Another Toy Story

I woke up this morning to Mikey in my ear in a conspiratorial hiss: “Mickey Mouse and Woody … fuck.”

Even three-quarters asleep, I knew he was talking about two of Disney’s beloved characters, Mickey Mouse and Woody, the cowboy character voiced by Tom Hanks in the Toy Story franchise, of which Mikey was a great fan. Still I had to ask, “Mickey Mouse and Woody, what?”

“Mickey Mouse and Woody,” he articulated carefully, holding up his toy fire truck where he had put his Mickey Mouse and Woody figures. “Fffuck.”

“Yes, Mickey Mouse and Woody in the fire truck,” I agreed.

But that was not the end of the narrative. Unlike the adventures of Woody in Toy Story 1, 2, and 3, the storyline in Mikey’s land of imagination is not professionally produced and scripted. It is not a slave of character consistency, genre constraints, or simple logic. In short order, Mickey had tossed Woody aside (but kept his hat on his own head) and was on board a toy plane, destination unknown. In the seat next to him was a small plastic skateboard and three crayons, Red, Yellow Green, and Cerulean.

“Eeee,” Mikey intoned softly, pushing the plane backwards into the wall. “Crash.”


The crash was not too serious, evidently, because the plane turned around and continued to go backwards until it stopped in front of a twenty-one pound cat named Floyd. Floyd gave it a sniff.

“Nein, nein, nein, Floyd,” Mikey said. “Auf, Floyd. Minen. Minen plane.”

Like most toddlers, Mikey speaks excellent German.

The cat gave Mikey the Usual Withering Look, and then the small plastic skateboard was out of the passenger seat and rolling along the floor. Soon it was wedged into a baby doll’s lips.

“No, baby,” I said, becoming just a bit parental. “Take the skateboard out of your mouth, you could choke. It’s dangerous.”

“No,” said Mikey. “Baby and satebor a-kiss.”

Then there was much smooching noises and the baby doll and the small plastic skateboard went to first base. There is a lot of kissing in Mikey’s play. That’s why I believed that first rumor I heard about Mickey Mouse and Woody.

Best Birthday Ever, Part II: Happy Yoyo

Mikey wasn’t mad about the caviar, but he loved the birthday cake, of course. He had some interest in eating, and lots of interest in blowing out the candle, over and over again while singing his version of “Happy birthday,” which is “Happy yoyo.”

Best Birthday Ever

Last year, I turned 41 and it was a pretty shitty birthday. We had just lost “Baby J.” Today, at 6:45 in the morning, we heard the door across the hall creak open, and little feet pad into the room. And then, my son crawled into bed with us and said, “Daddy, cuddle Mikey.”

Don’t have to do much else to make this the best birthday ever.

Apropos of nothing, here’s a video from Christmas, of Mikey putting on a joke t-shirt I gave Ian and hamming it up.

Son O' The Beach

Considering that we live in Southern California, we haven’t taken Mikey to the beach often enough in the 9 months we’ve had Mikey. I count X times: once with Aunt Kelly and Cousin Natalie to the rather grim beach just off Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway where we stayed for about 10 minutes; once at the Huntington dog beach, because we were visiting our friends Lindsley and Jonathan; twice in Venice Beach, visiting friends, but only one of those times during the day when a beach is really a beach. There isn’t a great excuse for this negligence on our part. In the first couple of months, Mikey hated the bath and loathed our pool, so we didn’t think a trip to the beach would have been enjoyable for anything (this was, by the way, during the time of the 10 minute visit to the beach with Aunt Kelly and Cousin Natalie, which certainly would be evidence of that theory). Most of Mikey’s outdoor activities could be accomplished in our backyard or at one of the many parks in a three mile radius. Psychologically preparing ourselves to pack up, fight traffic, find parking, deal with crowds, there was always something that took precedence.

Besides, we figured, how much fun could a 2-year-old possibly have on the beach?
Now we know, and we feel guilty of depriving him of the beach, and the beach of him, for so long.

