A Tantrum Leads To A Near Wedding Fiasco

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

We double, triple, quadrupled checked everything. Meticulously packed all items. Card holding crucial check stored in Elaine’s handbag. We packed up Sienna for her overnight stay with my parents making sure all her favorite stuffed animals were accounted for and we were good to go for our 3 and a half hour trip from New York to Pennsylvania for our friends’ wedding. We even got the front door open.

And then like an unforeseen hailstorm – tantrum.

Sienna wanted to wear her Mickey Mouse fleece despite it being 83 degrees outside and was not leaving the apartment until that red and white polka-dotted coat safely encased her torso. We tried reason, but it shockingly failed miserably. So we put her in the fleece because we had to go go go.

Got down to the car, buckled her into her carseat, and set off for my parents. Dropped her off with my dad with lunchtime instructions (like she’d eat anything) and once we plugged in our hotel’s address into Google Maps, it was time for smooth sailing pending little traffic.

Elaine and I relaxed a bit knowing we were Sienna-free for a bit more than a day. We sang along to 80s ballads. We talked about weddings and reminisced about our own. We planned to get to the hotel with hours to spare so we could unwind from the drive and shower before the cocktail hour and reception. It wasn’t until we reached the mouth of the Holland Tunnel that Elaine shouted something that made my guts fall into my shoes:

“We forgot your suit! My dress! We have nothing to wear!!”

That’s what a toddler tantrum can do. It can unravel all of your painstaking plans and careful choreography. Our formal wear stood in the closet next to the front door laughing at us fools now an hour away from home. Sienna was probably obliviously happy in the park, playing with in the sprinklers with Pop-Pop, her fleece long out of mind.

“What should we do? There’s no way not to go through the tunnel!”

“It makes no sense to go back,” Elaine said. “It’d take us 2 hours to get back here. They’ll forgive us when they hear the story.”

“We can’t go in wearing jeans and t-shirts!” I countered.

The Holland Tunnel opens right next to the Newport Mall on the New Jersey side. It was almost serendipitous. We screeched into the mall parking lot and raced to Macy’s. Time for emergency shopping!

Elaine and I raced to the women’s petite section and she desperately pulled everything in her size off the rack.

10487263_10152224979471732_3655817482021347448_n

Elaine makes a face of desperation as we emergency shop

The second dress she tried on was perfect. She grabbed some gold stud earrings off a kiosk and then it was my turn. I needed slacks, a sport jacket, a tie, a shirt and a belt. Luckily we’d packed our shoes in the suitcase. We ran to the mens’ section but both of us were lost, so we asked for assistance. We told the nice woman who helped us that we were on our way to Pennsylvania and just now realized we’d forgotten our formal wear.

“What?” She said. “You know, I’m angry at you! How could you do that?”

“We have a 2-year-old. She threw a tantrum.”

“Stop right there. I forgive you. Mine’s 4. Let’s go find you an outfit.”

Elaine and the saleswoman worked together to pick out my clothes and it was perfection. The suit fit perfectly and matched Elaine’s dress. She then told us to hold onto the tags so we could return everything which didn’t feel right to me.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” the saleswoman said, “But people do it all the time. Besides, in your case it’s a toddler-related emergency. Don’t worry about it.”

We bought the clothes, drove the rest of the way to the hotel, checked in, got dressed and made it right at the end of the cocktail hour. But we had to stop and take a picture, of course. I mean, how many times does something crazy like this happen? And we did look good for being dressed almost completely off the rack. My wife looked especially hot.

10505507_10154388103455533_9125975822592584697_n

Off the rack, baby!

I don’t know how many times we told the story, but it got huge laughs including from the bride and groom.

“You see how much we love you?” We joked. “This is what we do for you!”

It was a beautiful reception, two cultures (Indian and Chinese) coming together to form a brand new one just as Elaine (Latina) and I (Jewish) had 8 years prior. We ate and danced all while making sure not to mess up our clothes.

The following day we made a pitstop at Indian Echo Caverns which was just 20 minutes from the hotel and got to marvel at some of nature’s beauty. As I looked at the glistening stalactites and stalagmites, crystal-embedded limestone and underground lakes, I forgave my daughter for her last-second tantrum and imagined taking her to and sharing with her such a wondrous place as Echo Caverns. There’s something about appreciating each moment with your child, about not wanting them to reach the next phase in life, but there’s also something about wanting them to reach that point where they excitedly look at the green, blue, red, white rock formations just beneath a parking lot. I can’t wait to see the awe in her eyes when she sees something like this:

10481984_10152227616436732_1496832612115400536_o

An underground lake at Indian Echo Caverns

But that’s still 1-2 years away.

