a little something

Henry was first up to take a shower today. He has entered a stage of self-awareness that has triggered  hygienic behavior. It started with a butt check to see if he had wiped well. He has also requested I install the bidet attachment to the toilet. And this morning he spent 10 minutes in front of the mirror working on his hair. Charlie and I assisted Henry last night in preparing a powerpoint presentation about lions for later this week. He was worried. We didn't finish, but I think it helped his anxiety that we spent some time with it. I love helping my children.
There was a spider on the driver's window of the car this morning. The boys and I watched it. We wondered how long it could hang on as we drove. It held on pretty well up to 30 mph. On a turn it lost its grip. As we accelerated up to top speed of 40 mph it was literally hanging on by a thread. At a stop it found its way behind a protrusion which protected it from the wind. I know what that feels like to be hanging on by a thread. I also know how it feels to find a place away from the turbulence. Joy and peace can exist in either space.

On Being Present

I dropped the boys off at school yesterday. As is typical I told them each I loved them before they got out of the car. Henry almost always responds by saying “I love you too Dad.” Sometimes this statement of love is unprovoked. Henry offers it up before I ever say a word.

Charlie is different. He just doesn’t say “I love you” very much. Now, he does usually respond. Though, normally it’s with a “Me too” or a “yeah” or even an “uh-huh”. There’s usually recognition. Usually, but not always. But to a large extent, he doesn’t say “I love you”. I can’t recall when the last time he said it was. I don’t ever give him a hard time about it. I don’t comment. I just observe.

Yesterday Charlie said “I love you too.”

This I observed also. I sat in the car for a moment and watched him walk toward the school. I pulled away from the curb, out of the parking lot, and made my way to work.

It wasn’t until lunch time that I thought about this again. As was typical for me, I was inside my head, not really in the moment. But I’m learning to catch myself. Sometimes it’s a sound that breaks the trance. Or a smell. It’s too much to chronicle about, but suffice it to say that the trance is about being somewhere else. It’s about being in the future and worrying about what will come. Or, I’m rehashing some form of the past, massaging some previous experience. It’s being quite caught up in the stories inside my head. While reality is happening, I am stuck in a book, in my mind.

And so, I was brought back into the present. I felt the warm sun on half of my body. And I noticed how cool the other side of my body felt in the shadows. I heard car engines, footsteps, wind blowing, and my own breath. I remembered then to return to the breath. It’s always doing its thing. And then I was there. Reality. And I was aware that reality is all I really have. And that is a sweet place. But it also frightens me. Because, in reality, there is nothing to hold on to. Immediately, I want to return to the book. But I let it go and find my breath again. Reality is a bizarre place for me. It’s a world I’m not quite trained for. It is fraught with very basic things, like feeling. Reality is also ever changing. It’s this idea of impermanence that strikes fear in me. If things are impermanent, there is a chance I will suffer loss. Not just a chance, it is mostly probable. And loss is suffering. And suffering is reality. Because, for me, I want to hang on to something that is good. If reality is changing, then there is nothing to hang on to. Things break. Good things fade. The sun sets. Youth disappears. Love wanes. People die. That thing that brought me so much joy is suddenly gone. That person left. That job ended. That child grew up. That flower withered and died.

So I guess the lesson for me these days is to be able to accept reality and forget about holding on to it. I stop trying to chase things that bring pleasure and avoid things that are painful. Just be with reality. Be with suffering. Be with myself. And to put it more practically, marvel at the beauty of the flower, take pleasure in my children, appreciate the uniqueness of people and relationship, be grateful for work, savor the fleeting pleasure of youth, the mystery of love and enjoy the warm rays of the sun.

Charlie saying “I love you”, I think, is a product of my living more fully in reality. Being in reality is a choice. It’s about letting go. Letting go of expectations, judgments, fears. For me it’s about being at peace with the idea that all that is real is right here in my present experience. Maybe there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell. I don’t know. I certainly believe there is a God, but what or who that God is, I don’t have a clue. Maybe I will never know. We did get here by some means. And maybe it’s all invented to give people power and control. Perhaps religion is a way to keep humans from completely destroying one another because we are inherently bent on the need to survive. I don’t know this either. But I’m not afraid to question it. I’m not afraid to ask what is the point of suffering or could a world without it even exist. Was Eden real or even possible? Two identical people in behavior and thought, one believes in Christianity for one moment, one doesn’t. One goes to hell, the other doesn’t? Sin? Am I a sinner or am I just human? Is there really anything wrong with me (or anyone) or are we just trying to do the best we can do with what we know? I don’t much believe in anything, but I get it now. I get why it’s important to many people. It’s a way to avoid reality. It makes suffering palatable.

