THE BOO-HOO SONG

Dear Spike:

Today you bit your mother so hard that she bled.

Tomorrow you will get nothing resembling lenience from me. You'll get one chance to do everything your mother and I tell you to do. And if you don't, you'll be singing the boo-hoo song in the time-out chair. And if that doesn't work, we'll start taking your stuffed animals hostage.

Oh yeah, that's how I roll.

Love,
dad

POURING SOME HONEY

Dear Spike:

I hear you were very brave — and I couldn't be prouder. But I am very sorry you had to meet the business end of a honey bee earlier this week.

You were on a walk with your mother clear on the other side of the park when it happened. You were batting away some nasty summer gnats when a bee landed on your hand. When you tried to swat it away, too, it sank its stinger into you.

You were still sobbing, a bit, when you finally made it home, but you held up your hand rather proudly to show off a tiny red spot on your finger.

You held out that same hand, yesterday, as I was pouring some honey into a coffee mug.

"Some honey, daddy?" you asked.

I obliged, dropping a dab on your finger.

"Mmmmmm," you said as you tasted the thick golden liquid. "Some more?"

For a moment, I felt like helping you make the connection between two moments — one sweet and one painful.

But then I thought better of it.

"Here you go," I said, squeezing another drop from the bottle. "Enjoy."

Love,
dad

PICTURES DON'T LIE

Dear Spike:

From one day to the next, you look and seem the same to me. I know that you're growing bigger and bigger, smarter and smarter, but I cannot see it.

But, as they say, pictures don't lie. And the ones your mother shared with me recently told a thousand words about how you've grown over the past year.

In the first, taken just after your first birthday, you walk through a narrow waterpark stream aided by your grandmother's hand. You're cautious, feet fixed in the water and weight low to the ground. Your hair is soft, short and swept to the side.


In the second, taken just after your second birthday, you navigate the same stream all alone. You're confident, tip-toeing through the water with carefree abandon. Your hair is set up in pig tails.


My how you've grown. My how you have changed. I can only imagine what next year's photos might reveal.

But I'm happy to wait to find out.

I love this moment in your life, just as I did the last. And I am savoring every moment.

And taking lots of photos.

Love,
dad

YOUR REAL NAME

Dear Spike:

Last week, inexplicably, you demanded that we start calling you by your real name...

...

...

... Banana Dog.

"Banana Dog?" you mother asked.

"Uh huh, Banana Dog," you replied.

"Um, OK. Hello Banana Dog," she said.

"That's right!" you beamed.

This morning, you decided, you needed a new name.

"I'm Walrus the Fob," you explained.

"Um, OK," I said. "Good morning Walrus the Fob."

"Good morning, daddy," you replied.

I think I like this.

Love,
Buck Duck Brahma

TELL A STORY

Dear Spike:

Your imagination is blossoming like a summer rose, full of color and life and fragrance — an absolutely beautiful thing to watch unfold.

This evening, as I was working on my computer in the shade of our porch, you came outside wearing a set of butterfly wings and one of your mother's silk scarfs. "Would you like to come to a birthday party, Daddy?" you asked.

Well, who could say no?

"You have to wear this hat," you said, handing me one of your mother's straw hats with a purple bow.

No problem at all. I dutifully put on the hat and followed you into our home to find a table with a Play-dough birthday cake and a gang of costumed animal sitting on pillows all around.

"We've been playing birthday for the past half-hour," your mother explained, herself wearing a funny hat and scarf.

"You set this all up?" I asked her.

"No, she did," your mother replied, gesturing in your direction.

Later in the evening, you were bouncing on our bed like a caffeinated monkey on a trampoline when you suddenly decided you wanted a change of pace.

"A cave!" you cried, diving under the blankets. "Mommy and daddy come, too."

We all ducked under the blanket together and you began to tell a story.

"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago..." you began.

The story was about Goldilocks, the Three Bears — and you.

"... and then they all cleaned up the house together," you explained.

You can make a telephone out of anything. Once when we were out to dinner with your Uncle Papa, you spoke to Barack Obama on a pickle.

This afternoon, your mother tells me, you were on the line with someone of even higher stature.

"She was talking to God," she told me.

I wonder what She told you. Maybe tomorrow you'll tell me all about it.

Love,
dad

CHAIRMAN AND SPECIAL

Dear Spike:

When we named your stuffed cat "Chairman Meow" we thought we were being quite clever. Turns out that the word for "cat" in Mandarin is "mao," (or so you tell me) so we could have named the little furry feline "Chairman Mao" and been just as savvy and ironic.

It wouldn't likely change the way you feel about him, which is to say that he's pretty much your best inanimate friend in the world — except for maybe your favorite blanket, a sea green knitted throw you've taken to calling "Special."

You go pretty much everywhere with Chairman and Special. And you won't go to sleep without them. Not without a fight, at least.

Which is why I am, at this moment, sitting on the folding table of the laundry room in the oh-so-posh Desert Inn Hotel, across the street from Disneyland, while you, just upstairs, are fighting sleep like a death row inmate being dragged down the green mile.

In retrospect — goodness, I say that a lot these days — we may have played up this Disney adventure a little too much. We've been talking about it since your birthday, nearly a month ago. And each day of this long trip, we've reminded you that your impeccable behavior would be rewarded with a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Hell, we might as well have called it Mickey Mecca.

