Babysitting and broccoli
Last night I went over to Megan's house to help her watch a fifteen-month old she was babysitting for friends of hers. This kid was really, really cute. I mean, wow. He has no teeth, but his mom and dad think he's working on getting a whole bunch in all at once, so he still has the big gummy smile. He's toddling around, which means he falls over occasionally, but when he does, it's no big deal, he gets right back up again. Plus, he's doing the conversational babbling, sometimes into his toy phone, and sometimes without it. At one point while Megan and I were talking, he rolled over onto his back, looked at the ceiling, perfunctorily waved both his hands at it, babbled something, and then rolled back over. It's like he was telling us to stop with the chattering already. He was really mellow, especially considering he was being babysat by two people he wasn't completely familiar with. He'd sit in our laps and let us tickle him or bounce him or play peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo was great because he doesn't cover his eyes, he covers his mouth, stares at you, and then drops his hands and says "boo!". To add a little spice to the evening, his parents evidently fed him broccoli for dinner, the end result of which was lots of crazy smelling toots, all evening long. To make matters worse they would just sort of hang in the air for a while so you could truly appreciate their potency, and then slowly dissipate. He'd give you a little warning as to what was coming if he was sitting in your lap because he'd lift up one tuckus cheek and strain before getting anything out. It was almost better if you didn't know it was coming. He knows how to say a few words, one of which was "bye" and hearing that word come out in such a sweet, tiny voice made me feel bad for future Henry, because if he thinks he gets lots of squeezes now, it's nothing compared to when he starts talking.