Are you sure that thing is on?















I don't think this is going to fit me.













A real diaper genie would simply make them dissapear.












Seriously dude...can you get me out of here?

The day before I got "snipped:"




















The day after I got "snipped:"

Does this make my ears look big?

Ok. I admit it. We didn’t think it through as much as we should have. I mean, we talked about it, made a pros-and-cons list (it really does help), slept on it a couple of nights. But ultimately we made an emotional decision.

If you had seen his furry little face you would have done the same thing.





















The first couple days were…uh…interesting.

He was a little freaked-out, as was I. Can you imagine the shock to his system? Here’s an intelligent, empathetic, emotional creature who has just been yanked away from his siblings and mother. A pack animal with no pack.

And in we come…all like, “Hey, let’s take this dog whose been bred to run and hunt birds and has no way of conceaving things like, ‘inside’ or ‘stairs’ or ‘six-way intersection,’ and bring him to our three-flat in Chicago.”

That’ll be fun.

And I learned something very important after making this rash decision.

The world loves puppies.

Seriously.

You know why? Because puppies love the world. It’s true, I’ve seen it. A happy dog is one of the coolest things a person can experience. A happy dog is transcendent. Language, race, religion, gender are all irrelevant when A floppy-eared puppy who hasn’t grown into his paws tumbles past and over the ball he is chasing as if the ball had somehow tackled him, sending floppy-ears and monster paws tumbling like a cartoon dog, only to come running back with that same ball, just so he can do it again.

Everyone I walk past smiles at me…correction, at us. Sure, there’s the occasional nervous child or surly bastard, but they have their own issues.

I walked past a woman today holding a 2-year old girl. When the child saw the dog she excitedly started repeating, “buppy, buppy, buppy,” as she reached her short arms fearlessly toward this bounding, furry alien. (I’ve often wondered if kids see the world as if they lived in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I have little doubt that to this girl, Finley appeared as animated as anything she’s ever seen in Disney.)

We’ve become that couple. Our family has grown by one. Most of our conversations revolve around the same question: “How’s the baby doing?”

Sure, he’s a little co-dependant, but he also does the most amusing stuff.

How’s the baby doing?

He’s on his back, shamelessly exposing himself while I’m scratching him under his chin. And he’s chewing his own ear.

Pablo and Penny, closer

Mountain climbing in Phoenix, March 2007

Lately I’ve been having these little flashes in my mind’s eye, sometimes only a second or two long, sometimes lasting for minutes at a time. They seem so real they feel more like memory than prognostication...sense memories to events that have not yet occurred. They carry the authority of prophecy, as powerful as Shamans' visions

They're not mere daydreams, not just wishful-thinking (though there is plenty of that), but also mundane moments - seeing him across the table at dinner when he is 11 or 12 sitting in profile, listening to someone across the table from him, smiling and laughing, he doesn't know I'm watching him.

He's 2 or 3 and he's looking around curiously as I'm strapping him into his stroller.

He's 25, his eyes open wide, his mouth agape, arms thrust above his head in thrilled surprise as the Bears kick a game-winning field goal.

And somewhere a man is envisioning his soon-to-be-born son kicking that same field goal. Jack, of course, is resting during the off season, waiting to rejoin the Cubs for spring training and the start of the 2031 baseball season.

Grand Rapids Press, Sunday 8.21.05
























Special thanks to Bob and Pat Good for sending this along.

My wish in life is to be able to say that I had seen what the world has to offer (inasmuch as one person can experience these things firsthand) and came to my own conclusions about the reality of the universe.

When asked one’s ambition in life, the most common (and thus, the most banal) answer is ‘travel.’ Ask anyone what they’d do if they came into millions of dollars, and I believe a vast majority of people would say they want to see the world. (Sadly, a vast minority would probably say they would do ‘nothing.’)

The sad truth is that I am in the vast majority. I would also answer, travel.

