I am going to start this section by stating the obvious: My kids are smarter than me, they are better educated by me, they are better athletes than me, they are better looking than me, they are more talented than me and they are taller than me. So in many ways, my work is done.
It’s also true that for the early part of their lives, the first 3 years generally, Melissa was the primary caregiver, esp since she was a nursing mother. With that in mind, my early parenting memories are mostly related to my interactions with Sam and to some extent, Quinn, who was just a couple years behind Sam. And while I might have specific recollections of the early lives of the 4 of them, I suspect my memories are clearest about Sam’s early life. I do know that I was very involved as a working dad. I went to every event, every parent teacher conference, every parent education seminar and I coached every team. I advocated for my kids when they got into trouble and I tried to guide them to become sentient adults who understood that they have free will and volition, and I endeavoured to leave them with their feet firmly on the ground. Being a parent is hard, which is ok, because if it were easy, life would be boring.
If there is a singular experience I have in life that I am in awe of, it is that of raising a family. I find the experience overwhelming and exhilarating and frustrating and inspiring and a lifetime of pure joy and terrible heartache. Of course, there were difficult moments…for me and for Melissa, but the truth is that in spite of everything, my kids are amazing and I love them dearly.
As parents, Melissa and I agreed that she had better role models than I did, and so we would defer to her judgement and beyond that, Melissa attended every parent education workshop and eventually led the parent education committee at the high school. As a result, we parented intentionally. We grew into it for sure, because raising kids is a iterative experience. We got better at it over time. Some by necessity. Imagine having 4 kids under age 8, and you get my drift.
The excitement about creating a family was brought home one evening when Melissa got a pregnancy test. We looked anxiously at the positive sign and hugged and kissed. We were going to be parents…it was a big deal. We were 28 years old, and we were about to start our family. We had no idea what we were in for. We had a couple of false starts and after about a year of trying, we found ourselves expecting our first child.
We didn’t tell anyone about the pregnancy for about 6 weeks, about the time that it took for Melissa to miscarry once before, and so once that 6 week milestone passed, we told everyone. We were very excited.
We worked on the house, to get it ready for a baby. We made the little room next door to the Master Suite – the nursery. We purchased a cot and a changing table and we started to gather kid related items, and we lined up diaper service. It was all very exciting.
Melissa had a difficult first trimester. She was already a sleepyhead before she conceived, but pregnant, she slept for hours and hours. On the other hand, during the second trimester, she was a bundle of energy. A “Super Nesting Wife” as I called her…We started getting ready to have a baby in our home, and we took childbirth classes together. Melissa we good about eating right, taking her vitamins and getting lots of sleep. The pregnancy skipped by.
Melissa had lots of prodromal contractions leading up to the birth. She was always trying to get labor started. We had chosen the Virgina Mason Birthing Center and had met with the mid-wives on a few occasions. Hearing our child’s heart beat was amazing….it was real. We were going to have a baby. We chose not to know the sex of the baby in advance, and we selected a couple of names of boys, and a couple of names of girls. I don’t remember the girls names we selected at that time, but we narrowed the boys names down to “Nicholas” and “Samuel”.
The night before the birth, we did everything we could to stimulate labor, including going to a Mexican restaurant on South Lake Union where Melissa had spicy food as an additional effort to stimulate labor. It seemed to work. We walked to the car slowly, stopping as the labor contractions came and went and we drove straight to the hospital with Melissa’s pre-packed bag. We checked into the Birthing Center, and Melissa started to deal with the increasing strength of the contractions. She declined medication.
I remember at one point, deep into labor, as the contractions reached a peak and Melissa felt the “circle of fire” that she asked me anxiously “Am I going to die?” – she was very serious. I held her hand and looked into her bright blue eyes and told her that I loved her and that she would be fine…she breathed with me through the worst of it and Sam, our son was born.
When Melissa realized that our child was a boy, she said to me with Sam on her chest “now we have to argue about what to call him!” (we disagreed on the first choice of names). I said to her “after what you just went through honey, you can name him anything you want!” and she named our first son Samuel.
I didn’t put Sam down for hours and hours. I just held him as Melissa slept and recovered. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I peered into his beautiful face. He had a full head of dark hair with a single crop of blonde in one spot. It was kinda cool. It was at that moment that I realized that I was overwhelmed with love.
Sam was born on the same day as Paul’s Bar mitzvah. I went from the hospital to the Temple and on no sleep I got the full impact that growing up with a Jewish Heritage and participating in the rituals was. I was deeply present to the value of community and I resolved at that moment that we would give our children that experience. Melissa reluctantly agreed – we had been having this conversation for 6 years – and the very first ritual that we had to deal with was a bris for Sam…Melissa was pretty upset. I acknowledge her though, for allowing that to occur and for being in agreement with the choice to raise our kids Jewish. It took something from Melissa because she was the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister and she had grown up in the church. More on this later.
The first week or so after Sam was born, Melissa had the pospartum blues. I remember at one point at about three weeks in, her saying to me as I was trying to comfort her when I asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” that she said “YES! just move out!” and I think she really meant it! (See the page on divorce!)
