It’s not always easy watching your little dudes grow up, but it can be rewarding.
Today, on this date 19 years ago, sometime in the early afternoon, Zippy the Monkey Boy came squirting out into the world. I mean that literally.
His mom was bearing down so hard, Zippy the Monkey Boy almost shot out past the doctor’s waiting hands. Fortunately, the doc had played softball for a long time and was a good fielding glove.
Not kidding in the least.
Still, his entry into the world was indicative of how Zippy the Monkey Boy would go through life. He wasn’t named Zippy the Monkey Boy when he first started staring owlishly at this new, bright and cold place in which he suddenly found himself.
We mostly called him Happy. Or Smiley. Or something along those lines, because that little dude was a marvelously well-behaved baby. For a while. We paid for the easy beginning later one, oh, yes we did. But the start was a smooth one.
Looking back, all I can do is wonder What in the hell were we thinking? Seriously, we looked at his older brother Sarcasmo, who at Zippy the Monkey Boy’s birth was 14 months old, and thought he would be mature enough to help us care for his baby brother. Zippy the Monkey Boy is a lucky little dude getting through that messily wrong assumption relatively unscathed.
He also had to put up with stuff his older brother didn’t. Sarcasmo got to sleep in a cradle borrowed from friends. Zippy the Monkey Boy? He got an egg crate folded up inside a sheet and placed in a clothes basket in which to sleep. It actually turned out great, because we could simply pick up the clothes basket and move it wherever we wanted the little Zip to go.
It was a great dirty clothes basket. In fact, we still have the thing out in our garage. We still have Zippy the Monkey Boy as well, but that’s not nearly as astonishing I don’t think.
For most of his life, Zippy the Monkey Boy has been a stubborn little dude. He’s finally beginning to turn that to the good, instead of using it for evil. It’s been a long, slow process, but the little dude has turned into a pretty amazing young man.
It’s not to say that he doesn’t suffer the occasional lapse, like for instance when he went off to a job interview wearing flip flops and fought valiantly to keep doing so because forcing him to wear actual shoes was, and I quote, “unfair.” Still, those instances are few and far between. And growing farther.
He’s become a young dude I like talking to. He has opinions that can differ significantly from my own and he’s not afraid to get into a spirited defense of those beliefs. And his arguments are more sophisticated than “because they’re cool.” He’s applying his analytical mind to things more significant than a logical reason why he should be allowed more cookies to eat before bedtime
It’s been an honor and a privilege watching as Zippy the Monkey Boy has grown into Zippy the College Boy. He’s given us trials and hugs, screaming fits and screaming laughter, anger and love.
Like everyone’s life, that of Zippy the College Boy has been a roller-coaster of a ride, filled with zigs and zags, ups and downs, but it’s been a ride I wouldn’t have missed for the world.
For a little dude who raced into the world, eager to experience whatever it had to offer, to a young man who believes that on-time happens to other people, he still has a ways to go. I can’t wait to watch his journey there.
Happy birthday, son. You’re deeply loved by more people than you’ll ever know.
