Once More from the Beginning

Apostrophe

2012-01-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

"Mommy's? Monkey's?"

"That's correct, Estelle. Good job. Wait. No thank you. Set that down. That's Daddy's coffee. Yucky."

"Daddy's," you say. "Yucky."

The apostrophe-s is your latest verbal construction. You mastered nouns first. Verbs took an exciting second. More recently assembling subjects and predicates has strung together entertaining bursts of conversation. "Vroom [babble babble] Estelle," you say. "Drink [babble] milk [babble] cup, please."

Your dad can only imagine this is what conversation sounds like to you when your Mom and Dad are talking: "Hey, hon, [babble] milk [babble babble] presidential primaries. Yucky."

But apostrophe-s denotes possession. Apostrophe-s is nine-tenths of the law. Thankfully you don't feel acquisition is as important as denoting what belongs to whom. Soon enough we'll take two steps back once you transform everything into "mine, mine, mine," but for now it's Mommy's cookie or Monkey's banana or Daddy's yucky.

Counting on sheep

2012-01-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

The one TV show your mom and dad let you watch probably says more about your mom and dad than it does about you. But you like Shaun the Sheep and ask several times a day if you can watch an episode. Most days the answer is, "No."

You ask again, "Buddy? Buddy?"

Your mom and dad have no idea who "Buddy" is, so they ask you, "Buddy the Sheep?"

"Yes."

"Yes? Buddy the Sheep?"

"Ya."

"Estelle, you mean Shaun the Sheep?"

"Ya."

And that's how the conversation always goes before your parents soften up their No TV rule long enough for you to watch a 15-minute no-dialog animated show about a simple farmer and his shepherd dog checking off a daily roster of an unwittingly mischievous flock of sheep led by the small and often-chuckling Shaun/Buddy the Sheep.

"Myoo?" you ask.

"More?"

"Ya."

"No more, Estelle--"

"--Buddy? Buddy?!" You panic.

"Estelle. Buddy went to sleep. Say, 'Goodnight, Buddy.'"

"Ny-night."

And then you're fine.

All your DNA in a single strand of hair

2012-01-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

"I need to work on my posture. You need to call me out if I'm slouching," your dad said. And then he realized that he didn't have to slouch to hold your hand anymore. You continue to grow up. You reach up, wrap your hand around his index finger, and walk completely unaided. You haven't had to hold your dad's hand for months; you just like to, once in a while now.

Your dad straightened his shoulders and saw his dim reflection in a store window. It was time to cut his curly hair. He simply grew it out to see if he could do it. To see if it was actually curly, because he didn't know. Your dad's mom, lola, cut and saved your dad's curly hair from when he was a toddler himself. Ever since, your dad's hair has been trimmed short, perhaps not cropped too close, not until the Navy anyway, but short. In high school he when he went through an ill-advised set of mullets utilizing blow dryers, Aqua Net, and the occasional ponytail.

Really your dad grew out his hair to see how curly it was compared to yours. With his hair close-cropped, like he's worn it since his Navy days, people did double takes when you were with him. Perhaps that's his child, or perhaps not, people thought. Best not to say anything.

But after he grew his curls out, people confidently said, "I see. Your daughter got your hair and her mother's hair color." The "I see" part of their statement meant that the question was lingering for a while. It was up in the air. But now that was settled.

Your dad got a haircut today for the first time in half a year. He over-tipped the hair stylist.

Dictionary

2012-01-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

A pronunciation guide for a few of the trickier-to-translate words in your lexicon:

uh'dow: Estelle
bee'goo: bagel
beh'oo: bear
boom: "vroom" (car)
dah: draw
huh-dyoo: highchair
maow: "meow" (cat)
pee'doh: piano
pee'goo: penguin
rih'din: raisin
yah'gwees: LEGOs
wah'loh: water
wah'doh: fire

Slide rule

2011-07-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

Adan belly flops into the above ground pool and a chorus of ohhhhh's issue from the other kids. It's hot. Cloudless sky hot. The bees steadily work the floral scene, buzzing from flower to flower, staying out of direct sunlight as much as possible. The bees scatter for a moment from the belly flop's splash, and some of the water sprinkles you, too.

You step sideways and back away from the pool. Baths are okay. Wading pools are okay. Sprinklers? Not okay. And, just now, belly flops are similarly black listed. You make an unhappy sound and tap your two pointer fingers to your forehead, your bastardized sign for "pain." Of course, you're not in pain. But you haven't learned the sign for "that belly flop startled me and it's undesirable for me to get splashed as a spectator," so you've expanded the pain sign to include just this scenario.

You reach up and hold your dad's pointer finger and walk through the pergola to the food table. It's ten degrees cooler in the shade and your cheeks are already flushed red from the sun. Your face is greasy with SPF 70, but your mom may have acted to late. To be fair, your dad wouldn't have acted at all, and he'd be nursing your burns with aloe vera and vitamin E for the next week.

The olives are a hit. You can't eat those one at a time. And the strawberries are delicious. "The Strawberry Shack" (not its real name because your dad doesn't know its real name) is just a country mile down the road, and that's where these must have come from. You still call water "yummy," so you don't even bother asking for a sip of your dad's diet Squirt.

And the slide. That was the raison d'etre of Jessica's whole birthday party, as far as you were concerned. "It looks like I'm going to have to pick one of those up," your dad says. And your dad never says that. He's content to let you play with hand-me-down toys and birthday gifts. He doesn't often contribute to the already sizable stockpile of toys at your disposal. Plus, he takes a certain pleasure in seeing you play with a stray rubber band or a found stick for just as long as you play with a toy truck or bouncy ball, so he keeps his toy buying under control.

But this slide is something else. Up three steps, down the slide, put on a smile. You pick yourself up off the grass and point your own way back to the stairs again. Up steps. Slide down. Huge smile.

"Yep," your dad says, sipping his diet Squirt. "Looks like we'll be getting one of those."

One little, two little, three little teeth

2011-07-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Ten teeth, going on eleven. Half of your primary teeth are in, while half of your nap time is gone, your crib sheets soaked and cold with tears. Your mom holds you in your dark curtained room, smiling, not wanting to pawn you off into your dad's arms.

Your mom cries when she can't stop your crying, when she can't ease your pain. The medicine helped, but not really. Now you have cried so long that it is time to get up, nap time gone. Your dad spins the turnkey on a music box. He blows bubbles. He hands you a picture of when he was three years old. "Baby?" you ask. "Baby," your dad says. You hand back the picture.

In the living room, your dad gets you crayons. "I don't know if those are toxic," your mom says. She takes those crayons away and gives you Crayolas. "Is the sprinkler off?" "Yes," your dad says. "Can you turn off the TV then? It makes this room hot. Thanks for the coffee." You don't use the Crayolas. You look for your mom in the sewing room where she gulps her Sumatra.

Yay or nay

2011-06-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

You would like to have a say in the matter. Your "nuh nuh nuh" has evolved into a full fledged "no." And clapping is no longer enough; you clap and shout, "Yay!" which draws a collective coo from onlookers. You flash an upside down smile showing off your lower teeth.

You detect changes in elevation. When in the car or in your bike seat on Mom's handlebars, you say, "Wheee!" when going downhill. When walking around, you shuffle right over flat ground, but if there's a short mound of mulch in a garden, or a short incline of stones, you walk up the incline, think for a moment, and then go down the incline. "Wheee!" And then you go up the incline again, and down again. There are stairs over there. That will be another fifteen minutes.

"Do you want Dad to carry you?"

"No."

"No?"

You sign the word for "down," and you grab your Dad's finger as you stare straight ahead and head down the steps. At the bottom, you let go of his finger, clap your hands and say, "Yay!" You turn around, face the stairs, and head back up.

Out of bounds

2011-05-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

You turn your head to your dad, curls like flames against the backdrop of the sliding glass door. Your eyes pivot between him and the videogame console. You prepare to reach behind the bookshelf-slash-TV-stand in a blatant act of disobedience. You want to touch the videogame console's power button.

Your dad is staring at you and waiting for your next move. This will be risky, but he is feeling feverish and -- today at least -- cannot move quickly. The lit green power button is at your eye level. You can make this quick. A quick finger press before he launches off the couch and pulls you away by the wrist. He is still staring. He will move too slow.

"Estelle, daddy said no."

Your dad talks in third person, as if the act of appealing to a higher authority, appealing to himself in third person, somehow lends the "Dad" title greater credence. It does not this time. You turn toward the gaming console despite your dad's eyes being on you and you press the button. The green power button powers down and your dad is now walking over to you with a small nightstand gripped in his hands.

"Daddy said no," and he pulls you slowly but firmly to the side and sets the small nightstand in the way of the gaming console. That is it. You cannot reach it anymore. You tilt your head back and let out a small wail. Fitting punishment for your dad, you feel, to let him hear you cry.

Your dad returns to the couch and puts a hand on his warm forehead. You return to the scene of the crime. Your dad will never expect that, you think. You pound the meaty part of your palm down on the nightstand once or twice for good measure. It is here, dad, and I can see it. I can touch it. This night stand, this roadblock, is only a temporary roadblock. I have learned more about this house in fourteen months than you have learned in four years. It is thoroughly mapped in my head. From the kitchen to the master bedroom, I know about the copper wiring behind the fridge, I know about the extra foot of unused TV cable next to the master bathroom. Every moment I spend in this house provides another way for me to test my boundaries. Your boundaries.

And my boundaries are not yours. You can stop me. But my boundaries are not yours.

Throwing stones

2011-05-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

When your mom was a toddler and went on walks with your grannie, your mom had to stop and say, "Hi," to all the flowers. Every one. You, when you go on walks with your mom and dad, stop and pick up all the rocks. Your mom is a gardener and botanist. It is possible you are a landscaper and geologist.

Not that you do not like flowers. You do. You sniff them, sniff deeply and say, "Mmmm." But you always want to put the flower back where you got it and try to see if you can reconnect it to its stem or to the tuft of grass and dirt you pulled it up from. But flowers do not go back to how they were.

Rocks you can pick up and put back all day. A rock that you pick up with your right hand can go down on your left side. Pick up a rock with your left hand and you can drop it on your right. They clatter back to the ground, welcomed back with gravelly open arms by the rest of the rocky crowd.

You do not mind sticking your fingers in a pot of soil or patting down a cracked patch of dirt in your backyard. But you would much rather examine the gradual slant of an offset square of sidewalk under your feet. You run up and down the gentle grade leading up to the garage. You linger with care on steps and even in doorways without steps, feeling cautiously for a step that might be there anyway.

You and your mom both love nature. Perhaps your curiosity about nature extends deeper than soil depth. For you, the mantle may not be enough.

I say, "How high?"

2011-05-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

"Jump, Baby. Jump."

Feet flat on the floor you bend and straighten your knees. Bend and straighten. You smile and bend and straighten your knees again. Your enthusiasm is unmistakable and your motions are accurate but your musculature is underdeveloped.

Not to worry. Your muscles will develop. Keep your laugh going and eventually you will beat this gravity thing and lift yourself off a planet spinning at 1,038 miles per hour for the sole purpose of keeping you grounded and your spine compressed.

Your dad is about to get laid off. It is still six months away, but the executives (the guys who park in spots called "Reserved" and who ride in corporate jets) have made the date known. This is when most people feel like the Earth is spinning so fast that they will involuntarily hit escape velocity and fly off the surface. But your dad skips certain "stages of grief" when it comes to white-collar misfortune. He goes straight from denial to -- skip anger, skip bargaining, skip depression -- to acceptance.

But not everyone at your dad's work is so lucky. The amount of personal tragedy stacked upon personal tragedy starts to sound like a rendition of This Little Piggy.

This laid-off daddy had a mild heart attack
This laid-off daddy started beating his dog
This laid-off daddy left his girlfriend with three children
This laid-off daddy went off his meds and killed himself
And this little CEO went, "Wee! Wee! Wee!" all the way to the bank

Perhaps your dad did not completely skip the anger stage. Unless the above observations are indeed still a part of acceptance. But your dad is doing okay. He is teaching you how to pray. And when your mom and dad pray over your food, they are praying for the means to keep food on the table.

But it is finally time for your dad to make a career change. To write and to write for real. All he has to do is keep laughing and bend his knees and jump. Just jump.

Good neighbors make good fences

2011-04-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

You used to run these 0.14 acres with impunity. The uneven crab grass, spiky seed capsules, and wet-as-clay dirt may have proven tricky to negotiate, but only at first. Eventually you stepped more nimbly to navigate the lumpy yard. Eventually you learned to crush the maple tree's "underwater mines" (as your dad still calls them) under your moccasin heels. And, as your dad secretly did not stop you from doing, you ate a healthy handful of that dark, damp dirt.

But now your yard is about to become larger. Not because your mom and dad bought the mirror-image property next door, but because they're about to fence it off. So, no. Your yard won't gain any geographical ground. It'll simply, finally, be defined. And definitions -- and their limitations -- have the unexpected property of granting freedoms.

The line between your home and the neighbor's used to be unfenced. Undelineated. Merely understood, at best. But now there are fence posts between your home and the neighbor's. They stand like Beefeater soldiers around our Tower of London. (Pro tip: to know what Beefeaters look like, place whole, pitted, black olives on your fingers.)

Your mom spends hours upon hours measuring, marking, and moving the mason twine up and down according to a little bubble sliding left and right between two vertical lines on a level. Your dad moves in, a construction pencil pressed between his lips, leaning into fence slats with a battery-powered screwdriver. He finishes one eight-foot section of fence, unhinges his tool belt, then mumbles something to your mother about your nap being done -- he can hear you squawking.

Great Grannie Lindy

2011-04-03T23:18:00.000-07:00

You teeter down the sloping center aisle, occasionally bumping into a pew, the Berber carpet fwooshing under your shoes. On your left and right sit people dressed in dark, formal clothes. A lady with a hearing aid in her ear and a walker within arm's reach is playing jaunty, old Christian hymns on the piano. You'd like to play the piano with her. Your dad gently grabs your arms and steers you in the opposite direction.

Three large steps lead up to a stage with a woodgrain pulpit. To the side is an eleven-by-fourteen inch picture of your great grandma, Lindy, with her eyes smiling big and her arms wrapped around your great grandpa, Phil. The colors around the room are dark and bold, the entire room flanked by stained glass windows of Jesus performing miracles and holding up two fingers.

Your grannie Melody speaks to everyone, and so does your granddad Phil. Your uncle Paul makes everyone laugh when he tells a story about your great grandma Lindy and says, "That's your cue." Your mom speaks, too, and her lower lip becomes a straight, square line, like yours does when you're sad. Your dad didn't speak, but he let you spiel your one-year-old spiel to everyone in the pews giving you smiles.

