Tonight the wife had to get on the phone alone for an hour, so I decided to take Muffin St. Buggins for a walk around Prospect Park.JCN: "So ... you're a week old as of yesterday."
MSB: [Looks away.]
J: "Last night while mom was up late with you, I hear she passed the time telling you last night about how we met. But she may have just told you her version."
M: [Looks away.]
J: "So, here's my version. We were ... hey. Are you breathing?"
M: "What?"
J: "Scream if you're breathing! Scream if you're breathing! I'm going to pinch your leg, and you scream in pain to let me know you're breathing. Please God, make her scream!"
M: "AHHHHH! What the french, toast?"
J: "Oh thank god. Oh thank my loving, suddenly present god."
M: [Eyes reddened.] "Dad. Tip. Just because your mind wanders, THAT DOESN'T MEAN MY LUNGS ARE PARALYZED."
J: "I know, Bug."
M: "Did your CPR teacher tell you to do that every time I choke? Because if so, she owes you your $300 back."
J: "I haven't been to baby CPR class yet."
M: "Jesus Creamed Crikey, why am I still surprised by this shit after a week. I swear, Dad, if I could walk away from you right now, and make a show of cursing you to hell under my breath, I would do it, Dad. I really would."
J: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We were planning to go, but then you came out almost four weeks early, and we didn't have a damn thing ready to go out. And then you got diagnosed with the Billy Rubin and we had to put you on that damn phototherapy blanket."
M: "And what a clumsy out-of-character bit of expository dialogue that was."
J: "I don't care. Major props to the makers of The Wallaby II BiliBlanket. They make a great product, which has brought your Billy rating down from 18 to 14 in a few days. God bless them, the soft blue light of their blanket, and the exceptionally professional deliveryman from Arcadian Healthcare."
M: "So ... this is a temporary thing? My linens will not in fact glow aquamarine forever? When I go to my senior prom, it will not look like I'm hiding one of the Elftstones of Shannara in my vagina?"
J: "I mean, it won't be a must. But for all I know, incandescent underpants aglow may be all over MTV come 2026."
M: "Good."
J: "Though I'm glad you're down with using the word 'v-"
M: "Notyourword!"
J: "... I know it's not a natural conversation piece, but I've used it at least twice a day this week since you were born. Half of my questions to the nurses, and all the tiskings they gave me, were about treatment of your-"
M: [Concentrates, then defecates loudly into diaper. Inhales.]
J: "Now that we're home, every time mom changes your diaper, I'm yelling 'Honey, how's her-"
M: [Exhales a shriek.]
J: "... looking?' from the other room. The neighbors have to be sick of it."
M: "Dad! That is not ever your word!"
J: [Oblivious.] "I mean, you weigh under six pounds. Me taking a babywipe to you is like taking a streetsweeper to-"
M: "Dad!"
J: [Looks down.]
M: "You are nothing like the guy mom described last night."
J: [Shrugs.]
M: "How in the hell did you end up bagging her?"
J: "Through sheer jackassery. I survived from one date to the next by stringing together story after story about every idiotic thing I've ever done. Like, remember on Saturday morning around 3, when I sat on mom's petite rocking chair while holding you and the thing shattered under us?"
M: "Well, that was awesome. It happened in like slow motion. You were all drowsy-faced, and then your eyes went all panicky, and then you just kind of made a muffled, girls cry as that broken wood dug into your thigh."
J: "More importantly, you stopped screaming. You were the angriest muffin in the bakery until that happened."
M: "Well, it was funny."
J: [Thumbs up.]
M: "OK, I think I see it. I guess. Although, honestly, I thought mom could do better than Bernie Laplante."
J: "Woulda, coulda, shoulda, Bug."
M: "While it's clear that, when left to your own neuroses, you are a pinch-first-make-intelligent-inquiries-later twit who walks around Prospect Park talking vagina with the hump in the front of your coat ..."
J: [Smiles, thumbs up.]
M: "... it also seems that, if you and I go tumbling, you will at least shield my face with your ass. In that, you seem to have at least the same fatheryl instincts god granted the average Rwandan ape."
J: [Again with the thumbs up.] Let the vicious circle continue!
