Little Joys
I’ve spent the last hour laying on the couch, watching my little boy tear the house apart. Though he cannot yet crawl, he is the world’s most talented and agile creeper, able to make it from point A to point B in the blink of an eye (so long as there’s something interesting on the other side).
When he first woke up, I set him in his walker, and I adoringly watched him make his way along all of the low shelves, yanking spare cords, DVDs, and empty biscuit tins onto the floor or into is mouth. When I got tired of chasing him around, I took him outside, setting him in one of the lawn chairs. The unstable leg of the chair proved amusing to him, and he laughingly rocked himself backward and forward until he nearly threw himself ecstatically to the ground.
And so an hour ago or more, I set him on the little area rug in front of the couch with a couple of his favourite toys and waited for the crying to start. Surprisingly it never came. Once he’d tired of the hard plastic octopus (bought from Boots and marketed as a back massager some years ago) and the musical dog (which yesterday was broken and had to be “fixed” by throwing it across a room to get it to stop cycling through the same three notes over and over again), he rolled over onto his tummy and began making his way toward his open diaper bag. Mentally, I ran through whether or not there was anything in there that might hurt him, and once I was satisfied that there wasn’t, I left him to it.
For half an hour, he satisfied himself by pulling out each item (shoes, spare formula, his baby book, packaged foods, etc) and sticking them in his mouth to get a taste for them. When he pulled out his medical record book, I intervened by taking it from him. I sensed a fit coming on, so I quickly grabbed a package of baby biscotti and handed it to him. He then proceeded to smash the biscuits into the rug, alternately finding bits small enough for his mouth and lovingly chomping down. After sucking them into a sticky paste, he then proceeded to dribble the entire mess out of his mouth and onto the carpet.
Then, an about face and creep along to a pile of clean socks. They’re not so clean anymore.
And now, as I sit here, contemplating the mess I’ve got to clean up, I see him look at me, tears welling in his eyes. He’s exhausted from his little adventure, and he’s ready for a cuddle, a warm bottle of milk, and perhaps (if we’re very lucky) a nice nap.
And me? I just sit here, a smile on my face, radiating love to my little fireball. He’s the only one who can tear my house apart, squirt germs all over the place and give me a ton of extra work - and all I will send his way is an understanding hug and kiss.
This post originated at A Mother Thing (http://www.amotherthing.com). If you want to leave a comment, please do so here: http://www.amotherthing.com/2011/09/little-joys/#comments