Dear Claire,
Claire let me first start off by saying that you are without a doubt the going concern when it comes to your mother and I, no question. We’re charged with your safety, happiness, and well-being and it’s something we take very seriously. However from time to time your mother and I are going to have a scrap and you might try to get in the middle of it, but as we found out today sometimes you only make things worse.
Here’s the scene earlier today:
Your Mother (YM) and I were taking a nice walk down by the lake today. I used the walk time as I often do to try to get out of my selfish thoughts about various projects I’m working and to focus on you, Baby Claire (BC). And this time I was thinking about the stroller, how freely it moves underneath you, how the bumps in the boardwalk don’t seem to bother you, the meaty tires taking the weight of precious you so easily.
YM stopped me from my reverie to ask me what she often does at the end of one of her anxious ridden rants.
“Are you even listening to me?”
This is a tricky question.
See, the thing is, I’ve developed an early filter, something men have been scientifically proven to develop over years with a spouse, something I’m just very advanced at, the ability to just lock her audible frequency right out from my mind. It’s there, I hear, it, I know she’s talking about something, but it’s murky, kind of off in the background of my mind’s ears.
“Oh”, I reply, “I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say something. It seemed more like a monologue than a dialogue,” I say to her.
“What?” she asks.
Again, tricky spot here. She heard me, we both know this, she’s given me what she thinks is a choice to correct the wrong, try again. I see it more as an ultimatum.
“Look at this thing,” I motion to the stroller, “it moves like, I don’t know, real well, don’t you think?”
She says back to me, “You know, I listen to your shit all day.”
Which is true, but I really didn’t want this to be about me right now.
“I’m just trying to enjoy the baby.” I say back to her.
“What was that?” she asks again.
And I know where this is going now, all too well. (So will you one day BC.)
“Look,” I explain, “I was just thinking how lucky you are that we have a stroller like this. It’s like a million times better than the cheap piece of shit you wanted to buy. Remember?”
“You’re unbelievable.” She says to me.
“What do you want me to say? You were talking about some really boring stuff and I tuned you out. Jesus.”
“I was walking about my life,” she lays on me.
This was taking a turn for the worst.
“I’m just trying to enjoy the stroller I bought us.” I say.
She gives me a look. Her eyes are watering and I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold wind or what.
“What’s wrong with silence?”, I ask, “I think it’s good for Claire to hear the sounds of seagulls and shit, not us always yapping and complaining about how our lives aren’t the way we want them. She hears that shit in her subconscious. You can see it, it registers.”
“Jesus, come on? What’d I say?”
She silently walked on.
“You said yourself that you’re still hormonal. I heard that much.”
She walked on, I thought back to the car, but she wasn’t there and I’m home now and have no idea where she went to. But when she walked on, I took a seat on the bench and took another look at the stroller you were now crying in.
“Wow,” I thought to myself, “it’s a really sharp stroller, there’s really no two ways about it.”
I thought it sad that YM had just walked away from us and didn’t share this moment to admire our stroller choice. If she were sitting beside me I’d of told her that I chose this stroller for her, I had her in mind.
See, years ago, as I was walking down the street one day there was a lady with two kids. One was running around in the field in the spring thaw with some snow and mud around. She had the other baby sitting in the stroller. She was trying to get to the one in the field. The small plastic wheels on her cheap stroller kept getting locked up in the snow. “That's bullshit.” I thought to myself. She seemed tired trying to fight through the field; too heavy to pick up and too much of a pain in the ass to keep going. When I saw that I though to myself, I don't want a shit stroller that’s going to make walking the kid a drag in certain conditions ... because I'm north american I guess. Oh, and yeah, I never helped the lady, I kept walking, which also taught me that people don't help ladies having troubles with kids in strollers which was another great lesson on life in a big city like ours.
And if YM were here to hear this tale, to hear what I was thinking about when I bought this stroller for her, as opposed to us walking along while she nattered on about something, then, maybe just maybe she’d be happy about something in her life, as opposed to storming off because I had no answer to her “my life sucks”. She’d see then what I saw: that she’s lucky to have me.
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