The first few months of being a dad weren’t quite as odd as I’d imagined. Of course, nothing can truly prepare you for the reality of parenthood. A lifetime worth of television, movies and literature depicting the endless sleepless nights and ear splitting screams are no less a primer than the endless procession of people who line up to tell you the same things in slightly different words, “Just wait,” they sing with a satisfied smile, “everything changes!”

And they’re right, everything does. Though not exactly how I expected.

Cindy and I would experience the soul siege of sleepless nights two and a half years later with the birth of our son, but we were spoiled with our daughter. She came, at least for the first couple of years, with her batteries included. She gave us little trouble and allowed us to believe we were some sort of super parents.

This parenting gig was easy, we thought. We’d spent nine months with Mia as our constant companion, even though she had been stuck on the side of the womb which carried an echo. She was no less our confederate once confined to the car seat.

She accompanied us on every adventure, sat with us during every meal, and was included in much of our everyday conversation. She had her mother’s giant eyes, her father’s giant smile, and seemed to have an old soul aware enough to constantly evaluate her surroundings.

I know I was obnoxious as a first time father. Three months into being a dad, I acted as though I was the first person to ever become a parent. I often spray my puppy dog slobber all over the place, even on those things I am not terribly excited about. When it came to my offspring, I was as giddy as gremlin after midnight. Yet, my enthusiasm wasn’t entirely blind.

I was immediately dedicated to being the best dad I could possibly be. A large part of that was in the way I communicated with my daughter. Just because she didn’t understand every word, didn’t mean she wasn’t trying. And how was I to know she didn’t? What if there was a tiny part of her brain, one chip amid the circuitry, which truly did understand it all; something deep in the recesses of her brain granting access to our collective unconscious.

I could feel the curious looks from outsiders as I spoke to my baby in full and rather robust sentences. And yes, I did occasionally feel odd beneath the stares. But I kept right on marching along with the nouns, verbs and dangling participles. I was positive my effort would one day explode forward in a torrent of accumulated language. Every word I’d slammed against the backboard alone would one day be part of our volley.

And they were.

Sometime around 18 months of age, our daughter started marching through the house spewing both questions and answers in long, elegant sentences. Within a couple of months after that, her favorite word was actually, which she used as the start for every other new sentence. But it was a full year before that when I got my first taste of the fun which would one day accompany the constant banter with my baby.

It was during a game of, My Turn, Your Turn.

Mia was six months old. I was laying on the bed beside Cindy, with Mia between us. I rolled over, lifted Cindy’s shirt a few inches above her innie and blasted her belly with a zerber loud enough to rattle the windows in the apartment below.

“Stop it,” Cindy said, even though she didn’t mean it.

“Did you hear what she said?” I asked Mia. “She said it’s your turn.”

A smile spread on Mia’s face; a big, giant colossus of a grin. She crawled over to Cindy, climbed on her belly, lifted her shirt exactly as I had, pursed her tiny lips, and blasted her belly with a zerber which barely fluttered the thin cotton of Cindy’s tee-shirt.

“My turn!” I blasted Cindy’s belly a second time, even louder than the first. “Your turn!” I turned to Mia and smiled.

We continued to trade turns as Cindy patiently watched me and Mia abuse her belly as blasting pad.

Mia was not yet speaking, but she understood exactly what was happening and knew precisely how to play her part. I felt as warm and connected to my daughter that day as the sun in the sky exchanging places with the passing moon.

I knew things would change when I became a dad, though I could have no idea how much or why. I did not know what sort of father I would be because I could have no true idea what the job required. It didn’t take long for me to realize that being a father would simply require me to be my best self as often as possible, providing my child with the constant opportunity to observe and absorb.

Soon enough, all those observations will gather to something significant. Your child will take all she is, blend it with all she came from, then mingle it with every little lesson learned to finally reveal a brand new personality for all the world to see.

Yes, having a child means everything changes, but it isn’t just sleepless nights and endless feedings. Your child will change you as well, especially if you allow it. Children will change your expectations of who you are and who they might one day be.

Allow these changes to happen, nurture the incremental bits of evolution, and allow each day to shape you.

Idon’t want to dip too far into hyperbole here, so I’ll say my mom is the 47th most annoying person to ever live.

She’s not mean or evil or anything. In fact, my old lady is about as nice as they come. But that and two dollars will get me a single cup of Venti black and not one drop more. It isn’t so much that she’s annoying, it’s that my mom is entirely delighted with her unique nature, and every small or large annoyance it may bring.

