EASY RIDERS
Happy Birthday Wyatt!
Wyatt turned thirteen on the twenty third. It’s hard to believe that thirteen years have gone by since I caught that little bugger right out of the chute. Up until the moment he hit my hands the whole having a child thing had just been a few minor inconveniences for me…a few late night trips to the store, and a few…alright maybe more than a few…cross words thrown in my direction that I learned to sidestep, but other than that it was pretty much business as usual for me. All of which came to a screeching halt the moment he hit my hands. My first thought…Holy &$)@”! What in THE HELL am I supposed to do with this thing now.
I think most guys would admit that dealing with a baby is pretty tough for us. For one thing, they’re long on complaints and short on praise. Another thing is they interact so subtly – when they’re not screaming in your face that is – that most guys completely miss it…at least I did. Since I had not recognized that I was missing out on his personality and just assumed he didn’t have one, I nicknamed him “it”. Which, of course, earned me huge brownie points with Mom. Within a few weeks his smiles and laughter were cause for me to upgrade his status to boy…which I thought was a big step forward but I was still deep in the dog house.
And there he stayed for a few months. Until one evening after dinner as I was doing the dishes like the caring, conscientious person that I am, Wyatt was rolling around the kitchen island like a mini Mario Andretti in his “tot wheeler”…a menacing little contraption that gives pre toddlers the ability to toddle with wheels at much greater speeds than they could ever muster on their own and smash into your shins…I reached down for the dish towel and it was gone. I looked around and found it on the family room floor. “Boy must have dragged it under the wheels of that contraption here”, I thought to myself.
I returned to the kitchen, draped the dish towel over the cabinet door on my right and returned to the dishes. A few minutes later when I reached down to get the towel again…it was gone. “Bloody hell!” I went to the family room and there it was again. But this time as I bent over to pick it up I spied little Wyatt out of the corner of my eye. He was facing me in his tot wheeler and as I picked up the towel he was totally, completely cracking up. “No way!” I thought, dismissing the connection between the events. I took the towel back to the kitchen, repeated the drill and this time kept my eye on it. Sure enough Wyatt stealthily rolled up in his ride, nabbed the towel, and headed for the family room. And when I picked it up…he almost split his sides with laughter. I looked up at him this time and he paused. Then I laughed and he laughed even harder.
He was upgraded to Wyatt on the spot and we’ve never looked back.
Happy birthday little britches. You changed our lives. You showed us that there was so much more to life than we had possibly imagined, and we have absolutely loved every minute…ok almost every minute…of being your parents.
Happy Birtjday Wyatt. 13! Yikes!! To my favorite Cookie Monster.