33

The first day I was 33

 Ten years ago today, I turned 33.

I saw the film Up that day but remember little else of the day.

Ten years ago today was the start of the most difficult year of my life. The year I left the job I loved, was apart from Lauren for a good part of the year, and the year I lost my mother. Every time I hear of someone turning 33 I think to myself ‘I hope your 33 is not like mine was’.

The summer was relatively uneventful. I played on the football team I was on and taught a summer class.

In August of that year, we made a trip to Baltimore to visit my mother, who was alone in the house while my dad was in China. We timed the trip to be in Baltimore when my dad got back. We took a bus to New York and saw some people on that day trip.

In September, Lauren moved to Oxford, for a 2-year post-doc. I started my last quarter of teaching at De Anza; I was to join Lauren in Oxford, in January. It was difficult to adjust to Lauren not being around. It was just me and Geordi, our cat.

In October, I got a call from my parents; my mother had been diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. I was distraught; I broke down in tears in a staff room at work; I teared up while teaching; I presented at a conference in Los Angeles and I have zero memory of what I said or how it went. I wondered how much longer my mother had to live.

I spent Thanksgiving alone that year, talked to my parents on the phone and saw Precious.

Lauren came back in early December, and we prepared to move from Mountain View to Oxford. Geordi got very ill. I had to stay in Mountain View over Christmas while Lauren went with her family to Sacramento, because Geordi was ill. The medical bills grew to be more than one month’s salary and I seriously considered putting him down due to the cost - I’m glad I didn’t because that was only about half of his life lived so far, and his 2nd half brought so much joy to my dad.

In late December, I flew an ill cat across the country and saw my mother for the first time since her diagnosis; she didn’t look good.

In January, I went to Oxford. I had offered to stay in Baltimore to help my mother; she refused. I remember getting into an argument with her about how I wish she would acknowledge just how ill she was; that was one of the last face-to-face conversations I had with my mother. The last thing we did together was bake, the day before I left for Oxford.

I hated Oxford. I didn’t belong there. It was Lauren's place, not mine.

In March, my sister said I needed to come home. I got to Baltimore and within 48 hours, my mother was dead.

There was the funeral to plan, the eulogy I gave, the burial. There was the depression, the sadness, the grief.

In May, I went to visit Lauren in the UK. We then went to Germany and The Netherlands. While in The Netherlands, I found out my flight back to the US was cancelled, due to an ash cloud. My new flight back would happen to be on the day I turned 34.

The last day I was 33

The last day I was 33, we took a train to Edinburgh. Lauren had a job interview the next day, and I thought why not go? When am I going to get to Edinburgh again.

A year after I saw Up, I took a taxi, to a train, to a bus, to a plane, to a train, to my dad’s car; from Edinburgh, to Oxford, to London, to Washington DC, to Baltimore.

The difficult year was over. 

Somewhere on that journey on the day I turned 34, I contracted the Chickenpox. 

Daddy Go!

Our kids at St. Marks Park

Every Saturday morning, our 6-year old has a swimming class.

I always take our toddler along, to get him out of the house (even though there’s not much to do while big sis is swimming). We find something to do to keep him busy for the 30-min of class, then the three of us go to a play park, or something. Our kids, like most kids their ages, love the play park. There is talk of what play park to go to with the older kid, who likes to go to what we call ‘the faraway play park’ (for obvious reasons); I like the faraway play park, but it’s kind of far when lugging around two kids by bike. Our toddler also has a favourite park, which has the ‘big slide’, but both are happy enough to go to any play park, as long as it’s not the crappy one that’s part of a housing complex that I’m never sure we’re allowed to be using in the first place.

Every Sunday, our toddler and I drop our older kid off at gymnastics, and I take him to swimming class (he loves swimming class). After they are both done, we sometimes go to the beach (even when it’s probably way too cold), or go to soft play (when it’s definitely way too cold) or go to a play park (when it’s not too cold). Both kids have fun; the toddler explains the fun to Lauren when we get home, in the best way he can: ‘my jump swimming’ (I jumped in the swimming pool); ‘daddy water’ (daddy went under water); ‘slide in the park’.

