Toddler Tales: An Older Dad Survives the Raising of Young Children in Modern America

by Lee B. Mulder

Grandma herself appeared. I was asked to hide the thing in the garage so that Junior wouldn't see it before the big day. Did I fight? Did I protest? Did I make my feelings known? What am I, crazy? I'm only the son -in-law and husband, and I dare not rustle the fragile veil that is the spirit of the season. I bit my tongue, swallowed my pride, kept my mouth shut except for a few scotches on the rocks and waited for Christmas Eve.

  It is the custom in our family to spend the night before Christmas traditionally, that is, singing a few songs, reading The Poem and then bolting the children to their beds. Then, my older daughter and I turn the family room into a makeshift machine shop for the express purpose of assembling toys. Fortunately, this year, we were joined by Grandpa who is a mechanical engineer.

  While I muscled the Enormous Box in from the garage, the two other generations laid out the power tools, vise grips, files, pry-bars, glue guns, socket sets, safety goggles, torches, compressors and clamps. Grandpa suggested we could probably use a lift to work on the underside of the device, but since there wasn’t a hydraulic cylinder built into the family room floor, we made two stacks of wrapped presents which would hold the project off the ground and allow access to the undercarriage.

  We unpacked the Enormous Box, took inventory of all parts, reviewed the blueprints in all views with contractor instructions and formulated a plan of attack. Then the three of us, each with tools in both hands, went to work. It was the anticipated look on my son’s face, the look of wonder and joy and the potential wrath of Grandma and her daughter if we didn’t complete the job that drove the dad, the daughter and the consulting engineer to press on with the construction. “Sure could use a sky crane,” Grandpa muttered.

  Only a few hours later, early Christmas morning, after minor design modifications, two trips to the drill press and with a wisp of smoke lingering from the blowtorch, we stepped back to admire our work. The kitchen was complete.

  It was a handsome affair, complete with toy dish sprayer, hooks for towels, a fold- down utility shelf, phone, a (non-working) oven and a fridge. The $9.95 accessory pack included a plastic cheeseburger with plastic pickle and plastic lettuce, some plastic scrambled eggs, plastic sausage and a molded lump of plastic French fries. We were ready for the presentation at dawn.

  At the first thump of bare feet on the stairway, we all struggled into bathrobes to see the look on the boy’s face when he opened the family room door. His reaction was, well, okay. The big yellow kitchen was the first thing he saw and he ran over to it. He opened all the doors and drawers, dumped the accessory pack and then turned from it to attack his other presents. What more could we expect on this, the mother of all mornings?

  Was it worth it? Well, after just one bowl of tennis ball soup made from scratch and seasoned to perfection with a certain savoir faire by a young chef in a new kitchen, you know it was. He hangs his pots after he's through and only keeps enough toys in the refrigerator to last through the week. He keeps Raggedy Ann in the oven, chalk in the toaster and Weebles in the disposal. He offers tea and toast to his friends. They offer to do the dishes. And I smile because, after all, who says the kitchen is a woman's domain? MY son can out-cook any female toddler any day of the week.

  The Tooth Fairy

  One night at bedtime, right after the third Curious George book, my little girl asked out of the blue, "Dad, how does the tooth fairy get into my room?"

  What an odd question. Not where does the tooth fairy come from or where does she get the money she leaves behind, but how does she get into the room.

  The tooth fairy is a delicate subject. It's one of those, "Well, I really don't want to tell my child lies, but I do want to perpetuate the myth because it's kind of cute" parenting dilemmas. At the same time, we don't want to paint the tooth fairy as some kind of glorified ghost who should be booked for breaking-and-entering, so I said, "Well, dear, I guess it's magic."

  "What kind of magic?" she said innocently.

  "The same kind of magic Santa uses to get down millions of chimneys on Christmas Eve."

  "But she has wings."

  "Yes, I suppose tooth fairies do have wings.”

  “Can she fly?"

  Are the answers to these questions provided in the part of dad school I slept through? Surely there are responses with cosmic correctness. But now I am stuck in a conversation progression with no idea where it will lead. "If she has wings, she probably can fly... unless, of course this fairy person is something like an auk or an ostrich.”

  "Does she fly into the room?"

