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.