Welcome to Nonbinary Day Care, Little Tyler Routh Mangione

My baby son grew up this week. He is now 47.

Three big things have happened.

1. His crawl speed has increased by about 300%.

2. He tried to climb up our stairs.

3. We are pretty sure he was trying to say “Dad” in the car yesterday.

All of this took place over about two days. I don’t know what’s with this kid.

Yesterday, I planned to have a pleasant day of testing country ham and procrastinating, but I had to go to Walmart get a baby gate and a real playpen. It couldn’t wait until today.

The crawling thing was a shock. I used to be able to put him on the floor and come back and find him pretty close to the same location. Now we get–literally–two seconds before he drops the clutch and crawls completely out of the room. For the first time, if he is on the loose, we may not know where he is.

When we’re on the bed together, I have to grab one foot of his romper and hold it, because he may launch himself like a Trident missile to get at the stuff on my night table. He may also launch himself over the side completely, head first.

There is no warning at all when he takes off. Suddenly, he’s somewhere else.

I don’t know how anyone can crawl quickly. It’s hard on the limbs.

When I hold him by his romper, he keeps groaning and straining. He never looks back to see what the problem is.

My wife found him at the bottom of the rec room stairs, pawing at things I had left on them because I was too lazy to move them all the way to the second story. She had to move everything away from him.

Now when I receive .22 ammunition to try out, I’ll have to take it all the way to the storage room. Otherwise, he’ll turn himself into a human magazine.

On the way home from the trip to get the gate and playpen, he started saying, “Da da da da da da DA!” I have been trying to teach him to say “Dad.” I touch my chest and say, “Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!” He thinks it’s wonderful. It appears he is trying to imitate me.

My wife says she thinks it’s great because she’s a patriarchist.

If only a feminist would come, deprogram her, and save her from happiness. She, too, could have 7 cats named after famous socialists and witches, an apartment all to herself and a fatherless son, dated Seventies rainbow hair, and a bellyful of Zoloft, Klonopin, semaglutide, and fattening bagged organic snacks from Trader Joe’s.

Putting a gate on the rec room stairs may be hard because we have a high baseboard. I bought something anyway, and I’ll see if it fits.

Playpens are now called “playards.” It’s not a real word, it makes no sense, and it looks stupid. When I saw it, I smelled wokitude.

Turns out I was right. Evidently, suggesting a child can be put in a pen is non-woke, microaggressive, and extremely hurtful. In the view of utter pinheads.

A playpen is nothing like a yard.

I call it what it is: a playpen. I will always call it that unless I can come up with something that invokes colonialism and manspreading.

Why do young people have to opt for idiocy every time? Is there anything millennials can’t ruin?

We already had a playpen for him, but it was no good, because it wasn’t a real playpen. It was a bassinet. The mattress can be lowered close to the floor, so that supposedly makes it a playpen. No; it’s just a weird bassinet. It’s small, and he can’t be expected to learn to walk on a foam pad.

I wonder when they’re going to come up with a new word for “diaper.” Maybe “pooyard.”

“I was chestfeeding little Lenin Snoqualmie when I realized zhey needed a fresh, sustainable, gender-neutral, tuck-friendly, soy fiber pooyard.”

This brings me to disturbing woke baby names. My buddy Mike already has granddaughters named Fern and Wren. I am not kidding. A boy is on the way. This was Mike’s chance for a normal name.

I won’t give you time to brace. They chose “Oak.”

Fern, Wren, and Oak. Where is Christopher Robin?

I almost miss the days when all liberals named their kids Dylan.

Oak isn’t a name. I don’t care if there have been people named Oak. There have been people named Raspberry and Osprey. Doesn’t mean these are real names.

Here is his future:

1. “Could you repeat that for me? Again?”

2. “Class, I thought I told you to stop throwing Oak on the ant pile.”

3. “Is it okay if I call you by your middle name?”

4. “Honey, I’m just not comfortable with ‘Oak, Junior.’ Let’s pick something else.”

I hope he’s big and strong, because he will need to be. A boy named Oak.

They gave him three names plus a surname, and only one is normal. Unfortunately, the normal name is sexually ambiguous. By design? Wouldn’t surprise me.

You have to give a kid an escape hatch unless you like putting cold washcloths on black eyes.

It was predictable that they wouldn’t consider “Michael,” even after all the things Mike has done for them and paid for. It fits in perfectly with all the things I have heard about them.

My understanding is that his son is a very smart and talented young man and an extremely conscientious and dedicated father. Mike says he is very concerned about morality and tries to improve himself. He appears to have a blind spot in one area, though.

Seems like an undeserved slap in the face to me, but what do I know? Mike would have been on cloud nine, but never mind. I would have loved to hear they named the baby after him.

I would have given my son my dad’s name, but because of my dysfunctional upbringing, hearing it makes my blood pressure spike. It’s like I’m a baby sparrow in the nest, and my dad’s name is the shadow of a hawk flying over. I gave my son my grandfather’s name, and I told my wife we should give the next one her dad’s name.

She rejected that, however, because he did not behave all that well in life. She has demoted him to middle-name status.

Christians name children to honor older people they know, or Biblical figures. Leftists name children to one-up other leftist parents.

Leftist 1: Our son has an Algonquin Indian name.

Leftist 2: Be better. My unassigned offspring has a sub-Saharan click-language name.

Leftist 3: How 2020 of both of you. We chose “Sinwar Bud Light Luigi.”

Is the last-names-first fad over with? Are leftists still naming their daughters awful things like Wilson and Flannery?

I am not in love with my first name, but it’s not bad, and at least it’s a name. It’s much more dignified than I am, so that’s a win.

“Tyler” is probably trending among leftists right now.

I think I should take a page from an old Bloom County strip and name a son Trump T. Trump. Or Reagan T. Trump.

It’s startling to see a baby make sudden leaps in development. Of course, it’s encouraging, but it also reminds me he will only be a baby once. When babyhood is gone, it’s gone. It has to be savored while it lasts.

We will try to teach him to have a little gratitude and respect instead of criticizing and putting us on trial every day of his adult life while expecting us to support him and do things for him well into his thirties. I hope it works, because I have seen what happens when it doesn’t.

Things are just about ideal here. My son is a joy. My wife and I love each other; we are more like parts of each other than separate beings. God’s presence comes to us over and over. Our area is peaceful. We lack for nothing.

Everyone was miserable back in 2020, but we both loved it. Then we found each other in 2021, and while a lot of people were worrying and being held prisoner in their own homes by Democrat governors, we were having long video calls, praying together, getting married on Zoom, and flying to exotic destinations to be with each other. Every year has been better than the last. As happy as we were with just each other, we are even happier now that we have a baby, and we expect every new baby to make us happier still.

God keeps giving us correction, and I believe anyone who keeps receiving and applying his correction will find that his life gets more pleasant as years pass. I am optimistic because I have a loving benefactor who is patient, eager to bless, and slow to punish. He has been right about everything.

Today we will be taking the baby to the dermatologist for a followup, and then we plan to go to our favorite restaurant: Costco. We hope to be home when the anniversary ring I bought my wife comes back from being resized.

If you’re not happy, keep asking God to tell what you’re doing wrong. It worked for the ancient Jews, and it is certainly working for us. God loves you as much as anyone else, so he is ready to start when you are.