About a year ago, many of you kindly reassured us that we were ready to become parents, that we had the emotional maturity, common sense and thoughtfulness the job requires.
Calvin certainly seems none the worse for wear, but there have been just a few moments in the past nine months when good judgment and reason abandoned us. Maybe it's our families' Catholic backgrounds, maybe it's just the thought of a new year and a fresh start, but we felt it was about time we confess, repent and promise to do even better in the months ahead.
With that, here are a few reasons why permits should be required before people are allowed to bear children. (If nothing else, this will serve as a good discussion starter when Calvin begins therapy about 20 years down the road.)
Exhibit A. On the scale of psychological traumas, silly hats don't rank very high. But if we don't get this need to make our child dress like a dork out of our system soon, he's doomed to ride the little bus to school.
Exhibit B. Sometimes we think it's cute when he cries. Sometimes we even laugh.
Exhibit C. We think trash
is good clean fun.
Exhibit D. Moments after this photo was taken, Calvin tried to wrap the blinds cord around his neck. You know, the blinds cord everyone warns you could easily strangle a child, so it should be kept out of reach.
Exhibit E. This is Calvin with his nose plugged full of mashed avocado. He was snorting and trying to blow it out of his nostrils. I watched, fascinated, for several moments, snapped a few pictures, and then realized I should probably
help him out.
Exhibits F and G. Calvin's first taste of champagne, left, after the Red Sox won the World Series, and his second taste, right, when we gave him the cork from our New Year's Eve bottle so he could suck on it.
Exhibit H. So this one day, Calvin was kind of being a twit and I was kind of sick and overtired and I kind of thought it would be funny if we played Spaceman. Calvin disagreed. He was rather sullen about it, actually.
Exhibit I. We took Calvin on a wine-tasting trip to Napa with his friend Stony and his mom, Kathy, who is also still nursing her baby. Wait, there's more. We gave him a pretzel to keep him happy. Wait, there's still more. Eventually, someone said, "Where'd that pretzel go?" After a few moments of head-scratching, we realized the chipmunk had of course shoved the entire pretzel into his mouth.
Exhibit J. This was the first time I used the word "no." The meaning was lost on him, since I was also smiling and taking this picture.
Exhibit K. This is Doug encouraging Calvin to chase Bandito, who doesn't like to be chased. Did I mention she
has claws, and limited tolerance
for tail-pulling?
Exhibit L. A lot of folks weren't sure what Calvin was holding in his Christmas card photo.
It was a cigar. Wrapped in plastic.
But he had a bit of cigar stink about him the rest of the day.
Exhibit M. I'm not sure what's worse: That we had these colorful wires lying about, begging to be grabbed, or that I took a picture before getting them out of his mouth.
(If this doesn't get the grandmas to fly out here to visit, we don't know what will.)
Sunday, Jan. 9, 2005
Oh, and about that resolution to treat Calvin with more consideration and respect? We blew it already:
