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.]

As I have detailed in the past here and here, I think I am the center of universal attention — hence the blog and all. Despite my debilitating self-absorption, I actually managed to ride my new bike to work last week without breaking out in a nervous sweat (or any sweat at all; the two-mile ride is on a fairly level grade) or collapsing in a fit of anxiety hives. Even when I shifted badly and dropped my chain, I was able to fix this mechanical mishap without feeling that each car driving by held the entirety of my adolescent romantic failures, all of them pointing and giggling at my predicament.

However, this past Saturday, I had that feeling again. Hazel woke up nice and early around 6 a.m. ready for the day, a fact that invariably begets two groggy parents rolling out of bed to attend her needs. Once Hazel was changed, dressed, and fed, I headed out to do some yard work. First on my list was digging up the remnants of an overgrown forsythia bush. Last year, I noticed that it was sending shoots and branches up under the siding on the east side of our house. I read online that you can hack off forsythia limbs and transplant them in the fall, each branch taking root and growing into a fully-fledged forsythia bush. I was skeptical, but hopes for the best since, as the adage goes, “If it’s on the internet, it must be true.” And this spring, just like a starfish’s arm that grows a whole fish(?), those ungainly bare stalks I jabbed in the ground actually blossomed and have new, promising growth.

So like I said, this weekend I put spade to dirt. Even though the remaining bush was nothing more than a few inches of knotty trunk, foot-long shoots were sprouting still, so I knew I had to move this beast. Everything was going well until, just before the imminent uproot, my shovel (which I was using as a makeshift pry bar) gave out, its fiberglass handle issuing forth a disappointing crack. I looked around, but I guess nobody heard it. No newshound popped out from behind the maple tree remarking, “What a scoop!” No paparazzi shouted my name as their flashbulbs painted my now flaccid digging instrument in stark relief. Once more, life reminded me that I’m not the center of it all, despite what I might have Sharpied on the waistband of all my underpants.

One of the best skills a person can have is the ability to put a positive spin on a potentially bad situation. I’m not talking about someone who blindly ignores the icky parts of life in favor of Precious Moments figurines and posters of kittens staunchly “hanging in there.” This optimistic outlook needs to be authentic and honest, boldly acknowledging that things aren’t perfect without actually focusing on that glum fact. Take for example this anecdote from my college graduation. Commencement was held outside on the Marist College green despite warnings of heavy rains to come. And come they did; dumping rains began soon after the first diploma was handed out. Many of my classmates left in a huff as soon as they walked across the stage, but a good handful of us stayed on to cheer our fellow graduates. By the end, the mass of students who had stuck it out congregated to the front of the seating area, celebrating as the steady rain soaked us through our gowns, our eyes barely protected by our waterlogged mortarboards. Once the last name was called, Marist Brother Paul Ambrose took the microphone to deliver the closing benediction. He cleared his throat as said, “May your young lives have as many blessings as rain drops that have fallen on your heads today.”

So that’s what I mean by effective positive spin. Let’s now use this method to assess our dry(ish) basement. We had originally planned to finish off a good portion of it, making a play room, a dark room, and two office spaces for Megan and myself. Moving forward, I feel that we’d be foolish to blithely disregard our basement penchant for getting wet. Even with a sump pump installed, we’re still talking about a potentially damp environment from time to time. I don’t want to put our computers and their peripherals down there. So now what?

Well, we’re considering an addition. Right now, two of our three bedrooms are being used as advertised with the third servicing as an office/craft room. But if we’re going to expand our family (a serious possibility in the next year or so) then we are going to need to revert that third bedroom to a nursery. With no extra space for computer stuff, an addition may be just the thing. So the estimate gathering has begun, but I have to say how very nerve-racking this is. If anyone out there has a better idea, I’m all ears.

At the very least, we can always depend on Hazel to take care of clean up.

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.

And with the pop of 10,000 champagne bottle corks, the holiday season (and 2007 as a whole) is packed away and put up in the attic. I hope you bought enough mothballs.

Hazel’s first Christmas went swimmingly. Despite my worst fears of weird or useless gifts, everything she received has not only fit well into her daily regime, but also fits in our house without forcing us to install monkey bars on the ceilings for room-to-room transit. Of course, this Christmas did herald in what will be known heretofore as the Toys with Lights and Sounds Era. But that’s okay, as her Learnin’ Table does play La Cucaracha.

She also got loads of clothes. Even though those rectangular gift boxes always filled Young John with bitter dread and a sense of impending disappointment, now that I’m a parent, I think these are the best gifts she “opened” (the use of quote here recognizes that Hazel didn’t exactly open any gifts this year, but she was more than happy to eat the wrappings once removed from any gifts). She now has a full wardrobe again, which has been dwindling over the past few weeks as she continued to grow despite us telling her to wait until after Christmas. Hazel will be all set for another three to six months until she Hulks out again and outgrows her current staples like so many torn purple slacks.

We also made another Connecticut trip, this time during the day as opposed to our moonlight drive of last time. Hazel did phenomenally well on the 6-hour drive down; she even helped steer the car and read the maps when we attempted a shortcut in northern Massachusetts. But, with a mere 45 minutes left to go, she decidedly freaked out just outside of Hartford. I like to think this was in memoriam to the once mighty Whalers, but once we got off the highway for a closer inspection, her tears we probably caused by the massive poop in her diaper.

Not to downplay the visits from other folks, but it was great to see Jim again while we were both back in CT for the holidays. Despite being the person I talk to most (after Megan and Hazel), we haven’t seen each other since he came back east to be a groomsman in our wedding nearly five years ago! Jim, I’ll see you in another half decade; by that time Hazel will be old enough to knock out a few state high points (I’m thinking Ebright Azimuth and maybe Britton Hill).

Hope 2008 started off smashingly for you, the Internet. Now if you’ll excuse me, our new Roomba is stuck under the couch and I must extricate our new robotic family member.

The first time my parents came up to see Hazel, she was just one-week-old and was stuck in the hospital with a bad case of jaundice. The second time my parents came up to see Hazel, she was seven-weeks-old and back in the hospital for hernia surgery. The third time my parents ventured north to see Hazel, it was this weekend and the state of Maine got socked with a pretty ample snow storm. The white stuff is still falling today and is collected on the ground in one- or three-foot drifts. In short, grandparents should have it easier.

Luckily, with being snowed in all yesterday, Hazel enjoyed tons of Gramma and Papa time. They may have said they were coming up for my and Megan’s birthdays, but once my 29 candles were blown out, I may as well have been a houseplant. This of course is fine by me, me being Dad John. It may have taken a little punching down upon my inner Young John to step aside here, but my birthday gift copy of Emmett Otter’s Jug-band Christmas certainly helped sooth the whiny beast. If you’ve never seen this holiday classic, think “The Gift of the Magi” meets The Wind in the Willows. I dare say that the movie is worth the flight to Maine needed to get oneself to my living room for the next DVD viewing. I’ll even supply the popcorn.