About Me… and the Fam Part 2

After two weeks of emailing and phone conversations, Paula and I determined that I should come out to their town and see Noah for the first time since he was born. The last time I’d seen him was when he was just four days old. That tiny little infant boy had been crying in whomever’s arms until they handed him to me. Then he stilled and a calm fell over both of us.

It was only for a few moments. Remember, Paula and I couldn’t stand being near each other, but we’d arranged this brief meeting.

Now, five and a half years later, I was going to see my son. It just so happened that the weekend we chose was Halloween weekend. I could go trick or treating with Paula and Noah.

We’d decided that it would be best if Paula and I met first, to get used to being around each other. If there was any lingering awkwardness, Noah would almost certainly sense it, even if he didn’t know what was going on. Paula met me at my hotel, and when she first saw me, she fell into my arms and hugged me and apologized for all that had happened in the last six and a half years. I made my amends, and then we headed off to dinner. We sat at that restaurant talking for well over an hour. When Red Robin had finally had enough of us hanging around, we drove out to a park near her house and we continued talking for another three hours. We’d already spent lengthy amounts of time talking by email and on the phone. And it continued just as strong in person.

The next day, Paula brought Noah over to the motel to finally meet me. I opened the door, and there was this small, skinny red-headed little boy, certainly not the infant in the picture above. He had charm, and a fun-loving personality. He was curious about everything, and he loved to play! He hugged me as if I’d never been gone.

The weekend flew by quickly. Much too quickly. A trip to a pumpkin patch and a corn maze, the local park, where I showered him with gifts, and we played for hours. Finally, we had arrived at Halloween night, and we went out trick or treating. Noah was a small ninja, or as he said it, “ninjun.” It was a perfect evening, and Noah came away with a huge haul of candy. Afterward, we ate at a small burger joint nearby, and laughed and had fun together. We knew it was almost over. I was driving home immediately afterward, and it was two and a half hours away.

As we stood at my car, we all found it hard to say goodbye. Noah had to say goodbye to a father he’d just met. And Paula and I had to say goodbye to something we’d never anticipated: a budding (and in a way, resuming) new relationship. We began the weekend assuming only friendliness and an effort to be civil, and we ended the weekend at the start of a new road, and we were scared to death. I gave her a kiss farewell, and never had I felt the weight of the future in such a simple gesture.

It was in about two or three weeks that I traveled out to visit again. Soon, our visits grew with frequency to include every weekend, and Paula and I spoke on the phone each and every night, for at least two or three hours. What makes that more special is the fact that my job had me going home at 11:30pm each weeknight. I called her as soon as I left the building, and we talked until the early hours of morning.

Valentine’s weekend found us in Vegas. Not to get married, but to attend the wedding of her best friend’s daughter. I’d never been to the city outside of a very brief layover while flying home once. We had dinner at the Venetian on the canal, and then Paula took me to the mall inside Caesar’s Palace. She wanted to show me one of her favorite statues. I need to point out that this trip was completely last minute. Originally we were going to enjoy a very quiet romantic weekend together. And, I had gone and purchased a ring set in order to propose to her. I’d planned the whole moment in vivid detail, with a scavenger hunt around her hometown to revisit places from our earlier attempt at this relationship. When she asked if instead we could go to Vegas for this wedding, I brought along the questions and the ring box to try and figure out how I could make an adequate change of plans.

When we reached the statue inside the mall at the Palace, we sat side by side and watched the people for a few minutes. Then I reached inside and withdrew one envelope at a time, and asked her to tell me where the clue pointed to, before handing her the next successive envelope. Paula worked through my clues, until she’d reached the last envelope. As she was reading it, I began inching down onto my knee, and only then realized how difficult it might be to reach into my pants pocket for the box while in this position. I did it, and had the box out in my hand by the time she’d finished. I opened it, and held it out. Here’s where I’m embarrassed as a writer. I don’t have a single clue what words I said right then. I know the phrase “will you marry me?” was in there, and “I love you” and most assuredly, “forever…” But the rest? Total blank. It doesn’t matter, because Paula’s eyes glazed over with a fine layer of tears, a smile crept slowly across her face, and she silently too the ring, and slide it on to her finger while nodding her head.

