If you’ve never been St. Louis, a visit to the City Museum is reason enough, especially if you have children. A sprawling paradise of scrap metal, concrete, driftwood, and threadbare tires, the City Museum is the playground you’ve wished others could be. Tunnels, secret passages, ramps, ladders, and slides fill every floor; most are made from recycled materials, including a fire engine, two airplanes, a castle tower, and a crane.
It is every boy’s dream. Girls’, too, but we have dibs, because only a boy can truly appreciate the thrill of climbing through a rebar tunnel, hundreds of feet above the ground. At the entrance, a warning sign proclaims that ‘you will get hurt’.
Naturally I was a little overzealous in my desire to bring Ian to this wonderland of goose-eggs and bruised shins. It was last year, and Ian was more than a little intimidated. Everything was so big, and so high, and so dark. I suppose it’s hard to relish the terror of slithering through a pitch-black tunnel when you’ve just learned to walk.
Ah, but now Ian is a year older. He’s had plenty of time at McDonald’s and Burger King to acclimate himself to narrow passages, winding tunnels, and precarious ledges. I was cautiously optimistic at the ticket counter; I knew Ian had more confidence in himself, and had become quite daring, but still…you can never tell.
The City Museum is the great equalizer - every man which passes through its doors is transformed into a 10-year-old. Circuit City once had a commercial where a couple enters the store. The husband’s eyes glaze over, he giggles once, and sprints heedless into the aisles. That was me. As such, Ian and I didn’t find each other until after I’d emerged from the first tube I could find, which led to the second floor. I asked him where he wanted to go, and he pointed, back the way I’d come. ‘That way!’
‘That way’ led to a small, wooden cave, dark and cramped, the floor covered in ratty hemp roping. The floor sloped upward to the opening of the small tunnel I’d through which I’d just passed, a tunnel which branched into several directions across the ceiling of the museum. I paused, Ian didn’t. He launched himself at the ropes, climbing for all he was worth. He only wanted my help as you want the help of a ladder or handle.
The real test, though, were the Enchanted Caves. These were new last year, and Ian had been terrified. The caves are dark, and lit with red, blue, and green; the walls sculpted into dragons and dinosaurs. The faces, the shadows, the teeth.
I quickly became ‘Dinosaur’, and Ian was my tour guide. Inside a passage just tall enough for me to crawl and Ian to crouch, filled with a cold blue light, he wrapped his arm around my neck. ‘This way, Dinosaur! Okay, Dinosaur? Over here!’
Who, me? Scared? Not this time.
Last month, a nurse visited our office to administer flu shots. I don’t know what she had in those needles, but it wasn’t influenza. This virus had been sending threatening letters to me for the past month, and finally decided to pay a visit while I was on my way home from the chiropractor, in rush-hour traffic.
I managed to get home in time, threw my bag into the living room, and ran to assume the position in our downstairs bathroom. While I was waiting for the inevitable, I heard Ian calling from the den. ‘Daddy? Daddy?’ Kelly replied, ‘Honey, Daddy’s sick right now. Leave him alone, okay?’
Because Ian is two, he no longer does what we say, so he called again, ‘Daddy?’ I heard his voice getting louder and closer, until he was standing at the bathroom door. ‘Daddy?’ He came over and put his hand on my back. ‘Hi, Daddy!’ I managed to mumble, ‘Hey, kiddo.’
He started talking to me in his wonderful stream-of-conciousness style, jumping from thought to thought faster than Frogger. My brain couldn’t keep up, so I inturrupted and asked, ‘Hey, Ian. May Daddy have a hug?’ Prostrate as I was, the logicistics of a proper hug were simply impossible, but Ian squeezed himself between me and the wall, laid his arms across my back, and rested his head on my shoulder. ‘I love you, Daddy!’
This moment lay buried for the next eight hours, beneath my roiling digestive system and fever dreams. At 2AM, after my body had finally managed to liquidate its assets and had thrown one last ‘Hurrah!’, that hug came to me in perfect detail, and did more for me than any bowl of soup or gel-cap ever has.
Yesterday, against admonishment,
my daughter balanced on the couch back,
fell and cut her mouth.
Because I saw it happen I knew
she was not hurt, and yet
a child’s blood’s so red
it stops a father’s heart.
My daughter cried her tears;
I held some ice
against her lip.
That was the end of it.
Round and round; bow and kiss
I try to teach her caution;
she tries to teach me risk.
- Gregory Orr, The Caged Owl
Kelly was upstairs, and found this when she came back down. Not only had Ian turned on the NES (a miracle in itself), he also found the correct controller (of 5) and had started the game.
