I picked Elijah up from school yesterday and I brought our dog Hercules with me. Regina was having a General Foods International Coffee Day with another painter, whom she met online, and I wanted to give a little extra time. Together, the boys and I drove to the Silverlake Dog Park, about which Elijah complained mightily.
"I don't want to go to the dog park!" he said in the car.
"But we're going," I said, "because Hercules needs to run around with his friends."
"Nooooooo! The dogs will jump on me! Then they will bite me! And they have sharp nails!"
"Oh, don't be such a wuss," I said. "You'll be fine."
"Daddy, will you carry me?"
"I will put you on top of a table, and then I will guard you with my life. Will that be sufficient?"
"Yeah. What's Herky gonna do?"
"Run around."
"Is he gonna eat rabbits? Or is there gonna be a sea monster there?"
And so goes every conversation I have with the boy.
We went to the dog park, where Hercules got it on with a malamute pup, two Scotties, and a three-legged stray. Then we went to the kid park, which was part of a city rec center. Elijah played around for a while. I ran into a mother who'd I'd met at a party, and we chatted noncommitally while Elijah played with her 7-year-old daughter, Isabella. The boy has a quality that makes slightly older girls want to take him under his wing. When he's 16, I predict, he will take a job as a bellhop in a luxury hotel, and at that point, his powers will begin to come in very handy.
Casanova ran up to me and shouted:
"My butt hurts because I have gas!"
And then he ran away.
"Aw," said the mom. "It's cute that he tells you when he has gas."
It got less cute when he ran up to me and said:
"I have poopy daddy!"
Isabella's mom began to back away, and she did it even more quickly when I loudly announced that I'd forgotten to bring a diaper to the park with me. I had one backin the car, a leftover "Disney Princesses" pink pull-up number that my father had accidentally purchased for Elijah, but I had no wipes. It was time to approach a rec center employee.
"My son has to use the potty," I lied.
She led us into a slighty-better-than-average park bathroom.
"Um, I have a dog. Is it OK if I bring him in?"
"Oh sure."
The fact that she would allow me to do it made me uneasy, but I took Hercules in the bathroom with me anyway, and tied his leash to a faucet handle. Then I pulled down Elijah's pants, unfastened his diaper, gently lowered it with the precision of a "Nip/Tuck" character, lifted it back up, tipped it over, and tumbled some magic nugs into the can. Then I had to pick up the three pieces of crap I'd accidentally dropped on the floor.
For those of you who are planning to have children: Welcome to the rest of your life. Parenthood has many payoffs, but where you once would have been getting high and watching Cartoon Network in the early evening, now you will be picking up human waste from the floor of a Parks and Recreation Center restroom.
Back at the car, I opened the door and turned away to fish the Disney Princesses diaper out from under an Etch-A-Sketch.
"Oh, how cute!" I heard a female voice say.
Elijah stood in the middle of the sidewalk. He'd dropped his pants to his ankles, and was gazing at me with a death-knelling gaze of pure beatific innocence. I knew it was an act. But that's the way he behaves around the ladies. Two young women, almost certainly actresses, were running their hands through his hair. He just smiled, naked from the waist down, and took it.
I hurried over.
"My apologies," I said.
"Oh please. He's the most adorable thing ever," said one of the ladies.
"Yeah, I guess it's better him than me doing that, huh?" I said.
"Um, yeah. I would say so."
"It's a family trait."
I was joking, but I must have sounded lurky, because they backed away. Elijah saw the diaper. He put his hands to his face.
"Nooooooo!" he said. "I don't want a woman diaper!"
At that moment, I knew we'd reached the dread Rubicon of gender awareness.
© 2007, Neal Pollack