Jason M. Jones

Photo: RAcosta, http://tullyphotography.wikispaces.com/RAcosta+repetition+and+variation

Wait, did I say joy? Maybe I mean that sarcastically. I’m not sure. It’s possible, at this point in my life, that you could replace me with a robot programmed to utter the same five to ten phrases and no one would notice the difference. “It’s bath time.” “Don’t stand so close to the TV.” “Why’s there cereal all over the table. Please clean it up.” “Stop touching your brother.” “Why’d you do that? I told you not to do that.” “Do you have to go potty? Well, why don’t you try to go anyway.” And one simple word, “No!”

These aren’t even the types of repetitions you could sample and drop into a hip hop anthem and sound cool. Try cutting that one back and forth: “Do you have have have, to go pot-pot-potty!” (By the way, in case it wasn’t apparent, it’s impossible to maintain any semblance of cool using the word potty.) Besides, my daughter’s selective hearing filters all these phrases out anyway. Perhaps a plush daddy doll, she could squeeze and these are the things it says, can we manufacture that? Maybe I could just hold it and squeeze it and save myself the trouble.

This is what my weekends amount to nowadays. I wake to my daughter calling me from down the hall around six. We’ve told her not to get out of bed but to call for us, and so far, she’s been good about this. But it’s only time before her fear of the darkened house wears off and she starts wandering about without us. So I get her, and we go downstairs and I pour her milk and give her Raisin Bran. Maybe we go to the park (when it’s not fifteen degrees outside, as it was this weekend) or maybe we go to the grocery store or maybe we sit and watch cartoons (I try to keep them educational, but there are moments when I stop caring and let her watch whatever she wants). I enjoy being with her. I take pride in being a ever-present and consistent force in her life, but the energy I expend, combined with the above-mentioned repetitions result in me using an exorbitant amount of mental energy striving toward her nap time, when I get an hour to myself.

When it’s nice I go running during her naps. I have six-mile, three-mile, and two-mile routes mapped out depending on how I’m feeling that day. And if it’s too cold or stormy, I read or watch a movie or sometimes back episodes of Frontline or Nova to try and keep my brain from atrophy. If she wakes early, there’s always an element of “Why couldn’t you have slept just a little bit longer?” But I collect myself and go to her room and get her. “Did you have a nice nap?” After this, I’ll either cook dinner or watch the kids while my wife cooks. From there it’s a straight shot to the bedtime routine. My wife and I take turns with elements of this. Some nights she gives the bath, some nights I do it. On nights when she gives the bath, I read our daughter bedtime stories. Then my wife goes to bed while I stay up and putz about.

All the usual platitudes apply: The days fly past. I’m not sure where the time goes. Last week, I was rereading the first volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle and came across this:

“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. This is where time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash, and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, sixty…..”

Which is frighteningly prescient. But it’s also inevitable, right? Should we just accept or fight this? Is it possible to fight?

I oscillate between trying to appreciate what I have and wishing I had a bit more freedom. But I wouldn’t trade the experience of raising my kids for anything, even if that were an option. This family is what I wanted, what I worked toward all my life. No one conned me into it, convinced me against my will to make decisions I didn’t want to make. This routine, though I have my complaints, is comforting. Much like a dance, I know the steps. I might feel like sitting a particular number out or step on a foot every once in a while. But I have fun. And there are moments of peace and stillness. An hour ago, I was rocking my son to sleep in his room. He drifted off. I sat, looking out the window with him in my arms. Snow was falling outside. I let it be quiet for a bit, the only sound the noise that the rocker made.

Creak….creak….creak….