I am so awesome
By Felix Carroll
I don't understand this obsession parents have of living vicariously through their children. My obsession is way more fun: living vicariously through my child's wholly distorted and wildly awesome image of me.
For instance, as far as my 6-year-old boy is concerned, if I just so much as bang a nail into a stud and hang a picture on the wall, I am the Greatest Carpenter in the World.
If I strum the power chords to "Won’t Get Fooled Again," I am the Greatest Guitarist Who Ever Lived.
If I just so much as grow a green bean, find his misplaced flip-flop, point to a dark cloud and predict rain, hand him a yo-yo, perform a cannonball off a dock, add liquid to powder to make chocolate milk, or pretend to crack an egg on my forehead, I am the Greatest Farmer-Rescuer-Meteorologist-Mind Reader-Cannonballer-Chemist-and-Comedian in the Whole History of the Planet, Ever -- a cross between Apollo, god of light and sun, and Steve-O, god of doing stupid things for a good laugh.
Make no mistake, my friends, this is why so many men have declared that the birth of their children marked the happiest day of their lives. It's because on that day, surely a star shone brightly in the midday sky. Someone very special came along in our lives, someone with the wisdom of the ages.
"He gets me," I've heard myself say more than once -- to my wife, my mother, his pediatrician, my priest, and the woman at the returns counter at Kmart. "He's really intuitive, you know? Like, scary smart."
Don't you dare call it fraud. Fatherhood is an all-natural, totally legal juicing of the ego.
But of course, I say all this with a heavy heart, a deeply sad, depressing, gloomy, cheerless, somber-sort-of-dismal heart, because I am fully cognizant of the fact that as my boy grows older it's quite likely he could begin to view me as a cross between Mustachio the Great, whose two tons' worth of steel barbells have been revealed as two pounds' worth of molded Styrofoam, and Don Knotts in one of his more annoying roles.
So, the way I figure it, I've probably got a good 24 to 32 months to figure this all out -- to either somehow become truly, wildly awesome or to devise more elaborate subterfuges to hide the terrible normalness of me.
To do the former could require a lot of night school, membership in a gym, perhaps a solo trip to Tibet, some basic lessons in botany, knot-tying, gambling with class, rugby, oratory, underwater demolition, as well as memorization of both the Art of War and the Gospel According to John, buying, mounting and murdering a speed bag, and learning how to start a fire with a Coke can and a chocolate bar.
The subterfuge route could prove less labor-intensive. But even with that, I do worry this is the sort of perilous path taken by well-intentioned men who eventually become inexcusably emboldened to lead armed coups. You know what I mean: the sort of good-hearted men-of-the-people who later become paranoid despots in small, tropical nations.
So where are we with all this? I'll tell you where we are.
Today, just now, this very morning, I had to pull out an extension cord, plug in a skill saw, put on some protective eyewear, and cut a brutal four-foot by six-foot hole in the pantry floor so a plumber could come and turn it into a powder room. And my boy watched all this, wide-eyed, mouth gaping, practically in tears at the very awesomeness of me and the things I do.
"Dad," he said, as I rolled the extension cord back up, elbow to thumb, like the sailors do, "That. Was. So. So. So. Awesome!"
And you know what? He's right. That was awesome. And if when he turns 9 and, through no fault of my own, he no longer sees the truth of my awesomeness, that won't be my problem, right? That will be his problem. Too bad for him!
I'll have no other choice but to do the very thing that the Greatest Problem Solver God Has Ever Created On This Great Green Earth would be expected to do: I'll ask my wife if she’s ready to have another baby.
I don't understand this obsession parents have of living vicariously through their children. My obsession is way more fun: living vicariously through my child's wholly distorted and wildly awesome image of me.
For instance, as far as my 6-year-old boy is concerned, if I just so much as bang a nail into a stud and hang a picture on the wall, I am the Greatest Carpenter in the World.
If I strum the power chords to "Won’t Get Fooled Again," I am the Greatest Guitarist Who Ever Lived.
If I just so much as grow a green bean, find his misplaced flip-flop, point to a dark cloud and predict rain, hand him a yo-yo, perform a cannonball off a dock, add liquid to powder to make chocolate milk, or pretend to crack an egg on my forehead, I am the Greatest Farmer-Rescuer-Meteorologist-Mind Reader-Cannonballer-Chemist-and-Comedian in the Whole History of the Planet, Ever -- a cross between Apollo, god of light and sun, and Steve-O, god of doing stupid things for a good laugh.
Make no mistake, my friends, this is why so many men have declared that the birth of their children marked the happiest day of their lives. It's because on that day, surely a star shone brightly in the midday sky. Someone very special came along in our lives, someone with the wisdom of the ages.
"He gets me," I've heard myself say more than once -- to my wife, my mother, his pediatrician, my priest, and the woman at the returns counter at Kmart. "He's really intuitive, you know? Like, scary smart."
Don't you dare call it fraud. Fatherhood is an all-natural, totally legal juicing of the ego.
But of course, I say all this with a heavy heart, a deeply sad, depressing, gloomy, cheerless, somber-sort-of-dismal heart, because I am fully cognizant of the fact that as my boy grows older it's quite likely he could begin to view me as a cross between Mustachio the Great, whose two tons' worth of steel barbells have been revealed as two pounds' worth of molded Styrofoam, and Don Knotts in one of his more annoying roles.
So, the way I figure it, I've probably got a good 24 to 32 months to figure this all out -- to either somehow become truly, wildly awesome or to devise more elaborate subterfuges to hide the terrible normalness of me.
To do the former could require a lot of night school, membership in a gym, perhaps a solo trip to Tibet, some basic lessons in botany, knot-tying, gambling with class, rugby, oratory, underwater demolition, as well as memorization of both the Art of War and the Gospel According to John, buying, mounting and murdering a speed bag, and learning how to start a fire with a Coke can and a chocolate bar.
The subterfuge route could prove less labor-intensive. But even with that, I do worry this is the sort of perilous path taken by well-intentioned men who eventually become inexcusably emboldened to lead armed coups. You know what I mean: the sort of good-hearted men-of-the-people who later become paranoid despots in small, tropical nations.
So where are we with all this? I'll tell you where we are.
Today, just now, this very morning, I had to pull out an extension cord, plug in a skill saw, put on some protective eyewear, and cut a brutal four-foot by six-foot hole in the pantry floor so a plumber could come and turn it into a powder room. And my boy watched all this, wide-eyed, mouth gaping, practically in tears at the very awesomeness of me and the things I do.
"Dad," he said, as I rolled the extension cord back up, elbow to thumb, like the sailors do, "That. Was. So. So. So. Awesome!"
And you know what? He's right. That was awesome. And if when he turns 9 and, through no fault of my own, he no longer sees the truth of my awesomeness, that won't be my problem, right? That will be his problem. Too bad for him!
I'll have no other choice but to do the very thing that the Greatest Problem Solver God Has Ever Created On This Great Green Earth would be expected to do: I'll ask my wife if she’s ready to have another baby.
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