This weekend we discovered the way to Cormac’s affections is through jealousy. If you want to get him on to the lap of someone who is dying to hold him but who he is refusing to be held by (say a doting relative from out of town) then that person should pick up another more willing baby. As long as that person is giving attention to another baby then he really couldn’t be more desperate to be with them. He is thirteen months old but it all seemed somehow very male of him. (Sorry men for the gross generalisation, but I have been out with a few of you and you do rather have some definable traits that I have noticed over the course of these experiences).
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Everyone has eventually lost enthusiasm for the task of reading to Cormac, such is his insatiable appetite for books, and as soon as we see him stumbling towards us heaving with him some enormous volume of Hairy Maclary we innocently suggest he finds another member of the family. “Where’s Daddy? Find Daddy”. Right now Cormac generally falls for this gag and obediently toddles off in the other direction with the book in hand. It can be a perfect deception if you happen to smell a bad nappy on him too. It is also a little game his father and I like to play with each other on weekends when we are trying to force an unnegotiated ‘sleep-in favour’ from the other. In these instances a volley is often attempted: “no, no, no, go back to Mummy, find Mummy, where is Mummy, Mummy wants you”. This is always much less successful but still worth a shot.
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Before Cormac will agree to go to sleep in the evenings he has to be assured that absolutely no-one will do anything that could be considered remotely fun for the rest of the evening without him. If anything fun starts to happen, I tell him, I promise to wake you for it.
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Cormac likes to secret his treasures into our shoes. I shake my shoes out before I put them on like I am worried about spiders. Tissues, toy dinosaurs, vegemite toast, wooden blocks and furniture from his sister’s doll’s house typically fall out.
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It distresses Cormac a little if he sees things without purpose. The shower cap on the bathroom floor, the shoes discarded by the door, the broom that is leant against the wall. Shouldn’t you be using these things? Shouldn’t they be on your head and feet and in your hands right this minute, he demands with his insistent “uh uhn uhhhhhh” gestures. Agitated, he carries them to you for proper restoration. He first started this habbit with my shoes and I used to think he was quite sweet when he began bringing them to me. It is like you are my little man servant, I told him.
Re: jealously is the best method for affection – NP is exactly the same, she hates being left out of cuddles with other people and will fight to be centre of attention, but ask her for a kiss and a cuddle and she’ll run in the other direction.
My son also loves to hide toast in shoes. I discovered this after my 7 year old dog started stealing & attacking shoes for the first time in his life.
Sage is 7 and still thinks that I desperately need – and will be thrilled by – every rubber band he finds on the ground.
What an adorable post. My eighteen month old still has many of these traits (and we do the volley thing as well. Often a book will be read to her by alternating a parent per page) (talk about splitting childcare duties, huh?) and it kills me. My best shot at getting dressed in the morning is to ask her to pick me out some shoes. She has her father’s taste, though, and inevitably brings me the shiniest highest heeled pointy thing she can find.
Still, though. It’s like having a very short valet with the gait of a bumble bee if bees could walk, and it’s fantastic.
Ha! This sounds a lot like me as a child. Between the cuddle jealousy, the curiosity about all things fun, and the book reading, he sounds a lot like me. Haha. I was curious to the point that when Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” came out, they told me it was my song. (For the record, I’m now finishing a degree in physics, so I feel as though the curiosity worked to my benefit.)
Kate – bodes well for his future then.