Partners in crime

I have joked on here before about how Andrea and I look forward to the day that Emmett is smarter than our cat, Malcolm. It has actually been pretty interesting to watch the two of them together of late. For example, when Emmett is crawling around in the kitchen he will remove the protective cover off of the bottom of the refrigerator, just like Malcolm has done for years, and then will pull some decorative paneling off of the bottoms of the cupboards just like Malcolm does (and never put it back, just like Malcolm). One of the chief differences between the two of them in the kitchen though is that Malcolm plays with things like bottle caps until they slide under the stove or the refrigerator, whereas Emmett is constantly pulling lost treasures like these out from under these appliances. They are some team.

It was funny watching the two of them together kind of work together as a team a few days ago. Malcolm loves to climb into cabinets and recently Emmett has learned how to open cabinets. I was watching Emmett open the cabinet with the pots in it and noticed that Malcolm was watching Emmett open the cupboard from a few yards behind. Emmett got the cabinet open and was playing with the pans. Malcolm approached within a few feet and was looking around Emmett, first from one side then the other, excited at the possibility of entering the cupboard but knowing that if he got anywhere near Emmett, Emmett would immediately turn his attention to Malcolm and Malcolm would not only not get into the cupboard but perhaps lose handfuls of hair in the process. This mini chess game continued until Emmett lost interest in the cupboard, turned and saw Malcolm, began the chase, and Malcolm left knowing the game was up.

One would think that the fear of being attacked by the child would be enough to get Malcolm to just keep his distance all day long, but what ends up happening is that where ever Emmett is, Malcolm seems to like to perch up above on some surface out of the reach of chubby arms and watch---surely hoping that the kid will knock something over, open some door, or perform some other trick that those lacking opposable thumbs cannot.

This weekend we attended a one-year-old's birthday party where there were an incredible number of kids and where Emmett decided act like a begging dog and gave the impression that he is never fed at home. We were talking to a person at the party who was eating a piece of pizza and sharing that pizza with his 14-month-old son, and Emmett crawled up to him, started to climb up him, and practically whimpered until he was given pizza from the man (his first bite of pizza). Even better was when he wasn't fed fast enough by the man (who had by this time torn off a piece of pizza to give to his son so he could deal with our begging son), so he stole the piece of pizza from the boy and made him cry. This is why we don't take him to parties. His begging was useful in that we learned he could eat food that is definitely not considered baby food...oh, and that was the father's third child and I wonder if he was feeding child #1 pizza at that age. There was a moment at the party where he noticed that Emmett had some teeth (this was before he offered Emmett pizza) and said "yes, he has seven now. How many does your [14-month-old] son have now?" and he replied "Four? Two? Eight? I don't know I haven't checked." Then asked, rhetorically, "this is your first child, huh? I used to count teeth, too."

There is this independence thing that seems to be opening up with Emmett. On Thursday of last week he decided he would take no food from the spoon, and I was not at all prepared for this new development. I tried all of my tricks to get him to eat off of the spoon (singing "This Old Man" which is nearly 100% effective on getting at least a few bites, taking a bite myself then giving him a bite which works about half of the time, and showing him that I am adding applesauce to whatever he is currently eating which works about 75% of the time), but nothing would work. I quickly cooked an egg with cheese, but he wasn't having that, so I finally just gave him cheese and banana which he fed himself. It was so stressful finding even this for him to eat, but I feel a little better prepared now with chunks of vegetables, tofu scramble, etc. The weird thing is that he was back to the spoon over the weekend and acted like there was never any issue with it. Maybe he is just begging for food at parties because he doesn't like the food he gets at home?

Emmett and I had our first playdate on Friday which was fun. The playdate was with a 14-month-old girl, at her house, and she had a ton of toys. The two of them were actually very close developmentally and it was fun to see them play around with each other (where, here, "playing around with each other" means that one child would pick up the toy, the other would try to take the toy, and a parent would pick up another toy to distract the second child which would get the attention of both children and have them both trying to take it). It was funny that she had this room full of toys and much of the time we were there the two of them were trying to play with a rocking chair.

Oh, and in the last week or so being on the swing in the park has gone from something that is more for our entertainment to something for which Emmett gets very excited. If he is in the stroller on the way up to the swing, we can tell when he first spots the swing as he legs start popping around in his show of excitement (again, dog-like). The picture at left is from our swinging at 8:00 this morning. I tried to time it at the top of the swing so it wouldn't be blurry, but you get the idea---he likes it.