We take pause to recognize one month of Eliot

Tomorrow Eliot is one month old. I could joke that it's been the longest year of my life, but Sarah's done most of the work. I try and stay up late with our crazy little girl but my wife ends up standing over me, gently cuddling our most persistent baby, while I crash into a tired pile of disappointment.

Eliot is so cute when she plays with her daddy.

She's good, both of the shes, and even the cat, she's the third she and luckily still the craziest. For your reference, here's how our family goes as far as order of appearance on this planet: Jared, Sarah, Paco, Quin, Allie, Otto, Eliot. It's weird writing that out. That's a lot of commas. In 1995 I thought it would go something like Jared,. It was about then when my friend, Todd, said he wanted to take a psychology course and wondered if I'd take it with him. I signed up and then he dropped it. I think it was a form of intervention. Anyway, I needed the school credit so stayed. The professor, a woman in her 40s who fully enjoyed straddling the chasm of gender expectations, shared her story of how she wasn't in a relationship and wasn't sure if she ever would be, as relationships are often most successful when people start them in their 20s. That kind of freaked me out. I was already 21 and just a few months prior had gotten so drunk I'd wet my pants. As the husks of her voice rasped together, I spiraled into a spacey place where I was forced to take a look at myself. Oh sweet god, I was only getting older and I was already pretty sure I was stubborn and arrogant. Those are the traits, she said, that can only tumor over time and stunt any person's hope for love.

Jared, Sarah, Paco, Allie, Quin, Otto, Eliot. Commas do make you pause. I'm not just talking about their inception, that first encounter, but their continued existence in your life. Commas. Kids expand moments into incidents--some bad some good--and make you deal with a break in the flow, the grind, the loping on the mental treadmill of self doom. Yah, sure, this might mean running to save someone from toddling into the street, or sprinting through a Target to get them to the bathroom on time, but you're forced to pull over in your life's sentence and enhance your statement.*

It could be like the fracas we had the other day. I was sitting on the couch and surfing our 32 over-the-air channels, most of them Spanish or religious, when Quin ran from Eliot's bedroom. He was excited and a bit freaked out. "Mom's doing something in there," he said, breathlessly. Sarah's a good, upstanding person, and no matter how much Eliot keeps her awake, she's not going to do anything crazy, right? But whatever Quin had witnessed sent him to me with the vigor of Paul Revere's famous ride.

"It's a machine!" burst Quin, with the wide-eyed wounds of what cannot be unseen.

I was already off the couch and preparing to face down a fountain of poo, or stumble into an emotional situation that would come with the internal dialogue, "don't say anything, just hug." The mention of a "machine," however, perturbed the recollection of innocence past. It was the first time I saw my wife connect herself to the the little teat trumpets that turn awesome boobs into industrial udders. "She's being milked by a machine," I remember thinking. Sarah looked back at me, her shirt hiked up and her face saying, "welcome."  

I laughed while trying my hardest not to diminish concern for what Quin had seen. Not all that impressed with my reaction, he stormed down the hall to recruit his brother. I could hear him busting his Paul Revere into Otto's space and whisper shout about this "machine" and mom and how freaky it was.

What I don't get is how they were not aware of the process. Sarah feeds Eliot in front of the boys all of the time. Although it's true they don't hear me call their name from three feet away and can rarely relay anything that's happened during 8 hours at school. So I sat on a bean bag with my guys and shared how female mammals have mammary glands that produce milk for their young. Otto was stoked and asked if boys could do that. I told him the bad news and he said he wanted to be a girl. Before he could tell his mom that he wanted to have a sex change, Quin warned him that by entering her room he'd have to see mom and the "machine." This led to an argument fueled by the most interesting point of view: Quin thought the breast pump was filling his mom up, instead of doing the all-important extraction. I tried to fix the perception issue, but I still don't think Quin is convinced. "Why would she pump it out when Eliot likes it?" he asked.

And we savored the pause. We'd scamper about and relish the big vision of a bubble blown up in time, and then I'd head back to the couch, stepping back into the straight and narrow--a tube? A "machine?" But comforted by the guarantee of another pause.

Comma comma comma comma.

*I realized a certain smug douchiness to this pause-with-children concept and know it can work without them, too. For example, I've finally come to terms with the fact that I need professional goals and benchmarks to reach them. This kind of focus; this kind of kindling the passion causes pause and great amounts of reflection that was once frittered away by pacing pointlessly about the room/existence.