Over and over

One of the smaller surprises of fatherhood, for me, involves that songs that come out of my mouth on a regular basis, as Cleo and I wander from playground to Panera, and from playroom to library. It's not simply that that songs come to mind; I've long found myself mumbling, in a weak and undimensional voice, the lyrics to something while driving, or walking, or showering. But with Cleo, a stable rotation of tunes has gradually emerged, and each has, I think, a certain lyrical appropriateness or relevance. There's The Beatles' 'Norwegian Wood,' with its obviously pertinent opening lines: "I once had a girl Or should I say She once had me." There's the quiet anthem 'No One,' by Alicia Keys, with its soft insistence that 'Everything's Gonna be All Right' - just right for, say, a Tuesday afternoon when I've been watching Cleo for six hours, have three to go, and the kitchen floor is littered with pots and pans. And then there's Seal's classic, 'Crazy,' with its open embrace of such chaos: 'We're never gonna survive Unless we get a little crazy." Go for a walk in the mud, in search of a swing, and spend 10 minutes sorting woodchips? Sure thing, Cleo. I'll just sing some Seal.

Although I'm thrilled that Cleo does recognise an increasingly large stable of words - today, when asked, she pointed to a diaper; familiar forms like house and car are by now second nature - I'll confess to being a touch nervous that she'll catch on, eventually, to the fact that most of the songs I to sing around her seem to be, in some sense, psychological supports. Should I be trying to find, instead, songs that teach the sorts of nurturing lessons that bright parenting books seem to favor? A French ditty, perhaps, about a little girl who learned to share? Compositions that suggest an openness to various forms of creativity? Tupac, about appreciating his mother? Well, perhaps. But at least I'm not, I think, singing Don Giovanni's aria regarding his sexual prowess, or Axl Rose's unfortunate screed against immigrants and gays. One could find a worse parenting theme, in other words, than Alicia Keys.

But, really, I'm not sure that the lyrics, or even the melody, matter much at all, when it comes to Cleo's purportedly delicate ears. One of the words that she knows is sing, and one of the most endearing things she does is, when asked to sing, to simply say, LA LA LA, in what seems to me to be a standard descending series of thirds, and a slightly dissolving intensity. LA La la. Which suggests, to me, that my amateurish singing comes across as nothing but babble, stripped of both sense and melody. The Beatles, Seal: La la la.

Sound improbable? Well, maybe - especially if you belong to the Babies Are Amazing in the Way That They Soak Everything Up school of thought. But, if so, did you see Alex Ross' piece on John Cage in this week's New Yorker? The last paragraph is a doozy. Cage is quoted telling the story of an African prince who went to London, and was honored with an entire program of orchestral music. "And," as Cage told it, "he said, 'Why do you always play the same piece over and over?'" Cleo's no African prince, but perhaps the lesson to be drawn is comparable. In a diverse world of noises, subtle differences may seem worth noting, or even treasured, to the weary parent. But to the newly arrived, they may seem completely unimportant: invisible distinctions in a rich, rich landscape.

What you can and cannot do in a blog

In an interview with Newsweek published about nine months ago - a reference that tells you, incidentally, all you need to know about my current level of organization - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos offered the following thoughts on blogs:

"I believe that we learn different things from long form than we learn from short form. Both are important. If you read The Remains of the Day, which is one of my favorite books, you can't help but come away and think, I just spent 10 hours living in an alternate life and I learned something about life and about regret. You can't do that in a blog post."

True dat, Jeff - unless it's something about regretting to quote you, in a timely fashion, until most of a year had passed. Perhaps a blog post can communicate that, too. But let's look, for just a second, at the flip side of your claim in slightly greater detail. Can long form writing offer a pleasure as succinct and as easily quickly accessed by distant grandparents as, say, this:

Novels and blogs: both have their niche.

All of the honors, status and privileges that pertain

What do you get, I hear you asking, with dreamy visions of pear pine-paneled secret societies and sailing regatta trophies in your mind, as an alumnus of Yale? What privileges pertain? What coded handshakes persist? My friends, I will tell you.

You get occasional letters of solicitation, asking you to add to the school's $6 billion endowment. You get invited to pay $7,000 to join annual alumni trips to the Galapagos. You understand the withering reference to Bridgeport, CT in Franzen's new novel. And you receive - and here's the real, honest-to-goodness perk - the Yale Alumni Magazine. Pick it up, flip past the predictable references to the Whiffenpoofs, and there's almost always, in fact, something rather riveting. Perhaps it's a photo of the now-demolished bar in which you spent, well, enough evenings over the pool table to seriously delay progress on the dissertation. Perhaps it's the story about the 81-year-old alumnus who now audits a full load of classes every term, reminding you from miles away of the sheer pleasure of being a student. Or perhaps, as last night, it's the article about a certain Kevin Olusola '11. Interested? Instead of telling, I'll show: you can see him at work here.

