Tony Danza

I'm not a marketing genius, but I did hit the jackpot by using Oprah's name to title my last blog. Just as a disclaimer, she hasn't endorsed me yet. As another disclaimer, I don't endorse Oprah. But as I promised, this blog is titled Tony Danza. If my Grandma Lucy could execute an internet search, she'd probably hit my blog. She's a huge Tony Danza fan. But that will never happen. Charlie and I called her on the way to the zoo this morning. When the phone rings over the car speakers, Charlie says, "Lucy."

It took the entire twenty-five minute drive to walk her through deleting a message on her Comcast television menu. Apparently there was a small red LED light on the cable box which was activated by the message. It sounded like that small red light had been a source of frustration for many days for my grandparents. I was happy to help them. It was 10:30am and I already had something accomplished. It felt good. I also was grateful to have to hang up when Charlie started screaming "Out! Out!" because Grandma Lucy was then trying to get me to troubleshoot her cell phone after she'd already taken it to Sam's Club five times.

Charlie's new thing is climbing barstools. We have two tall ones that slide under the granite countertop of the peninsula in our kitchen. We hardly ever use them. Occasionally we use them if we have more than six people dining with us. Our table from Cost Plus World Market, with extensions, seats eight, but we only have six chairs. I assembled all of them in the garage with a socket wrench last Thanksgiving. The garage was cold. I'm glad we didn't get eight. That is, except when we do have eight people dining. It is really awkward to sit at the table with the barstools because the seat height level with the table top. And because the chairs back to the dining table, if they are used at the bar the people using them feel like they are in time out. It's easier to set the table for six.

I was sitting at the dining room table working on that cover letter and I lost track of Charlie. I was awake. Since he is getting up at 6:30am every morning now and not napping until 3pm today, I am wiped out come 1pm. After we came home from the zoo at 1pm, I did not immediately try to put him down for a nap. It had been two days since he'd pooped and being backed up like that can shorten his nap because I guess he's uncomfortable. In addition to quickening his nap, he loses his appetite too. That makes sense to me. All he really wanted at the zoo cafeteria today was Gerber pureed bananas. He also picked at the mandarin oranges I put on his plate. He'd pick one up in his hands, extend his arm toward me, like he was going to feed me, then pop it in his mouth. He ate two pieces of strawberry and balked on eating one blueberry. Of the PB&J I spread on a pair of Oroweat sandwich thins, he nibbled on two quarters. But he did eat all of his "Nemos." Nemo snacks are so delicious. Charlie wakes up and asks for them now. Kellogg's makes them. Get a box for you and another for your child. Hide your box and only eat them alone. I wait until Charlie goes to bed. He got to bed at eight tonight. As I was saying, his wake time is early and when I was waiting for him to poop before putting him down for his nap sometime between 1pm and 3pm I must have dozed about six times. Each slip was less than five minutes I think. He kept bringing books over and waking me. I could barely keep my eyes open. I perked up enough to encourage his counting. He opened a counting book and what does he want me to count? Sheep -twelve sheep- three rows of four. I didn't get to six before I nodded off again. I put him down after I changed his diaper and gave him a bottle of milk diluted with water to keep him from backing up again.

It was when he woke and I was at the table and he was independently playing that I lost track of him. I heard him breathing hard behind me. I turned around and he had pushed the bar chair out and was halfway on the seat lying on his chest. When I caught him, I said, "What are you doing?" and he thought that was the funniest thing ever. He could hardly finish climbing up in the chair for all his laughing. He must have thought he was pretty slick and pulling a fast one on his old man. I couldn't help but take him down and watch him do it all over again.

Oprah

For this blog post I want to say thank you to my faithful readers. Both of you have given the past few weeks of my life purpose.

Charlie says "Welcome!" because he gets "thanks" and "you're welcome" mixed up some times. He also says "puc" and "pich" for "cup" and "chip", respectively. Jill asked me over dinner if I thought our son could be dyslexic.

I replied "On!"

Jill also asked me to shorten my blog posts to make them easier to read. So I am going to keep this entry tight so as not to offend half my readership.

I am calling this blog Oprah in hopes of getting some random people to accidentally hit my blog. Oprah, if you didn't know, is very popular. If it works, I will title my next blog Tony Danza.

Cover Letter

We no longer need an alarm clock. We haven't needed one for a while. The white two-way monitor Jill keeps on her nightstand works just fine so long as we need to get up by 6:30am.

Charlie's staccato cries activated the monitor first. I woke up and rolled over. The dry air stung my eyes. Jill was still sleeping with her mouth open. I rolled back over. The microphone delay doesn't pick up the shortest of cries. Instead it clicks on and airs a second of static. The static sound annoys me more than the crying.

If the monitor were on my side of the bed, I'd power it down. That's why it's not on my side.

I was not ready to be a full-time father today. My body did not want to get out of bed. My shoulders and back were stiff and my knees were swollen and throbbing. I laid in silence hoping that it was a false alarm, not daring to so much as move to prevent him from hearing me. I just wanted five more minutes.

Predictably, it took a few minutes for Charlie to erupt. He is like a volcano. Tremor. Shake. Erupt!

"Mommy, Daddy, silky, milky! Honey! Hold you! Rock-a-bye! Out!" His eruption was verbal. He named everything he could call on to bring him comfort.

So did I. "Jill!"

Jill grunted when I poked her.

We had two days off, Jill and I. Charlie stayed with Gigi and Papa. I bought a new bicycle and we went on a nice ride together. About six miles of trail behind us and two miles from home, we rode on a path strewn with goat heads. I watched my front tire accumulate little tan thorns like a caramel apple picking up nuts. All four tires were flattened on our two bikes. For the previous three miles Jill had been suggestively informing me of her desire to get back. She kept repeating something about being tired and hot and having no water.

We walked the bikes to a main road. At a stop sign, a man asked if we needed help. He took me to our house. His name was Terry. It turned out he was getting his hair cut at the same place I do. And his business partner is the twin brother of my neighbor. I thanked Terry for the ride went inside and got the car keys, filled a huge glass full of ice and water for Jill and returned to fetch her. When I got there Jill was relaxing in the shade. She asked me if Terry tried to hurt me.

I took Charlie to the park today. I pushed him on the swing for an hour. He doesn't get tired of swinging. Two people filtered through the swing next to him during that time. One girl was named Ainsley. Her wide brim hat had many colors on it. She was sixteen months and she couldn't speak. Her mom had just finished the stroller workout. She said it was tough doing all those squats and lunges. She asked Charlie his name. Charlie answered her, "Name."

We ate a hastily assembled picnic lunch on a blanket that covered the goose poop on the grass. Next to us was a black lab tied to a tree wearing a muzzle. I gave Charlie a few pieces of orange which he ate, then burped up. I spoon-fed him Yo-Baby yogurt because I forgot to bring a bib.

I escorted Charlie through the grass, careful to avoid the goose poop and we skirted several puddles on the way to the pier that stretches out into the lake. Charlie likes to say mud. I kept near Charlie so I could catch him if he came too close to falling in the water. I threw graham crackers in the water for the ducks. The few ducks began honking and soon there were many ducks honking and fighting over graham cracker pieces. I gave Charlie a piece of graham cracker to feed to the ducks and he ate it.

After that we walked through the garden together. Charlie studied the purple and white petunias and the bees on the yellow and orange marigolds. Jill is growing mini petunias in her Aerogarden. The first delicate flower bloomed today. We saw a man stretching in the garden who looked familiar.

We came home and watched the replay of the Rockies/Giants game from Sunday. Charlie had a bottle of milk and I had a coffee. I think it was Ubaldo Jiminez, Colorado's pitcher who we recognized in the park. Is that possible? They are playing live as I type. It's a one-one tie, bottom of the ninth.

I had to leave when Jill got home. When she walked in I was putting Charlie in time out for throwing a tantrum in time out. He woke up cranky and hungry. For the hunger I cooked him a hot dog. I sliced it up, put it in front of him on his tray with a side of grapes and walked outside to light the grill for my burger. When I came in a minute later, he was already done with his hot dog and asking for more. I did make him another. He became very angry when I put ketchup and mustard on his try. He is very particular. I let him feed himself squash baby food with a rubber spoon. He managed to get it everywhere. When I approached him with a wet paper towel, he said "everywhere." I said, "Yes, you did get it everywhere."

When I was leaving, Charlie called my gym bag a "diaper bag."

The Rockies are in extra innings and I am still working on a cover letter for a job I am interested in. It makes me sad to think about not chasing after Charlie.

