Son, the Sequel

Son No. 2 came to us about three years after his older brother, this time by way of Cesarean section. He was breech, hence the C-section, which provided an interesting spectacle in and of itself.
His mother remained awake during the procedure, though she had an obstructed-view position, since there was a raised sheet that screened her from seeing the proceedings. I was standing by her head, so I had what amounted to a front-row seat. She was talking to me and the anesthesiologist, which was strange, considering the doctor made an incision across her abdomen and proceeded to scoop out something. She asked me what was happening at one point, and I said, "There's something on your stomach, but I don't know what it is."
"That's her uterus, Tom," the doctor said. I wasn't exactly accustomed to the whole uterus-on-the-stomach thing, and combined with the lighting and the antiseptic smell, they conspired to make me feel a bit queasy. I soldiered on, however, and eventually they removed a little boy and returned the uterus to its rightful place.
As a baby, son No. 2 behaved differently from his older sibling, meaning that he slept. And he was so disarmingly pleasant that he caught us off guard. We had proceeded to have another child despite the experience with the first, and we thought we were reaping the rewards of our persistence. Who knew it could be that way?
As this kid grew, he started to scamper around on all fours like a chimpanzee, and he could motor. He didn't begin to speak as early as his brother, whose accelerated abilities skewed my expectations in that respect. I wondered what was wrong with the younger one, but he was actually developmentally ahead of schedule. He was just so much smaller and wasn't talking that I had to question whether something had gone awry.
He talks now. Sometimes we can get in the car and ride around doing errands for two hours, with nary a moment of silence. He'll order you to turn up the radio and then ask a question. When you say you can't hear him, he screams with an irritation unbefitting someone who still needs a car seat.
He's a physical marvel, a naked, sinewy four-year-old with a natural fuck-you expression cutting a swath through our lives. He once entertained the cable guy by parading naked down the hallway while shaking a pom-pom and chanting, "Gimme a 'Y' sound" in imitation of one of his educational videos.
He asked me about a year ago if we die when we get old. I told him yes. He said then it would just be his mother and brother. I told him his mother and I would die first, and then it would be him and his brother but that it wouldn't be for a while. He said that they would have to take care of themselves then, and I said they would have houses and families of their own. He asked if they could go wherever they wanted, and I told him yes. He told me he didn't know where I, his father, would die. I said I didn't know, either, and he said, "maybe at gym-nat-sticks," for he had a gymnastics class that very night.
The fact that he was upside down in the womb should have tipped us off that he harbored at least somewhat of an uncooperative nature. He once cried for nearly the 12-hour duration of a car ride to South Carolina.
Friends and family say he's me, aside from the sinewy and talking-all-the-time aspects. He once summoned his brother over solely to kick him in the testicles. He used to beckon him for a kiss and the slap him in the face. He swings first and, well, doesn't even ask questions later. And somehow he turns any situation on its head, with him having been wronged. While we thought we were reaping the rewards of our persistence when he was a sleeping, happy infant, a serious awakening pierced our illusion when he started to grow. So, that was what terrible two's were like. And three's and four's. He can be bossy, sometimes bordering on tyrannical, and feigns screaming fits in an effort to wrest the advantage. A friend's mother declared him the devil upon first setting eyes on him. A friend who had visited recollects how the boy came prancing into the family room holding his diaper with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look. The same friend looked at his picture once and likened it to a mugshot. The kid's countenance suggests that he knows something the rest of us do not.
When I once characterized him as a disagreeable little something or other, another friend remarked that she didn't know where he got it from. Fortunately, he has moderated his profanity. He once remarked, upon leaving Target with his mother, that it was "fucking hot out here." He once opened the back door of our house, stark naked, to apologize to me: "I sorry I called you a asshole, Dad," he screamed across the yard. In Lake Placid, he took particular pleasure in the dining room as he thrust his arm out an declared "dick face" or "ass wipe." He likes to call his brother "koala crap." But like I said, that has moderated. Although he did tell his day-care teacher, matter of factly, that "China eats dogs." I don't think you can argue with that.
On the other hand, he can be effusive with his affection. He possesses a vivid imagination and can keep himself occupied. I don't recall him getting into our bed during the night ever. He can catch a ball and throw a ball and hit a ball and kick a ball with unusual facility for someone his age. He's also a natural comedian with an endearing, though unintentional, inclination toward the occasional malapropism. Not so endearingly, he sometimes feigns choking during meals because he knows it pushes our buttons.
Aimee Mann has a song called "Little Tornado," and that's what I call this kid, fully realizing that a small tornado once rendered me unconscious in Montana.