I put Kimi up with you. I climbed up and you tried to help me. But that day, you asked me to go down. I said okay. You looked down at me and said, “I am taller than you! You are small and I am bigger than you!”

You giggled, I laughed, and you scooped your hands under Kimi and threw her off.

That was unexpected.

She fell on all fours and crumpled onto her side. She didn’t yelp. But she got right back up and sniffed at a dog in the distance, so I assumed she was okay.

You laughed. I was worried.

I asked you if what you did was okay. You said “No…” then snickered and smirked. You knew it was wrong but because it didn’t look like it did any harm, you thought it was funny. I remembered the Benign Violation Theory of Humor. The idea is that something can only be funny if there’s a threatening situation, but the threatening situation seems harmless. We will laugh if it is harmless. But no one except a mentally ill person will laugh at a threatening situation that brings real harm.

So I made sure you knew it was serious.

I said I was upset and we’re going home. You wanted me to carry you. I said no, you are walking because I am upset you pushed Kimi. You cried and clung to my shorts for 5 minutes. Then I walked forward slowly and you walked holding onto my shorts for another 5 minutes crying. I wasn’t giving you anything, so you wanted mama. I asked, “Is mama here?” You cried, “I want mama.” I asked, “Where is she?” You knew the answer, stopped asking, looked down at the floor, cried louder and continued walking. The sun had gone down.

Then you stopped crying. You walked to me, hugged my legs and said, “Daddy… I want to give you some time.” You tried to hold back the tears, because we’ve talked about this before. We told you that we understand you when you talk, but we don’t know what you want if you cry and scream. So I knew how hard you were trying. I knelt down and hugged you, kissed you and said I love you. I explained that when you push Kimi or hurt someone, playtime is over. I picked you up. You draped your head over my shoulder. A few moments later, you asked, “Why did I push Kimi?” So we talked about it.

Halloween is coming. We had more scares this week. Mama wanted to give you a good time by taking you to the Children’s Discovery Museum with J2. She had to put the stroller away, so she asked you to wait. What did you do? You ran off. Mama shouted STOP but you kept running. She couldn’t chase you because she had J2. A few seconds later, she could no longer see you. You gave her a heart attack.

Mama grabbed the closest person with a purple shirt for help. He got on his radio and paged everyone on all floors, “We have a boy missing. His name is Joshua and he’s two years old. He’s wearing a Green Eggs and Ham shirt and black pants.” They found you upstairs in the corner somewhere. Mama told me about how she never felt so sick in her life.

That reminded me of the time I took you to the playground. One moment, I saw you walking toward the play structure. I looked away for 2 seconds. When I looked back, you were gone. Not on the slides, not on the bridge, not on the ladders, not running to the street. WHAT HAPPENED? The only explanation was an orchestrated kidnapping. Mama was going to kill me. I ran to the structure and shouted. No answer. Then I took a few steps closer and there you were… crouched behind the wall, playing with sand.

It seems you’re in a phase where you’re starting to do things we don’t expect. I warned mama to keep a close eye on you. And not to take anything for granted. I wasn’t even sure if I could trust you not to bolt across the street suddenly. It suddenly felt more stressful being a parent.

Another scare. You brought mama to our secret door this week. The door that takes us to the other side of the wall where the train track is. Kimi pulled on her leash and followed her nose to a mountain of something… black and brown. Someone pooped on the other side of our secret door! I told you we had to go. You asked me what did that. It looked human. I said I don’t know. You said, “Maybe an animal”. Yes… maybe an animal did. Like I keep reminding you, People are Animals.

Mama’s abu is not doing so great. We will probably visit Puerto Rico in a few weeks. They have transported her from the ICU to a regular room since she is a “D.N.R.” She’s worse every day. She’s losing her ability to swallow, so saliva pooled in her throat. Abu warned the doctors, who did nothing but say the nurses will just wipe the drool. Then she inhaled her saliva and now she has pneumonia. A few days later, she became paralyzed from the hips down. Her brain’s shutting down.

Love is the only thing that can be divided, and still have more for everyone. Before I was a parent, I didn’t think it was possible. But it’s true. When it was just you J, I loved you as much as muchness could. Then J2 came, and I love her just as much as I do you. How is it possible? I don’t know.

Unfortunately, kids don’t get it either. J – you want all our attention. You want us to love only you. Mama would say, “I have to feed your sister, she is hungry.” You’d say, “I don’t want you to feed her.” “But she’s hungry.” “I want her to be hungry.” When we give J2 a toy, you’ll throw a tantrum asking for it. When we give that to you and give her another, you’ll toss aside the one you have and scream for the new one.

