Category Archives: Nate

Eat It

Nate

Three and a half is such a special age.

Saturday morning, Nate requested oatmeal for breakfast. I was surprised; he’s had waffles every morning for months. But okay, we have oatmeal. I grabbed a packet at random and put it in the microwave.

While it was cooling, I poured a bowl of cereal for myself. Then I called him in from the family room and we sat down to eat.

He hemmed and hawed about how it was too hot, although he hadn’t actually touched it yet. Finally he took a bite, and announced, “I don’t like this oatmeal. I want waffles.” I realized that I had selected an unflavored packet from the variety pack. I offered to put some maple syrup in his oatmeal, but he held firm: “Maple syrup just reminds me of waffles even more.” Okay, kiddo, you got it, but you’re going to have to wait until I finish my breakfast before I make you another breakfast.

Well, he really didn’t like that, but I wasn’t going to let my cereal get soggy.

So I made him a waffle and he ate it up, and that was fine. I threw the oatmeal away.

Sunday morning. Again: “I want oatmeal. Flavored oatmeal this time, not the way you made it the day before this day.” (“Yesterday” still means “any day in the past.” We’re working on it.) I carefully selected Apple Cinnamon and cooked it up. When it was cool enough to eat, I presented it to him, and he regarded it suspiciously. “What flavor is it?”

“Apple Cinnamon.”

“I don’t like cinnamon.”

“Actually, you do. This is your favorite flavor. Just taste it.”

Wonder of wonders, he tasted it. “You’re right! I do like it.” Praise Elath, he’s eating it.

After three bites, he held a spoonful up and inspected it closely. “Daddy? What does cinnamon look like?”

This is the point where I should have said, “You can’t see it, you can just taste it.” But no! Here’s a question I can answer. I was all excited to expand his horizons. I went to the pantry and grabbed my can of cinnamon. The can has my initials on it in Sharpie, because I bought it when I moved into my college apartment, probably sixteen years ago. It’s still 90 percent full. Obviously I’m not much for baking. But anyway, I brought it in and popped the lid. “See? Doesn’t it smell good?”

“It smells wonderful. But it looks like something that came out of my butt. I don’t want this oatmeal any more. I want waffles.”

The Melting Point of Wax

Nate, Sarah

I took Nate out to dinner tonight at the local seafood shack/ice cream stand. For dessert, he wanted soft-serve vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. We had a brief discussion about the proper terminology, although we went around so many times that I can’t even remember who said jimmies and who said sprinkles. I guess I am marginally more likely to say jimmies than sprinkles, although it always reminds me of my college roommate Michelle. She told me that a jimmy was slang for a condom, and if you asked for jimmies on your ice cream in New York, you’d probably get punched just in case, even if they couldn’t quite figure out what the hell you were talking about.

Anyway, Nate was way more enthusiastic about the sprinkles than he was about the ice cream. Basically the ice cream was just a vehicle for sprinkles. He would carefully reach in with his fingers and pick up the sprinkles around the edge. Then he would place them on top of the ice cream so he could spoon them up.

He comes by this trait honestly; Sarah loved chocolate sprinkles, or jimmies, more than almost any food. Once, when Dan was visiting, he walked into the kitchen of our apartment in Salem and caught Sarah eating them with a spoon, straight out of the jar.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Not getting enough paraffin in your diet?”

Rocket Man

Nate, That Darn Cat

So! I think Nate has allergies.

Shocking, I know. Where could he have gotten those?

Anyway, he isn’t very good at blowing his nose yet. This means that his sneezes are, shall we say, high output. Luckily, I already know a little something about allergies, so there is always a box or packet of Kleenex ready to hand.

Along with various potions and philtres, we are also trying a few anti-cat protocols. These primarily consist of putting clean laundry away, and spreading a towel over Nate’s bed and pillow before we go out.