Listening comprehension

2011-02-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Your first step was understanding what your mom and dad were saying. ("This is a spoon, Estelle. Say, 'Spoon.'") Your next step was complying with what they were saying. ("Hand mommy the spoon, Estelle. Good girl.") Now you are considering your options: whether or not you will comply with your mom and dad's instructions. ("Hand mommy the spoon, Estelle. Estelle? I said hand mommy the spoon. Come back here.")

When you disobey your mom, your dad will usually turn away and chuckle. When you disobey your dad, your mom turns her face away too, while her shoulders shake with quiet laughter. Your dad is confused, wondering why he's so proud of you for being disobedient. But it's not the disobedience he's proud of. He's proud of you understanding what your mom and dad are saying, considering the pros and cons of complying with what they are saying, then making a binary decision as to whether their requests suit your purposes or not.

For the time being, getting chased with a spoon in your hand trumps handing over a spoon. There's no adventure in compliance. And every story worth reading must, at some point, introduce conflict. And so, one year after becoming a human being -- becoming a human being from scratch -- you have learned one of the primary tenants of storytelling (conflict), and are fully practicing that same willful disobedience that gave a serpent and two humans so much trouble in paradise all those years ago.

Perhaps, back in paradise, God had turned his head and chuckled a little bit, secretly proud that his little creation was thinking for itself.

One year ago we were one year from now

2011-02-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

We're now three-hundred sixty-five days later. There was your first cry which led to your first laugh. Your first crawl which led to your first step. And your first full diaper which pretty much led to the last one.

You took your first nap and fought the one this afternoon. Grew into your pajamas and grew out of your shoes. Learned sign language for "more," then learned when you were "finished." Your eyes went from gray to blue, and then endlessly expressive. Your smile looks like a half moon, while your howl sounds like a full one.

You stroll in the park but avoid the snow, chase the cat but run from bubbles, stare at your food but chew on your books. You ride daddy's shoulders and snuggle with mom, walk around balloons and kiss your dolls, and you only touch the walls now when getting to your feet or diving into door jambs.

But the time's gone both ways. When your dad thinks about how long ago your mom was pregnant, that must've been a decade ago. But when your dad thinks about how long it's been since you showed up, that might've only been last month. There's a discrepancy involved that he can't account for. Unless you account for all that time going into love.

(And your dad learned that sentimentality is just fine.)

Filipino pinata party

2011-02-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

"Estelle's lola just bought a couple hundred dollars' worth of groceries. Just tell me how many people are coming to her birthday party, and lola will handle the cooking," your lolo -- your grandpa -- said.

Your mom started an invitation list. Ladies from her Mommy Group, former coworkers from the congressman's office, volunteers from the 20-30 Club, a good friend in the Ashland Police Department, members of her church prayer circle, your mom's mom and dad, and of course the aforementioned lolo and lola.

Your dad started a list, too. It started with a pinata, and immediately ended with Filipino food. And since lola would be handling the cooking, half of your dad's list was checked off the moment he wrote it down.

Your dad never had a pinata at one of his own birthday parties. Only at friends' birthday parties. But he loved them. It was one of the few times his childhood kung fu training served him well. Trained from third grade until high school in the use of tai chi swords and Chinese broadswords, people always told your lolo that he was crazy for letting his kid use swords. Then those same people would prop a rifle in the back window of their pickup truck and take their child out to hunt deer and elk. So your lolo thought it was alright if his son learned how to swing a little more martial weapon.

One time in the Navy, your dad was invited to a shipmate's niece's quinceanera. There was a beautiful young girl in a white dress, and there was a yellow Pokemon pinata. Your dad, typically uncomfortable in family-and-friend gatherings in which he was neither family or friend, acted his typical self and stood with his hands in his pockets at the party's fringe. The San Diego parkland was all dark green and light green, leafy and grassy. The quinceanera girl's dad, along with two or three of her uncles, strung the Pokemon pinata up between two trees. The kids, maybe a dozen of them, gathered expectantly. There would be lots of candy on the ground soon. But first, there would be a good old fashioned pinata beating.

"You, you'll go first," the quinceaera girl's dad said. And he handed your dad a bat.

"No. Oh no," your dad said. "I can't go first."

"Sure, sure, you're our guest. Please, I insist. You'll go first."

Your dad loved pinatas. His politesse lay in a trampled heap underneath his desire to swing blindfoldedly at a yellow, candy-stuffed Pokemon character.

The blindfold went on and the quinceneara's dad spun him around. Six, seven times. Eight, nine times. He stopped spinning your dad around and your dad immediately snapped his head back in the opposite direction -- a trick he'd also learned in kung fu. Immediately, your dad's dizziness stopped. He held the baseball bat in front of him, stance wide, breathing slow. He simply stood there for several moments not moving.

Then your dad turned ninety degrees to his right, lunged his left foot forward, and swung the bat at eye level.

BAMPF. Your dad was immediately pleased and horrified. In one fell swoop, the Pokemon was halved, and the candy blasted out in a sugary rainbow onto the grassy San Diego parkland lawn.

Your dad pulled the blindfold up and off his head. The baseball bat drooped in his grip and then dropped to the ground. The children, somewhat mirthlessly, walked quietly around him and picked up candy. Your dad looked over at his shipmate that had invited him and shook his head slowly like, I'm sorry.

Your dad set the blindfold onto a corner of a picnic table as he walked back toward's his shipmate's car. He sat in there for the rest of the party.

Estelle had a Little Lamb

2011-01-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

Your favorite books are the books that come to life. It's not so much the words as it is the worlds.

Little Lamb is your favorite. It's a finger puppet book with a lamb poking its white-fleece head through the middle of its cardboard-thick pages. Life is all pink picket fences and sun rays for Little Lamb, imagining what games to play and what animals those rosy-pink clouds look like. But it's not the whimsy that captures your imagination. It's the finger-waggled lamb in the middle, sniffing flowers and chasing butterflies. Plus there's all that gazing.

Your mom has memorized Little Lamb and can 'read' it without seeing the pages. Your mom's voice leaps when Little Lamb leaps. She breathes in deep, comical and swarthy when Little Lamb wanders upon some daisies. And her voice trails to a lilt when the book does what's it's supposed to do at the end and puts you to bed by saying, "Goodnight, Little Lamb, the day is done. Shh!"

So your dad bought Little Lion. Your mom has to quiet him down, since you naturally want to growl and grrr as Little Lion dons a crown and reels in the fact that it's good to be king. You shake with giggles throughout, lions or lambs.

Stepping stone

2011-01-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

"Well, she learned to crawl because of the camera," your dad said. "So I guess she'll learn to walk because of the camera."

"Go to daddy, Estelle," your mom said. Then she rethought the command. "Go to the camera."

Your dad held the camera up by its wrist strap, and the silver and brushed-metal finish presented itself as a clearly delineated goalpost. You wrapped your fists around your mom's pointer fingers and stood up. "Heh," you said.

"Let's go. Let's do this," your dad said. Some five feet away, he held both of his hands up to receive you.

You continued to hold your mom's fingers, arms up like you were gripping the Texas Longhorn handlebars on a Harley Davidson. "Heh," you said, staring at the camera still dangling from your dad's pinched fingers. You started marching in place, then let your mom's fingers go.

And you took your first steps.

Moving van

2011-01-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

At ten in the morning on New Year's Eve, your dad drove to Matt's apartment. Cupped between a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a Burger King, the apartments on Forest Hills Drive had neither a forest or hills nearby. Your dad parallel parked on the street, then re-parked in a row of parking spots for guests next to Matt's small, rented U-Haul van. Ice coated the windshields and made the white-painted lines slick in the parking lot.

Matt pulled up in his Scion, rubbing his hands together. "Thanks for coming, dude," Matt said. "I hate helping people move. I wouldn't have offered to help."

"No one likes helping people move," your dad said. "You only help people move because, one day, you know you'll have to move."

Matt nodded, and they headed up the stairs to Matt's apartment to move Matt's stuff into the U-Haul.

Your home is on the outside elbow of a low traffic density street corner. It's white with minty green trim (not your mom's favorite color combo) and sits behind a streetlight obscured by a Quaking Aspen huddling up to a street sign that says La Mesa on one arm and Jubilant on the other.

When your mom and dad were still house hunting with their Realtor, two strands of multicolored flags ran from the garage door to the sidewalk. They looked like backstroke flags hung at a municipal pool: yellow and red and blue triangles. Your mom and dad called it "The Swim Meet House" and immediately bought it.

It's possible, sometime in the future, that you and your mom and dad might move. Matt might be over to help that day.

Armed to the teeth

2011-01-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

Your dad uncapped the Preserve Jr. Endangered Species soft-bristled toothbrush. A grinning Galapagos tortoise (Chelonoidis nigris) wraps around the toothbrush holder. "Did you know?" the toothbrush holder asks, "Giant Galapagos tortoises have a life span between 150 and 200 years."

That's how long it feels like your mom and dad have avoided the dentist.

But coupling the green USA-made toothbrush ("Both brush and canister are 100% recyclable with our postage-paid mailer. Please inquire.") with a giraffe-adorned tube of Kid's Spry Tooth Gel with Xylitol, your mom and dad make the responsible decision to look after your oral hygiene.

Your dad squeezes some of the Spry toothpaste -- a little too much -- onto your toothbrush. From his arm, you watch intently. He needlessly runs the gel under the tap for a moment, then scrubs your four front teeth; the two on bottom that form a wide V, and the two on top you grit them against.

You chuckle, and your dad breathes a sigh of relief. He scrubs your gums gently, too, and your tongue waggles in the way of the brush from time to time. You chuckle some more. After a few more moments of scrubbing, your dad double checks the Spry tube. "Safe To Swallow," it says.

Your dad takes you to your room, zips you into the homemade Snuggie your mom made from a Walden for Congress vest, and bundles you into a baby blanket dancing with clowns. In your crib, you smile your four teeth, freshly brushed, at your dad. He kisses his hand and smooshes it against your forehead.

A dirty room

2011-01-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to look up the sign for 'clean' right now," your mom said.

"You said that last time you were going to look up 'clean,'" your dad joked.

Your mom left your room and didn't return until she'd watched a YouTube video on how to sign 'clean' in American Sign Language. Coming back, she sat Indian style on the rug in the middle of your floor (the rug being a red and orange and green quilt sewn by your Aunt Melinda).

"'Clean' is this," your mom said, and she slid the palms of her hands flatly together once. "Same as 'nice.'" If you do it twice -- your mom demonstrated -- it's 'clean up.'"

"And 'dirty,'" your mom continued, "goes like this." She put her hand under her chin, palm down, and wiggled her fingers. She mischievously grinned and darted her eyes to the right. Your mom loves that sign, since it is nearly identical, yet completely unrelated, to an "ugly face" she would do with her brother when she was a kid.

You turned around from your Yamaha portable keyboard in time to watch your dad imitate the "dirty" sign.

Something went wrong. You didn't like the sign. You squared your lower lip, your eyes welled into pools, and you reached for your mom. In your mom's arms you continued to wail, but your eyes also searched the floor of your room, over the quilt-rug, to the base of the room heater, over to the feet of your crib, to the bottom of your low-crouching chair, and back to the quilt-rug.

You were startled by the "dirty" face your dad had made, but once he'd stopped, you'd kept looking around the room for the face that startled you. It was gone.

Could I ask you not to dance?

2011-01-01T21:48:00.000-08:00

The other day you woke up, and an untaught instinct in you did, too.

Standing at your small Yamaha keyboard, you tapped away at the ebony and ivory keys, your joyful squeal punctuating every other note. But you'd learned that the soft-padded buttons above the keyboard did things as well. One of them makes the notes play louder. Another, softer. Another button, a big green one, plays a demo song. Bananarama's "Venus." It's pure synthesizer instrumental, but your mom and dad can hear the lyrics in their head.

She's got it.

Yeah, baby, she's got it.

But then you start dancing. At first it's just jostling up and down, your knees pumping, your diapered bottom bouncing. Perfectly normal baby dance moves. But then you stopped jostling and started swaying your tiny hips left and right. And then you stopped swaying, let go of the keyboard with one hand and started swinging your arm back and forth. Then you stopped swinging your arm, and started twisting your head left and right, left and right, more deliberately than you normally shake your head. You squealed, then started the sequence again, back to the jostling up and down.

Four separate dance moves, three of them brand new at that moment, and not none of them taught to you.

Your dad opened up his 1996 high school yearbook and turned to the page with his picture. He remembered back to when he was voted "Best Dancer" by his class. And then he closed the book on at least one argument of nature versus nurture.

A daughter at the center of the solar system

2010-12-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

Spending a holiday with your grannie and granddad is an opportunity to reset certain odometers. Electronics are powered down. Books are passed around like most people channel surf through evening cable programming. Conversations shake hands with apt segues. And punchlines are repeated for those sitting at the other end of the dinner table.

So much attention fixes on you, shifting around the room like moving furniture. With you serving as a nucleus to the gathering family, several members test out newly-earned titles of distinction.

"I sewed it into the tag of the quilt I made her, so if I have to go with something, I guess it's 'grannie,'" your grannie said.

"'Grandpa' sounds too old. 'Granddad' is more dignified," your granddad said. He quickly stacks some more blocks for you to tumble.

"No no, I like 'Uncle Paul.' 'Uncle Paul' is cool." You tug his beard, a feature you've never seen on your dad.

Your aunt Beth carries your cousin in her belly, five months along now, and shrugs her shoulders as she quietly beats out three other Farises at a game of Carcassonne.

Everyone opens their presents on Christmas Eve. You make a motor-like hum as you spin the prop on a plush airplane. You insistently pull down the hood on your new purple zip up. And you squeal as someone makes the Little House on the Prairie doll dance and sing.

You quietly endure the twelve-hour drive back home the next day. You sleep a full night in your own crib, and insist on more of your mom's time than usual when you wake up the next morning.

A few of your favorite things

2010-12-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

You like the hard sound of wood blocks clunking together. And barking and whooping in the kitchen while dad cooks dinner. You like the garage door grinding. And your mom saying, "Daddy's home."

You like the sight of your mom putting a pillow on her lap. And books on a shelf begging to be pulled down. You like the stuffed monkey when it dances on your highchair. And Kitty Marzipan if she ever meows, "Hi."

You like the feel of sweater drawstrings in your hands, your eyes going cross-eyed. And your tongue on your upper lip, reaching for your nose. You like bouncing on the bed from bouncy "baby slams." And your dad buzzing, flying you face down through the hallway.

You like the smell of your fingers when your thumb's in your mouth. And soapy froth on the water, your hair warm-rinsed. You like the smell of your clothes stacked fresh from the dryer. And baby wipes when the terry cloths are still in spin cycle.

