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“Yes, you did – but you are okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, you are okay now… I hope,” Colton said and peered in his mouth to make sure he wasn’t bleeding or hadn’t knocked any teeth loose. No, Zane was all right, and he felt like the biggest failure as a dad. How had Eris done this all by herself for years?
Getting a metal spatula and several wooden spoons, he grabbed a stockpot and waved Zane to join him from where Colton had been crouching a few moments ago to talk to him.
“Here, let’s play…” he set the pot down between his legs and hit it with the spoon, looking at Zane, whose face perked up right away. “You like that?”
“I wike dat,” Zane agreed easily, nodding his face and smiling shyly.
“Here, come bang all you want,” Colton urged, moving the pot further away so his son could sit with him. He wanted this chance to be around him, bond, and grow closer, making up for lost time. Zane immediately took the wooden spoons and tapped lightly on the pot. “See? Isn’t that fun?”
“Das fun, Daddy…”
“Bang away, kiddo,” he chuckled, taking a spoon and hitting the pot hard. Zane did the same and then picked up a second spoon, hitting the pot with two spoons repeatedly. The noise was echoing off the walls and jarring to the senses, yet Zane was laughing and banging away like he was playing drums professionally.
“Jeez,” Colton chuckled. “Obviously, you’re going to be the kid with the drum set in the garage whom all the neighbors hate…” He reached for the wooden spoons, only to have Zane jerk them away yelling ‘NO!’. “Oh… um, okay?”
Zane was wailing on the pot like his life depended on it – and Colton was getting a massive headache. Yeah, today was not going to go so well, he thought, looking at the clock on the wall. Eris left ten minutes ago and would be gone until six o’clock tonight.
“Dang it…” he muttered.
“Dang it, dang it, dang it,” Zane called out, singing, moved around the pot, and was now dancing, banging, and belting out the words ‘dang it’ in unison with the hits.
“Okay, okay…” Colton gritted his teeth, smiling. “Let’s try a different instrument that makes a new sound, eh? Listen to this, Zane,” and thankfully, the drumming stopped for a second. He handed him the spatula and tapped it on the surface, causing his son to angle his head, listening.
“Dat?”
“Yes, you can use that.”
Colton handed him the spatula and sighed in relief at the silence. Closing his eyes, he felt Zane sit down in front of him again, and the banging started up again in a fervor.
“Let’s use the spatula…”
Zane wrestled with him for a moment, and the little octopus somehow managed to bang two wooden spoons and the spatula at once, laughing and dancing around in his seat. Leaning forward, he reached for one of the spoons – and mistakenly got in the way.
His son knocked the snot out of him.
Colton was backhanded directly across the face with the metal spatula. He cursed in utter shock, touching his cheek in disbelief. It felt like someone had open-faced slapped him – HARD – and stung sharply… almost as much as the look of horror on Zane’s face as he looked over his shoulder to see what happened.
“Owie?”
“Oh yeah,” Colton chuckled in shock. “Daddy has an owie. Stay here and don’t move.”
He got up and went into the bathroom – before laughing. Sure enough, there were three slotted welt marks rising up on his cheek – and he felt something touch his butt, jumping and whirling around in shock.
“Daddy, go potty?”
Interesting, he thought in shock. Zane recognized what the bathroom was and what it was for?
“No, but do you have to go potty?”
Only to see his son shrug in a very noncommittal fashion. Man, that was Eris all over, he thought, chuckling. He used to ask her where she wanted to go for dinner, and she would shrug like that. Having a child was fascinating because it was an unexpected yet perfect mixture of the two of you in a way he never imagined.
“Hey Zane, I have an idea,” he said nervously, realizing he was about to take on a task that he was supremely not qualified for. “What if you put on your Winnie the Pooh undies instead of a diaper – and you can be a big boy just like me.”
“Zane, big boy?”
