Father's Day

Sunday, June 18 – It was a typical Sunday, apart from the Father's Day card and the special breakfast. I made a big show of feeling and bending the envelope the card was in, in a mock effort to detect cash. I made another big show of tossing it aside, unopened, and commenting, "there's nothing interesting to me in there." It was a joke I'd repeated a dozen times on all the special "days" since my wife and I got married. She humored me and chastised me all the same.

I took our son James for his favorite activity, exploring the lengthy corridors, escalators, and elevators of our local Brookfield mall. It works like this: he runs and I follow. He pushes buttons. I keep him out of trouble. He squeals in glee – that unabashed 3 year-old glee – as the elevator du jour arrives. He calls out the floor numbers, barely intelligible to the untrained ear, as he charms everyone around him. I strike up 30-second conversations with everyone (it's so easy now, with a kid to break the ice) and then dart off to catch up with him. "Happy Father's Day", the usually-bored security guards call after me.

I've heard it all before. Thanks, I guess being a dad means I get to enjoy people telling me Happy Father's Day once a year.

I manage to get James back to our apartment building and in our own elevator, after a struggle involving tugging, tantrums, stalemates, failed explanations about lunches and naps, melting onto the sidewalk followed by Gandhi-class passive resistance. I'm just glad he didn't bite me this time. He gamely reads off the incrementing floor display as we move. Wun, tu, thee, fuh, feish, fik, fuduh, ett, nah, ten. His tens are good. His sevens kill me.

I put on a strong face for my wife, and tell her how great and smart James is. She needs to hear it. Not that it matters much. She hears it from his speech therapists, and that's what counts.

It's not that he doesn't talk. He does, and with poor pronunciation (even by 3-year-old standards). But I can get over that. It's the fact that I can't have a conversation with him. He's fascinated by his world, and either the words are locked up inside him or he just doesn't want to talk about it.

I talk to him all the time, especially on our outings. "You're going to push all the buttons on this ATM? You don't have an account here! Hey, you can't open that door. That's employees only! You need to fill out an application like everyone else!" He ignores me, of course. I say it to amuse myself and get the occasional chuckle out of anyone nearby.

At the park, James takes particular pleasure in chasing the pigeons. A solid, wholesome sport for any red-blooded three year old boy, if you ask me. "There's a bird! Go get it!" Off he goes, giggling as the terrorized pigeon flaps away. The last time I did this, a girl slightly older than James came up to me and informed me, "That's not a bird. That's a pigeon." I asked her what's the difference, and she went on to say that birds were smaller. I asked her if a turkey was a bird (no), and if a chicken was a bird (also no). I was about to ask whether another non-standard bird was a bird, but the girl threw up her hands in frustration and left. I managed to out-bother a small child with questions! Her parents and I both chuckled, probably for different reasons.

I couldn't wait to apply my own brand of Socratic questioning to James.

James communicates verbally. He can say Yes, No, All Done, and More Bacon Please. They sound like Wes, Non, Awdun, and Mo Biga Pwees. All were the result of formal and informal speech therapy. No word is easy for him.

The day slips away and I mentally cross off another Sunday and another Father's Day from the calendar.

Saturday, June 24 – The annual conference my wife goes to is a bright exclamation point in late June every year. I take a few days off to be a full-time Dad to James while my wife goes off to her sessions. This is our fourth one, and this time it's in New Orleans. I figure I'll be able to take him anywhere I want to go as I satisfy my own interests, because pretty much all indoor places have doors and hallways, and a large number also have escalators and elevators. Two pigeons with one stone! We could go to the WWII Museum, the fancy coin shop, and even explore the city on foot. My wife, on the other hand, insisted I take him to the pool and to the indoor jungle gym. Well, no problem, I'm sure we can squeeze it all in.

The first day, we went to the pool and explored the elevator and escalator system of our hotel. We also walked to the fancy coin shop, which turned out to be a suite on the 19th floor of an office building. I glanced through the door at the glass cases that held rare coins. Windswept, ragged from the humidity, and with an excitable 3-year-old in tow, I changed my mind and turned back to the elevator bank and asked James to press Down. (He was, of course, glad to oblige.) I just couldn't face walking in there and having to talk to someone. They were probably wearing suits and talked rich people into buying old pennies for thousands of dollars. I was wearing a coat of sweat and just wanted to look around.

The next day, we went to the Monkey Room and explored the elevator and escalator system of our hotel. After a failed nap attempt, he walked over to his floaties, still in the random spot I had tossed them the day before, and brought them to me. I didn't want to go to the pool again, but I asked him if he wanted to go to the pool anyway. "Wes!" And off we went. At least I'd be able to tell him he was in hot water after he went into the jacuzzi, which was meant for people 16 and older, recycling yesterday's joke.

At night, I'd recap the day with my wife, telling stories that started out true and veering into the absurd to see if she could detect which part was true or not. I would have myself say something awful so that the story would spin out of control. "You wish you were a jerk, but you're not, so you make up these stories," she explained. But how else am I supposed to make the day interesting? I never had a good answer for my parents whenever they asked me what I did in school. I'd say it was a typical day and they'd ask what's typical, and I'd just stop trying to answer their questions. I felt that giving a thorough run-down after the first day of school, and then describing every subsequent day as typical should be enough. They retaliated by turning my SAT vocabulary words against me, calling me laconic and taciturn.

The third and last day, we went to the aquarium and to the mall next to the aquarium. Both featured a respectable assortment of elevators and escalators. We also explored the elevator and escalator system of our hotel, just in case anything had changed.

Back at the room, I presented lunch to James and I packed for our flight back as he nibbled. I took breaks from packing to play my standard games with him so that he wouldn't feel compelled to run out into the hallway. I would count to three and then try to blow on his belly – he'd block me. I have him high-five me some number of times (I tell him a number and he counts up with each slap), my hand turns into The Claw, which tries to tickle him, which he blocks. Claw falls asleep, and then he has to high-five the sleeping Claw a different number of times to wake it up. I put the TV on and half-watch cable channels that I'd never watch, and wouldn't even know how to watch at home. Cable is an odd treat I allow myself when I travel, an indulgence of morbid curiosity.

The afternoon rain came down outside, and I sat him in my lap and reflected on the last few days. James was a handful, but we did have some fun. I told James, "I love you," matter-of-factly as I watched women's professional bowling on TV and wondered a) why they wear makeup and b) how much a professional bowler makes.

"I wuh wu."

I wasn't expecting a response. After all, I hadn't asked him a direct question about going out or eating bacon. My strong face disappeared. The artificial wall of dad humor fell away with that simple armor-piercing response.

I picked him and hugged him, and we fell into the bed. Among the mass of Sheraton Signature pillows and comforters, he chose my stubbled cheek to rest his against. He was ready for his nap.

I got up to close the shades and turn off the lights (he eyed me suspiciously throughout this prosaic exercise), then we settled into a more comfortable cuddling position. He fell fast asleep, stirring just once to aggressively wipe the tear that fell from my face onto his.

I didn't get to see the World War II Museum or the fancy coin shop. But I did get my Father's Day.