“Everything is new to him,” a wise father recently told me. The things we take for granted — door knobs, beagles, glasses, air — are a wonderment to Carter. Days last almost a lifetime. The Indiana Hoosiers never lose.
In the coming days, months and years, such interpretations will adjust with experience. But for now, the world is his oyster. Carter doesn’t know what an oyster is yet, but there’s plenty to appreciate even before he learns how slimy and beautiful it can be.
There’s also a lot he can teach while he’s learning.
Dads age more quickly with kids.
It seemed like just a week ago that I could stay up most of the night and have it not really phase me the next morning. Granted, my 53-hour marathon last weekend approached a personal best in consecutive awakedness. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m never going to get over it. All of those years watching my men of my family doze off inexplicably in front of the television now makes sense to me. They were just recovering from a birth experience.
I sat with Carter lying on my chest last Monday night and stared at his face. It evolved before my eyes as I saw him in the schoolyard, taking exams, hitting on pretty girls and running for Congress. By that time, I was nearing 60 years old and feeling the effects of time. When Amy pried my son off of my chest, Carter immediately went back to looking like a day-old baby. I, on the other hand, still felt fifty-something.
Crossed eyes seldom get stuck that way.
I believed my mom when she warned me that crossing your eyes will keep them stuck that way forever. I had never known anyone who actually suffered this condition after repeatedly ignoring their own mother’s warnings, but I believed that the threat was real. Crossing eyes is not a skill I dared develop, nor is it one I encouraged in others. So it must be my wife’s genes that gives Carter this bizarre ability to scare his father to death with a mere glance.
(NOTE: Amy informs me that this is a common thing for newborns until they can better control their eyeball muscles. She claims to have “read” this in some “book” written by a baby “expert.” Since I don’t “read” “books” much, I’ll have to take her word for it. But I’ll monitor Carter’s photos for signs of stickage over the next several years.)
Dirty Diapers smell like butter.
I will openly admit that I had never in my life changed a diaper until Carter started living with us. Having grown up an afficianado of the” Little Rascals” and “Three Men and a Baby,” I had a good idea of what to expect. Some excess fluids. Some brown goo. Much stink. Let me tell you, it’s nothing like that at all.
Newborn dooty* smells like butter. Not the kind of butter you would want to spread on sourdough bread. It’s more the too-rich buttery substance used by Orville Reddenbacker and Kerasote movie theatres on their popcorn. Not terribly offensive, if inhaled in small doses. Fortunately, Carter can only produce small doses, and Playtex invented the Diaper Genie.
* I’m not sure what to call the bowel movements at the moment, so I’ll be experimenting with terminology for a while. What I am inclined to call it is apparently not appropriate for publication on a family web site.
The comic timing of little boys is as good as their aim.
O.K., now that Carter has had his first coming out party, I can fess up: I wanted a son. It really didn’t matter when the boy arrived, but it just feels nice to get my secret wish fulfilled right out of the gate. The downside to having a son, though, is that God provided them with a little squirt gun.
Carter didn’t waste any time using it, either. He shot the Special Care nurses as soon as he started breathing. He got me later that same day when Amy and I changed his diaper for the first time. Since then, he’s chosen his moments carefully, waiting for the perfect time to administer revenge for the whole circumcision thing. The scariest part of any diaper change is the few seconds after I have wiped his bottom and reach for the clean diaper. My eyes averted, I am unsuspecting.
T.V. theme songs make great lullabies.
I’m not a lyrics person. Singing songs to Carter to lull him to sleep is no easy task for someone who can’t even hum the words to “Hey, Jude.” I’m about three decades removed from hearing those traditional baby songs myself. I’m left to improvise.
Thank heaven for Nick at Night and the Age of Television. After it occurred to me that Carter really wouldn’t be able to distinguish the difference between “Rockabye Baby” and “Here’s the story of a lovely lady …,” I hit paydirt. All TV theme songs are short and can pretty much end at any time. They work equally well largo or allegro and can be intermixed with commercial jingles and Christmas carols.
Mom said all that T.V. would rot my brain. Mom was wrong.