The History of Coffee

I'm at Starbucks. The barista is shouting. Big band music is playing. The sound of a muted horn separates itself from the rest of the instruments. It sounds like a long time ago. I started drinking coffee a long time ago. It is Bastille Day. Big deal. I have the day off. Bigger deal. My day off began five hours ago. I started drinking coffee five years ago. That was B.C. - Before Charlie.

I remember once Jill and I were staying in a quaint room above a small café. It was one of those romantically simple European rooms where the doors are no longer square and the hinges squeak and the locks require a skeleton key. I don't know who I was back then, before Charlie, before coffee, before Christ. I ordered a cappuccino and a buttered shortbread cookie. The espresso taste almost overpowered me. I left a piece of shortbread on my tongue before the next drink. I took a small sip and let the dry flour absorb the earthy bitterness. The combination of sweet and strong sat well with me. It was served in a real ceramic mug on a glazed coaster with a chip on the edge. Maybe I'm making the chipped part up. Jill took a picture of me. I took a picture of her.

It was in one of those small lakeside villages that line the shores of lago di somewhere, Italy. Lago di tourist. Lago di youthfulness. Lago di memories. The pinks and purples and blues of the sky gloated over the choppy wind whipped tarn. Jill had dyed her hair brown on that trip. Brown with hints of red, like the color of espresso in a clear shot with the sunlight shining through it. She had cut it short. She did everything for me back then. She still does.

I attempted to come to her aid as she practically emptied her stomach lining into a toilet bowl in Costa Rica. She had picked up something terrible in El Salvador besides the coffee. I was debating going into nursing back then. I was lying on the bed in the unlit room watching the wicker fan blades spin slowly above me on the ceiling. Our room was on the bottom floor and the two exterior walls were nothing but framing and screen. A ghastly storm was heading our way. The cool winds blew in through the screens causing them to hiss. Between the whipping of the leaves and the hissing of the screen, I could hear Jill's hacking. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom where she was bent over the toilet with her knees on the clay tile floor. Her hair was matted to the sides of her face with the fever. Her face was so pale it shone like the moon. I was going to hold her hair back. I was going to but I couldn't. I couldn't handle it. I failed her then. I drifted toward sleep as the tempest came upon us, watching the wicker fan blades turn, hearing the hissing of the wind, Jill's sickness, wondering what on earth else I would do instead of becoming a male nurse.

Another time we rode rented bicycles through the Dutch countryside to the North Sea. At the beach, her hair flew in the wind that traveled unchecked over the water and stuck to her lips. I loved the way she pulled the strands of hair from the corners of her mouth and slipped them coyly behind her ear with her hand. I remember these things.

A little girl in pink overalls and whipped cream all over her face is staring at me. Her eyes are blue. I miss Charlie. His eyes are crema brown. He rolled off the bed this morning. He ran into the edge of a table this weekend. Last night he gave me "lovies." Lovies are kisses and cuddles. This morning Jill and I were arguing before she left for work. We were arguing in the hallway. She was under our bedroom door frame. I was at the end of the hall, outside the bedroom. Charlie was running around in the midst of our exchange. Charlie tried to walk between us. He tried pushing on our legs. We looked down at him.

"Bridge." He said looking up. It's not impossible, but near, to argue when you're making a human bridge for your eighteen-month-old to pass under. I feel like we have an emotional bridge now. It's easy for it to get washed out. But we have something more than we had a long time ago. It is sweeter than shortbread cookies. It is bolder than the boldest Robusta. It is higher than the Alps and deeper than the North Sea. It is love. It is bittersweet. It is a complex aroma.

Bits of Downtown

Charlie and I went downtown and strolled the pedestrian mall of 16^th street.

Charlie met a homeless guy on one block and had his picture taken with Barack Obama on the next.

We watched four men in hard hats and orange vests behind a chain link fence working on stimulus project. We saw a man sleeping on a bench in the park, dreaming of a stimulus job.

We waited until the white man appeared along with the green light before we crossed the street. The orange hand meant proceed with caution.

I taught him the words, clock-tower, dumpster, crane, alley, graffiti, headdress, parking meter, and indigent.

We rode on the bus. I parked the stroller in the space reserved for wheelchairs.

We overtook a man carrying a tubular radio playing metal music. It was actually tubular shaped, not awesome. We saw smoke rising from a hot dog cart and from a man's pipe.

We ate at Corner Bakery. It was on the corner. I wondered if all Corner Bakeries are on the corner. We sat on the patio. We shared a ham, egg and cheese Panini as well as a fruit cup. Charlie tried cantaloupe. He spat it out. Charlie accidentally dropped a red grape on the ground. It rolled under the guard fence and into foot traffic. We watched a man in skinny jeans and kick it with the toe of his European shoe and in the other direction, a woman squashed it. Neither was aware. Charlie intentionally dropped a cracker so he could get out of his chair. I noticed Charlie shifts constantly in his seat. He stood in his chair too. I told him to sit down once. Then twice. Then three times. I didn't bother subsequently. I kept my foot on the cross supports of his Chair to keep it from falling over. Charlie's Diego cup rolled onto the sidewalk. A man with gray hair and aviator shades picked it up. I asked Charlie to say thankyou. He said "no".

We walked along the picture window of an "All things Colorado" trinket store. We saw a bear, a bear, a bear, a moose, a bear, an Indian, a deer.

We walked some more after lunch. Charlie became fussy in his stroller. I gave him two choices. One, hold Daddy's hand and walk or two, go home. He said, "Home". I said, "That's not a choice" because I really didn't think he would choose to go home. Then I gave him the choice to walk or ride in the stroller. He chose to walk.

I purchased a coffee at Starbucks. I gave Charlie a straw to play with.

I gave Charlie a bottle of milk on the couch today. We practiced counting. One car. Two rabbits. Three balls. Four bowls. Five strawberries. Six chickens. Seven candies. Eight crayons. Nine? Ten fish. With his index finger extended, I guided his hand over the objects and he counted. He has difficulty with the number one, but can finish the rest in the series to twelve without error. I let go of his hand. He could count to three by himself, pointing and counting. Three balls.

Charlie put a bucket over his head and said, "Dark!"

Charlie stuffed a huge piece of apple bran muffin in his mouth and said, "Huge!" With his mouth full it sounded more like "Oooch!"

“This Zoo Keeper New Keeper Charlie’s quite keen!”

Clouds are in the sky right now. Wispy ones. Like the fake spiderwebs draped over coach lights on front porches for Halloween. My family never really celebrated the holiday. We never decorated for it. It would have been like inviting the Devil to our house.

It was Charlie's big day today. He hadn't pooped for a whole day. And it's not as if he didn't eat anything. He had eaten. Yesterday, when we were at the zoo he ate a few handfuls of those goldfish crackers while I wheeled him around. I feel like a snack cart sometimes. After our naps, I reheated a plate of macaroni and cheese. On the side I cut and laid a few juicy slices of pink watermelon. Yes, I take naps too. I'm pretty good about relegating them to when he is asleep. I have fallen asleep a few times mid-play on the floor. It's usually only for a minute.

More clouds are moving in now. Purple clouds. And blue too. I can't ride the carousel anymore with Charlie. I used to be able to be on machinery that spun me around and around. I like the music on the carousel. I don't know the name of the song. It's probably something like 'Carousel March'. The pipe organ is whimsical. I let Charlie choose the beast he would ride. We passed the hand carved, brightly painted and lacquered animals. A black jaguar, an aloof ostrich, a pair of chunky Asian elephants, a giraffe, a happy seal, lions standing like sentries, a flamingo.

"Which animal do you want to ride?" I asked him.

"Hor-see." He said.

The carousel was absent of horses. I found a zebra and put him on it. I thought he was pretty disinterested in the whole affair. He mainly likes to run away from me and see if I will chase after him. He enjoys that game. I mostly don't. So I thought he felt trapped up on the striped horse. The ride attendant spoke over the microphone in a muffled monotone for eighty-sixth time that morning. I got the impression she was thinking about her next break. Her enthusiasm was mechanical. It was Charlie's first carousel ride. The music slowly started piping as the ride began turning. It was as if there was a large drum, as in a music box, spinning inside the center column. The notes came faster as we gained speed. Charlie grabbed onto the tarnished brass pole coming out of the zebra's neck. I held on to his waist. The camshaft, or whatever it's called, began to lift the zebra and Charlie. Then it brought him back down. I could see the wonderment in his eyes along with the reflection of the hundreds of yellow bulb lights. I just watched him as his flat expression turned golden and mouth opened to a smile. I remembered that butterfly feeling when the camshaft drops you back down and you slice through the air, bobbing and slicing, laughing and learning. The old twisted cottonwood trees dusted the air with millions of airy specs of white; snow which doesn't melt.

