Sunday, February 14, 2010

Scenes from a Living Room

Ours, to be precise.

Lights, Camera, Action:

M hands a powerless Wii remote to an 11-month-old and K half-heartedly attempts to contain her displeasure. M notices. This is not the first time a transaction like this has taken place.


M: What, you don't think he should play with this either?
K: Well... No, not really.
M: You don't want me to give him anything!
K: I just don't think we should be giving him things we don't want him to play with. Do you disagree?
M: No, I guess I just think it's okay for him to play with some of these things*. I mean, what is he going to do to this? (holding up remote)
K: (deadly serious and without missing a beat) Throw it in the toilet.
- long pause - 
M: Well, I don't want him to do that.
- another long pause - 
M: Why would he DO something like that?!

It's a valid question, right? Did I ever tell you M had never held a baby before Elliot? She literally never touched a baby before they handed E to her in the OR. She was the youngest in her family (by a lot) and never had any younger cousins or friends while growing up. We are the first of our friends to have a baby. This void of experience has led her into many misunderstandings, such as her expectation that we could expect our future child to potty-train around 9 months of age. Lucky for all of us, she's a fast learner and a good sport.

*Previous proposed playthings = our cell phones and the keyboard on our laptop computer.

P.S. I'm alive and well, just busy. I promise to return to substantive posting one of these days.

3 comments:

anofferingoflove said...

That's crazy she never held a baby before Elliott! How special for that delivery room moment!

Pomegranate said...

hysterical.

that's gonna be tam if we ever have a baby. not so drastic, but she's never changed a diaper which i can't fathom since i've always had babies all around me.

we were baby-sitting a friend's kid and she freaked out when he needed to be changed. it's cute.

Trinity said...

I have to admit that I have very limited baby experience, too. In general, other people's babies (with the exception of my niece and godson) kind of freak me out.

My sister used to let her daughter play with her cell phone--that is, until she (my niece) accidentally ordered a subscription to basketball scores via text. My sister couldn't figure out where these texts were coming from and eventually realized when she got her bill that they had been ordered, hehehe.