The Descent

I think it must have taken a lot for him to come down. To wander out so aimlessly into the darkness. To measure each step so accurately, trusting eyes that barely knew how to see but needed to see depth. And the darkness. Existing in a world he was not at all familiar with. Without the ambient light he ascended with. Or was forced to close his eyes too. The world was much different than he remembered, if he remembered at all. But down he came.

I think he must’ve felt trapped. From where he was he could see the moon and the stars and faint blowing breeze dancing on the tops of the trees. Down here he must’ve felt trapped in his father’s house. Destined to walk a path that a hair’s breath on either side would have succumbed him to the unfettered and unsoothable pain of something as simple as a stubbed toe. Maybe it was a pain he was prepared for. But I contend that a pain you know is coming is far worse than one you get blindsided with because you can do nothing to stop it. The world down here: in a succulent darkness. But down he came.

I think of the timber of his heart. The courage to risk the fall to risk it all to descend and traverse and withstand what he feared most: knowing the absolute worst could happen. And whatever measure of choice brought him to the penultimate moment, to the riskiest risk in the darkiest darkness, I cannot imagine the courage it took for him to speak.

We did not hear him as he called out from right over our heads, loudly, screaming at us asleep in our darkness. What made him think we would hear him even if he stood in our very presence, knowing we were very much asleep. What kind of courage it takes to endure a descent into such darkness and yield such a little but bright colored word that can so powerfully awake us, is something you’ll need to ask him.

But last night, down Isaac came, from his new room upstairs to the foot of our bed before calling out in a final breath: “Momma”. It’s a journey I don’t think he was the first to make.

Imaginary Conversations That Lead To Real Events

Characters:
Isaac: a freshly turned two-year old with blue eyes. Able to compose short sentences such as "I wanna play DS" and "Bye-bye Daddy". Remarkable sense of balance. Short.

Tiffany: almost three; bright blue eyes. Doesn't speak using contractions. Tall for her age. Likes to play with dolls.

Aaron: concerned twentysomething parent who is busy upstairs. Finds humor in random things.

Setting:
Interior of two-story home; other children and adults milling about on second-story. Isaac and Tiffany are downstairs in living room. Isaac is holding a Nintendo DS; Tiffany a generic baby doll.

Isaac: Hey Fee! I'm playing DS.
Tiffany: I can see that Eye-Zack. You are having fun?
Isaac: Yuh! DS!
Tiffany: Well, I am playing with my doll. She is pretty. I am pretty.
Isaac: Yuh! Momma?
Tiffany: Mommy is upstairs, Eye-Zack. I need a tissue.
Isaac: Yuh! Tissue. Nose! (points to his own nose histrionically)
Tiffany: Yes, Eye-Zack.
Isaac: Bathroom. Yuh? Go.
Tiffany: Okay, Eye-Zack. We can go get tissues.
Isaac: Yuh! DS. Gross. Needs tissue.
Tiffany: So does my baby doll.

Isaac and Tiffany walk together to bathroom. Tiffany half-shuts the door behind her. The bathroom is dark, a soft yellow light filters slightly through the brown shower curtain.

Tiffany: Here you go Eye-Zack (hands Isaac a tissue)
Isaac: Nose. Tissues.
Tiffany: Tissues are cool. I use them on my nose. And so does my doll.
Isaac: I play DS. Nose!

Loud banging noise heard overhead. Aaron comes pounding down the stairs calling for Isaac and Tiffany. Sees the bathroom door half-open.

Aaron: Hey guys, what are you doing in here?

Isaac is polishing the DS with a handful of tissues. Tiffany is rubbing the dolls head with the tissues.

Scene.

On A Year: March 12, 2008 - March 12, 2009

Isaac woke up this morning a little early and very much cold. Seems he and his cousin messed with the thermostat the previous day, unbeknownst to all of us, resetting the entire schedule. Resetting it to 60 degrees. Not to mention his abject disapproval of socks on his feet while sleeping, he was very cold this morning, in the hour before dawn. So he laid in bed under the blankets with us. Warming to the day. Listening to us sleepily tell him Happy Birthday. 

When he got up he noticed decorations, multi-colored streamers, dangling from his door. Then more cloaking the back of his highchair. He flicked at them. Giggled. Then he noticed a giant Happy Birthday banner above the table to the right. He pointed to it and smiled and called out for Momma. He smiled real big and pointed to it. Real big. Today was going to be something a little different. 

