Tag Archives: fatherhood

It’s a long story

Lately, whenever I ask my son a question like, “How did the [busted item of the day] get broken?” he heaves a big sigh and replies, “It’s a long story.”

He does not attempt to relate that long story, because it is clear that a father with such a short attention span would not be interested in the burdensome details.

“It’s a long story,” is not at all an introduction to an informative tale. Rather, it is the boy’s way of telling me that a lot of unnecessary information will not fix [busted item of the day]. It is his counsel to not cry over spilled milk and just get on with the business of living life. What’s done is done.

I could not figure out where the boy picked up such an evasive strategy, until I recalled a conversation we had at a restaurant a while ago.

Out of the blue, and just as I was about to shovel the first forkful into my mouth, the boy asked me, “When I was a baby, how did I get into Mommy’s belly?”

Why do they always pounce when I’m weak from hunger?

Put on the spot, my panicked mind bounced between two options. “You see, son, when a man loves a woman . . .” was the option from which my mind ran screaming.

“It’s a long story,” was the defense mechanism for which my mind leapt. It worked, or so I thought at the time.

Before the boy could renew his assault, a man wearing an Air Force uniform was seated nearby. My son, who is going through a period of fascination with all things military, forgot about the origins of his species. “Is that man in the Army?” he asked.

I explained that he was in the Air Force, which was like the Army, but with jets. My son soaked it all in. “Why don’t you go in the Army, Daddy?” he asked.

“I’m not so good at following orders,” I replied.

“You could be the boss of the Army. Then you could give all the orders.”

“But I’m too old. They wouldn’t even take me.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to be in the battle,” he assured me, as if the Army has a row of rocking chairs ringing the combat area for its aged recruits.

Old soldiers

Maybe I could join up with this outfit of old soldiers. We’d play cards, listen to the battle on the wireless, and, time permitting, argue about where babies come from.

We then went on to discuss related topics. The subject of where babies come from was forgotten. I congratulated myself for dodging a bullet, for the time being anyway.

Well, maybe he forgot about the topic of the conversation, but he did not forget about the device Daddy used to steer the conversation elsewhere. He remembered that all too well. Now I have a house full of broken stuff and a child full of long stories that are too cumbersome for Daddy’s simple mind.

You reap what you sow.

And that baby question will come up again anyway. How will I handle it next time? Well, that’s a long story.

Your jokes are stale and your nipples are useless

The baby has discovered separation anxiety – not at being separated from me – people all over the world rejoice daily that they are separated from me. The baby has developed a deep dislike for being separated from his mother. This includes separations of as little as a few feet.

Separation anxiety takes its toll on everyone. The mother is exhausted; everyone, except perhaps anxious babies and opossums, needs to be separated from everyone else for a little while every day. Otherwise, a fraying of the nerves sets in. This fraying is manifested in desperate pleas in the nature of: “Somebody please pull this baby’s tentacles off me!”

It is difficult for the father not to feel rejected. It’s as if the baby has contracted amnesia and has forgotten all the wonderful times we’ve shared. The baby and I have spent many good times on our own, from which we’ve built a certain bond. Suddenly, our games only inspire the baby to make that frown that says: “They say I used to like this show. I must have been very unsophisticated in my youth.” The frown is followed by the wail for Mommy: “Mommy, help! I’m trapped in the arms of a balding man who aspires to drollness and claims to be a relative.”

The baby is stressed out because he is living a nightmare where he can’t find Mommy and he is being stalked by a sad clown who thinks he’s a funny clown. And he can’t heckle me enough to make me stop.

Come to Daddy!

Who needs a tickle?

There are moments of light, in which the baby seems to recall that I am a loved one rather than a bad comic sent to annoy him. For a fleeting moment, he might coo sweetly to me. If I am extra lucky, he might even lean in and give me one of those kisses babies give, with their mouths wide open. If anyone but a baby kissed that way, it would be disgusting. In the next instant, the frown is back, as though I’m the one who gives disgusting type kisses. The wailing for Mommy is sure to follow.

I’m sure he’ll grow through this phase and retrieve his memory of me as a guy who did actually make him chuckle once or twice. Meanwhile, he’s Mommy’s ball and chain. If that sounds unsympathetic to you it only means that you have not been punched and kicked by him in his efforts to get away from you so he could crawl to Mommy.

“When will he reach that age when he only wants to be with you?” my wife asks me with a callow hopefulness. I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth: never. Even when his older brother spends the whole day eagerly lengthening the duration of my chores by helping me with them, he is always a single stern word away from running to Mommy. Mommy is the only one who can overrule Daddy. As such, she will always be needed.

