The "D" Word

By Jeff Stimpson

I’m putting a new diaper on my three-year-old, Alex. We’re still using diapers and there is no indication that toilet training will begin soon. This isn’t too bad, I guess, for a kid who was born three months premature and spent the first year of his life in the hospital.

Alex starts to twist and raise himself off the crib mattress. "Alex, diaper," I say. He has learned that when I say this, he is to lie still. But he shouldn’t even be in a crib anymore. We’re worried about Alex. We’re worried about his future and his head size, and everything that both of these things might mean.

I’m worrying about all this stuff when I pull the sticky tab too hard. The diaper rips. "Dammit," I mumble.

I get one sticky tab done down there and am just starting to line up the other one over Alex’s hip when from down in the crib somebody also says, "Dammit."

It is soft and sweet and clear, like little snowflakes drifting to earth and landing in the shape of a curse word. Alex could become president and I’ll never be prouder than I am right now! "Alex, don’t say that," I tell him.

I swore when I was three. At least that’s what my big brother says, and he should know: he tripped me. My old house had railroaded rooms from the back of my parents’ bedroom all the way to the sink on the far wall of the kitchen - a country mile to a three year old - and I was barreling down this highway when, reportedly, out came big brother’s foot. I landed on my stomach and skidded three feet until my head met the base of the sink cabinet with a little ting. My brother says he leaned over and, between spasms of laughter, managed to ask if I was all right. I, again reportedly, rolled my eyes up at him and for the first time said that very bad word that rhymes with "duck."

Had I known her then, maybe I could’ve learned that word from my wife, Jill, who grew up in New York and who is therefore as charmed as I am by Alex’s new word.

"That is so cute," Jill says. "We can’t let Grandma hear that."

"Damn, damn, damn," Alex murmurs, hand over hand along the railing of the crib. "Damn, damn, damn." He won’t eat vegetables or cheese, but he’ll say "dammit."

(If Grandma’s reading this: It was Jill, Jill, Jill! You know how she talks.)

Alex has been mimicking well and starting to string syllables together. The other night Jill got him to say the whole title of Go Dog, Go, a new book from Uncle Lee and Aunt Diane. He walked around all night repeating the three words. (One of my first phrases, incidentally, was "fresh fish." You never remember where you get these things. You just get them, and they stay in your head forever.)

"Alex," I whisper, "don’t say ’dammit.’"

"Damn it."

Two words! I just realized that’s two words together!

Obviously Alex doesn’t know what the words mean; they’re just sounds. But he will learn what they mean, and they’ll be useful for him growing up in New York. Especially if the delays he seems to have begin to deepen. He still won’t eat much, for example, unless it’s crunchy, salty junk. Sometimes, he just cocks his head to one side and stares into space. He rarely responds to his own name. The diapers speak for themselves. He doesn’t seem to understand when other kids want to play with him: Yesterday I took him to the park and a boy not much older than Alex wanted to play Follow the Leader. Alex went his own way.

We’ve taken him to doctors, as I’ve reported, and they have said words that are hard for me to hear. Special education, mildly retarded. Today I got a report that sprayed words like "truncal hypotonia," "nystagmus" and "microcephalic." I think I know what these words mean, dammit, but I have no desire to look them up. One of the phrases in the report that I did know the meaning of was "ongoing difficulties."

As Alex goes along his own way, he’s learned to be happy when the cab pulls up, to eat better in restaurants than at home and to sleep on the subway. "Dammit" is just another survival tool to be learned by this little New Yorker. I’m afraid it’s going to be a lot more useful to him than "Go Dog, Go."

(Jeff Stimpson is a journalist and father living in New York, NY, USA.)

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