When I Grow Up

The other day, I asked the boy what he wanted to be when he grows up. Without hesitation, his answer came as sure and as swift as most boys when asked this question.

It wasn't some career or super hero that he wanted to be. With the seriousness of an answer considered at length he answered, "I don't want to be anything. That way I can spend more time with my kids."

At the age of five, the boy gets the meaning of life. We are meant to spend time with each other, with those we love.

I'd take the credit for that answer as his parent, but I know better with him. That thought was derived from his own take on the universe and what he finds to already be important at five.

I agree with his thinking. I don't want to be anything either.

Cinnamon Spice

So, the other weekend, just a little while back, the boy and I were making breakfast. This is our standard Saturday thing. While Momma gets a few more winks, we go downstairs, put on a kettle of water for tea, crack some eggs to mix with milk, and dip some bread to make french toast. I do the dipping, and between each piece, the boy adds the cinnamon, which he only called spice.

Then, this one weekend, I said, "Cinnamon Spicccce." And, the boy, he repeats it. And loves it.

It becomes a catch phrase for a couple days. The second "s" of spice rolling out long and joyous behind the quick collection of syllables in cinnamon.

And then, like other words that have been collected like loose stones, admired for a while, then stored, he tucked them away in his head to make room for new, more amazing words.

But, to prove that he can say the words, he obliged me to say them on camera.

Scientifically Proven

So, the Momma is sick with the before-mentioned flu, so the inmates are running the asylum at the moment. The boy and I have been doing our best to make her feel good. The boy likes giving Momma hugs but doesn't understand why she won't share food or drinks.

The Momma slept most of the day while the two of us sort of farted around. The boy isn't as sick as his Momma, but he's been a bit more reserved lately and running a low-grade fever, so he's prone to spurts of activity followed by cuddling and naps, which is what brings me to the purpose of this post, the increased gravitational pull on sleepy children.

I'm sure most of you have noticed how the density of your child seems to increase in direct proportion to their level of tiredness. The boy, after playing this morning then winding down, seemed to have gained a good 10 pounds in dead weight before his nap. After his nap, he was lighter, like a marshmallow, not at all the lead brick I put to bed.

I've got some theories on why exactly this happens. They're still in their infancy, so I will save them for later. Suffice it to say that I believe children have a lighter gravitational pull when fully awake so that they can maintain that boundless energy they seem to have in spades, and the reduction in gravitational drag dissipates when they grow sleepy, so they don't just float off with their dreams.

My evidence is mostly circumstantial at this point, but with proper funding, I believe this could be more extensively researched and perhaps proven. All I know is that as a child I felt lighter, as I'm sure you all did as well. Granted, I was a husky kid, but I felt like the wind when I ran, as I'm sure you remember yourselves. The wind in your ear insisted that you were flying when you ran, and when you jumped it was the furthest anyone could jump. The possibilities of childhood would have been impossible if not for the lightness of being that being a child brings.

It's just a hypothesis, but it would be wonderful if true, that we were all lighter once, when young. I guess time would be better spent determining how we could be lighter now.

Wishing you all lives like children.

Hurling, The New Winter Sport

So, I'm sure we're all aware by now because we either got the bug or know someone who did, but the ronovirus, that is sometimes called the "Barfing Flu" around here, has been making its way around. I'll spare you the details of how it pains the individual that gets it, but we have been thanking our lucky stars that we, as a family, have not had to suffer its effects. Each time we've remarked on this fact, we've knocked all the wood that we can find.

Alas, this might have been for nothing because last night, for the first time, ever, the boy threw up. Now, he spit up as a baby; they all do. But, never, in two years, has he been sick in a way that made him throw up. Never. Until, of course, last night.

Now, funny story, which I wasn't actually there for, but thanks the Momma's great descriptive talents, I feel as though I was, so now I can share.

Again, the boy has never thrown up, ever. So, when his mother went into his room this morning and found that he had done that very thing, she was beside herself. Now, for you father's out there I'll explain why in a minute; Mommas, you know why. But first, the setting. The boy is standing in the crib, in the room that smells, well, sickly, and he has obviously been talking cowboy at some point because it is on his sleeve, his face, his hair (lots in his hair), on just about every blanket in the bed (six total), as well as on his stuffed penguin.