Immediately we heard loud applause behind me.

We looked. A crowd had gathered to witness something that I’m certain occurs constantly all across the city. However, these people had just happened to be there when it happened for us. We laughed. In the moments afterward, we lingered in the glow of the moment, when we could each see that a very real and definite future was before us, and we’d chosen to enter that future as one, for better or worse. I showed Paula the wedding band that went with the engagement ring. I wanted to be sure that it fit and I could make any adjustments necessary when I returned home. As I was sliding the band onto her finger, we heard more applause behind us. Another crowd had gathered, a second one, in the space between the popping of the question and the yes answer. We laughed again, and with a glint in our eyes, wondered if we could take this show out on the strip. Watch as the loving couple gets engaged!

Engaged. It has such activity in that word. It is full of interest, involvement, and commitment. To be fully engaged in something is to have decided there’s no turning back. And that’s just what we were. As I continued to learn about my new role as Noah’s father, and as a partner and helpmate for Paula, I began to finally see the future as something not quite so indistinct anymore. For the first time, I had a hope for something brighter, and someone to share it with, through thick and thin.

(To be Continued…)

About Me… and the Fam

Now that you’ve read just a little about my sons, you’re probably asking yourself, “Who is this guy?” Well, I ask you, “Do you believe fairy tales can come true?”

I’m pushing 40 with a great deal of enthusiasm, though my wife plugs her ears, and starts crying out loud sounds of gibberish and “blah-blah-blah!” whenever I mention that. My wife and I met at Cal Baptist University in 1996. I had just one semester at that school above her, and had previously taken a year of junior college just before that. Paula was fresh out of high school. I’d already graduated high school, spent a year and a half in the Air Force, and had a few jobs by the time I relocated to Riverside.

It was love at first sight. We dated for a couple of months, enough for me to take my eyes off school, classes and homework, and focus entirely on getting to know this incredible and wonderful girl. But the school frowned upon such things as failing grades and a total lack of class attendance, and sent me packing for a year. Paula and I still dated, but she was at CBU, and I was two and a half hours away. I took more junior college (could have graduated with an Associates, if I’d focused enough on that. I was merely trying to get back to Riverside). They accepted me back, and my grades and relationship with Paula flourished. But as things sometimes go, our relationship took a detour, not from each other, but from God, and we found ourselves on a new path, with a large sign that said, Caution: Family Ahead.

For two kids in college, struggling to discover just what they were to do in life, let alone with each other’s lives, it was too much, too soon. We split apart.

I continued at school, and Paula dropped out of on-campus attendance, and instead began taking night classes from the university’s local extension in her town.

Noah was born in January the following year. But our relationship had died, side effects including–but not limited to–bitterness, anger, loss of purpose, loss of self, angry parents, diarrhea and hives. (Maybe not those last two…)

The year my first son was born, I was discovering my talent for writing (I’d both written a one-act play, and then directed it that school year), but also I was somewhat spiraling out of self-control when it came to the choices I made in my social life.

Suffice to say that the following Fall semester, I ended up dropping out of school and moving back home.

Meanwhile, Paula ended up finishing her degree, a teaching credential, and went on to become a fine teacher. I ended up taking jobs I had no idea I would ever have. I was a DJ on a rock radio station for a year and a half. I was a security guard. I was a video photographer at a local news station, followed by a national news editing position at the same company.

It was while working at the news that I received an email from Paula. This was the first communication I’d gotten from her in well over two or three years. It had been five and a half years since Noah was born, almost six. Six and a half since we broke up. Noah was a kindergartner, and had the lovely little assignment of writing down Mommy and Daddy’s favorite things. Getting Mommy’s was easy. But then he asked for Daddy’s, and Paula knew there was only one way to reply to that precious little five year old.