Tonight when we got home, Nate went upstairs to get a toy. “Dad! I found a lump!” is not what I was expecting to hear. I followed him upstairs and discovered that Figaro had managed to crawl underneath the towel and was simultaneously sleeping and shedding on Nate’s comforter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look quite so pleased with himself.

Friendly Fire

Nate, Sarah

Nate’s bedtime routine

  1. Put on PJs
  2. Read books
  3. Allergy medicine
  4. Brush teeth
  5. Use the potty
  6. Turn on humidifier
  7. Lights out
  8. Select stuffed animal (using flashlight)
  9. Leap into bed
  10. Request to use the potty again (denied)
  11. Songs
  12. Request to use the potty again (denied)
  13. Goodnight kisses

I’m always interested to see which stuffed animal he’ll select. Pearl sent Sarah a Ty golden lab puppy when she was first diagnosed. Bingo-dog is Nate’s most popular choice, and we always talk about how Mama gave him to Nate in the hospital. A close second is this nasty carnival prize in the approximate shape of Bob the Builder. But recently the opossum has been in heavy rotation.

The last couple of nights, he’s been asking me to kiss his stuffed animal goodnight before I kiss him goodnight. Last night, when I leaned in to kiss the opossum, Nate snatched it away and said, “No, daddy. Possum doesn’t like you that way.”

Hair

Nate

The other day at dinner, Nate announced, “Daddy! Guess what I learned in school today?”

“What, honey?”

“I learned that all boys have short hair, and all girls have long hair.”

I laughed. “That’s not true, Nate! I know lots of girls with short hair, and lots of boys with long hair.”

He squinted at me. “No, you don’t.”

Hm. Okay, time to break out the big guns. “Stay here, please; I’ll be right back.” Down to the basement I went, and returned carrying this picture:

Read

Tim shot this in the mid-’90s as an assignment for his portrait class. I’ve always loved it.

“Do you know who that is, Nate?”

“…no.”

“That’s me, when I was younger.”

He peered at the picture, and then looked at me, doubtfully. “So… you were a girl?”

Hey, Miss, understand me.

Nate

Living with a three-year-old is quite surreal at times. Nate is always so sure of himself, and he always takes it upon himself to correct me. Tonight he was watching Sesame Street and I said something about Kermit the Frog. He said, “No, daddy, it’s Hermit the Frog.” We went around a couple of times, but I think I managed to convince him that it’s Kermit.

Daylight Saving Time is another source of disagreement in our family. He wanted to know why the sun was still out when we got home from school today. I tried to explain that as we get closer to summer, the days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter. His face lit up in understanding, and he said, “Aha! It’s because boys have shorter hair, and girls have longer hair.” I gave up at that point.

I don’t usually go out of my way to confuse him, but we do seem to spend a lot of time oscillating between him not knowing what the hell I’m talking about, and him thinking that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. So sometimes I simply can’t resist messing with him. I love to use archaic slang, just to see what he’ll do with it. The other morning, I asked him to put on his jacket, and he ran into the family room, laughing and yelling, “No way!”

I put on my best Sheriff J. W. Pepper accent and bellowed, “Boah! You best mind yo’ pappy, or you’ll taste the back o’ mah hand!”

He giggled, ran in to the mudroom, slurped his tongue across my knuckles, and said, “It tastes like chocolate vanilla!”

He set them all in motion

Nate

The other day, on the way home from church, Nate spoke up from his car seat.

“Daddy? Did God make us?”

Now, I was raised Unitarian Universalist, which is about as close as it can get to not actually being a religion at all, while still qualifying for tax-exempt status. I don’t really know all the answers, or how I feel about, say, the miracle of transubstantiation. God the Creator, though? That’s an easy one for me. Besides which, long before we got married, I had promised Sarah we would raise our child, or children, Catholic. I didn’t hesitate. “Yes, He did.”

“Did he make our car?”

In other words

Nate

Funkenstein

Maybe two weeks ago, around bath time. Nate danced out of his room wearing only his socks, and said, “Daddy! Let’s get funky!”

