A toddler with the soul of a stripper

The baby is hardly a baby anymore. At 22 months, he’s a toddler with no remorse, heading for what mothers call “the terrible twos.” What’s so terrible about being 2 anyway? You want terrible, try 45.

“If you don’t slow down, you’re going to break something,” my wife scolds.

“I was just reading about the debates,” I say from behind a newspaper.

“I was talking to the baby,” she explains.

Break something? Him? Our house is his Pamplona. Each morning, he runs with the bulls for about two hours, takes a break, then runs some more. He scampers about like a guy in jodhpurs and spats. Like a mini lion tamer.

“The good news was that he kept his pants on,” his mother notes.

“That is good news,” I say.

For a while, the baby was going through a nudist phase. No big deal. Sooner or later, all men have nudist phases. Generally, sooner is better than later.

In the baby’s case, he would disrobe at times of greatest visual impact, during his weekly play group or when we had guests for dinner. He would drop his diaper and display himself proudly to anyone who was there, then laugh and jump up and down, which is almost mandatory when you’re naked. Invariably, people would laugh along, while steam hissed from his mother’s pretty ears.

“I’m glad you’re keeping your clothes on,” I tell him.

“You as well,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m trying.”

No, there’s nothing too terrible about being 2. At 2, you are hollow-boned, like chickens, and you can eat almost constantly. If you plump up, they call it baby fat and squeeze your chubby cheek. Try that at 45.

At 2, you’re incapable of being cleaned, even though they will try to wash you constantly. Toddlers’ hands produce a type of resin that never comes off. You can wash a 2-year-old’s fingers for an hour under warm soapy water and he will still come out as tacky as a willow branch. You’d have better luck washing spots off a leopard.

“Wanna go outside?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say.

Our favorite time of day is just after sundown, with the moon-melt against the purple mountains. Just us and the skunks, out for an after-dinner walk.

“Check out that moon,” I tell him.

He’s pretty convinced the Earth has eight moons, for every time we turn the corner he sees it from a different angle. He likes the way it lights up the liquor store. Has there ever been anything more beautiful?

“Lottery ticket?” he asks.

“Why not?”

It’s not like we need the money. I got paid the other day and we’ll somehow make the mortgage. The car still has half a tank. I take out my last tired dollar and bet it on the future.

“Just one,” I tell the liquor store clerk.

I hold the baby like a banjo while the clerk prints out the lottery ticket. The clerk is on the phone, of course. It’s not a law or anything, but apparently liquor store clerks must always be on the phone.

“Thanks,” I say.

“What about the Cowboy game?” the clerk growls into the phone. “Huh? Cowboys!”

The baby and I have it all planned for when we win. We’ll not tell a soul. We’ll just keep the lottery winnings to ourselves and walk around with a little extra cash in our pockets. It will drive our friends crazy that we always seem to be eating dinner out or driving some luxurious new minivan. They’ll be left to wonder how we developed so much money sense so late in life.

“Time to go home,” I tell him.

“Already?”

“Your mother’s getting worried,” I explain.

“Oh her,” he says, as if she’s ever left his mind.

On the way home, he falls asleep in his stroller. His head bends to the side at an impossible angle, like a marigold gone limp. There is a birthmark in his scalp that he made himself -- with a green Magic Marker, day before last. When you’re 2, you are your own blank canvas.

Things scurry in the bushes while we walk. Thoughts race through his tiny mind. What exactly, I can’t imagine.

What do you dream about when your life is already a dream? He quit breast-feeding a few months ago, so there’s always that. Or he may dream of dancing with Barney, who to him is a mythic individual on the same level of, say, St. Francis of Assisi or Bjork.

Whatever he dreams about, you can be sure of one thing: He dreams only of being 2 ... a not-so-terrible age at all.