“Let’s ask him.”

By this time, I had given up on a lit of things. I’d given up on ever having that whole family unit. I’d given up on ever knowing my son. I’d given up on relationships, and found a way to be content being single. I gave it all back to God, thinking, “If I can change it, and if I can’t make it better on my own, why am I stressing about it?”

Paula had reached similar ways of thinking in her own life. Dating and finding someone right for her life and Noah’s life hadn’t worked the way she’d hoped.

Her intentions in opening the doors of communication with me had only been to allow for a way and time for Noah to get to know me, and for Paula and I to at least attempt to get along. We spoke by phone and email for the next two weeks, every single day. The letters got longer and longer, and the phone calls lasted more and more minutes each time. Those long conversations we’d always had in college felt like yesterday.

But how would it all be when we met face to face? Would the years of bitterness and anger come back? Would there be too much awkwardness? Only one way to find out…

(To Be Continued…)

NO! … Why???

Just a brief word here on children’s budding vocabulary, and the confusion it causes a parent.

This last week, my two youngest children reached a developmental milestone of epic communication proportions. I’m talking about the ability that we all take for granted in our daily lives, and yet my two boys, aged almost 2, and almost 4, have learned a new way to make themselves and their minds known, a way to express themselves.

Drew has learned how to say no. And he’s learned it in context! I know, a real leap for mankind and all that, but consider this: before he learned the word no and its correct usage, all he would do was grunt at us, or kick his feet. Do you follow the pattern here? Am I making this abundantly clear? If there was an evolutionary scale (and believe me, there’s not. I don’t believe in one bit of that scientific nonsense at all… but if it did exist…) then Drew has advanced about a thousand years in the human condition.

From caveman style, to a civilized human being, in just a single week! Imagine the possibilities! If Drew keeps up this progress at this rate, why, he could be delivering that next great speech we make all of our students learn in school in just a few short months. Just in time for his second birthday, I might add. I can imagine him standing before us, wearing one of many new outfits possibly supplied by any of his loving grandparents, tugging at a diaper that has unfortunately gone unnoticed, and therefore is sagging with a heavy load down to his knees. He gazes levelly at all assembled at his birthday party, and gives us an oratory worth writing down. We’ll be quoting it for months. The newspapers will run fully dictated copies of it, and pundits will examine every nook and phrase, ascertaining the hidden meanings.

Meanwhile, my second son, Jude, will only ask the one word he’s learned this week to wield: “Why?”

And this junior Carl Sagan, golden hair coiffed just so like a strange cross of a Beach Boy and a mid-career Beatle, doesn’t ask to be annoying… yet. There’s a tone to this one word that defies explanation. In the undercurrent of subtext, there’s a true urgency to his interrogative. Jude wants to really know why. It’s always spoken straight-forward, never with a sharp edge that reveals malicious intent, or plain stubbornness. No, my friends, Jude is a natural philosopher, a regular agnostic, who seeks wisdom in all of its many varied forms, and answers from every natural source. This young man is preparing for a life spent seeking all that perplexes mankind, and he will not rest, no not now, not while his mother is preparing dinner, not while he needs to go use the potty in a real hurry, and certainly not while his two parents vainly attempt to hustle him off to bed.

This is a little boy we’re talking about here, and he knows that all he needs to do to throw the proverbial speed bump in our path is ask that single irritating word. “Why?”

I’m tempted to respond in kind, but then that creates in my brain a vision of a Pee-Wee Hermanesque verbal fight, hurling this one single word endlessly back and forth at each other, turning bright red in the face, until one of us gives up, and falls back from sheer exhaustion. And the victor of this debate will emerge, head held high, sippy cup in hand, and beg for his mama, because Daddy is picking on him again.

