Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Everything is my fault
Math reassures in a Down syndrome wilderness
Celebrity chef Thomas Keller won’t miss the salvia sproutling that Cayden destroyed when he fell into a flower bed outside of Ad Hoc restaurant.
Title: Daddy, medium-well
Address: http://daddymediumw…">daddymediumwell.wor…
From: North Park
Blogging since: March 2013
Post Date: April 21, 2013
“Daddy, what’s 6×2?”
Here we go. In Cayden’s world, “What’s 6×2?” is a conversation starter, the equivalent of “How are you?” We’re heading out of Napa. We’ve had Thomas Keller’s ‘Ad Hoc’ for dinner, and I’ve yet to shed the cardigan, blazer, and tie I wore for the occasion. It’s increasingly warm here at the back of the minivan with Cayden. I can’t impress upon him why it is I’m so dressed up, Ad Hoc being a bucket-list restaurant of mine. I actually saw chef Thomas Keller today, just a few doors up the street. We had stopped the van momentarily so I could take a picture of the French Laundry, Keller’s famed four-star establishment. He was on the back patio in chef’s whites addressing the service staff. (This is my version of a celebrity sighting.)
Hey: Keller won the Bocuse d’Or. I just make a mean risotto.
“Daddy, what’s 6×2?”
“Twelve. You know that.”
“What’s 40×10?”
“Four thousand.”
Cayden escalates the math. He is fond of the numbers 42 and 68. Usually, he wields them in a rather magnanimous fashion, the numbers representing his immense “like” of something. As in: “Daddy, I love you 42 68 eleventy BILLION.” But tonight, it’s “What’s 42×68?” Like a challenge.
I remove my tie and cardigan. My belly’s warm. I’m not used to eating so much, so late. But despite the food and the IPA flight, I answer correctly. I’ve forgotten my calculus over the years, but not my arithmetic.
“2856. Hey, Cayden: why all the questions?”
“Daddy — you know all the answers.’
No, I don’t.
“I just wanna know all the answers before I’m in first grade,” Cayden announces. This seems a reasonable time frame. Why not? That’s when I knew all the answers, too, by virtue of there not being that many questions.
“Dad-DEE!” Now Cayden’s looking to find comfort against the constraints of his seatbelt, and he fingers me as the source of his unrest. “You’re making me uncomfortable!” It’s not me, of course; it’s the car seat and its tangle of straps. But this is how Cayden sees me these days: I am at once the source of all answers and the wellspring of frustration. Everything is my fault.
Cayden falls asleep, and I am left to think. When I’m not the go-to arithmetician, I’m simply to blame.
Listen: if I discipline Cayden, I am told I’m “breaking his heart”; if I dare raise my voice in those heated parenting moments, my portrait is drawn with fangs in chalk on the sidewalk; if I make one mistake in doling out consequence, use one poorly chosen word, I’m the guilty one. I’m the one that needs reining in.
“Cayden: this is your own damn fault!” (This may be about relinquishing the iPad or refusing a bath, just something that has escalated into a pitting of wills and the earning of consequence.)
“No! It’s YOUR fault Daddy!” And as I play into this exchange, it becomes my fault. I’ve forgotten the cardinal rule that he’s just testing my boundaries to make sure I’m still in charge and that he is safe. Guilt becomes something free-floating — this has probably gone too far — and, as words are exchanged, that guilt is quickly lent substance.
Listen: I’m too angry; I’m damaging him.
I prop Cayden up as he sleeps and I’m suddenly apologetic as the lights illuminate his face in periodic fashion. “Didn’t mean to bark at you, Cayden, when you fell into the garden bed outside Ad Hoc. You certainly fucked up your Easter linens, though.” (For chrissake: he was being a BOY. Simply, and without the thought of reining it in. Keller’s not gonna miss the loss of a salvia sproutling).
Doesn’t matter what I have or haven’t done; that guilt I always feel when disciplining Cayden becomes something real, and it finds deposit in recollections of my guiltiest moments.
I’m sorry I yelled at you, Cayden. Tomorrow we’ll do better. Sorry I punched a dent into your wall at age two, and that you actually remember that.
[Post edited for length]
Here's something you might be interested in.
