2002-11-25
I'm in Week Three of a pretty nasty cold. Courtesy, no doubt, of Clay, our own little terrorist. It's biological warfare, and there's not a thing we can do about it. I mean, he puts his fingers in our mouths. We can yank them out but by then the damage has been done. B has remained curiously unafflicted, though frequently reminds me that he suffered from mid-April until the end of June, during which time I was unscathed. Who knows how these things work?
Today I dressed Clay in my favorite of his outfits: a black turtleneck, wide-wale corduroy pants in kind of a sand color, and his standard black boots with black socks. B, upon seeing him, asked when his next reading was. He really does look like a little poet or novelist or something. Very sensitive-intellectual, lacking only the wire-rims. (And given his two myopic parents, it's only a matter of time for those.)
Unfortunately, he has expressed very little interest in books. By his age (11 months next week), many a child already enjoys being read to, looking at the pictures and such. Not Clay. I can get through maybe a third of Goodnight Moon before he starts to howl, but he's clearly just tolerating it for my sake. Being read to falls somewhere between having his teeth brushed--which he doesn't much mind--and having his nails trimmed, which is pure torture. Odd, these preferences; he loves the vacuum cleaner, follows B around as he operates it and does the same at daycare. (I've been vacuum-averse since my older brother held it over me, threatening to suck me in.)
Yesterday I think he reached a new level of willful misbehavior. The most voracious of our dogs has figured out that hanging around the high chair can lead to some good payoffs and Clay has figured out that his parents get very animated when he extends a handful of food to this dog. Yesterday I sternly warned him not to hand his prune over. He did so anyway. I was enraged. He laughed with delight.
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We're doing holiday cards this year. If you'd like to receive one, please send me your address.
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