I will never forget the way he looked at me next. It was as if he had looked at all there was to look at, drank it all in with his eyes, consumed it with his ears, felt it by the rising and falling, the wind, the vibrations of the recorded pipe organ through the metal and the brass, the lights, tasted the newness. And once he had his fill, when I began to think he had forgotten I was there, he turned and looked into my eyes as if to share it all with me. That felt good. That was all I needed. The hassle of getting everything ready for the zoo, packing the diaper bag, packing a couple of spare diapers, tracking down a bottle of sunscreen, making two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, filling a bottle of milk for the ride home and not forgetting his blue blanket, 'silky' that he can barely sleep without, stuffing some extra snacks in the bag just in case, filling a sippy cup with water, his throwing a tantrum while filling the sippy cup with water, getting his hat, collapsing and tossing his stroller in the back of the pickup, driving the half hour with him in the back seat saying 'zoo' at every stoplight. It was all worth that one moment when I knew he loved me.

I am going to be sick. Reader discretion advised.

Charlie threw up yesterday. It was a big boy pile all over the red, gold and blue rug at the front door. It contained recognizable bits of food and an acidic smell. When he was a baby he would "spit-up". Spitting-up is on the fringes of endearing. Throwing up is a whole different ball game. Spit-up was containable to a small cloth designated as a spit-up rag that I draped over my shoulder when burping the little guy. Throw-up cannot be contained. The spit-up wasn't too offensive either perhaps even sweet smelling, especially when the milk was Mommy's. Spitting-up for me was manageable. I've tried putting it out of my mind, but now I have to face it. Throw-up is one of my worst fears. To clarify, it is other people's throw-up which frightens me. I thought it might be different given that Charlie is my own son. I don't mind changing his diaper, but I am extremely uncomfortable changing other kid's diapers. It is to the point that I don't even want foreign diapers disposed of in Charlie's diaper pail. I will take them outside to the trash. It completely disgusts me.

I came in from outside when I heard Jill's dad screaming. Jill's mom and dad had just returned from dinner with Charlie when it happened. I rushed in and saw it there on the rug and bounced my eyes away from it like when you accidently see something when you're changing in the men's locker room at the gym. Charlie's vomit made me cower. I tried to act like a man. I tried to put it out of my mind. I was in such a mental battle that I don't remember the details well. Someone took the rug away. Another person wiped Charlie's face with a cold wet washcloth. Charlie held on to me, and I held on to him. In that moment we were holding on to each other. The father and son relationship was blurred.

It all started for me when I was just a kid. I remember sitting in a cold church basement during Sunday School. I was in the back row near a heavy plastic divider curtain. I was tipping my chair back. There was a girl sitting two rows in front of me. She was one of those pale mute girls waiting to blossom. She is probably a runway model now. The way the chairs were set up in a semi-circle, I had a straight line of sight to her profile. I studied her. Her hair was stringy, straight and dark. She was wearing a plain black dress with half sleeves. The dress had white lace on the chest. She reminded me of Popeye's girl, Olive Oil. I noticed her face becoming impossibly pallid. She shifted around in her chair and looked from side to side anxiously. I wasn't so interested in the lesson. I never really was. That's why I sat in the back row.

It was like a horror movie. All at once her head dropped back so that her face was parallel to the basement's drop ceiling. I looked up too. The white ceiling tiles had rusty water stains on them. There was an awful bubbling sound, like a full sink when you run the garbage disposal, before the unimaginable transpired. I nearly fell backward when the geyser erupted from her gaping mouth. I didn't know yet to turn away. It sprayed the ceiling. On its way back down it covered her face and her ashen skin, her black dress and her white lace. Poor girl, she was thinking of other people even in her sickness. She didn't want to hit anyone else. Reaction was swift. There was some screaming. The teacher scrambled and hid behind the green felt board. The sound of reverberating metal filled the air as the folding chairs scuttled violently across the exposed cement floor and children ran for cover. My stomach dropped. I felt something rise in my throat. It was more intense when I looked. I sprang from my seat and holed up behind the accordion room divider. I waited there, temples sweating, heart pounding, until my stomach slowly began to settle back into place. "Fresh air!" I heard a voice shout. Someone opened a window on one side of the basement and an exit door on the other. I was caught in the cross wind. The smell sent me to my knees. I fought it off hard. I tried to think of anything but bacon grease left over in a frying pan, but that's all I could think of. I felt my face getting cold. I unbuttoned the top button of my white dress shirt. I must have been there for some time. When I got up and looked on the other side of the curtain an older man was wiping down the chairs and a pile of cat litter soaked up what had made it to the floor.

Charlie is better now. We spent last night throwing and catching a ball together. He can't catch very well yet. It was more like I was throwing the ball at him. I felt bad. He was standing in front of me in nothing but his diaper. I kept tossing the ball to him and each time it would hit him in his big tummy and bounce off. About the time the ball fell to the floor Charlie would bring his arms up from his side to catch it. He giggled when it his stomach. It was a game to him. Charlie throws the ball two handed, but backward over his head. He stood between Jill and I. When I wanted him to throw the ball to me, I told him to throw it to Mommy.

I asked Charlie if he wanted to go on a bike ride early this morning. He replied, "Bike ride. Go. Helmet." So after throwing on a fresh diaper and a pair of gray sweat-shorts, I lead Charlie to the front porch where my Marin hybrid bicycle stood propped against one of the pillars of the three arches that make our long narrow house less like a double wide trailer. I won that bike from a drug store raffle. Jill actually registered me for the drawing. I am not kidding when I say she was jealous that my name was drawn. It is the only prize I have ever won besides the free weekend at the timeshare place in Breckenridge. Jill is always entering things hoping to win big. I don't waste my time. I think stay-at-home moms might enter raffles. Not me. Jill is trying to get me to participate in focus groups. Marketing companies will pay to get my opinion. I signed up and got a gig right away, but I got a call back saying they didn't need me. I took it personally. I also felt strange when the man who registered me over the phone asked my employment status.

He said, "So how would you describe your employment status?"

"I don't know?" I said. "I stay at home with my son." I was sitting in a leather chair at Panera Bread eating an apple. The apple was puny. It was the size of a plum.

"Oh. Good for you."

That's what I say when what I mean is "Good it's not me in that position."

"I enjoy it." I said. "I chose to do it." I said, making certain he knew I was not unemployable.

"Would you say you are retired? Self-employed?"

I think the guy was trying to avoid giving me the homemaker option. That's a manly thing. Self-employed requires some element of profit making. I am certainly not unemployed. I'd be travelling more often if I was retired. Maybe the best title to describe me is manager. I am Charlie's manager. Though when he says 'need' all the time, I feel more like an assistant to a harried executive. "Need! Need! Apple juice! Down! More! Hold you! Silky!"

"No, I'm not retired." I say.

"So you're self-employed?"

"Not really. I don't operate a business."

The phone was silent while we both avoided it.

"I guess you should just put homemaker."

"Homemaker then?"

"Yes. Homemaker."

That was that. I said it. It wasn't so bad. I should have rethought it though. I'm certain the overwhelming majority of people signing up for these studies are homemakers. The marketing companies are saturated with homemaker's opinions. What the companies of this world really want is a hard to get candidates. But hard to get candidates are the demographic with jobs that pay money. I made another mistake by saying I was Caucasion. I usually claim my Native American heritage.

I worked for a home improvement company who asserted they were giving a patio room away. It never happened.

I pulled Charlie behind me in the bike trailer I borrowed from my brother.

At Starbucks, Charlie and I waited outside while Jill, who drove the car, went in and bought our drinks. A small boy was sitting with his mother and Grandmother at a table outside. The boy was talking, but his language was indiscernible to me. I found myself not wanting Charlie to have playmate who can't talk. I think they'll devolve him. I introduced Charlie to the boy, but I didn't unbuckle him from the trailer restraints. I encourage Charlie to use his words. He's been pointing lately. I think he picks it up from kids at church. He fell asleep on the bike ride. It was a beautiful morning. We discovered a new part of the Highline Canal trail winding through Greenwood Village. The bike path was mostly packed gravel. About a mile in, after hearing my tire ping, it occurred to me that loose gravel could pop up and hit Charlie, in addition to dirt and water.

I talk to Charlie every once in a while on the rides. Up a steep climb I say, "We're going up a hill. You have to push it up the hill."

In response he says, "Push it! Hill!"

