Daddy-dipping: Into the eggnog zone

How did I come to write a humor column about the trials and tribulations of being a forty-something father?

Well, I suppose you can trace that back to when I was a teen-ager and my Mom discretely left on my bed a book about the birds and the bees. I think the precipitating event leading to that was my Mom finding a copy of Playboy under the covers.

But that's probably more than you need -- or want -- to know about me.

The reality is that when you're a writer, you write about those things that deeply affect you. And it's hard to imagine anything that's had a more profound affect on me than having a child enter into my life.

My scribblings about the child-rearing process began a little over a year ago with an e-mail I'd written to a friend documenting The Toddler's first professional haircut. Soon thereafter it came time to write the annual holiday letter, which I turned into a poem about our family portrait. I just send out to friends and family my second venture into holiday poetry, so I thought this was an opportune time to bring back last year's poem, which I call Picture Perfect:

Picture Perfect

‘Twas 34 days before Christmas, when into the mall

Entered a toddler, barely two and a half feet tall.

His parents had prepped him with hairspray and buffs,

And then stuffed him with crackers and fruity puffs.

With mama in red sweater, and I in off-white,

We settled into the photo studio, and all seemed all right.

Every hair on the little one was in place,

And he had just the right glow on his face.

Then all of a sudden things took a turn for the worse,

To the plastic snowman and fake snow, the child was averse.

He cried and he cried and he raised such a clatter,

We tried to appease him, but nothing we did seemed to matter.

So I proposed to mama that we just pack it in,

There ’s no way this kid’s gonna let them get one good shot of him.

When the very patient picture lady, in one last desperate shot

Suggested the one thing that I had beforehand sworn, “No way, absolutely not.”

But there we were, sitting as three,

The holiday card version of family.

And to show just how much things change in a year, here's the 2005 version, Tickle-Me-Daddy:

Tickle-Me-Daddy

We had barely recovered from turkey day fun,

When we clothed in cords and rugby our little one.

Then we plastered his hair down in Ken doll fashion.

And crossed our fingers, hoping it was time to finally cash in.

Just to reach this point did not come without debate.

The last time we did this the little one just wouldn’t cooperate.

But a year had since gone by.

Surely it was worth another try.

The family, the friends they all would expect it.

But the question remained: would he sit and not throw a fit?

At his daycare, they tried it just this past fall.
The result? Well, it looked like something you find on a Post Office wall.

So, you might ask, how did we get him to crack that grin you see?

The answer to that question is not a mystery.

A parent will always go that extra mile

Just to get that one little smile.

In this case, the photographer pulled out a well-worn trick.

She made Daddy the target of a tickle stick.

And that is what amused the little one so.

Now you get the picture, along with a hearty ho-ho-ho!

Three Little Words

One day you plant a seed and from it this most amazing creature grows. A little being that walks and talks.

Well, this was a major notch on my laboratory belt. Certainly it blew Sea Monkeys, my only previous experiment at life creation, out of the water.

A great deal if not most of the credit, of course, goes to my lovely lab assistant, who for nine months sacrificially served as the pod for that seed and who continues to give me lessons in proper parenting techniques.

Somewhere along the way our little experiment went haywire, though. The creature learned that he could use the abilities that we’d played a role in developing against us. Now he was not only walking but doing it all over us. And boy could he talk – back to us.

“No, Daddy. No.”

“How ’bout, “Yes, Daddy?’” I’d naively reply.

“No, Daddy.”

Being the parent of a toddler means you’ve surrendered. You are at his mercy. He runs the house. You are only his servant.

“Daddy do.”

“How ’bout, “You do.’”

“No, Daddy do.”

You can see the genius in his argument, can’t you? There’s no way to win. Sure you could prolong the war, but what purpose would that serve? Because it always comes back to “Daddy do.”

In this autocracy, all parents are not created equal. Mommy ranks No. 1. Daddy is mostly treated as an intruder.

“Mommy do.”

“How ’bout, “Daddy do.’”

“No, Mommy do.”

Sometimes you feel cheated. If there is a choice between Mommy and Daddy, Mommy’s always the chosen one. You become that kid in gym class that gets picked last every time. No matter how hard you try, you just don’t match up.

