When I was in my mid-twenties coaching the year-round swim team at the rec department, I used to joke that I wanted to have kids but didn’t want to deal with them until they were six. I was coaching swimmers ages five to eighteen, and it was pretty clear to me where the cutoff in tolerability was. The five-year-olds didn’t really take direction that well. Even the ones who could be still and listen for a minute weren’t really capable of doing much. They were drowning risks oblivious to the multicolored mucus hanging on their upper lips, and I was always glad when their 45 minutes were up.
Fast forward to my fortieth year, I have two boys of my own, and part of me clings to the idea that my youngest will be five forever. As I write these words, I know today is Scotty’s sixth birthday, but the denial within still just shrugs and says, “No it isn’t.” It doesn’t matter how many times Scotty proves me wrong. I never seem to learn.
On his actual birthday, Danyelle woke me up at 2 a.m. because she thought she was going into labor. I, of course, knew better. This was her second pregnancy. The first ended with inducement. I’d learned all about Braxton Hicks contractions and heard people’s stories about running to the hospital too soon. We’d even had some near false starts ourselves. Plus, I was really tired. It took thirty minutes for worry to overcome my doubt and drag me out of bed, at which point I found Danyelle on all fours on the living room floor, moaning in pain, her contractions just three minutes apart. Scotty had snuck up on me for the first time.
Watching Scotty progress has been kind of like watching Usain Bolt fly out of the starting blocks – it ought not be a surprise after a while, and yet, every time the gun goes off, you can’t believe what you’re seeing. By the time I realized he could read, he was reading whole books. He skipped right over training wheels and was riding his bike around the cul-de-sac at three. Not too many months after I found Danyelle moaning in the living room, Scotty picked his head up from that same spot on the floor, looked at his brother laughing and demonstrating how to crawl, popped up on his hands and knees, and started scooting around. Just like that. If I told you how old he was when he started crawling, you wouldn’t believe me. He was a champion crawler. When his brother Cartter and I went to a basketball game and watched a promotion during halftime that involved a group of babies “racing” on the hardwood, I thought, “Scotty would crush these kids.”
When Danyelle and I got to the hospital around 3 a.m., the nurses there had no idea they were dealing with Baby Bolt. Riding the elevator up to the maternity ward, Danyelle doubled over in a wheelchair, one of them gave me a knowing smile. She looked like she might roll her eyes as if to say, “Sorry your wife is so dramatic. We see this all the time.” Her demeanor did a total 180 when they got Danyelle into the delivery room and realized she was nine centimeters dilated. Ms. Condescension couldn’t even place the IV she was so frazzled. Like me she had no way of knowing that she’d fallen for a classic Scotty trick. See, Scotty gets out of the gate like Usain Bolt, but he walks from there, or rather he crawls.
Since Scotty started crawling so soon, we thought he’d walk really early too, but no, he was good with just crawling around. It seemed like forever before he finally stood up. Unlike the rest of us in the family, Scotty just isn’t worried about schedules or the clock. He takes his time. I never would have guessed that a little boy could take so long getting ready for school. Scotty lays his clothes out on the ground to look at them before he gets dressed. He might go through several iterations of floor people, cocking his head to the side to inspect them one by one before landing on one that suits him. This leisurely yet particular attitude shows up in a good many of Scotty’s behaviors. When Scotty takes a dump, he leaves the door open so that he can converse freely with passersby while he soaks in his own aroma: “Smell the air,” I heard him say to his brother the other day. As a toddler, he’d spend a half hour in his room relaxing before standing up to violently throw things around while he filled his diaper. After a shower, Scotty sits in his room naked and reads while he airdries, and nothing is more offensive to Scotty than his brother hauling ass on his bicycle. After all, what’s the rush?
None of us in the hospital that day had any way of knowing this was who we were dealing with. We’d all been fooled by the Bolt Baby illusion. By the time Scotty finally made his way all the way down the birth canal and came out, an wrinkly 8-pound 11-ounce bowling ball with black hair on its head, it was 9 a.m., and I think every nurse on the floor had crowded into the delivery room to cheer Danyelle on. It was a slow day on the maternity floor, and Scotty was the center of attention, something he’s always come by naturally. When he attends his brother’s basketball games, the older kids call out, “Scotty’s here!” and welcome him onto the sideline where he sits with them and keeps score in his sketch pad. When I take him to the grocery store and a girl from the other kindergarten class is walking in at the same time, you’d think he was her favorite boy band singer the way she reacts, her face all lit up with excitement as she calls to him, “Scotty!” As a toddler he gave impromptu ballet concerts he choreographed to Disney soundtracks, and a nursery rhyme was always on his lips, ready to burst forth unchecked by inhibition. Ever since day one when I was first fooled by the Bolt Baby, I find myself watching, surprised, and admiring.
What a fool I was at twenty-five to joke about skipping the first six years of my child’s life. “They can’t do anything,” I thought then, missing the point completely that doing nothing is exactly what makes that time of life so special. Christopher Robin said it perfectly: “But what I like best is doing nothing . . . This is a sort of nothing thing we’re doing right now . . . It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” When I read that sweet goodbye for the first time lying in my oldest son’s bed, I couldn’t fight back the tears. Suddenly, the most depressing title in my home library was A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six. Since then, I’ve watched my youngest go from diapers to fashionista, from crawling to dancing Disney ballets to performing tumbling routines on the living room furniture, from funny looking baby to kindergarten heartthrob. It’s all happened in fits and starts, on Scotty’s time. Now he’s six, and while it is sad, it’s not so sad as the ending to Winnie the Pooh. More than anyone I’ve ever met, the child knows how to just be, and unlike with Christopher Robin, I don’t have to set his story down; I get to keep on watching it unfold, not knowing where it might go, his faithful admirer filled with pride. Happy birthday, son. I love you.
The Raging Elitist 