Nurture by Nature


Rhiannon and I took the hour-long drive to the White Tank Mountains near Surprise, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix. She spent the hour on the "phone" (a plastic cellphone with princesses on it) gossiping to her friend Madison about Hannah Montana, her recent concert, and then she and her friend sang songs to each other. On the drive up, Rhiannon was transfixed by an enormous baby holding a tractor. This was a trompe l'oiel 3-D painting of a tot and was affixed to a plowed field. It was quite possibly the most bizarre example of American folk art either Rhiannon or I had ever seen. Unfortunately at 65 mph I was unable to grab a shot with the iPhone.

Rhiannon had dragged her feet on this trip, protesting a bit, wanting to stay home and play dress-up on the computer and later to go swimming. But after waffles and blackberries, she had softened up to the idea, especially with the promise of swimming after the trip. So we had a nice drive into the desert, relatively cool at 75F (it would gain 10 degrees over the afternoon), passing fields and then into the mountains which, in our end of the Earth, rise up immediately from nothing, from hardpan, as if pushed frmo below by some demonic hand. In late-summer, the lands are blasted and barren, but now, in April, on the cusp of heat, everything is green. The cacti are flowering; the bees are busy, and Rhiannon's "ticklebugs" are beginning to thin out because of wind and heat.

In the welcome center (a trailer) for White Tank Regional Park, we were directed to Black Rock Trail and Waterfall Trail, a four-mile round-trip suitable for little legs. I had packed lots of water and plenty of snacks (better for hiking than a big lunch), and off we went, winding our way up above the valley, down through a wash, and up to hundreds of petroglyphs, Rhiannon on my shoulders for much of the trip.

While we sat in the shade to eat crackers, we had our first encounter with the Loud Family led by a misinformed fatman, bald, goateed, tattoed, and happy to share is lore of the land with the rest of humanity within a half-mile radius. From him we learned that people millions of years ago had sculpted the rocks that we see now, making them round via stone axes and other tools made of nothing but rock. We also learned from him how to climb rocks, how to let your dog frolic in the depths of the only water source for miles, and how to discipline your child for playing in the water by giving him a time-out, facing the cliff wall, for as many minutes as years of age. Truly, this man was a savant of the natural world, and of parenting. I wondered where his drinking water was.

Rhiannon and I sat quietly, observing this loud man and his loud entourage of family as they blitzed through the park like locusts, devouring his words without question, dumb cattle in the desert. Now, I, like Edward Abbey, was thrilled that these well-fed Americans had gotten out of their automobiles and trekked two miles to see the beauty of what would be a raging waterfall and river in the middle of a summer storm. I applaud them for leaving behind their sodas and cheeseburgers to come here. But at the same time, the land must be shared, and there is an etiquette of the wild to be observed. And an etiquette for children, too, in that Rhiannon desperately wanted to climb the rocks overlooking the pool we found, but could not for all of the people here on a Sunday no doubt because the Arizona Cardinals were not on television.

So Rhiannon and I shared snacks, drank our water, and quietly observed loud mammals in action. When one loud family left, a quiet family arrived at the pool, but they had brought Loud Gramma with them. Gramma was terrified of the children dehydrating here, right in the immediate vicinity of water, albeit one befowled by the dog of the previous Loud Family. Children were to stay put, no climbing, no splashing, drink the water from the bottle, watch out for the slippery rocks, watch out, watch out, watch out! I remember my first time in the wilderness, the true wild, and remembered being cautious, but also curious, and it made me sad that these children were being indoctrinated into the fear of wild places. Granted, nature is amoral. It will kill the unprepared. But one can either face the wilderness with fear, or one can be prepared and can meet nature on its own terms. So here Rhiannon and I observed the next generation of air conditioned youth, brought into the wild as an object lesson that we should fear that which cannot sustain us because we are ignorant of survival. Despite the over-protection, this family stayed as Gramma was afraid to go back into the sun, back into the hell of 80F sunshine which her grandkids would most likely be flocking to in ten years, illicit booze in-hand, looking for a spot of beach. Again, I applaud the pluck and courage of this loud Gramma and her silent, miserable crew, yet am saddened that the message of the trip was to stay home. See? You could die out here! I wonder if they escaped an auto accident on their return to civilization.

Now, readers of this blog might be wondering where Rhiannon is in all of this. She has been sitting quietly on rocks, playing with grasshoppers, chasing geckos, touching flowers, avoiding other insects, munching snacks, and generally enjoying herself under the canopy of blue. On the way down from the pool which, once she reached the water, fled because of small, flying insects, she said to me,

"DAD!"

"Yes, Rhiannon?"

"I didn't think I would like this, but this is really great! Can I climb a rock?"

"Of course."

I put her up on a boulder with a manageable angle, and she made the journey up its face, smearing her sneakers against the rock, hands finding holds too small for my big fingers. She was thrilled when she reached the top.

"Dad! I did it!"

I clapped for her.

"How do I get down?"

This is the question that has haunted me as a novice mountaineer. I love going up. I am petrified of coming down. I am fearless in leading the pitch up the slope, picking the route and just burning up whatever peak I choose to climb. But once I turn around, I get slow, cautious to a fault, and it takes me ages to pick my way down again. I'm not afraid of heights, just at what happens at the end of a fall. Rhiannon, though, still has courage in nature that is borne from inexperience. She's never tumbled down a slope, missed a foothold, or wondered if the talus slope she was on would stop sliding before the cliff's edge. For her, getting down is practical but not scary, so she turns onto her back and crabwalks down the boulder, ending with a few scoots on her long pants, jumping off the boulder into space, landing in my arms, laughing her head off in mid-flight. Such absolute, unshakeable faith and trust that dad will catch her almost makes my eyes water, and I know that there will be a first time when I am not there for her as she is flying, slave to gravity, and she will hit whatever rock awaits her body, whether it be a new love lost or a lost grip on the quest for the summit somewhere. I realize that she will be on her own on the trail somewhere, and all I can do is prepare her for anything. She has a quick, creative mind. She'll survive. But still I worry. I am an average parent.

Down from the mountain, Rhiannon plays in the playground with a gaggle of Mexican-American children, two of whom are named -- I am not making this up -- Ben and Jerry. They are FAT. Rhiannon is gracious as always with new friends. She calls non-white people "brown", which they are to her. "That brown girl was pretty," she says. And she's right. And to Rhiannon, "brown" is a descriptor but not a label. She is speaking Spanish to them, and they reply in English. She plays and they play, all in the same game together, one set of universal rules.

Playing done, we return to the trailer to buy rocks for Rhiannon. She fills a small, black velvet sack with polished stones, galena and tourquoise, amethyst and quartz. She chooses a piece of pyrite for a dollar, and she is rich. My father would do the same for me, feeding my geologist habit, and I adored him for it. I still have every rock he ever bought me, and kept every specimen we ever found together. Those were our best days, straddling a Texas limestone wall, chipping away at the Earth, or descending into its many mouths, entertained by minerals. It is my lasting shame that I could not excel in advanced mathematics; that failure follows me every day when I wish I was working outside in the field, and then back in the lab, a man in nature. Rhiannon is showing aptitude with numbers, doing addition and subtraction in her head as I never could. Who knows what she will be once grown, but she is showing a love for the out-of-doors already, and that is something I will encourage for as long as I am breathing.

Rhiannon, satisfied with her loot, allows me to carry her on my shoulders about half a mile down another track, the Goat Camp Trail, which winds six more miles into a deep canyon. I'll likely return by myself later in the year to explore. Rhiannon is pretending to feed the fairies who live in the moss atop rocks along the trail. She makes a "shh"-ing sound and tells me that she is feeding them milk from her finger. At five, she is still half in the world hidden from adults. I think sometimes she is an ambassador to that world to let them know that they will be fine, that we are generally good as a species. Rhiannon means it, too, and at this young age has become an empath as well as ombudsman on behalf of people. She just does what she does, is a kind child with a keen observance of what is fair and right. Sometimes it seems like she is raising herself; all I can do is drive her around, carry her when she tires, feed her when she hungers, and tell her stories. Perhaps this is enough for this child.

Rhiannon is quiet on the way home. She is tired, happy, and thoughtful. She looks for the big baby painting off of the highway. She looks at the desert. The cracked window makes her blond hair fly all around. She is buckled in, but free at the same time. Halfway home I put in a CD by the Shins, Wincing the Night Away, and as the first track unspools, she asks if this is a Beatles record.

"No, this is the Shins. They sometimes sound like the Beatles."

She loves melody, not noise. She loves emotion instead of precision. And she is satisfied with this choice even though the lead singer is male. We get all the way up through "Sea Legs", a '70s-inspired bit of Moog-flavored melancholy, and all of sudden we are home. Rhiannon brightens, extracting herself from the car, diligently collecting her hat, backpack, rocks. Swimming is next, and she is all for pink, Hannah Montana, candy. The mountains are far away, but as with things you love, distance makes no difference in how you love them, and how deep that love can be.

Rhiannon. Cute.

Andrew (Papa)

Fallout


Today Rhiannon lost her first tooth. You can see it her open hand in the picture above. It is small, white, and sharp. Just like Rhiannon! The tooth (lower jaw, middle) had been loose (or wobbly in deference to Charlie&Lola of the UK) for about three weeks. Rhiannon kept wiggling it and wiggling it. Last night she and I were roughhousing which is big fun for both of us. She was eating her shirt, and I gave it a tug, and Rhiannon had a bit of blood in her mouth. The tooth was REALLY wobbly now and Rhiannon was convinced that it would come out over night. One wonders then if you have a loose tooth and it comes out in the night, does the tooth fairy put a coin in your mouth, and if so, do you get a free trip to the Underworld?

Anyway, Rhiannon awoke the next morning to find that her tooth was still attached to her jaw. This made her sad and impatient. Settling down to a bowl of cereal, she took two bites.

"MY TOOTH CAME OUT! MY TOOTH CAME OUT!"

Sure enough, her tooth lay in her hand. No blood, no pain or anything. No radiation. Rhiannon jumped up and down on the couch shouting. Next, she ran to the mirror to see the gap and then the hole where the tooth used to reside. She kept making faces. And now when she talks, she has a bit of a lisp. I never thought Rhiannon could get cuter, but there you go.

Now for a kid, losing a tooth is the first time most of them experience getting paid for something they produced. They all seem to come pre-programmed with the Tooth Fairy story, waiting greedily for that day to come when they will be overpaid for a few grams of calcium. As parents, we oblige. We prepare. We act.

I picked up a Sacajaweya "gold" dollar at the bank after work today. Rhiannon likes: money, girls (especially women of action), and gold. What could be better? Rhiannon was asleep by 8:30, but I waited until 12:30 to become, for a rare time in my life, a supernatural being, an element of folklore and oral history. It was also the first time I had ever become a fairy.

Rhiannon's paternal grandmother had gifted Rhiannon with a special Tooth Fairy pillow which included a tooth/coin pocket. Rhiannon made sure the tooth was in there and then promptly fell asleep on it.

I opened her door -- I wonder if squeaks are amplified at night. The music box she had suspending from the door clunked like an enormous knocker. I stood there wondering what the hell I was going to say to a waking child who was expecting some kind of fantastic, overnight switcheroo.

She was hanging half off of her bed when I came in, head on a different pillow, with the tooth pillow underneath it. I quickly found myself in the scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones has to make a switch one-to-one with a gold idol and a bag of sand. If I removed the pillow alone, her head would flop and she would wake. I found another pillow, though, made the switch. The tooth was still in the pocket (wouldn't I have been surprised to find a coin there...), so I swapped it out with the coin. To her credit, Rhiannon was expecting a silver quarter, so a gold dollar should go over quite well. I placed the pillow on the floor next to her bed so she would see it upon waking. Underneath was a Camp Rock snap-bracelet from the dollar store.

Mission accomplished, I left the room. Strangely, no clunking or squeaks as I left. It's betime for me now, 1:20 on a Saturday morning where I expect to get MAYBE six hours sleep. We shall see. If I am lucky, I will wake to excited shouts when Rhiannon sees what the Tooth Fairy has left her, and I'll add a comment to this post to let you know what happened.

Rhiannon. Now with more Cute!

Andrew (Papa)

Anticipation


The other night we were watching the Planet Earth DVDs that my brother had given to us last Christmas. If you haven't seen the BBC series, you are really missing out on something amazing. It is so amazing in fact that Rhiannon pays attention. At least when there are animals on. With fur. And long ears. Basically cats and their ilk. Or foxes. The other 12 hours of the series might captivate her one day. But she likes nature.

"RHIANNON!"

"Yes, Dad?"

"Do you want to come with me to the mountain again one of these days?"

Rhiannon thinks on it for a moment. I mean she's really, earnestly thinking about it.

"No."

"No? Why not?"

"I want you to take me to someplace I have never been."

Of course my heart melts. I love that exploring spirit. Now if she would only be so fearless and curious with dinner.

"What do you like about nature?" I ask her.

"I like trees. And ants."

"I thought you hated ants."

"The black ones are good. And they tickle you. They are called 'Tickle Ants.'"

"I see..."

"They crawl all over you, but it's okay."

"Uh huh."

"DAD!"

"Yes, Rhiannon?"

"Today at school Madison and I saw some bumble-ants."

"What's a bumble-ant?"

"Daaa-aaad." Rhiannon rolls her eyes and sighs. "Everybody knows that bumble-ants are yellow and black ants and they fly and Madison and I saw one in the playground."

"Okay."

"And sometimes in nature there are trees and black ants on them."

"Okay..."

"And sometimes in nature there are trees and red ants on them."

"Okay..."

