SNAKES AND GYPSIES

Dear Spike:

At first I thought you might have a spot of diaper rash. (You'll forgive my ignorance as to what, precisely, diaper rash looks like, as you've managed to go nearly 12 months without it). In any case, it took me a few moments to realize what I was actually looking at — a series of small red spots all around your thighs and lower back.

Damn spiders.

You didn't seem too bothered, so I tried no to fret. But by the time your mother came home from work you'd scratched about a bit, and it looked like you were wearing a pair of hamburger pants.

(A note to you Googlers: If you got to this Website by searching for "Hamburger Pants," you need professional help. Really.)

It's bedtime now, and your mom has rubbed some hydrocortisone cream on your legs, along with your usual 8 p.m. regimen of Eucerin and 'roids.

I've searched the nooks and crannies of your room for a spider's nest, to no avail, so I suppose we're just going to have to set you out as bait and see what happens.

Early on, (that is to say, within the first two minutes of your birth,) I realized that I wasn't going to be able to protect you from everything this world was going to throw your way. But over the past year, I think your mother and I haven't done too badly in the attempt.

After all, you haven't been swallowed by a boa constrictor, or mistakenly swapped with a similar-looking baby (as far as I know,) or kidnapped by Gypsies. And while there was that one instance when I dropped you on your head in front of pretty much everyone I work with, your skull seems to have regained its nice, round shape, so "no harm, no foul," right?

Right?

Truth is, I don't expect to protect you from the worst parts of life — only the very worst parts of life. And even those things, I'm afraid, I have limited control over.

When Hobbes said life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" he really wasn't kidding. And while I don't think that's the full extent of life, I can't say I entirely disagree, either.

I also can't say that the bad is all bad. From pain we learn endurance, from struggle we learn tolerance, from loss we learn appreciation and in misery we find plenty of company.

You're not the first kid to get bit by a spider. You won't be the first to break your arm or knock out a tooth. And with the best of my focus on the snakes and Gypsies of the world, I'm just not going to be able to protect you from everything else.

But I'll try.

Lie still tonight, my darling little girl, we'll catch those spiders yet.

Love,
dad