[This is the first of several entries which were started, stalled, and left to moulder in the basement. This entry was started in December, 2005.]
One of the hardest days of my life was the first day of work after having been home with Ian for the first few months of his life. It hasn’t gotten any easier to be away from my family during the day, but pictures, cards, and scribbly, scrawly drawings help to keep Ian at the forefront of my mind.
I’m glad to do it. I’m thankful that Kelly is able to stay with Ian; what better gift to give my wife and son? Though, some days Kelly might prefer a sweater. Still, it can be difficult.
Last night, Ian was being his naughty, two-year-old self. And, as was his due, I sat him on the Naughty Step. Sometimes he sits with resolve, sometimes reluctance; this time he just cried. And cried. When the two minutes were over, he kept crying. I gave him a hug, and asked, ‘What’s wrong, honey?’
‘I don’t like Daddy.’
I frowned. Well, considering he’d just been punished, no surprises there. ‘Why don’t you like Daddy?’
And between sobs and gulps of air, Ian looked at me, eyes wet with tears, and said, ‘Because Daddy goes to work.’
I drew him closer into my arms, and didn’t say anything. Kelly – who knows me very well – spoke over her shoulder, ‘Oh, don’t fall for it.’
Too late.
All parents hope and pray for healthy children. But what is health? And is it what really matters? Melissa has a pretty good answer.
No mother hopes for her children to have to walk a difficult road; it is our nature to want their paths to be as pleasant as possible. But no longer could I say and mean (even if I didn’t know the gender of the child): “I don’t care what it is as long as it’s healthy,” with its tacit suggestion that an unhealthy baby means only tragedy and sorrow. If that wish had come true last time, I wouldn’t have my Wonderboy.
Last night, we attended a teachers’ preview of the new photography exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum.* I love taking Ian to the museum. Each visit seems to strike a new chord; he runs from painting to sculpture to painting, ignoring what he doesn’t like and getting too close to what he does.
At the entrance to the exhibition was an Asian gentleman, playing the cello. He was in his late 40s, wearing worn and faded trousers, and kept his eyes downcast as he played. He was background music, placed in a corner while visitors walked in and out of the exhibition, or ate cream puffs while seated on folding chairs.
I took Ian to watch the cellist play. I knelt to the side, and Ian sat on my knee, his arm around my neck. He was quiet, almost introspective as he watched the man’s fingers dance across the cello’s neck, and the bow glide across the strings. Ian wasn’t entranced by the music as much as he was captivated by the mechanics of it.
He sat for a while, breathing slowly and not moving. Without taking his eyes from the cellist, Ian said to me, ‘He doesn’t have any papers.’ The music stand was empty.
And then he was off, racing across the floor to our table, the cellist forgotten. I stood and was following him as he turned, abruptly (Ian’s favorite adverb ), and came back to sit on the floor, just behind the music stand. I sat next to him, and we watched.
Suddenly Ian stood, and started tapping his foot. Fists clenched and arms pulled to his chest, he leaned forward and shook his head from side to side. This is Ian, in the groove.
All at once he ran across the patterned floor of the entrance, and back, from one tip of the inlaid diamond to the other. He ran, paused, danced. Ran, pause, danced. A group of women left the exhibition hall and Ian ran to stand by me. He whispered in my ear, ‘I’m in the way.’ As soon as the women passed, Ian was off again.
After a few minutes, Ian and I turned our heads toward the cellist as we heard the slap of a hand on wood. Ian stopped and waited, and started dancing again. Slap. Ian jerked his head upward, startled from his dance. Slap, slap. Slap. The cellist was slapping his hand against the upper body of the cello as he played, adding percussion to the strings.
He was watching Ian.
Ian grinned and danced, briefly pausing with each slap, skipping and turning circles across the floor. And whatever Ian did, the music did, too. Sudden flurries of notes for running; low, ponderous tones for stomping. Every so often Ian would stop, raise his hands to his face, and wiggle his fingers as if he were playing a two-handed trumpet; because cellists’ fingers move quickly, too.
The more I watch Ian, the more I realize that childhood is about ignoring boundaries. With Ian, there is no fourth wall; there is no distance between himself and the world. He doesn’t watch, he does. If there’s a stranger, you wave. If there’s a wall, you climb. If there’s music, you dance.
And if there’s a two-year-old, dancing, you play along.
* Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe, 1888-1918. The exhibition runs through May 14, and is free on Fridays. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend seeing this!
There was a point in my life, ever so briefly, when I actually enjoyed watching ‘talk shows’ like Jerry Springer and Maury. Let’s face it, there’s a little schadenfreude in all of us. Why else would Cops still be on the air?
This morning, though, I saw a promo for Maury‘s ‘Top 10 Most Outrageous Paternity Guests Ever’. Women weeping, falling to the floor; men leaping in triumph or shouting in rage. And vice versa. Sneering, malicious glares, hate-filled posturing and verbal attacks. A woman, finger held inches from a man’s face as she screams, ‘They’re yours, not mine!’
And stuck in the middle, hopefully miles away from the studio, are the children. Kids who don’t know their fathers, or can’t be sure. Kids who aren’t wanted, if the men are any indication. The pride and certainty of these men before the test is only slightly less disheartening than the disappointment – or jubilation – which follows.
The women aren’t much better. Their goal doesn’t seem to be a father for their children, but rather a man to pay the bills.
In the end, all a child learns is that he has a father who didn’t – or doesn’t – want him, or that his father is still out there, somewhere. Because kids don’t have enough uncertainty in their lives.
The men care about their freedom, the women about their bank accounts, and Maury about his ratings. Who’s caring about the kids?
