Over the Rainbow

By my calculation, Lilly probably listened to “Over the Rainbow” between 35 and 45 times today. The CD player in her room somehow got jammed on “Repeat” during her rest time and I didn’t have the juice to climb the stairs—13 of them, I’ve been counting lately—to fix it. Not that I would have known how. And not that she minded. It’s all Wizard of Oz all the time around our house these days. And in our car. On our walks. Compared to the Wizard—meaning, mostly Dorothy and her impossible/possible journey—Santa didn’t have a chance. He came and went on Christmas with barely a mention, outside of a couple of pudgy-looking reindeer that came to us from folks who work at the church next door to our house.

When he’s not asleep or smiling up at one of us from the changing table, Joey spends his days right now in his bouncy seat, swinging from side to side and caroming off the doorway leading into the kitchen. He’s 4 months now, grabbing at everything and threatening to sit upright at any moment. Lilly meanwhile is running around the kitchen, screaming: “Let’s sing Over the Rainbow superfast Dada. And she skitters around like the song is propelling her motor. “Somewhereovertherainbowwakeuphigh,” like that. I say “wake up high dada.” There’s another fix she’s made to the song that she loves and here it comes. “theresalambthatIheardofonce inalullaby.” This morning, she sang it to a handful of people before church started and she looked up at me playfully when she got to the “lamb” part. A little too knowing in her charm maybe but charming nonetheless. She’s 2 ½ after all.

Mostly, we surf across the top of the charming madness that is our children’s childhood, pretending that we’re fully evolved adults with mortgages, meaningful work, books on our bedside tables, and messy histories that we’d rather not talk about—especially around toddler ears. The truth is messier than that though and lately I feel like I’m constantly dipping in and out of my own childhood, even while the God that I know seems to have put me and my partner in charge of a couple of children of our own.
I’m in church this morning kissing my sons cheeks, and he’s not cooing as much as he’s humming like a lovestruck bee. His voice echoes around the simple sanctuary and my mind immediately spins to my own father. Did he kiss and cuddle me like this? Lie down in bed with me at night and listen to my breathing, the way I listen to little Joey’s. Did he crave that skin-to-skin contact that I can’t get enough of lately?

The past also echoes its way into the present when we’re driving around the Valley, Lilly and Joey strapped in for whatever our latest gambit is. I know it’s 2008 in my head as we cross the river and head for the grocery store a day after Christmas. But the strip of stores that is fast replacing beautiful farmland puts me in mind of the iconic strip near my own hometown and the not-quite-square farmstands that slowly melted away with my youth. We had designs on cutting our own tree at a farm in the hilltowns west of where we lived. But an ice storm that cut power to some towns for upwards of a week pushed that idea aside. A few days later we found ourselves across the river and guiding our car into a deserted farm stand where someone was selling trees off the back of a tractor trailer. We nosed our car almost up against a rotund balsam and I suddenly saw my father in the driver’s seat. “Maybe we should take that one,” he would say, even before getting out of the car. But this time it wasn’t my father. It was Nell, who at times exhibits his gift for efficiency. I protest, because not to means drifting completely into the past, and falling completely out of the present, which will be calling from the backseat momentarily. Soon we’re home with the tree and reaching directly into the past in the form of ornaments that have come down through our own childhoods. Tin soldiers, a crocheted Christmas ball made by a wonderful aunt, an entire entourage of snowmen with their permanent-marker dates on the bottom offering more proof of my ever-present childhood. Lilly plays with them like toys, or manages to dismember them with the cheerful ineptness that is 2 ½. I want to gaze into them for hints about the future, the way the witch gazes into her crystal ball to scout out Dorothy’s location. But we hang them on the tree, plug in the lights and barely take note of the tree's tender beauty before rushing onward to the next event.

