Stay at home dads

I've been reading a lot about being an expectant dad and there's lots of information out there about what to do once your baby is born.  Much of it is from the woman's perspective - what to do as a new mom.  For stay at home dads it's sort of been - "Do the same... only without the breast feeding."

Stay at home dads come from all walks of life. Many worked corporate jobs, I've known some who were grad students, professors, recently unemployed, artists... I'd fall into the latter category. I was not downsized. We do not have a traditional two income household and my wife definitely makes more money that I do.

I'm an actor.

My writing partner will tell you I'm a writer. I am. It's becoming more and more what I do. But that's mostly because of a stubborn persistence in making my own work. I have recently made the decision that I am finished with the bullshit involved in acting in New York. I do not kiss enough ass, nor, apparently, do I kiss the right asses.   I am finished with dealing with the gatekeepers to this work, to which I have dedicated my life, who treat actors like they are stupid.  Those rare champions of actors (you know who you are) have made working in this town a joy.  But I am finished with getting my hopes up during final call backs to have a movie actor walk in and take a job. I am finished with pleading with self important pricks half my age, attempting to prove to them that I am worthy of their representation. My time and my talent are far to important. I will do it, stubbornly, on my own.  (I said I was done with the bullshit, not with acting.)

Because I'm an actor.  Persistence defines who we are. 

My wife and I had this exact conversation - the one many artist have when they bemoan their career choice and wish they had gone into finance or some soul-less yet lucrative career or that I hadn't taken her up on her offer to drop out and join the peace corps before starting a family.  Something meaningful.

My wife said, "You're going to be raising a child.  What could be more meaningful?"

In the end, you can't take any of this with you.  None of it.  The paycheck, the swimming pool, the big house.  In the end what you leave behind are the lessons you share - the things you teach your children and the people they become.

Actor...  Writer...   The occupation I'll be most proud of is Dad.

Here's where I give a shameless plug to a friend's book.  A fellow stay at home dad.

Joe Schatz from Dad Blogs has a new book out.  It's not a how-to.  There are plenty of those.  This one is nine years of "things I've learned as a stay at home dad."  I'll be reading it.  The title alone is worth the price of the book.

Go support one of my fellow stay at home dads.

An Only Child

It's very early, I know, but I have been thinking about how this first child will be, for a while, an only child and whether it might be forever.  I'm not sure, yet.  I know it's early.  My wife said it was waaaay too early to be thinking about a second.  Maybe we could adopt.

(This was said during one of the peanut's hourly hot flashes that she lovingly shares with my wife.)

My in-laws were visiting this weekend and my father in-law was watching the family of feral cats that live behind my building.  The kittens were rolling around, playing, chasing each other.

My little cat, (okay, she's not so little...) sat on the couch.  Uninterested.

She's a little socially awkward.  She loves us and she curls up next to us, purring, all the time.  When I write, I will occasionally sit at my wife's desk next to the bed.  The cat will sit on the bed behind me, curling up so she is leaning against my back.  She's adorable.

She's also quite a bitch to anyone else who steps foot through our door.  She hisses, she swats, she growls, she hides, she bites.  She's not nice.

An opened front door is not an invitation for her to leave.  At one time she would skittishly approach the door and look out.  Now she does not.  She's uninterested.

I blame myself.  Angie and I never had people around in our little Salt Lake apartment.  The cat was never around people other than us.  She also was an only child.  She had no one to play with, or more importantly, to socialize with.  (If cat's socialize.)  And I treated her like she was a puppy for a while.  She was good at playing fetch.  But I also traumatized her, I think.  She's a cat, not a bulldog.

I don't want my child to be like that.  I know it may be a strange thing to think.  I'm pretty sure my child will be just fine, even if an only child.  But still, I think about it.

I want my child to be able to love, to play, to want to experience more of the world then exists within the walls of our apartment.

Wild Things...

I saw Where The Wild Things are this past weekend.  Most of us in the theater were in our late twenties to late thirties, the generation first introduced to the Wild Things.

Some critics were harsh on the raw emotions shown by the film, raw emotions that are ugly and frightening.  Raw emotions that are felt by children who experience the complete spectrum of emotions without perspective or filters, who experience them instantly and sometimes simultaneously. 

It reminded me what it felt like to be a kid:  fear, anger, love, joy, jealousy...  all of those wonderfully full emotions that are experienced so fully and completely. 

It also reminded me of the power of the imagination.  I work in imagination.  I create things from air; characters from nothing; fully fledged stories sparked from half formed ideas.  The imagination of a child can completely take them somewhere - they create and destroy entire worlds in an afternoon.

I hope I can find a balance of encouraging my child's imagination while keeping an eye on the emotional roller coaster that is childhood - all the while letting my child fully experience it, never interfering but always available to nurture, guide and protect.

Apples!

If you have never been apple picking, do it. 

Go now.

I'm sure I'll be taking a bag and dragging a pregnant wife out to the orchards of New York... near the sad hill they call a ski resort...  to pick apples.  It's ever so much fun.

This is the reward for the IKEA run we are making tomorrow.  We are not buying baby furniture yet.

That's saved for Trimester Three.

But we will be looking.

Back to the apples!

Angie makes applesauce.  It's unbelievable.

I couldn't wait for Monday.  So, I went to the farmer's market and grabbed a ton of apples ($0.75 a pound) and cranked out a tarte Tartine.

Here's the recipe:  Go to Mark Bitteman's site, http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/, and look up the recipe.  It couldn't be easier.  He just explains it better than I, but it's so simple.  A huge saute pan overflowing with cored, peeled quartered apples put over a moderate heat with some sugar...  Just cook the hell out of it until you've cooked out the liquid, add butter.  (yes, Ethel, butter.)

