Doodaddy

Dear Boobaby,

Images of Month 29

You’re 29 months old today.

In our family, five-twelfths-birthdays are a time of reflection, even more than half birthdays or the lunar new year. Thus, we decided this month to simply jot down everything fascinating and bizarre you say. Sadly, you say incredible stuff about thirty times a day, so we were desperately understaffed for the task. Suffice it to call these few quotes your highlight reel. (Or, in some cases, your bloopers…)

It’s a parenting truism is that the astounding things that kids say get flattened in the retelling, so we’ll report these with little exposition and rely on your imagination to fill in the flavor of your monologues, conversations and general observations on various subjects.

To wit:

On health:

June 17th:

“Bird seed is the best medicine.”

I’m not sure if it clarifies anything that “bird seed” is your term for cashews or peanuts.

On technology:

June 20th, on a fake cell phone:

“Papa? Papa? Where are you? Here, I’ll put you on speakerphone.”

On matters veterinary (and exculpatory):

June 7th, after chasing our cat out of your room and receiving a mild rebuke:

“I kicked Carson to make her feel better. Maybe she likes to be kicked!”

On your role in the universe:

June 20th, speaking to the refrigerator door after having just pulled out a yogurt:

“I’m going to hold you to keep you stable.”

Yes, I did say “to the refrigerator door.”

On seasoning:

June 21st, after playing in the backyard with the neighbor kids:

“Mommy, I ate some rosemary in the backyard. It’s totally edible!”

On San Francisco:

June 21st, some little time later, out of the blue:

“I love our neighborhood!”

On hygiene:

June 17th:

“You can kiss me if you wipe it off.”

On laundry:

June 23rd, while “helping” fold clean clothes:

“I’m a pile of underwear!”

On exceptions:

June 10th, after hitting mom and getting a stern talking-to, in a bewildered voice:

“But we can hit butt cracks!”

On food:

June 23rd, finding a leaf on the kitchen floor and showing it to dad:

“Can I suck on this?”

On implications:

June 22nd, getting ready to go:

Mom: “Do you remember what we’re doing this morning? We’re going to D & E’s baby shower.”
Boo: “Are we washing the baby’s hair?”

On neonatal care:

June 25th:

“Don’t touch my nose right now, because I’ve got a baby!”

On nature:

June 26th, swinging at the playground:

“I smell the wind.”

On gifts:

July 1st, using the pretend cell phone attached to the kitchen from Grandma Ocean:

“Hey, papa! Thanks for taking pictures! Do you got a kitchen? I don’t remember. Do you got a kitchen?”

On dumb jokes:

You learned a dumb joke from an Elmo doll (”Why shouldn’t a pizza tell jokes? Because they’re really cheesy!”). One morning, mom was making cheesy eggs, so dad gave you the prompt — “Why shouldn’t a pizza…” — and you impishly answered,

“Because they’re really eggy!”

On fashion (or a legal career):

June 25th, getting dressed in the morning:

Boo: “I want to wear my flower pants.”
Dad: “Oh, they’re a little bit dirty, though.”
Boo: “Oh, but they’re a little bit clean, though.”

On love:

June 25th, as you were falling asleep:

Boo: “I love you very, very much.”
Boo: “I love Darryl very much.
     I really really love Darryl.
     I love Darryl.
     I love Darryl very very much.”

Darryl is one of the drivers on the bus line that takes you down to your favorite playground.

Oh, Boo, I hope you’ll believe that these are all real quotations, direct from your funny little brain. I suspect that we couldn’t invent anything nearly as interesting, anyway, and besides, making them up couldn’t possibly be half as fun as listening to you come up with them yourself.  These days, every conversation we have with you means a trip through your oddball imagination.

It’s tons of fun: more so every day.

We love you very, very much,

Working Mom & Doodaddy

Have you ever noticed that the news of the day follows your mood?

A persistent cough last night kept Boobaby (and me) up until 3:52 a.m. (You can tell it’s bad when you’re counting the minutes on the digital clock.) And then she awoke this morning pretty much at her usual time, and that makes One Two Three FOUR hours of sleep.

So it was fitting that the news on the radio as Boo and I were brushing our teeth and hair (God, I hope I was brushing the right thing with the right brush) was this:

Nelson Mandela just got off the U.S. terrorist watch list just this week.

