One of the best advantages of digital photography is that its permanence is subject to your whims. Don’t like the lighting? Delete. Out of focus? Delete. Wife doesn’t think it’s funny? Delete. It’s a tribute to instant gratification.
Quality digital cameras have become so easy to use, and so affordable, that anyone can take professional-quality (as far as my parents know) pictures of his son eating apples. Many cameras even have filters that can add sepia tone, soft glow (à la Glamour Shots), or take pictures in black and white.
You, too, can be Annie Leibovitz!
HP knows its customers, and has taken us one step closer to becoming who we want to be. Newer models of HP’s Photosmart camera now feature a new ‘artistic effect’: slimming! I think the name speaks for itself, but HP certainly has a way with words:
‘They say cameras add ten pounds, but HP digital cameras can help reverse that effect. The slimming feature…is a subtle effect that can instantly trim off pounds from the subjects in your photos!’
That’s right, fatty. No more complaining that you don’t like to have your picture taken. We can fix you! ‘Subjects still look like themselves’, according to HP, except now they’re beautiful. Even better, you get to ‘see a before and after version, then decide which [version of yourself] to keep.’
Parents, are your teenagers camera shy? With the Slimming effect, they’ll be begging for more family photos! Make your daughter feel better about herself, and create loving, lasting memories, all with one camera!
Be sure to thank your local mass-market media outlet for inspiring this wonderful advance in technology.
My parents gave Ian a doctor’s kit for his third birthday. For days, Kelly and I were Westley to his Count Rugen, subject to the twisted and misinformed experiments of a three-year-old without so much as a GED. He liked giving shots. A lot. ‘Now, don’t cry, okay? It will only hurt a little bit.’
The thermometer told us if we were happy or sad, and he opened an office under his bed, for his stuffed animals.
Like all toys, this doctor’s kit lay largely forgotten after about a week. Yesterday, Kelly went shopping for overalls in our local thrift stores. She found more doctorial implements, and Ian has started practicing again.
I don’t like doctors or hospitals. I was born with a cleft-lip, and had corrective surgery minutes after I was born. It was the first operation of several. I also don’t like medical care circa 1863. It was somehow fitting that Ian’s new ‘toys’ went nicely with my psychoses. Ian with a syringe is frightening; Ian with a second-hand scalpel is fetal-positionally horrifying.
Last night—after Kelly had, conveniently, gone upstairs—Dr. Gilbert walked into the den. He held his bag toward me, and shook it. It sounded like bones, rattling. ‘I’m going to be your patient!’ Ian makes daytrips to the Bizarro World, and often transposes ‘A’ with ‘B’. What he really meant was, ‘Roll up your sleeves!’
I was laying on the floor, watching Star Trek from the corner of my eye. I was trying to ignore the approach of Ian and his pincers. Pincers! Who puts pincers in a toddler’s doctor bag?
After my dental work—which really was quite painless, just as he said it would be—Ian held a bottle toward me. It’s not really a bottle, it’s supposed to be an ice pack. But it’s not really an ice pack, either. It looks like a flask, which is the only good thing to have come from the field of medicine circa 1863.
‘Here. This is frosting. You need to drink this and you’ll feel better.’ He put his hands on the floor and leaned over, bring his face inches from mine. ‘Frostiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!’ he shouted, mouth opened wide and head shaking slightly.
It’s nearly midnight. Ian and Kelly have long since gone to sleep. I’ve been left to my own devices for the past few hours, which means I’ve been been listening to movies while playing Super Mario World. It’s a habit I developed in high school. I didn’t get out much.
I sat in front of the computer nearly a half-hour ago, to check e-mail and see what Google Reader had to say. I started tinkering with the site, making a few changes. As I looked through the archives, seeing if the updates took, I caught myself reading.
Total Depravity’s first post was published on September 11, 2003, before it was actually Total Depravity. I was working as a temp at the time, and had nothing better to do than build a fledgling website. I’m sure we’re all glad I’ve redesigned since then.
Anyway. As I read, I suddenly realized that I’ve been writing these posts—more or less—for three years, now. (I know because I’m not wearing socks, and can count using my toes.) I have to say, there’s some good stuff, here. I’m not saying I’d like to charge a subscription fee, but I’m rather impressed at how much of Ian’s life I’ve managed to capture. If you know me, you’re rather impressed, too.
Neater still are what’s left, the details so often ignored because there are so many of them. Mommy’s seven-layered love, Daddy Demolition Derby, Jimmy Durante. My first daddyku (back when people still commented on this blog). I feel like Clark Griswald, huddled in the attic and wearing a turban.
The bulk of parenting is made of such memories, and it’s ironic how quickly we I forget them. Being a father is about the persistence of day-in, day-out, but it’s also about the wonder of day-by-day; generally the difference is my fault.
Tonight, Ian was a Very Good Boy. We went for dinner, and he behaved like a gentleman with greasy fingers. At home, per usual, he turned on a dime and became slightly less cooperative. Do you know why we picture Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego as being grim and grimy? You try giving Mr. Hyde a bath.
Yet, as I browsed through Ian’s life, I couldn’t stop smiling. He used to call me ‘Dragon’; I really miss that. The energy that keeps me awake and writing, so late at night, is generated by my struggle against the urge to run upstairs and play with my son. My. Son.
Which is the best conclusion any paragraph ever had.
Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.
Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.
Tuesday, a salesman from Ryder came to my office. Salespeople do this often, despite the ‘No Solicitation’ sign on the front door. It is the most ironic sign ever.
We told him to go away, but only after he gave us a bag full of be-Rydered lagniappe, like pens and refrigerator magnets. There was also a stressball shaped like a baseball.
