No column this week

I took last week off from the column.  If you'd like to read the beautiful tribute my sister Amy wrote for our cousin Dana, or the wonderful eulogy she delivered at her funeral last week, please follow those links to Amy's blog.  We love you and miss you, Dana.  Catch you all again next week.

Shear ineptitude

“Don't worry, it'll just be a little tickle,” I promised my son Evan as he suspiciously eyed the buzzing implement of doom that orbited his ear.

He gripped the steering wheel of the Barbie Jeep and braced himself.  He might have looked tougher if he’d chosen to have his haircut one seat over, in the little red airplane, but at that moment, he was the toughest person I’d ever seen driving a pink car with purple wheels.

“You're doing great,” the hairstylist said as the trimmer began removing the traces of the proto-mullet that had been forming on the back of his neck.

I wandered into the mall for a moment and wondered briefly how the pizza parlor across the way went out of business while Radio Shack, the cockroach of the retail world, had somehow survived the recession.  They must be coasting by on the profits from the VCR cable I bought there twelve years ago.  

When I came back into the salon, pandemonium, as it has a habit of doing, ensued.  Evan was wailing while my wife Kara was holding a tissue to stop the bleeding behind his ear.  The hairstylist was running toward the back of the salon, perhaps to make her getaway out by the dumpsters.  

“What happened?” I asked.

“She nicked him with the trimmer,” Kara said.  Just a little tickle had turned into just a little trickle.

That’s when we noticed blood behind his other ear, too.  In the ten seconds I’d been gone, the Barbie Jeep had turned into a triage station.  Turns out, Evan had been right about the doom aspect of the trimmers all along.

“I’m so sorry.  That’s never happened before,” the hairstylist said as she returned with more tissues.  And it never will again, at least not with us.  This hairstylist must have graduated from the same barber school as my Great-Grandpa Sweeney.

The nicks really weren’t that bad, and after the initial surprise and commotion, Evan’s crying, and the bleeding, stopped.  The next day, you could barely tell there’d been a scratch.  Evan even sat still for the rest of the haircut, but I think that’s just because he was trying to figure out how to throw the Barbie Jeep into gear so he could peel out of there.

As we went to pay, I cringed to see how Kara would handle the tip.  Her cranial orifices were still billowing rage-smoke.  Still, I get squeamish about giving bad tips, no matter how atrocious the service.  I winced as Kara handed over the cash, sure that she’d stiffed the hairstylist.  Then I did the math and realized she’d just tipped 25%.

“We sure showed her,” I said as we left, with Evan happily noshing on his post-trauma lollipop.

“Well, I felt bad for her,” Kara said.

Fortunately for truly awful service-sector employees, if they do a bad enough job, they generate the requisite sympathy to ensure that they don’t get Darwinned out of their jobs like they should.  In fact, if they’re awful enough, they’ll make out better than if they were good.  Being a little bit slow won’t do the trick, since that will just result in a pared-down tip.  They have to go the full monty, dumping coffee on people’s laps or shearing their children’s ears to make sure they get their sympathy bonus.

As a busboy in high school, I benefited from this phenomenon, noticing that people seemed to leave better tips when you dumped glasses of ice water on them.  That’s why we always gave our customers towels on the way in.

“Don’t worry, it’ll make sense later,” we’d tell them.

Of course, this is all just a long way of explaining Evan’s eventual ponytail to his grandparents.

You can take a little off Mike Todd’s top at mikectodd@gmail.com.

Simply the breast

“You’re going to drop the baby.  Stop multitasking,” my wife Kara gently suggested last week.

I glanced up from Facebook to notice that, indeed, there was a baby in my lap.  I had a vague recollection of stumbling into his room a few minutes earlier, prompted by his near-hourly hunger shrieks, but then my brain went into standby mode so that it could properly navigate the Internet.  

It’s just as well that Kara prompted me to start paying more attention to giving our son a bottle and less to Facebook, since half of all Facebook posts these days talk about races that people are running for some reason, even though nobody is chasing them.  There’s also a Nike app that keeps me abreast of the athletic activities of people I kind of knew in high school, saying, “I just finished my run!  Distance: 3.17 miles.  Pace: 9’16”/mi.”

 I know these posts are meant to elicit supportive comments and keep people enthused about being healthy, but I think attacking the problem from the shame end of the spectrum might be more effective.  What about a Krispy Kreme app that would announce to all your friends and acquaintances: “Mike just ingested 2,400 calories and 144 grams of fat.  Dude, he ate the entire box!”

Giving my old tormentors from high school the chance to comment “Boom-babba!  Boom-babba!” on my Facebook status would be a fantastic motivator, and I wouldn’t even need to buy running shoes.

