AChipOffBlock1.htm

Chip Off The Old Block

By: Dix

Amanda strode determinedly down the hallway of her comfortable suburban home. She clutched her squalling five-month-old son tightly to her. The boy struggled with equal determination to be free of his mother’s grasp. He waved his arms about, nearly blinding his parent in one eye, and valiantly kicked against her stomach all while maintaining an ear-splitting wail.

Amanda blinked, her poked eye watering profusely, and eyed the door at the end of the hall in mixed relief and worry. Turning the downstairs bedroom into an office had been her husband’s idea; an idea that had saved immeasurable time and worries once this small bundle of noisy joy had come into their lives. Today, if Amanda had her way, it would save time once again and very likely her sanity with it.

She reached the door and nudged it open with her hip. She entered to discover her husband seated at his desk, all but buried in stacks of file folders and loose paper. Amanda smiled to herself, secretly enjoying the look of abject terror that briefly crossed her husband’s features. While she knew he loved his son unreservedly, she also knew that he had been at a complete loss as to just what to do with the squirming, screaming, slobbery infant once they had brought him home from the hospital. The baby seemed to be able to cry and scream for hours on end. How he breathed, Amanda had begun to wonder herself. As for her husband, his initial loving wondering gazes at his offspring had lately altered to silent amazement at his lung capacity. At least, she assumed he was silent. When the baby took to exercising his now infamous lungs, even the neighbors couldn’t hear one another speak.

At least her husband never complained; she had to grant him that. He did make a hasty retreat to the office whenever the screaming began, but he never issued a negative word. Amanda was grateful. She had begun to doubt her own parenting skills. That no one else seemed able to calm the child was a small consolation.

“Sweetheart?” Amanda smiled and called to her husband. “The graduation committee is coming over this afternoon. I still have a lot to do to get ready for them. Could you, please,” she smiled sweetly, knowing the effect her smiles usually had on him, “look after the baby for a little while?”

He cupped one hand behind his ear. “Eh? What was that?” He returned her smile with one of his own, still eyeing his offspring with uncertainty.

Amanda chuckled and walked around to stand beside him at the desk. With no warning she deposited the squirming bundle the doctor had insisted was her son into her husband’s lap. In almost the same motion she reached into his ear, neatly removing the flesh colored plug he had tucked inside. Her husband scrambled to gather his son closer to himself. The flailing infant missed cracking his head against the edge of the desk by a very narrow margin. With the man distracted, Amanda gently removed the twin plug from her husband’s other ear.

“Thank you!” She said, making her way toward the door.

“Hey!” Her husband’s desperate voice called her back. “You can’t do this to me! What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Lee Stetson!” Amanda spoke in clipped tones, her frustration with her still shrieking son barely held in check. “That is your son. The very least you can do is keep him entertained while I take care of Phillip’s graduation committee. I can’t finish the house and lunch for fifteen people with Teddy needing to be held constantly. Please, Sweetheart,” she begged, “please help me.”

“I can do peanut butter and jelly for fifteen in a snap,” Lee offered. “Those got you through bringing this little ambulance siren into the world, didn’t they?”

“No way, pal,” she responded. “I have been through too much to get Phillip this far to do anything ridiculous now. Those are the people who will ensure that graduation goes off without a hitch and they deserve better than peanut butter and jelly.”

“Frittatas, then . . .”

“No way, Stetson,” Amanda insisted. “I need some peace. Help me or else.” She glared at him, pouring all her frustration with their child into her withering look.

Lee slumped, clutching at little Teddy as he again tried to dive from his father’s lap. He winced at his son’s continued wailing. “What do you expect me to do?” he questioned plaintively.

“I don’t know. I’ve tried everything.” Amanda flung her hands in the air and began to pace between the door and the desk. “I can’t take it anymore, Lee. Please, at least keep him for a while. I have got to get ready. Take him for a walk, read to him, bounce him off the wall, just give me a few minutes of peace!” Her voice rose an octave as she spoke. She left them then, sitting together in the desk chair, regarding one another with equal parts fear and frustration.