For Mommy, however, popularity is a double-edged sword. Because with popularity comes expectations. And when she fails to live up to those expectations, well, Mt. Toddler erupts. So she gets the best and the worst the Toddler is able to dish out. Being ranked number one also means that when The Toddler wakes in the middle of the night, he comes to Mommy. While Daddy snoozes in a bed that he suddenly has all to himself, Mommy camps out on the floor with The Toddler.

Who has it better – Mommy or Daddy? I don’t know the answer to that one, and I’m not sure that there is or even should be one. Perhaps it all breaks even. What I do know is that parenting is not an easy job on either side. There are no magic formulas that will make it easier. And even if there were, I don’t know if I’d want them. Sure I’d be tempted at times. But isn’t the greatest joy of parenting those surprises that come when you least expect them?

Yes, you get worn down by the tantrums and combativeness but then one day he says something different. Instead of “No, Daddy,” he says, “Love you, Daddy.” And you look in stunned disbelief. Did you really hear what you just thought you heard, or is your mind playing tricks on you?

“What did you just say?”

And then he repeats it: “Love you, Daddy.”

Only three little words but boy do they make a difference in your outlook as a parent. They’re enough to make you think that maybe – just maybe – this little experiment will turn out all right.

A gift that will make your head spin

Recently a neighbor friend brought over a thank-you gift for The Toddler. Now The Toddler had no idea why he was the beneficiary of this gift. But he was more than happy to accept it.

At the sight of the gift, The Toddler’s eyes expanded to approximately twice their normal size. He let it be known to all that he was VERY excited about THE PRESENT.

The Toddler tore into the wrapping like a hound digging up a bone. When the ritualistic shredding was complete, he was ready to have his way with the NEW TOY.

The newness of THE TOY could not be questioned. You can tell that a toy is brand new because it has been packaged so securely that it could never escape its packaging. Who knew that toys were flight risks? Perhaps Homeland Security could take some lessons from toy manufacturers.

Every parent surely has been confronted with a child waiting in anticipation of a new toy only to be stymied by tangled wires that weave in so many directions that you wonder how they got that way in the first place.

And finally when you manage to release the toy from all those wires and you have that momentary feeling of accomplishment, you see the words that all parents dread: Some assembly required.

By now The Toddler’s nuclear reactor gauge is heading toward a meltdown. He’s tugging at your pants while you desperately try to decipher the assembly instructions that are about as difficult to read as hieroglyphics.

All of the trouble pays off, however, when you watch The Toddler attempt to master the Sit ‘n’ Spin, a toy that you played on when you were a child. You smile when he has trouble grasping the concept of the sitting aspect of a SIT 'n’ Spin. And you laugh out loud when he snares Mommy to coach him on the proper method to use the NEW TOY.
The 'classic' Sit 'n' Spin

After a few minutes he looks like an old pro on the Sit ‘n’ Spin. Well, maybe more like a rookie. He fails to complete an arc of more than 45 degrees. But Daddy is sure in time he'll be able to go the full 360. Of course by then Daddy will be secretly removing the batteries so that Simon Says is quieted and Daddy won't need to reach for that aspirin bottle.

Just when Daddy finds a little peace and quiet, of course, along will come another toy. Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. Spirograph. Shrinky Dinks. More toys from his past coming back to haunt him.

Daddy’s head spins just at the thought of it.

Just like it did when he was a kid, twirling ‘round on that Sit ‘n’ Spin.

Step in Time

All parents, I presume, have thoughts on what their kids will be when they're no longer kids. Some see their little one as a doctor. Others envision a lawyer.

Me? I picture The Toddler playing third base and leading the Chicago Cubs to a World Series in 2028. That’s a two-part fantasy, and I’m not sure which part is more plausible of a scenario: my son playing major league baseball or the Cubs playing in a World Series.

But The Toddler has another dream. He wants to be a chimney sweep.

Not to say that chimney sweeping isn’t a noble profession, and you hate to dash a young one’s dreams, but I must admit that I am not-so-secretly hoping that my son will reconsider his chosen line of work. Fortunately he’s only two, so he’s got a few more years to think about it.

