Q helps his daddy by feeding the plants, and by not having to be dressed.
This weekend I did the classic dad over-reaching bit where men go to dangerous lengths to incorporate their offspring in age-inappropriate activities. It's the kind of fatherly optimism that has children dying in solo transcontinental flights and getting lost at sea. But we persist because. Because that's all I know.
I asked Q to help me paint the back door. He's two, and I cognitively planned, I mean I purposely put he and a gallon bucket of green paint together. To prepare, I stayed up until midnight sanding, painting and priming. By morning everything I wanted white was white, and the surfaces to receive the "Big Pine" green shellacking were ready for a quick coat.
At this point I'm realizing some challenges.
Quickness is not an element of this event. Unless of course you're referring to the descent into chaos. We started even enough; I even imagined myself as Mr. Myagi to Quin's Daniel-san. About a minute later, Q dropped his brush into the bucket. He pulled it out. Paint covered his hand and ran down his arm. I requested he give the weapon to me. This inspired a quick jerking motion away from me and into the pristine white door frame. I did not yell; I did not react other than to look downward and reflect on what in the hell I was thinking. He made a few more slashing moves before dropping onto the ground in full tantrum apoplexy. He writhed and yelled and painted me, more of the white, and some of the brick.
Cute = why we don't kill them.
I would advise him to save his energy. There's a very good chance he'll grow up like his father who, aside from introducing mere zygotes to a pad sander, ended the day by declaring to his wife that he'd install a storm door by himself in less than an hour. It took longer than an hour.
I got up last night to let Paco out. It's tradition. He pees and I stand in the fridge door wondering what to snack on. I pounded a Danimals (dude, i can crush those things) before summoning the dog and turning out the lights. On my way back to the room I stepped on a letter magnet. Aided by the the tiny skate on a wood floor, my right leg slid away from the rest of me. I had not the wherewithal to deal with this. I dropped into a four point stance, legs spread and arms in front of me. If this were a dance routine my next move would be to spin into a chair and douse myself with a bucket of water.
While in my alluring pose, I had to pause to resist the urge to cluster bomb the quiet night with f-words. After a moment I could only laugh. Paco sniffed and licked my face. He may have been concerned as to why his master was doing a pommel horse routine. I relented to gravity and sat on the floor. It was a letter 'J' magnet. I got a chuckle that the boys had personalized my doom. I imagined my groin snapping.
Today I put all the magnets back on the fridge. Moments later Otto pulled them off. I let it slide. It's his gig, the lower world and all it's offerings. He gets a shot at the dog water, the sleeping cat and whatever objects are close enough to the floor.
Let this chip away at your psyche. I just like how at about :30 he notes the dead air and hits another song.
For all his belly dwelling, Otto has come into his own. He has a signature yell--not a wimpy little shriek--when Q tries to Bogart his toys. It's the kind of thing you might have heard from an infant William Wallace. You mess with Otto and whatever detritus he's wrangled from under couch, and the battle is on.
Otto is feeling his new one-year-old oats. His mother is still quite shocked by the whole thing.
Over the past few days he's filled one diaper after another. It could be more teeth. And that's something I've noticed any passerby or onlooker or homeless guy at the park will note: if a baby is doing anything, anything at all, it has to do something with him "getting more teeth." Quin drooled for the first year of his life and there were no teeth. But the first drop of precipitation had empty nesters and bored people in checkouts everywhere giving their pediatric diagnosis of "more teeth." By now they both should have shark mouths of jagged fangs. Otto still only has his two, and if there's anything you can do to make him your friend, put on that little rubber thimble and brush his baby chompers. Often, when he's upset he looks up and points at his mouth. Give the guy a gum rubbing and he's yours.
If you want to do anything with Otto, however, you have to go through big brother Q. He's taken over as his de facto guardian. "NO NO NO Baby Otto!" are the typical commands. If Otto goes near the doors, dog water or electrical outlets, he hears it from his big brother.
That's the weird thing about Quin: he's really very good. I have to pretend I'm not surprised. He reminds all of us to say "please" and "thank you", and I've never brushed my teeth as much as I have the past six months. Quin reminds us to clean ourselves, to go to the doctor and if Otto needs a nap or not. I have noticed that the "Otto's tired" reminder often coincides with a contentious moment over a toy. I'm OK with it. It can only be good all this sleep Otto's been getting.
After calming myself from the cardiac jolt I got from surprise scoot on a fridge magnet, I went and checked on the boys. I'm telling you, there's nothing like watching them sleep to make you want to pick up and hug a child. I'd advise against it, as I think the courts recognize the right of a tired mother to kill you. But it is fantastic seeing them all curled up and dreaming. And it's not just that they are sleeping, which is awesome in itself. There is nothing more innocent and sweet--and I probably should use some other, less Hallmarky word to keep this from sounding like the mommy blog with all the exclamation points--and soul rattling than seeing my guys sleep. It stirs you in the right direction, and with a breath of perspective (provided by angels no doubt), you scoot to bed with the patience and love to keep from hurling a chair through the window whenever you step on one of their toys.
