Sunday, December 28, 2008

Calling Rip Van Winkle



My 2-1/2 year old daughter has a mortal enemy who goes by the name of Sleep, nicknamed Bedtime. It is still the hope of her mother and I that she manages to get a decent nap and a full night’s rest each day. We’ve done ample reading on how critical sleep is to the development of a young child’s mind, and have seen much evidence of how important it is to pleasantness of mood. Since we both work, our daughter (who I'll call Queen Diva from here on out) is in fulltime daycare Monday through Friday and naptime is out of our hands. Often she naps there for about an hour, and far too frequently she doesn’t nap at all. On rare occasion she’s out for a good two hours, which is about the best we can hope for. Our naptime hopes are a little more ambitious on weekends when responsibility shifts back to us, but the results are not greatly improved. Queen Diva pseudo-regularly gives us about an hour and a half to ourselves at midday, a period during which remarkably little can be accomplished. Just as we’re nearing a state somewhere in the vicinity of relaxation, we hear her enthusiastic battle cry – I’m Awake! Double duty is shared with her daycare provider regarding daytime naps, but when it comes to putting Queen Diva to sleep for the night the ball is entirely in our court. We have heard fantastical rumors of toddlers who go down without a fight. We’ve even been witnesses to this seemingly miraculous event and marveled at the good fortune of those parents. When it comes to our own little one however, to quote the dapper Michael Buffer - “Let’s get ready to rumbleeeeeeeee.” My wife and I have come up with every strategy under the sun. Sometimes several days in a row go by when the struggle is less than epic and we foolishly believe we’re on to something. Then our good luck streak cruelly ends and it is back to the drawing board. Evenings can be quite stressful as result. We do our best to be patient, maintaining calmness of demeanor and consistency of habit, creating a sense of security while also promoting independence because when it comes to going to sleep, no one can do it for our daughter but herself. But more often than not, no matter how tired she appears to be (ironically the more exhausted she is the more hyper her behavior), Queen Diva is not ready to fall asleep until she’s ready to fall asleep. Since she is inevitably put to bed (crib to be precise because the attempt to switch her to a bed, even though it was a pink Disney princess model, failed miserably) earlier than her body declares itself prepared for slumber, we are treated to a symphony of complaint and distress. Yet we remain optimists, for what choice do we have? Our silver lining is that unlike the naps that sometimes never come, at night even though she tries to drag it out indefinitely, eventually she will succumb. When silence finally arrives we declare that tomorrow she’ll get enough exercise during the day to wear down her endlessly energetic self. Tomorrow a good daytime nap will translate to trouble free bedtime at night. Tomorrow she won’t be able to trick us into a false alarm bathroom run. Tomorrow that “cry it out” theory will actually work. Tomorrow she’ll decide that resisting sleep with all her might is simply not worth the hassle. But you won’t find me putting any money on tomorrow looking much different than today. The day after that is anyone's guess. ------

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  • Friday, December 5, 2008

    Stepping Up to a Near Impossible Challenge






    Barack Obama will assume the presidency of this country at a most inopportune time. We are in a recession that will likely get worse, though hopefully not too much so, long before anything he can do will help to make it better. Faulting Bush or the Republican party or the Easter Bunny won't do us any good either. Assigning blame won't slow down the rate of unemployment or shorten the list of companies big and small lining up to file bankruptcy. Finger pointing won't help a single family pay their mortgage bill after a bread winner has been laid off. Only time and effort and intelligence will stem the tide. It would be nice if compassion to those who are struggling is generously applied as well.




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    In addition to the economy there are numerous other issues on Obama's plate. That's what winning such a monumental election gets you, a plate full of problems and a nation full of people (supporters and detractors alike) waiting for you to fix them. If this recession becomes a full blown depression, the most grateful person in the country will probably be John McCain, sitting pretty in one of his houses with nobody demanding that he save the day.