Santa and Oz did cross for a minute this year in the form of a 30-minute, toddlerized version of the Wizard of Oz that Amazon.com, I mean “Santa,” gave to Lilly. In this version, the wizard looks no more other-worldly than a bowling ball. The music, clearly left behind in some ugly copyright battle, is nowhere to be found. The whole thing comes off like an episode of Scooby Doo. It’s an assault on our artistic sensibilities but not on Lilly’s. She watches transfixed from the couch and doesn’t care a whit that the Tin Man’s song—perhaps the most clever few stanzas ever set to music—is nowhere to be found. The witch scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid sitting on my own couch. We haven’t watched the adult version yet because Lilly’s too young. But contemplating the flight of the witch past Dorothy’s window as the shards of Dorothy's life spin about still gives me chills. I contemplate the way the shards of our own lives appear and re-appear from time to time as I move about through our lives. Just this afternoon the sight of Lilly stamping in muddy puddles and of her little jeans soaked nearly up to her crotch nearly made a puddle out of me. But there were dishes in the sink, and piles of things that needed to be moved around and made into other piles of things, only to be moved and moved again, across our house and across the ages.

"You're a Great Dad!"

It happens in the basement of a building where my wife is working. Little Joey in the front pack and me bobbing up and down spastically trying to get him to settle/sleep. My wife is upstairs working, as she does many nights. A woman comes by--it happens to be someone I know--and gives me the "look." Her eyes get all soft, her face just opens up and then she says it: "You're a great Dad."
These are never the wrong words to say to a parent, of course. A lot of us will just melt into a puddle of tears at the words, just because there are so many big and little moments during the day when you feel like you're behaving more like some rogue dictator, meting out punishment and laying down arbitrary edicts to your powerless nation of littlies. So if you think I'm doing a good job say so and watch the tears comes to my eyes.
I hear this a lot. What I wonder about is why mothers don't get the same kinds of fawning reactions. I catch myself in this double standard all the time. The sidewalks in our town can be full of moms with one kid on their back, another kid in tow, and a couple of grocery bags hanging from an arm and it doesn't occur to me to say, "Wow, great job. You're an awesome parent." Then I'll see a Dad on the street with an infant in a front pack or sitting at a table in a coffee shop sharing a muffin with his daughter. This is a tableau that moves me every time.
I'll keep this short because my own kids are going to be up in a couple of minutes. Yes, please, offer the men you see and know some praise when you see them on the street trying to snuggle their kid to sleep or herding a little one past the 50th set of enticing steps or a sparkly window display. But if you're going to do it for the men, do it for the women too. They're working hard (if not harder). It's just that somehow we fail to notice their work in the same way.

Skin to Skin

Kids have so much lovely, soft skin. In our house it's always on display: on the changing table, in the bathtub, sure. Also, our bedroom, the hallways, Nell's third-floor office, the kitchen, the playroom, the back yard, the front yard. Growing up in my own house everyone always seemed to be covered in layers--make that pounds--of flannel all year long. So a few months back when Lilly was running down the driveway naked and heading for the front of the house my mother, who was visiting, let out an audible gasp. "Um...are...you...she's...ah....."
"Naked?" I said.
"Yeah, don't you think you should put some clothes on her?"
Uh, no I didn't, though my mother's commentary took a little bit of the joy of having all that skin around.

