Tom loves wicker. To be fair he finds himself irresistibly attracted to anything that appears to be sharp / splintery / hard / rocky / pointy / attached to our cat.
Give him a plastic, gently flashing toy and he scuffs his knees clambering over it to get to the cooker. Time was you could look at his prone position on the carpet and gauge how much time you had before he would demand help. Now you see the glint in his eye, sneeze, and open your eyes to find an empty spot. Meanwhile he's pulled himself upright against his McClaren, ramming his fingers into those inaccessible spots that snap shut with such frightening ease.
Such bursts of energy are phenomenal to witness and equally fascinating is the manner in which he decelerates from 'Must jam head under table' to 'Cannot move one inch'. Having a baby in your house for the first five months is all about learning to anticipate their moods and deciphering their various croaks and squeals. We even bought a book that translates the different pitches of whine and flurry into a verifiable language. But now it's a little easier. This may be because, as parents, we are both better at recognising our son's needs, but I suspect it is because Tom has moved one step closer to owning a fully fledged personality. When he's tired himself out trying to rip the ears off our Burmese cat William he will lay flat on the floor, arms outstretched, face down, and start to moan. The only thing moving will be his tongue as it licks the floor.
His steps towards crawling came along at a decent pace. By three months he would tense as I held his arms and counted 1-2-3 before pulling him to a sitting position. By five months he could twist himself over onto his front by raising his left leg and flinging it wildly to the side. There was a fallow patch while he lay there for several weeks wondering what on earth to do next. The answer, rather oddly, was to push himself backwards into small corners or until he was wedged between the pouffé and the fireplace. William was interested at this stage but not unduly concerned. Poor unsuspecting feline!
Then on June 4th came the key moment. Propped on the floor, stuck to the ground at four points he suddenly raised his left hand, held it uncertainly in the air for three long seconds and then brought it down, planting it with all the solemnity of a mini-Armstrong claiming the Afghan carpet as his own. His three other jealous limbs shuffled forwards to meet this bold limb and he was off. For the whole of that Sunday he operated in this disjointed manner yet when he woke up on Monday morning it was as though he had been crawling forwards all his life.
Within a week he was attempting to pull himself upright on sofas, beds, doors, cats, knees, curtains, cats again, ornamental brass fireplaces, chests, still cats, didgeridoos. Little wonder minimalism didn't fully take off; I'm guessing many of the originators of this philosophy are now looking after their children, all house-bound after having never learned how to walk. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is renowned for the motto 'Less is more' but what is less commonly known is that he finished the sentence with 'but why don't you kids get out and have a game of footie?' as he turned to his fifteen obese offspring.
When I was a child I always preferred superheroes with a human touch. This was important when Jane and I sat down with pen and paper to consider what Superhero name to give to Tom. I know most parents wait until they are a little older (Christening, First Birthday, Superhero Name etc but we figured we'd start early). Jane agreed wholeheartedly, but cleverly feigned disinterest by sighing and going into the kitchen to do something useful.
'I was hoping for something along the lines of Peter Parker, aka Spiderman. I always believed that he was a more egalitarian choice of superhero than Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne. Those two had near constant invulnerability or a fortune to protect them. Peter was still worrying about finding a girlfriend. He's the only superhero who might conceivably have had to rescue a burning bus full of little children after squeezing his spots,' I shouted.
'I'm preparing his milk,' was her playful answer.
So imagine our mutual disappointment when, within days of his crawling, it became clear that Tom had all the hallmarks, regrettably, of a Supervillain. We first named him The Ruinator, moved swiftly to Disastermaster, took a slight wrong turn with Greasemonkey but eventually fixed on Destructor. His aims are simple: Must twist radiator valve ....must yank open door to video cabinet ....must injure eye on CD rack ... must eat paper ... must avoid harmless toy ...must eat pebbles ...must damage family home. True, the good men at NATO aren't going to panic when they find that there is a new Villain on the block whose main aspiration is to crawl inside the wicker paper recycling box; but I think they should keep their eyes on him. Of course there aren't many superheroes who still poo themselves. Still, they all have their weaknesses and I wouldn't mind betting that Bruce Banner regularly found himself squirming a bit when he woke up in shorts used by The Hulk.
Supervillain or not, it's terribly hard not to laugh when I walk into a room and he looks up and sees me. Immediately there is a genuine flash of pleasure, a brief, buoyant shriek and then he runs, on all fours; sliding across the carpet like a skater towards my legs, heaving and bending and flexing until he is perched on his tip-toes, his strong arms wrapped around my knees. I know I'm related to him and everything but I can't help but feel that I wouldn't smile quite so widely if Lex Luther tried the same trick.
1 July 2006
Dave Fouracre aka "Dave the Dad" is a regular feature writer here at thebabywebsite.com.
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Dave The Dad 35 - 15 weeks and Counting