I'm not sure it ever set in for him. Even though he peeled away wrapping paper on present after present. I'm not sure it dawned on him when we sang to him and convinced him to blow out his birthday cake. Not like it dawns on the Mrs and me. Our son is Two Years Old. 

Last year I penned lines about the abundance of love Isaac had instilled in us. How something very big had happened and transpired and transposed it's greatness so firmly into our lives that it had stumbled back into the past and was pouring out into the future. My point was to describe the magnitude of it. The infiniteness of it.  Another year has just exponentially increased infinity for us. 

But the grandeur of that love is felt most deeply in the tiny, yet infinite space we have traversed between 1 and 2.  It's in the little things, the infinitesimals, that I have loved Isaac most this past year. Tickling sessions. Simple words. Running. Jumping. Sentences. Dancing to songs (even if it is All The Single Ladies! (and Ray LaMontagne!)). Reading books. Animal sounds. Brushing his teeth. Riding bikes. The first year was about the largeness of it all. This year was about the glorious details emerging.

Tonight, weary and up way past bed time, I rocked him to sleep. He puts his head into the crook between arm and shoulder, and arches his neck just a little. His body relaxes and collapses. But his eyes are open in the darkness. And he is looking at me as his day fades under heavy eyelids. I sing to him. In one of those little moments. I sing to him Happy Birthday. And I ask if he wants me to sing it again. "Yeah." So I sing it again. Quietly into his ear as his eyes disappear. 

I put him in bed. 

His bare feet creeping out from under the blanket. 

Happy Birthday Isaac.

How I love you.

Singular Moments

As any parent can attest, there are singular moments that epitomize the inexorable joy of being a parent. Moments when the child shows some keen insight into life or expels some uncontainable excitement towards a surprise you worked laboriously. Many times these moments count coo on us. They sneak up. Catch us unaware.

I've shared many in these spaces. But hardly a day goes by without some small instance. Last night, for example, I was holding him in the dark, rocking in the chair, his head buried in my shoulder and a blanket. I was saying "I. Love. Isaac." He responded, at my prodding to he loves: "Love Dadda Momma." I love being a Dad.

But a most notable occurrence came over the weekend. I was away. I wouldn't see him until Monday AM. I knew I would miss him. I even took him to McDonald's for a Friday AM breakfast (he loves pancakes). Something I try to do every time there'll be a significant time lapse. He talks on the phone these days, but still only when it's convenient to him (again, I apologize to all of you he's called at 6:15am on a Saturday). But it's not the same.

Anyway, the entire time I was gone, the Mrs. said he asked constantly for Daddy. Looking all over the house, looking out the window, checking the bed. The Mrs. and Mrs'-Sis. were looking at some of his baby videos on YouTube. Some of those videos include me. And it was those videos that Isaac insisted upon watching over and over again. Now Isaac isn't a computer kid yet (though in another singular moment, he points at the computer and says "Apple"), merely taken to banging on the the keys -- especially the CAPS lock which emits a green LED light when depressed. But his insistence was emphatic. To the point where he sat for the better part of an hour (several times over the weekend) with the computer on his lap, in my recliner, rocking slightly, giggling, pointing out Dadda while watching and re-watching only the videos that included me.

A child's love is persistent and profound and utterly simple. And when it shows itself, in a smile, an expression, a hug, reality comes apart. Whatever Huckabee blanket is torn, from the top down, by these happenings, to think that another one, another child is coming who carries my love...

The Wrestler

There is always lots of laughter. Giggling, chuckling, a chortle. And he usually sets himself up across the room from me. I, on my hands and knees, growl, lower my shoulders, engage the enemy. He laughs some more. Puts his hand to his mouth and thinks. But only for instant. I am sure the tactics of Patton cross his mind. Some advanced mathematics perhaps. But it only takes him an instant before he moves forward. Before he is resolved to the fight, to the war, to the wrestle. Sometimes there are weapons. He will use his prized green blanket. Either it will be a cape or a whip. In the latter, picture the stylings of Linus imitating the Power Rangers. And there is laughter. Much, much laughter.

He is a cheater. A little bit of a cheapskate. He will jump on my back, usually by way of my fulcrumed shoulder. From there, he may bite me, right below my scapula. Right on a good piece of skin. It is his arrow. He is Bard and I am the Middle Earth dragon. And I will fall and roll. Throwing him off. Begin again. Subsequent times he will use his fingers, eye gouging, mouth pulling little fingers. The ones not holding the green blanket.

