The trick and treat of watching a son grow

I hung out with my son on Halloween. We didn't trick or treat, but he wanted to dress up anyway, because his sister got a Supergirl outfit, and, like any sibling in the midst of a rivalry, he was keeping score to make sure he wasn't shortchanged.

Ever the sucker, I took him to Party City just as other kids were hitting the streets to troll for candy. Though the shelves were plucked clean by the time we got there, my son managed to find the last Spider-Man shirt and hat. Then we set out for his real Halloween mission - getting stuffed.

He wasn't looking for Snickers minis or tiny packages of SweeTarts. No, he wanted the good stuff: a plate of loaded nachos, buffalo wings with all the trimmings and root beer to wash it down. He inhaled his Halloween goodies as we hung out at the bowling alley, and he seemed to grow bigger with each bite.

He's been a doing a lot of growing lately. Having just turned 11, his pants are a size 30, one size larger than what I wore as a 145-pound 12th-grader. He plays center and defensive tackle for his Jr. Pee Wee football team at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. And when it's all said and done, when all the hot wings and nachos and root beer are consumed, he's probably going to be a lot bigger than me.

That's good, and I'll be proud, but as I watch him grow into a strapping young man, I can't help thinking of how hectic it was when he arrived.

Back when Solomon was born, Eve was 3 years old, which meant that my wife and I had a newborn baby and a toddler in the house at the same time. We didn't know it yet, but their presence would dictate changes to our relationship. We simply couldn't live the way we had when we were footloose and fancy-free.

Booty calls still occurred at 3 a.m., but there was always a steaming pile involved. And though we'd never considered threesomes or swinging, the kids gave those phrases a whole new meaning. They forced us to switch partners whenever one of them had a loaded pull-up or a dirty diaper.

Having Solomon also added another dimension to our household, because his presence let us know that boys and girls are just different. Changing his diaper often involved a surprise shower, because he'd frequently spout a leak just as I was about to strap him into a dry Huggie.

He also wasn't shy about taste-testing inedible objects. The telephone wire was his favorite, though he also enjoyed the strings on our throw pillows, Mommy's hair or random objects he found on the floor.

It would have been bearable if the boy restricted the use of his mouth to hair tasting. Unfortunately, Little Solomon - the boy we thought would be the polar opposite of Eve "the Screamer" Jones - began his own reign of terror as a baby.

At first, I thought he was merely a vampire. He slept all day. He was up all night. And as a breast-fed child, he was always sucking on some woman.

I was wrong, though. Little Solomon was more than a vampire. He was a cruel dictator who ruled with an iron baby bootie and a series of customized cries.

When he entered the teething stage, things grew worse. He sucked on my watch until the links fell apart. Once he even went after my laptop.

Fortunately, his teeth came in eventually, and he now limits his destruction to the household items he uses for his various unauthorized experiments.

But when I look back on it all, there's nothing I would change about watching the boy grow up. I'm just glad he still wants to spend Halloween eating hot wings with me.

Solomon Jones, whose column appears Tuesdays, is the author of 10 books. Listen to him mornings from 7 to 10 on WURD (900-AM). More at Solomonjones.com.