TV Lessons Come In Many Forms

You often hear of the raised emotionality of women after giving birth. While hormones and other biological things I’m not smart enough (or too lazy) to understand play a part, it could also be argued that having kids---biology or not---just changes your sensitivities. Despite unfair assertions from my junior high gym coach, I do not have estrogen streaming through my body parts. However, like my wife Jess, I’ve found certain things ignite a wave of emotions that would have once elicited indifference or sarcasm. This was never more evident while catching up with “Sons of Anarchy” during a “the kids are asleep, let’s jam in as many episodes on DVD as humanly possible” marathon. 

Before going any further, it’s fair to let you know that I’m going to spoil a TV show, so you may not want to read much more if you:

• Are a “Sons of Anarchy” fan who hasn’t seen Season 3
• Plan on watching “Sons of Anarchy” at some point 
• Don’t want to read a story about loving your kids and a fictional outlaw motorcycle gang led by a man who is way too pretty to effectively lead any outlaw motorcycle gang, fictional or otherwise. 

So for those of you who don’t plan on watching the show, here’s the situation. Jax, the aforementioned pretty-boy, is a new father. His 10-month old son, Abel, is kidnapped as a form of revenge against the motor cycle club. After a really long series of events not worth mentioning, Jax learns Abel is Ireland. So he and almost the entire club board a local cargo plane and arrive in Ireland (really, don’t ask), where he learns that Abel was sent to an orphanage and adopted (God dammit, I swear this is a good show even though it sounds lame as could be). 

After getting a lead on the whereabouts of the happy, well-to-do couple who adopt Abel, Jax tracks them to an open market. He sees them and is ready to pounce and reclaim his child. One problem: Jax’s conscience goes from a whisper to a roar. He considers the life he is leading and how that will impact his kid. He sells illegal guns, consorts with horrible people and he is a murderer. Jax would like to walk away from this life, but knows that will never happen. At least not anytime soon.  

From afar, it’s clear the couple is already in love with Jax’s boy. Abel looks happy, too. In this family, he won’t be subjected to violence, gunshots, seedy characters and the absence of peace that Jax voluntarily immerses himself in. Abel will be taken care of and sheltered from bad. He won’t have to watch his father being dragged out of the living room by police. Nor, in all likelihood, will he ever come home to find his father murdered. The couple represents comfort and calm.  

They stroll closer to Jax, vacant of the possibility they may be mere seconds from the most horrific moment of their lives. As they approach, Abel looks Jax in the eyes and smiles the way any baby who hasn’t seen his Daddy in a while would.  Jax is close enough kiss the child on the cheek and strong enough to take him with ease. Instead, he stands motionlessly, purses his lips, takes one last look at his boy and lets him pass slowly away.  He gets ten months. That’s it. Jax trades off ever getting to know his child to offer him a better life. 

Here is a dad—albeit fictional---who does bad things to people. And he knows he does bad things. The only pure patch in his life, the only thing keeping him in touch with his own humanity is that little boy. He loves his son so much, yearns so badly for his child’s well-being that he will let complete strangers care for Abel in a way that he knows he never can. 

A year ago this scene would have touched me. Probably would have made me think. But it wouldn’t have gotten inside me. But two weeks ago, watching on my couch and expecting drug deals and gun fights, there I was a mess.  Not a tear trickling down the side of my check, but shaking  and crying to the point that Jess was concerned.  The scene rocked me to my core. I imagined those soul-saving smiles Jackson and Logan flash when I come home from work and how it would feel to see other people taking my place. Knowing that in a short time, the memory of me would be erased from their minds for good. But worse, knowing that I wasn’t good enough for them. What a hell. 

I thought about what I would do to protect my kids from danger. I'm not kidding even a little when I tell you I’d jump in front of a bus, even kill another person if I had to. But to save your kid…from yourself?  It just leveled me. 

