To Miami or not to Miami

This seems to be a weekly thing.  Day 2 of my weekly days off, after 10am, mommy and daughter sleeping, while daddy writes.  It's a start.

I've started drinking green tea this week after a taste test, walking by Teavana at the mall.  Am I choosing to be an addict, or assisting in the consumption of antioxidants, cleansing the body, and bowels?  Yes, it has that effect.

As I anxiously hope that the grass-cutting outside does not wake the baby, I was moments ago pondering while watching the local news whether or not I love Miami.  A montage describing the pulse of Miami and being proud to call Miami home, sparked the question after one year and eight months away from New York City and its vicinity.

I change the channel to VH1, something i haven't done in at least two years, and i see the VJ Suchin walking through Times Square, and I feel double the pangs of longing.  Do not confuse my true feelings of living here - I am utterly in love with my daughter and wife, and no matter where we are together, I call it home.  The question is whether or not this environment of Latin America North is the right fit for me, and ultimately, us.

Those two pangs were for the job I once had which I could not translate here to the States, and the city I still love, conveniently forgetting the reasons to simultaneously hate.  I came close to the dream job a couple times, being first refusal to the winner of Survivor for the Fox Soccer Channel.  Then showing too much personality with a combination of little sleep caused by anxiety, the coffee, then adrenaline during the VH1 audition, resulting in a jittery performance, ultimately serving as a learning tool.

Back to reality, In this moment, the weed whackers, cloaked in bandanas, resembling a Mexican militia, is entering our bedroom and shaking the baby with their handheld, landscaping weapons of minor destruction.  In this battle, baby-sleep 1, terrorists 0.  They move on, while the Meesch rustles to her side, continuing her slumber.

No matter where we rustle, there will be a reason to dislike where we dwell, grass-cutters being one of them, though i admire their work when I walk out the door.  The absence from NYC allows me to forget the physical toll the City takes on one's body, and the difficulty we would discover with an urban infant. Let's reconsider Miami.

The friendships I have made with the Floridians in my retail environment have deepened, and let me preface by stating I rarely hang out with any of them except at work.  This is by choice, financial limitations, and fatherly concern.  Even so, I feel like my actions and experiences with them are helping to develop a crew of computer-obsess-ees, like myself, into a well-oiled machine of thoughtful, caring, loyal teammates, and empathetic communicators.

This is the most rewarding experience next to parenthood.  It's similar to parenthood, but I'm not legally responsible to my team of 14 to 20, and I refuse to change there diapers… until further relationship building… and consulting with my spouse.  And in this environment, some of the members move around to new teams, whereas my child would never do that yet.  She's small.

Ok, Miami, I'm giving you a chance, but just because I stay here longer, doesn't mean I'll love you more.  It means, I might find a relationship with you, as long as you meet me halfway.  

Can you do that?  Damned, race car drivers on the 836 aren't' helping.  Oh wait, that was a cop who cut me off.  Come on, get it together. I'm trying to like you.

Walker: The Training Wheels of Walking

Eight months later... Today was the first time the little girl was placed in her walker, and she reached the floor.  The rubberized, panda-faced feeties of her panda-bear-encrusted pajamas gave enough friction to hurtle Meesch past the couch, along the tile, towards her desired object - the walker's empty box.  Chosen direction:  backwards.

It's a start.  If one is going to pick the first way one would walk, while seated in an elaborate chair, mounted with plastic flowers, mirrors, Pooh bear, and most importantly, wheels, reverse seems like an ideal direction.  I have a feeling she will be an excellent parallel parker one day, just like her masterful father, seasoned in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Needless to say, the race has begun, and the anxiety to baby-proof the house draws tighter around my chest, forcing us to draw the cupboard doors tightly-closed and locked to child.  If her tiny feet give her vast freedom, authority must limit it with a unanimous parental vote, by bounding her migration and immigration to stores of cleaning supplies and pointy objects, dwelling under sinks.  These are the days to harness her legs' bouncing power for good, but for what device, we know not yet.

It's ok, though she is winning, the battle of sleep, that is.  Naptime begins today at 10 am, after waking her devoted mother at 5.  Both the mama and the baby are sleeping deeply after tiring each other out.  Why I don't sleep is beyond me, because I am definitely not immune to the stirring child at that hour, and I awaken like any other father in direct proximity to a smacking arm across the face.  At that point, I chew on baby-fingers, not even receiving the pleasure of a baby-giggle.  The nerve of her.

