Sounds of Destruction and Chaos
Everywhere I go, people say, “Your kids are beautiful” or “Your children behave so well.” When I hear this I wondering if they are talking to someone else or just saying that to make me feel good because behind closed doors our two little toddlers Kennan and Tut are are little destroyers that feed off of each other. Being blind and a dad can sometimes make it difficult to see things coming before they happen but the sounds of destruction are very vivid.
Our oldest Kennan is the loud mouth that never stops talking and has now decided if he is not the actor in the crime he shouldn’t have to endure the consequences. As a result, I hear him say, “Tut go bang the cars on the wall” or laughing and provoking him by chuckling, “Tut is spreading sand.” He will learn soon that assisting in a crime still warrants time in the bedroom.
Tut, on the other hand seems to be the quieter and calmer of the two but in reality he is the devious and destructive one. About 7pm each night he grows little horns from the sides of his head and transforms into a little devil. As I sit on the couch recovering from a long day of chasing the boys around, I hear two noises. First, I hear a “Boom” and this is followed by Tut bellowing, “Dump” as he takes the entire basket of puzzles off the shelf and dumps it on the floor. I hear the puzzles pieces disperse amidst the floor but by then it is too late. I guess I shouldn’t get too mad as at least he is expanding his vocabulary with some action verbs. As I begin picking up the puzzles, he then moves onto the kitchen where he still has a bowl of goldfish crackers and some strawberries from his late afternoon snack. A “Crunch crunch” noise is heard followed by Tut shouting, “Stomp.” He has placed the crackers and the strawberries on the floor and stomped them into the wood floor. At this point, I am clawing my hands and putting them to my head as the two little brothers run up and down the hallway shouting and giggling.
Some of Tut’s other actions have included sounds like, “squish” and “splat.” On a sunny summer-like day in Seattle just this past week as I walked out onto our wood deck and sat on the picnic table I felt and heard a “squish.” It was a gritty type noise and my shorts began getting that damp feeling. The action of me sitting down was followed by Tut saying “Pile.” he had loaded sand from the sand box in the yellow toy dump truck and piled it on the picnic table seat. Not long after this, I heard a “Splat.” As I turned my head towards the source of the noise near the back entry into the home, I saw Tut running and giggling into the house. Tut had taken a little toy boat from the water table on the back deck, filled it with water and then dumped it just inside the house on the wood floor. “Dump,” he chuckled as he ran through the house waving the empty toy boat in the air.
Kennan is not always playing the assistant role. About a month ago as I filled out paperwork requirements to travel abroad, the kids were upstairs and the house became quiet. I got up from my desk chair and as I arrived at the staircase I heard giggling. I looked up and Kennan was at the top of the stairs with an entire bottle of hand sanitizer and was pouring it all over Tut’s head. I managed to get up there just as the oozing thickened chemical flowed onto his forehead. I was so thankful it didn’t get to his eyes. I was also thankful that the next morning he woke up and still had a full head of hair. Kennan has also been caught teaching Tut to wipe his bottom following using the toilet. By this I mean, Tut was wiping Kennan’s butt . I discovered this moment when I heard Tut say, “poop” as I walked into the dining room one evening.
There is never a dull moment in the house of Blind Baby Daddy and these examples only scratch the surface of the daily events in our home. Although I don’t see some of these things, the sounds tell a thousand words. In some instances, the lack of sound tells a thousand words. I definitely live a different life as a dad and must utilize all of my senses and intuition to maintain some degree of order. Every day I have a story that brings laughter and a smile to my face with these two precious beings!