Apr
6
For Dylan at 14 months.
Consistently
when prompted
you tilt your little flower face up to offer a kiss
to the stuffed lion puppet.
But you will rarely
kiss me
in the same way.
What
the hell, kid?
The stuffed lion puppet
did not have its abdomen sliced open with a meat cleaver
so that you could make your entrance
into the world.
A little gratitude
please.
:::
You bitched and moaned
so mightily
over the small blue broom
I finally said fuck it
and gave it to you.
Now you push it all over the house
making swirls of dirt and dog hair
stopping only
to point accusingly at the
tall
YELLOW
broom
kept in the utility room for the express purpose of killing spiders
and scream, scream, scream at the unfairness
of it all.
:::
When you first
bapped your little hands together
in the sign for “more”
I thought oh!
He is a prodigy.
But now that I’ve seen how you
so eagerly throw yourself backwards
in order to smash your skull on the
nearest hard surface
I am a little worried
about your future
test scores.
:::
So tell me
if I took this Eggo waffle
and wiped it on the floor
collecting a repulsive mix of
pine needles, filth, and animal hair
would you
eat it
THEN?
:::
They say do unto others
as you would have them
do unto you
and frankly
the notion of
someone squirming their fingers
into my armpits and
wiggling them around
while I shrieked with hysterical
uncontrollable
laughter
sounds really really
unpleasant.
But that doesn’t mean
I am going to stop
doing it
unto
to you.
:::
I love the heft of your warm body
your outflung hands
your curious glances
but seriously, kid.
Could you do me a solid
and hang on when I carry you?
Consider the
koala
or perhaps the
tree frog.
Both fine examples
of the methodology I would prefer
that you employ
instead of this business
that involves my left arm
falling
the
fuck
OFF.
:::
I remember your brother
at eighteen months
how he screamed and pitched tantrums and was
generally
a spot of bother
as they say.
You appear
to have reached this stage
a full four months
early.
Hooray!
Gold star
for YOU.
:::
Here we are
all of us
in the bath together.
I treasure these silly, splashy
moments.
Even if you are curiously grabbing
my nipple
while your father joyously yells
TUNE IN TOKYO! TUNE IN TOKYO!
:::
Oh my god!
Oh my god!
Did you hurt yourself?
What is the matter
is there
blood?
Why
why
why are you shrieking like that?
What—
oh.
Oh, I see.
Your ball has
rolled under the couch.
Sure, I guess I can get that for you.
Just let me
take a minute
to ride out the palpitations
while shooting you the double eagle salute
first.
:::
I don’t know if I’ve ever
seen anything quite so awesome
as you dancing
(spinning in circles)
(doing knee bends)
to Eminem’s “Crack a Bottle”
Uh oh uh oh
bitches hoppin in my Tahoe
:::
You can say
ball
Dada
Mama
dog
kittycat.
You can walk, run, climb
and play peekaboo.
You are growing so fast,
sniglet
but on the issue of
getting yourself trapped between the couch and the side table
and sitting there bonking your head and wailing in frustration
let’s be honest
there hasn’t really been any
improvement
in months.
:::
At bedtime
you used to fit in the
crook of my arm
Now your body sprawls
from my shoulder
to my knees
and soon
we won’t sit
in a rocking chair
any more.
But for now we are here
you and I
in this
chair
in this
moment.
Shhhhhhhh.
The room is dark
the room is quiet
and we are
here.
:::
(Previous Parenting Poetry from the Spleen entries here.)
Apr
5
Dylan has a lingering cold with a hacking sort of cough that keeps triggering a Mighty Gag Reflex Barf and his sleep—which I owe you a follow-up on after all that talk about sleep training but suffice to say after a bumpy beginning of cutting out the wee-hour bottles and trying different comforting techniques and eventually just letting him cry his fool head off for a couple nights, the last two weeks or so have been a wondrous series of twelve hour stretches with no wakeup calls and he’s been much, MUCH happier in the mornings and it has been the best thing ever—has gone to hell because whenever he lies down the post-nasal drip gets him coughing all over again. It is a most tragic bummer and I’ve tried every trick in the book including steamy baths, slathering Vicks on the soles of his feet, and gently blowing a steady exhalation of marijuana smoke up his nostrils, but nothing much helps. I feel sorry for him, and I also feel sorry for myself, since I had to clean barfed-up hotdog pieces which emerged fully unscathed, still in the small coin-shaped slices he had eaten more than two hours earlier, and by the way, that’s kind of fucked up, right? My god, what kind of preservatives can so thoroughly resist the digestive processes? Hotdogs: you are on notice.
In much happier news, we finally—FINALLY!—got some actual springlike weather and I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been to feel the warm sunshine and spend some time outdoors as a family. High points of our weekend:
And, of course:
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