Now he recognizes the incline of the land, the slowing down of the pace, the choppy pedaling which causes the bike trailer to lunge and sputter and my labored breathing. He knows hills. So when we are going up a hill now, he says, "Hill! Push it."

I respond by saying, "That's right, we're going up a hill. You have to push it."

Along the trail, deep into Greenwood Village, the houses get bigger and farther apart. Some houses look like castles, some look like farms. We stopped to watch a horse eating hay behind a white fence. I dismounted my bike to lift the cover from the trailer. My bike fell down. Charlie said "Happened?" I said, "What happened? My bike fell down."

We watched the horse. Charlie said, "Tail."

I whispered, "Be quiet and listen." Charlie whispered, "Listen."

"What do you hear?" I asked.

"Hear," he replied.

A rooster crowed. Charlie's eyes widened as he searched for the source of the sound.

We ate breakfast together at the pancake house. We shared a generous ham and cheese omelet and three buttermilk pancakes. Before the food came out I removed the gluten free pancake display from the clear table stand and inserted two animal flashcards at a time on either side. The first pairing was a toucan and a giraffe. The second was an orca and a Komodo dragon. The third was a lion and an orangutan. He could name the giraffe and the lion by sight. He called the toucan a macaw. He calls most birds macaw or robin. Charlie's red croc shoe fell to the floor. The woman next to us used her foot to push it out of the isle and under our table. She left before we did and she told me about what she had done, but I already knew. Charlie spotted a pig with glasses and a rooster on the fireplace mantle in the restaurant.

When we got back home, I got out the alphabet flashcards. I thought the boy at Starbucks might have rubbed off on him. He was 100% accurate with his letters. We are starting to work on phonics now.

August 15, 2009

The night is slowly reclaiming the sky.

It would be pleasant except for the wind.

The steamer hisses.

A nervous girl works the register. She makes me twitchy. She doesn't wear glasses, but she did. I can just tell.

A man wearing a plastic lei around his neck orders eight hot chocolates for eight cold children.

Leather coats and jeans are reacquainted with their owners.

Shrubs are on sale now at the big orange box.

Who would be foolish enough to plant now?

I bought two five gallon Blue Holly's and a dirty bag of steer manure. I put them up near the house. I need another bag of crap.

Charlie says "prickles" when he sees a plant. "Prickles. Ouch. Careful. Watch-out."

The pink roses down by the mailbox are fading. The edges of their pointy leaves are brown and ragged.

What's the point in snaking the hose across the crunchy grass to water the Russian sage and the Blue Beard? Charlie grunts when he says the word "hose".

The lawn guy came to door. Charlie and I met him there. He had a uniform and a badge and a push-broom mustache. I spoke to him through the screen. He asked me if I'd be interested in having the weeds in my yard treated for 'next to nothing'. I said 'Tell me more.' We found out 'next to nothing' is $35. I said "What weeds?"

The neighbor girl from across the street chased her dog into our back yard again today. She was wearing a black dress. I really need a fence.

The next door neighbor left half a bottle of laundry detergent on our front porch. He finally got a concealed weapons permit. His dog is too old to run.

Charlie said "Texas-Papa" with an accent. Papa works in Texas. We put a Crib Tent on crib so he can't get out. Jill made me pretend to get excited about it after I said it looked like a prison cell. I then pretended to get excited about Charlie's prison cell.

I have been a full-time father for exactly one year. Jill let me sleep in until 10am. I would have remained in bed if it weren't for Charlie kicking me.

I read most of a book today. It takes place in Belgium. I finished it. It was called Resistance.

Charlie loves prunes. He said so. "Love it." Jill said to quit feeding him prunes and mixing his milk with Miralax.

Beginning

I was the first one to bear his weight. After two hours of Jill's pushing, Charlie's shoulders final cleared the birth canal and his slimy body plopped out into my waiting gloved hands. Given everything that could have gone wrong, I was remarkably composed during the birth. It was so animal down there. I forget that we're just naked animals. We take measures to hide it. We wear clothes. We shave. We talk. We reason. But just sit in on a birth and there's no mistaking that we and animals were derived from the same creator's brain.

He was quickly taken from me and given to Jill for a few bonding moments and a photograph. He laid naked under a hot light where I whispered it into his ear. Charles Abraham Shelton. I read Alex Haley's book Roots before Charlie was born and I always liked the idea of him being the first one to hear his own name. That's how Omoro Kinte had shared it with his son Kunta under a blanket of stars somewhere in the Gambia. Jill laid on the delivery table tended to by a busied nurse and her OBGYN. I filled the memory card on my camera. Charlie grunted for the first few minutes of his life. His eyes were puffy and oily from the salve the nurses applied to them. He was wide eyed though, and healthy. In the puffiness surrounding his eyes I saw my own father. Features from Charlie's mothers side included prominent cheekbones from his Grandpa and his Great-Grandma Mimi's mouth. His eyes were a milky gray-blue then. I didn't think they would change from that to hazel to the coffee brown in a clear glass color. He had a full round face like the man in the moon. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 6 oz, and was 20 3/4" long.

I took a picture of him taking a shower today. He has a beautiful little body. His skin is smooth and creamy. It looks like he has a half watermelon resting in his stomach. I gave him the regular spa treatment after leaving the shower. I wrapped him in a towel that smelled like conditioner and carried him to his green changing table. He just lies on the changing pad and repeats the word "need". I ask him what he needs. He says "need" again. I look around the room. I sort of expect someone else to be there. But it's just me and Charlie. The rocking chair sits idly while waiting for nighttime and a tired mother's ritual of rocking. The blade in the white fan is motionless and covered with gray dust. The entire house inflates when the air conditioner kicks on. Mounted on the wall are seven large block letters attached to his wall which spell "CHARLIE". Pointing to each letter I've come daily into the habit of teaching him the spelling of his own name. He hasn't been too interested until recently. Now he says "Letters. Touch." Beginning with the letter 'C', I leave the side of the changing table, touching and pronouncing each letter. I try to keep my weight on my leg nearest Charlie so I'm prepared to lunge across the room to keep him from falling on the floor. He's fallen once. He's pretty tough. I wonder what he thinks when I tell him to "brush it off"?

Jill leaves towels on her head after she showers. She looks foreign to me. I don't like big towels that much. Sometimes I use hand towels to dry off. I take hand towels to the gym to dry off after showering. A stocky Hispanic man with a mustache asked me if I forgot my towel the other day in the gym locker room. He asked me this while I was standing between two wall mounted air dryers. I had turned each blower head toward the center so they'd do some of the drying. He was wiping down with a big striped beach towel. It was much more towel than he needed. I am not going green either. But I could say I'm doing my small part for the environment since I often don't separate the recyclables for the trash truck.

Charlie and I watch the trash truck on Wednesdays unless there's been a holiday, then it arrives a day later. Our trash man is Angel. He has a moustache. Charlie says "MOOSE-tash". He gave us a Christmas card. He's nice. He waves. Charlie and I wait for him inside the house, behind the storm door. The blue trash truck's turning radius is wide. Angel has to do four, three point turns to pick up the trash at each of the four houses on our cul-de-sac.

Charlie knows his letters. We've been using flashcards since he was ten months old. The alphabet flashcards have pictures of famous, or not so famous works of art. Letter 'A' is for Angel. It is a painting of a woman with wings and a long flowing white gown against a dark background. I should replace it with a picture of Angel our garbage man and his big blue truck. Angel always wears a chartreuse vest and talks on the phone most of the time. I could paint a picture of him.

I get frustrated that Charlie can't draw very well. He just scribbles. He presses too hard. He colored his toenails with a black crayon. I got in trouble for letting him color on his unfinished wood blocks with a washable crayon. Apparently washable crayons don't wash off unfinished wood. He knows the shape of most of his wood blocks. In the morning I was too tired to get out of bed. I told him shapes of blocks and had him go get them for me. He had no trouble with triangle. (He pronounces it tra – babble)When I asked for a square shaped block, he returned with a rectangular block. I asked for a square again and he brought me a triangle. He knows his strengths. We had real problems when I requested a cylinder. I got out of bed when he came back with a hanger. I don't understand mental development. He can spot a circle shape on the wall at Starbucks without prompting, but he can't draw one. He can't even trace one. In fact, when I showed him how to trace a circle onto a piece of paper using the cylinder, was when he started drawing on the blocks. I think he is capable of so much, but I don't want to push him really hard. I don't want to be one of those parents. I want him to see a man like Angel who collects our trash and feel like I wouldn't judge him if that's what he ended up doing. But I do want to give him opportunities.

