Despite it being June, Loki still managed to play an April Fools’ Day prank on Maine last week, swapping our normal weather patterns for those of the Pacific Northwest. Each gray, rainy day was followed by an equally gray, rainy day. People took to referring to their umbrellas as bumbershoots and grunge-era flannel shirts started appearing in greater frequency than normal here on the Midcoast. Amid this meteorological torpidity, Hazel seized upon the Zeitgeist of 1991 Seattle and declared her new favorite word: “No!”

It really took shape one night as the family sat in the living room, playing toys and reading from Hazel’s many books. Our daughter wandered over to the surround system’s bass module and started forcefully slamming it against the wall. Hazel is sort of a Bamm-Bamm like toddler: if something can be lifted overhead or knocked over, she’ll do it with surprising ease and violent grace. Immediately, Megan and I sprung into Responsible Parent mode and firmly yet warmly told Hazel: “Hazel, no, don’t do that.” She left the hunk of electronics for about 15 seconds before returning, banging it once more against our living room sheet rock. Again we told her “No.” and again she stopped, but she didn’t let go of the bass module. Instead, she turned slowly to face us, a devilish grin splitting her chubby face, and shouted, “No!” Hazel’s voice currently sounds like that of a frog who smokes too much. She repeated “No!” with the same mischievous smirk then turned back to her task of wrecking both bass module and wall. Megan and I simply had to laugh since she was so darn cute. But our Inner Parent soon gained control and pulled Hazel from her destructive aims.

Since that night, Hazel will wander over to the bass module (or the kitchen garbage can or the bowl of cat food or the back of the toilet) and just place one finger upon the taboo object, turn to us and yell “No!” in impish delight. This proves that

1. she knows she isn’t suppose to touch these things;
2. she understands what the word “no” means; and
3. she thinks it’s really funny to push Mom and Dad’s buttons.

When not flagrantly screwing with us, Hazel will just walk around chanting “No, no, no” like some kind of Big Brother mantra. She still listens when we deter her from certains behaviors, but her parroting is becoming less macaw and more mocking bird.

We’ve tried to catch her doing these things for the pure comedic value, but as soon as the video camera comes out, Hazel ceases all activity and just tries to manhandle the camera lens as much as possible. After a few of these “When Animals Attack” footage sessions, we just gave up. But, if you can imagine the nicotine toad voice, you can use the bully sidekick from A Christmas Story as your visual representation. I fully expect Hazel’s first sentence to be, “Say ‘Uncle,’ yous guys!”

This past weekend, Megan and I went camping up near Bar Harbor, Maine to celebrate three things in ascending order of importance:

1. I had an off-site client meeting on Friday that went very well despite of (or perhaps owing to) the inclusion of the phrase (not by me), “I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire!”
2. Megan finally convinced Hazel that occasionally wearing a plastic bucket on her head is normal behavior.
3. Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary!

Although being a dad is awesome, a weekend with just Megan was very overdue. Not only did we have the opportunity to take romantic walks around Jordan Pond followed by an equally romantic luncheon out of doors, but we were able to swear as much as we wanted. In truth, neither Megan nor I cuss all that much beyond the occasional “hell” here or “damn” there, but with Hazel safely at my in-laws, we were able to let the expletives fly. I suppose it’s akin to when you’re on a road trip and you pass one too many rest areas while drinking one too many Snapples. After holding it in for so long, once you finally reach a bathroom (or well-concealed roadside knoll), your bladder opens up and you pee so much you think you’ll never stop and will have to build a boat while whizzing so as to stay above the rising tide. The whole drive down east, Megan and I suffered from the silliest form that Turrets can take.

“Um, what road am I looking for? FART, ASS, FART, CRAP!”
“We keep going straight until…DOUCHE, CRAP, HELL, BITCH-WICH…we get to Route 233.”
“VAGINA! Thanks, dear.”

Megan had found us a killer campsite right near Acadia National Park. We ironically called ahead and reserved the Walk-In lot, which the lady in the camp office told us is their most popular. And she didn’t lie; our site was way off at one end of the campground, away from everybody (by everybody I mean the other six groups of people camping this early in the season), nestled on the edge of a bluff overlooking Somes Sound. We instantly decided to book that place every year from here on out.

