No sooner had I written the title than the Boy came crawling at top speed over to me and climbed up my leg, smelling like a fresh poo. Off we went downstairs for a wash of the relevant bits in the sink, a ten-minute power struggle over getting the diaper on ("I WANT TO BE ON MY BELLY!!!" "But darling you must be on your back, just for ten seconds." "NOOOOOO!!!!!" etc., etc., but without actual words, only cries, screeches and grunts.
He is mostly quiet the whole time.)
The Boy has taken life by the horns, and by "life", I mean OUR lives, mine and Speedy's, and by "horns", I mean
his thorny little goat horns-- he is tossing us about like helpless rag-dolls in his efforts to conquer the world.
I am typing frantically because right now he is momentarily stilled by the mesmerizing sound he can make by hitting two blocks together, one in each hand. Each day is full of these fascinating discoveries. At the rate he is going, I expect him to find the gravity particle in a few more weeks. I have to take advantage of these brief interludes of independent play.
He is, to put it mildly, insatiably active. Two weeks ago, I spent the weekend at the beach with my BFF and her son, who is 6 weeks younger and still at that blessedly simple stage where he could be put down while she went off and did something-- made dinner, hung laundry, painted her nails-- and he would still be in the exact same spot when she returned 10, 20 minutes later... Not our little goat. No. To avoid spending long chunks of time prisoner to my bed for his naps, I would put him to sleep on the floor in the living room surrounded by cushions. Every so often he would wake up and immediately begin crawling toward the most dangerous item in sight. My friend astutely remarked, "My god, he
wakes up already in motion!"
(As I typed this last, he was babbling happily behind me, then I heard a sudden thud. I turned to see him flat on his back on the floor, not crying, but waiting for me to notice. As soon as I turned around and exclaimed, "what happened?" he got up and made tracks for the dog, whom he is now amorously embracing.)
He eats with gusto almost anything we put in front of him. If it does not meet his immediate approval, he sends it flying off the table with a dramatic sweep of his arms. After he is done, I ask, "All done?" and the dogs scramble to be the first under his seat for canine clean-up crew. I take The Boy for a dunk in the sink and then turn him loose-- whereupon he takes his place under his seat with the dogs, re-examining the scraps that he dropped, searching for lost treasure. You may be picking up the phone to call child protective services, but please put it down. The child will have a very strong immune system and is otherwise unharmed by
daily hourly innoculations of dirt and dog hair.
One of the many questions I did not manage to answer during the UNchallenge was, "What surprises you most about parenthood?" And I want to answer that now-- Speedy and I have the same answer: How much I
like it. Though it is definitely as challenging in some ways as everyone says...I really didn't expect to find s much joy in it, in him. My crazily active little goat.
