The first semester in the School of Life concluded with Carter’s fifth month. I’m not clear how I’m doing since the Professor cannot yet write A’s and B’s. If he grades on a curve, however — particularly those upward curves forming at the corners of his mouth — I’ll likely advance to the next term after a short summer break.
The latest final was given orally, punctuated by globs of drool. Below are excerpts from my virtual Blue Book.
Baby Talk is proof of evolution.
Creationism is making a comeback. Perhaps Woodstock High School didn’t market our 10th-grade production of “Inherit the Wind” to a wide enough audience; Or, maybe Jeff Poehlmann’s performance as the well-intentioned, narrow-minded preacher was too sympathetic. If Scopes cemented evolution in the curriculum, it used the same stuff that caused my childhood model planes to fall apart after a few years sitting on the shelf. The debate rages back and forth quoting flawed and outdated scientific studies and arguing the instability of Gravity, but I have stumbled onto definitive proof of the evolutionary ladder.
My kid is starting to speak.
Not in words*, of course. At least, not human ones. Carter speaks in the ancient tongue of dolphins and finds great delight in communicating with the lower orders of life running rampant in our home.
Cleo, our beagle, is a particular delight to our son. Carter will lean forward, as aquatic mammals are wont to do, and emit a piercing shriek to beckon the dog to him. Being a dog, however, Cleo often misinterprets this dolphin speak as, “Run away now, or I will shriek louder.” Amy and I try to help bridge that language barrier by clutching Cleo in a vise grip as Carter leans even closer. Rather than the gentle compliment it is meant to be, Carter’s next shriek is poorly translated as an urgent request to drool on the pooch’s head. Still, we are interpreting this dolphin speak as a clear indication that we arose from the sea.
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* It should be noted that Carter has, in fact, already spoken. He called me “Dad” in late February. Due to the jealous protests of his other relatives, however, it has been agreed that — officially — the boy has not spoken. Callously overriding the father-son bond to give everyone else hope, or something. Whatever.
Kids are made of Tofu.
I can always tell if someone has visited Carter recently, whether it be Nanna stopping by for one of those grandparent-hugs that can last an hour, or a random socialite sweeping my boy up into her arms as my wife tries to eat lunch in a restaurant. Carter’s scent adapts to his environment in much the same way tofu absorbs the flavor of whatever food is in the same dish.
In fact, I’m not sure what Carter smells like since he’s never been by himself for an extended period of time. I smell Amy; Amy smells me. He smells like Baby Wipes and No More Tears. The only unique odors emanating from Carter seem to come from the various substances that spew out the bottom or top of the boy. Since I can’t imagine him smelling like that as he gets older, I’m curious where he is going to acquire his own distinct smell that he’ll one day rub onto his own boy.
Perhaps tofu is not the right metaphor. There’s a scene from “French Kiss” in which Kevin Kline’s character shows off a childhood science project. He had captured individual scents from all over the hillside where his winemaking family plied their trade, and then compared that to the taste of the wine. Maybe kids are like wine. With every caress, we’re each helping to concoct the final scent. Years from now, I’ll hug Carter and smell Amy, Nanna and even that Bloomington socialite.
Teeth are a bad investment.
I am in a constant state of financial crisis. This stems for one too many years so heavily in debt we were contemplating cooking for the staff at Providian to make our minimum payments. Thus, when I see Carter’s new teeth sprouting from inside his lower lip, my first thought is how am I going to pay for this.
Baby teeth, it turns out, are not meant to be permanent additions, like growing an eyeball or a brain. They come out after time, an event that always leads to bills.
At first, these invoices are small and payable in quarters and silver dollars deposited under the child’s pillow. Although inflation is more evident in vestigial teeth than gasoline — when I was a boy, I got dimes and nickels — it’s a small price to pay for souvenirs of Carter’s childhood. But when the final version of the choppers arrive, we’re looking at dentist trips, capping, wisdom teeth extraction and possibly orthadontics. The two little white sprouts of calcium in my boy’s mouth are just a harbinger of financial doom.