And still the question is raised, and we all wait again for an answer…

A Pre-Teen Jekyll/Hyde

You see that smile there? That’s a pure reaction to something his younger brother Jude did. Noah is like that a lot with his brothers.

I’ve seen that with Noah, any excuse to still be a little kid and to play–all for the sake of mere playing–brings out that happiness in him. There are no expectations, except that you get to play, run wild, dress in costume, race cars, fly Transformers through the air, and be a boy.

Then there’s the side of him that has to face his parents for whatever reason. Take out the trash. Calm the energy down a little–the little ones are not rag dolls to be thrown around. Let Drew have that toy, please. Then suddenly, that smile, and that whimsy which we could hear from across the house dies down to nothing. His face takes on a different look. I’ve seen that same look on executioners, raising the ax over the accused. The lips draw down, the eyes glaze over and become sullen, and the muscles in his face relax into a sudden dead look. The only way I can describe it–and forgive me anyone who knows anyone who has suffered this–but it looks like he’s has some kind of nerve attack, like a stroke. A complete lack of emotion on his face…except for that downturned mouth.

The change is instantaneous! Often, I’ve looked for wherever he’s stashed that secret potion he must have concocted to enact such a quick-change. It’s nowhere to be found! Where did this creature come from, and what has he done with my happy-go-lucky, land anywhere on his little brother’s fragile bodies, frolicking playful boy?!

Are all pre-teen boys like this? And by pre-teen, I mean, we only have half a year left before we have to drop the “pre” and it’s just teenager. His body’s already growing fast. Seems like we need to get him a new size of shoes, pants and shirts every day. (Of course, it could be that this new creature comes in and rips them to shreds, like the Hulk). I inspect his chin every week for the new need to shave. So far, he’s not making any peaches nervous. Acne is just barely a problem, and so far, it’s not life-threatening.

And of course, girls are on the horizon, but so far, still in the distance. But he can begin to hear the siren call. Paula and I have noticed tiny little changes in his behavior that means he believes they will notice him too. He’s extremely conscious of his hair. Gel in his hair for anytime he might slip one foot out of the door, even if he’s not going any farther than to put the garbage can on the street. I’m still waiting for the day when he decides that it’s not worth it to gel his hair… a paper bag would better conceal the humiliation of doing chores for his parents.

And yet, despite these changes in the physical and mental realm, there’s still a trace of the young boy in Noah, as I’ve mentioned before. If he’s allowed free rein to just play with his brothers, he steps down a wee bit to their level, maybe in age, but certainly in degree of fun.

And my son has one of the deepest, feeling hearts I’ve ever seen. And as much as he might show his feelings on his face, he can’t seem to express them by words. This can work for us–or against us. “Why are you so grumpy today? What’s wrong?”

His answer? “Nothing’s wrong. I’m not grumpy.”

Oh yeah, tell that to his face! I swear if his brain could see his face, he’d wonder what the heck had just happened. But he seems completely unaware that he’s showing something other than what he feels. Of course, sometimes I think it’s mere stubbornness, and he doesn’t want to admit that something may be wrong. Could it be fear of embarrassment? Repercussion? I don’t know. All attempts at questioning him are like throwing darts made of wet spaghetti at the target. It may stick, but not the way that works.

But Noah is still a good kid. He responds to movies at an emotional level still, like he did when he was younger. He laughs at weird and silly jokes (except mine; they are too weird and silly, even for him, judging by the “har, har” deadpanned response he sends my way).

And he deeply feels the hurt, frustration and disappointment in certain encounters at school with friends and non-friends. The confusing relationships. The teasing. The here-today, gone-tomorrow attitude junior high kids wield like a sword. Noah got a lot of nicks, cuts and bruises from kids holding those swords this past year, and it breaks our hearts to see him suffer so. Up until this last year, it seemed that making and holding friendships was so darned easy for him. It certainly made me jealous. I never had it so good when I’d been his age. More than anything, I’ve wanted his social life to be free of the ridicule that I endured, that he would find in him that ability to connect with people of all types, all across the board. I’m not saying he can’t, or won’t, but this last school year introduced him to a new level of struggle he’s never faced before.

