Welfareloser's Blog

have i mentioned that monkeybeef isn’t the sharpest crayon in the loser box?

so, after 3 supremely difficult children, we finally got an easy baby. you put him in bed, he sleeps. you put him in his high chair, he eats. you tickle him, he laughs. (if you have no kids, and are under the impression that that’s how all babies are… that sound you hear? that’s the collective laughter of the 95% of parents who have at least one child who doesn’t act like that.) he’s easy because he’s easy-going. and he’s easy-going because he’s STOOPID.

the other three boys, even though we have beaten good manners into them, are still difficult. they are difficult because they have opinions. about everything. even though they will do what they’re told (often even without whining!), it’s still a lot of work to answer all the hows and whys, anticipate and prevent implementation of every bright idea they get into their hard little kegheads, listen to their made-up stories, run around outside, help them piece together costumes for this or that character, make gamepieces for the boardgames they invent (and thank GOD that 12-sided dice actually exist, and we own at least a dozen… and when they found out that we also had 4, 8 and 12 sided dice, oh my GOD did that particular game get out of hand fast,) help them build the 5% or so of the toys they invent that aren’t impossible due to the constraints of time, money, or the basic laws of physics (do you know how relieved i was last time EG came to me with a diagram for a toy he wanted to build… and it was a pokemon-in-the-box? was he ever surprised when i not only said yes we could build it, and yes we could afford it, but also that we could get it done by the end of the weekend!)

the older kids all had identifiable interests and talents and opinions by monkeybeef’s current age. EG was already a champion debater who adored yellow schoolbuses (my friend evilredhead does a dead-on impression of a 15-month-old EG yapping “WOOK! wha dat? wha dat, mom? BUTTS! it da BUTTS!”) and blue’s clues. the twits had identifiable artistic and musical inclinations, and could be bribed out of even the holiest of tantrum rages by the mere mention of thomas the train. oh, LORD could they throw tantrums, all three of them – sometimes because we wouldn’t let them do something dangerous, but just as often because some toy or another just wouldn’t bend timespace to do something the kid in question was utterly convinced it ought to do.

then there’s monkeybeef. 15 months old, and devoid of opinions. he’s never yet tried to make a toy do something it can’t. in fact, all he really demands of his toys is that they follow the law of gravity, since his favorite thing to do with a toy is throw it and watch it land. pretty age-appropriate, i know (now, if that’s still his principal form of entertainment at, say, age 3, it’s time to worry,) but the boy isn’t even into CARS. he’ll sit and watch you push a car. if you hand it to him, he’ll throw it. that’s about it. no pushing cars along a track or down a ramp. no watching the wheels turn. no lining up his entire collection of wooden trains or matchbox cars just to admire them. no “vroom vroom” noises. he prefers balls, possibly because they’re perfect for throwing, and – bonus! – sometimes they bounce, which is like getting extra throws for the price of one.

when he wakes up from a nap, or in the mornings, you have to go in and check on him, because he’ll sit quietly in his crib until you come get him. somehow, either the thought of making noise to attract attention has never occured to him, or he’s just as happy staring at the walls in his bedroom as he is doing anything else. im not sayin… i’m just sayin. doesn’t exactly seem like a sign of great intelligence.

here’s the extent of his talking:
muh-muh-mum = mom
huh-duh! = hi, dad.
wussub = whassup?
wah-oo = uh-oh
na-na-na = no.
eeeeeeeee! = oh, come ON! fuck this!
mm’beh-mm’bwih? = lady, will you please feed me?
(or not. all i know is that he says exactly that, with exactly the same intonation, a LOT. he might think it means something, but then again, he might just like the sound of it.)

see any glaring holes in that list? no word for ball. or milk/bottle/cup. or dog. he doesn’t seem to get it when we point ot something and say its name repeatedly. i think last week was the first time he actually recognized that he was being called by name (though, to be fair, we do tend to address him by one of his top three nicknames – monkeybeef, feezypoof, and feesterstash, as often as we do by his given name). the boy is not, by any measure, ahead of the curve. on anything. except head circumference. but since phrenology fell out of favor, i think he missed his one and only chance to be indentified as a baby genius.