I have wondered just how much I have changed over the past couple of years. Sometimes I think I am getting nowhere, or regressing even. I question whether I am making sound choices. But I know I am more present. I am more aware. I’m not perfect. I still chase after things. I still get stuck in my head. I am human. I accept that. I accept that change is gradual. I see things differently. I think I see what is important and what is not. I see that reality never lasts long and things can’t make me happy. I see that because of the impermanent nature of reality nothing lasts, joy erodes. But on the other side of that equation is that pain and loneliness and sadness are impermanent too. Feelings come in and out of reality too. And I don’t have to jump ship when these feelings come. I can be with them. I can welcome them and be hospitable to them.

All these things I have learned, I can put into practice by being present with Charlie and Henry. I think being afraid of losing people, of loss in general, suffering, has kept me from being present with them. And I see that by escaping the present, I have already lost. So when I am with them, I am with them. And that makes a huge difference in a relationship. I know, I grew up with a father who was never present and I never had a relationship and I sensed it and knew it, but now I really know it.

So, two beautiful things I attribute partially to being in the present moment. One, Charlie was able to say “I love you.” Two, I was able to experience tears of joy when thinking about it.

Henry and Santa

 "You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

Henry will be seven in a few months. He is quite something lately. Coming into his own. His own ideas, beliefs, values. His own identity. He is a passionate one. He inexorably defends his conceptions of morality and justice, in word (e.g., "you are not my boss!") and by deed (e.g., punching Charlie). He is staking out his place; working out his salvation. He is also an intuitive observer. He is not afraid to ask questions to make sense of the world. Generally, I can handle his inquisitive nature, which is mostly fixated on the differences between male and female anatomy. It's all fairly black and white. (I rely heavily on Wikipedia.)

At the close of a long day Charlie, Henry and I sat together after a long day, eating ice cream. Henry had just lost his first tooth and was very proud to show it to me in a little wooden jewelry box, which he would leave under his pillow for the Tooth Fairly. The boys listened while I read from Lee Strobel's, The Case for a Creator, a book which argues the existence of God. It's best in small doses. We read some, then we talked. Charlie asked me to define unfamiliar words and terms for him as we went along; "narrow-minded fundamentalists", "random genetic mutation", "unguided natural process", "iconoclast", "Darwinism". We were chatting, wrapping our minds around ideas such as humans being ancestors of trees and monkeys, macro and micro evolution and the "missing link", the fossilized remains of the part bird/part reptile archaeopteryx. However, the discussion quickly devolved.

"Tell me the truth!" He demanded. "Is Santa Claus real?"

Charlie sat next to me on the couch, furtively eyeing me to see how I would respond to Henry's interrogatory.

Charlie doesn't ask questions about the world. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but when he comes to me with a question, his mind seems to me to be more or less made up. I think his ideas are shaped differently than Henry's. He interprets what he sees internally, formulates his opinion, and looks to other things for confirmation of his newly formed beliefs.

Charlie remembers well, and so do I, sitting across from me at a fast-casual Japanese restaurant, discussing St. Nick. He was four years old. As was his recollection, "I knew it was impossible for someone to deliver presents to a billion people in one night." His limited experiences had taught him to know the implausibility of such a feat. It wasn't a question of whether Santa existed, it was a conclusion. He looked to me to confirm what his logic denied. What did he conclude about me that day?

On the other hand, Henry is good at living in the gray. He checks things out. He gathers information, experiments. His ideas are flexible and he socializes them. Sometimes his socialization of an idea is so aggressive, it seems like conviction, but I think it's just his way of trying things out.

It didn't take too long for me to come clean to Henry. If I had been more conscientious about what I believed 10 years ago, I would have never done Santa Claus. (I would also have opted out of circumcising the boys. It's barbaric.)

Santa Claus is BS. So is the Christmas that most of us celebrate; an exchange of meaningless material goods among the poor for the benefit of the rich. Lying to kids about anything is also BS. Lies are complicated to unravel and trust is undermined.

After it was settled that mom and dad lied to him about Santa, he asked for a piece of paper to write a note to the Tooth Fairy telling him/her "PLEAS DO NOT TAKE"(the tooth). I felt like breaking the news to him then about the Tooth Fairy, but I didn't want to overload him. After that, we read a little more from the Stobel book. Henry fell asleep on the couch. I carried Henry to his bed. Charlie followed and I tucked him in.

I paused at Henry's bed and prayed for him silently, watched him sleep.  I considered leaving him a note that said, "Dear Henry, I am a liar. The tooth fairy is not real either. but you must believe me, God exists. Trust me." I didn't. I have little control. God draws people even in the midst of distractions and lies. To those with dads who are good and those with bad ones. He will find out someday. He'll ask the questions because that's what he does. And he'll ask questions about God too. And he'll discover the truth if he looks for it.

shot gun

The boys share a room at my house. They sleep on a bunkbed. Henry on top, Charlie on the bottom. It's a spartan setup. One average sized room with a bunk bed and a dresser. Sharing one dresser is not working out for several reasons. When Henry searches for clothes to wear, he tosses everything out onto the floor. Two, Henry grabs Charlie's clothes. Charlie screams. Henry punches Charlie.

So I decided with the new school year coming it was time to get the boys a second dresser, among other things to make it feel more like home.