How does a two-year-old come to the conclusion that he was born to be an ash man?

The answer can be traced back to just a couple years after The Toddler’s Daddy was born.

In 1964, Walt Disney brought Mary Poppins to life on the big screen. A little over forty years later that whimsical tale of a nanny who flies in with the wind to wherever she is needed has caught my son's fancy.

More precisely, it is a fourteen-minute sequence of that one hundred forty-minute film that turns The Toddler into a miniature version of Bert the chimney sweep (Dick Van Dyke).

You see, at the moment Bert calls out in his on-again, off-again Cockney accent from atop a London rooftop: “It’s all me pals…Step in time!” The Toddler is literally swept away.

Before The Toddler reintroduced me to Poppins, I had only vague recollections of it. Some of the songs I remembered: “Spoonful of Sugar,” “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” and, of course, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Strangely enough, none of the songs that I knew strike any kind of chord with The Toddler. To him they are inconsequential parts of the story which, thanks to the magic of DVD, can be swept aside.

“Step in time, Daddy,” he repeats like a broken record.

“How ‘bout ‘Spoonful of Sugar’? That’s a good song,” I argue.

“No, Daddy,” he says dismissively. “’Step in Time.’”

If you don’t know the lyrics, they go like this:

Step in time, step in time
Step in time, step in time
Never need a reason,
Never need a rhyme,
Step in time, step in time
We step in time.

But it’s not so much the song that seems to have captured The Toddler’s imagination as it is the lively dance number that takes Bert and his soot-coated mates on an acrobatic tour of London’s rooftops.

The Toddler has taken to mimicking the rubber-limbed dance moves wherever I take him. At the park, he no longer wants to play on the swings or the slide. No, he wants to jump on and off the wooden beams surrounding the park while singing, “Up on the railing, step in time.”

As best I can, I try to explain his behavior to other parents. “He’s a Mary Poppins addict,” I say. They nod decorously.
The Toddler mimicks   Dick Van Dyke

Me, I figure he’ll grow out of his Poppins fixation soon enough. It’s just a step in time, after all.

A Stroll in the Park

A stroll in the park; it sounds nice, doesn’t it? It connotes a pleasant, relaxing experience.

And that’s what it once was. Fondly I look upon those days when I would buckle The Toddler into the stroller and head out onto the neighborhood sidewalks on a nice, sunny day, stopping at a park along the way.

In all other categories of parenting Mommy was No. 1. But stroller rides to the park, well, that’s where Daddy ruled.

I would strut like a king, head held high, nodding at passersby with glowing pride in my eyes. Me, my son, the open air – this, I thought, was what fatherhood was all about. Sure there would still be nasty diapers, midnight awakenings and tantrums to contend with. But bonding times like these, between me and my son, made being a father, well, significant. When it came time for stroller rides, in The Toddler’s world, I wasn’t just playing second fiddle to Mommy.

But then one day I began to really look at the other strollers around us and it hit me like a left hook to the jaw. Ours, in comparison, appeared worn and old, like it was ready for the scrap heap. Like a dated car, it even had a partially scraped off political bumper sticker on it and a seat cushion that kept slipping off. It looked, well, inferior.

There were all these new luxury models out on the sidewalks that were, both literally and figuratively, passing us by. I began to suffer from a severe case of stroller envy.

The Toddler was riding in the Pinto of strollers compared to the Ferraris out there now. Truth be told, the stroller, to me, had become an embarrassment. I was ashamed to even take it out of the garage, let alone pushing it and having my son be seen in it.

That’s when I knew my son had grown up. That once brand-new stroller was now a little over two years old, just like my son.

The Toddler didn’t really need that stroller any more. He could walk on his own two feet.

And that’s what we do now. We walk, hand-in-hand, to the park. Occasionally he says, “Up-up,” meaning “Pick me up, Daddy. My legs are smaller than yours and get tired pretty quickly.”

We still have that 2003 model stroller. Mostly it sits in the garage now, taking up space. And holding a part of my son that he’s walked away from.