Today was Father's Day.
Today was the day I delivered on my promised Father's Day gift, by taking my parents out to lunch at one of the more high-end restaurants in the area. The offer was a last-minute decision I reached those few Sundays ago, having tried and failed to come up with a better idea, a more relevant offer, a more tangible, wrap-ready gift concept to serve as an adequate and appropriate "thanks, dad" gift.
It's becoming so difficult.
I'm sitting in a rocking chair in a room. The curtains are drawn, the lights are off, and a white noise machine on a nearby shelf is busy forming a protective barrier against any outside sounds that would seek to disturb the slumber of this room’s inhabitants. In my lap lays my youngest son. This is his room we’re in, and it’s his bedtime we’re working on. I am giving him a bottle, his night-night bottle, the bottle that, along with my rocking and soothing, will send him off to sleep.
I sense that it's taking longer than usual for him to pass out. He is quiet, but restless. His blue eyes are wide open, betraying barely a hint of sleepiness. The heaviness that usually appears around his eyelids about this time is late. Which is bad because, as I sit here, I realize that there’s something I should have done before I sat here. Nature is calling, but I can’t come to the phone just now, but rather than go to voicemail, the ring just gets louder. I try to ignore it by focusing on the task at hand. I focus on the bottle, my baby boy draining its contents, the milk going down into his belly, his little digestive system taking it in and making use of its nutrients, the rest of it being shipped off to be turned into waste, the liquid parts of which will be stored in his tiny little bladder which he is still too young to control, which just reminds me of my own bladder, which seems fuller and fuller by the moment.
As I sat there beneath the shade of the old oak tree thinking the thoughts that a father thinks I found myself lost against the waves of rolling wind and the sinking spiral of so many leaves.
Or I would have, had I time to sit beneath an oak tree and a flare for the poetic.
There are leaves that need a good turning and those that should just wilt and die. Then there are those things you put in your table to make it bigger, but that only lasts for four hours.
Still, you've got to take what you can get.
My daughter's helmeted head is all I see gliding along the grassy horizon. In a second or two, her shoulders rise out of the summer blades of yellowing green. Then the rest of her comes into view as she rounds the distant curve in the asphalt loop. From under a young dogwood across the park, I see her knees in a slow rhythm, barely fast enough to keep her steady and upright.
Then she stops, as does my heart.
We're in the middle of summer, and many of you are packing up the metaphorical Family Truckster for your metaphorical Trip To WallyWorld. Our sponsors, the good folks at SanDisk, have sent us another SlotRadio digital music player to give to One Worthy Winner.
In general, I believe kids default to Good. Not good, as in "you cleaned your room all by yourself" good, but true Goodness, that which keeps them from torturing small animals or lighting their younger siblings' hair on fire.
There's constant danger lurking around the edges of writing about being a Dad. The truth is surrounded by dishonesty on all sides. You want - believe me I really do want - to write about children as if everything they do and say result in epiphanies that alter your destiny in profound ways. But that's not true. So you try to pepper it with the hard stuff. However, when you start writing about the negative, you run the risk of harsh criticism - the harshest criticism comes from yourself - about being a terrible parent and then some idiot asks you why you even had kids in the first place when you hate them so much. Well first of all, I never tried to have kids, but that's beside the point. And if you give me a bunch of jazz about not having sex if I didn't want kids, then this conversation is over because Black Hockey Jesus just gots to have it. Anyway, complaining about kids doesn't mean you hate them and wish you never had them. It's just that sometimes you really wish they'd shut the fuck up.
I'm taking the easy way out tonight - I can't properly combine words into coherent sentences in order to post something worthy of your time so I'm posting a video that was crucial to my elementary school learning. I'm sure it was with many of you as well. At least those of you who grew up in front of the TV a la Martin Tupper. For those of you born in the 80s or later, this was the Dark Ages, B.C. (Before Cable).
Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July. Take a moment to remember the sacrifices of our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) and ponder the significance of what they wrought. Also remember those who paid the ultimate price in defense of this great nation and the freedoms and liberties we enjoy (and often take for granted).
Have a great weekend!
We the people of Castle TwoBusy, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common beer fridge and wine rack, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of free and easy movement unrestrained by the grubby hands of children, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of Parenthood.
Assemble away, children. Get together, plot your nasty little plots, then run away and weep as we crush them beneath the authoritarian bludgeon of our will. You may, on occasion, invite other children to join you in assembly — as long as it's only for a couple of hours and/or we get along with their parents. If their parents are dull and/or judgmental, however, they will be declared enemies of the state and summarily executed. Sorry. Them's the rules. Along similar lines, Freedom of Speech only kicks in when you turn 18. Although if you promise to use your indoor voices, we might give you a little slack on this one.
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