Author Archives: Lorne Jaffe

I Learned It From Watching You!

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Last week, when my mom was babysitting while I was at session, our cat, Gleeb, had a bit of a hairball. Now, I know this sounds mundane, but it was actually quite an event. According to my mom Sienna was in her room on the changing table when she heard these wheezing noises coming from the living room.

“What’s that?! What’s that?!” she asked excitedly with a hint of concern to which my mom proceeded to explain what was happening.

“Geeb!! Geeb!!” Sienna yelled, “E okay?? E okay??”

“He’s ok,” my mom said, letting Sienna down from the table. Apparently Sienna then ran out of her room and straight to Gleeb who had by then recovered (thankfully he didn’t spit anything up!). She then hugged and kissed and pet him all the while shouting, “Geeb!! Geeb!! E okay?? E okay??” to which my mom kept reassuring her that indeed he was.

This happened about 10 minutes before I came home and when I walked through the door I was greeted by my daughter pointing at Gleeb and repeating her refrain, “Geeb!! Geeb!! E okay?? E okay??” Then she’d hug and kiss and pet him until he walked away to which she’d yell, “E goes!” and then run after him to start it all over again.

Sounds like nothing, right? But there are a few significant things about it. This was the first time Sienna called Gleeb by name (she’d been saying “Ginky” or “Dinky” when referring to our other cat, Minky, for months). That one I was smart enough to figure out myself. It was also weird that it would happen shortly after I’d blogged about dealing with the loss of a pet now that I’m parent. The other thing I learned when I relayed the story to Elaine later that evening and she teared up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s bittersweet,” she said, dabbing away tears. “I missed it, but it also shows she’s watching and learning from us.”

Elaine was right. Sienna watches us treat not just Gleeb and Minky, but each other with love and care. Elaine and I are especially affectionate if one or the other of us is in turmoil. If I’m the verge of an anxiety attack, Elaine hugs me immediately. I do the same for her if she’s struggling. We kiss each other in front of Sienna. We hold hands. Our daughter’s absorbing this and it clearly came out when she worried over Gleeb.

Both Elaine and I grew up in families that lacked physical affection. In my family, for instance, the men never hugged. I remember one time when we were talking about this during a family gathering and my uncle went to hug my late grandfather. My grandfather went rigid, blushed and chuckled nervously. All of us were laughing at how ridiculous my grandfather looked, but thinking back, it’s sad.

My father too has trouble showing affection. As I’ve written before, it came out in therapy that he stopped hugging me when I was around 4, which is most likely when his father stopped hugging him. My uncle, having married my dad’s sister, has an easier time with it, but growing up I’d always shake his hand because that’s what I thought males were supposed to do. Inside, though starving for physical affection, I became uncomfortable hugging anyone in my family, male or female, especially my father. When I yelled that my dad owed me 30+ years of hugs during a family therapy session after my nervous breakdown, I was dead serious, and to his credit, he’s been so much better at it (though we’re also both still a little awkward when doing it). I’m proud of him.

I also don’t remember my parents being physically affectionate towards each other. Elaine has the same memories of her parents. In fact, Elaine didn’t know what to do when I’d have emotional trouble when we first started dating. I had to teach her that I needed to be hugged and though it took awhile, now it’s instinctual. Thus we decided long ago that we’d never stop hugging each other and that when it came to Sienna, we’d emulate the Keatons from “Family Ties”: we would be those annoying parents whose teenage children would come into a room, find their parental units holding hands and kissing, roll their eyes and go, “Ugh! They’re at it again!”

Nearly 21-months after Sienna’s birth, we’re still going strong in how we treat each other. With love. With caring. With respect. With hugs and kisses. And as I said before that affection extends to Gleeb and Minky and of course, Sienna, who receives so many hugs and kisses it’s impossible to count and who gives them right back to Elaine and I.

“Geeb!! Geeb!! E okay?? E okay??” *Kiss* *Hug*

Sha-la-la-la

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Sienna watching carefully over Gleeb

An Amazing Response To A Bully

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I’ve written about bullying for a long time. How I was bullied by so many people for much of my life. How my father’s bias against overweight people in general and his sarcastic comments in specific (“You’re gonna be as big as a house” or “Overweight people can’t be beautiful” despite both his wife and son being on the heavy side) helped prevent any sense of my own self-worth from forming. I also want to repeat that my father is NO LONGER that person and each time I bring up things like this, it makes both of us feel extraordinarily guilty, but it’s important information for parents to know and for people to have in order to understand the near-40-year-old I’ve become.