So this has gotten us stumped. The trouble is, you’re right. There is nothing in it for you. We’re asking you to share us with J2, but that is a 100% giving relationship with no reward. And that won’t work with a toddler. We’re thinking of looking for a story about “Sharing” or “Teamwork”. Something with a theme you like, that helps you understand that it’s good for families to work together.

The latest concept I’m using is, “If you share, other people can play with you. If you don’t share, we cannot play with you.” So when you didn’t share your blanket with J2, mama took her upstairs to her own blanket. That way you see that when you don’t want to share, you make people go away. And you’ll be alone.

Speaking of stories, your two new favorite books. We told you they were bedtime story books that we can read only for bedtime. “Why?” Because after you read them, you have to go to sleep. One is called “Goodnight goodnight, construction site.” But you said, “NO. It’s called WAKEY WAKEY construction site. We don’t have to sleep after we read it. It’s a wakeup book.”

They came at a good time. We’ve been having trouble putting you to bed lately – you scream and demand we keep the light on. You run away from us. You roll on the floor kicking when we try to transport you to bed. So mama got these two books that I really like too. We hope they will help us create a routine that you’ll enjoy and slides you right into bed.

The highlight of this week was Gilroy Gardens theme park. We woke up early so we could be there as soon as it opened. We were the first ones. We had the whole park all to ourselves! That advantage didn’t last long though, because you insisted on riding the first few rides a bazillion times.

The last time we were here was 1 year ago. Back then, we had to coax you onto the rides, and many of them made you cry. The experience was much different this time. You loved every single ride. Getting you to move on to the next ride was a tantrum tightrope.

You said the white duckies are called swans. You wanted the yellow duckie:

It was almost nap time but we had so much left to do! The Ferris Wheel was open again, and it was a new experience so I asked you if you wanted to go. You said, “Ya.” Then as we got closer, you said, “Daddy, I want you to come with me. I want you to hold me close to you”:

Thanks for a wonderful Saturday. I loved playing with you.

Julie – you babble a lot:

You can also sit for a long time:

One day, you said baba. Then you said baba MAMA and mama died. You also woke yourself up because you turned from you back to your tummy!

J’s drop off stories:

Starfish is a strange place

J enjoys the zoo song. He made all the sound effects. WHEEEEEeee! “Animals! How can that be?” “Giraffe! How can that be?” “ZOO!”

I had to turn off the song at the parking lot. He said I want to listen to the zoo song. I said the car is off, but we can sing. So we sang all the sound effects all the way to class.

Ms Gina was decorating the class for Halloween. I asked her “What’s that?” She said “A CINNAMON BROOM!” Then she tickled J and he laughed. We went to put his things away and J replayed that convseration: “DADDY WHAT’S THAT? A CINNAMON BROOM” And he giggled to himself. I said Ms Gina is silly and he smiled.

Then Arjun came like a missile and attached himself like a leech to my leg. He looked up and smiled at me and said GGAARBU RARBU WAWUWAU gibberish.

Then Lazaros saw that and he came to hug my other leg. Joshua was confused. I had him hold my hand to walk with me, and here these two guys latched to my legs.

I said to them, “I am not your daddy.” Then I heard Ms Gina repeat from the other end of the room, “He’s not your daddy!” They didn’t let go so I picked J up. I wanted to show him that he was #1 over them. They left shortly after.

He asked, “Why were they hugging you?” I said I don’t know, I’m not their daddy. Maybe they like me. “Why did they hug you?” I don’t know, maybe they want to say hi. “Why did they hug you?’ I don’t know, maybe they want me to love them.

That set back my drop off a little, since now he didn’t want to be put down. So I took him around the room to see what his other friends were doing. Jayden was staring at pinecones on a rack. So I said let’s go ask Jayden what she’s doing. She said they’re pinecones. Did you make them? “No, I made the string.”

Then we went to look for the train in the basket. He showed me the one that makes the choo choo sound. Then I found two cars that go with that train set and put it on the table. I said look, these go together. He fiddled with it until he verified that they do indeed go together. And then he verified that the cars clip onto the blue engine that makes the choo choo sound.

I said, “Look! It makes a long train” His eyes opened at the discovery. I thought he was going to play with it. But then something strange happened. He saw his friends coming, and he scooped up the 2 carts and the engine from me into his arms. He disassembled them and put them back in separate bins, then took my hand and led me away.

I guess there are some things he likes a lot at Starfish, but since it’s like a prison there, he doesn’t feel safe enjoying them in the open.