Reluctantly, I planned to take them to Ikea. I avoid most shopping because it is loathsome to me for many reasons. Ikea, however, combines my detest of shopping with my fear of being trapped, which makes it a very unpleasant experience. I fear I may never get out. Of course there are signs which point the way and, if followed, will eventually lead to the exits, but the arrows take me through the long and twisted maze, through departments I would never be inclined to visit. Walking the carefully designed route takes hours, the carts are not normal carts with the pivot points I am used to from regular shopping cart, require much more effort to steer. Having any kind of speed approaching corners requires a lot of muscle or the likelihood of running into someone or something is increased.

I get impatient. There are secret passages, and if taken, one can bypass irrelevant, superfluous, browsing departments and exit faster. However, they are purposely well hidden. 

In order to haul the dresser, one of the boys was going to have to ride in the front seat. And for whatever reason, a child is not allowed to ride in the front passenger seat. But necessity is what it is. So I put a booster seat up front and because Charlie is the tallest and the oldest, I allowed him to sit there. 

Henry was extremely disappointed and jealous, because he wants to be equal with Charlie. Charlie knows this and takes the opportunity to subtlely rub it in by making such comments as 

"It's so different up here. It feels like I am on top of the world." and 

"It's like everything is speeding toward me through the windshield" and

"You can see the whole world from up here." and 

"The back seat is for babies." and so on.

And somewhere they picked up that the front passenger seat was also called shotgun. I then remembered how I coveted the front seat and how the world did seem bigger and my views on the world changed and how my ego and self confidence expanded, ex-officio.

I tried to explain the etymology of the term shotgun in the particular usage and probably how it came from bank robbers and the passenger carried a shot gun and shot at the police during their getaways. I told them how, when I was a kid, the first person to leave the house on our way somewhere, to cry out "shotgun!", would be honored with the front passenger seat.

It took two times to check out. The first time with the wrong items. The second time with the correct ones. As we neared the gaping automatic doors, the exit, Henry bolted ahead of Charlie. Crossing the threshold he triumphantly exclaimed "Gun shot!" Several patrons immediately hit the ground, but for me, laughter exploded almost instantly from my heart like buckshot from a smith and wesson.

Henry's world got a little bigger on the way home.

I introduced Charlie to a "new" blue dress shirt, compliments of Ben and Alex, young philanthropists.

"Dad," he said, rising up onto his knees in his chair, "I think that would go really well with my camel blazer."

Couldn't agree more.

With Easter coming soon, I have taken advantage of stocking up on marshmallow peeps. I can't justify eating them alone. If I am tempted to eat an entire package of twelve yellow bunnies or eight blue chicks, I set aside one for Charlie. If I don't eat them all myself, I don't have a problem.
Yesterday evening was one such occassion. Jill made carbonara, but had used noodle "shells" instead of regular spaghetti noodles. Not surprisingly, this consternated Charlie, as well as the detestable smell of parmesan cheese, to the point of his initiating a hunger strike. However, I was able to use the peep dually, as incentive for Charlie to eat five small bites of his dinner and as expiation for my indulgences.
After dinner, Charlie walked circuitously around the dining room table, savoring his one peep. After several dozen laps, he stopped. "Dad," he said, "tonight when I am listening to my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory CD in bed, I am going to get up and pause it and say a prayer for you to stop eating peeps. They are not good for you."

What did he say?

Charlie, Henry and Jill took a shower together earlier this week. Charlie said, “Mom, pretty soon we’ll know if Henry is a boy or a girl.”


Last night at supper, I asked Charlie if he’d like to pray for mom to do well on her test. He replied, “You can do it, Dad. You love her more than I do.”

I’d been working from Starbucks all afternoon today. When I got home, Charlie told me I smelled like poop. (Notice how I prefaced that by saying I had been at Starbucks all afternoon. I am mostly certain he meant to say I smelled like coffee.)

Charlie told me this evening that screaming at children is a good way to distract them. He added, “It’s also a good way to make them cry and go inside.”

Charlie, Henry and I shared a big white chicken bowl at Tokyo Joe’s for dinner. Now that he is four he will eat the “chestnut waters” and snap peas. He did not eat them when he was two. Henry ate strained peas, pears and lots of rice. Afterward, we strolled to King Soopers. Charlie has learned from Jill where the manager’s special section is located. Henry and I caught up to him there. He tried to get me to buy a discounted fire log.

Marshmallow Peeps were on sale, ten for a dollar. I started loading them in the stroller hold. Charlie interrupted me. “Wait a minute, Dad.” He said, “You’re kidding me. You’ve gotta slow down. Candy is not healthy.”

St. Patrick's Day 2012

After feasting on green pancakes for breakfast, Henry, Charlie and I spent the afternoon of St. Patrick's Day at the zoo while Jill studied. It was Henry's first time on the carousel. Due to the crowds, I had to leave Charlie, unattended on a cassowary, in order to accompany Henry on a nearby ostrich.