Going commando is what you make of it

Several weeks ago, my son took a bath. Yes, he has taken one or two baths since then, but the several weeks ago bath is the seed of the story I’m about to tell. After this particular bath, he went into this room to get dressed only to discover that all of his underwear were in the laundry.

“Uh-oh, looks like somebody’s going commando today,” I told him.

“What’s commando?” he asked.

“That’s when you put on your clothes, but you don’t wear any underwear.”

This idea did not appeal to him, so we waited to go about our daily business until some of his underwear could be washed.

Buzz Lightyear's worst nightmare

Buzz Lightyear begs you to go commando, today and every day.

About a week later, I came out of the shower to get dressed for work. My son was watching TV in my room. When he saw me pull out the drawer, he said, “Daddy, I don’t think you need underwear. You should go commando today.”

I’d like to assure any of my co-workers who may be tuning in that I did not take his advice. I’m prim and proper now, not like the old days.

Over the weeks, the boy has fallen in love with the phrase going commando. He has tried to adapt it so that it fits his own wild side. He would much rather wear underwear and no clothes than wear clothes and no underwear. In fact, I believe he would rather live completely naked than go about wearing clothes with no underwear.

At any rate, he rather enjoys running around the house and making a lot of noise, drawing attention to the fact that he is wearing only underwear. This is the action he has fitted to his new favorite phrase, going commando.

wild man vs. commando

The outfit on the right, without the outfit on the left, constitutes going commando. The outfit on the left, without the outfit on the right, is formal wear for a four-year-old wild man.

Boys his age go through their wild man stages. I don’t mind it, but I am a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to language, even slang. I wish he wouldn’t insist on corrupting the meaning of going commando. I also wish he wouldn’t be so bi-polar in fluctuating between wild man and prude.

My carefree little commando can turn prissy on a dime. Last week, we walked to the playground. In spite having assured us before leaving home that he did not have to go to the bathroom, his first words upon reaching the playground were, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

There were no facilities within range. “Take him behind a tree,” my wife advised.

I led him behind a suitable pine and showed him the appropriate place. And do you know what that wild man, commando, tough guy asked me? He asked me this: “Why are you making me pee like an animal?”

He needs to work on his aim and generally improve his urination deportment a little bit before he can claim to be peeing like an animal, but I didn’t bother to tell him that.

This tail was made for pulling

face-off with cat

“The thing I love best about you is that you’re so unpredictable.”

Our baby and our cat are best friends. This is an unexpected development. When the big boy was a baby, he and the cat had an awkward relationship. The thing they had most in common was a wariness of the other. They might have been reality TV show contestants.

Since the big boy was the first baby, it is possible that the cat resented the way he stole the limelight. In a childless house, the cat was a pet. After baby-number-one arrived, the cat became more like a mobile piece of décor. The squeaky, helpless, crying wheel got the grease, and the cat got to make adjustments in his expectations. This may have soured the cat on the idea of human babies. The baby’s herky-jerky, heavy-handed flailing may have played a role as well. We’ll never know for sure.

Baby-number-one and the cat had their rare, sweet moments, but these were mostly when the baby was very drowsy or already asleep. The two of them were never best buddies.

Baby-number-two has taught the cat a lesson in demographics. Mr. Cat is outnumbered now, and since he hasn’t had all of his man parts in more than a decade, and there are no eligible bachelorette cats in our house anyway, he’s not likely to roll back the tide. Facts are facts.

To his credit, the cat has adjusted to his changing world. He has reached out to this new baby in an effort to mend fences with baby-kind. He flops down beside the baby and allows himself to be petted, if petted means having little fistfuls of his fur grabbed, his tail tugged, and his ears pulled. All of this is a form of attention, and the cat has come to appreciate that.

The cat also understands that this baby means no harm. He has a lighter touch than his brother did and that probably helps. If his grabby style of petting hurt the cat, the cat likely would not keep eagerly subjecting himself to it. But it doesn’t hurt, or at least it hurts better than nothing.

Their relationship is not all sunshine and lollipops, though. They’ve had their spats. One time the baby must have tugged upon the wrong piece of cat, because the cat had to yell at him. “Stop it! That hurts!” the cat said. That’s what I think he said, anyway. It was in cat language. It sounded mostly like “Rrrairrrlw!” but I think my translation is pretty close.

The baby cried after the cat scolded him. His feelings were hurt. He was only trying to play with his friend.

Another time I warned the baby in a stern voice not to tug the cat’s leg like he was. I was hoping to avoid another cat-yelling incident. I did avoid it, but the baby cried at my warning anyway. He’s very sensitive about his cat.

It’s tough when all you want to do is play with your best buddy and all it does is get you yelled at.