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| The proud Papa in action. Here is my two year old Quentin & "His Baby!" |
For those of you who have not had
the pleasure of meeting my (almost) two year old son Quentin, let me tell you
he is a real treat.
While some toddlers haven’t yet identified
with a gender role, my son Q (as we call him) is 27.5 pounds of pure manliness. He is a sturdy little square block of swagger
and this kid walks the way that he talks: tough and with a slight limp.
His attitude is the perfect
combination of John Wayne and Lil’ Wayne.
Everything that he says is a hybrid of cutesy and cut-throat (or in his
case “Cute-throat” it’s a fun phrase that not only describes the way that
Quentin expresses himself, but it also makes it sound like he has an adorable esophagus).
When Quentin asks for a sippy-cup
of juice he sounds like the hardscrabble Sherriff of a one-horse town in an
old-timey western. He’ll go into John
Wayne mode and while the words that he saying may sound like “Juice daddy,
juice” what he is really saying (in my best John Wayne voice) is “Alright you
lily-livered varmint…I need some juice in my canteen old man and I need it now.
While you’re at it why don’t you fix yourself a sarsaparilla? You understand me
pilgrim?”
Yep, Q sounds tough as nails when
he’s demanding juice. Or whenever we’re
eating pancakes or waffles for breakfast Q will go into Young Money/Cash Money
Money, Weezy F. Baby mode (for all you white people out there that’s little
Wayne and don’t ask what the F stands for, it’s pretty explicative).
What Quentin will say when he wants
syrup is “Syrup daddy, syrup!” But what I hear is (in the most gravely Lil’
Wayne voice that I can muster) “Hey playa’...can you pass me the sizzurp. I see that you have some on yo’ pancakes and
I want to be stuntin’ like my daddy.” Then he’ll usually pass the microphone to
Drake or Nicki Minaj so he can go off and shoot somebody.
It’s a seriously thugged-out way to
ask for a sticky sap-based breakfast condiment.
However, all of my son’s
gangster/gangsta’ bravado melts away when he’s playing with his favorite
toy. Which because I am comfortable
enough in both his masculinity and my own masculinity I can tell you is a pink
baby-doll that he has named “Baby” (very original).
In his day-to-day dealings Quentin
is the king of cool, but when he is playing with Baby he drops his whole
John/Lil’ Wayne Swag and he quickly becomes every mom that you’ve ever seen on
the popular police documentary show “Cops”.
Let me explain.
You know that we’ve all seen
episodes of Cops where there’s some dude in his late teens, early 20’s (hell,
even their late-40’s) whose still living at home with their mom. Maybe this guy has just gotten out of jail
and he’s trying to get his life back-on track and for whatever reason he’s
slipped-up and the boys in blue are hand-cuffing him on his mother’s
front-lawn.
Apparently your mother’s front yard
is the best place in the world for cops to slap the cuffs on you. Why is your mother’s yard the ideal place to
get handcuffed? Well, it’s soft, it’s familiar
and if you end up with your face shoved into a pile of dog-pooh at least you
know that it’s from your own dog.
Anyways, no matter what the crime
or ethnic background of the assailant’s mother is, her line of dialogue is
always the same. When that mom see’s her
son lying face-down on that freshly cut grass, with his fidgety hands behind
his back, no matter how old he is or what crime he’s being accused of, the
mother will always yell-out “Owww, My Baby!” That’s right we always hear “Owww,
My Baby” echoing out through the midnight air of the projects and trailer parks
alike as law enforcement officials load that woman’s son into the back of their
squad-car.
Whenever, somebody touches Q’s baby
Baby, there is a strong-sense of preschooler panache that takes over every
ounce of his body.
Whenever he sees the baby he’ll
always yell out “Owww, My Baby! Owww!”
Whenever he realizes that he can’t
see his baby he’ll yell-out “Owww, My Baby! Owww!”
And whenever he realizes that he
has left his baby on the stove (as he does at least once a week) he’ll yell out...?
You guessed it “Owww, My Baby! Owww! (By the way, leaving the baby on the stove
is not something that you should ever do with a real baby. That’s stuff that
they teach you on Day one of Parenting 101.
As a matter of fact, that’s not even in a daily lesson, it’s just
preamble on the syllabus “Warning: Never put your baby in/or on a stove.
Period.”)
While some Father’s might be
slightly embarrassed by their son choosing a poorly-named pink baby-doll as
their favorite toy, I totally embrace it.
I think that this interest in embracing his maternal side is a sign that
my youngest son is developing into a truly complex, multi-facetted individual.
Even from a young age Quentin realizes the importance of loving and caring for
your children and he makes it a priority to try his best to take care of his
little one (all stoves aside).
It’s people like him who will make
the world a more diverse and interesting place to live in. And how do I feel
about becoming a grandpa at 30? Well, as long as I don’t have to pay for Baby
Spink’s college education anytime soon I’m fine with it. And as a Grandfather it’s much cheaper to
spoil an imaginary baby than a real one.
So in order to show off the sweet &
sour polarities of Quentin’s personality, here is my impression of my slightly schizophrenic
son asking for a cup of juice and a squeeze of some syrup to go with his
pancakes.
Here it goes:
(John Wayne) “Howdy-doody father? I
reckon that if you know what’s good for you then you’ll fix me up a shot of freshly
squeezed Orange Juice... (Lil’ Wayne) And sum of dat sizzle-sizzle sizzurp fo’
me & ... (Mom on every Episode of Cops) My BABY! Owww, My Baby!”
Who is this Quentin Spink? Is he a
gun-slinger from the old west? Is he a
prolific gangster rapper from the South (who also has been known to sling his
share of guns)? Nope.
Who is Quentin Spink? He is a
loving & caring (almost) two year old father of one. Oh yeah, and he is also “My Baby, Owww My
Baby!”
