Sunday, April 6, 2008

Happy Birthday Pig!!!

Today is my pseudo-nephew Pig's 1st birthday. I call him Pig, not because he's a messy eater, but because he was born in the year of the pig - and he is a messy eater. In his defense, how many one year olds do you know who use cutlery and will delicately dab at their lips with a napkin if a dollop of strained carrots goes astray?

Incidentally it is also my Dad's birthday today but he's not nearly as cute and mastered the art of eating well over four years ago. Good job Dad.

Pig is now able to cruise. This means he can do a kind of lopsided walk while holding onto something to steady himself. It's very similar to how I skate although probably more graceful.
He can also speak. It's in his own language but I'm starting to pick-up a few words here and there.

Eeeeeeeeee: I'm going to poke you directly in the eye now.
AAieoouuu: Now I will pull your lower lip as far as humanly possible.
Slllllp: Is that a good shirt? I'm going to drool on it.
Errrrrrp: I've just spit up. Let's play.
Aa Aa Aa: Those balloons frighten me ever so much.

I can't wait until he starts speaking English because the thought process of a child is one of the most amusing things I can think of. Two examples:

I was playing with my godson with oversize lego blocks (about the size of a Kleenex box). For some reason the lego block was supposed to be cake. I said, "Mmmm, a nice big piece of chocolate cake" to which he replied, in a very condescending tone I might add, "the block is white, it has to be vanilla cake." So let me get this straight. You're willing to go so far as to pretend a hard piece of plastic is cake but you're not willing to go far enough to pretend it's chocolate cake because it's white. Sounds logical.

On another occasion I was playing with Snake (Pig's older cousin). We were sitting on the couch pretending it was a car. Before we went for a drive we would buckle-up. This was a process that took a few minutes because we had about thirteen "seatbelts" each. Snake would place one of the cushions on her lap and we'd "drive" off. Sometimes she would say, now you drive, and pass me the wheel which just meant that she would no longer hold her hands as if holding on to a steering wheel and I would start holding my hands in such a manner. Each time we went for a drive we'd buckle-up and Snake would place the cushion on her lap. Finally I asked what it was, meaning, what is it supposed to be, considering our car was a couch and our steering wheel was non-existent I was expecting an answer like "a jet pack". She looked at me as if I just came into town from the mountains to see all the pretty lights and magic picture boxes. "It's a pillow". Luckily for me the word dumb-ass wasn't in her vocabulary at the time.

Happy Birthday Pig, I'm looking forward to the first time you roll your eyes at me thinking, "of all the pseudo-uncles in the world I had to get the dumbest."

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