The point of all this is, I take our toddler to things that he seems to really enjoy. Lauren doesn’t like taking the kids out (especially when it’s cold), so I’ve been come the ‘take-the-kids-out’ parent, which I’m fine with because I don’t really like sitting at home.

Atop Arthur's Seat

Then, you get us at home.

With Lauren around.

Our toddler generally wants nothing to do with me.

In the morning, he wakes up by saying ‘Daddy Awake!’ or ‘Mummy Awake!’ or shouting for his sister (he’s a very loud kid). If I go in there, he says ‘Daddy go! Want Mummy!’ I tell him Lauren’s in shower, and he starts crying, or shouts ‘Nooooo!’.

He’s eating breakfast and Lauren has to do our daughter’s hair so I go into the kitchen to keep the toddler company and get stuff for him; ‘Daddy go!’ He’d rather sit at the table, in the room by himself, than have me around.

In fact, the only time he ever wants me when Lauren is home, is when it’s time for him to go to sleep, after he has fussed and argued about not wanting to go to sleep for 15-30 min. He wants me to put him to bed, where I sit, in silence, and we do nothing fun.

I think this sort of rejection would bother me, except that I went through almost this exact same thing with our daughter, 4 years ago. Down to the wanting me to lie on the floor next to her cot at bedtime.

Our daughter still occasionally says I’m ‘no fun’, which isn’t a lie, really. I don’t think anyone would ever describe me as Mr. Fun or the life of any party.

Our kids think I’m the best when we’re out of the house, so in public, I look like Daddy-o Primero, but at home, I’m just some guy no one wants around.

In my head, I tell myself the lie that the kids don’t want me around at home because they know I’ve lugged them around town, from Portobello to the faraway play park to places in between, and they just want to give me a break at home.

At least, that’s what I tell myself. When you tell a lie enough, it comes the truth.

On that note, this daddy is now going to go.


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The Streak

On the afternoon of 6th April, as I was hugging the porcelain throne, I wasn’t thinking about how crappy I felt, or how I would feel after. I had two thoughts running through my head; ‘Dammit, the streak is over’; and Seinfeld:

A couple of days before, I had been at work, telling my co-workers how our toddler and Lauren both had norovirus and had been sick (for those not in the UK, ‘sick’ means ‘throw up’). Lauren seemed to get over her sickness in about 24 hours; the toddler was sick today - 5 days going for him, so far.

I followed up by saying that I was fairly certain I had not been sick this century. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I had not been sick as an adult, which goes back to 1994. The only sickness I have strong memory of was when we lived in Nigeria (we moved from Nigeria in 1988). Now, I’m sure I must have been sick at some point since 1988, and even 1994, but I have no memory of it. Lauren has never remembered me being sick either, and I met her in 2003. 

So on the afternoon of 6th April, I couldn’t believe the streak had come to an end. Although I have bragged about not getting ill very much, our toddler was able to do something no one else could, from long before he was born. He was able to get me to break my vomit streak; thanks, little guy. 

Today, 7th April, I don’t seem to have stomach issues, but am extremely lethargic and only able to stand for about 5 minutes at a time. I don’t do ill well, I think because I don’t have a sense of what it’s like to be ill, and even less sense of what it’s like to be sick.

Here’s to hoping I can start a new streak that lasts the rest of this century, or at least this decade.

Three Marches

March 2018 - The Beast

In early March 2018, we were hit with The Beast from the East. The storm brought a lot of snow. More snow than I’ve ever seen in the UK. The image I have of the storm is this one:

Our kid, who was 5 1/2 at the time, in snow that was waist high. Every time someone brings up that storm, I think of of where the state of our family was at that time.

A couple of weeks before the Beast from the East hit, we were to meet our little boy for the first time. We drove the long distance to meet him, only to find out he had gotten ill the day before we were to meet him. We did meet him, but he looked awful; not the best way to meet your son for the first time. After a couple of days of hoping he would get better, Introductions was postponed until further notice. We drove back to Edinburgh.

