Simian Farmer

The soup is too hot

Every evening, after his bath, Declan flaunts his naked little self around our living room until he's air dried and then settles in (Snuggle Time) for a huge heap of stories until it's Bed Time.

Then he needs a couple more stories.

Then he cries pitifully for upwards of half an hour after I leave his room.  But that's a story for a Different Time.

Also, as an aside, I heard him utter his first (to me) completely grammatically correct sentence Thursday night.  He sat on the counter as I finished off the supper Amy started and he pointed with a warning finger while saying, "The stove is very hot."  Subject, predicate, adjective... and an adverb!!  The language pedant in me was fair ready to bust a seam!  (He didn't stutter either.)

...anyway...

Here we are reading a portion of The Rebus Bears; Dex is still wet from the bath.  I'm reading the words and he's 'reading' the pictures.  (That red dragon tattoo on his left arm has amazing staying power.)

Magic carpet ride

I daydream a fair bit.

Not intentionally, and it often creeps up on me at unexpected and inopportune times.  Like, for example, I was conducting an interview of a prospective engineering graduate with the HR manager in my office, and my mind was instantly catapulted into the completely plausible scenario of our Australian CEO belting out Tub-thumping by Chumbawamba over the intercom.  I am still incredibly impressed at how cool I remained on the exterior while I exploded with gales of laughter on the inside.

I think, now, that a lot of it has to do with the relative dearth of mental stimulation I have been getting at work this year compared to past years.  I thrive on stimulation and challenge, and they've been in short supply.  Apparently, I've been compensating when not fully engaged.

I don't daydream nearly as much at home, for instance.  There, I am constantly bombarded by the mental challenge of holding hands with my wife and, with our two free hands, battling back the entropic maelstrom of two babies, two dogs, and a house hell-bent on getting its picture beside 'squalour' in the dictionary.  We also have to (want to?) try to be nice to each other, raise our kids with consideration for their respective futures and individuality, not kill the dogs, and attempt to squeeze in some nookie every now and again.

My mind is quite thoroughly engaged.

Not all my daydreaming is impromptu.  I have a couple recurring themes that, every time they show up, have another layer or detail added.  Some have been recurring for years and have nearly taken on a life of their own.  In fact, were I somehow to be thrust into the reality of one, I would not find it so unco strange as to be unable to function nearly normally within it.

Here's one that crops up almost every day during the 15 to 30 minutes it takes me to drive home from work.  Some of the details will come as no surprise to those who know me.

In my dream I am the leader of a group of five vigilante Jedi knights.  Or, at least, we have Jedi-like powers.  And lightsabres.  The other four members frequently rotate between various people I know, and never stay constant.  I am the only constant.  We don't go by our real names but have call signs to preserve our secret identities.  I'm not sure what mine is yet; that detail hasn't worked itself out.  And even though we're vigilantes, we work for the cause of Good and are generally altruistic, though we do dish out the occasional well-deserved smackdown.

In order to promote global do-goodery, we have to go places.  You'd think, being Jedi and all, we'd fly around the world in X-Wing fighters or Jedi Starfighters.  That's simply not the case.  No, we get around by zooming thither and yon in pimped out Avro Arrows.  The Arrow, in its day, would have been the world's premiere air superiority fighter.  And it was Canadian.  And there was a whole lot of political intrigue behind the then-Conservative government's quashing of the program before the jets went into production.  (Most of the popular blame rests on pressure from the USA, who allegedly didn't want competition, even from an ally.)  Being so very nearly great and slowly fading into history has made it incredibly iconic.  I think that's why it intruded into my daydream.  So I went with it.

In my dream, we sometimes fly into the tail end of International Air Shows and surprise the crowd.  They always go nuts.

These aren't ordinary Arrows, oh no.  They're also Transformers.  Each one of the five morphs from its standard fighter configuration into that of a monstrous mechanized mandroid, sort of like that really cool Citroen car commercial.  (Or those fighter jets from Robotech, if you're familiar with the cartoon series.)  Imagine the fear born in the hearts of our foes when a 10-storey iron giant comes a-stompin'!