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    What especially interests me is not the political headaches awaiting the next occupant of the oval office, but rather, the enormously high level of social pressure that accompanies his role as THE FIRST. On my walk from the train station to my office building each day I happen to walk past multiple wholesale stores. A great many of them carry Obama themed merchandise: t-shirts, calendars, anything that his image and message of optimism can be stamped on. African Americans are clearly the biggest target audience for these items. A couple years ago one might have sported a shirt with the face of Tupac or Biggie or Mike Tyson or Michael Jordan as demonstratons of black pride. That has been replaced with apparrel presenting a more serious minded icon such as old school Martin Luther King Jr. alongside our trendy modern day hero - Barack Obama. I'm afraid I haven't been to church in a New York minute, but I wonder if there will be Barack Obama fans along with the MLK models I used to cool myself with during the hot summer Sundays of my youth, arm flapping away as the preacher did his thing up on the pulpit. I knew plenty about Dr. King, what he had accomplished, what he represented. He was the stuff of legend and a notable subject in history textbooks. I understand what Barack Obama represents as well, but as for accomplishments, they haven't really been church fan worthy. Not yet anyway. His election was based on potential rather than achievement. We have collectively rolled the dice and decided to take our chances on the promise of a new day. Our President Elect has written a couple books, done some oddly derided community organizing, and been elected to a few political offices including the biggest one in the land. He proved to be an impressive candidate as John McCain, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others will attest. Whether or not he will be an impressive president remains to be seen.




    x x x x x




    Let's say for the sake of argument though that he excels at the job - pulls our troops out of the Middle East without terrible consequences, gets our economy back on dot.com style track, reverses global warming and eliminates the need for gasoline fueled cars or oil fueled furnaces. Let's just say that after eight years of his service everything is prosperous, solar, electrical, green, and almost literally coming up roses. The possibilty exists that Obama could pull all of this off and still be seen by many as a failure. Why? Because Barack Obama will not simply be the President of the USA during a time of multifaceted crisis. He will also be viewed as the savior of Black America. Martin Luther King Jr. had "the dream" and mentioned it to us right before being permanently put to sleep, but Obama has what could be described as an even greater challenge than that facing Dr. King during the civil rights era. Barack Obama is being asked to be the embodiment of the dream fulfilled. He must make every black citizen feel not just a temporary feeling of exhultation over his individual victory, but ultimately, a permanent aura of satisfaction over millions of lives made tangibly better. Obama needs to equal if not better what Abraham Lincoln accomplished for African Americans during his own inopportune time to be president. If you're unemployed or barely scraping by on minimum wage, in the past this was not viewed as the fault of the sitting president. Effects of racism such as being stuck in poverty with a vastly inferior educational system were understood to be much bigger than any one man could be held accountable for. Legally sanctioned bigotry and the poison from it that has trickled down into society far more effectively than Reaganomics is historic. Blame couldn't be put on the first or the second Bush, or Clinton, or Reagan, or Carter, or a particular predecessor any more than a single president could be credited with inventing patriotism. Many decades of seasoning have gone into the stew sitting in the great melting pot that is the United Yet Also Divided States of America. No one person created our nation's racial problems so no particular soul was reasonably or unreasonably expected to fix them - until now that is.




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    I have no doubt that over the next 4 - 8 years there will be many people who look at the state of their lives with great dissatisfaction and proceed to accuse Barack Obama of not having done enough to improve things. The rights to vote and not be segregated and not be enslaved have already been obtained. Yet in spite of great strives there also is still much disparity. "Where is my 40 acres? Where is my mule? Where is my equality? Where is my bigger slice of pie? Why have all of my woes not been eliminated and my sins pardoned now that a black man sits in the White House?"




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    These questions are not intelligent ones, but they are probably inevitable. Those willing to tug on their own bootstraps will certainly hold more realistic hopes and expectations. Will Barack Obama even live up to those? Or was he set up for failure by his own ambition? Will his presence and message and most importantly his actions continue to inspire us? Or will the novelty of his achievement eventually wear off and leave familiar complacency in its place? The burden of change is of course not really on Barack Obama. It is on all of us.

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    Commentary by Roy L. Pickering Jr. (author of Feeding the Squirrels: A Novella)




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    Web site of the millenium:
    http://eringopaint.etsy.com/