Monthly Archives: March 2013

Happy birthday, little Wahoo Wahoo

The baby is turning one. He’ll be a toddler soon. The other day, he stood up by himself for almost 10 seconds.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since this insane night:

Dispatches from the Delivery Room, Part 2: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Labor Pain

In that year, the child has been known by many names. There have even been the rare occasions when we have called him by his given name. His current nickname is Wahoo Wahoo. That is the onomatopoeia we use to describe his cry of parental manipulation.

teeth and dimples smile

Four teeth + two dimples = one great year!

For example, if my wife tells me, “I tried to put him down for a nap, but that didn’t last long.”

And I ask, “What did he do?”

She rolls her eyes and mimics: “Wahoo, Wahoo.”

Here are some of the other nicknames he’s sported over the past year:

Ginger and his brother, Mary Ann: a nicknaming debacle

He’s a good baby, but I’m ready for him to grow out of some of his baby hang-ups. I’ve never known an infant who hates riding in the car as much as Wahoo Wahoo does. He screams about being in a car like Daddy screams about being on an airplane; it’s a most unbecoming display. Maybe when he’s one and we put him into the forward-facing, big-boy seat, he’ll be less put out by the experience. They say it’s safest to keep him facing backward until he outgrows that seat, but I think it’s safest to have him in a car where the driver is not always distracted by inconsolable wailing directly behind his head.

Wahoo Wahoo begins his second year of life with four very sharp teeth and more hair than any three other toddlers combined. He has had his four front teeth for several months now without sprouting a fifth tooth. His attitude seems to be, “Who needs grinding? As long as I can bite good and hard, I’m good.”

This is a bit about the trouble caused by his first tooth.

A Land Shark is born: baby’s first tooth

He was born with a healthy thatch atop his head and it has grown skyward ever since. I am happy to report that the back of his head is now getting its share of hair too. For a while, the top was full, but the back and sides were very sparse, giving him the exact opposite hairstyle as his daddy.

If Don King and Cosmo Kramer had a baby:

The little kid with the big wig

For my wife, this birthday is bittersweet. Mothers seem to want their babies to always stay babies for some reason. Dads want their kids to grow quickly into sensible youngsters who can be threatened into keeping quiet when the big game is on.

Even so, I think I will miss some of his baby characteristics. Very soon, he will be walking. That will mean the end of the pitter-patter of his little hands and knees as he run-crawls to greet me when I come home from work. I’m all in favor of progress, but I’m pretty sure I’ll miss that.

We’re not laughing at your tears; we’re laughing with them

When a child hurts himself and starts to cry, there are numerous ways his parents might react: alarm, fear, laughter.

It may not be the proudest moment of parenthood, but if you have never been inspired to uncontrollable laughter by your child’s mishaps, then you haven’t been a parent very long or your pants are on fire.

The truth is that children sometimes hurt themselves in comical ways. What makes it worse (or better, if you enjoy a good laugh) is that the sounds leading up to the actual crying are like a well-known symphony resounding in the parents’ ears. When that sound track begins to play, a parent has two responsibilities:

  1. Check for blood.
  2. If there is no blood, try to conduct yourself in a manner that appears sympathetic.

The first responsibility is easy to fulfill. The second, not so much. It depends upon the circumstances. Sometimes children hurt themselves in mundane ways that are not at all hilarious. It’s easy to be a good parent when you’re bored. But when the kid goes slapstick, be prepared to have your parenting chops tested.

Last week, my preschool son found a spider on the kitchen floor. As the self-appointed neighborhood watch chief, when it comes to tiny pests in the house, he immediately contacted the authorities. I (the authorities) relocated the spider outdoors.

My son, harkening to the classic axiom of infestations: where there is one, there are bound to be others, decided that he’d better check the kitchen for other spiders. He got my flashlight and was soon crawling around inspecting the nooks and crannies of the room.

We have an island in the middle of our kitchen. My wife and I were standing on one end, and my son quickly disappeared from view as he crawled around the other. We could hear him rooting about on the floor as he entered an area populated by a few wooden chairs.

He must have been too focused upon his work, and his comments to himself about the likelihood of spiders being found here or there, to notice that he wasn’t crawling out in the open anymore. We could see nothing, but we heard the telltale opening of the Overture of Torment:

THUMP!

Then that long inhaled breath that is broken up into three equal parts in the instant between the pain and the wailing:

crying to the microwave

In this over-acted dramatization of the recent tragedy, the boy makes an editorial comment by turning to the microwave for the sympathy that more fortunate children expect from their parents.

“Huuut, huuut, huuut.”

Then, with enough air drawn into his lungs to support it, the wailing itself:

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh, aaahhnnt, aaaahhhhhaaaaa . . .”

He stood up, both hands holding the top of his head as if pressing that fixture firmly down on his neck until the glue dried. Tears ran down his cheeks as he looked to us for the sympathy so common to our parental natures.

There was no blood, so we looked away, a moment before our bodies began to shake with laughter.

We couldn’t look at him; we certainly couldn’t look at each other. We hid our faces.

My wife found the strength to ask, “What happened?”

“I . . . bumped . . . my . . . head,” he choked out, almost audibly.

I put my head down on the counter and covered my eyes. All I could think about were the spiders who were taking advantage of this tragedy to make good their escape.

The very next day, he was searching for something around the corner in the TV cabinet when we heard the exact same song:

THUMP!

“Huuut, huuut, huuut.”

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh, aaahhnnt, aaaahhhhhaaaaa . . .”