We have to have some place to hide our headquarters lest evil-doers seek us out, so we have a secret base nestled in a crater on the dark side of the moon.  (Thus free from prying telescopes too; I've actually thought about that.  We listen to lots of Pink Floyd.)  Our Arrows are space-worthy, of course.  We haven't, to date, encountered any aliens, nor ventured further into the solar system, not wanting to leave Earth undefended and all.

We have accomplished quite a bit in a relatively short time.  Usama bin Laden has been dealt with, for example.  None of that messy court wrangling like Saddam -- bin's dead.  We generally tend to keep out of Afghanistan for some reason.  We would like to ensure that the Northwest Passage is kept sovereign to Canada and that the country be remunerated for any degree of exploitation of its convenience.  (Faster than the Panama Canal, after all.)  The drug trade from South America has slowed substantially.  A good number of bad men in Darfur have been 'compromised'.  Same with Rwanda.  We helped out a whole lot of people during Katrina.  Held back the waters, as it were.  (We are Jedi.)  A bunch of other cool stuff.  We currently have 'intentions' regarding Kim Jong-il.

That's most of it, but I've left out a few details I'll keep to myself -- the stranger ones.  It's my daydream.

For the record, I've only ever smoked marijuana a small handful of times, and not recently.

You ain't seen n-n-n-n-nuthin' yet

A very new and alarming - to me - development this week is that Declan has begun to stutter.

Not all the time -- he'll go for long stretches without it cropping up.  But there are others when it hurts me to watch him struggle over a single syllable 10 or 15 times before either getting it or giving up on it.

It only started this week, so it's very early yet, but I am rather anxious, having experienced it first hand.  I was a horrible stutterer through most of elementary and junior high school; it started to taper off in high school and university.  One of my final engineering courses was a credit-only (no marks) course that required a 10 minute speech on a topic of our choice.  Since I was going to be nervous anyway, I chose to talk about stuttering.  I opened up by saying that one of the few benefits of growing up with a stutter is that I only had to write a five minute speech. 

It still crops up sometimes when I'm stressed or exceedingly nervous.  The fact that I was a chubby and introverted book-worm growing up contributed to a greater than average degree of social ineptitude, which was only exacerbated by a noted reticence of speech.  And when I did bother to open my mouth, I was never sure what was going to come out anyway.  Best just to clam up then and listen.  I'm a very good listener.

When Declan verbally stumbles now, he either keeps at it until the word comes out or he just stops.  He waits a few moments and then tries to say something else.  His posture freezes like a jerky, paused VCR image as he repeats the same syllable over and over, unable to move on to the next one or, seemingly, move himself.  When he does, the freeze-frame ends and he continues his monologue.  Scary, how well I can relate to that.

One trick of stutters that Mel Blanc made famous with Porky Pig is to substitute the awkward word halfway through the stutter with a different yet related word, often to comical effect.  My absolute favourite example can be seen here.

Dex is doing the same thing, also to comical effect.  He now insists on bathing with Tavish every night when it's Baby Bath Time.  One of the first things I do is lather up a cloth and wash Tav's neck since, because he's such a puker, there are always remnants he stores under his chins.  If he goes for a couple days without a bath, he's pretty easy to smell.  Ever since I began by washing Declan the same way, since he too was a puker, I've referred to it as neck-flossing.

Now when I do it to Tav with Dex in the tub, I always say out loud that Tavish has a dirty neck.  Declan has started beating me to the punch and as soon as I reach for the baby soap he says, "Baby Tawish... dirty neck!"  I smile and laud the boy for his observational skills as I proceed to floss.

Last night in the bath, Declan sort of lost it and used the substitution trick seemingly by reflex.  As soon as I grabbed the soap: "Baby Tawish... doo - do - do - do - do - do - PENIS!"

Funny, to be sure, and I laughed when it happened.  But there's still this little ball of tiny worry that won't go away.

Thanks

The annual turkey fest came and went this weekend.  It's always interesting these days when we attempt to go and socialise for any length of time.

Our schedule is dictated by the boys right now, so that means prep time in the early afternoon and then, after naps: dress 'em and get 'em in the car before they know what happened.  I'm sure that, were I not digesting part of it right now, our Thanksgiving turkey would relate a similar but sordid tale to me of its own erstwhile adventures.

