faulty vision

Opening his very first laptop

How time flies.

In one year, Hobbes has learned to:

1. suck
   
2. roll over
   
3. sit up
   
4. pick things up
   
5. put things in his mouth
   
6. smile
   
7. laugh
   
8. clap
   
9. stand up
   
10. say a word
    
11. walk (while clutching something)
    
12. climb stairs
    
13. blow a kiss
    
14. remember where he put something
    
15. hide things under the sofa
    
16. self-feed
    
17. hold his breath under water
    
18. Skype the Guy’s coworkers at random, without warning
    
19. play hide and seek by faceplanting in the carpet

We won’t go through the things that I’ve learned this year. In the grand scheme of things, his accomplishments are far more spectacular, considering where he started from.

Happy birthday, little boy!

Hobbes spent a good two hours today repeating his very first word. Want to know what it is?

“Uh oh.”

One might think that this doesn’t technically qualify as a word, since it consists of two interjections slapped together in a colloquial misalliance, like “oh yeah,” and “Bai Ling.” However, the resident expert informs me that this is a legitimate word, and Merriam-Webster agrees. I have been less prone to contradicting the Guy when it comes to vocabulary since he won the “argumentation” discussion. (Oxford English Dictionary verdict: real word, used only by the inhabitants of a small, inbred set of islands off the coast of France. Wankers.)

Hobbes’s adoption of the word comes about a week and a half after I spent two hours repeating the word at him whenever I had the chance. I set the bar low, I admit it. Since, at the time, he acted like he had the comprehension of your average pygmy seahorse, I hadn’t much hope that anything I did would penetrate. Apparently, it did — he just has a slow processor. Live and learn.

With that success under my belt, I’ve been trying to convince him to pick up a new word, and so far have narrowed it down to three. One of them is “entropy.”

I won’t tell you what the other two are. I’m hoping to surprise someone.

Things Hobbes is not scared of:

1. heights
   
2. gravity
   
3. concussions
   
4. spiders
   
5. loud jets flying very low overhead
   
6. angry dogs
   
7. strangers
   
8. motorcycles
   
9. blood
   
10. car accidents
    
11. explosions
    
12. sudden loud bangs
    
13. pain
    

Things that terrify Hobbes:

1. sand
   

There are times when I just have to wonder about boys and the evolution of the species. Survival of the fittest? Really?