I suppose that I'm supposed to feel guilty, but it was great. I got some writing done without having to wear a sleeping small person around my neck. It was nice to be able to leave the house for a moment and not worry about Arthur, and being released from the two-hour Feed me, Seymour cycle was fabulous.
We seem to have a million baby clothes. I think about a half-million of these we can give to other new parents, as Arthur is already getting too big for the newborn stuff.
It seems like every other day he's bigger. A few days ago I realized he's taking up about half the length of the cradle; now he's taking up almost half. His crib seems a little smaller, too.
We might be raising a tank.
OK. I admit it. We made our first baby toy impulse buy. Small wooden blocks with numbers, letters, and animals on them. I'm not sure what we were thinking.
That's a lie. Mark was thinking, "Look, wooden toys that were made in America." I was thinking "Oh! How cute!" and secretly planning photoshoots with baby and blocks.
Up until then, we were secure in the knowledge that Arthur's happy with several books to look at. He really likes Animals on White, a huge photo book by Pete Dine (he liked the Irish Wolfhound and the bull); and Tiaras Past and Present by Geoffrey Munn. The Tiara book was the first book Arthur turned the pages of all by himself: he seemed to prefer a neo-classical tiara made up of diamonds and emeralds owned by Dame Ellen Terry and later by Dame Joan Sutherland over a tiara of rock crystal made by Cartier for Baron Pierre de Gunsburg, 1912.
It was only after we had paid for the blocks that we realized that the only thing Arthur's going to do with the blocks is suck on them for the for the next eighteen months. Then he'll probably throw them at us (or the cat). I had about consigned them to the shelf of misfit toys when I realized that they would give me something educational to wave in front of Arthur as he sucked down another six ounces of organic baby formula.
John (propped up on the couch within reach of baby blocks and a Pepsi): (Picks up block): "See Arthur, this is a swan. This is a swan."
Arthur (in the manner of Maggie Simpson): "Suck suck."
John (rotating block 90 degrees in the X axis): "And this is the letter A. This is an A."
Arthur: "Suck. Coo....coo. Suck... (eyes roll upward into head before closing).
John (discarding block, grabbing Pepsi): So much for higher education.
Mark has re-discovered rubber-band driven airplanes. We took Arthur to the park to fly them. The rubber-band on Mark's plane broke, and after a few crazy flights, my plane got stuck in a tree.
Arthur was completely unimpressed. So we made him wear sunglasses.
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