Now, that's the setting, now picture the character that is waiting for the Momma. Standing in the bed is not the sickly child you would expect but someone who doesn't seem to understand who made the mess in his bed. Like some drunk in the morning after a bender, our son is standing in his own mess wondering how the hell the penguin did all this. He even hands the penguin over to the Momma as evidence of the fowl play. With a few mumbles past his binky, he has expressed what he thinks should be obvious. The bird, at some point, when the boy was asleep, puked. The fact that the penguin was sporting the evidence himself should be condemnation enough.

Now, I love my wife for being there to handle the particulars, and here boys is the reason for why my wife was beside herself, not because of the mess or any such thing as obvious to men ("thank God I didn't have to clean it up"). She was distraught because he had thrown up alone. She was upset because in his moment of need, she had not been able to console him. And, that, your honor, is why I married the lady. Good Momma.

Anyway, no more puke, or any other bodily expulsions, so that's the end of this story. Stay healthy.

So...what was in that cool aid??

It's remarkable, to me at least, how subtle the changes are as our children grow. It seems like they move from rolling over to rolling out the door for college in the blink of an eye. It has only been two years since Cole arrived, years more since he was a hope in our heart, and it feels like yesterday and forever all at once, so the moments where he becomes a little closer to the great man he will be are the ones that slip up on me and knock me down. Not those ones that we expect. He sat up. So what? They all sit up eventually. It's when they chose not to sit but some other position that you don't expect and that shows how much of a little person roots around in that little toddling body.

Yesterday, he was laying sitting on the couch with his pad of paper, making doodles for his Momma. At one glance to this sweet exchange between mother and son, the boy was doodling on the pad in his lap; in the next, he was laying prone across the cushions so as to have better access to his paper. Now, you could argue that this isn't really a big deal, but I think it is. When a child chooses to adjust from the familiar and the expected and to something else, that is momentous in its normalcy. It's taken for granted, the availability of options, and in these subtle ways they are defining themselves.

Maybe I project too much or let the writer in me run amok too much, but when I see him lean against a doorway, I see him years from now doing the same thing, that same easy stance, that same grace as he peels a thought apart in his head to share it with someone else, his mother while she cooks a meal for him on Christmas break, to me while I collect a bite before we head out to fish, to his friends that he'll have for years and who might never understand where he's at most of the time. I see a toddler, a boy, a man in every part of him that hints of who he'll be.

That's why the little things smack me askew more often than not. Because, in those moments, when he is who he is now and who he'll be years from now, I'm not typically ready for that level of transcendental migration. The here and now is enough most days, and the eventuality of life, of his getting older, of his growing older in that very moment, is more than I can handle. I want to know both at once and forever, the boy he is now, the man he'll be then, and all the people in between.

And, it is in those moments that I realize that that can never be, at least, not all at once. So, I take it in. Enjoy that moment, and the next, and the next. I'd suggest we all do the same.

Moments Like These

So, it was about 11 o'clock, and the Momma had gone to bed. Since me and the boy had taken a nap late this afternoon after seeing our friends' new baby, we were still pretty much awake.

Now, this isn't to say that we didn't try putting him to bed earlier tonight. His Momma had tried when I was at the store getting a few needed groceries, and we both tried when she decided to go to bed. On the last try, Cole made his eat/drink signal (a hand to the mouth with a snacking noise), so Momma went to bed and the boy and I went to the kitchen.

As is our usual practice, we assembled what he wanted, which goes like this for waffles (the staple food for the boy because it incorporates so many of his favorite things: toaster, toaster, toaster):

BOY

(From a squatting position that doesn't allow for parental access and removal from kitchen, done by hunching over halfway between the wet noodle and standing)

Uhh. Uhh. Aaaneewannaohhh.

(spelled more like intent than the actual utterance, of course)

PAPA

Tell me what you want or get the hell out of the kitchen.
(Yes, I'm horrible and at 11 o'clock, use words like hell, etc. to express by undying affection for the boy and his paternally inherited stubbornness.)

BOY

Uhhh.
(Still half-noodling.)

PAPA

Okay, show me.

BOY

Uhwa?