At different points in my life my itinerary was vastly different. As I grew older my plans became more grandiose. Naturally, as I learned more about the world, I had grander and grander wishes (dreams) about what I wanted to see.

When I knew the world mostly as the United States, my plans mirrored my limited knowledge. As a pre-teen I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Great Redwood Forest. None of which I’ve seen, all of which I would still like to.

In high school I became enamored of the Great Pyramids, The Great Wall, the Amazon. Not only were these places farther away and more foreign in every sense of the word, they involved great treks across vast expanses, terrain occasionally so dangerous as to threaten serious injury or death.

Still haven’t been. Still wanna go.

My new dream (I have to buy a lottery ticket on Saturday) is that before each of his first seven birthdays, Jack has been on each of the seven continents.

I have it figured out.

We don’t really have to go anywhere for a year. His first year will contain plenty of pictures of him all over North America.

For his second year, we go to Europe. Maybe go to London, visit cousin Karen. Hit Scandinavia, go to Norway and meet some of Penny’s family. Maybe go to visit my cousin in Spain.

Year three we go to Asia. Check out Japan, maybe a picture at the Great Wall (kill two birds with one stone because that’s been on my list for so long.) We’ll check out a Buddhist temple. I’m not religious (as anyone who knows me can attest to) but it would be a cool experience (and you never know, maybe I’m wrong and Jack is the next Dalai Lama.)

By year four he’ll probably remember a lot from each trip. (I don’t have a lot of memories from before I was four.) Australia. Pictures from that year include Jack with a little outback uniform standing next to a kangaroo, Jack eating a giant barbecued shrimp, and, of course, visiting with his Uncle Stan and Aunt Ida.

Year five will be the African safari trip. While in Africa we go up to Egypt, take a cruise up the Nile, see the Pyramids. (Awesome sunsets!)

For his sixth birthday we all go and visit my mom and dad’s families in Argentina. Jack speaks Spanish (along with his surprisingly advanced English) so getting around will be easy.

The last continent we hit will be Antarctica. Pictures include Jack in a parka on the deck of a ship, Jack throwing a snowball, and the obligatory snapshots near a flock of Emperor Penguins.

If the lottery ticket (in whatever form it may come) that pays for this lifestyle hits big enough, starting at age 8 we hit them all again, and go to some of the spots we missed the first time around. Highlights include Montreal (where we went on our awesome honeymoon), Italy, The Taj Mahal, Great Barrier Reef, Morocco, The Andes and whatever else there is to do in Antarctica.

My dad drove a bus for over a quarter century. It was a job that sustained his family financially until three boys were at least out of high school. Within two years of retiring, he was dead from a massive heart attack. He was, quite literally, dead before he hit the floor.

It’s not a particularly original story. It’s sad; it’s not a tragedy. Had he stayed in Poland a couple more years, his life and death, very likely would have been truly tragic.

Tonight I sit at 2:00 am, some 20 weeks before the birth of my son. He currently weighs 12 ounces. He is already, to us, a little tadpole of a man. The pixelated representation given to us by the hospital (with the help of some very cool technology) has come to mean things to a suprisng amount of people. His burgeoning profile has bestowed, in the minds of those awaiting him, personality characteristics he may or may not some day possess.

The debate has begun on whose nose he has. Jokes have been made about his manly endowments based simply on the fact that we know he is male because of a hundred or so pixels that make up his scrotum in the sonogram.

Who will he grow to be?

I’m wearing black dress shoes, socks, pants; a white tee-shirt under a light-blue dress shirt - thin horizontal stripes of slightly darker blue run the height of the shirt, the length of each sleeve, giving the shirt a slightly uniform-like appearance. In their general formality (dress shirt, shiny shoes, creased pants), my current work outfits are not unlike the uniform my dad wore for 26 years.

