The Fartist

Your 2-year-old may be in MENSA; he may play the piano beautifully; he may do long division in his head. He may even be able to put the square block in the square hole with some consistency, and not put spinach in his ears. Be that as it may, and I don’t want to brag, but our boy can fart on command.

This morning, we’re cuddling in bed per usual pre-getting-dressed-for-school, and he lies across me, belly to belly, and lets out the longest, trumpeting fart. The cat jumps off the bed and hides. Ian and I respond appropriately, with snorting chuckles, and say, “Mikey, did you fart?”

“Neiny fart,” he agreed. He calls himself Neiny. And then I felt his belly contract as he prepared another assault. This one was shorter but loud, a gun shot. We laughed some more.

“What was that?”

“Neiny fart more,” he explained.

“That was funny,” I inform him, because I’m concerned that our 2-year-old have a proper understanding of toilet humor.

“Ha ha ha,” he said, dutifully. “More?”

“No, that’s probably enough.”

He took my head in his hands, the way he does when he is dead serious about an issue. “Daddy, more?”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “More.”

Upon which, he grimaced and let out the last bat’s squeak of a fart.

“Ha ha ha,” he said.

Daddy and Papa are bursting with pride (and more).

Close your mouth, please, Michael. We are not a codfish.

I feel a bit of a fake saying that our son has a nanny. The occupation evokes Mary Poppins, Jane Eyre, Becky Sharpe, Nanny McPhee, Mrs. Doubtfire, Maria Von Trapp, Nanny in the “Eloise” books, the governess in “Turn Of The Screw,” Anna in “Anna and the King,” Scarlett Johanssen in “The Nanny Diaries,” and Jo Frost in “Supernanny,” and Fran Drescher in “The Nanny” and Juliet Mills in “Nanny and the Professor.” Princess Diana was a nanny for a time, and so was Marie Curie. We found our nanny Sally on Care.Com, where she also advertised herself as a housekeeper, and we decided it would be nice to have someone who was a bit of both. As it is on weekends, we spend more time than we’d like cleaning when we could be out and about with the boy. Mikey still loves his daycare preschool, and is learning a lot and is very popular there, so we don’t have a need for Sally more than a couple afternoons during the week and on weekends when one of us can’t be home.

The fact that it’s taken us 8 months to need any help speaks to how much our friends love Mikey. We have been invited to very few parties or events where Mikey’s presence wasn’t expected, and most often, required. In addition to being a very good-looking kid, he is intensely sociable. While the other kids at the New Year’s party we went to were dropping off to sleep in various beds in various rooms throughout the house, Mikey was doing somersaults on the dance floor when the clock struck midnight.

On Care.Com, we had over 72 responses to our ad over the last couple of weeks and interviewed a dozen women. A couple candidates were plainly wrong, a few had no chemistry at all with Mikey, and maybe half either didn’t have the energy or the experience we were looking for. It was a little like dating or finding a house, you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for until you’ve experienced what you absolutely don’t.

So yesterday afternoon, Ian and I met Sally at our home, and then drove over in her car to pick up Mikey at school. After Mikey said his goodbyes to his teachers and classmates (which requires hugging and kissing each and every one of them), we went back home, where we had juice and chips, watched a little Toy Story 3, played Ring Around The Rosey over and over again, and Sally helped Mikey as he devoured his tamale dinner.

First day, but so far, she’s Practically Perfect In Every Way.