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Done!  $200 worth of soft maple, 100-150 hours of work, a couple custom carvings by yours truly, topped with three coats of tung oil finish… I’m darn pleased with the result.  It turned out much better than it had any right to (especially the carvings, since this is the first time I’ve tried my hand at wood carving!  The “K” on the front gate is a little faint, but the texture of the negative space actually looks/feels really neat.)

Big thanks to my dad for his design ideas and for shaping all the slats!

Dashiell is asleep on the couch.  Roni too, in spite of the pent up energy that comes from not having had enough exercise.  Chris is listening to music while puttering in the kitchen, getting dinner ready.

Me, I sit here typing, playing back my first Father’s Day as a dad.  For whatever reason the day is defined by smells more than anything else.  Eggs benedict and buttermilk pancakes,  a reminder of a delicious, albeit chilly, brunch with the family and in-laws at McKay Cottage.  Juniper and trail dust, and the slightly peaty aroma of the river, picked up while walking home after our meal.  We saw ducks and swans sleeping peacefully with their heads tucked under their wings.  Dashiell too slept, as he bumped along in his stroller.

Strongest of all is the odor of honest work: tung oil, steel wool, saw dust and, yes, even a bit of sweat.  After napping for a couple hours I spent the remainder of the afternoon prepping Dashiell’s crib for its final coat of finish.  My fingertips are a bit raw from the steel wool, something I am reminded of with each keystroke.  Not painfully so; it is just a slightly different sensation than usual.  As for the crib, I am relieved to be so close to being done.  It has taken longer to complete than I would have liked, but is still in time for to give plenty of good service.  It is a crib to be proud of, I think.  One that will serve my son well, and any future generations that happen along.

Dashiell and his binky, BFF!

• • •

My First Dictionary is deliciously subversive – Disney meets Dennis Miller.  Chris may be unpleasantly surprised at the reading material Dashiell gets for his birthday in a year or two.

We went to a garage sale on Friday, looking for a canoe.  The canoe had sold (for a song, darn it – $85 including paddles and life jackets *dooh*), but we scored a used and somewhat beat up Baby Jogger II for a mere $25.  It was a bit grungy and the brake had seized, but it was obviously a quality piece of equipment, that would retail for $400 or more new.   After getting it home, I restored it via the straight-forward process of rebuilding the brake and axles, running the canvas seat through the washer, and replacing the rather chewed up grips (using a homebrew wrap of bicycle innertube).  Dashiell, Roni, and I took it out for a run yesterday morning and it works like a charm.

I think this is why I enjoy garage sales as much as I do.  It’s not so much about saving money as it is about finding quality items that go unappreciated and ignored.  The feeling that comes after taking something like this home, reducing to it’s component parts, and then resurrecting it piece by piece simply can’t be bought.  I know this stroller in a way few $500-stroller-toting-parents ever will.  There is an intimacy there that affects how I feel when using this thing; it gives it a warmth and friendliness that is hard to explain.  It will never have the shine of a new stroller, but its patina of scratches and stains are a comforting reminder of the innate sturdiness and longevity we can expect, and for which I am partly responsible.

Dashiell continues to grow – weighing in at 12.8lbs (clothed) yesterday.  We tried a cloth diaper for the first time last night, before going to bed.  We changed a [soaked] cloth diaper for the first time upon waking up.  We also changed the [soaked] outfit he was wearing.  If it also soaked the bed sheets somewhere we neither know nor care.  So, strike one for cloth diapers.

It’s a learning process where I suppose success is defined largely by the absence of bruises, sores, or anything bleeding.  Or anything else that might give witness to the naive parents we so often are in private.  Spit and snot are tolerable, and omni-present.

I’m discovering a deliciously dark side to my parenting-self.  No flowers and bunnies in this father’s head, no sirree.  I see my son naked, his full belly all taut and round, and it reminds me of nothing so much as a frog, belly up, on the verge of some unpleasant high-school science experiment.  And is it wrong to love the sound he makes when he’s really pissed off?  His little ‘o’ of a mouth emitting a chortling coo in between heart-wrenching squalls, his arms flailing in true, Nixonian fashion. “I am not a crook!”  It’s so adorable I just want to pinch him!

No, really, I’m gonna go pinch him, just to see if he’ll do it some more.  Bye.

Dashiell Robert Kieffer

8.44 lbs, 21″, Born March 27, 9:54pm.

Life’s good, friends. Life is very good.