When Joey came home in August the amount of kid skin in the family just about doubled. Lilly was born in early May at the beginning of months of inviting summer weather. With Joey there were just a few blessed weeks before fall arrived and we had to start bundling him up. But my relationship with him and his skin was different. I felt free to snuggle up with Lilly, to nuzzle her with a cheek or stroke her back, massage her legs or just generally absorb the beauty of her naked body. When Joey came home, though, there were all sorts of questions fluttering around my mind: could I nuzzle with him in the same way? Stroke him so lovingly? Kissing felt funny at first. I remember his slobbery lips brushing against mine one early morning as I was carrying him back to bed. Those lips were so soft and slippery-delicious. Who doesn't like kissing? But I felt uncomfortable; the weight of the culture was pressing in, invading our little House of Skin. Maybe it was the weight of western, American, male culture. Skin-to-skin? SKIN-TO-SKIN? THAT'S NOT OKAY!
Physical comfort and contact with infants is so pure. But here he was maybe two or three weeks old and all I could think was: am I wrecking him? Already? Is anyone watching? Right now? What would they think? Was there some sort of Stasi of fatherhood that was going to swoop in and cart me off for violating one of the basic tenets of maledom: keep physical contact among our side of the gender divide to an absolute minimum? Outside of butt-slapping on the football field, it's all supposed to appear nearly accidental.
Joey has this blocky little torso and is already muscly around his shoulders and upper arms. And that chubby-cheeked face of his already has hints of maleness to it. Yep, he's got a penis. But blessedly he's got no sense of gender. This occurred to me over a matter of weeks, the way an ocean current slides beneath your boat and moves you slightly off course over a matter of hours or days. He's not a boy as much as he's a squeezable little human with tight little fists and the best smelling head ever. His skin of course is the conduit to his tender, still-under-construction nervous system. Placing his skin against mine is probably the best thing I can do--for him and for me. Being belly-to-belly is like mainlining a box of sedatives, which is why he sleeps so soundly in bed. He cuddles in between us but really he sleeps with his mother. Sometimes early in the morning I'll look over to see that he's slipped off the breast, but never completely away from it. It will look like he's using his mother's breast for a pillow. It's not hard to put my own envy aside. Skin-on-skin. The look of contentment, of pure ease, is impossible to miss. There's a lot to be learned from that pre-dawn tableau. I'm learning as fast as I can.

The Dog Ate my Underpants

"Talk about the dog who eats underpants Dada."

We're driving home from church on a Sunday morning, blue skies, snow threatening too early in the season. A week ago our minister, a wonderful poet, had talked about the differences between the world we tell our children about and the one that we live in. It was a message full of both sweetness and the kind of insight that we've grown used to from this wonderful man, who was a shepherd before he became our minister and who herds us along with kind, persistent passion.

We've been squabbling at our church over how to handle the children--what kinds of stories to tell them or not tell them, whether or not to pay the good people who spend time with them, that sort of thing. There hasn't been any hair pulling. Yet. But it hasn't been pretty. And our minister was gently pointing out that, just maybe, we weren't modeling the kind of behavior we were expecting of our 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. Oops.

There should be an orderly progression for introducing kids to the adult world: potty, snack-time, team sports, Britney, cross-dressing, marriage, 401k plans, afterlife. Something like that. Instead, it just comes up. In the car, on the changing table. Whenever something is offered by the brain of our little Lilly and the world around her.

So when she says, "Talk about the dog who eats underpants," we're off and running. We've talked about the cake-eating bear on our porch (true) and the dog and the bear in our bed (not true) but this is the first I've heard of the bear who eats underpants. My wife is right with her though. "Well, sometimes dogs like to eat underpants," she says. Lilly's brother dozes in the car seat next to her. The world outside our windows is frozen with a skim of snow. Orderly, recognizable New England.

"Again Mama. Talk about the dog that eats underpants."

"Well," her mother says, "Mama had two dogs, and both of them ate her underpants. One of them was named Sandy and one of them was named Katy."
"Your dogs ate your underpants?" I mean to use playful Dad-speak but I miss.
"Some dogs LOVE underpants," Mama says. To this our daughter gives a satisfied sigh.
"Wait," I say, "Dada had a dog named Cody and a dog named Aran and a dog named Nikki and those dogs never ate his underpants."
This is the point that I start thinking about Steven's sermon, and the orderly progression of adult-themed challenges that isn't. Really I just notice a clenching near my solar plexus.
"Wait, dogs really do eat underpants?" I ask.
"Well, dogs don't like EVERYBODY'S underpants," Momma says.
Then she looks at me. "You're actually uncomfortable."
My brain says: "No, I'm, well, I don't want to be, I'm pretty good at mediating between the kid and adult worlds, she's only 2....I...I"
My mouth says: "I'm just not sure we should be talking about this."
"You're really uncomfortable."

My brain feels all crampy, like that old Dodge Dart our neighbor owned growing up that never wanted to start in the winter. Some days, he'd sit there in the dark and crank it for 5 or 10 minutes. But every once in a while he'd let out the break, glide it down the hill in front of our house and pop the clutch. Off he'd go.

Maybe if we could just get out of the way and let life unfold things would take care of themselves. And none of us would have to feel that crampy thing in our brains.

