Shotgun Daddy

Day 7: The Tsunami

When Alison and Henry were small and just beginning to talk, we kept waiting for the "verbal explosion." All the books we read -- and we read a lot of books -- told us that one day the words would start coming as if they were never going to stop. But it wasn't to be. Neither Alison nor Henry were particularly big talkers; in fact, we were so concerned about Alison that we took her to a speech pathologist when she was just a bit past her second birthday. We had been promised a verbal explosion, a tidal wave of words, and we couldn't understand why we weren't getting it. 

As the years went by, both Henry and Alison started talking the way they were supposed to, but for both of them their growth was slow and steady. They weren't riding the tidal wave the books had predicted, but were instead floating languidly down a relaxing river slowly winding its way to the sea. At least they were getting there. And then came Kate, a different child altogether. When she was an infant, she cooed and gurgled and bubbled as her siblings never had. Her first words came months earlier than either Alison or Henry, and when she started stringing words together into sentences and paragraphs and novellas, we finally understood what the books had been talking about. 

This wasn't an explosion as much as it was a nuclear reaction. Part of it, I suppose, is that with two older siblings she gets much more input and many more opportunities for conversation than either Alison or Henry had, but that's not all that's going on here. Kate is a talker, plain and simple, and to be honest, it can sometimes make you wish there were an off button somewhere. 

Here's where I may lose some of you. I'd love to tell you that I'd happily spend every second of my day soaking up every syllable Kate has to offer. I'd like to say that her words fall upon me like cool rain on a hot, summer day. I'd like to say that her angelic voice is the only soundtrack I need as I go about my day. 

But I would be lying, and you would probably know it. 

Driving in the car is probably the worst. The world outside her window is constantly changing as we speed about town, and everything must be commented on, asked about, sung about, described, and discussed. It's fun and cute for a while, but then a cool song comes on the radio and all you really want to do is turn into a rockstar for a few minutes and sing along at the top of your lungs. Instead, you find yourself engaged in a game of twenty questions, a game that you will never, ever win. Not in a million years. One thought rings in your mind: if only you had passed on the DVD player and instead had installed a limo-style privacy partition just behind the driver's seat. How cool would that be? 

But as quickly as the thought arrives, it is washed away behind the force of Kate's Syntax Tsunami. You drive on, nodding in the right places, responding when she stops to take a breath, and wondering how someone so small can have so many words.

Day 6: Putting Words in Her Mouth

When your child is living in the vacuum that you create, focused completely on you and your teachings, kind of like a satellite orbiting the sun, your job is easy.  You teach them the usual things -- how to sing the ABCs, how to hold a spoon, and how to touch pinky to thumb to pinky to thumb while singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider." Because your child is a sponge, she picks all of this up rather easily, and you start feeling cocky. You're a brilliant teacher, your child is an eager learner, and all is good in the world. In education circles we call this direct instruction. You teach and the student learns.   

Unfortunately for almost everyone involved, your child doesn't know when she should stop learning. Soon you notice that your daughter pumps her fist exactly the way you do when Derek Jeter laces a single to right field. This is funny. Later you hear her say "Jesus Christ!" when she has trouble finding her teddy bear. This is even funnier.

Even though these aren't necessarily the things you want her to learn -- except for the Derek Jeter fist pump, which every child should know -- at least you know where it's all coming from. The real troubling moments, though, come when you first notice the things your child has learned from outside the vacuum, and we're not talking about states and capitals. 

I no longer remember the earliest examples of Kate's "external instruction," but they've been coming fast and furious since she started pre-school this past September. When she saw me after school today, for example, she raced over to me, clearly excited to share something. "Daddy, Daddy!" She then paused for dramatic effect before announcing, "Close the gate -- who do you hate?" And then she smiled as if she had cured the common cold.

I don't know where this little nugget came from -- in fact, I don't even know what it means -- but I know it did not come from her usual orbit. Even though she is not yet four years old, she has a level of independence that I never would've thought possible before becoming a parent. I can't say that I'm bothered by her little rhyme, but I'm not excited about what it represents. We can teach her to say please and thank you, we can show her how to share, and we can hope that she grows up to eat her vegetables and floss her teeth, but the reality is that most of what she learns will not come from us.

So as she circles our sun, gradually widening her orbit with each passing year and playing Major Tom to our Ground Control, we can comfort ourselves with the idea that she won't be heading off to new galaxies for at least another decade and a half. Which of course will speed by in the blink of an eye.

Day 3: How Did I Get Here?

Nine. 

Alison, my first-born child, turned nine years old today, and I can’t quite describe how amazing that is to me. Do you remember when you were young and time moved about as fast as a glacier carving its way across the Great Plains? It could never get dark fast enough on the Fourth of July, and the sun would never rise when you wanted it to on Christmas morning. Hours seemed like days, months like years. 

How things change when you get older. When you come to a milestone like this (and who says that milestones have to be round numbers? Can’t nine be a milestone?) everything in your life stands against the door jamb to be measured. Ten years ago Leslie and I were only a few months away from our wedding, and our life already seemed full with just the two of us. Somewhere along the road from there to here we’ve bought and sold a handful of cars, seen neighbors come and go, added two daughters and a son, and sat through countless basketball/soccer/swimming/drama practices. But how did it all happen? How did we really get here from there? 

