early onset notlistening

There was a brushfire in the hills on Sunday, and as we sat listening to the roar of the fire planes passing overhead, Max told me all about an unfortunate (and apocryphal) scuba diver who got sucked up into the belly of one of those planes and dropped directly into a blaze.

“W. told us about it,” he told me. “They found him in a tree.” Mia, sitting next to him, nodded solemnly.

“Wow,” I said. “That sounds like a lousy surprise when you’re scuba diving, doesn’t it?” They both concurred, and we observed a brief, respectful moment in honor of the not-really-fallen aquatourist.

And then Mia looked up and said this:

“Daddy, W. told us that once, there was someone scuba diving and there was this fire, and when one of those planes came to the water to get water to put out the fire, the scuba diver got sucked up into the plane—”

The fact that I was laughing must have distracted her from her story, because she stopped mid-sentence.

“Wait,” she said. “Have you heard this story before?”

 

cling

“Daddy?” she said.

“Yes Mia?”

“I just noticed that I have a booger in my mouth and I don’t know why.”

Awesome, I know. I’ve told Sarah that if I’d known just how funny these people were going to be I’d have made them way sooner, and it’s true. And this exchange, delivered with such a guileless, How about that? expression of discovery, was just perfect, so much so that I wanted to – had to – wipe it on my sleeve, and save it for later.

She’s still a little kid, of course. I need to remind myself of that sometimes. Not that there’s any real confusion, not with her still-missing front teeth (fourteen months and counting), or the way she seems utterly incapable of grasping the notion that I can’t follow a phone conversation when she’s standing in front of me asking for permission to wear feet pajamas. Some things just jump out.

But we’ve had her for so long now, and she’s changed so much, that it’s hard to imagine that we’re still at the beginning of the arc. She’s four years from middle school, ten years from college. She’s halfway to high school. Soon she’ll develop a life entirely independent of us. She’ll push away, as she should. Boys will happen.

I squint and grimace and turn away at the thought. It will all happen eventually, and it should all happen. But I’m not always great at letting go. I’m not always great at marching forward. There’s a lot I’d like to put off. So the unexpected discovery of wayward boogers is a relief. She’s growing, but she’s far from grown. We’re not there yet.

There are other comforts. We were at the park back in August. We were early for camp drop-off, and she asked if we could go to the playground to wait. We had 10 minutes to play, maybe 15. She explored the play structure while I hid in the half-shade of the latticework above the picnic tables.

She called out to me. “Come play with me.”

I demurred. The heat, Mia. The heat. It had been mid-’90s and sticky all week, and the last thing I wanted to do was chase Mia around a Habitrail.

“But why are you wearing long sleeves?” she asked, and she had a point. I have to go to work, Sweetie. I’m going after I drop you off.

“Oh,” she said. “Is it dress-up day at work?” In a manner of speaking, I suppose it was.

She clung to me that day at drop-off. That week, actually – all week, she held on when it was time to let go. Nothing heartbreaking – she just squeezed my hand and pulled me close and asked me not to leave her just yet. Not yet. And I didn’t.

She still leaves the house in mismatched outfits with her hair a bird’s nest, completely oblivious to convention. She still asks me to close the guest room door because the green light blinking on the wi-fi router scares her. She still sleeps with Pig and Other Pig clutched close, and she still needs a night song and a butterfly massage before she’ll do it. She still asks me to stay a minute, just a minute, to snuggle.

There will come a time when I’ll deliver her to school, or send her off to bed, and she’ll dart away. I know it’ll happen, I know it has to happen. I just hope I’ll know enough not to hold on when it’s time to let go.

Because there are already days when I miss her childhood, and it’s still here.

 

dan solo

We rode to the library to read to a golden retriever this afternoon. 

Actually, I rode to the library. Two miles, mostly uphill, with 100 pounds of kid in the trailer behind me, and by the time I got there I was sweating so generously I was almost embarrassed to go inside. But I did, because there she was, Esther the Sweetheart – Essie, her handler called her – and she was waiting for us.

Essie’s a therapy dog – she and her colleagues go to nursing homes, to hospitals, to schools and libraries, and they make themselves available for needful hugging. She and Clifford, her big red friend, were there yesterday out in Chatsworth to offer a sliver of love in a pile of broken glass and steel and lives. But today was not a train wreck. Today was just Read to a Dog day at the Westlake Library, so we rode the two miles – I rode – and Mia read while Max listened in silence. So okay, Read to a Dog and Max day.