As his father, I fear what these experiences might do to his mind. To his smile. To that free-living sense of fun and play. To that child who is slowly and most assuredly growing up, past the age of play with Transformers, and into the digital world of video games. Beyond the playroom with two small brothers, to a wider world out the doors of our house, where other kids his age are waiting. What will they offer my son, that he feels more comfortable accepting, than what his mother and I give with love, without question, without expectation?

What potion will he partake in, that will take the sweet, loving boy Jekyll, and make him a teenaged Hyde, full of emotions he’s afraid of, and feelings he can’t understand, surrounded by other Hyde’s his age, giving their parents the same grief… And how, in the midst of this traumatic world of adolescence, will we, his parents, guide him, nurture him, and love him, even when he thinks he doesn’t need it?

There must be an antidote somewhere. If only I knew what ingredients to add…

He’s a Man of Few Words…

For a little guy not quite 2 years of age, my little Drew sure has a lot to say, just not with a very large vocabulary.

His first real phrase that became his signature question was: “What’s that?” Of course, since he’s speaking with a Drewish dialect, it comes out “Wuzzat?”

When Drew first began this line of questioning, it applied to everything and everyone. It was spoken without a gesture, just with a quizzical look. For my wife, Paula, and I, it took nearly a week to understand what he was saying. When it finally clicked, we would respond by pointing at what we thought he was asking about with the appropriate answer. He learned fast. Soon, “Wuzzat?” was accompanied by a little finger, pointing.

I learned to walk quickly past anything bright and colorful if I had Drew in my arms, and someplace to be in a hurry. “Wuzzat?” “That’s a picture of Noah.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s a picture of Mommy.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s a wall.” “Wuzzat?” “I don’t know what you’re pointing at.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s you, Drew.”

At first, this was all my son would say. He was a great conversationalist. Lately, however, he’s learned that there are many things he would like to say, and a certain rhythm to conversation. What flows rapidly out of his mouth now are strings of gibberish. You know he thinks he saying something, because there’s definitely substance to the nonsense sounds.

But he’s also learning to imitate.

Last night, the family and I went swimming at our neighborhood pool. Jude, being the mommy-centric little man he is, gravitates to her, floating in a small inflatable ring decorated with wild, spastic little monkeys (apropos). That means that I float around with Drew, seated in an inflatable boat with an equally air-filled ring/seat. My job is to keep it upright, keep it moving, and always within eyesight of Mommy.

I’ve learned that my existence as Dad can be a simple one if I really try. While my wife has the mother engine revved up to fifth gear, I’ve found that dads can slide most naturally into neutral if it suits. That does not mean, however, that I cannot easily step on the gas, pop that baby into a higher gear, and act when needed. Mothers worry. Fathers let them. Mothers have an urgent need to be sure the children are entertained at every moment. Dads just want it quiet. Of course, this difference in parenting can cause friction, but that’s a story for another time.

When the family takes an evening walk, I’m pushing the stroller. The thing helps hold me up over the long distances. While swimming with Drew, that little boat gives me a way to float a long time, all the while playing games with my youngest son, such as “Don’t splash Dad in the face”, and “Mom is busy right now.”

Very soon into our swimming evening, Drew tired of sitting in the boat/float, and wanted to be held. So I held his small body against my chest, taking comfort from his tiny hand resting on my shoulder. Then he spoke: “Wuzzat?”

“That’s a wall (the edge of the pool). Do you wanna go to the wall?”

