I would like to devote the next few minutes to an extremely important subject, namely children and why I don't have any.

The answer here is inextricably linked to the fact that my brother Dave now has two children, Daniel Augustino (age two and half) and Lorenzo Jacob (age 15 months), whom I visited recently. They are truly amazing young men, and I am certain they will both be awarded the Nobel Prize in due time. For the moment, though, they are somewhat less refined.

Daniel is at that charming phase of life in which he is starting to develop speech, though these efforts are, in his case, complicated by the fact that his mother speaks to him in Italian and his father in English. This lends his speech a distinct Euro-trashy flair, which is only slightly hampered by his inability to form complete sentences.

His current favorite expression ("I want jellybean") is the direct result of my less-than-wholesome avuncular influence, in that I took Daniel on a field trip to the jellybean factory near his home, which was a lot like taking him to a brightly colored crack house. He enjoyed the excursion, though he didn't really dig the guided tour, which kept him separated by means of thick glass partitions from the actual jellybeans. He solved this problem by sneaking away from me and opening an emergency-exit door. That set off a piercing alarm, which caused him to start crying hysterically, while the rest of the tour group glared at both of us.

Lorenzo (a/k/a Butterbean) is in the thrall of what psychologists call infantile omnipotence. Meaning that he views himself as all-powerful. Any action that contradicts this belief is unacceptable. Thus, if you remove from him a potato peeler, he will punch you in the cheek with surprising force. I speak from experience. In fact, if you do not carry out his every wish in an expeditious manner (keep him supplied with Cheerios, read him a story, toss him into the air repeatedly), he will either punch you in the cheek or wail.

Complicating matters is the fact that Lorenzo wants to do everything Daniel does, which leads him to chase after Daniel. But because he has only recently learned how to walk, he can't really keep up and tends to fall down a lot. If he has to change surfaces -- from carpet to linoleum, say -- he's toast. Also: Daniel, though a compassionate child, does not always want to be chased, and this results in him doing a good deal of punching of Lorenzo.

It bears mentioning that Lorenzo weighs about 25 pounds (thus explaining his nickname). If he keeps up his current rate of weight gain, he will be heavier than his father by seventh grade. Daniel had better get his licks in now.

Both children shit and piss a great deal. I say this with no malice intended. I am glad they shit and piss, as I understand this to be necessary to their general good health. I only wish that their shitting and pissing were a little more private.

Now, while it is true that Daniel is newly potty trained, it is also true that he can be depended upon to announce fata caca ("I must make shit") at some point during most meals. I know this because he made the announcement during an ill-fated trip to a local restaurant (Mary's Pizza Shack), and I was assigned the duty of accompanying him to the bathroom.

The results were, let me be frank if not explicit, distressing.

While I was spared the grim honor of diaper duty, I was nonetheless pissed on by Lorenzo, and I got to watch Daniel take an open-air crap on the beach. A short time later, he sat on me naked and insisted I give him a ride.

Oh, woe to the soul who offers these boys a ride. For if you prove to be even semi-competent as a supplier of rides, you can pretty much write off the rest of the week.

One of the things that is impossible to understand unless you have small boys is that their basic agenda in life is to get themselves in as many life-threatening situations as possible in the shortest period of time. They are instinctively drawn to sharp objects. They have no compunction about eating poisonous things. They will climb up/leap off anything.

Daniel spent much of my visit jumping from the coffee table onto the couch, then from the couch onto the end table, then from the end table onto me. He also enjoyed playing with electrical outlets. A few days before my arrival, he had run full-speed into a wall with a light bulb in his hand. Lorenzo's favorite activity was to attempt to pull a bookcase onto himself. His second-favorite activity was to fall, headfirst, into walls. (Given this Olympic-caliber death wish, it seemed astonishing to me that so many offspring live to adulthood.)

My brother, in turn, had taken what I want to call a laissez-faire attitude toward safeguarding the children. His general strategy was to establish an "airlock scenario," which meant keeping the boys corralled in one part of the house.

One morning, however, we spotted Lorenzo stumbling toward the top step of a long staircase. Someone (my guess would be me) had forgotten to erect the baby gate. Dave sighed. "He's going to have to learn the consequences of his actions sooner or later," he said. Lorenzo teetered on the edge of the top step for a few seconds, staring down speculatively. Then he turned around and crawled down the stairs backwards.

This was awe-inspiring in its own way, and for a moment I could see how deeply moving it would be to watch my child grow and learn about the world and assume the miraculous mantle of personhood.

Then Lorenzo reached the bottom of the stairs and tottered off toward the kitchen and we heard a crash and the familiar soprano of anguish. Behind us, Daniel was rising from bed, announcing his urgent need to fata caca.

Dave sighed.

"Hey," I said. "It could be worse."

"Shut up," he said. "Just shut up."

"Right," I said. And I did.

Visit Steve Almond's Web site at www.stevenalmond.com, or e-mail him at sbalmond@earthlink.net.

Issue Date: February 28 - March 6, 2003