Narnia

The Santee Library used to exist at the midpoint of Magnolia, before the freeway overpasses were built and when Magnolia Avenue yawned its way though industrial offage and into El Cajon. The library was either a temporary building, or presented as such. It moved its quarters two decades ago and last I visited the building, it was a thrift store. I picked up a vintage typewriter there for forty bucks.
I’ve been trying to impress upon Cayden the habit of reading, because I used to check out the max amount of books from the old library, and from an early age.
Cayde is not exactly me, despite otherwise tellings; he recites dinosaur facts and beats me at twenty questions on the regular. (“False Killer Whale, Daddy–you lose”). I high-five his scien-terrificness but also tell him to stop jumping on the couch already. I have so for FIVE YEARS. But he keeps jumping on the couch, sometimes just to surprise me with a springboard hug.
“Hey, Cayde–would you read a book already?” I say in exasperation and from completely the wrong place. And he won’t because he’s not me and because he’s an absolutely social being. He needs a playmate wherein I just needed those 28 books from the library. He’ll color if he has a buddy with him; the room will be littered with books if he’s having discussion with friends (the last topic being Giganotosaurus vs. Ankylosaurus—surely you, too, have an opinion…).
The other night he was in his mismatched pajamas and I was again dissuading him from jumping on the couch, please and dammit, and he ran out the door, dirty-heeled. “Have to get something from the car, Daddy!” I heard the van door slide open, then those feet again, before Cayde burst back into the room.
“I’m at the part where Tumnus asks Lucy for tea!” My goodnight hug involved a casted-arm and a head ricocheting against my hip. “Night!”
I checked in later: ‘Narnia’ was on the floor and Cayde was snoring. I’ve always been an ‘Oz’ fan, but I tucked Cayde in tightly. It’s what the Tin Man would do, after all.

Chicks

It’s chick season at work, which means there’s a number of round-headed kids in the nursery with pencil-necks, wobbly and with after-thoughts of flippers at this point. They’re in varying degrees of smallness reliant upon heat lamps. They topple over easily: clumsy toes, big heads.
Taking care of week-old penguins is both rewarding and terrifying: to dole out meals from syringes in 1cc increments, watching and hoping those wide-open mouths don’t well up, or that bellies don’t decide to be too full, or that sated chicks don’t decide suddenly their house is too hot after a big meal–it’s constant anxiety. You change towels, tip heat lamps just so, adjust the flow of a syringe because a chick may be thrifty, else a lazy feeder.
You wish upon wish you don’t screw this up while the chicks all present differently, curling up into corners after meals, or maybe craning a post-gusto head. They sometimes sigh big as if their houses were too hot, or they may sigh simply because we all sigh big after a satisfying meal.
You write things down, double-guess yourself, read fecals like tea leaves, and adjust that heat-lamp for the eleventh time. Near ten minutes after feeding time, the chicks stop their solicitous wobblings, their muted chirpings, and choose crash-out positions–like finding the perfect post-Bacchanal couch or piece of floor: ‘Hey–I’ll just sleep here, ok? Cool.’
And when you get ten or so kids down for the count with their ridiculous flippers out and their faces mashed into terry-cloth beds, you can breathe. Sortuv. You’ll wait forty-five minutes, and sometimes after you’ve clocked out. You may drive home feeling ok.
Then there’s always 2 a.m. when you jolt awake and worry; then 6 a.m. when you feed your anxiety with a disquieting amount of coffee.
Then: 9 a.m. when you arrive again at work and the kids are all right; still you’ll look ahead to 9 p.m. when—while driving home—you’ll worry again they’re not. It’ll cycle over and over until everyone’s full-grown and the nursery door gets locked for the season.
You’ll inherit a few gray hairs, if not–a new constellation of ulcers. You’ll also get those nights when—while turning the click signal that compasses toward your driveway—you still halfway smile while your brow suggests a frown.