I Think He Learned It From The Cats

A Small Two

Several times we’ve met people with kids and you ask (maybe we should stop), “How old are they?”  They say “Two.” then we say how old Holden is and they immediately say: “A Small two.”  I don’t get it, kids grow on a different scale, every one.  The funny thing is, we know someone whose kid is only senior to Holden by four months, he was HUGE at first, if this small two crowd had three year olds they’d be saying: “Uh, a small three . . .”

Holdy Bear, Cinematographer

 This i old material, but hopefully funny: I would give him a cheerio or he would find one and he’d walk around with it.  I thought at first he was dropping it by accident, but then I realized he was dropping it in different places and looking at it.  Like he was scouting movie backgrounds: As a baby auteur director, I understand the principles of Orson Welles and David Lean, see how the cheerio catches the light here, it looks so despondent, like something out of Bergman . . .

Or maybe a photographer: O. K. cheerio, give me surprised, good, shout at me, act excited, can’t you do anything except that Oh expression?

I Think He Learned It From The Cats

I’m beginning to think that there is some communication between Holden and the cats.  If he wants something he’ll try and knock the pictures down, he’ll distract you at one end of the room and then make a bee line fro what he REALLY wanted.  I imagine the exchange thus: Holden is wandering our place . . .

“Psst . . .” Our oldest and most dangerous cat, Raleigh, waylays him.  ”Hey mostly hairless white kitten . . .”

Holdy says: “Maaaaaah!”

“Don’t give me that, I know you can understand me . . . while he’s distracted by his phone, let me tell you what really drives the humans nuts . . .”

And so Holdy drops things for the cats off his high chair . . . he’s paying up!

 

I’m Not Picky As Long As It Tastes Like Cheese

A Lap And A Nap

The other day I was tired, I mean really really tired.  He was tired too: protesting, doing an angry break dance every time I tried to put him on the floor . . . I said: “O. K.” and did something I’ve never done: popped him in the car, drove around the block and he was asleep, then I was smart enough to feed the cats, then I was asleep.  I used to scorn people who did it, mentally I mean . . . waste of gas, you must be doing something wrong if you can’t get him to nap . . .

The next day: better planned, fed the cats and him BEFORE, nap time: hour and twenty minutes!  I was literally LOLLING, that’s not like L. O. L. ing that would have woken him up:

It wasn’t exactly like Ernest Christopher Dowson’s poem:

“He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries,

High prospects with a quiet caressing sea,

The past shed its perfume over him,

Today held his hand as it were a little child,

Tomorrow shone in the sky like a white star . . .

I was actually thinking about cheese: smoked gouda or smoked cheddar then I was like: maybe ice cream!  Then Holden woke up . . .

Speaking Irish

So, a friend was over and we told her we understand an awful lot of what Holden says, so we’d have to translate or clarify occasionally.  But there’s always some words or phrases that you can’t pin down.  He was at storytime the other day and was in the midst of one of those soliliques, I couldn’t tell you what it was, but this little girl cocked her head and said: “Yeah!” in agreement.

It was one of those unidentified sentences that we were asked to explain.  I said: “Maybe he was speaking Irish.”

Just a joke.  This person said: “You’ve taught him Irish!”

I had to suppress my howl of laughter . . .

I’m Not Picky As Long As It Tastes Like Cheese

So, sometimes it seems like we put cheese on EVERYTHING.  You can even say cheese and he’ll examine it with interest he didn’t have before.  At times, an object on the tray gets a mere “puh!” of dismissal, others get close examination before they are held up at arms length and dropped to the floor for the hungry furrahnas and some are even dismembered like he’s an investigator working to stop dietary crime: C. S. I. Tamarac! 

Cheese is the magic word (shibboleth?), he called the cornbread cheese . . .

He likes to fake sneeze, he’ll go around the house uh-choo, uh-choo, we’ve heard him

uh-cheese before . . .

I can’t think of the line from French Kiss about France having 280 or so different types of cheese, but it would be Holden’s idea of a real vacation . . .

When we come home from our peregrinations, I say: “Home.” he usually concurs: “Home.”

The other day I announce we were home and he said: “Cheese!”

Free association?

 

The Tortilla Gambit

The First Please

So, the other day, he wanted something and said: “please . . .” I had to give it to him–it was a chip not anything questionable, I was so surprised!  I didn’t even know he knew the word . . .

