My wife and I were driving around one night with Jackson, I forget what we were doing, but we made a stop at the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market to get some formula. We quickly became adamant about using organic formula after reading the first ingredient on the regular stuff "corn syrup solids". I don't even want to know what that is. Anyway, the organic stuff obviously costs more, $30 a can, but we think it's worth it. However, at the rate of one can a week that little Jackie is sucking down, we looked for alternatives. And low and behold, Wal-Mart had it. After a little research, Alana found that Wal-Mart carried an organic formula that was almost identical to the expensive kind. Wal-Mart. Let me just take a quick detour here and say that for as long as I can remember: I hate Wal-Mart. And I don't use the word hate very often. Or Wal-Mart. In my opinion, it represents all that is wrong with this country. And probably not coincidentally, though I don't know the reasons, the results of what is wrong with this country all go to Wal-Mart in large quantity. No matter what time of day.
So, for the first time I can really remember, I went to Wal-Mart. Anything for the kid...
Well, they didn't have the formula. Figures. We'd have to try a normal Wal-Mart. Or god forbid, a SUPER Wal-Mart. I get chills just thinking about it. But what they did have was Milk Duds. So we picked up a box.
I drove while my wife sat in the back seat with Jackson, passing me two Milk Duds at a time. And inevitably, I drop one between my legs. I discretely and frantically fished my hand under my crotch for the lost candy. "What are you doing?", my wife asked from the back seat. "Oh nothing," I replied. As if I just had a quick and insane itch, or for some reason thought that something was wrong under there and wanted to make sure everything was still in tact. I didn't find the Milk Dud. I checked the seat, the floor, my pants. Nothing. I thought I must have imagined it. Until a couple days later when I picked the pants up off the floor and put them on. "What's on your jeans?" Alana asked. It was the long lost Milk Dud, now a hard caramel reminisce stuck square on the seat of my pants. "There it is," I said.
I placed the pants back on the floor, ever so carefully with the lump of caramel in plain sight so that I would remember to get it out at a later time, then put on another pair of jeans.
I was afraid of becoming lame once Jackson was born. You hear about it all the time. The fun-loving, out-going, good-times guy has a kid and all of the sudden starts watching the local news, wearing sweater vests and shopping it Wal-Mart. It's refreshing to see that this hasn't started happening. Well, two out of three ain't bad.
Alana and I are also adamant about maintaining as much of our lives as possible. Before Jackson was born, we agreed we would not disappear from our friends. We would go out places whether we took Jackson or left him with someone. And we would maintain our world and ourselves, not letting either revolve around him. Granted, much of it has to revolve around his schedule for his survival and happiness. But we want to maintain as much of our lives as we can. We do this for both selfish and noble reasons. Selfishly, we both hate sweater vests. But nobly, and most importantly, we want this for him. We don't want Jackson growing up thinking the world revolves around him. We believe that's just what shutting our lives down for him would do. We want him to see his parents as independent, active, healthy, happy people. This is the example we want to set for adult Jackson. A baby makes it hard to do anything, but we will not be any of the above if we don't make this conscious choice. Alana and I both need some independence. We get too bored and restless if we don't go out and do things. See people. Staying at home all the time would make us unhappy. And that is definitely an example we do not want to set.
Two weeks went by, moving the caramel pants from the floor, to the chair, to the dresser, back to the floor, then finally in the hamper where they would be safe. I eventually looked up on the internet how to remove two week old caramel from denim and got to work. Mainly, because all my jeans were dirty beyond public use. I iced it, scrapped it, stain-removaled it, and threw it in the wash with the other dirty jeans. Victory!!! However, I was still out a pair of jeans to wear and I had to meet a friend who was in town. I dug through the dresser and pulled out my least ripped pair of denim, which isn't saying much. I thought a few moments about where I was going. I was meeting my friend at the Apple store off Henderson. Knox/Henderson is one of those parts of Dallas where a guy seen wearing drastically ripped jeans and pushing a baby stroller might be perceived to be pushing all his worldly belongings down the sidewalk instead of an actual baby. A Beverly Hills of Texas, if you will. So I decided to go all out for the too-cool-for-you-too-understand-you-yuppy look. Tight skull t-shirt, euro-Hat, and bright orange tennis shoes.
I parked the car and put Jackson in the stroller. The weather was a little cool and windy. Nothing too drastic. I had a blanket over him and pulled up the top of the carrier to block the wind when a lady came out of the shop I parked in front of. "Cute baby," she said. "Thank you," I graciously replied. I'm used to it by now. Then she bent down and pulled the blanket over his face. "There we go," she said, "now he's all set." And walked inside. I took a moment to reflect. Then blew it off and walked on. She's probably angry and insecure.
I walked into the crowded Apple store where I got a mix of confused looks. "Is that all his stuff or a baby? It's a baby! But, look at his jeans! I'm so confused. He's probably on drugs. Should I call Social Services? I have the number in my phone." I found my friend who was otherwise occupied with his business there, so I browsed the store towards the i-pod touch section. "Are you a musician?" I turned to find the friendly and understanding face of an Apple store employee. "No, film," I said. We talked for several minutes about film and music, babies and life. In the land of material, substance can be easy to find. My friend and I left and grabbed a coffee. On the way home, I had to stop at Whole Foods for the $30 a can formula. This had to be resolved.