Lee stood and walked the length of the small room, bouncing his screeching son against his shoulder as he had seen Amanda and Dotty do with occasional success. He walked down the hallway toward the front rooms.

“Amanda!” he called. “It’s not working!” Lee continued to jostle the boy on his shoulder, twice almost losing his grip as Teddy grabbed at the back of his shirt and pulled.

“Amanda!” he shouted more loudly. Tightening his grip around his son, Lee soon found his wife bent over the living room couch, vacuum nozzle in hand. She turned and glanced at him, shaking her head.

“Eh?” she asked, cupping one hand behind her ear.

Lee dropped the baby somewhat gently on the couch and reached to turn off the vacuum. Teddy rolled over and promptly began drooling on the middle cushion.

“Lee!” Amanda scooped the baby up and placed him firmly back in his father’s arms. “In five months you’ve spent maybe five minutes with Teddy when he’s awake. Now, please, let me get this work done.” She turned the vacuum cleaner back on and turned away from her husband and son.

“That’s because when he’s asleep, he likes me!” Lee shouted above the whir of the machine. “This kid does not like me, Amanda! He doesn’t seem to like anybody!”

Amanda looked at her husband, lifted the vacuum nozzle in salute, and began to sing, “Don’t cry for me, Argentina. The truth is, I never . . .”

Lee returned her stare for a moment, then turned on his heel and returned with the baby to the office.

He settled the boy in the center of the floor between the two desks. This home office had been both a concession and a haven against the inevitability of his professional separation from Amanda. Their careers had gone in somewhat different directions in recent years, but having this small joint office at home had enabled them to maintain a portion of their partnership days. Teddy stretched out on the floor, still screaming, and just managed to roll himself over. Lee retrieved the basket of baby toys from behind Amanda’s desk and spread several options out in front of Teddy.

Teddy spied the small stuffed duck Lee had just pulled from the basket and reached for it. He hiccuped and drew a ragged breath. Reaching for the duck, he stopped crying. Staring in wonder, Lee placed the toy in Teddy’s hand. Teddy stared at the duck and raised his formidable voice in protest again.

“So you don’t like the duck after all, huh?” Lee asked his son. “Well, let’s just see what else Mom keeps in here.” Lee rifled through the wicker basket, discarding toys, teethers, and crumpled paper with abandon. “Some day, buck-o, you’ll be big enough to shoot hoops with dear old dad here. See? Like this.” Lee chucked three of the crumpled pieces of paper back into the basket in rapid succession. Teddy paused, stared at his father intently, and then resumed his shrieking.

“Look,” Lee continued, holding up a green book from the basket, “Mom said to read to you. Let’s try it, OK?” Lee leaned back against the front of Amanda’s desk and took the boy onto his lap. Teddy made his displeasure plain by repeatedly squirming out of Lee’s grasp. When the infant had slipped through Lee’s hands for the third time, he gave parent-child bonding up as a bad idea and left Teddy lying on the carpet. Lee opened the book and began to read in a clear, even voice:

“A mother bird sat on her egg. The egg jumped. ‘Oh oh!’ said the mother bird.” Lee paused in his recitation and regarded Teddy. “No dice, huh, kid?” Lee closed the book and tried once more to gather his son to him. Teddy alternated between full scale screaming and a heart-rending cry that Lee was at a loss to understand or soothe. Gingerly patting the child’s back, Lee looked up to see Amanda standing in the doorway.

“It’s no good, Amanda,” he complained. “Teddy just doesn’t like me.”

“Lee, you can’t read like that!” Amanda scolded him gently. “Didn’t anyone ever read you a story? Not once?”

“I remember teachers reading in school. But I can’t read him this stuff. I feel stupid reading about birds and kittens,” he replied sadly. “Listen,” he cleared his throat and visibly switched mental gears, “I really need to finish up in here. I’ve got a huge stack of files that need to be declassified. I can’t concentrate with Mr. Emergency Broadcast System going full tilt. Where are the boys? Can’t we get one of them to help out?”