When I gave the ball to Ian, he was amazed. It was a baseball, but smaller and not deadly. He laughed and nearly jumped when he squeezed it. It was also better than a real baseball, becuase he could play with it in the house. And by ‘play’, I mean ‘throw’.
I’ve reached a level of experience with fatherhood where I’m comfortable admitting that something is my fault.
He and I took the ball into the den, and started throwing it to each other. And by ‘to’, I mean ‘at’. We do the same with pillows, but there’s a reason baseball isn’t played with pillows. After a several volleys, I finally missed Ian’s back and the ball rolled into the living room. Ian followed, and didn’t return; I thought we were done.
A few moments later, I heard Kelly’s voice burst from the kitchen. ‘Ian! No!’ She had been making Italian omelettes for dinner, with sausage and eggs and knives and the stove. Ian had thrown the ball at Mommy, which is a rookie mistake; more specifically, he had thrown it at her head.
Sometimes Ian needs to be convinced that he’s done something wrong. He’s a toddler, and a guy. He also has two working definitions of ‘wrong’. Even without the tone of Kelly’s voice, Ian knew he’d crossed the line between ‘wrong’ according to Mommy and Daddy, and ‘wrong’ according to just plain wrong.
He walked into the den, slowly, baseball clutched to his chest and head drooping. I didn’t say anything. All parents recognize the look I saw on his face, the mixture of disappointment and grief, of penitence and regret. He was handling all the discipline on this one.
I patted the couch. ‘C’mere, kiddo.’ He crossed the room and sat next to me. The ball was in his lap. I slung my arm around his shoulders, and he leaned into me. He buried his face in my chest and began to cry, great wrenching sobs that covered my shirt in goo.
I rocked him, patted his back. ‘Shhh. It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.’ I asked if he would give Mommy a hug, and apologize. He shook his head. ‘Mommy…huff-huff…said…huff-huff…to…huff…leave.’
I smiled, but didn’t let him see. ‘Mommy,’ I shouted to the kitchen, ‘may Ian give you a hug?’
If someone told you to jump from a bridge, would you do it? Of course not! But what if that person were your father…
‘A man and his 10-year-old daughter were on an evening bike ride when he suggested they jump off the [bridge] and into the Intracoastal Waterway.
The nervous little girl agreed and…[he] grabbed his daughter’s hand, counted to three and jumped nearly 20 feet into the water. Megan Stewart was not hurt, but her father broke his left leg when he hit the bottom.’
I freely admit that I’ve taken liberty with common sense when playing with my son. That’s a father’s privilege, and the only way to impress upon children a healthy respect for gravity. But a broken-leg is a high price to pay for the thrill of jumping into four feet of water.
I will say that Mr. Stewart’s motives were a bit loftier than a simple good time: ‘”He thought he could break her fear of heights by doing that. Instead he broke his leg,” said Lantana Police Capt. Andy Rundle.’
Mr. Stewart’s special brand of homeschooling also went awry in 2004 when, during a lesson in sociology, he was arrested for buying crack cocaine from an undercover police officer—with Megan in the car.
What would school be without field trips? The day everyone brings a sack-lunch, and the only time—apart from the last day of school—when your teacher can do no wrong. What a paradox: you’re in school, but you’re on vacation.
Today, Ian is going on his first field trip. Ever. I didn’t realize what a milestone this is until last night, when I saw the school shirt he was going to wear. I pictured him boarding the bus (even though he’ll be carpooling), holding hands with his Buddy. I saw him exiting in a sea of blue shirts, currents swirling as kids test the boundaries of their groups and their teachers’ grasps.
We do everything as a family. Everything. Museums, parks, playgrounds, weekend trips. Ian’s never had an outing without Mommy or Daddy (usually both) being there. This is not a matter of over-protection, it’s simply what families do. I’m not concerned for Ian’s safety, and only a part of me wishes I could join him. I really just wish I could watch from a distance, and see who my son really is.
He’s going apple-picking, and had to bring a sack-lunch. In a sack. If you’re like me, you’ve pictured a brown bag with ‘Ian’ hastily scrawled on both sides, in large letters. If you’re like my wife, you’ve pictured this:
Have fun, kiddo. And don’t throw apples at anyone…’s head.
I’m no scientician, but I vaguely recall there being a principle that states you can calculate either the position or velocity of a particle, but not both. Something to do with the particles being affected by the measurement itself.
Who knew my son had so much in common with quantum mechanics?
I’ve done my best to describe Ian’s choreographic genius, but it really loses something in translation. And no matter how quick or inconspicuous I am, I’ve never managed to actually get this kid on camera. He sees the camera, stops dancing, and smiles.
‘Cheeeeese! I want to see it!’
When I do manage to film without him knowing, he seems to sense that something is amiss, and reverts to running in circles.
But now Ian’s secret is out. Last Friday, while walking after dinner, we stumbled upon a jazz combo playing in a hotel lounge. And a camera-phone is much smaller than a video camera. The footage is Bigfootesque in its pixelation, but, I assure you, this is Ian dancing.
‘The program helps fathers, boyfriends, grandfathers and uncles learn nursery rhymes and stories with babies up to 18 months of age. Led by a male facilitator, the six to eight sessions help the men and babies grow more comfortable with each other and other children. It also gives mom a bit of a break.
‘…Man in the Moon began in 1999. Janice Douglas…developed the program after meeting with early child care development workers who suggested men needed to become more involved with the children in their lives.’
Before Ian was born, I had visions of singing him to sleep or comforting him with playful rhymes. The problem was I could only remember first lines or choruses, or only the tune. As a consequence, Ian was forced—at one month old—to endure my mangling of American Pie. The long version. Before I’d joined the choir.
Yes, I could’ve done my research or gone to the library, but what new parent has the time or energy to memorize Mother Goose? This sounds like a wonderful program for everyone invovled, but somehow I think the men benefit more than their children.
