Tag Archives: children

A Land Shark is born: baby’s first tooth

The baby is cutting his first tooth. To be more exact, the baby is cutting everything he can get into his mouth with his first tooth. It’s funny how popular culture phrases it as though something destructive is happening to the tooth itself when, in fact, it is the tooth that is tearing up the world as we know it.

I’ll concede that the sensation of that first little nub coming in may be inspiring the baby to bite down on things for pain relief. It would be helpful to know how much trouble this developing tooth is causing him, but we are largely in the dark. The baby can’t tell us because he doesn’t speak English, although I could swear I’ve heard him sigh, “Oh, yeah!” a couple of times, right after he’s belted a grand slam into the upper deck of his diaper.

If teething is indeed causing him pain, he is doing a good job of sharing the joy. That little diamond-tipped blade he has poking out of his lower gum is hell on naked flesh. The fact that it lies hidden behind a baby-soft pair of lips makes it doubly dangerous.

This young man has always enjoyed rolling a parent’s fingers between his gums, but the advent of the tooth has turned him into an adorable little piranha.  It’s as if the tooth has taken charge of him, commanding him to snap at any fleshy target in its insatiable lust for blood.

baby peace sign

“The tooth asks that you respect his right to privacy. No pictures, please.”

Fingers should always tread lightly around a teething baby’s mouth, but this boy bites shoulders now. Of course, it’s not his fault; it’s that demon tooth that rules him. That sociopathic shard of enamel smiles at you from within that happy little mouth, lulling you, endearing itself to you through your gullible weakness for developmental milestones. It sucks you in, toys with you, until you are so deceived that you actually feel betrayed when the shark bites.

baby grabbing at camera

“Okay, that’s it! I said no pictures of the tooth. Give me that camera.”

From my recollections of the first child’s teething time, it seems that there is an unspoken understanding between baby’s teeth and mother when it comes to breastfeeding. Smart babies know not to bite the boob that feeds them. That’s one spigot that no youngster should do anything to turn off at such a tender age. It could lead to the gnashing of teeth, as soon as he gets another tooth to gnash against the first one.

Meanwhile, the baby is always looking for something or someone to try his new tooth on. I feel like I should be pushing raw steak at him with a long stick. Does anybody know where I can get a pair of rawhide gloves and shoulder pads?

You’re wasting everybody’s time, Daddy

When you turn four, life picks up the pace on you. Suddenly, you have a preschool commitment. All the clothes you wore when you were three are now too small or too unfit for your level of sophistication. You’ve got to run around town to find the right blue jeans, a backpack, and even a lunch bag. You’re a busy man when you’re four.

That’s why it’s important to still make time to play. And when you do play, you can’t let grown-ups slow you down with a lot of red tape. You know what needs to get done, play-wise, and you can’t afford to suffer a bunch of time-wasting questions from adults.

I was playing trucks with my son the other day. He had a car transporter truck and a car that rides on it. I was in charge of the car while he drove the truck. He would unload the car for me, I would drive it around for bit, then he would come back with the truck to pick it up again. It was all a very smooth cycle until I started throwing monkey wrenches into the process.

One time, he backed up the truck and set down the ramp for me to drive up. “How do I know you’re the right truck?” I asked.

Toy truck with car on top

Foreground: my hand, holding the stack of paperwork the truck driver gave me to look through. Background: my expensive car, about to be taken away on what might be the wrong truck!

“Because I have a number one on the front,” replied.

“That’s fine, but do you have any paperwork I could look at?” I persisted.

He rolled his eyes at the delay, but took out his imaginary paperwork and handed it over.

I looked through the manifest. “It doesn’t say you’re the right truck anywhere in here,” I told him.

“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll go ask my boss.” He drove the truck across the carpet to the area where his supposed boss hung out. I didn’t see any boss, but it was six feet away, and with my aging eyesight, I could have missed him. The boy backed the truck up to my car again. “Yup, my boss says I’m the right truck.”

“Okay, well, if your boss says so.” I drove up onto the truck with some reluctance.

boy with toy truck

Getting my car onto the truck, quickly, efficiently, and free of paperwork.

A minute later, the truck came back and dropped off my new car. I was delighted. I drove it around the floor with great excitement.

The truck traveled across the room and back again, backing up in the telltale way that indicated it was here to pick up my car again.

“Are you the right truck?” I asked the driver.

“Yes. And I don’t have any paperwork, so just get on!” he replied.

That’s the way business gets done.

Football, putting the kids to bed, and other rough sports

My boys are too young to know much about sports, but they do have an eerie sense for knowing when my interest in what’s on TV has intensified. Something in their childhood instincts alerts them that Daddy wants to watch the game, and they know it’s time to go feral.