Then the storm came.

When I think of that storm, I think of being in limbo. 

Meeting him the way we did kind of made me question the decision to adopt him. He looked so ill. It was also very unclear when we would start up Introductions again. He had somewhat recovered after a week, but had lost a lot of weight and everything just seemed...in limbo.

When I think of that time, I think of our older kid, in her last hurrah as an only child.

She loved the snow and, looking back on it, if we had been able to bring the little guy home as scheduled, she would not have been able to spend as much time out in the snow, getting all the attention an only child gets. That week of the storm is about as close to our older kid as I’ve ever felt, and I think that, for me, it was my last hurrah of giving her all my attention, and I loved it.

A couple of weeks after the storm, we were the family we are now; a family of four. When I think of March 2018, I think of that storm, I think of being in limbo, I think of both of our kids; the older one being an only child for the last time and the younger one not knowing how much his life was about to change, by gaining a forever family.

March 2014 - The Plane

In March 2014, I felt like I could go nowhere without hearing about MH370, the plane that seemed to disappear into thin air.

We were not parents at the start of March 2014, but were at the end of the month; March started like a lamb and ended like a lion.

We went through Introductions with our first kid that March and were staying at hotel near her foster family. We would go to breakfast in the morning and all we would hear about was that missing flight. As sad of a story that flight was, it was a distraction to me; I obsessed over reading about it. Not because I was obsessed about it but because I needed the distraction. 

I was very nervous about adopting a kid. I even told our social worker a few weeks earlier that I didn’t know if I wanted to go through with it.

For people who have not gone through Introductions, it’s hard to describe just how taxing it is - physically, mentally, and emotionally. We visited our kid’s foster family just this past weekend, and joked about who we were during that week - how little we knew and the toll it took on us.

Ever since March 2014, when I hear the occasional news story of MH370, I think of that week of Introductions and I think about our kid; who she was as a person then, and who we were to her - complete strangers. I think about her now, and how she is probably the person that feels least like a stranger to me, and how life can turn a stranger into a father, or daughter. 

March 2010 - The Madness

On March 20 2010, I dozed off watching a basketball game; March Madness. I love March Madness. The NCAA tournament is my favourite annual sporting event. 

I was sitting on a sofa at the Gilchrist Hospice, in Towson, Maryland. I was jet-lagged, having arrived from the UK a couple of days earlier.

My mother was dying.

I was woken up by my sister at some point later that night. She told me that a hospice worker had said that it was nearly time. 

My mother was leaving us, and soon after, we watched her take that last deep breath. Then she was gone.

My mother’s funeral was a week later. The day after her funeral, I drove Lauren to Dulles Airport, for her flight back to Oxford. On the way home, I listened to Michigan State (I’m an alum) beat Tennessee to make it to the Final Four. MSU wasn’t expected to do that great that year, but the team made all the way to the Final Four, which was something to be proud of.

Every March since then, I consume the tournament as best as I can from a distance, and I think of my mother. It’s odd to think that a game played by giant men reminds me of a very small woman (my mother was no more than 5 feet tall), who knew almost nothing about basketball. 

I also think about who my mother was, and who she had hoped her son to be.

Ready to Run

I don’t like  running. 

I do like sprinting; I have very quick pick-up speed, even at my older age. I notice this every time I’m on my bike at a red light, next to another biker, and the light turns green. I don’t think I’ve ever been in that situation (without kids on the bike with me) where I haven’t just left the other biker in my trail. My legs can move very quickly, but not for long periods of time.

I don’t like running. 

For me, running is moving your legs for a long time. Sprinting is not. I don’t think I’ve ever liked running for long periods of time, partly because, I get winded. I can’t pace myself. I want to sprint - all the time; which is an insane thing for anyone to do, unless they are in a short race.

I don’t like running.

I signed up for a 10K a couple of weeks ago. Why, you may ask? 

I signed up for the shirt.

A year ago, I signed our kid up for a 1K kids' run, thinking she would like it (she likes running more than I do), and she did. She got a shirt. I liked that shirt. I wanted a shirt, partly because I had to run with her for the 1K, and why shouldn’t I get one? Turns out adults can’t get shirts for a kids’ race, and adults can’t sign up for a 1K run.