Yep. Nobel laureate and past president of an ally country still had to apply for a waiver to get to the good ol’ U.S. of A. You know I don’t really blog politics, but this transcends blue-red hogfighting: here’s a man abused by a fascist government and abandoned for years by much of the international community who remains a man of peace. The inventor and spirit behind Truth and Reconciliation, a concept as close to sacred as anything human I’ve ever heard of. A hero to tell our kids about… if we can get past why the U.S. government thinks he might be a dangerous terrorist. Argh! Ack! WTF!

I really shouldn’t listen to the news without a little more sleep.

So I switched over to Radio Disney, an standby from way before my days as a parent. (Yeah, yeah, I know.) I chuckled a little bit because the D.J. on the thoroughly sanitized station was trying to explain that an upcoming kids’ concert will feature the Barenaked Ladies.

Naked ladies. Hee, hee. On the Disney station. Hee, hee.

And then they played a song about a frog growing up and I immediately smiled. My big plan for the day — which had been to lie face down on the living room floor while Boobaby explored the china cabinet — changed in a flash to dancing around the living room playing from our instrument box. I even downloaded the new BNL kids’ album “Snacktime“, which is pretty cool, after all that chuckling.

So sometimes a dark mood makes the dark news stand out. Life has a habit of coughing up a little light redemption from time to time, though.

Remember how freaked I got when a Colorforms paper doll showed a little too much skin?

Well, check this out:

Pole Dancing Barbie?

If you can’t quite tell what’s wrong with this picture, zoom in on the butt. (Maybe wait until you get home from work and the kids are in bed.)

See it? Yep. Transparent undies.

Wait, let me say it again.

TRANSPARENT DOLL UNDIES.

Oddly, they were part of a bunch of really cool clothes (hiker, chef, cabinet maker) that my mom got on the Internet, but from the people that actually made them: real doll connoisseurs. I’m going to hope that these panties were an afterthought: with some gauze left over, they thought it would be perfect for undergarments.

Teenaged Brooke Shields Barbie.

My mom — a psychologist, so she should know — thinks that doll play is about kids learning to interact with friends.

Sadly, given what our society puts out there for girls to wear and aspire to, it probably won’t be too long before she has a real friend that actually dresses like this.

I like playing dolls with Boobaby.

“Does Boobaby have a mommy?”

You think you’ve heard everything a 5-year old boy is likely to say, and it turns out you’re wrong.

H— is a cool kid we see at the playground a fair bit. He’s got a lot going for him: two solid younger siblings, one of those moms that you secretly watch to glean parenting tips from, and most of all, H— has an easygoing, fun way of being with younger kids. As much as a 5-year old can, he seems really thoughtful.

So it threw me off a little when H— asked me if Boobaby has a mommy. Surely he’d known some kid in his daycare or at his kindergarten with a stay-at-home dad?

Jumping carelessly to conclusions, I asked him, “Do you have a daddy?” We’ve only met a mommy so far.

“Well, yeah. He’s at work,” came the reply.

“Right, so Boobaby has a mommy, but she’s at work, and I stay with her during the day.” I thought I was doing a pretty good job of explaining that this whole parenting dealie can work two different ways.

Except, of course, that this whole parenting dealie can work about a million different ways, and I was leaving out some of the biggest.

H— clarified it for me: “So Boobaby has a mommy, not another daddy?”

Oh, hello there, light bulb. Far from expressing his confusion over how a daddy could possibly be the weekday playground parent, H— simply wanted to know how many daddies and mommies Boobaby had been awarded in her little life lottery.

I almost started to tell H— how families can have two mommies or one mommy or two daddies or a grandma and a cousin or a mommy and a stepmommy and what makes a family is love and self-sacrifice and not gender and by the way some of my best friends… But I stopped myself. H— didn’t need to hear it. Some combination of his cool parents and his community and just that we’re finally living in a time where certain families are (mostly) not arbitrarily shunned had taught him the truth already.

So H— asked “Does Boobaby have a mommy?” not in thunderstruck amazement, but the same way Boobaby might ask him if he likes pretzels. And that’s pretty cool.

Sometimes I feel challenged by society, being a domestic dad. Gay and lesbian parents, I suspect, have it quite a bit harder than I do. This Pride weekend, I send much love and respect the way of two of my favorite blogs, Lesbian Dad and The Other Mother, not to mention the many non-blogging GLBT families out there — you’re a real inspiration.