Father’s Day, 2004

Well, for a number of lame reasons I have been pulled away from this journal once again. The last three weeks have been filled with work trips and/or cruises to Santa Catalina Island (twice) and Santa Barbara for a total accrued time away from my son and wife of more than ten days, which is incredibly stupid and frustrating, as they are absolutely my two favorite people and in Landon’s case, a developing character - changing more rapidly every day. On top of the difficulties of separation, I came excruciatingly close to obtaining a new job that would have benefited both my career and immediate family, but as the phrase ‘excruciatingly close’ implies, I am still mired today in the monotonous field of fish delivery boy. What these obstacles did reaffirm was my love and devotion to my family – I would do anything for Rhiannon and Landon, miss them tremendously over periods of separation, and will continue to strive for an improvement over our current mundane existence in a cave-like condo located squarely in the middle of the limitless Southern Californian suburban sprawl.

All that aside I had a wonderful first Father’s Day last Sunday. Although no one in the family except perhaps Landon felt well; I was still recovering from twelve hour work days in Catalina, and Rhiannon lay swamped by the responsibilities that engulf a teacher at the end of a school year, we headed off to the Long Beach Aquarium to introduce Landon to the wonderful world of living and breathing and swimming and bubbling fish. There is definitely something that a two dimensional picture of a fish (of which Landon has seen plenty of examples) lacks completely, and something that a writhing, luminescent scaled living fish possesses that inherently defines and describes what a fish is. A fish doesn’t sit still. A fish is wet. A fish floats and dances and dives its way through a world we can only visit temporarily.

Landon seemed enthralled with the fish and often just the movement of water at the aquarium. I hope I’m not supplanting his genuine interest with a father’s desires, but Landon did seem to watch and follow the fish as they darted around in the tanks at the aquarium. My guess is their colors had something to do with it, but then again, there is something simple and relaxing about a fish that I believe even a four month old child can enjoy. Our visit was relatively short, Landon is still limited to a little more than two hours of awake time before the eyes get rubbed and the yawns begin to escape, but I had a wonderfully memorable time sharing with Landon something that is so essentially a part of who I am.

That night we walked to a Japanese restaurant and enjoyed fish in a different context – they were equally delicious.

Related to eating, but entirely unrelated to fish, Landon has begun to be introduced to solid foods. Last week he had his four month doctor’s visit where he weighed in at 15 lbs 15 oz, and taped in at 26 in. During the visit Dr. Mackey also suggested that we begin to integrate solid foods into Landon’s diet. So, in accordance with the doctor’s orders we began feeding Landon one meal a day of formula mixed with rice cereal. He is still struggling with the whole idea of keeping what goes in his mouth inside his teeth less jaws, but nonetheless he seems to relish in the whole messy experience as he giggles and smiles while his chin and bib become inundated with white mush. Solid food has also brought about Landon’s first solid dookie with was welcomed into this world under an incredible cloud of stink and confused infant cries. Rena did a good job of cleaning up the damage while I stood nearby gagging, in shock that such a big terd could come out of such a little butt, it was no wonder to me that he wailed during the entire expulsion.