“Da waow?” he asked, pointing. I nodded, and drifted to the wall, where he reached up for the edge, having seen his two brothers execute similar maneuvers earlier. I picked him up, and sat him down on the edge with his feet barely dangling in the water. He sat there like a king, looking around his kingdom, and then let loose a long flow of words and phrases which I took to mean, “One day, Father, this will all be yours.” Of course, it could have been “Dad, look at the birds!”

Then he leaned down and “jumped” into my arms. I held him floating on his belly, and cried out, “Kick your legs, Drew!” He did so, and then turned, pointed, and asked, “Da waow?” A new game had begun, with me repeating at least 3 or 4 dozen times our game of sit on the wall, jump into the water, and immediately do it all over again.

As our evening faded to total darkness, and a welcome weariness overtook us, we packed up the kids, wrapped in towels, and started back to our car. I held Drew again, my little buddy. He had one arm poking out of the towel wrap, draped comfortably over my shoulder. Occasionally, he rubbed his eyes, which drooped a little more the closer we got to the truck. But the world was a busy place, and still occupied my son’s attention. “Wuzzat?” “That’s a car.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s a tree.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s the sidewalk.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s your daddy.” “Wuzzat?” “That’s daddy’s best little buddy, Drew…”

Just call me the Invisible Dad…

My 3-year old, Jude, acts like he doesn’t believe me, and most of the time, acts as if I’m not even there!

We’re driving somewhere, and Jude, sitting directly behind me in his carseat, asks a question: “Where are we going?”

I answer: “We’re going to the store to get some groceries, Jude.”

Immediately, and without the slightest hesitation, he asks, “Where are we going Mommy?”

My wife answers, “You’re dad already told you, Jude. We’re going to the grocery story to get groceries.”

That usually is the end of the subject. It is this time, and we move on. At the store, Paula places Drew in a seat in one cart, and I place Jude in a seat in a second cart. I’m tempted, with this growing entourage, to add an engine, coal car, and a caboose, put on a striped hat, and blowing a loud whistle. What makes this look even more ridiculous is when Paula and I place groceries in our own carts, though we really only need one. (At the checkout line, I’m usually first, and place my five or six stray items onto the conveyor belt, and then turn to my wife’s cart and empty the remaining 80 items.)

While we are walking around the store, I try to find ways to entertain Jude, because if there is the slightest lapse in fun, the only words that come out of his mouth are, “I want my mommy.”

But that’s the end of the fit, and is usually spoken with a high nasally whine, followed by kicking feet, and tiny bold hands pushing my hands off the handle of the shopping cart. Before it can even get that far, he starts with a more innocent sounding question: “Where’s my mommy?”

I reply, “She’s over there by the potatoes.”

Jude: “But where is she?”

You see, at this point, his question is not directed at discovering the actual location of his beloved mother, but merely in pointing out the dire fact that she is nowhere near him, or pushing his cart around the store instead of me. Of course, I don’t follow his little game, and take him at his spoken word. He has asked, I have answered. That should be enough. It throws me, that he asks again, as if I haven’t even responded. I say, “Jude, I told you, she over by the potatoes–scratch that–now she’s checking out the green beans.”

“But where’s my mommy?”

I’m steadily growing weary of this game. I gently place my hand on top of his fair blonde hair, and turn his head so that his face is generally in the direction of his mommy. I point, and say, “Look yonder! Thereth goeth your mommyeth! She’s parlaying with the squash!”

“I want my mommy!” Jude whines. Games over. Final score: Jude-2, Dad-0. But this is just the first round. He starts with the kicking, and pushing my hands.

“Jude, stop. You can’t go over there. Mom is pushing her cart, and I’m pushing yours.”

“But I want my mommy.” The whine is sounding even more desperate, as though I’m denying him oxygen. Not a bad idea, if silence was the only reward, instead of far worse consequences. Presently, I’m also out of duct tape, and it’s too hot to go make him sit in the car (which means I would also be sitting in the car with him, and listening to him cry and cry over how much he wants his mommy.)