Personally, I like the toothless grin. It gives him character. And it keeps my Emergency Pop-Tart Fund flush.
Breast milk works double dooty.
Although the pace of growth has slowed from his staggering 605-pound playing weight as an freshman center at Indiana University, Carter is still benefiting from the natural advantage of breast milk. Despite urgings of the Greatest Generation — Tom Brokaw’s words, of course — to fast track his meals to fast food by way of cereal, Amy and I have no immediate plans to wean the boy from the Giant Juice. (Although we will draw the line for sure when he starts asking his friends over for dinner.)
One disadvantage we have discovered is that Carter’s eating has become very, well, efficient. That tar-like substance stopped showing up in his diapers long ago, but the buttery goo that replaced it is starting to arrive like a volcano in infrequent bursts. The boy’s bowels can lay dormant for a week at a time and then erupt in a never-ending flow. And like any active volcano, multiple eruptions often ensue in a short period after the initial blast.
The difference being that instead of swallowing civilizations whole, the house celebrates joyously in the realization that Carter is not broken.
What I do now won’t be in Carter’s book.
At five months, my dad was taking a job with the new Morton Chemical facility in Woodstock, Illinois, and moving his family from Colorado to the Midwest. Unlike my sister, who likely has a plethora of memories about the Centennial State, I have only one fuzzy memory of my brief stay in Boulder. It’s the image of a mountain landscape and expansive plains behind a fenced backyard with a big tree and a swing set. I sense an apartment complex behind us, but my direct recollection is limited to the one view, like a memory photograph.
I bring this up because Carter is now my age at the time of that transplantation. If he conjures up any memory of his life thus far, it will likely be a still, fuzzy, singular image. Most likely, it will be Cleo’s stunned expression as he hails the beagle.
It is still an expectation in my subconscious that I will become rich and famous some day. With all of the glamour and golden awards comes some unwanted attention. Should Carter take the low-road with a cheesy tell-all book that earns him a fast buck and 15 minutes, I can rest assured that whatever clumsy things I might have said or done since January 30 will not be evidence against me in the courtroom of public opinion. From this point on, however, his long-term memories will be cultivated. If I’m not careful, he’ll be lying on a couch calling me Cleo and telling his therapist that I never acknowledged his shrieks.
Kid accessories are interchangeable.
I have made it to two baby showers since Carter’s get-togethers in the months before he was born. To each, I went armed with a new father’s wisdom. It’s a strange combination of “Been There, Done That” confidence and complete panic that I can’t name a sufficient number of children’s books. Mostly, I’m reminded of my fifth birthday.
When it was discovered that Steve Brown, a kid down the way, had the same May 15th birthday, we were forcibly joined at the hip like the reverse-engineering some Siamese Twin. A party was held at our Dean Street house with one common set of friends and two of everything sitting on the present table. Steve gets the Kung-Fu doll with the black robe; I get David Carradine with the white one. Steve gets Superman’s Fortress of Solitude; I get the Batmobile. Most of Steve’s presents are red; mine are predominantly blue*. Same stuff, different color.
The baby showers are a lot like that. I see things unwrapped found laying around our house. The vibrating chair. The floor mat play thingy. Rattle socks and onesies. Hats. Car seats. Umbrella strollers. Except instead of ducks and IU emblems, they present themselves with rabbits and Cubs logos. Red. Blue.
For a brief moment, I contemplate whether Carter, too, is interchangeable for a Molly, a Hannah and Katherine, an Alex, or little Baby Schneider. The things I find so amazing about the experience have been done 40 billion times over each generation. Then Carter laughs, yawns and shrieks like a dolphin. I realize, only my boy could do that. Accessories are interchangeable. Children are not.
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* Years of therapy, by the way, have pointed to this incident as a defining moment as why I have always liked blue better than red. Imagine my internal conflict now that I’ve shunned DePaul for the Indiana Hoosiers.