Adam Raised A Cain

I normally don't write about my family. The emergency of a couple of weeks ago has, amazingly, become for now, just a concern, after the doctor in Martinez conducted a successful removal of a tumor from my wife's mother's intestinal tract. I don't like to write about my children for the sake of their privacy and that I can't compete against others' blogs that are focussed on how their progeny bless their lives on a daily occurrence. I must break that, for just this once.

My three year old son is teaching me Zen-like patience and how in order not to kill him I need to be understanding and a little less short-tempered. A three year old is bipolar; every emotion is pegged at "10" with sadness, frustration, elatedness, fear and love factors ratcheted up to the Nth degree. My little boy can either push every button in my day or remind me just how blessed I am to have the cutest and smartest child ever brought into the world. Tonight, being on the kick of late, dug out a video bootleg of the 9/19/78 Passaic, New Jersey show to watch the amazing "Backstreets" that includes the in-utero "Drive All Night" until the winter months of the tour. My lit'lun ran into my lap, yelling, "I just love to watch Bruce with you!!!" while squashing my soon-to-be-superfluous-reproductive organs with a body blow and knee that took the wind right out of me. He soon rested his head against my chest and relaxed with the trust only a child gives and then darted out of my lap because his cars on the kitchen floor called. Yet another fleeting moment of when the holiness of glancing memory captures the whirlwind of vitality that a child is. While I understand that I can't posssibly get any more melodramatic right now, I wanted to record the moments tonight brought: eating his salad for the first time; making his infant sister audibly laugh; contemplate just whether or not it would be Buzz or Woody that made it into the room and bed for nighttime; running downstairs and avoiding the tuck-in right as Mommy was ready to sell him to the gypsies; the hug and kiss that melts his father's heart which will buy him another night and possible morning, unless he wakes up again at 5:30 ready to play and tear his room apart.
I wonder how he'll grow up and appreciate his siblings. The brotherly tension we all read about is not literary cliche; I pray that it never divides my sons as it has those of greater fame and notoriety. Steinbeck's brilliant novel set in the Salinas Valley and the amazing performance from two weeks ago brings home the truth of sibling rivalry of nothing but attention for the love of the father figure. What pressure and responsibility for me to live up to. While I tackle such duties without second thought, there is always the second-guessing that I will parent as my children need and I myself hope to execute. For now, the answers to my questions come in the form of all-too-early peals of laughter and singing and greetings of "good morning, Daddy!"

Life is good.