Everything is my fault
Math reassures in a Down syndrome wilderness
Everything is my fault
Math reassures in a Down syndrome wilderness
Celebrity chef Thomas Keller won’t miss the salvia sproutling that Cayden destroyed when he fell into a flower bed outside of Ad Hoc restaurant.
Title: Daddy, medium-well
Address: http://daddymediumw…">daddymediumwell.wor…
From: North Park
Blogging since: March 2013
Post Date: April 21, 2013
“Daddy, what’s 6×2?”
Here we go. In Cayden’s world, “What’s 6×2?” is a conversation starter, the equivalent of “How are you?” We’re heading out of Napa. We’ve had Thomas Keller’s ‘Ad Hoc’ for dinner, and I’ve yet to shed the cardigan, blazer, and tie I wore for the occasion. It’s increasingly warm here at the back of the minivan with Cayden. I can’t impress upon him why it is I’m so dressed up, Ad Hoc being a bucket-list restaurant of mine. I actually saw chef Thomas Keller today, just a few doors up the street. We had stopped the van momentarily so I could take a picture of the French Laundry, Keller’s famed four-star establishment. He was on the back patio in chef’s whites addressing the service staff. (This is my version of a celebrity sighting.)
Hey: Keller won the Bocuse d’Or. I just make a mean risotto.
“Daddy, what’s 6×2?”
“Twelve. You know that.”
“What’s 40×10?”
“Four thousand.”
Cayden escalates the math. He is fond of the numbers 42 and 68. Usually, he wields them in a rather magnanimous fashion, the numbers representing his immense “like” of something. As in: “Daddy, I love you 42 68 eleventy BILLION.” But tonight, it’s “What’s 42×68?” Like a challenge.
I remove my tie and cardigan. My belly’s warm. I’m not used to eating so much, so late. But despite the food and the IPA flight, I answer correctly. I’ve forgotten my calculus over the years, but not my arithmetic.
“2856. Hey, Cayden: why all the questions?”
“Daddy — you know all the answers.’
No, I don’t.
“I just wanna know all the answers before I’m in first grade,” Cayden announces. This seems a reasonable time frame. Why not? That’s when I knew all the answers, too, by virtue of there not being that many questions.
“Dad-DEE!” Now Cayden’s looking to find comfort against the constraints of his seatbelt, and he fingers me as the source of his unrest. “You’re making me uncomfortable!” It’s not me, of course; it’s the car seat and its tangle of straps. But this is how Cayden sees me these days: I am at once the source of all answers and the wellspring of frustration. Everything is my fault.
Cayden falls asleep, and I am left to think. When I’m not the go-to arithmetician, I’m simply to blame.
Listen: if I discipline Cayden, I am told I’m “breaking his heart”; if I dare raise my voice in those heated parenting moments, my portrait is drawn with fangs in chalk on the sidewalk; if I make one mistake in doling out consequence, use one poorly chosen word, I’m the guilty one. I’m the one that needs reining in.
“Cayden: this is your own damn fault!” (This may be about relinquishing the iPad or refusing a bath, just something that has escalated into a pitting of wills and the earning of consequence.)
“No! It’s YOUR fault Daddy!” And as I play into this exchange, it becomes my fault. I’ve forgotten the cardinal rule that he’s just testing my boundaries to make sure I’m still in charge and that he is safe. Guilt becomes something free-floating — this has probably gone too far — and, as words are exchanged, that guilt is quickly lent substance.
Listen: I’m too angry; I’m damaging him.
I prop Cayden up as he sleeps and I’m suddenly apologetic as the lights illuminate his face in periodic fashion. “Didn’t mean to bark at you, Cayden, when you fell into the garden bed outside Ad Hoc. You certainly fucked up your Easter linens, though.” (For chrissake: he was being a BOY. Simply, and without the thought of reining it in. Keller’s not gonna miss the loss of a salvia sproutling).
Doesn’t matter what I have or haven’t done; that guilt I always feel when disciplining Cayden becomes something real, and it finds deposit in recollections of my guiltiest moments.
I’m sorry I yelled at you, Cayden. Tomorrow we’ll do better. Sorry I punched a dent into your wall at age two, and that you actually remember that.
[Post edited for length]
Comments