Perhaps a child’s greatest blessing is forcing you to examine the impact of the shitty things you do. For all the books, the warm and fuzzy news reports and daily Facebook links about the wondrous miracle that children are, a fictional murderous biker named Jax Teller offered the clearest example of the most fundamental parental truth: They are more important than you.  They change you, these kids.

"Get Back Here!"

It’s been a while since I put fingers to keyboard, which is disappointing. "Where have you been?" See the photo above. This is the kind of thing Jess and I deal with everyday, now. While Jackson was violating our TP supply, Logan was off doing something else. Life has a way of stealing what once seemed like an endless supply of idle time. Fact is, what little time Jess and I seem to have these days is spent staring off into a blank space and contemplating how busy we used to think we were.

Or judging other parents on Facebook.

Our boys are now almost 11 months. Flopping on the floor has turned to crawling, which is a neat thing until about five minutes later, when you come to the obscene conclusion that you have officially lost any semblance of control. They move wherever the hell they want, banging, prying, pushing. If it is expensive, delicate or full of voltage they want it in their mouths. “For fuck’s sake, (insert name offending child),” is the phrase that pays in our house. The mobility issue really is a challenge, as anything you need (not want….wants don’t mean shit no more) to do requires equal parts coordination and foresight when dealing with them solo. Consider this:

We three are in the nursery after a diaper change. I need to go into the adjoining bathroom to wash my hands, but have to  shut the bathroom, so they don’t go in (more on that later). But I also have to make sure the door to the nursery into the living room is shut, because I may have forgotten to put up the baby gate in the living room, which leads to the kitchen where the pots, pans and poison are.

So the nursery door is shut, I’m in the bathroom with the doors shut, while Jackson and Logan pull down a wicker basket full of books they cannot read, but do enjoy scattering over the area of the nursery floor. OK, now my hands are clean. I grab one kid and run out of the nursery, into the furthest end of the living room and race back into the nursery to:

• Get there before  the kid I just brought into the living room.

•   Slide into the nursery before the kid who I left in there slams the door shut and morphs into an erupting door jamb, requiring me to plead for him to move, or hope he is on his ass and I can open the door slowly, as his terry clothed bottom slides with the door.

"Gotcha! Shit, no I don't"

OK, got the kid and bringing him out into the living room. Oh, but remember how I didn’t put up the baby gate between the living room and kitchen? Baby 1 is now doing a terrible John Bonham impersonation with the veggie steamer. So I scoop him up, as the other sneaks in to take over the shitty drum line. This life is a virtual game of Whack-a-Mole.

To offer a real-life example of how complicated these two gaining their God-given independence has become, allow me to share with you the fact that I use the bathroom. When one must go, one must go, regardless of whether you have twins who can move and get into stuff. Recently Jess left me alone with them, which is fine. I can do this. Usually.

So, we’re playing and having a grand old time when Mother Nature ordered a Bullet Train through my lower intestine. This was one of those, “I might not be able to live this down if I don’t move quickly,” situations. However, there are kids to think about. So off to the races we go. Trying to balance my physical situation and my moral obligation not to let my children wander aimlessly into danger, I grabbed them as quickly as possible and placed them in the nursery.

Upon securing the door leading to the living room, I bolted into bathroom to do what had to be done. In my haste to avoid a poop-filled Saturday morning. I realized I hadn’t completely shut the bathroom door. As it slowly swung open, there stood two smiling children. (Note this is the first time anyone has smiled while I dropped a deuce.) Within seconds, the darling cherubs  were exploring every square inch of the bathroom and all its toys: toilet brushes, garbage cans, toilet paper, toilet paper holders. Anything that wasn’t fastened they wanted their hands on. From the pot, with pants around the ankles, I grabbed stuff one-by-one, putting them in the one place that I could reach/they couldn’t reach. This is the actual photo of the aftermath:

 

Keeping kids out of places they shouldn’t be and extracting things that don’t go in their mouths out of their mouths requires more time than we could have ever anticipated. And not even the bathroom offers a moment of peace. So if you don’t see another entry for a while, just assume they started walking.