DadMen

Binky Brilliance~ Nate Smith

As I watch Chandler stumble around the room desperately trying to increase his mobility, or as he struggles to handle a piece of watermelon without crushing it between his tiny little fingers, I can't help but think about how horribly uncoordinated he is. I'm sorry. What I meant to say is my son is a baby, otherwise known as an extremely undeveloped human. At 10 months old my son has yet to master any skills, save one.

When I watch him handle his pacifier and I see something completely different in him. Like watching Michael Jordan dunk a basketball, Bill Clinton talk his way out of a sex scandal, or Lindsay Lohan find a new way to make headlines, watching Chandler with his pacifier is a thing of beauty. He can hear the distinct clack of the plastic handle hitting the mouth guard from a room away. He can see it in your back pocket while sitting in front of you. And I truly believe that if we put a holster on his hip he'd take that pacifier out of his mouth, spin it around his tiny finger, and then deftly place it in the holster, ready to be quick drawn at the drop of a tooth.

Watching Chandler with his pacifier makes you feel like you aren't looking at a baby but rather an accomplished writer who is playfully twirling his favorite pen around. He manages his pacifier with such authority and pops it in and out of his mouth with such grace, you'd think he'd been using pacifiers for years.

I remember what a big deal it was when we first witnessed him successfully turning the pacifier around in his mouth the right way. And then there was the breakthrough of him being able to find it on his own in his crib in the middle of the night. Our levels of rest increased ten-fold when he hit that milestone. And tonight I watched as my wife picked him up out of his crib for his midnight feeding, his eyes only barely cracked open. As he was placed in the nursing position his hand instinctively removed the pacifier and held it at his side.

Chandler has accomplished a lot in his first 10 months and I look forward to watching, and even coaching, as he continues to learn new skills and perfect the ones he already has. But I am proud to say Chandler has finally mastered his first skill. Too bad we'll soon have to ween him off of pacifiers, because he could have gone pro.