We managed to get a little flame, but it had snowed a wet snow all day, and everything was pretty much fireproofed by an icy glaze. We then focused on our hunger. We managed to split one of the candy bars by hitting it against a tree. As I let my sweet, chocolaty chunk thaw in my mouth, I watched Jason lose his aforementioned hardy spirit. He was trying to stuff one sleeping bag into another, but they were both frozen, so it was like trying to get corpses to make love. I unrolled the sleeping bag I'd bought for ten bucks at a sporting goods store. It too was frozen. I pointed out my problem and Jason snapped. He was a fury. His long hair and gangly arms whipped about obscuring his humanity. He was the picture of panic, bidding adieu to the rest of the world to be driven mad by the wormhole that was the one sleeping bag that wouldn't swallow the other. He pounded and stuffed and made great big statements about god and injustice.
Brian remained the most calm, working diligently to get our cup of soup cooked over a tiny kerosene cook stove. After we passed the soup around and finished sucking on our chunks of Snickers, we stood over our bedding and wondered if that's what our final resting place was to look like. We had a decision. Did we try to sleep now or just get naked and hang out in the pool all night? Weariness lead to something that resembled responsibility, and we decided to give our sleeping bags a go. I curled up in the icy confines of mine, Brian got into his, and Jason resumed his angry dance.
We weren't there but ten minutes before we bolted. We'd been curled up, and I was seriously thinking if this was my final night of life. I thought of Elie Wiesel's story of the Nazis marching the Jews through miles of snow. He was told that if he fell asleep he would die. It wouldn't be the Gestapo doing the killing, but death itself consuming the exhausted body. At first you felt warm, and you snuggled into your slumber--in fact you were curling up with the Reaper. I really believed that this was going to be it. Luckily, I guess, I never felt warm or comfortable. Not even Death was out tonight.
However, just before we scrambled for the water, we laughed. I mean laughed as hard as I ever have in my life. We'd all calmed down. Even Jason had managed to get into his sock inside a sock, and we lie in silence, probably all thinking of the worst--that we were going to have to cuddle. It was somewhere in this curve of quiet that wrapped around our sleeping area and made us so insignificant below the night sky, that Brian cracked a hole in the cold with one of the best pre-mortem lines ever.
He stretched out of the fetal position and, poking his head into the night, said, "I wish I had a light so I could read this newspaper."
It was the perfect jab into our cold silence and quite literally broke the ice. With endorphins filling our brains we all agreed to try the hot springs. Our icy clothes barley changed shape from the bodies they once adorned. It's as if we molted. Some very desperate woman's dream would have come true, as three naked men scampered towards the river. There was a bit of climb down that was a little awkward to traverse. There are some things you just shouldn't do in the nude. Like, for example, scooching down an embankment in kind of a sprawling crab walk.
We got to the water and the pools defied my romantic expectations of a warm mountain spring. Not only were there no naked women; there was barely any water. The spring emerged next to a river, and the only thing separating us from the river water was a rudimentary rock wall. We made it work. With about eight to ten inches of depth, we could not sit and lounge as Hugh Hefner in his hot tub. We had to lie flat to the muddy bottom as we could. Noses and other things stuck out, which made it kind of strange, but this was survival, and you know about desperate times.
Jason pulled a stone under his head to keep it above water, and we all followed suit to maintain maximum comfort. Who knows, with evolution and all we had hopes to one day get out of the muck and walk upright.
We lay there in the shallow water and let our minds wrap around our single-cell stupidity.
The river's welcome rushing muted the cold crackling of the dark forest. Our young optimism lay barren in the harsh landscape of mortality. But short attention spans and the brightest stars I'd ever seen had me forgetting that only moments ago I thought I was going to die, and that I was lying naked next to two college buddies.
With renewed vigor we scurried back up the hill and to our sleeping bags. Our clothes were cold, but they relented to our new warmth, and the sleeping bag was better than mud. We actually slept for a couple hours before hiking back out. It was a long walk that didn't end with the trail head. Jason and Brian had to hitch hike the 80 or so miles back to Durango. I had to drive six hours to my hometown. I'd only get a quick shower and meal before fulfilling my duties as deejay for my sister's high school "Snowfest" dance. (And there's something to note; If communities in your state are celebrating a festival of snow, it's probably not a good time to sleep outside.) It was a painful day. And I couldn't warm up. I remember being cold for a week after that.
That night I played Will Smith for gyrating high school kids. They celebrated together with big hugs and cheered one another in a warm dancing circle. I was separated from the group, on a platform, playing music and trying to be energetic. Mostly I watched on and wondered if all those carefree kids were smarter than me. Would they have been able to start a fire? Probably. And that was a chilling realization.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 05:20AM 
