The Fire-Thunder King turned eighteen months on the 19th of May.
Somehow, this month, we witnessed the sudden return of the Wild Hair, the hair he was born with, though not the same exactly; this hair is a totally different color, which may account somewhat for its being able to launch such a successful sneak attack and be completely Wild and Unmanageable before I had a chance to even look for my bottle of gel.
It sticks straight up on top–everywhere, in every direction. Now that I think of it, I guess it’s been doing that ever since I cut it a couple of months back. (See?? Sneaky. ) But now that it’s longer, it’s unmistakable–we used to call that sort of thing friendly hair as it stands up and waves. Even sweat and playing in the hose can only tame it so much.
I was asked recently if he talks much. The answer is yes and no. He is an earnest and incessant talker, but he talks in Dodese and we don’t understand what he’s saying, except when he says thank you, which is identifiable by its sing-song intonation, like the interval of a doorbell. Ding-dong, zhe-zhe, thank-you.
He has mostly stuck to one sound (a fact of which Elvie loves to repeatedly inform me: Mama! Dodo said “zhe-zhe-zhe!”) but recently has been adding something that sounds like quocky-quocky-quock, so that a sentence in Dodese may sound something like Ah-zhe-zhquock-quocky-zhe-zhe? And he asks so nicely that you really do want to give him what he’s asking for, except you haven’t the slightest idea what he’s asking for, so you try to accommodate him but end up just making it worse, since he is clearly asking for That Thing but you are giving him This Thing, etc. I don’t think any of the children have been obviously trying to communicate and so obviously frustrated by the failure of the attempt, except maybe that time Clive was besides himself in the car asking for something and I realized maybe a year later that the word was obviously “McQueen”. Sorry, Clivey.
He does have a little vocabulary of words that he says anytime except when you ask him to say them, so I am afraid I cannot prove this fact after stating it. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
He is incredibly driven to do just what his siblings are doing. They don’t drink out of sippy cups, so now he won’t drink out of one, either. (Thankfully he’s good at managing a regular glass–that’s all we keep around here.) They use utensils to eat, so he must have a utensil as well (even though he may just hold it and continue eating with his other hand, anyway.) Digging in rocks, playing with cars, dancing, singing songs, spreading mulch, hauling bricks, whatever it is, if they’re doing it, he’ll be doing it too–or crying because he wants to do it but can’t.
He is keenly aware, I think, of his middle name and the implications it carries in his relationship with his siblings. He loves his brothers and sisters (especially the Baby) but screeches like a banshee if they so much as touch his Royal Person. Peasants! Also, he does not really care for anyone’s emotional state besides his own, and Mama’s, possibly. But he will happily kiss the Baby, again and again.
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