My sports season runs from fall to spring, headlined by football and basketball and seasoned with a sprinkling of hockey. Summer has its baseball, and occasionally the Olympics, but those don’t get me psyched up to watch them on TV, which is why my kids are relatively quiet during this period. Daddy can watch all the reruns and reality shows he wants in peace. As it turns out, he doesn’t really want to watch any.

The baby was born in spring, at the end of the sports season. Until recently, he has been a remarkably quiet, contented infant. Through the whole summer, he has been all smiles and giggles. His deep thoughts have been interrupted by tears only for the most sensible reasons. That was the off-season baby.

Scene at football game in early 1900s

With these new wide-screen TVs it’s almost like you’re right there at the game.

When I sat down to watch the first big football game of the year, the baby’s long-dormant sensors fired. Suddenly, I had a loud and proud infant, in mid-season form. He began to whoop and holler, cry and whine, like the most notorious of his breed. Then came the four-alarm diaper blowout.

His big brother joined him in his antics, putting on a show of his most distracting and annoying behavior. The normal consequence of this display would have been for him to go to bed early. On this evening, early would be in the middle of the second quarter. I’d have to endure him until halftime.

Halftimes are too short for parents battling the delaying tactics of preschoolers at bedtime. From having to pee, but not until after several minutes of standing at the potty, to trouble with the tooth brush, everything took longer than the eons it takes at normal bedtimes. Of course, the book he selected for his bedtime story was a nice thick one, with paragraphs and everything.

Third quarters are overrated anyway.

At least I didn’t have to put the baby to bed. Mommy would see to that, when he was good and ready to settle down and be put to bed. For the time being, he was really into this football game. His passion was so intense that his deafening crying could hardly be eased by either parent.

Eventually, the baby wore himself out  and accepted the call of slumber. I think the game was over by then, but I find it difficult to remember. I don’t remember much about the game at all.

I hope my boys grow up to be ardent sports fans. Enjoying sports may eventually grow to become an experience that we can share. More importantly, when I am old and senile, and no longer know or care who’s playing, I plan to cling to just enough reality to go to their houses during Super Bowls and Final Fours and blow up my Depends undergarments like Armageddon.

Buxom woman holding football

My problem may be that I am not enough of an imposing figure. Nobody gives Big Bertha any guff when she tells the fellas to simmer down so she can watch the ballgame in peace.

I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t know everything

My son has come to the conclusion that I know the answer to every question. I have mixed feelings about this development. It is much better than having him conclude that I am ignorant in all things and not worth the time of his curious mind. Yet, it is a tad disheartening to know that I am being thought a liar every time I answer a question with, “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know.” is not an acceptable answer. The boy knows that I do know. Of course I know. I know everything. If I say I don’t know, it’s because I’m too lazy to explain the complex workings of the world or I am part of some adult conspiracy to keep kids in the dark concerning the most important facts about life.

And the facts he yearns to know are vitally important to his life. One of the questions that nags at him most often is, “Who sings this song?” when we are listening to the radio. Sometimes, I can answer him; sometimes I can’t. Whenever I have to tell him that I don’t know who sings this song, his face becomes clouded with suspicion. His gut tells him there is some reason why I am holding this information from him, some special reason why grown-ups are so secretive about this particular song. “Won’t you please tell me?” he begs, hoping that by using a nice word and some emphasis he will find the key to unlock my stingy omnipotence.

Lately, he has fashioned a new phrase to combat my withholding of knowledge from him. “Won’t you tell me the whole truth?” he says whenever I answer a question with “I don’t know.” There’s a hint of accusation in this, which is, I suspect, a deliberate tactic by my little Perry Mason to let me know that he is on to my deceit and that I have only a short time to make my confession before he traps me within my own web of lies.

One day, we were riding in the car when we had to pull over to let an ambulance go by. “Follow the ambulance,” the boy commanded from his back-seat throne. “I want to see who’s dead.”

Of course, I couldn’t follow a speeding ambulance and it soon disappeared. Later, the ambulance passed us again, going in the opposite direction. “They must be taking somebody to the hospital,” I said.

“Who’s dead?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Won’t you please tell me?”

“How could I possibly know? I’ve been here with you the whole time.”

“Daddy, won’t you tell me the whole truth?”

“Okay,” I relented cracking the code of silence mandated by the secret circle of adulthood. “Old Joe Tootinbutt is dead,” I ad-libbed. “They’re taking him to the cemetery right now.”

The boy seemed satisfied. The conspiracy continues. . .

Scene in a crowded courtroom.

“You expect me to believe that you have no idea who killed Mr. Boddy in the library with the candlestick? Come now, Colonel Mustard, won’t you tell me the whole truth?” (Artist: James E. Taylor)