This year, I signed up for the 10K race that is happening that same day, as part of the Edinburgh Marathon Festival.

After I signed up, I realised the only shoes I own that could be called ‘running shoes’ are at least 12 years old, and pieces of the sole have been coming off for the past 2 years. I got new shoes.

I then realised that I have no idea how to prepare for a 10K. Part of me thought of doing nothing - I ride a bike 50-75 miles a week, so why train? Riding and running are two very different things. I need to train. I found a website with a 10K training plan.

I started training on Tuesday. As I jogged that first day, and then again two days later, I had to constantly remind myself not to start sprinting. I don’t like jogging; I don’t like running.

But I’m going to be ready to run this 10K; so I can get a shirt.

4 Weeks

In four weeks, the UK is scheduled - possibly, maybe, maybe not - to leave the UK. Nobody knows if it will happen, what it will look like if it does happen, or the repercussions if it happens.

On the radio, I hear an ad where you hear a ‘European’ asking what life will be like post-Brexit, you also hear a ‘Businessperson’ and a person ‘married to a European’. These people say they don’t know what life will be like for them post-Brexit and don’t know how they will be affected. The ad directs them to a website that will help them through this.

The thing is, nobody knows what life will be like for these people. No one knows this, because there is no real plan in place. I work with international students. We have no idea how Brexit will affect these students, and we should be people that know this sort of thing better than Joe Schmoe on the street. 

I’m not going to comment on if the UK should have voted to leave the EU in the first place; I wasn’t a UK citizen at the time, so I couldn’t vote, and as a resident of a country, I feel like I should accept the will of the people who have welcomed me to live amongst them.

My issue is, there seems to have been no real plan on dealing with the outcome of the people voting the UK out. It’s been nearly 3 years since the vote happened. To now be 4 weeks away and not know what will happen is kind of scary, and is utterly ridiculous. 

I hear the ad on the radio and talk about Brexit at work and I can’t help but laugh because what else can I really do? Cry?

York - Old and New

October 2014

In October 2014, we went on our first ‘big’ trip with our older kid. She was 2 years and 2 months old. We went to York. It was a 2 1/2 to 3-hour train journey. She sat on the train, watched Peppa Pig, we got there, she played in a play park the evening we got there, went to the National Railway Museum the next day, took the train back. I remember nothing significant about the trip, in regards to our kid, except that I had to change her on a bench in a park the evening we were in town.

In February 2019, we went on our first ‘big’ trip with our younger kid. He was 2 years and 2 months old. We went to York. It was a 3 to 4-hour car journey. It was not as pleasant of a trip.

Our second kid doesn’t travel well.

There was a the 30-min tantrum that went on in the car while we were driving down to England. There was the not wanting to sit on during the 30-min train ride from where we were staying into York. There was the (short) loud tantrum (including throwing things) at the National Railway Museum. There was the seemingly never-ending crying/whining/complaining that happened on the drive back to Edinburgh.

Other than that, the trips were very similar. I took our buggy (same buggy, BTW), with a kid in it, up a bunch of stairs to get onto the walls of York, and down again. We went to National Railway Museum. We saw Geese.

Other than the fact that I will always remember our first trip with one kid as being very easy, and our first trip with the other kid as being very difficult, they were basically the same.

But that one thing, though.

I’m not looking forward to flying anywhere with our kids, like, say New York...at least not anytime soon.

February 2019

Court

A few days ago, I sat in the courtroom at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, for the fifth time. The first four times are documented here.

This time around, things (at least in court) went the way they are supposed to go. We were in the presence of the judge for less than 5 minutes and, just like that, our second kid was adopted.

Getting to this stage was quite another story. With our older kid, our first court appearance was about 6 months after she moved in with us. In this case, it was nearly a year. I thought about going into why it took so long, but I’m not really sure, other than shoddy social work being done, at every step of the way.

I’m glad it’s done, and now our lives can move on, and I hope I never need to be in the Edinburgh Sheriff Court again.

