Tag Archives: boys

We’re goin’ over the wall tonight

The youngest boy has crossed the last threshold out of babydom. He’s learned to escape his crib – only his motive is not so much escape and it’s not really a crib he’s exiting.

THE SNEAK

They all, in their own time, figured out how to shake free of the crib. Big Brother executed his escape plans quietly, never letting us know he was plotting a breakout until we heard the loud thud from his bedroom floor.

Being first-time parents, we had foolishly parked a dresser at the foot of his crib. Climbing up to the top of that dresser was Phase One of his plan. He hadn’t really thought through Phase Two, which resulted in the thud of his bouncing off the floor.

Let's do this!

Let’s do this!

We couldn’t believe he wasn’t broken; his thud sounded like a cannon ball hitting the house. We immediately banished the dresser and made all manner of rookie parent safety adjustments to his crib.

Leg up.

Leg up.

THE HARD CASE

Buster was a loud prisoner. He wouldn’t stand the injustice of being left in a crib and he let us know it. It was only a matter of time before he made his first thud in a misjudged leap to freedom.

And over.

And over.

His thud wasn’t as loud. There was no tall dresser to climb onto, and he was a smaller kid, except for his lungs. Still, we lived up to the letter of the parental contract by checking on him to make sure he was a bouncer. Then we put him directly back to bed. If he kept making thuds like this, after a while, I’d see about lowering the crib mattress to make egress more difficult.

Roll.

Roll.

He kept making thuds, and eventually I adjusted his crib. After more thuds, I adjusted it again, and again. When his hole was as deep as it could go and he still climbed out of it, we put him in a big boy bed. That wouldn’t hold him either, but at least it would give some relief to the floor.

Second leg up.

Second leg up.

THE GRACIOUS HOUSEGUEST

Big Man doesn’t sleep in a crib, not because he’s bigger than his brothers were and might put a hole through the floor. He took a liking to sleeping in his pack-n-play after he graduated the cradle. We tried the crib a few times, but he preferred the pack-n-play. He sleeps well there and hardly ever acts like a caged animal.

And down. Happy face.

And down. Happy face.

And now he can climb out of it. There are no thuds. It’s lower than the crib, but the deftness with which he climbs out makes us doubt he’d thud out of the crib either. The kid is a ninja, using his feet and hands in concert to roll silently over the wall.

He doesn’t do it to escape; he does it because it’s morning time. There’s none of Big Brother’s, “I’ll act cool until your back is turned,” or Buster’s, “I’m breaking out of this hell hole, you dirty rat!” In his toddler way, Big Man is telling us, “Don’t trouble yourselves. I’ll see myself out.”

I’m hoping our graceful little country squire will soon begin offering to make breakfast.

You boys will make fine young cavemen someday

I think there are studies suggesting little girls are generally more articulate than little boys. I can’t verify the existence of these studies because thoroughly researched facts have no place in this blog. If indeed such studies exist, I’m inclined to believe them. I don’t have any experience raising girls, but there are recurring instances when the average squirrel is more articulate than my boys. I’m guessing girls are, on balance, more articulate than squirrels. Ergo . . .

I think the preceding paragraph is a syllogism or something. It’s seems like pretty air-tight logic.

My boys may get some of their articulation resistance from their father. When I am particularly tired, I tend to grunt answers to questions. At a quarter to midnight, when I am struggling against all odds to procure some beauty sleep, and my wife rolls toward me to ask, “Do you want to have some pillow talk?” my response sounds something like, “Hrrrnn.” In my defense, “pillow talk” is not a euphemism for anything more exciting than a meandering conversation in the dark. “Hrrrnn” is a generally accepted abbreviation for, “No thank you, Dearest Love. As much as I treasure the sound of your voice, my endless days of being abused by employers and children demand sleep.”

A man's home is his cave.

A man’s home is his cave.

My boys are grunters from top to bottom. Big Brother’s language exemplifies the period when cave people first domesticated wolves. It consists of a combination of grunts and whines, all used to voice displeasure at parental authority:

PARENT: “Get ready for bed.”

BOY: “Hnnn, urrrl!”

Or

PARENT: “It’s time to get up for school.”

BOY: “Urmpf, ouwnnn!”

I understand his need to develop a good grunt; it may shield him from unsolicited conversation after he gets married. On the other hand, he’ll likely remain a bachelor if he’s forever uncorking a bottle of whine.

Buster grunts in accusation. Ask him why he’s crying and he will grunt through his tears, pointing  a skinny finger at one of his brothers. This is not helpful; we already assumed there’s a brother at fault. To get useful information, we have to ask him where it hurts. If he points out a spot on his body, it indicates an actionable offense like punching or kicking. If he merely grunts again, we know somebody claimed a toy before he did, and that’s the kind of conflict they can grunt out on their own.

Caveboy need sticky. Urrr!

Caveboy need sticky. Urrr!

