Shotgun Daddy

Please excuse me while I wipe a tear from eye...

You've seen it on television, I'm sure. The young wife gently holds the young husband's hand and gives him the wonderful news: she is expecting their first child. The young husband smiles blissfully and his gaze slowly tilts skyward, all the better to see into the future. Now we cut to the montage of "memories waiting to happen," and we see all of the young father's hopes and dreams for the future of his child.

First we see the child smoothly stroking a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, or maybe rocketing a touchdown pass into the back of the end zone. We see father and son walking lazily down a path towards a deserted fishing hole in the middle of the bucolic countryside. We see training wheels coming off and braces going on, ties on Father's Day and toy cars on Christmas morning, Confirmations, Bar Mitzvahs, and graduations.

But what if the stork brings a beautiful baby girl? The dream switches to pony tails and saddle shoes, Barbie dolls and butterflies. Sugar and spice and everything nice. There are nervous boys pinning on corsages, broken hearts to mend (theirs, not hers), and a father and daughter dance following a beautiful weddiing.

Your dream probably isn't like the ones on TV, but it's only the individual scenes that are different; the overall theme remains the same. And so it is for me.

Yesterday one of my dreams came true. Just before dinner I was walking down the hall when I noticed that the bahtroom door was slightly ajar. Through the crack I could see Alison perched on the toilet -- and she was reading my Sports Illustrated! Let me repeat that: my six-year-old daughter was reading Sports Illustrated while taking a crap. Can any parent ask for more?

But wait -- there is more! She heard me outside the door -- who knew you could actually hear someone pumping a fist in celebration? -- and called me into the bathroom to show me something.

"What is it?"
"Look at this picture."
"What picture?"
"Right here. It's Muhammad Ali, like in my book!"

And right then I fell to the floor like Sonny Liston, melting into a puddle of my own tears. That's my girl.

Splendor in the Grass

Some of my strongest memories from childhood have to do with my parents' efforts to instill in me a love of nature. There were dozens of camping trips, miles upon miles of hiking, and mind-numbing hours spent in arboretums and botanical gardens. I remember chasing fire flies in the Michigan twilight, staring awestruck at buffalos in Yellowstone, and holding California forest toads in the palm of my hand.

Though I wasn't as infected as my younger sister would be (she became a veterinarian and filled her house with cats, dogs, and ferrets), those early lessons stuck with me and have colored the parent that I've become. Quite naturally, I've done my best to pass this love on to my children. When Alison was only three years old she would accompany me into the garden and wait patiently for me to discover something interesting for her to hold in her hands. Sometimes it would be something as simple as a roly-poly or a ladybug, but if we were lucky we'd find a shiny beetle, a twisting earthworm, or a wriggling grub. She loved them all.

And then came Henry. He likes animals from a distance, or when they're on TV, or when they're made out of plastic, but when they're alive and up close? Not so much. We do our best to encourage him, whether it's helping him to pet a neighbor's dog or take a turn at a pony ride, but it really hasn't made much of a difference. If it moves, it freaks him out. Sometimes you can understand it, like when a dog twice his size suddenly comes around a corner, but other times it makes no sense at all. This weekend, for instance, he was terrified by the sight of a desert tortoise that our friends have in their backyard. No bigger than a football, no faster than, well, a tortoise, this quiet creature stopped him in his tracks as soon as it crawled out from under the bushes where it had been sleeping.

Small steps, though. When we came home from the party, Henry and I went out to water in the front yard. As soon as we started sprinkling the roses, a large grasshopper bounded out of one of the bushes and into the grass in front of us. With Alison, the grasshopper was something of a Holy Grail, worthy of an afternoon's quest, so I thought Henry might want to take a closer look.

We approached cautiously, kind of the way Marlon Perkins and his buddy Jim used to do on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Henry seemed curious once we were close enough to get a good look at the hopper, so I told him that I would try to see if I could get him to crawl onto my hand. This made Henry a little uncomfortable (the hopper was about four inches long), so I held him a bit closer and assured him that everything would be okay. Afterall, probably about one grasshopper in twenty will submit to this, so I figured he would just hop away and we could get back to our watering.

Well, I was half right.

I slowly slid my hand underneath the grasshopper, but as soon as he felt my fingers under his front legs, he took off -- straight at us. I jumped in surprize as he shot right past my face, but this was nothing compared to Henry's reaction. The grasshopper, you see, landed right in the middle of Henry's forehead.

He sat there for just a second before fleeing the scene, but it was long enough. Henry's screams were piercing, loud enough that I was worried the neighbors might come out to see what was going on, but he regained his poise fairly quickly. He was okay, and I had learned a valuable lesson: a grasshopper in the hand is worth a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Maybe we'll stick with the plastic animals for a while.

Work Like You Don't Need the Money

You've seen the list. Maybe you noticed it on a co-worker's coffee mug. Maybe it was in an unwanted e-mail, sent by that person you know who conscientiously forwards every "cute" or "hilarious" or "tear-jerking" e-mail that you might have missed. Or perhaps someone you know actually quoted a line or two to you, and you started to laugh for a second before you realized that this person was not making a joke.

If, however, you've been lucky enough to miss these immortal words of wisdom, please allow me to introduce you to the biggest bunch of nonsense perpetrated on the free world since the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction:

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, sing like no one is listening, and dance like nobody's watching.

Okay, let's go bottom to top. I guess the idea is that you do your best dancing in the privacy of your bedroom when no one is watching, so you should bring that love out into the open and you'll be the hit of the party. But you know what? I do my best dancing when everyone's watching someone else. If I broke out the bedroom moves, the party would come to a grinding halt as those in attendance stared in horror.

The same logic follows with the next one -- sing like no one is listening. Shouldn't we consider the audience just a little bit? If I'm cruising down the 405 in an empty car listening to AC/DC, you can bet that the volume will be cranked and I'll be singing about American thighs with all I've got, whether I know the words or not. But since I'm a teacher, and not a rock star, I don't subject others to this. Wouldn't be prudent.

Love like you've never been hurt. Okay, this one sounds nice -- don't hold anything back, give yourself completely, surrender to the beauty of love. I get it. But would you ever tell someone to sleep like you've never been tired? How can appreciate the good love if you've never felt the sting of the bad love?

All of which brings us back to the top: work like you don't need the money. This is absolutely stupid. You want me to work like I don't need the money? Sure, but hang on a second while I drink like I'm not thirsty. Are you kidding me? Wouldn't you work a bit harder if you needed the money?

I've been on vacation for the past four weeks, and I can promise you one thing: if I didn't need the money, I would not be going back to work today. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I love my students, but I don't love all that as much as I love taking Henry to lunch, picking up Alison from school, and secretly watching Kate sleeping in her crib.

So Monday promises to be a difficult day, since I'm not entirely sure what my lesson will look like and I'll be missing my wife and children, but don't feel sorry for me. There will be whining children, but I can send them to the office if I want; there will be arguments, but I'll be able to silence them with the threat of detention; and I certainly won't have to change any diapers. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Don't worry, though. When the going gets tough, I'll think back to these timeless words:

Work like you owe money to a guy named Mickey the Wrench,
Love like you've never been tired,
Sing like you actually know the words, and
Dance like you don't want people pointing and laughing.

Quick now. Cut and paste those into an e-mail and send it to all your friends, even the annoying ones. The world will be a better place.