#69

My first thought upon seeing Jack's face for the first time:
"He's the most beautiful creature I've ever seen"

My second thought:
"Holy Shit! What if I f*ck this up??!!"

I felt the way I think I would feel if someone just handed me the controls to an airliner and casually asked me to land it. I recall coming home that first night, with my wife and newborn son still in the hospital, looking at the stack of child rearing books on the shelf and thinking that they were about as useless as the flying manual for that 747 would be if somebody shoved it in your face while you tried valiantly to land the thing.

I DON'T HAVE TIME TO LEARN ANYTHING!! HE'S HERE **NOW**!!!

Little by little, the panic abated. Once I was confident I could keep him alive (relatively easy) and keep myself from having a nervous breakdown (deceptively difficult). I had a little time - two weeks, say - before I started to panic about the more complicated stuff.

OK. I can keep him alive, but how do I keep him from growing up to be an a$$hole?

That's still an open question. And a lot of the responsibility is still in my lap.

The other morning, Jack was sitting at his "special chair", the one that no one else is allowed in.

(***I permit him this eccentricity because my dad had the same thing, and I remember being insanely jealous of it. A piece of furniture that was yours and no-one else's. Intoxicating. Also, in a 700 square foot apartment, personal space is at a premium. The crappy part is, once he chose that spot at the table, I realized it is the BEST spot. AAARRRG!! You know when you sit down at a table in a certain spot, and it just *feels* right? It has a good view, you can lean your back on the wall, your elbow doesn't bump anything? That's Jack's spot. The little bugger. I can't even sit in it when he's asleep. Feels like I'm trespassing or something...)

Anyway, there he was. And he asked me a question. I answered, and before I even finished, he bellows, "OF COURSE!!!"

Oh, so he already knows that part. I go deeper into the subject, and as I'm talking he starts babbling, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course!!!"

At this point I'm annoyed, and want to get back to making my coffee.

"Jack! If you already know all this, why are you asking me?"

Jack looks innocent. For-real innocent.

"I didn't already know all that."

"So why do you keep saying 'yeah, yeah' and 'of course'?"

"Because Everything *YOU* Say Is True."