“Sorry, I’ll pay more attention,” I said to Kara, putting my iPod back in my pocket and taking a swig of water.  The great thing about having a newborn is that you can drink a gallon of water right before bed and there's a zero-percent chance that the urge to urinate will be the thing that wakes you up.  Parenthood means you can hydrate with impunity.

The three of us sat in Zack’s room at 3:30am with the sound of Kara’s breast pump pulsating in the background: WHACK-o.  WHACK-o.  WHACK-o.  You may have visited the Great Pyramids, or gone snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef, but if you have never seen your wife hooked up to a breast pump, then you have NOT seen it all.

After a glorious week in which I could sleep through Zack’s middle-of-the-night feedings, I’ve been drafted back into service.  He wasn’t gaining enough weight through breastfeeding, so we’re giving him bottles in the hopes that he’ll be strong enough to breastfeed on his own soon.  The danger of giving him bottles is that Zack might never take up breastfeeding again, due to something called nipple confusion, which sounds like a condition your congressman might suffer from while visiting a gentlemen’s club.

"I'm so sorry, I thought you were someone else.  Must be the nipple confusion.  I hope I haven't lost your vote!"

The regular reader(s) of this column might have noticed that I haven’t been dispensing much breastfeeding advice lately, instead devoting space to topics I’m more qualified to discuss, like nuclear proliferation, string theory and various manifestations of household vomit.  If you know anyone who might be more of an expert on that last topic, please offer them my sincere condolences.  Something I’ve learned over the past several years is that, of all the adjectives that pop into mind when you think of your dog, perhaps the least desirable is “queasy.”  

Until our first child was born, I thought a lactation consultant was the guy at Ben and Jerry’s who helps you decide whether to order Chunky Monkey or Chubby Hubby.  But after watching Kara go through tough times with both of our children, and hearing from family and friends who have had similar or worse experiences, we’ve both learned more about breastfeeding than we thought possible.  Hopefully, Zack will get the hang of it soon.  If not, I look forward to much nocturnal reading about everyone’s jogging exploits for the next several months.

You can share a box of Krispy Kremes with Mike Todd at mikectodd@gmail.com.

The Sleep Deprivation Games

“There will be twenty-four of us.  Odds are someone else will kill him before I do,” I read aloud to my little listener last week, who stared at me with crossed blue eyes.  At four days old, he might have been a little young for The Hunger Games, and I might have been a little old, but if you average my thirty-four years and his zero years, we’re right in the target demographic.

I wasn’t sure what else to do with him at four in the morning, as he gazed at a point about six inches in front of my nose, expecting entertainment.  I grabbed my wife’s Kindle and started reading the only book that wouldn’t have featured a shirtless Highlander on the cover.

Actually, I’d heard good things about both The Hunger Games movie and the books, so I thought my night shifts with our new son, Zack, would be a good time to get caught up on my cultural literacy, which is currently at an all-time low, in large part because I’ve never seen any of the “Real Housewives” shows.

Since Kara had already read the books, I wanted to get through them, too, so we’d be in good shape to see the movie during our next free evening, which should be in about three presidential administrations, or thirty-seven iPhone models.

“…and for a brief time we grapple for it and then he coughs, splattering my face with blood,” I read to Zack in a soothing voice as he, captivated by my narrative skills, tried to breastfeed on my sweatshirt.

Just then, a scream pierced the stillness of our house, which happens with enough frequency that it’s more surprising that there’s any stillness in the first place.

Our older son, Evan, began crying from his bed upstairs, threatening to ruin the hard-earned nap that Kara was trying to enjoy.  On cue, Zack started screaming for milk, an hour before his schedule called for it.  Our sons were like loons calling to each other across a mountain lake, if loons sounded like hyenas fighting over a vulture carcass.

It was my first experience with dueling screaming children.  I knew this moment would come, and actually felt somewhat prepared to handle it, though it might have flustered me just a few years ago.  Kara and I are both more confident caregivers now.  Over the past couple of years, we’ve successfully raised both a baby and a dog, and only one of them has eaten a box of crayons.

“Shhhh, quiet, quiet,” I said to Zack as I ripped off the tangle of baby blankets and pillows that pinned me to the couch, trying to quiet him down and get to Evan before the cacophony woke up Kara.  The teenagers killing each other with medieval weaponry in our quiet bedtime book would have to wait.

I cradled Zack like a powder-blue, screaming football and headed up the stairs.  The dog, always loyal and wanting to be helpful, trotted alongside, looking for a way to alleviate the situation and deciding that, in the end, she could be of most use by vomiting at my feet.

