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.