What amazes me most is how I handled the situation. No I wasn’t happy, but for some reason anxiety did not grasp my chest and leave me incapacitated. In the past I would have been reduced to jelly. I probably wouldn’t have been able to drive and it’s quite possible we never would have been there to witness our friends’ nuptials because my parents would have had to drive out to Jersey City to take my shaking, stuttering self home. But this time laughed at the ludicrousness of our predicament. This time I emergency-shopped. I problem-solved. And when we reached Queens on the way home, we dropped in at Macy’s and returned just about everything. The dress stays. Elaine’s just way too gorgeous in it.

So I forgive Sienna for being 2 and throwing a tantrum and forcing us to forget to bring our formal wear to a wedding 3 and a half hours away. I can’t be angry with her, especially since we avoided a potential fiasco and I proved to myself that I am indeed improving in the mental health department. I might not be exactly where I want to be, but I can’t refute facts.

Besides, she gave us a great story to tell.

Speaking At Dad 2.0 Challenges My Defenses

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

Pity

The word careened through my flabbergasted brain because it was the only one that made sense.

Pity

I remained at the podium staring into a fog of bodies united in a standing ovation, a cacophony of applause stinging my ears.

My defenses screeched and shook. Pity. It had to be pity.

I recalled someone telling me before I read from my blog to focus on him if I got lost or scared. Now I couldn’t remember who told me that and it didn’t matter anyway because I couldn’t see any faces.

At some point the room quieted, the audience took their seats and I left the stage. My body trembled. Slowly tears began to fall. Someone asked me if I needed help, if I needed to leave the room for a bit. I nodded and was led down a hall framed by companies sponsoring Dad 2.0 and into a room. Jason Greene, Kevin McKeever and Chris Read were with me speaking words of praise and comfort, but by the time my sister-in-law arrived and gave me an enormous hug, the tears were no longer silent. I cried loudly. I sobbed in shame and fear and anxiety and relief. Jason and Kevin kept telling me how proud they were. Chris told me the story of his own reading the previous year, how he was so wrecked afterwards that he had to return to his room to recuperate. Either Jason or Kevin or maybe both told me I was the star of Dad 2.0 2014, that I would be thing most remembered about the conference.

No one pitied me, they said. Rather the room coalesced in genuine awe at my bravery and my raw, powerful words. My mind screamed at them to SHUT UP!!!!!! JUST SHUT UP!!!!! My mouth kept returning to the pity thing, the disbelief thing, the distrust thing. It’s not real. It can’t be real.

Chris (I think it was Chris) told me to get ready to hear a ton of compliments, but even so I had no idea what I was in for. There was no way for me to prepare because this would be an experience so foreign to me that my usual coping mechanisms of self-deprecation, sarcasm and deflection (something the great Whit Honea told me he shared with me) could never work. As person after person after person (men and women both) congratulated and praised me, called me brilliant, courageous, a hero, I felt like I was stuck inside a hornet’s nest getting repeatedly stung from every direction because the fact is I, and my lifelong, irrational, negative defenses had NEVER received such validation; I didn’t know how to deal with it. I called Elaine and left some unintelligible message. I called one of my best friends who finally helped me calm down. All the while my sister-in-law and brother-in-law stuck close by.

People who I knew only via the web, people like Carter Gaddis, Aaron Gouveia, John Kinnear, Oren Miller told me to just relax and accept it, but how could I yield to something I didn’t trust? Each time someone came up to me, I stammered a thank you. Often I stared in confusion which I can only hope didn’t make them think I was insane. Lance Somerfield, co-founder of the NYC Dads Group, and a man I so, so wanted to please, told me how proud he was, told me I was a special part of this community of dads.

When I asked a question at a panel titled “Parenting it Forward: Compensating for Our Own Flawed Fathers” given by Charlie Capen, Ryan Hamilton, Eduardo Vega and moderated by Caleb Gardner, the first words spoken to me were about my reading and then room burst into applause. WHAT THE HELL????

When I went out to dinner with some of the guys, I learned that another table was talking about me and my reading. Again…WHAT THE HELL????