Carmalize them... just brown and sugary and gooey.

Toss them into a smaller, buttered saute.  (from a 12" to a 10" or a 10" to an 8"... whatever, this is a pretty loose-y goose-y thing...)



Top it with a pastry crust.  It can be store bought, puff pastry, filo... again, whatever.

This is a good opportunity to try your own crust.  I made a pie crust in about 15 minutes.  It was straight out of Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything.  He writes about learning from Marion Cunningham, author of the Fannie Farmer Baking Book and a pie genius.  Easiest thing ever.  I"ll never fear pie crusts again.  Try it.  Makes enough that you can put on into a tart mold and freeze for a little tomato, goat cheese, arugula tart...  mmm... 

And read the book.  It's brilliant.  (Rishi, good luck getting your copy back.)

So!  Back to the tarte... apples, butter, sugar, pastry...  slip it into that oven you've had waiting at 400 degrees and bake for a bit... Take it out, carefully - it's like lava at this point - shake the pan to loosen, cover with an upside down plate, flip and slap some good ice cream on it.

Perfect.

It's a skill that will serve you well, you stay at home dads... An easy apple pie that you can whip together and make it seem to your spouse that you've slaved on it all day.  

Much the same way you can clean the house in under an hour, bathroom included, before she gets home... That's actually something she does to me.  Reads all day and then pretends she's slaved over the house.

I do the same.  On my days off, I sometimes shower at 4pm and manage to get dinner on the table right quick claiming it's taken me forever to prepare it.  I tracked the beast, killed it with a pocket knife, butchered it and cooked it just after I harvested the good for the salad...

My question is this...  Will I have time, with a child, to get away with this trick or is a constant game of catching up?

Food!

I’ve long believed that food is love. 

Angie and I never had a conversation about the division of labor in our home.  Things just sort of fell into place.  We each have a different skill set and for some reason mine included a number of domestic skills. 

Blame my mother.

Or my grandmothers.

Or the numerous kitchens in which I worked to pay for my first car, prom, rent, drums, all the crap I accumulated in my twenties…

Angie’s skills - her patience, her tact, her singleness of purpose and focus, lend themselves to what she does.   I have not mastered these skills.

So… I happen to cook.  And as the stay at home pater familias, it’s a skill that should serve me well.

Unless Angie’s craving happens to be jelly beans.

Like now.  Nothing I can do about that other than hike to the bodega in search of jelly beans.  (Damn you “The Middle” and your jelly bean in the car storyline.

I jumped down to the farmers’ market today.   It’s a perfect fall day.  Heirloom tomatoes the size of soccer balls.  Fresh herbs.  Macoun apples.  (Some of which Angie will make into applesauce and some will find their way into a tart Tartine.)  I’m planning ahead for when we make our own baby food.

I’m finding that comfort food is something Angie craves.  Especially if you consider pastrami from Katz’ comfort food.  Which in NYC, we do.

I worked my special chili today.  No ground meat.  (The way we get our ground beef in this country should really be a crime.) 

We’re doing some tomato goat cheese tarts, the afore mentioned apple pie, I’ll be baking baguettes, Angela will be working the applesauce and we’re making granola.

What goes into your mate’s body also goes into your child.  We’re only doing whole foods; real food. 

And no high fructose corn syrup.   Guess she won’t be getting jelly beans after all. (Don’t believe the ads put out by the corn industry… the sugars in hfcs are a processed sugar your body doesn’t know what to do with.  It may just be a coincidence, but since we’ve replaced sugar with hfcs, rates of autism have risen as have rates of obesity…  would rather not risk putting that into my child.)

So, in the sense of community, I’m putting out a call for suggestions…  What do I feed her? 

Send your recipes!  I might share my magic chili.

You knew it was coming...

Sex:

It is possible to have sex with a pregnant woman.

I know this sounds like a no brainer, but it’s sort of scary to think about sex with your wife while a small creature is growing inside her.

It kind of freaks me out.

(Which is probably what my father in-law is doing right now.  You might want to skip this one, Mike.)

Apparently sex is not only good for the mother, it’s good for the baby… my wife convinced me of this when she told me, “It’s like a massage…”

Needless to say we had a good laugh over that one, too. 

See… sex can be both fun and funny during pregnancy.

How quickly things change

We conceived on the first try.

I understand if that's more than you needed to know.

It also happens to be true.

I wanted to start this web log with one true thing. 

How do I know this is one true thing?

I'd rather not get into the intricacies of it all, but trust me, it's one true thing.

I have made the shift from writing a poli-blog, where there are very few "true things" let alone one, to a blog  that is very personal and that I hope will be much more enjoyable to read.  After all, that is the purpose of writing, right?  To have it read.

I write a screenplay so it can be made, not so it can sit in my drawer.  I write this so it can be read.  If it gets a good following, them perhaps we turn it into a community, one where we learn together on this little ride.

So.

I'm about the be a father.

Not really "about" to be... it's going to take another six months.

But, I am the male in the equation, therefore, in six months, I'll be the proud father to a little VanDijk.  We don't know the sex yet, but my wife seems convinced, as does my mother, that it's a girl.

My wife, Angela, who pens the lovely blog, the actors wife, has not been sick.  (knock wood)  We have not had to deal with the dreaded morning sickness.

She's had other issues - she's always hot, which is not normal for she-of-the-wool-sweater-in-June.  And she was awake at midnight.   For those of you who know my wife, that's three hours past her normal bed time.

Things seem to be moving along swimmingly.

So, this is the first of many posts that will hopefully be as interesting and enjoyable to you to read as they are enlightening for me to write.