Quiet can be a scary thing

Child rearing is filled with numerous moments of abject horror. From the moment when they handed me my first child and I couldn’t stop thinking I was going to drop him to major media reminding me daily that my children are about to be kidnapped by terrorists and made to do Un-American things in foreign lands, every moment is another second where I’m sure I or society at large is going to kill the kids. I’m a nervous wreck. And the kids aren’t helping.

As any stay-at-home parent with more than one child will tell you, a few seconds of peace and quiet is worth its weight in gold. But that same moment of quiet can be terrifying if it takes place when you are out of the room. My older two boys were at school and it was just Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, and me hanging out. It’s nice to have some one-on-one time with the little guy; time where I can watch him grow, develop and even see his little mind working out how the world works. We had played the morning away, and it was time for a snack. Leaving him on the living room floor playing with his teddy bear, I ran to the kitchen to rustle up some chow.

I wasn’t worried about leaving him alone for a few minutes because he’s going through a “screaming phase,” one of the more “enjoyable” phases of development where children are learning vocal control — and therefore how to scream — quite happily, ALL THE TIME. Luckily this is something they grow out of pretty quickly (or they never do and grow up to be lead singers in heavy metal bands). In other words, I could hear him very well at the other end of our house. And that is why, as I was finishing chopping up his apple, I suddenly froze. I couldn’t hear the baby. The living room was quiet. A little too quiet.

My mind was awash with Wes Craven-fueled images as I ran around the couch to see exactly what he was doing. Had he turned the cat inside out? Had he suddenly figured out how to use the front door and was now out playing in traffic? Had he fallen into an interdimensional gate and now I would have to search the universe for him (that is exactly the kind of thing he would do)? No, he had discovered his toes. He was sitting on the floor, playing with toes. Apparently his toes can hear very well and don’t need to be screamed at. I, on the the other hand, am completely deaf since he looked up at me, saw the bowl of apple slices and happily screamed his head off.

This screaming phase had better stop soon or I’m going to start screaming soon myself.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

Does my baby see through walls? Cool.

Desperate for spring air, we opened the window in our bedroom the other night, despite the calls for the Storm of the Century of the Week to come through town and kill us all again. I fell asleep quite happily with lungs filled with fresh air and awoke to the sound of the rain — a gentle rain pitter-pattering on the awning above our window. The only number my horrible eyesight could make out on the clock was 4, but I didn’t need the clock, it just felt unnecessarily early. I’d been awake for almost five minutes when the first noises came filtering in from our boys’ room.

It was a whiny-moan, and I could tell it was Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old. He’s woken me up in the middle of the night enough times for me to recognize his cry anywhere. It wasn’t a nightmare-induced scream, but the moan of a little boy only half awake and (hopefully) about to go back to sleep. I lay in bed, waiting for a full-throated bellow to come, but he stayed silent. I tried to go back to sleep, the gentle rain my soundtrack.

A sudden intensification of the storm got my eyes opened once more, and Tiny Bits started whining again. I waited, seeing if he would calm himself down, but this one sounded real. I slipped my glasses on and started to get up. Suddenly the sounds from the Bits’ room ceased. The storm had also settled down and everything seemed right with the world again. I went to put my glasses back on the nightstand and try to get back to sleep, but the moment my glasses hit the table, there came another half-hearted moan from the other room.

Figuring, surely, he has got to be up now, I slipped my glasses back on and started to get out of bed. But, once again, there was silence. Not wanting to risk actually waking a 75 percent sleeping baby, I lay back down and took my glasses off again. And as soon as my glasses hit the wood of the table, there was a cry from the other room. Glasses on, no crying. Glasses off, weak moaning and crying.

Surely he couldn’t hear my glasses hitting the wood when I laid them down; I couldn’t hear them. Just to be sure, I laid them down on a paperback book; instant moaning-whining. Was I on Candid Camera or what? He either had me on closed circuit TV or he could see through walls. OH MY GOODNESS, HE CAN SEE THROUGH WALLS! This is awesome, my son is a mutant from The X-Men! I am the coolest geek dad in the world.

I tried an experiment: I lay down with my glasses on and tried to think of who would play me in the movie Tiny Bits: The Real Weapon X. Sure enough, not another peep was heard that night.  I just slept with my glasses on.

The next morning, everything seemed normal: Tiny Bits couldn’t see through walls (nor did he seem to have extra acute hearing — he went on ignoring me just as well as he always does), I couldn’t find a hidden camera in my room, and Allen Funt didn’t jump out of my bathroom and say “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” “The Great Baby Sleeping Weirdness” would have to go down in history with all the great unsolved mysteries: The Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness and how anyone makes it through middle school alive.

We could solve them, but do we really want to? Somethings humans just aren’t ready to know yet.

Originally published on stltoday.com