“Seriously, dog?” I whispered.  By that point, I might as well have dispensed with the whispering.  A New Orleans jazz quartet marching down the hallway festooned with cowbells would have been quieter than Zack and Evan’s a cappella performance.

Kara stumbled into the hallway, trying to figure out if someone pulled a fire alarm.

“Everything’s under control,” I said, though I’m not sure she could hear me over the racket.

“Well, I’m up.  We can start my shift once we settle them down, and you can go back to sleep,” she said.

Then she went into Evan’s room, and I gave Zack his first high-five.

You can tuck Mike Todd in at mikectodd@gmail.com.

One more Todd joins the world

"You're doing great.  Is there anything you need right now?" the nurse asked my wife Kara last Tuesday.

"An epidural, please," Kara replied.

“We're still waiting for your lab results to come back before we can do that.  Should be here any minute," the nurse said.

“I have ice chips!" I offered.

Kara’s request was the same thing as someone running into a fire station and yelling, "My house is on fire!  I need a fire truck!" and getting the response, “How about a Diet Coke instead?"

When your wife is in labor, they hand you a cup of ice chips and a plastic spoon to make you feel useful.  It's like when you want a toddler to feel like he helped bake a cake, so you give him a ladle and a piece of Tupperware to play drums while you do the actual cooking.

Kara did eat a couple of ice chips, but part of me can't help but wonder if she'd rather have had anesthesia instead.

Dave Barry once wrote: “Childbirth, as a strictly physical phenomenon, is comparable to driving a United Parcel truck through an inner tube.”

As the epidural continued not to materialize, we began to worry that Kara might deliver our own little UPS truck in the absence of modern medicine.  We have friends who decided on natural childbirth, delivering their children without the aid of pharmaceuticals, except perhaps for the psychotropic drugs that caused them to arrive at that decision in the first place.

The nurse left the room, leaving Kara alone with me and my ice chips.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.  I wondered if I might employ my spoon in catapulting ice chips at medical people until one of them gave my wife some anesthesia.

“Why did she leave?  I need an epidural!” Kara yelled.

I stepped into the hallway and looked left and right, seeing no one.  You’d think the maternity ward would have epidural vendors roaming the hallways like watered-down-beer vendors at a ballgame.  I began to worry that I was going to have to put down my ice chips and catch the baby myself, which would make a great story, but a terrible thing to actually happen.

A few minutes later, the nurse reappeared and said, "Can I get you anything?"

"An epidural!" Kara replied.  She had been pretty consistent on that point all along.

The nurse checked her computer and said, “Your lab results are back!  The anesthesiologist will be here in a moment.”

I'm not 100% sure what being "nine centimeters dilated" means, but apparently, if that phrase applies to you, you wouldn't mind at all if someone gave you enough drugs to incapacitate a bull moose.

Finally, a new doctor pushed a cart into the room.

“I’m the anesthesiologist,” were the sweetest words I’d ever heard, pretty much canceling out the obscenities coming from the other side of the room.

A few moments later, thankfully, they were able to give Kara some relief.  Given our family’s brief, involuntary flirtations with natural childbirth, I finally understand why so many people prefer it.  It is because they are insane.

About thirty minutes after the anesthesiologist brought Kara back from her exciting exploration of the pain scale, Zachary Mason Todd, our second son, landed headfirst in the world.

“Welcome to Planet Earth,” the nurse said.  They wrapped him up as his tiny cries filled the room.  When they handed him to Kara, her face turned to a teary smile as if the preceding ordeal had never happened.

And just like that, our little family became six pounds and thirteen ounces bigger.

You can tie an “It’s a boy!” balloon to Mike Todd’s mailbox at mikectodd@gmail.com.

On kidnappers or contractors

The kind of van that could only belong to a kidnapper or a contractor greeted us in our driveway, the ladder on top suggesting the latter.

“Hey, David’s still here, buddy,” I said to my son Evan.

“Yay!” Evan yelled from the backseat.  Evan loves running around to the back of the house to watch our contractor David doing loud things with power tools.  I fear that it’s refreshing for Evan to see a man using a drill for something other than taking the battery cap off Tickle Me Elmo’s foot.

Also, when’s the last time you heard somebody yell “Yay!” the way the word was meant to be used, rather than with a world-weary roll of the eyes?  Non-ironic expressions of happiness are just one of the many benefits of living with a toddler, in addition to all the ear-cleansing screaming.

As we walked around the driveway to see how much progress David had made that day, Evan repeated the line he says every time we look at the back of the house: “David building a scween woom.”

“That’s right,” I said as we rounded the corner to see David standing on the wooden platform he’d built.  I would have tackled this project myself, if not for the extenuating circumstance of my complete lack of applicable skills.  The aforementioned toddler also requires a fair amount of attention, and though he probably wouldn’t notice if his daddy lost a few digits, it’s still best that I don’t get too close to a table saw.