“No, they’re both already gone. And no,” Amanda continued quickly before Lee could interrupt, “Mother is not available today. She flew up to Maine this weekend to visit Aunt Minnie.”

Lee flung himself prone on the floor, bringing both hands up to rub furiously at his head. He rolled over to face Teddy and took the boy’s small face gently in his large hands. “Please, Teddy,” he whispered intently, “please stop crying.”

Amanda settled to the floor with Teddy cradled between her and Lee. She reached out one hand to cover Lee’s and cooed soothingly, “Teddy Bear, please calm down and let Mommy and Daddy get their work done? Please?”

Teddy paused, took a series of halting breaths, and drew his lips into a tight pout. His face was scrunched up so tight his deep brown eyes were all but invisible. The rest of his face had long since taken on a deep red hue.

“Matthew Theodore Stetson,” Lee took full advantage of the respite and pressed whatever fatherly advantage nature had given him, “you will stop this right here, right now. Everyone in this house has gone out of their way to help you and all we get in return is your screaming. Since the doctor says there’s nothing wrong with you, can it!”

Teddy’s face took on a slight bluish tinge. Amanda reached out and pinched his nose shut.

“What are you doing?” Lee exclaimed. “He can’t breathe!”

“Phillip used to do this,” Amanda explained. She got no further into her explanation when Teddy opened his mouth wide, taking a deep breath.

“Oh,” Lee uttered, somewhat mollified that his first-born was not going to suffocate. “OOHH!” he moaned, as the baby put his regained oxygen to his accustomed use.

Amanda stood, dusting her pant legs. “The graduation committee will be here any minute, Lee. Please, think of something or take him for a walk.”

“Amanda, I have work to do,” Lee insisted.

“I know, and right now it includes keeping your son out of my hair. Please, Lee. I promise I’ll make it up to you.” She reached out to tenderly stroke his cheek in supplication.

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Lee countered as he struggled to hold his squirming son in place against him and stand with his wife.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Some time later, Amanda reveled in the silence that descended on her home. The graduation committee had departed, another successful session behind them, and Teddy was no where to be heard. Lee must have taken him out, she mused, grateful for her husband’s sacrifice. She shook her head ruefully, wondering why Fate had given a man so seemingly unsuited to family life such a difficult child on the first time out. Experience told her that Teddy would survive and thrive, but she had begun to wonder about Lee.

She made her way back to the office they shared, thinking to catch up on some
paperwork of her own. She stood dumbfounded, staring at the tableau before her.

Lee sat at his desk with Teddy nestled comfortably in his lap. All traces of Teddy’s morning long tantrum were gone. His face was a rosy pink; of his tears there was nary a trace. Amanda strained to hear her husband’s words spoken in a low tone. She edged closer to make them out more clearly. Whatever Lee said, it elicited a delighted squeal from Teddy. Teddy rustled the paper Lee held before them and elaborated in his infantile babble. Amanda edged closer still behind her family.

“Then Agent Davidson reached behind him and retrieved his weapon. Kolnikov (the perpetrator) was so startled at the Dole banana in Davidson’s hand that Davidson was able to kick Kolnikov’s gun away,” Lee read from the file before him in a soft, singsong voice, hugging his son closer to him. “Details are important, Teddy. Notice that this report makes it clear that Davidson used a Dole banana; some other brand might not have worked so well. This kind of information can help other agents. It’s important.” Lee bent to kiss the top of Teddy’s head, taking a moment to inhale the sweet, fresh, powdery smell of him.

“Agency reports are your idea of a bedtime story?” Amanda asked softly, placing her arms around Lee’s neck from behind.

Teddy clutched at the loose paper again, then turned and butted his head into his father’s stomach. Lee grunted and pulled the boy up against his chest. “It worked, didn’t it?” Lee bragged, displaying the happy child to his wife. “I guess maybe he likes me after all.”

“Just don’t go taking him to any train stations any time soon, Stetson,” Amanda teased. “Stories are more than enough for now.”

“Yeah,” Lee chuckled, gazing at the stacks of files littered across his desk. He hugged Teddy again and kissed his cheek. “And I’ve got a bunch of them.”

THE END

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