After an evening spent in downtown Bar Harbor carousing the shops, eating lobster, and playing mini-golf (I was on fire on the minuscule links, scoring a 38 on an 18-hole par 42), we headed back to our camp site for some marshmallow toasting. Unfortunately, I neglected to buy any firewood during the drive up, so needed to scrounge up some by electric lantern light. Unfortunately, our lantern’s batteries were stone dead and charging by car would take fifteen-hours, so I would have to hunt around by the light of our small emergency flashlight. Unfortunately, our small emergency flashlight was sort of missing in the infinite blackness of night, so I only had the waxing gibbous moon to light my stumbling way.

Luckily, Megan was able to find both the flashlight and fresh batteries for it, so we wound up having a pretty decent fire for being woefully unprepared. If there is a clearer analogy for our marriage in this anecdote, I surely can’t spot one. When life is at its darkest for me, unnavigable to my shortsighted gloom, Megan time and again is able to shine a bright light for me, helping me along in our joint efforts. She’s totally the brains of our operation.

While being a child-free couple for a weekend was fun, we both were glad to get back to life with Hazel. And she got so big while we were away, she mows the lawn now!

Back in grade school, our class did a unit (haha) on sign language. We learned some basic words as well as the alphabet. I still remember how to sign my name—complete with the pinkie swoosh flourish—though have never been called upon to do so in the heat of any moment.

Apart from this instruction, the only sign language I was exposed to was at the end of each episode of “Reading Rainbow” when LeVar Burton said assuringly, “I’ll see you next time.” In fact, that phrase, along with “But you don’t have to take my word for it,” jump out of my conversation hopper quite often; the latter of which necessitates a robust dun-Dun-DUNT vocalization at the end.

Months ago, Megan started teaching Hazel baby sign language. I admit to being skeptical at first. Isn’t grunting while pointing at what she wants good enough? Will this stifle her speech development? How much of this will I have to learn too? Why is the baby sign language sign for “Daddy”¹ so dumb looking? Thankfully, I moved beyond my initial reactionary laziness because baby sign language works well and has truly helped Hazel express herself. Of course, being a baby, she doesn’t have much to express except basic emotions and biological needs.

The first sign we tackled was “More” and “All Done.” These are both super useful at mealtime, since Hazel can now let us know if she requires more food or if she, in the words of my Gram, has “had sufficient.” Previous to this, Hazel would kindly let us know that dinnertime was over by throwing any food within reach onto the kitchen floor. Soup Night was the worst.

“More”

One night this past week, Hazel had finished her meal and was wandering around the house while Megan and I ate ours. Lately, Hazel has become a post-dinner grazer, coming up to us and asking to try whatever we’re eating. It’s pretty darn cute, as I can only see the top one-fifth of Hazel’s head above the table edge when she goes begging at Megan. She comfortably uses the “More” sign when doing this, so Megan decided to introduce the “Please” sign, which is a small rub of your upper chest (I guess connoting that the request comes from the heart…or sternum). She showed Hazel how to do this twice and Hazel picked it up immediately. Whenever she wanted another small bite of our pasta dinner, she would walk over, look up lovingly, and sign, “More, please.” I swelled with pride before deflating before Hazel’s intelligence. If she is this smart now, what chance do I have of stopping her when she attempts to rule the world with a teenaged iron fist, proselytizing the masses to join her junta of angst and , like, you know, stuff.

¹Does that woman in all the baby sign language videos remind you of the slo-mo Saviors of the World Bill and Ted that (then) Current Day Slacker Bill and Ted see in the shining hall of the future toward the end of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? [NOTE: On Windows machines, the video plays in an endless loop.  Sorry Mac users.]

Excuse me, Hazel?

How old are you today?

Darn tootin’!

