Big Daddy Paul

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.

Malcolm is not a complicated person.  The are certain things in his life, like chocolate and talking about whether his poop will successfully flush down the toilet, that always make him happy.  He constantly craves mac ‘n cheese, regularly wants to watch Giants baseball games, and every I ask him to brush his teeth, he hides behind the bathroom door first.  He is, in almost every way, a creature of habit.

It is, then, quite surprising when we are out in the world and someone asks Malcolm a question about what he would like.  The truth is, I have no idea how he will answer.  Like a TV contestant who folds under the pressure, Malcolm responds to such queries by blurting out the first thing that comes to his mind.  When asked by the lady handing out balloons what color balloon and string he wanted, he said, "pink, and green." I almost snorted in disbelief, as he has told me about 500,000 times that his favorite colors and blue and brown. Pink and green don’t even go together, but he seemed to like the balloon nonetheless.

This trend is especially noticeable at the ice cream counter.  Malcolm spends most of his day figuring out how to get me to give him some chocolate, but when ordering ice cream he somehow forgets his obsession with the cocoa bean and orders flavors like lemon, strawberry, or, as he likes to call it, baneewa.  I try to point out to him all of the different flavors that have chocolate, but he adamantly insists that the simple flavors are what he wants. I feel a little sorry for him, but Malkie gets what Malkie wants, so I let him order by himself.

Sometimes, he does this when just introducing himself out in public.  When asked what his name is, he says, "I’m Malcolm and I am three and three quarters," or, "I’m Malcolm, I have a blue dog."  He recently told the librarian his age and added, for good measure that, "Pablo Sandoballs has a big belly."  Unsure if the librarian would understand just what this meant, he stuck out his belly, looked down at it, and then looked at the librarian as if to say, "See what a big belly looks like?"

Invariably, the inquisitor shoots me a look as if to confirm that what he just said is what he actually meant.  Occasionally, the look is more to wonder what the hell is wrong with the kid.  Most of the time I shrug my shoulders in an effort to convey my confusion as well, but sometimes I have his back.  I sneered right back at the balloon lady thinking, "Damn straight pink and green. My boy is a regular Salvador Dali !" 

I took Malcolm to his first Giants game as a fully functioning person yesterday.  He is really into the Giants and he can recite the roster by position (with the exception of part-time left fielder and second baseman Eugenio Velez, pronounced "Ay-Yu-Hen-eeo.")  I decided I hadn’t been to a Giants game in far too long, so when Amy suggested I took Malcolm to a day game, I leaped at the opportunity.

We had to stop at the nearby Safeway before the game, and we passed a big black dude in the aisle.  Malcolm took a look at him and asked, "Daddy, is that fat brown guy Pablo Dandoballs?"  I have grown accustomed to Malcolm making derogatory comments about strangers, so I handled this the usual way.  I sprinted away from him and muttered something like, "I think all the players are already in the dugout.  Let’s go find some sun screen!"

At the game, Malcolm was a gem! We watched around six innings of the game, and Malcolm made a good showing at the tot baseball diamond by slamming a whiffle ball off of a ball park employee’s knee.  During the game, I taught Malcolm to say, "Grab some pine, meat!" when the opposing player struck out.  The first time he was able to bust it out, he yelled, "Put some meat in my hand!"  After some coaching, he responded to a strikeout by yelling, "Grab some pie, matey!"  Not quite there yet, but we are making progress.

We thoroughly enjoyed the game, he sat in my lap most of the time so I could point out where the ball was heading.  Of course, this meant that he kicked the old woman sitting in front of us in the head a couple times.  I should have been more concerned, but at least he didn’t call her a dried up bag o’ bones. 

Malcolm has been acting strange at the park.  On Wednesdays, after dismal soccer practices, Malcolm and his friend, Samara, have been taking me and Samara’s dad, Luke, over to a small amphitheater, where they have begun singing musicals.  At first, they just sort of sang gibberish and marched around.  Luke and I seemed uninterested, staring off into space and, gasp, even talking to each other during the performance.  They realized that they needed production values and a theme for each musical.  So, they upped their game.

Their first real musical was about clams.  They had been digging around in an old creek and found some clam shells.  I do not know much about anything, so I said clams used to have feet and wandered around on land.  Luke shook his head and told them that this whole area used to be underwater and the clams lived in the bottom of the ocean then.  I concurred, although I secretly believe that my explanation is almost as plausible.  With props in hand, Malcolm and Samara marched around on stage clapping and singing the word "clam" and then any other word that rhymed with clam.  A typical verse went, "Clam, Clam, Clam. Clam got no hand. Clam in the Gam. Clam, Clam, Clam. Clam eat land. Clam in the pan, Clam stand."  We laughed pretty hard at this, causing the kids to start laughing and foaming at the mouth.  I took this as a sign that Malcolm was bitten by a dog when I wasn’t looking, but fortunately Luke told me that they were simply making the same frothy mouth that a clam makes when it is scared.  (Once again, I secretly believed my explanation until I got home and found no evidence of Malcolm being bitten by a bat.)

The next week, Malcolm and Samara invented a new musical.  It was all about stealing people’s hats.  They pranced about on stage like ponies singing "gonna steal your hat! Gonna steal your hat!" until they ran up into the seats and tried to steal my hat.  I picked up on some clues that this was about to happen, and so, luckily, they did not in fact steal my hat.  They kept trying, but I never let them actually get my hat.  After about ten minutes, I decided that this was the worst musical that I had ever seen.  I never thought I would say this, but I missed the clam song.