Big Man knows some words, but the ol’ grunt-n-point is this cavetoddler’s preferred language. There are many things he needs in his daily life, objects ranging from the dangerous to the sticky, and he will gladly grunt his desires as he points the way to necessary things. Some things are up high, where toddlers can’t reach. The more out-of-reach an object, the more urgently he needs it, and the higher-pitched his grunts become.

I think my boys and I do cavemen proud. Cavewomen might roll their eyes at us, but that just proves how little some people have evolved.

It will be quiet someday; meanwhile, let’s have some noise

Someday they’ll stop calling me Daddy. My name will change to Dad. I won’t mourn that day. There will be, I hope, benefits to them becoming self-sufficient. Maybe I’ll even catch up on my reading.

In the next few weeks, Buster and Big Man will turn four and two, respectively. There are no more babies in the house. I’m happy I haven’t had to heat a bottle in a year, and I look forward to the day the last one says goodbye to diapers. Maybe we’ll take a vacation with the diaper money.

I appreciate all the things Big Brother can do for himself, from making a snack to going to the bathroom without me having to know about it, although sometimes he still likes to announce his intentions. I’m sure I’ll enjoy feeling less like a servant in my own home when the little boys can do things for themselves. I may even gain weight from all the sitting down for more than two minutes in a row I plan on doing.

I imagine being able to go places without someone falling asleep in the car, or what really blows my mind: going places by myself. The really fine thing will be spending time with each individually, free of the competition that comes so naturally between them and turns them into a raucous mob. I’m looking forward to talking instead of shouting over the din.

The raucous mob does settle down from time to time, but always in Daddy's chair.

The raucous mob does settle down from time to time, but always in Daddy’s chair.

I look forward to many good things that will come with my boys getting older, yet I am old enough to know I can wait for those things. They will come whether I appreciate the days preceding them or not. It’s best to appreciate all the days; they never come around again.

There are days when keeping on top of all these boys’ needs runs both parents ragged. In spite of this, my wife would go on having babies forever if that were possible. I’m too feeble for that, but I will concede that nobody hugs quite as good as toddler. I will further admit that nobody’s mind matches the waterfall of discovery of a preschooler’s. And while I’m at it, nobody’s imagination is more entertaining than a grade schooler’s.

As much as I look forward to more peace, I’m in no hurry to say goodbye to toddler giggles or preschool jokes or grade school stories. I can’t hold onto them forever, and I have no desire to. I only want to enjoy them to their fullest while they are all around me. I want to experience the things yet to come, but I can be patient for those seasons to have their place.

Time doesn’t need my help. It moves too quickly already. Sometimes it’s easy to anticipate the future at the expense of the present. I hope to catch myself when I fall toward this trap; though I will not mourn the day I become just Dad, I will, a little bit, mourn the loss of the day when I was Daddy.

Keep your creepy nightmares in your own wing of the castle

I was sleeping so good at 5 o’clock this morning. The thing about sleeping so good is you only know you were sleeping so good after something wakes you up. Sleeping so good is the perfect example of something you didn’t realize you had until it’s gone.

The thing that made me realize I had, up until then, been sleeping so good was a hand that shook me awake. “Daddy, I had a nightmare,” the seven-year-old owner of that damned hand said to me.

“Go back to bed,” I replied. This is my standard response to all young people at 5 a.m.

“I can’t. It was too creepy.”

“Oh, in that case, go back to bed.”

“I can’t. I’ll have it again. I need to sleep with you.” He tried to strong-arm his way onto my bed. Mommy leaves me about a quarter of the bed as my portion, so there’s no room at the inn. Mommy’s not giving up any of her three-quarters; the boy knows this and it is why he came to my side.

I don’t even ask him to relate his bad dreams anymore. There’s no point. They are about as scary as an episode of Peppa Pig. You want to know about a really scary nightmare? I’ll tell you a scary nightmare.

Not this night, because I was sleeping so good, but last night, I dreamt we had to leave our house and move into a single bedroom apartment in California. After all the time I spend fantasizing about living in a castle where the parents have their own wing, imagine my terror at having to share a tiny apartment with these kids. Now that’s a nightmare. And did I go running into his room to tell him about it? Hell no. In a perfect world, his wing of the castle would be too far for me to travel before daylight.

The boys' room

The view of the kids’ wing from my bedroom. (It’s the farthest away part.)

I resisted his efforts to usurp my allotment of sleeping area. “Go back to bed!” I said in the voice of someone who now fully realized just how good he had been sleeping.

“You have to come with me.”

Well, this was a victory of sorts. I got up and walked him back to his room. I tucked him into bed and was back in my room in less than a minute. I guess there’s a hidden benefit in not having my own wing.

I still had some time before work to get more sleep. And that is exactly what I would have done, had not I been reminded of the nightmare of living in a single bedroom apartment in California.  I thought I had put that horror behind me.

By now, my son was surely comfy in his bed, nightmare free, sleeping so good. Anyhow, it would be time to wake him up for school soon, and then we’d let him know just how good he had been sleeping.