Wrestling is something boys and Dads do. Since time immemorial. Isaac has learned some strategies recently. And it's gotten to the point where it's a little more of a struggle. A little more of a wrestle before it descends into tickling and calling out to Mommy because someones bumped his head or been unfairly (whatever, he ran at me, I just lowered my shoulder and lifted him up) tackled and pinned beneath Daddy.

But there is always lots of laughter. And it is the most fun.

Now unlike a particular wrestling episode with my father, I've yet to break a bone in him. Yet to be forced into naming a place in the living room Peniel. Though I've more than once found it profoundly moving that God wrestled with man. Like a father and son. I know I complain more than often about unfair pinnings, lowered shoulders and have bitten much in my own time. And it is here I am most like my Isaac. Grossly out-manned, out-strengthened, out-maneuvered. Constantly relying on weapons. But each time I am pinned. And there is this great foolishness. This great silliness prevailing over those times. Like I could out-wrestle The Wrestler. Still it is something that must be done. Must needs be part of our relationship. And He presses me, but does not crush. And while laughter does not permeate the engagements, there is, by the end, this deep abiding Joy. A closeness with God. A Peniel.

Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

Another Morning Worth It

Yesterday was another one of those mornings when Isaac is up with the dawn -- in the hour before morning. And it was an amalgam of the pinching, biting, scratching, crying and hitting that convinced me to get up with him, to not try and convince him to go back to sleep.

By 6am I was in the shower, he was watching the Wiggles, sitting alert in the recliner, rocking it gently, tugging on his blanket and plugging away on his pacifier. Soon, above the din of the falling water I heard a scuffle and soft thud -- a light, fleeting drop. I listened for further noise and I didn't hear anything more. When I got out I walked into the living room. The chair was empty. I turned the corner into the kitchen. Sitting on the rug below the sink was Isaac. He had opened the Lazy Susan, removed a box of Shredded Frosted Mini-Wheats and placed it on his lap. His blanket covered his feet and his pacifier had been tossed aside. His hand was elbow deep into the box, his mouth chewing on a piece of wheat and frost.

He looked up at me, and with his eyes innocent, tired and fierce, seemed to say, "What? I'm hungry. Don't you judge me."

A Morning Worth It

It was a rough morning. Isaac was awake at 4am. He wanted to sleep in our bed. At 4 in the morning, I'm inclined to let him. Of course, then he starts hitting my face because he doesn't want to sleep, he wants to play and talk. He crawls all over me staring at the LCD of the alarm clock. "Wow!","Ooooh!", "Dada!", "Uh-oh!" he says for two hours mixed with sleep, crying and talking. Finally, at 6:30, having almost lost it, I get him to be quiet and fall asleep. At 7am I get up and get ready.

Come 7:30 I'm in the kitchen making his lunch and mine and his breakfasts. I turn the corner into the hallway to get his bag. There's Isaac. I didn't hear him get up. I didn't hear him make a sound. But he's crawled out of our bed. He's turned on the radio on the alarm clock and there's music playing lightly. There's Isaac, in the dark hallway with his green blanket in one hand and pacifier in the other. He's wearing his green and white striped pajama bottoms with his Red Sox T-Shirt (!). And he's dancing.

The Misadventures Of Isaac, Pt. 2

Yesterday I spent a fun-filled day with Isaac. A day off from work. A day off from daycare. A day in the emergency room. Isaac had a run in with a table at daycare -- not, as is the rumor circulating, that he was defending particular comments made about a certain Yellow Wiggle who drives the Big Red Car. And there it was, red, bloody, oozing a little blood by the time I arrived. He was pacified, calm -- coloring at the table. I took him. After a quick diagnosis from Dr. Mom who met us at home, it was off to the hospital.

He was the star of the ER. Waving at everybody, summoning nurses and doctors to glance his way with his soft, cackling, "Hi!". Isaac sat still while the nurse checked his heart with the stethoscope. He looked at me and smiled, amused. Mom did the same thing at home. When they took his blood pressure and the Velcro patch squeezed at his arm, he looked at me, the patch, the nurse and me and smiled. It was cool to him. It was fun. It was an adventure.

When they took as back to the room, he waved at everyone as I carried him. He said "Hi!" to everyone. Waved at them by twirling his wrist and curling his fingers inward. They commented on his eyes, on the scrap of oozing blood above his left eyebrow that he himself didn't notice. When they put the numbing medicine on it, he screamed and peeled the bandage off several times. I restrained him, quieted him, his eyes fiery and furious and fuming, tears and frustration bellowing out of them. This was an adventure and I was holding him back where no cut could. He wanted earnestly to run into the hallway, to run down the halls to look in the rooms and talked to whomever he could.