One of my favorite bands, Talking Heads, asked the same question much more eloquently (and with a better beat): 

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile 

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife 

And you may ask yourself – well, how did I get here? 

This is how I got here. It started when Alison first entered the world, announcing her arrival with short, frantic breaths to appease lungs desperate for air. Her eyes squeezed tight to shut out the light, her delicate fingers stretched wide waiting to be counted, her lips the deepest red. As she lay on Leslie’s chest, seconds from the womb, I hugged them both and we were a family... 

A year later – or was it eleven months or thirteen? – she was walking, tottering back and forth across the four feet of carpet that stretched between her mother and father, her eyes first opened into enormous circles at the risk she was taking, then pinched into slits of laughter at the thrill of it all… 

I was lucky enough to stay home with her for a stretch of nine months, and these were days I’ll never forget. When Leslie left for work she’d deposit Alison in bed beside me, and we’d sleep for another hour or two. Each morning I’d wake to a tiny hand on my face, gently patting away my dreams… 

Her world changed forever when she was two when Henry was born and she became a big sister. I remember standing in the hospital nursery with Henry hours after he was born, and seeing Alison on the other side of the glass, completely mesmerized by her brother. Later she would hold him for the first time, beginning a bond that would prove to be stronger than pulled hair, shoves in the back, stolen toys, and an alleged push off the slide which led to a broken arm. Through it all, they still love each other… 

 

We took her to pre-school for the first time when she was three, and she painted pictures, played with blocks, dug in the sandbox, and made her first friends. One of my greatest joys was picking her up from school. When the other kids saw their parents, they’d either call out a greeting or leap from their carpet squares into welcoming arms, but Alison was different. Her eyes would lock on mine, her hand would secretly wave, and she’d slowly rise to leave. Alison is never in hurry, not then and not now… 

Soon after she turned five, Alison insisted on learning to ride her bike without training wheels, showing the fierce determination inherited from her mother. I looked forward to playing my part in the time-honored tradition of fathers teaching their children to ride a bike. No doubt I’d spend part of the afternoon running crouched over behind her, holding her seat as she wobbled up and down the street, and the other part applying kisses and bandaids to skinned knees as she failed. But instead I pushed her once and watched her ride away without me, which made me terribly sad and incredibly proud all at the same time… 

Two months later her sister arrived and was given the name that Alison had chosen, Kate. In truth, “Kate” was one of three finalists, the other two being “Carrot” and “Elephant.” 

I think it was when she started kindergarten  that I first began to see myself in Alison. People had already begun telling me how much she and I looked alike, but as her personality developed, it started becoming clear that the similarities were much deeper. When she was excited about something, she often kept it to herself. She sometimes became distant and withdrawn for no apparent reason, only to emerge happy and refreshed a short while later. She worked slowly and methodically on her schoolwork, and took ages to complete simple tasks at home. She was her father’s daughter, for better or for worse… 

In the years that followed, she developed a love for Hannah Montana, Derek Jeter, and reality television, and showed her athleticism by running track and playing basketball and soccer. She’s taken up the violin, and she has overcome her shyness in order to run for student council and perform in school plays. Recently she has even learned to crochet. 

As we sit here, balanced precariously at the midway point between her birth and her 18th birthday, I find myself looking forward as much as I look back. I can guess what the next nine years will hold – makeup and training bras, boyfriends and curfews, dented fenders and broken hearts. And even though there will be times when she won’t need me, secrets that she won’t tell me, and heartaches she won’t share, I hope that these first nine years have taught her one thing. Even as she’s pushing her limits and riding away from me, I will still be there running beside her, ready to catch her if she falls. 

Nine.

Day 1: I Will Write

There are dozens of reasons why we stop doing things that are important to us. We might not have the time to play eighteen holes of golf, we might not have the money to travel the world, we might even be too busy to keep in touch with old friends. When you first drift away from whatever it is you're leaving behind, you might not even notice it. Maybe you've only skipped one run, or maybe it's only been a weekend or two since you spent time working in the garden, or perhaps you postpone your annual summer trip to the cottage. But this isn't only how it starts, it's usually how it ends. With each passing day or week or month, the habit you had nurtured for years slowly fades away until you don't recognize the person you once were. But then there is a voice, a whisper of a distant memory, and if you're smart, you listen. For me, the whisper came from Arnold Hano, an eighty-six-year-old writer whom I interviewed recently. When I casually mentioned that I love to write, he cut me off sharply and asked what I had written. When I mumbled something about not having written anything he ever would have seen, his response was more of a scolding than an encouragement: "Don't be such a dilettante. If you want to write, then write." Those words have been ringing in my ears for the past five weeks, but it's taken me until now to do anything about it. This blog originally grew out of my love for writing, but over the past several months I have neglected it, neglecting my passion in the process. And so today, it changes. As any writer worth his or her Smith-Corona will tell you, writing demands discipline. Like any art, it cannot be called upon on a whim; it must be cultivated on a regular basis. To achieve this discipline, I will write here every day for thirty days. Even as I write those words I feel a bit overwhelmed, but if people can give up chocolate for forty days during Lent, I can certainly sit down at a keyboard each night for a month. Some of what I write will be powerful enough to move mountains, I'm sure of it, but other stuff will be hopelessly pithy and inconsequential. Thirty days from now I will be either energized and inspired or exhausted and defeated, but one thing is certain: I will be ShotgunDaddy. I will write.