CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

I’m standing on the periphery of the playground facing its center. To the casual observer, I am staring straight ahead. Look closer and you’ll see that my eyes are actually facing in two completely different directions. My right eye is trained on my youngest, who is standing atop a 10’ slide approximately 47 degrees to my right, while my left eye is watching my eldest bounce up and down on a suspension bridge. My brain is receiving and processing simultaneous feeds from each eye regarding each boy’s current status. Any report of injury, a pained expression, or unacceptable behavior will trigger action in the rest of the body. It is a spectacular feat of dual awareness, a demonstration of two hemispheres functioning independently in order to accomplish a common goal, a state which I am able to accomplish through a combination of intense ocular control, deep breathing, and Norris-like focus. And I can maintain it for all of .37 seconds.

But then I lose it and the eyes snap themselves back to a singular direction, forcing me to revert to watching my two boys one at a time. And there’s something about a playground that drives them to separate from one another, little magnets of like polarity holding one another at bay.

I’m watching the two year old, watching, watching, watching...he’s cool. He’s climbing up the slide, he’s climbing, climbing, there’s a kid at the top that want to slide down, climbing, aaaaaand....he’s at the top! Okay, he can’t run off from there, time for a quick check on eldest. Scanning, scanning, scanning, scan--TARGET ACQUI--! No wait, that’s another kid in the same shirt. Target, huh? Nice. Okay, there’s the four year old, he’s good. He wants--

"Hey Daddy! Come chase me!”

“Okay, one second!”

Better check on youngest real quick before I go chasing anybody. Scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning, SCANNING, SCANNING, WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO SON?!  FEVERISHLY SCANNING, TARGET ACQUIRED! 100 YARDS OUT! HE’S MAKING A BREAK FOR IT! FOLLOW THE GOLDEN LOCKS AND MANIACAL LAUGHTER! MOVE MOVE MOVE!

Okay, got him--wait, what’s that sound? Is that eldest crying? Scanning, scanning--SHIT! HE'S ON THE GROUND! MOVE!

And so on. And all this time, I’m in motion, repositioning myself again and again so I can keep tabs on each of them, constantly telling myself that I should relax and stop hovering, and constantly responding that I’m not really hovering so much as I am, you know, circling, just sorta, you know, helicoptering. Oh god, am I helicoptering?! Oh shut up and watch your kids.

I once tried letting one of my eyes float out independently of my body to keep watch over one kid while the eye remaining in my head kept track of the other. I instructed the flying eyeball to stay up high and out of sight, and I wore a pair of sunglasses so as to keep from freaking out other park-goers with my empty socket. The wireless data transmission seemed to work well enough, but the problem came when I had to make my body get up and move. With each eye looking at entirely separate images, my brain wasn’t sure which image represented the world right in front of me. Not to mention what it did to my depth perception. I was effectively immobilized.

I would like to relax, believe you me. I would love it if I didn’t have to maintain such CONSTANT VIGILANCE! But experience has taught me not to take my eyes off of either one for too long. Especially the two year old. That little dude will make a run for it and be halfway to Houston before it occurs to him that maybe he’d like something to eat and some apple juice and a nap and hey maybe I had a good thing going back there.

Perhaps one day I’ll be able to relax at the playground. Until then, scanning, scanning, scanning....