Bilot

If you happen to be along London Road or McDonald Road in Edinburgh on Saturday morning, or Portobello Road/Moira Terrace/Inchview Terrace (I don’t get why the name of the road changes so frequently) on a Sunday morning, you may see me and my crew.

Me, in front, on my red bike, my yellow reflective vest and my (terrible) grey helmet; our 6-year-old, in the rear, on her blue tagalong, with her pink reflective vest and her pink/white helmet; our 2-year-old, between us, in his bike seat, wearing his white helmet, that used to be a pink Disney Princess helmet, until the outer cover fell off.

We ride. Or, as our kid’s tagalong’s name is (no joke) Wee Ride!

Riding with two kids is hard. There’s the wanting to have a conversation while riding uphill and I’m completely out of breath; the nursery rhyme singing; the tantrums.

The hardest part though, is balance. One kid wants to see the police car going by and leans to the right and whole bike goes rightward. One kid decides he wants to act out the ‘The children on the bus jump up and down’ and the bike rocks. Both kids what to see each other (which I don’t see how is possible with out setup) and the bike sways from side to side.

It’s a skill to get around with them.

To add to it, I got a ‘new’ (used) bike about a month ago and the centre of balance with the kids on is higher than my old bike, so it’s been taking some getting used to.

As we were riding to Portobello a couple of weeks ago; as I was avoiding bumps in the road I saw coming up, avoiding glass and other debris on the the edge of the road, moving out of the way and waving cars to pass by us, I was thinking that to some very, very, small degree, this is what it must be like to be a pilot a commercial plane. A bilot, if you will.

The kids can’t see what I can see; they can’t steer, or break, or make the decision of when we leave from a stop. I am the one who does all that. But, because they are my kids, my goal is to get them from Point A to Point B, with as little pain or stress as possible, and hopefully no accidents along the way. This is what the aim of airline pilots is, is it not? Get passengers from Point A to Point B, with as little pain or stress as possible, and hopefully no accidents along the way.

I’ve been biking since I was very young (3 or 4), and I love it. I love the freedom and the speed. I’ve always been a bit reckless when I bike by alone. I have yet to tell our 6-year old the kind of bike stunts I was doing when I was her age, and don’t think I’ve told my parents either. I’m still a little reckless, but stay within the law; I don’t mind going over bumps; I often try to go as fast as possible, even to the point of regularly breaking the speed limit (20 mph) when riding down Leith Walk. I weave through traffic, when I think it’s safe enough to, and have been known to give a finger or two to drivers who think they own the road. I don’t do any of this with my kids (although our older kid likes to race other bikers when the toddler is not with us, so we do go fast from time to time).

With this mindset, I wonder what it would be like to be a commercial airline pilot, when they fly alone. Do they care about avoiding turbulence? I’m guessing not. Do they care if the plane tilts to one side sharply as it turns? Again, I’m guessing not. I’m guessing, as long as they know what they are doing isn’t going to lead to a crash, a little recklessness while flying solo, isn’t that big a deal.

So, last week, while biking to school with just our older kid, the bike slipped on the ice, and we fell off. I saw the ice, I saw the turn. I probably should have walked around the corner instead of trying to bike it. I was thinking like I solo flyer, and not one with a passenger.

The bilot messed up, and we had an accident. I got a number of cuts on my legs, as they scraped a pedal, the chain and the road beneath us; the wrist that broke my fall is still stiff.

Our kid was not hurt at all. I asked if she was ok and she said she was scared. She said she was scared to keep going, but I said it would be ok. I got her from Point A to Point B -- even with an accident -- without physical injury, but with some stress. I felt terrible.

As I picked her up from school at the end of the day, I asked how she was doing. She looked at me like she didn’t get why I was asking the question. I guess she was ok, and that made me feel better.

So, the next morning, even though it was still icy, we went to school the way we always to.

We(e) ride!

Me Blog Post!