Quickly, I’m beginning to swing to his viewpoint, if only for the immediate reprieve of listening to him howl louder and louder across the grocery store: “I WANT MY MOMMY!”

“Jude! That’s enough!” I’m extremely limited in my resources here. I can’t place him in time out. He’s already trapped in a seat, and the time out is usually for our benefit, as much as it is for him. Remove him from us for a minute (or 2 and then 3 if he persists), and then hopefully a mist of calm will have descended upon our household, and peace and tranquility can prevail.

Not at WinCo.

I’m losing the battle (some would say it was never mine to win), and I resort to even more feeble responses. “You can’t have Mommy! She’s busy.”

“But I want her,” he says. That’s Jude’s other common response to ANY refusal. “I want to watch TV.” “NO, you cannot watch TV right now. You just watched a movie.”

“But I want to!”

Well, why didn’t you say so before? If I’d known you wanted to, I would have reconsidered. “No, Jude. I said no TV.” “But I want to watch TV!” “I said no, Jude, and that’s enough.”

“I want my mommy!”

You see? I’m not even here. My spoken responses fall on deaf ears, my instructions are ignored and forsaken, and my presence is not enough for a little 3-year-old who has already learned the age-old family rule: If Dad says no, go ask Mom.

They were just words, till I said them out loud.

So… I may have gotten a little too easy using the word crap around my house. Such as “oh crap…” and etc. Enough that my oldest, Noah, has picked it up, and uses it probably more than he or I should.

The other day, all of us boys were comparing muscles, because that’s what boys do when they feel the need to overpower one another. I threw my weight into the division, because I’m Dad, and sometimes, my boys need reminding that I’m bigger. Sometimes, I do, too, especially when my three-year-old, Jude tests me at every turn.

So, Noah held up his arm, and flexed. The boy’s got muscle, no denying. A young pre-teen… his body is developing quickly. Then he had me raise my arm. I flexed, not really a spectacular muscle, mind you, but my 12-year-old was impressed, which always does wonders for the ego, and the fact that in my children’s eyes, I’m still Superman. He was impressed enough to utter with great enthusiasm, “oh crap!”

Of course, Jude was sitting right there.

Fast forward nearly a week. I’m nearing forty, and I can’t remember half the things that are said in my house on a daily basis (and it really comes in handy when an argument comes up with my wife, because that great talent for forgetting something that was said weakens my defense, and renders me useless and an inconsiderate buffoon). Yet, my 3-year-old can remember every single word said in his presence, and even the proper usage.

He and my wife were in the bathroom, completing bath time duties, when he asked her to flex her muscles. She did to humor him, to which he reached over, pinched her muscle like he’d seen us do, and exclaimed, “oh crap!” Then he grabbed her other arm (unflexed), and said the same thing.

This I could hear from across the house.

Now comes the conversation no grown adult can resist trying with a 3-year-old, and simultaneously failing every time: explaining to this young impressionable child who has the attention span of a nanosecond why he shouldn’t say certain words.

I can’t even get him to look at me when I’m talking! How am I supposed to get his attention?

“You shouldn’t say that.”

“Why, Daddy?”

“Because it’s not good for you.” (Of course, this reasoning is immediately negated by the fact that’s he’s already heard Daddy say this word, so is it not good for Daddy, too?” This conversation could go on, but I can already see he’d rather be chasing squirrels or his baby brother, both of which he finds equally appealing.)

Instead I hug him, and tell him to go play. As he runs off happy, he slips on a piece of laundry on the tile floor, and slides across the floor into the wall. He collides with a big thunk, hits the floor, and is crying before his body comes to rest. All of this happens in mere seconds. I don’t have time to think, just to react. I’m already leaping out of my chair, and racing to help him up, check his bones for injuries, lifetime damage, etc. And I cannot, absolutely cannot stop the next words that come out of my mouth.

Nor can Jude stop the smile that breaks through the tears, when he hears Daddy say something he really wished he hadn’t.