fun in threes, sometimes fours
the boy
With some help, the Boy can now sit. He casts his eyes here and there, his attention drawn to this sound or that motion, and his arms or legs are constantly in motion. It seems like it would be a good match for the hyper Girl.
They sit together, banging anything and everything, both delighted with the racket.
The difference comes later, when the Boy has a moment alone and sits silently, almost contemplatively, for a seemingly impossible length of time. The Girl wouldn’t last three seconds.
The Girl has learned how to play dominoes -- at least, a version of Mexican Train from a set with missing pieces. She generally tends to place her tiles on the table face up because, as she explains, she needs help. I tell her that perhaps it's best if I don't see what she has because it's tempting to make decisions based on that knowledge.
Still, she does need the help. She often overlooks playable tiles and tends to draw without really thinking. And then there's her tendency to get ahead of herself -- a less magnanimous father would say "cheat" -- and slip another tile down before I play.
In the end, the Girl wins, semi-fair-and-square. I'm fairly sure there were a couple of times she played twice while I was wrestling the Boy. Then again, I know of at least one time she missed a tile and I said nothing. Perhaps I was desperate to make a decent showing.
Then again, when I draw these three tiles toward the end of the game, one can hardly fault me, I think.
The Boy is ready to eat; K doesn’t have his food ready yet. There’s only one thing to do.
The Girl and I keep him happy.
With the Boy just getting over some congestion, there was only one option: a quiet, stay-at-home Halloween. Which would have been horrible for the Girl, except for the fact that a neighbor offered to take her trick-or-treating with her daughter and another friend.
Apparently “trick-or-treat” was less accurate a description than “pillage and plunder.”
There was one thing missing, though: a visit to knock on Nana’s and Papa’s door. Still, they weren’t willing to break that tradition, so they came to us this year.
And naturally, Papa monopolized the Boy.
When you’re as heavy as the Boy (over twenty-one pounds at a little more than five months of age), it’s probably a little more difficult to sit up than for a more-average size baby.
Yet he’s begun sitting a bit — or rather, slouching.
Of course, it always helps to have something to grasp for support.
I understand radio and television stations had been counting down the days, but last Wednesday, the waiting ended. The Greenville Zoo tweeted, “It’s a boy! Greenville Zoo staff selected the name Kiko, meaning autumn’s child!”
To call him a “cute little boy” would be misleading: he’s cute, but he’s certainly not little, for he looks to be over six feet tall. Still, compared to Mama, he’s a shrimp.
The Girl and I set out this morning finally to get a look at him. With this tweet bouncing around Greenville, we weren’t the only ones: “It has been a zoo here today! Everyone wants to see Kiko! Tomorrow he will be out from 11am – 2pm”
The question of who had the best view changed from moment to moment as mother and son paced about the enclosure, with mother always keeping a close eye on Kiko, occasionally looking behind her to check on his progress, and frequently bending her long neck to give a reassuring nuzzle. Mothers do that, and I suspect they do it even when their babies are fully grown. At least we humans do it — looking at mother and son this morning, I couldn’t imagine it being any different among animals.
It’s tempting to say something like, “It’s fairly different for the giraffes and such because there’s no culture out there trying to pump their heads full of garbage” (yes, still stewing from yesterday’s post), but they face existential threats hourly in the wild: I suppose the stress level is about the same. Still, do baby giraffes do things that make their parents just cringe?
Probably. They probably even get dizzy just watching what their children do — that height probably doesn’t help much.
Still, as I watched the Girl after the zoo turning endless circles on this and that VIA( Vomit-Inducing Attraction), I started thinking that perhaps our lives are not so different, we and giraffes, or any other animal for that matter. We face our dangers, we teach our children to face them, and we hope that we’ve given them enough to survive, or thrive.
But I suppose giraffes don’t photograph their children as obsessively as we.
We first went in 2007: a Girl, a camera, wonderful afternoon light, and lots of time.
The next year, we took a photo that was a personal favorite picture for a very long time -- still is, in fact. Our first year in the pumpkin patch and the Girl was exceedingly playful. Giggles all afternoon.
The next year, it was the same. It was a photo shoot that almost shot itself: all I had to was point and shoot, literally. The Girl took care of all the rest. She was so easily excited, and almost everything thrilled her instantly and completely.
By 2010, she was a little lady. Photos were fine, but they had to be in some meaningful context. Gone were the days of, "Put her by that pumpkin" and clicking away. She wanted to help. She wanted to lift. She wanted to compose.
"I'll just move this one over and then sit down..."
Today, though, she had competition. And while the Boy was an easy target -- he can't move, so there's little choice; he can't talk, so there are few protests -- the Girl had other ideas.
The Boy was far too fascinated with the straw and hay to make much of a fuss about anything. The only trick was trying to get him to sit up long enough. Then we hit on the idea of holding him in such a way that the support was not immediately visible. Then we just gave up and shot.
We managed to talk the Girl into a few photos,
but she was far more interested in picking a pumpkin, and even more interested in hauling said pumpkin to the wheelbarrow.
And so I guess we'll be recreating all the autumnal photo shoots with the Boy that we had with the Girl over the last few years. I can't imagine more exciting prospects.
Saturday morning has a new routine since the Girl began playing soccer. Up at eight; on the field by nine — it’s a busy morning.
Evenings, things return to normal.
And that normal includes a boy who loves to smile.
And does it well.