You like the taste of sweet potatoes. And peas mashed with carrots from the food mill. The taste of anything on the floor that's not part of the carpet. And your mom's knuckles when your top teeth are teething.

Reading the environment

2010-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

In video games, there's a particular style of storytelling that's often praised by critics. It's called environmental storytelling. As opposed to dialog, voice-over narration, cut scenes, or scrolling text, environmental storytelling sets up the static -- often times still-life -- elements of a scene, and allows a gamer to explore the environment, piecing the story together for themselves.

These elements tend to be obvious. The gamer might stand outside the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. and see picket signs abandoned in a panic. In a dry gutter along an empty street, the scattered picket signs might read "The End Is Seriously, Incredibly Nigh!" and "Mexico's fine! Get these Martians outta here!" and a gamer could ascertain that America sustained an otherworldly, alien invasion.

Occasionally, the elements of environmental storytelling are more subtle, less forced. Like the elements you, Baby Estelle, observe as you navigate your environment.

You pick up a crispy Maple leaf on the foyer tiles. To you, it's a leaf. You've seen them on trees. But you'll eventually learn that a crispy Maple leaf on the foyer tiles means that it's fall, that the temperature outside is dropping, and with the holidays being seriously, incredibly nigh, your grandmas and grandpas will be ogling you soon.

You stand in front of the bookshelf and tug at the spine of small, gray book, The Elements of Style, and let it drop to the floor. To you, it's a book. You've seen them lined up together, but they're much more dynamic on the ground. You'll eventually learn, however, that your mom and dad harbor a linguistic love borne on laughter, hurt, silliness, and sobriety. They email, voice mail, snail mail, and even Facebook with an unprecedented respect for the written word.

You sidle along the latte-colored interior of your home, and look up to see swords mounted on the walls. To you, they might be nothing. But your mom and dad will soon tuck those away in the garage to remove their hazard from your widening circle of exploration. And some day you may find those swords in the garage and wonder what purpose they served. That day you may learn about your dad's regard for martial arts. Or the Spanish blade he brought back from Medieval Times restaurant when he was ten. Or the time your dad gave a jagged-looking blade to your mom as a Christmas gift before they were married, and how your mom liked the gift, but also how your dad failed to notice the dark, goat-headed imagery worked into its pommel.

There's a lot to take in with environmental storytelling. A lot for a gamer. A lot for a baby. Until it all gels together, your mom and dad will use a lot of dialog and a lot of voice-over narration to explain what's contained in these still-life dioramas you're exploring.

Playing dress-up

2010-11-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

When October 31 rolls around, your mom and dad shut the blinds, turn out the lights, crawl under a fuzzy blanket, and watch a movie -- preferably a comedy -- at a low volume. They don't do Halloween. And that makes them unpopular with other adults that do Halloween.

"So what are you dressing as, Randy?"

"Oh, no. Not me. I don't dress up for Halloween."

"What kind of candy are you giving out then?"

"Me? No, no candy from me, thanks. I'll probably just turn out the lights and -- "

"When you were younger, Randy, what did you think of those homes that turned out their lights and didn't give out candy?"

"I ... I didn't like it. But doesn't everyone just trick-or-treat at the mall nowadays anyway?"

"No. They don't."

Rarely does a conversation with your dad about Halloween fare any better than that. Your dad is the All Hallow's Eve equivalent of Ebeneezer Scrooge. He suspects, however, that a lady bug or princess dress will be in his near future. He doesn't suspect that you'll allow the entire dress-up spectacle -- an entire holiday dedicated to dress-up! -- will escape your attention and affections.

And so your mom and dad gird themselves for the inevitable. They have approximately one year to steel their will against the living taking on the vestments of the undead. And straightening their spines against all the other parents that believe Halloween and all its accoutrement is only about lady bugs and princesses, and no more harmful than a sugary toothache.

Slowing to a crawl

2010-10-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago was a different story. There were plenty of excuses. The linoleum was slick. The rug no better. Socks wouldn't grip. Flexibility-limiting diapers. Too long of sleeves. Covered knees with no traction.

Your dad called you "Stumbledore," a hint at the Harry Potter-esque magical properties required to learn to crawl.

"Although, I'm pretty sure I've never put this much effort," he nods at you, "into anything I've ever done before." He lies next to you on the floor, your fitful, insistent struggles punching through the afternoons and evenings.

But two weeks later, your excuses evaporate. Instead of pushing up on your haunches, you push forward from the hip. You keep your center of gravity low, rather than letting it thwart you side to side. And a little incentive doesn't hurt. Right now, the big red Easy Button from Staples draws you across the living room floor. "That was easy," the button says when you slap it. "That was easy."

Your mom and dad move the button across the floor again, six or eight feet away. Always moving the goal posts. You spin on your stomach, realigning with the big red button. This is what you do, it's who you are right now. You're the person that has to go after it.

Now you lay under an electrical socket that your mom and dad still need to plug. You grip two of the cotton-stuffed blocks your mom sewed for you, your mouth saying, "Roh roh roh," over and over, like you just learned the first words -- the most fun words -- to Row Your Boat.

Laughing stocks are up

2010-10-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

You practiced laughing all day. Staccato giggles and coughing guffaws, accompanied by equal parts naivete and skepticism. It didn't matter whether something was funny, or ironic, or so tragic that you had to laugh or you'd cry. You were simply engaging a new vocal movement. Not testing its practical applications so much as kicking its tires, putting it through the paces. This laugh will come in handy some day, you're quite sure of it. Just not sure when.

Sure, it happens naturally when your mom makes the crocheted giraffe stampede all the way from your feet up to your face. It also happens naturally when your dad takes a warm washcloth and scrubs your neck, armpits, hands, and feet. But there are more uses, you're quite certain. Just need the practice for now.

The eyes have it

2010-10-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

Your mom flipped through birthday cards, sliding them up and down quickly but carefully out of and into their spots on the store rack. She ignored your dad as he opened (and left open a little too long) cards that played Taylor Swift songs. "Check this out," he said, opening and closing one of them rapidly so that the card's song started over and over. "It's the remix!"

Your dad stared at you. He stood in Funny, you were seated in the cart at Anniversary For Her. Seasonal displays of Halloween candy -- Junior Mints, Dum Dums, Dots -- sandbagged the opposite side of the gift card aisle. And your striking blue eyes continued to strike your dad. Two ladies dressed in church casual clothes and yellow jewelry stopped to admire you.

"Look at those eyes," one of them said. "They're so blue." She craned her neck towards your dad. "Do you have blue eyes?" she asked him.

"Um, no," your dad said. His brown eyes looked at the floor.

She started to walk away when your dad called after her, weakly, "But her grandparents do. Fifty percent of them." He was pretty sure she didn't hear him.

Earlier that week, the Director of Inventory Planning passed by your dad's cubicle. "Wow," the director said. "Look at those blue eyes." Your dad sat back in his chair to afford the director a full view of his computer's wallpaper: a blown-up, hi-res image of your face, eyes bright, and yes, eyes blue, as blue as the middle of a rainbow.

"You know," the director said, and began running off biological statistics regarding brown eyes versus blue eyes.

"So you're saying I should order a DNA test?" your dad joked.

"Ha ha ha," the director laughed, and continued towards his previously scheduled meeting.

"They just skipped a generation," your dad called after him.

Having you do all the talking

2010-09-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing your mom and dad have learned to do in the past seven months, it's learning to take a compliment. Grocery stores are rife with complimentary people. Mothers, daughters, would-be fathers, seasoned dads -- it's like these people trawl the aisles not for bargains on beef tri-tip or discounts on salad dressing, but for babies to ogle.

"Oh my goodness, she's precious."

Your dad turns to you. "Say 'thank you,' baby," he says. It's genetically half his fault you're so beautiful -- face symmetrical, round eyes, round cheeks, wavy hair -- but your dad stumbles awkwardly over a simple thank you. So he asks you to say thank you on your own behalf. You don't speak yet, but it leaves your dad comfortably out of the picture.

"We've got one in the oven," says one jovial guy. He points a rugged finger at his girlfriend's stomach to indicate "the oven." He's middle aged and she's mid twenties, yet the new mom looks years more mature. She smiles dutifully, herself getting used to people staring at her stomach.

"How far along are you?" your dad asks.

"Five months," she says.

"Nice," your dad says. That was going to be his answer no matter how far along she was. Your dad pushes further into the milk and eggs aisle, and lets Mr. Oven bend at the waist and wave goodbye to you.

For many people, complimenting a baby is as easy and compulsory as petting a puppy. It's similar to receiving a 'like' in Facebook, except in person. But it's the in-person part that sets your dad on an awkward slope.

"Have fun," your dad says to Mr. and Mrs. Oven. As if the two of them were off on a road trip, or perhaps tilting back a few after-work beers on a Wednesday evening. In his head, your dad practices saying, "Say 'bye bye,' baby," instead of brewing up his own conversation closers.

In the movies

2010-09-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Your mom reached over your dad for the camera, its battery-case cover hanging slack-jawed.

"Quick. Take the picture. What is that face for? What is that face for?" Your dad threw his head back against the couch, partly to get out of the camera's frame, partly to excise his laughter without dropping you on the floor. You started making some kind of you talkin' to me? Deniro face--snarling upper lip, eyes tightly raised, drool down your chin, fist up like somebody was fixing to get knocked out.

Snap. Your mom took the shot, and then another, the anti-red eye and low-light flash creating a small lightning storm in the dim living room.

You faced the camera and your countenance dropped. Your stiff upper lip lowered, showing your straight, lower gum line, and--snap--your mom got a picture of you again, this time looking like Sean Penn, except in a Medford City Police mugshot. Your dad continued to throw his head back against the couch. "Why? Why that face? What is going on?"

Rushing roulette

2010-09-06T20:38:00.000-07:00

Your dad sets aside a twelve-by-twelve art panel only for a moment to catalog recent goings on. Shortly after mealtimes, you go from a sitting position, to a faceplant on your cheek (sunburned during your first push on a baby swing), to a push-up position, to scooting backwards in meandering L shapes between the living room bookcase and dining room table.

Braving the mall with your lolo and lola's money, your mom and dad pick out new outfits for you. With the clothes in Children's Place too '80s revival, and Baby Gap selling not a penny below manufacturers' suggested retail prices, Kohl's won out with their fluffy polar bear hoodies, Where Is Carmen San Diego jackets, and ear-to-ear turkey bibs. Aside from the clothing's temperature-clutching properties, your mom and dad felt that these were the first things they got to pick with nothing but cute factor in mind. Your mom was on hand to affirm said cuteness of dad's picks, and to calculate the mathematics of what size clothing you'll require in relation to what projected season the Rogue Valley will be in, divided by the necessities of conspicuously propped Labor Day sale signs. It's also important to fend off the cooling weather while you're sneezing heavily; since lolo and lola first encouraged you to chew on a disintegrating coaster and, thinking better of that, the laminated corner of a Red Lobster menu.

Your dad hits the Publish Post button and returns to his pen and ink drawing, which will hang alongside forty-nine other local artists' saleable artwork inside Porters restaurant in one month's time.

Back to work

2010-08-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

Eyes big and uncertain, you finger the receiver of Congressman Greg Walden's front-desk phone. At the moment, the lobby is free of camera-toting protesters, the voicemail doesn't spout off a single tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory, and the congressman himself isn't combing through a thousand-page pork-barrel-choked bill. Not a bad first week back at work. Your mom says, "Share," and then, "Thank you," gently prying the receiver from your grip. She places you on the floor in the middle of a C-shaped Boppy pillow, leaving you as a smiling peninsula amidst a surrounding, lime-green cushion. You appear relieved to be off the phone.

Later that evening, lying diaper-less on the Table of Awareness, you squeal loud enough to startle yourself and your mom who's in the next room. Your dad, sitting within arm's reach on a hardwood, hourglass stool to your right, assesses the situation, finds conditions operating within acceptable parameters, then returns to his F. Scott Fitzgerald. Your attention is, once again, transfixed on your Wee Gallery mobile spinning slowly from the air conditioning, and your dad continues reading aloud the meteoric rise and fall of a man known to his father as Jimmy Gatz.

Next door, the Dodge Neon turns off its radio-blaring trunk speakers even before sundown, and your dad swallows NyQuil from the bottle. His tongue feels thin from the salt and vinegar chips, your mom scoops chocolate peanut butter ice cream from a rectangular container, and you sleep another full night's sleep.

First date night

2010-08-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

"Well. I can see what'll be narrating my nightmares tonight," your dad said.

He took your mom's hand and they walked out of the dark stomach of the Angus Bowmer Theater. They excused themselves past people bottlenecking the exit, people in sundresses and summer polos, people clutching playbills and purses, your mom and dad putting on shades and sniffing out a place to eat from the bricked-over greenway outside.

Oriental was the answer to the meal question, even after the feudal Japanese violence they'd just witnessed via a play (Throne of Blood) based on a film (directed by Akira Kurosawa) based on a play (Hamlet). Oriental was the answer, even after, in the play, the albino loom weaver shook its head side to side and spoke in three simultaneous voices. Even after the spotlight choked black at the end, the final image being Washizu--Throne's Hamlet--speared with a dozen arrows, his gurgling breaths the incongruent prelude to a standing ovation.

At Sesame, your mom and dad plied Sichuan noodles and basa fish with metal chopsticks. They traded bowls halfway through and sipped sour lemongrass punch from a glass bedecked with an umbrella and a plastic monkey. A man in bicycle shorts at the next table asked your dad what he'd ordered that was so hot. Your dad was sucking air between his tight lips. "It's these," your dad said, holding up a small red pepper. "These are what get you." The man in bicycle shorts smiled, eventually paid his tab, and walked out without really anywhere else to go.

Your mom and dad didn't remember the drive back. At home, you sat up with your hand balanced on the babysitter's knee. Your mom and dad had also forgotten to turn on the air conditioning before they left, and the late afternoon heat had pushed the indoor thermometer up to eighty. Your dad apologized again and again, but you weren't bothered, and any nightmare imagery your dad was carrying soon dissipated.

Your first game, your biggest grin

2010-08-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Your dad thought your mom was lying. Or at least exaggerating. "Estelle now plays Peek-a-Boo," she said. Your aunt Jess nodded enthusiastically. "Look at you," your aunt Jess said as you gripped her fingers. Your dad tilted his head to the side, like a curious and confused dog, but said nothing, also like a curious and confused dog. Your dad had not witnessed any previous behavior resembling the act of Peek-a-Boo.

Later that evening, as your mom stepped out of the shower after a Jillian Michaels workout, your dad tossed a rag over your face. You immediately reached up with both hands and pulled the rag down. "Peek-a-boo?" your dad asked. You pulled the rag back up over your face, then pulled it back down, then up, then down. "Hey," your dad admonished. "You have to wait." You pulled the rag up again, then down. "There hasn't been enough time to build suspense," your dad explained." Up, down. "Peek-a-boo only works if I theoretically lose sight of you and have to ask, theoretically, 'Where'd baby go?' "

Your mom laughed. The rag stayed down and you gave your dad a newly-minted Big Cheesy Grin. Eyes squinted, nose wrinkled, lips smiling to fully expose your lower gums. "Um, that's new too, isn't it?" your dad asked. "Isn't it hilarious?" your mom said. "I think it might be the very first expression that's completely hers."

You always had your mom's megawatt smile. But that smile had always been separate from your eyes. Then your eyes gradually added to your smile, but only as a hint. Now, this freshly-patented Big Cheesy Grin comes into play, which would appear mischievous if you had any ulterior motives whatsoever. As it stands, your dad has no reason to think you're lying, or even exaggerating.

Walk before you crawl

2010-07-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

Your mom spreads a small blanket on the Berber carpet, the ceiling fan propelling on low overhead, the Samsung's screen a matte black for now. You're placed on your belly on the small green blanket patterned with white, five-pointed stars. Marzipan's paws disappear underneath her as she contemplates first her roasted-marshmallow fur, then the curve of the rocking chair's rockers, then a small bug resting on the bookshelf, somewhere between An Incomplete Education and Norman Rockwell's America.

Arms straight, back arching, neck turning your head left and right, you're suddenly quite unhappy. It's "tummy time," and tummy time is not a happy time.

Your mom arranges small, cotton-stuffed toys just beyond your reach and asks you to crawl. You kick your legs at the knee like you're dog paddling in a pool. You quickly note the lack of locomotion this creates, and this frustrates you. Your dad, in a follow-the-leader fit of inspiration, begins crawling circles around you. Which frustrates you. In a last-ditch effort, your mom takes your arms, your dad takes your legs, and, pseudo-marionette-style, they begin moving your arms and legs in a crawling motion, crawling you across the living room floor from the TV stand to the piano bench. You watch, intrigued, and frustrated.

Your mom and dad stare at each other a moment. They stand you up on the floor in front of the couch, your round feet stamping with excitement, your fingers tightly gripping the tweed cushions. With your dad's hands gripping your waist like a Double Double With Cheese, you begin to navigate this small area with a fiery smile on your cheeks. This is more like it, you seem to be saying. Now that you're done wasting everyone's time, dad.

Small circles of drool darken the couch between your hands, and your dad recalls something your grandpa Dale wrote to him recently:

"You, Randy, of course learned how to crawl, but were too lazy to do so. Jessica's knees never touched the floor. And my nickname was 'Scooter'; my knees never touched the floor either. So stand her up at the coffee table and let her walk. Forget about 'tummy time.' "

Your grandpa Dale, who earned straight C's through high school--but now owns a strip mall and flies to Hawaii to accept top-seller awards from Century 21--doesn't believe you have to crawl before you walk.

Chest compression

2010-07-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

[Estelle was not involved in any actual emergency. Randy simply decided to get a bit too creative with his creative non-fiction in this particular blog entry. - Eds.]

Your dad starts slapping the bottom of the baby's foot to get a reaction. "Hey, baby. Are you okay?" He isn't expecting a verbal response, but the baby's stiffened legs aren't reacting to the slaps. Somehow, he was expecting that, too.

Aside from the fact that he and your mom are forty-five minutes outside of their comfort zone--and that a former five-hundred-pound brown bear hangs on the wood paneling wall in the next room--your dad scans his surroundings and finds the environment safe. He turns to your mom. "Can you call 9-1-1 and come right back?"

Your mom nods and looks on encouragingly, but doesn't move. There's an American Red Cross notebook across her lap, opened to a page illustrating infant CPR.

Your dad, recalling his very recent training, tilts back the baby's chin, and lowers the side of his face to the baby's nose and mouth. He looks down the baby's chest to see if it's breathing. No breath against his ear, no rising and falling stomach from the baby.

He turns his face toward the baby, puts his mouth over its, and breathes two puffs of air into its lungs. The tiny lungs fill up twice, accompanied by an unexpected crinkling sound. He starts to think about the bag of chips and chunky salsa offered earlier. Wonders if he'll get to eat after this.

Your dad, again recalling his training, starts doing two-fingered chest compressions, one finger-width below the baby's nipple line.

Another lady in the room is giving instructions, and she says, "To know how fast you should give chest compressions, the American Red Cross endorses the song Stayin' Alive. That, or Another One Bites the Dust."

Eight other couples in the room, each with their own "Actar 911" resuscitation dummies laying on the floor in front of them, let out a collective Ohhhhh. The infectious bass line to Another One Bites the Dust immediately gets into everyone's head, but it's a poor choice of song lyric when trying to save a life. Even if it's a simulated life in a forty-five-dollar infant-CPR course.

"And another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust," your dad sings to himself, the chest compressions dipping the baby dummy's chest in perfect rhythm.

Meanwhile, in the bear room, you sleep soundly on your back, your hands up in mock surrender. Your mom and dad continue to joke with the other couples in the class, but the room full of trainees, beneath the good-natured rib-jabbing, is floating in a heady mixture of fear and composure. Fear that they'll ever have to use the training they're receiving today, and enough composure ensuring that they can do it if they have to.

Afterwards, your mom and dad grab a plate of chips and salsa. They are the first to leave.

Come Fourth, Estelle

2010-07-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

Your first Fourth of July fireworks display was in Spokane, Washington, with you sleeping against your dad's chest after a long day of great grandparents' visits and your vehement wookie calls. Spokane fired off a cannon salvo to mark the show's commencement. You slept soundly through that, as well as your dad yelling, "Very good! Very good!" during the finale's rocket-red glare.

This week is brought to you by the letter H. Your first consonant. Though, of course, the long strands of H's you strung together made sighing sounds. Your mom fed you and you sighed. Your dad handed you stuffed animals and you sighed. They changed your diapers, read you stories, sewed you dresses, and drew you pictures. Each parental act received the sigh it deserved, be it grateful or resigned. You also worked diligently to make softer sounds, softer sighs. It was a complementary linguistic development to the previous week's fiery, Chewbacca-infused declarations and lamentations.

You are also moments away from sitting up on your own. In fact, on a couch or other well-padded setting, you can maintain your upright countenance for some time. On a harder surface, however, say, the dining table or the trunk of the car, you're still bowling-pin tipsy.

You still dismay at tummy time, but nearly erupt with limitless laughter when you're standing, propped under the armpits by your mom and dad. But your mom and dad are working to lengthen your tummy-time endurance. As they say, you have to crawl before you can walk.

New words, secret words

2010-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Your dad called you "Chewy" all last week. That's short for "Chewbacca," a character from some science fiction movie series made popular in the later half of the 20th century. Your dad thinks the movies were OK.

The nickname wasn't from an overgrowth of hair on your head, or from your developing-but-no-doubt-potentially-formidable skills as a smuggler's cohort. The nickname came from the Chewbacca-like gurgle you adopted for one week, and one week only. The gleeful gurgle stemmed from your uvula, pushed out through your squeezed smile, and was almost always accompanied by your arms straightening out in front of you in some invisible bench press. The Chewbacca sound appeared at the exclusion of all other sounds. Your vowels were still there, your sentences, yes, and your barked orders, of course. But they were all shuffled into a new venture led by that playful punching bag at the back of your throat.

Then, just as you'd abandoned the previous week's guttural growl--from sheer mastery and perhaps not a little boredom--the Chewbacca gurgle likewise went away. Your dad imitated the sound, seeing if you'd continue to reciprocate. But eventually, since the nickname no longer fit, he gave up and fished backwards for some nickname predating "Chewy," which felt ironic since you'd progressed past being "Chewy."

Each day, your mom and dad search for your secret word of the day. Although sometimes it's a secret sound of the day, and not a word that can be readily conveyed, even with a skillfully-wrought tapestry of onomatopoeia. Regardless, the result of finding out your secret word of the day is: your giggles. Big huge giggles. Full belly laugh giggles, the kind that your mom and dad could record and listen to over and over throughout the entire day. The secret word of the day strikes you as hilarious, but only for fifteen to twenty minutes, whatever that word is. Then it's not funny to you anymore.

One day, the secret word was "Geeeh!" Another day, it was "beach ball!" (Or, more specifically, "Beach! Ball!" with an emphasis on the B's.) The latest secret word was coughing. You couldn't stop giggling when you'd hear your mom and dad hack and sputter up a lung-hiccuping cough. Real or faked, the comedy was brilliant.

But then, like every other secret word before it, it was done after a quarter of an hour. That was it. The "Geeeh!" wasn't funny anymore, the "Beach! Ball!" had lost its charm. And coughing became a cause for concern rather than a cause celebre. Just as your mom and dad don't appreciate recycling jokes, you only find your secret word funny for just so long, and then it's never that funny ever again.

Adjusting to the setting

2010-06-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Like nature's earth, air, fire, and water, there are likewise four elements of storytelling. The similarities end there, but those elements are: character, setting, plot, and backstory. Quite recently, you've become increasingly familiar with setting.

Before, your crib was merely some random location bedazzled with bright, geometric patterns, rimmed with generation-old teddy bears, and topped with a melodic, gently swaying mobile. It was a place where your mom and dad spoke in low voices, and would sometimes place an index finger to their lips, or a pinky finger between yours. Soothing, sure. But for all you knew, those terrycloth ursine creatures and church-going whispers from your mom and dad could've taken place anywhere, at anytime.

Before, your bathtub was merely some random location filled with a clear, lukewarm fluid, rimmed with unscented shampoos and soaps, where a small rag would scrub between your baby-fat rolls. It was a place where your mom and dad kept enthusiastic but diligent vigil over you, quick to readjust your seating if you slid down or to the side. Again, soothing. But those two-in-one cleansers and reverb-enhanced voices from your mom and dad could've taken place anywhere, at anytime, for all you knew.

But now, you're more forward thinking. When your mom and dad place you in that rectangle of carved wooden bars, or in that slowly, slightly darkening concave of liquid, you decide on whether that setting--that particular element of storytelling--will suit you for the next fifteen minutes, the next couple of hours, the next full nighttime. Your crib is no longer some random location where mom and dad put on their solemn voices. It's a place where you now know you're being put to sleep. And if hunger or a dirty diaper is going to interrupt the serenity of the upcoming span of time, you yell out until your mom and dad finally, finally understand. Your bathtub is no longer some random collection of compressed hydrogen and oxygen molecules, but a place for playful cleansing, playful splashing, and playful talking with mom and dad.

You're learning where you are and what happens there. You're learning what settings silence your mom and dad, and what settings make them smile and splash.

That's how I used to talk

2010-06-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

Tentative and experimental at first, your growls grew certain and purposeful throughout the week. Guttural and scratching at your vocal cords, this new muscular stretch took the place of all other communication. Squeaking, squeals, and other happy baby sounds stepped aside, curiosity and perhaps not a little fear creasing their innocent lingual foreheads. Your sentences devolved into grunts, and only became sentences again as you strung several grunts together. A smiling sense of accomplishment punctuated each growl. These were no longer incidental strands of vowels, but declarations, imperatives. Growling required air. It required lung capacity. Words gained a greater sense of economy than they'd known up to this point. You stopped complaining helplessly and instead gave your mom and dad instructions. "These are your marching orders," you growled. "Do it. Do it now."

And as suddenly as the growls had arrived, the growls disappeared. Your dad, confused, continued to growl playfully back at you. You laughed at him. He was, perhaps, entertaining. But the growls had become a past amusement for you. Something you'd started at the three-and-a-half month mark, but by three-and-three-quarter months, growling had slipped into a past-tense realm. You'd mastered growling. There was nothing more for you to learn. "Stop it, dad," you seemed to say, no longer growling, but maintaining your increased confidence that growling had brought. "I don't do that anymore." You humored your dad for a couple more days, giggling at his growls during bath time, or maybe eliciting a chuckle or two during some span of minutes on the Table of Awareness. But then it wasn't funny anymore. Dad would have to grow up. There's still so much to learn. Have to keep moving.

Cold hands, warm milk

2010-05-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Your tiny, wrinkled hands are perpetually cold. Cold to the touch, cold when you touch things. Your dad imagines ringlets of fog rolling off your fingertips, like they're ice cubes on a counter. Your mom silently screams when you grab hold of her when you're nursing. Your dad incorrectly assumes your hands will warm when you dance with him. Your mom attributes your cold hands to your grandma Melody. Though your dad gauged that your mom's body temperature significantly cooled when you came around, too.

In the public library's gravel-edged courtyard, your mom fed you breast milk from a bottle. A loud, metallic clang rang out every few seconds as a boy in the adjacent children's creche jumped up and down on a giant boat sculpture. Clang. In the sunlight, your pupils shrank to pinholes, and your mom saw green at the epicenter of your blue eyes.

Your grandma Claire clings--without malice--to westernized standards of beauty. Barbie doll standards that are not just ingrained, but pounded (clang) incessantly into Filipino girls' culture. Tall, skinny, blond-haired, blue-eyed. Everything a Filipino is predisposed against becoming.

"What color are her eyes?" your grandma Claire asks on the phone.

"They're blue," your dad answers.

"Oh good," your grandma says. She is relieved.

"Well, ma, all baby's eyes are blue at first. That wears off after a few--"

"Is her hair still black?"

"Her hair is black, ma. It's thinning out a bit since her birth, but--"

"Is it straight or is it curly?"

"It's, um, it's pretty straight. I mean, when we dry her hair though--"

"Oh good, good. That's good." Clang.

Jogging the memory

2010-05-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

"I'm, a, machine...I'm, a, machine."

The rhythmic crunch of white pea gravel sticks in your dad's head, and sticks in the grooves of his running shoes. His Old Navy neckline is darkening with sweat, New Balance sneakers curving up at the toes, Nike logo shorts creeping up where his thighs jog together.

"Left. Left. Left, right, left."

Those internal chants used to work. Back before college. Back before Xbox. Back before the turn of the century. Your dad never liked running in the military. But the only thing your dad disliked more than running was being bad at running. So he ran.

"Grandma and grandpa laying in bed. Grandma rolled over and this is what she said..."

Your dad will save that one for later. For now, as he chugs around the elementary school track, head down, eyes squinting to blur the distance, he pictures himself as a videogame avatar, a digital representation of himself, a representation that doesn't feel soreness, doesn't experience fatigue, and runs at the consistent speed of someone pressing the up arrow on a keyboard.

"I'm, a, machine...I'm, a, machine."