Our friends Georgie and Melissa live a few steps from the sand in Venice, and they love Mikey, so we get invited down frequently as part of his entourage. The last time they invited us down for brunch, which is sometimes a dangerous time for Mikey since his naps are pretty sacred and fall somewhere between 11:30 and 4:00 – basically, the same as brunch. We figured though if we went down early, we could play at the beach for a couple hours and do brunch at 11, and have Mikey in the car by 12. Or ideally, crashed out on a big fluffy pillow at Geogie and Melissa’s, but experience has cast serious doubts on the concept of the nap away from home dream.

Venice Beach, of course, is known as the crazy asylum of beach towns, alternately bohemian, chic, gang-ridden, and commercial, the home of hippies, millionaires, homeless folk, and bodybuilders. There’s no place quite like it, and it’s the second most visited tourist location in California, next to Disneyland. Fortunately, in January, it’s not very crowded, particularly at the pier, where Washington Boulevard turns into the ocean. There were just a couple beach-goers there with us, some ladies doing yoga in the sand, and the sea gulls.

When we had been there at night, Mikey had walked on the sand, looked out at the sea, and declared that he was okay on going back inside. This time as soon as we set him on the sand, he had his sandals off, and was running, shrieking with joy, at the water. At that moment, I realized we, in our madness, had not dressed him anything but a dry day at the beach, so I raced after him to roll up his sweatpants. In no time, he was soaked. We dried him off and put him in outfit #2. He jumped into the waves and fell face first. More drying, outfit #3. Not having an infinite diaper bag with an endless wardrobe of dry clothes, we were glad that we could distract him with other beach activities: collecting shells, terrorizing seagulls, using his favorite phrase “Big butt!” on hapless beach citizens.

We have no choice, we have to commit to trying to get out to the beach every weekend if we can. Oh, and the L.A. Zoo. And the Long Beach Aquarium.

I guess this is the theme of everyone’s childhood – so little time.

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.

Moo Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, Ian and I both individually sat on Mikey's bed and explained that tomorrow is a very special day, it's Christmas, and he was going to get presents, and Mikey sat there and nodded seriously. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."

The next morning, however, was like any weekend, where he woke up and wanted to be cuddled in our bed, and drink juice, and eat Marmite on toast, and watch Toy Story 3 on TV. Finally, we persuaded him to go with us to the living room and look under the tree, where we had wrapped and stacked up a pile of presents the night before. The one item that was unwrapped was a rocking horse which was actually a cow, and he got on that and rocked away, oblivious to the other gifts. Finally, we handed him a present and he unwrapped it, and played with it with enthusiasm, still showing no interest in opening up more. That's the way it went -- he was enthusiastic about everything, but didn't do the full orgy of tearing up presents that we were expecting. In fact, it wasn't until Boxing Day he finished opening all his presents, and then after he opened the last, he said, "More! More presents!"

Lots of great stuff. Buzz Lightyear was a big theme, and so was music. He's been playing with a stand-up keyboard we bought for him, and on Boxing Day, we went to our friends Graham and Ali and they gave him a drum set which we have yet to put together.

Right now, Mikey’s keyboard compositions are very modern, atonal dissonance with accompanying Gregorian style glossolalia. I'm hoping he goes more commercial, but that's my pop sensibility.

I tend to call Mikey "Mikey Moo." The other day, he called out to me as "Daddy Moo!" And then on Boxing Day at breakfast, I said something about "Mikey Moo," and he began moo-ing like a cow. When I realized what he was doing, I began laughing, and he looked at me very seriously, "No, Daddy, not funny." So I had to stop laughing while he continued to moo with a very stern expression on his face, which is about the hardest thing I've done in a long time.

Here’s the obvious: Christmas is for kids. I don’t see why anyone without them would like the day in the least. When you become a parent, it can be your favorite holiday again.