In For It

I've always held to the idea that children are actually people...only, you know, smaller and much harder to ignore. I never embraced babytalk...even when my Monkeyboy was a tiny thing. I actually wrote a piece for "Life is Short" in the Post about how my mother in law refused to speak to him in anything but babytalk (I should have submitted it, now that I reflect...I think it might have been good...ah well).

Anyway, so the impact of this kind of philosophy is that you get a slightly freakish kid. Two cases in point:

Last week, home sick with a stomach bug, the Monkey is staunchly avoiding napping, but I've convinced him to stay in bed and play while I hide out in the office. There's this noise over the house that sounds more spaceship than airplane -- intensely loud and long and fades after far too long a time. And the Monkey comes sort of ambling out of his room to announce "Mommy, that big noise made me a little concerned..."

This morning, en route to daycare, as the Monkey is munching mixed cereal in the back seat, two oncoming cars passed dangerously close to the car and I let out the involuntary "Sheeeeesh" (I'm proud, in these moments, when I can censor the usual road-rage verbalisms down to something suitable for the toddler set). The Monkey asked what was up and I told him that the cars passed too closely and it scared me. His response: "Yeah...it scared me too. [pause] I'm disturbed."

Um...you know what, honey? Me too.

So I figure at this rate, I'm going to be having discussions on the intricacies of Gravity's Rainbow (or maybe Infinite Jest?) before he hits first grade. I only hope he lets me be Pinky to his Brain...

Nog!