"Stay AWAY from the red ants, man. They hurt!"

"Okay, I will. Thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome."

And then the video starts.

Rhiannon. Cute as a bug.

Andrew (Papa)

I am the Queen of the Slide


Spring Fling was today. For $10 Rhiannon got a bracelet for unlimited access to two bouncy castles, a bouncy slide, a bouncy obstacle course, a bouncy thing with a bungie cord at one end, a bunch of non-bouncy carnival games, and a dunk tank. "Dinner" was extra and included a hot dog (consumed before the carnival), popcorn, a Rice Krispie treat, and a "small" sno-cone covered in electric blue "flavor" called "cotton candy (blue)".


Somehow this child survives. I wonder if I am a bad dad for letting her choose the menu today, and upon further review, there is no penalty. Tonight is hers, and who am I to set rules?

She and I arrive at five and stay until eight when it's finally dark. She bounces. She slides so many times that she comes up to me in the dark and cooler than any child should be allowed to be whispers, "Dad, I am the queen of this slide". She owns it and she knows it. The "carnie" (a bored girl of about 16 who keeps looking at me) lets her do whatever she wants. Which is what queens do. Rhiannon mixes things up by sliding sideways, frontways. She jumps and then bounces down the slide in three hops. Bored with her queendom, it's time to get some teachers wet.

As the admission fee goes to charity, many of the school's teachers volunteer to sit in the dunk tank and wait for a student with a good arm and good aim to hit the button with a softball, triggering the collapse of a metal perch, casting said educator into the drink. Rhiannon cannot wait. In fact, it's all she's talked about for days.

"DAD!"

"Yes, Rhiannon?"

"I am SO going to dunk Mr. Jacobs!"

Mr. Jacobs is her PE teacher who is a rather nice, non-threatening gym teacher. In fact, one kind of feels sorry for him, sitting there, smiling nicely, this nice man who is confronted by a line of at least 30 hooligans all bent on mayhem with a ball, a button, and a tank of tepid water that five teachers have already christened.

Rhiannon stands on line. And she stares at Mr. Jacobs on his seat. Mind you she is at the back of the line and she is already trying to get inside his head, make him afraid. She even taunts the poor man.

"You are not going to be dry for long!"

This from a five-year-old girl in ponytails and a skort snarfing popcorn and wearing purple Crocs who only seems to be able to throw the occasional tantrum much less a heavy ball. And let's face it: she throws like a girl.

But Rhiannon is smart. She's told me as much. And for her, it's all mental. So she stares her teacher down with cold, blue eyes. And soon it is her turn.

"Okay, Rhiannon," Mr. Jacobs says. "Let's see what you've got."

Rhiannon stands at the line like Greg Maddux and delivers a ball. Maddux did this sometimes, setting up a batter with a couple of bad pitches. It's all mental, remember. The second pitch is errant, too, and Rhiannon has Mr. Jacobs right where she wants him. The third pitch hits the button dead center, but Rhiannon hasn't put enough mustard on the ball to drive the button home. So another carnie pushes the button for her. Down goes Mr. Jacobs. As he is climbing back onto his seat, Rhiannon says:

"How do you like me now?"

After that, it's back to the carnie games including one where she gets to shoot a foam RPG at military targets in the desert, including a Red Cross Jeep. She let's that one go, instead aiming for the tank that is almost upon her. The kid knows her ordnance and makes the proper decision, hitting the target just in time. On our way out, we scan the field for foam IEDs. You never know.

Probably the most surprising carnie game of the night is Monkey Poo Dodgeball. I shit you not. Here's a photo:


Players are handed rubber monkey feces (that is to say rubber feces, not feces from rubber monkeys) to throw (presumably) back at the simian offenders. Rhiannon scores one hit in three and is thus eligible for a "prize" which, in this case, is what I can only describe as a plastic throwing star for ninjas in training. Awesome. I try to get Rhiannon to take two because, you know, there might be foam Arabs around.

The night ends well with Rhiannon sliding a few more times in the dark, and then it's back to the apartment to recount this amazing afternoon. Rhiannon and I are both wiped out, and I tell her another Rhiannon Story at bedtime, this one about a never-ending slide. She yawns.

"I know what you're going to say, dad."

"What's that?"

"That I have to climb all the way to the moon to get to the top of the slide".

"Nope."

She hesitates.

"Nope; you only climb to the clouds, but then you slide through the center of the earth and then out into space where the gravity of Mars catapults you back to Earth again."

"Oh."

She kisses me goodnight. Tomorrow she is going to a birthday party at Pump It Up, an indoor arena full of nothing but bouncies.

Rhiannon. Queen of Cute.

Andrew (Papa)