The Patio Daddyo

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12-29-07

 

There’s an episode of Gilligan’s Island where a crate of irradiated vegetables washes ashore and the castaways each eat something different. Thurston Howell III’s eccentric wife, Lovey, eats the sugar beets and begins hyperactively running around at warp speed and cleaning. That’s just what my mother in law (MIL) is doing around me as I write these words. Guzzle a Redbull and a shot of espresso then chase it with a line of coke and you have her baseline energy level. And when you need something organized, there’s no one more primed for the task. MIL flew in from New York a few days ago for “Operation Get the House Ready for Baby.” If she were a superhero I’d call her The Swiffer, keeping the world safe from dust bunnies. Sure enough, within an hour of her arrival she was Swiffering the wood floors upstairs. Her first morning here we awoke to a totally cleaned out fridge and rearranged pantry, and yesterday in the kitchen junk drawer I discovered little separate bags containing match books and rubber bands. She’s even washed a dozen loads of donated baby clothes using Dreft, a special baby-friendly detergent, so our baby’s butt stays soft as a baby’s butt.

 

Early this morning I encountered her moments after I’d awoken as I lumbered up the stairs rubbing sleep from my eyes. Before I’d even turned off the top step to the kitchen for coffee I heard her say, “Honey, I can’t reach way back under this sink. I need you to scrub it for me.”

 

Splayed before me on the kitchen floor was every cleaning and utility item from under our sink, and she was upright on her knees next to them with a giddy smile, like she just guessed the correct door on The Price is Right. Having slept poorly for the umpteenth night in a row I was hardly on the same page.

 

“Um, I can’t do anything before a coffee right now. And THAT is not what I care to do first thing afterward,” I said as I stepped over the Comet to get to the fresh squeezed black juice.

 

It was on Christmas day that my MIL and I actually transformed Jodi’s office into the baby’s room…an auspicious feat given that exactly 2007 years prior Mary transformed her office into Jesus’ baby room. Kai’s zebrawood crib now sports funky fish pattern sheets in the corner where Jodi worked selling ad sponsorships for Rolling Stone the past five years. A changing table awaits its precious cargo where a bookcase full of music biz shwag stood. Unfortunately, my personal files and boxes full of books are presently stacked haphazardly beside my bed, creating a hideous late night obstacle course and making me ornery the past few days. Jodi and I have been bickering over critical life issues such as whether to giveaway my copies of New American Paintings (who recently rejected me for the fifth year running) or hold onto her collection of Anais Nin. The basic book rule now is keep only your absolute faves or those you’ve yet to read.

 

Houseboat living mandates minimalism and order, and our 928 square feet, while certainly delightful for two little birds, is already tested for comfort by one more. I don’t fly well when my nest is ruffled. Of course, all this lofty effort is mere prep for the battle against infant gear sprawl. And, frankly, I fear we’re holding a saber to the incoming tide. The sea always wins. Whatever, it’s a crisp blue sky winter morning, the type for which all houseboat denizens give thanks for our little spit of planking in the middle of a languid bay. My room may be a mess, but Kai’s world headquarters is geared up and ready for action.

 

“Nice day, huh,” I said to my neighbor Play as he walked past.

“I aint complaining and I aint explaining” he quipped through his Cheshire smile.

 

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12-21-07

I’m going to start calling you Kai, for I’m all but certain that is your name. The other candidates, Slater, Elijah, and True, just don’t work. Slater’s a bit too wannabe surf grommit. Elijah is too bible shepherd, and True, well, that’s just pure shaggy California hippie. We both like the rhythm of one syllable followed by two syllables – Kai Sheldon. Unique. Sharp. Sure.

The sonogram showed nice little meaty crinkles along your side from your arms to your waist. Four pounds, fifteen ounces … with rolls of fat. You have undeniable substance to be sure…but it’s the rolls of fat that excite me. They give you snugglability and “babyness” and prove there’s a healthy growing boy there, someone to squeeze. Someone to talk about. Someone named Kai Gallant Sheldon. 

Landing on your name is a big step for me, for words are favorite toys of mine. Speak eloquently and it’s Christmas every day in my world. I read dictionaries for pleasure and get a runner’s high from a seven letter word in Scrabble. I’ve played with words for as long as I can remember and wrote my first poem as a little boy. Wrote it for your grandmother, in fact, when I was still in Toughskins and PF Flyers:

I love my mother

She is nice

And I know

That she likes rice

Sometimes she loves me

Good and bad

But she is my mother

That’s why I’m glad

 

Perhaps you will be a poet too. I hope so, for good poets provide answers, and the world is currently long on questions. The page is blank for you, so say whatever the hell you want. Just say it with power and verve. A glide in your stride and a dip in your hip. Here’s a poem I just wrote for you. Think of this the next time you pick up your pen or step to a microphone.  

 

 

SNAP!