Our toddler is now at a stage of language development where almost everything he says is in two-word sentences:

‘Daddy bike’ (Daddy is going on the bike)
‘Mommy office’ (Mommy is at her office)
‘Isla pasta’ (Isla has pasta)
‘Me anna’ (I want some banana)

The ‘Me’ thing is at the stage where it drives us all a little crazy. He wants to do everything himself, even things he’s clearly too short to do, like drive a car (‘Me car’). He then gets upset, sometimes to insane tantrum levels, if he can’t do it, or worse, if he can’t do it, and someone else does, like open the door using  door knob he can’t reach (‘Me door’).


He’s also at a stage where he has a one-track mind, and pays no attention to anything going on around him. I have to say, there are times I like this side of him, which our daughter has never had. I’ve been able to put away laundry, for 15-20 min, while he’s focused on some toy, or ball, or box, or something. While at dinner, he can be so focused on building a tower (‘Me tower’) with his cup (‘Me cup’), uncooked spaghetti (‘Me pasta’), a piece of pineapple (‘Me bapple’), and a plate ('Me plate') that still has food on it, that he doesn’t realise we are telling him to stop because the food is going to fall all over the place. When we have to grab the plate to prevent him from getting food everywhere, he will have a tantrum, shouting ‘Me plate! Me plate! Me plate!’.

He’s also at the stage where everything has to be just so. For the past several weeks, he only wants me to put him to bed, giving him his night time milk (‘Daddy milk’). Almost every night, we ask ‘Mommy milk?’, he says yes, then as soon as he’s in his room with Lauren, it has to be ‘Daddy milk’.

This is a long-winded blog post to get to a short story that happened about a week ago, that’s not even that funny, now that I’ve written all this.

About a week ago, we were at the kitchen table, our older kid was eating an orange. While eating, she asked him if that night it should be ‘Daddy milk’ or ‘Mommy milk’. He wasn’t paying attention; he was focused. She asked again; no response; he was staring dead on, completely focused on something. A third time she asked him and he finally answered: ‘Me orange!’

She didn’t give him any.

Tantrum ensued.

My Shir-Roma

For years, I have been writing about how much I don’t enjoy reading.

The only reading I regularly do these days are kids books (to my kids), sports articles, and film articles. I really enjoy following sports and film, even though I have very little time to watch either.

A couple of months ago I started hearing (via podcasts) and reading about two films that critics seemed to like. The thing about these films was that they were both available on Netflix (the only way I can watch films these days). I thought, I can actually watch these, even if I have to watch them in 20-min segments over several days.

Roma was released on Netflix on 14th December. I watched it on 17th December, and I was actually able to watch the entire film in one day (though in two segments). The film is in black and white, the opening shot is amazing, but then....I didn’t do anything for me. I can see how ‘film people’ would talk about the cinematography, the directing, how the the director was making a film in honour of the woman who took care of him as a kid. I get all that, I do, but, to be honest,  I thought the film was boring. It was slow-paced, didn’t have much of a plot, and I just didn’t think the main character was particularly interesting, for the film to be a good character study.

Needless to say, I was somewhat happy when, for the first time, I heard one critic who wasn't completely glowing over this movie, on a podcast I was listening to that she was a guest on. Thank you, Tasha Robinson.

Shirkers was also getting a lot of buzz. It won at Sundance; it’s been getting a lot of award nominations; it currently has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. So when I saw it was also on Netflix, I thought, let’s do this.

This I could not watch in one day, but was able to watch in two.

It’s a fascinating story, and, on paper, should be a great documentary, but I found it very hard to get into it, mainly due to the narration. Something about the narrator’s tone (I should mention she’s also the director and the documentary is about her) was so annoying. I couldn’t put my finger on it, then I happened to come upon this review, which describes her narration as ‘self-pitying’ and that was it. That’s the issue I had with the film. I think, if she got someone else to narrate it, who was not so involved with the story of the documentary, and was narrated in 3rd person, it would have worked better for me.

That's my 2 cents on 2 films. I'm hoping I get to see more films in 2019 than I did in 2018.

I don’t know why my first blog post in over a year is about film criticism, but better that, than about books (since I’ve not read any non-kids books in over a year).