Make Mine Mike

How was your weekend? I didn’t do anything too exciting… went running, had a few drinks, photoshopped my pictures from the previous weekend.

That's when I had gotten together with my friend who’s had her third baby. We all oohed and ahhed at her, and I thought I'd blog about the little blob... but after the third repetition of the sleep-cry-eat-poop cycle, my friend's other two kids took over my attention.


Hannah and Jake are both great kids, but very different. Hannah was friendly from day one. Even as a baby, she included a climb-on-Michael step in her baby to-do list, and now, at 6, I seem to be viewed as a human jungle gym. Based on her, I thought I was a natural with kids… but J-dawg was more of a challenge. I’d pick him up, and he’d take a squirmy-wormy journey out of my hands. Even here, Hannah’s holding her shy baby bro in place to allow me to take this photo.


Further illustrating their differences: We went to the park, and in a minute Hannah befriended another girl, sharing shade, Twizzlers and face-stuck-that-way grimaces.


Jake sat down under a tree by himself with his hands folded in his lap and stared out at the lake. I’d like to think he was contemplating deep thoughts, but it was probably more like, “whatever those ducks out there are eating, I want some.”


After feeding him -- one juice box, two bites of a sandwich and three thousand Doritos -- I took him to the playground where we worked the wheels to the world’s fastest concrete racecar. Something got him to warm up: either my boyish charm or the blistering heat -- bad day to wear boots and baggy jeans. Three-year-old Jake figured that out before I did.


I walked him back into the shade… his little legs taking forever to travel 50 yards across the hot grass. When I offered to take him to feed the ducks with our leftover chips and bread, Jake seemed a bit disappointed to learn that they didn't dine on some kind of gourmet cuisine, but he was still excited to go. I was too impatient to wait for him to baby-step through that heat again. So I just picked him up, then expected him to do the J-Dawg jiggle dance... but I had gained the dude's trust. It was a pint-sized victory, but I'll take it.