A Baby with Character July 6 - 20, 2004 On what it means for the parents when their offspring combines a newly acquired horizontal mobility with a mutated virosis, targeting automatic kitchen appliance and the household at large.

	When I catch you...! Tommy hunts for cheerios.

	She looked elsewhere... ... and I managed to get there!!!

Our Tom started to really crawl during Jackie's visit, about which I wrote in my previous journal. This opened new horizons for him -- and for me as well. First week I perceived it cute that Tom had been crawling behind me like a puppy and curiously observing me working in our kitchen. I thought our kitchen quite safe, after I had carefully re-organized bottom drawers so they don't contain any sharp or heavy objects. You wish! Before I could turn around, Tom was already rummaging through our dishwasher. I made a mental not to always remove sharp knives out of reach when I open the dishwasher. On the same day afternoon, Tom managed to get into the dishwasher himself, feet and all, to be able to grab anything in there. His radar has been since tuned to a characteristic sound of opening dishwasher door and as soon I get near, he kneels behind me with an eager grin. I have no other choice than communing with my most favorite household helper at odd times, i.e. when our little baby sleeps tight safely imprisoned by his bed's bars.

And what about the wonderful, huge, turning knob with a red shiny dot on our amplifier! I noticed that Tom had himself suddenly teleported to the said instrument and smack -- our house rattles with double, horrible screaming: the TV roars on maximum volume, and Tom, scared, yodels at the top of his lungs. I told him how sorry I was, mentally reprimanding myself; in front of our AV stack I installed a low table so that Tommy would not be able to reach the knobs and buttons anymore. Therefore his next trip to the TV, some hours later, did not alert my attention. Naturally, Tom used the table as an access ramp, and by one expert reach managed to completely re-program the AV center (my husband, a senior engineer, spent an hour recovering it to previous state).

	I'm standing, but I'm afraid I'll fall! Tom at a baby corner inside Monterey Aquarium

Nowadays, if I need to go to a bathroom, it's not enough to drop the baby on the floor in a safe distance from various gadgets. I must either imprison him in his crib (which makes him yell) -- or I must take him along. For a couple days, Tom had relatively peacefully explored the expanse of our master bedroom and the main bathroom. Then I turned away for a half second and Tom stood by the toilet bowl -- and which kid would withstand the lure of dipping his hands in the water?

Further we experienced one tipped-over light torch (Sid caught it in the last moment), one emptied cabinet with cans, one emptied waste basket, and wiping of a floor. Tom pulled a drying bib down from his high chair and played with it very quietly -- he chewed on the bib, wiped some of the kitchen floor, then chewed on it some more, and so on. I stopped him as soon as I noticed, but due to the fact that he was being "nice and quiet" for several minutes, I reckon he still managed to lick off a noticeable stretch of the floor.

	Tropical fish

Besides exploring our household, Tom noticed that he has a personality. He immediately began to develop the idea. I had naively expected that the time when he grows defiant was somewhat related to the moment when he learns to say NO. I also thought that mandrakes, plants who's screaming can kill an adult human, exist only in Harry Potter books. True, leaves don't grow out of Tom's head, but he can produce quite passable screams, just like if somebody was ripping him open alive. He does so especially when the little baby is being cheated -- i.e. every time something does not happen as he wants, immediately -- alas, I often have a feeling that he himself is unsure of what he wants, yet he screams even more, until he does not get it. Often we must turn into two clowns, to distract him towards something realizable.

A frequent reason for his screaming is our very favorite daddy. In the moment he enters our house in the evening, he is out of luck. Little raised arms and desperate whimpering transform into angry din, should daddy allow himself to first visit a bathroom or do something of the sort. Our baby demands to be held and entertained by someone else than his boring mother, and at once. Perhaps I ought to feel hurt after a full day of caring, when I'm rewarded by undeniable expressions of affection to ever absent Sid, but I confess that every minute when Tom hangs off somebody else, only means salve to my tattered nerves.

	Granny with Tom checked out all baby attractions at Monterey Aquarium

Area of food seemed to me relatively safe. Our baby gave me joy by quickly learning to feed self at least with things that one can grasp -- a cheerio wheel, a quarter of peeled apple, a piece of water melon -- we practice fine motor skills on all that. Tom manages to actually consume at least half of the presented food. This, on the other side, leads to much crinkling of nose over things I give him by means of a boring spoon. Not that he would not actually want it, there's too much of Hippo in him, but he always very carefully sticks out a tip of his little tongue, takes a sampling, and then eventually decides whether to accept hereby offered mash. I would even go as far as understanding that, but consider that this pig of ours does not hesitate for a moment and immediately puts into his mouth anything he finds on the ground himself (crumbs, grass, rocks, leaves, sticks). In light of that, all the paranoid testing appears to me like a sophisticated method of torturing his poor mother.

	Hey, baby!!! Guess what gets most of Tom's attention on a beach?

Based in above mentioned facts, I conclude that our baby has grown mature enough, to have in his program more interesting things than our house and back yard. We went together to Monterey Aquarium. Just to be sure, I took our granny along, with a backup plan of handing a squealing descendant over, and sending them off to take a walk or something. Alas, granny declared right at the first fish tank that the poor child cannot possibly see anything from his stroller, and against my advice picked Tom up into her arms. That has guaranteed further success -- Tom loves to be carried, which benefit I often deny him (still, he's over twenty pounds and I don't own a spare back). Aquarium surprised us pleasantly with the amount of attractions they offer even for the tiniest children. Besides fishspotting (as one would expect from such an institution), Tom had granny follow him around, crawling through a tunnel, splashing in water, playing with giant building blocks, and rolling on a water bed. I think that the bed was his most favorite -- once we took him away, he crawled back on his own, despite three step he had to overcome.

Unfortunately Tom has had not only fun at the Aquarium; he acquired a new cold virus, which provided him with a smooth transition from Jack's traveling Czech cold, hence our whole family has been again ill, taking turns, all of us. It has lasted four weeks already, and I admit that I find my perpetually growling husband, my sniveling, whimpering child, and my own stuffy nose definitely annoying.

Copyright © 2004-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.