I can’t hide my mirth on such a regular basis. Once the blood check was over, I let it out. He was angry at first, but after I sat down with him and gave him a big hug, his crying subsided. “Why are you laughing?” he asked.

“I was thinking about yesterday. Remember? You were looking for spiders, but you found a chair instead.”

“Yeah.” He started to laugh too.

They say it’s the best medicine.

Kids are STILL creepy: a horror story sequel

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a post about how my son would stand beside my bed and wake me up with his heavy breathing whenever he needed something in the middle of the night. It was pretty unnerving. Since then, he has changed his methods a couple of times, leading me to the conclusion that there is no good way for him to wake me up in the middle of the night.

kid peeking through door crack

Some people are tormented by the Spawn of Satan. We couldn’t afford that name-brand spawn, so my wife and I concocted a do-it-yourself version of spawn to haunt our midnights.

For a while, the boy gave up coming into the room at all when he wanted to wake me. We leave our door ajar at night. He would stand in the hall and put his mouth up to the crack and urgently whisper, “Daddy!” as many times as necessary to rouse me. This resulted in a higher than normal rate of bad dreams for me.

Even when his call did not penetrate my dream world, it woke me with disturbing thoughts. You’d be surprised how similar a child’s loud whisper of “Daddy!” sounds to the gravelly bellow of a demon-possessed house commanding you to “Get out!” when you are half asleep.

He must have trained me to become a heavier sleeper. You can only lie on pins and needles for so long, waiting for an unearthly voice either to ask for a drink of water or demand that you offer your soul to Satan. Eventually, you learn to sleep through it.

Consequently, the boy doesn’t stop at the door anymore. He’s back to standing beside the bed. Only now, he is more direct about waking me up.

My wife sleeps on a particular side of our bed. That is the only side of me that somebody should be on. When a finger taps me from the other direction at 3 a.m., it can lead to some instant wakefulness.

When this exact event occurred, the other night, I did a remarkably athletic 180 degree flip beneath the covers. Thankfully, I recognized the silhouette of my pint-sized tormentor in the darkness. “What the hell are you doing here?” I bellowed. The curse must be blamed upon my semi-conscious condition. The fact that I was able to refrain from dropping an F-bomb must be credited to my superior parenting instincts.

My wife was bolted awake by my jujitsu move. “You scared the hell out me!” she shouted at one or both of us. She was also semi-conscious, and is a superior parent.

“I want you to make my bad dream go away,” the boy explained.

“Well, you shouldn’t have it anymore, because you just passed it on to me.” I didn’t say this; my wife didn’t say this; we were both thinking it.

We let him lie down with us until he fell asleep. Then we put him in his own bed. He reported no more bad dreams. I guess that means everything worked out okay, except that now I have to sleep always facing toward the outside of the bed.

Don’t let your own spittle get the best of you

Now that my son brushes his teeth by himself, I think nostalgically about what he used to say whenever he reached some developmental milestone. When congratulated upon his accomplishment, his eyes would beam pride and he would say, “I’m getting a big boy.”

The words, “I’m getting a big boy,” always made it sound as if he were heading down to the Big Boy Shelter to pick out a big boy of his very own. If there is truly such a place as the Big Boy Shelter, I would like to know about it, because there are some days when I would like to drop him off there. But he’s had all his shots, he’s good with children, and my wife has grown attached to him, so I guess I’ll keep him.

Of course, he meant, “I’m getting to be a big boy,” but at the time, even the simplest verb in all language, unprocessed by conjugation, thwarted him. It was nothing to be ashamed of; the same simple verb flummoxed Hamlet, and he got to be famous, in spite his inability to come to terms with it.

Hamlet

Contemplating basic verbs. I always do my best pondering when I’m holding my thinking skull. Maybe this guy should get one of those.

My son has since gotten to be a big boy. But big boys still have their troubles. My big boy encounters one of his most vexing troubles occasionally while brushing his teeth. This is the psychological torture caused by a dangling string of spittle.

Nine out of ten times, the boy can rinse and spit without any terrifying results. Yet, every once in a while this process leaves that tenacious thread of spittle hanging from his mouth. This is horrifying to him. He would rather examine the baby’s dirty diapers than touch a thread of saliva from his own mouth. This goes for touching it with his toothbrush as well.

group tooth brushing

“Spittle can’t harm us as long as we stick together. Now, you boys in the back just wait patiently; the girls are almost finished and a toothbrush will come available presently.” (Image: Frank P. Burke)

Whenever his spittle clings to him, as it stretches its disgusting length toward the sink, he freaks. He makes moaning and groaning and whining sounds as he first shakes, then bobs, his head in a frantic effort to free himself of the horrifying link.

Of course I’m laughing, so I’m no help.

My laughter only makes him more furious. How would you feel if there were a rattle snake, hanging by fangs stuck into your lower lip, and your dad just stood there and laughed?

But if his spit is too nasty for him to touch, I’m not getting near it.

platoon tooth brushing

It is never too soon to learn your patriotic duty as an American to stand firm against the spittle hordes.

After about 15 seconds of a full-fledged Irish jig, the strand usually snaps off. By then, the kid is breathless and exhausted, but his mouth is safe to bring his toothbrush near again. That is, unless the strand has the unholy gumption to snap in the middle. Then the terror begins all over again. Only it’s worse now, because it’s going to take longer for this shorter pendulum of swinging spittle to build up enough momentum to break free of him.

He should have continued to leave out simple verbs and just gone and adopted a big boy to do these dangerous tasks for him. It would have been easier that way.