Is it unrealistic to expect your 15 month old baby to sit quietly at a small, 4-table Indian restaurant? I realized, yes, Saturday evening, after both parents of my child grew frustrated that Lachlan would not comply.
I had a Reiki session, preceded by meditation with some friends on Thursday evening. I brought Lachlan along, and while he did not behave optimally, I was amazed at how quiet he was. He cried frantically when I climbed up on the table, but I let him up, and he was great. So I convinced myself that he was responding to the still environment. And so, then on Saturday...I told his Dad, he will be fine, we just have to keep quiet. He was fine. We were wholly unrealistic.
It is hard to gage what he understands and surprising to see what messages he sends. We sat next to a window with a nice deep sill at Rosa's last week, and I moved the salt and pepper shakers away from him. He slapped his hand on the sill as if to say-give those to me. "Those are not for babies." Slap. Give those to me. Slap. Give those to me. Slap. Give those to me. I can only laugh. I love that, like my Mom's neighbor said, Lachlan has an opinion.
Rarely bottle-feeding these days, he is a little boy. He asks for agua. No. Agua-agua-agua-agua. He knows how tired and lazy we are to respond to this repeated request. But we are grateful he drinks so much water. We treat ourselves to Dr. Pepper, and he asks for that too, pointing, and we swicheroo to water, but he is not easily fooled.
After a horribly unhealthy burger dinner last night, Jason and Lachlan and I enjoyed a vanilla malt. Lachlan sat neatly in Jason's lap, tugging on the shake, ready for his next, long, selfish turn. Lachlan is a dangerous hybrid: Ferocious appetitie of Jason, (Jason's appetite for summer drinks is tempered by his weak freeze-suseptible brain. My appetite is not quite as strong, but I rarely get freeze headaches, but the cold does hurt my teeth sometimes) brain-freeze hardy, and nearly toothless. Jason just can't hang.
This week, Jason told me L's swim teacher said Lachlan was ready. She dropped him in the water, and he turned and rose to the top. Voila! My water baby. And I am missing the whole thing. We may move some lessons to the evening. We took him to the hotel pool this weekend. Not knowing it was an indoor pool the size of a bathtub, we changed him, loaded ourselves up, and stared in the window about 2 minutes. Yuck.
We took him to a nearby lake, I don't know if it is manmade. But it was different than we expected. Beer cans littered the "beach." A toothless women smoking TWO cigarettes yelled at her grandchildren nearby. Overweight parents called to their small children, "DO NOT even THINK about getting into the water without your lifejacket!" . Lachlan knew no difference. He had a ball. Did a drunkard's walk, swaying and falling in the waves. Laughing and throwing sand. And then we had a picnic of cheese, fruit, crackers, nuts. And so we were grateful for such a nice day. So when it was time to go home, a quick nurse to a crying baby, and he was out. For the whole trip home? Did we enjoy a peaceful drive home? I thought I might...be he only slept for 45 minutes!! In fact, that was all he slept the whole day. He was a walking little monster, unhappy, happy, playing, hitting, crying all evening until 10, when we all went to bed.
Even though is still a little baby, he requires so much energy from us at times. Not what we expected. But wonderful still.