And as my defenses kept scrambling to regain finger- and footholds, a fellow dad (I’m not sure if he wants me to name him), came up and said he was so nervous about talking to me, but he wanted to because he felt like I “got it” more than anyone else at the conference; how he’d planned to leave until he heard me speak; how he too suffered from mental illness and it concerned him in his role as a father; how if I was brave enough to get on that stage, he should be strong enough to talk to me. We spoke for a long while acknowledging our similarities. We hugged. I teared up. I felt I had touched someone who truly understood.

As the conference continued, I somehow was able to compartmentalize the terror and unworthiness I felt and began to feel a camaraderie I’d never before experienced. Despite my anxiety, I felt a little at peace. I felt like I belonged. And that’s something else I didn’t know what to do with because I’d always believed myself to be the outcast.

I refused to look at Facebook for 5 days because I couldn’t bear any discussion about me. I’ve slowly gotten back into it, but I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I’m obligated to “like” every single thing, to read and comment on every single blog written by my new friends because I owe them lest they abandon me. In the near two weeks since I gave my reading, I’ve been inundated with friend requests, instant messages, e-mails, blogs written about me, quotes about me, tweets about me (I joined Twitter right before the conference and have no clue what I’m doing). And I’m having so much trouble. My therapist, Elaine, my parents, my sister, my friends, my family, all told me how proud they are, how I deserve every little bit of praise I’m receiving. Fellow dad bloggers have written that I don’t owe anybody anything except to keep being myself, but that can’t be true, can it? Because my frigging defenses keep screaming that I deserve none of this! Nothing makes any sense anymore! And yet, in a haze I bought a ticket for Dad 2.0 2015 because I so want to see everyone and feel that esprit de corps.

And two days ago, one day after my 40th birthday, it was my voice screaming those phrases as I had the worst panic attack I’ve had in years. It began in front of Sienna and my mother-in-law (who speaks very little English). The trembling, the tears. The facial twitching. The stuttering. I texted my mom who came running. I used a translator to explain to my mother-in-law I was having a panic attack. I held on until my mom arrived. She took me to the bedroom where I fell into hysterics, repeating how I didn’t understand anything and didn’t deserve all of this ridiculous recognition and how I could never ever ever live up to this. I thrashed and cried and moaned through a session with my therapist, begging for Elaine to come home, my therapist telling me this is where I go, that my defenses are now fragile because of the influx of validation, they’re struggling to keep hold while a new me is fighting to be born. My mom stroked my head. My therapist told her to give me a diazepam to help calm me down and I fell into a bitter sleep with the words, “Help help help” leaving my lips.

I don’t remember when I woke up, but I was shaky. So shaky. Sienna was still awake, but it scared me to go near her because I didn’t want HER to be frightened of me. My mom stayed and took care of my daughter. I returned to the bedroom. When Elaine came home she held me tight. She explained that I finally got what I craved (approval, affirmation, acceptance), but because I was emotionally stunted, I didn’t know how to traverse these new, wild waters. She said that half of me wants it all to go away, but the other half is thrilled, a huge dichotomy, like I’m now playing the role of Two-Face in the Batman comics, but I’m only villainous to myself. She said that when I had my most recent nervous breakdown, it was like an angry 6 year old took over and right now I’m an adolescent looking at this new tribe in black and white: popularity or abandonment. And thus the desperate, nonsensical belief that if I don’t “like,” read, and comment on everything, they’ll all go away. I also needed to learn how to manage my time, to stop looking at things like a mountain and instead concentrate on one thing a day (Kevin McKeever had written me the same advice). I still don’t know how to do that, but I felt warm in my wife’s arms. Loved. I listened.

And yet I woke up jittery and Sienna throwing tantrums, being a normal toddler, made things worse. My mom had to take her for the day and then for the night. I needed time to recover from this last panic attack, one of the worst in my history. I needed to sleep. A lot. I needed to veg. I needed to THINK and think clearly. I woke up today knowing I was going to write, feeling the little sparks emanating from my fingertips. Is this blog too long? Is it exactly what I wanted to say? Does it matter? I’m trying not to let the latter question stop me.

All I know is that I found my people and I’m putting myself out there. I’m going to do everything I can to trust them and to hell with my defenses. It’s going to be a slow process as I try to accept all of these accolades and let them grow within me until they eventually destroy (or at least overtake) the defenses I’ve built up over 40 years. I won’t be able to respond to people immediately. I won’t be able to keep up with every conversation or read every blog and tweet, especially since my daughter comes first. But I’m part of a community now. An important, loving, caring community. I’ve never had that before, so bear with me.

