forty-five

This past weekend our little Ben made a new friend in a gorgeous newborn baby girl named Kate. Her parents, Jason and Joy Latek, who made Kate’s appearance possible some 9 months ago (go Jason!), were thoroughly excited at her arrival as they looked squarely in the cute, cuddly face of a future defined by a loss of sleep, sanity, and cleanliness. While I personally think that Kate will make things comparatively easy for her new parents, I do not envy the task Jason faces with his little butterfly, especially when she someday starts to think about using those wings. As a father of a very boyish boy, I can’t imagine what it must be like raising a real, live young female. Although I understand a thing or two about being the protector of my wife and child, I’d imagine protecting your little girl is a task that falls somewhere along a different line. Especially when she gets to be about sixteen or so.

Or as Jason would have it, forty-five.


Our wives thought it would be cool if the two of our respective progeny someday fell in love and got married. Jason and I, of course, are completely against the idea. Jason, because he doesn’t ever want to have any knowledge of his girl being on top of another boy unless you’re talking about their respective academic standing, and Me, because I don’t want any chicks distracting Ben from becoming the greatest major league baseball player in the history of time. Then again, if Kate wants to wait until they’re in their 40’s when Ben’s Hall of Fame career winds to a close (and if her father offers a sufficient dowry), maybe I’ll give it my blessing.

But in the mean time, newborn Latek parents, if you need any help keeping your daughter safe, I'm sure Bigger Ben will rush to her side. As will we.

And welcome, Kate. We love you and we’re very glad to have you. Keep your legs closed.

simple things

Pasta: spaghetti, mostaccioli, ravioli, you name it. If it’s served with marinara, Ben has worn it on his face. Like his silky soft creamy white baby boy cheeks are some powerful tomato paste magnet.

Because it’s just too darn difficult for mom and dad to stab those slippery little noodles with those blunt little baby-forks in time to meet our hungry little dude’s demands, we’ve taken to letting Ben, well, attempt to feed himself. And I’m not going to say that he doesn’t do a good job of it. He does (insofar as the pasta eventually makes it into his stomach). But he also does a mighty fine job of feeding his hair, his shirt, his pants, the high-chair, the paint on the ceiling, and once in a while the poor cat just trying to sneak silently out of the room.

But it’s not just that he turns his high-chair into a model of performance art, it’s that he eats his pasta with an expression on his face implying that eating pasta with your fingers is perfectly normal. Like we should expect to find that this is the way they’ve been doing it for centuries back in Napoli. Like those two fools over there with their forks and what not, how are they supposed to realize the full flavor of mozzarella without first feeling it ooze between their clenched fingers?


When he’s finished, bare splotches of war paint surround his eyes leaving his face muddled something like an orange raccoon or a cute Hannibal Lecter. Anna and I don’t even bother with the pre-bath wipe down in these instances - just turn him around, pick him up at arms length, and drop-kick his naked butt into the tub. The last time I just left his clothes on as I plopped him into the water. No sense in chancing it. And because he’s getting so damn big so damn fast, you have to race him through the hallway and past the bathroom door before he has a chance to reach out and pinstripe something.

I suppose if we had a dog we could just let him clean the baby right there on the floor. That’s how the Italians do it.

On falling down

We’ve all been witness to the gut-wrenching sight of our child getting injured. It is certainly not pleasant. I remember way back when Benjamin fell off the changing table for the first time. I think he must have been about seven months old - rolled right off and onto the floor, while I stood next to him daydreaming (or sleep-walking, who knows). After shamefully admitting my negligence to a few more experienced parents, the most common phrase related to me was, “Don’t worry. That won’t be the last time.” Some time later our doctor commented that once Ben started walking, he would consider it normal to see his head speckled with more and more bumps and bruises every day. The news was terrifying! Ben was going to get hurt more? And repeatedly? Every day? Forever? No way!

[Sorry - I have to interject here to go and rescue Ben, who just fell in his crib and got his arm caught between the rails. . .]

It was just so unbearable to see him in pain. The sayings have become sort of cliché in our society: you feel helpless, your heart aches, you can feel their pain, etc. I just about thought I would die when I saw his helpless little body lying on the floor at the foot of the changing table, that instant before the tears came gushing forth. Then my parental instincts kicked in, my arms swooped down to pick him up in the flash before my mind realized what was happening, before even Benjamin was fully aware of the new fear that was introduced to his world. And that’s our job as parents: to pick them up, right?

[Excuse me for a moment – I have to go get Ben’s fingers out from the dresser drawer. . .]

My brother, with his four-year- old wonder, Kayleigh, have things figured out slightly different. Unless her injury is life-threatening or disabling, he’s instructed us not to make a big deal out of it. Leave her alone and she will learn to pick herself up. Don’t make a big deal out of it, and neither will she. Resist the urge to run to her side unless, of course, her eyes are bleeding or her ankle is turned backwards and the bones are sticking out. And it works! Like all kids, Kayleigh falls down, peeks out of the corner of her eye to see who’s looking, and if she spots any rubber-neckers, POOF! the tears magically appear. But if no one is around to see her fall? She just wipes off her dress and gets on with her business.

[Sorry, Ben just tripped over the rug. Be right back. . .]

So, sure enough, Ben has had his share of stumbles and owies. Since his first step, the number of incidents probably extends into the dozens each day. If I stubbed my toe or tripped over his toys as much as he does, I’d have to get fitted with a muzzle for the absurd amount of profanities on my breath. Ben wakes up in the morning with twenty new bruises that I swear weren’t there when I laid him down, and before his first nap he’ll add another ten scratches. It still pains me to see the injuries, and yet as the months pass by, I get used to them a little more each time.

