Life

What Grandpa Did in Norman

My son-in-law had a saxophone recital this week. My future daughter-in-law is defending her doctoral dissertation. These are significant life moments, and the family is rallying around both of them with appropriate enthusiasm and support.

I was with the baby.

To be fair, Ellie’s other grandma was in town for the recital, and she graciously babysat Ellie during the day so I could have some Andy time. This left her with a clear conscience when I accepted the recital shift. All of us attended the dinner portion of the evening, which was the part I was looking forward to anyway. The pizza was good.

The recital was held at OU, which meant Ellie and I spent an hour roaming the halls of a building not designed with either of us in mind — me like a slightly confused mall Santa, her like someone who has never encountered a carpeted ramp and intends to fix that immediately.

We walked a lot. With Ellie, walking means holding both her hands while she does something between a march and a controlled fall. Her legs can’t quite keep up with the ambition, but viewed from the side, the illusion of running is convincing. She seems to enjoy it. The grandpa executing the maneuver gets winded faster than he’d like to admit, so we don’t overdo it.

One of the hockey boys had left a neon yellow golf ball in their room, and once I introduced it to Ellie, every white ball I’d ever collected on my walks became an afterthought. We found a carpeted ramp — one of those long, gentle slopes that make stairs optional — and developed a game. She’d release the ball from the top. I’d stand below and try to kick it gently back up toward her. She’d decide, with visible deliberation, whether to crawl up to meet it or scramble down after it.

At one point the ball rolled toward her from above and she spotted it over her left shoulder. Something clicked in her baby brain and she decided the correct response was to lead with her right leg, which required a small full-body flip. She didn’t intercept the ball. But she committed to the plan completely — a tiny, determined engineer working a problem she hadn’t quite solved yet.

I lost the golf ball somewhere in all of this. I ordered a six-pack of colored ones on Amazon that night.

When two college students passed by during our ramp experiments, I mentioned something about developing her eye for the putting game. They smiled the way young people smile at old men doing inexplicable things with babies. Politely. With their whole faces.

We found a bench and ate. Cheerios, and some apple-strawberry star-shaped things that dissolve before they become a choking hazard. I favored the method where the snack is secured between my lips and Ellie retrieves it with her fingers. As the session went on, her hands got progressively damper. Baby slime. Nothing toxic.

A man walking the hallway stopped and watched us for a moment. “First grandchild?” he asked. I confirmed. He nodded like he knew something. “She’s the one who’ll pick your nickname.” Then he kept walking.

I would like a nice nickname…

The motion-activated faucets in the bathroom are not designed for a man holding an infant with one hand. You do what you have to do.

When my wife texted that the recital was over, I handed Ellie off to her assembled fans and faded into the background, which is where I do my best work. By the time dinner wrapped up, we were four hours in and dangerously close to disrupting my pre-sleep routine. The pizza held up its end.

Today is the dissertation defense. I was encouraged to bring Ellie, but it only takes one wrong moment — one well-timed shriek during a committee question — to make that a memorable afternoon for the wrong reasons. She has worked too hard for that. And frankly, I’m not sure the room needs both Ellie and me in it. There may be some older professors present with limited social skills, but they’re not variables I can control.

Phase two of Grandpa Goes to Norman happens from home. Better snack inventory. Bibs within reach. No motion-activated anything. No college students watching me lose a golf ball.

And maybe, if I keep spoiling her at the current rate, she’ll give me a decent nickname.

I Love You More Before 8 P.M

I had a busy day.

Not “storming the beaches of Normandy” busy, but “Oklahoma suburban dad with three doctors, a land rush anniversary, and a fajita deadline” busy. By the time it was over, my social skills had clocked out at 5 p.m. and left the rest of me to freelance the damage.

Fun fact: this particular Tuesday in Oklahoma is the anniversary of the Land Run of 1889. It’s the day people lined up, waited for the cannon, and sprinted for free dirt. The nickname “Sooners” came from the folks who slipped out before the start time. They didn’t cheat; they just identified as “time-flexible.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t cheating anything. I was just trying to survive my schedule.

The day started with me putting the final touches on a project I lovingly call “Bleeding the Benefits Dry” at my wife’s employer. The schedule was aggressive. Some men are made for times like this. I am not one of those men — I am, however, just enough of one to say yes and then regret it in stages.

First stop: the dentist. Routine cleaning, plus a cavity that earned me a bonus visit the next day. On Day One, I wore a bright turquoise shirt. On Day Two, I wore red. I could have worn the same pants, but I cannot let the dental staff know I am capable of a multi-day streak with the same shirt. There are mysteries I prefer to keep between me and my laundry basket. The cavity fill itself was painless. The drill fired up right as Huey Lewis and the News started singing “Heart and Soul,” which felt like my molar’s last request.

From there, the GPS announced I’d arrive at the dermatologist in NW OKC with less than ten minutes to spare. I did what was necessary to buy a little more time and arrived in reasonable shape. Once inside, they weighed me and generously shared my BMI while I was still fully dressed, shoes and all. I’m fairly certain Mr. Body Mass Index never intended his invention to be used in “winter coat plus wallet” mode, but here we are.

The doctor came in apologizing about thin walls and how they talk to reduce stress. What I learned next was that Integris has decided dermatology is now a luxury, and they’re dropping coverage. My earlier-in-the-week appointment turned out to be a minor miracle of timing. The doc, however, was locked and loaded with his cryotherapy gun and not afraid to use it. He addressed a couple of spots on my back and one in my eyebrow — an old acquaintance, originally treated twelve and a half years ago after a trip to China. Most spots barely registered on the “Did you do something, Doc?” scale. The eyebrow one probably wasn’t cancerous, he said; it was just growing with more enthusiasm than I wanted on my face. He double-tapped it and sent it to keratosis jail. If anyone wants to post bail, they’re welcome to it. I don’t need that barnacle of aging marring the wrinkles and other disfigurements already collecting on my face.

Parting instructions: a blister may form. Don’t pop it. It’s nature’s band-aid. Use Vaseline.

I am a man who now has Vaseline on his mental checklist.

The GPS said I could make it home before Ellie woke up. The gas gauge disagreed. The next driver is also my wife, so I filled the tank and accepted I’d be a few minutes late. Marriages are built on these small surrenders.

She was still sleeping when I arrived, which gave me a short breather. When she woke at noon, I was on duty until 3:15. She got her bottle and then spent forty-five minutes making faces and drooling all over her peanut butter toast. She’s operating on gum-and-slobber settings right now, but the volume of drool and the frequency of bib changes suggest teeth are on the way. The afternoon was mostly play and exploration, followed by the subtle art of convincing her it was nap time. Grandpa has his methods. None are scientifically validated, but they eventually work.

Before she was up again, I slipped out to the eye doctor. I paid the small fee for the retinal camera instead of the dilation drops — quick, easy, no blurry afternoon to manage. I aced the vision test. My prescription hasn’t changed. The doctor couldn’t find the floaters or the Fuchs’ Iris Crypts. Boring is good. I awarded this the Best Doctor Appointment of the Day, an honor it earned simply by not finding anything worth worrying about.

One grocery run for guacamole fixings later, and I was home for dinner. My daughter had already sliced the peppers and onions and put them in the oven to roast. There was marinated chicken to grill and Ellie to entertain. When we sat down, we could have won a regional Mexican condiment award: homemade guac, cilantro salsa, and street corn dip, with strawberry shortcake queued up for dessert. It was a good dinner. The kind of good that tricks you into thinking you still have gas left in the tank.

After dinner, my son and I took a walk. He filled me in on honeymoon plans and some work challenges. Good conversation. But when we got back, I was already sliding toward wind-down mode, and I retreated to the den hoping my wife and I could salvage some TV time together.

That was the plan.

That was not what happened.

His fiancée came over for strawberry shortcake and, more dangerously, conversation. I sat in the den watching the clock, wondering at what point a household should put a “Closed” sign on dessert service. My daughter, who had been at the house most of the day working her online job while we babysat, wrapped up her final call around 9:20.

That was my moment.

I walked out of the den and announced: “Everybody needs to leave so I can get ready for bed. I had a busy day and I am tired.”

That line doesn’t invite much counter-dialogue. They shut down their conversations and headed for the door. My son walked his fiancée home. He probably apologized on my behalf and explained it wasn’t personal — just one of his dad’s quirks. That is, unfortunately, a very accurate assessment.

Here’s what I know about myself after all these years: I’m usually a happy, snarky guy. But when the tank is empty and the façade runs out, I become a less pleasant version of myself. He is not the one you want at game night or in a room full of people who are still wide awake and full of things to say. The den is supposed to be where I go to keep him contained. Sometimes it’s just where he simmers until he needs to vent. I am responsible for all of it. I’m just not always able to steer it in the moment.

So to the people who had to deal with that side of me — I’m sorry.

If you’re scheduling time with me, mornings are good, afternoons are fine, and evenings are a gamble. After 8 p.m., you’re probably working with about 75% of my usual civility, and that’s on a calm night. Consider this your operating manual: Andy is at his best — and yes, it’s a narrow best — until about dinner time.

I love you all. I just love you more before 8 p.m.

Saturday Was Going to Be the Day

After three or four orders, a couple of borderline-needy phone calls to make sure I still got the sale price on things I forgot to add to my cart, and a few middle-of-the-night “what if I moved the flower bed?” brain spirals, this past week was supposed to be the week: all the new plants in the ground, finally.

The tracking number swore they’d be here mid-day Thursday. Then mid-day Friday. Then late Friday afternoon, like a teenager rolling in after curfew. So Saturday became Planting Day by default.

Armed with two cups of coffee and the kind of optimism that only caffeine can buy, I started sorting through the new “friends” I’d be spending the day with. Not required, technically, but I’ve learned it’s wise to get everything laid out before the shovel hits dirt. Inside each box, the plants were grouped in threes — because when I landscaped in my younger years, everyone got brainwashed by the same doctrine: plant in odd numbers. Three, five, seven. Apparently plants are as awkward in even numbers as middle-schoolers at a dance.

I didn’t honor that maxim with every purchase, but when I broke the rule, I did it on purpose. By the end of phase one, every plant was grouped with its brothers and sisters. I had two types of echinacea, which required some label archaeology to make sure no cousins were accidentally bunking together.

I rewarded myself with a break inside. My son is “camping” at our house until after his wedding, and he brought his Starbucks-style coffee maker with him. He made me a latte, mostly because I tried to look like the kind of person who appreciates a latte. About twenty minutes later, the caffeine had opinions about me sitting still, and I was back outside.

First up: three phlox around the roses in the front yard. The roses were thriving, but the rest of those beds were living in a depressing mix of clay, brick chunks, and sand — way more of all three than anyone needed. I shoveled out the junk, mixed the reusable pieces with new soil, and tried not to judge Past Me for cutting corners.

One of the phlox and a couple of the coreopsis in the backyard looked rough — parched, almost shriveled. Those coconut-husk plantable pots are great in theory, but when the pot is bone dry, the plants don’t have enough tears left to cry. If they don’t perk up by Monday, I’ll contact the nursery. Based on their email yesterday, they seem like reasonable people.

After watering, wrapping up the hose, and then unwrapping it again to spray off mud I’d allegedly missed — my wife’s request, and she was right — I moved to the backyard.

The backyard still required some jockeying. I kept hearing a voice in the back of my head: if you get too creative, you’re going to be cutting a lot of new holes in that weed mat. Not using a weed mat would be more flexible, but this is Oklahoma. Bermuda grass does not accept “no” as an answer. One year in and it’s already burrowing through like it’s just another minor inconvenience. Clay and sand out, fresh soil in — same drill everywhere.

Thirty plants by afternoon. My body was filing complaints. I’d been kneeling on a mulch bag all day, and my legs are no longer amused by repeated ups and downs. By evening my fingers were cramping from jamming soil into gaps around each plant. Those cramps were just the physical footnote on one simple fact: planting in my seventh decade hits different. My work gloves would have helped, but I couldn’t find them — my son had probably borrowed them, and I chose not to pursue it.

After a breather, Judy suggested a trip to Home Depot to fill a few gaps. We picked up marigolds and a pink hydrangea she loved. It rang up higher than expected, but we shrugged and paid. Beauty doesn’t come cheap.

Unless you go to Costco next.

A bigger version of the same hydrangea, cheaper by double digits. A very enthusiastic employee — Costco’s unofficial hydrangea whisperer — informed us that hydrangeas are basically the mood rings of the garden: shift the soil acidity and the blooms go from blue to pink. She also mentioned morning sun only. I mentally scheduled the return before we left the store.

With two slices of Costco pizza on Judy’s lap, we swung back by Home Depot to return the overpriced original, and headed home.

Post-pizza, I finished the job. Butterfly bush in the open spot, the hydrangea tucked into the covered corner near the gas line, marigolds up front in the clay-heavy soil where they’ll either surprise me or confirm my concerns. I still need to get those roses at Costco this week. It’ll sting at checkout, but every one of these plants is out there for Judy.

The outdoors is my lane. Judy’s lane is the indoors — laundry, dishes, cooking — and she does it well and loves the color these plants bring into our lives. She goes out of her way to compliment my efforts even when she’s being generous with the grade. Despite my many flaws, she keeps nudging me toward better, quietly and consistently, without making it a speech. I’m grateful to have a woman with that much patience in my corner.

The sore muscles are the tax. The joy is shared.

The Art of the Squeeze: Another Donor Day

My new “Sticks on Route 66” shirt.

My double red eligibility opened up earlier this week — right on schedule, every sixteen weeks, whether the world needs me or not. I didn’t want to look like the guy who watches the schedule too closely, so I waited two days before heading in. Judging by the mood I walked in with, the staff probably wished I’d waited a couple more.

Before I left for OBI in Norman, I had to give our final hockey boy his end-of-season pep talk. I snapped a picture of him before I left so I could pretend I was still there when he actually walked out the door. The picture was taken a half hour too early. I am a scoundrel with no photographic ethics.

The older couple ahead of me at the front desk had arrived early. Fortunately, the staff member recognized my impatience and quickly got me into the screening room. I had a couple of lines I was proud of. When they asked if I’d ever donated under a different name, I said I usually go by Andrew, but sometimes Andy. When they asked if anything had changed since I completed the survey four hours earlier, I said I’d been briefly pregnant but wasn’t anymore. My slap-happiness does not always have good taste.

The screener, it turned out, works at the hockey rink. She has brothers who played out of state and were billeted at houses just like ours. Except the homemade pizza probably wasn’t as good.

Three people got involved once I was set up at the apheresis machine — the vampire machine, as I think of it, since it gives back what it doesn’t need.

The first got me settled in. Heating pad, arm pillow, squeezey toy. She handled the light work so the next person could focus on the vampire-specific functions.

The second was Hannah. I didn’t say Montana, but I thought it. She walked me through a recent FDA rule change: you now squeeze the toy the entire time, not just when blood is leaving your body. Apparently, the change was made to keep things straightforward for everyone. It does more than tickle when the flow reverses, by the way.

The TV had replaced the Power Rangers with American Ninja Warriors. One contestant was clearly training full-time for this at age 52. I thought about thinking something more critical, then remembered I was the guy who drove across town to lie in a chair and squeeze a toy. With the TV failing me, I studied the donor-recipient chart on the wall. My O+ can go to any blood type with a plus sign. I’m basically the Costco of blood.

The third had a paramecium tattoo on her left upper arm and a light blue bandanna. I’m not explaining it further. After the needle came out, she reached for the stretchy wrap and opened a drawer full of colors that would have had me deliberating for several minutes. She chose beige. It was the end of the roll, so I can respect that. But couldn’t I be special just once?

I settled in at the snack table with my Chex Mix and Gatorade, Nutter Butters tucked away to go. With my daughters out of the house now, setting them on the kitchen counter still brings back some fond memories — something to look forward to on their next visit.

So why do I throw two hours away watching things I don’t care about while surrounded by tattoos and piercings? It’s not the T-shirts, though “Get Your Sticks on Route 66” is genuinely good. It might be a little bit of my dad, who donated regularly — except he had hepatitis, which probably disqualifies the hereditary angle. Since he’s not around to ask, it still makes a good story.

When all the other reasons fall away, I’m healthy and able to, and that’s enough. When the cholesterol results show up in the OBI app, I smile and pat myself on the back for something I had no control over

I must like people at least a little. I married one.

The End of Full-Time Grandpa (And Other Things I’m Not Supposed to Admit)

I’m going to confess something, and I need you to hear it with some grace.

When I found out Ellie’s babysitting hours were getting cut roughly in half this summer, I felt something I wasn’t entirely prepared for. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t dread. It was approximately 30% relief — and somewhere between “pleased about it” and “absolutely horrified that I’m pleased about it.”

Here’s the thing about spending the better part of eight months as a near-full-time caregiver to a tiny human: you become incredibly important. You control what she eats. What she plays with. When she sleeps. You are, functionally, the benevolent overlord of her entire world — which sounds like a power trip until you realize the overlord is also cleaning up after every snack and quietly celebrating when she naps on schedule. The point is, Ellie is my buddy, my partner in crime. My best one right now, honestly. And I’m not entirely sure I’ll find her caliber of companionship roaming around in the wild.

But she is also, for the record, almost entirely dependent on me. Which makes it a healthy grandpa relationship. Not a control thing. I want to be clear on that.

The Alibi is Gone

For the past eight months, Ellie has served a dual purpose in my life that I didn’t fully clock until just recently: she was both my greatest joy and my best excuse.

Can’t make that thing? Babysitting. Can’t get to that list? Babysitting. Skipping the world’s least urgent errand? The baby. Sorry.

It worked because it was true. My schedule wasn’t my own — it was a rolling remix of my son-in-law’s class schedule and music lesson calendar, with occasional guest appearances from “early drop-off day” and “can you just grab her a couple extra hours?” Neither of which I ever once actually minded. Love my girl. But now that the schedule is loosening, the alibi evaporates with it.

And here’s the uncomfortable thing that emerges when the alibi goes away: I have to look directly at what semi-retirement actually is. No more buffer. No more built-in structure. Just me, a calendar with some new blank space in it, and the gnawing suspicion that “semi” is becoming less defensible by the week.

The identity crisis, it turns out, keeps scheduling follow-up appointments.

So, What Now?

I have been running through the options with the seriousness they deserve, which is to say I’ve been loosely rattling them around in my head between walks and online chess games.

There’s the bucket list route — though I’ve always been a little suspicious of people who pursue bucket lists “blindly.” Life tends to edit your bucket list for you whether you ask nicely or not.

There’s the T-shirt brand idea, which sounds ridiculous until I remember I occasionally hit a genuinely funny idea in what I can only describe as an elusive zen-sarcastic state. Mugs, maybe. Something.

There’s volunteering — the classic semi-retiree move that buys you grace, purpose, and a totally legitimate reason to defer the bigger decisions until your wife retires and the two of you can figure it out together. I’m not above this plan. I’m almost in favor of it.

What I’m not doing: more crypto. More forex. More anything that requires me to hand my optimism over to an algorithm and hope for the best. I made it to semi-retirement with most of my wits intact, and I’d like to keep that streak going.

What I am doing — and this one feels right — is leaning harder into the semi-autobiographical writing I’ve been circling for a while. There’s something in there worth saying. There are stories I’ve been carrying around waiting for someone to sit down and actually write them, and lately that someone keeps making eye contact with me in the mirror.

The Part That’s Easy

Here’s what I already know, even before I figure out the rest:

I want to be the grandpa who’s down on the floor. The one who pretends to sleep and gets “rudely” awakened by a curious toddler who thinks this is the funniest game ever invented. The one who’s genuinely present — not physically in the house but mentally somewhere else drafting a passive income strategy.

I missed parts of my kids’ childhoods that I can’t go back and retrieve. That’s just honest. But I get a second pass at this — not to rewrite anything, but to actually feel what I apparently drove past too fast the first time around.

If every project I consider from here on out has to fit around that commitment — being available to my kids, being present for my grandkids, staying on the floor — then that’s not a constraint. That’s the whole architecture.

If I never find anything more valuable than that, I’ll consider it a life well-lived. Ellie didn’t know she was giving me an eight-month tutorial in how to be that grandpa. But she was. The “semi” might be fading. The purpose is getting clearer.

The Shortest Tech Support Call We Never Made

What damage can a ten-month-old do to your TV setup? More than we realized. More than seems physically possible, actually.

It started innocently enough. Ellie got hold of one of the remotes, turned the TV on, and we assumed it was harmless. Baby presses button, TV turns on — fine.

Here’s the thing about feeding Ellie: she flaps her hands behind her head while she’s taking her bottle, blindly dragging anything in reach into her orbit. Grandpa holds the bottle — this is established — so during feeding I move the remotes to the drink holder, safely out of range. System works. Problem solved.

What the system did not account for was afterward. Bottle done, burping complete, Ellie back on the floor. I drift into the kitchen or pull out my phone, and the remotes are still sitting in the drink holder — perfectly accessible to a child willing to pull herself up and attack from the front. Which she was.

After Friday night’s hockey game, we settled in to watch something. Standard process: TV on, navigate to Apple TV, enjoy the evening. Except nothing came up on Apple TV. Just the screen saver, sitting there, completely indifferent to the remote we were pointing at it. The remote and the TV had apparently reached an impasse while we weren’t looking, and nobody had informed us.

We tried everything. Recharging the remote. Restarting things. Staring at it with quiet fury. Eventually we surrendered, opened the Amazon app built into the TV, and watched something we hadn’t planned to watch. It was fine. We were not fine.

By Saturday afternoon, I had mentally written off the Apple TV entirely. Ten-month-olds: 1, Apple ecosystem: 0. I started logging into streaming services directly through the TV, which meant hunting down passwords, discovering some apps weren’t available, and arriving at the outer edges of my patience faster than I expected. Judy, after 35 years, recognized the signs immediately. Her internet search took about four minutes and produced a fix I hadn’t found in two hours of frustration.

A few steps, a reboot, some waiting we were impatient about, and the remote and Apple TV were talking again. Reconciled. Like nothing happened.

Do I think Ellie deliberately sabotaged our Friday night entertainment to demand more attention? No. She’s ten months old. But through sheer persistence and an impressive run of luck, she managed to decouple our remote from our streaming device, hold our evening hostage, and escape without consequence — because timeout is not yet in the toolkit.

The list is growing. Gates for the stairs. Cabinet locks. And now, apparently, a secure location for remotes that does not rely on our optimistic assessment of what she can reach.

She seems very pleased with herself. She always does.

The Pudding Aisle

My daughter and I had a cooking project last Tuesday. She went through my “make these someday” recipe stack, picked her favorite, and we drove to the store to collect what we needed.

I always end up in the pudding aisle.

I’m a pudding voyeur from way back. Pre-COVID, the butterscotch section alone gave me options — store brand, off-brand, multiple sizes. Now it’s just Jell-O, one size, take it or leave it. I leave the chocolate lovers their big box. I don’t need to understand them.

The cook-or-instant question isn’t really a question. Pudding is not meant to meet cold milk in a bowl and get stirred into submission. It’s meant to dirty a pan. It’s meant to thicken slowly while you stand there wondering if you’ve stirred constantly enough to avoid burning it. There’s a small gamble involved, and I appreciate that in a dessert. If you reach for the instant box, you’ve already answered something about yourself.

My daughter — the one I babysit for — has been known to locate the butterscotch box sitting in my cabinet, waiting for someone with patience and standards. I’ll make it for myself if I have to. But knowing someone thinks me worthy of a cooked product is a better feeling than I probably should admit.

Way back when my wife and I were dating, my future mother-in-law bought me a butterscotch pie. To make me feel welcome, I think. She didn’t bake it herself, which, in retrospect, was the correct level of effort for someone who hadn’t decided about me yet. I didn’t make nearly enough of a fuss over it — being a young man of profound emotional stupidity, I offered the bare minimum of gratitude. I’m making up for it now by gatekeeping the pudding aisle. It’s called growth.

I used to make homemade butterscotch pudding too, in the double-boiler era. Every recipe I look at now just says “saucepan.” If you’re currently content with the pre-made plastic-cupped pudding from the refrigerated aisle, I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.

Many of my taste preferences have shifted over the decades. The butterscotch ones have not moved an inch. They remain loyal, patient, and occasionally indulged.

And I probably shouldn’t mention this, but my granddaughter tried a small spoonful the other day. The look on her face was familiar. I’m choosing to believe it’s genetic.

Yesterday Was a Good Day

Yesterday was a good day. Not the day off I pictured when I took this job (it isn’t an actual day off, but we pretend), but a good day.

When I signed on as the primary caretaker for my granddaughter, the wins were simple. Bottle finished. Burp achieved. Dry diaper confirmed. The job description fit on an index card.

It doesn’t anymore.

Now, a good day means I kept her entertained long enough that she went down for her nap without excessive drama. It means everything ran on something resembling a schedule, because the adults in her life are trying very hard to pretend their lives aren’t a complete shipwreck since she arrived. It means I successfully assessed which objects on her high chair tray were unlikely to choke her, a calculation made more interesting by the fact that God has not yet seen fit to give her teeth.

The surveillance portion of the day is non-negotiable. We walk laps — kitchen, living room, hallway, back to kitchen — while she conducts a thorough inspection of everything that has changed since her last walk. Usually, nothing has changed. She checks anyway.

Outside, it’s the mulch. The brown mulch in the flower beds has captivated her in a way I cannot fully explain. It fits perfectly in her little fists. Also in her mouth, which is where most things end up. Her appetite operates on one schedule: eyes open.

A good day also means I timed the diaper change correctly. Change her, set her down in the living room, execute the strategic maneuver of leaving the bathroom door open, and move with purpose. If the math works out, I’m washing my hands when her little crawling body appears around the door frame, just making sure I’m not having an adventure without her.

Then there are the moments that have nothing to do with logistics.

The reluctant laugh — the one where her tummy figures out she’s ticklish before she’s fully committed to the idea. The way she sticks her chest out when you hold her hands, and she leads you, with great authority, to all the important places that require daily review. The diaper bag left unzipped for thirty seconds, which is thirty seconds too long, and the full excavation that follows. She’s looking for something. We don’t know what. It goes in her mouth.

She has also discovered my glasses. There is a game now — I didn’t name it, she invented it — where she removes them from my face with the focused determination of someone defusing a bomb. I’m usually holding her because she’s in a pre-nap mood, which means I’m also the only available entertainment. The lenses are a mess. It’s fine.

There’s also the nap itself, which raises its own question: when she wakes up crying after forty minutes, is she actually awake, or just passing through? The answer determines whether I have time to start dinner. I have not yet developed a reliable system.

The job description has changed, but so have the fringe benefits. She has a personality that walks into a room before she does. The diapers are worse, the opinions are louder, and she has a will that I respect even when it is aimed directly at me.

But I get to watch a little human discover herself. Every lap around the kitchen, every fistful of mulch, every reluctant laugh — she’s figuring out what the world is.

She’s not the only one.

The Sarcasm Sabbatical

When her dad leaves, it’s just the two of us.

She doesn’t cry. She watches the door for a moment, then turns those big brown eyes toward me like she’s decided I’ll do. I reach out my hand and she puts hers in it. Just like that. No negotiation, no hesitation. She’s in.

I don’t deserve that.

Not because I’m a bad person. But because twenty minutes earlier I was mentally rearranging my morning, calculating what I could still get done with her here. A guy who does that doesn’t deserve to have a ten-month-old place her hand in his like he’s the most reliable thing in the room.

If I could summon any sarcasm in that moment, I’d shut it down fast. It has no place there. She wouldn’t understand it anyway, but that’s not why. It’s because sarcasm requires a little distance, a little edge — and she’s handing me something that has none of either.

Sarcasm has been my first language for as long as I can remember. Not the cruel kind — I want to be clear about that. More like a filter. The world comes in, gets processed, and comes out with a slight lean. A raised eyebrow you can hear.

My wife has spent thirty-plus years either appreciating it or tolerating it, depending on the day. My kids grew up fluent. Visitors to our house occasionally need a translation.

It’s not a defense mechanism. I’ve heard that theory. I just like it. It keeps things from getting too precious. Life has enough earnest moments without me adding to the pile.

I’ve never wanted to be the guy who buries his wit in a bowl of warm oatmeal. Still don’t.

Something is happening, though. I notice it in small doses.

She’s been in my life less than a year and the near daily exposure is doing something to my defaults. I’m slower to reach for the raised eyebrow. Quicker to just… be there.

Some of it is age. Some of it might be spring. I’m leaving room for the possibility that July heat brings it back in full force and this whole reflection was seasonal.

But some of it is the memory problem. I ran on fumes through a lot of my kids’ childhoods. Work, dinner, bedtime — repeat. I don’t have the sequential recall I wish I had. Ask me to walk through any one of my kids’ early years in order and I’m zig-zagging between fragments, hoping the effort knocks something loose.

I’m paying attention differently now. She’s clearing her first-year hurdles and I’m watching every one. Maybe that’s what’s crowding out the sarcasm. Hard to maintain the slight lean when you’re actually trying to catch everything.

I want to be clear about something. I’m not trying to shed the sarcasm. I’m not in recovery.

I like those shoes. I like walking through life as the guy with the quick smile and the wit already three steps ahead. It has served me well. It has made hard things bearable and dull things entertaining. My wife knew what she was signing up for. Mostly.

But a ten-month-old with big brown eyes who puts her hand in mine without a second thought — she’s not asking me to change. She just doesn’t leave room for it. The distance that sarcasm requires isn’t available when someone that small is trusting you that completely.

So for now, in those moments, I put it down. Not permanently. Just in the corner, where I can find it when she goes home.

Her mom picks her up and the house goes quiet in a specific way that it didn’t used to.

I don’t immediately reach for the wit. It comes back gradually, like eyes adjusting to light. By dinner I’m probably back to full strength. My wife would confirm this.

But something lingers. I’m not sure what to do with that yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s just what happens when someone tiny and completely earnest spends enough time in your house.

Ask me again in August. If the heat is up and the sarcasm is fully restored, we’ll call it seasonal.

If not, I’ll let you know.

The Voice (Or: How I Learned to Nag Without Technically Nagging)

This is a further explanation of one of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Reminder Wrangler)

Somewhere after the last kid left for college, I developed a second voice.

Not a concerning one. Not the kind that tells you to do things. More of a guest narrator. A color commentator for the small, unresolved frustrations of domestic life. Specifically, my wife’s share of them.

It sounds exactly like my wife. Except sassier. And with slightly more self-awareness than she’d probably volunteer on her own.

Here’s how it works. The dishes pile up. Judy is, by longstanding treaty, the designated dishwasher. When the stack starts achieving architectural ambitions, I don’t say anything. I just wander past the sink, tilt my head, and murmur — in a voice that is not quite mine — “I wonder when the dish fairies are coming. You’d think they’d have been here by now.”

She knows exactly what’s happening. She’s been married to me long enough to read the subtext, which is: the dishes need doing. The Voice is just the delivery system. It’s a nag wearing a disguise, and the disguise isn’t even that convincing. But somehow it lands softer than the direct version, and we both know it.

The lamp incident lasted several months. We had a lamp behind the chair. The recliner ate its cord. I asked about a replacement — once, twice, roughly fourteen times over what felt like a minor geological era. When I finally deployed The Voice, it came out as: “Boy, I wish I could remember to buy that lamp. Andy hasn’t mentioned it today, so I guess he doesn’t want it anymore.” She smiled. She did not immediately buy the lamp. But the smile was acknowledgment, which is honestly most of what you’re after.

Then there was the peanut butter and jelly incident. These are the ones that make me regret The Voice’s existence.

I had made warmups — real food, intentional food, food that required actual effort and lived in the refrigerator with the reasonable expectation of being eaten. Judy opened the fridge, considered her options, closed it, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I watched this happen in real time. I said nothing in my own voice, because my own voice would have had an edge to it that the situation didn’t technically warrant. So The Voice showed up instead.

“I know there are perfectly good warmups in there,” it said, with Judy’s cadence and Judy’s calm, “but the peanut butter and jelly is really speaking to me today. And honestly — Andy probably won’t even notice. He loves to throw uneaten food away.”

She laughed. I felt seen and also slightly ridiculous, which is more or less the emotional signature of a successful Voice deployment. The warmups, for the record, were eventually eaten. By me.

The bedtime reading situation is its own category. We both read before sleep. When she stops first, there’s an announcement — delivered with genuine tenderness but also the logistical clarity of a boarding gate closing — that I should probably wrap it up soon. When I stop first, I roll over and go to sleep. If I’m feeling spirited, I’ll glance over my shoulder and say in The Voice, “Don’t read too long, you know how it keeps me awake,” then pull the covers up with the serene expression of a man who has made his point.

I get sassier as the day goes on. Judy has documentation. By 9 p.m., The Voice has loosened up considerably and is operating with real creative confidence.

My wife is a kinder spirit than me — she has accepted this fully. Not just tolerated it. Accepted it. She even has her own version of my voice, which she deploys occasionally. Her renditions are, I will note, significantly more complimentary than mine. Her version of me seems to be a wiser, more generous person. I’m not sure who she thinks she married, but I appreciate the optimism.

Her responses track pretty cleanly to guilt level and degree of offense. Snoring gets a genuine “I’m sorry.” The dishes get something like, “They are piling up — I wish the dishwasher would come back from vacation.” The lamp gets a smile and a “Yes, I should get to that,” delivered with the calm of a woman who has decided to manage me rather than fight me.

The honest version of what The Voice is doing is this: it’s nagging with the volume turned down and a laugh track turned up. It keeps us from having the same conversation with teeth in it. After enough years of marriage, you develop these little systems — ways of saying true things without making them into a confrontation. The Voice is mine. It is weak camouflage. She sees right through it every time.

And she still seems pleased she married a sassy husband — which, after all these years, I’ve decided to take as a win.