Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Turn and face the strain. Damn straight.

My son’s birthday is today. He is now five years old. It sure doesn’t seem like he should be five already. He should still be in diapers, drinking from a bottle, eating strained peas, and just learning to walk. He should be cutting teeth, sweeping the floor with his belly while crawling, goo-gooing and gaa-gaaing. I still remember the day he was born. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day or the day my daughter was born either. The whole baby thing wasn’t new with him, but the whole concept of having a boy sure was. Why didn’t anyone tell me that it was going to be so much harder with a boy? I wonder if I caused my parents (or at least my dad…mom died when I was only 20 months old) this much trouble. I’m not saying that my son is trouble. He is probably like all boys are or have been, including myself.

I remember him sitting in his bouncy seat. You know the thing that attaches to the door frame and the kid sits in it and bounces and bounces and bounces…he loved it. He would bounce and then he would spin it round and round. Woe be unto anything that was sitting in the trays of the seat. They would go flying! One of my favorite pictures from that time is him falling asleep in that thing. His bounce bounced out of him; his spin all spun out, head down in the tray. Cute as can be, he was.

It wasn’t too long until he was walking. While they are crawling around the floor in a military crawl like a soldier in a barb wire obstacle course, you can’t wait for them to start walking. Once they start walking though, you wish that they were crawling again. Whether they are crawling or walking, you’ve got child-high cabinets to child proof; outlets to cover with those plug inserts. You got floors to keep spotless and toilets to check before flushing (large toys don’t flush so well). Locking gates to install on porch steps and household cleaners to put above arm’s reach. All sorts of nightmarish possibilities await your paranoid mind once they get mobile.

He’s five already. Time surely has sped up since both of my kids were born. I know that when my son was born and I took on the responsibility of staying home and “saving” money on daycare, I was with him and my daughter every day of the week. Time, although still marching on in the way that it does, seemed to be slower. Changes happened, but because I was with them all the time, the changes weren’t as noticeable. Of course they aged, we all age; but the changes I saw and see in them are like the changes you see in yourself. I know I do, but do you know what I mean? You look at yourself in the mirror. You may see a few more lines and wrinkles, your hairline may be just a little bit higher on your forehead, but the person you see is the same person you saw 20 years ago. Subtle changes. Little changes. But you are still the same person. You look the same to yourself. The same goes for someone you hadn’t seen in a while, say, a friend from high school. You didn’t see them change from a child to an adult. You only knew them as when you were together. When you see them now, you still see the same person you knew way back then. They may look totally different, but to your eye, they are still the same.

Now, I look at my kids and this doesn’t apply. I don’t “see” them as babies anymore. I can’t even see a resemblance to the infant or even early toddler that they were. But I do see changes that are going on today. The main reason for that is this: I am no longer with them every day. There are times when they go to their mother’s for a week at a time. This is when the great changes take place. When they return, it seems like they have grown an inch or more, put on weight, started college, married with children. In essence, I can see the changes taking place…and it makes me sad and happy all at the same time. Sad, in the fact that there is no going back. There is no way to stop time and keep them as they are forever. Happy, in the fact that they are growing up. And sad for the same reason.

We went to see Speed Racer in the theater today. It’s all he’s been asking for. So we did it. I remember a time when sitting through a movie with him was pure torture. He didn’t want to be there at all. Too loud, too many other distractions, too dark. But today he was enraptured with the movie. Not all the way through, though. Towards the end he got a little distracted, but would yell out “Yes” every time Speed Racer would do something cool with his car, hit a bad guy, or win the race (I’m going to spoil the movie here…Speed Racer wins. Duh.), so I knew he was still watching even though he didn’t seem to be. After the movie, we came to my house for cake (that I made…quite the homemaker that I am). It was just a plain old vanilla cake with chocolate frosting with a big “5” candle on it. What fun to see him blow out the candle and open his gifts.

I could see something today and can see it every day we are together. He’s getting older. And smarter too. His newest thing is adding numbers together. He’ll say something like, “Two and seven are what?” Then when you give him the answer, he says “Yes” like he knew the answer all along. But he says it when he asks what one-hundred-thirty-two plus sixty-seven is too.

Changes. They happen every day, but only once is this going to happen. Only once will he have a fifth birthday. I want him to stay little, but that’s not going to happen. I also want him to grow into a fine young man, one who treats people with respect, treats women in the way that they should be treated, and has an outlook on life filled with morality and honesty. I strive to instill that in him. I know I’m not the best father. There are oh, so many things that I could improve on. I know my shortcomings. There are times when he pushes me to my limit. My temper is one of the things that I strive to work on controlling. He can drive you bananas. Hell, he drives me bananas. But you know what? He’s my little boy and I love him with all my heart. I know he is a good boy.

I just have to bring that out in him. I want him to be a good man. Just like daddy wants to be...