I just don't like to pack a full sized towel in my gym bag. My small gym bag gets crowded. I regularly carry a pair of fake crocs to wear in the shower. I have never owned a real pair of crocs shoes. I bought them two falls ago at the grocery store for five dollars. They are brown. I wore them when I stripped the paint off the front door. They are stained with cream colored paint and scarred by the paint stripping agent. That's okay. I don't wear them in public much.

Since staying at home, I've fallen into the habit of wearing the same clothes a couple of days in a row. Charlie is guilty of the same. Jill bought me a new pair of shorts so I'd wear something different. Charlie has too many clothes. I try to dress him cute for special occasions. Moms are always dressing their kids in cutesy outfits. In my opinion Charlie is studliest in a pair of camouflage shorts and a sleeveless top.

We went to the mall today. Charlie is fascinated by the handicap entrances. When we near the doors, he says "Push it. Button" in reference to the button which when pushed, automatically opens the set of doors. He was happy to push the button and wait the approximately 30 seconds for the doors to shut, then do it again. I stood outside with his stroller. He wore his Junior Zookeeper hat and a green, yellow and blue striped tee shirt. The tee shirt was stained down the chest and stomach with strawberry and banana smoothie from Starbucks. It was one of those moments where I reveled in being a full time father. Nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Watching my son open the handicap doors. The only responsibility I had was to keep him from pinching his fingers in the doors.

Jill is my wife. She is a good mom. Charlie adores her. The hardest part of my staying at home was knowing that Charlie was going to miss out on being with such a loving and nurturing woman. I don't for a second believe that she would be any less than ten times better and more capable of doing what I do. She was created to be a mother. We had run out of options.

A bird feeder and no birds

The Rockies lost to the Diamondbacks to go down two games to three in the series. Charlie was watching the final inning from his highchair. I baked a white pizza with spinach. I further divided the two remaining pieces into sixteen mouth poppers for Charlie. I don't want him choking during the game. I think Charlie has skipped his nap today. We went to the Children's Museum this morning after breakfast. He slept for ten minutes in the back of the hot car. He laid down for a while, but shortly thereafter, I noticed his quiet talking over the monitor. Maybe this means he'll go to bed before 10pm.

A finch finally found the feeder outside the French doors. It was my present for Father's Day. It hangs from a three foot piece of twine. The twine is tied to a drywall screw placed in the center of the soffit behind the guttering. At first I hung it on hook for outdoor candles shaped like a shepherd's staff. After an afternoon with no birds I moved it. I thought it was too low to the ground. If I were a bird, I'd want to be in a higher place to eat. I found a use for the hundred feet of metal electrical conduit propped up against the tan brick of the fireplace on the south side of the house that my father-in-law brought over.

The shepherd's staff fit like a glove into the pipe. That raised the bird feeder almost six feet off the ground. The next morning, instead of a bird, a squirrel was perched on the small copper plate at the bottom of the feeder. I opened the French doors and shouted. The squirrel fell to the ground and scurried up the tired fence. I'm worried. If I get more than two squirrels on one section of fence at the same time, I think it will fall over. I need to replace it. The house we share the fence with is for sale. The woman who used to live there fed pigeons every morning. She also took in stray cats. The pigeons haven't returned. I hope they don't learn about my feeder. I still see some of the cats though. A sly gray one slips through the gaps where the fence pickets are missing. I'll wait until someone buys the place. And let them split the cost of a new fence. I fear for strong winds too, not only for the fence to be blown over, but also the sickly cottonwood tree. It is the tallest tree in the neighborhood. When people get old and stand with difficultly, we coax them into wheelchairs. That old cottonwood needs to be cut down before it crashes into our house. I don't actually care if it falls on our house. I would want advance warning to get out with Jill and Charlie. That's what I value. I can't think of anything else I would take with me if the house was on fire. Maybe those three carats of tanzanite I bought for Jill from the home shopping channel. I still want to have them mounted and made into earrings. I guess pictures of Charlie and Jill are second to the real things. I'd come back for pictures. Everything else could be replaced. There are a few things that I would purposefully take back into the house if it were on fire. For example, one of Charlie's talking Barney toys which is in a box in the basement. If it happened to be out on the driveway when the flames were licking the dry shake shingles, I'd rush to feed the fire with its' plastic parts and electronic babble. It doesn't have an off switch or batteries. It won't turn off. It constantly cycles through a bevy of annoying songs. I'm not sure a fire would even stop it. I would end up hearing it in my dreams. The guilt would torment me. The event would be my 'Tell tale heart'.

I would rescue Silky. Silky is Charlie's blue silk comfort blanket. He is inconsolable without Silky. I would risk my life for Silky. Silky cannot be replaced. Literally. Its manufacturer is out of business. Charlie can spot a Silky phony without hesitation. I believe it is the smell. It has been exposed to everything his hands have touched; dirt, dead flies, toilet water. It has been pooped on, peed on, drooled on, thrown up on and dragged across the floor. Charlie is on the floor now in front of the television. He is lying on his back, watching a muscle car auction, eating a month old chocolate chip cookie. I love him. He asked me for a kiss today. That was a first. I've always had to request it. It was right after he'd finished his pizza. I scooted his chair next to mine so he could look out the French doors at the Finches. He looked right at me and smiled.

"Kiss." He said. He doesn't purse his lips. He raises his little chin and focuses his vision on infinity. His mouth was slimed with roasted garlic and shortbread cookie crumbs. I licked my lips instead of wiping them. I love him infinitely.

Anyway, the squirrels were able to grip the metal piping and scamper up from the ground to the feeder. I shouted more. I took the shepherd's crook out of the conduit. I stuck it in the ground. Even though it was much thinner, they could still get up it. That's when I relocated the feeder to hang from the soffit outside the French doors. First, I screwed it in the soffit too close to the roofline. The squirrels took to the trees and jumped on the roof. From the roof, they descended the twine to land on the feeder. I shouted. I relocated the hanging spot closer to the house. The squirrels then scaled the brick façade around the French doors and leaped onto the feeder. A rodent swinging the feeder into the door glass sounds just like someone trying to break into the house. I have two good reasons now to get a gun. Intruders and squirrels. No matter how clever those squirrels were, they couldn't ever figure out how to get the food out of the hole designed for the beak of a finch. After a week near heart attacks every night, the squirrels gave up. Now the birds are here. Being a father has perks.

I think I'll try to put Charlie down for his nap now. He is getting cranky. I just changed his diaper. The milk is warm. What did I do with Silky?

*Originally written on 7/12/09

A man in a woman’s world

I finally put Charlie to bed for his nap. I've heard rumors that someday he'll stop taking a nap. That means I'll have to stop it too. He used to take two naps a day. He would take roughly a two hour nap at 10am and then another one at 4pm. He's down to one now. He has been for six months. His naps are getting backed up. We had been on a 11am to 2pm nap routine pretty consistently for a couple months. Then he got all screwed up when he stayed with Gigi and Papa. I don't blame them too bad. They don't know how to tire him out like I do. I can manage him pretty well. Being a stay at home dad is really being part manager, part father. When it starts getting close to nap time, I check his vitals. If he's lying on the floor with Silky, I know we're good. If he is standing up in his stroller dancing to my cell phone ring, like he was today, intervention is needed.

I am isolated from the stay at home mother demographic. Our world is small. I am not invited to play groups. My kind is never seen in a group larger than one. We are not members of the sweatpant stroller brigade in the park. Though we are in the park, we push our strollers alone. No one blows a whistle at me. I set my own pace when I run. I do not stop and do lunges using my stroller to balance. I am slightly jealous of their community. Not just for me, but for Charlie. I want him to have friends.

I know we exist. We just don't have the network. I take Charlie to the mall every so often. The mall is my nightmare. It hit me one day that it is just a big warehouse filled with stores. I have loathed shopping all my life. If I have a need for something, which is rare, I find which store has the necessity, locate the store on the map, get in, buy good, and then get out. It's like robbing a bank. No need to waste time. I have painful memories of trying dickeys and plaid slacks on in the JC Penny fitting rooms with my Mom and Grandma.

The worst thing about malls are the walkway vendors. You know the people manning the little huts that don't really have a home in the center of the main boulevards. Charlie is thrown back against his stroller seat when I accelerate past these bauble hawkers. They are always foreign too it seems. They are the ones who sell the wind catchers, the alien paraphernalia, the acne cream, the hand lotion, the weight loss tea, and the hair extensions. They want you to try, taste, drink, smell, look, gaze, buy, buy, buy. I also eschew the Asian cuisine counters in the sprawling food court. They are aggressive about handing out free toothpick skewered samples.

