Museum Rats

We love taking the kids to museums. We'll admit it; we're art nerds. And more than that, I guess we're history nerds, culture nerds...you name it. Now that we've got two little ones, though, you just can't beat a museum for a day out, especially when it has added perks.

Take the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, for example: not only is this the spot where we got married, but Aki's Jiji (grandpa) is a docent there. Every month or so, JANM also has a free family day (sponsored by Target), full of cool arts and crafts activities, etc. And along with every other museum in So Cal, JANM is participating in the Pacific Standard Time show spearheaded by the Getty.

In Wonderland at LACMA

One of the highlights of JANM's contribution to PST are some gorgeous prints of photos by Bob Nakamura, including intimate shots of some of the key figures from the Black Arts Movement in the '60s and '70s, including one of Betty Saar. Admittedly, I would know exactly jack about the Black Arts Movement if it weren't for the art seminar I'm currently taking, but there you go. The value of education!

Speaking of which, our class got a private tour of the new In Wonderland show at LACMA (featuring works by women Surrealists, including Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning, and Louise Bourgeois), and it's pretty effing amazing:

The Sky Above the City (1945), Alice Rahon

I was totally blown away by several artists whom I'd previously never heard of, including Alice Rahon, whose painting I shot here (mostly I got the frame; I'm still learning the ropes with this fabulous SLR Sean gave us for Xmas).



Of course, we're always suckers for the Huntington, and it's worth every penny (well, almost) for a membership if you live close enough to get there often, especially if you have little ones who can enjoy the spectacular Children's Garden.



Here's Aki's favorite hiding place in there; you have to duck your way through a hedge maze and some low-hanging rafters. Tristan is starting to love the place too!

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Once More Unto the Breach

How to jump back in?

Nothing jams up blogging like falling behind on posts, and having so much happen that eventually you just drop it cold and write nothing down at all.

The funny thing is that I've been grinding out words like a dog in between classes, diapers, and crosstown traffic (notice I didn't include sleep). I'm thoroughly content as far as that goes (except that I wish I could freeze time like Hiro Nakamura so I could finish two novels, a poetry manuscript, and another screenplay) but blogging is different.

For us, this blog has been a way to slow down and more fully process whatever we happen upon, whether it be a picture, a song, a meal, or a developmental milestone. But Yuri's second pregnancy, the reboot of Chris's teaching and fiction writing, the birth of our second child, and Aki's transition from toddler to preschooler have, in a nutshell, kind of kicked our asses!

The fact that the blog has also been a lifeline to our loved ones who live far and wide compounds our guilt about failing to write. But I think it IS important to keep this up, as hard as it is with so many balls up in the air, because it helps both of us sort out the carnival which has become our lives, which, by the way, we wouldn't trade for all the coffee beans in Colombia.

So, once more unto the breach, even if we're playing to an empty room: our second son, Tristan Naoki Sean Santiago, was born the day before Thanksgiving. Yuri is home with him, reading Pride and Prejudice between feedings. Aki has become a sharp and bombastic big brother, and I'm teaching a poetry writing workshop at USC and taking a class on global contemporary art at LACMA. On the way back home from the Westside last night, my car filled up with that late January/early February bouquet of night blooms that makes L.A. delirious and giddy and young.

After a big day at Jones Coffee, the Dinosaur Farm, and a picnic at the Huntington, the boys are crashed out and I'm doing this and reading an article on the Shanghai Biennale. My sister-in-law has pointed out that there's nothing more insufferable than the status update "Life is good." Instead, we'll say our little corner of life is rich and complicated and startling and exhausting. Everything anyone has ever told us about it is true. And everything anyone has ever told us about couldn't even come close.

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Do the Puppet Master

When it comes to rating myself as a dad, I’m a hard grader. For yesterday, though, I’d give myself an A.

Exhibit A: Homemade puppets, our post-nap art activity. I let Aki choose what type we’d make, and his “one track mind,” if you’ll pardon the pun, won out: everything these days is trains, trains, trains!

The materials: All reused or recycled. Gift and bagel bags; parts of empty tissue boxes; wooden coffee stirrers; coffee filters; nutella and honey lids; crayons and markers.

We also made the Little Red Caboose’s wreath (which, you may know, was its reward for saving the train from sliding down the hill) out of ribbon, glitter, and a hole-punched sticker. And our conductor (female! breaking stereotypes!) is a sticker from the drive-thru at In N Out.


Little Red Caboose Puppet

Before my bragging sends you packing to a less self-congratulating Daddy blog, though, let me explain some of my recent shortcomings, and why I allowed myself a pat on the back. You see, Aki got into his Terrible Twos about half a year early; accordingly, he seems to have entered into his Threes (whatever those should be called: Threatening? Thrilling?), ahead of schedule. And Daddy has been letting his temper get the better of him.

Aki’s always been a sassy, strong-willed little man, which I think is great in a lot of ways; after all, someone once told us, would we want our child to be weak-willed? But now that he’s speaking in increasingly complex and grammatical sentences, he’s gotten verbally sassy.

And that little temper of his? Well, he gets it from me. That and his stubbornness, although Yuri and I joke that he gets the temper from me and the stubbornness from her, or vice versa. Either way, when it's time for a tantrum or meltdown, he and I are like the Irresistible Force meeting the Immovable Object.



Aki and Daddy at Make Music Pasadena

In the past few weeks, as we’ve worked to transition him to sharing toys (and the limelight with his adorable cousin Keagan), sleeping on his own, and going potty on the toilet (still a work-in-progress), we’ve clashed, and I’ve often found myself with that sickening feeling you get after you raise your voice or even holler at your kid until they melt down.

