Nate stretched out his arms and said “I’m a biiiiiiiiig foooooooouuuuurrrrrr”.

He reclined in my lap, looking up at me, and I cupped one hand on his head and pulled his bangs up off his forehead. Now he resembled nothing so much as a puppy with its ears pulled back, and his mischievously gleeful expression never changed. It’s an expression he wears sometimes when he wakes up first on a Saturday, and quietly dances from one foot to the other towards our bed. It’s an expression that’s all teeth and tongue and sparkly eyes and crinkly nose. It’s that puppy, now with its chest on the ground, paws splayed out front, and looking up sideways. 

So he smiled up at me, and I smiled back down at him. And where there was once a baby, there was now a little boy. I smiled back down, because this was his big day. I smiled back down, because he’s happy and gracious, even when the birthdays aren’t his. I smiled back down, because today, it’s all about him. And he smiled back up at me, well, because he’s Nate.

The time of Three is now gone, and he’s Four Strong. He’s Baby Seal Four, and he smiled and he smiled.

***

And there were giant red poppies, handmade from colored tissue, and each had a Rice Crispy Treat nestled in its center.

And there were exhausted Mum-Mums, Da-das, and Grandys who had stayed up and up.

And there was a great slab of poundcake, cut into the shapes of a rabbit and a magician’s hat, then slathered with homemade buttercream frosting.  

And the kids’ table sat awaiting kids, and there were top hats and stuffed bunnies and wands and draped over small chairs, there were capes that sparkled with glittery red names.

“The Notorious Nate,” said one cape.

“The Amazing Allison,” replied another.

And Zac was Zany, and Clare was Captivating. Rachel was Radiant, and Liam, Lively.

Aleister, Hannah, and Colleen?  Awesome, Heavenly, and Crafty.

There was the Glamorous Grace Margaret, and the Lovely Leia. Elise the Enchanting, and Everett the Energetic.

“Sam the Stinker,” croaked the last, small cape at the end. 

And then there were grandparents and brothers, parents and friends.

And later, there were magic tricks and balloon animals and live bunnies and unexpected doves fluttering from impossible places. And there were bags and scarves and wooden clowns that started off one color but ended up another. And then there were handkerchiefs with disappearing polka-dots and drawings that colored themselves. There were volunteers from the audience, and pileups of hastily shouted magic words. 

And each of these things was punctuated by peals of laughter and claps and occasional looks, stolen briefly over tiny shoulders to assure that we were all watching too. And there, in the first row, was Nate - the Big Four; the Man of the Hour - with his cape falling over his small shoulders and his plastic hat perched perfectly straight atop his head. And he was beaming and bouncing and delighted. He was smiling with his mouth open, and when the magician would do something particularly magical, he and Allison would clap and look at each other. Allison is his best.

And then there was a tight circle of the Glamorous and the Zany, of the Amazing and the Enchanted. And there was the tearing of paper, and there were things that were new. There were things to be coveted by and then shared with the Lively and the Stinker.

And then four striped candles were lit, then not, and shortly afterward, a rabbit disappeared, followed by a hat.

And faces were wiped and hands were washed. Friends were thanked, and poppies were given. And then, one by one, groups of hats and bunnies and wands and capes began to disappear as well.

***

And Nate’s in his bed, and he’s snoring softly. His Big Day is over, and he’s got his ‘baby’ - Curious George in ’RollerMonkey’ Gear - on one side of him, and his much loved Elmo Binky on the other. I pull his robot covers up to his chin, and in his dark outline, I can see both the baby he was, and the boy he will become.

***

click for more pictures of the gala

Mum-Mum: “You guys! Why do I have to tell you the same thing over and over? How come every morning you make noise and I have to come in and tell you to be quiet because Sam is still sleeping? Why can’t you remember and just do it?”

Nate: “Because we just can’t! We’re widdle boys, Mum-Mum!”

A recent Saturday night. Late.

Jill and I are sleeping soundly at opposite ends of the TV Room sectional. I wake up in the flickering darkness and through squinted eye, see Liam between us, nestled back into the deep bend in the middle of the couch, sucking his thumb and staring balefully at the television. He regards me briefly over his small fist, then turns back to the TV. I begin to say something to him, I think.

A cushion… then darkness.

Later, I vaguely remember a sleepy Jill rousting me and herding us upstairs to our real beds. Liam walks ahead of me, and with furrowed brow, I follow his leopard-spotted blanket up the steps. “I’m going to lie down with Liam until he falls asleep,” Jill says.

I may have nodded, but no one really knows.

At the breakfast table the next morning, I suddenly recall my encounter with Liam the night before.

“Liam, were you watching TV last night while we were sleeping?”

“Yep.”

“What were you watching?”

“I watched a movie.”

“What movie?”

“I don’t know. But some guy was sawing somebody else’s foot off, and some other guy was encouraging him.”

I look at Jill, and Jill looks at me. She blinks rapidly.

“And then he was shooting a gun.” Liam continues. “And then he called him the adult word that starts with an ‘F’.”

He points at Jill, ”You know it, Mum-mum, say it!”

“My god. I think our five-year-old was watching ’Saw’.” 

I ask him why he was up in the middle of the night in the first place; how did he come to be watching an R-rated splatterfest, complete with shrieking violence, bloody hacksaws, and profanity-laden amateur limb removal?

He looks up calmly from his blueberry waffle.

“Because I was having a bad dream.”

Nate wanders into the room, dragging a toy broom and a plastic workbench leg.

Nate: “Dada, what if I said ‘Three Popcorn Leg’? And then… and then you said ‘Three Popcorn Leg!’”

Dada: “I don’t know…”

Nate, turning and leaving: “Three Popcorn Leg.”

Dada: “…how to answer that, man.”

We’re getting our third floor ready for human habitation. When we moved in eight years ago, this level had no heat, no AC, and no electricity. It was also home to a well-established bat colony - the largest they’d seen in 5 years, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources - that had had the run of the place since roughly the Hoover Administration. They used to poke their wings out under the door at night.

The bats, not the Hoover Administration.

So we evicted them, had all evidence of their 50+ year-occupancy removed via HEPA vac and bleach, installed AC and heating, installed storm windows, and wired the place up to code.

Oh, and we also had water leaks. And when I say ‘water leaks’, I mean the water was coming through the roof, through the attic, through the third floor, and into my desk chair on the second floor. Inconvenient. So we had all those dealt with also. However, coupled with the bats (and earlier futile attempts to deal with the bats), they had done some long-term damage to the plaster and lathing, mostly in the ceilings throughout the level. The original wallpaper was tattered and hanging in places like bandages from a mummy.

We decided to start with one of the rooms that was in the best shape, and turn it into a workout room. Originally, we were just going to clean everything really well. But one thing led to another, and before you could say ‘Random Orbital Floor Sander’, we were renting shit from Home Depot that required two people to carry to the car.

It also turned out that, like everything else with this house, she wasn’t going to let us off easy. We discovered that there was lead paint on the floor, so we had to dress Jill up like Dexter and hermetically seal her into the room with all the equipment before she could start sanding.

“Buhbee, put your hand up against the plastic so I can take a picture of it.”

While we were at it, we decided to get the center hallway knocked out too. More to follow when we’re actually finished with the painting and putting polyurethane on the floors. Until then, click below to see all the pictures to date.

Saturday. In the car. Liam pointing.

“That tire-swing gives me an idea. We should cut other stranger’s kid’s swings down, and stop them from having fun.”