Happy Birthday little man!

(Flickr commentary exceptionally maintained by mom, as usual.)

You know, there are certain days, and I’ll just take this past Valentine’s Day as my not-so-everyday example, when the most romantic thing your mother and I might say to each other is, “Hey, does it smell like poop in here?”

But the other day you beat us to the punch line.

When your mother insisted that the cat took his revenge in the corner of our bedroom carpet after we had just come home from a small weekend getaway the other night, it was a rare occasion when I had to disagree.

“No,” I thought to myself (yet somehow failed to articulate verbally), “it smells more like human urine, only… if it had somehow been burnt into microscopic vapors by a popcorn machine.” How my subconscious knew that sensory experience is far beyond me, and I’m glad my mind wasn’t asked to take it any further, because when your mother recalled to me the story of how you took absolute pleasure in relieving yourself into our oscillating heater fan just before we left on our trip, it instantly made perfect sense to the two of us.

“Oh, that heater’s going out in the breezeway tonight.”

Thanks for the a-ha moment kiddo.

Love,

Dad

A big blue shiner on his cheek from one of many missteps in the mastery of walking, a lasting fever with clear signs of roseola, and an unrelenting cycle of nag/cry/scream that says simply “hold me in your arms for about 87 hours straight, please” and it is clear that our role into this parenting thing is still in its learning stages. The fever broke long ago, but the aftermath has continued into our rain-filled weekend.

My wife and I will eventually take stuff like this as no big deal, but if we seem a little on edge lately, it’s because we’re still paying some serious parenting dues.

I was originally going to title this entry What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Standing (On My Own Two Feet). But that was a few days ago. Now, the little guy has decided to up the ante and started walking.

It’s funny to watch him get up, take a few steps, and fall on his ass seemingly on purpose. It’s made me reflective of the fact that I’ve secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) learned everything I now do well through a painful process of trial and error. To learn how to do anything right, you must first understand the consequences of messing it up.

Funny how that works, little grasshopper.

There are rare and precious moments that remind me of how small and insignificant a child of the universe I am without creeping the ever-loving bajeezus out of me. Yes, at times my ego runs on all four cylinders. But alone with my son, in the back yard the other day, I came across a small glimpse of meaning into the
setup of things.

It was grand and simple and made perfect sense.

There we were watching the sunset over the farmland landscape that stretches out from our back yard. I stood with my son in my arms and pointed. “Sun,” I said. As we turned around to go in for the evening we saw a brightly lit waxing orb centered perfectly over the house. I stopped after gazing and pointed again. “Moon,” I told him. And then I did the only other thing that made any sense to me. I pointed to the open field of grass below our feet and with a broad sweeping circle said, “Earth.”

I repeated this lesson of connect-the-dots for a while, until all of a sudden it turned into a kind of healing meditation. We weren’t just looking at this setup. He and I were a part of it. This was a profound moment for me to stumble upon—that is, if one can believe to stumble upon such moments. But I’ve started to take notice when I see all my ducks lined up in a row.

Not entirely unrelated: Richard
Butler, Isaac Newton, William Blake

You know, I asked your mother not too long ago if having a child was everything she expected it to be. I distinctly remember how she searched for the right words and replied to me as seriously as I’ve ever seen her. “I honestly didn’t think it was going to be this satisfying,” she said. And with that she summed up both of our experiences in a way I never could have articulated.

Having you has been satisfying. Bullseye, mom.

While we’ve had our moments of panic (you have a tendency of getting into anything that might electrocute, permanently mar, or flatten you into an oversized pancake), we both feel that you bring something into our lives that makes us see things in whole new unexpected ways.

Last year, when you were born, we had noooooooooooo idea what we were getting into. I mean none. I remember how naive we were, prancing off to the delivery room after your mother was induced. I can still see her standing in the hospital room mirror and admiring how cute and adorable she looked in the delivery gown she purchased for the birthing event, while I inquired to the nurse about getting wireless internet access on my laptop.

No, really, that’s what we did. We waited for the contractions to come like we were standing in line to see the next X-men movie or something. Like I said, we had no idea what we were getting into.

Set the clock forty minutes into the future and your poor mother is overwhelmed by the sharp intervals of pain and discomfort. The gown is thrown off from the biological heat wave that consumes her. She’s screaming and throwing up all over the bathroom and yelling nonsense to me about the nurse not liking her because of something she said (actually, this may not have been entirely inaccurate). All I can do is try my best to get her an epidural. It’s getting ugly fast.

A few hours further and mom has pushed and strained like nobody’s business to get you out. But every time we make some headway, the doctor nudges you back in so that the life monitor can read your vitals (I guess that’s the procedure or something). I didn’t have the heart to tell your mother that he’d been doing that for the past five hours.

Finally, just as the morning sun spewed golden light into the delivery room, you were born. I had Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken stuck in my head.

I don’t know how to describe this moment to you. I don’t think any parent can. All I know is I looked up and saw you for the first time. I heard you crying and the most profound thing I could muster was… “Holy shit!”

Mom and I just stared at you, half laughing (mostly crying), saying to each other, “Holy shit! Look what we did!” Afterwards, as the nurse measured and weighed you into the world, you and I had our first man to man talk. Ask me sometime when you really need it what I said to you.

I think of this day every now and then and the feeling still floors me. When I look at you and see how you’ve grown in one year, I’m amazed that there was a time that we didn’t even have you to watch.

So, this is your day. Your special day. And I just wanted to share a little bit about your real birthday with you.

Because what we’ll be celebrating every year at this time is our day too. And having you around makes our lives that much more satisfying.

We love you. Happy birthday.

Dad

Shortly after I captured this picture on my mobile phone, I felt a sudden urge to download I Feel for You by Chaka Khan. Is there a connection?

I’ll let you be the judge.

This past week Cole started talking a little more than usual. His first clearly recognizable word was “Mama,” which of course had me feeling all different kinds of rejection. That is, until a little later into the week when he became obsessed with saying “Da da da da da.” Of course, we’ve never been alert enough to capture any of these clear as day recognitions of our parental love for our own prosperity, but we did steal a moment of him apparently rehearsing a scene from Star Wars. I’m not geeky enough to know which alien language he’s speaking here, but I’m pretty sure the Internet’s a good place to go for a translation.

The haaaardest workin’ baby in show business. Old King Cole. The Pied Piper of Diaper. The Swami of Pajami. The Godchild of Soul. Mr. Please Please Feed Me himself, in his very own music video. Prepare yourself to be entertained by sights and sounds no ordinary baby could perform—well, at least on one foot.

Enjoy.

Updated 02/22/2006: Now serving at YouTube.