It’s easy to predict Jake’s behavior. When I pick him up from  daycare, I know he will glare at me and say “No Daddy. No Daddy,” not as though correcting me, but rather literally wishing my disappearance. I also know that during the drive home, he’ll remind me who he really loves by responding to any thought of mine with, “Mommy,” whether I’m speaking to him:

“Jake, do you see the deer?

“Mommy.”

Or to traffic:

“Terrific. I love coming to a complete stop on the expressway.”

“Mommy.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

And when we walk inside the house, he’ll tell me he wants milk and Sesame Street. I can anticipate his every move good or bad, which makes this, this parenting stuff a little easier. Then there was last week.

It was an unassuming Tuesday, and Jake ran through his night time progressions of not eating any dinner, stuffing the dinner he didn’t eat into his groin and throwing his plate on the floor. Amy said she would start a bath for Jake.

“You’re gonna bathe him now” I said, as if this were a bad idea. I always say it that way, hoping Amy will wait till Wednesday, her day off, to bathe Jake while I’m at work and off the hook.

“Yes. He hasn’t had a bath since Sunday.”

“He smells good to me.”

We undressed Jake, cleaned a poop and sat him on his Elmo toilet seat atop the regular toilet. This is Amy’s new trick to ease him into potty training.

“Can you make a pee pee?” Amy said.

“Thomasth,” said Jake.

I handed Jake his Thomas the Tank Engine book, but nothing left his body, which was striking to me, considering how inviting a toilet seat is.  I know in an earlier entry, I defended the act of not defecating while sitting on the toilet. But peeing should happen automatically.

We started the water and put Jake in the tub. Immediately, he peed, which was fine because we planned for this by not closing the drain. The water simply washed the urine away. Jake played with his new colorful, water drum set as we cleaned him. He said things to us.

“Yah low.”

“That’s right, ” I said. “The drum sticks are yellow.”

“Doowum.”

Then Amy abruptly changed the subject.

“Jake, do you have to poop?”

“What? He just did a minute ago.”

“He made a face.”

“He’s not pooping.”     I stepped away to call a friend and was interrupted.

“Jake!” Amy howled. “Help. He’s pooping!”

I looked, and four dark, stout triangles rose from underneath him to the surface like space pods dispatched from the mothership to explore a new moon. Jake didn’t bat an eye. Amy instinctively opened the drain. For some absurd reason I told Amy to take him and I’d handle the shit.  I was very dramatic about it, too, like in the movies. Take the boy! I’ll fight the shit monster! I should note that this wasn’t the first time Jake shit the tub. He’d done it here before and at my in-laws’. The difference now was that I volunteered to clean it up.  I was determined to make a clean job of it. Racing against the drain, I grabbed one triangle, dropped it in the toilet and then another. I couldn’t remember the last time or if I ever made contact like this with a human turd. It felt like clay from an art store, smooth and slippery, but the smell was unmistakable. I dry heaved, which cost me time because the others had collected in the drain, surrounded by bubble bath foam. I washed my hands furiously. Jake was talking to Amy about his toothbrush and toothpaste in his room. I looked at the shower head. Okay, I thought, I will pulse you turds through the drain.  I turned the dial to its most powerful setting and aimed below. I underestimated the foundation of Jake’s shit. It didn’t really go anywhere, but it did waft up its odor, and I dry heaved again. The bubble bath foam laughed at me.                                  

 I was doing well until this point. I lost my nerve, grabbed Jake’s yah low drum stick and stabbed his shit—”Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!”—like I was committing a murder.  Most of it poked through the drain grates. This time the shower head worked and washed the rest away. After I soiled Jake’s toy.  I squeezed the shower head’s neck.

“Don’t do me no favors next time.”

I removed the Soft Soap dispenser and dumped out half to clean the drum stick. I cleaned the tub with Scrubbing Bubbles and reflected. Why did Amy jinx it and ask Jake if he had to poop? Had she not this wouldn’t have happened. Jake is pretty new to communicating, so it’s pretty easy for him to confuse a question with a command. Jake, poop now is what he heard. I’m certain of it. 

What’s most troubling is Jake’s shameless attitude toward everything. He acts with impunity.  He doesn’t seem to care that putting barbecue sauce in his eyes is odd. Or that reaching for knives is dangerous.  Or that it’s uncouth to shit in the bathtub. But he’s a baby. Being a baby is not an excuse. You just don’t do that. Why does the decision to not defecate while taking a bath need to be taught? And had we not been there, he would have been content swimming in it. But he’s a baby. He’s not. He’s 21 months old. At 21 months, shark pups are self-sufficient and can hunt on their own. And fawns? You don’t hear about them shitting in bathtubs.