Greatest grandpa

2010-04-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

Your Great Grandpa Ken took you up in his monolithic hands. Semi trucker hands that had clocked tens of thousands of miles over American highways. Horse farmer hands that had maintained a modest stable of healthy saddle horses. Harvesting hands that had baled tons of forest mosses, shucked Pacific coast clams on ranger-scoured beaches, carved Chantrelle mushrooms from under evergreen canopies, and pulled pinching Dungeness from barnacle-encrusted crab pots.

But those hands that had fought in the Second World War, that had repaired log-loaded barges for Southern Oregon Marine, and those hands that once had to pry a shotgun from his wife's grip...those same hands gave up the moment you started crying. He handed you back to your mom, put his big hands in the air, said, "I didn't do it," then decided not to take you back. Great grandpa is a man that's fought on the wrong side of enough battles to know now that he can pick his fights. And if you being in someone else's arms makes you happy, then that makes him happy.

Laughing, rolling, piggy banking

2010-04-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

Your laughter filled the nursery's calculatedly humidified air. It was the first time during waking hours that you laughed aloud. Before, your mom only heard you laugh in your sleep. Funny baby dreams. But this week, the idea of breakfast struck you as broadly hilarious. That, or your mom's breast is comedy gold.

Later, your cries filled the nursery's tightly regulated sixty-eight degree air. It was the first time you'd pushed yourself up during "Tummy Time," leaned determinedly to one side, and rolled onto your back. You were stunned into silence. But the tears came, and your mom and dad placed you on your tummy again.

You were dedicated in church on Sunday. Your mom and dad brought you to the front of the church, ascending the steps to the stage. Before everyone could hold their hands up to pray, your mom handed you to Pastor Mark, and you threw up.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Beth arrived with a Chinese Year of the Tiger piggy bank. Tiger bank, rather. Paul would look at you and say, "Oooh, oooh." Beth patiently waited then played with you quietly. You cried a lot during their visit, and before he left, Paul placed a quarter in your piggy bank.

Is it the singing or the song?

2010-04-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

Introducing you to alternative bands and rap groups is largely a failing endeavor. Gorillaz. Broken Bells. Jogger. Wu-Tang Clan. None of these calm or capture your interest. Your dad reaches into his mental crates and sings "Lucky Star," or "Sledgehammer," or "In the Air Tonight." Rarely does anything work to the extent that your dad can say, "Yes, Madonna works," or "Peter Gabriel works," or Phil Collins. Guess you had to be there for Phil Collins.

But you're never happier than when you mom and dad sing together in church. Your dad's faulty baritone coupled with your mom singing harmony in alto. They sing that they'll live for all their days to raise a banner of truth and light. Then sing about trading their sorrows, trading their shame, laying them down. And you sing back in a bubbly coo or with a grinning outburst.

So, despite your dad's inadvertent efforts to secularize your musical tastes, for whatever reason, God works.

Small and grand gestures

2010-04-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

Some gestures grow familiar already. Your dad wonders which ones will fall away and which ones will become you. Ones like your shuddering lip as the earliest expression of dislike, versus your cry's creaking-dungeon-door effect once you've yelled too long. Your left arm that lashes out, versus your right arm that raises up ("Do you have a question?" your mom asks). Your hands that wring together once they find each other. And lips that form an O when your sounds and stare are at their most loving.

Which patterns, your dad wonders, will inform your maturing behavior? You're restless on a couch and stare out the window. (Will dad not be teaching you how to play video games?). You're calm in a bath but talkative in the mirror. (Will a day at the spa both relax and enliven you?) You cling to your mom's neck but look over your dad's shoulder. (Will you reassure her and be protective of him?) You're mesmerized by the ceiling fan but unaware of the cat. (Are you more mechanical than humanitarian?) And dad's baritone voice soothes but his playful growl frowns your lower lip. (Dad will have to be careful of that come story time.)

Many changes forthcoming, they know. They know. But is who you are really that far from who you'll be?

A mile between the two S's

2010-03-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Your dad was jealous of your sleep. Your little baby dreams. Because weeks before you would smile at him, you would only smile during naps. It was often after your mom put you into a "milk coma." After those tug-of-war matches between you and the breast that feeds. The latch versus the detach. The gulp versus the yelp. Once it was all over but for the shouting, full tummy bulging sideways, spreading your cinnamon-swirl bellybutton, you'd sleep, and you'd smile. Half of your lifetime ago, your sleeping subconscious seemed to know how to smile before your waking conscious caught on.

So now, your lips curved unmistakably upward, cheeks lifted in giddy appreciation, your mom and dad stand there next to the Table of Awareness, mouths open, eyes searching, wondering if those smiles truly are for them. Modest in many respects, they don't want to accept a smile they didn't earn. Don't want to hog credit for happiness they didn't bestow. Until you gurgle or bleat some note of unabashed recognition or speak some vowel sound between those relentless hiccups. Then your mom and dad allow that brazen baby tone of acknowledgment to seep through their tentative dispositions. And they smile back.

Only a week ago your arms would waver and shake, like an orchestral conductor over some galloping tune, as the words bubbled up inside of you. Now your arms move with greater deliberation, chopping back and forth like a Tae Kwon Do kata. And when your mom or dad places a finger in your palm, your fingers clasp like anemones, only letting go if the words splay your fingers in different directions. And your mom and dad hope you know that their smiles are yours.

Letters forming a letter

2010-03-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

A letter from uncle Sean arrived today. Your dad isn't in the business of bestowing terms of endearment lightly, and, in this case, he still hasn't. Sean has earned the title "uncle," as he has been every bit a brother to your mom and dad. This is for you.

* * *

Hi; we haven’t met.

I’m Sean, and I’m, well, let’s say a “friend” of your parents. Sometimes I do wonder; sometimes I wonder why they tolerate me, as I am me, and therefore somewhat intolerable. Prior to a couple of years ago, your parents might’ve described me as “that guy,” specifically that guy that shows up every once in a while, hangs out and has a good time, and then disappears for a year or so. Nowadays, well, at least I call first. Like before I start driving.

I will admit that I don’t know how to handle your arrival. It’s not a new thing for me, by any means; plenty of my friends have popped out a baby (I prefer the term “popped out” because, while I know the reality, I prefer to imagine that it’s like a popping a champagne cork, it’s more fun), but these are the Kalistas. While I may not always have been the best friend, I have always thought of them as two of my best friends.

But you’ll never know those people. Having a baby changes folk; not in a bad way, by any means, but being a parent requires a responsibility, a kind of…sublimation of self, to cater to your needs. You’ll never know Randy, the free-wheeling, art-film-watching, ex-sailor that I knew; You’ll never know Grace Ferris, who berated me (me!) for dropping a class / out of college altogether. I don’t know how your parents are going to change yet; I hope Randy still games, I hope Grace still talks a mile a minute. We’ll still be friends either way, but I can’t help but note the passing of an era. An era you’ll never be familiar with, a set of people you will know intimately, but not the way that I knew them: so I wanted to tell you about them.

I remember the day I met your dad. We were in a freshman-introductory group together, and your dad struck me. Not in a sexual way (not that there’s anything wrong with that…I don’t know, ask your parents), but in a way that, hopefully, you will come to know yourself: I’m a firm believer in snap judgments. When you meet a person who will be your friend for a lifetime, you will know who that person is. That’s the feeling I met when I met your father: “Well, might as well get to know this guy. I’m gonna want to keep him around.” And I’m glad that I have; your father is one of the most insightful people I know, who can look at an object, the exact same object from which I can only glean it’s practical/useful/potentially murderous value. Your father sees an aesthetic value, a spiritual value, a moral value, dimensions that aren’t beyond just me (a person who is, admittedly and perhaps somewhat legendarily, somewhat challenged in all of the above) in any given object. He has a sweeping appreciation for music and literature, while at the same time applying a thoughtful and critical eye. We could talk about videogames for hours, and I mean hours; for his birthday one year, we set up TVs side by side and played separate games. I know; don’t judge us. But your dad has the ability to get enthused about gaming in a way that I’ve seen few people get enthused about anything. Not to say that your father is some hyper-active nerd; but when the man loves, he loves. Enthusiasm is a rare quality, and it’s the number 1 quality I look for in a friend; take notes one that one, it’ll serve you well. After that, your father and I ended up in the same writing/speaking class, and I’ve never been so grateful for an academic scheduling error; somehow, they put a putz like me in the same writing class as your father. Your father is a writer in the way many people, published/famous/rich authors (writer > author) wish they were writers; most wannabes write, and people read. Your father writes, and he communicates. We used to exchange these emails/essays that I looked forward to everyday, not just because of the content, but because the way your father wrote challenged me, improved me; someday, I hope to impress your father with my written word in the way he has impressed me with his. For that matter, someday I hope to impress your father with the kind of generosity and warm-heartedness that I’ve seen from him, every time I see him.

I remember the day I met your mother. We were eating breakfast at adjacent booths, and it just happened to be my birthday (yet another reason to celebrate that particular date) I challenged her to eat a kiwi, skin on (it’s delicious, you’ll see). Now, a normal person would not only have declined that particular request, they probably would’ve tased me. But your mother, well…she has what we adults call “a set.” A set of what? Ask your parents; but your mother has them, and they are brass. Not only that, but she has an impressive and, perhaps, intimidating amount of brainpower. I don’t know a whole lot of people smarter than your mother, and that’s saying a lot; I don’t exactly run in illiterate circles (ok, so I kinda run in illiterate circles, but only so it makes me seem that much smarter), and your mom is in a class of her own. I like talking to her about politics, not just because she’s involved and knowledgeable, though she is both of those things, but because she makes me do two things I never do: question myself, and make me a little more hopeful. Question myself, because while she and I lay on opposite ends of the political spectrum, she isn’t a rabid crazy person and, believe it or not (and believing it might get harder as you get on into your teens) she makes salient and well-considered points that require me to second-guess my position, to make me compromise and work out what I actually think, as opposed to what I think I think. More hopeful, because while she’s making me actually think (any time you want to stop that and just agree with me, feel free) she makes me think that, y’know, maybe we can all come together and agree after all. Any friend who can make you believe in humanity a little, well…you’ll come to recognize the value.

I knew your parents when they were into “The Matrix.” What’s “The Matrix”? It’s an awful movie with philosophical pretensions, which your parents loved and, well, know one’s perfect (your mother died her hair black for the premiere of the sequel! I know!). I knew your parents when they played board games obsessively. I knew your parents when they tried to talk us into buying and moving into the house next door; I know, we should’ve. I knew your parents when they only watched serious indie movies, call it the “pre-Disney” era. I knew your parents.

You are Estelle Juliet Kalista, and from what I can tell from some (possibly digitally enhanced) images, you are beautiful. You owe every inch of that to your mother; thank her daily. Not that your father is a slouch; you will have ¼ Filipino eyes for which the boys will love you; thank him daily. Sometimes they will drive you nuts; they will have good reasons. You may not agree with those reasons, and from a life-long rebel this is hard to admit, but sometimes, even most times, your parents will be right. Not all parents: your parents. Make sure your dad reads to you, not that it’ll take much prompting but remind him that you’re a girl and therefore hard-core sci-fi won’t always be appropriate, and force your mom to teach you how to be pretty and smart; it’s a tricky balancing act, but your mom’s got it down.

You will not know your parents as I knew your parents; you missed their youthfulness, their growing periods, their lessons learned. But I’ve known them long enough to say confidently: you have the best parents. They will take care of you; my job is to be the rascally uncle, and make you athletic and somewhat rebellious. I will enjoy this.

Never stop being grateful for them. They will never stop being grateful for you.

Use your words

2010-03-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Your mom calls it a changing table. But your dad calls it the Table of Self-Awareness.

A shallow, padded halfpipe sits atop a white-painted dresser holding your dozens of hand-me-down onesies and hoodies and beanies and bibs and socks and mits and newborn sleeping bags washed and folded and sorted according to age-specific sizes. Moist wipes and cloth diapers covering a full rainbow of colors stack upside down within arm's reach, and the black-and-white mobile spins slowly above.

But when you're placed on that padded halfpipe, the one your mom and dad change your diaper on, then something about your whole existence, from your perspective, changes. The full length mirror, hung horizontally to your left, never lets go of your attention. You see you. You also see a reflection of your mom, or your dad, whoever's pulling duty, and you see the yellow beams from the ceiling lamp lighting up that mirrored panorama.

Your arms begin to shake. Your hands conducting some unseen symphony. Your fingers splay and clasp like somatic ingredients to spellcasting. And then a sound escapes your mouth. Small. Abrupt. Deliberate. And then the spell components, the arms waving about, the fingers pointing and clenching, subsist.

You see your reflection again. And this time your legs join the orchestral conduction. Left leg. Right leg. Both feet burst forward and above you. And then, at the culminating point of all this energy, this internal combustion of linguistic coal-fires, this vocal chi-gong, there's another outburst. Small. Abrupt. Every bit as deliberate and perfected as the first.

The words are coming. And your mom and dad await every one of them.

Learning to cry

2010-03-07T16:08:00.000-08:00

Your eyes were that much bluer today, the day that you cried your first tears. And your mom and dad have let you cry aplenty these past fourteen days, letting your lung capacity build, those loud, flat cornerstones of lingual development shaping your lips into an oversized oval, curling your tongue to the roof of your mouth, the redness growing in your neck and back, your legs kicking your swaddled blanket down and away.

But today your very first tears cupped themselves into the V at the corners of your eyes. Pupils wading beneath a watery surface once your lids opened again. Your mom had her heart broken. Your dad chuckled at the dolphin-like staccato accompanying the end of every stanza reeling with discontent.

But along with your newfound tears you let your mom and dad know that the tip of their pinky, serving these past two weeks as a failsafe pacifier, would no longer do. You would have tears. And there would be so much less denying them.

The born identity

2010-02-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

Introducing Estelle Juliet Kalista. Seven pounds, nine ounces, nineteen inches long. Born Sunday night at 9:43, February Twenty-First, Two Thousand Ten. Chinese Year of the Golden Tiger. Your dad especially likes that last part.

Your dad doesn't know what he's in love with more. Your gunmetal gray eyes. Their assured gaze. Your lightly snoring nostrils. Your ears curled like cabbage. "That's a quick response after only fourteen hours," the nurse said after your hearing test. Your piano playing fingers. Those same fingers that cover an eye when distressed, or point when thoughtful. Your arm wrestler deltoids and indian wrestler legs. The same ones that kicked and punched their way through your dad's reading of Moby Dick and I, Robot during your gestation. Even your penchant for pooping and peeing in your mom and dad's hands.

A parent's love extends in every direction.

Your mom's head screams with love for you. Despite twenty three hours of natural labor, followed by three more of an epidural that uselessly drained into her legs. The anasthesiologist meant it when he said it was gravity driven. Your mom had refused to labor on her back. And still your mom's head screams with love for you, despite the "you don't want to know" (the RN's words) number of stitches the doctor sewed across second degree lacerations torn into her muscle tissue. Even the extra night spent in the birth center because you wouldn't pee. The nurses insisted your mom and dad stay until then, though they were dying to bring you home, dying to be home.

