Take It Like a Man

It looked like a couple of cats had been sleeping on my chest and were startled awake, leaving a zigzag of red welts in their wake as they dug in and dismounted. But the animal was a twenty-month old boy in withdrawal. A boy equipped with beaver-like sets of incisors, a quartet on the top and the bottom, perfect for latching on, extracting. And I couldn't give him what he wanted.

Attempts at sleeping Silas in a crib were short-lived. It was just too dangerous. There are two types of cribs: ones he's ejected himself from, resulting in a loud thud of head hitting floor, and ones he's never been in. So we climbed into his big boy bed and under his sheets--bears playing polo--at an early age. I knew it wouldn't hold him, and that he would seek me out in the night as soon as he woke up, but at least he could come and go without the risk of brain damage. Story time consisted of me plunging diligently ahead while he ignored me, opting instead to slip from his sheets to circumnavigate the bed's stuffed mountains of animals on all fours. Even if he wasn't paying any attention, he always protested when I put the book down and reached for the light. If I had a dime for every time I've heard, "One more book, dadda...".

The noisemaker droned on. I put a knee up to protect certain sensitive areas from the incessant wiggling of sharp elbows and knees. Toys, strewn about the floor, slowly revealed themselves in the soft glow of the night light. I hummed a lullaby or two, coaxing him back under the sheets. He alternated between stillness and restlessness. Silas's first haircut wouldn't come until age four, and the cold damp of his tendrilled mane, still wet from bath time, soaked through my t-shirt when he pressed his head to my chest. I hoped against reason that stillness would win out soon, and strategies of extraction played through my mind. It was hard to escape without waking him. Maybe he would fall asleep close to the wall; I would arrange a buffer of pillows and stuffed animals to guard against an accidental exit from the open side of the bed.

But he didn't fall asleep. Silas submarined lower, sinking his head from the crook of my armpit to the depths beneath the polo bears. His hands worked at my shirt, forcing it upward to reveal two red bumps amidst a tangle of fur. He did his best--or his worst--to find the milk that so many times had soothed him to sleep. I nudged him away. He fought me to latch on again. I pried free, not delicately enough to avoid wincing. This must be what it feels like to get tattooed, I thought. He tried once more; I resisted. Now my chest was damp from a mixture of wet curls and tears. So I resolved to lie there and take it, I suppose, like a man.

She left when he was 20 months old and not yet weaned. Each night, for weeks and weeks after she was gone, the last thing I did before I left him, finally sleeping, was fetch my shirt from the floor by his bed and pull it over my head to cover the wounds that never heal.

An angel's smile reveals an assassin's teeth.

Drop it like it's hot (lava)

Silas: Why do they call it chocolate lava? We don't eat lava, right?

Shoutout to the New and Improved Mrs. Sanders

Someone pointed out to me that the previous post neglected to mention that it's not just the two of us anymore. In my fledgling and oft-neglected blog, most of the focus has been on cataloging my experiences raising the boy alone. But I would be remiss not to point out that I am blissfully re-married, and now the burdens of parenthood and managing jobs, school, bills, a home, a garden--everything--are shared. And it doesn't feel like a burden at all. The picture below attests to the fact that our future's so bright, Rachel's gotta wear shades. And those bright, beautiful smiles in the picture should make it obvious why I'm finding it so hard to get motivated to go back to work.

Just the Two of Us

I had only had my new truck for a couple of weeks when my wife, with little warning and carrying not much more than the clothes on her back, climbed in the cab, highlighted R with the gear shift and backed down the driveway and out of our weekday lives. Four months shy of his second birthday, Silas didn’t grasp the magnitude of the situation. Mommy was leaving us. I thought probably for good. When she tried to hug him tight, he wriggled from her arms and insisted on scavenging through the minivan, the ride I would be keeping since I refused to let him go. I hated to part with my new toy, but the minivan was more practical for my new gig: single dad. It’s not like there was really anything to consider: truck/boy. It’s an easy call. When she announced that she was leaving my reply—after months of fighting and fruitless attempts at therapy—came without hesitation: Do whatever you want, but the boy stays with me. She agreed without argument, so I had custody of the boy during the week and my truck on weekends. We met nearly every Friday evening at a rural gas station equidistant from our separate dwellings to trade vehicles and mammals (I got the dog for the weekend; she got the boy). I got out of the minivan, into the truck, and beat it back up the well-worn path to the mountains. Usually, I left Silas sleeping in the back. I hated leaving him without saying goodbye, but not wanting to interrupt his nap afforded the perfect excuse not to have to exchange pleasantries. There was nothing pleasant to say.

