Another amusing thing...

Another amusing thing...

I came across this and chuckled.





Last night, carol and I stayed up and put together adolfo's final xmas present. This was the big one that we couldn't find locally nor afford at the time: a Step 2 Kitchen. It was 15 minutes to midnight when we picked it up off the floor and pushed it along the floor to it's spot in the kitchen next to the pantry.

It hadn't occured to me until just now that we have still been singing "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" with adolfo. This may have been more concious on Carol's part, who had kept up a determined search for the kitchen since Christmas. Yesterday, while running an office errand to find parchment-style card stock for award certificates, she poked her head into the Toys-R-Us that was next door to Office Max and found exactly what she wanted. It was too big to fit into the car, so she had it removed from the box and placed into the car in pieces.

This morning adolfo walked into the kichen, went to the fridge, pulled the large apple juice out of the fridge and handed it to his mother as he does every morning, without even a glance toward his new kitchen. He took his juice and walked past the kitchen to his high chair, climbed in and had a cup of yogurt for breakfast. He does this quietly, choosing to wake up slowly, rather than roar headlong into awake-ness. He does the same thing after naps.

I dressed him right afterwards. Being able to wake up slowly put him in a good happy mood. He smiled and laughed with me as i changed his diaper and clothes. I quickly glanced at his backside and little privates to see if the substantial rash he had a couple of days earlier was visible. His skin had returned to it's normal color of vanilla ice-cream. I told him that i had a surprise for him and he raised his eyebrows with a smile. "Do you know what a surprise is?"

"Su-pwise," he answered through his smile.

"You ask me, 'What is it daddy? Is it a car?"

"Wuzit da-eey? Cawr?" he asked.

"Is it a Choo-choo train?"

"chew-chew chwain?" he asked.

"Is my surprise a new house?"

"howse?" he asked.

We went on like this until i had pulled his red, white, and blue stripped shirt over his head. Then we went, again, to the kitchen. "Where is your surprise?" i asked him. He stood in the middle of the kitchen while Carol and I stood right next to his toy kitchen. He looked around the kithchen with a helpless little smile, not really knowing what was going on. It wasn't until i kicked his kitchen that he even noticed it.

"Look at all this!" he said clear as day. He even pointed to it which i take as a pretty good sign. I remeber, as a child, pointing at my Millenium Falcon when it was under the tree. That was the ultimate expression, the ultimate acknowledgement. It exists! There it is! Do you see it, right there! At the end of my finger! I can touch it!

I remember when adolfo was much younger having trouble pointing things out to him. Instead of following the invisible line off of my finger that lead to the moon, or the cars on the road, or the bird that just flew by, he would just stare at the end of my finger mezmerized by it. Now, for sure, i know he has developed his own invisible lines his own way of acknowledging things that exist around him.

If he points to it, it it more important? I am thinking know about when he points. He points at particular foods that he wants. "That one, da-eey," he will explain to me as we share food from a bowl. He is particular, not picky. For example, he won't eat the chocolate ice-cream, but he will eat the vanilla; he will only eat the tops of the brocoli. He points sloppily but deliberately towards me when i ask him to do something he would rather not do (like kick the soccer ball) and says, "..no day-ee, YOU kick it."

So maybe it is not an expression of importance, but more an expression of certainty. Here is this kitchen in front of me, he says; i want that particular food right there, he says; you kick the ball daddy, he says.