anthony turns one today. this makes it just about four days shy one year ago that marty and i walked into our home, labored to put three children to bed and collapsed glassy-eyed in our own room numbly staring at one another. one of us said, "what have we done?", the other didn't answer. over the years marty has told countless new mothers "it gets easier, don't worry."over the same period, i have told countless new fathers "it's temporary, totally temporary". we both slept that night with these missives playing, on repeat, in our heads.
and here we are already, with another one year old. what can i say about him? most notably, it's remarkable how completely different three biologically-connected humans can be. you'll get occasional glimpses that they belong together but much of the time it feels like i just run around yelling "where did you come from?" or "hey! you! are you supposed to be here?" in the end, you could slice many of these anthony-related moments into the following buckets:
the obvious things
the
anthony scoot dazzles and tickles onlookers without fail. you ever hear the phrase 'money in the bank'? well setting anthony down in a public forum is just that, money in the bank. one unknown detail about his mode of transportation: the outside of his diaper is typically way dirtier than the inside, especially when what's on the inside
starts finding its way to the outside, an unfortunate phenomenon that has recently come to pass.
the unexpected things
anthony is our first white child. while this was unexpected, it nicely rounds out our set. we now have one dark, one light and one white. i have friends who have joked about the uncertainty of my race saying that one day marty and i would have a child and the delivering doctor would catch a fully black infant in his hands, subtlety look at the nurse and say "we may be about to have a problem here." they would then hold the baby up so i could see and i would arms-open yell "heeeeyyy! my son, ohhh he's so beautiful." to which the doctors and nurses would retire to the corner of the room and whisper among themselves trying to figure out how i did not notice this child was black and i was not.
the inevitable things
when bella was little, if her pacifier touched anything other than her open mouth it went straight into the washer. with anthony, i've picked a paci up off the ground, saw something on it, brushed it off on my pants, looked again and still saw it, shrugged my shoulders and popped it into his waiting mouth. if we have a fourth kid i reckon we'll not even bother with store-bought soothers but instead just stick clods of dirt and other random small objects into the kid's mouth.
the problematic things
i'm an only child so watching two siblings interact has been quite academic. when things are good, it's spectacular. when things are bad, it's terrorizing. dumping a third child into this already heady equation complicates the math to collegiate levels. anthony often serves as a pawn to exacerbate, calm, excuse and manipulate situations between his older siblings. obviously the lion-share of his participation is not of his choosing and consequently causes him angst. it is not uncommon to hear a parent yell "bella/alex put him down. he's not a doll! he's a person who gets to decide where he wants to go ... now give him here, i need to change his diaper." it's also not uncommon for a parent to yell stuff like "stop standing on your brother, you're going to make him puke!" only to have them say "but, he likes it" and when you go to investigate, the little nut is laughing maniacally under the weight of his sibling to which you don't have much to say other than "well, just don't do it too long."
the satisfying things
not only does anthony not look like anyone else in the family, his demeanor is also quite unique. with bella, she looked like me and acted like her mother. with alex, he looked like a walter but acted like me. with anthony, well, he doesn't really look or act like anyone already living here. when left to his own, he's perpetually happy. lots of smiles. lots of giggles. our house was already jovial-rich but now we got a one foot high billboard scooting all about wearing a slobbery, indelible grin. it's warming. it also tempers a home otherwise rife with an ever-changing and frenetic energy.
happy birthday sir anthony. thanks for being something we totally didn't expect.
