Confessions

In the rare moments that I actually think about what I want this blog to be, instead of simply scrambling to shape a post before Cleo wakes from a nap, or before L. and I sit down to dinner and the evening's dose of Jeopardy!, I sometimes worry that my posts are unfairly optimistic, or rosy. They seem to suggest, that is, a dad who knows what he's doing, and a household that runs smoothly and without hiccups. (Or, at least, without major hiccups; Cleo's still cursed with small bouts of them at regular intervals).

Well, as any of you who have visited the Pink House in recent months have seen, or as any of you who are parents have known since Day One, any sense that I am fully competent in this calling is simply a veneer. Set into neat paragraphs, and accompanied by a smiling image of Cleo, all may appear easy, and smooth. But let's be frank: there's often as much airbrushing behind these posts as there is behind a standard edition of Vogue.

Should I name names? Well, why not? After all, it was me who wrote a piece just a few years ago on how the computer seems to prompt a certain confessional spirit. So, with the warning of the backwoods preacher in mind ("Son, that ain't a confession; that's just bragging!"), here's a brief and humbly intended list of three recent Awkward Parenting Moments.

1. Using the men's room at Starbucks, with Cleo strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn, seems to me only a minor violation of some rule of perfect parenting - and an unfair rule, at that. Hey, at least I made it to the men's room - not always a given when one's toting 20 pounds of infant and groceries, and an umbrella, from store to home on foot. And my aim, I'll add, was still true.

2. Was that me scrambling to complete an online fantasy football transaction while Cleo began to cry after waking in her swing? Guilty as charged. But, Cleo, someday you'll understand: Santana Moss just wasn't getting the catches that had been projected, and there were better options out there...

3. Oddest, though, was certainly the moment last week when Cleo was happily chomping on her Whoozit on the futon next to me, and I was actually able to do a little reading, while nursing a bottle of hard cider at the end of a 9-hour day of child care. I opened the Washington Post magazine, and came across an advice column featuring a letter from a clearly conscientious grandmother who often watches her daughter's child. Trouble was, the grandma was used to enjoying a glass of wine, or two, in the evenings, and wondered if she could continue to honor such a tradition in her own household, now that her daughter was prevailing on her for even more childcare. No dice, came the answer from on high, along with a coolly worded absolute law: You should never, never drink while watching a child. And so, sheepishly, sheepishly, I put my cider down, and put the magazine down, and turned back to Cleo...

But wait - I hear her waking just now. And in every slight moan upon waking, there seems to be the possibility of absolution. So enough for now, and I'll walk to cribside, and begin all over again.