When Jared was about just over a year old, I went with Kellie to Borders Books and Music, which is an odd name for the store since I’ve never seen anyone pay for their overpriced CDs. It ought to be called Borders Books, Lame Coffee Shop and the Colorful People Who Work There.
Anyway, Kellie was hanging out in the Art and Architecture section while Jared and I wandered through the store. At this age he was a pretty good runner, but he had a tendency to wobble into tables and knock things over, so I was carrying him so that he was facing me with his legs on my hip and my arms wrapped around him. We were just wandering around the store since he seemed content to just stare at me and grin and I couldn’t look at any books because it took two hands to hold my giant boy.
After a while we got bored and went to check on Kellie. She was facing the wall, as was another shopper. As we walked into the section, Jared, still grinning, grabbed my trachea with both hands and started squeezing as hard as he could. I gasped for air and gurgled a bit, but couldn’t really breathe or talk. I also couldn’t make him stop because of the way I was holding him. So I stood there, gurgling, and tried to slowly inch my hands around his body so that I could get them under his armpits and pull him away from me. Jared giggled a little.
I was afraid that if I pulled too hard or dropped him that he’d just hang on and crush my windpipe. If that sounds crazy, you evidently missed out on Jared’s strong and wild phase when family friends were calling him Mowgli. Just to catch you up, at 18 months he got angry and tore his bedroom door off the hinges. So I had a reason to be scared.
I finally got my hands into position and started lifting and pushing him away from me while scrunching up my neck and shaking my head to get him to let go. At that moment, 3 things happened:
Needless to say, they thought I was some murderous loon about to kill a little boy. And truth be told, they weren’t that far off from the truth. I mean, it certainly looked that way. Picture a man holding a baby at arms length with his face all red and purple blotches, eyes bugging out of his head and gasping for air. Not my finest hour.
So Kellie ran over and grabbed Jared away, and I sort of made some strange noises that fell short of intelligent speech. Mostly I just pointed at my throat. Shopping guy took off.
And I always held Jared so that he was facing away from me for the next 3 years.
Bonus Untold Tale:
Jared used do this cool trick at that age: he’d be sitting in a shopping cart smiling at you. You’d smile back and then he’d lower his head and bite you on the knuckle. When you lowered your head to try to pry him off, he’d lean back and slam your head against the handle of the cart.
It only took about a dozen bangs to the head for me to get wise to that one.