There's a little more snow up around the corner by the country store with the plastic cow on the roof. We decide to stop into for a morning bagel and coffee. Lilly is still trying to puzzle it all out.

"Talk about the dog who eats underpants Mama," Lilly says.

I'm still not ready for pop-the-clutch-and-go parenting but my wife is right with her. "Well, there was a dog and a bear in our bed one morning," she says. "And the bear was wearing underpants...."

Eyes Wide Open

So Joey flopped into this world with a skid and a splash just three months ago. His mother, heroic, raw, beautiful, reached down and pulled him along the last few inches of his journey. Then he simply lay there on her belly, eyes wide open, looking into mine. It was whacky how damn present he looked.

My mind had been in tilt-a-whirl gear for 48 hours or so. My body had been packing food, making phone calls, laying the groundwork for a few days at the hospital. My mind flitting from thing to thing like butterflies on crack. "The Democratic Convention's in three days; we need yogurt; is there time for a walk?; Obama; WHERE's my daughter?; Why isn't there a real cure for Athlete's Foot? Obama?--that kind of thing.

Then--and it really seemed this sudden--he's skin-to-skin with his mother, who is laughing or crying or both--and gazing at me, holding me so--what?--still, with his eyes. It's an ancient look--so deep and open and tender and watery and alive, like I could fall inside him. Like I already have. For a few seconds or a minute or a year we stare back and forth. I'm aware of blue-gloved hands moving about, sighs of accomplishment/relief, my wife's pure--yes, it's laughter. But I'm locked on those eyes, so round and soggy. So damn new and so damn old all at once--a direct line to God maybe, if I could just figure out what number to dial.

We can busy ourselves with all sorts of madness and chaos. There are monster trucks and piano lessons and baking contests and raucous parties, chores and workouts, shoulds and coulds, honor, defiance, church, malfeasance, drugs and one or two other things in this world. Then seven pounds of protoplasm flops onto the planet with a skid and a splash and you--I--finally see that it all comes down to a single word: love.

I'm fully aware that all I want to do is love him up. And I'm fully aware that--my two-year-old daughter notwithstanding--I have no idea how.

"Enter Joey" or "Survival of the Fittest"

It’s Lilly's Hitchcock moment. Joey had come home from the hospital maybe a month before. He hadn’t come very far actually—the local hospital is right across the street, visible from every window in front of our house. The ambulances come and go. Every once in a while someone slips out of the psych ward and gets pinned down on the grass. Nurses hang on the corner dragging on cigarettes and gossiping. And every once in a while a baby emerges from the birthing center. So we walked home with him to the Blue House. Lilly, who had just turned 2, tugged her mother’s suitcase-on-wheels. Nell, my wife, carried the precious one, our second. I walked a crooked line, not because we were up all night. But because watching my wife give birth turns me into a wound baseball of tension and love, like I’m on qualudes and speed all at once.
In spite of my plan to balance the gender stereotyping, I’m already calling him “Little Man.” Two days into it and my heart is way past breaking.
So there we are one Saturday morning, a few weeks later. Nell has slipped out for a blessed bit of freedom. I’m alone with the kids, still wondering how the word had become plural. Pretty smooth this parenting thing. Joey, wrapped burrito-like, dozes on the couch. I’m cleaning the kitchen, aiming mostly to keep the health department at bay. Lilly is afoot somewhere else. The dining room window seat maybe? Sweet silence…very sweet…oh-oh, too sweet. Lilly is in the dining room right?
This is what nervous systems are for, right? They cut through the fog of frontal cortex activity and get right to the heart of things: survival. I don’t walk to the play room, I simply arrive there. And I see Lilly poised above Joey on the couch, one arm raised in striking position. It couldn’t have been more frightening if it were all seen in silhouette: our cute little assassin moving in for the kill. There isn’t time to think, really. That’s the blessing of parenting—all those years spent kicking around in your head and doodling in your journal become one big indulgence, burned away by the sandblaster that is children. There’s only time to react. So I do what parents do best: I yell. Loudly. Loudly enough to shatter the windows.