I was trying to fight it. Desperately attempting to suppress it. Making my best effort not to show it. <\/p>\n
But it came through. I couldn\u2019t help it as we wandered like a pack of baboons through the Kennedy Space Center. My dad. My wife and our 10-year-old. My brother and his wife. And their nearly 3-year-old son, Striker. <\/p>\n
I just couldn\u2019t help giving the \u201ctoddler stare of disbelief.\u201d <\/p>\n
We all do it. Some people are mean about it. Others curious. Then there are people like me who can\u2019t seem to remember having kids at that age. We give off a look that seems to say, \u201cIs that normal?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s toddler denial complex \u2014 the belief that your child was never, ever that small, that energetic and that \u2026 well \u2026 kooky. That he or she came straight into the world refined, sipping tea, asking how the stock market was doing, able to stand perfectly still for more than 5 seconds and always saying, \u201cDear Papa, how may I make your life more enjoyable?\u201d
\n<\/p>\n
This is what I was thinking as I stared at my brother. We were waiting for a bus to take us to see rocket launch pads. Sweat was tumbling off him in rivers. His child climbed and twisted and squirmed in his arms. He and his son were in a never-ending loop:<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy? Is that our bus?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Striker, that\u2019s not our bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy? Is THAT our bus?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Striker, that\u2019s not our bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I couldn\u2019t resist anymore, I said, \u201cSo, he thinks that\u2019s our bus, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n
My 10-year-old daughter just smiled and shrugged. <\/p>\n
Toddlers are strange little people. I don\u2019t want to seem mean. I\u2019ve just forgotten it all. Or blissfully blocked it out. Maybe it\u2019s been too long. Or maybe it amuses me because I don\u2019t have to live it anymore. <\/p>\n
I snickered in the bus as the boy rattled off \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d over and over again. His father would reply, \u201cThat\u2019s a palm tree, Striker\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s some broken junk.\u201d <\/p>\n
I marveled at the pee-pee dances. The need to go here and then there at lightning speed. How he had to open up a toy with multiple parts right outside the gift shop. <\/p>\n
Does that make me a bad person? A bad uncle? I hope not. It just seems so foreign to me now. I stare and make strange faces and say things like, \u201cSo \u2026 has a trained physician looked him over real good?\u201d<\/p>\n
But truth is, I got a kick out of it. The nostalgia of it. Remembering how fun those days could be. The squirming kid who wanted to be carried. The curious questions. The need to play with a toy right then and there. <\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center photographer took a picture of my daughter holding the hand of her pint-size cousin. She towered over him, and it hit home how much has changed. I would have pondered it more \u2026 if the boy hadn\u2019t asked if our bus was pulling up yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was trying to fight it. Desperately attempting to suppress it. Making my best effort not to show it. But it came through. I couldn\u2019t help it as we wandered like a pack of baboons through the Kennedy Space Center. My dad. My wife and our 10-year-old. My brother and his wife. And their nearly 3-year-old son, Striker. I just couldn\u2019t help giving the \u201ctoddler stare of disbelief.\u201d We all do it. Some people are mean about it. Others curious. Then there are people like me who can\u2019t seem to remember having kids at that age. We give off a look that seems to say, \u201cIs that normal?\u201d It\u2019s toddler denial complex \u2014 the belief that your child was never, ever that small, that energetic and that \u2026 well \u2026 kooky. That he or she came straight into the world refined, sipping tea, asking how the stock market was doing, able to stand perfectly still for more than 5 seconds and always saying, \u201cDear Papa, how may I make your life more enjoyable?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,562,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-nutshells","category-childhood","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1489,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}