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We're out of the shit. Seriously. We're finished with the baby phase(s) of both our kids. Our eldest is steeped in elementary school, doing her own thing, reading, doing math, ogling over Zac Sapphron (or whatever his name is) etc.. She's good to go. I think it's safe to say our youngest is now a certifiable little girl as well. She hasn't had a timeout in almost a month and she's finally dropping her "little guys" through the seat of a toilet instead of the ass end of a diaper - wrapping up what we considered the final item on our to-do list. So, I guess for all intents and purposes we're done and we're ready to enjoy the brief respite we'll have until our eldest hits the teen years. By then we'll have a plan of attack for that stage, I hope. I'm not too worried about it. I hear teens can practically raise themselves. Anyhoo...
It's kind of cool to sit back and watch the fruits of our labor. For the longest time, I could not see an end in sight. It was a long, dark road with few bright spots there for a while. Lula was a frickin' tough baby. Brutal. Still, we stuck with our plan, kept drinking our heads up and now we're getting the pay off. I had my doubts, but, the evidence is showing that we did a good job. Man, what a ride! Yay us!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go put her back in her cage, hose her down and fill her bowl.
My phone rings at work the other day, and the display tells me it's home. So I answer.
"Hello? Hello? Helloooo?"
I check the display again, just to be sure. Yep, no mistake, it's home. But then I hear breathing into the phone, like a prank call from the 80's. What did they call them back then, obscene phone calls? I guess caller ID tolled the death knell for the prank call. Too bad.
Then finally a voice speaks, and it makes my heart swell. "Daddy."
Aw, now ain't that the sweetest. I think to myself. The wife called to let little son say hi.
And so we talk, he and I, on the phone. His end of it is mostly just "hello", "daddy", "mommy", and "cookie." At first I'm a little self-conscious, sitting there in cubicle-land speaking in my dad-to-toddler voice, but then it occurs to me that I sound far less ridiculous than the people I hear yelling at their kids over the phone, and POOF! All self-consciousness vanishes.
When I was a kid, I somehow developed the idea that when parents were at work and they chewed out
their kids over the phone, none of their coworkers could hear them. I have no idea where I picked up this ridiculous notion but it was burst like a ripe zit very shortly after I became a productive member of the workforce. Perhaps it's because I've never reached such an intense level of fury with my kid, but this has got to be Number 1 on my list of shitty workplace behaviors, the one for which I have very little in the way of understanding. The issuance of threats through clenched teeth, the pointing menacingly into the phone, the assurances of coming wrath, all seemingly done as much for the listening pleasure of one's colleagues as for the kid on the other end of the line. I pretty much have to grab my headphones and tune out so as to resist the temptation to walk over, hang up their call for them, and suggest they take a few deep breaths and stop making an ass of themselves. Because I don't care to hear it.
So anyway, back to me and mine.
The conversation with my son continued to the point where I started to wonder just how long my wife was going to let him talk before taking the phone. And then it occurred to me that perhaps she had no idea. Perhaps she hadn't made the call at all. When I realized this, I just had to giggle, and I knew right then I'd never forget the first time my son called me at work.
Except, how do you end a phone call with a toddler? It would be rude to just hang up on him. I asked him if he could give the phone to mama, but he just said "no." Thankfully, we live in a modern technomological age with many means of easy communication readily available. I suppose I could have sent a messenger owl, but that might have taken a few minutes. Instead I hopped on the old IM and informed the wife that son was currently in possession of the phone, that he'd found the redial button, and that he and I were discussing matters of great importance.
Since we have about seven weeks to go before Baby Girl (whose womb-name, it's been decided, is "Princess Buttercup") arrives, Beth and I figured it would be a good idea to take our hospital's crash course in birthin' for repeat parents. The hospital's official name for the program is the Childbirth Preparation Refresher Express Class, which, oddly, or maybe not, acronyms down to ChiBPREC. I had mixed feelings about attending - not because I didn't think I needed the info, but because other people would actually be in the class, and there was a very good chance that some of them would speak to me, with the expectation that I would reply in some manner. Frankly, that's not how I roll. I go into these courses like a 101st Airborne paratrooper goes into his D-Day H-Hour Minus 12 pre-jump briefing: I need the intel that will keep me and mine alive during this crucial mission. I want data, diagrams, numbers, plaster models of pelvic bones with movable parts. The "sharing of feelings and experiences"...fie! Fie I say! Well, it being 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday, I figured there was a good chance that none of the other 16 people who had signed up for the class would show.
Of course, everyone did show. I won't go into details - labor, "transition", push, baby, "Dad, it's your turn! Cut that cord!", go home, raise child. But I will point out a few of the highlights.
Actually, that's all I can think of. Plus Curb Your Enthusiasm's on.
Thing 1 is always dropping some sort of funny. I used to blog every jewel out of his mouth, but have slowed down recently. He's so funny my fingers hurt. He can get his own damn blog if he's so freaking hilarious.
Today he said something that didn't seem like it would be funny. It didn't seem like it was going to wind up in a public forum, for fear that someone might conclude that I, meaning the TV, was teaching my son inappropriate behavior. I think everyone can agree that I would never do such a thing.
He came to me this morning with a list of demands: paper, crayons and something to drink. It sounded a bit suspicious to me, but as he said 'please' and is as cute as a button, I did his bidding. I know, I spoil.
When I returned with Old King Cole's requests he said to me, "Daddy, I'm treating you like a girl."
Crap. Obviously he didn't realize I was only kidding when I yelled at my wife to get off her ass and bring her man a beer. I assume my wife knew I was kidding, she never brought me the beer.
I was nervous. It was time to drop knowledge about respect and understanding. Treating people the way we want to be treated is big with me. I put on my dad-face.
"What do you mean?" I asked, straightening my belt, or the band of my underwear as it were, to sit down and have a bit of a chat, mano-y-mano, about said respect and stuff. "What do you mean, you're treating me like a girl?"
"I'm treating you like a girl," he replied, "because I love you."
"Oh," I answered. "I suppose that's nice of you."
"Thank you," he said. "Now will you get me some glue?"
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