now, before you go and get all indignant and self-righteous and decide that i must be a terrible mother for calling my kid stoopid, i have a few things to say. fuck you, for one. also, it’s not that important to be smart. i know it’s all the rage these days, and every freaked-out parent claims their child is of above-average intelligence one way or another. and most of them are wrong. some people are smart. and if smart people exist, so do dumb people. and how many smart people do you know that have lives fucked up beyond repair? okay, then. smart is useful, and smart is fun, but smart is way overrated. 20 years ago, it was okay to brag about your kid being a great athlete, really popular, really active. now, smart is all that matters.

since i don’t care what “they” think, i’m perfectly comfortable saying that he’s stoopid. he’s sweet, he’s adorable, and oh good lord he is STOOPID. and stoopid babies are easier to raise. other than the times he bonks his head on something, cries, and then has to be stopped from carefully bonking his head in exactly the same spot again, and again (just to make sure it really does hurt, i guess), i don’t have to spend much time arguing with him about what he should or should not do. he pushes buttons on the tv. i hand him a ball. game, set, match. he’s that easy. he just chills. the dude abides.

now, check back with me in a few weeks, and i may have something different to say. the twits were always high-strung, but it really took off about the time they started walking at 11 months. and i seem to remember calling EG “mr. fat and happy” until he started walking, just before his first birthday. as of yesterday, MB had progressed to lots of freestanding stand up/sit down, with the occasional 1 or even 2 wobbly steps before sitting down. also – and perhaps not coincidentally – he threw his first real toddler-style tantrum the other day – i had to go into the garage, and i shut the door before he could follow me. and he spent the next several minutes sitting with his back to the door, rhythmically banging the back of his head and screeching.

so. hints of opinions. also, i finally saw the first hint of creativity. maybe he’ll turn out to be a massive pain in the butt like the other three, after all, and the transformation just somehow magically coincides with the onset of walking. so this little burst of creativity: it still involved “balls” and “throwing,” but…

one of monkeybeef’s favorite toys is this 2-foot tall plastic tower. it has a spiral track around the outside of it. you put a ball on top, it rolls down and around to the bottom. so he was playing with it the other day, and while i was folding laundry, i heard this from the next room:

DQ: look what monkeybeef’s doing!
SM: OH MY GODSH, LOOK WHAT HE DID!
DQ: good job, monkeybeef!

this was followed by earsplitting cackling. i poked my head around the corner to see the twits pointing and laughing and patting MB on the back. MB was standing at his ball tower, a big orange box of reese’s peanut butter puffs held in both hands over his head. upside down. the one i had just opened five minutes ago. he had dumped the entire pound-and-half mega-box of cereal balls onto his ball tower, and watched them go down the spiral. at his brothers’ approval, his face lit up, he started squealing and cackling, and then he was so excited he stomped his feet, sort of running in place in a little victory dance, just barely managing to stay upright.

when they turned and saw me coming, the twits pointed out that MB had made the mess all by himself, and were already offering to clean it up. MB saw me coming, grinned… and then got this funny little set to his chin that i’ve seen a couple of times before, like when he was learning to climb stairs. the look on his face isn’t a “here comes my tantrum, bitch!” look: head slightly lowered, eyes narrowed a bit, chin jutted out. it’s a facial expression that i think may become very familiar. it’s not angry, or defiant – sometimes it’s even coupled with a smile! – it’s just definitely… determined. anyway, he started grabbing fistfuls of cereal balls and dumping them back into the top of the tower as fast as he could, because he could see that the fun was about to end.

he may have my eyes and ears, the trademarked loser family keghead, his daddy’s crazy laugh and loud snore, his brother’s sweet smile, but that determination is all his. may he use it well. and if not well, at least creatively and memorably.