We found a new second hand store, the kids and I. Naturally we went to explore and the kids knew if I got something, chances are they would too. Somehow I missed out on this arrangement. The Boy got himself a new chapter book and Izzy found a small electronic keyboard. It has an auto-play feature which Izzy soon discovered...sort of.
Isobel: "Daddy, listen to this." (Plunking on the keys)
Daddy: "Very good honey."
Isobel: "Listen to this one now." (more plunking and accidentally hitting a chord) Holy crap! I'm playing! Daddy, I can play piano."
Daddy: "Awesome honey."
Isobel: "Ok, you call me when it's my time to play and I'll come to play."
Daddy: "Do you mean introduce you and you'll come and play?"
Isobel: "Yep, you tell me and I'll play."
Daddy: "OK, Isobel!"
Isobel: "Ok, wait.(Tinkering with keys and hitting auto play) Jingle Bells! Daddy, Jingle Bells! I can play Jingle Bells. Seriously, I can play piano. I really rock now."
I have said on several occasions (and will likely say on several more) that I did not want to be a parent. But I am so let's move on. It was a rare occasion this past week and the children were trundled off for over night visits on no less than two occasions. Ho ho!
For the first time in a while Mrs. Narrator and I were left to our own devices and we did what all parents do when they are left without their children over night. I went to band practice and she went to derby practice.
Now all during their absence, I heard something, low and quiet. Barely detectable, I couldn't put my finger on just what it was but it was definitely something...different.
"What the hell is that?" I asked out loud.
"What is what?" Mrs. Narrator asked.
"Nothing," I said. "I'm hearing things." And with that I went back to sleep and didn't pay any more mind to what I had heard.
By the time I got up for work in the morning, I was still aware of whatever it was and it was still very much aware of it. Now more than ever. I began getting ready for work and the cat meowed. It seemed loud and overwhelming like it was projected through a loud speaker. I began to think my mind was slipping, too many nights of not enough sleep followed by early morning rises for work.
I walked into the living room to try and shake away the cobwebs when I kicked the stool that Izzy uses at breakfast time. Suddenly something dawned on me.
"I'll be god-damned." I said.
It wasn't a sound or a noise or a thing, it was the lack of it or rather, the lack of two its. The kids weren't home. I hadn't heard a single peep from anyone under the age of eleven all night. The level of noise and chaos and sheer presence of the children, multiplies exponentially from suppertime until bedtime and The kids had been gone since early that morning.
I never wanted to be a parent and for my sins, I am one. I find it odd and oddly comforting all at once, that I cannot conceive of a day without them or at the very least the cacophony that surrounds them. I am certain that this longing and need to have my children around me always will run for the high country as soon as the teen years kick into high gear but for now I'll smile knowing the kids are home and safe and that my headphones really are noise cancelling...
Today is my birthday, I am forty three. I became a parent later than a great deal of my friends and considerably later than most I know. I was thirty eight when Isobel was born and I didn't really think much of it then but I will be in my fifties when she is in the throes of her teenage years...
Even that didn`t bother me much until a couple of years ago, when I took a long look in the mirror and started to see a few more grey hairs and a few more care lines turning into full on wrinkles. Couple that with still smoking, still boozing way too much and still carrying on like a single, living on his own, general nit wit of a bachelor and it`s no wonder I was shuffling around like an old man and getting winded as I walked up the stairs.
So I changed. I quit smoking (as painful and god damned near impossible as it was) cut down on drinking, started exercising (no really I do it regularly now. No really, me Sid, exercising) cut out a lot of crap food and generally started giving a crap about my well being for the sake of my children.
It is my dream you see, to sit on my front porch one day with my pipes in hand and watching as a young man comes down the drive way in hopes of dating my daughter.
"Good evening Mr. Baker," he might begin. "is Isobel at home?"
To which I will hand him my bagpipes and say, "When you can play A Flame of
Wrath for Squinting Patrick, you may date my daughter." And maybe that boy will take my pipes from me and play me the piobaireachd I ask for and maybe he will love my daughter forever and a day and maybe they will marry and give us many grandchildren. I feel sorry for the poor girl that comes down the drive way in hopes of wooing The Boy, Mrs. Narrator is REALLY going to be hard to win over...
Now with all this in mind, I recently read that Paul Stanley and is wife just had a baby. Paul Stanley is fifty nine...FIFTY EFFING NINE. In thirteen years when Izzy graduates high school, I will be fifty six and I will likely be the oldest parent in the room but I would like to think that with the choices I have made now I will be possessed of all my faculties and still able to get around.( my father in law is nearly seventy, exercises regularly and still has less grey hair than me)
When Paul Stanley's newly born daughter graduates high school, he will be seventy seven years old. I don't care how well you take care of yourself, nearly eighty is god awful old. If you have spent the majority of your adult life living the excesses of a rock god, it is going to take its toll. Even if your excesses were on the low side of the scale.
I know that the natural course of things is that parents are meant to pre-decease their children but how do you (of good conscience) have a child knowing that chances are, you will never see that child into full maturity and adulthood of their own?
I myself intend to live to a ripe old age and become a large burden to my children. Incontinence and all if possible. When Isobel was a baby and I tried to change her for the first time on my own, I did not attach the diaper properly and she crapped on my pant leg. I told her then I would return the favour one day...Daddy always keeps his word.
I was beginning to get worried for a while that Isobel was going through something. She hadn't cursed or swore in forever and was interested in Bieber and Gaga and all things non-rocking. This week has seen Isobel come back to the purer faith.
"I saw that, Isobel Don't step on her tail!" said Mrs. Narrator.
The Boy chimed in with "You don't have to be so mean to the cat Izzy."
"But she pees on the floor." said Izzy.
"And she gets punished for it. Mommy sprays her with water when she
pees." said The Boy.
"Daddy doesn't." said Izzy.
"No, Daddy picks her up and puts her outside," said The Boy. "You don't have to kick her or step on her tail or be mean to her."
"But I love it..." said Izzy.
Izzy did some colouring this week that should probably scare me a little but really kind of warms my heart knowing that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...and it usually hit a passer by on it's way down. She has done several others of a similar theme but this is the pick of the litter...Isobel's black period...
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