A friend and I had played last night, after Ian had gone to bed. The last time Ian saw me play had to have been months ago. Obviously, I’m very, very proud.
This Christmas, our choir sang Hodie Christus Natus Est. It’s a fun piece, and Kelly and I would sing bits of it on the way home from rehearsal, or throughout the week.
The tenors and basses open the piece with a joyous ‘Hodie! Hodie!’ (ho-dee-ay), and we sang this most often. We soon noticed that Ian was doing his best to sing along, using the only words he could find that best fit what we were singing: ‘Hi, Ian! Hi, Ian!’ The words may have been off, but his pitch was on.
Ian’s singing is nothing new. We’ve been singing to Ian since he was born, especially Kelly and her mother, and it wasn’t long before he tried to join in. The first song I can remember him singing is In the Car, a song Kelly’s mom started while he was being fussy in the car:
In the car, we go bye-bye,
In the car, we go bye.
In the car, we go bye-bye,
In the car, we go bye.
In the car [in the car], we go bye [we go bye],
In the car [in the car], we go bye, bye, bye!
In the car [in the car], we go bye [we go bye],
In the car, we go bye!
Eventually we’d pause to let Ian sing, which he did, because why else would everyone be staring at him, expectantly? Even grandpa, who really should be watching the road. So, Ian started singing ‘car’ and ‘bye-bye’ on cue, and several head-on collisions were avoided.
We did this with several other songs, and it always took quite a bit of repetition before Ian could remember the lyrics. Now the learning curve is considerably shorter, and it’s starting to freak me out. Just a bit.
Last week, Ian and I were running errands and rocking to Time Life Music’s Classic Jazz Christmas. No sonner had John Pizzarelli finished his rendition than Ian started singing, ‘Let it snow! Let it snow!’ In the correct rhythm. With the correct pitch.
Kelly picked me up from work, and on the way home Ian sang Old MacDonald Had a Farm. My jaw dropped; I’d never heard him sing this song before, let alone the whole thing. This past weekend I saw it as my fatherly duty to teach him that, in addition to a duck and a cow, Old MacDonald also had a camel. Because camels spit. And that’s just fun.
I thought kids were supposed to improvise their own songs. I always pictured Ian, at this age, singing nonsense words and tunes that went nowhere, ending only when he was bored. I never thought he’d be singing Rutter and Sweelinck.
Ian’s been learning Away in a Manger, but he’s also started pretending to be a cat. Last night he started to sing the song, but with updated lyrics:
Meow meow meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow meow…
Well, it’s a kind of improvisation.
The fifth present from great-grandma’s 12 Days of Christmas. The only problem here is the assumption that we’ll remember to put a hat and gloves on our child. When he doesn’t complain, it means he isn’t cold, right? Right?!
The fourth present from great-grandma’s 12 Days of Christmas package. Socks - the orange sweatshirt and overalls are just an eerie coincidence.
In contrast to Ian’s apparently relatively normal habits, here are samplings from parents whose kids’ freak flags are flying proudly:
daddychip:
‘My son loves to eat Cheerios with ketchup on them. He’ll make a huge pool of ketchup on his plate, then pour out some cheerios next to it, and dip each cheerio into the ketchup.’
Eccentric Father:
‘Bombaloo carries a ‘magic’ wand with her everywhere she goes. She got it from a McDonald’s Happy Meal two years ago. Meanwhile we spend our limited and hard earned money on expensive store bought toys for Christmas.’
Phil:
‘My daughter makes nests. She piles things up in the corner of her room, or the middle of the hallway, or behind the couch. Sometimes it will be a free-standing jumble of dolls, other times she’ll stash food away under her bed. I’m constantly finding strange little collections of things around the house.’
Angie:
‘Baby J, the youngest at 2 years 9 months, must line multiples of anything up into rows, lines, columns whatever you want to call it. This includes cars, stuffed dogs, poker chips (blame Bubba who gave them a box to play with), M&Ms and the list goes on. AND? If there are different colors of said multiples, then they also have to be subdivided into colors.’
Arwen:
‘Before Ripley learned to walk, he had a unique method of locomotion. He didn’t like to crawl. Instead, he’d throw his right leg under his left leg, lift his butt with his hands, and then (using his right leg as propulsion), swing his body forward in what we called the ‘butt scoot’. It was simian, in some way, but very cool.’
The third present of great-grandma’s 12 Days of Christmas. Parents love nothing more than books that play high-pitched Christmas music. Nothing!
Gift two from great-grandma’s 12 Days of Christmas package. Apparently my son has a drinking problem.