When I howled with laughter, he looked worried. He came over to me and whispered in my ear: “Actually, I’m not sure I want to get funky. What does funky look like?”

Choodessny

Another night, another bathtime. I said, “Tubby time, please. Pazhaloosta! It means please.”

He looked at me and said, “Lossa-possum. That means no thank you.”

Let nothing you dismay

Nate, Sarah

I was surprised by how good our Christmas was. There were certainly some difficult moments (for instance, if I ever meet the guy responsible for the song The Christmas Shoes, I’ll be hard-pressed not to poke him in the eye), but by and large, it was lovely.

Sarah helped a lot: I found a cache of gifts for her family, wrapping paper, grocery lists, and a sketch map of the house detailing where the decorations should go. I think she would have been proud. I didn’t try to make cookies, and I only had the energy for one of the four huge bins of ornaments, but we hit all the important highlights.

We spent the holidays surrounded by family. My mom flew in from California and stayed with me, my sister drove up from North Carolina and stayed with my dad, and we all joined Sarah’s family for their celebration. We were at Sarah’s parents’ house on Christmas Eve, and we hosted breakfast at our place Christmas morning. Then we all went to Sue & Lou’s house for Christmas Day. There were 20 people there and it was joyful chaos. Everyone had a grand old time.

Nate’s number one gift was the Pixter, a sort of electronic coloring book. It has a scribble mode, connect-the-dots, paint-by-numbers, and a couple other things that he hasn’t figured out yet. It is absolutely perfect for him to play with on long car rides. He calls it his laptop.

A week or so after Christmas, we drove up north to visit Leigh and deliver her new computer. I had packed a bunch of FireWire cables in my laptop bag, to assist in transferring her data from the old computer.

It just so happened that this was the day of our first snowstorm. As you know, we’ve never had snow in New England before, so no one knows how to drive in it. Folks were slipping and sliding all over the place. We must have passed twelve or fifteen disabled vehicles. A drive that usually takes a little over an hour ended up taking two and a half hours. At the two-hour mark is when I realized that I had left my laptop bag at home.

So I was gritting my teeth and trying hard not to scream obscenities. Nate asked me what was wrong, and I growled out that I was very angry, because I had forgotten my laptop. He said, “Daddy, it’s okay! Because I will share my laptop with you. Now you don’t have to be angry.”

And my heart exploded. Which is very lucky for the Radio Shack employee who told me that there’s no such thing as a six-pin-to-six-pin FireWire cable, because without Nate’s calming influence, I think I would have bitten him.

i think of you day

Nate, Sarah

Today would have been Sarah’s birthday. In keeping with tradition, we kicked off the Birthday Week Extravaganza on Saturday.

Sarah’s perfect day was breakfast at Zaftig’s, then the New England Aquarium, and lunch at Pizzeria Regina. I didn’t feel like waking Nate up early, though, so we skipped Zaftig’s.

We arrived at the Aquarium just as they were opening, and met up with Sarah’s good friend Jess and her family. Nate enjoyed the penguins, but his favorite was the puffer fish. My dad liked the jellies. For my part, I always love to see Myrtle the turtle having her breakfast.

Then we walked over to Christopher Columbus Park. It was freakishly warm for January, in the high 60s, so Nate ran around and around on the playground and climbed on the vaguely boat-shaped jungle gym. This used to be my absolute favorite playground when I was a child, but the wooden Ewok Village I remember has long since been eaten by termites and replaced with a generic metal-and-rubber climbing structure. Safe, but homogeneous; whatever it was that made it special when I was little is long gone.

Finally, we wandered through and around the North End until we found Pizzeria Regina. Sarah used to be my navigator; she once ran a company that led ghost tours through the North End, so she knew it cold. We had to rely on MapQuest. I am literally lost without her.

Happy birthday, Sarah. I love you.