Parents weren’t allowed in – the idea, apparently, is to give kids a chance to build confidence by reading to someone other than their parents, even if that someone is a retriever. A napping retriever, I should add – Essie only woke up when Mia was done and I came back to pick up the kids.

No matter. Those kids have been wanting a puppy for years now – they don’t let a dog pass in the park without petting it – or in Mia’s case, barking at it in a vain attempt to communicate. So reading to a dog? For 20 minutes? Even a sleeping dog? Are you kidding?

Heaven.

***

Three hours earlier I was carrying Max on my shoulders and watching Mia lock down the goal box against vicious pressure from a team calling itself the Kickin’ Crabs. It was Mia’s second game in AYSO, and she held them off for a good three minutes before one shot finally made it through, and then another, and then two more, seemingly on the same play.

Good thing they don’t keep score in U-7 Girls AYSO.

The highlight last week came when one of Mia’s teammates got the ball on a breakaway – just her, the ball, and the goalie – but stopped mid-run to wave to her parents. There was nothing quite so spectacular this week, though a big girl on the Crabs got a breakaway of her own and almost scored before her coach reminded her that she was heading in the wrong direction.

No, this week the highlight was Chicken Nuggets afterward with Grandma and Zeyde.

***

Home from the library was easier, the 100 pounds of kid, plus five extra pounds of books, pushing me downhill. We ordered a pizza and watched Singin’ in the Rain. The kids objected – just last night they rented Thumbelina and Balto II: Wolf Quest, and they were eager to watch, but I made them a deal. If they didn’t like Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, we’d turn it off and they could watch their movies.

An hour into the film, they were standing in front of the television with umbrellas open – Dora and Tink umbrellas, for the record – and twirling, and when O’Connor did “Make ‘Em Laugh,” Max broke into hysterics (“He walked right into that wall!”). I paused it at one point and asked if they wanted their other movies, and they just stared at the frozen screen and waited. But when it was over and I fished for positive reviews, I got none. “I don’t like movies with real people in them,” Mia explained.

And yet as Max climbed into bed after a bite-sized Hershey bar and a date with a toothbrush, he was singing the title song, clear as day.

“What a glorious peelin’…”

***

Tomorrow I think we’ll try to make a volcano out of brown construction paper.

 

 

banana judge

Mia and Max staged a knock-knock marathon, with Max the clear endurance champion. Long after Mia had moved on to other pursuits, the boy was still knocking on doors, seeing who would answer.

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
“Don’t cry!”

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Ach.”
“Ach who?”
“Don’t sneeze – I mean, God bless you!”

***

Kind of a false start on the punchline there, but that’s fine. He’s three. And he’s working on it, honing his craft, which is what you have to do.

In high school, I fancied myself something of a comedy man. I watched a lot of the stuff, recorded stand-up specials and dissected them, figuring out whole categories and sub-categories of comedians – the joke guys beat the one-liner guys, but the story guys beat them both (see: Pryor, Richard). For a while, I thought that might be the thing for me, that it might be what I wanted to do for a living.

Not comedy. Discovering comedians. I thought that the raddest job on the planet would be to be Johnny Carson’s booker.

Nerd, right? I know. Big time.

***

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”

[Edited for space.]

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“I’m glad I didn’t say banana!”

***

They don’t always line up, obviously. He has a whole series of them that are complete nonsense, but they just knock him out. I’m trying to appreciate them, but mostly I just appreciate the laughter. Is this what it was like the first time I tried to make my mom watch The Simpsons with me? When I sat there and giggled, and she just smiled said something about how she could see that they were funny to me. Is it like that?

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Penguin.”
“Penguin who?”
“Penguin judge!”

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Orange.”
“Orange who?”
“Orange judge!”

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana.”
“Banana who?”
“Banana judge!”

***

Later, after the lights are out and he’s 20 minutes past time to calm his body, he calls me back into his room. “Daddy!“

“What is it, Max?”
“Knock knock.”
“Max, it’s time to sleep.”
“Daddy, knock knock.”
“Okay, one more and that’s it.”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“I’m glad I didn’t say banana!”

I kiss him on the nose. “Good night, Max.”

“The banana ones are the funniest!” he says, and he’s still laughing.