It amazes your dad that something capable of nothing beyond eating, sleeping and defecating is capable of so much more. He can think of nothing else than being with you. He wants to do nothing more than to do nothing with you.

See you soon

2010-02-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Your dad manifests inward stresses outwardly. In the past three weeks his skin's revealed white heads, black heads, scaly skin and rashes in quantities unheard of since his sophomore year of high school. But don't let him fool you. When your dad became an adult, whenever that happened, his regular acne simply became adult acne. And as your dad beheld your due date, February Eighteenth, his acne appeared more like polyps, clinging to the crook of his elbow and forearm, the crook of his earlobe and neck, the crook of his nostril and cheek, while the vitamin A saw to the side of his itching neck.

Let's not be meek. Your mom is about to give birth. Stripped of its magic, giving birth is none too pretty. Giving birth is violence.

Now, however, at T-plus-two days, your dad's demeanor, not to mention his sense of humor, regains a healthy pallor. Your mom and dad talk and watch, laugh and walk, and the uterus contracts. We will see you soon. But for now, you mom answers the phone with, "No baby yet."

Tour de nursery

2010-02-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

Sunlight hurdles through the oak's seed clusters hung like Christmas ornaments and shaped like World War II underwater bombs. In the window, a tin viking ship braces itself for impact over a window sill caught in the doldrums.

A latte berber carpet frames the floor vent beneath, room dust spinning upwards in a weather front, a bank of steam forming regiments and taking up arms on the window's southern land holdings.

An old soul of a rocking chair reclines remembering its earliest years, joined by a rust-rubbed music stand accustomed to holding Tchaikovsky's Nutracker Suite or Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, but certainly not Hans Christian Andersen's Nightingale as it holds now.

That bejeweled nightingale gazes up from the page to "Shelly" hanging in the corner, a chandelier made from a thousand cone shells flown in from the Philippines. Shelly is a guidon for a rank of open-armed stuffed bears, horses and monkeys grinning and pensive and thinking back to your mom's embrace when she was a child herself. "Cry Bear" (you'll have to ask your mom) is the elder statesman, polar-bear white with a brown nose rubbed raw and sad eyes that are all pupil.

The crib they defend like a soccer goal stands next to a bookshelf lining up a range of usual suspects: Peter Rabbit, the Grinch, the Wizard of Oz, a Lion, a Witch, and purportedly a Wardrobe. There are others less familiar to your dad: Gracie, Five Chinese Brothers, and a story by Madeleine L'Engle that isn't a Wrinkle in Time. The pea-green wall above bears a colored chalk rendition of the Little Prince, drawn by your dad, with apologies to Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

The closet, with its closet doors long gone, is a diaper changing alcove, swirling with a metal-clipped Wee Gallery mobile, backed by a mirror hung low beside the changing table, flanked by a crowding shelf engorged with red, orange, yellow, green and blue cloth diapers, a baby wipe warmer (a "cotton burrito heater" according to your dad), and a short stack of plastic diapers running a rural print of ducks and houses.

Two framed photos of your dad in child form stand as trophy tops to the diaper shelves. One in a pastel Easter suit the day he carried a porcelain baby Jesus to the Nativity scene in front of the Holy Redeemer church's altar bearing a woodcarved image of the Last Supper, the one where everybody is sitting on the same side of the table. The second photo places your dad at the base of a ladder he was too small to climb when he was taken to an orchard to pick buckets of crab apples fallen to the dandelioned ground.

Your mom and dad hope you like what they've done with the place.

It's in the bag

2010-01-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

"I have an entire person in here. Like, an entirely cooked person."

Both of them laying on the couch, your dad places his foot on your mom's belly. It's hot to the touch. You arch your neck, pushing your head against his instep. Your hand reaches out, and there's some kind of high five exchanged between your fingers and your dad's squared off toes. Sometimes you release a flurry of rapidfire movements, like you're batting an eyelash, but with your leg. And you get the hiccups daily now, your lungs prepped to draw their first breath.

To your mom and dad, raising a child is certainly a mammoth undertaking. But one spread out over the course of years, decades. What makes them anxious -- perhaps even tapping into something like anxiety -- is the thought of "Labor Day," the day you decide to join them out here.

The bag is nearly ready, tooled with toiletries and boardgames. Plus some writing paper. When your dad was a boy, and a long car trip was in order, your grandma Claire and grandpa Dale made sure your dad brought along paper. Your dad would turn around in the Chevy pickup's extended cab, pull down the bucket seats, and draw, using the bucket seats like an architect's desk equipped with seatbelts.

Hello my honey

2010-01-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

Your mom and dad signed up for marital counseling. But it's not what you think. It's more of a preemptive strike. A nip in the bud. A rising tide lifts all boats. Or something.

That said, your mom and dad are (actually) concerned that their marriage is going a little too well. Their arguments are petty. Easy to get over. They're quick to apologize. They've kept it together only four years, but that (already) beats out most of their college friends. Statistics lament that half of all American marriages end in divorce. Among your mom and dad's circle, it's worse.

So your mom and dad signed up for a course, sponsored by the church, called the Marriage You've Always Wanted. It's written by Gary Chapman, a man with a Texas drawl and a sharp grandpa wit. The book cover depicts a two-seater bicycle. The course is five weeks long, takes place in the Church's "Upper Room" during the first service, and costs twenty bucks. Your mom and dad readily agreed.

If the slow-motion kicking and punching is any indication, you're filming a Tai Chi class in utero. It'd be a big seller, if your mom and dad had ultrasounds and 4-D video taken. As it stands, they figure you could use the privacy (it's gone once you're born), so the only images that exist of you are those few snapshots taken five months ago.

In one imaginative scenario, your dad pictures you bursting forth from the womb, top hat and cane in hand, dancing and singing "Hello My Baby!" like the frog from the Warner Brothers cartoon. Your dad will run to the doctors, nurses, nurses aids, and general cleaning staff. When he returns to the room, out of breath, hands on his knees, you will be calmly nestled atop your mom's chest, your breathing steady and even.

Equal and opposite

2010-01-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

Sean is known more for his hopes than his predictions. More for his desires than his prejudices, too, so your mom and dad forgive him. Nothing excites Sean more than the idea -- the possibility, no matter how infinitesimal -- that you'll be sheer enigma to your mom and dad. That you'll shun books and laugh at clap tracks. Throw touchdowns instead of game pads. Breeze through mathematics and botch languages. To Sean, humor is the most powerful balancing force in the universe. When your mom and dad visit him, they try to ignore the Desert Eagle weighing down the stack of Dark Horse comic books on his coffee table.

When Sean voices these hopes, however ("Your kid's gonna love sports"), he's simply imparting the number-one piece of advice he can impart on any individual. And that advice is: be prepared. Whether it's for being recalled to active military duty, stocking up for the inevitable zombie apocalypse ("Your kid's gonna love zombies"), or becoming a dad. Be prepared.

So your dad is preparing. He's stopping a few seconds longer to read the back of the box in the kid's movie rental section. He's looking up individuals committed to performing "tackle-eligible plays." He's imagining a world that doesn't grind on grammarian wheels. Picturing the value inherent to sequences of numbers rather than strings of words. Preparing for a little person that will be exactly like him, and, possibly, nothing like him at all.

Return to form

2010-01-03T13:59:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you set an unrealistic goal in order to attain a real one. That was never the plan with your dad. He honestly felt a novel within reach. Not a great one. Not even a good one. But a novel nonetheless. Despite his fireball of enthusiasm, a novel was not the result. It was never going to be -- though it would be polite not to inform your dad of that.

He did, however, write more than he's ever written before. That's saying something. Your dad was the type of student that would be assigned a sixteen-page essay, turn in twelve, and politely inform the professor that that would be sufficient. This philosophy, and those face-to-face conversations with his teachers, ensured he never received anything higher than a B, but nothing lower than that either. Not when writing was involved. Concise, not convoluted. Succinct, not saturated.

Still.

The fantasy-fiction story told of a failing bard named Sayer. He played no instrument, told few stories, wrote disorienting poetry. His wife and child met an early and of course tragic end, while Sayer -- armed with little more than a sober disposition -- set sail as a bookkeeping yeoman onboard The Perilous. They chased down a ship smuggling arcane artifacts. Sayer welled up when he first stepped onboard an airwhale. And a flashback returned Sayer to his childhood, standing in front of a Spartan, dusty, martial arts temple, the lights dim, the students bright, his father's hand on the back of his neck.

Perhaps your dad will continue that story for you. One day. Some day.

For now, your dad is re-embracing the short story. Kyle, his friend and coworker (sadly, not in that order), devised a ludicrous subject as a jumping-off point. "Talking ... toaster," Kyle said, arms folded, smile implacable.

Kyle is one of the finest writers from your dad's graduating class at Southern Oregon University. Your dad jokes, "From what I've read, Kyle was one of the top three writers in our class. While I was one of the top two."

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

Your dad will write a novel in thirty days. Inspired by NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month), which took place, incidentally, across November, your dad is picking up the gauntlet thrown down by that infectiously enthusiastic organization. He's, needless to say, late to the party. So he won't be checking the gadget ticking away on the official website, the days, hours, minutes, and seconds bringing the finish line closer and closer, whether the writer is ready for it or not. His clock will be his own.

The point of the exercise isn't quality. It's quantity. He will press forward, heedless of where the story's been, heedless of where the story goes. For the most part. He will write a book that he's always wanted to read, but hasn't found anywhere. He'll tell you about it in thirty days. That should put him at the bleeding edge of two-thousand ten.

Your dad isn't leaving. But his blog will sit unchanged for the next four-plus weeks. He will then decide whether the marathon session awakened a dormant novelist gene within him, or has most assuredly scared him off.

Cost-cutting measures

2009-11-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

Cuts will be made. Your mom and dad will no longer be so-called DINKs (double-income, no kids), and will begin transmorphing into what your dad can only presume to be SIOKs (single-income, one kid). Which is a thoroughly unpronounceable acronym (sea ox?), but not a completely unmanageable concept.

The first cut is your dad's iPhone. By the time you're old enough to carry around a mobile phone (or whatever they think of next), iPhones will only be a fondly-remembered paragraph in the annals of telecommunications. Much like pagers are today. A land line is in order.

The next cut is the 2009 Toyota Corolla. This leaves them with your mom's 1992 Honda Civic hatchback, faded to a tomato red, but still humming with a vitality that escapes more modern vehicular constructs. When that Civic had first rolled off the assembly line, your dad was still tossing twenty-sided dice with the Band Hall Freaks and Theater Geeks. Your dad's circle of school chums had commandeered a table in the school library every lunch period and had dubbed themselves the Junior Mafia. Your dad had drawn symbols for each member. At that same time, some six-hundred miles away, your mom was on a children's theater stage yelling, "It is a puppet with no strings!" in front of a thousand other kids.

A tall stack of magazine subscriptions will be cut next. Real Simple, with its gorgeously-plated recipes and elaborate gift-wrapping ideas. The Week, with its clean-cut conglomeration of news snippets. PC Gamer, with its defensive Letters from the Editor, ever the apologists for a gaming platform that requires no apology. Details, with its challenging of masculine stereotypes and regrettable loss of both Augusten Borroughs and Michael Chabon from its payroll. Game Informer, with its embarassingly copy-pasted reviews and cowardly second opinions.

The membership to GameStop in the mall will be canceled. Your dad won't be paying for an Xbox Live membership in order to participate in multiplayer games that he wasn't playing anyway. And the meaty Combo Movie/Game Pass from Blockbuster will be reduced to the cheapest rent-by-mail option. That and evenings with your mom and dad reaching into a tile-filled Carcassonne bag, placing boardgame pieces on the dining room table.

The annual membership to Barnes & Noble has gone away and has already been replaced by a library card. There were four design choices for your mom and dad to ponder. Your mom chose the Shakespearean theme, all sepia tones and inkwell fonts. Your dad chose a pink-haired anime character, the imperitive "Imagine" printed in comic-book lettering across the card's equator.

But the Napster account stays. Your dad insists he would dry up, curl into a tiny, caterpillar-sized ball, and simply wither under a circle of vultures if he's denied access to new music every week.

More cuts to come for your mom and dad. This was only the Entertainment column of their life (barring the Toyota, of course). Better living through leaner means.

Ten-Second Rule

2009-11-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

"Real blood turns brown after thirty minutes. Ten-second rule!"

Your mom and dad, on a scholastic grading scale, are capably intelligent people. And despite generally snooty and tasteful sensibilities when it comes to entertainment, they don't overthink things when they're in-the-moment. Certain individuals' clairvoyant pursuits allow them to procure a movie's twist ending by the second act. Or snark at a page-turner of a novel because they pen the full story arc in their head before they even break the spine in the middle. Or they have a downward smirk, knowing that edgy, experimental, hipster rock band is following the same four-four progression as every other track on the top forty. These people, these workaday Cleo the Psychics, live in the future, always receiving their well-earned pat on the back when the predictable becomes the present.

Your mom and dad are not those people.

"Look at the cuff of his sleeve. There's red on it. But it'll turn brown. It's real this time."

Your dad reads the last line of a novel before starting any story. But he doesn't commune with the divine to navigate those labyrinthine pages to the endpoint. He reads magazines back to front, like there's some errant gene flitting about his DNA, seeking out (with straining, whipping cilia) that path against the natural ebb and flow. And the music he listens to, whether baroque pop, laptronica, or backpacker rap, engages him fully, immersively, but plugs into him only in the moment, only in each individual count of that four-four measure. The depths he explores follow a line like a heart monitor: drilling down and resurfacing, spelunking and spiking, face blue from oxygen deprivation -- then lungs once again flush with air.

"See?" Your dad pauses the movie. "Main Guy wanted to get out of the con, but his brother wanted to be a con man until the day he died. Watch the blood." And, lo and behold, the blood on Main Guy's shirt sleeves turns brown. It's real this time. Main Guy's brother is dead. It's a con. Or rather, it isn't.

But your mom and dad never saw it coming. Well, they did, but only ten seconds before it was actually happening on the screen. That's your mom and dad's Ten-Second Rule.

Your dad raises his fists in the air, triumph smiling across his face at having a ten-second jump on the film's crime-caper twist. In your dad's in-the-moment world, he saw that one coming from a mile away.

Not finding out early whether you're a boy or a girl has indeed proven entertaining. But it's also training your mom and dad to fully experience every moment of your gestation period, discussing possible outcomes, contemplating possible differences, and examining all three-hundred sixty degrees of an otherwise binary outcome. And not telling others what your name is has proven entertaining as well. People leap headlong into guessing games, or visibily restrain themselves from wanting to know. And, on "labor day," once your name is spoken aloud to others for the very first time, they will not have the powers of prediction on their side.