I’m talking about it today because my wife showed me an incredible video. I don’t know how long it’s been around, but I suggest everyone watch it and learn from it. The video is an editorial response by a journalist to a letter she’d received remarking about her weight and how as a person in the public eye, she needs to do a better job of promoting a healthier lifestyle, especially for girls.

As the father of a 20-month-old girl, I will be sure to bookmark this video and show it to her when she’s ready to understand it, both to prevent her from ever becoming a bully and to understand how to respond to a bully.

And as I said, every parent should watch it. I urge you to watch this amazing video

Blog Anxiety 2 – “Dad Bloggers”

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Today is the first birthday of Dad Bloggers, a terrific Facebook group currently 523 strong that I joined right before writing my blog “Tumbling From the Moon and Getting Back Up” about my sadness in feeling so puny in the blog world and my need for “Raising Sienna” to TAKE OFF NOW!! And while my blog hasn’t shot into outer space, I have gained some new readership (I think, I don’t know my numbers) and some new friends. Dad Bloggers is a terrific community and I congratulate Oren Miller, founder of the page and author of “A Blogger and a Father,” but it’s also overwhelming for someone like myself. I’ve posted three more blogs since joining the group (my mind’s screaming, “NOT ENOUGH!”). At times I feel like I can’t keep up with the site, that I’m drowning, that I’m in competition with 523 (and growing bloggers), some of whom have been doing this for years, many of whom I feel are so much talented than me. In addition, dads post links to current dad-related media like advertising or articles which tend to make feel like I’m late to the party (especially having a masters in media studies), that I should have blogged about these things before anyone even noticed them. That’s irrational, of course, but it’s another example of living inside this head of mine. So rather than continue to lament these feelings I wanted to talk about what I’ve done to work through my blog anxiety:

  • Joining the group was a huge step in itself. It’s something that I’d never have done in the past. I would have stared at the page for awhile, clicked on some other site and chastised myself for being a coward. So I have to acknowledge that I grew just by joining
  • Seeing all of these dads and their respective blogs made me realize I’m not ready to go to the Dads 2.0 Summit at the end of January. If I’m overwhelmed by this page, there’s no way I’ll be able to handle a conference dedicated to dad bloggers, media and sponsorship. And you know what? That’s not such a bad thing. It doesn’t mean I won’t be ready in 2014. It just means I’m not ready now.
  • While really stressing about how often many of the group members post, I wrote to an author friend of mine, Caren Lissner, whose excellent first novel, Carrie Pilby, is soon to be a movie. Caren’s been a big supporter of my mine and she told me exactly what I needed to hear: “I think a lot of bloggers have that problem – once they start, they feel bad if they don’t post regularly. A week is not very long to wait. I think a week is good! You can even do a post saying that there may be a week or two between posts at times. A blog shouldn’t be a nightmare; it’s YOUR blog, not a job.” This current blog would not have been written without Caren’s advice about blogging about how I get freaked out because I feel I’m not blogging enough. Thank you, Caren!
  • I had the guts to write, via FB, to a couple of Dad Bloggers’ major contributors to ask for advice. This is something I never would have done before. I asked John Kinnear, author of “Ask Your Dad,” if he was intimidated when he first joined and he responded thusly (sorry, I’m still not great working with WordPress so not sure how to indent): “Nope, but mainly because I didn’t know how many heavy hitters there are in this group. Once I found out who the big guns were, I was already friends with them and didn’t really feel the need to impress. Neither should you man. We all have blogs of various sizes and honestly, traffic shouldn’t be your first goal. Write what you love, what makes your feel, what makes you laugh, and what makes you a better dad. Make sure you share it so people can find you. Respond to comments. Comment on other blogs. Make friends. Your audience will find you over time.” Those words made feel much better because I was obsessing over traffic. I further asked him how often he posts and he said he tries to post once a week. That gels completely with what Caren had told me and made me feel a lot better. Thanks again, John!
  • I even had the courage to write to Oren Miller himself, founder of the Dad Bloggers group, and he told me: “There are a lot of people there, but I think most of them, including the more successful ones, know that there’s a lot of great writing from smaller blogs, and it’s often the smaller blogs that really speak the truth (it’s easy to lose your way once you start dealing with promotions and reviews).” Again, that helped settle me down. Thanks again, Oren!
  • Taking all of this advice into consideration, I’ve been “liking” and commenting on as many blogs that touch me as I can, and have been making some friends. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the amount of content pouring in, I click away and count to ten. It doesn’t always work, but I do it as much as possible.
  • Caren, John and Oren also reiterated something my therapist has been trying to drill into my head for years: not everything I write has to be timely. If I still want to write about “Breaking Bad,” for instance, I can. So I thank all three and my therapist for that advice.