Forgiven.  One can never underestimate the cuteness factor,  quickly deflating the madness directed at the little girl, who needs us to feed, poo, clean and play.  The "play" part is being challenged by her independent bounce time in the bouncy-bounce, a spring-loaded contraption, when held in the wrong direction, and plucked by a giant, could be a baby sling shot.  In our case, it serves to propel our child several inches up and down, while she strengthens her legs, in preparation for the first walk.

When this may happen is up to her and her training.  The most productive training occurs while watching Yo Gabba Gabba, or Wonderpets.  The excitement she feels from these musical, children shows motivates her lower body to jump and bounce ad nauseum, without the nausea.

Before I join the two sleeping ladies, I want to say how amazed I am at how dedicated the mama is to our child.  I spend most of my days at a store on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, leaving baby and mama to themselves five days per week.  The schedule has been created, the challenge of feeding has been overcome, and a daughter is being raised humbly and triumphantly by an amazing woman.  I play my part of caregiver and playmate, but nothing could replace the mommy's role, and the little girl's bond to her.

These eight months have flown past us, and each tiny change is due to the love and nurturing of Mischa's mommy.  My soul is overflowing with love for the both of them.  Time to take part in the mid-morning nap.

Mischa - Day 1

The first day was a roller coaster of emotions, but day two began with pure joy.

They moved little Mischa Jadyn to the NICU, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, due to respiratory distress caused by her prematurity.  Julie and I would hear another baby cry in a nearby room, and we would feel jealous and sad that we could not hold her in our  own room. Although we feel relief by accepting that our daughter's life was saved by our doctor's  decision to induce.  We also feel the fear based on the sensitivity of her lung development, but most of that fear became relieved.

After most of Monday was spent in the Level 3 of NICU, Mischa's lungs began to fully inhale, deeper and slower, and they reduced her to Level 2, moved her into another room, and we learned that this means progress towards taking her home.

Because of the less critical observation, we were able to hold her for the first time, together.  I's amazing how much love one feels when she looks at you for the first time and responds to your voice by not crying or sleeping.  The love is different compared to my love for Julie, but just as infinite.

Julie is finding success in her first day of breast pumping, initially, with the collection of colostrum and one drop of milk, making her exhausted while stimulating painful contractions.  As she pumped, I went to the NICU by myself, through Julie's urging and my own desire, to hold the baby.  I must have sat there holding Mischa for over an hour, communicating to her without words, singing a Carpenters hit and any other song that came to my head.

She would cry in my arms because the tubes attached to her became tucked under her head.  So many tubes, which i wanted to move away, for extra oxygen  an IV, bp cuffs, etc,,  and I foresaw the near future when we could take her home.  That's when I would rock her until she stopped.  We ended the pure bonding by placing her back in the heated bed, and I touched my bare hand on her entire torso, while stroking her bushy head of hair with the other.  Pure heaven as she finally fell back to sleep.

I can still smell the little baby smell on both of my hands.

When I came back to the room, I watched the videos that you shot, and I completely appreciated all the family sentiments, documented for Mischa's future viewing.  One day she will appreciate it, so, thank you for making it fun and enjoyable.

Hope you don't mind that I've written a lot, but I'm tired and I might be rambling.

For pics and some video go to http://gallery.mac.com/jon.salkin.

PR 5th Ave '08

This is a view of the Puerto Rican Day Parade New York City.  In NYC, there are approximately 800,000.  On Puerto Rico, there are 3.9 million, a relative size difference of one-fifth.  It's their island.

Take Another Little Piece of My Heart (or Groove is in the Heart)

On Friday, March 14, 2008, our life as we know it has changed. Gone are the days of fear, that her heart will beat at 250 beats per minute, detouring our day or night from the highway of normal life. She decided to get it done, the brave one, after years of bearing down, breathing deep when she could not breathe, swallowing beta-blockers to inhibit cardiac stress, yet affecting her stare, that everything was cool and easy with her beta blocked. Then deciding to not block the beta because normal life did not feel so normal.

She chose to move forward, after years of postponement, and go with the odds, that 99 percent of the time, it will be a success. That's what William Slater, M.D., said, although after the ablation was done, the doctors agreed it was a 96 percent success that she was cured of Supraventricular tachycardia, SVT, the true inhibitor of normal life.

Diagnosed in 1999, Julie has lived with SVT her whole life, at least one major SVT attack per year, and daily bouts of arrhythmia.  I have witnessed, I believe, more than four attacks, three taking her to the ER, with me by her side, and guilt by my side, since an episode or two was preceded by a heated argument. My uncertain count is not due to a cavalier view on her heart condition, but due to not knowing what to include, because the small episodes that lasted for short periods of time are so numerous to count.