My mommy dearest feels she is above the boundaries of “boring” society. Asking her to adhere to these fundamental laws is the same as asking her to “fit into a little box;” an accusation she’s made more times than I can count or care to remember. Examples of my shoving her into said box would be requesting she show up on time (which she now does more often than not!), handle her finances in a way that doesn’t continuously lean on the goodwill of those around her, or maintain a house that doesn’t require the use of a Hazmat suit for even the briefest visit.

My mother’s house, both inside and out, looks as though the surrounding boroughs were flipped upside down, with their contents shaken and strewn hither and tither, with about half  landing in and around her plot.

Though my mom has always been a big giant bag of happily crazy, and as much as it drove me nucking futs for my entire life, getting upset was like shaking my fist at the sun for making me hot. I naively assumed that becoming a grandmother would soften some of her loco, but my mother is a performer. She did not see a grandchild as an opportunity for personal evolution, or a new chance to set an important example for. Rather, she saw it as an extension of the stage where she could do her song and dance before a brand new set of eyes.

“Please Mom,” I’d beg, “Can you just try and bring a little less of your crazy?” Yet my mom would merely give vent to her cackle and fuel me with the same frustration I’d been feeling for years.

My mom is the type of visitor who will knock on your door at completely random times, with no warning beyond the telltale sound of her giant fistful of jingling keys. ”Hi Mom,“ I’d say, looking past her at the full moon in the sky. “Couldn’t you have maybe…I don’t know…called first?“

“Oh, you know I’m not a planner,” she’d say, with a dismissive wave of her hand to let me know that I am simply too uptight.

I’d hoped, and even dared to believe, that a marriage would mute some of my mommy’s foggy manners. Instead, it seemed like it only made her consider them especially funny. Again, new eyes to my mom have always equaled new audience. I wish I could tell you the first words she ever said to Cindy, just twenty seconds after their introduction, but they are rather unbelievable and I’d hate to damage my credibility.

Getting married hadn’t moved our relationship forward in the way I had hoped it would, but I was still willing to believe that having a child would bring new behavior all the way home.

Sidewalk can stay frozen all winter long, but eventually the sun melts the snow. Right…right?

Wrong.

My mom would still show up in the middle of dinner, at bed time, or on a random Sunday afternoon. Sometimes to ask for money, occasionally to drop off something special she found at the thrift store (or along the side of the road), and every now and then just to say hello. Often, she would call me up to share whatever random thing was floating through her head.

Right about now you may be thinking that I’m an ungrateful son with no interest in talking to his mother. I assure you, this is not the case. I’d like to submit as evidence to the esteemed members of the jury, Exhibit A: an actual sample snippet of conversation between us.

“Hello.“

“Hi, booger baby. I just heard the acoustic version of Hotel California on 93.1. They’ve been playing such great stuff lately. Glen Frey had the best hair in the 70’s. I don’t know why he had to go and get all butch with those Holiday Health Spa Commercials. He and Jackson Brown always had the best hair. Your father and I saw them both one time in concert, but…“

“Um… yeah, Mom, I’m kinda busy,” I said, a crying baby splitting the silence in the background. “We’re in the middle of dinner, just like we are every day at this time. Did you need anything specific?”

“No. I was just driving and heard Hotel California….

&$$#*^(@$^$(*&#^$(@#*$^@#&*$^&#*($&@#^$&#)*_#@*$#@&!”

After yelling a string of profanities in my ear, aimed at another driver but loud enough to make me hold the phone away from my head, she returned to the conversation.

For about a second.

“Hold on! I think there’s a cop behind me!” I waited through the longest minute of silence ever, while my baby daughter continued to cry. Then, finally, “You there?”

“Yeah, Mom.“

”What was I saying?“

”You were talking about Glen Frey’s hair.“

”Oh yeah, he’s such a cutie-pie!“

After she finished her girlish little giggle, “I’m going to finish dinner now, okay.”

She released a rather large and overly dramatic sigh, then said, “Fine!” in a tone suggesting I’d denied her a loan or perhaps ran over her puppy.

This type of exchange was common, and frustrated me to no end back when it was just her and me. Yet no amount of my words could ever succeed to convince her of this. Deep down, my mom always believed that since she thought her behavior was cute, then everyone else did, at least on some level, as well. Of course, once Cindy and I were together, my deeply rooted feelings became a result of the new woman in my life who had “succeeded in changing me.”

By the time we were married with our first child, Cindy had been together for nearly five years and I was still running in the same circles with my mom that I had been since pre-adolescence.

Old dogs may not be able to learn new tricks, but fortunately they can sometimes learn enough to at least pretend. It’s now eight years since the birth of our daughter, and though my mom is still the 47th most annoying person to ever live, she has come a long, long way.