Beatbox and cello? The combination's far from a natural one - it's no granola with yogurt - but it seems to work reasonably well. Or, at least, given my current state of mind it feels right. Living with a one-year-old, though, may have altered my sensibility. Suddenly macaroni and cheese for breakfast seems like a grand idea; a gaudy chartreuse shirt with a saccharine text and pictures of lambs matches a pair of tiny striped pants; dippping crackers in juice makes sense. Toddlers offer, in other words, constant mismatches and weird combinations - and so they put you in the mood for some classically inflected OutKast.

Yale teaches; Cleo teaches. As an alum of both, I'm happy to report that occasionally the lesson is comparable.

Steps

So I think it's fair to say that Cleo can now, for all intents and purposes, walk. Sure, she often wavers and veers, as though she's navigating the deck of a galleon in gale conditions, and she sometimes still extends her tiny hands upwards, refusing to move until she can wrap her fingers around a proffered hand. But she's been tottering about for more several weeks now, and has walked, unassisted, across rooms, playgrounds, sidewalks, and at least one church crypt. Where we were used to a relatively static little playpal, we've now got an avid explorer on our hands.

In turn, I've caught myself, at several moments, feeling as though our job as parents is complete. We'd obviously been looking forward to this moment for several months, and now that it's here, there's a part of me that sees Cleo as complete, as autonomous. You can walk, kid: now get out there and see the world, and please remember to drop us a postcard from time to time.

But while Cleo may be good at dropping some things - she was honing her uh-ohs this morning while raining Crayons onto the dining room floor from a chair - postcards from exotic locales may have to wait. After all, as I'm finding out, the girl's still only one. And even though I feel a strong sense of attainment, on her behalf, she's still developing in a hundred other directions. Steps are nice - but they're only steps to other steps.

Thinking about it today, while she lurched across a wooden tie at the Tot Lot, I concluded that this precise stage of parenting feels like that moment in learning an instrument when a student learns scales for the first time. This white key is a C, this black key a C#; this fret on the second string is an F, and this one's a G. Learn those positions, and the whole instrument seems to snap into focus. But what feels like an accomplishment is also only a beginning. Now that the notes are familiar, it's time to compose melodies.

Tears for fears

Do you ever cry? Cleo, 15 solid months old and a stubborn toddler in training, is something of an expert in the art: today, it was the fact that I wouldn't let her filter all of the sugar in the sugar jar through her tiny hands, as if she were weighing grain, while yesterday it was my dictatorial insistence that we leave the zoo before its door closed and sealed us in with penguins, cheetahs, and lemur. In each case, a torrid protest, accompanied by heartbreaking pearls that course down her little cheeks. By contrast, I'm usually dry of eye: in fact, I can only think of one moment in the past month when I've followed my daughter's lead and let a tear run down my cheek.

It was at the pool, a few weeks back. For the second time this summer, I saw a father of about my age in the pool, with a boy of about 5. All well, I'd thought when I first saw them, as the father slowly guided his son through the mild chaos of water wings, beach balls, shrieking kids, and Pilate-toned moms. But wait: the boy's expression wasn't quite what I expected. His eyes rolling back in his head, mouth hanging open, he seemed vacant, inattentive, absorbed in some infinitely distant reality. In fact, he reminded me of this detail in Raphael's Transfiguration:

I won't diagnose - I don't know how, and it's not my place - but it was clear that the child was not entirely present. Repeatedly, his father lifted the boy's right arm, to prop it up on the side of the pool - only to watch it sag back into the water. Repeatedly, the father spoke, in soft tones, to his son - and yet the son never responded, never looked into his father's eyes. Slowly they began to move again through the water, father holding son, and son limp, unacknowledging, silent.

It's hard enough to parent a fully healthy, fully responsive child. Doing so without the small and precious rewards of an occasional grin, or a voiced 'Dada,' or a task tried, and tried, and finally learned, seems almost incomprehensible. I felt a deep, deep love for the father's patience, and was reminded of Kierkegaard's phrase: the knight of infinite resignation. But what fate decrees that he, and not I, was the one to be resigned? And would I really handle such a challenge with such grace?

The tear suggested perhaps not.