A Day in the Life

By Vic Gideon

Every day my two-year old wakes up smiling, eager for the adventures of a new day.   The expressions on the faces of everyone his life touches, however, are not always smiles.

6:10 a.m.:   “I get out,” Victor says as he crawls into our bed, explaining why he isn’t in his crib anymore on this Sunday morning.

6:10 a.m. to 7:40 a.m.:   For the next ninety minutes, Victor thrashes around in our bed, making sleep impossible for everyone except him.

7:40 a.m.:   “Little Secret!   Little Secret!” he says as he gets out of bed and walks toward the computer in the next room.   Victor has been obsessed with a video my boys made which uses the All-American Rejects “Dirty Little Secret” as its soundtrack.   It’s called “Jacked Up:   Kids Beating Each Other Up” and involves scene after scene of my three boys and two of their friends tackling, punching, kicking, and throwing stuff at each other, even hitting each other with chairs.   Victor loves it.   I go to the computer, find it on YouTube and play it.   And play it.   And play it.

7:50 a.m.:   “Daddy ride!”   I put Victor on my shoulders and walk him downstairs. It makes me realize I’m not a young man anymore, not a surprise considering he’s our fourth child and there’s eight years between Victor and his next youngest brother.   I imagine myself with a halo neck brace.

7:55 a.m.:    “I do it!   I do it!” Victor pleads as I pour the cereal in his bowl.   I let him pour it and then spend the next five minutes picking Fruit Loops off the floor.

8:00 a.m.:   “I draw fireworks!   Fireworks!”   Not a day has passed since the Fourth of July where Victor has not talked about fireworks.   He saw them at Shaker Middle School and was terrified, clutching his mother tightly after every fiery burst, burying his head in her chest and fighting off tears.   But now he notices fireworks on every car commercial, talks about them daily, and, every time he grabs a writing instrument, draws them…and asks me to draw them too.   This has continued since July, even after the “Chocolate Strawberry Incident,” which happened as we’re watching the Indians from a suite at Progressive Field.   With the score 9-0 in the fifth, I get Victor some chocolate strawberries with whip cream from the dessert cart, the highlight of the night to this point.   He’s digging into his treat on the balcony when Franklin Gutierrez hits a long drive to right-center, the first occasion for any cheering in the first two hours of the game.   Everyone in the ballpark stands in anticipation as Victor looks curiously at what’s unfolding.   The ball clears the wall when it happens.   FIREWORKS!   Victor hears the loud crack, throws the entire desert cup in the air, strawberries and whipped cream flying everywhere and he runs into the suite crying to find his mother.

Today, on this Sunday night, there are supposed to be fireworks at one of the Home Days in a neighboring community.   “We’ll see fireworks tonight,” I tell him.

8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.:   Victor’s day is spent in a variety of random activities, many involving a ball.   “Watch this,” Victor says as he takes a mini basketball, dribbles it, and shoots into his mini hoop in the driveway.   This is both delightful and discouraging.   His ball handling and shooting skills make him look like a two-and-a-half-foot cross between Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki but the reality hangs in the air like LeBron flying to the rim on a fast break.   Victor has no pituitary irregularities that will make him exceptionally tall and no genetic predisposition to make him freakishly quick.   He keeps shooting, oblivious to these facts.

2:05 p.m. to 2:25 p.m.:   Victor’s two-hour nap ends after about twenty minutes. He wakes up saying, “Fireworks.”

2:25 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.:   Dissonant piano playing.   Note to myself:   get Victor piano lessons…soon.

2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.:   “I draw fireworks,” Victor says.   And he has, using chalk to draw colorful explosions on the patio, on the house, and almost everywhere there was an available inch of space he can reach.   Then he throws the chalk as far as he can into the backyard.   I don’t know why.

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.:   More random playtime.   Victor finds a souvenir baseball bat and asks me to throw him the ball.   Every time he hits it, he takes off running in a big circle, concluding with a roll/tumble/flop that passes for a slide into home plate. It’s both delightful and discouraging.    See section on mini basketball.

9:00 p.m. :   After dinner, we start a fire in the Chiminea, gather some sticks, and get a bag of marshmallows.   “I do,” Victor says as he shoves the marshmallow onto the stick and thrusts the sugary puff into the Chiminea until it becomes a flaming sugar ball.   He takes the goo on his fingertips and shoves it in his mouth.   He’s winding down.

I don’t know what the best way to raise a child but perhaps this philosophy is as good as any. I want every one of Victor’s days to meet the expectations of the smile that begins them, that Little Victor goes to sleep with so many loving memories and wakes up every morning with that same anticipation of another joyous day.

9:45 p.m.:   Sitting in our backyard, the nearby fireworks are visible in the sky.   The colors and sounds fill the night air. Victor is sound asleep.

Vic Gideon is a freelance writer from Cleveland Heights.