One Year Later and We Are Still Alive

Dear Baby Boy,

In a few short days you will have survived your first year as a Black. I say survived and not “will celebrate” because honestly, you have consistently been forced to adapt to my parental abilities, or lack there of.

I didn’t get to see you much for the first month of your life. It was really hard for me to come home to an empty house every night. I was trying my hardest to secure our future and I’m sorry that I failed you. It was a difficult lesson to learn, but God really does take care of us when we think we are at our lowest point.

On the bright side, for the next six months you and I got to know each other pretty well. At first you slept a lot and that was ok. I was pretty sleepy too since you really didn’t show any respect for your mother and I’s rest at say, 4am. Plus it gave me a chance to catch up with my stories.

Soon you wanted to be awake more and in all your infant wisdom knew daddy was a little too fragile to deal with a crying baby all day while mommy worked. So you didn’t cry. Not even with both ears infected. You completely limited your crying to: I’m hungry, I’m sleepy, and I’m dirty. That’s it.

You spent your waking hours watching PBS, Fox News, and Bugs Bunny all from the comfort of my lap. You would even let me read 2 pages of a book to you before trying to eat it. And your favorite thing to do was sit in your bumbo chair and “drive the boat” while daddy played his fishing video game. No really, you loved it. We laughed, no one cried, you fudged your undies. It was just one of the many adaptations you made for my benefit.

You have always amazed me at how analytical you are. You seem to take everything in as it happens and ponder how it is your mother and I have made it to the age we have. Rest assured my boy, it was skill, intellect, and a lot of blind dumb luck. Not you though, you have a plan. Dog in the way? Plow through her. Ottoman keeping you in the living room? Plow through it. Daddy’s leg not high enough for you to crawl under? Plow through it.

I was prepared for you to be artsy like your mother and not interested in sports. If you liked sports I wasn’t even going to push football. Now it appears football is just too sissy for you and I’ve been looking into Aussie rules football and rugby leagues to take out your “plow through it” aggression. Unfortunately there really isn’t a demand for such leagues in the 12 to 24 month old age bracket in Kansas and I fear your development in such sports will be stunted. We’ll be starting two a days in the backyard as soon as we move into our house.

Every morning you wake up between 5 and 6 am, just to check on us. After being reassured that we’re still residing in the same house, you fall back to sleep while mommy and I get ready for the day. Typically I have to wake you up to go to daycare but sometimes you wake up before we’re ready. So you adapt, and patiently hangout in your crib while I finish getting ready. You entertain yourself by talking to monkey, throwing your B out of the crib, knocking on the wall between your room and the bathroom, or turning your light on and off. When I do have to wake you up its all smiles. I turn on your light and you sit up and grin at me, rub the boogies out of your nose, and throw a few waves at the handsome little baby across the room (in the mirror). Then you jump up and turn the light off while I’m trying to find clothes for you to wear. This has forced mommy to layout your clothes in the living room every morning after a few “Did you dress him in the dark?” comments from your mother.

You like to push buttons and flip switches. Your bath time has been abbreviated lately because you continually push the lever that keeps the water in the tub. See a light switch? You have to flip it. You like to pull up in front of the tv a push all the buttons and when I yell at you, you turn and look at me with your best “surely you don’t expect someone this cute to actually listen to you” smile. Well, I’ve given that smile and it didn’t work with my parents either buddy. Which is why you don’t push the buttons on the tv anymore.

You understand language so much more than you can express. You actually will listen to me when I ask you to stop doing something. Sometimes it just takes a look and sometimes I have to get to TWO before you comply, but you understand more and more of what your mother and I are saying to you. You however have learned to say the word ball perfectly thus making everything, BALL! See that tree over there? BALL! See the car? BALL! Want a frontal lobotomy? BALL!

And then there is Pops. By far your favorite person. When he walks in the door you beeline it towards him and start chanting, BALL! BALL! BALL! and point at the pool table when he picks you up. You like to sit on the table and roll the balls, crawl to every pocket and take the balls out, and roll them into another pocket. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And God forbid anyone, ANYONE, try to take you from Pops including your mother. You would rather have your face melt off than to be taken from the arms of Pops and wail as if you were set on fire when he puts you down. We find if we ignore you it lasts about 10 seconds. Of course I like to make fun of you, so it continues until you mother yells at me.

There will be many more opportunities for you to adapt to your father but to date I have a favorite. Every night I pick you up form daycare and drive home. On our trip the sun beats mercilessly upon you from the passenger side of the car. What do you do? Squint, give me a look and turn your head to look out the driver’s side windows. You don’t complain, you don’t cry, you don’t ask for one of those silly screen things that never stay up, you adapt. It’s that ability to adapt to any situation and make the best of it that will take you very, very far in life and I can’t wait to see where it takes you. I thought it was something you had to learn, but you were born with it ingrained within.

You’ve just started to walk and you stager around like any good Irishman. You walk across the room, sit down, and clap for yourself. Apparently you’ve come to understand that sitting down is what you’re supposed to do when you get to the other side of the room. The best I can figure you do this because we always clapped after you had taken a few steps and sat. Either way, you are so proud of yourself, and we are too buddy.

Love you,

Daddy