swingers

when the baby was new to this world, a jumbled ball of wants and aggravations, she didn't do much aside from the standard shitting and screaming. a friend of ours asked mrs nice guy during these dark, sleepless days "what do you most look forward to?" mrs nice guy replied: "to when she's old enough for the playground swing."

ladies and gentlemen, the baby is old enough for the playground swing. we are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood with a playground-to-parent ratio of one-to-one, the nearest swing being a block from our home (even more fortunate, the parent-to-pub ratio is also about one-to-one). in this playground there are two sets of swings: those for children who have motor control and those for them that don't. seeing as how our child falls squarely in that second camp, we've taken her for a swing on the swing for the swinging-impaired. and she swung! sorta. she's kind of still too little. we'll slide her legs in through the holes and lean her waaaaay forward in the bucket seat before we gingerly give her a shove.

man, the rapture of this child! you would think she had been ripping nitrous shots off of whipped cream dispensers, she loves it so much. at first she is apprehensive -- what is this contraption these giants who hang out with me are putting me into? gradually, as the swing-drug begins to take hold of her central nervous system, she loosens up. she smiles her snaggletooth, 100-year-old-appalachian-woman smile (she has two little teeth now, poking up from her bottom gums). she giggles. she drools. she probably wets herself. and then she passes out. man. reminds me of high school.

it dawns on me now that perhaps one of the greatest things about parenthood is not that it makes you a more complete person, a fuller, wiser and more patient person. sure, it does all of those things. but the coolest thing is that it lets you do tons of shit that would be totally inappropriate if you didn't have a kid: like swinging on the big kid swings (just put your baby on your lap). or, when she gets older, sliding down the slide. or watching trippy little videos with singing puppets.

parenthood: the perfect excuse for being totally juvenile.