Communicating with the dumb

Hobbes will be eight weeks old tomorrow, a milestone that has somehow managed to creep up on me all unawares. He's changed in that time -- changed considerably -- and if it weren't for the fact that I have pictures documenting the change, I would suspect him of being a totally different round-headed Asian baby than the original round-headed Asian baby that I was originally handed in the hospital.

Knowing I have a habit of anthropomorphising the inanimate, and attributing personality to that which has none, I've been trying not to do the same for my son who is, let's be totally honest here, basically a squeaky toy in human form. Unfortunately, he hasn't read the manual. While he isn't at the point where he can really socialize, lacking the capacity to smile (not that we give him much to smile about, I confess) he is certainly capable of conveying his opinion through a variety of expressions, ranging from the acutely anxious to the deeply disapproving. I may not attribute personality to him, but he's got plenty to spare.

He endures the fumblings of his incompetent parents, as he has no choice but to do so. This does not necessarily mean he has to enjoy it, but he tolerates us as best as he can. When things get too irritating, or when we react too slowly to his determined attempts at psychic communication, he opens his mouth wide and wails at us with an urgency unseen since Jerusalem fell to the paynim. The results of this are mixed, but he persists nonetheless, eternally hopeful that this time, the bumbling big people with their clod-like feet and booming voices will get it right. There is a vast chasm of incomprehension between child and parents, over which we stare at each other with equal parts bemusement and frustration, with a soupcon of hilarity. "Use your grown-up words," I keep telling him, with little to no effect. He is either incapable or unwilling -- I personally believe it is the latter -- and continues to wail at the top of his lungs. He produces no tears, which somewhat diminishes his credibility.

"Goddammit," he seems to be saying (because he is my child and is fond of vigorous word choices). "How hard can this be?" And I change perfectly clean diapers, attempt to shove my breasts into his wide-open mouth, or bend him over and whack desperately at his back in an attempt to make him burp up gas that he might or might not be reserving for the middle of the night, when exhausted parents will be woken by the sound of flatulence that could blow down the walls of Jericho.

For those who are wondering, those are socks on his hands in the picture above. We have failed utterly in keeping them on his feet, so the next logical step was to put them on his hands. He is resigned to this example of parental idiocy, and allows us the very small triumph until he works them off a few hours later. Our house is dotted with small white socks; they turn up in the most unexpected places, under dishes, on top of pianos, inside CD players. Having had a nomad's relationship with my own socks in the past, I find this a reassuring indication that the hospital got the distribution of child to parent right, and continue optimistic that someday we will be able to graduate in the sock department from one set of limbs to the other.

"You poor chumps," his expression says sympathetically when we make the attempt. So far it is: Child: 12; Parents: 0.