It had been an unforgettable day for this rookie dad.
My wife thought the day our 16-month-old son, Chase, started walking was unforgettable, but I can’t remember exactly what day that was.
Not that I was indifferent about watching him walk for the first time, I just knew at some point it would happen. While his mother worried whether Chase would ever learn, I remained generally confident that he wouldn’t crawl to prom.
But I really wondered whether today would ever come.
One of my son’s first words was, “car.” And he quickly learned that if saying “car” once was fun, then repeating it 10,000 times was an absolute joy.
He’d point to the cars parked on our street and the cars driving by our house. “Car!” he’d exclaim, and his face would light-up like, well, a 16-month-old amazed by the sight of an automobile.
We took him to the zoo and he was bored out of his mind. But oh, the parking lot! “Car, car, car!”
The problem is that I’m not interested in cars. Yes, I own one, but I haven’t the slightest idea how it operates. I have zero interest in car-racing, classic autos strike me as a galactic waste of time and money, and I largely think Detroit was the birthplace of depreciating assets.
“But your son loves them,” said my wife, Laura, smiling while watching him play several months ago.
“Vroom, vroom!” was the sound coming from Chase as he rolled his toy car across the sofa.
“Are you sure you didn’t teach him that?” I asked Laura, for the ten-thousandth time – and I wonder where my son gets it – “because he definitely didn’t learn it from me.”
I’m highly suspicious of my wife about this “vroom, vroom!” thing. And I trust her completely about other stuff. Really, she could tell me she was just taking a tennis lesson from Brad Pitt I’d buy it, but this “vroom, vroom!” business is different.
We had an agreement that we would accept his interest in cars, but not go out of our way to encourage it. And in my mind, teaching, “vroom, vroom!” is absolutely gratuitous.
But my wife insisted she didn’t, and asked me to instead focus my attention on coming-up with an activity for his first birthday.
What could we possibly do for a one-year-old whose greatest joy to date came from wandering a parking lot? What could be more exhilarating than that?
“Let’s sit him in a toll booth.” I suggested. Really, would we be the first parents to approach the turnpike authority about hosting our child’s birthday party in one of their toll booths?
If “Vroom, vroom!” is hardwired into little boys” DNA – like my wife insists – than I’ve got to believe the turnpike authority must be besieged with requests for toll booth parties.
“Car! Car! Car!” Oh, the magic of it!
(And no, we did not buy him a toy car of any sort for his first birthday. I’ve told my son from day one that if he wants a car badly enough, he can go steal one.)
The reason today was such a memorable day for me was this: After finishing his breakfast, I helped my son down from his highchair and he did not immediately walk towards his toy cars. Instead, he picked up his bat and ball.
And then he played with his bat and ball, and then he said, “bat” and “ball” ten thousand times.
And I didn’t push him into it, just like I promised Laura. I watched quietly in the shadows for a few minutes before going wildly overboard with praise and encouragement.
I can’t help it, I like baseball and I want Chase to like baseball.
I’ll admit it, and my wife would probably agree with this, we didn’t become parents just because we’d grown bored with quiet flights on airplanes. You want to share your joys and passions with your offspring; its part of the reason you have kids.
I’m not suggesting that he has to play in the major leagues, I’d just like for the two of us to watch an occasional game and talk about it together. However, if my son did play professionally and wanted to support me in my old age, it would be appreciated. Especially considering that my current retirement plan is long-term camping.
His throwing motion needs work, and when he’s batting left he’s got a hole in his swing against an inside slider, but hey, that’s why they invented practice.
(My son is also completely illiterate. But my wife assures me it’s perfectly normal for sixteen-month-old children to have a few glaring weaknesses.)
Chase isn’t totally over his “car” infatuation, and he’s also quite taken with tractors, trucks and buses. But today was such a good day for me.
Honestly, when I close my eyes, I don’t picture Chase and I at a NASCAR race screaming, “Car! Car! Car!” when he’s twenty-four-years-old.
I dream of him visiting me at my campsite in his new major league uniform.
Brian Yake of Denver was a member of the Colorado Voices panel in 2003. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