Notwithstanding the indifference of the ride conductor, who rather flatly addressed us, the children delighted in the sensory experience, the up and down, the round and round, the air, the music, etc. which was no doubt enriched by the fear of falling.

Charlie was excited at first. I looke up to see him smiling and waiving back at us. Noting he was content, I focused most of my attention to Henry who was giggling when the ostrich he was on came to the peak of its rotation. He was obviously enjoying him. I am not sure how long Charlie was watching, but the next time I checked on him, he returned my smile with a contemtous scowl.

Later, we strolled along the west end of the zoo. Henry, was engaging in paraoxysms of wonder at the sighting of every living creature. I was worried he would stop breathing when he saw the wild Mongolian horses. Similar reactions occurred at the sighting of the Bongo, the Lesser Kudu and the Black Rhinocerus. It was while we were waiting for a submerged hippopatamus to resurface, that a group of a dozen gangly kids approached from the opposite direction singing, the chorus of Queen's song "We are the Champions", made even more obnoxious by the breaking of several pubescent voices on the high notes.

As they walked by, that same scowl I had seen on the carousel returned to Charlie's face. Charlie responded to the commotion by saying, "Dad, teenagers are disgusting!"

I believe the hippopotamus stayed under the water until they had passed.

I drank coffee. Charlie, root beer.

Spring reminds Charlie of baseball and the song "Take me out to the ball-game!" Spring is also reminiscent of hot dogs. Hot dogs are delicious. I love hot dogs.




Henry has a purple bruise in the middle of his forehead. Henry points in general directions and makes unintelligible sounds. I can discern Mama, Dada, ChaCha, blue, bye, hi, ball, up, banana, graham cracker, dry diaper, more, milk, and spoon. His fingers are normally glistening with saliva. Moving pictures of panda bears cause Henry to be excited. Henry can operate a digital scale. He is a solid 23.2 lbs. Henry is so sweet after he takes Advil. I rocked him in an almost dark room before laying him down. I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle and turned through a picture book of baby animals. Henry listened and watched.



Charlie overturned a wheelbarrow full of dirt onto the front porch. The tines of a rake he used to remove the dirt only created furrows. It did not care. We played memory on the front porch as the sun receded. We made the hinged lid of the white Royal Crest dairy box a game board and covered its entire surface with six rows of five cards. I drank coffee. Charlie, root beer. Charlie narrowly won; his eight matches to my seven.

I am home

I am home.

“DAD” is scrawled in pink and blue chalk in several places on driveway; two more on the front porch. A piece of white paper is affixed to the glass on the front storm door by means of four pieces of clear tape intersecting each corner. Yesterday, it said “WElCOM HOM DAD”. I will learn later that the drawing represents Charlie and Henry in the cockpit of a rocketship exiting the earth’s atmosphere on a journey to an “M” planet.

“Mars?” I ask.

Charlie walks barefoot on the low pavestone wall that serves as a border for the flowerbed. “No, Dad. It’s Mercury.”

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. It has no satellites and little atmosphere. It is made of metal and rock like the earth. Sometimes you can see it at dusk with your naked eye.

The dozen tadpole shaped objects are parachutes attached to the jettisoned solid fuel boosters.

Beyond Charlie’s artful signage and through the glass, I see Charlie and Henry sitting at the table. I smell meatloaf with parsley. A Jell-o cup is stuck on Henry’s fist. Charlie is focused on a project. Henry is focused on the Jell-o. The air is still outside. The orange sky and the setting sun reflect in the door glass. Is that Mercury?

Jill comes into the frame with a white dish towel over her shoulder holding a stainless-steel spatula. I open the door.

I am home.

Tête à Tête

A young girl sitting at the table next to us made Charlie cry. Charlie and I were sitting in a booth that spanned the width of one end of the dining room. Jill sat opposite us in a bamboo framed chair. The little girl had blue eyes and sandy blonde hair pulled into a pigtail at the crown of her head. She wore a pink top. Her mother made small talk with Jill. I buttered bread.

"Tell me it gets better." The woman demanded.

"I think it gets worse and then it gets better." Jill said. The woman took a drink of wine.

Charlie wielded a grownup fork in each hand and stood on his knees with his bottom resting on his heels. They must seat families near one another in restaurants so couples on dates are not disturbed. I don't care for the seating in this establishment. The spacing is too close together. I don't like my sides to be vulnerable. But the seating facilitates eavesdropping. An Asian couple sat on the other side of me. They were quiet.

Our waitress was Katie. Her hair was in a bun. The Asian man told Katie his entrée was great. He told her loud enough for me to hear him. He did not speak with an accent.

The woman Jill was speaking to, pulled the little girl from her high chair and set her on the ground. She sauntered over to Grandma, who was seating next to Charlie. Grandma picked her up and put her in the booth. She bobbled over to Charlie.

"Oh! She wants to say hi!" Mother said. Everyone thought this was really cute except for me and Charlie.

"Charlie can you say hi?" Jill said.

"Charlie, put your forks on the table," I said.