It took some getting used to, to have a baby at home. Being up at all hours. Bringing the baby to Melissa to feed (I had the night time duty to fetch and change the baby). On a gradient we got used to having a baby in our life.
I will say this about being a dad. I was prepared to love my son. What I was not prepared for was to fall in love with my son. It is as if I grew another heart. Sam was a bundle of joy. I remember a few specific incidents from that first year.
When he was about 3 months old, something I did or Melissa did had him in stitches..He had this deep whole body laugh that had us laughing so hard we were getting side aches. Another time I remember my brother holding him while I barbecued a whole salmon and Sam saw the fish on the fire for the first time…his wide eyed amazement was amusing to us all. “hot” I said as I held his hand to feel the warmth emanating from the BBQ.
Around 10 or 11 months, Sam, Melissa and I went on a road trip to California and I remember Sam saying his first word….”light” pointing at the ceiling light in the car. Sam was walking by then and we spent one of his first nights when he could walk in the Giant Redwood Forest.
One of the best parts of being a dad was to live vicariously through my kids as they aged…I literally relived my childhood, but in modern American terms.
Soon after that, we went to Boston for my cousin Terry’s wedding and among other things, Sam got lost in the hotel by running off and getting into an elevator…I frantically pushed buttons and eventually he came back to me…luckily he never got off on any other floor.
The flight home from Boston was interesting…it was a direct flight and Melissa slept the whole way home, which was unusual. She had also slept most of the time we were in Boston, surfacing only to go to the wedding ceremony itself. Also unusual. She didn’t feel ill, but she as very, very sleepy. Very unusual.
When we got home, she did the obvious thing and brought home another pregnancy test.
I was sitting by the fire place reading when Melissa came and put a Mickey Mouse hat on my head…she was wearing her Mini Mouse ears too, and she said…”I’m pregnant, we are going to have another baby”.
We lay on the floor in front of the fire place…holding hands and talking about having another baby. To be fair, we were completely overwhelmed with Sam, so the idea of another baby seemed, well, daunting.
Being that every aspect of Sam’s age was new to us, we really had no idea what we were dealing with and so even though we had another baby on the way, we muddled through Sam’s second year of life.
The big issue was making the decision to have a home birth.
Basically, Melissa argued that we had a normal birth experience with Sam, as evidenced by the bill we received from the hospital that literally read “Spontaneous Natural Delivery – $5000.00”. Melissa was a big girl, had a history or normal delivery and in her exploration of being a nursing mother had connected with the Doula and Breast Feeding community – so we went off to see one Penny Simkin, the lactation consultant who was the Child Birth Educator who had been our teacher for Sam’s pregnancy/ Melissa was decided, but she wanted me to come along with her so I would be on board with the decision. I felt strong-armed by these knowledgeable women…but I went along with it realizing that there was no good reason not to have a home birth.
Quinn’s birth was a production. We had a midwife, a doula, Melissa’s sister Carol, and also our friend Ed on camera. Melissa labored in the hot tub and in the rocking chair and it took a while, but in the end she had Quinn without too much fanfare. Quinn was the sweetest baby. So calm and so quiet. Super easy. Quinn was born with a hydrocele though so as a very young fella he needed surgery to repair his inguinal hernia bilaterally.
Even so, Quinn was just the sweetest baby. He remained so calm and he nursed so well, and has he grew older he became completely attached to his blanket. He would lie on the floor, feet in the air, rubbing his blanket on his cheek as he sucked his thumb.
When the babies were born, Marilyn, the grandmother on Melissa’s side made them each a two ply flannel blanket with satin edges…Quinn literally used his blanket up…all of it. It was down to a few strands of satin in the end a few years later.
When Sam was about 3 and Quinn was about 1, we went to see the child psychologist Jack Raskin, who was quite famous, because we were concerned about the way Sam seemed to pick on Quinn. Jack was such a good guy. He said “is there any blood?” and of course there wasn’t and then he explained that the very best socialization we could give Quinn was to be in the presence of his older brother and the very best gift we could give Sam was a younger brother. Of course, Sam and Quinn are famous friends now. and they grew up in each others shadow.
When Quinn was 2, Melissa came to me and said “We are having another baby” and I said, “oh? We are?” she said “Yes, it can be yours if you want” Taken aback a little (she seemed serious), I said “Oh I see, these are the uterus rules…she with the uterus, rules”. She wasn’t kidding. She was determined to have 4 kids and determined to have a daughter.
We created Joshua. The pregnancy was difficult. Melissa complained the whole time that it was way different that the other two, and then the birth was difficult. It took ages to birth Joshua and in the end when he was born, Melissa could not believe that he was a boy – that’s how different his pregnancy was.
Melissa had a hard time getting over it. For Halloween on Joshua’s first birthday, she dressed him in a dress that her mother had made for her. We were at a block party, and one of the Mariner assistant coaches was there. He said to me, “man this girl has a good arm” as he was playing catch with Josh. “That girl is my son” I said. We had a good laugh.