I humbly thank everyone who came up to me, wrote to me, tweeted about me, friended me, wrote about me, believed in and continues to believe in me. I especially thank Doug French and John Pacini for inviting me and allowing my sister- and brother-in-law to be there in New Orleans (I had no idea I’d need them as much as I did) and I thank my sister- and brother-in-law for being so kind and loving and supportive. Thank you to my friends and family for your encouraging e-mails. Thank my parents for giving me this time to heal and for being so proud. Thank you to my therapist for all your help (don’t worry, your job’s far from over). Thank you to Elaine for your love, compassion, words, hugs, kisses and for giving birth to our incredible daughter, Sienna.

But most of all, thank you to myself for going to Dad 2.0, for getting up on that stage and bearing my heart and soul in front of 200+ people, and for beginning what could become one of the most significant journeys of my life.

I still have more to write about my Dad 2.0 experience, but I can’t say when it will happen. It’s enough for now that I got this out.

Regardless, I can’t wait to see my people again at Dad 2.0 2015!

Do You Have Toddleritis?

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

Have you been popping Advil like E.T. with a sackful of Reeses Pieces? Have you been reduced to a quivering ball of stress after finally wishing your child goodnight? Do you have a sudden thought that you want your kid gone…just gone…coupled with a crippling guilt at even thinking such a thing? Then perhaps you’re suffering from Toddleritis, a very real but treatable and curable mental exhaustion created by a myriad of both exotic and commonplace actions and behaviors.

Possible Todderitis causes include:

Your toddler purposely pouring a bowl filled to the brim with milk and cereal on to herself, her high chair and the floor forcing you to clean her up, do a load of laundry, scrub the floor and vacuum the carpet all while she wails to the point where it sounds like she’s barking like a seal
Your toddler refuses to eat lunch for some unknown reason, pushing away all food and utensils and crying as if you’d threatened to never let her see the clip of “Let It Go” from Frozen again
Your toddler decides not to nap and instead sits in her crib intermittently whimpering and talking to herself as you try to read or watch a television program or get some work done
Your toddler poops during nap-time and because she’s rebuffed sleep, her inability to stay still allow the poop to seep through her diaper all over her clothes, sleep sack, sheets and stuffed animals forcing you once again to the laundry room
Your toddler keeps climbing on bookcases, tables and anything she can reach despite the amount of times you’ve asked/told her not to do so because it’s dangerous
Your toddler decides mac and cheese, vegetables, grapes, etc. aren’t good enough for dinner; all she wants are “Puffs!” and she’ll scream unless she gets them
Your toddler wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for Daddy and after you wait the required 5 minutes to see if she’ll fall back asleep, you go in, hold her, sing to her, rock her until she falls asleep in your arms looking precious – so precious – but a half hour later when you try to put her back in her crib, she reawakens and starts crying forcing you to do everything all over again and wonder if you’ll ever get back to your own bed

And it’s very possible all of these things have happened on the same day!

Toddleritis symptoms may include:

Extreme physical, emotional and mental fatigue
A wish to tear your hair out and run down the hallway yelling incomprehensible words and phrases
Severe pain from wrenching your back while preventing your toddler from grabbing something she’s not supposed to touch
An inability to sleep or at least sleep well enough to function
As reported above, a desire for your toddler to disappear instantly followed by oppressive guilt
An urge to strangle Elmo (though that could also be an ordinary feeling)
In your mind, your toddler has morphed into this:

The good news is that Toddleritis symptoms can be treated and the disease has numerous cures. Perhaps a loved one is willing to take your toddler off your hands for a night or even a few hours allowing you much needed alone, sleep and/or spousal time. It’s possible your spouse will “give you a day a off” allowing you to meet up with some friends, watch something like The Wolf of Wall Street and then debate Matthew Perry preparing to write and play Oscar Madison in a remake of the beloved sitcom, The Odd Couple (as Darth Vader so famously said, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!”). If no loved ones are around, you can maybe pay a babysitter an exorbitant, yet well-deserved wad of bills so you and your spouse can have a wonderful date night. All of these can act as treatments and/or cures, but the best and most effective are the following:

Your toddler does something hilarious like finally answering “Braaains!” along with a throaty laugh when asked what a zombie says (ok, I’m weird)
Your toddler runs into your arms and gives you a warm hug
Your toddler gives you a look that melts your heart
Your toddler smiles, jumps up and down and says, “Daddy!” when you walk through the door

Toddleritis can be a serious condition, but rest assured, it won’t last forever because at any moment your toddler might exhibit such glorious glee at the most run-of-the-mill thing that your body swells with pride and love. In essence, your toddler might all of a sudden look like this:

And how could you feel anything but enchantment when faced with a moment like that?