Charlie laid his forks down. The little girl rushed in on him and began scratching his cheek. I had disarmed him. Oh, the guilt. Defenseless, Charlie cried.

"Oh, no don't do that!" Grandma said.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" Mother said.

"She didn't mean to hurt you." Jill said.

Grandma imprisoned the little girl between her and the wall.

Katie delivered the check to the Asian couple.

The mother guzzled the last of her red wine and returned the glass to the table holding the slender stem. Jill took Charlie into her lap to sooth him.

After dinner we all took a trip to the bathroom together. Charlie went with Jill.

Jill has to go as much as I do now. The other night, she showed me an artists' cutaway of a pregnant woman's torso.

"I wondered where everything went." She marveled.

I took a look for myself. It is true. It is amazing to see the body make room for this temporary guest. The growing baby displaces the internal organs. She tells some days this baby is standing on her bladder.

Leaving the bathroom, I felt the whoosh of air as Charlie ran by headed for the restaurant dining room. He paid me no notice.

Thirty seconds later the air pressure throughout the entire restaurant dropped as the door to the women's bathroom flung open and Jill rushed out. Her face was red.

Charlie, proud of himself, giggled and ran in place. Realizing what had happened, that Charlie had broken free from the stall while Jill was still it in it, made me, as the casual observer, laugh inside.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Jill said.

Once in a while, I don't mind watching someone else chasing after Charlie.

 

"Charlie, we don't touch other peoples' mailboxes." Charlie's weight falls back on his heels. His arms rest at his sides. He eyes me indignantly as I make up the ten yards he has pulled ahead of me on the sidewalk.

A swarm of gnats hovers into the air space in front of my face. I disturb their formation with a hand swipe.

"But I want to!" Charlie protests.

I feel compelled to explain my reasoning. "It's a Federal crime."

Charlie is mute the next few carefully placed steps down the sidewalk past the black mailbox. Hammering sounds emerge from a house up the street.

"It's a Federal CRIME," he says drawing out the term crime. A narrow rivulet has appeared where the sidewalk meets the road, the result of a poorly aimed sprinkler head.

"It's a FEDERAL crime," he repeats with an emphasis on the word federal.

"We don't touch other peoples' MAIL-boxes." Charlie continues with his head down. A car speeds up the hill. The driver sees us and slows. Charlie stops.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"It's a Federal crime to touch other peoples' mailboxes."

"Yeah. I know."

Zero percent down and no payments for a year

Charlie scribbled on our fitted yellow 100% Egyptian cotton bed sheets with a black ink pen this morning. Jill was taking a phone call behind the closed door of our home office. I was "resting" in a sleeping bag down in the basement next to the tent cot. My sleeping is what Charlie knows as resting.

We had been on a safari. This means we turned out the basement lights, Charlie crawled up on my back while I took him on a horseback safari adventure. We encountered dinosaurs and cows, frogs, polar bears and bald eagles. We came across a prairie dog town which we were forced to bulldoze in order to break ground on a new safari tourist hotel. Since the groundbreaking only had taken place today for the new accommodations, we were left with only one option -to camp in the chilly night air. Surrounded by a wolf pack whose glowing eyes were as numerous as the holes in the pegboard which the previous owner of the house decided would look good to finish a basement with, we could only pray for morning light and hope above all hopes that the fire would keep the wolves from devouring us.

The cover of the blinding darkness emboldened all the ugly creatures. We listened to clicking, buzzing, slithering, tapping, traipsing, humming, dripping, and howling sounds. Somewhere, miles above in the top of a muzzle tree, nested a pair of howler monkeys whose thundering voices sounded like bickering spouses. Gloating over the whole of the forest above was a magnificent moon. A coyote moon. H.W., the juvenile howler monkey, disappeared into the forest canopy unbeknownst to his parents. He joined the Aye-Aye several trees away who was too busy looking for grubs to give H.W. the time of night. With the aid of his prehensile tail, H.W. swung from branch to branch. He felt alive as the damp air whooshed past his face and flattened his fur against his body.

"Never again am I coming back to this muggy hell. I am going to the city!"

H.W. found his way to the coast, where he stowed away aboard a Norwegian Cruise Ship on a course to San Diego. Eventually, he came to Des Moines where he became the activities director for an assisted living community.

Jill yelped when she saw the graffiti on the bed sheet. Charlie and I scrambled to the scene.

"Did you do this, Charlie?" Jill asked.

"Yes, I did." He said proudly.

Hesitantly, Jill asked him if he had drawn elsewhere.

"I DID!" He said. He beckoned us to follow him to the opposite corner of the foot of the bed where he had made similar marking.

"Here!" He said.

At least his prints were symmetrically placed.

Going back to work

A drug screening is required as a condition of my future employment. I called the lab office for the hours of operation and printed off directions to the location. Normally, I would have gone by myself, but since Jill is in Wyoming on business, I had to take Charlie with me. We left in a hurry to get there by the 11am morning cutoff. I put Charlie directly in his car seat instead of letting him sit on my lap to back the car out of the garage. We covered the distance fast while listening to a feverish classical guitar number on public radio. I zipped into a half hour parking spot across from the hospital went in and quickly found the elevator to the lab's second floor suite.

