Further Mysteries

It’s beginning to seem to me truly remarkable that so many of us humans actually make it to adulthood. Born as helpless as we are, and yet so determinedly attracted to danger. If there was a God involved in this game plan, I get the feeling he was drunk at a frat party when he and his buddies thought it up.

GOD: OK, ok. I got it. Let’s have ‘em be stuck on their backs like little bugs for most of the first year. They’ll wiggle and flail and scream but not be able to get anywhere. The sabre-toothed tigers will love that!

BUDDY #1: Dude. Great idea. But we should let ‘em move a little, don’t you think? Roll, maybe. Scoot. That’d be w-a-y more fun to watch. Especially if they still don’t know how to work their arms and legs.

BUDDY #2: Wait, are we giving ‘em teeth, so they can at least bite back?

BUDDY #3: Nah. They can pinch. And they’ve got their own claws, I mean nails.

BUDDY #4: I say give ‘em little teeth, at least.

GOD: Alright, yeah, let’s give ‘em a few. Why not?

BUDDY #5: Right on. But get this, how about they pinch and claw and have a few teeth and all, but when they move make ‘em want to move toward crazy stuff. Like arrowheads. Or fire.

BUDDY #6: And cliffs. Ponds, even. That’d be awesome!

GOD: I’m down with that. Yo, pass the hooka.

That’s the scene that flashed in my mind, anyway, as Rebecca responded to my tale of Django launching himself over the edge of the kitchen table, head first, tumbling nearly 3 feet to the linoleum floor, with something like: “Don’t they have little instincts that kick in before they go through with a stunt like that?” Um…yeah, apparently, no.

So Django started pulling up a month ago, cruising furniture shortly after that, and most recently he’s gotten the hang of crawling. Me, I’m wondering if it’s possible to childproof myself with psychopharmaceuticals. Bubba Mike (aka MDN) says he’d just strap the boy to the couch with a helmet on for the duration of his formative years. I find myself tempted. Seriously tempted.

But I’m also ferociously bittersweet about these developmental leaps and bounds. It’s tearing me apart. These days I think I cry way more than Django does. I get weepy dancing him to sleep at naptime. I burst into waterworks when I hear him giggle too many times in a row. I tear-up when he starts his comedy routine in the carseat or the playpen. In other words, he’s doing just fine. But,clearly, I’m a mess

p.s. Turns out baby teeth-stumps are nearly impossible to photograph -- or Django's are anyway. But if you look closely in this one, you can see his first two on the bottom there. They're coming in crooked, which makes them even cuter, really, but also means I've had to start saving for braces already.