"Excuse me. Excuse me, sir!" Charlie's curls straighten in the wind. I avoid eye contact with them like I do homeless people. Charlie smiles at them. He doesn't know yet. He trusts everyone. He wants to feed everyone goldfish crackers. He has not gotten sick from their samples.

I was sitting on a bench last night downtown after having a belated anniversary dinner with Jill. Seven years together. I was smoking a five dollar cigar, wearing the yellow authentic Tommy Bahama shirt Jill bought me for Father's Day. Another reason I don't need to shop is that my wife does it for me. Lights were strung across the street from top of building to top of building. The kind of strip lighting that we had in our Chevy conversion van that my dad bought just to drive us on our only family vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC. I was in the eighth grade. Okay, I told my friends we were going to Myrtle Beach. It sounded cooler than Ocean Isle, "The uncrowded alternative."

The sky beyond the lights was a deep blue. I think it's called cerulean. It was cloudless. I waited for Jill. Charlie was with his grandma, Gigi at home. A man approached my bench. He carried two leftover boxes from a restaurant down the street.

He nervously cleared his throat. "Sir, could you spare a dollar? I am flat broke."

In my wallet, I had two five dollar bills, one Yuan note and a five Yuan note that I have been carrying ever since we came back from China when Jill was five months pregnant with Charlie. For nearing a year, I haven't earned a dime or a Yuan. The ten dollars is money for babysitters. I can buy two hours of childcare for ten dollars from a fourteen year old girl. Yes, she makes more than I do. Her cell phone is better than mine too. She lets Charlie play with it. I don't know her cell phone capabilities. But it has a touch screen that Charlie likes. Mine is new. My old phone was stolen. Whoever stole it used it to make several calls. I dialed most of them. I told them all if they knew who stole it, they could turn it in, no questions asked. I never got it back. My new phone has regular buttons. Charlie can say 'button'. I am worried about his babysitter knowing CPR. What does someone her age really know about anything? I got my first pit hair when I was her age. I was worried about that too. Actually, when I first noticed, there were three hairs. I don't know which one was the first. Maybe they grow in clumps like river birch.

I'm a little jealous of traditional wage earners and it seems now of beggars. I opened a letter today from my Grandma Lucy. Two, one dollar bills fell out of it. I got excited. I think I started to salivate. I got disappointed. The note inside said they were for Charlie. I folded them up and slipped them into his piggy bank. It is heavy. It is heavy despite the fact that I had to borrow some of it a couple of weeks ago. The money was used to benefit Charlie, but I don't feel good about it. I'll replace it when I get paid hard cash for watching my child. I used to steal Eisenhower fifty cent pieces from my dad and buy candy at the pharmacy down the street. My guilt is stoked.

Jill doesn't lord it over me, the fact that I'm not earning money. Only when she wants to push a button. Usually she's pretty humble about it. We are blessed to make this arrangement work. Men who don't stay at home with their children should treat their spouses who do with deep respect and love.

I wanted to explain all this to the beggar, but I didn't. It kind of made me feel rich to be asked for money. That's mainly why people want money anyway, right? So other people think they have it. I told the guy I didn't have any cash rather than shame myself. I should have told him how much babysitters make. Everyone needs a good babysitter. Plus someone his age would get at least ten an hour. We were paying a mid twenty year old twelve an hour. Twelve an hour to play with my son? The new girl lives down the street. I figure we're getting her mom too if we need her.

***Update. Since writing this we gave Charlie's sitter a raise. She now makes six dollars per hour more than I do.

Different than I thought

My focus is slightly different today. I risk spreading the content too thin when I include such ancillary appendages like cigars or therapy, Tejano music or hot dogs. It's not that I couldn't fill volumes with all things hot dog, I could. But beyond the fact that Charlie has been fed hot dogs three of his last four meals, they aren't all that exciting. Try telling that to Charlie though. He loves them. I got in trouble for not cutting the pieces of hot dog up small enough. I never knew it before being a full time father, but hot dogs are one of the main causes of choking in children. Hot dogs, grapes and nuts round out the top three. If you're a mom that's probably instinctual knowledge.

I want to add oranges to that list. Ever since I've been feeding Charlie orange slices, he's gagged on them almost every time. I figured out he likes to chew on the orange, the entire slice, until all the juice has been sucked out. Not long after, he is left with two chubby cheeks full of fibrous pulp. When he tires of chewing on the pulp, he either spits it out onto his shirt, which hopefully is not white, or he tries to swallow the wad. If he spits it out onto the front of his shirt it either remains there, slightly gummy, dries up and sticks to the fabric, or it falls down into the crevices of his stroller where it does the same sticking and drying to either the stroller fabric or the back of his pants. All decaying food usually ends up looking the same when it finally comes the time to clean the stroller out. The one time I did clean out the stroller it amounted to tipping it over on the front lawn and shaking.

I've also seen him launch the pulpy wad into the air and land where it may. Even in the event he is able to swallow the orange, two out of three times, he will hack it up on his shirt, partly digested. I have begun to bite off the thickest pulpy skin before giving it to him. I never imagined myself doing this. I used to make fun of kids whose parents removed the crust from their bread. I do this now too. After removing the crust, I quarter the sandwiches into neat little sandwich triangles. He doesn't even like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I keep hoping he will. We went to a birthday party where they were served for the kids. He loved them. PB&J sandwiches and watermelon. He loved them both that day. It's funny. He still loves watermelon. He has never eaten a PB&J triangle since that day. I will keep trying. Maybe I'll try squares or circles. I haven't tested starving him yet. It's crossed my mind he doesn't care for PB&J. I really flopped on keeping him from nut products. That I can tell, he's never had an adverse reaction. The only thing he did react to was a bread pudding dessert at a restaurant. He just had a little bite of it too. A rash spread almost immediately over his lips, cheeks and under his chin. We called the doctor's office. They recommended Benedryl. By the time we picked up the Benedryl from the pharmacy, the rash had gone away.

Anyway, about cutting food up. Before I knew about the choking risks, I let Charlie try adult sized bites of foods. I swear, he has never choked while I have been on the clock. I didn't change my belief in my son's ability to chew his food. What changed me was Jill. If she thought the pieces I gave him were too big, she would always say something, but what she would always do, was stare. She would watch Charlie so closely, so intently, each bite he'd shovel into his mouth. The real risk of choking was my wife. I'm telling you it ruined entire meals the way she readied herself mentally to throw our little boy over her thigh and whack him on the back. My throat even felt somewhat restricted. I've never choked on anything. Well, I did swallow a plastic spork when it broke off in my mouth. It was lodged in there for a while I remember. My mom made me drink saltine crackers and milk. I remember drinking the milk out of a tall slender green cup.

Everyone was tense during mealtime. Everyone but Charlie. I think he misses the attention from his mommy, now that I cut the food up into pieces an ant could swallow whole. In fact, I believe since then, Charlie has faked choking just to get her attention. It's nice though. Jill and I can talk.

**Update

Since I wrote this, Charlie has enjoyed several PB&J's. After unsuccessfully going through grape jelly and strawberry preserves, we've settled on seeded red raspberry jam to accompany his peanut butter. I started buying thin wheat sandwich slices. They are only 100 calories for the whole roll and they naturally don't have crust so there is no de-crusting involved.

Escape Artist

Charlie can climb out of his crib. On one hand I am proud of him. No one taught him how to do this. He has such an independent streak. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to his newfound freedom. Escaping is useful for fleeing captors and quickening a prison term, but my nineteen month old son is not able to distinguish Mom and Dad from America's Most wanted or jail staff.

I should correct myself. Charlie can climb out of his crib handily. When he does it he looks like a gymnast dismounting the pommel horse. He has accomplished it twice before today. The first time was a few weeks ago. I was set on weaning him of his bottle before naptime. When I refused his request, he flew into a tirade. He became most foul; unappeasable. Nothing I did would make him stop screaming. I sang to him. He cried louder. I tried to tickle him. He batted my hands away. I didn't know anything about weaning a child of his bottle. I had no idea what a powerful addiction it is, although I should have. Empty bottles and nipples with coagulated dairy are strewn about the house like discarded syringes and spoons in a squatter settlement.

I know a little something about addictions. In my experience of giving things up, going cold turkey is the best way to beat an addiction. But whole milk addiction is different. For thirty entire minutes Charlie let me have an earful. I ignored him mostly. I think he tried to hurt himself by falling down so I'd pick him up. I wasn't going to submit. When Jill finally came home, I had extended my patience beyond its usually generous boundaries. To the crib we sent him. With the partially closed bedroom door muffling his yelps, Jill and I huddled and embraced at the end of the hallway. Actually we were praying for Charlie and each other, asking for God to relieve the tremendous guilt we both carried. In the middle of our prayer, God interceded. The house became eerily quiet.

