Big Daddy Paul

While watching the Giants game yesterday, Malcolm asked if I could pause the game so that he could to the bathroom. While he was in the bathroom peeing all over the place, I got to thinking how different his life growing up is drastically different than mine. When I was a kid, I had to either hold it until a commercial break or turn the sofa into my own little cat box. What a difference technology makes!

Now, even the rides at Disneyland are in 3-D!

I laughed every time my parents began a sentence, “Back in my day…” I promptly tuned out whatever story followed, things like walking to school in the snow, working exhausting sumer jobs, or taking down water buffalos to feed the family for the winter. Now, I get it. Kids in each generation do and say things the previous generation never thought possible and this crop of kids are no different. Here are the things that Malcolm says that I find utterly ridiculous:

Can I watch shark videos on your phone now?

At the farmer’s market, can we go to the Afghani booth first?

This is my favorite website!

Can I put on another tattoo today?

I want another gummy vitamin.

Can we go on a long car ride? (Well, he has never technically said this, but you’d think he would have considering every long car trip means that he happily gets to watch movies on his portable DVD player.)

Me: Do you want to go play golf today? Him: Real golf, or Wii golf at Jack’s house?

I don’t like the strawberry toothpaste, can we get bubble gum next time?

And on and on and on. Personally, I am waiting for the invention which helps your kid actually hit the toilet when they go to the bathroom, but then again, I’m a dreamer. Do your kids ever make you shake your head in disbelief?

I am a full-time stay at home parent, and there are times when I feel like I have no idea who my kid is. Oh sure, I think I am an expert, perfectly understanding every little nuance of our son, but once in a while he’ll do something so odd that I just have to scratch my head, like when he came in from playing basketball in the driveway and licked the couch. When he throws a tantrum over his desire to wear his shirt backwards or laughs hysterically because he calls me a robot, I wonder how long I am going to be able to keep him out of the county public health system. I

I don't know what's on his face, and I'm not sure I want to.

laugh when he wakes up in the morning wearing completely different clothing than when we put him to bed, although I am secretly glad that he is wearing any clothing at all. In short, the kid is nuts.

Malcolm is equally unpredictable when speaking. Many of his conversations begin with, “Daddy, I love you,” which is nice, but I never know where the rest of the talk is headed. “Daddy, I love you. Do bears eat rabbits?” One time he said, “Daddy, I love you. Waldis Joaquin,(a Giants pitcher currently in the minor leaugues,) weighs 245 pounds.” Don’t get me wrong, imaginations are usually a good thing, but when your son expresses his love for you and then backs it up with, “Can I show off my meatballs?” you get a little worried.

Perhaps nothing exposes his oddities quite as well as his treatment of underwear. He very rarely does anything out of the ordinary with, say, a shirt or his jeans. His cluster grabbers, however, have gone on his head, around his arms and even on his feet. What is it about underwear that kids find so entertaining? He also thinks that adult underpants are an endless source of fun, using my boxers as home base for his pretend baseball games and mommy’s bra as a coin-collecting vessel. Rest assured, he will continually find interesting and entertaining things to do with underpants, and they will not include using them in the manner to which they were intended.

That’s definitely one good thing about being a parent: you never know what’s around the corner. Even when the mysteries should be large, red warning flags, they are good a for a few laughs afterwards.

Every child does bizarre things that make parents furrow their brow and wonder what could possibly be going through their child’s mind. Some of those quirks can easily be categorized as deviant behavior and treated accordingly. For instance, at a play date today, Malcolm picked up a plastic microphone out of the gutter, licked it, then threw it at the play date’s mom, hitting her in the face. This wasn’t charming, and it actually made me question Malcolm’s mental health.

What's not to like about me?!

There are things that he does that I find endearing though. Here’s a sampling:

When he takes the foil lid of the yogurt for breakfast each morning, he licks the lid. He has the same look on his face as he does when he’s eating a lollipop.

He calls my computer a “pooter” and asks to use it, as in, “Can I play Sesame Street on your pooter?”

He declares his preference for people based on who would win in a foot race. “I like Nana better than Oopa. Why? She’s faster.”

When we have macaroni and cheese that are made of little pasta shells, he puts them on the ends of his fingers and calls them “finger-hats.”

When he plays sports, he knows that the teams need to be from different geographical areas. He doesn’t really understand geopolitical boundaries quite yet, so he will often have match-ups between bizarre rivals, like Cal vs. Canada or Jordan Rd. (our street) vs. South America.

Ok, this one is a bit more involved. Malcolm is prone to acting out when he is really tired. Like all kids, when he is behind on sleep, he does weird shit (like licking gutter microphones and throwing them in the face of play date’s moms.) When he starts acting in this bizarre fashion, I usually remind him that he his acting out and then ask him if there is something he wants to say to me. His response, no matter what the time of day or what the circumstance, is, “Can I have a mint?” I usually can’t contain my smile and I have to hide my face.

Anyone else’s kids do funny stuff?

Stay with this one.

Yesterday Malcolm and I enjoyed a quintessential parenting moment. We had a bit of a hectic evening: the kids didn’t want a play date to end, we fought over whether macaroni and cheese was an acceptable dinner and Malcolm out-negotiated me over the necessity of having a bath. Brushing teeth was a struggle and my choice of pajamas was definitely not up to scrub. I wondered how things were going to end when we finally settled down to read books at the end of the day.

To my surprise, we shared a moment. It was one of those moments when both of you are totally present and the rest of life just fades away. As we read books together, Malcolm asked questions, pointed out words that he knew how to spell, and told me silly stories. He rested his head on my shoulder the whole time, and it was pure bliss.

It got even better when we put the books away and shared a nice little snuggle. Amy often comments that the evening snuggle is one of her favorite experiences with Malcolm now. It transports her back to the days when all Malcolm wanted to do is sit on her lap and give her hugs, an expression of pure love. Last night, I felt the same way. He put his little hands on my face and gave me a tender kiss, and then looked at me and said, “Daddy, I love you. Good night.” I almost melted. It reminded me of when he was born, and I first looked at him and told him how happy I was to see him. I said, “I love you Malcolm, you will always be my special boy.” Then, shifting as if thinking of something else to say, he stuck his finger into his nose, ate half the disgusting blob on his finger and wiped the other half on my cheek before turning and closing his eyes. Rats. Good night indeed, you little shit.