With your sex finally revealed as well, no one will have any powers beyond a fifty-fifty guess as to what you are before then. Not even your mom and dad's ten-second rule will help them. And everyone will be in the moment, finding out who you are for the first time, together.

Evaporating

2009-11-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

"After it rains," explains her daughter, "the sun comes out." The girl spreads her arms wide, signifying the reach, depth and, somehow, yellow warmth of the sun. "And it evaporates all the water with..." she squints, "with condemnation?"

"That's not quite the right word," her mother says. Clutching her daughter's hand, the mother pulls her close while drizzle blackens the parking lot. They walk past your dad and make the tiles squeak in the grocery store.

Your dad hears that phrase. In his head when writing. "That's not quite the right word." It's only half-correcting. It's no answer at all, really.

Your dad places his thumbs on the puzzle-pieces -- the words -- and slides one up and to the left, down and to the right. Always one part of speech, one missing turn of phrase to fill in every square of that sliding puzzle, pitting the pieces corner to corner, immobile should he let it. Should he fail and let it happen.

A man shuffles past, hand clutching at his collar. Your dad lifts his chin to the rain, a thousand cold little points tap his face, like Lilliputian arrows on the attack.

Sometimes your dad holds the words at arm's length, staring as the paragraph pushes itself into a Rubik's Cube. There's no solving it for him now. When it was still a sliding puzzle it had already pulled at the quicks of his thumbs, the underneaths of his fingernails red, like they used to get in high school lifting the heavy, sliding lock of his locker after science, after math, after history, after English.

Your dad turns his palms forward and up. A thousand cold little points tap his fingertips, like he's moving through the universe. Through it at light speed. The sun is out, but it's way over there, no condemnation in its reach, breadth, or color.

Does or doesn't

2009-10-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

Your dad pays for a sleeper car on a train, but doesn't upgrade to business class when he flies. He writes trivial notes on the back of his hand, but doesn't use the Moleskine in his pocket for the profound. He brews tea with milk and honey every night, but doesn't water the houseplants for weeks. He proper-cases letters in a text, but doesn't remember to write a thank-you note. He reads the classics, but doesn't read them twice. He writes emails, but doesn't send them out until he's read them twenty times. He takes in a chapter of the Bible every day, but doesn't pray for more than a minute. He talks to animals like they're human, but doesn't talk to people unless they act like adults. He eats grilled cheese sandwiches in the morning, but doesn't eat cereal except for dinner. He wins awards in art contests, but doesn't turn his sketchbooks in on time. He holds first chair in concert band, but doesn't play a lick of improv. He lays topside on Navy ships and stares at the stars, but doesn't study the anatomy of cruisers and destroyers. He loves every Shakespeare play he's ever seen, but doesn't drive further than a Blockbuster. He lives twenty minutes out of town, but doesn't listen to country. He loves the ocean, but doesn't get in the water. But when he eats clam chowder, he wonders if it's ever held a pearl.

A glassy Kryptonite

2009-10-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

In the house your dad grew up in, the cupboards always hosted a motley crew of vessels to drink from. Like a potluck of glassware and plastic cups, finding two of the same thing was more the six-sided dice of chance than the gears and levers of cognizant planning. Shortly after another set of glasses had been purchased, a round number, four or six or eight, another glass would slip from your grandma Claire's fingers. A couple weeks or a couple months meantime, some random or unknown acquisition -- another orphaned cup or foster-parented glass -- would wordlessly appear to take up ranks in the pastiche of the cupboard's piecemeal population.

Enough times, your lola Claire hunched over a faucet, a pink ribbon of blood finding a clockwise path to the drain, an ice cube requisitioned to staunch the flow. And enough times your dad witnessed the breakage to know that it was never seemingly in anger. Glass was merely your lola's weakness. Her Kryptonite. And she passed that Kryptonite on to your dad.

Drinking glasses inexplicably burst in your dad's hands, he strays his lip across cracked rims, a gallon of apple juice heads due south to the kitchen floor, or a glass-topped coffee table implodes after hours of steady, unassuming employ. Into the cupboard, out of the dishwasher, around the sink, or on the dining table, glass chinks, splits, spiderwebs, and buckles despite his careful and diligent hand. But unlike your lola, your dad too rarely suffers a cut, too rarely sees his own blood, and too often wonders what it would finally take.

Literary kick, musical kick

2009-10-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

"I'm not sure if this is baby." Your mom presses her fingers into the firm, cylindrical pouch swelling outward from her belly button.

"I don't know," your dad says.

"Put your hand here. No, here. Do you feel anything?"

Your dad puts his hand on your mom's belly. You kick. Hard. Your dad gives you a solid push back. You kick again.

"What does that feel like? What does that feel like inside?" your dad asks.

"Like little earthquakes," your mom says. "Like little aftershocks from earthquakes."

"That doesn't help me," your dad says.

You kick -- one, two. Your dad taps his fingertips on your mom's belly. He moves it across her, like a horse-galloping spider. You kick some more.

"Here," your dad says to your mom. "I'm just going to read outloud while my hand is on your belly." In the story, Robert Jordan is clinging to Maria, only hours away from blowing up the bridge. "We'll see if baby likes Hemingway," your dad says.

Your dad reads For Whom the Bell Tolls. Your mom would sleep, but grows concerned. You've never kicked this much. But you will also kick when your mom and dad play music featuring violins. Andrew Bird, Beirut, Yann Tiersen. Your mom and dad will wonder then, too, whether you kick because you are learning how to dance, or because you are learning how to cry.

Decorating is hard

2009-10-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

Drapes are hard. They've been the root cause of a land war between the Grand Duchy of Mom and the Golden Dad Fiefdom in recent weeks. And if you've never felt petty in your arguments before, then you've never died on this particular hill, skirmishing over primary colors versus animal prints, lions and giraffes versus birds and trees, bold stripes versus polka dots. For now, mind the border disputes with your dependency upon -- and the looming threat of -- that ever-present umbilical cord.

Artwork is hard. In the beginning, your room's walls were to be hung with poster-sized children's-book cover art. The Berenstein Bears. The Giving Tree. The Velveteen Rabbit. But your dad took those covers, made them abstract in his own style, and decidedly manufactured something "scarier" than intended. Then your mom and dad bought oversized decals. More lions. More giraffes. Perhaps birds on a wire. But the heavy wall textures proved too formidable, the adhesive decals' topography warped.

Painting is hard. Your mom and dad bought a beginner's kit for Chinese brush painting and a hundred sheets of rice paper. They started with Chinese characters. They wrote "Spring" and "Good Fortune." "Thousand" and "Yellow." The culmination of the lesson wished everyone a "Happy New Year." Your mom and dad were pleased with the brush strokes, even felt confident in progressing to bamboo. The snickers at the misshapen bamboo turned to out-loud laughter as they painted Siamese cats. Then the out-loud laughter turned to shrugs and sighs as they painted Amaryllis flowers. The afternoon ended before they could spar with Morning Glory and a butterfly.

Your mom is at the sewing machine. Your drapes will be alternating widths of animal caricatures and bands of white, the walls still baren, the war undecided.

Six frames

2009-09-24T21:42:00.000-07:00

Your mom and dad have a strand of ultrasound pictures. The strand is six frames long, arranged horizontally, matted against glossy black backgrounds from which you emerge as a bright ghost of Northern Lights. A General Electric logo is stamped into the upper left-hand corner of each picture.

The first two images, traditional 2D snapshots, capture your right profile. You have a slight overbite, a slighter chin, and a nose that, your mom insists, is shaped like your dad's. Your eyes, the back of your head, and your spine form the shiniest curvatures of your constellation, while you point upwards with your index finger, not accusatory, but revelatory. Like an idea just came to you.

The other four shots are taken in "4D." Your dad is baffled as to how the minds at GE make "time" a capturable element on pictures -- or perhaps your dad is baffled that all pictures don't already capture time and isn't that the point?

In the 4D images, you are sepia-toned throughout, brown and shaped from clay, always reaching with your left hand, that pointing hand, to grasp and ungrasp your umbilical cord, clinching and releasing the nourishment coming from your mom. Your right arm is straight, your right hand out of sight, as if finding where your dad clips his pen into his pants pocket.

Your mom and dad have video, too, over thirty minutes. The obstetrician measures your head and spine, forearm and upper arm, labeling heart and kidneys. Sizing you up, the obstetrician declares that you land in the 52nd percentile, directly in the middle of the pack, as far as sizing goes. Your dad couldn't be more ecstatic that his baby is perfectly average. And throughout the video, still you point, and then grasp the umbilical, and then release, keeping appraised at all times of the cord's location, and letting go only as another idea comes to you.

Bringing back New York

2009-09-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Length, width, height, and depth. These are four mathematical measurements whose lines grow fogged and gradually imperceptible as your dad's sickness sets in, as deep as he is unwilling. Your mom and dad are back from Boston and New York, two cities, both alike in dignity, that speak in tongues when placed shoulder-to-shoulder in the pew. Your dad breathed the experience in deep in Boston: America's first restaurant, the Union Oyster House, that certainly now serves the country's best bowls of baked beans and clam chowder; rows of brick-baked homes that housed individuals bearing weighty titles like "Founding Father." Your dad breathed the experience in deep in New York, too: the black Hefty sacks stacking like pyramidal cheerleaders above the storm drains, churches that survived the fall of the World Trade Center towers next door, and the urine that trickles from building foundations in Rorshach-shaped continents.

His immune system currently exacts a high transaction fee for the time he spent in Le Grande Pomme, the Big Apple. He's sick. There's naught to do but take NyQuil like a tequilla shooter, sleep in the most comfortable bed he's felt in the past ten days, and hope his head-cold-addled dreams don't wake him up at two in the morning, the side-scrolling filmstrip presented by taxis, trains, and subways rushing by in a close, loud, angry sliding door of Tesla-crackling electricity and railway thudding.

Now back home, your dad doesn't find the crickets' chirping as unmerciful as before.

Labor Day

2009-09-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Your Uncle Paul and Aunt Beth stayed Labor Day Weekend. They drove through fire to get here. There's video.

Your dad is always pleased when they leave. Not because your uncle and aunt are poor houseguests. But because your dad relishes the post-visit, sweeping through the house after the door has been shut and bolted once again out of earshot, replacing so many books on the dust-welcoming shelves, books that were referenced for ideas, books scanned for inspiration, books set aside for a lack of time or a predilection against spoiling too much. He slides books back into their columnar alcoves, extracting Post-It notes moonlighting as bookmarks, rejoining books with peers in memoir or historical, fiction or non-. Should books not be helter skelter after a visit, your dad would grow suspicious and not a little melancholy.

The four of them -- your uncle, aunt, dad, and mom -- climbed Roxy Ann's conical waistline, shoulders, and neck. The views are best at her equator, the trees sparse, the fisheye-lensed horizon a tear of Cascade hills in a scale of blues. The peak thrust up a radio tower and a concrete shelter proclaiming "Kurt + Amy" in yellowed letters, encircled with an oblong heart. A small, spraypainted "81" served as carbon dating. After the downhill climb, there was a little blood. Your mom and dad prayed. And you are still here.

That evening, warming their hands with hot chocolate, they watched Shakespeare's take on the swarthy, volatile Henry VIII. They clapped when the pageboy raised the green history flag, then raised his index and pinky finger in a "rock on" salute. They clapped when Queen Catherine thwarted the mumbling clergymen. They clapped -- they should've clapped more -- for the perfectly understated performance of a crestfallen Cardinal Wolsey. They left the theater, eyebrows knitted, reconciling Henry VIII's disappointment in having a female heir ... against her grandiose baptism in a Catholic church.

A girl name

2009-09-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Your mom found your girl name the other night. Her search pattern traversed cerebral longitudes and lattitudes never considered by Gallileo or Stephen Hawking. Her eyes scanned documents yellowed from archaic dust and those humming with a futuristic neon glow. Her methods, both expansive and focused, were applied and scrutinized from every conceivable direction -- she sighed restlessly, unsatisfied until she'd ticked the very last one of all 360 degrees outlined in her approach.

Refrains of vowel and consonant usage were counted and recounted, syllables were measured by some Shakespearean-era cubit, and a frighteningly subtle balance between poetry and prose was weighed to the nearest hundredth of an ounce. Your girl name is somehow both flowing and poignant at every utterance.

The final sieve your girl name sifted through was a Google search. Michael Jackson's dancing feet replaced the "oo" in "Google" that day. Your mom, considering every feasible angle, knew that your name might already exist in some capacity out there in the world, the Internet. If there were positive or negative associations already built into your name, your mom wanted to know about them. She typed your name in quotes into the search box, hit enter, and waited the 0.22 seconds for the 128 results to settle. The very first result -- to your mom and dad's astonishment -- pulled up a parallel universe.

They sat and watched a video following the birth of a baby girl already bearing your name, birthed by a woman that shared too many of your mom's facial features. Volume muted, your mom and dad gaped at what was apparently some Twilight Zone-fashioned future in which you are already an Internet sensation, born to a woman that could passably serve as your mom's sister or Hollywood stunt double. Unshaken, your mom kept the girl name she fashioned for you.

"The possibility of the baby being a girl is finally real," your mom said. Before then, your boy name was all your mom and dad could see, and you being a boy was all your mom and dad could picture. But now you have two fully-realized names, not to mention your codename used with friends and family during your gestation, a situation that will prove vexing to you for only five-and-a-half more months. But until then, rest assured knowing that your name, boy or girl, was shaped by masterful wordsmiths.

Baby strolling

2009-08-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

Mom and dad are buying a stroller soon. They like the three-wheeled jogging strollers. They look stylish, sturdy, maneuverable. Like they'd survive and perhaps even prosper in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It would take only a minimal amount of duct tape and PVC pipe; there would be very little steam-punking required of its original feature set. A lot of young parents in Ashland like three-wheeled jogging strollers, too. Your mom and dad don't jog.

Your Lola Claire ("Lola" is Filipino for "grandma") wants to buy the stroller for you. She had your Aunt Jessica call and tell us. "Just buy the one you want and I'll drop the money off with you guys." That's how most gift-giving works with your Lola.

Having to be able to afford the stroller in the first place accomplishes two things. One, your mom and dad can't buy a six-hundred dollar perambulator. Yes, they know that "European styling is back." But the stroller companies aren't going to make it an affordable comeback by any means. Two, it's made your mom and dad scratch their heads over several customer reviews listing cons such as "cup holders are too small," "speakers face towards baby instead of parent," and "handbrakes don't bring stroller to a complete stop."