You didn't get much of a nap today after playing on the beach with your new friends in San Clemente (turns out you like the ocean after all, but that's another happy story.) So when it came time to put you down to bed, tonight, we thought for sure you'd fall fast asleep, visions of Tinkerbell dancing in your head.

As it turns out, though, you were a little too excited to slumber. In fact, you were pretty much bouncing off the hotel's wall paper.

But you were tired.

So you were a little upset.

And then upset turned into cranky.

And then cranky turned into sick.

And then you puked macaroni noodles all over the hotel bed.

And all over on Chairman.

And all over Special.

It fell to me to find a laundromat — and luckily there was one just downstairs from our room — to clean all that up.

But I've got the easy job. I really don't envy your mother, who at this moment is sitting at your bedside trying to keep you calm so that — in 31 minutes when this drier has run through my buck-fifty and I appear heroically at the foot of your bed holding your freshly-washed friends — you don't respond by puking all over your best buddies again.

If all goes well, though, you'll be curled up with Chairman and Special very soon.

And in any case, I've learned my lesson. I'm not saying the "D-word" again until we're walking down Main Street, U.S.A.

Love,
dad

AS WE DID

Dear Spike:

We'd been planning on spending the a good part of this week lounging on the beach, making sand castles, splashing in the waves and collecting shells.

You took one step into the ocean and decided otherwise.

"No!" you screamed. "I can't. I can't."

Your mother and I looked at each other with mutual — and utter — confusion.

First of all, where in the world did you learn to say "I can't"?

And secondly, what do you mean you can't? It's the ocean. It makes up three-quarters of the planet's surface. It's a sunny day in Venice Beach. What could possibly be the problem?

Maybe given a few more days, you'll find out that you really do like the beach. But it was a bit sad for both your Oregonian mother and Californian father to realize, in the midst of your panicked screams, that our Utahn daughter isn't going to have the same relationship with the ocean as we had growing up, chiefly because she's just not going to see it as much as we did.

OK, it wasn't a bit sad. It was a lot sad. A whole lot sad. My daughter's afraid of the sea — I'd never felt so guilty for moving our family to Utah as I did on Monday.

Still resolved to get you better acquainted with the beach, but not to scar you for life, we took a break today and instead took a hike a Malibu Creek State Park to the place where the show M*A*S*H was filmed. At the sacred spot, some volunteers have set about recreating the camp's footprint with ropes and stakes and helpful signs. They even recreated the famous 4077th camp sign, next to which we stood for a photograph that will stand as proof of our family's nerdy obsession with a show that ended nearly a quarter-century ago.

We then marched up the path of the old helicopter landing pad, found a patch of shade and sat on the hillside and listened to you tell stories about what you saw in the "camp" below.

"There's Colonel Potter," you said.

"Where?"

"Hiding in the trees... Hello Colonel Potter! I can see you!"

"Who else do you see?"

"Klinger!" you said. "And Radar and Hawkeye... Hello Hawkeye!"

Funny what you pick up from your parents. And funny what you don't.

You appear to have picked up our love for an old television show — but not for the ocean. I guess one out of two isn't bad, though if I had a choice, it would be in the opposite order.

But I guess parents don't really get a choice about those sorts of things. Kids pick up some passions and pass on others.

Tomorrow we'll try the ocean again. And I'll love you no matter what happens when we get there.

Love,
dad





































Today we decided to

KEEP IT UP

Dear Spike:

What a trooper you've been.

Halfway through our trip, you're clearly starting to feel the strain of jumping from place to place, sleeping in strange beds and visiting pretty much every last one of the 37 million residents of California.

But you've remained in pretty good spirits — and for the most part, you've remained on your best behavior, too.

Keep it up, kid. Disneyland awaits.

Love,
dad

SARDINES FLY BY

Dear Spike:

We spent the morning at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. Your mouth hung anchovy agape as you watched the tuna, sharks and schools of sardines fly by.

Now it's nap time. We blown up an air mattress in the back of the car for you, but — no surprise — you don't seem to want to sleep. 

Still, life is good. The sun is beginning to burn through the clouds. There's a cool southern breeze blowing over the bay. We've got nowhere to be and no schedule to keep. 

Life. Is. Good. 

Love,

dad 

    

 

 

   

LONG AND SHORT

Dear Spike:

Your mother seems to be on the road to recovery. And barring a turn for the worse among the other members of our family, it looks like we'll all be on the road to California in a couple of days.

It's a trip that feels quite a bit overdue. Your cousin Stas was born way back in March and we still haven't met the little guy. How can you miss someone you haven't even met yet? Because that's how I feel.

While we're in Los Angeles, we'll take a turn through Disneyland — a belated birthday trip for you to the purported Happiest Place on Earth. Stas and his parents are scheduled to join us there, as will your Gaky and Papa.

Along the way we'll do a bit of sightseeing, hit the beach, pitch a few tents and, undoubtedly and repeatedly, listen to Uncle Mikey's song, "Keep Moving," — your favorite tune for drives both long and short.

Best of all, we'll all be together, having an adventure.

Love,
dad