This is when the bearing down and breathing deep would come into play, where I would close the door and sit on the toilet of our one-room studio apartment, so that she could lie still on the bed and not feel the stress of my gaze, which only added to the stress during her attempt to be still her beating heart.

As I experienced more, and our apartments grew larger, I learned to take a breathe and leave the room, knowing that she can control them, and hoping that we wouldn't need another ambulance, and that her heart would return to 90 beats per minute, her normal resting heart rate, thanks to the extra pathway.

This is how Adam Slotnick, M.D. described it, or my interpretation of his accurate portrayal. Through the heart, electrical impulses flow down a normal pathway like a highway. In Julie's situation, and many others' as well, there is a service road off that highway, flowing down and back around on itself, in a loop. Sometimes, the blood and electrical impulses exits off the highway, detouring onto that service road, and getting stuck in the loop, unable to get back onto the main highway. The heart pumps harder, attempting to compensate for the loss of traffic on the highway, but that compensation only speeds the heart up more, because all traffic has been redirected to that looping service road. This is when the 250 beats per minute comes into play, and where I'm hailing a cab to the hospital, if the bearing down or breathing easy does not help - bearing down meaning an attempt to constrict the chest cavity and through muscularity, control the heartbeat.

But it is done. The service road has been closed off, thanks to the brilliance of the NYU Medical Center team of Dr. Patel, Dr. Aizer, and Dr. Neil Bernstein. Also included in that are the warm and comforting nursing team of Yuri, Juliet and Elisa (I don't know their last names). The team performed a Catheter Ablation, by inserting electrode catheters into veins by her groin, on both sides, snaking wires past her abdomen and up to the heart.  One of those wires sent radio-frequency electrical energy, burning the tissue of the heart, and closing the service road, forcing the heart to conduct along the normal highway.  This is all done in three to four hours.

After the ablation is complete, they test, and test some more, by adding adrenalin to her body, forcing her heart to beat faster, and verifying that the extra pathway is, indeed, closed.  When Julie was in recovery, Dr. Patel visited her and conveyed to us that during that testing, her heart never surpassed 120 beats per minute... I have to re-emphasize... 120 beats per minute.  I am tearing up now, as I write.  I rarely ever use this word, but it's a miracle.  Cured is the word the doctors used, although they must qualify that statement, by saying, we, doctors, never use that word, but in this case, she is cured.

I didn't see the actual procedure that cured, or caused a miracle; I only saw evidence to that  truth, a resting heart rate of 75 beats per minute.  So now being home with her, minus the daily arrhythmia, I hold a special place in my heart for the fifth floor of NYU's Medical Center, at First Avenue and 31st Street, within the Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology department.  This is where Julie's life was changed, and in turn, our lives together.  We have spent time enough on that detour, and it is time to re-enter the highway of normal life.

"Falling Slowly"

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova have completely inspired me, and it helps me to state, I still believe. The belief is in creation and artistry and opening oneself up to the expressive force without looking for consequence.

Who would have known two years ago that these two songwriters would have found their voice in their tiny indie film, which would then lead them to an Academy Award. It helps me take stock on where I am artistically in my life. Doing it for myself, my own freedom, my own sanity.

I must remind myself, it's the journey, allowing myself to fall slowly into the current and let it sweep me away into the undiscovered country of my soul.

Refreshing start...

Refreshing start...

It's been a while since I've written anything, and I feel a creative hole because of it. I don't even know where to begin. I feel like after I have my Valentne's day gift, the massage given so thoughtfully by my sweet shim, I can begin to reinvigorate my creative life a little.

In my recent experience, making a short video blog, sketch or whatever was so easy to do, and uploading it is just as easy, I know it's time for me to move forward with this, just to get my juices flowing again. It's not about the end result, but the creative process to allow myself a medium to express myself on a regular basis, an experiment with technology & pop culture, and I get to have fun in the process.

I spent about a half hour making the last video for Julie on V-day, and that's about all I really need to expect from myself, so I can lower expectations, overcome my fears, and just put something out there, into the Ether-net.

I could write something first then perform it. I could improv on camera and edit it. I can just talk or take the camera with me wherever I go and let it out. That's my prerogative and that's my freedom. It's up to me and I decide what to do. That's one lesson I'm getting from my genius training. I make judgment calls and take responsibility on decisions about people's lives, why not my own?