CELEBRATING ST. PARKER'S DAY

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Happy St. Parker’s Day!

Sure, you traditionalists probably still refer to this as St. Patrick’s Day, but that is because you are woefully behind the times. March 17, 2003 was the first official St. Parker’s Day, the day I lost the battle over names for my son.

I thought Patrick was a fine name. My wife thought Parker was a fine name. Then he decided to come a callin’ on St. Patrick’s Day, so my wife played her ultimate trump card: She said, during the middle of childbirth, “ONCE AND FOR ALL HIS NAME IS PARKER!!!” So Parker is was.

It is far easier to change the name of an internationally recognized celebration than it is to change the mind of a woman in labor. Parker has grown by leaps and bounds over his first year. A year ago today, he was a messy, loud little thing who made strange noises. Today, he is a messy, loud little thing who makes strange noises and bites his sister.

The first year has been a blur. With your first child, you spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting for singular events: The first word. The first step. The first time you go more than 12 seconds without spitting up on a new outfit.

But with a second child, there is not a lot of sitting around waiting for things to happen. That’s because you are still keeping your attention focused on the first one, usually while saying, “HE DOES NOT WANT TO GO INTO THE DOLLHOUSE, ALLIE!!!”

During his first year, Parker has also been a snap when it comes to bedtime. When his sister was a baby, she decided that sleep was a horrible, painful thing, one that must be avoided at all costs. We wore holes in our carpet with our nightly dance marathons that we engaged in to get her to sleep. Parker, on the other hand, has this routine to go to sleep: (1) He waits until the clock strikes 7:00 (2) He drops like a narcoleptic on sleeping pills. And this is a great little trick he does.

Of course, there is one slight problem with this. When one goes to sleep at a  certain time, one tends to wake at a certain time as well. That time, for Parker, is 5:30 a.m. This was not a problem at first, because he would wake up hungry, and my sole job was to get Parker, bring him to his mother and go back to sleep.

Then nature progressed to the point where he was just waking up because it was time to wake up. Kinda hard for me to weasel out of that one. When my wife finally decided that it was my turn to go to start getting up with him, I embraced the challenge, mainly because the alternative was to embrace the single life.

I am looking forward to the next series of milestones Parker reaches. As I told you last week, he has already mastered a terrifically unsteady wobble that some might mistake for walking. He also is quite the chatterbox, varying his inflection of the word “cat” and “hi” to represent thousands of things. He also offers up the occasional “Mama” and “Dada,” but he is either indiscriminate with their use or thinks that the dishwasher is his father.

So with the mastery of walking and talking under his belt, I am moving him rapidly towards his next skill set, which is the random games that his sister and I play that their mother frowns upon. These include Roller Coaster, Bum Rush, Steamroller, Bulldozer and Earthquake.  Parker has been on the sidelines for months now, laughing and clapping whenever we engage in the traditional Gibbons family sports. He is no doubt eager to get into the game, and there is no time like a first birthday to start. His mother, I am sure, will celebrate this monumental achievement by saying, “Parker, Allie — I expect more from you.”

So I consider today not just a worldwide celebration honoring Parker. I see this as a new beginning. We leave the baby years behind us. Today, we steamroll, earthquake and bum rush into toddlerhood. I encourage the nation to get on board and continue the festivities year after year, celebrating each milestone that each St. Parker’s Day brings. In fact, I think Parker summed the spirit of the occasion best when he said, “Hi. Cat.”