Our dinner was at Granny and Grumpy's house this year with 13 of us jostling for elbow room around an ad hoc dining table.  (The top of which I used to shovel great swathes of snow from my parents' driveway many winters past, but that just speaks to my mother's ingenuity and frugal upbringing.)  Great Grandma was there who, when she was just a wee grandma, was the host of this annual affair.  She's since traded in her turkey baster for a cane, and my brother and I have risen nearly to the ranks of those who gather to trade obligatory pleasantries with other family members seen no more than twice or thrice a year.  (Little Brother, of course, won't ever do that; his wool is too dark.)

The Fraser Window of Opportunity stretches from about 4.30 PM when we can get out our door, to very nearly 8.00 PM, when we must apologetically corral a toddler and a fussy infant, strap both writhing beasts into their respective car seats and speed home under gastrointestinal duress all the while serenaded by the plaintive wails of a turkey-sized baby who was just subjected to more laps than "Chastity" down at the local Crazy Horse Saloon.  (Sometimes it's okay that Tav pukes as much as he does; keeps the baby-wranglers at bay.)

I don't know if it was the evening out or some residual head cold or an impending ear infection, but Sunday night after dinner, home alone, both boys split a big ol' can o' Whup-Ass and opened it on us, their parents.  Tavish was up at midnight, and then again at two, and his final encore was at four-thirty when I just bailed him back in his crib and shut both bedroom doors.  Which woke Declan wailing for his daddy (touching, really), so I hauled him onto the couch with me where he ensured that no matter which position I tucked him into, he could still kick me in the balls.

Dex finally settled down about 7.30 in the morning when we drifted off to sleep with the rising sun.  Amy was up with the wee one a half hour later, which meant everybody was up.

We had oatmeal, toast and oranges for breakfast.  Amy discovered a second package of oatmeal in as many weeks that was bereft of any of the intended flavouring.  She mixed in a little brown sugar and milk and I got to polish it off.  Still pretty bland.  She cut out the customer service number and box top and will call in the observation this week.  Maybe we'll get a free box of oatmeal out of the deal.

(Score!!)

Granny and Grandpa came by in the evening bearing leftovers, which are invariably tastier than the first time around -- especially the cabbage rolls.  Turkey sandwiches this week, baby!

But the dishes are all done, there's only one load of laundry left to put away and Declan didn't need more than five stories, his bathrobe, bath towel, two blankets, Tigger and Mater (tow truck) to go to sleep.  And it's not quite yet midnight.

For many things in this life I am immensely grateful, but these above all:

(That's a red dragon tattoo on Dex's arm.  He loves it.)

It's totally not fair, but there it is

I do most of the grocery shopping in our house and Amy is more than happy to see my backside as I leave with Dex in tow to stroll the aisles of the local Superstore about once a week.  One less kid (and husband?) under foot for a time.  She'll be even happier when I start taking both boys with me.  I plan to wait until Tavish's esophagus is 100% unidirectional before he joins his older brother on our semi-regular hunter-gatherer forays.

Whenever we go out for a CAR RIDE! the past while, Declan simply must have his SUN-GAZEEZ and HAT.  Regardless of time of day or amount of cloud cover.  He keeps them on while seated in the shopping cart, pointing out all the sundries he can name.  He gets a lot of looks and smiles and I've noticed a trend where he tends to flirt outrageously with the women who give him more attention.

When we were in the checkout line last week there was an attractive 30-something woman in line behind us who was all smiles for the boy.  As I readied to cart our goods out to the car, Declan cast one last, lingering glance up at the face of the woman over the top of his sunglasses.  Slowly then, purposefully, without breaking the stare, he used one finger to push his shades back up the bridge of his nose.  He never cracked a smile.  The woman burst out loud with laughter.

I exchanged a glance with her, and a smile, and she commented on the extreme cuteness of my son.  "Nice trick."  I thanked her and trundled out to the car, bespectacled and contented son riding high.

When we got home and began unloading the haul I recounted the encounter to my wife and offered up the commentary that, armed with two such dazzling children as our sons (we're never shy about complimenting them), I would be totally devastating as a single father since the chicks just eat up the cute kid with dad thing.  I mean, subconsciously for the women, I must have been good enough for some other gal to have kids with me, and now I'm doing the doting father schtick.