[Oops! Benjamin! Be careful! I know, that looks like it hurts. . .]

Ben’s falling has become such a routine, coordinated event, I swear it must be some new dance move he saw on Sesame Street. And because he thinks he’s Mr. Universe, he’ll try and pick up any object not permanently anchored to the floor and hoist it up over his head, more often than not resulting in another lump on his noggin or a throbbing big-toe. I came home from work last week to find him lifting the container of 200 mega-blocks about six inches above the floor before dumping them out, putting the container upside-down over his head, and laughing like the caged-monkey that he is. And from the way he lifted the container (straightened back, lift with your legs) he would make a moving company’s insurance carrier proud. But we all know the popular saying there, “What container goes up on your head, must come crashing down on your face.”

[Benjamin, be careful! You’re going to fall! Oh— okay, you’re okay. . .]

Since the Great Fall from the changing table some seven months ago, I’ve learned that my brother’s advice is more right than wrong. The hard part isn’t watching Ben get hurt (I’m used to that), it’s restraining myself from making a big deal out of it. So if you pass by a sobbing 14-month-old on the floor in the mall, don’t get mad at the dad with his back turned looking into Victoria’s Secret, he’s just practicing restraint. Sort of.

[Benjamin, get down! Get DOWN! Oh— whatever. . .]

gesundheit

Anna was carrying Ben to the refrigerator yesterday to refill his juice when he let loose a huge sneeze. It wasn’t the sneeze so much that was noteworthy, but the stylish way that he completed the spasm. Just as he sneezes out the finale, “-choo”, he rolls immediately into a motor-boat sound with his flapping lips spraying drool in all directions. This lasts for several seconds, reminding me of how a big, messy dog would sneeze. Now, Anna and I can’t remember exactly when he started doing this; as far as we can recollect, he’s been doing it since birth. And because we laugh each time he performs the routine, of course he is encouraged to do it the next time ‘round. So now when he sneezes he makes the motor-boat sound, but with his lips curled up into a crooked, knowing smile, and he drags out the process for full comedic effect. But this still isn’t what’s so curious about his style of sneeze.

When I was about 13 years old, I accidentally sneezed just like that, and because of the type of reaction I received, I kept doing it for, oh. . . the next 15 years. It’s funny and it always gets the person next to you smiling in surprise, even if it is, in essence, very disgusting. It’s like farting in front of your guy-friends – very gross, very nasty. . . but very funny. But Ben started sneezing like this before he acquired his powers of imitation, so I have to conclude – very scientifically – that there is a motor-boat sneezing gene that I have passed on to my son. It must be recessive in the generations previous to me, because I can’t recall anyone else in the family sneezing with such declaration. Can you imagine the fantastic surprise when I first heard him sneeze like that? I almost hit the floor! My son, my sneezing prodigy.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of any other of my personality traits that have emerged from our little bean-sprout, which is worth mentioning, because just about all of his positive traits can be traced directly to his mother. He’s shown signs of consideration and empathy, most-definitely traits his mother has passed on to him. He likes vegetables and several fruits that I would never touch, again things inherited from mommy-dearest. He has demonstrated flashes of intelligence, something that couldn’t possibly be attributed to his father. The list goes on.

Me? I pass on to my son a peculiar sneeze.

I guess I’ll just have to make up for my genetic shortcomings by training him in the ancient arts of baseball, football, basketball and, um. . .building construction. And by keeping him as far away from soccer and dancing slippers as possible. . .

bandersnootch

My goodness gracious. Ben is rapidly approaching 14 months on the planet, and already he can look down over the heads of some of our shorter neighbors. We’ve had to reinforce the crib against his massive gravity and take out a loan to cover his growing food bills. Ben is so talkative that even our cat has taken to wearing earplugs around the house to avoid the disturbance that is Ben’s vocabulary. This past Sunday, Ben ran the mile in 4 minutes 17 seconds - a record for his age bracket. All this, and yet his top is still as bald as his bottom.

So I exaggerate. . . a little.


His vocabulary is a thing of wonder though. While we took a stroll down the block a couple of days ago, he paused in front of the neighbors yard, pulled back on my hand and pointed at who-the-heck-knows-what about twenty feet away, all while babbling some crazy nonsense that must have sounded to him VERY important, but came across to me as merely “ah no. nah no.” As a parent trying very hard to stay involved with my almost-adolescent child’s social life, I listened intently and offered him some of my own nonsense, “Oh yeah? Nah-no? Cool, look at that. . .nah-no. Okay let’s go.”

But he refused. He kept pulling at my hand and pointing at the nah-no in the neighbor’s yard which, I admit, looked to me a lot more like dandelions or grass or dirt or air. Certainly we hadn’t discussed any names for these mundane things yet, as we have for things like book (gook), cracker (racker), and thank you (ah-do), so what nah-no was, I had no clue. Hence, we discussed these new items’ proper names then started again down the sidewalk. But he kept pulling at me and pointing back at the nah-no, so I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: I picked his curious ass up and continued down the sidewalk. And because this is fun, Benjamin didn’t miss his nah-no one bit. That is, until we came back to the neighbor’s yard on our way back home and the nah-no reappeared.

I still haven’t figured out what nah-no is, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the same family as ah-doh and da-da, these being the words that he repeats for just about everything he sees that hasn’t been defined for him yet, or words that he just can’t pronounce. I wish I could come across something I didn’t know the word for and just repeat some other word for it instead. And if somebody tells me the correct word? Nah, that’s too difficult, I’ll just keep calling it my own thing.

What’s that you call it? Automobile? No, that’s a bandersnootch. Seriously, look it up.