That must have been when Charlie was in the air dismounting. He must have had superhuman strength. The next thing we heard was tiny footfalls against the hardwood floor. The escapist appeared dubiously moments later. When I asked him how he got out of his crib, he laughed.

After that we decided to put weaning off. It was just a week before boarding a plane for Muncie to visit family and we had no desire to battle with him on the plane. The second time he escaped, I received a call on my cell phone from Jill letting me know he'd done it again.

He has not had a bottle for 48 hours now. We completely cut him off. He's doing well. He hasn't even asked for it. It takes extra time to get him down, but he goes down without the bottle. The cold turkey tactic worked. Jill bought him some Diego sippy cups. Charlie has a Diego doll with an orange jacket and blue boots. The doll says 25 randomly recycled phrases. Diego says "Adios!" So does Charlie.

Building a House

It's all quiet here. Jill hasn't come out of Charlie's room yet. He still goes down with a bottle of milk. "Mooky", he calls it. "Mooky and Silky." His bottle of milk and his blue silk blanket are a quite the combination. Alone they have unique functions. The bottle of milk quenches the thirst. Silky calms him when he is afraid. Together, however, they become something else. Together they send off into deep sleep. Jill and I each have our own favorite ways to put him to bed. Jill likes take him inside his bedroom. She sits in his rocking chair. She lays him across her lap, rests his head on a pillow in the crook of her arm. Charlie holds the bottle with one hand and Silky in the other. In the winter, it's a little space heater, in the summer it's a fan that creates the relaxing white noise. Since it is the summertime and it is nearing ninety dry degrees outside, the fan whirs and oscillates. Jill likes to sing softly to him. She is not known for her singing, but it is soothing. When she is relaxed, the notes come out of her mouth rich like a dark stain on a wood grain.

She lulls him and rocks him. She lulls him with classic nursery rhymes like "Do You Know the Muffin Man" and "A Tisket, a Tasket." I can hear them over the baby monitor. Sometimes I just enjoy hearing their voices.

My neighbor is on his roof. He is wearing a ball cap and taking measurements with a yellow tape measure. He is German. He speaks with an accent. He is an engineer. His wife makes cheesecakes. She is an engineer too, but she also bakes cakes. She is also Germanic. Their daughter is seven. She plays video games. He has side burns. He has an air gun. He has been at work for the past year building his house. He is nailing plywood to his roof joists with his air gun. He comes home from work every night and builds his house, nail by nail. He had a foundation poured and started building the new frame around the existing frame. After the frame went up, he dismantled the old frame from the inside. The last piece was the roof. The old roof trusses came down in sections. He had to work quickly while his house was exposed to the elements. Unfortunately, he picked an El Nino year to take his roof off. He's had some bad breaks. It's been wetter this summer than any since 2000 when I moved to Colorado. Our grass should be brown now. But it's green. I mow it every week. That's twice as much as last year. The dark storm clouds usually begin to threaten from the West, rolling in from the mountains. I have watched them scramble to roll tarps out over the holes in the roof just as the raindrops begin to descend.

It was just that scenario the other day. Late afternoon. Darkening sky preceded by a tree bending gale. I took Charlie with me on the front porch.

"Funder!" He said anxiously as he looked up at the rumbling sky. In no time the ground swelled with moisture. Water gushed from the downspouts. The hot streets steamed as the cool rain hit them. I stood up and carried him out into the downpour. He shook his arms crazily. Harder and he would have taken flight. It must be awfully curious to be an eighteen month old being held in a summer shower beneath a thundering gray sky, streaked with bolts of lightning and buffeted by the wind. What a crazy experience it would be if you've never had it before. The sights, the sounds, the smells.

I spent the better part of Charlie's naptime yesterday putting a gazebo together. The neighbor inspired me. It had been in my garage since two falls before. I bought at the grocery store on deep discount. It wasn't too complicated to assemble. I have trouble with directions. I like the pictures. I do not like the words. It took me twice as long as it should have to erect the structure. I assembled the frame twice. First, the wrong way, then the right way.

I never really learned how to do anything from my father. My Grandpa would come over to our house and fix things when I was a child. He would bring an old painted chipped tool box. It was heavy. Inside it smelled like grease and metal and rust and WD-40. I watched him wrench loose nuts. And turn screwdrivers. And pound the heads of nails. I loved to watch him work.

After attaching the last Velcro strapping of the mosquito netting to the metal bar, I brought in white Christmas tree lights from a green tote in the garage and strung them throughout the canvas covered structure. I imagine God creating the world, adding the finishing touches and sitting back to relax and enjoy his creation. I do this after I paint a picture. I stare at it.

I stare at Charlie too. Sometimes I think, "I did that?"

It's usually when he is having his bottle with me. He now verbalizes his preferences. "Cold." He says when he wants cold milk. "Warm – mikawave." He insists when he wants his bottle heated in the microwave oven. I prefer to sit on the end of the couch. I can rest Charlie's head in the corner of the overstuffed leather armrest. I support his back with a chenille covered throw pillow. This frees both my arms. My beverage is able to sit on the lamp table. I open with Poe's "Ulalume." Charlie plays with a corner of Silky. The rhyme and meter of the audible lyrics rock Charlie back and forth between the dim lake of Auber and the ghoul haunted woodland of Weir. He knows the words. He can predict them now. He removes the silicone nipple from his mouth anticipating his favorite words; sober, sere, sere, 'tober, year. I sing him to sleep sometimes, but not often. I like Jesus Loves Me, Edelweiss and Down in the Valley. His little body is heavier when he is asleep.

Sometimes he begins to snore with the bottle in his mouth. His ninetieth percentile sized head hangs limply from his shoulders. His wet lips are parted. I wipe the drool and milk from his chin with his blanket, Silky. I kiss him and lower him down onto his crib mattress amid a half dozen plush animal toys. He rolls to his stomach, settles in against the bumper pad and pulls his bruised legs underneath his body. I drape him with a light cotton blanket. I remove an extra linen and a couple of stuffed animals. He stirs. I inhale. I turn his fan on. As the blade begins to rotate, I tiptoe out over the carpet and into the hallway. I close the door gently behind me. I exhale. I listen. He whimpers. I wait. I can only hear the muffled sound of the fan motor. Charlie is asleep.

Running in the dark

Charlie slipped in the shower this morning. The gray marble tiles of the floor were covered with soap suds. He lost his footing. I saw him do it. He was going under the bridge. Literally, he was walking between my legs. It's a game he likes to play in the shower while I lather up. I feel neglectful. He doesn't have any bath toys to play with. I quit giving him baths in exchange for showers with me. Baths were taking too long. Plus kids can drown in water. Water doesn't collect in showers like it does in baths. I have a fear that I won't be able to do CPR properly. Every other day or so I try to replay the CPR steps that I performed on a fake baby in the parenting class at the hospital. It was long ago. Nineteen months have gone by. I get CPR and the Heimlich confused sometimes. I think the Heimlich becomes CPR if you can't get the peanut, hot dog, or grape dislodged. I can't remember how many compressions to breaths to give. Is it two breaths and thirty compressions? The CPR people changed the rules just months before we attended our class. It was all new then. But, the instructor taught us the old procedure too. Rather, she told us about it. It doesn't matter. Either way, she tainted me. I blame her for my feeling of incompetence. The CPR process changes after a certain age too. I don't remember what age that is. What if the CPR people decide to change the rules again?

That's why we take showers. That's why Charlie goes under the bridge. That's why Charlie's only toy is a squeegee which is also used to wipe the glass down. He was just coming out from under the bridge when it happened. I had just kicked the squeegee to the corner, out of his way, seeing it as a tripping hazard. He fell backward and hit his head on the corner of the shower stall base. I picked him up quickly. I held on to him tightly. I was afraid of dropping him. His skin was soapy. I have learned to turn my ear when Charlie screams. The first one is the worst one. I know it's coming. His face becomes red. He scrunches his eyes and widens his mouth. If he weren't about to yell, it would be the perfect posturing to put a good brushing on his molars. He doesn't open wide for his mom when it's time to brush. I don't know how well she can get back there. I don't want him to get cavities. I am cavity prone. The last time I got a filling the dentist jammed the novocaine needle right into a nerve. I had serious thoughts about switching dentists. I don't want Charlie to have to endure that kind of pain. Visits to the pediatrician are nightmares. I can't imagine having to hold Charlie down for a shot in the gum. My childhood dentist was Dr. Hub Hougland. His dental practice had a black chest with brass adornments in the hall that exited back to the waiting room. It was filled with all kinds of crap. I remember getting a pink plastic ring with a spider on it. Charlie's pediatrician has a sticker drawer. I let him get two stickers after his eighteen month visit. I think there is a one sticker policy, but we had to wait for 45 minutes. How do you end up waiting for 45 minutes when you are the first scheduled appointment of the day? I am seriously considering finding a new pediatrician. But that's the catch. The really good doctors are busy. We could probably find a bad one with a smaller patient load and spend less time waiting.