I back-pedalled a bit, insisting that it was just a 'what-if' scenario, and I'm pretty sure I got one of Amy's Arched Eyebrows in return.  But then she agreed with me and offered up the corollary that a similarly burdened single mother is not nearly so attractive to most men.

This did not come as a shock to me, but the stark contrast of that moment stood out in bright, ugly neon letters and glared at me.  I lost the exuberance of the tale while I continued sorting food.

It's a double standard and completely not fair, but there it is.

About last night

I cannot begin to describe how very much I am looking forward to the end of this calendar year, seeing as it will spell the end of my interminable tenure on the project that has usurped my time, wrangled my creativity into a surprisingly strong Full Nelson and extracted my not inconsiderable mental acuity and caused it to pool into a decreasingly viscous puddle at my feet.  I worry that the building will shake as a large dozer rumbles by and it'll schlurp off into a floor vent to be lost amidst the bits of detritus that gather unnoticed like so much corporate dandruff.

It'll be a new me in January after a Christmas break and a return to more stimulating directives from The Man so I feel eager to accomplish something rather than like now, contemplating my first two cups of coffee of a morning, wondering whither went my initiative (down the floor vent, most likely) and if I should mix things up a bit and put THREE packets of raw sugar in my third cup of joe rather than two, and if my caffeine-palsied hands are up to the task.

Change comes, but some change is more perfervidly anticipated than other.

*****

Forced (all willingly) to care and fend all day for two small boys that still wet themselves and think nothing of it (though one now proudly exclaims having done so), my wife, already suffering from a bad back (attributable to working construction for her dad in early years), finds herself in need of the strong ministrations of my hands more regularly these past months since Tavish was born.  The eldest boy gets put to bed and Amy is likely to glance in my direction with 'that look' on her face.  She shrugs her shoulders suggestively.  Perhaps it's painfully.  I don't ask and prefer to think the former.

When we were still dating she bought me a fancy bottle of vanilla cream massage oil.  It's edible.  She and her back have been on the receiving end of most of it.  After more than four years the last of it was rubbed in last week.  Last night I pulled out the new (smaller) bottle of chocolate mint massage oil.  Declan was talking happily to himself in his bed and Amy walked out of our bedroom shrouded in our down-filled duvet, flopped on the couch and nuzzled her face into the pillow.  She smiled up at me and her eyes got wide in anticipation.  I rubbed my palms together and mumbled something about it being in my best interest to run my hands under hot water for a minute.

At least half of our conversations consist of verbal jabbing, all meant out of love.  They normally end with:  "Wow, you sure must love me a lot!"

"I sure do!"

So we were talking as I traced the tips of my thumbs down the twinned ridges of muscle either side of her spine.  I try not to talk about the dogs too much because, still, it's normally best.  But Jango had Houdini'd his way out of the backyard twice this weekend and I must have made some sort of disparaging comment.  I think I gave a knee-jerk apology.

"Oh, you don't have to apologise for teasing the dogs, Si."  Amy's eyes still closed.

"I don't?"

"No.  You can tease them, you just can't be mean to them."

"Oh.  I didn't know.  You have to be a bloody tight-rope walker to be a husband in this house."

Amy smiled and I kept rubbing. 

Those boys that induce such knottiness in my wife also sap a good deal of her energy.  An alarming side effect from my semi-regular evening flesh-wrangling is a complementary inducement of somnolence that, after 20 or 30 minutes, has my wife snoozing pleasantly.  When this happened last night, I sighed, sat on the floor near to her head and watched the first half of the Discovery Channel special on China, of which I'd seen the end earlier in the day.  When I got to the overlapping bit I walked downstairs, preceded by the boxer, who proceeded to yack by the back door, bringing my thoughts for the past hour full circle.  I cleaned it up and put her in her kennel.  I wasn't mean to her.

I frittered away valuable sleeping time on the computer and resurfaced shortly before midnight to coax my wife to bed.  She did, after all, still have the duvet.

This morning, after I filled up my truck at the Husky truck stop down the road from my office, I bought a large coffee and put three sugars in my first cup.