So your mom and dad naturally have to ask, "Do you only drink Big Gulps?," "Is music such a good idea when you're jogging with your child three feet in front of you?," and "Shouldn't that prevent baby from catapulting out of the stroller during a poorly-judged braking session?" One customer review also mentioned that her stroller was stolen when she wasn't looking. There was no mention of what became of her baby.

Jeep makes strollers? Your dad wonders why Honda or Nissan haven't gotten into that same cross-marketing plan. There could be a lot of inexpensive strollers outfitted with loud mufflers and oversized spoilers, glistening with stickers of Chinese virtues. Prosperity. Wisdom. Integrity. Compassion, for good measure. Perhaps Chrysler and General Motors could've offset losses by exploring the baby stroller market, too.

Your first cat

2009-08-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

Marzipan is named after Homestar Runner's girlfriend, a web comic your mom and dad used to watch for five minutes every Tuesday. She has a tightly-coiled pinky finger for a tail. Your dad shudders when his own finger hooks through it. He never imagines hooking her onto dowels, coat hangers, curtain rods, or door handles, though her tail begs for such prehensile utilitarianism.

Marzipan has four miniature tennis balls, each with a dull rattle inside. She has a piece of toy sushi hanging from a fishing pole. She has a small pocket of catnip sewed into a square of burlap. She only plays with shoestrings.

There is a four-and-a-half foot tall piece of cat furniture your mom and dad bought for a previous cat named Reu. Reu was short for "rewind," the word your mom and dad would always see after they finished watching a rented VHS together. Reu died from hepatic lipidosis. Your dad wrote a story about it and read it to a loud audience in the Black Sheep. Your mom is upset your dad spread Reu's ashes while she was at work.

Marzipan sheds all year, like pine trees. Your mom and dad wake up to find tiny, collapsed tents of hair in the living room. Your dad thumps the vacuum's air filter against the inside of the trash bin.

Marzipan has a notch in her left ear. There was a white cat living with a large, pear-shaped family. The large, pear-shaped family once knocked on your mom and dad's door to borrow their cell phone for an "emergency." Your mom and dad stopped answering the door after that. Your dad yelled when he saw the white cat. He found Marzipan's blood, urine, and feces on the front porch. Marzipan stopped going outside after that, but your mom says, "Sugarfoot" (your grandma's cat) "has a notch in her ear, too."

When your mom or dad sit on the toilet, Marzipan will come into the bathroom if the door is open. She places a concerned paw on a thigh. She meows attentively. She won't leave until the toilet flushes. Your mom and dad theorize as to what this could possibly mean.

Walk sometimes

2009-08-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

Your mom and dad walk sometimes. Sometimes to rent movies. Sometimes to buy pens. Sometimes to buy milk. Once in a while, coworkers mention they've seen them walking, and those people wonder where your mom and dad live. "We live close," they say. They don't want to appear overzealous.

Sometimes to buy videogames. Sometimes to buy magazines. Sometimes to buy donuts.

They hold hands until it gets too hot and then they hold pinkies. If they're both on the same foot, one of them will do a little skip. They're short, but they don't let anything tall or wide come between them. They pass on the same side of street signs. They agree on which direction to go around a car parked on the sidewalk. They only let bushes come between them if the bushes are shorter than knee level. Then it's okay. Your mom wants your dad to walk on the side closest to the street. He almost always remembers.

Sometimes to buy pizza. Sometimes to buy thank-you notes. Sometimes to buy bike tires.

Once, in the middle of an empty house lot, on a freshly-cut tree stump, there was a flyer for summer jobs. No one took the phone numbers. Twice they walked past a man breakdancing with a cigarrette in his mouth. There was no music playing so they weren't sure if they should look at him. They smile and nod at other people walking by, but that's the only time people get to practice their thousand-yard stare. Your dad looks away from the landscaping around the new Spanish-style townhouses. He looks away from the new brick and metal credit union. He watches for the signal to cross the street.

Book ends

2009-08-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

Your dad is reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. He also wrote Everything Is Illuminated. Your mom and dad love that movie. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the kind of novel that is so exquisitely crafted as to call into question its very origins. This isn't so much the crafstmanship of one author as it is the divining of an entire nation's rent and broken heart.

A boy finds a key in an envelope, but he doesn't know what lock it opens. He sets off on a mission to find out. But across the whole of New York City, where the boy lives, there are 161,999,999 locks that the key won't open. Still he opens more doors to a box-of-chocolates variety of people than the key itself ever could.

Your mom insists that your dad finishes reading the books he buys. He doesn't always do that. But if the book has an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist, then your mom's insistence turns into something closer to bullying. No matter what other unread books sit on the shelf, your dad has to finish those in particular. He has to.

Your dad finished reading the Coming of Conan the Cimerrian last night. And while Conan's stories are adult fantasy fiction as envisioned by an overgrown and surprisingly poetic twelve-year-old, otherwise known as Robert E. Howard, that decidedly does not count as a book with an autistic (or autistic-like) child as the protagonist.

A fox in a cave

2009-08-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

This is what it looks like when Antoine de Saint Exupery, author and illustrator of the Little Prince, draws a fox in a cave:

This is what it looks like when your dad draws the same thing:

Your dad's artwork is decidedly abstract. But you can still make out the (rather enlarged) fox, plus the tree at the top of the hill.

The game of life

2009-08-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

Your dad is creating -- acknowledging, more like it -- a holistic view of life. To get out of a Swamps of Sadness-sized rut (that's a Neverending Story reference; don't worry, I'll introduce you some day), your dad is compartmentalizing life. Are "holistic" and "compartmentalized" antonyms? At first, drawing mental rows and columns in graph-papered grids over your leisure time appears to be a good way of binding and gagging your time and energy, but in fact it's a one-eighty opposite.

Here are the categories:

Food and Dining
Fitness
Entertainment
Shopping
Work and School
Arts and Culture
Social
Travel
Passions

As your dad gains experience through each of these categories -- which are deceptively simple in how many topics they blanket -- a broader scope of life unfolds.

Let's look at the Food and Dining category as an example. Many times your dad will have nothing more to report than, "Chicken, rice, and green beans for dinner again." But there are other times when he'll report, "Learned a new recipe for Hoisin pork ribs while reading the Week. Your mom loved it." Or, "Trekked all the way to Eugene for P.F. Chang's fried rice. My own can't even touch it." Perhaps your dad skipped McDonald's for breakfast and made some raisin oatmeal. That just might overlap the fitness category, but you see the point. Every moment won't be a victory. But every experience will be counted.

In Fitness, your dad came up with a plan. He's sitting heavy at 211 pounds, which is too dense for a guy standing only 5-foot-7. So he instigated a reward system which ties in with his passion, videogames. For every five pounds your dad loses, he earns a game. By "earns" he means that he still has to pay for it, but it's the getting that counts. Lose five pounds, and keep it off for at least one week, and he gets a game. No yo-yo weight loss. He obviously can't lose five, get a game, gain the five pounds back, then lose five in order to get another game. Nuh-uh. He's shooting for a loss goal of twenty pounds, which is four games; somewhere in the neighborhood of $240 dollars' worth of interactive entertainment. That's rather expensive when put in that light, but at least the entertainment will be well-earned. With this program, gaming can't be a right anymore. It has to be a priveledge.

The first game your dad wants is Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. A realistic modern combat military simulator. It launches October 6 or so. That's about two months from now (you'll be 21 weeks old), which is more than enough time to lose the first five pounds. But if he's smart, your dad will already be inches away from the first ten, so he'll have another game, Brutal Legend, that he can play by the time it launches on October 13. Your dad hasn't been down to 200 pounds since he was in the Navy.

Your dad surreptitiously copped those life-experience categories from an Apple application called "Booyah." Unfortunately, Booyah is tied too heavily into Facebook and Twitter, and your dad's no longer entertaining those forms of social networking. He shut down his Twitter account yesterday, finding the 140-character posts so gratifying that he wasn't getting any real writing done. Blogging, in this day and age, counts as real writing. It's not publishable, but it serves its purpose.

But let's not give Booyah too much credit. Your mom and dad have had an erasable marker white board in the kitchen for a few years now. On it, they record what they're reading, watching, and listening to; as in books, movies, and music. With as much time as they spent pursuing leisure, it was tragic when they were unable to recall in casual conversation the name of the actor that starred in that excellent Gus Van Sant film, or couldn't recall the author off the tip of their tongue who wrote the Wheel of Time series, or perhaps enjoyed Kanye West's new album, but got the title backwards by calling it "Heartbreak & 808s." Your mom and dad felt a certain responsiblity to the creators of the entertainment they ingested, that's all. And it's this selfsame principle they're utilizing to ensure that the other compartments of their life -- Art and Culture, Work and School, Social, etc. -- didn't slide into forgetfulness.

Your dad recalls a concept he learned from one of his favorite films, Waking Life. It's that, forgetting is easy and lazy; remembering is chaotic and difficult. He needs to see the film again, because that's an inaccurate recollection.

Flash Fiction: "Thunderous Loud Fear"

2009-08-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

Your dad wrote this the night before "The Big Riceball Reveal." The writing and the event are unrelated. Then again, how could they be completely unrelated?

A long, low road. Longer, lower shadows. A rumble against the hillside, either Mac trucks or thunderstorm leftovers. He moved in a sort of forward moonwalk, a plaid button-up dragging along the roadside gravel. He bought that shirt the year Kurt Cobain died.

He hadn't spoken in two days, but he'd lost his voice. He knew he'd lost it when he tried identifying the type of moss growing on the shaded side of a dark pine. He'd had no voice to name it.

The night dropped like a wet chamois. Still, the night wasn't dark enough to shove all the details under the ground. The moon lit up a broken, half-buried carousel, and then a star, and then another star, and then Orion.

Headlights coasted from left to right and then stopped on his face. He drew a knife, which turned out to be a number-two pencil. His vision waned and he sunk into the earth, moss growing from his shadowy, dark trunk. And the driver of that car, behind those headlights, saying nothing, having lost his voice.

Musical mash-ups, and why your dad isn't a rapper

2009-08-07T12:12:00.001-07:00

If you step into this world, oddly soothed by the sometimes drug-addled croonings of James Blunt, you can blame your mother. She was singing "You're Beautiful" this morning. Well, not exactly "You're Beautiful." It was "You're Cuticle." Your mom and I incessantly come up with silly portmanteaus of words. They're like a linguistic version of a musical mash-up. Deejays concoct things like the Gray Album, layering Jay-Z over the Beatles; or Michael Jackson's "Beat It" lyrics cutting into Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" guitar riffs.

Your mom made a mash-up of the words "cute" and "beautiful," then fit it right back into that same James Blunt song. Sorry about that. Some kids grow up with parents that expose them to '60s rock, old school hip hop, or classical music. You just might fall into an unlucky percentage that emerge from the womb with accelerated pop sensibilities. I'll do what I can, but I'm fairly certain that Kanye West isn't considered a backpacker rapper anymore, and Alt-Rock-Country, or whatever you might call the Raconteurs, won't be around forever. Michael Jackson died on June 25th. That's six weeks ago, half a lifetime for you. You'll probably hear your dad playing some of his songs now and again.

If beatboxing was a musical genre, then your dad might've made a small chunk of change as a producer. But otherwise, an embarrasing run in with a talent show during his sophomore year of high school ensured that your dad won't be touching any microphones anytime soon. The incident in question was fifteen years ago, but it was one of those life-defining moments that not-so-gently nudge you in a different direction.

Not telling, and not telling

2009-08-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

If you're a boy, your name's picked. If you're a girl, your mother and I haven't settled. We're keeping the names to ourselves, not revealing it to friends and family until you're born. Mainly because it seems like a bummer when everybody already knows whether you're going to be a boy or a girl, and everybody already knows what your name's going to be, so on the day that you're born there's nothing left to announce except your birth weight. Which isn't terribly exciting unless you're premature or tipping the scales over ten pounds. Barring those two scenarios, giving away your name to everyone before you're born feels positively anticlimactic to us. Aside from the whole we-made-a-baby thing happening that day.

We're also not going to learn about your sex until you're out. Instead of the doctor announcing whether you're a boy or a girl, I'd like to be the one to call it. I don't have a Ph.D., but I think I have an idea of what to look for. And since we're not interested in bombarding you with ultrasounds during your development, we won't have a million pictures of you where we can say, "Oh, uh, yep, it's got a penis," or whatever. We're also not sonically blasting you with ultrasounds because there's about a 95% chance that you're perfectly healthy and there are no problems to monitor whatsoever. Unless a viable medical reason crops up that requires us to outwardly scan and chart every step of your development (to include your mother's health too, of course) then we're not going to. We're keeping you, whatever happens.

It took us years to settle on a name. I'm still sad about some of the names that didn't make the cut, but the one we've picked so far -- if you're a boy -- is pretty sweet. It's not-even-kidding unique, but not unpronounceable to the human tongue, and not hit with a Hollywood stick either. You will not be a Prince Michael II or a Pilot Inspektor. You're welcome. But your first and middle name is poetically assembled, while further complementing the sounds coming from the name "Kalista." Word construction and soundsmithing really came to the forefront, and I'm quite sure it's my finest work to date.

My coworkers started playing name-guessing games the moment I told them we're not telling. Though, again, we still haven't withdrawn your name from the forge yet if you're a girl. But I gave them a couple hints, largely because they were thinking too conventionally. I said that if it's a name that would be in the top 150 names for boys and girls on the planet, then it didn't make the cut. One of them, thinking I dug too deep into my hobby, asked if it's a name from a videogame. No. You won't be a Gordon Freeman, a Legend of Zelda, or a Lara Croft Kalista.

I gave them a couple hints, though, by telling them two names we'd picked that didn't make the cut, but would give them an idea of the unique angles we're investigating for your name.

If you're a boy, you were almost named Atreyu. "Ohhh, good one," my coworkers said. And if you're a girl, you were almost named Alias. And by "almost," I mean that there's no way in heck your mother would ever allow her daughter to be named that. Ever. In my defense, it was a name that struck me long before Jennifer Garner made it to center stage. I tried pretty hard to name you Alias, gave it a real thoroughbred effort (there are more and more boys named Elias, so, while unique, I didn't think Alias originated from Klingon or anything crazy), but mom ain't hearin' that.

In emails between your mom and I, we codenamed you "Riceball." Which has nothing to do with your final name. But when a baby is developing in the womb, there are certain realworld comparisons doctors make to explain how large the little gamete is. "A grain of rice" was one of the earliest size descriptors. We loved it. Even though, at twelve weeks, you've progressed from something the size of a pea, to a raisin, to half a cherry tomato, and soon to that of a small lime. "Riceball" stuck, however. No doubt as a tribute to your one-quarter Filipino makeup.