Thank you, yet again, popular media, for teaching us that parenthood is a curse, and children a plague. I’d almost forgotten.
I’ve had trouble writing lately. My son’s as entertaining, frustrating, and clumbsy as ever, so I shouldn’t be short of material. So what gives?
Earlier this week, as we were sitting down to dinner, Ian raised an admonishing finger toward me. He tilted his head and said, ‘Waaaiit….waaiiit…,’ as if I were about to do something stupid which I’d done a thousand times before, and he wanted to head me off at the pass. He sounded like a parent. ‘Now,’ he patiently explained, finger leveled at my face, ‘you don’t touch my milk.’
It was funnier than it sounds, which is, I think, my problem. This scene has been floating in my head all week. I’ve wondered again and again how I could capture this moment in words, so that milk would also come out of your nose. But I can’t. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe Ian’s expression or tone of voice, or adverbs delicate enough to explain the movements of his hands or eyebrows.
Ian has crossed the boundary between slap-stick and farce. I love reading Shakespeare, but I’d much rather watch the play – and I ain’t Shakespeare. Lately, life with Ian seems to defy description, and my words pale in comparison to the subtleties of a moment. Try as I might, I can’t help but feel like that guy at the water cooler, doing a bad impersonation of Kramer from last night’s Seinfeld rerun. In the end, you just had to be there.
Thankfully Ian still has a bit of Chaucer in him. Getting Ian to bed has been a cinch since I stumbled upon the trick of racing him upstairs, to his toothbrush. Last night, though, Ian’s stride ended at the place where met our hardwood floors, the worn-out feet of his pajamas, and a thin reside of Pledge left from Kelly’s dusting. Groucho and a banana peel couldn’t have done better.
Now that’s comedy!
Have you met my son, Ian?
Either Peyton was a little too frisky with the Sharpie, or, in the church nursery, you do what ‘ya gotta do.
We told him that, if this happens in college, he’s in big trouble.
Me: ‘You’re really pushing my buttons today, kid.’
Kelly: ‘Ian, in your defense, Daddy’s buttons stick out pretty far.’
We sit around the dinner table, holding hands, and Ian asks if he can pray:
‘Dear God, thank you for Mommy at school, Daddy at work, and Ian at home. Amen.’
Mrs. Kennedy says:
‘Last year when that reporter called to talk to me about this thing they call “mommy blogging”…he asked me what I hoped to accomplish with this Web site.
I told him that I started blogging partly out of a need to construct a new public identity for my self now that I was a mother. A blog can be like a mirror and I needed to see a reflection of a person I still recognized there after all the changes I’d been through. Because I wasn’t finding myself anywhere else.’
This is a reason for blogging? For me, there is no separation between ‘myself’ and my role as a father. I am a father, and a father is…I. Is this a bad thing?
Of course, there is who I was before Ian, and who I was before Kelly. But those men are not who I am, and certainly aren’t who I want to be. I don’t feel as though I’ve lost myself; rather, I’m finding myself. When I see my wife, when I see my son, I see who I am. And, sometimes, a glimpse of who I’m supposed to be.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the phrase ‘mommy blogging’. If it simply means ‘a mom who blogs’, then I’m probably off base. But why, then, use the term ‘mommy’ if your goal is anything but? Mommies are mommies, daddies are daddies, because they have children. My purpose in ‘daddy blogging’ isn’t to get away from fatherhood, but to celebrate it.
Last night we caught the ‘What If’ episodes of Friends, where Joey wonders what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been fired from Days of Our Lives, Phoebe’s if she had taken a job with Merrill Lynch, Rachel’s if she’d married Barry, and so forth. We see these scenarios, and, in the end, learn that nothing would’ve changed. Except for Ross.
Any fan of Friends is familiar with the marital plights of Ross, beginning with his first wife’s revelation that she prefers women. These alternate reality episodes end with the same conclusion, minus one very important detail: Ben. Ben is Ross’s son by his first wife, and in the ‘What If’ world, Ben doesn’t exist.
Of course, Ben doesn’t exist either way. We’re talking about Friends, here. This ain’t Roots. How can I possibly get upset over an episode of Friends, to the extent that I’d want to spend time writing about it?
The ending of these two episodes is schmaltzy. We’re supposed to ‘Awwww!’ and realize that friends are friends, no matter what, and that the Friends we’ve come to love will never change. Details may come and go, but the ‘important’ bits remain the same: Monica and Chandler will always love each other, Phoebe will always be a free-spirit, and Joey will always be…Joey.
But if what’s important is what really matters, then where’s Ben? I’ve only been a father for three years, but it didn’t take me long to realize that Ian is one of the most important parts of my life. Is Ben simply a detail in Ross’s life?
Of course. And that’s what’s bothering me.
As much as I enjoy Friends, I simply can’t ignore the show’s marginalist attitude toward children, whose only purpose is to further a plot. The fact is, Ben never had much of a place in Ross’s life. Being single, and having the freedom to do what you like, when you like, is much more important to Friends. Kids are an obstacle, a conflict…something to be resolved.
This trend only worsened when Rachel gave birth to Emma. In any given post-Emma episode, I’m always asking myself, ‘Where’s Emma? Who’s watching Emma?’ Rachel goes to work, Rachel goes to the movies, Rachel drinks coffee, and Emma is nowhere to be found. In Rachel’s case, Emma isn’t an obstacle; she’s an accessory.
A few weeks ago, I took Ian to our mall playground. As we started to play, I noticed a mother sitting in the corner, her nose buried in a book. Another dad was playing games on his handheld. That same mother had her same nose buried in the same book when we left.
Thankfully we’ll always have The Cosby Show.
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