My son will be one in one month and two days, if he survives. He’s doing a good job of getting himself into all kinds of crazy scrapes that I’m sure are going to wind up with us going to the E.R. and having some kind of safety straps and padding installed to prevent these things, but I remind myself part of learning is falling down, getting bumps and bruises, and apparently givng your parents heart failure on a half-hourly basis.

This is his latest exploit. I’m constantly scooping him off and putting him in his playpen trying to get him to understand that he shouldn’t be playing with the phone or the dragon lamp behind it. He’s so quick though that as soon as I let him out of the pen hoping he’s learned his lesson that he’s back over there dialing Timbuctoo on the handset or paging all the phones in the apartment and resetting the answering machine.

I need to get a wall shelf and put the phone up. I’ve tried to put it on the kitchen counter but the cords don’t stretch far enough .

The other cute and less hair-raising baby anecdote happened on Tuesday. My husband and I went out to lunch at a local tepponyaki restaurant with a Visa gift card a friend sent us for our anniversary the day before. The munchkin, of course, came with us, and was very well-behaved. One of the first things they give at this particularly restaurant is a salad which is mostly lettuce with a wonderful ginger citrus dressing. Munchkin does not like lettuce, he’s stolen it from my sandwiches before and left slimy trails of it all over the house, but as soon as he saw the salad going in my mouth he was making the “I want” sign and pointing to his mouth. I told him, “Honey, you don’t like lettuce,” but he persisted in signing and whining that he wanted some, so in the end I relented and gave him a small piece.

He rolled the lettuce around his mouth pulling a variety of strange faces, spat it out into his hand, looked at it, put it back, rolled it around again and then put his hand up to his mouth and took it out, stuck his tongue out, “Ewww…nasty,” and then offered the offending vileness to his Dad who was sitting on the other side of him, and said, “Dada?”

I was trying and failing miserably at not laughing especially when my husband goes, “Ewww…no. I don’t want it, give it your Mom!” and the child turns and looks at me.
“I don’t want it either,” but I wound up taking it, wrapping it up in a napkin and getting rid of it anyway.

Chicken, rice and mushrooms went over a lot better, but then we already knew he liked chicken and rice. The mushrooms were a suprise as neither his Dad or I will eat the things. But they were there, and I figured I would let him try them, because we want to try and make sure he’s not a fussy eater. The first piece went down and then he asked for more. My husband is now calling him, “The traitorous fungus eater.”