Suffer the Little Children

         So I was invited to a social gathering recently, at the home of a friend. I enjoy her company, I didn’t object too much to the rest of the guests on the list, and there was going to be free food, so I figured, what the heck? On the appointed day, I dug up the directions she had provided and made my way to her house, getting lost only four or five times – a record low for me. After missing her house by perhaps a county and then U-turning, backtracking and frequently saying dirty words, I finally spotted what I was confident was the correct address.
         My confidence faded shortly after I knocked. I was greeted by a very friendly, very energetic and, as it turned out, very short person – my friend’s three-year-old son. Of course, I knew that my friend and her husband had a three-year-old son. At that moment, however, the shock of being greeted by a short person whom I did not expect blew that knowledge from my mind. I actually glanced around for Grumpy and Doc before spotting my host and realizing that I was, indeed, at the right house.
         I should admit something at this point: I am uncomfortable around children. It’s not that I dislike them – it’s just that I’m large and awkward, and I’m afraid that I will accidentally step on them. Also, many children tend to be constantly friendly, intensely cheerful, and filled with pleasure and wonder at the mysteries life has to offer. In short, everything I am not. And my friend’s little boy had all of these qualities in abundance.
         Let me stress here that I liked this child. He was a very bright, friendly boy, and his antics through the evening provided quite a bit of amusement. I was beginning to think that fatherhood might not be such a bad idea when a guest arrived who shattered my illusions: the Childless Man-Person who is Good with Kids.
         This person is good with kids in a different way than mothers and fathers, or even the Childless Woman-Person who is Good with Kids. A childless woman who has a talent with children will engage the child in lively discussion, kiss scrapes, perhaps foster the child’s creativity with activities such as coloring or cutting out paper dolls.
         A Childless Man-Person who is Good with Kids, however, has a different strategy for bonding with a child: roughhousing endlessly with the child until said child is so wound up that he will not go to sleep again until, say, February.
         The arrival of the CMPGK wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was this: he brought friends, also CMPGKs. The effect on my friend’s little boy was something akin to attaching three nuclear generators to a single light bulb.
         The remainder of the evening was an endless series of high jinks and monkey-shines between the CMPGKs and our host’s increasingly energetic child. For a person like me, who prefers his jinks low and his monkeys unshined, this is the worst possible scenario. The CMPGKs passed the little boy back and forth, playing games which usually involved lifting him off of the ground or swinging him through the air by the hands or feet. One such game was “Airplane.” Of course, this was not a realistic airplane game. A realistic airplane game would have involved a luggage search and a three-hour wait. This was a game in which the child was lifted into the air and “flown” around by the CMPGK, then dropped a short distance before being caught by said CMPGK.
         My friend’s little boy, of course, was delighted by all this. I, however, have still not realized completely how tough children generally are, so each time a CMPGK would drop, swing or roughhouse with the little boy, I would shudder with terror and nearly wet myself.
         Then there was the injury I myself incurred. There were a lot of guests at my friend’s gathering, and limited sitting space, so things were a little snug. I found myself sitting next to two of the CMPGKs as they roughhoused with and tickled my friend’s little boy. As a result I suffered, by actual count, 642 kicks to the head by tiny feet. Taken one at a time, they weren’t so bad. Taken as a whole, however, and given that the particular three-year-old who did the kicking is big and strong for his age, the kicks hurt quite a lot. Plus, when I got up the next morning I had to look at my driver’s license to remember who I was.
         After a few minutes, I also remembered the reason I was having trouble remembering my name. It made me a little sad, really – sure, I can get kicked into amnesia by a toddler just like any other guy, but I’ll never be at ease with it like those CMPGKs were.
         That doesn’t mean I don’t dread their arrival at the next party-plus-child affair I attend, but I’ve got to admit that – other than the little boy they spent the evening playing with – they had more fun than anyone else in the room.