I still obsess over about what to blog; I have an idea for one, for instance, with which I’ve been really struggling. It’s kept me up late the last few evenings. Tonight I’ll take a melatonin in hopes it’ll quiet my brain. And I’ll say this now, something else I probably never would have said before: I’ll get to it eventually.

Joining Dad Bloggers has been tough, but rewarding, and I wish Oren and his group a very happy birthday, continued success and many, many new members. It’s definitely made a difference in my life just by the fact that I’ve been able to write this here blog. I like knowing that there are people I can turn to should my brain start getting the best of me, maybe even some who suffer anxiety and depression like myself. As I said about the characters in Silver Linings Playbook, sometimes the best help you can get comes from people who truly understand you. It’s clear I’ve found a few.

“Family Guy” Kills Off Beloved Pet; How Will I Handle the Loss of a Pet Now That I’m a Parent?

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I haven’t watched Family Guy in years, but when I read that this past Sunday’s episode included the death of Brian, the Griffin family’s much loved talking dog, the show succeeded in getting me to ponder how I’ll deal with such a crisis now that I’m a parent and how I’ll explain the death of a pet to Sienna.

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If you’re an animal lover, especially of cats and dogs, pets become members of the family and thus their deaths can be brutal. I remember a girl in elementary school coming in positively grief-stricken because her cat had been hit by a car. Yesterday she happened to post a picture of her latest cat who had died the previous year. Elaine got a cat tattoo when, while in college, she learned of her pet’s death. She said she cried for days. She then followed that up with another tattoo, this one of the cat’s name, Sam.

I grew up in home filled with animals (not all at the same time) – a dog, cats, gerbils, hamsters, salamanders, lizards, turtles, fish, birds, a guinea pig (pray that you never have to hear the blood-curdling screeches of a guinea pig having a stroke), even a fiddler crab that decided to climb out of its tank and somehow made it down the stairs before realizing it was a fiddler crab and needed to be in water. There was a lot of death, but none so impactful as the loss of our dog and our cats. Peanuts, our only dog, was adopted before I was born and lived 13 years. I think she died when I was 10 or so. I remember my mom bawling outside the vet’s office when we put her to sleep, but I cannot recall how she explained it to me. My dad misses her every day (he’s not a cat person).

We adopted our first cat when I was around 4. I named him Twinkles. (Hey! I told you was 4! Besides, he was rechristened “Fat” because as an indoor/outdoor cat, he decided to go down the street for food and then come home and eat some more. He weighed more than 30 pounds!). I don’t remember how long he lived, but I was hysterical when he was found dead near our neighbor’s house. Timothy, our next next cat, lived about 13 years and into my 20s. He developed kidney failure and we kept him going on IVs for months because he wasn’t in pain. My mom still keeps pictures of Timothy and her next cat, the late Ferris, on the fridge.

For me, the sudden death of my cat, Zeeb, at age 9, was completely traumatic. I was in my mid-30s when it happened. He was diagnosed with cancer and went within weeks. Overnight he went blind and the awful wails when he tried to jump on the bed but jumped in the wrong direction and missed still ring in my ears at times. It took me a month to throw out his chair and after doing so I developed unexplained migraines. They went away when Elaine mentioned the connection between their onset and me throwing out the chair, but it wasn’t long after that that I had my severe nervous breakdown. You see, Zeeb was intuitive and got me through some terrible times. He knew when I was feeling down. He’d climb on me and purr almost immediately. That type of unconditional love is amazing and I guess his death pushed me to the psychological brink. I didn’t break until a little while later, but that’s not relevant to this blog.

Sienna’s growing up with two cats – Zeeb’s brother, Gleeb (14) and Minky (4). Cats can live 20 years or more so it’s possible Gleeb will be around when Sienna’s 6 or 7. Minky, who shares the same intuition Zeeb possessed, will hopefully live a lot longer. I have no idea how I’ll explain their deaths (or my own devastation) to Sienna. I guess a lot will depend on her age. Do I go the “we took him to a farm” route? Do I explain life and death to her? Do we hold a formal funeral like they did on The Cosby Show when Rudy’s goldfish died? Will Sienna forget quickly or cry for days? Will Elaine and I cry for days? I guess we’ll face it as a family when the time comes. For now it’s all about  teaching Sienna how to treat, love and play with Gleeb and Minky. For now it’s all about their being a big part of our little family.

One thing I do know – there will be no sitcom-style “must find an identical replacement” antics.

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Sienna playing with Minky