And you won’t hear about me fighting feces next time because I’m taking the baby. Amy can play beat the drain.

Jake has made a complete 180. No, he hasn’t stopped biting my pointer finger or lowered his scream pitch—not that kind of turnaround. What I’m talking about is that he’s no longer afraid of strangers. Only a few months ago, he’d pout then cry if someone not named Telisman or Friedman spoke to him. Now he loves strangers, can’t get enough of them. Jake’s learned that he’s cute and that he gets attention because he’s cute. Strangers think he’s cute, and strangers give him attention. Strangers = Attention. All of which makes me regret ever showing love to my son and giving him affirmations because now I have to talk to strangers. There were several instances over the holidays.

Amy and I did not like each other on December 30th. It all started early in the morning when she asked me to change Jake’s diaper while he was sitting her face.

“I’ll do it in a few minutes,” I said, as the three of us lay in our bed watching Sesame Street.

“He stinks, and he’s sitting on my face.”

“So take him off your face.”  That was the wrong answer because Amy left the room with Jake, slamming the door.

Because married people blow things out of proportion and crave grudges, we didn’t speak for most of the day. Then I really stuck it to Amy by leaving the house and taking Jake with me on an errand, effectively granting her total freedom and relaxation. We went to Binny’s, a liquor warehouse, to stock up on beer for our New Years party. I asked Jake if I should buy the Rogue Chipotle Ale and he said,

“Yesth.”

Then he greeted a man in the aisle, wearing black pants and a white short sleeved button-down.

“HI!” He said, making it impossible for this man or anyone else he greets to not feel very important.

“Hi,” the man waived back.

“Mimi. Hi mimi.”  This I had to interpret to the man, thus engaging in conversation.

“Mimi is man,” I explained. “As you can see he’s very shy.”

“How old is he?”

“20 months.”

“HI!”

Pause.

“Rogue Chipotle Ale? That any good?”

“I’ll tell you after I try it for the first time.”

He pointed confidently to a six pack in the refrigerator. “Now Schlitz is a quality beer.” I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t.

This man, dressed as an airport employee, continued. “My mother, who’s 80, forced me to go out and get her some the other day. We both really like it. That’s the only thing we have in common. Crazy, isn’t it?”

No. Normal. Very normal.   Rather than wish this man a good day, I continued the conversation.

“My mom loves Schlitz, too!” I said and spent the next five minutes of my life with this man. Thanks Jake.

Another day, we were eating dinner at Corner Bakery and Jake addressed a table of 20-something-year-old kids. They were deep in conversation, discussing their single carefree lives, when Jake stated,

“Bahgee,” or garbage, while pointing at a smushed piece of corn on the floor. Then for impact, as Jake commonly does, he repeated the word with heavy annunciation.

“Bah gee,” nodding his head.

The table smiled at him. Not the I understand. My son’s vocabulary is exploding and he likes to talk to strangers, too smile. These insulated smiles were incapable of that. They were the naive, romanticizing Oh he’s so cute. Those parents will be us some day. Okay, back to my unaccountable, unscheduled life kind.   Yeah, blow me.

At Nordstrom Rack Jake really crossed the line. I was moronically trying to find a deal on Ugg boots in the clearance aisles when Jake locked in on his stranger.

“HI!,” He said to a bearded man. I silently mouthed his next words.

“Mimi. Hi mimi!”   

The obligatory conversation that followed didn’t involve Schlitz or 80-year-old mothers. But I told the bearded man about my feet, how my right foot is a full size bigger than my left. As we walked away, Jake said,

“Luv yoo!”

This confused the man and embarrassed me.  Strangers must think that my outgoing son is such an extension of me that I want to talk to them as well. Maybe get together and form a new friendship. Because I really want to go to more birthday parties. I have enough friends, thank you.     

Even worse, other strangers probably detest me because they think I’m grooming my son to be pedophile bait. And they have a point. I mean shit, Jake takes all the guess work away from abductors. They wouldn’t have to devise some great plan to lure Jake; Jake would just lure them. There’d be no need for some creep to roll down his window and say,

“Hey little boy. Want some candy?”

Jake would beat him to it by sauntering over and offering him gelt.

“Condee,” he’d say and get snatched.  No wait. He’d repeat the word with heavy annunciation. “Con dee,” nodding his head, and then get snatched.

Of course that won’t happen because I’d be by Jake’s side, and Joe Pedophile and I would most certainly strike up a conversation about bad beer and my feet.