Megan and I had lots of misgivings before sending Hazel to daycare. Would we become strangers, ranking behind all those fun teachers? Would she learn all sorts of nasty behavior? Would she be permanently snot-ridden and coughing? The pessimistic litany went on and on, our cyclical conversations on the matter amounting to nothing more than philosophical tires spinning in the mud. In the end, we had to admit that Hazel needs to see other kids and have other adult authority figures without us around. Independent relationships are important, and we certainly don’t want to raise a high marking but socially inept home schooler. We won’t be able to clamber onto the school bus with her on the first day of kindergarten, so we may as well give her a social head start and give her over to daycare two days a week. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

Well the worst didn’t transpire, but one of our top concerns reared its mucousy head: by the end of week one at “school”, Hazel managed to contract Daycare Ick. Unlike the parasitic Ich that ruined many a fish tank in my life, Daycare Ick involves a lot more sticky shirtsleeves (both the infected child’s and any nearby adult in consoling distance). Daycare Ick symptoms can vary from a perennial runny nose to a nagging cough to what Hazel wound up with: Conjunctivitis. I can easily imagine all those other kids in her room, older kids by as much as a whole year, holding her down and taking turns rubbing their grubby fingers in her then brown and now pink eyes. Between that and her dripping nose and teething aches, Hazel is only ranking at most a 7.5 on the Funshine Bear Cheer-o-meter.

But just as a South Pacific island youth must kill a Great White Shark using nothing but half a coconut, I suppose that Daycare Ick is a necessary if not annoying right of passage. What would my youth have been without the classroom colds, the locker room awkwardness, or the sundry wedgies? Fortunately, none of my wedgies were atomic and my freshman year gym teacher let us shower with bathing suits on. But don’t ask about sophomore year, I really can’t afford to miss any work from the post-recount catatonia.

Some of Hazel milestones are like pulling teeth (or teething in general – anything that is slow, painful, and dental in nature will suffice); we have been working with her on crawling for months now with little to no progress being made. We place her on her belly, arrange a few toys across the room as bait encouragement, and cheer her on to what should be a simple five-second crawling endeavor. However, Hazel just rolls on her back in a huffy pout and finagles her way over to her toys by rolling like a Teletubby.

This week, she has formally committed herself to crawling as a means of self-ambulation. Whether it’s from a yearning for independence or just a way to stay underneath the fumes from our freshly painted living room walls (Mesa Sunrise), Hazel is really making an earnest go of crawling. So long as no loving grandparent is in the room, Hazel is left to her own floundering devices and Megan and I just let her struggle, knowing that she needs to feel the burn. And I don’t mean your typical 30-minutes-on-an-elliptical-machine burn. Judging by Hazel’s red-faced cries, crawling feels remarkably worse than Civil War era field amputation. To put it another way, if you remember most of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s scenes in Total Recall—pulling the bomb out through his nose, being forced into the neutralizer machine, winding up outside the domed environment on Mars and succumbing to the lack of atmosphere in eye-popping majesty—you have a very good idea of the consternations and afflicted flailing Hazel emotes when trying to crawl three feet across the cushy living room carpet.

But like I said, lately she has been doing better. She still clearly doesn’t like crawling, but she is more willing to give it a try without cajoling than before. While Megan and I are happy about this, we know that once she masters crawling, our parenting lives will become just that much more unpredictable. More specifically, I know that I’ll have to get around to putting cabinet locks on all our ground level storage areas. Somewhere, the unwritten Law of Households states that one must keep mortally lethal chemicals under the kitchen sink at all times. Why we adhere to these Laws is beyond me?

But not every new skill is an effort for Hazel. During lunch on Saturday, I asked for the official update from Megan as to what we can expect Hazel to do next. Megan listed a few things, concluding by saying, “and Hazel should start clapping soon.” In response, Hazel turned to Megan and broke into a round of baby applause - which is just a few nigh inaudible claps. But the basic coordination needed to bring her hands together purposefully is a huge step forward, so huzzah for that. I tried to duplicate this success by saying that "Hazel should start winning the lottery VERY soon” but she just gave me that soon-to-be-ubiquitous look that says, “Oh, Daddy, you really are a simple man.”