Good old duct tape

Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon with my housemate‘s kid, Peanut. We visited Moomin’s school, where she was awed by Big Kids and learned a jumprope rhyme. (Ice cream soda! Cherry on top! Who’s your boyfriend? I forgot! A, B, C, D… The boys jumped too.)

It’s amazing how quickly I have forgotten what it’s like to have a tiny kid. Peanut is very precocious verbally, and narrates everything she does, sees, and thinks, with no filter, kind of like her dad. This is pretty entertaining now that I can understand what she’s saying. “…My socks are slippery! There’s a tree. I had a bath at my house. When are we going to my house? I want to go to my house. That’s a big kid playground and a little house. This is a school. I go to Frances’s house sometimes. Meow, I’m a little black cat in a cat costume…” This recited without stopping. It was like a 4-hour poetry slam!

I had an easy time getting her to cooperate with everything, even at the dentist, and in the bathroom, where we amused everyone in the bathroom with our pee- and potty- and underwear-related poetry slamming.

For the first time, Moomin was nice to her! He got her paper towels in the bathroom. He shared his books and toys without being prompted to do it. He talked to her and answered her when she spoke to him. And the sweetest thing ever, he protected her and held her hand very proudly in the parking lot.

I look forward to playing with my nephew when he gets here… and to seeing him crawl and do all the baby things… By then, I’ll have forgotten even more and will have to learn it all over again.

Luckily, I’ve learned one very useful thing from the internet about playing with babies: What to do with duct tape.