Sometimes I need reminding how wonderful life is for those not yet afflicted with cynicism. The reminder came from our son, Atticus. “Where do dreams go?” he asked soon after waking this morning — a question I don’t recall contemplating at any age. Then he answered his question: “A dream is a cloud with tiny bubbles that comes out of your skin and pops back into the sky.”
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Someone might question a father who posts a photo of his naked toddler online. But I’ve cropped it tastefully, which helps focus the viewer on Atticus’ intense gaze as he loses himself in shower-time “drawing.”
I captured the image last night not with my expensive Nikon but wimpy iPhone camera. Besides the photo’s unusual quality (to my untrained eye), I like how it celebrates the magic of children entertaining themselves with the simplest of things. I swear that boy would still be showering if the hot water lasted and I let him. Read More
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I drilled into our little boy today another of my dead mother’s irrational holiday rules: everything Christmas related must be taken down before the new year begins. Otherwise, the most dire bad luck will ensue.
Atticus accepted the rule as if our very existence hinged upon it, and we did mom proud. As a bonus, he learned another valuable lesson while helping unscrew the Christmas tree holder — lefty loosey, righty tighty.
And he’s been repeating it over and over while setting up a make-believe bookstore and pretending to take phone calls from Santa Claus. All this after his first inauspicious attempt to use his Christmas gift scooter and showing off in this video that his mother, Suzame, made.
What my mother missed.
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I’m a dictator when it comes to decorating our Christmas tree. Blame my mother.
As free-wheeling and independent as she was in most aspects of her life, Joanie had rules and regulations aplenty this time of year. The most rigid of all was this edict: big ornaments on the bottom of the tree, smaller ones at the top. Read More
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Snow in downtown Portland is rare and scant enough to incite giddiness. Decades ago, however, blizzards buried the city. Doing historical research, I’ve come across microfilmed newspaper clippings from early in the last century that describe snowfall measured in feet, not inches. In some instances, the city was so paralyzed that food shortages occurred.
What arrived this morning may inconvenience some people but delights me. Not just the visual serenity but the joy in my little boy’s voice: “Daddy, it’s winter!” Or, “Daddy, snowflakes landed on my tongue!” Snowballs and a snowman are on the afternoon’s agenda. Read More
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Across the Portland area, people are posting to blogs their photos of today’s sunset. It was breathtaking, and I too have pictures to prove it.
For those of us living east of the West Hills, memorable sunsets are rare. This is especially true in December and many months to follow because of the persistent rainy weather. But this has been a dry and warm fall with exceptionally abundant days of sun. Read More
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Thirteen years ago, a mountain lion looked at me. I still see clearly its long sleek body, two hundred yards away on a bare hilltop.
Suzame and I were hiking at Point Reyes National Seashore in California and had reached the highest point, Mt. Wittenberg. At first I thought the mountain lion was a big dog, but the tail and graceful gait said otherwise. It stopped and stared at us, and I began to consider our options if it headed toward us. After a very long minute, the beast padded away. Read More
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What will the boy remember of yesterday? Years hence, is Atticus, my son of three, doomed to never recall his first day at the new edge of his known world, the Pacific Coast?
As I watched him run toward and away from tiny advancing and retreating waves, I realized how fleeting the moment probably was. Not just his memory of what he did but the pure delight of not caring about anything else. Neither the event or the feeling might ever return. Read More
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Oh, the travails of parenthood. How do father and mother anticipate this scenario: Atticus, newly turned three, begins crying. We find him wearing on his head a rigid cardboard can, his Lincoln Logs container.
“Why are you crying, son?” I ask. “It’s stuck!” he wails.
We can’t budge it. Suzame pries out his ears and holds his head while I tug, gingerly, several times. His feet start to lift off the ground. We move him to a bed. Same results.
We contemplate cutting off the can. Too dangerous. What about rubbing cooking oil around the lip or soaking it with a sponge? Then I reconsider cutting. With scissors I poke a hole near the bottom, far from his head, work in a finger, and manage to tear the cardboard. Atticus’ whimpering turns to laughter.
A memory is born.
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Atticus Bales Tong, three days shy of three years old, doesn’t know the meaning of the word gun. Suzame and I didn’t set out to deprive him of this knowledge, though it’s no doubt a dividend of allowing scant TV viewing — and only since he turned two.
I learned this today when I handed him a garden hose. The hose has a squeeze-handle nozzle. I said, “Here’s your gun.” And he didn’t know what I meant. And this is a boy with a remarkable vocabulary, including some Spanish, French, and Cantonese.
Sometimes ignorance is a state of grace. How long can it last?
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“You just changed the course of my son’s life,” I tell Phil Bondy.
Phil’s a young guy pounding away on a full drum set at the corner of Northeast Alberta and 13th in Portland. Atticus, who turns three in less than two weeks, is enthralled.
The occasion is Last Thursday, the once-a-month event when the stores and galleries on Alberta stay open late, artisans and vendors hawk their stuff on the sidewalk, and a festive atmosphere envelops everyone. Read More
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This morning at breakfast, my little boy Atticus freaked out when a big fly buzzed on a window near him. It seemed like an overreaction for someone who dug worms and fed them to the goldfish in our little pond before he could walk. (Easy for me to judge.) Maybe this stunning photo will make him less afraid. Or more:
I wish I could say I captured the image among our Portland rose bushes. Instead I’ll say “keep up the great work” to Robin Gage in Atlanta, a photographer friend of my daughter Erin. Robin proves once again that the world we typically perceive isn’t what it seems. Check out more of Robin’s rose gallery on her blog.
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