Ms Ditte came to lure him away with a book and I hugged him tight and said I love you.

Fri drop off – 2 animal crackers 2 bagels 5 nectarine slices

I gave him 1 animal cracker in the car
He borrowed my sunglasses again.
But this time he gave them back (“Here daddy”)
I thanked him for sharing it back with me.
I gave him 1 more animal cracker when we got to CCLC.
He asked me, “Why did I want to go out the front door?”
So we talked about that some more.
We saw the jump bunch guys come in, so I got to talk to him about their footballs.
He smiled, didn’t seem nervous about them.
i’m not sure who the new teacher is, but one of them was a big black man with a low voice. But he speaks slowly and gently so it should be ok.
He got to class and I gave him a tambourine stick. He shook it a few times and put it back in the bin. Seems like all he does with toys in class at dropoff is put them back in their bins.
There were bagels still out, so I asked him if he wanted bagels.
He squealed, pulled out a chair and sat down. I asked if he wanted cream cheese and he went, “CREEEEM CHEEZE GREEM CHEEZE GUH GUH” as I spread it.
I gave him two halves and 5 slices of nectarines.
He was happy when I left. I guess the way to his heart is through his tummy.

Dilemma – Why do we make you sad when we try to make you happy? It’s our fault. It occurred to me that we’re the reason you’re unhappy at school. When I drop you off, other kids seem happy to be there. But because you have such a good time with us and no where else gives you the same level of interaction, you can’t be happy anywhere else. Maybe the silver lining is that you will one day be independent and understand how to create your own happiness. Or maybe all we’re doing is making you unhappy. I don’t know. If I believed in God, I’d have all the answers.

I almost forgot this week’s lesson. Let’s make it about Attention. You hear people say that we have shorter attention spans. Or maybe, maybe you’re having trouble finding time to read my long-winded letters. As I reading a newsletter I subscribe to while waiting for J to finish playing in the bath tub, I realized what the real problem was:

Our attention spans are not getting shorter. We are trying to be productive with unproductive time.

A big culprit is mobile devices. They tempt us to use our fleeting seconds of idle time to check in. That’s where the term “7 second attention span” comes from. It’s not that we don’t have the ability to focus. It’s just that the media talks with us at a distracted time. Even if something catches your attention in 7 seconds, it’s not enough to sink in. So beware all media that tries to do something productive out of unproductive time. And if you’re reading this on a mobile device between distractions, you might as well not read at all.

The best habit you can nurture is setting aside some time to read every day. Don’t read my stuff – just read. There are many great teachers who already found the answers to many of the questions you have right now. And there are many great adventures within the pages. Of course, you already know this. Books are your favorite toys. Just try not to forget it.

Love,

Dad

P.S. – The pediatricians invited mama to present at their office lunch. They bought her lunch. I came over to play with you so mama could do her thing. J2 stayed with mama. When I got there, I passed her some things I printed out. There were 15 of them in the room at a big conference table. Mama was sitting at the head. Your doctors poked their heads out and gave me a big smile. I said, “I’m just going to play with Joshua.”

You were playing outside. A little sad at first. Mama said you didn’t want to go in there. I bet, too many grownups.

You asked me, “Why is mama talking to the people in there?” I said, “Because mama is working. Mama’s helping the doctors and mamas and babies.” You said, “That’s very nice of mama.”

We played with the fire truck, trains, car tower, car roller coaster, … I even forgot to give you lunch and we had trouble getting you to leave. Funny, because you were just here to get your vaccines the week before. You said, “I want to come back to the doctor’s office.” From what mama told me, it sounds like the doctor’s office might be mama’s office soon too. She’s helping them transform their practice into a breastfeeding-friendly practice, while volunteering herself as the resident lactation consultant.

Curious fact – they never once asked mama about her qualifications. Meanwhile, there are IBCLCs who think starting a business is all about getting certified. Only to find crickets and tumbleweeds after graduating. I keep reminding mama, they’re lucky you actually know your stuff. But it just goes to show. Succeeding has very little to do with what you know, but everything to do with how you can serve others. Like Zig said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

BTW, that meeting’s strategy was: first, find their pain. Then, show them how to solve their pain (better serve their breastfeeding moms). Be their shortcut to curing their pain. So all the pediatricians have to say is “yes”. Say, “This is what I recommend. All you have to do is say yes and I’ll take care of it.” Not, “What would you like to do?” That’s too confusing and too much work.

P.P.S. – I have a presentation tomorrow too. It’ll be like me bringing some fire to cavemen. I’m going to blow some minds. More details later.

P.P.P.S.: