This morning, Toby was the first one awake. He padded down the hall, squinting in the bright light of the kitchen where Stephanie and I were talking. “Mommy,” he said, “I had a dream about me and Jacob and Dad.”

“Oh yeah? Was it a good dream or a bad dream?” she asks.

“A good dream.”

“That’s great Toby. What was it about?"

“Me and Jacob were playing bugs.”

“What was Dad doing?”

“He was zapping us.”

Well, that sounds about right. 

I've been thinking about life and work lately. Always. Which has led me to sketch out this little chart you see below. This is obviously not iron clad. I don't know if I'll still want to go this direction in a couple years, much less do I know if these opportunities will be afforded to me, or if life might impose some other plan. Still, looking down this road as far as I can, it makes sense to sketch out at least the most rudimentary plan, just so that I have something to aim for and something to let me know if I'm on the right track. 

It does lead to a few interesting observations. First, Sarah, my currently youngest child, will graduate from high school in the year 2026. I'll be 52. And eligible for retirement with full benefits. Second, a career doesn't look very long when set out on paper like this. And third, I'll hopefully still have a lot of life left at the end of this chart. My plan is to still be going strong well after 60, and I don't think I'll be racing to join the remote and recliner club in Boca Raton. And so I wonder what life, and particularly work life, will look like in those years. Maybe I'll go hike the AT. This little chart may be pretty amusing to revisit then. 

* Teacher Retirement System.

Our tenants moved out yesterday. While their decision to move and the suddenness with which they emptied the apartment surprised us a little, the impulse to separate their lives from ours was an impulse we shared. Like a cloying girlfriend, her breaking up with us saved us the trouble of breaking up with her.

We recognize that “firing up” is not the biggest deal in the world. Although it isn’t something that Stephanie and I have chosen to do recreationally, we are constantly surprised to discover how common, how casual, and how accepted it is among our friends and neighbors. Nonetheless, we don’t want the choices of others to override the choices we’ve made for ourselves and our family.

After three separate episodes of our living room being filled with the aroma of burning hash, and after addressing it with our neighbors each time, the dissolution of our living arrangement was clearly necessary. So clear in fact that they started moving out even before the conversation we had with them last evening.  That conversation, however, was positive  and (I hope) left each of us with positive feelings about the other. They decided to move out when they realized that their lives were having a negative impact on ours, and that as a result we’d probably be asking for their keys soon anyway.

In chit-chatty conversations after we had resolved the Big Issue, we told them that we had been otherwise glad to have them, and we acknowledged that the noise the children made in all their youthful exuberance must have been inconvenient at times. The speed and degree with which they agreed with us let us clearly understand that it must have been a big issue. It must be pretty bad to live underneath all of that.

This echoes some of the feedback we have gotten from our previous tenants and from some of our guests who have stayed with us over the summer. It isn’t as if we let the boys play WWF or re-enact Gulf War shock and awe. There is no rope swing tied from the ceiling fan, but God bless ‘em, they can’t resist the impulse to chase each other around the living room and kitchen, and I don’t doubt that it sounds like the thundering of ten thousand head of buffalo scarring the plains. Toys get dropped, structures built of cake pans are toppled, closet doors and toiled lids are slammed, and toddlers fall down. This is our life, and we live a lot of it in our house.

Solutions are elusive. We’ve talked about installing some kind of soundproofing in our floor: an expensive option. We’ve talked about turning the space into a bed and breakfast, a hair salon, or a day care. We’ve considered remodeling it to make one large house and let the kids rumpus all they want downstairs. And we’ve talked about maintaining the status quo while making sure prospective tenants are clearly forewarned. Each idea has its merit, and some ideas are more expensive (and impractical) than others. In the meantime we’ll be posting an ad on Craigslist soon.

And all of this causes us to face the fact that living so closely with others involves all kinds of complexity. Living in relationship is a difficult thing to do. Each of us is a flawed person, and we have no choice but to deal with other flawed people. The results can be alternately sublime or disastrous. Clear communication and heaps kindness are required to get along, so these are the ingredients we strive to pour over each new relationship.

Before we had kids, we had a few ideas about how we would raise them and what we did and did not want for them. One of these preconceived (pre-conception?) ideas was that we wouldn’t have them play with toy guns. Knowing they would be around real guns as appropriate, we didn’t want them to get the idea that guns are something to be played with.

Then along came Toby. I’ve written here before about Toby’s odd fascination with guns. Who knew that plinking a few mice would make such a big impression on his little mind? But this impression has become an enduring fascination. It has been fostered (completely unintentionally and even against our best efforts) by a few things along the way.

I would not expect the movie Top Gun to feed a three-year-old’s firearm fascination. But it has. He loves the movie and quotes a number of lines from it during play. He plays fighter jets, and all of his planes – even the innocent Lego planes – have “guns” on them. He finds random objects that do not necessarily resemble bullets and affixes them under the wing of every plane. And of course they’re guns that shoot "bullets with fire in them [like the missiles from the movie] that fly off and shoot other fighter jets, right Dad?"

One night last week, Toby woke up a little after ten in the evening. He came out to the kitchen where Stephanie and I were talking. He came and said to me, If a monster comes to get me, you’ll shoot it, right? I didn’t want to validate the existence of monsters or the need to shoot anything or anyone, so I simply assured him that he didn’t have to worry about anything, and that I’d surely take care of him. But then he asked again, But you’d shoot it, right Dad? And I pivoted again with, don’t worry, if a monster came I’d take care of you, and you would be safe. Again, Toby said, You’d shoot it and kill it with your gun? This exchange went on for a few more similar volleys back and forth until finally Stephanie said to me, You’re just gonna have to say it. And so finally, after he asked yet again, I said to him, Yes Toby, if a monster came for you I’d shoot him. I’d get my gun and shoot him dead. I’d shoot him with every bullet I had. I’d kill him so he wouldn’t hurt you. And this, finally, satisfied him. Yeah, he said fully and finally. He embellished the monster’s demise a little bit more[1], but then wandered back towards bed.

Stephanie gave me a pump up BB gun for Christmas. She thought it would be something I could use around for plinking mice or whatnot, and she also thought it might be something to introduce to the boys at some point. I was a little surprised by this coming from her, but that’s fine. One night over the Christmas holiday, I set up a target (with the capacity to safely catch and contain very low powered BB’s) at the end of the hallway. Jacob was out with Jamiee, and so it was just us and Toby. He watched in fascination as I shot it a couple of times. And then Stephanie shot it a few times. Maybe it was the festive holiday atmosphere and Toby’s superabundant eagerness, but I let him hold the BB gun up to his shoulder while I carefully held it,  and shoot. Oh my, that was a happy boy. His eyes were as big as saucers, and his smile stretched wide across his face. He loved it. And of course he talked about it every day for a week.

Jacob doesn’t care about them. Jamiee doesn’t talk about them. Stephanie and I don’t promote them. For the most part (okay, expect for that one time at Christmas), we discourage any talk about the subject. But for Toby, the fascination remains. And he returns to the subject in some form or other at least a couple of times a day.

Tonight, after Toby asking me if he could have a long gun for Christmas, and me telling him yes, he could, as soon as he was This Tall (holding my hand palm down in front of my chin), Stephanie made an interesting observation. She said it is a little sad. Jacob has been infatuated with whales and marine life for all this time, and we have fostered his interests. We have bought him books and videos, taken him to museums, encouraged him in conversation, and given him experiences that have helped him explore his interests. Here Toby seems to have found something that appeals to him in equal measure, but every time he tries to talk about his it, we change the subject. We don’t let him explore his thoughts or play out his interest with new toys and new information. We just ignore it. And by extension, maybe we are ignoring a part of him. She’s right. It is kind of sad. But what is the alternative? He’s three. Are we going to let him play with toy guns around the house? Give him more exposure to real ones? Do we just listen to him more when he talks about shooting mouses, monsters, and fighter jets? What would we do if it were some other kind of fascination that we didn’t want him to pursue? Where is the happy medium?

________________________________________________________________

[1] “It would fall off the bed like this, right?” (Toby pantomimes the monster falling off the bed.) “And then we could throw it outside. We could throw it out in the dark, right?” Yes, Toby. “I could get a toy and throw it at him.” Toby makes the throwing motion as he says the word. “And I could kick him, right?” Talk about beating a dead horse.  

A few nights ago, Jacob and I were both standing in the bathroom brushing our teeth in preparation for bead. As I brushed absentmindedly, I notice Jacob looking at the way I had my right hand’s fist rested on my hip. Then he looked back at his own hip and attempted to hold his hand on his hip exactly the way I was holding mine. His gaze alternated between his hip and mine, guaging the exact position of my hand and arm and trying to recreate it in his. 

I’ve been thinking about Billy Crystal’s book 700 Sundays. The book is largely about his father, and the title comes from the amount of time Crystal was able to spend with his father. Working two jobs to support his family, Crystal’s father had only one day off each week, and this translated into about 700 Sundays that the younger Crystal had to spend time with and get to know his father.

While one day a week is far too little time to spend with one’s dad, it also seem like a fairly substantial amount of time, and certainly more than some fathers and sons are afforded. If they were 700 consecutive days, that’s nearly two full years.

And this got me thinking about what my son would learn from me if he and I were together all day for 700 consecutive days. If he watched everything I did, listened to everything I said, followed me everywhere I went, watched my reactions, listened to my conversations, what would he take away? What lessons would I inadvertently teach? What would I pass on to him? And if the answers are in any way other that those lessons and values I would hope to impart, how would I need to change the way I live my days? It’s something to consider, because I know he’s watching. And he’s getting a lot more than 700 Sundays.