Ah, the life of a one year old. It is a study in perpetual motion, a classic text book case study in the manic swings between the polar opposites of joy and angst.
Take, for example, my one year old son Luke.
As Luke sees it, the most mysterious thing in the entire world is a belly button. What the heck is in there? An endless supply of Cheerios? Or maybe cheese nips? Luke believes that if you stare long enough at a belly button, eventually whatever is hiding in there will come out. And while you’re waiting for something to pop out of there, there’s no harm in jamming your finger into the belly button to see what the heck is going on. And why not take a quick smell while you’re at it! It smells just like cheese!
Juicy cups aren’t meant for drinking. They really serve two purposes in Luke’s world. For one thing, they are a very efficient way to drip liquid on the floor in strategic positions so that when your three year old brother comes flying down the hall in search of his tenth snack for the day he will slide across the floor, catapult into the air and go flying into the wall in an amazing circus-like show that only a one year old could love. Which brings us to the second purpose for a juicy cup, which is to throw it at your three year old brother’s head after he’s been lying on the floor, apparently knocked out after the aforementioned “stunt”. What better way to wake him up?
In Luke’s world, the appropriate way to indicate that you are done with your meal is to take the full plate of pasta and sauce and either dump in on top of your head or hurl it across the room to see if you can hit the dog.
Oh yes, the dog. According to Luke, dogs don’t like it when you pet them. No, Luke has decided that the most enjoyable experience for a dog is to be swung around the room by its tail. And God invented ears so that you would have a handy way to pick the dog up when approaching from the front. In general, though, dogs prefer it when you approach them from behind – especially when they are sleeping.
And if Luke could talk, he would tell you that there is nothing in all this world more delicious than dog food, which is especially tasty after being dunked in the dog’s water bowl. A close second place would be a bizarre combination of ham, pickles and ice cream that he somehow managed to cobble together the other day from scraps lying around the table.
Surprisingly, in Luke’s world the greatest, most amazing toy in the entire world isn’t Tickle Me Elmo. It is a telephone. Corded, cordless, cellular – you name it. There is literally no end to the joys of the phone. For one thing, you can try to make as much noise as possible by pushing the buttons in rapid fire sequence. And when you’re bored with that, you can introduce yourself to the nice recorded message on the other end of the phone. And if all else fails, you can conduct your own science experiment by dismantling the phone to see whether there really is a gerbil inside there.
Of course, when it comes to toys, nothing is better than someone else’s toy. It doesn’t really matter WHAT it is exactly, the key thing is that your brother or sister are using the toy at that very moment which will propel you into a fit of absolute longing and rage until the object of your desire is your’s completely, at which point it ceases to have any value in your world because a toy you have in your possession is about as interesting as spinach.
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