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August 18, 2005
While the Mice Are Away, The Cats Will...
…sleep, eat, fuck, and do just about anything else anytime and anywhere they want!
The kids have been spending this past week with my parents. They've been there since last Saturday.
The house is very quiet. I feel very relaxed and like the house a little empty. We call them every night around their bedtime to get the report of their day's events, which they are all too happy to detail.
On the phone my son has the sweetest voice I've ever heard. It's really weird. Remove all of the usual distractions that serve to fog my attention when we're speaking face to face: the insane level of clutter that surrounds and follows him like a personal entropy vortex, his perpetually disheveled appearance punctuated with a fractal of "bed-head" (possibly the connection point for the ethereal thread that connects his existence to the entropy vortex), the boggling frequency at which he oscillates through constant fidgeting (as if the same vortex is electrically charged), coupled with what my love describes as a puppy smell (and I equate to wet straw) that kids emit after a hard day of playing outside, and all that's left is a bright, clear, intelligent, imaginative,... simply amazing kid.
I think it helps too that he can't see me while we're talking on the phone. I'm told that I can be rather intimidating; maybe from years of cultivating a "don't fuck with me" façade or maybe I really am just a raving lunatic, and while he's never shown the slightest hint of fear of me; even in the moments when his life is on the proverbial line, he does commonly get tongue-tide in my presence; especially when we make eye contact while he's talking. Chatting with him on the phone these past few days has been an eye-opening experience, and thoroughly enjoyable.
My daughter has proven herself quite assertive as well when she's in her comfort zone; going as far at to insist that her grandmother call me back so that she could tell me goodnight, having missed speaking with me as the phone was passed around last night.
It's proven a good opportunity for my parents to get to know my kids without the distraction of the million other grandkids popping up (or out) these days.
They're due back tonight.
*sigh*
I love my kids dearly, but I think I will miss the golden silence more. Does that make me a bad dad? Maybe. I'm not one of those parents who felt that life-altering sense of purpose upon holding either of my kids for the first time. But as I said, I love them dearly despite my emotional detachment issues. It'll be good to see them again. I just hope they haven't been spoiled too rotten during their time away. If so, it'll be just another thing for which to blame my parents. ;)
Posted by Tacitus at August 18, 2005 05:07 PM