At six months old, my youngest son Koa hasn’t yet developed a long list of hobbies. Really, he seems to mostly be into smiling, moving his legs about in a bouncing motion, and drooling over all my worldly possessions. I like him.
Having children has meant some tough lessons in materialism for me and Faith. We’ve both lost some of our favourite things – Faith has seen the demise of a cherished sugar pot, a couple of bits of jewellery, and quite a few handfuls of her own hair. I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to sound, and my Ruark speakers were once source of great pride. But like me, they bare the scars of child-rearing. Adlai got hold of them with his pokey little finger about a year ago, and the tweeters will never be the same again (that’s what she said).
We keep moving our belongings up higher and higher, but there’s just nowhere else to put anything that is out of reach of our boys’ tiny hands. I suddenly understand why mums throughout history have lamented, “We can’t have anything nice…”
Now that Koa is becoming dangerously mobile, scooting himself across the room however he can with arms flailing every which way, he looks set to finish off anything that has thus far survived his older brother. If drool won’t do it, my youngest has this week developed his first frighteningly sharp tooth, capable of chewing through all my most prized possessions – or what’s left of them.
So, nothing is safe. Child-proofing won’t help me now that there are two. I can hear my guitar shaking with fear in its case, wondering if it will fall to the same fate as the speakers.