An Ethiopian woman sat at the front desk guarding a silver bell and a sign-up sheet. A bedraggled woman with a sleeveless pink shirt revealing a circular bandage on her left shoulder was the only other person in the small monochromatic waiting room. She was filling out a form.

The sign-up sheet was held down by a large silver clip on a brown clipboard. A beaded metal chain connected the ink pen to the sliver clip on the clip board. The chain was too short. The entire clipboard slid a few inches when I picked up the pen to sign my name. This caught the attention of the Ethiopian woman guarding the silver bell and the sign-up sheet wearing a white lab coat and matching white pants. Her brown eyes looked up from the flat screen computer monitor.

That was when the fear of getting a shot struck Charlie. He began to wail.

"No. Mommy! I want to go home. I don't like the doctor. Don't want to go see Dr. BOS –ley!"

"It's okay." I tried to comfort him. "This is for Daddy. You don't have to get a shot."

It was no use. I believe he has inherited my tendency to black out under extreme stress. Yes, sometimes I get so anxious, the part of me that is so afraid, just trails away like water vapor. I must still be present in some capacity. It is minor slip, like tinkling when you sneeze versus a full blown breach of control.

At any rate, I couldn't bring him back from wherever he was. The bandaged woman seemed angry and distracted. She took a deep breath and stopped working on her form.

The receptionist engaged me and momentarily brought me back to reality. "Are you here for lab work?"

"Yes." I managed to find the piece of paper required of my visit with a special sequence of numbers identifying me anonymously. This I managed to find after fumbling through two coat pockets and two pants pockets.

"There is one thing." She said as she unfolded my permission slip. "Children are not permitted to go back with you."

"What?" I uttered.

"No I don't want to go to the doctor!" Tears streamed down Charlie's cheeks. His chest heaved as he choked in the dry antiseptic smelling air.

"You can't take him with you. You won't be able to give a specimen unless someone watches him."

"It's a urine screen." It sunk in then. I assumed they would be drawing my blood. They actually thought I was going to get my two year old son to pee in a cup for me so I would pass my drug test. I really got bothered then.

Charlie was screaming. There was only that one woman in the waiting room. For a second I entertained asking her to watch Charlie. Then I remembered I was in the waiting room of a urinalysis lab. Then I remembered - I was in the waiting room of a urinalysis lab. Before I blacked out, I retrieved the paper from the desk girl. I came back to consciousness out in the hallway with my back leaning on the other side of the closed waiting room door. I checked my person. I located two sets of car keys in my coat pockets and a lens cleaning cloth. The screening form was folded and in my back pocket. Charlie was in my arms. He was no longer crying but his face was wet and his eyes were red.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. "Let's go home."

Charlie exclaimed, "That was fun!"

Denver boy almost eats Jesus

The Vatican is cautiously investigating the miraculous claim of a toddler from Denver, CO. The alleged miracle occurred on Monday evening, November 30 at the residence of Charles Shelton, 2, and his father, Mark Shelton. Charlie, as he is known, was seated in his high chair wearing his "spider" bib finishing the last of his Scooby-Doo branded fruit-flavored snacks. His father was steps away in the kitchen, contemplating Ruth Rikli's recipe for Glenda's Blueberry Yum-Yum from the pages of "Recipes and Remembrances: A collection by the United Methodist Women and their friends".

"I was standing there in the kitchen at the bar when I heard Charlie say, 'That's Jesus!'" A visibly emotional Mark Shelton recounted. "I went over to his high chair to see what he was jabbering about and that's when he handed it (the fruit-flavored snack) to me."

The fruit-flavored snack carrying the likeness of Jesus is produced by the General Mills Corporation. An attorney for General Mills responded by mail to our inquiry, stating: "The General Mills Corporation produces Scooby-Doo fruit-flavored snacks, not the Eucharist. It is Daphne, and not the image of Jesus."

Unmoved in his faith, Shelton, who is Protestant, not a Catholic, contacted the Vatican to have the miracle authenticated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. A Vatican bishop close to the case says the Shelton fruit snack miracle is being examined but is under scrutiny do to Mark Shelton's request for compensation.

"Generally, the church is quite discerning of frauds and extorters," the Vatican bishop said.

Shelton, who has been a full-time father for a year, has been linked to easy money schemes. Back in August he was seen at the customer service desk at King Soopers grocery store scratching an instant lottery ticket. Close circuit video from the store was obtained and the allegation has been substantiated.

The Vatican bishop added, "but it is plausible that God would chose to work through such a corrupted vessel."

"I know what I saw and my boy did too." Shelton said unwaveringly. "Jesus loves little children. That's why Charlie could see it."

Doubt may cast a shadow over this miracle for some, but that has stopped miracle pilgrims from across the world to visit the divinely formed image at the Shelton home. The holy visage is kept in a Ball jar displayed over the Shelton fireplace and has drawn several thousand visitors. Shelton is accommodating the throngs of peasant believers by offering popcorn for $10 a bag. He is also selling tee shirts.

