SHE'S VERY ADVANCED

Dear Spike:

Folks used to laugh when I told them I worked at The Toy Factory.

“So you’re an elf?” they’d ask with the invariability of the sun rising in the east, “so what’s Santa like?”

Ha ha. Roll eyes. Hadn’t heard that one before. Nope, not an elf. Don’t know Santa. Ha ha. Yawn.

People are soooo predictable.

The Toy Factory, I would explain, was in fact a quaint little toy shop in downtown Corvallis, Ore., where I attended college. We didn’t carry any toy guns or army figures. No Barbie Dolls. No video games. No Mickey Mouse-shaped television sets.

Many of the toys the shop carried were handcrafted. Almost all had some educational purpose. And everyone who shopped there knew, for certain, they were buying for the next Albert Einstein.

Here’s how it would go...

Customer (in a panic): “I need a gift for my nephew. It’s his birthday today.”

Me (in a blue apron): “No problem, why don’t you tell me how old he is.”

Customer: “He’s five — but he’s very advanced.

They all said it. Just like that. Every last one.

Corvallis may have been the academic home of the only man ever to win two unshared Noble Prizes and the guy who invented the modern maraschino cherry, but it is still an improbability of extreme statistical significance that all of the customers at The Toy Factory were shopping for children who were, in fact, “very advanced” or even “sort of advanced.”

But this, in fact, is how it went. Day after day and tenfold about Christmas.

“He’s very advanced.” “She’s very advanced.” “They’re very, very, very advanced.”

People are, after all, soooo predictable.

Fast forward to February 18, 2008. I’m strumming away on my computer keyboard, writing the great American novel. You’re sitting on my lap — and you’ve discovered that if you smack the “delete” key real hard, it makes daddy mad, which is very funny to you.

A band was playing. When Johnny Comes Marching. Waltzing Matilda. Tie a Yellow Ribbon. All around, soldiers in uniform were...

SMACK! Ha ha ha!

A band was playing. When Johnny Comes Marching. Waltzing Matilda. Tie a Yellow Ribbon. All around, sold...

SMACK! Ha ha ha!

A band was playing. When Johnny Comes March...

SMACK! Ha ha ha ha ha!

I’m not proud. I know when I’m beat. But I thought a compromise might be in order. I rushed to the local mega-super-ultra-lightning market, where I was certain I could find a toy computer for you to smack around to your heart’s delight.

And sure enough, there it was — on sale for $21.98, no less.

Perfect.

Except for one thing:

AGES 3 TO 6.

I did a little quick math. You’re nearly nine months old, which leaves you about 27 months shy of the intended age for this toy.

And then, God help me, a thought crossed my mind.

“Well,” I reasoned, “she is very advanced.”

People are sooooo predictable.

Love,
dad

PANTS SEAT FLYING

Dear Spike:

We're still four months away from your arrival, but your room is nearly ready. It's painted (green with tiny baby elelphants, marching around the perimeter) and equipped with a rocker, desk and dresser (which also has baby elephants, as knobs.) On Sunday, as the rest of the country watched the Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears in The Superbowl, my friend Brent and I put together your crib.

Your closet holds a stroller. Your dresser has some clothes. And a menagerie of stuffed animals has already begun to gather to welcome you home.

We've still yet to get a mattress for you. You'll need some bedding. We're debating whether to further crowd your small room with a changing table. And there are diapers, bath supplies, bottles and other things we've yet to purchase. But for the most part, the nursery looks like a nursery.

The Boy Scouts of America have a very old slogan: "Be Prepared."

Louis Pasteur put it another way: "Chance favors the prepared mind."

We simply figured that it would be wise to do as much as possible to prepare while your mother was still relatively mobile and comfortable.

There's a lesson about the benefits of planning and preparation here, of course, but I hope it's not one you'll accept as doctrine. Truth is, sometimes you just have to fly by the seat of your pants. Sometimes you just have to let go — leaving your fate to fate.

Your very existance is a bit of a mix of those two philosophies.

Your mother and I decided to have a baby with relatively little forethought. It went something like this: One day I came home and suggested we have a baby. Less than two months later, your mom was pregnant.

Once we knew you were coming, it was all business: Pricing strollers, shopping for clothes and figuring out how we'd arrange for your care, 24 hours a day, while both working full time. This week we're visiting the hospital where you will be born — just to feel a bit more prepared when the time comes.

But then, once you come, I think it's back to pants seat flying. I don't think there's any amount of preparation that readies a dad to be a dad.

The crib Brent and I put together on Superbowl Sunday belonged to his son, Jack. The little blonde boy, now three years old, was Brent's fifth child, but I don't think Brent felt any more prepared to raise Jack to be a man than he felt when his eldest, Dylan, was born 18 years earlier.

Another of my friends, Tom, is adopting his first child next month. Tom is 52 — old enough to be my father. He's been around the world. He's got a stable job, a nice home and a beautiful and intelligent wife. There's no reason why he won't make a wonderful father. But yesterday, when he told me that he was going to take a few months off of work to take care of little Donna, his eyes were filled with uncertainty.

Sure, luck may favor the prepared, but I think we all know that fate sometimes steers a course free of reason, favor or preparation.

How else can you account for the Indianapolis Colts?

Love,
dad