(Like, "really" and "okay" depending on the circumstance, this word means either, in this instance, both.)

Recognizing that I have understood his request and resolve, he proceeds to move him and I around the kitchen. First, to the refrigerator, where we open the door, and he tries to remove the container of buttermilk, but realizes that, while the same cylinder shape, does not look exactly like the butter. After searching the shelf a bit, he locates the butter behind the yogurt. He carries the butter to the table, and then walks back, all smiles and raises his arms. I pick him up, open the freezer, and he points to the waffles. I remove one and hand it to him, dropping him to the floor so he can point to the cabinet where the toaster is kept (very out of reach otherwise we would have toasted everything, seriously, everything would be toasted). He follows me to the table, and climbs into a chair so that I can place the toaster on the table and plug it in as he directs, and then he begins to toast the waffle. Repeatedly.

To toast anything in the toaster with Cole's help means that it will toast in twenty second increments because that is how long he'll wait after pushing down the lever, selecting one of the buttons on the face (usually all, the last of which is the "Cancel" button, which sends the waffle back up to receive the same series again: lever...button...button...cancel...lever, etc.).

He attempts to butter the waffle and cut it with a fork while I finish buttering and cutting it with a knife. He sees the mess on the fork and climbs off the chair, walks to the sink, and pitches it up over the lip, then offers a hand for the replacement.

Back in the chair, it is syrup (normally done by the boy, but we're running low, so Papa does it, so easy on the syrup, but enough not to trigger a disagreement about our completing this phase of the waffle making).

While the boy eats his waffle and drinks milk out of a tall cup (probably, too tall, but he manages with one hand the whole time). The only drawback to the tall cup is that it requires a bit of tipping to get the milk out of it. This means that he occasionally makes a noise into the cup before drinking from it, which incites a series of dialogues through the cup because he thinks it sounds funny.

BOY

Muhumf, muhumfa, mumfa? (Producing a laugh that giggles the milk around the glass, making laugh more, the muffled sound deeper sounding from inside the cup.)

PAPA

Goof.

BOY

Muhumfa, mumfa. (More laughter.)

He quickly tires of the cup-muffled talking, for the moment, and resumes eating while I prepare my own late dinner, a couple of toasted sandwiches with what still remained of last weeks lunch meat.

I remove them from the pan to a plate, cut them, pour myself a drink.

PAPA

Okay, lets go.

Cole climbs from the chair as I gather my dinner in my arms, one hand has the plate, the other has the glass. When he has reached the ground, he turns and removes his plate from the table.

Now, this is the reason for telling you all this about the waffle ritual and the kitchen activity. This moment that I'm about to tell you about.

He's removing the plate with pieces of waffle still on it, and I'm thinking he's clearing the finished dishes, and I'll have to move back into the kitchen to keep him from spilling the contents of the plate or him breaking it when it falls. But before I can move to do so, I realize that he is taking it with him, holding it level and pressing it between his arm and chest.

I realize, we're going to go eat together in the living room.

I'm impressed that he carries it without spilling it, an impression that lasts only long enough for him to turn and reach for his large plastic cup of milk, with one hand. I brace for disaster. He grabs the cup with one hand and carries both the plate (ceramic by the way, very breakable as I've proven). I am now beside myself with pride for his latest gigantic accomplishment that he has done with the nonchalance of Cary Grant entering a room, poised, confident.

He moves through the opened gate, through the living room to the couch, where he places his cup on the snack tray, the plate on the couch, and climbs into position next to both. I am floored, and at the same time, enjoying the beauty of the moment, of the boy's amazing leaps of change done in ending hours of a day, his carefree grace as he shares this moment of his wonderful little life with his dad, just the boys having a snack on the sofa, and the idea that this moment is unique and mundane and fantastic because it is both. It is all of life and so very little of it.

I could go on now, about the way he sits with his legs spread around the plate he has placed in front of himself, or that he keeps the cup pressed against his chest as he plucks waffle pieces from the plate and watches The Legend of Zorro on television, oblivious to the effect his life has on the world around him, but I won't because you know this moment from your own life, from those pieces of joy that you have placed together somewhere in your soul to keep with you for quiet moments or to be used as the measure of a good life when the time comes.