I found out today that I make more money than a starting schoolteacher. I will make more money in my first year than a cop or firefighter makes in their first year. And while that gives me a sort-of cold comfort, it does almost nothing to alleviate the anxiety I feel toward my parenting skills, though I can’t pinpoint what that means.

Where am I lacking?

Though my opinions about ‘right and wrong’ may differ from those of many people, I feel they are in line with just as many (if not more) who agree with me. Even a pro-abortion (yes, even after falling in love with a sonogram), pro-education, anti-racist, atheistic secularist like myself is, in great likelihood, capable of getting a child into the first grade without causing irreparable psychological or emotional damage. (No one likes a 5-year-old with baggage.)

Does my anxiety come from some innate human condition or is it largely due to outside influences?



Everyone I speak with has an opinion (and I’m grateful for that, because nothing can prepare a person better than a diversity and quantity of opinions): It’s the best thing that’s ever going to happen to me. It is, without doubt, the worst thing I could possible have done. And everything in between. (A friend suggested I slam my dick in the car door, twice, as a reminder of…what exactly, I’m not sure.)

Since finding out that we’re pregnant, some people have told me stories about their experiences with child birth, stories so horrifying in their graphic detail that I’m surprised my heart has not simply exploded in my chest, a spontaneous, automated defense mechanism against the potential heartache having this child may (or may not) cause me.

...
...
...

I’m working it out.

Welcome, Jack Crissman Rajczyk.

Why would a parent keep every object their child ever made? Every finger painting and stick-figure drawing? Every lopsided clay pot and every out-of-focus photograph? For many reasons I guess – nostalgia, affection. But for some it may be that in their most subconscious (or not so subconscious) minds they believe their child is special – so special that everything they create will be an artifact to their eventual greatness. Every page your child writes will be anthologized and studied, for what are the building blocks of genius?

Where should a person dream too big, if not in their wishes for their child?

Am I setting myself up for disaster (emotionally speaking) when I have these conceptions? I say conceptions, as opposed to expectations, because it is not necessarily what I expect, but rather, what I hope for.

We’re not rich, but children of far lesser means have grown to be people who’ve changed the world. Abraham Lincoln comes to mind.

When I was 9, I attended Hebrew school, mostly in preparation for my bar mitzvah. (I don’t know at what age a precocious child becomes an obnoxious kid, but I was that kid.) We were discussing some point or other, and I was speaking on behalf of the non-literal interpretation of the old testament (though I obviously never would have put it that way).

This line of discussion led to where this line of inquiry can only lead - to the question of the existence of God at all.

I remember my rabbi saying, well, ultimately it’s a question of faith (and I respected his candor towards a kid he was very likely annoyed by). He added, you must remember that Moses also questioned his faith.

I said, you just compared me to maybe the most important person in the bible…I’m not Moses, I’m just a twelve year old boy (I think he appreciated my candor).

Yes, he said. But Moses was just a twelve-year boy once also. He wasn’t born “Moses.” He was born the son of slaves and grew to become the most revered man in Judaism.

That’s a pretty cool story.

I have a new motto, a mantra, a mission statement for my life: Fucking Be Somebody! Three simple words. It came to me while staring at myself in the mirror, 2:47 AM, November 29th 2006.

It’s amazing what can happen when you literally look at yourself in the mirror.

FUCKING BE SOMEBODY!

I don’t mean somebody famous (or, godforbid, infamous). If people you have never met know you that’s great, but it should be your work that matters.

I mean be somebody of substance. I mean be somebody who makes a positive difference in the lives of those around you and if possible in the lives of people you’ll never meet. I mean be somebody who leaves a small footprint but makes a huge impact. I mean be the kind of person who does things other people aspire to do.

Fucking be somebody.

For Penny, part 2

Thanks to everyone

 

 

 

 

...come rain or come shine...
 

Why you rent the tent...





 

If not for the rain...

 

 

Pics from Thanksgiving at Susan's.






 

Free Hugs

I just think this is awesome.

For Penny