When he calmed and numbed we held him down flat against the linen of the raised bed. The surgical tech assured him that he'd be fine, that it wouldn't hurt. I still expected him to rise out of his skin when the first poke went in. But he sat there, through four stitches, knots, pokes, restrained by foreign hands around his head, my body weighing down against his keeping him still. His arms and legs and stomach all relaxed and at ease.

I've told you about his sad, brave eyes when I've left him at daycare. Yesterday I just saw bravery. He didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't cry out, didn't make a sound the entire time. His eyes were encouraged, curious, fascinated by the procedure. They welcomed it, accepted it, allowed it. If he blinked, I missed it. Four stitches and not a sound. When they finished, he sat up and waved at them, with his soft, cackling voice said "Bye!", curling his fingers, twirling his wrist.

I can say I was proud of him, but it was more of amazement than pride. Not that I doubt his toughness -- he is extremely tough, though this morning he cried and latched on to me because his foot fell asleep -- but I think I doubt his courage, his sense of the adventure. Stitches, the adventure of having a little boy.

Isaac is fine this morning. Happy, bouncing around, none the worse for wear. Ready to defend more Wiggles, Play-Doh, toy trucks and bugs. Ready to take on more tumbles, more blood, more dirt, more bangs and bruises. And with those sad, brave eyes below the four stitches, I left him at daycare this morning. I do not have his courage.

My Little Gremlin

Cries in the night are never welcomed. Especially on the second night. Especially when they are not easily pacified by back rubs, naps in our bed, soothing words. No. Isaac wants to sit in the blackness of the living room, illuminated unnaturally by the LCD lights of the wireless router, the rise and fall white, glowing hum of the iBook charging and the moon, in its tireless shining through the blinds. He wants to remain quiet, possessed by the night, awake and alive in its aura. He never sits on the couch; he does at night. We sat there for awhile last night. He couldn't and wouldn't sleep, neither could I with him awake and alive with unrest and the evening coffee still in my blood and breath. So we sat there on the folds of the couch, quiet, silent, encouraging each other in our nocturnicity.

I blinked first, I had to get him to sleep. I offered him juice to no avail. I changed his diaper to the chagrin and mocking of the darkness. I tired more quickly, I was more languid, I was the one who needed a warm blanket to shield myself from the open window blowing cool air. Isaac stared at the natural and unnatural lights. We looked through the windows on the door, at the A.M. night of our street: the star lights on the fence and in the sky, the trash cans like black monsters coated with the effervescence of the moon, the stillness of it. He was curious, bending his head between the window slats, between the recesses of glass that opened the night to his eyes. He would not go easily into this good night.

Finally I offered him food, unfinished yogurt from breakfast. I would not yield and fill the room with lamplight, the LCD display, blinking, was enough. I returned from the kitchen in the black hallway, hearing a movement, not seeing a thing. I almost ran into him, his stealth and invisibility his greatest strength; he was able to escape. I saw him scatter away, scuttle across the carpet, short and quick, awake and fast in his steps. He ran past the light spilling in from the door, past the pulsating hum of the computer I saw him again, I heard his matching footfalls, bursts of speed falling like rain drops. He cut the light from the router and I saw his full form, scurrying full tilt to the couch and in one step leaping upon it. Like a little Gremlin, hiding in the open, in the shadow of a darkness battling with the light he sat upright quickly.

I carry the rhythm of those footfalls today, those harbingers of insomnia, treading quickly across in the Bible-black night. My little Gremlin, my little creature of the night, illusive, almost illusory save for my unnatural lights. I caught the Gremlin, put him to bed, but I still see him there, scurrying quickly, seeing me before I see him. Alive in the night, eyes open, a creature of the quiet and cool, camping in my lap with blankets and lights and darkness all around us. It was the stillest Isaac has ever been, the most fragile, the most contingent and independent and daring and wondrous he has ever been. The night does not frighten him. The darkness does not frighten him.

My little Gremlin.

Sad Brave Eyes

Recently we've had to move Isaac to a new daycare/school (his sitter had a baby recently and is unable to watch him). It's more like a school than it is a daycare: Rules, curriculum, field trips. It's the end of whimsy, regardless of what it's called.