It’s Pronounced Tauntaun

I’m walking around with him and he won’t be put down and I muttered: “So it will just be an extended Tauntaun ride til six?” And he stuck his tongue out: I didn’t know his mother had taught him tongue, Tauntaun sounds like tongue so . . . wel, it was KIND of funny . . . or the kid just doesn’t like Tauntauns much: it’s probably the smell . . .

Not A Kiss

I’m holding him, not paying too much attention and I feel him getting really close to my cheek region, not that he doesn’t ever cuddle, but, well, I thought he was giving me a kiss til I realized he was TASTING the earpiece of my glasses!

Not A Hug

It was four something a. m. and I feel what I think is his arm, kind of reaching out to me, I’m groggy from sleep, but I start to think: Awwww!  He wants a hug, that’s when he kicks me, not hard, but still: it was his foot, what’s it called in German: Lebensraum?

The Tortilla Gambit

We had this mealtime when he just wouldn’t eat: NOTHING, none of the tricks worked.  I thought back to this day when his mother had fed him something on a tortilla chip and made the suggestion: it worked!  So now one of us will mention some rejected entree and say: “He didn’t even eat it off a chip?!” The problem now is that whole mealtimes are dominated by this fried corn spoon: now there’s an idea: anyone have any start-up cash? Backlogg, Inc. What does Han say? “I like the sound of that . . .”

Floor d’oevres

Hooked on Histrionics

Now, it’s a little early for drama isn’t it?  Maybe not.  At diaper inspection or high chair time, he twists himself into these elaborate obdurate pretzels of protest.  You pick him up and he starts an intricate Irish dance of defiance:

Tonamondeal!

I’ll not touch the ground

This oppression is worse than having the English around!

And you have to sing, you have to distract: Look!  A Kitty!  Like there aren’t three almost omnipresent representatives of the Domesticated Felines Local!

But it’s nice to see diaper changing, force feeding and removal from his bath being protested at such a young age . . .

Cats, Stay Off the Computer

I used to joke as I sequestered the furry ones in the second bed room: Cats, Stay Off the Computer. Ha Ha right?  So, one day I found keys missing!  They had been removed by a cat!  Raleigh (biggest, oldest, evilest) Will be found lolling on the keyboard, flattening out the screen: designers didn’t intend 14 pound cats to use their product as a warmer/pillow . . . so now, I turn the thing off, it cant’ be a interesting, or warm that way!

Floor d’oevres

So, I came up with a new name for the morsels on the ground, not carpetizers or

appe-tile-zers, but floor d’oevres.  They’re awesome BECAUSE they’re on the floor.  If you need to assuage some nagging hunger, reach down and rattle-snake it into your mouth-the parent can’t stop you then and that moldy or manky cheerio is yours!

Baby Beastmaster

There was a corny movie in the 80s called ‘The Beastmaster,’ I’ve noticed that Holden speaks with the cats: “Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” He even makes the pitch go higher if one of them is on the patio caterwauling.  They look at me with disgust: “He’s saying it wrong dad!  He just wants to lure us over and pull our tail or ears! Tell him to knock it off!”

He talks to the crows and dogs, he doesn’t know what to do about the mockingbirds, but do any of us?

I imagine a scenario: Baby Beastmaster: he speaks their tongues, they do his bidding: crows flying out for that extra special Gerber pureed bananas, the cats fetching a fresh diaper and the neighborhood dogs howling an entertaining song at the full moon . . .

Baby Beastmaster!

Great Gatsby

Dancing

So, the other day I had some music on and I looked over and Holden was gettin’ down!  This shouldn’t bother anyone, but he was dancing like me!  I was raised to think dancing was bad and Billy Eliot aside, most people don’t learn to dance in their walk-in closets, honing their moves . . . Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed but keep ‘em off the dance floor.

I told Holden he needed to learn from his mother . . .

When Your Kid’s Shirts are Cooler than Yours

I was trying to formulate a list of items that very young children have in common with teenagers, but I got bogged down after you can’t understand them and they need new clothes all the time.  I find myself looking at some of his shirts and onesies and thinking: that’s cool!  Now don’t get me wrong, if onesies came in XXL, I don’t think I’d wear them, but if big, fat beer gut guys did, we could REALLY say no to crack . . . o. k. bad, not even original . . . Or the Cars stuff, I couldn’t see myself representing there–maybe it’s all the colors, my wardrobe seems to consist of blue(Tigers), black, some red (Pistons, Red Wings) and green for my Irish soccer team and today is March seventeen, the day for the wearin’ o’ the green . . .

