I have heard that nothing is worse than a dead blog...but I would argue that my friend Gary's recent Facebook post of an 80's Canadian rock band doing a reggae Jesus tune is a hell of a lot worse. Now perhaps you will forgive me for my prolonged silence.
Milo is a walking tornado. I suppose it's nice that he can get from place to place like any good biped, yet he has upped the potential for disaster tenfold. This evening he traipsed around the house with a metal fork, stumbling occasionally, stabbing expensive wooden furniture and giggling maniacally. We would love to trade him out a teddy when he gets a hold of dangerous metal, but knives are cooler than stuffed animals, as we all know. He has an innate sense of what he is not supposed to have, or somehow reads our fearful minds, and it is those things he seeks most.
After Milo goes to bed, Leila and I clean up his dinner area, where he inevitably gets tired of eating and starts chucking stuff at the dog. Unless it's meat that he throws, the dog wants nothing to do with his offerings. Then, as we extract him from his high chair, it is nearly impossible not to crush some of the orts beneath our feet. I have felt the cool, squishy sensation of a grape exploding between my toes, the unmistakable crunch of a tortilla chip beneath my heel, and the oozy redness of an organic strawberry left especially for my big toe.
After sponging off the rug, we collect his toys and bring them back to the toy corner like so many little boomerangs. The boy must have a thousand toys. There are the oversize Legos he uses as landmines,the trucks we buy to encourage his man instincts, the rat puppet and his kin, the instruments of cacophony, and the touch-and-feel books. They all have their special place in our oversize efforts to keep baby happy, and they all need putting away.
Extraordinary conditions must come together to produce the energy that creates a tornado. They run their destructive course, but they are short-lived. Milo is hell-on-wheels, but the kid goes to bed at seven, which gives Mama and Dada plenty of time to update long-dead blogs.