Panini

I could hear Charlie's voice tunneling down the narrow hallway. I was at the back of the house in the bedroom chamber. Clothing covered the bed. A heap of cotton and wool and polyester and spandex, stitching and weaving, rivets and zippers, threads, buttons, dyes. In the front of the house, Charlie played independent of my supervision. He has proven to be trustworthy. He can bang all he wants. It is the silence that catches my attention.

"Panini! Found a Panini!" I heard him say.

He is good at finding food crumbs around the house. Most days he has an appointment with detail small. The convergence of his exploration and the fact that I haven't run the vacuum for a couple days translates into a great many stale food objects uncovered. I can't normally get to him before he consumes the food. I don't get too worried. The vast majority of his finds are goldfish crackers. We were standing on the steep part of the back yard. Charlie lost his balance and rolled down the grade. His hat fell off his head. When he went to put it back on, one of those goldfish crackers fell out the hat lining to the ground. Charlie smiled, said "Goldfish!" scooped the cracker from the grass and ate it.

I could not remember the last time I had made a Panini at home. It had been weeks, I was sure. The image of rotting meat and sour mayonnaise motivated me into action.

"Charles!" I shouted. I ran down the hall. I hoped I could make it.

When I rounded the corner, I found him standing there with his arm outstretched.

"Panini! I found a Panini!"

It wasn't a Panini. He was holding a penny.

Sheridan, Wyoming

Charlie started yawning on the way home from the mall while Willie sang us a song about angels getting too close to the ground. We are both tired. Jill is out of town. She is in Wyoming. Her absence throws Charlie out of his rhythm. He woke up this morning at 4 am. I brought him into bed with me. After stacking pillows on the edge of the bed so Charlie would not roll off, I told him in a soft voice it was sleepy time. He laid his head on my pillow and was still. I began to drift off. Several minutes later. I was awakened by Charlie's dark face hovering above me whispering, "It's sleepy time."

He woke me at least six times just like that. I may have been dreaming of two of the occurances though.

I finally decided to get out bed at 730am, an hour and a half after Charlie began bringing books into the bed from the living room shelf. I was in and out during that time. I thought I heard the front door open once. That gave me alarm.

The chaos of getting him ready was somewhat controlled. He has been on edge because he hasn't passed a noteworthy stool in some days. At least I haven't been privy to one. I added a stool softener to the orange juice I served with his oatmeal which he prefers "just right", not too cold or too hot, with brown sugar, sans raisins. Daddy likes raisins. Charlie does not like raisins.

I told him a story before his nap because he was wanting Mommy.

His calls they were a homing

to his mother there in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

She is somewhere, I said,

she is nowhere,

Where the bighorn sheep are roaming.

She is in a meeting in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Don't fret dear child,

Don't fear the churning sea,

the tempest gurgling and foaming,

'cause there's no water there in Sheridan,

in Sheridan, Wyoming.

It was enough to put him at ease.

Play ball

Charlie is learning how to throw a baseball. He terrifies me. He prefers his right hand to throw. He holds the ball in his right hand over his head. He walks around like that with his outstretched arm over his head and the ball in his hand; the Statue of Liberty pose is what I call it. He gives me no indication when he will throw the ball, not a cadence, not a windup, not a glance. He doesn't release his grip on the ball until his unbent arm is at 90 degrees. If he is more than four feet away, I anticipate where the ball land on the floor and the hop it will take. These throws are easier to field. But most of the time he charges me and is directly over me when he delivers a high speed fastball. The best defense for me is to shield my face with my arms. It is a cowardly reaction. I am a coward, but my face is uninjured.

Charlie loves listening to music in the car. As soon as he is strapped in and buckled he begins demanding it. "Listen to music!" He says. "On road again!"

I carry two CDs in my car and one of them I don't listen to. The one I do listen to is Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits. Charlie special requests "On The Road Again" and "Unclouded Day" every time we go somewhere. Jill has a larger selection of music discs than I have. He knows which music goes with which car. From Jill's albums Charlie enjoys, "Yolanda" from a compilation and "Upside Down" by Die On The Cross (This is not religious music, it is just the way he pronounces Diana Ross.)

He is quite the music critic. After the first three measures of a song, if he hasn't said "different" he will listen to the entire song. When he especially likes the song, when it is over he says, "Good one! Yeah."

I bought Charlie a globe. He can locate Madagascar off the East coast of Africa where the Aye-Aye lives. It also lives at the zoo, in the "dork".

We are dancer

The results of the poll are in. We are dancer.

Charlie wants candy for breakfast now. I don't give in to his demands. He has quite a bit leftover in his bag. The neighbor adjacent to us gave him a handful of those orange wrapped peanut butter flavored confections. I don't like those. He couldn't hear very well. I have never yelled at close range and been calm.