I needed to find a Wal-Mart with the cheap organic formula. But Monday was bad. Jackson started his normal routine until noon, then he was pissed for the rest of the day. And Alana had to work late. Daddy needed a beer.
But Tuesday was much better. We did our morning routine, sans Sports Center. I can't watch Sports Center for a week after the Cowboys lose. That, and our cable was turned off again. The payment goes out automatically, but apparently the due date changed and we've been paying late every month. It took a few months of us calling to get it turned back on for them to tell us the reason.
On our way to Wal-Mart, I stopped at the auto shop down the street and asked about fixing my headlight that was out. Replacing the bulb took seconds. The one time I replaced it myself took an entire afternoon. I told the mechanic the bulb had gone out three times in the last couple years. He discovered it was because a metal clip that held the bulb in place was broken, and the bulb was bouncing around in the housing, causing it to burn out quickly. I didn't mention that I had probably broken it when I tried to replace the bulb myself. He explained that I would have to replace the entire headlight in order to solve the problem. When I grunted about the price of doing that, he offered to fix it himself if I had a little time. I gladly agreed. I took Jackson for a little walk around the neighborhood and returned fifteen minutes later. The mechanic had the front of my car dismantled and showed me what he was doing. He simply screwed a small metal piece into the housing to secure the bulb. Not Honda regulation, but it did the trick. He charged me $25. A key to true happiness in life is finding a good, honest mechanic. An added bonus is finding one minutes from your house.
It was time for Jackson to eat and nap, so I postponed the dreaded trip to Wal-Mart and went home.
Later that afternoon, it was time. I packed Jackson in the car and headed off. I feel I must first explain some geography. We live in a hip little neighborhood in East Dallas. It is not expensive, largely because it is not an officially hip neighborhood. But it's quiet. The people are nice. There's lots of trees. And it's minutes away from several officially hip neighborhoods and the lake. However, it is also dangerously close to Garland. For those who are not familiar, Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, is from Garland. King of the Hill takes place in "Arlan", based on his hometown Garland. And what makes the show so funny, is that he does a really good job on the portrayal. Once, I heard someone in CVS speak exactly like Boomhower. It took all I had not to laugh. So now imagine being a character on King of the Hill, and going to Wal-Mart. Like I said, anything for the kid. The first Wal-Mart was a bust. They didn't have organic formula. For some reason, in the moment of that realization, it didn't surprise me. I'd have to find another one. I drove a little closer into Dallas proper and found another Wal-Mart neighborhood market. My next option was a Super Wal-Mart, so I took my chances this one would have it. And lucky enough, they did. Off-brand organic formula, nearly identical to the $30 kind, the same size can for $11. Victory!!!
Wal-Mart did a tricky thing in opening their "Neighborhood Markets". They make them look like a regular grocery store, even along the same lines as Whole Foods with all the wood trim. But do not be fooled. While you will find aware individuals scattered throughout the isles, usually there for a specific purpose before going back to reality, it is still Wal-Mart. The air of vacant stares and discount spam did not escape.
The concept of self-check out is a good one. It's one step faster than express, and you can usually get through one of the six stations pretty fast. It can get a little troublesome figuring out the system, especially the weight sensitive bagging area. But it's nothing a little common sense and finagling can't fix. This is not the case at Wal-Mart. The fastest customers at any of the six self-check cues, honest to God, were a couple with a combined age pushing 200. The tall, skinny man checked items and put them in bags, while the four foot tall, eighty pound lady hoisted the bags into the cart. The other customers spent their time figuring out how a barcode works. But, alas, I scored my cheap organic formula and was off.
I read a couple books while Alana was pregnant. She read all the books about what to actually do with a kid. I read the ones about new fathers, and all the adventures they had with their baby. In one, the author lived in Berkley. His wife would go to work every day and he stayed home with the baby. He was a writer or something. He would walk with the baby through the immaculate Bay scenery to a little neighborhood coffee shop, where he would eat scones, read the paper and talk to strangers gaffing over his child. While we are far from living in Berkley, we do have a little neighborhood coffee shop. It's in the opposite direction from Garland. Jackson thankfully slept through both Wal-Marts and I decided to press my luck and take him for a latte. The barista girl was very friendly and helpful, bringing my coffee and a mug of steaming water to heat a bottle to my seat. I opened my computer and got on the free wi-fi. I chatted with another new father about the little bundle of joys, drank my coffee and started this blog. I expected Jackson to wake up and want to eat his pre-warmed bottle, but he slept peacefully in his seat for over an hour.
I'm not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. I imagine I'll be going back to the coffee shop more often. Imagining for a few moments that I live in Berkley. Whatever it is in the days to come, I look forward to our time together and teaching him how not to be lame.