I get afraid when he holds his breath so long. I think he is going to pass out. Right before the ear splitting cry, he fills his lungs with fresh air. That's when I lean back and turn my head. Then he lets it go. It's amazing. It's so shrill and piercing. I turn back to look at him. The subsequent cries are never as bad. He calls out for Mommy. Comforting Charlie is her forte. I recognize it as a weakness. Perhaps it's a gender weakness moreover. I used to wait way too long when he fell before consoling him. I wanted to make him tough. Jill is holding and kissing him right when it happens. I lack her comforting skills. I try to distract him. I stick my tongue out under the spray of the shower head.

"Try thith." I say. It works for a second. His face softens. Then he cries again. I am an imperfect substitute for a mother's love. I check the back of his head for swelling or bleeding. None there. The scary thing is he could have internal hemorrhaging and I wouldn't know it. They say if he acts tired it could be as a result of a concussion. Great, but what if it's his nap time?

I take him out of the shower. The towel I use to dry him smells mildewed. On his changing table, I lather his soft little body with lotion. His enjoys it on his shoulders. He asks for powder. I oblige him. He asks for Desitin. I apply the cream.

I finish dressing him, retrieve silky, warm him a bottle of milk and read The Raven to him on the couch. His eyelids become droopy. His breath becomes deeper. I hope he's okay. He drinks through The Raven and The Bells. It's our old routine. I wonder about telling Jill about his fall. I left him on the porch one day in his stroller. I had to go back inside for something before our run. While I was inside I got to wondering if I had locked the wheels on the stroller. Panic drove me to the front door. Through the screen door I could see the stroller lying sideways in the middle of the yard where it had come to rest after rolling down the front steps and toppling over in the grass. I ran out to the stroller. My heart was in danger of stopping. I was trying to recall CPR. Was it the new rules or the old ones? I turned the stroller upright and peeled back the sun shade. He was still strapped in. He was asleep. Thank God. I didn't tell Jill about it for a few days. I didn't want her to think I was an incapable caretaker. I've decided to tell her. She should know so she can take precautions when she showers with him.

I walk a fine line wanting to ensure his survival but build in him character. I'm also learning that it's okay to pick him up and reassure him. And like yesterday, I'm learning to be faster with my cell phone camera. Charlie had stuck his finger through the straw hole in the lid to a water cup. He held up his chubby hand with his index finger firmly lodged in the hole. "Stuck." He said. As I fumbled for my camera, he started to whimper. People who had been oblivious to us, now were staring at us. His cries became more desperate. Before taking the picture, I shoved the cell phone back in my pocket and began the unimaginably tedious task of prying his finger from the hole. I missed a good picture, but I think I did the right thing by Charlie.

Dentist

I went to the dentist today. Janet was the hygienist. I wouldn't recognize her without her clear safety goggles and breathing mask. I know a little about her. I know more about her than she knows about me. She used to work in the world of finance. She said it wasn't for her. She liked working with people. In midlife, she switched careers. That's what I'm planning on doing too someday. Janet never mentions a husband or children. She speaks of her nephews and nieces. Her nephew is a life guard at one of the water parks in town. I've taken Charlie there once. We had to wait for twenty minutes in line to get in. When we did finally make it inside, all the chairs were taken. I parked the stroller next to a sizeable flower planter. At least it was shady. I forgot sunscreen even though I brought everything else. I always bring more than we need. I grew up watching "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall. It was a game show. Monty Hall had a nice smile.

Charlie lost one of his shoes at the pool that day. My wife Jill called and left a message, but the call wasn't returned. I wondered if Janet the hygienist's nephew took the call. She said he didn't really have a job, he just had fun all the time. That's what it's like being a stay at home dad. I wonder if everyone in Janet's family wears a breathing mask and clear safety goggles.

It's awkward to have my teeth cleaned. As Janet perched a mere twelve inches above my face, I tried not to stare at her. Charlie can get away with staring at people. He's a flirt. I focused on objects in the periphery of the room. A large and colorful map of the world was on the left side of the dental chair. I studied it for a while, trying to locate Malawi. A friend of ours went there on a medical mission. It didn't immediately pop out. Last night I watched a program on PBS about the formation of the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange. I have not been to Africa. I had a roommate who was from Kenya. I didn't realize how large an area Khazakstan covered. I found Gambia. Kunta Kinte was from Gambia before he was captured and sold into slavery.

The map was distracting. Janet used a super-sonic scraper to remove plaque and buildup from my teeth. She warned me it would be loud when she applied the tool to the wisdom teeth far back in my mouth. Charlie's babysitter is having her wisdom teeth pulled. She watched him the other night while Jill and I went to dinner. Jill says were gambling with her. She thinks that she won't be able to react swiftly enough in case of an emergency. She is just fourteen. I wonder sometimes too. She offers very little information about what she and Charlie do together. I had to go back into the house to retrieve something before we headed to dinner. When I walked in, I could hear Charlie laughing really hard in the back of the house. They have a good time together. I was a crossing guard at school when I was in the fifth grade. I wore a white nylon strap over my shoulder with a sliver badge pinned to it. I was most irresponsible at that age. Yet, on my watch, there was not a single fatality.

I wasn't able to look at the map as much as I wanted. Janet preferred working from my right side. She made me tilt my head toward her and to the right about eighty percent of the visit. That is why I am experiencing soreness in my neck. The only thing to look at on the right side, beyond Janet's gold earring was a red and white sticker on the wall that said 'RADIATION HAZARD'. I was feeling pretty good though. She told me my teeth were in excellent condition. I have never received such a report. Normally, I am scolded for my lack of flossing. I am gravely warned of the consequences of poor dental hygiene and am tortured into admitting that I haven't flossed as much as I have liked to floss. It was refreshing like the option to have either cherry or mint flavored paste for my cleaning. I didn't really experience much pain either. Admittedly, I have been conscious of taking better care of my teeth. Last time I had a filling, the dentist inserted the numbing needle too far into my gum and I almost passed out. I don't want to go through that again. I am tired of decay. I did stare at the loose skin on Janet's neck and the soft white hair on her ears. Her eyebrows were neatly groomed and plucked. I could've counted the hairs if I'd wanted to count them. Her eyes were milky green and focused on her task. I could see my open mouth in the reflection from her goggles. I only had to uncomfortably swallow twice when the fluid built up at the back of my throat. It is a marked difference from my previous visit when I thought I was going to drown at least six times.

The sonic scraper implement was loud when it reverberated right next to me ear. However it was not as splitting as Charlie's screams were yesterday when I took him out to eat for dinner. I had to wake him up from his nap to keep him on schedule and as a result he was very moody. I had spent the whole day and into the evening with him, because Jill had commitments and couldn't relieve me. I usually turn away from him or turn him out of my way to avoid having my eardrums popped by his shrill screams, but it's nearly impossible when trying to get him buckled into his car seat. And the fact that he's going into his car seat, makes the cries more desperate and piercing.

The bar attached to the ceiling was called (Dental Lighting Systems). It was made by Belmont. It made me think about the Belmont Stakes. I like watching horses run. It's never long enough.

I had made it through the cleaning with nothing but a sore neck. While Janet and I waited for the Dr. to arrive, she told me she was going to update my records to show that I've had two teeth extracted. It's congenital. They were both baby teeth. I have to save up for implants. I'd rather get a motorcycle.

Dr. Murray wears a pair of thick rimmed glasses with small binoculars attached to the lenses and the familiar breathing mask. He asks me about my family and if I have any big plans for the summer. I tell him that we are going to my Mom's house in Muncie next week. He asked if the trip was a vacation or a mandatory visit. Then he puts his hand in my mouth and I could only respond to him by grunting. I don't even know what I said. He concentrates his pick on one of my teeth. I feel it scraping and picking. He tells Janet that I have a small spot of decay. She is sorry for me. I am sorry for me. I had almost made it.