I lived with a “My three sons” mantra runing through my head and we got better at herdcing cats, er, I mean children. It was Sam starting school, Quinn in pre school and Josh a babe in arms. Life was a blur. We had outgrown our house and I had a good year in business, so we could afford a small house on Mercer Island. We had moved in as Josh was born, and it was there where I came home one winter evening to find the house dark. As I walked in, there was the glow of the TV from the basement so I went down to find the 3 boys watching telly, and I asked where their mom was. They had no idea. I went up into the dark house and as I approached the Master bedroom, I heard soft crying. I came into the Master Bathroom to find Melissa sitting on the floor in tears. I asked her, “Whats the matter?” as gently as I could. She wailed, “I’m never going to have a daughter!” I guessed that the boys had given her a hard time. I asked her, “Do I have to listen to this for the next 40 years?” joculalry. Naturally, she wailed, “YES YOU DO!” Later, when she had pulled herself together, we talked seriously about it. I told her that no matter that we had 3 boys, we could well have a 4th boy, and I emphasized that I did not want 11 sons then a daughter because that was the purpose. I offered that if she could agree that we would have 4 kids the way she had been talking about and no matter if it was a girl or a boy, then I would agree to try for one more. She snivvled, but agreed. With that, she went into overdrive and did all the things to make sure she birthed a daughter. Low and behold, Mia was born. She was our 3rd home birth and our first under water birth, and then, with the boys sitting on the stairs watching Melissa give birth, Sam, then 8 years old, cut her umbilicale cord and was actually of the opinion that Mia belonged to him.
So life with 4 kids is a blur to me. It was logistics non-stop. At one point, between teachers, coaches, extra curricular activities, hebrew school and so on, we were dealing with 100 adults who interacted with our kids. This was at the beginning of the home computer age and computerized calendars were becoming a thing. Thank god. one of us was running on or another kid somewhere or runing off to pick up one kid or another and bring them home. Even so, for the next several years, we tried to have dinner as family, which we managed to do more often than not.
It got to the point where we had one kid in high school, one in middle school, one in elemntary shcool and one in kindergarten. My head was spinning.
In the meantime, as a parent, I had taken on coaching soccer. When Sam was in kindergarten I approaced the Mercer Island Youth Soccer Club to start a program for 4 and 5 year olds, and they refused. So, I approached the State Association to see if I could get sanctioned as a club. This sent the Mercer Island Board into a tailspin and in the end, they invited me to serve on the Board. I did that and as a Board Member, I created a program for 4 and 5 year olds called Micro Soccer. Its still going 30 years later!
I coached Sam’s youth soccer teams, then Quinn’s youth soccer teams and at a certian point, got my D license and then my C license. I also coached Joshua’s teams and Mia’s teams and Sam’s Permier team and Quinn’s Club select team and then, out of earning my C licnse, I also took on coaching the High School girls Freshman team and then for the next several years, the JV team. I loved coaching soccer. I wrote a book on being a youth coach called, “It’s Only a Game Kids Play for FUN!” But mostly, I loved coaching my kids.
We supported our kids being artists and musicians, and we tried to keep them busy so as not to lose them to drugs. We joined the local swim and tennis club, Mercerwood Shore Club, to give them summer swimming and the fact that the club had moorage, meant we got a boat. Our first boat was a little shitty runabout, and it was later that I got a bigger boat. That story is funny. It was at the Shore Club that I talked two friends. Mike, who had to older really well behaved and very athletic kids. and Connie who had on unruley kid. Mike said they kept their kids super busy and that made it so that they were excellent students and excellent atheltes. Connie said, “When my kid said he did not want to play baseball, I said OK. I kept doing that and now he rides skateboards and smokes pot.” We resolved to keep our kids busy. It largely worked but Josh got into pot early and that became a nighmare. He destroyed his premier soccer coaching relationship, he left his bag of drug parafinalia in a bag (with his name on it) under the bush of a neighbor who called me. He destroyed Quinn’s bedroom on weekend when we went ouf of town and had him staying with a friend with no permission to come into the house. He got arrested at about age 14 in the park at night with senior kids smoking pot after I had put him to bed already…I mean it was endless. In teh end, rather than send Josh to college, given his recacitrant lack of personal respobsibility, I chose to send him to a Gap Year program so he could spend 3 months in South Africa. The idea was to give him a glimpse into his privelage. Did it work? I honestly do not know. He went to Brazil for a year then Spain for 2 after college and he seems to be on his feet now.
Mia was another story. She pretty much assumed I was not her dad from the time she was very young. I say that tongue in cheek, but honestly, I dont think I had an actual conversation with her till she was age 17 and then only once. Dads are supposed to have “special” relationships with their daughters. In our case, she was a very reculctant daughter. She was her mothers kid from moment one. She would not even do a sleep over with her friends, and her mom had to go pick her up. She could not wait to go to college. Its funny how kids spend their youth wishing the time away.
All 4 kids went to and graduated college. They grew up with a roof over their head, food in their belly, they got educated at the highest level, they are all artists or musicians, and they are all athletes. On any metric, you would say that we did a great job as parents. Funny thing. None of them talk to me and have not for about 10 years. I honestly do not understand why.
My Life: A Memoir 