Just A Spoonful of Sugar Near Bedtime Can Turn Your Toddler Demonic

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

It was 10 pm and boy did we know where our child was. She was in her room screaming, nay screeching, for more than 45 minutes. We’d put her down about an hour before, but then suddenly it sounded as if some medieval torturer was there in the darkness of her bedroom flaying Sienna’s skin. Elaine was the first to go and check and reported back that Sienna was out of control, repeatedly yelling some word that Elaine couldn’t understand, not just pulling away from my wife’s comforting arms, but tearing herself from her grip and then cowering in the corner of her crib. I went in and she did the same with me, flinging herself out of my arms with a piercing yell as if my hands were balls of fire. She’d then stand up and hiccup some unintelligible word, incomprehensible because she’d reached that panic mode of crying where her breaths were coming so fast that they mixed were her voice.

Finally we understood:. “OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT!”

It was just a few hours earlier that Elaine, Sienna, my parents and I sat in an Italian restaurant enjoying good food and good times. It was just a few hours earlier that my parents gave Sienna a little bit of ice cream while Elaine and I looked at each other across the table and telepathically thought:

“This is a bad idea, isn’t it?”

“Terrible idea, but what can we say?”

“We can say, ‘No!'”

“But they’re grandparents and they just want to spoil Sienna a bit – see that spark of ecstasy in her eyes when she tastes that ice cream, watch her strain the belt of her high chair as she begs for more.”

“She’ll just have a little. It’s ok.”

“Ok. Just a little. Besides, we so rarely give her sugar, and it’s New Year’s Day.”

And that’s how a wee bit of this:

Turned this:

Into this:

We hadn’t realized just how close to bedtime it was. That was mistake number one. We didn’t have the backbone to tell my parents we didn’t want them giving Sienna any sugar. That was mistake number two. Now Elaine, Sienna and I were all paying for it.

Back in her room I kept trying to grab Sienna so we could hold and soothe her, but it was like trying to capture a greased pig. Finally I got a hold of her sleep sack and yanked her out. She squirmed out of my arms and flopped on the floor. Then she got up, took a washcloth, and walked around and around the room “cleaning” things only to suddenly drop it, bend over and screech.

“Do you want a book?” I asked.

“Book!”

I picked up a book, sat down in her rocking chair and pulled her to me. She squealed and wriggled away. Then she told me to get out of the chair. She wanted Mommy in the chair, but still she wouldn’t calm down. No book. Back to walking around with that washcloth only to drop it and howl and stamp her feet. It was like something out of Paranormal Activity.

“Do you want your cow? Your lion? Bert and Ernie?”

“HURTS! HURTS! HURTS! HURTS!”

Elaine and I looked at each other. We were both terrified and I’m so thankful Elaine was there because if I were alone, my anxiety would have taken control and had me bawling.

“What hurts? Your belly? Foot? Head? Hands?”

“HURTS! HURTS! HURTS! HURTS!”

I don’t know how much time passed before Sienna finally crawled into Elaine’s lap and started sucking her thumb. I turned on Sienna’s lightning bug which spreads stars across the ceiling and plays peaceful music.

“Do you want to count the stars?” I asked, and counted out loud.

Soon enough Sienna lay down next to me and joined in. Then she asked for Mommy to lie down too and all three of us looked up at the blue nightscape and counted the stars. Finally Sienna let us put her in her crib and she lay down. She fell asleep well past 11 pm.

Elaine and I, shaken and stirred, retreated to our bedroom. I texted my mom about further limiting Sienna’s sugar intake, especially during the evening. She agreed to follow out instructions. We are, after all, Sienna’s parents. I know grandparents want to spoil their grandkids. I completely get the joy they feel in doing so and I assign my parents zero blame. We’d never experienced anything like what happened last night, so who knew a couple of tiny spoonfuls of ice cream that close to bedtime would be so disastrous.

Don’t be afraid to tell grandparents when we feel they should stop. And never, ever, under any circumstances, give your toddler sugar even remotely close to night-night.

Consider these lessons learned.