  "No, dear, as I recall from Pinocchio, she kind of shimmers in on starlight waving magical dust all around and speaking in sweet, loving tones to you through your dreams."

  "THAT was the tooth fairy?" she asks, her brows knitted into a quizzical line of doubt.

  "Close enough. They all belong to the same union, you know. Cinderella's fairy godmother, Dorothy's good witch of the east, the Easter Bunny, Mrs. Santa Claus... they share magic tricks and vital information on good boys and girls."

  "So where does the tooth fairy get the money to leave behind when she steals my teeth," the little one says, getting more to the point.

  I think mightily for a few minutes. "Well, clearly, if she's picking up teeth and leaving money, she must do something with the teeth, something that gets her more money than she leaves because surely there are operating expenses with all the travel... let's see, what could that be? I know. In fairyland, they plant the teeth to grow more fairies. The fairy tooth broker buys the teeth for a pittance and sells them to a fairy tooth grower who sells the sprouted sprites back to the broker who re-sells them at substantial markup to fairy godmothers who raise them and train them and put them to work in space polishing stars. No?

  “Well, maybe she sells the teeth to the Chinese who grind them up as an aphrodisiac."

  "What's an African Deejak?"

  "Nothing for you to worry about. Isn't it time to turn out the light?"

  "Well, Dad, if the tooth fairy takes them away, how come the teeth end up in mom's little box?"

  "What little box?"

  "Mom showed me a bunch of baby teeth she has in a little box."

  "Gosh, honey, you've got me there.”

  “Want to know what I think?"

  "I'm all ears."

  "I think mom buys the teeth from the tooth fairy and that's how she gets the money to leave for the children."

  Now that's worth a high five and a Hail Mary, but I calmly say in my authoritative Dad way, "Well, dear daughter, I believe you've solved the mystery. Now can I tuck you in for the night?"

  "Sure," she said, giving me a large hug and smiling, very proud of herself. "But dad?"

  "Yes."

  "How fast can a tooth fairy fly?"

  "I'll clock one the next time I see her," I said. "Good night, dear."

  "Night, dad."

  In the Night

  Suddenly, you are awake, the room lit only by the distant glow of a streetlight and the digital alarm that says 2:32. From down the hall, you hear the reason you are awake calling “Mommy” in a faint voice. Surely it wasn’t the volume of the cry that awakened you; it was the call of the child, the genetic alarm, the karmic connection between mother and infant son that works better than any electronic child monitor. It is the helpless child’s call button where you knew instantly you were needed.

  You peek into the room to see him moving restlessly in his bed, driven by unknown dreams, but through the various grunts and cries, he utters that word again. “Mommy.” It is only a dream, you realize and there is no emergency, no sickness, no practical reason for alarm. If you were dad, you would pad back to the cocoon of your own still-warm bed knowing you had done your duty and there was no more to do.

  But you are not dad and you choose instead to savor this moment. You pick up the child tangled in his quilt and go to the old padded rocker where the two of you spent so many hours in his early months of life. His head still fits neatly into the hollow of your shoulder, his body
is still small enough to cradle in your arms. You softly sing that song you have sung so many times on so many other nights in this chair as you rock silently. His body is totally relaxed now, his breathing rhythmically calm. If you close your eyes, you can resurrect that odd mixture of soap and mother’s milk and infant skin, the smell of him as a baby, and it makes you smile.

  And though his dreams have long gone, yours have just begun. The silence of the night and the sighs of a sleeping child make a magic elixir that leads a mother’s imagination down the corridor of infinite doors opening to the future. How, you marvel, can this small being grow up to be a fireman, a doctor, a ball player, a husband or father? What decisions will he have to make and how will he make them? How many bones will he break? How many hearts will he break? How many crises will he overcome? How many waking hours will include both laughter and tears? It is, you think, the greatest novel ever written, where each day is a new chapter, the reader in suspense all along the way with surprise twists and a never ending supply of new characters, and the book never really ends.

  Even in the dark, your eyes can make out the stuffed animals on shelves, the books in stacks and on the floor, the toys and important treasures stashed here and there. You realize suddenly how temporary it all is, that you don’t own your children; you merely borrow them. They are with you for a fraction of their life, but in that time, you get to teach them, guide them and