The Halloween turnout was marginal. I shut the porch light off at 8:15 and stood in the dark by the front picture window with a cocked air rifle concealed beneath my robe. The moon was bright here in Denver. Not sure if it could be seen over game 3 of the World Series of Major League Baseball. Charlie and coyotes howl at the moon. He is good at howling.

I strung some Christmas lights around the twisted branches of the crabapple tree out front. That crabapple is sensitive to weather. We had a late snow the killed the fragrant pink blooms this spring. One day last fall I just happened to be at the window in Charlie's bedroom looking out at the tree when a dozen or so songbirds swarmed the branches and in a matter of minutes stripped the entire tree of its small berries. I missed the birds this autumn. I was hoping Charlie could watch them plunder the branches bald.

It is early for Christmas lights but I wanted to take advantage of the break in weather. Half of one strand doesn't work. I removed the lights from the gazebo. The roof of my gazebo took on too much snow and collapsed. The aluminum frame bent at each of the four corners. I took off the canvas covering. I should have done that before the heavy snow fell. It is now a sad skinless structure.

All is quiet. The whole house fan is running. It suppresses the sound my keystrokes make. Charlie ate a peabutter-jelly sandwich, a container of sweet potatoes and a container of prunes for lunch. He self regulates his diet. When his bowels haven't moved for a day, he begins to special request prunes. I am serious.

Bedtime stories

A young boy could barely finish his applesauce. He half heartedly scooped it up with his spoon and raised it up toward his mouth. When he thought his father had turned away, the boy slowly rotated the rubbery black handle until the applesauce leapt onto the tray below with a splat. "All done," He said. "I am all done."

That boy's name was Charlie and he was about to depart his home dressed as a Hooded Capuchin monkey with a banana in his pocket. He made a discovery the day before that was to alter the course of his consciousness forever. For that was when he discovered Skittles. He was tentative at first observation of the candy coated rainbow of flavors. But there was a letter on each one of them. It was an "S". S is a good letter. Perhaps it is his favorite. S stands for snake and seahorse and Spokane and Silky and strange and of course splat. After he tasted the first one, he abandoned caution. He took another and another and another. He danced in a circle. His father and mother called him Circle Man. He felt as if his tiny feet could leave the floor, as if sugar was lighter than air. He wondered what the old ladies at the nursing home had given him. Why had they doted over him so? He spun around more. He tried to remember the hands of those old women. Thin, bony hands with brown and purple spots. His mother had told him to smile and say "Trick or treat" but all he could do was stare at their faces that looked wrinkled like the raisins he extracts and studies from his breakfast bowl of oatmeal. But the women smiled and they seemed happy mostly. And it didn't matter if they had purchased the Skittles or if the head warden had gone to the store herself and bought them and gave them to the women who then gave them to the children. It didn't even matter if they had teeth. For it wasn't tool long ago that he didn't have teeth.

He did try to fly, but he fell down. "What happened, Charlie?" He wondered out loud. "What happened?" The magic of the skittle was fading. The high was rapidly deteriorating. "Want more!" But the answer was no. At least, not until he finished his applesauce. But Charlie knew that all he really had to do was make it appear that he had finished his applesauce. For that reason, he took scoops, huge ones, from his bowl and began the great deception. The first scoop went on his bib. The next on the tray. And another. A small amount fell to the floor. The final bit of convincing came in the form of two large drips, one on each corner of his mouth. That is when he said "I am all done."

Charlie changed into his costume after dinner. Not long afterward, there came a knock at the door. It was a black and white dog and a fireman. But there was no emergency. Even so, he remembered 9-1-1 as the exact sequence of numbers to push on the phone in case a real emergency were to happen. The dog and fireman were carrying candy. Had they gone to the nursing home, he wondered.

That's when they left the house, he and his Dad. The sidewalks were cleared of snow, but they were wet. The monkey costume made his feet appear larger than they actually are. Big or little, man or monkey, feet love puddles. He splashed around in one until his father carried him half way to the door of an unfamiliar house. There they stopped. There they stood. "Go to the door and knock." His father said. "Say trick or treat and put your bag out."

And so that is what he did. He reached out, made a fist and gently rapped on the cold glass door with his knuckles. A stranger appeared behind the glass with a wicker basket. When the door creaked opened, Charlie retreated a few steps. He remained in lingo between his father who waited halfway up the walk and the stranger at the door. Two people approached up the walk, the brothers Ghengis and Shaka Kahn. Past Charlie they walked to the door. They said "trick or treat" and the man with the wicker basket put candy in their suitcases. That emboldened Charlie to do the same and to do it himself. He marched back up the walk, to the door, to the stranger, thrust out his bag and received his first candy handout. Oh the way it made him feel. He wanted to open it right on the spot and eat the candy on the porch. He wanted to feel weightless again and fly like the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz and share a smile with the women at the nursing home and listen to Willard Scott's voice. Those things made him happy. All at once he was happy and elevated. He made more stops like that during the night until he wore just wore out from doing it. His bag was full. "All done," he said, "I am all done."