“I like David,” Evan said.

“That’s nice.  He’s a good guy,” I said.  I hoped David could hear his littlest admirer, though he didn’t turn to face us.

“David a little bit scary,” Evan said. 

I glanced up to see if David had heard his littlest now-heckler, but he seemed to be wearing ear protection, which is generally a good policy at our house.

Being “a little bit scary” to Evan is actually the highest form of praise, putting David in the same category as spicy chicken, Tyrannosaurus Rex and riding in the car with the windows cracked.  Evan loves things that are a little bit scary, but without that context, being told that you frighten children would probably brighten your day as much as having a 10-penny nail come through your shoe.

I just ended the last sentence that way to prove that I know what a 10-penny nail is.  Or at least that such a thing exists.

But we’re getting to the age where I need to be cautious about bringing Evan around people who don’t want their real or imagined attributes loudly pointed out, which I think is pretty much everyone.  You probably won’t see us in the mall for a few years.

But Evan does love watching the construction project in our backyard, and he’s David’s #1 fan.  For a toddler, it probably doesn’t get any better than having a construction site come to your house, short of having Dora the Explorer move next door or having your parents start a triceratops farm in the backyard that doubles as the local fire department. 

This might not be the most opportune time for us to have undertaken this project, with a baby due any day, but we decided to build a screen room because it’s something we knew from the start that we wanted to add to this house, and we figured that if we’re going to do it someday, someday might as well be now.  It’s the same way we decided to go ahead and have two kids.  If you know you’re going to do it, stop dithering and just do it. 

My point is that you can get into a lot of trouble thinking that way.

You can hand Mike Todd his fingers at mikectodd@gmail.com.

Thinking outside the uterus

The regular reader(s) of this column might have noticed that, lately, I’m having a difficult time writing about anything that isn’t directly related to local news.  Specifically, news that is local to my wife’s uterus.

The fact that a baby could very well come flying out of there at any moment makes it difficult for me to think about too much else, but I should probably spend some time recognizing that there’s a big world outside of my wife’s uterus, which is why this column will be devoted to various other topics that I’ve been neglecting, such as the Republican primaries, and perhaps my wife’s fallopian tubes.

I’ve been watching those primaries closely this year, mostly because they make me feel young.  Back in the year 2000, when bald spots were still things that happened to other people, I started driving my first car that had a CD player installed.

“Well, I’ve made my last mix tape,” I thought.  “And also, I’ve had my last thought about Newt Gingrich.”

Not that I spent that much time thinking about him anyway, but it just seemed like that space in my brain could be emptied out to house more important matters, like the phone numbers to the houses that my childhood friends no longer lived in.  But now that Newt is back in the headlines as a frontrunner among the nearly seven billion people who will never be president, I’m transported back to the days when my cranium was sunburn-proof.

Incidentally, for anyone who is concerned about the state of their bald spot but is too afraid to look, you can judge the severity of the situation by the altitude of the barber’s mirror at the conclusion of your haircut.  As the bald spot widens, the handheld mirror will drop lower and lower.

“It’s good?” the barber will ask, holding the mirror an inch from your clippings on the floor.

“Yes, the back of the chair looks fantastic,” you’ll say, content to imagine that the top of your head still looks the same as the last time you saw it, when you were twelve.

This is the kind of hard-hitting political coverage that the reader(s) of this column have come to expect, and it’s honestly a nice change of pace from the wall-to-uterine-wall writing that I’ve been doing lately.

Never mind that Kara’s doctor estimated that we have a 50/50 chance of having the baby in the next two weeks, and that he gave us this prediction last week, which means that I might very well not be able to type the rest of this sentence without having to fling the laptop across the room and run every red light between here and the hospital.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but I did take a break to eat a Double Stuf Oreo, the existence of which still baffles me.  The superiority of the Double Stuf is self-evident to anyone who has ever compared it to the original Oreo.  In a just world, Double Stuf would be the default, and anyone who wanted the inferior original could pick up a package of Half Stuf.

Insights like this wouldn’t be possible if I allowed myself to be consumed by the thought that very soon, we’re going to be sharing our house with a toddler and an infant, which means that the folks going through Navy SEAL training will be getting a better night’s sleep than us.

We may not have many sleepable moments on the immediate horizon, but at least we know what we’re getting into this time.  Actually, that kind of makes things worse.

Regardless, we’re very much looking forward to welcoming the newest member of our family.  As it turns out, he’s much more fun to think about than Newt Gingrich.

You can request more election coverage at mikectodd@gmail.com.