Anyway, dropping him off in the morning has become difficult. Not only for him, but for us as well. It's not the same. It lacks the emotional welcome we were used to -- he was used to. There are kids moving about, dragging bean bags, crying, eating snacks, parents moving in and out and teachers miraculously happy. Each day I drop him off I feel like this as he begins to cry the moment we enter the building. And the moment he sees me at the end of the day, it's more tears and not relieved, happy tears either.

Today, perhaps the saddest of all the days. He stopped crying as the teacher picked him up while I set out his essentials for the day. They looked out the window together near the door. As I left I turned to look at him. No crying, just quiet tears streaming down his cheeks and eyes that looked brave and sad.

I know it will take time to adjust, for all of us.

I don't know what that means.

A Reflection On Father's Day

Yesterday was my second Father's Day. The 28th for my Dad. The 51st and 55+ for my grandfathers. I maintain the only thing that rivals being a Dad is being a Mom. The point being that having a child is the largest of little gifts. Wrapped in little smiles here and there, an occasional temper-tantrum and this feeling of more-than-responsibility.

Isaac's infused my life with an immeasurable joy and pride. I am at once teacher, disciplinarian, jester, comforter, entertainer, entertainee, duck and goose. That I love being a dad, that I well up with emotion when merely approaching the idea that I'm a father to this boy, this blue-eyed, yelling, screaming, pacifier throwing, doubled-over laughing, crying, pushing a toy lawnmower around for 2+ hours, child is my me.

The other night he had trouble sleeping. So I scooped him up before the tears could mount and sat with him in my arms. His grip on his green blanket was impenetrable as his breathing eventually slowed and the tears, watery and large, fell silently away. We sat there, like we do on occasion, for about 15 minutes and then I put him back in bed for the remainder of the night.

There's is a lot to fatherhood. But sometimes, that's all there is.

Alternate Version: How Isaac Got That Nasty Cut On His Neck

We walked along as steadily as a toddler allows. The road giving way to speed in places, treachery in others where the rocks jutted and mud, well, did whatever it is that mud does. Clump? Either way, the going, for the most part, was not easy. The woods of Maine piled high pines and maples on either side of our hike towards the "Monkey Bridge". As slow going as it was, Isaac was relentless in his pursuit of other family members ahead, and the greenery growing just off the beaten path. More often than not, as if he sensed danger or intrigue in the woods, he would be caught several steps into the underbrush. His sense of bravery showed itself early in those moments. A harbinger of the hero he would become.

Suddenly, out of the bark and wood to the right 100 yards down the path came charging a bear. At this point, Isaac and I were leading the way. I had run ahead with him on my shoulders and was just returning his little legs to the uneven terrain when the bear approached at an alarming rate. My initial reaction was to run, to grab Isaac and run. Isaac's initial reaction was also to run. But like his approach to squirrels, birds and dogs, it was to run towards the oncoming animal. Run he did, matching in proportion only the throbbing speed of the bear.

His courage and legs were aligned as they propelled him magnificently to the beast. He added the hand gesture he had recently learned: pointing. All this together threw the creature into a tailspin and it ceased his steady approach. In fact, it was the bear that froze as Isaac neared. In an unexplainable way, I was unable to catch up to Isaac. Either fear leadened my legs, or his courage emboldened his and he remained out of my grasp, out of my reach, and his actions beyond my worst of nightmares.

He came within yards of the creature, who remained locked in its spot of mud and rock. He, as he had been taught, made the sound of a bear. It was not loud but it was sure. Like a child he knew he was looking at a bear and knew the sound of that bear, but knew not, like us adults, the menacing and imposing will of it. The bear cocked his head and growled low and broken. It backed up a step, as if to run or leap or attack or cower. Isaac growled confidently again, the sound carrying out past his pointed finger to the hairy ears. The bear cowered for sure, but not before he extended his paw and claw like his foe. Then, with a mere flick of its frame, it reached and scratched Isaac beneath his chin before bounding off back into the forest. Isaac pointed and growled some more bearing the scar of his courage with a child-like obliviousness. It was a bear to him. To us it was fear, danger, death, and sheer terror. To him, it was a bear.

It is a three inch long laceration. A flesh wound only. But in the incision courage seeps out.

***This did not actually happen. True, we went on a hike in Maine over the weekend to the "Monkey Bridge" (a mere two steel cables over a creek) and we did walk through forests with the "threat" of bears (?). But we did not see any. Did not see any tracks or hear any noises resembling that of any creature (although Nate thinks he was tracking a deer). Isaac actually did cut his neck though. But it happened when he fell in a field of flowers -- wild flowers -- but flowers nonetheless.***