I remember the tail lights glowing red and the finality of the instant the glow left. The marriage therapists, a husband and wife team, had mostly just sat and listened, emitting the occasional “hmm” and “oh,” verbal feedback to either show they were actually listening or to encourage one of us to keep talking. They offered up the occasional “How does that make you feel?” bullshit. But, with the image of tail lights imprinted on my closed eyelids, I realized they only offered one thing of value. When she told them she was thinking that some time apart might do us some good, they broke from their non-advisory stance and quoted some studies that showed that couples who split up rarely find the path that leads them back together. Don’t go, they told her. When she left anyway, despite her assurances to the contrary, I knew that it was for good.

The truck disappeared around the sharp curve below the driveway en route to an empty apartment over an hour away. I climbed in the van through the open sliding door, reached over the driver seat, found the keys, and cranked it up. Finding Nemo flashed on the tiny DVD screen above us, and Marlin’s undersea search for his abducted son briefly diverted Silas’s attention. Still in fleece footed jammies despite the muggy August morning air, he appeared to have been debating whether or not to eat whatever it was he had pulled from beneath the seats. I jerked the lever, and the sliding door lurched noisily down its track before sealing shut. Before the air conditioning got good and cold, two lanes of wet traffic traversed silently down my cheeks.

It’s difficult to reconstruct the right reality, to explain what I felt in that moment. It would be easy to reach the conclusion that I was hurt by the breakup, but part of the cocktail of emotions included, instead, a large shot of relief. With her removed the expectations were removed. I would pay the bills, cook dinner, wash the dishes, push the vacuum, pull the weeds, and, most importantly, care for my son’s needs. For months I had been doing all of this anyway as she slept the days away or whiled away countless hours on the internet. Now I wouldn’t expect any help, and there wouldn’t be any fingers to point or shouting matches when the help wasn’t forthcoming. But even if I had been virtually living as a single father while we all still shared the same home, there was something intimidating about those two words—single father—and something shameful about not being able to mask that reality. I tried to pretend that we needed the money and she couldn’t find a job in Boone so she had to leave. It was just too far to commute, so she got a little apartment. It was only temporary. But I knew better, and soon everyone else—family, friends—would know too. More than loss on that day, I felt the chest-compressing weight of failure and anxiety. Not only would concerns over how the breakup would affect Silas in the short and long term always lurk in my shadow, but I also had to figure out what to do with him. I started work in a week and, thanks to the sudden and unexpected departure of the person who was supposed to be Silas’s primary caregiver, had no daycare lined up. Thankfully, I was able to orchestrate a team of baby sitters to tide us over until a fulltime slot in a daycare became available. He’s been in good hands when he’s not in mine. But, now three years later, with his mother relocated across an ocean to London, the fallout of failure still lingers.

I hear Bill Withers singing:

We look for love, no time for tears

Wasted waters's all that is

And it don't make no flowers grow…
Just the two of us
We can make it if we try

And we’ll keep trying until the doubt is replaced with castles in the sky.

I'll Have the Ketchup and the Catsup, Please

I just watched in horror as the hot breakfast I was implored to drag myself out of bed to cook slipped, uneaten, into the trash can. The fork skirted around scrambled eggs and hashbrowns as if they were radioactive waste. The fork deftly scraped every atom of ketchup off the plate, leaving the remainder untouched. More ketchup was called for, the fork again sucked clean, before "I'm full" was announced. Soon someone will realize that it's a long, long time until lunch.

Lotty Dotty We Like to Potty

Rachel: Ella, what's going on in there?

(very long pause...finally Ella comes running, pulling up her undies)

Ella: We had a very potty iscussion. I went poop twice and Siwus went poop once. And my panties were aw da way down. Downstairs. And we were saying we were gonna pee on things.