The Pickle has been developing steadily, from control of his hands to basic vocalizations. We had been working on ‘ba-ba’ – the word his brother the Gremlin used for ‘pacifier’ and the Pickle seemed to have picked this up. He’s been duplicating that sound twice, and the Mother of the Gremlin and I joked that it almost sounded like he was saying ‘ba ba ma-ma.’ And then she put him down for the night.
The MOTG fed the Pickle, made sure his diaper was changed, swaddled him in a blanket and set him in the crib. At this point I was not there, however the MOTG swears the Pickle spit out his pacifier, looked up at her and enunciated
“Bad, bad ma-ma!”
This is not the only disturbing trend we noticed this week. The two thrift stores by us are probably two of the best in Seattle – they’re in a family neighborhood where the average income is above the mean. This means there are many great deals to be found, which then inspires the MOTG to make the rounds at least once a week.
While at the busier store, the MOTG had the Pickle in ‘exploration mode,’ so named because he finally (and enthusiastically) faces out towards the world instead of cuddling up to his momma. He was busy taking it all in when he spotted The Enemy. The Pickle exploded at the sight, waving his arms, kicking his legs, shouting in his best danger voice at the top of his lungs!
The Enemy was at the other end of the aisle, also in ‘exploration mode,’ and holding…. Franc the teething giraffe. That’s right – there was another baby, with the Pickle’s toy!
Both mothers thought this behavior to be somewhat entertaining, and approached each other to allow further exploration. The Pickle, realizing he was closing in on his target, began to calm down and calculate his next move. Just as soon as the other Franc was in range, the Pickle made his brother proud.
He reached out with both hands and caught the other baby’s teething giraffe. He then pulled it away, and began to shake the giraffe up and down. The mothers and other people in the aisle thought this was entertaining until they realized that Franc the giraffe was delivering rather harsh blows to the other baby – each punctuated by the squeak of the teething toy’s noisemaker.
The mothers stopped any additional damage from being inflicted, however they then made the mistake of attempting to get the kids to ‘play nice’ together. This involved giving Franc right back to the Pickle.
He again immediately grabbed the neck of the giraffe and began pounding it against the other child with a squeak, squeak, squeak! They were broken up much more quickly this time, however the Pickle was so upset about losing his Franc that the MOTG had to take him home to show him that he did, indeed, have his own Franc.
Favorite Toy of the Week: Franc the Giraffe (aka Sophie)