I also admit to relying too much on Netflix to keep him entertained while I cook, tidy up, or sag into a chair, sapped of parental energy. (Although I'd have to say that this might be the Golden Age of Children's TV, with clever and instructional Nick Jr. shows like Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba, on which a painfully hipster-ish Elijah Wood recently taught Aki how to do "the Puppet Master" dance.)

Worse yet, I’ve found myself--due to poor planning, or changing things up on the fly to hang out with other family members/parents--relying too often on prepackaged, processed snacks, like the little sugary fruit snack packets from Target; a chocolate milk from the coffee shop (when I get myself a shot of Joe to get through the day); or those salty little Goldfish that kids crave like Crack.


Sugar Rush!

I would be the last person, in other words, to call myself the perfect Dad.

Yesterday, though, I decided to work a little harder. We took a nice long walk up to Gymboree (where I bought him several new outfits for less than $25: thanks, sale prices!). We got a day's worth of exercise before the day got too hot, and stopped on the way to snack on a peach, mostly avoiding artificial sweet, although we still made time for one bite-sized treat (a mini-carrot cake from Henri Charpentier, thanks to Yuri’s cousins in Japan).

We practiced introducing ourselves to a little boy playing on the “blue bench” (“It’s nice to meet you. My name is Aki. What’s your name?”) then stopped off at Fresh & Easy to get some broccoli, butter, and other things we’d need to make our fresh lunch.


Favorite Hang Out: The "Blue Bench"

I made him his favorite Choo-Choo Pasta--a recipe out of The Baby & Toddler Cookbook--wagon wheel pasta with a white cream sauce and steamed broccoli, which he wolfed down heartily. Then we re-read one of his favorite books (The Little Engine That Could) before I helped him fall asleep in his own room, no-fuss, no problem; he was tuckered out.

He slept a satisfying two-and-a-half hours while Daddy revised some poems and sent out freelance work-related emails. After his nap, we set about making our train puppets, washed rice and shucked corn for dinner, then draped the dinner table with blankets and “camped out” in our own private little world until Mommy came home.

I always feel better about myself as a Dad when I make our food myself, when we avoid burning fossil fuel with the car, and when I can remain steady and insistent in asking him to do something without seeing myself go into the red or triggering any tears on his part.


Mommy and Aki at Milk

Not every day will be like yesterday; and I know that it’s not unnatural or even the worst thing in the world to occasionally blow one’s top, even when talking to a two-and-a-half year old.

But I always want to be a better Dad, maybe since now that I’m in the thick of child-rearing, I look back with wonder at what a first-rate job my own parents did.

Before I started graduate work at USC, my old prof Stuart Friebert wrote me a letter of congratulations, asking me to send him a picture of me with my son. “It’s your most important assignment,” he wrote, and I took it to heart, since Stuart is a fine poet, educator, editor and father himself.

Each day Aki infers something new, asks a new question, remembers something I never would’ve thought he could possibly remember, recites lyrics to a song I haven’t been able to pick out myself.

He’s working as hard as he can (without even realizing it) to understand and master this world, the way we break it into discrete parts and name these parts, all the countless nuances of how and when and why we say things a certain way. The least I can do is try as hard as he tries, and give him as much support and stimulus as I can—-love, sensory-rich experiences, understanding, ethical and behavioral modeling, creative and even wonderfully nonsensical activities like making paper puppets that look like a train and a caboose.


The Butterfly Trail at the Audubon Center

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Forbidden Nuts

, a photo by aqua_rabbit on Flickr.

So apparently these are like the Cuban cigars of the nut world: Iranian pistachios that have been officially banned in the U.S. since late 2010.

Thanks to one of Yuri's coworkers, we got a bag of these delicious guys hand-carried from Tehran or thereabouts.

They've got a mouth-watering bite of a salty core and if I'm not mistaken are dusted with the same savory magenta-purple spice you find in quarter-sized dabs at good Persian restaurants. Help me out here: saffron?

Thanks to Nick and his wife for the delicious treat! And here's hoping we can find culinary and cultural solutions to world-craziness instead of the other uglier kind.

*cracks open a pistachio in his mouth*

*crunch*

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Mothers' Urth, Father's Office

Aki's Saturday morning music classes have, of course, been good for his developing ear. But they've also given us a good excuse to go out and get some good morning eats afterward. A few weeks ago, we met up with some of Yuri's old pals at Urth Caffe, everyone with kids in tow.

Sabrina (who was just about to give birth to her second -- congrats!) brought Maddy, who was cute as a button and getting tall, and Maggie knocked us out with her three kids' picture-perfect behavior. Suzanne and Gary brought not only little Isaac but gifts to keep all the other little ones happy. Never underestimate the power of crayons and Play-Doh!


Spanish Latte

The coffee at this place is un-Urth-ly: Spanish Latte: you had me at ¡hola! I had a delicious and hardy chicken sausage and potato omelet; Yuri had poached eggs over a natural beef hash.


Gary and Isaac at Urth

Aki and Isaac chased the paved-over railroad tracks into the Arts District, then we headed over to JANM to make little model houses at the Target Free Day (and check out a powerful, sobering new exhibit on the internment experience).


Hanging' in the Arts District


Pints at Father's Office

While Aki napped, I headed over to meet Eric at UCLA to get a book (which isn't in USC's library), and the two of us took a break in my old hood at the original Father's Office, with that insanely good Roquefort-melted Office Burger and a pint of Old Speckled Hen for me (a decent, nutty bitter, but served American-cold) and Alaskan White for Eric.

I dropped Eric off at the Physics Lab, then headed back home to get Yuri and Aki for a farewell party for Dave and Cat, who are set to move to Abu Dhabi for at least a year!


The Famous Burger at Father's Office

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