Deep Thoughts on Fatherhood, Volume 1

1.  SHE IS…SASHA FREUD.  It was while explaining the lyrics to my three-year-old daughter that I realized the emotional and psychological dynamics of “If You Liked It, Then You Shoulda Put a Ring On It” (real title: “Single Ladies”) are surprisingly deep and nuanced.  In addition to the gloss on her lips and the man on her hips, that Beyonce has profound insights into the mind of the taken-for-granted female.

2.  BLASTING BEHIND.  In recent weeks my wife and I have discovered that when our infant (2 months old) dirties her diaper, there’s roughly a 50% chance that the brown stuff will escape the diaper and climb up her back, down her legs, into every nook and crevice of her lower half, and all over her clothes.  How it climbs up between her shoulder blades, even when she’s sitting upright, is a mystery.

Of course, I’m a philosopher and my desire is to understand the world in which we live.  Struggling to explain this phenomenon, since we used a brand-name diaper that worked well for us with our first child, I came up with two options: (a) Dovetailing Devilry: the particular shape of this specific diaper is not suitable for the particular shape of our baby’s backside, or (2) the Potency Possibility: our daughter simply defecates with spectacular force.

There is at least a prima facie plausibility to both explanations.  I’ve noticed that our baby’s backside looks surprisingly like the wrinkled bottom of a female octogenarian — or, rather, what I imagine such a bottom would look like, since I have not seen any myself.  On the other hand, our daughters have always been powerful little girls, and they do everything they do with gusto.  Combining Dovetailing Devilry with the Potency Possibility, is it possible that our baby simply has a bunker-busting granny fanny?

3.  WORD TO THE WISE.  If you’re ever driving your daughter to school in the morning, and Wendy Wright (past President of Concerned Women for America) is sitting in the passenger seat, do not play “Drop it Low” for your three-year-old little girl.  This is not because Wendy Wright will disapprove — for such a famously Concerned woman, she was entirely unconcerned and mostly amused — but because your daughter will start chanting “Go daddy, go daddy” and expect you to bust a move.  It was only once I began to show Wendy the dancing skills that I used to entertain my daughter in the car (which involves a lot of head-banging) that she began to look Concerned.

After “Drop it Low” and “Single Ladies” (my daughter’s two favorites right now), I played “Old MacDonald,” just so Wendy could see that my daughter enjoys three-year-old fare as well.

4.  ON THE PERSISTENCE OF ALLIGATORS.  Me: Where’d that scrape come from, sweetheart? My 3-year-old girl: I don’t know…I think an alligator bit me. Me: Again?  That’s the third time you’ve been bitten by alligators this week. Her: Again.  Me to myself: Geez, that girl’s gotta deal with a lot of alligators! A friend, when I related this story: Maybe you should consider moving out of the swamp.

5.  GUNS AND YOUNG’UNS.  Like all fathers of daughters, I look forward to terrorizing potential suitors.  When I saw what a beautiful daughter I had on my hand, I began to consider the guns I should purchase.  I figure a shotgun will do well for the first time I meet the young man at our house, and a pistol on the dashboard will be suitable for making him urinate himself in the backseat when I drive them to the movie theater for a chaperoned date.

Just kidding, of course.  I will never allow my daughters to date.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

1.  WHERE’S THE POINT?  Is there such a thing as “low” dudgeon?  If not, if there’s no point of reference, how do we determine when somfeone’s dudgeon is high?  Moreover, if you can be “in” high dudgeon, how do you get out of it?

2.  PASTORAL POSEURS.  Pastors must get tired of photographers telling them to sit at their desks and pretend to read their Bibles.

CONCLUDING THOUGHT

UNINTENDED VULGARITY.  If you have virgin ears, you might want to skip this one.  Recently I returned from “work” and found my daughter watching the end of an episode of Dora the Explorer.  There’s a character in “Dora” called Tico the Squirrel.  I asked my daughter what had happened in the episode.

She looked at me with wide-eyed innocence and reported: “Tico tore his sack and his nuts fell out.”

I wrote that one down so I could tell the story at her wedding.  Her arranged wedding.