 

 

Bring more SNAP

 

Mister Open Mike

Don’t ask us questions

TELL US THINGS

We don’t know

Or things we do

Just told different

Than we’ve heard before

 

Bring some THWACK

And hit me twixt

My bloodshot eyes

Where my thirst begins

Bring knowledge

From college

Or otherwise

Don’t care where you got it

Just that you BROUGHT it

 

So bring it Mister

Be like Mike

Slam dunk your voice

To the back of the room

To the front of my face

Make me care

Cause usually I don’t

 

Serve me

Nothing tepid

No one wants soup

That aint hot

Bring it till it’s brought

By the cup or the bowl

Steaming hot

With a fresh baked roll

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12-09-07

I slept terribly last night. Dreamt that my friend’s little girl fell in the water and we rushed to frantically yank her out from the muddy bottom. It was too unbearable to see if she was alive and I woke up agitated right as we reached her. I hope that Jodi and I are rescued from drowning in our own fears. This pregnancy is consuming me like a mutant flesh eating virus. Like battery acid poured down my throat. Its not supposed to be this difficult or complicated and I’m angry and disgusted that each new day is but another agonizing waiting game. To add insult to injury I now have a cold and sore throat. And Jodi has intense pain in her pelvis. She’s at her wits end. And I’m having to buck up and be the strong one. The pit crew. The backstop. Fuck this! 

We rented a wheelchair. The doctors suggested it so Jodi would not have to make the long trek down the dock and back for medical appointments. We ventured out for the first time on Thanksgiving to some Mill Valley friends where we were grateful to be taken in as orphans. We hoped to skate out under the radar and see no one on the dock as we exited.

“Hold on, this ride is about to begin,” I exclaimed.

The wheelchair had a surpisingly smooth action and sped along with little effort. I began to run Jodi down the dock at a brisk clip and hopped onto the back like a toboggan. It was fun.

 

“Honey, are you crazy. Slow down!” 

 

As a matter of fact I was crazy and I could tell she was having a bit of fun for a change too. Unfortunately, up ahead a cluster of our neighbors were chatting in the middle of the dock and I slowed down as I saw the alarm register on their faces. They must have deduced she was in labor. Why else would I be running my very pregnant wheelchair bound wife down the dock at mach speed?

 

“We’re just on our way to Thanksgiving. She’s fine,” I said as we cruised past, totally uninterested in explaining further. Just our luck, more neighbors were out ahead. It seemed that the whole friggin dock decided to come out at 2pm for some reason. 

“She’s fine. We’re late for Thanksgiving,” I offered curtly as we breezed past.

Jodi spent Thanksgiving on the couch of our friends’ lovely home being served and catered to by everyone. She enjoyed all the trimmings and we had a lovely afternoon. In fact, we have much to be thankful for.

One of the things I am thankful for is Sarah McMoyler. Before we decided to have a child, all I really knew about actual childbirth was from TV: someone was to boil some water for some unknown reason…and then the mother pushes really hard with a really red face…and then a gooey baby emerges which is handed to the mother who cries when she sees it…cut to commercial break. So it was with welcome relief that I approached the McMoyler Method pregnancy classes. Being in a room with 36 pregnant ladies alone makes the class worth it. The energy is sweet, primitive and timeless. Mammals all coping to reproduce themselves. Jodi was one of three women on bedrest given special “nests” on the floor that allowed them to lay back with their legs out and knees supported. I sat in a chair to her right looking down at her. Funnily, when she first looked up at me from her nest that morning her eyes struck me. So beautiful. I look at those eyes every day, but for some odd reason on this random Saturday morning, those hazel almond eyes were arrestingly gorgeous. Doe eyes. 

Sarah McMoyler is a veteran labor nurse and she broke it all down for us over two weekend days: from the weeks leading up to labor, to the water breaking and straight on through to the other side. Her philosophy is the woman carries the child and gives birth and the man does everything else, which I must admit sounds about fair (actually, the man gets off way easy). A couple with a three week old brought the baby in and gave her a bath right before us. It really hit home to hear them say that less than one month earlier they were standing where we were now, clueless about what it all was going to look like. And now they’re doing what everybody else through all eternity has done. And handling the infant like pros. I’m now much more relaxed about how it goes down, where to go, who to call, what to pack, what to say, how to breathe. If the gun went off right now we’d be ready to race. 

“Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime,” is our song. It always makes both of us cry because it artfully wraps our challenges and successes in Beck’s velvety baritone. We danced to it at our wedding and an hour ago we sat on the couch misty eyed when it came on the radio. Its message is more relevant now than ever. We’ve been schooled by two years of emotional and physical hell and now we’ve gone to birthing class. All that’s left is the final exam. Our time to learn, albeit later than we chose, is almost here.

 

Change your heart

Look around you

Change your heart

It will astound you

I need your loving like the sunshine

And everybody’s gotta learn sometime

Everybody’s gotta learn sometime

Everybody’s gotta learn sometime

 

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