Just Like the Great Gatsby

One of his favorite activities is emptying a drawer or laundry basket, flinging with happy abandon that which we painstakingly folded and I sniggered to myself and said: just like the Great Gatsby!  You know that scene with Daisy?  She’s throwing Jay’s shirts around saying they’re beautiful?  It’s a dopey scene, I thought Daisy was worthless . . . so maybe it wasn’t just like the Great Gatsby . . . made me think of great literature, that’s what’s important right?

The baby is napping, the computer is trying to nap . . .

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Don’t Fill Up On Chips!

. . . while he naps I taps . . .

Don’t Fill Up On Chips

XM radio came with our car but then they took it away.  They dangle it carrot like in front of us every now and again.  We found a station for kids and the guy was singing about Ghandi–not kidding.  Another song was ‘Don’t Fill Up On Chips’ and after he deals out this maxim there’s a chorus of not-kids whining in falsetto: ‘why mom? why mom?’ Disturbing, I know.  I had to remind myself though that I sing him Irish songs about whiskey, the English, mother-in-laws, the perfidiousness of women in general, drinking too much . . .

All that will need furher explaining some day . . . don’t fill up on chips is pretty straight forward!

Growing up

So, I was at the playground the other day . . . there are two swings his size, one had somethig that looked like large chunk feta in it.  I know that there is no such thing, so I moved down to the next swing.  There were two girls on the next two swings and they made no secret about the topic of discussion.  The older one had decided on what Oscar Wilde called ‘the love that dares not speak its name.’ I was privy to a long conversation about said subject and it bothered me for the rest of the day.  I couldn’t put my finger on it right away: gay, straight, who cares? Kids grow up but why can’t they find somewhere else to grow up too fast?! The mall?  Some silly coffee shop? Why the playground?

. . . you know, I had three in mind when I sat down and now I’m blanking . . . have just cheated and looked at my notebook, this wasn’t the one I meant to write, but here goes:

Duck

One of the parks we go to has a nice soccer field (or pitch).  We were given a soccer ball from a friend.  It has the colors and team crest of Chivas.  We took Holden to the park to kick some corners and penaltys and work on his strike on goal.  He wanted to play Duck.  It’s not as sinister as it sounds: the noun not the verb.  There was a duck nearby and Holden chased it until it finally headed for a toddler-free zone.  It was amazing how there were no distractions, it was like the duck had a tractor beam and . . . there’s my first Star Wars allusion in a while . . . We will have to work on his corner kick next time.

The Pinto Bean that Exploded

The Pinto Bean that Exploded

We’ve been giving him solid foods for a while but the other day when I was nuke-ro-waving some pinto beans, I noticed these flashes out of the corner of my eye, like there was lilliputian emperor in the box zapping the beans into the next world.  So the next time I watched and Pap-Pap-Pap they were going off with these little flashes of flame, like really bad special effects!  It was the same with the little pieces of sweet potato.  I don’t need explosions in the kitchen unless we’re talking metaphorically about my latest curry and that’s usually a slow burn!

Just Like Indiana Jones

The other day I had to transfer him from the car so he could continue his nap.  I round the bend and see this toy in the crib.  It’s a monkey on a ball–like a circus act–he has a hair trigger though and if touched slightly will start either laughing or going whooooooooooooo-hoooooo!  I didn’t need that.  I one armed Holden and VERY carefully lifted out the monkey and disarmed him with a flick of my finger.  I’ve handled a live grenade (in the USMC) and on-the-ball-monkey might be more dangerous(ha ha!).  But I dropped off Holden and got out and it made me think of that opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark–the switch!  But I guess the temple collapsed on Indy and I just sloped off to waste time on line, drink coffee and edit my novel!

Tratorria

Holden just woke up so I’m going to have to cut this short . . . typing one handed with a toddler on knee-countdown begins!  So he’ll reject things and they’ll fall to the footrest of his highchair.  He’ll be wandering around later and snack off this little ledge.  It’s like his own little tratorria (there are some Italian restaurants where you don’t sit down).  And that would be fine except all the floor is his tratorria, everything’s fair game! Traflooria?

O. K. bad, going now.