My Jenn-eration

The other morning I officially hit a new parenting low when I literally promised my daughter gold at 5AM if she would just be quiet. Whatever. It didn't even work. And in this moment I was particularly struck by two universal truths about parenting: 1) anything you say at crazy hours of the night and early morning can never be held against you by your spouse or children during regular human hours, and 2), you must accept that which you cannot control. On this particular morning, Ruby woke up for THE DAY at 4:55AM (anything before 6AM in my book is completely unacceptable) and did so by singing the ABC’s at the top of her lungs. Which would have been annoying but manageable had she not put the fear of G-d in me that she would also wake her brother before 6AM, a completely unmanageable situation requiring a 4:30pm bedtime for the entire family. I was literally pleading with her 2 year old mind for silence as she stared at me with her large and completely blank eyeballs and began to...

Tomorrow will be a very important day. It is the birthday of the first man who I ever gave and received unconditional love from: my dad. My dad is, I suppose, a walking contradiction of sorts. He is an intellectual but has relied on his street smarts and uncanny ability to read people to guide him through life. He is artistic and thoughtful, but cannot resist a Mel Brooks joke about knockers. He has had every reason to bury himself in a series of tragedies and sorrows that have seemed to follow him somewhat relentlessly in life, but instead pursues happiness with a near fervor. He grew up a first generation American living in one of the roughest immigrant neighborhoods of Hartford. He shared a room with his older sister, met his soul mate at a dance when he was 13, put himself through college, worked nights as a pharmacist while he got his law degree, rose up through the ranks of a major corporation, built a life with his wife and lived the American dream. There was a house in the...